by Tom Lloyd
Irato blinked at her, still dazed by the possession. ‘You do ?’
‘I think so,’ Kesh said. ‘We need to find Enchei and Narin, tell them all this. Ah – demon, can you hear me ? Will you come with us to find our friends ?’
Irato’s face smoothed out, the animation and emotion draining to nothing in seconds. ‘We will come.’
‘You don’t need your fox-vessels ?’
‘They will follow, but this mind is better suited to us than any animal.’
Kesh nodded and waved Irato forward, starting off down the street as fast as she could. ‘Come on then, we don’t have much time.’
Chapter 24
How the Gods ascended to the heavens remains a closely-guarded secret – perhaps the greatest secret in the entire Empire. It is said the God-Emperor and God-Empress studied the millennia-old texts of a long-dead race, excavated horrors and journeyed far into the uninhabitable Shadowrain forest. Accounts of the demon-war they fought mere months before their ascension suggest not all beings were as surprised by this glorious event as their subjects.
From A History by Ayel Sorote
Night had fallen by the time Enchei and Narin reached the Imperial Palace. While it was late, neither thought Prince Sorote of the Office of the Catacombs was one to keep regular hours. As they asked for directions it became clear the Emperor had not retired for the evening either ; which meant the entire court and the many hundreds who served it remained awake as well.
Occupying the north-east corner of the Imperial Island, the Palace had water on three sides and one grand entrance on its western flank. A small bridge crossed the canal on its southern flank, but passage was reserved solely for those of the Imperial caste and senior Lawbringers. All others entered via an enormous form of portico thirty yards square that stood like a tower without sides. One hundred pillars, one for each of the noble houses of the Empire, supported a convex roof that gathered rainwater in a chamber hidden by ancient and fantastical decoration.
Narin and Enchei, the former hampered by his injuries, walked under this remarkable structure and like all other visitors they stopped to stare at the great complex. The Imperial Palace was divided into four distinct areas and paths to each of these led off from where they stood. Ahead was the Great Court, the vast seven-storey building centred around the Emperor’s public throne room ; a hundred-yard vaulted hall where all matters of state were presented to young Emperor Sotorian.
Dozens of offices and lesser audience chambers flanked this ; rising high around three sides of the throne room’s peaked roof like a crown, four slender towers for tines. It was commonly-held that a U-shaped garden had taken root up there in the space between, sheltered by the outer walls, and a small army of gardeners was required to tend it lest the beautiful high windows to the throne room be covered.
The blunt wedge tip of the Great Court was dominated by huge grey doors, embossed with golden suns twice the height of a man, that led into the throne room. Behind that the central block widened to five hundred yards on the far side, with stone tendrils reaching out to the huge wing south of it and great square towers to the north. The tips of the curved rear swept down to become covered bridges that connected it to the Emperor’s crescent-shaped residence and the enclosed ground served as a formal garden of renowned magnificence.
Narin had been inside the Great Court only twice in his life, but he knew that each room was no less than twenty feet high and in many cases thirty or forty. Built by a long-dead race, the Palace had never been designed for human proportions and it dwarfed its current inhabitants. It was said that the upper levels of the Great Court, the largest single structure in the entire Empire, were only fitfully used ; the proportions and layout of each chamber proving increasingly eccentric as one ascended.
Of the other two remaining paths, the right led to the palazzos of the extended Imperial family. There, a central s-shape extended for a mile down the flank of the entire Palace complex, smaller wings branching organically off and graduations of long sweeping roofs resembling the petals of some twisted flower. The left-hand path was where Enchei and Narin headed – walking into a chaotic tangle of interlinked, overlapping buildings where the Palace administration was housed. Great blocks of ancient stone buildings loomed in rows of four above the mess, a dozen in all and each one large enough to be a lord’s keep.
While the Great Houses controlled the greater part of the Empire, there remained trade corridors and disputed territories under the Emperor’s authority. The merchant princes and consortiums that had risen to power in these places occasionally possessed the wealth of noble houses, but were careful to preserve the caste structures of the Empire. Ever mindful of their position – and the fate of the massacred Ebalee Trading Company – they employed brokers from the Imperial caste in their official dealings and maintained permanent trade missions at the Imperial City.
They entered the web of streets and were abruptly presented with a dizzying array of flags unknown to anyone outside the world of trade, well-lit by gas lamps and lanterns hung above every doorway. Almost immediately a handful of lounging children approached them, each one in a knee-length coat of varying styles, but all with the blue collar of the merchant caste.
‘Message, sir ?’ asked the tallest of them. ‘Directions maybe ?’
‘You know the Office of the Catacombs ?’ Narin said.
‘Aye, sir,’ the boy of twelve or so replied.
There was a flicker of disappointment on his face as he spoke ; clearly Prince Sorote was not a profitable source for the local runners. The boy nudged a younger child beside him, a button-nosed girl with tangled hair.
‘She’ll take you, sir. It’s not far.’
The girl scowled, but didn’t argue. With a wave of the hand she trotted off down a darkened side-alley, not looking back to see if they were following. Narin and Enchei exchanged looks and fell in behind, having to hurry to match her pace. The girl didn’t wait for them and disappeared through an archway while Narin negotiated a path around two portly merchants dressed as finely as any nobleman. The archway led to a wide, dog-legged boulevard of taverns and eateries that spilled out into the street, but once past those they found themselves walking twisting streets of shuttered buildings, all closed for the day, and soon Narin had lost all track of the path they were taking.
It took them ten minutes on an unnecessarily oblique route through the warren, but at last the girl stopped before a curious square building with a dark slate roof, a dozen yards across and only two storeys high. Lamplight shone around the edges of a shuttered window, but it hardly looked like somewhere an Imperial interested in Lawbringer Rhe would base himself.
‘There, sir,’ she said, pointing with a grubby finger.
Narin looked sceptically at the small house even as Enchei tossed her a coin and headed to the door. As the girl scampered off, Narin managed a grunt of thanks and joined his friend as the tattooist banged his fist on the closed door.
From inside there was a scrape of furniture then footsteps approaching the door. Without asking who they were, the door was jerked open and a servant stood there, looking them up and down.
‘You are not who I expected,’ the lean, balding man stated.
‘Rarely are,’ Enchei said before Narin could speak. ‘We’re looking for Prince Sorote.’
The servant glanced behind him at something in the room Narin couldn’t see. ‘For what reason ?’
‘Is he here ?’ Enchei continued, ignoring the question. ‘If he is, he’ll want to see us.’
‘Let them in,’ called a voice behind the servant. ‘Finding out what they want will probably waste less of my time.’
The man stepped back and Narin entered, looking around with surprise as he found himself in a single room with a mezzanine level occupying the farther half. Three heavy oak desks separated by bookcases stood on the left, with the stair to the upper level on the right and a wide cellar entrance at an angle beneath the mezzanine. The doors to the cel
lar were open, but what Narin found strangest about it was the size of them – each one six inches of wood bound with a dozen fat iron rods.
‘Investigator Narin,’ called Prince Sorote from the mezzanine, his voice tinged with surprise. ‘I must confess, I had not expected you to come visit me so soon.’
‘Needs must,’ Narin said, one look at the man’s face enough to blacken his mood considerably. ‘I’ve got a favour I need to ask of you.’
‘Indeed ?’ Sorote descended to meet them, putting aside a pistol belt as he came and gesturing for the door to be shut behind them. Much to Narin’s surprise the servant then retired down into the cellar. ‘And who is your friend ?’
‘Enchei Jen, yer Lordship,’ the tattooist gabbled in an obsequious tone.
He advanced on the Imperial in a curiously hunched manner, some comical effort at bowing while he walked. Hands outstretched, Enchei dropped to one knee, head still bowed low, and took the astonished prince by the hand – reverentially kissing the large seal-ring that Sorote sported on his middle finger.
‘An honour to be in yer presence, yer Lordship.’
Sorote withdrew his hand and examined the seal-ring with a fastidious sniff. ‘Yes, I’m sure it is. And why are you here ?’
‘My Lord Sun,’ Narin began, ‘you know already the Lawbringers are in conflict with the goshe. This relates to that ongoing situation.’
‘I had thought,’ Sorote broke in, ‘when the law was broken it was simply described as a crime. Or does the size of the goshe order elevate this to a conflict ?’
Narin tried not to glower. ‘Indeed, my Lord. The exact nature of the crime is, well, difficult to frame in legal terms. The extent, however, makes this not simply a case of hunting down a culprit.’
‘This fever gripping the city,’ Sorote said, ‘and the goshe plan to evacuate the infectious to Confessor’s Island. Are they behind the fever ? Do you have proof ?’
Narin tried not to look surprised as he shook his head. ‘We have evidence of very little, and given the situation I hardly know how to gather it without starting a war.’
‘Now you have my interest,’ Sorote said with a smile. ‘Come upstairs and we will discuss it further. Hentern !’ he called down to his servant. ‘Refreshments for my guests !’
He led them up the stairway to where his own desk was situated, a slender mother-of-pearl- and jet-inlaid antique of the most beautiful craftsmanship – currently piled with papers. Beside it was a second desk unlike any Narin had ever seen. The top was not flat but undulating, eight or nine rows of channels running across it, each a hand-span wide. Nestled in several grooves were stone cylinders about a foot long and covered in tiny symbols.
‘What are those ?’ Enchei breathed in wonder, taking a step towards the cylinders until Prince Sorote pointedly stepped into his way.
‘Nothing that concerns you,’ he said firmly. ‘Ancient research, nothing more. The Office of the Catacombs is dedicated to the study of history.’
‘Whose history ?’ Enchei asked, backing reluctantly off.
Sorote frowned at him and pointed to a pair of chairs, well away from the desk, where the pair could sit. ‘Hardly the matter at hand. You have come to speak to me about the goshe ?’
Narin glanced at Enchei as they settled into their seats and the tattooist gave an imperceptible nod of the head. The fawning servant routine could easily result in a battering around the head, but it was worth the risk if it afforded Enchei enough time to see whether Sorote was under any sort of influence.
‘I have,’ Narin said at last, feeling a flush of relief. ‘You’re a power-broker, you deal in secrets.’
‘I hear things,’ Sorote corrected, ‘due to my rank and connections. But I am a historian by trade, in as much as one of my caste can be said to have a trade.’
‘You found out my secrets easily enough.’
Sorote raised an eyebrow in Enchei’s direction. ‘I take it I can speak openly ?’
Narin grunted and the Imperial nodded.
‘Very well – influence is currency within the House of the Sun, only a fool would deny it, and Lawbringer Rhe is an influential man. You are in a unique position to influence that man, but as much as anything I seek knowledge – his opinions are closely guarded and I would know whether I have a potential ally in him, for all Rhe disdains politics. I am not the schemer you believe me to be, I merely look at the structure of this Empire with a historian’s eye and I would do what I can to strengthen its foundations. We are at a disadvantage to the Great Houses in almost every way ; the least we can do is ensure those of the same mind work together.’
Narin shrugged. ‘Sounds almost convincing, that,’ he said, ‘but I think I’ve lost my faith.’
Prince Sorote narrowed his eyes at the Investigator, taking note of the harder edge to Narin’s voice. ‘Faith takes many forms, Master Narin. A man can choose to believe – or at least, to choose that something is worth believing in.’
‘Right now I’m finding it hard enough to believe I’m going to survive the next few days – but I guess that’s not going to stop me trying to, so that’s faith of a sort.’
‘And you, Master Enchei ?’ Sorote said. ‘What is your part in this ? You’re no Lawbringer.’
‘We’re friends,’ Enchei said simply. ‘No great mystery in it, but I’ve served an army term or two and ain’t scared to fight. Might not be so young now, but I can still give Narin the run-around on the dachan court. Until I feel properly old I’ll not stand by while some two-bit gang murders little girls and tries to kill my friends.’
‘Little girls ?’
‘The woman you saw me with at my home, Kesh,’ Narin explained. ‘Her sister had been poisoned by something a goshe carried, but instead of helping the girl at the free hospital they killed her and sent an assassin after Kesh.’
‘And that’s why they came after you at your home ? To tie up that loose end ?’
Sorote broke off as his servant, Hentern, appeared with a tray of glasses and a decanter of wine. Narin waved it away when offered, the distant ache of his injuries enough to dull his wits more than he’d like, but Enchei eagerly accepted and gulped down half a glass in one go. His thirst quenched, or at least the show of low-caste unease performed, the tattooist relaxed. He sat back in his chair, glass dangling idly from his fingers, while he watched Sorote and Narin continue the conversation.
‘That is why they came after us – and we suspect they were given our location by someone within the Lawbringers. You’ve seen the influential members they boast from across the Empire.’
‘You are looking to root out the spies ? Is that the mission you’ve been given ?’
‘I’m not honestly sure what my mission is,’ Narin admitted. ‘I’m just trying to stay alive and even Rhe agrees that’s only going to happen if we stop the goshe from completing whatever they’re up to.’
‘And what they are up to involves transporting the city’s sick to Confessor’s Island, judging from the day’s discussions at court. Have you been able to work out why ? Are they clearing districts of the city ? Targeting their enemies with the fever ? Casting the blame in a certain direction ? Or are these fever victims to be used for something else entirely ?’
‘We don’t know,’ Narin said, raising a hand to ward off Sorote’s questions. ‘But their island stronghold could easily hold the answers we need – the question is, how do we find them ?’
‘Without spies reporting it or hampering your efforts ? So you came to me ; a man who is interested in the allegiances and circumstances of the House of the Sun’s influential figures.’
‘If we can free ourselves to move on the goshe, we might yet prevent whatever it is they’re planning. It involves magic and demons, that much I am certain of – if the Astaren were to hear of this it would spark a bloodbath,’ Narin said with urgency. ‘The goshe have some hold over their members – they obey orders without question, they are being controlled by a small number within their order. The A
staren would kill every goshe they could, but most were infected as children, very likely, and can hardly be blamed for the actions of the few.’
‘A bloodbath ?’ Sorote echoed with astonishment. ‘You underestimate them, my friend.’
‘What do you mean ?’
Sorote gave a weary shake of the head. ‘It would spark a bloodbath yes, but only on the first day,’ he said gravely. ‘Most likely, House Dragon stepping in to massacre anyone who faces them. But that’s not the biggest problem – it’s the following day we have to worry.’
‘Why ?’
‘Because then, reports of this forbidden magic reach the ears of other Astaren, probably several Great Houses at once. These all bring forces into the city to try and mop up what remaining goshe there are. If there is magic and demons involved, none of them can risk their enemies discovering an advantage that could tip the balance between them. They’ll fight over the bodies of goshe and any hospital or building owned by them. Open warfare on the streets of the Imperial City for the first time since the Ten Day War.’
Sorote stood and tossed back the remains of his wine. ‘I will help you, Master Narin,’ he said, ‘if for nothing else than to try and keep this city from catastrophe. I have records of Lawbringers I believe to be members of the goshe, yes, and furthermore I can provide you with a map of Confessor’s Island. It will be outdated I am sure, but should give you the lie of the land for any action the Lawbringers might intend.’
Narin stood and bowed to the man, the flicker of bitterness in his stomach lessening slightly. ‘Thank you, Prince Sorote,’ he said with more formality than his greeting.
‘Prince Sorote,’ Enchei echoed as he knelt.
‘It will take me time to assemble the information,’ Sorote said. ‘Shall I have it sent to you at the Palace of Law ? I have messengers I can trust.’
‘Law Master Sheven,’ Narin suggested, ‘or Lawbringer Rhe – either of those will know what to do with the information.’