by Darius Hinks
Seleucus held up one of his wire-entangled hands for silence.
“Some crimes are too great to go unpunished. Our rule has been unchallenged for countless centuries, but if it became public knowledge that we are fallible, mortal beings, prey to the same dangers as a vulgar commoner, the status quo we have worked so carefully to secure could be at risk.”
Alzen looked round at a sea of shocked, horrified faces. No one doubted the truth of Seleucus’s words.
“Phrater Herbrus was a loyal servant of the Temple,” continued the Old King, “but we must make no mention of his murder. Word of it must never spread to the city streets. It could have catastrophic consequences.”
Alzen wanted to sneer at Seleucus’s dramatic tone, but he had to accept that this could be dangerous. Their rule was, in part, secured by the myth of their inhumanity. If it was known that they could be killed like any other man, everything could change.
“But first,” said Seleucus, “we must ensure that the savages responsible are crushed. The majority of our new citizens have shown all the gratitude we would expect, but there is a specific faction, a particularly barbaric tribe, who object to our arrival.”
“Why, Your Majesty?” cried one of the phraters, his shock so great that it led him to break protocol and interrupt Seleucus’s speech.
Seleucus shrugged. “Religion. The usual stumbling block. They follow some obscure creed that states they, and they alone, can inhabit the stretch of coastline we have arrived at. It is not unusual, as you know, to encounter some resistance, but what is unusual is the power they have harnessed. When they attacked Phrater Herbrus, they were accompanied by beings that seemed more like columns of blood than physical creatures. Herbrus was an experienced and powerful practitioner, but these blood serpents devoured his soldiers and even the Art was not enough to preserve him.” He gripped his staff and banged it on the royal dais. “We must act fast. And we cannot leave this matter to the hiramites. I need you to prepare your most powerful distillations and instruments. I will give you a week to ready yourselves.”
“We’ll leave the city?” asked the same phrater, his fear obvious.
Anger crept into Seleucus’s voice and he hammered down his staff again. “You will crush these savages. And you will preserve the sanctity of this order. You will make sure that no one ever hears of this atrocity. You will turn the full majesty of the Art on that coast, until there’s nothing left but ash and ghosts.”
A stunned silence fell over the room. Seleucus’s rage had filled the air with a ceiling of smoke, but Alzen’s mind was elsewhere. A week? And then he would be battling savages miles from the slums, miles from his laboratory. His breath came in short, shallow gasps and his vision started to darken. This could not happen. He could not leave when he was so close. The very next death might be the one to elevate him.
“All of us, Your Majesty?” he asked, breaking the silence. “We all need to leave?”
Seleucus’s voice was taut with suppressed rage. “Do you have more important matters to attend to, Phrater Alzen?”
All eyes turned towards Alzen in shock. He wanted to howl at them. They cowered and snivelled before Seleucus as though he really was a god, but if they had shown more sense he would be up there on that throne. He managed to stay calm. They would all see, soon enough, what a truly great practitioner was capable of. “Of course not, Your Majesty,” he replied, bowing slightly. “I merely wondered if it was wise to send all of us from the city. The Great Work must continue, surely. What horrors could Brauron hold that would require more than a handful of us?”
Seleucus stared at Alzen, fumes snaking round his mask. “Your regent has spoken, Phrater Alzen.” His words echoed round the chamber, heavy with power and threat.
Alzen wanted to scream. He wanted to storm up onto the dais and tell Seleucus how important his work was – how close he was to ascending to a state of true power. “Of course, Your Majesty,” he said, with a stiff bow.
“One week,” said Seleucus, looking out across the gathering and slumping back into his throne. “Prepare miracles, my brothers. Harness the greatest power at your disposal and be ready for my summons. No one must be allowed to kill a phrater and live.”
There was a murmur of consent, then, at a wave of Seleucus’s hand, the crowd began to disperse.
Alzen forced his way in the opposite direction, heading towards the dais, but before he could reach the throne, a line of hiramites blocked his way, the soldiers glaring at him from behind the masks of their absurd helmets.
“The audience is at an end,” said one of them.
Alzen was outraged to be addressed so curtly, but before he could complain, Seleucus strode from the chamber, flanked by his attendants. Mapourak, the lion, remained on the dais and locked its emerald eyes on Alzen, studying him with what seemed to be wry amusement.
Alzen let out an exasperated gasp and stormed from the chamber, hurrying back to his cell.
Ostan was waiting for him under the Specular Adulis, his sweaty, nervous face bathed in splinters of light.
“You said you could make him think again,” he said, grabbing Alzen’s robes. “You only made him angrier.”
Alzen shook his head. “This is absurd. I am so close to completing my experiments. If I leave now, it will be a massive step back. I need to be here. I need to finish what I’ve started.”
Ostan looked shocked by the vehemence of Alzen’s words. “What have you started, brother? What is it you’re so close to completing?”
Alzen was so furious he answered. “I have nearly mastered a whole new form of alchymia,” he hissed, looking around to make sure none of the other phraters could hear. “But if I am dragged away from the slums I can’t continue my…” His words trailed off as he remembered how dangerous it could be confiding in anyone, even a loyal moron like Ostan. If the Old King knew what he was on the cusp of, of the incredible power he was about to harness, he would realize he was a threat – a rival for his crown.
“Why the slums?” Ostan frowned. “I thought it was your laboratory you wanted to be near.”
Alzen lied easily and convincingly. “My work in the slums, nursing those poor plague victims, is the fulcrum on which everything else hinges. It is through altruism that I…” His words trailed off as he realized he could not even be bothered to lie to such a slack-jawed lump. “I can’t leave,” he snapped. “That’s all that matters.”
“You would not dare challenge the will of the Old King, surely?”
Alzen was rigid with fury. “No. No, of course not. I will simply have to expedite my work.” He was talking to the fume-laden air, rather than Ostan, picturing the hovels on the embankment, crowded with the sickly wretches who had consumed his laced cinnabar. “I have a week. I will just have to make sure I have been successful before Seleucus sends us into the wilderness.”
“You must prepare for the battle. The Old King said–”
“I will do as I see fit! My duty, like yours, is to serve God and the Temple, and I know how best to do that.”
Ostan backed away, shocked by Alzen’s rage, as other phraters looked their way in surprise.
Alzen lowered his voice. “I will complete my work and then none of this will matter.”
Ostan shook his head confused. “Not matter?”
Alzen waved a dismissive hand and began striding off towards the exit, leaving Ostan looking even more flustered than usual.
23
Always different. Always strange. Isten belonged to no one and everyone. No memories of her father, too many memories of her mother. What would she be without wine and smoke and comforting dreams? What would be left?
Isten hurled herself at the door of Brast’s bedroom. It rattled against the hinges, spitting splinters, but showed no sign of giving. Even now, after hours of being pummelled and kicked, the frame would not move. The wood was bloodstained and there were scraps of her skin on the floor. Her knuckles were flayed from trying
to punch her way out of the room; her hair was plastered to her sweaty face and her fingernails were like broken claws. The room was an explosion of filth. Brast had left food and water when he locked the door, but she’d hurled it at the walls, before tearing the furniture and filling the air with dust and shreds of cloth. She wept and bellowed as she rocked back on her heels and dived at the door again. This time her head slammed against it and, for a moment, she lost consciousness. She found herself sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood and acrid sick.
“Let me out!” she howled, arching her back in pain and rage and slamming her bruised feet against the floorboards.
Brast gave no answer. She could not be sure if he was even in the house anymore. How could he have taken her so seriously? She could not simply stop. Not after all these years. She had not gone a day without alcohol or tar since she was fifteen. And she’d been addicted to cinnabar for almost as long. Perhaps it would have been possible if she’d bought some vistula seeds or carussa sticks, but not like this. Not the raw horror of sobriety.
She was in agony. Her skin felt like it was burning. She rolled and howled, ripping at her clothes, trying to ease the pain. Another wave of nausea surged up from her stomach and she vomited again, hacking bile across the wall as she tried to stand on feeble, shaking legs.
“Let me out!” she howled again.
She could not tell if she had been in there for days or weeks. Nights had come and gone and Brast had replaced the bowls of food and water, so it was definitely more than hours, but time had become elastic. She felt as though she had never been anywhere other than this tiny, filth-splattered room.
“You always blame someone else,” said a familiar voice. It was soft and full of gentle humour and Isten’s eyes immediately filled with tears. It was her mother’s voice.
“You’re dead,” she gasped, wiping the sick from her mouth and turning around.
The voice had come from the door. The planks had warped and twisted, parting in the middle to reveal a pair of clear, bright, human eyes – her mother’s eyes.
“So I’m told,” replied the door. “I’d hoped for a more interesting afterlife.”
Isten reeled from the wall, trailing spit and shreds of clothing, staggering into the centre of the room.
“What do you mean, I blame someone else? I have only–” Cramp stabbed through her stomach, doubling her over, dropping her, painfully, to her knees.
“You think all of this is someone else’s fault,” said the door, looking around the room. “Your addictions, your cruel love affairs, your cowardice.”
“Cowardice?” Isten knew her faults but she baulked at that.
“Oh, I know you can run around killing things, Isten. That’s not what I mean. That’s not bravery. Bravery is exposing yourself to hope, daring to love, daring to believe, to risk failure. Gombus is a good man and Puthnok is far braver than you’ve ever been, but you sneer at them like they’re morons.”
“I love them.” Isten was horrified. “I only ever wanted to save them.”
“You sneer at them. You think their dreams are childish and stupid. You think the world is broken and all we can do is survive it. You play along, always at arm’s length, always numbing yourself with drugs, forever maintaining your safe, protected distance.”
Isten shook her head, incredulous. “Why the fuck did I never hear any of this when you were alive? Where were your fucking pearls of wisdom then?”
The door made a strange approximation of a shrug. “You were seven. And even then you had more control of yourself.”
Isten ran at the door, launching herself at the infuriatingly self-satisfied eyes.
This time, rather than rattling under the impact, the wood swallowed her, glooping like viscous mud. It enveloped her flailing limbs, flooded her mouth and ears, silenced her screams and blinded her. She thrashed and turned, suspended in a wall of thick, resinous pitch.
Panic gripped her. She could not breathe. The door had clogged her airways. Her lungs burned.
With an immense effort, she wrenched herself around and thrust her face back into the room, spitting splinters and snot and slops of liquid timber.
She gulped down a lungful of air but her limbs failed to break free, trapped deep in the door.
“Let me out!” she wailed, straining to free herself. Her skin was burning with even more ferocity. She could feel the rough texture of the wood scraping and scratching at her tormented flesh.
“The truth is,” said the door, its voice reverberating through her bones, “that I did tell you. I taught you every day. All those speeches and rallies. They were all for you, Isten.”
“Liar!” she spat. “You never knew if I was even there. Gombus cared, but only because he thought I was the key to a revolution. You never even made that pretence. While you were basking in adoration, I was forgotten.”
“I never forgot you,” said the door, but Isten sensed that she had touched a nerve. The cool, amused tone was gone, replaced with hesitance. “Those words were for you.”
“One word, to me alone, would have changed everything.”
“Don’t be a child, Isten. I was teaching you a lesson.” The door sounded angry now. “People like you and I are more than just mothers and daughters. We are public property. We are the agents of change. We’re kindling – sparks that light fires. My words were for you and they were for everyone. Emperor Rakus is a monster and the time has come to face him down – to face the execution squads down. We can’t continue kneeling in subservience while his dungeons grow full and the poor die. We can’t continue–”
“You’re right,” spat Isten. “I did hear those speeches. And even as a child I could see through them.”
“See through them?” A note of anger entered the door’s voice.
“You thought you were a martyr – so fucking selfless, putting the crowds before me, putting the revolution before everything, putting your life on the line for the meek little poor people, but I knew what it was really about. You loved it. The cheers, the fame, the importance. You fed on it. You needed it. I could see it in your eyes, even when I was seven I could see it. And I hated it.”
The door fell silent.
Isten realized she was no longer trapped in the wood but staring at it from across the room. The eyes were gone. The planks had regained their usual shape. There was blood and vomit on the frame, but nothing else.
She stumbled back towards it, stroking the wood, horrified, wanting to take her words back. “I don’t mean it,” she gasped, dropping to her knees and letting her head thud against the boards.
She sat there for a long time, breathing quickly, battling waves of nausea until, unexpectedly, she fell asleep.
When she awoke, she was in bed. It had been put back in place and there were clean sheets pulled up to her painfully thin shoulders. The room had been tidied, the walls cleaned and the furniture put back in place. She reached up to touch her face and found that it had been wiped clean and her tangled mound of hair had been tied back. The shutters had been opened and there was golden light pouring across her face, bathing her in warmth and carrying the sounds of children playing outside.
Brast was bustling about the room, still righting pieces of furniture and wiping away pools of vomit. She watched him in silence, not wanting him to know she was awake, not ready to speak yet. His tall, stooped frame was almost as wasted as hers and his skin was drained of colour. She guessed that he had not left the house while she was battling for life. Unaware of being watched, his face had relaxed. His mask of wry cynicism was gone and she saw the relief in his eyes. Relief that she had survived, she guessed. Something about that made her wince. She cared nothing for her health, or even for her survival, but he did.
He turned to pick up a painting she had torn apart and noticed that she was watching him. He reacted with almost comedic surprise, dropping the paper and backing away, staring at her in shock. Then, within a fraction of a second, his mas
k was back in place.
“You can clean up after me sometime,” he sneered.
She managed a slight nod.
He sauntered over and pressed a cup of water to her mouth. Her lips were cracked and the cool liquid felt wonderful as it trickled down her throat.
“How long?” she managed to croak.
He strolled away from her, affecting disinterest. “Three days and four nights. I thought you weren’t going to make it. Lorinc was here on the second day and you tried to kill him.”
“Lorinc?” She had no recollection of that at all and the idea unnerved her. Where had she been that she could not remember grappling with a brute like Lorinc? She remembered battling the door, punching her fists into yielding, liquid wood. Had she really been fighting Lorinc? Was it Lorinc she had argued with?
Brast headed downstairs to fetch her some food and she lay there for a moment, feeling the countless pains that covered her body. It felt strangely good. She was experiencing the world as it truly was – unadorned and honest. She felt light and clear-headed. She ran her hands over her bony limbs and chest, gently probing at the cuts and bruises, wincing at the pain. Then her hand reached the mark Alzen had left on her bicep and her good feelings evaporated. In a rush, she recalled what she had seen when she entered his thoughts. He was a murderer and her mind was pregnant with the seed of his crimes. She could feel his power waiting, quietly, at the back of her skull, waiting to be ignited, ominous and alien. How she had desired it – the life force that he had leached from his victims. She had become a monster, a vampire. Along with her disgust, she remembered her purpose – the reason she demanded Brast get her clean. She had to stop Alzen. She had to halt the murders. It was the only way she could think to atone. She nodded, remembering that she also had a plan.
When Brast returned, carrying a bowl of fishy slop, she tried to sit up and leave the bed. The room whirled around her and she nearly fell to the floor.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he said, rushing over and helping her lie back down. “You’re a wreck.”
