from the Shift when you would otherwise have died? Immortality was not meant for that purpose, Comet. Next time I am afraid the Circle will not be able to hold you. One more fatal overdose will indeed be fatal.”
The rest of the world would believe that scolopendium had at last killed me. I fiddled with my earring, thinking that anyway my private playground was somehow spoiled, now that I knew other Eszai had visited it. The meaning of Epsilon had changed and I no longer had a yearning to go there, especially after my experience trying to Shift home. I didn’t think I was going to miss it.
I said, “I can do without it. I don’t want to be addicted anymore; I want to be cured. The last thing Mist said to me was, ‘Stop sulking, Jant.’”
Rayne stepped in on my behalf: “I’ll look after him and treat t’ condition. I don’ think he will go back to scolopendium again. T’ prognosis is excellen’.”
The Emperor said with a warm tone, “Well, I thank you, Comet. Despite your injudicious decision with the sea kraits, your service to the Fourlands has been invaluable. Now go with Rayne, and in the fullness of time you will invite the Trisians to compete in a games for the Sailor’s position. You will send mortal emissaries who weren’t involved to talk at length with the Senate, to invite them here and reduce tensions in Capharnaum.”
I bowed and took my leave. I paced past the screen and the first of the Zascai benches. San’s voice called from behind me, “What of Gio Ami’s fortune?”
I stopped dead.
Was there nothing San didn’t know? I imagined my hard-won plunder disappearing into the Castle’s vaults, or being divided up into projects that I would never see. I sighed, resigned. “My lord, what do you want me to do with Gio’s treasure? I intended it for Wrought.”
“In that case, Messenger, I believe it would be best if you keep it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Tern walked through the ruined square, the walls of which are now just shapes of drifts. Snow piled up ever higher by the Northwest Tower. She climbed its staircase, cased in ice. The door of my apartment closed and she let her long coat fall to the floor. I lay naked in bed and watched her. I have plenty still to fight for but also plenty to celebrate.
I had arranged Gio’s treasure around the room. Gold chains hung from the mirror, silver plates gleamed on the mantelpiece. Stacks of bar silver armored the fireplace, constellations of coins glittered on the rug. I had draped the four-poster bed entirely in jewelry. Tern came to examine the riches; she stroked them and she began to smile.
Her fingers on my skin left delicious tracks of sensation, like sparks. I told her she was beautiful. She ducked under the sheet, tented it over her shapely shoulders. I threw my head back and howled.
A little while later, someone rattled the door handle, but it was locked.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Simon Spanton and Diana Gill. I am incredibly grateful to my agent Mic Cheetham for her help and support. Many thanks to M. John Harrison and to Richard Morgan for giving me time. Thank you to Stuart Huntley of The Schoole of Defence for some of the moves in the Chapter 1 duel. Thank you to Chris Jackson and the crew of MV Chalice for minke whales and sea eagles. Thanks to Lynn Bojtos, Cath Price and Gillian Redfearn for hanging out at the Castle. Love and thanks to Brian for everything-touche!
About the Author
Steph Swainston started writing stories set in the Fourlands in 1982, when she was eight years old. Twenty- six years of development later, the Castle books are both great entertainment – with giant Insects and immortals, and literature – a source of observations about our world, the characters we meet every day and the trials we face.
/The Year of Our War /(2004), /No Present Like Time/ (2005) and /The Modern World /(2007) see the Fourlands through the eyes of Jant Shira, the Emperor’s Messenger; half Awian and half Rhydanne, the only man in the world who can fly. Steph is finishing the fourth novel in the sequence: /Above the Snowline/, to be published by Gollancz in April 2009.
Steph studied archaeology at Cambridge and the University of Wales. Her sense of wonder at the deep past and love of weird fauna and flora adds to her ‘Alice in Wonderland’ wordplay and makes her books both fascinating and fun.
Steph lives with chronic back pain from a car crash six years ago – which was, of course, her fault for driving like a speed freak – but she doesn’t let it stop her. She also loves the outdoors; a good walk followed, if at all possible, by a glass or two of whisky.
