K Parker - Memory

'No.'

'Trust me,' the voice said urgently, 'and Xipho and the Earwig won't have to die. Together we can save them. On your own, you wouldn't know how.'

Pause. 'I'd rather let them die than come back with you.'

'There.' Total triumph in that voice. 'You see, I've won. You always were your own worst enemy.'

'Apart from you.'

'Me? You love me-'

'I love you,' he heard her say.

He couldn't help yawning, having just woken up. She laughed.

'I didn't mean to yawn,' he said. 'What time is it?'

'Late,' she replied. 'Come on, get up. You always were useless in the mornings.'

He grunted, rolled off the bed and looked for his clothes, which had vanished. In their place 'What the hell are these?' he asked.

'Get dressed and don't argue.'

He held up the shirt. 'You must be joking,' he said. 'There's enough brass thread in this to make a Poldarn's Flute.'

She clicked her tongue. 'That's not brass,' she said.

'You mean-Oh.' Explained why the shirt was so heavy. He'd come across lighter mail shirts. The trousers were the same, only more so. Even the shoes 'Whose clothes are these, anyway?' he asked.

'Yours.'

He was about to argue when he caught the faint smell of cedarwood. Keeps the moths at bay, he'd heard somewhere. 'Mine,' he repeated.

She nodded. 'Of course, they're three years out of fashion-you're going to look like a clown, but that can't be helped. I've ordered you a whole new wardrobe, but these things take time.'

'I used to wear things like this,' he said; and he realised what a stranger he'd become to himself. 'Where are we going, then, if I need to dress up?'

She gave him a long, steady look. 'Dinner,' she said. 'With my father.'

'Hello, Earwig,' Cleapho said. 'Long time, no see.'

Monach lifted his head. He could still see-just about-out of his left eye. His right didn't seem to want to open any more.

'Cordo,' he said. His voice sounded dreadful. 'What're you doing here?'

Cleapho laughed. 'I won,' he said. 'The battle. Come on, you must remember the battle. Or have you lost your memory, like Ciartan?'

That didn't strike Monach as particularly funny, but Cleapho laughed noisily. 'What happened?' Monach said. 'Last thing I remember-' He paused; he wasn't sure what the last thing he remembered was.. 'The Flutes,' he said. 'They failed-'

Cleapho was nodding sagely. 'Of course,' he said. 'They were supposed to. It's called sabotage, though that's rather a feeble term for such an intricate exercise.' He narrowed his eyes. 'You must've been quite close to one of them,' he said. 'The doctors tell me it's a miracle you're still alive.'

Monach could remember the heat of the air as it hit him in the face like a hammer.

'Ironic, really,' Cleapho went on. 'No, don't try to move,' he added, as Monach made an effort to sit up. 'You'll only start the bleeding off again.'

Monach hadn't taken any interest in his surroundings, his entire attention having been focused on Cordo, his old friend. 'I'm on a ship,' he said in surprise.

'That's right,' Cleapho said. 'You're being taken to Torcea. We should be there in a couple of hours. You've been asleep for a very long time.'

Other things were claiming Monach's attention now-pain most of all. He hurt all over. 'How bad is it?' he asked, as calmly as he could.

'Pretty bad,' Cleapho replied. 'You're still basically in one piece-Your left leg's a jigsaw puzzle and I think you lost a couple of fingers on your left hand, but that's all. Your right eye's pretty comprehensively wrecked, you lost all the skin off your face and arms, and you've got a lot of internal damage: broken ribs, that sort of thing.'

Monach was surprised at how calm he felt. 'Am I going to make it?' he asked.

'Well, now.' Cleapho almost smiled. 'We're all going to die sooner or later. But as far as the sawbones can make out, none of it's what they call life-threatening. Are you in a lot of pain?' Monach was about to say 'No, I'm fine,' but this was Cordo he was talking to. 'Yes,' he admitted, 'everything hurts like hell.'

'Sorry about that,' Cleapho replied; and Monach remembered. Sabotage.

'The Flutes were supposed to fail?' he asked.

'That's right,' Cleapho told him, holding a tin cup of water so he could drink from it. 'That was Spenno, doing his bit for religion. He was a better man than any of us thought, I guess. It helped that the man the government sent-Galand something-was a buffoon, and knew it too; when Spenno told him he was wrong, he believed it. So Spenno was able to make the Flutes so that they'd fail.' He shook his head sadly. 'Dangerous things,' he said. 'Rather too powerful for my liking. It simply wouldn't do, politically and strategically, for Tazencius to get his hands on weapons that'd make him immune from attacks by the raiders-or anybody else, for that matter. Stealing or destroying the ones they were making at Dui Chirra wasn't enough, you see; they'd only have set up a foundry somewhere else and made some more. But now the whole idea's discredited, at least for my lifetime, which is all that matters. For what it's worth, it's very old knowledge-as you'd know, if you ever read books. They were invented in Morevich five hundred years ago, hence the name, but when Morevich was added to the Empire, we carefully disposed of all records of them; now they only exist in folk tales, as an attribute of the Divine Poldarn.'

Monach stared a him for a moment. 'But that doesn't make any sense,' he said, finding it hard to think past the headache that was tightening round his temples like a snare. 'I thought it was my job to capture them. For us.'

Cleapho smiled gently. 'It was,' he said. 'And you did it very well. I have to confess, I've underestimated you too. I'm afraid I kept thinking of you as you were at school-born follower, not much use without someone telling you what to do. But you coped very well on your own, when it came to it. Almost too well.' He laughed again, though Monach still couldn't see the joke.

'I don't understand,' Monach said.

Cleapho was getting up. 'Maybe that's enough for now,' he said. 'You're still very weak, I ought to let you get some rest.'

'No, please.' Monach tried to move, but his legs, and arms, wouldn't obey. At first he assumed it was his injuries, but then he realised he was tied down to the bed.

'Well,' Cleapho relented, 'since it's all as broad as it's long, I might as well tell you now as later. Yes, you were meant to capture Dui Chirra for us. That was the whole-point, of all of it. You see, I had plenty of notice of this Poldarn's Flute project; it was practically the first thing Tazencius did when he became Emperor. He's terrified of the raiders, you see; what with them being his former allies-really, Earwig, you didn't know? Good heavens. Yes, he was the one who made contact with them in the beginning, through Ciartan; his idea was to get them to step up their attacks, start annihilating whole cities, so that the Empire would become ungovernable and he'd have his chance at grabbing the throne.' He sighed. 'But then Ciartan double-crossed him, all of us in fact, and ever since he's been scared sick of what'd happen when he finally became Emperor and Ciartan, or-' Cleapho smiled '-or Feron Amathy used the same tactic against him in turn. He used the raiders as a weapon, if you like, and then he desperately needed something that'd protect him against that weapon in someone else's hands. Hence the Flute project. Which, of course,' he added, 'I couldn't possibly allow. Which is where you came in,' he continued, 'among others.'

'Me,' Monach said.

'You and Xipho,' Cleapho replied. 'She knew the purpose behind it-part of it, anyhow; I'm afraid we decided against telling you. That was probably wrong, I don't know. Anyway, Xipho raised that funny little army of yours, and you took it to Dui Chirra and did the rest. Thank you,' he added.