Tryst brushed her sadness to one side. ‘It’s possible, then, for you to create a living creature simply to murder someone?’

She was silent for some time before answering, frozen in posture, so he could not tell what she was thinking. ‘Yes, of course. And I suppose you’d want to know why I did it.’

Tryst waited for her to go on.

She continued, ‘Ghuda talked a lot over the pillow. It’s like a confessional, and you’d be surprised to know just how many secrets are whispered to a woman like me. He may have been a little drunk, of course, but he started ranting about the refugees, and how they should be eliminated, that they disturbed the central plans of the Council. He claimed they were parasitic scum who deserved to die before they could leach the Treasury dry. So much disease among them, too, threatened the survival of the city, so he and Councillor Boll were working on certain plans to bring about their removal, and there were others involved, too. It wasn’t difficult to work out what he meant and I couldn’t let him continue, Tryst. I just couldn’t let them destroy the lives of so many.’

Tryst was concerned that she might know Urtica’s secrets, of his own involvement in them. ‘There were other ways to act, you know. You should have informed the Inquisition.’

‘You think I’m stupid? You think you lot would have been able to do anything? Solely on the word of a prostitute?’

That means Urtica is safe. Tryst felt a surge of relief. ‘It doesn’t mean you can just kill whoever you want, contrary to the ancient laws of this city.’

‘You’re going to arrest me, I presume?’ she said, her gaze focused on the floor tiles.

He considered this point for a moment, but he had another idea. This woman might have some definite use for him. And afterwards, he would turn her in, of course. Meanwhile, he had a way in which he could make Jeryd suffer, nothing too serious, just a little mental fun – a little revenge for blocking his promotion. And then he could feel justice had been done, an eye for an eye.

Tryst regarded her canvases once again. ‘You say you can paint anything, and then make it come to life?’

‘I can try,’ she said nervously. ‘What d’you have in mind? Are you not going to arrest me then?’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ Tryst said. ‘You seem like a sensible sort of woman, so I’ll let you keep your freedom if you can do me a favour.’

‘What… what sort of favour?’

‘I don’t want sex, Tuya, it’s your art I’m concerned with.’

‘My art?’

‘I want you to paint a woman for me. Can you make her stay alive for just a very short period of time?’

‘I’ve not created a human for what seems like… forever.’

‘Not a human, more a rumel. If you can’t, I will have you placed in the city gaol pending execution.’

‘What do you want her for?’

‘Firstly, you must control her so that she does only what I say – just for the short time she’s alive. And I want you to make her exactly how I describe.’

‘I don’t have a choice, do I?’

‘Not really, no. And you will not say a word of this to anyone, not if you wish to go on living.’

‘So, what do you want this woman to look like?’

Tryst proceeded to describe Jeryd’s wife.

TWENTY-NINE

She could turn stone into lava, seawater into ice sculptures, could make plants grow rapidly to the height of a building. She could create devices to flood the land with fire, and just as quickly quench it.

But she could not find Dartun Súr, Godhi of the Order of the Equinox.

Papus sat in the darkness and silence of her stone-built chambers, her fingers steepled, brooding over the situation whilst staring at the floor.

She hadn’t disclosed her full concerns to the red-eyed commander regarding what Dartun had been up to. He was clearly the one responsible for raising the dead. The real questions were how many of these walking dead were there, and what were the consequences?

Papus had known about Dartun for most of her life, because ever since she joined the Order of the Dawnir, rumours had persisted about his lifestyle, his abuse of Dawnir technology. She herself was the most skilled of all at using relics – or that was what she honestly believed, up until Verain’s visit. For years she had climbed through the ranks, watched others around her misuse the technology and die in accidents – her own great love, with whom she had hoped to abscond, included. It was all about maintaining image, being a cultist, and her whole family had belonged from time immemorial to the same, ancient order, the oldest of the cultist sects, a line stretching back generations. Most of her remaining kin were now in retirement on Ysla, well isolated from the rest of the Empire. But she was still here in Villjamur, still driven and still working and still competing.

Still Papus loved her work. What made her feel alive was the thrill that she might discover something completely unknown on any day, that she might then understand the universe better than anyone, that she might occasionally assist the advance of civilization in some small way.

And all the time, in the background, Dartun was quietly making a mockery of her.

People whispered about the Equinox. They gave cultists a bad reputation. There were questions regarding their ethics. But, knowing how Dartun liked to perpetuate his own myth, she had ignored the tittle-tattle up to a point.

Now he had gone too far.

He’d tampered with the fabric of life, and it was now a public affair. If he was indeed raising the dead, he had to be stopped soon. If what the girl, Verain, had claimed was true, then he was messing with basic universal configurations. There were codes of behaviour as old as the city, amongst the cultists, insisting that they should consult each other on controversial matters.

If Dartun’s order wouldn’t respond to her demands that he divulge any activities to do with raising the dead, then it would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

There hadn’t been strife between cultists for thousands of years, ever since the original disagreements that had spliced them into their separate orders.

Things were suddenly looking complicated.

She sighed. This was not like in her youth, all those years ago on Ysla. The cultists’ isle had been unlike any other island in the Archipelago in geological, botanical, or entomological terms. Its climate was warmer, for a start. But then it had been augmented so much by the various cultists inhabiting it using their relics that it no longer much resembled the island the original Dawnir had created. Lush green meadows, ridges of igneous rocks, crescents of beautiful white beaches, deciduous trees budding and shedding in rhythm with the artificial seasons. And those open blue skies always visible from the hilltops. All the cultist orders were entitled to have use of land there. Their different divisions possessed lodges scattered around, or gathered in village complexes, where their members were able to interpret relics in comparative solitude.

It now seemed a world away.

Her mind drifted back to Dartun, and then she made her decision. His tampering with the forces of life and death was simply wrong, and his reckless opening of doors to new worlds posed a risk to all these islands lying under the light of the red sun. Clearly, it was her responsibility to bring him to justice.

Through the dark alleyways, where the city’s snow-scrapers hadn’t yet ventured with their shovels, she marched with the letter she had resolutely composed. No lanterns around these parts of the city, but it was a clear evening, and the twin moons illuminated the treacherous snow clearly. Glowing paths stretched in front of her. Although not particularly late, there was no one else visible, few footprints. There were obviously better places to be than out in the cold. One hand was buried in her pocket, wrapped around her ultimatum. She had to present it in person, alone, but several steps behind her were other members of her order, armed with sterkr relics. She was not quixotic about this business. She wanted some protection, but did not want her arrival to seem intimidating. Not yet.