Rojan Dizon 03 - Last to Rise (12 page)

Pasha took his own look through the telescope, and when he’d finished he’d gone a pale shade of gutted – must have been different seeing it through his own eyes rather than someone else’s.

“What’s the plan, Perak?” I asked. “You do
have
a plan, right?”

Perak paced up and down, far too close to the edge for my liking, but he didn’t seem to notice the drop. Too busy thinking. “This changes things. A lot. But I’ve been thinking on it since Jake confirmed it. Taking advisement, from Jake, Malaki, Guinto even. Sadly some of the cardinals have suggested a thing or two but, well, let’s not talk about that except to say I’m not sending anyone against them unarmed, I don’t care if the Downsiders do want to shoot all the cardinals too.
I
want to shoot half of them.” He took a calming breath. “It’ll take the Storad time to get down to their camp. Those machines aren’t moving fast. Lise’s shield, if we can get that working… but still, the Storad already through will need dealing with.”

“I might have a little plan for that. Could help all round.”

Perak shot me a look. I didn’t really like the way he leapt on my idea – I’ve never been known as an ideas man, and for him to jump on it so quick meant he was out of plans himself.

“Tell me.”

So I did, while his eyebrows shot up into his hairline and kept on going as I outlined it.

“We don’t have enough men to take them on as it stands, right? You’ve got guards down there, and Specials, and… it won’t be enough, and you say the cardinals won’t take anyone else if they’re armed. Lise needs more raw materials too. I think…” Again, I could not believe I was saying this. Usually I’m out of the room before anyone even thinks of asking for me to help, but this time I was dropping myself in it. “I think we can solve both in one go. If we’re careful.”

I had their attention.

“The machine further away, up in the valley. It’s still covering the gate area, which leaves us hamstrung. Anyone trying to move out of the inner gates will be mincemeat. We need to take it out. Permanently. Maybe… maybe move it, or some of it. Rearrange it to where we can cannibalise it for metal.”

Perak said nothing but went to the telescope again, training it on the mass of Storad now camped between two sets of gates, then up to the valley where the machine sat silent and brooding for now.

“You really think you could manage it?” Pasha asked.

“Probably not the whole thing. But enough of it that it won’t work plus Lise will have some metal to play with. The engine perhaps? She could see how it functions. I’ll need to get close though.” And someone to help me out afterwards, because I’d be thoroughly screwed. Rearranging really takes it out of me, and I was pretty screwed to start with.

“It’s risky,” Perak muttered without taking his eye from the telescope. “Too risky.”

“What else can we do?”

Perak stood straight with a sigh. “I don’t know. But if we lose you, then what about the Glow? It’s hard enough now, even with Lise’s generator. Too few mages. If we lose one… That’s what the archdeacon in me says. The brother in me says I lost you for long enough years. I’m not losing you for good if there’s another way.”

Jake’s thoughtful glance my way, and my stupid need not to look like a complete coward in front of her, put a stop to any back-pedalling on my part. “Name me this other way then.” I consoled myself with the meagre thought that if it all went wrong, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the cardinals’ men grabbing me and taking me to the Storad, because I’d already be there.

It took a lot more than that, of course, but I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice to say that, with so few guns available, with so few Specials and the small amount of guards we had, and them not keen on doing the guarding that was suddenly necessary, with the cardinals that hadn’t run away in full voice about no one else getting any guns because who knew whom any Under man might shoot but it’d probably be cardinals, we didn’t have much choice.

I say “we”. What I mean is “I”.

I managed a doze while Perak and his advisers, Guinto, Jake, Malaki and a couple of the better bishops, talked logistics. I should have tried to stay awake, I suppose, but that kind of thing makes me sleepy at the best of times, and it certainly wasn’t that. I was going to need my strength too, so I dozed and tried not to dream, which is harder than it sounds.

By the time they’d finished, the grey clouds massing over Top of the World had a nasty bruised look to them and had started a short test run of finely powdered snow blowing about on the knife-edge wind. Early in the season, maybe to our advantage. We might be short of food, but
we
weren’t camping out. Or trying to bring in men and supplies over a high mountain pass. A spiteful thought – a sudden white-out entombing the Storad in drifts of snow, not to be found till spring, when they’d turn up like frozen rocks when the snow melted. Unlikely, more’s the pity, but the early harsh weather could work our way. It was maybe the only thing that would.

Perak and the rest seemed to have come up with a plan of sorts. Malaki was of the opinion that it was a stupid risk but, as he couldn’t think of anything better, we were on. Perak had a few provisos though – he
said
they were because he wasn’t taking any chances with the two mages who put out the most, almost the only, Glow.

“Most of the Storad have moved down from the valley into the compound between the gates,” he said. “Malaki here will get some of his Specials to start sniping them – Lise has managed to get some extra range on a few of the guns. Enough to keep everyone busy, hopefully. At least get them looking at the gates and not where you’re going to be.”

“The tunnels?”

“Exactly. I had all but one blocked off – hoping it would take them a while to figure out which one. Those tunnels are built for defence, but I can’t spare any more men than it takes to hold that one. As far as we can make out – Pasha’s been listening to what he can for me – they don’t know which it is yet, so you should be able to get right up to their camp without them seeing you. If you’re careful.”

“OK, that’s good, we’ll —”

“Take someone with you.”

“What?”

“You’ll take someone with you. As Pasha has pointed out, Dench knows you both very well, knows what you’re capable of. He’s bound to try something on the tunnels anyway – an obvious weak point if you know where they are, and he does, or at least some of them. So, take one of your young mages. One whose abilities he won’t know. Allit perhaps?”

“Perak, he’s thirteen. He’s a good lad, but he’s not ready for that.
I’m
not ready for it.”

“It was your idea.”

“That doesn’t mean I like it. Look, I’m not taking a kid out there, not Allit, he’s got enough on his plate right now. All right?”

“What were you doing at thirteen, Rojan?” Perak looked all artful, like he was trying to get one over one me.

“Trying not to blow myself up with magic I didn’t know how to use!”

“All right then, who else have you got? Because you need some edge, or you aren’t going.”

“I’ll go.” Jake’s voice was soft but determined, as was she, by the look on her face. “You’re going to need someone.”

“No,” Pasha said quickly, too quickly. He looked paler than ever and I thought back to what Allit had seen, which Pasha had never really outlined in detail except that Dench got hold of Jake. “No, you can’t.”

She raised a cool eyebrow his way and there seemed to be some sort of silent argument going on. Pasha didn’t look to be winning either, if the way his face screwed up was anything to go by, until Perak interrupted smoothly.

“Jake, I’m going to need you here with me now. Don’t worry, I’ll send a few men to help them, guard the tunnel at their back. Besides, Dench will expect you, be prepared for you. But we need someone else, someone they won’t know.”

Jake looked about to protest – her hands, as always when threatened, went straight to the hilts of her swords – but it seemed Pasha made some last silent plea and she subsided with bad grace.

“Any ideas?” Perak dropped artlessly into the lull.

I clammed up – no way was I going to volunteer anyone for this. That would make me responsible, so I kept my fat mouth shut for a change. It didn’t matter, because a relieved Pasha was ticking off the nos on one hand and the possible yeses on the other.

“I think the most likely is Halina. She’s smart, she’s got a handle on her magic, as she showed on our last jaunt down there, and I think levitation would be a handy thing to have in our bag of tricks. Most of the rest are too young, or too volatile.”

“Yes,” Perak said. “Only, um, well, I hesitate to send a lady. I mean, we all hear what soldiers are like, and if they catch you —”

“We’ll be dead, Perak. Once you’re dead, gender doesn’t really matter, don’t you think?”

“Yes, but…”

Next to him, Jake shifted. A hand on a sword, a jingle of the buckles that held her breastplate on, a half-smile that was anything but friendly. Subtle but unmistakable. A reminder that actually, Perak, you have a lady as head of your guard and she could beat the snot out of anyone in this room and I bet you wouldn’t stop her now would you? Or perhaps you might try, but you’d probably lose an appendage or two, besides which hadn’t you already sent her into the tunnels? Hadn’t she come back safe?

“Well, yes, Jake.” Perak answered the unspoken statement. “I know, and I know
you
went down the tunnel, but that was you, who knows one end of a sword from the other and is more than happy to use them. Not some girl who… I don’t think of you as fem – I just hesitate… Look, Pasha, do you think she’s the most capable? OK, how about we ask her?”

So we did, and Halina almost bit Perak’s hand off in her haste to accept.

After a long and tedious discussion, Perak came to a difficult decision.

“Tonight,” he said firmly, with a glare to the most vocal cardinal, who’d tried to make everyone go, right now damn it, before the Storad invaded his personal estate. An extra-special glint to the cardinal’s argument had seemed to intimate that if any mages died, that would count as a win-win situation. And this was one of the better cardinals. At least the bold one who wanted to hand me over to save his skin was conspicuous by his absence.

“Malaki is quite right,” Perak went on. “Going in daylight would be out of the question, and I’m not about to lose my two best mages. If nothing else, we need them for Glow. Besides which, I quite like having them alive, thank you.”

It’s nice to have someone on your side, especially when he’s in charge. Both Pasha and I let out long breaths at his words – it was going to be our arses on the line, and any reprieve is better than none.

“You should get some sleep,” Perak murmured to me, though he looked like he’d not slept in a week himself. I was sure I could see new strands of grey in his hair and his face looked sallow.

But he was right, so I thought about it. I thought about the office, with the sofa that also served as my bed jammed up behind my desk, and Dendal humming a happy song in the background. I thought about the dreams too, the ones that left me all sweaty with terror and with a hand jammed in my mouth to stop the scream. I needed sleep, but I wasn’t sure any of that appealed.

So instead I half took Perak’s advice and went to see Erlat. I wasn’t expecting to sleep, but you never knew. Besides, she probably had a spare bed I could borrow if I felt like bathing myself in fear-sweat.

Hopefully she’d be here this time – over the last couple of days I’d tried a few times to see her but Kersan kept saying she was “busy”. I knocked on the door and restrained the urge to lie against it. I almost fell asleep in the two seconds it took before a familiar face opened it. Kersan smiled to see me, his clothes pristine as always, his smile perhaps a bit too practised, and told me in his smooth voice that “Madame is with a client. Would you care to wait?”

I would, although the thought of “with a client” always made me come over a bit funny. I’m not sure why but… Instead of thinking about that, about any of what was struggling in my brain, I studied the paintings on the wall, the nudes draped with bits of velvet, their bodies in new and, um, interesting positions. I must have fallen asleep without realising it, because Kersan’s voice made me sit up abruptly and wonder where in hell I was. I levered myself up, sweaty from some half-remembered dream, because the half I could remember was scaring the crap out of me.

Kersan ushered me into Erlat’s room. As always, no sign of anyone else ever having been here. Erlat was her polished self, her dark hair smoothed back into an elegant coil at the base of her neck, her movements slow and sensual, her mouth quick to laugh, at least when she saw me. Yet she seemed worn down somehow, tired and just that little bit frazzled, though she favoured me with a teasing smile and a wink, so whatever had her ruffled couldn’t be too bad.

“Well, if it isn’t my hero.” Her mouth taunted me with an impish grin and she smoothed her dark hair. “Don’t tell me, you’ve come to take me up on my offer. About time too.”

It felt good, better than good, just to be here where I knew my own mind wouldn’t gang up on me, so I let her teasing pass and even, for once, didn’t blush. “Not today.”

A boom-shudder rattled the teacups on the low table between us.

“How long, do you think?” Erlat asked. The question everyone asked of everyone else, the only question. Unanswerable. It was all people would say, could say, keeping everything else under wraps, locked up tight.

When I didn’t reply, Erlat raised an eyebrow and regarded me solemnly. “What, lost for words? That’s not the Rojan I know.”

I couldn’t seem to get any words out – how do you say, “Hey, I think I’m cracking up”? Tell her that I didn’t want to talk about it, any of it, and I most certainly wasn’t telling her what Pasha and me were doing later and what was bound to follow? When I didn’t answer, her frazzled look grew stronger as she sat on the lounger and waved a hand for me to join her. Being Erlat, she didn’t start with what was really worrying her but worked up to it gradually.

“How’s Lise?”

“Well enough. At least she isn’t going stir-crazy cooped up in the lab.
I
am. Well, when I stay cooped up anyway.”

“I’d bet that isn’t often. Perhaps I have a little good news on that score.” Her smile was wicked, almost secretive, and made me wonder, once again, what she’d been up to. The last time I’d seen her she’d been taking her leave of Perak with a knowing look. I had a funny feeling one of his plans was to blame.

“What have you done?”

She laughed, and the sound of it did me the power of good. “Oh, not much, not much at all. Only, one of my girls, she’s a regular visitor to my friend the Mishan liaison. Remember him?”

“He wants me dead. How could I forget?”

She flapped a hand, as though that was inconsequential. “Anyway, we hatched a little plan with Perak. One of my girls has been whispering in his ear about the cardinals who want to turn you over to the Storad. Naturally, this would put a crimp in his plan. I, on the other hand, have dropped plenty of hints about how you can disguise yourself. And that he might want to triple-check anyone who makes it through the gate. You know, anyone who might be pretending to be a cardinal…”

I must have sat with my mouth open for a full minute.

“No problem, no need to thank me,” Erlat said with a raised eyebrow. “I even went so far as to describe your usual disguise. Which I seemed to think looked deceptively similar to the cardinal who was most vocal about handing you over to the Storad. A cardinal who, I hear, is even now on his way to the gate in a fit of terror at the Storad breaking through the gate.”

I came very close to kissing her at that point, but restrained myself. If I did that, one thing would lead to another, and before you knew it I’d have screwed things over. “That’s… that’s…”

“Clever of me, I thought.”

“Yes, but —”

“But what? You do realise other people talk to each other when you aren’t around? That you aren’t the only one doing things? One of Perak’s plans, though he left the details to me. We didn’t want to worry you. I thought I was quite creative. You owe me, mister.”

The hunch in my shoulder, the one that seemed to feel eyes watching me wherever I went, that twitched when I thought about how close Lise had come to being spirited away, relaxed a touch. That’s when weariness came back in a rush.

“I can think of a few ways you could pay, too.” A lewd wink that I tried to ignore, a short silence and then we came to it – what was really worrying her.

“Please tell me it isn’t true.”

“Which part?” I resisted the temptation to lean back and fall asleep, but only barely.

“What Allit saw. Is it – is it true, do you think? Can he see it, and does that mean it’s real? Jake’s back but I didn’t have much of a chance to talk to her yet. Is it true?”

“He saw it all right, and yes, they are coming. Jake confirmed it.”

She paled at that, and rubbed at her wrists, at the faint trace of scars where once she’d been branded – owned, made into what she was now – and it was the thought of that which caused my itch. Probably.

“Can you stop it?”

I frowned at the undertone of her voice. Erlat is, I’ve often thought, as polished as a gemstone, smooth and gleaming, no flaws, just mirrored lights that reflect you back at yourself rather than revealing anything. A gemstone, and as hard to get to know. It was misleading, and I sometimes forgot myself, or her. I forgot that she wasn’t much more than a girl, really. I forgot because she had such a poise to her you’d think she’d seen everything. Maybe she had – she’d seen far too much of what people are capable of, and yet she bore it all with a grace that was almost invisible.

“Maybe,” I said, because I didn’t like to lie to Erlat. I’d lie to anyone else, to Namrat and the Goddess themselves, but not to her. A guy’s got to have a least one crappy standard. “We’re going to try. Tonight. Give ourselves more time, and get Lise some of the raw materials she needs. Maybe.”