He pulled on the line of fuse until the armour toppled into the water with another noisy splash. It sank instantly, and a moment later pulled the mine down with it. Ash looped a portion of the fuse around his wrist while he breathed hard and fast. He felt the tug of the line against his hand, and dived beneath the surface, letting himself be pulled into the silent depths while the reel of fuse played out above him.

His eyes stung, and he blinked and forced them to stay open. His chest tightened as he dived deeper, drawing nearer to the rock all the time. The lights were bleeding from windows of thick glass far below, carved from the steep flanks of the rock the citadel stood upon. Ash kicked towards them as he dropped, pulling the line with him even as it pulled him. He knew he had one good chance at this.

He scattered a shoal of fish from his path, and then at last he felt the weight slacken in his hand as the armour settled on the ledge of one of the windows. The mine spun slowly close to the glass. Ash uncoiled the line from his wrist and swam down. He chanced a look inside, saw a brilliantly lit chamber of couches and chandeliers; a priest talking to another; a pair of Acolytes next to a doorway.

Ash struggled to drag the armour to one side and the mine with it, so it would be less likely to be spotted.

His chest was bursting now. He kicked off for the surface, stars flashing in the edges of his vision. It took longer than the descent. He recalled his panic on the sinking ship; the weight of the world’s water pressing him down.

Ash floundered when he resurfaced, gasping with lungs that still did not seem to be working too well. The noise of the city returned to his draining ears, and he looked about and was grateful to find the side street still deserted.

In vain he tried to pull himself out of the canal, found he couldn’t manage it, couldn’t breathe hard enough to restore his energy.

He settled himself in the water. Calmed his breathing and tried once more. Ash rolled onto the boardwalk wheezing for air. He sat up, rested his arms against his knees and let his head hang between them. He stared at the little pools forming where the lake water dripped from his skin.

A man cursed not far away. Shapes at the dark end of the street, someone relieving himself while others waited, talking drunkenly.

Ash looked at the line of fuse hanging in the water. All he needed to do was slice through it and toss it in the water and run.

The knife suddenly drew his attention, standing as it was with its tip buried in the boardwalk. Its blade was stained dark with the blood of the priest he had murdered in the previous hour.

How many had he killed now in his pursuit of retribution? he wondered with a start.

He couldn’t recall; had lost count somewhere along the way; had made them something less than human, faceless, without worth. The two camp followers he had felled during the battle – simply to be clear of them – were nothing but vague impressions now, save for the crisp sound of a kneecap breaking.

Ash had come so far. In his revenge he had climbed a high pinnacle into the rarefied sky, forsaking the Roshun order as he did so, the only home left to him, the only way of life where his anger had remained leashed by their code and by the better part of himself.

He felt as though all this time he’d been climbing upwards without a single glance behind him; and now, turning back to look, all he could see were corpses heaped along the steep track he’d been following; and past them all, Nico with his boyish laughter and a mother’s fierce love for him, and far beyond his apprentice, way down at the dim beginnings of the trail, his son Lin, throat-singing with the other battlesquires, and close by a whitewashed homestead struck by sunlight, his wife waiting for a husband and son who would never return.

The summit was almost within his reach. All he had to do was cut the fuse.

Sasheen deserved to die. All of her kind deserved to die.

With trembling fingers, Ash reached for the knife and plucked it free.

When Sasheen woke, the first thing that she saw was Lucian staring at her intently, and for the briefest of moments she thought they were lovers again, wrapped in each other’s arms.

But then she saw that he was only a severed head perched on the bedside table. She remembered how he had betrayed her, and her heart sank into bleakness.

‘I never wanted this, you know,’ she told him now.

His lips parted, spilling a dribble of Royal Milk down his chin. But he said nothing, only watched her.

‘I never even wanted to be Matriarch. It was my mother’s desire, not my own.’

‘ I. Know,’ came his wet belching voice, and he glared with hatred in his eyes.

How to make him understand? The pain he had caused her, the loss of faith in the one person she’d thought she could finally trust. Sasheen had wanted this man like she had wanted no other, and he had cast her aside for the sake of his foolish insurgency and the fame that went with it.

‘I’m dying, Lucian,’ she told him.

He seemed pleased at that, for he smiled.

Even now he could hurt her.

‘Do you remember the time we spent together in Brule?’

‘ No.’

‘Of course you do. You hardly stopped talking about it. You said we should retire there. Grow olives, like simple peasants.’

‘ I. Was. A. Fool.’

‘You were anything but a fool, Lucian. That was one of things I was attracted to, most of all.’ Wistfully, she said, ‘We were a good match, you and I.’

Sasheen could see it now, her life as it might have been, had she only found the courage to spite her mother’s wishes, to renounce her position as Matriarch, to live a simple life of luxury with her lover. What had it gained her, any of this? Only a lonely death in the damp innards of a rock; a few scratches in the memory of Mann.

‘I only wish… I only wish…’ and she closed her eyes, and felt a wetness on her cheeks, and an ache in her chest as if the whole awful world was standing upon it.

She fought for a breath, wheezing hard until sweat beaded her skin. She gasped, blinked to focus on Lucian again. Beyond him, through the glass of the window, the waters of the lake were a black nothingness waiting to engulf her.

‘What do I do?’ she panted, lost in herself. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

His stare possessed all the force of a thrust knife.

‘ You. Die.’

A sudden flare lit the night sky over Ash’s head. Of their own volition his eyes were drawn to the brightly lit ground.

Ash saw, stretching out from the base of his feet, how he ended in shadow. He faltered.

For long heartbeats, he stared down at the knife and the fuse wire held in his shaking hands. A strange fellow, came the words in his head. Nico had said that once, about the Roshun Seer.

Why did that come to his mind now?

The Seer had cast the sticks for them before they had set forth on vendetta to Q’os. He had told of a great shock in store for him, and of the paths that would face him beyond it.

After shock, you will have two paths facing you. On one path, you will fail in your task, though with no blame and much still to do.. . On the other, you will win through in the end with great blame, and nothing that would further you.

Great blame, Ash reflected. Nothing that would further you.

He blinked. Tears stung his eyes. His hand dropped to his side, and the knife clattered to the ground.

The flare faded, taking his shadow with it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Rendezvous

Вы читаете Stands a Shadow
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату