The Promise of the Child

by Tom Toner

  Lycaste tried to think. “Not that I can recall, Amaranthine.” He was determined to be on his best behaviour, despite the exhilarating thought that not long ago he had been prepared to fight an Immortal. He chided himself again for being so foolish.

  “You were dying?” Huerepo asked from atop his shoulders.

  “I think so.”

  Up ahead, Maneker snorted. “Where is this roof?”

  They came to a smashed trapdoor in the ceiling, the lock melted, wind and rain whistling through the gaps in what remained of the wooden door, accompanied by the sounds of the battle raging all around the house and possibly atop it. Maneker was already opening it, and, before either Lycaste or Huerepo could protest, the Amaranthine had made his way out onto the roof, the door slamming closed again.

  “Throw me up before you climb out,” Huerepo said. Lycaste nodded and gingerly pushed open the trapdoor. Huerepo scrabbled from his back and dived out into the rain, the trapdoor slamming shut again.

  Lycaste glanced back into the gloom towards the way they’d come, hearing the smashing of crockery and the overturning of furniture in the grand chambers of the prison level. He thought of the rusted sword, leaning against the hearth. There was still time to run and hide, perhaps wait out the battle for this place for a chance to slip away. He pushed his hands through his oily hair, turning in a slow circle as conflicting fears pushed him this way and that. Up there was a ship that might take him to safety, but also to his death. Should have left that ring with the dead woman and slipped through the gates, he thought, pacing the narrow hall. He shook his head, groaning. Should have gone home to Kipris, that’s what I should have done. The vertigo returned for a moment as he thought of how far he’d come in less than half a year, how much he had changed. Lycaste stopped, looking up at the trapdoor. But he hadn’t really changed at all. Still he whined and sulked and trembled at the thought of what might come to pass, fearful of anything he did not know. He ground his teeth, rubbing his hands, hearing the bellowing of war above him as it rattled the wooden door, droplets of rain swirling through the holes and dampening his face. This was the World, not the tiny cove he came from. This was life.

  Lycaste took a deep breath, suddenly finding that his entire body was shaking violently, and opened the door.

  The Voidship was gone, the space it must have occupied filled instead by blistering flashes and carnage that slammed and vaporised every shadow on the roof. Lacaille were crouched at the crenellated battlements around the spire, firing down into the smashed roof as Vulgar swarmed and shouted. Many of the Lacaille dead had fallen and rolled, jamming among the black tiles and creating cover for the Vulgar. In the night around them, Voidships thundered past on high parabolas, blowing the little people over with each strafe.

  Maneker stood—like a Melius hero from one of Lycaste’s strip serials—in the middle of it all, his back to the trapdoor, his loose clothes flapping around him. Lycaste climbed up and crouched, a new light forcing him to shield his eyes. The Amaranthine had raised his arms above his head as if beseeching the blustery moonlit clouds. His hands directed a floating, coiling snake of fire, its ends branching away from the Immortal’s fingertips. Lacaille and Vulgar alike fell silent for a moment, entranced by the white fire. Lycaste watched it stretch out across the roof and into the night, looping and closing around a passing Voidship. The ship’s hull squealed and burned away in a bright sparkle, dashing its contents across the spire and incinerating many of the Lacaille who had been watching. Huerepo crouched and fired into the mess of remaining Prism on the other side of the roof, the replying shots smashing into the tiles he was hiding behind and splashing their molten pieces towards Lycaste.

  Lycaste ran, throwing himself behind Huerepo’s cover, his feet stinging where their thick skin had made contact with the glowing wreckage. Maneker melted two Voidships that were bolting straight towards him, their glowing hulls swinging into each other and merging in a sloppy embrace. Lycaste glimpsed the chambers inside one of the vessels liquefying, their occupants already nothing but white-hot embers. The two ships fell as one, spearing through the southern face of the grand house in a glittering explosion that knocked over everyone but the Amaranthine.

  Below, on the blackened grass of the sculpted lawns, Lacaille droppers loosed their bouncing salvos of padded troops and vehicles, all protected by the same rubbery orange material. White shock troops were unpacking themselves chaotically from their orange inflatables and harnesses as the tanks rolled forward, firing into the lower halls of the house with barely a pause.

  On the far side of the roof, the view dropped away to darkness. Zipping points of light that were either Voidships or their released munitions swarmed over the river valley and invisible remains of the bridge, some blossoming into explosions, others turning and darting elsewhere. Inchoate shouts and screams and booms drifted up to them, only to be torn away by the keening winds.

  Through the ragged silver-green clouds they could hear the bellowing of something far larger approaching them, a kraken parting the vapour. Lycaste looked up as the shape loomed over them, turreted, gnarled, built unlike any of the other things he had seen over the course of the long day. It hovered, jets roaring, whipping and billowing Maneker’s stolen robes about him. A mandible-like rear door swung down, extending jerkily to become a fluted ramp and revealing a gathering of fantastically suited Jalanbulon troops. They were flanked by anatomically unusual, slightly larger Prism people of a kind unknown to Lycaste, some dropping to one knee and sighting their rifles on Maneker. The tall Jalan commander at the front of the group was suited in complex white armour much like a scaled-up version of the sort the Lacaille wore. He stepped forward onto the wobbling ramp, long hair buffeted by the ship’s howling downthrust, and pointed a gauntleted hand at Maneker.

  “Amaranthine!” he called out in a surprisingly high voice, “Enough of this! The Second is lost!”

  Whatever speech the commander had prepared was interrupted by sudden falconet fire from a fleet of smaller Vulgar balloon ships, their men dropping on ropes from the floating craft. The unknown Prism vessel twisted in the air as it was fired upon, spilling the white-suited Jalanbulon and his generals into the blackness. Lycaste, Maneker and Huerepo watched the tumbling figures for a moment before the tiles they stood on were also struck, crumbling and hurling them over the edges of the garden and down to the city walls.

  The moonlit stone rushed past, Lycaste’s stomach thrown around inside him as he tumbled, Huerepo clinging to his neck and choking him. From nowhere a hand found his, gripping tightly. Maneker took Lycaste’s other arm, the three falling together now, wind rushing in their ears and eyes, the view swinging and roaring. The grip on his hand tightened and the whole world began to slow down.

  He opened his eyes, seeing the great belly of the unknown ship fall past, turgid black smoke pouring from its exhausts. Tiny men dropped and spiralled languidly around them like sycamore seeds, everyone appearing lighter than air. The white Jalanbulon roared as they fell—Lycaste found he could hear them quite clearly—some striking the city streets below and bouncing, others swept away in the throwing-knife blur of passing Voidships beneath. A weight from behind and above struck them, squeezing them together, and he turned to look into the huge eyes of the Prism-suited commander as he grabbed at Maneker’s sinuously fluttering cloak.

  Time slowed seemingly to a lifespan in a single breath. Lycaste watched the Asiatic’s great jaws contort in the twisted grimace of a scream. Beside the glowing moon a new light flickered, burning and warming until the darkness of the night receded. A curve of land like the inside of the world began to show through the moonlit clouds, all the falling bodies fading away in the new light like stars at dawn. Lycaste gaped, his eyes tracing the rivers that slithered between the emerald roots of mountains, their twists glimmering silver like streams of mercury. A new wind, powerful and cold, suddenly clawed at his hair, his chest, his face. He opened his mouth and it filled him, drumming his cheeks and dr
ying his tongue. And then the old world that he knew was gone.

  The great house crumbled and fell, illuminated in a spiralling froth of sparks. The spent fires of fallen Voidships allowed Sotiris to see some of the stones as they tumbled from the citadel’s peak, thumping the ruins of the walls and streets on their way down to the city gates.

  He patted the snorting zeltabra. It, too, had raised its long head to watch the structure fall to earth. Sotiris could already hear the beginnings of revelry from the ruins, but the silhouettes he saw dancing around some of the distant fires were not those of Melius people, the voices not those of the Old World. The Prism had won this battle, they held the city now. Elatine would treat the loss of Vilnius Second as a personal slight, likely placing a bounty on Sotiris’s head for his treachery. It would have to be a very large sum indeed, Sotiris reflected as he toyed with the leather reins. Assassinating an Immortal was a job few in the Investiture would entertain.

  He allowed himself one last chance to consider what would happen if she wasn’t real, if Aaron had lied to him all this time. The Long-Life had somehow used a version of Maneker that he’d found inside Soti-ris’s head—surely he could have done the same with Iro. Sotiris scowled, the night air chilling him slowly beneath his Firstling armour. She had been real, he’d felt it, nothing like the image of Maneker he’d met at the dream port all those months ago. She had been frightened. The thought of her still out there somewhere, terrified and alone, brought the sting of tears to Sotiris’s eyes once more. He would find her. He would save her.

  More detonations echoed from the remains of the house, one last stand by some harried group of Secondlings, perhaps even Jalanbulon. Sotiris swept the thoughts from his head, his face suddenly hardening as he took in the vague lights of the burning city. Sending Lycaste to find Hugo Maneker had used what Sotiris knew was to be the last of his charity. He sincerely hoped they were safe, and that his Immortal friend gave Lycaste every advantage in his quest to return home, but they were now beyond his concern. The Provincial battles were over, the war for the Old World itself now only just beginning. All that remained was to take what he had been promised.

  His black messenger owl from the Utopia came fluttering to land on the pommel of the saddle. It swivelled its face to look up at Sotiris, its round eyes catching the spark of the flaming city.

  “You found your friend?”

  “I did,” Sotiris said, pulling off one of his gauntlets to caress the bird’s feathers. “You need not report to me any longer.”

  The owl twitched. “No? What of that Melius?”

  Sotiris smiled kindly at it, suddenly unsure of what exactly the bird was referring to. “Go home, you’ve earned it.”

  “As you say, Amaranthine,” the bird replied uncertainly and after some hesitation. It tensed and leapt from the saddle, disappearing silently into the night.

  Sotiris did not watch it leave. His gaze came to rest on the gauntlet he’d removed, now lying limply like a metal spider in his bare hand. He didn’t remember taking it off.

  “Amaranthine,” he muttered, slipping it back on and flexing his fingers. The word sounded like it might once have been familiar to him, many scores of centuries before. He searched again, his eyes tracing the reflected fire on the polished gauntlet’s surface, and found nothing.

  Return

  They’d been expected. He didn’t quite understand how, not yet, but the devious Southerners had known he was coming. An uneaten breakfast spread on the grass was attracting the attention of the bolder wasps while the Cherries sat and watched him.

  Melilotis counted quickly. One man (looking distinctly odd, as if something large and hungry had chewed on him in the not too distant past), a small boy and three ladies, as promised by that rat Ipheon. Someone was missing, another man, older and fatter—unlikely to pose a threat. If he were hiding somewhere, they’d sniff him out sooner or later.

  Melilotis strolled into the sweet-smelling orchard and gave the three women a gleaming smile, his eyes settling on a prettily familiar face, the younger-looking of the twins. She was swollen with child. He cocked his head.

  “Now, why do I know you, pretty lady?”

  She frowned, and then he knew. Ah!

  Her white eyes widened.

  The taller of the sisters, equally attractive in an older sort of way, took her by the shoulders defensively. Melilotis smiled, looking her up and down.

  “What is it, Meli?” asked Cladrastis, smiling sheepishly like he’d missed a particularly obvious joke. Ulmus lingered worriedly behind at the fringes of the garden.

  The older sister tried to take the girl inside, standing her up unsteadily, but Melilotis held up a hand.

  “Cladrastis, keep them here.” He fished quickly in the satchel at his side and brought out the spoked ring, slipping it on for all to see, while his brother grappled with the girls.

  “Pentas, isn’t it?” he asked her. She began to cry.

  “Look at you.” He pointed at her stomach, creeping a little closer. “Not mine, I think? Been seeing some Cherry behind my back, have you?”

  He reached out his hand.

  “That’s enough of that,” a deep voice murmured behind him. Melilotis turned, finding himself looking up into the eyes of a gruff, bearded Melius with a pot belly. In his crimson hands he held a long antique rifle. “You’ll want to take that ring off, I think.”

  He glanced at his brother, who had the two women in his grip.

  “Let them go,” the Cherry—Impatiens, he presumed—growled, raising the rifle slightly.

  Cladrastis looked at Melilotis, the women squirming as he tried to hold them.

  “Don’t you dare, Cladrastis,” Melilotis muttered, scrunching his fist. The ring felt hard and sharp pressed against his palm.

  “Look, the Plenipotentiary was alive,” the crippled Cherry said, “we didn’t kill him—he died from some illness. We buried him not ten days ago at the end of the beach.”

  Melilotis didn’t look at the man who had spoken, but stayed facing the plump one. “Is that so? Then you have nothing to worry about, good people.” He shrugged. “Just show me where he lies and we can be on our way.”

  “You give us your word?” the fat Cherry grunted, the rifle still aimed.

  “Of course!” Melilotis grinned. “Cladrastis,” he said, without looking at his brother, “let them go.”

  “Meli?” The man gripped the women tighter. “Are you sure?”

  He sighed. “Do as I say!”

  The fat Cherry’s eyes twitched to Cladrastis. Melilotis brought the ring up.

  “Impatiens!” one of the women screamed.

  “How have you been?” Melilotis touched Pentas’s hair tenderly, curling a lock of it around a finger and laughing. He slid a hand to her swollen stomach. She looked as if she was about to faint. “I thought about you a lot, you know. What are the chances, eh?”

  He glanced around at the other people, then finally at the body in the grass.

  “Go inside with my brother,” he told them, directing his gaze at the crippled man, his family huddled around him. “Or the little boy gets to see your insides, too.” He cracked a smile at Pentas. “I think I’ll go for a walk along the beach.” He grabbed Pentas’s limp arm. “I’ll take this one with me, she can show me where Callistemon is.”

  “No you won’t!” Her sister screamed, lunging forward in Cladrastis’s grip. Melilotis pointed the ring at her wide eyes, his fingertips almost touching her lashes.

  “Come on, then, you lucky girl,” he said to Pentas. “Do what you like with the other one, Cladrastis. Let Ulmus have a go when you’re done.”

  Melilotis wiped his mouth as he led her stumbling down to the beach. Pentas’s legs finally buckled and he caught her, dragging her the last of the way over the pebbles towards a patch of sand. He paused, sweating, wondering why he was trying to make her comfortable; the pebbles would hurt more, and he liked it when they made noise. She whispered something through her tears.


  “What was that?” he whispered back, admiring her body as he pushed her down, the ring still pressed to her slight neck. She was just as firm and toned as he remembered her, despite the pregnancy. He was excited; he’d never done it to a butterfly with a baby inside her. “Did you miss me? I bet nobody’s given you anything like it since, have they, pretty lady?”

  She sobbed the word again, turning her head away.

  “What?” He had to bend his head to hear. “Jotroffe? Calling some other bastard’s name? While you’re with me you’ve got to say my name, pretty lady, say Melilotis.”

  She shook her head, eyes shut. He laughed, settling atop her and smoothing one hand down the side of her waist, breathing harder. “No, Melilotis. Come on, say it.”

  Melilotis took himself in hand but didn’t feel ready yet. What was wrong with him? He was excited enough, damn it. After a moment, he sat back on his haunches to look at her dispassionately. She’d stopped crying and lay with her eyes closed, pulse ticking against his two fingers at her neck. He grabbed her breast with some force, trying one last time to feel something, but nothing happened. It was as if someone had castrated him without his noticing. He glanced slowly back at the grass-topped dune, unsure, sensing eyes on him from somewhere. He didn’t feel like it—which was strange, because he always felt like it. What he really felt like, though it was very odd indeed, was going for a walk.

  But that wasn’t right. There was nowhere he wanted to go. He looked past Pentas to the extraordinarily green water lapping at the pebbles. A swim would be perfect, it was so hot. He might see how far he could get; the sea here was beautiful. The feeling of being observed suddenly returned, much stronger this time. Someone on the shore was staring at the back of his neck; he didn’t like it.

  Cladrastis abruptly ran past laughing and plunged into the waves. Melilotis called out his name in alarm, sure there was something his brother was supposed to be doing instead, but he was damned if he knew what it was. He stood, taking his fingers away from the girl’s neck, and watched his brother swim out into the hot water of the cove.