by Tim Clare
‘Do you realise how far you were from succeeding?’ he said, holding the candle so it lit his face from beneath. ‘What was your plan?’
Hagar breathed, fury catching and kindling in her chest. She must not let him provoke her. She needed all her composure for what was to come.
She planted one foot on the floor and, staggering, rose. ‘This is my plan.’
‘Tonti was right. He saw straight through your lies. No wonder you despised him.’
‘He was like a brother to me.’
‘Abel, perhaps.’ Morgellon stared into the white flame till his pupils shrank to dots. ‘Do you think for a moment I don’t know that you killed him?’
Hagar tried to hide her surprise. Morgellon kept his gaze on the flame. Her eyes stung. She blinked. Tears rolled down her cheeks. He dug in a pocket of his jacket and produced a square of white card. He thrust it before her. The card was glossy, slightly warped. There was a boxed image on it. Through tears, she picked out timbers, orange flames in a fireplace, and a pale, staring girl holding a black box.
Hagar gazed at the image dumbly. It was her, in Tonti’s lodge. She had seen photographs before, but who had taken this? She saw bars of light, realised she was looking at her reflection, reversed, in a window. The box in her hands was a camera. She had taken the picture of herself.
He snatched it away. ‘I’ve known for years. And yet, for the sake of national unity, for the sake of stability, I kept my counsel.’
It was Hagar’s turn to laugh. ‘For the sake of your empire, you mean. You were terrified the cliques would sense a palace coup was underway and rise against you.’
Morgellon looked her up and down. Hot wax oozed over his knuckles. She felt the searing pain of his skin blistering.
‘That’s all in hand.’ His even temper troubled her. She could feel his control hanging slack around her thoughts like a noose. He knew the sisters had taught her to fight, and he was prepared. Any sudden movement, any hint of resistance, and he would try to take over her body. She had to delay that moment for as long as possible.
She glanced about the pavilion for something she might use to distract him, but the river of candles had made her night-blind. She saw only dust-covered tiles surrounding her, a hundred flames and the black sarcophagus. All else faded into darkness. It was as if they stood on a tiny island of light at the end of all creation.
‘I was in love with him,’ she said. It was the only thing she could think of. The words left a silence that hung between them like mist.
Morgellon raised a thick, oiled eyebrow. ‘Tonti?’
‘Mitta, you idiot. I loved Mitta.’
She watched the blow land. Funny how one who had lived so long was still capable of surprise. His fingers dug into the soft white meat of the candle haft.
‘Impossible. You never knew him.’
Behind him, on the side of the sarcophagus, a long carved panel depicted a youth lying supine, a snake twined round his leg. To Morgellon, Mitta’s memory was just another kingdom to annex. How dare he claim the right to grieve as his alone? The monuments. The renamed streets. The pornographic excess of it all.
‘He tried to kill you,’ she said.
Morgellon’s jaw tightened in a rictus of disgust. ‘You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ Wax dripped in gobbets from his fist.
‘I was there. I saw.’
‘You saw what you wanted to see.’
‘Ha! You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?’ She strained against her bonds. ‘You can’t bear that it was all a ruse. That he could lie to you so casually, that you understood him so little.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘He scorned your precious peace. He scorned the leaders you worked so hard to bring into the accord.’
‘I scorned them, Hagar.’
His declaration rang over dust and stone.
‘What? No, you didn’t.’
‘I scorned them and I scorned their peace.’ Candlelight lit the slow motion of his lips.
She felt a wash of unreality. The burning in her hand brought her round.
‘You’re lying. The accord was all at your behest. You sent emissaries, held summits. You pulled troops out of Masakouri. It took decades.’
‘How else could I get them all in one room?’ His breathing took on heavy, guttural notes. ‘Twenty-five years isn’t so very long for me. You of all people ought to appreciate that. How long have you been planning your little power grab? Thirty? A hundred?’
‘You wanted peace.’
‘No, bichette. I wanted liberty.’ The remnants of the candle slopped through his fingers and splattered across the mosaic floor. ‘Not the false peace of surrender. Not the peace of the prison cell. Freedom for all species.’
‘By murdering their leaders?’
‘Koi tithes the Requen-Dar triple what she tithes her homelanders. She strips them of their lands when they can’t pay.’ He snatched emphatically at the air. ‘Lord Cambridge ordered whole villages of his own people burned to the ground, then had their bones ploughed under. His own people. And you wanted me to honour them both as equals? That’s your precious peace, is it?’ At his feet, the fallen flame guttered and snuffed. ‘We had a chance to save the world. Without the suffering of war. A new beginning.’ His lower lip turned outwards and he looked down at her. ‘And you destroyed it.’
‘Mitta was going to kill you too.’
‘I was delivering my speech from up there!’ Morgellon pointed out of the pool, into darkness. ‘I would have watched them all dissolve while I denounced their crimes. I would have forced anyone who tried to run to walk back in.’ She felt him squeeze her mind, readying himself to take control. ‘I dismissed you so you’d be safe. But you had to interfere.’
‘You lied to me.’
‘Because I knew you couldn’t be trusted. You were barely a child.’
‘I was over fifty years old!’
‘Even now, you don’t understand!’
‘Oh, I understand.’ She twisted her wrists within her bonds, working the rope against the back of her belt while keeping her gaze locked on his. ‘You’re a coward. You wanted them dead because you feared them. You’re terrified of anyone you can’t control.’
He spat on the remnants of the candle. ‘I pray your insolence brings you comfort. You’ll need it.’
He slapped himself across the face with such force that she stumbled.
She opened her eyes. ‘Do it again.’
Morgellon hesitated. He balled his fist and clubbed himself across the jaw. Hot pain exploded through her face. She gritted her teeth, held her head still. Not mine. Not mine. It was an illusion.
‘Again.’ She presented her opposite cheek.
He punched himself in the face. A fourth time. Blood ran down his lip.
‘Well?’ said Hagar, her voice breaking. ‘Did it work? Have you brought him back to life?’
Morgellon let his arm hang limp. ‘Every day I wake, and I remember, and I feel the lack of him. It hasn’t stopped, bichette. It hasn’t stopped.’ The jagged edge of his misery tessellated with something broken inside her. Maybe this was why he had kept her alive. She was the only one who understood.
‘The honours are not a gift,’ he said. ‘They are an exchange. Something is given and something is taken away. What is given is time. What is taken . . . is everything else.’
He gripped the middle finger of his left hand and pressed it back against itself till it snapped. She screamed. He took the ring finger and did the same. Sharp, penetrating agony. Her vision doubled.
She shook her head. No more. No more.
‘Are you in pain?’ he said.
‘Yes, Uncle.’
‘No. I am in pain, bichette. Everything you have was gifted to you, by me. You feel because I permit you to feel. Where’s your gratitude?’
His eyes misted with horrible, drunken sentiment. ‘Once you were such an obedient child,’ he said. ‘You used to sit at my feet to receive instruction. Yo
u were appreciative when I corrected you. “Thank you, Uncle”, you would say.’
Hagar felt the sting of a buried memory – the flash of a whip-thin switch across the backs of her legs, her bare shoulder blades. The acid in her belly, the humiliation of thanking Morgellon for thrashing her at fifty – at fifty – just to sate another of his rages. She had made herself forget these cruelties, but he – ah, her breath caught with indignation – he cherished such memories. They were when he had felt most powerful.
Hagar stiffened. She felt his serpentine authority coiling round her mind. He was about to try to seize control.
Not yet.
‘Did you ever wonder why God permits suffering, Uncle?’ she said.
In the darkness, Morgellon’s expression shifted. He seemed confused, as if he could not tell whether she was mocking him, or insane.
‘How could this existence be the work of a loving creator?’ She shook her head. ‘I say it is a trap. A false god lures us here and feeds on our pain.’
He chuckled contemptuously. ‘You’re babbling. Your time with the nuns has left you soft-headed.’
‘All that is beloved and pleasing will become otherwise. All that we cherish will be separated from us. You and I know this more than most.’ She felt the rope beginning to work loose. ‘The world is very evil. The hour is growing late. With your help, I can free all sentient beings from the error of death.’
‘And what on earth makes you think I would give you my help willingly?’
‘Oh,’ said Hagar, ‘I never said willingly.’
Footsteps echoed through the pavilion.
Morgellon jerked round. ‘Qui vive?’ His startled yell rang off stone and tiles.
The footsteps descended into the empty pool’s shallow end.
‘My lord.’
The roots of her hair tingled. She recognised that sonorous voice. Ha. Of course.
Morgellon resumed his default expression of composed disdain. ‘Is he secured?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Approach.’ Morgellon gestured to the speaker.
Sheriff Kenner stomped into view, his hooves sending up little blasts of dust. He rotated to face Hagar. When he rolled his shoulders, a great ridge of muscle shifted beneath his tunic. His puffed-out chest was crossed with the green sash of the palace. Steam huffed from his nostrils.
This, she had not foreseen. And what was this feeling that gripped her heart? Could it really be disappointment? Perhaps a little. The boy was cannier than she had given him credit for. He looked very becoming, and almost she felt for him, because he believed his obedience would be rewarded.
Morgellon raised his hand and flexed his reknitted digits. ‘The Sheriff allowed weeds to flourish in my beautiful garden. He failed in his duties. Do you know why I spared him, bichette?’
‘Because you could still use him? Because your years inside the palace have made you isolated and weak?’
The jibe hit home; she saw a momentary flinch before he resumed his show of regal disdain.
‘Because he begged my forgiveness. That was all it took, Hagar. Sincere repentance.’
He waited.
‘You want me to ask your forgiveness, Uncle?’ said Hagar.
He held his head still higher. ‘Do you seek it?’
She closed her eyes, and lowered her head. She felt his mood bleeding into her – the sensuous craving. He ached to hear her say it.
‘Uncle.’
‘Yes, bichette?’ His voice almost breaking.
‘You deserve your suffering.’
The skin round his eyes tightened. ‘As you wish. Sheriff Kenner will be my new prefect, and serve me as Tonti did. His first duty is executing you, for treason.’
‘What about the election? The cliques will revolt.’
‘To revolt, they would have to exist.’
A chill ran through her. Arthur had mentioned nothing of this.
‘What have you done?’
Morgellon wrinkled his nose. He was growing tired of indulging her. For him to be this lucid, it must have been some time since his last dose of the black medicine. Soon, the cramps would hit her, but for now, he would be feeling the first symptoms – blurred vision, a sluggishness of thought.
‘I pulled on threads that were already loose. My agents have been arming Lesang’s butchers for months. Guns. Explosives. The hawsers and the bricks too. My spies have infiltrated the cliques at the highest level. The different factions already distrust each other. We’ll throw the first stone – a bomb in the cellar of the brick clique’s headquarters. It won’t take much to turn their revolution into bloody civil war. I have five hundred loyal soldiers led by eighty of my elite garde du corps. We’ll use the violence as a pretext to burn the stilt city to its foundations.’
Hagar could not find her breath. ‘But . . . it’s your city. And you won’t kill the cliques. You’ll kill civilians.’
‘You’re right.’ His expression hardened. ‘It is my city. Mine to protect, and mine to cleanse. The people here are maggots burrowing into rotten flesh. Ten thousand of their lives are nothing.’
Morgellon’s image floated against the river of candles. Behind him, Mitta’s black statue rose, immaculate, infinitely patient.
Morgellon looked askance at Kenner. ‘Remember: your life belongs to me, now. Serve me faithfully, and I’ll guard it as I guard all my possessions. Dishonour me, and I will end you without hesitation.’ He smoothed down his waistcoat. ‘Now kill her.’
Kenner slid his fingers into the flattened loop of his dagger’s iron hilt. Slowly, he drew the long, recurved blade.
‘Yes, Uncle.’
CHAPTER 19
CRAWL
Delphine hurried through the cramped and putrid tunnel clutching her Remington, her progress marked by the slosh, slosh of her legs through sewage. She was marching against the current. Torchlight picked out curving brickwork coated in fatty deposits, drooling pipemouths, and oil rainbows snaking across a torpid, oozing channel of shit.
She gagged into the neckerchief covering her mouth. Her shins dragged in a viscous grey-brown porridge. It had soaked through her shoes into her socks; she felt sludge squelching and separating under her soles. Submerged lumps broke against her ankles. A sour stench coated her tongue.
They were barely making progress. Already she felt worn out, her shoulder wound starting to tell.
Butler was out in front, crook-backed and furtive, his lithe silhouette cutting through the water. He did not seem to mind the stink; the half-eaten carcass of something dog-sized and leathery floated past with ribs jagging out of its chest, flies swarming over it in a glitching cloud. Every so often she heard the puk-puk of his speechsight, as he sounded out the tunnel ahead. Funny how the noise which had once filled her with such horror now felt reassuring, metronomic – a heartbeat. His pops and clicks mixed with the slap, slap of rats scampering through the shallows or squeezing their fat, excrement-greased bodies into rusted pipes or cracks in the walls. A pack of the largest swam ahead of him, their slick fur sheened silver, their bodies leaving spreading chevron wakes.
At Delphine’s right, Patience swayed above the water on gangling limbs. A trunk of knotted muscle curled from her angel arm, winding round her torso then splitting downwards into at least a dozen long, knuckled legs that picked their way through the slurry with eerie, arachnid precision. She wore smoked welding goggles over a white surgical mask.
Alice advanced on the left, her sleeves and trouser legs rolled up, her breath rising in puffs. She swept the torchbeam across sticky brickwork, one hand on the machine pistol at her hip. Behind her, Martha was jinking left to right, wings flicker-sparking in the darkness, her eyes a dreamy coral.
The sound of rushing water grew louder as they approached a four-way junction. Butler held up a palm.
‘Wait.’
Sewage flowed from tunnels to the north, east and south, surging over a horseshoe-shaped weir. The weir was ten feet high, with no obvious means of scaling
it. A scum of ochre froth trailed from the churning water at its base, drifting towards them, flowing past Delphine’s legs.
Butler consulted a hand-sketched map, clutching a penlight between his fangs. He glanced back the way they had come, studied the junction.
‘What’s the hold-up?’ called Delphine. The current was strong, and her feet kept slipping. Did Butler not know the way? Were they lost?
He walked to the centre of the crossroads, checking the map. He chitter-clicked something. Delphine heard a thrumming behind her head then Martha flew past, rising up over the weir and darting in and out of each of the tunnels. She landed on a narrow walkway running down one side of the southern tunnel, to their right.
Butler spat, folded the map and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. ‘South.’
Patience anchored several tendrils to the weir, then grabbed Butler under the armpits and hoisted him over to Martha. Delphine was next. An unctuous tendril slipped round her. She rose suddenly, sickeningly, sewage dripping from her ankles, then her soles slapped down on brick.
The southern tunnel was narrower, the walkway a crumbling composite fill of cement and broken shells. Sections had fallen away completely, slowing their progress to a creep. Tangles of white mould hung from the ceiling.
She heard the spatter-scritch of things moving in the darkness, the plash of rapid paddling. Whatever it was, she was glad she could not see it.
Butler halted. He held up an arm.
‘Wait.’
Everyone stopped. He tick-popped. Something brushed Delphine’s leg and she gasped; a big, whiskery rat scampered through her torchbeam, into the gloom ahead. She held her breath, listening as its footsteps faded.
Butler held up an index finger. Martha’s wings made a soft fffffffrrrrrr.
A rat ran out of the darkness. Two rats. A dozen. They skittered past, shrieking.
‘Did you . . .’ He threw his jacket open, reaching for his pistol.
Delphine glanced at the spot where her gunlight struck the water. The surface was rippling strangely, piss rainbows crinkling as if the flow were reversing. The nape of her neck tingled.