‘But now isn’t the time to talk about all that.’
‘Not until you’ve decided whether we stay here, or try to reach one of the other ships.’
‘That has to be my decision, doesn’t it?’
‘I know many things, but only you know the contents of this bay. Think carefully, Purslane, because a lot may hinge on your decision.’
‘So,’ I said, ‘no pressure, then.’
PART SIX
‘Milady,’ Daubenton said, stooping as he entered my chamber, ‘I bring you grave intelligence.’
It had been a fortnight since I had touched the blood-bound needle to my finger. I had expected Calidris to make his way to the Palace of Clouds within two or three days, four or five if one allowed for the difficulty of crossing open ground with Mordax’s spies keeping watch. After a week, I had begun to have qualms. By the end of the second I had begun to resign myself to the unpalatable possibility that Calidris was already dead. It had, after all, been a very long while since I had heard from him. But when he presented me with the blood-bound needle, he had told me that it would only work magically if he was still alive. I had felt no pain when the blood was drawn; I should have felt at least a prick if Calidris was no longer of this world.
‘Tell me this news, Daubenton. Calidris is dead. He was caught trying to return to the Palace of Clouds.’
‘Calidris lives, if our agents are to be believed. Milady, we have committed a terrible error.’
I put down my mirror and brush. I had been attending to my hair, sitting by a window of coloured glass inlaid with pretty designs.
‘I do not understand.’
‘It would appear that Calidris was already a prisoner of Mordax when you summoned him. He had been caught by one of the count’s raiding parties, one of a larger party of men. They were blacksmiths, artisans of some ability, so were not put straight to the sword. Mordax would rather enslave such men and have them equip his armies. Calidris had disguised himself well, and used blocking spells to mask his own magical talents. A difficult, dangerous venture - but it was working. Even Mordax’s sorcerers were hoodwinked. He could not have kept the ruse up indefinitely - it was costing him an indescribable effort - but it would have sufficed to protect him while he was under direct scrutiny. Later, when the men were put to work equipping Mordax’s army, Calidris would have contrived his escape.’
‘Pray tell me what else our spies have learned.’
‘Calidris was seen by one of these men at the moment the needle went in. The man recognised the presence of magic: blood had appeared on Calidris’s finger without cause, and Calidris’s pain was disproportionate to the injury. In the same instant, he lost his control of the blocking spells: they required a constant, taxing effort of the mind. The man became frightened. He summoned guards and told them what had happened. Calidris was separated from the common blacksmiths and brought to Count Mordax. By then, Mordax’s own magicians had become alerted to the presence of a powerful new mind in the Black Castle. Calidris was unmasked. He was shackled and gagged before he could work magic against his captors.’
I looked at Daubenton with practised scepticism. ‘Our spies told you this? If we have such men, why do we not already have the Black Castle?’
‘We also have this,’ Daubenton said, sidestepping the question. He offered me a letter. I shuddered at the black-grilled seal. It was another communication from my stepbrother. I tore it open and read Mordax’s gloating account of how he had captured Calidris.
‘ “You think I can’t turn him,”’ I read, “‘but you’re wrong. Anyone can be turned. Palatial turned me. I thought I was stronger than the game; that I could become Mordax without inheriting the mantle of his personality and his past. I was wrong about that, as you will be wrong about Calidris. I will tell him that you betrayed him for the return of your lady-in-waiting; that I asked you to give me proof of his identity. He will not believe me at first, but I have seen how men break. Time will erode his old loyalties and turn him to the will of the Black Castle. And then a magic beyond anything in your experience will be unleashed upon the Kingdom.”’
I looked at Daubenton with ice in my veins. ‘We have failed. It’s all over.’
His eyes were heavy-lidded from too little sleep. Chamberlain Daubenton, Master-at-Arms Cirlus, his soldiers and my highest ministers had thought of little but Calidris and the Black Castle these last days.
‘Perhaps Calidris will have the strength of will not to turn against us.’
‘No man has ever resisted. You saw what Count Mordax wrote in his letter, Daubenton - do not pretend you did not open and reseal it before it reached my hands. Palatial has changed him. I know what he was like before he went in.’
‘Palatial, milady?’
For an instant I had felt on the verge of some transforming knowledge, a secret that would put all our problems into a different, less harrowing perspective. It was as if I was a player on a stage who had become so consumed by the role they were acting that they had forgotten that the whole enterprise was for show. Burdened with the weight of their character’s problems, they had had a moment of epiphany, a realisation that it was merely a performance, a disguise that they could step out of whenever they chose. I had been troubled by many such moments lately - a feeling that I was inside a theatre, that none of my actions were of wider consequence beyond its panelled green walls. Sometimes a word or phrase - Palatial, ramscoop ship, Lesser World - felt like an ominous key, one that was about to unlock great and troubling mysteries. Fortunately - for they could easily have become a distraction from the matter at hand - those moments always passed, leaving only a faint sense of mental disquiet.
‘It is nothing, Daubenton. My point is simply that we cannot entrust the Kingdom to the hope that Calidris will be stronger than any man who has ever lived.’ I hesitated, running my nails down the sharp edge of the letter. ‘There has always been another we could turn to. When the possibility was first raised I dismissed it, as I was right to do given the state of our affairs at the time. Now events have taken an even more ominous turn, and I must reconsider. If Calidris’s magic is to be used against us - as I fear it will be - we must have an equivalent ally.’
‘You are speaking of Relictus, the failed apprentice.’ Horror paled Daubenton’s already sallow features. ‘I did not agree with Cirlus, Milady. Relictus should stay where he is, until he rots.’
I was right about Calidris’s magic, though it was months before we knew the truth of his defection. Realisation came when the Ghost Soldiers began to attack our men.
Count Mordax’s one weakness had always been the size of his army - well equipped, well trained, ruthless in the execution of his orders, but stretched thin across too many campaigns, too many points of attack on the Kingdom’s borders. Our army was more numerous, but (it could not be denied) less effective, and it was only this uneasy balance that had kept Mordax at bay. Had he been overwhelmingly stronger, Mordax would not have had cause to take a hostage, nor would he have had a use for Calidris. Mordax was a man of the practical arts, schooled in the bloodstained science of war, and he had an instinctive distaste for magic. Nonetheless I had never deceived myself that he would refrain from making full use of his new prize, if circumstances merited it.
At first all we knew of the Ghost Soldiers was reports from frightened, less-than-credible witnesses. A raiding party had burned one of the villages. The men wielding torches and pikes were the usual rabble dressed up to look like brigands. But riding with them, remaining outside the village while the burning took place, was an escort of armoured men on waif-thin horses, lean and fast as greyhounds. Only one of the men rode a heavy charger, and he was the only one with his visor raised. The other riders wore elaborately jointed armour, every inch of their bodies protected by metal. The man with the raised visor wore leather with metal plates sewn all over it. He appeared to be leading the other soldiers, those with their visors down, but he never gave a spoken command.
One of t
he villagers, driven beyond rage by the burning of his home, found the armoured riders and shot at them with a stolen bow. He fired six arrows into the riders, but they either bounced off their armour or wedged into the joints between the sections, without obvious harm to the rider. As the brigands left the village, the armoured men began to ride away to rejoin them. At that point the villager fired a seventh arrow and by lucky chance it found the flank of one of the horses rather than the rider. The horse bucked and threw the armoured man. He crashed to the ground, making no sound except that of crashing metal. Of the other riders, only the man on the heavy horse looked back. Then he swung his arm and the others galloped after him, oblivious to their fallen comrade.
The villager left his place of cover to examine the tumbled rider. What he found distressed him greatly. The armour had broken, one arm coming away from the torso. Yet there was no sign of injured flesh, and when the villager examined the remains he found only empty metal - a suit of armour with no man inside it. He understood then why the riders’ horses had been so thin and fast. They had only needed to carry the weight of metal, not a man inside that armour.
Thus it was that we first learned of the Ghost Soldiers. Within weeks, reports of them were arriving from all over the Kingdom. They moved so quickly and with such agility that they could cross our borders where no force had ever done so before. They moved at night, as if it was day. Their horses smelled of death and corruption, as if they were the corpses of horses reanimated for this single purpose. They were never seen to graze or take water, and on the coldest eve no hint of breath escaped their lungs.
And they came in such numbers. Whatever magic Calidris was using against us required only the production of suits of armour. Our blacksmiths could have worked as industriously and it would have made no difference; we did not have enough able soldiers to fill that metal. Mordax could have as many as he needed.
I knew then that we needed Relictus; that I could listen to my qualms no more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I was stretching my legs on one of Ymir’s bridges, transfixed by the snapping of the flags, their colours rippling against the sky, when Betony found me.
‘Campion,’ he said, lifting the black collar of his coat against the wind.
‘Has Mezereon finished for the day?’
‘This is about Purslane. We’ve just received some distressing news.’
The wind had not troubled me until then, but it chose that moment to reach my bones. ‘What’s happened?’
‘All we know is that she went up to Silver Wings with the robots, all three of them. Now her ship’s broken orbit, suddenly and without announcement. She’s heading away from Neume, at what we believe to be the maximum safe acceleration for that ship.’
I grabbed at the bridge’s handrail to stop myself reeling. The news had hit me like vertigo. ‘How long ago?’
‘Less than a quarter of an hour. I came as quickly as I could.’
‘I need to get up there.’
‘All shuttles have been tasked for immediate use. I’m taking mine in a few minutes - you’re welcome to come with me. I can drop you aboard Dalliance before I rendezvous with Adonis Blue.’
I was so numb that I did not even acknowledge his offer. ‘What about the other ships?’
‘Three have already been dispatched, with no one aboard them. They’ve already broken orbit, so at least we have something in immediate pursuit of Silver Wings. They won’t be able to catch up, but they’ll be able to get within—’
‘Weapons range,’ I said, finishing his sentence for him.
‘Nothing’s set in stone, but we need to consider every option. It’s unclear what’s happened up there, Campion, but we do know it wasn’t part of the plan. I’m not saying we shoot her down on sight - that’ll be the last thing we do. But if we can cripple Silver Wings, slow her down enough to draw alongside—’
‘I know what you’re thinking. But Purslane wouldn’t have taken her own ship.’
‘She didn’t like being told to give it to the robots.’
‘Would you have liked it, if it had been you instead of her?’ I shook my head angrily. ‘This isn’t how Purslane does things. She was going to hand Silver Wings over to the robots and then come back down with her head held high.’
‘So what’s happened?’
‘I never liked those robots.’
‘You think they stole the ship?’ Betony stared at me exasperatedly. ‘They were going to get it anyway, Campion - why would they take it now, when all they had to do was wait until Purslane handed it over?’
‘I don’t know. I’m just saying - I didn’t like them. And don’t start accusing me of being machine-phobic. I didn’t have a problem with Hesperus.’ Then a thought barged to the front of my mind. ‘Has anyone tried to talk to her?’
‘First thing we did, as soon as she broke orbit. But Purslane hasn’t replied.’
‘That just proves she isn’t involved.’
‘It does?’
‘Purslane wouldn’t have left without contacting us, Betony - she’d have made damned sure we knew her feelings.’
‘Perhaps she’ll talk when she feels safe.’
‘She isn’t talking because she can’t talk. Something’s happened up there.’ Slowly, the possibility of Purslane having been killed was beginning to dominate my thoughts, forming like a single dark cloud in an otherwise clear sky. I pushed it away reflexively, but it kept coming back. If for some reason the robots had decided to take the ship rather than wait for it to be handed over, they would have killed Purslane as soon as blink.
‘I have to get up there,’ I said again.
‘We’re going.’ Betony reached out and took both my arms, holding me roughly above the elbows. ‘Campion, listen to me very carefully. We’ve had our differences. I don’t expect you to like me, or ever forgive me for what I did to Purslane. But understand that I had my reasons - I was thinking of the Line, of this incredibly fragile, incredibly rare thing that we hold between us. I had to show the importance of discipline, now more than ever. But it wasn’t personal; it wasn’t done out of vindictiveness. And you know what? I admit I made a mistake by letting Mezereon run the interrogations. You saw that long before I did. I’m not infallible. But I’m not a monster, either. If you can forgive me for anything you think I did to you, or to Purslane, I am willing to put your slights, your cavalier attitude towards the Line, behind us. I am offering you the hand of friendship, the hand of forgiveness. If Purslane has done something wrong, she deserves a chance to redeem herself. If she hasn’t, she deserves our help - absolutely and unconditionally. I will push my ship to the limit to catch up with her, and I know you will do the same. There are forty-eight other shatterlings who feel the same way.’
I waited a while, then said, ‘Speech over?’
‘I’ve said what I wanted to say. If you’re with me, my shuttle is ready to take us into orbit. If you can’t stand the thought of sharing a ride with me, I think Aconite or Tansy will be lifting off shortly.’
I gave the matter a few seconds’ thought then said, ‘Let’s go.’
Line policy dictated that all of our ships should be in a condition of immediate flight-readiness, so that they would be able to break orbit and sprint for interstellar space the moment the patrols detected the approach of a hostile agency. The possibility of flight had been at the back of all our thoughts, in every waking instant on Neume. Between one hour and the next we might leave that world and never see it again.
But that did not mean that all the remaining ships would be joining the chase after Silver Wings of Morning. This was an unexpected development, but it was not a reason for an emergency evacuation - Galingale was out on patrol that day with his ship Midnight Queen and he had reported no troubling intruders; no hints of killer fleets braking down from interstellar speed. The Line would remain in session, albeit in depleted numbers. In any case, at least half of the thirty-five remaining ships were too slow ever to catch up with Purslan
e, and of the remainder there were fewer than ten that could even be considered to be in with a chance. Three were already on the way, flying without their owners. Dalliance would have been one of the slow ones had it not been for the upgrades she had received courtesy of Ateshga. Now she was a marginal case - to have a hope of catching Silver Wings, her engine would need to be pushed well into the red, and I had no idea what kind of design margin now applied.
‘We’ve kept signalling,’ Betony said as he brought his shuttle into whisking range of Dalliance, ‘but there’s still been no response. If the robots are in charge, they can’t have any demands.’
‘They don’t need anything from us,’ I said. ‘Do we have a handle on the trajectory?’
‘Heading in the galactic anti-centre, parallel to the plane. She may turn once she’s reached interstellar space, but for now there’s no reason to presume she isn’t still headed for Machine Space.’
‘There’s something wrong about this, Betony.’
‘The whole thing’s wrong.’
‘Whatever’s happening here, it isn’t Purslane’s doing. Deep down, you know that.’
‘It would surprise me if it was, but I’ve been surprised before.’
I thanked him for the ride and whisked over to Dalliance. Sensing my arrival, the ship brought herself to immediate flight-readiness. By the time I reached the bridge, the engine was chafing at the bit, ready for the chase.
It had all happened so quickly that I felt a sense of dreamlike unreality about the whole experience. In less than twelve hours, Purslane’s ship would be travelling so close to the speed of light that the fastest ship ever built would still need a hundred thousand years to catch up with her. By the time it did, they would both be on the other side of the galaxy. The only possibility of reaching her lay in chasing now, with all safeguards thrown to the wind.
I assumed my command position, laid in a pursuit course and brought the engine to a thousand gees. Neume fell away like a stone dropped down a well. Like all worlds, it had felt as wide as the universe when I was standing on it, but now I saw it for the little silver pebble it really was - a small round rock floating in an infinitely larger void, barriered from vacuum by the thinnest gasp of an atmosphere.