An Unmer prince? It seemed odd to think of the Unmer having a kingdom of their own.
‘The first emperors tried for years to devise a physical prison to contain the Unmer,’ Briana said. ‘No psychics, no monitoring, just walls. They submerged their prisons under the sea. They used chains and cables to suspend them over pits.’ She paced the glass floor, watching the young man below. ‘Nothing worked.’
‘Wouldn’t they just fall through the ground at the bottom of the pit?’ Ianthe asked.
‘Oh, they can keep that up for a while,’ Briana replied. ‘Fifty feet into solid rock, a hundred feet, maybe more. But there’s a limit to the amount of matter they can destroy before they get tired. Sooner or later, the fall catches up with them.’ She stopped pacing. ‘No, that wasn’t the problem. The problem wasn’t what they destroyed, but what they made when you weren’t watching them.’
‘Trove,’ Ianthe said.
‘They’ll sit for days over a chunk of stone or scrap of metal, running their fingers over it, chanting and muttering to themselves. It’s almost as if they’re praying. And when they’ve finished, the piece of stone or metal isn’t a piece of stone or metal any more.’
‘So you watch them all the time?’
‘For their own protection,’ Briana said. ‘Otherwise we’d have to kill them.’ She tapped her heel against the glass floor again. ‘Isn’t that right, Marquetta?’
The young man continued to ignore her.
Briana’s lips narrowed, and all of a sudden Ianthe sensed something in the air around her – a reverberation like a musical note too low to hear. The young man in the room below cried out suddenly. He dropped his book, clamped both hands against his temples and rolled over in agony.
‘Their minds are like wine glasses,’ Briana said. ‘Easy to crack, easy to shatter.’
‘Stop it!’ Ianthe cried.
Briana exhaled, and the sensation in the air abruptly disappeared. Down below, the young man slumped forward and held his face in his hands. He was breathing heavily, his shoulders trembling slightly.
Briana turned to Ianthe and smiled. ‘Now let’s go find you one to practise on,’ she said.
* * *
CHAPTER 17
OVER AWL
Dear Lucille,
Let’s not be under any doubt that some trumped-up, officious envelope-steamer who has been awarded her pointless role within the Haurstaf due to a lack of any real psychical ability will have read this letter before it reached you. If said person realizes the truth of that statement, and if she is insecure enough to feel threatened by it, she will undoubtedly wield what little power she possesses by immediately utilizing her censoring pen. However, upon realizing her pettiness was predicted, she should then feel embarrassed enough to wish to destroy the entire letter.
But she won’t.
She won’t do this because I coated the envelope in a fast-acting anemone poison capable of being absorbed through the skin. Our envelope-steamer will be dead in minutes. I have arranged for the letter itself to be removed from her corpse by a highly paid accomplice, who will pass it on to you, my dear, in a plain blue, non-toxic envelope. If the envelope containing this missive was not blue, then something has gone fearfully wrong, and I apologize.
I miss you and Jontney terribly. Awl Palace is an empty shell without you here. There is an academy – in which our vicious little trove-hunter has been enrolled – and a modicum of artefacts for me to study. The sisters float around in their robes as aimlessly as whiffs of cloud, soaking up gossip from the ends of the world. They have no interest the greater mysteries of life, but, like the majority of their sex, are content to twitter vacuously among themselves. It’s a blessing I cannot hear telepathic conversation, for every spoken conversation I have overheard eventually leans towards the subject of hair.
Briana Marks is different. She is cruelly unsubtle, but clever, and finds deep enjoyment in the power games between her own organization and the empire. A woman like her expects to find treachery in every shadow. Sadly, because of her distrust I have failed to impress upon her the importance of my work.
Nevertheless, I believe I have achieved a major breakthrough in my understanding of the Unmer’s source of power. If I cannot convince Sister Marks of the importance of this, I must leave at once for Losoto to gain an audience with Emperor Hu. Be ready, Lucille. I will soon come for you both.
Maskelyne was pacing his room when someone slid a piece of folded paper under the door. He raced over and snatched it up. He had been expecting a reply from Lucille, but this note startled him. It was a coded message from his contact.
32/3/44/51/163/33/29/29/32/19/32/3/67/8/56/9/163/3/7/80/17/18/3/89/18/76/33/88/1/50/127/43/2/16/127/22/21/70/246/70/13/3/18/33/9/29/79/11/263/99/3/32/101/106/61/119/32/12/44/3/57
Maskelyne cursed. His contact had repeated several of the numbers, which meant that any fool might decipher the message without the pass. How many times did he have to tell the man? Even the staff who delivered the messages might easily unravel such an obvious formula. He went over to the bookshelf and pulled out a volume of Clarke’s Almanac, then sat down, turned to page 412 and began counting through the script to find the letters corresponding to each number. A short while later, he had his answer.
Ianthe officially Haurstaf. They’re going to execute you. Awaiting signal.
Maskelyne crumpled up the paper and popped it in his mouth. While he chewed, he decided it was probably a good idea to leave sooner rather than later.
He went out onto the terrace, where his scattered trove gleamed in the bronze evening light among potted plants and stone garden furniture. Reefs of golden cloud filled the western sky behind the mountains. Maskelyne leaned on the balustrade and looked out across the valley. Smoke rose from a dozen military encampments located in cleared areas of forest below the palace. Several artillery emplacements occupied strategic ridges and hilltops, their steel barrels trained on the heavens. A foot patrol was marching south-east along the banks of the Irya towards Port Awl. He filled his lungs with cool mountain air, so sharp with the antiseptic scent of pine, and he waited for the sun to set.
Mountainous shadows crept across the valley floor. A few lights winked on in the military bases, and fires flickered between the trees. The sky grew darker. Maskelyne watched the first stars appear overhead. Cloud cover would have been better, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He licked his finger and held it up to test the direction of the breeze. The evenings frequently brought cool air down from the mountains towards Port Awl and the sea, and he was relieved to find such conditions tonight. He picked up the gem lantern from the table he used as a workbench, opened the shutter so that its light spilled out and went back inside.
From under his bed, he took out a brown paper parcel and tore it open to reveal a Guild soldier’s uniform and a specially adapted leather harness. Maskelyne stripped, then donned the uniform. The heavy cotton was lined with wool and fitted him snugly. Warm enough, he supposed. Then he secured the harness over the jacket, tightening its padded straps around his waist and under his arms. Its many pockets had originally been used to hold ammunition, but Maskelyne’s contact had had these enlarged and reinforced with wire. A further addition had been the ring of brass hooks around the base, each of which supported a small burlap sack full of sand.
Finally dressed, he checked all of the straps a second time. The harness was heavy and cumbersome, and the weight of the sandbags put an uncomfortable strain on his shoulders. He wandered into the bathroom and set the gem lantern on top of the cistern. He lowered the commode seat and stood on top of it. From here he could reach the eight chariot ballast spheres resting upon the ceiling. One by one, Maskelyne took them down and fed them int
o the pockets on his harness, securing each firmly with a brass buckle. The harness began to strain upwards against his chest, wanting to rise, but his weight kept him grounded. When the last sphere was in place, he stepped off the commode.
He drifted slowly down the floor.
No good. He had to shed some weight.
He raised the commode seat again and unbuttoned his fly. A few moments later, his head touched the ceiling. He buttoned himself up again, then grabbed the gem lantern. Its extra weight was just enough to bring him back to earth. By traversing the bathroom in a series of slow leaps, and by pushing himself along the walls, he made his way back through the doorway and into the bedroom. At the door to the terrace, he stopped and reached inside the gem lantern, making a small adjustment to the feedback mechanism he had fitted inside. The light began to grow brighter immediately. Quickly, he set down the lantern and pushed himself through the terrace doorway. His boots scraped the flagstones for an instant, but then he was rising swiftly into the star-encrusted sky. Up past the palace pinnacles he soared, watching the terrace drop away below him. The breeze carried him southeast, out over the forest towards the army encampments and the coast. The palace dwindled behind him, its windows all glimmering like the facets of a jewel.
But the light from his bedroom already outshone all others, and was growing brighter still.
Maskelyne drifted out across the valley, enjoying the cold, pine-scented air. Acres of dense woodland swept by under his feet. To the east he could see the mercurial ribbon of the Irya gleaming faintly among patchwork fields, with the dark mass of the mountains towering behind. His flight path would take him directly over a Guild army camp, but that couldn’t be helped. He had to hope that any spotters would have their telescopes fixed on the palace by now.
The light from his gem lantern was blazing like a small white sun. Even from this distance he found it difficult to look at directly. The feedback mechanism couldn’t last much longer. Maskelyne knew it had to fail, and fail soon.
Any moment now . . .
The light flickered. And then a fireball bloomed in the heart of the palace. A heartbeat later, the sound of the concussion reached Maskelyne: a sharp crack, followed by a prolonged rumble. The blast wave punched through the air around him, pushing him onwards with a noticeable jolt. A cry came from one of the military camps down below, followed moments later by the rising-falling cycle of an attack siren. Maskelyne drifted onwards, out into the night, a single tiny mote among billions of stars.
The higher he rose, the colder and thinner the air became. It soon felt like ice in his lungs. The harness was starting to chaff and pinch under his shoulders. He blew into his hands and rubbed them constantly to try to keep the blood moving through his veins. His lips and face already felt completely numb. After a while, he unbuckled one of his harness pockets and released a chariot stone, which duly shot up and away to be lost forever in the heavens above. Maskelyne wondered how many there were, floating up there in the vacuum between worlds. He began to descend again, more rapidly than he would have liked, so he opened one of the sandbags and scooped out handfuls of ballast until his descent slowed.
On he drifted, over fields and hedgerows and hayricks, floating through the darkness like some strange wandering sorcerer. He passed over a farmhouse with bright windows spilling firelight across an empty yard. No one was around to notice him. He crossed the River Irya and followed a country lane for a short while, before the breeze carried him back out over the water and the farmland beyond. At one point he sailed above a clump of woodland, his boots skimming the tops of the trees, while he frantically bailed out more sand.
Eventually, he came within half a mile of the Crossing Inn, where the palace road crossed the river. The breeze was blowing him west, further away from the road and his arranged meeting place, so Maskelyne decided to land. He released another chariot sphere, controlling his quickening descent by dropping more sand.
He landed easily in a grassy field several yards behind the road, whereupon he rubbed his hands and set off for the inn.
His contact was waiting for him in a corner of the bar. Firelight played across the roughcast walls. A few long, dusty tables lined the walls, but the communal benches were all empty at this late hour. Even the innkeeper had retired for the night, leaving his single guest to pour his own mead. He looked up when Maskelyne entered, grinned and then shoved a clay goblet across the table towards him.
‘Cold outside?’ he asked.
‘Good to see you, Howlish,’ Maskelyne said, rubbing his hands fiercely. ‘Be a good fellow and put some more wood on that fire.’
The captain leaned over and pitched a few logs onto the fire. Flames snapped and crackled.
Maskelyne joined him at the corner table. ‘You’ve seen my wife?’
‘Recovering well, by all accounts.’
‘And Jontney?’
‘Fine, fine. They’re expecting us before dawn.’
Maskelyne took a sip of mead and leaned back in his chair. ‘I was thinking we might postpone our escape.’
Captain Howlish looked at him.
‘For a few days, at least,’ Maskelyne added.
The other man took a long draught of mead, then set down his goblet. ‘It’s your money, Maskelyne, but I think you’re making a mistake. News travels fast here. There are a lot of psychics on this island.’
‘Those psychics have taken something that belongs to me,’ Maskelyne said. ‘A man in my position simply can’t allow thefts like that to go unpunished. It’s a matter of my own survival.’
‘They’re not going to give you the girl back.’
‘No,’ Maskelyne admitted. ‘I don’t expect they will.’ He took out a scrap of folded paper from his uniform jacket pocket and handed it to the captain. ‘I wonder if you could collect some more items for me.’
Howlish unfolded the paper and read through it. ‘The rifles are easy,’ he said. ‘Cutting tools, brine gas, ichusae if you have the money. No problem.’ But then he shook his head. ‘Forget void flies. I didn’t even know there were any left in the world until you brought out that damned blunderbuss.’ He grunted. ‘And what’s with all these lanterns? Are you planning a war or a party?’
‘A little bit of both.’
‘It would easier to explain this without a pistol pointed at my head,’ Herian said.
Granger kept the pistol aimed at the old man. It was the same weapon Herian had tried to use on him earlier and, as far as he could tell, the only thing in this godforsaken trap he could be sure didn’t have a nasty surprise in store for an unwary handler.
They were standing beside the shattered pedestal in the transmitting station’s main chamber. It was reassuringly gloomy in here without the crystal’s radiance, however most of the trove around him now appeared to be defunct. Herian had assured him it wasn’t.
The old man threw up his hands. Then he wandered over to the nearest pile of trove and sat down. ‘There’s a story about a human who once made deal with the Unmer,’ he said. ‘He was a slave, of no real value to anyone, but he proposed something that piqued the interest of the greatest entropic sorcerer of the age. You see, the slave thought he had devised a method by which he might live forever.’
Granger listened.
‘He imagined that if he could trap his reflection between two mirrors,’ Herian went on, ‘then it would remain there indefinitely. And so some part of him would always be preserved.’ He shifted uncomfortably, frowned and moved some shiny piece of trove out from under him. ‘However, although he could place two mirrors so that they faced each other,’ he said, ‘the slave could never duck out from between them quickly enough to leave his reflection behind.’ H
e looked up at Granger. ‘But the sorcerer decided that if he could slow down light enough, the reflection might remain. He didn’t care about the slave, of course, only the problem he presented.’
Granger sat down nearby. He balanced the pistol on his knee.
‘So the sorcerer tried everything to slow down light. He filled the space between the mirrors with all sorts of gases, liquids and prisms. Nothing worked. And then he had an idea. He didn’t have to slow down light. All he had to do was increase the distance between the mirrors. If the light from the slave’s face took long enough to reach the mirror and rebound, the slave need not even be there when the reflected light returned. The hard part would be to create two perfect mirrors, and place them far enough apart.
‘After many years of labour he finally created the mirrors. But he knew that the distance he required between them would be phenomenal. There wasn’t enough space in all of Anea to place the mirrors far enough apart. So he put the slave and the mirrors in a chariot. And then he flew up into the void beyond the earth.
‘The sorcerer had constructed a suit to supply him with all the air and food and water he’d ever need, and to keep him warm during his journey across the freezing wastes. The slave didn’t have a suit, of course, and died quickly, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t actually have to be alive to cast his reflection. The sorcerer set one mirror adrift in the void, and then he took the slave’s body and the other mirror away with him deep into the unknown.’ Herian shrugged. ‘And nobody ever saw him or heard from him again.’
Granger grunted. ‘Is there a point to all this?’
‘The point is,’ Herian said, ‘don’t get involved with things you don’t understand. The artefacts you call trove were designed to study different facets of the cosmos around us. You are no different from the slave. You cannot wield any these weapons safely unless you understand the forces at work.’
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