Nether Light

by Shaun Paul Stevens

  The Incubator still ran, frosted over, bubbling sounds coming from inside. Frustratingly, there was nothing to do but wait. Hopefully, Nyra would come up with a plausible explanation as to its use before Tishara and Moran began duties for the day. Guyen wouldn’t be around. Despite his new malaise, he had an appointment to keep with Captain Palin.

  An hour later, he arrived at Garrison. Rossi waited in the corridor outside Palin’s office with two of his squad—a woman named Dark Carla, short-cropped, black hair, and Tarobert, a tanned youth, hair wavy brown. He was the kind girls swooned over. Mind you, Dark Carla turned eyes too in her tight-fitting red jacket and thigh-hugging britches.

  “Shit,” she said, after Rossi had made sullen introductions. “Does he always look that rough?”

  Rossi smirked. “On a good day.”

  Guyen snorted an unimpressed laugh. To be fair, he probably looked as bad as he felt, which was pretty bad, the weakness, fever and nausea augmented with irritability and frazzled stress.

  Palin’s secretary, a greying man in dark, soulless linens, emerged from the office. “He’ll see you now,” he barked. They filed inside.

  The office still smelled of the gods-awful polish.

  “Good morning,” Palin said. “Glad you could join us, Yorkov.” Rossi swapped a look of annoyance with Tarobert. Palin opened a folder. “How’s your understanding of the Karkh dialect, Yorkov? It is a Krellen tongue, I believe?”

  Guyen blinked, clearing floaters from his vision. “Yes, sir. Passable, sir.”

  Palin beamed. “Good, we have a situation you might help with. There’s a hamlet called Hystein, two hours ride south of here. A Krellen rebel holed up there wants to talk. Doesn’t speak a word of Common. You four are to pay him a visit. Find out what he knows.” He pushed a piece of paper across his desk. “Here are the directions.”

  Rossi took the sheet. “Sir, do we not have professional translators available?”

  “No,” Palin said. “None that can understand the Karkh dialect. And I’m not minded to pass this on to Culture.”

  “What if Yorkov can’t understand him, sir?”

  “Yarkh knekhon kouesta,” Guyen said flatly. It was a Krellen insult. Something like you have womanly hips.

  Palin nodded approvingly. “Once again, Rossi, you seem to be under the misapprehension I require your input on my orders. I don’t. Just make sure Yorkov meets this Krellen, and don’t let anything happen to the horses, or yourselves. Are we clear?”

  Rossi saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  Dark Carla and Tarobert followed suit. Guyen offered an awkward smile. Palin dismissed them with a wave.

  It was a brisk but dry day out in the parade ground. A stable hand appeared with a horse for Guyen—a medium-sized grey mare, cantankerous if her aggravated snorting was anything to go by. He eyed the animal warily. His horsemanship was limited to exercising the mounts at the hexium, and he hardly felt up to taming the beast today. His leather gloves were some protection for the cuts on his palms, but he had no energy. None at all. He put a foot in the stirrup. The horse moved and he fell off.

  Rossi laughed. “I thought your lot were horsemen, Yorkov? The Charge of the Furies, and all that?”

  Guyen planted a foot in the stirrup again. The horse snorted, trotting out of reach.

  “You can’t ride, can you?” Dark Carla said.

  A sneeze escaped. “I’m not feeling my best.”

  Rossi laughed. “Of course he can’t ride. He’s a peasant.”

  Toulesh snarled at him. “I’ll get on the damn thing, just watch me,” Guyen said. He caught hold of the disobedient animal’s reins, suppressing the pain in his hand. Another wave of nausea hit, and rather than mounting the beast, he held on to it for balance.

  Dark Carla huffed. “He’ll only slow us down. I’ll see the quartermaster about a wagon.” She prised the reins away and led the mare back to the stables. Guyen sat on the low wall beside Rossi. The cadet cleaned his pistol. Tarobert prowled up and down in front of them, practising lunges with his sword.

  “You’re a joke, Yorkov,” Rossi said. He added some gun oil to his rag. “Mind you, I’m feeling a bit sore for the saddle myself today. What with last night’s activities. Had a beauty on my arm. You might know her, a certain High Justice’s daughter?”

  Guyen screwed up his eyes. Why did the sun have to be so bright this morning? “I suppose you mean Ariana?” he grunted.

  Rossi smirked, self-satisfaction plastered across his nauseating face.

  Tarobert pirouetted, cutting a deadly slice through thin air. “She’s too pretty for you, Rossi,” he called over.

  “Actually, she’s already agreed to accompany me to the Reverie,” Rossi countered.

  Reverie? What was that? Some kind of function? Guyen gritted his teeth, wishing brimstone down upon the puffed-up cadet. Surely Ariana had better taste?

  A few minutes later, Dark Carla drove up with a wagon pulled by a single black mare. Guyen climbed up next to her. Rossi and Tarobert mounted their chargers, and they headed off. As tenth bell rang out, they passed through Southgate at pace, scattering the milling refugees inundating it.

  “Are you all right?” Dark Carla asked after they’d cleared the city limits. “You look like you’re about to puke.”

  “Heavy night,” Guyen said, which was closer to the truth than he’d meant. It had to be exposure to the stem which had made him ill like this, but channelling Faze into that canister had done something too—fried him almost.

  Dark Carla whipped the horse. They were falling behind. “What happened to your hands?” she asked.

  Guyen touched them self-consciously. He’d removed his gloves for some cold air. “Accident in the studio,” he said, and left it at that. He couldn’t explain how the hallucination had injured him physically. Unless the Layer was real? But he’d lain unconscious on the studio floor for a couple of minutes at most, and would have been drenched in blood if he’d actually been there. It made no sense.

  They headed due south, turning onto a new road little more than a track. Low-hanging branches swiped the side of the wagon as the horse plodded steadily on.

  “Mind if I smoke?” Dark Carla asked. Guyen offered a shrug. She nodded at the reins. “Can you manage these?”

  “Of course,” Guyen said.

  “Good. Just keep a steady pressure.” She passed them across.

  He took them gingerly, cursing his tender palms as the horse pulled. Wrapping them around his wrist worked better. Dark Carla produced a ladylike clay pipe, her tabac pouch and a tinder tube. She packed the bowl. “Is it true what they say about you?” she asked.

  “It depends what they say.”

  “That you’re special? A Purebound?”

  Guyen grunted. “I’d heard that.”

  She caught a spark in the cotton with her flint and touched it to the tabac, puffing it into life. A cloud enveloped her. She looked across. “What can Purebounds do then?”

  What a question. “I’m good with Faze,” Guyen managed.

  “Like how?”

  “I can see it, sometimes.”

  “See it? What’s it look like then?”

  “Colours, outlines of things. It’s difficult to explain.”

  She snorted. “What use is that?”

  Now, that definitely was a good question. “I think it’s sent to drive me mad,” he said. She stared back, nonplussed. “Seeing it helps with Bindcraft,” he added.

  “Ah.” She inhaled more of the liquorice tabac. “What does Faze do then, apart from kill people? I’ve never really understood it.”

  “The best way someone explained it to me,” Guyen said, “is it’s the lifeblood of the universe. The energy which makes the world.”

  “Oh, one of those ancient times things,” she said dismissively.

  The Book of Talents came to mind. “Actually, they say we had no need for Faze in ancient times as the world was full of magic.”

  Dark Carla laughed, darkly. “No one
believes in magic.”

  “Depends what you call magic,” Guyen said.

  “Anything weirder than a sunrise,” she returned.

  Toulesh strolled beside the wagon, inspecting bushes and tracks, unnervingly disappearing for periods of time. He was a kind of magic, wasn’t he? What would Carla say if she knew about him? Or perhaps a few flips of the fake silver would broaden her mind?

  But some people are happier living in ignorance.

  They made good progress once Dark Carla took back the reins. Chat kept to a minimum, they discussed only their respective Devotions timetables, and the upcoming Reverie—the Devotions annual ball—a night of dancing, matchmaking and fornication, according to Carla. It was an irrelevance—Carmain would be long forgotten by the time that came around. Once Yemelyan was well enough to travel, they would disappear. Maybe the Network could help in that regard.

  At around midday, they rode into the hamlet. The locals trained their eyes firmly on the ground, redcoats neither liked nor trusted in these parts. They found the safe house, a small cottage set behind a dilapidated, sunken chapel, and tied up the horses. Rossi pushed Guyen ahead and rapped briskly on the door. It opened a crack, and a rough-looking man in his early twenties stared out.

  “Hallo,” Guyen offered in Krellen.

  “Yes?” the man said.

  Guyen glanced past him, removing his hat. The room appeared empty. The smell of cooking wafted out. “We’re from the Devotions,” Guyen said. “We’ve been sent to debrief you.”

  The man hesitated. “You’d best come in then.”

  The single-roomed cottage was damp and musty, mushroom fungi growing on the walls, fragments of broken quarry tile strewn on the floor. A cauldron of fishy-smelling soup simmered on a stove at the centre of the room, smoke venting through a hole in the roof. A mangy dog chewed a bone in the corner.

  “You want some?” the man asked, stirring the pot. Palin had been right—his thick Krellen came in a dialect from western Krell, probably from around the foothills of Nar Estion.

  The others looked over questioningly. “He wants to know if you would like some soup,” Guyen translated.

  “Of course we don’t want his fucking soup,” Rossi snapped. “Just get him to talk, then we can get the hell out of here.”

  Guyen turned back to the rebel and translated into Krellen, on a politer tack. Then he probed. “So, you have information for us?”

  The man shifted uncomfortably, his eyes darting to the cadets. “They know I’m doing them a favour, right?”

  “Yes, don’t worry. Tell us what you know and we’ll leave you to your cooking.”

  “Who’s their commanding officer?” the rebel asked.

  “What?”

  “You heard.”

  How was this relevant? “Palin,” Guyen said. “Why? Do you know him?”

  The man grunted. “No.” He stirred the soup, still glancing suspiciously at Rossi.

  “Well?” Guyen prompted.

  “A group of rebels are conspiring with your—” He hesitated, eyes flicking to the cadets. “With their government.”

  Guyen scanned the man’s face. Had he mistranslated? “Krellen rebels? In league with the Devotions?”

  “As a heart beats in my chest,” the fellow said, expression earnest. “That’s not the interesting part though. It’s only certain elements within the Devotions they conspire with.”

  “A coup you mean?”

  “Ay. But there’s another angle too. The Sendali plotters are from the Echelista sect. Have you heard of it?”

  “Yes, unfortunately.” The soup smelled rancid. Another wave of nausea hit. Feeling he might pass out, Guyen placed a steadying hand on a chair back. He wiped cold sweat from his forehead.

  The rebel eyed him warily. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Guyen lied. He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. His heart raced, and Toulesh was nowhere, felt nowhere. Why did he have to be in this shithole today? He needed more information. Palin needed feeding. “Do you have names for these rebels?” he asked.

  The man shook his head. “Cells work independently. Only their handler knows who they are, and he’s missing. But we intercepted a communication from one of the Devotions confirming false papers and travel documents were issued.”

  “Under what names?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Which Devotion?”

  He didn’t answer, preferring to stir the cauldron ever more deliberately with his ladle.

  Guyen gritted his teeth. “Look, I’ve come a long way to hear this and I’m not feeling my best. If you have something, spit it out.”

  The rebel pursed his lips. “The communication originated from the office of a Commander Cotes, War Devotion.”

  Berese’s deputy? He’d been at the Council meeting that day. Guyen sent a measuring look. “That’s a serious allegation,” he said.

  “It’s not an allegation,” the man protested, “it’s intelligence.”

  Well, there was no point arguing the semantics of that. “What do these conspirators want?” Guyen asked.

  “To destabilise Sendal by disrupting the Binding.”

  “You have evidence of this?”

  “An informant, he’s dead now, unfortunately.”

  “I see,” Guyen muttered. “How convenient.” The man shrugged. “And how are they planning to disrupt things, exactly?” Guyen pressed.

  “We don’t know.”

  This all sounded very sketchy—more gossip than intelligence. Was the man reliable? He seemed sincere. “Why are you telling us this?” Guyen asked. “Surely you’d like to see Sendal in a mess?”

  The man laid his spoon down on the table, glancing at the cadets. “We just want our land back,” he said. “If the zealots take charge, they’ll slaughter us back home.”

  A good point. Sendali foreign policy froze hell at the best of times. Add religion to the mix, especially one as cultic as Echelism, and it would get no warmer.

  “We thought this information might be of use, politically,” the man added.

  “It’s not much to go on, is it?” Guyen complained. Rossi looked over, impatient and suspicious. Guyen nodded at him. “I’m not sure that fellow there wouldn’t want to beat more out of you.”

  The rebel paled. “I have something else. An address. A dead drop.”

  “Really, where?”

  He frowned. “Aren’t you going to write it down?”

  Guyen offered a wan smile. “I have an excellent memory.”

  Grumbling, the man recited an address—somewhere in the warehouse district in east Carmain. Well, it was something firm, at least. Guyen flexed his hand, grimacing with the pain. He’d best put those gloves back on. He buttoned his jacket, signalling the interrogation finished. “Thank you,” he said. “And, by the way, I’m sorry about him.” He waved at Rossi, who’d just helped himself to a jug of milk.

  The rebel managed a tired scowl. “How comes you’re with them? You a traitor, are you?”

  Guyen sniffed. “Actually, no, I’m half-Sendali. As soon as I can, I’m out of here though.”

  Rossi banged the jug down. “What do we have then?”

  Guyen turned to him. “Krellen rebels in league with our masters and betters, apparently.”

  Rossi’s eyes widened. “Like who?”

  “Cotes.”

  The cadets swapped worried looks. “That’s a serious allegation,” Rossi said.

  Guyen sighed. “Yes, I told him that already.” He relayed the rest of the information, keeping the address in the warehouse district to himself—that might be something to pass on to Dalrik.

  Rossi looked the Krellen up and down. The man seemed keen for them to be leaving. “Thank him for his cooperation,” Rossi said. “Tell him we won’t be killing him today. We’ll leave that to the fleas.” He flicked something from his arm.

  Guyen relayed the information, somewhat more kindly, and they went back outside.

  “Ech
elista, eh?” Tarobert said. “Well, they’re crazy enough to try anything.”

  “They’re not all crazy,” Rossi said.

  Tarobert snorted. “How many Echelista do you know?”

  “More than you’d think.”

  “Like who?”

  Rossi scratched his cheek. “People, powerful people.” The others rolled their eyes. “The High Justice, for one,” he blurted.

  Guyen blinked. “Ariana’s family? You’re joking?”

  “It’s no big deal.” The cadet untied his mount. “Cotes, a traitor? Who would have thought it? If it stands up, there may be several new vacancies at Garrison soon.”

  “Always out for a promotion, eh, Rossi?” Guyen shivered, despite the heat in his cheeks. He felt even worse now, like he might actually throw up.

  “There’s a long chain of command at War,” Rossi said. “If one moves up, we all move up.” He lowered his voice. “I think it’s best this information stays between the four of us. If there is a traitor, the fewer people we alert, the better. Palin will know what to do.”

  “What if he’s in on it?” Dark Carla said.

  Rossi laughed. “Palin? He’s as straight-laced as they come.”

  Tarobert nodded in agreement. To be fair, it was an accurate observation.

  Rossi picked up his crop. “Let’s get back,” he said. “This place makes my skin crawl.”

  31

  Death Warmed Up

  Ariana exploded in a million streaks of light, shooting up into the sky. Gravity reversed, and Guyen accelerated away from the ground to join her. Past birds, then clouds, then slowing, weightless, floating in the dark blue of space. She reformed in front of him, reaching out a shimmering hand. He took it, and her expression locked, marble seams racing through her peach skin, turning her to stone. Her grip a vice, the cold invaded, arteries solidifying as Guyen’s flesh calcified too. Weight took over, and they fell to earth, howling wind demons racing past, skies brightening, vaporous white clouds a blur, then patchwork fields expanding, magnifying. They would shatter into a thousand pieces. They would be one forever.