Vespera

by Anselm Audley

  Odeinath continued staring at the white mountains for a long time until he finally went below, to make sure they had what they needed.

  Cassini and the aether engineer, a man who was undoubtedly gifted but also undoubtedly insane, in a generally harmless way, were stowing the remainder of the aether survey equipment, checking that it would once again function to map the seafloor. It had never been designed for mapping the land, and had taken two days for the crew to work out something that would allow them to record what they’d seen, the buildings and the plain of bones.

  That was important. Drawings, paintings could be imagined. Aether recordings, as yet, could not. And while he’d set the crew’s most gifted artists to work to capture the desolation of the place, it was the aether recordings alone which would prove that this happened.

  If they ever worked out who could be trusted to see them. All Daena had been able to give him was that the skeletons had lain there for between five and a hundred years, and even those were guesses, because she had no idea how the north treated bodies. What was beyond doubt was that they were far, far more recent than the end of the Great War. And all of them knew in their hearts, after what had happened in Eridan, when the bodies dated from, and that there were almost certainly more in those dead mountains, tens upon tens of thousands more.

  But whose, exactly, were they? How had they come to be there?

  He pulled off the mourning robes and folded them again, putting them back into their recess deep within the cupboard, and the book onto its shelf.

  ‘Does it work?’ he asked. ‘You’ve put it back right?

  Cassini lifted his head above the table and nodded. ‘We got seafloor, and it seemed to look as it did on the way in.’

  ‘And the recordings?’

  ‘Safe.’ They wouldn’t win any prizes or be absorbed into larger surveys, but they would serve. ‘In the survey case.’

  ‘Where now?’ the engineer asked, his voice muffled by the bowels of the imaging apparatus. Those weren’t actually his words, but Odeinath had learned long ago to filter out the bits that made no sense, and translate what mattered.

  ‘I was going to ask the crew that.’

  ‘Why?’ Cassini said.

  ‘We should head south again,’ said Odeinath. ‘Not waste any more time chasing ruins. If we hit an iceberg, or run aground, all of this will be lost.’

  ‘What if there’s more?’

  There was no answer to that, and it was the same question the crew asked when he called them together later on, to ask whether they should go south or continue eastwards along the coast.

  In the end, they didn’t go on. They were running out of summer, and something deep inside Odeinath, inside all of them, was telling them they needed to take this south while they still could.

  He didn’t want to be here any more, not amidst more ruins and more death, in the memory of splendour. He had seen Eridan, and now it was time to go home to the south, home with a terrible secret.

  But how could they? Home to tell the world, and to be eliminated by those responsible before they could say anything? They didn’t know who was responsible. But somewhere in the warm southern seas, a world away from all this devastation, there was the power responsible for this.

  It was a dark, silent voyage for the first few days, and even though spirits began to lift after that, the memory of what they’d seen hung between all of them, images that could stifle joy or laughter in a second. At night, Odeinath dreamed about it, sequences of incoherent images and grinning skulls, of being chased by something that wasn’t there.

  The white mountains and the coast dwindled to a line on the horizon, and disappeared, as Navigator set her course steadily south. And then, ten days out from Death’s kingdom, Cassini came to Odeinath to tell him that the seeds and grains from the silos, all of them, were Thetian.

  After that, Navigator was sailing south to war.

  PART IV

  A DROUGHT IN THE SOUL

  CHAPTER XVI

  The wave engulfed Raphael, and for a second of sheer, absolute terror he thought it had crushed him. He was swept up in a maelstrom of fury and rolling water, and even as he clawed frantically for the surface, trying to get to the top where he could see, something struck him heavily on the side, something else on the leg. He could taste salt in his mouth, or was it blood?

  He was still being carried along, a terrible roaring and pressure in his ears, hurtling upwards with the force of the wave, but he couldn’t see, and when he reached a hand out in a desperate attempt to catch hold of something, he struck it against the stone.

  Which way was up? A current caught him, pulled him around – was he upside down now? The pressure seemed greater, but how could he tell?

  There! His injured hand hit something, hard, and again, shafts of pain lancing up his arm, and he scrabbled for it, but now the current seemed to be reversing.

  And then, unbelievably, his head broke the surface for a second, only for a crest to slap him in the face and fill his mouth with water as he instinctively gasped for air. His head was spinning, his eyes too full of salt to see anything, and then the water pulled him down, and he struck bottom.

  Raphael broke surface again almost immediately, and realised he was being carried downhill, the wave receding faster and faster, and he was sliding back through the streets, down towards the water. Someone was shouting, and there were screams above the roaring. Or had that been before?

  He saw, through a haze, houses passing by on either side, figures clinging to them, some moving, some not. A black-clad man clambering onto a roof, pulling himself out of the water. Blue flashes from somewhere, and a cry of pain.

  Further down still, and the water was becoming shallower. Another jolt, on his leg, and his foot caught in something, swinging him round. There was stone underneath his hands, only a foot or so down, and he reached desperately for a crack in the paving to hold himself, as the water receded, and stretching his leg as it remained stubbornly stuck. More waves burst over his head, but the water was receding fast, and a moment later it gave up, flowing off downhill and back towards the sea.

  The stones seemed to be at an odd angle, even now he was out of the water and sure which way was which, they didn’t seem quite straight.

  More shouts, in no language he recognised. Not even Tuonetar, what was going on? Who were these people? Raphael opened his eyes, blinked furiously, then had to hold them open with his fingers until they’d stopped stinging, and he could see again.

  No time to think now. He managed to turn round, saw his foot was wedged in a water pipe. He’d simply been pulling the wrong way, in sheer panic, but now he tugged, once, twice, and it came out, with another jolt of pain up his leg. Gods, what if he’d broken something?

  He pushed drenched hair out of his eyes and dragged himself up onto his knees, feeling one wrist gingerly with the other hand. It didn’t seem to be broken, but it hurt every time he moved his fingers.

  There were those shouts again, from behind. Uphill. More blue flashes, the buzz of arrows, the clash of swords? What was going on? Who was fighting?

  He got slowly to his feet, seeing others recovering around him, Ice Runners in black for the most part, some bodies unmoving. One was kneeling over someone else, in brown, thumping their back.

  ‘We’re under attack!’ A shout from further up.

  And then Raphael saw the tribesmen.

  Valentine had sent them off before the wave even broke, charging downhill through the forest from the captured watchtower, their approach masked by the raging waters. It was easy ground, because the Jharissa had cleared the undergrowth in the forest behind them to allow for market gardens and small taro plantations.

  The wave was below the village now, draining back towards the sea ever faster, leaving behind it a settlement which looked as if it had been drawn on paper and then crumpled. Most of the buildings still stood, though some were bent against each other at crazy angles, and the walls on the eastern side had fal
len messily, crushing two or three houses. Oddly, most of the waterglobes had survived, anchored to withstand winds, and they and the moons gave more than enough light for Valentine to watch the scene below.

  He had a perfect view from here, but he wanted to be down in the forest with his men. Zhubodai, commander of his tribesmen, had flatly refused to let him, even when Valentine gave him a direct order, and now Zhubodai and three other tribesmen stood with him in the upper room of the watch-tower. There were another dozen below, guarding the captured weapons, and keeping an eye out for any counter-attack.

  The irony couldn’t have been more perfect. Iolani’s spy had warned Jharissa of the attack on Corala, and so Jharissa had withdrawn all but a skeleton force from Saphir Island to defend their main base.

  Which had allowed Valentine, his tribesmen, and a detachment of legionaries to land unopposed on the coasts north-east and north-west of the settlement and advance through the forests undetected. The Jharissa sentries on the watch-tower had died before they could utter a sound. Unfortunately their weapons proved to be too complex for Valentine’s men to use, but the tribesmen were perfectly happy with blade, strength, and skill.

  A victory at Corala would have been simply a victory. But he had seen, through his telescope, just who was in the square at Saphir Island before the wave struck. If his forces captured them all, he’d have won the war, and all thanks to Iolani’s too-clever spy in Imperial service. A very senior spy, to have given warning of this attack.

  The dead of tonight’s battles would not have died in vain.

  His men were out of the trees now, into the upper reaches of the settlement as the Ice Runners, drenched and broken by the wave, attempted to regroup – the action of desperate men. He saw aether flashes from those deadly weapons, which seemed to have robbed the wave of a great deal of its force – how was that possible? How could aether defeat magic? – and a few of the tribesmen fell.

  But even those Ice Runners still fighting died as the legionaries in the second group began picking them off with arrows. New weapons were still no match for a Thetian archer, and Valentine’s father hadn’t made the Old Empire’s mistake of leaving archery to the clan marines.

  Then the tribesmen were into the village, blue-clad figures swarming into the settlement with deadly efficiency, despatching those who attempted resistance and rounding up those still too dazed to fight back.

  ‘Wait,’ Zhubodai said, reprovingly. All of the tribesmen were an odd mix of Thetian legionary and savage warrior, in Imperial blue but festooned with baldrics, knives and various other unsavoury weapons, their hair braided with beads for each man they’d killed. Tonight they all carried raid-ropes hanging from their belts, pre-tied thongs arranged to immobilise prisoners quickly when they raided other tribes.

  On their home island, those captured in war became slaves of the victorious tribe, the measure of wealth for a people who lived for raiding and war. Would it be wise, Valentine wondered, to give them some of the Clan Jharissa captives? There would be no danger of their escaping, but the women would undoubtedly bear children for their captors, and might succeed in poisoning the reservoir of future tribal recruits.

  ‘You nag like an old woman,’ Valentine said. ‘And you’re ugly enough, too.’

  ‘That’s because I’ve lived to be old,’ Zhubodai said, equably.

  ‘By avoiding fights?’

  ‘By being with you so I have an excuse,’ Zhubodai said, and the other tribesmen laughed. No-one would question Zhubodai’s courage.

  Valentine would ask Zhubodai, quietly, about enslaving the prisoners; the man had sworn eternal loyalty to the Empire, though he had once been a chief, and would answer truly on whether his people could deal with such a gift.

  ‘Now,’ Zhubodai said, eventually, as blue uniforms covered the entire village. ‘Now, Lord Emperor, to your victory.’

  Raphael turned abruptly, pain tearing up his leg, but even so, he wasn’t fast enough. In a second, he was grabbed from behind with a grip of iron, and felt a wickedly sharp steel blade at his throat. A thin trickle of warm blood dripped from it, running down the skin of his neck and into his tunic.

  ‘Yield’ the man said harshly, ‘or die.’

  ‘Yield,’ Raphael said instantly, breath catching in his throat. Another stab of terror – if the tribesman thought he was lying, he’d be dead before he knew.

  But Raphael wasn’t lying, and the tribesman must have sensed his fear. He kicked Raphael hard in the back, pitching him forward onto the stones hard enough to gash his head, and Raphael managed to bite back a cry of pain. Not that it would lessen the tribesman’s contempt.

  No use trying to persuade him they were on the same side, either; Raphael would wait until someone more senior arrived, and endure until then. One soaked man in black would look exactly like another, as far as these men were concerned. So Raphael forced himself to lie still the beating of his heart loud against his chest, as the tribesman knelt with a knee in his back, wrenched his hands behind him and bound his wrists, agonisingly tight. A moment later his ankles received the same treatment, and then Raphael couldn’t suppress a cry as his injured legs were suddenly forced up behind him and fastened to the rope around his wrists.

  The tribesman was gone, and Raphael was left lying in the street, blood dripping down onto the stones from the cut on his brow, and a constant, jarring agony from his leg. He could barely see through the haze of pain, but he heard other cries, once a horrible wet cough as someone didn’t answer quickly enough, a child’s scream, quickly silenced. Occasionally the tribesmen exchanged a shout, and once he thought he heard another of those Jharissa aether weapons being used.

  Somehow, the pain was never enough to make him pass out, even when the cramps began, from muscles forced into that position. There were others around him, similarly immobilised, and some of them were sobbing in agony.

  And Raphael, at least, would be freed once Valentine recognised him. What awaited the rest of Saphir’s inhabitants, or Leonata, or Anthemia, he could only guess.

  If they were still alive. There seemed to be more people alive than dead, or maybe it just sounded that way, but . . .

  His thoughts dissolved into pain again, even as he tried desperately to concentrate on something. He could hardly feel his hands.

  And then, a second later, another tribesman was bending over him, and that terrible pressure was abruptly released. For a second the agony flared like a dagger in his skull and all along his spine, but then it faded again, only to be renewed as the ankle restraints were removed and someone pushed him roughly forward. He closed his right eye; the blood was dripping into it now, but he could see the tribesmen collecting their other captives, three or four at a time, and herding them away.

  For a moment he thought they were taking him to the beach, but then another tribesman appeared and wrenched Raphael’s chin round, to look him in the face, and issued a different set of orders.

  It couldn’t have been far to the square, but the street was sloping and pain shot up Raphael’s leg with every step, enough so that it was a relief when he finally emerged into the square and was forced to his knees.

  He looked up immediately. There were three dozen or so Ice Runner captives, and all but one of the clan representatives who’d been with Iolani – which one? Ah. Petroz’s man was missing.

  Leonata and Iolani were under heavy guard by the fragments of the command table. Leonata was white, but free, rubbing her wrists; Iolani was tied to a column, her hair and face dishevelled, looking barely human. They’d gagged her as well, Raphael realised a moment later.

  He followed Leonata’s eyes, saw Anthemia unconscious on the other side of the square, a tribesman standing over her looking like murder. He had the beginnings of an enormous black eye, and he held two knives, not one. Had she killed one of them? Please, not. Injured, yes, but she didn’t deserve a death on her conscience, not even these violent barbarians Valentine so adored.

  What did it matter? It was ov
er, everything was over. Valentine had captured two High Thalassarchs, and enough clan representatives to implicate half of Vespera in Iolani’s conspiracy, once webs of alliances were taken into account. It should be enough to shatter the Council’s credibility, give Valentine the pretext he needed to move against the City.

  Whatever dreams the Vesperans might have had, whatever hopes Leonata had cherished of a Vesperan Republic, they were gone.

  Prince of a shard of broken Thetia.

  Such a brutal ending.

  Leonata saw Raphael being dragged in, as much of a prisoner as the rest of them, and quickly looked away, back to where her daughter lay unconscious, a massive bruise forming on her forehead. It was scant consolation that it had taken four tribesmen to subdue her, one of them now unconscious and another stabbed with his own knife. She was still a captive, as was Leonata, and Iolani. Everything Valentine needed, and now she was only waiting for the final blow to fall.

  Thetis, she’d been so over-confident, sure that Saphir would be safe, that Iolani’s headquarters was too well guarded to be attacked. Corala had only been saved by the warning from Iolani’s spy – whoever he or she was – and Saphir should have been safe.

  Safe, from anyone except Valentine. Such men came along once in a generation, if that – and this one was their enemy.

  She pushed a strand of dripping hair out of her eyes, and rubbed her wrists again, as if she could erase the memory of the ropes they’d put on her. As if, somehow, this could all be a nightmare, a creation of some Dream Twister escaped from the world of her childhood.

  Even being the victim of a Dream Twister would be better than this reality. This was Saphir Island she stood in, now controlled by the Empire’s forces, awaiting Valentine’s triumphal entrance and the ruin of everything Leonata had worked two decades to build.