The Promise of the Child (53 page)

Elatine turned from the mirror to look at the Amaranthine, massively brooding. “You did not hear me, Immortal. I do not negotiate. Talk is for people who doubt their own strength.”

Sotiris straightened a little from his hunch, eyes narrowing, gratified at last to see uncertainty cross Elatine's face.

“I meant no offence,” the commander added, rinsing the blade in the clouded water. “I know what you would ask of me—it has already been asked by a hundred advisors, a dozen Provincial princes. Even one or two of
your
kind, Amaranthine. I have not fought tooth and claw through Firstling protectorates to stop at the gates, an inch from total victory, only to turn and slink home. But I have been given little choice—I disobey the
Firmamental Edicts
—” he twirled his huge fingers as he said the words, imbuing them with mock mysticism “—at my peril. You know this. The silk is a very fine and much appreciated gesture, but it cannot change what your people have decreed.”

Sotiris sat back a little. “Would you follow
me
, if I could guarantee your success?”

The Asiatic stared at him, the razor still clutched in his hand. “I can think of little you might bargain with.”

Sotiris nodded pensively, running his hand along the rough, striped weave of the cushions. “I could give you the boy-king.”

Elatine smiled at last, wiping his face and going to pat the lionhound. “A bold guarantee. Too bold. Not even your competitors dared offer me Lyonothamnus.” He shook his colossal head. “What is it you want, Amaranthine?”

“I want nothing more than to see you crowned before the Autumn has waned, Commander, and to know the Provinces are at peace.”

“Ha! I am quite sure.” Elatine sat opposite Sotiris, leg stretched out, one great toe engaged in massaging his pet. A broad grin had begun to split his face. “By what new conditions can you give the brat away? Assassins have tried, and failed, to bring him to me many times already.”

Sotiris shrugged. “I have a little bird in my employ, one that sings more sweetly than any other. Now that he is caged, the Lyonothamnine Court won't resist gathering to see.” He sat back, looking at Elatine.

In truth he had no guarantee that the famously slippery and constantly moving royalty of the First would assemble to see Lycaste, but it was all Sotiris had. The Melius's beauty—obvious when Sotiris had first set eyes upon him—was indeed extraordinary, even from the perspective of another species, but that did not guarantee him an audience with the sovereign Lyonothamnus, let alone the First Court. Sotiris hoped in the meantime that Lycaste would be safe, whatever happened, but could not even be certain of that.

“What does he do?” asked Elatine, his smile vanished. “Perform tricks?”

“Just know that they will be there,” Sotiris replied, “in the Sarine Palace, from the middle of the Octrate Moon. Vanquish the Second, as is your destiny, and I shall see that your entry into the noble First lands goes unhindered.”

“The Octrate is almost upon us. Mistakes are made by rushing in, Immortal,” Elatine said. He grunted humourlessly. “Besides, what certainty have you? Why should I trust my forces to the word of one, even one such as you?”

“Because I have arranged it, Lord Commander.” Sotiris brought the smile back into his eyes. “The Firstling Royal Court will be there—you have my word.”

Elatine's great concave ears flattened slightly as he regarded him, his hand toying with the razor. “I'm no fool, Amaranthine,” he said slowly. “There is more going on at the Sarine Palace than you let on. I
know—
the Skylings have described it to me. Someone has dared to challenge the Firmament, someone powerful, and you wish to brandish my legions against him—is that not the truth?”

Sotiris did his best to hide his surprise as the warlord looked at him accusingly. In the Asiatic tongue, the Skylings were creatures from myths and fables, dwellers from the worlds above. Aside from merely capturing lone Prism, Elatine also appeared to be in communion with one or more of their kingdoms.

“You see, the simple tactician knows more than you realise,” Ela-tine continued, staring earnestly at him as he stood. “Perhaps I'll retreat to my new capital at Vanadzor to watch your heavens crumble. How would you like that?”

Sotiris smiled wearily, looking up at the looming Melius. “By all means, enjoy your successes. But know that greatness will ever elude you if you do.” A butterfly caught in Sotiris's stomach as he heard the echo of Aaron's own words to him.

Elatine continued to stand above him, his face grave. Suddenly his trollish features softened in a surprisingly gentle laugh. “Never fear, Amaranthine. I may still hear your terms, but give me time to think on it. My emissaries say Goniolimon Berenzargol, the Secondling Prince, waits for me at Elblag Second, upriver—I can only think he wishes to prove his loyalty to King Lyonothamnus and his court.” He shook his huge head with a smile. “They say the boy-king still cares more for toys than conversation, let alone remembering individuals from the simpering masses who must crowd him each day.” He sat back down, still shaking his head. “When I was that age I worked the fields with my brothers. I knew nothing of luxury.”

Sotiris indicated the room, his good humour returning. “Nor do you now.”

Elatine snorted approvingly. “I was pleased, when I reached the Second, to see that my spies had not exaggerated. Each aristocratic family owns their own galleon. Every one.” He smirked, turning up the corners of his wide lips. “It is always a welcome sight to see such wastefulness in one's enemy.” He regarded the Amaranthine, pointing a thick, many-jointed finger. “They are waiting because they think themselves too noble to suffer. Provincial conventions decree that I must spare their lives, taking only the wealth I find and disseminating it, let alone stop at the borders of the First. Think of it—men who would have shot at me only the day before, and we're supposed to sit down and
dine
together, discussing the weather, passing salt. Well, I tell you, Immortal, they're in for a shock.”

Sotiris watched the lionhound stretch luxuriously, his thoughts returning for a moment to the swirling flurry of snow and that colossal, misted interior. The bellow of fury and terror he'd heard still seemed to echo somewhere, as if locked away in the paper walls. He wondered if the vision of the man that confronted him each time he slept watched his every action, too—if he was here in this origami chamber with them at this moment.

Elatine had been observing him sink into daydreams. “Am I boring you, Amaranthine?”

He shook himself internally, forcing some speed into his thoughts. “So we are agreed? You will not slow your advance?”

“I will follow your lead,” Elatine replied, “if everything is as you say, and if my funds are improved somewhat for the trouble.”

“Of course.”

The warlord looked at Sotiris like a man about to bargain once more. The Amaranthine knew the look well. “You could sweeten our deal with a miracle, if it pleases you. I haven't seen one since my very first meeting with your kind.”

Elatine meant the Amaranthine Scrophularia, a locally famous madman in his home Province, who had cast off his skin in a rainbow flutter and declared himself immortal, an aboriginal man of the Old World, come to recruit Elatine to save the people of the Twenty-Second. Scrophularia, or Francesco Di Paolo as Sotiris had once known him, was now safely tucked away in a Utopia on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, totally unaware that the war he'd started still raged.

“What would you like?” Sotiris asked warily.

“Anything. Something to amaze me.”

Sotiris glanced around, standing from the cushions. “You say the material of this camp is indestructible?”

Elatine nodded.

The Amaranthine took a breath and swept his gaze across the wall, looking down and mentally dividing the ground between himself and the waking lionhound. He stepped away.

A line of black began to form at once in the laminate, bubbling and spitting, the substance separating like a gangrenous wound. The hound jumped up, barking ferociously at the hissing floor.

Elatine yelped with delight, clapping his gigantic hands and prancing away from the damage. “Enough! Stop!” He laughed, dropping to a chair while the lionhound paced, growling at the sizzling floor. “How? You must tell me, how can you do this? How is it done?”

“Did you become frustrated with magic shows as a boy?”

“Ah, but this isn't magic, I know that much.”

“It is very hard to explain.” In truth it wasn't, but Sotiris had no wish to tell the Melius he would never live long enough even to begin to see the changes in his body that would lead to such abilities.

Elatine shooed the aggravated lionhound out of the way to look at the cooling floor. “Can you heal? That is something I've always wanted to know.”

Sotiris shook his head. “I have limited control. Building requires more skill than destruction, as I'm sure you of all people understand, Commander.”

The warlord nodded impatiently. “But you grow more powerful, more potent, as you age?”

“Yes.”

“And you are truly very old? Many thousands of years?”

“Almost too many to recall.”

Elatine touched a hand to his rump. “I have this problem, you see. It has plagued me since I left the Seventeenth. Acid, scalding bowel movements, pain when I sit down. Don't suppose you experience such things, do you? You Immortals cannot feel anything, I hear.”

Sotiris sat again. The man could talk to himself all day. “It's your diet, I expect.”

“My what?”

“Eat softer, more fibrous foods.”

Elatine laughed. “Fine, you joke, I was wrong to ask. My fleshdoctors agree it is troubled thoughts, the pressure of command. I will listen to their advice, I think.”

Sotiris put a hand to his brow.

“Anyway,” the Melius continued, his wide eyes gleaming from the fits of laughter, “it is a curse, is it not?”

Sotiris looked up. “Immortality? Oh, yes.” He knew precisely where Elatine was going with his questions.

Elatine paused, looking to the window almost casually. “But how did you become this way?”

Sotiris wished he could have some water for his mouth. “I was part of something a long time ago. There were hundreds of thousands of us. Now only a few remain.”

The warlord paced to the bedchamber, choosing his words. “
Is
it attainable? Be honest with me, Amaranthine, I must have honesty.”

There. They always asked. “Anything is attainable,” he replied.

“Be careful,” Elatine said, smiling, his vast grinning jaws gummy and shark-like, “I could take some hope from that, were it suggested to me by any normal person.”

Sotiris glanced up at the horrific parody of a man staring down at him. He knew Elatine would gladly kill him for the gift of Immortality, were that the way to gain it, and reflected on what a poor choice of title it was. The Firmament was woven of jealousy, an envy that burned in every hominid race, even on the Old World. “I told you, it's a curse.”

Like the man his legions were marching to confront, there were plenty of things the full extent of which Elatine didn't need to know. The truth Sotiris chose to hide from him was simply that the more you lived, the more you needed to keep doing it. Enlightenment came to Sotiris as simple pleasures—a tug of wind, the slant of evening light, a deep breath in cold, clear air. The alternative to such a convivial state became increasingly unthinkable with each passing year. Immortality didn't drive you mad, as people had once assumed—not for a while, anyway—and the loneliness did not become unbearable every year you lost a friend. Not one person (at least not among those he'd known) had chosen suicide after their first turbulent five hundred years or so, when the idea is still fresh that you're doing something unnatural, that you've made a mistake. Passing that milestone, the thoughts in your head slowing, all lusts and hungers receding, tended to make one realise that
Life
, pronounced in a firm upper case, had more to show anyone intrepid enough to keep sailing across its waters. Sotiris's Greek roots helped him relate to the metaphor, his own life passing from tiny island-speckled seas into deep, cold oceans that appeared to stretch forever. And they
did
go on forever, or near enough to it—that was guaranteed; it was one's own state, however, one's body, the little ramshackle boat you used to sail through the storms, that would let you down in the end.

“I understand now why some people say it is hard work carrying on a conversation with an Immortal,” said Elatine, stepping closer to inspect him. “You haven't chosen this moment to die on me, have you, Amaranthine?”

“I'm sorry—were you saying something?”

“I was asking where you will go now.”

“Oh, here and there. Perhaps I'll see you at your coronation, Commander.”

“I'm sure you will,” Elatine replied with a wry smile. They both watched the lionhound as it began licking itself with wet slurping noises. Its testicles would shine with a mirror finish by the time it was done with them.

Elatine went back to scratching his hound. It rolled over in anticipation, one leg trembling, a large brown eye lolling in their direction.

“Why not stay a while, Amaranthine? I like your company, and we could use you here at the front.”

“You hardly need my help, Elatine. Besides, there are things I must do.”

“What sort of business does an Immortal get up to? Do you have friends to visit?”

Sotiris shrugged, standing again. “Something like that.”

The city by the lake was a column of darkness some miles across, the smoke torn and slanted towards the mountains by the fresh wind. Lines of fleeing Secondlings swamped the far roads, some mounted, others pulling clanking wheeled houses as fast as they could. Inside the city seething armies fought, the small pops of detonations still coming from somewhere inside the walls as messenger birds wheeled and dipped against the cream sky. Sotiris was thinking of Zigadenus, the anointed poster boy of the First and Elatine's old nemesis, as he made his way along the hilltop to the distant road that spanned the tea-coloured water into Elblag Second. He'd heard nothing but praise for the dead man, from both sides of the war. Lenient and merciful, he apparently had an eye for beauty both great and modest. He would have let the city be.