Stands a Shadow (61 page)

Four others stood in various postures around the room. Octas Lefall was there, famous uncle of Romano, leaning on the mantelpiece of a decorative hearth while he stared down his long nose at her, looking as though he was pleased with the news of the Matriarch’s death. The rest were over by the bar, conversing quietly in whispers.

Kira returned the stare of Octas with one just as icy. She would afford him no small victories today by an outward betrayal of her emotions.

They all fell quiet as a set of double doors clattered opened. Quickly, they gathered in a line and fell to their knees, their heads bowed low.

The high-backed chair creaked as it was wheeled through by a burly male priest. The man sitting in it had his eyes closed behind a pair of gilded spectacles. He was naked beneath his half-open silk robe, and his ancient withered skin was covered with the blotches of liver spots and the odd wiry white hair. His bald head rocked slightly as the chair stopped before them. His bearer retreated from the room and closed the door.

Nihilis snapped open his eyes.

Through the thick spectacles, the watery orbs were oversized and spiteful.

‘Kira,’ he snapped, and his voice sounded as worn and scratchy as his one-hundred-and-thirty-one years warranted. ‘Your daughter lies dead in Khos. My condolences for your misfortune. May she be remembered for her strengths and not her many weaknesses.’

Kira bowed her head even lower, if only to hide her sudden flush of rage.

He rang a tiny bell that sat in his lap. The tips of his fingers were coal black.

Another priest entered, and strode silently across the plush carpet to hand him a crystal tumbler filled with Royal Milk. Nihilis smacked his lips as he took a sip from it. Colour washed into his face, and he straightened. The robe parted further to reveal the silver spikes in his nipples, the mass of piercings in his genitals.

She watched him from beneath her eyelids, loathing himas much as she feared him.

‘So. What is to be done now? It seems we have an empty throne requiring an occupant.’

Octas Lefall cleared his throat first. Lefall was as old as Kira, had been there too during the Longest Night and the subsequent rise of Mann. ‘My nephew intends to lay his claim once he has wrested control of the Expeditionary Force in Khos. He is a stronger candidate than any other, and all here know it. We should notify the Arch-general to accede to his command. Let the transition be a smooth one. Let them get on with the business of taking Bar-Khos.’

‘A predictable sentiment, Octas. As always. And what do the rest of you think of this?’

‘I would support such a motion,’ commented Chishara of the Bonnes. ‘The longer this war continues, the longer it costs us all dearly.’

Hart, of the coal-rich Chirt clan, looked to Chishara in surprise.

‘That may be,’ Hart responded loudly. ‘But there are others who intend to make a rightful claim to the throne. My sonis one of them. He should be given his chance.’

A snort of derision came from Lefall, who snuffled it with a swipe of a finger down his long nose.

‘You wish me to give the nod to spirited Romano,’ Nihilis said to him. ‘Yet that is hardly our way, is it? No. We must see if he is fit enough to rule first. If he wins through in Khos,
then
he may have my consent. If not, we shall see who rises from the infighting here in Q’os, and I shall decide then if they are right for it.’

‘But, lord,’ said Chishara. ‘If we allow them to dither, we may lose our chance at Bar-Khos.’

‘Oh, the Free Ports will fall all right, have no doubts on that, Chishara.’

Kira found that her attention was drifting. Her fists were clenching tight by her sides. She could feel her fingernails biting into her palms. A fierce bitterness had possessed her, a sense of shame, even, at this lessening of her daughter before them all; at the lessening of her own position.

Look at the harm you have caused our family
, she spoke to her daughter.
We are losers now. Our star falls and our force diminishes. You were meant to win, my child! You were meant to conquer!

Beyond her, in the greater world, Chishara was glancing at Lefall as she made to reply. ‘It is not only that, my lord. There is the expense of it. Last week, my annaliticos informed me that if the war continues for another year, it will have cost us more than we can hope to recoup from the islands over twenty years of occupation.’

Nihilis waggled a finger at her, as though at an impudent child. Indeed she was the youngest of the gathering, barely beyond fifty years old. ‘The defeat of the Free Ports means much more to us than merely what we can profit from their wheat and ores.’ He paused to drink again from the tumbler of Milk. Savoured the taste of it for a lingering moment. ‘Yes, I see that you are interested now, all of you. Kira, tell them of this clever plan of ours.’

Hostile faces turned to observe her. Stares that accused her of their lord’s favouritism, because she had once been this his casual lover.

‘Of course,’ Kira croaked, gazing straight at Nihilis now. Her knees were starting to hurt, kneeling like this. ‘A plan, I should add, first endorsed by myself and my daughter.’

A tight-lipped smile stretched his wrinkled features, and his head nodded in subtle acknowledgement.

To the others, she said, ‘We project that the Free Ports will have fallen within the year, once we have dealt with Bar-Khos. When they do fall, we will be free to turn our attentions to the problem of Zanzahar and the Caliphate.’

A rolling of the eyes from Lefall. Kira chose to ignore it.

The words tumbled from her lips of their own practised accord. ‘At that point, we become their sole customer for blackpowder. With the war over, we will cut our demand for blackpowder to almost nothing. We will do so under the guise of a temporary consolidationofour accounts. At the same time, we will manufacture a famine in Pathia, or another of the southern lands, so that the price of our wheat will soar. We will be forced then, or so it will seem, to raise our tariffs in the wheat that we sell to Zanzahar, and which they are reliant upon.

‘Within a year of these double blows to their economy, Zanzahar will be experiencing a period of deepening crisis. Conditions will be ripe for a coup against the House of Sharat. We will make certain of that. We will manufacture the coup ourselves, with players of our own choosing, using our Diplomats to back them. Zanzahar and the Caliphate shall fall without a single battle. More importantly, their monopoly on trade with the Isles of Sky shall be ours. And with it, the only known source of blackpowder.’

They were all blinking at her as though she was speaking in tongues.

‘Are you quite serious?’ exclaimed Chishara, forgetting herself in the heat of her temper. ‘We stand on the verge of finishing the Free Ports here, and already you wish to gamble with all that we will have gained? What if the Caliphate realizes our true intentions? They could call an embargo on our heads, choke us of powder whilst feeding it to whatever insurgencies they can foment within the Empire.’

‘You fear for what we might lose,’ interjected Nihilis, lifting a finger again. ‘That is always your weakness, Chisara. Better if instead you embraced all that we could gain from this.’

‘So it’s settled, then,’ asked Lefall. ‘We’re going ahead with this?’

Nihilis craned his head back so as to scrutinize the man better. Kira gazed at the startling redness of her master’s lips, the tip of his tongue, the fleshy rims of his eyelids.

‘Do you have enough chattel, Lefall? Enough to satisfy you, I mean.’

Lefall chanced a subtle smile. ‘One can never have too much, my lord.’

The vivid tongue of Nihilis probed the air for an instant.

‘Then there is your answer, is it not?’

EPILOGUE

Friends with Boats

It was a sound like no other, the roar of a skyship’s burning tubes. It filled the air while blanketing all other noises, so that after a while, when the ears had grown used it, it became a kind of silence.

Ash pressed forwards against the rail as the skyship began a slow circle above the monastery grounds. His grip tightened as he looked down on the small woodland of mali trees with their copper leaves covered in snow, and the stark black rectangle of ruins that lay at the heart of them like the stamp of some wrathful deity.

Amongst the thinning outskirts of the woodland, canvas tents stood in a sprawling camp with smoke smearing from their metal chimney pipes.

‘All gone, you said,’ remarked Meer the monk. ‘You recall?’

Ash could only stare in astonishment.

He heard a cane rapping against the decking as Coya came to join them both.

‘My spirits lift to see that there are survivors,’ he remarked, cheerfully, and then turned towards the captain of the ship, standing on the quarterdeck with his pilot. Both of them were discussing where they should land.

He rapped his cane loudly against the planking, trying to be heard above the burners.

‘Quickly now, Ronson. Bring us down!’

Ash jumped to the ground even before the ship had touched down on the snow, and a moment before the ship’s boys vaulted clear to tether the ship with stakes and ropes, their clothes and hair blowing in the wind.

Around him, the high mountain valley lay beneath a carpet of white. A pica called out from somewhere, cackling to itself as though at some dirty joke. He stood for a moment, watching the outlines of the distant, heaving tents. He stroked the hilt of his sheathed sword with his thumb.

A few hesitant steps, and then Ash was striding towards them with his blood already starting to rise.

He heard voices suddenly raised, people arguing, as he neared the closest tent, its sloped roof bulging with snowfall. Ash stepped around to the entrance. At the same moment Baracha stepped out with a scowl on his tattoo-covered face.

The big Alhazii froze in surprise, a curious display of expressions passing across his face – surprise, anger, confusion, and then, at last – relief.

‘You old bastard!’ he exclaimed, and seized him by the shoulders and shook him before Ash could respond.

Behind Baracha, he saw Serèse and Aléas sitting on rough cots inside the tent with playing cards in their hands, their mouths gaping. ‘Ash!’ they both exclaimed, and rushed to greet him.

Warmth filled his body as they embraced. At last he broke clear of them, uncomfortable with their open displays of emotion. He nodded to the stump of Baracha’s left arm, wrapped now in a leather binding. ‘It healed well, then?’

‘Aye, well enough. Itches like the damned, though.’

Yes
, thought Ash, and was reminded of Osh
ō
and his own missing limb, scratching at a wooden leg that his memory still thought to be flesh.

All at once they started to talk across each other. Ash waved their questions aside. ‘Tell me,’ he said, unable to contain himself any longer. ‘The urn I gave you, is it still safe?’

‘Of course,’ rumbled Baracha. ‘I gave it to Aléas to look after.’

Aléas went and drew the urn of ashes out from beneath his cot. Relief flooded Ash so entirely that for a moment his body trembled.

‘Come,’ said Baracha. ‘We must bring you to the others!’

‘You heard what happened, then?’ Baracha asked over his shoulder as he led the way.

‘From our agent in Khos.’

‘We lost half our people in the attack. When Osh
ō
realized the situation was hopeless, he ordered everyone he could down into the watching-house. The Mannians left without knowing they were even there.’

Ash stopped with his boots deep in the snow. He could feel fines of ash in his nostrils now.

‘Osh
ō
. How did he die?’

Baracha paused for a moment before he turned to face him.

‘We found him at the gates surrounded by the others. They made a last stand there, so the rest of us could make it down below.’

‘And Kosh?’

‘He’s thinner than he used to be. And drinking more than ever.’

‘He lives?’

‘Come see.’

It was more than Ash could have hoped for – another steamy tent, and Kosh sitting on a cot talking to a group of apprentices.

His old comrade opened his mouth wide, then hurried across to him, his eyes sparkling. ‘You’re alive,’ he breathed in Honshu, and he grasped Ash with an outstretched hand, as though to confirm his existence.

‘It’s good to see you, old friend,’ Ash said as they embraced. ‘Damned good to see you all.’

In the largest tent of the camp, the remaining R
ō
shun gathered in raucous excitement. Even the Seer came down from his shack to join them, and greeted Ash kindly.

There were twenty-four survivors in all, many of them apprentices or the youngest R
ō
shun of the order. It had mostly been the older hands who had stood at the gates and fought to buy them some time. He saw Stretch of the Green Isles there amongst them, and wily Hull, and the two Nevar
ē
s brothers, sitting together as always.