The Ace of Skulls

Thirty-Five

Crake stood in the cockpit of the Wrath with Samandra by his side, and looked down on a sea of lights.

Grudge was in the pilot’s seat, a hulking, silent presence. Kyne was still in his sanctum, finishing up a few things. The daemonists had done all they could in the time they had. They’d thralled several amulets with daemons that would theoretically negate the power of the Imperators. Crake went to the cockpit afterwards, to see Samandra, and to watch the city of Thesk come rolling out of the night.

He was tired down to the bone. The terror of the Imperators was only hours old, and he hadn’t had a moment to rest since. Working with Kyne had energised him briefly — practising the Art always did — but now he felt twice as weary as before.

While he’d been occupied he’d avoided thinking about Jez, but now her fate weighed on him again. He saw her in his mind’s eye, a small charred thing, lying in a black tarp body bag on the operating table in Malvery’s infirmary. He’d seen her heal wounds with uncanny speed before, and it had always been impossible to tell whether she was dead or alive when comatose; but nobody was fooling themselves this time.

At least we know the best way to kill a Mane, he thought, with bitter irony.

He spared a thought for Pelaru, too. It seemed someone should. Belatedly, he remembered how he’d seen the whispermonger take an object from the shrine in Korrene, a metal casket that he seemed to recognise. Crake had meant to talk to him about that, but then the Shacklemores had kidnapped him and it had slipped his mind entirely. Well, that secret died with Pelaru. He didn’t have the energy to care about it now.

But despite exhaustion and grief, he felt no despair. There was a rightness to things that he hadn’t known for a long time. For once the crew of the Ketty Jay were doing something moral, something correct. He was in no doubt that the path they’d taken was the one they were meant to.

Malvery would have agreed, if he’d been in the meeting to lend his voice. Harkins too, he was sure. The Cap’n wasn’t so keen, but he’d see in the end. Sometimes you had to trust in the higher powers, the institutions and hierarchies that Frey so despised. They couldn’t take on the world on their own. And Crake wouldn’t let Frey’s irrational distrust of authority put the whole Coalition at risk.

Then there was Samandra. There was a rightness to her beyond all expectation. He’d never felt such certainty about a woman. She was gregarious where he was reserved, uncouth where he was refined, violent where he was gentle: the opposite of everything he thought he wanted. Yet they fit like puzzle pieces; their uneven edges locked them together.

His love for her was simple, uncomplicated by the expectations of his upbringing. He marvelled at his fortune that she should return his feelings. Would he have been capable of this, if not for his time on the Ketty Jay? Probably not. His sense of privilege would have prevented it. But he was a different man now.

Strange the way life takes us, he thought.

The city spread beneath them. Now they could see the lighted boulevards, the monuments, the bell towers and galleries. In the distance was the Archduke’s palace, perched on a crag that rose high above the streets, a beautiful Third Age clutter of green copper domes and sloping rooftops of coloured slate. Coalition frigates slid through the sky and small personal flyers buzzed about. Crake watched them with dread in his heart. None of them knew the doom approaching them.

Seeing Thesk from above, as a net of stars cast out over the black earth, Crake felt all the beauty and fragility of the city and the civilisation it represented. He was suddenly terrified. Thesk was the pinnacle of Vardic culture, home to all its great museums and libraries. By this time tomorrow, it might all be different, the streets in ruin and the land in other hands. Science would be driven aside by superstition, humanity replaced by the inhuman.

It was too awful to contemplate.

‘Think your brother’s down there somewhere?’ Samandra asked, catching his mood.

‘I should think so,’ he said. ‘Somewhere.’

He’d thought often of Condred and his father these past few days. His brother was alive, at least. It was enough to know that. He didn’t know if he’d see him again. He didn’t know if they could ever truly be brothers with the ghost of Bess hanging over them.

For his father he felt little, just a small absence in his life. It was less than he expected, but then Rogibald had always been an icon rather than a person to him. His grief was more dutiful than genuine.

‘Looks like we’re gettin’ an escort,’ rumbled Grudge. Samandra leaned over the dash and he pointed. Several cruisers were approaching. The lead cruiser was flashing a message with its electrohelio-graph.

‘Huh,’ said Samandra. ‘How’d they know we were comin’?’

Nobody had an answer. ‘At least it’s reassuring to know our side are so well-informed,’ Crake offered.

But Samandra still wore a slight frown, and that made Crake uneasy too.

The Coalition cruisers slid into position around the Wrath and the Ketty Jay, and led them in towards the Archduke’s palace. Perhaps it was meant for their protection, but Crake felt oppressed by the presence of the heavily armoured aircraft. Samandra paced the cockpit restlessly.

The Archduke’s palace was modern, not like the dark stone piles that other dukes had as their ancestral homes. Its walls were a light beige, and it was peopled with statues. Elaborate clocks overlooked lawn-covered quads. A great building of steel and glass housed a tropical arboretum, and anti-aircraft cannons nestled in the courtyards.

There was a large walled landing pad near the gates on the sloping west side of the crag. They sank towards it; the cruisers stayed overhead. The Wrath landed first, and while Grudge was powering down the aircraft Crake watched the Ketty Jay land next to them. He wasn’t used to seeing her from the outside, and was struck by how ungainly she looked: an ugly heap of angles, daubed with Awakener symbols, settling uncertainly on the ground. The Firecrow landed with a touch more grace. He looked for the Skylance, then remembered Pinn wasn’t with them any more.

Almost as soon as the aircraft had landed, two dozen soldiers in the blue and grey of the Thesk militia came sallying through a gate, carrying rifles.

‘I’m gettin’ a bad feelin’ about this,’ Samandra muttered.

By the time Crake got outside, the crew of the Ketty Jay were already making trouble.

‘Will you get that bloody gun out of my face?’ Malvery bellowed at a pox-pitted soldier who was threatening him. ‘We ain’t the enemy!’

‘Stay where you are!’ an officious young sergeant barked at him. ‘Tell your men to stay back, or we’ll shoot!’

Malvery rolled his eyes. ‘I ain’t the Cap’n!’ He thrust a finger at Frey. ‘Talk to him!’

But Frey seemed disinterested and said nothing.

‘Hold it down, Doc,’ said Silo, in lieu of any leadership from Frey. ‘Let’s all step back till we know what they’re about.’

‘Is that a Murthian?’ one of the soldiers asked. ‘What in buggery’s a Murthian doing here?’

‘Can it, soldier!’ the sergeant snapped. ‘I want these prisoners rounded up and searched for weapons!’

‘Prisoners?’ Ashua cried.

Harkins was bullied over to stand with the others, and the soldiers began patting them down. Crake hoped they were at least sensible enough to have left their weapons aboard the Ketty Jay. Then, just when it looked like some sort of order was being established, Samandra came storming out of the Wrath.

‘What the shit is this?’ she yelled at the sergeant. ‘These ain’t prisoners! They’re my guests! Who ordered all of-’

‘I ordered it!’ said Kedmund Drave, as he came striding through the ranks with four Century Knights at his back. He knew them all from the broadsheets: Eldrew Grissom and Mordric Jask — whom the others had met before — Celerity Blane and Graniel Thrate. The fact that there were so many together boded ill for someone.

Drave motioned to Grissom, who produced a device from his shabby duster. He brushed his straggly grey-white hair out of his face and panned the device around, watching the gauges. Then, without a word, he walked past the prisoners and up the ramp into the Ketty Jay’s hold.

Some kind of detection device, Crake thought. But what’s he detecting?

A soldier seized Crake by the arm and pulled him over to stand by the others. Crake thought he was rather unnecessarily rough about it.

‘Drave,’ said Samandra, barely suppressing her anger. ‘This lot came in of their own accord. I’m vouchin’ for ’em. They’ve got important information for the Archduke.’

‘Whatever they have to say can wait,’ said Drave, his face stony.

‘It can’t wait, that’s the point! Listen, we-’

‘You listen, Miss Bree,’ he said. ‘These men and women are traitors and I intend to prove it. Your own judgement is in question here, and those of your fellow Knights. I’d keep quiet if I were you.’

‘I ain’t gonna stand here and let you accuse ’em of somethin’ they ain’t-’

She was interrupted by a sharp whistle from the Ketty Jay. Grissom emerged, holding up a small object. He tossed it over to Drave, who caught it out of the air. He looked down on it and gave a grim sneer of satisfaction. Then he brandished it in front of the crew.

‘Anyone recognise this?’ he challenged them.

Crake didn’t. It was a brass cube with a press-stud on the top and a circle of glass on one face. It looked like something that might belong in his sanctum, but he was sure it wasn’t his.

‘No one?’ Drave said. He swept up and down the line, and suddenly descended on Ashua like a hawk. He leaned down and pushed his broad scarred face close to hers. ‘How about you?’

Ashua had gone very pale. Crake felt a stir of anger on her behalf. How dare he intimidate a young woman like that?

He swept away from her, holding up the device. ‘As you may be aware, there’s a civil war on. All of Pandraca’s interested in how this plays out. Yorts, Sammies and Thacians; everyone wants to know which way the wind’s blowing. And their spies are everywhere.’ He turned back to the crew and ran his gaze across each of them. Crake felt a shiver as it passed over him.

‘A few days ago we captured one of those spies. His name was Bargo Ocken.’

Ashua couldn’t keep her reaction off her face. Crake noticed it. So did Drave.

‘We found a device exactly like this on him,’ Drave continued. ‘It’s a signalling device. Little bit of daemonist know-how. Works like an electroheliograph, except you don’t have to be within sight. You press this stud,’ he raised a finger to demonstrate, but didn’t press, ‘and a light comes on in the other boxes that are linked to it. You’ll note, Miss Vode, that I said boxes. Plural. Ocken wasn’t the only one receiving your messages.’

Crake, with a sinking feeling, began to understand. The others were looking at Ashua now, puzzlement and dawning disbelief on their faces. She kept her gaze fixed on Drave. It must have been easier to meet her accuser’s eyes than her friends’.

‘Do you understand me now, Miss Bree?’ said Drave, turning back to Samandra. ‘These scum you’ve been vouching for are traitors. Whatever they have to say is a lie. They’ve been feeding information to the Samarlans the whole t-’

‘No!’ Ashua blurted. ‘It was the Thacians! Our allies! That’s who I was talking to! Ocken worked for the Thacians!’

Drave gave her a long, slow stare. Then, as if speaking to a child, he said: ‘Is that what he told you?’

The realisation of what she’d done took all the strength out of her, and she staggered. Crake caught her by instinct, and bore her up before she could fall. She met his eyes, and there was confusion and terror in them, and suddenly she was just a scared young woman instead of the tough street-rat that they all knew.

But Crake’s heart had gone hard, and he let her go quickly and stepped back. Had the Ashua he’d known been a lie all along? Was she manipulating them even now? He could hardly believe it, and yet here she was, caught red-handed, a traitor.

She saw what was in his eyes and retreated from him, but there was nowhere to go. She was surrounded by the accusing gazes of the crew, all of them asking the same question. Did you do it? Did you really?

‘It was the Thacians!’ she insisted, desperation making her voice thin.

‘You’re a liar,’ said Drave. ‘Bargo Ocken works for a spyhunter called Jakeley Screed, and he works for the Sammies. You’ve been sending them highly sensitive information. I hope they paid you well, Miss Vode. You won’t live to enjoy it.’ He waved at the troops. ‘They’re all traitors and spies and enemies of the Coalition. Take them to the cells.’

‘Oi! Not us! It’s nothing to do with us!’ Malvery bellowed, and suddenly everyone was pushing and shoving as the soldiers weighed in. Crake felt himself seized, his arm twisted painfully behind his back. He struggled, but cold iron was clamped on his wrist and he was cuffed. Someone barged into him and he got a smack on the nose from the side of their head. Stars blazed in front of his eyes.

This couldn’t be right, he thought, dazed. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. They’d done the right thing: they’d gone to the authorities. Crake had practically made Frey go to the authorities. He’d always had faith in order and reason. Where was the order and reason in this?

They simply didn’t have all the facts. That was the problem. He just had to make them understand, and all of this would be cleared up.

‘Wait!’ he cried over the tussle. ‘Wait! We have to tell you what we found! The Awakeners are on their way! They’re going to destroy the fleet!’

Drave held up the box. ‘I’ve already heard all you have to say, traitor,’ he said. ‘And I’m not interested.’

Crake was wrenched forward then, and he found himself being propelled away from the aircraft, caught up in a tide of people. Faces and bodies surged in the electric light; breath steamed in the chill night air.

‘I’ll straighten this all out!’ Bree shouted after him, an unfamiliar note of distress in her voice. ‘Don’t worry!’

Crake had no words worth saying back to her. He was shoved into position next to the Cap’n, who was handcuffed like he was, and the two of them were frogmarched towards the gate of the landing pad.

Frey threw him a filthy look. Crake turned away, ashamed.

Ashua sat against the wall of her cell, head hung and hugging her knees.

The lights were out, but nobody slept. She could hear the others shifting restlessly nearby, each in their own cells. They didn’t talk between themselves, and she knew why. They didn’t want to. Not while the traitor was listening.

The Samarlans. She’d been selling information to the Sammies all along. She wanted to feather her own nest because she didn’t trust the crew would hold together, and in doing so, she’d condemned them all to death.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

She needed to stay angry at herself. If she didn’t, she’d think of other things. She’d think about how it might feel like when her legs dropped away and the rope snapped tight around her neck. She’d think about whether the noose would kill her instantly or if she’d have time to feel what was happening to her. Would her brain keep working, trapped there inside a skull attached to a useless body, filling her last instants with inconceivable horror?

She punched herself in the arm, hard. It was already bruised.

Jakeley Screed. That son of a bitch. He’d played her. And she’d fallen for it.

It was all so painfully simple. Dager Toyle, the man who’d originally employed her in Shasiith, was a Thacian spy. Screed had killed him and begun exterminating his network. Ashua thought she’d escaped, but she’d only bought herself some time. Screed had found her in the end, and when he did, he had a better use for her than just taking her out. She was in Vardia now, on the Ketty Jay, whose crew had acquired something of a reputation for mixing it up with the big players. Handily placed to feed the Sammies good information. So he sent Ocken to pose as one of Toyle’s men, come to renew an old arrangement. He let Ashua believe he was dead, that it was safe again. And she, her eyes gleaming at the thought of all that money, never questioned it for a moment.

It wasn’t her fault. She’d been tricked. She never meant the crew to be blamed for it. She’d never meant for them to find out.

Will you listen to yourself?

She punched herself in the same spot. The pain was enough to stop her breath for a moment. But she had to keep doing it, otherwise she might remember the expression on Malvery’s face. The way he’d looked at her, the betrayal in his eyes. Or she might remember Crake, who could hardly bear to touch her. She’d remember the resentful glare the Cap’n gave her as he passed, reminding her whose fault it was that they were all getting arrested.

She sensed them out there, sitting in their cells in silence, because of her.

I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, she thought. But she couldn’t say it. Apologies didn’t mean shit in her world.

For a short while there, she’d felt like she had a family. But she’d been wrong. A few months didn’t make a family. They didn’t know her at all. Not well enough to understand why she did what she did. And they’d never trust her again. Because accidentally or not, she’d been spying for the Sammies. And, in the eyes of Malvery and Crake at least, there wasn’t much she could do that was lower than that.

She punched herself again. She’d hurt like a bastard tomorrow. But she wouldn’t hurt for long.