Power & Majesty

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Crane looked at her strangely. ‘They’re the Creature Court. Their job is to stop the destruction that falls out of the sky. We’re at war here.’

  ‘But why? Why don’t they just leave? If it only affects the Court, why fight it?’

  ‘You have heard of the Silent Sleep, haven’t you?’ asked Crane. ‘Didn’t you ever think it was strange—a disease that doesn’t spread from person to person, or follow any known pattern, but flashes like lightning on random victims? Children mostly, or the elderly. The vulnerable and the weak.’

  Velody had her mouth open. ‘That…it comes from the sky?’

  Crane turned back to the battle. ‘If it wasn’t for the Court, half of Aufleur would be Silent by now.’ He inhaled, and looked troubled. ‘There’s something nasty in the air this nox. We shouldn’t have been due for another massacre for months after the show that took Garnet.’

  ‘What do you mean, massacre?’ The very word sent shivers through Velody’s body.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  The sky cracked open. Thin streaks of violent pink and amber shot through the darkness in wild, random patterns.

  ‘Scratchlight,’ said Crane, his breath catching in his throat.

  ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘It can be, if it catches them by surprise. Let’s hope that the slow rain was enough of a warning.’

  A thin bolt of light and fire slammed out of the sky, crashing into a house only a few streets below where Velody and Crane were standing. The roof exploded with the impact and the windows shattered.

  Velody rocked back against the church wall, fear and horror pounding in her skull. ‘That house, those people! You say this happens all the time?’

  Crane gripped her arm, squeezing reassurance. ‘Whoever is inside, they’ll probably be fine. Scratchlight’s pretty shallow stuff, it only kills one in fifty or so. They’ll wake up tomorrow morning as if nothing has happened. For them, nothing has happened. Now, if it was shadowstreak or gleamspray, that’s another matter. They’re rarer though.’

  ‘But the explosion, their house…’ Velody longed to understand, but it was so hard to put it together in her mind. ‘How could anyone survive that blast?’

  ‘The city will heal itself, like it always does. That house will be back to normal by the first light of day. Even if it wasn’t, the daylight folk wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Skybattle isn’t part of their world, Velody. It belongs to the nox.’

  In the Gardens of Trajus Alysaundre below them, a rumbling bolt of scratchlight reduced several statues to rubble.

  ‘So the nox is the world of the Creature Court,’ said Velody.

  ‘Exactly. Scratchlight’s mild stuff for daylight folk—mostly survivable—but it’s like liquid fire to the flesh of one of our lot.’

  ‘Then what are they doing out here? Why does the first sign of a sky attack bring the Court out here where they could get hurt or killed? How do they save the city, nox after nox?’

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ asked Crane. ‘They’re not helpless when they use their powers. Animor provides some defence, and seven hells of offence. They’re fighting the sky.’

  Was that what they were doing? To Velody it looked like a series of mad dances, birds and mammals alike weaving in and out of the danger, a bizarre mixed menagerie putting themselves in the line of fire for no good reason.

  As she watched, though, a huge black cat—a panther?—leaped directly at a stabbing thread of amber light, his jaws outstretched as if to bite it firmly between his sharp teeth. The impact hit him hard, flung him down near the Lake of Follies and out of sight, but a few minutes later he was in the sky again, and he had the wriggling amber thread caught firmly in his mouth.

  Velody squeezed Crane’s arm as the panther spat the amber thread back into the sky. It struck close to the wide fissure that was the source of the threads, and there was a light so blinding that Velody had to close her eyes.

  ‘Excellent!’ crowed Crane. ‘They don’t call him Warlord for nothing!’

  The sky seemed aware that this man was a particular danger and several bolts of pink and amber spat in his direction. The panther shaped himself into a glowing man and stretched out his hands in readiness.

  By the time the bolts reached him, he had help. Nine or ten greymoon cats, a medley of flapping bats and several furry mammals Velody didn’t recognise gathered around their Lord, supporting him with their presence. They all hit out at the storm of scratchlight, batting the bolts back into the sky. There was a louder, brighter explosion than the first.

  These little battles were happening all over the city skyline. Turning one way and then another, trying to see everything all at once, Velody was eventually able to tell which were the Lords and which were their courtesi by the way they flocked together and the deference they showed each other. There were four Lords at work, in the centre of it all—panther, wolves, pigeons and feraxes. The rest were courtesi.

  A new fissure opened, to the east above the Balisquine. Blue and green scratchbolts shimmered forth, fast and flickering. Before any of the Court could get there, a blazing white figure emerged from below, shooting upwards and into battle against the new threat. A fifth Lord.

  ‘The Orphan Princel,’ said Velody, somehow not surprised. ‘Poet. Where are his courtesi?’

  ‘Who knows? He’s in trouble without them though.’

  The glowing white figure of Poet was buried in a wriggling, tangled mass of scratchlight.

  ‘Isn’t someone going to help him?’ Velody demanded.

  Crane gave her a strange look. ‘Isn’t he the one who attacked you and your friends?’

  Velody had half-forgotten, she was so wrapped up in watching this battle. ‘Someone should still help him,’ she muttered.

  The Lord of Pigeons evidently agreed. He formed himself into Lord shape—a large, round Lord shape glowing with power—and flew to extract Poet from the scratchlight.

  Another building crumbled—the Cathedral of Lucipher in the Portico Lattorio. Velody saw the outline of the Duchessa’s Palazzo on the Balisquine shudder as a bolt of scratchlight destroyed one of its ornamental towers, then a second.

  Can they really sleep through all this? she thought. Then, How many noxes like this have I slept through?

  Not everyone was sleeping. It was Aufleur, after all, the city of lanterns and late nox revels.

  Below Velody, in the Gardens of Trajus Alysaundre, a small party made their lopsided way home from a nox on the town, led by a pair of lampboys. Several tipsy demoiselles dressed in the latest fashions were lurching along with their bare arms hooked around each other. There were a few young men with them, staggeringly drunk. None of them seemed to notice the damage from the scratchlight—the broken statues and charred ground. A crackle of flaming green energy slashed the grass only a few feet from them and the party didn’t flinch. A bolt of scratchlight struck one of the demoiselles, exploding so fiercely that Velody expected her bobbed hair to burst into flames at the very least. The demme didn’t notice a thing. The group continued to giggle and flirt with each other, in their own little world.

  What world am I in? Velody couldn’t help wondering. Theirs made more sense than the one she currently inhabited.

  Across the city, near the Balisquine, birds flocked to their Pigeon Lord. He and Poet were in trouble. The blue and green scratchlight poured harder and faster down onto them. One of the gulls was hit by a stray bolt and vaporised with a shriek. The other gulls fell back as if they felt its pain.

  ‘I should be out there,’ Velody whispered, only just realising that. ‘I should be fighting alongside them, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You wouldn’t last a minute,’ said Crane.

  A faint glow was coming from him. Velody realised that he was holding his skysilver knife at the ready. In the darkness, it shone as if it held its own source of light.

  ‘What’s that for?’ she asked.

  ‘Deflection, defence. Just in case we need it.’

  ‘We’re not t
he ones who need help,’ she said, staring at the battle between the Creature Court and the sky.

  ‘They already have a King who should be defending them,’ said Crane. ‘Ask yourself where he is.’

  A howling, tearing sound came up from underneath the city. The church behind them trembled, as did every building in Aufleur.

  ‘He’s coming,’ said Velody, and didn’t even question how she knew.

  Ashiol roared up out of the smashed towers on the Balisquine. He was in chimaera form, a black and deadly shape of fur and feathers and claws, and pure, blinding rage. A monster in the truest sense of the word.

  Velody had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

  Ashiol tore through the scratchlight as if it were spun sugar. He bit and clawed and fought his way to the wriggling threads of light that had overwhelmed Poet and the Pigeon Lord. When he threw stray fragments at the blue fissure above the Balisquine, it shrieked with pain and began to seal closed.

  Above the Lake of Follies, Warlord fought the first fissure with renewed energy. He was supported by the Ferax Lord and a female Wolf Lord, along with their combined mob of courtesi.

  With a last gasp of an explosion, the first scratchlight fissure closed up, leaving the sky around it blank and clean. A moment or two later, Ashiol hurled the last of the flaming fragments into the Balisquine fissure and it, too, disappeared into the sky.

  There was a long moment of silence. It was almost calm.

  Velody turned her eyes up to the bleak nox sky. What further horrors were lurking up there? Did each of the twinkling stars conceal a new enemy, a terrible threat or burning weapon to bring danger down upon them?

  She had never thought much about the sky before. Now she knew how much she had to fear from it.

  Ashiol, Poet and the Pigeon Lord descended to the sloping gardens of the Balisquine. The bird courtesi followed, shaping themselves into young women. When the surviving gulls came together, the woman who emerged from them looked wan and sickly. She fell to the grass, her body heaving and shaking. After a moment, her body broke apart into gulls again.

  ‘She’s lost part of herself,’ said Velody. ‘What will happen to her?’

  ‘Usually if an animal is killed it can still be reabsorbed,’ said Crane. ‘Her gull was obliterated though. She has to reform her body with less mass than she’s used to—give up a hand, or some body weight, even some bone marrow. It will be a while before she recovers.’

  Velody couldn’t help thinking of the thousands of mice she could transform herself into. It would be so easy to lose one or two. She shuddered as she imagined mouse-shaped holes punched into her human flesh. ‘Is it over then? For the nox?’

  ‘Hard to say. The air still feels…I don’t know. I’m not used to having such strong Court senses.’

  In the Balisquine gardens, the Pigeon Lord carried several of the gulls, allowing them to perch on his bulky shoulders and hands. His other two courtesi took the remaining gulls onto their own bodies. They walked in solemn procession down into the city streets and Velody lost sight of them.

  ‘What happens now?’ she asked.

  ‘Might be the danger is just beginning.’

  Before she could ask Crane what he meant by that, Velody saw Ashiol. Still in his black chimaera form, he flew a slow, leisurely lap around the northern heights of the city, then another. When his circles brought him for a third time over the Gardens of Trajus Alysaundre, he descended to the grass and reverted to his human form, waiting.

  The Panther, Ferax and Wolf Lords all gathered their courtesi and flew to him, each landing a respectful distance away and also reverting to human form. After several more minutes, Poet, the Rat Lord, joined them, putting more distance than most between himself and Ashiol. He did not lose his Lord form, continuing to glow fiercely white.

  A longer while passed, and the Pigeon Lord arrived on the wing, surrounded by his flying retinue. This time, his gull courtesa managed to pull herself back into human form and stay there. Pale and shaking, she was supported by the other two women who had been sparrows and plovers.

  Velody couldn’t help wondering, if that tipsy mob of revellers were to stagger through the Gardens of Trajus Alysaundre now, would they notice that it was full of naked people?

  The Creature Court stood among the rubble of the statues that had been destroyed by scratchlight. As Velody watched, the fallen shards of marble shifted and moved as if they were autumn leaves twisting in the breeze. She was amazed to see the statues slowly reconstituting themselves, the broken pieces and marble dust floating back together as if reversing the damage that the sky had hurled down on them.

  ‘Is Ash doing that?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ said Crane, a note of pride in his voice. ‘Aufleur does it all by herself. Look.’

  He gestured to the nearby house that had been obliterated by a blast from the sky. The roof tiles were coming together, crumbs and broken pieces snapping back until they were as good as new, then flying up to take their proper place. The whole house was healing, bricks and mortar crunching back into position. It happened all over the city. Even the gutters of the porch they stood under were unmelting, straightening, the marks of slow rain being erased from them.

  ‘As if it never happened,’ Velody said. ‘Was it all some kind of hallucination?’

  ‘Oh, it was real enough,’ said Crane. ‘Damson will take a long time to recover from losing one of her gulls. If any of them had lost their battle, they would have been killed for good.’

  ‘But none of the damage is permanent,’ said Velody, trying to understand.

  Crane hunched up against the wall of the church. ‘Ever heard of a city called Tierce?’

  Velody felt as if she had been stabbed. Tierce. All afternoon and evening, working with Delphine and Rhian, she had fought the urge to test their memories, to see if it was really true that they did not remember a single detail about their friends and families and the city all three of them had grown up in. She knew it was true though. Until today, she had not remembered Tierce herself.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ she said softly.

  ‘It was our nearest neighbour—the capital of the duchy Reyenna.’

  Velody frowned. ‘Isn’t Reyenna one of the northern baronies? It shouldn’t even have a city.’

  It was as if she had two sets of memories overlapping each other—the Velody who remembered nothing before she came to Aufleur, and the Velody who had written to her family every week, and loved Rhian’s brother Cyniver. A rush of memories came back to her—his hands, the smell of his hair…

  ‘You’re going to have to trust me on this,’ said Crane. ‘Ammoria had three duchies once, each with a capital city. Bazeppe of Silano, Aufleur of Lattorio and Tierce of Reyenna. But the Creature Court of Tierce lost their fight. The last of them died, and there was no one to battle against the sky.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of Tierce before today,’ said Velody, choosing her words carefully. ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Five years ago,’ said Crane. ‘It was only two hours from Aufleur by rail, Velody. And no one of the daylight remembers that it ever existed. It wasn’t just wiped from the land, it was wiped from history.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘I was nine years old when I was sent to the workhouse here in Aufleur. I was lucky—our village was halfway between here and Reyenna. It could just as easily have been Tierce that I was sent to. That’s where my brothers went. If it wasn’t for the Court, I wouldn’t remember them at all. My mother died last year thinking I had always been her only son.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Velody, knowing that it was inadequate. Her mind was racing. Five years ago, she and Delphine and Rhian had completed their apprenticeships, and Delphine was given a house, but couldn’t remember the aunt who had given it to her.

  Crane shrugged, as if it were an old wound that didn’t hurt much any more. ‘There are people walking around Aufleur who were born in Tierce and they don’t remember anything about it. They just have blanks wher
e their history should be. That’s why the Creature Court fights the sky. That’s why I serve them. It could happen to Aufleur if they fail.’

  ‘They don’t strike me as the heroic types,’ said Velody.

  Down in the Gardens of Trajus, the Court began some kind of ritual. Ashiol approached each of the Lords and courtesi in turn, touching his lips to their foreheads. Macready and Kelpie stood behind him, the only ones who were clothed.

  ‘Oh, it’s self-interest all the way,’ said Crane. ‘They like this city. It’s theirs. Their powers are all tangled up in having a city to defend. There’s no point to them without their mission.’

  ‘Can we get closer?’ Velody asked, to stop herself telling him, I was born in Tierce. Garnet stole that memory from me along with everything else. ‘I want to hear what he’s saying.’

  33

  After battle, it was the task of the Power and Majesty to examine each member of the Creature Court for damage and bestow his kiss of approval. Ashiol had never done it before, but he managed the ceremony smoothly enough. When Mars, Livilla, Priest, Dhynar and all of their courtesi had been cleansed, Ashiol finally turned to Poet. Poet still wore his Lord form, flouting convention. He had always been expert at casual insolence.

  ‘And you, Poet,’ said Ashiol. ‘Where were your courtesi in this skybattle?’

  ‘Sorry about that, kitten,’ said Poet. ‘I’m a little wary of letting my boys near you since you bit one of their throats out. You understand.’

  ‘Are you saying that you deliberately withheld them from battle?’

  Poet smiled.

  ‘It’s a question of loyalty,’ said Ashiol. ‘Where is your loyalty, Lord of Rats?’

  ‘My loyalty is with the Power and Majesty, always, unquestioning,’ said Poet, his voice rising. ‘Who are you to ask me that? You have taken no oaths, and neither have we. Are we expected to follow you into battle without the blindest knowledge of what you are to us? Where is your loyalty, Creature King?’

  Ashiol stared at the younger man, genuinely surprised at his heat. When had Poet started caring? He had always been the one most likely to mock their higher purpose, puncturing the ego of anyone who took the world too seriously.