Storm of Ash

by Michelle Kenney

  ‘Don’t just stand there, I said restrain it!’ Cassius roared as the guards around me hesitated.

  Max loosened his grip on my arms to make a grab for his Diasord, just as I shot out a hand to still him. The familiarity of my instinct nearly undid me, and I sensed his hesitation. He looked down just as the creature cried out again before sinking its wide, razored jaws around the guard’s throat. There was a gurgling noise while his legs writhed and kicked, but I could tell it was already too late.

  ‘Come what may, nature finds a way,’ I whispered.

  And there it was. A moment’s confusion, a tightening across his forehead, subconscious recognition from a place the vaccine had failed to reach. It was fleeting but there, and a flare of hope tore through me.

  ‘Max?’ I whispered, just as Cassius bellowed.

  ‘Talia!’

  I spun to face him, and he was eyeballing me intently, the snake in a man’s skin, the most vile hybrid of all.

  ‘Call it off and I will cut you a deal.’

  And even though he was standing beneath the exit, his face was pale, his eyes like pieces of flint and thin lips locked in fury. The recently arrested guards were now forming a tight defensive pack around him. I smiled slowly. This was a first. Cassius was scared.

  ‘And why should I believe you?’ I responded, scarcely daring to believe I’d stumbled upon a real chance.

  It was all there at the forefront of my mind; Max falling with Aelia, the moment we watched Aelia and Eli sink into the glass river, the perilous climb over the North Mountains, the risk I’d carried right into the heart of Arafel, Arafel in flames, Mum taken, the young Prolets, and now, the boy I grew up with, my only other possible ally in this room … no longer knew me.

  What possible deal could he make that would turn the clock back? How could I undo that much pain?

  The mauled guard went completely still and the creature raised its head, eyeballing the rest, who were already scattering. All except Max. Who, for some reason seemed immobilized behind me. I shot him a glance; his countenance was stony, unlike the rest. He wasn’t afraid of death. But then he never was.

  We all die in the end, Tal, just not here, not tonight.

  They were Max’s words, whispered in the treehouse one night when the nightmares wouldn’t go away. It was so strange how words could develop a lifeblood of their own.

  I lifted a calm hand to the slathering chimera who was eyeing Max with interest, before backing down on its spotted haunches. Its growth seemed to have slowed down at around the size of a small elephant and my thoughts flew to Lake. If I could have this much control over an infant chimera, what influence could I have over Hominum chimera, the mother of all mythological creatures?

  And was this really what was at stake?

  I flung a look of victory at Cassius. Of course it was.

  ‘Vaccine antidotes – for Max, my mother, Prolets, for everyone!’ I ground out.

  Grey’s eyes reached across the space, pleading from beneath his visor and I felt my resolve waver. I gritted my teeth.

  ‘And a pardon for all prisoners of Pantheon …’

  The visor lifted a fraction, enough to convey his silent thanks.

  ‘The end of the Voynich trials, safe passage from Isca Pantheon for whoever wishes it – and your word you will leave the outside alone for the rest of your unnatural days. Grant me these things, and I will spare your life.’

  Cassius smirked, though his face had greyed. The promise I’d made to Prince Phaethon floated briefly through my head, and I wondered what would happen if I failed. Would he persuade Eli to return to the icy depths with him? If he was still alive? A dozen pairs of lash-less ovoid eyes appeared in my thoughts and I pushed them away. I couldn’t think of them now.

  ‘Look up, Talia,’ Cassius responded softly.

  I cast a swift glance up and cursed softly. There was a high balcony running the circumference of the room, and from this vantage I could see it was lined with more guards, all armed and pointing their weapons down – at me and the chimera that had turned to gorge on the dead guard.

  He signalled swiftly and something black flew through the air towards the feeding creature. I opened my mouth but I was already too late, and the creature and dead guard were pinned beneath a mesh so tight it could barely move.

  The whole room breathed.

  ‘One more command from me and you and the creature will join your friends in Hades anyway,’ he continued smoothly, regaining control. ‘And I hope I need not remind you your mother is still my guest?’

  I gritted my teeth, furious with myself for not letting the chimera finish him when it could. And how could I demand anything while he still held Mum?

  ‘But I have to admit, that is an unsatisfactory outcome for me, and you have demonstrated something very valuable today. You see, I still have some need of you … presently.’

  ‘I know!’ I scathed. ‘My blood isn’t everything is it? Sometimes the science isn’t enough. You need me too. The control is in me!’

  I refused to look skywards again. If I died now, it would be nothing but a release anyway.

  His eyelids lowered and a slow smile spread across his face.

  ‘You are … an insurance, Talia. Chimera control was never Thomas’s area of academic research – it was mine. And though he decoded the cipher, and translated the Voynich coding for Hominum chimera, his synthesized control was rudimentary to say the least. Who knows how it has morphed and imprinted itself into cell memory through generations of uncontrolled feral breeding? My attempts to make you compliant seem to have failed, but I admire your spirit nonetheless, and as a benevolent Imperator, I am prepared to make a counter-offer.’

  He paused to throw the guards on the balcony one of his over-wide smiles.

  ‘Work with my team until we understand the control. And when Lake is located, I will spare your mother and grant you both safe passage from Pantheon. For the love of Nero, I’ll even throw in the antidote for your friend. But let’s do this the Roman way – a wager first!’

  My jaw ached from the strain of trapping my tongue.

  ‘A charioteer’s challenge!’ he boomed to a weak cheer of support from above.

  ‘Maximus versus a charioteer of my own choice. What’s fairer than that? Twelve circuits of the Ludi Cirque Pantheonares and if Maximus wins you will have all I have outlined. Immunity, Talia, imagine that! You will have the protection for your family for the rest of your Outsider days. Come, who can say fairer than that?

  ‘And may all those here today bear witness to my honour,’ he added softly.

  ‘And if Max loses?’ My voice was brittle, knowing the stakes were going to be so stacked as to be nigh-on impossible. Max didn’t know me, I had no idea what Ludi Cirque Pantheonares involved and refusal would mean certain death anyway – for me, Max and the young chimera.

  ‘Lose and you forfeit … everything,’ he drawled, his eyes narrowing to slits.

  Chapter 14

  Ludi Cirque Pantheonares Charioteer.

  It was such an unlikely title for an Arafel boy with a weakness for apricots. I looked out at the elongated charioteers’ track, watching the preparations for the third consecutive week. It was a strange purgatory, with only a small window on the world that was likely to witness the end for both Max and me. Behind the endless rows of tiered seating grew a wall of solid white stone. It glittered beneath Pantheon’s bright white lights, contrasting with the gated arches at both ends of the arena, while the large island in the centre housed a series of ominous closed structures. In truth, while Ludi Cirque felt less a feeding pit than the Flavium and Ludi, the arena still looked and felt all too familiar.

  I ran a finger down the transparent pane that separated me from the charioteers. It was made from the same substance as my previous holding cell and was deceptively strong. I knew that much because I’d already tried to kick it out.

  A shrill alarm pierced the air, as my finger hit the bottom of the window and slid alo
ng to the corner. Max would be impressed. There were no gaps or draughts, unlike my old shutters that spilt thin ladders of light on my bedroom floor.

  ‘Detainees, robe.’

  I knew the routine by heart. Swiftly I pulled a loose day-robe over my shift. It was soft, white and a vast improvement on the crisp laboratory tunics.

  I glanced down the room and sure enough, my cubicle walls were already fading down, revealing a row of similar-looking beds and their incarcerated owners. My gaze swept the unit covertly.

  We were all too aware of those who disappeared overnight, leaving only a pile of sterile bedding awaiting a new occupant.

  ‘Detainees, wash.’

  The anodyne voice controlled routine in here, and it seemed those of us detained were neither prisoners nor free to leave, but something in between. I picked up my towel and crossed the room towards the row of washbasins at the back.

  I was certain Cassius would pit his prize charioteer against Max. But if Max did by some miracle win, what then? Could I really trust Cassius would honour his promise to let us walk free? And for how long when he was planning on redesigning the world as we knew it? What sort of Arafel could survive in a world that no longer resembled itself?

  Would it be a worse crime to run away like one of Atticus’s rats, when the young Prolets had tried so hard to strike out against Pantheon? What of every man, woman and child who’d been born into Prolet servitude and found their free will violated? What of the dark-tanked room in the laboratories, filled with tiny gelatinous beings? What if Max should die here on the parade ground? Cassius still held Mum and there was no answer to my request for access every time I was escorted to his laboratories for testing.

  ‘Detainees, wait in line until wash facilities are free.’

  My head hadn’t stopped for three weeks. Mum always used to say family came before all else – but how could I trade her precious life for so many others, without insanity following like a curse?

  I looked up and nodded at my neighbour, who responded in kind.

  During daylight hours they let us mingle, although there was little real interaction. It seemed the point of this particular incarceration was to build anticipation among combatants, because we were all destined for Ludi Cirque in one way or another, and no one was taken in by the faux comfort of our surroundings.

  Clean beds, bright walls, good food and warm clothing – these were luxuries compared with my previous situation – but the grand entrance doors were still security coded and guarded by an army of grunting satyrs.

  ‘Zero eight fifteen, breakfast.’

  A mutter of interest invaded the room. The orderly breakfast line was always the first open chance to see who else may have joined us overnight. My fellow detainees were by no means all soldiers or gladiators who’d fallen from grace, there was also a steady stream of pitiful-looking Prolets too. Both male and female. It took me a few days to interpret their furtive glances and tangible nerves, but then it struck me.

  They were Prolets who’d also voided the vaccine.

  It was hope. They were the tiny proportion of the population whose DNA had somehow denied the chemicals trying to claim their free will. Their Prolet-born DNA had to be more like my own, more like Outsider DNA, than I’d imagined possible.

  Here in Circus Pantheonares, citizens of Isca Pantheon are given the opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to the Civitas.

  Cassius’s rhetoric rang out regularly from the planetary screens, reminding citizens of highlights of the week’s Ludi Games. Occasionally we would hear a faint cheer from the Flavium too, and I realized this arena had to be within a stone’s throw of Cassius’s other source of entertainment.

  ‘Hi.’ I nodded a quick smile at Servilia, with whom I’d struck up a monosyllabic friendship. We always seemed to end up next to one another in queues, and through snatched conversations, I’d gleaned the bare bones of her Prolet background.

  ‘Hi,’ she murmured, stepping into place, keeping her head low.

  She was a slight brunette with big darting eyes, and every now and then she would put me in mind of someone, but I could never recall who.

  We were ever-watchful of the satyr guards, of their suspicious eyes when a conversation went on too long or grew too animated. And these ink-blue creatures were nothing like the old sentries in Isca Prolet, who once guided me through the underground tunnels. They were part of the new breed who guarded the Prolet work shifts, with bulging arms and iron fists they weren’t afraid to use. Even on Pantheonite citizens.

  ‘I’ve been scheduled for the baths again,’ I whispered.

  Our schedules varied on a daily basis, and mine had become a mix of laboratory tests, eating and rather unusually of late, bathing.

  Servilia blinked in acknowledgement as she leaned in close, filling a bowl with papaya, mango and nuts. The food in here was bountiful, but only emphasized the fact we weren’t expected to walk away from Ludi Cirque.

  ‘Me too, our time is coming,’ she muttered.

  I nodded. Neither of us were deceived. Cassius was fattening his lambs so he could play the benevolent Emperor: the Emperor who fed his people, the Emperor who bathed his people, the Emperor who gave offenders the chance to prove their loyalty – before feeding them to his dogs. It was a carefully orchestrated illusion, maintaining Pantheonite belief in his justice, blinding them to the horror of his violence and making his lies plausible.

  And they fell for it every single time.

  I nodded under the weighty stare of a nearby satyr, and picked up a crisp bread roll.

  ***

  ‘Detainees listed for the baths may collect their belongings.’

  Servilia and I stood up separately, conscious our breakfast chat hadn’t gone unnoticed. I stacked my plastic breakfast bowl, and collected another towel before joining the small group at the bath doors.

  We kept our eyes low as we followed the satyr guards from the unit, not wishing to attract any more unwanted attention. The connecting corridors had no exits anyway; we knew that much already.

  At first I’d thought the baths an elaborate metaphor. The notion that Cassius would allow any detainee such a luxury was almost too dubious to believe. And when the satyrs had gathered us the first time, I’d protested vociferously, recalling the lizard-skin girl in the laundry. It was only when Servilia intervened, reassuring me of their genuine existence, that I consented to go without being dragged. It had also sealed our unlikely friendship.

  ‘Today’s quota.’

  The satyr barked our arrival at the Prolet woman who opened the ornate bath doors, and I inhaled deeply, let the fragrances consume me like memories of a forest jungle far from here. Unexpectedly, the bathing house had become a temporary reprieve from the holding wing routine, and I felt my tensions wane as the woman opened the door to let us enter.

  ‘Please follow.’

  The richly decorated, swathed bathing rooms always fascinated me. It was the combination of burning oils, silent waiting women and tables, laden with more fresh fruit and juices than you could eat in a week. It felt like stepping directly into one of Cassius’s temple frescos, a strange dream world in the heart of Cassius’s lair. And though there was always a sense of waiting for the scorpion’s sting, the kindliness of the Prolet women who directed us from room to room steadied me.

  ‘Please enter the water.’

  It was a bittersweet escape for a forest girl who’d only ever known the ice water of the lake or tepid monsoon rains. My hair knots were worked through, my tingling skin was massaged with sweet-smelling lotions, and my shoulders were wrapped in soft robes, scented like spring grass. It was almost intoxicating – until I recalled that behind it all, was Cassius. Which made the baths dangerous.

  Because they made me forget – like the vaccine.

  ‘It’s ceremonial preparation,’ Servilia whispered over the water fountain.

  ‘It’s customary before racing,’ she added, nodding at one of the Prolet women, ‘to cleanse at
least three times. Out of respect for Ludi Pantheonares, the original celebratory Games, and the Imperator Cassius.’

  I grimaced. I’d glimpsed him twice through an observation window over the past three weeks, while enduring a painful chimera trial. My unique control was still proving a mystery, and he remained conveniently deaf to my demands that he allow me to see my mother, which made our agreement feel less plausible every day.

  I hadn’t asked what had happened to the young chimera, though its screeching appeal as it was dragged away still echoed through me. I told myself it was too valuable to be quieted, that Cassius would want to analyse it alive, but I was consumed with such a darkness an hour later I knew I’d only lied to myself.

  The same way I’d lied to myself about August. Had he returned to Arafel only to find it an ashen shell? Had he returned at all?

  Once our bathing was complete, we were escorted back to the unit to find the long table groaning under the weight of fresh bread, meat and a selection of fruit trifles and cakes. I shot a swift look at Servilia who raised her eyebrows.

  Last week, five detainees had been called out following such a feast: four men and a woman with a furrowed brow and hair the colour of flames. They never returned, and their beds were filled the following morning.

  ‘Did you find out any more?’ I whispered against the sound of wooden benches scraping the stone floor.

  Her sharp darting eyes assessed the room.

  ‘Just the winged boy Therry and the Peronicus sisters … the ones with a pet griffin?’

  I nodded swiftly, recalling the girls playing pick-up stones in the tunnels beneath Isca.

  ‘They’re alive … in service … domestic.’

  She looked away, feigning interest in a towering mountain of melon.

  Servilia had been making discreet enquiries of the Prolet women working in the baths after I described the children. She was known to most of them, and seemed to have their confidence. It was such a relief to know most of them were still alive, even if their fate had been Cassius’s vaccine. I could still picture them all, their faces so thin and pinched you could see the shadow of their bones beneath. I also knew Therry had managed to reject the vaccine, and had so far remained undetected. But for how much longer? And what did they do with the children who rejected?