Gravedigger 01 - Sea Of Ghosts (53 page)

Ianthe had never heard anything so sad and so beautiful before. She stood there for a long time, listening. And then the music suddenly stopped, and the girl was looking at her defiantly. ‘Who are you?’ she said.

‘Just a friend.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came to deliver a letter.’

The blonde girl shook her head. ‘You’re with them,’ she said. ‘Don’t you know that I could destroy you? As easily as this . . .’ She moved her hand through the harp strings, and they snapped one by one with a series of sharp, discordant sounds. ‘I’ll take away your fingers and pieces of your skin.’ She stood up, knocking the harp away so that it crashed to the floor.

Ianthe was suddenly afraid. She turned to flee but halted when the door swung open behind her. A procession of revellers poured into the room, young men and women in fancy party clothes and exotic bird of paradise masks – a squall of peacock feathers and silvered beaks, gemstones and perfume. They were drunk and laughing. The men led the women, who shrieked and giggled and stumbled in their arms. They flowed around Ianthe, filling the room with their breathless gaiety.

A man in a white mask rapped a staff against the floor and said, ‘Music! We must have music!’

The harp began to play, but this time the music was brisk and lively. It did not seem unusual to Ianthe that the broken instrument could produce these sounds. She could no longer see the blonde girl, for the revellers had formed a circle around Ianthe. As the music soared they started to dance. They moved in pairs, each man holding his partner’s hand high. Their bird masks dipped and flashed under the chandeliers – a whirlwind of feathers and jewels. Their heels struck the floorboards with staccato barks. They clapped and laughed and bowed. None of them appeared to notice Ianthe at all.

Ianthe wanted to leave, but to do so would mean breaking through the circle. The music became louder and more delirious, and the dancers kept pace, spinning wildly in a great vortex of colourful silks. Ianthe moved towards the door, but the dancers forced her back. She tried to find another way through, and yet another, but there was no space among the flailing arms and stamping heels. And no space in the music. Notes clashed with their neighbours as the whole merged into an appalling cacophony. Like the shrieking of wild birds. Ianthe could hardly tell one dancer from another. They seemed to merge into one great fluid entity, circling her faster and faster, revolving out of control. And someone screamed.

But the dance went on. The cry became part of the music, just another hideous note swept away by the shrieks and laughter that followed. A girl was pleading:
Please don’t, please don’t.
Ianthe spied blood on the floor. The dancers’ shoes slid through it; bloody heels clacked down, and up, and the men clapped their hands and carried their swooning partners’ along. Some of the ladies were unconscious. Some were struggling to break loose. All were bleeding from countless wounds. And as they danced on their masks and frocks began to fall away like feathers. Scraps of silk and lace fluttered around them or lay strewn across the wet floor.

The laughter died. There was no longer any sound from the ladies, only the stamp of feet and the chaotic music as the bird-masked men whirled their naked, mutilated partners around and around the ballroom.

‘You don’t have a partner.’

Ianthe turned to find the man in the white mask standing next to her. He extended a slender, almost effeminate, hand. ‘Please, will you honour me with a dance?’

‘Ianthe?’

She was looking down at herself lying in hospital bed. A yellow gem lantern made a pool of harsh illumination in the otherwise dark ward. The sheets and pillows smelled of soap. Someone wearing Haurstaf robes was tugging at the straps securing her hands to the bed frame. And whoever it was was acting as a host for Ianthe’s own befuddled mind.

Ianthe suddenly put a name to the voice she’d heard. ‘Aria?’

‘Shush. They’d kill me if they knew I was here.’ Aria freed Ianthe’s other hand, and stood back. ‘We have to leave.’

Ianthe watched herself sit up. One of her eyes looked black and swollen. ‘What happened?’

‘Don’t you know?’

Ianthe recalled the room of mirrors, and her heart cramped. ‘I hurt Briana,’ she said.

‘She’s all right,’ Aria said. ‘But everyone knows. It’s not safe for you here.’

‘My lenses? Where are they?’

Aria rummaged in her robe pocket and brought out the Unmer spectacles. ‘Torturer Mara’s office,’ she said. Ianthe thought she heard a smile in the other girl’s voice. ‘I spotted them when I got the key. I knew you’d want them back.’ She handed them over to Ianthe, who put them on at once.

Then she left Aria’s body and flitted back into her own. And suddenly she could see Aria standing over her, her eyes twinkling, and a broad smile on her earthy face. Ianthe breathed a sigh of relief. She pulled back the covers and got out of bed. Her robe flapped around her ankles. The cold tiled floor under her bare feet sent a shiver up her spine, but she couldn’t see her shoes anywhere.

‘I didn’t try them on,’ Aria said.

‘What?’

‘The eyeglasses. Do they make it easier? Everyone thinks that’s how you did it.’

Ianthe shook her head. ‘They just help me see. I’m blind without them.’

Aria’s expression became grim. ‘Then you’re in even more trouble than I thought.’

They left the ward and hurried along the adjoining corridor. Windows looked into white rooms full of metal tables. Most were empty, but in one Ianthe glimpsed the partially dissected corpse of an Unmer man. Something about him seemed familiar. Did he have a scar on his forehead? She paused, but Aria just grabbed her and dragged her onwards. ‘We have to hurry,’ she said. ‘A driver is waiting to take you to Port Awl. He’s a friend. He’ll get you through the checkpoints. From there you can take one of the merchant transports to Losoto. John knows someone who can sneak you aboard.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ Ianthe said.

‘Because you’re the only one who would have done it for me,’ Aria replied. ‘I don’t have any other friends here.’ She stopped suddenly, pulled a small roll of gilders from her pocket and thrust it into Ianthe’s hand. ‘You’ll need this. I’m sorry it’s not much. It’s all I have.’

Tears welled in Ianthe’s eyes. ‘Thank you.’

Aria smiled. ‘Come on, we’re nearly there.’

They took a left down another corridor, then reached a sturdy metal door.

‘Wait,’ Ianthe said. She sensed people waiting on the opposite side of the door – two men, their perceptions as bright as lanterns in that perpetual gloom beyond her lenses.
A military uniform.
She reached out to stop the other girl. ‘Aria, there’s someone there.’

‘It’s just the driver’ Aria said. ‘He’s meeting us here.’ She took Ianthe’s hand, opened the door, and led her through.

It wasn’t the driver at all. The door opened into a small round cell with a concrete floor and walls. A drain occupied a depression in the centre of the floor. The space was bare but for a metal chair and a coil of hosepipe connected to a tap. Torturer Mara waited beside a large soldier in Guild uniform. The man was loosening his shirt collar. In one hand he clutched a wooden baton. Ianthe heard a click behind her.

Aria had closed the door.

‘What is this?’ Ianthe said.

The other girl just lowered her head.

Torturer Mara cleared his throat. ‘It’s the start of a very long process,’ he said. ‘Please take a seat.’

CHAPTER 18

The covered wagon bumped along the forest trail, rocking the four soldiers in the rear to and fro. One of the two men up front slouched over the reins; the other leaned back and warmed his face in the sunlight filtering through the trees. This was old woodland, a tangled landscape of roots and weary oaks draped with veils of eidermoss. Butterflies fluttered across the green verges on either side of the dirt road. Swarms of midges hung in the air like puffs of smoke. Maskelyne closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. He smelled wood smoke long before they reached the checkpoint.

The Guild soldier standing beside the barrier raised his hand.

The wagon creaked to a halt. ‘Lazy day,’ Maskelyne said.

‘Don’t let the sergeant hear you say that,’ the checkpoint guard replied. ‘He’s determined to scrub a promotion out of all this.’

‘And where’s he now?’

The guard grunted. ‘Sleeping. Where you headed?’

‘Eagle One.’

‘What’s in the back?’

‘Disgruntled men,’ Maskelyne replied. ‘Commander Rast volunteered us to help with the search.’

‘Lucky you.’ The guard wandered to the rear of the wagon, lifted the flap, and peered in. ‘I need to check this trunk,’ he said.

Maskelyne called back, ‘You think our man is trying to sneak back in?’

‘I just work here,’ the guard said.

Maskelyne heard the man unbuckle the trunk in the wagon bed and throw back the lid. Then he heard the guard whistle softly. ‘Looks like you fellows have a long night ahead,’ he said.

‘You’re welcome to join us,’ Maskelyne said.

The guard strolled back to the front of the wagon. ‘I don’t like heights,’ he said. ‘You know the strangest thing about gem lanterns. Moths never circle them. Why do you think that is?’

Maskelyne frowned. ‘You know, I can’t say I’ve ever thought about it before. Maybe they’ve just got better things to do?’

The guard laughed. He lifted the barrier and waved them through. ‘Good hunting.’

The driver snapped the reins, and the horses clopped forward. Once they were out of sight of the checkpoint, he turned to Maskelyne and said, ‘Why
don’t
they circle gem lanterns?’

‘Truthfully, Mr Mellor,’ Maskelyne replied, ‘I don’t know. But I suspect it’s one of those mysteries where the answer either means nothing at all, or else holds one of the fundamental truths of the universe.’

‘Like the keys of the Drowned?’

‘Exactly, Mr Mellor. Everything warrants investigation.’

They passed through two more checkpoints. Closer to the palace, the army encampments became larger and ringed with palisades and razor-wire. Acres of forest had been burned to scrub to make way for the barracks, bunkers and gun emplacements. Guild soldiers drilled on quadrangles of dirt. Steel warmed in patchy sunlight. Pickets watched the road and the skies from wooden towers.

In places, the trail joined others circling the palace. Towards the end of the afternoon, the wagon reached one such junction, where Maskelyne ordered them to leave the Port Awl road and head north. The road became rougher, gouged by heavy use and then filled with rock. Occasionally through breaks in the forest he spied the palace towers and pinnacles rearing up like some great black crown. A quarter of a league beyond the junction the road came to an end.

Here a flat outcrop of rock overlooked the valley to the north. A wooden palisade ringed the whole area, encircling a group of low earthen buildings and a huge cannon set against the very edge of the precipice. As the wagon drew up before the encampment barrier, a soldier came out of a nearby hut and hailed them.

‘If you want the captain,’ he said, ‘he won’t be back till seven.’

Maskelyne climbed down from the wagon and stretched his arms. ‘Commander Rast sent us to assist with the search. We’ll be tramping the road tonight from here to Eagle Three.’

The soldier came over. He was a middle-aged man with a thin moustache and a nervous demeanour. ‘Nobody told me anything about that,’ he said, eyeing Maskelyne’s uniform with distaste. ‘Kind of old to be a lieutenant, aren’t you?’

‘Reserves,’ Maskelyne said. ‘I shouldn’t even be here.’

‘What do you do in town?’

‘Mostly, I keep to myself.’

The soldier looked between Maskelyne and Mellor. ‘I know a lot of Guild reserve men. You two don’t look familiar.’

Maskelyne yawned. ‘Your captain will vouch for us,’ he said. ‘Let us through so we can unload this gear.’

‘What gear?’

He jabbed a thumb towards the back of the wagon. ‘Lanterns.’

The moustached soldier wandered round to the back of the wagon and checked the cargo in the trunk, before returning to the barrier. ‘Nobody and nothing gets in here without advance notice,’ he said. ‘You’ll need to wait until I can verify this with the palace.’