Read The Promise of the Child Online
Authors: Tom Toner
Impatiens glanced at the others, unable to hide his dismay. “As you wish, Plenipotentiary. This way.”
They followed Impatiens back up the hill. Lycaste glanced back at the house, trying to work out what he'd just witnessed, the fear slowly returning.
Battleship
Corphuso's skin smelled of the rubber from his suit, a fine powder still coating the minuscule hairs on his arms and torso. When the first trickles of water began to fall he moved forward, turning his face down against the light, avoiding the gaze of the other Prism in the vast chamber.
Someone stepped close to him as he rubbed the metallic-smelling water over his forearms and beneath his armpits. He looked up, backing quickly out of the stream to make way for a bloated Wulm, obviously newly arrived. It was engaged in removing the sodden material beneath its cuirass, popping buttons and dumping the pile on the iron floor. It turned its white face up to the water-stream and let it slap and patter across its closed eyes. Corphuso watched it for a moment more, noticing how the water ran down one of its dangling, rabbity ears in thin red runnels, bloody from a seeping wound.
Corphuso turned and looked back at the Lacaille guards sitting around the edges of the chamber. They were vague and ghostly pale in the light that fell past the hanging pipes far above, uninterested in the bathing prisoners. As Corphuso's gaze took in the dark funnel ceiling, he understood that he and the other captives were washing in the battleship's coolant reservoir; the water that channelled through the rusted and ancient pipes would certainly be irradiated and likely wriggling with worms. He spat, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, and glanced back into the huge space at the collection of Prism species that milled and splashed, all apparently docile for the chance of a wash. They were mercenaries from any number of Great Companies, soldiers, scouts, pilots, smiths; hired or press-ganged to fight a war in the atmosphere of a tiny moon that meant little to anyoneâa black pebble on a mossy, forgotten beach. He cupped his elbows, the hairs on his arms rising as a breeze filtered down from the ceiling and some other part of the battleship, studying the protruding vertebrae and ribs of the Prism as they washed. Shadows drooped beneath the bones that stuck out of their bluish-white skin. They would be hungry, far hungrier than he was, and would need to be fed soon after their shower if the guards wanted to avoid any trouble. His eyes scanned the crowd, looking for any notably unpleasant breeds, but all looked amenable or groggy, most technically allied to the Vulgar kingdom of Filgurbirund and therefore on Corphuso's side.
“Vulgar?” a thick voice said at his side, in Corphuso's own tongue.
He turned, his heart leaping. An especially sallow creature of fairly indeterminate race had sidled up to him while he was watching the showering Prism.
“You new here,” the Prism creature said. As Corphuso stared, he came to the conclusion that the thing speaking to him was a Ringum: a cross-breed.
“Yes?” he asked, moving a hand hesitantly to cover himself.
The Ringum coughed, its wasted stomach muscles contracting violently. “Vittles?”
Corphuso shook his head, indicating his nakedness. “Nothing. No food.”
The Ringum's large nostrils flared as it shuffled closer to sniff at Corphuso's body. Apparently convinced, it reached out a clawed finger to touch him. Corphuso flinched, pushing the creature's cold, four-fingered hand away.
“No food, I said.” His eyes went to the nearest guards across the haze of the chamber, but they were busy arguing with a Zelioceti prisoner.
“Where you come from?” the Ringum asked, its wide eyes searching Corphuso's face. The breath drifting from between its needle-teeth was particularly foul, momentarily masking the reek of bathing Prism and sewage.
“I have nothing,” Corphuso reiterated, pushing past it to collect his underclothes, stacked next to the wall. He reached the place where he thought he'd left them and scanned the rusted floor. All around were piled holed and stinking undergarments, mostly wet from the water that was now slopping up to the base of the huge iron doors. Corphuso hadn't thought anyone would notice the value of his clothes, but apparently someone had. He looked up from the floor. A scabbed Vulgar youth, the pinkness of his skin betraying him as a subject of the lawless moon of Stole-Havish, was leaning casually near the doors, Corphuso's expensive underclothes tight on his bony hips. The Vulgar looked at Corphuso expressionlessly, lowering his gaze as a guard shuffled past.
Corphuso shook his head, muttering under his breath and sifting a toe through the piles of damp clothes on the floor. He was looking for something not so conspicuously lice-ridden that might fit him when the Lacaille guards nearest to the doors clapped their hands and heaved them open. Corphuso watched the Vulgar that had stolen his underpants flinch and scuttle away, shielding his eyes from the light of the opening doors. Chained prisoners, their long shadows preceding them, sloshed into the huge chamber dragging vats behind them. At the sight of the containers the washing Prism squealed and yammered, hobbling to the chained cooks and pushing them aside. Two Lacaille guards shoved their way through and tipped the vats, releasing a clotted wave of sickly leftovers that mixed with the water on the floor.
The Prism screamed, wrestling and biting each other for the first of the food. Corphuso saw the fat Wulm burying itself in the mound of sludge, angrily batting away smaller members of its own race that strayed too near. Corphuso crept closer, avoiding a couple of snarling Quetterel that were slipping and sliding as they fought over some juicy chunk of spinal column. The Wulm glanced up at him briefly, baring its yellow teeth, and Corphuso decided to wait until the larger prisoners had eaten their fill.
After some time, the frenzy slowed, with most of the prisoners taking what handfuls they could from the increasingly watery feast and retreating to the edges of the chamber. Corphuso approached the mess, reflecting as he glanced inside the first of the tipped vats that he might stand a chance of getting some food still uncontaminated by the water from the ceiling. He reached in and scooped up a palmful of sludge, sniffing it. Offal, probably, from the battleship's galleys. Lacaille prisoners were well treated in this respect. Other wars across the Investiture were not so kind to their captives.
Corphuso turned too late. The Ringum that had tried to talk to him earlier had crept close, its claws rasping on the metal sides of the vat. The creature hissed, tearing the food from his hand and spilling most of it on the wet floor. Corphuso clutched at his wrist as the Ringum dived for the offal, shovelling what it could into its mouth before scampering away.
“How does it feel to be at the bottom here, Architect?”
He turned. Ghaldezuel had come for him, as Corphuso had known he would.
“I suppose you'd like something better?” the Lacaille continued, stepping up to the vat and peering inside. Corphuso nodded, noticing most of the sated Prism in the chamber watching them.
Ghaldezuel straightened and turned to look coldly at his staring captives, some no doubt considering rushing him. Corphuso knew such a mistake might be the last they made. The Lacaille appeared to single out one of the prisoners, levelling a pale finger at it across the chamber. The Quetterel he was pointing at cowered and shuffled back, lost in the gloom.
“Where is my machine?” Corphuso asked, wiping some of the gruel from his torso.
Ghaldezuel swivelled back to him. “It's safe.” He moved towards the doors, beckoning Corphuso to follow. “Come, we have a journey ahead of us.”
Corphuso backed away, his gaze trained on the Prism watching them. Among them, the Ringum's pale eyes considered him. “Where?” he asked Ghaldezuel, still too afraid to take his eyes off them.
“The Amaranthine Firmament,” Ghaldezuel said, taking in his prisoner's offal-splashed chest. “I advise you clean yourself up.”
Beach
Of the thousands of pebbles on the beach, Callistemon appeared to find all the flattest ones.
Lycaste had been skimming stones since before the young man was born, he was certain, but somehow his adversary was winning. He crunched across the shore towards the Plenipotentiary, who was teaching Briza to skim, scanning the littered pebbles on his way for anything that might sway the game. Lycaste picked a few up and took a sidelong glance at Callistemon, who still had twenty out of his twenty-five, all scoring three bounces or more. Lycaste aimed carefully, knowing the man was watching his technique, and sent a stone plunging into a green wave.
Callistemon pointed at where the pebble had sunk, whispering something to Briza, and looked up at Lycaste. “Lycaste, watch how I do it next time.”
Lycaste dropped his remaining stones and stormed off towards the women, who were shading themselves under a twisted tree that had taken root in the smaller bluish pebbles at the beach's edge. Of all Callistemon had told them of the Glorious, Civilised Second, the most pertinent detail appeared to be that it was nowhere near a sea of any description. Where had he got so much practice? Lycaste refused to give any thought to the notion that the Plenipotentiary might simply be naturally talented as he sat down heavily on the stones. He'd forgotten his linen towel.
Callistemon stayed standing at the water's edge, practising with the boy; Briza watched him throw, copying the Plenipotentiary's movements and quickly looking to see where the man's stone fell. They all saw a pebble strike the water at an angle, bouncing across the low tide three or four times. The boy jumped up and down on the rocks in delight.
“Briza likes him,” said Eranthis to her sister.
“He's showing off,” mumbled Lycaste.
Pentas sighed. “He's teaching him.”
Eranthis smiled and waved as the two looked back. “And
so
good with children; such a rare quality in young men these days.”
Lycaste looked up from his attempts to make a comfortable groove in the pebbles. “Aren't I good with him?”
“Sometimes, when you're not telling him off for touching your dolls.”
“And you're not young like Callistemon,” added Pentas.
“I'm only a few years older. We don't even know how old he is, anyway.”
“He's twenty-six,” Eranthis said. “He told me the other day.”
They both looked at her. She smiled a secretive smile.
Lycaste turned his attention back to the Plenipotentiary and the boy. All of them were growing fond of the man, even if Lycaste had trouble stomaching it. He was interesting and new, and even Lycaste noticed himself listening carefully to whatever Callistemon said when they all sat down to increasingly grand suppers together.
The previous evening, their visitor had told them each their flowerâthe Latish genus after which they were named. Lycaste already knew his was an orchid, his smaller name being Cruenta, but had no idea what the species looked like. Callistemon described the dapper yellow plant and its cinnamon scent for him, explaining that
Lycaste cruenta
were cultivated in the First, along with every other seed in the world. Each one of the people present, he said, had their namesake growing in the great gardens there. Callistemon explained how, through people's names, a careful observer might understand much about the state of the world and its inhabitants, their movements and history. Particular names were tied firmly to their own geography until a strong enough wind blew, swirling them to coalesce here and there across new Provinces and take root like wild seeds, only to be cast again into the wind. He returned often to the idea that Eranthis and Pentas shared a common link with the Second, the First's noble cousin Province, going so far as to formally invite the two sisters to visit him at his family home sometime in the future, at the pleasure of their guardians back in the Seventh, of course, and handing them both a tasselled slip of paperâtheir formal introduction passports to the Secondâshould they wish to join him on his return journey. Impatiens and Lycaste had exchanged worried glances as the girls compared the papers excitedly.
The Plenipotentiary had visited every estate in the Tenth during the eight days since his arrival, apparently satisfied with his findings. Callistemon's record books came with him to most events, since he would often remember to ask something when a topic was brought up in conversation, jotting down notes as people explained things to him. His enquiries encompassed a range of subjects: lineage and locations of family members; personal dimensions, weight and diet (for which he relied on a complex table of variables in order to calculate his answersâthe units of the Tenth differed greatly from those closer to the centre); mastery of complex grammar and a spectrum of aptitude tests, which were supplied on a set of reprintable metal sheets. His meagre luggage, stowed somewhere in Impatiens's house, might contain a personal diary or something similar, but the work he showed them was nearly always numerical tables or spreadsheets. Callistemon's last wishâto meet Jotroffeâremained unfulfilled, however. Impatiens had asked at all the hilltop houses and even the port with no success, and there was no pattern to the strange man's wanderings that anyone could make out.
The previous night, Lycaste had taken out his maps of the greater continent, bringing them to his rooms so that none of the helpers would see. Old and careworn and untrustworthy, their rubbed engravings tentatively charted the geometric edges of each Province as they whirled like a spiral stair from the capital, somewhereâthough the map did not extend that farâhigh above the crown of the great Black Sea. Lycaste traced the distance with outstretched fingers, dabbing his prints on the polished bronze plates, trying to see for himself the journey Callistemon would have made eastwards across the continent towards the Nostrum Sea and the Tenth Province. A journey of at least eleven hundred miles. So very far, just to count them.
Callistemon wandered up to them with Briza at his side. “I didn't see Impatiens last night. Did he stay with the old man?”