No Present Like Time

by Steph Swainston

  Lightning hugged arms around his waist and squeezed his eyes shut in agony. I crouched and laid a hand on his shoulder, trying to bring him around because he was drifting and talking to himself. “They killed her. Her schemes were useless…I don’t know what they’ll do next.”

  He could not fight in this condition, and the rotunda gave sparse cover. Lightning knew this and made a tremendous effort. He nocked his last arrow and eased his short sword loose in its scabbard though it took all his mettle to lift it.

  “Wait and gather your strength,” I said.

  He nodded. “Yes. I’ll try to make my way back to Rayne…I’ll meet you at the Petrel.” He sighed, chin on his chest. He was thinking about Mist; the reality hitting him was as incapacitating as the wound. “You and Serein must persevere. Kill Gio, for Ata…for me. You are Eszai and that is your purpose.”

  He looked so ill that I didn’t want him to tangle with any more rebels. “Don’t stay here, those bastards will come up. Go all the way to the end of Fifth Street before you turn down to the harbor. The roads are quieter at the edge of town. Saker, I really think-”

  He spoke through gritted teeth. “‘Saker, I really think’ nothing. Into the air and stop this fight!”

  He watched me pick up two jewel-encrusted pieces of plaster, one in each hand. I ran to take off.

  I dived at Gio and dumped both bricks on him. They hit him, one on his towhead, one on his forearm, and he reeled. Wrenn jumped forward and thrust.

  Gio’s neat last-minute parry saved him-the rapiers clanged hilt to hilt. Their blades bound, they wrestled. Gio kicked Wrenn’s shin. The muscle fluttered in Wrenn’s calf but he threw the taller man back and wiped blood from his eyes.

  “Shoot him!” Gio bellowed at a crossbowman. “Shoot him, someone, why don’t you?”

  In return Wrenn spat at Gio and swiped low behind his knees to sever the hamstring. Gio pivoted on the ball of his foot and let the soft thrust go past.

  A bruiser of a man offered his rapier to Gio. Gio fluidly slipped his dagger into his belt and snatched the sword from the man’s fist. He leveled both rapiers at Wrenn. They must have had different hefts but I couldn’t tell from the way he handled them.

  Instantly at a disadvantage, Wrenn hit at the new rapier’s side. Gio parried and at the same time attacked. Wrenn stood his ground. A sailor tried to pass his sword to Wrenn, but Gio severed his hand still clutching the hilt. Numbly, the sailor bent to retrieve his sword but he had no hand to pick it up with.

  I circled above Wrenn, calling encouragement. He looked desperate; blood flowed down his face. He searched out the last of his strength and stood tall as if he had found hope, but I thought he was acting because Gio didn’t respond. Wrenn feinted. Gio attacked with a move like a sneer. Wrenn evaded, left his dagger arm exposed, too low. Gio’s rapier penetrated between his fingers, slid through his hand and up his arm under the skin. The point issued from his elbow in a patter of blood. Wrenn’s hand opened, his dagger fell.

  It’s over, I thought; but Wrenn had trapped Gio’s sword. Wrenn’s rapier forced Gio’s other blade far to the left, disengaged and thrust. His hilt slammed into Gio’s chest.

  Gio hunched; about a meter of bright steel projected from his back. A red patch darkened his coat around it. Wrenn pulled the hilt down, tearing his lungs. Gio staggered, blood spitting from his mouth. Wrenn couldn’t hold Gio’s weight on the blade and dropped it, leaving him sprawling transfixed by the rapier. Gio’s blade snagged in Wrenn’s arm tore out through the muscle making a gaping wound.

  Gio lay curled up. He coughed around the blade. Blood sprang from his mouth onto the pavement, dribbled from his lips. He didn’t breathe in again. Died.

  Awndyn soldiers rushed to Wrenn and supported him. His fingers scrabbled, trying to stick the edges of the gash back together. Blood ran down into his mouth and he smiled. He had deliberately caught Gio’s blade in his arm, in a furious variation of the same attack that had won him immortality a year ago.

  Wrenn struck out with his fists at the soldiers trying to calm him. He fainted, so they picked him up and I led them to the Stormy Petrel.

  I picked up a sheaf of arrows and a bottle of water, and my horn that I sound to give commands on the battlefield. I flew back to Fifth Street and landed near Lightning. He looked exhausted but grateful as I sprinted past, called, “Gio’s dead!” dumped the ammunition and bottle while still running, took off.

  I swept low over the rebels and shouted, “Gio has fallen; give yourselves up!”

  The whole front of the column who had seen the duel, and several more, especially the girls, surrendered to the Awndyn Fyrd. The rear dissolved, rebels becoming looters or fugitives. Many became disoriented and I saw them running farther into the meshed streets. But the leaderless center of the column and the men who had killed Mist knew they were doomed. A new sort of aggression flared among them, affected by desperation, the strangeness of Capharnaum and the rum they had drunk.

  There was a tangible atmosphere of possibility and menace. Instantly the five hundred rebels in the main street acted as if they were a single being, powerful, euphoric with it, and mad. I sensed their vigor and my pulse raced. Anything could happen; everything was happening-the riot obeyed no laws at all. The youths were at home with it; it was their atmosphere. They ran in large ragged groups. They all thought: why not take the wealth that surrounds us, in an abundance we’ve never been allowed before? The strength of individuals was nothing compared with the violence of the crowd-they tore the shopfronts apart. They were bent on spending everything in the town in one hysterical surge. They brought out bakers’ trolleys and smashed them into caryatid statues. They infected each other to screaming pitch rejoicing at their own bodies’ force, their freedom and their sudden riches. No future prospects Capharnaum could offer them were as good as the fun they could have trashing it. From the air I saw a mass of people sweeping away from the boulevard. They spiraled around ransacked shops like the eye of a storm.

  The burning crag’s jumping unnatural light lit the quay. Gio’s men were now just pirates, plundering the surrounding houses. They dragged out tables, threw lamps into sheets and bundled them up. Fights broke out between them: men stabbed and punched each other over any precious-looking metal. They broke furniture and hefted the pieces as clubs.

  Bricks were hurled against the houses’ upper windows, and when a Capharnai man leaned out and shouted, they threw bricks at his face. The pirates gathered cutlery and amphorae but discarded them when gold gleamed. So much gold, it was like the Castle’s treasury. They hastily lashed together enormous packs of objects with their belts. When each had plundered all he could carry, he set off to the Pavonine leaving wailing and raging Capharnai families behind them.

  Some Capharnai defended themselves. A group of fishermen threw a huge weighted net over thieves escaping from a house. As they struggled under it, the fishermen stabbed them with marlin-spikes and tridents that sloughed dried white scales.

  A group of Trisian lads came out of one house carrying sacks to loot food, kicking the door of a restaurant. Thick olive-oil smoke ribboned from its cellar grating. Little fires had been kindled at irregular intervals on the boulevard. The rioters set alight waste bins and chairs; I could see no reason why, apart from the lust to cause as much havoc as possible. I yelled, “Stop destroying this wonderful town!” The ones that heard me started laughing.

  There was no hope of catching the rioters without abandoning our own wounded men. I ordered the fyrd to pull back to the Petrel. At the foot of the gangplank the Awndyn unit had formed a barricade. They leveled pikes above a shield wall. Some fyrd regrouped there, but in equal numbers those who spied the gold were unlinking their shields and deserting to join the looters. Archers on the Petrel’s fore-and rear-castles sent sporadic volleys down at the pirates crossing the quay, who had no choice but to run through the hail of arrows to the Pavonine.

  Thieves poured up the Pavonine’s gangways carrying their prizes o
r dragging their wounded friends. I flew over the Stramash and Cuculine, puzzled; their decks were on the same level as the water. They had been scuttled; they sat empty and perfectly upright, their keels on the sea bed. Their main decks were swamped with lapping waves, from which their castles projected like four square islands.

  The crews of all three ships were at work unfurling and setting the Pavonine’s sails. Others, yelling, waved their friends aboard. Poleaxes and spears looked like metal hackles standing up on the ship’s back.

  I glided above Pavonine’s deck and saw Tirrick, and Cinna. Tirrick had Cinna Bawtere at rapier point, forcing him to steer the ship. Cinna clung to the wheel, shaking visibly, his porcine face set in a grimace. Tirrick, however, smiled rapaciously. He shouted, “Climb aboard! We’ll sink the Petrel, then pack provisions and sail for Awndyn! I’ll be the next Serein and fatty will be the next Mist!”

  Cinna glanced up at me and scowled. He had a length of chain around his middle, worn by fearful sailors so if they fell overboard their suffering would have a quick end.

  I shouted, “Cinna, don’t you dare leave!”

  He told me to go and do something unspeakable with a goat.

  Sailors on the harbor cast Pavonine’s mooring ropes loose and swarmed up. The ship grated along the quayside with looters still chucking bags onto the deck and catching lines to haul themselves up.

  Those left behind turned their attention to the Petrel. Small groups of rebels gathered out of range on the villa verandas; they began to coalesce, ready to attack the Petrel’s gangway in a desperate bid to hijack her. I thought of Rayne; I would not let anyone hurt the Doctor. She was my adviser, Lightning’s confidante and devoted friend. Lightning would be even more shattered than he already is, if anything happened to Rayne.

  I have seen Mist die and Serein badly wounded. I have left Lightning faltering his way through the outskirts of town. The only books to escape the firestorm are in my pocket. I don’t know how many Trisians have succumbed but their houses, their shops and the harbor are despoiled. Cinna was sailing off with their belongings, surrounded by pirates and protected by Tirrick. The remnants of Gio’s men were completely beyond control. Our forces were disheartened and either retreating or deserting.

  I needed everyone in the riot to listen to me, to stop and look up so I could shatter the hysteria that gripped them. I must attract their attention with a gesture more powerful than Gio’s last stand. But how? None of my battlefield horn signals mean anything now. I couldn’t drop rocks accurately onto Pavonine from above the archers’ range.

  I shouted, swooped acrobatically and landed on the main street, but although the rebels heard me they paid no attention and simply ran away. What was I to do-pursue them one by one? Infuriated by our failure, realizing that we were stranded, I felt my scolopendium clock running down. A cold shiver washed over me; the long muscles twitched in my arms. Oh god, not now. If Tarragon surfaced she could soon put an end to the Pavonine, but that wouldn’t stop the fighting on land that second by second was becoming bloodier. I needed Tarragon, her car or a congregation of Tine, a sea krait…A sea krait! Did I dare speak to the kraits? I thought: I can use the Shift to stop the sacking of Capharnaum!

  I flew to Petrel and landed on the half-deck. Rayne had transformed the main area below me into a field hospital, and she was extremely busy. Wounded men were being brought in and laid on camp beds between the masts and hatchways. Rayne bent over one, whose blood pooled in the brown stretcher. Her assistant struggled with the breastplate strap, having to pull tighter in order to release it through the buckle. Rayne said, “No! Tha’ sucking wound-ignore the res’.” She slipped a gauze pad under the edge of his armor and pressed on a jagged gash in his ribs. The soldier struggled. Rayne grasped his hand firmly and he lay still. Then his hand relaxed out of hers.

  I watched as I retrieved my envelope of cat from my cabin, and I saw it all. Rayne looked into his eyes as he died. She often did that with the mortals for whom, no matter how hard she tried, she could not prevent death. She wants to glimpse the change as their eyes set. I once thought her obsession was compassion, now I think it’s just her insatiable curiosity. She wants to see what they’re seeing, she wants to know all that they suddenly know. It’s understandable because people are always inquisitive about what they can’t do. Or maybe, and although it’s morbid I wouldn’t rule it out, Rayne is fond of being the last thing a man sees as he quits the world. One day her curious face might fill my field of vision, through a bloodred filter.

  I ducked into Ata’s office; the bottle of brandy stood on her table. Through the stern windows I saw the Pavonine, nearly stationary against an onshore breeze. Her sailors swarmed on the high aft castle, adjusting some timbers-the long beam of a trebuchet. I said aloud, “Bloody fuck, not another catapult.” It could even be the one we saw being dragged along the Remige Road. It had two large wooden treadmills set upright on either side. A sailor crawled into each wheel and walked them around; others on the outside pushed to winch the arm back. It was so long it overhung the poop deck steps. Another pair of men lowered a ball into the sling. Tirrick gave a shout, the arm kicked up to one side of the mizzenmast, and the stone flew through the air.

  It overshot Petrel and crashed into the roof of one of the harbor villas. Cinna’s sailors busily set about winding a windlass to decrease the trebuchet’s throw. Shit, if we ever needed Lightning’s professional opinion it was now.

  I dashed out of the cabin and called to Rayne, “They’re taking potshots at us! Move down below-and stay there till I bring reinforcements. Don’t abandon ship unless they hole the hull. If you must go to land, ask the officer of the Awndyn Fyrd lamai to give you some cover.”

  I heard Rayne ordering that her patients be taken to the living deck; I did not have much time. I tipped a fistful of cat out of the envelope. It ran like fine sugar between my fingers as I sifted it into the brandy glass. I tapped my hand on top to knock the powder out of the damp lines on my palm. Then I uncorked the brandy and sloshed it in. The crystals eddied and spun. I drank it down right to the dregs of undissolved powder where the brandy had not penetrated between the dry grains. I put the glass down with a click.

  That was a massive overdose. Through the windows broadsword fighters battled at the junction of the boulevard. Pikes held the gangplank secure but only one line of fyrd remained behind them.

  The metal clashes muted suddenly, as if at a distance; the bustle of the surgery shrank to background. My own breaths boomed loud and blood pressure rumbled in my ears. It is coming on.

  Pavonine turned her slender stern to me and the flat towers of her soot-spotted sails. Her reflection vanished. The image of the quay wall and houses ripped away. The sea moved, silver but featureless. It wasn’t reflecting; it should be mirroring the sky.

  The waves slowed to the consistency of treacle. Pavonine lifted and fell again hours later. Another round shot slowed until it was almost floating; it tracked a lingering trajectory through the air and disappeared at the water’s surface in front of the window.

  I’m going under. I slipped to my knees, trailing my fingers down the dirty panes. If I concentrate on breathing I’ll never remember how to. I could no longer kneel. I lay down, one arm extended. The bracelets on the other wrist pressed into my cheek, my sword belt dug into my hips.

  Black haze filled my vision from the edges to the center. I thought with a sudden flush of panic: I haven’t taken anywhere near enough. This will never work. I need more-

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I set off flying over Epsilon’s savanna toward Vista Marchan and the old Insect bridge. Hundreds of meters below, Tarragon’s gold car left the edge of the market and followed, accelerating until it was directly below me. The car kept pace, a tiny shining rectangle on the immense plains, leaving a straight dark green track as it flattened the grass. I could see Tarragon in her short red dress glancing up at me.

  I slowed, let the car race ahead and then swooped down, speeding
faster as I lost height, and catching up with it from behind. I swept over it, lifting my legs so my dangling feet didn’t hit the headrest, and then lowered my pointed boot toes onto the front seat next to Tarragon. She looked ahead, keeping the car speeding straight. I crouched and pulled my wings in unevenly, wiggled to sit down. I pointed at the gray Insect bridge. “Go!”

  Tarragon clenched the wheel, rocked her body forward and slammed her foot to the floor.

  The towers of Vista Marchan shimmered and cohabited the space where only the flourishing grassland was supposed to be. A warm wind blew directly from them, drying my eyes. Nowhere in the Fourlands has such a parched, relentless wind. Tarragon glanced at me, complaining, “I’ve been looking everywhere. What’s happening, Jant? I swam into harbor and saw stones falling through the water around the hull of your boat.”

  “We’re under attack. The other ship’s throwing them. Rayne’s on the Petrel-and so am I.”

  Tarragon gnashed her Shark’s teeth angrily. Her shape flickered violently between being a prissy lady and a vicious fish. “What a waste of scholarship! I will flip their boat into flotsam!”

  “It’s even worse: the library’s on fire-one thousand years of wisdom lost forever. We’ll never know what essential works are gone for good. Mist Ata’s dead. Oh-was that gargantuan shark you?”

  “Yes. I followed a schooner that I sent to sail alongside your ship on a Shift sea. You asked me for help so I chartered it as a guard.”

  “God, Tarragon; you’re big.”

  “Big-ish. Do you want me to bite your enemies’ keel out from under them?”

  “Even if you do, the pirates ashore will keep fighting and they’re killing the islanders. The Trisians will still resist the Castle after this. No amount of talking will bring them around because after Gio’s lies they’re never going to believe any Fourlander again. We can’t win. The only way I can think to take control of this riot is to stage a spectacle so incredible that both sides forget their differences. Sea kraits live far from land, don’t they?”