Alan Campbell - Sea Of Ghosts

Sister Ulla sat up. ‘I agree,’ she said. ‘We have a chance here to study something completely new.’

‘A thorough dissection would tell us a lot,’ Mara said.

‘You’ll get your moment, Torturer,’ Briana said. ‘But in the meantime, I want her broken, stripped down. Peel back the layers until you’ve bared her soul. I want to know what’s in there.’

Ianthe dreamed she was in a ballroom with tall shuttered windows and golden chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. A blonde Unmer girl sat on a three-legged stool, gently plucking a harp. She was pale and terribly thin, and her physical weakness translated into the music she played. Every fragile note seemed to quiver on the edge of oblivion.

Ianthe had never heard anything so sad and so beautiful before. She stood there for a long time, listening. And then the music suddenly stopped, and the girl was looking at her defiantly. ‘Who are you?’ she said.

‘Just a friend.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came to deliver a letter.’

The blonde girl shook her head. ‘You’re with them,’ she said. ‘Don’t you know that I could destroy you? As easily as this…’ She moved her hand through the harp strings, and they snapped one by one with a series of sharp, discordant sounds. ‘I’ll take away your fingers and pieces of your skin.’ She stood up, knocking the harp away so that it crashed to the floor.

Ianthe was suddenly afraid. She turned to flee but halted when the door swung open behind her. A procession of revellers poured into the room, young men and women in fancy party clothes and exotic bird of paradise masks – a squall of peacock feathers and silvered beaks, gemstones and perfume. They were drunk and laughing. The men led the women, who shrieked and giggled and stumbled in their arms. They flowed around Ianthe, filling the room with their breathless gaiety.

A man in a white mask rapped a staff against the floor and said, ‘Music! We must have music!’

The harp began to play, but this time the music was brisk and lively. It did not seem unusual to Ianthe that the broken instrument could produce these sounds. She could no longer see the blonde girl, for the revellers had formed a circle around Ianthe. As the music soared they started to dance. They moved in pairs, each man holding his partner’s hand high. Their bird masks dipped and flashed under the chandeliers – a whirlwind of feathers and jewels. Their heels struck the floorboards with staccato barks. They clapped and laughed and bowed. None of them appeared to notice Ianthe at all.

Ianthe wanted to leave, but to do so would mean breaking through the circle. The music became louder and more delirious, and the dancers kept pace, spinning wildly in a great vortex of colourful silks. Ianthe moved towards the door, but the dancers forced her back. She tried to find another way through, and yet another, but there was no space among the flailing arms and stamping heels. And no space in the music. Notes clashed with their neighbours as the whole merged into an appalling cacophony. Like the shrieking of wild birds. Ianthe could hardly tell one dancer from another. They seemed to merge into one great fluid entity, circling her faster and faster, revolving out of control. And someone screamed.

But the dance went on. The cry became part of the music, just another hideous note swept away by the shrieks and laughter that followed. A girl was pleading: Please don’t, please don’t. Ianthe spied blood on the floor. The dancers’ shoes slid through it; bloody heels clacked down, and up, and the men clapped their hands and carried their swooning partners’ along. Some of the ladies were unconscious. Some were struggling to break loose. All were bleeding from countless wounds. And as they danced on their masks and frocks began to fall away like feathers. Scraps of silk and lace fluttered around them or lay strewn across the wet floor.

The laughter died. There was no longer any sound from the ladies, only the stamp of feet and the chaotic music as the bird-masked men whirled their naked, mutilated partners around and around the ballroom.

‘You don’t have a partner.’

Ianthe turned to find the man in the white mask standing next to her. He extended a slender, almost effeminate, hand. ‘Please, will you honour me with a dance?’

‘Ianthe?’

She was looking down at herself lying in hospital bed. A yellow gem lantern made a pool of harsh illumination in the otherwise dark ward. The sheets and pillows smelled of soap. Someone wearing Haurstaf robes was tugging at the straps securing her hands to the bed frame. And whoever it was was acting as a host for Ianthe’s own befuddled mind.

Ianthe suddenly put a name to the voice she’d heard. ‘Aria?’

‘Shush. They’d kill me if they knew I was here.’ Aria freed Ianthe’s other hand, and stood back. ‘We have to leave.’

Ianthe watched herself sit up. One of her eyes looked black and swollen. ‘What happened?’

‘Don’t you know?’

Ianthe recalled the room of mirrors, and her heart cramped. ‘I hurt Briana,’ she said.

‘She’s all right,’ Aria said. ‘But everyone knows. It’s not safe for you here.’

‘My lenses? Where are they?’

Aria rummaged in her robe pocket and brought out the Unmer spectacles. ‘Torturer Mara’s office,’ she said. Ianthe thought she heard a smile in the other girl’s voice. ‘I spotted them when I got the key. I knew you’d want them back.’ She handed them over to Ianthe, who put them on at once.

Then she left Aria’s body and flitted back into her own. And suddenly she could see Aria standing over her, her eyes twinkling, and a broad smile on her earthy face. Ianthe breathed a sigh of relief. She pulled back the covers and got out of bed. Her robe flapped around her ankles. The cold tiled floor under her bare feet sent a shiver up her spine, but she couldn’t see her shoes anywhere.

‘I didn’t try them on,’ Aria said.

‘What?’

‘The eyeglasses. Do they make it easier? Everyone thinks that’s how you did it.’

Ianthe shook her head. ‘They just help me see. I’m blind without them.’

Aria’s expression became grim. ‘Then you’re in even more trouble than I thought.’

They left the ward and hurried along the adjoining corridor. Windows looked into white rooms full of metal tables. Most were empty, but in one Ianthe glimpsed the partially dissected corpse of an Unmer man. Something about him seemed familiar. Did he have a scar on his forehead? She paused, but Aria just grabbed her and dragged her onwards. ‘We have to hurry,’ she said. ‘A driver is waiting to take you to Port Awl. He’s a friend. He’ll get you through the checkpoints. From there you can take one of the merchant transports to Losoto. John knows someone who can sneak you aboard.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ Ianthe said.

‘Because you’re the only one who would have done it for me,’ Aria replied. ‘I don’t have any other friends here.’ She stopped suddenly, pulled a small roll of gilders from her pocket and thrust it into Ianthe’s hand. ‘You’ll need this. I’m sorry it’s not much. It’s all I have.’

Tears welled in Ianthe’s eyes. ‘Thank you.’

Aria smiled. ‘Come on, we’re nearly there.’

They took a left down another corridor, then reached a sturdy metal door.

‘Wait,’ Ianthe said. She sensed people waiting on the opposite side of the door – two men, their perceptions as bright as lanterns in that perpetual gloom beyond her lenses. A military uniform. She reached out to stop the other girl. ‘Aria, there’s someone there.’

‘It’s just the driver’ Aria said. ‘He’s meeting us here.’ She took Ianthe’s hand, opened the door, and led her through.