Children of Artifice

by Danie Ware

  Praise for Children of Artifice

  "Danie does it again: a delicious tale that I didn't want to put down. All the people, all the detail, all the story – and none of the drag. A one-sitting read of pure joy." – David Devereux

  "Slippery, smart and sexy: an heady alchemical brew of high politics and low magic that's strong enough to lay anyone low." – Simon Morden

  “A skilful alchemy of raw emotion, renegade sensuality and emboldened fantasy. Ware tears out her readers’ hearts and dips them in molten gold, making every one of us a willing child of Artifice.” – Kim Lakin-Smith

  Children of Artifice has a fantastic story, one I would recommend to readers of any genre and age. It conjures beautiful imagery and puts you in a state of living dream, taking you on an emotional journey which stays with you. I am looking forward to the sequel. – Tej Turner

  CHILDREN OF ARTIFICE

  Danie Ware

  www.foxspirit.co.uk

  Children of Artifice copyright © 2018 Danie Ware

  Cover Art by Sarah Anne Langton

  https://www.secretarcticbase.com/

  Conversion by handebooks.co.uk

  ISBN: 978-1-910462-20-1

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Fox Spirit Original

  Fox Spirit Books

  www.foxspirit.co.uk

  adele@foxspirit.co.uk

  For Jon,

  for strength through the darkest of times

  PROLOGUE

  The man ran.

  A low, red sunset glared in his eyes, as sullen as exhaustion. The dust in the wind stung his skin.

  But he ran. He’d always done this, always stopped the end before it started. As he turned the narrow corners, straining now for every breath, the long evening shadows crept slowly towards him, like fingers reaching for his heart.

  He may be too late.

  Behind him sprawled the poorer part of the city, a maze of crumbling walls and tight alleyways, some of it derelict, much of it underlain by the rusting metal stillness of the tram-tracks. Ahead, there lay the tidier, tessellated roofs of the merchants’ homes and warehouses, and, glimpsed in flashes between, the flat, metallic glint of the river.

  But these were not what filled his vision.

  He turned a corner and there it was, huge against the hell-tinged sky: the twisting, spiral rise of the city’s centre. Long curves of steps traced about its sides, past pillars and archways, levels and layers, roofs and spires; red light gleamed from the windows, and glinted from the gargoyles wrought deep into the stone. This was the city’s living, breathing heart, crafted by its Builders, ten thousand years before. And now, its shadow crawled towards him, across the spread of streets below.

  The man still ran.

  He skidded onwards, through a knot of alleyways and past the backstreet shrines, their candles flat and flickering. Some bore offerings to the greatest of the hellspirits – Kei of the sky and Vei of the water – but he kept running, ducking under crumbling stone arches, and past the shuttered and rattling doors.

  Another corner, and he could hear it.

  Singing. Shouting. Drunken, youthful laughter, thrown careless and skyward. As the red sun sank to the lip of the surrounding crater, he knew that he’d found it.

  There.

  His instincts had not failed him. Under a mounting storm that had the population quailing, this was exactly what he’d come to stop…

  The end of the world.

  It was an old tale, and one he knew well. A tale of a red sun, bloated and weary. A tale of a great city, sealed in a huge caldera. A tale of metallurgical equations, and of raucous teens, dancing in the dirt.

  He could see them, cavorting reckless by their gusting, flattened flames. Above them, the rusting metal of the city’s water clock stood like a guardian, all rotted with age and spray. Its wheel still turned, but the little figures that had once whirred from their lairs and tapped at each other with tiny, curved swords were creaking and soundless now; their jaws flapping like skulls.

  Everything rattled as the wind grew higher. The birds tumbled like refuse.

  The kids danced on, oblivious. The equations were unknown to them, a joke; they had no idea what they’d done. But he knew, he could feel it: that thin, bright thread of re-awakened consciousness.

  And he knew it – ah – so well--

  The crash of roof tiles startled him. Provoked and exultant, the kids laughed at the noise, at the storm, at the sheer violence of it. They were daring, drinking, jumping…

  Every one of them would die before the figures on the clock fought again.

  The man leapt at them. They turned, angry, demanding to know what the hells he was doing…

  But he shoved through them, blurring their equations with his boot. The fire gusted, flared at him like something living. Coughing at the sudden roar of heat, he raised a hand to shield his eyes…

  The flames detonated, searing his skin.

  He stumbled back, his hair smoking. The spray from the clock made his burned clothing steam; he could hear screaming. The kids were scattering now, panicked. One collapsed beside him, blood gouting from her mouth. Her companion fell to his knees, keening thinly, his hands wrapped round his head.

  There was laughter, a breath in the wind. It said, ‘Not this time.’

  Another kid stumbled past him, sobbing.

  He answered, ‘This time is no different.’ His voice was soft, grey. ‘I’ll always be here, and I’ll always stop you.’

  The kids were charred and dead, twisted in suffering. Their flesh blackened the stone. The surrounding roofs were rattling madly now, as if they housed a thousand panicked creatures all trying to escape. The clock creaked in protest.

  A touch caressed his cheek. Without warning, the fire was gone.

  The air was cold.

  The voice said, again, ‘Not this time.’ In the sudden darkness, the words were like music. ‘This time, you’re too late.’ Laughter, pieces of it falling round him, splintering into different voices and angles – he spun, but he couldn’t keep track of them. ‘Sooner or later, you knew I’d find a way.’

  They tangled him like wire, hurting.

  The voices said, ‘Enjoy the storm.’

  He said, ‘I’ll stop you—’

  ‘You’ll have to find me first…’ the laughter was fading ‘…my love.’

  The man stood alone, surrounded by the dead, and looking up at the raging sky.

  PART ONE:

  FAMILY

  CHAPTER ONE: HANGOVER

  Caphen Talmar had a hangover.

  No, not a hangover, a monster. A hellspirit. A righteously-earned miner’s hammering, a rock-rubble-rumble in the back of his skull that prevented him lifting his head. He was limp-limbed, parched-mouthed, and felt like he’d been hit with a shovel.

  He groaned.

  Recollection was just too much effort. Blindly, he groped for the timeglass that would tell him how late he’d slept.

  But his hand found nothing familiar. The table beside him was all wrong – wrong surface, wrong shapes. Debris scattered and tumbled at his touch; the clatter was tremendous. With a wince, he untangled himself, and sat up.

  And had no bloody idea where he was.

  What?

  Blinking, he ground his gaze into focus.

  The room was dim and small and grotty, wooden walls and flooring that had seen better days. A single, shuttered window held the red sun at bay, though an errant stain filtered past it, blurring on the opposite wall. A shrine in th
e corner offered a clumsy triptych of images – Kei and Vei, dragon-spirits all entwined, and the city held between them like a pearl. Its offering bowl was jammed with incense sticks and the smoked ends of last night’s reeds.

  Empty bottles were scattered at it base.

  He stared at them, letting the memories bob like flotsam – his father’s anger, the slamming door. It was the same old story – the disappointments, the accusations…

  Bastard.

  And he’d stamped out of the house, again; left his family’s cold shoulder for the warm embrace of the wharf. And, again, he’d woken naked and hungover, his clothing strewn gleefully across the room…

  Another memory: hot breath on his ear, the taste of salty skin. A surge of need, the heat of hands and body. And a mouth that whispered want and hunger, saying his name as he finally shuddered to orgasm…

  The blankets were cold, his companion gone. Reflexively, Caph checked for purse and jewellery, then, irritated, threw the whole thing aside. He needed to piss, and thoughts like that weren’t helping.

  Groaning, he turned to sit on the edge of the bed.

  He knew this all too well, and the comedown was a bitch.

  It had started with defiance, with the need to lose himself. He’d stamped down the long steps, away from the upper city and towards its antithesis – the sprawl of the working wharf.

  The place where his father couldn’t follow.

  He was house Caphen, named family and elite – and he hated it. He hated the wealth and the property management; he hated the paperwork and the mercantile guilds. Caphen weren’t family Elect, not part of the rulers of the city, but even so, their name was prominent and it came with expectations, with stuffed shirts and mannered fakery – and with a lack of permission to be out this far, wandering the walkways all guardless and alone.

  But decorum be damned, Caph liked the wharf – the scent and bustle of harbour and market, the slow, easy slosh of the caldera’s waters. Here, he could lose his name and walk free. He could buy a fish roll and sit in the sun, looking out at the crater’s distant walls, all shaded to fantastic patterns and dusted with white at their peaks.

  Sometimes, he wondered what was out there. The city’s Builders, dead ten thousand years, had done more than just conjure the stone - for reasons lost to legend, they’d sealed the crater behind them. The Outside was forbidden, taboo, and that superstition still lingered – compressed by the weight of years into the belief that there was simply nothing out there.

  Besides, the city had everything it needed. Its gaze had turned inward – to metal, to stone, and to money.

  Caph shook the crumbs from his roll-wrapper, and watched the sea birds peck round his long boots. The Builders were semi-mythical, steeped in forgotten symbols; the population of the city was descended from their servants, the retainers they’d sealed in with them to answer to their every need.

  And those retainers had thrived. They’d swiftly grown past the skills of their masters – and past the support of the crater’s arable land.

  He remembered from his history classes: the wharf had been built from need and panic, and it had saved the city’s life. Constantly expanded and repaired, it now stretched fully halfway round the shoreline, battered and ragged and dotted with fishing ports, channelled with waterways and sagging with shantytowns.

  But still, he liked it here – liked its ribald and rickety humour, its noise and clutter. And, as the sunlight faded and the gloom of the crater’s edge swelled to swallow the water, he pulled himself from the view and went in search of wine.

  Slowly, the red sky darkened to lavender, and the lamps gleamed warmly in the dusk. The blue moon rose, a sliver like a promise. The dockers and loaders, their shifts over, put flame to swaying strings of lanterns, and settled in groups to drink and brag. Clouds of midges rose amongst them, occasionally flashing to incendiary doom.

  Caph drifted to a pause, watching them.

  And as the people eddied and settled, a grinning woman upended a heavy, kelp-woven basket and gestured for him to sit. Around her, her circle was all talk and exhaled smoke, the reeds sweet and euphoric. Cheap glass bottles were passed from hand to hand. Some of the workers bore spirits, or cargo from their day – they threw it all down with noise and boasting. Caph had coin – silver, many-edged ripans bearing the nine-pillared mark of City Hall – and he threw a handful onto the planking between his feet.

  The woman next to him grinned. She had wrought-metal dice, each four-sided and rusted with age; she blew on them, rattled them, threw them into the centre of the circle.

  The dice bore metallurgical glyphs, traditional symbols of stone and metal, and, out here, only their most basic principles were remembered. But his education knew them well, and, as the woman picked them up and threw them again, he dared to enter the clamour of bets. Gestures surrounded him, sharp and demanding. He liked the energy of it.

  Stuff decorum, and stuff all the bloody rules.

  The dice bore symbols that made simple equations – alloys and reactions. The gamblers round him taunted and swore. He laughed with them, getting caught up in their anticipation. The woman passed him her bottle. He swigged, coughed, grimaced, passed it back. The surrounding hilarity lifted him like a buoy.

  The next man along rattled the dice, daring. As the bets were placed, he blew on them and threw them down. The equations were cumulative – the patterns got harder and more unlikely with each throw made. But Caph’s pulse was racing – the smoke and the booze were making him grin like a knife. He shed his jacket; his skin tingled with sweat. As the dice passed sunwards round the circle, he bet more, and harder, vying now against the older and wilier members of the group, the gap-toothed men and women who’d been down here years and who’d learned this game by long experience.

  He won, and won again. The combinations grew more intricate. He still won. Voices about him caught with tension. Cautious, he made a choice to lose a round. He carried a short blade, but it was a poor tool for fencing and slow wits were a fool’s game. As the rolls came back round towards him, though, he was still thrilling with expectation. He was up on his feet and cheering with the others, waiting for the one that’d--

  He was being watched.

  The gaze wasn’t threatening, it was curious, appreciative. The shadows were deeper now, and through the lamplit curls of soft smoke, he saw a young man at the outer edge of the circle, watching him with a faint half-smile. He was a typical dockworker, dark and lean and sinew-strong, his garments plain, his arms and shoulders bare. His skin was inked from wrist to neckline, all dragons and coiling, and a chain round his throat carried a simple Vei ward, a prayer for the mercy of the water. Leaning back on one elbow, he caught Caph looking and his smile deepened. He raised his bottle in greeting.

  Caph caught his breath. He stared for a moment, then dropped his gaze, his pulse roaring in his ears. He was suddenly, acutely aware of how much he must stand out – all spoiled rich boy – but, hells, he didn’t care! No-one judged him here, no-one told him who he had to be, what he had to do. His awareness of the man sharpened to almost painful, but it was good, he liked it.

  Agitated, he couldn’t sit down. He gave up his caution and won the next round with a rush of pure energy, an exaltation that carried him forwards into recklessness. Stuff going home, stuff every promise he’d made, all of it. Tonight, he was on a roll, and he was damned well going to enjoy himself.

  The man continued to watch him, still smiling.

  Next to Caph, the woman who’d invited him to sit got up. She was skint, no wealth remaining. Several of the others, too. As the circle began to shift and change, Caph caught the man’s gaze. With a certain tight anticipation, he gestured to the basket beside him.

  The man took a swig from the bottle, and came to sit.

  He said, ‘You play very well.’

  His voice was soft and dark, had the slight, ro
ugh accent of the wharfside. Close up, Caph could see that he was slightly older than his wire-lean frame suggested and that his eyes were blue – brilliant blue, striking, lightning blue. They dominated his face, marking him apart from the dockworkers around him – and they caught Caph like an angler’s lights.

  ‘Thank you.’ He realised he was staring, shook himself. ‘It’s... ah... not really that difficult. As the rolls get more numerous, the possibilities of a successful combination actually go down, not up. You have to pick the most likely path...’ Then, realising he sounded ridiculous, he apologised – that wasn’t how he’d meant that to come out.

  Hells, why was he suddenly nervous?

  ‘Aden,’ the man said, by way of greeting. He studied Caph thoughtfully, still with that curious, intrigued smile. ‘You’re a scholar?’

  His voice hinted at a question – the one that wondered what the hells he was doing here.

  Caph shrugged and picked up the dice. He folded them in long fingers. Their cold metal bit his skin. ‘Not anymore.’

  Aden raised an eyebrow at him, still smiling. Caph blew on the dice, and threw them into the circle.

  Back in the dosshouse, still sat on the bed, Caph looked down at his hands – artist’s hands, musician’s hands, his fingers twisted where they’d been broken several years before.

  He was still struggling, fighting though that complex haze of hangover and guilt and lingering thrill. Dark hair, tanned skin. Strong body, all lean, hard muscle. It made his stomach tighten to think about it. But hells, apart from those eyes, Aden could’ve been any dockworker this side of the crater. He’d given no family name – Caph hadn’t expected one, and he hadn’t given his own.

  But...

  He exhaled, dismissing the rest of the thought, and lunged to retrieve his shirt. As he rummaged, it took him a moment to realise he was looking for the note, for the keepsake, for the parting request to meet him at the same place...