Slaves of the Mastery (3 page)

‘You may be right, my dear.’

‘But ma,’ said Kestrel, ‘don’t you feel it too? We don’t fit in here.’

‘Oh well, as to that, I’m just one of those odd-shaped people who doesn’t fit in anywhere.’

‘We’re an odd-shaped family,’ said Pinto. The notion pleased her.

‘There is a homeland,’ Kestrel persisted. ‘Don’t your books tell you where it is, pa?’

‘No, darling. If they did, I’d have gone there long ago.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, I’m an old dreamer.’

‘Well, I’m going to go.’

‘Wait until you’re married,’ said her mother. ‘You’ll find things will look different then.’

‘I don’t want to be married.’

Ira Hath looked up and met her husband’s eyes. He gave a small shrug, and his eyes turned towards Bowman.

‘We’d never make you marry against your will,’ her mother began gently. ‘But darling –’

‘I know I’ll end up lonely when I’m old,’ said Kestrel, to show she didn’t have to be told. ‘But I don’t care.’

‘Kess’ll never be lonely,’ said Pinto enviously. ‘She’s got Bo.’

Their mother shook her head and said no more. Hanno Hath went out on to the balcony to stand beside Bowman. He didn’t speak, because he was feeling for the right words with which to begin.
But Bowman knew well enough what he was thinking.

‘I really am trying, pa.’

‘I know you are.’

‘It’s not easy.’

Hanno Hath sighed. He hated asking this of his son. But Ira was right, now that the twins were growing up they must learn to be a little more apart.

‘Do you still share thoughts?’

‘Not as much as we used to. But yes.’

‘She has to make a life of her own, Bo. So do you.’

‘Yes, pa.’

Bowman wanted to say to his father, we’re not like everyone else, we’re not to have a life like other people, we’re marked out for something quite different. But since he
didn’t know what, or even why he felt it, he said nothing.

‘I’m not asking you to stop loving each other. Just to have other friends as well.’

‘Yes, pa.’

Hanno put one arm lightly round his son’s shoulders. Bowman let it rest there for a moment. Then he said,

‘I think I’ll go out.’

As he headed for the door, Kestrel looked up and met his eyes.

Shall I come with you
?

Better not.

Kestrel knew as well as he did that their parents wanted them to spend more time apart. But she also knew there was something else.

Tell me what it is.

I will. Later.

Then he was gone: down the steep stairs, and out into the night street. He had no destination, he needed only to be away from other people, away from his family. He would have walked away from
himself if he had known how. He was sure now that the sense of danger that hadn’t left him all day was coming from the fear buried deep inside himself. He needed a place of stillness to
understand it better, and to know why it had awoken after all these years. So he headed south, towards the ocean.

Once past the city boundary the streetlights gave out, and he made his way by starlight. It was a cool autumn night, and he shivered a little as he walked. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and
soon he could make out the shoreline far ahead, and the line of low hills that formed the horizon to the east. When at last he stopped, it was not because he had reached anywhere in particular, but
because he judged he was far enough from the bustle of the city. Here, alone in the night, he stood still and closed his eyes. He felt for the sensation of fear, and found it at once, shockingly
close. It was powerful, and cruel. He spoke to the memory of power within him.

I don’t want you. I never wanted you.

But it wasn’t true. He had wanted the power once. All those years ago, in that time that ever since had felt like a dream, he had wanted it. He had let himself be filled by that
intoxicating spirit. And now the Morah was in him, and he would never be free.

He walked a little way eastward, up the rising land, feeling the fear all around him. He came to a stop, seeing only the black line of the hilltops, and the grey blur of the sea. He turned, and
there lay Aramanth, twinkling softly in the night. There lay everyone he loved, everyone who loved him, in all the world. How could he tell them he was a source of danger to them? A traitor who
carried the living spirit of the Morah into their safest home? How could he tell his sister, his half-self, that she must not come too close, lest the Morah possess her too?

The evil is in me. I must carry it alone.

It was so strong, so all-pervading: it filled the night air round him like a dark cloud. Suddenly he felt he could no longer breathe. He turned and walked fast back towards the city, unaware
that had he continued for a few minutes more up the hill, he would have seen the army of the Mastery encamped on the farther side, burning no fires or lamps, their horses’ harness muffled,
waiting soundlessly for dawn.

T
hat night, Ira Hath had a dream that was so intense it woke her before her usual time. She sat up in bed, and found that she was sobbing. She was
unable to stop herself. She tried to smother the sobs with the hem of the blanket, but this produced a snuffling noise that was even worse, so she got out of bed to get herself a drink of water.
Once up she found she couldn’t stand properly, and she had to sit down again rather suddenly on the bed. That woke Hanno. He saw the streaks of tears on her cheeks and became alarmed. So she
told him her dream.

She had been walking along a snow-covered road, together with all the rest of the family and many others besides, and the road led to a pass between steep hills. On either side of the road, the
slopes rose high up, white and smooth, while the road itself climbed to a summit, and then fell away on the far side. They were going west, it seemed, because directly ahead, in the great V formed
by the hills on either side, the sun was setting. Though all round her the winter air was cold, she felt a warmth on her face that seemed to come from the sunset ahead.

She walked in the lead, in front of everyone else. So she was the first to reach the summit of the road, and stand within the V looking over the brow. As she reached this point, a flurry of
flakes of new snow began to fall around her, and ahead the setting sun turned the western sky a deep red. Through the falling snow, by the light of the sunset sky, she found herself looking down on
a broad plain, where two rivers flowed into an unknown sea.

Then in her dream, as she gazed down at the land framed by the V of hills, with the snow falling and the warmth on her cheeks and the wide red horizon beyond, she felt a sudden rush of happiness
that was so intense it brought tears to her eyes. Faint with joy, she turned to Hanno and her children, and saw from their faces, knew in an instant, that they could not follow where she was going.
She had found the greatest happiness she had ever known, and in the same moment knew she must lose everyone she had ever loved. In her dream she had wept for her joy and her loss, and sobbing, she
had awoken.

Hanno dried her tears and held her in his arms, and told her it was only a dream. Slowly the shock of it passed, and Ira became her old self again, and said that it was all his fault for
indulging in foolish talk about the homeland.

‘Why did you fall over?’ he asked her.

‘I didn’t fall over. I sat down.’

‘Why?’

‘I felt wobbly.’

He didn’t say anything more, but she knew what he was thinking. Her distant ancestor Ira Manth had been a seer, the first prophet of the Manth people.
Every time I touch the future
,
he had written,
I grow weaker. My gift is my disease. I shall die of prophecy.

‘It was only a dream, Hanno. Nothing more.’

‘I expect so, my dear.’

‘You’re not to go putting ideas into the children’s heads. They’re full of enough muddle as it is.’

‘I won’t say anything.’

Ira stood up once more, stronger this time, and went to the window. She drew the curtains, and saw outside the first light of the new day spreading over the eastern horizon.

‘Nearly morning.’

Hanno Hath joined her at the window, putting his arms around her.

‘I do love you so much,’ he said softly.

She turned her head and kissed his cheek. They stood like this, very quiet, for a long moment.

Then Hanno said, ‘Do you hear it?’

‘What?’

‘The wind singer.’

She listened.

‘No.’

The wind singer had stopped singing.

Marius Semeon Ortiz sat in the saddle on the brow of the hill, his chasseurs lined up behind him. A breeze from the ocean carried the hiss of waves and the tang of salt on the
dawn air. Ortiz was watching the city below, where his raiding parties were already at work. Halfway down the hill on his left flank crouched the attack squads, waiting on his command. He sensed
the nervousness of the ranks of horses behind him, straining at the bit. His own mount shifted her weight, flared her nostrils, and let out a soft whinny.

‘Easy,’ he said. ‘Easy.’

A flaming arrow arched up from the city high into the silent sky: the signal that the warehouses were breached.

‘Provisioners!’ said Ortiz. ‘Firing squads!’ He had no need to speak loudly. His men were alert to his slightest word.

The provision wagons rolled down the hill on padded wheels, accompanied by their bands of silent raiders. They moved fast, knowing they had very little time to do their vital work. Ahead of
them, loping at speed, ran the firing squads, each man carrying on his back a bundle of oil-soaked kindling. Ortiz raised one hand, and the remainder of his force of foot-soldiers rose up and ran
in a long curving path to the seaward side of the city. After them, more slowly, rolled the empty cages known as monkey wagons.

There came a shout from the city. A watchman had encountered the provisioners. Now others began to wake, and lights were flickering on. But already a greater light was burning, in one of the
abandoned apartment blocks of Grey District, and the breeze was fanning the flames. Another sprang up, and a third: a line of fires, along the northern and windward side of the city.

Ortiz felt his horse shudder beneath him. She had smelt the sting of smoke, and knew her moment was near. There were shouts and screams coming from the city now, and the rattle of running feet.
Ortiz could picture the scene, which he had witnessed so many times before: the people, waking to find their streets ablaze, pouring out of their houses, half-dressed, confused, frightened.

Slowly, he drew his sword. Behind him, the lines of his chasseurs followed suit, and he heard the shivering hiss of three hundred blades leaving their scabbards. He released the bit, and his
horse took a step forward. Behind him, the chasseurs swayed and moved. He spurred his horse to a trot, and then to a canter. Behind him, the drumbeat of following hooves. His eyes fixed on the
burning city ahead, he held the chasseurs at a canter, covering the stony ground. This was the moment on which all depended. If the blow fell with speed, surprise, and terror, then a force of a
thousand men could overwhelm a city, and take captive ten times their own number. It was the horror of that first attack that would turn free men into slaves.

He glanced to his left as he rode, and saw that his foot-soldiers were in place. Behind him, the first rays of the rising sun were reaching over the black line of hills. This is it, he thought,
the moment of no turning back, the all or nothing: and rising in the saddle, he was swept by a sensation of pure joy. Eyes bright, lips parted in a smile, he raised his sword as he rode, spurred
his mount into the gallop, and cried,

‘Charge!’

The wind singer was burning fiercely. Hanno Hath trained the nozzle of a fire hose on the flames, while Bowman and Kestrel, one at each end of the handle, pumped with all their
might. Already the tiered arena was alive with running figures. The cry of ‘Fire!’ spread through the city. Ira Hath and Pinto were racing down the streets, banging on doors to wake the
sleeping people. From all sides families in nightclothes came streaming into the arena. Kestrel wept as she pumped, saying, ‘No! No! No!’ with each downward stroke. Bowman didn’t
turn to look at the smoking wind singer for fear he too would cry.

Hanno’s fire hose succeeded at last in dousing the flames, leaving the tower half-destroyed, charred and hissing.

‘Keep pumping!’ he cried, turning the hose on a burning building. But Kestrel had already left the pump and was swinging herself up onto the smoking ruin.

‘Be careful, Kess –’

Her father’s voice was cut short by a terrible screaming. A great rush of men, women and children burst into the arena. With a thunder of galloping hooves, the chasseurs of the Mastery
crashed through the pillared arcade, swords flashing, and the people of Aramanth ran before them. Those that fell or turned back were cut down by the long swords, so that as the lines of horsemen
advanced, their horses rode over the bodies of the wounded and the dead. Behind the chasseurs came foot-soldiers with short spears, with which they stabbed the bodies lying bleeding on the ground.
Terrified, the people of the city fled before this savage killing machine, across the arena, down burning streets, out of the city, towards the ocean shore.

Kestrel clung to the burnt-out wind singer, and in her black clothing she wasn’t noticed by the invaders. The scorched wood hurt her arms and legs, but she dared not move; and unmoving,
she watched the slaughter. She saw her father and brother forced back with the rest. She heard the piteous cries of the wounded, and the brisk blows of the spearmen. She watched the leader of the
invaders ride by on his horse, saw him clearly in the light of the rising sun, his handsome young face framed in a cascade of tawny hair, his eyes cruel as a hawk hunting vermin. She stared as long
as she could, printing the image deep in her memory.

I won’t forget you, my enemy.

As the last soldier passed out of sight, an unearthly silence fell. Kestrel reached up for the slot in the wind singer that held its silver voice. The metal throat was almost too hot to touch,
but she made her fingers feel into the slot, and quickly, before she knew she was burned, she snatched out the voice. It fell to the flagstones below. She followed it, dropping swiftly down the
tower, feeling the skin tear on the fingertips of her right hand. She found the voice on the ground, already cool enough to handle, and with her left hand slipped it into her pocket.