“Then what?”
“The twins disappeared into an alley. A priest noticed a manhole cover that was ajar. We sent men into the sewers.” He shook his head. “It’s a labyrinth down there.”
Teo smirked. “She pulled a Parad on you.”
“My Lord?”
Teo waved dismissively. “Never mind. If the Capital sewers are anything like the Jonian ones, you’ll never find them. What now?”
“I have men on every gate. They can’t leave the city.”
“Good. And when you find them?”
Alexander flashed him a grin. “We make sure justice is served.”
Teo sank into his chair. The incompetence of everyone around him never ceased to amaze him. Even Alexander turned out to be as useless as the rest of them. First he let them slip between his fingers, now he acted as if they were commoners. The matter would have to be dealt with discreetly. “First, bring them to me.” He turned his attention back to the letter, hoping to salvage his good mood. When Alexander did not move, Teo raised his gaze again. “Anything else?”
The man shifted his weight on the chair. “You could order your men to search all boats and barges.”
Teo’s expression slid into a frown. “Boats?”
“As you know, we have questioned many of Tie’s former… erm… associates.”
Teo had little doubt as to the exact nature of the questioning. “Anything useful?”
“Most of them came from the Slums. They mentioned travelling occasionally by barge, when they preferred to remain unseen.”
Teo studied the man’s beady eyes. They shot around the room, as his tongue flicked momentarily to lick his lips. Definitely a lizard. Teo rapped his fingers on the table. “It’s worth a shot, I guess. I’ll make sure no vessel exits without an inspection.”
“We’ll get them, my Lord,” Alexander said with conviction, already relishing the inevitable triumph. “And when we do, Angel will pay for her treason.”
A grimace creased Teo’s face. “First, bring them here,” he reminded the Head Priest. “And next time you want to see me? Knock.” The man shot him a curious glance. Whatever he read in Teo’s eyes made him swallow. Hard.
“I will, my Lord.”
Scorpio
Gella
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the guards,” Lycus said, grinning like a cat toying with a particularly tasty mouse.
“How about this?” Gella said and kicked the plaster tree, putting all her weight behind the well-placed strike. The plaster cracked and fell, freeing the gold candelabra from its bleached prison.
Lycus smirked. “Is this why you came back? To steal what you hid away before fleeing?”
Gella’s ears burned with anger. “Bull. You know this fireplace wasn’t here at my time.”
Lycus’ face darkened. “You’d know this, wouldn’t you? Did your daddy take you into his office and put you on his knees? Did you play in this room as a child?”
“What’s she talking about?” David asked.
“He doesn’t know, does he?” The smirk on Lycus’ face widened. “Your girlfriend here is a Secretary’s daughter. He quit many years ago, of course. Mainly because of his shame. Pity he didn’t live to see her become the Butcher of Ephia.”
“I did nothing wrong,” Gella rasped, taking an angry step towards Lycus. She’s baiting you, she told herself in a vain attempt to cool her head.
“Another step and I call the guards.”
“And how will you explain this?” Gella asked, pointing towards the plaster-covered fireplace. Her finger shook with rage. “I’ll bet this monstrosity was built after you became Secretary. Or will you pin it on Cleomen, like you blamed me?”
Lycus shrugged indifferently. “If I have to. Our Secretary would make a convenient patsy.”
Gella’s jaw slackened at the casual admission, but it was David who gave words to her feelings. “But why? Gella said she protected you.”
“I didn’t need her protection,” Lycus spat in rage. “Little miss prissy here always thought she was so much better than everyone else. Her father’s daughter, a born leader. Never had any time for the rest of us. She took it upon herself to keep me down.”
“Keep you down?” Gella asked, her fists tightening. “I saved you from all those bullies.”
“I needed to stand up to them myself,” Lycus exploded. “With you always around, how could I earn their respect?”
“Is this why you did it? Why you framed me?”
“No, it’s because with you around, I could never become Secretary. You were always so perfect. Even without your daddy, you would have been what, Major by now? But as soon as you were gone, the road to my destiny was open. A few whispers here, an accident there, and the position was mine to grab.”
“You’ll never get away with it!” Gella shouted, no longer caring if any guards heard her.
“Says who? Your father had many friends. But he also had many enemies. I’ll tell everyone you had arranged with him to hide the candelabra in the office after you left. By the time I’m done, they’ll probably tear down his statue. Not that anyone sees it. With a daughter like you, it’s in a dark hallway somewhere.”
“I’ll kill you!” Gella yelled and lunged at her.
“Guards!” Lycus screamed. Armed soldiers flooded the room as Gella shoved her shoulder into Lycus’ chest and pushed upwards, sending her to crash against the wall. Lycus cried out in pain, her head thudding against the plaster. Two men jumped on Gella, pinning her to the ground.
“I caught the Butcher of Ephia retrieving her loot,” Lycus said. She staggered to her feet, her breathing laboured. “Take them both to jail until the trial.” Her face cringed in pain as she rubbed her chest in a way that seemed way too theatrical to Gella to be believable.
“This isn’t over,” she hissed as she passed Lycus.
“Of course not.” Lycus straightened her body, the pain disappearing from her posture. She beamed Gella a cruel smile. “We still have an execution to arrange.”
The Capital
Cyrus
The barge was more spacious than it looked from the outside. Its bowels lay largely empty, only a few half-empty crates here and there breaking the monotony of the wooden flooring. Commerce must be drying up. Cyrus had only briefly lain eyes on their captain as Xhi paid the man before escorting them to the safety of the cargo hold. He had warned them against making themselves too comfortable. Although the port authorities rarely checked the river traffic, it was better that they left as few signs of their presence on board as possible.
The sun had barely started its daily journey in the sky when Cyrus heard shouts from above and the vessel jolted away from the pier. Footsteps patted over their heads, the wood creaking under the confident feet of the captain and his two-man crew. Soon, the rhythmic sway lulled Cyrus to a light sleep. A light squeeze in his arm jolted him awake.
“What…” He lifted his torso, leaning against the plank wall.
“Shh!” Angel crept down beside him. She nodded towards the twins, sleeping next to Xhi. Cyrus’s gaze searched for Xhi’s wife. He raised an eyebrow when he found her snuggled up between their two First escorts. Each of her hands lay on a man’s thigh, but they all had their eyes closed and looked like they were napping.
“How are you?” she whispered.
“Sleepy,” he said and rubbed away the red marks the hard flooring had left on his shins. It came out as sllp, and frustration hit him. He still had to hunt for the words, like they were some elusive prey, and his words came out as if he had drunk too much. His mouth twitched at the memory of alcohol, his stomach churning in disgust.
“What’s that?” She leaned closer, inspecting him. Her gaze darted to the thin line on his skull, then she lowered it again, her cheeks turning crimson.
“Good.” He forced a smile.
She said nothing for a moment, just stared at him while chewing the inside of her mouth. “How much do you remember?”
She bit her lower lip and turned her eyes to her hands. He took her palm into his. “Did I…” His stomach curled into a knot. “Did I kill him?”
“What? No! No…” She did not meet his relieved eyes. “But you had him thrown to jail for helping me. Then, you executed his jailor when Sam escaped—”
Memories filled his mind, as if a dam had broken. “With Tie,” he interrupted her. “The Priestess.”
“You remember!” she said, hope rising in her voice.
“Bits. Pieces,” he admitted. “I…” He fidgeted with his hands. “I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes and summoned a deep breath, holding it in. Turning her head a fraction, as though straining to hear the notes of a song playing softly in the air, she looked blindly skyward. Then, a single word escaped her lips. “Why?” Her lower lip trembled as her eyes moistened. “Help me understand. Why?”
“I think…” How could he explain? Especially when words eluded him? “David warned me. Things in Capital. Whispers in dark. They… made me do things.”
She shook her head with bitterness. “You let them. Everyone’s tempted, but not everyone sins.” Although there was no accusation in her voice, her words crashed his soul and brought tears to his eyes.
It wasn’t me, he wanted to say. I was just a kid. I thought no harm could come to me, to any of us. When David killed Dad, something snapped inside me. I wanted the world to share my pain. No one had a right to be happy, not when I had lost so much. It wasn’t fair. Still isn’t! “I know,” he said instead.
“It’s okay. We shouldn’t judge people by their worst act.” She squeezed his hand reassuringly, as if she had heard his thoughts. “Sophie taught me that. When mom died.” Her fingers twitched in his palm. “I was so angry, you know? Wanted to hurt her so bad.” She looked away. “Sophie said Marta was more than a woman in pain. She was a mother and a wife. Above all, she was just another human being, struggling to make sense of things.”
“Aren’t we all?”
Angel chuckled. “Yes. She also said I should not judge her for the way she died, but for the way she lived.” The day promised to be another scorcher, yet Angel nodded and shivered, then cupped herself. “She was a good mother. It just took me a while to figure that out.” They stayed silent for a moment. “So, tell me about these things.”
His face soured. “What I did?”
An embittered chuckle came from her mouth. “That I know. No. Tell me about those whispers of yours.”
She thinks I’m making them up! “They’re real,” he protested. “They killed Dad. They turned me against you. Everyone.”
“They were here before us. Long before.” Xhi still had his eyes closed. His words startled them.
“I thought you were sleeping,” Angel said, half-accusingly.
Xhi’s eyes flew open. “A little trick that’s saved my life on occasion.”
“You know about them?” Cyrus asked. The words came to him now; the more he talked, the easier it got.
Xhi groaned as he scooted over. “They call ‘em Whispers. The priests of Themis have known about them for a while now. We’ve been trying to remove them from the Capital, with the help of the Old Woman.” Angel gaped at Xhi in surprise, but Cyrus merely nodded for him to continue. He already knew or suspected as much. “Tie says they were here first,” Xhi continued. “That’s why they haunt us.”
“Don’t be silly,” Angel protested, but her pallor increased.
Xhi shrugged. “Just sayin’. She says they drive people mad. Styx. Cyrus.”
“Teo,” Angel guessed.
Xhi shrugged again. “Some people need help. Others, not so much. Teo’s a nasty one.”
“I handed him the Capital,” Cyrus said.
“It’s not your fault—” Angel started, but Xhi interrupted her.
“Yes, you did. So what you gonna do about it now?”
Before Cyrus had a chance to reply, rushed footsteps sounded above. They exchanged alarmed glances.
A sailor jumped down the stairs. “We’re being boarded. Quick, hide!”
“Who?” Cyrus asked, switching with surprising ease into the role of the commander.
“Priests,” the sailor said and pulled away part of the aft wall to reveal a tight corridor running parallel to the stern. “Hurry!”
Hecate jumped up from between the startled First. “You’re gonna get us all killed,” she hissed at her husband, her face a mask of fury.
“Silence, woman!” he snapped at her. “Do what they tell you and you’ll be fine.”
She threw Cyrus a sideways glance and wrinkled her nose as if an offending odour had invaded her nostrils. “You’d better be worth all this trouble.”
“Angel, what’s happening? Where’s Sophie?” Elsie whimpered, rubbing her eyes with the base of her palms.
“We’re going to play a game,” Angel said. “I need you both to hide and say nothing until I tell you to.”
“Hide and seek!” Cook exclaimed.
“Yes, hide and seek.” She shoved them both into the dark space, the rest of them hurrying behind the two children. The sailor pushed the planks back into the wall and heaved a large crate before it. From a crack in the wall, Cyrus could see the empty hold. A moment later, two white-clad priests tramped down the stairs. Two soldiers escorted them, their hands resting on the pommels of their short swords.
“What have we here?” the older priest asked. His demeanour suggested he was in charge.
“Just the hold,” the captain said and hurried down the narrow steps.
The senior priest approached the crate the sailor had shoved next to the wall. “What’s in here?” He stood so close to Cyrus, that the smell of incense filled his nostrils, threatening to make him sneeze. He wrinkled his nose in an attempt to stop. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead and broke out on his back.
The sailor pried open the crate. He pulled out a large clump of coal. “We’re carrying coal to the villages farther down the river,” the captain explained.
The senior priest gave him a suspicious look. “It’s August.”
“He didn’t say that business is booming,” the sailor murmured and pushed his hands into the crate, then pulled them out again. Fine black dust followed him. It glistened in the thin rays of sun that shot through the flooring above their heads.
The priest jumped back to escape the powder. “Careful with that!” He patted down his robe, an irritated look on his face. The young priest, standing next to the ladder, fought to hide a smirk.
“Let’s go. There’s nothing here,” the older priest said. They started up the stairs.
The dust reached Cyrus’s nostrils just as he was inhaling in relief, causing the sneeze he had been holding in to explode. In the small confines of their hiding place, it echoed like a thunder. Everyone’s head shot in his direction. The soldiers lifted their swords from their scabbards.
“Bless me,” the sailor standing in front of the crate said and wiped his nose. Black streaks smudged his face. He casually replaced the lid. “Sorry, it’s all this dust.”
The senior priest shot him an angry look. “Come, we’ve wasted enough time here.”
“I told you, it’s a fool’s errand,” the young priest was saying as he hurried after him. “I bet they’re still hiding in the city.”
The sailor sat down on the crate and wiped his brow, smudging his face further. A long sigh of relief escaped his lips. He gazed with dismay at his blackened hands and clapped them to get rid of the dust, then leaned towards the hidden compartment. “With all the inspections, no one wants to examine a crate of coal too closely,” he whispered and winked towards the wall. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out as soon as it’s safe.”
September 307
Scor
pio
David
The courtroom surprised David. Used to the regal stature of the justices in the Capital, he had expected something closer to the glory of the audience hall in the Chamber of Justice. Instead, the room resembled the courtrooms of antiquity he had seen in his e-libs. A wooden railing separated wide benches filled with people from the desks of defence and prosecution.
He fought the urge to hold Gella’s foot steady, as it thumped against the floor at an ever-increasing tempo. She threw him an annoyed glance, which he purposefully ignored. Then, she punched him on the shoulder and his eyes flew open.
“Hey!” He rubbed his shoulder, a hurt look in his eyes.
“Do something!” she said through clenched teeth.
He leaned towards her, whispering. “Listen, I—”
“All rise!” someone said, loudly enough to be heard over the excited murmurs filling the courtroom.
First Secretary Cleomen strode into the room. It looked as if the impressive, grey-haired man with a smart beard and the straight posture of a career soldier would preside himself. He took his place behind a polished, mahogany desk that reached both ends of the wall. Lycus sat down to his right, her arm in a sling, while a stern-looking clerk jotted down notes on an e-lib.
Their lawyer turned out to be a handsome young man, fresh out of law school. “Do you remember what we said?” he asked them for the hundredth time.
“Yes,” Gella said, barely hiding her annoyance. “Much good that it will do us.”
“You could plead guilty,” the lawyer suggested, ignoring Gella’s furious glare.
“I’m only guilty of letting that bitch lead my people,” she growled and sat down, along with everyone else in the courtroom.
“This is a most serious matter,” Cleomen started. The age difference between him and Lycus surprised David, and revealed much as to her powers of manipulation. “Despite her regretful choices in life, Gella Mazel is the daughter of a dear friend of mine,” Cleomen continued. “A friend whose daughter’s shenanigans took him to an early grave.” He shot a glare at Gella. David doubted they would be getting any leniency from him. “And now, she returned to finish the job she started all these years ago. Had our Secretary not stopped her, she might have gotten away with it, hiding behind her envoy status.”
Pearseus Bundle: The Complete Pearseus Sci-fi/Fantasy Series Page 67