Art of Hunting Read online

  ‘Your ego truly is remarkable, Ethan,’ the telepath said. ‘It’s possible, but highly unlikely. She can’t eavesdrop on the whole world at once.’

  Maskelyne took a sip of wine. ‘Presumably, you want her killed?’

  The telepath was silent for a moment. ‘She can’t be allowed to stand between us and the Unmer,’ she said at last. ‘They’ve already tried to enslave mankind once.’

  Maskelyne sighed. ‘Spare me the melodrama, Briana,’ he said. ‘Why should you care what happens to mankind? The Guild’s top priority has always been its own survival. Ianthe’s power over you is the only thing preventing you from dominating the Unmer. So while she’s allied with them, this is their one and only chance to get rid of you.’ He snorted.‘The Unmer are doomed if Ianthe dies. The Haurstaf are doomed if she doesn’t.’

  ‘How did you know she was with the Unmer?’

  Maskelyne smiled. ‘You just told me.’

  ‘So you’ll help us?’

  Maskelyne swigged more wine. ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why should I care if the Haurstaf disappear?’

  ‘Uh . . . Didn’t you hear the part about the enslavement of mankind? I said it just a minute ago.’

  ‘Really, my heart bleeds.’ The metaphysicist set his glass down and leaned forward. ‘The greatest threat to our species is not the Unmer, but the consequences of the sorcery they unleashed in their final, desperate hours.’ He saw that she was about to object, so raised his hand. ‘The seas are rising, Briana, and neither you nor I know how to halt them. Has it occurred to you that the Unmer’s liberation might actually be a timely blessing?’

  ‘Don’t make an enemy of us, Ethan.’

  Maskelyne waved a hand. ‘Spare me the threats, please. I have work to finish here. When that is done, I intend to go and see the Unmer myself.’ He looked deep into the telepath’s eyes. ‘If they do possess a way to reverse the rising seas, then I will offer them my assistance.’

  ‘You think they care about this world? After everything they’ve done.’

  The metaphysicist smiled. He thought about his crystal and the lands he’d seen through its facets. It was entirely possible that the Unmer had no intention of saving this world – that they would ultimately abandon it for another. Either way, Maskelyne intended to be on their side. ‘I think they care about themselves,’ he said.‘Now, I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful, Briana.’ He rose to his feet. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do . . .’

  The telepath stood up, her face red with embarrassment. ‘You’re making a foolish mistake, Ethan.’

  Maskelyne smiled again. ‘Garstone will see you out.’ He gave the young woman a curt bow, then strode off towards the terrace doors. After a few paces he turned back and said, ‘The problem with you, Briana, is that you’ve got into the habit of using people indiscriminately to get what you want. I won’t submit to it.’

  ‘It’s always served me well, Ethan.’

  ‘That’s exactly why I won’t submit,’ he replied. ‘I intend to follow your example.’

  The servant girl brought Granger to a banqueting hall in the west wing of the palace, where hundreds of guests sat at long tables below a raised stage. Servants moved like bobbins through a tapestry of commotion, of clashing sounds and smells. Glasses clinked and sparkled by the light of a thousand candles. Men and women murmured, gossiped, roared out laughter. A fire crackled in the hearth, snapped, settled. By the fine cut of their clothing, Granger took the guests to be wealthy landowners, farmers, shipowners, bankers and other business people from Port Awl or the river valley.

  They were, he supposed, used to such excess.

  And yet, their noisy chatter diminished as the girl led Granger down an aisle towards an empty table upon the stage.

  It occurred to him how strange he must look to them. All the finery the Unmer had thrust on him could not disguise his blood-red eyes or brine-scarred face nor his invalidity. Without his power armour to help him he moved like a cripple, leaning on the servant girl as he would have leaned on a crutch. His legs trembled and twice he was forced to clutch her shoulder to keep himself from falling. The first time this happened she started with fear, but then she saw his shame and weakness and permitted him this indiscretion.

  They climbed three steps to the stage, every one of which threatened to unbalance him and bring him toppling to his knees before the assembled nobility. In his panic he put too much of his weight on her tiny bones and he heard her give a soft gasp. And yet she seemed aware of his embarrassment and made an effort to hide her own exertions as she struggled to support him. When they reached the table, Granger stopped and leaned against it with the pretence of reading the name cards set upon the linen tablecloth. The girl waited without complaint and when he was ready she helped him to a seat at the far end and then departed, leaving him alone to suffer the stares of the curious and indignant diners below.

  He waited for what seemed like an age. He kept his head down and tried to ignore the other guests. Bowls of bread, olives and dried fruits had been set upon his table but they were undoubtedly for his Unmer hosts and, anyway, he had no appetite. A male servant brought wine, and he sat there rolling the goblet between the scarred grey hide of his palms, grateful for even this small distraction. Occasionally he would glance up and catch the eye of some Port Awl socialite who happened to be looking his way. There seemed to be a lot of them looking his way. The dark part of his imagination supplied words to their conversations.

  And suddenly his glass was empty of wine.

  The servant refilled it. And then a second time.

  Finally, the grand doors at the top of the hall opened and a long-nosed man in a silver-trimmed frock coat appeared. He clapped his hands together three times. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he announced in a loud and confident voice. ‘Valued guests. Please rise and welcome their Royal Highnesses Prince Paulus Marquetta, Duke Cyr of Vale and his wife, the Duchess Anaisy.’

  Chairs scraped the floor. Hundreds of guests stood in unison. The announcer stepped aside and bowed deeply as golden trumpets blew a fanfare. The royal entourage swept into the hall in a procession of glitz and bombast. First came the young prince, with chin raised and violet eyes sparkling, his slender torso resplendent in a tunic of crystals and platinum thread, his long sleeves glimmering. He walked arm in arm with Ianthe.

  Granger’s breath caught in his throat.

  His daughter was a vision of beauty. She wore a gown of emerald and blue and a diamond tiara set upon hair that gleamed as black as anthracite. At her neck she wore a single ruby as large as a child’s heart. Her brass-framed Unmer lenses flashed in the candlelight as she cast a nervous glance about her. And then she blushed and lowered her eyes and clung to Marquetta all the more fiercely. Marquetta noticed this and patted her hand and smiled. He whispered something in her ear.

  Behind them came the prince’s uncle, Duke Cyr of Vale and his wife. The Duchess of Vale was a enormous woman with stone-grey hair pulled back so severely behind her head that the skin on her face seemed in danger of rupturing. For a nose she appeared to rely upon a red boil-like hemisphere set above a wide soft mouth. Rouge coloured her ample cheeks, and she walked with a pronounced waddle. She wore a frock dyed or painted to resemble lizard skin and black shoes that clacked like little claws against the floor. A great confusion of pearls hung about her neck – enough, perhaps, to throttle a fair-sized horse.

  Her husband, by contrast, had dressed himself in plain black and grey attire – the garb of a man who wished to fade into the background.

  Nobody spoke as the party made its way across the hall.

  Granger stood as the duchess alighted the stage and sidled along the table to the chair next to him. He heard the floorboards creak with the strain. Next came Marquetta, followed by Ianthe and finally the duke. Duchess Anaisy eyed the bowls of food, moistened her lips, then glanced at Granger with a dark flash of suspicion that seemed almost to cry: Who is this grotesque int
erloper to sit at my table? There was something defensive and vaguely hostile about her attitude, as though she feared Granger might help himself to titbits she had already earmarked for herself. Once the prince and Ianthe had seated themselves, she eased herself down into her own chair. The wood under her rear groaned, then settled.

  Granger sat.

  ‘You’re her father,’ she said.

  He nodded.

  ‘Whatever happened to your face?’

  ‘I went swimming,’ he said. ‘Turns out someone filled the oceans with poison.’

  She snorted with laughter. ‘Unlike my husband,’ she said, grinning, ‘I have never been one to stand on ceremony.’ She grabbed one of the bowls and started tearing into the bread and olives as a servant attempted to evade her elbows in order to fill her wine glass. Oil dribbled down her chin. She muttered something indecipherable, waving a hunk of bread, before taking a drink and swallowing. ‘Of course, I haven’t been to one of these for years. None of us has. It’s been terrible, simply terrible.’

  Granger nodded. He glanced over at Ianthe, who was in conversation with Marquetta. He couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  The duchess continued to fill her face. ‘The last time we were out in public must have been, gosh, it must have been nearly three hundred years ago now.’

  Granger looked at her. Sometimes it was easy to forget how long lived the Unmer were. They had some natural longevity, but that would only see them to an age of two hundred or thereabouts. So they sustained themselves with sorcerous artefacts, either worn on their person or else implanted inside their bodies. Since the duchess had survived nearly three hundred years of Haurstaf confinement, she most likely belonged to the latter group – although Haurstaf surgeons had been known to cut them out. Granger wondered briefly where the artefact that prevented her from ageing was located in her body. There was no shortage of places it might be.

  He glanced over at Ianthe, but still couldn’t catch her eye. She seemed to be deliberately avoiding him.

  ‘I’m writing a book,’ the duchess said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Would you like to know what it’s about?’

  ‘No.’

  She stopped suddenly and stared at him. Her mouth opened and closed again. ‘You are a very rude man,’ she said. ‘I should warn you, Colonel, that my husband the duke has a very powerful patron.’

  ‘I’m not a colonel.’

  The duchess harrumphed. ‘Don’t mock me, Colonel. I’m so pleased your daughter doesn’t take after you.’

  Granger shrugged. He was pleased she did.

  Just then an army of servants arrived, laden with trays of food. The duchess’s eyes lit up and the hostility evaporated from her. She clapped her hands. She accepted everything that was offered and then set to work demolishing it. Trails of juice and wine now covered the front of her lizard-skin dress. Granger allowed a servant girl to ladle some meat and fowl and apple preserves onto his plate. He stirred it around with his fork. Prince Marquetta, he could see, was choosing dishes for Ianthe, who smiled and nodded each time, but even he could see how nervous she was. She merely picked at the corners of her plate.

  The duchess belched. She was already drunk. ‘More wine,’ she shrilled, waving to the servants. ‘And bring another plate of those chicken liver things.’ By now the guests had started to notice her behaviour. Granger noted more than a few glances in her direction, followed by chuckles and whispered exchanges. The duchess, however, seemed blissfully unaware of the attention.

  ‘Is everything to your satisfaction, Duchess?’ Marquetta said.

  ‘Very good, Highness,’ she replied. ‘Very good indeed.’

  ‘I’ve never seen our colonel so rapt,’ he said.

  She assumed an expression of utter disdain. ‘Oh, he’s not a colonel,’ she said, then turned to Granger. ‘Are you dear? Just a simple little man who finds himself swimming out of his depth.’

  Granger made no reply.

  ‘I was just telling him about Cyr’s patron, Fiorel.’

  Marquetta’s face fell. ‘I’m sure Mr Granger has no interest in that,’ he said, in a low, warning tone.

  Granger’s ears perked up.

  The duchess, however, did not seem to notice the prince’s warning. She crammed another handful of honeyed meat into her mouth and turned back to Granger. ‘You’ve heard of Fiorel, I take it? The shape-shifter? The God of Cauldron and Forge? What do your people call him? Father of Creation, isn’t it? It’s nice when a figure of absolute power chooses to offer you patronage.’

  Granger grunted. ‘You mean Fiorel the meddler.’

  She shook her head in disbelief. ‘How dare you . . . disrespect! How dare you even utter his name? You will come to regret those words, Colonel, I can assure you. When Fiorel hears of this, and he will, you are going—’

  ‘I told you, woman, I’m not a colonel.’

  ‘Woman?’ She stopped suddenly, open-mouthed, and then stood up and swung round to face the prince and the duke. ‘Move him, or move me,’ she said loudly, jabbing a finger at Granger. ‘I won’t be seated next to this awful man a moment longer.’

  Now Cyr got to his feet. ‘Anaisy, please.’

  ‘Put him down there with the commoners, where he belongs.’ The banquet hall had fallen silent by now, and the duchess’s words were loud enough for everyone present to hear.

  ‘Anaisy!’ Cyr cried. ‘These people are our guests.’

  The duchess glared at him. Then she raised her chin, gathered up the hem of her skirt, and strode away from the table without uttering another word. She hurried down the steps from the platform and then breezed across the room with every eye following her.

  A servant opened the door for her and she was gone.

  Granger turned to find Ianthe staring at him with her dark eyes narrowed and brimming with murder. He sighed and rubbed his weary eyes.

  The banquet continued for hours. Servants skirled around the tables with platters of cured ham and lampreys with raspberry preserve and pheasant roasted in wild mountain herbs and served with rings of fruited bread and a dozen dark rich sauces. The excess and wastefulness of it all grated on his nerves, but he sat there and listened to the laughter and the chatter, while trying to hide his boredom and discomfort. Tomorrow they would leave for Port Awl. He’d heard enough of Marquetta’s conversation with the duke to know that he planned to use Haurstaf recruits to carry messages across the empire. If that was true, Ianthe might persuade the prince to give them passage on a ship to Evensraum. Finally they’d be away from this infernal place.

  Someone rang a bell, and the chatter of conversation died to silence. The servant in the silver-trimmed frock coat appeared again. ‘His Highness, Duke Cyr of Vale,’ he called out.

  Cyr stood. He unfurled a small scroll, peered at it, and cleared his throat. Then, with his eyes on the scroll, he addressed the room. ‘Esteemed guests,’ he said. ‘As much as we are here to celebrate our liberty and union, we are also here to mark the forthcoming coronation of His Highness Prince Paulus Marquetta, son of King Jonas the Third of Galea, known as Jonas the Summoner, Jonas the Brave and Merciful, Walker of the Infinite Paths, and Queen Grace Constance Lavern of Aldegarde, may they rest in eternal peace.’ He paused and looked up.

  The servant in the frock coat called out, ‘May they rest in eternal peace.’

  Silence filled the hall. Someone coughed. Among the diners there were a few embarrassed mutters and mumbles.

  The duke returned his attention to his scroll. ‘The coronation will be held on the last day of autumn, the month of Reth or Hu-Suarin in the Anean calendar, in this year of 1441.’

  Granger thought it was odd to see an Unmer noble – an Unmer royal, no less – using the emperor’s own calendar. But then, he supposed, nobody here would know an Unmer date from a rotten fig. Those calendars hadn’t been used in centuries.

  The duke rolled up his scroll, then extended a hand towards the prince and said, ‘Prince Paulus Marquet
ta.’

  The young man stood. For a long moment he regarded his guests with sparkling eyes and a half-smile upon his lips. ‘Dear guests,’ he said at last. ‘Let me set the matter of the coronation aside for one moment, and say that today marks a turning point in history. We are not here merely to celebrate my reign, but rather the beginning of two very special relationships.’ He paused, allowing those words to settle into silence. ‘The first is the relationship between our two peoples,’ he went on. ‘For many years we have both lived under the rule of a Guild that has become rich and powerful through scaremongering, blackmail, and through the propagation of lies.’ He stressed this last word. ‘We have all, in some way, suffered under the Haurstaf. Whether directly through torture, imprisonment, or as a result of their political manipulation.’ His gaze roamed from table to table. ‘But mostly because of their greed. Greed that has seen the Haurstaf allow sea levels to reach critical levels.’ He spread his hands, as if in appeal. ‘Now that their regime has fallen, and the Haurstaf no longer pose a threat to my people and yours, we find ourselves with work to do. We must halt the rising tides before it is too late.

  ‘Each of us here, in this room, possesses the vision to foresee a future of peace and mutual respect between our two peoples. Together we will prosper . . . here in Awl, and in all the lands beyond.’

  Granger was dismayed to hear a chorus of muttered approval sweep through the hall, accompanied by scattered applause.

  Peace and mutual respect? Couldn’t they see that everything Marquetta had just said was a lie? Had they forgotten their history so soon?The Unmer poisoned the seas, not the Haurstaf. Or were they just making the noises required by their own cowardice? He recalled what Herian had told him in the Pertican transmitting station:

  Brine never stops flowing. Not in a hundred years, nor in a million; not when our air thins and boils away and this bloated planet pulls the moon and the sun down from the sky. It will fill the vacuum between the stars long after my race has departed this world and yours has perished. It isn’t a weapon; it’s a catalyst – the broth from which a new cosmos will be manufactured.