by Patty Jansen
Someone behind him called, “Senator Sadorius, can I have a word?”
Sady stopped and turned around to see Proctor Destran mir Parkeshian behind him. Oh, mercy, that was just what he needed.
Viki said in a low voice, “Do you want me to continue to the office?”
“Stay here,” Sady said. Destran would most likely want to talk about Viki’s presentation.
Viki stayed, clasping his hands behind his back and tensing his shoulders. His face resembled that of a hunted rabbit.
Destran caught up and gave a customary bow. “Senator.”
Sady returned the greeting. “Proctor.”
From close up, Destran resembled a scarecrow. Lanky and taller than most people, he always walked hunched over, as if life was a great burden. His heavy, hooded eyelids increased that impression. His hands were like veined spiders, his neck with as many wrinkles as the neck of a very, very old turtle. Exposure to sunlight in his childhood had made his skin blotchy and age had brought the breaking out of many small, polyp-like warts over his face and neck.
The man’s narrowed eyes met Sady’s. “I heard you authorised the distribution of pills and suits.”
“I did, for the border regions only.”
“I understand you didn’t ask doga permission?”
“No, I didn’t. Within limits, I don’t need approval.” Destran would know that.
“Don’t you think you overreacted?” Destran’s gaze was intense.
Sady stared back. “No, I don’t. Some border stations were recording sonorics levels of fourteen motes per cube.”
“The warning limit is twenty.”
“Yes.”
There was a moment of silence. Destran continued staring and Sady continued meeting his gaze. A cold draft made the curtains behind Destran stir, and matched the icy atmosphere between them.
“I cannot see a reason for this,” Destran said. “There is no evidence that we are under any kind of sonoric threat beyond what we can cope with.”
“The rise is rapid and completely out-of-season.”
“And the twenty motes per cube is a failsafe, arbitrary, nothing-could-possibly-happen-at-this-level kind of limit.”
“My greatest worry is not the level, but the timing of it. We’ve never been able to test the precise effects, because, as you can understand, we are reluctant to send our people into the south. So yes, the upper limit is somewhat arbitrary, but the safety of Chevakians should be the first priority for the doga.”
“Within reasonable assumptions.”
“And you, Proctor, are suggesting that nothing of what you’ve heard today is reasonable? That the measurements my student reported are all fake? Are you suggesting that the measurements taken by our own met stations lie?”
Destran spread his hands. “No, I do not.”
“Then what?”
“I think your reaction is completely out of proportion and unwarranted.”
“This has the potential to become an emergency.”
“So you seem to think, but tell me: who is going to pay for this extravagance?”
Ah, now they got to the real problem. Sady hated poor budgeting masquerading as policy, and Destran seemed to excel at this activity.
“Safety is more important than budgets.”
“Up to a point.” Destran continued, “But, to please you, I’ve asked for independent advice about this issue, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Independent advice?” It came out as a sarcastic remark. There was no one in the country who knew more about weather patterns than him. That’s why he was Chief Meteorologist.
Then Sady noticed another man who had stayed back with Destran’s aides, but now came forward.
Tall, grey-haired, straight-backed, the Most Learned Alius cut an impressive figure. As head of the Scriptorium, he oversaw academia and the tutoring of students of the arts and sciences. Sady hadn’t seen the man for some time, and his dark clothing and age made him sterner than Sady remembered him. And what was with the beard?
Alius bowed and Sady returned the greeting, wondering if beards were the latest fashion in the Scriptorium. Then again, he had not known academics to take much notice of fashion. “Well met, Most Learned. You know your student, of course.”
Sady nodded at Viki, who stood a bit back staring at his formal tutor.
“Oh yes, I know him.” Alius smiled, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “That was an entertaining talk, young man.”
“Uhm . . . uhm . . . thank you, Most Learned.” Viki’s stammer was back in full force.
“I am being sarcastic.”
“Uhmmm . . . excuse me, Most Learned. I do not understa—”
Alius shook his head. “My dear student, I turn my back on you for five seconds, and you’ve already become the politicians’ mouthpiece.”
“Uhm . . .” Viki opened and closed his mouth a few times, like a fish gasping in the air.
“How much time have you spent analysing these data?”
“Uhm . . .”
“Did you just throw them into a graph and present the results without any background research?”
“I did background research.” Viki’s voice spilled over into a squeak. “I’m aware of all the protocols in the Meteorological Manual—”
“That’s just a silly book of rules. What do you know about sonorics? I mean—really know about it?”
“I know that sonorics are rays akin to a magnetic field, and that the source is somewhere in the south. Exposure to the rays distorts the soft tissue of the human body by collapsing the cell membranes. Sonorics increases the humidity in the air which is how we can detect it . . . Uhm . . .” Viki swallowed and shrank back further under Alius’ continued death stare.
Sady couldn’t stand this verbal caning anymore. It was one thing for two senators to swear at each other, another entirely for a senior academic to tear into an inexperienced student, and one who hadn’t even made a clear transgression at that.
“I think your student did everything right,” Sady said.
“You think so?” Alius’ eyes were intense. “What do you know about sonorics? Have you studied the precise properties of it?”
“Not sonorics.” Sady had to concede the point. It had been Alius who had conducted those studies, who had helped construct the barrier that protected Chevakia. “Is there anything new to report about sonorics that we should know?”
“At this stage, there is no need to cause panic in the public. There is no proof that there will be any damage to the barriers below at least fifty motes per cube and no proof that levels such as measured in the border regions will cause harm whatsoever.” Destran nodded. “There appears no reason for your unilateral action. I must assume that it was taken for political purposes.”
“You would disagree that this rapid rise is highly unusual? That we need to caution people in the border regions?”
“No, I don’t disagree,” Destran said. “We have issued travel warnings for the south.”
* * *
Sady didn’t make a habit of swearing, but for fuck’s sake, travel warnings? What good would that do? He stomped into the office after Viki, and shut the door with a thud.
“Mercy, Viki, the day Destran defeated Milleus was a sad one. I bet my annual stipend that Milleus wouldn’t be so hesitant to take action. What’s up with him, Viki? No money, money, always the same excuse. Well, he has all our taxes, what does he do with the money? Pay off his northern supporters who keep him in position?”
They were all rhetorical questions, of course. Viki scuttled to his temporary desk in the corner, took his maps and looked busy. He was way too young to remember the great Mille
us han Chevonian, Sady’s brother, who had been voted out ten years ago.
Milleus wouldn’t have allowed Viki to have been drowned out by catcalls. Milleus wouldn’t have let issues of budget stand in the way of Chevakia’s safety. Admitted, that hadn’t always gone in his favour, but Chevakia had been a safe place. It had been Milleus who’d had the foresight to let Alius build the barrier that had protected the country for the last fifteen years.
Sady heaved a sigh and dropped in his big seat behind his desk. The feel of the smooth leather gave him no comfort today.
He swivelled the chair to face Viki. “Anyway, what was going on there between you and Alius?”
Viki gave him his usual startled look. “Nothing.”
“Well, that looked like an odd kind of nothing to me. I don’t recall ever being so petrified of my tutor. Why was he abusing you? Politician’s mouthpiece. We’re all mouthpieces of politics. Chevakia is politics.”
Viki had no answer to that. He kept looking ahead of him. Avoiding Sady’s eyes?
Sady sighed again. “Listen Viki, it’s fine to tell me, because I can help: is there anyone at the Scriptorium who threatens you or makes you feel unsafe in any other way? Do you ever feel that you are not allowed to speak your opinion because it doesn’t conform to certain opinions held by the senior academics?”
“No,” Viki said, much too quickly. “No, not at all. Why are you asking?”
“Because I don’t believe you. As long as I can remember, I’ve never heard anyone from the Scriptorium utter political comments. What is going on over there? What has gotten into Alius? What’s with the beard?”
Viki looked at him, and blinked. “He’s allowed to have a beard, isn’t he?”
“Well, yes, but it seems strange to me. Not just the beard, but his entire behaviour. He wasn’t like this when I studied—”
“Like what?”
“Like . . .” Sady shrugged, looked for words to describe his feeling, and couldn’t find any that satisfied him. Aggressive, defensive, evasive, anything an academic was usually not. “Like . . . Alius used to always be more open about everything, willing to discuss. It’s like he’s made up his mind about this and he doesn’t like being challenged.”
“Well, he did build the barriers. Maybe he feels the need to defend his work to people who suggest it’s not up to the job.”
That was actually a really good point. And one that worried him. The academics were supposed to be impartial and non-political. And now, for some reason, Alius had decided to support Destran, and consider people who opposed him an enemy.
Chapter 4
* * *
THE BEAR RAN across the snow-covered plain, up hills, down the other side. From the passenger seat, squashed between Tandor and Myra, Loriane could only see its bobbing back, and the reins dangling from the invisible driver’s hands.
Wherever she looked in the white landscape, she could see no other people, and there hadn’t been any for at least a day.
At first, when the mangled ruins of the City of Glass were still visible on the horizon, there were other refugee sleds following, families fleeing in the clothes they had worn when disaster struck, woefully inadequate for the cold. A lot of nobles, because they had sleds and could get away quickly.
But one by one, the other sleds had fallen behind until no one was left. Those sleds had to stop for the night while Tandor’s bear kept going, up, down, up, down over the undulating landscape. This was no ordinary sled and no ordinary bear.
Occasionally, an eagle wheeled overhead. Loriane would cover Tandor up for fear of being recognised, but those eagles seemed to be searching only for other birds and their riders. Yesterday, she had seen a small group of them join up and make their way over the horizon in the direction of the Aranian mountains. If even the Eagle Knights abandoned the city, then what hope was there for the rest of them?
Loriane thought of the ruins, the fire and the broken bodies. The explosion she couldn’t see, and the human-like shapes made of steam, one of which Myra had recognised as the father of her child. She thought of the thousands of people who didn’t have sleds, and who would have been overtaken by the horror of the invisible icefire, and would have died through its burning as all those who had died in the city itself.
The bear ran, the runners of the sled swished in the snow. The driver didn’t pull the reins once. It seemed the animal knew the way.
Tandor’s weight lay heavy against her side. Bits of his face and hands were exposed between the furs, showing peeling skin and weeping blisters. His eyes were shut. The eyelids fluttered every now and then, but Loriane’s prodding didn’t wake him up.
Myra was still recovering and slept a lot. Sometimes Loriane managed to wake her up to feed the baby, at other times when the child cried, she took it to her own swollen breasts. The suckling made her stomach tense up badly, and she stopped doing it for fear of bringing on the birth out here in the snow. The baby cried a lot.
She had found out that the driver could hear her voice and that he would obey her, as long as she used Tandor’s name in the requests.
They had little food. Loriane had scoured everything on the luggage rack, but she hated going through Tandor’s things, fearing she’d find another horrid item like the beating heart which sat in its jar in the chest that she dare not touch.
She had only found a small box containing dried and salted meat—frozen solid—frozen fruit and cubes of a dark type of bread Loriane had never seen before. Its unfamiliar taste made acid burn in her throat. She nibbled dried meat and stayed away from eating too much snow because already she had to ask Ruko to stop the sled more often than she thought his patience allowed. Whenever she asked for a stop, he would get off the driver’s seat and kick snow about, and would goad the bear until it slashed its claws at the air, and growled. The first time that happened, Loriane told him to be more careful, and Ruko threw snow in her face. She was afraid to anger him any more.
It was not to be helped; Loriane had to change Myra’s bandages.
After her horrific breech birth, the girl was still bleeding quite heavily and Loriane hoped they would get wherever they were going before her supply of clean cloths ran out. The bandages needed to be rinsed, bleached and boiled, or Myra would still get sick and die of fever.
After that was done and Myra was peacefully feeding the child, Loriane would stumble off into the snow, her own baby’s head threatening to burst her full bladder. There was nowhere to squat, no place to hide and after the business was done, she left an embarrassing patch of yellow in the snow, something she was sure eagles would spot. So she covered it with snow, kneeling awkwardly, but still she was sure the eagles would notice. She couldn’t help it. She was tired, weary and sore, and more than anything, she wanted the roiling in her belly to stop. She wanted Tandor to wake up so that he could hear her abuse about how stupid and selfish he’d been. And then he was going to tell her what he did, and he was going to fix it before she’d kill him. And that she should have done ages ago. He was trouble, and she’d known it all along, but somehow she thought that dangerous streak made him romantic. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Most of all, she wanted a dry and warm place where she could rest and from where she wouldn’t move until this cursed child had been born. Then she would kill that child, too, because it was part of Tandor’s machinations. Fancy that—out of all the ten children she had grown inside her, she couldn’t get rid of the child she least wanted.
When night came on the third day, the bear loped into a scattering of houses spread in the snow as if someone had thrown a bunch of firebricks. They were odd, blocky things spaced widely, so unlike the limpets from the Outer City which sat close together like Legless Lions conserving warmth. But houses meant people, and help, and food. Welcoming tendrils of smoke curled from chimneys
; warm light radiated from windows.
Myra sat up straight, looking with wide eyes, the word home spelled on her face. This then, was Bordertown, the edge of the southern plateau, and as far as they could go without running into Chevakia.
Loriane was too sore and weary to be disappointed with the town’s small size. Her feet were cold and she had long since given up trying to pick icicles from her hair. Her backside felt like one solid bruise, and she needed to piss again.
The bear seemed to know where it was headed.
They turned into the yard of a house as unassuming as the rest, a two-storey affair with a shed out the front. Tattered curtains covered the windows. There was light on the ground floor. As the sled came to a halt, the front door was thrown open and a woman stood silhouetted by the warm light of an oil lamp in the hall.
“Myra, is that you?”
“Ma!” Myra cried out.
Myra threw aside the furs, scooped the baby in her arms, jumped off the sled and waded through the snow.
The woman came out of the house and met her daughter in the yard, enclosing her in a hug. Myra was crying, her sobs interspersed with It was so awful . . . the whole city is destroyed . . . everyone is dead . . .
The boy started crying, muffled between the two women. Myra unwrapped the furs that covered his face.
The woman gasped. “What a big boy.”
“That’s what the midwives said, too.”
“What’s his name?”
“I haven’t named him yet, Ma. I wanted you and Da to be there.”
The woman lifted the child from his sling, while he continued to protest loudly. Her brow was unusually heavy for a female, her nose coarse and her mouth wide. She had skin red and rough from working in the cold and big, widely-spaced front teeth. The word ugly came to Loriane’s mind.
A man had come to the doorway, leaning against the door frame.
Myra’s mother held the baby out to him. “Look at him, Da. Your grandson.”