‘Yes, his name’s on the residency application for the cottage.’
‘All right, so what about Colfal?’
Jaralee smiled happily again. ‘His herbalist shop is on the way down. It’s getting so bad he hasn’t even filed his tax statement this year, which is a big risk. The inspector is getting ready for compulsory submission proceedings. I checked round his usual suppliers. He’s made some bad decisions lately. Income is drying up. The finance houses are asking for payment.’
‘So Colfal is in desperate need of a new partner, especially one who has a lot of cash,’ Edeard observed.
‘True,’ she agreed. ‘But Colfal has been a herbalist for over seventy years. It’s only this last year he’s started to make bad decisions.’
‘That’s what seventy years of smoking kestric does to a brain,’ Golbon remarked.
‘These are really bad decisions,’ Jaralee countered. ‘He’s been changing his normal stock for stuff that hardly anyone buys.’
‘Who did he get the new herbs from?’ Edeard asked sharply.
She nodded agreement. ‘I’m looking into it. This can’t be done quickly.’
Standing in the Apricot Cottage’s lounge, facing the nest, Edeard finally knew that legal details like who bought what from whom were of no consequence whatsoever. The nest were very different to Buate; they weren’t going to be blocked by any tax investigation.
‘It’s not a term we favour,’ Tathal said in amusement. ‘But it does seem to have caught hold.’
A multitude of fast thoughts flashed through the air around Edeard. The nest were all communicating with each other, it was like the swift birdsong of a complex gifting. Except Edeard couldn’t comprehend any of it. Real unease began to stir in his mind.
‘I’m surprised,’ he said, keeping the tone level, affable. ‘Nobody wants to say much about any of you.’
‘We discourage attention,’ one of the women said. She was sitting to Tathal’s left, covered in a deep purple shawl of thick wool. It didn’t disguise her pregnancy.
The constant flow of mental twittering shifted for a moment, purifying. ‘Samilee,’ Edeard said abruptly, as if he’d know her for years, even thought she was only twenty-three, and her current favourite food was scrambled Qotox eggs with béarnaise sauce and a toasted muffin. The cravings were quite pronounced with only five weeks to go until her due date. Her son’s father was either Uphal or Johans.
Edeard shivered in reaction to the knowledge.
‘Welcome Waterwalker,’ she replied formally.
Thoughts swirled again, as if the lacework shadows were in motion around the lounge.
‘Can you blame us?’ That was Halan. Twenty-eight years old, and so delighted to have found a home in the city after a decade and a half of unbearable loneliness in Hapturn province. His exemplary financial aptitude placed him in charge of the nest’s principal businesses.
‘Look what the establishment tried to do to you when you showed them your ability,’ Johans said. Twenty-nine, and a very conscientious follower of city fashion, he designed many of his own clothes, and those of the nest’s male members. Three of the most renowned outfitters in Lillylight district belonged to him. Their original families had been eased out in that way the nest specialized in.
‘A whole regiment deployed with the sole intent of killing you in cold blood,’ Uphal remarked. Their chief persuader, the one who whispered strongly to the weak, the inferior who swarmed the city like vermin.
‘History,’ Edeard told them. ‘A history I evolved so that we could all live together no matter what our talents and abilities.’
‘That they can live together,’ Kiary and Manel sneered in unison. The young lovers, who had such a fun, wild time in the tunnels and elsewhere in the city: the Mayor’s oval sanctum, the altar of the Lady’s church, Edeard and Kristabel’s big bed on the tenth floor of . . .
Tathal snapped his fingers in irritation as Edeard turned to glower at them.
‘Enough,’ Tathal chided. Tathal, the first to realize his dawning power, the gatherer of lost frightened kindred, the nurturer, the teacher, the nest father. Father to seventeen of their impressive second generation.
‘Oh Ladycrapit,’ Edeard muttered under his breath. He hadn’t been this scared for a long long time. Decades. And even then he’d had youthful certainty on his side.
‘So you see, Waterwalker,’ Tathal said. ‘Like you, we are Querencia’s future.’
‘I don’t see that at all.’
‘You said that you thought stronger psychics were emerging as a sign of human maturity in the Void,’ Halan said.
‘What?’
‘I talked to Kanseen once,’ Hala said with a dreamy smile. ‘She has such fond thoughts of you, a little thread of longing never extinguished. I believe that’s why she recalls your time in the Jeavons squad together so clearly even after all this time. Back then, after your triumphant day of banishment you told her that was your reason to enlist Marcol as a constable, to tame him, to bind him to your vision. You saw the strong emerging from the masses, that’s very prophetic. We respect that.’
‘And you’ve been keeping an eye out for others of strength ever since,’ Uphal said. ‘Bringing them into the establishment. The establishment whose throne you’ve claimed. Indoctrinating them with your ideals.’
‘But that was then,’ Tathal said. ‘When the strong were few, and afraid. Now our numbers are growing. Soon there will be enough of us that we can emerge from the shadows without fear. One day, all humans will be as us. As you.’
‘Really?’
‘You doubt your own beliefs? Or do you dare not put a voice to them? You know we are right. For we are here, are we not?’
‘What exactly do you see yourselves becoming?’ Edeard asked.
The nest’s thoughts swirled round him again, faster than ever. This time he knew their amusement, tinged with derision, perhaps even a scent of disappointment. The great Waterwalker: not so impressive after all.
‘We are the children of today’s people,’ Tathal said. ‘And as with all children, one day we will inherit the world from our parents.’
‘Okay,’ Edeard cleared his throat. ‘But I don’t think you’re the type to wait patiently.’
‘We are simply readying ourselves for every eventuality,’ Tathal said. ‘I do not delude myself that the transition will be smooth and peaceful, for it is never a pleasant realization that your evolution has ended and a new order is replacing you.’
‘Unbelievable,’ Edeard shook his head wearily. ‘A revolution. You’re going to replace the Grand Council with your own followers. Is that the best you can do?’
‘We have no intention of replacing the Grand Council. Can you not understand what we are? We don’t need to make the kind of empty political promises which Rah made to the masses, his ludicrous democracy. He knew the right of it when he established the families of the District Masters. That was where he expected our true strength to emerge. The Grand Families tried: for centuries they have chosen their bloodstock on the basis of psychic strength. But we have supplanted them as the true heirs of Rah. Evolution is inevitable, yet it is also random. Isn’t that utterly wonderful?’
‘So the weak don’t get a say in the world you control.’
‘They can join with us,’ Uphal said. ‘If their thoughts are bright enough, they will belong. That’s what we are, a union of pure thought, faster and more resolute than any debating chamber full of the greedy and corrupt that rules every town and city. It is democracy on a level beyond the reach of the weak. Your children will be a part of it, especially the twins. Marilee and Analee are already open and honest with each other, that is a big part of what we are, what we offer. It’s a wondrous life; nobody alone, nobody frightened. And there are more of us out there, more than you know, Waterwalker.’
Edeard gave him a thin smile. ‘I suggest you don’t threaten my family. I suggest that quite strongly.’
‘I’m not threatening anyone.’
r />
‘Really? I’ve seen how you use dominance to bind people, to deny them free will. That’s how you’ve come this far. Control seems to be what you’re actually about.’
Tathal grinned. ‘How is your campaign for Mayor coming along? Dinlay is putting an election team together for you, isn’t he? Always the loyal one, Dinlay. His admiration for you verges on worship. Do you discourage that?’
‘If I become Mayor it will be because the people who live in this city say I can. And when that mandate is over, I will step down.’
‘Your nobility is part of your appeal. To their kind.’
‘You talk as if you’re different. You’re not.’
‘But we are, and you know it. And to make your guilt burn even brighter, you belong with us.’
‘Dominance is psychic assault. It is illegal as well as immoral. I want you to stop using it against other people. You can start with Colfal.’
Kiary and Manel laughed derisively. ‘This is why we’re cautious? Come on, he’s an old man we can squash like ge-chimp crap.’
Tathal waved them into silence. ‘Don’t do that,’ he said to Edeard. ‘Don’t fall back on righteous indignation, it does not become you. You were the first. You have a duty to your own kind. You are the bridge between us and the others. If you want to retain your self-respect, your grandeur, you will work with us. Continue as that bridge. People trust you, they will need your reassurance that what is happening here is inevitable. You are essential for the transition, Waterwalker. You cannot stop us, we are nature. Destiny. Help us. Or do you consider yourself above that?’
Edeard held up a warning finger, grimly aware of how pathetic that must appear to the nest. ‘Stop interfering with other people’s lives; leave their minds alone. You are not their superiors. We are all . . .’
‘One nation?’ Tathal enquired; the mockery was palpable.
Edeard turned and left the room. He was somewhat surprised he was still alive and allowed to do so.
*
Mirnatha was in the ziggurat when a shaken Edeard arrived home. He’d completely forgotten she was visiting. She was up on the tenth floor, along with Olbal, her husband, and their children. Kristabel was on the floor in the private lounge entertaining the two toddlers while the older ones were playing with Marakas and Rolar’s children in the big playroom on the other side of the ziggurat. The children’s excited laughter and squealing echoed down the vast stairwell, causing him to smile regretfully as he climbed the last few stairs. He passed the short corridor leading to his bedroom, and gave the closed door a pensive look. Kiary and Manel creeping in unseen to have their dirty little thrill was far too much like the time Mirnatha had been kidnapped. Too many memories, he told himself.
By the time he reached the main lounge he’d managed to compose himself and strengthen his mental shield. He smiled widely as Mirnatha rushed across to kiss him effusively, then he shook hands warmly with Olbal. Everyone had been surprised when Mirnatha had married him. She’d spent her teens and twenties enjoying every delight and excitement the city could offer a supremely eligible Grand Family daughter. Then suddenly Olbal had come to town and the next thing Julan, Kristabel and Edeard knew was her engagement being announced, and a wedding six weeks later in Caldratown, the capital of Joxla province. Kristabel had worried it would never last. Edeard had a little more confidence. He rather liked his brother-in-law, who owned a huge farming and woodland estate in Joxla province, to the north of the Donsori mountains. Olbal didn’t care much for the city and its politics and its society events, he was a practical man, whose brain was occupied with agricultural management and food market prices. Such a man offered the kind of stability Mirnatha needed. And here they were, still together thirty years down the line with nine children.
‘So what’s new?’ Mirnatha asked as she settled back into a sofa and reclaimed her tea-cup from a ge-chimp.
Edeard hesitated. You really don’t want to know that. ‘Not much. Still being bullied.’
Mirnatha clapped her hands delightedly. ‘Excellent. Well done, sis. Keep them on a short leash, I say.’
Edeard and Olbal exchanged a martyred look.
‘We’ve said nothing, but he’s finally going to run for Mayor,’ Kristabel said.
‘Really?’ Olbal asked, intrigued.
‘It’s all down to timing,’ Edeard explained.
‘Will you change anything?’
Not me. But my word doesn’t count for much now. He looked at Alfal and Fanlol, the two toddlers, and smiled grimly. ‘I think things are pretty good as they are now. I’ll try and keep them that way.’ His third hand poked playfully at Alfal as the boy banged an old wooden cart against a chair leg. Alfal turned around, a mischievous smile on his sweet little face, and pushed back with his third hand. The force was surprisingly strong: in fact, very strong indeed for a three-year-old.
‘He’s a tough one, my little man,’ Mirnatha said adoringly. ‘But then they all are. That’s what growing up in the fresh air does to you. You two should spend more time outside the city.’
‘I’d love to,’ Edeard said. ‘I always wanted to take a long voyage across the sea to find some new continents.’
‘Like Captain Allard, hey?’ Olbal asked. ‘Now that would be quite something. I might even join you.’
‘Over my dead body,’ Mirnatha said.
‘Families would be voyaging with us,’ Edeard told her reasonably. ‘After all, it would take years.’
‘What? Including the children?’
He shrugged. ‘Why not?’
‘There aren’t any ships that big,’ Kristabel said.
‘So we build them.’
‘A fleet,’ Olbal said. ‘I like that idea.’
Kristabel and Mirnatha looked at each other. ‘Man dreams,’ Mirnatha exclaimed. ‘It’ll never happen.’
After dinner Olbal asked Edeard for a moment together, and they went out on to the hortus. Ku and Honious were both bright in the night sky, Honious in particular, with its bulbous ruby clouds braided by sulphurous wisps surrounding a dark centre where lost souls were said to fall. People were taking it as a bad omen that it was sharing the night with the Skylords. They were just visible above the horizon, five scintillations, growing steadily larger each night.
Edeard eyed them carefully. Normally he’d be excited and content at their impending arrival, but now he knew the true nature of the nest he couldn’t help but feel the doomsayers might be right.
‘Are you all right?’ Olbal asked.
‘Yeah, sorry. Just distracted by this whole Mayor thing.’
‘That I can understand. Rather you than me.’
Edeard gave him a false grin. ‘What was it you wanted to ask?’
‘Ah.’ Olbal leant on the thick rail, and looked out across the Grand Central canal. ‘I know this sounds stupid, that I’m probably making a big fuss of nothing.’
‘But?’
‘My nephew, Constatin, he arrived in Makkathran three weeks ago. He was here to negotiate with merchants directly this year, agreeing a price for this season’s apples and pears. We normally deal with Garroy, of the Linsell family; and I wanted to keep that arrangement going.’
‘I know the Linsell family, they bring a lot of fruit to Makkathran’s markets.’
‘Yes, well . . . the thing is, Constatin has disappeared.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t just miss him on the road?’
‘He was with Torran. It was Torran who told me he didn’t come back one day.’
‘Okay. What happened?’
‘It was a Tuesday. Constatin had arranged to meet Garroy for lunch at the Blue Fox off Golden Park to thrash out the new deal.’
‘I know it,’ Edeard said stiffly.
‘He never got there. Garroy called at Torran’s inn that evening wanting to know what happened. He wasn’t there. Torran searched for a day and a half before going to the Ysidro Constable Station. There wasn’t much they could do, but the desk sergeant promised he’d keep h
is farsight stretched. Since then, we’ve heard nothing.’
‘I see.’
‘I didn’t think there were any gangs in Makkathran these days.’
‘There aren’t,’ Edeard said flatly. It was strange. But then several station captains had mentioned the number of missing people reported over the last couple of years had risen slightly. It was to be expected given how many visitors Makkathran was receiving, and how unfamiliar they were with the city streets.
‘It was morning, Edeard, broad daylight. What could have befallen him? Torran checked the hospitals, and even the cemetery.’
Edeard put his hand on Olbal’s shoulder, trying to push through a sensation of reassurance. ‘I’ll speak with the station captain. I doubt it was a priority for them, at the least I can rectify that.’
‘Thank you, Edeard, I hate to use family like this, but my sister is badly worried. He is an only son.’
‘That’s okay.’ Edeard frowned, thinking about what else he should be asking. Mysteries like this were rarities in Makkathran. There was only one person he knew who solved such strange puzzles, but that was ridiculous, she was nothing but a figment of his bizarre dreams. However, she used a method of elimination to determine suspects, and gathering all possible information was essential to that method. ‘You said you wanted to deal with the merchants directly this year. Is that unusual?’
‘Not really. I normally use their agents, they have them in every province. And Garroy visits us every few years to keep up a personal contact; I have dinner with him whenever I’m in town. You need that level of trust if you are in business.’
‘So what’s different, why send Constatin here this time?’
‘I was contacted by some new merchants seeking to buy our produce. They were offering a good price, a very good price.’
‘Is that bad?’
‘No. And I fully expect to sell them a substantial percentage of our crop. However, I want to maintain our trade with the Linsell family; they are a reliable buyer, and the future is what I must look to, especially with so many children.’ He smiled fondly. ‘New merchants come and new merchants go. Constatin was sent partly as reassurance that although we obviously wanted to squeeze the price up we would not abandon the Linsell family.’