The House of Night and Chain

by David Annandale

  It was there, between the chronicles of martyrdom again. I had left it in my bedchamber, yet it was here, waiting for me to find it a second time. I pulled it down, and it did not disappear into the recesses of my imagination. It was solid. It was real. It felt heavy as ice, and cold as damnation.

  Chapter 7

  I have found a purpose in this house. I have a direction now. I know it will help me. It was not just lack of purpose that was troubling me. I believe I was experiencing that as one symptom caused by the enormous emptiness of Malveil, emptiness magnified because I am alone. Karoff and the serfs are only here during the day, when I am absent. There is just a short period in the evening when there are voices other than mine inside the walls. Even when the serfs are here, we exist in separate spheres. I have no one with whom I can speak. I am lonely. Tackling the symptom of feeling purposeless will, I think, help with the loneliness.

  Lonely. It seems weak to write that word. It would be weaker to pretend otherwise. I did not feel this until I moved into Malveil. I think it is the scale of the emptiness that has forced me to recognise how lonely I am. In central Valgaast, surrounded by the restless tides of a large population, I was able to pretend that I wasn’t alone. But here, at night, I am truly alone, and forced to realise that I have been for some time.

  I miss Katrin and Zander. Of course I do. Their departures are recent enough that I feel their absence acutely. There have been a few times over the past few days when I have actually forgotten that they aren’t here, and I’ve caught myself starting to speak to them, thinking I’d seen one or the other out of the corner of my eye. That is not healthy behaviour. So an honest reckoning of where I stand is clearly necessary.

  I miss Maeson too. More painfully than I have for some years now. Being in Malveil, being very conscious that this is his family home, is, I think, what has reopened the wounds.

  It disturbs me that I have not noticed this before, but who is left among my friends? Adrianna Veiss is kind and generous with me, but it is with Maeson that she shares a childhood. Where are my friends? Embeth, Treva and Bakal were all part of the same tithe as Maeson. Verey is dead. So is Hanja. Petrain and Fenza are on the other side of the globe now. And so it goes. My growing isolation was so gradual that I didn’t notice it. Not until it was complete.

  Throne. Look at all this self-pity. But if that is what I’m feeling, then I must acknowledge it. The point is to be honest. I can’t address the problem by pretending it doesn’t exist. So. I’ll set it down again.

  I am lonely.

  Good. Done. That is the problem. And being adrift in Malveil is exacerbating it. What is the solution? To become the glittering hostess of Valgaast? To fill the nights of the house with the entertained nobility of Solus?

  I made myself a bit ill writing that. The reality would be intolerable. I have no appetite for the political games such social events embody. I can almost hear Maeson laughing at the idea that I would stoop to engaging in something so completely abhorrent to who I am. Playing that farce would only make things worse.

  Anyway, I found the solution. I have a direction. I’m actually quite pleased. I’ve expressed the self-pity, and now I can purge it.

  The seed of the idea was planted this morning as I was getting ready to leave for the Administratum Palace. On the wall as one descends the grand staircase, there are portraits of other Strock governors. As I glanced at them today, it struck me how completely forgotten they have become. I know who these men and women were only because they wear the sash of planetary commander. Beyond that, nothing. Though I wrack my memory, I can’t think of the name of a single prior Strock ruler other than Leonel. As for him, he was ill for so long that the only thing I can recall from his reign is the illness. I can enumerate every bad decision the council made during the regency. I remember how urgent it was to establish the regency. But of Leonel himself, I have next to nothing. I know he held the ball where I met Maeson, but I don’t think I saw Leonel there.

  During the day, I was able to establish that this ignorance is not a personal flaw. In passing conversations, I found that the prior Strocks seem to have been swallowed by oblivion. No one I spoke to appears to remember Leonel in any more detail than I do. No one could recall his predecessor (Berenova) without consulting a data-slate.

  What is really odd is that, as far as I can remember, I don’t think Maeson has ever mentioned any of his governing predecessors apart from Leonel. Perhaps I’m wrong. He was always full of stories about his parents. Maybe the ruling branch of the family was too remote for him to know anything.

  The situation is odd, but it is also wrong. It is an injustice for the Strocks’ service to be forgotten in this way. So I am going to change it. I am going to know Malveil, and I will know it through its history. I will restore the governors to history.

  My idea really took form this evening, when I found that there is a specific question I need to answer. There is, in the librarium, a framed genealogy of the Strocks. I shall need to have it updated, as the most recent name added is Leonel’s. This will be a useful resource, since at least it gives the names that I am bound and determined to successfully match to the portraits. But study­ing it brought home what appears to be a tragic paradox that haunts the family. On the one hand, the Strock claim on the governorship of Solus has been unchallenged for centuries, ever since the first mines opened on this hill. On the other, there does not ever appear to have been a direct transfer of power from parent to child, but only through cousins, nieces, nephews and so on. Sometimes the connections are quite distant. Whatever branch of the family assumes the governorship, the mantle then passes to another. There are no dates written on the genealogy, but it would be very easy, looking at this pattern, to perceive that a doom always befalls the immediate family of the governor. Where the governor has children, none of them succeed their parent, and none of them have any issue.

  I do not like this conclusion. I refuse to let this interpretation prey upon my mind. The information on that chart is fragmentary. It is not the whole story. It can’t be. I will find out what is missing.

  I will preserve history.

  I will set my mind at rest.

  These are more than worthy purposes. I believe they are necessary.

  Later.

  The task I have set for myself at Malveil is having the effect I wanted. I think. I don’t feel purposeless any longer. Quite the reverse. My research consumed my thoughts at the Administratum today. I had to discipline some archivists for not keeping pace with the arrival of new data, and all the time, my mind was on the demented archives facing me here, in the house. My efforts at the Administratum suddenly seem trivial by comparison. I correct the work of underlings there. I give the orders. Here, it will all be up to me.

  It’s late now. I’ve spent hours going through just one of the rooms on the ground floor. I have the work of years ahead of me. I’m worried that it might be the work of lifetimes. I’ll have to get some help from Karoff and the serfs. It is physically impossible for one person to move everything that needs to be moved. If I’m not careful, I’ll be crushed beneath an avalanche of debris.

  There isn’t the tiniest hint of organisation in the chaos of these rooms. If all the collections of paper kept by Leonel and, no doubt, his predecessors were all in one place, that would be something. But every type of discard is mixed with every other kind. When I look at the mounds, there is no way to know how many records there might be hidden from sight. All I can do is dig and hope.

  I have made a start. Most of what I have unearthed this evening is useless. Copies of old proclamations, scribbled bits and pieces of speeches, lists of names and lists of items and lists of lists. But I have also found some transcriptions of council sessions, and what I think might be early drafts of edicts. There are very few dates, so it will take a lot of deductive work to piece together what Leonel did or thought, and when. I’m not even sure everything I’
m looking at is from Leonel’s governorship. But this is a start. I think I can take some satisfaction in what I have achieved already. It is fascinating work, too, though exhausting.

  I have to say that I feel even more tired than I did the other day. The thought of having to go into Valgaast tomorrow and leave Malveil is too much to bear.

  I had gone to see Stavaak for our first meeting. This morning, he came to see me. I invited him into the librarium. We sat at the window, and he leaned forward to speak, keeping his voice low. I had never seen an enforcer act with such caution. It was another reminder of the real dangers in the war I had declared.

  ‘I thought you should know,’ Stavaak said, ‘that there have been a large number of arrests across Rosala.’

  ‘That was fast. Is this your doing?’

  He shook his head. ‘This is local militia.’

  ‘Following your example?’

  ‘Quite.’ He bit the word off, sharp with sarcasm.

  ‘You don’t trust what is happening.’

  ‘It’s too convenient, and too soon. If they had the evidence they needed before, they should have acted. If they did not, they could not have gathered it this quickly.’

  ‘Then why is it happening?’

  ‘This is Montfor’s doing,’ he said. ‘I’ll take any wager it is.’

  ‘What does she hope to gain?’

  ‘She’s turning the loss to an advantage. She’ll make sure Rosala’s production levels shoot upward.’

  ‘Ah.’ I saw now. ‘Reducing Solus’ deficit at no cost to herself or to her remaining allies.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Can Rosala produce enough to make up the difference for all of Solus?’ If Montfor made that happen, the watchful eyes of the Adeptus Terra would see what they wanted and presume I had succeeded. Solus would fall beneath notice again, and Montfor would have a free hand. My position would become highly vulnerable.

  ‘I don’t know if that’s possible,’ said Stavaak. ‘Even if they risk starving the Rosalan population. The amount they can produce will be enough to make a difference, though.’

  ‘Then we need to move against Montfor.’

  ‘That was always going to be necessary. But that’s the problem, isn’t it?’

  ‘Can you arrest her?’

  ‘No evidence. And she controls too much. We need proof.’

  I thought for a few moments. ‘I can command that production levels be reported to me on a sector-by-sector basis. Make it impossible to hide the corruption in Rosala.’

  ‘That might give us something solid to use. A chance, anyway.’ He stood to go. ‘In any event, I wanted you to know what was happening so she doesn’t surprise you with it at council.’

  I clasped his shoulder in thanks. ‘I appreciate it.’

  As we walked back to the entrance hall, I noticed Stavaak taking in the interior of Malveil with undisguised curiosity.

  ‘You’ve never been here before?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never in Leonel’s day?’

  ‘The presence of the Adeptus Arbites was never called for.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ I said dryly. ‘The presence of somebody was clearly called for.’

  ‘I do believe my grandmother was here once. Shortly after she became an enforcer, if I remember the stories.’

  ‘Was she here in an official capacity?’

  ‘Ah, I don’t remember the stories that well. Sorry. But I would imagine so.’

  ‘I wonder what brought her to the house.’

  ‘It’s odd that I can’t remember her ever having mentioned the reason.’

  ‘It’s just that my family has a more than passing acquaintance with tragedy,’ I said.

  ‘I see. I’m afraid I don’t know much about prior lord-governors.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ The passage I had read in Eliana’s journal that morning bothered me. It was uncomfortably true to my own experience, and I had needed Eliana’s words to point that out. I had never noticed before how little I knew.

  Stavaak left, and about an hour later, Belzhek arrived to drive me to the council meeting. The day had turned foul by then. A strong wind had come up. The dead trees on the hill waved back and forth, clawing at the dead sky. Sleet pelted into my face as I got into the car. It was a cold whip of an afternoon.

  The wind shook the vehicle as we drove through the dead industrial sector. Funnelled by the looming bulk of the manufactoria, it shrieked down the road as if it would hurl us into the air. Then, over the howls of the wind, I heard deep, rumbling cracks. I looked out of the right passenger window and saw two enormous smokestacks sway and lean.

  ‘Belzhek!’ I shouted, but she had already seen.

  The road was narrow, and there was nowhere to turn off. One of the chimneys was right beside us, the other a short distance ahead. Belzhek accelerated and then braked hard. Our only hope was for her to place us between the two titanic falls.

  The rockcrete giants slammed into the road, shaking the earth, obliterating the day with the thunder of their death. Thousands of tonnes of stone and dust swallowed us in night. Belzhek manoeuvred well, but the destruction was wide, and a massive chunk of rockcrete descended on the bonnet of the car, crushing it flat, buckling the roof and frame. Debris shattered the windshields and tumbled violently inside.

  I coughed, struggling to breathe. My ears rang, and I could barely see in the dust-clogged air. I called to Belzhek.

  ‘My lord,’ she answered, her voice tight with pain.

  ‘Can you move?’ I asked.

  ‘I am pinned.’

  The door on my left was hanging open. There was a heavy weight on my legs, but it shifted when I tried to move. Sharp edges gouged my right arm and leg, but there were no nerves to feel pain, and my prostheses gave me the strength to drag myself out from under the rubble and out of the vehicle.

  I managed to yank Belzhek’s door open. Her tread assembly was destroyed, the machinery that gave her mobility caught and mangled together with our vehicle. I pulled away rubble until her upper body was free, and she struggled with the cumbersome control mechanism at her waist. Latches unclasped and tubes pulled away, spraying steam and black lubricants. She gasped. Blood drained from her face. She slumped to one side, and I pulled her free of the vehicle.

  The wind screamed at us, blowing away the dust. I carried Belzhek away from the wreckage, stumbling over debris when the sleet blinded me. I squinted into the lashing storm. There was no shelter on the street, and the sector was deserted. We were on our own.

  Well done, Montfor. An excellent location for an ambush, and an accident just on the right side of plausible.

  I struggled on, into the teeth of the storm. The right side of my uniform of office was in shreds. The world was a grey, streaming blur. I must have walked for more than a mile before I left the manufactorum shells behind.

  I did not think it a coincidence that in the region of the collapse there had been no other traffic at all. It must have pleased Montfor to think that even if I survived, she would have shown me just how much power she had over the city and its citizens.

  I muttered a vow to take that power away.

  At last we reached roads with traffic. I flagged down a passing transport and had the driver take us to the nearest militia post. There, I left Belzhek, giving instructions for her to be taken to a medicae centre, and commanded that I be escorted to the Council Hall.

  The session was in full swing when I marched in, fully conscious of the spectacle I presented. I was soaked, my face was cut and bleeding, and my clothes were torn. My teeth were clenched and I wasn’t so much breathing as snarling. Veiss and Zander stared in shock. Zander made a move to assist me, but I waved him back into his seat.

  Montfor rose from her throne in a convincing show of alarm. ‘Lord-governor,’ she said, ‘what
has happened?’

  ‘I have had a near miss with a collapsing manufactorum.’ I took my throne.

  ‘That is distressing news. Were there any fatalities?’

  ‘None,’ I snapped. ‘Though my driver was injured.’

  ‘We are fortunate, then.’

  ‘Ivina Belzhek, veteran of the Solus Nightmarch, might disagree with you.’

  Montfor shrugged. ‘In any event, we have been courting disaster with those abandoned structures for some time. It was inevitable that something would happen sooner or later, but I never imagined–’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t.’

  ‘We will need a full investigation into the causes of this disaster.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘There will be one. We will learn who is responsible.’ I leaned on the word who, making it clear that this was not a case of finding out if anyone was to blame. I gave the councillors a long stare, Montfor especially. She gazed back, her face a picture of concern, just artificial enough to show that it was false. Everyone in the room understood the meanings behind our words. Neither of us could attack the other directly. Not just yet.

  I could still attack indirectly, and I moved on to the next phase of my campaign.

  ‘We have opened a front against corruption in Rosala. This is a start, and I will not allow our good work to go to waste by seeing the criminal networks seek refuge in other agri sectors.’ I made my tone as false as Montfor’s concern. Look at me, you vermin. I know what all of you are doing. And you know that I know. Look at me. I am still alive and still fighting. I am not afraid of you. I will teach you to be afraid of me.

  ‘We must be vigilant,’ I continued. ‘And we must have the tools for our vigilance.’ Then I demanded production reports. ‘I expect to see them all one week from today.’

  ‘That task–’ Sebat Vanzel, the councillor for the Kertzia agri sector began.

  ‘Will surely not present any great difficulty,’ I said. ‘I would presume these records already exist. It is merely a question of the Administratum scribes of your sector collating them. If they do not exist, then the question arises as to why they do not, and I can only think of one answer.’