by David Hair
She felt her hands clasp her belly, the tight bulge pressing against the fabric of her salwar kameez.
Ramita wiped away the tears she’d barely been aware she was crying.
I do. I truly do.
She found she was scarcely breathing. Not true?
It felt like the stone at her feet was turning to mud: unsteady, shifting, untrustworthy. What is my husband saying? He always told me our children were the key …
Her heart thudded. Me?
That he could so easily predict her emotions made her almost forget that he was not truly there with her. ‘How can this be?’ she whispered uselessly, looking at the image of her husband for answers, for reassurances.
Ramita found she was holding her breath. Her arms crept back around her belly protectively as she started shaking her head in denial.
Antonin Meiros’ face softened and he rubbed at his close-cropped beard.
Ramita glanced back at the closed door behind her. No, she and Justina certainly did not get on. But they were getting by, somehow.
She gaped open-mouthed at the tiny image, her head shaking in denial. This was all insane.
Her breath caught at the words: I believe in you.
The image died away.
For long minutes she sat on the bed, trembling, as tears streamed down her face. It’s not the children. It is me. He expects me to save the world.
She couldn’t think about it. It was too big. Too much.
But after a time she raised her head, stretched out and triggered the message again, to imprint it on her memory. And to hear his voice again.
*
She was sitting in the lounge, late in the evening, when Justina finally appeared from below. Ramita had saved her dinner, lamb curry. She was staring at the rose-gold skylight as it faded to grey. She’d spent the afternoon outside on the viewing platform, watching the waves shatter and thinking about her husband’s message.
‘He was insane,’ Justina said eventually.
Ramita turned her head to face her. Her husband’s daughter was ashen-faced, and she moved shakily. ‘Was there anything else?’
‘He left me a message too, about you and the gnosis.’ There had clearly been more to her message than that, but she obviously didn’t want to discuss that. ‘He tells me I have to teach you all I know. I’m doing that anyway,’ she muttered, like a sulking teenager. ‘He says that you’re going to outstrip us all.’
I bet you don�
�t like that. Ramita had to restrain a smile.
‘He may be wrong, you know,’ Justina added waspishly. ‘He’s not omniscient. That poor Dhassan girl he mentioned could be a one-off. This might all be a waste of time.’
‘I suppose we’ll just have to see.’ Ramita observed. ‘Daughter.’
Justina scowled. ‘Then tomorrow, be prepared to do some real work.’ She stalked to the kitchen bench, seized her plate of cold curry and stomped away.
18
Across Kesh
Windship Travel
One of the magi’s first and most valuable discoveries was how to imbue wood with residual gnosis so that it could be made to support large weights. The next step, to build a hold around the enchanted timber and then add sails to capture the wind, came gradually, but by 420, forty years after the Ascendancy of the Blessed Three Hundred, air travel was a reality in Yuros, and it immediately proved its value both militarily and commercially. After observing sailing craft on Lac Siberne, more efficient sail and hull designs were designed, and superior airmanship followed. Rule of the air has been the cornerstone of the empire.
ANNALS OF PALLAS
Hebusalim, Dhassa, Antiopia
Rami (Septinon) to Shawwal (Octen) 928
3rd and 4th months of the Moontide
Pallacios XIII marched into the Hebb Valley under the full moon in the third week of Augeite. Mater-Lune’s face was the same pockmarked expanse as in Yuros, but little else was the same. The lands were brown and arid, almost lifeless, or so it looked at first glance. The few riverbeds were dry, not even muddy, and even the most spindly tree had been hacked down for fuel. The villages they marched through were empty, the local people long gone. The buildings were quite unlike those of Yuros; they were often entirely open on one side, to admit the air, and few windows or doorways had shutters or even doors. It made them look half-finished, just dried-mud shelters with roofs of straw. It was five days before they saw a Dhassan, a black-skinned old man hobbling along the road with cloth-wrapped feet. Bondeau hurled the old man off the road with a hand gesture, making the column laugh. The old man just sat there and watched them tramp past, his eyes defiant.
At night the temperature plummeted, but it was still hotter than sultry summer in Silacia. Thankfully, the air was so dry it did not overwhelm the senses the way a heat wave in Yuros could; it was somehow a little more bearable, so long as you had enough water. Many of the wagons were massive water barrels on wheels, so heavy only a hulka could pull them.
‘Look at them,’ Kip marvelled. ‘How many steaks would you get from one of them?’
‘We may find that out before the end of this journey,’ Baltus Prenton commented.
‘I don’t like them,’ Ramon said. ‘Animals that can understand verbal commands? That’s creepy.’
‘I don’t disagree.’ Baltus looked at Ramon. ‘You have some air-affinity, don’t you? Ever flown a skiff?’
‘Si, of course – at Turm Zauberin. It is fun.’
‘Excellent. You and Severine are going to be my back-ups. We’re getting two skiffs when we arrive in Hebusalim. I need to know you can handle one if you have to.’
Ramon grinned. ‘I’ll be fine. It was my old friend Alaron you’d need to worry about. He flew a skiff into his own house once. Wish I’d been there.’ He grinned at the thought of his earnest friend, wondering as he did where he was, and if he’d found Cym yet, and the Scytale.
Just then, they topped a ridge. As the sun fell towards the west they found themselves looking down upon the holy city of Hebusalim, where the Amteh prophet Aluq-Ahmed spent much of his life. The inner part was walled, but the vast expanse of the city lay outside the defences, a sprawl of desolate-looking buildings from which hundreds of threads of smoke arose. The vast golden dome of the Bekira, the largest Dom-al’Ahm in the world, the resting place of the Prophet’s wife, Bekira, and the Governor’s Palace, a massive expanse of gleaming marble, its great rival, dominated the roofscape. Above it all stood the Domus Costruo on the westward hill, a stark, lifeless silhouette. Word was that Ordo Costruo had relocated to their wartime retreat, the Krak di Condotiori.
To the east was the distant line of the Gotan Heights, rimmed with legion fortresses, with a wall running along the ridgeline. The camp beneath was as large as the one they’d left at Northpoint. Legion encampments, with thousands of tents and pens for livestock, were dotted across the plain, and above and beyond shimmered the Dhassan mountains, looking so near but really far, far away across the desiccated plains.
Now at last there were local people: dark-skinned men who had set up row upon row of food stalls and were now busy roasting meat and nuts over tiny fires. A string of Rondian legionaries guarded them, making any who bought pay fair price. The legions had learned from two previous invasions that not paying the locals meant the stalls vanished, together with a good third of the food the men might otherwise have had to requisition. Protecting commerce helped the Crusades – and there were other incentives, too. Beyond the stalls were tents where slender figures in diaphanous cloth lounged under the awnings. The Dhassan prostitutes always had a male protector nearby, usually a husband or brother. The women had a dangerous-looking beauty, and the legionaries nudged each other, their heads drawn inexorably sideways as they marched past. The more brazen of the women paraded half-dressed, calling out to the men in broken Rondian.
‘Eyes front, you slugs!’ bawled the centurions. ‘Get your hands off your cocks and think about your shovels! You’ve got trenches to dig!’
Ramon glanced at Kip, who was staring at one dusky creature with golden skin and tangled hair that fell to her waist. ‘Shizen, look at her,’ he muttered.
‘Not as pretty as a Silacian girl,’ Ramon remarked for form’s sake. And she’s got dead eyes and she hates every one of us almost as much as she hates herself. ‘She’ll have more diseases than a leper colony. Don’t go there, amici.’
‘Schlessen girls are the best,’ Kip proclaimed, though the way his eyes were roaming made it sound like he was speaking to reassure himself. ‘Blonde hair and big—’ He cupped his hands over his chest. ‘Boom, boom.’ Then the girl he was looking at slowly parted the front of her gown, and he shut his eyes and groaned.
Further up the line, Severine Tiseme was riding on her own because Renn Bondeau was gawping at the whores as lustily as any ranker. Seth Korion seemed to be trying to reassure her, but judging by his scarlet face and stammering, he wasn’t managing so well. On impulse, Ramon spurred his horse and joined them, leaving Kip to pant over the next exotic beauty to bare her wares for him.
‘Milady Severine, isn’t it wonderful to have arrived,’ he said cheerily.
Seth Korion looked at him worriedly, and nudged his khurne away. Severine turned, her face wearing an expression of surprise, presumably at his effrontery in speaking to her. ‘What a ghastly place. It must remind you of home.’
Nice. ‘It reminds me of Coiners’ Alley in Norostein, but the girls are prettier.’
‘It’s disgusting,’ Severine said loudly, her eyes on the back of Renn Bondeau’s head.
‘So is destroying the local economy so that women have no choice but to prostitute themselves or starve,’ Ramon replied evenly.
Severine tossed her head. ‘A woman of Yuros would not descend so low.’
Ramon tilted his head. ‘You think not? They did in Noros during the Revolt. I have that on good authority.’
Severine scowled. ‘Noromen are provincials. A woman of Rondelmar has greater moral fibre. Her virtue is her banner.’
Rich, coming from the girl who’s trying to get with child so she can go home. ‘I gather we will fly together,’ he commented, changing the subject.
‘I think not. I will fly with Windmaster Prenton.’
‘Have you ever used a skiff?’
‘The good colleges do not teach girls such menial tasks.’
‘So “no”, then?’
She pouted. ‘I am a fast learner.’
‘Y
ou’ll need to be. Prenton tells me that skiff-pilots who crash here end up as bones in the desert.’
Severine tossed her head. ‘I will be fine. Look to yourself, Rimoni.’
‘Silacian,’ he corrected.
She faced him fully. ‘What do I care what breed of rodent you are?’
‘Charming. Still, I suppose you hope to be with child and halfway home within a month or so, si?’
Severine flared. ‘I demand you retract that insinuation.’ Renn Bondeau’s head spun and he began to rein back.
‘Keep moving,’ snapped Rufus Marle from somewhere behind them, his voice edged with menace. Ramon saluted Severine ironically and edged back into line with Kip.
Ramon glanced at Kip, who had torn his eyes from the Dhassan women long enough to realise that there was tension in the air. ‘What is happening?’ the Schlessen demanded.
‘Just making new friends.’ Ramon winked.
Kip laughed. ‘Hey, you notice how Seth Korion runs away from you all the time? Did you push him round at your fancy college?’
‘Hardly. Seth runs away from everything,’ Ramon replied.
‘He is the big general’s son, yar?’
‘Sometimes big fathers have little sons.’
‘This is why you call him “Lesser Son”, yar?’
‘You’re right on the mark. So, worked out how you’re spending your hard-earned pay yet?’
Kip glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Broadly speaking, yar. Specifically, neyn. You?’
Ramon shook his head slowly. ‘I think I’ll stay in camp. Five fingers are cheaper and carry less risk of pox.’
Kip winced. ‘Most nights, I agree with you. But you have to do some things once, I think.’
Ramon snorted. ‘No, you don’t have to everything, even once. But I can see I won’t persuade you otherwise.’