“But if you have any messages for him,” continues Edder, “I’ll see that he gets ’em.”
He’s lying, thinks the spy. “No. No messages.”
The men who take Emlin from his cell treat him gently. They’re dressed in protective robes of some silvery thread, with hoods and goggles. He’s seen alchemists wear robes like that. They lead him, gingerly, like he’s something toxic, out of the circle of cells, away from that mirrored tower. It’s hard for him to concentrate–his head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool–but he knows what he has to do. Live your cover, Alic told him. He’s Alic’s son, and this is all a horrible misunderstanding. Alic’s nearby–he’ll sort it all out. Explain it away. Bring him back home to Guerdon.
And beneath that shell, that mask, there’s the nameless boy who was trained in the Paper Tombs. The saint of Fate Spider. He knows he sinned when he abjured his god, but he was forgiven! The stigmata on his face are proof of Fate Spider’s love! There’s still a place for him in the Sacred Realm, and Ishmere is coming. Guerdon will be conquered like Severast, like Mattaur, like all the other lands, and when the war is done, he will be exalted.
The boy feels no fear as they bring him out through the main gate of the prison. Emlin’s heart leaps at the sight of the sea–maybe his father’s waiting there, with a boat! But the dock’s empty, and the robed alchemists lead him along the stony shore, beneath the shadow of the old fort’s walls. They’re bringing him towards that little spit of rock on the seaward side of Hark.
There are other robed figures there, hard at work. They’ve built some sort of machine there, something that’s like a throne with a cage around it. It’s ugly, all spikes and wires, the chair made of steel and orichalcum. There are other components, too–bubbling tanks with dark shapes swimming in them, crackling aetheric vanes, heavy duty wards. Emlin’s attendants help him step over thick aetheric cables and pipes that run between the machine and the fort behind him.
“What is that?” he asks, but they don’t reply.
The air out here is fresh, and it clears his head. He can feel the thick spidery hairs that have grown on the back of his neck stand up. He can feel other senses awakening. The shadows aren’t dark to him any more. The robes the alchemists wear are magical, woven to block his miracles, but if he pushed, then maybe he could get through. His mouth floods with saliva, and there’s a little taste of the Poison Undeniable. He’s getting stronger.
As they get closer, he sees there’s a woman in the chair. He recognises her–she had those icons of the Kraken on Dredger’s ship. She’s not a Kraken-saint, but she has a little connection to the god.
Had.
The alchemists lift her contorted corpse out of the chair. Her head lolls, and bloody seawater gushes from her mouth, her water-filled lungs, to splash on the rocks and the wiring at her feet. Two robed alchemists carry her past Emlin.
She’s been warped by divinity. Her fingers, now limp tentacles, trail behind her. Her skin bursts where the alchemists lift her, and water drips from the wounds.
He squares his shoulders. Alic will come for him. Or, if he dies here, Fate Spider will catch his soul. He’ll live or he’ll die here, and, either way, his faith will be rewarded.
“Sit down, please,” orders one of the alchemists.
“What if I don’t?”
They grab him, four or five of them, the fabric of their gloves rough against his skin, and force him into the chair. They lock metal chains across his chest and pull them tight. The chair was made for an adult’s body, so they have to stuff a spare robe under him to boost him up. They tie leather restraints around his wrists and ankles.
He won’t cry. He won’t scream. He’ll be brave.
One of the alchemists presses a switch, and suddenly there’s a feeling of power all around Emlin. It lifts him, like his soul’s been carried out of his body and into the realm of the gods. He stares at the alchemist in front of him, who’s looking at a bank of instruments connected to the machine. Beneath the man’s robes is his face, beneath his face his skull, beneath his skull his brain, and there is a fine web of thought—
Tell the tower we’re ready here, signal the mainland. Bring the icon. A flash of the statue from the Shrine, eight legs in holy shadow, eight all-seeing eyes—
And then the alchemist flips the switch, and the power goes, and the miracle ends.
The alchemists retreat down the spit of rock, away from the machine. Some lift their skirts and jog along the shore back to the fort; others look out to sea as if waiting for a ship. None of them get too close to the water.
But Emlin’s seen enough. Either Alic will come for him, or Fate Spider will come for him, and he’ll be saved.
He doesn’t need to be afraid. Even here, alone on this spit of rock, bound hand and foot to some awful machine, he’s not scared. He knows he’s loved. He trusts he’ll be saved.
The dead man walks through the streets of the city. He’s moving against the flow of the crowds, so he has to push through to get to Queen’s Point. Passers-by mutter apologies, or curses, or say nothing as they jostle him; Guerdon is notoriously impolite, compared to the hidebound etiquette of Haith. He doesn’t dare offer apologies of his own, though. The few who notice the mask flinch and give him plenty of room.
In his hand, he clutches the message that came to the embassy. By rights, he shouldn’t be here–it’s forbidden for the Vigilant to leave the embassy without permission. But the ambassador is dead, and Lady Erevesic and Terevant are missing, and the First Secretary is gone, too, taking most of the Vigilant garrison with him. Leaving only Yoras and Peralt to endlessly patrol the marble corridors, to watch over empty offices and reception halls, to stand sentry at the gates.
To remain Vigilant.
Yoras died in the service of the Crown, as part of the Ninth Rifles.
As a Vigilant of the Crown, Yoras serves the state directly. His loyalty is supposed to be to the Crown alone, not to any one House or Bureau. That’s no trouble for Yoras–in life, he never saw any House as being worth dying for, and nor the Bureau. When he was alive, the affairs of House and Bureau were like storm clouds clashing far above his head. Now, he’s ascended to some exalted, chilly region of the sky, far beyond the clouds, and their intrigues cannot touch him. His death is for the Crown alone.
But in life, he knew Terevant, and he’s only a year dead. The memory of friendship not yet bleached from his bones.
The message was hastily written, but quite specific. He is to arrive at a particular side door to the fortress of Castle Point, just before sundown. He is not to speak to anyone, nor is he to ask any questions. It’s unsigned.
The dead are not known for their curiosity, and Yoras is no exception. He betrays no surprise when the door opens and a small dark-eyed woman with greying hair beckons him inside. This must the infamous Dr Ramegos. “You’re not here, all right? This is about Terevant Erevesic, and if you don’t do as I say, he’ll be the one who pays the price. Understand?”
Yes. He doesn’t, but what the Vigilant lack in curiosity, they make up in dogged loyalty.
Dr Ramegos mutters a spell. The Vigilant are more resistant to sorcery than the living; Yoras has seen sorcerers collapse in fits or bleed from their eyes trying to force a spell to catch on his animated bones. Ramegos manages to ensorcel him, but she’s breathing heavily as they walk down the corridor. Her spell is one of concealment–the few people they meet in these tunnels beneath Guerdon’s chief fortress pay no attention to the sight of a Haithi soldier here.
In the distance, alarms begin to blare. Ramegos sighs.
“It hasn’t started yet,” she says. “I wish I had a chance to see if the machine works. Ah well.”
Then, “this way”, and she opens a door into a morgue. The room’s dusty, and presumably dark to human eyes–he’s been dead a year, and already he’s forgotten much about how the living navigate the world. A shroud lies on the ground, as if it accidentally slipped from the table. She lifts the cl
oth, and beneath it is—
Oh.
“The damn thing’s awake. I can’t touch it, and it unravels my spells. You’ll have to take it to where it belongs.”
To the Erevesic.
“I suppose so.” She kneels down by the sword, runs her fingers almost along the weapon, but never touching it. She looks at the blade regretfully, like it’s a jewel of great price. “Ah, a chance may come around again. There’s power in patience, and life is long.”
I beg to differ. He scoops up the blade. An unfamiliar thrill, like blood pumping through phantom veins, runs through his arm, but the Enshrined souls within the phylactery blade recognise him as Haithi. The blade doesn’t strike at him–but without a living soul to channel its magic, it can’t exalt him either.
Ramegos stands, brushes herself off. Takes a heavy bag from a side table and slings it on her back with a grunt. “Let’s be off.”
The palace guards bring Terevant back to his room, overlooking the private gardens of the Patros. Terevant expected them to hand him over to Haith immediately, but instead, they make him wait.
The gardens tumbling down the hill’s eastern flank must be beautiful in the morning, but the sun’s setting on the other side of Holyhill, and they’re full of twisted shadows in the dusk. Servants hurry through the winding paths, lighting lamps. Beyond the gardens, parts of the city are lighting up, too. Flickering gas lamps, the harsh flare of aetheric lights, night-candles. The city’s fortunes traced in light. Further out, more aetheric lights, industrial ones, mark the site of the alchemists’ new half-built factories, replacing the ones buried under the New City. And there, outside the limits of Guerdon, must be where the Haithi forces are camped. A small army, sent to extract justice for Olthic’s death.
The thought of Olthic dead is still an absurd one. Olthic mastered the basic rites of Vigilance at a preposterously young age, and was the heir presumptive to the Erevesic sword. More than that, he was too large for death, too strong and too loud. His death feels more like an aberration than a loss. Less grief than disorientation, as if the world is a train that’s jumped its tracks and now careens into some unknown region.
The clatter of hooves outside the window. A carriage draws up in the yard below, next to the garden wall. Drawn not by raptequines, but by a quartet of black horses. A pair of Vigilants riding on it. An honour guard, here to collect the wayward Erevesic.
A key scrapes in the lock of his door. The same guards who escorted him to the Patros, here to bring him downstairs.
“This way, my lord,” says one.
Seeing his injuries, the other asks, “Shall I fetch the chair again, my lord?”
“No,” says Terevant. “I can walk.”
CHAPTER 39
As the gunboat approaches Hark Island, Aldras comes over to Eladora and Silkpurse. He slaps the side of the big crate. “This is going to the far side of the island. I’ll deliver you to to the fort first, then go on and drop this cargo off. I’ll be back for you within the hour. Don’t be late.”
The boat came alongside the concrete jetty in the shadow of the fort. Off to their left–port, she corrects herself–two other boats cluster around a narrow tooth of stone offshore. There’s some sort of construction underway there. A sudden wave catches the boat, rocking it. The heavy crate lurches towards Eladora. Silkpurse pulls her out of the way as the crate breaks its restraints and slams into the railing. The wood of the crate splinters, and Eladora catches a glimpse of something spindly and grey inside. A monster is her initial thought, but the thing isn’t moving. Some sort of statue, she guesses, although it’s hard to shake the impression that it’s something once-living that was preserved, pickled in some alchemical compound.
It’s oddly familiar, too.
There’s uproar on the ship as the crew rush over to wrestle the crate back into place, and Silkpurse adds her ghoulish strength to the task. Aldras helps Eladora climb onto the deserted jetty, more to keep her out of the way than out of any sense of chivalry. After a few heaves, the box is recentred in the boat, and Silkpurse joins Eladora on the shore.
The ghoul seems subdued, and growls softly at the boat as it departs. She sniffs the air, then crouches down and sniffs the ground. She looks over towards the construction on the far shore. It’s some sort of machine–she can see what looks like a metal chair surrounded by aetheric engines. Aldras’ boat is already on its way there, tracing a large arc to avoid any unseen rocks near the shore.
“T’isn’t safe here,” mutters Silkpurse. “Not at all.”
The gates of the fort open, and a pair of guards, armed and masked, emerge. Eladora has Kelkin’s letter of authorisation to hand. “I need to speak to your commanding officer, in the name of the emergency committee.”
“The captain’s occupied, milady. You’ll have to wait.”
“It’s urgent.” Eladora draws herself up, puts on her most commanding voice. “Minister Kelkin sent me. The matter cannot wait.”
She sounds, she realises, a little like her grandfather. A part of her recoils at the thought, but she remembers how terrified she was of him, how that terror made her obey Jermas Thay’s commands. Very well–she can use that.
The guards exchange glances through their masks, then nod. They escort her through the fort, weaving through the courtyard of chemical misters and monitoring devices. The eyes of two dozen or more saints watch her lethargically. There but for the lack of grace of the gods, she thinks. How many of them chose to walk the path of sainthood, and how many were trapped by it, seized by mad gods? She scans the cells, looking for Carillon, looking for Emlin, seeing neither. Sinter said to put Cari in the deep cells, wherever those are, but surely Emlin should be part of this strange assembly of saints.
Now that she’s inside the structure, the diagrams and notes that Terevant showed her start to make sense. That arc of cells, each one with a saint of a different god. Monitoring devices and observers to watch them all, to calibrate their connections to divinity and to spot any changes. Mechanised mysticism–if the gods of Ulbishe or Lyrix or Ishmere extend their supernatural influence towards Guerdon, the corresponding saints in the machine will register that influence. The changes might be subtle or gross, but the proximity of the gods always has some effect on those close to them.
She imagines, as they cross the courtyard, another half-circle of cells on the far side of that mirrored watchtower. If the city watched for the Kept Gods, would they would lock Eladora away in a cell there? Dials and gauges twitching at the Festival of Flowers, jumping into the red when Silva fought Cari in the New City.
Silkpurse retches quietly. “Can’t breathe this stuff,” she says.
“Do you have another mask?” asks Eladora. She wonders if she should remove her own mask and breathe deeply, quash any lingering connection to the Kept Gods, but she needs to stay sharp.
The guard shakes his head. “None that’ll fit its muzzle.”
“I’ll wait where it’s fresher,” says Silkpurse. “Call for me if you need me, and I’ll come running.”
“Stay by the jetty,” cautions the guard. “You will be shot if you leave that shore.”
Silkpurse runs on all fours back to the gate, casting a glance back towards Eladora, and Eladora isn’t sure who’s looking out of the ghoul’s eyes in that moment. Rat’s words echo in her mind.
She feels very alone as she crosses the yard. The guards flanking her are anonymous behind their masks. They lead her into the mirrored tower and up a narrow spiral staircase that runs through the heart of the structure. As they climb, Eladora glimpses alchemists and sorcerers bent over their instruments, peering through telescopes at the saints, measuring magical currents and shifts in the aether. Some of the devices she recognises from Professor Ongent’s crowded office of curiosities and gizmos, or Ramegos’ sanctum, but others are incomprehensible to her. There’s more to this machine than mere divination–there’s the hum of huge engines buried deep underground.
Climbing, again. The tower�
�s taller than the walls of the fort around it, a glittering pillar. They can see the low roofs of the fort around the prison, see the dock and spit south of the island. Three small boats out at the spit, by the machinery. Another quarter-turn of the staircase and she glimpses Grand Retort, cruising past Hark on the western shore, following the same route Aldras took.
They come to the topmost level of the tower. It’s an observation deck, looking out over the island and the city. An aethergraph chitters, relaying messages from Queen’s Point and parliament, the twitching nerves of state. Soldiers and sorcerers crowd around the windows, watching the southern approach.
“Miss Duttin?”
The commander stands by the aethergraph in the centre of the room, the axle around which everything revolves. He looks like some emanation of the fort; the sheen of sweat on his bald head glistens like the mirrored windows of the tower, and he’s solid enough to withstand an artillery barrage. He takes Kelkin’s letter from Eladora.
“What are the names of the prisoners you want?”
“Alic Nemon.”
“He’s waiting for you. Edder will show you down.” One of the other guards stirs, salutes.
“His son, Emlin. I know he’s g-god-touched, but—”
The commander interrupts her. “Are you mad? Is this a joke? A test?”
“No, I—” Eladora swallows. “I’d like to see him, if he can’t be released.”
“That’s not possible,” says the commander curtly.
“Also–I’m not sure what name she was admitted under, but–Carillon Thay. A woman, about my age, dark-haired, her face marked.” When the man doesn’t react, she adds, “The deep cells?”
The commander shakes his head. “Access to special prisoners is forbidden. It’s time for you to leave. Edder, show Mr Kelkin’s representative down to Bloc One, and bring the prisoner to her.”
Edder shuffles over to Eladora’s side. “Yes, sir. Come along, miss. Best you be out of here before it all kicks off.”
The Shadow Saint Page 44