SADY DROPPED Loriane back home. She sat in the cabin opposite him, still pale after Tandor’s attack on her. She said she was fine, but a few diamond drops of sweat collected on her upper lip. He deeply regretted having called her into the prison. Deep inside, he’d known that Tandor was crazy and the incident with Loriane only proved it, and he felt terrible about having inflicted this on her; he had not learnt anything new from the exchange.
He made sure he escorted her into the kitchen, where Myra was feeding her baby.
Loriane told her that she’d seen Tandor, and some discussion ensued. Myra seemed cautious, and Loriane frustrated, but the long process of trying to get her to explain what she knew would have to wait until he came home. As it was, one of the prison guards had a rudimentary understanding of the southern language, and had made notes. The report was already on his desk when he returned to the office, but he had no time to look at it. He was already running late for a special doga session, and he ran in to the hall, poorly prepared, where all the senators had been waiting.
General Finnisius would be there, and he hated waiting.
Viki presented the latest sonorics situation. While the levels in the city continued to fluctuate wildly, the shattering of the barriers had allowed a large area of the southern provinces to become contaminated to a level dangerous to Chevakians. How far this area reached was uncertain. Viki’s instruments relied on telegraph lines, and many were out. The fate of the people in those areas also remained uncertain. There might well be pockets still safe or people still holding out with suits and shelters. If they had suits.
There were questions about Alius’ pills. Not even the army had enough suits for all its troops, and those pills would come in very handy if the army would have to conduct rescue operations.
But no one appeared to have seen Alius for days, and he ordered another senator to inquire.
Why couldn’t they send southerners into those dangerous districts, someone else asked, and many thought that was a good idea, but others thought that the southerners were too much of a risk, because they might steal from the abandoned houses or take over Chevakian farmland.
And so the debate went. But in all this one thing worried Sady most: no one had any accurate maps of the sonorics cloud and how it was likely to disperse. It could be that the main farming areas were going to be out of bounds for most of summer, which would mean no crops, and the country would face a winter of shortages.
Even if they could send southerners to farm the land, and if the crops would grow, they could well be too contaminated for the Chevakians to eat.
No, definitely the pills sounded better all the time.
They discussed the camps and what to do if the refugees needed to stay for a longer period. The authorities needed a register of all people inside, of their allegiances, and the people who did not riot and had behaved well could be released to farming districts.
To which a senator from the Fairlight district said that the south had no vegetation and southerners didn’t know how to farm. That was definitely a problem.
And so it went on.
When Sady eventually returned to his office, his head was spinning. He had a quick look at the report that the prison guard had delivered. It did not contain anything he hadn’t heard before, and that concerned him, too. A flying creature with mysterious power, evil creatures embodied a sonorics storm. He’d better not let the magic-believers see any of this. Either the prisoner was not as mad as everyone thought he was, or he was consistently mad. He ordered some tea and set about making a list of things that needed to be done. Urgent, less urgent and long-term things.
Urgent:
Find out sonorics situation (requires weather balloons)
Make list of camp inhabitants and their names and skills (requires reliable translator)
Catch murderer (requires . . .
Whatever it required. More guards, which he didn’t have at his disposal. But . . . a winged monster? Surely that was some sort of southern superstition. Though, frankly, Loriane looked far too smart for superstition. Or at least, he hoped she was, which was not at all the same thing. It worried him. That, and the business with the girl and however she had gotten out of the camp
Sady, keep your mind on your work.
Urgent: take stock of current food warehouses.
Assess how much cropping the north could stand.
His urgent list was growing rapidly while his long-term list was still empty.
There was a knock on the door and the secretary stuck his head in. “Excuse me, Proctor. There is someone to see you urgently.”
Every demand on his time was urgent lately. “Send him in.”
The secretary retreated and a moment later, a man stumbled into the office in a slow and awkward gait. He met Sady’s eyes, and bowed. The movement destabilised him, and he had to hold onto the back of the chair so as not to fall. Sady would have thought that he was a drunk beggar, save for the fact that the skin on his face was covered in weeping blisters. He wore a Chevakian army uniform caked in so much dirt that Sady hadn’t recognised it at first.
Mercy.
Sady gestured for him to sit down, and he did so, gingerly as if his backside hurt him.
“Reporting back, sir.” His voice was husky.
“Back, from where?”
“Twin Bridges. You sent us with the woman from Solmeni to investigate.”
Sady had, and had almost forgotten about it with everything else that had happened. “Where is the rest of the patrol?”
“I am the patrol, sir. They’re all gone. I’m pretty sure they are. Solmeni is gone. Twin Bridges is gone.”
“How?” His heart thudded against his ribs. Twin Bridges was closer to Tiverius than comfortable.
“We went with the woman on the train. When we arrived at Twin Bridges, it was already very smoky, and the air smelled of forest fires. We reported to the local unit that we wanted to go to Solmeni with the woman, but the area officer told us that the line was cut because of fire, so we decided to stay in Twin Bridges and wait. The local meteorology officer said that there was a very bad storm coming and warned people to stay indoors. But they must have changed their minds because later the town guards came around warning people to evacuate the town. We reported to the area commander to offer help and were ordered to go to the station.”
A chill went over Sady’s back at the memory of stories of another station, another time. This was starting to sound awfully familiar.
“When we got there, many people were already waiting for us on the platform. There were some folk from further up the plateau, and they had burns all over their skin. The stationmaster ordered all trains out of their sheds, even the really old ones. Two of them left, but even while we were loading the third train, the storm front came into town. The sky went so dark that it was like night. The clouds were black like smoke, and when they parted, there was fire inside. You wouldn’t believe it if you hadn’t seen it. The black clouds rolled over the town and started eating up the houses one by one. It was the scariest thing to see, houses exploding in big balls of fire.”
The soldier wasn’t looking in Sady’s eyes anymore. His gaze had dropped to the area of Sady’s mouth or chin, but he wasn’t looking there, either. Sady was quite sure he didn’t see what was in front of him. Instead, he was seeing the scene he was describing.
“There were some people who didn’t want to evacuate and wanted to stay behind to ride out the storm, stubborn as they were. When we’d gone to their doors, they’d told us they were scared that looters would come in and steal their possessions when no one was in the town. Those people now came running from their burnt houses, covered in sores and peeling skin. Many fell while trying to get to the platform. Everyone was cramming to get onto that third train. The driver panicked and the train started moving while we were halfway through loading. People jumped on if they could. So many could not . . . or they fell off. But the train left, and just as we were about to pull out, the front reached the station. It was the scariest thing I have ever seen, this huge wall of black smoke, flames leaping into the air, trees and houses exploding. And the noise, you wouldn’t believe it unless you’ve heard it. Roaring wind, snapping wood. But the strange thing, Proctor: the wind was cold. The fire was not hot, it was cold.” He shuddered.
“The train gained speed. We were all screaming for it to go faster. People were blocking the windows with anything they could find. The train was going faster and faster, but it was getting colder and colder, and we weren’t going to make it—and then the engine exploded. It sent such a shockwave through the train that it leapt right off the tracks. The carriage I was in was thrown on its side. The wall splintered and people were crawling out over each other. I think some of the younger ones had already died, but I wasn’t going to stop and check. We were crawling over bodies. I managed to get out after pushing another fellow through a crack. His shirt had ripped, and he was bleeding. He took a few steps and fell on his face on the rails and didn’t move again.”
The soldier raised a hand to rub his face but obviously thought better of it even before touching the blisters and, slowly, lowered the hand to his lap. “I was starting to wonder why I was still alive. I started running, and running, but I still heard the roaring behind me. I reached a house in a meadow. I was so tired that I couldn’t run anymore. I thought I might try to hide in the house, so I ran up to the door and I made the mistake of looking around.”
The soldier’s gaze, like his voice, had been dropping steadily, but now he looked up, into Sady’s eyes. “You wouldn’t believe if you hadn’t seen it, but there was a wall of fire following me, reaching to the sky. I could see nothing but smoke and fire. And then, in that fire, something moved. It was a huge thing, shaped out of fire, the figure of a person. I don’t know, but I think it saw me. I knew that was the end for me. And then all of a sudden there was a cry of a beast from the other side and I was yanked right off my feet. The next thing I knew, this huge bird landed next to me. There was an Eagle Knight on its back. I would not be here if not for the bird.” He frowned. “Did you know that the Eagle Knights have women in their ranks?”
Sady hadn’t known. Then again, many balloon pilots were women, too.
“She dropped me off just outside town, probably didn’t want to be seen.”
That, too, made sense. There had been few Eagle Knights sighted, but some were sure to have fled. They would not be keen to be spotted.
“Did you check if anyone else survived?”
“They couldn’t have, Proctor, honest.”
Sady met his eyes, watering and cloudy with pain.
“Can I be excused now, proctor? I am not well.”
“Go,” Sady said. “My staff will take care of you.”
The man rose, leaving a wet patch on the edge of the chair.
Sady went after him. “Orsan, take him to the hospital.”
Orsan nodded, but his face was grim. This man would probably not live long.