‘I don’t think there was any danger of him failing,’ I said.
‘But he died just moments after completing his mission,’ Ibn Fayed said, sharp eyes beneath grey and bushy brows.
‘Oh, Marco’s not dead,’ I said. ‘Are you, Marco?’
The modern’s head snapped up. The speed of it shocking, like a length of flexed metal flicking straight, murder in his eyes.
‘I’m far from sure he was ever alive.’ I stepped back, not drawing my sword in case over-zealous archers threaded bolts through my chest as well.
Marco got to his feet in a quick series of jerky motions. He pulled the bolts from his body and dropped them to the floor, blood-smeared but not dripping. The imperial guard drew their swords again.
‘You just wanted to hear how you were tricked, didn’t you, Marco? Before you found a good moment to finish at least part of the job.’
He ignored me and leapt at the caliph, careless of the guardsmen blocking his way. Bright blades flickered in motion, feet scrabbled on the sandy floor, blood sprayed, gobbets of flesh flew and Marco surged to within a yard of Ibn Fayed before the weight of men took him to the ground. He fought with the same frightening speed demonstrated when he raised his head, fingers rending muscle and fat, throwing grown men away as if they were less than children. The swords that fell on him sliced his blacks to tatters but beneath the red butchery of his flesh metal gleamed, copper and silver-steel. Whirs and clicks accompanied his movements, audible through the screams, the clash of steel, and the leopard’s spitting howl. The noise of teeth-through-ratchets as fingers closed on necks with the inexorable strength of the vice.
Men died. Marco found his feet again. Ibn Fayed and his Voice moved to shelter behind the throne as Marco climbed the third step, blood running down the stone in red trickles. Injured guardsmen clung to both legs, others hewed at him as though he were a tree. Before the throne the leopard and its handler hesitated. The cat had been straining at its chain, ready to attack. Now it sat back, ears flat to its skull. Sensible beast.
More guardsmen were running in from the great doors, and more behind them, but like all things it was a matter of timing. Marco had enough of it for his purpose and they had insufficient for theirs. He would kill the caliph before they stopped him.
I mounted the three steps, careful of my footing in the gore, pulled the gun from beneath my robes. With the barrel set to the back of his pale skull I put four bullets through the metal casing and into whatever clockwork served him for a brain.
He fell twitching amongst the dead and wounded as the echoes of the last shot died away.
I held the gun up. ‘Old technology.’ I pointed it at Marco. ‘New technology. You might want to rework those seals, Qalasadi.’ I spun the gun around my finger and caught it flat in my palm, displaying it to Ibn Fayed, ‘And this, Caliph, is what I have in my hand.’
36
Five years earlier
Ibn Fayed had them set a throne of silver one step down from the summit of his dais and when I returned to court, clean and refreshed, dressed in silks and a heavy chain of gold, he bade me sit there.
‘These are sorry times when the ghosts of our ancestors reach out to take our lives.’ He spoke to me direct now, slow with his words as if fishing them from the dust of memory.
‘They are not agreed, those ghosts. A war, of sorts, rages among them, deep in their machines. But few if any of the Builders have good intentions for us. Even our saviours would make us slaves,’ I told him.
‘Then you will join me? Dig out and destroy what can be found of them? Start a new era free from the ghosts of the past?’ Ibn Fayed sounded curious rather than eager.
‘A wise man told me that history will not stop us repeating our mistakes, but will at least make us ashamed of doing so.’ I remembered Lundist’s smile when he said it, as much of sadness in it as amusement. ‘Will you argue your case at Congression, Ibn Fayed?’
‘It would seem foolish to attend. What better place for the ghosts to destroy us? Can we trust the Gilden Guard to keep all agents such as the banker from coming within several miles of the Gilden Gates?’
I steepled my fingers before my mouth to hide the laugh rising there. ‘Caliph, I would bet my life that the last emperor, all his fathers before him, and every Congression since the stewardship has sat above a device more powerful than the one Marco carried toward Hamada. The Builder-ghosts would want to know they could end the empire any time they chose. The fact that they have not done so just tells us that Michael’s faction do not yet hold command amongst their brothers nor have unfettered access to whatever controls such weapons.
If the ghosts ever unite to a degree sufficient to destroy Vyene then nowhere will be safe. Marco only failed here by poor luck and by the intervention of other ghosts.’ I felt sure now that Fexler had aimed me at the modern, or clockwork soldier, or whatever the hell Marco really was.
‘And when you go to Congression, Jorg, how will you cast your vote?’ Ibn Fayed asked, affording me the courtesy that one lone vote might matter.
‘For myself of course.’ I grinned, creasing the stiffness of scar tissue. ‘And you, Caliph?’
‘Orrin of Arrow is a good man,’ he said. ‘It might be time for such a man.’
‘Wouldn’t an emperor grate on you? Don’t you prefer to rule the
