Age of War

Chapter 12

Things had not turned out how Jonis had expected. An hour ago, the last place she expected to be was being escorted through the gates of the Imperial Enclave by two armoured guards who both stared straight ahead and couldn’t be induced to share any information with her about why she was being taken through the high gates in the pale walls that encircled the city within a city. At least she wasn’t in chains or anything. When that light had descended slowly towards them in the Archive, she, Calam and Calad had known the game was up. There was no escape from that great dark pit, and so they simply waited. Jonis had spent that time staring intently at the circular marble floor, memorising the symbols they’d discovered and their positions. She had a feeling it would be important. When she closed her eyes, she could still see them floating there. Unfortunately, dwelling on that memory also caused her to replay the conversation with the Matriarch that had come a few minutes later. She remembered the woman’s stern, tattooed face, lit by her own flickering torch, staring balefully at her from the foot of the spiral stairs. Of course she’d come herself to find her. Of course she was furious. But to send her to the palace? Jonis didn’t understand that. The Cyclops Keepers had their own hierarchy: they served Atlantis, but they didn’t answer to its Empress. There was no precedent for sending a misbehaving Keeper to explain herself to the throne.

No, there was something else. Some other reason she’d been summoned, and the fact that she was in a place she manifestly shouldn’t be was just a very unfortunate coincidence. The Matriarch would punish her more severely this time. There was every chance she might have her Cyclops taken away from her. That would hurt Jonin as well, but that was the way of things. Twinned Keepers were supposed to share responsibility for one another’s actions. They were supposed to be two halves of a whole. Jonis had never felt that applied to her and Jonin particularly. The idea of being stripped of her Cyclops gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach though. There weren’t enough Cyclopes for all of the Keepers in the stables to have their own. Earning the right to care for and train one on a permanent basis was an honour – one she might never regain if it was lost. It would be the end of her career. She would be reduced to mucking out the pits, helping with feeding, filing down claws and brushing parasites from scales. Busywork.

Another troubling thought was the fate of Calam and Calad. They had earned a great deal of leeway in their years of exemplary service, but they were caught red-handed helping her to break the rules. They’d been relying on the sequence of events being muddled, and on being out of the city when the blame started being assigned. Now, they’d bear the full brunt of the Matriarch’s wrath. They wouldn’t lose their Cyclops, not while it was in musth and there was a chance of a successful breeding, but there were other ways of punishing them, and the Matriarch’s memory was long. One way or another, they’d pay for their part in her disobedience.

She sighed, loudly enough for one of the soldiers to turn her head slightly, and tried to concentrate on her surroundings instead of dwelling on possible futures. She’d never been inside the Enclave before. Even Keepers, as honoured as they were, weren’t nobility. Their world lay beneath the city, not in its most fabulous environs. The walls were thick – they looked as delicate as confectionary from the outside – but she was interested to see that underneath the white marble were layers of thick granite. Above her head as they went through the passage between the outer gate with its tall ornate gates and thick iron portcullis and the less severe inner gate were murder holes and arrow slits. This place was designed to withstand a siege. They passed through the gate to the interior of the Enclave, a pointed arch that opened onto a wide, paved plaza. It was the middle of the night, and the sky was clouded over with a cutting wind that made Jonis shiver. The plaza must have been beguiling in the daytime, or even by moonlight, but under these oppressive clouds it seemed a sombre place. It was a wide circle surrounded by walls that emerged seamlessly from the outer battlement. Buildings seemed to grow from the edges organically, and the space was overlooked by many windows and balconies. There was a round fountain in the centre with a complex decorative centrepiece that was composed of multiple figures. It was hard to tell whether they were fighting, having sex or doing something else entirely. She’d have liked to take a closer look, but the soldiers led her away from it, towards another gateway to her left. The fountain wasn’t running at the moment, perhaps because it was night. There was no one else around. She glanced up at the walls, but they were too high and too thick for her to see whether the battlements were manned. Everything was still and quiet. It was disconcerting after walking through the streets of Atlas, which even at night were busy with the sounds of voices and music rising from every tavern and brothel. This really was another world.