The air thickened, turning dark as it let out a tortured screech. A gyrating finger wormed its way out of the bottom, heading down towards the plaza.
One of the sodden platoon members managed to fire a shot at Edeard. Dinlay saw it coming, his third hand pushing the soldier’s gun arm aside. The bullet went wide, and Dinlay physically punched the man to the ground. Lieutenant Eustace jumped on Dinlay, and all three slipped on the wet path, going down in a thrashing heap. Another soldier leapt on.
Every petal of blossom in the plaza took to the air, a solid pink cloud that mushroomed over the nearby rooftops. The twister touched the pile of blazing furniture blocking Burfol Street. Flaming wreckage lifted effortlessly into the sky, swirling round and round the howling column. Two hundred feet above the city the chunks broke free, slung out sideways from the expanding wind. Militiamen and rioters alike ran for their lives as heavy burning chairs and benches and tables began their fast drop back to the ground.
Two soldiers jumped on Kanseen. She pivoted as they carried her along, sending herself and one of them over the edge of the canal to plunge beneath the water.
Edeard shifted the tip of the twister along the ground and steered it into the barricade at the bottom of Jankal Lane. As one collection of burning debris descended, so another fountained upwards.
Lieutenant Eustace scrambled up out of the scrum that had Dinlay pinned down. Macsen faced him, his smile turning feral. ‘Don’t know what you’re so upset over. Our whole dormitory agreed she’s crap in bed.’
Eustace roared in fury as he rushed Macsen.
Edeard let go of the air he’d shaped just before his strength gave out. In front of him, the three remaining soldiers from the platoon were gathering together as Macsen and Eustace grappled like wrestling serpents on the slippery path.
‘Go,’ Macsen yelled.
Edeard walked forward, his cloak undulating behind him. The trembling soldiers got off a couple of shots, which the Waterwalker never even seemed to notice. They flattened themselves against the wall of the canalside houses as he passed them, rigid in fearful expectation.
When Edeard reached the plaza the regiment was starting to regroup. Several officers yelled a challenge to him, which he ignored. Orders were shouted and longtalked, trying to get the ranks reformed and take aim on the figure in the black billowing cloak. A shower of tiny petals fell softly back to earth.
Edeard stood at the head of Burfol Street, seeing people peer timidly out of the doorways and alleys where they’d dodged the rain of furniture. ‘Move!’ he bellowed at them. ‘If you stay here the militia will kill you, and if I catch you it’ll go even worse on your soul.’
They started to run. Just a few at first. Then the Waterwalker advanced down the street. He raised his arm and lightning streamed from his fingers to claw at the denuded espalier trees. The stampede began. Dozens were pelting for safety ahead of the terrible figure they feared the most. His farsight showed him people on the move all across Sampalok. The crowds who minutes before had been secure in their domination of the streets were heading for the last refuge: Bise’s mansion.
Edeard almost faltered as he drew level with the first body. It was a woman who’d taken three bullets; tiny petals drifted down to settle on her bloody clothes. His farsight examined the area around her, to find her soul hovering above the corpse. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he told her. ‘I should have been quicker.’
Her spectral face was despondent as she looked at him. ‘My boys, what about my boys? They’re so young.’
‘They will be taken care of, I promise.’
‘I will see them before I go,’ she said, and began to drift towards a nearby alley. ‘I can feel them close. One last look, to be sure.’
Edeard grimaced, and carried on. In total he counted fifteen dead, with over twenty hobbling along in front of him, clutching at their wounds, blood dripping onto the pavement. He directed his longtalk at them, whispering that they should turn down side alleys where doctors would come. Some obeyed, eight didn’t.
Owain’s longtalk found him as he was halfway down Burfol Street. ‘I don’t know what you think you can achieve by this. Stand aside, and let the militia deal with this scum. I’ll see to it that the commission is sympathetic to the part you played today.’
‘The Lady’s miracle,’ Edeard replied, not caring that the rest of the city could sense his longtalk.
‘Excuse me?’
‘The Lady performed a miracle in Makkathran once, and I’m going to repeat it today.’
‘You are beyond salvation, Waterwalker.’
‘Then let me be.’
‘I can’t do that.’
Echoing down the street came the command: ‘Regiment, forward march.’
‘Want to bet,’ Edeard muttered under his breath, then: ‘Boyd, I hope you’re watching this. It’s your Lady-damned idea.’
He slowed his walk slightly; making sure that those fleeing into the mansion would have time to reach it before he did. Behind him, the regiment pressed on down the street. They matched his own pace, maintaining the distance perfectly. That caused him to grin.
‘Edeard,’ Salrana’s unnervingly accurate longtalk said to him alone. ‘What have you become?’
‘I am what I have always been.’
‘The strength, yes, but this arrogance . . . this is something new.’
‘They gave me no choice.’
‘Edeard, you are acting against the wishes of the whole city. Stop this.’
‘Today has to end with the gangs destroyed and banished. Nothing else matters any more.’
‘What you are doing is wrong. You are claiming all responsibility. You are abusing your gifts to defy the Council itself.’
‘Long ago, Rah used his strength to gift people sanctuary from chaos. I can do nothing less with my gift, my strength. To fail now would be to betray everything he founded, all that he gave this world.’
‘Don’t you dare invoke Rah. You are not Rah.’
‘I know. But I will not let his wonderful legacy wither and die. That is who I am. Accept that.’
‘I will pray to the Lady for the light that was once your beautiful soul.’
Edeard ground his teeth together. He wrenched his attention away from his childhood friend. I cannot let this distract me. She will not! And not everyone doubts me.
As if seeking a counter to Salrana’s dreadful mistrust, Edeard’s directed longtalk sought out Felax, who was still on the Mid Pool concourse. ‘I could do with some help.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Felax said proudly. ‘Of course I’ll help.’
The boy’s unswerving trust was humbling. ‘I need you and others you can rely on to run to the senior sergeants at each bridge. Tell them the Waterwalker needs the farsight teams to keep tracking the Hundred, and in addition to find as many of those named on the exclusion warrants as they can. Also, if this goes our way, I’ll need the arrest teams to reform; they’ll be wanted for escort duties.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ll do that right away. But, sir, I want to help you, I want to be there with you.’
‘This is truly what I need. If you do this for me, we can still turn this day around.’
‘I knew you would, sir; I knew it.’
Edeard was a hundred yards from the end of Burfol Street. He could see the big open square surrounding Bise’s mansion. Fountains still played in the pools, providing the only movement in the whole expanse. Behind them, the iron-bound gates in the high wall were swinging shut.
He walked out into the square, and looked up at the circular mansion. Over a hundred people were standing along the top of the battlements on the external wall, as far as his farsight could tell they were all armed. Every revolver was lined up on him.
Behind them, the seven-storey tower formed a proud silhouette against a sky stained by pyres of smoke. Its walls were a mottle of green and yellow, with each level a shade lighter than the last. The top floor was almost white. Bise stood on the roof, his splendid robes of office wavi
ng in the gentle wind. His longtalk washed out, strong enough to reach over half the city.
‘You have no authority here, Waterwalker. The District Master has full dominion within his own walls. Leave this place.’
Edeard was immensely tempted to reply with a single hand gesture. Instead he said: ‘Wait there, please. I have to deal with militia first.’ He turned his back on the mansion. A couple of shots were fired. He deflected the bullets easily. Heated orders flowed along the battlements. And nobody fired again.
Edeard waited patiently, with the farsight of the entire city resting upon him. He felt ridiculously cocky, and rejoiced in every second of the sensation.
Yeah, this is bold!
The militia regiment reached the end of Burfol Street and halted. The first three ranks took aim on the lone figure in the middle of the square whose cloak hung around him with unnatural stillness. Fountains gurgled away merrily on either side of him.
‘Captain Larose,’ the Waterwalker said. ‘I’m glad it’s you. You are a man of integrity.’
The captain stepped forward, and nodded courteously. ‘As are you, Waterwalker. Would you please step aside so we may carry out our orders, as issued by the city’s full legal authority?’
‘What are those orders?’
‘We are to arrest those malefactors hiding inside the District Master’s mansion.’
‘They are heavily armed.’
‘As are we.’
‘Yes, and I will not permit bloodshed on such a scale those orders would entail. Not in my city. I will deal with Bise and those he harbours, you have my word.’ Edeard turned full circle, his longtalk growing stronger. ‘Everyone has my word on that.’
‘Unfortunately, after today, your word is no longer enough,’ Captain Larose said. ‘Stand aside, Waterwalker, or I will be forced to order my men to shoot you.’
Edeard gave the captain a genuine smile. ‘And how, exactly, are they going to do that from up there?’ And he asked the city for its help.
‘Up where?’ Captain Larose suddenly gave the ground a nervous glance. He started to crouch in an attempt to regain what he perceived as his failing balance. It was a motion which pushed his polished boots firmly against the pavement. A motion which pushed him off the pavement.
Behind him, three hundred soldiers did exactly the same thing as their senses told them they were falling. Three hundred soldiers began to drift up gently into the air. They yelled in consternation, and began windmilling their arms in panic. That only made it worse. They spun and twisted. Several of them bounced off the vine-clad walls of the buildings on either side of the street, which sent them tumbling through the main cluster of their frantic colleagues.
Edeard stood perfectly still watching them. The noise of their combined shouting was colossal, and the mental panic flooding out was enough to make him wince. Most of the soldiers were ten or twelve feet from the ground now, and still their limbs were clawing wildly at the air. He noticed that the majority were holding on to their revolvers, and shook his head in rueful disbelief.
‘You should try and use your third hands to guide yourselves together,’ Edeard advised. ‘If you link up you’ll probably be more stable that way.’
‘Stop this!’ Captain Larose bawled. He was turning lazily, his legs coming up parallel to the street below.
Edeard held up his hands apologetically, as if mystified by what he was witnessing. ‘I’m not doing anything.’
Larose’s eyes bugged. He managed to bring his arm over and round, the revolver muzzle tracking down slowly towards Edeard.
‘I really wouldn’t do that if I were—’
Larose fired. The powerful recoil force sent him cartwheeling fast back down Burfol Street. He careered into several of his men on the way, sending them spinning off. It wasn’t good for their inner ears.
Edeard pulled a face as the first soldier was spectacularly sick fifteen feet above the pavement. Instead of splattering down, his vomit oscillated through the air, forming strange nebula shapes of its own. The horrified soldier next to him watched helplessly as he collided in slow motion. Then others started to spew up. The regiment’s initial cries of shock changed in pitch to become wails of disgust.
Edeard held up a finger in remonstration. ‘Don’t go away. I’ll be back in a little while; we can talk about you holstering your weapons then.’ He turned to face the mansion. This time, nobody on the battlements took a pot-shot at him.
The entirety of Makkathran was very quiet.
The Waterwalker looked up at the distant figure of District Master Bise. ‘You claim jurisdiction here, yet you forget that with power comes responsibility. You and your family have continually abused your position and allowed the gangs to spread throughout your district. You encourage defiance and manipulation of the law to your own ends. The result of this is the misery and deaths that we have witnessed today.’
‘It is not me who brings—’
‘BE SILENT.’ Edeard aimed his right hand. A colossal bolt of lightning snapped out from his fingertip, striking the top of the tower roof a yard from where Bise was standing. Smouldering chunks of wall twirled out, falling to the courtyard far below. Bise cowered, his arms raised in front of his face.
‘You forget, Master Bise, that neither you nor the Grand Council is the final authority here. We are all guests of the city itself. Living here is not a right, it is a privilege. As of this day the city revokes that privilege for you. The family Diroal is hereby stripped of its position and wealth; half of all its money will be redistributed as recompense among those of Sampalok who have suffered this day, the remainder will go to the new Master. I also add to that list of banishment all those who are named in the exclusion warrants. You will now leave Makkathran and you will not return. Ever.’
‘Not even you can force that upon us,’ Bise replied.
‘No,’ Edeard agreed equitably. ‘I cannot. The city, however, can. And it will begin with the revocation of your mansion.’
For a long minute Edeard and Bise stared at each other. Nothing seemed to happen. Laughter began among those on the wall’s battlements; catcalls and taunts rang out again.
The giant iron-bound gates in front of Edeard emitted a staggeringly loud crack. People gasped, and leaned over the battlements to see what was happening. The gates appeared to be intact.
Bise’s shielded mind suddenly flared with dismay. The edge of the roof where it curved to blend smoothly into the tower walls was changing. It loosened and fractured, turning to the finest dust which then flowed as a liquid. Rivulets of the stuff dribbled down the wall towards the floor below. The rivulets grew to a deluge, swamping the delicate green and yellow patterns. Bise stared down as the accelerating tide began to rise over his boots.
‘If I were you,’ Edeard advised mildly, ‘I’d come down while you still have stairs to come down on.’
The gates sent out another agonized rasping. The sturdy hinge bolts driven over eighteen inches into the substance of the walls were being rejected. The process which always pushed out human fixings over time was speeding up. From inside the mansion a whole series of squeals and brassy groans could be heard as every door was forced out of its frame. Pictures fell off the walls as the hanging spikes popped out. Shelves in the pantries and storerooms crashed to the floor, spilling their contents.
Bise turned and ran for the stairwell.
Water drained from the bathing pools on every floor in the mansion. The orange lighting segments dimmed to extinction. Crystal windows popped like soap bubbles. Doors fell, crashing down. Then the solid walls started to crawl as they slowly lost cohesion, transforming into a vertical tide of liquid dust.
The family Diroal and all their servants rushed for the stairs. Ge-chimps and monkeys and terrestrial cats raced past them, adding to the bedlam in the darkened stairwells. Bise had barely got halfway down to the sixth floor when the roof finally dissolved. Sunlight shone down into the exposed top floor rooms, revealing the carpets and wobbling furnitur
e being slowly engulfed by a cascade of dust. He moaned in terror and ran faster. Under his pounding feet, he could feel the surface of the curving awkward stairs start to become slippery.
One by one, the three gates in the outside wall slowly warped out of alignment as their fastenings finally came free. They pivoted with an unhurried grace, and toppled down into the square. Nobody was left on the battlements to see their final moment. They were surging down the stairs in a desperate bid to reach the courtyard and safety.
In total it took over thirty minutes for the entire building to melt away, for it was a gigantic edifice and not even the city could reabsorb its mass any quicker. During that time, the constable teams Edeard asked for arrived in the square and formed a circle five men deep around the vanishing mansion. Captain Ronark was among them. He saluted the Waterwalker, as did the sergeants. They listened to his simple orders before organizing their men as he wanted.
At the end, when the last stubs of the wall washed away, the area where the mansion had stood was reduced to a small lake of dust. It turned solid as rock. Piled up on it was a mound of smashed furniture, and clothes and curtains and carpets and linen, books and bottles of wine, broken crockery, bent cutlery – all the glittery detritus that any incredibly wealthy family would accumulate over two millennia. Ranged around that were the survivors; sullen and resentful, but most of all fearful of the Waterwalker and his power. They glowered as Edeard addressed them, but none dared to interrupt or argue.
‘If you are a Diroal or one of those I named, you will hand over your weapons to the constables,’ he told them. ‘And you will walk from here to the North Gate. The constables will escort you, and safeguard your passage. You may take with you whatever you can carry, and no more. Everyone else is free to go.’
Captain Ronark headed the motley procession, square-shouldered and glowing with pride, taking them down Jankal Lane.
‘I’ll join you in a moment,’ Edeard told him, and walked over the square to Burfol Street. The regiment was still floating gently between the buildings. Several dozen had managed to cling to the vines, where they hung trembling. No matter how hard they clutched the fronds, their stomachs still insisted they were falling. The air was filled with little globules of tacky fluid. Edeard wrinkled his nose as he approached. The smell was truly awful.