Sea Of Ghosts

CHAPTER 15
THE FROG

Before the flooding, Irillia, Evensraum and Pertica had been parts of the same great landmass west of Anea. Now each remained as its own chain of islands, with Evensraum to the south and Pertica lying in the frozen north. While lower lands drowned, Irillia’s mountainous backbone had remained defiant in the face of the rising seas. More than a hundred islands stretched across the Sea of Lights and the Emerald Sea, but the most magnificent of these, Ianthe decided, had to be Awl.

As the Herald approached her berth she could see the remains of Port Awl’s three former harbours down under the crystal-clear green brine. Each had been constructed above the other upon a sunken slope. Only the main commercial jetty had been built up from the original foundations. It looked long enough to berth twenty warships and sank for at least fifty fathoms at its deepest end. Incredibly, Ianthe could see scores of Drowned going about their business down there, a whole community living in the flooded streets below the town.

‘Personally,’ Briana said, following the girl’s gaze, ‘they give me the shudders. But it annoys the emperor.’ They were standing with Captain Howlish behind the port bulwark, while Guild mariners worked around them, preparing the damaged warship for dock. The broken rudder made progress slow. ‘And annoying the emperor is one of life’s little pleasures,’ she added.

‘We had Drowned off the coast in Evensraum,’ Ianthe said, ‘until Hu caught them all in nets. He tried using their corpses to fertilize the land, but it just poisoned everything. So he burned them instead.’

‘What a lovely image,’ Briana remarked.

Howlish grinned. ‘Hu once offered the Guild a thousand hectares of Anean farmland for a single hectare in Awl,’ he said to Ianthe. ‘And the Guild refused him.’

Ianthe gazed at the island in wonder. Her new lenses made the scene seem all the more magical. Her heart felt full to bursting with the thrill of viewing all this beauty first-hand. The Irillian mountains rose up into the morning sky, crisp tiers of faintly blue and lavender rock with numerous white streams and waterfalls that fell thousands of feet into mist. Tails of green forest rooted the lower slopes to the foothills below, while the highest peaks wore paper hats of snow. Port Awl sprawled over a steep ridge above the water’s edge, overlooking a rocky bay between two heavily wooded peninsulas. Stone buildings clung to the hillside, one above the other, in a pleasant jumble of yellow cubes. Six men-o’-war lay tied up at the main jetty, four with red dragon-scale hulls and two with green; their serpent figureheads glinted in the sunshine. Dock hands threw ropes across to the Herald and began to winch the warship closer to the wharf.

‘You grow flowers here!’ Ianthe exclaimed. She had spotted flower sellers at the town end of the dock, their stalls bursting with every imaginable colour of bloom. ‘We never had the land for it in Evensraum. Even after we had our own garden, we used every corner for growing food. You have to, or the servants talk.’

Briana frowned. ‘Why not just beat the servants?’

Ianthe felt her face redden.

Moments later the gangplank came down with a clunk, and Ianthe followed the Haurstaf witch and the captain off the ship. Briana Marks looked especially pretty in her flowing white gown and ruby necklace; the weariness just evaporated from her as she stepped onto the stone wharf. ‘Hand Maskelyne and his men over to the port constable,’ Briana said to Howlish. ‘He can do what he likes with the men, but I want Maskelyne brought to the palace.’

‘What about his wife and child, ma’am?’

‘Put them up at the Nuwega,’ Briana replied. ‘Guests of the Guild.’

The captain nodded.

‘A cheap room.’

‘Very good, ma’am.’

The rising sweep of Port Awl’s main street reminded Ianthe of Port Vassar in Evensraum. Here were the same bakers, grocers, fishmongers, weavers and oil sellers. Other shops sold books, gem lanterns, jewellery, paintings, pottery, medicines and even Unmer trove. The Hotel Nuwega occupied a position midway up the hill, its grand facades and clock tower overlooking the harbour. Ianthe counted six taverns, each with tables and benches outside, where people drank and smoked and chatted. A number of young women in Guild robes sat amidst the locals. As they passed them by, Ianthe drew curious glances.

‘They’re wondering why you’re wearing Unmer spectacles,’ Briana said.

Ianthe lowered her head.

Briana sighed. ‘You should really let me take a look at them,’ she added. ‘God knows what sort of damage they could be doing to your mind.’

‘There’s nothing sorcerous about them,’ Ianthe said.

‘Then why wear them?’

She shrugged. ‘They help me see better.’

The Haurstaf witch looked at her strangely but said nothing more about it. They walked to the top of the hill and into a leafy plaza where Briana said the morning farmers’ market was held. Birds chattered and hopped across the cobbles. On the northern edge of the square a low stone rampart offered views out across the interior of the island. Between the town ridge and the Irillian mountains lay a broad patchwork of green and yellow fields bisected by a looping river. A warm breeze coming up from the valley carried with it the scent of cut hay.

In the shade of a nearby tree stood four open carriages, their glossy black cabs resting on dragon-bone springs. Four men, evidently their drivers, played dice on a stone bench nearby. As soon as they saw Briana, one of them abandoned his game and hurried over.

‘Guild Palace, ma’am?’ He opened the door, unfolded a set of steps from the undercarriage and then waited until the two women had taken their seats. Then he grabbed the horses’ reins and took his own position in the front of the carriage.

Tackle clinking, they set off at a leisurely clop, down the shady side of the ridge. Here Port Awl’s houses overlooked the farmland to the north and the shining mountain peaks. The streets were cooler and rang with the sound of blacksmiths and gunsmiths at work. Ianthe peered through doorways to see coal-blackened muscles and forges and anvils, racks of carbine rifles and hand-cannons.

Late morning found the carriage clattering across a stone bridge over the River Irya, which Briana explained was merely an ancient word for water. Farmsteads dotted the landscape on either side of the waters. Sparrows darted among hedgerows of rosehip and stowberries. Sheep and cattle grazed in green pastures, raising their heads to watch the travellers pass.

‘What breed are those?’ Ianthe asked, pointing to a herd of black cows.

Briana snorted. ‘How should I know? I’m not a farmer.’

Ianthe asked nothing more about her surroundings, but she continued to drink it all in: the fields of barley and whittle-grass, the furrowed black earth bursting with every type of produce, the quince, plum and apple orchards, the clumps of gnarled old oak and elm. In one field men and women in wide-brimmed straw hats loaded golden hayricks onto a cart. Fishermen sat on the banks of the Irya. Bees buzzed across meadow-flowers. This land was a hundred times richer than Evensraum. She wanted to get out of the carriage and take off her boots and splash through the rushing river, but that would not have been seemly.

They stopped to water the horses at a roadside tavern. Ianthe stretched her legs in the field behind the stables, returning to the carriage to find that Briana had bought a basket of bread, cheese, apples and a bottle of honey-coloured wine. They ate their lunch and drank wine from clay cups by the side of the road with the sun on their faces and the sound of birdsong in the surrounding hedgerows.

‘Do you have other girls from Evensraum?’ she asked the witch.

‘We had a girl from Whiterock Bay,’ Briana replied. ‘A frightful peasant. That would have been back in thirty-nine.’

‘Is she a Guild psychic now?’

‘Didn’t complete the training.’

‘Why not?’

Briana shook her head. ‘I don’t recall.’

‘So where is she now?’

Briana stuffed the remains of their lunch into the basket. ‘Why do you ask so many pointless questions?’ she said. ‘Come on, I want to get there before dark. There are wolves in those hills, you know.’

‘We had wolves in-’

‘In Evensraum, yes. Really, Ianthe, you have to stop wittering on about that muddy little island.’

Ianthe hung her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

Briana laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault, dear. As the Haurstaf like to say: It takes time for the dirt to fall from one’s boots.’ She smiled. ‘I only have to look back four or five generations to find parts of my family that came from relatively humble stock.’

‘They were farmers, too?’

‘Tax collectors.’

Late in the afternoon the road began to climb into the Irillian foothills. It wound its way up through forests of thousand-year-old oaks, their great boughs forming cathedral-like spaces in the green gloom and their roots smothered by leafy hummocks. Mossy stones marked the trail, and here and there shafts of light picked out the tumbledown remains of cottages set back from the trail. Birds whistled and insects buzzed, and once Ianthe thought she heard the rustle of a larger animal moving through the undergrowth. A deer perhaps? She noticed that the carriage driver had a pistol on his lap, but the horses seemed calm enough, so she didn’t mention it.

Shortly afterwards, they encountered their first checkpoint. Two soldiers in blue uniforms manned a barrier beside the road. A section of forest had been cut back, leaving a wide perimeter around a central concrete bunker. Spirals of razor-wire encircled the encampment. Smoke rose from one corner where six more men sat around an open fire. Each of them carried a carbine rifle slung over his shoulder. One of the two barrier guards raised a hand to stop the carriage but then waved them on when he spotted Briana.

‘All quiet, Captain?’ the witch asked.

‘Nothing but birdsong, ma’am,’ the man replied.

The military presence became more frequent after that. In places, acres of woodland had been burned to stubble to accommodate larger camps where hundreds of soldiers milled around gun emplacements and paced perimeters and trained in muddy meadows between the concrete buildings. Razor-wire enveloped everything. Great cannon batteries pointed at the skies. The sound of small-arms fire became more frequent.

Ianthe flinched as yet more gunfire crackled nearby. ‘Are they training?’ she asked.

‘News of our arrival precedes us,’ Briana said. ‘Most of these units have telepaths attached.’

‘They’re Guild soldiers?’

‘The finest war machine in the empire.’

‘I thought the emperor’s Samarol were the finest?’

Briana just snorted. ‘I once saw one brought down by an unarmed man,’ she said. ‘How good can they be?’

At last, with the long light of evening sloping through the trees, they passed through a final checkpoint in the gates of a massive stone wall, where soldiers winched up an iron grate to allow the carriage to pass. Ahead of them lay the Guild Palace of Awl. The Irillian mountains framed tiers of dark, pyrite-veined towers that soared skywards, their windows ablaze in the last rays of sun. Flags of white and gold hung from a score of poles set into the barbican, while pots of meadow-flowers adorned the promenade before the walls. On all sides, paths and steps led off into the cool shade of the forest behind. Ianthe spied a gazebo down beside a brook, where a group of eight girls in white robes sat listening to an older woman. Other Haurstaf strolled among the trees, enjoying an evening that seemed infused with the aura of summer itself.

Four carts waited on the flagged promenade before the main palace gate, while their drivers reclined on a grassy bank nearby. Ianthe’s own carriage drew up beside the others, whereupon their driver opened the door and folded down the steps.

‘What do you think?’ Briana asked.

Ianthe smiled, thankful that her lenses hid her tears.

The palace interior was cool and quiet, with grand halls and cascades of dark marble stairs and airy corridors leading in every direction. Guild psychics passed by, their white robes whispering on the mirror-black floors. Briana led Ianthe along a corridor in one wing and pushed open a set of double doors.

They had reached an enormous library, where hundreds of girls sat at desks, reading books. The faintly musty scent of paper and old leather bindings lingered in the air. Heads turned to face Ianthe. A murmur passed through the room. Someone giggled.

‘Sister Ulla,’ Briana said.

An old woman came over, her arms full of books. She was no larger than a child and wore her hair in a grey knuckle behind her head. Her face had the texture of a rotten log, and her restless little eyes looked like they had burrowed in there to escape predators. She glared at Ianthe with open hostility, then opened her mouth to speak.

Briana held up a hand. ‘This is Ianthe,’ she said. ‘I want her tested for the usual, then put in with the current class.’

Sister Ulla said nothing.

‘I am aware of that,’ Briana said, ‘but-’

The old woman remained silent.

‘Probably an affectation,’ Briana said. ‘You know what these-’

Sister Ulla continued to stare at the other woman in silence.

Briana wrung her hands in frustration. ‘Obviously that depends on what you find,’ she remarked. ‘I want a full progress report on this one.’ She glanced at Ianthe, before returning her attention to the old woman. A long moment of silence passed between them.

Sister Ulla then turned to Ianthe. She frowned and said, ‘Ignorant peasant. Don’t you have any inclination of what I just said to you?’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ Ianthe replied.

A ripple of laughter spread among the girls seated nearby.

‘You will address me as Sister Ulla,’ the old woman said.

Ianthe swallowed.

‘I do not approve of those lenses,’ Sister Ulla said, ‘regardless of any excuse Sister Marks might make for you. However, we will tolerate them if you show a spark of promise.’ She set her books down on a desk, then grabbed Ianthe’s chin and leaned close, peering into her eyes as though looking for something. Finally she sighed. ‘You have the mind of a pebble,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect you’ll do well here at all. Few girls of your breeding ever do. But if-’ She stopped abruptly and wheeled to face a group of girls nearby. ‘Silence,’ she said. ‘Regina, Constance.’

A hush fell across the room. Two girls seated some distance apart stood up.

‘This is a library,’ Sister Ulla said. ‘It is no place for thoughts like that. What do you have to say for yourselves? Constance?’

The nearest girl raised her chin defiantly. A tiny blonde imp of a thing, she nevertheless managed to maintain a demeanour of arrogance that Ianthe had seen in so many Losotan settlers. Her blue eyes burned with indignation. The other girl was just as fair, but long of face and hardly pretty. She looked across at the smaller girl for reassurance.

‘I was merely stating an opinion,’ Constance said.

‘Your opinions aren’t worth stating,’ Sister Ulla said, ‘I suggest you both go and get yourselves cleaned up.’

Both girls looked suddenly fearful. And then a strange thing happened. As Ianthe watched, the smaller girl – Constance – clutched her nose. Blood trickled down between her fingers and spattered her desk. Across the room, the larger girl gave a soft cry and clasped her hands to her own face. Her nose was bleeding too.

‘Go,’ Sister Ulla cried, jabbing a finger at the door. ‘To the nurse’s office, before I sterilize the pair of you to spare the world your offspring.’

The two girls grabbed up their books and hurried away.

Briana smiled at Ianthe. ‘There are various grades of psychic,’ she said. ‘At one end of the spectrum are the sensitives like myself, specializing in communication. Sister Ulla represents the other end of the spectrum. She will test you, and hopefully teach you, in psychic warfare.’

Sister Ulla took Ianthe to a storeroom, where she bundled robes, towels, sheets and blankets into her arms, before showing her to a dormitory on a lower floor at the back of the palace. The windows overlooked a gloomy forest. A small folding bed had been set up at the far end of the room between the two ranks of proper beds.

‘You’ve caused me considerable inconvenience,’ the old woman said. ‘The term is halfway finished already, and I refuse to go over previous material for your benefit.’ She watched as Ianthe made her temporary bed. ‘Not that it matters much. I don’t expect you’ll pass even the most basic of tests.’

‘What sort of tests?’ Ianthe asked.

Sister Ulla grunted. ‘Any psychic worth her salt wouldn’t have to be told. Now stop fussing with that sheet and get yourself washed and dressed. Robes and underwear go in that chest. Supper is at nine.’ She left the room, slamming the door behind her.

A door in the rear wall of the dorm led to a large bathroom, with rows of buckets and ladles set out on the chipped tile floor. Ianthe washed and then put on the Haurstaf robe. The shapeless cloth felt rough and heavy on her shoulders. She returned to the dorm and dumped her old clothes in the chest at the foot of her bed. Darkness was gathering among the trees outside the window. She hunted about for a gem lantern but didn’t find one. Was it nine o’clock yet? Ianthe couldn’t see any clocks, so she sat on the bed and waited.

Nobody came for her.

After a while she let her mind wander out into the void. The perceptions of the palace occupants glimmered like hundreds of lanterns suspended in darkness. By combining their disparate visions Ianthe was able to build up an impression of a truly vast building, extending as far underground as it did into the sky. There were thousands of people around her – from the highest tower to the lowest subterranean chambers. Guild members reclined in warmly lit lounges or sat reading in velvet-draped bedrooms, or looked out upon the dusk from high balconies. Cooks toiled in steaming kitchens. Servants brushed cobwebs from nooks and pantry corners. Ianthe allowed herself to float among the Haurstaf like a ghost, occasionally slipping into an unsuspecting mind to view one chamber or another with increased clarity. She saw black marble fireplaces and piles of blood-red cushions, silverware like white fire and jewelled dressers and long hallways hung with gilt-framed paintings – such a gathering of treasure as she had never seen. Snippets of conversation drifted through the aether:

‘… not a gilder between them. How do you think Jonah felt about that?’

‘I can’t imagine.’

She heard laughter and music and the clink of glasses and cutlery. And here she came upon a great hall awash with light and chatter, where hundreds of girls sat at long tables under flickering candelabra, feasting from platters of chicken, partridge, pastries and trenchers of steaming stew. A separate table at the top of the chamber accommodated a group of older psychics, all chatting and drinking wine from crystal glasses while servants cleared away the crockery. Among them Ianthe recognized Sister Marks and Sister Ulla, and she realized she was supposed to be there, in that hall, too.

Ianthe snapped back into the empty dormitory. She was late and hungry and… whatever would the others say? She got to her feet and bolted for the door.

Silence descended on the dining hall as Ianthe closed the door behind her. A hundred girls turned to face her, some of whom she recognized from the library. Their smiles were beautiful and cruel. They began to whisper among themselves as Ianthe walked between the feasting tables. She couldn’t see any spaces on the benches so she kept going until she reached the head table. Twelve women in long white robes looked down at her, with Sister Marks and Sister Ulla in the centre. Ianthe found little sympathy in any of their eyes. Sister Ulla positively glared, while Briana Marks wore a smile of faint amusement.

Sister Ulla said, ‘So you finally decided to turn up?’

A chorus of giggles swept through the room.

Ianthe felt her face redden. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘She wouldn’t have heard the summons,’ Briana remarked.

‘No doubt,’ Sister Ulla said. ‘Which is why I told her to be here at nine.’

Ianthe lowered her head.

A long moment of silence followed, in which Ianthe suspected the twelve psychics were conversing. For all she knew, the whole room could be talking about her.

Finally, Sister Ulla pointed to one of the tables at the edge of the room, ‘Take a seat over there at the end,’ she said, ‘and fill your plate with whatever the other girls haven’t eaten. And don’t dilly dally. You’ll make the others late for bed.’

Ianthe retreated to the corner, where she found a space beside a fat girl with auburn hair.

‘And take those ghastly Unmer eyeglasses off,’ Sister Ulla added. ‘I won’t have them at the table.’

Ianthe hesitated.

‘You’ll remove them now, or go straight to bed without supper.’

Still Ianthe didn’t move. And then she got up and ran from the room, desperate to leave before anyone saw her tears.

The other girls burst into the dorm in a squall of breathless chatter, but Ianthe kept her head under the blanket and her mind firmly inside her own head. She heard whispering, followed by silence. And then someone said, ‘I don’t think she can read minds at all.’

‘Must we vocalize everything for her benefit?’

‘I don’t even sense a glimmer of talent.’

‘Why go to the trouble? It’s so tedious.’

‘Did you see her dress when she came in?’

‘I was too busy looking at her spectacles.’

They laughed.

Ianthe closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on her own breathing. After a while she heard the creak of bedsprings, and then the dorm became deathly quiet. But the silence never really felt like silence at all. She couldn’t know what taunts passed between the other girls, but she imagined the worst. Like a shuttered gem lantern, the light continued to burn even if you couldn’t see it. The lack of sound was worse than anything.

Hours must have passed, and still Ianthe couldn’t sleep. And then she heard a floorboard creak nearby. Someone shook her shoulder, and a voice whispered, ‘Are you awake?’

Ianthe pulled back the blanket.

In the darkness she could just make out a dim figure crouching next to her bed. She realized it was the fat red-haired girl she’d briefly sat next to at supper. The girl leaned close and whispered, ‘Don’t let them get to you. They pick on everyone at first. And Sister Ulla is a monster.’ She pressed something into Ianthe’s hands.

It was a piece of chicken, wrapped in a napkin. Ianthe began to eat it at once.

‘You’re from Evensraum?’

Ianthe nodded.

‘I’m from Harpool, about thirty miles north of Losoto. My family are farmers, too.’

‘We’re not farmers,’ Ianthe said. ‘I mean, I don’t… what does it matter?’

‘Regina and Constance are the worst,’ the girl said. ‘They think they’re Losotan nobles or something. It’s like they’re always going on about Emperor Hu and how their families have arranged a special deal with him and they’re going to be attached to his court. It doesn’t even work like that. You don’t get to choose where you’re posted.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Aria. I’d better go.’

‘Thank you,’ Ianthe said.

Aria turned away, but Ianthe grabbed her and whispered, ‘Are they talking now?’

‘They’re asleep.’

Ianthe lowered her head. ‘I wasn’t sure.’

‘Silences are difficult here,’ Aria said. ‘But you’ll soon start to miss them.’

Ianthe got up before dawn and sneaked into the bathroom to wash herself before the other girls woke up. She returned to her bed but didn’t have to wait there for long. As the first glimmer of light crept into the forest outside, the dormitory door opened, and Sister Ulla marched in.

‘Up,’ she said, ‘up, you lazy creatures. We’ve too much to do today.’

The girls rose, complaining groggily. Ianthe looked over at Aria, but the big, auburn-haired girl avoided her eye. Constance and Regina, the pair whom Sister Ulla had expelled from the library with bleeding noses, were not so coy. Constance offered Ianthe a cut-glass stare, then brushed her blonde curls from her shoulder in an exaggerated manner. She turned and smiled at her companion in a way that seemed to promise mischief. Regina suppressed a giggle.

‘You!’ Sister Ulla said to Ianthe. ‘You’ve washed? Come with me.’

The Testing Room was further along the corridor from the dormitory. It was bare but for a table and two chairs in the centre of the floor. Tall windows overlooked an empty courtyard flanked by colonnades and facing a wall with an iron grate leading into the forest. Sister Ulla told Ianthe to sit, and then left the room.

Ianthe waited.

The courtyard outside grew steadily lighter. Ianthe watched the shadows draw back towards the easternmost colonnade. Birds hopped along the forest wall. Half the morning passed by, and still nobody came. She wondered if this was part of the test. If she stood up and walked over to the window, would she fail? Perhaps she was supposed to make a decision and leave? Were they watching her? She got up and listened at the door but heard nothing. She sat down again.

The morning dragged on. Noon came and went. It must have been early afternoon when Sister Ulla returned. The little old woman carried a glass bell jar, which she placed unceremoniously on the table as she sat down. In the jar was a frog.

Sister Ulla regarded Ianthe for a long time. Her crumpled face was unreadable, but her eyes were small and cold. Finally she said, ‘Know where you are and who you are with. This organization gives nothing. If you want to be a part of it, you will accept that.’

Ianthe looked at the frog.

‘Some members of the Guild like to think they can bend the rules,’ the old woman went on. ‘They expect me to make concessions for students. But I don’t hold with that. The Guild is not a crown to be worn or a sword to be wielded. It is an ideology. Do you understand?’

Ianthe thought she should nod, so she did.

The old woman’s eyes narrowed. Then she tapped the glass jar and said, ‘I want you to kill this creature.’

Ianthe just looked at her.

‘Psychic communication requires the lightest touch,’ the old woman said. ‘The ability to sense thoughts without disrupting the transmitting mind in any way. Psychic warfare, on the other hand, is all about causing stress. One forces one’s own thoughts into the recipient’s brain with the intention of causing disruption. A competent practitioner can alter the mood of another psychic… evoke depression… or rage. But a skilled warrior…’ Her wrinkled lips made a semblance of a smile. ‘A skilled warrior can cause actual damage.’

Ianthe glanced at the frog again. ‘What about control? What about getting someone to do what you want?’

The old woman made a sound of disapproval. ‘You can’t etch glass with a sledgehammer, can you?’ She gestured towards the frog. ‘Psychic warfare techniques are more effective than the communicative disciplines precisely because there is no need to read the intricacies of the target mind. One’s victim need not even be sensitive. Even a mindless ugly little creature like this is vulnerable.’

‘But I don’t want to hurt it.’

Sister Ulla stood up. ‘I think it extremely unlikely that you will. Now, I have a class to teach. I’ll be back before supper to check on your failure.’ She headed for the door.

Ianthe called after her, ‘I’m just supposed to will it to death?’

‘Do what you like,’ Sister Ulla replied.

‘But how? I don’t-’

The old woman slammed the door.

Ianthe stared at the frog. The frog blinked. She allowed her mind to connect with the creature’s perceptions and peered up at herself through its marbled eyes. Poor little thing. She sighed, then got up and walked over to the window. A brown pigeon had perched on the forest wall at the other side of the courtyard. It pecked at some moss near its feet, then fluttered off into the trees. Ianthe opened the window and breathed deeply of the cool green air. She could hear other pigeons cooing above her and the restful chuckle of a stream coming from the woods beyond the wall.

She glanced back at the frog. Then she stormed over, threw herself back down in her seat and stared at the miserable little creature, willing it to die.

Time dragged on. No matter how much hellfire and agony Ianthe wished upon the frog, it simply crouched there, staring dumbly out of the jar. Its throat bobbed, and it blinked, and, once, it turned slightly. By mid afternoon a headache had crept into Ianthe’s skull. She let out a long breath and rose from her seat, stretching her arms and neck.

Aria was standing in the courtyard outside, looking in.

Ianthe hurried over and opened the window. ‘What are you doing here?’

The big red-haired girl glanced back at the courtyard wall, where she had propped the gate open with a wicker basket. ‘We’re supposed to collect mushrooms in the woods,’ she said, ‘but most of the girls just go back to the dorm. No one ever checks up.’ She looked past Ianthe into the room behind. ‘Is that a frog?’

Ianthe followed her gaze. ‘I’m supposed to kill it.’

Aria frowned. ‘Why a frog?’ she said. ‘Normally it’s a mouse. Not that anyone ever kills it the first time. Sister Ulla likes to say it’s easy, but it isn’t. Animal minds are much harder to destroy than Unmer ones.’

‘Have you ever killed an Unmer?’

Aria shook her head. ‘The dungeons are full of stock, but you’re only supposed to torture them,’ she said. ‘There’s barely enough to go around. If we killed them all, we’d need to bring in more from the ghettos and that would mean less income from the empire.’ She looked suddenly serious, and lowered her voice. ‘Constance killed one by accident, and Sister Ulla was so furious she nearly expelled her.’

Ianthe thought back to the illicit excursion her mind had taken through the palace the night before. The palace had extended as far underground as it had reached skywards. Had all those people she’d sensed down there been Unmer?

‘Do you want to walk in the woods with me?’

Ianthe snapped out of her reverie. ‘What?’

‘Sister Ulla wont be back for ages.’

‘What about the test?’

‘She’s not expecting you to pass anyway.’ She held out her hand. ‘Come on, it’s a lovely day. I’ll show you the glade.’

Ianthe accepted Aria’s hand and climbed out through the open window.

Aria picked up her mushroom basket and closed the courtyard gate behind them. Gold-green light filtered down through the forest canopy, dappling the mossy ground and picking out bursts of white and pink wild-flowers. Yellow butterflies fluttered to and fro. The air smelled of warm summer pollen. Numerous trails wound through the ancient oaks, and Aria led Ianthe along one of these down a steep slope towards a spur of granite. As they drew nearer, Ianthe heard the sound of a rushing stream. Steps cut into the living rock took them down one side of the spur to a shady pool surrounded by walls of smooth grey stone. The sunshine fell on a flat expanse of granite beside the water’s edge, so smooth and round it might have been carved by the gods as a seat for bathers. In the shadows at the rear of the glade, a small waterfall chuckled into the dark waters.

Ianthe crouched at the edge of the pool. It was so clear she could see light rippling across pebbles two fathoms down. She hesitated, then dipped her hand into the cool water.

Aria flopped down onto the rocks behind her. ‘Some of the girls come here to swim,’ she said. ‘Do you swim?’

Ianthe shook her head.

‘Me neither.’ Aria rummaged in her basket, pulled out a handful of red berries and began to eat them.

‘Weren’t you supposed to be collecting mushrooms?’

‘These taste better,’ Aria said. ‘Do you want some?’

Ianthe realized she was ravenous. The only food she’d eaten since she’d arrived at the palace had been the chicken leg Aria had given to her the night before. She scurried over, and soon the two girls were sitting side by side, their chins running with red berry juice as they devoured Aria’s hoard.

‘Look, Regina,’ said a voice from behind. ‘A pig and a peasant.’

Ianthe turned to see two girls standing on the rock steps above them. The small blonde, Constance, stood with her chin raised and her blue eyes lit with arrogance, while her clumpy, brown-haired companion shifted coyly on the rock steps a few paces behind. Both girls carried baskets similar to Aria’s.

Constance strolled down the remaining steps, stopped before Ianthe and peered at her as one might peer at an insect. ‘I suppose Unmer eyeglasses are fashionable in Evensraum,’ she said to Regina. ‘These peasants have always had quaint ideas.’

Regina giggled.

Constance reached for Ianthe. ‘Let me see them,’ she said.

Ianthe turned away.

Constance gave a snort of disapproval, then grabbed for Ianthe’s spectacles. Ianthe pulled away and tried to shove the other girl back. Constance grabbed a handful of Ianthe’s hair. Ianthe lashed out wildly with the back of her fist.

Constance recoiled, and stood there for a moment – an expression of shock forming on her pretty face. She touched a thin scar across the bridge of her nose, and her fingers came away bloody. ‘You broke my nose,’ she said. ‘You broke my nose!’

Ianthe fumbled to adjust her lenses. She didn’t see the other girl charge at her until it was too late. With an angry shriek, Constance pushed Ianthe into the pool.

Freezing water engulfed Ianthe. The shock of it took her breath away. She thrashed about, struggling to right herself, then broke the surface, heaving for air. And all at once she felt herself begin to slip under again. She opened her mouth to call for help, but swallowed water and gagged.

Constance smiled at her from the bank.

Ianthe slipped under the surface of the pool again. Her nose filled with water. She kicked and flailed her arms madly, trying desperately to reach air. Her heavy Haurstaf robes seemed to drag her down. For an instant her face broke free and she sucked in a breath before the waters closed around her once more. She felt something solid smack against her head and grabbed it. Suddenly she felt herself being pulled along.

Aria was using a branch to drag Ianthe through the water. Ianthe held on fiercely. She reached the edge of the pool and clung on to the rock, breathless and shaking.

Constance laughed.

Ianthe tried to pull herself out of the water.

Constance crouched over her. ‘You can’t get out here,’ she said. ‘This is our area. Go around the other side of the pool.’

‘Leave me alone,’ Ianthe said. She struggled to climb up, but the blonde girl held her firmly down.

‘You need to learn your place,’ Constance snarled, forcing Ianthe back down into the cold water. The scar across her broken nose looked livid and angry. ‘Peasants don’t belong in the Guild. You’re not fit to clean the drains.’ She wheeled around and flashed her teeth at Aria. ‘Give me that stick.’

Aria hesitated.

Constance struggled with Ianthe as she tried to stop her from climbing out. But Ianthe, in her desperation, managed to force her way up past the smaller girl. Constance broke away, snatched the branch from Aria, then swung it round hard.

It struck Ianthe a stinging blow across the cheek. Dripping wet, she turned and fled towards the rocky steps, where Constance’s companion, Regina, waited.

‘Stop her,’ Constance yelled.

Regina moved to block Ianthe’s way, and Ianthe tried to push past.

‘Grab her.’

Regina seized the hood of Ianthe’s robe.

Ianthe lost her footing on the wet rock. Suddenly the glade whirled around her. She fell backwards and struck her head on something hard. A moment of darkness and confusion passed, and then she heard someone breathing heavily close to her ear, grunting, gasping.

‘Leave her alone.’

‘In the water.’

Fists grabbed Ianthe’s robes. Someone pinned her arms down. Regina loomed over her, her hair dishevelled, her face flushed. Constance wore a savage grin on her face. They began dragging her back towards the pool. Terror gripped Ianthe’s heart, and she kicked and punched and screamed, ‘No!’

Something strange happened. Ianthe sensed Constance’s perceptions, as she always had, and yet in that instant of fear and struggle she caught a rare glimpse of the mind behind them. It was as if the world had flipped abruptly. Instead of simply peering out through the other girl’s eyes, she found herself engulfed by the whirlwind of Constance’s emotions. Hatred, desire, envy. Ianthe’s own consciousness lashed out instinctively…

Her cry seemed to hang there in the silence of the glade. And then Ianthe became aware of the thumping of her own heart, the frantic sound of her own breathing. Shakily, she sat up.

Constance was lying a few feet away, unmoving, a trickle of blood coming from the corner of her left eye. Regina lay curled up on the ground beside her, with her face clamped behind her hands. She was wailing softly like a young child. Aria sat on the ground behind them, gazing at the two stricken girls with wide, fearful eyes.

‘What did you do?’ she said.

Ianthe got to her feet and ran.

‘You do not summon me, Mr Maskelyne.’

Maskelyne looked up to see Briana Marks standing at the open doorway of his suite. ‘Did I summon you?’ he said, feigning confusion. ‘Honestly, I can’t now remember why.’

She shook her head, but failed to entirely hide her smile. ‘Are you comfortable here?’

The suite occupied two floors of one of the palace towers and boasted fine views across the mountains and valley from its garden terrace. Elegant dragon-bone furniture rested on moss-deep carpets. Crystal chandeliers hung from silk-draped ceilings. Maskelyne had counted seven couches, twelve armchairs and no fewer than twenty-two mirrors bouncing light from window to wall. His bed was big enough to accommodate ten people. ‘Comfortable enough,’ he said, ‘although the bed feels cold at night.’

‘Your wife will remain in Port Awl until your case is decided,’ Briana said. ‘And that won’t happen until we determine Ianthe’s worth to the Guild.’

Maskelyne grunted. ‘You intend to hold me here until you decide whether or not Ianthe has talent? What difference does it really make? She’s unharmed. Is this justice, or are you simply waiting to see if you can lawfully acquire leverage?’

‘There are worse places to be.’ Briana strolled over towards the glass doors leading to the terrace. ‘That’s one of my favourite views,’ she said. ‘You can see the Culche Pass from here, Mian Morre and the Folded Wings. Don’t you think the four mountains opposite look like a dragon’s spine?’

‘I find the view somewhat spoiled by the acres of burned forest, razor-wire and concrete bunkers surrounding the palace,’ Maskelyne replied. ‘Do you know that a cockerel crows every morning in one of the camps? The sound is always followed by a single shot, and then silence. I can’t help but wonder if it’s one, trained, bird, or if there’s a supply of them.’

Briana closed her eyes for a moment. ‘A supply,’ she said.

‘Did you just ask your associates?’

‘All three thousand of them,’ Briana replied. ‘The great benefit of telepathy is that one is able to obtain information whenever one wishes. A psychic is never surprised.’ She reached the glass doors, opened them and stepped out onto the terrace. There she stopped dead. ‘Where did you get all this stuff?’

Maskelyne joined her. A small collection of Unmer trove lay spread across the flagstones, most of it located amongst potted plants and flower troughs, although he had set out many of the more useful pieces for disassembly on the stone breakfast table. ‘After so many months at sea,’ he said, ‘I find it refreshing to work outdoors.’

‘Work? Where did this trove come from?’

‘The palace storerooms.’ He made a dismissive gesture. ‘The Unmer won’t miss objects you’ve already confiscated. Most of it is simply junk, but there are a few pieces that may prove vital to my research.’

Briana simply stared at him.

‘The Unmer are able to manipulate Space and Time,’ Maskelyne explained. ‘To transfer energies across vast gulfs. I have been trying to determine how they accomplish this.’

‘You were supposed to remain locked in this suite,’ Briana said.

Maskelyne waved his hand irritably. ‘Yes, yes. My point is this: What we perceive as sorcery is merely a method of juggling entropy. The Unmer transmit energy and matter from one place to another, most likely from one universe to another, through some sort of aspacial conduit. The Unmer’s strength lies in their ability to plunder what I have chosen to call cosmic remnants.’

‘How did you get past the guards?’

Maskelyne sighed. ‘You’re not listening. Our present universe is merely the latest configuration of energy and matter formed within a never-ending cycle of cosmic inflation. Like the ripples formed beneath a dripping tap – as the outer circles fade they are replaced by new ones. If my-’

‘Did you bribe someone to bring all this equipment here?’

‘If my theory is correct, then…’ He paused and frowned at her. ‘Of course I bribed someone. When dealing with the Haurstaf, it is practically immoral not to bribe someone.’ He smiled thinly. ‘If my theory is correct, it means that certain aspects of Unmer sorcery are not only detrimental to our universe, but completely impossible without assistance from beyond our universe.’

She just looked at him.

‘Imagine a bathtub full of water,’ he said.

She continued to stare at him.

‘Now imagine there are two plugs in the bath, one at either end,’ he went on. ‘When we pull out both plugs, the water begins to drain through both openings at once. If the holes represent vast clusters of matter and the water represents the space between those clusters, then the flow of water represents the force of gravity.’ He glanced around the terrace, looking for something he could draw a diagram with, but there was nothing to hand. ‘In this analogy, the bathwater would flow out, leaving no space between the holes, no cosmos. But what is space? Is it tangible, like matter? Or does it merely represent a sea in which the potential for material interactions exists? What if, as the bath drained, the volume of water it contained did not diminish? What if the area of space between the holes actually stretches? If the holes remain unchanged, the distance between them must increase.’ He nodded. ‘So the universe expands.’

‘I really wish I hadn’t come here,’ Briana said.

Maskelyne walked over to the terrace balustrade and sat down. ‘Have you ever wondered how the Unmer came to possess the ability to remove matter, to turn flesh and stone into vacuum? This talent requires no device, no sorcerous ring or pendant.’ He shook his head. ‘It is inherent, and therefore like nothing else we have ever seen.’

‘It’s just a gift,’ Briana said. ‘Like telepathy.’

Maskelyne threw his hands up. ‘It is nothing like telepathy,’ he said. ‘Telepathy does not add or subtract anything from the universe. Look.’ He walked over to the table and picked up a partially disassembled gem lantern from among the clutter of machine parts and tools. ‘These burn for, say, a thousand years,’ he said. ‘Do you have any idea how much energy that requires? It’s enough to blow a battleship to pieces, and it has to come from somewhere.’ Next he untied a burlap sack from the leg of the table and opened it. Three small concrete spheres floated up out of the bag and rose gently towards the sky. Maskelyne scooped them back into the bag before they drifted too high. ‘Air stones,’ he said, ‘or chariot ballast, or whatever name you want to give them. The repulsive force comes from somewhere.’ Next he snatched up a stoppered ichusae. ‘You recognize this, of course?’ He set the bottle down again when he saw fear light Briana’s eyes. ‘Ichusae introduce poisonous matter to our world, matter brought from somewhere else. You see? Most of what the Unmer create sucks matter or energy from somewhere and dumps it into our world.’

‘Void flies-’ Briana began.

‘Void flies are not created,’ Maskelyne cried. ‘Void flies are creatures which possess the same inherent ability the Unmer do. And that’s the key. Where did they suddenly appear from? What becomes of the matter they remove from our universe? Where does it go? There’s a balance in all of this. A trade.’

Briana frowned.

Maskelyne’s gaze travelled across the objects on the table. ‘The universe expands in all directions,’ he muttered. ‘Elemental particles of matter cool and cease to fluctuate. But space cannot exist between identical particles. As variance decreases, more and more particles must find themselves occupying the same point in the universe, regardless of how far apart they are. Vast swathes of the cosmos begin to gather in one place, a single, tiny place that exists almost everywhere at the same time. Unimaginable pressure builds, and builds, and builds, until eventually…’ He looked at her expectantly.

She shrugged.

Maskelyne felt deflated. ‘I can see you’re not taking this seriously,’ he said.

‘You weren’t brought here to study the cosmos at our expense, Mr Maskelyne.’

‘At your expense?’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Miss Marks, if my theory is correct, then it is very likely that there are still scraps of former universes adrift out there.’ He jabbed a finger at the sky. ‘Frozen, dying and utterly alien to anything we could imagine. If the Unmer have communicated with the inhabitants of one of these cosmic remnants and, indeed, have actively been shifting matter back and forth between here and there, then we need to consider any consequences that the subsequent enslavement of their race might have had.’

She sighed. ‘Go on.’

‘Our world is drowning,’ he said. ‘Whatever deal the Unmer made with the far side of the cosmos has evidently turned sour.’ He sighed. ‘I’m no merchant, but I know that when one party fails to adhere to a trade agreement, the other party gets angry.’