The Year of Our War (22 page)

“Good morning, Comet,” Harrier announced.

“Jant,” I corrected him. “I trust you’re well? How’s the Insect bite? No, we’ve had an awful journey. This is Ata’s daughter, please take care of her. I have to be going now.” I rescued my coat as Cyan tried to stand up, hiccuped and sat down again in the gravel. Even her hiccups were slurred.

“Comet, are you sure you will not stay? We have breakfast laid out especially.”

“I don’t eat breakfast. In fact, I don’t eat. Give Saker my regards. Bye.”

Harrier hauled Cyan to her white sock-feet; she dangled in a bundle from his hand. Puzzled, he tried to walk, but she kept straying out too far to one side, then swaying back and banging against his elegant legs.

I swept my wings through the air in a full beat, realizing hopelessly I was too hungry and exhausted to fly back to the Castle immediately. Harrier must have noticed because he foisted the hospitality of his lord’s palace on me once again. “If you wish to rest and wash, the guest rooms are prepared.”

A place to sleep. A place to lie down. Somewhere to shoot up, even. That was an unfortunate thought; a shiver ran through me, pooling the tension unbearably in the joints of my limbs. I gave Harrier a look of helpless pride. “Please…” I said.

“Our pleasure.” He took a handful of the back of Cyan’s dress and hoisted her effortlessly onto one shoulder, strode under the pediment toward a gleaming entrance hall, the reflection on his polished shoes miniaturizing the architecture.

W
hen I arrived back at the Castle I found a note pinned to my door. It was sealed with light blue wax, six numbers only, a map reference. I followed it to where the ocean slides ugly up against the land—Sheldrake harbor, at night and without a breath of wind. It was eerily calm and warm.

Two towns—a real one and a bright reflection in the bay. I saw the reflection first and thought I was upside down. What the fuck is going on? What are all those clouds?

The harbor was burning, the fleet, ablaze. Flames pulsed yellow—smoke plumes were thickening, drifting out to sea.

One of the piers was burning through. I could see figures trapped at the seaward end. They were crushing together, yelling above the roar.

I circled the quayside, saw floating blackened planks and pale corpses jostling in steaming water. Ships’ ribs clutched like fingers in the yellow light. Smoke stank of pitch. Mist’s flagship was anchored in the center of the bay, well away from the fire ships, over its own rippled image. I flapped across to it, and a series of pennants went up which read, “Ata has done this.”

I landed on the raised deck at the stern, unsure whether to cling to the railings and risk going down with the ship if she sinks, or to stand on my own two feet and risk falling over the side and drowning. In reality the
Honeybuzzard
was solid and perfectly safe. How could something so vast and ornate sit on the water, or steer round rocks and evade sea-monsters? How could people build ships this big? How can vessels so huge actually move? The flagship waited at anchor like a thoroughbred.

I gazed at the planks and fidgeted; sweat ran down my wings. Flame from all along the coast glowed orange on the deck.

I recounted, “Mist, there are four caravels in the Sound. If you sail in the lee of the island you would have to contend with six more. That’s all I know. Can I go now?”

“Sail
how
? With the fleet in
ashes
? Look at all my ships! Where has that bitch hidden my daughter?”

“…Micawater Palace. May I leave?”

“How did she get there? Fly? Where is Lightning?”

“Shooting Insects in Rachiswater. Can I please get off this ship?”

Mist had reverted to the Plainslands language, giving the impression he was feeling hunted. He had an expressionless brunette perched on his knee. She wore velvet shorts, and the dimpled flesh of her thigh overhung his leg. Half a cigarette festered in a scallop shell.

The shell ashtray held down one of my maps, which was scrolled out on the deck, paper cracking with age. I caught myself thinking that one tiny error, a miscalculation or omission, would lead to these ships stove in by serried rocks, hundreds drowned and the knowledge never reaching me.

Lord Governor Shearwater was wrapped in a long heavy blue cloak with gold trim, although it wasn’t cold. His thick arms knotted around the woman’s little waist, his backside on the railings, chin on her shoulder, the gold chain from his stiff cloak collar straining across his broad chest. “Tell this to San,” he said, pointing at the wrecked harbor. “See what Ata’s done—trying to force me to Lowespass? I’ve lost forty ships, and who knows how many men! Bad to worse. How could the Emperor let Ata be immortal when she’s capable of this destruction? At such a time! She can sit and starve on her paltry island. I’ll return to Peregrine and find a way of stopping her for good.”

Speaking of Cyan led me to remember her ring, which had fitted easily on my finger and was presently turning it green. I gave the copper dolphin to Mist. “The girl asked me to return this.” He looked at it with no recognition in his leathery face, rather scathingly as the ring was a cheap little token.

“Well,” he growled, nipping the fleshy lass’s mottled thigh, “I don’t know. There’s been so many. Drop. Ocean.” She giggled, lifting her head back to kiss air that smelled of burned meat.

“No, not a girl. A
little
girl.” I held my hand, palm down, at the level of my knee.

“None of them have ever been that small,” he said defensively. I was obviously wasting my time, but Cyan deserved persistence.

“You don’t recognize it?”

“Jant, I’ve never seen it before. You must be mistaken—one fix too many.”

A powerful arm wound back; he hurled the ring across the deck and over the railing. It dropped into darkness.

As it left his hand I moved. I dived from the rail. Two strong flicks of half-folded wings drove me down faster than falling. I couldn’t see the ring. Hull sped up. The water came up, rippled bronze. The ring, a speck. I shot out a hand, snatched it as it hit the water.

I spread my wings, flattened my fall. I skimmed out over the surface of the sea. Tips of flight feathers touched, flicking drops into an arc. Pain flamed in the small of my back. I calmed it by breathing in time with quick wing beats. I kept going and built up speed to gain height and turn steeply.

The ship’s hull was metal-clad. The figurehead had pink tits. A red lamp marked the stern. I slipped into a glide between rigging and masts. I came in fast. No wind to land into, so I backed with massive wings streaming the pennants out. The deck came up hard under my feet, jarring both ankles. I ran a few steps with a springy gait to slow down.

I started shaking, the ring tightly clenched in one hand. “You bastard! Arsehole. Mist, you know I can’t swim! Shit.”

The girl had detached herself from his grasp and was gaping at the railings, the paintings on my wings, my Rhydanne eyes, and giving me a look I’ve come to expect: “What the fuck
are
you?”

Mist pulled a gold case of cigarettes from a back pocket. He plucked one out and offered it to me. He leaned back, the smoke from his cigarette staggering into the air whilst smoke from the burning fleet and the Sheldrake breakwater billowed into cumulus above. I scraped a match and drew hot, constricting air into my lungs thankfully.

Cyan, I thought, you clever girl. I had underestimated her. “Give the ring to my father,” she had said. Now I have to find out who he is.

T
he Throne Room carpet was a bright crimson tapestry, a vibrant purple-red. Gold threads formed a swirling design of gold leaves or feathers or waves, which appeared to move. There was also a network of little blue dots but these were actually hallucinations caused by the exertion of flying too fast, and from doing backflips on the wet roof ridge in order to impress Tern.

The edge of the carpet had a long gold fringe, like girl’s hair. I followed it up as it angled over one marble step, a second, a third, but I couldn’t follow its shining ascent any longer because the Emperor’s throne was on top of the dais and he was watching me intently. It was not good manners to return his gaze. I couldn’t because a recent dose of cat was singing in every capillary and if I looked at him, I would get the Fear. Not that the animated carpet was any better, I kept my head bowed and wished that the blue dots would go away.

“I don’t think that’s all you have to say,” San remarked. Somewhere above me, in a cradle of marble lace and folded samite, he sighed and stretched. I concentrated on a slightly more threadbare patch of carpet where I have knelt thousands of times before. “Because,” San prompted, “I have been reading your letters from the coast. Thank you for your commentary, keeping the Circle so well informed of this unique situation.”

Was that sarcasm? I couldn’t decide, so I gave him the same sort of silence as I would any flatlander. Time was nothing to the Emperor; he simply out-silenced me. This could go on for hours.

“My lord?”

“Letter the first, Diw is burning. Second, Sheldrake quay is razed by fire. Third, Awndyn fights a skirmish to protect the ships in her harbor. Additionally a letter from Carmine Dei asking for soldiers to protect Moren port because she doesn’t want that to go up in flames as well. Tell me, Comet, does the fleet have any harbors left?”

“My lord, it’s more like there is no fleet left.” More silence. “Ata stole sixty ships from Diw. Those she could not crew she burned. She sailed them all to join her caravels at Grass Isle. From there, she sent ships to burn the docks and everything at anchor in the rest of Mist’s harbors. Awndyn harbor was spared, as Swallow’s fyrd defended it. Throughout, Ata suffered no losses. Her ships returned to the island, where she now stays. She moves from tower to tower on the island, which is inviolable. I dispatched her infantry to Awndyn manor; I intend to use them against Insects in Rachiswater until Ata’s Challenge is resolved.”

“How is Mist?”

“The last time I saw him, he was preparing to race to Peregrine before Ata could catch him.”

“No. I mean what does Mist have left?”

“Only what was at sea two days ago and escaped. The
Honeybuzzard
, with a loyal crew.”

“That is all?”

“One square-rigger, my lord. Ata has eighty ships—I counted.”

“So Ata is trying to make it impossible for Mist to proceed, or to move anything by sea at all.” The Emperor smiled wolfishly.

“Not trying to, my lord; she has.”

“What does Ata ask of us?”

I searched my memory through a haze of cat which unpleasantly seemed to be hauling me upward. “She sends this message, ‘I wish to replace Shearwater Mist and I will return to the Castle only to become immortal, or I will harry the coast and every ship afloat until the end of my days.’”

I paused as the Emperor huffed angrily, and his liver-spotted hand clenched into a fist.

“Ata asked me to report that she regrets people have been killed, but says that would have been avoided if Mist had not been King Staniel’s follower. She regrets that Mist lacks the flexibility of thinking, or is not brave enough to seize the opportunity we have to use caravels, the excellent service she is offering to the Castle, my lord.”

His pearl brocade cloak folded awkwardly as the Emperor leaned toward me, lamplight reflecting on the white-gold spired crown. “And the tone?”

Exhilaration. The frustration has forced her to chance things for herself. Now she’s free and all the possibilities are crying out at her. “She’s awestruck by her own determination,” I said.

“Did Mist send a message?”

“I left Mist when the
Honeybuzzard
got under way. His cheerfulness holds together like broken glass which a touch will shatter. He says this: Taking tolls is against the law, not to mention Ata’s terrible piracy of coast towns. He begs you and the Circle to agree that she has gone too far. He asks that she be divorced and expelled from the Circle. He said any additional punishment…Any additional punishment is the Emperor’s prerogative. He never asked for help in regaining his ships or his daughter, or his standing.” Eszai never ask for assistance. It would leave the world in doubt that they really are the best.

The hall behind and the space above me to an ornately painted ceiling was vast, boundless space as well to either side. I could easily fly in such a massive hall, between the slender engraved collections of pillars, through the circuits of galleries lining the turret. All this space concentrated on the Emperor’s throne, under a tasseled portico, draped with cloth of gold. The cloth was deeply embroidered, the lavishly intricate Awian crest on one side, on the other the arms of Hacilith Moren. The Plainslands emblem was a white horse rampant, the size of a man, and its cleft silver hooves could just be seen projecting from behind the Emperor’s bony shoulder. San asked me, a gnarled finger to pale dry lips, what I thought of Ata’s behavior. I told him it was unthinkable that Eszai should fight each other and not Insects, and he knew I really believed it. I would not support Mist or Ata. I wouldn’t say who was less to blame. When I felt brave enough I asked, “What will the Castle do?”

“Do?” he said, making me feel tiny. “Why, Comet, we let it run, of course.”

“Yes, my lord,” I said meekly.

“Go and watch them. This is Ata’s Challenge to Mist, is it not? How else can we decide who is the superior master mariner? By now she has learned all his knowledge. Now let us see who has the greater skill. Return often, and tell me everything.”

“Yes, my lord.” I surprised myself by being steady enough to stand, reasonably gracefully. I turned to go.

“Comet, why are there Insects in Awia?”

My silence this time was not on purpose. I simply didn’t know what to say—Insects are taking over because we are not slaying them. There are too many to deal with.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled.

San put on a show of fury. He slammed his fist on the marble armrest, making the tasseled baldachin tremble.

“
Why
do you not know?” he demanded. As if Insects were anything to do with me. I froze.

He shuffled forward on white cushions, doggedly glaring down. “Why so many Insects? Tell me! What are they doing that is different from before? What are we doing that is different? Or what are we not doing? Comet…
Think
about this. Come here tomorrow, first thing. Give me an answer.
I want answers!
”

“I don’t—” I began like a boy to say, “It’s not fair,” but San silenced me.

“Think about it. What are you here for? You have an excellent mind.
Use it!
Do you deserve to be immortal? I begin to doubt. Tomorrow, come here and tell me why Lowespass is overrun. Now leave.”

I bowed hastily, eager to escape. This was an impossible request. How was I to know what drove Insects? And how could I watch over Mist and Ata at the same time? I couldn’t do it, but Eszai don’t admit the impossible.

The Emperor summoned me back and asked me to write a supportive letter to Carmine in Hacilith. I agreed—“Yes, yes certainly”—in rizing confusion. The room started to spin about me. A couple of long braids in my hair had slipped out of my belt and were dragging on the floor. A few of them had even tangled through the bangles on my wings.

Like a white hound baiting a frail feline, San gave me my leave and again called me back. “You said Ata had enough men to crew ten ships,” he asked innocently. “Where did she find two thousand sailors? Did she steal them, as well?”

He waited while I deliberated what to recount. There was no way I could avoid the truth, but this was suddenly a question of my own allegiance. I didn’t want to involve Saker Micawater in any trouble. That’s the mentality I’ve kept from gangland Hacilith. Anything goes but this—you don’t lie, don’t cheat, and don’t grass on your mates.

“Tell me, Comet,” the Emperor said gently, in complete contrast to yelling about Insects. I was right; he was giving me the Fear.

“Lightning,” I muttered, “lent her sailors, and archers to protect her island…”

San gave a loud stage sigh. “Thought as much,” he admitted.

I had my arms crossed over my stomach, for protection and because cramp was beginning to gather.

“Go and tell Lightning I want to see him,” the Emperor added. “Immediately, please.”

I walked down the worn length of crimson carpet, at any second expecting to be recalled, and striding faster and faster as I passed the screen. My throat prickled, saliva gushed into my mouth. Two guards held the crested doors back for me and I went through them in a flurry of silk and feathers. I managed to make it out to the terrace before I was sick.

A
n Insect, well polished and with a faded wreath of flowers round its neck, guarded the door in my tower room. It stood propped against the wall; a couple of chips in red-brown chitin gave it the patina of ancient furniture. Its name was Butterfly, and it was suffering a severe interrogation. I walked round and poked at its hind legs’ translucent brown casing. I twiddled an antenna in a ball-and-socket joint, giving it a rakish angle. Butterfly wore a crested rusty breastplate and a sword-hanger with a daisy in it. It had been dressed in various ways over the years and I had even received costumes tailor-made for the creature.

“Butterfly, I have to know where you came from. I’d like to know where you thought you were going. Intended destination, route of journey, length of voyage, time of arrival, and by which maps…and under whose command. I swear it’s more than my life’s worth, which is worth a lot, to me at least.” Awians say Insects aren’t even sentient, but how can we really know?

“You’re living in the Castle, under the rule of an enemy, the supreme Emperor San, god’s Governor of the Fourlands, and you have to obey his every word, like the rest of us poor immortals.”

The statue didn’t say anything. I gave it a hug, and went to sit down at my writing desk. Butterfly tipped back against the rough wall. It was a hollow exoskeleton, like a suit of armor. The shell of the first Insect I had ever killed—the first of hundreds—I had cleaned and preserved with varnish. Its barbed abdomen was a hardened, paper-thin bulb, supported by a seam of thorns like vertebrae along the upper side. Serrulate mandible scythes reached to its chest. There were hinges so its thorax could be opened to see the ridged inside surface, like a crab’s carapace.

I took the kettle off the fire and poured hot water into two cups of coffee. Tern emerged on cue from behind the curtain, which with a flight of steps separates our round room into semi-circles. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, saying, “Jant—Jant, will you please stop the fucking dramatics?”

“Coffee?”

“Hugging Butterfly, how could you?” Tern put out a little hand for it, the fingernails painted bronze. Her white lace negligee, which wound up into a halter round her neck, accentuated rather than hid her pale body. Waves of glossy dark hair prowled round her shoulders, her folded wings made an inviting cleavage at her back.

“I have to find out how to stop the Insects, Kitten,” I said.

“Snogging them won’t help.”

“You’re gorgeous.” I could smell her musk beneath the peach perfume; she still had traces of cream lipstick and glitter in her hair.

“You are
not
gorgeous,” she said, a trace of anger flirting in her honey voice. “Staying awake all night!”

“Sorry, my love.”

“Come to bed now,” she said, the anger melting into lasciviousness.

“No time. I need some cat.”

She came and put slender arms round my waist, head on my shoulder, and I held her gently. Her skin was soft.

Tern was very disappointed in me. We didn’t really need to speak anymore, I felt her emotions forcing mine, like drafts of air when flying. I felt her sadness twist me into hardheartedness, the only way I could safely go. “And then I have to return to court, where the Emperor waits for any excuse to be rid of his wayward Messenger, perhaps you too, because kittens like you are too playful for the Circle. I should fly to Rachiswater and see if all your kinsmen have been devoured. Then I must go to the coast and see if Mist and Ata have killed each other yet.”

I won’t describe her tears, pleas, or tantrums. What use is Tern’s whim against the Emperor’s command? But now that I was home she wanted to make me stay.

“I’ll leave you,” she threatened. “I’ll go back to Wrought and live there.”

“If you leave me,” I said, “you have three score years and ten.”