Fair Rebel

by Steph Swainston

  I ran faster still, anticipating the shockwave throwing me forward, the fireball overtaking me. Come on! Faster! Daylight ahead, the end of the platform, and before me just water. I jumped, smacked my wings on the punts, on the columns, four, five beats, battered the water.

  I pulled my wings in and cannoned through the arch, and beat straight up. My field of vision was the blue air, then a tremendous force thumped the breath out of me – threw me high into the sky. I passed out, for seconds, and caught myself falling. Below me, spinning, the curtain wall. A solid jet of flame spurted out of the hole in the wall – the archway erupted – fire spewed out ten metres wide. Blocks were breaking from the wall and shooting across the moat, hitting the bank and bouncing. The whole wall cracked and blew out.

  Then silence. I fought for breath. This was no silence. A raging storm of noise is going on. I was deaf. My head was ringing. I steadied my flight; the whole Castle swung into view below. The roof of the Throne Room began to buckle. The roof of Carillon was starting to dent, the kitchen and dining hall tilting into themselves. The great expanse of the Throne Room roof creased like paper, its west wall pinnacles disappeared straight down in clouds of stone dust – the east wall pinnacles began to fall outwards. Blooms of flame blew out every kitchen and hall window.

  The Circle broke.

  I cried out.

  The Throne Room, the Carillon wing, Mare’s Run, the dining hall and kitchens simultaneously sank down and disappeared into billowing, surging, clouds of smoke and dust. The immense spire dropped ten metres – then began to tilt towards me.

  I dived and accelerated out of its way. It tilted more and more, to an angle you wouldn’t believe possible, and then the coherence of the stone blocks started to yield. They stepped, like dominos for a second, dust spurting out between them. The spire bent at its base and then laid its seventy metre length into the swelling fumes and smoke, falling out of view. Pulverised stone billowed up, hiding everything, and the last I saw was the shining gold sunburst atop the spire fall into the clouds of dust.

  An enormous rumble broke around me. I can hear it! I can hear it! Oh, god! It crescendoed louder than cannon as the buildings crumpled into the ground. Where the dining hall had been boiled solid clouds of brick-red dust.

  The Circle hadn’t re-formed.

  I felt stripped naked. No safety net of the Circle, part of me ripped away. I tumbled, out of control. The dust cloud hurtled over my head, down behind me, spun over my head again. I was raw. The shockwave had blasted my body and every joint of my arms, legs and wings felt pulled out.

  Where was Tern?

  I skimmed the rising cloud, whipping it up around me. I had no strength to gain height. I fell through the surface and my next breath was cement particles and caustic smoke. Retching uncontrollably, I emerged to see the treetops of Six Mile Avenue way too close. People were running away from the Castle, up the road – they turned, aghast, to look at me.

  I came down at full speed onto the branches, rolled to miss them, flapped frenetically, slowed only a fraction, then smashed into the grass arms out and propelled head over heels. My arms, collarbones, shoulders, jarred with agony. I balled-up on the damp grass, coughing and panting.

  The Circle had stopped. I couldn’t feel anyone. I couldn’t feel Tern. The loneliness was overwhelming – time was passing – for all of us. The Emperor must be dead, squashed in the Throne Room, directly under the great spire’s base, under thousands of tonnes of rock.

  But where was Tern? Was she dead too?

  My mind flashed back to Swallow, singing her loudest in a hall of statues when, from behind her, the blast lit them.

  Hands tried to lift me. I was dimly aware of voices babbling, but all I could think of was Tern, flattened underground. I must find her, if I have to dig her out with my fingers.

  ‘Comet?’ said a voice.

  ‘Tern!’

  ‘Get out of my way!’ It was Rayne’s voice and I went limp with relief. I flapped my wings, shook everybody off, then I leant to one side and vomited. Faces crowded in, all strangers, wide-eyed servants and some Imperial Fyrd. They glanced up at the Castle, then tore away down the avenue, leaving me alone.

  I saw Rayne on a Black Coach horse and, behind her, the dust cloud was fast approaching – over the grey tiled roofs of Breckan and Simurgh – they were pulverised to rafters with fallen masonry. They disappeared into the cloud – it rolled towards us and over the solid Yett Gate, then kept rolling in a rounded wave up the avenue, swallowing beech trees, and everyone was fleeing downhill towards Demesne. I jumped up, and ran from Rayne, into the smoke.

  It was dense dust and infinitesimal fragments of marble and mortar, and scraps of cloth. It coated me, the gatehouse invisible, the trees vanishing into it on either side. My mind was full of the image of Tern bleeding under the masses of rubble. Stones were still falling, thumping into the grass around me. I coughed and reeled, clamoured over the drawbridge and into the dust-filled arch of the gatehouse, and passed out.

  I fought back to consciousness in the hospital some time later.

  CHAPTER 39

  The Hospital

  My first sensation was moistness, my skin all sticky. The ward was intensely hot. Then someone squeezed my hand, and I looked to the bedside, to see Tern. She had clasped her fingers into mine, and I melted in relief, brought her mortal hand to my lips and started kissing our interlocked knuckles, to assure myself she was real, that this was really happening. I burst into tears. ‘I thought you were dead!’

  ‘I thought you were.’

  ‘The Circle stopped.’

  ‘I know, I know!’

  ‘It’s night …?’

  ‘No …’

  The room was a hubbub, and extremely dim. People were just grey silhouettes: Eszai, all kinds of servants, some Imperial Fyrd and hospital staff. I couldn’t hear over the loud buzz in my ears, and couldn’t make them out.

  Tern’s hair was plastered with dust, her dress was solid with it, her legs and feet were bare, cut ragged and daubed with blood. Her hands were grazed; I could feel their heat against my palms. She’d sponged her face clean but the dust remained, smeared around her hairline. I was encased head to foot in it, too. I said, ‘How did you get out?’

  ‘Jant, shh! Rayne’s …’ She began crying. I reached my wing and pressed its fingers against her face and she looked at me gratefully.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘… Everything collapsed. The noise … I was outside the Myrtle Room. The stairway jumped up, then – way down. I ran out. The bowmen did, some of them. Some of them … were behind me …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I ran for the north wall. It took forever … Forever! When I reached it I squeezed against it … seemed right. I looked back and saw … oh god, Jant, I couldn’t see anything. Just this dust cloud. This huge wave of dust coming at us.’

  ‘Quiet!’ Rayne called, from the front of the ward.

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘We ran but we couldn’t run fast enough, and it rolled over us, and we couldn’t see anything.’ She coughed. ‘I couldn’t see the bowmen. I couldn’t breathe. So I felt my way along to the Skein Gate. I ran through but the dust rolled with us, so we kept running. Aigret tower was blocks, the size of … this … this whole … My throat’s full of grit. I coughed so much I was sick. Look. We ran all the way round to Dace … and I saw you zip out of the smoke—’

  ‘Quiet!’ Rayne yelled.

  ‘But I couldn’t tell where you’d crashed. Rayne appeared on a post nag. She—’

  ‘Everyone! Quiet!’

  Tern whispered, ‘Was it a bomb?’

  ‘Yes. It was Swallow. Have you seen Saker?’

  ‘No Saker. No Tornado. No Emperor.’

  Rayne climbed onto her desk and bellowed at us individually until we simmered into silence. ‘Eszai!’ she said. ‘There’s no time to talk! There’s a lot of people buried. We must act fast! Kay Snow, I want you to start digging for th
e Emperor. Split everyone into teams, they’ll follow your orders – every second’s vital! Architect, tell us what buildings are unstable. Is the West Wall going to collapse? What about Jant’s tower? I need to know, because I won’t endanger the rescue teams. Simoon, you’re in charge of them. Bring injured here. These wards will fill up. Messenger, get Snow everything he needs, and we need manpower. Take Lisade, if the telegraph’s still working.’

  ‘The Emperor is dead,’ said Simoon.

  A mutter of agreement roved among them.

  ‘No! We’re digging him out and everyone trapped, including Tornado, including Tré Cloud, so, my fellow Eszai, get to it!’

  Kay Snow the Sapper beckoned them; they were about to leave but the Treasurer said, ‘Ella—’

  ‘I’m Rayne,’ she said, firmly.

  ‘You’re not Rayne any more. I’m not Simoon. The Circle broke. It hasn’t mended. So San must be dead. He must be, if he’s under that. We’re mortal and our oath’s over.’

  ‘I don’t care! People are injured – move!’

  ‘We don’t know what happened!’

  ‘Jant will tell us while we dig!’

  ‘But there might be another explosion!’

  Everyone looked at me. I stood up, wincing with pain. ‘No,’ I said, and described Swallow’s bomb as briefly as possible. When tears involuntarily started from my eyes, with pride I let them flow. Then a sensation of somehow being closer to everybody in the room brought me to pause. Rayne, standing on her desk, closed her eyes in pleasure as if she was gently being floated.

  ‘It formed …’ she said softly. ‘The Circle. San repaired it.’

  ‘San’s alive?’ said the Treasurer.

  ‘Can’t you feel your link?’

  I could. There was a hush as those of us cognisant of the Circle tried to sense it. I felt the flow of time break around me, raising me from it, suspending me above. I could feel presences again! But, no, the Circle was smaller … I felt Rayne’s personality as if she was holding my hand. I felt the cinnamon flame of Tern, the low-level aggravation of Hurricane, and, yes, the intelligence of Fulmer – and Saker! Saker was there, too, crimson and gold … though he can’t be. I couldn’t tell whether the sensation was a product of shock and my injuries.

  I breathed out. Everyone was staring at each other.

  ‘I feel San!’ said Simoon. ‘Can you?’

  ‘He’s very, very faint,’ said Rayne.

  Simoon looked to the window and clenched his arms round his chest, his muscles rigid. ‘He must be conscious, underground.’

  ‘I can’t feel Tré …’ said Rayne. ‘There’s about … thirty of us gone. If the bomb killed Tré and knocked the Emperor unconscious at the same time … that would explain it. If San’s just regained consciousness and linked the Circle … but he’s faint … he’s dying.’

  We gazed at each other in rising panic. Rayne added, ‘Tornado’s unconscious … He’s dying, too. He’s fading out.’

  ‘They were both in the Throne Room,’ I said.

  ‘They’re buried alive,’ said Kay Snow. ‘Maybe in a pocket … that masonry is big.’

  Rayne announced, ‘Everyone, if you relish staying immortal, do what Kay tells you!’

  He gave her a significant look. Then he yelled at us. ‘All right! Hayl, bring all the horses. Simoon, stretcher teams. Everyone else, follow me. You’re going to work harder than you thought possible!’ He swept out and the room emptied after him. Their boots left grime on the tiling. I realised the clamminess all over me was the same thin mud; someone had tried to sponge off the ash and now it was drying, tightening my skin.

  I said to Rayne, ‘I think I can feel Saker. Am I going mad?’

  ‘No. San linked him into the Circle.’

  ‘But that’s against … Why? Why would he …?’

  ‘That man is the least of my worries,’ she said darkly. ‘Can’t you feel how many of us are dead?’

  ‘You’re better at it than me. Tré’s gone … The Blacksmith … Mistral … Serein’s wife. Gayle wasn’t here …’

  ‘And more! I – I need to make a roster. We need to find everyone. San might only have minutes!’ She pointed at the door. ‘Go help Kay. He knows we’ve no chance. And, Jant, you were hit by the full shock of the explosion. You’re lucky you were airborne. If you cough up blood, any blood in the urine, come straight back. I’ve seen blast casualties drop dead three days later.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tern, watch him closely.’

  ‘Of course, Doctor.’

  ‘Patient compliance at last!’ She turned to an orderly. ‘Quicker! We need it spotless! These beds will be full in thirty minutes!’

  When Tern and I reached the door we stopped dead. The dust cloud completely blocked the light and a rain of ash was sifting down, through a white false twilight. Everything was covered in it. The vast space where the Throne Room had been, was pale grey smog. Only the South Façade still stood tall, like a monolith, blurred through it, the pinnacles gone, the apex destroyed down to the Rose Window broken in half. From a circle, it was now an arc, the top and right side gone – it hooked the sky. Muted light opaqued the two shattered panes remaining in its tracery, and drifts of ash were building up on all the statues’ plinths.

  Smoke was rising from a hole in Simurgh’s roof, this end, in the Swordsman’s rooms. Every single window in Simurgh was smashed, great patches of facing stone blown away. And, beyond it, fading into the thick whiteout, the rubble of the Throne Room peaked like a mountain range. Some entire pinnacles lay embedded in the lawn – they’d ripped it up like spears. Scattered blocks lay here and there, and some recognisable fragments … a flying buttress toothed with crockets, the snout of a gargoyle, ball flowers along a rib, pieces of pilaster. Ash snowed on them, and on the rubble summit three metres high. The stalks of buttresses projected snaggle-toothed from it, broken off at uneven heights.

  The dust fell and velveted the roofs. I kicked off my boots, gave them to Tern and waited while she put them on. Kay Snow was blaring orders at the far end of the Throne Room rubble, nearest to where the throne should be. His short figure silhouetted through the dust, high on the debris like the lead role in a battlestress nightmare.

  ‘Kay needs me,’ I said.

  ‘But it’s impossible!’

  We crossed the grass thick with masonry and followed the swathe of footprints towards his team on the Berm Lawn.

  ‘San’s under that?’ Tern’s voice shook with shock.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How could she …?’

  ‘Sh …’

  ‘How could she …?’

  ‘Don’t think about it, kitten. None of us can think, yet. We’ve got to dig.’

  Because if you stopped to think, you’ll realise we can’t shift thousands of tonnes of stone. I was aware the shockwave of rumour would be expanding at great speed in a ring across the Empire. I had to catch up with it. I had to ride the front of the news and make my mark for the Castle. Whatever’s going to happen now, will take more than a generation to sink in, and the dust may never settle.

  CHAPTER 40

  Kay Snow takes charge

  Kay was poised on the ridge of the rubble close to the base of the spire. The Throne Room’s east wall was upstanding to about two metres, covered in a huge slope of broken freestone. He was yelling, ‘You: get horses from Hobson’s. Pickaxes, shovels from the Blacksmith’s yard, timber for shoring. You: get me the cranes off the barges. You: pull those stones together to make a bed for them. Here! In a square! You: bring me every horse, pony and rope in Demesne! Jant?’

  ‘Yes?’ I called.

  ‘Get me all the manpower, horses, carts and tackle in Eske, Shivel and Fescue.’

  ‘Eske fyrd can arrive in an hour.’

  ‘They’ll have heard the explosion, but they won’t believe it!’

  Hayl came through the Dace Gate with ten horses roped together. She halted, gawping at the stump of the tower. Kay roared at her but the M
aster of Horse couldn’t move. She simply couldn’t. She gazed in shock at the dust-filled sky where the spire had always been. Tern took her arm gently and prompted her to walk.

  ‘Where’s the sunburst?’ she said.

  ‘Hayl?’ Kay bawled. ‘Drays good! Wagons better! Go fetch them! You! Run with her to Hobson’s and bring all the rope you can find for block and tackle. You! Put out the fire in Simurgh!’

  Tern and I climbed the steep jumble of masonry to his side. As we crested the ridge, the immensity of the task hit us. It was a panorama of destruction – white hills of scree giving onto the crumpled lead escarpment of the Throne Room roof, below us. It looked as if a gigantic hand had pressed the entire Throne Room into the ground.

  Kay bit his nail. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘It reminds me of Darkling.’

  ‘Ha! More like Valley Twenty.’

  The gradient of the east wall’s rubble ran down to the roof, and under it the glory of the nave had vanished into a gigantic pit. The marble floor and the scarlet carpet, the ebony benches, the monumental gold candle holders, the gleaming onyx columns of the arches had fallen into the cistern. In a couple of places the rubble left black gaps at the edge of the roof, one almost directly below us. Kay pointed at it. ‘I think that drops into the east aisle.’

  ‘Hasn’t the floor fallen in?’

  ‘All of it but this edge, or we wouldn’t be standing on it.’

  ‘I saw the wall’s foundations underground. They were solid.’

  ‘I won’t know until I climb in.’ He scraped his fingernail inside his ear. ‘Look. The base of the tower. The octagon lantern above the throne was a strong cage. Its columns had to be, to hold up seven thousand tonnes of spire. The tower rested on four pendentives. They’ve peeled out … there … and the base of the tower’s come straight down. All that … is solid stone. But the columns of the vaulting might have preserved an airspace underneath. I’m going in … there. I’ll see how far I can crawl.’