Needle Rain (4 page)

With Immolators behind them a nation might dream of dominance, of facing down the Imperium. Rumor was that Sungea was next on the Imperator’s list of countries to be conquered.

“Now, there’s just the matter of putting in the memory needle. It must go into your ear, otherwise it might be found. Just before you walk into that Needle Master’s office you must activate it by squeezing the worm between your finger and thumb.”

“My...ear?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated.

“Having second thoughts, Mr. Samos? I wouldn’t. Mr. Kengshee there has recorded this conversation. You can’t go back.” He paused as if to let that sink in. It did. It drove done into Samos’s heart like a heated spike. “I believe the intelligence of Immolators rises a bit. Why don’t you think about this later? Now.” He indicated the table. “Lie down.”

Kengshee took a step forward. “Yeah. Lie down, man. If not, you won’t be the only one to suffer. Pela? That her name?” He grinned wickedly. His teeth were a brilliant white, and far too even for a common brawler.

They knew him. Knew who Pela was. Though he would lie down and die to keep Pela safe, he didn’t need this. “Your words aren’t wanted. Shut your face, little man, or I’ll cave it in, even if your boss won’t.”

Kengshee froze. He didn’t so much as glance at Drager for assurance. His eyes were hard as flint.

Who in all the flaming hells is in charge here?

He ground his teeth, wanting so much to hit Kengshee, someone, anyone! Suddenly the treason, the oncoming pain, none of that mattered. It was Pela – he couldn’t bear to think of her being hurt. If only he could make it so that he had never come here. He closed his eyes. If only.

Though he sent his thoughts twisting and scurrying like cornered rats he couldn’t think of a way out. It was him against too many. He needed to wait, needed freedom.

And so he lay on the table and let them strap him down. The needle, he watched it descend out of the corner of his eye. Thinner than a whisker and the first nail in his coffin. He didn’t feel it slide in for the turmoil in his mind was far, far more painful.

****

To catch up to Drager he would have to do a lot of thinking and thinking did not come easily to him. It kept him occupied all the way back to the fortress base. He would have run away with Pela right then and there but it would barely have bought them an hour. He needed more time than that. A ship leaving harbor, a pair of horses fleeing for the border – both these could be run down and stopped unless he had a day or more in hand. He wondered if Punka knew the mess he’d gotten him into.

****

Thom Drager took care not to slump or show any weakness after the soldier left. He could hold out that much longer. This man, Kengshee, or whatever was his real name – he wasn’t going to show him how much he needed it.

“Well, done, Mr. Drager.” Kengshee clapped him on the back. His eyes came up to Thom’s neckline. It was like being threatened by a garden dwarf, those gaily painted ornaments that half the houses in Carstelan had planted among their ferneries. Except Kengshee wasn’t as pretty, and he had little hair. “If he follows orders, he should be back late tomorrow or the next day. “I’ll be back to set up before that.”

He turned as if to leave then slid a hand into a belt pouch and withdrew a small box. Familiar scratching sounds came from inside.

Thom stared at the box, holding himself back from snatching it away.

“You’ll be wanting this?” The grin on Kengshee’s face was wide.

Nonchalance, he would have liked to show utter nonchalance. Thom licked his lips and cursed himself. “Yes.” His voice cracked.

“Remember, you must be prepared to leave immediately when we are finished with Samos. The trail will lead here. Come with us and live, or stay to be tortured by the Imperator’s enforcers. Here.” He tossed the box into the air and Thom caught it.

Before the front door had closed behind them he heard light footsteps running up the corridor. Leonie. Quickly he slipped the box into a pocket, then turned and half-knelt with his arms outstretched. “Hello!”

Leonie leaped into his arms. “Dada! Here, look. I’ve been drawing!”

“And, what is it?” With Leonie on his knee, he rotated the square of paper, squinting as if to better see it. “A ship? No? A hat? And this is the sun.” He swallowed down the bitter taste in his mouth.

“It’s a ship, of course, silly. Like the one we saw yesterday. It’s a present for you.”

“Oh, thank you, darling.” He kissed her on the cheek.

“Yes. Because you’re sick. Grace told me. I thought it might make you happy again.”

The woman had quietly walked up behind Leonie.

“Grace,” he said quietly.

She blanched. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to upset her. She asked...”

“No.” He held up his hand. “I understand. I understand.” His hand was shaking.

He held Leonie, smoothing her hair, over and over. The Need was back. “You go with Grace to the house. I’ll be there soon.”

“Sir, I’m not her nanny.” She rushed into her next words. “I’ll take her, sir. But this is all...beyond me. I must leave your employment, sir.” Her voice was firm yet sadness filled her eyes. “Those men, they frighten me. I don’t know what this is about but I will not stay. Sir.”

He nodded wearily. “Two more days. Just until then and then you may leave.” He rose to his feet.

“I don’t like them either, Dada.” Leonie screwed up her face.

“They won’t harm you.” The fear came upon him. That somehow he was wrong, that this would hurt his daughter. The Need was there too, gnawing at him, and to his shame, he couldn’t tell which was greater.

Once they left him alone, he held the drawing before his face, unseeing. A tear fell and snailed down the paper, across the blurred lines.

****

Afterward, when the fanfare was done – all the saluting and the parades – when the appointed visit to the Imperator’s Needle Master was over, Samos slipped from the fortress into the city. He found a quiet dead-end alley and leaned, quivering, against a cold stone wall.

Was he flesh and blood, or did something else now flow inside him?

He remembered the needles going in. Even through the haze induced by the poppy and willow bark, he had felt them burn as they sank into his flesh. They still seared him. No one had told him it would feel like this. Had anyone ever asked an Immolator how he felt? Each new needle had connected in some way to the others to form a net of flames. He was a burning man. But he was strong, he was fast, and cuts to his skin clotted and healed while watched. He knew this because they had tested him after he was needled.

And his heart beat as quickly as a bird’s, counting off the days of his life in hours.

He touched the left-hand needle of the pair that went in through his temples. It was fused to the bone and did not move. He ran his palm down his arm, feeling the metal bumps one-by-one. All were inserted deep with their golden heads flush to the skin. There were little blue tattoos marking where the rest of the needles might go, including the ones at the inner corner of each eye.

He had his first orders. Travel to the Winter Palace in the mountains to the north of Carstelan and report for duty. Two days before the Imperator was likely to leave to journey there. Two days before they figured out he wasn’t where he should be. Long enough.

He needed to find Pela. Her house was miles away, near the harbor.

He went up on his toes, bounced once, screwing the grit under the balls of his feet, and he ran.

His speed was fast enough to make people stop and stare. They scattered to either side when they saw what he was.

He already knew what he would find. He would be right, he knew this too.

As he ran, he thought. He couldn’t stop thinking. His mind whirred and dashed about like a bee gathering nectar. He thought about how since he’d been reborn as an Immolator he’d been right. Things clicked into place inside his head like so many jigsaw pieces. He could read the street signs and the signs on places of business as easily as a man stirred his soup. As easily as a man killed. He knew precisely what a sword did inside someone – cutting through muscles and tendons and pulsing blood vessels. Rending apart what the gods had made. The wrongness of this pulled at him.

This new thinking was a curse.

The wind warbled past his ears as he leaped over carts, past donkeys, through doorways. He snatched up a burnoose and donned it as he ran.

The first time he saw Pela, she had been helping her father repair a fishing net.

When she bent to unravel the net, her long black hair swung across her narrow shoulders and her waist swayed in that exquisite way. She hadn’t the figure of someone who worked hard for a living. Her curves were gentle and her eyes the translucent blue of clear water, and he had told her so. And her lips had been soft and welcoming that night.

Gathered around a bonfire on the beach, her clan had cooked their meal. He had fitted in as though he had known them since childhood. Her father, Tarlos, was strict yet garrulous and laughing always. The food was plain fish and sweet potatoes but delicious and filling, and his plate had been heaped high. Tarlos had let his daughter give Samos a piece of the vibrant jade that came from their homeland. Later that night Samos had carved it into a heart shape. He’d plaited together a lock of her black and his sand-blond hair then used the hair to fasten the jade piece to a leather thong. He’d hung the heart round his neck.

But this was now not then.

Love had been swept away by fear and lies.

Eyes wide with fright or awe, a boy jumped out of the way to let Samos pound past him.

Last time he’d seen her, there’d been a little swelling where Pela’s stomach was usually perfectly flat. Their child. Would it be a boy or a girl? He might never find out.

He slowed, trotting to a halt. Pela’s house was at the end of this street.

From the shadows of a harafe shop awning, with the hood of his burnoose pulled up, he watched the yard of her house. Tarlos was there talking to a yellow-haired man, Jussumo. On another day, when all had been peaceful, Jussumo had showed Samos how to do the nine knots that a Haplander fisherman needed to know.

Their words came clearly to his ears despite the distance and the background cacophony of shouting merchants and their customers.

“She’s gone, Tarlos! Gone. My boy says he saw some Sungese men in the street just before.”

The world lurched. Samos swayed on his feet, dizzy. He
had
been right.

Logic rained down like confetti inside his mind.

Kengshee was the man in charge and he would take no chances and leave no glimmer of a possibility that Samos could rescue Pela without her dying. Immolators, especially partial ones, had limits. If he did not turn up at all? If he did not try to rescue her? The result of that was less certain but Pela would probably still die.

“Listen to me!” Jussumo fell silent as Tarlos spoke, his voice flat and clear and yet brimming with anger. “Get us a tracking hound from Kerr. Then gather your weapons and meet me back here and we will find her. We will find her!”

Jussumo sprinted away.

Near Samos, under the shop awning, two men sat imbibing steaming cups of harafe and playing chathurangum, the ancient strategy game. They began to argue in a peaceable way. Two other men who stood behind their chairs did not react. The bodyguards of rich men, thought Samos. He watched them, half-listening, while in his mind he assembled and discarded plans for rescuing Pela.

“I have to leave now,” said the taller game player to the other, a shriveled, gray-haired man with a twitching nose, who reminded Samos of an elderly mouse. “I will win in ten moves no matter what you do. Concede!”

I know the rules to this game. But that was all. He couldn’t play. The thoughts in his mind locked into place like the intertwined threads of a tapestry, one by one, over and under and through, and...

He leaned over the table and swiftly moved pieces to the men’s astonishment. The bodyguards flinched and made to stop him but the old man waved them back.

“You’re wrong,” Samos said. “This will happen. Elephant takes castle in five moves. Then this can be done.” He let them take it in before putting the game back as it was.

“Oh,” said the tall man, mouth half-open. “You’re right, sir. Sorry old friend. I must concede instead.”

The old man nodded once then grinned in an evil way. Two of his front teeth projected over his lip. “Thank you, young man. I owe you a favor for that.”

Samos stared at nothing. Immolators did not think like this. Something odd had happened. There were two variables unaccounted for. One was the lack of imprinting to the Imperator’s commands, the other was the memory needle that Drager had inserted. He looked at the chathurangum board. He might miss this when he was deneedled. When he became stupid again.

He left a note to Tarlos with a street boy, writing it easily. How he had ever had trouble reading? He told the boy not to deliver it until two hours after nightfall. Time enough for him to achieve what he could. Pela would never forgive him if he got her father killed.