by David Hair
The lamiae clan began to draw away, many visibly unhappy at this perceived leniency. The two who were holding Gurvon lifted him to his feet, keeping his arms pinned, and Kazim stepped past her and went to him. She held her breath as they confronted each other, her former lover and the man she wanted to be with for ever. Both said something, low words meant only for each other.
Then Kazim smashed his fist into Gurvon’s belly so hard that he bent in half and crumpled, gasping. The two lamiae holding him aloft grinned fiercely.
‘Kazim!’ The admonishment was involuntary, and not exactly passionate.
‘Someone had to do it,’ he replied without a hint of remorse. ‘Elena, show me how to do one of your Chain-runes, please. And how to make it hurt.’
*
Elena, Kazim and Kekropius gathered outside the cavern where Gurvon was confined. Elena had wrapped wards around it and Kazim set the Chain-rune under her guidance. The agony Gurvon had endured as they bound him had given her a disturbing amount of satisfaction, although seeing the hatred and humiliation on his face, she had wondered if perhaps they would be better killing him after all.
Not once did he ask after the woman he’d claimed to be his new paramour – but perhaps he’d seen her taken down from behind by half a dozen of the lamiae. She’d put up a fight, Kekropius had reported, but she’d gone under. Elena would have liked to have questioned her about her Contact-rune, but she thought she could probably work it out with a bit of time and practise. It was a useful little spell.
Most of the day was spent healing the injured and tending to the fallen. The most heartbreaking of those losses was Kessa, and Elena was feeling horribly guilty – Kessa had given her life to protect her. Her own condition was improving rapidly, thanks to her healing-gnosis. The venom on Gurvon’s sword might have been meant to incapacitate, not kill, but had it not been for her link to Kazim she might never have survived both poison and blood loss.
‘So, why should we not kill this man?’ Kekropius asked, his voice still raw. ‘Who is this Cera Nesti?’
‘Cera Nesti was – is – the Queen-Regent of Javon; your valley is part of that kingdom.’ She gave him a quick recent history of Javon, from King Olfuss’ death through Cera’s reign as her brother’s regent, and young Timori’s continued claim to the throne. ‘I had thought her dead.’
‘But you say she betrayed you – why?’ Kekropius looked mystified.
When she thought about it, she supposed that twenty years was a very short time, and the lamiae were a tiny, loyal clan; they were unlikely to have encountered the many faces of treachery.
‘I don’t really know. I have my suspicions, but really I need to see her, to speak to her, if I am to understand it.’
‘Make him bring her to you,’ Kazim suggested. ‘And her brother the king as well.’
Why not? If you’re going to negotiate, you should ask for the world and let the other side feel grateful to get out with anything at all. ‘It’s worth asking, amori.’ She looked at Kekropius. ‘Elder, I believe gaining Cera might just about be worth doing, but I am aware that it will rob you of your vengeance and so that decision should not be mine to make. We are in your debt. It must be your decision.’
The Elder looked appreciative of her gesture. ‘Speak to him – find out what he will propose, if the exchange is what you think it would be. Then advise me – I will await you here.’
*
They had sealed Gurvon in the deepest cavern and stationed a lamia guard at the wicker gate; he was waiting in impassive patience. Such a curious mix, theses snake-people, she thought, fierce when roused, stolid when cool. This one bobbed his head respectfully, then stood aside as Elena removed the wards and walked in.
Gurvon looked up, his face tired and swollen. The cavern was cold and his blanket had been selected for its inadequacy. Having a slop-bucket in the corner wasn’t helping his comfort levels much either, she guessed.
‘Well?’ he said, lifting his head haughtily. ‘My life for a queen’s? Should be an easy choice.’
‘A queen-regent,’ she corrected briskly. ‘Get up. I’m not talking to you in here. Follow.’
They took him to one of the warmer caverns, where they gave him water and some horsemeat stew. ‘You should enjoy it,’ Elena said chattily, ‘it’s your own legion’s horses. Rykjard’s men, weren’t they?’
Gurvon grimaced, but he didn’t stop eating. ‘I don’t suppose you have wine?’ he asked, and grunted morosely when she shook her head. ‘You’ve not just gone native, you’ve gone feral.’
She ignored that and waited until he was done, then pointedly took the spoon from him. She spoke in Keshi so that Kazim could follow the conversation. ‘Right,’ she said briskly, ‘here are my demands. In exchange for your life I want Cera and Timori, and all of my gold, every last fennik you owe me. They are to be delivered to a place of my choosing, somewhere near Lybis.’ She smiled coldly. ‘That, or I send Rutt your head.’
‘I don’t have Timori in Lybis, and I certainly don’t have your gold.’
She turned to Kazim. ‘My love, next time he refuses me, hit him.’ Then she turned back and said, ‘Gurvon, this isn’t a negotiation. This is me giving you one chance to save your life. You will accede to all my demands, or I’ll assume you’re lying and let the lamiae kill you. You get one opportunity to reconsider your reply.’
His nostrils flared, but his shoulders sagged. ‘Kore’s Blood, Elena! I’m telling the truth, I swear to you. They told me if I fucked this up, Tomas Betillon would be sent in. I imagine he’ll be in Brochena by week’s end as soon as word of this gets out. Do you want the Butcher of Knebb let loose here?’
‘I welcome the chance to put a knife in his back. You’ll promise me Cera, Timori and the gold, or I’ll tell Kekropius that you’re all his.’
‘Damn it, Elena! I had to give Timori to Endus Rykjard to hold because all my people kept dying. He’s not just my prisoner any more.’
‘And the gold?’
‘Impossible. It’s in Yuros.’
She turned to Kazim. ‘Break his nose.’
Kazim lashed out, a blur of movement; there was a crunch and Gurvon’s head snapped back, blood spraying everywhere. He fell back on his rocky seat, crying out and looking dazed. Kore’s Blood, if anyone deserved that, it’s him.
‘No games,’ she told him. ‘You’re in Javon, so of course you’re getting the gold sent here – this is home now, isn’t it? And I know how much you’ve got, remember? You used to tell me to keep me motivated.’
He wiped his bloody face. His voice now sounded thickly nasal. ‘Fifty per cent of my fee has been shipped to Brochena by Jusst and Holsen. I can get it to Lybis in a month.’
‘You do not have a month. You have one week.’
He closed his eyes dazedly. ‘I’d need to contact Rutt Sordell.’
‘I can do that. I have your relay-staves now.’ She tapped her palm. ‘Do we have a deal?’
He looked at her with utter hatred, but his voice was faint. ‘Yes, damn you.’
‘Good. I’ll contact Rutt tonight. Now, tell me how you faked Cera’s death.’
She could almost see his mind working, weighing the variables, trying to see if there was anything he could salvage from this débâcle. But he knew her, as she knew him. ‘All right. Do you remember Coin?’
‘How could I forget … ?’ Her voice trailed off as she realised what he was saying. ‘You bastard!’
He pinched the bridge of his nose, though the blood had already stopped flowing. ‘I managed to save her – after you almost killed her – but she was becoming a nuisance. She was always too demanding, and she got these fixations …’ Catching Elena’s impatient look, he focused again. ‘She became obsessed with Cera and she agreed to get Cera and Timori out of Brochena. They might have got away with it, too, but Coin decided to kill Francis first, payback for the way he treated Cera, I suppose. Or maybe just to screw me over. That’s what alerted us, and we caught them just in time.’
‘So it was Coin who was stoned?’
‘I offered her death, so that Cera could live. Coin had nothing left to live for by then, so she accepted. She changed form, then I Chain-runed her so she couldn’t back out of our deal.’
Elena stared at him, utterly sickened. ‘One of the emir’s informants told me she had her tongue cut out even before she was stoned.’
He looked down. ‘I couldn’t risk her trying to speak out in the arena.’
‘Kore’s Blood, you’re a piece of work …’ She didn’t bother trying to hide the disgust in her voice; she could feel Kazim’s seething contempt, too, even though he didn’t know these people like she did. ‘But why save Cera anyway?’
Gurvon shrugged. ‘I never waste an asset, you know that. She still had some value as a bargaining chip; I thought I might be able to trade her for you, or maybe use her to bring the Nesti under my control, or even threaten the Dorobon with her in case they managed to seize control again. She was always going to have value to someone.’ He attempted a wry smile. ‘Lucky for me, eh?’
‘You’re worse than I ever realised. How did I waste half my life on you?’
‘She was your pupil, Elena. Perhaps it was you I saw in her.’
The worst thing was, that wasn’t so hard to believe: Cera had always been a little cold, and a little too fond of secrets. She was clever, but she was also vulnerable, which made her easy to manipulate. Just like me when I was young.
Finally she asked the one question she was desperate to know the answer to. ‘How did you convince her to betray me?’
‘That was easy.’ She could hear the pride in his voice. ‘She was frightened, and looking for reassurance. She was still just a child, for all the crowns and council-room triumphs. I told her that you and Lorenzo di Kestria were plotting together, and when you obligingly started screwing him she thought it was proof of everything I’d told her. I promised safety for her and her precious little brother – I reassured her and promised her a way through the maze while you were just feeding her fears and leading her deeper in.’
‘And the charges against her?’
‘Is she safian?’ Gurvon leered. ‘Surely you’d know that, about your darling protégé?’
‘I can do worse than just hit you, Rondian,’ Kazim growled.
Gurvon raised a hand, wincing. ‘I take it back. But yes, she is – not with Tarita though. She’s been bedding Portia Tolidi.’
Elena blinked.
‘I know: the most beautiful, most desired woman in the kingdom, the soon-to-be mother of the Prince Royal. A wonderful scandal, isn’t it?’
‘You’re all class, Gurvon. What about Tarita?’
‘Gone – still alive, for all I know.’
Elena’s hand went to her mouth. ‘She is?’
‘I think she was probably already in the tunnel when I intercepted Cera – she must’ve crept away as soon as she realised the jig was up.’ He examined the scabs on his right arm and sighed. ‘We knew she was spying for Mustaq al’Madhi, but I really thought that had been curtailed when the tunnels were sealed up. After that it didn’t seem worth killing her.’ He scowled. ‘See where mercy gets you?’
‘You’re alive because of mercy, you pig.’
Gurvon looked at her levelly. ‘You know, I could have had Timori killed at any time, but the circumstances were never quite right. He’s been a useful little carrot to dangle just out of reach. Both the Dorobon and the Nesti wanted him, but I had him, and that kept this kingdom from degenerating into open war. You’ll regret asking for him. It makes open conflict inevitable.’
‘I don’t think so.’
Gurvon looked at Kazim. ‘Listen, Dokken: Elena will use anything and anyone – even a child – to further her own ends. Watch your back; she’ll sell you to the Inquisition as soon as she’s run out of uses for you.’
Elena felt a little apprehensive; surely this nasty little barb wouldn’t take root? But Kazim laughed so unaffectedly that her heart swelled with gratitude. ‘My lover dwells in my heart, Gurvon-sahib,’ he replied calmly. ‘We are one being. Anything you say against her, you say against me’
Something in his simple, calm answer silenced Gurvon completely, as if Kazim’s total love and faith in her left nothing to attack.
At last Gurvon sniffed, affecting disdain and boredom, and said, ‘I rather think we’re done here.’
‘You know,’ she replied bleakly, ‘I think we are.’
36
Power and Precision
Marriage
Marriage is often lauded by poets and playwrights as a manifestation of love, but it is nothing of the sort: it is a legal arrangement for the intergenerational transfer of wealth and influence. Love is nothing but a nuisance, muddying the waters of what should be clear-cut decisions about with whom one should ally oneself; ‘love’ can endanger the longevity of that alliance. Would that love did not exist!
BAYL TAVOISSON, TREASURER, PALLAS, 816
Teshwallabad, Lakh, on the continent of Antiopia
Rami (Septinon) 929
15th month of the Moontide
Huriya’s pack ate their horses and entered Teshwallabad as a pack of wild dogs. They found a wrecked old building near the river and drove off the squatters, except for a couple who were too slow to run away; those they killed and ate too, because the journey had been long. Of course, the hovel did not suit Huriya, who asked Wornu to find her a guest-house more to her taste. Wornu acquiesced, returning with a palanquin; the most eastern-looking of the pack acted as bearers to carry their Seeress into the centre of the city in style. The palanquin was large enough for two and she insisted Malevorn join her, something the shapeshifter men had not expected and visibly resented by, though they didn’t refuse.
A carved wooden grille went a little way to lessening the clamour and stink of the city, but it allowed Malevorn only glimpses of Teshwallabad as they crept along the close, winding streets and through the wide plazas where wares of all sorts from spices to copper kettles were piled high on stalls set up on carts or laid out on tattered blankets on the ground. They saw crumbling slums and marble domes, cracked clay and crenulated walls, and many, many people, including an old orange-clad Omali pandit being berated by three young Amteh Scriptualists; a beggar with no legs on a wheeled trolley; and a donkey-cart so overladen that the cart had tilted backwards – the poor beast had all four legs off the ground and was staring about itself in obvious bemusement. There were many dark, weathered faces with bushy whiskers and broken teeth, but even more young faces, bright with life. Music and the wailing of Godsingers filled the air: humanity at its most cacophonous.
‘I grew up in such a place,’ Huriya said, peering out with an expression somewhere between wistful memory and contempt, ‘but I always knew I was destined for more. Sabele herself promised me.’
To Malevorn it all looked primitive and degenerate. He put a fold of his scarf over his mouth and nose, trying to mask the smells. ‘Revolting.’
‘This is the greatest city in all Lakh,’ Huriya said coolly.
‘I’m from Pallas. This place is a hovel.’ Pallas was clean, orderly, and full of greenery and space … the part his family lived in, anyway. The poor were kept well away from where the good people lived … where he would one day live again, despite his father’s suicide and the family’s swift descent to ruin. His name had got him into Turm Zauberin; his wits would get him home …
‘This was ancient when your Pallas was a clutch of mud huts.’
‘Compared to Pallas now, this still is.’
‘Your city was built on the gnosis. This was built by human hands, centuries before your kind were capable.’
‘The past,’ he sneered. ‘We live in the now.’
‘Change is coming,’ Huriya replied haughtily. She looked out of the grille, her features uncharacteristically pensive. ‘We’re going to overturn the entire world, starting here.’
Malevorn scratched his nose. Yes, we are. But I rather th
ink you and I will have very different views on what happens after that. ‘Where is this vizier?’
‘His palace will be easy to find; he is an important man.’
‘And when we find him?’
‘We will pay him a late-night visit.’ Huriya reached out and stroked his cheek. His face had been stained darker, and with his untended hair and beard and the garb of an Antiopian mercenary, his disguise was complete. ‘You look tense, Malevorn my sweet.’
He bridled at her condescension, but he had to admit she frightened him too. She was as unpredictable and cruel as anyone he’d met – even at the Inquisitorial Bastion in Pallas. So he met her eyes and gave his most charming smile. ‘I’ve been waiting for a long time to finally catch up with Mercer and that mudskin bint.’
She gave him a languid look. ‘Did you know that my first lover was Rondian?’ she asked slyly. ‘A bull of a man: Jos Klein, his name was. I didn’t even know I was a Souldrinker then, and as I had not come into the gnosis, he didn’t know either. Then Sabele told me what I needed to do and after we coupled, I killed him and stole his powers.’
‘A cautionary tale.’
She laughed throatily. ‘I suppose it is, but that was not my point. I was just noting my apparent predilection for white men.’ She pushed her foot into his crotch and massaged him through the cloth. She’d been doing a lot of this recently, teasing him, but never quite delivering, and he was becoming sick of the game. When she saw that he wasn’t reacting she pouted, then lounged back into the cushioned seat. ‘Tonight at midnight we will find this Hanook and see where he has taken Ramita’s family. Perhaps she is even here, and the Scytale with her.’
Now there is a hope to cherish.
Finally they came to a place where the crowds were at their thickest, and the palanquin bearers halted and carefully set the box down. Malevorn jumped out and helped Huriya to disembark, and she dismissed Wornu and his men, then pointed towards a street jammed with hundreds of people. Malevorn took the lead and under her guidance bullocked a path down winding alleys between dilapidated buildings until they burst out into open space. In front of them was a wide, sluggish muddy brown river. Huge steps had been built of stone right along the bank on both sides, and to Malevorn it looked like the whole of Antiopia was here, many of them half-immersed, pouring water over their heads in apparent prayer. Bells chimed constantly from temples set all along the riverbanks, and priests chanted endlessly, and so loudly that the faraway sounds of the Godsingers in their towers were barely audible. The city on the other side of the river was as vast as that on the nearside.
