blood of the imperial capital, and all the petty little tasks of murder that had remarkably become his life.
Che looked to the window that ran along the far wall at the level of the viewing gallery, gazing out north over the slumbering metropolis of Q’os. A few skyships ranged over the scene, their propulsion tubes leaving trails of fire and smoke across the starry skies. Below them lay the island city, a great handprint of glittering lights and manmade coastline pressed upon the black quilt of the sea.
Che traced the outline of the island-sized hand, until his attention came to rest on the First Harbour – that stretch of water between the thumb of the island and its forefinger, where pinpricks of night-lamps glimmered in the darkness; the fleet that would carry him off to war as soon as the command was given.
‘As Nihilis taught us,’ the speaker below him was saying, ‘and as we have practised and refined over the years of our expansion, to rule absolutely is to rule on the one hand with force, and on the other hand with consent. People must become complicit in their own submission to Mann. They must come to understand that this is the best and truest way in which to live.
‘This is why, when the order first seized Q’os in the Longest Night, it disposed of the girl-queen and the old political parties of nobles, yet still maintained its democratic assembly. And this is why the citizens of the heartland and the Middle Empire vote for the High Priest of their city, and those lesser administrators of their districts, in an act which we call the hand of complicity, the hand that allows the people a small say in the governing of their own lives, or at least the appearance of it. This is the secret of our success, though it is hardly a secret. This is what allows us to rule so efficiently.’
Che’s lips twisted at that. He knew it took more than the two-handed way for Mann to maintain its grip on the known world. He was a Diplomat after all, part of the third hand, the hidden way. As were the Elash, those spies and blackmailers and plotters of coups and counter-coups. As were the Regulators, the secret police; those who watched the masses for signs of dissent or organization, and who claimed everything a crime that ran contrary to the ways of Mann.
He noticed that Deajit too was smiling as he listened. For an instant Che felt the vaguest of connections with the man. Perhaps he was also involved in the third hand. For the first time he wondered what he had done to deserve such a fate as this, for his handler had said nothing save what needed to be done.
But then Deajit turned and stepped towards the doorway, and it was time.
Che took a step forwards so that the priest brushed past his arm. In a flash, Che grabbed the man’s wrist and spun him around so that they faced each other. A look of shock crossed the priest’s blunt features.
Without warning, Che planted his lips against those of Deajit, smearing them together in a harsh kiss.
The priest shoved himself backwards with an angry gasp. He glared at Che, and from the wrist he was still gripping Che felt a shudder run through his body. ‘You should not betray the trust of your friends so freely,’ Che told him quietly, as instructed, and released his grip. His own heart was beating fast.
Deajit wiped his lips with the back of a hand and retreated from the room with a single glance cast back at Che.
For several moments he waited as those around him nervously avoided his eye. He turned his back on them, and took another vial from his pocket, and emptied some of the black liquid into a cupped palm. He washed his lips clean then rubbed his hands too. With the last of it he rinsed his mouth then spat it onto the floor.
In the corridor outside, Deajit was nowhere to be seen.
Like that, he cast the priest from his mind entirely, as though the young man was already dead.
Boom, boom, boom.
The Acolyte lowered her gloved fist from the massive iron door of the Storm Chamber, and stepped back to leave Che standing alone as it swung open.
Confronting Che stood an old priest that he did not recognize. He’d heard that the previous portal attendant had been executed for mistakenly allowing the Roshun into the Storm Chamber during their recent breach of the tower. It was said that the long crawl over the Crocodile had been his fate, and then the slow press of the Iron Mountain.
With a moment’s hesitation, Che stepped through the threshold into the chamber within.
The Storm Chamber was much the same as the last time he had been summoned here, all of – what – one month, two months ago? He couldn’t recall. He’d found that his linear memory of time had become oddly scattered since his return from his diplomatic mission against the Roshun, as though he no longer wished to remember the order of his everyday life. The chamber was empty tonight, though every lamp glowed with a bright, sputtering flame within a shade of green glass.
‘The Holy Matriarch will be with you shortly,’ declared the old priest, and then he bowed and retreated into a room next to the entranceway. Che folded his hands within the sleeves of his robe, and there he waited.
The pulsegland had slowed to the pace of his own heart now.
Through the windows that wrapped the circular space, he could see Holy Matriarch Sasheen standing outside on the balcony amongst a small gathering of priests; a tall woman, wearing an uncharacteristic plain white robe, staring out over the rail at the black skies of Q’os as they conversed, their voices muted to murmurs by the thickness of the glass.
Coals crackled in the stone fireplace in the middle of the room, the smoke drawn up through an iron chimney that disappeared through the floor of the bedrooms above it. Next to the fireplace stood another map of the Empire, the same in fact that had stood there during his previous visit: a sheet of paper pinned to a wooden easel, printed with black ink, still marked with the rough pencil strokes denoting proposed movements of fleets for the forthcoming invasion of the Mercian Free Ports. A semicircle of leather armchairs faced this cosy space; elsewhere in the room were other chairs, and long settles covered in throws of fur, and low tables with bowls containing fruits, burning incense, pools of liquid narcotics.
This is where they made it to, Che suddenly thought. This is how far the R shun made it when they tried again. Right here to Kirkus, her son.
He could hardly picture it. The Roshun, one of them a farlander by all accounts, striding through this very room in search of their victim, their route marked by a trail of dead and wounded leading all the way down to the lowest floor of the Temple of Whispers. He doubted if even Shebec would never have made it this far – Shebec, his old Roshun master, more skilled than any other save for one.
Ash, he thought with an intuitive certainty. It had to be Ash.
But then Che considered it. Was it even possible? Ash would be in his sixties by now if he still lived at all. Could he have managed something like this at such and age?
Whoever it had been, Che could not help but admire them. He had always been drawn to ventures of risk and audacity, and he found a sly smile creeping onto his face. The Temple of Whispers breached by an army of rats, of all things, and three Roshun intent on vendetta.
Without warning, deep laughter bubbled in his chest, and he stopped it only by biting his inner cheek until the sensation passed. Che cleared his throat and composed himself.
The map on the easel drew his eye towards it.
Another venture of audacity that – a sea invasion of Khos no less. Che glanced through the windows once more at the gathered priests, then found himself stepping up to the map for a closer inspection.
It had been modified with various additions since last he had seen it, though the main details remained the same. Two arrows swept south-east across the sea of the Mideres to range along the islands of the Free Ports; two diversionary fleets, both of which had departed the week before to engage the fleets of the Free Ports, hoping to lure any defending squadrons away from Khos. Next to these, in fine pencil marks, were scratched fleet sizes, travel times, other notations. Question marks abounded.
A third arrow ran from the capital of Q’os to trace a sea-course to the far eastern island of Lagos, with more numbers and queries scrawled alongside it. Then, from Lagos, a fourth arrow swept down to Khos – the First Expeditionary Force, the invasion of Khos itself.
He was near-lost in studying the details when Che realized – with a sudden start – that he wasn’t alone in the room.
He glanced across to an armchair so hooded and deep that he’d failed to notice the creature that sat within it; Kira, mother to the Holy Matriarch of Mann. The ancient crone was asleep, it seemed, her ancient hands folded across the white cloth of her robe. Che released his breath and peered closer. Glimmers could be seen from beneath her eyelids, two slivers of eyes.
Was she watching him? Had she seen his stifled laughter?
