by Ben Galley
Dizali did at least have something good to report. He puffed out his chest. ‘The course is set, Your Majesty, and already the talks have been prosperous. We think Lincoln might agree to it, despite his recent meetings with Tzar Alekzander of Rosiya. I have several ears placed inside his cabinet, and the pretender Lincoln is as yet undecided about which way to lean.’
There was a rustle, and a wet sound as of smacking lips. ‘It will not matter in the end. How soon?’
‘A few weeks, perhaps more, My Queen,’ Dizali replied, staring up at the ravens. A few had hopped down to the lowest branches of the trees, so they could listen in and caw rudely to one another. Dizali stared up at their beady black eyes.
The queen outlined her plan. ‘Entwine his fate with the boy’s. Perhaps our friends can teach them both a lesson or two. Tonmerion Hark must be branded as a murderer, or traitor, so that the crown can rightfully claim the estate. Send a man to see it done. Caught. Killed, and his body in the cursed newspapers for all to see.’ The paper flew back over the fence in a flurry. ‘We shall claim the estate as penance for his sins against the Empire. The Benches will understand.’
Dizali turned to Gavisham once more, and the man nodded firmly. There was a hard look in his eyes. ‘I have just the man in mind, My Queen. He will see the job done. The boy will be dead in no time at all, and the estate will be Your Majesty’s.’
‘And fetch me the deeds and the executor of the Bulldog’s last will and testament. I will speak with him. Then we shall have our wars.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty. Right away,’ he said.
Dizali bowed, as did Gavisham, and the two men began to hurry back towards the palace.
‘Do not fail me this time, Prime Lord,’ Victorious called after him, just before he was out of earshot.
The two men marched through the palace, eager to leave, the echo of cawing ravens still loud in their ears. The marble halls and cavernous rooms were empty, as if the servants were all in the middle of a nap. Perhaps the queen deciding to take a stroll through her Shivering Pines was the only chance of rest they got.
Dizali and Gavisham waited until the carriage doors had shut with a bang, and the wheels were rattling beneath them before speaking, Dizali first, as was his right.
‘You heard her: you’re to go America. You will have your revenge after all.’
‘Try not to miss me, Milord,’ Gavisham smiled, flashing that new gold tooth of his.
Dizali glared. He was still nurturing a mood after being berated by the Queen.
‘I will see it done,’ added the manservant. ‘I know where to look.’
‘No, you know where to start. You’ll need to travel fast to pick up their trail.’
‘I’ll see it done, fear not.’
Dizali narrowed his eyes and stroked his sharp goatee. ‘I know you will. And I want regular updates.’
Gavisham stared out of the window. ‘And how would you like it done?’ he asked, almost absently.
‘Pardon?’ Dizali looked at him oddly.
Gavisham mimed a choking action. ‘The boy, how do you want it done?’
Dizali leant forwards, and spoke low, so that Gavisham had trouble hearing him. ‘You can shoot him, stab him, skin him, scalp him, flay him, strangle him, drown him, burn him, bury him, or blow him up. I don’t care how you do it. I just want that Hark boy put down. It suits our plan,’ he growled, his eyes bereft of any emotion.
‘Our plan, or her plan?’
It was Dizali’s turn to look out of the window. ‘Ours, always ours. Curse it, she’s growing mad! Horrendously out of touch! The Benches will do no such thing as understand. They have been rubbing their greedy little hands ever since somebody put a bullet in Hark’s chest.’
‘Time for some fresh blood in the ranks, Milord,’ Gavisham mused.
Dizali nodded. ‘I believe we have just been given the perfect opportunity, Gavisham. The pieces are coming together. What the old fool does not know is that I’ve been watching that executor, a Mr Witchazel, since Hark died. He looks like the squawking type. He will give us what we need. And I have heard of a man that can handle it all.’
‘Did you ever find out who did it? To Hark I mean?’
Dizali frowned, almost as if it still irked him. Perhaps he was somewhat jealous. He had been planning Hark’s downfall for years. Dizali had felt slightly cheated by the murder. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s get you back to Clovenhall. You can get your supplies and then head to the docks. You will leave immediately. I shall despatch a rider to find a ship for you while you’re gathering your things.’
‘That suits me fine, Milord, though I do hate to travel by sea.’
Dizali looked him up and down and sneered. ‘And here was I, believing you had an iron stomach, what with all the bloods you mix.’
‘Seawater’s a different beast, Sir, and I’ve not had the best luck with ships, have I?’ Gavisham winked, and strangled the door-handle, already eager to get some red in him and introduce this blasted boy to his grave. My brother will meet him in hell, he thought smugly to himself.
And so it was done. The carriage had barely passed the gates of Clovenhall, Dizali’s ancestral home, before a rider was swinging up into his saddle and spurring on his horse. Dizali was a man famed for his dislike of dalliance.
Gavisham hit the courtyard running. He leapt up Clovenhall’s steps and went inside. Dizali followed at a more leisurely pace, his long black coat billowing around his booted ankles. The drizzle had now stopped, leaving a humid haze behind, and Dizali found himself sweating. Damn this Britannia weather!
Clovenhall was calm and still, just how he liked it. The servants went to and fro about their errands swiftly but silently. Only the butlers spoke, and they hissed like lizards as they chased the other servants, checking and reprimanding. Their hushed tones washed over Dizali as he strode through his house.
‘You’ve forgotten to dust the wolf head, I believe, young lady.’
‘There, to the left, no, back I say!’
‘Under the vase, not atop it, stupid man.’
Dizali soon found himself in his office, uncorking a decanter of dark red brandy. He strode about, glass in his hand, staring out of his vast windows at his even vaster estate. He looked at the huge spires of London prickling the horizon, grey and smudged by the drizzle that still drenched the inner city. Smog too, rose on the breeze, belching from chimney stacks. Cranes swung about lazily, building London ever higher and grander.
Dizali turned his eyes to the crooked towers of the Palace of Ravens, which dominated the western centre of the city. He frowned, and took a deep swig of his brandy. The Master of the Emerald Benches would not be needed until this afternoon—he had time to brood and glare. There was plotting to be done, and nothing stokes a mood for scheming and self-preservation like a slug of blood-red brandy.
The Prime Lord swept away to sit at his desk and shuffle his papers, then steepled his fingers and stared at the door. He let his mind tumble and fall over ideas, reeling in the threads of possibility to see where they led.
The Emerald Benches and the Crown had been keeping a steady truce. The people had forced Victorious to let their voice be heard in a parliament several centuries ago. And since then the queen had been raised constitutionally ever-upwards, like a grand but useless weathervane, as the Benches ruled the Empire from beneath, toiling feverishly. They leeched power from her tiny morsels at a time, wrapping up rules and spinning their webs of power to lock her out, one line of law at a time. For just a handful of words can topple a throne when used in the right way. That, and a dash of madness. Dizali had been brooding over one handful in particular since Hark had found his way onto the slab: the Clean Slate Statute.
The Prime Lord let his mind drill down into detail and sort through countries and colours, clashing them together one by one, until he had them in the order he wanted, until he had the fate of the world entangled between his fingers, like a cat’s cradle, and he was busy flicking the strings.
The door shuddered under an eager knock, and Gavisham strode into the room. He had barely changed. The dark grey bowler hat was still wedged onto his shaved head, covering the spiral scar he had received in the war with Francia. He still wore the red tie he always insisted on, and had simply added a long grey coat while a small hog-leather bag hung at his side. If Dizali was not mistaken, the hint of an eager smile hovered on the manservant’s lips.
‘Are you ready?’ Dizali questioned over the rooftops of his fingers.
‘And raring, Milord,’ Gavisham fired back.
‘Show me.’
Gavisham set his bag on the floor, and unbuttoned his coat. He held it wide, showing off the myriad of bottles and vials that hid within. Each sat in a pocket of its own, fastened into place with a little loop of twine, ready to break when needed. Each one flashed a different colour: mostly red, but there were some faint blues, browns, and yellows for good measure. Dizali’s eyes roved over them, losing count.
‘Fine,’ said Dizali, leaning back in his leather chair. ‘To the docks with you then. Have your revenge.’
Gavisham nodded, and then leant forwards to extend a hand. Dizali stared at it for a while before standing and reaching to shake it, briefly.
‘I will not fail you, Milord.’
‘I’m counting on it, Gavisham. Dismissed, and good luck.’
‘You don’t need luck when you can bloodrush, Lord Dizali,’ Gavisham smirked, flashing gold, before turning on a heel and slamming the door.
Dizali raised an eyebrow. He had to smile as he reached for his brandy. ‘No, you do not,’ he replied.
Chapter IV
THE ROAD
20th June, 1867
Merion lingered beneath the eaves of the shed, watching the soldiers and guards on their rounds. The fort’s mood had not lifted in the past few days. A sullen air followed the gun-toting figures like a miasma as they milled about, eyeing the refugees with mild disinterest.
Sniffing the night air, Merion took in the dust, the wood, and the stink of sweaty horses. His feet itched, eager to move, hopefully east. Hell, his whole body itched, as it had since that weary morning trudging through the desert, with the heat rising around his cracked, blood-caked shoes, the magick still buzzing in his veins. He had itched for that feeling again every day since.
Merion bit the inside of his lip. He felt frustrated, more than anything. The war further down the railroad had forced him to languish, forced him to confront the feelings that constantly swirled beneath his otherwise sullen and quiet exterior. Not just the itching for blood, but the outrage, the sorrow, and, though he disliked to admit it, the chilling fear that time was being wasted, crumbling like stale bread. Out on the road, these feelings could be brushed aside or trampled. Here in the fort, there was nothing to be done but sit and stew in them. And he hated it. Fortunately for Merion, tonight was finally the night it would change. Lasp’s orders be damned.
‘Where are they?’ he muttered to himself, just to fill the boredom of silence.
A small voice piped up beside him. ‘Lurker went to fill his flask. Lilain moves a little slower these days.’ Rhin appeared a short distance away, perched on the brink of a step, half-faded.
Merion could not help but jump. A short lifetime of living with a faerie, and still it never failed. He groped for an answer.
‘I’m sorry for making you jump,’ the faerie apologised. ‘I thought you were just ignoring me. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.’ Rhin’s words sounded small, even for somebody twelve inches tall.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Merion told the dust at his feet.
Rhin attempted to flash one of his old trademark grins, but it quickly withered. ‘Excited to be getting out?’
‘Mmm,’ was all Merion said in reply.
Rhin kicked his boots together, and sighed.
Lurker soon rounded the corner, listing slightly to the left. Something sloshed in his pocket as he walked. He made no apology, and simply sniffed, rubbed his nose, and looked around. ‘Where’s Lil?’
‘Yet to arrive,’ Merion answered.
‘Think this’ll work? It’s failed the last three nights,’ Lurker grunted, looking between the boy and his faerie. ‘We’ve been lucky to get away with it so far. Now the soldiers are back, and Mayut’s drawin’ ever closer. They’re tightenin’ security.’ He was always more loquacious when he’d had a few, and Merion had to smile wryly. The mildly pickled prospector was right. They had been caught, or almost caught, three times since roasting the jackalope. Escape had been snatched from their hands like a starving dog deprived of its bone.
But tonight was the night, Rhin had promised. Tonight was none other than Brigadier General Lasp’s birthday, and there were to be celebrations in the mess hall, war be damned. With half the soldiers ordered to attend, smiles firmly plastered on their faces, escape would be theirs at last.
There came the sound of voices along the thoroughfare, and their heads snapped up. Rhin shivered out of sight, and Merion stood a little straighter. Lurker just sniffed as always.
‘As I was saying, Major, he’s right here. Aren’t you, Tonmerion Hark?’
‘I am indeed,’ Merion replied.
‘Like I said, up to no mischief.’ His aunt flashed him an urgent look with her eyes, and Merion stepped forwards.
It was Major Doggard. His face was more flushed than usual, stress glinting in his eyes, a sure sign that the general had given him forty lashes of his tongue. ‘Be that as it may, Ma’am, the Brigadier wants a word with the young man.’
‘For what reason?’ Merion asked.
‘What reason?’ echoed Lurker.
Doggard looked Lurker up and down, and his grip on his rifle visibly tightened. ‘What with all the suspicious goings on, and finding you three all about the fort at night, the Brigadier’s got to wondering. Wants to set the boy straight.’
‘He lays a hand on—’
‘Not like that, Ma’am,’ Doggard hissed. He ran an exasperated hand through his hair, which burned orange in the torchlight. ‘If it makes you feel better, I’ll be there the entire time.’
‘That it does, Major,’ Lilain said, jabbing her crutch into the ground, another flash of the eyes for Merion. ‘Nephew, come along.’
‘Fine,’ Merion mumbled, and followed Doggard up the path.
Merion waited until they were out of earshot of Lilain and Lurker before interrogating the major: ‘So what is he bent out of shape about now?’ he asked, casually.
It could have been a snigger, it could have been a cough, Merion wasn’t sure, but either way Doggard suppressed something. ‘I already told you.’
‘Tough fight, was it, the other day?’ Merion found himself saying, his boyish curiosity leading the way. It is a trait that all boys of Merion’s age and older are prone to, the desire to bask in the horror of some reality they cannot touch. Yet Merion had taken one step further: he had already tasted the horror, and wanted to understand more of it.
Doggard mulled over that for a while, replaying some vivid scene behind the eyes.
‘Tough as it gets.’
His reply was gruff, full of ice. They were coming up to the lodge, and the major fixed his eyes on the door as though his gaze could drag it closer.
‘Shamans, I imagine.’ It was a question, cleverly disguised, and Doggard nodded, eyes still locked ahead.
Merion sighed. ‘You have to attack them from all angles. Surround them,’ he commented, almost idly. He remembered crouching on his aunt’s roof, staring through the spyglass at the chaos.
Doggard raised his hand to the door and offered Merion a bitter look. ‘And what would a high-born Empire boy know of magick and battle?’ he whispered, before knocking.
‘Enter!’ somebody barked. No prizes for guessing who.
Merion combed his hair back with his hands and flashed a sweet smile. ‘Oh, I have quite a bit of experience, Major. Don’t forget where I crawled out of. Fell Falls still smoulders, or so I’ve heard,
’ he retorted, before pushing his way through the door and leaving Doggard standing on the step.
‘Ah! If it isn’t Master Hark, our little escapee,’ Brigadier General Lasp hissed, striding out from behind a desk swamped with papers and leather-bound reports. It was a desk of war. The general had managed to pour himself into his finest formal uniform. He wore a bright yellow sash and had a swathe of medals, some of questionable origin, splayed across his chest. All he lacked was a magnificent steed and a painter to capture it all—something for the wall behind his desk, perhaps.
Merion’s smile tightened. ‘It’s actually Lord Hark, General, and correct me if I’m wrong, but to be an escapee, you actually have to escape at some point.’ Both were cheap shots, but Merion was never one to waste an opportunity.
With much flapping of the jowls, Lasp drew himself up to his full height and strode forwards to stare down at Merion. But the boy was taller than he looked, and the effect was clearly not as intimidating as he had hoped. He used his belly instead, forcing Merion to step back or be knocked to the floor.
‘Three times now, my men have caught you at the northern gate, near the stables, putting your noses where they aren’t wanted!’
Merion shrugged nonchalantly. ‘We were simply trying to find better accommodation. The horses seem to sleep better than us. We thought they wouldn’t mind a few humble refugees sharing their hay.’ He was not in the mood for this pompous man’s opinions. Lasp was a boulder in his path, which he wanted to hammer to pieces.
‘Why you ungrateful …!’ Anger choked him, and for a moment Lasp looked as though he would slap the boy around the face, but Doggard crept forwards to clear his throat. The general snarled and walked a circle around the room, like a portly shark swimming around a seal pup. ‘Ungrateful little Empire whelp. You would rather be out there with the savages than in here, safe under the protection of my soldiers? I bring you under our wing, shelter you from the fighting—’