Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

Gio leaned forward with a deep, earnest look. “Comet, do you blame me? Rejected from the Circle, you’d do the same.” He urged me to answer with a manic little nod. I made no move. He suddenly growled with hatred and drew his arm back for the thrust.

I dived backward out of the window. I fell, backflipped, spun into a full somersault, fighting to free my wings. Firelight stretched into a blur. Stars below me, white granite above. I forced my wings open. The left one bruised hard against a column. I flapped frantically to get air under them and banked breathlessly over the square. The rebels were all yelling but I couldn’t see them. I tried to get my bearings.

I fought desperately upward to the level of the Senate House ledge. Gio leaned out of the window, staring in mute horror. I pedaled my legs, pumped my wings and skimmed the roof above him, kicked off the ridge and glided out over the cliff.

I yelled to Lightning, “Run!”

Lightning said, “Oh, no. Hush.”

“Run! We must! Follow me.”

He had no choice; the rebels were staggering to their feet and reaching for weapons. They looked at each other, finding the nerve to cross the mosaic and attack. Lightning dashed around the corner, straight in front of them to the only conspicuous door-the library.

Below me I heard Gio swearing. “Get me water! Get me the ship’s surgeon!”

Was the aconitum belatedly taking effect? I called to Lightning, “The second floor is defensible. I’ll meet you up there!”

Lightning rammed the door open with his shoulder and turned in the entrance to face the men. “I am”-he loosed an arrow and the nearest one dropped his rapier and grabbed his hand, turned and fled trailing drops of blood-“Lightning. The immortal Archer.” He let another arrow fly at the largest man in the middle. It went straight through his hand that held an axe shaft. He jumped up with a howl and shook the arrowhead from the skin between his fingers. They all backed off. “You will find the stairs hazardous.” Lightning nocked another arrow to string. “I recommend caution, mob. Stay out.” He disappeared into the dark library.

I think he just made it worse. Five uninjured men clustered in. One kicked the door jamb. “Fuck him!”

He looked up at me; a birthmark half-covered his baggy face, gray in the dim light. Another was ex-fyrd, with Brandoch’s white trident badge on his tatty jacket. He called to bring more people around-a big hispid man whose jumper hood hung over his greatcoat; a burly woman, although in the darkness I couldn’t be sure.

I went over them low and swept up to the window to bleed off speed. I flared my wings, braked hard, bending my flight feathers right back. My air speed dropped to nothing; I fell. I hit the window’s louvre shutters with the soles of both boots. The shutters flew apart. I dropped through and landed squarely on my backside on the floor with my wings jammed in the window.

This story was pitch-black but I smelled the serious scent of paper and venerable patinated wood. I scraped a match and held it up, seeing that the well-stacked shelves lined a single central aisle obstructed with crates of papers. Lightning ascended the railed stairwell, whirled around with his back to me. “Comet? Where are you?”

By striking matches and peering through their weak light, I made my way along the aisle. He took deep breaths like a baited bear, stood statue-still, listening to the voices rising from the stairs.

“They’re both trapped. You go first.”

“Are you kidding? That’s Lord Micawater. The Archer. He’ll shoot me in the eye as soon as-”

“Lord la-di-da. Rush them.”

“Both eyes, probably…”

Lightning snorted.

“They’re immortals. ”

“Then they can wait,” came the woman’s voice.

Lightning lowered his bow slightly and sat on a table. I said, “We’re safe here for the moment.”

“Oh, we’re safe, are we? Splendid. Shall I just make you a cup of coffee, then? This is your fault, Jant! We could have stayed unobserved. I was hidden. I was prepared to steal back to Stormy Petrel, while you could fly. But no; you cry out ‘Run!’ Now the mob knows we’re here-and I’m cornered!” He shook a fist under my nose. His face was indistinct in the darkness but I could see he was pouch-eyed from lack of sleep. “You irresponsible, foundling, Rhydanne-”

“Please don’t use ‘Rhydanne’ as an insult.”

“Drug addict. Well! ”

“Well what? If you’d stayed by the columns they would have caught you. Gio saw me, then everything happened too fast to think.”

“Thinking is supposed to be your strong point. So, has he perished?”

Gio was far from dead. I protested, “I don’t understand it. Tolerance to that amount of belladonna isn’t possible; there are no recorded cases of recovery.”

Lightning drummed his powerful fingers on the table, sounding like a small horse race. He held his great longbow in the other hand, finger over the arrow shaft across its grip. I lit an almond-shaped lamp and paced to the window. The outlaws milled about below.

I felt queasy knowing that the aconitum was useless. I might have needed it myself at any time. I have never actually used it because scolopendium is such a fast-acting drug that on the rare occasions I overdose I am not in a condition to remember it or operate the ring. I have carried aconitum since I first learned of its effects, fifty years ago. Ah, damn. I haven’t replaced the tablets for-how long? Twenty years? And how many rainstorms have I flown through since then; how many long soaks in the bathhouse hot tub? It was a mistake that only an immortal could make. I said, “The tablets have been in my ring too long. The potency must have degraded. Gio isn’t suffering the full effect, if any at all.”

“You have never learned to be an Eszai,” Lightning said quietly, which was worse than his shouting. “Let me take stock. Item: Gio will be determined to repay our attempt on his life. Item: it is four A.M., so we have a full hour before Petrel arrives. Item: I only have one hundred arrows. Item: I am in considerable pain, and I will not be able to run for a sustained time.”

“What?”

For answer Lightning wormed his hand under the bandages around his waist. He held it up, red with blood, and wiped his fingers over the old scar on his palm. I hadn’t seen the stain on his shirt. “The exercise agitated my wound; it has not closed completely. I didn’t want to mention it, but it’ll hinder me so you must know. Damn it, don’t look so taken aback; just go and watch the mob.”

Shrunken by guilt, I turned to the nearest window, swung one shutter open. Lightning said, “Do you see any of my fyrd?”

“No. There aren’t many Lakeland or coast Awians rebelling; they know they need the Castle.”

“Good. I’m grateful for that at least.”

A mass of people filled the plaza between us and the Senate House, red-lit by the bonfire. Their noise was incredible: a tumult of gossip, jabbering fragments of conversation and false rumors-I could use those. I looked down on their heads; hoods, caps and woolly hats. I spotted the mesomorphic woman elbowing her way to the top of the boulevard. There was a general slow flow in that direction, like the start of a landslide. The air thrived with anxiety and excitement. I listened carefully, trying to separate phrases from the chaos: “Let’s go. No point in staying now Gio’s snuffed it, is there? You heard what that prat Tirrick said.”

“I would if I could see a bloody thing. If there’s two Eszai there’ll be more, see? The whole Circle might be here.”

“Gio’s not dead! His orders are to stay put.”

“I gave up all that order crap last year. Come on, think what we can pick up on our way to the ship.”