by Tom Lloyd
‘What I remember ? Don’t know. Nothing, just an empty space in my mind. Not even glimpses – nothing at all !’
‘Parents ? Home ? Childhood ?’
Each suggestion only added to the strain and confusion on his face so Sheti fell silent again, unsure what else she could do.
‘What’s happened to me ?’ the goshe repeated. ‘How can I not know who I am ?’ He raised his free hand and held it out towards Sheti. ‘Don’t remember anything – feels like I’m wearin’ someone else’s body. But how can I forget that, when I still know the Imperial City – still know the name o’ the Emperor ?’
Sheti shook her head. ‘I’ve no answers for you, I’m sorry,’ she said in a whisper, cut to the quick by the pained expression on his face. ‘You’ve been unconscious for days, it must be that. The blow scrambled your brains, you’ll need time to let it all unpick.’
He grunted and continued to stare down at his body. ‘Head feels clear,’ he muttered. ‘I’m tired, I’m hurting, but my mind’s clear. Just empty, there’s nothing there. My body I don’t recognise, these scars. Even the sound o’ my voice – could all belong to someone else. I know people have tattoos on their shoulder, knew there’d be one on mine and what it says – but it means nothing, tells me nothing. I’ve no memory o’ House Shadow, no idea if I’ve ever been there. Can’t remember coming from anywhere. The tattoos could be fakes f’rall I know.’
He tailed off and Sheti couldn’t find any words to reply. That last piece of news, Narin could break himself.
Chapter 6
One can only speculate what sort of single-minded obsession for order inspires a man to require every citizen of the new-formed Empire to be tattooed with their nation, family name and caste, but cometh the hour, cometh the madman. Uncle to the first Emperor he was, Imperial regent and architect of the present he became.
From A History by Ayel Sorote
The streets were busy as Kesh walked, limp bundle in her arms. Through the Tale Warrant and across the Spinner’s Bridge over the Fett Canal. The current in the canal was minimal, protected from the tides of the Crescent and the sea by the artifice of its ancient design which meant only shallow-drafted barges could use it. At most times of the day there were dozens of canal workers and bargemen moving loads down the canal with their long-haired dogs barking encouragement.
Normally, the boisterous dogs would make Emari drag her to a halt, to watch them race nimbly along the barges. Kesh felt her eyes blur as she marched onward, every faint little huff of breath from her sister sparking both renewed fear and hope.
Into the Fett Warrant with its low, narrow houses and winding streets she went. The curious faces Kesh ignored, the concerned she shrugged off and marched onward. The intense, fearful expression on her face was enough to cut short all inquiries and offers of assistance. One young man trailed along behind her, trying to see what was wrong with the little girl Kesh clasped so tightly, desperate to help her in some fashion but unable to see how.
For a hundred yards she walked with the sad flap of his moccasins in step behind, but she refused to look back, refused to speak or acknowledge him lest the terror broke the dam in her mind and dragged her sobbing to the ground. At the border of Eagle District, that wall of tall buildings cutting across the streets where narrow-faced soldiers stared disdainfully down on the locals below, the young man fell away at last.
Though there was no restriction on entry into the district, Eagle’s warrior caste were known to be imperious and aggressive. If they took an interest in Emari’s plight, Kesh distantly realised, they would demand answers from anyone associated with her and a young man following the pair – suitor or husband, it might be assumed – would be first to answer their questions. There had been a flicker of relief in her heart when he dropped back and left her to her pilgrimage ; less of a scene to attract attention and fewer distractions from forcing herself on, step after step towards the free hospital.
Her heart jumped as she spied the hospital, just inside Raven District, and she drove a path through the locals in the broad hexagonal plaza before it. The hospital was an imposing building, newly-built of pale granite but careful to conform to the ornate, layered style of House Raven’s grander structures. Tiny, enclosed gardens of dwarf trees and rose-wreathed raven roosts stood at regular intervals around the plaza, while the statue of Duellist in the centre was flanked by fountains feeding great stone bowls where nobles would leave alms for the poor.
White pillars stood out beyond every wall of the hospital, extending the shallow lower roof into a veranda around the entire building. The three upper floors rose tall out of that, each pair of copper-bound shutters around the tall windows echoing the great shining double doors in the centre.
Raven’s homelands were far in the remote east of the Empire ; strung along the coastline and penned in by impassable mountains and the vast, demon-haunted forest of Shadowrain. Beyond those barriers civilisation could not reach. The Empire of a Hundred Houses ended there and Raven’s lands were considered the edge of the world because so little was known of what lay beyond. The locals were all light-skinned with hair ranging from golden to black, identifiable by their prominent features and hooded eyes as much as by the fetishes, braids and jewellery they wore in their hair. Even by the varied standards of the Imperial City they were considered strange and unknowable ; Imperial structures resting like a veneer on top of older tribal ties.
Kesh marched through the grand entrance and ground to a halt, swaying gently as she took in her surroundings. She was faced with a tall airy hallway, twenty yards wide and stretching away ahead of her until it reached some sort of central courtyard. All around her were people of all sizes and colours ; bedraggled citizens huddled in tight groups while moving between them were black-robed goshe and doctors in sleeveless white. The people ranged from near-black-skinned Dragons, through the various ochre tints of Houses Iron and Salamander to the washed-out whites of Eagle and Leviathan. In the face of it all, Kesh found herself frozen in place, staring at the sight until one young doctor cautiously approached her.
‘Mistress – the girl is hurt ?’
Kesh blinked. His accent was strange, one she’d never heard before, though by his face he could have grown up next door to her without looking out of place.
‘I … my sister.’
Without warning tears began to cascade down her cheeks and Kesh felt her hands shake. The doctor jumped forward and reached out towards Emari, but the gesture itself made Kesh recoil. Drawing Emari even tighter to her chest, Kesh glared like a wild thing at the man. He was no older than she, with muscular arms that bore the tattoos of a minor House under Ghost named Blackhare, but more striking was his caste-mark.
‘You’re warrior caste,’ Kesh said abruptly, ‘but you’re unarmed.’
The man blinked at her before ducking his head in acknowledgement. ‘A weapon is inconvenient here,’ he explained, ‘and frightens patients. I do not carry one while working.’
Kesh continued to stare at him, tripped by the sight of a warrior without weapons. A warrior’s weapon was considered his soul. She had never before seen one without sword or gun on his person and the sight was enough that for a few seconds her sister’s plight had disappeared from her mind.
When it returned, it was with a sickening jolt. ‘My sister, she fell,’ Kesh croaked, ‘and … and I think she’s been poisoned.’
‘Poisoned ? By what ?’
She glanced warily at those closest, a pair of black-robed goshe who were far more the norm for their order – well-built men whose dark folds of clothing could conceal a variety of weapons.
‘I do not know for certain,’ Kesh said at last, knowing whatever risk there might be was unavoidable, ‘but some strange chemical that leaked from a man’s sea-chest – a man I think was goshe.’
‘Goshe ? Mistress, let me assure you—’
Kesh took an abrupt step forward, moving so close the doctor broke off in surprise. ‘I accuse your order o
f nothing,’ she said firmly, hands shaking with the effort of keeping a check on her emotions, ‘but my sister saw him dressed as one and I know a fighter when I see one. I don’t care if this has anything to do with the goshe – only that my sister’s hurt and you are doctors. Please – if there’s anyone here who’d know about poisons or medicines that might be harmful to breathe, take me to them.’
The doctor stared at her in alarm, unsure what to make of her, but then he glanced down at Emari’s slack face and something seemed to crumble inside him. He touched a cautious hand to her neck and felt for her pulse, nodding to himself after a pause that terrified Kesh.
‘If anyone knows, it will be Father Jehq. Come.’
The doctor urged her forward and Kesh had no trouble finding the strength to match his hurried pace. Down the hall they went, past wooden partitions and open doorways leading to large whitewashed rooms, until they came to a smaller one alongside a closed, iron-bound door.
‘First, sit – tell me exactly what happened.’
Kesh allowed him to usher her into the room. She sank onto a dark wooden bench just as the strength vanished from her legs, half-falling back onto it but caring only for Emari’s limp body in her arms.
‘I came home and found her on the stairs,’ Kesh said, feeling helpless. ‘A guest at our boarding house has disappeared, leaving behind a big sea-chest. She … she got it into her head to bring it downstairs while I was out and must have slipped. I found her on the stairs, not moving, with something like mist seeping out of the chest.’
‘And you think she breathed it in ?’
‘Her neck’s not broken, she took a bang on the head is all, but it doesn’t look bad – not enough to do this.’
‘You believe your missing guest is goshe ?’
Kesh almost moaned in frustration. ‘I think so. I don’t know – I can’t be sure. It doesn’t matter, does it ?’
‘I’m just trying to work out what might be the problem,’ the doctor said gently. ‘If he’s goshe, someone might know him – might know what he’d be carrying. Wait here ; I will bring Father Jehq to you.’
The little girl’s head thumped her shoulder gently as she slumped and almost without realising it Kesh found herself singing softly to her sister. It was an ancient lullaby from Emari’s homeland, one their mother had learned off a sailor when they took the child in. The tears fell hot and fast as she sang, all alone in the room – all alone with the cold, uncaring vastness of the Empire surrounding her.
How long she stayed there, Kesh couldn’t say. A single moment stretched out for an age, then she blinked and she was not alone – there were two strangers facing her with the young doctor, neither dressed as he was.
The older of the two was a lean patriarch-type with stern eyes and a lined, greyish face ; presumably the Father Jehq the doctor had mentioned. The white-haired doctor was dressed in nondescript clothes that gave no indication of his position or caste – Jehq could have been a clerk in some merchant’s office but for the deference the other two seemed to show him.
The other man looked more like the reason folk went to healers – a heavyset local in goshe black with a blotchy, prizefighter’s face and a sour scowl. He stood at the Father’s heel like an attack dog ; hands behind his back but ready to bite on command.
‘I understand your sister is ill,’ the older man said, peering down at Emari’s slack face. ‘Please, if I might examine her.’ He glanced back over one shoulder. ‘Thank you, Osseq, return to your duties.’
As the young doctor bobbed his head in acknowledgement and departed, Kesh reluctantly offered Emari forward for the man to inspect.
‘You’re Father Jehq ?’ she said. ‘Can you help her ?’
‘My name is Jehq,’ the older man said curtly, frowning slightly as she spoke his name.
Kesh realised he wasn’t from anywhere near the Imperial City ; though his command of the local language was excellent, it had slipped slightly when pronouncing names.
‘I must examine her fully before I can tell you anything. You say she was poisoned – a goshe poison ?’
‘Or medicine,’ Kesh insisted, ‘I don’t know what. She breathed something in as it leaked from a sea-chest – left by a missing guest at our boarding house. I, I’m not here to cause trouble or accuse anyone of anything, I just want my sister back.’
Jehq’s pursed his lips before nodding abruptly. He gestured to his companion and the big man stepped forward to slip his hands underneath Emari’s limp body. Jehq himself took hold of Kesh’s shoulder as though awkwardly trying to reassure her, but his words were far from comforting when at last he spoke, his grip strangely tight.
‘You will stay here,’ he commanded as Kesh felt the strength seep from her limbs and the fatigue of worry fill her. The older man bent down to stare her straight in the eye, no more than a foot from her face. Kesh found herself transfixed by his unblinking black eyes. ‘I will take her next door to my study. You rest here, I will send for you soon.’
Drained of all her strength Kesh managed only to nod, but it was enough and the man straightened up again. Sparing her a brief final glance, Father Jehq turned and left, the goshe carrying Emari close behind.
Kesh watched them go through blurring eyes, shadows filling her mind as nervous exhaustion took hold of her. Jerking one elbow out to awkwardly catch the edge of an empty desk, Kesh barely managed to support herself in time as her head lolled and she sagged like a drunk.
Eyelids slipping closed, Kesh felt her knuckles press into her cheek as she tried to keep herself upright ; every movement suddenly a struggle. With an effort she took a deep breath, sucking in as much air as possible before she collapsed back entirely, and the fog in her mind cleared a little. With that came the memory of Emari slumped on the stair and Kesh felt a jolt in her gut. She winced and fought to lift her head, her whole body so heavy the effort was enormous.
At last she did and looked around at the room she was in – a pair of desks and a small bookshelf. No papers or effects of any sort, just a blank room where she could rest, where she could sleep.
Sleep ? Kesh almost screamed. ‘How can I think about sleep now ?’ she muttered, hearing the exhausted slur in her voice as she spoke. ‘Stars above, what’s wrong with me ?’
Concentrating, Kesh took another long, deep breath – then a second and a third. With each one the dull ache in her head eased and she found her strength returning – after a half-dozen, she managed to haul herself up onto her feet again.
Did he do something to me ? she wondered. Knight’s mercy, it feels like I’ve been drinking all night.
She lifted her arms up above her head, breathing heavily as though she’d been winded, and the fatigue eased a little more – enough for her senses to fall back into some semblance of order. The memory of Jehq’s midnight-black eyes returned to her and Kesh shivered slightly, feeling the effect of his gaze like a shroud being drawn over her face.
‘Hells,’ she breathed as a chill prickled down her spine, ‘he did do something to me.’
Without thinking her right hand slipped into her jacket and closed around the grip of her father’s knife. Just as she thumbed the leather thong on the sheath, Kesh hesitated. There were two of them and she had no illusions about her skill with a blade – she was good enough to survive on a ship, but the Father’s aide or bodyguard was as clear a fighter as Master Tokene had looked. Maybe she could catch him unawares despite feeling slow and sluggish, but most likely not and she’d only get one chance there.
Kesh released the knife again and looked around, taking a step towards the open doorway before halting.
Can’t knock on the door now, can I ? She turned to the window. Maybe I can hear them instead.
She leaned out of the window and checked left and right. Like the front of the hospital building, there was a gallery running down the whole flank of this part of the building – a sandy stretch of ground extending for twenty yards all around it before a six-foot wall separated the comp
lex from the street-life beyond. Crucially there was no one in sight so Kesh slipped over the deep window sill and crouched down. Back against the wall she crept along it, keeping her head below window level. When she reached the next one along she paused, listening for voices, but they were faint through the closed shutters.
Must be the other side of the room.
She moved down the wall with a wary look around at the courtyard to check no one had spotted her. Reassured, she continued on and reached the next window, five yards further along. There she waited, hearing nothing at first. Just as she was wondering whether to stand and see if she could get closer, Father Jehq’s voice came clear through the thick slat of the shutter.
‘That man is proving a curse on us all, Perel – who’d have thought Irato, of all of the Detenii, would cause so many problems ?’
‘What do you want me to do ?’ asked a second man in a heavy growl, doubtless the bodyguard. ‘The girl’s dead, right ?’
‘This one ? In her mind, yes. A small dose is all it takes to wipe the slate clean – her mind has been emptied entirely. There’s nothing left of the child she once was or anything else. She’ll stay like that until her body dies of thirst. Killing her will be a mercy.’
Kesh felt her stomach lurch at his words and jammed her knuckles into her mouth to stop herself crying out.
Emptied ? Killing Emari would be a mercy ?
She closed her eyes, a storm of terror unfolding inside her head, but somehow the voices cut through it all – adding to the maelstrom of horror and grief.
‘I kill the sister ?’
‘No – let me do that, best we leave no sign of violence for anyone here to notice. You dispose of the bodies tonight ; they’re never to be found, you hear me ? Good. Then this boarding house – Irato’s sea-chest should have been rigged for anyone breaking into it. Tell Synter to clear up after her team properly this time around. Moon’s Artifice is corrosive ; if it’s spilled enough to leak out of the chest, any further movement will likely set it off – but we cannot make assumptions.