Breaking Chaos

by Ben Galley

  Sisine drew her lips back into a snarl. Her words were guttural, fierce. She wished her gaze was a spear on which to impale Boon. The order to have him arrested hovered on her tongue.

  Etane moved closer to her, his whisper almost indiscernible. ‘Not here, Princess. Not now. You’re smarter than that.’

  The shade gestured with his eyes, and she saw Boon’s guards as still as when they had first halted. Their blades remained in their scabbards. It was almost as if the serek wanted her to attack.

  Etane lifted his blade onto his shoulder once more. Sisine managed to unclench her fists. She distracted the serek with a compromise.

  ‘You tread on quicksand, Boon, and too heavily at that,’ she said. ‘The Cult are not allowed in the Core Districts. That decree remains final. Understand?’

  Boon raised an eyebrow. ‘I will relay your message—’

  ‘UNDERSTAND?’

  Boon let the echoes of her screech die before continuing, ‘—to the rest of the Cloud Court.’

  With a loud chorus of clanging metal, his guards stepped backwards until their master had reached the door. The Royal Guard moved forwards to ensure their exit. Sisine waited until she heard the slam of the doors.

  Etane was opening his mouth to speak when Sisine filled it with a fist. Her copper and gold rings gave her enough weight to strike him, and he reeled backwards. He was hardly ever caught off-guard, and Sisine saw the indignation in his eyes as he looked up.

  ‘That’s for not telling me about the attack on Serek Finel,’ she spat, before sweeping from the chamber. Her guards jogged to keep up with her. Etane was left standing, rubbing his chin and muttering something to himself.

  Sisine turned at a violent angle, making her guards slide on the marble. Once again they corralled her, spears out like an urchin’s spines. When she came to her father’s Sanctuary door, Sisine threw open the unlocked doors and slammed them behind her with an echoing bang. Lip curled, she took a measured walk around the bench and saw the pile of scrolls lying at the door’s foot. She counted them. Seven lay there, and one rolled halfway under the bench.

  She chose that one to look at and unfurled it snippily. It was the same old shit. Rambling orders with nothing to do with the murders, the failing Nyx, nor the fact this city was slowly slipping into chaos, and not quite the kind Sisine had planned on. She hadn’t predicted the most self-centred people in the city banding together against her. That was a failing, but it would not be her failure.

  Turning a shaking hand on the door, she made it a promise. ‘I will pry you out, Father. I will pry you out of there if it’s the last thing I do.’

  The empress-in-waiting dropped the scroll at her feet, and crushed it with her sole.

  ‘Bad news never arrives alone,’ so they said, and it was certainly true that day. Sisine had barely reached her balcony and taken a moment to breathe in the cool air when the message arrived.

  This scroll came by a ragged old rook. The decrepit thing wheezed as it struggled to reach the marble railing. The bird looked like it had been trying to reach the peak of the Piercer for some time. As she snatched the papyrus from its leg, it sprawled on the stone to catch its breath. It was so tired it didn’t protest as Sisine’s trembling hand closed around its neck. The snap of its spine came at the same time she finished the message, and read its scrawled anonymous “X”.

  Letting the black carcass tumble down to the city, Sisine scrunched up the papyrus in her fists and stood there with shoulders quivering, watching the clouds tumble across the blue sky.

  First Boon, and now this. The betrayals were mounting, and with it the pressure in her skull. The inklings of another headache were starting. They had grown more frequent in the past weeks, pulsing behind her eyes for hours at a time. She winced as pain lanced through her head. With a growl, she threw open the balcony curtains.

  Etane sat on a chair of antelope horn, his head down, clearly hoping her scorching gaze wouldn’t find him. Pereceph was lying flat on his lap.

  Sisine’s eyes bored into his bald, scarred pate.

  ‘Did you know of this?’

  The scroll went flying at him, landing at his feet. He took a moment to flatten it out and read it.

  ‘No, Princess,’ said Etane. He tossed the scroll on the nearest couch, but his eyes remained firmly on the plush carpet.

  ‘Look at me.’

  He did so begrudgingly.

  ‘Did you know of this?’ Sisine asked again, louder and slower. The cotton curtains billowed around her.

  ‘No, Princess. I did not.’ Etane’s expression was firm but blank, and she stared into his white eyes to try and see the lies hidden there. It was useless. Whether he was well-practised or innocent, he had now let her down twice.

  ‘How am I supposed to claim the throne if I don’t stay ahead?’

  ‘With difficulty, Your Magnificentness.’

  ‘Or not at all!’ Sisine snatched up the scroll and strangled it, crushing its spindle. She wrenched the papyrus from it and stared at it once more against the light of the window.

  ‘“Your locksmith is dead and in the company of Tor Boran Temsa. Faithfully, a Concerned Party. X.”’ She read it aloud. ‘The gall of it! The impudence! The deceit!’

  ‘If I may—’

  ‘You may not!’ Sisine screeched. ‘You’re the one who told Temsa about Caltro Basalt in the first place.’

  Silence fell and hung between them like a bad smell. When Etane felt brave enough, he continued.

  ‘Temsa has been using him well. And now we know where he is. He is ours again when we want him, and we’re back to your original plan. Just in time.’

  Sisine cursed him under her breath. Etane’s most infuriating quality was being right more often than not. Deny it as vociferously as she might, he had the wisdom of almost a century behind him. He had watched these games play out a hundred times before. She cursed his age, and his smart tongue, and stared out of the window at the shades and peasants trundling about like sheep. She cursed them too, the fickle creatures.

  ‘Fetch my carriage. Guards. Soldiers. And I want the fastest horses.’

  Etane got to his feet, but hesitated. Sisine cut him off before he could say a word.

  ‘NOW!’

  Sisine was so fixated on the outside, her nose might as well have been pushed against the glass. She watched the passage of the city with an almost childlike avidity. Her eyes darted between the awnings and avenues, hunting for signs of red robes. Between the shade riders on black horses accompanying her carriage, all she glimpsed were mud-smeared citizens. Here and there, queues of people curved around the buttresses of spires, toting empty handcarts and wagons. They stretched to the steps and doors of grand warehouses. Over the rattle of the carriage wheels, Sisine swore she heard shouting, perhaps chanting. The scenes were snatched away from her before any sense could be made of them.

  Etane remained silent. He had donned his armour, a relic as old as he was: an ornate cuirass with matching pauldrons, faulds and greaves, forged in layers of black and copper plates. Decorative glyphs ran along their sharp edges, seeming to dance as his vapours escaped from the gaps in the metal. Pereceph was strapped to his shoulders. Etane sat rigid, silent as marble, swaying with the motion of the hurried journey. He looked as if he had plenty to say, but Sisine had little desire to hear the shade speak. Instead she engrossed herself in trying to catch a glimpse of the Cult. Though it would be like drawing the point of a dagger down her arm, she needed to prove her spies and suspicions true. Her day was already lying in the gutter, she might as well kick it while it was down there.

  Sisine was still staring out of the window when there came startled cries from outside the carriage. She saw her shade soldiers lower their spears, but there was no danger; just a pink pelican croaking loudly to itself as it swung low over the streets, a washing line and several scarves trailing from its rubbery foot. A few Chamber proctors were chasing it, trying and failing miserably to snatch the rope.

&nbs
p; Sisine narrowed her eyes at it.

  ‘We’re here,’ announced Etane as the carriage halted moments later. ‘Temsa’s new abode.’

  The empress-in-waiting looked up at the sandstone spire as she emerged into the hot sun, her chainmail armour all a-glitter with polished steel and inlaid gems.

  ‘Magistrate Ghoor’s tower, indeed. Audacious bastard.’

  ‘Better than a shit-smeared tavern in Bes District, Your Splendidness.’

  ‘Hmph.’

  Sisine waited for the soldiers and her Royal Guard to form a sharp arrowhead for wading through the streets. Already she heard the low murmur of onlookers. The golden, armoured carriage was enough to draw eyes, never mind the flash of royal colours and the steel of a hundred soldiers. The flow of the streets ground to a halt, and the gathered crowds were promptly cleared aside by General Hasheti’s mute shades. The general himself walked at the head of the arrow, ordering bystanders out of the way with his sword raised.

  Sisine pulled her silk veil over her head and face. She snuck glances through its shimmer. This was no poor district, but to the daughter of Emperor Farazar they were all poor compared. No silk shone so brightly as hers. No armour was as fine. No dyes matched the depths of her colours. No jewellery boasted such intricacy.

  She noticed a few small children perched on shoulders to get a peek at her. Street artists madly sketched her entourage, bits of charcoal flying over their papyrus and parchment canvases. Beggars pushed through the finer crowds, hoping a mere glance of a princess would enrich their melancholic lives. Those at the edges, facing the soldier’s spears, bowed or sank to their knees.

  Such was the secluded nature of the royals, and the danger of Araxes’ streets, that they were as myths come to life when they walked amongst the towers. Hers was a richness completely unattainable, mythic to most, and that made her a spectacle. Godly, even. As always, it also made her a target, hence her entire phalanx of soldiers. In the many eyes she passed over, she caught the glimpses of jealousy, that animalistic hunger, and the accompanying lick of the lips.

  Sisine caught the look of a free shade, standing with his arm around a wife who was very much alive. Their eyes met briefly before she turned away, but it was enough for Sisine to recognise hatred.

  ‘Etane, have them raise the shields. I don’t want their filthy eyes on me,’ Sisine ordered.

  The shade called to Hasheti and waved his arm. Moments later, the soldiers and guards changed position to make a barricade of shields that was two rows high and angled to hide her from even the tallest gawper, including those on beetle and horseback.

  With the pounding rhythm of boots, they came to Temsa’s gates – or rather, old Ghoor’s gates. To Sisine’s surprise, they found no resistance at all. The lines of guards waiting in the walled-off courtyard did not challenge them. They merely kneeled awkwardly, as if they’d never tried it before. General Hasheti had his soldier shades march slowly, wary of an ambush.

  ‘Looks like he’s expecting us,’ Etane remarked in a hushed voice.

  Sisine flexed her gloved fingers and raised her chin to a regal angle. ‘Good. Maybe he’s realised his shame.’

  When they approached the large, half-moon doorway, clad in varnished wood and black iron, it parted with barely a whine. The two monstrous shapes of Temsa’s shade and bodyguard beckoned them inwards. Hasheti led the soldiers forwards, bunching into a column. They regained their triangle shape as they entered an expansive but austere atrium. The formation’s points rotated slowly to the jingle of mail and plate. Etane spent the wait staring at the giant armoured shade, Danib, who in turn had his white, burning eyes fixed on Etane and his mighty sword. Sisine tried to gauge the shades’ expressions. It was difficult through the narrow slits of their helms.

  ‘Welcome, Your Majesty!’ hollered a voice, interrupting her thoughts.

  Sisine looked up to find Tor Temsa coming down the lavish, curving staircase, making a racket in the process with his cane and golden claws.

  ‘I imagined it might be time for a visit, now that I have new lodgings. More appropriate and less suspicious when an empress-in-waiting feels like calling. Though, I must say, you’ve brought rather a lot of soldiers.’

  ‘One must, when dealing with those known for lying, cheating and murdering,’ Sisine called to him through a gap in her shield walls.

  Temsa had made it to the marble floor. Now that he was close, he extended her a bow as deep as he could manage. Despite his striped silks of gold and sage, agate jewellery and abundance of rings on his fingers, he seemed more haggard than when last they had met. Powder and makeup had done nothing for him. Stress sat beneath his eyes and there were plenty of strays in his uncombed hair and sharp beard. There was a deep gash on his forehead, curved like a sickle, and his knuckles were dark with scrapes and bruises.

  ‘You describe me well, Your Majesty. But you seem perturbed by this,’ he replied. ‘To what do I owe this imperial pleasure?’

  She shook her head. ‘Privacy, Tor. Then we will speak.’

  Etane and forty soldiers peeled from the formation, leaving the rest behind in the atrium. Temsa led them up the stairs at a slow pace, but it gave Sisine time to shape her words. The carriage ride had not been enough.

  As it turned out, ‘privacy’ was almost fifty bodies crammed into a red-velvet dining hall. A huge marble table ran its length. Sisine and her large majority occupied one end of it, while at the other end sat Temsa, his looming colleagues, and a smattering of black-clad guards. Temsa didn’t seem perturbed by the fact that the emperor’s daughter had come knocking unannounced, and wore a face as threatening as a battle-line.

  Sisine decided she needed answers first if she were going to corner him. It had been a day of surprises, and she was not enthused at the prospect of more.

  ‘Why Serek Finel?’ she snapped. She spoke openly, knowing the soldiers around her were tongueless. Hasheti had remained downstairs to watch Temsa’s black-armoured cronies lounge about the pillars.

  Temsa drummed his ringed fingers on the table. ‘Finel was richer than most and far out of the core.’

  ‘And yet you failed, from what I’ve been told.’

  ‘Failed, Majesty?’ Temsa looked confused. ‘I think not.’

  ‘You set his zoo loose on the streets and brought the Chamber crashing in. The whole city is in uproar. The Cloud Court has refused to gather.’

  Temsa thumbed his nose, looking between Danib and the woman. Something Jexebel. Jexebel simply shrugged, looking distinctly bored, while the shade only had eyes for Etane. They were still locked in a duel of stares.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Sisine.

  With a sigh, Temsa reached for something beneath his chair.

  The bloody head came to rest on the marble tabletop with a squelch. Sisine was no stranger to death – she saw it every day in Araxes, frozen in the blue wounds of the half-lives – but this made her gorge rise. Perhaps it was because the last time she had seen this head, it had been attached to a living serek, leering down at her from the galleries of the Cloud Court.

  One of Finel’s eyes was missing. A ruined hole remained, showing her brain and skull. The other eye was turned to the gold-leaf ceiling. The serek’s jaw hung open in a broken smile, and judging by the carnage around his neck, it looked as though Finel’s head had been ripped off, not cut. Sisine’s eyes slipped from the grotesque sight to the huge shade covering it in shadow.

  ‘Serek Finel’s body is far below us, already bound. His half-coins are being transferred as we speak.’

  ‘And the banks don’t grow suspicious?’

  Temsa nodded, looking weary. ‘My bank is no doubt getting fat and handsome off the profits from my half-coins. Even if they weren’t, I’ve given the directors enough reasons to keep their lips shut too. Another Weighing and I might just make serek.’

  Sisine didn’t relish the thought of this gargoyle sat on the Cloud Court, if it ever convened again. ‘What success you have had, Tor Temsa,’ she said, catchi
ng Jexebel rolling her eyes, ‘despite only seeing to one target on my carefully constructed list. Even then, you couldn’t crack her vault, so instead you burned her tower to ashes.’

  The little man stretched in his chair, entwining his fingers behind his head as if he were ready for a nap. ‘Got the job done though, right? You wanted chaos. I’ve delivered it.’

  Sisine pushed her way forwards, scattering soldiers so she could spread her palms on the long table. They quickly reassembled around her, flowing like autumn leaves chasing hurried steps. She felt their cold sweep through the gaps in her chainmail.

  ‘Do not dare toy with me, man! You are lucky I haven’t ordered my soldiers to make you look like Serek Finel there,’ she hissed, pulling at the tension in the room like it was a bowstring. Danib stood taller. Jexebel patted her axe. Etane rested his huge sword on the edge of the table. There was silence.

  ‘And yet,’ Sisine continued, looking around the velvet walls, ‘you managed Ghoor easily enough.’

  Again, Temsa looked confused, though this time it looked genuine. It was time to pounce. She reached inside her folds of silk and threw a scrap of papyrus at him. He watched it skitter across the tabletop and nudged it with a bloody knuckle.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The secret to your recent success, it seems.’

  Curiosity got the better of him and he gingerly opened the ball of papyrus. The empress-in-waiting sneered. Everybody knew the old tricks of hiding powders and poisons in messages. She was not that cheap. She liked to stare her enemies in the face. That way she could watch that delicious moment where they realised they had failed.

  Temsa must have read the glyphs several times, but no inkling of failure or any similar emotion crossed his face. Only vexation. When he was done, he re-crumpled the papyrus and ground his thumb into his forehead. He remembered his wound and flinched.