Chapter Text
A ship already stood upon the spotless ceramic tiles that pixelated a gold-brown pattern across the landing field at the House of the Fifth. Against this background, the stately shuttle shone with steel curved in exotic and superfluous contours, complementing the native earth-tone tiles with its whimsical swathes of seafoam green.
Through thin rectangles of plex, Lydia’s eyes were fixed on the shuttle as they approached it from above. Like her own ship that was slowly descending to land alongside, it did not belong here. When they landed, the matt white paint on their steel exterior would form a graceless void against the pretty colors beside and below.
“Never thought I’d come here,” said Bova after they landed and took their first steps onto the immaculate tiles. “Looks just about as posh as everyone says.”
Lydia scowled but didn’t respond. She pulled her bulky white hood over her sheaves of black hair, and clanked forward with the long, slow strides of a necromancer in plate armor. Bova fell in a half-step behind as they headed towards the far side of the landing field, where a figure was waiting for them. As they left their own shuttle, Lydia glanced back again at its eccentric green companion. A child’s face watched her from an oval window, expressionless.
“I see we are not the only visitors today,” said Lydia as they reached their host.
“Indeed. The Seventh were supposed to have departed hours ago, only they insisted on staying to admire the Hall of Portraits. My condolences on the loss of Master Octakiseron, Steward.”
Lydia gave the speaker her practiced suffer-no-fools eyebrows. An expression honed over the millennia by her House to convey the Eighth’s distaste for the universe in general and the recipient in excruciating particular. In this case the victim was an older woman in brown robes. Lydia was pleased to see that the dignitary’s natural Fifth tact and experience were already challenged by the nervousness visited upon all who dealt with the Eighth. She smiled like a wolf.
“And mine for Lady Pent. I wish I could have known her.”
“The Fifth mourns deeply. What - ah - can our House help you with, Steward? If you will forgive my being direct. It has been - too long since the Templars graced us with their presence.”
“I will explain my purpose to the Court,” Lydia said, unblinking.
“Ah. Indeed. I will see if we can accommodate you in what remains of the session. I’m afraid the audience with the Seventh took rather a long-”
“The White Glass would take notice,” said Lydia, breezily, as if to the sky, “if the envoys of Rhodes were shown favour when its own were not.”
The old woman made a series of little bows.
“Of course, of course. I meant no… I will inquire at once. Please avail yourself of any refreshments or ablutions you require.”
They were guided through solemn cloisters along quads of patrician brick masonry, and shown to a waiting room while the luckless diplomat hurried away, tutting.
“Room” was an insufficient term. It was more like a waiting suite, or a waiting two-story country house. The lower floor had kitchens with massed ranks of tea tins, fancy crockery and several interesting varieties of kettle, as well as vast, tiled washing chambers where one could happily steam for hours. The upper floor was simply one giant lounge full of antique armchairs and even a billiards table. Bova experimented with a button that retracted the faux-wood-panel ceiling, revealing a huge glass skylight through which one could gaze at the perpetual electric storms that surrounded the entire dome of the Fifth House in tremendous ripples of bright grey and silver clouds. Lydia made her close it again.
She had finished three espressos from the sleek black machine and was absently losing a game of darts against her cavalier by the time someone came for them. She and Bova turned at the sound of rapid footsteps on the staircase.
“Sister Octella, is it? We can’t help you.”
A middle-aged man dressed in a tweed suit and more flappy Fifth robes stood before them, leaning on the banister like he had just popped up to say dinner was ready. He had dark skin, glasses, wavy grey hair and a neat beard of the same color.
“I beg your pardon?”
“We already tried,” he continued, breathlessly. “We did everything. We said the same to the other Houses. There’s no sign of any of them.”
“Are you saying-”
“Yes,” the man closed his eyes, like he was trying hard to be patient. “Our best and most experienced summoners have been working around the clock since we got the news. Not so much as a shade or whisper can be called from any who answered the Emperor’s summons. All we’ve got is a parade of unrelated ghosts and demons. The exorcists are pulling double shifts.”
Lydia stared at him. Finally, she handed her dart to Bova.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” she said.
“Albert Quintosa, Treasurer of Koniortos Court and Senior Summoner. I’ve personally overseen the work.”
“Lord Quintosa. I have two sarcophagi lying in state on the Eighth containing the verified corpses of my House’s heir and cavalier primary. Just weeks ago they were alive and well. Are you trying to tell me that the vaunted Fifth House thinks their spirits have simply vanished into oblivion?”
“Yes,” he said, and he removed his glasses, folding them neatly into a pocket.
“Well tough shit,” said Lydia. The man actually smiled at that. “That’s simply not good enough. I must speak to Master Octakiseron. I will speak with him. You will render me this service or-”
“Please, I’m begging you. Just stop. I swear it on the stones of my House. We have done all that is possible. You are welcome to enjoy the hospitality of the Fifth as long as you please. But we cannot help you in this. You’re the last House to ask, by the way. Unless you count the Ninth.”
“I do not,” said Lydia. “And I say again, that’s not good enough. I have brought both the flesh and the effects of the late Master to aid the summons. You will try again.”
“I’ll say this one more time,” began Albert, wearily, but he stopped at a new voice.
“I challenge the Fifth House for the right to render service.”
They both looked at Bova.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said the man, deadpan. Lydia continued to stare at her cavalier, wide-eyed. Then she composed her face and turned back to the Treasurer.
“The Eighth. Does not. Kid,” she said.
“This is how your House does things, is it? You don’t get what you want, so you resort to swords?”
Lydia took a breath and deployed Horrible Eighth Expression #17: serene malevolence.
“ Our House knows its duty; there is no need to teach it with swords, Treasurer. I know the Fifth are sticklers for tradition, but will it really be necessary to take off my gauntlet and throw it down?”
The tweed-clad man flung his arms in the air.
“As if the bloody revenants weren’t bad enough,” he muttered to himself, as he turned and trudged back down the stairs. “Come along! I suppose I’ll have to find you a cavalier to hack at. If there are any who aren’t on exorcist bodyguard duty.”
Forty-five minutes later, they were gathered in a courtyard of ancient, cracked grey stones. It was a worn, faded arena for the coming theatrics, and yet extravagant purple-flowered vines crept along much of the surrounding brickwork: a supreme show of opulence to put living foliage on display with no practical purpose.
“The Court’s traditional duelling field,” explained Albert with a gesture, while Bova did her warm-up moves behind him. “Barely used these days. Now let’s see… I did ask if the Seventh delegation would like to arbitrate, but I’m afraid they’ve already left. So I fetched young Gwendoline here. She’s on an exchange from the Sixth, a very promising archivist.
He gave the grey-robed twelve-year-old girl beside him a kindly hair-ruffle. She stared at Lydia and Bova with undisguised terror.
“I’ll be impartial,” she said, as if begging for her life. “It’s my first duel.”
Lydia tried her damndest not to smile.
“Now listen, Eighth,” continued Albert with an approving nod. “You made a formal challenge, and I’m going along with it because I don’t want to offend you and, well, it’s a bit of a novelty. We just can’t say no to formality here. But there’s a couple of conditions. Firstly, you can’t expect the impossible. If you win, I’ll personally conduct the umpteenth summoning attempt and try my very best to find your man. But it’s not going to work - I’ve done everything I can think of already, and frankly, I’m knackered. As long as you know that going in. Secondly,” he hurried on, before Lydia could respond. “I absolutely refuse to stand for any kind of needless violence. The terms are to the touch.”
“To the floor,” rumbled Bova, behind him. He turned.
“Fine. To the floor. But I warn you both - if anyone gets badly hurt I’ll consider this a major diplomatic incident. Agreed? Good. Ah, here’s your opponent. One of our best cavs, actually. Ranked twelfth in the House lists, last I checked.”
A smartly dressed woman was jogging towards them down a nearby cloister. She wore a gold-trimmed blazer and Cohort-crisp dress trousers, her forehead hidden behind a copious chestnut fringe. Bova had gone still. The newcomer was considerably shorter and leaner than her, but she was spry, radiating both youth and experience. She gave them a genuinely warm smile as she got near, and bowed until her head passed her waist.
“Serafina Quinnion, Custodian of Koniortos Court, at your service,” she said. “It’s truly an honor and a delight!”
“Yes, thrilled,” yawned Lydia. “Is everyone ready?”
The cav smiled even wider, and drew herself up. Lydia could tell she had Cohort training. She tugged off the blazer and flung it to Albert in one smooth motion.
“I’m ready,” she trilled, and stepped smartly into the center of the court. Bova strode to meet her without hurrying, wearing her plain training leathers that showed the full length of her scarred, tree-branch arms. She stopped two paces away and held out her left hand, opening it to reveal a little mound of fine white sand. Serafina Quinnion could barely contain her glee.
“Powder! Extraordinary. You will surely have the element of surprise. But I won’t go easy, Eighth!”
She clutched a nasty serrated knife to her chest, her eyes twinkling.
The Treasurer was smiling too. He leaned towards poor Gwendoline, her eyes wide and trembling. “Off you go, like I told you. You’ll do fine.”
“To the, uh, floor,” the girl said, her face pale. She looked up at Albert. “Cavalier’s mercy.”
“Good. Wonderful. Then you say “call”,” he whispered.
“Call!”
“Serafina the Fifth!”
“Bova the Eighth. No matter the cost.”
“Seven paces!” chirped Gwendoline, warming to the moment. “Begin!”
Lydia hated this. She could never tell what was happening. Bova always said she knew in the first few strokes if she would win or lose, but to Lydia it looked only like two blades flying manically, steel ringing like a factory floor. As soon as it began she felt a dizzying chill, like she’d been struck on the spot with a fever. Her legs felt like concrete, and she wiped her forehead.
The two swords danced. Bova flew forwards, offhand held low behind her, only to be pressed back again by an opponent who had twice as many blades and used them like a master. But for all Serafina’s seeming advantage, she was clearly nervous about that powder. Every time Bova’s left hand shifted position even slightly, the Fifth would fall back and play for space. The third time this happened, Bova cunningly anticipated it and ducked down into a roll, leaping up again and spinning ; while Serafina kept her eyes on that fistfull of powder, she failed to prepare for the Eighth’s right elbow, which swung around and caught her squarely in the temporal bone, sending her staggering back but not quite down.
Lydia felt her chill intensify from “someone walked over my grave” to “caught in my knickers in a snowstorm”. The color seemed to drain from the scene before her, the natural daytime light fading to eerie twilight. She looked to her side. Albert was frowning, but the Sixth child didn’t seem to have noticed anything wrong. Bova was pressing her advantage now, advancing on Serafina. Lydia’s eyes widened. The Fifth House cavalier was straightening up to face Bova with a series of terrible little jerks. Her face came around - and it wasn’t her.
Something else was smiling with Serafina Quinnion’s mouth, its teeth sharp and far too numerous, its mouth far too wide and dark, eyes vanished into the back of its head.
Lydia marched forward, desperately forcing herself not to panic. She heard Albert shout, “Child, run!” and the patter of Gwendoline’s feet. In the corner of her eye she could see the Fifth necromancer bend and begin tracing ghost wards on the stones with blood-daubed fingers.
The courtyard had become a murky vortex of unnatural wind. The thing that had been Serafina had grown in size, matching Bova’s height now, and as the Eighth cav tried to bring it to battle, it blocked her rapier with the flesh of its own arm, ripping the sword from Bova’s grip with a twist and a spray of dark blood. In the same movement, it floored the swordswoman with a vicious punch to the nose.
“I bid you depart!” Albert was yelling over the wind. Yet even as his fingers completed the ward, the very stones where he worked exploded, sending him reeling as great slabs erupted upwards and thick, grisly vines burst from the ground, twisted and grasping versions of the elegant flora on the walls around them, hoary roots seeking throats to choke and smother.
Lydia took a breath and clenched her fists. A second trunk of vine was spearing its way beneath the stones, flying like a shark towards her feet from the point where the possessed woman stood chuckling forbiddingly. In response, Lydia dropped to one knee and brought both gauntlets down, glowing white and wreathed in shifting coils of lightning. She smashed them into the stone just as the vines smashed upwards from below, sending a shockwave across the courtyard like a bubble expanding at the speed of sound, instantly withering and de-animating any vegetable matter it encountered. Serafina’s grotesque mouth unfurled into a shrill and agonizing scream.
The bubble of hot, shimmering entropy stopped, vibrated with barely-checked potency, and - much more slowly - began to contract. Lydia rose to stand at the same steady speed, fists still shining but clenched at her sides, and began to walk grimly towards the creature in the center of the quad, the entropy field contracting further with each step. The intensifying winds turned her cloak and cowl to slapping sailcloth, cracking and contorting in the gale. The light from her body met the monster’s aura of darkness and dispelled it. The bubble became a sphere enclosing its entire form, where it howled and writhed as if on fire. Lydia reached out her hands, palm-up, and with a final grunt, clenched them, causing the field to shrink into the creature’s heart.
The sound and fury ceased. Serafina’s body dropped to the floor, insensate, and was human again. Lydia used the folds of her hood to wipe the sweat from her face, turning the pristine white fabric an ugly pink. She helped Bova up from where she lay, and they leaned on each other, breathing hard. Smoke curled from the cracks in the ground, and ash drifted down from the burnt-up creepers along the bricks.
“Bloody hell,” said Albert Qintosa, pushing himself upright from where he’d been sprawled. He adjusted his glasses and smoothed down his robes, only to stop and rush over to the slumped cavalier. “She’s alive, thanks to you,” he breathed, tearing off a strip of brown fabric to wrap around the deep gash in her arm. He looked back at the Eighth pair.
“I didn’t see what you did in any detail, but it was no ward.”
“Indeed,” said Lydia, with Horrible Eighth Expression #4: patronizing silence.
“Hrmph.” Albert stood. “Well, field’s ripped up, arbitrator’s fled. You’d be surprised how many Fifth duels end that way. Our cav’s the one on the floor, so I’m happy to concede the match. Tea?”
They stared at him, stonily, until he said. “Er, coffee? Tranquilizers?”
“I believe what we’d like,” said Lydia, “is a seance.”