by Anthony Ryan
Clay tore his gaze away from the dreadful spectacle in time to see a large Red slip through the gap between the two remaining aerostats, flaring its wings as it reared back, talons flashing. Lutharon coughed out a brief but intense stream of fire, the force and the heat of it sufficient to cast the attacking Red aside, leaving it a smoking tangle in their wake.
Lizanne reappeared in the aerostat’s rear hatch, urgently pointing a finger at her head. Understanding the signal Clay closed his eyes, trying to shut out the screams of a thousand drakes as he slipped into the Blue-less trance. Lizanne took a second to appear, her whirlwinds more disordered than he had ever seen them and he was appalled to find a glimmer of panic in her gaze.
Thank you for coming, she said, forcing a smile.
Said I would.
She nodded, the misty vortices beginning to break apart as her mindscape darkened and Clay realised he was trancing with a woman who expected to die very soon. They’re forming up above the shore-line, she told him. Follow us closely. We’ll make a hole. There’s a hill a mile to the west. You’ll find her there.
Clay began to reply but she was gone, leaving him alone on Nelphia’s surface. He ended the trance, blinking tears in the rushing chill. When his vision cleared he saw multiple smoke streams blossoming from the base of the aerostat’s gondolas. Rockets, he realised, watching several small cylindrical forms detach from the craft and streak away. The rockets flew in spirals of varying widths, hurtling towards the wheeling barrier of drakes in a concentrated swarm. Their impact resembled a short but impressive firework display, except every flash and boom meant the death of at least three drakes. When it faded there was a large rent in the flock of Reds through which Clay could see a broad plain beneath a cloudless blue sky.
The two aerostats immediately accelerated towards the gap, guns blazing as they fought to keep it open. Clay sent all the urgent thoughts he could to Lutharon but the drake needed no encouragement. He surged forward with a growl, sail-sized wings sweeping faster than Clay ever thought possible. He kept his gaze on the plain beyond the gap, refusing to be distracted by the roaring gun-fire and screaming drakes on either side.
She’s intending to die here, he knew, hating the knowledge and hating himself for the determination not to turn away and save her. Make it mean something.
Lutharon went into a steep dive as they cleared the gap, increasing his speed yet further. Clay quickly found the hill-top, the White an unmistakable landmark. Its wings were spread wide, head thrown back and mouth gaping. Even above the rushing wind Clay could hear its challenging roar.
Remember me, huh? he asked it, surprised to find a grim smile playing across his lips. He tore his gaze from the White, Green-boosted eyes scanning the hill until he found her, a slender figure standing alongside a Spoiled wearing some kind of uniform. Her features became clearer as they flew closer, eyes of red and black staring back at him, her face a porcelain mask of disconcerting beauty.
Catheline, he thought, slipping into the Blue-less trance state, summoning all the images he had memorised, all the stories from the periodicals and the scandal sheets, reaching out. There was no response, the trance felt like sinking his hands into tepid water. Hate, he reminded himself. You know hate, and so does she.
He summoned his own memories to join with hers, everything he tried to keep locked away in dark crevices of his mind. The first time he saw his father beat his mother . . . His father’s head jerking as the bullet slammed home, blood and brains on the cards . . . Dozens of vicious back-alley struggles in the Blinds . . . Keyvine’s blade at his neck . . . Silverpin, the red wings blossoming across the glass floor . . . And the White. He hated it. Hated it for all it had wrought upon the world. But more, he hated it for what it made him do. Silverpin as the longrifle bullet tore through her . . . All those good people lost on ice and in the battles since . . . Lizanne, accepting her own death just to get him here.
The hate burned at the core of him, filling the trance with the purity of its heat and finding a mirror in the soul of Catheline Dewsmine.
* * *
• • •
A moment of complete emptiness. He felt nothing. Not the beating of his heart. Not the air on his skin. His eyes saw nothing. There were only his thoughts, roiling in panic as he pondered if this is what it meant to die. Then he saw a single point of light, no larger than a raindrop, but growing steadily, expanding into a ball that filled his gaze and soon enveloped him.
He stood in a garden of some kind, neat hedgerows and flower-beds surrounding a vast lawn at the centre of which stood a three-storey mansion house. The sky was darkened by clouds pregnant with rain, the air chilled almost to the same degree as the southern ice. Trees dotted the garden, their bare branches sagging with a macabre fruit.
Bodies, Clay realised, gaze snapping from one tree to another. Men and women, boys and girls, old and young. They all hung from the trees, grey faces bloated and hollow eyes empty as they twisted in the stiff breeze.
I don’t recall inviting you in.
He turned, finding Catheline standing close to the shore of an ornamental lake. She was human now, her eyes a pale blue, though her beauty remained undimmed, even enhanced. No human skin had ever been so luminous and no hair so golden. Her vanity, it seemed, extended deep into her consciousness. But no amount of visual artifice could mask her emotions. He could feel her outrage at his intrusion, it hung in the air as a simmering electric thrum that reminded him of the moments before a storm.
You didn’t, he replied. Yet here I am.
You’re the one. Her mouth twisted in a smile, self-satisfied and very knowing. He remembers you.
I remember him.
You killed her. Her smile broadened as she sensed his discomfort. The one who came before me. I suppose I should be thanking you.
You should, he agreed. I’m here to set you free.
Really? She raised her elegant eyebrows in mock contrition. You are here to rescue me? I do crave your pardon, sir. I had assumed you were here to kill me. How remiss of me to mistake our respective roles in this drama. Apparently, you are the brave hero come to vanquish the monster and I the helpless princess. Tell me, how exactly do you intend to accomplish this mighty feat?
Clay looked around at the nightmarish garden with its dangling corpses and storm-dark sky. He saw that the mansion house was shifting in appearance. One second it was a fine whitewashed example of the classic style favoured by the upper echelons of the managerial class, the next it was a ruin, the windows empty of glass, the walls streaked with soot and the roof a mess of blackened timbers.
Well, I ain’t gonna appeal to your kindly nature, he replied, turning back to her. What is this place? Your home? Where you grew up, maybe?
Mind your own fucking business, you gutter-scraping bastard. The thought was accompanied by a sweet smile, rich in sincerity.
Clay ignored her and moved towards the nearest tree, looking up at one of the corpses dangling from the branches. It was a woman of hefty proportions clad in an unadorned black dress. Her eyeless, blue-lipped face possessed a stern aspect even in death.
Who’s this? Clay asked.
Catheline crossed her arms, tilting her head and remaining silent as they matched stares. After a few seconds of mutual antipathy she shrugged. Miss Pendlecost, she told him. My governess. She used to twist my fingers if I got my calculus wrong, only when my parents weren’t looking of course.
Clay inclined his head at the corpse. Is this what you did to her, or what you wanted to do to her?
What difference does it make? Now or when I return to Mandinor, she’s still dead.
Clay moved on to the next corpse, a bewhiskered man of middling years, his pot-belly poking out above a pair of half-fallen trousers. And him?
My mother’s second cousin, Erdwin. He tried to fuck me when I was thirteen. She gave a fond smile as she looked up at the dead ma
n. Him I did kill. Paid a short visit to his house in Sanorah before I took ship to Feros. It was strange, but I almost pitied him. Just a sad little man living a sad little life with only his cats and his very specialised library for company. When I burned them he cried and cried so I broke his neck. Just in case you imagined mercy to be beyond me.
Clay shifted his gaze from the tree to the house on the far side of the expansive lawn. That seems a mite strange, he said, noting again how its appearance continued to shift from whole to ruined. Can’t decide how you want it to look?
What are you talking about? she demanded. It’s my parents’ country residence a few miles east of Sanorah. I spent most of my childhood here.
You don’t see it, do you? he asked, finding no note of subterfuge in her thoughts.
She replied with a bemused frown, though Clay saw how her lips twitched a little as she asked, See what?
Not afraid of it, are you? he pressed, sensing her growing unease. Something in there you don’t want to remember?
It’s just a house. She pulled her shawl tight about her shoulders and turned away.
Then I guess you won’t mind if I take a look.
He managed only a few steps before a geyser of dark earth erupted directly in his path. A Green clambered from the hole, eyes glowing and flame blossoming in its maw. This is my head, Catheline informed him as more Greens began to claw their way up through the lawn. And I don’t want you here.
Clay drew the revolver from his belt, holding it out as he fused it with fresh memories. The revolver doubled in size, growing multiple barrels and a large chamber. It was a reasonable facsimile of a repeating gun, not entirely accurate but it would serve his needs well enough. He levelled the barrels on the nearest Green and pulled the trigger, the drake transforming into bloody pieces in the torrent of bullets. Clay advanced across the lawn, working the repeating gun like a scythe, sweeping the whirring barrels left and right as he reaped a harvest of dismembered Greens.
Sorry, ma’am, he called to Catheline over his shoulder as he reached the house. You’re stuck with me for a while yet.
He turned the repeating gun on the large double door at the front of the house and blew it into splinters, stepping inside and returning the revolver to its original size. The shifting nature of the house’s exterior was matched by its interior. The marble-floored lobby with its fine curving staircase and chandelier transformed every few seconds into a scorched, soot-blackened wreck. There were more bodies here, not hanging this time but lying about the chequerboard floor. Clay took them for servants from their clothing, maids and footmen either burned to death or broken by the kind of injuries that only Black could inflict.
I haven’t been here in years. Catheline stood in the shattered doorway, arms crossed tight about her chest. Clay could feel the depth of her reluctance to step inside, her pale blue eyes guarded as they darted about the lobby with its many corpses. I have no use for childhood concerns, she insisted. There’s nothing of interest here.
Clay saw that, although her eyes roved about, they were conspicuous in avoiding the hallway to the left. What’s back there? he enquired, gesturing with his revolver.
Nothing. The word was spoken in a whisper, Catheline’s gaze abruptly frozen, staring straight ahead. There’s nothing there. That wing of the house was long out of use, even when I was a girl.
For someone who’s done so much bad, you’re a really terrible liar, Clay observed, starting down the hallway.
There’s nothing there! she insisted, rushing after him. You’re wasting your time.
He found a door at the end of the hall, locked when he tried the handle. He turned the revolver into a replica of Skaggerhill’s shotgun and blew the lock to pieces, kicking the door open. The room he stepped into wasn’t like the others, no continual shift from one state to another. Here everything was in a permanent state of disorder. Clay deduced it had been a study from the blackened remnant of the desk in one corner and the charred books on the shelves. The room wasn’t completely burned out, however, one section near the fire-place remained intact.
A couch sat on a fine Dalcian carpet in front of the fire-place, and on the couch were two bodies, a man and a woman. They were undoubtedly dead judging by their bleached skin and open but unseeing eyes, but they sat upright, hands resting in their laps. The man was somewhere in his fifties and wore a well-tailored suit that only the most senior managers could afford. The woman was a few years younger, wearing a plain but elegant dress that would have done much to enhance her figure, had her form not been so completely drained of life. Her hair was a shade darker than Catheline’s, but Clay saw the similarity in their features.
This . . . Catheline began, entering the room on unsteady feet. This is just how I remember them . . .
They’re dead, Clay pointed out. You remember your parents as dead folk?
They were very dull people. She let out a short shrill laugh, her wide eyes fixed on the face of her mother. So very very dull.
Clay moved closer to the bodies, peering into their eyes and finding the whites threaded with a dense mesh of burst veins. It was something he had seen before. How’d you learn that trick? he wondered, shaking his head. Only ever knew one Blood-blessed who could do it.
I did nothing, she whispered, her voice taking on an accusatory tone. You did this. This is all just theatre of your making.
No. Clay retreated from the corpses, turning to face her. I didn’t. You did it. You broke out of the madhouse and you came here.
No. No, I . . .
You killed all the servants and then you sat your parents down . . .
No . . .
And you used Black to squeeze the vessels in their brain so they died in agony, but they couldn’t scream. Just had to sit there whilst their own daughter tortured them . . .
NO!
A rumble of thunder came from outside as Catheline collapsed to her knees, folding in on herself, tears streaming from her tight-closed eyes. My parents loved me, she sobbed. They wanted to keep me safe. I would never hurt them, never, never . . .
Clay watched her subside into her grief, face veiled by her hair as she shuddered on the floor. I guess that’s true, he told her, turning back to the corpses of the late Mr. and Mrs. Dewsmine. They tried to keep you safe but there was one thing they couldn’t hide you from. He crouched at her side, speaking softly. It ain’t too late. You still got a chance to put this right. End this war.
The thunder sounded again, the room growing dark as the clouds thickened in the sky.
Yes, he heard her say in a small, scared voice. Yes. We will end it.
The loud echoing thud of colliding metal snapped Clay’s gaze to the door, finding oak-wood had been replaced by iron and, instead of standing open with a shattered lock, the door was now firmly closed. Also, he couldn’t see any sign of a lock. More metallic thuds echoed around the room, Clay turning in time to see iron shutters slamming closed on the windows, leaving the room in darkness apart from the blaze that had suddenly appeared in the fire. Clay reeled back as the fire-place blasted out a brief torrent of flame, some of it catching the sleeve of his duster. As he beat the flames out he noted that the fire-place now resembled the mouth of a large drake.
The thunder came again, far louder now, persisting until it slowly revealed itself as a growl. One Clay had heard before. It shook the room, dislodging the pictures from atop the mantelpiece. Catheline was still sobbing behind the veil of her hair, except the sobs had taken on a higher pitch. As her hair parted the glow from the fire played on a smiling face and he realised she wasn’t sobbing at all.
Did you think I was alone here? she asked, getting to her feet. That I was alone when I did this? She cast a dismissive hand at her dead parents. He has been with me for every step and the journey has been glorious.
He watched her enjoy the shock on his face, blinking her pale blue eyes as they
slowly transformed back into red-black orbs. What lengths you have gone to, Catheline observed, raising her hands to the surrounding room, now rapidly transforming into a cube of bare iron walls. All those miles travelled and battles fought, just to place your mind in a prison.
Clay raised his revolver, aim swift and true, the sights centred on her forehead. She moved as he fired, blurring with speed. A hard, jarring impact to his chest and he found himself slammed into the iron wall. Pain was often muted in the trance, the mental shields creating a barrier against a mostly physical sensation, but not here. Clay shouted with the shock of his spine shattering against the wall, the revolver flying from his grasp as he slid to the floor.
It isn’t too late, Catheline told him, eyebrows raised in sympathy as she crouched at his side. You still have a chance to put this right. She lifted a finger. You can get in here. But I can’t get in there. She pushed the finger hard into the side of his head. Let me in and I won’t make you watch when I cut your friends open.
Guh . . . Clay coughed, jerking with pain. Guh fuh . . .
I do beg your pardon, Catheline inched closer, cocking her head. Didn’t quite catch that.
Clay dragged in a slow ragged breath, speaking very deliberately. Go . . . fuck . . . yourself.
Catheline rolled her eyes at him. Well, that’s charming. She glanced over her shoulder at what had been the fire-place but was now the widening maw of the White. He just wants to eat you, in body and in mind. He doesn’t really have an imagination, you see? She extended a hand, flattening it out as the fingers grew, her nails becoming claws which she slowly pressed into his chest, provoking another shout of pain. But then, he has me for that . . .
She stopped talking, all emotion draining from her face, which had taken on an aspect of shocked surprise. No, she breathed in a voice laden with genuine fear. The claws withdrew from Clay’s chest and she whirled away, blinking out of existence to leave him alone and crippled in his prison.