“It doesn’t matter.” Lizanne sighed, tired of repeating this particular mantra. “Why do none of you understand how little any of your intrigues and your wars matter now? There is only one war that matters.”
“Oh yes, your monsters are coming to eat us, aren’t they?” Sefka gave a girlish giggle, swaying a little. Lizanne stepped forward, looking over the countess’s shoulder to see the small empty bottle that lay in her upturned hands. “Heard you sploshing about,” Sefka said, turning to her with a pouting grin, like a child caught in a minor transgression. “Sorry, but I couldn’t face the show trial. The torture I think I might have withstood, but not the trial . . .”
Lizanne grabbed Sefka about the shoulders, forcing her off the bench and onto her back. Sefka struggled feebly, groaning in annoyance as Lizanne held her down with a knee to her chest and pulled the Green vial from her Spider.
“No!” Sefka’s struggles became fiercer, jerking her head away as Lizanne pressed the vial to her lips. “Not fair! You won . . .”
Lizanne clamped a hand on Sefka’s face, forcing her mouth open then pouring the Green down her throat. Lizanne pushed the woman’s jaws together, pinching her nose to force her to swallow. She convulsed for a short while, Lizanne feeling her heart slow, the pulse fading almost to nothing before returning with a strong, poison-free thump.
Sefka stared up at her as Lizanne stood back. “You vicious, hateful bitch!” the countess hissed, eyes and voice alive with hate.
“I’ve never been vicious,” Lizanne replied, leaning closer to deliver a hard tap with her fore-knuckles to Sefka’s temple, leaving her unconscious on the floor. “But I will admit to hating you a great deal.”
She found a boat moored on the leeward side of the island. After rowing to shore Lizanne hefted Sefka’s body over her shoulder and made towards the ring of temples. Smoke was rising from the palace complex itself where, as she expected, the bulk of the People’s Freedom Army were busy ransacking the once-sacred seat of Imperial power. Consequently she enjoyed an uninterrupted journey to the temples, attracting little attention as there were plenty of others carrying wounded away for treatment. The bodies of Household troops and palace courtiers littered the ground whilst others had been used to decorate the many trees dotted about the palace grounds. Lizanne passed an acacia with branches sagging under the weight of dismembered body parts.
Victory is never glorious, Arberus had said and, for all his radical nonsense, she knew there was wisdom there too.
With so many riches to be had in the palaces the bare stone temples had so far attracted little attention from the mob save for some minor vandalism. She knew that would change in time, such a visible reminder of the Imperial pantomime would inevitably face destruction, but for now it provided a useful refuge.
The door to the tomb of Empress-cum-Emperor Azireh lay closed and locked on this occasion, but the lock was unable to resist a blast of Black. Lizanne kicked the part-ruined door aside and carried Sefka into the tomb, dumping her on the floor.
“Have you brought me a gift, love?”
He was much as she remembered him, standing stooped half in shadow, cane in hand and face veiled by slack grey hair.
“It’s more of a peace offering,” Lizanne replied. “A gesture of goodwill, you might say.”
“And what would you want with my goodwill?” Behind the grey veil she saw cracked lips sliding over yellow teeth in a hesitant parody of a smile. The tension in him was obvious in the way his bony hands rested on his cane, veins standing out and gnarled knuckles turning from red to pink. Unlike Sefka, he was far from accepting of his fate.
“Nothing,” Lizanne replied. “But you have information I require. Tell me what I want to know and you can have her”—she nudged Sefka’s limp form with her toe—“and I’ll allow you to escape through the passage-way concealed beneath this tomb.”
“What passage-way?”
Lizanne returned his smile with one of her own. “You wouldn’t have risked being seen coming here the night we met. Not with so many of Sefka’s people watching your movements. I expect Azireh had it built, somewhere to hide her treasure perhaps. She did hide something here besides that scroll didn’t she?”
Kalasin’s forced smile broadened, hair swaying as he gave a slight nod. “It transpired the Empress and I shared an interest in the Artisan, she being his contemporary. Upon achieving the throne she began to amass all the artifacts and documents she could, hiding them here in the hope that some worthy soul might discover them one day.”
Instead, it was you. Lizanne resisted the impulse to voice the thought. Let the old man talk. The more he talks the less potent the product in his veins.
“There was a vault where she kept it all,” the Blood Imperial went on. “I suppose that’s where my little hobby really started. Who knew it would lead to all this?”
“And the passage-way?”
“Built it meself, with a little help from my children. Took a long time but eventually I had a convenient means of getting about and beyond the Sanctum without being seen.”
“Which begs the question of why you linger here instead of making your escape.”
“Where the fuck d’you imagine I would go, love? Besides”—his hands twitched on the cane—“I was really hoping to see you again.”
He was quick but she was ready for him, unleashing her Black a fraction of a second after he lashed out with his. The competing waves of force met, birthing a thunder-clap that sent them both reeling. Kalasin proved the illusory nature of his infirmity by scrambling to his feet in an instant, whirling to face her with no sign of a stoop. But, spry as he was, he was still several decades Lizanne’s senior and it was clear to her he hadn’t faced combat with another Blood-blessed in years.
She injected a burst of Green and sprang aside as he summoned Red, casting out a stream of fire. Lizanne rolled across the dusty floor as the flames flashed overhead before sliding over the walls, then replied with a second burst of Black. He dodged, moving with speed that told of a heavy ingestion of Green, but was fractionally too slow. The force wave caught his shoulder, spinning him around to collide with the wall. Lizanne heard the dry crack of breaking bone as the old man rebounded, a shrill gasp escaping his lips.
Lizanne cast her remaining Black out like a whip, snaring Kalasin in an unseen vise, holding him in place as she got to her feet and moved towards him. “You’re out of practice,” she observed.
He snarled at her, all pretence of humanity vanished from a face now revealed in full. Seeing the deeply etched lines and liver-spotted skin of his hate-filled visage, Lizanne realised that he was far older than she first thought. “Excessive and prolonged use of Green,” she said, marvelling at the amount of product he must ingest on a daily basis, “is not a good idea, even for a Blood-blessed.”
Kalanis strained against his invisible bonds, spittle leaking over his age-cracked lips, an odour fouler than the Scorazin midden rising from his mouth.
“The countess said you intended to kill me on my return,” Lizanne went on. “And seize what I had worked so hard to retrieve. What were you going to do with him?”
The Blood Imperial said nothing, his ancient features hardening into a defiant mask. Lizanne summoned a small amount of Red, igniting the tip of one of his lank tendrils of hair, letting it curl up towards his face. “Unlike you I do not revel in cruelty,” she told him. “But do not imagine I will baulk at this. What were you going to do with the Tinkerer?”