The Giant's Almanac by Andrew Zurcher (black female authors .txt) 📕

‘Let him say it, Habi.’

The voice came from above. It was a deep, reedy voice, tight as a twisted wire and thick as a slug of iron. Now it was Fitz’s turn to tighten.

It was the Rack.

He stood ten or fifteen metres away, at the cavern’s head, not far from the stairs. Fingal stood by his side.

Mr Ahmadi slipped into the stern of the skiff and began to set the oars. Fitz and Navy, keeping low, settled nimbly in the bow. His back to them, Mr Ahmadi was already turning the boat before Fingal reached the stairs.

‘Go on, Habi!’ The Rack hadn’t moved. ‘Let him tell you. Let him tell you the thing that will break your heart. Let him tell you that, one way or another, you’ll die in my prison. Let him tell you that I, personally, will tear every last dream out of your double-crossing heart, and leave them to wither in the sun. Let him tell you that the Great Loom is broken. Let him tell you that the Deplorable Society of Second-Rates and Freaktasms is no more. It’s done. It’s wound up. I – personally – have broken the fool Sassani, turned him, and he is now on his way to the Mountain – to form an alliance. They’ll be working for the Heresy now, Habi.’

Fingal had taken the steps two at a time, his long legs loping for the landing; but he didn’t make it. By the time he reached the shore of the pool, they were three lengths into the foaming water. Short of leaping in after them, he was stuck.

‘Let him tell you, Habi!’ thundered the Rack. ‘Let him tell you that Dina will never leave the Heresy.’

The skiff pulled up at the bank of the little island. Mr Ahmadi had finessed the landing so that the boat drew perfectly alongside, and had already shipped his oars. He leaped lightly out, and the others followed.

‘Let him tell you that the game is already ended. Let him tell you that the age of stories is over.’

The Rack was leaning against the low stone wall of the gallery. His whole head was a red ball of fury, and he spat his words into the cavern with a venom that rang on the dome and ran across the water as shots might, fired from a rifle. He was so absorbed in his own rage that he didn’t hear, or see, Phantastes behind him.

The struggle was over before it began. The old Imaginer’s knife lay at the Rack’s throat, and he let his body slacken as Clare bound his wrists with cord. Ned stood on the stairs. Fingal – still the coward – chose not to fight, but gave himself up to be bound with his master. Phantastes draped their bodies on the wall over the pool while Mr Ahmadi and Fitz went to the tomb. Fingal resisted and struggled awhile, before he accepted the indignity; the Rack simply lay there.

The tomb sat on a raised plinth, accessible by three steps cut into the stone at either end. Under the flowing canopy of hammered gold, the tomb itself stood less than a foot high, and was about six feet in length. As they approached it, Fitz saw in the light from the Rack’s lanterns that the jewels encrusting its base were few, but enormous – six giant rubies on each length, interspersed with five emeralds, and on the ends two, and three, respectively. The heavy cover, two inches thick of solid sandstone, hung proud of the case by about a finger’s breadth around the whole. But they had not come to the island, or the chamber, or the tomb itself, for that. They had come for one thing only.

Mr Ahmadi knelt beside the centre of the tomb. Fitz dropped beside him. His hands were cold on the cold stone. Before them, under Mr Ahmadi’s fingers as they hovered, unwilling to touch it, lay the Giant’s Almanac. A perfectly round bronze plate, elaborately figured and marked with intricate cursive writing, it seemed about a foot in diameter. This, Fitz knew, was the mater, and on its back was fixed a gnomon by which, according to the readings taken against the stars by night, certain astronomical calculations could be made. But they had not come for that, either, and below the mater he knew other plates must be stacked, the three interlocking shells of the Giant’s ingenious map, along with a fourth and final plate – the key to the proportions of the Great Loom of the Muses, possibly the most sacred and valuable object in the world.

Mr Ahmadi let his fingers fall delicately on the Almanac’s surface. He traced the cool metal with his fingertips, brushing them as lightly as a bird might fan the air with its wings. Fitz knew he almost didn’t dare to disturb something so ancient, something so finished.

But it’s not finished.

With sudden decision Mr Ahmadi slid his finger beneath the bronze plate, and lifted it. Heavy, fragile, inestimably valuable, it seemed to lift him rather than he it, as he stood and raised it into the air before him. Taking it firmly in both hands, he turned it over.

He stopped.

‘It’s just the mater,’ he called to Phantastes.

The old wraith leaned against the wall beside his prisoners, staring down with ancient gravity at the tomb. He was thinking.

‘He wouldn’t have let those plates out of his sight,’ said Phantastes. ‘They’re here, somewhere.’

Out of his sight.

‘The manuscript that the professor – that Phantastes – showed us – it said – in order to regain the Kingdom, the heir would have to stand before the eyes of the shāh.’ Fitz broke off. He didn’t know what he meant to say.

‘And so you think –’ began Mr Ahmadi.

‘Is he – in there?’ asked Fitz.

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ answered Mr Ahmadi.

Navy took one end and Mr Ahmadi the other; Fitz stood behind, to hold the cover as they raised it.