“You, too? I can smell the odour of sanctity.”
“My mother—” Eladora begins to explain, but Silkpurse shakes her head, waves her claws to cut her off. “Miss Duttin, it’s all going wrong! You’ve got to talk to Kelkin! He’s sent us out to find saints. All the ghouls! And young Emlin is sainted, and they’ve sent him to Hark, and Alic, he made me send him, too!”
In fragments, Eladora pieces together the account of last night and early this morning. Ghoul raids across the city, leading the watch to suspected saints of other gods. Most are taken to the prison on Hark Island–like Carillon, she thinks, suddenly remembering what Sinter ordered.
Silkpurse is right–she has to talk to Kelkin. Wearily, Eladora strips off her bloodied dress and puts on clean clothes.
From her bedroom window, she can see the shining Victory Cathedrals atop Holyhill, with the Palace of the Patros hidden behind them, and when she looks up towards those temples of the Kept Gods she feels a sudden burst of unwanted strength. Columns of thick smoke still rise from the courtyards, and she guesses those plazas in front of the cathedrals are filled with newly fervent worshippers.
Eladora checks the Vulcan coffee shop as she passes, but it’s clear that Kelkin’s not there. There’s a clerk stationed at Kelkin’s table at the back of the shop–the table is technically free for any patron to use, but it’s been Kelkin’s for so many years that no one else would dare use it without his permission. Not even the clerk who sits there tonight would dream of touching any of the mess of papers and empty cups that litter the desk. Kelkin knows where every scrap of paper and crumpet crumb is on that table, and woe betide anyone who interferes with his system.
She marches up Mercy Street, climbing the steep hill towards parliament. A newspaper cryer shouts something about invasion by Haith–the newspapers have been muttering about Haithi threats for years, and there’s a panic every few months. She grabs a copy anyway.
Parliament’s crowded. Military officers, so many it gives the impression of an armed camp. So much, she thinks, for the post-Festival election push.
She’s ushered into a waiting room outside Kelkin’s office. There aren’t any seats left. Some she recognises; other election agents, a few sitting members of parliament. A delegation from the alchemists’ guild. Priests from various churches, none of them Keepers.
The man next to her–an alchemist–spots the newspaper under Eladora’s arm. “Do you mind if I borrow that?”
Eladora unfolds it, glances at the front page. The Haithi are demanding the return of “one of their embassy staff”, who’s rumoured to have “sought sanctuary in Guerdon”. There’s no stated connection to the murder of the ambassador, but the implication is clear. Nothing Eladora doesn’t already know, so she hands the paper over.
“Thank you,” says the alchemist.
And then, his voice low but anguished, “YOU SAW CARILLON?”
Eladora looks over. The alchemist’s face is frozen in terror, his body paralysed. His eyes full of sudden panic, with a yellowish light deep in the pupils.
Eladora keeps her voice equally low. “Lord Rat, if you want to talk to me, show yourself.”
“BUSY.” A pause. “DOES SHE LIVE?”
“Yes.” Eladora hesitates for a moment. “Sinter captured her. I think they intend to bring her to Hark.”
“THE FIRES–SHE WAS HURT. BY SINTER?”
“By my m-mother.”
“URRHHHR.” A horrible approximation of a laugh, and then the alchemist inhales, his whole body contorting. Several people in the waiting room look over at him in surprise. Rat makes him cough as if trying to cover up his odd behaviour, but it’s a horribly stilted act. “YOU STINK OF SAINTHOOD. OPEN WOUNDS OFTEN BECOME INFECTED.” For a brief instant, the alchemist is freed from Rat’s control, falling forward like he’s just been dropped, as Rat’s attention shifts elsewhere across the city. Then he’s back.
“THE KEPT GODS. FEH.” She can hear the ghoul’s disgust and suspicion, even at this distance. The light fades from the alchemist’s eyes.
“Wait!” The light glimmers again. “I don’t owe them any a-a-allegiance. I’m no Safidist. And you’d have died, too, in my grandfather’s tomb, if it wasn’t for Saint Aleena.”
The alchemist snorts like a horse, spewing gobbets of snot across his perfect suit. “I HAVE NEED OF CARILLON. THERE IS FOLLY AFOOT. MEN OF HAITH, MEDDLING IN THE DEEPS. I NEED HER TO HOLD SHUT THE TOMBS. MAKE THE UNDERCITY SAFE FOR ME AND MINE. THE LYING PRIEST HAS HIDDEN HER ON HARK. TELL NO ONE ELSE, BUT FETCH HER FOR ME, AND WE SHALL BE SUCH GOOD FRIENDS.”
And he falls again, released. An instant later, a door across the waiting room opens and one of Kelkin’s secretaries enters.
“ELADORA DUTTIN?” she calls. Her eyes stare ahead, unseeing. Her body’s held rigid, and her voice is weirdly guttural. Rat hasn’t gone far.
Eladora brushes past the possessed secretary and enters the sanctum.
There’s a miserable looking aethergraph operator from the city watch sitting by the edge of Kelkin’s desk, his fingers poised over the brass keys of his instrument. Around him, the office is crowded with senior IndLib figures and navy commanders. A map of the seas around Guerdon, marked with sightings of enemy ships and readings from arcane gauges.
She instantly senses the tension, the barely controlled terror in the room. This is not a drill, not an abstract discussion of possible future threats.
This is the moment before the storm breaks on the shore.
Before the Godswar comes to Guerdon.
Eladora fights back the stab of existential terror that comes with that thought, the feeling of falling into an unthinkable abyss, when invisible powers and crazed fanatics carve up reality with butcher miracles. There’s also a brief, unexpected and unworthy sense of relief–she’s lived with that feeling of terror for almost a year, ever since the Crisis, ever since meeting her grandfather in the tomb. Now the rest of the city will catch up with her, have their souls blighted, too, by the same nightmare. She won’t have to bear the burden alone.
As Eladora enters the room, slipping in through the door quietly, Admiral Vermeil thunders at Kelkin. “Parliament is absolutely not secure! The building’s a thousand years old. We can’t secure it. We need to relocate to Queen’s Point immediately.”
Kelkin’s deputy Ogilvy objects. “Minister Droupe monitored the Crisis from here just last year, and that was a far more immediate threat to the city than this one.”
“Droupe wasn’t in charge of picking his own nose,” snaps Kelkin. “I’m not Droupe, understand? I’m in charge, and I’m not leaving here. You’ve brought up this jabbering thing,” gesturing at the aethergraph, “and you’re all here, so let’s get on with it.”
Vermeil sighs. “The monitors at Hark are still calibrating the new intake. But we have signs of hostile divine intervention here in Guerdon already. We arrested a hostile saint, on a tip-off from a Keeper priest.”
“Which god?” asks Kelkin.
“The Ishmeric deity of secrets. Fate Spider. We’d expect the Spider to move ahead of the main invasion force, gathering intelligence and relaying information from spies in place in the city.”
“So the god’s already here, you think? Just not manifest?” Kelkin spots Eladora at the back of the room, beckons her forward. She approaches nervously, feeling exposed.
“Its influence is wide-ranging,” argues Vermeil. “At the very least, it’s connected to the shrine in the Ishmere embassy–they use the god’s webs to send secure messages.”
“But this Fate Spider isn’t a war-god, or am I mistaken? Rame–ah, blast it. She’s not here.” Kelkin frowns, points at another woman in the room, a watch officer Eladora doesn’t recognise. “You. It’s not a war-god, is it?”
“The whole pantheon is belligerent, but we have no reports of Fate Spider taking the lead in any assault,” answers the officer. “That’s more likely to be Kraken or Lion Queen.”
Vermeil shakes his head. “We’ve alr
eady had reports of krakens in the water. They’re coming.”
The Godswar. The terror threatens to overwhelm her again. She looks at the faces assembled in the room, the soldiers and generals and sorcerers bent over their instruments, tells herself they’re ready for any catastrophe. This is why the alchemists make monsters, she thinks. Of all the cities in the world, Guerdon is supposed to be the safest.
And if the war comes here, what can she do?
The aethergraph suddenly chatters, making Eladora jump. The jar of greenish-yellow fluid at its core crackles, and lights flare in the murky depths. The keys start moving of their own accord. The operator presses his hands to the machine’s controls, silently mouths words as he tries to assemble the message. The room falls silent as everyone waits for him to decode the update.
Eladora uses the momentary lull to cross to Kelkin’s side.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” says Kelkin mildly.
“What’s happening?” She gestures at the aethergraph.
“Nothing. For now. For the next few hours, maybe. What do you want, Duttin?”
“I-I—” she swallows, “they’ve arrested at least one of our election candidates, along with lots of innocent people–victims of the war, not saints or worshippers. And—” She was about to say and Carillon, but she remembers Rat’s warning. She doesn’t know why Rat wants her to conceal Cari’s presence in the Hark internment camp, but she’s not going to cross the ghoul unless she has to. “And my m-mother was attacked. By Sinter.”
“Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head.
“Is your mother?”
“Yes. I-I’m not sure how badly. They took her to Holyhill, after.”
“Sinter’s consolidating power, all right,” mutters Kelkin, his voice low. “I want to talk to you about this, soon as I’m done here.”
“I need to go to Hark,” says Eladora, “and get our people out of the camp.”
“No. Gods below, no. Give me a list of names, and I’ll see what can be done, but I have much bigger matters to deal with now, Duttin. Go home. Wait, no. Stay here in parliament. In case… well, the shelters here are deeper.”
Ogilvy hurries over, holding a note scribbled by the aethergraph operator. “This just came in from the Patros. They’ve got the one who killed the ambassador.”
“The fucking Keepers have him?” marvels Kelkin. “What, did the idiot go and look for sanctuary or something?”
“He was with me when my m-mother attacked us. When Sinter ambushed her,” interrupts Eladora.
Kelkin actually gives her his full attention for the first time since she entered. “You and I are going to have a long fucking talk after all this is done.” He shakes his head in disbelief, then looks to Ogilvy. “Are they willing to hand him over to Haith?”
“He didn’t kill his brother!”
“Gods below.” Kelkin grabs Eladora by the arm, drags her over to a corner. “There’s a fucking Ishmeric invasion fleet out there somewhere! They didn’t attack Lyrix! They’ve changed course, and we have one damn shot if they come at us. We’ve got the Keepers trying to bolster their gods. Feeding them worship, putting a king in place to make ’em think it’s five hundred years ago! Goading the beasts instead of keeping them! They’ll drag us into the Godswar!” He’s turned purple, splutters in her face with anger. “Oh, did I mention I have Haithi troops sitting outside the city like a knife to my throat? And all this on an election platform of fucking peace and unity! If handing Erevesic over gets rid of one of my problems, then good riddance to him.”
“Even if he’s innocent?”
“He’s a subject of the Haithi crown. The ambassador died in the Haithi embassy. It is absolutely, unquestionably, not our concern.” Kelkin sighs. “Gods below. When I took you in, I hoped you’d be like Jermas was in the old days. He had fucking steel in his spine. Not you.” He turns his back on her. “Where were we?”
She squashes down her anger. Holds it all in, all the shame and pride. Steps back with an awkward nod. Her mother taught her to be polite, to never makes a scene.
“The Patros says he’s at the mercy of the king,” reads Ogilvy, “and wants to know if the emergency committee of parliament will support the king’s decision, whatever that decision is.”
The aethergraph’s chattering again with omens of war. Admiral Vermeil’s gesturing for Kelkin to come over. Kelkin groans. The Keepers have chosen their moment perfectly–Kelkin can resolve the threat from Haith instantly, if he acknowledges the king’s claim to Guerdon’s long-vacant throne. A choice between his principles and the prosperity of the city.
It’s never a contest. “All right. Parliament will endorse the king’s decision, as long as it’s the fucking right one.”
He glances back at Eladora. “Go on, go and be useful somewhere.”
“But…”
“No. Stay away from Hark. Listen to me: no one there is worth the risk.”
He crosses back to his generals, veterans of the Godswar, subdued and worried. Their hands shaking slightly.
The generals fall silent.
Vermeil, blustering, furiously waves another aethergraph note. “Readings from the Kraken-saint at Hark! Miracles south and east, close at hand! Ishmere is coming, sir. It’s unquestionable to my mind. We have to be ready.”
Kelkin glances back at Eladora for an instant, as if looking for her counsel, or her approval. Then, almost impulsively, he signs an order and hands it to Vermeil. “You are authorised to strike first. Bloody them, so they think twice about invading.”
Eladora looks around the room. “Where’s Dr Ramegos?”
Kelkin glares at her, as if he blames her for all this chaos. “My fucking special adviser on matters theological and arcane? She quit yesterday.”
His voice quavers at the end there. She can tell he’s scared.
Eladora walks briskly down the steep stairs of Castle Hill, eyes fixed straight ahead. The crowds part for her, pushed aside by a bow wave of furious purpose. A few canvassers and hawkers try to stop her, to press leaflets into her hand or lure her into one shop or another, but she ignores them resolutely.
One of them, a smiling young man, perfumed and coiffed, stumbles into her path, breaking her stride. He looks up at her, and there’s a now-familiar light in his eyes.
“THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO THE ISLAND.”
She wonders where Rat actually is. Previously, she’s only seen the elder ghoul speak through others at a close range. Is he nearby, following her through the tunnels that riddle the city, or scuttling along the rooftops? Perched on a church spire? Or is he far away, and is only now revealing the extent of his power?
“I have to make a brief detour.”
“BE QUICK.” The young man laughs Rat’s hideous graveyard chuckle, which turns into a choking fit as the ghoul releases him. She leaves him in the care of other passers-by and hurries down, past the House of Justice, into Venture Square.
Back into the familiar warmth and press of the Vulcan coffee shop. The clerk at Kelkin’s table knows her, he’s seen her in here dozens of times. She’s one of Kelkin’s own, everyone knows that.
“Mr Kelkin sent me down to draft some letters for his signature,” she says. “I’ll need the table.”
The clerk bows, cedes the chair to her. He hovers near the entrance to the backroom, watching her, but not too closely.
“Fetch me a carriage, would you? I’ll be done in a moment.”
Kelkin keeps a signet ring and wax in this drawer. His signature is spiky and illegible. The letter itself is brief, just like he’d write it. It’s even a passable imitation of his handwriting.
“Where’s the carriage to?”
She folds the letter up, slips it into an envelope.
“Queen’s Point.”
CHAPTER 37
There’s movement outside, across the prison yard. Alic watches through the little barred window as more prisoners get marched across the yard and put into their appointed slots in the d
ivine prognosticator. They’ve been appraised, found to have some connection to a god that can be measured. Their sainthood’s a weight on some alchemist’s scale, a stain on a slide. Pinned like specimens.
Alic watches figures hurrying back and forth, between the cell where they put Emlin and the mirrored tower. At one point, he hears Emlin shouting, crying his name in terror. He calls back, but there’s nothing he can do. They’re watching him from that tower, too.
What can he do? Shout? Rant and rave? Throw himself against the bars? The spy in him counsels patience, as always. Lulling him, winding webs of conjecture and contingency. If you act, you’ll ruin everything. Wait. Observe. Patience.
He watches the stars come out across a cloudless sky. Listens to the waves break on the rocky shores of Hark. Break, not shatter. No lion-headed goddess descends on a stair of fire from heaven to make war upon the city.
He considers the possibility that, in his desperate prayer, Emlin sent a warning to Ishmere. Told them that he’d been captured. Surely that wouldn’t stop the invasion, though? The mad gods of Ishmere are heedless of the suffering of their worshippers. He knows that, better than anyone. They wouldn’t relent just because one young saint is suffering.
Neither can the spy.
But Alic would.
The spy sits down, closes his eyes. Tries to sleep, but Alic hears screams and sobbing, and each time he wakes with a start, wondering if it’s Emlin. There’s nothing you can do yet, the spy tells Alic, maybe nothing that can be done. Either the machinery is in motion, or it is broken. Either the gods of Ishmere are coming, or he’s failed his mission. Either way, there’s nothing he can do to affect it from this jail cell, so the best use of his time is sleep.
He wonders why the other two are in this prison for saints. The boy, Miren, seems mad enough. As far as Alic can tell, he hasn’t slept. He just stands there, eyes fixed on the sleeping form of the girl. She has scarcely stirred in the night, but she looks stronger this morning.
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