‘I need to go back to my place, Princess,’ said Benzamir. ‘Try not to think too badly of me.’
‘Why would I do that? Have you done something to be ashamed of?’
Benzamir stared down at his hands. ‘Oh yes. I’m as guilty of using you as everybody else is.’ He looked straight at her, right into her eyes. ‘All I can say in my defence is that I really do mean it for the best.’
She sat back and put her hand to her neck. Va felt the movement, saw Elenya’s reaction to a stranger’s advance and purposefully ignored them.
Benzamir gave a little bow and crept his way back to his seat. Akisi’s lawyer was still hard at it, working the stage, using open-handed gestures and submissive body language. His voice rose to a shout, then fell to a whisper, compelling listeners to concentrate on his every word.
‘He’s very good,’ said Benzamir, ‘even though he’s fighting a lost cause.’
‘How can you tell?’ asked Said.
‘You don’t steal from the emperor and get away with it on a technicality. What sort of signal would that send out?’ From where they sat Benzamir could almost see behind the curtains. There was a shadow there, deeper than black, that drifted in and out of view as the curtain waved in time with the swinging fan.
An electrical tingle tickled Benzamir’s brain. He turned his head slowly, closing his eyes, feeling for the direction of the sensation. When he was certain that it came from the same place each time, he opened his eyes. Some of his bugs were still working.
There was not one, but three dark figures together, perfectly still, eyes shining softly within the folds of their hoods. He could hear the proceedings of the court, faint and distorted, the static hiss caused by the movement of air.
Benzamir ignored the words and just looked at the picture in front of him. The emperor was on his throne; in the front ranks on the other side of his personal bodyguard were all his ministers and underministers, his generals and ambassadors of his vassal states, the merchant princes and lords of industry. Everybody who could found and run an empire was in just one room.
The fringes of electronic chatter, narrowcast, encrypted, bounced off metal and stone, and ended up in Benzamir’s head.
‘Said, I want you to go and tell Wahir to wave at the Princess.’
‘Which princess is this?’
‘Just do it for me. Wahir will know what to do next. God go with you, my friend.’ He gripped Said’s shoulder.
‘Master? What are you doing?’ Said tried to find some reason around him that would account for the strange behaviour.
‘Go. Now. Or we’re going to stand no chance at all.’
Grumbling, Said heaved his large frame out of his chair, blocking each person’s view as he went. They swore floridly at him and, oblivious to their meaning, Said carried on, nodding and smiling all the while.
One of the guards in front of Benzamir looked suspiciously at the big man’s back, then glanced up to the roof. He seemed to signal something with a twitch of his brows.
Benzamir followed his gaze. Up high in the architecture, hidden by the blinding daylight, there were spotters, archers and other weaponeers, all making sure that this show-trial went entirely according to plan. Suppressing a nervous smile, he took several deep breaths and tried to clear his mind of everything. The radio noise was growing. He felt a microwave pulse briefly map his body before it moved on. He knew what it meant.
Wahir waved just as the lawyer sat down and mopped his brow. The first prosecutor had hardly got back to his feet when Elenya’s clear voice rang out.
‘Your most exalted Imperial Highness, please hear my petition. You say Solomon Akisi stole your property. I say it was already stolen from the monastery of Saint Samuil in far-off Arkady.’
The instant she began to speak, all eyes turned to her. Court officials reacted to the bold woman in their midst as if stung. Akisi looked around, bewildered, his chains scraping against the floor.
‘Forty good men were killed by the thieves; forty men of God who offered no resistance but prayer to the swords and the fire that was brought against them. The books belong to the patriarch of Mother Russia, and I have come to take them home.’
Va and Elenya were on their feet, Va giving his words to Elenya, she translating them into World so that everyone could hear. The soldiers cutting off the seats from the rest of the hall strained to hold the sudden press of curious, eager people back.
‘I appeal to your empire’s justice and your empire’s law. Stolen property must be returned,’ she called out.
A guard captain quickly detailed men to bring the interruption to an end. Through that gap in the fence of spears, Benzamir saw his chance and slipped forward.
He heard the whirr of spinning metal. He vaulted the lawyers’ desk feet first, using his hands to maintain momentum. Three bladed discs cut into the wood, following his movement but never quite anticipating it.
The guards sent to shut Elenya up started to turn back. Those still part of the fractured line tried to reach behind them as Benzamir skipped by. He was past the open-mouthed emperor, and the air hummed with missiles. A bolt took him between the shoulders, another in the leg, the stonework around him flicking up razor-sharp chips fast enough to disable anyone they hit.
Benzamir tumbled, landed on his feet and threw himself at the crimson curtains. Arms spread wide, he netted one of the figures behind it and wrestled them all to the ground.
More bolts, more discs hammered into Benzamir, who shrugged off the metal storm and pulled hard on the fixed end of the curtain. Its anchors broke and the fixing fell down, cloth rippling after it. Both captor and captives disappeared under the folds.
Inside the makeshift tent, Benzamir tore the material and reached through. He grappled with a mess of loose black cloth in an attempt to expose the person’s face, and came away with not just the coarse-woven hood, but the skin as well.
For a moment he was off guard, repelled by the texture of long-dead flesh on his fingers. Then an incredible force struck his chest and he was propelled upwards and backwards, bowling over two guards who had been about to stab down with their spears at the writhing curtain.
Benzamir managed to untangle himself first, and absently reached down to help one of the guards to his feet. Disorientated, the man climbed up Benzamir’s arm and pushed his helmet back round so that he could see.
The black-shrouded figure rose, a glittering, dagger-ended limb writhing from its belly. Its head, grey, lifeless, rolled away, and from the gaping neck sprang a pythons’ nest of sharp metal that cut its way down through the rotting corpse shell to reveal its true form.
Something stepped out, shining metal and glowing eyes. Benzamir had been aware of the screaming and the sudden sucking rush away, chairs toppled and thrown, but he had paid them no attention. All he thought about was that this was a thing that had never been done before. He knew what unmakers could do, had seen them fight and yet had never thought about facing one down with his bare hands. Now he had to try with three.
The curtain rose in two other places, and was nimbly turned to lace by snickering blades. Silver towers of quivering legs and eye stalks raised themselves up on knife points. They stood, poised for a moment as if waiting for a final command.
The unmakers’ controllers must have been looking at him, wondering if he could, in fact, stop them. When he looked back, he could feel their remote presence, weighing him, judging him, finding him and his cause wanting.
‘Don’t do this,’ said Benzamir. ‘We can still bargain together.’
His answer came swift and deadly. One unmaker darted for the throne; two went for Benzamir, blurs of light and dark that decapitated one guard and carved the other into a bloody ruin before he’d even got up.
The soldiers who had one moment been pushing forward with all their might suddenly found themselves redundant, and wondered what had caused the sudden change in their fortunes. As the crowd stampeded, they turned to see Benzamir twisting and spinning in a vortex of motion, and another spider-like thing ripping into the imperial guard even as the emperor was lifted bodily from his throne by his attendants in an attempt to save him.