Part 34 (2/2)

Briana raised her hands. 'That's enough,' she said. She glanced from one sister to another, before returning her attention to Ianthe. Her expression softened. 'There's a place for you here, Ianthe, but only if you work with us. I won't tolerate threats. I expect you to be as civil and honest with us as we've been with you.' She gave her a half-smile. 'We can't put you back into the cla.s.sroom now.'

'But I didn't mean to harm-' Ianthe's voice broke and she began to cry.

Briana left her seat and walked down the central aisle of the theatre. She wrapped her arms around Ianthe and held her. Ianthe couldn't stop herself. Her whole body began to convulse with sobs. Tears flowed freely until she could no longer see through her lenses. She clung fiercely to Briana. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm sorry.'

The Haurstaf leader smoothed Ianthe's hair. 'Shush,' she said. 'You've done nothing to be sorry about. All you need is a little guidance.' She held Ianthe for a long time. Finally she squeezed Ianthe's shoulders and gently pushed her away. 'If you can do that to a human,' she said, smiling, 'think what you could do to the Unmer.'

Ianthe sniffed and shook her head.

'This is what we do, Ianthe,' Briana said. 'It's what your cla.s.smates have been training towards, what poor Caroline sacrificed her life for.'

'Constance,' Ianthe said.

Briana nodded. 'And when you see what the Unmer are capable of, you'll understand why the Guild is so vital. Women like us keep the world from falling apart.' She turned to the other three witches. 'I think she's ready to see the dungeons now.'

Sister Ulla shook her head, but her two companions looked at each other for a few moments. 'There's no going back if you decide to take that route,' one of them said. 'She'll be bound to us for good or ill.'

Briana made a face. 'Don't be so melodramatic, Bethany,' she said. 'We can always kill her later.' She moved her lips close to Ianthe's ear. 'I'm joking. But your acceptance into the Guild will have other consequences. Maskelyne will be executed for his crimes.'

Ianthe looked up at her for a long moment. 'What about his wife? His son?'

Briana looked surprised. 'You want them dead, too?'

'No, I mean-'

'We must protect our family from the Maskelynes of this world,' the witch said. 'Family is important, don't you think?'

Ianthe's eyes filled with tears again. She nodded.

Briana extended her hand. 'Then come with me.'

What happened next happened quickly. Ianthe found herself whisked away from that room. Briana Marks led her on through the palace, through gla.s.sy black corridors and halls and rooms where women Ianthe did not know looked on in grim silence. They descended one stairwell and then a second and a third and a fourth, until Ianthe lost count and it seemed to her that they must be deep with the earth itself. Finally they came to a nondescript door in a small stone antechamber. Briana turned a key in the lock.

They stepped out onto a balcony set high on one wall of an enormous, brightly lit chamber one of four platforms connected by a cruciform steel catwalk. Thousands of gem lanterns depended from the vaulted ceiling overhead, filling the entire s.p.a.ce with harsh white light. Below the catwalk lay a maze of roofless concrete cells, each about six feet to a side. Hundreds of small openings, barely large enough for a man to squeeze through, connected each cell to one or more of its neighbours in a seemingly haphazard fas.h.i.+on. Ianthe strolled to the edge of the balcony and looked down. A network of pipes suspended beneath the catwalk fed an array of shower heads, one located above each cell. Their purpose was presumably to wash the occupants below.

Hundreds of Unmer filled that grey labyrinth, either alone in a cell or gathered together in small groups. All were naked and painfully thin. They slouched against the bare walls or sat on the floors or lay sleeping. The murmur of conversation gradually ceased as they became aware of their observers in the gallery above.

'It used to be a mental faculty test,' Briana said, her voice echoing far across the chamber, 'but we ended up using the place to store the breeding stock. They're all leucotomized, of course, so security isn't much of an issue here. Food can be thrown down, filth washed away, and we use acid to direct test subjects to the gate for removal.'

Ianthe's throat grew dry. They were all looking up at her.

'The leucotomy procedure allows them privacy,' Briana said. 'We don't need psychics to monitor them constantly.'

'They look so miserable.'

'Misery is the price of freedom,' Brian replied. 'We can't have them walking through walls or vanis.h.i.+ng matter at will. They're happy enough. Come now, I'll take you to the zoo.' She set off across the catwalk at a brisk pace.

Ianthe hesitated. 'The zoo?'

'That's where we keep the able-minded ones,' the witch called back.

Ianthe waited a moment longer, then ran after her. The catwalk rattled under her boots. She kept her gaze level, afraid to look down at the pitiful creatures below. She caught up with Briana just as she reached the opposite balcony. Briana unlocked another door and ushered her into a corridor lit by gem lanterns recessed behind copper mesh. A door at the end of this pa.s.sage led to yet another stairwell, which descended even further beneath the earth.

By the time they reached the bottom, Ianthe was quite out of breath. They had reached a circular chamber with walls clad in blood-coloured seawood inlaid with curlicues of copper. Recessed lanterns threw cross-hatch patterns across the living rock floor. At least a dozen exits surrounded them, each blocked by a door made from different coloured gla.s.s. The air was much cooler here and carried the scent of perfume.

Ianthe could sense large numbers of people behind each of the doors. Her inner vision fluttered with the lights of their perceptions: a hundred of them, maybe more. And yet she held back in spite of all her nervous excitement forcing her mind to remain in her own body. She was about to witness the Haurstaf's greatest secret with her own eyes.

Briana opened the door.

Ianthe' first impression of the chamber beyond was that it was upside down. Light poured into the room through huge slabs of gla.s.s set into the floor. These panes were all of various shapes and sizes: squares and oblongs and long strips. In the centre of the room stood a tall, thin wooden structure, like a small watchtower or an improbably large high-chair. A ladder on the near side gave access to a cus.h.i.+oned seat at its summit. Upon this sat a young witch in plain white robes. She had been peering down into the gla.s.s floor below her but now glanced up as Briana and Ianthe entered.

'Any mischief?' Briana asked.

The witch on the high-chair did not reply.

'Verbally,' Briana said The other woman cast a curious glance at Ianthe. 'Not in here,' she said. 'But we had an incident in suite seven.'

'Who was in the chair?'

The younger woman shrugged. 'Some new girl. She overreacted.'

'Did the prisoner survive?'

'Sort of.'

As Briana and Ianthe approached, Ianthe looked down through the gla.s.s pane under her feet. Below lay a bedroom, as richly furnished as any other in the palace, with silken sheets and plump pillows on the bed, Evensraum rugs on the floor. Paintings and tapestries adorned the walls, giving the room a rather stately feel. One of the two doors led to a bathroom, with a smaller gla.s.s pane for a ceiling. Ianthe walked over it and found herself gazing down at a huge copper bathtub with a matching sink. The other bedroom door opened into an enormous lounge, also roofed with gla.s.s. Through this pane, Ianthe could see a young man reclining on a red settee, reading a book. He glanced up at her without expression, before returning his attention to the pages. To the right of the lounge lay a small library containing a writing desk flanked by bookshelves. The witch's high-chair allowed her to look down into any of the rooms below.

Briana stood directly over the man in the lounge. She tapped her heel against the floor and said, 'How is the prince today?'

The young man yawned, but didn't look up.

'He's been ignoring me for months now,' said the witch in the high-chair. 'Not so much as a glance.'

'But you must be used to that that,' Briana said. 'A face like yours . . .'

The witch did not reply.

Ianthe walked across the gla.s.s floor. She couldn't take her eyes off the young man. He couldn't have been much older than her, and yet he appeared so much more relaxed and confident in his surroundings. A touch of arrogance, even? A touch of arrogance, even? He was clearly aware of the women in the chamber above him, but chose to dismiss them, casually turning the pages of his book with long white fingers. He had a pale, slightly effeminate face framed by an unruly mop of hay-coloured hair, and he wore a flamboyant smoking jacket of red velvet trimmed with gold. He was clearly aware of the women in the chamber above him, but chose to dismiss them, casually turning the pages of his book with long white fingers. He had a pale, slightly effeminate face framed by an unruly mop of hay-coloured hair, and he wore a flamboyant smoking jacket of red velvet trimmed with gold.

'He hasn't been leucotomized,' Ianthe said.

Briana looked up. 'We couldn't do that that to the king's son. It wouldn't be civil.' She glanced down again. 'Not as long as he behaves himself.' to the king's son. It wouldn't be civil.' She glanced down again. 'Not as long as he behaves himself.'

An Unmer prince? It seemed odd to think of the Unmer having a kingdom of their own. It seemed odd to think of the Unmer having a kingdom of their own.

'The first emperors tried for years to devise a physical prison to contain the Unmer,' Briana said. 'No psychics, no monitoring, just walls. They submerged their prisons under the sea. They used chains and cables to suspend them over pits.' She paced the gla.s.s floor, watching the young man below. 'Nothing worked.'

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