Stands a Shadow

CHAPTER THREE

Without Wings

Whoah, thought Coya, as a gust of wind buffeted the figure that dangled between the two skyships, and set the man swinging like the pendulum of a clock.

‘Hold there!’ shouted the startled deck charge, raising a palm to the crewmen heaving away on the secondary line. At once they stopped hauling, and stood there frozen in their positions, watching the swaying figure with the uncertainty of men who’d never attempted this feat before, and were aware of its possibility only because others were telling them of it.

Out there in the gulf of air between the two vessels, bobbing from the line strung between them both, the figure on the wooden chair opened his mouth to shout: ‘ In your own time, gentlemen! ’

Coya smiled despite his concerns for the man.

‘Bring him in, Seday, quickly now,’ he told the deck charge smartly, and although Coya appeared young for his twenty-seven years – young even with his body stooped over a walking cane – the men snapped to with the respect of earnest sons for a father, and started to haul on the rope once more.

Just then another gust hit, stronger than the previous one, setting the distant figure pirouetting again on his seat. Coya heard the wind pressing against the silken envelope overhead, saw how the two skyships were drifting from their relative positions. Manoeuvring tubes fired along their sides, at the hurried commands of their captains. Still, the skyships drifted slightly apart, the line playing out on the far Khosian deck. The slack was lost, causing the man to bob even more dangerously beneath its tightening length. With an inrush of breath, Coya leaned forward with his weight on his walking cane and his hand clutching the ebony grip tightly.

To lose this man now could very well equate to losing the entire war.

‘Quickly now!’ he urged, without taking his gaze from their charge.

The figure was well past the halfway mark and nearing the ship at last. He looked calmer out there than Coya did merely watching from the deck. With his feet dangling over an abyss of several thousand feet all the way to the choppy sea below, he was turning his head to take in the rugged coastline of Minos, and the bay in which the city of Al-Minos lay like a gleaming pearl. Drawing closer, Coya saw his long black hair whip around his wind-reddened face; his hands with their many plain rings; his heavy bear-skin coat covering his great bulk.

Suddenly, Coya felt his pulse grow faster from the sheer anticipation of the Lord Protector’s presence.

‘Easy, lads,’ General Creed boomed as they pulled him roughly onto the decking; and suddenly there he was, towering over them all, feigning an easy nonchalance when in truth Coya saw only exhilaration in his eyes.

The crewmen released the general from his safety harness while Creed clapped a few shoulders for good show. He stepped forward to shake Coya’s offered hand.

Coya scented hair oil, and that awful spiced goat’s cheese so beloved of these Khosians.

‘I’d hoped you were joking when you suggested an underway transfer,’ remarked the old general. ‘We couldn’t have met on the ground, eh?’

Before responding, Coya caught the eye of Marsh, his own bodyguard. Marsh scowled at the gang of crewmen still pressing for a better look at this living legend from Bar-Khos, and shoved them without ceremony towards the rest of the crew gathered on the opposite side of the deck.

‘Too dangerous,’ Coya admitted when they were at last beyond earshot, while Marsh stationed himself close by, watching everyone on deck through his dark-tinted refractors. His eyes could be seen blinking through the lenses on the back of his head.

‘Someone else was hit?’

‘Last night in Al-Minos. The visiting League delegate from Salina had the misfortune of being strangled in her sleep. That’s eight assassinations in the last two weeks. Which would suggest a coterie of Diplomats is now at large within the city.’

The Lord Protector nodded without expression, keeping his thoughts to himself.

Together they watched as the transfer line was reeled back aboard the Khosian skyship that had borne him all this way from Bar-Khos. The vessel fired its tubes to assume a patrol around the Minosian vessel they now stood upon. In the silence, Coya studied the man’s profile in an attempt to judge his present condition. Creed had visibly aged since they’d last met over of a year and half before. The greying at his temples had spread into streaks of silver; the lines deeper now around his eyes. All of it from grief, Coya knew from the reports he’d been hearing.

‘How are you, anyway?’ he asked the Lord Protector. ‘I hope your journey was a smooth one?’

‘Smooth enough. I only regret that our meeting must be so brief.’

‘Yes,’ said Coya. ‘The Khosian council must fret whenever you are gone from the Shield for so long.’ At that they both smiled, knowing it to be true. As their eyes met, unspoken between them lay the question of why Creed was here at all. ‘Still, it’s good that we can meet for this little while at least. A meal is being prepared for us in the captain’s cabin. If you wish, we can retire to some comfort and be out of this wind for a while.’

Creed responded with a look that said he was seldom accustomed to thinking of his personal comforts. He glanced towards Marsh and the many crewmen still watching them, the captain of the ship included. ‘I’m too old to be skulking around in fear of a few assassins, if that’s your concern,’ he said. ‘Let’s enjoy the fresh air while we talk, and then we can eat.’ He paused as he looked at Coya, who was stooped and wrapped heavily against the cold. ‘Unless of course it would be better for you… to be inside.’

‘I’m fine here, if you are, thank you,’ Coya replied crisply, and bowed his head politely.

The motion caused him pain, as all movements did. Even at his relatively young age, Coya had the arthritic bones of an ancient man. ‘Please, at least allow me to indulge you in some chee while we talk.’

Creed welcomed the offer. Within moments the ship’s galley boy was standing before Marsh with two steaming leather cups of chee in his hands, the lad’s mouth hanging open in wonder, looking between the impressive figure of the Lord Protector and the curious display of Marsh dipping a goyum to sample the chee. With a single tendril dangling in the hot liquid, the fist-sized bag remained the same neutral colour of greyish brown. Satisfied, Marsh allowed the cups to be passed into their welcoming hands.

‘How’s that pretty wife of yours?’ Creed enquired through a waft of rising steam.

‘She’s well. She sends you her blessings.’

How generous, Coya thought, to ask after my wife while still grieving for his own.

‘You never did tell me how you hooked her. Blackmail, I’m supposing?’

‘No need. She’s crazy about me. And I of her.’

‘Love then. Mercy help you both.’

Creed’s dry wit caused Coya to blink in amusement.

‘You must come and stay with us when circumstances allow it. You would like it there. Rechelle ensures the house is filled always with life and other people’s children.’

For a moment Coya thought he had said too much. But then Creed replied, with warmth, ‘Yes. I would like that.’

They sipped their chee as they stood by the railing gazing down at the vista of land and sea below, the coastline of Minos slowly sliding by as the ship drifted around in the wind.

The city of Al-Minos shone in the afternoon sunlight, the greatest Free Port in all the Mercian islands. Around it swept the arms of the bay, the white beaches darkened by crowds of people and clouds of red kites flying. The cityport was enjoying a festa this week, and even the presence of the First Fleet in its harbour, outfitting for battle, had done little to dampen the holiday spirits of the populace. Coya’s wife was down there somewhere in the heaving streets of the city, with his parents and his sisters’ many lively children – or perhaps by now they were watching the horse flapping on Uttico beach, and placing bets with their spare chits while wolfing down fresh quaff-eggs from the communal feasting pits.

He felt a pang of regret that he wasn’t with them today. Coya had been dearly looking forward to spending the day with his family, of forgetting it all for a short spell at least.

‘Zezike Day,’ Creed announced suddenly, as though noticing the kites and the thronged beaches for the first time. ‘You know, I’d all but forgotten.’

Coya shrugged. ‘You’re a Khosian. It’s to be expected.’

‘We do celebrate the man, you know. Just not quite so fervently as you fanatics here in the west.’ He spoke lightly, but as he did so he observed the distant celebrations with something unspoken in his expression, a kind of longing, perhaps. Coya could only imagine what it was like for the man and the rest of the people of Bar-Khos, huddled as they were behind walls unceasingly subjected to bombardment and assault, living day and night on the edge of extinction.

‘I’m only chiding, Marsalas. It’s hardly as though you haven’t enough on your plate already.’

The general straightened and cleared his throat. When he met Coya’s gaze, it was from one lonely height to another. ‘It must be hard on you also. They must expect a great deal from you, your people. The living descendant of the great philosopher himself.’

‘Hardly a burden compared to some.’

Coya desired to change the subject, for he was not comfortable discussing his famous ancestry to the spiritual father of the democras. He observed the many warships in the harbour, and was reminded, though he hardly needed a reminder, of the Mannian fleets now heading their way.

‘The revolution is one hundred and ten years old this year,’ Coya stated. ‘One hundred and ten years since we toppled the High King and the nobles who thought they would take his place. Yet I wonder, sometimes, when I’m alone and feeling not quite as hopeful as I should, whether our waking dream of the democras will survive for very much longer.’

‘The Free Ports are hardly beaten yet.’

‘Come, now. We’re not far from it, Marsalas. We hold on by the skin of our teeth. The Mannians strangle our trade routes to the outside world so we are forever close to starving. Zanzahar remains our only life thread, and subsequently exploits us for all the resources that it can. Bar-Khos barely holds the line in the east. League fleets barely hold the line at sea. And in our collective resistance, we become each day a greater threat to the Empire’s dominion. Because of us, every morning the world wakes to the knowledge that there are other ways to live than Mann. It is why the Empire loathes us so fiercely. It is why it will not cease until it has defeated us, or is finished itself – and Mann hardly looks as though it’s about to fall.’

‘It has happened before. Great empires have been resisted and cast back upon themselves. It can happen again.’

‘Yes, of course. And even then, if that were to happen… would the ideals of the democras still survive, I wonder? Or would we have paid too much for our victory? Would we have too much a taste for war by then, and a need to exact our revenge?’

‘After the Years of the Sword, we settled again in peace. We can do so again.’

‘We settled because our victory was itself our revenge. We were sated because the nobles had been overthrown. And even then the creation of the democras was a close-run thing. Such times of transition are always chancy, Marsalas.’

Creed listened without expression. ‘I’ve missed our talks,’ he declared suddenly, and Coya could only agree with him. He took a sip of chee, feeling himself relaxing into the gentle motions of the ship.

‘What news have you heard?’ Creed asked him. ‘Any movement in Q’os?’

Coya released a hot breath of air. ‘Our agents are no further in discovering the timing and destination of the invasion. It would seem to be the best-kept secret in the Empire just now. All we do know is what they can see with their own eyes. The invasion fleet of transports remains anchored in the Q’osian harbour. The men-of-war which left port already have been spotted again by our aerial longscouts. There’s no doubt any longer. They are on a course for the western Free Ports. Another sighting arrived this morning of a second possible fleet approaching from the north-east.’

‘ Hmmf.’

‘Yes. That was my reaction.’

The general set his cup down on the rail, his hand still clasped around it.

‘We need League reinforcements now, Coya. I know a feint when I see one. If the invasion fleet lands in Khos, we will need our coastal forts fully manned. At present, they can resist little more than a strong wind.’

‘Your League delegate still maintains otherwise – you know that, don’t you? You have enough men at present, that is what he assures us.’

‘ Ach. What do you expect from Chaskari? He’s Michine. You know how much they fear changing the status quo. Look at how they bind my hands and make us cower behind the Shield, hoping that the Imperial Fourth Army will simply vanish. It’s no different with all the Volunteers the League has sent to aid us over the years. The soldiers live amongst our people. The people see how they are, without superiors, without doffing their heads to authority. They remind everyone in Khos that they are members of the League and equal to all as a democras. They remind them how the Michine are only there at their bidding, that they are leaders given the responsibility of leadership, not of rule. You should hardly be surprised that the Khosian council resists my requests for more Volunteers. That is why I’m asking you personally, as a favour: send them anyway.’

‘But, Marsalas, what more can I do? I’m bound hand and foot by the constitution, you know that.’

‘Send them anyway. Let us worry about the consequences after the storm has arrived.’

‘General. Believe me, I’d dearly love to dispatch every Volunteer that we could, and to do so now. We all would. Khos is our shield and every citizen of the League knows it. But the League cannot meddle in the affairs of a fellow democras, especially not at the request of one man – even if that one man happens to be the Lord Protector of Khos himself. We may only send reinforcements if they are requested of us by your delegate. It’s up to you to change your own council’s minds on this.’

‘I’ve tried, damn it.’

‘Then you must try harder.’

Creed glowered at the cup in his hand. ‘What of your people? They’ve interfered before in Khosian affairs. They can do so again.’

Coya frowned. ‘That was before my time, Marsalas. And we should not talk of these things here. I’m sorry. There’s nothing more the League or anyone else could do for you right now. We must wait and see.’

It was an end to the discussion, and Creed breathed loudly through his nostrils and stared at Coya with all the force of his will. Coya held his gaze, not flinching; inside, his body was tense and pulsing. General Creed was like an arrow in flight. When you blocked him, you felt the physical shock of it.

The Lord Protector muttered something, squeezed his fist upon the rail. Coya could only sympathize with the man, though he sensed that they were still skirting the heart of their meeting, the full reason why Creed was here.

‘We could have corresponded on this,’ he ventured. ‘You hardly needed to come all this way in person.’

‘No.’

They fell to silence, each buffeted by the wind. Let him settle his temper first, Coya decided.

The skyship was turning to windward, bringing the world around with it, so that Minos drifted away to the left and the striking cobalt of the sea filled their eyes. Coya could see a hint of an island chain to the far east, little more than hummocks of rock extending south-east in the direction of Salina. He imagined the loose collection of islands beyond Salina, stretching all the way to distant Khos at its easternmost point over six hundred laqs from where they were now; the archipelago of the Free Ports and of the democras, people without rulers.

Along with the egalitarian participos of Minos and Coros and Salina, if you took the time to travel the Mercian Isles, you could come across islands that elected councils by lottery and believed in no personal possessions at all, or were based on administrative matriarchies of the old tradition, with simple cottage industries and tightly controlled tariffs on trade, or were free-for-all enclaves like those of Coraxa, fierce individualists living in loose tribes and scattered communities. Even distant mighty Khos was represented in the League, where the last vestige of Mercian nobility, the Michine, had somehow held onto power following the sweeping years of revolution over a century before – albeit aided by many concessions to the people, and by endless centuries of sieges and invasions that had made the Khosians, as a nation, mutually reliant on those who paid and maintained much of their defences.

The varied democras of the Free Ports, based on the dreams of a political prisoner who had died centuries previously – a philosopher whose blood was running through Coya’s veins even as he thought of him now – were the same only in that they shared the common ideals of the League constitution, at least in principle if not always in action, and that they were all part of this unique experiment in rule by the people. It was hardly a utopia they had created here. No one and nothing was ever going to be perfect. But perfect or not, they had fought for a free and fair way of living, without slavery or exploitation of others, and on most islands they had achieved some working approximations of it.

And now this speculation of invasion, ringing in his mind day and night, a jangly disjointed series of anxieties and teetering hopes. It was hard to think of anything else just now. Only last night, Coya had experienced a dream that had caused him to awake in a shaking, sweaty panic.

In his dream, he had imagined the imperial capital of Q’os as a monstrous quivering thing pulsating at the absolute heart of Mann. Its tendrils had flowed outwards across the world of humans in the form of self-fulfilling credence, reaching deep into the minds of people as they slept, and even more so when they were awake; whispers upon whispers that told how life was a vicious competition and nothing more, how human worth was to be found only in those measurable effects of status and materials either gained or given, how man must prey always on man, how those who would be free must first of all enslave. In his dream, the whispers had flowed never-ending until it was all the listeners could do but believe in the words and follow them, and their neighbours the same, and their neighbour’s neighbours, so that the needs of the monstrosity were pulsing through them all, and they were inflating with the ugly power of it, becoming the words themselves and making of them a reality – and all the while the monster gorged, and the world itself grew crazed and barren.

All his life, Coya had loathed and feared the tyranny of Mann. And now this impending invasion, these Mannian fleets heading straight for the people of the League with their intentions of conquest; causing him nightmares in the coldest hours of the night.

‘There’s another matter I must raise with you,’ Creed announced, stirring from his own musings. ‘Something I can only discuss in person.’

‘Oh?’

‘If I’m right, and the Mannians invade Khos rather than Minos, then full martial law and all its powers will fall into my hands. I want your people in the Few to know that I will use that power only as intended, in the defence of Khos. Nothing more.’

‘Really, Marsalas. Not here.’

‘Then where else? Time is short. I need the Few to know that I harbour no plans of becoming a dictator.’

Coya shook his head. ‘I would not have supposed it, anyway. Still-’ Coya faltered, his mouth open.

Marsh had caught his eye. Something had changed in the stance of the man, a sudden alertness that would have gone unnoticed had Coya not know known him for the better part of his life.

‘I’m certain your words will be well received,’ he continued as Creed followed his gaze: both of them looking at Marsh, at the bodyguard’s hands now reaching beneath his brown leather longcoat for something in the small of his back. ‘You have nothing to fear from us, believe me. You are wise enough not to allow such power to ruin you entirely… Besides, you know too well the consequences, should that ever occur…’

Coya blinked in surprise as Marsh lifted a pistol in his hand and aimed it towards the crew.

The crack of the shot went right through him. He stared in shock at his bodyguard, standing there like some duellist with his right leg extended forwards, his other hand still beneath his coat, a puff of smoke dispelling in the wind from the end of the raised gun. Coya followed the line of the shot and spotted a man toppling backwards onto the deck, while crewmen around him shouted out in surprise or dived for cover. The victim was a monk, he saw, one of the pair of monks who had come aboard to bless this august occasion of their meeting.

Another bang went off nearby, loud enough to burst his heart. Creed shouted something by his side as chunks of debris whistled past them.

A wash of black smoke blew across their position by the rail. He had time enough to see a second monk leaping towards them, something round and black in his hand, and Marsh pulling another pistol from his coat, then firing it, before the smoke engulfed them entirely; and then Coya was sprawled on the deck with a great weight pressing down on him, and another bang tried to squeeze the insides out from him.

When the smoke cleared, Marsh was still standing there with his hands now empty save for a knife. He was turning to track the monk vaulting over the rail to his death.

Coya gasped as the man vanished over the side.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Creed, patting him down before helping him to his feet.

Coya found his voice again. ‘I’m fine, I think,’ he said as he stooped awkwardly for his cane. ‘And you?’ he asked, as he leaned on it for support and looked up at the general. ‘You seem to be bleeding, on your head, there.’

Creed dabbed at his head where a shallow wound ran crimson. The general frowned then turned to look over the rail. Coya was curious too.

Below, a great distance below, a canopy of white drifted down towards the surface of the sea. As the wind carried it in the direction of the coast, he saw a man dangling beneath it, the burned orange of his robes unmistakable.

Creed shook his head in obvious fascination.

‘These Diplomats. They grow crazier every year.’