But she won’t.
She won’t do this because I coated the envelope in a fast-acting anemone poison capable of being absorbed through the skin. Our envelope-steamer will be dead in minutes. I have arranged for the letter itself to be removed from her corpse by a highly paid accomplice, who will pass it on to you, my dear, in a plain blue, non-toxic envelope. If the envelope containing this missive was not blue, then something has gone fearfully wrong, and I apologize.
I miss you and Jontney terribly. Awl Palace is an empty shell without you here. There is an academy – in which our vicious little trove-hunter has been enrolled – and a modicum of artefacts for me to study. The sisters float around in their robes as aimlessly as whiffs of cloud, soaking up gossip from the ends of the world. They have no interest the greater mysteries of life, but, like the majority of their sex, are content to twitter vacuously among themselves. It’s a blessing I cannot hear telepathic conversation, for every spoken conversation I have overheard eventually leans towards the subject of hair.
Briana Marks is different. She is cruelly unsubtle, but clever, and finds deep enjoyment in the power games between her own organization and the empire. A woman like her expects to find treachery in every shadow. Sadly, because of her distrust I have failed to impress upon her the importance of my work.
Nevertheless, I believe I have achieved a major breakthrough in my understanding of the Unmer’s source of power. If I cannot convince Sister Marks of the importance of this, I must leave at once for Losoto to gain an audience with Emperor Hu. Be ready, Lucille. I will soon come for you both.
Maskelyne was pacing his room when someone slid a piece of folded paper under the door. He raced over and snatched it up. He had been expecting a reply from Lucille, but this note startled him. It was a coded message from his contact.
32/3/44/51/163/33/29/29/32/19/32/3/67/8/56/9/163/3/7/80/17/18/3/89 /18/76/33/88/1/50/127/43/2/16/127/22/21/70/246/70/13/3/18/33/9/29/79/1 1/263/99/3/32/101/106/61/119/32/12/44/3/57
Maskelyne cursed. His contact had repeated several of the numbers, which meant that any fool might decipher the message without the pass. How many times did he have to tell the man? Even the staff who delivered the messages might easily unravel such an obvious formula. He went over to the bookshelf and pulled out a volume of Clarke’s Almanac, then sat down, turned to page 412 and began counting through the script to find the letters corresponding to each number. A short while later, he had his answer.
Ianthe officially Haurstaf. They’re going to execute you. Awaiting signal.
Maskelyne crumpled up the paper and popped it in his mouth. While he chewed, he decided it was probably a good idea to leave sooner rather than later.
He went out onto the terrace, where his scattered trove gleamed in the bronze evening light among potted plants and stone garden furniture. Reefs of golden cloud filled the western sky behind the mountains. Maskelyne leaned on the balustrade and looked out across the valley. Smoke rose from a dozen military encampments located in cleared areas of forest below the palace. Several artillery emplacements occupied strategic ridges and hilltops, their steel barrels trained on the heavens. A foot patrol was marching south-east along the banks of the Irya towards Port Awl. He filled his lungs with cool mountain air, so sharp with the antiseptic scent of pine, and he waited for the sun to set.
Mountainous shadows crept across the valley floor. A few lights winked on in the military bases, and fires flickered between the trees. The sky grew darker. Maskelyne watched the first stars appear overhead. Cloud cover would have been better, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He licked his finger and held it up to test the direction of the breeze. The evenings frequently brought cool air down from the mountains towards Port Awl and the sea, and he was relieved to find such conditions tonight. He picked up the gem lantern from the table he used as a workbench, opened the shutter so that its light spilled out and went back inside.
From under his bed, he took out a brown paper parcel and tore it open to reveal a Guild soldier’s uniform and a specially adapted leather harness. Maskelyne stripped, then donned the uniform. The heavy cotton was lined with wool and fitted him snugly. Warm enough, he supposed. Then he secured the harness over the jacket, tightening its padded straps around his waist and under his arms. Its many pockets had originally been used to hold ammunition, but Maskelyne’s contact had had these enlarged and reinforced with wire. A further addition had been the ring of brass hooks around the base, each of which supported a small burlap sack full of sand.
Finally dressed, he checked all of the straps a second time. The harness was heavy and cumbersome, and the weight of the sandbags put an uncomfortable strain on his shoulders. He wandered into the bathroom and set the gem lantern on top of the cistern. He lowered the commode seat and stood on top of it. From here he could reach the eight chariot ballast spheres resting upon the ceiling. One by one, Maskelyne took them down and fed them into the pockets on his harness, securing each firmly with a brass buckle. The harness began to strain upwards against his chest, wanting to rise, but his weight kept him grounded. When the last sphere was in place, he stepped off the commode.
He drifted slowly down the floor.
No good. He had to shed some weight.
He raised the commode seat again and unbuttoned his fly. A few moments later, his head touched the ceiling. He buttoned himself up again, then grabbed the gem lantern. Its extra weight was just enough to bring him back to earth. By traversing the bathroom in a series of slow leaps, and by pushing himself along the walls, he made his way back through the doorway and into the bedroom. At the door to the terrace, he stopped and reached inside the gem lantern, making a small adjustment to the feedback mechanism he had fitted inside. The light began to grow brighter immediately. Quickly, he set down the lantern and pushed himself through the terrace doorway. His boots scraped the flagstones for an instant, but then he was rising swiftly into the star-encrusted sky. Up past the palace pinnacles he soared, watching the terrace drop away below him. The breeze carried him southeast, out over the forest towards the army encampments and the coast. The palace dwindled behind him, its windows all glimmering like the facets of a jewel.
But the light from his bedroom already outshone all others, and was growing brighter still.
Maskelyne drifted out across the valley, enjoying the cold, pine-scented air. Acres of dense woodland swept by under his feet. To the east he could see the mercurial ribbon of the Irya gleaming faintly among patchwork fields, with the dark mass of the mountains towering behind. His flight path would take him directly over a Guild army camp, but that couldn’t be helped. He had to hope that any spotters would have their telescopes fixed on the palace by now.
The light from his gem lantern was blazing like a small white sun. Even from this distance he found it difficult to look at directly. The feedback mechanism couldn’t last much longer. Maskelyne knew it had to fail, and fail soon.
Any moment now…
The light flickered. And then a fireball bloomed in the heart of the palace. A heartbeat later, the sound of the concussion reached Maskelyne: a sharp crack, followed by a prolonged rumble. The blast wave punched through the air around him, pushing him onwards with a noticeable jolt. A cry came from one of the military camps down below, followed moments later by the rising-falling cycle of an attack siren. Maskelyne drifted onwards, out into the night, a single tiny mote among billions of stars.