Bringer of Light (Hidden Empire)

by Jaine Fenn

  ‘Your original mission? The one you couldn’t tell me about?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And— So does that mean you’re willing to tell me about it now? I mean, I wanna know, but only if you’re sure you want to tell me.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Vy firmly. ‘I will explain everything. And then you must kill me.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Ifanna let the two men hurry her away down the alley. She heard distant shouts, and wondered vaguely if Hylwen was dead. Her own pain was worse now, but she was still gagged and could not tell anyone. She thought suddenly about hunters in the village, who tracked wounded wild pigs by the trail of blood the animals left in the mud. She slowed and grunted, inclining her head to indicate with her eyes what the problem was.

  The priest stopped, his companion following suit a moment later, and in the light of the single lantern their expressions of confusion looked like to turn to hostility if she gave them any excuse. Ifanna bent her head harder, and finally the priest looked down.

  ‘Mother of Mercy! She is wounded!’ He looked to his companion. ‘Siarl, there is blood. Can you see how serious it is?’

  He took the lantern, and the monitor crouched down next to her. Ifanna felt a strange sensation; the priest had sounded almost concerned. Concerned for her. She got her first good look at her saviour as he watched the monitor tend to her. He was an older man, a little jowly and sunken-eyed. His shaved scalp was wrinkled above his ears.

  She drew in a sharp breath. She could feel the cut clearly now, and the monitor’s fingers probing it.

  The pain receded a little and the monitor – Siarl – straightened. ‘’Tis not deep. Olwenna could dress it—’

  ‘No, I will not ask that of you. There will be medicines at the house, will there not?’

  ‘Aye, there should be.’ The monitor did not sound sure. Ifanna sensed that this venture made him uneasy.

  ‘Then we should not change our plan.’ He addressed Ifanna. ‘Can you walk—? Oh, I am a fool! Chilwar, you are still gagged. Here.’ He reached up, then said sternly but not unkindly, ‘If I remove this, you will not cry out, will you?’

  Ifanna shook her head vigorously. He had called her chilwar, as though she were not damned.

  He undid the gag. Ifanna said meekly, ‘Thank you, Gwas.’

  ‘Let me unbind your hands, too, chilwar.’

  His companion said, ‘Maelgyn, I think we would do better to wait until we are at the house.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ To Ifanna he said, ‘Does your wound pain you much?’

  ‘Hardly at all, Gwas.’ She did not want to disappoint or annoy the priest when he was treating her so well. ‘I drew your attention to it because I was worried that I might bleed on the ground and they might— I mean—’ She did not want to continue that thought, did not want to remind these men that they had just gone against the will of Heaven – or the command of their superiors, at least.

  Siarl gave her a look tinged with admiration. ‘A wise thought, Ifanna, but there is not enough blood to track us by.’

  They knew who she was!

  ‘Then we do not need to worry,’ the priest said, his voice belying his words. ‘Let us carry on.’

  Surprise had overcome her natural reticence. ‘Wait,’ said Ifanna, instantly regretting speaking out when she saw the priest’s thin-lipped expression. But he did not command her to be silent, so she carried on, her voice tremulous. ‘Please, Master Siarl, how is it you know my name?’

  Gwas Maelgyn answered for his companion, whose uneasiness was growing, and was now tinged by embarrassment. ‘Actually, chilwar, he is Captain Siarl.’ He spoke lightly, as though to a child. ‘And as for how he knows your name: all will be explained later.’

  ‘Of course, Gwas. I did not mean to question.’

  The priest kept hold of her arm when they set off again, though more to steer than to restrain. Despite her assertion that she could walk unaided, Ifanna soon began to feel lightheaded. The wound in her side was a constant, draining ache, and her feet dragged. She stumbled, and the priest caught her.

  ‘You are not all right, are you?’

  ‘I am sorry, Gwas—’

  ‘Hush. Let me help.’ He put an arm around her, supporting her. She could not remember the last time anyone had showed such concern. And this man was a priest!

  As they carried on, and Ifanna became more tired and lightheaded, Gwas Maelgyn let her lean into him, for which she was deeply grateful.

  Finally they stopped in an unlit alley, outside a two-storey house with a small yard. The yard had clay pots in it, but the plants in them were long dead. The windows of the house were shuttered, and the lamplight illuminated a blue circle painted on the closed door. Ifanna tensed.

  ‘There is nothing to fear,’ said Gwas Maelgyn softly.

  But all Ifanna could think was that these two men who had rescued her from death and treated her well now wished to take her to a shuttered house – a plague house! – where she would be at their mercy. When she looked at the monitor, she was alarmed to see him reaching for the dagger on his belt.

  ‘Please, Captain Siarl!’ she cried out, reinforcing her words with raw compulsion, ‘do not hurt me!’

  The monitor captain hesitated as the priest said, ‘Trust me, Ifanna, you will be safe here. But if we are to help you then you must not – must not – employ the curse that brought you to this sorry pass. Not ever. Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand.’ She released her hold on the monitor’s will.

  Captain Siarl looked at her fearfully. He knew what she had tried to do, and he was not happy.

  Ifanna stared at her feet. ‘I am sorry. I should not . . .’

  ‘No matter,’ said the priest with false heartiness. ‘I understand your worry, chilwar; this house was indeed touched by the falling fire. The young family who lived here went to the Mothers during the winnowing times. It has been shut up ever since, while distant relatives bicker over who will inherit the place. You can stay here safely without fear of being found.’

  The monitor held out his dagger again, and now she saw he intended to use it to get them in. He slipped it into the gap between the door and frame, and raised the latch slowly. She heard a click, and the door opened a crack. He went in first, then called softly and Ifanna and the priest followed. They came into a kitchen. The air smelled stale, and there was a faint tang to it that made Ifanna wonder how long the bodies of the previous occupants had lain here before being discovered.

  Captain Siarl put the lantern on the table and started looking through cupboards.

  When the priest asked, ‘May I borrow your knife?’ Ifanna tried not to react. She wanted to believe that she was safe, but this was all so unexpected, after her months of confinement.

  The monitor handed his blade over and as he continued searching the cupboards, the priest started to cut her bonds, grasping her wrists with one hand and sawing at the rope with the other. He had dark stains on his long fingers, which she identified, after a moment, as ink.

  Captain Siarl came back with a candle, which he lit from the lantern and put in the pot on the table. ‘Can you manage, Maelgyn?’ he asked.

  ‘I almost have it,’ the priest replied, ‘though more light would make my job easier.’

  ‘I do not think that would be wise, in a house that is meant to be abandoned.’

  ‘A valid point . . . ah, there we are.’

  Ifanna’s bonds fell away. Now her hands were free she wondered if she should circle her breast to show respect for the priest, but the thought seemed irrelevant. Instead she leant on the table. She was not sure how much longer she would be able to stand up.

  ‘Ah, I am sorry, chilwar. Sit down if you need to.’

  Ifanna was happy to obey, and while Captain Siarl continued searching the kitchen, the priest appeared content to watch Ifanna in silence. She found his scrutiny both disconcerting and flattering.

  The captain found what he was looking for and cam
e back to the table. ‘I should look at that wound,’ he said, and knelt next to Ifanna.

  She eased her chair back, scraping it on the flagstones and drawing a sharp look from the priest. The monitor’s blunt-fingered touch was all business, with none of the healer’s gentleness, and Ifanna had to force herself not to cry out or flinch.

  After a while he said gruffly, ‘I will need to lift your tunic up to dress the wound.’

  ‘I will hold it out of the way,’ said Ifanna. She was no happier about having to expose her nakedness than the monitor was at seeing it. Though she could not see his eyes, from the touch of his fingers she knew how uncomfortable he felt at being so close to a witch. He was only prepared to do this because of his friend the priest, and any lustful thoughts that dared enter his mind as he touched her were quashed ruthlessly.

  The priest sat and watched. His expression was soft, full of sympathy.

  Ifanna opened her mouth, closed it again, and then decided she would speak, if only to distract herself from the discomfort of both body and mind. ‘Gwas,’ she said, ‘I am grateful to you – to both of you, Captain Siarl – for what you have done for me this night. But – and forgive me for asking this – why did you save me?’

  ‘Have you not noticed our looks, chilwar?’

  ‘Your— Your looks, Gwas?’

  ‘Aye. Captain Siarl and I are Fenlanders, like you. We too come from the Terraced Marshes.’

  It was too dim in the kitchen for her to really distinguish their features, but now the priest mentioned it, Ifanna realised most of the people she had seen in here had lighter skin, and faces of a subtly different shape to hers. This priest and monitor looked normal to her eyes. ‘I do see, Gwas.’ But such a tenuous link was not enough, surely, to make them disobey the Cariad’s ruling?

  ‘In fact,’ continued the priest, ‘we are from Plas Morfren.’

  ‘Plas Morfren?’ The sound of that familiar name was balm to Ifanna’s ears.

  ‘Aye, chilwar: Siarl and I grew up there, and we have been friends all our lives.’

  Captain Siarl grunted his assent from near Ifanna’s waist.

  Gwas Maelgyn continued, ‘You come from Nantgwyn, I believe, and that village falls under the jurisdiction of the Reeve of Plas Morfren.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Ifanna, ‘I do.’ Or rather, did: she could not imagine ever returning to her birthplace.

  The priest sat back, satisfied he had made his reasons clear, though Ifanna was unsure why coming from the same region was enough to make these two strangers take such risks on her behalf.

  Captain Siarl stood. ‘There,’ he said tersely, ‘as I thought, the wound was not deep. If you do not exert yourself or interfere with the bindings you will be fine.’

  The priest looked over at his friend. ‘You should probably get back to Olwenna.’

  ‘Aye; she knows my shift finished some time ago, and will no doubt be cursing my men for luring me to the tavern.’

  ‘And I must return to the Tyr.’

  ‘What about me, Gwas?’ asked Ifanna.

  ‘You will be safe here,’ said Gwas Maelgyn. ‘I will come back tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ echoed Ifanna. She glanced over at the door, which had a latch but no lock. ‘How— How do you know I will still be here?’ She shrank inside even as she asked the question.

  ‘I do not know for sure,’ said the priest mildly. ‘But we Fenlanders are a sensible, practical people. Given the choice between wandering friendless in a city where you are hated and hunted, and remaining hidden and letting your allies help you, I would expect you to show the wisdom we are renowned for.’

  Ifanna had no answer for that, and hearing the gentle reprimand in his voice, she could not bring herself to ask anything else. Instead she followed them to the door, circling her breast as she bade them farewell, and put the latch down behind them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘A Sidhe mothership?’ said Ain. ‘I had no idea.’

  Jarek, busy lining up the Heart of Glass for the complicated docking manoeuvre, let Nual answer. ‘There was a legend about a mothership captured by the males,’ she said. ‘I assumed the story was propaganda, meant to promote hatred of our wicked brothers. It appears I was wrong.’

  The other Sidhe mothership Jarek had seen had reminded him of a great bronze egg. This ship looked bigger than that one, and it had been heavily built over and modified, although he could see the egg-shaped structure was still there, under all the platforms, gantries and additional modules.

  He turned his attention to getting into position for the multipurpose clamping mechanism which took the place of normal docking bays. He winced at the faint shudder as it locked in place. This set-up would be a bastard if they had to make a quick getaway.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘we’re here, so we may as well get this over with.’

  ‘No one will interfere with your ship,’ said Ain, almost as though she could read minds.

  ‘Yeah, well, no offence, Ain, but no one was meant to interfere with us on the hab that got remodelled by that mining barge.’

  ‘That was out-system, in a hastily built structure arbitrarily assigned as neutral territory,’ she said. ‘This is the Consensus. I can request that the Arbiter posts guards to your assigned umbilical, but I should warn you that such a request would not only break protocol, it would imply distrust.’

  ‘No need to imply distrust, Ain,’ Jarek said. ‘I’ve yet to find a reason to trust the patrons – any of them.’

  He followed the others into the airlock, which was only just big enough for three people, and made sure he double-checked the tell-tales before opening the outer door. They stepped into a short transparent tube, and Nual gave a sudden gasp as she caught sight of the slice of star-filled sky above them.

  Jarek was more concerned with the Heart of Glass’s airlock. When he turned to look at it he was pleased to see that the alien docking umbilical had aligned perfectly with his ’lock and a flashing red light beside the now-closed door confirmed that his ship was in full lockdown mode; in theory, only someone with both a ship-linked com and a retinal scan registered on the Heart of Glass’s comp should be able to open that door again.

  He wished Ain hadn’t insisted both he and Nual had to accompany her onto the Egg. More of the males’ so-called protocol, apparently. The patrons had demanded that Nual appear before them in person, and Jarek was there because, despite the well-distributed footage from the hab, Ain said some of them continued to believe he was in Nual’s thrall. Showing his face in person was the only way to challenge that – and it also meant that he and Nual would most likely be split up.

  None of this was ideal, but their only hope of getting out of here alive was to cooperate fully with the rulers of this crazy system.

  The airlock at the end of the tube opened into a featureless grey corridor, and a silvery humanoid was awaiting them there. It raised a pair of slender wands and took a step towards Nual.

  Jarek forced himself not to react; Ain had warned them they would be scanned on their arrival. The avatar ran the wands over the three of them quickly and efficiently, working in silence. When it had finished, it stepped back and addressed Nual: ‘Warning: any attempt to use your implanted weaponry will be severely punished.’ Then it turned and strode off.

  Ain took charge, leading them through one identical corridor after another, pausing at junctions to receive further directions from the Consensus’ comnet. Since using the Heart of Glass’s coms would have been seen as another sign of distrust, Jarek and Nual had also been linked in. No doubt all their calls would be monitored.

  They passed some lingua, who acknowledged them with a quick, open-handed tap on their lips that Jarek thought was rather like blowing a kiss. They wore the standard lingua uniform, a simple black overall, with no adornment or personalisation. The first avatar they passed, another dull silver figure like the one that’d scanned them, ignored them; when Jarek glanced after it Ain said, ‘That is an avatar of
the Arbiter. He administers the Consensus; he has no voting rights, but the Egg is his personal domain.’ From the almost fond way she spoke, Jarek got the impression Ain viewed this Arbiter as some sort of mentor, or even a father-figure, much as Taro had apparently once done with the Minister.

  The next person they met was a slightly older-looking lingua, who smiled warmly when she saw Ain, and after a formal greeting to Jarek and Nual, kissed Ain on the lips before continuing on her way.

  Both Jarek and Nual were taken aback when a large dog with shaggy purplish fur came loping along the corridor. When it saw them it stopped and sat back on its haunches. They all gave it as wide a berth as they could, but as Nual passed it, the dog spoke. The voice came from its chest, while its mouth moved in what looked worryingly like a growl: ‘Ah, the beautiful enemy. Somehow I thought you would be taller.’

  Nual ignored it and kept walking, looking straight ahead. When they were out of earshot Jarek said, ‘I assume that was an avatar.’

  Ain said, ‘You are correct. That was an autonomous avatar, answering to a moderately high-ranking halo patron who aligns himself with the Moonlit Glory – they are isolationist, but not violently so.’

  ‘Have the alignments and sept groupings changed much since you were last here?’ asked Nual.

  ‘I am not yet sure,’ Ain admitted. ‘I will study them at length as soon as the opportunity arises. Normally change comes slowly to the Consensus, but these are eventful times: we are about to have the second Extraordinary Session in as many weeks.’

  Ordinary humans were not usually permitted in the Consensus, so he and Nual had been allocated rooms intended for lingua, on the same corridor, but not adjacent. Jarek looked around, unimpressed. His room smelled stale, and looked like it hadn’t been used for some time. The basic furnishings reinforced his first impression, that this was a sterile, inhospitable place.

  Ain told them to use the open com channel to request refreshments. ‘You will be unlikely to be able to procure anything particularly exciting, I’m afraid,’ she added as she left them to find her own quarters.