Reign of Beasts (26 page)

‘Y
ou should be in the sky,' said the little demme, looking clearly at Ashiol with Lysandor's eyes. He was unnerved by her. Children in the Creature Court were wrong somehow pieces of two separate worlds that should not fit together.

‘I know,' he told her. ‘It's a long nox ahead of us, though.'

‘It's the last,' she said, her voice freakishly adult.

He gave her a second look at that. ‘Are you their Seer?'

‘Bazeppe doesn't have Seers, or sentinels, we have no need —'

‘Yes, yes,' he said impatiently. ‘You have your saints; much good they are doing you now.'

‘They are doing exactly what they are supposed to do,' the little demme told him, and then pouted. ‘I want a pastry. Do you have pastries?'

‘No,' he said, rocking back on his heels. ‘I'm not much use, am I?'

‘Not much,' she agreed frankly. ‘Papa always made it sound like you were something special. I thought you'd be taller.'

There was a sound behind them: a creaking wheeze and a slow, familiar ticking sound, then another, and another.

Lucia clapped her hands. ‘They're back!' she said delightedly.

Ashiol turned to see the clockwork saints on their feet again, slowly moving, rotating their joints to allow the dust to pour free from them. ‘Amazing,' he said.

‘There!' roared Peg. ‘That bleeding sky can't keep us down for long, can it?'

Had the plan of Priest and the dust devils failed so easily?

‘Don't go near them,' Ashiol warned.

‘We don't have to,' she said, giving him an odd look. ‘Time to give our fighters a break from the battle!'

She made several rapid-fire gestures at the clockwork saints, who returned her signs and took off, out of the door and into the nox sky.

‘You trust them very easily,' Ashiol said in surprise.

Peg gave him an unfriendly look. ‘The only traitor we've ever had in this Court was your man Priest. He's gone now. His attempt failed. Back to normal.'

Ashiol looked up to the rafters where Kelpie and the silversmith, Bett, were mending the skysilver layer in the roof. Kelpie seemed relaxed, laughing as they secured the panels. How long was it since she had been asked to do something that was of practical use and not in some way degrading to her sense of honour?

‘Where do they come from?' he muttered.

‘Silly,' said Lucia. ‘The saints come from the same place as animor.'

To prove her point, she shaped herself into a small pile of puppies and cuddled back down onto her blanket.

Ashiol stared at her for a long time. In the many years since he had first tangled with the Creature Court of Aufleur, he had never once thought to ask where animor came from.

 

A great shout went up across the sky. ‘It's the saints. The saints are back!'

Celeste laughed delightedly. She threw back her head to look at Velody. ‘It's all right now,' she said.

The clockwork saints, a dozen or more of them, came tearing through the sky. Velody hovered there and watched as they caught skybolts and fought light tendrils with dazzling precision. ‘They're good,' she agreed.

‘Thank the angels. Now Lysandor can go back to Lucia,' Celeste said.

Indeed, several of the Lords and Court were flying back to the Emporium, many of them nursing injuries. Velody saw Lysandor among them, waving at Celeste as he went.

‘They're just going to leave the saints up here?'

‘Of course. They're far better at fighting the sky than we are.' Celeste blasted a cloudburst with her animor and it exploded close enough that a wave of cold air swept over them both. ‘I usually stay out here most of the nox. Power and Majesty, you know. It's expected. But we can hold the sky with only one or two of the Court attending me and the saints at any one time.'

The sky had been raging only a few moments ago, but now it seemed clear.

‘Is that it?' Velody asked. ‘Is it over?'

‘Seems to be,' said Celeste, and frowned. ‘That's odd.'

The clockwork sentinels in the sky all drifted together in a formation and started to fly down towards the Emporium.

‘Hey, come back,' Celeste yelled at them. ‘You're not off duty yet. The sky could bubble again.' She tried making her command signs at them, but not one even turned its head in her direction.

Velody felt a sudden cold wash of premonition. ‘We have to —'

An explosion rocked the sky. Skybolts flew from the hands and eyes of the clockwork saints, striking the
Emporium roof in one controlled blast. The building crumpled under the pressure, and collapsed.

Celeste started screaming.

 

There was chaos everywhere, dust and smoke and the sound of creaking metal. Velody's hands dissolved easily through the first layer of roof, but she leaped back with a jolt of pain when the skysilver reinforcement burned her. The place didn't even look like a warehouse any more, just mess and rubble.

A few members of the Clockwork Court had been thrown some way from the Emporium, or hadn't made it there before the explosion. The clockwork saints were nowhere in sight. If their intention was to destroy the Clockwork Court, why hadn't they stayed to finish the grisly business?

‘You can get in there,' Celeste said urgently. ‘You're mice. My daughter is under that wreck.'

Velody nodded and shaped herself into thousands of tiny bodies, each scrambling into the wreckage. It was hard going. The skysilver masked everything, and the few times she opened her animor up fully to listen for survivors, the reflected pain and screams and moans were too much for her senses to deal with.

It was dark and she had thousands of tiny throats choking up with dust and the smell of death. Every time she found a body, alive or dead, she sent a short burst of animor up and out of the wreckage like an arrow of light, alerting the rescuers. It went like that for hours.

Sometime near dawn, they found Kelpie. Her body was twisted and broken, and Velody thought at first that she was dead, but it was another demme's arm wrapped around her waist that showed no pulse.

Velody called together her many tiny bodies and found enough space to shape herself into Lord form. She used her animor to blast an opening into the air above, hurling
back roofing and rubble. The clear air scraped against her human throat as she physically lifted Kelpie up and out of the crumpled Emporium and carried her away from the wreckage.

There was no sign of Kelpie's blades on her body and Velody could not bear to touch more skysilver, so she bit hard into her own wrist to draw the blood she needed.

Someone grabbed her shoulder. ‘You can't stop,' Celeste said frantically. ‘There are still survivors in there. We need you.'

‘Go to hells,' said Velody, and forced the blood into Kelpie's mouth. ‘She's mine and she matters. I've been saving your people all nox. This is my turn.'

 

Ashiol could not move. Every time he tried to stir, he felt skysilver burning into him. He tried to change, to shape himself into cats, but the cats refused to take his place. They didn't like being trapped in the dark.

He tried to send to Velody, but everything was muffled by the skysilver and he couldn't even sense her presence. Perhaps she was dead. Perhaps they were all dead.

Was this what it was like when you were swallowed by the sky?

He could sense other bodies and people around him, moans and the occasional cry. Dying here would simplify matters immeasurably.

Time stretched out, endless and numb around him. Nothing to do but think, and keep breathing. Thinking was one of the things Ashiol preferred to avoid. There was no escape under here from Livilla. He had adored her so much once upon a time. More than that, they had been family.

He could hear her singing, that sweet voice before she went all husky and controlled. She was like Poet, never ran out of songs to sing.

‘I'm not greedy, I'm not easy, I know what's on my
mind … it's you and nobody else will do … you and the sky so blue …'

That was it, he couldn't stay down here, not with Livilla singing at him. It was adding insult to injury, and he couldn't kiss her silent or walk out in a huff because she was fucking dead and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

Women whose bodies he knew more intimately than his own had to stop dying, that was all there was to it.

Somewhere, a child was crying.

Well, fuck. So much for self-pity. Now he had to do something. He couldn't move without pain, but that was of little matter. Pain was hardly a new thing to him.

Thanks for that, Garnet. You thought you were weakening me, but apparently you made me stronger …

 

They had cleared as much of the rubble as they could without bringing the rest of the building down upon what survivors might be left in there. It was nearly midday, though cold enough to still be nox. The last three bodies they had dragged out of the building were dead.

Velody had been back into the rubble several times. She could taste nothing but dust. It coated everything. Kelpie was still unconscious, but seemed to be healing. Lysandor lay some way off, breathing but damaged and slipping in and out of consciousness. Velody had donated far too much of her precious King's blood to the survivors and was feeling light-headed and strange.

‘The building should have healed itself,' Celeste said. Her voice was flat. She had stopped panicking and demanding anything. She had accepted that her child was dead. ‘The clockwork saints … as long as they are working, the city heals itself from the sky.'

‘They did this,' said Velody.

‘Priest contaminated them? All of them? How could he do that?'

‘It wasn't Priest. He's dead and gone. But the things from the sky that were inside him — they could be anywhere.'

They were losing the battle. They couldn't even see what they were supposed to be fighting. If they destroyed the saints, what next?

The daylight folk of Bazeppe wandered by at times, and a few gave a second look to the cluster of people around the fallen Emporium, but there was no urgency about them, no sign that they could really see what tragedy had occurred. Bazeppe was no different from Aufleur in that regard.

Kelpie stirred and moaned beside Velody, who squeezed her hand.

They were all cold and dusty and exhausted, and there was nowhere to sleep. Nox would come again, and what would come with it?

‘We have to get these people out of here,' Velody said aloud, but no one heard her.

When Lysandor awoke, he had to be physically restrained from throwing himself back into the rubble after his daughter. Celeste sobbed as she forced him down, and he grabbed at her, face wild with agony.

It was all so painful and raw, and Velody couldn't look at them. She had lost a family once, a whole city, and it hadn't left a scar. She knew they were all dead, and she loved them still, but it felt ridiculous to miss them after so long not even remembering they existed.

‘This is why we don't have families,' croaked a low voice, and Velody saw that Kelpie's eyes were open and watching Lysandor and Celeste mourn.

‘That doesn't work,' said Velody. ‘We just form new ones. It's what humans do.'

‘What made you think any of us were human?' said Kelpie, and then coughed, bringing up dust and blood.

The fallen Emporium exploded from the inside out. A dark, wild creature burst free from its centre, and the
remaining skysilver reinforced roof and walls all fell into the foundations, sending up a huge cloud of dust and grime and soot.

The chimaera hovered there for a moment, clad in the ragged remains of Ashiol's clothes. His eyes glowed red. Then he fell hard on the ground, a terrible sound coming out of him as he lay on his back and writhed. Velody could see scars and cracks all along his thick, black flesh and could smell burnt skin. The chimaera shuddered and was still.

She went to him, touched his shoulder. He cried out in a small voice. Slowly, she unwrapped the bundle of ripped cloth that hung across his chest and looked inside. Puppies, curled up as if in sleep. Four of them. Velody hardly dared check to see if they were alive, but then one cracked open a lazy eye and her feet went out from under her.

The puppies tumbled out of the bundle of rags and ran to Lysandor and Celeste, yapping weakly from throats still choked with dust and dirt.

Ashiol keened and shaped himself human. He was broken in far too many places and he shook with the cold. Velody put a blanket over him, though the touch of it made him scream with pain.

‘If he can do that,' said Kelpie through her scraped and raw throat, ‘anything is possible.'

A
shiol resisted their attempts to heal him. He flat out refused to drink Kelpie's blood, and turned his face away from Velody. All he knew was pain right now. He didn't know how to keep going without it.

Celeste, still clinging to her daughter, was more ruthless than the demmes who loved him. She cut at the pulse line in her throat with a fallen fragment of skysilver and stood over him, blood welling at the wound.

‘Don't make me owe you for what you did this nox,' she said roughly. ‘I couldn't take that.'

So he drank, and took strength from her. She wasn't a King, but she was Power and Majesty, and even with Bazeppe's stupid democratic system, the blood meant something to his animor. The pain ebbed, and he dozed a little while the rescue efforts continued around him.

Every time he woke, Velody was not far away, and that was fine, it was good.

He needed to think. Velody had broken the illusion for him, and the Emporium was gone and the Clockwork
Court that had seemed so seductive only a day ago lay in ruins. Nothing made sense.

Everything made sense, if you saw the world a different way. If you assumed that no one could be trusted. Velody said that Garnet was conspiring with the creatures beyond the sky. Whom else might they have on their side?

It was getting dark, and Ashiol was finally capable of sitting up under his own strength. Not enough. He had to do better than this, recover faster. He needed time to think, but there was no time.

He surveyed the scene. There were the dead and injured. Velody and Kelpie were consulting with Lysandor and Celeste. No one was watching him; no one but a small child with bright fair hair. She smiled, and it wasn't a nice smile. A moment later, Ashiol realised that she wasn't looking at him. He followed her gaze.

A small cluster of falcons stood at the highest point of the river bank, staring with hungry yellow eyes straight at Ashiol. They turned, flew a little way and then landed again, waiting.

Ashiol shaped himself into cats and followed. The cats allowed this, as there was no more skysilver, and no more roof, and he was heading as far away from the dust and death-stench as possible.

He knew where he was headed, of course he did, but that didn't stop him from keeping the birds clearly in vision as he tracked them across the city. Snow started to fall, a light patterning of cold over Ashiol's fur and the concrete pavements under his feet, but it didn't matter.

By the time he reached the Palazzo, the snow was thick enough that he could see the scratchy falcon's claw prints beneath a particular window. Ashiol could have gone after them directly, but the lantern light streaming out of the Palazzo reminded him of all the other things this place had to offer. Clean skin. Clothes. Boots. A chance to save the city. All good things.

Cat by cat, he climbed the walls and scrambled over the balcony and into the suite he had been given as his own. There, he collapsed into a shaking pile of fur until he was able to shape himself back into a man.

There was no time to bathe, though he caught sight of himself in the looking glass above the water basin and was mildly horrified. His skin and hair were grey with dust and he looked ten years older than he should. His wounds had scabbed over but not healed as well as he was used to.

He washed quickly, and found clothes for himself — a suit in the Bazeppe fashion: grape-coloured velvet with sage-green silk trim. It was hard not to think about Velody removing his last suit, piece by piece.

The soles of every pair of boots he had were too thick. It clouded his judgement not to be able to feel the shape of the ground under his soles. He went barefoot, along the corridor. He should eat while he had the opportunity, but his stomach roiled and rebelled when he considered that option.

Some work was best done on an empty stomach.

He had never been inside Troyes' rooms but he knew they were in the same corridor as his own. For convenience, the young man had said with a wink. Ashiol could smell him on the other side of the door — falcon, man, hurt, blood, fear, panic, dust. So many scents.

Ashiol didn't knock but allowed his animor — angry, hurt, burning animor — to blast the door open.

‘What was that for?' Troyes yelled at him, picking himself up off the floor. He was still naked, and covered in bruises. Several long, ragged cuts were half-healed on his legs.

‘You left the Emporium in a hurry,' Ashiol said, not bothering to couch his words in diplomacy. He wanted answers, and now that Bazeppe had lost its odd dampening effect on his animor, he had run out of patience.

‘I have a job to do,' his secretary said sullenly. ‘A life to maintain. I couldn't —' he swallowed nervously, his whole body radiating shame — ‘I couldn't take it any more. The Court is broken, so many dead. The smell of it was making me sick.'

Ashiol had no way of knowing how far he could trust Troyes. But trust was not needed right now. ‘Get dressed. You're right. We have a job to do.'

‘What did you have in mind?' Troyes asked warily.

‘What else? We have to reveal the Clockwork Court and the skywar to Duc-Elected Henri and save the city.'

Only when he heard the words coming from his mouth did Ashiol realise that this was what he had always had in mind. It was why his paws had led him here.

‘You're mad,' Troyes said finally.

Ashiol grinned fiercely. ‘That's what they say.'

 

Duc-Elected Henri and his family were in the crimson parlour watching a show of mummers and gilded marionettes. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and laughter. The Palazzo was going on as it always did. Servants handed around delicate glasses of imperium and hazelnut wine, all performing their routines like an awful kind of clockwork, oblivious that there was something terribly wrong with their city.

They wore scarlet, all of them, the Duc-Elected, his family and their guests, velvets and brocades that matched the decor of the damned room. One more elaborate and empty performance. Why did aristocrats of the daylight go to such trouble? It wasn't as if their actions had meaning.

Ashiol's stomach gnawed at him with hunger, but there were only cheese and tapenade and pickled fruits on every platter. How did these people stay alive?

‘High and brightness,' he said, his voice harsh and hurting with dust and blood and his own screams of pain.
He pressed all that down. No time for weakness. ‘I need to speak to you.'

‘Seigneur Ducomte!' cried the Duc-Elected in delight, tugging at Ashiol's sleeve. ‘We have missed you. There was crab for luncheon, a fine repast, with honeyed carrots. Do you see our new performers? They are such a delight. I should send them to entertain my new daughter, your cousin the Duchessa d'Aufleur. Do they have such marvels in Aufleur?'

Ashiol looked despite himself. There were prancing creatures on the stage, working without strings. Their clanking, uneven gait was familiar. Clockwork beasts. He couldn't restrain a shiver at the sight of them.

‘Please, high and brightness, it is most urgent.'

‘Have a glass of imperium, my lad, and tell me all about it,' the Duc-Elected said effusively.

The smell of the imperium hit Ashiol hard. He had been drinking little the whole time he had been here, away from the harsh memories and pressures of Aufleur. Now it was all he could do not to bury his head in the carafe and never surface again. He jerked his hand back from the proffered glass.

‘It is a matter of grave importance, high and brightness. The safety of this city relies upon it.' Surely the man could see how serious he was about this.

The Duc-Elected's face changed slightly as he took in Ashiol's desperation. ‘Indeed?' he said, giving away little.

Ashiol kept his voice low, not wanting it to carry to the other guests. ‘If you do not listen to me now, high and brightness, Bazeppe could be destroyed. We may only have hours in which to act.'

‘Excuse me, my friends,' the Duc-Elected said loudly. ‘I will return to you for the second act.'

He led Ashiol to a quiet antechamber. Troyes joined them, looking nervous and afraid. ‘Wait here a moment,' the Duc-Elected insisted.

‘He won't listen to us,' said Troyes as soon as they were alone. ‘He is daylight. We can change in front of them, buildings can fall around them, and they won't see what we really are. You're wasting time.'

‘We can't afford this any more,' Ashiol replied forcefully. ‘We can't fight this war with a handful of soldiers. Those of the daylight must be made to see. Velody was right. It's not just Bazeppe; there's something wrong with all of us, with the ridiculous rules we live by. None of it makes sense as soon as you try to explain it to an outsider who isn't twelve years old.'

He paced the floor, back and forth. His cats were yowling to get out of his skin. It would be dark soon, and if the sky fell again this nox, there was nowhere to hide, nowhere that was safe. So little time.

‘She's your Power and Majesty,' Troyes said softly. ‘Isn't she?'

‘Yes.' Of course she was. How could she be anything else?

‘She's the most important person — not just to you. To all of you. The Court of Aufleur.'

‘Yes, stop talking,' Ashiol said, pacing another lap of the room. ‘We're wasting time.'

The doors opened, finally, and the Duc-Elected returned, alone. Ignoring Ashiol's impatience, he went to the sideboard and poured three small measures of imperium from the carafe there. Was there one of those on every flat surface in this damned place? There was a time it would have been the first thing Ashiol noticed when he entered a room. He was under no illusion that he had been cured, but he was far too busy to destroy himself right now.

‘Now, my lad,' said Duc-Elected Henri in a pleasant voice. ‘Tell me what you are about.'

‘My tale is long and I cannot tell you all,' said Ashiol, taking the glass but resolutely not drinking from it. ‘You must take me on faith. Seigneur Troyes here will support
me in this, and my cousin the Duchessa Isangell will confirm my verity once you are safely in Aufleur.'

Safe being perhaps not the most accurate of words.

The Duc-Elected raised his eyebrows. ‘I can see you are disturbed, seigneur, but you surely cannot wish me to decamp to your cousin's city at a moment's notice?'

‘Not just you,' said Ashiol. ‘Everyone. Everyone in Bazeppe will die if they do not leave now, before nox falls.'

‘I see,' said the Duc-Elected, and took a swallow from his own glass. ‘And you expect me to perform such an elaborate sleight of hand on your word, my friend?'

‘You must. Ask me any question you like, only trust me in this. I am trying to save your people, for the city cannot be saved. The clockwork saints have ensured that.'

The aroma of imperium hit the back of his throat and Ashiol glanced down at the glass. He shouldn't drink. If he started now, he would never climb out of the bottle. And yet, and yet. It was a small measure, and it might clear his head enough to get his point across. He swallowed it easily.

‘What are we facing, Seigneur Ducomte?' There was still a level of scepticism in the Duc-Elected's voice.

Ashiol was getting desperate. What could he say or do prove it to him? ‘All I can do is show you, and then you will have to listen.'

He had never done this deliberately in front of one of the daylight before. Keeping his eyes firmly on the Duc-Elected, he shaped himself into Lord form, glowing brighter than the lamps that hung on the walls.

The Duc-Elected's expression did not change. He smiled politely, as if waiting for something impressive.

Ashiol went chimaera. His clothes tore, his teeth lengthened and his skin expanded into sinew, muscle, black fur, wide wings. ‘This is the least of the monsters you will face,' he said, though the words came out only as growls. His tongue tasted thick, coated with more of that fucking dust.

‘Indeed,' said the Duc-Elected, and he was still waiting, damn him. Couldn't he even pretend surprise?

Ashiol stepped forward, unfurling his wings, and fell flat on the floor. He couldn't feel his wings, nor his claws. Everything was numb and strange and lost.

‘What was in that fucking drink?' he muttered.

He looked up, trying to see through suddenly blurred vision. There were no wings, no claws, just his own hands scrabbling against the polished parquet flooring. He saw the clatter of footsteps — a man running away. Troyes had escaped, at least. But escaped what?

Ashiol tried to speak, but his tongue was too thick. He fought unconsciousness. More footsteps, more people. Someone coming to his rescue? He heard voices above him, echoing as if spoken inside a brass vase.

‘It seems the rumours of the Ducomte's complaint were true, my sons. We were right to prepare for this possibility.'

‘What shall we do with him? Send him back to Aufleur?'

‘My dear boy, that would hardly be civilised. My dottore shall attend on him until he is in a far more respectable state. We do not want to endanger your upcoming marriage by embarrassing your future wife.'

‘She's the one who left us a madman as her ambassador.'

‘Not intentionally, I am certain. Families are always the last to be aware of our little foibles …'

Ashiol opened his mouth to scream at them, but he managed nothing more than a grunt before the floor swam up to swallow him whole.