The Promise of the Child (16 page)

He remembered that some of the others had wanted to see the lightning Elcholtzia promised would occur and decided to go up to the east windows to see if he could catch a glimpse before he went back to work on his palace, the thought of a whole day's uninterrupted model-painting lifting his spirits at last.

He climbed the spiral stairs up to the servant birds' winter rooms, steadying himself tiredly a few times against the cool wall. The chamber was filled with Sonerila's possessions collected over the years, fascinating things he didn't understand, found strewn on the beach or in the cliffs. By far the most interesting were the chunks of stone with animals apparently trapped inside. He took one from the shelf and turned it this way and that, trying to see how it was made. It had blended to rock, leaving only an impression. Elcholtzia said the rock surrounding such things was a kind of vomit, that the specimens Sonerila had found must have puked up their mineral-rich innards and been stuck within them as they cooled to a block. It didn't sound nice to Lycaste, who worried every now and then that the same thing might happen to him. Impatiens agreed with Eranthis that perhaps it was something their ancestors had done deliberately, discounting the ridiculous notion of a deadly incontinence. If that were true, it looked like the cruellest of punishments.

Lycaste's favourites were the large spirals, like oversized snails. Other things scattered about the room were undoubtedly man-made but had no discernible purpose. There were spheres, coils, twists of metal and the edge of something very hard and very bright, not dulled like the others by salt and coral, its surface embossed with clean symbols unlike any he had seen before. They bore a vague similarity to the runes etched inside the walls of some of the caves. Drimys had thought he might able to break the code and decipher them but there weren't enough of the markings. Lycaste didn't want to know what they meant; they were from another time, when things mattered that didn't matter any more. Some of the objects in the chamber were obviously collected just because they were shiny or glossy, and there were a great many of those, along with recent ring books and toys. The toys were mostly puppets and dolls from when Sonerila was small, often on loan to Briza on the condition that he was gentle with them.

The servant wasn't there so Lycaste crossed the landing to the window, noticing the heavy storm clouds coming from the direction of the hills. He stopped to gaze at them, intrigued.

It was like a landscape in the sky, the clouds mountainous towers of roiling mist sinking between shredded black spears to steep-sided valleys. He listened. There it was—a choked boom followed by a rolling, broken series of beats, like pieces of the world being dropped from unimaginable heights and hitting things as they fell. It came from the depths of the cloud valleys, as if the storm was crumbling in on itself. He strained to listen to the last of it, still quiet and distant. The sound was power, vast and voluminous even from that distance.

He descended the tower and went outside. The air was still and lit with a yellowish tinge—it was like waking from a confused dream at an odd hour. He could see people beneath the foil tree at the edge of the orchard, all observing the clouds. The valleys of thunder filled the sky but were not quite overhead. Rolling cracks like a drumbeat from somewhere high and far broke across the hills.

When the sounds of the sky subsided to a crackling gurgle, Lycaste heard them: Eranthis appeared to be arguing, her voice clear then lost again under a fresh boom of crisp, galloping thunder. He saw Pentas and walked cautiously over to the tree beneath which they stood, stooping as he brushed its overhanging branches, and tiny slivers of metal fell twisting from his shoulders. Small wild birds nested in its twisted canopy, chirping anxiously as the thunder splintered the sky.

The woman she was arguing with was Pamianthe, Briza's mother. She and Drimys, though still married by law, had been living apart for years. Lycaste joined them wearily, having always been nervous around the woman.

“I should have summoned a Mediary before I left Odemiz,” Pamianthe said tersely. “Briza would be in schooling by now and know twice as many words. The children in Izmirean can already write!”

“We all know what Mediaries are like,” Eranthis replied, glowering at the woman.

Lycaste watched Pentas flinch, wanting to hold her in his arms.

“I'm taking him, Eranthis. His father can't look after him.”

Impatiens knelt by the boy, who was looking thoroughly confused, and whispered in his ear. He stood up again, turning to Pamianthe. “Lycaste is going to take Briza to pick some flowers for Drimys. It's better we have this conversation without him here, don't you think, Pamianthe?” He looked at Lycaste.

Lycaste nodded, taking Briza's hand and exchanging glances with Pentas.

Pamianthe caught his arm. “Bring him back before the Quarter's out, Lycaste, we'll be leaving.”

He took Briza out of the orchard, deep concern on the boy's round face, and into the grove of wild flowers at its edge. Beyond them, the curling darkness choked the sky and blew a moist, surprisingly fresh breeze their way. They climbed the bank where tall orchids rooted in the jungle paths and pink grasshoppers bounced madly away at their approach, palms above the bank swaying lethargically like seaweed under the tortured clouds, thunder rupturing around them. Briza laughed, his troubles forgotten, and ran squealing among the slowest of the grasshoppers, their tiny shapes leaping whenever a boom ripped through the sky. Lycaste began picking the most elegant light blue flowers while he tried to see what was going on beneath the foil tree.

Briza trotted up with some weeds and dumped them into Lycaste's arms. “Are these for Daddo?” asked the boy, casting about for more of the unattractive plants among the rippling grass.

Lycaste nodded and pointed to some tiny scarlet flowers. “These ones, Briza, pick some of these here.”

Briza crouched down, deciding which ones to select, his tongue sticking out of his mouth. “The man in the caves likes flowers.”

Lycaste frowned, genuinely thinking he'd misheard. His hand clenched around an orchid stem but didn't pull. “The man in the caves?”

Briza hummed and tore some red petals from a flower, throwing them into the increasing wind. “He gave me some.”

“When did you see a man, Briza?” He shot his gaze towards the rocks, in plain view at the end of the beach.

“Today,” said Briza in a sing-song voice. He spied a lone grasshopper and ran to chase it, his flowers forgotten.

The caves. From there anyone could see most of the house and gardens. He walked back to the orchard to get a better look, making sure Briza remained in view as he played in the grass. The others were still arguing beneath the tree.

He picked up a branch the length of his thigh from the woodpile and swung it tentatively, feeling its weight, then set off along the beach. The first spots of rain began to speckle his body and darken the pebbles, while out to sea something flashed, bright as lit magnesium against the grim sky. He stopped to look down at himself, wiping away the slickness on his skin. Lycaste had felt rain before, but not for some years and then only briefly. That which dropped on him now was heavier, thicker. It smelled different. Bass thunder rolled over the beach as he shook his head and marched more quickly towards the caves, gaping greyly in the thickening rain beyond his overturned boat. He swung the stick again, reassuringly heavy in his fist, his fingers still stained from the orchids.

Lycaste had no idea what he was going to do when he got there. He looked down at his rain-slicked body as he walked, his dainty ankles coated in rough wet sand, and slowed. His slender physique wouldn't even deter a child. He hoped the stick might be threatening enough—if it had to be. He swung it again.

“
Who are you?
” Lycaste said to the whispering rain and grinding clouds, practising lowering his voice and settling his shoulders to look threatening. It was absurd, but the best he could do. He stopped, looking back to the dark green slope of orchard and ahead to the caves. He was soaked. In a drawer somewhere lay the heirloom—a finely wrought old pistol ring that he had never tested. He should have thought of it sooner, should have gone and tried it before he'd started out. Stupid.

Almost there, he watched the caves closely as he approached, looking for any sign of movement among their crags. The darkening sea slammed against the furthest rocks, white spray showering the cave-mouth. He had to enter there or walk around next to the heaving water. Another flash came from somewhere behind him as he stepped gingerly up onto the first smooth, barnacled slab leading to the cave.

The tumbling surf grew quieter as he stepped in. A bed of smoother sand reached far inside, soft on his raw feet. He crept further, trying to separate the volume of the waves from any sounds inside. Heaped seaweed rotted against the stone, rank and sharp in his nostrils. It became darker, but his eyes adjusted quickly to the bleak light that filtered from outside; the forms of rock reared and tumbled about him, sometimes narrowing so much that a man could only just squeeze through. Every time he reached those places, he was convinced someone would leap out, catching him trapped. But he heard nothing, just the dwindling grumble and smash of the elements.

Lycaste leaned against a boulder, dry and cool in the dark, waiting. He gripped the branch tightly, absently working the loose bark from its surface with his fingers as he listened. There was no sign that anyone had been here at all. No prints in the sand, no traces of a fire. There was no smell of people here, either, but then he could smell nothing apart from the foetid seaweed.

He waited for what felt like a long time. There were no portable timepieces in the Province, and nothing exact at all. They weren't needed anyway, in this relaxed age when everything was done by Quarter. Lycaste was sure he had passed from second to third Quarter by now. His stomach grumbled in the dark and he looked around in panic in case he was heard.

Cautiously, Lycaste stepped further in, where the light increased as the punctured cave system opened again onto the shore beyond. The sand became dry and loose, dimpled with marks. He bent, unable to tell if any could be footprints. He placed his own foot experimentally in the sand but left no impression other than a trough the grains quickly refilled.

It was here in the caves that he and Impatiens had first found the ancient markings. They appeared to be so old that they showed none of the fresh, scratched rock beneath, merely indentations of the same colour, as though they had always been there. Lycaste looked for more and found some just below head height on the inside wall. They were small, but varied in size up to about the length of his hand. Patterns repeated in the markings, like the modern writing he was familiar with, so he was convinced it was language. Impatiens had suggested that the markings might be numbers. He reached out and touched them, running his fingers in and out of their chiselled forms, repeatedly checking around him as he did so.

Finally he sat down, listening instead to the wind and rain outside. There was nobody here, unless they had retreated much further into the cave system that pocked the cliff face. He decided to return with Impatiens and whoever else would come later on, perhaps tomorrow. They would push deeper into the cliff, checking everywhere. It wouldn't even take a whole day. If someone had been here, they would know.

PART II

Procyon

The clipper dropped, a sinuous, ichthyoid shape thrown into black silhouette by the vast brightness of the chilly, reflective planet beneath it, and plunged like a streamered bullet into the outer layers of the exosphere. At its prow, a finely wrought figurehead spread the parting air into twin crests of vapour, gradually glowing like a wake of fire. Horatio Crook barely spared the dome of thundering cloud-tops roaring up to meet them a second glance, resting his head back and looking at Florian Von Schiller. The other Perennial was staring out of a porthole, his eyes following the grey seas and dark shorelines that traced like oily scum around the cold continent towards which they were dropping at supersonic speeds. Their staterooms aboard the Decadence craft, whilst horribly small and cramped, had been appointed as luxuriously as possible during the nine-day flight, with hangings and tapestries decorating the remoulded, utilitarian interiors. Here, in the forward operations capsule, they sat on gilded ottomans draped with furs and rugs for warmth as they looked out of the portholes, a jug of poorly filtered water trembling upon a table between them. The rules of the clipper commanded that they wear specially made Amaranthine suits for the entire voyage in case of difficulties, inter-Satrapy travel remaining an imperfect and inexact science for any Prism species, even in an ancient, hand-me-down Amaranthine ship such as this. Both Crook and Von Schiller had refused as a matter of principle, fearing for the integrity of their fabulously expensive garments. Their enlarged, custom-made suits stood locked against the bulkhead at the ready, monstrous bulging red sacks barely humanoid in form, chests and shoulders covered with scaled armour.