Nobody was obeying her any more, she realized. They knew she was trying to take the Luck out of Toll. Some of them were starting to edge towards her along the bridge. She bared her teeth by instinct, like a cornered dog.
‘Get back!’ she shouted, but her ferocity only slowed them. As she had feared, her threat was losing its power.
‘Why do they not do as you say any more?’ Paragon whispered.
Because they would rather see you dead than free.
‘They are afraid for your life, but they are more afraid for theirs,’ Laylow muttered unwillingly. ‘They think the whole town will perish if you leave Toll… but if you die instead, at least another Luck will take over.’
The wind rose, and Paragon whooped aloud. Laylow felt sorry for him. Did he even understand what was happening, that their plan had run aground, that there would be no freedom for them after all? What was the point in further attempts to explain? Let him be happy for the moment.
‘Can I shout orders now?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Laylow said through her teeth. ‘You are the hostage, remember? The hostage does not get to shout orders.’
If it had been night and she had been a little less dazzled, she might have been ready for Paragon’s next move. As it was, she was caught off guard as he slipped from her ‘restraining’ arm and dodged to the edge of the bridge where the Beloved statues posed. He gripped the horns of Goodman Fullock, and swung himself out so that his feet were resting on the very edge of the walkway, the rest of his body leaning out over the long plummet to the Langfeather’s foamy embrace.
‘What about now?’ he said, grinning like a string of pearls.
There was an almost universal gasp of alarm, seasoned with a few shrieks and followed by the sounds of muskets being readied and aimed at Laylow.
‘No shooting!’ shouted the Luck, loud enough to carry to both ends of the bridge. ‘No shooting at us, or… I fly away!’ He bounced on the balls of his feet, to the consternation of the crowd who clearly thought he was mad enough for anything.
Laylow ducked between two statues to make herself a small target, breathing heavily and waiting for the rain of musket-balls. None came. After a while she peered out to dart a glance up and down the bridge. The guards had ceased their stealthy advance and stood frozen, staring at the capering Luck in shock, frustration and terror.
‘Listen!’ Paragon’s unguarded laughter bounced off the overhanging cliffs. ‘Everybody listen to me now!’
And they did. Even the Locksmiths who pushed stone-eyed through the crowds at the town end of the bridge to glower impotently at the delighted Luck. Even the mayor who appeared at a second-floor window of the Clock Tower, looking down upon the scene. Most of the town-end crowd was watching Paragon’s precarious slithering and capering with their faces set in a wince, both hands raised as if to placate or fend off a blow. The eyes of many watchers crept to the sheer fall below, the merciless bellowing engine of the water.
It took Laylow several stunned seconds to understand why his threats were working where hers had not. Her words had not been lost on him after all, she realized now, and in one swift, canny move he had turned the tables on everybody.
None of the spectators wished to see a careless boy fall off a cliff to his death, particularly one saintly enough to have such a good name. But nearly all of them were much more worried about the whole town following him. A dead Luck was a tragedy, a murdered Luck a shocking blasphemy. But a Luck who ‘left Toll’ by jumping off a bridge before dying a watery death could be a catastrophe. In their minds, if Laylow cut Paragon’s throat, then the next-best name would become the Luck and the town itself would be none the worse. However, if he jumped or fell, he would have ‘left’ the town while still living, taking Toll’s luck with him once and forever. Who could say what would happen then, or how quickly? Would people even have time to run for the gates before calamity struck?
‘Now… everybody… make the gates be open!’ Paragon’s eyes were shining.
This was the great test. All eyes rose to the mayor, who was clutching the sill of his window with such force it seemed he might tear it apart like pastry crust.
He bristled, and gave a short sharp nod. The small group of guards at the gate end of the bridge boggled, then set about cranking up the portcullis.
‘All the gates!’ crowed Paragon. ‘All the gates and doors open! All over the town!’
Even from below it was possible to tell from the mayor’s strained body language that the prospect of obeying was tearing at his very soul. He gave another curt nod.
‘You heard the Luck! Tear down the house-facings! Open all the doors! Do everything he says!’
Nobody felt like telling the mayor that a lot of his citizens had been doing that for some time.
The townspeople busy battling the fire had need of every strategy they had to hand, for the fire was hungry and ingenious. It leaped from balcony to jutting jetty with the agility of a burglar, crossing streets in a single flurry of sparks. It found out hidden stores of gunpowder, oil or liquor in cellars. However the people of Toll were fighting back. Some grabbed small barrels, butter churns and leather buckets and formed chains, passing water in a line from the wells to the blaze. Others ran for ladders and axes for making firebreaks, or even came up with proper long-handled firehooks for tearing down roofs and masonry.
At first breaking through the Locksmith barriers had been an impossibility, then the recourse of a courageous few, then a terrible necessity. But the mood had changed. Now the self-appointed firefighters attacked the locks and barriers with a passion. Daylighter and nightling fought the flame side by side without a glance at each other’s badges. The only enemy was the fire.
The fire was not ready for this solidarity, and as the wind dropped it grew dispirited. It let itself be cornered, drenched, covered in wet hides. It waited for another wild wind, a chance to show the town what it could do. But the wind did not come, and a lane at a time it was beaten back.
It was then, while the frontline troops were gasping and soot-stained, hammers and axes still in hand, that word came through. The mayor had ordered the destruction of every Locksmith barrier and lock in the town. Why? Nobody cared. With a new and wild intoxication bolts were yanked from their frames, locks burst, walls cloven. No terrible Locksmith vengeance ensued. The townspeople plunged on with the glee a very young child feels the first time they realize that their parents are not all-seeing and that plates break very easily.
Then another whisper rushed through the town, like a cold rain through a desert wasteland.
‘The gates! The gates are open!’
Most of the newly released nightlings responded to this news with admirable promptness. The resourceful ran home, seized their belongings and fled through the eastern gate, heading for the plumper, richer counties around Waymakem and Chanderind. The even more resourceful did the same but with other people’s belongings.
The shivering shanty town on the western bank of the Langfeather was only slightly slower. Abandoning their makeshift shacks, they hoisted their packs on their backs and were through the portcullis of the western gate, across the bridge, through Toll and out through the eastern gate before you could say ‘starvation’. On the Luck’s insistence, the western gate guards followed them across the bridge, so that nobody now guarded the portcullis. Laylow was hunched next to Paragon, ready to slash out at anybody who made a lunge for her or for the Luck. Everybody gave them a wide berth.