GrEgOrY

 

 

25th of Drymonth – 27th of Drymonth 687

 

THE GRAVEYARD AFFORDED a good vantage-point. There, elevated above the town, Gregory and Ven observed the activity down at the river.

Yesterday a specially drafted Emergency Decree had gone out, requisitioning boats of all types – ferries, private dinghies, Brazier Brickfields barges – for the use of the Guild of Freemen. Under the terms of the decree, pilots and private owners had to surrender the vessels without let or hindrance and sign waivers allowing the Guild to do with them as it saw fit. Naturally there were cavils about such a draconian edict, but by and large the pilots and owners were sympathetic to the Guild’s cause. Almost all of the boats, moreover, were damaged. It was possible that some owners, having checked the fine print in their insurance documents, were hoping that the Guild’s plan for the boats might result in their total destruction. No policy covered Act of Worldstorm. Act of Man, however...

The Guild had then enlisted a team of volunteer strongs to put its plan into action. It would have been quicker and simpler to solicit the services of a few shapers-of-water, the very pilots the boats had been commandeered from, but Penresford was primarily an Earther town and this was primarily an Earther fight. There was something pleasingly symbolic, too, about having all those clay-miners and dockworkers out in force on the river. The town was making its own case to itself. Through the efforts of these men Penresford was able to remind itself how proud it was of its manual labourers and how insulted it felt that such fine upstanding fellows should find themselves in such desperate straits that this was what they had to resort to.

Shortly after breakfast, the strongs set to work. First, a pair of them drove a stanchion into the nearside bank just upstream of the town and moored a boat to it. Then some of them swam out into the river and held the boat perpendicular against the current while others got on board and hauled a second boat out alongside it. They roped this boat to the first one, and the strongs in the water held the second boat in place while a third boat was brought into play. Thus a chain of river craft was built, extending all the way across the Seray to the far bank, where the last boat in line was secured to another stanchion. Just downstream of the town, an identical chain was built. Two segmented barricades were created, and the river was effectively blocked to traffic.

It took the best part of the morning to complete the job, and from the graveyard Gregory and Ven watched from start to finish, almost awed. If proof were needed that Penresford meant business, the barricading of the river was it. There was no question now: this was a town that wasn’t going to take any more nonsense from those Flamers up in Stammeldon. And the embargo did not involve just Stammeldon now. Every town along the river, anyone who used the Seray to conduct trade and needed to navigate past Penresford in either direction, was going to be affected. The barricading represented a significant raising of the stakes.

‘Do you think your dad’ll be pissed off they’re using his barges?’ Ven said, while the last boat was being manhandled into position.

‘I think my dad’ll be pissed off whatever,’ Gregory replied.

‘Perhaps it’ll help, though. Perhaps it’ll convince him to try and get Mayor Bringlight to change his mind. You know, his own boats.’

It gave Gregory some satisfaction to say, ‘If you ask me, it’ll do exactly the opposite. You don’t know my dad. He has a terrible temper. I remember my mum seeming to spend half her life trying to get him to calm down. Sam at work, too. He just loses it sometimes. Screams and shouts and sets fire to things. Willem and I used to have to creep around whenever we heard him start. He’d go quiet to begin with. Like a kettle before it starts to whistle. You didn’t want to get in his way when he went quiet like that.’

‘And the barges...’

Gregory shook his head. ‘We’ll probably be able to hear him explode from here.’

‘You’re not at all like him, are you?’ Ven said, after a while.

‘I look like him. But I’m not like him.’ Gregory held up his hands. An unconscious gesture, but he realised it illustrated his point nicely. ‘Things don’t get to me the way they do to him.’

Ven nodded, and glanced around the graveyard. The newer graves were already beginning to settle in, losing their humped definition, smoothing down. Soon they would be flat and overgrown with wildflowers and scrubby grass, like all the others.

‘Do you think,’ he said, sobered by the sight of the dead-and-buried, ‘that it’s going to turn violent?’ He waved in the direction of the river. ‘All this?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Some people are saying so. Me, I hope not.’

‘Me either.’

‘But if it does, I’m prepared to get involved. I mean, this is my town, isn’t it. My home.’

‘I’m prepared to get involved too.’

‘Honestly?’

‘Honestly,’ Gregory said. ‘But I doubt it’ll come to that. They’ll get wind of it up in Charne. The government will step in.’

‘You think?’

‘It’s likely. Well, possible. Certainly if it looks as if there’s going to be violence, they’ll send a squad of constables down, or soldiers, to sort it out. They’ll have to.’

Ven was consoled by that thought, and would have said so had he not been interrupted by a loud, plaintive squeak from his stomach. Both boys decided to head home for lunch. There wouldn’t be much to eat. The Guild was already advising that food be rationed and was doling out supplies from its stocks parsimoniously. A small meal, however, was better than nothing.

As they left the graveyard, passing between the tall drystone pillars that marked the entrance, Gregory took a look back over his shoulder. He was used now to the strangeness of the idea of planting the dead underground instead of incinerating them. It was a bit creepy to think of bodies rotting away in the earth rather than being scattered as ashes. (Burning, surely, was a much cleaner fate.) But he could accept it all the same, because it was the Earther way. What he didn’t like about the graveyard, and would never get used to, was the small cairn that was placed on top of each grave, with a name carved into the topmost stone. As if the human remains below still, somehow, deserved to be called something. As if those who had gone still lived. Remember the dead, yes. But give them something to remember themselves by?

This got him wondering if, with his Fire upbringing, he would ever truly, completely, comfortably be an Earther. His willingness to fight for Penresford was surely a sign of which Inclination he belonged to. But was he siding with Penresford or taking a stand against Stammeldon? The two weren’t necessarily the same. Was there not an element of spitefulness in his decision to stay here? Vengefulness? And if, when all was said and done, he was just getting back at his father, didn’t that make him like his father?

Following Ven downhill to Penresford, he resolved not to care. He was making a point, that was all. Erecting barricades of his own. The chances that they would be put to the test? Minimal, he thought.

 

 

IT DIDN’T TAKE long for word of the Penresford blockade to reach Stammeldon. That kind of news travelled fast on the telepath network and almost as fast along the Seray itself, pilot passing it to pilot.

The telepaths, for all that they affected an air of highminded professional detachment, loved nothing better than a sensational turn of events, a dramatic public incident. They spread it about with the eagerness of backyard gossips, lobbing their thoughts across the empty miles between them and almost immediately getting back the psychic equivalent of ‘well I never’ and ‘tell me more’ from everyone within range. The Penresford blockade had the network quivering like a breeze-blown spider web. Soon every bureau in Jarraine knew, and then every bureau in Jarraine’s contiguous neighbours, and then every bureau in the northern half of the continent. At that, the news reached its natural limits. No one further out was much concerned about a local spot of bother in Jarraine. But within the radius of those close enough for it to be of interest, the initial message and regular updates raced to and fro, and the tone in which they were communicated was something akin to glee.

As for the pilots, they never made any bones about the fact that they ran titbits of information up and down the river. In part it was the currency of the job. You needed to know if there was a sinking, say, or a landslip somewhere along the Seray’s length, or a temporary dearth of dock space at a certain town, or an upping of the portage fees at one of the toll stages. These things were vital if you were to discharge your piloting duties properly. But there was no denying, too, that the pilots regarded themselves as an elite, an exclusive club, and often as not the exchange of relevant data across saloon bar tables or from boat to boat, in Water language, was a means of affirming occupational solidarity. As long as you were up to date with all that was going on along the river, you were part of the brotherhood.

In Stammeldon, reports of the blockade filtered out among each of the two dominant-Inclination populations from two separate points of origin. For the Fire Inclined, it was the telepath bureau. For the Earth Inclined, it was a ferry pilot. The typically more affluent Flamers, who formed the majority of the telepath bureau’s clientele, found out what was happening almost as soon as it happened. The typically less affluent Earthers had to make do with learning about it a little later, after the ferry pilot had got off shift and hurried as fast as he could to the nearest pub.

Reaction to the news was, similarly, divided along Inclination lines. The Flamers were, almost without exception, outraged and indignant. They muttered about monstrous ingratitude and castigated a sort of behaviour which, really, if you thought about it, was little short of mutiny. The Earthers on the whole took a more lenient view. The Penresfordians’ move was a proportionate response to the provocation they had received. What other option did they have? Just roll over and take it? On one point both Flamers and Earthers were in agreement: something must be done. But here, still, the disunity persisted, because on one side it was generally felt that a large contingent of men should be sent down to break the blockade by force and on the other side it was generally felt that a small diplomatic mission should be sent down to listen to the Penresfordians, find out what they wanted in return for ending the blockade, and, if it wasn’t too much, give it to them.

For Tremond Brazier and Mayor Bringlight, there was no question which course of action was preferable. In fact, as far as they were concerned there was no other course of action. At a meeting in Tremond’s office at the brickfields, the two men found they differed in only one regard, and that was whether to inform the national authorities about what they were proposing to do before or after they set about doing it. For Mayor Bringlight, political expediency dictated that he should at the very least tell Stammeldon’s parliamentary representative, Stev Wilkley, that he meant to resolve the problem by action rather than negotiation. Tremond, however, pointed out that Wilkley would be constrained to go directly to parliament and relay the mayor’s stated intentions to the assembled representatives, and the consensus response would undoubtedly be to order the deployment of a peacekeeping squad to head for Penresford and intervene. Soldiers from the garrison at Fort Marenkine could reach Penresford within a day, within a few hours if cavalry were mobilised. The matter would no longer be in the mayor’s hands.

‘But I can’t not tell Wilkley,’ Bringlight said. ‘The terms of office are quite strict on that. “Any extension of jurisdiction beyond the municipal limits must be authorised by —”’

‘What’s with you, man?’ snapped Tremond. ‘A sudden attack of conscience?’

‘The position of mayor demands the observation of certain protocols,’ Bringlight said, with great exactness, and not a little regret. ‘If I’m not seen to be following the rules, I could lose my job.’

‘But the crucial word there is “seen”. What matters is not that you tell Wilkley, but what you tell him.’

The mayor had no difficulty grasping this concept. ‘I suppose I could say something like I’m taking a “vigorous, robust approach” to the matter, and leave it at that.’

‘Better yet, say you’re “pursuing the most profitable and immediately effective line of attack”. The truth’s all there. It’s just a matter of interpretation.’

‘Excellent. Give me a moment to write that down.’

‘The point is,’ Tremond said, as Bringlight scribbled on a piece of paper, ‘in Charne they’ll already have heard what’s going on in Penresford, but if you can convince them via Wilkley that it’s under control, that you’re taking command of the situation, they won’t lift a finger. Use soldiers? Especially cavalry? If parliament can find any excuse not to go to that expense, it’ll take it.’

Bringlight shook his head, wondering at himself. ‘I don’t know what got into me. I must not have my head on straight this morning. Sometimes, you know, this job, you’d think you weren’t actually allowed to do anything. All the rules and conditions attached to it – they seem there to hinder rather than help. You’d think a mayor could do as he pleases, get whatever he wants. But oh no. Try and change something, nine times out of ten you’ll find there’s some obscure bylaw that says you can’t. You want to improve the controls on the rights of sitting tenants, say. Lo and behold it turns out that you’d have to amend the whole town constitution, and to do that —’

‘Let’s just stick to the problem at hand, shall we?’ Tremond said with an impatient twitch.

‘Yes. Yes, of course. It’s just that I envy you sometimes, Tremond. No strictures on what you can and can’t achieve, are there?’

Tremond dismissed the remark, not believing for one moment that it was meant sincerely. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘in this particular instance the constitution’s working in your favour. The Threats to Municipal Security clause – that licenses you to take pretty much whatever action you wish against Penresford.’

‘Let us thank our forebears for wording it so loosely. Your grandfather in particular.’

‘Indeed,’ said Tremond, neutrally. ‘Now then, your next task, after you’ve sent a message to Wilkley, is to get some men together.’

‘Obviously.’

‘Mostly Fire Inclined, I’d say. Incendiaries, swifts, with a couple of recuperators in support.’

‘No indestructibles? No strongs?’

‘Indestructibles, yes, but as long as they’re constables. They’ll have to obey your orders, and anyway they’ll be squarely on our side. Rule of law and all that. As for strongs...’ He gave a shrug.

‘You have dozens on your payroll.’

‘So?’

‘These are men who owe you their jobs. Their livelihoods. And right now they’re sitting idle, and still drawing a salary, no? They’ll do whatever you ask them to. If they’ve got any sense, that is.’

‘I’m minded to think they won’t,’ Tremond said. ‘Earther sentiment is almost entirely in favour of what Penresford’s up to. Inclination loyalty could prove stronger than company loyalty.’

‘And of course you don’t want to risk splitting your workforce down the middle or even losing employees over this.’

‘You’re right, I don’t. Not if I don’t have to.’

‘Couldn’t you get your tame Browndirt – what’s his name? Gove? Couldn’t you get him to rouse your Earther workforce to action? Someone who speaks their language, as it were.’

‘Don’t call him that. I find that insulting.’

Bringlight said nothing, merely arched one sandy eyebrow.

‘And the answer is no,’ said Tremond. ‘For one thing, Sam’s not around to ask. He went upriver yesterday, to the interchange depot where we transfer bricks from river barges to canal barges. The loaders up there are grumbling about the blockade and lack of work. I sent him to pacify them. He’s good at that.’

Sam need not have gone. The grumbling was nothing more than the usual gripe of strong-class workers with time on their hands, pretending they disliked idleness when in fact, as long as they were still getting paid, they liked nothing more. Tremond had sent Sam up there because he had wanted him elsewhere. Sometimes it was that easy to dispense with your conscience.

‘But even if he were here, I wouldn’t ask him,’ Tremond continued. ‘I don’t think we can or should rely on any Earthers to help us, other than constables. It would be a mistake to try.’

‘I have tenants who are strongs. And indestructibles. I’m sure some of them would be willing to go to Penresford, given the right, shall we say, incentive.’

‘It would be a mistake,’ Tremond repeated.

‘Well, we’ll see.’

‘I mean it, Jarnley. When they get there they might refuse to take part. They might even defect to the other side. Trust me: just Fire Inclined, plus indestructible-class constables.’

The mayor was reluctant to concede the argument but, in the end, made acquiescent noises.

‘It’s not as if there aren’t going to be strongs facing us,’ he said. ‘Hundreds of them, I expect. But seeing as you’re so set on the idea...’

‘Even a strong,’ said Tremond, ‘can be burnt. Remember your elements strategy: Fire trumps Earth almost every time.’

‘Depending on numbers.’

‘Even so. Now, one last thing. Am I right in thinking you’re taking Reehan with you to Penresford?’

‘You are.’

‘Are you sure that’s wise?’

‘On balance, yes. Reehan’s furious about all this. When I told him about that Loffin fellow threatening me in my office – he even came to inspect the finger marks in my desk, to see the evidence for himself. And he can’t help telling everyone he meets about it. He’s absolutely incensed by it. So, you know, for him this isn’t just Penresford versus Stammeldon, it’s a direct personal affront. An attack on his dad. I don’t think I could stop him going if I tried, short of locking him in his bedroom, and even then I know he’d escape and find a way of getting down to Penresford on his own. So it seems a better idea just to have him with me. Keep him where I can keep an eye on him. And I can’t say I’m not touched. A son getting so angry and protective on his old man’s account. Means I raised him right, didn’t I?’

Tremond nodded, wondering if anything was being implied by that last remark. He had been freshly re-sensitised on the subject of sons. ‘I’m concerned because Willem wants to go too,’ he said.

‘Does he?’

‘He asked me this morning, shortly after breakfast. Well, told me really. Said if people were heading down to Penresford to sort out the blockade, he wanted to be a part of it.’

‘And you said?’

‘I fobbed him off with something like, “No decision’s been made yet.” Now, I suspect your boy’s probably had some influence on him here.’

‘And that’s a bad thing?’

‘Not at all, not at all. But Willem’s headstrong. He’s like his mother in that respect.’

‘And like his father.’

‘Well, perhaps. Headstrong and obstinate. Once an idea’s planted in his head, it stays planted. And while I’m not exactly against the idea of him going, I’m not exactly for it either. Things could get heated down in Penresford.’

‘Pun intended?’

‘Slightly intended. And I realise he’s eighteen now, almost a man, but still...’

‘But still you can’t stop thinking of him as your baby boy.’

‘True.’

‘They’re never really grown up, are they? No matter how old they get. No matter how much they think they’re grown up.’ Mayor Bringlight chuckled, a close approximation of fond paternal despair. ‘But listen, Tremond, that’s the thing about it. Our boys are adults. Old enough to vote, marry, do whatever they please. And because they’re adults we have to let them be free to make their own choices. We can’t keep on coddling them. I mean, Willem’s already learning his way around at the factory, right? You’re grooming him for the day he takes over the business. Now, that day may be far in the future, but in the meantime you’re going to have to let him make decisions. Think for himself. Make mistakes if he has to. Mistakes he can learn from. It’s just the way it has to be, if he’s to learn to stand on his own two feet as the proprietor of Brazier Brickfields. You have to take a step back and watch him find his own way.’

‘Letting him go to Penresford is helping him find his own way?’

‘I think so. Just let him have the experience.’

‘Even if it could get dangerous?’

‘How much money have you spent on his training?’ said the mayor. ‘Five years of weekly sessions with Master Drake. I know precisely how much because I’ve spent the same. The best incendiary trainer in southern Jarraine, and doesn’t he know it, the fees he charges. But if he’s taught our boys anything, he’s taught them how to look after themselves. How to defend themselves, keep themselves safe.’

‘It still feels ... irresponsible somehow.’

‘To let him go off and have an adventure? On the contrary. As a responsible parent, it’s what you have to do.’

‘An adventure? I’d hardly call it that.’

‘Maybe not, but that’s how he regards it. And try forbidding him, see how far that gets you. If I tried forbidding Reehan, I know what would happen. I’d be wasting my breath. In fact, it would only make him ten times more determined. He’d defy me almost as a matter of principle.’

Tremond looked straight into Mayor Bringlight’s pale green eyes.

‘You’ll look after Willem? If he goes? You’ll keep an eye on him as if he’s your own son?’

‘I will.’ The mayor nodded emphatically. ‘Believe me, I will. Your lad will be fine, Tremond. And he’ll think more of you for treating him like an adult.’ Again, that fond, despairing chuckle. ‘It’s one of the great ironies of fatherhood, don’t you think? Past a certain age, your child thinks more of you as a father the less you act like a father.’

Tremond half smiled. Misgivings still simmered away inside him, but he knew Jarnley Bringlight was correct. If Willem’s mind was made up about joining the expedition to Penresford, he should not stand in his way.

 

 

AT ROUGHLY THE same time, Reehan and Willem were having a conversation which was roughly the same as the one their fathers were having. They were in the open-sided pavilion at the rear of Master Sardon Drake’s house, waiting for Master Drake to come out and begin the class. Also present were two of Master Drake’s other senior pupils, Lukas Brandering and Francis Calder, who were practising the complicated art of interweaving two sets of flame. This demanded intense mental focus – maintaining control of the fire you yourself generated without, as tended to happen, inadvertently starting to manipulate the other person’s as well. The pair were grimacing so hard they looked as if they were in the grip of terrible constipation.

By contrast, Reehan lounged against one of the stone pillars that supported the pavilion’s roof, a picture of indolent indifference. No practising for him. No great urge to impress their trainer when he appeared. No need. He knew, and knew Master Drake knew, how good an incendiary he was. Master Drake himself had had to admit recently that he had little left to teach Reehan, and that Reehan was as adept and as powerful a pupil as had ever come under his tutelage. To the unbiased observer it might have seemed that this confession came through gritted teeth, that Master Drake would have preferred the truth to be otherwise, but Reehan had chosen to take what he had said at face value. To him it was nothing more, or less, than confirmation of a fact. Furthermore, when Master Drake had added that Reehan might wish to consider a career as a trainer himself, he had agreed that this was a possibility – but then why piss his life away like that?

Since then, a distinct frostiness had set in between Reehan and Master Drake, and neither of them, for his own reasons, could wait for the day – soon – when Reehan officially completed the course. The student had very much outgrown the teacher.

‘What it boils down to,’ Reehan was saying to Willem, ‘is disrespect. They’re showing disrespect for the whole of Stammeldon. They’re showing disrespect for anyone who uses the Seray – all those pilots who can’t earn a living at present because the river’s blocked. They’re showing disrespect, most of all, for your dad and mine. That’s what really gets to me, and that’s why, no question about it, someone’s got to go down there and knock heads together.’

Willem was sitting cross-legged beside Reehan and gazing at a scorch mark on the flagstones in front of him, one of many such indelible black star-like stains, evidence of the misfires and over-enthusiasm of the countless pupils who had honed their skills here over the years. Possibly the mark he was looking at was one he himself had caused, once, when younger.

‘I know, I know,’ he said distractedly.

‘I mean, those dents in the desk. I’ll take you to see them sometime. Dad hasn’t had them fixed yet. The man was leaning over. You can imagine it from how the dents are. Leaning over and looking my dad right in the eye. A strong. Could have snapped your neck just by breathing on you. And there were about ten others with him in the room, and just one of Dad. Sheer intimidation, that’s what it was. Sheer bullying. But Dad stood up to him, and that’s what we have to do. Stand up to those Sods. We can’t just let them walk all over us.’

‘I agree.’

‘So you’ll be coming? When everybody goes down to Penresford to break the blockade? You’ll come along?’

‘It’s not definite yet that anyone’s going. My dad said nothing’s been decided.’

‘Oh balls! Of course it’s been decided. They’ll start asking for volunteers this afternoon, just you see. My dad’ll take the names, your dad’ll supply the transportation – it’s a done deal.’

Willem nodded slowly. ‘If it’s happening,’ he said, after a pause, ‘then yeah.’

‘Yeah you’ll sign up?’

Again, Willem nodded.

‘Good man!’ Reehan snapped a fireball to life in front of Willem and moulded it into the shape of a fist giving the thumbs-up sign. ‘I knew I could count on you.’

Just then, Master Drake emerged from indoors. An elegant and dandyish figure, dressed as always in the latest styles – suit, shirt, shoes, tie, all from tailors and outfitters on Charne’s famously fashionable Mawsom Street – he strolled to the pavilion and greeted his senior pupils with a small bow.

‘Gentlemen.’

A chorus of ‘Good afternoon, sir’ came in reply, loudest and most obsequiously from Reehan.

Master Drake’s eyes were unreadable behind the blue-tinted lenses of his spectacles. ‘Shall we commence? Nice interweaving there, Lukas, Francis. Let’s try all four of you at it. See how that works.’

And so, for the next couple of hours, nothing but toil and concentration. Even Reehan, by the session’s end, was drained of energy. He and Willem made their way homeward in weary silence, and at the gate of Tempest’s Bane parted company with just a few words. Willem crossed the garden and entered the house. In the hallway, a carpenter was hanging a new door to the dining room. The old door lay on its side, canted against the wall, showing off the head-sized, char-fringed hole which Tremond Brazier had put in it when he had learned about the Penresford blockade. To replace a solid teak door was not cheap. Willem often wondered if his father destroyed things in order to punish himself with the cost of replacing them. But it probably wasn’t that calculated. His father just lashed out in the heat of the moment. Coughed up afterwards because he had to.

Lack of self-control – his father’s greatest failing. That was why he made the mistakes he made.

And rectifying one of those mistakes was the task which lay before Willem now, and he didn’t relish it but he was certain that he had no choice any more but to go ahead with it.

‘Mum?’

‘In the drawing room, dear.’

‘You got a moment?’

‘Of course. But don’t keep shouting like that. Come and talk like a civilised person.’

She was on the sofa. A decanter of Aoterionese brandy was on the occasional table beside her. A balloon glass was in her hand. Willem thought it was perhaps a little early in the day for drinking, but why not? He found a glass, poured himself a shot, and sat and gently warmed the liquor before knocking it back at a gulp.

His mother seemed to be on uneasy terms with herself. Ever since Gregory’s refusal to come home she had been like this. Brittle. Stiff. Worried. She looked at Willem expectantly. He wondered if, maybe, she had some idea what he was about to say. If she sensed it.

‘I want to go to Penresford,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ said his mother. Just a slight backward tilting of her head, a tiny upraising of her face. Hopeful. ‘To show those Earthers what’s what? To support you father and the mayor in their “firm stance” on the blockade?’ She was quoting her husband from dinner last night, when he had outlined to her and Willem, as though before an audience of strangers, what he considered to be the correct and justified way of handling the Penresford situation.

‘No, I’m not that bothered about that. I mean, Penresford’s acting abominably, but I don’t feel the blame lies entirely on their side.’

‘How well put. I’m not sure I disagree with you, either.’

‘But...’

‘Yes?’

Willem wavered, then forged on, knowing that in this moment he had taken an irrevocable step.

‘Gregory. I’m going to fetch Gregory. Grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him all the way back if I have to. Fair enough, he’s made his choice. His little act of rebellion. Point made. But there’s taking a stand and then there’s just being foolish, and I think he’s crossed that line. And Sam couldn’t force him to come back, could he? It was a nice try but Dad was wrong to send him in the first place. It should have been one of us. Me, in fact, if not Dad himself. Just to show we meant it: come back. Because Gregory’s not a Penresfordian, no matter what he thinks, no matter how hard he would like to believe he is. He’s a Stammeldoner. A Brazier. One of us. And someone needs to go down there and remind him of that, and the someone is me. I can tell him he’s behaving like an idiot, it’s not the time to be getting all shirty and self-righteous, not when there’s a distinct possibility that people might start fighting. And I can also ... well, I can also apologise to him. I think he deserves that. I can say sorry, because we now know how much he resents being sent away. He’s made it clear. We thought he was all right with it. Sam seemed to think he was getting on OK down there. But he’s obviously deeply unhappy about the whole thing, and maybe if I just say sorry, if he hears it from me, maybe that’s all it’ll take to get him to change his mind. And I don’t care what anyone else thinks of me for that. I don’t care if it makes me seem less loyal, less of a son. Because even if it does, it makes me feel like more a brother, and that’s just as good.’

He stopped there, oddly out of breath. He realised he had not paused throughout the speech. The words had tumbled out of him in a heady rush. He gasped down a few gulps of air. He looked across to his mother. Her brandy balloon was trembling. He watched her reach for the decanter, pour some of the contents out with a tiny chatter-clink of glass on glass, and drink down the helping as though it were medicine.

Then she said: ‘Yes.’

He thought that was it, but there was more.

‘Yes. Good boy. Brave boy. Yes, bring him home. Enough’s enough. Oh, I’m so proud of you. Of course. Tell him sorry. He’ll come then. Tell him I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We thought it was right. It was right. But he didn’t know. He must have thought we loathed him. Why didn’t I see? Why didn’t I realise? Go down there, Willem. Don’t tell your father that’s why you’re going. Go down there and get him. And when your father sees him, then he’ll see. He’ll understand. When Gregory’s back here in the house, when we’re all back together again...’

Willem knew his mother was crying. He also knew the tears would not show. It was a trick her mother had taught her, something all women incendiaries learned: how to evaporate tears as they sprang out, before they became visible. Women incendiaries did not have to be weak. They did not have to show sorrow if they didn’t want to.

Willem settled back in his chair, warm inside from the brandy and from certainty. His mother had given her blessing. Beyond doubt now, he was following the correct course of action.

 

 

VOLUNTEERS TROOPED IN and out of the town hall all afternoon and evening. They registered their names. They signed contracts of deputisation. They were told to turn up at the Brazier Brickfields docks by no later than eight tomorrow morning. Bring few personal belongings – just a change of clothes and enough food for three days.

Surprisingly, given Tremond Brazier’s sensible admonition to Mayor Bringlight, several of those who signed up were strongs, tenants of properties the mayor owned. They evinced little happiness about volunteering. They added their names to the list with a surly, grudging air. To join the expedition, however, was preferable to the alternative, which was a fifty per cent increase in their rent.

Night fell, dawn came, and on a morning that was unusually balmy for the time of year, summer in autumn, more Fire season than Earth season, nearly two hundred men and women gathered at the brickfields docks. The mood was festive, convivial, as though they were all off on some holiday jaunt, not heading south for potential conflict with fellow-countrymen. In part this was bravado, in part a genuine belief that no conflict would occur – the mere presence of so many incendiaries and swifts and indestructibles would be enough to persuade the Penresfordians to dismantle the blockade and yield to Stammeldon’s will.

Three Brazier Brickfields barges were waiting. At Mayor Bringlight’s command, the two hundred boarded. The mayor himself, with Reehan and Willem close beside him, took up position at the bow of the frontmost barge. He yelled to its pilot, and the boat slewed away from the dockside. The other two followed. A cheer went up from the assembled company as the barges moved downstream in convoy. On the town-side bank of the Seray, a host of Stammeldoners had turned out to witness the departure and wave the expedition on its way. Again, festive. Hats fluttering to and fro. Friends calling across the water to friends. The rightness of the expedition’s purpose unquestioned. The barges came to the end of the reach, rounded the bend, vanished from view.

Tremond Brazier did not watch their departure. He was present at the mustering on the docks, but soon saw that it was Jarnley Bringlight’s show, his own presence supernumerary. A quick, manful handshake with Willem was both a sealing and a parting. Tremond took himself off to his office and stayed there till the hubbub on the docks dwindled away.

What did he think about? Mostly he thought about his father, for reasons he could not quite understand. Alton Brazier: a stern and unforgiving man, who raised his only son as though cultivating a professional successor, nothing more. For Alton Brazier, the business was all. Family was an obligation, but the brickfields a compulsion. He ran it forcefully, tightly, commandingly, amplifying on what his father had begun, turning a going concern into a market leader. His notion of small talk with his son was to describe how he had cajoled such-and-such a building firm into placing an order twenty per cent larger than it had intended to, or to crow over the latest ’Storm visit and ask Tremond to estimate the projected damage-to-profit ratio. Friendless and proud of it, Alton Brazier lived to work. He did not care that he was not well liked by his employees or by Stammeldon in general. Nor would he have cared that the crowds who turned out in such numbers at his public cremation were not there to commemorate his passing so much as to watch the old bastard burn.

Tremond considered himself both a better boss and a better parent. He had learned from his father what to do and also what not to. He had tried his best with Willem and Gregory. Gregory, he felt, was lost to him now, but that was not his fault, it was Gregory’s. Willem?

A strange ache. He thought of Willem just now on the docks, looking so tall, so resolute, so like a man. He had had no choice but to give his consent when Willem asked last night to be allowed to join the expedition. That was what good parenting was about, wasn’t it? Abdicating to your children responsibility for their own lives. As Jarnley had said: Past a certain age, your child thinks more of you as a father the less you act like a father. When they were old enough, they had to be let free in order for you and them to remain on good terms. Tremond’s father had not let him free. Even when Tremond was nominally in charge of the brickfields, his father had been there all the time, breathing over his shoulder. As a consequence, he now felt nothing but a dull contempt for the man. He couldn’t bear the idea of Willem feeling the same way about him when he was gone. So this was a test, then – of the breadth of his love for Willem, of Willem’s independence, and ultimately of the dissimilarity between Alton Brazier and Tremond Brazier. Marita, when learning of his decision to allow Willem to go, had congratulated him. She had told him he was very brave, he was doing a good thing. He hoped she was right.

And yet ... misgivings. Still, the misgivings.

Tremond studied the singed family portrait on his desk. He must get a new frame for that.

And now all was quiet outside, and he was alone on the premises. He went out to the docks and stood. The three barges were long out of sight. The brickfields seemed preternaturally quiet. A breeze scuttered across the main yard, twirling dust. The Seray tapped at the dock pilings like a myriad clocks ticking. Tremond, entirely at a loss what to do with himself, just stood.

 

 

NO SOONER WERE the barges embarked on their journey than news of it flashed north, east, west and south. Those telepathic tattletales couldn’t keep their mind-tongues from wagging. From receptive brain to receptive brain, the images travelled. Three boats. Two hundred Stammeldoners. Downstream. And while they worked, the telepaths stayed attuned for further developments, which came piggybacking in with regular messages. Even bureau employees who were off-duty kept their awareness heightened, tapping into the network when they should have been sleeping or resting or simply enjoying their free time. It was not strictly allowed. Listening in while you weren’t a functioning part of the system contravened the telepathic code of conduct. But it was common practice when exciting events were unfolding. And who could stop you? Who, apart from other telepaths, would even know?

In Penresford, it was time to get ready. Horm Loffin took charge, marshalling the townsfolk, the civilian footsoldiers who were his to deploy and who were willing to carry out whatever was asked of them. He sent sharp-sights upriver to find high ground and act as lookouts (though Water-Inclined, they were willing to pitch in and do their bit). With them went strongs who could run back with a warning when the Stammeldoners came into view. The strongs might not be fast – they certainly weren’t swifts – but they wouldn’t tire, they would plod energetically and remorselessly all the way.

Loffin then ordered several dozen indestructibles to man the chains of boats. The chains weren’t expected to hold if attacked. Incendiaries could easily burn through the ropes which tethered the boats together and the planks which had been lashed between them to provide access from one vessel to the next. They could, if it came to it, burn the boats themselves. But they would be reluctant to do so if they saw men and women aboard; and if for some reason such scruples did not manifest, or were overcome, better for it to be indestructibles on the vessels than members of any other Inclination class.

Along either bank of the Seray, Loffin situated groups of strongs at regular intervals. He suggested that the male ones, by far the majority, take off their shirts and go bare-chested when the Stammeldon expedition arrived. Strongs seldom needed an excuse to strip to the waist, and in this instance it seemed like a better than usual idea. Broad ribcages, brawny torsos, bunched muscles – an intimidating display of physical might.

And intimidating display was what it was all about. The Guild of Freemen hoped to deter the Stammeldon blockade breakers through sheer numbers. At least six hundred townspeople were out on show, beating the Stammeldon contingent by a ratio of three to one. Such overwhelming odds would surely make the Stammeldoners think again before launching any aggressive action. At the very least it would convince whoever was their spokesman to come forward with arms aloft and sue for dialogue. That was all the Guild wanted: face-to-face negotiation, diplomacy backed up by the implicit threat of force.

For a day and a night the Penresfordians waited. Hunger grumbled among them. A few neighbouring towns, in response to requests for food, had handed over a portion of their own meagre stocks, as a gesture of solidarity, albeit a token one. Other neighbouring towns had sent nothing but regrets, accompanied more often than not by expressions of unhappiness and disapproval. It was only to be expected. The river blockade was causing disruption throughout the vicinity and making life harder for people whose lives had already been made hard by the ’Storm visit. There was also, it seemed, no great depth of sympathy for the stand Penresford was taking. In principle it was fine to lock horns with another town, especially a wealthy one like Stammeldon, if you felt the other town had mistreated you. But there was no need to take matters this far, to get so militant. The way to resolve a dispute of this nature was take it to parliament and argue it out there. Jarraine had laws and everyone was governed by them. Whatever the provocation, no one entity – no person, no town – was entitled to act outside the law, just because it felt like it.

The Guild found itself able to shrug off the criticism with little difficulty. Parliament was not the answer. Things took too long to be decided up there – the lack of food was an immediate crisis demanding an immediate solution. Also, at the last count the majority of parliamentary representatives were Fire-Inclined, and no prizes for guessing which way they would bend in a debate on the rights and wrongs of the issue. Rather than force Stammeldon into doing what it ought, parliament was far more likely to congratulate it on adopting a fair and pragmatic line with Penresford. And who paid the greater amount annually in taxes, Stammeldon or Penresford? Tax revenue was always a measure of a town’s favour in parliament.

More than that, though, there was a sense that Penresford must take affirmative action with Stammeldon; must respond to Mayor Bringlight’s bullying like for like. And if one of the penalties for that was hunger, then so be it. And if it made Penresford a pariah within the region, then, again, so be it. Some things were more important than personal comfort or public popularity.

The sun rose through an apricot-coloured haze the next morning, a much chillier morning than the last, now more Earth season than Fire, as it should be; and the sharp-sights who had stationed themselves on top of Tantray Mount two miles north of Penresford spied the trio of barges trailing into view at the furthest bend of the river. To the strongs who were with them on the mount, the boats were mere specks in the distance, dim through a low mist. The sharp-sights, however, could make out the Brazier Brickfields identification numbers on the barges’ bows and could see that the crowds of people on board consisted predominantly of redheads. They could also see the sharp-sights who had been acting as night-time guides on the barges. They waved ironically to them, and the Stammeldon sharp-sights waved back. The strongs, meanwhile, limbered up and started to run.

By the time the strongs reached Penresford, they found that most people were awake anyway, after uneasy sleeps through a night nettled with anticipation. Learning of the Stammeldoners’ approach, Horm Loffin set off along the town-side bank of the river, striding past his strong-class ‘troops’ there as they shook the stiffness out of their limbs and stoically exposed their pectorals to the air. Loffin was emboldened by the knowledge that, late yesterday evening, a dozen pilots had come forward and said that, rather than stay on the sidelines, they wanted to participate actively in the defence of Penresford like their sharp-sight brethren. They had stipulated what they wouldn’t do. They wouldn’t take lives and they wouldn’t manipulate water already being manipulated by another pilot. Both ran contrary to their ethics. But allowing for that, the town now had an effective tactical retort to anything the Stammeldon incendiaries might try. Ideally you fought fire with Fire-Inclined, but since there weren’t any of those in Penresford, fighting fire with shapers-of-water was a good second-best.

Loffin dispensed encouraging words to the left and the right, reminding the strongs that a show of strength was what he wanted from them and a show of strength was most likely all that would be required. He said something similar to the indestructibles on the upstream boat chain, as he crossed over to rouse the strongs on the far-side bank. Meanwhile, other members of the Guild committee gathered at the northern end of what remained of Penresford’s docks. The men wore their Guild pins on their jacket lapels, the women wore them at their necks like brooches. They wore, too, all of them, the unmistakable straight-backed air of officialdom. Looking at them, they could have been a welcoming party; they could, equally, have been generals surveying a likely battlefield.

The trio of barges continued their stately downriver progress, and as they neared Penresford the Stammeldoners on board watched as bare-chested strongs lined up along either bank. The strongs went in for a bit of flexing and tensing. The Stammeldoners countered with mock admiration, oohing and cooing appreciatively and aping the way the strongs rolled their heads on their necks and clamped and unclamped their fists. This riled the strongs. They called out insults, ‘Ash-holes’, ‘Match-heads’, the usual stuff, interspersed with saltier Earth-language curses. The Stammeldoners responded in kind. Fire language wasn’t as rich in obscenity, and certainly the words didn’t have the same self-explanatory gutturalness. But then Common Tongue itself abounded in anti-Earther invective, much of it ripely onomatopoeic.

Finally, the barges arrived at the blockade and came to a grudging halt, their prows just inches from the boat chain. A heavy silence fell. At the bows of the middle barge, Mayor Bringlight drew himself to his full height, such as it was, and scanned around with an imperious air, trying to identify where and who his opposite number was among the Penresfordian ranks. His gaze came to rest on Horm Loffin, stationed halfway along the boat chain. A nod of acknowledgement, and a crackle of remembered antagonism, passed between the two men.

‘Mr Loffin,’ said the mayor, ‘I shall ask this only once. Withdraw these boats from the river, resume the mining and shipping of clay, let Brazier Brickfields purchase the clay from you at the reduced rate we discussed, and Penresford will get the supplies it needs.’

Loffin paused before replying, as if to indicate he was at least giving thought to the mayor’s request, not simply rejecting it out of hand. ‘I can’t do that. We can’t do that. The terms you’re offering are unacceptable.’

‘You’d rather starve?’

‘We’ll get by. We have help from other sources.’

‘That’s not what I’ve heard,’ the mayor said. ‘I’ve heard nobody’s very happy with Penresford. All the way down here, at every town and landing, we’ve had people shout out support and tell us we’re doing the right thing. You’ve not exactly endeared yourselves to anyone with all this.’ He swept a hand to indicate the boat chain. ‘So come on, let’s call it a day, eh? Admit you’re being unreasonable. Back down. Give way. Pride’s all very well and fine, but —’

‘Pride?’ Loffin took a step forward so that his shins butted up against the gunwale of the boat he was on. At the same time his voice rose a notch. He had hoped to keep this civil, but already that hope seemed a forlorn one. ‘Pride, Mayor Bringlight? Is that what you think this is about? You don’t think this is about Stammeldon lording it over us, by any chance? You don’t think, by any chance, this is about you taking advantage when we’re in difficulties? Screwing us rather than helping us in our hour of need?’

Grumbles of assent rippled both ways along the boat chain.

‘I think, Mr Loffin,’ said the mayor of Stammeldon, ‘that Penresford is behaving like the proverbial child in a tantrum, stamping on its own foot and making itself angrier as a result.’

‘Then if that’s your attitude,’ said the chief secretary of the Guild of Freemen, ‘you clearly have no understanding of the truth of the situation and you clearly do not comprehend that we, this town, are not going to give way to you, we’re not going to back down, we’re not going to let you ride roughshod all over us. The blockade and the embargo will stay in place till we get some form of concession out of you, and that’s that.’

The grumbles of assent, louder now, spread out along the Seray’s banks. The Stammledoners on the barges, not to be outdone, set up a malcontented murmuring of their own.

‘No concessions,’ said Mayor Bringlight. ‘Just this offer. Last chance. Dismantle the blockade or we will dismantle it for you.’

To his right, Reehan clenched a fist and said, ‘You tell him. Put the fucking Mudwallow in his place.’ It was a private aside, but he nonetheless said it loud enough for everyone within a ten-yard radius to hear, Loffin included.

Loffin flicked a glance in Reehan’s direction, decided the lad wasn’t worth a moment of his time, and returned his gaze to the mayor.

‘I truly wish,’ he said, ‘that we can avoid a violent confrontation.’

‘As do I, Mr Loffin, as do I.’

‘But if it comes to that, mayor, you’ll find us no mean opposition. We outnumber you heavily. We have – I’m no military planner – but I’d say we have the strategic advantage here, being as we’re surrounding you and also as we’re on home turf. Your wisest course would be to turn back and go home. Taking on a whole town’s worth of angered Earthers? Not a sensible move, in my book.’

‘I’m treating that as a direct threat, witnessed here by several hundred people.’

‘Treat it how you like. I’m just telling you how it is. What you’re up against.’

‘Oh, do shut up, Browndirt,’ said Reehan. ‘You’re not scaring anyone.’

Mayor Bringlight rounded on his son. ‘That’s enough from you,’ he snapped.

‘But Dad, he’s —’

‘I said that’s enough.’

Reehan sullenly tightened his mouth.

Loffin regarded the youngster with narrowed eyes. ‘Your son, mayor? Yes. The family resemblance is unmistakable. A regular chip off the old block. For his sake, then, mayor, if not for your own, I suggest you leave. I suggest you give great consideration to whether you really wish to provoke hostilities. The risk that your own son might come to harm – is it worth it?’

Mayor Bringlight bristled. ‘Another threat, Mr Loffin? I really don’t like the turn this has taken. Implying that you’d hurt my son...’

‘I never said that. I said there was a risk —’

‘We all heard what you said. And we all know what you meant. If that’s the kind of mentality we’re dealing with here, then I can see we do indeed have no choice.’

‘Mayor Bringlight —’

‘Mr Loffin.’ Firmly. With finality. ‘I hereby declare, by the authority vested in me under the clause in the Stammeldon constitution pertaining to Threats to Municipal Security, that your blockade represents a direct violation of my town’s interests and that I have no alternative but to arrange for its dismantling, by force if necessary. Now, I’m going to pull back and give you ten minutes to commence that dismantling yourselves. If, by the end of ten minutes, you haven’t done so, I myself will order it to be done, using the manpower and capabilities at my disposal. Do you understand?’

Horm Loffin held the mayor’s gaze for several long seconds, before delivering a slow, deep nod.

‘Good,’ said Mayor Bringlight. ‘Then what happens next is entirely up to you. A peaceful settlement, or not. It’s in your hands.’

He turned and instructed the pilots to reverse. The barges glided backward in formation until, a few hundred yards upriver, the mayor gave the command to halt. He then sent one of the barges over to the town-side bank, while his and the remaining barge pulled in at the far-side bank. Penresfordian strongs immediately began to gravitate towards these two locations, with the clear intention of discouraging anyone from attempting to disembark. The mayor made a great show of ignoring them, studiously consulting his pocket watch instead. Meanwhile, his fellow-Stammeldoners growled amongst themselves, debating whether Penresford would do the smart thing or not, and stoking themselves up – in the event that the answer was ‘not’ – for a fight. A couple of incendiaries collaborated in writing the name of their hometown in the air in tall fiery letters, which brought a low cheer from everyone around them, until the mayor ordered them to extinguish it. Not appropriate. Not yet. The mayor then turned to the sharp-sight on his barge. He asked if there was any sign of activity down at the blockade yet. The sharp-sight peered and shook his head. Not yet. Mayor Bringlight shrugged. The ten minutes were nearly up but he decided to give the Penresfordians a little while longer. Never let it be said that he was an ungenerous man.

Down at the docks, the Guild committee huddled in discussion. The chairwoman, Peta Trench, was minded to think that perhaps they should accede to Mayor Bringlight’s demands. Anything to avoid trouble. Horm Loffin, on the other hand, was in no doubt. Surrender the blockade and they surrendered everything. If they gave in now, Penresford was as good as finished. You might as well just rename the town Lower Stammeldon. It was an emotive piece of rhetoric, and not even Loffin believed it fully, but having had to deal with Mayor Bringlight twice now, he was well past being reasonable.

Time was ebbing away. The arguments ranged to and fro. Was this worth fighting over? Was it worth potentially losing lives over? Opinion among the committee was divided almost evenly between yes and no. In the end, it could only be settled by a show of hands. Those in favour of dismantling the blockade? Those against?

Faces fell. So that was their decision. Well, fine. There it was. Even if it was a decision swung by just one vote, they would have to abide by it.

Loffin headed off towards the upstream boat chain, to relay the committee’s verdict to the waiting townsfolk.

 

 

ON THE DOWNSTREAM boat chain, some distance from these events, Gregory and Ven stood with the other indestructibles, all of them craning their necks and trying to make out what was going on. It was a futile exercise, but what else could they do? They had been promised they would be kept abreast of the situation constantly, but the channels of communication had broken down the moment something interesting started to happen. As attention became focused on the three Stammeldon barges and the parley between Horm Loffin and Mayor Bringlight, the downstream boat chain was forgotten and the people there were left to squint and speculate. In the end, they resorted to trying to interpret the body language of the tiny figures upstream – how they stood, their collective gesturing – in order to gleam some sense of where things were headed. This being an inexact science, about as useful as trying to read the mood of ants, they were little the wiser as a result, but at least it passed the time and kept their minds occupied.

At one point Gregory was asked for his opinion on how it all might turn out, based on nothing more than the fact that he had once been a Stammeldoner and therefore might have some insight into the inner workings of a man like Mayor Bringlight. It wasn’t just to appease a partisan audience that Gregory said he believed the mayor would be acting like a complete pfharg-head. He only had to remember the mayor’s son to know that there were moral grounds for holding such a view; and of course there were actual grounds too, in that Mayor Bringlight had not exactly not been acting like a complete pfharg-head these past few days, had he? But pfharg-headedness aside, Gregory had no difficulty stating a simple, self-evident truth, that the mayor was unlikely to have amassed a force of Stammeldoners and travelled all this way if there wasn’t, at least at the back of his mind, the thought that some kind of clash was inevitable. Otherwise why not come with just a small retinue? Why else bring two hundred people along with him?

It occurred to Gregory that he could have been dispensing such sage comments on the upstream boat chain, right in the thick of things. He envisioned himself in the midst of the Guild committee, serving as a sort of official Stammeldon expert, there to be consulted at every turn. It was a nice, heroic reverie, which lasted until he reminded himself to be realistic – daydreaming suggested a softness that was unbecoming of an indestructible.

Besides, he knew he was lucky to be on either of the boat chains at all. It was only by begging very hard, and refusing to take no for an answer, that he and Ven had managed to wangle themselves a place on the downstream chain just an hour ago. They had known they didn’t stand a chance of getting onto the upstream one. For a start, Master Ergall was there, and Master Ergall had come out very firmly against the idea of any of his current set of pupils becoming involved in the defence of Penresford. (Meeting him in the street yesterday, Gregory had ventured the possibility of himself and Ven doing just that, to which Master Ergall had replied that if he caught either of them anywhere near the river in the next couple of days, he would personally beat the living shit out of them.) In addition, Gregory and Ven were aware that the downstream chain was regarded as by far the safer of the two, likely to be attacked, if at all, only after the other had been attacked.

Using this argument, they had been able to persuade the indestructibles on it to let them join them, agreeing to the proviso that they would scurry back onto dry land at the first sign of trouble upstream. The adult indestructibles thought it charming that the two young lads were so determined to stand up and be counted. They also thought it significant, in a symbolic sense, that one of the two youngsters was Penresford’s very own adopted Stammeldoner. Several of them had made a point of going over to Gregory and scrubbing a hand through his hair, as though he were a lucky mascot, and, perhaps, as though the three barge-loads of Stammeldoners could be ruffled and thrown into disarray as easily as a head of bright orange Flamer locks.

Finally the channels of communication reopened. Word was passed down in a series of yells that the Stammeldon barges were heading back upriver. There was some confusion as to whether this represented a full-scale retreat or just a tactical withdrawal. A short while later the matter was clarified: a tactical withdrawal. The Guild now had a ten-minute deadline to choose between surrender and continued resistance. The indestructibles on the downstream chain, almost without exception, expressed a preference for the latter. They turned to one another and punched fist against fist, a reminder of how unharmable they were, how impervious to pain.

All at once Gregory couldn’t stop yawning. His yawns incited yawns from Ven. They were tired; they had been late to bed and up at dawn. But Gregory remembered that he often yawned like this before a sticks match. He moved his tongue and his mouth was crackly and dry, which was also the case before a sticks match sometimes.

Nerves. He was scared.

Of course he was scared. This was real. This was big and serious and potentially terrible, and it was unfolding in front of him and he was here and he was witnessing it, and it was real. He understood that up until this moment the idea of conflict between the two towns had been remote, a theoretical possibility, something he couldn’t imagine and hadn’t wanted to. Now it was looking likely and he still couldn’t imagine it, but the ignorance was no longer a comfort, it was alarming. He was standing on the brink of a huge unknown, with a dim grasp, at best, of the rage and mayhem that lay ahead. This wasn’t like the Worldstorm. He had thought that, having lived through a ’Storm visit, there wasn’t anything left to fear. He was wrong. This wasn’t even comparable to the Worldstorm. This was man-created, not an accepted and expected fact of life. Unfamiliar, unpredictable. Uncharted territory.

‘Ven?’

‘Yes?’

‘You all right?’

‘...Yeah.’

‘If you want to – you know.’

‘No, let’s hang on a bit. Because it might not...’

‘OK.’

And now there was hush on the boat chain, and bodies were canted forward, eyes and ears were straining.

‘Gregory?’ Whispered.

‘Yes?’

‘You know my sister?’

‘...Which one?’

‘Eda.’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I just ask – what’s going on there?’

‘What?’

‘Between the two of you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Only, she’s pretty pissed off with you for some reason.’

‘No idea why.’

‘And girls only get that pissed off with someone they, you know, like.’

‘Why bring this up now?’

‘Because it just popped into my head. And because last night Eda wanted to know, she asked me, in a pissed-off way, but still, she wanted to know if you and I were still planning to do – well, this. What we’re doing. And I said yes, and she said that I should tell you, if we did do what we’re doing, not to do anything stupid.’

‘Not to do anything stupid.’

‘That’s right. And she said she didn’t care if you did do anything stupid, but she didn’t want you to.’

‘What sort of stupid? I mean, what’s she talking about?’

‘I don’t know. Something reckless, I reckon. But she was saying it and I could tell, or I thought I could tell... But if you say there’s nothing going on there, then there’s nothing going on there.’

Gregory studied his friend’s face and wondered whether to confess about huddling together with Eda during the ’Storm and about her cold-shouldering him afterwards (or had he cold-shouldered her?). Ven could act as his conduit to Eda. Perhaps, through him, he could find a way into how she was thinking and feeling. Of course he didn’t care about her, just as she didn’t care about him. He had made that vow to himself, hadn’t he – nothing would get through to him, nothing would affect him. But still, there she was. Interested enough in him to ask her brother to carry a message about —

And then, from upriver, shouting. Loud.

A roar, a summoning-up of courage and anger.

The thunder of hundreds of throats yelling at once.

It echoed down the Seray, resounding between the banks, rolling over the rippled surface, faster than the current.

On the boat chain, everyone stiffened. Every spine straightened.

‘All right,’ said one of the indestructibles, softly, tensely. ‘All right. Here it is. This is it. Here we go.’