House of Suns (42 page)

‘We heard the dreadful news,’ Cadence said.

‘It is most unfortunate,’ Cascade said. ‘After all that you have suffered, to lose another of your Line - words cannot begin to express the depth of our sympathy.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘We understand there is going to be a ceremony of some kind,’ said Cadence.

‘Cyphel’s funeral service - most likely they’ll schedule it for tomorrow, or the day after. Once they’ve got what they can out of her mind, there’ll be no sense in delaying it.’

‘Will this service be a private matter for the Line?’ asked Cascade.

‘Ordinarily, yes, but I’m not sure that’ll be the case now. Our guests are involved in this, too - we’re all victims of the ambush, and we all knew Cyphel—you included. I’d imagine the ceremony will be open to all-comers, Ymirians as well. It’ll be unusual, you know. Normally there isn’t a body. When we die, it’s usually far from home, thousands of years from another shatterling. They’ll log us as missing at the next reunion, and if we don’t show up at the one after that, then we’ll be presumed dead. There’ll be a ceremony, and then one of us will be tasked with creating the memorial - but because the death will have happened at least a circuit ago, it feels more as if we’re commemorating some historic incident. It’ll be different with Cyphel - it’s going to feel a lot more personal, a lot more immediate.’

‘If there is anything we can do to assist matters, please do not hesitate to ask,’ Cadence said.

‘I’ll let Betony know. I’m sure he’ll already have begun putting the arrangements in place.’

If the robots heard the tartness in my voice, my resentment at Betony making all the key decisions, they had the decorum not to show it.

‘In view of developments, it would probably be better if we delayed our departure,’ Cascade said. ‘We are still anxious to be on our way, but we would also like to give our respects to Cyphel, if the Line allows it.’

‘I’m sure it will. It’s good of you to be flexible.’

‘We have seen the respect you have accorded Hesperus,’ Cadence said. ‘The least we can do is reciprocate.’

I thanked the robots for their kindness.

 

Breakfast was an ordeal. There were a million things we all wanted to say, but none of us was prepared to break the silence. Even Betony kept his own counsel, saying nothing until the very end. At the back of all our thoughts was the suspicion that Cyphel’s murderer could easily be sitting at the table, looking as downcast as the rest of us.

‘Cyphel’s funeral will take place tomorrow,’ Betony said, and for a moment we thought that was the end of his announcement. Then he scratched at his chin and added, ‘Today Mezereon will resume her questioning of the two prisoners. Events having forced a certain urgency upon us, I have given her permission to bring them both out of stasis.’

‘We could lose them both,’ Campion said.

‘We’ll take that risk, but I don’t think it’s likely. The condition of Grilse’s cabinet is rather better than that of the Jurtina. I think we have an excellent chance of getting at least one of them out intact.’ His brow knitted, Betony looked Campion hard in the eye. ‘Unless you’ve changed your mind, it might be better if you kept away from the interrogation.’

Wiping her fingers with a napkin, Mezereon said, ‘Campion can sit in if he wishes. Just as long as he doesn’t try to stop me this time.’

‘You do what you want,’ Campion said. ‘I can think of a million things I’d rather be doing than watching you bully and torture the prisoners.’

‘Since they won’t reveal the information voluntarily, I don’t really see what choice I have.’ Mezereon folded her napkin and placed it back on the breakfast table. ‘It’s moot, anyway. As Betony said, we’re done with that phase of the inquiry. I’ll have flesh and blood bodies by the end of the morning - at least one, anyway.’

‘Or none, if your luck doesn’t hold out.’

She stared him down, managing not to blink once. ‘The sectioning apparatus is ready. You are more than welcome to observe the procedure.’

‘We’ll all be there,’ Betony said. ‘No excuses this time, unless you’re on patrol duty. Purslane, that includes you.’

‘Next you’ll be telling me I can’t look away,’ I said.

‘I want everyone to be present. We’ll be studying your reactions, seeing who doesn’t look comfortable.’

‘That’ll be me,’ Campion said.

‘I don’t think this is any time for flippancy,’ Betony cautioned.

Campion shrugged and stood from the table, knowing when he had said enough. I followed him to the railing, out of earshot of the others. We had barely spoken this morning. When I woke at dawn, I had found him already out of bed, sitting on a chair on the balcony, looking out towards the dark silver dunes with eyes reddened by tears that he had tried to rub away.

‘We’ll get through this,’ I said to him now.

He took my hand and squeezed the fingers. ‘I know. It’s what I keep telling myself. But I don’t feel it. If you told me Gentian Line will end tomorrow, I’d find that easier to believe.’

‘This is when we have to be the strongest. Darkest hour before dawn, et cetera.’

Campion looked away. ‘I could do without the platitudes.’

‘You know there’s a saying like that in almost every human culture that’s ever existed. There’s a reason for that, too. Sometimes you just have to hold on, to keep doing what you’re doing, to have faith that things are going to get better. It’s how we survive. There’ve been a million bottlenecks in history where things would have turned out much worse if we’d all just given up and accepted the inevitable. Some of those bottlenecks would have ended us if a few irrational, doggedly optimistic souls hadn’t clung to a thread of hope.’

‘I’m clinging, believe me. But that thread just got a lot thinner, a lot more frayed.’

‘Then we hold on more tightly. Something good will happen. I’m sorry Cyphel died, but at least it tells us we’re getting warm. Someone was scared enough to kill her. That means she was close to revealing vital information.’

‘Vital information that has now been lost for ever.’

‘Someone else can take over her work. Cyphel was the automatic choice for reconstructing your thread, but it doesn’t mean someone else can’t do it eventually. It’ll just take them a bit longer.’

‘Maybe that’s all the traitor needs - a little more time, and then it won’t matter.’

I shifted awkwardly, because I had no good answer for that. ‘I know how you felt about Cyphel, Campion. This must be tearing you up inside.’

‘Do you hate me for that?’

‘For liking her? That would be rather petty of me, wouldn’t it? Especially now. She was one of the best of us. She was beautiful, too - don’t think I hadn’t noticed. I can hardly blame you for admiring her.’

‘I’m lucky to have you. Whatever I might have felt about Cyphel, it didn’t even begin to compare—’

‘I know,’ I said, shushing him by placing a finger against his lips. ‘You don’t have to say it. You never have to say it. Just ... keep being here, all right? Don’t ever go away.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Campion said.

I
held the letter in my hands. It was the finest paper I had ever touched, smooth as a puppy’s ear and as delicately scented as a courtesan’s pillow. It smelled of lilacs and almonds and the rare spices of the Faraway Islands, the archipelago that lay at the very edge of the mapped world, beyond the Kingdom, beyond outlying empires, beyond the Shield Mountains, beyond the girdling seas, beyond the perilous leagues of White Kraken Ocean. The wax seal was a black coin embossed with the calculatedly unsettling emblem of Count Mordax: a portcullis made of bones. I broke the seal with my fingernail and folded open the crisp document, my heart anticipating the dire news I fully expected it to ontain.

I was not to be disappointed, if that is quite the turn of phrase to encompass my feelings. The letter was from my stepbrother, Mordax himself. His writing was as elegant and magisterial as ever. He wrote love letters the same way he wrote death warrants. This was neither.

The letter informed me that my lady-in-waiting, still a prisoner in the Black Castle, would be put to death unless I revealed the whereabouts of Calidris. Not only would she be executed, but the manner of her death would be ‘commensurate’ with my continued non-compliance. I could spare her by acting within hours; I could ease her torment by acting within the day; I could guarantee a slow and painful execution by delaying my response any longer than that.

‘I cannot do this,’ I told the chamberlain, Daubenton. He was standing in my council room, the heavy oak table straining under its burden of maps and plans of war, acres of heavy parchment and leather. The room was darkly vaulted, with small latticed windows to confound spies and assassins. Candles barely touched its sullen, military gloom. Nothing pleasant had ever been schemed within these walls, only death and punishment. Next to Daubenton was the master-at-arms, Cirlus. ‘I had hoped not to betray Calidris, after all he has done for us,’ I said.

Cirlus fingered the crimson gash of his old duelling scar. ‘You could not betray Calidris even if you wished it, milady. Even my best spies have no idea where the sorcerer is hiding now. That was always as he wished it - to lose himself both to his enemies and his friends.’

‘Calidris must remain amongst men,’ I said. ‘That is his strength and his weakness. No other magician is as powerful as him. But magic is a curious fire. It pollutes the minds of those who would shape it. One magician may sense the mind of another magician, blazing like a beacon in an otherwise dark landscape. The only defence, the only manner in which a sorcerer may hide, is to surround himself with lesser minds. No one is entirely immune from the taint of magic; we all carry a little of it within us. Our minds do not blaze so brightly, but we may provide a kind of concealment to one such as Calidris. In cities, in towns, even in villages, he may swaddle the bright coal of his own mind in the dim embers of his fellow citizens. He cannot easily be found, even by another magician. That is his strength. But it is also a weakness, for it makes it hazardous for him to travel, even in the company of a small party. And if a man such as Mordax wishes to find Calidris, he need only put every village in the Kingdom to the sword, until he has forced the magician to reveal himself.’

‘There have already been reports of raiding parties torching the villages and hamlets along the western flank of the Forest of Shadows,’ said Daubenton. ‘They rode horses from the east, and spoke in the coarse tongue of brigands ...’

I nodded heavily. ‘But we may safely assume Mordax’s men were responsible. We may also assume that they will apply the same systematic approach to every village they suspect of harbouring Calidris. Our army is weakened - we cannot defend every community on the map.’ I put down the hateful document, this vile piece of fragranced paper that had been touched and written on by my stepbrother. ‘I cannot let my people burn. Even when the lady-in-waiting has been put to the sword, do you imagine Count Mordax will leave us alone?’

‘I fear milady is correct,’ Daubenton said. ‘But how does this change things? We cannot locate Calidris.’

‘I can,’ I said.

‘How is that possible?’ asked Cirlus.

‘Because Ludmilla gave me the blueprints for her ships,’ I said.

Daubenton frowned. ‘Milady?’

I was ashamed at my childish outburst, though the words had tumbled from my mouth before I could stop them. Ludmilla Marcellin was a figment from my dreams: the princess of another realm - one of celestial argosies and palaces in the sky.

She did not belong in daylight.

‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘I babble nonsense, the product of too little sleep.’

‘Of course, milady,’ Cirlus said. ‘But concerning Calidris—’

‘I can reach him. Before he left us, Calidris gave me a gift.’ From the folds of my dress I withdrew the embroidered rectangle of my sewing kit. Daubenton and Cirlus studied it warily, uncertain of my meaning. I opened the kit, spreading the two halves wide in my lap. The needles, pins, thimbles and embroidery were as I had left them.

‘Milady?’ Daubenton said again.

My hand moved along the arrayed needles until I reached the smallest of them all, the one I was careful never to use when I was sewing. I pulled it from its pocket.

‘This is what Calidris gave me,’ I said, holding the needle up for inspection. It glimmered in the wavering candlelight. ‘It looks like the others, but it is not the same. Calidris placed an enchantment on this needle. It is blood-bound.’

‘I am unfamiliar with the notion,’ Cirlus admitted.

‘So was I, until it was explained. It is magical cunning. Calidris knew he must make himself difficult to find - that is why he went into the world, to smother himself with the dull minds of ordinary men. But his wisdom told him that there might come a time when the Kingdom had dire need of him again, a crisis so grave that Calidris must once more work his magic to save us.’

‘Calidris’s magic nearly tore the world in two,’ Daubenton said, the colour gone from his face. I felt the same way. Calidris’s dark talents had opened a mouth into hell.

‘Then it may be magic powerful enough to hold the world in one piece, when something else would rip it asunder. Calidris knew this: he’s no fool, and no one in the Kingdom has a firmer appreciation of the risks of magic. But still he gave me this blood-bound needle. With it, I may summon him again. I have only to prick my skin, to draw a bead of blood, and Calidris will hear my call.’

‘How?’

‘An invisible needle will stab into his finger and draw his blood. When the needle pricks, he will turn his gaze towards the Palace of Clouds and know that I have need of him.’

‘You would do this?’ Cirlus asked.

‘There is no other way,’ Daubenton said.

‘You did not sound so certain a moment ago,’ I said.