Benzamir looked at the man’s wide-eyed stare and slack jaw, and felt something close to pity. ‘I don’t know if this is punishment enough. As far as I’m concerned, you’re free to go.’
‘Who are you?’ Akisi breathed. ‘Are you a User?’
‘No, I’m a magician. Now, I’ve other, more worthy people to save.’ Benzamir turned away towards the splintered remains of the door at the corner of the hall. ‘Come, my pretties.’
The spheres strung out behind him like pearls, like the last echoing cry of Akisi: ‘Who are you? Where are you from?’
Benzamir had other things on his mind. ‘Where are they?’ he asked, and the voice in his head replied:
‘They have temporarily evaded the unmaker and are by the fountain you previously marked for rendezvous. They still have the emperor with them, but I estimate that their discovery will be in a matter of moments.’
‘Guide me.’
Schematics fell into place over his vision. Arrows and distances, hints of rooms beyond and a trail of dead people carved into the fabric of the palace by the passing of the unmaker.
Finally there was an outside door, half of it hanging on one hinge, the other half embedded in some soldier’s chest as he’d tried to hold the line.
Benzamir was in the gardens, getting a live feed from above. He glanced up and knew what it had to look like: there was, inexplicably, another building over the citadel, a flying building with stubby swept-back wings and a long neck like a goose. But it was his beautiful spaceship, his Ariadne, who had brought him here and loved him like a sister.
Her lasers were sufficient to contend with the rocket fire that rose from the rooftops. Puffs of smoke and flame surrounded her in a corona.
‘Where is the damn thing?’
‘You’re hurt,’ she said.
‘I’ll heal. Now, can you see it?’
‘No. It might have re-entered the palace.’
‘Might? Do an active scan. My cover is well and truly blown, anyway.’ He turned a corner and came face to face with the wide end of a handheld rocket launcher. The man behind it tensed, his finger twitching on the clockwork trigger.
Benzamir’s followers arrived behind him, bobbing and weaving through the air as they surfed the bend.
The soldier fired. In the time it took the gun’s mechanism to release the flywheel which spun the iron which made the sparks which lit the priming charge which ignited the propellant, Benzamir had grabbed the barrel and pointed it at a first-floor window.
The unmaker burst from the window in an explosion of wood and coloured glass, knives swinging. It met the rocket head-on and was instantly swallowed by a dirty fireball. It fell straight down behind a buttress, tangled and streaming smoke.
‘Good shot,’ said Benzamir, and punched his stiffened fingers into the man’s diaphragm. He fell open-mouthed, and the remaining imperial guard turned to him as one.
A moment before, they had been aiming their weapons inward. Wahir had been clutching at Said. Said still had the emperor in his hands. Alessandra had been shouting at the guards to get back. Elenya had a knife at the emperor’s throat, and the monk Va was pleading with her to put it down.
Now everyone fell silent as the unmaker rose unsteadily from behind the wall. They looked at Benzamir and his floating spheres, then at the smouldering machine with its blood-streaked blades. The only officer left standing, a young man who had seen more that day, that hour, than in all his brief lifetime, spoke up.
‘I cannot trust you. You must know that.’
‘You’re both brave and wise,’ said Benzamir, ‘but I’d rather you told your men to lower their weapons. I need my friends alive.’
‘I have my orders. You, whatever you are, will not change them.’ He raised his arm to execute his final order.
The unmaker started its charge, and Benzamir lashed out his hand, finger extended. There were no preliminaries. A beam of blue-white light lanced down from the ship in the sky, cracked the air and carved the thing in two. It came tumbling on in its separate halves and fell in ruin at the officer’s feet.
‘Sir,’ said Benzamir, ‘if you want to save the empire, stand down.’ He sent his remotes to encircle the group. Fifteen men, some aiming at him, some at the spinning spheres, some at his friends. Despite all his toys, it was almost certain that it would end badly.
‘I will not. If you have any authority over those people, you will tell them to release His Imperial Majesty at once.’ Sweat was pouring off the officer’s face, and every line of his face was taut.
‘Authority, no. Influence, perhaps. But I can’t persuade the princess to put down her knife if she believes she’ll die in the next instant. It’s all up to you.’
While they thought round in circles, matters were taken out of their hands.
Va made a grab for Elenya’s blade, covered it with his hand so that even if she drew it back and across, she would not cut the emperor’s exposed neck. The sudden movement made one guard reflexively squeeze his trigger, and a bladed disc sang into the air.
Benzamir presumed it would come to this. It was quick, but not entirely painless. Almost before they knew it, the guards were twitching, stunned, unable to stand, speak, grip. One man stayed upright long enough to fire his magazine of bolts at Benzamir before succumbing to the fat sparks of lightning that crackled between the spheres.
And the same blue fire that brought them down enveloped the trio of emperor, princess and monk. Light danced along blade and jewellery. The emperor shuddered and shook, Va dropped, his teeth clenched and his eyes bulging. And even if she’d wanted it to, Elenya’s arm wouldn’t move, and in a sickening twist of recognition Benzamir realized that if he’d made his choices differently, Ibn Alam would still be alive.
The remotes spun away to defend their master from attacks from above. Benzamir ran forward, vaulted the fallen guards, landed next to the emperor. He hurriedly checked him, but he appeared unharmed.
As the emperor rolled aside, Benzamir saw that the front of Elenya’s dress was stained black with spreading blood.
‘Ariadne, get us up.’
Said looked out from between his fingers, then he shook Wahir, who had buried his head behind the man’s shoulder.
‘Master?’
‘Not now, Said.’
Benzamir tore Elenya’s dress and explored the wound. The cut was beneath her ribs, the material surrounding it soaked. He pressed on the wound with the flat of his hand, and her blood welled in the hollow and then seeped through his fingers.
Her skin was turning translucent. He didn’t have long. He couldn’t bring her back from the dead.
Alessandra, face and hands cut, eye swollen, cheek bruised, hair scorched, said: ‘What can I do?’
A lift disc hovered next to him, and presented him with yet another dilemma: there was not enough room for Ariadne to land, and not enough room on the disc for them all at once.
And if he moved his hand, she’d bleed to death.
‘Get on that. Drag the monk up with you. Hang on for all you’re worth, and when you get up there, don’t touch anything.’
She nodded once, pulled Wahir up and sent him on with the flat of her hand against his backside. Together, she and Said hauled Va on, and held his inert form there as the disc rose. As it did, so again did the rockets. Ariadne flicked them out of existence, and even then Benzamir curled his body around Elenya’s to protect her from falling shrapnel. At least, that was what he told himself.
The lift disc was swallowed whole by the ship, the door irising shut behind it. A moment later it was on its way back down.
People were stirring.
‘Your Imperial Highness?’ he said to the spasming emperor. ‘My humble and inadequate apologies, but we must go.’
He lifted Elenya up and stepped onto the disc. The wind tore at him. It was never intended to go this far, this fast. The remotes scattered as he burst through them, then caught them up in his wake. The few rockets that trailed up after him were intercepted in mid-flight.