“WE BOTH KNOW the hard facts, First Commander,” said Niranthe Charossa. “The storerooms are almost empty.”
In the days of the God-Empress, every morning had brought new ships laden with food and luxuries from every corner of her territory. Now, under Belthandros Sethennai’s rule, there were no ships, and no shipments. Thousands of people were trapped inside the Citadel. Citizens and soldiers and prisoners were all in the same boat. Cherenthisse did not need Niranthe to tell her that the Citadel would wither like a severed limb as soon as they reached the end of what they had.
“The rice will last us a few weeks, at least,” said Niranthe’s son, peering into a barrel with desperate optimism. “If we implement the new rationing system—”
Niranthos Charossa had great faith in his new rationing system. At least it kept him occupied.
“How many ships do you have, First Commander?” said Niranthe, softly, ignoring her son.
It was the first time anyone had dared to ask Cherenthisse directly about this. The word evacuation was not spoken among the Thousand Eyes. All of them had once faced the same choice that Cherenthisse had offered to Thalarisse. All of them had chosen life and suffering and service.
“To abandon the Lignite Citadel would be to turn our backs on all that we stand for,” said Cherenthisse.
“But even you must understand we cannot live on zeal alone,” said Niranthe. Her voice and expression did not change, still as soft and polite as ever. “Our people need food. We are under siege by our own Chancellor.”
“Our people?” said Cherenthisse.
“First Commander, if you would like to start drawing distinctions: your people blighted my homeland, your people destroyed our city, your people have served as willing and enthusiastic limbs of the tyrant for this past decade and more. But I feel it is more generous not to cling to past faults.”
“Well,” said Cherenthisse. “It isn’t the same. You don’t understand. We are the hope of the empire now.”
Niranthe did not argue back. She simply shrugged, and shuffled on round the storeroom, following her son. Niranthos seemed to grow more irritable and despondent with every empty barrel and disappointing crate. His mother only nodded, making notes on a paper tablet.
“Tell me about Echentyr,” said Niranthe Charossa, when Cherenthisse caught up to them.
“What do you wish to know?” said Cherenthisse coldly. She respected Niranthe, but she was suspicious of her motives.
“We all suffer in its name,” said Niranthe. “And none of us have seen it.”
It was painful to remember Echentyr, not only because of the longing, but because every time she conjured it up, she suspected its memory grew fainter. With reluctance, and then without, Cherenthisse talked. About the hatchery, the death of her first vessel, her promotions, her pride and pleasure at being assigned to the bodyguard of the Most High Atharaisse. About the woods on her estate, about hunting there and eating what she caught. About the beauty and majesty of the great city, the festivals that were held there, the triumphal processions. About the clutches of eggs she had borne and sired.
“You have children?” said Niranthe, as if this surprised her very much.
“No,” said Cherenthisse. Mortals were so wrapped up in their own concerns. “I never met any of my hatchlings. No doubt they are all dead now.”
“I suppose these things are different among your people,” said Niranthe. She seemed to be trying to control some kind of emotion which Cherenthisse could not identify.
“It was a duty I was glad to perform,” said Cherenthisse, unaccountably defensive. “Our population must be replenished from time to time.”
“And you were happy there?”
“I worked hard, and I was rewarded,” said Cherenthisse, but even she knew it was not quite the same thing. “The Lady of the Thousand Eyes watched over those who honoured her.”
“And yet she killed your world,” said Niranthe, quite mildly, not at all as if she meant to speak a terrible blasphemy. She weighed a clay bottle of olive oil in one hand and marked off another check on her tablet. “Have you seen Echentyr in its ruin?”
“Well…” said Cherenthisse. “No. I have not. But none of us have.”
Niranthe moved down the shelf of provisions, and Cherenthisse found herself hanging on what she might say next. Niranthe only sniffed a crate and wrinkled her nose.
“Tch. Spoiled,” she said. “Yes. I quite see that the God-Empress preferred to keep that from you. She saw herself as Iriskavaal’s true successor, and what price your loyalty undimmed when all your friends have been disintegrated and the streets are full of their ashes?”
“Echentyr was Iriskavaal’s to destroy,” said Cherenthisse, as she had told herself many times over the years. She had the strange sense that she was pushing furniture in front of a door, trying to shut out whatever was beating at it.
“No doubt,” said Niranthe. “My brother Olthaaros believed the same thing of Tlaanthothe, and so, perhaps, did all Chancellors in history, that a city and its people can be owned and put aside. I have seen where such things end. I admired Sethennai once, believed he might fulfil our hopes. I see him now for what he is. A god, perhaps, but god or man, he will never give you back your home. His only purpose is expansion. He admits it himself. You have seen the way the city is spreading.”
Sethennai’s devastation was contagious. Cherenthisse had heard the reports. Pockets of shining city stuff would crop up miles from the frontier, and they too would spread: a single tower would sprout in the depths of the desert where nobody had ever lived, and within weeks or months, it would be surrounded by a cluster of hollow palaces, colonnades that led nowhere, dry gardens of stone.
“When his earthly mansion covers all the world, even then he will not be satisfied,” said Niranthe. “And my people will be dead: Niranthos and I, and all that is left of my family, and all that is left of Tlaanthothe. Without its people, a city is nothing. You know what it is for a world to die, Cherenthisse. Would you wish it on us?”
Years ago, Cherenthisse would have laughed at the audacity of mortals, to compare the end of one insignificant city with the fall of Echentyr. And yet—
“I will stand with the Thousand Eyes as long as I can stand,” said Cherenthisse. “But there is no need to keep your people here to starve. Perhaps there are civilian ships—”
“First Commander, you know as well as I do that there are not.”
Belthandros Sethennai’s accession to the throne had announced itself with a flare of divine energy that had destroyed almost every alchemical engine within the bounds of the Citadel. Even the Thousand Eyes’ fleet had not been spared. Its wreckage was smeared across the desert, engulfed by Sethennai’s monstrous city. There was a small frigate which guarded the nearest Gate, and a few surviving war-darts were abroad, scouring distant worlds for any sign of Sethennai’s offspring. But—
“The Blessed Awakening is still skyworthy,” said Cherenthisse, before she could think of a reason to stop herself. “The God-Emperor might spare it. You might speak to him.”
Niranthe’s smile did nothing to veil the bleakness in her expression.
“I have bargained with him before,” she said. “I have nothing more to offer him. But if it came from you, First Commander—you are his highest officer, his most trusted confidant—he might listen.”
Nothing about Sethennai’s presence made Cherenthisse feel like she was anybody’s high officer or trusted confidant. In fact she felt as though she were a hatchling again, no bigger than one of the low serpents of this world, brought before her tutors to be scolded.
Sethennai was sitting in the throne room, before his scrying-bowl. Cherenthisse had seen him consulting the bowl before, always frowning. Today it was half full of clear water, and he tore himself away from his reflection with reluctance.
“So Niranthe has got to you too, First Commander,” he said, with a curious satisfaction in his eyes that suggested this confirmed a theory. “That woman is too clever for her own good.”
Above him was a great window of coloured glass. The harsh sunlight turned its panes to jewels. Sapphire sky, emerald forest, opaline spires: a glazed image of Echentyr-That-Was.
“Well, no need to stand on ceremony, Cherenthisse,” he said. “Make your case.”
“Sir,” she said, already regretting that she’d agreed to help Niranthe. “I thought our resources would go further if the mortals were relocated,” she said. Not even a lie.
“And where would you send them?” he said. His tone was almost warm, appallingly magnanimous. Cherenthisse blinked, her features relaxing against her will, like wax before a flame. “To die in the Maze?” he went on. “To starve in the desert?”
“They’ll starve here, sir,” she said, closing herself off to his charisma. It was a sham, just as much as the rest of him.
“I understand,” he said. “But I would not send my people away. When my position is secure, the mortals will be attended to.”
“Your position, sir?”
“Zinandour has killed all my envoys and destroyed their war-darts. If she only meant to stay away, I would leave her in peace, but she has set herself against me. And worse, your people have been unable to recover my child from wherever they have hidden themselves. While Tsereg is at large, I cannot lower my vigilance.”
“We are still searching, sir,” said Cherenthisse. “We will not rest until—”
“Until Tsereg returns of their own accord, I suppose,” said Belthandros. “As they eventually must. We are of the same substance. Like summons like. Rivers return to the sea. Children see their parents into the grave, one way or another.”
He rose from his chair and paced beneath the window. The embroidered border of his robe rippled at his heels. Cherenthisse held themselves very upright, prepared for a long audience.
“Tsereg will come back to us, whether they settle on alliance or annihilation. Either way, we must be ready to meet them. I cannot afford to underestimate—”
It was at this point that a small mazeship crashed into Belthandros’ picture window.
The nine-foot wall of coloured glass shattered, and with it some other frosted pane in the back of Cherenthisse’s mind. She saw the single instant of utter bewilderment on Belthandros’ face, and despite herself she laughed, as if it was the first thing she had enjoyed in years.
The security mesh zapped and sizzled, scorching the hull of the little ship with carbonised spirals, and then wisped into nothing like condensation wiped off a window.
“Well,” said Belthandros, and the ship caught fire.
The main hatch cracked open, and out of the burning ship stepped the child Tsereg, crackling with power. Their nose was bleeding, and there was a long scrape down the side of their face. Their eyes sparked a mixture of terror and defiance, and then both died down, replaced with a smooth, unfrightened calculation.
“Hello,” said Tsereg.
Belthandros made a gesture, and the fire immediately smothered itself. “Ah, Tsereg,” he said. “How nice of you to visit.”
“I know you’re looking for me,” said Tsereg. “And I’m here to—”
Out of the scorched interior of the ship stumbled an unfamiliar Tlaanthothei man. He was bent double, clutching a wound in his shoulder which fountained scarlet blood down the front of his shirt. His face was bloody too, and he looked battered, as though he’d been shaken around in a barrel.
“And Talasseres is here too, I see,” said Belthandros. Cherenthisse hadn’t recognised him at first; hard to draw a connection between this person and the petulant boy she had met all those years ago.
“Tsereg, stop—” said Talasseres, feeling his way down as though his vision was murky, and reaching for Tsereg’s shoulder. “You don’t have to—”
There was a cold flash of anticipatory horror as they realised what was about to happen. Tsereg flicked out one hand, there was a quicksilver flash, and Talasseres was thrown bodily into the air and slammed against the nearest wall.
“Attend to him, Cherenthisse,” said Belthandros, not looking round.
She obeyed. He was unconscious but didn’t have any obvious bones broken. She set about binding the wound on his chest first.
Meanwhile, Tsereg hadn’t moved. Their face was set, the huge orange eyes fixed on Belthandros.
“You were saying?” he said.
“I’m here to work for you,” said Tsereg. They gave Cherenthisse a vague, imperious wave. “Like her.”
Belthandros rested his chin on his hand, stroking his beard with his thumb.
“This is quite a change of heart,” he said.
“You would’ve caught me eventually,” said Tsereg, sticking their chin out in defiance. “Too many snakes.”
“And quite a risk for you,” said Belthandros. “Why shouldn’t I kill you?”
Tsereg shrugged. “Why would you kill me?” they said. “I’m a part of you, aren’t I?”
Belthandros put his head on one side, observing them. Cherenthisse could almost see the wheels whirring.
“If you think I’m incapable of destroying the parts of myself which do not serve my purposes, you have been misinformed,” he said.
“No,” said Tsereg. They glanced over at Talasseres, and Cherenthisse saw a tremor of uncertainty ripple across their face before it settled back to still indifference. “I know what that’s like. But I could serve your purposes.”
“Could you?” said Belthandros. Cherenthisse wondered whether the reluctant interest in his voice was real or rhetorical.
“I want to work for you,” said Tsereg. “I want to learn. Nobody else can teach me what I want to know. There’s nobody else like me.”
“That much is certainly true,” said Belthandros. “Although—”
“I mean it,” said Tsereg. “You have no idea. Finding out that I am who I am, it was such a relief. Tal couldn’t handle knowing. That’s why he took me away.”
Belthandros composed his features into an image of regret. “Yes, that’s why he left me the first time, too.”
A flutter of uncertainty from Tsereg which Cherenthisse did not completely understand.
“Yeah. He wouldn’t let me go, that’s why I had to steal the ship,” said Tsereg. They sighed and brushed stray curls out of their face. “I guess he wanted to look after me. He didn’t understand that I’m not interested in being mortal anymore.”
“He wouldn’t,” said Belthandros.
“Really not,” said Tsereg. “I’m not interested in…” They rolled their eyes and shrugged, clearly embarrassed even to phrase it. “I don’t know, having a parent or whatever. He didn’t get that. So you don’t have to worry that I’m going to be weird about it.”
“Always a relief,” said Belthandros. “But—”
“You don’t trust me,” said Tsereg. “But I could be useful. I promise. I’m really smart. I’ve never met anyone as smart as me.”
This won a faint sleepy smile. Belthandros looked almost normal again. “That being said, I really don’t trust you, I’m afraid,” he said. “For your safety it would be wise not to make any sudden moves.”
“Yeah, obviously,” said Tsereg, though it seemed it was their turn to recalculate. “Obviously. I wouldn’t trust me, either. That’s why I brought Tal.”
Talasseres stirred, as if he recognised his name, and at a nod from Belthandros, Cherenthisse began to bind his wrists.
“A hostage, I see. I suppose you expect me to throw him in a cell as a guarantee of your good behaviour,” said Belthandros.
“Yeah, I do know what a hostage is,” said Tsereg. “That’s the idea.”
“I thought you were the smartest person you’d ever met,” he said.
“What?” said Tsereg again. Again the flicker of uncertainty. Belthandros’ expression was as closed and grim as Cherenthisse had ever seen it. “That’s not—”
“You seem to want me to take you seriously,” said Belthandros. “So you need to make a choice.”
“Yeah?” said Tsereg. There was more than one crack in their defiance now.
“You seem to enjoy short sentences, so here are some more. Talasseres has already betrayed me twice. I am not stupid. If you want to work at my side, kill him.”
Talasseres’ eyes snapped open in alarm. Tsereg just stood there. They reached out a hand, almost vaguely. Their eyes were fixed on Belthandros. They didn’t look at Talasseres. He twisted in Cherenthisse’s arms, trying to sit up, bleary but clearly conscious.
“Tsereg,” he said, “it’s fine—”
“Tal, if you finish that fucking sentence, I might just kill you,” they said.
Their shoulders slumped back into the usual slouch. They hadn’t taken their eyes off Belthandros.
“All right, fine, you got me, hope you’re proud of yourself,” they said. “I was actually kind of interested to see what you were like, and I know this is probably your line, but hey: congrats on being a huge disappointment.”
Belthandros put his head on one side, his bright eyes fixed on Tsereg. “Oh, no, I’m impressed,” he said, and he smiled down as if he really meant it. “And also, I’m sorry.”
He raised a hand. A wound opened in the skin of the world, torn wider as many pincered legs reached through. This cage of jointed chitin closed around Tsereg without giving them a chance even to scream, and pulled them through. The tear healed up at once with a hiss, leaving a smell of hot metal, and not even a shadow where Tsereg had been.
Belthandros sighed, as though all this had cost him no small effort.
“Well, Cherenthisse, you’d better prepare the aerial vault for a guest. I’ll deal with Tal.”