by Anthony Ryan
Confidence, she decided, her eyes alighting on an abstract stained-glass window rising almost the complete height of a building flying the Briteshore Minerals flag. That’s what’s different. Not just the size of it. Carvenport was always rich, now it seemed to know what wealth meant in this world.
She arranged with the purser to have her luggage conveyed to the Academy and proceeded down the gangplank to the wharf. She skirted the milling gaggle of passengers seeking greeters or transport and made for the row of horse-drawn cabs at the junction of Queen’s Row, the main thoroughfare into the heart of the city.
“Ironship House, miss?” the driver asked with a respectful nod at her Shareholder’s pin.
“No, the Academy if you please. And I would prefer the more direct route.” She handed him five copper scrips to underline her meaning and climbed into the cab. The driver set off with a whistle at his horse, obediently making for the narrower streets bordering Bewler’s Wharf. Lizanne noted some form of commotion taking place as they passed the wharf, a tall uniformed Inspector from the Protectorate Constabulary remonstrating loudly with a blocky man in cheap clothing whom she nevertheless immediately recognised as a Covert operative. The blocky man stood impassive and unresponsive as the Inspector railed at him, finger jabbing for emphasis. Beyond them, Lizanne could see steam billowing as an Independent freighter of Corvantine design churned her paddles to draw away from the quay. She could also see three lumpen white sheets lying on the cobbles, tell-tale splashes of red discolouring the cotton.
“Trouble here last night?” she asked the driver.
“Wouldn’t know, miss,” he said. “But this close to the Blinds, not a night goes by without some drama.”
The Blinds. She occupied herself with viewing the shabby, labyrinthine spectacle of Carvenport’s largest slum as it passed by on her right. Her student days had seen numerous excursions here; Madame Bondersil had ever been assiduous in teaching her girls the twin values of disguise and a well-concealed weapon. Over-reliance on your ingrained gifts can be deadly, one of her favourite mantras. Never forget, product is always finite.
Lizanne caught a brief glimpse of the famous haunted church before they turned off into Artisan’s Row. It seemed to have suffered a recent calamity, the steeple blackened to scorched ruin. The Pale-Eyed Preacher strikes again, she thought with a small grin, knowing full well such a myth would already be raging through every grimy alley and wine-shop. For all the poverty and violence she had witnessed here, she still retained a perverse fondness for the Blinds. Its outward appearance of chaos in fact concealed a place of rigid order, an established hierarchy enforcing rules with all the efficiency and ruthlessness of the Protectorate. Lizanne liked order; it was predictable whereas so much of her working life was not.
The cab proceeded along Artisan’s Row with all its cacophonous workshops then into the neat lawns of Baldon Park where she abruptly decided to walk the rest of the way. She paid the driver the full fare and strolled towards the Academy amidst an occasional flurry of cherry blossoms. The park had been something of a refuge during her student days, a place for solitary reading beneath the trees and perhaps a small flirtation with one of the more interesting young men with sufficient nerve to approach her. She recalled her first serious dalliance had begun here. He had been a kind if overly serious type, as fond of books as she was, though his father, a Senior Manager at Ironship House, had eventually forced him into a junior accountancy position in Feros. It had been a slight thing, really, as short-lived and pleasing as these swirling blossoms in fact, but she had never entertained any delusions as to a shared future. Academy girls didn’t marry, it was well known. He had ventured the possibility only once, after an exciting if inexpert interlude one Truminsday evening. They lay together amidst the trees bordering the park’s lake, and she felt him tense as she regarded the dimming sky with a certain serene detachment. She knew he was about to say something final, something that would bring an end to these pleasant distractions. It was a little saddening but also inevitable. Madame Bondersil was always very frank about such matters.
“The Academy,” he had said, a slight stammer betraying his own awareness of the finality of the moment. But youth was ever the repository of hope. “You don’t have to . . . I mean to say, you could always leave.”
“Yes,” she had replied, getting to her feet. He rose with her and she shook the leaves from her hair before adjusting her uniform into a resemblance of acceptability. She caressed his face for a moment, smiling and planting a fond kiss on his lips. “I could.”
She had walked away, feeling his eyes on her and not looking back. She didn’t return to the park for several months and eventually discreet enquiries revealed his subsequent employment and marriage in Feros. It was odd that she had never encountered him there, telling herself it was due to her frequent absences or unfamiliarity with the more routine aspects of Syndicate business. But there was a lingering guilty suspicion that she must have seen him, another anonymous face she had failed to recognise amongst the ranks of desk-bound number tickers.
Unlike the rest of the city the Academy seemed largely unchanged: a simple unadorned three-storey rectangular building with whitewashed walls surrounded by tall, wickedly spiked railings. The wrought-iron letters above the gate read: Ironship Syndicate Academy for Female Education, a title that had always struck her as simultaneously dishonest and entirely factual. The guards at the gate stood aside with respectful touches to their caps as she approached, making no effort to enquire as to her business or confirm her identity. Clearly she was expected.
It being mid morn all the girls were at class and she made an uninterrupted progress through courtyard and corridor until she came to the winding staircase at the rear of the building. The other stairwells in the Academy led to the lecture halls and dormitories on the upper floors; this one however had but one destination. She paused at the foot of the stairs, awash in the memory of all the times she had stood here, the first looming by far the largest. She had been eight years old and recently arrived from Feros, shuffling and snuffling in solitary misery, unable to place her foot on the first step for fear of the great and terrible monster that waited above. A hand rested softly on her shoulder and she looked up to find a slim dark-haired woman regarding her with a raised eyebrow. She seemed to be of an age with Lizanne’s Aunt Pendilla, which made her ancient in a child’s eyes but she knew now she couldn’t have been more than forty at the time.
“They told you she beats all the new girls, didn’t they?” the woman asked, to which Lizanne gave a damp-eyed nod.
“Well.” The woman crouched to take her hand, the warmth of the contact somehow banishing Lizanne’s fear and she followed without hesitation as the woman led her up the stairs. “She’s a bit of an ogre, it’s true. But I think I may be able to talk her out of it. Just this once.”
Lizanne smiled at the memory as she climbed, remembering being guided to the office where the woman had taken a seat behind a large desk. Lizanne sat in an empty chair in front of the desk, legs dangling over the edge. “I am Madame Lodima Bondersil,” the dark-haired woman said. “Principal of this Academy. You are Lizanne Lethridge, my newest student.”
They had talked only briefly, Madame Bondersil explaining the Academy’s rules and the correct conduct expected of a student. But in those few moments Lizanne’s loneliness and homesickness faded to just a dull ache, one that would disappear completely over the coming weeks. Madame spoke with a surety and precision that dispelled childhood insecurity and in all the years that followed Lizanne never doubted for an instant that this was a place of safety and welcome. Even now the Academy felt like her only true home.
She found Madame engaged in the Blue-trance, sitting behind her desk in statue-like stillness, eyes open but unfocused, the pupils turned up and half-concealed. “I’ll fetch some tea,” Madame’s secretary whispered, slipping from the room. Her caution was habitual rather than nec
essary. They could both have sung the Syndicate Anthem at the top of their lungs and Madame would not have stirred an inch. The Blue-trance was absolute and inviolate.
Lizanne took the seat in front of the desk, marvelling at how small it seemed now, before settling her gaze on Madame’s face. A few more lines, she decided. And she’s thinner. The innate strength was still there, however, in the straight-backed posture, impeccably neat hair and the plain dress of dark blue cotton adorned only by her Shareholder’s pin. Lizanne smiled and allowed her gaze to wander, settling, as it often had, on the framed sketch hanging on the wall to the left. Besides the obligatory painting of the Adventurous on the opposite wall, the sketch was the only piece of art in the room. It had been rendered with great skill, so precisely in fact it first appeared to be a photostat and only on closer inspection were the pencil lines revealed. It depicted a dark-haired, oval-faced girl who seemed to be no older than sixteen, although Lizanne knew she had been nineteen when the drawing was made. She looked out from the frame with a half smile and a keen glint in her eye, the expression of a curious and confident young woman. Too curious, Lizanne decided, although she had never in fact met this girl. And far too confident.
“You remind me of her, sometimes.”
Lizanne’s gaze snapped to Madame Bondersil, now fully returned from the trance and regarding her with an expectant expression. She always was a stickler for formality. Lizanne got to her feet and gave a precise curtsy. “Madame. Miss Lizanne Lethridge of the Exceptional Initiatives Division reporting on the instructions of the Board, as per your request.”
“Welcome, Miss Lethridge. Please accept my congratulations on your recent elevation.”
“Thank you, Madame. It was as welcome as it was unexpected.”
“I doubt that. Would you care to enlighten me as to the circumstances of your promotion? A successful and profitable excursion to dangerous and exotic climes, no doubt.”
“I am employed as an experimental plasmologist, Madame. As you know. I have had no occasion to leave Feros in the past seven years nor would I be at leave to discuss such an excursion had it ever taken place.”
Madame Bondersil’s mouth gave the barest twitch as she inclined her head. “It’s very good to see you again, Lizanne. Ah, tea, what perfect timing. We’ll take it on the veranda.”
The veranda offered a fine view of Carvenport all the way down to the harbour, with the breeding pens forming a central point of focus. It was clearly a birthing day judging by the thickening pall of smoke rising above the vats. Lizanne averted her gaze, preferring to watch the ships in harbour. In all her years here she had only toured the pens once and had found that single visit more than sufficient. A strong stomach was a requirement of her occupation, but even she had limits. It had been the birthing more than anything else that unsettled her. The nesting drakes would breathe fire on their eggs, the waking fire, the harvesters called it. The eggs would blacken at first, then a glow would appear inside as the gases contained within took light before exploding. When the smoke cleared the harvesters would immediately scoop up the small squawking infant before their mother could begin to lick away the soot. Hardened as she was by both education and profession, Lizanne still found the screams of both mother and infant capable of sending an icy spike through her heart.
“How do you like the tea?” Madame Bondersil asked, sipping from her own cup.
“Pleasing,” Lizanne said. “If a little unusual. A slight floral aftertaste, I find.”
“Indeed. They call it Green Pearl, the only variety ever successfully grown on Arradsian soil. Of course the Syndicate was quick to purchase the patent and ensure only the most limited supply is harvested. Can you imagine what a collapse of tea imports would do to local profits?”
“A sobering thought indeed, Madame.”
“Your journey was appropriately comfortable, I trust.”
“For the most part. I am afraid I must report a . . . regrettable necessity.” She related a carefully edited version of events surrounding the demise of the unfortunate Mr. Redsel. From Madame’s occasional raised eyebrow she deduced a certain awareness of the obfuscation but thankfully was spared any embarrassing questions.
“The body?” Madame asked instead when Lizanne had finished.
“Consigned to the sea the very next day. It doesn’t do to keep a corpse aboard ship for any length of time. Mrs. Jackmore made quite a scene, I must say.”
“And you’re certain he wasn’t Cadre?”
If he had been it may well have been my body they tossed over the side. “As certain as I can be.”
“All very troubling but, sadly, not unexpected. It seems the Corvantines have either divined our intent or are perilously close to doing so.”
“In which case, Madame, they have the advantage over me.”
“The Board told you nothing about your mission on my advice. If this Mr. Redsel had succeeded our efforts would already be undone. Although, the fact that he knew your true status does cast your further involvement in some doubt.”
“I’m not sure he did fully appreciate my abilities, or know of my specialism. I believe he had been expecting a less worldly or formidable target. The Corvantines undoubtedly know of my promotion and family history. It could be they learned of my impending return to Carvenport and saw an opportunity to monitor our communications.”
“All excessively coincidental for my liking. Though they were lax in choosing an Independent for this mission. Another sign of the malaise infecting their empire. It’s like a sick old dog that refuses to die. Always they strive to take back what they lost to us. You would imagine that after a century of decline they would have the decency to follow the example of the old Mandinorian royal idiots and exchange their land and privileges for company shares. But no, they cling on to ancient monarchical fantasies, revelling in their pantomime of aristocracy as if it still means anything in an age such as this.”
“Do you have any notion of who his contact might be? This Truelove?”
Madame Bondersil gave the smallest of wry laughs. “The Imperial Cadre currently operates a dozen agents in this port, that we know of. It would be a sound wager that Truelove will be amongst the dozen or more we know nothing about.”
“Redsel presented himself as a dealer in antiquities. An avenue of inquiry perhaps?”
Madame Bondersil thought for a moment, lips pursed in apparent consternation. “Perhaps,” she conceded. “But also another unpleasant coincidence.”
“Madame?”
The older woman merely blinked before getting to her feet. “Come, I have something to show you.”
—
They took a Syndicate carriage to Artisan’s Row, pulling up outside a small but familiar workshop nestled between a foundry on one side and a gunsmith’s on the other. The faded and flaking sign above the door read “Tollermine and Son—Bespoke Technologists for Over Sixty Years.” Madame told the driver to wait and proceeded inside without pausing to ring the bell suspended beneath an equally faded sign reading “Secure Premises—Entry by Appointment Only.”
They found no-one to greet them in the shop’s front office, a cramped space of many shelves and drawers overflowing with various mechanical trinkets, apparently stored without reference to function or size. They were obliged to pause before the door at the rear of the office whilst a small optical device above the lintel swivelled first towards Lizanne then to Madame Bondersil. The door opened a second later, Lizanne smiling at the familiar aroma that wafted forth. Oil, pipe-smoke and a dozen unnamable chemicals combined into a mixture which somehow carried a sense of cosy welcome. She had always loved her visits here.
The door swung wide to reveal a dumpy man of middling years in a knee-length leather apron and an oversized revolver in his hand. “Sorry,” he said, waving the pistol. “Can’t be too careful.”
Lizanne laughed and rushed forward to greet him wi
th a tight hug, uncaring of the grease on his apron, planting a kiss on his bald pate as he only stood as high as her chest. “Hello, Jermayah!”
“Mr. Tollermine to you,” he gruffed, though she noted he paused long enough to return the hug before moving away. “Guessing you want me to show her?” he asked Madame.
“Indeed, Mr. Tollermine,” she replied. “The associated documents too.”
“Come on then.” He beckoned to them with the revolver, stomping off into the workshop’s cavernous interior which stood in stark contrast to the cramped outer edifice. Lizanne felt oddly gratified by the fact that the space didn’t appear to have shrunk in her absence. As a child it had seemed a cave of treasures, making her laugh as she scampered from one mysterious mechanical wonder to another. The Syndicate operated its own repair shops and manufactories but there were times when Exceptional Initiatives had need of more novel devices, to be crafted and maintained beyond the sight of competitors or Imperial agents. During her tenure at the Academy, only Lizanne had been given the privilege of coming here once every week to be educated in the basics of engineering and the more obscure aspects of chemistry. She had been quick to ask why, of course, being of a somewhat aggravatingly keen mind even at a young age. Jermayah had just shrugged and said, “Can’t steal this stuff if you don’t know what it is.”
He led them through the rows of mechanicals, some familiar but others of such esoteric design as to baffle even Lizanne’s educated eye. She drew up short, however, at the sight of a squat, four-wheeled carriage with a bulbous collection of pipe-work and valves fitted between the driver’s seat and the front axle. “You’re still working on it?” she asked Jermayah with a faintly incredulous laugh.
