The Poison Master

by Liz Williams

  “Hold tight,” Iraguila said, and let go of the chain. It rattled into the runner, which shot forward like a cork from a bottle. Alivet opened her mouth to cry out and received a lungful of freezing air. They went over the side of the shelf and down, rocketing across the roof. If anyone was in the rooms beneath, Alivet reflected, they would think a crowd of folk must be stampeding about up here. But perhaps they were used to it—Iraguila had said that the device was used for maintenance. The icy slopes flew by. They were traveling upward again, propelled by the momentum of the runner. Iraguila slung the chain deftly forward and the runner slid to a halt. Alivet tumbled onto a second shelf and looked back. She could see the windows where the poison garden lay.

  “How many times have you made this journey?” she asked Iraguila, curiously. “Do others use the same route?” The governess did not reply. She was marching along the shelf, her boot-heels clicking on the frozen metal. Alivet stumbled after her, wishing that she had managed to keep hold of her usual clothes. If Ghairen wanted to keep control over his womenfolk, he was certainly aided by fashion. She found Iraguila standing by a circular object, made of metal and resembling a large seedpod.

  “This is how we shall reach the ground,” Iraguila informed her, impatiently.

  “What is it?”

  “It is a maintenance device, like the runner. The shiffrey use them.” She touched the pod and the door slid open to reveal a cavity with a sling seat. “You may take the seat. I will stand.”

  Alivet climbed into the pod. Iraguila followed, closing the door behind her. Alivet was so intent on working out the configuration of the seat, which was ridiculously small, that it was a moment before she could look through the round window set into the side of the pod and see where she was. She wished she hadn't. Looking up, she could see that the pod hung from what appeared to be a fragile thread, dangling from a girder arching out from the main tower. She was re minded of a pea hanging from a spider's web: the thread looked far too frail to support anything the size of the pod.

  “Going down,” Iraguila whispered. She touched a lever and braced herself against the wall of the pod, which described a graceful roll until it was lying on its side. Alivet, to her horror, found that she was staring down the side of the tower, all the way down to the ground. The pod shuddered once, and fell. Alivet—fists clenched, eyes squeezed grimly closed—felt her heart sail up to her throat and lodge there. She was not sure whether the roaring in her head was the sound of air rushing past the pod, or simply the panicking surge of her own blood.

  And then there was silence, and stillness. The pod had stopped, rocking gently a few feet above the ground. Twisting her head, Alivet saw that Iraguila Ust, spread-eagled like a spider, was still clinging to the walls above her. Gently, the pod turned right side up. Iraguila activated the door mechanism and dropped three feet to the ground.

  “Where now?” Alivet asked, extricating herself from the seat. Iraguila gave her a long, measured look, entirely ambiguous.

  “You're outside,” she said. “How do you find it?”

  Alivet took a deep breath. “Cold.”

  “We will go,” Iraguila said serenely, and turned away. The woman was almost as bad as Ghairen, Alivet thought, with her oblique conversation and seeming irrelevancies. Grudgingly, she followed Iraguila across the frosty space between the towers. Apart from a black line of cypress, the ground was barren; the stones rimed with ice. There was no sign of life. Perhaps it wasn't just the snow, she thought, perhaps the very ground beneath the towers was poisoned and little could grow there except the ominous spines of the trees.

  The parc-verticale loomed on the horizon, so immense that it appeared curiously insubstantial. Alivet found it hard to judge the distance. Was it close, or far away? It seemed to shift whenever she looked at it. She was growing colder, too. Suddenly the oppressive warmth of Ghairen's apartment was almost appealing. She trudged on, rubbing her hands, and caught up with Iraguila.

  “Are we going to walk all the way?”

  “No,” Iraguila said shortly. “We go through here.”

  They were nearing the base of one of the towers, to a point where the spines spiraled down into the snow like a gigantic corkscrew. Iraguila slipped between the spines. Alivet, following, saw that there was a crack in the wall through which the governess had gone. She thought again of insects.

  Once inside, however, she found that they were in a cavernous, echoing space. A drift of cold air through the crack was swallowed by sudden warmth. The cavern was heated: from somewhere far below, she could hear the hum of machinery. Pillars marched off into the distance, seemingly made of plain polished stone, but when Alivet looked at them from the corner of her eye she saw faces springing out at her, lost among traceries of carved leaves. Her steps faltered, she felt as though she were falling.

  “Iraguila?” she whispered. “What is this place?”

  “It is a Memory Hall,” Iraguila replied. She turned and looked back, a tiny figure between the towering figures. “Don't be afraid, Alivet. Just follow me. But I would advise you not to look at the pillars.”

  That, thought Alivet as she walked with her head down, was easier said than done. The pillars seemed to summon her attention. She had the impression that they were calling out to her in voices like distant bells, pulling her back into an unimaginable past. She remembered the ancient book and its diagrams. What did it mean, and why had it spoken of Levanah? As she thought of the name, it echoed through the hall like a sigh and something moved far above her. Alivet glanced up and saw her sister Inkirietta's face gazing down upon her.

  “Inki!” she cried. Iraguila Ust spun around. Inki's features were struggling forth from the stone, as if it imprisoned her. Her mouth was open. Alivet stood beneath her, transfixed with horror.

  “Who is this?” Iraguila Ust sounded annoyed. “It is not real, Alivet. Pay no attention.”

  “It's my sister,” Alivet cried. “Inkirietta! Can you hear me?”

  “Alivet, we must go. My contact won't wait all night and we're already late.”

  “But I can't leave her!” Alivet ran to the pillar and pressed her hands against it. It was as smooth as glass or ice, impossible to climb.

  “I told you, Alivet—it isn't real. The pillars feast on the memories of the living. They are trees, not stone. They are parasitic, they will leech your dearest thoughts from your head.”

  “Then why aren't they affecting you?” Momentarily distracted, Alivet saw that Inki's face was fading, her expression becoming closed and bland and merging back into the pillar.

  “I am protected,” Iraguila said curtly. “I would have secured such protection for you, but there was not time. Now we must hurry.”

  Inki's face had now entirely gone. The pillar rippled, like water after a cast stone. Alivet shivered, but followed Iraguila through the Memory Hall. She could not help feeling that she had abandoned Inki yet again: left her to suffer, encased in stone. And if that was only a conjured memory, what was happening to the real Inkirietta? The thought of her sister's missing eye, that small scrunched hole in her flesh, haunted Alivet. It should have been me, she thought dismally. If only the Lords of Night had taken me. At least I would have known that Aunt Elitta and Inki were safe. But she had not been so fortunate—or so unlucky. Now she must deal with whatever the universe had given her, even if it took the form of Ghairen and his poisonous household.

  When they reached the end of the Memory Hall, Alivet felt that she could breathe once more. The pillars lay behind her and a series of steps led down to a rippling canal where a barge was waiting.

  “Get in,” Iraguila said. Alivet did so. There was no sign of a pilot. Iraguila unchained the barge and they were carried away.

  “You're going to a lot of trouble to help me,” Alivet said dubiously.

  “I told you—helping you will diminish Ghairen.” Iraguila patted her hand, not unkindly.

  “But you're living in his house. You're his daughter's tutor. You seem to come
and go from his poison garden as you please. Surely you're ideally placed to exact whatever vengeance you wish? Why don't you just poison him?”

  “It isn't that easy.”

  “Isn't it? I would.” I may yet, Alivet thought, but it was best not to give voice to that particular notion.

  “Ghairen is a Poison Master. The toxins found in his gardens are simples compared to what he is capable of distilling. He contains within himself the possibility of a thousand antidotes.”

  “Well, it doesn't have to be poison, does it? Can't you just stick a knife in his ribs?”

  “I could not get close enough,” Iraguila said, bitterly. “He is armored, you know, beneath his robes. His rooms are warded. Besides, he can withstand a high level of injury: his immune system has been reengineered by the alchemists of Hathes so that he is barely human.”

  This raised an entirely different question.

  “Your people,” Alivet said. “Are you human? Are you like us?”

  “We are human enough. We all come from the same place.”

  “And where is that?” Alivet asked, her heart starting to pound.

  “Who can say?” Iraguila replied blandly. “Somewhere lost in far history.”

  “But you have the Memory Hall. Can't you visit it and seek the place of our origin? We believe that it lies within the human form, locked somewhere in the unconscious mind.” If I were to undertake a Search in the Memory Hall, Alivet thought, what would it reveal?

  Iraguila smiled. “We have no interest in such questions. We are concerned only with the future, not with the past. We do not care where we are from—it's where we are going that matters.”

  “Then why is the Memory Hall there at all?”

  “It grew, and it would take time and effort to eradicate. No one visits it. That is why we took this route. This is the oldest tower of Ukesh and it is not populated. I do not want us to be seen.”

  The barge was moving swiftly now, down a labyrinth of narrow streams. Gleaming liquid slapped against ruined wharves as they passed.

  “The other reason why it is not yet the time to take my full revenge on Ghairen is because of Celana,” Iraguila said abruptly, surprising Alivet. “Once she's free of the household, then I'll make my move.”

  “What about the other two girls?”

  “They are in less danger. Ghairen will simply have them removed when the time is right—to other schooling,” she added, seeing Alivet's look of horror. “But I am afraid for Celana. I'm afraid she will try to kill her father, and fail. If she does, he may decide to put her out of the way. If I can persuade him to send her to another tower—or elsewhere— then she will be safer and I can see to Ghairen.”

  “I thought he was intending to send her to study music?”

  Iraguila glanced at her. “Is that what he's told you?”

  “Isn't it true?”

  Iraguila did not reply, but fell into a brooding silence. She certainly seemed sincere in her hatred of the Poison Master, and yet her reasoning did not seem to add up. If she was so concerned about Celana, why was she taking what must be a considerable risk in assisting Alivet herself, who was nothing more than an alien stranger? Perhaps she was hoping that Alivet might be persuaded to take Celana back to Latent Emanation. Alivet would be quite willing to do that, if it got the girl from out of her father's clutches, but first she herself would have to get free of Ghairen. And then there was the issue of the work she was undertaking for the Poison Master, which Iraguila seemed to feel was so dangerous.

  Iraguila stood in the prow of the barge and threw the chain deftly around a mooring post. The barge drifted to a halt.

  “Here is where we get off,” Iraguila said. “We are now beneath the parc-verticale.”

  Alivet feared that they would have to enter another maintenance pod, but instead Iraguila led her to the base of a moving staircase.

  “The parc is not protected,” she explained over her shoulder. “It is a public place.”

  “But we're not supposed to be here in the middle of the night, is that right?”

  “No. But people do come here—illicit lovers and the like. There are heavy penalties if one is caught, but it is often said that the parc is the only place on Hathes where one can be free for a time. As such,” she added dryly, “it's popular.”

  The lower levels of the parc seemed old: water-worn stone was skeined with vines like some ancient ruin. Faces peered from the masonry, making Alivet jump, before she realized that they were nothing more than carvings. Even so, after her experience in the Memory Hall, she found herself reluctant to turn her back on them. There was a smell of rotten growth, a steamy greenness. Her apothecary's training held true: Alivet found herself matching this new odor to other possibilities, combining it with the memory of a dark musk, or the damp scents of Levanah at evening. She longed to be back in the public alchematorium at home, combining perfumes. What she could bring back from Hathes, she thought, if only she was allowed to live.

  Something feather-soft brushed against her face. Alivet gasped and struck out, but the thing was gone. She saw it soaring into the green distance; it was a huge moth. She could see more of them now, clustering around the dim glow of the windows and hanging from the girders. Alivet thought of caterpillars and shuddered. The parc was becoming more ornate, more formal. Garlands of trumpet blossoms, as pale as silk and each with a long golden tongue, spat pollen into the welcoming air. Alivet saw rows of what might have been roses, but each stem was weighed down by great night-black blooms that she could not have held in her two cupped hands. The petals looked soft and dense, as though covered with fur. Orchids entwined around the girders.

  Alivet sensed a wan sweetness drifting out across the air, conjured forth by darkness. A moth settled upon a flower: tongue sipped from tongue. The orchid shrank back into itself, rolling up into a tight parasol. The moth, dusted with pollen, sailed drunkenly away. Alivet was unable now to see the limits of the parc-verticale. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of crimson glass through the labyrinth of blooms, but now they were ascending into the higher levels and the jungle grew all around her. She heard voices, a sudden peal of laughter that was abruptly curtailed. Iraguila's back was stiffly eloquent in its disapproval. Flicking her fingers to Alivet in a cursory summons, she vanished beneath a bower of vines. Alivet followed.

  Here, the parc was barely lit. It was hard to see the ground in front of her and Alivet had to take care not to stumble. Iraguila Ust moved with swift assuredness, as though she had passed this way many times before. Alivet followed her, brushing aside the scented, clinging vines and clambering over shattered masonry. How old was this place? she wondered. Was it even an original part of the parc-verticale, or had the parc grown up around it, replacing earlier structures? There was a smell of age and mold, like an unlocked room. Peering through the shadows, Alivet glimpsed a faint glow ahead.

  “What's that?” she whispered.

  “That is the alchemist's haunt,” Iraguila replied. She reached out a hand and before Alivet could protest, hooked Alivet's fingers with her own in a tight, painful grip. “Do not speak, unless I tell you to. The alchemist is old, has little patience, and will not want to answer foolish questions.”

  “But will the alchemist be able to cure me?” Alivet asked, wondering if the alchemist might not simply be some self- termed shaman, and she the victim of Iraguila's superstitions. She knew so little about the woman, after all.

  “She will cure you,” Iraguila said firmly, as if there was no doubt about the matter. “But you will have to do exactly as she says.” She drew aside a veil of vines that hung above a small, dark entrance.

  “We are here,” she called.

  Alivet expected a crabbed old voice to answer, a querulous inquiry about who might be bothering the alchemist at this late hour. But there was no sound from within the doorway and Alivet suddenly smelled blood: a stale, rank odor. Paranoia at once overwhelmed her. It was Ghairen; he had divined her purpose and reached the alchemist
before her, he would be waiting inside, still smiling… Then she saw that an eye was peering at her from inside the doorway.

  “This is the human girl?” a whispering voice said.

  “Yes.” Iraguila's clasp of Alivet's hand tightened and Alivet winced. Iraguila was gripping her fingers with such force that she imagined the bones crumbling within, scattering into dust.

  “Bring her here. I can't see her.” The voice did not sound old, but it had a curiously sibilant, whistling quality that grated on the ear.

  “Alivet, step forward,” Iraguila commanded. Alivet did so, ducking beneath the lintel, which seemed designed for a child. Perhaps folk had been smaller when this level was built. But when she stood before the alchemist, crouching down to avoid knocking her head on the low ceiling, she realized why the place was so small. The alchemist was a shiffrey.

  The shiffrey sat, bundled up in rags, upon a stool. Her face was a pointed mask, reminiscent of the muzzle of one of the little white foxes that haunted Latent's marshes like stray spirits. The round, mercurial eyes were opaque with cataract.

  “Come here. I cannot see. I must smell you.” She reached out with a clawed hand. Iraguila gave Alivet an encouraging push. She knelt in front of the shiffrey, and it was clear now where the scent of old blood was coming from. The shiffrey's tattered robes seemed to have been soaked in the stuff. Used as she was to noxious aromas, Alivet had to try hard not to gag. The shiffrey's small hand, the fingers as gnarled and twisted as twigs, poked at her face. They entered her mouth and Alivet jerked her head away. The fingers tasted foul.

  “Stay still!” the shiffrey hissed. She rubbed Alivet's gums, making her mouth flood with saliva. Alivet, choking, cried out. The shiffrey's fingers withdrew. She placed them in the small hole beneath the sharp muzzle. Alivet heard a sucking sound. Then the shiffrey was sniffing Alivet's face: a stiff fringe of whiskers rustling along its jaw. The whiskers scratched, drew blood.