by Patty Jansen
So it seemed. Guards shooed the people to the side so that Sady could pass.
Sady met the eyes of a man on the side of the stairs, and the next moment, the man had shoved a dead bird under his nose.
“Look what they did,” the man said, shaking the carcass so it almost touched Sady’s robe. It had duck feet, but no head. The feathers on the belly were bloodied. “This isn’t the only bird. We lost six, all with their heads chopped off.”
“Same here,” a woman said.
And another man added, “We lost a goat. I took the others inside, but you can imagine the wife isn’t too happy with animals in the house.”
“And the infuriating thing is that whoever did this just left the bodies there, and didn’t even bother to eat them.”
“It’s vandalism, that’s what it is.”
“Wait.” Sady held up his hands and the people fell quiet.
“We caught someone last night,” Sady said.
The audience erupted in cheers and applause.
“Good for you, Proctor.”
Sady held up his hand again, and silence returned. “This person attacked my house, and killed four people there.” His eyes pricked all of a sudden.
Several people gasped.
“It’s an attack on our government,” a man said in a low voice.
“I very much doubt this person knew who he was attacking,” Sady said, fighting his emotions. “We went and chased after him, and found him not far from my house. The credit for capturing him should go to Orsan and my personal guard Farius. The killer is in the courthouse prison.”
“Who is this criminal?”
“We can’t be sure. He said nothing. It looks like he’s an escapee from the camp, but he doesn’t seem to be right in the head.”
“None of them are right in the head,” a woman said.
A rotund man growled, “A filthy southerner? The prison’s too good a place for him.”
Several people agreed.
Sady thought of the man’s strange hollow eyes, and his horrific scars, and the blood on his hands. “Secondly, has anyone seen the latest sonorics figures? Last I’m aware, the bell rang once on the hour. Unless something has changed that I’m unaware of, you should go inside your houses and stay safe. The madman will not kill again.”
The news of the killer’s capture travelled faster up the stairs that Sady could walk, and by the time he had arrived in the foyer, most people were making their way back down the stairs towards the entrance, many of them smiling at Sady and giving him victory signs.
Some hollow victory. If the man was mad, then how could he gain any satisfaction out of condemning him to death?
Sady went into his office, and heard from his secretary that Viki was waiting for him with the weather reports Sady had asked for.
At least someone was organised.
His former student sat in the visitor’s chair, having spread maps and graphs all over Sady’s desk, all over his papers and neat piles of documents. Whatever remained of the student too shy to say boo?
“Uhm, Viki?”
“Oh.” Viki jumped up and took a number of rolls of paper from Sady’s chair. Two of them tumbled out of his arms.
Sady picked them up, put them on the desk and sat down with a sigh. “Viki, do you always need to carry your entire office around with you?”
“I need to be prepared for every question.” Viki sat down again. To Sady’s shock, he had not shaved himself since Sady had last seen him and his chin sported a rough cover growth of hair.
“How long have you been here?”
“Uhm—I thought I’d come early . . .”
“I mean—have you been living in the office?”
“It’s been very busy and there’s a lot of work to do.”
“All right. How does it look?” Sonorics stabilising, still locally high, in the vicinity of the camp, but tapering off . . .
Viki hesitated. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“Show me.” But it did not sound like the result he’d hoped for. Sady didn’t like that little catch in his reply at all.
Viki rolled out the latest pressure map on the table. Normally, in this time of the year, an area of high pressure sat over the south, pushing a band of clouds into southern Chevakia, which manifested in a continuous progression of low-pressure cells. Instead, there was only one pressure cell, and it sat over the southern platform. Since Sady had last looked at a map, it had deepened and appeared to be moving, no—expanding—north. Sady stared at the crowded isobar lines.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before. Have you checked the records?”
“Yes, but I can’t find any precedent.”
“How many data points did you use for these maps?”
“Not as many as I would have liked. All of these measurements are from recovered balloons. A lot of the ground stations are out, or their reporting is unreliable.”
“What measurements are we still getting? Twin Bridges?” He thought of the group of scouts he’d sent there.
“Yes, Twin Bridges, but most of the southern stations have stopped responding.”
“Mekta? Solmeni?”
Viki shook his head. “None of those. Ensar, too.” He pointed at the map. “Look, the storm front has moved into the southern regions and likely lines are down. People are reporting wildfires.”
“In this weather?” Mercy, why hadn’t he dragged Milleus home with him?
“There is a lot of wind, and some of those forests are very dry before the spring rains.”
“What about sonorics? Have you mapped those?” They knew for certain that the barrier at Fairlight had shattered, but it might still be in tact elsewhere, never mind that there didn’t seem to be a way of finding out.
“I have. And that’s even more strange.” Viki rummaged between his rolls of paper, pulled one out and unrolled it on the desk. Lines of sonorics were superimposed over a map of the city and surrounding areas.
There was a bright hotspot with many lines around it.
“That is the location of the camp,” Viki said, unnecessarily.
“I thought we’d decontaminated them.”
Not well enough, obviously, and another thing: if this very low level of sonorics showed up, what had happened to the base level—Sady checked: nothing. Sonorics levels were below ten motes per cube, lower even than normal for the time of the year.
He pulled the map onto his lap and studied it.
After a long silence, he said, “This is strange.”
“I said so.”
“Really, really strange.”
“Anyway, that’s last night’s readings. Look at the difference this morning.” He passed Sady another map with—mercy—levels as high as hundred and ten motes per cube at the army balloon base to the south of the city.
Sady put one map on the desk and the other on his lap and looked from one to the other.
“What caused such a sharp change?”
“Do you want the honest answer?”
“Is there another kind?”
Viki met his eyes, and his expression said, One we don’t tell the citizens. Sady nodded.
Viki averted his eyes and looked down. “I don’t have a single fucking clue.”
Coming from his mouth, the expletive was doubly shocking. Shy, even-tempered Viki, who wouldn’t even know how to harm anyone. Yet the strain was visible on that young face as were the bags under his eyes.
Sady reached out and touched his student’s arm. “Viki . . .”
“I don’t have a clue, all right? Sack me if you want. I don’t know! Everyone expects me
to know. I don’t!”
“Calm down, Viki.”
Viki took slow deep breaths.
“Have you asked Alius for advice?”
Viki gave Sady a look that said, Do you think I have suicide tendencies? Yes, that was right, there was some sort of issue why Viki was terrified of his tutor.
“Mercy, Viki, one hundred and ten, just outside the city. Enough to cause minor harm with long-term exposure. Have you sent out any warnings?”
“Warnings?”
“Sending out warnings is part of the Chief meteorologist’s job. Those levels are high enough to justify two rings of the bell.”
Viki’s eyes were wide. “I . . . uhm . . .”
“Go, order it.” That was part of the job, and Viki had nowhere near the training required to do it and while he had the confidence to do the technical part of the job, he had none of the skill with people.
Viki rose and scrambled to collect all his rolls of paper. He scurried for the door.
“And Viki?”
The young man froze. “Yes, Proctor?”
“What’s with the face hair?”
“This?” Viki rubbed his hand over his unshaven chin, dropping a roll of paper. “Something different. I thought it looked good.” He bent to pick up the paper. “Beards are very popular right now. I thought—”
“You look like you have a hairy caterpillar plastered on your face. Look, tell me this: what’s with the group of men who wears beards?”
“Group of men. . . ?” Viki frowned.
“Yes, they hang around with Alius and other people from the Scriptorium. Some senators, too. Please tell me who they are and what they’re about?”
“I . . . I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Then will you please shave yourself before someone assumes you to be something you are not?”
“Uhm—yes, Proctor. Surely.” Viki went red in the face and scurried from the room.
Sady slumped in his seat and sighed, feeling an ache for his old job and the anonymity that came with it.
Instead, he lead a country that faced a sonorics crisis of uncertain nature, with financial irregularities that would sink a few political careers in normal times, with a huge population of refugees with whom no one could communicate, while a large group of prominent citizens appeared to be conspiring against the doga. At least they had caught the killer.
Chapter 11
* * *
LORIANE AWOKE from the first good sleep she had for days to a sound of a door opening. For a moment, she thought she was at home in her limpet, but then she saw windows and curtains and she realised that she was not, and not only that, but she was no longer pregnant, and she was in Chevakia.
Dara was crossing the room to her bed, carrying a tray. “How are you feeling today, Mistress Loriane?”
Her voice sounded hesitant and uncomfortable, and Loriane remembered snatches of an argument last night, of Dara shouting, I can’t stay here like this! somewhere in a corridor, while a young woman helped Loriane wash herself in the bath.
“The Chevakians gave me this to bring to you for breakfast,” Dara said.
She set the tray down on the bed and backed off a few steps. Ontane and Myra had followed Dara into the room. Ontane left the door open as if he was prepared to flee at short notice.
Breakfast consisted of a bowl with a jelly-like substance which contained many little brown balls, like fish eggs, except it didn’t smell like fish, and a cup of tea, which at least smelled like tea.
Loriane slid the tray onto her lap. The scent of food made her stomach churn. She had hardly eaten anything yesterday.
She poked at the sticky substance in the bowl. The little balls resisted being scooped up by remaining firmly stuck in the jelly. The Chevakians called this food? “What is this?”
“I have no idea,” Dara said. And after a silence added, “These Chevakians don’t know how to cook.”
“I didn’t mind it,” Ontane said.
“You’d eat anything.”
Loriane managed to hack some of the substance off and put it in her mouth. It was so gluey that it stuck to the roof of her mouth, which made it hard to swallow.
She swallowed the mouthful, with difficulty, and poked about in her bowl for a bit that wasn’t so gluey. By the skylights, she couldn’t eat this.
“The Chevakian didn’t eat it either,” Myra said. She patted Beido on the back. Loriane hoped he was hungry, because her breasts felt like rocks.
Ontane said, “Yeah, but he is the head of the household, and not some murdering refugee from a hated country.”
Dara glared at her husband with something like a look of warning. He shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at her with a look that said What?
Dara muttered something under her breath that sounded like, We agreed not to mention it.
Not mention what? If they had anything to say to her, they should say it. No doubt it had something to do with being the mother of a monster that had killed four people. As if she could help it. Damn Tandor and his machinations.
Loriane poked the spoon at the bowl’s contents, ignoring the tense silence. She tried a couple of the round grains, but the jelly-like substance that coated them made her feel sick, and her anger made it worse. She flung the spoon in the bowl and shoved it aside.
“The tea is good, mistress,” Dara said, her voice timid.
Loriane blew out a breath and met Dara’s eyes. “Look, just what is going on?”
“Nothing. You need to recover, mistress.”
“Nothing? And you’re all behaving like I have some sort of disease?”
“We’re . . . we’re sorry about the babe.” Dara averted her eyes.
Myra clutched Beido to her chest, her eyes wide.
“We have to do more than just be sorry. We have to find it.”
Dara said, “You’ll need time to recover, mistress. Let’s not worry about it now.”
“We should worry about it. That monster killed four people. It’s out there somewhere.”
Her only response was blank faces.
Then it clicked in her mind. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
Ontane said, “Now, mistress, that be a big thing to say. You maybe confused, that’s all.”
“Confused? It’s true!”
Ontane hesitated, shrugged and said, “All we heard were that the little mite was born and then you tried to strangle it.”
“Because it is a monster, a hybrid. By the skylights, you don’t think that I killed those people?”
More silence. It was clear they did. Loriane’s heart thudded in her throat.
She remembered somewhere in her haze of pain after having arrived at the house, Ontane declaring his dislike of “women’s business”. That he was going to wait in the other room. Myra had wanted to stay, but the Chevakians wouldn’t let her.
“I din’ say that, Mistress Loriane.”
“But you believe it.”
“I din’ say that either.”
But Dara believed it, judging by the look on her face.
“You have to believe me. This is the truth: I didn’t kill anyone. I tried to kill the child before it could do any damage, but I didn’t. It’s out there somewhere, threatening all who come across its path.” She met their gazes one by one, feeling increasingly cold. They had travelled with her, they knew Tandor. If they didn’t believe her, then what chance did she have with the Chevakians?
The uncomfortable silence lingered.
Eventually, she asked, “Whose house is this?”
Ontane said, “Someone Chevakian. He be rich.”
Dara shot him an angry look.
“What? He is. All the other people be his servants.”
“Where is Tandor?” Loriane asked.
“Tandor’s still in the camp,” Myra said, softly. Little Beido was making happy baby-gurgling noises. “You were right. Tandor was being controlled by Ruko, and we broke the bond by separating the two, but Tandor made such a fuss that the Chevakian guards took him out of the tent. We haven’t either of them since.”
“You left him in the camp?”
“It wasn’t our choice. The Chevakians took him away. I have no idea where to.”
“And no one thought to make sure he came with us?” By the skylights, Tandor was the only one who knew what was going on. He was the one who had wanted her child. If he was free, he could go and complete whatever evil plan he had cooked up. Use icefire to kill the Chevakians, seize the throne, kill the Knights. Whatever. And the child had a place in his machinations. If he could find it, which he probably could. Maybe he already had.
She threw the blankets aside. “I need to know where Tandor is.” She rose.
Dara said, “You should stay in bed. You’re still recovering.”
“By the skylights, I won’t. I’m going to find that monster.” But a spell of dizziness took her and she had to sit on the edge of the bed.
“See? You need more time to recover.”
Loriane looked around. “Where are my clothes?”
“The woman left some bandages in the bathroom.”
“I’m not talking about bandages. I want my clothes. Where are they?” Not on the chair next to the bed. Not on the two chairs near the hearth. Maybe in the cupboard?
“You shouldn’t get up yet.”
“Why not? I’ve never stayed in bed. I’ve had ten children.”
Dara’s eyes met hers. Loriane thought she saw disapproval. “Look, I’m not staying in bed, and I’m not crazy. I need to find Tandor. Please give me my clothes.”
“Uhm, I think they went to the laundry.”
“Then get me something else.”
“Yes, I’ll ask.”
The family left, and Loriane sank back onto the bed with a deep sigh. Dara was right in one, no, two things: one, the tea was really good, and two, she did not feel up to walking around much. Her backside hurt. It had not been a normal pregnancy and neither had it been a normal birth. Just trying to get up exhausted her.