The Modern World

by Steph Swainston

  ‘On the contrary, you barely noticed I existed. I wondered what I had to do. If you had wanted Donaise you could have had it. I would have done anything. Now it’s too late.’

  She said, ‘You’re always deluding yourself. You with love, Jant with drugs; god knows what the rest of the immortals rely on. In a few years you won’t be able to draw any of your wonderful bows any longer because you’ll be old and weak.’

  ‘I am sure it will be an interesting experience,’ he said brightly. ‘I never considered what I would look like when I’m forty. Or sixty. Well, now I’m going to find out.’

  Swallow couldn’t stand the fact that he was looking on it as an interesting experiment. ‘You’re a fool! And I’ve been looking after your nasty daughter all this time! I wish I’d known!’

  ‘Be quiet about Cyan. I have just given my life for her. I only regret I didn’t do it earlier, so I could have been with her as she grew up. I should have raised her instead of you.’

  Swallow exploded with fresh anger. ‘And now you’re leaving me – where? Your bastard games will have wasted my talent! One day I’ll be just a faded memory to you Eszai – worse still! – an old governor! And you won’t hear my music any more.’

  Lightning smiled and glanced away. He reached around with one hand and pressed a couple of keys, twiddling the first bars of a piece of music. Swallow stopped dead. ‘Don’t you dare play my aria.’

  Lightning brought his other hand into play and expanded the music to its full glory.

  ‘Stop it!’

  He had turned back to the keyboard. ‘What, this? You make your own immortality with every effortless opera. You are the greatest composer in the world, Swallow. What do you really want? Immortality might not give you what you really want. It didn’t for me. Ask yourself, and be true to yourself. You already have fame. You have recognition. Your music brings a great response and many friends. But you harp on the same old tune of wanting the Circle. You don’t appreciate the magnitude of your achievements, you only see the things you haven’t done.’

  ‘It isn’t good enough, if I’m still mortal. I don’t want to die.’

  ‘Everybody dies except San. Eszai just take longer. Why should you be saved?’

  ‘If I can make music forever, I’ll be happy.’

  ‘No, Swallow. Immortals are those who prize success and fame over happiness. They gain what little happiness they ever have from success. Their thirst for perfection and fear of being beaten drives them on. I no longer prize immortality in those terms, and neither should you. Learn from my example. Escape. You don’t have to forgo an Eszai’s single-mindedness. I won’t let anything get in my way, even though the obstacle in my path was immortality itself.’

  Swallow made a sound of disgust. She pulled off her engagement ring and flung it in rage. It hit the inside of the piano’s upraised lid, dropped onto the strings and we heard it chime.

  ‘I did love you, Swallow.’

  ‘Liar!’ she screamed. She turned to me. ‘Jant, you’ll help me, won’t you?’

  ‘All I can, but I doubt it’ll do any good. It’s up to you, now.’

  ‘You said I was like a sister!’

  ‘I can’t change the Castle, Swallow.’

  She bowed her head and sighed. ‘I sometimes feel that I’m on the edge of some great truth. I get excited. I start scrawling the notes on the manuscript. I see the glow, the edge of the bright light where genius resides. I can never reach it completely. Maybe my excitement makes it ebb. The intense white light retreats, eludes me. I grow cold. I am left on the shore. No genius breakthrough tonight, just another symphony finished and my eyes are sore. It is happening more and more these days. I am getting older, and I no longer write from the heart. I’m getting older, Jant, and I will lose my genius. I’m still running the race; time is still burning down the bridges to things I could have achieved.’ She burst into frightened tears.

  ‘None of us can change the Castle,’ I repeated.

  ‘You immortals only exist because we allow you to,’ she sobbed. ‘If you’re a … barrier to me … I’ll make your life hard in the real world.’

  Eleonora cut in, with a voice used to command battles and law courts. ‘Spare us the vulgar threats, Governor Awndyn. There are not even a hundred immortals and you had one more chance to join them than the rest of us. You held out for yet another and lost both. Return to your music. We look forward to your next concert.’

  Swallow swept the room with a look of pure hatred, took a step forward, hesitated, turned on her heel and stormed out. Her progress down the passageway was marked by a vase smashing every few metres. A little while later we heard the clop and crunch as her coach departed at a gallop. Silence returned.

  Lightning sighed. ‘I’d just had those replaced. The third time.’

  I smiled. ‘Well I’m sure you can afford to have them repaired. Or make some new replicas.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll bother this time. Time for a new look.’

  ‘Lightning, are you sure?’

  ‘Never more so. And you will all have to get used to calling me Saker.’

  ‘I think people will still call you Lightning,’ Eleonora said. ‘And Lightning, I do want to escape.’

  CHAPTER 27

  Next morning I took breakfast in the Orangery. I sat at the round, polished table and pressed my toes into the soft moss that covered the ground like a carpet. An orange tree grew through a large hole in the centre of the table, over which its boughs hung low with fruit. The table was laden with all the foods that pass for breakfast in Awia, a variety far greater than I could actually eat. I had no appetite, I was thinking back to what happened the previous night. I still couldn’t understand Lightning’s volte-face. I felt an open rift in the centre of my being, as if he was already dead.

  The sun shone through the glass wall which curved up to the panes of the ceiling. Black-painted wrought-iron flowers and tendrils spiralled from the curlicued frames, as if the struts of the glasshouse themselves were growing. More orange and lemon trees with smooth bark were rooted in the clean, deep moss all around me. The air was rich with scent.

  An arcaded loggia passage connected the Orangery to the palace just behind me. In front, I looked out down the lawns to the shimmering lake. On the nearest end of the island the tops of tall monkey puzzle trees poked up from the dense woods extending to the shore, where a tiny jetty emerged.

  The Queen of Awia appeared at the glass portal, kicked off her shoes and walked across the moss barefoot. As always she looked fantastic, elegant in cream suede, with her sword scabbard swapping the back of her legs. But beneath her soft feathers, her porcelain face and sepia eyes, I thought she was just another thick-skinned tart. She sat down beside me, so the orange tree didn’t block her view of me. A servant appeared immediately and started loading her plate with kedgeree.

  I said, ‘The guests have gone. When are you leaving?’

  ‘Me?’ Eleonora laughed. ‘Oh, no. I’m staying here for a while, Queen’s prerogative. I’m going to do all I possibly can to impress him. And I’m well capable of that.’

  I wondered how to warn him. I couldn’t think how without incriminating myself. I said sarcastically, ‘He’d be overwhelmingly impressed by dressage and the lash.’

  ‘Do you think I can’t change? If Lightning can, I can, of course. The Eleonora you saw won’t be the one he sees. On the contrary, I intend to marry him.’

  ‘What!’

  She continued, ‘But I won’t hide all of my … more wanton side. If I try to act like a maiden, well, he might not like maidens, and that would be a great shame, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Your talents lie elsewhere.’

  She stifled a smile. ‘You’d be surprised. It’s difficult to break through his romantic pose but there’s a real man under there. I’ve never met another with such a mix of strength, intelligence and perfect self-assurance. A real equal.’

  ‘I don’t want to know.’

  ‘And he’
s better hung than you. You can tell from the crease of his trousers.’

  ‘I don’t want to know! I can’t believe it! Imagine: sell all your antiques, Lightning, and redecorate with mirrors – Eleonora’s moving in! All the servants must wear leather harnesses and nipple clips!’

  She laughed. ‘I’m not that bad.’

  ‘Well, I don’t bloody understand why he chose to lose the Challenge.’

  ‘I think his leaving the Circle is a very clever move. When we marry, it will be the joining of the two greatest houses in Awia.’

  ‘Oh, god …’ Realisation began to dawn.

  ‘Think what he’s doing. When Cyan becomes Eszai, she cannot inherit Peregrine manor, because the Emperor no longer allows immortals to own land. Lightning will keep Peregrine, so reuniting all the scattered lands of his original manor, which has always been his aim. When he marries me he’ll regain Avernwater too, and we will possess all the manors of Awia except Carniss and Wrought. Lightning will not only have united his manor, but the whole of Awia. He will be King, as he should have been fourteen centuries ago. He can fulfil the role he had to relinquish when he joined the Circle, and bring the Micawater dynasty back to the throne, that has lain dormant with him so long. That’s what he always wanted. It’s a long time to wait. We will have a single great manor and Awia will have a degree of stability that has never been seen before. Never!’

  ‘You’re founding the first absolute monarchy in Awia.’

  ‘Well done, Jant. You have figured out my aim, at least.’

  It did not sound so good to me.

  Eleonora added, ‘The Emperor would be pleased.’

  ‘Would he?’

  ‘Of course. All the manors would be in Zascai hands.’

  ‘Except Wrought.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Tern, I think that would suit San, too. He would like the Castle to keep some degree of control over the weaponsmiths. And with Lightning and I to lead the Awian fyrd, think of all the business they’ll be getting! If Wrought is threatened by anything, it’s the new industries in Hacilith.’

  I felt nauseous, staring into the future of a new dynasty. The thought of Eleonora and Lightning’s future generations, that I would have to watch, and to serve as an Eszai, for hundreds of years after them, terrified me.

  ‘I feel time-sick,’ I said. ‘Who knows what will happen?’

  ‘Whatever happens, you’re shielded from it. Protected by the Castle’s walls, you immortals experience the arrows of misfortune as nothing but a tickle, compared to us. You should even enjoy the experience, because you know you’ll live long enough to see the wheel of fortune turn up once more. You might even see the system change yet again, from our dynasty – though I hope it won’t.’

  ‘What if Cyan is beaten and Lightning wants to rejoin the Circle?’

  ‘He would bring me into the Circle too. We could stay together forever and I would be immortal as well. I’ve always fancied it.’

  ‘But then you’d have to abdicate.’

  ‘Yes, but we would crown Cyan Queen. Cyan, instead of us, would restart the Micawater dynasty. Lightning can’t lose, really.’

  ‘Providing Cyan complies with his wishes.’

  ‘Oh, I think she will learn humility in the Circle. I think she would make a good Queen.’

  ‘You can’t tell what will happen, Eleonora.’

  ‘No. But we welcome the uncertainty! Awia is free to change now. The role of Archer can change, too! Saker is no longer holding them back.’ Eleonora took a forkful of kedgeree. ‘And he has such a fantastic body.’

  I looked at her, and her eyes were shining. It could be love, or it could be all that seafood.

  Cyan was right; for all my show of independence, Lightning had been a father to me. Now with this sudden view of the future he daunted me even more. ‘Where is he? I must speak to him,’ I said, though without much relish.

  ‘At the boathouse.’ She pointed through the front windows. I put my boots on at the Orangery door and walked out.

  *

  On my way down to the lake, I threw up in a random corner of the ivy-clad stone staircase. Great, I thought; the vomit Comet is back.

  The ground’s spinning. Wow. It’s been years since it did that. I felt amazing and I didn’t care. I think I’ve come to terms with scolopendium. I’ve been drinking it for months without increasing the dose, so I was sure I could live this way.

  This was the scolopendium I took from the barge – the drugs that Cyan bought. I’ve been taking a sip every day since I crash-landed; dissolved in wine in my hip flask. How else do you think I could keep going after the Vermiform’s assault? I know I told Rayne that I had thrown it in the fire, but I lied to her. I lied to you as well.

  But that was my only lie. Trust me.

  The glorious palace front was clear-cut against the sky. It looked as bizarre as a building from the Shift. But, I thought, ours was a Shift world as well, one of thousands in the continuum, and it was as strange and beautiful as the rest.

  I looked for the window of our bedroom, on the second floor of the Eyas Wing, with its curtains drawn. I pictured Tern still asleep up there, her manicured hand brushing the coverlet.

  Two floors below our window, Eleonora was eating breakfast alone, her feet on the cool, mossy ground. She suddenly feels indescribably happy. A beam of light sparkles on the lake, shines through the panes and dazzles the glasshouse. Her country! ‘This place is great!’ she says enthusiastically, puts down the coffee cup and decides to go for a ride.

  On her way out she passes the bow store, where Harrier is sadly placing his master’s bows back on their racks. His sense of disappointment has left him swirling with the current; Lightning’s skill was a tenet of faith with him, because Harrier himself was a Challenger once. He pauses, then takes his own longbow from its case, holds it in both hands and presses it to his chest, thinking, why shouldn’t I go and join the archers who’ll soon be queuing up to Challenge Cyan? He starts to wipe the longbow down.

  A hundred kilometres away, Cyan and Rayne in their coach are crossing out of Awia. Cyan is alternately crying and defiant. She is horrified by what she has done to her father, but she can see no way out. She would see it through to the conclusion. What else could she do? Ornate shadows lengthen behind the coach’s intricate fretwork screens. ‘Daddy lost deliberately,’ she repeats.

  ‘It crushes me, too.’ Rayne bites her lip. ‘But he gave you t’ chance t’ step ou’ of his shadow and develop your own life. Establish your own name and identity. Isn’ tha’ wha’ you wanted? Don’ yield to preceden’ and t’ power of t’ past. You’ll forge’ him, though I never will … I’ll think of him, sometime in t’ far future.’

  Rayne, when she arrives at the Castle, will visit Serein Wrenn, who is currently lying in the hospital mourning the loss of his foot and his friend. He glances up when Mist Fulmer comes in, bringing a tray of beer and cakes. Mist cheers him up by telling him he can still take the wheel of the caravel Windhover, on the bright ocean out of Tanager.

  Mist walks back to his room via the Breckan Wing roof walk, looking out over the parapet across the plains. ‘At least I’m still here,’ he says. ‘In this great place.’

  In the chamber below his feet, those of Tornado are being massaged by his new girlfriend. Sleat in his room is busy polishing armour but looks up and sees them, tiny figures in the window of the opposite building. Tornado and his girlfriend disappear, rolling off the bed and pulling the covers with them.

  ‘What was that thump?’ thinks the Cook, looking up. Never mind. He checks his watch; he doesn’t have much time. He takes his jacket and hastens out of the ground floor of Breckan, across to the kitchens. The clockwork of the Castle ticks steadily, it pushes years around; the slow hand – centuries.

  The Cook hangs up his jacket and begins to prepare a fulsome feast for Cyan Lightning. His kitchens are shaded by the towering Throne Room. When Cyan is made immortal, the Eszai will convene inside, where for ever and e
ver, the Emperor San is sitting on his throne.

  CHAPTER 28

  Lightning, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, was pushing a flat-bottomed boat over the grass towards a slipway and landing stage jutting out into the lake. He saw me coming towards him, straightened up and wiped his hands. ‘Good morning, Jant. Will you give me a hand with this punt?’

  We pushed the boat to the top of the slipway, settling it onto the metal rollers. ‘What are you doing?’

  He slid a punt pole out from under its benches. ‘I’m going to the island. To see Martyn, you know. I am going to visit her one last time and explain what has happened. I will say goodbye to her and take my leave. I do not think I will need to visit her again.’ He smiled sadly.

  ‘I must go back to the Castle, for the ceremony,’ I said.

  ‘Of course. In two days’ time, when I feel the Circle drop me, I think it will be a fraught moment … I will need to be alone.’

  ‘Be careful of Eleonora. She … well, she …’

  He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I think she … you, er … she said …’

  ‘I can handle her. She gave me cause for hope, when Swallow had not. I’d like to pretend I never noticed her while I was engaged to Swallow but time is now too precious for me to hide from myself.’

  Could he really be capable of leaving his palace to chance and future generations whether his offspring or not? I raised a hand to it. ‘Imagine that ruined, all the treasures gone, the roof falling in. How can you tell they won’t squander it?’

  ‘I think Cyan will look after it. But if not … Look, Jant; who knows what changes she’ll make and what innovations subsequent Lightnings will come up with? Who knows what the discipline of archery will turn into? To think, your Vermiform even laughed at our weapons.’

  I understood, though it frightened me. A future without the constraints of Lightning’s authority will be uncertain, but it would be more free.