The Waking Fire

by Anthony Ryan

  They had made a slow progress through the maze for maybe a hundred paces when Silverpin came to a sudden halt, eyes narrowing as she peered at something to her right. Clay tracked her gaze, seeing a channel descending then broadening into a steep-walled canyon. His gaze immediately went to a deep crack in one of the walls, more than wide enough for a man to gain entry, and stacked at the opening what could only be more bones. They had been collected into a cylindrical structure some ten feet high, skulls, thigh-bones and ribs all fused together somehow and woven into a macabre monument, to what only the Seer knew.

  Silverpin approached in a slow, half-crouch, spear at the ready. Clay followed at a short interval, Stinger drawn. Such a thing could have been crafted by human hands, and for all they knew the artist was still in residence. Silverpin flattened herself against the stone before darting her head around the edge of the crack. Clay heard her take a few sniffs before she relaxed, moving away from the stone and shaking her head at him.

  “No-one home, huh?” he asked, peering into the gloom, seeing nothing but blackness and his nose detecting only dust. Even so, he had no intention of stepping inside just yet, not without the rest of the company in front. He turned to the bone stack, frowning at the first skull he saw. It didn’t seem quite right, the chin too prominent and the brows featuring small, spiky protrusions. “Spoiled,” he realised, eyes flicking from one malformed skull to another. The deformity differed in each case, some with spikes growing out of their cheek-bones, others with what could only be called horns jutting from their jaws or temples.

  A scuff of boot leather drew his attention away from the bones and he had time to see Silverpin disappearing into the black void of the crack. “Wait!” he called out, moving to follow then hesitating as his boot stepped into the all-consuming shadow. “At least take a light.”

  He waited, heard nothing then cursed, slipping off his pack to retrieve the small lantern it held. It took several seconds of fumbling and cursing before he got it lit, the yellow beam it cast reaching only a few yards into the crack. There was no sign of Silverpin. He spent a full ten seconds voicing the foulest language he knew, then took a firm hold on the butt of the Stinger and made his way into the dark.

  The air was musty but cool, soon becoming dank as the light revealed dampness on the walls. The passage had a slight but discernible downward slant, becoming wider the deeper he went until finally it opened out into a large chamber. It was maybe twenty feet across, the ceiling too high to be made out by the lamplight. After a few seconds of casting the beam about he voiced a sigh of relief as it played over Silverpin’s slim form in the centre of the chamber. She stood in a circle of stones, head cocked as her eyes tracked over it, keen and unblinking.

  “Fool thing you did,” Clay admonished her, though she didn’t seem to hear. “How’d you find your way without a light?” Again no reaction, she seemed completely engrossed in examining the stone circle. He moved closer, the lamplight revealing the stones to be densely packed together in a ring about three feet high, held in place by some form of mortar. He saw it was covered by something, some kind of dried liquid that had accumulated over several years until the stones were rendered near black with it. He cast the light over the surrounding rock, finding it liberally streaked with more of the same stuff. Blood, he realised, his thoughts returning to the stacked bones outside. Killed here and piled up out there. But by who?

  Despite several more enquiries Silverpin remained apparently oblivious to him, enraptured by whatever she saw in the stones. He moved away, playing the lantern over the cavern walls, finding more blood, some of it splashed higher than his head. Not just killed, he realised, glancing back at the circle. Ripped apart . . . feasted upon.

  “It nested here,” he said aloud, realisation dawning in a rush. Wittler’s blasted body, not a cannon-shot, an egg, bursting apart in flame and fury as they did when their mothers bathed them in the waking fire, setting free what waited within. “She used the Red’s heart-blood to birth the egg. The White hatched, ate up what was left of Wittler and came here where the Spoiled fed it, fed it with their own flesh.”

  He realised Silverpin was looking at him now, her fascination with the stones transformed into a keen, almost scary scrutiny. “Right?” he asked, finding the weight of her gaze uncomfortable. She gave no response, stepping from the stones and walking towards him with a purposeful stride. He drew back, Stinger gripped tight though he didn’t raise it as her hands remained empty. “What’s . . . ?” he began as his back bumped up against the wall, falling silent as she leaned close and planted a kiss on his mouth, a long kiss.

  “Um,” he said when she drew back. It was all he could think to say. “Maybe . . . maybe we should go get my uncle.”

  She angled her head, raising an eyebrow, mouth forming a small smile.

  He moved to her, drawing her close, mouth finding hers again. There was a ringing sound as she began to discard her blades. “Yeah,” Clay breathed as she pressed herself against him. “He can wait awhile, I guess.”

  II

  ALIGNMENTS AND ANOMALIES

  It is not the purpose of this tome to explore in detail the many superstitions, frauds and fallacies that surround the subject of plasmology. It is true that lesser cultures beyond the Corporate Sphere, particularly in Dalcia but also in certain regions of the Corvantine Empire, continue to look upon the Blessing as a manifestation of divine favour or conjuration resulting from ancient ritual magics. However, the rational mind is quick to spot the logical inconsistencies and flaws in such beliefs. Whatever nonsense may be claimed by the adherents of the sadly still-extant, but thankfully much-denuded Church of the Seer, there is no credible evidence that use of the Blessing was ever demonstrated beyond the confines of the Arradsian continental mass prior to the opening of the Strait and the first phase of Mandinorian Colonisation. And, to answer a question oft put to the author, I do not consider the fabled White to be anything more than a conglomeration of outlandish tales arising from those frequently chaotic and costly days, when as many lives were lost to madness as to the attentions of the Spoiled.

  From A Lay-person’s Guide to Plasmology by Miss Amorea Findlestack. Ironship Press—Company Year 190 (1579 by the Mandinorian Calendar).

  CHAPTER 19

  Lizanne

  Lizanne sprinted to the end of the roof-top and leapt, somersaulting over the museum railings to land on the gravel beyond. Without the benefit of Green such a leap would probably have left her with two fractured ankles; as it was her legs only betrayed a slight burning as she crouched. Lizanne had the Whisper in hand and a Redball loaded into the top barrel; tonight she could afford no half-measures. She had foregone the luxury of prolonged surveillance of the building’s environs. The urgency was too great and the Green had already burned down to its last vestiges thanks to her enjoyable but strenuous journey across the roof-tops of Morsvale. Instead she had waited only long enough to gain a fair idea of the guards’ patrol schedule before vaulting the railings.

  Finding no sign of detection she rose and ran for the side entrance. It was a curious facet of her experience that those responsible for the security of important buildings would expend considerable energy in securing their main access points whilst paying only marginal heed to those used by the people actually employed within. Also, doors used with any constancy, especially by poorly paid functionaries, were rarely as well locked as they should have been.

  Lizanne was obliged to inject a modicum of Black to undo the side-entrance, secured by a heavy padlock-and-chain arrangement rather than the excellent double mortice with which it had been equipped. Padlocks were her favourite kind of lock, the mechanism standardised across all makes and swiftly undone by a few seconds’ concentration. The tricky part was reattaching it once she had gained entry, requiring her to reach through the door with the Black and reassemble it from memory. She reattached the chain but didn’t engage the locking mechanism; it should be e
nough to fool a casual glance and she might have need of a swift exit.

  She recharged with a small amount of Green before proceeding through the basement store-room where she found herself, just enough to enhance her senses. There were a few more doors between the basement and the ground-floor, but nothing overly troublesome. On emerging into the marble-floored lobby she crouched to remove her shoes, leaving them in a shadowed recess by the door. Lizanne paused for a moment as her bare feet cooled on the marble, expecting to hear the footfalls of a night watchman echoing through the museum’s many halls, but instead her augmented hearing detected only the faint murmur of voices from the floor above.

  Someone’s working late, she decided, stealing across the lobby to the staircase. It wasn’t necessarily a problem provided this dutiful scholar kept to their own business. However, she was obliged to stifle a groan of frustration as, upon reaching the top of the stairs, she realised the voices came from Diran’s office.

  She crouched behind the balustrade, her ears revealing the conversation in full, albeit-brief detail.

  “I don’t . . .” Diran’s voice, hesitant and lacking the bluster and surety from before. The tone and cadence were all too familiar to Lizanne: a man in desperate fear of his life. “Don’t have it,” Diran managed, Lizanne picturing the sweat covering his face. “Not here.”

  “You didn’t make a copy?” another voice asked, the tone hard and demanding though the speaker was careful to keep it muted.

  “N-no. I can . . . redraw it though. I have my notes.”

  “Where?”

  “The cabinet.” Diran’s voice took on a slight note of relief. And I thought him a clever fellow, Lizanne mused in grudging sympathy. “Just there. If you’ll allow me pen and paper . . .”

  “No need.” The gun-shot was muffled, probably by a suppressor of some sort. “The notes should suffice.”

  She had only seconds to process the significance of this, her mind soon fixing on some inevitable and unwelcome conclusions. They know what he was working on. They know of his association to Burgrave Artonin. And they know he has the map. She had only a matter of hours before being compromised. Protocol was clear in such circumstances: compromise at any stage requires immediate extraction. It was the only rational course.

  Lizanne kicked the door to Diran’s office off its hinges and entered in a roll, hearing the thump of a suppressed pistol followed by the whip-crack of a bullet missing by inches. She came to one knee, sighted the Whisper on the man standing beside Diran’s desk and fired twice, one shot to the belly, one to the arm. The man fell across the desk with a pained yell, pistol falling from his spasming hand.

  She stood up, using the Black to lift the assassin from the desk and slam him against the wall. A demonstration always saved time on explanations and any tediously prolonged threats. Lizanne moved to the desk, pausing to glance at Diran and finding him predictably dead with a hole in his temple, the paper-strewn desk covered in blood that seeped over the edges.

  “Can’t say I liked him overmuch,” she said, turning back to the assassin. “But still, I think he deserved better.”

  The man gasped, arms and legs spread flat on the wall, blood flowing freely from the wound in his belly. Despite his evident agony and imminent death she could see him fighting to retain his discipline, dragging breath through clenched teeth, his gaze averted. Cadre through and through, she decided. No freelancers here.

  “I realise this is probably a pointless exercise,” Lizanne said, casting a meaningful glance at his bleeding abdomen. “But formality dictates I at least make the offer. Quick and painless or slightly slower and infinitely more ugly. And I’ll crush your larynx so you can’t scream.”

  No reaction. Gaze fixed and averted, breath laboured but still regular. Never engage the interrogator, she recalled from the Protectorate school. Not in thought, gesture or deed. Any form of engagement involves communication, and communication inevitably involves the exchange of information.

  She applied a gentle pressure to the wound, widening it a little, a fresh torrent of blood seeping forth to spatter the floor beneath his dangling feet. She fixed her eyes on his, gauging the reaction as she spoke a single word, “Artonin.”

  It was barely a flicker, just a slight twitch in his fevered gaze, but she caught it. They know. “Thank you,” Lizanne said and used the last of the Black to crush his skull.

  She let the body fall and moved to the cabinet behind the desk, wrenching it open. The device lay where Sirus had placed it, the dim light from Diran’s lamp catching the edges of its many cogs and levers. A stack of note-books sat alongside the device but, as he had told his killer, there was no sign of any map. She consigned it all to her pack, gratified to find that the device weighed only a few pounds. She would need to conserve her Green and the journey back to the Burgrave’s house was already likely to prove taxing without additional weight.

  Proceed to extraction. The thought spoke in Madame’s voice, as the rational side of her brain often did. She ignored it, moving to the door and closing it softly behind her. You are compromised, Madame’s voice insisted. Proceed to extraction.

  The map, she replied, running down the staircase and moving to the alcove where she had left her shoes.

  You have the device and the notes. Proceed to extraction.

  She pulled on her shoes and returned to the basement, calculating the most efficient ground-level route to the Burgrave’s house. She paused at the side-door, taking a deep breath and focusing her mind for the task ahead.

  This is not about the map, Madame accused, summoning the image of Tekela’s eager, doll-like face.

  Lizanne ignored her and stepped out into the fading night.

  —

  There will come a time, one of her instructors had said several years before, when a covert operation will transform into a tactical engagement. Whilst such a circumstance should be avoided wherever possible, you should be prepared to shift your operating parameters accordingly. However, this does not mean an abandonment of careful planning or pursuance of only the most realistic objectives.

  She counted three Cadre agents in the street with another standing in the open doorway. They all wore the same long dark overcoat and a flat-topped hat. The Cadre tended to a uniform appearance when they emerged from the shadows; it discouraged any unwise curiosity from the populace. Lizanne approached at a sedate walk, carrying her pack as if it contained newly bought groceries and frowning in apparent puzzlement at their presence. The three agents moved to confront her as she neared, one in front, the other two taking up positions on either side, edging closer.

  “You work here, miss?” the one in front enquired.

  “I am maid to Miss Artonin,” she said, suitably fearful eyes moving from one to the other.

  “Ah,” he said, “recently arrived from Corvus, are you not? Bearing a personal recommendation from Landgravine Morgosal, I believe.”

  “Why yes, sir.” Her gaze swivelled to the house in apparent bemusement.

  “Curious then,” the agent went on, stepping closer, “that our recent trance communication from Corvus reveals that the good lady has never heard of you.”

  His thin smile held a certain triumphant confidence, though his lack of outright alarm indicated that, regardless of what intelligence they had obtained, the most pertinent aspect of her identity had not yet been discerned.

  “You shouldn’t have let me get so close,” Lizanne told him, drawing the Whisper from the slit in her skirt and shooting him in the forehead. She used Black to freeze the agents on either side and delivered a single round into each of their heads in a swift switchback motion. The agent in the doorway was quick, pistol already drawn and sweeping towards her. She threw his arm aside with a surge of Black and shot him twice in the chest. He gave a groan as she ascended the steps to the door, obliging her to put another round into his skull.

 
She crouched in the hallway, Whisper held out in a two-handed grip, scanning for targets and ears alive for any sound. Nothing, not even a creaking board.

  She checked the study first, finding Burgrave Artonin slumped on the floor behind his desk, leaking blood onto the carpet from half a dozen exit wounds in his back. An old-model cavalry revolver lay under his hand, his thumb frozen in the motion of drawing back the hammer. He forced them to kill him, she deduced, uncertain what that might mean for Tekela’s fate.

  The girl’s room was empty but disordered, drawers upended and sundry clothes and girlish accoutrements strewn about. She went from room to room and floor to floor, Whisper gripped tight and ready, finding the general untidiness resulting from a cursory search but no more agents, or servants.

  She found them in the kitchen, all seated at the table, heads slumped forward, each with a single gun-shot to the back of the head. Madam Meeram had been tied to her chair, indicating she at least put up a struggle. Misha and Kalla were holding hands, heads lying on their sides so they seemed to be staring into one another’s empty eyes. Mr. Drellic was seated next to Cook, his expression displaying as much confusion in death as it did in life. Krista . . . Your name is Krista.

  Tekela and Rigan were not amongst them.

  Lizanne returned to the study and tore open the Burgrave’s hiding place. The Cadre clearly hadn’t had time for a proper search as she found the papers intact. Amongst the ledgers and sundry documents lay a tubular leather case typically used for the storage and transport of maps. She resisted the impulse to open it then and there. Despite the early hour the agents’ bodies would soon be noted and all manner of discord was about to erupt in the street outside. She exited through the garden, leaping the wall and striding towards the northern quarter.

  —