It hurt when he talked, the wound in his cheek inflamed and tender.
‘And what is your rank?’
Bahn felt his hair being tugged back so that he faced the old priest. The man’s skin was creased with deep wrinkles, though it was scarred too from acne he must have suffered as a youth. ‘Lieutenant. Of the Khosian Red Guards.’
‘Yes,’ soothed the old priest, stroking his face. His vile breath made Bahn want to gag, to turn away. ‘But who are you?’
It was hot in the confined space of the tent. A brazier smoked near the far wall, and sweat beaded Bahn’s forehead. ‘I don’t understand,’ he sobbed.
The priest smiled and glanced at the Acolytes stationed behind the chair Bahn was strapped to. The Acolyte released his hair so that his head lolled forwards again, and he could see the bare earth of the floor. Through his eyelashes, he watched as the priest turned his back on him, his withered hands reaching out to the small table, across the vials upon it, the folded papers, the blades.
‘Are you a traitor?’ asked the priest without turning from the table.
Bahn felt a burst of fire in his stomach. He was going to be sick, he thought, right here at his feet.
‘Are you a traitor?’ repeated the man.
A fist struck the back of his head.
Bahn tried to focus. The sweat was pouring down his face now, mixing with the blood in his mouth. ‘No,’ he rasped. ‘I’m no traitor.’
‘Oh? So you would never be a traitor to your people?’
‘Of course I wouldn’t!’
The priest turned around. In one hand he held a slip of folded paper, and in the other a delicate curved blade. ‘Yet all men are traitors.’
He leaned towards Bahn’s face, and his thumb opened the folded slip of paper. Bahn drew back, his breath caught in his chest. He watched as the priest pressed his lips together and blew once across the paper. A fine white dust engulfed Bahn’s face. In his panic he sucked in a breath and the powder with it, and his mouth instantly went numb.
Colours, dancing on the edges of his vision. White light flickering in the midst of a gathering darkness.
Bahn lolled his head back, his body going slack. Hands steadied him from behind.
‘Now,’ came the distant voice of the priest. ‘Tell me again. Who are you?’
Che looked up at the hole in the roof. It was twilight outside, and the sky was a deepening shade of violet. Thick banks of smoke were rising into it as more of the city burned around them. The air seemed to be growing thicker with the smell of it. It was starting to sting his eyes.
They were out there somewhere, the Diplomats, circling around the area. He could feel their presence as a faint tickling sensation in his pulsegland, a kind of itch that could not be scratched away. It had been that way since the sun had first begun to set, though it had grown no stronger since then.
What are they waiting for? Che found himself wondering.
‘Those fires are getting closer,’ he announced, and Curl nodded, looking at his hand but not at his eyes. He was playing with her fingers as she sat before him, and she with his.
He watched her with affection. There was something vulnerable about this girl, behind her wit and her determined manner.
‘We should be going.’ he said, and tugged her hand.
She looked at him at last, and he could see her steeling herself for the task ahead, the streets that needed to be negotiated if they were to make it to safety. Che helped her to her feet as she held a hand to her mouth and coughed. The smoke was thickening.
They both stood there looking out, mouths hanging open in wonder.
To the north a few streets away, an entire row of buildings was alight; a line of fire that crackled and sparked and rose higher as it gained purchase on walls and furnishings, spreading through the buildings towards them. To the left it was the same, a street burning; to the right too. He and Curl seemed to be standing at the centre of a gathering inferno.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Curl, twisting her head from side to side.
Che clambered out of the hole and scrambled on all fours up the slope of the roof. He coughed and covered his mouth as he looked south, his eyes reflecting flames.
‘Water,’ he called down to Curl. ‘We have to reach the nearest water!’
It wasn’t far, he saw. He could see it through the smoke as they rounded the corner.
‘This way,’ Che said from behind the cloth that wrapped his face, and took off towards the walls of the spa, his eyes scanning to left and right. He knew without looking that she was following behind.
They ran through a plaza of long tables and benches, with a lattice of wooden poles over their heads from which hung paper lanterns, each one slightly aglow from the burning structures behind them. Their boots pounded loud against the planking. Ahead, the structure of the public spa stood low against its fiery backdrop, its walls round, steam pouring from its open top as though it too was on fire. Che spotted movement in the street beyond it, between the sheets of flames that were dying buildings.
‘Hey!’ Curl swore as he grabbed her and forced her down behind one of the tables.
He released her so he could look over the table. Nothing now. No sign of the figure he had just seen. Che glanced around and took in the plumes of smoke and flying sparks getting closer, and tried not to let them spook him.
‘Come on,’ he said, and he was up and jogging again, pistol in his hand now.
From their left came a blast of noise. One of the lanterns disappeared before his eyes.
Che swore and ran onwards while trying to spot the source of it. Another blast sounded, and a table flew into the air just as they were passing. He veered to the right and cleared the plaza, bursting through a sheet of cloth hanging in his way. The rear of the spa loomed right in front of them; before it, squat huts belching steam.
‘I think someone’s shooting at us!’ Curl exclaimed as he guided her through he door of one of the huts, into its clammy darkness. He slammed the flimsy door shut behind them, and a fist-sized hole appeared in the wall at the level of their heads.
Che was on the ground in an instant. ‘Get your head down!’ he hollered, pulling Curl to the floor. In the next moment the hut erupted with the violence of a storm. Chips of wood spat across the darkened space as portions of the walls imploded.
‘ Do something!’ she screamed at him from her foetal position on the floor.
‘I’m doing it!’ he yelled back from beneath the cover of his own arms.
He felt shards of flying wood stabbing into his flesh. His body had taken over, trying to preserve itself at the expense of its arms and legs.
The violence diminished for a moment. Voices shouted outside.
Che slithered across to one of the holes in the wall and peered outside. A dozen figures were approaching the hut. They were clad in heavy fire-suits, their heads fully covered and their eyes shielded by glass, bending awkwardly to reload heavy weapons that by the size of them could only be hand cannons.
Che wiped his face clear of sweat. He sniffed the steamy air, foul with sulphur, scented a trace of something else within it, something familiar. He glanced behind him. In the gloom of the hut he could see a basket of laundry at the back of it. His eyes searched the floor in between.
They started to fire again, whoever they were. Curl screamed as Che slid across to a handle on the floor and heaved open a trapdoor, revealing a square hole in the lakeweed below, a wooden board slanting into it, ribbed for scrubbing clothes. He felt a sting of pain in his ear, another in his back. She shrieked louder.
‘Curl!’ he shouted.
‘What?’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘What?’
‘We’re leaving!’
She stared down into the black bubbling water of the lake and cast him a round-eyed glare. ‘Are you crazy?’
Che was already struggling out of his backpack. He slid into the water, warm like a bath.
