by Darius Hinks
“You look different,” said Lorinc, still trying to catch his breath from the fight. He frowned. “Not quite so shit.”
She nodded. “I have news.”
Lorinc glanced at the grain sack Isten had taken from the Bethsan Palace. It was lying at her feet, tied securely with rope.
Isten smiled, not hiding it this time. “I want to see Gombus and Puthnok.”
“Well they won’t want to see you,” said Piros, taking another drag on his pipe. “After what–” his skeletal body was shaken by a violent coughing fit. His face turned a worrying shade of purple and Isten glanced at Lorinc, who grimaced and shook his head.
When Piros managed to stop coughing, he wiped some spit from his jaw and, with a determined expression, took another drag on the pipe. His eyes strained and filled with tears, but he managed not to cough. “Gombus isn’t angry with you any more,” he said in a hoarse voice. “He just thinks you’re bad news.”
She nodded, her eyes glinting with amusement. “He’s wrong.”
Her cheerful demeanour had made them all curious.
“What is that?” asked Lorinc, looking at the bag. Some of the anger had gone from his voice and she could see a hopeful glint in his eye.
She nodded at the entrance to the alcove and Lorinc rose from the table, blocking it with his bulk.
When she was sure they weren’t being watched, Isten took the sack, placed it on the table and untied it, pulling it open to reveal the contents.
The Exiles looked shocked, disgusted and then delighted as they recognized Sayal Aroc’s severed head. Isten had performed some minor butchery on it before bringing it to the Stump, cutting away the strands of gold where her blast had sliced through his neck, hiding any evidence of alchymia.
“How?” whispered Lorinc, as Isten closed the bag again and hid the head.
They were all staring at her in amazement and Isten cherished the moment. After so many years of being a disappointment, she had finally shocked them in a good way.
“I couldn’t come back without good news,” she said, “after what happened in the warehouse. So I came up with a plan and got Brast to help me.”
“Brast?” Piros laughed, shaking his head. He waved his pipe around in a flamboyant gesture with an exaggerated grimace. “The spectre! Wasn’t he too tortured by his art to leave his house?”
“Too tortured by Isten, you mean,” laughed Lorinc.
Isten ignored their jokes. “I got a tip-off that Sayal was going down into the catacombs beneath Verulum Square, on the night of the festival. While he was down there, we managed to jump him. He got away but,” she grinned, “I trapped his most trusted heavies down there. They’re still there now, rotting, with no way to get out.”
Lorinc laughed – the kind of deep, genuine belly laugh that she had not heard from him in years. He leant back in his chair, eying her with wonder. “You’re one fucking surprise after another. Just when I think I’ve wasted all these years trusting you, you turn up with Sayal Aroc’s head.”
She smiled at him. Even as a child he had followed her into every scrape, shouting down anyone who doubted her. “When I was with the Sisters of Solace I learned where Sayal lived, so, once I’d robbed him of his heavies, it was an easy enough job to turn up unannounced and do to him what he did to Ozero.”
She dropped her smile and looked around the group. “And I made sure that he understood why I came for him. It wasn’t about turf wars or money; it was about Ozero.”
“So now what?” asked Lorinc.
“The Aroc Brothers are over,” she said. “At least for now. Sayal was the only thing that stopped them turning on each other. They’ll be busy fighting each other for a few weeks at least. By which time we’ll have supplied every pusher in the Botanical Quarter with cinnabar at half the price they were paying the Aroc Brothers. If they do manage to get their shit together, they’ll find out that they have no customers anymore.”
“At which point they’ll come looking for us,” said Piros. He tried to laugh but it turned into another wracking cough and he had to calm himself by drawing on his pipe again. “They’ll use those shiny crossbows to turn us into wall decorations.”
Isten shook her head. “The money we make from the cinnabar will buy us our own crossbows. Bigger, better ones. And, if the Aroc Brothers do want to take us on, they might have another surprise. We’re going to tell every Exile in the city that we’re back in business. They can stop grubbing around in the gutter for scraps and join an army.” Isten’s words were tumbling from her mouth as her excitement grew. “We’ll rule this city. And once we have it by the balls, I’ll find a way to get us out of here. Money is power. When we have power, we’ll be able to do anything. The Curious Men decide where each conjunction will take Athanor. And when we rule their city, I’ll tell them where they need to land its rotting carcass. I’ll demand that they take us back to Rukon.”
Her outburst left them looking even more shocked than when she showed them the head.
For a moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the distant roar of the crowds in the atrium and Piros’s wheezing breath.
“You’re insane,” whispered Lorinc. “Tell the Elect to take us home? How would we even speak to them?”
“I have new contacts,” said Isten. “The Sisters of Solace have given me ways to do things you can’t imagine. Once we’ve sewn up the cinnabar trade and taken back the brothels and the fights and all the other businesses we pissed away, we’ll be ready to go home.”
It was obvious that they all agreed with Lorinc about the state of her mind, but, along with the incredulous looks, she could see the stirrings of hope in their eyes.
Piros raised an eyebrow. “And all we have to do to start this great adventure is sell vast amounts of cinnabar at a cut-down price, you say?”
Isten nodded.
“Cinnabar that we don’t have,” said Piros, scratching at his long, greasy hair with an exaggerated frown, pretending to consider a tricky puzzle.
“And if I show you the cinnabar, will you wipe that stupid expression off your face?”
Piros sneered, ready to give her a sarcastic reply, but then he hesitated, thrown by the certainty in her voice.
“Meet me out the front of the Alembeck Temple tomorrow tonight,” she said, rising from the table. “Drag Puthnok and Gombus along. Tell them I’ve killed Sayal and found a way to dig us out of this shit.”
“Isten,” cried Lorinc as she turned to leave.
She smiled. “I’ll be there.”
15
For God and the Temple they cried, as the city ate their young. The plague reached into everything, twisting and corrupting. Hearts burst like sores and the river swelled with dead. Deeper still, beneath the clamour of the prayers, Athanor wept, weightless and afraid, dreaming of home, remembering the ballast of rock.
Alzen held the young man’s hand as he took his last breath. Coagulus was wrapped tightly around his face and body, a living winding-sheet that muffled the man’s final rattle. Alzen closed his eyes as Coagulus fed, absorbing the man’s soul with a barely perceptible tremor and passing it through Alzen’s fingers. He sighed as a wave of memories flooded his thoughts. Since channelling his power through Isten, Alzen had felt his spiritual growth accelerate. He was so close to becoming the Ingenious that he could almost feel it, Absolute Reason, simmering at the edge of his consciousness, ready to reveal its final secrets. The alchymia he loaned to Isten had been created with all the usual charms, philtres and paraphernalia but, when he passed the Divine Light on to her, when he hurled it through her limbs, it shone freely, giving him revelation after revelation. As Isten killed the Aroc Brothers, answers that had eluded Alzen for months suddenly became clear. He was haunted by it – by the sensation of transmitting his power through her flesh. He could not stop thinking about the glorious sense of ascendancy he felt when he joined his mind with hers. And he kept picturing her dark, gaunt face, staring at him, troub
led and wary, unreadable thoughts in her eyes. He shook his head, annoyed by his lack of focus.
He rose from the corpse and backed away from the bed, leaning against the wall of the squalid, fly-infested room. There had been so many of these tragic hovels; he had debased himself for years, placing his hands on these vulgar commoners, but now he sensed that he was only weeks away from mastering the Art. It would all be worth it when he showed the other phraters what true power was and sent the Old King snivelling from his throne.
The man on the bed had not been suffering from the plague. Alzen had seen that as soon as he entered. He had some kind of virus. He would have recovered in a day or two. But Alzen had played along with the confused family, telling them their son was beyond saving and that he would ensure his final moments were painless, both of which were untruths. There was no time to be patient. He had to master the Art soon. The Old King was suspicious. There were still Aroc Brothers out there who could spread rumours. If he did not move fast, everything could be ruined.
He heard movement outside the one-room hovel and went back to the bed, peeling Coagulus off the body with a moist pop.
He cursed as he saw that the man’s face was locked in an agonized grimace. That would not really fit with his description of events, so he tried to massage the corpse’s face into a more serene expression. To his annoyance, the face remained resolutely tormented.
“Is it over?” said a tremulous voice at the door.
Alzen muttered a curse and quickly folded Coagulus back into the egg without even pausing to wipe the creature clean. The whole situation infuriated him. All this absurd pretence was beneath him. He was trying to solve the mysteries of the universe and he had to act like a common charlatan.
He took a small copper bowl from his robes and crushed a cube of blue powder into it. He placed his finger in the corpse’s mouth, caught some spit on his finger and pressed it into the bowl with the powder. Then he took a glass vial, about the size of his index finger and poured scented oil into the mixture.
He placed his hand over the bowl and shook it, muttering a few words. The bowl burned hot beneath his palm and then, with the heat still on his skin, he pushed the corpse’s face again, repeating the same phrase. The face relaxed, looking slack-jawed rather than at peace, but at least not tormented.
Alzen shook his head as he secreted the bowl back in his robes, muttering another curse as he spilled some of the mixture on the cloth. Once he had become the Ingenious, there would be no need for any of this. He would harness elements with a thought, bending nature to his will with the ease of a god. He smiled at the thought. In the tongue of the ancients, the word for God was the same as the word for the Ingenious.
“Your Holiness?” came the tearful voice at the door.
Alzen swapped his smile for a sad, concerned expression and let the anguished family in. As they bustled past him, wailing and sobbing, Alzen’s mind was elsewhere, picturing the day when he would ascend the throne, drenched in divine light, steering Athanor with a casual wave of his hand as his brethren begged him for forgiveness. Then they would realize how wrong they had been in their choice of Old King.
As the man’s grieving relatives pawed at him and pressed their ugly faces into his robes, Alzen felt a jolt of alarm. The Old King! Today was the day on which Seleucus intended to visit his cell. The young man Alzen had just murdered had been strong and had taken much longer to die than Alzen had hoped. The whole morning had already gone. The Old King would be there within the hour.
He tried to sound sincere as he gave the weeping family his best wishes and then he hurried away from the gloomy, stinking hut, striding out into the midday sun.
The Azorus slums were particularly rank at this time of the day, and Alzen donned his ceremonial helmet as waded off up the muddy riverbank, heading away from the Saraca back towards the Temple District. His attendants went ahead of him, barging a path through beggars and salvage crews and brandishing knives at anyone who tried to approach him.
When he reached the road above the embankment, his attendants rushed up to one of the temple gates and opened them, admitting Alzen into a long, colonnaded avenue that led into the blessed, cloistered, most secret realms of the Elect. Gates clanged shut behind him and the din of the slums faded, replaced by the gentle sound of flowing water. Laborators bowed as Alzen passed, but he ignored them, striding through a series of courtyards, avenues and gardens, all of which were networked by a complex series of copper-lined channels and gullies cut into the flagstones. Some were as slender as a man’s arm and some were as wide as a small river, and crossed with bridges, but all of them ran with the same, shimmering liquid. It flowed over the copper, and tumbled into ornamental pools, clear and colourless, but too viscous to be water.
As Alzen approached a large octagonal court, he reached the point of confluence at which all the streams and rivulets met. At the centre of the court there was a golden cage, roughly egg-shaped and wrought of thousands of woven metal threads: the Microcosm. It towered over Alzen, nearly a hundred feet tall, and as the streams of liquid converged at its base, they formed a blaze of light that filtered through every one of the strands. Gathered around the Microcosm were dozens of robed, hooded laborators, standing at braziers, tending the flames and mumbling a low, droning chant.
Through force of habit, Alzen paused before the cage to whisper a prayer. He was close enough to see the outer strands growing and curling like the shoots of a metal plant. The cage was Athanor in miniature – a perfect replica of the Elect’s great masterpiece, showing every baffling detail of its design. Snaking through it all like a bullion serpent was the Saraca, endlessly circling, with the Temple District trapped in its dislocated jaws.
It was only ten minutes until his meeting with the Old King, so Alzen kept his prayer brief and hurried across the court, through more avenues and gardens, until he neared the building that housed his own cell.
He hissed in annoyance as he saw the squat, lumpy form of Phrater Ostan. He was scurrying towards him from a doorway, his expression anxious.
“Alzen!” he cried.
Alzen pretended not to see him and kept rushing towards his cell.
Ostan blocked his way.
Alzen halted with a sigh. “Phrater Ostan,” he said, giving him a slight nod and a forced smile. “I’m afraid I can’t talk. Seleucus is coming to my chambers to discuss the incident in the warehouse.”
“It’s more than that now.” Ostan leant close and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Have you heard about what happened in Gamala, in Bethsan Palace?”
Alzen shook his head, his pulse quickening.
“It’s happened again. Someone used alchymia as a murder weapon. Some hallucinogen peddlers from the Botanical Quarter had taken possession of the Bethsan Palace and they have been transfigured by some crude, violent form of alchymia.”
“A crude form?” Alzen struggled to hide amusement. None of his brothers understood the incredible significance of what he was doing.
Ostan nodded, looking horrified. Then he gripped Alzen’s arm and smiled. “But there’s good news too.”
Alzen gently removed Ostan’s hand. “Really?”
“Yes. When the murders took place, you and I were attending the observances in Anatis Square. We are above suspicion.”
“Weren’t we always?”
“Of course.” Ostan blushed, looking flustered and embarrassed. “But now the Old King can be doubly sure that we had nothing to do with these disgraceful acts. He saw us, plain as day, at the observances when the criminals were being murdered.”
Alzen smiled. “I’ll be late, Phrater Ostan.”
“Of course. Forgive me. Go. You may find that the Old King doesn’t even arrive though. What possible reason could he have for interrogating you now?”
Alzen managed to maintain his smile until he had broken away from Ostan and was striding towards his cell.
His attendants had alrea
dy opened the door in readiness and his housekeeper rushed out to meet him, looking distressed.
“His Majesty is already here,” he said, bowing and fawning as Alzen entered the building.
“Here?” Alzen stopped and glared at him. “Where? Where have you left him?” He looked around the entrance hall, seeing no sign of the Old King’s attendants.
The housekeeper was pale with anguish. “He insisted I admit him to your laboratory, Your Holiness. I left him in the antechamber but he did not wish to wait there.”
Alzen stared at him.
The man looked terrified.
“No matter,” said Alzen, finally, with a shrug. “I have nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sure the Old King will be fascinated to learn what I have been doing while he attends to matters of court. Have you offered him any wine or food?”
The housekeeper shook his head, his eyes wide.
Alzen laughed. “Fetch some, Bucra! Seleucus wears a heavy crown. The least we can do is greet him with some civility.”
Bucra bowed and rushed away, calling out to other attendants as he went.
Alzen’s brief moment of panic had faded as he strode across the entrance hall of his chambers. What did he have to fear? When Isten killed the Aroc Brothers, he had been standing just a few feet away from Seleucus, surrounded by his fellow phraters. There could be no suggestion that he was to blame. He remembered how close he was to success, and as he headed down the steps towards his laboratories, he was beaming.
The steps led down into a long, barrel-vaulted antechamber that led in turn to the laboratory. These lower chambers were all lit by pale, lifeless mandrel-fires, fixed in sconces on the walls, and the air was much cooler than the rooms above, cut deep into the rock and decorated with polished hexagonal tiles that gleamed and shimmered as Alzen rushed across them. He was still dressed in his ceremonial finery and felt more than ready to face Seleucus. He had removed his golden helmet upon entering the house, and his blond tresses tumbled freely down his chest, mingling with the yellow folds of his gown. He had his rod of office in one hand, he was using the other to brush away the dust of the slums.
