'All? No, it is not all, Heelas. I want this city torn apart. I want these people found and brought to me alive. Explain to Bushrali that if his Regulators do not accomplish what I ask of them, he will find himself beginning a new career – as a eunuch in one of our Sentiate harems. Is that clear?'
'Perfectly, Matriarch.'
'Then go.'
The man left with uncharacteristic haste.
Sasheen's fists were shaking, she discovered. She clenched them tight.
'Calm yourself, child. Calm yourself.'
Matriarch Sasheen turned on her mother. 'Calm myself? My son lies dead and you tell me to calm myself? I should have you dragged from here and burned alive for those words.'
The old crone sat on a simple wooden seat, her translucent hands folded together. 'If it would make you feel any better, my dearest, then order it so.'
For the space of a heartbeat Sasheen truly considered it.
Her hand dropped limply to her side. She turned back to her son, lying on the altar within an arm's reach before her, his final resting place before he was interred in the dry vaults of the Hypermorum.
Sasheen spotted something lying on his chest. She reached for it, her long nails hovering for a moment. Delicately, she plucked something from the bare skin, catching one of the wispy hairs on his chest as she did so. She inspected her fingertip. An eyelash.
It trembled against her breath, fluttered free, falling from sight.
My son is dead, she thought.
Sasheen had never known pain like this before. It was a kind of madness, like that lurching of the stomach when you realized you had forgotten something vital, but it was much too late to correct it – except that sensation was now prolonged and constant, so that it consumed her every waking moment, and every sleeping one too; a screeching, tearing, animal terror that threatened to choke her if she did not release it in some way.
A wetness tickled her palms: her nails digging hard enough into her flesh to draw blood.
'Soothe yourself, child,' came the old crone's voice once more from her side. 'You are the Matriarch. You are the highest example of Mann. You cannot afford to be seen this way.'
Sasheen shrugged off the withered hand that settled on her shoulder.
'He was my son. My only child.'
'He was weak.'
The words hit her like a slap.
'Daughter,' soothed the old woman. Her tone might have been mistaken for an apology though it was not. 'Come, sit with me a moment.'
Sasheen glanced about the chamber. No one was in sight, save for the Acolyte guards posted at the distant entrance. All of them had their backs turned to her.
Sasheen shuffled across to sit before her mother.
'I cherished him too,' said the old woman. 'He was my grandson, my own blood. But it isn't Kirkus you grieve for, Sasheen. He died swiftly, and no longer does he suffer. You grieve only for yourself.'
Sasheen looked down at her clenched hands. She could not pry apart her fingers.
The old woman scowled. 'You must adapt to this loss, my child. Even a wild animal grieves for the death of its young. But like any animal, you must adapt and move on. You can bear another child, still. Rest assured, this grief is a passing weakness. You must hold fast to who you are.
'My son was not weak.'
'But he was, Sasheen, he was. How else could he have fallen without even a struggle? We pampered him, you and I. All these years we thought we were teaching him strength, when in truth he was merely learning how to hide from us his own deficiencies. If we had not been so blinded by our affection for him, we would have seen that – perhaps corrected it.' She held up a palm before Sasheen could protest. 'We must take from this lesson what we can. We have each become pampered in our own ways, daughter. We are rulers of the world, after all. But for our own sakes we must consider this as a warning. We are surrounded by enemies every moment that we breathe, and we will fall to them in the same way, to the knife, to the poison, if we fail to show them our fortitude. You wish to fall like your son, hmn?'
A silence, Sasheen's eyes staring at the floor.
'No, I thought not. So I will make a suggestion. We shall inform Cinimon of a new purging – for ourselves, for the order at large. We will cleanse the flaws from ourselves, and at the same time rid the order of those who do not deserve to follow the calling of Mann. Perhaps, in its own way, it will help you through this loss.'
Sasheen blinked, barely seeing at all. 'Perhaps,' she answered in a small voice, and it was a release, in a small way, to relinquish her will to that of her mother, even if it was only for the moment. 'Perhaps,' she breathed again, as she folded herself on to the cool floor of stone, and wept.
The old woman rose. She wore a heavy cloak over her robes, and paused for a moment as she removed it. With stiff limbs she knelt next to her daughter, as though intending to offer comfort. Instead, she lay the cloak across her daughter's head and body, so that she resembled nothing more than a shuddering mound on the floor.
The old woman frowned.
*
It was four in the morning, according to the bell that chimed from the Mannian temple at the southern end of the great square. On cue, a patrol of city guards marched into the plaza, wielding shuttered lanterns and long, studded clubs. Their captain scanned the area for signs of disturbance, but no one was in sight in Punishment Square at this hour of curfew. All was quiet save for the distant barking of a dog.
A shadow drew further back into an alley. It waited until the patrol had passed. A movement followed: a hand motioning for someone to come forward. Together, two forms loosed themselves from the murk and padded silently into the square.
They rushed across the marble flagstones in bare feet, barely making a sound. At the very centre they paused, looked up to take in the horror that hung there – the burnt corpse of a young man nailed to a scaffold. A wooden board hung about his neck. It was branded with a single word, though it was too dark to make out now. They already knew what it said.
Rshun.
Quickly, one of the figures hoisted the other on to the scaffold. The climber set to work with a knife. The body dropped an inch. With a moment's more work it fell free and crashed roughly to the ground.
'Damn it!' hissed Aleas, still balancing on the scaffolding. 'Could you not have caught him?'
Serese looked up from the corpse, her face twisted in a grimace. In a whisper she said, 'This is a little difficult for me, all right?'
'Fine,' replied Aleas, swinging back to the ground. 'And it's the easiest thing for me.' He stooped and pulled free the board from about its neck, then wrapped the body in thick sacking. With a grunt, he hoisted it on to his shoulder.
Quickly, they hurried from the square.
*
Patrols were everywhere. A curfew had been declared, no one to be allowed on the streets after midnight. Earlier, they had heard talk of the ports being sealed. No one was being allowed to leave the city.
It took over an hour to track their way across Q'os to the industrial areas on its south-eastern coastline, where they were to meet with Master Ash and Baracha. It was mostly wasteland here. Vast warehouses lay slumped beneath the faint light of the stars, sinister in a way that reminded them of the dark entrances to caves. Aleas and Serese avoided these structures by crossing a strip of marshland, at times wading up to their knees through cold, sucking water. Beyond, they struggled up the face of a dune stained with soot.
The night sea shone before them with scuffs of luminescence. A breeze blew against their faces, salted and fresh. Aleas panted for breath, the weight of Nico's body now a burden he could barely continue with. Serese did not offer to help him.
Together they descended the other side of the dune, and made their way down into a secluded cove that was all but hidden from sight. Baracha sat there by a small fire, chewing tarweed and nursing the bandaged stump of his left arm. He lifted his blade with the other as they approached.
'It's only us,' said Aleas, and his master relaxed and returned the blade to his lap.
