by Darius Hinks
“I have to get back to the Alembeck.”
He laughed. “No chance. Let the Exiles manage without you for a while. You need to rest.”
“No, you don’t understand, I need to fetch something from my room. It’s so I can do what we discussed, when we were in the arboretum.”
Brast’s face hardened. “So you meant that? You’re going to rid yourself of this mysterious ‘contact’?”
She nodded, looking at the bed sheets, not wanting to meet his eye. “There’s a small wooden chest next to my bunk. I need it.”
“Today? Is it really that urgent?”
She nodded and tried to sit up again, but her arms trembled and would not hold her.
“Then let me go,” he snapped. “I’ll fetch your blessed box if it’s so urgent.”
“No!” She shook her head, her eyes wide. “Only I can get it.”
“Why?” He laughed. “I’ve done far worse than carry your luggage.”
She let her head fall back on the pillow and started at him. “It’s private. You mustn’t look inside.”
He raised an eyebrow, about to make a sarcastic joke, then caught the fear in her eye and shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Promise.”
He shook his head. “I have no desire to leaf through your diary or steal your love letters.”
“Promise.”
He held up his hands in defeat. “I promise.”
He nodded to the soup he had left next to the bed. “It’s nicer than it tastes.”
She laughed.
“And if you don’t eat something soon, I’ll never get my fucking bed back.”
She laughed again, enjoying the clear, honest sound. “You’re a good man.”
He blushed and looked angry, shook his head and turned to go. Then he stopped at the door looked back. “I knew you’d do it,” he said. “Get sober, I mean. You’re a fighter, Isten. They haven’t broken you yet.” Then he left.
She flopped back onto the pillow and, a few minutes later, she heard the door slam downstairs. She closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of the sunlight on her face. She was starting to doze, when she remembered Brast’s instruction to eat. She sat up, carefully, still lightheaded, and put the bowl on her lap. The soup was foul and she laughed as she ate, imagining Brast’s earnest, angry face as he cooked it, wrestling with spoons and spices, furious at his ingredients for not behaving how he wanted.
She had only taken a few grimacing sips when she heard a sound downstairs. It was a low, heavy thud, as though a piece of furniture had fallen over. She was about to call out, to ask if it was Brast, but she stopped herself, sensing that something was wrong.
She carefully placed the soup back on the table and swung her feet out of the bed and onto the floorboards.
There was another sound, a creaking floorboard. Someone was coming up the stairs, moving slowly and carefully. She grabbed her dagger from the pile of clothes Brast had left her and crept across the room, positioning herself next to the door, so she would be hidden when it opened.
The footsteps came closer and then, very slowly, the door began to open.
Isten relaxed as she recognized the heady, floral perfume that poured into the room. Even before Colcrow’s massive bulk swayed into view, she knew it was him.
She was about to step out from behind the door, when she realized he was not alone. There were others coming up behind him.
She waited in the shadows as Colcrow looked around the room, his back still to her, picking up sketches and canvasses and examining the pieces of furniture.
Then he halted next to her pile of clothes and grabbed her leather jerkin. “She is staying here,” he called out to the people on the stairs.
Two men entered the room, one large and powerfully built, the other small and skinny. They were both wearing filthy, dark robes with the hoods pulled up. They were carrying swords but not Athanorian falcatas: broadswords, more like the weapons of Isten’s homeland.
A dreadful realization hit her and, as one of the men threw back his head, her muscles tensed with fury. The man’s head was horribly burned. It was the imperial agents. Colcrow had led them to her.
Colcrow turned to face the men, still gripping Isten’s jerkin, then recoiled in shock as he saw Isten glaring at him next to the door.
“You’re here!” he said, attempting a smile, but only managing an awkward grimace.
“You’re working for Emperor Rakus,” she hissed, trembling with a mixture of exhaustion and rage. “You’ve betrayed us.” She shook her head, raising her knife. How could even Colcrow could be capable of that?
The agents backed away from her and gripped the handles of their swords, but Colcrow rushed forwards, standing between them and Isten, holding up his hands.
“Wait!” he gasped. “There’s no need for this. Let me explain!”
“Explain? Yes, I’d like to hear that. Tell me why you’ve led Rakus’s murder dogs to Brast’s home – and to me. Explain that, you fucker.”
His eyes widened in excitement. “We can go home, Isten.” He was whispering, as though he could barely believe what he was saying. “You and I. We can return to Rukon. The Emperor has acquired a device. A vehicle.” He glanced at the agents for confirmation. “What did you call it? An airship?”
The larger of the two nodded, but neither of them spoke, still gripping their swords and glaring at Isten through their masks of scar tissue.
“We can go home to the Emperor?” She laughed. “What are you talking about? Are you insane? We’re only here because Rakus would have executed us all if we’d stayed.”
“His Magnificence has offered you a pardon,” said the larger agent. His accent was thick and instantly took Isten back to her home. “On the condition that you stand beside him at the gates of Checny Palace and renounce the revolution. If you swear allegiance to the crown he’s prepared to offer you a pardon.”
Isten reeled under the weight of Colcrow’s treachery.
“We can go home,” he said, smiling and reaching out to her. “Think of it, Isten – we can leave this wretched city behind.”
Colcrow’s smile was too much for her. Anger flooded her body with adrenaline and she leapt at him. She grabbed his throat and, as she reached back to punch him, she felt heat explode in the back of her head and rush down her arm.
Her fist slammed into his face with such force that it hammered through his skull.
There was a flash of dazzling light.
Isten and Colcrow thudded onto the floor and the agents staggered back, shielding their eyes.
Isten howled as she felt wonderful, vengeful power rushing through her arm.
Then the light vanished and she gasped. She was straddling Colcrow’s corpse with her fist embedded in his skull. But even more horrific than her crime was the nature of Colcrow’s death: his head was engulfed in a mesh of golden, spiralling strands. She had killed him with Alzen’s sorcery.
She wrenched her fist free, spraying blood and bone as she staggered away from the body. Her fist was a tornado of coils that spiralled through the air towards the two agents.
“Go!” she howled, staring at her hand in horror, holding it up to them in warning.
The agents flinched away from her, one of them dropping his sword, he was so terrified. Then they bolted for the door, their boots thudding down the stairs and out into the street.
Isten slumped back against the wall with golden, bloodstained strands trailing from her arm.
“No!” she groaned, focusing on the heat at the back of her head, trying to dampen it. For a moment, she thought she would be unable to extinguish the inferno, but then her gaze fell back on Colcrow’s mutilated corpse and the full horror of it hit her.
The heat died and the tendrils vanished. They whipped back through the air and sliced back into her arm, leaving no trace they had ever existed.
She dropped to the floor beside Colcrow, her tears mingling with the bl
ood rushing from his head.
Isten was still lying next to the corpse when Brast returned. He shouted a hello from downstairs, then halted, staring down at her in horror as he reached the bedroom door, gripping her wooden chest in his hands.
“What…?” he began.
The golden threads had left no trace of sorcery in Colcrow, just a smashed, bloody pulp of bone and grey matter. It looked like his head had exploded.
Brast’s face was white as he placed the chest on the floor and stepped closer, staring at the corpse. “Did you...?”
Isten stayed on the floor, still in shock at what she had done. She had murdered an Exile. She had broken their most unbreakable oath. And she had done it with the vile sorcery Alzen had created through murder. “He came here with the agents,” she managed to whisper. “He sold us out to them. He led them to your house.”
Brast looked confused and doubtful. Then he noticed something lying on the floor near the bed. He stepped around Colcrow’s corpse and grabbed the broadsword dropped by one of the fleeing agents.
“The fucker,” he whispered, looking at the corpse with new eyes, glaring at the smashed skull.
He helped Isten to her feet. “Then he broke his oath before you did. Selling us out to Rakus is the same as murder.” He looked back at the corpse, shaking his head. “How did you do that?”
She leant against him, her breathing laboured and her limbs on the verge of collapse. “I have to rid myself of this,” she said, gripping her head. “Quickly.”
“What do you need to do?” He nodded at the chest. “Is that the right one?”
“Yes.” She stared at it, afraid of what she had to do. But first she needed to be rid of Brast. Perhaps he had half guessed what was going on, but she didn’t want him to see the robes and chains of her laborator outfit. She had an idea. “Can you get rid of this?” she asked, nodding at Colcrow’s corpse. She winced as she caught sight of his ruined head. “I’m too weak.”
He nodded. “I have friends, well, not friends – people who owe me. They’ll help me shift it.” He led her to a chair. “Sit there. You’re still weak.”
He rushed downstairs and came back with bread, cheese and water. “You look awful,” he said. “Eat something, for God’s sake.”
She nodded, trying not to look at the bloody mess on the floor as she picked at the food.
While she ate, Brast pulled the sheets from the bed and wrapped Colcrow in a makeshift shroud, grunting as he turned the corpse over, wrapping it several times until it was impossible to see the nature of his death.
“I’ll be five, ten minutes at most,” he said, hovering near the door, giving her an anxious look. “Will you be ok?”
She nodded, not even attempting a smile.
“Eat all of that before I get back,” he said. “Whatever your plan is, I don’t think you’ll manage it if you can’t walk.” Then he dashed off down the stairs and left the house again.
Isten stared at the mark on her bicep. It felt like a tumour, eating into her skin. She wanted desperately to wipe it away, to remove the dreadful warm numbness at the back of her head, but she knew she had to bear it for a little longer. When she had looked out through Alzen’s eyes, when she had seen that he was a murderer, she had cried out and he had heard her. The link between them now went both ways. If she left his mark on her arm, when the time came, she would be able to speak to him, to summon him. She just had to pray he would answer. Somehow, she felt sure he would. She had heard the same hunger in his voice that she felt. When they shared his sorcery, it became something greater than he anticipated. He wanted her the same way she had wanted him. Even now, knowing where his power came from, even now that she had seen the terrified face of his victims, part of her still craved it. Even when she ripped Colcrow’s skull apart, there had been delight mixed in with the horror. Such incredible power. It was like nothing she had ever imagined. She hissed in disgust, horrified at where her mind was going. She had to move fast. She had to sever the tie before she became as monstrous as Alzen. She ate some of the cheese and found, to her surprise, even after all that had just happened, that she was hungry. She sank her teeth into the loaf. With no chemicals washing through her veins, she could actually taste things again. She sat there, next to the sodden, shrouded corpse, enjoying her meal, until she heard Brast calling hello from downstairs.
He rushed into the room, followed by a pair of old burly dockworkers. They both looked at her in surprise, but Brast waved at the corpse. “Quickly. You two get the head end, I’ll grab the legs.”
They grunted and muttered and hauled the corpse from the room.
Isten waited until she heard the door slam, then ventured downstairs. She edged round Brast’s gambling table and opened the shutters on his front window, squinting out into the glare of the street. Brast and the dockers were moving fast and keeping to the shadows. Dead bodies were not uncommon in the Botanical Quarter, but there was always the risk that a hiramite might be passing, and murder, even here, was punishable by death.
When Brast and the others had turned a corner at the bottom of the street and vanished from view, Isten headed back upstairs and opened the chest. She moved her old clothes aside and lifted out the yellow laborator robes. The ceremonial chains and keys were still there, along with the turmeric to stain her face. She almost wished they had vanished so she could abandon her absurd plan. Then she looked at the bloodstained floor and nodded. This was the only way. She had to rid herself of Alzen and rid the city of him at the same time.
She donned the heavy gown, draped herself in the jewellery and dyed her face. Then she slicked back her hair, pulled up the hood and hid her dagger beneath the robes. The food and water had already had an effect. She felt a little stronger and steadier on her feet as she headed back downstairs and walked out into the sunshine.
As she closed Brast’s door, she let her hand rest against the sun-blistered paint, thinking of all that he had done for her. A shocking thought hit her. Whatever happened that morning, she could see no likelihood that she would survive. Either she would die, or she and Alzen would both die. She prayed it would be the latter but, either way, she would not see Brast again. “Thank you,” she whispered, her hand still pressed against the door. For a moment she could not move, frozen by a sudden sense of loss. Then she rushed off down the dusty street, heading for the river.
24
Alzen cursed as the silver egg slipped from his fingers and bounced across the packed-earth floor. He was clumsy and febrile from lack of sleep and as he dropped to his knees, trying to find the egg, his eyes were too full of sweat to see.
There was a murmur of complaint from the other end of the warehouse but he ignored it. None of them were going anywhere.
“There it is,” he muttered, scrabbling across the floor, dirtying his robes. He snatched the egg from the floor and turned back to the row of figures at the other end of the room. There were half a dozen prone shapes lying in the darkness, their terrified faces staring at him from the shadows. He was on Coburg Street, not far from the fish market, in a warehouse owned by the Elect. He had spent the last few days in a frenzy, killing dozens of cinnabar addicts from the slums, taking risks he would never have taken before, sure that he was so close to success that nothing else mattered. With every soul he captured, he felt that he would attain a new state of being, rising from the ranks of the Temple to become their true, omnipotent lord. But with each death, he felt a rising sense of panic. In two days he would be banished from the city – sent to the walls with all the other phraters. And he was sure that if his work was halted now, his progress would evaporate. All that work, all those deaths, for nothing.
Perhaps this time, he thought, heading back towards the row of prone bodies. He had ordered his laborators to gather a whole family of sickly wretches and deliver them to him here, in this warehouse, so he could “help” them. It was dangerous. Questions would be asked when all six of them died in his care. But he had to
try something.
He stood over them in the gloom, not even bothering with the pretence of kindness. He glared at them, wondering if it would make a difference what order he killed them in. There were two children, one no more than eight, the other in his early teens. Their souls would probably be the least potent, he decided. The children’s parents were also lying on the makeshift beds, a gaunt, leathery-looking sailor from a salvage crew and his wife, who looked even tougher and more weatherbeaten than her husband. Next to them were two more adults – uncles he guessed, by their similarity to the father.
All of them were paralyzed and moaning in fear as he paced around them. He racked his brains, trying to think why he was failing. He had seemed so close, but now, however many lives he took, he seemed unable to cross that final threshold.
He shook his head and opened the metal egg. There was nothing for it. He would keep trying until something happened. Perhaps killing the whole family would be enough.
He stepped towards the father, then hesitated. There was something strange about the man’s face. It looked oddly familiar. He stared at him, but the sweat in his eyes was still affecting his vision; the man’s face seemed unclear, as though it had been smudged.
He muttered a curse. He had been out here, killing, for three days with no sleep. His mind felt strange, remote and confused, unable to focus. Everything he looked at seemed loaded with a significance he could not explain. Perhaps, in his exhaustion, he was missing something crucial?
He wiped his eyes and stepped closer to the man, staring at his face. Then he gasped and backed away, almost dropping the egg again.
The man’s features were flowing into each other as though melting, and when they settled, they formed a new face.
“Isten?” gasped Alzen. There was no mistaking her gaunt, stern face. Her eyes were rolling, unable to focus.
Alzen? she said, speaking directly into his head.
Alzen wondered if he had pushed himself too far. Perhaps he was hallucinating?
