Impyrium Page 4

  As the triplets reached their common room, the tutors took their leave while Sigga remained in the vestibule. Olo remained to undress her sisters, who were already bickering as Hazel walked through the door.

  “I’m serious, Violet,” said Isabel. Her irritation was interrupted by a sigh of relief as Olo unlaced her corset. “I refuse to be some ‘Duchess of Begonias.’ I want a real title with real responsibilities. If I don’t get one, I’ll move to the Grislands and organize a revolt.”

  Stepping out of her dress, Violet somehow managed to sniff her armpit with style. “I think it’s noble you want to serve my empire, Isabel, but you mustn’t talk that way. It’s treason.”

  Hazel snuck away and let her sisters bicker.

  Slipping into her bedroom, she closed the door, and turned its useless lock. She and Rascha had not yet covered warding spells. When they did, she would make her room impregnable.

  Kicking off her shoes, Hazel set about escaping from her embroidered prison. Shimmying out of her dress, she unfastened her corset. In three minutes, she’d molted from a colorful bird into something pale and spindly.

  Blissfully free, Hazel slipped into a nightgown that had been left on a bed whose soft sheets were scented with lavender. A fire was burning in the hearth, its light dancing on frost-laced windows. Hazel did not want to think about succession or murder or palace imposters. All she wanted was to cocoon in her bed with her giraffe and an ancient tale of a mermaid who longed to become a human. If she got hungry, a maid could bring her soup and crackers. Any Faeregine—even a demoted princess—could call for soup and crackers. And that was a comfort.

  Less comforting was the paper that fell from the book when she opened it. Hazel stared at it a moment. She did not use bookmarks and had never seen it before. Setting down her giraffe, she flipped the paper over.

  Spiders weave and Spiders lie

  in wait for easy prey,

  but we can spin a web ourselves

  and catch you any day.

  With love,

  the Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker

  Hazel read it again, utterly perplexed. What did the note mean and who could have written it? Was it some kind of threat? And how had someone gotten into her room to slip the paper in her book? The tower was off-limits to visitors and heavily guarded. Rascha’s warning suddenly rang in Hazel’s ears: There may be enemies in the palace.

  Taking the note, she leaped out of bed and raced into the common room, where Violet and Isabel were still arguing. Dashing past them, Hazel flung open the door to the vestibule where Sigga Fenn was reading The Impyrial Chronicle. Hazel thrust the note at her.

  “This was in my book!”

  Holding the paper by its corners, Sigga scanned its contents. She promptly stood and checked that the outer door was locked. Her affect was eerily calm.

  “Remain here, Your Highness.”

  Slipping a black dagger from its sheath, the Grislander ordered Isabel and Violet to the vestibule while she made for Hazel’s room. Hazel’s blood turned to ice. It had not occurred to her that the intruder might still be in their chambers.

  While Sigga searched the bedrooms, the sisters watched in tense, terrified silence. Clutching Isabel’s hand, Hazel wished they could be somewhere quiet and safe, where no one knew their names or cared about their family. A little village in the Muirlands would do, someplace far removed from the Sacred Isle. Life would be so much simpler.

  But she knew no such place existed. At least not for her.

  She was Hazel Faeregine. And the world would not let her forget it.

  CHAPTER 2

  HOB

  A likely young lad sought his fortune.

  He set out one day in July

  with shoes newly soled and a rucksack too old,

  he strode past fields of barley and rye.

  His ma had not wished him to leave.

  She offered two bits of advice:

  If you’re looking for gold,

  best be lucky I’m told.

  And if not,

  Learn to reef, knot, and splice.

  —From “One Day in July,” a Muirlander folk song

  Smoke lay thick about Mother Howell’s, veiling the rafters and masking the smell of its patrons. These arrived in a steady flow, miners and timbermen who clomped in from the cold to cluster three deep about the bar while Mother Howell’s daughters rushed to and fro, drawing beer from taps or dipping ladles into buckets of pungent spirits.

  The faces around the bar were hard but not unfriendly. Conversations were genial, as were the nods at newcomers who stomped snow from their boots and warmed their hands by the potbellied stove. The place was always busy throughout the long winter, but on movie nights half of Dusk shouldered in.

  To accommodate them, Mother Howell had conscripted the young people into setting up extra chairs and benches in the open spaces between tables, barrels, and grain sacks. This extended to the balcony, where a boy in a threadbare army jacket was placing seats on either side of a projector.

  The boy was tall for his age and stocky with jet-black hair that fell in tangles over his ears. His skin was nut brown; his eyes an incongruent green, the color of sea glass. They were sharp eyes, quick and alert beneath a pair of straight, heavy brows. He possessed the broad face and square jaw common among the many tribes that inhabited the Northwest, but his nose was narrow and had been broken once upon a time. Now and again, he peered over the railing to scowl at another boy loitering by a post.

  “Come on!” he mouthed.

  His accomplice surveyed the crowded bar, blinked anxiously, and shook his head. With a groan, the boy on the balcony swore loud enough for the projectionist behind him to hear.

  “Kiss your mother with that mouth, Hobson?”

  The boy turned to see Porridge Nansük hunched over a table and squinting as he spliced film together. The projectionist was in his early twenties, wiry with a long ponytail and a visible share of tribal blood.

  “Twice on Sundays,” the boy replied. “And it’s Hob.”

  Porridge grunted and applied a drop of adhesive using a teaspoon’s handle. “What’s the matter, then?”

  “Mole won’t swipe a whiskey.”

  “Swipe one yourself.”

  “Mother Howell said she’d beat me the next time I tried. Her hands are like tombstones.”

  Porridge laughed. “She spent twenty years working the Sentries. You’d best behave. Besides, you’re too young to be dabbling in hard stuff. Stick to cider.”

  Hob squared a chair. “I’m thirteen.”

  “Exactly. You should be in school.”

  Hob reached for the tobacco pouch on a nearby stool. “School doesn’t pay.”

  Porridge snatched the pouch away. “What fool said that?”

  “A fool who’s behind on his rent.”

  Porridge returned to his splicing. When Hob asked what they’d be seeing, the man merely chuckled and promised the film was sure to get everyone’s attention. It was on odd statement, one that caused Hob to scan the crowd for a flash of Impyrial crimson, any prospect of official trouble. But he found none. There hadn’t been any soldiers quartered in Dusk for months. At first frost, the soldiers and scientists locked up their archaeological site and drove their sledges south to catch the trains at Cey-Atül. The closest thing to crimson in Mother Howell’s was Hob’s jacket, but its color had faded. These days, it was little more than a patched, rusty rag that reached to Hob’s knees, but he couldn’t bring himself to part with it. His mother had made him a new coat last winter, but it hung on its hook, pristine and unworn. Hob tried not to feel too guilty. His adopted sister, Anja, could wear it someday.

  Mother Howell’s anvil of a face appeared atop the balcony’s narrow staircase. Hob would have sworn she was half ogre.

  “Hey-o,” she called. “You ready yet?”

  Porridge remained hunched over his work. “Five minutes.”

  The woman’s beady eyes fell on Hob. “Don’t stand
there gawking.”

  Hob gestured indignantly at the chairs. “I set these up.”

  Mother Howell hooked her thumb at the stairs. “Get down there and herd the nippers forward.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Hob, squeezing past her. A meaty fist seized him by the collar.

  “That wouldn’t be you that’s got Mole trying to weasel drinks, would it?” she growled.

  “No, ma’am. I’m hurt you’d even think it.”

  She cuffed him before turning her abuse on Porridge. Hob hurried down the steps, shooed a mutt aside, and cornered his sheepish partner.

  “She was watching me!” said Mole, blinking in the manner that earned him his nickname. His real name was Barnabus, but who wanted a friend named Barnabus?

  “Forget it,” said Hob, plucking Izu Maycroft up from an armchair and carrying the toddler to a bench near the screen. Other children scooted over to make room, clutching mugs of eider tea and staring expectantly at a canvas screen on the stage. Depositing Izu on the bench, Hob and Mole then transplanted some seven-year-olds who had commandeered one of the better couches.

  “We could ask Bluestripe to get it,” Mole suggested.

  Hob shook his head. Bluestripe was Dusk’s resident goblin, a creature so pitiful that no one had the heart to drive him off when he’d turned up years ago. The little fellow had been banished by his clan and nearly froze to death as he wandered down from the Sentries. When the miller found him huddled by the village well, his curving nose had turned permanently blue.

  “Why not?” Mole persisted. “He’s right over there.”

  Hob spied a beaver hat bobbing about the fringes of the bar crowd, pestering people to buy him a drink. The goblin’s tipsy capering brought a frown to Hob’s face.

  “I don’t want it that bad.”

  “But what about the girls?” Mole whined. “We said—”

  “I know what we said,” Hob muttered. “I’m the idiot who said it. Anyway, we’ve been outflanked.”

  He nodded to a corner where three girls their own age were giggling in conversation with a group of older boys. A husky fifteen-year-old named Angus Dane greeted a passing adult while slipping Bree Roule—a girl with flaxen braids and a tendency to appear in Hob’s better dreams—a flask. Glancing at her girlfriends, she took a sip that promptly curdled her pretty face. The older boys howled with laughter, but Angus looped an encouraging arm about her shoulders. Hob’s heart gave a funny twinge.

  Above, Porridge cranked a kerosene generator to life. Cheers erupted as the ancient projector’s light pierced the smoke to shine a jittery white rectangle on the screen. Mother Howell bellowed for one and all to find seats or stand in back. Even the mayor quaffed his drink and scurried for an armchair.

  “Where should we sit?” asked Mole, scanning about. Bree and the other girls had joined Angus and his friends at one of the central tables. To Hob’s dismay, the only remaining spots were on a neighboring bench where several toddlers were clutching blankets and staring at the screen with unblinking anticipation. Hob sighed. They either had to sit with the kiddies or on the floor among the sawdust and spittle.

  He opted for the kiddies, sliding next to minuscule Jinny Hodge, who had stayed with his family when her mother got sick. She leaned against his shoulder and continued sucking her thumb.

  “That’s so cute!” cooed Bree from behind them.

  Hob wished the world would end.

  A boot nudged his back. “How long you two been together?” said Angus.

  “Six months,” replied Hob airily.

  A grunt. “Been keeping it hush-hush, have ya?”

  “We’re trying to avoid a scandal.”

  The girls laughed. Mole shifted nervously in his seat. He was half Angus’s size and had to go to school with him. But Hob could have cared less about Angus or his friends. Hob had spent three years mining up in the Sentries Mountains. Mining was hard and dangerous work—so hard and dangerous that Hob wasn’t about to waste movie night worrying about Angus Dane. Fighting was common in the camps and Hob had scrapped with far rougher sorts than the landlord’s son. Angus knew this perfectly well.

  “What’s on the program?” called a voice.

  Leaving the balcony, Porridge bounded onstage and bowed in response to the cheerful boos.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special treat tonight, culled from sources old and new, near and far, legal and . . . otherwise. It has been assembled with infinite care and a dash of genius.”

  He paused for the laughter and jeers to die down before raising his tankard. “I dedicate this film to our very own Hobson Smythe. May we never see his like again.”

  Hob reddened as the audience raised their glasses. Why on earth was this movie dedicated to him? And what did Porridge mean by that ridiculous toast? May we never see his like again. If it was a joke, why did he sound so earnest? Hob stared fixedly at the screen, ignoring the puzzled looks and rumblings.

  All chatter died away the instant the film began, for the only sound came from the projector’s tinny speakers. From them issued a warbling music as colorful images appeared on the screen.

  “Ooh!” squealed Jinny. She pointed at a stern-looking sorcerer waving his arms over a smoke-spewing skull.

  The smoke took form, winged and sinister. A child-sized mouse trudged up a flight of stone steps lugging two buckets of water. Mole elbowed Hob.

  “Is that magic?”

  “It’s a movie.”

  “I know it’s a movie,” Mole whispered. “But can mehrùn really conjure stuff like that smoky thing? I never saw Salamandyr do anything like that.”

  Hob shot Mole an incredulous look. Salamandyr was a drifter who had passed through Dusk one spring claiming to be a sorcerer. His accent, voluminous robes, and spontaneous “trances” made a powerful impression on the locals until Mother Howell caught him stealing chickens. The only true gift he displayed was swiftness of foot when he fled the village. If Mole still believed Salamandyr was a sorcerer, he was beyond hope.

  When Mole repeated his question, some adults shushed him. A grateful Hob watched the movie in peace. He loved it whenever Porridge got his hands on a Pre-Cataclysm film, particularly the cartoons with talking mice and ducks. Porridge maintained that people—regular people, not just mehrùn—once had boxes in their homes and watched such entertainments whenever they liked. In those days, said Porridge, mehrùn lived among plain folk and practiced their witchcraft in secret. He even insisted the Sacred Isle wasn’t the center of the world, that it hadn’t even always been an island. Porridge said lots of things.

  And he was saying them now.

  The mouse had dozed off and was dreaming of cosmic feats while an enchanted broom filled an overflowing cistern. The image suddenly vanished, replaced by a jarring chorus of trumpets. A headline from The Impyrial Chronicle appeared:

  EMPIRE FLOWERS

  UNDER FAEREGINES

  Divine Empress leads Impyrium into 31st century!

  The headline dissolved into a grainy photograph of a wrinkled old woman slumped in a golden palanquin. She was wearing a crown of priceless lymra stamped with an F whose lower half was strung like a harp. Hob’s mouth hung open.

  Was that really the Divine Empress?

  The picture was slightly blurred as though snapped in haste. The only images Hob had ever seen of the empress showed a much younger person enveloped by golden light. This woman looked no more divine than Bluestripe. Seeing it made Hob nervous.

  ROYALS SACRIFICE

  DURING DROUGHT

  “We’re all in this together,” says senior official.

  Another photograph showed a garden party at a magnificent estate where mehrùn children were jumping into a swimming pool.

  IMPYRIAL AUCTION

  RAISES MONEY FOR

  MUIRLANDS SCHOOLS

  “Every child deserves a chance,” declares Basil Faeregine.

  The headline vanished, replaced by a crowded classroom in some desert province where boys an
d girls shared pages torn from old textbooks.

  The crowd in Mother Howell’s grew restless as more headlines appeared, each paired with a contrasting image.

  EMPIRE SALUTES

  FAEREGINE TRIPLETS

  Rumors of unprecedented powers

  DIVINE EMPRESS NAMES

  NEXT GODDESS

  Read on for an exclusive interview with Violet Faeregine

  “What is this?” someone shouted.

  “Bring back the mouse!” cried another.

  Hob wholeheartedly agreed. The cartoon was just getting good and Porridge had to ruin it with this nonsense. Movie night was about having a laugh, not—

  He froze. The next headline was not from The Impyrial Chronicle but The Northwest Register, a smaller paper that covered regional news.

  DUSK BOY EARNS

  TOP MARKS AT PROVINCES

  Beneath the headline an Impyrial magistrate was presenting a nine-year-old Hob with a plaque. The boy in the picture was a virtual stranger, a beaming, round-faced cherub with a crew cut and his whole life ahead of him.

  It vanished, replaced by rapidly alternating images of a colorful centennial poster and black-and-white photographs.

  THE FUTURE IS HERE!

  [A farmer repairing a wagon wheel.]

  IT WILL BE BIGGER!

  [Food lines in a ghetto.]

  AND BRIGHTER!

  [A recent shot of a filthy Hob shielding his eyes as he emerged from a mine shaft.]

  WITH OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL!

  [Portraits of the Dusk Eleven: a group of young men and women who’d joined the revolts twenty years ago. None had returned.]

  Angry shouts erupted. Relatives of the Eleven were present and Hob imagined they did not appreciate being ambushed with such painful memories. Jinny flinched as a tankard struck the screen on which two words were flashing:

  WAKE UP!

  WAKE UP!

  WAKE UP!

  Mother Howell hurried onstage. “Shut it off!” she yelled. Righting the screen, she wheeled on the balcony. “Shut it off before I come up there and brain ya!”