Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

I goggled at her, but she simply smiled.

“How did you know that thing was going to appear?” Lightning demanded.

I seated myself on the deck; I was too nauseous to question Rayne. I moaned, “Oh, please let me lie down. They’ve stopped fighting. I halted the riot; we’ve won.”

“We los’ so much, Jant, tha’ I doubt you could call i’ winning.”

Lightning nudged me with his boot. “I see Vendace and the senators approaching the gangway. At the moment I don’t think relations between Capharnaum and the Castle could be any worse. Can you address them?”

Rayne said, “Jant is very disorien’ed; I don’-”

I nodded. “Yes. I will speak for the Castle.”

Scavenger smoke rifled across the sky. The moisture of the sea breeze condensed on the library’s fumes to form a thick cloud descending over the crag; we gradually lost sight of the blackened, burned-out Amarot. The air was filthy and muggy, unfamiliar to the senators. They stood huddled together, coughing. The sea krait had rendered them speechless and their eyes were downcast; they were in mortal fear. Lightning and I walked unsteadily down the gangplank to the corniche which was littered with debris. Vendace’s tunic and unruly gray hair were soot-stained. He looked at the blood on Lightning’s shirt, the puke on mine and the ash on us both. He faltered, “We saw the serpent. Can you communicate with it?”

“I just did,” I said.

They conferred between themselves; they all had a tone of defeat. Vendace said, “This is so much worse than legendary Insects coming to life. We had no idea that such a serpent existed. How did you summon it?”

“What are they asking-?” Lightning began.

“One minute!” I said to him. I gathered my thoughts and addressed the senators. “Yes, I summoned the snake to stop the battle and save your homes. I don’t want to call up any more but the Archer is furious and unmerciful. You heard us arguing on the ship; he wants to show you what we can do. I’m trying to make him agree not to encircle the island with giant snakes.” I turned to Lightning and addressed him gravely in high Awian. “We must look like we’re conferring. I’m bluffing, but the senators will appreciate the Empire after this. Pretend to be angry and speak to me; quote theater or something.”

Lightning was quick to understand. He shook his head and said in a stern tone, “Well, in that case-balsam for lovers.”

I inquired, “Willows for brides?”

“Briars for the maidens,” Lightning retorted. “Look, you will explain this afterward, please?”

I patted his shoulder as if in agreement, “Oh yes, but I’m positive you won’t like it. And to wives we give lilies. Right.” I switched back to Trisian and said, “My friend and I have decided not to summon the snakes, and to let them abide in the deepest ocean where they will be no threat to your country again.” I extended my hand to Vendace. “There are many more wonderful things in the Fourlands. We’re your allies; please join us.”

Vendace and the others seemed doubtful. His lean shoulders were sagging. “If all the trials to face Tris from now on will be this arduous, then we cannot resist them alone. We’ll give you a message for”-he paused and blanched-“for San, now he has done to us what he did to the Pentadrica.”

“What?” I said.

Vendace looked at his associates for support, shrugged. “Everybody knows that centuries ago San let the Pentadrica be destroyed so he could seize power. He deliberately contrived that unfortunate Alyss be slain, and now he’s done the same to us.”

I shook my head. “No, no. San was only an adviser. He would have told Alyss not to visit the Insects’ enclave and she must have ignored him.”

Vendace glanced at the murk covering the Amarot, through which glimpses of the blackened library walls came and went. “That is not what Capelin wrote. I have read the manuscript, many of us have, but now…how do we prove it? It is ash with the rest.”

I didn’t know what to say or who to believe. I searched around for more evidence of our goodwill, took the books from my pockets and gave them to Danio’s successor, who was still choking back sobs. “Here…”

“Oh, thanks,” she said sarcastically, looking at the titles.

“The Castle’s Doctor is here; she’ll help your doctors with the wounded Capharnai. Her knowledge and supplies will be useful. We’ll repair the damage that has been done, as far as we can. If you need grain ships I shall send them. The Circle is at your command; whatever you think about the Emperor’s history and motives, I promise you we will work day and night.”

I thought, we have brought them misrule. Our presence has made Tris grow out of childhood to delinquent adolescence. But scolopendium was still hitting me in waves of sickness and bliss. I was simply glad to be alive, one of the lives remaining.

Our soldiers, seeing Lightning on the quayside, approached him. But he was feverish, so he simply sat down and left me to give the commands while Rayne tended to him. I told the Awndyn Fyrd captain to round up the rebels and put them in the hold. Then came Viridian, Ata’s daughter, who had collected the gory pieces of her mother’s body. She insisted that Mist Ata Dei be buried at sea, with the respect that was due to a famous explorer and the Circle’s Sailor.

I said, “It’s terrible that Mist can never know how Tris turns out.”

Lightning glanced over the broken paving stones, the trebuchet shot and abandoned gold loot on the harbor pavement. His gaze loitered on the sea that splintered the dawn light. He was now as suspicious of the ocean as I used to be, and I loved it because it was not the same sea now the kraits swam in its depths. “Yes, it is, Comet. And I wonder if the Empire will ever regain a vestige of normality.”

THE CASTLE, JANUARY 2021

The paths under the Finial’s arches were slippery with snow that had partially melted and then frozen again. The translucent footprints preserved the detailed marks of boot treads and hobnails. Frost rime edged the stone leaves on the Architect’s Tower, and icicles so long you could spit Insects with them hung from the Bridge of Size, which took the cobbled Eske Road across the Moren River. On the lawns between the Simurgh Wing and outer wall, two centimeters of snow were sealed beneath a centimeter of sparkling ice, blue in the early morning light.

I waited outside the Throne Room in the small cloister, staring out of one of its pointed glassless windows. I was contemplating the fact that if you put the world’s finest-athletically or intellectually-into one Castle and let it stew for a thousand years, the results will not always be palatable.

Looking south between the outer wall and palace, the roof had been rebuilt on the Harcourt Barracks, where the Imperial Fyrd are based. Men were repairing the Dace Gate barbican, and all along the curtain wall flags flew at half-mast.

Next to me, on the spandrels between the little arched windows, were green-men carvings, dead faces with branches growing out of their loose decaying mouths. Their sole purpose was to remind us that one day we will die and be nothing but plant food. It is a thought that spurs Eszai to keep their places in the Circle and mortals to do great deeds and join them, or be remembered for their great deeds alone.

Tris would take years to recover from the damage Gio caused. Lightning, Wrenn, Rayne, Viridian and I had left the island one month after the riot. I last saw it diminishing in the distance under a sunset pink from the amount of soot and burned book dust high in the air. “Ata’s sunsets,” the Capharnai have come to call them.