by Anthony Ryan
“A simple matter of practicalities. The two Cadres that serve this empire are like conjoined twins that hate each other, forever trapped in conflict knowing all the while that if one dies so does the other, and then so does the empire.”
“Do you know where Kalasin is? An associate of mine is very keen to see him.”
“Spirited himself away the moment your rabble reached the suburbs, I expect. A rat always finds a hole to crawl into.”
Sefka slumped a little then, her only sign of weakness so far, raising a hand to her forehead before forcing herself once again into a pose of rigid elegance. “So, what is your intent, pray tell?” she asked, voice as calm as before. “Some prolonged torture before you hand me over to your radical friends? Or just a nice, tidy assassination? I do know an awful lot of ugly things about your Syndicate, after all. Things I’m sure you wouldn’t want heard in public.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Lizanne sighed, tired of repeating this particular mantra. “Why do none of you understand how little any of your intrigues and your wars matter now? There is only one war that matters.”
“Oh yes, your monsters are coming to eat us, aren’t they?” Sefka gave a girlish giggle, swaying a little. Lizanne stepped forward, looking over the countess’s shoulder to see the small empty bottle that lay in her upturned hands. “Heard you sploshing about,” Sefka said, turning to her with a pouting grin, like a child caught in a minor transgression. “Sorry, but I couldn’t face the show trial. The torture I think I might have withstood, but not the trial . . .”
Lizanne grabbed Sefka about the shoulders, forcing her off the bench and onto her back. Sefka struggled feebly, groaning in annoyance as Lizanne held her down with a knee to her chest and pulled the Green vial from her Spider.
“No!” Sefka’s struggles became fiercer, jerking her head away as Lizanne pressed the vial to her lips. “Not fair! You won . . .”
Lizanne clamped a hand on Sefka’s face, forcing her mouth open then pouring the Green down her throat. Lizanne pushed the woman’s jaws together, pinching her nose to force her to swallow. She convulsed for a short while, Lizanne feeling her heart slow, the pulse fading almost to nothing before returning with a strong, poison-free thump.
Sefka stared up at her as Lizanne stood back. “You vicious, hateful bitch!” the countess hissed, eyes and voice alive with hate.
“I’ve never been vicious,” Lizanne replied, leaning closer to deliver a hard tap with her fore-knuckles to Sefka’s temple, leaving her unconscious on the floor. “But I will admit to hating you a great deal.”
• • •
She found a boat moored on the leeward side of the island. After rowing to shore Lizanne hefted Sefka’s body over her shoulder and made towards the ring of temples. Smoke was rising from the palace complex itself where, as she expected, the bulk of the People’s Freedom Army were busy ransacking the once-sacred seat of Imperial power. Consequently she enjoyed an uninterrupted journey to the temples, attracting little attention as there were plenty of others carrying wounded away for treatment. The bodies of Household troops and palace courtiers littered the ground whilst others had been used to decorate the many trees dotted about the palace grounds. Lizanne passed an acacia with branches sagging under the weight of dismembered body parts.
Victory is never glorious, Arberus had said and, for all his radical nonsense, she knew there was wisdom there too.
With so many riches to be had in the palaces the bare stone temples had so far attracted little attention from the mob save for some minor vandalism. She knew that would change in time, such a visible reminder of the Imperial pantomime would inevitably face destruction, but for now it provided a useful refuge.
The door to the tomb of Empress-cum-Emperor Azireh lay closed and locked on this occasion, but the lock was unable to resist a blast of Black. Lizanne kicked the part-ruined door aside and carried Sefka into the tomb, dumping her on the floor.
“Have you brought me a gift, love?”
He was much as she remembered him, standing stooped half in shadow, cane in hand and face veiled by slack grey hair.
“It’s more of a peace offering,” Lizanne replied. “A gesture of goodwill, you might say.”
“And what would you want with my goodwill?” Behind the grey veil she saw cracked lips sliding over yellow teeth in a hesitant parody of a smile. The tension in him was obvious in the way his bony hands rested on his cane, veins standing out and gnarled knuckles turning from red to pink. Unlike Sefka, he was far from accepting of his fate.
“Nothing,” Lizanne replied. “But you have information I require. Tell me what I want to know and you can have her”—she nudged Sefka’s limp form with her toe—“and I’ll allow you to escape through the passage-way concealed beneath this tomb.”
“What passage-way?”
Lizanne returned his smile with one of her own. “You wouldn’t have risked being seen coming here the night we met. Not with so many of Sefka’s people watching your movements. I expect Azireh had it built, somewhere to hide her treasure perhaps. She did hide something here besides that scroll didn’t she?”
Kalasin’s forced smile broadened, hair swaying as he gave a slight nod. “It transpired the Empress and I shared an interest in the Artisan, she being his contemporary. Upon achieving the throne she began to amass all the artifacts and documents she could, hiding them here in the hope that some worthy soul might discover them one day.”
Instead, it was you. Lizanne resisted the impulse to voice the thought. Let the old man talk. The more he talks the less potent the product in his veins.
“There was a vault where she kept it all,” the Blood Imperial went on. “I suppose that’s where my little hobby really started. Who knew it would lead to all this?”
“And the passage-way?”
“Built it meself, with a little help from my children. Took a long time but eventually I had a convenient means of getting about and beyond the Sanctum without being seen.”
“Which begs the question of why you linger here instead of making your escape.”
“Where the fuck d’you imagine I would go, love? Besides”—his hands twitched on the cane—“I was really hoping to see you again.”
He was quick but she was ready for him, unleashing her Black a fraction of a second after he lashed out with his. The competing waves of force met, birthing a thunder-clap that sent them both reeling. Kalasin proved the illusory nature of his infirmity by scrambling to his feet in an instant, whirling to face her with no sign of a stoop. But, spry as he was, he was still several decades Lizanne’s senior and it was clear to her he hadn’t faced combat with another Blood-blessed in years.
She injected a burst of Green and sprang aside as he summoned Red, casting out a stream of fire. Lizanne rolled across the dusty floor as the flames flashed overhead before sliding over the walls, then replied with a second burst of Black. He dodged, moving with speed that told of a heavy ingestion of Green, but was fractionally too slow. The force wave caught his shoulder, spinning him around to collide with the wall. Lizanne heard the dry crack of breaking bone as the old man rebounded, a shrill gasp escaping his lips.
Lizanne cast her remaining Black out like a whip, snaring Kalasin in an unseen vise, holding him in place as she got to her feet and moved towards him. “You’re out of practice,” she observed.
He snarled at her, all pretence of humanity vanished from a face now revealed in full. Seeing the deeply etched lines and liver-spotted skin of his hate-filled visage, Lizanne realised that he was far older than she first thought. “Excessive and prolonged use of Green,” she said, marvelling at the amount of product he must ingest on a daily basis, “is not a good idea, even for a Blood-blessed.”
Kalanis strained against his invisible bonds, spittle leaking over his age-cracked lips, an odour fouler than the Scorazin midden rising from his mouth.
�
��The countess said you intended to kill me on my return,” Lizanne went on. “And seize what I had worked so hard to retrieve. What were you going to do with him?”
The Blood Imperial said nothing, his ancient features hardening into a defiant mask. Lizanne summoned a small amount of Red, igniting the tip of one of his lank tendrils of hair, letting it curl up towards his face. “Unlike you I do not revel in cruelty,” she told him. “But do not imagine I will baulk at this. What were you going to do with the Tinkerer?”
Her Green-boosted hearing saved her, detecting the metallic scrape of the cross-bow’s lock just before the bolt was launched. She dropped, feeling the projectile flutter her hair before finding a target in the Blood Imperial’s forehead. He hung in the grip of her Black for a second, a small trickle of blood making its way from the embedded steel dart into his eyes, which blinked once before all light faded away.
Lizanne whirled, taking Kalasin’s body with her, swinging him around like a club as Anatol cast his cross-bow aside and charged from the tomb’s doorway, a large knife shining in his fist. The giant managed to cover only a yard before the Blood Imperial smashed him into Azireh’s sarcophagus with sufficient force to displace the lid, Lizanne hearing the multiple dry-wood crackle of shattered bones.
She loosed her hold on Kalasin’s corpse and drew her pistol, moving to stand over Anatol’s broken form. He glared up at her with a hate she knew to be far more justified than the Blood Imperial’s. This she had earned.
“I said I was sorry about Melina,” she told him.
“Sorry . . .” Anatol spat blood at her and tried vainly to stand, sinking back down with a shout of frustration. “What is . . . sorry to me? Or to . . . her?” he replied in a series of pain-filled grunts. “Sorry meant . . . shit in Scorazin. Means shit now.”
“Did the Electress send you or was this your idea?”
He angled his head at her, glowering and saying nothing.
“Promised you would get your chance when the Sanctum fell, I expect.” Lizanne bent and retrieved his knife from the floor. “Do you mind? I need to borrow this.”
Sefka came awake after a few hard slaps, blinking in grim realisation at the sight of Lizanne’s face. “Didn’t expect you to do this yourself,” she said, eyeing the knife in Lizanne’s hand. “I rather assumed you would hand me over to your rebel friends to play with.”
“Get up,” Lizanne told her. She went to the sarcophagus, standing on tip-toe to peer down at the contents. As expected there was no sign of Azireh’s bones, just a series of steps descending into deep gloom.
“You really are settling a lot of old scores today, aren’t you?” Sefka asked, Lizanne glancing over to see her peering at the Blood Imperial’s corpse. “I do wish I’d been awake for that.”
“It’s time for you to go, Countess,” Lizanne said, stepping back and nodding at the open sarcophagus. “I’m afraid you’ll probably have to do a fair bit of wandering about to find it, but I’m reliably informed there’s a passage down there that will take you beyond the walls.”
Sefka stared at her, unmoving. Lizanne doubted this woman was capable of such mundane emotions as surprise and her reaction was more likely a symptom of well-justified suspicion. “You’re just going to let me go?” she said, voice laden with doubt.
“Clan leader Ahnkrit and I reached an agreement regarding your future,” Lizanne told her. “You’ll find him at Scorazin. How or if you manage to get there is not my concern, but I’m sure it’s a task well within your capabilities.”
“Ahnkrit,” Sefka repeated softly, pursing her lips. “Mother used to beat me if I wasn’t kind to the other children at court. Now I see why.”
“A certain degree of urgency is required,” Lizanne said, her voice growing hard.
Sefka inclined her head then paused to crouch at the Blood Imperial’s side. “Good-bye, Kalasin,” she said, teasing the slack grey tendrils from his face. “It was a singular displeasure knowing you.” She tugged the cane from his stiff fingers and straightened. “You’ll allow me a souvenir, I hope,” she said to Lizanne, hefting the cane as she moved to the sarcophagus.
Lizanne said nothing and Sefka shrugged, hauling herself onto the edge of the marble box and swinging about. “You really should kill me, you know?” she said before slipping from sight.
Lizanne listened to her footsteps fade away before replying. “I know.”
• • •
The Blood Imperial’s head gave a soft thud as it landed on the steps of the Imperial palace. The Electress stood with her fleshy arms folded, regarding the grisly trophy in expressionless silence for some time. Her band of Fury body-guards stood behind her, all impressively festooned with jewellery and fine clothes looted from various palaces. Lizanne could see Tinkerer standing amongst them. She hadn’t been this close to him since Scorazin and saw that, whilst his clothing had changed from a besmirched set of miner’s overalls to a long, deep-pocketed coat, his demeanour hadn’t. He greeted her with a short nod as Lizanne met his gaze, face betraying neither fear nor anticipation at the prospect of release from the Electress’s clutches.
At the base of the steps Arberus looked on with what appeared to be the entire Co-respondent Brotherhood arrayed behind him in loose but attentive order. A large number of the army’s rank and file were also present, although most were too preoccupied with looting or vandalism to afford this meeting much attention. Arberus was flanked by Hyran and Kraz, with Jelna standing a short way off. Lizanne could see Makario loitering on the fringes of the Brotherhood and felt some measure of relief at finding him only lightly wounded, standing with his arm in a sling as he waved at her with his free hand.
“Anatol?” the Electress asked, glancing up from Kalasin’s bleached, sagging features.
“Sleeping in the Tomb of Emperor Azireh,” Lizanne replied. “I dosed him with Green, he should heal in time.”
“Unusually nice of you. Where’s Countess Sefka?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Lying bitch.”
Lizanne gave a bland smile and nodded at the object lying at Atalina’s feet. “Our contract is fulfilled. I require payment.”
The Electress replied with a smile of equal blandness, looking over her shoulder at Tinkerer. “His value’s gone up since. Those marvellous toys of his really do make a difference and I’d hazard that I’ll have more than a few battles to fight soon.”
“That is not my concern. And I have no inclination to bargain with you further.” Lizanne flexed her fingers over the Spider. “So I’ll make it very simple for you. Give him to me or I’ll kill you and take him.”
“In front of this army?” The Electress raised her heavy brows in mock surprise. “My army, love.”
“Really? You imagine it’s you they followed here.” Lizanne cast a pointed glance at Arberus. “Or do you imagine they don’t know the debt they owe Miss Blood? How do you think they’ll react when they find out you tried to assassinate me on this day of victory? Some will no doubt seek to avenge your death, but far from all and unless you have some Blood-blessed to call on at this juncture I’d say you have no more cards to play.”
Lizanne shifted her gaze to Tinkerer, raising her hand to beckon him from the midst of the Electress’s guards. He started forward after a moment’s hesitation, stopping when the Furies began to reach for their weapons.
“Leave it!” the Electress barked, her gaze still fixed on Lizanne. “Let him go.”
The Furies parted ranks, allowing Tinkerer to walk free. He moved towards Lizanne in a wide arc, well clear of Atalina’s reach.
“Any chance you might finally tell me why he’s so fucking important?” Atalina asked.
“He’s going to save the world.” Lizanne raised her gaze to the smoke rising from a large blaze in the palace roof, then lowered it to survey the corpse-littered grounds and the hordes of rebels rushing off
with their bundles of loot as if worried someone might snatch it away. “Such as it is,” she added, inclining her head at the Electress and turning to descend the steps with Tinkerer in tow.
“I’ll escort you to the docks,” Arberus said as she paused at his side. He was unharmed but heavily besmirched from the battle, his uniform torn and stained with loyalist blood. Even so it seemed to her he had grown even taller now and, when future artists inevitably came to record this scene on canvas, he would be the principal subject.
“I think you had better stay here,” she replied, glancing over her shoulder at the Electress, still glowering away at the top of the steps. “Remind the new regime of its treaty obligations. They might feel they’ve scored a great victory, but all they’ve won is the right to stand against the White’s onslaught, and it is coming. Make sure they know that.”
She stepped closer, raising herself up to plant a kiss on his cheek, knowing it would be the last they ever shared. “Don’t let her live another night,” she whispered before stepping back.
“The Blood Imperial is dead,” she said, turning to Hyran and extending her hand. “Perhaps they’ll name you his replacement, though Blood Republican doesn’t scan so well.”
He ignored her hand and enfolded her in a tight embrace, murmuring, “Please stay.”
“I can’t.” She eased him back then turned to Makario, gesturing for him to follow as she led Tinkerer away.
“Where might we be going?” the musician asked, hurrying to catch up as she strode from the palace grounds.
“To the docks where we will take a ship to Feros,” she replied. “My father has an old pianola that hasn’t been played in years. And I believe I will require an accomplished musician to complete this mission.”
CHAPTER 50
Sirus
Katarias roared as Feros appeared through the drifting clouds below, an exultant blast of anticipation echoed by the huge flock of Reds filling the sky on either side. Sirus could see the waves roiling against the harbour wall in a white froth, driven by the three moons that provided ample light with which to view the city. It seemed so small at this height, just a cluster of pale blocks and dark lines fringing the wide bowl-shaped bay that formed the harbour. She must be sleeping somewhere down there, he thought as his gaze tracked to the bright wakes of the main assault force to the south. And I have come to rouse her to a nightmare.
