by Jaine Fenn
Sais ran to the doors that separated the transfer-station from the hold. A moment later he heard a familiar screech; it looked like the mute had caught Damaru.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go! Sais estimated the wall of boxes was at least thirty metres long. He needed to sneak up and take out the mute, then somehow get Damaru under control and back to his box. Assuming there was only one mute—
‘Do not damage the boy!’
Sais felt his heart jump and his bowels loosen. The voice came from directly in front of him. Though all he wanted to do was run and hide, he made himself look at the Sidhe. She was standing on the other side of the unloaded comaboxes, at the end nearest him. All he could see from here was the top of her head, dark hair drawn up in a high ponytail. She was walking slowly towards Damaru and the mute; it looked like she had no idea he was here.
Fear had conveniently emptied Sais’s mind, and he held onto that void whilst willing his body to move. He dodged into the cargo-hold, then ran up to the end of the comabox wall and looked along it. The boxes were laid out in a double row, as he’d expected. He edged along the side of the first one, back pressed into it. There was a small gap, then he felt the second one. The pressure of the boxes on his back grounded him, became his reality. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was terrified, but that was a long way away, and he used every grain of willpower to keep that distance.
When he reached the end of the box he pivoted round the corner, crossbow raised, before he could think better of it.
The Sidhe was about ten metres away with her back to him.
Sais took aim on her head. He’d only get one chance—
The Sidhe turned, faster than anyone should be able to—
He fired—
Her hands flew up to her face and she fell over—
Out of the corner of his eye he saw two mutes, frozen in the act of moving a box from the row by the wall onto a grav-trolley. At the far end of the room, Damaru struggled with two more. He ignored them all and started towards the fallen Sidhe. If he hadn’t killed her outright and she managed to summon her sister mentally, they were in deep shit.
She sprawled on the floor, one hand out-flung, the other splayed against her cheek. She wore a long-sleeved top and trousers, practical spacer clothes, but they didn’t detract from her elegant, unearthly beauty. While he was still several paces away, she shuddered, then lay still again.
Was that a trick, to get him to approach close enough to catch him? Sais wondered. Would she look up and - blam! - that was him screwed? Again . . .
She didn’t move.
He crept closer.
His crossbow bolt had gone in just below her eye, shattering her cheekbone. The eye bulged obscenely, and her mouth was open in a silent scream. Not so beautiful now, bitch. Hopefully, she’d died at once and the shudder had just been a final spasm.
He looked up at sudden movement. Damaru had managed to shake off the male mute who’d been chasing him, though a female was still hanging onto his arm. The male looked at the Sidhe, at Sais, at the Sidhe again. Then he began to run towards the closed door next to the stacked boxes.
Sais yelled, ‘Don’t move! Everyone stay where you are!’
Mutes were said to be conditioned to obey; somewhat to Sais’s surprise, they did. The one sprinting for the door slowed then stopped and all four of them looked at Sais expectantly. He brandished the unloaded crossbow at them, at a loss what to do next. Damaru scuttled away, back towards the darkened transfer-station.
Looking at the empty boxes gave Sais an idea and he said firmly, ‘All of you: go over there and climb into those comaboxes.’ He pointed to the boxes by the wall with his free hand. ‘Quickly, now!’
They turned their calm, incurious faces in the direction Sais had pointed and walked towards the boxes.
Sais didn’t think there was much Damaru could damage himself on in the transfer-station. As soon as he’d got the mutes safely locked away he’d let Kerin out to help the boy.
The first mute reached a box and stood at the foot of it. They probably had no more idea how to open them than Kerin had.
Sais ran over and bent down to open the box. He set it to put the occupant under as soon as the lid closed. He moved on to the next one, glancing over his shoulder at the closed door connecting the cargo-hold with the rest of the ship, expecting the other Sidhe to storm in at any moment and trash him with a thought.
Third box. He wished he had some way of knowing if the Sidhe had sent out a silent alarm before she died.
Fourth and last box. Actually, he did know: she hadn’t. He could tell that because he was still alive.
He addressed the mutes: ‘Now get in your boxes and pull the lids closed!’ In other circumstances it might have been funny.
As soon as the last lid clicked shut he looked around for a light. The grav-trolley had a detachable torch. He grabbed it and ran back into the transfer-station. Good job he’d trained for all this running about with a couple of months’ hard walking!
A snuffly whimper came from the floor: Damaru was huddled at the foot of an open box.
‘Damaru, I’m going to get your mother, all right?’ he said as calmly as he could manage. His voice echoed hollowly.
Kerin was in the box beside his. The next one along, Einon’s, was ajar, the lid undone but still down. He could hear harsh breathing coming from it.
Kerin sat up as soon as he opened the lid. She was pale but lucid. ‘Where is my son?’ she asked immediately.
‘He’s fine, he’s over there.’ Sais shone the torch beam just above the boy’s head. ‘I don’t think he’s hurt, just scared.’ He helped her out of her box.
Kerin smiled shakily at him before running over to comfort Damaru.
Sais was tempted to slam the lid back down on Einon’s box and go check on Lillwen and the other Consort, who would both have woken up halfway to Heaven with no idea what was going on, but Einon still had the spare crossbow bolts, and Sais’s only bolt was embedded in the head of the Sidhe on the floor. Which reminded him - it would be a bad idea if anyone came in and saw her lying there. He checked the door, but found no obvious lock. He fetched the grav-trolley and loaded the dead Sidhe onto it. Even as he cursed at the difficulty of manoeuvring the unwieldy body onto the trolley he felt a little embarrassed at the soul-shrivelling fear this inert lump of meat had once inspired in him. He steered the trolley round to their side of the full boxes, so that anyone coming through the door wouldn’t immediately be confronted with the sight of a body.
Time to deal with Einon.
The noises from the priest’s comabox sounded more urgent. ‘Einon?’ Sais called. ‘I’m going to let you out. Everything’s fine. There’s no threat here. I’m opening the lid now.’
There was no answer, other than a catch in Einon’s breath. Sais stood to one side, just in case, but as he opened the lid he could see Einon lying quietly in the comabox, crossbow by his side. He had a fearful, haunted expression on his face.
‘I heard voices,’ he said shakily, ‘and I saw a grey light, like the dawn. I found a mechanism, but I was unsure if I should come out.’ He pointed upwards with a shaking, bloodied hand to indicate the emergency release. ‘See? Tis quite ingenious, the way it opens. Such clever contraptions, these.’
‘Yes,’ said Sais carefully, ‘yes they are.’ Looked like something in Einon’s head had snapped on the way up. Sais decided against asking him for the bolts. Now might not be the best time to remind the priest that he had a weapon close at hand. ‘Einon, why don’t you stay there? I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘I think I will. I have a great deal to think about. A very great deal,’ he said.
Sais thought he could hear banging from one of the other closed boxes. Though he understood why the occupant might be hysterical, he wasn’t sure he could deal with any more crazies right now. He shone the torch over at Kerin. She was crouching in front of Damaru, holding his hands in hers, talking to him.
‘K
erin,’ he called softly, ‘is Damaru all right? Can you leave him for a moment and give me a hand here?’
‘Aye,’ she said. After murmuring something to Damaru, she came over. She gasped, noticing the dead Sidhe on the trolley for the first time, then looked at the box next to Sais. ‘Is that Lillwen in there?’ she asked.
‘Either her or the other Consort. Will you try and calm whoever it is when I open the lid?’ He popped the catch, and waited. There was another thud, then silence. He raised the lid fully and shone the torch inside. A woman in a black robe was lying with her hands wrapped around her head. She was muttering to herself.
‘Lillwen?’ said Kerin gently.
Lillwen started. From the look on her face, she was expecting something terrible; when she saw Kerin, her expression changed to one of uncertainty.
‘Tis all right,’ said Kerin. ‘You are safe now.’
Well, not exactly, thought Sais. He watched Kerin help Lillwen sit up. The other woman was whispering, ‘I am cold . . . it was so dark, like the Abyss . . . where is this place?’ Kerin shushed her and stroked her hair.
No sound came from the box with the last Consort in. Sais shone the torch through the observation window. The boy looked half-asleep, blinking and struggling to focus; whether it was shock or the after-effects of the drugged drink Sais had no idea, but he set the box to cycle the lad back into stasis. He had enough screwed-up people to look after right now.
‘Who is that?’
Sais turned to see Einon sitting up in his box, pointing at the dead Sidhe.
‘She’s—’ He broke off when the torch beam caught Damaru fiddling with the controls at the foot of his comabox. ‘I’ll explain in a minute, all right?’ he said hurriedly and went over to Damaru. ‘Damaru, don’t touch anything, please.’ The boy was fascinated with the controls, and he gave no sign of having heard Sais. Still, provided he didn’t climb inside, there wasn’t much harm he could do - actually, Sais thought, climbing into a box and letting Sais put him to sleep again might not be such a bad idea. As soon as he had a moment he might see if he could persuade Damaru to do just that.
‘Did you, ah, kill her?’ Einon was still staring at the dead Sidhe, his head on one side.
He wondered how well Einon’s priestly lie-detector was working right now. He’d better give him something like the truth. ‘Yes, I did. She was going to kill us otherwise.’
‘Because we should not be here,’ whispered Einon.
‘You’re right, but not in the way you think. That woman is . . . she’s from the sky, but she isn’t a goddess.’
‘How do you, ah, how do you know that?’
‘I know because I’ve met people like her before.’
‘You are not from over the mountains, are you? You are from the sky, like her.’
‘I’m from the sky, yes, but I’m not like her. Let’s just say her people have a . . . less friendly attitude to those below. If it helps, think of it as a war in Heaven. She’s on the side of, well, evil.’ Sais knew this was a pretty limp explanation, but he wasn’t up to anything more complex at the moment.
‘Did her people build this place, and the Edefyn Arian?’
‘Yep.’
‘I, ah, I see.’
Sais wasn’t sure he liked the priest’s tone. ‘Einon, they are not people we want to meet. They will kill us if they find us here.’
From the stricken look on the priest’s face that probably wasn’t the best thing to say either. Oh, to hell with it. ‘Einon, just . . . just stay in the box and chill out. Please.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
When Lillwen had calmed down a little, she asked, ‘Are you the skyfool’s mother?’
‘Aye, my name is Kerin.’
Lillwen’s eyes glittered in the twilight of the great room. ‘Fychan - did he save her?’ she asked urgently.
It took Kerin a moment to work out who Lillwen was talking about. ‘You mean Anona?’
‘Aye. Is she all right? Sefion told me Fychan had been arrested, but he would not tell me why, or what had become of him. Did he get her away first? ’
‘I believe so,’ said Kerin, then added gently, ‘Anona is your daughter, is she not?’
Lillwen nodded. ‘They would not let me see my little girl after they made me take her Divinity’s place. I had to stay in the Cariad’s rooms, only go out for official functions. I thought about Anona all the time. Idwal managed to get some news, but we had to be careful. Every day I wondered what she was doing, how she was, whether she still hated me.’
‘I am sure she did not,’ murmured Kerin, appalled.
‘She told me she did. It was bad enough that they would not let us keep our children, the ones the priests got on us. But while I was just a servant of the Tyr, I could see her sometimes - during star-season, at Sul Esgyniad, on her naming day. The family who adopted her let us have time together. But when the Escorai made me take the place of the Cariad, Sefion ordered me to go and tell her myself that it was the will of the Mothers that I never see her again. And I could not tell her why. She was so angry. She threw her favourite doll at me. I used to sleep with it under my pillow.’
Kerin remembered the poppet Fychan had said would convince Anona to leave. Through a tightness in her throat she said, ‘She was a child then; she is a young woman now. She will have forgiven you.’
‘I pray she has. But at least she is safe. They never said anything directly, the other Escorai, but I knew, I knew if I disobeyed them, then soldiers would come for her, hurt her, maybe . . . my life has not been good. I want hers to be better.’
Kerin put her arms around the other woman and embraced her. Into her shoulder Lillwen said, ‘It is so good to be able to talk to someone. Since Idwal disappeared there has been no one, no one to talk to at all. The Escorai hate me. I sense it. They hate me because I am a fraud. But that is what they made me!’ She pulled back. ‘I am so scared.’
So am I, thought Kerin, but she said, ‘All will be well. Sais - my husband - will save us.’ I hope.
‘No, no, there is nothing he can do. Nothing anyone can do. It is up to the Skymothers now. You see, I have ascended to get my reward for serving them. Only I have not served them well. Idwal, he was . . . the others had to honour my decision, because I announced it publicly, but his faith was weak. Not like an Escori should be. He questioned. And I kept things from the others. There was this wall, in my - in the Cariad’s - rooms. Sometimes it lit up or made noises. One day, just before the winnowing times returned, I saw writing on it. I said nothing to them, because I wanted to have something only I knew.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘And Fychan . . . I needed a man. She made us that way, you know. The Cariad. After Idwal, once he was gone, the need burned inside me. Fychan looked so fine in that shirt. And I saw you there, so I knew the boy still had his mother, if it came to it. They could not refuse me, not when I asked in front of everyone. I have been so worried about Anona since Idwal disappeared. So I asked Fychan to help her. I am so glad she will be all right.’ Something in her voice reminded Kerin of a cloth unravelling. ‘You know, sometimes I think - I think if the Cariad can die, and a silly Putain like me can pretend to be her, then what if it is all lies, what if there is no reward, only darkness and death? What if everything we believe is an illusion . . .’
Kerin wished she had some word of reassurance for Lillwen, but all she could do was hold and comfort her.
Suddenly Lillwen’s head lifted. ‘Who is that?’ she said, looking over Kerin’s shoulder. ‘And where are the rest of her clothes?’
Kerin whirled. A woman wearing a sleeveless grey top and no skirt stood at the end of the boxes in the lighted room, staring at the body that Kerin had been trying hard not to look at. No one else had noticed her. Kerin called, ‘Sais!’
As Sais stood up, the woman turned and fled.
Sais swore and strode up to Einon. ‘I’m sorry, but I need those crossbow bolts!’
‘Why?’ Einon sounded curious, a little affronted.
>
‘Because if whoever that was raises the alarm, we’re all going to die.’
Einon reached down and gave Sais the case of bolts. Sais thrust the light he was holding towards Einon. ‘It’s a torch, a bit like your flameless lantern. Take it. You’ll feel better if you’ve got some light.’
He started towards the room beyond the great doors, calling back to Kerin, ‘Stay here. Try to get everyone back in the boxes—’
‘No.’ The word left Kerin’s lips before she could catch it. ‘I am coming with you.’
‘That’s not a good idea.’
Damaru had always been her first priority, but she had to fight those who would hurt him - the evil ones who had been hurting generations of children. ‘I have to,’ she said. Then to Damaru, ‘Damaru, love, stay here. I must go with Sais.’ He looked up at his name, then went back to studying the box.
Sais waited for her at the entrance to the lighted room. There was an open door in the far wall and together they ran over to it. Once through, Sais pressed part of the wall and the door slid shut with a faint hiss, just as the one in the Sanctaith Glan had.
They found themselves halfway along a passage. The walls, floor and ceiling were all made of the same smooth grey stuff, and it was lit by a harsh white light, though Kerin could see no torches or globe-lamps. A faint, persistent hum hung on the edge of hearing. Though the air was warm enough, the bleak nature of the place made Kerin feel cold.
The doors along the passage were all closed. There was nothing to show where the naked woman had gone. Kerin looked to Sais.
‘She’s probably heading for the bridge - the ship’s control room,’ he said quietly. ‘The quickest route there should be this way.’ He turned right.
Kerin followed. ‘Is she a Sidhe?’ she whispered.
‘No,’ said Sais, cocking his crossbow and slotting in a bolt. ‘She’s a mute, one of their servants.’
‘But we need to stop her before she reports us?’ Stop and kill her, though she is innocent.
‘Ideally.’ Despite the urgency he did not run, but set off at a fast creep. ‘But we don’t want to run into a Sidhe unexpectedly.’