‘I was chasing you through a warzone after you minced off in a strop!’ Frey cried. ‘It was that or get shot by some git in a dress.’
‘I think they’re called cassocks,’ Ashua put in scathingly.
‘Whatever.’ Frey sat back and crossed his arms.
‘Put yourselves in their shoes, Frey,’ Samandra said. ‘They’re responsible for hundreds of thousands of troops. They have a war they think they can easily win. Are they really gonna go charging off after some secret weapon on the say-so of a bunch of pirates with a history of betraying them? Far as they’re concerned, this could be an Awakener trap. They won’t even listen.’
‘So what will convince them?’ Malvery asked.
‘We need proof,’ said Samandra. ‘At the very least, one of us needs to see it for ourselves.’ She indicated the Century Knights in the room.
‘Piss on ’em if they won’t listen to us!’ Frey cried. ‘We’ve warned you. Now what are we gonna do about Trinica?’
There was silence around the table again. The crew exchanged awkward glances. Slag, sensing a vacuum in the collective attention of the room, left his spot inside the oven and jumped up on to the table. He sat hopefully in the middle for a few moments, then when nobody stroked him he padded over to Jez and slipped down into her lap.
‘Cap’n,’ said Silo. ‘She gone.’
‘She’s not gone!’ he snapped. ‘She’s not gone! Not while she’s still alive!’
‘They put a daemon inside her, Cap’n,’ said Malvery gently.
‘And he can take it out!’ Frey cried, thrusting a finger at Crake. ‘Can’t you?’
Crake looked pale. He swallowed. You want to say no, Silo thought. Say it.
‘I’ve never heard of anyone converting an Imperator before,’ Crake began weakly.
‘Screw what you’ve heard of. You did it for your brother, right?’
‘That’s not the same. That was a different kind of daemon. Not half as strong as-’
But Frey wouldn’t be argued with. ‘You and me, we took down the Iron Jackal! You’re saying it’s stronger than that?’ he cried in disbelief.
Crake looked down at the table. ‘Maybe we can do it,’ he said at length. ‘But I wouldn’t rate our chances.’
‘Any chance is better than none.’
‘No, Cap’n, listen. It’s not as simple as just taking it out. I can’t reverse what happened to Jez because the daemon is the only thing keeping her alive. If I took it out of her, she’d die. Now, if the Imperators kill their hosts the way the Manes do. .’
‘The Manes do not kill their hosts.’ It was the clear, accented voice of Pelaru. ‘I am a half-Mane, and I am alive.’
Frey seemed surprised to hear the Thacian come in on his side.
‘I froze to death after I received the Invitation,’ Jez added, emotionlessly. She was tickling behind Slag’s ears. ‘That’s why my heart stopped. That’s why I’m dead. It’s ’cause of the Manes I got back up again.’
Frey stared at Crake expectantly. Crake could think of no more objections.
‘Maybe,’ he said again. ‘But first you have to get her. You know what it’s like with Imperators. We can’t even get near them.’
‘I can,’ said Jez.
‘I don’t want her bloody head ripped off,’ Frey snapped.
‘Oh,’ said Jez. ‘Forget it, then.’
‘I have a solution.’ This was a new voice, one they hadn’t heard before. Morben Kyne. His words came sheathed in strange harmonics: no doubt some effect created by the mouthpiece of his mask. ‘Perhaps it will please all parties.’
‘Spill it,’ said Samandra.
Kyne stepped forward. Green artificial eyes glowed faintly from within his cowl. ‘The Imperators are trusted implicitly within the Awakener organisation. Their loyalty is beyond question. Our spies suggest they are always present at meetings of the highest level, as bodyguards or observers. It has also been surmised that they can communicate with one another on a level that does not require physical speech.’
‘Which is good, ’cause the Awakeners cut out their tongues,’ said Samandra.
Frey thought of Trinica. No, they couldn’t. She needed it to order her crew about. They couldn’t. .
Could they?
‘The ability is limited, not like the simultaneous communication of the Manes,’ said Kyne. ‘But it’s our guess that they all talk to each other, in a way.’
‘So what are you saying?’ Frey asked Kyne.
‘It’s likely that the Imperators are aware of the Awakeners’ plans. The date and location of the attack, and so forth. Even the ones that were not present may have learned the information from others.’
‘You’re suggesting we capture one and question it?’ Crake was incredulous.
‘Didn’t you just say we couldn’t get near them?’ This was Ashua.
‘We can’t,’ Kyne said. ‘But perhaps we can find a way to bring them to us.’
Crake seemed both terrified and excited by the prospect. ‘Could we do it?’
‘It will be dangerous, but maybe it can be done. I understand you yourself trapped and destroyed a powerful daemon in Samarla without using a sanctum. Did Miss Bree tell me right?’
‘Well, yes, I. .’ Crake was nervous. He glanced at Jez, no doubt remembered the hash he’d made of things in the shrine below Korrene. ‘Field daemonism is not really an exact science.’
‘Then might we work on it together?’ said Kyne. ‘I would be interested in your theories.’
Crake was politely uncertain. ‘Er. . I. . Well, yes, if you like. Do you know much about daemonism?’
Samandra snorted. ‘Honey, he’s crawling with daemons. Just about every item of clothing on that man’s back is thralled. In fact, half the kit the Century Knights use was made by this feller. Not to put you down or anything, but he’s the best daemonist in Vardia, and likely the world. Just be glad we got him on our side.’
Crake gaped. ‘I. . I didn’t even sense them. For them to be so. . Well, they must be exquisitely fashioned! Why, it’d be an honour to work with you!’
‘If you’re all quite finished admiring each other’s arses,’ Frey put in impatiently, ‘how does any of this help Trinica?’
Crake was excited; the insult passed him by. ‘When we have an Imperator, we can take readings from the daemon inside it. Once we have its frequencies, we’ll know the frequencies for all the Imperators, since they’re all possessed by the same type of daemon.’
‘Like the Manes,’ put in Samandra.
‘Well, not quite,’ said Crake gently. ‘The Manes are all possessed by one single daemon, which has a tendril in each of them, so to speak. The Imperators are possessed by separate, identical daemons. When the Awakeners tried to copy the daemonist’s experiment, they didn’t get it exactly right.’ He turned his attention back to Frey. ‘It’s like finding the key to a code. Once we’ve cracked it, we can fashion devices to negate them, so we’re not crushed with fear whenever we get close. We can fight them then. And it will be a hundred times easier to extract that daemon from Trinica.’
Frey was staring intently at his fists, bunched on the table in front of him. Frustration was written on his face. ‘Seems like a pretty damn roundabout way of getting to her.’
‘You’re welcome to try on your own if you want,’ said Samandra. ‘Me, I ain’t in it for your suicide mission. Dracken’s not here nor there to me. Far as I’m concerned, she took the Awakeners’ coin and she got what she deserved. All I care about is gettin’ proof of your story back to the Archduke. What you do after that is your own business.’
‘It’s the way it has to be done, Cap’n,’ said Crake, with a shade more diplomacy. ‘We have to negate her Imperator powers before we can get that daemon out of her. But there is hope.’
Frey rested his head in his hands. The others watched him, waiting for his response. Slag, in Jez’s lap, gnawed at something between the toes of his forepaw.
He was tormented. Silo knew it. He knew this man better than anyone. Frey wanted to run after Trinica, to save her, because that was what his heart told him to do. But she was lost to him now, maybe for ever. And there was another part of him, a part that had won out many times, which wanted to throw it all up in the air and flee. To turn his back on all of this: the Coalition, Trinica, everybody.