The Temporal Void

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘It will be my pleasure to allow Julan to introduce it. So, are you ready?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Well, I am. You and Kristabel will make a fine couple. And don’t repeat this, but it never hurts to shake things up a bit. If you ask me the Grand Families are becoming somewhat jaded these days. Someone like you in their ranks is just what they need.’

  *

  Edeard slid smoothly through the floor of the cell to find Argian pacing round and round the room. The man was getting jittery. He was starting to talk to himself. It had started with little mutters on the morning of the third day, progressing to full sentences. The cell walls relayed both the images and the sound to Edeard. It wasn’t very revealing.

  ‘Well, we knew it wasn’t going to be simple.’

  ‘That much support, it’s difficult to break.’

  ‘Should we actually let him do it?’

  ‘If he marries her, he might pull back. Lorin’s said before that he’s besotted. Pity Ranalee didn’t succeed, that would have been the answer to everything. Stupid bitch.’

  As he was eating his egg sandwiches for lunch: ‘Poison. Not a fast one, something that would take weeks. Months. Yes, yes. Months. No one would suspect then.’

  ‘Faster, faster. The election might be the killer. Riots will make them think twice. Kristabel. It all rests on Kristabel. She’s young. Foolish. But she understands family. She might. She might.’

  ‘We’re right. We’re right, though. Yes, we are. His blood will pass to all of us.’

  ‘How does he do it? How?’

  Argian was gnawing on his thumb as Edeard emerged. He stopped immediately, shoving his hand behind his back with a guilty expression.

  ‘Your clothes are getting a little creased,’ Edeard said pleasantly. ‘I thought you might like some clean ones.’ He held out the bundle of neatly folded shirts and socks he’d brought, with a jar of soap flakes and a flannel on top.

  ‘Thank—’ Argian broke off, staring at them.

  ‘Found them in your room,’ Edeard said.

  Argian made a polite bow of defeat. ‘Very clever.’

  ‘Not really, Argian. I’m afraid it was Owain himself who gave me your name. Would you believe, you’re the only official suspect for the theft of special pistols from the Weapons Guild?’

  ‘Owain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. They’ve thrown you to the fastfoxes. I visited your mother. She’s quite distressed by the allegations. I told her I thought you’d left the city. Best not to give her too much hope when it comes to ever seeing you again.’

  ‘I find all this highly dubious.’

  ‘Really, I thought they were being quite clever. Your friends obviously know I’m holding you, so they simply make sure I can charge you with a crime that involves the death of a constable. And there we are: suddenly you’re no longer a problem. Was that part of the agreement when you signed up? Sacrifice yourself if you get caught? But then I don’t suppose your kind ever did get caught before I came along, did you?’

  Argian sat on the side of the bed, and gave Edeard a brittle grin. ‘I’m not telling you anything.’

  ‘You know, I’d made journeyman by the time I was seventeen,’ Edeard said. ‘You’re what? Forty-eight isn’t it? And still only a journeyman. No wonder you had to steal those pistols from a vault. I’d hate to use one you’d made.’

  ‘I believe we’ve already established that provoking me doesn’t work.’

  ‘Yes. Actually, I don’t think you ever were a journeyman, not really. I think it’s just a tenure that gives you a facade of respectability.’

  ‘Oh, well done. You actually worked something out for yourself. Or did your friend Macsen the bastard have to explain it to you?’

  ‘Provoking me is not a good idea. I don’t have your restraint.’

  Argian held his hands wide. ‘Do your worst. Oh yes, this is your worst, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not by any means. But I’m not in any rush.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on that, Waterwalker.’

  ‘Care to elaborate?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see,’ Edeard sighed. ‘Well, I can’t stay, I have to get ready for my engagement party. And Kristabel needs calming down.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There was one Master who didn’t sign the Consent bill.’

  ‘Bise,’ Argian said quickly.

  ‘Yes. Apparently he hates me enough to commit the sin of bad form.’

  ‘Shocking.’

  ‘Well, it’s not me he has to worry about. As I’ve discovered today, Honious has no fury like a woman upset during her wedding arrangements.’

  ‘Poor Bise.’

  ‘I’m not sure when I’ll be back. We have a lot of parties to attend.’

  Argian’s self-control faltered. He gave Edeard a disconcerted look. ‘You’re really going to leave me in here?’

  ‘Not quite. This isn’t working as well as I’d hoped. And I need it to work. I have to know exactly who I’m up against. You’re the key to that.’

  Just for a moment a flicker of hope crossed Argian’s face. Then Edeard dropped away through the floor.

  ‘Lady damn you!’ Argian shouted after him. His clenched fists rose to the ceiling. He froze as a tiny motion caught his eye. The walls were moving. ‘No,’ he breathed. The cell was shrinking. He put his hands against the nearest wall, and started to push, adding his third hand to his efforts. ‘No.’ There was nothing he could do to prevent the inexorable motion. ‘No! No, no. Stop it.’ He realized the ceiling was lowering as well.

  ‘NOOO!’

  *

  Makkathran’s opera house formed the heart of Lillylight district. A vast palatial sprawl which merged into the Manor of Octaves, where the Guild of Musicians was housed. When humans first moved into Makkathran they’d found a vast indoor amphitheatre, whose giant tiered ledges had a curvature impossible for humans to sit on comfortably. The lower half of the encircling wall comprised huge mullion windows of rectilinear tracery, and unusually for the city their crystal was coloured, sending out great rainbow beams to intersect the central stage. Above that, a thousand long white and violet stalactites hung from the domed ceiling, as if it was the inside of some massive geode. As night fell, the spires fluoresced with the city’s ubiquitous orange light.

  Grand Families had long ago staked their claim on various sections of the tiered ledges, and commissioned carpenters to construct elaborate benches. Over time, the benches had been walled off with carved panelling, producing snug private boxes.

  They also steadily expanded back over the ledges, as Edeard discovered when he had to worm his way behind the boxes that cluttered the second tier to reach the Culverit family enclave. Kristabel, whose magenta satin gown had a wide flaring skirt, struggled to keep the obligatory smile on her face as she followed him along.

  ‘I always forget how cramped it is back here,’ she complained.

  ‘We could always walk along the top of the boxes,’ Edeard said cheerfully.

  Her smile vanished. He kept quiet until they reached the Culverit box.

  Inside, it was decorated in velvet and lace, with eight luxurious leather-cushioned chairs along the front. Three servants were already there, preparing wine and fruit in their small panelled-off section at the back. One of them took Kristabel’s silk wool wrap. Edeard gave him his cloak, very self-conscious of the gilded turquoise jacket and smoke-grey trousers he was wearing. Then he realized that no one could actually see into the box, and relaxed.

  ‘That’s better,’ Kristabel declared, as she settled in the central chair with a relieved sigh.

  Edeard sat next to her. It was like being on a throne, with an excellent view of the flat circular stage across the top of the boxes on the ledge below. Seclusion hazes protected several boxes as their occupants gossiped before the show began, or entertained people they shouldn’t. When he peered over
the little balcony rail, Edeard saw the ancient Master of Cobara with his teenage mistress in tow, shuffling along the gap directly underneath.

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ Kristabel said.

  ‘What?’ an injured Edeard asked.

  ‘Ever do that to me,’ she responded, her index finger lined up on the Master’s bad wig.

  He leant over to kiss her, and realized the chairs were actually too far apart, so he had to get out and move over to her, which sort of wrecked the spontaneity. ‘You are far too fabulously energetic in bed for me ever to even think of anyone else,’ he murmured into her ear.

  ‘Behave.’ But there was a demure smile on her lips that he recognized all too well.

  ‘You know,’ he said licking her ear lobe, ‘no one can actually see in here.’

  ‘The musicians can.’

  ‘Ah.’ Edeard turned and faced the stage. The first musicians were starting to emerge from the staircase well in the centre, carrying their instruments with them. ‘Spoilsports.’ His third hand hauled his chair right up next to hers, and he sat down again. ‘You feeling better?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes.’

  He’d never seen Kristabel so furious as that afternoon when Bise had contemptuously ignored the parchment as it passed along the long table in the Upper Council chamber for the signature of each Master. His refusal to sign the Consent bill had even appalled Owain, but he was immune to all remonstration. The Pythia herself couldn’t get him to change his mind. So for the first time in three hundred and nineteen years a Consent to Marry bill was not approved unanimously.

  It meant nothing to Edeard of course. But Kristabel was outraged. It was a slur on the entire Culverit family, not to mention her personally. After Owain had formally announced the Upper Council’s majority approval, she’d stormed out of the Council chamber swearing revenge.

  ‘He’s an idiot,’ Edeard said as the musicians began to take their places. ‘And he’s on his way out.’

  ‘He’s barely ninety,’ Kristabel said. ‘He’ll be sitting in Council for another century at least. And I’ll be sitting in there with him.’

  ‘No, you won’t. I’ll have him sentenced to the Trampello mine, you’ll see. I’m working on a way to prove his connection to the gangs.’

  ‘Edeard, I love you dearly, but please, you really have to read up on the city’s traditions and laws. Bise is a District Master, he can never stand trial in the law courts.’

  ‘What? Why not?’

  ‘Only the Masters of the Upper Council can try one of their own, for any crime. The exemption accountability law was supposed to stop frivolous litigation brought by anyone with a grudge.’

  ‘Oh.’ He tipped his head to one side and regarded her intently. ‘How come you know that?’ As soon as he said it, he knew it had come out wrong.

  ‘For your information,’ she said icily, ‘between the ages of fourteen and nineteen I used to spend ten hours a week studying law under Master Ravail of the Lawyers Guild. I could pass your constables’ probation exams in my sleep.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Did you think me unschooled and ignorant?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am to be Mistress of an entire District. Do you have any idea of the responsibilities involved?’

  He took her hand, squeezing for emphasis. ‘Yes, Kristabel.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She gave him a contrite smile.

  ‘It’s normally me that’s saying that.’

  ‘I know. I’m just so cross with him.’

  ‘This is a battle fought at many levels.’

  ‘But at least with your level you get to see some results.’

  ‘Not really,’ he admitted, as the first discordant notes of the musicians warming up began to reverberate around the huge auditorium. He was surprised by how loud they were. It must be something to do with the spiky roof, he decided.

  ‘I thought you’d just about got your Hundred,’ she said.

  ‘We have.’ He started to tell her about Buate’s strategy to fight back, to inflict so much damage on the city that the Councils would call for Edeard to end his campaign.

  ‘Clever,’ she said when he finished. ‘But inevitable. You’ve been very effective at curtailing his activities. This is what happens when you back people into a corner, they lash out.’

  ‘You think I shouldn’t arrest the Hundred?’

  ‘The thing about elections is they’re unpredictable. Your idea to crush the gang leadership beforehand is excellent. You show people what life would be like if Finitan gets to pass his banishment act. But if you don’t arrest them, things stay as they are, or worse Buate starts a rumour that you’re too afraid to act, and the vote could well go Owain’s way.’

  ‘Owain will support me; he told me himself.’

  ‘Yes, but only as it applies through his One Nation manifesto. And for what it’s worth, I think Finitan is right, we need to consolidate the city before we try to help the provinces.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  ‘You can’t allow a city-wide riot. That goes against everything you are as a constable. It has to be stopped.’

  ‘Easily said. How?’

  ‘Sometimes you have to do what’s wrong in order to do what’s right.’

  ‘I know that. I even considered snatching the top gang lords and holding them in isolation, but it always comes down to the same thing: there aren’t enough of us, not for that kind of work. I could only ever get two or three of them before the word would get out, and that’s the trigger for the riot. I just don’t see how it can be stopped.’

  ‘You’re probably right, so you have to try and contain it, and I know just the place.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Sampalok.’

  ‘Oh, Lady.’

  ‘No. He’s the one who champions the gangs. He provides them with sanctuary, he even excluded you from the district. Well, it’s about time he realized there’s a price to pay for collaboration.’

  ‘How in the Lady’s name do I confine the riot to Sampalok?’

  ‘If that’s where the rioters are, that’s where the riot will be. Push them in there, Edeard. Use their own tactics to defeat them.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘That’s wrong?’ she asked archly. ‘Edeard, if you want to win you have to play to win. You’re the Waterwalker. There’s no one else going to do this.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said meekly as the conductor appeared on stage. Applause began to ripple round the auditorium. ‘I know.’

  *

  ‘The pistols were easy to obtain. A key was provided, the guards that night were ones who knew not to ask questions.’

  ‘A key? You mean for the vault?’

  ‘Yes. Actually, you need five keys to get through three doors, and the combination numbers. The locks are impossible to pick with telekinesis, there are too many parts to manipulate simultaneously.’

  ‘Who gave you the keys?’

  ‘Warpal told me where a set would be left. The combinations were with them.’

  ‘So Warpal is your leader?’

  ‘There is no leader. We are simply people who agree on what must be done to maintain a basic level of order in the city.’

  ‘Sons of Grand Families?’

  ‘People who share a background of good family and breeding, who have the same understanding of life. It is nothing like as formal as you think.’

  ‘But somebody must organize it.’

  ‘Not really. We support each other and the final rule of law.’

  ‘You protect the families from the gangs?’

  ‘Precisely. And any other threats.’

  ‘So why haven’t you got rid of the gangs?’

  ‘A criminal underclass is somewhat inevitable. As you’re finding out, they’re well organized. To defeat them we would first have to match them, and that’s not what we do. We look after our own. If the lower classes want something done to stop the gangs, then that’s up to them to do something.’

  ‘And yet wh
en I came along and started to do exactly that, you tried to eliminate me. Why?’

  ‘You are more than a constable, a lot more. You have some power in this city which no one understands. And you have your own vision of law and order, a very rigid intolerant one. If you were to enforce that you would do untold harm to the families.’

  ‘I don’t want to destroy anything.’

  ‘The road to Honious is paved with good intentions. Makkathran works perfectly well as it is.’

  ‘For the nobility perhaps. The gangs have grown too big and powerful under your lax rule. You let that happen. Makkathran doesn’t work for everyone, and it must.’

  ‘We do what we can.’

  ‘Were you one of those who pushed me off the tower?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who else was there?’

  ‘Warpal, Merid, and Pitier.’

  ‘Who organized it?’

  ‘Warpal.’

  ‘And who told him to do that?’

  ‘That’s not how we work.’

  ‘Nobody suddenly decides to do such a thing. There has to be someone in charge of you.’

  ‘Our older members offer guidance, that’s all. They smooth the way into Guilds, provide us with additional funds, that kind of thing. They have ties to the family councils, so they’re aware of problems emerging before the rest of the city. That way we can be informed of such instances and deal with them discreetly. Our work is quiet and infrequent. Some of us are never called upon.’

  ‘So these older members control you?’

  ‘They guide and advise. We each have a mentor, they are the ones who initiate us in the Families’ confidential arts.’

  ‘Like concealment?’

  ‘That is one of them, yes.’

  ‘Who is Warpal’s mentor?’

  ‘Motluk is mentor to both Warpal and myself.’

  ‘Motluk?’

  ‘He’s a junior Master in the Leatherworkers Guild.’

  ‘And which family does he come from?’

  ‘He is Altal’s son. The fourth, I think.’

  ‘Altal?’

  ‘Altal is the third son of Carallo, who is a Diroal, the fifth son of the previous Master. Carallo is married to Karalee, third sister of Tannarl.’