The Fade

'Be patient,' he says. 'If you do this, you have to do it right. Ledo should be in a good mood, at least. You have that on your side.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Clan Caracassa has been steadily losing out on business for a while now,' he says. 'Couple of other clans have set themselves up as competitors in the medical supplies trade, and they seem to be doing it better than Caracassa.'

I know that; it's my job to know. I don't see where he's going with it, though.

'Those suppliers don't have the output capacity that Caracassa does; they're not so well established. This big military push that's coming up, Caracassa will do very well out of it, I should think. Their competitors won't be able to meet the demand, but Ledo will. I should think it'll pull his fat out of the fire, so to speak.'

'How do you know about the offensive?'

He gives me a look. He's certainly not wasted any time getting back in the game.

'He can spare one officer, I'm sure,' Nereith says, knitting his fingers behind his skull and leaning back against the wall of the boxcar. 'Question is, will he? After all, Jai is a Bondsman. He's been trained for war at Clan Caracassa's expense. He chose his path and you approved it. Why should Ledo listen when you tell him that it was a mistake?'

'He's a gifted engineer and an inventor. He'd be better serving Caracassa that way.'

'Away from the front line.'

'Yes, away from the front line!' I reply sharply. He's needling me and I'm rising to it. I can't help it. I'm too raw right now.

'You think Liss and Casta will help you out again?'

I can't believe my ears. Is there anything this Khaadu doesn't know?

He shows me his fangs. A Khaadu grin. 'I work for Silverfish,' he says. 'I didn't just walk off the street and get the job, Orna. I got it because I earned it.'

I let my questions drop. 'I can't be certain of anything with those two. Nor with Ledo.'

'So what if he says no?'

'I'll find a way!' My tone is getting more irate.

'If you'll permit the observation of an uninvolved bystander,' Nereith says, stretching lazily, 'the fact that you're getting angry suggests you're afraid to have your plan called into question. And that suggests that you haven't thought about it very hard.'

'Voids, Nereith! I've thought about nothing but the plan since Farakza.'

'No,' he says. 'You've thought about saving your son. You've thought about the end but not how you're going to get there. You're papering over the cracks with blind hope, and that – forgive me for saying – is beneath you. You're not being rational.'

I pull myself up, out of the rain. Sodden, I stalk to one end of the carriage, slick my hair back from my face, furious. Trying to think of a comeback that will beat him. Thing is, there isn't one. He's got me pegged.

'This is all I've got,' I say at last. 'This is what got me out of Farakza. This is what kept me running when I might have given up. It's what got me through the Shadow Death.' I slump against the side of the carriage, knees drawn up to my chest. 'He's my son, and I'm his mother. Of course I'm not being rational.'

Nereith is silent for a time. Then: 'Do you think he'll thank you?'

'I don't know. I know he doesn't want to be there. I know if he's back in Veya he could be near Reitha again.'

'You do realise he could be dead already?'

'Yes,' I say through gritted teeth. 'I do realise that. And until I find out for sure, I won't stop looking.'

Nereith considers me a while. 'Would you really defy your master to get your son back? You, a Bondswoman?'

He doesn't need a reply. It's in my eyes. Nereith just watches me, weighing me with his gaze. I get the sense that I've just been evaluated.

'My offer still stands,' he says. 'When all else fails, come to me. Silverfish can help you.'

'For a price.'

'Naturally.'

It's tempting. But I really don't want to get tangled with Silverfish. Not until there are no options left. Abyss knows where that would lead.

'I'll keep it in mind.'

Away from the village, the dark gathers in. Distant clusters of phosphor trees draw the wildlife like oases in a desert; luminescent lichens float in pools, entangling and consuming the fish that are drawn to them. Predators hide in the undergrowth, waving glowing stalks above their mouths, enticing curious victims. In a world of eternal dark, the best way to attract prey is to offer light.

We're following a river which churns and spatters alongside the tracks, beneath the slow sparkle of glowfly swarms. Bats flit this way and that, snatching the insects from the air. Dark, heavy shapes lurk in the water, bright eyes peeping out.

'I have a question for you,' I say, out of nowhere. 'Belek Aspa. Ever heard that name?'

No hesitation from the Khaadu. 'He's a Gurta Minister. Right up there with the High Elder himself. Smart politician, by all accounts. Why?'

'Just had the name rattling around my head. Couldn't think who he was.'

'Right,' says Nereith, suspicious. But he doesn't pursue it any further.

A Gurta Minister? That was the name the Magister used during my last interrogation in Farakza. Asking me if I'd ever heard it mentioned by Ledo.

I don't like what that implies.

10

Caralla lies on the edge of an immense lake inside a cavern so large that its dimensions can barely be guessed at. Still, it's easy enough to find. I just follow the explosions.

It's been several turns since I left the surface. Time is meaningless when you have no sun and no kind of timepiece, and it's only by my body rhythms of sleep and wakefulness that I can gauge it. That, and the fact I started my period the day before I left Feyn, and it's all but over now.

A fleeting memory makes me smile. I'd had to beg some towels off the SunChild women, translating through Feyn. He was more embarrassed than I was. I'm pretty earthy about that kind of stuff. Just biology; nothing to be ashamed of. I've seen too many people's insides to be shy about my own.

It took me a while to orient myself underground, but I'm not too bad at stone-reading and I have the innate sense of navigation that all but an unlucky few of Eskarans possess. Chthonomancers say it's all about sensing lines of magnetic force, a method we've evolved in lieu of any other way of determining direction underground. They have it down to an art. For people like me it's just gut feeling. Stone-reading is all about knowing how to understand the flow of the rock, the accumulation of different minerals and so on, to predict where caverns and tunnels have formed. Basic survival techniques.

Eventually I found a landmark I recognised: a crystal mountain growing out of a small lake. I was near the front lines, in the middle of the Borderlands: almost exactly where I wanted to be. A Chandelier was hanging beneath the water, flashing restlessly while long-limbed glass spiders stalked the periphery of the cavern. I wished I had time to stay and watch the show – trying to decipher the Chandeliers' language of light was addictive and hypnotic – but I had to move on.

By the time Caralla comes into sight I'm on full alert. I find a spot on the edge of a promontory, high above the lake and concealed by ragged mineral outcrops. There I hide, and watch.

Below me, across the gently phosphorescent expanse of the lake, I can see Caralla. It's an enormous cliff-fortress that has been a defensive linchpin of the Eskaran Army ever since I can remember. The fortifications crown the cliffs and spread all the way down the overhanging face to where a harbour hides behind protective seawalls. Shard-cannon emplacements bristle everywhere, powered by chthonomantically charged battery-packs. Hundreds of lights speckle the black rock, and the fortress is topped by two shinehouses like horns, spreading their cool radiance across the cavern and far out over the water.