They arrived in a small antechamber, which again was minimalist in style. Artemisia ushered them through a white door, then another. The soldiers found themselves in a room around fifty paces wide, with a large, black table upon a raised platform, around which Artemisia’s elders were seated, along with other people garbed in military-style clothing, one human wearing bright-silver chest armour and a sour expression. The elders regarded the Night Guard pensively.
At the other end of the chamber, Frater Mercury was seated in an immense glass-like throne. Around the room were large, golden cauldrons, each with levers and dials, and when he passed one Brynd peered in to see a clear liquid inside with steam rising. The floor tiles they walked upon were almost porcelain-like in their appearance, but they remained strangely soft underfoot, like a luxurious carpet. The white walls contained designed panels here and there; whether they had function or not, he didn’t know.
The man in silver armour, grey-haired yet still young-looking, marched down to Artemisia, and began to speak in hushed tones. His uniform was interesting, not dissimilar to some of the more ancient costumes from the Boreal Archipelago: a white tunic over which he wore stylized armour that had been moulded to look like a muscular chest and boots of dark brown leather.
Artemisia turned to Brynd. ‘My people wish to confirm our plans.’
‘Of course,’ Brynd said. ‘How shall we continue?’
‘Stand by any one of the cauldrons,’ she instructed.
Brynd turned to his comrades and shrugged. They peeled off in small groups to stand around the vessels.
They were tall objects, reaching to just under Brynd’s ribs, and they were at least several feet wide. On closer inspection, the fluid within was not transparent, it was mirroring what was above. Brynd saw his own pale features reflected, though his face was distorted slightly by slow ripples passing across the liquid. ‘What should we be looking for?’
Artemisia was looking at the elders, who were conferring and gesturing to their table. Were there maps on there?
Suddenly the liquid began to bubble slightly, then simmered, though Brynd could feel no heat from the container. He looked at the expressions on his comrades’ faces, and they were as cool as his own.
‘Look down into the cauldrons,’ Artemisia called.
The liquid began to change tone — its mirror-like qualities dissipated, and in their place appeared images of small black dots.
‘What are we looking at?’ Brynd enquired.
‘These are the. . Boats?’ she looked to Brynd for confirmation of the word and he nodded. ‘These are being sent out, as we converse, across the waters towards the coast of Folke.’
Brynd looked down again into the liquid. He could now see that while there was a cloud around the perimeter of the cauldron, the liquid was in fact the surface of the sea, and there were hundreds of small dots. ‘Just like Villiren,’ he breathed. ‘Where did the boats come from, another Realm Gate?’
‘Not this time. These were contained within a limb of their vessel.’
‘So the enemy has launched their offensive already?’
‘They have indeed.’
Brynd’s heart skipped a beat, but he wanted to be sure. ‘How are you acquiring such. . such pictures? Moving ones, of that.’
‘We have our. . surveillance beings, not dissimilar to your garudas. They are equipped in a fashion that means what they see is transmitted to these cauldrons.’
‘What size is this force?’
‘There are approximately ten thousand ships heading to the shore in the first wave, and one of your hours behind them lies a second, larger wave. Our estimates suggest the first will arrive in two hours.’
‘Most of our forces will take another day to meet us. They’re currently protecting towns situated further from the coast, where the populations are dense.’
‘They will be of more use there, for we have tens of thousands of our own people ready to meet this. We will, however, require your guidance. The elders,’ Artemisia gestured respectfully towards them, ‘will need to know what this terrain of sand is like.’
‘It’s nothing you want to fight on ideally,’ Brynd replied. ‘Depending on where they make landfall, however, your best bet is to assault them hardest as they land on the beaches. The waters are shallow, which means that the boats won’t be able to penetrate deep enough. If the ships are of the same type as those that hit Villiren, they’ll probably run aground thirty or forty feet before the low-tide mark: this means wading through water.’
‘We will need to know the quality of your water. Is it saline?’
‘It is.’
‘We have oils that will be useful here. Liquid fire, commander.’
Brynd raised an eyebrow. ‘That will be more than useful, if it does what I think it might. After this, I suggest holding them up as best you can with airborne assaults, archers, catapults, anything to keep them from establishing a position on the beaches. It will be messy. We’ll have the advantage as there will be nothing for them to shelter behind at first. They will suffer a lot of casualties if you’ve the numbers to keep the attack up.’
‘Be assured we do.’
‘Good. I’m guessing your enemy knows this already since they’ve split their assault into two sections.’
‘At least two.’
‘So why do they not send their sky-city to deploy ground troops?’
‘It doesn’t move well across water.’
‘You could have mentioned this earlier!’ Brynd snapped.
‘The. . forces it uses require it to be above land, otherwise they have to adopt different fuel sources and it can very much inhibit their mobility. This works to our favour, for it may be that our attempt to land on board will be far simpler.’
‘And are we to attempt this boarding while the war rages?’ Brynd asked.
‘Yes.’
‘It feels wrong. We should be on our islands, protecting our people and our land and our children.’
‘This is not the time for seeking glories.’
‘This is not,’ Brynd growled, ‘about glory. This is about doing our jobs. We will stand alongside our people.’
‘You will have time for such matters, if you wish,’ Artemisia replied coolly, ‘but we should concentrate our primary efforts on where their communications are most focused.’
‘The sky-city,’ Brynd said. ‘I’m guessing that their military will mostly be concentrated on the invasion, leaving the sky-city less defended?’
‘Indeed that is so, much like our own. We strike when the battle is at its most intense, but it will not be simple,’ Artemisia replied firmly, and with outstretched arms she gestured to the cauldrons once again, which bubbled furiously.
A new scene then presented itself: there were clouds or white smoke at first, a hazy bird’s-eye view of landscape, rolling hills, snow-covered tundra perhaps, it wasn’t easy to discern. Then, dark patches of land.
‘What are we looking at now?’ Brynd enquired.
‘This is our army,’ Artemisia said, with pride. ‘One and a half million individuals, made up of several different races, all of whom are trained. . soldiers, I believe your word is, though we would call them mercenaries and conscripts, too. It is all we could muster at such short notice. More are coming, but we are currently engaged in the business of evacuating our largest city. It is not, as you may appreciate, a simple and clean effort.’
‘Indeed. .’ Brynd peered once again into the liquid, only to see a clearer context now: there was the coastline, along which Artemisia’s forces were gathered.
‘We are adjusting our tactics according to your advice,’ she announced.
How the hell are they doing that so quickly?
‘I can sense you are wondering how this may be so,’ she continued. If she was capable of pride, she was certainly capable of smugness at how her culture was more advanced than Brynd’s.
‘Not really,’ Brynd grunted. There was a chuckle from one of his soldiers. ‘But
since you mention it, what facilities are you using?’
Artemisia described a complex system that seemed to cross shamanism with high technological genius. The elders were connected telepathically to the generals on the ground, where they in turn had cauldrons and methods of viewing the entire operation. There was a vast system of communication that her army depended upon, and Brynd remembered how the Okun, too, relied on an elegant form of contact with each other. It maintained their uniformity, their progress. Their devastating force.
Artemisia concluded, ‘We shall settle final tactics on the ground, then for our own operation — for which we have gained new intelligence and our cartographers have supplied us with internal maps of the Policharos. After this discussion, we may watch the first wave of conflict.’
‘What, we just sit up here and watch the war like spectators? Shouldn’t we be down on the ground, rallying the troops, boosting their confidence, giving direction?’
Artemisia translated this statement to the elders, who seemed greatly amused.
‘Our people do war on an enormous scale, Commander Lathraea. More often than not, if we are on the ground, any information we give would be too slow and ineffective. No, it is better we stay up here, and view progress through our usual means.’
Brynd did not like this at all. It was his way to be on the ground, with his own people, protecting his towns and cities from whatever forces assaulted them. It seemed an artificial warfare, conducted from a distance, as if he were one of the ancient gods.
I am no god, he thought to himself. We will fight alongside our people.
TWENTY — SEVEN
Fulcrom and Lan headed back to the Partisans’ Club in the morning. When they arrived, Fulcrom made up some excuse about having lost Lan’s necklace the night before and asked to take a look around to see if he could find it.
‘You look like decent sorts,’ the doorman said, and let them both in.
While he was there, Fulcrom planned to engage the owner in a conversation about the event with Malum. It pained Fulcrom to praise the scenes he had seen that night, to wax lyrical about what was at best small-mindedness, racism and violence. But he knew he needed more information about what Malum had devised next and this was his best — his only — lead for now.
The owner turned out to be a woman in her fifties. She looked as if she could have once been a starlet in her day, and there was still something about the way she moved, and the make-up she wore, that said she hadn’t fully left the stage alone. She had greying blonde hair, a huge smile and wide, pretty eyes. Judging by the look of her she liked her food now, and almost anticipating such thoughts she said, as they took a table by the empty stage, ‘I’m not what I used to be, you know. When you have your own cook, sometimes the temptation is too great!’
‘There’s no harm in liking a good meal,’ Fulcrom said.
‘You rumel might be able to cope, but it’s not that easy for me. Now, can I get you a drink? I’ve more than one handsome waiter around here somewhere. .’
‘No, that’s OK,’ Fulcrom laughed, ‘we shouldn’t be that long — hopefully Lan will find the necklace soon enough.’
‘She’s a pretty girl,’ the woman observed.
‘She is,’ Fulcrom replied. ‘If you want to get yourself something to eat or drink, don’t let me stop you.’
‘I don’t get enough exercise to eat and drink all the time! I used to be on that stage every night in my youth.’ She gestured with a wave to the dimly lit platform just behind.
‘You’ve some interesting shows these days,’ Fulcrom told her. ‘That one with Malum last night was different. Not your typical piece of theatre.’
‘You could put it like that. Must confess, I don’t normally like to entertain the likes of him.’
‘You disapprove of what he said? I thought it was. . interesting.’
‘Not his message, no,’ the woman replied, leaning back in her chair and drawing a leg over her other knee. ‘No, he speaks wisely on that front, does the young man. I make no issue about being scared of the aliens — most of us are.’
‘It’s understandable, given the times we live in,’ Fulcrom said. ‘So how did you end up hosting his. . well, his little show?’
‘Oh, he’s a regular here — well, he used to be before the war. That was his chair over there, by the wall.’
‘He had his own chair?’
‘He was in the gangs.’
Fulcrom nodded, pretending to understand the significance of her statement.
‘Those gang types,’ she went on, ‘tend to have their own way around these parts. You don’t mess with them.’
‘It shouldn’t be like that,’ Fulcrom observed.
‘That’s the way this city is,’ she said. ‘There’s no point in complaining about things.’
‘How does a gang type end up here? And how does he go from having a table to going on stage?’
‘Well, he asked for a favour, and I was too scared to say no.’
‘I don’t really get the chance to mix with people like that.’
‘Count yourself lucky.’
‘I was interested in what he had to say, even if he doesn’t impress everyone. I had this silly idea in mind of offering my help.’
The woman eyed him suspiciously. ‘There are better people to help.’
‘But I agree with his sentiments.’
‘You know, I’m feeling generous.’ She then went on to describe the address at which Malum could be found. ‘That’s if you’re serious in your offer.’
‘I’m very serious,’ Fulcrom replied. As if on cue, Lan came over with a necklace in her hand and a wide smile on her face.
‘Well,’ the owner declared, ‘would you look at that. What were the chances?’
‘I know,’ Lan replied, with fake elation.
Fulcrom rose and stood alongside Lan. ‘That’s wonderful news. Now I won’t have to buy you another.’
‘We should probably be going.’
‘Let me show you out,’ the woman said. She walked them back through the musty corridors, which smelled of spilled alcohol and arum weed.
‘One last thing.’ The woman paused at the bottom of the stairwell to the exit. ‘You are both awful liars and performers.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I know lousy acting when I see it. You should have just been honest and asked for his details outright. I’d be glad to see him stopped — that’s if you think you have it in you.’
Fulcrom considered continuing the charade, but decided it wasn’t worth it. ‘We have to be careful. We know who we’re dealing with.’
‘I know. Make sure you watch your back.’
Outside, Fulcrom consulted Lan on their next move. They weighed up their options, but with nothing else in their way they decided to press on to the address.
‘With the military out of the city, we need to see if we can stop this sooner rather than later,’ Fulcrom concluded. ‘At the moment, though, I’m short on ideas. .’
The two of them headed through the wet streets. The cobbles were shiny in the afternoon sun. A giant trilobite, which Fulcrom had heard of but never seen until now, skittered across their path dragging a crate of tools. The devastation from the war was clearer here, but Fulcrom guessed that things had been far worse before they turned up. There wasn’t so much rubble, but it was the lack of activity in what should have been a thriving district that was disconcerting.
It took them the better part of an hour to reach the area they wanted, a well-to-do zone with a few taverns, faded shopfronts, and that kind of architectural spirit far too lacking in the rest of the city.
The building was a whitewashed affair with timber frames and a flat roof. A few people milled around nearby and Fulcrom tried to assess whether or not they were related to the operation Malum was running. A cluster of youths came out of a side door and marched with deliberate purpose and an air of nonchalance. He spotted a few knives being carried, so they decided to hang back a little wh
ile longer.
‘So what exactly is the plan?’ Lan asked. ‘We just storm in, the two of us?’
‘No,’ Fulcrom replied. ‘I think we need a little more confirmation of what’s going on. I suspect our next move should be a stealthy one. I want to get up on the roof.’
‘Easy enough.’
‘For you, maybe, not for the likes of me.’
‘Should get yourself some powers someday,’ Lan chuckled.
The roofs were all flat and the buildings close together so Fulcrom decided they should head to one of the nearby taverns, get up on its roof, and jump across until they were on the roof of Malum’s building. Lan happily enough skipped up onto the roof when no one was looking, but Fulcrom had to find his way around the back to scramble up. Lan gave him a hand up at the top, and with an effort he found himself on top of the tavern.
‘Thanks,’ he spluttered.
‘No problem,’ Lan replied.
The place offered a good view of the area. The sun was higher in the sky now and a cold wind blew half-heartedly. The youths had moved on a few streets, and Lan spotted them heading towards the east.
‘Let’s go over.’ Fulcrom steadied himself, took a run and leapt across the three-foot gap between the rooftops. Lan effortlessly took a large step, her foot hardly touching the adjacent roof before she’d moved on to the rooftop of Malum’s building.
‘All right,’ Fulcrom muttered as he landed alongside her and wiped the gritty rainwater from his palms.
There was a hatch on the top, a mouldy bucket to one side, but otherwise nothing else of use. Fulcrom headed towards the hatch, saw that it had not been opened for a while.
‘Lan, can you give a hand here?’
‘Sure, is it locked?’
‘I’m not sure. It just needs a yank to pull it open, but I don’t want to make a noise.’
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