Chris Wooding: The Fade

I always liked Caydus.

'You did not answer me,' Ledo says.

'I don't know, Magnate. Who knows what any of the Cadre are capable of, if the incentive is strong enough? But I don't know of anything that would make Orna act against your interests. I believe her apology was genuine.'

Well, at least I fooled one of them.

Ledo is clearly unconvinced, even with Caydus' show of support. Maybe he's pondering what I meant by speaking of Belek Aspa. Maybe thinking it was an innocent question. Maybe considering calling off the assassins. Maybe not.

I decide I've heard enough. I can't risk staying in the corridor. When Ledo is turned away from the doorway I flit across it and move on.

I hit the study first time. Can't help a flush of self-congratulation at that.

It's a large room, with a bookcase and several tall cabinets against one wall. A broad desk at one end, neatly laid with writing equipment and stationery. Two lanterns on poles stand in opposite corners, their flames magnified by chthonomantically treated glass bulbs. Set into the long wall opposite the door is a window looking out over a park on the edge of the Tangles.

I'm high up here. The ambient glow from Veya's shinehouses bathes the tops of the lichen-trees in the park. Walking paths are lit with tracks of glowing dots.

I start with the desk, but the drawers are locked. I don't want to waste time, so I check the cabinets before I get into the fiddly stuff. Mostly bone scroll-cases, shipping manifestos and reports. I rummage through them, willing the evidence I need to reveal itself. Nothing does.

I scan the bookcase, then start on another cabinet. In here I find several leather-bound ledgers. I leaf through one, find it full of diagrams and sketches: military reports. Voids, I'd like to spend time reading this, find out what these bastards have planned for our Army. But none of this is what I need.

I draw out some tiny picks and get working at the lock of the uppermost desk drawer. Now I've got the right tools, taken from my chambers downstairs, it's somewhat easier than messing about with hairpins in Farakza. The thought of that place gives me a much-needed shot of confidence. I broke out of there, didn't I? This is easy by comparison.

The lock gives up and I slide the drawer open. Bundles of letters within. Some tied in little square stacks, some loose. I pick up the top one, skim-read it.

I can't believe my luck. First time, again. You couldn't buy fortune like that.

It's the letter from Jerima Vem, detailing the operation to be carried out. Name of the barge is the Maid Of The Dark. That's the name Silverfish needs. But it's not the evidence I want.

I'm putting the letter back when I see another one tucked among the others, and I stop. There's no way it would have caught my attention, but for one thing. That alphabet, comprised of arrangements of tiny triangles. It's written in Gurtan.

I pick it up. My breath is suddenly short, pulse pounding at my throat. Eyes wide as I start to read. My memory of written Gurtan has decayed faster than the speech, since I spent little time reading as a slave; but I start to decipher odd phrases.

Our meeting… success to our great enterprise… we two must… the appointed place… honoured Ledo…

A date. A location. And a name.

Belek Aspa.

Footsteps. I recognise the rhythm instinctively. Ledo.

My skin goes icy cold. I slide the letter back where it came from, check that everything is in place, shut the drawer. No time to lock it. Time becomes slippery, measured by the swift approach of boot heels.

Nowhere to hide. If he comes in here, I'm caught.

Kill him.

The thought surges up inside me, borne on a tide of rage like nothing I've ever felt before. My hatred of the Gurta is nothing to this: the hatred of the man I pledged my life to, the man who ordered me and my husband into a trap at Korok, who left us to die so he could turn a profit from prolonging a war.

Kill him. Rip his eyes out of his fucking skull.

No. No, I can't be sure.

You've seen the proof! He's conspiring with a Gurta Minister!

I know that, and yet I still can't do it. He's my master. His men saved me from slavery. He gave me a life and a living. I owe everything to him. My husband, my son. Twenty-nine years of utter and total loyalty can't be thrown away in an instant. It's ground in, rooted deep. I can't. I can't.

He's almost on me. No way out.

Then, inspiration. I hurry across the room, tilt the glass on one of the standing lanterns and blow it out. The study dims.

Ledo is outside the door now. A pause. Doing what? Admiring a sculpture? Stay there. Just another moment.

I flee back to the other corner of the room, raise the second lantern and blow on it. It gutters and holds. I blow again, and it dies.

Ledo pushes the door open just as the room falls into darkness. I freeze where I am, still holding the lantern glass. In the light that spills in from the park and the city I'm clearly visible. But the door stands between Ledo and me.

Go on, I think at him desperately. There's no one in here. Those lazy handmaidens have let the lanterns go out. Fuck off and fetch them. Give them a piece of your mind, you treacherous bastard.

He stays. For long, agonising moments he stays. I can feel the prickle of his suspicion. Then he steps back and the door closes, slowly. Perhaps he can't believe the handmaidens would let something like this happen. He knows how attentive they are. He knows something is amiss.

Then he's gone. I listen to his footsteps recede, and gently lower the lantern glass.

Too close. And the handmaidens will be here any second. I slip out of the study and head down the corridor, back towards the bathroom, where my escape route awaits. I've learned enough.

I've learned more than enough.

I wait for Keren in a bar on a lantern-lit plaza, sipping black-spore cocktails to take the edge off my hangover. It's very late, and though Veya never sleeps it does have its rhythms. The streets are quiet, the plaza largely empty. The tall, severe buildings that overlook the area have their shutters drawn. Beyond the spattering of a nearby fountain and the stirring of the breeze, nothing moves.

I sit at my wrought-iron table out front of the bar, getting steadily wasted. Thinking the kind of thoughts I only dare think when I'm drunk.

I'm making ridiculous plans in my head. Plans to find my son, to steal him away. Plans to find a chthonomancer or a dweoming or someone powerful enough to remove the skinmarks that brand us. They were attached by a master: it'll take another master to remove them, one with no scruples or connection to the Clans. Someone who wouldn't just turn us in or kill us on the spot.

If it was just the sigil on my shoulder, maybe I could do it. Unlikely I'd get away with it for long, but it's a maybe. The problem is the Bond-mark on my face, and on my son's face. Even burning it off or cutting it away wouldn't work. As if anyone would believe that we had both been mutilated in the same place, exactly where the Bond-mark would lie. There's no hiding from it.

You can't save him.

Of course I've considered it before, but there were always so many variables in between that it seemed pointless to worry about it. No need to despair until hope is gone.

But maybe hope is gone, and I'm just refusing to accept it. If wild plans are all I have then I really don't have anything. Maybe I could find someone who could help, a chthonomancer who could help me lose the skinmarks… but the real problem is Jai.

Ledo has closed the door on me. While the possibility existed that our master would permit Jai to return to Veya, I had a chance. But now what's left, if I find him? Make my son a deserter? Dishonoured, reviled, hunted for the rest of his life. Prevented from ever seeing Reitha again.