CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘Betrayer!’ Xantine howled, breaking a nine-thousand-year-old vase that depicted the first arrival of Terra’s tithe ships on Serrine. Ceramic pieces crunched as Xantine ground them under his boot. ‘Idiot child!’ He swung his rapier in an arc, its monomolecular tip smashing sculptures and statues as it raked through them. ‘That worm, that whelp, that… betrayer!’

As it has always been, S’janth whispered.

‘Silence, daemon!’ Xantine screamed. His words seemed to signal an end to the orgy of destruction, and stillness finally reigned in the chamber. Only Xantine’s chest moved, heaving with exertion, as he stood in front of his council. Three of the living chairs were empty. Those belonging to Torachon and Sarquil would not be occupied again, while Xantine’s quivered in fear, awaiting its master’s return from his pacing.

The warlord composed himself, measuring his tone. ‘Torachon disobeyed my demands and attempted to obtain the glory of the kill for himself. The Clonelord will have a lot to answer for next time I see him, mark my words.’

Never one to read the tenor of a room, Qaran Tun spoke first. ‘The Sea of Souls claimed him for a purpose,’ the Word Bearer said, with a scholarly equanimity that was singularly unwelcome in the tense atmosphere. Xantine wheeled upon his tattooed cousin, rage flashing in his turquoise eyes.

‘Silence!’ he roared. ‘That halfwit had no purpose. He was a cast-off, our accumulated genetic scrapings given pathetic form. A grotesque copy of the Third, blessed neither with our grace, nor our poise.’ Xantine turned back to the room. ‘And then he had the temerity to throw away his life! The final insult – he could not even betray me successfully.’ He pulled the Pleasure of the Flesh from his hip and fired one, two, three bolts into Torachon’s empty chair.

Xantine took a long breath. ‘How many did we lose?’ he asked, as he scanned the room. Vavisk met his gaze with as much stoicism as his sagging face could muster. Qaran Tun’s tattooed eyelids were closed, the diabolist no doubt in unspoken communion once more with his Neverborn pets. Phaedre was careful to avoid his eyes entirely, her attention studiously focused on the arrangement of bracelets she wore on her thin wrists. He would get no answer from those who remained. ‘By the Prince, why must all of my subjects fail me! Pierod, give me a death count, now!’

Serrine’s governor stepped forward hesitantly from his position outside the ring of chairs. He had been an uncomfortable participant in these council meetings, but Xantine found that he could trust the portly mortal to perform basic tasks, if only because Pierod’s fear of losing his position trumped his fear of all other dangers.

‘Some four hundred soldiers, my lord,’ Pierod said.

‘Details!’ Xantine roared, and raised his pistol in Pierod’s direction. Before the mortal could answer, the servo-skull that hovered at his shoulder took over the count.

‘Three hundred and ninety-two of the militia, forty-three Sophisticants, and thirteen of the Adored, blessed be their souls, perished in the assault on Refinery Four.’

‘Thirteen? I thought it was twelve,’ Pierod stammered.

‘Master Quant submitted to his wounds some seventy-three minutes ago, governor.’

Pierod ducked as Xantine hurled a bronze bust of his own head through a glassaic window, whimpering quietly as cold air rushed in through the hole it created.

‘Failures! I am surrounded by failures. Despite my best efforts, I am stymied by my own people, my own brothers. What did I do to deserve such a fate?’ He turned, and walked to the back of the chamber, towards the marble throne he used during his euphemistically termed meditations.

‘No matter.’ Xantine breathed deep and ran a gloved hand down his face. ‘No matter,’ he repeated, trying to convince himself. ‘What I have lost, I will forget. And besides’ – he looked at Cecily – ‘in my new muse, I may have found myself a greater prize.’

Part of him wished he’d asked more questions of his old friend, but as the stimms wore off and the pain in his ribs swelled again, Edouard found himself following Dartier’s directions, making his way down into the deepest reaches of the overcity to find his fix.

It was an old place, Dartier had said. Edouard could see that. The buildings were boxy and square, built of pockmarked rockcrete and rusted metal. He’d never been down here, never known that places like this existed in the city of his birth, and he now saw why: these ancient structures were hidden by walkways, balconies and verandas. They had been erased from public consciousness by subsequent generations, who used the flow of credits from moneyed worlds to hide their humble past with cathedrals and conservatories, halls, amphitheatres and follies. But the original sin was still here, buried just below the surface, forming the bedrock for this city of spires and statues.

Here and there, reminders of the surface city crept in. Chunks of marble masonry blocked his path at times, their mottled surfaces inlaid with gold and silver. They had been cast down during the xenos attack years ago, Edouard realised, tracing their descent into this foundation layer by the scrapes and score marks they left on the ancient structures.

This rubble had never been cleared by Baron Sarquil’s work gangs – had never even been noticed. That was not a rarity in Serrine, even now. Lord Xantine himself had proclaimed that Serrine would become the most beautiful city in the galaxy, and had tasked his government with the repair of all damage caused by the attack. Edouard had believed him – what teenager would not believe the shining angel who had descended from the heavens to save his life? – but a decade later, people still made their homes in half-destroyed hab-blocks and bombed-out businesses.

‘What am I doing?’ he asked himself. He couldn’t see the night sky from down here, couldn’t make out the stars, or the moons, or the splash of throbbing colour that he sometimes found himself staring into.

He could hear something, though. A dull clash of metal on metal, and as he strained in the darkness, the sound of raised voices. He followed them, stepping gingerly across broken masonry and levering himself over chunks of rockcrete, until he found the entrance to the temple.