Daemonism. Strong daemonism, courtesy of Morben Kyne. It set her teeth on edge.
‘You think they’ll come today?’ Harkins asked nervously.
‘Don’t look like it now,’ said Malvery.
‘It’s only been two days,’ said Ashua, picking out a card from her hand. ‘Could be weeks till they turn up, if they bother at all. Imperators probably have better things to do than chase down every dissident who gets ratted on by his peers.’
‘Feels like it’s been weeks already,’ Frey muttered.
‘That’s ’cause you have the attention span of a brain-damaged seagull,’ Ashua replied. ‘Me, I’m happy they’re taking their time. There’s a mansion across the bridge with a wine cellar full to bursting, a cold room stocked with good meat, and a library bigger than I’ve ever seen.’ She snapped down her card and scooped up the pile. ‘I’m good.’
Frey cursed. ‘Can’t we play Rake again?’ he complained.
The Cap’n wasn’t taking the waiting well. She wondered how long it’d be before he decided that action — any action — was better than doing nothing at all. Before he broke his promise to the crew and set off after Trinica regardless of the consequences.
That was love. The kind that made you stupid. The kind she’d never felt, nor let anyone feel for her. She envied him that, whatever misery it brought him. He had something she’d never had.
But she had something else.
The door opened downstairs, and there was a gust of wind from outside. Samandra stamped in, trailing snow and flapping at herself. ‘Cold as a corpse’s arse out there,’ she said. ‘Fires are banked up. Should be good for a couple of hours. You’re up next, Frey.’
Frey looked at his cards and said nothing.
‘Are we gonna have to do this every day?’ Malvery moaned.
‘You want the houses lookin’ occupied, don’t you?’ Bree replied. ‘No one’s gonna set down here if it don’t look like the lights are on.’ She walked over to Silo and peered over his shoulder at the gauges. ‘Anything?’
‘Nuh.’
Jez tried to shut out the daemonic hum from Kyne’s device. It was a mix of machinery and aethereal power, running off electricity provided by a generator which fed the hamlet and the mansion nearby. The device was linked to large resonator masts placed all around the rim of the valley, set to detect engine noise. They were all linked up in a manner similar to Crake’s earcuffs, but on a grander and more complex scale.
Kyne had access to some formidable technology, and by Samandra’s account he was the best daemonist in the land. But even with his help, their plan was a risky one. Capturing an Imperator would be no easy matter. It was said they could stop a man’s heart by willpower alone. Only a Mane could resist them, and then there was no question of capture; they awoke such primal hatred that neither Jez nor Pelaru would be able to stop themselves killing their targets.
Jez didn’t much concern herself with plans any more. The struggles of the crew felt distant. Only occasionally did she involve herself with their wants and needs. The rest of the time she was simply there, doing what needed to be done, waiting for the right moment. The moment of certainty. The moment when she’d turn her back on the world, and leave them for ever.
The device was too distracting. She couldn’t marshal her thoughts. She sensed the others watching her as she walked out of the room.
‘. . why do they put up with her anyway. .’
‘. . gives me the chills, but it’s Jez! Don’t be so. .’
‘. . gonna have to do something about. .’
She took the stairs to the top floor, where there were two small bedrooms with several unmade beds between them. Some of the crew had been sleeping in the house. They had to take shifts watching the gauges on Kyne’s machine, and it was easier to stay here than to trek back and forth to the Ketty Jay.
She went to the window of the back bedroom and opened it. A snowy rise, thick with bare black trees, lay before her. She clambered out and onto the sloping roof, moving swiftly and assuredly over the slippery surface. Sitting erect at the peak of the roof, waist deep in the snow, was Pelaru. She climbed up and sat next to him.
‘I had hoped for some privacy,’ he said, blinking away snow from his lashes. He was wearing a coat, but it was only to protect his fine clothes. He was Mane enough that he didn’t feel the cold.
Jez ignored the hint. She had things she needed to talk to him about.
From up here, it was possible to see the whole of the grounds. The houses and stables and garages were for the servants that worked at the mansion during the summer. A skeleton staff of guards and caretakers looked after the place during the winter months. They were now under lock and key in the basement level of the mansion where they’d be out of the way and safe. They were being cared for well enough, and it was a bloodless ambush in the end. The guards had put down their weapons once Samandra Bree got involved. Her fame preceded her.
To her left she could see the lights of the landing pad glowing in the murk, away at the end of a short road. The Century Knights’ aircraft was there, along with two smaller craft for the staff. The Tabington Wrath was a heavily armoured gunship, but it was expensive enough to be the choice of a paranoid rich man. The Ketty Jay and the Firecrow had been hidden elsewhere, in a clearing further down the valley, in case they were recognised.
To her right was the bridge to the mansion itself. The mansion stood on an island of rock in a shallow chasm that ran along the floor of the valley. During the summer months a meltwater river would run there, and the valley would be green. Now the valley was buried in snow, and the chasm yawned icily.
The mansion itself took up a third of the island, perched precariously on the edge of the drop. The rest was taken up by gardens — dead till spring — and a wide driveway to the bridge. Jez could barely see the mansion in the snow, only the lights of its windows. It looked dark and forbidding now, but she knew it was white and golden and fine in the sunlight.
‘Have you ever visited Thace?’ Pelaru said. ‘I miss it. I miss Arath, her high gleaming spires, her shaded colonnades, her tree-lined boulevards. I miss the music and theatre and language. But what I miss most is the togetherness. For almost two thousand years, we’ve been the only true republic in Atalon. Every man and woman has their say. That unites us. Being Thacian unites us. We stand in the shadow of the great slave-owning nation over the mountains to the west, and we defy them.’
‘You do more than defy them. You bombed the Samarlans’ capital and killed their God-Emperor,’ Jez pointed out. ‘Twice.’
‘Always in retaliation. Always after they tried to invade us.’ His face darkened. ‘We should have wiped the Divine Family out when we had the chance, but we wasted our time with peace settlements and politics.’
He glanced at Jez, and quickly away. It was hard for him to be near her, she knew that. The disappointment was too great. For Jez, it wasn’t so hard. She’d already accepted that what they had wasn’t what she’d thought it was. It was the love of kin. And there were many more like him, out there in the snow. Far to the North, beyond the Wrack. She heard them singing. They wanted her, and she was drawn to them.
‘You know why I came to Vardia?’ Pelaru said. ‘I did it for my homeland. A Thacian wouldn’t last five minutes in Samarla, so Vardia was the next best thing. I wanted to be a whispermonger, I wanted to know everything. And I dreamed that one day I might use that knowledge to protect the land I love.’ He kicked at a chunk of snow and sent it sliding down the roof. ‘What I’ve learned here. . the Samarlans selling Azryx technology to the Awakeners. . the Lord High Cryptographer a daemon. . They cannot be allowed to win. My people need to know. Do you understand? My people!’