Vespera

by Anselm Audley

  All of which had made it impossible for Raphael to confer with Leonata, or follow up any of the leads he dare not tell Plautius or his confederates about.

  ‘Have you ever considered you might just be a bad intelligencer?’ Plautius shot back.

  Raphael could play the spider as well as any man, but he was acutely aware how dependent he was on Silvanos’s network, a network he could use only as long as Plautius and his uncle allowed. They laid the plans, and did him the courtesy of involving him, but he was truly only a bystander, and he hated it.

  ‘It’s time for us to go,’ the other man in the room said. Matteozzo was wearing drab, dark, ordinary clothes, and thanks to the attentions of one of Silvanos’s private chymist-beauticians, looked nothing like he had when Raphael met him this morning. The other three members of his team had been similarly transformed. He seemed calm, even though there was a good likelihood Jharissa would kill him, painfully, if they caught him infiltrating their horrea.

  ‘Good luck,’ Raphael said, and Plautius echoed, adding,

  ‘Remember to steal something.’

  ‘Commission,’ Matteozzo said. He was a permanent agent of the Empire, not a hired bravo – while others might hire him when Silvanos didn’t need him, he was apparently utterly trustworthy. But Silvanos would turn a blind eye to him discreetly enriching himself, particularly when it served as a cover.

  Matteozzo ducked out of the door, and they heard his footsteps banging on the narrow wooden stairs. Raphael walked across to the nearest window, staring out at Jharissa Palace. It was an elegant building, long and low, occupying most of a small peninsula on the north shore, with a loggia overlooking the Deep and two stuccoed watch-towers. More horrea stretched behind it, meeting those of various other clans on either side, and most of the Ice Runners and northerns in Vespera lived within a mile or so, on the slopes above.

  Matteozzo and his men should be in position soon after midnight, having made their way across the Avern by a circuitous route, so all Raphael and Plautius could do was wait. Which, for almost three hours, they did

  Brilliant blue light flared in the night sky, followed by a crack as if something had detonated, then screams. Raphael leapt to his feet, in time for another flash to imprint itself on his eyeball, and to hear shouts, more screams. Across the water, at the edge of the Jharissa horrea.

  Exile magic, in the Portanis. He had seen many of its forms at Sarthes, and this was one he didn’t want to meet again.

  ‘Go!’ Plautius shouted. ‘We’ve a boat at the bottom.’

  Raphael nearly killed himself running down the stairs as wooden planks creaked and bent underneath him, then dashed out into the street after a moment’s indecision over whether to go right or left. Men and women were emerging from the hidden courtyards where they lived, blinking and looking around for the source of the noise. He ran past them, robes flapping around his legs, and turned into the next street, almost tripping over an enormous lion’s head fountain that belonged in a much bigger street. Another flare of blue light, closer this time. He dodged more befuddled people, heard a shriek of pain from somewhere ahead.

  ‘Down here!’ Plautius shouted, catching hold of Raphael’s robe and nearly pulling him down a set of steps. The boat wobbled alarmingly as Plautius flung himself in, and then again as Raphael jumped the narrow strip of water and almost overbalanced. With any luck, people in the streets above were more concerned with watching the display than noticing who showed unseemly haste.

  There were six rowers, already pulling out into the canal as Plautius and Raphael settled themselves in the stern. A plain, unmarked water-carriage like thousands of others in Vespera, built for carrying a few passengers at relative speed, not one that would stick in anyone’s memory.

  Raphael willed them to go faster as they entered open water, striking slightly north-east, to come in beyond Jharissa territory. Plautius was quite calmly mussing his hair and daubing a large smudge of tar on one cheek, but Raphael could only watch the magic and try to still the fear.

  ‘When we land, run on,’ Plautius said. ‘It shouldn’t be so far you start wheezing, and you’re quicker than me in a sprint.’

  ‘What’s the priority, mage or Matteozzo?’

  ‘You deal with the mage. Matteozzo will know to take care of himself. If he’s still alive.’

  ‘I didn’t think the Jharissans had any tame Exiles,’ Raphael said, but even from here he could tell this wasn’t tame magic, not the response of a mage employed to guard someone’s property.

  It seemed to take an age for the rowers to pull them across the channel, but finally the boat pulled alongside the quay, and Raphael gathered his robes and leapt out, to an approving shout from Plautius. He couldn’t tell which level the mage was on, but from the muffled shouts, he guessed the warehouse level. He ran to the left, ducked under an archway and across a canal, and then saw a wild, dishevelled figure emerge on to the quay some way ahead of him. Four or five people were desperately sprinting away from her, trying to avoid the blue distortion flickering around the mage as if the air itself was being stretched further than it could bear.

  Raphael had never seen Exile magic go wrong before, but he knew it was happening now. The waters of the canal were slowly draining towards her from both directions as the distortion grew more intense, and small objects began flying from the road and the splintered boats in towards her.

  Then she shrieked again, and even from twenty yards away Raphael felt all the horror and the despair in that sound, the sound of a mind broken beyond endurance. The sheer anguish of it kept coming, wave after wave battering his mind until he couldn’t stand it any more, and began running directly towards her, ignoring everything except the stones beneath his feet. One of the running men tripped and fell, and Raphael saw the distortion lurch sideways, a keening sound as the mage turned her attention towards the fallen man.

  The sound of her agony grew worse, so bad now enough that he had to stop and run through the calming exercises in his head, the words that, for him, could contain one of his rages if he concentrated hard enough, focusing on them and not the anger. It was a very long moment, standing in front of the deranged mage with the fabric of the Portanis twisting in and out of reality in front of him, but it worked.

  The fallen man scrambled to his feet. The mage hadn’t moved, but the vortex around her seemed ragged, less oppressive than it had been. Raphael’s muscles and instincts urged him to bolt, but he resisted.

  If an animal is enraged, don’t run away from it. It’s almost certainly faster than you are.

  Raphael stood very still, gestured to the other man to stand his ground, and stared into the mage’s wild, sea-blue eyes. This close, he realised her hair was matted, her clothes ragged and far too dirty. She gazed back at him, neither of them moving, but the energies around her slowly collapsed into themselves, contracting until they shrank into her body, and the waters of the canal rushed back to their natural level.

  She mouthed something, too faint for Raphael to hear, and so he walked forward a step, and stopped again, repeated the exercise when she made no move to run. The pain was still there, still seething in her mind – her face showed that clearly enough on its own. Her lips moved again, and she wrapped painfully thin arms around herself as if to ward off chill.

  ‘What is it?’ Raphael asked, hoping she’d understand.

  ‘Cold,’ she said, almost too quiet for him to hear, and gripped her arms still tighter. ‘Cold is coming. Terrible cold.’

  ‘It’s not cold,’ he said, in the same level tone, taking another step forward, but she shook her head violently.

  ‘They are. So much pain.’ Her muscles spasmed, and Raphael saw the air above her head ripple, but by then he was close enough to step in and deliver a knockout punch to her jaw.

  He stood over her for a long moment, waiting for her to get back up, but she was unconscious. The other man scrambled to his feet, eyes wide with fear, and backed away.

  What cold? What d
id she mean?

  But by then the first Ice Runners were arriving, and he had no more time to think.

  CHAPTER VI

  Black-clad figures ringed Raphael round as he stood by the fallen mage, grim-faced Ice Runners with murder in their eyes. Some carried swords; those further away, including some up at street-level, carried those same strange, bulky devices Raphael had seen before, the weight taken by straps over their shoulders. Iolani was with them, a pale, furious figure looking exactly the same as she had at Saphir.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ she demanded. ‘You will surrender that woman to me as representative of the Council of the Seas.’

  ‘Does the Council of the Seas usually rely on naked force to get its way?’ Raphael asked.

  ‘Don’t play games with me, Raphael,’ she said icily. ‘Give her up, or I’ll have you arrested as well.’

  ‘What was she doing here?’

  ‘That’s what I intend to find out,’ Iolani said. ‘She’s run amok outside my warehouses, assisted thieves, killed a guard and four others, and I will have an explanation.’

  Had the mage killed Matteozzo and his people? Or did Iolani have them in custody?

  ‘But how did she get there in the first place?’ a voice asked from above, in a distinctly Portanis accent. They both looked up to see a crowd of people on the street, and a big man with close-cropped hair leaning on the balustrade, his face angry. ‘Mages don’t just appear. They come and go like normal people when they’re not doing their magic, so how did she get here?’

  ‘That, also, I will determine.’

  ‘No you won’t. You already know, because you were trying to kill her.’ Two of the Ice Runners left Iolani’s side and disappeared into the shadows, but the man continued, oblivious. ‘How else did she end up looking like that?’

  ‘Come down here and say that,’ Iolani said. ‘Glaucio, Laredo, take the mage.’

  Raphael tensed, knowing he couldn’t fight so many.

  ‘We’re coming, Empire’s man!’ the big man shouted. ‘Hold them off!’

  Iolani drew one of her aides’ swords, the blade dull and deadly in the light, and levelled it at Raphael’s chest. ‘Move aside.’

  ‘There are too many witnesses, even for you,’ Raphael said. He only had to buy enough time until the men above could get down here – but then there’d be a fight, and they almost certainly weren’t armed.

  ‘I don’t have to kill you,’ Iolani said, and two men grabbed Raphael’s arms, hauling him away from the mage long enough for another pair of Ice Runners to pick up the limp figure by the arms, and more to close in. The men who’d grabbed Raphael let go and walked away, ostentatiously rubbing their hands on their coats.

  Beside Raphael, the men from above skidded to a halt in disappointment, and the big man began rolling up his sleeves. Whatever he did for a living, it had given him immense strength, or at least the appearance of it, Raphael saw as he rolled up his sleeves.

  ‘Very brave of you, Fergho,’ said Iolani disdainfully. ‘Unfortunately, a little stupid, given the odds.’

  ‘For the moment,’ Fergho said. ‘Just wait till my friends get here. You might be able to defend your pretty palace there, but what about all your peoples’ houses. Scattered all over the slopes they are, nice and spread out. Of course, the way I see it, that’s just perfect. We don’t need northerners here.’

  Raphael tried not to show his shock. The man sounded exactly like Tiziano, but Raphael would be willing to bet he’d never gone to see an opera in his life.

  ‘Touch a single one of my people and you’ll die, Fergho.’

  ‘Your people, are they? Tuonetar traitors! You come down here, and you make us pay through the nose for frozen water, and you set up temples to your foul night-gods, and you stop anyone else getting a look-in.’

  Raphael dared not look round, but from the sound of it more and more people were coming down to line up around him and Fergho. They thought he shared their hate, they’d called him Empire’s man.

  ‘Or just give us back the mage, and we’ll be nice. If you’re quick.’

  The man’s hatred touched the night like a taint. Iolani felt it too, and Raphael saw her hands tighten on the hilt of the sword she still held. Behind her, in the shadows of the Jharissa horrea, more men with those strange devices were emerging. There was no sign of the Empress or anyone else from the Council, though Raphael had expected to see them by now. Couldn’t other mages sense magic nearby?

  ‘Give me a moment,’ Raphael said to Fergho. ‘My superiors have given me some specific orders for dealing with this.’

  It was only a guess, but Raphael’s discomfort only increased when Fergho nodded, and waved his hands to motion the crowd back. Raphael stepped forward.

  ‘Iolani, a word, alone?’

  To his surprise, she assented immediately, though she didn’t let go of the sword, and Raphael walked over to meet her on the narrow pathway down the side of the canal which divided the Jharissa horrea from the others, still in sight of both Fergho and the Ice Runners, but out of earshot. He turned away, so no-one could read their lips.

  ‘Iolani, we have to stop this madness. I don’t care what else you’ve done, if those thugs get loose, innocent people will die.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘And for that you want the mage back?’

  ‘Of course I want the mage back,’ he said. ‘She’s not under your jurisdiction, and you know it. Are you deliberately trying to antagonise as many people as possible?’

  ‘I’m trying to protect my clan.’

  ‘Then you’re doing it in a very strange way,’ Raphael snapped. ‘You’re playing right into our hands, a five-year-old child could manage this better.’

  She pulled her arm back for a very formal, and very Vesperan, backhand slap across his face, but he turned slightly, caught her wrist and held it. With difficulty, as she was strong. From behind them came a loud mutter, cries of ‘Treachery’ from Fergho’s confederates.

  ‘Regardless of whether I deserve that, have some care for your people,’ Raphael said.

  ‘Don’t presume to tell me how to rule my clan,’ Iolani said, but she lowered her hand, and Raphael let go, hoping he’d managed to hide what was going on from Fergho and his bullies.

  ‘I will presume, because if you fall, no-one will protect the northerners in the City against Fergho and his ilk.’

  ‘Why do you care?’ she demanded, stepping back. ‘You’re just another Imperial lackey, why aren’t you with Tiziano celebrating his glorious new opera?’

  So she knew. Not surprising, really, she’d have to be a fool not to realise someone was deliberately trying to reignite old hatreds to target her clan.

  ‘Tiziano is a fool, and a creature of the Empress. This is more than a murder investigation, it’s more than a war over territory, and I will find the truth, before you and the Empress can drown Thetia in blood.’

  ‘The blood has already been spilt,’ Iolani said, in an almost sing-song voice. ‘Oceans and oceans of it, in the dark where no-one would know. And blood cries out for blood.’ She sounded almost unhinged, but then she hadn’t exactly been the model of sanity so far, for all her icy control.

  ‘That’s what this is about? A blood feud with the Empire?’

  ‘Such small words,’ Iolani said. ‘You don’t have the faintest comprehension what this is about. The truth would destroy you.’

  ‘And you’re destroying yourself.’

  ‘Wait and see,’ Iolani said. ‘I’ll give you the mage, but if you try to search my warehouses, I’ll have you shot. You and anyone else who tries to cross this canal. Send those thugs home. Maybe next time you’ll have better taste in your allies.’

  He gave a curt nod, and they walked back to join the others, separating as soon as they could.

  ‘Have her!’ Iolani said, as Glaucio and Laredo threw the comatose form of the mage to the ground, and she spun on her heel and walked back into the shadows of the Jharissa horrea, closing the gate af
ter her. The men stationed on the edge of Jharissa Palace remained.

  ‘We should go after her,’ Fergho said. ‘She’ll be destroying the evidence.’

  ‘No,’ Raphael said. Fergho was right, but Raphael had known that was the price he’d pay when he made his bargain. If she had any sense, Iolani’s people would have disposed of any traces of their involvement by now, so there’d be no way to tell if the mage had come from inside Jharissa Palace or not. ‘We’ve got the mage, which is what matters. The Empress Mother will be pleased, and she won’t want violence to spoil Valentine’s visit.’

  It took a few seconds, but Fergho saw the point.

  ‘Thank you,’ Raphael said, hating himself for it.

  ‘No problem,’ Fergho said. ‘Call when you need us. Any friend of the Empire is a friend of ours.’

  He and his men watched while Raphael helped Plautius lay the mage down gently in the bottom of their boat. The rowers pulled at their oars, and the men on land left in a body, heading eastwards along the Avern, as Raphael sat back against the boards of the boat, his hands shaking ever so slightly.

  Plautius had produced a cloth to serve as a pillow, and was already examining the comatose mage, muttering as he made notes on his sheaf. ‘Evidence of starvation . . . rope burns . . . possibly moved around . . . behaviour suggests induced insanity.’

  ‘Induced insanity?’ Raphael asked, glad of the widening strip of water between him and the Avern shore, the pollution that lay over the City.

  ‘She’d lost control of her powers,’ Plautius said. ‘The only way to do that would be to drive her insane.’ He paused. ‘She was Catiline’s mage-bodyguard. She should have been in her magecraft escorting his ship.’

  Over to the west, he saw a white barge approaching, packed with vigiles by the look of it. Raphael hadn’t even gone to investigate the other dead, another failure to add to the list.

  ‘Are all the Empire’s friends in the City as charming as that?’ Raphael asked, after a silence.