An Acolyte stepped out into view from behind the hand. His back was to Ash, and he held a longrifle fitted with an eyeglass in one hand, and a pistol in the other. The white-robe shifted his balance as though to turn around.
Ash acted without thinking by flinging himself over the parapet.
A moment of vertigo passed through him as he hung by his fingertips from the side of the building. His legs dangled into space above the much lower roofs of the original playhouse below, and the thousands of heads bobbing through the streets. The sounds of the crowds were loud in his ears now, like an ocean removed of all sense of harmony, ragged and crashing against itself.
What am I doing down here? he wondered, as he gripped with all his strength the rough concrete edge of the parapet.
A scrape of feet sounded overhead. He looked up to see the Acolyte looking down at him, only his eyes visible through the mask. A breeze tugged at the edges of the figure’s cloak; its curious patterns of silk glimmered in the daylight. In his mind, Ash saw the pyre burning again, and the white-robed Acolytes gathered around it, watching Nico burn.
‘Give me a hand there,’ Ash said to the man in Trade, and released the precious grip of his left hand to hold it out for him. It was not a request, but a command.
The Acolyte shifted uncertainly. His eyes darted to the offered hand. Ash could feel the fingers of his other hand starting to burn, knew that soon they would go numb altogether. He thrust his free hand once more towards the Acolyte.
‘Quickly there!’
The man laid his rifle down, though he held the pistol steady as he reached for Ash’s grasp. Ash pretended he was unable to reach any further with his hand. The Acolyte leaned out to grab it.
Their hands met and clasped together. With a grunt, Ash heaved with all the strength in his arm and pulled the Acolyte forwards, off balance, so that the man toppled over the parapet and fell.
He heard a shout as the Acolyte went past him, and then nothing.
Ash hauled himself up over the parapet. He regained his feet, scanning the surrounding rooftops. No other Acolytes were looking his way. He exhaled long and hard, and glanced back over the parapet. The Acolyte lay crumpled in the rain-gully between two of the playhouse’s roofs.
‘ Huh!’ Ash exclaimed.
He stepped out into the chaos of the Serpentine with his hood pulled low over his face. It was a scene of festa in the wide boulevard and the side streets branching off from it. Many in the crowds seemed intoxicated already, and people waved the red-hand flags of Mann, or garlands of white and red flowers bought from the many flower sellers who had suddenly appeared on every street corner, next to the street merchants selling hot food, alcohol, narcotics. Soldiers were clearing the road and forcing everyone back to the sidewalks. He knew what that meant; knew too why they were flying batwings over the district and so earnestly checking the rooftops.
He jostled through the press, his roll of belongings carried under his arm. He found a clear space in an archway next to a hot-food vendor, from where he purchased a paper cup of hot chee and a wrap of pork meat and peppers, and enjoyed breaking his fast as children shrieked in excitement all around him.
An old mangy-coated dog came up to him, and sat and looked up at his food with drool dangling from its panting mouth.
‘Hut,’ he said to the dog as he tossed the last third of the wrap into its mouth. The dog wagged its tail across the paving, wolfing down the food in a few swallows. It looked up at him for more, its tail still swinging.
Ash wiped his greasy hands and held them up empty for the dog’s inspection. ‘No more,’ he growled.
The dog lay down. Ash tried his best to ignore it as he leaned against the wall to ease the weight on his feet. There he waited beneath the archway, his eyes cast along the winding canyon that was the Serpentine, towards Freedom Square and beyond, where the Temple of Whispers reared high above a rabble of roofs and chimney stacks. He scratched his unkempt beard and listened to snatches of conversation around him. People spoke of the invasion ships in the harbour getting ready to set sail; of the Matriarch setting off for war. Questions abounded as to where they were destined.
At noon, a great battle-cry rose up from the direction of the square. Minutes later, it was followed by more cheering from further along the Serpentine. Over countless heads Ash spotted a procession making its way along the avenue. Painted red hands swayed from the tops of elaborately carved poles, and beneath them priests rocked to the same rhythm, decked out in their white robes and mirror-masks of burnished silver.
He turned his back to the street and bent low over his roll of belongings. The dog blinked and watched what his hands were doing as Ash tugged free the crossbow and locked its arms back into their firing position, glancing over his shoulder to see if he was being observed. He pulled the double strings back and fitted a bolt into place, then another, the scent of grease filling his nostrils.
For a moment, he experienced the sense of wani; of having lived this moment before, and then it was gone.
When Ash stood with the crossbow gripped within his cloak, the van of the procession was already passing by. He surveyed the balconies across the street filled with families rejoicing. Above them, Acolytes were positioned on several of the rooftops, studying the scene below through the eyeglasses of their longrifles.
A roar from the crowd was spreading towards him like a wave, matching pace with a high palanquin that moved slowly along the street, near-lost in clouds of red and white petals, people flinging them from the sidewalks or from the balconies above. He caught a flash of her, Sasheen.
Soldiers struggled to hold back the crowds that surged forward for a closer look at the Holy Matriarch, or, even better, for the Matriarch to lay eyes upon them.
Sasheen looked resplendent today. She stood on a massive palanquin shaped in the form of a glittering, jewel-encrusted dolphin, with oversized reins stretching back from its mouth to a rail she was resting one hand on for balance. The palanquin was borne on the backs of two dozen naked slaves, and she swayed slightly as they marched, her body encased in a contoured suit of white armour, her golden mask sculpted in her own features. She was holding aloft a stubby, gilded spear.
The adoration of the crowd heightened as the figure of the Matriarch turned her masked face to regard them. People fell to their knees in devotion. Ash witnessed several pilgrims fainting on the spot.
The crossbow was shaking in his hand as he lifted it up and aimed it at her head.
All of his previous waiting, his long rooftop vigil, seemed like the blink of an eye now. His chance had come at last, his chance to lay the boy’s torment to rest within him. Ash tried to steady his aim, intensely aware that he was about to cross a line that could not be undone. He would no longer be Roshun after this. Even though he had already cast that role aside by words, this deed would be the real ending of it.
So be it. I’m dying anyway.
He curled his finger around the trigger, tracking her as she came directly past him.
Something was wrong. A sheen of sunlight reflected for a moment off the space around her. Ash hesitated, squinting, and saw that she was surrounded by a box of incredibly thin glass. He knew what it was in an instant; the exotic, toughened glass so sought after from Zanzahar, and brought all the way from the Isles of Sky. Nothing could pierce it save for explosives.
He lowered his crossbow in disgust, tucking it quickly inside his cloak again.
Ash rocked back on the balls of his feet. To his surprise his heart was racing. He watched, stunned, as the Matriarch went by unmolested, his hand squeezing the grip of the crossbow in impotent frustration.
The dog whined from where it lay by his side. It prompted him to act. With haste he disassembled the crossbow and stowed it inside his rolled-up cloak next to the eyeglass and the sword. He glanced at the Holy Matriarch progressing along the Serpentine, knowing that he needed to keep her in sight, to follow until some opportunity presented itself. He hefted the burden and turned to pursue her.
The Roshun pushed on through the crowds, leaving the dog staring after him.
Ash could smell the brine of the sea as he stalked the procession along the winding route of the Serpentine, knowing at last that they were nearing the First Harbour. Along the sidewalks the crowds were packed so tightly he was finding it difficult to keep up with even the slow pace of the Matriarch’s palanquin. It was like a dream of childhood, of trying to hurry through thickets of unyielding bamboo in the height of a storm. As he lost sight of her entirely, he growled and shoved through a group of men into a clearer side street. From there he proceeded by a different route to the harbour.
