Children of Artifice

by Danie Ware

  Copper.

  ‘By every hell and spirit,’ he said, awed. He was still thinking, still putting it together, but the picture was gaining clarity and it was terrifying him. ‘Your tag…’ He reached for Aden’s wrist, turned it over to show the copper tag, the greenish stain that invariably went with it. ‘This… City Hall can read it. They read them all. Every single person in this city is tracked, and identified, everywhere they go. Everything they do, everything they buy, is recorded, and remembered, by the stone.’ Aden was staring at him, as if struggling to catch up. ‘It’s how they maintain their ‘harmony’ – that’s what they call it anyway – they know absolutely every move you make. And if you make the wrong one…’

  He let it hang, but Aden was shaking his head. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘It’s copper,’ Caph said, ‘And there’s copper in your blood, and it conducts. It conducts sound. There’s copper in our ripans, in every transaction we ever make.’ He stumbled on, words falling over themselves. ‘And it makes a pattern, huge and beautiful; a great dance of light. And City Hall can hear it, can read it – it’s the thing they use to manage the population. No rebellion can gain traction because they’ll see it, and send the greycoats after it. And it’ll get crushed.’ He realised he had Aden’s shoulder in his hand. He started, and let go.

  ‘So – what?’ Aden asked. ‘This stuff… will mess with the readings, somehow?’

  ‘It must be how they’ll break it, break City Hall’s control,’ Caph said. ‘Raife said he’d added ‘components of his own’. Maybe it’ll disrupt the pattern. Or overwhelm it, or drown it out. Or it’ll make a pattern. Maybe it’ll make those people invisible, or obedient to some giant metal snake. It could create a particular harmony and summon Kei himself, for all I know.’

  ‘Shit.’ The world was a breath.

  Compelled by the discovery, what they’d found and what they hadn’t, they gazed at each other for a moment, letting the information sink home.

  Then Caph suddenly chuckled, ‘Maybe Raife’s conditioning himself an army.’ He sat down again, not entirely sure he was joking. ‘Ready to take on the greycoats – half the city’s merchants go roaring through the streets and kill everything in their path.’

  Aden chuckled in return, seeming relieved by the levity. ‘Glad you’ve still got your sense of humour.’

  His words felt like an offer of friendship, an outstretched hand. Caph wanted to respond, but he didn’t know how and the moment stretched into a long and awkward silence. He looked at his boots, at the mosaic on the gazebo floor. The music had started again, light and measured – he guessed the people would be dancing by now, careful and formal, their colours gracefully spinning across the garden.

  They were so utterly bloody sheltered. So completely unaware of what was happening, right under their noses…

  Maybe they’d always been like that.

  Maybe he had.

  He tried a joke. ‘Hells, why does Raife needs an army?’ He grinned. ‘Ganthar could assault City Hall single-handed.’ He’d meant it as light-hearted, but it came out wrong, far more bitter than he’d intended.

  The silence stretched until it was painful.

  At last, Aden said, ‘Caph.’ The word had the same touch of gentleness that he’d shown at the harbour. ‘You do know you couldn’t’ve stopped him—’

  ‘I know that—’

  ‘I mean it.’ Aden touched his hand to the healing bruises on Caph’s jaw.

  ‘Spare me,’ Caph told him, pulling away. ‘You saw what he did.’

  ‘I saw you smash a glass in his face and knock his ass to the floor.’ Aden grinned. ‘You do a lot of sport when you were at the Academy?’

  ‘Enough.’ Caph chuckled at him, said, ‘And I only did that to stop him killing the man who helped me. I wish I could thank him.’

  Aden said nothing; he raised an eyebrow in silent query.

  Caph went on, slightly clumsily, ‘He… he made me realise something. He was good, fast and fierce, and Ganthar just wiped the floor with him. And it made me understand – finally – there’s nothing I could’ve done.’ He stretched one hand out, his fingers pulling painfully. ‘I don’t have to be ashamed.’

  He’d expected – wanted – Aden to smile, to share the moment, but the man stood very still, staring at him, caught by something. The moonlight picked out a stray stand of his hair, fallen forwards from its tie; its shadow cut down his cheek like a scar. There was a sudden, odd tension in the line of his shoulders; it felt like need.

  He said, ‘You didn’t know who he was?’ It seemed like an odd question.

  ‘No,’ Caph told him, puzzled. ‘But you’re the third person to imply that I should have done. Anatar, Raife, they offered me my hands, my whole life back...’

  Aden said nothing, his expression didn’t change – it looked, almost, like he was deliberately holding it still. But his tension had risen sharply. He felt… intense, almost afraid, like a man standing on the very top of a cliff and peering over its edge.

  Trying to decide whether to jump.

  His curiosity piqued, Caph pushed the point. ‘You know,’ he said carefully, ‘He might just be the key to all of this. If they want him that badly, maybe you should try and find him first.’

  Still, Aden said nothing. His expression, his tension, remained unchanged, his gaze still held Caph’s. He said, very gently, ‘Maybe I don’t need to look that far.’

  A burst of hilarity echoed from the party, crystalline and hollow. The music had changed tempo, was faster now, wicked. Some part of Caph wondered how long it would be before they missed him.

  Aden was watching him, his expression as still as a held breath. But his sense of anticipation…

  And Caph remembered.

  Aden, at the harbourside. Talking to him about metallurgy – copper, zinc, gold, brass – sketching them on the wall-top. He’d sketched the Cloudglass symbol, and something else that Caph hadn’t recognised. And he’d made a joke out of it, changed the subject so fast and skilfully that Caph hadn’t even realised it until later…

  Did I getcha?

  This dockworker, who’d been unseen at the party in Kier, who wore a messenger’s livery like he belonged in it, who’d known the bloody Cloudglass name…

  I was there.

  He blew his cover for you – you have a powerful connection.

  Maybe I don’t need to look that far.

  And then there it was: it hit him with the full force of one of Molly’s fists. It brought him to his feet, backing away around the edge of the gazebo. Something in his head clamoured impossibility, denial, paranoia; he told himself he had to be imagining it, but the key in the lock was perfect, so perfect, and he just knew…

  He’s a masterful player, a musician of human emotion. He strums people like you’d play your zanyar.

  It made so much sense that he couldn’t breathe.

  He heard Lant, the footman, Young chap, sir, usual livery…

  Bloody hells.

  He couldn’t be…

  Stupidly, Caph’s reeling mind grabbed onto the small thing – that Aden must have brought him the original message. In person. Hooked him like a bloody fish to bring him to the harbour. Asked him a hundred questions about metallurgy and his family. Let him fall asleep so he’d miss the gates to get home, and give himself time to get away.

  And his face…

  The chill spreading though his blood, he asked the question like a shattering of Caphen’s best glassware…

  ‘What are you?’

  *

  ‘What are you?’

  The fear in Caph’s voice was ice-cold, a blade under Proteus’s chin and drawn slowly down his chest, cutting him open. He froze as if the blade was real, his skin shuddering with shock. Looking at him, at the bruises and the split lip, at the moonlight across his ridiculous jacket, Prot
eus had no breath, no thought, only the kind of pure, cold terror that goes with stepping onto the open air, and plummeting, all the way down.

  He said, ‘Caph…’

  Caph’s expression was cold. ‘Answer the question, or I’ll have every bloody guard in the place out here.’

  Proteus wanted to tell him: I’m a freak. I’m nameless, faceless. I trust no-one, let no-one close enough to trust me. Every role I play is a part of me, it has to be – and I own all of them. And yet I remain detached, in control at all times… or I did.

  Until I met you.

  But he couldn’t manage that much vicious honesty. Instead, he raised one arm to the moonlight, pulled his sleeve back to show Aden’s tattoos. He let the ink thin and fade; let his skin darken until it was that of Khavas, the man from the party in Kier.

  ‘By the hells. By the bloody hells.’ Caph had sat down, hard; his voice was shaking. Proteus could see the questions, the shock, the fear, the need to understand. And the anger, under it all. He said, brutal and cutting, ‘Answer. The question.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Proteus told him. His tone was calm, no threat, no anger. ‘Austen, my mentor, found me when I was very small, my sister with me. I don’t know what I really look like, or what my real name might’ve been. Austen…’ and the thought of Austen caught like a hook, ‘…calls me ‘Proteus’. It’s supposed to be a joke.’

  ‘’Proteus’.’ Caph said the word softly, almost in disbelief. He was shaking his head, as if to clear it of all the madness, of everything that had happened since they’d met in the heat and the sweat of the wharfside, a lifetime ago.

  Somewhere, Proteus wished that Caph would say his name again.

  But instead, the anger still curled in his tone, he said, ‘And what do you want?’

  ‘My sister,’ Proteus said, evenly. ‘Answers.’ Aden’s face and voice hadn’t changed; he pulled the sleeve back down to cover the arm. ‘To stop whatever the hells Cloudglass are doing.’ He hadn’t mentioned the hellspirit – Caph was dealing with too much as it was.

  ‘’Cloudglass’.’ Caph said the word like a laugh. ‘So all you wanted was information.’ He stopped, his expression bitter. ‘I suppose I should have realised.’

  He flicked a faintly flirtatious eyebrow. ‘I wouldn’t quite say, ‘all’ I wanted.’

  Caph glared, his fists tightening. ‘Right.’ The word was scornful. ‘So why did you hit on me at the wharf? Was it my name? Doors I could open for you? You must’ve known who I was.’

  ‘I knew who you were,’ Proteus said.

  Caph’s face was angles in the moonlight, harsh and unrelenting. ‘I asked you a question.’

  He smiled. ‘Hells, Caph, I couldn’t take my eyes off you.’ He shrugged one shoulder in admission. ‘You had that whole group exactly where you wanted it; you didn’t fit, and you didn’t care. You were… I don’t know… my complete antithesis. And so hot.’ He shook his head, grinning. ‘And I just stood there like some kind of idiot…’

  Caph snorted pure scorn. ‘And I’m going to believe that why? Because all you wanted was my education?’

  ‘You believe me or not as you choose.’ There was an edge in his voice now. ‘I fell asleep, Caph. In your arms, at the harbour, I fell asleep. No-one’s seen me sleep since I was about seven years old. You know why? Because I don’t know who I am. If I have my real face when I sleep, I’ve never seen it. And I’ve never let anyone else that close – no-one has seen me sleep since I was a boy.’ He gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘That’s twice you’ve cost me my cover. Hells, I should slit your throat.’

  ‘Go ahead.’ Caph lifted his chin, turned his jaw to expose the artery. When Proteus didn’t move, he said, ‘And now you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t trade you to Raife and get my hands back.’

  Proteus said, surging forward, the words alight with conviction and tumbling over one another, ‘Because those assholes threaten everything, your family, your Selection.’ He held Caph’s gaze, didn’t let it go. ‘Because I botched the most critical retrieval mission of my life because of you. I was down at that party, looking for my sister, and what happened? Caphen hellsdamned Talmar is what happened--’

  ‘And you sailed in to save me.’ Caph gave him a long glare, unimpressed. ‘How noble.’

  ‘You did the saving. If you hadn’t’ve knocked that asshole flying – if he’d actually put me down – they would’ve kept me, and they would’ve known who I was. And Austen would never’ve known why I was missing. They would have come after him too.’

  Caph had paused, was watching him as if searching for truth, for the sparks of sincerity within the face that was all lies. He made an effort to calm himself, let out a long breath. ‘They really do have your sister?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘They really do. And I have to know why, and I have to know what comes next.’

  ‘Raife told me you were his brother. What did he mean?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He paused, said, ‘I don’t have the answers to any of this. Look, I could give some epic speech, but you don’t have the time, and I don’t have the words. Just… please, Caph, you at least understand what Raife can do. You’re the only person who might explain what the hells is going on down there…’ His voice caught, and he stopped.

  The music shimmered, hollow on the wind.

  Caph said, ‘Ad…’ he stumbled over the name, tried again ‘…’Proteus’, whoever you are. What do I believe? That Ganthar’s suddenly a kidnapper? Or that you’re some bloody—’

  ‘Freak,’ Proteus said. ‘I blew it all… because of you.’ He shook his head. ‘Made an absolute hellsdamned mess of everything.’ He sighed, thumped the heel of his hand into his forehead. ‘And you know those assholes, Caph, you…’ He tailed to a halt, unable to believe the shake in his voice. ‘Hells, listen to me, I’m in pieces. Detached, my ass.’ He sat down, sagging in defeat. ‘I guess Austen was right.’

  Caph raised an eyebrow.

  ‘He told me I’d fallen in love with you.’

  Caph stared at him, stunned. Laughter sparkled from the garden, but Proteus barely heard it, and didn’t care. A separate part of his mind was clamouring protest – Caph had no way to trust him, not a word, not a gesture, not his name or face or identity. He was a consummate performer; he could be anything, anyone, he chose to be…

  But he’d fallen asleep in Caph’s arms. And he had made a mistake, down there in Kier. That much was real.

  ‘You’re still playing me,’ Caph said. The words were a whisper, a last line of defence.

  Proteus slid off the seat, dropped to his knees between Caph’s feet. He reached up, took the side of Caph’s jaw in his hand – this wasn’t manipulation, this was a complete and deliberate surrender of control. It was exhilarating, and it was scaring him witless. ‘If I was playing you, Caph, I wouldn’t have come back. And I wouldn’t have left my sister in the empty streets of Kier.’ The touch was like lightning; his skin was lambent with it. ‘I might be a freak, but I need your help. What do I have to do to get it?’

  Caph caught his breath, said, ‘I believe you.’

  And then he was pulling Proteus up to face him, burying both hands in his hair and kissing him as if he was drowning, kissing him like he was everything Caph had ever wanted. His split lip hurt, but Proteus’s hands closed on him, pulling him close; he was burning with contact and hope and a vast, impossible relief, a desire to laugh like a madman. He was hard as a woodman’s nails, and desperate--

  A pointed cough made them jump apart like guilty teenagers.

  There, standing over them at the entrance to the gazebo, stood a very tall young man, his black hair in a topknot and his long robes trailing in the grass. The blue moon shone over his shoulder like a guardian. Beside him stood the squat and uniformed figure of a senior houseguard, hand on sword-hilt.

  ‘Darrah.’ Breathless, doing his b
est to straighten his jacket, Caph scrambled to his feet.

  Proteus, unimpressed, stood up more slowly.

  Darrah looked at them both, one eyebrow raised. ‘You’re an intruder on Caphen property.’ His gaze switched to Caph. ‘Kolmarch wants you in his study. Both of you. Now.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’ Proteus asked.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the guard said. ‘But he was most insistent.’

  ‘It’s all right, captain,’ Caph said. ‘We’ll go.’ He shot the manager a look of pure venom. ‘This is Aden,’ he said. ‘And he has every right to be here.’

  ‘Really,’ the man said. ‘I daresay your father will have a different opinion.’ His perfect face cracked the faintest smile. ‘And about the adoption, sir. I’d refrain from the request if I were you. Perhaps it won’t be too long before I can sort the issue myself.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: CONSPIRACY

  Caph had expected rage, disappointment, possibly threats. After their last conversation, nothing his father said would surprise him anymore.

  But as the guard captain, Illuar, shadowed them both as far as the study, they found Kolmarch stood by his window, tall and lean and silent, looking out across the moonlit garden.

  The ‘snick’ of the closing door felt like a trap.

  He didn’t turn as they came in; there were no seats in front of his desk. Whatever this audience was, it was going to be short.

  Caph felt a whisper of dread.

  ‘So,’ Kolmarch said, at last. ‘This would be Aden.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Proteus’s response was easy, respectfully polite – there was not a trace of resentment or sarcasm to the words. He’d lost the rough edge of the dockland accent, though, and – was Caph imagining it? – he seemed faintly taller, his face more elegant and leaner of line.

  Kolmarch turned to look at them. ‘Please explain to me, young man, why you’re on my property? Do you bear me a message?’ His sarcasm was austere, biting. ‘Or perhaps you’re interested in attending my wife’s party?’