The Glass Republic: The Skyscraper Throne: Book II

by Pollock, Tom

  ‘Getting kinda cold here, Es,’ she said.

  There was a rustling like snake scales as Espel gathered up the dress and then lowered it slowly over Pen’s upraised fingers. The metal felt almost oily. Pen gritted her teeth as it slithered past her headscarf and over her skin.

  Given that it was made mostly of steel, the dress was surprisingly light. It left Pen’s arms bare and she was vividly aware of the cool air on her scar-rippled shoulders. Every nerve was shouting at her to cover up, to find a shawl from somewhere.

  It’s all part of the disguise, she told herself, willing herself to crest the panic, willing the calm to come.

  ‘How do I look?’ she said eventually.

  ‘Um … I think the word people use is wow, Countess.’

  Pen’s blush deepened. She glanced back over her shoulder and Espel gave her a reassuring, conspiratorial smile.

  She swallowed hard.

  When she emerged back into the hall everyone fell silent.

  Pen looked from face to face, mostly symmetrical, some mirrorstocratic and they all stared openly back. A couple of jaws were actually loose. Pen felt the hot rush of their attention go through her.

  Driyard clapped his hands together. Delight was written across his face. ‘Let’s get cracking.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’ll have to wait.’ The voice was familiar. When Pen looked around, the hall’s sentries were standing to attention. The symmetrically faced, shaven-headed figure of Captain Corbin stood between them, black helmet in his hands.

  Driyard was apoplectic. ‘Captain, this interruption is quite unforgivable. Senator Case herself arranged this—’

  He tailed off as Corbin raised a gauntlet. ‘It’s on the senator’s business that I’m here. And on yours, Countess.’ He inclined his head towards Pen. ‘You’re needed in court.’

  ‘In court?’ Pen spluttered. ‘In court? What for?’

  ‘For quite a show, in all probability.’ His voice was tense, but resigned: the particular tone that was reserved for experts the world over who’ve had their advice ignored by their superiors. ‘The Senate, in their wisdom, have chosen to broadcast the trial.’

  There was a hollow, cold space in Pen’s chest as she asked, ‘Whose trial?’

  ‘Why, your kidnapper’s, Countess,’ Corbin replied. ‘We have a confession.’

  CHAPTER NINTEEN

  Rain – ordinary, liquid rain. Drops slapped against the car window like a million clamouring hands. The Chevalier outriders bent their heads against it, while the coverings of their strange mummified horses spotted and darkened. Rearing into the weather, the surreal towers of London-Under-Glass were hazed out.

  Pen barely saw any of it. A mix of fright and excitement fizzed around her skull. Her mind was racing with a thousand questions.

  We have a confession. But from whom? If the Chevaliers had found the one who had kidnapped Parva, did that mean they’d found Parva too? If so, why weren’t they screaming ‘Impostor!’ at the top of their voices and clapping handcuffs around Pen’s wrists? But if they hadn’t found Parva …

  Something stretched queasily in Pen’s stomach as she thought, What can have happened to you, sis, for them to have found your kidnapper, but not you?

  She leaned forward and tried to listen to the conversation Corbin was having with his radio in the front seat.

  ‘Why the rush? The ink’s barely dry on the skinny bastard’s confession.’ The Chevalier captain squinted through the sheets of rain on the windscreen. The wipers squeaked. The handset crackled enough that it was impossible to tell if the voice coming from it was male or female.

  ‘Why do you think? They’re broadcasting it. The Senate want sentencing as close as possible to the countess’ abduction. The more raw the public still are, the more hardline they’re likely to be when the decision is handed down.’

  ‘What do you think they’ll push for?’ Corbin asked. ‘His mouth? His eye?’

  Pen shuddered involuntarily, but the radio-voice said, ‘That would be a bit lenient, don’t you think?’

  Corbin grunted as though lenient wasn’t an adjective he’d ever apply to taking someone’s eye.

  ‘He kidnapped a member of the mirrorstocracy, Cap,’ the voice from the radio pointed out. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised to see the maximum sentence.’

  Corbin exhaled massively as the driver pulled up outside a white art deco building. ‘The maximum sentence, broadcast live to the whole damn city, with the Face of the Looking-Glass Lottery in attendance, the person we need to protect. You know what I most love about our dear Senate leaders?’ His sarcasm was bitter. ‘How tirelessly they work to make my life easier.’

  ‘Tell me about it, Cap,’ the radio-voice said wearily. ‘Tell me about it.’

  A crowd had gathered on the pavement outside, their umbrellas flapping and stretching like batwings as they fought with them against the wind. Through the window, Pen’s view was just a thick press of bellies.

  Corbin twisted in his seat to look at Pen. ‘Ready, ma’am?’ Pen wasn’t sure what he was referring to, so she just spread her hands.

  Corbin muttered into his radio and the car door was opened from the outside.

  ‘PARVACOUNTESSPARVAWILLYOUPARVAPLEASEOVERHERESIGNFORMYBABYPARVAMA’AMPARVAPLEASEPARVAWILLYOULOVELOVELOVEPARVAPLEASEPLEASEPARVAOVERHERE—!’

  It was like stepping under a waterfall. Pen was drenched in sound. She stood bewildered as eager symmetrical faces bloomed before her, blotting everything else out. Their eyes were wide, their grins manic. Some of them were crying while they smiled.

  —PARVACOUNTESSPARVAWILLYOUPARVAPLEASE—

  Hands reached for her on all sides and she recoiled from them. Something grabbed her by the shoulders and she almost screamed.

  ‘Just keep walking,’ Corbin muttered into her ear, frogmarching her into a dark doorway.

  —MA’AMPARVAPLEASEPARVAWILLYOULOVE—

  The storm of noise ceased suddenly ceased as the heavy door slammed shut behind them. The hallway walls were pitted granite; the floor was tiled in black and white. The place had the cellar-like dankness of old stone buildings everywhere. Espel had accompanied them at Pen’s insistence, but she had had to ride behind one of the Chevaliers. Water plinked off the steeplejill onto the tiled floor as she wrung out the hem of her shirt.

  A flatscreen TV mounted on the wall was tuned to a news channel. The sound was muted, but Pen could see the banner at the bottom read Waterloo Attack. Men and women in emergency-services uniforms picked their way over rubble, keeping the stretchers they carried level with practised ease. There were prurient close-ups on body-bags and shattered buildings and shattered flesh. One figure sprawled, cradled by broken concrete. He wore a Chevalier uniform bleached grey by dust. He didn’t look like he’d been burned by a firebomb or torn by shrapnel; he looked beaten, pulverised as though by impossibly strong fists. His legs were broken. His face, a red, perfectly symmetrical mess, had been crushed into carnival mirror concavity. The image changed to the interior of the station: close-ups of walls perforated by bullets, floors scarred by star-shaped ripples of concrete. Underneath the banner-headline, scrolling text summarised: Major immigration centre attacked. 671 unaccounted for. Garrison Cray claims responsibility for Faceless. The image changed to show a hoodieand bandana-wearing figure with the graininess of online footage transplanted to TV. There was something that needled Pen, a sense of familiarity, but her heart was still running like an outboard motor and she couldn’t concentrate enough to pin it down.

  ‘Countess?’ Something in Corbin’s tone suggested he’d said this more than once. ‘Shall we?’

  Pen looked up and nodded, and followed as he led the way up a sweeping stairway.

  ‘Who were those people outside?’ Pen whispered as Espel fell into step beside her. Her pulse was still hammering.

  ‘Who?’ The blonde girl seemed distracted. ‘Oh, they call themselves the Khannibles – love you so much they want to eat you up, apparently. They’re your big
gest fans.’ Her cynical smirk was half-hearted, and quickly fell from her face. Her eyes roved quickly over the tiles as though searching for something.

  A doorway at the top of the stairs opened onto a balcony overlooking a vaulted stone chamber. Seated in a leather-upholstered chair right at the front, near the wooden balustrade, craggy-faced and severe, was Senator Margaret Case.

  ‘Parva.’ She stood to embrace Pen, pressing papery lips to her cheeks. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  Pen nodded hesitantly, and gave the small, brave smile she thought was expected of her.

  ‘We’re all very proud of you.’ The senator returned the smile and squeezed her hand. She turned to the two equally craggy and severe-looking men sitting to her right. ‘You remember Senators Prism and Spindlethrake?’

  ‘Of course,’ Pen lied. ‘Senators—’

  She didn’t like the way they looked at her, smug and possessive, like she was a shiny new car they’d bought themselves. She fought the urge to grimace as she shook their hands. She studied the room below. It was halfway between a courtroom and a film set. There was a polished wooden dock in the centre of the tiled floor, but where there ought to have been a bench for a jury there was a just a wheeled dolly, a TV camera perched on it like a hunting bird.

  Pen slowly became aware of a background hubbub in the room. The galleries on the other three walls of the chamber were filling up. Senator Case watched the crowd with an expression of detached satisfaction. The air thrummed with eager murmurs. Many of the audience shot admiring glances at Pen, and she returned their gazes dispassionately. Their faces were a mix of subtle mirrorstocratic asymmetry and gaudier skin patchwork like Beau Driyard. Aside from the Chevaliers and Espel, Pen saw no one with a symmetrical face.

  When the galleries were rammed to overflowing and the air was stifling with close bodies, Case gestured to Captain Corbin.

  ‘Bring him in,’ the Chevalier murmured into his radio. The lights dimmed. The spectators hushed. The old building groaned as the rain lashed the walls. The clunk of a heavy bolt echoed through the chamber.

  Pen heard him first, his gait an awkward clop-shuffle on the tiles under the balcony. She craned over the balustrade as far as she was able, but it was still long seconds before the condemned man dragged himself into view. She’d been expecting him, but she still felt an uncomfortable thrill of recognition when she saw the man who’d grabbed her in the river, the man who’d begged her for help, flanked by two black-armoured guards. He looked too small in his clothes, as though being a convict was a family business and his grey prison jumpsuit was a hand-me-down. His hair and beard stuck out in a wild tangle. His right arm was in a sling.

  He moved awkwardly, dragging his right leg, with his body twisted away from his captors as though to shield himself from them. A few paces behind, a fourth figure emerged: a mirrorstocratic woman in wire-rimmed glasses, carrying a small silver case under one arm. Pen peered at her. It was the doctor from the palace. She glanced at Espel, beside her, and saw the steeplejill couldn’t take her eyes off the doctor. Her nails were digging so deep into the balustrade they drew splinters.

  The condemned man looked behind him. There was no mistaking the naked fear on his face when his eye fell on the doctor. He limped faster as if to keep ahead of her, his injured leg scraping along the floor as he entered the dock. The doctor smiled gently at him and took up a place by the wall a few feet away, holding the silver case in front of her like a clutch purse.

  Another door opened and a scrawny, lawyerly man with a bundle of papers under one arm bustled in. The black robes that fluttered around him made him look like a cross between an old-fashioned schoolmaster and an overgrown crow. When he looked up, seeking approval, his face was asymmetrical.

  Senator Case nodded for him to begin.

  ‘Good morning.’ The black-robed man acknowledged the crowded galleries curtly before turning to the man in the dock. ‘We are here to discuss sentencing in case number 3-23-28: the attempted abduction of Parva, Countess Khan of Dalston, of which by your own admission you stand convicted. Please state your name.’

  The wild-haired man’s mouth worked for a few seconds, as though he couldn’t remember it. ‘Harry Blight,’ he stammered at last.

  ‘Mr Blight, earlier today you made and signed a full confession to the Glass Chevaliers of the Thirteenth Precinct. I have the text of it here’ – the prosecutor patted the bundle under his arm – ‘but I am informed you wished to restate it in public. Is this correct?’

  Despite the heat of the lights on him, Harry Blight wasn’t sweating. His cheeks were dull, as if someone had smeared too much makeup on them. Pen remembered the symmetrical bruises on his face the last time she’d seen him and she gripped the balustrade a little tighter. Someone had made him presentable for TV.

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly.

  ‘In your own time, Mr Blight.’

  ‘I work in the glasshouses.’ Blight sounded parched. ‘Down by Southwark Bridge. Three months ago, I was recruited into the Faceless by Garrison Cray.’

  A ripple went through the crowd. Pen felt her hackles rise.

  The Faceless are after you, Espel had said. She saw several expressions set hard.

  ‘Cray himself. Really?’ The prosecutor sounded impressed. ‘What did London-Under-Glass’ most wanted man want with an embankment apple-picker?’

  ‘He …’ Harry Blight gritted his teeth and swallowed. ‘He wanted me to help him kidnap Parva Khan.’

  In the wake of this admission the silence in the room seemed to clot, taking on an ugly density. Pen felt her fingers curl around the balustrade. She looked at the crowd and saw her own fury reflected in their faces.

  The lawyer leaned on the edge of the dock, an expression of mild interest on his ascetic face. ‘Go on.’

  Blight whetted his lips. ‘He … he had a plan to get to her. She went running, most days. Her bodyguards stayed close, but out of sight. She had a panic button.’ He spoke awkwardly, and constantly kneaded a spot behind his jaw with his fingertips, as though he was in pain.

  ‘Sometimes she cut inside the greenhouses, through the apple groves. She liked the smell. My job was to wave and smile at her, act like a fan. I was supposed to get her to stop and talk to me, then just let her go, wait for her to come back the next time. She started stopping by more and more. We talked more and more. By the time I offered her the apple, she had no reason to suspect it was drugged. I caught her as she fell. I kept her hands away from her panic button.’

  Pen made a little ‘oh’ sound and exhaled sharply. Senator Case put a hand on her shoulder and the mirrorstocrats around her muttered, asking if she was all right, if she wanted to step outside and get some air. Pen shrugged their concern aside. She felt winded. Her head was full of Parva’s bloody handprint in the mirror at Frostfield.

  Blight’s story didn’t fit.

  Maybe it will, she thought. Maybe there’s something still coming – something that will make it all make sense. She tried to still the queasy feeling of wrongness welling up inside her. Just wait.

  Below her, the prosecutor pursed his lips as though amused. ‘A drugged apple for the most beautiful woman in the world? Cray is a romantic, it seems. How did you get her out of the glasshouse?’

  ‘There were tunnels being dug for some new irrigation work. Cray’s men extended one to the river and we hid her there until the search passed on.’

  ‘And what did you plan to do with her?’ the prosecutor asked, as casually as if discussing the man’s plans for the weekend.

  Harry Blight hesitated and then said, ‘We wanted to d-devisify her.’

  A shocked gasp rippled around the galleries as he went on, ‘We would never have been able to sell anything we harvested from her face, we knew that, but still, it would’ve been a strike against the Lottery.’ He sounded eager, desperate even. ‘But she escaped – she came round early from the dose, surprised us. She swam for it and I chased her. That’s when we got picked up.’ Spittle glea
med at the corner of his swollen mouth. He started to drool.

  Pen looked at his broken face and remembered splashing in the river while the scrawny swimmer reached out to her. The queasy feeling welled up into full-fledged nausea. This wasn’t Parva’s story. This was hers.

  ‘Countess Khan has said she has no memory of these events,’ the prosecutor said mildly. ‘Can you explain her ignorance?

  Harry Blight gave a sickly nod. ‘One of the side effects of the drug we gave her is memory loss.’

  Up in the gallery, Pen started half out of her seat. ‘No—’ she started, but for once, no one was looking at her. Espel tried to tug her back to her seat, but she shook her off. Her thoughts tumbled over one another. There’s no way, she thought. There’s no way—

  There was no way Parva’s truth could tie up so closely with the convenient lie Pen had been forced to tell. Harry Blight’s confession was false. She looked again at his misshapen jaw. Someone had broken his mouth to put those words in it.

  It was a set-up.

  To her right, the faces of the silver senators looked grimly satisfied, as though Harry Blight had just confirmed their darkest suspicions. Senator Case favoured Pen with a sad smile and patted her arm. Pen shook her head as if denying it could make it disappear. She cleared her throat, but no words came. She remembered standing in the lift back in the palace, facing Corbin through the doors.

  ‘He didn’t kidnap me!’ she’d protested then.

  ‘If you can’t remember,’ Corbin had said, ‘then how do you know?’

  Frantically, Pen scrabbled for something she could say, but nothing came. She was tangled too tightly in the strands of her own lies.

  ‘Please—’ Harry Blight whispered the word. He wasn’t looking at the prosecutor any more. He was looking at Pen. ‘Please.’

  Senator Case stood up and addressed the prosecutor. ‘Mr Malachite, I understand this confession has been broadcast, and that the lines have been open?’