by Jaine Fenn
Praise for Jaine Fenn
“A fast-paced, passionate adventure with a scientist at the heart of it, whose courage stays with you long after the story is over. Jaine Fenn deserves to be at the top table of British SFF.” Paul Cornell, Doctor Who writer
“Brilliantly written; an excellent book that I struggled to put down. Hidden Sun draws you into a strange and evocative world, both alien and oddly familiar.”
Gavin G Smith, author of Age of Scorpio and the Bastard Legion series
“A great talent. One of the most original voices in contemporary fantasy.”
Gareth L. Powell, author of Embers of War
“Intriguing world building and complex cultures are a Jaine Fenn specialty, and Hidden Sun takes these elements to the next level. Fenn fans will enjoy this one!”
Patrice Sarath, author of The Sisters Mederos and Fog Seaon
“Exciting… complex and unusual.” Liz Williams, Philip K Dick Award Nominee of Empire of Bones
By the Same Author
SHADOWLANDS
Hidden Sun
HIDDEN EMPIRE SERIES
Principle of Angels
Consorts of Heaven
Guardians of Paradise
Bringer of Light
Queen of Nowhere
Downside Girls
The Ships of Aleph
JAINE FENN
BROKEN SHADOW
SHADOWLANDS BOOK II
Contents
Chapter: 1
Chapter: 2
Chapter: 3
Chapter: 4
Chapter: 5
Chapter: 6
Chapter: 7
Chapter: 8
Chapter: 9
Chapter: 10
Chapter: 11
Chapter: 12
Chapter: 13
Chapter: 14
Chapter: 15
Chapter: 16
Chapter: 17
Chapter: 18
Chapter: 19
Chapter: 20
Chapter: 21
Chapter: 22
Chapter: 23
Chapter: 24
Chapter: 25
Chapter: 26
Chapter: 27
Chapter: 28
Chapter: 29
Chapter: 30
Chapter: 31
Chapter: 32
Chapter: 33
Chapter: 34
Chapter: 35
Chapter: 36
Chapter: 37
Chapter: 38
Chapter: 39
Chapter: 40
Chapter: 41
Chapter: 42
Chapter: 43
Chapter: 44
Chapter: 45
Chapter: 46
Chapter: 47
Chapter: 48
Chapter: 49
Chapter: 50
Chapter: 51
Chapter: 52
Chapter: 53
Chapter: 54
Chapter: 55
Chapter: 56
Chapter: 57
Chapter: 58
Chapter: 59
Chapter: 60
Chapter: 61
Chapter: 62
Chapter: 63
Chapter: 64
Chapter: 65
Chapter: 66
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1
“The charge,” intoned the cardinal, “is heresy.”
Rhia Harlyn met Marsan’s gaze. “Right.” She had known this day might come. But not yet. It was too soon. “I see. Can you be more specific, Your Holiness?”
Cardinal Marsan looked down from his high-backed chair. Rhia had last been in this small private courtroom two years ago, for her brother’s trial. She had hoped never to see it again. “Heresy is heresy,” he said with a sniff.
If she sighed, the cardinal might hear. The two guards behind her and the young clerk sitting to one side certainly would. So she inclined her head as though accepting this idiocy as wisdom and said, “Of course. Yet I have a right to know the details of the charge against me, in order to prepare my defence.”
The cardinal’s left eyebrow twitched, as though expressing his outrage at the idea that there was a proper defence against heresy. “You have proposed, against all common sense and, more importantly against the teachings of the First, that the world is not at the centre of the universe.”
Damnation! But what else could it be? The Church might not approve of the natural enquirers, but it tolerated them – if they kept quiet. She had been betrayed.
“Well?”
The wretched man wanted an answer. Should she lie? Feign ignorance? No, her words were being recorded by the clerk. Lying now could make things worse later. She drew a deep breath and said, “Yes. I am indeed working on a theory that rather than the Sun and all the stars going around the world, our world and certain other celestial bodies go around the Sun.”
“Preposterous.”
Rhia clenched and unclenched her jaw. “It would be if the world was flat, yes.”
“So you also propose that the world is not flat?”
Actually she had got that from the writings of Watcher of Valt. But she was not about to break the enquirers’ code, even if someone else had. “I do, yes.”
“Hmmm. That is indeed a heretical concept. And did you come up with this ‘theory’ by yourself?”
“I am not sure what you mean, Holiness.”
“I know you are unmarried but perhaps a man of your acquaintance proposed the concept to you?”
Now Rhia did sigh. Then she made herself take a fresh breath, and force a smile, before replying, “Were you thinking of any man in particular, or merely commenting on the general inferiority of the female mind?”
“It is a reasonable question.”
The cardinal’s icy tone froze her ire.
“No. This theory is all my own.”
“Really.” Marsan sniffed again.
“Yes, really.” She could feel her voice rising. “With respect, Cardinal, I do not believe that the relative locations and movements of the Sun and stars are explicitly stated in the Scriptures.” Had she been given any notice, she might have researched this but the pair of militiamen sent with the summons had been instructed to bring her straight to the palace.
“And you are an expert on the Scriptures, are you?”
A tremor of tension danced down her spine, “Of course not, Your Holiness.” She swallowed, “If there is such a passage, please tell me.” Just put me out of my misery, because if I really have contradicted the Scriptures, I may as well burn my papers now. Despite the close heat of the small room, her blood ran chill.
The cardinal held up a finger. “The First, in his wisdom, felt no need to impart such a self-evident truth as the disposition of heavens.”
Rhia let herself breathe. “Then I would humbly suggest that this interpretation of the skies might not go against the Church’s teachings.”
“It is not for you to interpret the will of the First!”
No, that’s your job. A lightheaded and inappropriate sense of relief settled on her. She – and more importantly her work – was not doomed. But the Church still had a case. She kept her gaze low and took a deep breath before replying. “My apologies, Holiness. I spoke out of turn.”
“So you did. Now that you have formally heard the charge, I will confer with my fellows and set a date for your trial.”
“Trial?” Of course there would be a trial.
“Yes. Do not think your status will protect you, Countess.”
“I never do. I put my faith in the truth.”
The cardinal shook his head slowly, his eyes narrow. “We will inform you of the process in due course. You may go.”
Her heart heavy in her chest, Rhia turned away. The two militia
guards stood aside to let her pass.
As soon as she was back in the corridors of the palace proper she accosted a footman. “I must speak to the duke at once!” Despite her foolish words to the cardinal, she intended to use every advantage her position gave her.
The footman’s alarm might have been comical in other circumstances. “I… I do not know where his Grace is at this moment, Countess.” The servant knew who she was of course: everyone at court knew of the eccentric noblewoman with the quarter-mask.
“Then find him!” But even if she managed to locate Francin, he might not grant her an immediate audience. “Find him and tell him that I, and my work, are in danger, and I need to talk to him. I will be at my house. You understand the message?”
“Yes m’lady.”
“Good. Thank you. Now off you go!”
Outside, evening was creeping across the city, cooling the hot, dry air. The streets were empty, though Rhia caught faint sounds of a commotion from the lower city. There was often some commotion in the lower city these days.
Back home, she had just put a foot on the stair when the kitchen door opened and Markave emerged. “Is all well, m’lady?”
“Not really.” Sometimes she wanted to confide in her steward, however inappropriate that might be. “It’s… it’s nothing you need worry about though.”
“If you are sure… Will you want supper in your study?”
“Please.” She could not remember the last time she had eaten in the townhouse’s grand dining room.
Halfway up the stairs a black-and-white streak darted out from the landing. Rhia leaned down and scooped up the cat. “Got you!” The furry bundle squirmed in her grasp, purring all the while.
“You know what, Yithi?”
The cat favoured her with a blank golden stare.
“Some days I wish I was a cat.”
Yithi’s response was to kick her legs, claws extended. She had always been more Etyan’s than hers. Insofar as any cat was anyone’s. Rhia took the hint and put her down. “Go on then.”
When Rhia reached the room at the top of the house, her gaze skittered over the usual comfortable mess – papers, books and instruments piled high on desks and workbenches – before settling for a moment on her unfinished celestial model. She had just been getting somewhere with it when the summons arrived, having wound the Maiden a quarter circuit around the Sun without the mechanism sticking. The model was still not even half-finished but right now she needed the comfort of the sky.
She strode across her study, grabbing the sightglass from its stand as she passed. She climbed the wooden ladder, slammed the trapdoor at the top open, then pulled herself onto the observation platform tucked into the high roof. She clicked the sightglass into its tripod with a sigh.
Whitemoon was up, though low. The Harbinger dominated the other side of the sky, a bright point trailed by a smeared arc of spangled light. The wandering star appeared larger than it had when it rode overhead a few weeks ago – an illusion; she had observed the same phenomenon with the Moons – yet also dimmer. The bright tail which streamed behind it like a shower of water droplets frozen in place was straighter than it had been when she first sketched it, though not as straight as the second, dimmer tail which the star had recently developed. No enquirer had mentioned this second tail. But her ironwood chest contained only a subset of the knowledge in the enquirers’ network, and it had been several generations since the Harbinger’s last appearance. So many glorious questions… Faced with matters of such cosmic importance, the opinion of one set of churchmen in one shadowland was nothing.
People saw this “bearded star” as a grim portent. Combined with yet another rain-year that brought little rain, its return had triggered unrest. But for all its dramatic appearance, the Harbinger was just a celestial body of irregular habits. Her observations showed its slow crawl across the sky to be an illusion borne of perspective. She was sure the Harbinger’s true path was around the Sun and if she could prove this, she could also prove her wider theory of celestial mechanics.
But her interest lay in observing, and finding patterns. Numbers were a necessary evil. Yet for her theory to have weight, and be irrefutable by scholar, guildmaster or priest, it must be backed up by calculations; and she could not make her calculations fit her observations. Which was why she had asked someone more comfortable with mathematics to aid her. A mistake, it now turned out.
What if this was all a mistake? Perhaps the reason she could not prove the Sun was the centre of the universe was because it wasn’t. She had staked her reputation on a near-death revelation. It had seemed so obvious at the time, but perhaps she was about to be tried for an unprovable fever-dream.
CHAPTER 2
Dej let Etyan lead the way through the umbral forest. Although his hunter’s crouch wasn’t necessary – they were only rabbits for First’s sake! – she liked the way his breeches pulled tight over his backside when he bent over like that.
Etyan had found the warren a few days ago. He’d gone out looking for water and come back with a waterskin half full of brackish brown liquid and a head full of enthusiasm.
His excitement at finding the rabbits had coaxed a rare smile from her. He’d stood in the doorway of their shack and gestured with the slack waterskin, saying how hunting rabbits would be like hunting deer. Dej, rather than admit she didn’t know what a deer was, had said, “So you used to hunt deer?”
He’d shrugged. “A couple of times. The duke kept a few dozen on his estate.”
“Which you got invited to?” She pounced on the chance to get him talking about his old life.
“Of course. He had the servants block off some of their normal routes then we’d ride after the deer, forcing them into a dead end, where they couldn’t get out.”
This didn’t sound very fair on the deer. “And then you killed and ate them?”
Etyan hung the waterskin on the hook by the door. “No, like I said, the duke didn’t have that many. But he’d give a noble the honour of killing one specially chosen deer. We’d have a feast, later.”
Deer were, presumably, rather larger than rabbits. “Did he ever choose you?”
Etyan grimaced. “No. I was too young.”
“But we can hunt rabbits the same way.” Back at the crèche, they’d put up fences to discourage rabbits from eating delicate crops, but that was to keep them out, not hem them in. And they’d been too fast to consider chasing, before her bonding.
“I don’t see why not.”
The next day, they’d gathered planks left over from building their shack, and a couple of spare blankets, and carried them to the warren. They’d used these planks and strips of blanket to set up barriers between some of the trees, limiting the rabbits’ access to their home. Etyan said not to block the actual holes; they needed the animals to stay there, and get used to the changes.
Now she and Etyan were back, armed with the netting bag they stored vegetables in and the empty stew pot from the hearth. The glow of the skyland, glimpsed through the tree-trunks to the west, was dimming. They had to time their arrival for the early evening, when the rabbits were returning from foraging in the shadowland to the east of the umbral.
The ironwoods here were huge, with smooth silver-grey trunks nearly as wide as their shack. The trees must be due for harvesting soon. Was this still Harlyn territory? She shook her head: it didn’t matter; owning the land was shadowkin thinking.
Etyan stopped, and pointed at the ground ahead where the forest floor was peppered with burrows and small mounds of earth – along with their efforts from a few days earlier. A couple of bunnies were hopping around; as they watched, one of them went into a hole.
“You go round the far side while I stay here,” whispered Etyan. “Stay downwind and make sure we can still see each other.”
“Obviously.” Moving with slow care, Dej circled right. She found a place with a perfect view of the warren, but there was a tree bole between her and Etyan. She moved round until she co
uld see him. He raised a hand to show he could see her too. Only one rabbit was visible, hopping round on the far side of one of the barriers, a knee-high strip of fine woollen cloth woven in a complex red-and-orange checkerboard design. Dej felt smugly pleased at seeing the rich, showy blanket shredded and put to practical use.
The rattle of wind through treetops overhead picked up, and a chill eddy made the scales along her bare arms tighten against the cold; the ever-present umbral breeze sharpened at morning and evening. A shadowkin would be having trouble seeing by now, as twilight deepened the thick gloom beneath the ironwoods.
Two more rabbits loped into view. One headed for a hole, then paused and sat back on its haunches. It sniffed the air. Dej tensed, but the animal just dropped down onto all fours and continued into its burrow, unconcerned. The other one came over to the rabbit Dej had first seen. Noses met, and the two of them hopped a couple of paces nearer the cloth barrier. This looked like a good moment to make a move, maybe even bag the pair. She looked over at Etyan, then raised her hand. Though his skin wasn’t scaly like hers its unique patterning still made him blend into the shadows; the shake of his head was no more than a slight change in the dark shape he made beside his tree.
Fine. It was his plan.
One of the bunnies was hopping round the other now. If that meant what she thought, they’d be well distracted. Movement near Etyan; he had at least one rabbit in range too. This was the perfect moment. She raised her hand again.
The second rabbit was sniffing at the other one’s rear. Dej smiled. Etyan still hadn’t moved. Well, she was the experienced hunter here. It was time to strike. She raised her hand: Go. Without waiting to see what Etyan did, she pushed off from the tree, cutting in to come at the amorous bunnies from the shadowland side, transferring the net into a two-handed grip as she moved.
She leapt over the low barrier. A furry head went up. The rabbits broke away in opposite directions. They were faster than she expected. The one heading for a plank barrier was closest. She waited for it to turn, trying to gauge whether it would go left or right. It did neither: it leapt straight over the plank.
The other rabbit jinked to one side. She adjusted her course, toes pushing off the compacted earth, arms outstretched.
Off to one side she heard a thud and an oath.