by Stephen Hunt
‘A blood heat to purge the poison from your system.’ Sariel lifted the fallen syringe from the cell’s floor and his hand flared with light again, the liquid inside the glass bubbling as it changed colour. ‘There … a small transfiguration. Far more useful, now. A dose of armodafinil, mother maiden’s little helper.’ The sorcerer jabbed the needle in Jacob’s arm, drawing blood as the potion entered his flesh. ‘You’ll stay awake for another day and a night, now. But when you next sleep, it will be for the best part of a week.’
‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead, you old dog,’ groaned Jacob. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘Chasing my memories,’ said Sariel. The old man found the key for the manacles on the surgeon and released Jacob. The pastor pulled himself to his feet, suddenly dizzy, his flesh creaking and weak after the saints knew how long being held here. All desire for sleep had fled, though.
‘The same memories your son carried to me in the sky mines,’ added Sariel. ‘I have been learning which of them are true and which of them are false and which of them merely echoes of the great might-have-been.’
‘You might-have-been with us a little earlier,’ said Jacob. ‘That would have been just dandy. There’s a war breaking out in Weyland now.’
‘You’re quite welcome, your excellency,’ said Sariel, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘I only live to release you from capture by your enemies. This land is but a small corner of a much wider war. One that has been going on for far longer than Weyland’s current troubles.’
‘The rest of Pellas isn’t my home. Shit on them.’
‘That’s fine then,’ said Sariel, picking up his traveller’s staff. ‘All those countless baronies and kingdoms and states out there, everyone with its share of envious fools who believe they’re stronger, cleverer, more popular, wiser, better looking and more entitled for the job of ruler than the incumbent. We’ll forget about them, shall we?’
‘No,’ said Jacob. ‘I won’t even think about them to start with.’
‘What a fine representative of your people you are,’ said Sariel. ‘I should send a portrait of you to every librarian’s hold in the world and ask them to record it under the entry, Man; common pattern.’
‘Ask the guild to record it under “regicides”,’ said Jacob. ‘Because I’ve a king to kill.’
‘First you must choose which monarch to slay.’
Jacob bent down and checked the imperial surgeon. ‘This leech’s master will do.’ Keall still possessed a pulse. ‘Excellent. Their pox doctor is going to live.’
‘Still a remnant of a priest’s compassion then,’ said Sariel. ‘Even for a Vandian.’
Jacob shrugged. He’d better live. I’d hate the empire to get lost when it comes hunting for me.
Sariel took his staff and scratched a symbol on the wall; two circles joined together, a lemniscate. ‘There, every artist should sign his work.’
‘You want them to know you broke me out?’
‘Oh yes,’ Sariel smiled, although there was only coldness in the old man’s eyes. ‘The Vandian secret police, the hoodsmen, they would grow idle if I did not poke them every now and then. It’s a game we have been playing for a long time. We are all used to our traditions, and I wouldn’t wish to disappoint them.’
Jacob couldn’t help but wonder how long. Longer than I could accurately guess, I suspect. They exited the cell. Jacob found himself in a wide corridor with metal doors, ancient and rusting. No sign of the royal guardsmen acting as warders, but he could hear people talking somewhere in the distance, echoes drifting to his ears. ‘How did you know to come for me here?’
‘My friends the sparrows told me to visit your son, the Lord Carnehan, much suffering over the loss of his beloved. The son informed me of the father’s predicament and so here I am.’
‘Carter, thank the saints! Where is he?’
‘Thank Prince Owen Hawkins’ forces, instead, for he is with them.’ Sariel explored a side corridor and passed into a largely empty storeroom. He placed his hand against a wall, as though feeling for something. Then he found it. There was a sharp crack and a line of bricks swung inward on a sliding wall. ‘These hidden passages were put in by King Theron. He had similar appetites to King Marcus, but was married to a queen who was far less forgiving of his philandering ways. Queen Henrietta’s suspicious vigilance necessitated that he sneak out unseen by his own servants, who were, wisely, far more afraid of her than of him.’
‘My son is safe?’ asked Jacob, already impatient with the old man’s tall tales. The passage beyond was narrow, little more than a gap between the walls, lit by tiny arrows of light reflected by mirror-lined channels that emerged somewhere on the palace roof.
‘And where would you consider safe, now, your grace? Your son lives. Does that sit well enough with you? The northern members of the People’s Assembly have declared for the pretender and retreated to the city of Midsburg. That is where Lord Carnehan waits. The southern assemblymen and the majority of the prefecture support the usurper and advance towards your people’s positions. It isn’t just your revenge that is worked out here. There is no conflict bloodier than a civil war. Brother against brother. Friend against friend. Gaiaist against Mechanicalist. Reformer against traditionalist. Party against party. Guild against guild. Families torn apart. Old feuds settled and every festering spleeny hag-born jealousy given its vent through violence.’
Jacob watched Sariel close the hidden door, sealing them into near darkness. He waited for his eyesight to adjust to the gloom before moving off, the elderly sorcerer in the lead. Jacob had a feeling that the old man could see just fine in the darkness. But then, he’d watched the strangely twisted traveller reattach his own arm after it had been torn off by a fighting cat inside an arena with as little trouble as fixing a child’s broken toy. ‘Who is winning?’
‘Winning?’ laughed Sariel as he eased his way through the narrow passage. ‘Each field fertilized by the flesh of the fallen, that’s your victor. But you mean which side will prevail? Who is to know that? Even the finest soothsayers among the gasks would be challenged. Your northerners are wily landsmen familiar with the ground over which they fight, while the southerners field soft city boys who have only ever known mill-work. Numerically, more regiments declared for the north, with many of the eastern prefectures also siding with your boy king. But that long-tongued oath-breaker King Marcus holds the south with its arsenals and manufactories and the easy means to restock them. Apart from a few border squadrons, the skyguard is largely loyal to the doghearted incumbent who founded it. Weyland’s navy is as split as the rest of the country and has so far remained in port. Who is to win? Toss a coin.’
‘This was always going to happen, even without Prince Owen’s return.’
‘A lie you must tell yourself daily,’ said Sariel. ‘Standing so tall in front of the blaze, with the fuel oil and matches still clutched in your hand.’
‘Marcus started this fire, on the day he decided to assassinate half his own family and take imperial silver for selling his people.’
‘Well then, my grace, let’s set our compass for Midsburg. We may watch the flames lick around your land together.’ He laughed, cruelly. ‘Maybe someone will even win.’
‘I’ll tell you how we win,’ said Jacob. ‘We withdraw from Midsburg and mount a guerrilla campaign. We draw the southern armies into the high north, into the mountains; extend the usurper’s supply lines. Then we crack them like eggs on the rocks of Rodal.’
‘If only you were in charge of the rebellion, your excellency,’ said Sariel. ‘Sadly that task is entrusted to a callow youth in the form of Prince Owen. And he trusts his advisers in parliament’s army, officers who have demonstrated their loyalty to both him and the assembly. Their thinking shows a rather conservative dint. In this civil war, it is King Marcus’s loyalists who show a glimmer of original thought when it comes to strategies and skyguards. You would be better off commanding the southern forces rather than Prince Owen’s.’
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‘The boy would still be a slave in Vandia if it wasn’t for me.’
‘Owen has a prince’s weakness for following his own mind. And what part will the imperium play in this grand plan of yours?’
‘They’re here to revenge the insult of the slave revolt. They’ll take their blood price, grow bored, and leave. Even with all of Vandia’s might, we’re too far-called to be made a province of their empire. It’s Bad Marcus who we have to live with. Who we have to defeat,’
‘I have lived too long a life,’ sighed Sariel. ‘I have seen so much. And one thing, one lesson I have taken to heart. People are never game pieces to push around the board. No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.’
Jacob felt his way down the narrow passage. ‘I have never quit the field in defeat.’
‘Jake Silver has never quit the field in defeat. Which of you is to fight this war? The pastor or the killer?’
‘You know the answer to that question, old dog.’
‘I suppose I do. And how will you take charge of parliament’s army?’
Jacob didn’t answer. The question was a terrible one. Or perhaps it was the price that was going to have to be paid that was terrible. Saints forgive me. Because after this, nobody else will.
The Vandian surgeon, Keall Merrisor, clutched the back of his bleeding head in the empty interrogation cell, withering under the gaze of the foreign monarch he had been sent to serve. Captain Thomas Purdell had never seen the king in such an obviously foul mood. But then, having a prisoner escape unseen from the palace’s dungeons was a unique occurrence as far as the officer was aware, even if Father Carnehan did supposedly have the assistance of the most mysterious of the expedition members – unless the doctor was lying to cover his incompetence. That’s always possible. A man will tell any lie to save his own skin. The king’s guard were out of sight, having sealed off the lower level of the palace and discovered precisely nothing. Thomas imagined the troopers scurrying about in the grounds above, desperately searching for the missing captive. They wouldn’t find anything. The chickens had well and truly flown the coop.
King Marcus stopped questioning the doctor and turned his attention to Thomas. ‘What do you know of this man Sariel?’
Depressingly little, although that was nothing the king wanted to hear. ‘I combined the intelligencers’ reports with a handful of second-hand accounts from the escaped slaves, Your Majesty,’ said Thomas. ‘But we still know almost nothing about the man. We have no record of his birth on Weyland soil, so he probably isn’t a Weylander. Sariel affects the appearance of an itinerant vagrant, as addled as most gentlemen of the road; he joined the Northhaven expedition at the free port of Talekhard; and there were those outlandish reports that he practised sorcery during the slave revolt and drew on strange powers to assist the miners’ flight home.’
‘Sariel is a dangerous outlaw with a long history of fermenting trouble inside the imperium,’ said Merrisor. ‘His presence in your country is of vital concern to the emperor.’
The captain stared coldly at the Vandian. ‘What can you tell us of this infamous outlaw, then, Doctor?’
‘I did not say he was infamous. Our press isn’t like yours,’ said the surgeon. ‘Our newspapers and kino screens do not report tittle-tattle and gossip, they announce only what the imperial censors deem to be in the people’s interest to hear. Sariel is known to the authorities. To the people he is nothing.’
‘How refreshing,’ said King Marcus. ‘As always, we have so much to learn from our dear allies.’
‘The embassy briefed me to interrogate Jacob Carnehan about the bandit’s whereabouts,’ said the surgeon. ‘The outlaw has many aliases … Sariel Teller. Sariel Player. Sariel Skel-Bane. The order to discover his whereabouts originated from the hoodsmen, the emperor’s secret police. That tells me all I need to know about the level of threat Sariel poses to the empire.’
‘Was he schooled as a hedgerow magician?’ asked Thomas.
‘On that I have no information,’ said the doctor. ‘Beyond the obvious observation that many travellers who pass through the imperium claim spurious powers of witchdoctory and offer quack remedies whose only real magic is to relieve the gullible of their coins. One thing I can tell you for certain, Your Majesty, our hoodsmen do not waste their time hunting charlatans who sell sham wart cures and love potions.’
‘Well, it seems he’s a sorcerer indeed,’ growled the king, ‘to be able to pass through my palace like a ghost, pick my dungeon’s locks and walk out unseen with Jacob Carnehan.’
Thomas Purdell felt a frisson of fear at the thought of the pastor on the loose. The captain had seen the murder Jacob Carnehan had worked on the bandits paid to attack the Northhaven coach. I’ve never seen a man kill as fast and effectively as him. And now the pastor was free and fully aware that Thomas was a loyal officer of the king’s forces. Jacob Carnehan knew Thomas had slipped the king secrets that put the pretender’s cause at risk, not to mention endangering the life of the pastor’s only surviving son. Nothing Thomas knew of Jacob Carnehan suggested the pastor was a forgiving sort of man.
‘Jacob Carnehan broke under questioning,’ offered Merrisor, triumphantly. The doctor was all too eager to gloss over his incompetence in allowing the prisoner’s escape. ‘Just as I promised you he would. It was only a matter of time, as it is with all men, however strong of will and fierce of spirit. I have the location of Lady Cassandra from the pastor’s own lips. She is being taken to the Rodalian capital of Hadra-Hareer.’
‘That’s a small crumb of comfort, Doctor,’ said King Marcus.
‘I think we can assume that Sariel and Carnehan’s intention is to flee north to Rodal and use her ladyship as a hostage against the emperor,’ said Merrisor, speaking quickly, still trying to appease the king. ‘Carnehan threatened to assassinate Lady Cassandra if Vandia dared pursue its escaped slaves. He may yet make good on his threat.’
‘I have daughters myself,’ said King Marcus, sympathetically. ‘I can only imagine the anguish your emperor must feel over his missing granddaughter.’
‘It is different inside the imperium,’ said Merrisor. ‘Emperor Jaelis has many hundreds of heirs from the imperial harem and, thank the ancestors, his healthy grandchildren number in the thousands. Lady Cassandra is just one of royal birth and from the moment she could walk the girl has been taught to sacrifice herself for the imperium. No. It is the empire’s honour that has been insulted here. That mere slaves dare raise arms against their lawful owners, seizing the emperor’s blood and presuming to dictate terms to the imperium as equals. Such a stain cannot be allowed to stand.’
‘Nor will it. In this, as in all our previous dealings, Vandia and Weyland are firm friends.’
‘I shall return to our embassy,’ said Merrisor. ‘The emperor must be radioed the news that the outlaw Sariel and Lady Cassandra can be hunted in Hadra-Hareer.’
King Marcus nodded at Thomas, a pre-arranged signal. He slipped behind the imperial surgeon.
‘You are in no fit state to use your embassy’s radio, Doctor,’ said the king.
‘I do not understand?’ said Merrisor, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
Thomas Purdell took the knife he had drawn and plunged it into the Vandian’s spine, a bloody stain left spreading across the back of the jacket as he withdrew the steel. Merrisor fell onto his own interrogation table, hardly able to gasp. He just managed to turn over, and Thomas shoved the blade into his heart, once, twice, thrice for good measure. The Vandian tumbled off the table and slapped down against the floor.
‘You see,’ said the king, kneeling down beside the dying Vandian, ‘sadly you were unfortunately murdered by your prisoner during his escape. But with your dying breath, you valiantly managed to inform us that Lady Cassandra Skar is being held prisoner by the escaped slaves at Midsburg. Don’t worry; we’ll “discover” that the emperor’s granddaughter was moved to the Rodalian highlands just before the city falls.’
‘You’ll be
a hero of your nation at last, Doctor,’ said Thomas. ‘Just a posthumous one.’ Purdell observed the doctor’s final moments with a connoisseur’s attention, before kicking the Vandian’s corpse to ensure he really was dead. It was strange how easily he could affect the emotions that took hold of others. All Thomas really felt was fear or joy. Fear for his own skin and joy, usually, when the fear was someone else’s. Otherwise he was more or less a hollow core, but one easily covered over. He understood how to indulge himself, and how to attach himself to those powerful enough to offer him such opportunities. Not even the king knew what Thomas was capable of. Perhaps that was what made him such a good agent, able to deceive others with ease. Thomas was a blank canvas, projecting back exactly what a person wished to see. ‘A hero’s corpse, ready for the Vandians, Your Highness.’
King Marcus shrugged. ‘A pity. I do hope his embassy is able to offer the services of another surgeon just as talented.’
‘Vandian medical techniques may seem miraculous to us, but they are, I suspect, commonplace in the empire,’ said Tom.
‘They will be inside Weyland, too, one day,’ said King Marcus. ‘Now, Captain. Have you finalized your scheme to “escape” north?’
‘Some of my people are at the stockade acting as prison guards. They’re turning a blind eye to an escape tunnel being dug. When the tunnel’s completed, I will lead a group of prisoners in an escape and head to an aircraft positioned on the edge of the Greealamie airfield. One of my agents is the pilot who helped us murder Chicola’s rebel skyguard squadron in their beds. She’s currently held in the camp as a downed rebel flyer and will pilot us to Midsburg. With that fat fool Assemblyman Gimlette and a few genuine prisoners alongside us to vouch for the details of our escape, the pretender will suspect nothing. The only fly in the ointment will be if the pastor arrives in the north before I do. In that event, I’d be greeted with a firing squad rather than open arms.’