disgusting ways.
Aside from the devotees of the official two gods – Bohr and Astrid, worshipped under the umbrella of the Jorsalir Church – no priests were normally allowed to practise in the streets. Tradition allowed only these two days of the year for citizens to be exposed to other religions. Brynd thought it all rather pointless, since even if you did decide to follow some other creed, you would be forced to leave the city to pursue your new persuasion.
Brynd led the surviving Night Guardsmen along the main thoroughfares that would take them up on the next level where the streets and passageways became quieter.
Brynd leapt off his horse as a flicker of purple light caught his attention.
'What?' Apium demanded, puzzled.
'Back in a moment.' Brynd headed off down the narrow passage, till he spotted a cultist slumped against a wall. The man was clutching a slim cylinder to his chest, from which purple sparks flew onto his bare skin. The device itself was somehow fixed to his hand, a web of skin keeping it in place. The man's face was contorted into a mixture of bliss and pain. Brynd turned away in disgust.
'What was it?' Apium enquired, as he returned.
'Magic junkie,' Brynd muttered, mounting his horse again.
*
'What?' Jamur Johynn demanded, looking up from his dining table.
The Emperor was chewing on a fish platter, now and then examining his food for stray bones. His distant gaze suggested he might as well have been eating a plate of lemons. At times, Johynn refused to eat at all and sometimes he would assure servants that he'd eaten everything, only for them to find remains of his plate on the rocks directly below the window, or maybe stuffed into one of the ornamental jugs. Whether it was because he suffered from anorexia or was paranoid about being poisoned was anybody's guess. No explanations were offered, and no one dared to ask.
The dining chamber was a narrow room, but the numerous mirrors everywhere made the palace seem larger that it was. Early Jamur murals depicting grid-like astrological phenomena were painted between a myriad of identical arches. No one knew what they really meant. A row of plinths held the smoke-stained busts of previous Emperors, all Johynn's ancestors, like silent guests, while a handful of servants looked on, as always, from behind the pillars, neither wanting nor required to be seen. There was always a hint of fear in them as Brynd walked past, an inhalation of breath, a straightening of the back. Maybe they just feared this military intrusion because Brynd himself usually felt relaxed and informal in the Emperor's presence. They had developed over the years a relationship of intimacy, till Johynn could trust few people apart from the albino. Maybe that was because as Johynn had once hinted, it looked as if Brynd had some secrets to conceal himself.
'Killed to the last man, my Emperor. All apart from those of us you're now looking at.'
'So this means…?' Johynn made a steeple of his hands.
'No firegrain, Majesty, so the only resource there will be now is wood.' Brynd stood to attention alongside Apium, but Fyir had been allowed a chair, a rare concession in the Emperor's presence.
'So, commander…?'
'Our heat sources are therefore questionable,' Brynd continued. 'But let's not overlook the fact that half your personal guard has been slaughtered.'
'No heat, no heat…' Johynn moaned, as if reciting some destructive mantra.
Brynd glanced across at Apium. The captain merely shrugged.
Jamur Johynn walked over to the window. 'And how, how am I now going to keep the people of my city – of my Empire – warm?'
Brynd thought, As if you give a shit about anyone who's not Empire-issued nobility or a landowner.
'How can I look after them now the moons are in place? Everyone depends on me, Commander Lathraea. Everyone needs me.'
'Perhaps we'll manage OK without-'
'Don't be ridiculous,' Johynn snapped. 'This failure makes it even worse for everyone. They're going to rebel and have me killed now, aren't they?'
'Who?' Brynd said.
Johynn turned to face him again. 'Them.' He tilted his head towards the window, and the city beyond. 'My people.'
'But it's not your fault an ice age is starting. There've been hundreds of years of accurate predictions, you were merely the Emperor to face the challenge. There's always stocks of wood-'
'But I have to look after them. It means four hundred thousand responsibilities. You wouldn't have a clue what that's like.'
'They know you try to look after them,' Brynd insisted. 'Your Imperial lineage has always been popular.'
'The ones already living here, perhaps. But any other idiot arriving from whatever benighted corner of this Empire they inhabit will be surprised when we can't let them enter. Then they'll hardly love me, will they?'
Johynn's voice started to falter. His fingers were drumming the sill as he stared out of the window again. Every movement suggested an increasing sense of panic.
Johynn said, 'But I'm their saviour, oh yes. It is my right, before the Dawnir, before the movements of Bohr and Astrid. I'm their saviour.'
'My Emperor, perhaps this isn't the best time to ask, but do you know who else was aware of our mission?'
'What mission?'
'The one from which we've only just returned,' Brynd said patiently, looking to Apium, who raised his eyebrows, shook his head, and mouthed the word 'nuts'.
'Only a few of our Council members – Ghuda, Boll and Mewun. Chancellor Urtica, too. Only those four, no one else. No one else. No, absolutely nobody.'
'Is it possible that any of them could've informed an enemy? Is it possible one of them didn't want us to succeed?'
Johynn spun around, approached Brynd. 'Are you saying we've a traitor within our own halls now? For the love of Bohr, what next? Are you quite sure, Commander Lathraea, that such accusations have good foundation?'
'Our force was almost wiped out. You say no one outside the Council knew of our mission, yet we were ambushed. Sire, I'm only trying to find out who might threaten the Empire.'
'You're a good man, Commander Lathraea. A good man. You were all good men, you Night Guards.' He leaned close to Brynd, then whispered, 'I can trust you, can't I?'
Brynd straightened up, bowing fractionally. 'Beyond my life, your Majesty.'
Johynn came closer still, the smell of alcohol on his breath now as intense as a bad perfume. 'It's over.'
'I'm not sure I follow,' Brynd said.
'I've had increasing suspicions that someone in here is after me. They all are, maybe. They want to take my life, my existence. They want this.' Johynn indicated the halls, the furnishings. 'They want it all before the ice comes. I've heard them whispering in their chambers, making decisions for me. Doing my job for me.'
'My lord,' Brynd said, 'they're your Council. That's what they're supposed to do. No one is out to get you.'
Brynd considered his own words, because perhaps that wasn't altogether the case. There was usually something devious going on. This was government, after all.
Jamur Johynn took a step away from Brynd and looked him up and down as if judging his character in one simple gesture. A childlike gesture. Brynd began to feel self-conscious again. Johynn opened his mouth, but the door opened just then.
A welcome break as the Emperor's daughter walked into the room.
When he had first joined the Night Guard, he remembered seeing her, in her younger days, when she seemed confined in this building like a butterfly in a net. Hers seemed a delicate energy waiting to be restrained. Serious meetings would be interrupted by her childish conversations with her older sister, Rika, the heir to the Imperial seat, and their joyful shrieks filled the corridors with warmth. But those days were soon gone, departed at about the same time their mother was killed. Johynn had tried to replace parental love with treats and indulgences, something the little girl never seemed to desire, but altering her in some remote way.
Eir possessed a certain natural grace, a distinctive quality of manner. With short-cropped black hair, and tall for her age, her attitude to dress was cavalier, wearing items from any number of eras without caring how they
