The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy

by A. M. Steiner

  She ran an elegant finger down the length of the wound, and looked at him strangely, as if she knew all the answers already, and that he could not begin to imagine what she understood. She was probably right.

  “Maybe I have hurt you a little more than you deserved,” she conceded. “But what’s done is done.” She smiled at him a little more sweetly and he saw a glimpse of what he had been praying for in her eyes. She stood on her toes to kiss him. He shut his eyes and readied his lips. She kissed him on the cheek.

  “Good luck, Miller. The gods know we both need it.”

  He watched her walk into the bustle of the atrium, to be swallowed by the stream of panniers, porters, scribes, artisans that flowed through its gaps and passages. Her stride was poised and businesslike; people parted before her as if she was every inch the master she hoped to become. He waited for her to look back at him, one last time, but she didn’t, and then she was gone.

  ***

  A stiff wind scoured the dunes of Seascale Bay, sent eddies of sand twisting across the beach that forced Daniel to shield his eyes.

  Corbin led Bolb by a rope. Daniel brought the horses close behind. Corbin had cauterised the master’s wounds with a hot iron but not well enough to prevent the blood from soaking Bolb’s chin and turning the grey cotton of his gown black, beneath his missing arm. His empty sleeve flapped like a pennant in the breeze.

  The slope towards the cross of the sky burial, which had once carried Brother Adelmus’s bones, was a gentle one, but the old master was struggling. Daniel wondered if it were the wounds or the fear that slowed his path to destiny. Every time Bolb stumbled, Corbin dragged him back to his feet and kicked him in the back. He made no sound, not even the plaintive moan for which men who have lost tongues are famous.

  A small crowd of spectators had gathered at the foot of the beach.

  “The audience is smaller than I expected,” Daniel said.

  “I told them to keep their distance. There will be others watching from the Convergence, through lenses.”

  “Why didn’t you order a public execution?”

  “This work is not an entertainment for the ignorant. We do only what is necessary.”

  They reached the crest of the hill and Corbin pushed Bolb onto the barren, windswept turf. Bolb, insensible with pain, knelt on his haunches in front of the wooden cross. His breath heaved raw. The master was going nowhere. Corbin dropped the rope and tethered the horses to the cross.

  “It is quite a thing, to kill for the first time,” Corbin said.

  “My brother once told me that killing should always be done with a heavy heart. Even killing a mouse.”

  “Sounds soft, your brother. Pray he never sees a battle.” It was true, Daniel thought, Jon was soft.

  His throat was dry. He went over to his horse, the fine white gelding, and took a swig from the flask that hung by its side. The water tasted brackish, though he knew it was fresh. He spat it onto the grass.

  “My brother’s good in a fight. They used to call him the Lion.”

  “I mean no offence. Not all men can be killers.”

  A killer. Is that what I have become? Daniel drew his sword and weighed it in his hand. Its guard glowed softly in the weak, low light. This was not what Daniel had in mind when he had dressed up in a cape made of sack and pretended to rescue Dahlia and Anna from monsters in the mill.

  He tried to remember the sister who had been stolen from him, to imagine Bolb as the monster who had taken her. To conjure from his melancholy a sense of vengeance.

  “The first time is hardest,” Corbin said, “but remember, this is no ordinary death. You are avenging the murder of a brother. That’s enough justice for a lifetime.”

  Daniel nodded and positioned himself besides Bolb. The condemned man looked up at him. There were white blotches around his eyes and nose. This is what true fear looks like, Daniel thought. Mortal fear. He would not forget it.

  Corbin tore a strip from Bolb’s nightgown and folded it into a blindfold. Bolb shook his head. Corbin kicked his thigh. “It’s not for your benefit,” Corbin said, and slipped it over the master’s head.

  “It’s better not to see the eyes,” Corbin explained, and rolled Bolb forwards into a bowing stoop.

  Daniel stared at Bolb’s neck and the back of his head. The master didn’t look like a monster. He looked like the fat baker who had tried to rip off his brother. Did he deserve to die? Better men died in Turbulence for less every day. He raised his sword above his head and remembered Miranda’s plea to stop the killing. She was right. It was madness. He imagined how awful what he was doing would look from the outside. At that moment Daniel hated Corbin and justice far more than he hated Bolb. He wanted to curl into a ball, be somewhere else.

  Was there any way to stop it?

  He pictured running away, running at Corbin with his sword, a frantic duel amongst the dunes, sparks flying from the edges of their blades. Fantasies as stupid and impossible as his childish role play in the mill.

  “You can use this if you want. It might make things easier.” Corbin’s hand was resting on the pommel of his longsword. Daniel shook his head. The sabre Lang had given him was more than up to the task.

  Corbin stepped back. “The gods are watching,” he intoned.

  Daniel brought his blade down with a sudden slash. Bolb’s head thudded on the ground. Corbin mounted his chestnut mare, wheeled it around.

  “I was wrong about you. I will send Lang a commendation of your work.”

  I was wrong as well, Daniel thought, and nodded gravely.

  “Back to Bromwich, is it?”

  Daniel nodded again, and thought of home.

  “Good luck.”

  The master

  Miranda observed Bolb’s execution through a curved lens mounted on the edge of a wall walk, tormented by her vertigo but unable to resist. The bird-like view from hundreds of feet above the bay, gave her a sense of distance, but did not lessen the horror.

  She gasped as Daniel’s blade descended, raised her hand to her mouth.

  She was still in shock as Corbin galloped north towards the highway. She watched Daniel as he stood motionless, contemplating Bolb’s corpse. When his thinking was done, he turned to face the Convergence and seemed to stare straight at her. He leapt smoothly into the saddle of his white horse and then he was gone too.

  It was done. Now there was no turning back.

  The small crowd of gawkers who had gathered on the beach dispersed rapidly, disappointed with the show. Bolb’s body lay unattended where it had fallen. His head rested in the scrub a few feet away. Miranda wondered if Gleame would send porters to collect his remains later in the day. Maybe after nightfall.

  She closed her eyes and listened to the magic.

  Already it had begun to twist and scream in confusion. Whatever the damage that Gahst’s death had caused, Bolb’s death was far worse. Hundreds of the gossamer strands that arced above her head, the conduits that linked the Convergence to the arcane devices that had been created there, began to peel and fray.

  Magic was in her blood now, and she could feel a gouging in her stomach, as if the baby of a monster fretted inside her, but she was learning how to control these waves of pain, how to live with them. She pushed the feelings away.

  It was all very ironic, she thought. Gahst had been right all along, yet it was his concern that had triggered the crisis he feared, and in a roundabout way, Bolb’s mechanical hand had delivered exactly the warning that Gahst had intended.

  It had fallen to her to fix the system from within. To do so would take every part of her intellect and her will. She would work with Gleame, learn his secrets and then combine them with her own. In doing so, she could become the greatest master the world had ever seen. It was her destiny.

  ***

  Her handmaid’s delicately scented hands tremble
d as they tied the black velvet choker around Miranda’s neck, fixed a diadem, a peaked cobweb of black coral and pearls, to her hair with small silver pins. The mirror on the vanity was set low; Miranda could not see the expression on her handmaid’s face but she could tell that she was afraid.

  Whom does she fear? Miranda wondered. Them or me?

  “That jewel was a New Year gift from Mother. At the time, I thought it quite dreadful. Now I realise that I like it. A touch more kohl above the eyes.” A little brushwork and it was done. “Go now. I’ll wait for them alone.”

  The handmaid bowed, paused as if to say something, and then walked backwards from the room. Do not worry, my little finch, Miranda thought.

  She stood abruptly and the lines of her black and crimson dress snapped into place. Miranda twirled once, made the colours of her hem flash like the dying embers of a fire. She was feeling calmer now, bathed and powdered. She had followed Gleame’s example, protected her room with a simple construct to give her peace to think. Now the tension she felt was worry, pure and simple.

  What if I cannot find the solution? What if it’s all too late? Before she knew it, her mind was sucked into a whirlwind of theories and calculations, experiments that had to be tried, and practices that should be restricted.

  She was still enraptured when the knocking rattled her door. She realised that she was pacing, biting on her knuckles. She unclenched her fists, stood as tall as she could and unsealed her chamber. Two men stood before her, unidentifiable in purple robes and hoods.

  “Do you accept the call?” they asked.

  “Gladly,” she said, and knew it was not a lie. They grasped her, not roughly, and spun her around until the world became a dizzy blur.

  ***

  It was not until the initiation was over that Miranda could reassemble its fragments in her mind. She remembered seeing the world inverted as she was pulled backwards down corridors, held by her arms and elbows, her heels dragging along the floor, her artificial leg scraping on the stone. The men in purple took her down and down, descended to the dark lake that lay beneath the Convergence by secret, empty ways.

  When she arrived at the chamber of the henge, the sound of engines was absent and the huge basket lanthorns that normally illuminated the standing stones had been extinguished. She could see the torus unaided – it rotated slowly and uncertainly, as if the magic caught and ground against itself like floating sheets of ice torn and crushed by opposing currents.

  She thought, It seems to be in pain.

  Before each of the stones that ringed the sacred lake, except for four that were unattended, stood a man wielding a firebrand. The light of the torches was doubled in the still surface of the water.

  Four empty stones, Miranda thought. Two for the men who carry me. One for Gahst. One for Bolb. Two masters dead; two new masters to replace them. She could have slapped herself then. Now she understood why Lavety had said what he had at the trial. I will not be the only one promoted to master tonight, she thought, and had a premonition of Lavety in a newly made robe, the colours of a rainbow.

  The masters removed their cowls in unison. Miranda recognised Somney, Essossilam, Nirmeen, all of the masters. Even Talon was there, upright in his gurney with his teeth set in a rictus. Those who had supported her promotion and those who had sworn to oppose it stood side by side in silence. Gleame waited on the opposite shore in his robes of pure white. He stepped forward, to the edge of the water, and in a booming voice asked for a password to be given. The men who held Miranda’s arms each gave one before removing their masks. Baldwin and Bohapemetys – she might have guessed.

  She was turned to face the lake and they left her side, took places by the stones, leaving her alone at the water’s edge. Though she was deep underground, gusts of cold night air caressed her face.

  Gleame demanded her given name and she called it out proudly.

  “Miranda, Ward of the Duchess.”

  “Do you promise to serve the Honourable Company in good faith, to keep no secrets from us, to lend us the whole of your trust, and to accept no other ruler?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you swear to preserve the mysteries of the Convergence, against the penalty of having your throat cut across and your tongue torn out by the root and buried in the sands of the sea?”

  That last bit seemed terribly silly to Miranda, but she knew how much the men loved secret rituals, so she answered gravely.

  “I do.”

  “Have you chosen the name by which you will henceforth be known?”

  “Master Miranda Solitaire.” The jumbled echo of her new name was chanted from the stones.

  “Now say unto us the name of that thing which binds you to this earth, that which you must discard to become truly free. Speak truly or suffer the consequences.” Something in Gleame’s voice warned her that the threat was no joke. She knelt at the water’s edge.

  It seemed to her that the lake had become a night sky. Far deeper than the stars are set in the firmament, she could see distant cities and the pale shadows of figures, vast and shambling, under the water. She wondered if it were some trick of the light, but could not shake the impossible feeling that these beings saw her also; that in all the vastness of the universes revealed to her, they observed her precisely, just as she saw the stars and comets that passed around them.

  “Her Grace,” she said. “That is what binds me to this world. My loyalty and love for my mother.” The distant figures nodded imperceptibly and then faded from view.

  “Step upon the water,” Gleame commanded. Miranda reached out her foot, the metal one, and stepped out, expecting to plunge. The surface of the lake was as firm as obsidian glass. She walked slowly to its very centre.

  “The moment arrives, so you must decide,” Gleame announced.

  The masters who ringed the lake stepped forward and lowered their torches, touched the flaming heads against the hard water. Gouts of flame leapt up where they connected, and the lake was encircled with fire.

  Miranda became afraid. All she could see was the magic of the torus arcing above her head and the angry flames around her. The surface of the lake bubbled like oil. Her mind screamed at her to run, and she turned, but there was no escape.

  All of a sudden, she felt a strong wind. It turned the whole of the lake into an enormous pyre. The flames rushed towards her, and for an instant, she felt the skin of her face sear in the heat. The hem of her skirt caught fire, and then the ground gave way beneath her feet and she was plunged into brackish, icy blackness.

  She felt hands clawing at her shoulders, and she tried to fight them away. The weight of her dress pulled her deeper into the water. She seemed to sink for minutes. The world became utterly black. She closed her eyes.

  She opened them. Baldwin and Bohapemetys held her by the arms. She stood by the side of the lake where the ceremony had begun, dry and unblemished. A triumphant cheer arose from the men around the stones. She did not need to be told that she had become a master. She knew it. The faltering power of the Convergence coursed through her veins.

  A homecoming

  The yellow grass that lined the country lane was noisy with the chatter of insects. Wind played through the hedgerows like a falconer’s whistle. Jon was far enough from the city limits that highwaymen and vagrants would not fear a censor’s patrol, but no sane man would dare assail him. He walked, fangs bared, his guns tucked into the top of his breeches, exposed for all to see – one set against his stomach, the other flat against his back. The manner of his walk assured his safety. He was unafraid.

  The sun was setting. To the south, Bromwich lay golden at its feet, the gilded peaks of domes and spires shining brilliantly in the dying light. The silhouette of familiar roofs, jagged like the teeth of a broken jaw, guided him home. As the town drew closer into view, Jon saw it was wreathed in smoke. Not the normal wisps of chimney smoke that rose u
nsteadily in lazy air, but towering black pillars that blotted out the sun. There were fires burning everywhere, many more than before, all across the city. Not rebellion, he thought, something different.

  He passed through the ruins at the edge of town, to the streets that had names, and then to those he knew well. Up Pinfold, left onto Peek Lane and up towards the mill. He passed censors and guardsmen by the dozen, fighting fires, helping men and women to salvage goods. He did not hide his weapons, yet he travelled without challenge.

  As he climbed Peek Lane, he felt the wind strong against his face, as it had been before the cunning had changed it all.

  At last, the mill came into view. It stood solid, though fire had taken the loading-bay doors and left black smears above the windows. One of Peacock’s orange-men, in a helmet and breastplate and clutching a pike, stood guard outside the loading bay. He guessed the others were inside, waiting for the Peacock to return.

  So was Laila, terrified and desperate.

  Laila knew where Anna was hidden, if she was still alive. She had to be alive. He would know if she wasn’t. The gods would have given him a sign.

  There was a crashing noise from within the mill tower, a sound like fighting. The guard turned his back on Jon and stared upwards, aimed his pike towards the ruckus as if the mill tower were a giant and he were a valiant knight. Jon crept up behind him, grabbed his helmet and broke his neck with a savage twist.

  Planks cracked overhead and the street was showered in wood and plaster. A hole had appeared halfway up the tower, as if an enormous cannon had blasted out the wall from within. The carousel horse landed in the middle of the street, ablaze with lanthorn oil. It hoofed at the ground, scraping cobbles from the earth. Jon stared into its dull, moronic eyes. Those red stones betrayed no thought, but there was something new in them, a wildness that was impossible to describe. The blazing horse seemed to smile at him, although its mouth did not move, then it jumped over his head and cantered into the city.