The Ace of Skulls

Twenty-Eight

Snow blew against the window, sliding down the glass, piling on the sill. Jez stood there in her overalls, head tilted to one side, looking out. The fire at her back threw a warm yellow glow onto her legs and shoulders. The cold and dark was in front of her, the heat and light behind. She, being half-Mane, was neither hot nor cold, but somewhere in between. Where she’d always been.

The window was on the first floor, overlooking a cobbled courtyard with a fountain in its centre. Surrounding the courtyard were small, simple houses, stables, and a garage for vehicles. Lights glowed in some of the windows. Smoke wisped from chimney stacks, drifting into the grey-white void overhead. It was afternoon, but dark enough to be evening. To her right, a short marching arc of electric lights delineated the bridge.

Samandra Bree emerged from one of the houses and hurried across the courtyard. Jez watched her approach. Samandra was bundled up in a hide coat, furred hood pulled over her head. It was the first time Jez could recall seeing her without her tricorn hat. But then, this was winter in the Splinters; even Century Knights could freeze up here.

‘Weather’s closing in,’ Malvery rumbled.

She shifted her gaze and took in the scene reflected in the glass. They were in a living room, bare and plain but still more homely than they were used to. Malvery was sitting on a stool by the fire, a bottle of grog hanging from one great paw. At a table nearby, Ashua was playing cards with Frey, Harkins and Colden Grudge. Silo sat at the end of the table, watching the gauges on a large brass device that hummed and grumbled at the borders of her consciousness.

Daemonism. Strong daemonism, courtesy of Morben Kyne. It set her teeth on edge.

‘You think they’ll come today?’ Harkins asked nervously.

‘Don’t look like it now,’ said Malvery.

‘It’s only been two days,’ said Ashua, picking out a card from her hand. ‘Could be weeks till they turn up, if they bother at all. Imperators probably have better things to do than chase down every dissident who gets ratted on by his peers.’

‘Feels like it’s been weeks already,’ Frey muttered.

‘That’s ’cause you have the attention span of a brain-damaged seagull,’ Ashua replied. ‘Me, I’m happy they’re taking their time. There’s a mansion across the bridge with a wine cellar full to bursting, a cold room stocked with good meat, and a library bigger than I’ve ever seen.’ She snapped down her card and scooped up the pile. ‘I’m good.’

Frey cursed. ‘Can’t we play Rake again?’ he complained.

The Cap’n wasn’t taking the waiting well. She wondered how long it’d be before he decided that action — any action — was better than doing nothing at all. Before he broke his promise to the crew and set off after Trinica regardless of the consequences.

That was love. The kind that made you stupid. The kind she’d never felt, nor let anyone feel for her. She envied him that, whatever misery it brought him. He had something she’d never had.

But she had something else.

The door opened downstairs, and there was a gust of wind from outside. Samandra stamped in, trailing snow and flapping at herself. ‘Cold as a corpse’s arse out there,’ she said. ‘Fires are banked up. Should be good for a couple of hours. You’re up next, Frey.’

Frey looked at his cards and said nothing.

‘Are we gonna have to do this every day?’ Malvery moaned.

‘You want the houses lookin’ occupied, don’t you?’ Bree replied. ‘No one’s gonna set down here if it don’t look like the lights are on.’ She walked over to Silo and peered over his shoulder at the gauges. ‘Anything?’

‘Nuh.’

Jez tried to shut out the daemonic hum from Kyne’s device. It was a mix of machinery and aethereal power, running off electricity provided by a generator which fed the hamlet and the mansion nearby. The device was linked to large resonator masts placed all around the rim of the valley, set to detect engine noise. They were all linked up in a manner similar to Crake’s earcuffs, but on a grander and more complex scale.

Kyne had access to some formidable technology, and by Samandra’s account he was the best daemonist in the land. But even with his help, their plan was a risky one. Capturing an Imperator would be no easy matter. It was said they could stop a man’s heart by willpower alone. Only a Mane could resist them, and then there was no question of capture; they awoke such primal hatred that neither Jez nor Pelaru would be able to stop themselves killing their targets.

Jez didn’t much concern herself with plans any more. The struggles of the crew felt distant. Only occasionally did she involve herself with their wants and needs. The rest of the time she was simply there, doing what needed to be done, waiting for the right moment. The moment of certainty. The moment when she’d turn her back on the world, and leave them for ever.

The device was too distracting. She couldn’t marshal her thoughts. She sensed the others watching her as she walked out of the room.

‘. . why do they put up with her anyway. .’

‘. . gives me the chills, but it’s Jez! Don’t be so. .’

‘. . gonna have to do something about. .’

She took the stairs to the top floor, where there were two small bedrooms with several unmade beds between them. Some of the crew had been sleeping in the house. They had to take shifts watching the gauges on Kyne’s machine, and it was easier to stay here than to trek back and forth to the Ketty Jay.

She went to the window of the back bedroom and opened it. A snowy rise, thick with bare black trees, lay before her. She clambered out and onto the sloping roof, moving swiftly and assuredly over the slippery surface. Sitting erect at the peak of the roof, waist deep in the snow, was Pelaru. She climbed up and sat next to him.

‘I had hoped for some privacy,’ he said, blinking away snow from his lashes. He was wearing a coat, but it was only to protect his fine clothes. He was Mane enough that he didn’t feel the cold.

Jez ignored the hint. She had things she needed to talk to him about.

From up here, it was possible to see the whole of the grounds. The houses and stables and garages were for the servants that worked at the mansion during the summer. A skeleton staff of guards and caretakers looked after the place during the winter months. They were now under lock and key in the basement level of the mansion where they’d be out of the way and safe. They were being cared for well enough, and it was a bloodless ambush in the end. The guards had put down their weapons once Samandra Bree got involved. Her fame preceded her.

To her left she could see the lights of the landing pad glowing in the murk, away at the end of a short road. The Century Knights’ aircraft was there, along with two smaller craft for the staff. The Tabington Wrath was a heavily armoured gunship, but it was expensive enough to be the choice of a paranoid rich man. The Ketty Jay and the Firecrow had been hidden elsewhere, in a clearing further down the valley, in case they were recognised.

To her right was the bridge to the mansion itself. The mansion stood on an island of rock in a shallow chasm that ran along the floor of the valley. During the summer months a meltwater river would run there, and the valley would be green. Now the valley was buried in snow, and the chasm yawned icily.

The mansion itself took up a third of the island, perched precariously on the edge of the drop. The rest was taken up by gardens — dead till spring — and a wide driveway to the bridge. Jez could barely see the mansion in the snow, only the lights of its windows. It looked dark and forbidding now, but she knew it was white and golden and fine in the sunlight.

‘Have you ever visited Thace?’ Pelaru said. ‘I miss it. I miss Arath, her high gleaming spires, her shaded colonnades, her tree-lined boulevards. I miss the music and theatre and language. But what I miss most is the togetherness. For almost two thousand years, we’ve been the only true republic in Atalon. Every man and woman has their say. That unites us. Being Thacian unites us. We stand in the shadow of the great slave-owning nation over the mountains to the west, and we defy them.’

‘You do more than defy them. You bombed the Samarlans’ capital and killed their God-Emperor,’ Jez pointed out. ‘Twice.’

‘Always in retaliation. Always after they tried to invade us.’ His face darkened. ‘We should have wiped the Divine Family out when we had the chance, but we wasted our time with peace settlements and politics.’

He glanced at Jez, and quickly away. It was hard for him to be near her, she knew that. The disappointment was too great. For Jez, it wasn’t so hard. She’d already accepted that what they had wasn’t what she’d thought it was. It was the love of kin. And there were many more like him, out there in the snow. Far to the North, beyond the Wrack. She heard them singing. They wanted her, and she was drawn to them.

‘You know why I came to Vardia?’ Pelaru said. ‘I did it for my homeland. A Thacian wouldn’t last five minutes in Samarla, so Vardia was the next best thing. I wanted to be a whispermonger, I wanted to know everything. And I dreamed that one day I might use that knowledge to protect the land I love.’ He kicked at a chunk of snow and sent it sliding down the roof. ‘What I’ve learned here. . the Samarlans selling Azryx technology to the Awakeners. . the Lord High Cryptographer a daemon. . They cannot be allowed to win. My people need to know. Do you understand? My people!’

She did understand. ‘I suppose we all have to pick a side, sooner or later,’ she said. ‘I assume you’ve let somebody know? Sent a letter or something?’

‘I have my channels.’

‘So why are you still here?’

‘You know why,’ he said, turning away angrily.

‘Are you trying to save me?’

His jaw went tight. He sensed mockery, but she meant none.

‘I don’t need to be saved,’ she said. ‘I’ve made my choice.’

‘You’re giving up,’ he said bitterly.

‘I am what I am,’ she said. ‘Resisting it is pointless.’ She wiped wet hair from her forehead. ‘When were you planning to tell us about the relic you hid away in the Ketty Jay’s air vents?’ she said.

To his credit, he showed no visible reaction, though his heart jumped hard. ‘I wasn’t,’ he said. ‘How did you find it?’

The cat, she thought. She’d found it while she was travelling with Slag, piggybacking his thoughts, sharing his simple world of savagery and instinct. But she said nothing of that. ‘You do know what it is?’

‘Of course I do,’ he said. ‘Osger knew. It was his field, and that particular object was his obsession. Rumour had it that it came into the possession of the Awakeners long ago. They recognised daemonism in it, and all daemonic objects they gathered to themselves. But they didn’t know what they had. By the time anyone guessed, Korrene had been destroyed and the shrine was lost.’

‘Until your explorer found it again.’

Pelaru gazed grimly out into the snow. ‘I thought Osger was a fool to run off chasing a dream. I didn’t believe anything was there. But I let him go to his death, and I didn’t try hard enough to stop him.’ He sighed and hung his head. ‘And he was right. I recognised the relic when we searched the shrine. I was the fool.’

‘And what do you plan to do with it, now you have it?’

‘I will destroy it. Or if I can’t, I will put it somewhere that nobody will ever find it.’

Jez thought about that. Yes, perhaps that was best. Better that than have it fall into the wrong hands. And yet-

‘Hey! We got action!’

Jez’s sensitive ears picked out the cry from the living room below. The Cap’n. She exchanged an urgent glance with Pelaru, and the two of them scrambled down off the roof. They swung back in through the window with preternatural agility and hurried to the living room, where they found the others loading their weapons.

Silo looked up as they entered. ‘Engines,’ he said, thumbing at Kyne’s device. One of the gauges had jumped, the needle trembling near the halfway point. The two gauges next to it had roused slightly: they’d detected the peripheral sound.

‘Must be small,’ said Ashua. ‘Maybe just a shuttle.’

‘An Imperator, comin’ on his own, if we’re lucky,’ said Bree.

‘Our boys are gonna need more than luck,’ Malvery said.

Frey pulled his earcuff from his pocket and clipped it on. ‘Crake?’ he said. ‘Get ready. Shuttle coming in. We’re on.’

Crake, his hand on his ear where the earcuff was attached, raised his head and looked at the others. ‘They’re coming,’ he said.

Plome froze in the act of checking the resonators for the twelfth time. He gave a quick nod and stood up. The Chancellor was a squat, fat little man in his sixties. Stringy grey hair clung on around his temples, having given up the high ground. He drew out a handkerchief, mopped his brow and pate, then adjusted the pince-nez that perched on his nose.

‘Well,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Time to man the battlements, as they say.’

Morben Kyne stood at a window on the far side of the chamber, hands linked behind his back, his hooded head bowed. He looked over his shoulder at the other two. Mechanical green eyes shone in a mask of brass.

‘It’s not too late to back out of this, Plome,’ said Crake. ‘We can handle it.’

Plome gave a nervous chuckle. ‘Oh, now. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I may not be an adventurer or a Century Knight, but I am a daemonist.’

‘Yes,’ said Crake, and laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘We’re all daemonists here.’

And it was daemonism that had brought them together and bound them in a common cause: the freebooter, the Century Knight and the politician. Plome had a seat in the House of Chancellors now; he had plenty to lose even if he got through today with his life and sanity. But the lure of the Art was strong. The opportunity to work with and learn from a man like Morben Kyne was too rare to resist. The chance to capture an Imperator, to do something never done before in daemonist lore, was a chance he couldn’t pass up. They were all explorers in forbidden lands; discovery was their drug. Plome was not a brave man, but obsession brought its own kind of bravery.

‘What we are facing here,’ he said when Crake asked him to help them, ‘is not only an assault on our liberties and our way of life, but an assault on free thought and free enquiry. I became a politician so that daemonists like us might one day be able to walk in the open without fear of being hanged. And I’m damned if I’ll climb in a hole for the Awakeners.’

He didn’t need to be here with them; it was enough to use his name as a lure. But he’d insisted on participating. Crake was faintly shamed by that. He’d always viewed Plome as rather a weak-willed sort, easily led: a good man but hardly a firebrand. Yet he was willing to nail his colours to the mast right then and there, to risk his life for his cause. Crake, in contrast, had spent months sitting on the fence. It had taken his father’s death and the destruction of his home to tip him off it.

Plome had suggested the Tarlocks’ summer house as a location for the trap. He’d visited his benefactors there before and knew it well. After that, it had been up to the Cap’n to employ his wiles on Amalicia. None of it left a particularly good taste in Crake’s mouth — he disliked endangering Plome, and he thought Amalicia had suffered enough at Frey’s hands — but hard times called for hard decisions. The fate of the Coalition might be riding on the events that played out this afternoon.

The room they occupied was a small audience chamber with panelled wood walls, overlooked by paintings of family members. The dignified atmosphere had been ruined by the daemonist’s preparations. Cables ran along the skirting boards, snaking between various devices in the corners. Clusters of batteries were piled up next to trolley racks containing oscillators, resonators and harmonisers. Damping rods and thick resonator masts stood against the walls, ready to throw out a web of frequencies. In the centre was a summoning circle with a double circle of smaller masts and spheres linked up to another resonator.

It was a cage within a cage. The instant an Imperator stepped into the room they’d hit him with a fluctuating barrage of frequencies and interference. Once the Imperator was disoriented and its power nullified, they could drive him into the circle, where he’d be thoroughly disabled by a much more focused assault.

That, at least, was the theory. But first they had to get him into the room. And then they had to keep him there long enough to interrogate him.

Crake tried not to dwell on how much could go wrong. He’d almost got Jez killed last time with his seat-of-the-pants science. Field daemonism was a dangerous game.

But it’s my game, Crake thought. Even Kyne listened to him when it came to field daemonism. Nobody had ever captured a daemon outside of a sanctum before, as far as he knew. Terrified as Crake was, he took pride in that. He’d always wanted to be a pioneer. He just never imagined it would be quite so life-threatening.

There were three entrances to the room, and two large windows in the other wall, looking out across the chasm. The lights of the hamlet were visible out there among the flurrying snowflakes, nestled in a hollow in the land, with tree-lined banks rising like shoulders around it. Crake suddenly wished he was out there, with the others. With Samandra.

‘Do you think they can really kill you with their gaze?’ Plome said, as he was gathering up his equipment. He gave a scared little laugh. ‘Surely just a story to scare people, hmm?’

‘Not just a story,’ said Kyne, his voice full of strange harmonics. He was checking the large-bore pistol that he carried. ‘Some are stronger than others. Some can frighten a man to death.’

‘Oh,’ said Plome.

Crake was strapping on a heavy backpack, containing the device which he’d newly dubbed his ‘sonic flux emitter’. It wasn’t quite as snappy as ‘flux thrower,’ but he thought it less vulnerable to mockery. It was wired to an improved battery given to him by Kyne, which lasted much longer than the old chemical things he’d been lugging about. ‘The key is to hit the Imperator before he knows we’re here,’ he said. ‘If he gets wind of us, he can use his power.’

‘Right,’ said Plome. He shouldered his own backpack.

Crake ran a mental inventory. He had wide-spectrum ‘screamer’ spheres on his belt, to disorient daemons. Damper spheres to negate their abilities. Small portable batteries for both. Then there was the sonic flux emitter, which he’d use to zero in on the Imperator’s frequency and paralyse him with crippling pain. He carried that. The others had harmonic arc generators to ensnare the Imperator — if they could nail his frequency in time. And last but not least, they had dynamite.

Crake couldn’t hit a barn door with a gun, and neither could Plome. Besides, if the Imperators were anything like Manes, it would take more than a couple of bullets in the chest to bring them down. Massive damage or a headshot would be necessary.

Their packs were bulky and cumbersome, and everything but the dynamite had to be wired in to the batteries that they carried with them. They wouldn’t be able to move fast, and it was easy to get tangled up. Inelegant, but it was all they had. Even with Kyne providing the best equipment money could buy, their arsenal against the daemon was makeshift and clumsy.

‘Ready?’ Crake asked.

Nobody answered.

Through the lens of his spyglass, Frey watched the shuttle come slowly into view.

He was hunkered down with Silo in the snow, hidden among the bare trees near the edge of the chasm. Visibility was so poor, they’d been forced to throw on coats and get closer to get a good view of the mansion. He followed the small dark shadow as it took on form and substance, sliding out of the grey murk. The thin sound of its thrusters came to him on the wind.

‘They’ve fallen for it,’ he said.

For the first time since they’d escaped the Awakener base in the Barabac Delta, he felt excitement stir within him. These past days had been like living in a wasteland: dead horizons surrounded him. An empty hopelessness had sunk deep into his bones and made them heavy. Food and drink brought him no joy. Even Shine wasn’t much help, and Ashua had smashed his last bottle anyway.

He felt a twinge of embarrassment as he remembered making a pass at her in his cabin, but a twinge was all it was. She, at least, had quickly shelved her resentment with the stoicism of a young woman who was used to it. She grew up around violent boys, after all: it probably wasn’t the first time someone had tried it on.

The incident with Amalicia was far worse, but even that pain had faded quickly once he’d got away from her. It was hard to feel much of anything any more. Strong emotions were swallowed quickly, lost to the bleakness.

Trinica.

He’d been undone. He’d lost his chance. There would be no salvation for either of them. No restitution for what he’d done to her. She’d been taken and turned, and he didn’t know whether he could take and turn her back. And even though he was desperate to rescue her, he’d never really believed it was possible. She was beyond his reach now. He just wanted to kill himself trying.

Yet now he saw the shuttle, he felt hope again. An Imperator — it had to be! And if Crake’s wild plan came off, they’d have a way to fight the Imperators, and a way to recover the woman he loved. He didn’t pretend to understand the method, but he trusted Crake enough to take him at his word.

With the spyglass fixed to his eye, he watched the shuttle come in. And he dared to believe again.

At least for a moment or two.

‘Ain’t right, Cap’n,’ Silo said.

He took the spyglass away and wiped wet snow from his face. ‘What isn’t?’

‘They comin’ in the day,’ he said. ‘Crake’s brother, they came at night. Took him out quiet, so no one knew. Look, they landin’ on the roof. Anyone in that mansion, they’d be sure to hear ’em.’

Frey hadn’t considered that. ‘Maybe they don’t always do it that way,’ he said. ‘Plome doesn’t have children to use as leverage. Might be they plan to go scare him direct.’

‘Might be,’ said Silo. But he didn’t sound convinced.

‘What’s up, Cap’n?’ said Crake in his ear. Frey had forgotten about the earcuff.

‘They’re landing on the roof,’ he said. He heard Crake relay the information to his companions.

The shuttle settled itself on the flat roof of the mansion, where there was a small, private landing pad for personal flyers. The shuttle couldn’t have made it here on its own: it was too far from any town. That meant there was a mother craft somewhere in the mountains. Once they had the Imperator, they’d have to get gone before he was missed.

We’re gonna be cutting this awful fine, he thought, and felt excitement spark in him again. Danger chased away the hollow feeling inside. Suddenly he wanted to get in there, face the Imperator, loose off a round or two. But this was Crake’s show; he was only the support act.

They resumed their watch. Frey shifted in an attempt to relieve the chill. The ramp of the shuttle opened silently in the distance. A black-clad figure emerged. Frey felt the cold become a fraction more profound.

Then another one came out. And another behind that.

‘Oh, shit,’ Frey muttered.

‘What?’ snapped Crake in his ear. He was evidently on edge like the rest of them. ‘Don’t just say ‘‘Oh, shit.’’ It’s not very bloody specific.’

‘There’s three of them,’ said Frey.

‘Three?’

‘Three Imperators, Crake! Is that specific enough for you?’

There was a babble of conversation in his ear. Frey tapped one boot anxiously against the other. Three Imperators. He’d never even seen three together before. You didn’t send three Imperators to subdue one little aristocrat, no matter how much he’d pissed you off.

‘You want Jez in there with you? Maybe Pelaru too? They can take care of-’

‘No,’ said Crake. ‘Kyne thinks we can handle them.’

Frey heard a little scream of disbelief in the background, which he assumed was Plome.

‘We’ve got to try, Cap’n. We’re only going to get one chance at this. You put Jez in here and she’ll slaughter the lot of them.’

‘Rather them than you!’ Frey said.

‘Cap’n!’ This was another voice. Malvery, who had the third earcuff. The fourth had been lost with Pinn. ‘Cap’n, we got trouble!’

‘I know! Weren’t you listening?’

‘More trouble, Cap’n. This contraption you left me sitting in front of, the gauges are going all over the place.’

It took Frey a moment to work out what he was talking about. Malvery was with the others in the living room of the house. Kyne’s device was registering more engines.

‘How many?’ he demanded. ‘How many aircraft?’

Malvery consulted with Samandra and came back to him quickly. ‘Three. And by the way the gauges are going, they’re big noisy bastards too. Comin’ in at speed.’

Frey swore loudly and bitterly. Rage swelled up inside him. He pulled off his earcuff, balled his fist and thumped at the ground. ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’

Silo got to his feet and pulled his captain up. ‘Ain’t time for that, Cap’n. We gotta move!’

The two of them ran back up the road towards the house. Crake, Kyne and Plome would have to fend for themselves. Frey had his own problems.

They thought they were laying a trap for the Awakeners. But the Awakeners had laid a trap for them.

As he ran, he heard a sly, silken voice in his head. The voice of a woman he’d thought he knew. ‘I suppose I am a vengeful person after all.’

Well, he couldn’t say Amalicia hadn’t warned him.