Katrya’s face when he shot her . . . Can we not love too? He drowned the memories in a deluge of fear and grief, but not before Catheline sensed his guilt.
“We can’t keep them all alive, General,” she said, a frown of sincere sympathy creasing her brow. “More’s the pity. I’m sorry for your woman, and the child, but soldiers die in war. Come the morning we’ll have thousands of freshly converted young women in our ranks. Choose one, if you wish.”
“No thank you.”
Catheline’s sympathy turned to amusement and she moved to him, reaching out to take his hand, perfect unblemished fingers tracing over the callused, scaled flesh. “Still carrying a torch for your fallen lover?” she asked. “Or do I flatter myself that you worry over making me jealous?”
Nothing, he thought, his mind sliding over hers like a hand pushing at smooth, cold glass. No clue as to her true intentions. What she really is.
“What I am?” she asked with a laugh provoking the shocked realisation that he had failed to shield his thoughts. “Oh, don’t fret,” she added, squeezing his hand as the fear flooded in. “It’s refreshing to find a genuinely curious mind amongst this lot.” She moved closer, her perfume rendered near intoxicating by his enhanced senses. “I am the final word in his blessing of this world,” she murmured, lips close to his. “He needed me, you see? Not all of me, since He got a good deal from the other bitch before she died. But, great as his mind is, it lacks . . .”
She let out an involuntary shout, her breath hot on Sirus’s face as she convulsed and collapsed at his feet. Sirus started to crouch at her side but froze as another far more powerful will invaded his mind. A low, rattling growl came from above and Sirus looked up to find the White’s huge head poised above them, thin tendrils of smoke leaking from both nostrils. Its gaze flicked over Sirus before locking onto Catheline. She let out a strangled scream, jerking on the deck as spittle drooled from her lips.
Punishment, Sirus thought.
A series of thuds drew his gaze to the surrounding deck and he saw the juvenile Whites had come to watch the spectacle, wings flapping in excitement, tails and necks coiling as they hissed and squawked. Sirus found he had no need to draw on his reserves of fear to mask his thoughts, the fist of terror that gripped him now was completely authentic, though he did find room amongst it all for a singular insight. Your god does not love you back, he decided as Catheline’s choking shudders subsided into a gibbering tremble.
The White’s growl trailed off and it grunted out a gust of smoke before launching itself into the air, the wind generated by its wings strong enough to force Sirus to his knees. He watched it ascend into the night air, ivory scales painted pink by the light of the burning city. It levelled out and angled its massive body towards Melkorin, its juvenile brood clustering around it, screaming in excited hunger. It had been the same after Feros. After the fall came the feast, and there were many children in this city.
He lowered his gaze to Catheline, seeing that her tremors had stopped and she now lay in an exhausted stupor. He also saw that she had contrived to besmirch her silk gown with a copious amount of urine. He wondered if the White would care if he killed her now.
Sirus crouched and gathered Catheline into his arms, lifting her easily. He stood watching the White dive down into the burning city, its dreadful brood following close behind, before lowering his gaze to the dark waters below. Throw the mad bitch over the side. The world will thank you for it.
Catheline let out a soft, fearful whimper, her fluttering eyelids telling of a mind beset by nightmares. She shifted in his arms, moving her head closer to his chest in an instinctive quest for comfort. Sirus turned and carried her towards the nearest hatch, making for her cabin and sending a command to the crew to bring her some clean clothes.
CHAPTER 15
Lizanne
“I didn’t like the way that woman looked at me.”
Lizanne glanced up at Tekela from the contract that cemented her employment in the Varestian Defence Conglomerate. She had read it several times during the return journey, finding to her annoyance that Ethilda Okanas had crafted something it would be very hard to extricate herself from later, at least legally. “You shouldn’t,” she muttered in agreement before glancing out the window. They had left Iskamir behind a day ago and were nearing the southern extremity of the Sabiras Archipelago, beyond which lay the hopefully secure anchorage of Viemen’s Island.
“I won’t have to see her again, will I?” Tekela asked. “Or that son of hers. He was almost as horrid.”
Lizanne began to snap at her, irritation at the cleverness of the Okanas clan leading her to scold this girl for her weakness. An entire world of horrid people awaits you, she had been about to say. Harden your sensibilities and keep a loaded revolver handy. Instead she took a breath and recalled all the many trials Tekela had endured, concluding she was already as hardened as Lizanne wished her to be. So she said, “I’m sorry. I’ll do my best to ensure you don’t find yourself in their company again.”
They had resisted lighting the blood-burner for the return trip, Lizanne deciding the burst of speed would be best saved for emergencies. The flight was therefore long and somewhat tedious, passed in resentful scrutiny of the contract she had been obliged to sign interspersed with fitful dozing. Her sleep had been interrupted several times by the buffeting the aerostat received from the winds at this more southerly latitude. Hours of fighting to keep the machine on course left Tekela increasingly fatigued as the journey wore on. Lizanne wanted to take over for a time but lacked the required familiarity with the controls. Besides which, manoeuvring herself into the pilot’s seat in the cramped confines of the gondola seemed next to impossible.
“When we’re back on the ship,” she told Tekela as the first of the outlying Sabiras Isles drifted by below, “your first task will be teaching me how to fly this thing.”
The fleet came into view some two hours later, the many ships clustered in a tight arc around the speck of rock Lizanne’s map confirmed as Vieman’s Island. Daylight was fading fast and Lizanne feared night would fall before they could settle onto the fore-deck of the Viable Opportunity. Fortunately, Captain Trumane evidently saw the danger and ordered all lights lit, including the frigate’s powerful search-light, which was lowered to illuminate the front of the ship. Tekela was obliged to navigate a stiff cross-wind to complete the approach, her hands dancing from lever to lever as she gave voice to some choice curses in Varsal Lizanne would never have suspected her of knowing.
Finally, the landing gear bumped onto the deck and Tekela closed the throttle, stilling the thrum of the engine, before slumping forward with a soft sigh. She sat with her head resting on the dials in what Lizanne suspected was a theatrical pose until she heard a very faint snore emerge from the girl’s nose.
* * *
• • •
“At any other time signing this would be an unconscionable act.” Trumane sighed before tossing the contract onto his desk. “One the Syndicate would most likely punish with a prison sentence. Now, however.” He shrugged and sank into his seat. Lizanne had expected more resistance from him but divined that his pragmatism outweighed any ingrained corporatist abhorrence for such a patently poor deal.
“There is something else to consider,” she said. “The contract makes no mention of you.”
Trumane frowned at her. “So?”
“It stipulates just about every aspect of our arrangement, including my role and the role of our coterie of inventors, and the employment of the refugees, but says nothing about you, the man they refer to as Captain Noose. I believe this to be a deliberate omission. Captain, I must advise you not to accompany us into Varestian waters. Take the Viable Opportunity and head north, along with Mrs. Griffan. If you can make it to a Mandinorian port you can enlighten what’s left of the Syndicate hierarchy on the true nature of this crisis. Such understanding appears to be sadly lacking at th
is juncture.”
“No.” Trumane gave a stiff shake of his head. “I have not led this fleet so far to abandon it . . .”
“They’ll hang you,” Lizanne broke in. “The Okanas family, and many of the other clans, feel they owe you a blood debt, something Varestians do not forgive.”
“I have never run from pirates, Miss Lethridge,” he replied in a quiet but steady voice that told her this discussion was over. “I do not intend to start now.” He lowered his gaze to the charts unfurled on his desk, reaching for a pen and compass. “Now, I have a course to plot if you’ll excuse me.”
* * *
• • •
“The whole composition has eight distinct movements,” Makario said, handing her a partially crumpled sheaf of musical notation. “It was realising this that proved the key. The Artisan certainly had a passion for the number eight.”
Glancing over the papers, Lizanne found them covered in a mostly illegible scrawl of notes interspersed with comments in the musician’s often-tiny script. Lifting her gaze to him, she was struck by the redness of his eyes and the jittery tremble to his hand as he ran it through a mop of unkempt hair.
“How long since you slept?” she asked.
His brow bunched in genuine bafflement. “Why would I sleep with a puzzle like this to solve? I once thought Illemont would be my sole consuming passion, but this.” He turned his gaze to the solargraph and Lizanne found herself wondering about the ability of this device to capture the hearts of those cursed to study it. “The Artisan was as much a musician as he was an inventor. To have met him would have been to know greatness.”
“You’re sure this is all of it?” she asked, setting the pages down on the work-bench.
“I’ve tested it several times, out of earshot of our fellow convict, of course.”
“Very well.” Lizanne turned to regard Tinkerer, who stood at another bench near the starboard bulkhead. He was engaged in completing a prototype redesign of the rocket projectile that had been so useful during the march from Scorazin. This one was larger with a greatly increased range and, thanks to an internal clock-work apparatus of dizzying complexity, would possess a remarkable level of accuracy.
“We’ll wait until he’s finished his new toy,” she said. “In the meantime, please get some rest.”
* * *
• • •
Three days later she watched Tinkerer’s face closely as the solargraph played the tune, deciding Makario had been right about the Artisan’s musical gifts matching his inventiveness. After he tapped out the first three movements on the chimes the device began to play on its own. Cogs whirred and dials turned as it gave voice to something of such sombre precision that it couldn’t help but tug at her heart. Tinkerer sat through it all with an expression of interest but no particular concern and when he was done his only reaction was to blink at her.
“Have you . . .” Lizanne ventured, “anything to tell me?”
“Yes,” he said with an earnest nod that caused her to lean closer. “I need more brass for the rocket-guidance mechanism.”
“About this,” she grated, stabbing a finger at the solargraph. “About all of this.”
“Oh,” said Tinkerer. “Then no.”
“It’s the right tune,” Makario insisted as Lizanne turned her gaze upon him.
She thought back over her interactions with Tinkerer, all mentions of the Artisan and his shared memories in the trance. The trance. “Here,” she said, taking a vial of Blue from her wallet. “Play it again,” she instructed Makario after she and Tinkerer had both imbibed equal portions of the product.
This time the reaction was immediate. As soon as the tune began Tinkerer’s gaze took on the unfocused cast that told of an imminent trance. However, it wasn’t until the fourth movement that the full effect took hold. Tinkerer’s eyes closed and he slumped to the floor, limbs twitching. Lizanne began to rise from her seat to check on him . . . and found herself standing waist deep in the middle of a fast-flowing river.
She had never experienced such a seamless transition into the trance state before and found it jarring. The sudden switch in surroundings, complete with a change in temperature, sights, smells and sounds made her stagger in the water. She would have lost her footing on the loose shingle of the river-bed if a pair of hands hadn’t reached out to steady her.
“Careful now,” said a voice in soft, cultured Eutherian. “You really can drown in here, you know.”
The woman who had hold of her arms was trimly built of average height with shrewd dark eyes peering at Lizanne from behind a pair of spectacles. She wore sturdy clothes of strong fabric, the kind worn by someone who spends a good deal of time outdoors. A heavy pack was slung over her shoulders and a short-brimmed felt hat sat on her head, tilted back to reveal a shock of close-cropped black hair. She was also, Lizanne noticed, possessed of a high-cheek-boned beauty normally reserved for the imaginary heroines found adorning the covers of cheap romance novels.
“This . . .” Lizanne closed her eyes and shook her befuddled head before taking a more fulsome look at her surroundings. A swift river, thick jungle on both banks. “This is the Arradsian Interior.”
“It is indeed.” The woman gave an apologetic smile and released Lizanne’s arms from her gentle but firm grasp. “Though I have always preferred the Eutherian name for the continent. Kilnahria, it derives from a serpent god of the pre-Imperial era. Quite apt, wouldn’t you agree, miss . . . ?”
“Lethridge,” she said, straightening and extending her hand. “Lizanne Lethridge. And yes, very apposite.”
“Alestine Akiv Azkarian,” the woman said, shaking her hand and giving a formal bow. “I was about to stop for lunch,” she went on, sloshing her way towards the far bank. “If you would care to join me.”
“You are the Artisan?” Lizanne asked, voicing a rueful laugh as she laboured through the water in her wake. The trance had seen fit to attire her in a somewhat impractical skirt and jacket of archaic dimensions, making for laggardly progress. “The Artisan was a woman.”
“How observant you are,” Alestine remarked, clambering onto the river-bank and extending a hand as Lizanne struggled to extricate herself from the water.
“I thought you would already know my name,” Lizanne said, hauling herself free of the river and keeping hold of Alestine’s hand. “The Artisan having foreseen this meeting.”
“The Mad Artisan,” Alestine said, her smile now tinged with a mix of sadness and humour. “Isn’t that what they will come to call me?”
“The appellation of madness has faded recently,” Lizanne replied. “Which is strange, given that the world around us grows madder by the day.”
Alestine released her hand and turned, leading her deeper into the jungle. “I did not, in fact, know your name,” she told Lizanne, as they tracked along a narrow trail. “But I have foreseen this meeting, or at least a portion of it. Oddly, I remember you having darker hair, and being markedly less polite. It happens sometimes, the vision’s truth proves illusory. Due, I have theorised, to the relative passage of time. The longer I have to wait for it to come true, the less true it turns out to be.”
“What did we discuss in the vision?” Lizanne asked, aware that her voice betrayed a note of desperation she would normally try to conceal. The shock of actually finding herself conversing with this person after expending so much time and effort to do so made her a little giddy, even nervous.
“You said your world was burning,” Alestine said, coming to a halt as the trail opened out into a broad clearing. She unslung her pack and set it down before casting around with a searching gaze. “We need fire-wood. If you wouldn’t mind lending a hand.”
Lizanne began to comply but found her eyes drawn to a dark shape above the tree-tops ahead, the sides jagged black teeth against the pale blue of the sky. The temple, she realised, recalling one of Clay’s shared memorie
s. “Are we close to Krystaline Lake?” she enquired.
“Oh, Emperor’s Soul no,” Alestine laughed, crouching to gather up a fallen branch. “The lake lies over three hundred miles north-east of here.” She followed Lizanne’s gaze to the bulky silhouette above the trees. “Seen one like it before, I see. Krystaline Lake, eh? I must confess I had no idea there were ruins there.”
“A whole city in fact.”
“One I’ll never get to see, except through your eyes if you’re willing to share.”
Lizanne turned to her, finding the same half-sad, half-amused smile on her lips. It wasn’t unkind, but Lizanne found there was too much knowledge behind that smile for her to like it. “So in your vision I told you my world was burning,” she said. “In reality it has only just begun to smoulder, though I think the flames are about to rise very high indeed. I believe you know how to prevent that, and I would have you tell me.”
Alestine’s smile switched to a grimace, her face clouding in reflective sorrow. “Then I fear you may be disappointed, miss. But”—she dumped the branch she had gathered on the ground and set about searching for more—“let’s discuss it over dinner, shall we? I have an excellent cut of Cerath haunch to share. It’s good meat, but does require proper seasoning.”
She proved deaf to further questions so Lizanne helped her build the fire and a frame with which to spit the haunch of meat. Alestine scored the layer of fat coating the flesh with a knife then rubbed it with salt before sprinkling on some wild thyme. She constructed the frame in only a few moments, crafting two sturdy bipods and a cross-beam from scavenged wood. The swift, unconscious precision with which she went about the task was enough to banish any doubts Lizanne might have as to her identity. She looks like Tinkerer, she realised. Or Father when he’s particularly engrossed.
“The secret is to keep it turning,” Alestine said, adjusting the haunch’s position over the fire before turning to her pack. “Would you care for an aperitif?” She extracted a metal flask and two tin cups, handing one to Lizanne before pouring a pinkish liquid into it. “A local vintage,” Alestine said, raising her own cup to her nose to sample the aroma. “I’m afraid the name is quite unpronounceable. I call it ‘Kilnahria’s Milk.’”