by David Hair
As the mesh of light ignited behind her eyes, she listened for some sign that Valdyr Sarkany had returned, but instead, she sensed something else: a scurrying, furtive feeling, dark passages and loamy earth, and a palpable sense of fear. ‘Hello?’ she murmured into the web of light. ‘Who’s there?’
There was no response, just a dimly heard sob, such as a girl might make.
‘Hello—’
She waited, hoping . . . but no one answered.
Then boots crunched on the frosted grass and she turned to find Dirklan approaching. Surprise sharpened her voice. ‘Father? What is it?’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you here,’ Dirklan replied, studying the Winter Tree sapling, its green leaves and red berries the only colour in the garden. ‘The Treasurer wants to see you in private, and he asked for me to be present.’
‘What does Calan want?’
‘He has a proposal for raising funds, but he wants to sound you out outside of the Council.’
Lyra hugged herself against the cold. ‘Well, I suppose we should hear him out.’ She glanced about, troubled by this inconclusive foray into the dwyma. Was it another dwymancer, one she didn’t know, in trouble somewhere? But if so, how could she help?
Help her, she sent to the genilocus, hoping that was sufficient, but doubting it would be enough . . .
Dupenium
It was the most disgusting, scariest, bravest thing Coramore had ever done. When she heard the hammering on her doors and the tapping of the raven on her shutters, she knew that Ostevan had finally decided he could do what he liked with her and Uncle Garod wouldn’t stop him.
She was twelve, but she’d always been small, a thin girl with limbs like twigs who could slip through any gap. The only other way out of the garderobe was down the chute, but she could hear her companions going to open the doors, where fists hammered and voice called.
The brick chute was sloped, which would help slow her descent. It was about eighteen inches square, opening onto a concrete lip and the open air. That it was coated in dried faeces and recent piss made her stomach churn, but so did falling into Ostevan’s grasp.
And back into Abraxas’ clutches . . . Memories of her months as a possessed soul made her stomach knot. I can’t ever go back to that.
Ensuring the bolt in the door was firmly in place, she lifted the lid and with a shudder of disgust, sat on the rim and lowered her feet, then her hips, holding on until she could be sure her hands could support her, then she lowered herself, her back to the door and the sloped wall of the chute, seeking purchase as her feet scooted down, still unsure she’d fit – what if she was trapped halfway? Then she heard male voices on the other side of the door.
She’d have to take the gamble. She shifted her grip and slithered downwards, her head entering the stinking shaft and her arms extending to full length, holding on . . .
. . . until she lost her grip and plummeted, first barking her buttocks and back against the stone as she slid, then suppressing a shriek as she lost skin on her ankles and knees, until she struck the lip and slammed the back of her head as she dropped, flailing and dazed, into the mound of snow-covered grass and manure below.
It was a soft but putrid landing. She rolled and unexpectedly fell again, ending up in the bottom of the empty, frost-rimed moat, her head ringing and seeing double, but there was no time for that. She staggered upright, frantically crawling hand over hand up the far side of the ditch. She had to get underground where she couldn’t be scryed and she had only moments. She pounded down the path to the graveyard, her footprints spotted with blood. Though it was only mid-afternoon, the light was failing, which gave her some hope that she could find refuge in time.
There was no hue and cry raised yet, but when she peered around a grave monument, she saw a soldier on the balcony of her suite, so she stayed low, half-crawling to the old grave marked by her special brackenberry bush. She plucked the four berries on the branches and swallowed them. As the tart juices filled her mouth, she felt a strange sense of dislocation, as if she were watching herself move from all sides, but she suppressed her alarm.
Glancing back at the castle, she saw another man on the balcony now, a priest – but even from here she could see it wasn’t Ostevan, the man she dreaded most. She pushed on, making for her family crypt, trying to ignore the battering she’d taken from the drop and hoping the increasing darkness would hide her trail. Her head throbbed, her fingers were turning blue from the cold and her heart was thumping so hard it might break her ribs.
Help me, she whispered to the wind, to the dark, to the flurries of snow as the weather closed in again. Help me . . .
Then she saw an opening in the ground, one she’d never seen before – but she didn’t question, just darted in head-first. It was barely the size of the garderobe shaft, but she could squeeze down it and that was all that mattered. Putting aside the horrors of being enclosed, the dread of ghosts and old bones, she wriggled her way along the tight tunnel into the dark. The air was stale, but breathable. At last the tunnel opened into a space floored with stone slabs. There was even a faint glow and when she peered cautiously around she saw someone had left enchanted candles in the grave, a traditional offering for a dead mage. She was trying to identify the crypt when she heard a frightening rush of crumbling earth: the earth shifted and the tunnel she’d just left collapsed upon itself, sealing her into the near-darkness.
Coramore was petrified. Everyone knew mages’ crypts were often haunted: spirits bound to their resting place could even become dangerous revenants who required a fully trained necromancer to deal with them. But she could now see that she was actually in a warren of crypts, one of the many interlinked mausoleums of the Sacrecour clan. These were her ancestors’ bones around her. Oddly, that thought calmed her a little.
They’ll protect me. I’m one of them.
But she didn’t want to be a ghost or a bag of bones just yet. She groped around, wishing her gnosis had come to her so she could make magical light and fire for heat, and other useful things. Although it wasn’t so long since she’d eaten, she was already parched and ravenous – how would she find food or water down here? She couldn’t leave, not yet, for Ostevan would be hunting for her.
But he’s not found me yet, despite the trail I must have left – and he’s not scryed me out either. Earth can shield me. I’m still free . . .
She moved carefully, examining everything, recognising old names on the brass panels screwed into the stone sarcophagi. Coming to a wall where condensation ran down the bricks, she licked it, too thirsty for shame, then sat down and cried it all out, because she was only twelve and she was terrified.
Help me, she wailed tearfully at the dark. Please, help me!
Then she almost choked, because the darkness spoke back: a distant female voice she knew: the empress, her cousin Lyra, calling: Hello? Who’s there? Hello—
Coramore didn’t know how to respond – but then she heard a grating sound, scraping metal, and from somewhere in the distance, a bright light suddenly shone out.
*
The damned girl has vanished. Ostevan Pontifex strode through the cemetery, glowering at the snowflakes filling the air; huge flecks that glittered in the light of the lamps and torches of the searchers – and hid any footprints the fugitive might have left.
‘Princess Coramore?’ servants and soldiers shouted. ‘Princess!’
He’d lied, telling Garod he had the dwymancer in custody somewhere outside of Fauvion, that his men would bring him to Dupenium in due course. Margentius Keeper and his fellows were anxious, but understood why they had to remain silent – Garod wouldn’t march if he even suspected they had no captive dwymancer.
Meantime, the princess’ disappearance was being treated as nothing more serious than a confused young girl running away. Perhaps she’d come into her gnosis and was frightened, someone had suggested, which was, Ostevan had to admit, a good cover for the truth.
But where is the little bitch?
>
He’d soon worked out that she’d escaped through the garderobe shaft, but her trail had quickly vanished under a sudden snowstorm. Presumably she was now underground – but where? Was she still in this Kore-bedamned cemetery, or had she leaped the fences and run into the town?
What worried him more was how she had even known to run.
Is the dwyma somehow involved? he wondered.
It wasn’t just an academic question. Apart from beheading, virtually the only thing that could kill him now was the dwyma. He’d been inside Lef Yarle’s mind when the assassin had been about to slay Lyra: somehow the queen had blazed light and the daemon-possessed Yarle had died instantly, the ichor in his veins blasted to ash. No mere mage could do such a thing.
The tales say that dwymancy is slow, unsuited to combat, but Lyra’s beam of light was sudden and deadly . . .
Finding Coramore was of paramount urgency if he was to avoid Yarle’s fate. Worse, Naxius had already captured his own dwymancer, the new sultan’s kinswoman.
‘Jehana Mubarak is the key to unlocking my true purpose,’ Naxius had gloated. ‘She can reach the dwyma but not use it, which makes her a powerful weapon that cannot turn in my hand. With her in my thrall, I shall have the means to destroy Urte and usher in the Age of Daemons.’
The way Naxius had spoken made it clear that this was no idle boast but exactly what he intended to do. That terrified Ostevan.
I didn’t join the Master’s cabal to destroy the world, but to rule it.
If Naxius needed a tame dwymancer, so did he. He’d let that damned girl flit about thinking she was fooling him – and now she was gone. Had Cordan warned her, mind to mind? He had men watching the young prince and his frantic fear for his missing sister certainly looked genuine – and guileless Cordan had always been an easily read book. The boy might have doubts about the military campaign, but every now and then his father’s greed shone out as he contemplated life as emperor.
No, he doesn’t know where she is either. Someone else warned her.
‘Master,’ a priest called, holding up a lantern that partly illuminated the crypt entrance: a fanciful edifice of marble adorned with seraph statues, ‘we’ve opened up the girl’s family crypt. Do you wish to enter first?’
Ostevan pictured Lef Yarle’s final moments again. Why take a chance? ‘Go ahead,’ he told the man, ‘hunt in pairs, check every tomb and sarcophagus – and take your time. I would bet my soul she’s down there.’
*
Coramore snuffed her candle, for all the good it would do, and slithered into a gap between the tombs just as lamplight filled the aisles. Then something moved beside her and she had to shove her hand in her mouth to stifle her scream . . . until a furry body stroked against her arm and a soft meow caught her ear. She understood instantly: Aradea is watching me. She squeezed deeper into the gap, following the cat, which led her on a zigzag route into deep pools of shadow, while men in heavy boots stomped past, calling her name but oblivious to her presence. The cat guided her to a rotting door into a long-forgotten tomb and sat beside it, looking at her expectantly. Coramore smiled at it and murmured thanks before slipping through the hole, an instant before light swept by, revealing the cat, calm as you like, sweeping away her footprints with its tail. Then she groped into the dark, found an open wall-slot and slipped in among a pile of old bones.
The searchers never even opened the broken door, for someone remarked on the cat and someone else must have thrown something at it, for Coramore heard something clatter on the stone flags. For some reason, they all forgot about the door in their annoyance at the animal.
After half an hour, as both the shouting and the dimly flickering lights began to die away, Coramore was almost beginning to breathe when she felt a trembling in the air and Ostevan’s hated voice whispered into her mind.
he murmured darkly, and the thousand voices of Abraxas, an echo behind his voice, made her shudder.
But he didn’t come in himself and within a few minutes, his loathsome voice was gone.
She felt the eerie presence of Aradea inside the cat when it returned and curled up next to her, purring, and that soothed her fear.
She couldn’t say how she knew the Fey Queen was here, only that she was, and that she’d been looking out for her for weeks, ever since Coramore had first eaten the fruit from the brackenberry tree. She’ll protect me, Coramore decided, closing her eyes, shivering on the cold stone slab, but warmed by the cat. She won’t let Abraxas have me again.
Despite her fear, the pain and the cold, that thought was enough to carry her down into sleep.
Pallas
Lyra sent Nita and Rildan to the nursery and ordered tea. She changed hurriedly into a simple day gown that might not be the height of fashion, but was warm and easy to put on unaided, then she summoned Dirklan and Calan. She buttered some freshly baked bread and bit into the steaming morsel, then pushed the tray across the table as her two counsellors arrived.
‘Help yourselves,’ she said, then looked at the Treasurer. ‘Lord Dubrayle, what is this about?’
‘Milady,’ Calan replied, putting his tea aside after a single sip, ‘you asked yesterday if I had a plan for rebalancing the Treasury accounts. I do: but it isn’t one I wished to voice before the rest of the council.’
‘Why is that? You know I like all business to be done openly through the Council.’
‘Not this.’ He leaned forward, intent. ‘At our last meeting, you asked who has money, the answer being the banks. Legally, we can’t seize that money, obviously: it doesn’t belong to us, or indeed, to the banks themselves – it belongs to their investors. But we can seek a loan.’
‘I thought you said no one would lend to us,’ Lyra replied, wishing she could gauge whether her father knew where this was going, and if he approved.
‘That’s true, Milady,’ Calan said, ‘or at least, no one in their right mind would lend to us. But if we had a controlling interest in a bank, then we could make them lend to us.’
Dirklan frowned. ‘That’s illegal. The Treasury cannot act as a bank, for one thing – and as for forcing them to use their investors’ funds to make a loan that would likely never be repaid . . .’
‘Excuse my ignorance,’ Lyra put in, wishing yet again that she was not so ill-educated when it came to matters of high finance, ‘but how exactly does a bank work?’
Calan frowned impatiently, but he explained, ‘Broadly speaking, Majesty, they look after the wealth of those who wish to safeguard their own gold and to increase their fortunes. That money is lent to other people at a rate of interest – in its simplest form, if one borrows one hundred gilden at an interest rate of ten per cent, one must repay one hundred and ten gilden. When the loan is repaid, the bank will divide that interest between the investor – the person whose money it is – and the bank itself, which covers the bank’s costs of storage, security and administration; the rest is the bank’s profit.’
‘Is it lucrative?’
‘Oh, indeed: successful bankers are the richest men in Koredom,’ Calan drawled. Then he laughed. ‘Other than clergymen, of course.’
Lyra stared into space for a moment, then asked, ‘Isn’t our Treasury a bank?’
‘Ah, that’s a common misconception. The Treasury is actually a public fund holding the taxes accumulated to run government. It’s not the same thing.’
‘I suppose it’s obvious, but not to me: why don’t we have a bank?’
Calan smiled wryly. ‘Religion.’
Is that why Dominius wasn’t invited today?
‘Why does religion prevent us from having a Crown Bank?’
Dirklan tapped the table. ‘The Book of Kore forbids “usury”, which is the old term for earning money from interest, but the real issue is historical. Several centuries ago, Emperor Celestian set up a Cro
wn Bank, which failed. He bankrupted the empire within ten years of taking the throne.’
‘Failed . . .’ Lyra echoed meaningfully.
Calan smiled wryly. ‘He used it as his private purse and just about destroyed the Rondian Empire. Few people know because it was so diligently . . . um . . . covered up. That’s why we have a Crown Treasury which is distinct from your personal wealth, Milady. As a result of Celestian Sacrecour’s proclivities, it was written into law that neither Crown nor Church – just to keep things even – could operate a bank, which opened the way for the wealthier Houses like the Jussts and the Belks to set up themselves. It’s true that some have failed, but they’ve not dragged down the Treasury or the Rondian Empire.’
All the same, it smelled like an opportunity to Lyra. ‘Setting aside the legalities for a moment,’ she began, then paused before finishing, ‘could you set up a bank for us?’
The Treasurer shook his head. ‘We don’t have the manpower, the expertise or the time, Majesty. We need money now, not in a year or two, which is how long it would take, even if the law was changed.’
‘Plus, we have no gold to back it,’ Dirklan added.
‘Sorry,’ Lyra said, feeling stupid again and hating it. ‘I don’t follow.’
Calan couldn’t quite hide his urge to roll his eyes. ‘Every gilden the Treasury issues must be backed by bullion. Each region has its own Treasury office, responsible for collecting taxes and maintaining the reserves – and by the way, let’s not forget we’ll lose those if the vassal-states do secede.’
‘The reality is that there’s roughly five times more coin out there than we could back anyway,’ Dirklan concluded. ‘It’s another area where we’re critically vulnerable.’
‘If there’s already five times more coin than reserves, why not raise that to ten times, or twenty times?’ Lyra asked plaintively. Her head was spinning.