Stands a Shadow

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

A Meeting of Diplomats

Che had forgotten he was playing a game of rash, so drunk was he by then.

It was the girl’s fault, Curl with the pretty face who conversed with him occasionally as she played or laughed at one of his jokes, but who mostly just shared her large wineskin of Keratch while pretending not to be interested in him. Che drank until the noise of the taverna became something muted, distant, unreal, and he fell ever deeper into himself.

At some point, Koolas and the rest of the players gave up trying to jeer him back to life. Instead, they lifted him – chair and all – away from the table so that another could take his place. ‘Get away,’ he drawled at them, but they paid him no heed.

Che’s head was pounding. He couldn’t recall a time he had drunk as much as this. For a while he simply sat in his chair while something tried to push its way out of his neck. He swiped at it, but the throbbing sensation refused to go away.

They had seated him at an empty table, it seemed. He saw a mug in front of him, filled with water, and he drank it down gratefully.

He found himself leaning to one side as though his balance was adjusting to a tilted world. The motion was checked by someone’s shoulder. It was the girl, sitting next to him.

‘Come back with me,’ he heard himself say into her ear.

‘And why would I want to do that?’ she teased.

He tried to focus on the words he needed to say. ‘Because,’ he began, ‘I’d like you to.’

A press of a knee against his own.

‘We can get a room here,’ the girl suggested. ‘Have some food sent up. You look as though you could do with some.’

The girl helped him to his feet, and then he stood there swaying as she wandered off for a moment. When she returned she was smiling. ‘This way,’ she said, and led him towards a set of stairs lit by a single flickering lamp.

Someone whistled behind them and shouted words of encouragement. He glanced back but couldn’t see who it was.

He failed to notice the two figures stepping into the taverna, a man and a woman dressed in civilian clothing, their shaven heads covered by felt hats, their hard stares fixed upon him.

Through the eyeglass, Archgeneral Sparus watched a pair of skyships taking off from the heart of Tume, Red Guards standing along the rails, their cloaks blowing in the breeze as the vessels lifted ponderously into the air. He snapped the eyeglass together and handed it to the officer closest to him, Captain Skayid. So it was true: Creed was evacuating the fighting men from Tume now.

Sparus knew that the Lord Protector would be one of the last to leave the floating city, and, knowing that, he was pushing the bridge rebuilding effort hard.

He was loath to allow the man to escape once again. He wanted Creed alive; he wanted very dearly to set his best people to work on him. They would break him, as they broke everyone, with narcotics and mind games and carefully applied measures of pain, until Creed was nothing more than a wreck of a man, malleable to all that they demanded of him…

It had become his favoured fantasy, ever since the aftermath of the battle and the Khosians’ close escape. The Lord Protector, chained and naked in a cage and renouncing aloud all he had ever stood for, while Sparus paraded him in front of the walls of Bar-Khos for the Khosians to witness what had befallen their great war leader.

Perhaps Creed could even join Lucian as another living trophy. That would be only fitting, Sparus mused. In defeat, the Lagosian insurgency had shown itself to be nothing more than another reckless folly. Soon now, the defiance of Khos and the Free Ports would become a fallacy too; the battles of Coros, Chey-Wes and the Shield would be remembered as the last bright moments of a people stuck stubbornly in the past, futile attempts at denying the new world order.

Sparus didn’t doubt this, for he had seen it time and time again. While the scholars liked to quip about victors writing the books of history, Sparus knew that it went much deeper than that. It was victory itself which shaped the history in people’s minds, which showed the righteousness of a cause and the mistaken beliefs of those who had been defeated. Victory had power in it, while defeat… defeat was nothing but a husk, quickly discarded save for what seeds lay within it, those hopes of future triumphs.

When Mann finally conquered the Free Ports, and then the lands of the Alhazii, it would be the end of the contest of the ages, the contest of beliefs. And the victory itself would be the proof of Mann’s righteousness.

Still, he had a personal score to settle with this man first, this Lord Protector who had made him look the fool twice now, first with his night attack, and then with his unexpected escape from the field. And Sparus knew precisely how he was going to achieve it.

‘Colonel Kunse,’ he said, and the colonel snapped to attention, along with the other officers around him. ‘Prepare our Commandos for a night attack. Have them build some rafts so they can get across. When it starts nearing dark, redouble the efforts on the bridge. Offer gold to attract volunteers if you have to. I want it completed tonight, not tomorrow, do you hear?’

He looked to the west with his single eye, over the imperial heavy guns that pounded away along the southern shore. Another Khosian skyship was returning just then across the lake.

‘And do something about those skyships, will you? We should be contesting the skies, not leaving them open for the Khosians to escape in good order.’

‘But our birds are still under repairs, Archgeneral.’

‘I don’t care, Colonel. If they can fly, get them in the air.’

Sparus was demanding the impossible, but he didn’t care.

‘We’ll take the city tonight, and Creed himself, while he’s still evacuating his men.’

A few of them smiled now, seeing the irony of it.

Aye, Sparus thought. Let us see how these Khosians like a taste of their own medicine.

A clatter of wooden plates jolted Che from his drunken stupor.

He saw that food had been laid out on a small dining table, and that he and Curl sat in a room of their own. A neatly made bed stood along one wall. A pair of velvet curtains covered a window at their backs. A plush rug lay on the floor. Despite the clean condition of the room, it still smelled of dampness and mould.

A murmur of laughter sounded through the closed door from the hallway and the taproom at the bottom of the stairs. Che sat and stared at the food with a soft spin to the world around him. For a while he forgot who this girl was, sitting next to him. Yet their legs were touching, and she seemed not to be bothered by it, so something existed between them, even if he couldn’t recall what it was. In his other hand, a hazii stick hung smoking from his fingers. He drew it to his lips, trembling. Inhaled, feeling each and every grain of the hazii weed scratching down the back of his throat.

‘Exhale, you idiot,’ said the girl as she took the stick from him, her cheeks bulging with food. He’d been sitting with the smoke in his lungs, not doing anything but staring into the guttering flame of the candle in the middle of the table.

Che exhaled and sat back and looked at her. ‘How beautiful you are,’ he said.

She smiled politely, as though she’d heard those words a hundred times before, then returned to her food.

‘You should eat,’ she told him. ‘It will do you good.’

He couldn’t face the thought of eating just then. His neck was truly throbbing, and it dawned on him only slowly that it was more than mere head pains. How long since I took the wildwood juice? he suddenly wondered.

‘They’re coming for me,’ Che mumbled as he tried to rise to his feet, though the words were mashed by his useless tongue.

‘They’re coming for all us,’ he heard her reply.

His hand slipped from the table and he dropped back into his seat. He could no longer sit up straight. He leaned forward to rest his forehead against the cool surface of the table, then turned it so that his cheek was pressed against it. Drool ran from the corner of his mouth.

He noticed that the wineskin was still in his lap. More drink was what he needed, he decided, and he straightened with a groan in the chair, and went through the laborious process of getting the Keratch into his mouth.

Before he could swallow it down, he was jolted by the sharp stab of the girl’s elbow against his ribs.

Through his swimming vision he saw that someone now stood before the table, and another was closing the door behind them.

They were dressed in civilian clothing beneath thin cloaks, the cloaks parted at their waists, a pistol poking out from each of them aimed at Che’s heart.

All at once he was sitting upright in his chair.

‘Mind if we sit?’ enquired Guan, and took one of the chairs across the table while his sister did the same. Swan studied the food for a moment, plucked a small pastry and popped it into her mouth.

Curl was frozen in her chair. Swan flashed her dark eyes at the girl. ‘Who’s your pretty friend?’ she asked sourly, and Che wondered how he had ever considered this woman to be attractive.

He said nothing, for Guan was fixing him with a cold glare. ‘I’d stop reaching for that gun if I were you,’ the man said. ‘I’m a whisker away from squeezing this trigger.’

Che took his hand away from the wooden stock of the pistol in his belt.

‘Hands on the table,’ Guan told him. Che laid the wineskin down, and his hands to either side of it. ‘You too,’ he told the girl.

Che was finding it hard to stay focused on the Diplomat’s face. It seemed to be leering at him in the dim candlelight of the room, shadows making pits of his eyes and a twisted gash of his lips. He could smell the water of the lake off him. Che’s eyes flickered to Curl’s hands on the table. They were trembling. He blinked, focusing on the man’s face again.

‘Well, say something, won’t you?’ prompted Guan. ‘Why don’t you explain to us why you turned traitor?’

His silence was making him angry, Che could see. He allowed a corner of his mouth to curl up, taunting him.

The man looked to his sister. She shrugged, helping herself to another pastry.

Guan raised the gun above the table and pointed it at Che’s face. His sister wiped her lips and swallowed the last of the pastry, then climbed to her feet. She went to the door, her pistol out, and waited there. She nodded.

Che held a single finger up. One moment. It caused Guan to hesitate. Che watched the end of the gun barrel through the flickering candle flame. He leaned forward towards him.

Che pursed his lips and blew.

The Keratch in his mouth jetted through the flame, igniting it in an even greater fire that roared across the Diplomat. The gun went off with a shocking bang. Guan toppled backwards with his clothes on fire, and Che heaved against the edge of the table and flung it onto its side after him.

He lurched to his feet, staggering for balance as he turned to the window, the smoke of the flames making him gag. He yanked open the curtains and tried to pull the shutters open. They refused to budge.

Swan was kneeling over her brother, trying to put out the flames.

Che grabbed Curl’s wrist while she stood there locked in panic. She tried to resist him as he pulled her to the window, managed to jerk her arm free from his grasp. ‘They’ll kill you too!’ he snapped at her, then turned for the window and charged the shutters with his shoulder.

They sprang open easier than he had expected, and with a cry Che tumbled out through the window, landing on his back on a slope of soft lakeweed. Curl landed on top of him, and they both slipped and spilled down the slope towards the water’s edge.

They stopped themselves just in time, and helped each other roughly to their feet. Che held his hand over his eyes against the blinding white daylight.

A gun fired from the window. Neither saw where the shot went.

‘Who are they?’ Curl demanded. ‘I don’t understand!’

‘This way,’ Che said, and set off at a rambling jog towards the nearest boardwalk.

The streets were empty of civilians. They ran as fast as they could, but he kept veering to one side as though the ground was tilting beneath him, so that Curl had to keep him straight. They ran until they were breathless, and kept on running. For a few moments it seemed as though the pulse in his neck was slowing ever so slightly. But then it hastened again, and he knew the two Diplomats were on their tail.

‘Where are we going?’ Curl wanted to know, angry more than frightened now.

But Che had no answer for her. He was too busy vomiting as he hobbled along the boardwalk, stabbing a finger down his throat whenever his gag reflex needed prompting, trying to empty his stomach of alcohol. ‘We should seek help,’ she shouted, with an arm around him, more sure on her feet than he was. ‘Find some guards!’

‘No soldiers,’ growled Che with the bile scalding his breath. He kept running, leading them into the western district of the city. He tried to load his pistol on the move, but struggled getting the cartridge slotted into it. Curl swore and took them from him, loading the gun as she glanced behind her. ‘They’re coming,’ she panted.

He looked back. His vision was a sickening wash of tones and forms. Squinting through it, trying to focus, he saw that Swan was on the left side of the street and Guan on the right, hugging the frontage of houses with their pistols held low. The upper half of Guan’s clothing was a burned and ragged mess. Swan jabbed a finger across the street. Guan nodded and took a side street, where he disappeared from view.

Che reckoned they should be near the house by now, for the street looked familiar to him. Not wanting to be outflanked by Guan, he turned them right into an alleyway and ran along it, then left so they were heading west again. He turned and aimed the pistol as Swan looked round the corner of a wall, ducked her head back. He stood waiting but she didn’t present herself again.

‘Go,’ he said, and they started off alongside the walls of thatch that ran along the left side of it, screens for back gardens.

Again he turned and aimed half-blind at Swan. She ducked aside just as he fired.

A squad of Red Guards came into view, turning towards the sound of the gunshot. Curl staggered up to them before Che could stop her. He hung back as she spoke, pointing back towards their pursuers. The men saw Swan and spread out as they moved towards her position.

Che tugged Curl’s sleeve, jerked his head for her to follow him. Slower now, both of them spent, they jogged along the street, Che looking left and right for a sign of Guan or the house.

Something flapped in a breath of wind.

It was his cloak, dangling from the upstairs window where he’d hung it out to dry.

They went over the thatched wall at the back. Che fell and rolled across a surface of wood chippings. When Curl helped him to his feet, he led her through the garden, around the edge of the house to the front.

‘Here,’ he said with his neck pounding, and they went inside and closed the door behind them. Che drew the night bolt. The house was just as he’d left it. He pounded up the stairs and into his bedroom, where he pulled out his backpack and rummaged for the vial of wildwood juice. He shook a drop of it onto his tongue. The girl stood in the doorway, watching him.

Che went to the window. He stood to one side of it and glanced out.

No one in sight.

Cautiously, he drew his cloak inside, felt that it was bone dry.

He pulled Curl into the room and closed that door too, then sat down on the bed with his pistol and fumbled to reload it. He snapped it together and waited there with it in his hands. They could hear loud snoring from the room next door.

The beat of the pulsegland seemed to be diminishing. He wasn’t sure at first, but then, after an endless time, he grew more certain of it.

At last he sighed with relief.

‘They’re gone,’ he said, and flopped back on the bed with a groan. His head was still reeling.

‘Are you sure?’

He nodded.

‘You want to tell me who they were?’

‘Old friends,’ he tried. ‘I owe them money.’

‘What are you, a thief?’

Che rose awkwardly and went to the window again and looked out, but still he couldn’t see anyone out there. When he turned back towards her, she was trying to get the door open to leave.

He was across the room in three strides. Curl gasped as he snatched her wrist. ‘Wait,’ he was about to say, but before he knew it they were pressed against the closed door, their breaths hot in each other’s faces.

And then they were kissing, and tearing at each other with their hands, all thoughts flown in passion and need.