The Unnaturalists Read online

  But Aunt Minta always sniffs and reminds me that she knows more than I do. “After all,” she says, “if they weren’t all heretics, why would they have been sent beyond the walls in the first place?”

  Effie Lindler used to tease me unmercifully that I was of Tinker descent because of my pig cheeks and cat eyes. (Which was part of why I was immensely if secretly gleeful when the kobold at Miss Marmalade’s turned her into a cow.) As I watch the Tinkers come closer, though, I really don’t think I look anything like them. My hair is auburn and my eyes are hazel, after all, while the Tinkers are mostly dark-haired and dark-eyed.

  One of them—a boy with unforgivably mussed hair who looks to be around thirteen or fourteen—casually loads a blow pipe with feathered darts. The older Tinker who spoke catches and releases chains that chime in his palm. Others withdraw curved daggers or strange throwing instruments from the pockets of their coats. Even the granny has a wicked little blade in her hands.

  Most City people hate the Tinkers, but their stealth and facility for making whatever they need out of virtually anything are reasons for all but the strongest or most foolish to leave them alone. There is often talk of ousting them from the derelict trainyard, but it never comes to anything. In the past, Tinkers were Culled to help fill the Refineries, but I’m fairly certain that doesn’t happen anymore.

  The Wad’s lip curls as he looks at them, but I’m merely curious. Almost everything I know about them is hearsay. I wonder how they see themselves. I wonder how they see us.

  The highwaymen understand they’re outnumbered. The leader spits into the dirt. He and his men melt into the scrub along the abandoned tracks.

  But that leaves us with a new problem.

  I move closer to the stairs. I don’t want to put myself in the way of that leader and his chain or the boy with the blowpipe, but someone has to stop them.

  The leader laughs at me, however.

  “We know what’s in the box, little lady. We saw your men take it. We reckon the Cityfolk are more than welcome to the Waste, if you’re really bent on taking it there.”

  I struggle to keep my face composed. I was only bluffing about something being in the box. Is he bluffing along with me or is he serious? I can’t imagine the latter at all. It’s first of all impossible. No one can get near the Waste without dissolving into black sand. And, though that strongbox is nevered beyond all reason, I’ve been told that nothing can hold the Waste. Nothing. Surely it must be the former. Surely he’s bluffing along with me, just so he and his people can scare the highwaymen and take what they want for themselves. Isn’t he?

  My Father’s face hardens. He clears his throat to lecture the man, but the Tinker leader is having none of it.

  “No need, Pedant. Unlike those other fools, we really do just want your purses. As payment for your rescue.”

  “Rescue?” the Wad splutters. “This is a rescue?”

  “I don’t think you want us to call it anything else,” the leader says, tossing the chain from hand to hand.

  Charles’s face looks darker than the dusk, if that’s possible. He steps forward, whispering words I don’t understand. His hand lifts. What is he doing? I recall warnings from Scripture. Ye shall know them by their gifts. If such a thing wasn’t utter heresy, I would almost think he’s about to throw curses at the Tinkers. That, too, is impossible. I’m beginning to wonder if anything can happen. That is a frightening thought indeed.

  And then Charles melts to the ground, a feathered dart sticking up over his collar. The boy lowers the pipe from his lips. I can’t help but match his wicked grin, though I smother it quickly, because Father is sputtering in shock. I’m not sure he even noticed Charles until he slid to the ground.

  The boy slips the pipe back into his patched coat and comes closer. He takes a few coins out of the driver’s purse. He stoops to take Charles’s. After he takes Father’s, Father kneels next to Charles, checking his breathing.

  The boy stands in front of me. I glimpse dark eyes under even darker tousled hair. I hold my purse out toward him, and he undoes the strings with a deft twist of his fingers.

  As soon as the purse strings fall open, regret sours my mouth like preservative acid. Nestled amid the coins is my little jade toad, the only thing left that belonged to my mother. Father gave it to me when I was five, as a reminder of the mother I never knew. There are no portraits of her, only this, a thing she carried with her for luck just as I carry it now. I wish fiercely that I had never gotten in the habit of carrying it with me everywhere. I’m not really a sentimental sort of girl, but it’s the one thing (aside from books and the displays I’ve made at the Museum) that I hold dear.

  Its carnelian eyes wink at me and I want to snatch it away as the boy inspects it.

  “I wouldn’t take coin from a lady,” he says. “But I’ll have this toad here for my troubles, if it’s all the same to you.” His eyes meet mine. I catch a glint of gold in all that dark. I’m taller than him and I do my best to seem as formidable as possible.

  “It isn’t,” I say through gritted teeth. I see the leader and his chain out of the corner of my eye, the way some of the other men point their weapons so casually in our direction.

  “Good,” the boy says. He plucks the toad from its small nest of coins.

  “Syrus!” the leader calls.

  The boy grins at me and returns to the Tinkers before I can do more than splutter my protests.

  Then, Syrus and his people melt away into the Forest. Charles sits up with Father’s help, clapping a hand to his swelling neck. His tongue is mercifully too thick to talk.

  At last, we climb back into the carriage—bereft of all, it seems, but our box and whatever it contains. I shake my head again at what the Tinker leader said. Impossible. Nothing can contain the Waste.

  Two resolutions fill my mind as the carriage crawls back into the city.

  I will have that toad back.

  And I will find out what is in that box.

  CHAPTER 4

  As the carriage departed, Syrus’s clan gathered round to see his haul. They exclaimed over the coins and his cousin Raine announced proudly that this was dowry enough for her to marry her sweetheart for certain.

  Syrus laughed. “Who said I was giving any of it to you?”

  Raine slapped him on the head and stomped away, pouting.

  Rubbing his crown, Syrus gave everything over to Granny Reed, as she would distribute the wealth among her clan as she saw fit. Granny touched the toad with her forefinger and frowned at her grandson. “You shouldn’t have taken that, boy,” she said.

  “Why not?” he asked. “Bring a good price in the hexshops, I’ll bet.”

  “We don’t deal in this sort of thing no more. Best get rid of it quick,” she said. “It’ll bring bad trouble, if you don’t.”

  “What do you mean, Nainai?” Syrus asked.

  Granny smiled at him, her wooden dentures almost invisible in the dark. “You get to Gather tonight, for starters,” she said. Gathering Night came before Market Day. Some unlucky soul was chosen to gather whatever he could find of value in the Forest to take to the City markets the next day.

  Syrus’s shoulders slumped, but he knew better than to complain out loud. He’d really hoped to be rewarded for bringing in such loot—getting to sleep a full night closest to the potbelly stove, for instance. Instead, he’d now be up until the wee hours, digging in the cold forest loam for night-blooming phosphors, midnight morels, whatever he could find that the Tinkers could sell.

  While it was true that he was one of the best Gatherers, it certainly wasn’t something he enjoyed doing in the cold.

  Granny rounded up everyone else, including the still-pouting Raine. They said quiet farewells before they disappeared back down the road toward the trainyard. Tonight, he knew there’d be roasted apples and dancing. Granny would probably tell one of her clan stories by the light of the stove as everyone bedded down for sleep. A story of the World Before or how the Manticore stole t
he Emperor’s Heart or . . . maybe even the story of how Granny had found him floating in the river, which Syrus thought was the best story of all. He kicked at a white pebble and sent it skittering off into the dark.

  Then he sighed. Best get started. Perhaps if he hurried he could get back early.

  He sang a soft calling song in the old language and soon Truffler appeared. The hob’s nose was the real reason Syrus was such a good Gatherer. He could sniff out the best mushrooms from miles away.

  Syrus trudged along, complaining to himself about the dew-dampness, the necessity of wandering mostly in the dark, the possible things that might eat him without anyone knowing what had happened to him. “When you’re wailing ’cause I’m nowhere to be found,” he grumbled to his absent Granny, “then you’ll change your tune about sending me off at night.”

  Truffler turned and made a hissing noise to silence him. The hairy little hob alternately walked or crawled over the ground, his giant nostrils flaring like a bellows. Sometimes he resembled a dog or pig, but was never clearly one thing or the other. Often, though, the outline of his big nose was all Syrus could see of him in the dark.

  Truffler turned and pointed at the dirt. Syrus dug in with his rusty trowel and thrust the morels Truffler had discovered into his sack, except for a few which he gave to the hob as payment for his work. Syrus also always made sure to leave behind a bit of whatever it was he took. Greed didn’t pay the Gatherer, so Granny said.

  The mid-autumn chill stiffened his fingers as they worked their way to the river’s edge. Virulen Forest snaked in a long tentacle between the wreck of Tinkerville, where Syrus and his people lived in the ancient trainyard, and the River Vaunting that slid from under the Western Wall of New London. Beyond the Wall, the City Refinery coughed out streamers of phlegm-colored smoke, and the river that rolled past it was slick and shiny as snot. Syrus never swam here, but it was narrow enough that it would have been easy to cross had it not been so very swift and deep.

  Something caught Truffler’s attention on the other bank. “Bad. Things,” he said in his halting, gritty voice. The hob crept back toward the trees.

  “Wait,” Syrus said.

  Truffler stopped, crouching in the cattails at water’s edge and clapping his hands over his ears.

  Syrus heard the song before he saw the singer. A prison carriage bearing a Harpy between iron bars and drawn by iron horses rattled toward a gate in the wall. Like most things from New London, the horses were powered by myth, the mysterious dust that provided the city with heat and light, among other things. The Cityfolk claimed there were mythmines far to the north in the Myth Mountains from which the dust took its name. Raw myth was brought to the Refineries, which then distributed power via steam conduits or delivered blocks of refined myth throughout the city.

  Or so they said. Granny Reed said that the story of myth itself was a myth. That somehow the Cityfolk captured the souls of Elementals and bound them to their iron or ground them into dust to power their infernal machines. Syrus couldn’t believe anyone could be so cruel, so blatantly unaware of the sacredness of all life, especially that of the Elementals. And yet he knew that the City Lords still occasionally hunted and ate what Elementals they caught. He knew there were places where Elementals were held as curiosities for the Cityfolk to look upon, as though they were lower than beasts.

  The Elementals his people served could be dangerous—the Manticore who ruled this Forest was a case in point—but they were the lifeblood of the land. And if you knew the proper forms for dealing with them, there generally were no problems. His people had been visiting here for as far back as they could recall; the Elementals referred to them, in fact, as the Guest People. It was only when the City suddenly appeared by the river, slamming shut the doors between this and the World Before, that the real troubles began.

  Syrus still couldn’t believe what Granny said was true, though. How could the Cityfolk treat the Elementals as if they were little more than livestock? Why did the Elementals allow it? Surely they could defend themselves if they truly wished.

  And yet the mythwork horses drew the Harpy onward, their eyes pulsing with mythlight.

  At first, he saw only the Harpy’s talons gleaming as they reached through the bars of her cage. They gripped and retracted; the bars must be nevered to counteract her magic. But the bars couldn’t stop the Harpy from singing. Her voice fell through the night, a descant of loss and abandonment intertwined with the whisper of river reeds. She told of the lonely mountain crags where she and her kind soared. Of sunlight on dark wings, of snow falling between her talons and the ground. Of flight and freedom and the eternity of wind across the peaks.

  And then Syrus understood why mythwork horses drew the carriage. Real horses would have been driven mad by the Harpy’s song. It took every ounce of his strength to stand still. The clear rapture of her voice pierced him to the core. Her song confirmed what the Manticore had told his people long ago. When the Greater Elementals were killed, the land and all the creatures they had once protected would be consumed by the Creeping Waste.

  Syrus knew what had to be done. The Harpy must be freed.

  Syrus moved toward the river. A long, hairy arm grabbed the edge of his patched coat. The boy looked down and saw Truffler trying to cover both his ears with his free arm. The hob shook his head.

  The door in the wall opened. A crowd of sexless people in hooded cloaks and goggles emerged, escorted by floating everlights. They were Refiners, the engineers who kept the City Refinery running day and night. A strange machine rolled out with them, its black dome mounted over a nest of hoses and wiring. They also carried thunderbusses—long guns that shot a blast of energy at any Elemental—or human, for that matter—who defied them.

  All of this should have frightened Syrus enough to send him skittering back to Tinkerville, but the Harpy’s song sheared him to the bone. Somehow he had to get her free before anything happened to her.

  “No. No,” Truffler said, grasping at his coat. The hob hated water with a passion and he groaned as Syrus stepped into the river. Then the hob’s hairy weight nearly pushed Syrus under as the creature clutched him around the crown of his head, trying to keep from getting wet. The River Vaunting was freezing and swift, and it occurred to Syrus only now that perhaps something might be living here, another Elemental that would happily suck him down to the bottom and devour him.

  Luckily, there was nothing but the current to fight against. He pushed hard until he managed the other side without drowning or dunking the terrified hob. When Syrus emerged, he was covered with the gooey, cold sludge that rode the rapids. He gasped at the awful smell—like burned bone.

  Truffler made soft clucking noises and shook his head as Syrus crept toward the cage.

  “Foolish. Foolish,” he whispered.

  Syrus was close enough that he could see the Harpy’s sad eyes through the cage. She had the feathered feet, body, and wings of a giant owl, but the head and shoulders of a beautiful woman with straggling, dark hair. Power radiated from her in waves so strong it lifted his hair off his neck. He had never been so close to an Elder Elemental—serving the Manticore had always meant that his people kept a respectful distance from her den.

  The Harpy watched him. Her song trickled to a melodious, insistent hum.

  The time was now, but Syrus wasn’t sure what to do. The Harpy might very well eat him when she was free. She might scoop him up with her talons and carry him off to her mountains, break his body on the crags, and pick his bones. He didn’t care, though, and not just because she’d enspelled him with her song. The world would be sadder and smaller without her. What was his life compared to that?

  Pick the lock, the Harpy hummed.

  Truffler put his hairy hands over his eyes and peered between his fingers.

  The cage was between Syrus and the group of Refiners, and he was able to sneak close to it without being seen. He could feel the dark magic infusing the bars and the lock. He had half-hoped he could sing
a charm of opening, but if the Harpy couldn’t open it, he knew he couldn’t. He’d have to do things the old-fashioned way. He didn’t have his lockpicking tools with him, but he drew a thin, sharp bone out of his sleeve, which had a number of potential uses. His hair fell in his eyes and he pushed it away with fingers clammy with green Refinery-slime.

  Hurry, the Harpy sighed, her mournful eyes trained on the approaching Refiners.

  Syrus shrugged off Truffler’s imploring fingers. It was going to be difficult with just one bone. And since the lock was nevered . . .

  Syrus heard shouting over the Harpy’s humming. The iron horses stood still, the mythlight in their eyes dimmed to pale flickers.

  He crept under the cage and peered around one of the spoked wheels.

  Mist uncoiled from the trees and slithered toward the Refiners. It grew into a swaying snake of darkness and the Refiners fell back before it, raising their thunderbusses.

  Syrus clutched at Truffler as the snake split into five people hooded in shadow. The Harpy hummed to herself above them.

  “Architects,” Syrus hissed. The Architects of Athena were an ancient fraternity devoted to the destruction of the Imperial order ever since the execution of their founder, Princess Athena. He’d never seen them before; wild stories were told of how they fought their enemies with dark magic. Certainly, the Empress blamed them whenever something went wrong.

  “Watch this,” Syrus said.

  Truffler shook his head and squatted under the cage, covering his bald pate with his hairy arms again.

  Free me, the Harpy sang above him. Her talons thrust through the bars and retracted quickly as the nevered poles sparked.

  “Let the Harpy go,” one of the Architects said. His voice was a rich tenor that Syrus felt he would know anywhere if he heard it again. It sounded very Uptown, very posh. How did a man with such a recognizable voice keep himself disguised?