‘Leyla?’ Culzean said over his shoulder. ‘Be ready. Shoot anything that doesn’t obey.’
The woman nodded and drew out her Hostec Livery 50. She slid out the clip of standard rounds and slotted in a magazine of specially prepared loads. Then she slunked the slide.
‘Master Keener?’ Culzean said. ‘Go to work.’
Saul Keener raised the trigger-orb and, as he had been instructed, started to slide reality with his mind. It grew cold in the basement of the occulting lighthouse.
The device in the centre of the floor began to vibrate. It was a small pyramid, wrought in gold and silver. It started to rock and vibrate, as if a charge were passing through it.
Keener pressed on, turning the orb in his hands. The device continued to quiver.
‘I sense him now,’ Keener muttered. ‘Oh, yes. He’s coming to my bidding. Oh, yes, here…’
The three thousand, one hundred and nine candle flames flared and grew taller. The light spread. The little golden pyramid shook again, and then unfolded.
It didn’t unleash a figure. It bent and deformed to create one. The folding golden sides twisted and extended, clothing a shape that coalesced out of a mist that spilled from the opening centre of the pyramid. A crouched, hunched figure formed, head down, curled. The golden tracery of the device wrapped itself up and down the figure’s limbs, creating armour, an encasing suit, a crested helmet.
The Brass Thief rose to its feet. Smoke poured off it, gusted from its awakening. It was thin, wrapped in segmented plates of gold and brass, faceless but for eyeslits in the high-crested helm.
‘The incunabula is awake,’ Keener whispered.
‘Tell it to feast,’ Culzean said.
Keener spoke with his mind, via the orb, and the golden figure stepped forward. Warp-smoke dribbled off its golden limbs. It raised its hands and, with a wet click, extended the rhyming swords.
It took a step towards the nearest cage. The sacrifices within saw it coming and squealed.
It lashed through the bars, its blades meeting flesh, and began to feed.
Six minutes later, with the cages reduced to buckled frames full of fuming bones, the incunabula clacked to the edge of the scribing and folded its rhyming swords.
‘It’s ready,’ Keener said, rubbing frantically at his hands. ‘It’s really ready. It’s fed and it’s yearning to know what is next. It wants to know why you’ve woken it.’
Culzean nodded. He looked round at Leyla Slade, who had been training her handgun on the incunabula for the last five minutes.
‘Put that away, Ley,’ Culzean said.
He took a step forward until just the outer line of scribing separated him from the incunabula.
‘Hello,’ Culzean said softly. ‘Remember me? Of course you do. I’m going to show you a name. You know what to do then.’
Culzean held up one of the scraps of paper. ‘You see? Read it right. Understand?’
The Brass Thief gently nodded its crested helm.
‘That name is Jader Trice,’ said Culzean. ‘Do your worst.’
The Brass Thief rocked and vast metal wings articulated out of its back. The wings flapped and it ascended, turning, out of the scribed circle, out of the lighthouse.
Towards the city.
Ten
The speech, which had been elegantly crafted and masterfully delivered, came to an end, and the audience rose to its feet, applauding wildly. The furious approval shook the majestic state banqueting hall, the most regal chamber of the diplomatic palace in Formal A.
At the head of the fan of crowded tables, the speaker waved his hand and accepted the applause graciously, smiling at the cheers he had raised from the assembled highborn dignitaries of the Manufactory Guild. The guild was one of the most influential bodies in the subsector, representing both state and private business interests, and its leaders were men and women of great learning, wit and commercial acumen.
And also fools, thought Jader Trice, if they could be brought to their feet in jubilation by meaningless phrases such as ‘genuine market prosperity’, ‘financial upturn’ and ‘glorious futures for our children’s generation’ all strung together and said out loud. Of course, it was the way he had said them.
The guild mistress, Sephone Halwah, got up from her seat beside Trice, shook his hand, and gestured broadly to calm the assembly. The uproar slowly died away.
Halwah was a tall, poised woman in her one-seventies, who looked a youthful forty-something thanks to the expensive juvenat treatments she had enjoyed. Her hair, the colour of spun gold, was contained in a crispinette of white ribbon behind her round, ermine hat and barbette, and her long gown, covered by the ornately embroidered mantle of her office, was made of ice-white silk and frieze. She raised her goblet. Her gown had long, ballooning sleeves tied with golden thread around her cuffs. Wise, thought Trice, to choose a cut that conceals your elbows, my mistress. It was always the elbows that gave away a woman’s true age, no matter how strenuous the juvenat work.
‘My guild fellows,’ she said. ‘I would ask you to join me as I pledge a heartfelt thanks to the honoured speaker at our annual dinner, the first provost of the Ministry of Subsector Trade, Sire Jader Trice.’
More applause, and a general, loud toasting as the cups were raised. Almost at once, music struck up from the gallery and attendants hurried forward to clear the tables. Some guests resumed their seats, others moved forward into the open floor space to begin the stately dances.
‘Fine words, provost,’ the guild mistress said as she sat down next to Trice. ‘You know how to stir an assembly.’
‘If only you knew,’ Trice murmured.
‘I’m sorry?’ she said, leaning forward. ‘The music is rather loud.’
‘I said I am gratified, mistress.’
Halwah turned to speak with a guild senior who had approached. Trice sat for a moment, toying with his goblet, staring at the dancers, the hurrying servants, the clusters of guests in loose conversation. Jader Trice was a slender, ageless man with a distinguished beard on his chin and long, black hair that he had tied back for the evening. He had unmatched eyes, one sea-blue, the other ember-brown. He wore heavy brocade robes of gold and sarry over a long gown of silver willowthread. His amulet of office hung around his neck on weighty gold links. Sharp-minded, silk-tongued, he was one of the most effective and assured political operators in the Angelus sub. Trice recognised no superior except the lord governor subsector himself, and the ministry he controlled had been established by Barazan when he had come to office in 400.
Trice was a little weary. The day had been long and spoiled by an unexpected turn of events. He also had little relish of functions such as the guild banquet, but these were important people and he wanted to keep them on his side.
+My lord.+
Trice looked up. Right across the busy hall, two hundred metres away, a figure had appeared, and was standing in the grand doorway, half hidden by the ormolu frame.
+I need a word.+
Trice nodded slightly, so only the figure would notice. He rose to his feet.
‘Not going, surely? You promised me a spin,’ Halwah said, turning to look at him. Several guildsmen around them also urged him to stay.
Trice smiled his most winning smile. ‘Of course not, my friends. But you know my job never stops. Word is, the value of the crown… which we all worship as the true master of mankind, do we not?’
The guilders roared at his joke.
‘The value of the crown in the rimward market is still declining. I have to put in a call to the chief treasurer on Caxton before the market closes. Once that onerous duty is done… the chief treasurer does so enjoy the sound of his own voice amplified by astropath…’
More laughter.
‘…I will return. Between you and me, honoured friends, it’s jitters. Our Lord Barazan came to office three years ago, and the honeymoon period is over. Investors and some trade amalgams in the rim are getting edgy that the liberal reforms our lord pro
mised at inauguration are slow to be fulfilled. What is it I always say?’
‘These things take time!’ a senior guilder nearby called.
‘Precisely, Sire Onriss,’ Trice smiled as the laughter buffeted once again. ‘So excuse me while I take a moment to dampen their nerves. You’ll appreciate it on the morrow when you slate-read your trading portfolios. As for you, dear Mistress Halwah, I swear on my mother’s pristine honour that I will return in no more than fifteen minutes. Then you will experience a volta more sublime than your wildest dreams.’
Yet more laughter, led by the exaggeratedly demure Halwah. Trice strode from the table.
Immediately, four waiting house guards from the Gubernatorial Service closed around him: bullish men in dark blue leather and ceramite, visors down, hellguns mag-clamped to their chest plates. As a senior official of the subsector Administratum, Trice enjoyed all the protection benefits of the lord governor himself.
Escorted, he walked down the length of the banquet hall and out into the crystal-lit grand processional. The chatter and music of the feast dimmed behind him.
The figure was waiting for him up ahead beside the door of a privacy suite. Servants dashed past.
‘Wait here,’ Trice ordered his house guard squad, and went into the suite with the waiting figure.
The suite was a series of luxurious meeting rooms, designed to be completely surveillance-opaque, so that the senior ambassadors of the diplomatic department could conduct conversations in the strictest secrecy.
As soon as he was inside, the door closed. Trice felt the vibration hum of audio-bouncers, vox-inhibiters and psy-blunt systems activating and overlapping.
Trice walked over to a gilt cabinet and poured himself a large amasec.
‘Anything for you, Toros?’
Toros Revoke shook his head politely. Revoke was wearing a subtle, dark suit, and his hands were gloved. He was as much a part of Trice’s protection as the armed house guards waiting outside. But nothing like so official. Toros Revoke was a senior lieutenant of an unofficial body known as the Secretists.
‘Well, that’s another evening of my life I’m never getting back,’ Trice said, sipping his amasec and sitting down on an upholstered tub chair. He crossed his legs, folding the heavy gown across his knees for comfort. ‘They’re all idiots, you realise? Every last jack one of them. Fools in love with profit. I could have told them I shat stools of solid gold and they’d have asked me to show them how.’
‘The public face,’ Revoke said.
Trice nodded. ‘The public face. So tell me about your day. Tell me something to make me happy.’
‘Well…’
‘You’ve got bad news, haven’t you, Toros?’
‘Not at all. Curious news, perhaps. I’ll start with the good. Nine more private masses went ahead tonight, all as decreed, all in temples along the defined axes.’
‘I heard there was trouble the other night. Where was it?’
‘The chapel at Rudiment and Pass-on-over. The usual story. A poor nobody who shouldn’t have been there wandered in on the service.’
‘Did he see anything?’ Trice asked, swirling the dark liquor in his glass.
‘Oh, plenty. Fortunately, I was there to secret the mass. I’d brought along Monicker and Drax too.’
‘How is Monicker? Still not sure who she is?’
‘She’s a dissembler. It goes with the territory. We turfed the man out, and saw to him.’
‘Cleanly?’
‘The Unkindness stripped him bare.’
Trice smiled. ‘I do so love it when this city looks after its own secrets.’
Revoke crossed the room and sat down in a plush seat opposite Trice. ‘I understand today has been eventful. I heard about the business at the sacristy. Do you need my people to cover that?’
Trice shook his head. ‘No, it’s in hand. Could be a blessing, actually. It may transpire that we’ve been mislocating the true centre all this time. There is a secrecy issue. Some strand of the Magistratum has got it already. But I’ve put wheels in motion. So now, this curious news of yours?’
‘Akunin wants an audience with you. Pretty much demands it.’
Trice lit a lho-stick from the casket on the table beside his chair. ‘Shipmaster Akunin knows it doesn’t work that way. No direct contact between me and the contractees.’
‘Even so…’
‘Even so, screw him. What does he want to see me about?’
Revoke leaned forward. ‘Earlier tonight, a premises run by the cartel’s chosen banker was raided. Burned down. A lot of deaths.’
‘Then the cartel’s a fool for using a financier who ran so close to the wind. Tchaikov was black market. She had any number of enemies. It’s not our concern where they stash the money we pay them. Die too, did she?’
Revoke nodded. ‘It appears so. I have my team sifting the wreckage right now. A gang dispute, I think. One of her rivals in the underworld.’
‘So… why is Akunin asking for me?’
‘He thinks it’s more than that. He believes it could be the work of someone who is trying to break our programme open.’
Trice frowned. He set his glass down and took a long draw from the smouldering lho-stick. ‘Is that possible?’
‘I don’t believe so,’ Revoke replied. ‘There was one potential troublemaker, but you sent him to his doom yourself.’
‘I did. Tell Akunin to get over it and use a more reliable money-launderer. But keep an eye on what you turn up. I don’t want us to be caught out. Was that all?’
Revoke rose. ‘Yes, lord. Thank you.’
Trice stubbed out his stick. ‘Thank you. Back to the party, I suppose.’
Revoke held the door open for his master, and Trice stepped out of the suite. The waiting Gubernatorial servicemen closed around the first provost to lead him back down the processional to the banquet hall.
An eight-metre square skylight above them exploded in a blizzard of glass debris. Looking up in the storm of falling shards, reaching for their weapons, the servicemen got one brief glimpse of the attacker.
The paired rhyming swords took off two heads and ripped open the torsos of the other two.
Jader Trice turned as the Brass Thief landed behind him. Glass fragments were raining down from the window, and the ripped bodies of the four servicemen were still falling, blood sheeting from their awful wounds.
Crested helm bowed, its arms like gold-sleeved pistons, the Brass Thief struck its rhyming swords at Jader Trice.
Trice gawped in dread as the razor-edged blades swung at him simultaneously. But he was a quick-witted man. He had already activated the displacer field built into his amulet of office.
Jader Trice vanished in an oily smudge of air, and reappeared ten metres away down the processional. The incunabula’s blades sliced through empty space.
It paused, lifting its golden, crested helm, reacquired its quarry, and bounded forward.
Alarms were suddenly ringing. Half a dozen armed Magistratum officers spilled out into the long hallway and found themselves between the chief provost and the golden daemon.
The incunabula didn’t break stride. It had ploughed through them before they had even realised what was going on. Two more armoured heads were carved in half, then the daemon speared its blades into two chests, somersaulted, and brought the rhyming swords down in scything strokes that cleft the last two from their shoulders to their navels. One of the final pair opened fire, but it was just a nerve spasm. Hellgun shots whickered up the processional wall as the man collapsed.
‘Avaunt thee!’ Trice yelled at the oncoming monster, his hands forming a hexagrammic sign in its face.
The incunabula recoiled for a moment, then spun its blades and pounced at the chief provost.
Auto-fire of tremendous force blew it out of the air before it could reach him. It crashed sideways into the wall, crazed the stone facing, and hit the ground.
Before it could rise, a second blaze of auto-fire smacked into i
t, tumbling it away across the marble floor. By now, the music in the hall had broken off and hundreds of voices were rising in loud panic.
Toros Revoke strode towards the crumbled incunabula, keeping the hellgun he had snatched from one of the butchered house guards raised and aimed. It wasn’t dead. He could see that. It had soaked up a lot of punishment, but still it wasn’t dead. Revoke started firing again, ripping the creature backwards.
Then the powerclip was out, the weapon dead, and the Brass Thief was surging up at him, renewed, blades whirring. The first chop sheared the hellgun in half.
Revoke flicked aside like a dancer, turning a one-handed spring that took him clear. The Thief jerked its golden head round, cocked on one side, as if curious. It swung murderously for Revoke again, and again he evaded, this time with a rapid backwards handspring.
The Brass Thief made an odd, pulsing sound. It was laughing in delight to have found an opponent who could even begin to trouble it.
It engaged Revoke again. This time there was no holding back. The dark-suited man and the golden daemon turned and spun and dodged and struck and ducked and blocked, inhuman blurs, faster than the eye could follow.
Saul Keener shuddered slightly and groaned. The sound was disturbingly loud in the close silence of the lighthouse basement.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ Leyla Slade asked.
Orfeo Culzean didn’t reply. The lights of the fraters’ intently staring eyes filled the darkness around them.
‘Saul?’ Culzean said softly. ‘Let me look.’ He reached out his own right hand and touched its fingertips to the trigger orb. He pursed his lips as he began to share the psy-cast images.
‘I see the Thief,’ he said. ‘It’s found Trice. I see the chief provost, fleeing down a great hallway. But there’s someone in the way. A man. He’s preventing the Thief from reaching Trice.’
‘How?’ Leyla Slade asked.
‘He…’ Culzean began, uncertainly. ‘He is fighting with it. He seems to be unarmed, but he has closed with it. He… Oh, so fast! He’s matching it move for move, reading every cut it tries to make, evading. The speed, the skill is… phenomenal.’