The Art of Hunting Read online

  She felt hollow, as if some great part of her future had been wrenched out of her. And, as she looked at his shattered face, anguish came to fill the emptiness. Suddenly her tears welled and flowed freely down her cheeks. She hid her face in her hands and sobbed.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Paulus said.

  She sensed his hand on her shoulder. She turned into him and sobbed against his chest, trembling, her breaths now coming in great uncontrollable heaves.

  ‘I hated him so much,’ she managed to say.

  He held her closer. ‘That emotion is often a companion of love.’

  She let out a soft wail. She had started to shake and so she let him hold her for a long time, feeling the warmth of his chest against her cheek.

  ‘Your Highness.’

  Ianthe recognized Duke Cyr’s voice. She sniffed and looked up to see him striding over to the table, his brow creased with concern. He glanced at the sword replicates standing mutely around the table and then back at her father’s body.

  He stooped over Granger and examined the wound in his head. And then he reached down and pressed his hand against the side of Granger’s neck. After a moment he gave a soft grunt of approval. ‘Dry your eyes, my dear,’ he said. ‘Your father is alive.’

  Ianthe gaped at him for a moment. ‘But the wound . . .?’

  ‘Is as fatal as I’ve seen,’ Cyr replied. ‘The eye and most of his brain are gone. Nevertheless, he is alive.’

  That night Ianthe lay in bed and tried to unravel her thoughts. They had moved her father to an empty chamber and laid him upon the bed. She thought of him lying there with that gaping hole in his face, his brains exposed.

  And still alive.

  It was the armour, Cyr had said. The armour was keeping him alive, regenerating him, forming new tissue to replace the stuff that had been damaged. Growing him a new eye.

  A new brain.

  She shuddered.

  Did her father dream, she wondered. Was he aware of his surroundings, his condition?

  And how had he ended up here? How had the replicating sword been able to create the replicates who had brought her father here when he had been unconscious? She recalled that they were, in this instance, not exact copies of him. None of them had displayed the same mortal wound.

  She didn’t understand any of it.

  Moonlight glimmered beyond the gauze drapes. She could smell the jasmine growing in the garden below her window. Normally she would have found it soothing, but sleep eluded her tonight. It must already be three or four bells past midnight. She found herself on edge, listening out for something.

  But what?

  And then she realized what it was. She was listening for the approach of her father’s replicates. Sword phantoms, Paulus called them. They were empty, mere sorcerous husks, but they still terrified her. She imagined them standing out there in the dark of the garden, their ghoulish faces staring up at her window, and the thought made her shiver.

  Ianthe wrapped the bedclothes more tightly around her. Of course they weren’t out there. Why would they be? Her father’s brain was in pieces. He could neither summon them nor control them. They were here at the will of the blade itself.

  She wondered where they were right now. Had Cyr sent them away? Had they merely evaporated back to non-existence now that they had accomplished their task and brought Granger here?

  Ianthe listened to the silence.

  They weren’t outside. It was foolish of her to think so.

  Perhaps she should just check, to put her mind at rest.

  Ianthe shook her head and buried herself further under the bedclothes. She was being ridiculous. There were no ghouls out there in the dark. She was alone and it was four bells after midnight and she ought to get to sleep. Paulus had promised to take her riding tomorrow, if she felt up to it.

  She wasn’t going to feel up to it, if she didn’t get some sleep.

  Ianthe growled and sat up in bed. She stared at the window. The moonlit curtains glowed faintly. Nothing moved. There were no sounds. Not so much as a breeze to disturb the utter stillness.

  Ianthe got out of bed and padded over to the window. She reached for the drapes, but then hesitated. Fear prickled the back of her neck. The stone floor felt icy beneath her toes. She could feel her heart racing.

  Really. She was just being ridiculous.

  Ianthe pulled back the curtain.

  She saw them at once, standing in the garden below her window. Eight dark figures, their brine-scarred faces upturned, their eyes mere pits of shadow. They were all looking up at her.

  She screamed.

  Moments of confusion followed. Ianthe did not remember backing away from the window, nor how she came to be on the floor beside her bed, but suddenly she was kneeling on the cold stone, gripping the bed sheets and shrieking.

  She heard noises in the corridor outside and then the door burst open.

  ‘Ianthe?’

  It was Paulus. He rushed over to her and she seized him and held on like a drowning woman clutches a buoy.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘The window,’ she replied. ‘The garden. They’re in the garden.’

  ‘What are?’ He tried to extricate himself from her, but she held on fiercely. ‘Ianthe, please, I have to see who’s out there.’

  She choked back a sob, but let him go.

  He hurried over to the window and peered out. After a moment he said, ‘I see nothing.’

  ‘The sword phantoms,’ Ianthe said. ‘They were out there.’

  Paulus leaned out of the window and scanned the surroundings. After a few moments he ducked back into the room. ‘Well, there’s nothing there now. Are you sure it wasn’t a dream?’

  ‘They were there!’ she said.

  He came over and took her hands in his. ‘All right,’ he said.‘I believe you. They must have run off when you screamed.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘They startled me.’

  ‘Ghouls like that would unnerve anyone.’

  ‘I’m so embarrassed.’

  He kissed her forehead and squeezed her hands more tightly. ‘Don’t be.’

  She raised her chin and her nose brushed his cheek. His skin was cool. He smelled clean, a hint of some fragrance. In the gloom she could just make out his sharp features. His fair hair seemed almost white in the dim glow of the moon. For a moment they were silent, listening to each other’s breathing. There was something tangible in the air between them, almost electric. She knew he felt it, too.

  She kissed his ear, gently, and then again on his cheek. And then she kissed his lips.

  ‘That’s it.’

  A blur resolved itself into the face of a handsome young man whom Granger recognized. Marquetta. The prince’s violet eyes glinted with dark mirth as he looked on. Beside him stood an older, grey-haired man, whom Granger recognized as the second Unmer lord in the prince’s riding party. This man leaned back from the bed. He was holding a long silver pin, which he now inserted into a spherical device held in his other hand. The device appeared to be constructed of thousands of silver filaments each as fine as gossamer. As the pin slotted into place, the sphere emitted a gentle sort of clattering noise, like that of a Losotan abacus. The silver-haired lord peered at it very intensely. Then he held it aloft and released it, whereupon it remained hovering in the air a few inches from his face.

  ‘Shoo,’ he said.

  The device wafted away like a silver soap bubble.

  ‘His mind is functioning again, sire,’ he said to the prince. ‘Although to what degree remains uncertain. Time will undoubtedly tell.’

  Granger was lying on a bed in a white marble chamber, still wearing his heavy power armour. His gaze moved from the prince to his older companion, to the tattoo etched on the back of that man’s right hand. He’d seen such geometry inked on the skin of Brutalist sorcerers, and yet this frail fellow did not look much like a combat sorcerer. He possessed a tall, aquiline face and unusually small bird-bon
e hands. Upon his head rested a circlet of dull but faintly nacreous metal. A scholar’s pronouncement, perhaps? The silver sphere drifted past his nose. He batted it away with a nervous fluttering gesture and then folded his hands precisely against his plain black tunic.

  If the older man’s attire suggested quiet restraint, Marquetta’s gave him a somewhat dandyish appearance. He looked to Granger like a court jester in his pink and white quilted jerkin and his jewels and his countless rings of precious metals on his long white fingers.

  ‘At least he’s alive,’ Marquetta said. Then something occurred to him and he turned to the older man. ‘He is alive, isn’t he?’

  The other man shrugged.

  Another voice came from behind Granger, and this one he recognized with great relief. ‘Thank you, Duke Cyr,’ Ianthe said.

  Granger turned to find her standing before a wall of sunlit windows. Morning light enveloped her in a golden halo and poured through her pale gown so that it glowed like ether. Either he was still dreaming, or she had been healed in some unnatural manner, for she bore none of the bruises from her ordeal at the hands of the Haurstaf’s torturer. She gazed at him a moment, her brow furrowed nervously, then looked away with embarrassment.

  The grey-haired Unmer lord said, ‘Do you recognize the girl?’

  Granger made no reply.

  ‘He’s confused,’ Ianthe said.

  ‘I recognize all of you,’ Granger said. He looked at the old man. ‘You were with the prince.’

  ‘This is my uncle,’ Marquetta said. ‘Duke Cyr of Vale.’

  ‘Is this the Haurstaf palace?’ Granger said.

  Marquetta nodded. ‘It is.’

  Granger moved to sit up, but his head swam.

  Duke Cyr raised his hands. ‘Any unnecessary movement will merely delay your recovery,’ he said. ‘You must remain still, Colonel Granger.’

  Granger took a deep breath and pushed himself up into a sitting position. From the temperature and the angle of the sunlight outside, he estimated it was early morning.

  ‘Do you never follow the advice of others?’ the prince remarked.

  Granger grunted. He could see Ianthe more clearly now, her dark impetuous eyes and olive-coloured skin. Hair as black as fuel oil. The change in her was remarkable. No trace of her injuries remained, and yet the way she stood with her arms clasped around her waist was stiff, guarded. It seemed to Granger that she was afraid of something.

  ‘How long have I been here?’ Granger asked Marquetta.

  The young prince cast a questioning glance at Duke Cyr, who spoke up. ‘You were suffering from delirium, Colonel,’ he said. ‘And violent episodes. So much so that we were forced to sedate you while you healed. I’m afraid it was a lengthy process.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘You were brought here eleven days ago.’

  Eleven days? ‘How? How did I get here? Who found me?’

  Marquetta gave him a cold smile. ‘Nobody found you, Colonel,’ he said, with just a tremor of satisfaction in his voice. ‘The sword replicates brought you here.’

  Granger stared at him with mute incomprehension. He could still feel an ache in the back of his head, a persistent dull pounding that continued to muddy his thoughts. How could the replicates have brought him here without his knowledge? How could they even have existed if he’d been unconscious?

  ‘It was indeed fortunate that you were wearing such a remarkable suit of armour,’ Duke Cyr said. ‘It preserved your body after you were killed, and then it repaired it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You died, Colonel Granger,’ Cyr said. ‘A bullet entered your left eye and passed out through the back of your head. Had it not been for the peculiar combination of your armour and that sword, you would not be here now.’

  ‘I didn’t die. A replicate died.’

  ‘That was you, sir,’ the duke insisted. ‘No doubt you were confused. However, since you were wielding a sword that creates eight copies of its owner, and wearing armour that regenerates the body, you appear to have suffered few ill effects from the experience.’

  ‘Provided he is the original,’ Marquetta said.

  ‘Well, quite,’ the duke agreed.

  Granger’s gaze travelled between the two men. ‘What?’

  ‘Prolonged use of a replicating sword almost always leads to a transposition,’ Cyr went on. ‘The sword consumes the original wielder and then replaces that person’s physical body with one of its own replicates. Because the replicate is essentially identical to the original, physically and mentally, he is usually unaware that he has been replaced. But he is in fact merely an extension of the sword and is thus compelled to obey its will for as long as he lives.’

  ‘What will? How can a sword have a will?’

  The duke grunted. ‘Such swords were created by sorcerers far older and more cunning than you,’ he said, ‘and many yet possess the will of their original masters. If I were you, Colonel Granger, I would be concerned by how I came to own such a weapon. Was it mere chance? Or was the blade placed into your hands?’ He smiled thinly. ‘Such swords are psychically chained to their owners. They cannot move on until the present owner dies. Usually that’s not an issue for a replicating blade, since it gradually consumes its wielder and replaces him with a copy it can control.’ His grey eyes studied Granger carefully. ‘A blade that has complete control over its wielder can choose when that man dies. If it wishes to move on, it could simply compel you to remove your armour and cut your own throat. It would then be free of you. However, this particular sword seems quite attached to you, Colonel Granger. It brought you to us so that the armour could have time to restore you.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What does it want with me?’

  ‘A sword like that is intelligent,’ Cyr explained. ‘It has desires, a plan. No doubt it regards you as a useful resource to achieve its goals. While you live it will continue to exert pressure on you, forcing you to bend to its will, until one day you find that you are no longer Thomas Granger. You are a sword replicate. A slave to the blade.’ Cyr stroked his chin. ‘Assuming that hasn’t already happened.’

  ‘Then I’ll throw the blade away.’

  ‘The chains that bind you to it are psychic, Colonel. The distance between it and you is irrelevant. When it finally enslaves you, it will merely summon you back to retrieve it.’

  ‘Then I’ll throw it into the ocean.’

  The duke merely smirked. ‘You can try,’ he said. ‘But it will certainly stop you.’

  ‘That’s assuming you’re not a replicate already,’ Marquetta added.

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘If there’s no severe mental or physical degeneration in the next few days,’ Cyr said, ‘then we’ll know for sure.’

  Granger shook his head in disbelief. ‘There’s a chance I might not be me?’

  Cyr nodded again. ‘It is possible,’ he conceded.

  ‘This from a sword?’ Granger said.

  Cyr glanced at Marquetta.

  The young prince pressed his lips together and stood in thought for a long moment. He appeared to be scrutinizing Granger. Finally he said, ‘How old are you, Colonel? Fifty years? Or less?’

  Granger took the young man’s estimate to be an insult and failed to see any point in answering him.

  ‘The sword and the armour that restored your life,’ Marquetta went on, ‘are both vastly older than this world. Older even than the stars in the heavens. It is . . .’ He hesitated. ‘It is hard for humans to comprehend. They look at a blade or a suit and see metal, steel, plates of alloy . . . or . . .’ Marquetta sighed, trying to find his way. ‘Both artefacts are ideas,’ he said to Granger. ‘Conceived long before this particular cosmos was born. We Unmer try to realize such concepts to understand universal truths. Truths that often pre-date the universe – in the case of your armour, the concept of entropic order by design. Of course that is quite incompatible with the natural order of the universe, ju
st as life itself is. The universe is decay. Life resists decay. However, nature is undeniable. Even something designed to empower a body or preserve it from decreation cannot help but affect that body in ways which are often not . . . entirely healthy. Wearing such armour is like drinking water tainted with a drop of brine: it will keep you alive for a long while, but it is always going to kill you in the end.’

  Granger felt a pang of panic. ‘And the sword? What did you hope to learn from that?’

  The young prince gave him an enigmatic look. ‘As I did not create it,’ he said, ‘I cannot say. But it would be a grave mistake, Colonel Granger, to continue to assume that you are the one wielding it.’

  ‘Where is it now?’

  ‘The armoury.’ The prince raised his eyebrows. ‘You wish it returned to you right now?’

  Granger said nothing. God, how he wished they would give him the sword back. His fingers itched to feel its solid weight. He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow.

  ‘I see it is working its will on you.’

  Granger looked away, embarrassed, then turned his attention to Ianthe. In truth he was glad to see her looking so well. Beautiful, even. Her hair had been cleaned and tamed. She looked like a lady of court. It surprised him how relieved he felt to note the perpetual hint of insolence in her eyes; it seemed that every glance was a wilful challenge to his authority. She did not respect him, and she certainly didn’t trust him.

  So much like her old man.

  But if she was truly responsible for the decimation of the Haurstaf, then he knew that the Unmer would try everything to prevent her from leaving them. The Unmer were vulnerable while there yet remained a single living Haurstaf psychic to threaten them.

  ‘You must rest until your strength is fully restored,’ Duke Cyr said. ‘I think it is safe to remove your armour and let your body continue to heal naturally. In another two or three days we will know if you are the original Thomas Granger,’ he smiled, ‘or if you are merely a sorcerous copy of him and a slave to the sword’s will.’

  ‘And what if I turn out to be a copy?’

  ‘The sword will use you for whatever purpose it desires.’