The Empire of Ashes (The Draconis Memoria)

by Anthony Ryan

  Unity of purpose is the only thing that will free us. We’ll have to ensure there are less of them to pollute our thoughts, and we have a very costly engagement to plan, do we not?

  He withdrew his thoughts, speaking aloud after a silence that had lasted only a few seconds. “Your plan, Marshal?”

  Morradin was wise enough to colour his mind with a sense of triumph before replying. Catheline, should she be listening, would expect no less. “Tell me,” he said. “Have you ever heard of a Protectorate naval hero named Racksmith?”

  CHAPTER 22

  Lizanne

  It was only as the Blue began to dissipate in her veins that Clay chose to appear in the trance, leaving barely a few seconds for her to share the information she had obtained. The trance evaporated before she could be sure he had acquired the shared memory, or learn anything about his current circumstances.

  Lizanne blinked into full consciousness, finding herself lying on the stone floor of a narrow cell. The walls were windowless rough-hewn rock and a heavy, iron-bracketed door barred the exit. The Spider was gone from her wrist and her feet were bare and numb with cold. Her captors had evidently been thorough enough to rob her of the product concealed in the heels of her boots.

  She rose into a sitting position, rubbing her benumbed feet and replaying the unsuccessful mission in her head. Failure was not a sensation she enjoyed but rigorous and objective self-examination were a core part of her training. Too long playing the politician, she thought, grimacing as a vestige of feeling returned to her feet. And overconfidence, she admitted after further reflection. It’s unhealthy to believe one’s own legend.

  There was a snicking sound from the door and she looked up to see a pair of dark, hostile eyes regarding her through a small slat. The eyes were female and it took Lizanne a moment to recognise the Blood-blessed woman she had come close to killing the night before.

  “You were lucky,” the woman said, breaking a lengthy silence.

  “No,” Lizanne said, returning the stare, face impassive. “I was better.”

  The eyes narrowed and the slat slid shut with a loud clatter followed shortly after by the rattle of a lock and key. The door swung open on squealing hinges, revealing the Blood-blessed woman standing with a pistol in hand. Two burly pirates stood on either side of her, both bearing shotguns.

  “Get up,” the woman said, gesturing with the pistol. “He wants to see you.”

  Lizanne was surprised to find herself unmanacled as the woman led her along a cramped tunnel, the two shotgun-carrying guards at her back. They assume I’m no threat without product, she surmised, watching how the Varestian woman moved with an air of studied nonchalance. A foolish miscalculation.

  Throughout the subsequent journey she identified three separate occasions when it would have been a relatively simple matter to subdue the woman, take her pistol and kill the two guards. But that would have left her isolated in an unfamiliar locale and, unless the woman had indulged the additional misjudgement of carrying product on her person, with no practical means of escaping this rock.

  The tunnel eventually opened out into a broad platform set into the wall of a huge, wind-gusted chasm. Looking to her right, Lizanne saw that a complete section of the chasm was formed of a massive, smooth edifice and realised she was viewing the High Wall from the inside. Glancing down, she could see a placid lagoon and a wharf where half a dozen ships were moored. Despite her circumstances she couldn’t help but be impressed by the scale of this place and the ambition of its construction.

  “Even your Protectorate couldn’t take it,” the woman said, reading Lizanne’s expression. “They tried once, you know. Or rather they hired a bunch’ve mercenary scum to try it. My great-grandfather saw them off then pursued them all around the world so that every pirate who dared challenge the Okanas clan was sent to serve the King of the Deep.” She stepped closer, looming over Lizanne. “So it is with all our enemies.”

  Lizanne pursed her lips and nodded before placing a puzzled frown on her brow. “Except, these days you are your own enemy, are you not? Your cousin Arshav seems to think this place is his by right . . .”

  The woman snarled and lashed out with her empty hand, which met only air as Lizanne ducked under it, delivered a hard punch to the woman’s solar plexus then stepped close to snare her other limb in an arm-lock. She forced the woman to her knees and twisted the pistol from her grip, pressing it to the back of her head. She looked up to see the two guards raising their shotguns, though not with the sense of urgency she expected.

  “That’s very unwise,” the larger of the two advised, speaking in an unruffled tone that told Lizanne a great deal. The Blood-blessed woman wasn’t in charge of this escort, he was, and he didn’t care if Lizanne killed her.

  She grunted and released the woman, tossing the pistol over the side of the platform. “A weapon only has value if you have the knowledge and intent to use it,” Lizanne told her, quoting a favourite line from one of her tutors.

  The woman let out another snarl, hand flashing to the knife tucked into the top of her boot.

  “Morva,” the larger guard said as the woman crouched for a lunge. She came to a halt, features quivering with rage. The guard stepped between them, jerking his head at Lizanne. “Enough of this. He’s waiting.”

  * * *

  • • •

  She was carried up the chasm wall in an elevating contraption. It was formed of a cage attached to a cable driven by some sort of counter-weight mechanism she was sure her father would have found fascinating. Lizanne noticed that the two guards became markedly more attentive as they neared the top, the larger one pointing his shotgun at her head whilst the other levelled his at the small of her back. When the cage came to a jerky halt at the top of the chasm the two guards kept pace with Lizanne as she stepped out. Their weapons never strayed from their target as Morva led them through the courtyard and up the stairway to the parapet.

  Alzar Lokaras stood atop a raised turret on the western flank of the crater lip, playing a hand along the back of a large black cat sitting on the battlement beside him. The cat hissed as it caught sight of Lizanne, she instantly recognising it as the author of her current misfortune.

  “Don’t mind Sherva,” Alzar said as the guards brought her to a halt a few feet away. “She’s bred to dislike strangers.” He gave the cat’s chin a scratch then beckoned Lizanne closer. “I found myself greeted by a curious sight during my morning stroll,” he said, pointing to something out at sea. “Perhaps you can enlighten me as to what it might be.”

  Lizanne moved closer, aware of the increased tension of the guards as she did so. Their indifference to Morva’s well-being clearly didn’t apply here. She followed Alzar’s finger to a small, flat-topped island some three miles away. The Firefly hovered above it at a height of about fifty feet, Tekela pointing the aerostat into the prevailing wind so that it bobbed up and down continually, but showed no sign of leaving.

  “It’s been there since first light,” Alzar said. “My crew are very keen to sail out and capture it. Should I let them do so, do you think? Or maybe just have my gunners blast it out of the sky.”

  “You’ll miss,” Lizanne said. “And then it’ll just fly away.”

  Alzar grunted out a short laugh. “I’m not too sure about that. I suspect whoever has charge of that thing is possessed of an unreasoning loyalty; otherwise, they’d have departed as soon as it became clear your mission here had failed.” He turned, resting his back against the battlement, regarding Lizanne with careful scrutiny. “I think if I tie a rope around your legs and dangle you over the side of this rock they might well decide to deliver that marvellous contraption to me. Am I wrong?”

  I hope so, Lizanne thought, suspecting the opposite to be true. “What makes you think I failed?” she asked instead.

  Alzar’s scrutiny faded, replaced by a cold calculation. “You tranced,” he said.
“So it’s safe to assume your corporate masters have whatever information you came for. Therefore, I find it curious that the more interesting documents in my uncle’s library remain undisturbed. Nothing appears to have been taken or destroyed.” He jerked his head at the guards, who stepped closer, shotgun barrels pressing into Lizanne’s head and back.

  “I am not some Imperial Cadre fool,” Alzar said, voice terse with harsh sincerity. “I will not play your games or entertain your bargains. Tell me what you came here for and why or I’ll show your friend over there what we do to spies at the High Wall.”

  Lizanne replied quickly. Experience taught her how to spot a bluff, and this wasn’t one. “It’s quite simple, really,” she said. “Zenida sent me.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Quite a story you weave,” Alzar said a few hours later. After a hasty explanation on the parapet he had her brought to the mansion for a more fulsome account. Lizanne sat in a chair in the library, the larger of the two guards at her back and Morva stalking about on the edge of her vision. Alzar remained standing throughout, his gaze occupied by the huge table map of Arradsia. “What makes you think I believe a word of it?” he added.

  “The fact that you haven’t killed me,” Lizanne replied. “And how else would I know the details of your feud with Arshav and his mother?”

  “Ironship spies know a great many things, and they’ve always been overly interested in my family.”

  “Indeed. In fact they were interested enough to employ Zenida as a privateer. She did the Syndicate some valuable service over the years.”

  “What?” Morva said, stepping into view and addressing the question to her uncle. “What did she say?”

  “Mind your place!” Alzar snapped, jaws bunching and shooting Lizanne a glare. “My cousin’s choices did not always meet with my approval,” he said as Morva retreated with a sullen scowl. “But she is truly of this clan, in blood and spirit, unlike her corrupted wretch of a brother and his bitch mother.”

  “Who now hold sway over the Seven Walls and the Ruling Council,” Lizanne pointed out.

  “Council.” Alzar grated out a laugh rich in contempt. “There never really was a Ruling Council. Just a bunch’ve puffed-up bilge rats playing politics, and failing for the most part. The High Wall had no truck with their empty prattle. Arshav and his mother can preen and pronounce all they want, Varestia has never truly had a government, nor has it needed one.”

  “Until now. You do know what’s coming, I assume? A clan with so many ships at its command will surely have some notion of the threat this region faces.”

  Alzar turned back to the map, saying nothing, though Lizanne discerned from his deeply furrowed brow her words had struck home.

  “Melkorin has been destroyed,” she pressed on. “Other towns and cities will follow. Our enemy swells in number with every conquest and when it has sufficient strength it will be coming to lay waste to the Red Tides.”

  He kept his gaze on the map, his expression that of a man forced into hateful consideration. “When I was a boy,” he said after a lengthy silence, “I would watch my uncle stare at this map for hours. There was something about this land that had once captured his soul and never let go for the rest of his life, right up until it killed him. Now, you tell me the key to saving us all rests at the very heart of his greatest obsession.” He gave a very small, humourless laugh. “And Zenida thought it all just an old man’s delusion.”

  Alzar moved away from the map to sit in the chair opposite Lizanne’s. “I would like it remembered,” he said in a hard, resigned tone, “that, at any other time, your corpse would now be decorating our wall.”

  “Duly noted,” Lizanne said.

  “Take a message to Arshav and Ethilda. I’ll join our ships with theirs. We’ll fight for the Red Tides, but this changes nothing between us. He is still a bastard and a faithless cutthroat who sullies our name and she is still a scheming whore my uncle should have strangled when he had the chance. When this war is done and Zenida resumes her rightful place here, there will be a reckoning.”

  “I’ll tell them.”

  “I have three further conditions,” he went on. “Firstly, any prize captured by our ships belongs to the High Wall and not your absurd company. Secondly, we receive equal amounts of any weapons produced by your manufactory. And, thirdly.” He turned his gaze to Morva standing in sulky silence in the corner of the library. “I require a tutor for a wayward youth.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “What’s she doing?” Tekela asked as Morva climbed into the gondola.

  “We have a passenger,” Lizanne said. “This is Morva, my . . . student.”

  “Student . . . ? Don’t touch that!” Tekela snapped as Morva’s hand strayed towards the control panel.

  The Blood-blessed woman stared at her for a second, face dark. “This one’s a Corvantine,” she muttered, voice laden with menace. “I kill Corvantines.”

  “I think we both know you’ve never actually killed anyone,” Lizanne said. “But Tekela has, so watch your tongue. Go and sit in the back.”

  Lizanne settled herself into the seat alongside Tekela, buckling on the straps. “I’ll explain later,” she said. “For now, please let’s get out of here.”

  She looked through the side-window as Tekela opened a valve to add more gas to the envelope, seeing Alzar standing in the High Wall’s courtyard. His gaze tracked the Firefly as it ascended, face hard with resentment at the necessary bargain he had struck. However, despite his evident detestation of the corporate world she still found him a preferable business partner to Arshav and Ethilda.

  She heard Morva issue a small sound as the High Wall shrank beneath them and Tekela angled the aerostat towards the north. Glancing back Lizanne saw the Varestian woman sitting with her eyes closed tight, knuckles white as they gripped her seat.

  “Don’t worry,” Lizanne told her. “You get used to it.”

  Morva muttered something in barely articulate and profanity-laden Varestian, Lizanne detecting the words “corporate devilry” amongst the torrent.

  “Headwind’s pretty strong today,” Tekela advised. “It’ll take at least five hours to reach the Sound.”

  This drew another whimper from Morva, which Lizanne ignored. “We’re not going to the Sound,” she said. “Set course for the Seven Walls.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “You had no authority to negotiate on behalf of this Conglomerate,” Ethilda Okanas said in a surprisingly placid tone. Unlike her in-law at the High Wall she possessed the ability to keep her voice and face free of emotion, though she couldn’t quite keep the glint of anger from her eyes. “Agreement will require a vote of the Board . . .”

  “The Okanas family has direct command of thirty ships,” Lizanne broke in. “They also have clan affiliations with most of the families in southern Varestia, the majority of whom, I’m reliably informed, would rather see you and your son dead than answer any call to battle you might issue. Like it or not we’ll need them if we’re to have any hope of defending this region.”

  Ethilda’s eyes strayed to the Firefly, hovering above the docks of the Seven Walls. Lizanne had descended to the quayside via rope and told the harbour-master who came to greet her to fetch either Ethilda or her son, refusing his request to follow him to the Navigation. Ethilda had arrived along with an escort under the command of the inevitable Mr. Lockbar.

  “Burgravine Artonin isn’t joining us?” Ethilda asked.

  “We won’t be staying long,” Lizanne replied. “Too many landings deplete the gas reserves.”

  “Such a pity. I am so starved of well-spoken company . . .” Ethilda trailed off, eyes narrowing. “So,” she said. “Alzar off-loaded the little bitch on you, did he?”

  Lizanne looked over her shoulder, seeing Morva’s face in the aerostat’s
open hatchway. “He felt his niece would benefit from some education,” Lizanne replied. In fact Alzar had said, She’s no use as she is. Like a child with a loaded gun but no notion of how to aim it.

  “Niece?” Ethilda asked. “That’s what he’s calling her now? You should know she’s not a true Okanas, just some Blessed orphan he purchased from the hold of a Dalcian reaver. With Zenida off on her privateering adventures he felt the clan needed a new Blood-blessed. She’s always been trouble, causing discord and being far too free with her body. Varestians are not a prudish people but daughters of the major clans are expected to display some decorum, if not discernment. Legacy of whatever those reavers did to her, I suppose. Ruin a girl young and she’ll stay ruined.” Ethilda shrugged. “Leave her here, if you like. We’ll find a use for her.”

  Lizanne wondered whether it would matter all that much if she killed this woman this very moment. Only if her son still lives. “We need more Blood-blessed at the Sound,” she said, fingers twitching on the Spider as she added, “Is Arshav here?”

  “Gone to the peninsular to gather more ships and fighters.” Ethilda nodded at the harbour, which now held at least double the number of vessels than Lizanne had seen during her first visit. “We’ve been doing fairly well so far. Especially since the news about Sairvek broke.”

  “Sairvek?”

  “Burned, just like Melkorin. Although our enemies have remained in port for now. We lost three fast ships to Blue attacks just to find that out.”

  Sairvek. They’re getting closer with every attack. “The total size of our fleet?” Lizanne asked.

  “Thirty ships here and another two hundred in the Iskamir ports. Only a handful could truly be called warships.” She settled a steady gaze on Lizanne. “We assured the captains who answered the call they would receive mighty and ingenious weapons. They’re already getting impatient.”