Taking the chance to pull back, Serrah tensed for Aphrim’s fresh assault. But his next move baffled her. He tossed his sword
aside, as though discarding a broken toy and, staring at her, he opened his mouth wide. For one crazy second she thought he was going to poke his tongue out at her. But what shot out of his mouth was a glittering red orb the size of a grapefruit. It flew at her, swift as an arrow, leaving a fiery trail in its wake. At the last moment she dropped and it soared overhead. The glowing ball smashed into a clothes stall and detonated in a huge gout of flame. The stall and its stock went up immediately, throwing out a wave of heat and acrid black smoke.
This was too rich for the blood of many in the crowd, and there was a disorderly retreat. But the press of people was so great they could only withdraw about twenty feet. The fire spread from the burning stall to an adjacent sweetmeat booth. A few hardy souls appeared with buckets of water and tried to douse it.
Slowly, warily, Serrah advanced towards her opponent. Aphrim stood in the same position, absolutely still, his face impassive. She was tensing for a charge when his jaw gaped and he spat another fireball. This one came lower than the last, and would have impacted at her waist if she hadn’t swerved. The fireball zipped past on a downward trajectory and hit the road, shedding sparks, then rocketed on, straight at the crowd. There was panic. People yelled, screamed and struggled to get out of the way.
Reeth and Aphri’s duel had spilt back into the road. The flaming globe was set to miss them by several feet as it sailed towards the mob. Reeth took a chance. Back-footing Aphri with a rain of blows, he threw himself to one side, swinging his sword in a high, broad arc. The flat of his blade met the flying orb like a bat slapping a ball. He acted on instinct; for all he knew the globe would explode on impact.
But as Reeth came heavily to ground, the orb was deflected onto a new course. It travelled at a right-angle to the crowd, speeding in the direction of the houses lining the market.
Nobody moved an inch, not even Aphri, and everyone was transfixed in silence as they tracked its progress.
A small comet towing a vivid crimson tail, the missile headed for the upper storey of a brick and timber warehouse. With a precision it would have been hard to improve on if actually aimed, it flew through the only window with open shutters. There was a second of utter quiet, followed by an echoing blast and an eruption of flame. Smoke spewed from the window. People began blundering out of the street-level door, red-eyed and coughing. Behind them, the interior of the warehouse was blazing.
The spell was broken. Renewed uproar swept the market. Reeth climbed to his feet, but Aphri had gone. He looked round and saw her running. Aphrim had bypassed Serrah and was on the move, too; dashing his twin’s way. To Reeth, Aphri looked like someone racing towards a life-sized mirror. The two figures collided, but only one carried on. Bystanders shifted fast to let the meld through.
Serrah jogged over to Reeth. ‘Do we go after her?’
‘No. Look.’
Militiamen were shoving aside the spectators, and red tunics appeared.
There were those among the onlookers who might have tried to stop Reeth and Serrah from getting away. Whether they stayed their hands through fear, gratitude or greater hatred of the law-enforcers, the crowd parted and let them pass.
Minutes later, they were several blocks away.
‘I can’t say that exactly added to our sum of knowledge,’ Serrah lamented. ‘Apart from the fact that those two are dangerous.’
‘Actually, we learnt something valuable. We can be pretty sure the meld’s connected in some way with the paladins.’
‘Like I said, Reeth; it might be a good idea to get out of Bhealfa for a while.’
18
Of all the major cities of the known world, Merakasa, capital of the western empire of Gath Tampoor, was one of the most colourful and vibrant.
Like its eastern counterpart, Rintarah’s Jecellam, Merakasa housed a city within a city. This nucleus, or unlanced abscess as some saw it, was the leadership’s citadel. It was a self-contained metropolis that provided everything the ruling clan needed to keep them isolated from their subjects. So that with the exception of ceremonial occasions, or affairs of national importance where their fleeting, distant presence was unavoidable, the empire’s masters could live in shadow.
But it was necessary now and again for the elite to come into contact with the lesser mortals who served them. This could be to dispense rewards or punishments, or where news concerning their far-flung interests was best heard directly from the mouths of their representatives.
Today it was the turn of Andar Talgorian, Imperial Envoy to the Sovereign State of Bhealfa. Though the term ‘sovereign’ was misleading.
Whether he had been summoned to Merakasa for reward, punishment or the imparting of news was something
Ambassador Talgorian never entirely knew in advance. Which made his job all the more exciting. Exciting in the sense that a drowning man thrown a lead weight as a life-belt might use the word.
This wasn’t the only reason the Envoy always found an audience with the Empress an unnerving experience. She was a disquieting presence. Partly this was due to the power she wielded, and the knowledge that his life was worth no more than a capricious snap of her fingers. Partly, he had to admit, it was her appearance.
He couldn’t begin to guess how old Bethmilno XXV was, beyond very old indeed. Like her Rintarahian counterparts, whom Talgorian had never seen, she sought to disguise the ravages of age. So she caked her face in white rouge, and coloured her lips in pigment redder than blood. Her eyelashes, eyebrows and suspiciously full head of hair were all densely blackened. That all this looked so synthetic was due either to the artlessness of her maids or to the fact that her great age was beyond masking.
He sat opposite her in a grand reception room on the palace’s ground floor, where one entire wall was occupied by casement windows, affording a panoramic view of the estate. A subterranean power channel ran beneath the chamber. He knew this because the imperial household kept the tradition of marking out these conduits of magic, and a tincture had been used to show its course across the floor. The incongruous gold line, ramrod straight, passed almost exactly through the centre of the apartment. He thought despoiling the room in this way took respect for custom too far.
But the outrage to Talgorian’s aesthetic sense was forgotten when, midway through their conversation on security matters, the Empress declared, ‘It might well come to war.’
The Envoy was taken aback. ‘Excellency?’
Feigning patience, Bethmilno spelt it out. ‘With the other side.’ She almost always referred to Rintarah as ‘the other side’.
‘Forgive me being dull-witted, Excellency, but we’ve been fighting against Rintarah with proxy wars for a very long time.’
‘I’m referring to
open
war; a direct confrontation.’
‘May I be so bold as to ask what has brought you to consider such an option, ma’am?’
‘Impatience, Ambassador. I grow weary of this eternal game of cat and mouse with them.’
‘Would not stepping up our present activities be sufficient, Excellency?’
‘How?’
‘Perhaps by offering more assistance to the insurgents within Rintarah’s borders?’
‘It may have escaped your attention, Ambassador, that giving money to their terrorists amounts to handing it to our own. Besides, I regard the so-called Resistance as a disorganised rabble, and of doubtful use as a weapon against the other side.’ She anticipated his rejoinder, and waved it away. ‘I don’t say they aren’t a problem. But they could never overthrow even the smallest of our protectorates. Essentially they’re just an irritant.’