by Matthew Ward
Messela leaned forward. Unplaited black hair – an unforgiveable offence against formality under less dire circumstances – tumbled past her shoulders. The summons to council had caught her partway through preparations to attend a recital of Kespid’s Itharocian Tragedy. Had the herald not found her, she’d have been in her patron’s box at Highvale Amphitheatre when the mists had swallowed it up. “Do we know what’s happening in the mists?”
“A few desperate souls found their way out down by the docks,” Darrow replied. “Didn’t get much out of them beyond a lot of babble about shifting streets and having lost days in the mists – and that can’t be right, because it’s only been hours. Even so, it’s ugly. Churches and homes ransacked with all the death and thuggery you might expect. There’s also whispers of children rounded up and taken into Dregmeet.”
Malachi stared into a glass emptied too soon. The decanter, empty save a dribble, sat temptingly within reach. Every crooked bargain he’d made with the Parliament of Crows, all to save his own children. How many others now paid the price? “Hostages?”
“They’ll want them for cousins,” said Lady Tarev. “Young enough to mould.”
“Barbaric,” sniffed Lord Lamirov, owner of the majority of Tressia’s workhouses. “And on Saint Belenzo’s feast day, of all days.”
“Do you concur, captain?” said Messela.
Darrow hesitated. “I hope she’s right. I don’t care for the alternatives.”
“And what, pray, are you doing about it, Captain Darrow?” said Lord Lamirov.
“Doing about what, my lord?”
“You command the constabulary, don’t you? Or am I thinking of someone else?”
Darrow’s gaze darkened. “I don’t follow, my lord.”
“Gather your ruffians and drive the vranakin back into Dregmeet. I think I speak for everyone when I say you may be as brutal as you like.”
The room fell to silence. Messela and Zarn stared mutely at the table; Lady Tarev and Lord Marest into the unknowable middle distance. Malachi caught the tightness gathering about Darrow’s eyes.
“What am I doing?” Darrow set down her helmet and strode along the table, passing up the empty chairs belonging to Josiri and Izack. “Half the city lost. That means half my watch houses. Half my ruffians, as it pleases you to call them, are gone, and if anyone’s seen them, they’re keeping it to themselves. Perhaps you’d like to have a gander yourself, my lord.”
Lord Lamirov snorted. “Then request aid from the chapterhouses.”
Darrow’s advance quickened a hair.
Malachi cleared his throat. “Lord Lamirov will doubtless remember that the bulk of the Knights Sartorov are stationed at Fathom Rock in penance for poor decisions last year. The Hadari army lies between them and us. Essamere and Prydonis rode away the evening before last. They’ve barely a squire nearer than Tarvallion.”
Darrow halted, a frown playing across her lips.
“Then the foundry,” snapped Lord Lamirov. “Mobilise whatever simarka and kraikons there are to be had.”
“The foundry’s on Weirgate.” Messela spoke with all the confidence lacking from her previous appearances at council. No more solid a soul than an Akadra when crisis beckoned. “There’s mist for at least a dozen streets in any direction.”
“It may not matter,” said Darrow. “Firestone lamps fail when the mist overtakes them, and I doubt the constructs are faring better. Or is anyone in this room clinging to the belief that this is a mere fluke of weather? You might not smell it in here, but there’s vranakin witchery on the air.”
Lord Lamirov scowled at his knotted hands. “And the provosts?”
“Cowering in their chantry. They like torturing suspected heretics well enough, but taking a stand against real witchery?” Darrow shook her head. “Useless bloody lot.”
“Otherworld is rising.” Lady Tarev clutched tight her pendant necklace. “The Crowmarket is rising with it.”
“I beg your pardon?” asked Lord Marest.
Lady Tarev stared off into the middle distance.
“Could the Hadari be part of this?” asked Messela. “Gold glitters in Dregmeet as brightly as anywhere. The shadowthorns have coin to spare.”
Malachi hesitated. It’d be so easy to agree, if only to assuage his own complicity. But no. Coin alone bought no influence with the vranakin. Only a fool would offer more, and Kai Saran’s actions this past week suggested the man was no fool.
He forced confidence into his voice. “The shadowthorns don’t need vranakin causing mischief. We’ve been lax. I’ve been lax. Now we’re paying the price.” He stared at Zarn, who gazed disinterestedly back. “The Crowmarket are scavengers, cowards and thieves. They’ve seen our weakness. They’re exploiting it.”
Lady Tarev flinched. Darrow snorted her disgust.
Zarn remained impassive. “Then surely all you need do is show them that you – I’m sorry, that we – aren’t so weak as they believe.”
Messela nodded. “Send riders south to gather Lancras from Callastair.”
“Lancras?” Lord Lamirov shook his head. “They’ve scarcely a hundred spurs. Their chapterhouse is an empty ruin, and their vigils more like hermit’s refuges than fortresses. Why do you think we’ve not sent them to the border already?”
“And there’s nothing to say Lancras would get here in time,” said Lord Marest. “Three hours, and half the city gone. We could lose the rest by midnight.”
“Which could happen whether we call for them or not,” Messela replied. “Witchery abounds. What we need is fire and steel. Captain Darrow may consider every blade in my hearthguard hers to command. What say the rest of you?”
Malachi nodded, embarrassed the idea had not been his. Was his mind truly so gummed by guilt and fear? “I can’t spare everyone. I’ve family to protect – especially now – but as for the rest?” He stood, tumultuous emotion at last settling. “Captain Darrow, you have my authority to gather whatever forces you can, wherever they may lie. I want a plan for retaking the streets – or at least containing those that remain ours – and I want it by midnight. Is that understood?”
She clasped a fist to her chest in salute and departed, glad to leave the stultifying chamber. Malachi wished he were free to do the same.
“What if this doesn’t work?” asked Lord Lamirov.
“What choice do we have?” Malachi replied. “We are beset without and within. We must seize whatever options present themselves.”
Lord Lamirov’s chair scraped and he rose to his feet, brow furrowed. “I’ll speak to my supporters in the Grand Council. Captain Darrow will have all we can provide.” He made to leave but paused halfway to the door. “Josiri was right. He warned us, and we didn’t listen. We…”
Shaking his head, he left the chamber.
Malachi shook his head at Lord Lamirov’s concession, and silently lamented the times that provoked it. He glanced at Zarn, whose handsome face seemed no less perturbed at the meeting’s close than at its beginning.
Seize whatever options present themselves.
“I think we might call the meeting adjourned,” he said. “Konor, I’d talk to you in private, if I may.”
Lord Marest and Lady Tarev departed. Malachi intercepted Messela as she reached the door, checking her with a hand to the shoulder. “Viktor would be proud. Thank you.”
She dipped her head. “Leonast said it best. Josiri warned us, and we did nothing. You say Viktor would be proud? I think he’d be appalled.”
Malachi let her go and eased the door to.
Zarn waited a pace away, his face crowded with suspicion. “Well, Malachi? What is it? I’d a delightful evening planned, and I’d as soon not lose more of it.”
The arrogance of the man. “I need to speak to the Parliament of Crows. Tonight.”
“I don’t follow.”
“The Crowmarket put you here to watch me. To report. I need to speak with them. Make it happen.”
“Lay off the brandy, Malachi, it’
s addled your wits.” He wagged a finger in amusement. “Or perhaps you need more. Tell you what, I know just the place. The girls—”
He doubled over, Malachi’s fist buried in his belly.
“No more games, Konor.”
Zarn steadied himself against the table. “How dare—”
Malachi hit him across the head, a year’s frustration and shame behind the blow. Knuckles split. Bones jarred. Sunshine on a winter’s day. Even through the pain. Even through the knowledge that the Parliament of Crows would never forgive. Some joys transcended fear. This one howled for more.
“You think I’d let them take my children?” he shouted. “My city?”
He swung again. Zarn blocked the forearm with his own. A gut-punch set black spots dancing behind Malachi’s eyes. He dived, bearing Zarn backwards onto the meeting table.
Over and over they rolled, a blur of wild blows and pained grunts that left Zarn the master, and Malachi pinned beneath. Malachi’s flailing foot clipped his glass, and it shattered across the floor. His hand closed about the decanter’s neck.
Zarn grunted as the decanter crashed against his temple. He slid backwards, rolled off the table and collapsed against the wall. Malachi pursued, groggy but triumphant, bloodstained decanter still in hand. Bleary eyes made no mistake. Zarn’s wits were clean away.
Breathing hard, Malachi snarled back self-disgust. With Zarn struck cold, he’d have to risk the mists, with no guarantee he’d come to the Church of Tithes unharmed, much less be granted audience.
He moved to set the cut-glass decanter aside. His eyes fell on Zarn’s body. What use was the man now? None at all. Fire and steel to mend the problem, as Messela had said. The decanter was neither, but one good blow would carry Zarn off. One death to repay those his cousins wrought in the mist-lost streets.
He raised the decanter.
“Malachi!”
He turned, startled both by the shout, and the realisation of what he’d intended. Rika Tarev stood in the doorway, hand again on her pendant necklace.
“Leave him be,” she said. “Nothing good can come of this.”
“He’s vranakin.” He wished the words didn’t make him so weary. “Nothing good can come of letting him live.”
“He’s a vain fool, that’s all. Someone the Parliament of Crows trusted to do nothing that was not in his own interest. Who’d do nothing to curtail their power.” She came closer, a tremor to voice and motion. “Sometimes all wickedness requires is a man who’ll do nothing.”
Malachi closed his eyes. “You don’t know that.”
A jerk of her hand snapped the necklace free. Rika Tarev unfurled like a blossoming flower, formal gown yielding to a black-feathered cloak; blonde plaits to auburn curls marred by a white badger’s-streak.
The decanter fell from Malachi’s nerveless hand and shattered on the floor. For all that he’d not seen the woman’s face before, he knew it. Sevaka Psanneque’s fugitive sister. The Parliament’s Emissary. Rika Tarev. One and the same. No wonder the vranakin had known all that had passed at council.
“The Parliament will give you nothing,” she said.
“I still have to try.”
She sighed. “Then follow.”
“We’re here.”
She ripped the blindfold away. Light rushed in, or at least its approximation. The mists shone pearlescent beneath a waning moon, lending soft glow to the ruined stones and creeping tree-limbs. Little by little, Malachi’s nausea faded. Memories of the journey did not. The screech of bird voices and the rush of wind. The croaking whispers of the Emissary’s cloak as she’d borne him across the city. He wanted to scream, and cast about for a reason not to.
“Where are we?”
“Essamere.”
“The chapterhouse?” He stared at a roof open to the stars – a street bereft of all save drifting spirits. Even prepared for the sight by the Emissary’s warning, it chilled his marrow. “I was here two days ago. This couldn’t happen so quickly.”
“Perhaps it didn’t. Perhaps it hasn’t. Perhaps it never will.” She shrugged. “Otherworld has risen. Time no longer flows like a river.”
Reckoning that to pursue the topic was to risk madness, Malachi sought another. “I assume Rika’s dead.”
“She drowned.”
“An accident?”
“No.”
What more could he say? How aggrieved could he be at the death of a woman he’d never known, when her imposter had held him back from murder? Who had before urged him to save Josiri’s life? “Your doing?”
The Emissary grunted. “I can’t. Lord Akadra saw to that. He set a shadow on my soul. It permits me to kill only when he commands.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“He had me murder my own mother,” she snarled. “What do I care for your beliefs?”
So that was how Ebigail Kiradin had died? Viktor had spoken evasively on the matter, and Malachi – like so many others – had cared only that she was dead, her dreams of rule laid in the tomb alongside.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“You apologise to me?” She turned away, voice thick with disgust. “Why?”
“Someone should, don’t you think? Viktor never will.” Malachi stared out across the rubble. A surreal conversation for a surreal setting. “May I know your name? It’s a small enough secret after all that’s passed between us.”
“Apara.”
They sat in silence, Malachi fretfully twirling his paper knife from hand to hand as he dwelled on the conversation to come. A life once filled with myriad options reduced to two. All that remained was to embrace one, and pay the price of rejecting the other.
“He’s here,” said Apara.
A man more shadow than shape strode out of the mist, the foot of his gnarled raven-headed cane keeping rhythm with his steps. Of his flesh, nothing showed beneath the gold-trimmed robes save the withered hand about the cane’s handle.
“Crowfather.” Apara knelt, head bowed and eyes averted.
The pontiff turned his gaze on Malachi. “You know who I am?”
“I…” Malachi swallowed to clear a parched mouth. “I know who you claim to be. One of three cousins who struck a pact with the Raven in antiquity. An eternal existence in trade for a soul owed to Lumestra.”
A thoughtful grunt. “That’s an old tale, buried by ever-changing history. Not one I’d expect a devout Lumestran to have heard. Priests don’t like it when their truths are challenged.” His tone turned bitter. “And this land breeds priests like flies.”
“I have a large library. After some legends proved themselves grounded in truth last year, I’ve opened my eyes to the possibilities.”
“A dangerous path, Lord Reveque. It led many of my kin to the pyre.”
“Ignorance burns no less hot.” He stepped closer. “Inidro Krastin is long dead. He belongs to legend.”
Withered lips cracked a smile. “Only in part.”
The pontiff drew back his hood. Pallid skin aside, the face beneath was unremarkable save for obvious age, a man blessed with a span denied to so many, and still vigorous.
Then Malachi met his black, pupil-less eyes. His thoughts dissolved beneath a rush of desperate sorrow. In that moment, he saw his own death, and those of Lily, Sidara, Constans. He saw the city ablaze, and himself forlorn among a field of ashen corpses. An outflung hand steadied him against stone, but while the sensation lessened, it did not abate. Breaking the gaze brought relief, but the echo of fear remained. That, and the certainty that he’d but paddled on the edge of a vast, dark pool – that he’d experienced but a fraction of the terror at the pontiff’s command.
Eyes held truth. Krastin or not, whatever humanity the pontiff had once possessed lay long in the past.
“I am not accustomed to being summoned, Lord Reveque. But never let it be said I am without generosity.”
“I asked to speak to the Parliament.”
“‘Demanded’, I heard. What you have to say, my sib
lings will hear… if it is worth the trouble. Believe me when I say you would not find my sister so accommodating as I. She has a priest’s sensibilities, and a shrill mood.”
Careful not to meet Krastin’s gaze, Malachi straightened. “What have you done to my city?”
“Yours? Tressia was always ours, even before Malatriant. It toiled for us, and we brought hope to those who had none. We unshackled them from priests, from a goddess who promised eternity only after lives of misery. We gave them family. But the Raven turned his back on us. Now his favour is ours once more, we unmake our error. Your kind have made poor stewards of our city, so we relieve you the burden of its western districts. You may keep the rest. For now.”
He turned away. Malachi examined the words – the gift that wasn’t a gift – and glimpsed hope. He’d been too long in the Crowmarket’s talons not to recognise that the concession sprung not from largesse, but unreadiness to act.
“That’s not good enough.”
Krastin froze. “Many men have spoken to me thus over the centuries. Do you know what they offered for my forgiveness? Their kin. Their blood. Their dearest wish. All for nothing.”
Something slithered beneath the words that went beyond mere threat. But Malachi had made his decision long before – even before he’d struck Konor Zarn. Two choices: stand or kneel. He’d knelt too long.
“I’m not here to beg, but to speak for my city, and my Republic.” The words gathered pace, the going easier with momentum. “You and your kind will return to Dregmeet. You will give back those you have stolen.”
“And if we do not?” Krastin chuckled. “You think you can drive us out, where even Malatriant could not? The Raven is my patron, boy. You would threaten me with death? It means nothing.”
“Then I will find a way to give it meaning, and it will be war.” Malachi drew down a steadying breath. “We will both lose. Or we can choose not to. Either way, I will do your bidding no longer.”
Krastin turned, his eyes itching at Malachi’s skin as they took his measure. In that moment, Malachi knew that the other could kill him, without effort and without regret.