The Deathless

by Peter Newman

  ‘I can’t go along with that.’

  ‘I wasn’t asking for your permission, Varg. I was telling you what’s going to happen next.’

  His silhouette turned towards her, stubborn. ‘I don’t serve you, I serve Pari, and she told me to keep you safe.’

  She was able to keep the anger from her voice but not the sarcasm. ‘I suppose you think I’m safer here? In a mouldy box on the edge of the Wild. Oh yes, much better that I stay under your sporadic protection than go to the hunters of High Lord Sapphire. What was I thinking?’

  ‘Weren’t so long ago that you were running from the Sapphire.’

  ‘No, I was running from killers pretending to be House Sapphire. There’s a difference.’

  ‘An’ can you tell it? Cos if you can’t we’ll be delivering your baby right to ’em.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ he hissed. ‘You think some of them assassins can’t be dressed as hunters?’

  ‘Masquerading as a guard is completely different to masquerading as a hunter.’ But was it? Previously she would have said both were impossible, that the Sapphire were above such things, now that certainty had abandoned her.

  ‘Bollocks. It’s just getting hold of some clothes. If they’re good enough to get into Lord Rochant’s bloody castle, I reckon they can manage a few hunter’s wings.’

  ‘Please don’t tell me I have to stay in this room any longer.’

  ‘Ah …’

  ‘Please.’

  She heard him scratch the back of his head. ‘Did something happen today? They said they heard a scream. Did Kal bite you again?’

  ‘Don’t call him that.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I know the reasoning behind it, I do. But right now I need to hold on to who I am, and who he is.’

  Varg came and sat down by the end of the bed. ‘Did he bite you though, or was it something else?’

  ‘It was …’ She thought about her arm, about the poison. I should tell him. ‘It was like you said. Another difficult day.’

  ‘I know he can be a bugger but you’ve got to keep that under control.’ He jerked a thumb towards the other room. ‘We can’t afford to draw any attention to ourselves, and that’s the kind of thing that sticks in people’s minds.’ When she didn’t say anything, he went on. ‘You said I was, what was it? Clumpy, right? I suppose I am. Thing is, I don’t do what I do by being stealthy, I do it by being normal. Someone looks at me, there’s nothing to see. Nothing interesting anyway. That’s how we have to keep things.’

  She wanted to tell him about her arm but the words refused to come. If she told Varg, she would be handing over control somehow. He would insist they cut if off. It would be different if they were home. She could endure anything there. In this place though, she couldn’t allow herself to become vulnerable.

  He began pulling off his boots. She wasn’t bothered any more by the smell, in a strange way, it was comforting. The thought nearly made her burst into tears.

  ‘Varg,’ she finally said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Promise that if anything happens to me, you’ll make sure Satyendra gets home.’ She put a hand on his arm to stop him answering. ‘Not because you have a job or because of Lady Pari’s order. Promise you’ll do this, for me.’

  It was, she knew, a foolish thing to ask and so she was surprised when he covered her hand and whispered that he would.

  ‘Thank you.’

  He didn’t answer and they sat there, neither willing to move, neither sure what to say.

  And then they heard the sound of barking.

  ‘Oh shit!’ said Varg, groping around in the dark for the boot he’d just removed. ‘That’s Glider.’

  ‘Trouble?’ she asked.

  ‘She’s caught something, and I’m not talking about a Spiderkin.’

  Chandni pulled Roh’s cloak about her shoulders before reaching for Satyendra. He was awake, but for all his grizzling in the day, he was quiet now, as if he sensed the trouble. Once more, she thanked the suns that he was a true child of the Sapphire.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Varg.

  ‘Coming with you.’

  ‘Stay here.’

  ‘No. I’m coming with you.’

  He clearly wanted to argue the point further but Glider’s barking continued, insistent, and his worry about that took precedence. Chandni followed him through the other room, its occupants watching them silently, huddled together. She noted them shrink away from Varg as if expecting abuse and wondered if he had given them cause.

  Then he was pushing through the front door, the night air like a slap in the face. Chandni didn’t mind, in fact she luxuriated in its hard touch. It was so good to be outside again! The sky was clear, star studded, making ghosts of them as they left the light of the house.

  Glider barked a greeting, clearly delighted with herself, then went back to growling at something trapped under her front paws.

  ‘Shut up, for suns’ sake,’ said Varg. ‘You’ll have the whole of Sagan on our bloody heads.’

  Either Glider hadn’t heard him, or she thought the idea appealing. Her barking continued unabated.

  ‘Bloody Dogkin.’

  ‘Let me try,’ she said, and Varg stepped back, grateful. ‘Hush now, Glider.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Hush.’

  Glider stopped barking.

  ‘Have you caught something?’

  The Dogkin wagged her white tail in answer.

  ‘Very good. Can you move so we can see how clever you’ve been?’

  Like a merchant displaying her wares, Glider lifted a paw. Beneath it, mud covered, was a human shoulder. Attached to the shoulder was a very skinny, very scared looking young man.

  Varg crouched down next to him, one hand finding the man’s collar, the other pressing something sharp against his neck. ‘What you doing out here then? Answer me and answer true.’

  ‘Thas Glider in’t it?’ said the man. ‘A-are you Varg?’

  ‘I’m asking the questions. And if you keep moving your hand, I’ll open you up.’

  The man went very still. ‘My pocket. Check my pocket.’

  Varg did, producing an earring Chandni knew even by starlight. He let the young man go, sliding the weapon back into his sleeve. ‘All right, this is Glider and I am Varg. Who the fuck are you?’

  ‘Lan, sir. My name is Lan and I serve Lady Pari same as you. She told me to bring you a message.’

  ‘Say nothing more. Not here.’

  A few minutes later, the three of them were back in her hated room, Lan nursing a warm drink and several bruises.

  ‘Go on then,’ said Varg. ‘Spit it out.’

  ‘Lady Pari says you’re to wait here till she comes and gets you. She says it’s too dangerous to leave yet.’

  ‘When is she coming?’ asked Chandni, ignoring the glare Varg gave her.

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  ‘You came all this way just to tell us to stay here?’

  ‘She said don’t trust the Sapphire.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘All of ’em. One’s dodgy but she don’t know who it is yet.’

  Varg went to say something but Chandni was faster. She ignored his frustrated sigh. ‘She thinks there’s a traitor in House Sapphire?’

  ‘More than one. There’s this guard captain who was supposed to be protecting Lord Rochant, but he tried to kill him instead. An’ then when he couldn’t, he nicked off with him, took him to Lord Vasin’s castle. But nobody knows! An’ he’s telling everyone it was the Tanzanites that did it.’

  ‘You’re talking about Captain Dil?’

  Lan nodded.

  But that was impossible. Dil had grown up in the palace as she had. They had spoken many times. He had even come to her for help when he’d first been appointed as captain. Could that same awkward, hard working man be a traitor? Had he been hiding his true motives from childhood, or had the rot set in later? If the former were true, deca
des of foresight would be required, and that would suggest … ‘Wait, when you said Lady Pari suspects a traitor in House Sapphire, do you mean she suspects a Deathless?’

  Lan nodded again. ‘It’s one of ’em but she don’t know which yet so you gotta stay hidden, she said, like a newborn Ratkin before it gets its armour.’

  Chandni struggled to digest this new piece of information. Was she to believe that House Sapphire, the greatest of the seven crystal houses, had fallen to infighting? Lord Rochant was the only Deathless not bound by blood to the others, perhaps they were jealous of his special relationship with the Sapphire High Lord.

  No, politics was one thing, but to shed the blood of your own people, of innocents like Kareem, Dhruti and Mohit was something else entirely. And Satyendra, she reminded herself, without Pari’s intervention, he would be dead too. The attack had to be driven by more than just ambition. It was against everything they stood for and it damaged the house, threatening the balance between humanity and the Wild. An act of evil.

  A horrible thought occurred to her. What if Nidra Un-Sapphire was not alone when she dealt with the Wild? Could more than one Deathless have betrayed them to demons? She banished it quickly. Nidra had worked alone, she had been told so by Lord Rochant himself. An aberration, he’d said, an infection they had cut away to purify the house.

  She returned her attention to Lan. ‘And that’s everything?’

  ‘Nah, she wants me to take the other earring back, to show I found you true.’

  ‘Tell Lady Pari to hurry,’ Chandni blurted. ‘Tell her!’

  Varg handed over the earring, exchanging an odd look with Lan, and walked over to the door. ‘Come on, you know the route back to Pari’s?’

  ‘Pretty much, yeh.’

  ‘I’ll talk you through it on the way out. You need to go now, while it’s still dark.’

  Lan didn’t take any further encouragement, following the larger man through the house.

  This time, Chandni didn’t go with them. Better if I’m not seen. Better if I stay here and stay out of sight. With Satyendra still quiet in her arms, she crumpled down within herself, and stared at the wall.

  How has it come to this? She was questioning the honour of her betters and starting to doubt her house. Such questions used to be unthinkable and now they were part of her everyday life. Not for the first time, she wished Lord Rochant were there to offer guidance and support. But he was not there, and for once, he needed her.

  She tried to find a pattern, to trace things back to the beginning, to when they’d lost their way. The attack on Lord Rochant’s castle was the most recent problem but far from the first. Before that was Sorn. She remembered the day the request arrived at Lord Rochant’s castle for a hunt. She’d been heavily pregnant at the time but had met the delegation anyway and told them that their lord was between lives. ‘What will become of us?’ they’d asked, their faces lined with fear and sleepless nights. She had looked them in the eye and told them – with a conviction that now pained her – that High Lord Yadavendra himself would answer the call. After all, that was the way it had always been, since the end of the Unbroken Age.

  Her first lie, given in good faith, and all the worse for it.

  However, the rot had set in long before that. How far back she could not say for sure, but the first moment she’d really felt it, the first time she had really begun to fear, had been the day of Nidra Un-Sapphire’s trial.

  It was two years ago, at what used to be Nidra’s castle. Chandni had gone there to assist Lord Rochant and to take any final instructions – his body was failing and nobody was sure it would survive the journey home.

  She had watched as people came forward to denounce Nidra, telling stories of her odd behaviour. None of it directly proved her guilt, but each tale added to the sense that she must have done wrong. Just a few dared to speak at first, and then more as people saw the way the tide was turning. Nidra’s own staff betrayed her, hoping that by damning their mistress they would save themselves.

  Though Chandni was sure Lord Rochant would not be taken in, she remembered High Lord Yadavendra’s reaction, his nodding along, as if lulled by their lies. He seemed to soak them up like fuel, feeding some dark fire inside. Lord Rochant would whisper in his High Lord’s ear, a balm of wisdom, normally soothing, but this time, the balm had no effect, and then Yadavendra was on his feet.

  There was a wildness in his eyes, she’d thought, and now, having talked to Varg, she realized it was as if he’d got Wildeye. But instead of seeing Whispercages everywhere, he saw enemies, traitors. That was the moment Chandni began to fear.

  Perhaps Nidra’s staff felt it too, for they seemed to quiver as one, a herd sensing its own extinction.

  ‘This is a dark age for our house,’ began Yadavendra, softly, yet there was something harsh in his voice too, a promise of violence. ‘When my predecessor, Samarku Un-Sapphire was found guilty, we gave him back to the Wild and we exiled his line. The rest of his servants were presumed innocent and allowed to continue in service to the house. Many stayed in their former lord’s castle, helping the transition for Samarku’s replacement, our beloved Lord Rochant.

  ‘Some among you will know that I was not always destined to be High Lord of the Sapphire. Some will remember that my sister, Nidra, was favoured for the role. Samarku wanted her to succeed him. I should have seen it then, the connection between them. I should have acted immediately, but I was blinded by love for my sister. Misplaced love.’

  Even though she was nowhere near Yadavendra, Chandni had still flinched away when he raised his staff. ‘For my mercy, I apologize to you all. It will not happen again. A sickness must be cut away, completely and utterly, or it will return and spread. We cut away Samarku but it was not enough.’ He pointed at Nidra. ‘The sickness is still here. I do not know how many my sister infected with her poison. Perhaps all of you now worship the demons of the Wild, perhaps you all remained faithful to me. I don’t know, how could I?

  ‘There is only one way to be sure.’

  Throughout the trial, Nidra had been dignified, though she made her disgust plain. Now she begged, asking to be the sole recipient of Yadavendra’s madness. If anything, this only made him angrier.

  ‘There will be no more mercy, no more half-measures,’ he’d screeched. ‘They will be fed to the Wild along with you, my fallen sister. Exile and death for you all!’

  She’d thought that was the worst it could get but she’d been wrong. Nidra had been dragged away to face the Bringers of Endless Order while the rest of them had waited, baking under the glare of the three suns.

  Distantly, through layers of rock, they could hear her screaming.

  Meanwhile, Nidra’s people had been penned up in the courtyard and stripped of their possessions, the symbols of office torn from their clothes. They’d seemed to shrink within their rags, like popped blisters, slowly collapsing in on themselves.

  They were lessened somehow, and Chandni hadn’t realized it at the time, but on that day, the whole house was lessened.

  The Bringers of Endless Order had returned, a line of robed figures, black and white and silent. They left a haggard Nidra at Yadavendra’s feet and, in his hands, an artifact that Chandni guessed must be a Godpiece. He’d looked at it as if it were alive, before turning disdainfully towards his sister. ‘The infection must be cleansed from body and soul.’

  Nidra Un-Sapphire was cast out as tradition dictated, but so too were all of her people, every servant, every hunter, young and old, every one was sent with her deep into the Wild, fresh blood running from multiple cuts. None of them would last the night.

  Nidra Un-Sapphire’s castle was emptied and would be abandoned, left for the Birdkin and the ghosts, and she’d thought that was the worst it could get, but she’d been wrong.

  Even then, Yadavendra was not satisfied. His anger was so intense it seemed to radiate around him, a halo of rage. ‘The infection must be cleansed!’ he’d said again, and again, sometimes shouting, som
etimes murmuring, repeating the words until they lost meaning, were reduced to a kind of animal sound, and Chandni knew something terrible was about to happen. Rochant must have known too, but like her, he could do nothing to stop it.

  Tradition dictated that Nidra Un-Sapphire’s Godpiece would be given to a new Deathless raised from the ranks of the worthy. But Yadavendra would not have that. ‘Infected!’ he cried. ‘Body and soul!’ And with that he threw the Godpiece down and stabbed at it with his crystal-tipped staff. Sparks flew and it skittered across the ground, still whole. His attendants gasped in horror, an unwilling audience, while Yadavendra screamed and gave chase, stabbing the Godpiece, stamping on it, battering it, until, at last, something vital gave out in the structure with a groan and it cracked in two. Yadavendra groaned too, and fell down next to it.

  Silence.

  Too long.

  Everyone staring, not sure what to do. There was no precedent, no tradition to guide them.

  It was Lord Rochant who finally took control of the situation, ordering the High Lord taken away and the detritus cleared. Minutes later, the industrious Sapphire had returned things to normal, but Chandni could not forget the image of the High Lord, fallen, and some sacred part of her house broken, forever.

  Pari and Ami took turns moving the cart, one sleeping while the other pushed, and the days blurred together in a haze of exhaustion.

  She constantly checked the road behind, expecting to see a carriage or hear the Dogkin pack. But of Dil and Lady Yadva there was no sign. True, they’d done all they could to make the most of their lead, travelling through the night, not daring to stop, even if at times she could only manage a pitiful pace. But either Yadva was travelling in a stately manner, highly unlikely given the urgency of the situation, or their carriage had broken down somewhere deliciously problematic.

  Many of the Deathless became pragmatic about small setbacks. Measured over the vastness of their lifespans, losing a few hours or a few days meant little. Ultimately, a goal would still be achieved. Indeed, Pari found such wrinkles were often the things that kept life fresh.