No Present Like Time (40 page)

Lightning’s volatile sense of morality flared. “What? I don’t remember you divulging that to the Circle!”

“Sh! It’s a long story; forget it.”

I had asked for a whole one thousand pounds and I was amazed when Aver-Falconet paid up. I thought it was a fortune; how little I knew. Still, I bought horses and new kit, and kept enough change to make it worth the highwaymen’s while when they robbed me of everything not ten hours later on the Camber Road.

“Stand here in the shadow until I return. Don’t move. Apart from if the shadow moves, of course.” I took a firm grasp of the stonework with both hands, found a toehold with my leg fully bent and kicked off with the other. Hugging my body close to the stone, my rangy reach gained another handhold and toe. I was fully above Lightning. He kept his arrow nocked and waited flanked by a column. The darkness gave grainy texture to his severe face.

I strained to make out cracks in the mortar. Tiny white pinpoints prickled in my night vision. I folded my wings tight because their weight pulled me away from the wall. I stabbed my strong, pointed nails into the gaps, my fingers clawed. I jammed my boot in, straightened my leg. I raised my weight and stretched out for the next hold. I undercut the grip, cheek to the chill stone, stepped up.

The wind was stronger here. It blew around the exposed corner and cooled off my sweat. I hung on with one hand and both feet, stood up straight and took a break. I exhaled a long breath of admiration at the view: hundreds of houses and twenty thousand lives that Gio had snatched as a stake in his game. Well, now he is dealing with Comet who learned to climb in the precipitous ice-split chimneys of Darkling’s cliffs.

Above me was a narrow ledge. I reached up and felt about in the seagull shit. I secured a good foothold, bent my knees, sprang gracefully onto the cornice. I ran lightly along it, rounded the corner to the side of the building facing the mosaic. I flattened myself against the architrave of Gio’s window. The brigands’ camp was below, at the other side of the square. If any of them glanced up, they would see me plainly against this white stone. I quickly pushed the shutter open and peered into the room. No one inside, so I hopped over the sill and landed in a crouch, silently on the mint-green tiled floor.

Gio’s apartment was enormous. A square bed stood in the center, no curtains as in the Fourlands, just a taupe silk coverlet. The walls were covered in a
trompe l’oeil
scene of a sumptuous feast. Elegant diners in Trisian robes poised with grapes halfway to their mouths or in the act of raising goblets. Their eyes seemed to follow me across the room as I skirted a wooden screen and approached an alabaster side table on which burned one of the open-flame lamps.

Beside it was a glass half-full of clear liquid and a bottle with a familiar label: Diw Harbor Gin, Gio’s tipple of choice. I released the lid of my ring and dropped both aconitum tablets into the glass. They dissolved instantly. I swirled the glass and set it down beside the lamp. The oil lamp was pure gold, in the shape of a breaching dolphin. Irregular coral in claw fittings and priceless pearl clusters encrusted its base. It entranced me—

“Yeah, right…” a voice came from just outside the door, “which I need like Mica Town needs more coffee shops! Goodnight, Tirrick.”

“Goodnight, Gio.”

Gio! I sprinted back across the room. Gio’s foot appeared at the door. I couldn’t reach the window. I jumped behind the screen. I was five clear meters from the window. Shit.

Poised to move, I peered carefully through the fine fretwork at the top of the folding partition. Gio slipped his coat off and threw it on the bed. He was wearing the same clothes as when he left the Castle, and though washed they smelled of ingrained mud and brine. He had still not bothered to find a shirt and wore the 1969 Sword slung on a double red belt across the waistband of his blue breeches. His bare ribs and hips were sinewy furrows.

Gio’s obsession for revenge might be just another form of despair, but it had kept him disciplined if not hygienic. The scar Wrenn had given him showed as a pale pink incision at the base of his throat.

I wondered feverishly what to do. I was fast enough to escape but Gio would certainly see me and he wouldn’t drink the gin; he would send his swordsmen against
Stormy Petrel
and Ata’s plan would fail. I kept still. I could stay here until Gio was either asleep or dead.

Beside the bed and ranged against the wall I saw six steel coffers. If they were full, Gio was undoubtedly a millionaire. Stacked on top of the strong boxes were three ormolu jewelry caskets with more primitive locks, because like many Awian mechanisms form is valued over function.

In front of my eyes, the paintings on the screen panels depicted domed buildings, nothing like those of the island. That they were ancient Awian palaces could not have escaped Gio’s notice.

He drew his rapier and practiced two or three sequences back and forth. He didn’t seem satisfied. I watched, excruciating pins and needles prickling my legs. My tight grip on my sword hilt was embossing an image of twisted metal wire into my palm.

Gio held his rapier over his shoulder, pounced to the side table and gulped down his glass of gin. Nothing happened. Gio returned to a cool first guard, began to spar with his shadow, leaving white dints in the plaster. I quietly stretched to see. He should be writhing in paroxysms by now, on the floor, in agony. He should be quickly asphyxiating, tongue too swollen to scream.

I could not for the eternal life of me think what had gone wrong. The poison was having no effect at all. In a few minutes Gio finished his exercises and, looking perfectly healthy, strode toward me. He was coming to close the shutters; I would be trapped inside. As soon as he passes the screen he’ll see me. He was just one step away.

I sprang out and made a dive for the window but it was too far. I landed in front of it, facing Gio.

His face was grotesque with astonishment.
“Jant?”
He snatched himself into guard, with me at sword point. His rapier’s bright tip hovered a centimeter away from my chest. I shuffled back until my calves pressed the window ledge, the night air behind me. I kept my hands down, in surrender. Gio’s crazed eyes were wide, amazement stayed his hand. He checked the doorway—if I was here, the other Eszai might be closing in. “Where’s Wrenn? What were you doing?”

He saw my glance flick to the empty gin glass. I was so confused, I couldn’t help but look. No man should stand upright after imbibing that much belladonna. “Poison?” he whispered; he knew my history. His face went white with fury. “You cowardly bastard! I’ll pour it down your throat! How long before it takes effect? Answer, damn you!” Fear high-pitched his voice. “What have I drunk?
What is it?
”

I said nothing out of sheer bewilderment; Gio should be very dead by now. My coat leather split at the breast under the pressure of his rapier point. He shouted, “Tirrick! Help! I’ve been poisoned! Assassin! Quickly!”

Voices on the mezzanine took up the shout: “Gio’s been poisoned!” “I knew the Trisians would try something!”

Gio leaned forward with a deep, earnest look. “Comet, do you blame me? Rejected from the Circle, you’d do the same.” He urged me to answer with a manic little nod. I made no move. He suddenly growled with hatred and drew his arm back for the thrust.

I dived backward out of the window. I fell, backflipped, spun into a full somersault, fighting to free my wings. Firelight stretched into a blur. Stars below me, white granite above. I forced my wings open. The left one bruised hard against a column. I flapped frantically to get air under them and banked breathlessly over the square. The rebels were all yelling but I couldn’t see them. I tried to get my bearings.

I fought desperately upward to the level of the Senate House ledge. Gio leaned out of the window, staring in mute horror. I pedaled my legs, pumped my wings and skimmed the roof above him, kicked off the ridge and glided out over the cliff.

I yelled to Lightning, “Run!”

Lightning said, “Oh, no. Hush.”

“Run! We must! Follow me.”

He had no choice; the rebels were staggering to their feet and reaching for weapons. They looked at each other, finding the nerve to cross the mosaic and attack. Lightning dashed around the corner, straight in front of them to the only conspicuous door—the library.

Below me I heard Gio swearing. “Get me water! Get me the ship’s surgeon!”

Was the aconitum belatedly taking effect? I called to Lightning, “The second floor is defensible. I’ll meet you up there!”

Lightning rammed the door open with his shoulder and turned in the entrance to face the men. “I am”—he loosed an arrow and the nearest one dropped his rapier and grabbed his hand, turned and fled trailing drops of blood—“Lightning. The immortal Archer.” He let another arrow fly at the largest man in the middle. It went straight through his hand that held an axe shaft. He jumped up with a howl and shook the arrowhead from the skin between his fingers. They all backed off. “You will find the stairs hazardous.” Lightning nocked another arrow to string. “I recommend caution, mob. Stay out.” He disappeared into the dark library.

I think he just made it worse. Five uninjured men clustered in. One kicked the door jamb. “Fuck him!”

He looked up at me; a birthmark half-covered his baggy face, gray in the dim light. Another was ex-fyrd, with Brandoch’s white trident badge on his tatty jacket. He called to bring more people around—a big hispid man whose jumper hood hung over his greatcoat; a burly woman, although in the darkness I couldn’t be sure.

I went over them low and swept up to the window to bleed off speed. I flared my wings, braked hard, bending my flight feathers right back. My air speed dropped to nothing; I fell. I hit the window’s louvre shutters with the soles of both boots. The shutters flew apart. I dropped through and landed squarely on my backside on the floor with my wings jammed in the window.

This story was pitch-black but I smelled the serious scent of paper and venerable patinated wood. I scraped a match and held it up, seeing that the well-stacked shelves lined a single central aisle obstructed with crates of papers. Lightning ascended the railed stairwell, whirled around with his back to me. “Comet? Where are you?”

By striking matches and peering through their weak light, I made my way along the aisle. He took deep breaths like a baited bear, stood statue-still, listening to the voices rising from the stairs.

“They’re both trapped. You go first.”

“Are you kidding? That’s Lord Micawater.
The
Archer. He’ll shoot me in the eye as soon as—”

“Lord la-di-da. Rush them.”

“Both eyes, probably…”

Lightning snorted.

“They’re
immortals.
”

“Then they can wait,” came the woman’s voice.

Lightning lowered his bow slightly and sat on a table. I said, “We’re safe here for the moment.”

“Oh, we’re safe, are we? Splendid. Shall I just make you a cup of coffee, then? This is
your fault,
Jant! We could have stayed unobserved. I was hidden. I was prepared to steal back to
Stormy Petrel,
while you could fly. But no; you cry out ‘Run!’ Now the mob knows we’re here—and I’m cornered!” He shook a fist under my nose. His face was indistinct in the darkness but I could see he was pouch-eyed from lack of sleep. “You irresponsible, foundling, Rhydanne—”

“Please don’t use ‘Rhydanne’ as an insult.”

“Drug addict.
Well!
”

“Well what? If you’d stayed by the columns they would have caught you. Gio saw me, then everything happened too fast to think.”

“Thinking is
supposed
to be your strong point. So, has he perished?”

Gio was far from dead. I protested, “I don’t understand it. Tolerance to that amount of belladonna isn’t possible; there are no recorded cases of recovery.”

Lightning drummed his powerful fingers on the table, sounding like a small horse race. He held his great longbow in the other hand, finger over the arrow shaft across its grip. I lit an almond-shaped lamp and paced to the window. The outlaws milled about below.

I felt queasy knowing that the aconitum was useless. I might have needed it myself at any time. I have never actually used it because scolopendium is such a fast-acting drug that on the rare occasions I overdose I am not in a condition to remember it or operate the ring. I have carried aconitum since I first learned of its effects, fifty years ago. Ah, damn. I haven’t replaced the tablets for—how long? Twenty years? And how many rainstorms have I flown through since then; how many long soaks in the bathhouse hot tub? It was a mistake that only an immortal could make. I said, “The tablets have been in my ring too long. The potency must have degraded. Gio isn’t suffering the full effect, if any at all.”

“You have never learned to be an Eszai,” Lightning said quietly, which was worse than his shouting. “Let me take stock. Item: Gio will be determined to repay our attempt on his life. Item: it is four
A.M.
, so we have a full hour before
Petrel
arrives. Item: I only have one hundred arrows. Item: I am in considerable pain, and I will not be able to run for a sustained time.”

“What?”

For answer Lightning wormed his hand under the bandages around his waist. He held it up, red with blood, and wiped his fingers over the old scar on his palm. I hadn’t seen the stain on his shirt. “The exercise agitated my wound; it has not closed completely. I didn’t want to mention it, but it’ll hinder me so you must know. Damn it, don’t look so taken aback; just go and watch the mob.”

Shrunken by guilt, I turned to the nearest window, swung one shutter open. Lightning said, “Do you see any of my fyrd?”

“No. There aren’t many Lakeland or coast Awians rebelling; they know they need the Castle.”

“Good. I’m grateful for that at least.”

A mass of people filled the plaza between us and the Senate House, red-lit by the bonfire. Their noise was incredible: a tumult of gossip, jabbering fragments of conversation and false rumors—I could use those. I looked down on their heads; hoods, caps and woolly hats. I spotted the mesomorphic woman elbowing her way to the top of the boulevard. There was a general slow flow in that direction, like the start of a landslide. The air thrived with anxiety and excitement. I listened carefully, trying to separate phrases from the chaos: “Let’s go. No point in staying now Gio’s snuffed it, is there? You heard what that prat Tirrick said.”