‘And Vyrrch? What did you promise
him
?
Anais cried.
‘Vyrrch is dead,’ Lucia said quietly.
‘Silence,’ Durun snapped.
‘The dream lady beat him,’ she said.
‘I told you
silenceV
The ravens stirred, a black ripple through the blanket of beaks and feathers.
‘My Emperor,’ said Yttrys nervously. ‘Let us be about our business and gone from here.’
Durun was about to reply when his hand exploded.
Anais screamed as hot blood splattered her, but her scream was nothing to the roar of agony that came from her husband as he drew back the blazing stump of his sword arm. Lucia darted out of his grip, her long blonde hair afire, screaming also. At the same moment the ravens took flight as one in a vast black cloud, and the air was filled with the beating and thumping of their wings.
Yttrys was too paralysed by fright at the sight of the birds to pay attention to Anais as she ducked away, grabbing Lucia and slapping at her head to put out the flames. Durun’s own hair was alight now, the silken black gloss rilled with licking waves of fire. He beat at himself helplessly. Yttrys, suddenly realising what had become of his prisoner, ran to where Anais was crouched over Lucia. He hesitated for the briefest of moments, constrained by the last vestiges of her authority; then he plunged his sword into the Empress’s back with a cry.
Anais screamed, a shriek of pain that overwhelmed the cawing of the approaching ravens. The agony was indescribable, but worse was the sudden, swamping cold that settled on her body like a shroud, numbing her. She barely felt the jerk as the blade was pulled from her, tearing through organs and muscle and skin to come free in a spray of dark arterial blood. She was already sinking into the grey folds of unconsciousness. Desperately she clutched Lucia to her, looking at the pallid face of her child, and tears fell from her eyes as the wet stain on the back of her dress swelled in ugly osmosis.
Yttrys turned to run, but in turning he saw Tane and Kaiku at the other end of the bridge; the shaven-headed man and the young woman with her eyes the colour of blood. The sight caused him to halt, to re-evaluate for a moment. Were they friend or enemy? Could he kill them both? Had they been responsible for what had happened to Durun? It was an automatic soldier’s instinct, a
second’s pause; and that was all it took for the ravens to reach the Imperial Guards.
Yttrys shrieked as they enshrouded him, clawing at his nape and scalp and face, a thousand tiny knives raking and pecking at his flesh. He opened his mouth to shriek again, but they slashed and plucked at his tongue. They tore through his eyelids and gorged on the soft jelly of his eyes. He fell and thrashed and wailed, but they were relentless, attacking every inch of his body until there was no part of him that was not bloodied. The other Guards suffered similar torment before they died.
At the same time the ravens bombarded the Emperor, wings beating at his face, pummelling him, battering his body. Still flailing at his hair to put out the searing torch that was crisping the skin of his back and neck, he stumbled backward, and with a wail of fear he toppled over the parapet and plunged off the bridge. His final scream faded until they could hear it no more.
By the time Kaiku and Tane had run over to the fallen Empress, the quiet had returned. All about was the shifting of wings from the ravens, the soft wet smacking as they devoured the corpses of the Guards. Anais sobbed and gasped, lying across her daughter. Her back was soaked in a great dark patch, and blood had run down her arms and dripped from her sleeves, spattering sinister blooms of red on to the bridge. Kaiku crouched next to her, touched her shoulder with a gentle hand.
‘Is she alive?’ Kaiku asked.
Anais drew back, her moist eyes never leaving her child. Her face was grey, and seemed to have aged terribly. Lucia lay still, her eyes closed. Her back had been terribly burned through the green dress she wore, the fibres of the clothing having blackened and snapped and curled away from each other. Her breathing was shallow, and a pulse fluttered at her throat, but she would not wake when Anais rocked her.
The spectre that had led them through the Keep, that had brought them here; it was this girl. She had drawn them to her intentionally. She must have known she was in danger.
But it seemed they had come too late.
‘Help her. She’s… my daughter,’ Anais gasped. She seemed oblivious to her own mortal wound.
Kaiku nodded, and for the first time Anais saw her, saw the crimson irises of her eyes. She coughed, and blood ran from her
mouth. Kaiku felt tears coming. This, the Empress of all Saramyr. For so long she had been an almost mythical creature, holding the power of a vast empire in her hands. Millions would fight and die at her command, armadas would sail the oceans for her; she was as close to godhead as humanity would allow. But in the end, only human after all. She seemed so small now, just a frail dying woman. Kaiku listened to Tane murmuring rites to Noctu and Omecha, final benedictions for the soul of their ruler, and she felt a sense of tragedy overwhelm her.
Suddenly Anais clasped Kaiku’s hand in her own, a grip so strong that Kaiku might have been an anchor to keep her from floating away. Her eyes were unfocused, and she was not seeing.
‘I am frightened…’ she sobbed. ‘Gods, I am frightened…’
Kaiku stroked her hair, smearing a trail of blood into it. ‘Shh,’ she said. ‘Dying is not so bad.’
But whether the Empress heard her or not, she never knew, for the light in her eyes had gone out, and with a final sigh she sagged.
‘Good journey,’ Kaiku whispered, and tears fell from her lashes. It was only when she looked up again that she saw the ravens, surrounding them in a black tide, a blanket of feathers and beaks and eyes, all turned to the Heir-Empress.
‘We must go,’ Tane said suddenly. He rolled the Empress ungraciously aside and picked up the child, hefting her easily despite the illness that had weakened him. The ravens fluttered in consternation, but he ignored them. ‘I can’t help her here. She needs a physician.’
Kaiku did not reply, but she rose to her feet, her gaze still on the dead woman that lay before her. She was beginning to feel the incipient burn of using her
kana
, coming on savagely in response to the effort it had taken to focus her energy on such a small target -the Emperor’s hand. What thoughts passed through her then, even she could not say; but then she turned and followed Tane as he ran back into the Keep, the fallen heir to Saramyr couched in his arms.
Thirty-Three
The Imperial Keep was in turmoil. The bombs that had been set to sow chaos and confusion had been more effective than any of the usurpers could have imagined. Scholars raced to save precious manuscripts or works of art from rooms threatened by flame; servants rushed to and fro with water from the pipes to quench the hungry fires; children ran bawling in search of their mothers. The Imperial Guards were in disarray. Since they were unable to trust even their own ranks, they could not mount any kind of coherent operation. The Imperial Family had been taken away into hiding, and none knew where they were. A body had been discovered at the base of the Tower of the North Wind, but it was so flayed by ravens that there was little more than a bloodied skeleton remaining. It would not be for many hours that the rings on the corpse’s fingers would be recognised as those of Durun tu Batik, former Emperor of Saramyr. The Empress’s body was discovered shortly after; but by then it was far, far too late.
It had all got out of control. The bombs and the madness were necessary to provide a cover so the Empress and her Aberrant spawn could be killed in secret, and their murder credibly blamed on somebody else. Now it worked against its instigators, for amid the confusion nobody stopped for two servants carrying an injured girl. Not many in the Keep had ever seen the Heir-Empress, and few would recognise her in this state if they did, with her clothes burned and her face covered by her hair. Slightly more remarkable was the fact that one of the servants was a woman dressed in man’s clothes, and that she stumbled along with her eyes bound by a torn rag of cloth and her hand on her sickly-looking companion’s
shoulder, evidently blinded by some shard of stone thrown by an explosion. But better the people of the Keep should see that than an Aberrant; for Kaiku’s eyes were blood-red in the aftermath of using her
kana
, and would not fade for hours yet. The concentration involved in focusing her power to destroy only Durun’s hand had drained her to exhaustion; and even then, she had failed. The Heir-empress lay unconscious and burned because she could not control the force within her well enough, and if she died it would be on Kaiku’s head. She did not think she could bear the weight of that guilt.
So they hurried along as best they could, following Tane’s memory back to the servants’ quarters where Purloch waited for them. They had no time to think what might have become of the others. There was only flight.
((Asara!))
Asara pulled Mishani to a halt, dragging her to the side of the corridor behind a statue of Yoru, guardian of the Gates of Omecha, with his wine jug raised high. The cool, austere thoroughfares of the Imperial Keep had become manic now, and servants and soldiers rushed and clattered by, to and fro, boots clicking on
lack
, shouting commands and questions. They were in one of the interior corridors, where there were no outside windows, and even high-ceilinged and wide as it was, it felt terribly claustrophobic.
Both of them were sweaty and dishevelled. Their escape from the throne room had been a narrow thing, but the Imperial Guards had no interest in a noble lady and her handmaiden while they were locked in combat with each other. The loyal and the traitorous had become mixed and mingled hopelessly, and after Barak Mos had fled the battleground degenerated into a free-for-all. The robed advisors and scribes trapped in the room were ignored, and Mishani and Asara slipped away with them once their route was clear. One Guard had raised his sword to stop them, but Asara had killed him bare-handed in an eyeblink. Mishani still could not credit what she had seen, but astonishment was something that would have to wait. For now, she wanted only to escape this place. The pronouncement of her execution had shaken her enough so that she cared little about the Heir-Empress or the plans of the Libera Dramach at this moment; she needed only safety and sanctuary.
‘What is it?’ she asked, a little shocked at being roughly taken
aside by Asara. She was not accustomed to being manhandled like that by anyone. The Aberrant lady hushed her.
((Asara.))
It was Cailin. This was not the first time the Sister had spoken to Asara from afar, and it did not perturb her now as it had in the beginning. She disliked having anyone in her head, but Cailin at least was a considerate house guest, and if she pried into any of Asara’s deeper secrets then it was too subtle for her to notice.
She concentrated a stream of images, recalling in a jumbled order what had happened to them, making it as clear as she could. There was no way for her to speak directly to Cailin - she did not have the mechanisms in her to send words - but impressions would be enough.
Cailin understood. She replied with another set of images, these ones embedded with instructions and information.
‘What
is
it?’ Mishani persisted.
Asara blinked, and the contact was gone. ‘Cailin,’ she said. ‘She has done away with Vyrrch, and she has a free hand across the Keep. She is our eyes now.’ She turned back the other way. ‘We have something we must do.’
‘What
must
we do?’ Mishani’s tone made it clear that she was not moving, and certainly not back towards the heart of the Keep.
‘Kaiku and Tane have the Heir-Empress,’ Asara said. ‘We have to find them. Cailin will lead us there.’
‘Kaiku?’ Mishani said, and they were on their way.
Another explosion rumbled through the Keep, making the walls shake. This one was no bomb, but the stores of ignition powder down in the cellars. Kaiku stumbled and fell as they were crossing an intersection between two corridors, into the path of a frightened group of servant women who almost trampled her. The sound of running feet and the clank of armour came after, and Tane saw with a thrill of horror that a group of Imperial Guards was racing towards them. He shifted Lucia’s weight to one arm and used the other to grab Kaiku and haul her to one side, then huddled down with her, shielding the Heir-Empress with his body as the Guards rushed by. They paid him no attention.
Kaiku’s eyelids were drooping behind the cloth rag that concealed her eyes, her head lolling forward on to her breast. ‘I cannot go on,’ she said. ‘I am so tired.’
Tane would not listen. The fever that had settled in his bones only seemed to make him more determined not to tire, more unforgiving of weakness; his or hers. Though he sweated and his skin seemed taut and yellowish, he would not allow himself to succumb, and was driving himself ever harder. Relinquishing Lucia for a moment, he dragged Kaiku to her feet. She moaned in protest. ‘Be quiet,’ he hissed, at the sound of new footsteps. He lifted Lucia up, put Kaiku’s hand back on his shoulder, and they went on.
For Kaiku it was a descent into nightmare that was becoming all too familiar. The awful burning, the empty void left inside her after her
kana
had broken free stole her will to do anything but lie where she was and sleep. One day, unless she learned to tame it, it would be the death of her. It might already have been the death of the Heir-Empress, and the hopes of the Libera Dramach. She staggered in Tane’s wake, hating him for forcing her to run when she could be asleep, hating herself for being so selfish when there was a child in his arms who could be dying even now.
Tane moved with certainty; after many years of finding his way through forests, the ordered corridors of the Keep presented no problem to him. Under his guidance, they made their way rapidly down into the lower levels, heading for the servants’ quarters. Every new person that passed them by brought a fresh dread; every pair of eyes looking them over might recognise the child he carried, and that would be the end for them. But time and again their luck held, and they passed through the confusion unchallenged.