Away from Trade, up into Heights and past the want-to-haves, through neighbourhoods that got to see the sun at least twice a day for perhaps an hour at dawn and sunset, lucky bastards. Up along the twisting Spine that led from the bottom of Boundary, threading its way through every layer till it broke free of the city and surged past the vast estates of Clouds that balanced precariously over the grubby unwashed of Under, and on like a thread of hope to Top of the World.
The Archdeacon’s Palace was the part of Mahala that everyone looked up to – we didn’t have a lot of choice really. Atop a platform that from Under looked mythical, it was as different from the rest of the city as I am from a model of chastity. I’d been up there a few times by then, but it still got me, every time. The sense of space, of buildings with room to breathe rather than squashed in together, squeezed by the buildings above, below, to either side. No squashing here. Here was space and beauty. Glow lights in the shape of flickering birds in cages and fluttering rainbow moths. Even flowers, real ones. The ones I hadn’t accidentally lopped off, that was.
On two sides of the main plaza, a maze of spire-topped buildings that looked spun out of light and air, outlined by Glow-moths so they almost seemed on fire. On another side, nothing but space and the long drop – from there you could look down over the city if you were brave enough to get close to the edge, could see the dark smudge of it spreading beneath you like an oilstain, sticky and black.
On the last side, what had been the Home of the Goddess was now a sad pile of rubble, stripped of anything we could rip out to trade with the Mishans for food and raw materials. Wherever I go, I always like to make a lasting impression, and what I’d done to the Home of the Goddess was no different. She was going to have to find somewhere else to sleep.
It was nice being able to saunter past the Specials on the gate – well, nice for us. They looked like they’d been force-fed their own entrails, but they let us past with nothing more than a sour look. Still, no one was executing anyone up here today so I tried to stay jaunty. Got to take it while you can.
We found Perak at the true Top of the World, a circular platform that soared above everything else, seemingly over and above even the very tops of the mountains that looked far-off and yet very real from there. There wasn’t even a nice handrail to hang on to, and with that and the wind that whipped my coat out behind me, I got a bit watery around the courage bone. I sucked it up and put a face on it, because looking weak in front of your little brother, well, I just didn’t like to. Besides, Jake was here too, fresh from her little jaunt down the tunnel and looking like she’d loved every minute of it. I wasn’t about to look chickenshit in front of her. Pasha bit his lip to stop a grin, and had to turn away when I glared at him, but I made it without screaming or gibbering to where Perak stood, looking into a telescope he’d had set on to a tripod, and the tripod set into the stone right at the edge of the platform.
I kept my eyes on Perak rather than look at the drop – if I looked that way, it would all end in tears. Mine. Naturally, Perak’s first words made sure I had to sodding well look.
“Use the telescope, there where I’ve set it. Tell me what you think.”
I put my big boy’s pants on, held on to the tripod like it was a long-lost friend, and took a look. I’d thought I was going to see a bird’s-eye view of the shattered gates. That would have been bad enough. Instead I got an eyeful of the bulky shoulder of one of the mountains to the north, about on a level with Trade, where the buildings broke free of stone and the mountains receded into craggy spires to rival Top of the World. Across this bulky shoulder, a path had been carved. The pass that they said our city was founded on.
My knees went as watery as my courage bone. I think I may have sworn, quite nastily, because Pasha said, “What?” though he must have had an idea.
Luckily I was saved from answering in what would have been a rather squeaky little voice. I know doom when I see it.
“What Allit saw,” Perak said. “Whatever his precise talent, this is what he says he saw, what Jake confirmed for me as I’m sure she’s told you. And it’s coming. Sooner than we thought.”
Men, machines, mountains. I’d thought the Storad already at the gates were bad enough – they darkened the small valley that they’d camped in, left nothing but men and tents all across it. There were perhaps twice that number on the pass, maybe more. Not just men either. Oh no, that would be too easy. Machines they already had, one of which we’d totally scuppered, one they’d finally taken down the outer gates with. I could see two more of those on the pass, as well as one of the mutant machines, or whatever it was, from Allit’s vision. Allit had seen more than that, but the cavalcade at the other end of the telescope hadn’t finished coming around the cold shoulder of the mountain.
Pasha took his own look through the telescope, and when he’d finished he’d gone a pale shade of gutted – must have been different seeing it through his own eyes rather than someone else’s.
“What’s the plan, Perak?” I asked. “You do have a plan, right?”
Perak paced up and down, far too close to the edge for my liking, but he didn’t seem to notice the drop. Too busy thinking. “This changes things. A lot. But I’ve been thinking on it since Jake confirmed it. Taking advisement, from Jake, Malaki, Guinto even. Sadly some of the cardinals have suggested a thing or two but, well, let’s not talk about that except to say I’m not sending anyone against them unarmed, I don’t care if the Downsiders do want to shoot all the cardinals too. I want to shoot half of them.” He took a calming breath. “It’ll take the Storad time to get down to their camp. Those machines aren’t moving fast. Lise’s shield, if we can get that working… but still, the Storad already through will need dealing with.”
“I might have a little plan for that. Could help all round.”
Perak shot me a look. I didn’t really like the way he leapt on my idea – I’ve never been known as an ideas man, and for him to jump on it so quick meant he was out of plans himself.
“Tell me.”
So I did, while his eyebrows shot up into his hairline and kept on going as I outlined it.
“We don’t have enough men to take them on as it stands, right? You’ve got guards down there, and Specials, and… it won’t be enough, and you say the cardinals won’t take anyone else if they’re armed. Lise needs more raw materials too. I think…” Again, I could not believe I was saying this. Usually I’m out of the room before anyone even thinks of asking for me to help, but this time I was dropping myself in it. “I think we can solve both in one go. If we’re careful.”
I had their attention.
“The machine further away, up in the valley. It’s still covering the gate area, which leaves us hamstrung. Anyone trying to move out of the inner gates will be mincemeat. We need to take it out. Permanently. Maybe… maybe move it, or some of it. Rearrange it to where we can cannibalise it for metal.”
Perak said nothing but went to the telescope again, training it on the mass of Storad now camped between two sets of gates, then up to the valley where the machine sat silent and brooding for now.
“You really think you could manage it?” Pasha asked.
“Probably not the whole thing. But enough of it that it won’t work plus Lise will have some metal to play with. The engine perhaps? She could see how it functions. I’ll need to get close though.” And someone to help me out afterwards, because I’d be thoroughly screwed. Rearranging really takes it out of me, and I was pretty screwed to start with.
“It’s risky,” Perak muttered without taking his eye from the telescope. “Too risky.”
“What else can we do?”
Perak stood straight with a sigh. “I don’t know. But if we lose you, then what about the Glow? It’s hard enough now, even with Lise’s generator. Too few mages. If we lose one… That’s what the archdeacon in me says. The brother in me says I lost you for long enough years. I’m not losing you for good if there’s another way.”
Jake�
��s thoughtful glance my way, and my stupid need not to look like a complete coward in front of her, put a stop to any back-pedalling on my part. “Name me this other way then.” I consoled myself with the meagre thought that if it all went wrong, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the cardinals’ men grabbing me and taking me to the Storad, because I’d already be there.
It took a lot more than that, of course, but I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice to say that, with so few guns available, with so few Specials and the small amount of guards we had, and them not keen on doing the guarding that was suddenly necessary, with the cardinals that hadn’t run away in full voice about no one else getting any guns because who knew whom any Under man might shoot but it’d probably be cardinals, we didn’t have much choice.
I say “we”. What I mean is “I”.
Chapter Twelve
I managed a doze while Perak and his advisers, Guinto, Jake, Malaki and a couple of the better bishops, talked logistics. I should have tried to stay awake, I suppose, but that kind of thing makes me sleepy at the best of times, and it certainly wasn’t that. I was going to need my strength too, so I dozed and tried not to dream, which is harder than it sounds.
By the time they’d finished, the grey clouds massing over Top of the World had a nasty bruised look to them and had started a short test run of finely powdered snow blowing about on the knife-edge wind. Early in the season, maybe to our advantage. We might be short of food, but we weren’t camping out. Or trying to bring in men and supplies over a high mountain pass. A spiteful thought – a sudden white-out entombing the Storad in drifts of snow, not to be found till spring, when they’d turn up like frozen rocks when the snow melted. Unlikely, more’s the pity, but the early harsh weather could work our way. It was maybe the only thing that would.
Perak and the rest seemed to have come up with a plan of sorts. Malaki was of the opinion that it was a stupid risk but, as he couldn’t think of anything better, we were on. Perak had a few provisos though – he said they were because he wasn’t taking any chances with the two mages who put out the most, almost the only, Glow.
“Most of the Storad have moved down from the valley into the compound between the gates,” he said. “Malaki here will get some of his Specials to start sniping them – Lise has managed to get some extra range on a few of the guns. Enough to keep everyone busy, hopefully. At least get them looking at the gates and not where you’re going to be.”
“The tunnels?”
“Exactly. I had all but one blocked off – hoping it would take them a while to figure out which one. Those tunnels are built for defence, but I can’t spare any more men than it takes to hold that one. As far as we can make out – Pasha’s been listening to what he can for me – they don’t know which it is yet, so you should be able to get right up to their camp without them seeing you. If you’re careful.”
“OK, that’s good, we’ll —”
“Take someone with you.”
“What?”
“You’ll take someone with you. As Pasha has pointed out, Dench knows you both very well, knows what you’re capable of. He’s bound to try something on the tunnels anyway – an obvious weak point if you know where they are, and he does, or at least some of them. So, take one of your young mages. One whose abilities he won’t know. Allit perhaps?”
“Perak, he’s thirteen. He’s a good lad, but he’s not ready for that. I’m not ready for it.”
“It was your idea.”
“That doesn’t mean I like it. Look, I’m not taking a kid out there, not Allit, he’s got enough on his plate right now. All right?”
“What were you doing at thirteen, Rojan?” Perak looked all artful, like he was trying to get one over one me.
“Trying not to blow myself up with magic I didn’t know how to use!”
“All right then, who else have you got? Because you need some edge, or you aren’t going.”
“I’ll go.” Jake’s voice was soft but determined, as was she, by the look on her face. “You’re going to need someone.”
“No,” Pasha said quickly, too quickly. He looked paler than ever and I thought back to what Allit had seen, which Pasha had never really outlined in detail except that Dench got hold of Jake. “No, you can’t.”
She raised a cool eyebrow his way and there seemed to be some sort of silent argument going on. Pasha didn’t look to be winning either, if the way his face screwed up was anything to go by, until Perak interrupted smoothly.
“Jake, I’m going to need you here with me now. Don’t worry, I’ll send a few men to help them, guard the tunnel at their back. Besides, Dench will expect you, be prepared for you. But we need someone else, someone they won’t know.”
Jake looked about to protest – her hands, as always when threatened, went straight to the hilts of her swords – but it seemed Pasha made some last silent plea and she subsided with bad grace.
“Any ideas?” Perak dropped artlessly into the lull.
I clammed up – no way was I going to volunteer anyone for this. That would make me responsible, so I kept my fat mouth shut for a change. It didn’t matter, because a relieved Pasha was ticking off the nos on one hand and the possible yeses on the other.
“I think the most likely is Halina. She’s smart, she’s got a handle on her magic, as she showed on our last jaunt down there, and I think levitation would be a handy thing to have in our bag of tricks. Most of the rest are too young, or too volatile.”
“Yes,” Perak said. “Only, um, well, I hesitate to send a lady. I mean, we all hear what soldiers are like, and if they catch you —”
“We’ll be dead, Perak. Once you’re dead, gender doesn’t really matter, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but…”
Next to him, Jake shifted. A hand on a sword, a jingle of the buckles that held her breastplate on, a half-smile that was anything but friendly. Subtle but unmistakable. A reminder that actually, Perak, you have a lady as head of your guard and she could beat the snot out of anyone in this room and I bet you wouldn’t stop her now would you? Or perhaps you might try, but you’d probably lose an appendage or two, besides which hadn’t you already sent her into the tunnels? Hadn’t she come back safe?
“Well, yes, Jake.” Perak answered the unspoken statement. “I know, and I know you went down the tunnel, but that was you, who knows one end of a sword from the other and is more than happy to use them. Not some girl who… I don’t think of you as fem – I just hesitate… Look, Pasha, do you think she’s the most capable? OK, how about we ask her?”
So we did, and Halina almost bit Perak’s hand off in her haste to accept.
After a long and tedious discussion, Perak came to a difficult decision.
“Tonight,” he said firmly, with a glare to the most vocal cardinal, who’d tried to make everyone go, right now damn it, before the Storad invaded his personal estate. An extra-special glint to the cardinal’s argument had seemed to intimate that if any mages died, that would count as a win-win situation. And this was one of the better cardinals. At least the bold one who wanted to hand me over to save his skin was conspicuous by his absence.
“Malaki is quite right,” Perak went on. “Going in daylight would be out of the question, and I’m not about to lose my two best mages. If nothing else, we need them for Glow. Besides which, I quite like having them alive, thank you.”
It’s nice to have someone on your side, especially when he’s in charge. Both Pasha and I let out long breaths at his words – it was going to be our arses on the line, and any reprieve is better than none.
“You should get some sleep,” Perak murmured to me, though he looked like he’d not slept in a week himself. I was sure I could see new strands of grey in his hair and his face looked sallow.
But he was right, so I thought about it. I thought about the office, with the sofa that also served as my bed jammed up behind my desk, and Dendal humming a happy song in the background. I thought about the dreams too, the ones th
at left me all sweaty with terror and with a hand jammed in my mouth to stop the scream. I needed sleep, but I wasn’t sure any of that appealed.
So instead I half took Perak’s advice and went to see Erlat. I wasn’t expecting to sleep, but you never knew. Besides, she probably had a spare bed I could borrow if I felt like bathing myself in fear-sweat.
Hopefully she’d be here this time – over the last couple of days I’d tried a few times to see her but Kersan kept saying she was “busy”. I knocked on the door and restrained the urge to lie against it. I almost fell asleep in the two seconds it took before a familiar face opened it. Kersan smiled to see me, his clothes pristine as always, his smile perhaps a bit too practised, and told me in his smooth voice that “Madame is with a client. Would you care to wait?”
I would, although the thought of “with a client” always made me come over a bit funny. I’m not sure why but… Instead of thinking about that, about any of what was struggling in my brain, I studied the paintings on the wall, the nudes draped with bits of velvet, their bodies in new and, um, interesting positions. I must have fallen asleep without realising it, because Kersan’s voice made me sit up abruptly and wonder where in hell I was. I levered myself up, sweaty from some half-remembered dream, because the half I could remember was scaring the crap out of me.
Kersan ushered me into Erlat’s room. As always, no sign of anyone else ever having been here. Erlat was her polished self, her dark hair smoothed back into an elegant coil at the base of her neck, her movements slow and sensual, her mouth quick to laugh, at least when she saw me. Yet she seemed worn down somehow, tired and just that little bit frazzled, though she favoured me with a teasing smile and a wink, so whatever had her ruffled couldn’t be too bad.
“Well, if it isn’t my hero.” Her mouth taunted me with an impish grin and she smoothed her dark hair. “Don’t tell me, you’ve come to take me up on my offer. About time too.”
Rojan Dizon 03 - Last to Rise Page 12
