Farlander

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Diplomat On the first day of autumn, in what would soon be the fiftieth year of Mann, in a deafening rainstorm that slashed through the air to burst against every surface like a torrent of glass shots, a man hurried from the dark and hooded entranceway of the Temple of Whispers, and threw his own hood about his shaven skull, and set off at a brisk stride across the planking of the wooden bridge, his priestly white robes whipping behind him with their own wind, the stamp of his footsteps falling lost in the thrashing waters of the moat below.

The man did not pause as he passed the masked Acolytes standing on duty in the shelter of the guard house at the far end of the bridge. His gaze remained fixed to the ground as his pace bore him through the empty streets of the surrounding Temple District, his skin constantly itching so that he kept scratching at his arms and face. A few fellow priests scurried past, their similarly hooded heads bowed low in submission to the elements. Puddles boiled without reflections. A white cat huddled in a doorway, silent and watching.

Behind him, ever further behind him, the Temple of Whispers loomed amid curtains of rain like a living thing; its flanks bristling with spikes in such numbers that they looked like a covering of fur; a tower that was not one tower but a great twisting column of fluted pillars and turrets wrapped and warped by bands of stone. With every step, the young priest could feel it at his back, a massive sentinel watching him. It was a presence that flattened his mood even further – this sense of confusion he had awakened with on the morning of his twenty-fourth birthday.

The further he went, the busier the streets grew. Ahead rose a clamour of voices, and wild cries as though from some exotic menagerie. The rain had settled into a steady drizzle as the priest entered the great plaza called Freedom Square, where distant marble buildings lined three sides of the open space, and behind them, in turn, were visible lesser skysteeples – pale spikes partly obscured by the shroud of rain.

The bad weather had barely diminished the vast crowd of devotees already gathered in the square in anticipation of the forthcoming festival of Augere el Mann, which was still almost a month away. The majority were pilgrims from across the Empire, drawn in ever greater numbers than usual by this Augere marking the fiftieth anniversary of Mannian rule: men and women alike, foreigners who had fervently embraced the religion of Mann even though many of their compatriots still grumbled bitterly and called for insurrection. All wore the common garb of the lay devotee, a vivid red robe hanging almost down to their bare feet. The front of their sodden garments bore the testimony of their past conversions: white open-palmed handprints flaking with age so that many were now a mottled pink.

After several years living in this city, the young priest Che was still barely inured to the sights and sounds of these mass devotions. As he splashed his way across the flagstones paving the square, he eyed his surroundings from within the reassuring folds of his hood.

The pilgrims called out in tongues whilst thrashing about wildly on the spot. Or they listened with bright eyes to the inflammatory sermons of priests perched on canopied podiums, firebrands who shouted and gesticulated with fervour at their nodding heads and calls of concordance. They skewered their bleeding faces with spikes, or paraded with scalps afire, or copulated on the ground, or simply wandered about like dazed sightseers, with mouths agape at everything going on around them.

Che skirted a great block of conformity that stretched from one side of the square almost to the other, ten thousand converts who stood facing the rain-shrouded Temple of Whispers, all dressed in unmarked red robes, their arms raised above them, mouths chanting constantly, faces aglow with the same fervour that had drawn them all the way to Holy Q'os for the ritual of conversion.

As one, they knelt on the flagstones, ten thousand robes rustling like a murmur of the wind. They bowed prostrate on the ground then stood up again, only to repeat the ritual. The young priest continued past lines of such dripping converts as they waited in turn to step forward and receive the press of a painted hand upon their chests from an ordained priest of Q'os. Che did not slow in his stride even here, the pilgrims clearing a path for him, as soon as they recognized his white robes. He walked between the legs of a dripping statue of Sasheen, the Holy Matriarch, sitting astride a rearing white zel, and another of Nihilis, founding Patriarch of the new order, his bronze face grim and ancient.

Towards the eastern end of the square, the press began to thin, pilgrims mixing with ordinary citizens going about their daily business. The usual vendors' carts had been set up, with their simple, sagging awnings, from beneath which their owners sold paper cups of hot chee, bowls of food, bundled rainslicks. Others stood in the rain hawking souvenirs: cheap tin figurines of Sasheen, Mokabi, Nihilis. They observed the practices around them without fondness in their eyes, and cast furtive looks at the plain-clothed Regulators who stood in pairs around the edges of the crowd, watching over all.

A pair of guards mounted on zelback halted to give way to him, their unstrung crossbows resting on their laps. Che did not bother to acknowledge them, but marched on out of the square through Dubusi street on the eastern side. He took a quick left and then a right through some smaller side streets, the noise of the crowds fading behind him with every step. His senses grew alert for any indication that he was being followed.

By the time he approached one of the smaller skysteeples, the constant rain had soaked his white robes grey. The cloth clung to his arms and legs, showing the hard wiry muscles beneath. His face still itched abominably, so that he paused before the bridge accessing the smaller tower, threw back his hood and stared up at the dark sky, then twisted his neck back and forth in the soothing rain. After a minute of such self-indulgence, he spat out a mouthful of the acrid water and wiped his eyes clear.

A flight of bat-wings were circling up there in a slow descent. They were larger than the type he had become accustomed to seeing above the city, which were used for surveillance or as couriers dispatched from one temple to another. He assumed these must be the new Warbirds that the Empire had been developing over recent years, purportedly strong enough to carry ordinance in the field and he knew it was so when they suddenly turned and swept towards Freedom Square: a fly-over, intended to dazzle the pilgrims with the endless innovations of Mann.

Che set foot on the bridge, treading slowly. Reaching the entrance, he stopped by a stout metal door. A grille was embedded within it at head height, though it was too dark to see the eyes he knew were watching him from behind. A hatch slid open at waist level, to acknowledge his presence. Che scratched at his neck one more time, before sliding both hands into the black space now revealed.

As a series of clunks announced the manipulation of the door's many locks, the young priest withdrew his hands, and a smaller door opened within the larger one. It was narrow and low, intended to force any visitor to stoop and turn sideways in order to step through. Being short, Che was able to enter without having to duck.

Every hindrance a blessing, he thought drily; and even here, in the heart of the Holy Empire of Mann, he did not find it odd to be recalling that old saying of the Rshun.

*

The Sentiate Temple was quiet at that early hour. Its circular ground floor was as dim as it always would be, windowless and lit only by a few gaslights sputtering along the curving wall. The two Acolytes on duty watched from behind their masks as Che shook his shaven head dry, as a dog would, and then his dripping robes too.

'It's raining,' he explained, as though in apology.

The guards wondered if he was an idiot, one of those privileged young priests that sometimes slipped through the examiners' nets by way of money and parentage.

The taller loomed over his head; like another tower watching him. 'We serve only the high caste here,' the guard said. 'State your business.'

Che frowned. 'Mostly this, I'm afraid.'

They had time enough only to widen their eyes before the two punch-knives drove up through their throats.

The two Acolytes convulsed where they stood. Che withdrew both blades simultaneously and at the same instant stepped aside to avoid the discharges of blood he knew exactly where and how would follow. He walked a tight circle around the spreading pool of gore as he glanced around for any witnesses, and returned in time to see the two guards only then crumple from the knees up, one man folding sideways to the stone floor, the other on to his backside, and then on to his back.

Che felt nothing.

He was quick to drag the corpses out of sight, behind a statue of an imperial celebrity; Archgeneral Mokabi – retired – he noticed when he paused long enough to inspect the alcove it stood in. The pools of blood would eventually give the game away, but in this gloom only if someone chanced to pass them directly.

It would do, for all the time his work here would take him.

He crouched in the shadows, using a knife to cut free one of the men's robes. He bundled the garment beneath his arm.

The north stairwell was merely a spiral of steps fixed around a central pillar. Che followed it upwards for seven floors, proceeding casually as though he rightly belonged there. No one he encountered cared to challenge him.

He halted at the seventh floor of the skysteeple, where the stairwell opened on to a lush and spacious room of pink marble with a water fountain playing at its centre surrounded by potted plants. The air within this space tingled with the heady fragrance of pleasure narcotics. Three bald and slightly plump eunuchs lolled on the edge of the fountain, wearing loose-fitting robes, yet armed with dirks. They occasionally tossed water at each other, throwing giggling glances at the two priests who sat on the opposite rim of the fountain, one wearing an expression of eagerness, the other of acute boredom. From beyond them, through an archway of sensual mosaics and flowing red silks, emerged the sound of laughter, both male and female, mingled with the music of flutes and light drums beating like a steady pulse.

Che, still hesitating in the stairwell, ducked his head back below floor level. He scratched unthinkingly at his arm while he quickly calculated his options.

He retreated to the floor below, seemingly empty except for the steady resonance of mass snoring.

A window shone pale light into the darkened space before him. It drew Che to it, and he opened it inwards and poked his head out into the rain.

Looking up, he found it was just as he had known it would be. A concrete facade, nearly vertical, dotted with decorative protrusions too widely spaced to aid climbing. It was windowless for another four floors up.

Che worked fast. First he donned gloves of the thinnest leather, then withdrew a clay jar from the equipment webbing slung beneath his priestly robes. The jar was sealed with a thick wax plug, and had a shoulder strap fixed to a wire wrapped several times about its neck. As he pulled out the wax stopper, a stench of animal fat and seaweed assailed his nostrils; he checked that the creamy white contents had not hardened inside. Satisfied, he pulled the strap over his head so that the jar hung against his hip, then shook open the bundled robe he had taken from the guard. He began to cut the material into strips using a knife drawn from his boot. Only once did he cast a glance backwards to check his surroundings; even then he did not pause in his task.

With the shreds of cloak stuffed into another pocket, Che jumped on to the windowsill and turned so that his back faced out into the rain. His balance was precise, like that of a rope walker. Still, the empty air sucked at him.

He pulled out one strip of cloth, rolling it into a ball, then dabbed it into the jar before fixing the sodden ball to the outside wall next to the window frame, where it stuck against the concrete surface.

He proceeded to do the same with further strips, sticking a total of six rolled-up rags upon the surface within easy reach of his hands. By the time he had finished the last one, the first and lowest had dried into a hardened footrest.

Che removed his boots. He tied them together by the laces and slung them around his neck. Tentatively, he stretched a leg to the side and tried the first foothold with a bare sole. It held firm.

'World Mother preserve the foolish,' he muttered, and stepped out on to it with all his weight. Che did not dare look down. With a fierce grimace, he began to climb.

*

Despite his relative youth, Che was experienced at such work. He had discovered a natural aptitude for it, which was surprising, considering he had never been given any say in the matter.

It was this he reflected upon as he forced himself to climb the near-vertical wall of a tower in the freezing rain a few hundred feet above the ground, his fingers trembling with the effort, the sting of water in his eyes. A life without choices.

For instance; his childhood.

Che had been lucky at conception. He had been born into a family of great wealth – the Dolcci-Feda merchant clan, with warehouses covering half the northern docklands. At thirteen, he had been living happily enough in an affluent suburb to the east of the city. Like any other boy of that age, he had been easy with laughter, and daring, though at times overly wild. But life had changed dramatically when he had fallen into trouble of his own making – the worst kind of trouble, involving the daughter of a family that were commercial rivals to his own. In short, Che had got their fondest treasure with child.

One sultry afternoon, with dark thunderclouds pressing down upon the city, Che had been forced to watch a duel with blades, fought between his own father and hers, as was the custom of settling disputes of honour in Q'os. Though both men were wounded, they survived, and without a death it settled nothing. A few days later, a cannon shot exploded through the outer wall of Che's bedroom. Thankfully, he was not in the room at the time.

The shot had been launched from an artillery piece set up furtively on the roof of a neighbouring household, whose occupants were away summering at their vineyards in Exanse. Initially, Che's father was enraged by the act. Later as the dust slowly settled throughout the great house, his mood turned quiet and nervous.

Even within the military, blackpowder was the rarest of commodities. Yet this had not dissuaded their enemies. Neither, for that matter, had they been deterred by the seal which Che had worn around his neck since the age of ten, thus protecting him by means of the threat of vendetta. It was now clear that their enemies would stop at nothing to settle this dispute.

Che was the only son of the family, and some day he would take over the reins of their business empire. It was quickly announced to him that he must leave for his own safety. His father could think of no other way to guarantee it.

The very next morning, Che was smuggled by a covered carriage to the local agent of the Rshun order. Once safely inside the building, with the doors locked, the windows shuttered, the lamps turned low, his father offered the woman a small fortune in gold, trying to persuade her to send Che away somewhere to train as a Rshun apprentice. She was reluctant at first, but Che's father pleaded and begged, claiming that the boy's life depended on her.

Che left there a week later, after hiding out in the agent's cellar. Someone had turned up to collect him, a middle-aged Rshun with the sharp cheekbones and hard, violet eyes that signified a native of the High Pash. The man growled his name, Shebec, and after that hardly spoke again. Without any chance of saying farewell to his family, Che was smuggled on to a ship which set sail the moment they were aboard. In just over a week, it had crossed to Cheem, and from there began a strange and frightening journey through the island's mountainous interior.

And so it was that pampered Che spent the rest of his boyhood learning how to kill without mercy, and with whatever means came to hand. As the weeks passed into months, and the months passed into years, it surprised him to find that he did not miss his family at all, nor the life of luxury he had left behind.

Che had always been a fast learner, so as an apprentice assassin his progress was swift. He made friends readily, and he was careful not to make any enemies. Yet for all that, he was a youth troubled within his own skin.

At night, lying in his bunk in the dormitory that housed all the apprentices, Che would dream another's dreams.

He would dream of having lived another life entirely – a life in which his mother and father were not his real parents, nor their home his true home. So real were these sleeping visions, so founded in fact and minutiae of detail, that he would awake in the morning feeling a stranger to himself, floundering to grasp what was real and what was merely sham. Sometimes, secretly, Che suspected he was losing his mind.

As the years advanced, he did his best to hold himself together. He kept those dreams of another existence to himself.

Eventually he grew into a man. He became Rshun.

*

At the time it had seemed like any other day, save that it was the eve of his twenty-first birthday, which in fact meant very little to Che. His master, Shebec, had got his days mixed up as always, thinking it was already Che's birthday. Shebec made a bit of a fuss by preparing a honeycake crammed with nuts, then sat down and shared some wine with him. Che did not have the heart to correct his master's mistake, but when he retired to his room it was with a growing, indefinable sense of unease.

That night, for the very first time since arriving at the monastery, Che dreamed of nothing at all. He slept deeply, without constant shifting, without muttering into the darkness, and awoke on the morning of his real birthday to find that he was no longer himself.

Suddenly, like seeing through a window thrown open upon a vista that had always been there but never acknowledged, he knew the truth about his life. And in the privacy of his small, neat cell, in the early light filtering through the gaps in the shutters, Che shook with bitter laughter and tears welling out of relief, desperation, and all that he had lost.

He did not say goodbye to his master. He fought down the urge to seek Shebec out, to offer him even a subtle farewell, a smile perhaps. He feared the older man would catch wind of his intentions. Che walked out of the monastery gates as the rest of the order slowly awoke to the new day, leaving everything that he possessed behind him, save for a travel bag stuffed with dried foods.

He didn't descend the valley but headed across it instead. A stout, grey-sloped mountain, which they called the Old Man, reared above a twisting side-valley cut deep by a rushing torrent. In the dawn light Che began to climb the Old Man's steep pitch of shale. He knew where the closest Rshun sentinel was hidden in his lookout, watching out over the path below, and he made sure to cut a course leading behind him. When Che reached the top of the peak, he looked back at the monastery of Sato with his heart in confusion.

Che then turned and descended the other side.

He was to climb many high passes in the days that followed. He hiked in the tracks of mountain goats, picking his way along trails that ran along sheer cliff faces, with great airy drops yawning below him. Always Che sought routes that would lead him gradually downwards. His meandering became purposeful like water seeking the sea as he steadily left the heart of the mountain range behind him.

He was ragged and starving by the time he came down from the foothills to the coast, twelve days having passed since he had first set off from Sato. He purchased food from the occasional dour homesteaders he passed, and a mule at the first harbour town he reached, and so made his way along the coast road to Cheem Port.

From Cheem Port, he caught a fast sloop straight to Q'os.

Che never returned.

*

Now, many floors up, three years later, Che perched within a fingertip's reach of an open window. If he had chanced to look down just then, he would have spotted a diminishing sequence of solidified rags spiralling down around the curvature of the tower – for he had climbed not simply up but around it as well, fixing new handholds and footholds as he went. However, Che did not look down.

The sound of love play tumbled from the open window above him. It was loud and reckless, and he waited without thought until it was finished. It did not take long.

A daring glance into the room revealed a man's fat backside, pale and dimpled, before it was covered by a hastily donned robe. 'My gratitude,' the fat priest breathed to the woman sprawled naked on the tussled bed, before hurrying out without a further glance.

Che failed to gain a proper look at the woman's face, but something about her, unconsciously, sent a thrill of warning along his spine. He waited out of sight, and listened to the whisper of silk as she too threw on some clothing.

Che placed the garrotte between his teeth.

Then, fighting his body's resistance, he sprang.

He was into the room, and stretching the length of wire between his fists, even as she turned and put a hand to her mouth as if to stifle a scream.

With a sigh, Che sagged back against the windowsill. He rested the garrotte in his lap as the woman dropped her hand.

'Can you not use the door like everybody else?' she demanded, scowling now.

'Hello, mother,' he said.

The woman busied herself for a moment with tidying up. She dragged the sheet from the bed, sprayed a mist of cloying perfume into the air, which smelled of wild lotus and scratched at the back of his throat. Finally she paused and, with a questioning frown disturbing her fine features, turned back to him.

'Are you here to kill me?' she inquired, with a nod towards the garrotte wire.

'Of course not,' he protested 'I was instructed to count coup, then return to the Temple immediately.'

'So you are here on an exercise then. But what possessed them, I wonder, to send you after your own mother?'

Che remained calm on the surface, as always, though within him a quiet rage was building. 'I don't know,' he admitted. 'You normally live on the floor above this one, surely?'

'Ah,' she purred, as though realizing a sudden truth. 'Yes, of course. They had me moved here just this morning.'

As she stepped closer, he could smell a musky after-scent. She smiled at him, almost seductively, the only smile that she seemed to know.

'I wonder,' she mused, 'what you would have done if they had ordered you to throttle the life from your own mother?'

Che frowned. He tucked the garrotte away among the folds of his robe, unable to meet her eyes. 'I wonder, too, if you would have enjoyed your lovemaking quite so much had you known your only son was dangling just outside the window.'

She turned away at that remark, pulling her thin robe tighter about herself.

'You shouldn't goad me, then,' he said to her stiffened back.

She crossed to a table, poured water from a jug into a crystal glass, several slices of orange peel bobbing upon the surface.

His mother – though that term still came to Che with some difficulty – remained beautiful for all her years. She was forty-one now he reckoned, despite any vain lies to the contrary. She was also in no way the same woman he had remembered being his mother when he was a youth, living in Q'os's most affluent suburb, without a care in the world.

In fact, that mother of his childhood memory had never existed at all. Nor had that life.

What Che had suddenly discovered in the monastery, on the morning of his twenty-first birthday, was this: every memory he retained of life before his exile to Cheem had been fake. They had all been implanted within his head for the younger Che to assume as real.

Upon awakening that morning he had realized this quite clearly; and that his mind had, in some way been instructed to remember it on the precise day of his twenty-first birthday. Like a surging tide his real memories had washed through the previous foundations of his life, carrying them away like so much useless flotsam. In their place, Che had suddenly known that he was no son of a rich merchant family at all. Instead he was a simple bastard, his father unknown, and his real mother a devoted Sentiate in one of the many love cults found within the Mannian order, in which Che had originally been raised as an Acolyte, a priest in the making.

When the tide of recall had swamped him, Che had been left floundering and breathless and with only a single purpose in which to hold on to: leave Cheem, return to Q'os.

It wasn't until his eventual return to the capital that he discovered precisely what had been done to him. Che had been used for the Empire's own purposes. They feared the Rshun, it seemed, and years before, they had deemed it prudent to send one of their own novices to train as one of these secretive assassins, in the hope of gaining information on them not only of their ways and methods but more importantly their location, in case the Empire ever had need to combat the order.

They had chosen Che for this particular task by a selection process unknown to him. Perhaps it had been a random choice. Perhaps he had shown some aptitude for such work. For several moons they had subjected his thirteen-year-old self to an intensive regime of mental manipulation, drugged beyond stupefaction as they talked him clear out of his young mind, repressing crucial memories, planting and reinforcing others.

Of course it had shocked Che to the core, these revelations. Without time to find his feet again after his return, even to be certain of his own identity again, the imperial Regulators had questioned Che for a full moon by using truth drugs and hypnosis to strip the smallest of details from him. Satisfied that he had been plucked clean, they ordered the tip of each little finger to be chopped off as part of his initiation into Mann. And let it be known how pleased they would be if he continued in his vocation as an assassin – not as Rshun, of course, but as one of their own.

They had left him no choice in the matter.

'Water?' asked his mother, crossing the room with the glass held out to him.

Che accepted. He drank it in one swallow, and for a moment he simply sat there, savouring the taste of it in his mouth.

The world intrudes, though, on all moments of quietness.

I must know why they sent me here today, to feign the murder of my own mother. Sweet Ers! Look at her, the empty-headed bitch. In her devotion to them, she believes they are merely playing games with us.

For a moment he wanted to seize and shake her slender body in his grip, then slap her hard across the face, again and again, until she woke up to all of this – these lives that he and she were both living.

Instead, Che cleared his throat. 'How are you?' he asked.

'Mm? Oh, I am well, thank you.' She was seated in front of her mirror now, untangling her long golden curls with a fine-toothed comb carved from bone, her hair a luxury of her Sentiate calling. She paused to glance at his reflection. 'Really, I am well. It has been a good season, what with the festival and all.' As her comb encountered a stubborn knot, she held out a fist of blonde hair and tugged the comb lightly to tease it through. 'In fact I am better than well – I feel wonderful, as though I was a young girl again. I have become the main object of desire for one of Sasheen's high priests. Me! Can you believe it?'

'Yes, I think I caught sight of his bare arse just now.'

'Rainee? Oh no, my dear, oh no, the very thought of it. No, he is merely one of my regulars. Farando is of a different mould entirely. Alas he is indeed a little ugly, but he has strength, power, position, and he plies me with gifts and fine nights out in the city. I could not ask for more.

'And you,' she asked, twisting to face her son. 'How are you?'

Che was scratching at his elbow; not absently, but with a will. 'I am fine,' he said, and inside he thought: She does not recall it is my birthday.

'Your skin looks better today. Is the ointment working?'

Yes, she had given him another new ointment to try out, in the hope that it might soothe the scaly rashes that forever afflicted him. He shrugged – a measured, careful gesture, like all his movements.

'If only I could remember what I used on you when you were young.' She shook her head, exasperated. 'It's lost to me. Am I getting old, do you think? Mm?' She studied her reflection in the mirror. 'Has my face begun to turn away from the sun at last – along with my memory?'

'You're old enough for melodrama, I'll give you that. I'm glad that you are well, mother, but I must leave you now.'

'So soon?'

'I'm being timed on this exercise. And I must find out what this is about.'

Che climbed on to the windowsill, but turned back for a final remark. 'Something is wrong in this,' he said. 'Be careful.'

He was gone even as she opened her mouth to say farewell. 'Oh,' she said, instead.

She returned to her reflection, humming softly as she raked her golden curls, taking care not to notice the rhythm of a heaving bed resounding through the floor just above her head.

*

'You counted coup as instructed?'

'I did,' replied Che.

'Excellent. Any collaterals?'

'Two Acolytes. Their deaths were… necessary.'

'Two? You could not have found some way around them?'

'It would have taken more time. I chose the most direct course of action.'

'You always do. It is the Rshun in you, I fear. Fine. And how, please tell me, was your mother?'

Che drew back a fraction from the wooden panel facing him. He sat in an alcove within a shadowy chamber, somewhere within the intricate maze comprising the lower floors of the Temple of Whispers. The alcove itself was pannelled in darkly varnished teak. At its rear, at head level when sitting, was a small lattice-work screen, the vacant spaces in between dark with the mystery of who and what might lie behind. A cool and spicy draught wafted through the gaps, though the absence of sound suggested that the space beyond was small, and private.

'My mother seems well enough,' the replied flatly to the unseen inquirer.

'I am pleased by that. She's fine woman.'

The voice was pitched annoyingly high, making the speaker sound perpetually on the verge of hysteria. Che knew of four different voices that would speak to him from this alcove – all four of them acting as his handler, though he had no idea who they might be. Neither, for that matter, had he any idea who his fellow assassins were, for they were all trained separately and so rarely allowed to meet.

Again Che leaned closer to the panel as he waited for more.

'Will you not question me, Che, as to why you were sent there today?'

'Would you tell me?'

A soft chuckle. 'No, I would not. But I do know of someone who will, in her own, roundabout way. She would like to talk with you now, young Diplomat.'

'Who do you speak of?' he kept his voice steady, though his heart had skipped into a faster rhythm.

'Report to the Storm Chamber immediately. She awaits you there.'

*

Che rode in a noisy climbing box, flanked by two masked Acolytes gripping naked daggers; smeared in poison, he knew, for a scent of the stuff was evident in that confined space. The climbing box creaked and cranked alarmingly as its massive counterweight pulled it slowly towards the very peak of the steeple. When it stopped, with a lurch that caused all three of the men to wobble, the doors were pulled open by another guard already waiting on the other side.

The rooms at the top of the tower were large but windowless, and their footsteps echoed as they strode beneath high ceilings adorned with friezes of ornate plaster, depicting faces frozen in every conceivable emotion. The gleaming floors underfoot were of polished wood laid with the furs of exotic animals, their fierce heads still attached and snarling silently at the passers-by. The furniture, though sparse, was elaborately plush and stoutly crafted. The air was stuffy, the light dim.

Acolytes stood guard at the occasional closed door, through which voices could be heard, distant and muffled. Everywhere drifted smoke, carrying the reek of narcotics; it seemed to gather around the yellow orbs of the gaslights hanging along the panelled walls.

The Storm Chamber itself was approached by a broad flight of steps carved from pink-veined marble. On either side of each step stood an Acolyte with a naked blade held ceremonially across the crook of his left arm. Here Che's escorts came to a halt, motioning for him to continue alone. Che did as instructed, and climbed.

Through their masks, he noticed the guards' eyes were glazed as though drugged. They stood like statues, breathing so shallowly that even their chests failed to visibly rise. Boredom washed off them like heat.

At the very top of the steps, a huge embossed door of cast iron barred his progress. At that point, the female guard standing next to it turned and pounded it with a gauntleted fist. After a brief delay, the mighty door creaked and swung inwards. A torrent of sounds burst forth: the twittering of birds, the cascading of water, music and laughter. An old priest appeared at the threshold and bowed.

Che entered, uncertain what to expect.

Windows ran from floor to ceiling for the entire circumference of the circular chamber. They sloped inwards as they rose, giving a clearer view of the sky. Right now they showed a wrapping of white clouds and showers of early autumn rain as it gusted against their transparency.

Che squinted about, taking in every detail possible of the Storm Chamber with a single sweeping glance – just as he had been meticulously trained to do. In truth, he had been expecting something different from this; perhaps something darker, less inviting. More holy. Instead it was a warm and open space. A fire crackled in a stone fireplace in the very centre of the room, hooded by a metal chimney which ran up through the middle of the floor of a platform built above it; an upper storey, reached by steps, and enclosed by thin wooden walls. Retiring rooms he supposed; private areas of relaxation where the caged birds could still be heard.

In the cosy space around the hearth itself, plush leather armchairs were arranged so as to face towards an easel, on which was displayed a detailed map of the Empire. A group of priests slouched upon the armchairs, with their feet propped upon padded stools, drinking spirits, smoking hazii sticks, or just talking amongst themselves. Servants moved among them, bearing platters of fruits, and seafood, or else bowls of narcotics, and Che knew their tongues would be missing and their eardrums punctured. As for the priests themselves, he recognized each and every one of them gathered around the fireplace.

Che was a Diplomat, an imperial assassin. A great deal of his so-called negotiations involved powerful movers within the Empire itself. It was his business to get to know these people, for some day he might be ordered to kill any one of them.

They had the rank of general, mostly, so they kept their faces free of the usual ornate jewellery worn by priests of Mann. The exception was a single spiked cone of silver pierced through the left eyebrow in military fashion, as Che himself wore. Their clothes, too, were the plain ceremonial robes of the Acolyte order, though there was nothing otherwise plain about these men.

He scanned each countenance in turn. There was Archgeneral Sparus, 'the Little Eagle', small and quiet and intense, not long returned from putting an end to the insurrection in Lagos and minus his left eye, which he had covered for good taste with a black patch. Then General Ricktus with his badly burnt face and hands, ugly to look at, and his black hair sprouting in patches above ears that were little more than ragged flaps. Beside him, General Romano, still young, boyish even, though the most dangerous man in this gathering, and the one most covetous of the throne itself. And, finally, General Alero, the old veteran of the Ghazni campaigns, who had gained the Empire more territory than anyone save for Archgeneral Mokabi himself – and had been damned for it, for stopping when he did.

All of these men were possible contenders for the throne, key players in that subtle yet deadly game of political manoeuvring that was the backdrop to all that occurred within the Empire. Each had their own factions at hand. In relative terms, the Empire of Mann was still young, and it had been proved that anyone could claw their way to the throne if they were determined enough to do so. The Matriarch herself stood as living testament to this fact.

Three other figures occupied the room. One was young Kirkus, the only son to the Matriarch. He slouched in a chair, his eyes hooded from intoxication, though becoming lively for some reason whenever they glared towards Romano. The second was the young man's grandmother, mother to Sasheen herself, fast asleep in her chair or so it seemed. Around her sandaled feet padded a few scaly lizards wearing collars of gold chain. The last of them was Matriarch Sasheen herself, who stood before the map with a sparkling goblet in one hand, dressed in a long, green chiffon gown that hung loosely open from throat to ankles, save for the waist where it was cinched by a belt of the same material, and which showed her nakedness underneath. As she moved, flashes of soft belly, or pubic hair, or full swinging breasts caught the eye, drawing attention from her face, which was plain and without beauty; the dark eyes were a little too close together, the hooked nose too long, but still, there was something attractive about the woman. Perhaps it was the manner in which she flaunted herself, as though this world was all hers and she could do with it as she pleased. Or perhaps it was due to her smile, which she used often.

'But can it be achieved before winter?' she inquired of old Alero, as she studied the details of the map.

General Alero shrugged in his chair. 'Only if we commit to it now and stop wrangling over the finer points.' The aged veteran appraised the younger men around him, causing a pause in their discussions.

'And you still maintain it can succeed?'

The general chose his next words with care, as one might pluck the exact coinage from a palm where precious few remained. 'Yes, I believe so, though only with some good fortune. There are many things that could go wrong with the plan, and too little room to improvise. If it works, well, it will lead to a resounding and decisive victory. The Free Ports will be ours. If it fails…' he shook his head '… it will be Coros all over again.'

The rain could be heard against the group's overwhelming silence. Che stood motionless. He saw, from the corner of his eye, bright birds swooping high across the room. A servant padded after them, dabbing up their droppings with a cloth.

'I still say it is madness,' broke in Sparus, the Little Eagle. Leather squeaked as men turned to face him. He drew a long breath from his hazii stick, letting them wait for him to continue.

'Two separate naval actions against the Free Ports, not to mention the most important component, a sea invasion of Khos itself – and, by that time, with winter closing in fast. That's presuming the land force even succeeds in reaching Khos intact, and that's a huge gamble in itself, that our diversions will work, that the invasion fleet will avoid interception. Even then, if our land campaign falters in any way in the field, it will be mired helplessly until spring. The Mercians will have time to rally, while our First Expeditionary Force will be trapped with no way out. It would be worse than Coros.' He looked straight at the Matriarch, his one eye glittering. 'For I will say this. If the campaign fails, you will lose your throne along with it.'

'Is that a threat?' quipped young Romano, but Sparus ignored the remark and kept his eye fixed on Sasheen. What he said was true. The Mannian order despised leaders who failed in battle or betrayed signs of weakness. They tended to be disposed of rather swiftly.

The Matriarch glided across the floor between herself and Sparus. She placed a manicured hand lightly upon the Little Eagle's arm, and gave him a brief smile. She turned towards the others, the motion sudden enough to cause one of her breasts to leer from her thin gown.

'Well?' she demanded, directing a scowl at the assorted generals.

The scarred mouth of Ricktus opened to speak. 'Sparus is right,' he declared, in a voice as coarse as his burnt skin. 'The plan is a reckless one, and I cannot believe we are yet this desperate. Let us maintain our siege of the Free Ports. They will fall eventually, so long as we continue to strangle their trade.'

'No,' replied the Matriarch with her palm held up. 'I had good reasons for requesting solutions to the Mercian problem, and they are still valid. For ten years now, we have strangled their trade and battered at their doors. Yet still the Free Ports stand. Others are meanwhile beginning to gain courage from their defiance. We must defeat these Mercians, and do so decisively, if our Empire is to avoid appearing weak. Khos must therefore be taken. Without it, the rest of the Free Ports will either surrender or starve.'

She returned to the map again, which Che had been studying even as she spoke. Pencil strokes had been drawn across it, quite roughly, denoting fleet movements and land actions. He could discern the symbols of two fleets encroaching along the western isles of the Free Ports, one ranging along the archipelago, the other concentrating upon Minos. A third fleet could be seen far to the east, denoted by a heavily pencilled arrow sweeping from Lagos down to Khos. The Matriarch jabbed at this now.

'The Sixth Army remains in Lagos at Mokabi's suggestion. They are sharp from their recent work quelling the insurrection. It would be the perfect surprise, and Mokabi sees it, as he has always seen these things. We create this First Expeditionary Force from the Sixth and what other remnants we can put together, and from Lagos ship them straight down to Khos.'

'But Matriarch,' rasped Ricktus, 'even if their Eastern Fleet were to be drawn away by our two diversionary campaigns in the west, the Mercian squadrons defending the Zanzahar convoys would still remain active in the region. Our ships at Lagos are mostly transports and merchant vessels, along with two squadrons of men-of-war. The Expeditionary Fleet would be poorly protected, as Sparus has already noted. It would take only a handful of squadrons to send the entire force to the bottom of the Miders.'

Young Romano, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, sat forward now as though to pounce. 'Remember though, these diversionary fleets will be the largest yet seen in the course of this war. Mercia will be hard pressed to match their numbers even with the full extent of their navy. They will have to draw the Eastern Fleet away to defend the west.'

'So speaks the expert on naval tactics,' declared Kirkus unexpectedly, and received a glare from Romano in return for his own.

'The Expeditionary Fleet will not be tarrying to engage in any sea battles, gentlemen,' declared Sasheen. 'It will punch straight through any squadrons it encounters, and its men-of-war will sacrifice themselves, if they have to, in order for the transports to make it through. All that ultimately matters is that the Army reaches land.'

Sparus interjected, 'It is fine for Mokabi to sit there in his villa in Palermo, and sketch great campaigns of daring on parchment as though he was still the archgeneral. It is another thing entirely to see such a venture through.'

'He has agreed to come out of retirement, if we sanction it,' declared Sasheen.

'Aye, to lead his beloved Fourth Army while it's safely encamped beyond range of the walls of Bar-Khos. If the Expeditionary Force takes the city from behind, then they merely open the door for him, and he gets to parade through in triumph. If not, well, he can blame someone else for the failures, and assure himself of a safe return to his estate.'

'Mokabi is committed to this venture,' protested Alero, an old comrade of the absent general. 'He will risk his neck like the rest of us.'

'Aye, well, it's telling that he does not volunteer to lead the Expeditionary Force either. And I understand his reasons for that, unspoken or not. I would not wish to lead such a reckless campaign either.'

Sasheen finished her drink and thrust the empty goblet at a passing servant. 'That is a pity, Sparus, for I was hoping you might like to come along with me.'

'Matriarch?'

'I will be accompanying the Expeditionary Force myself.'

Surprise rippled through the gathering. Che's breath caught in his throat, where he still stood to one side, entirely ignored.

'As you so rightly put it,' continued Sasheen, and for an instant her eyes flickered between young Romano and fat Alero, 'my throne will depend upon its outcome. It is fitting therefore that I should be there – shaking the spear so to speak.'

'This is madness, Matriarch. You cannot risk yourself in such a way.'

'All life is a venture in risk, Sparus. And you will go, if you wish to see your Matriarch safely through this endeavour in one piece.'

Romano was enjoying this, till Sasheen chose that moment to offer the young general a smile.

'And you too, Romano. Sparus will lead the Expeditionary Force, and you will be his second-in-command.' The young man sat up abruptly, causing a trickle of ash to fall from his hazii stick and scatter over his lap. 'Alero, Ricktus, you will each take command of one of the diversionary fleets, and cause such a storm down there that we may find enough space to slip through. This is how it shall be.'

The youth, Kirkus, leaned forward, his eyes bright. 'And I, mother… I would like to go with you also.'

'But you will not', she replied firmly. 'You are to stay here, within the Temple, until we have dealt with our other problem.'

At this she glanced at Che for the first time. He found himself standing to attention as he held her gaze.

'But who knows how long that might take?' demanded Kirkus.

'You should have thought of that, my fine son, when you were performing your cull, and so rashly flaunted the privileges of your position.'

The boy's sullen response was stifled by a sudden loud croak from one side of the room. All heads turned to it, including Che's. He expected to see a pet kerido perhaps, squatting on the floor and tearing at a lump of flesh. Instead it was the grandmother, her eyes still tightly closed.

'The boy acted rightly,' rasped the ancient priestess. 'He acted dutifully in accordance with Mann. Do not fault him for that, my daughter.'

The Matriarch blew out a prolonged mouthful of air. 'Be that as it may,' she said, 'but for now he is not to set foot from here for any reason.' And she chopped her flattened hand through the air, cutting off Kirkus from further protest. She was displeased at this public discussion, and even Kirkus knew to remain silent, though his face burned.

'Now,' continued Sasheen. 'If you will all excuse me.'

Matriarch Sasheen departed from the group and strode deliberately past Che. 'Come with me,' she snapped in her wake.

He followed her perfumed scent to the windows, where they stepped through a set of sliding glass doors onto a terrace that encircled the tower. Potted plants stood around its periphery, straining against the wind. As Sasheen slid the doors closed behind them, the rain spattered their faces, cold as the gusts that drove it.

'You are wondering why I allowed you to witness the workings of my Storm Council.'

'No, Holy Matriarch,' Che lied, instinctively. He knew better than to openly acknowledge a lack of trust in him from his superiors. It might indicate a guilty frame of mind, a dangerous condition in an order where treachery was almost a doctrine.

Sasheen appraised him for truth. 'Good,' she said at last. 'Your handlers all agree upon your loyalty. Perhaps they are even right in their judgement.'

He bowed his head, but said nothing.

'You wonder, then, why I sent for you?'

'Yes, Matriarch,' he replied, head still inclined, and this time he told only the truth.

'I will speak plainly, then.' With her chin she pointed to the Storm Chamber within. 'My son, young Kirkus there, has killed one who bore a seal.'

Che at last looked up at her. Sasheen was taller than he, as most people were.

'In her wisdom, my mother made no effort to stop him. She has always considered the Rshun to be of little threat to Mann. I myself am not so certain.' Her gown blew open in the wind; water trickled between her breasts, over her belly, down into the wispy hairs of her pelvis.

'Several days ago we intercepted three of their number as they tried to gain access to my son. Two were intended as a diversion, but another almost succeeded – though we cornered him in time. I'm told he took his own life. Regardless, they will send others.'

'I see,' he murmured. Che's heart was beating faster now. He could feel the blood throbbing in his fingertips, his toes.

'Do you, I wonder?'

'Yes. You must know I was trained as Rshun – as a future safeguard against a situation such as this.'

'Then you know why I sent for you.'

Che wanted to scratch his neck again, but he fought against the compulsion. Instead he turned his face into the rain. It stung his eyes, but at least it helped soothe the itching. 'You wish me to lead you to the place of the Rshun order,' Che spoke into the wind, 'so that you may destroy them before they destroy your son.'

'Indeed,' she replied, and he could hear the smile in her voice. 'I have a company of my finest commandos readying themselves even now for your arrival. You are to lead them to Cheem, and make use of this plant of theirs that I hear will guide you to their monastery.'

'They are prepared to follow a guide through the mountains even while he is deranged?'

'They know of the knowledge buried in your head. And they are prepared for anything. Once they find this monastery, they will kill all they find there and burn it to the ground, so that none shall survive.'

Che exhaled a soft breath through his nostrils, seeking a state of emptiness.

Her eyes narrowed as she leaned closer 'Does this mission trouble you, perhaps?'

'I do not believe so.'

'You do not, perhaps, feel some remnants of loyalty to your Rshun friends?'

Ah. Now it all begins to make sense. 'Holy Matriarch, I am loyal only to Mann.'

She gazed into the depths of his eyes. He became aware then that he was scratching his arm – though he dared not stop for fear it might give something of himself away.

Sasheen rose above him again. 'I see. And tell me – your mother and you, are you close?'

Abruptly, Che ceased scratching. He bought himself a few moments of time by wiping the sheen of moisture from his face.

'We are not particularly close, no. We were parted for eight years while I was in Cheem, studying to be Rshun.'

'I am told that she is rather fond of you, despite that.'

'Then you know more than I.'

'Of course I do. I am the Holy Matriarch, after all.' She smiled. 'But I am also a mother,' she added more sincerely. 'You can be certain that she holds much affection for her only child.'

Sasheen glanced into the room, at her own son. When she turned back to Che, her eyes were hard and devoid of humour.

'I would take great care over that relationship, if I were you. Such bonds are precious in this world. Sometimes, our loyalties are all that can maintain them.'

Her thinly veiled threat prompted him to look away. Che turned instead to the potted plants lining the terrace, whipping noisily against the window glass, and fixed his sight on them as though for steadiness.

Sasheen followed his gaze and reached out with a drifting hand. Roughly, as though it were a pet, she stroked the leaf on one of the bedraggled specimens.

'Do we have an understanding, you and I?'

Che dipped his head in acknowledgement, a sharp lump in his throat.

'Very well, then, let us delay no longer. Return to your handler. He will already have a full brief for you.'

Che watched her from between his eyelashes, as she turned her back on him and slid open the glass doors.

In mid-step, she paused and looked back at him with a languid stare.

'And Diplomat…'

'Yes, Matriarch.'

'Never lie to me again.'