by John Meaney
The concept of currency was simpler here; but it applied in fewer contexts than he was used to. The complexity lay in figuring out when payment was relevant.
‘I’ve operated on Durston IV,’ said Jed. ‘Four continents, two where bribery is everywhere, and you can’t do business without knowing how to offer payment to an official but not spelling it out, because that would be illegal.’
They stood and walked onto the Promenade.
‘I should grow up,’ said Roger, ‘because everyone learns to adapt. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Seems to me,’ said Jed, ‘you’d grown up already when I met you.’
That was after Roger had rescued Alisha from the brothel, having first committed violence on a large, thuggish bartender, forcing the man to tell what he knew. Perhaps that was the moment when the hesitant schoolboy Roger dissolved, replaced by whoever he was now. Or perhaps it happened when he turned away from his parents, letting them flee Fulgor while he stayed behind, imagining that he was the one at risk, not them.
‘So which way do we go?’
Jed indicated a spiralling route.
‘We follow Heisenberg Helix, take the Bessel Boulevard exit, follow it as far as Archimedes Avenue—’
‘Or we could just fastpath.’
‘Right.’ Jed grinned. ‘If you don’t mind me doing the business.’
‘Summon it slowly, if you can.’
Jed let out a breath, then raised his hands. Tiny sparks glittered inside his eyes of jet: fluorescent overspill from the satanase/satanin reaction inside the inductive neurons. Roger felt the air grow chill and prickling. Then reality flowed, pulled into a vortex, and a pane of nothingness rotated, just beyond the edge of what Roger could grasp.
‘Come on.’ Jed’s voice was tight, for this was hard work, slowing the rotation. ‘Step in.’
So Roger did, with Jed beside him, and the universe whirled.
I still can’t—
They stepped out into a reception chamber, vast as a cathedral, cemetery-cold.
When Max had finished screaming, the interrogator introduced himself as Fleming, his voice as pleasant as if they were meeting at a picnic. Then he added:
‘We are on the same side, you know.’
Sagging against the tendrils that held him, Max coughed, the nearest to laughter he could manage. Tears were chilling his face, while pain was washing everywhere, an ebb after furious surges.
‘Bastard. I did not kill her.’
Something in Max’s words, some rhythm, matched Fleming’s style of speech. So here was the danger: to be seduced by the torturer, to believe they cared because the entire world was here, defined by their words, their facial expression, and the pain they induced: magnificently skilled, the architecture of agony, the pulling-apart of personality.
Schenck, you bastard.
It had to be him, but there was no point in laying accusations. Stick to what he had seen and heard.
‘Admiral … Kaltberg.’ Max licked salt and blood from his mashed lip. ‘She was under … compulsion. I told you … She had a graser, set to auto-destruct.’
‘Hardly the suicidal type. A prominent admiral on the verge of well-deserved retirement?’
‘Not suicide. Murder. It was compulsion.’
‘But you escaped through your bolt-hole. Very slick.’
As a senior officer in the intelligence service, Max had years ago established a fast covert exit route. What else did Fleming expect?
‘She short-circuited … Neural induction. Burned out her corpus callosum.’
‘Lobotomized herself?’
‘Not that. Femtoviral patterning in her … her right cerebral hemisphere. The compulsion … She divided her brain. In two. Fought against … herself.’
‘That’s one hell of a story.’
‘Truth. She warned me. Get clear.’
Fleming popped some kind of sweet into his mouth and began to suck.
‘I’d like to believe you, Max.’
Max’s rank was commodore, but there was no point in insisting on etiquette, because in this place Commodore Gould did not exist: there was only a prisoner responding to whatever name Fleming chose to use.
‘Just as soon,’ Fleming added, ‘as you tell me the truth.’
A tsunami of pain burst open.
NO!
Max yelled for oblivion to take him.
They sat behind a table like a panel of examiners, while Roger faced them like a doctoral candidate preparing to defend his dissertation – except that he had Jed beside him. Among the panel of questioners was a familiar face, the man who had introduced himself as Dak Stilwell, a counsellor.
‘We can use real names,’ said the thin man in the centre. ‘I’m Pavel Karelin, this’ –indicating ‘Stilwell’ – ‘is Zeke Clayton, and that’s Clara James.’
The woman looked like a competitive runner, poised for the start.
‘Are they really real names?’ asked Jed.
‘For all official purposes, yes,’ said the woman. ‘Call me Clara. First names are appropriate, don’t you think?’
‘On the basis that Roger has done nothing wrong?’ said Jed. ‘I’ll agree with that.’
Roger swallowed.
‘Ask me anything,’ he said. ‘Er, except …’
Pavel said, ‘What is it?’
‘I don’t understand security clearance or any of those things. Including your clearance.’
‘We can assume, I think, that they’ve authorization.’ Jed touched a fist against Roger’s shoulder. ‘We’re in the centre of the Admiralty.’
Clara’s mouth twitched. ‘If there’s anything you’re not authorized to hear, Pilot Goran, we’ll let you know.’
Jed looked about to blush; then he grinned.
‘Good point,’ he said.
‘My father was an agent-in-place on Fulgor,’ said Roger, ‘for over twenty years.’
The trio nodded.
‘Look, I came into this,’ said Jed, ‘because I was at Sanctuary in Lucis City. Carl Blackstone’s ship appeared overhead, and he identified himself as an intelligence officer breaking cover, then warned us about the Anomaly. Not the word he used, of course.’
‘What did he say?’ asked Pavel.
‘We were already tracking the gestalt-mind’s growth in Skein,’ said Jed. ‘Al Morgan and Angus Cho were with me. What Carl Blackstone told us was the gestalt would be able to absorb everyone, not just Luculenti linked to the virtual environment they called deep Skein.’
‘And what else?’
‘Then he said he was going to fly here. It was pretty clear what he meant by that.’
‘Hellflight?’
‘Exactly.’ Jed looked at Roger. ‘I never saw him face to face, but he was a good man.’
Dad had killed himself to raise the warning, to get an evacuation fleet under way. But that was after Mum had died. Roger had no way of knowing how Dad had felt in the hours before death.
There was something missing from Jed’s story: the secret legacy from Dad, safe in her Ascension Annexe hangar, growing by the day.
=It’s all right.=
Roger tightened his abdomen, then relaxed. In hiding his own reaction, he almost missed it: near-subliminal twitches from both Clara James and Zeke Clayton. Sensing that Labyrinth had spoken?
Pavel said: ‘Clayton, you have a question?’
So much for first-name informality.
‘For Roger, yes.’ In that roundish, bearish face, the eyes were hard. ‘How did your father know what the Anomaly was capable of? That it would be able to absorb minds without the medium of Skein?’
‘I … There was the Zajinet Research Institute. That was my fault.’
‘Did your father often share operational details with you or your mother?’
‘Never. I mean—’ Roger had to think about this. ‘They tried to raise me as a Pilot without taking me here, away from Fulgor. Occasionally they talked about Zajinets. Not much, only that they’re the other
realspace species to function in mu-space.’
‘And the Institute?’
‘Mentioned by chance,’ said Roger, ‘and I didn’t know it was part of Dad’s work. I knew it existed. It just didn’t advertise itself. You wouldn’t find it unless you knew of it.’
Unsure whether the answer made sense, he was relieved in any case to tell the truth.
‘You’re implying’ – this was Clara – ‘that the Anomaly reached through realspace hyperdimensions to link with human nervous systems. How do you know that?’
‘I don’t,’ said Roger. ‘I know Zajinets teleport along the hyperdimensions. As for the Anomaly, I thought that’s what people have agreed it must use. The only sensible explanation.’
Jed said: ‘Reports of blue glows, especially the eyes, suggest Witten radiation from transitions of—’
‘We know the rumours.’ Pavel nodded to Roger. ‘I’m still curious as to why you raised the subject of Zajinets.’
‘That’s …’ Roger took time to exhale, then breathe in. ‘I’ll have to backtrack for context, but the immediate reason is that I told my … friend … Alisha about the Institute, and we went there. I think we were under surveillance by Rafaella Stargonier, the Luculenta who started the whole thing. The seed that became the Anomaly.’
Neither Pavel, Clara nor Clayton altered posture; no micro-expressions delineated their thoughts; yet the atmosphere had shifted. Call it pheromones.
Call it fear.
‘What was the relationship between you and the Stargonier woman?’ said Clayton.
‘I only ever saw her from a distance.’ Roger felt as if he had drunk too much daistral. ‘I saw some odd things, but it was Alisha who met her directly. And that was because of our tutor, Petra Helsen. She was the one behind everything.’
All eyes, including Jed’s, focused on him.
Pavel said, ‘Behind everything? Behind the Anomaly?’
‘She manoeuvred people. She …’
Roger was out of his depth, here in a city-world where he could barely open a door; but when it came to Fulgor, he was talking about his home. He knew it in a way no other Pilot could.
Right now, I’m the expert.
Once more exhaling to regain control, he felt his throat relax.
‘She, Helsen … manifested darkness. I can’t tell you what the phenomenon was, but it was real, even if I was the only one who could—’
Pavel raised both hands, palms forward. ‘Let’s stop there for now.’ And to Jed: ‘Pilot Goran, we appreciate your help, but this would be a good time to talk to Roger alone.’
‘Excuse me?’ Jed did not look about to budge. ‘According to regulations, Roger has a right to—’
‘This is no longer a public hearing. I’m invoking security protocols.’
‘You can’t—’
But a fastpath rotation came out of nowhere, descended upon Jed, and whirled him away to leave an empty flowmetal chair. Roger stared at the chair until it liquefied, flowing back into the floor.
‘We’re assuming you want to help us,’ said Clara.
‘I do.’
Put it this way: without the Anomaly, his parents would be alive.
‘The more we understand, the more effective we’ll be.’
‘I’ll tell you everything.’
So with the exception of his secret in Ascension Annexe, that was what he did.
FOUR
EARTH, 777 AD
Ulfr woke with Heithrún’s naked body against him, their legs entwined, her breathing soft and satisfied, his bladder fist-tight with the need to piss. He tried to shift and slip free, but her eyes came open and her hand went down, and then he was spear-hard and thrusting inside her – ‘Pierce me, warrior,’ her whisper – and they rode to white explosion and the shuddering, conjoined aftermath.
Then he really had to piss.
‘Sorry.’
‘Ow.’
‘Sorry.’
He clambered out butt-first from beneath the heavy cloak.
‘I’ll see you shortly.’
‘Mm.’ Heithrún turned onto her side, eyes closing. ‘Mm.’
Norns help me.
But those three sisters – Fate, Being and Necessity – were implacable now and in the past, and always would be. He had killed Eira’s brother out of mercy, not considering how his spear – his real spear – might sever the love that Eira had held for him, or seemed to. And now this, with Heithrún: unplanned but natural after the violence: lust as the giver of life.
And another volva. Did he have a thing for seeresses?
At the camp’s edge, he was not the only one to piss against the scrubby heather, hot steam rising to join the receding cloak of mist around them. Dawn light, pale-rose and smooth, draped magic across heathland and the hills beyond. Brandr, faithful war-hound, pissed like his master.
Afterwards, Ulfr grinned, and patted his head.
‘Come, brave friend. Let’s get clean like true warriors.’
The lake was like steel, reflecting clear sky, and part of the discipline was not to cry out as you waded naked into coldness, pressed your nostrils in, and ducked under. Then Ulfr launched himself up, shaking arms and head, every sinew alive, the water foaming. Now it was time to yell, in lustful triumph and challenge to Norns and gods alike: may they damn themselves as they played games with human lives.
Brandr churned water, swimming with mad joy.
Ulfr dried himself and Brandr with the cloak-fragment he carried for that purpose. Then he dressed, and stood watching the lake as he cleaned his teeth with a fresh willow twig, spat out, then dragged his bronze comb through his hair. Last-minute work with his tiny nose-and ear-spoon, and he was clean, warrior-presentable.
Heithrún was gone from their sleeping-place. As one of Chief Gulbrandr’s volvas, she would have work to do: healing or scrying, or leading a traumatized warrior into dreamworld to mend his spirit.
‘She’s a mistake,’ he said to Brandr, who was at his side.
The war-hound gave a gruff, abbreviated bark.
He knows it, too.
From the ground, he picked up the weapon that Heithrún had given him: her own staff, refashioned as a spear.
Me, the troll-slayer.
He went to find the rest of his own party.
When he reached them, Chief Folkvar was staring after a white-haired woman who was walking away: Eydís, senior volva and Heithrún’s teacher. Then Folkvar noticed Ulfr, stared, looked away, shook his head, and turned back, finally with a beard-spreading grin.
‘Piss on all mystics.’ He clutched the Thórr’s hammer amulet at his throat. ‘I need some Kvasir’s Blood.’
Was she saying something about me?
Big Vermundr filled a horn from the deerskin bladder slung over his shoulder, and held it out.
‘Here we are. Get that down you, Chief.’
‘Ah.’ Folkvar swigged half of the mead. ‘Sweet. What I needed.’
‘Ulfr?’ asked Vermundr. ‘You want some?’
‘Not if there’s anything else going.’
‘Goat’s milk.’ Hallsteinn offered a cup. ‘Nice and warm.’
‘Brilliant.’ Ulfr drank it down, feeling better. ‘So what’s up with old Eydís? Is she casting spells on you?’
‘More like, she’s spitting mad because some young warrior’s been entrancing her student.’ Folkvar held up two fingers in a V. ‘Doing some log-splitting with his axe-head.’
‘A very small axe-head, from what I hear,’ said Hallsteinn. ‘Nothing to be ashamed of though, eh, Ulfr?’
‘It’s not the weapon,’ said Ulfr, ‘it’s how you wield it.’
‘Must be all that solo practice,’ said Vermundr.
‘Oh, for Thórr’s sake.’
‘Actually, he has a massive hammer. No comparison.’
Ulfr shook his head, but he was not blushing; nor was he blind to Chief Folkvar’s frown, or deaf to his silence.
What did Eydís say to him?
At le
ast Ulfr’s judgement was confirmed: bedding Heithrún had been a mistake. Yet he would do it again, given the chance, which seemed unlikely. For the Thing was breaking apart, each tribe and clan returning home, with nothing resolved.
Twin ravens arced and spiralled overhead, warning Stígr of something but not danger. A strange mist boiled: silver pinpoints whirling in sunlight, invisible when he turned his back to the sun, beautiful when he faced the light. But the more his eye beheld wonder, the more his scar-filled eyeless socket itched and crawled. He was close to the village of that bastard Ulfr: a dangerous retracing of paths.
Stígr’s hat was shapeless, keeping cold sunlight from his face, allowing him to make out the dun-brown form at the base of a pine-tree. Someone wounded, dead, sleeping or pretending weakness for the purposes of ambush.
The ravens would have warned me.
He twisted his shoulders to loosen them, hefted his staff, and walked towards the human form.
‘Help me, sir.’
It was a young voice, that of a youth fewer in years even than Ulfr, the fresh-faced bastard who had bested Stígr. Damn them all, these young ones: bodies in one piece, minds fresh, untainted by self-hate. This one lay splayed beneath a high, slab-like outcrop.
‘Sir—?’
‘I’m here.’
Stígr pushed his cloak back over one shoulder and knelt, still holding his staff.
‘Did someone attack you, boy?’
‘No, I … fell.’
‘All right. Shh.’
Both legs were twisted, one with an extra angle where the shin had sheared through. The best thing Stígr could do now was summon help, if people were near.
‘Are you with Chief Folkvar’s clan, boy?’
‘No, Chief … Snorri.’
So. Not with Stígr’s enemies. One of their neighbours.
‘You need help,’ said Stígr. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Sigurthr, sir.’
‘A hero’s name.’
With the staff, Stígr pushed himself to his feet.
‘Close your eyes, brave Sigurthr. Close your eyes and rest now.’
He raised the staff as the boy’s eyes closed.
‘Rest, because everything will be all—’
