Bright Ruin

by Vic James

  Luke darted a look at the Equal in the passenger seat next to him. Could he believe Silyen? The boy had no reason to lie. Yet why would Gavar rescue Abi?

  The heir had stopped the Blood Fair, though, hadn’t he? Had called a halt to it after seeing Renie brought onto the scaffold. Maybe it really had been too much, even for a Jardine.

  Silyen had dragged Luke to the nearest road with traffic, where he had raised a hand to bring a car screeching to a halt. Dog had yanked out the hapless driver, shoved Luke behind the wheel – and they were off on the weirdest road trip in history, to Silyen’s estate of Far Carr.

  Luke drummed his fingers on the wheel, trying to process his new reality. He’d seen bronze lions come to life, springing across the square to rescue the prisoners – Renie among them. Silyen had said the creatures’ animation was the work of another Equal, Midsummer Zelston. (The surname made Luke wince. She was apparently the niece of the Chancellor he had been compelled to kill.) And she had snatched Luke’s friend and the other prisoners away to safety.

  Could it really have ended like that – with everyone safe except for the Blood Fair’s first two victims? If only he dared believe it.

  ‘You’re quiet,’ he said to Silyen, who was huddled against the window. ‘It’s making me nervous.’

  ‘Carsick,’ the boy replied wanly. ‘Technology. Ugh.’

  ‘And you’re sure it was Gavar? Why would he take Abi?’

  Silyen looked over. The skin was clammy around his dark eyes, but he still managed to roll them.

  ‘Belatedly developing a sense of chivalry? Sticking two fingers up at our father? Gavar doesn’t even understand himself, so I gave up trying long ago.’

  ‘Is she safe with him?’

  Silyen turned away. ‘Safer than she was with the rest of my family.’

  Which was true. Luke tried to push down his fear and frustration that, after escaping Crovan’s castle thanks to Coira, he had still managed to lose his sister at the very moment he could have reached her.

  He only had Silyen’s word for where she was now. But it was the best he had to go on, which was why he was in this car. That, plus the fact that he was a convicted murderer and escaped convict. As such, a public square swarming with Security in the aftermath of a major incident wasn’t the best place to linger.

  Far Carr lay on the coast, several hours to the east. Perhaps Abi could come and join them – the isolated estate would be a good place to hide her.

  And what about Coira? She was still at Eilean Dòchais, determined to confront the monster who was also her father – Lord Crovan. How would Crovan react? Would he throw her out? Lock her up? Worse? If only Luke could persuade her to come to Far Carr, too.

  Of course, it was hardly his place to be inviting guests to Silyen’s estate, much less a fugitive rebel and a runaway secret heir. Luke still didn’t trust the boy – he knew too little of his true interests and motives. But he didn’t feel in imminent danger around him, which was a massive improvement on the company he’d kept for most of the past year.

  Distracted, he was evidently driving too slowly, because another driver leaned on the horn while overtaking them. Luke snapped his attention back to the road. He had to get them to Far Carr in one piece first.

  The road crossed the river estuary south of Ipswich, and the sun dazzled off the sheet metal sides of the canneries. Luke couldn’t remember the name of the slavezone here, but it operated fishing fleets and processed the catch – another way of doing your days that had once seemed preferable to the decrepit factories and offices of Millmoor. It was a neat trick, he thought: as if one kind of slavery could be preferable to any other, when it was the servitude itself that was so wrenchingly wrong.

  Eventually, the landscape gentled. The sky was low-lying, with thick hedgerows and few buildings to interrupt the horizon. Roads dwindled to single-track lanes, canopied with trees, and light filtered down in every shade of green. The satnav failed, and Silyen sat up and gave Luke directions. They passed an empty, woodchip-strewn car park. Surely local people didn’t walk their dogs here?

  Then the vehicle stopped dead and Luke understood. This was the closest you were permitted to the estate.

  ‘Home sweet home,’ Silyen announced, visibly brightening now the journey was over. ‘I wonder what my staff will make of their lord’s new retainers: his gentleman companion and his faithful hound?’

  Luke choked. ‘His what?’

  On the back seat, Dog rasped with hilarity.

  It was one more twist of weirdness to an already bizarre situation. Luke would be walking into an Equal estate neither as a slave, nor as a prisoner, but as a guest.

  Or, apparently, a gentleman companion. He cringed.

  ‘I could give you your own butler,’ said Silyen. ‘Would you like that? Rix has hundreds of slaves. Must have been his way of trying to spare them a worktown. Goodness knows what they all do. Cut the grass with nail scissors, I imagine.’

  ‘Why do you need slaves at all?’ Luke asked. ‘I mean, even leaving aside the whole slavery-is-wrong thing, it’s not like the three of us need looking after. And it might be good to have privacy.’

  No one to tell tales if Abi came here. No one to snoop if Coira turned up. That would be perfect.

  ‘No slaves?’ said the Equal thoughtfully. ‘Privacy. Hmm, why might we need that, Luke?’

  There was a disconcerting gleam in his eye, and Dog huffed again on the back seat. Please, thought Luke, screwing his eyes shut. Please let Silyen Jardine not be flirting with me.

  ‘It’s more the centuries of exploitation and servitude I was thinking of,’ he said carefully. ‘Not very nice, really.’

  ‘Well, when you put it like that . . . It would be fairly straightforward. A legal precedent exists. But I warn you, pizza delivery won’t be able to make it out here, and after a week of Dog’s rabbit pie you might be begging me to reconsider.’

  Silyen swung his legs out of the car and walked off towards the woods.

  Luke twisted over his shoulder to look at Dog. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘No slaves? That’s you – on cleaning rota – forever, Hadley.’

  The man bared his teeth in his feral grin and slid off the back seat.

  Luke hastily pocketed the car key – though not before checking the fuel gauge. Just under half a tank. Enough to get him far from here, if needed. Then he hurried into the woods after them.

  The trio followed a track that Luke tried to memorize, until they reached Far Carr’s perimeter wall. It was brick, like the one at Kyneston, but it flexed in and out in sinuous curves. As they drew closer, he saw that the bricks were chalky and crumbling, the Skill-glow faint. There was a small, top-heavy lodge alongside a low iron gate.

  ‘Right,’ said Silyen. ‘You two duck out of the way while I do this. Turning up with one escaped murderer might be cool, but two implies a lack of imagination.’

  ‘You’re really going to set them free?’

  ‘Well, you asked nicely.’

  ‘You know,’ Luke said, ‘I think world peace, women’s equality and an end to global hunger would also be great.’

  Silyen smirked. ‘Don’t push it, Hadley.’

  Dog prodded him into the gatehouse – a dusty, disused space that made Luke sneeze – and the two of them watched through the grimy window as a brilliant flare went up from the gate. Soon after, Far Carr’s workers began to arrive, plainly drawn by some Skillful summons. A number were breathing heavily as they came to a halt in front of Silyen, having run from distant corners of the large estate. Among the assembling crowd were a number of children. Evidently Rix had tried to offer families a sanctuary in which to do their days.

  Yet he had also hijacked Luke’s body to kill Chancellor Zelston. Luke’s skin crawled even though he had no memory of it, because a violation was still a violation, even if the victim couldn’t remember a thing. What Rix had done was wrong on every level. But it had also been before Jackson’s punishment and death. Before Crov
an and Eilean Dòchais. Before the Blood Fair.

  If Luke was handed a gun and placed before Whittam Jardine again, would Skillful compulsion be required to make him pull the trigger?

  Or would he do it willingly?

  The idea was disturbing, and Luke was glad when a brisk handclap from Silyen interrupted his thoughts. Several hundred people were now gathered around the Equal. Seeing them, Luke was struck by a fresh, horrible thought. Where would they go now? Would they be sent south, to the fish factories? North, to the Bore? Children forced into those awful places, which were far worse than service at Far Carr. Was this Silyen’s idea of a cruel joke?

  Too late. Should have thought of that before being smart, Luke.

  Silyen opened his hands wide like a conjurer at a trick’s conclusion, waiting for the audience to applaud.

  ‘I free you,’ the Equal said. ‘Your days are done. No matter how long your service here, even if you came only last week, you have no further debt to pay.’

  Luke blinked, stunned. Free? Done? As simply as that? Plainly the crowd felt the same, because a disbelieving hubbub arose – one that quieted instantly when Silyen raised a hand.

  ‘A condition,’ he said, with his mocking smile. ‘Not unreasonable, in the circumstances. You go now. Right now. Anyone still inside this boundary wall within two hours I will personally have chauffeured to the Bore.’

  The scene degenerated into farce rather quickly after that. Most of the people turned and ran back in the direction of the house. A few tried to thank Silyen, who looked flummoxed when one middle-aged woman bent to kiss his hand. Parents shepherded their children through the gate immediately, taking no chances. Luke could hear them issuing stern instructions that their offspring wait and not move an inch, before turning back to the house to gather their belongings. It was what Mum and Dad would have done.

  Luke didn’t let himself think much about his parents. It was too hard. They were in Millmoor and safe. Daisy and Abi, though, were with Gavar Jardine. Still at the heart of that poisonous family. Where were they? Surely not still in London, at Aston House.

  Luke felt for the car key-fob in his pocket. Would Silyen let him walk out of the estate gates as easily as he’d released Rix’s old retainers?

  Why was Silyen so interested in him anyway?

  Luke had one idea why, based on the times he’d caught the Equal staring a little too long in his direction, or sensed a certain sly insinuation in the boy’s words. But disconcerting though it was to think that Silyen fancied him, it was a lot less disturbing than any other reasons why one might catch the interest of a magical sociopath.

  Reasons that could include some sort of Skillful interference or experimentation – beginning that night he’d first been dumped outside Kyneston gate, when he’d felt the Equal’s Skill reach right inside him.

  Or reasons that might explain the eerie episode at Eilean Dòchais, when Crovan had attempted to access Luke’s memories of Zelston’s murder by breaking down a barrier in his mind that was Rix’s Silence. In the hallucinatory landscape where that had happened, a sun-bright, silk-fine thread had connected Luke to a blazing presence that could only have been Silyen Jardine. What was that connection?

  At any rate, Silyen evidently wanted him around.

  Did Luke want to stay around?

  He wanted desperately to get back to Coira. But she wasn’t the only person he had to think about. Most obviously, Silyen was his connection to Gavar, who now had both of Luke’s sisters.

  And the Equal had just freed hundreds of people with three simple words. Luke’s hunch was that Silyen believed reliance on the slavedays system made the Equals weak, and led them to neglect their Skillful gifts. And the boy appeared to have little love or respect for his family – in particular, his father.

  Were those things enough to build a common cause? To win Silyen over to outright opposition of his father’s cruel regime? Because with someone like him on the side of justice, the Equals would have to take notice – and change might finally become possible.

  ‘You can come out now.’ Silyen stepped into the gatehouse. ‘They’re busy packing up and running away. We need to walk the boundary. As soon as that lot reach the first village, word will get out about what I’ve done. And once my father hears the news, you can bet we’ll have visitors. Rix never did a thing about the wall here, so the residual engrained Skill is all there is. I need to fix that.’

  ‘And us? You’ll bind us, like you did at Kyneston?’

  Silyen tipped his head on one side. The effect was so birdlike that Luke half expected his eyelids to blink upwards, or for him to shake out glossy black wings.

  ‘Do I need to, Luke?’

  Luke let out a long breath. He couldn’t put this off any longer. Because Silyen’s chatty manner, his acts of rescue and release – none of that wiped out the one thing for which Luke still needed an explanation.

  ‘Why did you let Crovan take me? You know what he does to people – how horrific that castle is. You worked out what Rix did on the night Zelston died, and you could have told your father, or parliament. Then maybe I wouldn’t have been Condemned, and maybe Jackson wouldn’t have lost his Skill. Perhaps he’d still be alive.’

  To his horror, Luke’s voice tore down the middle like a piece of paper. His eyes prickled and he blinked, but it didn’t check the tears. He saw Jackson on his hands and knees, howling, bleeding gold from his eyes as Crovan ripped out his Skill. Saw him dead in the hallway of Eilean Dòchais, his blood spilling across the flagstones.

  Luke would never forget those moments as long as he lived. Yes, he wanted to fight against the Equal regime because it was the right thing to do. And because he wanted revenge for the cruelty he’d suffered and had watched others suffer: Abi, offered up to die. Renie’s stolen childhood. Even Dog, his wife abused and his grief twisted into horror.

  But ‘the right thing’ was just an idea. ‘Revenge’ was only anger. In Luke’s heart, driving him on, was all that he owed Jackson, and all that he had learned from him. He would never forget his mentor, who had befriended a frightened teenager alone in a slavetown, and taught him to dream bigger and dare more.

  Silyen was staring at Luke like he was seeing him for the first time. Well, let him.

  When the Equal spoke, he sounded defensive.

  ‘I made sure you were never at risk of . . . ill treatment. I told Father that what we needed to know from you made you too valuable to damage. He sent Crovan special instructions.’

  ‘Damage? He tortures people. He does it over and over and over again, and makes them forget each time. Did you know that? You certainly know what he did to Dog. And yet you dropped in for tea like you were the best of friends.’

  ‘Coffee, actually.’

  Luke swung at Silyen before his brain registered what he was doing, because it would have told him it was pointless, that you couldn’t land blows on Equals. And sure enough, Luke staggered sideways, falling heavily against the gatehouse wall.

  He held himself there a moment, to regain his breath. Then twisted to face Silyen, his back against the bricks. He felt completely vulnerable and knew he must look a right state, but he didn’t care. The Equal needed to see this. Needed to understand that what had been mischief or intrigue to him had caused pain and suffering for others. Had meant, quite literally, life or death. Because if Silyen couldn’t grasp that, then there was no hope for him – and no point in Luke trying to win him over.

  Silyen looked . . . uncertain.

  ‘Luke, if you hadn’t turned up in Gorregan Square – and I still want to know how you managed that – I would have taken you away from Crovan any day now. I admit, I should have done it sooner.’

  ‘What was it for?’ Luke said, looking the boy straight in the eye.

  ‘I told you on the morning of the trial, and again when you left Kyneston. I said you were going somewhere where you’d be useful, because there were questions I needed answered. You know what those questions were: about how t
he act of Silence works.’

  ‘Useful? Questions and answers? You sent me to a madman just so you could find stuff out?’

  ‘Finding stuff out is the best reason there is for doing anything.’

  ‘Really? What about because it’s right? Or to make the world a better place?’

  There was that uncertainty on Silyen’s face again. Luke could imagine the Equal’s brain whirring through all sorts of smart retorts: How would you define ‘right’? A better place for whom?

  But Silyen didn’t say either of those things.

  He didn’t say anything at all.

  Well, perhaps that was a start.

  ‘This is going to be – a party,’ growled Dog, stepping past them out of the gatehouse.

  Luke let his arms flop to his side, willing away the tension that gripped him. He eyed Silyen warily, and followed Dog. The Equal was close behind.

  Silyen remained silent as he led them round the back of the small lodge. Then issued terse instructions.

  ‘Here will do. Hands on the wall, please.’

  Please.

  Luke laid his palms against it, as if waiting to be frisked by Security. The brick was soft, chalky and warm. Was that warmth from the sunlight? Or was it Skill? His pulse beat in his fingertips.

  ‘It’s so old.’

  ‘One of the oldest in Britain, if you discount the Zelston estate, which is built from a Roman ruin. Most of the estate walls went up after Black Billy’s Revolt, but Far Carr dates from the time of the kings and queens. What’s now the hall was once a royal hunting lodge, and this was to keep the game in – deer, boar – so the local people wouldn’t poach them.’

  Was Luke imagining it, or was Silyen’s tone particularly pointed? He knew what the boy was implying: Before the Equals oppressed you, your own monarchs did, too.

  How had it even happened that England had been ruled by unSkilled kings and queens, and not by the Equals from the start? Luke knew what he’d been taught at school: that those with gifts had kept to themselves, believing that unSkilled monarchs were best placed to rule over unSkilled people. They only took action when rulers were reckless or incompetent, like King John, who had been forced by the Equals to sign the Magna Carta and follow their guidance. Lycus Parva’s revolution, according to Luke’s textbooks for his now long-distant exams, happened because of King Charles I’s feebleness, not the Equal’s ambition.