Fiendish Schemes by K. W. Jeter Page B

spider-like across various terrain, also allow them to grapple a perch onto the rocky crags of a new location. Of course, the drawback to such cleverness is the expense of both construction and operation: such complexity is not cheaply devised or maintained.” I knew that Lord Fusible’s comments at the launch party, however coarsely made, were accurate enough. I continued my own exposition, as if there were some advantage to be gained in demonstrating to Stonebrake that I was not a complete fool. “The walking lights are obviously much more complicated than a simple tower with a rotating light source at the top; with engine rooms and steam boilers for power, they need entire crews to move from place to place, along with skilled captains to steer them to various remote and often dangerous locations.”
    “Bravo!” Stonebrake seemed exhilarated rather than intimidated. “You exceed my expectations, sir; I couldn’t have done better myself.”
    “I’m glad you feel that way. The only thing of which I appear to be still ignorant—a matter which you promised you could rectify—is how all this translates into wealth for us.”
    “That part is simple.” Stonebrake leaned closer toward me. His voice lowered, as though there were indeed some risk of the envious ocean overhearing our secrets. “We wager, Mr. Dower; we wager upon the Sea and Light Book.”
    The reader may imagine the arc of emotions that rocketed through my breast upon hearing the man’s words. Yes, I had already contemplated suicide, and decided upon it as a reasonable course of action, given my desperate situation; and yes, I thought this Stonebrake at best a lunatic, but most likely a charlatan. Nevertheless, even at this extremity, a flicker of hope had been aroused in me. Not just to escape the sentence of death I had decreed upon myself, but to transport myself to the giddy financial heights of which he had spoken so passionately. The prospect was like that of those children’s fairystories, in which the peasant straps on the fabled seven-league boots, and strides from abyss to mountain-top in one go.
    How cruel to have one’s hopes raised, only to have them dashed at one’s feet. This time, the violent reaction was mine. I sprung from the rock, my fist cocked, but did not let fly at my tormentor. Instead, I turned and strode away, the waves’ pounding drowned out by the roaring of the blood inside my head.
    “Dower! Wait!” the other called after me. “Where are you going?” I made no reply. I kept walking, blinded by rage and disappointment. Toward no destination—the night was so dark, this spot so far from any human habitation, that all I could see was the faint blue phosphorescence of the waves splashing near my path. If any plan resided in my thoughts, it would have been no more than to somehow stumble my way back to the squalid inn, retrieve my father’s clockwork pistol, and finish the task for which I had kept it; or to climb to the top of one of the rocky bluffs surrounding this bit of sand and from there hurl myself into the ocean. Given the fury that sent my blood hammering at my temples, the effect would no doubt have been similar to dropping a red-hot ingot into a blacksmith’s cooling bucket, a burst of steam mounting skyward to mark my demise.
    “For God’s sake, man—” A hand grasped my shoulder and pulled me about. I found myself looking into Stonebrake’s face again. “What is wrong with you?”
    “Oh, that’s a fine question, all right.” My white-knuckled hand remained balled into a fist, the muscles of my arm aching to drive a blow between his eyes. “After all your easy boasting about how much you know about me, and about my circumstances.”
    “And so I do. Haven’t I indicated as much? You’re valuable to me, Mr. Dower; I’d be a fool not to have made a study of you.”
    “And fool you are, then.” I spat out my words. “If in all your picking at another man’s private affairs, you managed to