The Promise of the Child

Part 14 (updated daily)

Witness

Hytner glanced back. Two empty chairs sat at a table stacked with Sotiris's books and two cups of pure water. He followed Stone's footmarks in the dew to the edges of the meadow where it joined the river. Their reading sessions were at an end, apparently; Sotiris could come back and get his own books.

'Fine.' Hytner sighed, folding his arms and contemplating his next move. And to think he'd actually expected Sotiris to come to his aid. To leave without even saying goodbye – well, he'd finally given an answer, even in such abrupt form. Stone would doubtless be taking Sotiris to Maneker now, to see the great treasure of which the Perennial had been awarded stewardship. Hytner was honest enough with himself to admit that he envied Sotiris his connections, that if it weren't for his own principles of honour and tradition he would be right there in the front row, queuing for a chance to see this impossibly ancient Amaranthine and be rewarded in turn for his new loyalty. He suspected a few of the opposing Satrapies in the Firmament – among them the Virginis Parliament near where he stood – secretly felt the same, cheated out of the prize, bitter. But he was also deeply frightened. Maneker had drawn a clear line by accepting the Sixth Solar Satrapy of Gliese for himself and his Pretender, and to find oneself on the wrong side was to incur a penalty. Open opposition was evaporating already, disappearing almost as quickly as Sotiris had.

He looked up, some movement in the sky catching his attention. There was nothing but the Organ Sun, roaring silently far above.

And then it went out.

He gripped his elbows in total blackness, the six-thousand-mile wide cavern around him an empty space uncorroborated by any of his senses. Where the sun had been, a large green afterimage now floated in the dark, darting with his eyes. Inner Virginis, the Firmament even, had been reduced to the nothingness between his hand and face. Then, just as a mild panic was convincing Hytner he should head for the surface, the sun reignited, a weak fire spreading through its crystal depths. He glanced around him at the now evening meadow, apparently unchanged, and then back at the artificial star. He could see its outline, the strange material from which it was made. As he watched, a guttering sliver of molten light tumbled from the structure, swirling as it met the opposing gravity before falling like rain upon one part of the world. Then the sun itself moved, slipping away from its buttress supports as they crumbled and dropping towards the land, every shadow lengthening suddenly.

Hytner saw, but never heard, the sun detonate.

Elcholtzia

Lycaste awoke blinking to bright rays of sun shining in through the front arch. A wasp was droning angrily somewhere high under the domed ceiling, trapped and bumping into the chalky walls.

He sat up and rubbed at his face, realising he'd fallen asleep in his upholstered chair in the dining room again. From outside, beyond the hum of the flowers, he could hear distant screams and laughter. People on his beach, low adult voices mingling with Briza's clearer yelps.

Lycaste walked out into the vibrant garden, sumptuous heat hitting him as he left the cool tower. A small part of him was angry that they still used his beach without his permission. Impatiens' house across the bay overlooked a cove similar to his own, and there was no apparent reason why they couldn't play there instead. At least people were still asking permission before they picked fruit from his trees, though he wondered how long it would be before even that little pleasantry was discarded.

Impatiens saw him and raised a hand. He, Drimys and Briza were further down the beach towards the caves, where the pebbles became coarse brown sand. No one was coloured this morning, their bodies blazing red against the beach. Dozens of sticks had been planted in the sand for some sort of game but now stood forgotten. Instead they were building a large sandcastle, which to Lycaste looked rather like an unfinished model of his own house.

As he left the grass it returned, that feeling of being observed. There was someone watching him, he was almost certain of it now. He scanned the orchard, the hills, his tallest tower. He put a hand to his glistening brow and surveyed the patches of shade between the wild palms in the distance, seeing nothing but blackness among their messy, dried tangle. Had the watcher been there last night, marking him then? Lycaste rubbed at his neck self-consciously and trudged quickly down the slope of clattering pebbles towards the sand, keen to be hidden by the bank of grass that separated the orchard from the beach.

Impatiens walked up to meet him, breakfast still clinging to his beard. 'Can we have a look at that boat, Lycaste?'

He had begun to hope his friend would have forgotten about the whole thing. He pointed to the caves, where a small, upturned boat lay in shadow at the edge of the rock. 'It's down there, though don't get your hopes up – it's probably not seaworthy any more.'

They walked to the shade of the cave and looked down at the boat. Its bowl-like hull, notched along its middle with a smooth, straight groove, was almost perfectly hemispherical, somehow able to repel the water as it slid forwards, like a magnet thrust towards its twin. Lycaste had only recently begun to wonder how it worked, that water-repulsing material; it felt like plastic but surely could not have been. A few years ago he'd painted it a jolly lemon yellow and it was badly in need of another coat. He eyed it critically while Impatiens went to the far side. The boat looked so small now; the thought of what they were planning to do with it felt ridiculous. They heaved it over and pushed it towards the waterline, displacing a dazed and seething profusion of black crabs.

'It won't fit more than three,' said Lycaste as they entered the water, its surface parting and struggling away from the front of the craft to leave a clearly visible air gap between the hull and the green swell.

Impatiens nodded and continued wading. 'You, me and Drimys.' They were now waist-deep in the lime waves, guiding the sides of the boat as it rose gently with each sucking swell. Lycaste was ready to hop in, imagining the beast as he vaguely remembered it – a creamy white streak, a distant ragged fin. Impatiens strode on, churning the sand around his calves into a tropical murk.