by Jaine Fenn
Dej laughed.
Initial surprise gave way to irritation. “I’m not sure what is so funny. This genuinely is a matter of life and death!”
“Well I don’t know whether you can make people live forever, though it seems unlikely. But I do know that you’ve got your facts wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not a skykin.”
“I assure you I was born to a skykin mother.”
“No, sorry, this isn’t funny. It’s grim, actually. Really grim. But the thing is: there’s no such thing as a skykin.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re all the same people.” She stroked her belly. “I’ve got a convincing argument for that right here.”
“I know skykin and shadowkin can have children; I was taught as much. The offspring become clanless.”
“That’s just tradition. It doesn’t have to be. We’re the same people, Sadakh! Right up until the animus gets dropped into a hole between our eyes. So, given you didn’t get bonded, you can expect to live as long as any shadowkin.”
“No. That can’t be.” How dare this young clanless tell him how the world worked!
“It is. I guess having a bit of animus-juice inside you might make some difference, but it’s not like it made any physical changes.”
“But the Book of Separation! The First divided the two races.”
“You believe in the First?” She grimaced. “Silly question, given your job.”
“I do believe, yes, though I also think we should question His nature.”
“Maybe we should. I’ll leave that to you.”
“Dej, this is knowledge you got from the seer.”
“Yes, it is.”
“But it goes against everything I was taught – you too, in the crèche.”
“Yes, because the truth isn’t something people could handle.”
“And what is the truth?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But he was a seeker of truths, however uncomfortable.
“There was a division long ago. That’s true enough. The humans – us – had a split, a disagreement. When they first arrived, one group wanted to change the world to suit them, while others wanted to change themselves to suit the world. The first lot – those who call themselves shadowkin now – set up areas of shade where the Sun couldn’t kill them. The others looked for ways to adapt themselves to the world. But it was too brutal, too… alien. Then they came across the people who’d always lived here.”
“What people?” Life was divided into people and animals; people were divided into skykin and shadowkin. Sadakh had never thought of the world in any other way. But it seemed he might be wrong on both counts.
“They’re known as the pale sisters. They’re all female, though that’s not relevant. And they’re… Do you know the word sentient?”
“It means they think. They are rational.”
“Yes, they are. But very different. They live in harmony with the world. After all, it’s their world.”
“So where did humans come from originally?”
Dej pointed straight up. “Oh. That’s quite a thought.”
“Tell me about it. And before you ask, no I don’t know how that worked. I do know our ancestors were stuck here and had to make the best of it.”
“Which they – we – did by disagreeing and dividing.”
“Yep. Gets worse. The humans who wanted to adapt to the world – we’ll call them the skykin – found the race that already did. Thanks to their animuses the pale sisters were – are – in tune with everything in the skyland in a way we outsiders can’t ever be.”
“These pale sisters have animuses?”
“More like, they are animuses. Proper, remember everything, effectively immortal, animuses. The animus lives in a series of bodies, same as for skykin, except they’re bonded from birth.”
Sadakh looked for arguments against this incredible proposition. “I can’t see how that would work, physically speaking.”
“Jat – the seer – thought they had pools that were somehow alive, where the old body breaks down and the new one forms round the animus, though he never saw one. Where do you think new animuses come from, Sadakh?”
“I was taught that they are formed slowly, in pools of the world’s blood.”
“Pools of the world’s blood. That sounds like what the pale sisters have. But we don’t. Though we’ve got something like it, modelled on theirs, where animuses wait between hosts.”
“I know this.”
“Course you do. But there’re these other pools, near the pale sisters’ lands in the south. That’s where Jat was, with a few other seers, plus healers, hunters and technicians. All on their last life, because once they’ve done their duty this knowledge is meant to die with them.”
“The knowledge of where our animuses truly come from, you mean.” Sadakh swallowed. “And when you say their duty…” He couldn’t say it, couldn’t form the words. Assuming he understood what she was saying.
“They take the animuses out of the heads of pale sisters and use tech to make them work for us.”
“Holy First. This kills the pale sister.”
“Oh yes. There’s a story says the first pale sister gave up her animus willingly and it was grown and changed and divided to create enough animuses for all the original settlers, though I’m not sure that works, given all the different roles in a clan. Even if it’s true, they – we – still keep having to kill the pale sisters now, to get more animuses.”
Sadakh wished his ghost would comment, would support or observe or be the voice of reason. But she didn’t. She was an illusion. A lie. Everything he believed was a lie. “Just to be clear: you’re saying that in order for our people to survive, we have, over the last few millennia, been slowly killing off this world’s original inhabitants.”
“That’s about right.”
“Why have these pale sisters not died out?”
“No idea. Jat thought that new pale sisters might be… spontaneously generated, the world replacing what it’s lost. He wasn’t sure. He did know that things are getting worse.”
“Worse? In what way?”
“The animuses taken from pale sisters don’t divide as easily now, and don’t live as long. It’d been happening slowly, over the last thousand years or so. It might be to do with some sort of world cycle – that’s what’s been causing the droughts. Or it might be something…” She waved a vague hand above her head “…we can’t imagine. The world fighting back, Jat called it. Whatever the reason, it means the skykin are diminishing.
Dying out.”
“I find this hard to believe.” But he didn’t, not really. He just didn’t want to believe it.
“Uh,” Dej was looking past him.
“Holiness?” He turned to looked at Naldak, standing in the open doorway.
He frowned. “Your interruption is ill-timed, to say the least.”
“Holiness, you’re needed in your reception room right now.”
“Can it wait?”
“Sorry, Holiness. It really can’t.”
CHAPTER 61
Their entry into Mirror-of-the-Sky was marked with the uncomfortable absurdities Rhia had come to expect from this new, senseless world.
She changed into her kirtle before they walked out onto the causeway leading into Mirror. The still-damp cloth clung uncomfortably.
When they gave their names to the scribe in his little booth by the causeway his reaction went from disbelief to mortification to panic, culminating in an earnest promise to send word to the Eternal Isle at once. Francin said, without obvious irony, that he would do his best to beat any messenger the scribe cared to send.
They secured separate punts at the first jetty they found, and split up.
Francin headed for the palace with Sorne and Grithim. Before they climbed aboard their boat, Francin put his hands on Etyan’s shoulders and said, “Try to keep your sister out of trouble.” Then he took both of Rhia’s ha
nds and said, “Try to keep your brother out of trouble.” He smiled. “And if it doesn’t offend your lack of religious sensibilities, may the First have mercy on us all.”
With some effort, she smiled back. “I’d say we need all the help we can get.”
A fifty-mark piece secured their puntsman’s unquestioning service for the rest of the day. She sat at the back with Etyan; Captain Deviock sat opposite. He was in uniform and subtly armed. Rhia chose to think of him as an honour guard rather than a bodyguard.
While the inky water slid past under the punt she took in the view of Mirror in the waning light: the golden walls and carved eaves and gables, the blues and greens of the window-shutters. The home she almost had. The home she might yet have. Or the place that would put an end to her.
The shroud that had insulated her these last few days was shredding. Every time the puntsman lifted his pole her mind sharpened. The fear remained, but buried deep. She could acknowledge the possibility of dying without the thought paralysing her. Her life was nothing. Francin had talked of “the fate of nations” but this was even bigger than that. Bigger than a single land. Bigger than a single people. This was the fate of the world.
She turned to Etyan, and took his hand in hers. The skin was rough, the bronzed pattern suggestive of scales. He was unique. He was her brother. He was the future.
He squeezed her hand in return. “My memories of the priory are a bit mixed.” He wasn’t a fool, even if he could be unbelievably foolish. Had he any idea what she was contemplating?
“Which is why I suggest you don’t come in with me.” One reason, anyway. Her response to his earlier, unexpectedly thoughtful, offer to help had been somewhat vague. Just lend what support you can. He’d accepted that. He had no reason to suspect ulterior motives; after all, he had no idea of the eparch’s other life, other interests. Nor did she, beyond his enquirer’s papers and his written support for her celestial theories. She had never met him. She could be misreading this situation. It had happened before. At best she was facing a hard task and an appalling dilemma. At worst… Thinking of worst cases would not help, at this stage.
They were approaching the priory isle. “Which jetty?” asked the puntsman.
How should I know? Happily, Deviock answered for her. “The quietest and most discreet.”
They pulled up to a side jetty, round the corner from the priory’s main entrance. Deviock reminded the puntsman that whilst the small fortune they had already paid secured his time, there could be more to come. The Zekti nodded, his eyes curious but his lips tight.
“I’m guessing you’re coming with me, Captain,” said Rhia.
“My job is to guard you. Also, his lordship should be safe enough here.”
“I’m not planning on going anywhere,” said Etyan.
Deviock produced a short, sheathed knife from a fold of his leather doublet. “Then hopefully his lordship will not need this. However, I will leave it anyway.”
The puntsman was doing a fine job of looking everywhere except at them. Etyan, for his part, stared at the weapon and looked pained.
Rhia murmured, “Just in case.” She’d gone into the priory armed last time, and given the dagger back unused. Which was not to say blood had not been shed. The fate of nations. And the world. She stood.
Thanks to their choice of jetty they had to pick their way along the ledge surrounding the priory buildings. The ledge gave onto the wooden platform at the front. Last time she’d been here was with Captain Sorne, to fetch Etyan. And now she had brought Etyan back. She looked over her shoulder; the boat was not visible from here. Good.
She glanced up. For once, Zekt’s skies were clear. The Sun was a soft yellow ball bright enough to make her squint but still bearable even if she looked directly at it, just as it had been in the shadowlands for thousands of years. She had lived her whole life assuming a normality that was an illusion, a fallible construct.
The priory’s main entrance was far quieter than on her first visit, which had been on a restday, but they still got curious glances from boatmen waiting in their punts. A pair of men in ceremonial robes with obsidian-tipped spears flanked the wide entrance. Rhia did not remember seeing guards here before, but they would do as well as anyone. She strode up to the nearest and said, “I need to see the eparch on a matter of grave urgency.”
The man’s reaction was not unlike the scribe at the gates: to look at her rumpled and obviously-foreign clothes, her partly masked face, her dark expression, and take to step back. She sighed, and thrust her signet-ring under his nose. “I am Countess Harlyn of Shen and I have had a long, hard journey to get here. I must speak with the eparch. Now.”
The man looked at her escort, most specifically at the weapons at Deviock’s belt. “You cannot enter the priory armed.”
Which had not been an issue last time, given they had sneaked in.
“All right.” She turned to the militiaman. “Please relinquish your weapons to these gentlemen.”
Deviock unhooked the short-stave from his belt then drew his sword. The man tensed as the diamond-dusting on the ironwood blade caught the sunlight, but relaxed when Deviock handed it over hilt-first.
“Now will you do as I ask?” Rhia demanded.
The guard placed the weapons at his feet and exchanged glances with his partner, then said, “I will find someone to escort you within and see if I can locate His Holiness.”
“Yes, do that. Please.” She felt her voice breaking; most undignified.
He was gone a few moments, then returned with a stout woman in a long tunic. She curtsied and said, “Kindly follow me, m’lady.”
The servant led them through identical corridors; perhaps she should try and memorise their route in case she had to leave suddenly. Then again, if her words did not win the eparch over he would hardly let her walk out. Deviock padded along at her side, silent and alert. Even unarmed, she was glad of his presence.
The room she was shown to was airy and pleasant, with an excess of draperies and soft furnishings and a low central table, though no actual chairs of course. The servant curtsied and left. Despite the urgency Rhia would have appreciated being offered refreshments, but then her visit was as unexpected as it got so the lapse was understandable. No doubt Francin was causing a similar upset at the palace.
Deviock stationed himself near the door. Rhia paced as far as the cushion-scattered floor allowed, and tried not to fret. She was assuming their shared status as enquirers would make Sadakh sympathetic to her, but she knew so little of him. And the news she brought was so bad, and the proposition so outlandish; she had no idea how it would be received.
CHAPTER 62
There would never be a better moment.
Dej stayed stock-still when Sadakh left, in case he did something useful like call one of the guards away, but she heard him tell them both to stay put before he strode off.Despite the weight of the life inside her she felt oddly light. She’d shared Jat’s burden. Let this churchman, this half-seer, deal with knowing just what a terrible world they lived in, and that they were all doomed.
“Except you and I aren’t doomed just yet,” she whispered, “are we girl?”
She felt more warmly towards the eparch now; they’d shared unspeakable secrets. But that didn’t mean she trusted him. And it didn’t mean she was happy to remain at his mercy.
She crawled over to the side wall and pulled away the blankets she’d shoved back to hide the hole. She’d started by scoring the wall with one claw-like nail in a criss-cross pattern; then she’d pressed on the weakened plaster with her palm until it cracked and broke. After that it had been a case of widening the hole and pulling out the dried mud and straw from the core of the wall. She’d trickled it into various boxes; the housekeepers would curse her.
Being discovered was a constant worry, as was finding that the wall’s supports were too close together, or that there was something solid against the far side. She’d had to widen her initial hole to allow for a diagonal wood
en batten that looked structural. Then, just before Sadakh’s arrival, she’d reached the thin membrane of plaster on the far side, and it’d given way under her hand, revealing a dim but empty space.
Now she sat down, reached in, and began pulling at the plaster to widen the hole. She paused every now and then to listen, but didn’t hear anything from the next room. She’d planned to break out late tonight, when no one was around and the guards wouldn’t be paying as much attention, but that might be too late.
She wasn’t sure what was important enough to make the eparch abandon their conversation, but she was sure he’d be back as soon as he was done. And now she’d changed the game, and revealed how unique her child was, he’d be more interested in her than ever.
A large hunk of plaster cracked, the sound painfully loud. Dej paused, hand in the wall. She stared at the door, willing it not to open.
It stayed closed. She breathed again, and poked at the cracked plaster. It crumbled. The hole looked big enough now. She shoved a tunic she’d filched from a box through, then shifted onto all fours. She paused. Her belly hung down, pulling at her spine, the child inside shifting. Was this wise? Perhaps not, but she wasn’t going to wait meekly on Sadakh’s pleasure. Worst case, if she was recaptured he’d just find somewhere else, more secure, to put her. He used people, but he wasn’t a total bastard like Cal.
She put her head into the hole. Straw pattered down. But the wall was only a couple of handbreadths wide. She pushed through, then raised her head when it was out the far side.
Ouch. Her head hit something solid overhead. A table? She cursed and crouched lower, then eased forward, keeping her head down. Her shoulders clipped the gap; more plaster fell. The baby kicked again. But she kept going, pushing through. On the far side she went down onto her forearms and crawled, backside in the air and belly bumping the floorboards, until she was out from under whatever she’d banged her head on.
She rolled over onto her back and used the tunic to wipe the plaster dust out of her eyes. She’d come out from under a bed. She levered herself onto her elbows and looked around. She was in a deserted dormitory.
