A sunny spring morning, mottled shadow coming into the room from the long bank of windows against the far wall. Faint honey smell from the tiny white flowers that came with the manicured bushes that lined the avenue in front of the house.
"A pipe?" Finch said. Incredulous. Expecting a trick. Maybe a magic trick.
His father pointed to a hole in the side of the pipe. "Look inside."
Warily, Finch put the pipe to his eye. Gasped in delight. Because the glass magnified the image revealed through the hole. And the world did indeed exist there. A whole map of the known world. There was a dot for Ambergris. The line of the River Moth. The city of Morrow marked to the north, Stockton some fifty miles south, on the other side of the river. The Southern Isles down below the Moth Delta. The Kalif's empire covering the whole west beyond the Moth. Exotic city after city marked in that vast desert, the plains and hills beyond. To the east, jungle and mountains that remained uncharted.
"There's a hole on the other side, too," his father said.
Finch turned the pipe around. Stared into another tiny piece of magnifying glass. Black-and-white photos of twelve men and women confronted him.
"Who are they?"
"Spies," his father said. "The owner of this pipe ran a network of spies. The map on the other side is really a code. It tells the owner something about the spies whose pictures you're looking at. Each one lives in a different city marked on the map. But you have to know the code to know which goes with which city. And what other information is being given to you."
Finch took his eye away from the pipe to look at his dad. "How fun!" he said, because he didn't know what to say.
"No," his father said, frowning. "No, it's not fun. Not really. It's deadly serious." A look like he was trying to tell Finch something Finch just couldn't understand at the time.
Finch remembers that pipe when he's working on his overlay. That tiny view of a huge world, which makes him realize the limitations of his map. That beyond it, beyond Ambergris, there's something more. Though it's easy to forget.
It's the pipe he's thinking about as he enters the Spit with Wyte. About those spies, who had led exciting, dangerous lives all across the world. But who were still, at the end of the day, captured inside a pipe.
Bound by rules.
Moved around a board against their will.
Or thought they were.
What's the difference?
2
hrough the doors of boats. Through many doors. Always with sudden water between them. Gray, blue, black, depending on the shifting clouds above. The distance wide enough to make them jump. Then narrow as a line of blue. As the boats rocked, lashed together by rope that groaned. A marsh smell. A fish smell. Mixed with the odd old-new smell of paint curled back in a snarl or crisply flat.
Into spaces seeping water from old wounds, the texture of warped planks beneath their feet weathered in a hundred ingenious ways. Across decks that announced them through the creak caused by their weight, wood singing a dull protest. Up or down steps always too deep or too shallow.
Following the wide back of their silent guide, Wyte the worse off for being taller, having to contort his frame into whatever shape awaited him. The doors got smaller then larger, then smaller again. Oval. Rectangular. Square. Inlaid with glass. Gone, leaving only gaping doorway and a couple rusted hinges. Once, a flapping triangle of canvas with an eye painted on it in green and red that seemed to follow Finch's stumbling progress.
And what in Truff's name is this supposed to represent? The thought came to Finch more than once, looking down at the whittled wood from Bosun. The trap. The lizard caught in it. The carving brought his thoughts to Sidle, made him feel, absurdly, like Bosun had been inside his apartment. Who created such things? Who had the time?
Bosun stopped suddenly, turned back to look at them from just inside a doorway.
Wyte ran into Finch before he could stop himself. Lulled by the stilted rhythm of their progress. Finch just able to stop falling.
"What? Are we there already?" Wyte asked, peering over Finch's shoulder. Could feel his breath, hot and thick.
Bosun smiled. A thin smile. Nothing humorous about it.
They stood precariously outside the doorway, on a tiny deck, backs to a cabin wall. A trough of water lapping between boats. A heron croaking through the slate-gray sky.
"Toss your guns," Bosun said.
"Why should we?" Wyte asked.
"No guns allowed with Stark."
"Too bad," Wyte said.
Bosun said, "Drop them in the water. Or I'll leave you here."
Framed by the doorway, gray water shadows leaking all over him, Bosun didn't look human. Didn't look real. Seemed to be receding from them while all around the sounds of the Spit became stronger. Like a drumbeat that faded in one place, picked up with a different tempo in another.
Wyte said, "Again, why the f**k should we do that?"
"Because," Finch said, "we don't know where we are." And if he'd wanted to kill us, he'd have done it already.
Bosun's smile widened while Wyte cursed, said, "Do you know who we work for?"
We work for monsters. We work for ourselves.
As if in a dream, Finch watched himself toss his gun into the water. It entered like a diver, head first. The water parted for it. Disappeared without a splash. A kind of relief came over him. A kind of acceptance. The gun had been nothing but trouble. The gun had always caused problems.
Wyte gave Finch a look of betrayal. Hesitated. Bosun receded further. Wyte could shoot Bosun. Then they'd be lost, in hostile territory. Or Wyte could miss and Bosun would be gone anyway. Or Wyte could get rid of his gun and Bosun would leave them. But Finch didn't think that would happen.
He tugged the gun from Wyte's reluctant hands. Threw it in the water as Wyte muttered, "A mistake, Finch. A mistake."
Finch demanded it of Bosun: "Stark."
"Stark," Bosun said, nodding.
Then Bosun was just a wide back again, a kind of door himself. Leading them somewhere dangerous.
But a few minutes later, Bosun stopped again. This time inside an old tugboat. Finch right there beside him, back sore from stooping. Wyte behind them, still in the last, much larger boat. Exuding a muddled aura of defeat.
Then he was gone. Finch could sense it. Wyte there, behind him. Then not. A kind of wind or impact punching the air. A muffled shout. Cut off. Finch turned and saw just the outline of doorways receding in a ragged infinite number back the way they'd come. Nothing but shadow otherwise. Whirled around to Bosun, deck rising and falling beneath his feet.
Bosun stood there. Arms folded, watching.