“Wait,” she says, “don’t run.”
“Run?” Emlin echoes, playing dumb. The spy approves.
“I saw you come off the rowing boat. You came in from the Isle of Statues.”
“What if I did?” The boy bristles, clenches his fist.
The spy steps in. “What concern is it of yours, old mother?”
“You didn’t want to go through the checks at Hark. You were marked in the war, weren’t you? Let me look at you.” She reaches up to turn Emlin’s face to hers, and the spy sees that her left hand is scaly, clawed, disproportionate to her arm. A magical transformation gone awry perhaps, or a battle scar of the Godswar. “I can’t see any marks,” she says, “but you were in the wars, weren’t you?”
“At Severast,” says the spy. It’s true, after all. There and many other places, but it was Severast that changed him.
“I am Jaleh,” says the priestess, “I have a place where you can both stay for a while. The Holy Beggar looks after his own. Tell me, what’s your name?”
Sanhada Baradhin has drowned. X84’s dormant for now. And the spy believes in his own luck.
He plucks a common name from the air, a Guerdon name. “I’m Alic.”
CHAPTER 5
Eladora arrives late to the reception at the Haithi embassy. She’s surprised she’s come at all, having spent the last four hours at the Industrial Liberal party headquarters. Her fingers are ink-stained, her throat raw from talking in interminable meetings. She went home and changed into an evening dress for the reception, but it took all her willpower to walk out of the door instead of collapsing onto her bed and hiding from the world.
After the council meeting, Kelkin made a brief, hoarse speech to the faithful, declaring that the time had come to strike, that the New City would be their salvation as it had sheltered so many others. When he praised Eladora’s work in surveying and investigating the New City, she’d shrunk back into herself. Gambling parliament on an unfinished report unsettled her, but what could she say? Kelkin had thrown the dice; they’re all committed now.
She’s senior enough in Kelkin’s staff that it would be impolite if she didn’t attend this reception–the Haithi are very sensitive to matters of protocol and etiquette–but she can leave as soon as she’s made one circuit of the ballroom. First, though, she must pass through the entrance hall. A queue of guests snakes through the room, all waiting to be greeted by the ambassador. Eladora joins the line to meet him, grateful that he’s standing in front of a huge open fireplace. The Haithi embassy is uncomfortably cold in contrast to the warm night outside. The old building is draughty, but that’s not enough to explain the icy air. She wonders if there’s some sorcery that replicates the chillier climes of Haith. Or maybe the undead guards somehow sap the warmth from the air.
The ambassador–Olthic Erevesic, she recalls–looks like he should be dressed in furs and waving a battle axe, not sipping champagne from a little glass that’s lost in the massive paw he calls a hand. A warrior prince from Haith’s distant barbaric past. He’s young for his post, only a few years older than Eladora, but he’s already won a slew of victories in battle. Medals and campaign ribbons adorn his barrel chest, recounting his proud military career, and a ring of iron on his upper arm indicates his noble destiny.
As the line inches closer, she can make out the family crest of a sword, and the chains they’ve added to the armband so it can fit Olthic’s huge bicep. The armband signifies that he’s one of the Enshrined, the highest death-caste in Haith’s stratified society. The scion of one of their great houses, heir to a family phylactery.
Just as her turn comes to speak to the ambassador, an aide slips through the crowd and whispers a message to Olthic. The ambassador has to incline his massive head to hear the aide, and Eladora catches the words “Third Secretary”. She doesn’t mind the delay; basking in the warmth of the fire she takes a deeper drink of her champagne. Maybe, by some miracle, she can avoid talking politics all evening. They’re less than four hours into campaigning, and already she feels battered.
“Miss Duttin,” rumbles the ambassador. “Forgive me. I have something to sign, apparently, even though I know the First Secretary can forge my signature perfectly.”
“Of course, my lord.” See, thinks Eladora, that’s one conversation avoided already. Just do that until you can leave politely. The ambassador grasps her hands in one of his. “I want to have a word with you about my proposal to parliament. You know Mr Kelkin’s mind, and I would appreciate your advice. Please, do not leave until we have a chance to speak.”
“Certainly, my lord.” She even manages to smile, not that he notices. He’s already striding off through the crowd towards the private section of the embassy. Eladora lingers by the fire’s warmth for a moment, then ascends the marble staircase to the main ballroom.
Heavy gold chandeliers hung with crystals reflect the light of a thousand candles. Apparently, no one at the embassy has heard of aetheric lamps or gaslights. The room’s already crowded, even though the line behind Eladora stretches to the front door. She immediately spots several members of parliament, each one accompanied by a gang of aides and assistants. Like a mother duck surrounded by a troupe of ducklings, she thinks at first. On consideration, she should probably revise that to “warships surrounded by flotillas of tenders and gunboats”, but the thought of fuzzy little ducklings quacking in parliament amuses her, and, also, she’s finished her first glass already.
She skirts around the edges of the crowd, one eye fixed on the buffet table at the far wall. One more glass, one complete circuit of the room, and she can go home.
She makes it six steps before she’s intercepted.
“Eladora! Come and join us!” It’s Perik. Face flushed, brimming with false charm. He’s surrounded with Hawkers. She spots several men and women in expensive clothes all wearing the golden eye-and-flask of the alchemists’ guild–the Hawkers’ chief patron. No friendly faces here. Before she can slip away into the crowd, Perik grabs her elbow and manoeuvres her into the middle of the circle. She’s trapped.
“Now, Eladora here is the veritable architect of Kelkin’s grand plan,” crows Perik. “She’s an expert on the New City. Apparently, it’s just crawling with eager voters. We’ve all seen them, haven’t we, arriving in god-blasted coffin ships, thin as skeletons, mad as saints, all waving ballot papers and shouting—”
She tries to interrupt. “I helped write it, I wouldn’t take responsibility—”
“Shouting ‘we have crossed the world to vote for Kelkin! A vote for Kelkin is a vote for’–what, exactly? What does the man stand for, these days?” Perik shrugs theatrically. “He spent the last fifteen years deriding us as pedlars and grubby merchants who were selling the honour of the city, and accused us of putting Guerdon in peril–when we’re the ones who built up the navy! We’re the ones who brought prosperity to all!”
“I-I-I—” stammers Eladora. She’s never been good at confrontation or quick thinking. She casts her eyes around the room for someone to rescue her, looking for a way out, wishing she could sink through the floor.
Perik continues “Kelkin castigates us for endangering the city and neglecting law and order, but he voted against the Tallowmen! He voted—”
“Emergency measures,” hisses one of the other Hawkers, sotto voce. The Hawkers are so closely associated with the alchemists’ guild that the two are virtually one entity, and the monstrous Tallowmen were created by the alchemists’ guild. The Tallowmen were intended to augment the undermanned city watch, and for a brief few days during the Crisis they replaced the watch entirely. But it turned out that people didn’t like been “protected” by a collection of ghastly psychotic waxworks who had the troubling tendency to punish even minor infractions with frenzied stabbings. The vats were destroyed in the Crisis, buried beneath the New City.
“He voted against our emergency measures to stem the Crisis. And when he seized control of the emergency committee, he showed us what neglecting
law and order really meant! Now half the city has gone feral. No order but the whims of crime lords, no law but the law of the knife! That is the work of Effro Kelkin that the people will remember when they go to the ballot box!”
Eladora bites her tongue. She is one of the few people in the city who knows what really happened in the Crisis, and she is sworn to secrecy. Instead, she fumbles for words, finds only platitudes. “Mr Kelkin believes this is still a welcoming city, and that the people of the New City will make Guerdon stronger in the long run. We will campaign on a platform of, of—”
“Of bleeding hearts and foreign gods. And if the franchise is extended to the New City–a proposal that should be very, very carefully considered from a legal standpoint–then I say the IndLibs are welcome to every seat they can win there! Because for every New City seat they win, they’ll lose two in the old! The people turned to Effro Kelkin to guide them out of the Crisis, and he did nothing! He let the city slip into anarchy, and now he cuts even the emergency committee loose! We are adrift!”
“Perik,” interrupts an older woman. “Miss Duttin’s glass is empty. Go and fetch her a full one.”
Her rescuer slides a wrinkled hand through the crook of Eladora’s elbow and guides her away from the circle of Hawkers.
“You have to excuse Perik. Actually, no, you don’t. He’s an ass.”
Eladora recognises the woman as Mhari Voller, an elder stateswomen of Guerdon. The Vollers are one of the oldest families in the city, largely because they’ve always been politically astute and sided with the victors in every conflict. Mhari was an Industrial Liberal when she was first elected to parliament, but crossed over to the nascent Hawkers before Kelkin’s government fell. Her father, Eladora recalls, was a theocrat; presumably, a few generations before that, they were sworn servants of the long-vanished kings of Guerdon–or maybe even the Black Iron Gods.
Voller swipes two champagne flutes from a passing waiter. “He’s not wrong, though. I’ve known Effro for a long, long time, and I can tell when he’s made a mistake. Thirty years ago, his mistake was being too harsh, and it cost him his government. Now, he had a second chance, and he’s squandered it by being too soft.”
Eladora frowns. “You’re talking about the Stone Plague?” Thirty years ago, the city was wracked by a plague that turned flesh to stone. Kelkin controlled parliament back then, and he’d ordered an infamously brutal plan for forced quarantines, containment–even, according to long-standing rumours, cleansing plague-ridden neighbourhoods by having his agents start fires. Anyone with the slightest symptoms was forced into the camps at gunpoint. Hundreds died in riots. Then the alchemists’ guild found a treatment, and overnight Kelkin went from city’s saviour to monster.
“I told Effro he was losing perspective, that his cure was worse than the disease. I told him that the alchemists were the answer. But it was too late. Tell him something before he makes a decision, and he’ll listen. But get him to change his mind once he’s made it up? Never.” Voller sighs wistfully. “I’ll say one thing for Effro, though–he has an eye for talent. Come and work for me.”
Eladora chokes on her champagne. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re a Thay through and through. This city is in your bones,” says Voller. “Come and work for me. I can use you.”
Confused, Eladora flounders. “Ah, I owe Mr Kelkin a great deal and I’m determined to see this election through at least.”
Voller sucks her teeth. “The captain goes down with the ship, not the navigator. If you wait until then, you’ll be tainted with Kelkin’s defeat. Stay with him, and you’re a loyal fool. Jump now, and you’ll be the aide who warned him he was steering his party into disaster, and left when no one listened to your wise warnings.”
“Did you commend Perik when he switched parties?”
“No, I told him he was an idiot, and that he should wait out the term of the emergency committee.” Voller takes a sip of her wine. “And he’s being an idiot again if he’s running back to the Hawkers. They needed Kelkin to stay in power for another year or so, let people forget that the Crisis was mostly their fault. Jumping from the IndLibs to the Hawkers is jumping from the frying pan and swearing allegiance to the arsonist.”
Eladora’s head spins. “But you’re a Hawker. How can you say that?”
Voller smiles. “Things change. Other powers rise. Consider my offer, young lady, and we’ll talk no more of politics tonight. There’ll be enough of it to choke us all over the next few weeks.” She takes a generous mouthful of wine.
“If you’ll forgive me, Lady Voller, the Haithi ambassador asked to speak with me, so I should go and see if he’s free.”
“Of course. Please, do think about what I said.”
Eladora had mentioned the Haithi ambassador as an excuse, but now that she thinks of it, it strikes her as a good idea. She can have a brief word with Ambassador Olthic and then leave the party. If she hurries, she can be home before midnight, and she knows that will count as an early night in the weeks to come. What does Mhari Voller know, anyway?
It’s too many people and too much politics on too much free wine for Eladora.
She cuts across the main floor of the ballroom, smiling and nodding at every smiling face. She dodges a journalist from the Guerdon Observer who tries to ask her about the fall of Severast; slips past a trio of her fellow Industrial Liberals who are haranguing some unfortunate Haithi merchant about trade treaties; avoids a drunk, lecherous Keeper priest. Then pauses to exchange a few brief words with Admiral Vermeil, who’s deep in conversation with the ambassador from Lyrix. Eladora’s out of her depth there. She knows little about the land of Lyrix, other than tales of dragon-run criminal syndicates who quarrel with mad gods amid fabulous jungles. The ambassador from this land of wonder salutes her with a champagne glass and grumbles about seasickness.
“Two weeks to cross, all because your navy demands we go in convoy. The delays are entirely on your side, Admiral.”
Vermeil shrugs. “We are short of escort gunboats, and, with the war so close at hand, delays are inevitable.”
The ambassador raises his glass. “The gods send dragons to scourge the sinner and honest man alike.” It’s an old Lyrixian saying that used to mean don’t blame me, look to the gods instead, but these days refers to the Ghierdana crime families that increasingly control Lyrix’s trade.
Vermeil introduces her to the ambassador, and the man’s eyes gleam at the mention of Eladora’s name in a way that disturbs her: avaricious and reptilian. “Miss Duttin. Your name has reached the ears of my great-uncle. You are a historian? Come to the isles of the Ghierdana with me, and I will introduce you to one who remembers a thousand years!”
“It’s, ah, very interesting, but, ah—”
Vermeil steps in. “Miss Duttin has responsibilities here that preclude her leaving the city for the foreseeable future.” He whispers in her ear, “They want to question you about the Crisis. Tell them nothing.”
She moves on, hastily.
There’s still no sign of Ambassador Olthic in the entrance hall. His place has been taken by the First Secretary of the embassy, a withered figure so pale and fragile that at first glance Eladora isn’t sure he’s alive. Daerinth something? Or something Daerinth, some honorific that she can’t recall on three glasses of wine.
Glancing back into the ballroom, she spots Perik holding court and decides that returning to the party isn’t an option either. She’s visited the ambassador before, in the company of Kelkin or other members of the emergency committee. His office is just down that corridor, behind the oak door. She remembers a quiet bench outside it. Perhaps she can wait there until the ambassador passes by.
The noise of the party fades as she walks down the corridor, replaced by the mausoleum silence of the empty administrative wing of the embassy. Brass plaques on each door note the absurdly overcomplex titles beloved by the Haithi, and runes note the death-caste of each official. The Under-Secretary for Trade, Supplicant. The Assistant S
upervisor of Customs, Vigilant. She finds the door she recalls leads to the corridor outside Ambassador Olthic’s office, and it’s ajar.
She goes through it, finds the bench and sits, hands folded, demure. She closes her eyes and rests for a moment. The party’s exhausted her more than the last week’s work on the New City report. She lets her mind wander.
Worm-fingers at her neck, her dead grandfather’s voice hissing from behind a golden mask. The chill of the embassy becomes the deeper cold of the family tomb where he imprisoned her during the Crisis.
Eladora gasps, sits bolt upright. There’s no one around to witness her momentary lapse of composure, for which she’s grateful. She takes the memory, folds it neatly like a sheet of paper, and pushes it down as deep as she can, mentally stacking heavy cloth-bound history textbooks on top of it. She struggles to calm her racing heart. Her grandfather is dead; he died twenty years ago, and again ten months ago, but either way he’s definitely, incontestably, gone.
There’s a map on the wall. It’s old and hopelessly out of date, which, as a student of history, makes it all the more fascinating to her. It’s centred on the city of Old Haith, a hundred miles north of Guerdon. The Empire of Haith–a necrotic purple–spreads out inland north and west. It arcs north-east, along the foothills of the icy mountains, into Varinth. South, the map is speckled and blotched with purple. Speckles, for trading stations and outposts. Blotches for lands conquered by Haith in centuries past, when the undead legions and magic blades of the Empire were invincible.
There are gaps in the purple. Guerdon, for one, a little spot of farmland on Haith’s southern doorstep, a vassal city state. The island of Lyrix to the east, and off its coast the smaller islands of the Ghierdana, full of dragons and thieves. And to the south, Ishmere, Mattaur, Severast, the trader cities of old. If this map were accurate, all three would be stained red, not purple, bloodied by the soldiers of Haith who died and died again on those shores in a dozen wars.
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