them to her attention. Some called them lice; Sena could tell from their bold propositioning stares that they did not read the papers.
They sculpted their own myths from words taken out of each other’s mouths, fashioning from a crude alternative lifestyle something legendary and remarkable. Worm gangs. Their language was an arrogant gutter dialect of Hinter mixed with Trade. She could hear them making catcalls.
The stories in the papers were linked to her, which was why she had taken notice. They described how the worm gangs stalked the paths of the streetcars behind terminals servicing the District Line, where rails squeezed through dangerous territory.
By the end of Lüme their bodies had started to surface at an alarming rate. Behind sagging warehouses and fences, where fans spewed hot greasy exhaust from rathskellers and sleazy bistros on the Line, the bodies of Isca’s next crop of highbinders had begun to pile up.
The Herald also claimed that when the watch found them, they usually made no report. It was part of a conspiracy theory: letting the carcasses melt in with the rest of the city’s refuse, a kind of victory said the Herald; some vague proof of a self-destructive and deviant lifestyle.
These accusations against the watch pointed up through the food chain at Caliph Howl . . . and Sena. Professors of subcultural anthropology had reported their findings in a school-run, politically boisterous sheet published at Shaerzac University in Gas End. But the professors weren’t content with small scale distribution. They took their story to the Herald and cried murder: a distinction not endorsed by the city watch.
Now the Herald was labeling the homicides with bold letters at the top of the second page: BARRAGE OF HATE CRIMES AGAINST INNER CITY YOUTH. There were demonstrations on campus that accused the High King’s witch.
NO WITCHCRAFT EXPERIMENTS! shouted poster boards. The students and faculty compiled all kinds of debatable evidence that slithered loosely into one of several favored conspiracy theories.
Popular opinion in Gas End had begun to wane and chants of No War! and Council or Saergaeth! echoed across the south greens of Os Sacrum.
Sena finished her shopping and returned to Isca Castle troubled and tired.
Zane Vhortghast had suggested making an example of the loudest mouths, but Caliph adamantly refused any kind of censor. He knew the claims were baseless and therefore ignored them despite a growing host of accusations.
Mr. Vhortghast, however, would not let it rest.
He knew something had to be done. The city was getting out of hand and with war creeping south along the mountains, and a gathering of nervous burgomasters watching Isca Castle, the spymaster had taken matters into his own hands.
Dressed his best and brandishing a cane, the spymaster had paid a visit to each of the executive editors, publishers and chairmen of the six main papers . . . at their homes.
Zane Vhortghast knew them all on a sordid, personal or compromising level. Shame, avarice and fear were well-worn tools in his hands and knowing which ones to use when and on whom comprised the bulk of his considerable expertise.
“I’m not asking for complete censorship,” Mr. Vhortghast would say in a reasonable tone of voice as he poured himself a drink. “Just a bit of discrimination.”
And then, in the corner of the room, something would quiver and nod its head in lamentable deference.
Fanatics who refused to capitulate, like Dr. Frezden, had accidents that underscored, in red, the importance of adhering to new journalistic standards.
By the end of the first week of Streale the demonstrations in Os Sacrum hadn’t lost their pitch but papers citywide were suddenly casting Caliph Howl and Sena Iilool in a much more empathetic light.
Caliph, unaware of the circumstances responsible for the change in tone, read the Herald—utterly bemused.
Zane Vhortghast was a busy man that week. He closed up shop in Ghoul Court and let slip that Peter Lark had gone south, searching for greener pastures.
The apartment building he had lived in conveniently burned to the ground, taking the landlady (who had seen him without his disguise) with it to a stinking, smoldering grave. A bird-duffer and a half-slopped chirurgeon also met seemingly unrelated accidental ends.
With the coming cleansing of the Court it was Zane’s last chance to tidy up. Caliph’s raid would be no less than devastating and there was little use in being diplomatic anymore.
Caliph talked with Cameron and Sena in the evening, exhuming additional childhood stories around the darkened fireplace in the grand hall. The city remained candent long into the evening while