Nether Light

by Shaun Paul Stevens

  They laughed.

  23

  The Dire Pit

  Guyen woke upright in Mist’s recliner, fully clothed, head pounding. He rubbed his stomach, close to throwing up. So this was a rakha hangover? Never again.

  Grimacing against the light, he pulled on his boots. Despite it being Aylesday, his usual day off, there was lots to do. Rialto had left a pile of work in the studio. This wouldn’t usually have filled him with enthusiasm, but as no one else would be in, it was the perfect opportunity to poke around and examine the equipment he might need to make Yemelyan’s cure. He also needed to get down to the hexium later to see about that job, and to find Dasuza again. Hopefully, the scant gossip he’d uncovered would persuade the pitman to pass on another message to Mother, this one asking for a sample of his brother’s blood.

  It was going to be a busy day. He picked up his Pledge and hat, and left Mist sleeping.

  An hour later, he arrived back at the Gate. Ignoring disapproving looks from the guards, he went up to his room to collect his books. All was quiet up on the sixth floor, save the cracking of heating varnish. He unlocked the door, pushed it open, and froze.

  A gory, red mess stained his pillow.

  What the hell was that?

  Toulesh burst in, scanning the shadows for invisible foes. None presented. Skin prickling, Guyen edged inside.

  Severed rat’s heads lay on the pillow, congealed arteries and veins trailing from tiny, disembodied skulls like bloody weeds. A wave of nausea hit. Who would do something so disgusting? How did they get in? Was it a message? Everything else in the room seemed in place—clothes where they’d fallen, the soap in its dish, the safe unbroken. Damn. So much for his room being a place of safety. Someone was out to get him.

  Revulsion and worry clouding his thoughts, he scooped up the mess and dumped it, pillow and all, in the yard bins at the back of the Circle. He couldn’t let this distract him from the day’s tasks. He had to stay focussed on Yemelyan, despite the anxiety. So, after posting a request for fresh bed linen and a change of lock through Felix’s door, he went to find Nyra.

  The senior Maker’s first-floor apartment lay on the north side of the Circle. His wife, Gigi, opened the door. A pretty Althuisan woman in her mid-twenties, her brown hair nested in a tidy bun and bright red lipstick set off a dark complexion. Unlike Nyra, conversation was not her forte. She ushered him into their white-walled reception and disappeared into the next room. Guyen checked the view from the window—the Bustle in the distance, herb gardens at the back, then sat on the black leather recliner, rubbing his throbbing skull.

  Nyra walked in a moment later. “Good morning, Yorkov. You look fragile. Late one?” He took the opposite chaise, pulling his socks on. “Out with that girl of yours, were you?”

  “She’s just a friend.” He shuddered as another wave of nausea hit. “I don’t suppose you have anything for an upset stomach, do you?”

  “It looks like you’ve already had that,” Nyra said. Guyen tried a cheery grin, achieving only a lopsided grimace. Nyra offered a sympathetic look and called into the next room. “Gigi, my love, would you serve a jug of curative?”

  “Do it yourself,” she called back.

  “Please, sweetheart.” He winked, a mischievous expression on his face.

  A brief pause. “Fine,” she trilled.

  Nyra smiled. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Guyen sat forwards. “I wanted to pick your brains.”

  “Pick away.”

  The direct route was probably best. “What’s stem powder?”

  Nyra frowned. “What do you want to know about that for?”

  “It’s mentioned in Milkins. In the chapter on patch serums.”

  “You read up to there already?” Nyra observed. “Trying to surpass me as Rialto’s favourite, are you?”

  “I’m sure that’s an impossibility.”

  “Ha!” He slipped a foot into a pointed brown ankle boot. “Stem is the skeleton key of the Bindcrafter’s toolbox,” he said, “the eighteenth elemental powder. You can use it as a substitute for other elementals when you’re not sure which to use.” He crossed his arms. “I assume this is about your brother?”

  “I’m merely trying to broaden my horizons,” Guyen said.

  “So this research—it is only theoretical?”

  “For now. So, this stem stuff, where do we keep it?”

  Nyra raised an eyebrow. “Nowhere, fella, it’s a thousand times more poisonous than Sulphurous, and wholly unstable. Rialto has a small supply locked in his safe at the Devotoria, in a vacuum-sealed spherico, but he would never let you anywhere near it. Are you serious about this?”

  “He’s my brother,” Guyen said. “I have to try.”

  “Well, do not involve me.”

  Guyen looked away, masking his annoyance.

  Gigi appeared with a jug. She glanced over, eyes unreadable, and after placing the refreshments on the table, returned to her chores in the next room. Nyra took two glasses from a natty side cabinet and decanted the light-brown brew. He offered one. “This should pick you up a bit,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “Spiced lemon tea—cinnamon, tarragon, aniseed.” Guyen took a sip. The drink was pleasingly soothing on the stomach. Nyra leaned back on the flower-patterned chaise, happy to change the subject. “So, how are you settling in?”

  “Fine, I suppose.”

  “No problems with the locals?” He waved at the window.

  “Actually, someone broke into my room.”

  Nyra’s eyes widened. “What did they take?”

  “Nothing. They left something though. Dumped a pile of decapitated rat’s heads on my pillow.”

  “Shit!” Nyra said. “And I thought I was unpopular.”

  “You will be if you keep associating with me,” Guyen muttered.

  “I choose my own friends,” Nyra declared, knocking back his drink. “You should ask Rialto for a move. Security on the sixth floor is terrible. Some scroat robbed me up there when I was an Ordinate too. And you are a target, considering your abilities.”

  Guyen flinched. “Abilities?”

  “Your Binding.”

  A nervous laugh escaped. As long as those were the only abilities he was referring to.

  Guyen left Nyra and Gigi to do whatever young married couples did on their days off. The rest of the morning he spent in the studio, finishing his cleaning and sorting tasks while getting to know the various apparatus. The silver-haired dullard was around as usual. The Bindcrafters nicknamed him Fetch, a fitting moniker for someone given as much respect as a dog. He didn’t have the mental capacity to understand the first thing about Bindcraft, and was uninterested in Guyen’s activities, preferring to silently continue his endless quest sweeping, mopping and polishing the studio floor out of existence.

  By lunchtime, Guyen had familiarised himself with all the devices required to make the patch serum. But getting hold of stem powder, that might be a problem. If only he could ask Rialto for help, but he couldn’t risk it—he might forbid the experiment. Better to beg forgiveness after the event.

  After a lunch of bread and cold meat in the refectory, he set off for the Junction. Dasuza was nowhere to be found, but the license to work off-assignment had been granted, and Selius didn’t hold back. It turned out becoming a pitman was something of an apprenticeship, and the graft on offer today was of the more unpleasant variety. The tar pit was unique to the Outlaws, a sticky pond to one side of the arena designed to maim the animals, sometimes the players, all in the name of entertainment. During matches, a furnace in the bowels of the hexium heated the mixture till it bubbled and smoked. Cooled down, it was a sticky mess of discarded armour, weapons, and mutilated horse limbs, which he had to clear. By the time he’d finished, as ground staff refilled the pit and the furnace was lit for the afternoon’s match, he was covered in a smelly, gloopy mess. Selius smiled wickedly when he saw him, but laid a sixmark in his hand. At last, money. Th
at would afford him something decent from the food stands outside the hexium.

  On the way out, he spotted Dasuza in the stables, preparing equipment for the match. Apart from a stable boy, no one else was around. The pitman nodded a greeting. “I was wondering when you’d turn up,” he said.

  Guyen grinned. “Like a bad mark, you mean?”

  Dasuza sniffed. “You get any gossip for me yet?”

  “Yes, actually, I overheard something at Six Sisters.”

  “And?”

  “Devere’s at loggerheads with the Grande Prime. He mentioned targeting him, something to do with his Binding.”

  Dasuza perked up. “Any idea what the argument’s about?”

  Guyen hesitated, trying to recollect. “Devere wants to retest something, but Wilhelm won’t give him the funds.”

  “Retest what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dasuza grimaced. “I’ll pass it on, but it’s probably nothing. The High Houses are always bickering. Is that all you have?”

  Was it worth mentioning the message intercepted at the hawkery? The writing he’d duplicated was gibberish, assuming he’d even recalled it correctly. What the hell. “There’s this,” Guyen said, taking the folded parchment from his jacket pocket. “War had me intercepting messages flying over the city. I copied it.”

  Dasuza raised an eyebrow. “Quite the Devotions lackey, I see.”

  Guyen scowled. “You do what you’re told around here, right?”

  “Yeah, within reason.” Dasuza examined the message. “The bird you retrieved it from, which direction was it flying in?”

  “Eastwards. I’m afraid it looks like code.”

  He pulled a small black book and pencil from his pocket. “You’re right, it does.” He flicked through a few pages and began transcribing something.

  Guyen eyed him curiously. “What are you doing? What’s that?”

  “A codebook.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  He ignored the question, continuing to scribble. Eventually, he looked up.

  “Well?” Guyen said.

  “The Damorians have a problem with the Binding.”

  “What sort of problem?”

  Dasuza stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Scorpion, eh? This will put a dent in their operations.”

  Guyen grabbed the paper.

  “Hey,” Dasuza protested.

  He’d written out a decoded version of the message, and below that, a translation into Sendali Common.

  Shipment 435 delayed until 25.4. Scorpion chilled, held for Vitesse murder. Affliction spreading. Officers to be vetted. Await further instructions. Tjaldur, Great Bear.

  “What the hell does all that mean?” Guyen asked. The only part he understood was Tjaldur, Great Bear—an honorific title for the Chairman of Damor.

  Dasuza regarded him patiently. “Damor and Althuisa have been working together, transporting Unbound to our shores, sending them across the border to cause unrest.”

  What was he talking about? “You got all that from a few words?”

  “I keep my ear to the grapevine.”

  Well, that was as enlightening as an underwater candle. “What does that have to do with this?” Guyen asked, tapping the translated message.

  “The shipment is probably human cargo,” Dasuza said. “Unbound. But that’s not the interesting part, see this bit about the Scorpion?”

  “What about it?”

  “That’s the code name for the High Commander of the Damorian army—the equivalent to our General Berese. Chills is Damorian slang for Unbound.”

  “You’re saying their General has succumbed to the maddenings?”

  Dasuza nodded. “I am, Yorkov.”

  Well, that hardly sounded likely. “An Unbound in charge of an army?” Guyen said. “Are you sure?”

  “Not Unbound. He’s an old man. Unbound don’t live past thirty. No, he must have lost his Binding somehow.”

  “And murdered someone?”

  “Sounds like it,” Dasuza said. “And not just anyone—Executor Vitesse.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The Chairman’s fixer, the second most powerful man in Damor.”

  “How do you know so much about Damorians?” Guyen asked.

  Dasuza shrugged. “I take an interest in politics. You should try it.”

  Guyen snorted. “Politics is for the crows! What does Affliction spreading mean?”

  “That, I don’t know.”

  The pitman wasn’t omnipotent then. That was something to cling on to. “You think the boffins at War will work this out for themselves?” Guyen asked. “Maybe we should tell them?”

  “They have some of the finest codebreakers in the Feyrlands,” Dasuza said. “They’ll work it out.”

  “So what will they do?”

  Dasuza shrugged. “Who knows? Attack while the Damorians are distracted?”

  Guyen handed the message back. “Sorry, I don’t suppose any of this helps the Flags league.”

  Dasuza brightened. “Oh, I’m sure Dalrik will find it of interest. Anything else you can get the Network, he’ll make it worth your while.”

  “The Network?” Guyen queried.

  “The Flags league,” Dasuza said.

  Guyen fixed him with a suspicious frown. “I’m not getting myself into anything illegal, spying for you, am I? I can’t afford to get into any trouble.”

  Dasuza quirked an eyebrow. “There’s all sorts of legal.”

  A voice boomed. “What’s going on in here?”

  Guyen spun in time with Toulesh. The simulacrum threw up his fists, ready to fight. A mountain of man approached—Shevrin Vadil. Only an idiot would pick a fight with the Outlaws’ star player.

  Dasuza bowed his head. “Nothing going on, sir Knight.”

  Up close, Vadil was as handsome as a god, or at least the most glorious specimen of human. Thick-necked, with cropped blond hair, the scars across his face only highlighted his manliness, no doubt making him even more attractive to women. He pushed past, heading for one of the mounts.

  Dasuza slipped the codebook surreptitiously back in his jacket and motioned at the door.

  They slunk back into the Guts—as the passages running the length and breadth of the hexium were known. “I need to send another message,” Guyen said.

  “Ah, yes, message.” Dasuza patted his pockets, an apologetic look on his face. “Sorry, I forgot.” He withdrew a folded piece of parchment—a letter, the handwriting Mother’s.

  Guyen shot him an aggravated look. Why had he been holding onto it? He broke the seal.

  Dear Guyen,

  I pray to Issa all is well with you. I miss you terribly.

  I am afraid Yemelyan has taken a turn for the worse. When I returned home the other day, I found him on the floor, stiff, and foaming at the mouth. Since you left, his madness has only gotten worse. When his eyes are not glassed over, he talks nonsense and strikes out at thin air. I cannot bear seeing him this afraid. The healers say it is inside his head, but I am not so sure—sometimes things happen, strange things no one can explain.

  Then today we received a visit from the Assignments Office. They say if he is not improved by next moon, they will have no choice but to take him away.

  I know there is nothing you can do, but I thought you would want to know.

  Please write soon,

  Your loving mother x

  The news was heart-wrenching. It was useless being stuck in Carmain, they were so far away. Had Mother even received the first letter he’d sent? There was no way to tell. How must they be coping? Mother, Nazhedra, the girls… they had the worry of rent and finding the next meal—they didn’t need Yemelyan’s blasted sickness to contend with too.

  “I need to send a reply,” Guyen said.

  Dasuza nodded. “I have to get back to work. There’s parchment in there.” He pointed at an office.

  “Thanks, I’ll find you when I’m finished.”

  The pitman wandered
off down the gloomy passage.

  Guyen let himself in the room and turned up the lantern. Blank parchment and writing paraphernalia sat beside stacks of printed programmes for the day’s match. He dipped a quill in the inkpot and spent several minutes composing a missive in words which would make sense to Mother and no one else. She should be able to interpret his request for a sample of Yemelyan’s blood—hopefully, she’d know how to package it. He left out any mention of what he might do with it. Satisfied, he folded and sealed the parchment, imprinting the wax with the moon emblem on his knife hilt.

  Spectators swarmed into the Junction, an excited buzz filling the air. He passed Dasuza the letter on his way out and headed back to the Gate, stopping to buy a pie from a food stall outside the hexium, a salty affair, contents dubious, but with a delicious crust. Thoughts turned to the practicalities of making the patch serum. Assuming Yemelyan’s blood was forthcoming, how would he acquire that stem powder, the missing ingredient? Nyra had mentioned Rialto kept some in his office in a vacuum spherico, whatever that was. Was that the only option? Could he get it elsewhere? Should he even attempt to make the serum without Rialto’s help? Perhaps he should throw himself on his mercy and hope he sanctioned the experiment—there had to be a better chance of success that way. But what if he forbade him? The chance would be gone forever. Damn. It was an impossible decision.

  24

  Juris Personae

  A month later, life at the Devotions was the new normal. The city was familiar now, as were the Makers you avoided for a quiet life. The dusty library on the second floor was a good place to hide from them all—a veritable treasure-trove of rare books, documents, and Maker history, no one went in there. Time passed slowly in the studio, often spent gazing at clouds through the louvre windows, dreaming of lost summer days of childhood, missing Mother, Yemelyan, Father, even Kiani—all these years on. The monotony was interrupted by backbreaking work at the hexium, which along with the daily run was at least fitness improving. Visits to Six Sisters came and went, as did service at Scholars Keep, attending with a vague old astronomer named Renchat. There’d been no more appointments at War Devotion, but not laying eyes on Rossi could only be considered a silver lining.