Fair Rebel

by Steph Swainston

  At first I pitied Capelin, that he’d chosen to shun his true vocation in a bid for immortality. Then rage took over. A man of such talent and intelligence shouldn’t lay himself at the Emperor’s feet. Shouldn’t bare his throat to San! It should be the other way round! I wished I could see the Emperor begging Capelin to paint for the Castle. He should be desperate to grant him immortality for a mural of ‘Philosophers in the Capharnaum Marketplace’. Instead, Capelin seeks to be the Artillerist, of all things! The world has mangonels enough!

  The band played ‘Welcome’ and Jant showed Capelin to the coach. He seemed both superior and withdrawn, as if he didn’t want to touch anything. Maybe he was awed by our clipper (Tris has no trees or ships). Or maybe he was seasick.

  He sat in the carriage as if in a poisonous bubble, and his only accompaniments were one small boy and a very heavy crate. Jant went with him, I followed in mine; we made our way through the crowd. Capelin found the throng distasteful, our pennants gaudy and the coach uncomfortable.

  I wanted to work on my symphony, but I had to offer them hospitality. Jant was brought down to a strange state of composure, and hadn’t dried out from flying in the clouds. I think he dopes himself to take the pain out of flying. His distance flights are beyond the limits of human – not Rhydanne – endurance and he still keeps going. I wonder if it’s possible for immortals to die of exhaustion?

  During the meal Jant tried to draw him on the nature of his Challenge, but Capelin kept it secret. He’s like any man. I can’t get to grips with them – they always seem overly loud and self-important, but they have no depth at all.

  Jant stirred a drop of cat into his wine, not caring that I noticed. And became even more relaxed. If I could keep him here a month, I could get him off that stuff permanently. That’d show I’m worth a place in the Circle. If Tern is too indifferent and self-centred to help him, I will. She said I should leave him alone. Well, I can cure him, when she hasn’t tried.

  They embarked on the coach, the Trisian so superior he floated above everything. Jant an arabesque of long legs, folded into the coach like a spider, and drew away for the Challenge. I will follow tomorrow.

  Monday 28 June 2030

  I rehearsed what I’ll say to the Emperor. Very important to be word perfect. Set off to the Castle. I am nervous but I must try. I must!

  The rain a forte pizzicato on the roof of the coach.

  Tuesday 29 June 2030

  Wednesday 30 June 2030

  Thursday 1 July 2030

  Bunting has me in some coach-house, for I am ill.

  Friday 2 July 2030

  So angry I can’t hold the pen! Fainting – Dizzy! – Delirious! What San did to me no one’s had to suffer in the history of the world!

  Saturday 3 July 2030

  I shrink from setting this down. But I must record what happened and tell the true story. I must face it head on, as it whips up my anger, and that fury will inspire my symphony. I shall pace myself … I shall pace myself. I have the whole of the return ride to write it, and I’m writing on the coach.

  Wednesday was that bastard Capelin’s Challenge. I’d been staying at the Castle, in Jant’s Myrtle Room, and I joined him and Tern in the Eszai’s seats tiered below the Emperor’s box. Opposite were stands overflowing with rabble who’d poured in to watch, because, as Jant said, Thunder always puts on a show.

  The Trisian’s odd appearance, lofty attitude and heavy crate had set tongues wagging. Spectators had come from the four corners of the Empire. There, on the grass, a single tarpaulin covered his siege engine – no bigger than a bass drum.

  Beside it, Thunder’s huge trebuchet stood like a ship aground. I listened to the hubbub of the crowd, for I was taking notes. They were in a tense, jeering mood, a burbling of deep woodwind and light percussion. Beside me, Tern’s luscious, cantabile voice said, ‘Do you know what it is?’

  ‘Capelin won’t tell me.’

  ‘It’s so small!’

  ‘Don’t judge it till you’ve seen him use it,’ said Jant. Which was the sort of thing men always say.

  Thunder had chosen to shoot first. He led his team onto the field and messed about with the treb. Jant pointed out its latest perfections but I wasn’t really listening. This was the perfect scene for my symphony. I thought it might become a Challenge Symphony. Listen, there’s Tornado’s bass tone and Jant’s string section. There’s the Emperor watching in his majesty. Here’s Thunder whirring the windlass, creaking down the great arm and thudding a slingshot into the cup. There’s a windsock streaming. While he messed around with it we looked down the field to where, two hundred metres away, referees had fixed a huge white section of Insect Wall. How many people had died cutting it out and bringing it here?

  Thunder pulled a lever and the ball whooshed into the air. A thwack sounded like a snare drum and a crack appeared in the Wall. A referee climbed from his dugout and waved a red flag. Then for some reason, he ran away.

  ‘He hit it precisely in the middle,’ said Tern.

  ‘He always does,’ said Jant.

  All the time I was steeling my nerves for my address to the Emperor. Pretty soon the Artillerist’s position would be settled one way or another, and I could speak with San. Moreover, the music that constantly plays in my head was beginning to align with the scene on the field, assimilating the applause. I knew I could write this symphony. Instantly I heard the entire opus, every note, saw the three dimensional shape of the whole piece. I couldn’t wait to write it down!

  On the field, the Trisian emerged from his pavilion. Beside Thunder’s magnificent tent, Capelin’s was no bigger than a booth. His small boy followed, carrying a twisted taper of the sort you use to light lanterns. It was sparking.

  Jeers and cat calls fluted over the benches. ‘Baldy! Baldy!’ the mortals laughed. Capelin took it with disdain. He was a good performer. He stood by his diminutive machine, bowed to the Emperor and to the Zascai. He didn’t bow to us.

  Everyone stood, with a rattle like castanets. Capelin held aloft a pocket watch then, like a magician whisked the cloth from his machine. The Zascai laughed uproariously. His siege engine was a shining brass tube like a stout post horn. It rested on a trolley. He piccolo’d with screws beneath it, then took the taper from his boy, who ran off and watched from a distance. Why so far? I thought, and I began to dread.

  Capelin set the taper to the cylinder. Boom! Fortissimo!

  Everyone recoiled onto the benches – this terrible sound, this new sound knocked us flat. It was thunder, manmade thunder! It untuned the air! It was louder than all the tympani in the world.

  Jant clutched Tern to him, though patently she didn’t need it. Tornado took a step back, then he squared his shoulders and his expression. Hurricane looked furious, Cyan looked curious, and Mist dove for his cigarette case. Absolutely everybody looked at San, who was impassive. The mortals were picking themselves up, all fear and horror.

  But Capelin was intent on his watch. He raised one arm in the air, brought it down, and a boom more sfortzando than before! Every orchestra together couldn’t be so fortississimo! A ball of fire erupted from the Wall. Huge chunks flew into the air, more furioso than any force of Nature could fling them. Then smoke covered all, and people were shrieking.

  As the smoke cleared we saw the Wall reduced to rubble, on the grass. Some Zascai huddled in groups. Others watched with wild surmise. Smoke was issuing from his stage device.

  ‘Bravo!!’ I sang out. ‘Encore!!’ I turned to Jant. ‘It throws sound!’

  ‘It throws fire,’ he said. He was still squashing Tern’s breasts against his stupid little pecs. ‘It must be some kind of chemical.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Some kind …’

  Capelin swept the stalls with a gaze of scorn and beneficence. I hated him. He stuck his taper in the soil and bowed, looking up at the Emperor. He announced in a voice a pitch too low, ‘I place my cannon and many other inventions at your service, Eternal Emperor, and I claim th
e title Thunder.’

  San stood and extended his hand. Capelin strode up the steps and passed so close I smelt the acrid smoke on his robe. It was pungent and acidic, like match heads and men’s urinals, and I realised that from now on, everything would smell like that.

  He kissed the Emperor’s hand.

  ‘You are Thunder, the Artillerist,’ said San. He took Capelin into the Circle and made him immortal. Down on the grass, the former Artillerist became just a mortal man again. He felt the Circle dropping him, and cried out in rage. He leapt up and charged at Capelin. I didn’t see, because I was dreaming how, soon, it will be my turn to kiss San’s hand, and what the instant of immortalisation will feel like. But Jant swore. He jumped down the benches, spread his wings and glided the last few stands, sprinted towards the beaten Artillerist and reached him before he’d run half the distance. Jant drew his sword and held him back.

  ‘It’s a trick!’ yelled the former Artillerist. ‘A set up! He’s a stage magician! The wall was on a fire pit! He blew up coal dust! Fuck you, Messenger, let me get him!’

  This was my chance. I picked up my guitar and walked to the Emperor’s box.

  I looked up at San’s thin form, his white fyrd general’s clothes, though not at his face. Behind me, Tern called me, but I ignored her. I summoned my voice enfatico that can stun an auditorium. ‘My lord Emperor, I state my petition to join the Circle, for I am the world’s greatest musician. At your service I place my music and my life – they’re one and the same.’

  He raked me with a gaze that searched my mind, and a depth of unwelcome that made me squirm. ‘Governor Awndyn. This is the seventh time you have appeared before me with the same request, and the answer is no.’

  I bowed. ‘My lord, I’ve finished my Symphony for a Thousand, and if you were present at its première, you would approve my talent.’

  Now everyone was listening to me! The stands fell hushed.

  ‘I know your talent,’ San said. ‘I’ve heard your ten symphonies. You are the best musician in the world; perhaps the best in history. But the purpose of my Circle is to fight the Insects. You cannot help.’

  ‘I can inspire men to fight.’

  ‘If that was the sole use of your music, you would wither away. In fact, to put your music to any use whatsoever would mar it. Pressure to produce would destroy your ability to create.’

  ‘It’s proved its use in making me money and I still create,’ I said.

  ‘Money is a very crude measure of success.’

  ‘I can inspire men to love.’

  ‘Oh. Are they not capable of that on their own accord?’

  Laughter burst from the terraces. I ground my teeth. I was shaking with fear and now everyone was laughing at me. Thousands of people, the laughter like sawing violins bearing down on me. All the Eszai, I hated them all! Jant, Cyan, Tornado, this new Thunder! I was as good as them! Why wouldn’t San see that?

  ‘Swallow,’ he said firmly. ‘These men and women you claim to inspire to love or fight are mortals. Their fashions change and they will produce another musician with a different style. If such a one Challenges you there could be no fair competition. It would be a matter of taste.’

  ‘I can command any style. Immortality would give me a chance to explore the genres within me and bring them to birth. As for those who Challenge me, well! Quality shines out no matter what we’re playing.’

  ‘Musicians are not soldiers. They resent leaders.’

  ‘They recognise my gift.’

  San sighed. ‘Ah … Do they? Thunder has just destroyed that wall. A demonstration of power no man can deny. Yet many people cannot recognise good music. They would question your place in the Circle. And what petitions would flood in! Writers, painters, poets and dancers would seek immortality. These are men’s crafts, their arts, but no reason to live forever when Insects are consuming the Empire. After Thunder has brought us cannon, you offer us concertos!’

  I was trembling but I rallied: ‘You’re condemning all artists to death and only allowing warriors to gain eternal life.’

  ‘They are only immortal for a while. But without them, the hordes will overrun us.’

  ‘I’ve proved myself as a warrior.’

  ‘Swallow, don’t try to be something you aren’t, in order to gain a prize whose criteria you do not meet. You make your own prizes every day. Why do you lust after the one I offer?’

  ‘I want to live forever.’

  ‘The Circle protects the world from the Insects. The Castle still works for you, Swallow. If it weren’t for their skill and leadership you’d be struggling to survive instead of composing. Take the chance to compose while your music can thrive, and we’ll ensure it lives forever.’

  ‘But I will not?’

  ‘No.’

  The hope drained from me. I felt people’s amusement, loathing and schadenfreude radiating from the stands like heat. I gasped, but the Emperor continued, ‘Do not come here again, Swallow Awndyn. Petition me no longer! You are a peerless musician. Go, be a musician! You will never be an immortal.’

  The crowd was delighted I was cut to the quick. They started laughing, with a horrible vindictive edge. Some of them called ‘Oooh!’, some shouted, ‘Never be an immortal!’ – and it spread until the whole stand was bellowing spiteful laughter at me. At me alone.

  Boiling in embarrassment I was stranded before the Emperor. I couldn’t go forward and I couldn’t go back. I don’t know how, but as the laughter swelled, somehow I made my way down onto the grass.

  Hurricane called, ‘Loser! You don’t belong with the Eszai!’

  His thuggish followers in the opposite stand started chanting, ‘Loser! Loser! Loser!’

  Deafening slow clapping.

  ‘Loser! Loser! Loser!’

  I halted right before him and began to sing. I recalled the first canto Act III of The Mayor of Diw and gave him Ata’s defiant aria at full blast.

  How unfair he was, how I must be given room to fly: the words rose unbidden from my memory and I sang like I’ve never sung before.

  The savage chant of the crowd battled with my soprano.

  Loser! Loser! Loser!

  Tern watched from under her parasol, with her poker face. Jant and Tornado had gathered beside Thunder’s brass cannon. They didn’t know what it was, but they liked it. They were waiting impatiently for him to explain it and I was just an entr’acte.

  I doubled my intensity, used gestures drammatico, but the crowd’s din surged and drowned me. Hatred knotted within me. I hated them all! I loathed the Emperor! I detested the Eszai!

  Loser! Loser! Loser!

  All I could do was go, and die. I was an inferno of hatred in a woman’s shell. I left the field with my head high, still singing, and the laughter rang in my ears louder than the cannon.

  5 July 2030

  The coach draws in to Awndyn. My hatred burns white hot and I’ll wreak havoc on the place. I am a vessel of hatred for everything and everyone. Everything and everyone! Except dear C. I will write to her … she will understand. She will hear me scream. Dear, dear, C …

  All the following pages were blank. I put the diary down.

  ‘D,’ Saker was muttering. ‘D, D, D, D. Not F.’ He looked up from the concert grand. ‘What were you reading? Oh. Swallow’s diary … I found it in her desk drawer. I couldn’t bring myself to burn it.’

  ‘It just stops.’

  ‘After Thunder’s Challenge? Yes. She never wrote another word after that. Not another word. Just music. This … thing.’ He riffled the Unfinished Symphony. ‘This tangle of a masterpiece with all the cannon. Poor Swallow.’

  I looked at her name on the diary’s fly leaf. The block of its gilded pages caught the sunset light.

  ‘I should’ve burnt it,’ said Saker. ‘It says things about me that I don’t want to become common knowledge. She never understood why I’d give my life for Cyan.’

  ‘And about me.’

  ‘Ha, yes. She thought she could stop
you taking cat.’

  ‘Poor Swallow,’ I echoed. I pushed the book away, an artefact of a great composer. ‘The truly ambitious recognise the impossible.’

  ‘Getting you off cat?’

  ‘No. Joining the Circle. Only an insane person keeps levelling the same petition and expecting a different answer.’

  ‘She wasn’t insane. She was trying to break through.’

  ‘But San told her it was impossible. To keep trying was insane. Maybe she was mad.’

  ‘Maybe she was Eszai material.’ He played trills distractedly, changed them to tremolos, and then into a savage up-and-down glissando that echoed off the balcony. ‘Where a bit of madness helps. Cyan’s refined your musket to five times the range and accuracy. Possibly therefore she’s five times madder.’

  The sunset was blazing, flat and golden through the windows, and the hall seemed cast in red shadows. Saker’s half-shaded face was burnished bronze. ‘San killed her,’ he said. ‘San’s rejection killed Swallow. Oh, our Emperor has much to answer for!’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Did you hear the Symphony of a Thousand?’

  ‘No. I—’

  ‘It opened soon after that diary entry. August. August … that would be ten years ago. Shit … The concert hall in Hacilith was only just large enough to hold it. She scored it for a thousand instruments, three choirs of men, women and children. It raised the roof. Jant, you were too busy building the telegraph. Swallow herself didn’t attend. She didn’t conduct it; she never even heard it. She stayed in Awndyn all that time. San killed her, all right. Just like he’s killing you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Making you inject all that scolopendium and going to the Shift.’

  I pushed my sleeve back and looked at my arm. Surely it didn’t show quite so much. ‘He isn’t killing me. He’s keeping me alive.’

  ‘One day, Jant, you won’t make it home … It was the repeated shocks that wore her out,’ he said. ‘She was strong, but changes and changes and changes exhaust our energy and sap our resilience. Eszai who focus on just one thing stay firm to their mark and keep their strength. Swallow had focus in spades, but she was naive to think that San would change his mind. Of course, after the Challenge, she wouldn’t want to live the rest of her life fluctuating idly with sick fatigue and languid doubt, like a Zascai. She couldn’t stand living with broken hopes. Death was purer … She was so very naive.’