The Temporal Void

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘Oh, Lady, no,’ Edeard groaned.

  ‘I can’t order you to deliver the money,’ Walsfol said.

  ‘You don’t have to, sir, I’ll take it of course. Er . . . do you have the money?’ he asked Julan. With that much coinage you could buy Rulan province and still have enough left over for a fleet of the fastest merchant vessels.

  ‘It can be found, yes.’

  ‘Where’s Owestorn?’

  ‘It’s a village out on the Iguru,’ Dinlay said. ‘Maybe two hours’ ride from South Gate.’

  A long way from any possible help, Edeard realized, and even I can’t longtalk that far. ‘The note was delivered after Mirnatha was taken,’ he said delicately. ‘Is there any proof that it came from those who hold her?’

  Julan held up his hand. His fingers clenched a blue ribbon with a long tuft of gold-brown hair. ‘This was attached.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Tears were running down the old man’s cheeks. ‘The ribbon was from her nightdress. I know it was. I kissed her goodnight. I kiss my Mirnatha every night. She is so precious—’ He began to cry, sobbing helplessly. Walsfol moved to comfort him. ‘We’ll have her back for you, my friend, be assured. Every effort will be made. The constabulary will not rest until she is in your arms again.’

  ‘She is but a child,’ Julan wailed. ‘Six years old! Who could do such a thing? Why?’ He stared wildly at Edeard. ‘Why have they done this? What is your part in this? Why you? Why can’t I go? She’s my baby.’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’ Somehow, just having so much anguish directed at him made Edeard feel shamed.

  ‘Of course you do,’ a thin voice snapped.

  Edeard’s farsight identified her being helped though the doorway behind him out on to the hortus, but he didn’t want to turn round.

  ‘It is your fault,’ Mistress Florrel insisted. ‘And yours alone. You caused this with your ridiculous crusade against the gangs. Why couldn’t you just leave things well alone? Nobody was being harmed. This city worked perfectly well before you arrived.’

  Edeard took a deep breath, trying to keep a shield around the growing anger in his mind. Mistress Florrel was in one of her usual archaic black dresses, wearing a tall hat that seemed to have purple fruit growing out of it. A man in fine aristocratic robes was holding her arm as she made her way slowly towards Edeard.

  ‘Lorin,’ Macsen murmured. ‘Julan’s younger brother.’

  Mistress Florrel stood directly in front of Edeard, her shoulders all hunched up as if in sorrow; but still managed to fix him with a merciless stare. ‘Well?’

  ‘Mistress Florrel.’

  ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’

  ‘I will bring the girl back and deal with those responsible.’

  ‘You will do no such thing. You will hand the money over as you’re told. Nothing more. I don’t want this made any worse by your wretched stupidity. Officers from the militia will take full charge of things from now on. Gentlemen of good character and family, that’s what we need. Not some country buffoon.’

  Edeard felt his teeth grinding together.

  Boyd put his hand on Edeard’s arm, smiling politely. ‘We will cooperate in any way we can, Mistress Florrel.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘I know you. Saria has taken a shine to you.’

  ‘Yes, Mistress.’

  ‘Ha,’ she dismissed him with a flutter of her hand. Her voice took on a tragic tone. ‘My dear, dear boy,’ her arms rose up in sympathetic greeting as she shuffled over to Julan. ‘How are you coping? This is all too, too terrible.’

  ‘She’ll come back,’ Julan managed to stammer.

  ‘We’ll make sure of it, brother,’ Lorin said effusively. ‘What has passed between us is nothing now. I am resolute in helping you endure this ordeal.’

  Julan bobbed his head. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

  ‘Come along,’ Mistress Florrel said. ‘Sit down my dear Julan. You family is here to comfort you now. That is what you need. You are no longer alone or surrounded by fools. Go and get him some tea,’ she told Walsfol imperiously. ‘Now my boy, have you enough money to pay the ransom? I will help if not. We simply must get her back to her home and loving family.’

  Walsfol inclined his head respectfully to Julan as he left the hortus, and signalled the squad to follow. They hurried after him.

  ‘Now what?’ Edeard asked.

  ‘I hate to concede the point, but Mistress Florrel is right in one respect,’ Walsfol said. ‘This is about you.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Edeard said miserably.

  ‘Stay here for now in case they get in touch again; and for the Lady’s sake keep out of her way,’ Walsfol said, pointing back through the horseshoe arch in considerable irritation. ‘I’m going to convene the station captains. Somebody out there must know where that poor girl is. One of them will talk.’

  Edeard was looking round the magnificent lounge with its clutter of fabulous artwork and gilded furniture. ‘How did they get up here?’ he asked in bewilderment. ‘And then how did they get out again, carrying Mirnatha? In the Lady’s name, there are hundreds of people in the mansion, and this is the tenth floor.’

  ‘A valid question,’ Walsfol said in a low voice. ‘The captain of the house guard here is called Homelt. Talk to him. The kidnappers must have had some inside help. Take a look round the girl’s room. There must be some clue, some evidence we can use to uncover the kidnapper.’

  ‘Do you think she’s still alive sir?’

  Walsfol took another guilty look out on to the pleasant hortus. ‘Very few kidnapping victims are ever returned. Just enough to make the families and merchants pay out in the hope that their loved one will be the exception.’

  ‘So she might still be alive?’

  ‘Yes. She might. We have to carry on in the belief that Mirnatha is going to be handed over safe and well in return for the money.’

  Edeard wasn’t much encouraged by his tone. They found Homelt waiting for them in the central corridor. He was in his fifties, thickset but still fit. The kidnapping had left him angry and distressed; it was taking up a lot of self-control just to clamp down on his emotions. He’d spent twenty years in the constables, he told them, serving out of Bellis station. ‘I was a good constable,’ he insisted. ‘Not like some of them, who were just in it for the pay-off. I did my duty and earned this post.’

  ‘So how did they get her?’ Edeard asked.

  For an instant it looked like Homelt might strike out. He stood quite still and took a long breath. ‘I don’t know. And that’s the Lady’s honest truth. It was the middle of the night. All our gates are locked and guarded. There are more guards on random patrol inside. There’s always someone on the stairs. I just don’t understand.’

  ‘What about new guards?’

  ‘Yesterday, I thought I could trust every one of them. Today I’m not sure of anything any more. We don’t take in just anyone, they have to be known and sponsored; and like you we’ve got a pretty good idea who’s in with the gangs.’

  ‘All right, so tell us what happened.’

  ‘The kid’s nursery maid raised the alarm really early on. The first thing we did was double the gate guards, then we searched the whole mansion, every room I promise you. Not just farsight, we physically inspected everywhere. Then that bloody ge-eagle flapped down on to the tenth-floor hortus. The Master . . . I’ve never seen him so broken. She was a lovely little thing, she really was. Nothing like you’d expect a family child, none of the airs half of them have.’

  ‘Can I see the room please?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Dinlay asked as Homelt led them along the corridors. Dispirited staff hung their heads as the squad walked past. Edeard couldn’t detect the faintest flash of guilt, they all shared the same numb horror. The three nursery maids were in their parlour next to the family rooms, all weeping openly. Even the ge-monkeys were subdued, caught up in the emotions saturating the mansion.

  ‘The same as you,’ Edear
d said. ‘Somebody with a concealment ability. There’s no other way.’

  ‘The gangs have that?’ Kanseen asked in alarm.

  ‘Not the street soldiers we normally deal with, but I found out the hard way that Ivarl has a considerable psychic power.’

  Mirnatha’s nursery room was the same size as the whole of Edeard’s maisonette. The walls were draped in pink tapestries depicting colourful fairies and nikasprites and birds. Dressers and chairs were lined in streamers of fluffy pink feathers. There were two big dolls houses whose elaborately dressed inhabitants were strewn everywhere. A wooden rocking horse stood in one corner. The wardrobes were full of sweet little frocks.

  Edeard found it painful just standing on the pink carpet looking round. He sniffed the air. ‘Do you smell that? Something tangy?’ Walking round, the smell was strongest by the bed with its twee lace canopy.

  ‘Chloroform,’ Homelt said. ‘That’s how they kept her quiet.’

  ‘What’s chloroform?’ Edeard asked. The squad was regarding him with an expression he was starting to tire of.

  ‘It’s a chemical,’ Dinlay said. ‘If it’s inhaled it puts you to sleep. Nearly every kidnapper uses it. You soak it into a cloth and hold it over your victim’s face.’

  ‘Chemicals?’ Edeard said. ‘They used chemicals on a six-year-old girl.’

  ‘Yes,’ Homelt was giving him a strange look.

  Edeard took a final look round the nursery and pushed the glass doors open. The section of the hortus directly outside was mainly laid with grass, with some ornate yew trees in urns standing along the silver-grey balustrade. He stood with his hands pressing down on the rail and looked down. Each of the terraces in the ziggurat was laid out below him, forming a series of horticultural steps down to the ground. Now spring had truly arrived, the plants formed a blaze of colour as their flowers opened to greet the warm days. Mirnatha’s hortus faced east. Away to his left, the Great Major Canal stretched out in a perfectly straight line to the Lyot sea in the distance. People were just starting to appear along its side, claiming their position in readiness for the festival. He let his farsight expand along it, past Forest Pool and Mid Pool down to First Pool, which formed the base of Myco. There was the House of Blue Petals, its interior impressively restored after the fire.

  Ivarl stood in front of his office’s oval window, stretching his farsight towards Edeard. Just for a second, Edeard was back in his room at the Ashwell Eggshaper Guild, searching the towers of the village gate for any sign of the guards, with the bandit chief watching him.

  ‘I wouldn’t have believed even you would stoop to this,’ Edeard informed his adversary coldly. ‘She’s six years old, for the Lady’s sake. Six!’

  ‘I’m sorry about the girl,’ Ivarl replied. ‘But it wasn’t me.’

  ‘You’re a bad liar.’

  ‘You and your activities have started to dismay some very important people in this city. And that stunt you pulled vanishing in the fire, that was impressive, even to me. They’re starting to work out what you are and what you’re capable of. I have a feeling myself that even you don’t know your full potential yet. Not that it matters, because that potential has already made them fearful. You won’t be allowed to reach it, they’ll make sure of that. That’s what today is about, not the girl. She’s just a means to an end, but you know that already don’t you?’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nor do I know who does. If you want her you’ll have to deliver the ransom.’

  ‘Is she still alive?’

  ‘I would imagine so. They need to entice you out of the city by yourself, away from any possible help. If she’s dead, they lose their advantage and their ability to manipulate you. Just an observation; from someone who has a lot more experience than you in such matters.’

  ‘Who? Who has done this?’

  ‘Oh, please, Waterwalker.’

  ‘I hold you responsible.’

  ‘Really? Is the truth too great a burden for you? This is your war, and you should have considered the consequences before you began it. It’s far too late now to act outraged when it goes against you. And you can’t back out now. You’re the only one who can save her.’

  ‘Will you negotiate for me? I’ll go to them in Owestorn if they let her go.’

  ‘You really are that stupidly noble, aren’t you. Dear Lady: youth and its virtue. This city will be doomed if you ever sit in the Mayor’s chair at Council.’

  ‘Will you talk to them?’

  ‘They don’t want a martyr, Waterwalker. Your death alone is not enough. It is how you die that is important.’

  ‘She’s only six years old!’

  ‘There is nobody left for me to talk to; my oldest and dearest friends no longer hear me. You should have chosen your opponent with more care. As you are to the constables and the shopkeepers and merchants, so I am to my people. And I’m losing the battle. It’s not just money you’ve cost me, it’s my authority; and out of the two that is going to prove deadly.’

  ‘If she dies, I swear you will too.’

  ‘You don’t really think either of us will see tomorrow’s dawn, do you?’ Ivarl shook his head and raised a hand in farewell before going back into his study.

  Edeard snarled in frustration, and slammed his hand down on the rail.

  ‘You’re the Waterwalker, aren’t you?’

  ‘Huh?’ He turned round to see Kristabel standing underneath a pergola entwined with a thick emerald vine. First impression, which he always felt dishonoured by, was big wild hair and stick insect legs. Equally shaming was the accompanying thought. She’s nothing like as pretty as Macsen made out.

  Kristabel was tall with a long thin face that with her current mood made her appear incredibly melancholic. A slender body was wrapped in a loose white cotton nightdress. Like her father, she’d been crying. Her hair, which was actually gold-brown like her sister’s, was threaded with lighter streaks. She’d been rubbing it or raking her hands through it, twining it into stringy strands which stuck out badly.

  Edeard remembered his manners and bowed. ‘Yes, Mistress, that’s me.’

  ‘Mistress!’ She smiled, which turned into a grimace as she fought back tears. ‘I’m mistress of nothing. Our family is a giant curse, a joke. How could the Lady allow this to happen?’

  ‘Please don’t give up hope. I will do everything I can to ensure your sister’s return.’

  ‘Everything you can. And what’s that?’ She winced. ‘I’m sorry. She’s my sister. I love her so much. Why didn’t they take me? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Edeard desperately wanted to put his arms round her, to offer some comfort. She was younger than him by a year or so, he decided. And her pain, swirling out of an unshielded mind, was humbling.

  ‘If you talk to them,’ she said. ‘The beasts who did this, offer them me instead. I want to take her place. Please. They can do whatever they like to me, I don’t care. I just want my Mirnatha home. Tell them that. Make them understand. I’m more valuable anyway, I’m the first daughter. I will be Mistress of this district.’

  ‘Your task, Mistress Kristabel, is to stay here and be strong for your father.’ He let conviction fill his voice. ‘I will bring your sister back to you.’

  ‘Words, that’s all. Promises, I have heard the like a thousand times from the lips of Masters. They are worth nothing.’

  ‘Let me try. I am not a Master. Do not give up hope yet. Please.’

  She wrung her hands together in anguish. ‘Do you really think there is hope?’

  ‘Always,’ he told her gravely.

  ‘Are you going to deliver the ransom?’

  ‘If that is what’s needed, then yes.’

  ‘I overheard our family guards. They say it’s a trap.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘You don’t even know Mirnatha.’

  ‘I don’t have to.’

  ‘You really are a good man, aren’t you? Is that why the gangs hate you so much?’

>   ‘I expect so.’

  She straightened up, smoothing her nightdress, then gave him a questing glance. ‘Did you really turn down Ranalee?’

  He bowed again. ‘Yes, Mistress.’

  ‘Don’t call me that.’ She smiled bravely, then darted forward.

  Edeard felt her lips upon his cheek. He was too surprised to pull back.

  ‘The Lady bless you, Waterwalker.’ She turned and scurried away down the hortus.

  He walked back into Mirnatha’s nursery with his thoughts in complete turmoil.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Dinlay asked.

  ‘Why are they doing this?’ Edeard asked, gazing round the room. He’d never actually seen so much pink in one place before.

  ‘To screw you over,’ Boyd said.

  ‘It was a rhetorical question. They want me out in Owestorn because they think if I’m all by myself they can kill me, right?’

  ‘It’s what I’d do,’ Macsen said, ignoring the exasperated glare Kanseen gave him. ‘They’ll have a small army out there. Even if we’re only ten minutes away, it’ll all be over by the time we can reach you. They’ll probably pick us off as well for good measure.’

  ‘But that turns us into martyrs like he said. That gives our cause strength. Possibly even enough strength to carry tomorrow’s vote.’

  ‘Who said?’ Dinlay queried.

  ‘That’s not so good then,’ Macsen admitted. ‘Mirnatha won’t be coming back either.’

  ‘That way you get the blame,’ Boyd said. ‘With no surviving witnesses they’ll arrange it to seem like you tried something reckless. The city will believe you’re responsible for her death; after all you had the ransom money. No criminal in their right mind would jeopardize that much coinage, especially after such a well-executed kidnap.’

  ‘And the exclusion warrants end along with us,’ Edeard concluded. ‘Clever.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Kanseen asked.

  Edeard turned to the small wooden bed, exquisitely crafted to resemble a swan, picturing a small sleeping child curled up daintily under the mauve sheets. ‘Find her.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Macsen said. ‘That would be good. Word of the kidnap is already spreading through the city. People are getting upset, you can sense that. Everyone is going to be looking for her; it’s a double sacrilege on this day. The gangs will have no sympathy on this. She’ll be hidden deep, that’s if she’s even still alive.’