Chapter III

Drift-Boat, Orbit

In the morning, she wondered whether it had been a dream. The face at the entrance to her cell was Ghairen’s: still smiling, still concerned. She watched him warily, trying not to let her confusion show.

“Alivet? Did you sleep well? Was the cell comfortable?”

“Well enough. I didn’t wake in the night.”

“That’s good,” Ghairen said, blandly. “I’ll let you freshen up and then we must have you decontaminated.”

The decontamination room lay close to the dormitory, but it took some time for Ghairen to make his preparations. Perched uncomfortably on a narrow bench, Alivet watched as the Poison Master ransacked racks of vials. She had protested in vain. Ghairen had been adamant that she would be unable to set foot on Hathes without these measures. He had asked her to remove her skirts and shirt, but Alivet had flatly refused. The memory of Ghairen’s hands, and the occasional glitter in his eyes when he looked at her, would have been enough to make her unsettled, even without possibility of the poisoning. She felt as though she was in the hands of some sinister uncle. Yet there had been that moment of late-night confusion when she had mistaken Iraguila for Ghairen, the sudden rush of heat at the thought of his presence … Alivet made a resolute decision to ignore these inconsistencies.

She said, “You’re not going to examine me, are you? You have access to my tongue and the skin of my hands—that’s usually enough to administer a potion.”

“Normally, you see, you’d have been inoculated against all these things when you were a child, but as you’re an offworlder, we’ll just have to start from scratch.”

“What side effects can I expect?”

“Oh, a few, probably. Shouldn’t be worse than the occasional rash, or double vision. Let me know if you start getting any peculiar symptoms and I’ll see what I can do. I’ll give you the basics now. Ready?”

Reluctantly, Alivet held out her arm. Wait, she told herself. Do nothing yet.

“Now this is a general antivenin, good against orope, perganum hamala, hoama and mang. Very comprehensive. Grit your teeth.” Alivet felt a slight stinging sensation in her wrist. “Good girl.” He touched the line of her jaw, impersonally gentle. Alivet raised her chin and Ghairen dabbed something cool at the base of her throat. “Es-asa. Once it penetrates the blood stream, it’ll reduce the effect of some of the major alkaloids.”

But not, presumably, the ones that mattered.

“How many antidotes have you taken, Ghairen? How many does a Fifth Level master need?”

“My dear young lady, I am positively awash with all manner of substances. I have been given fatal doses of poison some nine times. Or is it ten? No, I’m sure nine is correct. As you see, I am still here. I would estimate that I’ve had something in the region of a hundred and seventy major protectives, and many more minor ones. But don’t worry. It’s not so likely that anyone would try to poison you. Once we’ve reached home, that is. I have every confidence that we won’t see you lying on the autopsist’s slab when our week is up.”

Alivet said nothing. She was taking careful note of the substances used by Ghairen. Still with that gentle touch, the Poison Master lifted up her plait of hair. She felt a needle at the base of her neck. She pulled away.

“What are you doing now?”

“Just a final precaution against thrope. You never know. The spores get everywhere these days …” His hand brushed her plait. “You have lovely hair, Alivet. As black as a night-dove’s wing, as we say on Hathes.”

“Get on with it.” If he began complimenting her, Alivet felt, she would only weaken, and she felt compromised enough already.

“All done.” Ghairen stepped back, his head on one side. “We’d better find you some more suitable attire. You can’t go around in those skimpy garments.”

Thus far, the Poison Master had hardly seemed prudish. “What do you mean—skimpy? I’m covered from my neck to my boots.”

“Nonsense. You have only two layers of skirts—and what are you wearing under that blouse? A shift? You might as well be naked. It’s a matter of practicality, not morality. If you brush up against someone, or take an accidental spray hit, the results could be nasty. After all, you’re not fully inoculated yet.”

“Are you saying I need protective clothes?”

The Poison Master beamed at her. “Of course, but nothing too prosaic, don’t worry. They will be the height of fashion. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get you here, Alivet. I’ve no intention of losing you now. Besides, it would be a sad thing for such a charming young lady to meet a painful end if she didn’t have to.”

Everything Ghairen said to her now seemed to contain a threat, wrapped in layers of meaning. He went to a tube on the wall and murmured into it. Alivet heard the sibilant syllables of what was presumably his own language.

“We’re very close to Hathes. The drift-boat will dock at the landing site—no more portals, this time. I’ve asked the journey-master to get you some clothes. I myself will check the garments thoroughly for toxins. I took the liberty of ordering black and red. I thought it would go with your hair.”

“It’ll do.” The colour of her clothes was the least of her worries, Alivet thought, but it was not lost on her that in that case, she would match Ghairen. Did he see her as some kind of accessory, perhaps? She felt her lips tighten.

“We’ll head straight to the laboratory. I’m sure you understand the need to begin work. I’ll arrange for you to have something to eat when we get there.”

“I can eat on Hathes, can I? I won’t drop dead at the first mouthful?”

Ghairen considered this. “Not unless you’re very unfortunate. But my home—the Atoront tower—is quite secure. Here are your clothes.”

Taking them from a person at the door, he carried the bundle across the room. “A fumigation and a check, and then I’ll let you get dressed.”

Alivet watched as he performed various tests: dusting the heavy skirts with a powder and placing a drop of luminous blue fluid upon the hem. Then, handing her the clothes, he turned his back. Alivet examined the garments, trying to make sense of them. The clothes seemed complicated: a mass of buckles and straps, and she couldn’t see how they fitted. Eventually, she worked it out and found that she was dressed in a high-necked, puff-shouldered blouse with many hooks and buttons, and long looped skirts that reached her ankles, all made from some stiff glazed fabric.

The skirts hobbled her and the blouse was tight. She felt constrained and constricted and wondered whether Ghairen had chosen such restrictive garments deliberately. His treatment of her seemed fraught with subtle humiliations, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking for help. Did all the women of Hathes go around trussed like a festival hen? Then she remembered Iraguila Ust; it would seem that they did. She fastened the last buckle and said with some apprehension, “I’m ready.” She did not want to look a fool in front of him.

Ghairen’s mouth twitched slightly when he turned around, but he said nothing. He tweaked two of the buckles, and adjusted her collar. Alivet tried not to flinch.

Under the circumstances, she would never have admitted to Ghairen that she was entranced with the prospect of seeing another world. Like most people, she had seen relatively few places even on Latent Emanation and the prospect of experiencing a different planet, even with the threat of such dire consequences, was enthralling. The dreams of the eight-year old Alivet, of flight and freedom, returned to haunt her.

She accompanied Ghairen back to the alcove chamber, where other passengers were meshing themselves in.

“How long before we dock?”

“Soon.”

The drift-boat hummed beneath her feet and the whirr of distant engines grew louder. The mesh grew tight against her waist and she felt a pressure behind her eyes. The drift-boat shuddered once and then was still.

“We’re here,” Ghairen said, rising from his seat. With the Poison Master, Alivet joined the queue of passengers filing along the corridor and passed out through a sequence of doors. She looked about her with interest as they left the drift-boat. Here were metal corridors: strange, glistening architecture like spun glass. The floor was pale and polished, disquietingly similar to the texture of Ghairen’s skin. Alivet paused to run her palm over it; it was cool and smooth, like Ghairen’s impersonal hands. She wondered whether the people of Hathes made their world in their own image and if so, what it would be like outside. There were, however, no windows.

As if he had caught her thought, Ghairen said over his shoulder, “This is the landing tower. We’ll be coming to one of the land bridges soon. That’ll give you a better view of the city and the boat.”

“What’s the city called?”

“The oldest name for it is Ukesh, though it is sometimes known as Mothlem,” Ghairen said. “Freezing in winter, hot in summer—though it must be said that summer is short. We’re on the edge of the arid lands, so there’s always a wind, but you won’t be going outside.”

“Why not?”

But Ghairen did not seem to hear her. He led her down a gallery that overlooked a hall. Alivet looked down past pillars of crimson glass to see a throng of people below, moving across a patterned black floor. From this height, they looked no larger than insects. Alivet’s head spun and she stepped back quickly. Ghairen’s hand steadied her. Alivet did not pull away.

The gallery led to a platform, reached by a flight of steps. The platform itself appeared translucent, as though a solidified section of the air hung above her head. It reminded her of the Night Palace and indeed, the landing tower was built on the same inhuman scale. Once again, Alivet could not help wondering how much of their technology the people of Hathes had inherited, or stolen, from the Lords. Or could there be other species like the Lords? That was yet another disquieting thought.

“It’s quite safe,” Ghairen said. “There’s no way you can fall.”

Nervously, Alivet followed him up the stairs, then forgot to be afraid. The platform overlooked a series of immense windows, each reaching hundreds of feet high. From here, a plain made jagged with rocks vanished into the shimmering distance. She saw a boiling red sun hanging low on the horizon, set in a sea of cloud, and the light was caught and reflected by a ziggurat towering up into the sky. As Alivet gazed, the sun dropped behind a bank of cloud and the gleaming walls of the ziggurat dimmed as though a light had been switched off. Alivet saw groves and forests inside the ziggurat, a plume of white water cascading from the heights.

“What is that?” she whispered, and Ghairen replied,

“It’s called Athes-efra. In your language—I suppose ‘parc-­verticale’ is the closest translation.”

“It’s a park?”

“Park, sanctuary, and alchematorium. Most of all, it is a poison garden. It’s where the botanical components of our most valuable toxins are grown, though refining and distillation are conducted elsewhere. I have—” Ghairen gave a modest cough “—a small garden of my own, as I will show you if we have time. But there is more to see here.”

On the other side of the platform, a spine of glass extended into a second gallery. Alivet stepped onto it and glanced down. The ground lay far below; she felt as though she had ventured out into empty air. In a dizzying moment she saw a sweep of rock: twisted black pinnacles as tiny as spent matches. Ghairen had already reached the far end of the gallery. Alivet gritted her teeth and followed. The floor was slippery, coated with a gliding fluid. Now, it was as though she walked on water rather than air. Alivet moved with care, imagining herself falling, the glass shattering so that she flew down to the rocks below. Ahead, Ghairen’s footsteps were light and soundless; he stepped forwards like a tightrope walker she had once seen at the World’s End Fair. He waited for her to catch up.

“There,” he said, pointing. “That is Ukesh.”

Alivet looked out across a sea of spires that reached to the horizon. The base of each spire was broad, perhaps a half mile in width: from the foundation, the towers twisted up into the heavens like spirals of dark sugar-candy. Between them lay plazas, edged with trees as sharp as the shadows of needles.

“Hathanassi cypress,” Ghairen said, following her gaze. “Little else will grow outside.”

At first Alivet thought that roads snaked between the towers, but with a silver flash from the last of the sun she realised that they were canals.

“Each tower houses a clan,” the Poison Master informed her. “There—” he pointed to the nearest spiral “—is the home of the Weapon Makers. And in that tower, festooned with ignatonic tracery, live the Master Communicants. That one, etched with sigils, is the tower of the Linguists, who collect and analyse every known tongue. And over there, you can see my home: Sehur, also called the Atoront tower. It is the Tower of the Poison Clans, in which I was born and raised. In that tower is my alchematorium.” He turned and pointed in the opposite direction. “And there is the boat on which we arrived.”

The drift-boat, tethered above a platform, was like a collection of jade and black shells, a cluster of ammonites sliding unnaturally upon the winds. Clouds slipped past its sides. The umbilical that connected it to the platform—presumably the passage down which they had come—seemed too fragile to moor such a monster to the world. It was nothing like the boat that she had seen during the Search. It was like nothing she had ever seen.

“Impressed?” Ghairen asked, softly.

Alivet did not reply, embarrassed at feeling overwhelmed. She followed Ghairen back along the glass spur and down into the depths of what must surely be yet another tower. They crossed the vast hallway and went down through a series of passages. Here, staircases glided back and forth into a chasm.

“We’ll take the next boat,” Ghairen said over his shoulder. “Not so scenic as the vaporetter, perhaps, but quicker.”

Alivet peered past him and saw a gleam in the darkness below. After a long descent, they stepped out onto an obsidian dock.

“Watch your footing,” Ghairen warned. He reached out and took her hand, tucking it firmly into the crook of his arm so that her hand was trapped against his side. “You don’t want to slip,” he murmured.

Now that she was able to see more clearly, Alivet realised that the substance glistening below the dock was not water but metal: something mercurial and quick, that glided and swelled around the hull of a long covered barge. “We have very little water on Hathes,” said Ghairen. “We use what is available to us, but much of it is conserved for the plants in the parc-verticale. As one of the sources of our livelihood, they are precious.”

“So what’s in the canal?” She did not think it was mercury: this liquid flowed rather than moving in quicksilver droplets.

“A liquid called aqua-vistra. All the canals are based on a system of spirals; the boat has no propulsion mechanism. Instead, the pilot simply unchains the craft and away it goes on the current. A simple mode of transport, but quick and effective.”

The thin note of a siren sounded throughout the docking area and Ghairen helped Alivet down the steps into the barge. “The boat is covered, but you’ll be able to see out.”

Stumbling over her heavy skirts, Alivet took a seat near the front of the barge. Gradually, the craft filled up: the now-familiar men in their neat dark robes; women dressed like herself in long skirts and concealing blouses, some with tight hoods drawn up over their hair. For the first time, Alivet saw a child, solemn and saucer eyed, clinging to the hand of a wizened old man. Everyone assembled without fuss and in silence. Their gazes slid over Alivet and away. Their expressions did not change, but she was certain that she had been observed and noted by everyone.

When all the seats were filled, the siren sounded once more, mournful as a bird upon the marsh, and a heavy chain slipped down the side of the barge into the canal. The barge sailed out into the stream, gliding through great double doors that opened onto twilight. Alivet looked back as the barge was whisked through and saw a tower rising behind her, bathed in ruby light. The sun had gone, clouds massed on the western horizon, and she saw the glow of lamps in the passing towers. Alivet wondered once more about the origins of these people. Ukesh was like a forest of unnatural glass trees, leafless and blasted by the storm. She found herself longing for Latent Emanation: for crumbling wooden houses and the familiar, human odours of marsh and city. She turned her face from the great towers. Ari Ghairen touched her hand. Alivet jerked it away and rammed her fists into her pockets.

Darkness fell swiftly across the world. Alivet began to doze, lulled by the rocking motion of the boat. She awoke with a start as the barge knocked against a wharf. People were leaving: the old man with the child, several rustling, whispering women. As the old man reached the steps, the child turned and stared back at Alivet with a sombre, considering gaze. The old man tugged at its hand. It climbed the steps, still looking back. Ghairen smiled.

“Curious, as always. Do you wish for children, Alivet?”

“One day, yes,” Alivet replied shortly. When I’ve got free of you and rescued my sister. And the Night Lords are gone from my world and gold falls from the sky. The thought was self-pitying and it disgusted Alivet.

“Well, you’re young yet,” Ghairen remarked, indulgently. “I myself have three daughters.”

Alivet stared at him. “You have children?” Ghairen still seemed so exotic a being that the notion of him having a family had never occurred to her. Nor had the possibility of a wife. Alivet felt herself grow small with sudden dismay. A voice inside her head said coldly: You are a fool. He has poisoned you, perhaps. He cannot be trusted. And another, less certain voice answered: I know. And yet …

“Indeed. One by my first wife, and the other two by—other people. The oldest is thirteen, the youngest is three and the middle girl is eight. I’d ask you to meet them, but alas, they have to be kept safely secluded, away from my colleagues until they have been fully inoculated. The eldest is nearly at her final dosage, however—perhaps you can meet her.”

Alivet’s imagination conjured three pale doll-like girls, as similar as peas in a pod, each one slightly smaller than the last. She blinked.

“Will I meet their mothers?”

“Unlikely.”

What did that mean? That they were no longer around to be met, or that Alivet, as the hired help, was not in a position to be presented to the lady of the house? This was a fruitless line of inquiry, Alivet reminded herself with some sternness.

“Your daughters. Do they have ambitions to enter the poison trade?”

Ari Ghairen beamed at her. He seemed pleased that she was taking an interest. “My eldest girl, Celana, has more of an interest in music. The middle girl, Ryma, has already shown some aptitude with the substances: she poisoned her tutor last year. We were all very proud.”

“What! Did the tutor die?”

“No, no. He made a full recovery. It wasn’t done from malice, after all. Purely in the spirit of scientific enquiry. As you said, the goal of alchemical science is transformation.”

“Surely not from ‘alive’ to ‘dead’?”

Ghairen leaned across Alivet and gestured. “And there it is. The Atoront tower, home of the Poison Clans.” He rose to his feet and held out a hand to Alivet. Ignoring it, Alivet stepped past him towards the dock. The other passengers covertly watched her; she saw disquiet in a woman’s face, which swiftly schooled itself back to blandness as Ghairen turned. No one else was leaving the barge. Alivet and Ghairen climbed out onto an empty wharf. The barge glided away, borne quickly from sight on the current.

“You understand that there are procedures?” Ghairen asked. “We cannot simply stroll into the tower.” He drew her through a round door, embellished with stylised leaves and branches. The trumpet head of a metal lily nodded from the doorframe and delicate tendrils of bronze ivy entwined themselves around the lintel. “The tools of my trade, such plants,” Ghairen said, evidently noting the direction of Alivet’s gaze. “Indeed—of your own as well. I’m sure that you’ll find much to interest you here.”

The door rolled shut behind them, trapping them in a cylindrical walkway. The air was hot and humming, adding to Alivet’s unease. It made her feel drowsy. She smelled something sweet, a honey in the air, passing between her lips and melting soft as sugar on her tongue. A sudden astringent mist brought her wide awake. A silver bee zoomed out from the trumpet of the metal lily and settled in Alivet’s hair. She batted at it. Ghairen said quickly, “Don’t move. It’s only a decontaminant carrier.”

Alivet felt her scalp prickle and then the bee was gone.

“Are all your methodologies so whimsical?” she asked, crossly.

“The poison trade is a dark one, Alivet. We aim for beauty where we can.”

At the far end of the room, a second round door rolled open. Alivet followed Ghairen into a further chamber. This, too, sealed shut behind her and she was wrapped in darkness. Something was singing into her ear, faint and far away. There was an impression of many different voices, crowding in upon her. Her ears rang and a dim light appeared, glowing around her.

“Ghairen? What is it?” she asked.

“It’s a linguistic device. It will be a little while before it starts to work properly, so you may have difficulty understanding people at first. Now. Let’s go up into the tower.”

They passed through the round door into a passage. Like the boat, the walls were dark and silvered, but the air was cooler. Alivet and Ghairen climbed a staircase of wide, winding steps onto a high gallery. Alivet had a glimpse of a patterned floor far below and then the Poison Master was leading her through into an elevator.

“Where are we going?” Alivet asked.

“To show you your room, briefly, and then the alchematorium, if you’re ready to begin some preliminary preparations?” The question was polite, but Alivet did not think he was offering her a choice. And indeed, she was eager to get on with whatever she had to do. The quicker she investigated the alchematorium, the more swiftly she could find out how real the threat of poisoning might be.

Ghairen went on, “This part of the tower is my own, by the way. There’s no reason to fear anyone here.”

Only you, Alivet thought. The doors of the elevator opened out into a narrow hallway, lined with panels of bronze. Again Alivet’s reflection marched off into infinity, revealing many Alivets and many possibilities. But her reflection was blurred: a faceless spectre, enveloped in her skirts. Ghairen’s reflection floated beside her like a ghost. As she followed him down the hallway, her footsteps muffled by a soft moss-coloured carpet, she saw from the corner of her eye that one of the doors was open. An eye was peering through the crack. As Alivet whisked around, the door was hastily pulled shut.

“What was that?” Ghairen asked, frowning. He strode to the door and stepped through, drawing it shut behind him. Alivet could not see who was inside, but she could hear Ghairen’s voice raised in exasperation.

“Celana, why aren’t you in bed?”

A child, Alivet thought. Was this the one who had poisoned her tutor? Or was Celana the eldest girl? She resolved to give the invisible, mutinous Celana a wide berth, but the distraction gave her the chance to look around the hallway. She needed to get her bearings in case there was a chance of slipping out of here. The thought of passing back through those barriers and down to the dock was intimidating, but how else would she contact Iraguila Ust? Where was Ust to be found, anyway? She could hardly go wandering about the tower, querying strangers. She gazed around the hall, noting with slight surprise that the furniture was both elegant and comfortable. A tall jade jar stood on a lacquered cabinet; a nearby chair was padded with worn velvet cushions. It was bemusing to find herself essentially a captive in someone’s family home.

At this point Ghairen stopped remonstrating with his offspring and came back out into the hall. Alivet was glad to see that he appeared harassed.

“My eldest,” he explained. “If you ever have children, you must make certain that you nail them to their beds every evening, other­wise they’ll be up and about the moment you turn your back.”

“What about her mother?” Alivet asked, before she could stop herself. “Doesn’t she have any influence?”

“Her mother is dead,” Ghairen said. His back was turned, so that Alivet could not see his face, but his voice held no expression. She wondered if Ghairen’s had been the hand by which the woman had died, and if so, why.

“I’m sorry,” she said, taking refuge in commonplaces.

“To each his monster,” she thought she heard Ghairen say. The strangeness of the phrase took her aback. No wonder Celana seemed to present problems. Or were Ghairen’s mistresses the cause of that?

“Through here,” Ghairen said. He held open a door and Alivet passed into a narrow room. Windows occupied the whole of one wall. She could see the lights of Ukesh beyond, and then darkness. A bed was placed against one wall; there was a desk of dark wood, inlaid with gold wire, on which stood a jug and a bowl of fruit that were the colour of garnets. A frieze of metal leaves ran along the wall, coiling outwards. Ghairen touched a lamp and colours appeared: moss green, mahogany, chestnut. Forest colours, Alivet thought, strange in this world of black glass and mercuric silver. It occurred to her that this room might belong originally to one of Ghairen’s daughters: it had a lived-in quality. Or—macabre thought—was it the dead wife’s room? If that was the case, then its occupant could have no further use for it. It was far from being the cell that she had envisaged ever since she had learned of the poisoning. Ghairen was clearly taking pains to treat her as an honoured guest, but his courtesies unnerved Alivet almost more than anything else.

“I hope you’ll have everything you need,” Ghairen said. “If not, let me know. Are you hungry?”

Alivet shook her head. “Not yet. Ghairen, as you remarked—the clock is moving on. I don’t mind working at night. I do it often enough. Can I see the alchematorium?”

“Of course.”

They went back into the hallway to where a second elevator was situated. Ghairen stood between Alivet and the panel, so she could not see the display, but she could tell that they were moving upwards. She tried to count the floors, but it was difficult: one? two? Then the elevator slowed and the doors opened out onto another hallway, very different from the one upstairs: all black glass and burnished silver. She caught a whiff of something chemical and stinging as they stepped through the doors.

“Welcome to your workplace,” Ghairen said.

It took Alivet’s eyes a while to adjust to the darkness, then she saw that there were blinds covering the tall windows at the end of the room. Ghairen drifted down the alchematorium, flicking a hand at orb lamps, which began to glow. How did he do that? Alivet wondered. The lamps must be activated by physical presence. By their light she saw a low metal bench, arranged with instruments. An athanor furnace stood in the corner of the room, radiating residual heat. A tall container of fire-suppressant powder stood by the furnace; it was reassuring to see that Ghairen observed a few safety regulations, at least. Alembics and crucibles stood on racks, flanked by pelican vessels made of all kinds of glass: obsidian-dark, pearl-pale, configured in ridges and scales. Above, on a shelf, stood ash cupels and cementation boxes. To Alivet’s professional eye, the equipment looked first rate. Despite the circumstances, excitement rose within her at the thought of what she could accomplish in this laboratory. The air smelled pungent, like gunpowder: a familiar alchemical odour.

“Best to work in low light,” Ghairen said into her ear, making her jump. “The preparations seem to prefer it.”

“What am I to work on now?”

“I’ll show you.” Ghairen opened a cabinet and took out a rack containing a bowl. He carried it carefully across to Alivet. The bowl was filled with a black, crumbling substance, like resin. An acrid scent drifted upwards. Ghairen pointed to the resinous powder.

“This is a substance called tabernanthe. Since my anube contact’s demise, I’ve spent the last year testing all manner of carriers—regis, for example, and khairuvet—but tabernanthe seems to have most of the necessary properties as far as being a bearer for toxicity is concerned. But what I’m having trouble in ascertaining is its hallucinogenic qualities. Despite the solid appearance of the tabernanthe, for instance, it is subtle, unstable, mutable. Like many drugs, it does not entirely lie in this world, and it has a spirit, for want of a better word, that animates it.”

“All drugs have such a spirit. If you want to work with the animating force of this substance, you’ll have to get to know it. Talk to it, spend time with it, make it your ally.”

Ghairen smiled at her. “That’s where you come in.”

She wanted to tell him that such a process could take longer than anticipated, that if he wanted to be certain, he should wait until next year’s banquet and spend the time in preparation. But he seemed so reluctant to wait, and if Iraguila was to be believed, had already taken steps to eliminate Alivet from further equations. She said nothing.

“I don’t have the training to assess this part of its nature, or to converse with the drug.” She could hear the frustration in his voice. “But you—as an experienced apothecary—do. Watch.”

He lit a thin taper and drew the ensuing column of smoke across the bowl. Immediately, the tabernanthe wavered and shook, as though on the point of vanishing. Alivet frowned. It was as though she saw the substance through a haze of heat, but the warmth produced by the little taper would never have been enough to create such an effect.

“If it isn’t entirely in this world,” Alivet said. “Then where is it?”

Ghairen smiled. “It is between worlds. It shifts. Like the Lords themselves, it does not entirely belong to this dimension. It lies between the living language of dreams, and the dead language of waking. And so we must interpret and translate—except that I don’t have the skill.”

Alivet nodded. “You say it shifts. Just as our consciousness shifts during the Search. If this is true, then yes, it does have the qualities of a drug. Where did you get it from?”

“I purchased it—at great expense, I might add, so don’t waste it—from a colleague. Originally, it’s the sap of a plant that grows high in the mountains to the very far south of Hathes, almost at the upper reaches of the atmosphere. It is thus a rarefied substance, and it’s been treated so that it remains in this form at certain temperatures. It also responds very powerfully to light.”

“You said it was a carrier for a poison, not the poison itself.”

“That’s correct.”

“So what is the poison?”

“Light.”

“I don’t understand,” Alivet said.

“Describe the Lords to me, Alivet,” Ghairen said, as he had asked once before. “Describe their essence.”

Alivet thought for a moment, seeking the right words. “The Lords are dark. They keep to the shadows of their palaces.” She remembered the huge forms she had seen in the Palace of Night. “They seem made of shadow. They ban light from the surrounding area, allowing only enough for their human servants to work in.”

“Has anyone sought to attack them with light? With lamps, for instance, or by letting daylight into a palace?”

“Not to my knowledge. But I told you back in Shadow Town—I have never heard that light would harm them, just that they dislike it. I saw two of them in the hallway, there in the palace. They did not seem to shy away from the lamps. Although it’s true that the lamps were dim.”

She shivered, still thinking of the Palace of Night and her sister’s wan, wounded face.

“I see. And now describe your world.”

“But you’ve been there.”

“When you come from a place, Alivet, you take things for granted. You need to look at it with new eyes in order to consider things of importance. How does the light of Hathes differ from that of Latent Emanation, for instance?”

“Hathes is brighter,” Alivet said slowly. “The light here seems more direct, somehow.”

Ari Ghairen appeared pleased. “Exactly so. Latent Emanation—‘Yesech’ in my own language—is a twilight world. It is penumbral, as its name suggests. The Lords of Night prefer such places; they are creatures of darkness, after all. They come from a dark dimension.” Alivet opened her mouth to ask him how he knew this, but he held up a hand and went on, “They abhor light—not the ordinary kind, otherwise we could merely flood their palaces with it, torment them with lamps and fires—but a sort that can be ingested, that will act as a poison upon them. If I can find a way to force them to ingest this light, then perhaps we will be free of them.”

“What will it do? Kill them?”

“From the studies I have done, it could have a variety of effects. It might kill them, or change their form, or send them back where they come from. Any of those will serve our purposes. But the light needs a carrier, something that will allow it to work upon the Lords’ other-dimensional nature. Because the tabernanthe is itself inter-dimensional, and because of its reaction to luminescence, I have selected it as such a carrier.”

“Well, if it doesn’t work,” Alivet said, “You can surely do some more research and try something else.”

He turned on her, saying sharply, “No! It has to work, Alivet. This time, I—” He broke off, adding in a more conciliatory manner, “You must forgive me. I’m a little edgy.”

Was it the prospect of murdering her that was making him so uneasy, Alivet wondered. He was on his own admission a professional assassin. How far was he really capable of guilt?

“How much do you know about the Lords, Ghairen? How do you know where they come from? Do you know what they are?”

“My employers are the governing body of Hathes: the Soret.” There was a flicker in his eyes; Alivet, watching narrowly, wondered what it meant, but next moment his expression was once again unreadable. “They’ve been studying the Lords for some time—they know, for example, that the Lords were the ones who originally brought us to Hathes, thousands of years ago. At first, the Lords were benevolent, but over time they became corrupt. They were driven from Hathes and took refuge in their palaces on other worlds.”

“How were they driven out?”

“We don’t know. We had our own class of Unpriests then—a group which have since become a more chastened religious order. They fought to regain control, buildings were destroyed, records lost. It was a chaotic period.”

“So are you saying that the Lords haven’t always been evil?”

Ghairen grimaced. “I knew that talking about such things to you would open a floodgate of questions. I’ve told you all I know.” Unlikely, thought Alivet. He pointed to the bowl of taber­nanthe. “I want you to study that. Familiarise yourself with its structure. Conduct the same kinds of experiments that you would undergo with your fumes and psychotropics. I want you to find out the degree to which tabernanthe has hallucinogenic properties, whether its animating spirit can be persuaded to ally itself with us. And now I have duties to undertake.” His mouth turned down. Alivet wondered if the duties were related to his offspring’s discipline. “I’ll be back later this evening. Good luck.”

With a rustle of robes, he was gone, leaving Alivet to stare after him and wonder, not for the first time, whether the Poison Master was entirely in his right mind.

As the door closed behind him, she heard the hiss of the lock.

Many of the instruments in the alchematorium were unfamiliar, but Alivet found everything she needed in order to run preliminary tests, gathered together on a shelf. She made a quick inventory of alembics, crucibles, pestles and votrices. The equipment was of excellent quality and must have been expensive. Clearly, mad or not, Ghairen knew what he was about.

Then she searched the alchematorium, seeking any books or pamphlets that might contain information on the poisons that Ghairen employed, but could find nothing. There were no books. The cupboards were filled with equipment only. Alivet, standing in the middle of the alchematorium, dusted off her hands and resolved to do what she had always been accustomed to doing in times of crisis: to work. She could do nothing about the hovering fear with which Iraguila Ust’s pronouncements had imbued her, but threats of death would have to wait until she gathered more certain evidence.

She took a pinch of the tabernanthe, placed it in the alembic, and lit a burner. Then she watched as the resin began to bubble. The alchematorium began to fill with a fragrant smoke. Alivet poured a drop of the now-liquid substance into ten test tubes and reached for the pipettes. These contained the testing substances: first, the chemicals corresponding to the elements, and then the purifiers. Tested with sulphur, the tabernanthe shrank and smouldered. Rancid smoke drifted up from the test tube. When she introduced irachium, however, the tabernanthe expanded, coiling up the tube like a stroked cat. The test tube began to glow, then abruptly shattered. Alivet frowned. The next few tests yielded similarly extreme results. Two tubes melted over the workbench and a third crumbled into dust when Alivet’s back was turned. She made a note: tabernanthe responds with excessive force to standard elementals, particularly those that generate heat.

It was time to try some combinations. Over the course of the next hour, Alivet prepared, mixed and measured different fumes and alchemicals: combining ambergris and copper; myrrh and mercury; camphor, alum and sulphur. Alivet became so absorbed that she even forgot about her death sentence. The air of the alchematorium became thick and stifling. When Ari Ghairen next stepped through the door, he choked.

“I can tell you’ve been busy,” he said, coughing.

Alivet blinked through the fumes. “Close the door; you’ll disturb the balance.”

Rather to her surprise, Ghairen did as he was told.

“What have you found?” he inquired, coming to peer over her shoulder.

“This tabernanthe is a volatile substance, certainly. It’s not amenable to being mixed with other alchemicals—it has no ‘sister’, as we say. It likes heat, phosphorescence, luminescence—rather too much. It becomes explosive.” She gestured to the fragments of melted glass.

“How much have we got left?” Ghairen examined the bowl.

“I’ve been frugal,” Alivet told him.

“So you don’t think it would make a good carrier for latent light?”

“From what I’ve seen of its properties, it’s a reactive. So no, it would not make a good carrier as it is. It would need a stabiliser. But I’ve only been working on this for a couple of hours, Ghairen. I’d need to do more work on it before I decide for certain what it can, and cannot, do. I haven’t tested its psychotropic qualities, for instance. And I’d like to leave some of this material in the athanor over night to anneal and crystallise.” She suppressed a yawn, only then realising how tired she was.

“Very well.” Ghairen bestowed an encouraging smile upon her. “Make your preparations, then sleep. I’ll take you back to your room.”

He was, she thought, doing a thorough job of curtailing her movements, but now was not the time to protest. Under Ghairen’s silent supervision, she placed the remaining substances in the little round vessel called the Philosopher’s Egg, put that in the athanor and set it on a slow, steady heat, then cleaned the workbench. There was some comfort to be found in the order of routine. Her tasks completed, she accompanied Ghairen to the rooms below.

“Alivet. I hope you’ll sleep well. There’s food there if you want it.” He looked at her for an unfathomable moment, still with that slight and unsettling smile, and she thought of slow poison in her veins. She bit back frustration and anger, and something more that she was afraid to examine too closely. Then she bade him good night.

As soon as she heard the snick of the lock behind him, she ran to the window and looked out. The windows were sealed shut. When she craned her neck and looked down, she saw the gleam of silver a thousand feet below. The sheer glass wall of the tower raced away beneath the window. To her right, a metal spine like a dragon’s back climbed upwards from the ground, but between it and the window, the wall was featureless. Frustrated, Alivet explored the room thoroughly, but could find no other exit.

Instead, she turned her attention to the fruit that sat in a bowl on a low table. She did not like to think what it might contain, but she had eaten nothing all day, so she picked up one of the fruits and took a bite. It was as fresh and cold as water. Alivet ate it all, and spat out the shiny black pip. A moment later, she could hardly keep her eyes open. She splashed the contents of the water-jug over her face, but to no avail.

As she climbed into the bed, she spared a thought for Ghairen’s daughters and their mothers: were they, too, shut away in this luxurious eyrie away from freedom and the sun? Perhaps they would be amenable to the notion of escape. In the fleeting moments before sleep claimed her, Alivet resolved to find out.