New Enemies

  Chapter 65

  Maya left the house without her short sword or Nephilim's ring. For some reason, carrying them felt repugnant, and leaving them behind didn't warrant withdrawal pain. With much on her mind, she didn't waste time examining the impulse, merely went with it.

  Request was still snoring when she closed her defences and went into Aureu. Large, open, bitter Aureu, a town with so many souls they couldn't all thrive. She hated the city now. It seemed low and dark, a skunk in tall grass. Every time she met a new street, she spat at it, firing dark phlegm into the world. It was quiet, early, so no one saw her disdain.

  It occurred to her that Applekill would, had she been there, warn that she was going too far, but the thought withered and died before she could consider much of it. A heat replaced it, one which burnt the withered idea clean away. Maya didn't even remember thinking of her Spirit.

  Having been denied access to the suspects' private lives by the narrow-minded Solaric Council, she resolved to look further into their underlings: the bastards could deny her greater insight into their precious Stations, but she could get just as much from interrogating those who worked for them.

  Her hands shook as she pounded through Sol's Landing. Even the Guardian had failed to see the wisdom of her request! She shouldn't be surprised at what Solarists could fool themselves into believing, but the Guardian shocked her. Perhaps it was her upbringing, repeated lessons that the Guardian was uniquely wise, but she almost couldn’t believe what had happened. It angered her that those beliefs still remained. She'd tried to dig her upbringing out of her since meeting Nephilim, but some things refused to budge, their roots tightly knotted around her personality and memories.

  But yes, underlings. Many Stationed people had been involved in getting Maya to the eastern Front. Whilst they were unlikely to have been involved directly, it wasn't impossible. Even if they were innocent, their answers would reveal much about their Councillors. She could demand their honesty provided the questions didn't breach the clear distinction between the Stations, something apparently more important than the Councillor's own lives. The Shields who guarded the carriage already awaited her interrogation.

  Maya stopped near the great walls around Sol's Landing. She gritted her teeth and punched the brickwork, working out her frustration on painted stone. Its white surface cracked. Chips drifted to the floor. For a moment, the stone darkened.

  She licked her lips, suddenly missing her Spirits. She looked back toward home, considered returning for them, but that would waste time she could use to interrogate the Shields. She shook her head: there was little Draw would have liked more than to mock her tardiness.

  Maya took a deep breath as she stomped away, tasting copper and rot.

  Draw was orchestrating this. He had to be the Disciples' lackey with his penchant for killing Acolytes. Her poor Acolytes... Draw's Folly was still a raw wound that fed her anger and hatred, giving light like a sunny day. She couldn't believe Draw had ordered Consult, Pear, and Grill to raid Moenian.

  Ordered them to their deaths.

  What had he been thinking? That perplexed her more than her lost friends and students dying or no reason. She remembered them all: Consult with her gray hair from when she'd technically died as a child; Pear with her love of singing, who wrote songs which still haunted Maya; and Grill, a wasp of a man with a belief so strong it made his Cyrus Force brighter than any she'd ever seen. Her heart felt shredded and bruised for thinking of them, a tear escaped her, but the pain was weaker then her confusion at Draw’s actions.

  Some of it made sense: it was no surprise that Draw had chosen female Acolytes and the smallest man, leaving Chalk and Mane alone. Full of faith in Sol and their leaders, these three had ventured north on the order of their commanding Councillor, someone they trusted. Sometimes, particularly in the weeks after Draw's Folly, she dreamt of their deaths. Her normally dull imagination outshone itself in each nightmare, presenting a hundred ways for them to die.

  Of course, now Maya knew Draw had ordered the Acolytes north to weaken Geos. Perhaps they had been captured and tortured, experimented on. Maya quailed at the thought, a horrified gasp leaving her throat. She had to find the evidence against him. She had to.

  Her journey to the Grip passed in a blur of half-remembered nightmares and desperate desires for blood-soaked justice. It almost seemed like she’d blinked and then was at the Grip's iron door, standing sideways to fit through the narrow entrance.

  “Who goes?” a voice asked.

  “Acolyte Councillor Maya,” she rasped.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Acolyte. Councillor. Maya. Don't make me repeat myself.”

  She sensed some trepidation from the Shield. Had Draw been relying on her arriving late? Was he coaching his Shields how to respond to the interrogation?

  After a few seconds, the iron door opened and she was allowed in. The Shield who guarded it, a tall and wide lump of flesh, smiled in relief. “Oh, Acolyte Councillor, it's you. Are you ill?”

  “No,” Maya said, pushing past. “Where are the Shields I am to interrogate?”

  “Oh, is that why that lot are all gathered?” the Shield asked, pointing across the courtyard to eight Shields standing in two rows. “I wondered what they were up to.”

  Maya stalked over without replying.

  “Ah, Acolyte Councillor, I see you're almost on time,” someone said as they sidled beside Maya. It was an older Shield, a man with lean muscles and beady eyes. “My name is Mint.”

  She didn't respond, kept stamping over to the Shields.

  Unfazed, Mint continued, “At Councillor Draw's request, I have gathered the Shields who guarded your carriage. Please accept my condolences over the Acolytes' deaths, by the way.”

  Maya grunted, unwilling to accept that from a lackey of Draw’s.

  “Anyway, these eight Shields guarded the carriage in the twenty minutes between it being deposited in a safe location and the Acolytes collecting it. I have been asked to say that they did not enter the location, or know what was within. As such, they could not have been involved in Lun's Burst.”

  Six of the Shields were old women, lean things standing like statues. “Why are you here?” she asked Mint.

  “I am here,” he said, “to ensure the Council's recent ruling about the distance that Stations must keep from one another is maintained.”

  She tutted. Draw hadn't even had the courage to follow through on the order himself. The heat rose in her lungs again and her throat began to hurt, as though she'd drunk scalding tea.

  “Very well. Let's begin this.” She turned to address the Shields. “I assume that you all know who I am?”

  The Shields knelt in tandem, their hands cupped above their heads..

  “I'll take that as a yes. As such, you'll know about the event known as Lun's Burst?”

  “Yes, sire,” they responded, a chorus of discipline.

  “You were all left with the vehicle which proved to be the delivery system for Lun's fury,” she said, taking slow, purposeful breaths to keep her voice level. “Only you could access the carriage during that time. Perfect for a bunch of Disciple-loving fucks to plant a bomb.”

  “Sire, are you accusing these Shields?” Mint asked, stepping beside her.

  “No. I am positing a theory, so they know that suspicion has fallen on them.” She leaned over, into the man's personal space. “Now back off and let me work.”

  Mint jumped back immediately.

  She grinned in satisfaction, then knelt beside the nearest acquiescing Shield, a young warrior with a plain face marred by scars. “You,” she growled. “What did you do during that time?”

  “Sire, I stood at my post until your Acolytes relieved us.”

  “Nothing more?”

  “Sire, nothing more. I stood and watched.”

  “Did you know what you were guarding?” Maya asked.

  “Sire, I did not, sire,” she said, her hands shaking.

  They leaned clos
e to the Shield. “You seem nervous, Shield. Why is that?”

  “You are a physical manifestation of Sol's brilliance, and you're shouting at me, sire.”

  They laughed and stood. For a moment, they felt sympathy for these Shields: one of the most influential, powerful, revered entities in their world was interrogating them as criminals. It was almost enough for them to relent, to let the Shields go. But they couldn't, not whilst they held the truth from them.

  “Are you telling us that none of you knew what was inside?”

  “Sire, no, sire,” the Shields chorused.

  “How are these lot issued their orders?” they asked Mint.

  The man almost jumped back under their stare. “Are you all right, sire?”

  “Why are so many people asking us that today?” they roared. “Just answer the damned question, Shield.”

  Mint stepped back, looked around for support. “I... I think I need to get Draw here. Or another Acolyte.”

  “Why?” they asked, stepping closer to him. “Are you nervous? Are we onto the right results here? Are we digging into the right vein, finding your Heresy?”

  With a small shriek, the Shield turned to run away. He wasn't fast enough: with almost no effort, they surged forward and grabbed him by the throat. Mint almost choked on their dark fingers. The effect was pronounced when they lifted him, held him so his feet dangled.

  “We didn't give you permission to leave us, did we?” they asked.

  “No, sire,” he just about choked from between their dark fingers. His fear was delicious, a palpable thing that sustained and invigorated. “I'm... I'm sorry.”

  They dropped him, preferring the taste of his panic and terror to his death. “You will go nowhere. You will remain in our presence. Do you understand, Mint?”

  Tears coalesced at the corners of his eyes. “Are you Sol's fury?”

  They smiled a ruby smile. “We are that and more.”

  So much fear came at them then. The Shields in the courtyard and those manning the walls looked down at them, quivering, quailing, knowing that they saw true power. They sipped its delightful flavours – smoke, ash, and copper – and returned to the eight Shields acquiescing on the floor. How could they not grin at such power? How could they not descend into delighted darkness?

  Maya snapped back to awareness as she was beating a Shield. Her hands were black and twice their size: one gripped the Shield's collar; the other was pulled back to punch his purple face and swollen eyes.

  “What... what is happening?” she asked, dropping him.

  The Shield scrabbled away, whimpering. More than thirty others crowded around her. Some were bleeding; others held broken weapons. Another Shield by her feet was breathing with great difficulty, her robes were covered in blood and her eyes were so swollen she couldn't see through them.

  “What's happening?” Maya shouted at the amassed Shields. The dark layer around her hands disappeared, and the blood that covered them fell to the ground.

  “Acolyte, we have been trying to calm you,” Mint said. His throat was red, and it bled in five places. “It seems that Sol's fury got the better of you. A Messenger has been sent to the Guardian. We were awaiting his response on what to do when you suddenly stopped.”

  She looked around the courtyard. Weapons were embedded into the Grip's walls. “I did this?”

  “You did.”

  How? How had she done this? What had happened? She could only remember Mint introducing himself, being a little officious. How had she blacked out? What had happened to her?

  Fortunately, Maya had enough presence of mind to say, “No, you are wrong. Sol did this.”

  “Yes, yes, he must have,” Mint said carefully. “Shall we wait for the Guardian's response?”

  Maya was about to fly to him when she remembered that Mission and Applekill weren’t with her. Instead, she stood aside, made it clear that the Shields could tend to their fallen comrade. The bravest three stepped forward and collected the injured Shield slowly, never lowering their guards or weapons for long.

  Maya heard something howl in the distance. No one else reacted.