Goldenfire

by A. F. E. Smith

  For a moment, he and Saydi stared at each other. Her hazel eyes were already brimming with tears, but now they looked frightened, too. Then, slowly, he raised his gaze to Farleigh.

  ‘Gone? Gone where?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Farleigh said defensively – and indeed, Caraway realised in some corner of his mind, he had spoken with more fire than usual. ‘I just noticed he was missing, that’s all.’

  Shit. Caraway jumped to his feet, scanning the faces of the trainees. ‘Did anyone see him go?’

  They shook their heads. Caraway glanced up at the tower, but the two Helmsmen at the gate were still there. Penn couldn’t have got into Darkhaven.

  Maybe he’s gone to relieve himself. Maybe Saydi’s blood turned his stomach – it takes them that way sometimes. Maybe …

  But his heart told him something different. Because someone must have hurt Saydi, after all. And if Penn was the only one missing now, it must be because he was the one who’d wanted to cause a diversion. But why? If he hadn’t gone after Ayla, where had he gone?

  ‘Captain Caraway!’ He turned to see Marlon’s nursemaid, Lori, hastening towards him. He strode forward to meet her.

  ‘Lori! What is it? Where’s Marlon?’

  ‘He told me it was urgent,’ she said breathlessly. ‘He said he’d bring Marlon after.’

  ‘Who?’ Caraway grabbed her shoulders, though he already knew the answer. ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Your recruit. Tall young man. Lightish hair, sort of an intense way about him …’ Her gaze flickered over the others, then settled on Saydi. ‘I take it that’s her?’

  Caraway didn’t answer. His whole being was focused on the desperate, plunging fear that clawed at his guts. He’s taken Marlon. Penn has taken Marlon. But why. Why?

  ‘C-Captain Caraway?’ Saydi said. He glanced down; her lip trembled, but her expression was resolute. ‘I – I’m afraid Penn means to hurt him.’

  And with that, she fainted.

  Means to hurt him. For an instant longer, Caraway was paralysed by fear. He concentrated on compressing it into a tiny, solid ball – one that sat in his stomach like a cold weight but no longer dragged every part of him down into inaction. Then he turned back in the direction of the Helmsmen at Darkhaven’s gate and sent them the swooping, high-to-low whistle that would summon them to his side.

  ‘Lori, look after Saydi,’ he ordered while he was waiting for them to arrive. ‘She wouldn’t let me examine her wound, but now she’s out you should have an easier time of it. The rest of you –’ he glanced around at the trainees – ‘spread out across the hillside and look for Penn. Stay in groups of at least three or four. If you find him, send a runner for me. Don’t try anything stupid. He’s got Marlon with him, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt. Understand?’

  They nodded, wide-eyed. Several of them cast glances at Saydi’s unconscious form as though wondering if they’d be next. But Caraway had no time to spare for reassurances, because by now the guards from the gate were at his side. He explained the situation to them in as few words as possible, before sending them off on their search. Then he and Bryan headed in the direction that Lori had come from.

  They found the flower patch where Marlon liked to play, but there was no sign of either Marlon or Penn. Caraway turned in a circle, looking frantically in all directions, but saw nothing to indicate which direction they’d gone in. His thoughts were bouncing all over the place. Because he’d done this three years ago, hadn’t he? Gone chasing after a kidnapped member of the Nightshade line. Only that time, it had turned out to be a decoy.

  Of course, that surely couldn’t be true this time. Marlon was gone. The nurse had last seen him in Penn’s company. There wasn’t any room for confusion. Yet all the same, Caraway’s mind kept whirring. Was this a coincidence – two vendettas against Darkhaven, Zander’s and Penn’s, that had happened to coincide? Or was Zander innocent and Penn the real assassin? And if the latter, why had he gone after Marlon instead of Ayla? It made no sense from a tactical point of view. A child, even a Nightshade child, would have no part to play in the defence of Mirrorvale. Unless Caraway and Bryan had misunderstood exactly what it was the Kardise intended their assassin to achieve. Or unless Penn planned to use Marlon against Ayla in some way …

  That brought him up short. He forced himself to stop and think. Penn couldn’t hope to get into Darkhaven without being seen, not with the Helmsmen and his fellow recruits all searching the grounds. And he must know he stood no chance of defending himself against all those people out in the open, even using Marlon as a shield. So whatever his intentions, the chances were he’d have left the seventh ring as soon as he could.

  Caraway gestured to Bryan, and the two of them ran down the hill to the Gate of Death. Sure enough, the guards at the gate had seen a young man and a little boy pass by. The young man had only lingered long enough to pick up his sword.

  Caraway’s fists clenched. ‘Why didn’t you stop them?’

  The little boy hadn’t seemed unhappy, the guards explained in some confusion. He was chattering away, something about an adventure. And they’d recognised the young man. He was the one who’d been given the freedom of the sixth ring by Captain Caraway himself. So it was reasonable to assume that Captain Caraway trusted him.

  ‘But the boy!’ Caraway protested. ‘That was Marlon Nightshade. Surely you recognised him?’

  The guards exchanged glances, then shrugged. It wasn’t the city watch’s job to prevent people from descending through Arkannen. They were only concerned with people trying to climb higher than they’d a right to.

  Caraway shook his head in frustration. It was the same principle that had allowed Ayla to escape from Darkhaven, three years ago. And, in general, it was a reasonable one. But fire and blood! Why couldn’t the watch use a little common sense?

  ‘Come on,’ Bryan said, calling him out of his fulminating thoughts. ‘The lad’s through the gate. Can’t do anything about that now. So where will he have gone?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Caraway slammed his fist into his palm. ‘I don’t understand it! He’s clearly not after Ayla. He wasn’t mistreating Marlon –’ But at that point his voice failed him, because Marlon was so very small to be out in the world with a stranger. If Penn wanted to hurt the little boy, kill him, there was nothing Caraway could do about it.

  Yet even now, he didn’t think Penn was a bad person. Angry, yes, and clearly harbouring a grudge against Caraway himself, but that didn’t mean he was capable of the kind of cruelty required to injure a small child. No, this kidnapping was intended solely to provoke a response. Penn wanted to stage some kind of showdown, and taking Marlon was his way of ensuring that Caraway would come after him.

  Some kind of showdown …

  The perfect place for a heroic last stand. The memory flared into life, and with it conviction. He set off again, moving at a jog.

  ‘He’ll have gone to the Spire of Air.’

  When they got there, Caraway spotted Penn straight away. It wasn’t exactly difficult. He and Marlon were up on the platform that sat halfway up the spire itself. The very high platform, separated from a vertiginous drop by a single rail that a child could easily slip underneath –

  Dizzy fear danced in Caraway’s head; he closed his eyes, willing it to pass. If only Ayla had been with him! With her wings, she could have been up to that platform and taking Marlon back before Penn had time to blink. He should have sent for her as soon as Marlon went missing. He should have brought reinforcements instead of trying to do everything himself. The similarities between this incident and the one three years ago had fooled him into thinking he was the only man who could do the job. Once again, he’d set himself up as the Nightshade line’s last hope.

  Stupid, he told himself. Stupid and arrogant. If Marlon dies –

  But he shook his head to cast that thought away. Marlon wasn’t going to die. He’d do whatever it took to get the boy back safely.

  The high priestess met him
at the door. Beyond her, a little huddle of priestesses were gathered at the foot of the stair that climbed up to the external walkway, peering upwards.

  ‘Captain Caraway,’ the high priestess greeted him calmly. ‘I take it you are here to deal with this situation.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The young man came running in here and made straight for the spire. Naturally we were unable to stop him. He has a sword.’

  ‘He also has Marlon Nightshade,’ Caraway said grimly. ‘Leave it to me. Please make sure none of your sisters do anything rash.’

  She inclined her head. ‘Of course.’

  Caraway and Bryan took the steps two at a time, but when they reached the roof of the temple and the staircase turned into the walkway that climbed the spire, Caraway turned to the weaponmaster.

  ‘Art, please stay here. I’ll handle this.’

  ‘Tomas, are you sure –’

  ‘I said I’ll handle it,’ Caraway said, more forcefully than he’d intended. ‘He’s my son.’

  Bryan’s heavy brows drew into a frown, but he didn’t argue any further. He stood back, and Caraway began to climb the walkway alone.

  When he reached the platform, he was confronted by the point of a sword. Penn’s face was pale and set, but his grip on the weapon was perfectly steady. From somewhere beyond him, Marlon whimpered.

  ‘Papa!’

  Ignoring the sword, Caraway leaned to one side to catch a glimpse of the boy. He was standing by the guard rail, one wrist cuffed to it. When his eyes met Caraway’s, his lower lip trembled. ‘Don’t like it any more. Want to go home.’

  Caraway’s fists clenched, but he forced all traces of anger out of his voice before replying. ‘We’ll go home very soon, Marlon. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.’

  Scowling, Penn took a pace back and gestured with the tip of his sword for Caraway to come up. Caraway stood still on the last step of the walkway and just looked at him.

  ‘Aren’t you going to kill me, Penn? You’ve made it clear enough that’s what you want.’

  ‘I’m not a murderer,’ Penn shot back. ‘Not like you.’

  What? Caraway shook his head in honest incomprehension. ‘And who exactly am I supposed to have murdered?’

  Penn’s lip lifted in a sneer. ‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’

  ‘You’re Penn Avens …’ But Caraway fell silent as Penn shook his head.

  ‘My name is Penn Travers. Owen Travers was my cousin.’

  Sorrow lurked in the doorway that led from the stairwell to the roof of the warehouse, watching the scene before her. After a couple of near-miss encounters with guards and one lucky overheard remark, she’d found her way up here – where, as it turned out, Eight kept an entire fleet of two-man airships, the kind they would have referred to as balloons in Mirrorvale. The Kardise called them skyboats. There had been several of them tethered to the roof when she arrived, but they’d been taking off one at a time since then; the last-but-one was currently filling up with gas in preparation to follow the rest. They were going after Elisse. At least, she had to assume they were, or everything she’d done would prove futile. And so once there was only a single skyboat left, she’d have to incapacitate its small crew and fly it after the other craft.

  Though Sorrow had many skills, hijacking an airship armed with only a knife and a chair leg wasn’t one she’d had to use before.

  Still, she had no choice if she wanted to stand any chance of intervening in Elisse’s capture. Air travel was by far the quickest way of getting anywhere, so if she wanted to keep up, she needed to fly too. In which case, she’d better stop worrying that it was impossible and simply get on with it.

  When the penultimate skyboat finally rose into the air – its warmed-up engines growling, the propellers spluttering into life – the two men left on the rooftop began to prepare their own craft. One of them climbed into the gondola to crank the engine and open the valves that would let more gas into the envelope, whilst the other began to release the tethers that held the ship to the ground. Sorrow took a moment to consider her strategy: since she was short on time and energy, swift incapacitation was the way forward. She’d just have to get it right first try.

  As soon as both men’s backs were turned, she launched herself on noiseless feet across the rooftop. Well, almost noiseless – her wounded foot dragged a little despite all her care, creating a faint scuffing sound that would have been audible were it not for the hiss of the gas entering the skyboat’s envelope. She got nearly all the way to the first man before he caught the movement in his peripheral vision, and by then it was too late. He had time for no more than the start of a warning shout before the chair leg caught him on the temple, dropping him bonelessly to the floor.

  Yet that cut-off cry might be her undoing, Sorrow thought grimly. It had alerted the second man, who’d turned and was looking at her from inside the gondola. If he decided his best course of action was to pull up the anchor and take off –

  Fortunately, he didn’t. Unfortunately, that was because he had a pistol and he knew that gave him the advantage. Had their situations been reversed, Sorrow would have shot him without a thought. She braced herself for the deadly impact, but it didn’t come. Instead, he leapt nimbly over the side of the gondola with the pistol in one hand. Perhaps he wanted information from her, or perhaps he was just over-confident. Either way, in the instant it took him to recover from his landing, she swung the chair leg again and hit the pistol with it, as hard as she could. It flew from his hand and skittered across the roof, going off with a bang before falling over the edge.

  Damn it. I could have used that pistol. With a resigned shrug, Sorrow brought the chair leg back round, this time into the second man’s head. He crumpled beside the first. Huh. I never realised a chair leg could be such an effective weapon.

  Despite that, she left it lying beside the two prone men when she clambered into the skyboat. The next part was going to require more than a chunk of wood to handle. She still had the knife, and that was a start, but with any luck she’d be able to retrieve her spare set of pistols from Elisse.

  Before that, though … She studied the controls of the craft before her in some bewilderment. How the fuck do you fly an airship?

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The two boys with Ree were bickering about the best way to search for Penn and Marlon, but she did her best to block them out. She needed to think. There was something … something … if she could only put her finger on it …

  Everyone has gone off after Penn. It came to her in a flash, from some hidden part of herself that was clearly more intelligent than she’d realised. But if Penn has taken Marlon, he isn’t the assassin. I don’t know what he is – an accomplice? A stooge? – but he isn’t that. Which means this whole thing could just be a cover.

  She nodded to herself. That made sense. Yet it wasn’t the whole of what was bothering her. Because even in the throes of panic for his adopted son, Captain Caraway had done everything right. He’d called the guards off the gate, but he’d asked them to lock it behind them; so although it was only locked rather than bolted from the inside, it wasn’t accessible to the casual intruder.

  Zander could open it, the same small part of her observed. Even you could open it. You’ve been carrying those lockpicks around with you for weeks.

  All right. So someone could get in, if they had the knowledge and the will. But Caraway had covered that as well. He’d kept the trainees in groups of three or four, ostensibly for their own safety, but also – and Ree knew this would have been deliberate – so that no single one of them could overpower the others. They were all on their guard. They’d be looking out for any suspicious behaviour. There wasn’t any way an assassin could sneak off into Darkhaven under cover of Penn’s inexplicable and reckless act.

  But Penn wasn’t the first distraction, her brain said. The first distraction was Saydi …

  The revelation was coming. She could feel the shape of it up ahead. Her thoughts
tumbled over themselves in their haste to get there.

  Saydi was stabbed, and that’s what allowed Penn to get away.

  At least, we assume Saydi was stabbed. All we can really say is that there was blood.

  And now she’s up near Darkhaven’s gate with only Marlon’s nurse for company.

  Which means it’s likely that Saydi …

  Saydi is the assassin.

  The idea seemed ridiculous, but Ree forced herself to think about it rationally. And once she started looking for the evidence, it piled up thick and fast.

  She’s much better at swordplay than she looks. And probably even better than that; she made mistakes in training, but she must have done something right to get through the private testing.

  She tried to get a job in Darkhaven before signing up for assessment. Which implies she wanted to get in there by whatever means she could.

  She’s the one who said it was impossible for anyone in the fifth ring to have a pistol without the weaponmasters knowing it, which may have been what sent Captain Caraway off to the gun-sellers the very next day. And that led to Zander’s arrest.

  She claimed to have been stabbed, yet she wouldn’t let anyone close enough to examine the wound. Come on, Ree! That should have been suspicious in itself, only you were too stupid to notice.

  She and Penn spent a lot of time together … so she could have been aware of Penn’s intentions and planned to use them as a cover …

  Ree stopped dead, her heart racing. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ she called to the two boys in front of her. ‘I’m going to find out how Saydi is.’

  They returned absent-minded agreement without even looking up from their quarrel. Ree wanted to shake them. We’re supposed to be on the alert for a potential killer, and you’re just going to let me wander off in the direction of Darkhaven by myself? What, you think a girl can’t be an assassin?

  It’s what you thought about Saydi, isn’t it? the snarky, intelligent spark inside her replied. The evidence was right there in front of your nose, and you didn’t see it because she’s feminine and giggly and good at looking helpless. You’re an idiot.