The Art of Hunting (43 page)

As Granger passed, he looked at the place where she’d paused and noticed a number of horizontal and vertical chalk marks on the brickwork. Evidently some sort of code. Before he could
examine it in any detail, Siselo had carried the light onwards, leaving him behind in the gloom, and he was forced to jog to catch her up.

It seemed to him that she was counting her steps now.

A short distance beyond the chalk marks Siselo stopped and raised her hand. Granger halted behind her.

‘Tripwire,’ she said.

She stepped over what could only have been the aforementioned wire, and then waited for him.

Granger approached. By the light of her lantern he could see a very fine wire running across the tunnel, a foot higher than the ledge above the watercourse.

‘He set traps?’

She smiled. ‘Actually, I set that one.’

‘You use explosives?’

She looked offended. ‘Explosives are for children. I used void arrows.’ She turned away and hurried along the tunnel, taking the light with her.

They changed direction three more times, by which time Granger had begun to doubt his own spatial awareness. He’d always had a knack for knowing where he was in relation to anywhere else,
and he felt fairly sure they were still moving south. However, now he was less than completely confident: the sort of level of confidence on which one might bet one’s own life, if hard
pressed, but not the life of another.

Siselo continued to follow the marks on the walls. They negotiated two further tripwires, and – at the girl’s firm insistence – avoided a narrow beam of light that slanted down
through the brickwork from a hole no wider in diameter than a pencil. Granger became used to the odour, which now reminded him less of human waste and more of stale rainwater.

Finally Siselo stopped. In the tunnel wall beside them was a dark hole about two feet square. She shone the lantern down it, revealing a shaft that sloped steeply downwards. He listened and
heard nothing but that peculiarly hollow subterranean silence. He sniffed. The air down there smelled no better or worse than the air up here. Siselo was looking at him expectantly.

‘What?’ he said. ‘You want us to go down there?’

She grinned and squatted down at the edge of the hole. Then she set down the lantern, swung her legs into the shaft, and lowered herself inside it. A heartbeat later she let go and dropped,
vanishing from sight.

‘Siselo?’ Granger called after her.

No answer.

‘Siselo?’

After a moment he heard her voice calling back, but it sounded so very distant that he couldn’t even be sure what she’d said. He sat down on the edge of the shaft and slipped his
kitbag from his shoulder. He dropped the bag into the shaft. It disappeared without a sound. Then he picked up the lantern and eased himself forward. The shaft dropped away below him almost
vertically. His armoured boots scrabbled for purchase, but found none. The shaft was lined with rough red bricks, and yet the surface under him was smooth stone or concrete.

Her voice carried up from a long way away. ‘Colonel?’

Granger eased his body further into the shaft. Then he let go.

He dropped at a frightening speed. Brickwork whizzed by his face in the light of his lantern. His stomach tightened into a knot.

And then abruptly he realized he was slowing down. The slope under him was no longer so steep. It continued to level out. A second later, he emerged from the shaft and skidded to a halt on his
back, his boots thumping into his kitbag. He was looking up at the ceiling of a cavernous space.

Siselo was waiting for him. She giggled. ‘You should see your face.’

‘What is this place?’

‘Just a place.’

They were in an enormous underground cavern filled with what appeared to be treasure. Granger was lying on a stone bench that protruded from the wall under the shaft exit. He swung his legs over
and sat upright, raising the lantern.

Everywhere he looked, he saw the gleam of gold. There were gilt settees and footstools and gilded tables, golden vases and pots and pails overflowing with coins and medals and jewellery. Ancient
candelabra of different styles held hundreds of tallow candles which Siselo was now busy lighting with a taper. The cavern was undoubtedly natural, Granger decided, and yet the living rock had been
decorated with numerous carvings. Some of the stalactites and stalagmites had been fashioned into elaborate spiral pillars, while others had been left in their natural state. Between these towering
forms lay exquisite furniture, plumply adorned with cushions of yellow and emerald silk.

Conquillas’s daughter continued to light candles. Granger got to his feet and swung his gem lantern around, marvelling at the rippling grey façades that swept up and over his head.
The cavern extended for more than a hundred yards and terminated in a huge and outwardly swelling crust of white and pink quartz. There were doorways everywhere, often high up the walls and
accessed by ladders.

For all the wealth and luxury, there was no sign that this place had been used recently.

‘The trove market is that way,’ Siselo said, pointing in a direction Granger thought might be west.‘The way in is hidden, though. That’s where most of this stuff comes
from.’

‘It’s stolen?’

She scowled at him. ‘Stolen? Who do you think made all this in the first place? Humans?’ She scrunched her face into a comical leer. ‘No, I didn’t think so. We just
reclaim
whatever is useful and some things I like. Lots of trove, obviously, but Father keeps that through there, away from the quartz. You know how crystals affect some artefacts. And
rain. Or even people, which is quite funny.’ She looked at him. ‘Did you ever wonder why some artefacts get attracted to certain types of people? It’s like how dragons have a
sense for people. Like they read people. Oh, you have to swear not to tell anybody about this place.’

Granger picked up a handful of rings from a wooden box and let then spill from his fingers. There was a fortune in this place, enough to buy a ship. A fleet of ships.

‘Colonel?’

‘What?’

‘You can’t tell anyone about this place.’

He nodded. ‘Right.’

‘No, you have to swear.’

‘All right.’

‘So?’

‘So what?’

‘So go on and swear.’

‘I swear.’

‘At last!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, you’re like my father. It’s so hard getting you to do anything.’

‘Where is your father?’

‘He isn’t here yet,’ she said. ‘I’d know if he was. But he’ll turn up eventually.’

‘How do you know he isn’t here?’

She gaped at him, then pulled another face. ‘Uh . . . maybe because I’m
not stupid
.’

Right, fine.
Granger didn’t want to know. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a decent rest, and right now he was exhausted. Conversing with Siselo was just as
wearisome as trying to talk to Ianthe. He dumped his kitbag and then lay down on one of the settees, feeling the plates of his power armour settle under his shoulders.

There was a
crack
, and two of the settee’s dainty legs snapped under his weight. The underside of the seat struck the stone floor. Now he was lying with his boots above his
head.

‘That was my father’s favourite settee,’ Siselo said.

Granger got up again and then turned round so his head was higher than his feet. He glanced over at the girl and grumbled, ‘I’ll get him another one.’

‘You won’t find another one. It’s about a thousand years old and it’s probably the only one in all Anea or even the world.’

Granger sighed and closed his eyes. ‘Get some rest, Ianthe. It’s been a long day.’

‘My name is Siselo.’

‘Right.’

CHAPTER 8

The next few weeks saw some major changes in both the city and in Ianthe’s life. Paulus announced his commitment to repair the damage caused by the Uriun and met daily
with the Citizens’ Representative Council, as they came to be known. Work progressed quickly and soon the streets were free of rubble and most of the dead had been laid to rest. A few
survivors had been pulled from the wreckage at the beginning, but there hadn’t been any for days now. Ianthe feared that those who had still not been found must surely have perished.

And so it transpired that Athentro’s refugees, those one thousand souls who represented the last of the Anean Unmer, came to live in the same city in which they’d been imprisoned for
much of their lives. Apartments were found for them in the abandoned townhouses near to the palace, but several of the older men and women refused such grandeur, choosing instead to return to the
ghettos from which they had been released. Ianthe found this difficult to understand, but Howlish merely laughed and said you get used to calling a place home and some people – even the Unmer
– dislike change. He also said that a prison was no longer a prison once the locks were opened and the guards had all departed.

Ianthe was also surprised how quickly and effortlessly the citizens of Losoto accepted Prince Paulus Marquetta as their new ruler. Howlish said, ‘They’ve had Emperor Hu for the last
twenty years. Anything would be an improvement. Anarchy would be an improvement.’ Although she didn’t count the former privateer as a friend, she enjoyed his company. He would find her
in the palace gardens most evenings and always stopped for a smoke and a chat. ‘People don’t care who sits on the throne,’ he said, ‘as long as they’ve got somewhere
to sleep, something to eat, and someone to fuck.’ Upon leaving her he would invariably wander into the great petrified serpent for a dab of ashko on his tongue before heading back to meet his
men at the harbour inns.

Duke Cyr had the council appoint special militias to fill the gap left by the imperial soldiers. These men now kept law and order. Trade began to blossom again. Fishing boats unloaded catches in
the harbour, and the morning market reopened. Even the trove sellers in the vaults below the city began to find customers for their treacherous wares. Within a month the city seemed to have
recovered, if not to complete normality, then at least to a level of effective functionality.

Word of the city’s revived prosperity spread through trade and telepathic channels, as did the announcement of the upcoming coronation and marriage. Soon the palace buzzed with visitors
who’d come to pledge allegiance to the future king of Anea and his bride-to-be. Wealthy businessmen and landowners came from Do’esto and Valcinder, and prison-keepers travelled from
Ethugra. Warlords filled the harbour with brightly painted and goldspun sails. They came to bend the knee and receive assurances that, while a new kingdom would be born out of the palace of an old
empire, nothing of consequence would change. Their properties and powers remained safe under Marquetta’s rule.

Emperor Hu had taken fifty cohorts of his men and fled north, a march that was said to have stripped a dozen villages of wheat and pork and cabbages, but the news coming from that part of the
world was that this army had begun to unravel near Hesellan and the Friesnan gorges. Deserters had been spotted heading south in droves and it was rumoured that some had already returned to their
families in Losoto. Only the emperor’s Samarol bodyguards remained loyal to him; their silver wolf’s head helmets struck fear in all who saw them.

Weeks passed. And as the day of Paulus’s coronation drew ever nearer, Losoto went from a recovering city to something that began to resemble a flourishing one. Ianthe could scarcely
believe that such a change could happen in such a short time. She began to notice more people than ever in the streets around the palace as Losoto’s upper classes returned from self-imposed
exile in the country. Now servants came and went from town-houses that had previously been locked and shuttered. Late summer flowers appeared in window boxes. Horses clopped through the cobbled
streets. Ships from every corner of the empire filled the harbour to bursting.

Ianthe stayed in the palace grounds for all this time, for Duke Cyr had warned her against venturing outside. She remained a target for Conquillas or even agents of the emperor. The gardens were
so extensive that she never felt claustrophobic. But, as the chain of days grew long, the city beyond the painted iron became less threatening and more enticing. Paulus was always so busy, she
hardly saw him. He visited her occasionally to enquire about her ongoing search for Conquillas. She kept looking for the dragon lord but she never found him. She didn’t search for her father
at all. She couldn’t think of him without thinking about his replicates – those dead-eyed fiends who walked with him. She didn’t search for him because she was afraid she would
find him.

The laying of the crown on her fiancé’s head and the placement of his ring upon her finger were to happen on the last day of autumn – the month known as Hu-Suarin in the old
imperial calendar, or Reth in the Unmer one. In preparation for the tournament, a detachment of workers was dispatched to uncover the entrance to the Halls of Anea.

But, as the coronation and the marriage drew nearer, Ianthe’s doubts continued to grow. Her fiancé’s rise to power, the palace in which they now lived, the servants who waited
on them, the soldiers who paraded for them, the citizens who paid tax to keep them – none of it could have happened without Ianthe. She was the shield that had kept the Unmer safe from the
surviving Haurstaf. And, as long as Paulus was to stay in power, he would need that shield.

But did he love her?

Sometimes Ianthe thought he did. But other times it all seemed like a charade designed to keep her on his side. And still her life rolled inevitably towards the marriage. Could she stop it even
if she wanted to?

To keep her mind occupied, she passed her mornings on the terrace outside her quarters, practising her writing and reading dozens of books. Most often she spent her afternoons in one of the many
quiet corners of the emperor’s gardens, helping the old gardener, Mr Doorum, to root out weeds, or else simply sitting in the cool green shade under a tree and watching sparrows hop and
twitter among the branches. Paulus admonished her for helping the servants, but Ianthe enjoyed it. What else was she supposed to do here? She grew to love the gardens. It was the only place since
her childhood in Evensraum that she could see wild birds every day.