Terevant matches her with a toast to his own father, who would probably have preferred if he had perished at least once on a distant battlefield.
After a few toasts, someone mentions Paravos, Terevant unwisely admits he was a poet there and suddenly he’s reciting for the company. One of them produces a set of pipes, and manages to compose a melody that fits with the rhythm of the words. He recites one about a warrior woman that he wrote about Lyssada, but Naola smiles as if he composed it for her on the spot.
As the fire dies down and the stars spread across the sky, it grows chill. She pulls him close and whispers that the Company’s not leaving for Lyrix for another few days, another few nights. The warmth of her banishes any worries about the future. He kisses her neck; across the fire, one of the mercenaries hollers and jeers.
A hand taps him on the shoulder. It’s Lemuel, of all people, but his customary mask of languid disinterest is gone, replaced by fury. “It’s urgent. Come with me.”
Reluctantly, Terevant disentangles himself from Naola. “I’ll be back.”
Naola stretches. “Don’t be too long.”
Lemuel hustles him away from the company, drags him into the maze of half-collapsed tents. He scans the field behind him, looking over his shoulder as if he expects trouble. “What’s wrong?” asks Terevant.
“Nothing. Have to get you out of here,” Lemuel insists.
“What is it?”
“You were seen meeting—” Lemuel stops talking for a moment as they pass a knot of labourers. Sweaty browed, tools in hand. “Seen meeting with Berrick Ultgard, here at the fair.”
“So?”
“You were seen,” repeats Lemuel. “We install our own fucking king, and you nearly blow it all by going drinking with him in full uniform.”
“I didn’t know who Berrick was at the time.”
“What difference does that make?”
“I’m going back to Naola,” declares Terevant suddenly. He’ll leave the city with Olthic–hell, maybe he’ll leave it with Naola–but, either way, he doesn’t have to listen to Lemuel any more. He turns around. Strides back towards the fire. He can hear the singing of the mercenaries ahead; behind, Lemuel mutters some obscenity.
He quickens his pace, pushing through the last of the crowds.
Something strikes him from behind, and everything falls away and goes dark.
Hands bear him up. Strong arms carry him, bundle him in. The creak of wagon wheels; the hiss of a raptequine.
His throat is burning. Has he been drinking? Dreaming? Olthic’s voice, indistinct, like it’s coming from deep underwater. The embassy’s built on quicksand. There are tunnels under the city, he remembers, and the world’s falling into them.
He dreams, briefly, of the courtyard in the embassy.
A rotting skeleton stands there, not one of the armoured, polished-bone Vigilant. Its skull-face gleaming in the pale light.
Then oblivion swallows him like a wave.
CHAPTER 29
The IndLib special train back to Guerdon is overcrowded, with every seat full and the corridors packed, but when Kelkin snarls the carriage still clears. Only his inner circle remain. Eladora takes the vacated seat nearest the door, unsure if she should stay–she wants to go back and check on Emlin. She feels guilty at dragging an innocent boy into all this. Her assistant Rhiado will take good care of him, Eladora tells herself. The carriage is filled with familiar faces: Ramegos, worried and clacking her chain of god-tokens like she’s praying. Absalom Spyke, red-faced, angry. Ogilvy, the old party functionary, looks shaken.
Kelkin passes around a shimmering Keeper-scribed scroll, and a few hastily typed copies. The letter is lengthy, but stripped of pomp and formality the actual message is quite short.
“‘The Keepers recognise and acclaim the heir to the throne of Guerdon, and welcome him to the Palace of the Patros, until the king comes into his own,’” mutters one of the party elite. “‘The Patros calls upon parliament to restore the throne to its appropriate station as swiftly as can be accomplished…’ Effro, what the hell is this?”
Kelkin starts to answer, then coughs, turning purple. To cover, Ogilvy turns to Eladora. “Miss, er, ah, Miss Duttin. This goes back three or four hundred years, so a little context, please.”
Everyone in the carriage turns to look back at Eladora. Heads craning around seats, bodies hidden, giving the disconcerting impression that some enemy has hunted down the entire party and mounted their heads like trophies. So many eyes on her make her nervous. She stands unsteadily–both from the motion of the train, and her earlier experiences at the Festival–and clears her throat. But this topic, at least, holds no uncertainty for her.
“For much of our history, Guerdon was ruled by a king, who was advised by lords and priests–and parliament, eventually. The first dynasties date back to Varinth, but the kingship passed from one family to another. There were pirate kings, conquerors, rival branches… the full history is quite complex, but the kingship came to an end when the B-B-Black Iron Gods took control of the city. They held the royal family hostage for weeks, until the Keepers smuggled the king and his family out of the city.”
Kelkin beckons her up and points her to one of the seats near him. She advances down the carriage, steadying herself on the leather loops hanging from the ceiling as the train sways. “The last king took a ship and sailed away, hoping to find allies to retake the city. We know he circled around the Firesea, visited the Caliphates, the exiles at Lyrix, Severast–all to no avail. History does not record the eventual fate of the king of Guerdon, though it’s likely his ship foundered in a storm off Jashan.”
Kelkin’s recovered from his coughing fit. “Not quite.” He gestures impatiently for Eladora to sit. She sinks down into the seat next to Ramegos. “The last king ended up in Haith. I know that because a few years after the Keepers defeated the Black Iron Gods and took over, the Crown of Haith asked if they wanted the king back. The Keepers decided that they didn’t want to share power again, and told the Crown to keep the king.” Eladora desperately wants to know more about that hitherto secret episode in Guerdon’s history, that balance of power between kings and priests, but now’s not the time. Kelkin coughs again, and continues. “It seems they kept the king for another three hundred years. I’m guessing this is some descendant of the line, not the actual fucking original. But… necromancers, so who knows?”
“Even if he’s the original,” argues Ogilvy, “he has no claim to rule the city. The church can recognise him as the king, but parliament runs the city. We run the city.”
“Aye, and the church clearly isn’t demanding he be reinstated. ‘Appropriate station’ could mean anything, a figurehead or some such. The new Patros has only just settled his arse on the holy seat, he’s not going to move aside to let some bumpkin from Haith move in.” Kelkin snorts. “A show of hands–does anyone think that this is a genuine miracle, that it’s pure coincidence that the secret heir to the throne shows up in the middle of the election?”
A few hesitant hands, quickly withdrawn.
“Who thinks this is a setup?”
The whole carriage, except Ramegos. The sorceress hasn’t moved. Kelkin looks satisfied for a moment, then frowns. “Ramegos?”
“The two aren’t exclusive propositions. The gods shape fate. What looks like coincidence can be divine intervention.”
Kelkin groans. “All right,” he continues, ignoring the theological detour. “This fellow is not the king. Do not fucking call him king. He’s got no title unless parliament gives him one, and we’re all here to ensure that doesn’t happen. Call him citizen… do we even know what his name is?”
“Berrick Ultgard!” shouts someone from the back of the carriage. Spyke nods and adds, “Sure I saw the bastard drinking with a Haithi before the ceremony.”
“The Keepers can rally their faithful around this new champion, and draw off those who might have switched to us as a last resort. Makes winning the New City more important than ever.
Don’t call him a king, call him a tyro. Ask folk if they want a steady hand on the tiller, or some farmer who’ll be a puppet of Haith and the Keepers.” Kelkin raps his cane on the wooden frame of a seat. “You’ve got a day to prepare, while the mob rolls home from the Festival. Day after tomorrow, I want to see every one of you out there with a strategy and an army of ward-beaters.”
He circulates through the carriage, gathering small groups for various tasks. Eladora sits, fretting about what task he’ll assign to her. She wants to be useful, to wash away this sickening, irrational feeling of shame that’s been hanging over her since her encounter with her mother, or maybe since her brief vision of the gods, when they judged her and found her somehow wanting.
Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Ramegos studying her. The sorceress mutters under her breath, runs that chain of god-talismans through her fingers. Before Eladora can ask what she is doing, Kelkin sits down heavily in the seat opposite them, followed by Ogilvy.
“Gods below,” curses Kelkin as his joints creak. His voice is hoarse, his left hand shaking. He pokes some young assistant with his cane. “Get me a drink.” He closes his eyes.
Ogilvy lowers his voice. “You know that if you took Mhari Voller’s offer, you’d win in a landslide. It might be worth it. Take the Keeper’s support, win, and then fight them in parliament instead of the streets?”
“I’m not going back,” insists Kelkin. “Not after all this.”
“All right,” says Ramegos. “Let’s talk about something else. Kings and queens, for example.”
“Didn’t you hear me? Don’t call the wretch a king.” Kelkin’s eyes snap open. He’s angry.
Ramegos is unmoved. “It doesn’t matter what I call him. It’s what he’s perceived as–and not by us. By the gods.” She lays half a dozen tokens down on her lap. The gods of the Keepers: Saint Storm, Mother of Flowers, Holy Beggar, all the rest. The symbol of the Mother of Flowers seems bigger, more weighty. Eladora inhales, catches the distant scent of wildflowers. “How best to put this?” wonders Ramegos. “Effro, the gods follow paths laid down over many mortal lifetimes. The energy of worship, the portion of the soul given over to the gods, flows down those paths, lets them shape magic, make miracles. Now, if you reinforce those patterns, it makes it easier for that power to flow. Like clearing debris from a canal.”
Kelkin sits forward, suddenly awake again. “What will having a king in Guerdon do?”
“The Kept Gods were worshipped under the aegis of a king for a long time. It’s familiar to them, fits with their patterns. They’ll become stronger. The more our world conforms to what their patterns think it should, the easier it is for them to reach down and intervene. That’s why the Keepers refused to accept the return of the king when it was first offered–they were trying to keep their gods reined in. They starved them of residuum from corpses, changed the litanies–refusing the king was part of it.”
“The Safidists are in ascendance,” says Kelkin. Eladora can almost hear the clack of cogs and abacus beads in Kelkin’s head as he strips influence from one branch of the church and reallocates it to the fringes. Sinter falls, Silva Duttin rises. Mhari Voller, always drawn to power, is a weathervane, a bead of mercury that flows downhill. He coughs, hawks up a glob of mucus that he spits into a handkerchief. Eladora has the impression that his decision came with the spittle, like the ringing of a cash register when a transaction’s completed.
“We hold firm. Show stability. Show fucking backbone,” declares Kelkin. “I’ll hold the old city.” He jabs a finger at Eladora. “Make sure we win the New.”
The train approaches Guerdon, coming from the south-west, and the city accretes around the tracks. Buildings heave out of the night, and the sky ahead turns from inky black to a soiled yellow-grey, the city’s lights reflected off the smog clouds that hang above it. The city hides from the night sky, raises ugly industrial towers in defiance of it, as if that smog is a shield, a blanket drawn over the heads of the multitude. They pass church spires that remind her of vertical bridges, of narrow stairs, that strain to pierce the clouds and invite the gods to climb down from heaven. She can feel the presence of unwelcome forces all around her.
Once, Eladora might have welcomed this. When her mother first embraced Safidism, first sought sainthood and tried to drag her daughter along, too, Eladora would have given anything to sense the presence of the gods, probing at her soul, brushing against her mind with revelations and holy inspiration. As she grew and her relationship with her mother soured, the thought of the gods embracing her felt like a violation, a psychic intrusion. Going to university, exchanging the blind, groping faith of the Safidists for the cool reason and formality of study was a relief. Guerdon was a relief. The chatter of the streets, the ceaseless noise of the factories, the churning harbour left no unattended quiet where the gods might sneak in.
This is how Carillon must have felt, she reflects. Cari fled Wheldacre, fled her mother’s house, because she felt the presence of unseen gods more strongly than anyone else.
Thinking of Carillon reminds her of a loose thread. She gently rouses Ramegos, who’s snoozing in her seat.
“Whuh?”
Eladora hesitates. She promised Carillon she’d stay quiet, but she has to know. “You said I shouldn’t ask… but the Haithi diplomat who got murdered. Did you ever find out what happened to him?”
Still half asleep, Ramegos mutters, “A… witness came forward.” She wipes sleep from her eyes, then peers at Eladora like she’s a specimen. “But I can’t talk about it,” she says. “Why do you ask?”
Eladora stammers. “A-a Haithi official dies just before all this happens. It seems s-significant.”
There’s a long pause. “Practise your spells if you have nothing else to occupy your mind.” Ramegos falls back asleep.
Or pretends to do so. Eladora can sense the sorceress watching her, eyes glittering beneath heavy lids. Unseen forces swirl around them as the train rushes into the twilight.
CHAPTER 30
It’s well after midnight by the time they disembark. Eladora searches the train until she finds a sleepy Emlin, sitting with Rhiado and a couple of clerks. Emlin and Eladora walk through the dim labyrinth of the station, descending to the lower levels to Guerdon’s subways.
The carriage is crowded at first, buzzing with conversation about the appearance of the king out of legend, but most of the passengers empty out at Venture Square. A passing watchman peers at them as they wait for the train to depart, his expression questioning. The lower Wash is dangerous at night; Eladora mentally recites her sorcerous invocation, just in case they do get into trouble.
Dr Ramegos was right; the ritual is calming.
The train jerks, drags itself forward and rattles into the darkness. They’re alone in the carriage now.
“Emlin? I wanted to apologise for what happened at the Festival. That woman was my mother. She was looking for me, not you. She’s…”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says. The poor boy’s scared of Eladora, too. He presses himself back against his seat like he’s pinned there. Eyes wide with fear, and Eladora remembers how for a moment she glimpsed eight points of light, eight eyes reflecting the fire of her mother’s divine wrath. There’s a stench about you. Let me see.
It would be the simplest thing to report him as an illegal saint. She could even do it through unofficial channels, have Ramegos look into it. Spare Alic the scandal. Kelkin would probably insist that Alic step down quietly; she can already imagine how he’d do it. Absalom Spyke looming on Alic’s doorstep, his deep voice explaining how it’s for the good of the party.
Hypocrite! part of her shouts. Eladora’s own brush with sainthood was covered up, along with the sins of everyone else involved in the Crisis. The Keepers, the alchemists, the Thay family, Kelkin–everyone’s soiled by it all.
“I’ll bring you straight home,” she offers.
“Don’t tell my father!” says the boy, suddenly.
&nb
sp; There are guards everywhere when they arrive at the train station in the Wash. Emlin flinches as they pass by. Eladora looks at the soldiers curiously–they’re naval troops, not the usual city watch. There was some sort of incident at the harbour last night, she’s told. A break-in; no damage done, and the thieves killed, but some may have escaped. They’re waved by without question.
With so many armed guards around, the streets of the Wash are empty of civilians, but every window is watchful–except at Jaleh’s house. There, every window is shuttered and the whole house is asleep. Eladora has to hammer on the door for several minutes before it’s opened.
The old priestess, Jaleh, beckons them inside with her clawed hand. “Your father’s still out,” she tells Emlin. “Go to bed. Ask the Holy Beggar to light his lamp for you ten times before you sleep.”
Emlin rushes upstairs without a backward glance.
“Where’s Alic?” asks Eladora.
“Out,” snaps Jaleh.
“When will he return?”
“I don’t know. Hasn’t been here since last night.” She peers at Eladora. “You’ve been here before,” says Jaleh. “With Silkpurse. From parliament. What do you want at this hour?”
Eladora waits until she hears a door close somewhere off in the depths of the house. “Actually, I’d like to ask a few questions, about Emlin and your house.”
Jaleh grunts, gestures for Eladora to sit. “Already talked to the watch.”
“About Emlin?”
“About my house, and about those who come to me for gentling.”
“Tell me how it works,” asks Eladora.
“Seems to me you’d already know all about it,” mutters Jaleh. She pulls the sleeve of her robe down over her scaly arm, tucks her clawed hand away. “Have to be close to a god to receive their blessing, in whatever form it takes. Close in body or spirit, or close to a place of power. Shrines and temple and holy places–dangerous. Some get so close the god acts through ’em. Takes hold of ’em and won’t let go. Like getting caught in a thorn bush.”
The Shadow Saint Page 32
