Vengeance

a darker reason?

‘We paint the solu on a small patch of wall, thus.’ The teacher dipped a broad Pale-hair brush in the bucket and swept it back and forth across a square yard of stone until the surface began to swell. ‘We wait one minute.’ She consulted the greenstone chrono around her neck, tapping her right sandal as she waited for the toothed wheels to mesh. ‘Then,’ she took up a small mallet and a chisel with a curved edge, ‘we carve away the unwanted stone like curd.’

Within another minute she had cut a hollow elbow-deep into the softened stone and, at its centre, shaped a noble tree with spreading branches. A lump on one branch became a predatory wildcat, its long tail hanging down. It was staring out of the forest and, as the teacher shaped its eyes with a stone pick, it seemed to wake and the children gave a massed sigh.

‘That’s boring,’ said a round-faced boy. ‘Can I carve a crocodile eating a slave-girl?’

The teacher smacked his face. ‘No, you impertinent lout.’

‘Why not?’ said the boy.

‘Only those scenes set down in the fourth book of the Solaces are permitted.’

She turned back to the wall. ‘Now, children, we roughen the fur with four-times-diluted etchu.’ She painted liquid from a yellow-ringed carboy onto the cat, then washed it off at once. ‘And finally, to make smooth areas we use sheenu — ’

‘Why do we have to live in this horrible place?’ said the troublesome boy.

‘Because the enemy stole Cythe from us.’

‘Who were we before we came here?’

‘We don’t ask that question.’

‘We’re not allowed to ask any questions,’ the boy muttered.

‘You don’t need to. The matriarchs follow the Solaces, and the Solaces know best.’

‘I don’t think we ever lived in Cythe,’ said the boy. ‘I think the matriarchs made it all up.’

The teacher’s face went purple, then she pulled a black wafer from her bag and said furiously, ‘Take this to your father.’

The boy’s grey skin went as pale as Tali’s. ‘Sorry, teacher.’

The teacher thrust the black wafer in his face. ‘Go! You have no place here.’

The boy took the wafer and stumbled away, wailing. No one else in the class said a word and, after a minute or two, the teacher resumed her carving, though now her hand was shaking. It was rare for the enemy to reveal any dissension.

Tali headed back past the air wafters, praying that Mia had hidden the baby and she was all right. Here the only sound was the whisper of the wafter blades and the soft panting of the slaves who drove them, walking their treadmills hour after hour, year after year, life after life.

The gentle air current cooled her sweat-drenched skin. One of the treadmill runners made a faint squeal-squeak. It needed greasing but the best grease in Cython came from the fat of dead slaves and there was never enough — ‘Slave!’ roared Banj, from inside.

Tali jumped. Cythonians never called the Pale by their names but she knew he meant her. The treadmill walkers did not look up — if she was in trouble, they wanted to know nothing about it.

What was she to say? Tali was better than most slaves at putting on an act and telling convincing lies. A heap of spilled compost lay against the wall, so she dirtied her feet in it and headed into the grottoes, holding her belly.

Banj, a compact, handsome man built like a bag of boulders, held up the dead baby. ‘Slave, what do you know about this?’

His tattooed face softened as he looked at Tali and he tugged on his lower lip. Banj didn’t like scourging slaves. Could they get away with it? Then she glanced at the baby and it took all her self-control to stifle a gasp, to compose her face.

‘N-nothing, Overseer.’ Tali clutched her belly, grimaced and looked down at her muck-covered feet. ‘Got a flux of the bowels.’ She heaved, as if she were going to throw up. ‘Been at the squattery.’

Her stomach muscles tightened. She really did feel ill. Mia must have been out of her mind with grief — in trying to save herself a scourging, she had earned the Living Blade for them both.

Mia had lied. She did have the gift, but far better she’d not used it at all than in such a feeble way. She had turned the baby’s grey skin pink, like a Pale child, but the night-black eyes and the sturdy little Cythonian frame proved otherwise. The faint aura surrounding the baby was an amateur’s mistake, proof that she’d done it with forbidden magery.

Mia caught Tali’s eye and a stricken look crossed her face at being caught out in the lie. Sorry, she mouthed. With Banj watching, Tali wasn’t game to reply.

He studied Tali’s hot face and her dirty feet, staring into her eyes as if trying to read her thoughts. It was hard to breathe; the sodden air stuck in her throat like glue.

Finally Banj grunted. ‘You’re lucky today is Lyf’s Day, slave.’

The most sacred day in the Cythonian calendar. Tali choked. They were safe! It was unbelievable, but it had happened. She bowed to the floor. ‘Thank you, Overseer. Thank — ’

‘You’re on a warning. Offend again and it’s the acidulatory for you.’

Then Banj drew Mia to her feet and, still holding her hand, bowed until his broad forehead touched the backs of her fingers.

Shivers scalloped tracks all the way up Tali’s spine, because only one circumstance ever led the Cythonians to bow to their slaves. She sought for her gift, sought it recklessly, suicidally, but it failed her again.

‘Alas,’ said Banj, and Tali knew his regret was genuine, ‘not even today can I forgive a Pale cursed with the abomination of magery. That art is forbidden to all except our long-lost kings, and you know the penalty.’

From the broad sheath on his back he drew a long hilt which terminated in a plate-sized annulus of transparent metal, wickedly bladed all around. It sang as it moved through the air and the colours of the spectrum flickered across it before settling to red.

Mia’s eyes widened, as if she finally understood what was happening. Her lips moved, Tali, help!

There was nothing Tali could do. One second Mia was warm, alive and real. The next, after a precise and poetic sweep of the overseer’s Living Blade, she became a human fountain, painting the low ceiling crimson.

And for an hour afterwards the drunken blade kept singing.

CHAPTER 7

The ice leviathan rolled over the shanty town beyond the eastern palace wall, pulverising it and squeezing its miserable occupants dry. Their blood foamed into the leviathan’s transparent tanks, the flattened husks were ejected at the rear. The tanks were already half full and one pass through the hive that was Palace Ricinus would fill them completely.

This is your fault, but you can stop it.

Go away, Rix gasped, but the split-ice voice kept echoing inside his head.

Two nights from now, at midnight, you will go down.

I won’t!

You will cut it out and bring it to me.

White worms were crawling all over Rix’s face. Go away!

It belongs to me.

Please leave me alone.

This is the only way for you to atone.

But I’ve done nothing wrong.

The voice became low, cunning. Remember the cellar, and the blood on your hands?