The Temporal Void (ARC)

by Peter F. Hamilton

  'I give you my word I will not endanger her. If it takes the ransom to release her, I will carry it to them for you.'

  'Wait. You know where she is, don't you?'

  'I'm not sure.'

  'My aunt says you do. Wait, I will come with you.'

  'Oh Lady,' Edeard groaned.

  'We can be there before he even gets down here,' Boyd urged.

  'No we can't,' Macsen said through gritted teeth.

  Edeard looked down, Homelt and a number of guards were standing at the foot of the stairs. 'Does nobody want this girl to live?' he growled.

  'We do, Edeard,' Kanseen assured him.

  'Right then.' He took the last flight of stairs at a run.

  'I have my orders,' Homelt said as the squad confronted him. His hand rested on his pistol holster.

  'What are they?' Edeard asked reasonably.

  'Not to let you leave the mansion. It's not just Master Julan. I could maybe ignore that on this day. But Lorin backed him up, and he does have his wits about him. I'll say naught about Mistress Florrel.' The guard captain glanced up, several people were on the eighth flight of stairs, making a commotion as they wound their way inexorably down.

  'Fair enough,' Edeard said. 'Don't let us out.'

  Homelt flashed him a hugely relieved look. 'You'll wait for the Master?'

  'Not quite.' Edeard leaned forwards. 'She is alive. I know where she is.'

  'I will come with you, Waterwalker,' Homelt said softly.

  'No. This is not the help she needs. Already the news is spreading. We have to be quick. You know they'll kill her, and you know why.'

  Homelt's anguish was visible for all to see. 'What do you want me to do?'

  'Take us down to your deepest cellar. The one on the north western corner of the mansion. And we'll need your pistols, too. Hurry man, or it'll be too late.'

  Homelt glanced up the stairwell. Julan was on the seventh flight of stairs. 'Quickly then.'

  The cellar door was ancient wood, long since blackened so that no grain showed. Nails holding the hinges against the city's original open arch were in need of re-inserting; the city's sub stance had rejected over half of their length. That looseness made the heavy door swing about unsteadily as Homelt drew the bolls back and opened it. Barrels and crates cluttered the small room, caked in decades of dust and fil-rat droppings.

  'I don't understand,' the guard captain said, peering into the gloomy space. 'What's in here?'

  'Us,' Edeard told him. 'Lock us in here. That way you will have obeyed your orders to the letter.'

  'What about Mirnatha?'

  'Trust me.'

  For a moment Edeard thought he might refuse and march them all upstairs for Julan and Lorin to sort out. But after a moment of hesitation while his mind showed a huge amount of uncertainty, Homelt ushered them all into the cellar, gave them a pistol each, and shut the door.

  'Far be it for my humble self to criticise,' Macsen said as the bolts were slammed back into place with some force. 'But I don't understand either.'

  'If we are to rescue Mirnatha alive, it means we won't be able to take prisoners,' Edeard told them gravely. He brandished a pistol, examining its mechanism with his farsight. 'Are you still with me?'

  'We're with you,' Kanseen said. 'But will you please tell us what in all of Honious is going on. I thought we'd got past this whole trust thing.'

  Edeard grinned broadly. 'This'll test your trust as nothing else. Step where I do, one at a time. You will feel like you're falling, but I promise you're not. If you can't do this, I'll think no less of you.' He asked a circle of floor to let him though. It changed. Edeard stepped on it, and fell through the blackness into the Great Major Canal tunnel. Once he'd landed on the ledge above the water he moved to one side and waited.

  It was Boyd who came through first, yelling in shock the whole way until his feet touched the ledge. 'Fuck the Lady!' he bellowed in fright-driven excitement.

  Still grinning, Edeard grabbed his friend's shoulder and dragged him aside as Kanseen came through; little whimpering sounds burping out of her throat as her arms windmilled furiously. She looked round in astonishment. 'This is incredible. It's… I had no idea this existed.'

  Edeard caught her arm and just managed to pull her out of the way of Dinlay's feet. Dinlay's eyes were screwed up shut behind his glasses.

  'Waaaahoooo,' Macsen yelled wildly as he dropped through the roof of the tunnel.

  Edeard faced his friends, still unable to wipe the grin off his face. He'd rarely sensed their minds so unguarded; but surprise had left them too jittery to veil their emotions as usual. 'So,' he drawled. 'You must have been keeping these tunnels from me, what with you city natives knowing everything there is to know about your own home.'

  'You bastard,' Macsen said happily. 'What is this?'

  'This is the tunnel under the Great Major Canal, every canal has one.'

  'But how…?' Dinlay was blinking up at the roof of the tunnel, his farsight probing the substance to try and find where they'd come through.

  'I'm the Waterwalker,' Edeard told them. 'Remember?'

  'Seriously,' Kanseen asked with a noticeable edge in her voice. 'How did we get here?'

  'I'm not sure, exactly. I just ask the city, and it lets me through.'

  'You. Just. Ask. The. City.'

  'Yep,' he said, faintly apologetic.

  'After today, you have a lot more explaining to do.'

  Edeard sobered up. 'Then let's get today over with.'

  Their mood followed his down to a more sombre level. He started to walk along the tunnel towards Forest Pool. 'The fish smoking business is only one street back from Pink Canal.'

  'So you do have a plan then?' Macsen said.

  'Yes. The way we come down reverses. The five of us will slide up into the cellars close to where Mirnatha is being held.'

  'You said there's ten of them?'

  'At least. I'm worried the kidnapper is there as well. He can conceal himself, so we'll never know for sure until we're there. The first thing they'll do at any sign of rescue is kill Mirnalha.

  It won't matter how clever I've been finding her, or how good we are at sneaking up on them if she's dead at the end of it all.'

  'Why go up there at all?' Kanseen asked. 'Just ask the city to let her fall down here.'

  'First off, she's shackled to the wall. We'd have to break the chains, and even I can't do that from down here. Secondly, there's no tunnel directly underneath her cellar, not even a drain. We're going to have to come up in the one next to hers.'

  'Crap,' Boyd muttered.

  'We go up concealed,' Edeard said. 'If I can get into the cellar where they're keeping her, my third hand should be able to protect her from bullets. It's going to be up to you to cover my back.'

  They splashed across the shallow basin that emulated Forest Pool high above. Edeard could just farsight people gathering along the sides of the canals. Children with their flower boats, eager to launch them. Adults still seething over Mirnatha.

  'How many in her cellar?' Kanseen asked.

  'Two that I can sense.' He still wasn't sure about the kidnapper. The cellar had many old crates and lengths of wood as well as a couple of small benches. If anyone with a concealment was sitting on them he couldn't tell. Certainly the cellar floor had no current memory of anyone else standing on it. It would take a long time to filter through the day's memories.

  'How are you going to get to her, then?'

  'Brute force. As soon as we're all up there, I make a run for the door. I can smash through it and get in front of her, where I can protect her. Then I just hang on while you take the others out.'

  'And if it goes wrong?'

  'Then we're all dead, and Makkathran has to find someone else to campaign against the gangs.'

  Kanseen gave him a disapproving grin. 'You're going to make a terrible Chief Constable. Grand Councillors are supposed to be smooth and subtle.'

  'You can teach me. You'll have a hundred years,
after all.'

  'No,' she said. 'You move quicker than that.'

  Edeard led them along Pink Canal tunnel, then off into the drain fissure until they were standing underneath the cellar closest to where Mirnatha was being held captive.

  'I can sense her,' Kanseen said excitedly. 'The poor thing's terrified.'

  'Everyone ready?' Edeard asked.

  When they assured him they were, he said: 'I think I can do this so we all go up together. Remember, keep yourself concealed until they know I'm there, then take them out. And for the Lady's sake don't call out. You're not actually falling, it only feels like it.'

  'Wait,' Boyd said. 'It feels like we're falling when we're going up,'

  'Yes. And no; I don't know why.'

  Macsen clicked the safety catch off his pistol. 'Let's just go. See you all up there.'

  'All right,' Edeard said. He concealed himself, and waited until the others had vanished from his sight, then told the city to take them up.

  The cellar he slid up into was barely high enough for him to stand upright. It was a simple oblong box of a room, with dark walls inset with narrow alcoves, and a shallow vaulted ceiling of lierne ribs. Ancient fishing nets and tishcrab cages were piled up along one wall. One doorway opened on to a spiral stair up to the smoking caverns above. The kidnappers were sitting at two wooden tables in front of it, slowly consuming a quantity of food. There was no beer or wine, just water, Edeard saw. Whoever had organized this had chosen well. These men had a ruthless discipline; they'd use the pistols resting on the table without a qualm. Just standing among them made him worry for the squad.

  One of them started to look round the room, frowning. 'Did you hear something?'

  Edeard made for the half-open door. He wiggled his way round through the gap, not daring to breathe. Behind him, the kidnappers were picking their pistols off the table. Powerful longtalk voices were directing questions at the guards upstairs.

  Edeard looked along the low corridor. The smell of fish and oak-smoke was heavy in the air. Directly opposite him was a door to the cellar where Mirnatha was being held. It was made from tyewood planks three inches thick, with iron hinges that had recently been re-set in the walls. There were heavy bolts on either side, and both sets were drawn shut. He braced himself against the wall, summoned up the full strength of his third hand, then leapt forwards.

  His concealment dropped as he was halfway across the corridor. The door burst apart as he smashed it with his third hand, putting up no more resistance than if it had been made of glass.

  A shout in the cellar behind: 'Hey!' as their farsight caught him. Then he was through the smashed door, and folding his third hand protectively round the dazed little girl.

  Three pistol shots boomed out behind him, appallingly loud in the confines of the underground chambers. His farsight caught Kanseen flicker into view behind one of the kidnappers sitting at the table. He was rising to his feet. Kanseen's pistol was aimed at the back of his skull. She pulled the trigger, and his face exploded outwards in a spray of gore. Kanseen vanished again. Dinlay was firing into the side of another kidnapper; his mind ablaze with rage and fear. He vanished. Macsen appeared on the other side of the cellar.

  Edeard's pistol was swinging round to line up on one of the two men guarding Mirnatha as he charged across the cellar. It was hardly a perfect aim, but he fired anyway, getting off four shots. More pistol shots echoed round him. Shouts and longtalk howls behind him created a bedlam of white-noise. The guard he'd shot at grunted in shock, and stared down at his tunic to see a huge stain of blood spreading across his chest. Two bullets punched Edeard, knocking him to one side. One bullet hit his third hand directly above Mirnatha's head. Then he was squashed up against her, closing his arms round her shaking shoulders as she screamed a soprano wail that never ended. More pistol shots. One slammed into his neck - fired by the uninjured guard. Edeard reached out with his third hand, his strength shoving through the man's own shield. He ripped at the man's brain. The skull cracked, blood pulsed out of his ears as he crumpled to the ground.

  Another bullet smacked into Edeard. He shifted his farsight focus to see the injured guard slumped against a wall; holding his pistol up, arm wavering about. He was drawing breath in feeble gulps as his blood spilled onto the floor. Edeard's third hand wrenched the gun from his numb fingers. Rotated it a hundred and eighty degrees. Pulled the trigger.

  Three more shots from outside, and the shouting cut off.

  'Edeard?' Macsen shouted.

  'All right! In here.'

  'Are you okay?'

  'Wait,' he ordered, tightening his physical hold around the girl, keeping his shield as hard as rock. Mirnatha had fainted. He instinctively knew something was wrong. After the first guard had gone down, the second one had fired. Two shots had struck him, and a third was aimed at Mirnatha. They couldn't possibly have come from just one pistol.

  The squad were tumbling out of the cellar opposite.

  'Wait,' he called again. 'Don't come in.'

  'What's happening?' Boyd demanded.

  Edeard knew he should have been delighted that all his friends were alive. Instead he scanned round and round the room, looking for the slightest tell tale sign. The cellar floor revealed nothing. There were no human feet standing on it. Edeard used his third hand to shatter the bench the guards had been using. Nothing. He crunched the second bench and all the chairs. 'Lady!'

  He lifted up a length of splintered wood, and sent it scything round the room. Kanseen and Dinlay were crouched hallway down the corridor, pistols held ready, their faces registering bewilderment as their farsight followed his actions. Edeard swung the wood through three orbits of the cellar without connecting to anything. He scraped it along the wall at waist-height, jabbing it viciously into every alcove as he performed a complete circuit. Again, nothing.

  'You're good,' he acknowledged, and reached out with his farsight to feel what the cellar floor and walls were feeling, hunting for that elusive pressure of human feet. His perception swept back and forth. Then, finally, the last kidnapper was revealed.

  'Very clever,' Edeard said, and meant it. He turned round, still keeping Mirnatha centred within his protective telekinesis. He aimed his pistol up at the ceiling to one side of the door, and fired the remaining two shots in quick succession.

  The kidnapper's concealment fizzled out as the bullets struck, revealing him clinging to the small lierne ribs like some human spider. He fell inertly to the floor, landing with a dull crack. It was the same man who'd snatched Mirnatha from her room.

  Edeard walked over to him and stared down. 'She is six years old, and you used her,' he exclaimed in disgust.

  The man's mouth opened. Blood spilled out. He somehow managed a small sneer. 'Rot in Honious,' a weak longtalk sputtered. Then his thoughts were dimming. Edeard kept his farsight on those final flutters of emotion, searching for the slightest hint of regret. Some explanation of why a person could be so cold.

  More blood bubbled out of the kidnapper's mouth as he exhaled for the last time. Yet Edeard could still sense his thoughts, enfeebled wisps of their original strength and pattern. The body had died, but they persisted. Then they moved.

  Edeard gulped in shock, and took a step back as the kidnapper's soul diffused gracefully out of his body. The spectral entity hovered over the corpse for a few moments, then ascended into the ceiling and was lost to Edeard's farsight.

  'Did you sense that?' he asked the squad in astonishment.

  'Edeard?' Kanseen asked. 'Is it safe?'

  'Uh, yeah. That was his soul, wasn't it?'

  'His soul?' She edged cautiously across the remnants of the door. Any curiosity was instantly forgotten as she saw Mirnatha.

  'Whose soul?' Macsen asked brashly as he followed Kanseen in.

  Edeard couldn't take his eyes off the ceiling where the soul had vanished. 'The kidnapper's.'

  'Did you get shot?' Macsen asked in concern.

  'No.'

  A moan from
Mirnatha succeeded in drawing Edeard's attention back down. 'Don't let her see this,' he blurted. There was blood and gore all over the cellar. And the bodies. A scene that was even worse in the cellar at the bottom of the stairs. 'Are all of you okay?'

  'Oh, now you ask,' Boyd joshed.

  'I think I'm going to be sick,' Dinlay said. His constable tunic was covered in blood.

  Edeard's third hand snapped the iron shackles round Mirnatha's wrists. Kanseen blinked at the nonchalant show of strength. 'You carry her,' she said, stroking the girl's brow, gentle with concern. Her hand and sleeve was speckled with arterial blood.

  'But—'

  'This is your victory,' Kanseen insisted.

  Edeard nodded. 'Thank you. All of you.'

  Boyd's solemn face broke into a wild smile. 'By the Lady: we got her! We bloody did it.'

  They were all laughing in shaky relief as Edeard scooped up the small child, and carried her out of the cellar. People won crowding round the top of the stairs as he made his way out of the smoking chambers. Workers and family members with worried faces and probing farsight. That worry changed to consternation as the Waterwalker himself emerged into their midst. They backed off fast.

  'No good trying to hide,' Boyd said as they made their way out through the shop at the front of the building. 'The local constables will be calling.' He paused. 'That's if the Culverit family guards don't pay you a visit first.'

  Edeard stepped out into the midday sun, blinking at how bright it was. It seemed as if he hadn't been outside in the light for a week, yet it was less than an hour since Homelt had taken them to the mansion's cellar. He got his bearings swiftly enough, and started walking down Layne Street.

  Mirnatha stirred as they turned into Arnold Avenue, heading for Pink Canal. She started suddenly, looking round frantically.

  'It's all right,' Edeard told her. 'We're taking you home to your family. Your father and sister are worried about you.'

  She gave him a wide-eyed stare. 'You're the Waterwalker.'

  'Yes. I am.'

  'They took—' she cried. 'I was in a dark room. I couldn't farsee anything. They were horrible—I—I—'

  'It's over. Look. It's a bright sunny day. We should be back at your home in time for you to see the flower boats.'