by Darius Hinks
Once the hiramites had left, she sat at the edge of the stage and cradled her head in her hands, feeling desperate and afraid. She had tricked Alzen so she could stop his murders, but she had also done it because she could not bear to feel his tainted presence in her skull any longer. “Get out,” she hissed, pounding her palms against the side of her head.
She sat like that for several minutes, groaning and cursing, until she heard footsteps approaching the stage.
She looked up to see Brast rushing across the amphitheatre. His eyes were wide with shock.
“I saw what you did,” he gasped as he reached the stage. He looked at the bloodstains on the stage. “Was he the one? The one you needed to get rid of?”
She nodded, but could not hide the desolation in her face.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Brast. “You killed him. Or, you helped the Elect kill him.” He shook his head in wonder. “How? How did you bring them here?”
“The chest you brought to me,” she muttered. “There were laborator’s robes in there. He gave them to me. I disguised myself and went into the Temple District.”
“You went in? You’re insane.”
“I am,” she said, with no trace of humour. “I knew,” she corrected herself, “I thought they’d kill me, but I had to stop him. He was feeding on people. He was getting power by murdering addicts in the slums.”
Brast sat down, staring at her. “But they didn’t kill you. And now you’re rid of him.”
She shook her head, unable to explain. Then another horrible thought occurred to her. “The Old King said he had ‘removed’ the Alembeck. What does that mean? He said he had scattered the Exiles.”
They both looked at each other with dawning horror.
“Quickly,” said Brast, dropping down from the stage and reaching up to help Isten. “I’ll help you walk.”
27
It was painfully slow getting back to the Blacknells Road. Isten’s legs could barely hold her and she kept halting to clutch her head, horrified by the numbness she could feel. It seemed to be growing, spreading through her mind.
It was mid-afternoon by the time they staggered out of an alleyway into the shadow of the Stump. As always, the huge building was resonating with the sounds of random drumbeats and drinking songs, but they did not pause to look at it, rushing on through the dust clouds, their eyes locked on the far end of the road.
The Marosa Library was still there, its spires and domes still intact, but at its side, where the Alembeck had always stood, there was an inferno of gold – spiralling tongues of metal had exploded from the ground, creating a forest of razor-sharp tendrils. There was no sign of the temple.
Isten and Brast staggered down the road, dazed expressions on their faces, joining the crowd that had gathered before the mass of golden threads. A few people recognized Isten, whispering as she approached, but she barged past them and gripped the blades at the edge of the web.
“Ignorant Men,” said an old woman next to her. “They came an hour ago. It only took them only minutes to do this.”
Isten stared at her. “What about the people inside?”
The old woman gave a comforting smile and gripped her arm. “They cleared out, a good hour before this happened. The hiramites came and ordered them to get their things and go. No one was left in there when…” The old woman hesitated, unsure how to describe what had happened. “When the Ignorant Men came.”
Isten shook her head, peering through the dazzling glade. “You’re wrong,” she whispered, horrified. “I can hear someone. There’s someone in there.” There was a desperate scrabbling sound coming from right in the centre of the structure. “Someone’s trapped.”
“No. Don’t worry.” The old woman smiled and patted her arm. “It’s just a mangy old fox. Look.” She pointed through the mesh. “There.”
“No,” whispered Isten, shaking her head as she saw that the woman was right. The fox was bleeding and panicked, struggling desperately to free itself from the cage of blades that had enveloped it, powerless to escape. The animal was dozens of feet away from Isten, but she thrust her hand into the mesh as though she could help it.
Blood and skin fell from her arm as she struggled to reach into the metal.
“What are you doing?” cried Brast, hurrying to her side as the old woman backed away, shaking her head in confusion.
“Look!” cried Isten, pointing at the trapped animal.
“It’s a fucking fox, Isten. A half-dead one by the looks of it. Get your arm out.”
“It’s our fox,” she hissed, glaring at him.
He shook his head, confused, then nodded. “Oh, I see.” He squeezed her shoulder. “That thing was ancient. I’m amazed it’s lasted this long.”
Isten groaned and let her head drop against the metal curls, closing her eyes, tormented by the sound of the fox’s desperate struggle. “I can’t help her,” she said, speaking so quietly that even Brast could not hear.
Brast hugged her. “Isten, it could have been worse. That could have been Gombus, or Lorinc, or Puthnok.”
She was too distraught to answer. How had she ever thought that she would be better off sober?
She allowed Brast to carefully extract her bloodied arm from the metal and lead her away from the crowd. As she stumbled after him, her hand in his, she felt Alzen’s sorcery flooding through her thoughts, swelling and surging, rising like a river that had burst its banks.
28
Isten returned to the Blacknells Road each day, early in the morning, before the crowds arrived, and went to see the fox. She took scraps of food and hurled them through the bars, not leaving until something landed near enough for the animal to eat. She tried to throw water too, but it was useless. The dry, sun-baked earth soaked up the few droplets that landed near the fox. Several times, the fox looked directly at Isten. There was no fear in its eyes, only a savage, unbreakable will.
On the third morning, Isten arrived to find the fox dead, surrounded by a cloud of flies. Isten was still there hours later, slumped against the mesh, blistering in the heat, when Brast came looking for her. She was mute and confused as he led her home, unable to understand his questions.
They heard little word of the other Exiles. The hiramites’ proclamation had been clear. Any gatherings, for any reason, would result in their immediate execution. Brast was worried that he might be breaking the law by sheltering Isten and he was visibly relieved when she stopped leaving the house and took to spending all her time in his bedroom, sleeping, or just lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, clawing at her greasy tresses as though they were infested with lice.
For the first few weeks, Isten begged Brast to fetch her drink or anything else that could free her from her thoughts, but when he refused she was surprised to find that she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything, for that matter. All she could think about was the grotesque interloper in her mind. The progeny of Alzen’s murders, festering and seething, hideously vital, desperate to be unleashed. She let Brast bring her food and pretended to listen when he passed on rare scraps of news about the Exiles. There was no word of Gombus, and everyone else was being very careful to keep their heads down but, apparently, Puthnok had fulfilled her political destiny and become a firebrand. Despite the orders of the Elect, she had begun holding rallies, just like Isten’s mother used to do back in Rukon. She was preaching against the Elect. Calling the people to action. Telling them that change was possible. That wealth could be shared and rulers could be elected. That revolution was within reach. That they outnumbered their masters ten to one. She was being protected by some of the Exiles and, before the hiramites arrived, she always managed to vanish, sheltered by her supporters. It amused Isten to think that Gombus had spent so many years trying to convince her to become a rallying cry, when timid little Puthnok was the one he really needed.
“They’ll kill her,” she said one evening, as Brast told her another story of Puthnok’s t
rouble-making. She had not spoken for days.
He gave her an odd look and she realized how flat her voice had been, how uninterested she was in the disaster that was rushing towards Puthnok. The world felt unreal. Everyone Brast mentioned seemed like a ghost. Or one of the faded figures she had seen carved into the stage at the Kephali Theatre.
She shrugged. “She always wanted to be a martyr.”
Brast lowered his gaze and began clearing away the plates. She sensed that he was becoming afraid of her. Even devotion has a limit, she realized.
One day, when Brast was out of the house, Isten ventured out with no clear idea where she was headed. She walked along the Saraca for a while, watching salvage crews and hovellers. Crowds of emaciated poor were working on the embankment and she wondered which of the families had been visited by Alzen to create the power she had so lusted after, still lusted after.
Her feet led her through dozens of winding streets and up spiralling walkways until she found herself, unexpectedly, outside the Rookery – the doss house where she had last seen Gombus. She went inside, squeezed her way up the stairs past the whores and tapped at his door. It was not properly shut and it opened to reveal an empty, litter-strewn room, devoid of furniture. There was a dusty old wine bottle on the floor and she picked it up, wondering if it was the one he shared with them on the night of Amoria’s death.
“Where’s Gombus?” she asked, looking back at one of the whores.
The woman gave her a wary look. “The old man?”
Isten nodded.
“He died, nearly a month ago.” The whore narrowed her eyes. “You his friend?”
Isten was about to reply, then she simply shook her head and continued staring at the empty room. She felt no grief, nor any surprise. If anything, she felt a slight lightening of her spirit. With Gombus gone, there was no one to remember what had been promised in her name, no one to know how short she had fallen.
She put the bottle down and left the Rookery, taking a meandering route home. She went back to the river and stood for a long time at the end of a jetty, watching the poisoned, iridescent currents whirl past her through the gloom. As always, the corpses of plague victims were bobbing among the chemicals. It would be easy enough to join them, she thought – to plunge into the water and float away. Surely then, at the point of death, her mind would be her own once more. She laughed bitterly, realizing she was too much of a coward to kill herself. Then she turned away from the river and headed home.
It was dusk when she finally returned to Brast’s house. He ushered her inside, checking that no one was watching.
“It’s happened,” he said, his eyes wide, as he stooped to light a lamp.
Isten dropped heavily into a chair. “What?”
His face was ashen. “They’ve caught Puthnok.”
Isten felt a brief flicker of emotion, like the last ember of a fire.
“She was holding a rally behind the Stump. She might have got away with it but hundreds of people turned up.” He shook his head. “People really believe in her, Isten. Not just Exiles – all sorts of people.” He took a piece of paper from his robes, glancing back at the window, as though expecting to see someone watching him through the shutters. He held the paper out. There was smudgy, tiny text printed on both sides. “They’ve started printing extracts from her manifesto. People from across the city have been travelling to the Botanical Quarter to hear her.”
Isten was not looking at Brast, or the paper. She was staring at the floorboards, remembering the sound of Puthnok’s voice on the day she started preaching to the Exiles in the Alembeck Temple. She could see why people might follow her. There was no facade with Puthnok, just a simple, childish belief that things would be fair one day. “But she’s been caught?”
Brast nodded, lowering the paper and sitting in a chair opposite Isten’s. “They’re going to make a spectacle of it. They want her to be an example of what happens to people who speak against the Elect. They’re going to string her up in Verulum Square, with all the statues of dead phraters watching.” He stared at the crumpled paper in his hand. “Poor thing.”
“They’re going to hang her?”
He nodded, turning the paper over in his hands. “Tomorrow night.”
Isten knew she should feel something – panic, grief, anger, anything. Puthnok was her friend. They grew up together. But she just felt numb.
“I’m going,” said Brast, speaking quietly.
“You want to watch?” Isten frowned. “Why?”
He looked at her with a mixture of embarrassment and defiance. “I can’t help her, but I can at least bear witness. She may be a fool, but she’s a brave fool, and she’s probably the last honest soul left in this pit of a city.” His eyes flashed, daring Isten to mock him. “I’m going to paint a picture of her.”
She nodded.
“Will you come with me?” he said.
She shrugged. “If you want me to.”
29
Puthnok had never been brave. She tried to pretend, sometimes, that she was like Isten, or like her brother had been, but she was not made that way. There were no lights in the cell, but a little moonlight was spilling down from a high, narrow window, and she could see her hands shaking as they gripped her knees. The hiramites were furious when they dragged her from the crowd; their voices contorted with rage as they hurled her to the ground and began to kick. There were bruises all over her body but she had managed to walk into the cell unaided so she guessed nothing was broken. She held her hand up into the shaft of light and the fingernail of her index finger flashed, iridescent, like the inside of a shell. The weazen, Tok, had given the nail to her as a gift, days ago, saying that she might soon be in need of a weapon. She’d refused at first, but the creature had seemed so wounded she relented and let him graft the blade to her finger, only vaguely listening as he explained how she could use it. Thinking of Tok reminded her of all the other strange creatures that had come to hear her speak behind the Stump. She had never been more afraid than when she stepped out before them, but she had hidden it behind sure, confident tones, determined not to cloud her message with mumbled speech or cringing self-deprecation. For a moment, she remembered the crowd’s fervour, how it rose as she spoke, ignited by the idea of change; then the soldiers came and the screaming began. How quickly hope can turn to panic.
There was a rattle of keys at the cell door and Puthnok backed away, stumbling under the weight of her shackles.
She blinked, blinded, as the door slammed open and the light of a mandrel-fire flooded into the cell.
Then the light was blocked as an enormous figure stooped and squeezed through the doorway.
Puthnok backed away until she was pressed against the cell wall. However afraid she had been before, it was nothing to the terror that gripped her as the door closed and she saw the figure that entered. It was a metal colossus, similar to the one that killed Amoria in the warehouse, but clad in even more complex spirals of metal tracery. There were tendrils of smoke coiling round the giant’s helmet and he was gripping an ornate copper staff that must have been eight foot tall. As the giant approached her, Puthnok realized her mistake. He wasn’t wearing a helmet – the mesh of glinting coils resting on his shoulders was his face. She could see human eyes staring at her through the wires, studying her like she was a peculiar insect.
She whispered a prayer and shook her head. “They told me…” Her voice was a ragged croak. She cleared her throat, trying to speak clearly. “They told me the execution was tomorrow night.”
The golden giant continued staring at her in silence for a moment, then looked around the cell. He saw the stone slab that passed for a bed and sat down on it. Even seated, he was looking down at Puthnok.
“You’re not what I expected,” he said. His voice sounded like resonating metal – like the echo of a bell. “You don’t look much like a revolutionary.”
For a moment, Puthnok was unable to speak. She was shoc
ked that this metal-clad monster could speak, and she was even more surprised that he seemed to want a conversation with her.
“Are you really Puthnok?” he said.
She nodded.
“You are the one who has been calling for the destruction of my order? You are the one who is trying to incite riots and rebellion.” He sounded amused.
“Your order?” she whispered. “Who are you?”
“My name is Seleucus. I am your regent, Puthnok. I am the Old King. I am the lord of the Elect. I am the man you would like to see deposed.”
Puthnok’s fists clenched as her fear turned to rage.
Seleucus laughed. The sound was so loud and bright that Puthnok winced.
“You’d like to hurt me?” Seleucus shook his head, struggling to stifle his mirth. “You wretched little ingrate. You have no idea what I am; what I mean.”
“Kill me,” muttered Puthnok. “We have nothing to discuss.”
Seleucus laughed again. “Oh, you’re a delightful little creature, aren’t you? I wish we could have met sooner. No, I’m not here to kill you. My duties are tiresome, it’s true, but they do not extend to the murdering of paupers.” He shifted slightly on the bunk and it cracked under his weight, scattering dust across the floor. “I came to make you an offer.” He reached out, his long arm easily crossing the distance between them, and ran one of his cold, polished fingertips across her neck. “The noose can be a cruel way to die, Puthnok. Especially for someone as small as you. I’m afraid your neck will probably survive the fall. And then it will take quite a while for you to be strangled by the rope. You’ll dance there for a long time, soiling yourself and sobbing as the crowds laugh at what a funny colour your face is turning. You might spend several minutes like that. Not a very dignified end, I’m afraid.”
Puthnok wanted to be defiant, to sneer at him like Isten would do, but she was terrified, picturing the scene he was describing with horrible clarity.