The Haurstaf had an entire army at their disposal, while Granger had one half-wrecked little chariot. He didn’t know if the craft would even make it that far.
He stood there for a moment, thinking.
‘Let me go,’ Herian said. He sat on the floor, shivering, with his shoulders slumped in an attitude of defeat. Snow was already gathering on his hair and mail shirt. ‘I’m no danger to you. Keep the chariot, let me take the jewel back.’
Granger picked up the jewel and carried it over to the hatch. An icy gale blew around his shoulders. A few yards below him, the toroid gleamed dully under the monochrome sky. Not a single snowflake had adhered to that metal surface.
‘What are you doing?’ Herian said.
Granger pitched the jewel out of the hatch. It landed in the depression in the centre of the toroid with an almighty clang, rolled one way, and then the other, before finally settling.
Herian crawled over, then let out a groan.
‘You’ll get it back,’ Granger said. ‘But I want something in return.’
The old man stared after the jewel.
‘That sword I picked up,’ Granger said. ‘The simulacrums…’
‘What about them?’
‘Show me how to use it properly.’
‘That’s all?’ Herian said. ‘You want to wield a Replicating Sword?’
Granger grunted. ‘That’s just the beginning.’
The room looked like a lecture theatre to Ianthe, with wooden seats rising in curved tiers before her. It was empty apart from a panel of four Haurstaf witches. Subtle changes in their expressions told her they were having a discussion, even if she couldn’t hear them. Briana Marks glanced at Sister Ulla, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. The remaining two spinsters simply glared down at Ianthe as if they knew the secrets of her soul. They were older than anyone Ianthe had seen before, balanced there like pinnacles of weathered rock.
‘Really,’ Briana said suddenly. ‘This is beyond tiring. Why not let the girl hear what you have to say? I’m not going to go over this twice for her benefit. If the point of psychic warfare is to inflict pain, suffering and death, then she’s done exceptionally well.’
Sister Ulla snorted. ‘We can’t have lawlessness and anarchy within our own ranks.’
Briana looked at the old woman with an expression of incredulity. ‘Anarchy? Don’t be so dramatic, Ulla. The loss of one brat is not going to make any difference to the world. She was hardly an asset.’
‘The parents!’ Sister Ulla protested.
‘Why on earth would you want to inform them?’
‘They’ll find out eventually-’
Briana batted a hand at the other woman. ‘We have finances set aside to deal with these sorts of problems. Don’t bore us all with your peacock morality. Her parents ought to be glad she was given an opportunity here in the first place.’
Sister Ulla fluffed out her chest, as if she was going to protest, but then she sank back into her chair.
Briana looked at Ianthe. ‘Mara said you turned that girl’s brain to paste.’
Ianthe felt her face turn red. She shuffled from one foot to the other. She wanted to say that she hadn’t meant it, that it wasn’t her fault and if they would let her go home she’d never bother the Haurstaf again. But that wasn’t going to happen now. She lowered her head.
Briana laughed suddenly. ‘You think so, Ulla?’ she said. ‘I’d like to see you do it.’
‘Don’t tempt me,’ Sister Ulla growled.
Nobody spoke for several minutes, and it seemed to Ianthe that the witches had fallen back into psychic communication. But then Briana turned to her and said, ‘Sister Ulla is of the opinion that you had help. Did you have help, Ianthe?’
Ianthe said nothing.
‘If you don’t mind,’ Briana went on, ‘we’d like to examine those eyeglasses of yours.’
‘They’re just eyeglasses.’
‘Then you won’t mind-’
‘No!’ Ianthe cried. ‘They don’t belong to you.’ Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision through the lenses. These old women had no right to ask her to give up her sight, no right at all. All of them except Briana were glaring furiously at her now.
Sister Ulla looked as if she was ready to explode with indignation. ‘You’ll hand them over now,’ she said, ‘or I’ll come down there and take them from you myself.’
Ianthe spoke through her teeth. ‘Try it.’
Briana raised her hands. ‘That’s enough,’ she said. She glanced from one sister to another, before returning her attention to Ianthe. Her expression softened. ‘There’s a place for you here, Ianthe, but only if you work with us. I won’t tolerate threats. I expect you to be as civil and honest with us as we’ve been with you.’ She gave her a half-smile. ‘We can’t put you back into the classroom now.’
‘But I didn’t mean to harm-’ Ianthe’s voice broke and she began to cry.
Briana left her seat and walked down the central aisle of the theatre. She wrapped her arms around Ianthe and held her. Ianthe couldn’t stop herself. Her whole body began to convulse with sobs. Tears flowed freely until she could no longer see through her lenses. She clung fiercely to Briana. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
The Haurstaf leader smoothed Ianthe’s hair. ‘Shush,’ she said. ‘You’ve done nothing to be sorry about. All you need is a little guidance.’ She held Ianthe for a long time. Finally she squeezed Ianthe’s shoulders and gently pushed her away. ‘If you can do that to a human,’ she said, smiling, ‘think what you could do to the Unmer.’
Ianthe sniffed and shook her head.
‘This is what we do, Ianthe,’ Briana said. ‘It’s what your classmates have been training towards, what poor Caroline sacrificed her life for.’
‘Constance,’ Ianthe said.
Briana nodded. ‘And when you see what the Unmer are capable of, you’ll understand why the Guild is so vital. Women like us keep the world from falling apart.’ She turned to the other three witches. ‘I think she’s ready to see the dungeons now.’
Sister Ulla shook her head, but her two companions looked at each other for a few moments. ‘There’s no going back if you decide to take that route,’ one of them said. ‘She’ll be bound to us for good or ill.’
Briana made a face. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic, Bethany,’ she said. ‘We can always kill her later.’ She moved her lips close to Ianthe’s ear. ‘I’m joking. But your acceptance into the Guild will have other consequences. Maskelyne will be executed for his crimes.’
Ianthe looked up at her for a long moment. ‘What about his wife? His son?’
Briana looked surprised. ‘You want them dead, too?’
‘No, I mean-’
‘We must protect our family from the Maskelynes of this world,’ the witch said. ‘Family is important, don’t you think?’
Ianthe’s eyes filled with tears again. She nodded.
Briana extended her hand. ‘Then come with me.’
What happened next happened quickly. Ianthe found herself whisked away from that room. Briana Marks led her on through the palace, through glassy black corridors and halls and rooms where women Ianthe did not know looked on in grim silence. They descended one stairwell and then a second and a third and a fourth, until Ianthe lost count and it seemed to her that they must be deep with the earth itself. Finally they came to a nondescript door in a small stone antechamber. Briana turned a key in the lock.
They stepped out onto a balcony set high on one wall of an enormous, brightly lit chamber – one of four platforms connected by a cruciform steel catwalk. Thousands of gem lanterns depended from the vaulted ceiling overhead, filling the entire space with harsh white light. Below the catwalk lay a maze of roofless concrete cells, each about six feet to a side. Hundreds of small openings, barely large enough for a man to squeeze through, connected each cell to one or more of its neighbours in a seemingly haphazard fashion. Ianthe strolled to the edge of the balcony and looked down. A network of pipes suspended beneath the catwalk fed an array of shower heads, one located above each cell. Their purpose was presumably to wash the occupants below.