J. Cheney - The Golden City

After a moment they reached a fall of rocks that looked scalable. Low scrub grew there, not lending much cover, but only a stone’s throw inland stood high trellises for grapevines. The landowner must produce Vinho Verde by squeezing trellises into every spare inch of his land.

Duilio reached a hand back to help Oriana up a steeper stretch. “Will this hurt your feet?” he whispered.

“No, they’re very hard.” That was one advantage of growing up rarely wearing shoes: her feet could handle rough terrain. They hurried to the cover offered by the tall trellises. Oriana let loose a breath of relief when they got there. A few brown leaves lay scattered across the ground, but she could see that the grapes hadn’t been harvested yet. Did the grower know of the workshop built on his land? Was he staying away because of it?

Duilio pointed toward a light visible through rows of vines. “That’s got to be it there.”

She crept under the trellis and they skirted the rows of vines. As they got closer they could see the light came from a new-looking building. Wholly utilitarian, it had no embellishment, simply plain wooden walls with wide-opening doors, more like a warehouse than anything else. Holding his revolver ready, Duilio gave her a quick nod. He edged around the side of the building toward the large open door on the nearer side. Oriana stayed back out of the way until he peered around the corner and then straightened and waved her closer.

“I don’t see any movement,” he told her. “Come on.”

The workshop was indeed empty. Lamps blazed inside, casting a flickering glow over the wooden rooftops. Duilio stepped over the threshold into the big main room, where six completed replicas waited. With the house dropped into the river the previous night, that would make thirty-three houses constructed. Duilio had said something about thirty-two being a likely total, but she supposed one could have been built as a failsafe. He walked around them, glancing between them to see if anyone hid within. Nothing moved.

“It looks abandoned,” Oriana said, which didn’t explain why all the lamps were burning.

Duilio nodded, his eyes still roving the room. Oriana slid her knife back into its sheath. He walked on toward the far wall of the workshop’s main room, so Oriana followed. He leaned closer to examine the roof of one of the houses—the Cordes manor house, Oriana guessed—inspecting the metal framework extending from the roof that would be attached to the chain.

She walked on toward the far wall of the building. There it smelled of sawdust. A dozen tables and benches arranged into working areas held neat collections: saws, hammers, and nails, as well as dozens of tools for which she had no names. She stopped cold a few feet from the outside wall.

Several small casks were stacked at the base of the beam that stretched up to and across the ceiling, rags stuffed between the casks. Each of the major support beams had a similar adornment. Oriana’s stomach fluttered with anxiety. “Duilio,” she called over her shoulder. “You need to look at this.”

He jogged over to her side. “Oh. That can’t be good.”

A concise assessment.

Duilio picked at one of the yellowed labels. It was a cask of turpentine. A slender cord emerged from the top cask and led up the wall. Fuses wrapped the entire ceiling, he realized, connecting all the weight-bearing beams. “I’d definitely call this getting rid of evidence.”

Oriana pointed. “There are a couple of rooms at the back. We should check to make sure there aren’t any hostages back there.”

He could make out the two doors to which she gestured. One was an office, with windows that would allow the occupants to look out over the workroom floor, much like those at the Tavares boatyard. The other was windowless, perhaps a storeroom. Oriana went ahead of him, her bare feet making no sound on the clean-swept floors. When they reached the windowless door, she gestured for him to wait.

“Be still,” she whispered. She laid one hand against the door, her fingers spread wide, showing the webbing. “I don’t sense any movement inside.”

She’d told him before that her senses didn’t work as well through the air as in water. “Are you sure?” he whispered back.

She stepped to one side of the door. “I didn’t feel movement . That doesn’t mean they’re not very still.”

Duilio raised his revolver as she turned the latch. He shoved the door inward and quickly stepped over the threshold. No bullets greeted his entry into what appeared to be a tidy bedroom. Lining one wall were piles of foolscap, a practice he recognized. “This looks like the apartment that burned.”

Oriana hadn’t entered the room with him, he realized then. Worry streaked through him and he stepped back into the main room, but she stood only a few feet away, peering into one of the office windows.

“I believe I’ve found Espinoza,” she said sadly.

Duilio joined her, holding up one hand to cut the glare from a flickering kerosene lamp overhead. A lean, white-haired man lay facedown on the floor amid a dark pool of blood. His feet were cuffed, joined by a couple of feet of chain. Poor fellow. Duilio sighed, wondering if Maraval had kept Espinoza prisoner here since January. Clearly the man hadn’t been a willing participant in his plans. “I’ll go see if he’s alive.”

“I don’t think he is,” Oriana said. “I don’t see him breathing.”

He still needed to check. It was the proper thing to do. Duilio made his way to the office door. He turned the latch, pushed open the door . . . and the room exploded about him.

Oriana instinctively dove for the floor. She’d been far enough from the door that she wasn’t thrown by the blast itself. The window nearest her was unbroken but shattered a moment later with the building heat in that office, raining glass onto the floor. With a yelp, she scrambled away backward on her bare hands and feet like a crab.

She managed to get off the floor then, and scanned the room wildly. The office was completely afire, but the rest of the workshop was still intact. Where is he? “Duilio?”

A groan reached her ears, and she ran that way. He was alive, at least. She dropped to her knees next to him. The explosion had knocked him backward over one of the houses, sending him sprawling onto the far side, a drop of several feet. His white shirt was darkened with soot. He seemed dazed, but his wide eyes focused on her when she yanked on his good arm. “We have to go,” she yelled at him, her pulse racing. “Now!”

He blinked up at her, dazed. “What happened?”

Oriana grabbed his braces and hauled him to a sitting position. “Come on!”

He got to his feet, stumbling against her. She set one arm about his waist and steered him toward that distant open door, wishing he would go faster. They had to get out.

“The fuses,” Duilio mumbled.

And then his urgency matched hers. He grabbed her wrist and bolted along the center aisle of the workshop in the direction of the water. Fleeter of foot, he dragged her along then. They had almost reached the end of the rows of houses when the first incendiary pile went with a boom louder than the first.

Letting him guide her, Oriana looked over her shoulder. The beam nearest the office fell, dragging the ceiling of the workshop with it. It crashed down right where Duilio had lain dazed after the initial explosion.

“Come on!” He pulled her toward the open door, drawing her out into the night air just as another explosion sounded.

They ran down a rutted pathway that led all the way to the pier. When they stopped, Oriana leaned against one of the posts, her breath embarrassingly ragged. They were alive. She closed her burning eyes for a moment. Now that they’d escaped, she was shaking all over. She clung to the post.