by Andy Graham
A flash of movement caught his eye as Martinez emerged from behind the piano Ray had maimed. His crutch whistled down in a vicious arc. It slammed into the legionnaire’s hands, knocking the rifle towards the floor. The man shouted. His finger convulsed and the rifle went off. A spray of red splattered over the concrete. The legionnaire howled, dropped his weapon, and clutched at his foot. Martinez’s crutch whipped down again and silenced him.
“Dead?” Ray asked as he sprinted over.
“Asleep. We got to go.”
“Not yet.” Ray glanced over his shoulder. Stella had her hands on Dan’s. She was prising his fingers off, one by one, whispering constantly to him. “We can’t. We need to stall them.”
“Don’t kill them,” Vena called before they disappeared.
“Squeamish?” Ray asked, a hint of irritation creeping into his voice.
Vena shook her head and pointed to Emily. “There are some things young children should not see or hear. The enfeebling role of women in traditional fairy tales is one thing. Murder is another.”
Ray and Martinez exchanged glances. Their gaze drifted from Emily to her parents, locked in a struggle that only the couple could see. “OK, no killing. Didn’t think your sister got to be president by being squeamish, though.”
“My sister.”
Ray wasn’t sure if that was a question or not. He answered it anyway. “Bethina.”
“My twin sister.” There was a sadness in Vena’s voice. “She was as much me as I was.”
A surge of anger twisted through Ray, muting the throbbing pain in his back. “Well, now you know what it feels like for us little people who aren’t above the laws you create to suit yourself.”
Vena blinked, twice, and turned her implacable gaze on Ray. “You have no idea what I have given up in my life, who I have sacrificed and what I have had to do to be standing here in front of you.”
“You’re not the only one to have lost things, Laudanum. Difference is, you get to change the rules when it doesn’t suit you.”
The glint and jingle of approaching steel was closer. Stella’s whispering quicker. Vena clutched Emily to her legs. “We all have that choice. Some of us choose to act upon it. Some of us feel safer as a victim, hiding in a crowd of wronged others, afraid of taking a risk.”
Neither Ray nor Vena wanted to break eye contact, that much was obvious, but with the clumsy approach of Unsung getting louder, practicalities won over. “Pride,” Ray muttered. “It’ll be the death of us.”
Martinez appeared at his side. “No, it won’t. Legionnaires’ bullets are going to be the death of us if you don’t get a fucking move on! Sorry, ma’am,” he added as Emily started wrapping her lips about a word that Ray doubted she had heard before.
“Now!”
Ray and Martinez exploded to their feet, gripping Martinez’s crutch between them.
A thump.
A groan.
The crutch slammed into the groin of the legionnaire who had stepped over it. He doubled over in pain. Ray grabbed the back of the man’s head and kneed him in the face. He felt the nose split with the first strike and the little bones around the man’s eyes crack like eggshells underfoot with the second. Moments later, he dragged the limp body into the darkness and stowed the man on the pedal board of a mini organ. Above the yellowed keys, cobwebs ran between blackened ivory stops and the yawning holes in the bronze pipes.
“Now!”
Ray yanked on the end of the crutch. It hooked around the ankle of a black-clad legionnaire. The man sprawled to the floor. The steel traced a long arc through the air and whipped into the back of the man’s head. He was unceremoniously dumped next to a harp that rose above the prostate figure like a stringed gravestone.
“Now!”
Ray leapt forwards, thrusting Martinez’s crutch towards the last legionnaire. His back pain flared. Spears of heat pierced his legs. He stumbled, tripped. Staggered forwards. The legionnaire pivoted and raised her weapon. Martinez wrenched it out the woman’s hands. The woman, a sergeant, by the insignia on her sleeve, kicked Martinez’s good leg from under him. He crashed into the floor with a grunt of pain. Her stun baton, wreathed in crackling blue streaks, stabbed Martinez in his half-leg. He convulsed, back arching, teeth gritted, and lay still, a puddle leaking from his trousers. The sergeant rounded on Ray.
The stun baton whistled past Ray’s shoulder. He twisted. Blocked the next strike with the crutch. Blue fire spat into the darkness. Lit up the gaunt hollows of the woman’s face. He slammed the crutch between her legs and shoved it. Her knee buckled. Headbutted him. Lights exploded in his head. Red shadows danced on the edge of his vision. Memories of the Monster-under-the-Mountain that had been Eddie Shaw.
Stiff fingers hit Ray in the soft tissue under his jaw. He choked and staggered and pulled her close where she couldn’t get the leverage to use her baton. Her head pressed into his. Her cheek was slimy with sweat. Breath hot on his temple. Her teeth sank into his ear. He pulled himself free as she hooked his ankle with her foot and shoved him backwards. The baton whistled down and, without thinking, Ray blocked the shot with Martinez’s crutch. With a crack that rattled his teeth, the crutch split in two. Ray clutched the separate halves in shaky hands. The ends cut sparkling lines through the air as he used them to keep the woman at bay.
“Turncoat,” the woman said. “How dare you betray the people who fed and clothed you, who paid and protected you and your family.”
“They’re lying to us, stealing from us.”
“They’re keeping us safe.” She spat blood into the dark puddle on the floor. “That’s worth a lie or two.”
Blue sparks spiralled around her baton. She lunged for Ray. Her boot slipped in the puddle leaking from Martinez’s trousers. Ray held up one half of the crutch. The woman collapsed onto it, grunted and was still. She was slumped over Ray, the extendable end of Martinez’s crutch poked out of her back, a perfect circle of flesh blocking the hole. The end had been sharpened.
(“Got to be prepared,” Martinez said later. “No one expects a crutch to be dangerous, which makes it twice as effective. I wanted one of those cane swords but couldn’t find anyone I trusted to make it.”)
As the female legionnaire’s blood soaked through Ray’s clothes, warming his stomach, he shoved her onto the floor and scrabbled away.
Vena took one look at a blood-soaked Ray dragging a piss-soaked Martinez back into the circle of light that was their temporary home and said, “What happened to you?” She covered Emily’s eyes. “I said no murder.”
“It was an accident.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“All accidents?”
“No.” Ray rested Martinez against a piano. Tino’s lips twitched as the muscles in his body regained control. “Just one. The other two are taking a nap. Standard patrol is six. There should be two more out there.”
“I don’t think there’s anything standard about the Unsung anymore,” Vena said. “But we should move. How’s Dan?” The air of command that she wore was as natural as it was imposing: someone who was used to giving orders, asking questions and getting what she wanted.
“Better.” Dan gave them a weak grin.
“Better get a move on then,” Vena added.
“No.”
The mild look of shock on Vena’s face disappeared as Dan approached his daughter. His fingers squeezed Emily’s shoulders.
“Is he OK?” Vena asked.
“I’m good,” Dan replied. “My ears work just fine, too.” He knelt in front of Emily. “Em?”
“Daddy?”
“I’m sorry. About what I do. What I become. But you need to know I’ll never hurt any of you. I promise.” His voice broke as the little girl wrenched herself free of Vena’s grip and threw herself into his arms. The two made space for Stella as she joined them. The Swanns knelt on the floor, hugging each other, pulling each other ever tighter, whispering to Emily they’d get her brother back.
> “This,” said Martinez through gritted teeth, “is why we fight. Not to support Ailan’s lying, thieving government.”
“This,” said Vena, blue eyes sparking like the electric fire from the stun baton, “is why Ailan’s government lies and thieves, to protect its people.”
A rattle and groan of giant doors opening broke the tension between Martinez and Vena. Early morning sunlight flooded one end of the warehouse. The pink dawn filtered through the string instruments hanging from wires. Cold tendrils of frosty spring air crept through harp strings, between pianos and around stacks of drums. There was no shouting, no orders, just a silence prickling up Ray’s spine. “Move. Now. We can’t count on the next patrol being full of rooks as well. Newbies,” he added in answer to Vena’s puzzled look.
“Cannon-fodder,” Martinez muttered.
They shuffled off into the darkness, Ray leading and half-carrying Martinez, the family in the middle, Vena at the rear.
“How you feeling, Dan?” Ray asked as Martinez shuffled into a better position.
“OK. I think.” His face was haunted under his purple eyes. “That thing I do, I become, I can see it happening. I can’t stop it.”
“And now?”
“It, whatever it is, is watching. It’s in my head somewhere.” He gestured into the darkness. “Waiting.”
“Try and keep it waiting till we’re off the chopper. It’s not a long flight to the Morgen Towers but I don’t want any problems.”
“I’ll be OK.” Dan picked up Emily and stroked her hair. A bead of sweat ran down his cheek and he shuddered. “I promise.”
16
Remembering Bethina
Willa Chester stood in the doors of the lift-made-for-one. There were two choices, one for each button. Up or down. Each had multiple consequences. Up meant stay, enter Beth’s old office and deal with the inevitably bloody confrontation that would lead to. Down would take her back to the lobby of the president’s tower, away from this place and the memories it held, to a relative safety. The longer she thought, the more the lift doors nudged her legs as they tried to close, and the more Chester realised she had no choice. She couldn’t run. She never had. That was one consequence she wouldn’t accept. The doors closed behind her with a soft click.
She’d been to Bethina’s office many times, to play Alcazar, to talk business or to chat. Today, without Bethina here, the details stood out even more than ever: the grain of the dark wood panelling, the way the lamps hung off the burnished steel crosses jutting from the walls, the light shining across the floor in infinite lines and patterns as her head turned. On the president’s desk, next to an antique phone, stood two mugs. There was a smear of lipstick on one. For some bizarre reason, the other smelt of roses.
She eased herself into Bethina’s old chair. Since discharging herself from the hospital, the body that had carried Chester through more than seventy years of life was not what it had been. The only part of her that didn’t seem to hurt was the foot with four toes. She’d often wondered if she’d have taken the opportunity to have all five toes on that foot and a normal gait if someone could offer it to her. “Stop it,” she muttered. “Stop stalling. Do what you came here for.”
Her fingers closed around the brass handle to the desk’s top drawer. The metal gleamed, matching the antique phone. Bethina had had simple tastes: wood, leather and bronze. She’d always disdained the glitz and glamour that accompanied many presidencies.
“How could I claim to represent the populace if I ate in one meal what would feed a family for a day? How could I tell them that we were all in it together if I had a suit that cost more than a month’s wages? How could I look someone in the eye and claim I represented the average Jack or Jane if I had gold-plated lifts?”
Bethina’s words, said over an early morning game of Alcazar, rang clearly in Chester’s mind. The Alcazar pieces were where the two old friends had left them, on the table by Beth’s sofa. Most had been knocked over; the Queen still stood. Chester’s face crinkled into a smile. Typical of Beth. Defiant even beyond death.
The drawer slid open on well-oiled hinges. Beth didn’t have expensive tastes, but she hated inefficiency. Chester found a screen, smudged with fingermarks. A dog-eared sheet of paper and an old cigar box, empty but for one pencil with a soft pink nib. Otherwise, nothing. Beth was not the type to keep secrets in drawers. Question was: where then?
The light of an early morning sun slid into the room. It left shadows behind it, one of which appeared to be swinging from the branches of Beth’s Folly Tree. Sour spit filled Chester’s mouth. She’d been told how her friend had allegedly committed suicide. Chester refused to be one of the many queuing up to believe a lie purely because it was salacious or suited them.
She stepped over a stain that marred the eternal knot inlaid into the parquet floor and sat at a low table, which occupied the far end of the room. Lights hung from long cables, shrouded in what looked like upturned copper bins. A series of wooden beams were fastened to the walls. Laid out at ninety-degree angles, they created diamond-shaped boxes that were full of books of all shapes and sizes.
Scattered across the table, in a way that Chester could only describe as polite ransacking, was a collection of red leather binders: Beth’s diaries. 2117, the current year, was full to bursting, despite it still being young.
Chester sifted through the open books.
2072. The year of the Silk Revolution. The first page of the diary was ripped. Chester would have been twenty-seven this year, Beth two years her junior.
Her heart lurched. Was this how she was going to honour the memory of a person who had been intensely private in life? By rifling through Beth’s memories now she was dead?
Randall Soulier must have been the one who had trashed this place; he had no such compulsions towards decency. Chester did not want to sully her memories of Beth the same way. She let out the breath that she didn’t know she had been holding, but as she closed the book, a section leapt out of the page.
Rick was shipped to the uranium mines today in the back of a converted laundry van. It smelt of detergent. He refused to tell De Lette where he’d hidden the video of the hangings.
“Rick Franklin,” Chester murmured. “Beth’s one true love.”
One finger rested on the cover as Beth’s written words linked to a recent memory of Chester’s. “‘The video of the hangings?’ The VP showed me a video of hangings from the Silk Revolution.”
The paper crinkled as she opened the book and Chester continued reading.
President De Lette threatened Rick’s family: his wife, Thryn, his daughter, Rose. The way he stood there, arms spreadeagled, podgy hands pushing into his desk, framed by the light of the city of Tye as it burnt beyond the windows. I’ll never forget it.
There was a circular blotch on the page where the ink had run. A tear?
Rick promised to keep his mouth shut about De Lette’s role in instigating the Silk Revolution. His price was the safety of his family and the villagers of Tear, including Stann Taille, I assume. I wonder if Rick knows Stann betrayed him. De Lette promised not to harm them. He’s not a liar. He’s too clever for that. But he can wring hidden meanings out of any promise until it means exactly what he wants it to mean, despite what anyone else thinks they heard.
Chester flipped forwards a few pages, unable to shake the feeling of Beth’s accusing eyes watching her as Chester read her memories.
I asked Rick if he remembered why I used to trace a smile in the steam of a bathroom mirror in the morning.
A grin crinkled Chester’s face. She’d caught Beth doing that in the windows to her terrace one early morning. Beth had laughed it off as a childish habit, a memory of something that you do because you always have.
“Your way of starting the day with a smile,” Rick said.
He was right. Rick was usually right about me. I’m still not sure whether understanding someone that well is healthy — a risk-free relationship can go stale. The threat of com
petition that drives evolution can keep relationships alive, too.
Beth’s writing twisted and turned through philosophical ramblings. Some hit dead ends; others turned into half-formed concepts that Chester remembered hearing Beth using in her many speeches over the years, fully fleshed and bulletproof.
Beth had never been one to duck a debate or an interview. She was not one to shout down questions with insults or only take soft-focus interviews full of fawning praise. Beth would take questions from anyone, the harder, the more obtuse, the better. She’d earned a lot of respect in the process, even from her enemies.
Another page of the diary rustled as it turned. Beth had returned back to her conversation with Rick. Snapping back on topic in a manner that had always thrown her opponents.
“There’s more to it than that,” Beth had written to Rick through her diary. “Tracing a smile in the mirror steam was my way of guaranteeing that I’d see at least one genuine smile other than yours.” I told Rick how President De Lette’s former permanent secretary warned me I would live and die by the maxim that:
“Neither my friend, nor the friend of my friend, is my friend. Trust nothing to anyone, not even the dead. Their lies can be unwound at their opponents’ leisure.” Chester read the words out loud. She’d heard them so often from Beth they sounded in both hers and Beth’s voices.
I showed Rick the picture, the one my sister and I drew with the caption ‘the pea is mightier than the sword’. I thought it would give him something to fight for. He showed me the bent coin that De Lette had thrown him. Said that was what he fought for.
“No,” Chester whispered. “It can’t be true.” A chill chased itself up her spine. She closed the book, marking the sentence with her thumb.
