Art of Hunting Page 8

‘Of course.’The duchess spoke through a smile that seemed cemented into her jaw, but then the smile faded and she was abruptly thoughtful again. ‘What if it was an old ship?’ she said.

  Paulus raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Well then we couldn’t be blamed if it sank,’ she said. ‘Could we?’

  ‘Ethan?’

  When Lucille shook his shoulder, Maskelyne realized that the light in his laboratory had changed to a deep umber. He looked up from his desk to find her eyes pinched with worry.

  ‘You’ve been staring into that thing for hours,’ she said.

  Hours? He glanced at the large crystal sphere in his hands as if seeing it for the first time. Had he been daydreaming? The crystal shone weirdly, reflecting light that didn’t appear to emanate from his environment. Through its facets he sometimes glimpsed dark waves and sometimes a tower standing on an outcrop of rock in an endless sea. ‘This thing,’ he said, ‘is quite possibly the most important object that has ever existed.’

  He had found it in the chariot that one of Granger’s replicates had crashed into the mountainside at Awl – a crash that had destroyed the gun Maskelyne was using to turn great chunks of Haurstaf palace into great mounds of powdered Haurstaf palace. A crash that had nearly killed Ethan Maskelyne himself.

  But his wife only raised her eyebrows in a manner that bordered on pity.

  ‘I mean it, Lucille,’ he insisted. ‘This artefact is no mere ichusae or chariot. It is, as far as I can tell, a lens – refracting light, but not from this world.’ He held up the magnificent object so that it gleamed wickedly in the evening sun, cycling through a kaleidoscope of otherworldly hues. ‘Look at it. See these waves, the colours. The view . . . it’s from several hundred yards above the surface . . . an island, perhaps. The ocean you perceive through these facets is not on this planet.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ she said. ‘One ocean looks much like another.’

  ‘And one sky does not look much like another,’ he retorted. ‘I have watched the night stars, Lucille, such as they are. This world – if indeed it still exists – belongs to a far less crowded part of the cosmos than our own, or even another cosmos altogether.’

  She looked at the crystal anew. ‘Another cosmos?’

  ‘Many scholars believe that the Unmer are in contact with intelligences beyond our world, perhaps even beyond our own universe,’ he said. ‘There are too many tales of godlike beings to dismiss readily. Argusto Conquillas is said to have murdered a goddess during the dragon wars. You know the story?’

  ‘The shape-shifter’s daughter,’ Lucille replied. ‘Oh Ethan, you don’t believe that, do you?’

  ‘Why not?’ He held up the crystal. ‘Is this not evidence enough of otherworldly life?’ He spoke with passion, but not complete conviction. Admittedly, there was no real proof of this. Conquillas collected legends like the Baruch tribesmen collected their enemies’ daughters. However, the artefact here in his hand was something tangible. ‘This lens might well be a method of communication,’ he ventured. ‘If it is, then it represents nothing less than the key to the survival of our own race.’

  A trace of fear came into Lucille’s eyes.

  Maskelyne grumbled and shook his head. ‘Look . . . come.’ He leaped from his desk and bounded to the window, which had been thrown wide to admit the breeze. His light summer jacket and cotton trousers flapped in the metal-scented wind from the sea. The gauze curtains wafted like smoke around him. Between the horns of Scythe Island the evening sun scattered its rays across the dark brooding waters of the Mare Lux, forming countless gold and honey sparkles. Under his fortress and directly beneath this very window there lay a silver crescent of beach bisected by a long stone quay. ‘You see the high-tide mark?’ he asked her. ‘Where it runs along the quay?’

  She joined him. ‘I see where the stone is stained.’

  ‘It’s up to fourteen yards,’ Maskelyne said. On either side of the quay, gentle bronze-coloured waves broke across the metalled shore, leaving tails of yellow froth. ‘A yard in the last eight years alone. Regardless of how many ichusae I pull from the depths, the seas continue to rise faster than ever. The rate is accelerating.’ Something among the breaking surf caught his eye. ‘Look at that!’ he cried with evident delight. ‘There’s a twitch of fate for you. The Drowned conspire to strengthen my point.’ He pointed furiously, jabbing his hand at the beach below. ‘Their mad compulsions have been increasingly fervent of late.’

  From out of the waves there crawled a figure – a scrawny woman with rough grey skin and hair like spilled green paint. She was naked above the waist, but wore a wrap of some tattered red material about her hips. She clawed her way up onto the beach, moving slowly and painfully. Three yards above the shoreline, she reached out her hand and deposited something on the metal shingle. And then she turned slowly and began to make her way back to the poisoned water.

  ‘In broad daylight,’ Maskelyne said. ‘In broad daylight!’

  Lucille had covered her mouth with her hand. ‘The poor thing. Why do they do it? Why endure such agony to leave all those keys?’

  Ethan Maskelyne watched the woman drag herself back into the sea. ‘I suspect the answer to that has become more important than ever,’ he said quietly. ‘The Drowned sense that something is coming. They sense it instinctively, even if they don’t know what it is. I would—’

  He stopped talking as something out in the great shimmering sea caught his attention. Out to the north-west he spied a flash of white canvas: a square mainsail and then a spinnaker.

  ‘We have company,’ he said.

  ‘Emperor Hu?’

  ‘I think not,’ Maskelyne replied. ‘I must assume that this is Briana Marks come to beg my assistance.’

  ‘Assistance with what?’

  Ethan Maskelyne smiled. ‘A small matter of genocide.’

  Granger must have slept for hours because the lozenges of light that had been on the wall had now slid far across the marble floor.

  In another two or three days we will know if you are the original Thomas Granger.

  And what if I turn out to be a copy?

  The sword will use you for whatever purpose it desires.

  Sudden panic overcame him. He wrestled the bedclothes away and then lay there panting, his brow clammy with an unexpected and surprising fear. What was he afraid of? He knew who he was. Thomas Granger of Anea. Son of Helen and John Granger. Brother of John junior. The man who had led Imperial Infiltration Unit Seven, the Gravediggers, for all those years. He remembered Evensraum, the farm in Weaverbrook where he’d met Ianthe’s mother, Hana. The same place where he buried John and three thousand others. He thought about the men in his unit who’d survived the bombing: Creedy, Banks and the Tummel brothers. He recalled his own trial in Ethugra. How could he be a sorcerous copy of another man and yet remember all of these things? He had lived through those events. His limbs were tired beyond belief and it was all he could do to support himself on one elbow. But he was alive. Real.

  A rich and cloying floral scent assaulted his nostrils. He grabbed a fistful of his shirt and sniffed. Then he smelled his arm. Evidently someone had bathed him while he’d been asleep, and then slathered his skin with perfume.

  They had removed his armour.

  Was that why he felt so exhausted?

  His thoughts groped through a fug that felt like a whisky hangover. Who the hell had been in here? And how had they managed to do this without waking him?

  Nothing at all came back to him. His mind remained blank.

  A series of clicking noises grabbed his attention, and he looked over to see the silver sphere Duke Cyr had released floating near the windows, some eight feet from the floor. It gave out a few more clicks – the sounds eerily reminiscent of language – then bobbed up and down in the air. Had it stirred because Granger had woken up? It occurred to him that the device might allow the Unmer to observe him remotely.

  Before he could contemplate this any further, the door open
ed and a young servant girl came in. From the look of her, he took her to be one of the Port Awl locals who had previously been under Haurstaf employ. She was carrying a pile of neatly folded – and rather extravagant – clothes. She blinked with surprise at seeing him awake, then quickly lowered her head and scurried across the room, depositing the clothes on a chair beside the dresser.

  Granger frowned at her. ‘Did you . . .?’ he began.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Who bathed me?’

  ‘Your servants, sir.’

  ‘What servants?’

  She looked at him blankly for a moment. ‘Four of us, sir.

  Are you ready to be dressed? Shall I activate the somnambulum again?’

  ‘The what?’

  She turned to the floating silver sphere and beckoned to it. The little device moved immediately, whistling through the air, and stopped a few inches away from her face. She opened her mouth as if to speak to it . . .

  Granger awoke – again, with no memory of having fallen asleep. Changes in the angle of sunlight suggested that an hour or so had passed. The servant girl was no longer in the room, but now he found himself lying flat on the bed, fully dressed. He was wearing a padded plum-coloured tunic over a pink silk blouse and pantaloons patterned with green and yellow diamonds. He raised his head and gazed down at this riot of coloured cloth – every bit as fetid and febrile as the perfume they’d forced upon him. The material shimmered with arabesques of silver and gold thread. And upon the finger of his left hand there now rested a silver-mounted ruby the size of a bullfrog’s liver.

  A chattering sound came from the corner of the room. There. Granger spotted the little silver sphere – the somnambulum, she’d called it – hovering a foot below the ceiling. It sounded like it was mocking him.

  Or was it summoning someone? This premise seemed suddenly more likely, for no sooner had the device stopped, than the door opened again and the servant girl reappeared. She cowed her eyes from Granger and then hurried over to the sphere.

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ she replied. ‘It isn’t supposed to wake you. I don’t know what’s got into it.’

  ‘What? Wait! Stop, get away from that.’

  She halted. ‘Sir?’

  ‘What is that thing? Why do I keep falling asleep?’

  She looked at him dumbly.

  ‘The somnambulum,’ Granger said. ‘What does it do?’

  ‘It removes the necessity to suffer the touch of one’s servants’ hands upon one’s person.’ When it became clear to her that she’d baffled him, she added, ‘Allowing the lady or gentleman to complete their toilet without being forced to endure the discomfort of physical contact.’

  ‘I want it out of here.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Get rid of it.’

  Her brow crinkled with confusion. ‘You wish to be conscious when you are bathed and dressed?’

  Granger growled. ‘I don’t wish to be bathed and dressed at all. I can manage on my own.’

  She frowned again.

  ‘Where is my daughter?’ he demanded.

  ‘The Lady Cooper?’

  ‘Ianthe!’

  Granger’s anger quickly turned to chagrin. Cooper was a name he knew. It had been Hana’s surname, and so of course it now belonged to Ianthe. And he hated it because it exposed his own inadequacies. It marked her as part of a family he didn’t know and hadn’t cared to find out about – family he had no real connections to. Who were Ianthe’s Evensraum grandparents? Her uncles, aunts and cousins? Were they still alive? Ianthe’s given surname represented a heritage about which he knew nothing. The name Cooper implied her family had been barrel-makers in the past. As decent and as skilled a profession as any. And yet how ridiculous the name sounded here among all these gilded halls and servants. Lady Barrel-Maker.

  Granger had gone to Ianthe’s homeland on behalf of a conqueror, to take everything from the Coopers and the Smiths and the Dukas and all the other families his daughter had been raised among. His daughter had been a child of war – a combination of what had defined Evensraum and what had destroyed it.

  ‘She’s in her quarters, sir, preparing for Prince Marquetta’s ball.’

  ‘What ball?’

  The servant girl hesitated.‘The ball tonight,’ she said. ‘Don’t you remember? You announced your intention to attend, sir.’

  That ball. Granger now recalled his earlier conversation with the young prince. Why hadn’t he been able to recall it a moment ago? Had they drugged him? Or was this merely the aftermath of severe exhaustion? Now that he thought about it, he remembered some talk of diplomacy. It seemed to him that the fog engulfing his mind was clearing, but not particularly quickly.

  Or was the sword taking control of him? He imagined it lying there in the palace armoury, reaching out psychic tendrils that wrapped around his mind, pushing, pushing.

  ‘I want to see her,’ he said.

  ‘She’s with the prince and Duke Cyr.’

  Granger swung his legs out of bed. A moment of giddiness sent his senses reeling, but it passed quickly. He took a deep breath and then settled his bare feet on the cold stone floor. The pain in his joints took him by surprise, forcing a gasp from his throat. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘I don’t know if I should . . .’

  ‘Where are they?’

  She flinched. ‘Their Highnesses are taking the Lady Cooper on a tour of the palace dungeons.’

  ‘The dungeons?’ Granger frowned. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘He’s showing her his former quarters.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Ianthe said.

  The prince continued to follow his uncle Cyr down the stairwell. ‘It is important that you understand the scope of my desire to rebuild our empire,’ he said to her.

  ‘But I do.’

  They reached the bottom of the steps, where they came upon a metal door. ‘Nevertheless, I wish to demonstrate my intentions.’ He nodded to Duke Cyr, who drew the door bolt back. Clang. The sound resounded around the gloomy subterranean chamber and made Ianthe shiver. She had heard too many of such noises during her time in Awl.

  ‘Highness?’ the duke said.

  Ianthe realized that her prince had halted before the open doorway. Paulus’s face seemed paler than usual, his lips narrow and dry. He’s more afraid than I am. She reached over to take his hand, but then stopped herself. Such a gesture would not be appropriate, she felt, in the presence of his uncle. It might hurt his pride.

  Not yet.

  The duke coughed. ‘Have we . . . forgotten something?’

  ‘Forgive me,’ the prince said, turning to Ianthe. ‘This place stirs terrible memories. The Unmer . . .’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘I will not speak of such things in your presence, Ianthe.’

  She gave him a supportive smile. You have nothing to fear while I am here.

  He nodded. ‘If we are to set sail on a new course, we cannot be anchored by past fears. Let us continue.’

  They stepped through the doorway and into a low tunnel hewn from the naked rock. They were now deep in the mountain below the palace. It was warm here and the air held a faintly sulphurous odour that made Ianthe think of dragons. Gem lanterns suspended at ten-pace intervals cast pools of alternating green and yellow light on the levelled stone floor. Black scuffs on the rock underfoot suggested the passage of many rubber wheels.

  Paulus explained. ‘This is one of many service corridors the Haurstaf used to move prisoners around out of sight.’ In this light his eyes were very dark indeed. Despite his fierce determination, it was clear to Ianthe that he remained haunted by this place. ‘I find it shameful that we know them as intimately as our former captors.’

  ‘Why should you feel ashamed?’ she asked.

  ‘We were slaves,’ he said. ‘And yet . . .’ His voice tailed away.

  ‘We were unharmed,’ Cyr said.

  The prince was suddenly angry. ‘Do not . . .’ he said. ‘Do not presume
to answer for me.’

  If the duke was surprised by this unexpected outburst he didn’t show it. He merely bowed with grave humility. ‘Forgive me, Highness,’ he said. ‘It was not my intention to offend you.’

  The prince regarded him for a moment longer, then turned away.

  At the end of the tunnel they reached another metal door, this one inlaid with bone geometries and facets of red glass. It opened into an enormous chamber which Ianthe recognized at once. Near the centre there stood a wooden chair set atop a scaffold – like a miniature watchtower – from which someone could survey the surrounding floor. This floor alternated between expanses of marble and great rectangles of clear glass, through which could be seen a series of rooms and corridors constructed below: the very same quarters in which Ianthe had first seen her prince. These transparent ceilings had allowed a Haurstaf observer to watch him at all times.

  Briana Marks had once brought Ianthe here. She had explained that the prince’s quarters were suspended above a deep pit, lest he decide to use his odd talent for matter destruction simply to obliterate a section of the floor and thus escape. In the end such precautions had been deemed insufficient. The Haurstaf decided it was necessary to observe their captives, either physically or psychically, at all times. Standing here now, Ianthe felt suddenly afraid.

  ‘Why are we here?’ she said.

  ‘To meet a prisoner,’ he said.

  Ianthe stopped. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Nobody. A girl, a Haurstaf survivor.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She claims to have had no prior friendship with you.’

  ‘Then why do I have to meet her?’

  The prince’s expression remained grimly serious. ‘If we are to begin to forge new relationships with our former enemies, we must first confront them.’

  ‘You want to make peace with the Haurstaf?’

  He turned to her. ‘The idea offends you?’

  ‘No,’ she said instinctively. ‘I just . . .’ The truth was she didn’t want to meet any of the survivors, because of the shame she felt for what she had done to them. She looked between Paulus’s questioning expression and the duke’s earnest face, and it occurred to her that they had both, by coming here, exposed themselves to danger. Walls would not stop a Haurstaf combat psychic from destroying any Unmer minds in her proximity. They had also, she realized, placed their lives in her hands, for she was the only defence they possessed against such an attack.