The Fade

31

The graduation ceremony was a grand event, staged in the port city of Bry Athka on the turnward coast of the Eskaran Ocean. I hadn't been looking forward to it. Even as we arrived I was still hoping my son would change his mind and refuse his commission. It made me feel unworthy to think that way, but while I could feign happiness easily for the sake of others, I couldn't lie to myself.

Still, you can never get too many chances to dress up. Naturally, Liss and Casta had demanded that I premiere my outfit to them before anyone else saw it. They made politely uncertain comments, then took me out and bought me a riotously expensive alternative. Something in black and dark green, hugging me in all the right places. I'd allowed myself a little narcissistic pleasure in front of the seamstress's mirror while the twins drowned me in praise. Not bad at all, considering.

The hall was magnificent, its cream-coloured roof scalloped in gold and scooped like the inside of a clam shell. The sloping floor was broken up into tiers, enclosures and balconies linked by gentle stairs and crowded with guests. Colourful fungi grew from rockeries babbling with tiny streams.

Aristocrats hove this way and that, murmuring poisonous comments about their rivals and hunting for gossip. They glided from group to group, a slow dance of social manipulation, currying favour here and snubbing a former ally there. They wore elaborate head-dresses, gowns made of jewels and exotic scales, tight uniforms and ripped, faux-poor attire. Most of them had been chthonomantically altered in some way: their skin coloured or patterned, pupils changed to crosses, breasts honed. Many were skinmarked with artful designs, safe in the knowledge that their chthonomancers could erase them when fashions moved on. And for each style there was a counter-style, like the Purists, who refused to wear any decoration and dressed in strict black clothes, with their heads shaved to give the appearance of receding hairlines.

Even Rynn looked halfway to respectable, though he clearly felt uneasy. Social events weren't his forte. He'd trimmed his beard and allowed me to pick his outfit. I'd kept it simple and subtle, out of mercy. He stuck by my side as if fearing I'd cast him adrift in the sea of eccentricity that surrounded us. He'd always viewed the aristocracy as unfathomably weird, and this display was doing nothing to alter his opinion.

I'd never found their little quirks threatening like Rynn did. They upset his sense of decency. For myself, I thought them rather charming, though I never let my fondness cloud my perception. It was easy to see the Plutarchs and their Clans as silly children with too much money, but the truth was that they played a different game to the rest of us, for altogether higher and deadlier stakes.

'Can you see him?' I asked my husband, who was taller than most people in the room.

'They're just coming out now,' he replied, his voice a deep rumble. He slid his arm around me as he said it and I leaned into him automatically. I didn't know whether he was sharing his pride or reassuring me against the nagging vestiges of guilt that I felt. Maybe he was thanking me for my decision not to oppose him on this. But in the end, I didn't care. There was a certain primal safety in his arms, in his smell and the warmth and the bulk of him.

Then, too soon, we were making our way down the tiers towards the semicircular stage at the end of the hall. Most of the guests were not overly interested in the ceremony, obsessed instead with gathering intelligence on their friends and enemies. Locating the best place to insert a knife and twist, I thought uncharitably.

I towed Rynn through the knots of gaudy conspirators. His hand was clasped anxiously to mine, and I could feel it becoming damp with sweat. My husband would throw himself headlong into two dozen Gurta swordsmen and come out without a scratch, but the thought of a formal ball drove him into paroxysms of fear. He didn't like things he didn't understand. He was a man of simple pleasures, uncomplicated, honest. One of the many reasons I loved him. After wallowing in the treacherous mire of the Veyan underworld or gliding through the immaculate viciousness of high society, I liked to come back to a man who said what he meant.

Liss and Casta intercepted us just as we'd found our spot near the front. By now I had become used to the latest changes the twins had wrought upon themselves, and they no longer shocked me. I was accustomed to Liss's deathlike pallor, her shrunken chest, eyes the colour of dirty water and hair like torn dishrags. Casta was easier to look at, fuller-figured, dressed in darkness and flame, her skin black as coal and her hair and eyes red like lava.

Liss detonated at the sight of me and I was buried under a smothering of kisses, which at least interrupted her delighted squeals momentarily.

'Orna, my love! We're so happy for you! Oh, you look wonderful in that dress. What a choice, what a choice. See? You can rely on us!' She darted a quick look at her sister. 'Aren't we happy?'

'Very happy,' said Casta, ever the more demure of the twins, who waited until Liss's assault was exhausted before placing a controlled kiss on my lips. 'Liss has been talking about nothing but the graduation for longer than I care to remember. Soon she hopes to be where you are, perhaps.'

'Oh, what wicked lies! See what words she puts in my mouth! I said no such thing!' She leaned in and whispered, her breath faintly rancid to match her attire. 'But I'm dying of envy.'

I laughed. The twins noticed Rynn and chorused their hellos before giving him a cursory kiss and ignoring him. Rynn was unfazed; he was watching the graduates lining up on the stage. He had an infuriating inability to concentrate on more than one thing at a time. Right now, he was only hazily aware that we existed at all.

'Do you think my child will join the Army?' Liss gushed. I didn't get a chance to reply; most of her questions were rhetorical. 'I hope not. Oh, I wouldn't send him to the war, not my precious one. I hope he's an artist or a poet or a sculptor, like Rynn's grandfather!'

I suffered a twinge of remorse at that. Liss had an uncanny ability to cause accidental wounds with her verbal flailing. My husband appeared not to have heard, which was a good thing. He hated his grandfather.

'I've decided it's going to be a boy, anyway, just like yours,' she declared.

'Won't the father have something to say about it?' I asked. I glanced at her twin, but Casta's attention had drifted elsewhere.

'Oh, men don't care about such things,' she said airily. 'He'll be too busy running his… textile mills or whatever it is he does. I think that's what he does?' She looked to Casta for help, out of her depth when dealing with something factual.

'He manufactures luxury rugs, among other things,' Casta told me with a tinge of weariness. 'Foolish industry when there's a war on, though against the odds he's doing very well at it.'

'Don't be jealous!' Liss pouted, then told me: 'She's so jealous.', like I didn't know.

Casta's eyes turned hard and I braced myself for an argument, but Liss was off again before things could turn nasty, crowing about an upcoming society ball I was going to miss because I'd be knee-deep in someone else's intestines on a distant battlefield.

I relaxed a little. I hated it when the twins argued. They always tried to drag me in as arbiter, and that was a dangerous place to be. They might have been my friends, but as the younger siblings of my master they also held the power of life or death over me. I wouldn't put it past them to use it in a fit of whimsy. I loved them both, but I was always just a little careful.

'There he is!' Liss interrupted herself with a kind of breathy, suppressed scream.

I turned to the stage and found my son, Jai, resplendent in the uniform of the Eskaran Army Officer Corps. I clutched Rynn's thick arm and felt myself melt at the sight.

Jai resembled me more than his father. His features were feminine, sensitive rather than blunt and broad, and he was slenderly built. But he had Rynn's wide, dark eyes and thick black hair, which he wore scraped back over his skull and glistening with oil. He'd always been small, even as a baby, for which I was deeply thankful. If he'd been Rynn's size he'd have broken me on the way out. Rynn's mother is wider than she is tall. You need specialised equipment for that kind of job.

Jai was staring fixedly ahead, the picture of rigid discipline, like the other graduates of the Bry Athka military school in formation alongside him. A hush spread as the Warmaster stepped onto the stage.

My grip tightened on Rynn's arm as the first words were spoken. He was really going through with it.

Oh, my boy. How had I let it come to this? I caught up with Jai after the ceremony, but not before the Dean of Engineers from Bry Athka University did. He was already offering regretful congratulations by the time I arrived. Rynn had been stolen by a minor member of Clan Caracassa, eager to show off one of their Cadre. My husband was far more physically impressive than me, so he got to squirm while I ducked away and left them all to it.

Reitha stood with her hand resting lightly in Jai's. She'd only caught the end of the ceremony, having been delayed by her master in the study of the breeding patterns of some surface creature I'd never heard of. She gave me a conspiratorial smile as she saw me approach. We both knew what the Dean was like.

'Massima Leithka Orna,' he said. Bushy grey-and-black eyebrows ascended an ancient and wrinkled forehead. 'A pleasure, a pleasure to see you again. I was just telling your son – fine boy, fine boy – I was just telling your son that the military's gain is the University's loss. And a terrible loss, too. This boy's mind…' Here he paused to tap the side of Jai's head with a withered finger; Reitha barely suppressed a laugh as Jai flinched away. 'We must preserve a talent like this, we must use it for the betterment of our kind. What wonderful machines he might make! But youth will be obdurate, yes? Young boys will march to war.'

'Well, I know Jai is very flattered by the interest you've shown in him,' I replied. 'But I think his mind is made up. Besides, he's taken his commission now. The term of service is five years.'

Voids, just saying that made my stomach plummet.

'Bah! In this world, there's nothing that can't be done with a word in the right ear.' The Dean drew me aside and took a letter from inside his robe. 'If Jai should decide the military's not for him, we would be happy – honoured – to accept him into the faculty. This letter should open any doors that need opening.'

I tucked the letter into the sleeve of my dress, careful to ensure that neither Jai nor Reitha saw it. The Dean knew what he was doing. Jai would feel obligated to refuse an offer like that, but I had no compunctions about keeping hold of it for him. Just in case. Five years was a long, long time.

Impulsively, I gave the Dean a kiss on the cheek. He'd never know just how grateful I was for what he'd just done.

'Now, now,' he chuckled. 'No need for that.'

Reitha stepped over and took the Dean by the elbow, leading him away with gently irresistible force. 'You haven't met my master, have you, Dean? He teaches in the Faculty of Surface Studies. I must introduce you. You know, being a naturalist and being an engineer aren't so different…'

Jai's gaze followed his lover as they slid into the folds of the crowd. 'What did the Dean say?'

'He was hoping I could persuade you to change your mind.'

'Mother, please don't,' he said.

'I won't,' I told him. We'd had that conversation a hundred times.

'It's over, anyway. I made my choice. There's no going back.' He stopped, then said it again, staring into the middle distance. As if only now realising what he'd done. 'No going back-'

'Congratulations,' I said. The word felt too stiff, too formal. Clumsy.

He focused again and gave me a rueful look. His eyes wanted me to stop him but his pride wouldn't let it happen. He wanted me to make it all go away, like I could when he was a child. Begging my protection from something I couldn't protect him from. It dug into me like a spike.

Then he embraced me, and I held him. The uniform felt wrong on him, the fabric too coarse, too starched. But beneath it was the warm body, the blood and the heart that I made. You couldn't ever let that go. Not really. He was still mine, even though I felt I was abandoning him.

'Write to me,' I murmured.

'I will,' he said. 'I'll use the code. Then they can't censor my letters.'

I laughed, surprised. It had been years since we used the code he invented. A game between mother and son. Our little secret, one we never let his father in on. An echo from a childhood that felt like it was receding moment by moment.

'You still remember it?' he asked.

'I remember,' I said, then clutched him tighter, squeezing him to me. 'I remember.' Later, I made my way out of the hall to a corniced balcony overlooking the ocean. Beyond the glow of the city, past the reach of its powerful shinehouses, waves tossed and swelled in the darkness. Out in the distance tiny clusters of lights floated, disembodied. Ships, making their way backspin towards Mal Eista or Jurew or Vect. The sea was rough, stirred by deep currents and a sharply switching wind, the breath of the earth drawn into stony lungs by enormous systems of convection and pressure which I only dimly understood. Constellations of luminescent lichen and algae streaked the roof of the immense cavern, far above.

Closer by, a pair of Ehru were signalling to each other in a cascade of colours, their tentacles hovering above the water. It was them I was watching, wondering about their language, their thoughts, their behaviour. There was a kind of romance in those vast, mysterious creatures. I admired their aloofness. The Ehru plied the seas and waterways of Eskara and lands beyond, but for all their obvious intelligence they had no interest in communication with our kind. The only contact they had was with the Chandeliers in the deep lakes.

Reitha told me she'd once witnessed several Ehru and two Chandeliers having a conversation, and the lightshow had been the most stunning thing she had ever seen, rivalled only by Callespa's nightly aurora for sheer overwhelming beauty. It made me think I'd chosen the wrong profession. Maybe I should have been studying to be a naturalist like her. Then I remembered that I didn't have a choice, and I remembered why, and my mood soured a little.

I heard Rynn join me on the balcony. He never could move quietly. That was why our masters sent people like him and Frask and Beltei to the front lines, to be the crushing head of the hammer-blow, whereas on the few occasions I was on the battlefield at all it was to conduct surgical strikes. I'm subtle, he's not.

'It's done now,' he said, a hand on my shoulder. He was wary, otherwise he would have put his arm around my waist. He treated me like a bag of snakes sometimes, never sure if something was going to find its way out and bite him.

'He thinks he's made it up to you,' I said, a slight edge to my voice. 'Whatever it is.'

'We made the choice long ago. So did he. Be proud of him.'

'I am proud of him,' I said. 'And I'm scared for him. He's going to war, Rynn. I know how the Gurta are.'

'And I don't?'

'Not like me.' I felt cheap for playing that card, but it had been a long time since it worked on Rynn anyway.

'The war will be over before Ebb Season. Not even the Gurta have the heart for it any more, and people are sick of fighting. It's bad for business.'

'It's good for some. Our Clan, for one.'

'What are you really scared of?'

Blunt enough to work. 'He's our son, Rynn,' I said. 'He's not like you or me. We're Cadre.'

'You can't protect him. He wouldn't let you.'

'But we could have stopped short of sending him off to a battlefield, ' I replied acerbically. The rest didn't need to be said. I didn't want to let him join the military school. I didn't like the way his father pressured him. And I didn't do enough to prevent it.

'It'll be alright,' Rynn said, because it was the best he could offer. And then I felt his arms slide around my waist and his huge chest pressing against my back, and I sighed and relaxed into him.

'It'll be alright,' I agreed, softly. Because the alternative was too terrible to bear.