The Promise of the Child

by Tom Toner

  “The Parliament assumes you will apply for leave to visit the Old World,” said another Amaranthine, sliding a huge bound stack of gilded papers across the table beside him.

  Sotiris looked at the man, then at the stack. “I should imagine so.”

  The Amaranthine nodded briskly at the Melius, who lifted the papers and presented them to Sotiris. The giant’s massive, too-many-fingered hand then flourished a long plumed pen, cut from the black feather of a Gliese magpie. Sotiris studied the copperplate script for a moment, leafing through the declarations of intent.

  “The Devout are aware of your loss, Sotiris. They will gladly accommodate you during your stay if you desire it.”

  He glanced back at the Amaranthine. Trang Hui Neng, fully twelve thousand, five hundred and twenty-eight years old, was third in line to the Immortal Throne by the old claims. Sotiris had never liked the man, though they had managed to remain icily cordial for many hundreds of years. It was no great secret that Hui Neng supported the Devout and their Pretender, this fabled Aaron the Long-Life, wishing to see him enthroned as the new Firmamental Emperor before the year was out. Sotiris failed to see how such a position might hasten Hui Neng’s own ascent to the throne, or benefit any of the influential Perennials who shared his views. The current Emperor’s mind had faded some time ago, much like that of Sotiris’s own dear sister. It would surely not be long before he was taken to the Old World to live out his final days, and the ritual of succession could begin anew.

  “I shall bear that in mind,” Sotiris said, touching the nib of the pen to the paper.

  “Very well,” Hui Neng said, watching Sotiris sign the declarations. “It may be prudent not to tarry in the Utopias. The pilgrims there say that the conflict brewing on the Old World is already spreading to the Upper Provinces.”

  He ignored the comment for a moment, perhaps designed to stir up some detail of his plans during his time on the Old World. Hytner had been right; even with news of Iro’s death they were playing him to see which way he would fall.

  “You wish me to visit the Devout,” he said vacantly, “perhaps to see my old friend Maneker—is that it?”

  Hui Neng and De Rivarol smiled at each other. “Only once your mourning is complete, of course,” De Rivarol said. The sea winds wailed for a moment somewhere within the acres of golden cloisters beneath the dome, and Sotiris smelled the tang of salt in the air.

  “You have not heard from him, I suppose?” Hui Neng asked, motioning for the papers. The huge Melius muttered under his breath and strode forward again to collect them and the pen from Sotiris’s hand.

  “Maneker?” He shook his head. “Have you?”

  “We have not,” Hui Neng said coldly. “There are Amaranthine who would see him captured, returned to the Firmament and perhaps humiliated for questioning the order of succession.” He spread his hands, indicating the quiet, seated figures. “We know you do not share their views, my dear Sotiris. We know you understand the importance of hearing this Immortal’s claim before judgement is made.”

  He looked levelly at Hui Neng. “I adhere to the wishes of the Most Venerable Firmamental Emperor, and those of the Satrapy Parliaments.”

  Hui Neng’s eyes met his, then dropped to his hands. “You have been given the eastern sea chamber, should you wish to rest before your onward journey. We would like to extend once more our immeasurable condolences.”

  “Thank you,” Sotiris said, looking among the assembled Perennials, one of whom was a radiantly beautiful female Amaranthine whose name he could barely remember. He stood, nodding to her and placing a hand on the back of the ornamental chair. “What will become of the Melius I passed at the doors?”

  De Rivarol raised his eyebrows. “Thieves are thrown into the Orifice Sea. It is the law.”

  Sotiris considered the back of the chair, nodding. “I see. Well, I should take my leave.” He glanced with a weak smile at the Parliament. “It has been a long day.”

  Sotiris made his way alone through the long golden halls, pausing at a junction as he tried to remember the way. A Melius servant had been assigned to help him but he had sent it back, preferring to be alone. He stopped at a slanting patch of grey late-afternoon light, leaning to look through the circular open window to the shore below. Waves heaved and tore at the brown rocks beneath, hurling surf high into the wind. Sotiris gazed at the scene for some time, listening to the waves’ booming sigh as he took in the haze of Vaulted Land arcing above the furious sea.

  At length, he turned from the window, continuing in the dim golden light to the entrance of his chamber, where clean white linens had been stacked on a gilded footstool in anticipation that he would wish to bathe.

  Sotiris pushed open the door and went to sit on the vast four-poster bed that dominated the chamber like a golden sarcophagus, dumping the linen on the blankets. As the door swung shut, his breath caught slightly. He placed a hand to his eyes, fingers tightening at his brow as he held his breath. Finally—when he was sure the sound wouldn’t carry in the empty halls—he allowed it free in a trembling sigh, pressing his hands against his face as he wept.

  Witness

  Hytner glanced back. Two empty chairs sat at a table stacked with Sotiris’s books and two cups of pure water. He followed Stone’s footmarks in the dew to the edges of the meadow where it joined the river. Their reading sessions were at an end, apparently; Sotiris could come back and get his own books.

  “Fine.” Hytner sighed, folding his arms and contemplating his next move. And to think he’d actually expected Sotiris to come to his aid. To leave without even saying goodbye—well, he’d finally given an answer, even in such abrupt form. Stone would doubtless be taking Sotiris to Maneker now, to see the great treasure of which the Perennial had been awarded stewardship. Hytner was honest enough with himself to admit that he envied Sotiris his connections, that if it weren’t for his own principles of honour and tradition he would be right there in the front row, queuing for a chance to see this impossibly ancient Amaranthine and be rewarded in turn for his new loyalty. He suspected a few of the opposing Satrapies in the Firmament—among them the Virginis Parliament near where he stood—secretly felt the same, cheated out of the prize, bitter. But he was also deeply frightened. Maneker had drawn a clear line by accepting the Sixth Solar Satrapy of Gliese for himself and his Pretender, and to find oneself on the wrong side was to incur a penalty. Open opposition was evaporating already, disappearing almost as quickly as Sotiris had.

  He looked up, some movement in the sky catching his attention. There was nothing but the Organ Sun, roaring silently far above.

  And then it went out.

  He gripped his elbows in total blackness, the six-thousand-mile-wide cavern around him an empty space uncorroborated by any of his senses. Where the sun had been, a large green afterimage now floated in the dark, darting with his eyes. Inner Virginis, the Firmament even, had been reduced to the nothingness between his hand and face. Then, just as a mild panic was convincing Hytner he should head for the surface, the sun reignited, a weak fire spreading through its crystal depths. He glanced around him at the now evening meadow, apparently unchanged, and then back at the artificial star. He could see its outline, the strange material from which it was made. As he watched, a guttering sliver of molten light tumbled from the structure, swirling as it met the opposing gravity before falling like rain upon one part of the world. Then the sun itself moved, slipping away from its buttress supports as they crumbled and dropping towards the land, every shadow lengthening suddenly.

  Hytner saw, but never heard, the sun detonate.

  Elcholtzia

  Lycaste awoke blinking to bright rays of sun shining in through the front arch. A wasp was droning angrily somewhere high under the domed ceiling, trapped and bumping into the chalky walls.

  He sat up and rubbed at his face, realising he’d fallen asleep in his upholstered chair in the dining room again. From outside, beyond the hum of the flowers, he could hear distant screams and
laughter. People on his beach, low adult voices mingling with Briza’s clearer yelps.

  Lycaste walked out into the vibrant garden, sumptuous heat hitting him as he left the cool tower. A small part of him was angry that they still used his beach without his permission. Impatiens’s house across the bay overlooked a cove similar to his own, and there was no apparent reason why they couldn’t play there instead. At least people were still asking permission before they picked fruit from his trees, though he wondered how long it would be before even that little pleasantry was discarded.

  Impatiens saw him and raised a hand. He, Drimys and Briza were further down the beach towards the caves, where the pebbles became coarse brown sand. No one was coloured this morning, their bodies blazing red against the beach. Dozens of sticks had been planted in the sand for some sort of game but now stood forgotten. Instead they were building a large sandcastle, which to Lycaste looked rather like an unfinished model of his own house.

  As he left the grass it returned, that feeling of being observed. There was someone watching him, he was almost certain of it now. He scanned the orchard, the hills, his tallest tower. He put a hand to his glistening brow and surveyed the patches of shade between the wild palms in the distance, seeing nothing but blackness among their messy, dried tangle. Had the watcher been there last night, marking him then? Lycaste rubbed at his neck self-consciously and trudged quickly down the slope of clattering pebbles towards the sand, keen to be hidden by the bank of grass that separated the orchard from the beach.

  Impatiens walked up to meet him, breakfast still clinging to his beard. “Can we have a look at that boat, Lycaste?”

  He had begun to hope his friend would have forgotten about the whole thing. He pointed to the caves, where a small, upturned boat lay in shadow at the edge of the rock. “It’s down there, though don’t get your hopes up—it’s probably not seaworthy any more.”

  They walked to the shade of the cave and looked down at the boat. Its bowl-like hull, notched along its middle with a smooth, straight groove, was almost perfectly hemispherical, somehow able to repel the water as it slid forwards, like a magnet thrust towards its twin. Lycaste had only recently begun to wonder how it worked, that water-repulsing material; it felt like plastic but surely could not have been. A few years ago he’d painted it a jolly lemon yellow and it was badly in need of another coat. He eyed it critically while Impatiens went to the far side. The boat looked so small now; the thought of what they were planning to do with it felt ridiculous. They heaved it over and pushed it towards the waterline, displacing a dazed and seething profusion of black crabs.

  “It won’t fit more than three,” said Lycaste as they entered the water, its surface parting and struggling away from the front of the craft to leave a clearly visible air gap between the hull and the green swell.

  Impatiens nodded and continued wading. “You, me and Drimys.” They were now waist-deep in the lime waves, guiding the sides of the boat as it rose gently with each sucking swell. Lycaste was ready to hop in, imagining the beast as he vaguely remembered it—a creamy white streak, a distant ragged fin. Impatiens strode on, churning the sand around his calves into a tropical murk.

  “What does a chief armourer do, exactly?” Lycaste asked.

  “Chief armourer fires the harpoon.”

  He quickly pulled himself aboard as the waves breached his chest, considering the idea for a moment and finding that he was excited despite himself. He reached over the edge to help Impatiens in and they sat watching the cove glide by, his boat manoeuvring through its own vacuum by the softest pressure of a hand laid upon its stern. The rocks were in shadow, the tall caves set within them drained by the morning low tide. The two friends had explored most of them over the years, walking miles along the coast and naming them like pioneers; Lycaste always deferred and let Impatiens decide, it was his friend’s talent. Serious, rather unimaginative sorts of names were picked to begin with: Cape Lycaste, the Cove of Sorrows, Stinger Reef. Their final discovery, the novelty having worn off by then, had consisted of a tiny beach piled inexplicably with sun-bleached animal bones. They had named it Scary Bay and abandoned all further searches, vowing to each other that they would never go out that way again.

  “Where are we heading?” Lycaste asked, feeling decidedly unsafe inside the small bowl.

  “Anywhere. Over to the next bay. Come on, Lycaste—show me how fast it goes.”

  “You know how fast it goes.” He knelt and leaned on the stern, gradually tipping the half-sphere until its rim almost touched the gliding surface of the sea. The waves flew apart at the boat’s approach, the warm wind drumming faster in their ears. He heard Impatiens laughing distantly. Lycaste ground the heel of his palm to the right, carving a white tide of repulsed water, and swung them back towards the shore, now far-off.

  “Let’s have a go.” Impatiens slapped his hand on the stern before Lycaste could answer, rocking the boat away from the shore again and raising another plume of spray. He leaned with all his weight and they raced out into the open sea, Lycaste anxiously watching the beach recede through the strands of his wind-blown hair.

  The rich green waves began to slop more forcibly, repulsed from the hull in a roiling, slapping current and broad, foam-crested wings. Impatiens eased the pressure and they slowed, silence flooding back as the water calmed around them. Lycaste looked down into the clear sea; it was very deep now. Schools of dark fish swam far below, broken by shimmering refraction. Anything could glide eerie and unnoticed beneath them. He glanced over at Impatiens, who was also staring rapt into the depths, sparkling reflections playing on his face. A hot breeze tousled his long blond hair across his eyes, breaking the spell, and he sat back, thinking.

  “We’ll need bait.”

  Lycaste wondered for a moment what might attract the creatures they wanted to find. “I have a crop of bloodfruit from last year.”

  “Fermented?”

  “Some of it.”

  From time to time in the hottest months, his flesh trees ran with sticky red sap. This unsettling phenomenon usually meant they were overripe; the fruit Lycaste was thinking of would be perfect. Their flavour even had a little kick to it. He nudged the edge of the boat deliberately with his toe and it began to move, turning parallel to the far-off beach.

  “Has anyone ever been eaten?” he asked after some time, rather hoping Impatiens wouldn’t hear his question.

  Impatiens laughed, nodding enthusiastically.

  He hesitated. “Who?”

  “It was a woman, I think. Her name escapes me—it was a very long time ago, though, Lycaste.”

  Lycaste nodded, shading his eyes and peering back to shore, clearly marking the two red shapes as they played in the sand. The hills bore down lushly above them, wobbling in the rising heat. He could make out single browning palms standing lonely on the slopes.

  Lycaste thought again of his observer. Someone was up there.

  “Have you seen anyone new around lately? In the Province?”

  Impatiens turned and stared at him, uncomprehending. “Someone we don’t know, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  His friend picked some bright yellow paint from the side of the boat, thinking. “I went to see Elcholtzia three days ago. He would have mentioned someone—you know what a chatterbox he is. Why do you ask?”

  Lycaste bit his lip, feeling slightly foolish. “I don’t know, I thought I might have seen a new person,” he said, hoping the small lie would validate his fears.

  “Where?”

  “It doesn’t matter, it was probably just one of you walking about.” He wanted to change the subject now he’d gone too far, but Impatiens leaned forward, interested. New people didn’t turn up very often.

  “What did they look like?”

  “I don’t know. I’m fairly sure it was one of you now, thinking about it,” he said quickly, looking away.

  Impatiens sat back, disappointed. He stared down into the depths again as they sailed back to shor
e and began to trail his hand in the water, as if daring something to come. He gradually sank it lower and lower, entranced by the sea-floor below them. Finally he looked up and lifted his arm out. “Let’s go for a walk later, up into the hills. You can ask Elcholtzia about your stranger.”

  When they landed at the beach, Drimys was stretched out, asleep. Briza had covered about half of his father’s body with sand but tired of the game when he’d got no reaction. The sandcastle was finished and Lycaste strolled up to it, wondering if it was indeed meant to be his house. The five towers were there, the central one a little taller than the others. He wandered around to the front where he could see the gaping entrance, part of which had caved in since it had been dug. Lycaste sat down next to it and patted the entrance back into place, but it fell in again as soon as he took his hand away. The sun had dried it out, he saw: running his hand along the top of the mound, the powdery outer layer of sand swept away in his palm. Maybe this was what would happen to his own home, in time.

  He looked up the long strip of beach, speckled brown against electric jade, wondering what it would all look like in a thousand years. Would his house that he loved so much even be here any more? Perhaps some enterprising person would have built something else on top of it all, after Lycaste was long dead and with no sons or daughters to inherit what once was his. He smoothed his hand over the hump again, scouring away the dry sand, and clambered up stiffly. It was because of the things she’d told him, this new fascination, this new fear. He’d never heard of anything quite like the idea of ghosts until Pentas brought it up one evening, an age-old belief from the Seventh Province. The Seventh was a far-flung place to someone with such limited knowledge of life as Lycaste; he thought the people there must be very strange indeed to have come up with such things.