He felt astonishment write itself across his face, opening his eyes, parting his lips, charming them into a curl of wonder. Isabeau Huntingore the student of Parlumi Night?
In the quiet forest the pale branch put down roots.
Zharazin moved on. It was getting late. The Empress would be closing her final court session and moving into the early evening’s relaxation. But of course now she had the Karoo. He moved with authority through the corridors, all the time planning an excuse to gain entrance but the place was thick with other busybodies all hoping for a similar opportunity. Against his will he slowed down and made small talk with a number of lawyers gathering in preparation for a mass exodus to their company halls; they liked to keep infomancers on their good side. Among them he saw Granth Tabror, Minister Alide’s closest personal friend. He was arguing quietly but intently with a young woman wearing senior prosecutor’s robes although Zharazin was too far away to hear the words. They broke it off as they neared the pack, both looking as if they were well displeased with grim business and each other.
Zharazin made his goodbyes and caught the prosecutor eyeing him. He recognised the momentary stillness of someone putting a name to a face in a place and stood still cooperatively until acuity replaced the brief emptiness in her eyes.
‘Infomancer,’ she said, beckoning to him with one hand, the other supporting her large stack of files. ‘Attend me, please.’
He moved towards her and she led off without a backward glance, confident that he would obey. He did, of course. Regardless of what she wanted her air of command was deeply attractive and there was always the lure of the unknown to add to that – a lure he had never successfully resisted.
Their walk took them into one of the annexes, an ordered, near silent place of whispering clerks and rustling papers overlaid with the smell of tea and spiced biscuits. The prosecutor headed directly for a private carrel where she must routinely consult with her opposite numbers on cases whilst searching for common grounds. She indicated he could take the client seat opposite her own, then dumped the papers unceremoniously on the edge of the massive desk – a block of wood that would have burned for weeks in an emergency. She dumped herself into the consultant’s chair. She was small and light so the leather only creaked and then left her like a slouched pixie in the scoop made by years of much fatter legal arses. It somewhat spoiled her air of power and made her look girlish and vulnerable. He suspected this was intentional. It worked. He had to exert an effort to maintain his louche detachment and charm while uneducable parts of him struggled to rush forward and act protective. Luckily he had a lot of practice in not reacting to basic feminine control strategies. Parlumi Night had taught him very well.
‘My name is Dresilan Shon,’ she said, quiet enough so they wouldn’t be overheard. ‘I make sure guilty people get what they deserve.’ Her accent was so high town he could picture her in elocution lessons training the Glimshard slum vowels to round out, though traces of them lingered here and there; the promise of a shiv hidden in a silk stocking. She smiled prettily.
He smiled back, slow, charmed, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
‘One of my deserving cases has recently attempted to plea bargain by offering the Empress the names of several people whom he alleges are conspirators in a plot of some importance involving one of our sister cities. I have no means at present of determining whether or not the names he dropped are of value and I need someone to find out for me…’ She stopped, her dark brown eyes radiating steady concentration, willing him to get the picture without her having to state it. He knew this type of hesitation. He’d just used it on Borze.
‘Without going through the usual channels?’ he suggested, relaxing now that he understood this was simply work for hire.
‘Exactly. If you wish to take the job I expect total confidentiality. Absolute. The payment would reflect this of course. And there would be a sum for your expenses and bonds to cover injury and death in service. Standard measures.’ Her face betrayed no particular interest as she relayed this laundry list although suddenly every hair on his body reported trouble. It might have been the bonds. They were only offered for Special Service Agents, which would ordinarily have been recruited officially via Shrazade herself as head of the Infomancy. Excluding the system meant the system was under suspicion.
Zharazin saw his field of vision flatten as he considered it, even though he knew he was considering it purely for show, just so that it looked as though he had a grain of sense and cared for his own hide, possibly his reputation, maybe that he was assessing whether or not he had the skills and the balls for the job. In fact he was simply savouring the moment, a delicious, open slit of opportunity, all difficulty to come, all ripe and ready.
‘Why would you ask me in a public place?’
‘I am seizing an opportunity presented by chance. I know you sufficiently well by reputation that I am sure you won’t say no, so let’s not pretend you will.’
He felt slightly daunted but he shrugged and grinned to show she had nailed him.
She had not finished however. ‘I expect you have not considered the outcome if the names prove to be sufficiently suspicious to demand action.’
‘That… would depend on the nature of said suspicions.’ He was listening now, listening hard.
She nodded, ‘Much would then be asked of you, Mazhd. The Empress would not have time or means perhaps to dispense justice in the formal manner.’
Killing. And then afterwards, if he lived, he could expect a new identity if all went well and a fresh grave if not. And if all went well and Shrazade found out she might choose to impress her new recruits by making an example of a traitor: she’d make him into Living Memory, the fate of all disloyal infomancers: he would feel nothing, just eat, live, shit and speak when spoken to until old age or dementia ruined his storage capacity. Yes, much indeed. And it was already too late to say no.
‘It sounds dreadfully expensive,’ he said, smoothing the perfect line of his tailored coat.
‘Even more than you think,’ she said, closed her eyes for a second and sighed out through her nose, a short and dismissive sound. When she opened them again she gave him a smile and stood up. ‘I am done for the day and I could use some relaxation. How about dinner and dancing? Are you free?’
Now they exchanged frank and fair looks, conclusion foregone. It was the fact that she didn’t care if he said no that made him say yes and mean it. Yes to all that. Yes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TZABAN
Tzaban was surprised to be hijacked directly off the parade grounds, and by the Empress in person and not some gang of lackeys. Her retinue ignored the hastily self-arranging soldiers, attempting a lineup while her horse paced between them like a galleon moving under silent sail, its massive quivering nostrils the only sign of agitation. Tzaban adopted a submissive, gentle posture, three-quarters on and relaxed while a stream of barked orders and scraping boots passed around him in a flood of nervous tension. His brief island existence ended as the horse arrived, and then its partner, an altogether more massive animal whose gaze and curved neck held generations of haughty power like a drawn bow. He didn’t even need to look at the rider to understand who it was: her bodyguard, the Steppe nomad. Their horse-talking skills were legendary. The animal’s every inch spoke for him and promised Tzaban death if he made a false move.
A shimmering white veil surrounded them. He was aware of mages moving within shifting folds of light, planeshifting as they cast the glamour that enclosed him with the Empress, the guard and one of her running girls. To his left, the crowd faded out into a soft, rushing quiet and brilliance. To his right, General Borze alone remained standing on the stone flags at attention, saluting. Tzaban watched him for a cue and saw absolute dedication and respect in the general’s eyes. He bowed his head and waited.
The runner, a tall and gawky girl with short black hair who barely came up to his shoulder, moved forwards as if underwater. Her movements appeared confident b
ut he could smell her fear of him. It combined with the other odours of her fertility, the stallions’ barely restrained energies, the Steppe horselord’s dominant tone and a soft, mesmerising scent like opium, Imperial female and roses that he knew to be the Empress – a unique smell. Once, when he first came across it, snooping around the palace towers in his winged form, he had thought it was a perfume. Only after a while did he understand it was actually her and although his body identified it with those plants that was only because it had never before had a template with which to identify an Empress. Even on him it had a pacifying effect, although not as powerful as that which it exerted on other Imperials, he was sure. This was why the runner was treading so carefully towards him.
He bowed his head as low as he could without seeming ridiculous and let his body drop into a smaller shape. He thought it better not to look up, even though Borze did. Borze was one of them. He was not. The girl’s fearful energy washed at him like a clammy wave. He saw her holding something out, heard her start talking in a whisper which she quickly cleared with a small cough and made into a proper voice,
‘We do not wish to imprison you but please accompany us back to the palace.’
He reached out and took the silvery paper she was trying to give him, studied it for a moment and then said truthfully, ‘I cannot read this.’
She looked at him for a moment and then nodded and took it back, turning it the right way up to read it for him but she was interrupted by the Empress’s quiet, soft voice.
‘Be at ease, General. Tzaban, it is an invitation to be my guest. Will you come and stay a few days? I would be glad to get to know you better.’
Tzaban felt the subtle power of her persuasion like a soft hand on the back of his neck. It was a caress. Force would have made him shy but he expected compulsion of some kind, not this. For a second he was undone. He was sad when his sense of self returned and felt the looming presence of the bodyguard’s intent held in check only by the near-imperceptible chains of rose and opium.
‘I will come.’
‘Run with our girl.’ Again, that touch: velvet smoke on his nose, on his skin.
‘In her footsteps,’ he agreed, still staring at the pavement, the horses’ legs, the girl’s hands fumbling with her useless note.
‘And you, General,’ she said, a smile shaping her voice. ‘Be also invited.’
The white company moved forwards and he fell into place as promised, his eyes on the girl’s back as it moved with the strong, regular stride of her paces. His feet had twenty miles in them already but he didn’t feel that at all, didn’t see the streets or the people, the veil or anything but the moving back in front of him as he focused on his discovery: the Empress was dangerous in a way he’d never suspected. This kind of rule and mastery was familiar to him, but he hadn’t seen much of it among the human population. Mastery of energy and intent combined with biochemical pressure – that was all a Karoo thing. Ordinary humans, even the Imperials, had never had much of a hold on him. This on the other hand – this he had to find out about. And where Karoos would use force most of the time that way, she used… What was that? Affection?
He would have liked to say it hadn’t worked, that he had to go, that this was part of his mission anyway but he wasn’t sure and that was enough to scatter him about. It took the whole road up to the palace to pick up the pieces. The only upside was that, apart from the Steppe man, there was nobody there who noticed his confusion.
Tzaban attuned to him as they arrived, realising that he was the best barometer for judging the Empress. Always beside her, chosen for deep instinctive reactions to her every mood, he was a book Tzaban could read: one without words. The man’s back showed only devotion, there was no danger.
They arrived at the doors and the white, dazzling veil fell away. He looked up from the narrow waist and tabard he’d been watching and saw Borze getting off a horse, fussing his armour as he attempted to look prepared. The runner looked back at Tzaban and beckoned. He followed her and the retinue indoors, suddenly feeling huge as the building closed in around him, shutting away the sky and the space.
It took all his composure to work himself into the tiny enclosures and not panic. He was grateful then for the girl and her eager steps that tried to be away from him and slow enough not to seem like running at the same time. He mapped himself on the four bare inches of skin above her belt, made himself small, becoming domesticated, mannered, quiet, contained.
They came to a large room, mercifully high and round, full of banners and flickering lights but even so, better. There was a circulation of people – servants, courtiers, guards – and then he was left alone. The Empress was in her throne, at the centre, higher. The guard stood lower, at her side, very still and relaxed, hand on his polearm. Tzaban recognised someone who knew he could win any fight he wanted to and although it spurred him to challenge he didn’t rise.
‘Be at your ease,’ the Empress said, her voice lighter in here as if it had to diffuse across a wider area.
Tension left Tzaban’s shoulders. He straightened and looked up, suddenly fundamentally uncertain that all his submission had been his choice. He would have hated to meet anyone this way, with that doubt in his gaze, but when he saw her he found himself staring with all expectations lost.
The girl standing before her chair was small and aside from some decoration on her white robes, undecorated. Her brown hair fell softly around her shoulders and framed a square face with a long, strong nose and large, intelligent eyes that looked at him with vivid interest. A gentle kind of artless sweetness and genuine amazement shone out of them. Freckles splashed her nose and cheeks and her lips were chapped pink with anxious biting and what he thought was a degree of arousal, possibly for him or about him. She was about sixteen, maybe not even that.
He glanced at the bodyguard and was met by a familiar wall of male conviction that resolved only a moment or two later into wiry power, muscle, a dark skin, long braids tied back in a gold tail, heavy brows, eyes like liquid death. There was nothing about Hakka that didn’t belong to her. He might as well have been an additional limb, so much he was part of her person.
Tzaban looked back at the Empress and then searched for Borze, found him kneeling on the carpet, head bowed.
This time there was no velvet weight on his own neck. Tzaban knelt anyway, on one knee, feeling the run suddenly as an aching pull in his legs. The Empress was the focus of his attention, drawing it out of him as surely as if she’d sliced him up and pulled out his guts. Her energy was phenomenal. He couldn’t reconcile it with that slight, unimportant form. It seemed to belong to something much bigger and more impressive than a simple human woman. When he closed his eyes he saw something he didn’t understand. Eight. She was one but to the power of eight. He opened his eyes and looked up.
The girl spoke in a soft voice; she sounded like a dutiful daughter. ‘Please be at ease, gentlemen. No ceremony now. We have had enough of that today. This is an informal meeting.’ Even her voice was ordinary. There was a croak in it from a great deal of talking that had gone before. Tzaban vaguely recalled that she held courts all day.
He got up to his feet and stood at his full height. Her throne lifted her high but he was nearly at eye level with her. He did not look at her directly, although Borze did, as though they knew each other well and he was in trust. Tzaban was surprised, even more so by her faint but sincere smile as the general spoke.
‘Your descent has spared me a difficult journey.’
The Empress waved a hand, dismissing his thanks. ‘I saw no other course of action that left any of us with good face. This way I look commanding and you look honoured, our party will be extended across the city and everyone in the ensuing celebrations gabbles about our guest here without actually seeing him any more.’
Borze nodded, looking quite boyish under her approval suddenly. The Empress turned her oddly serene regard to Tzaban. He assumed from her statement she intended to incarcerate him. Her words remained
directed at Borze.
‘What report do you have of him now that you have had a chance to observe?’
Borze looked straight ahead. ‘He is as he claimed, a survivor, a fighter, capable of training others.’
The Empress wrinkled her nose. ‘No, but really.’
Borze relaxed abruptly as if he’d had his strings cut. ‘I can’t find any sign of misdoing in him. He goes where he’s told and does his duties. If he has a vice I don’t see it. Doesn’t spend money on anything but food and not much of that.’
‘How disarmingly dull,’ the Empress tapped her fingers on the arm of the throne and looked at Hakka who had not moved in all the time they had been speaking. ‘What say you, Hakka?’
The guard shifted his weight slightly, looking at Tzaban with a flat, immovable gaze. Tzaban made himself look down at the floor though it cut him half through to do it.
Hakka’s voice was so low it had a resonance Tzaban could feel in his gut. ‘Highly dominant. Full of secrets. Waiting for something. Not immediately dangerous but potentially so. A master of energy. Jai Karoo, a shapeshifter, by his smell. He has been here before, I recognise his presence, though I didn’t know it at the time.’
Tzaban’s eyes flicked back up to Hakka almost against his will. He had no idea how this man knew so much.
‘Well, Tzaban, your posture fools nobody here, stand tall and be yourself,’ the Empress said in her soft voice.
He straightened but he didn’t square off with Hakka, he kept that man and Borze at oblique angles. To his surprise the Steppelander relaxed, and that sudden permission allowed him to do the same. Borze seemed unaware of the exchange. Tzaban decided to speak his mind and dare the consequences.
‘Why is it so many of your people are blind to their instincts?’
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