The Engine's Child by Holly Phillips

Author:Holly Phillips [Phillips, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345509512
Publisher: Ballantine
Published: 2008-08-29T23:00:00+00:00

THE BASTION

Every day there was another new plague victim. Every day the unrest in the bastion deepened. Every night the tidal fell more deeply under the shadow cult’s sway.

The shaudah had seemed mesmerized by this steady disintegration of his demesne, but finally, from out of nowhere, he summoned the resolution to act. Would Lady Vashmarna have been so shocked if she had not been preoccupied by matters within the fort? Perhaps not, but she thought even Lord Ghar was surprised. The shaudah excoriated the Ghar for his inability to keep the bastion’s peace and blamed him for the spread of the plague even as he praised Lady Vashmarna for the orderliness of her demesne, but the end result was the same for both. The shaudah’s soldiers were recalled to the bastion, and Ghar and Vashmarna were charged with keeping the tidal’s peace.

“The tidal is not my demesne!” said the Ghar, openly appalled by the order.

“Nor is the bastion.” The shaudah may have intended to be stern, but he sounded snide. “Your men have begun to treat good people of ancient lineage as if they were tidal savages. Let us put them to work where they seem to belong.”

“My men,” said the Ghar with angry restraint, “have done their best to carry out janarasan’s orders.”

“And their best is clearly not sufficient, especially now that they carry the plague,” said the shaudah, perhaps revealing his true reason for wanting the Ghar’s men outside the bastion walls.

Lord Ghar must have seen this as clearly as Lady Vashmarna did. His face grew shuttered. “Even if our numbers had not been reduced by this sinister illness, which I take to be an uncanny attack of our cultist enemies, as I have mentioned before—even then we would not have the strength to occupy the tidal. Does janarasan intend to withdraw all his troops from the slums?”

“Yes.” This firmness seemed to exhaust the shaudah. His gaze drifted toward a more peaceful realm. “But we recognize the magnitude of the task we have set you, and furthermore, we recollect the Vashmarna’s generous offer of help. Vashmarna will no doubt contribute a contingent of men to help Ghar maintain order if we ask it.”

Vashmarna had nearly forgotten that offer, which had been made for reasons which no longer pertained. There was no call to defend the engine now, and the tidal was a monster-ridden abattoir. Lady Vashmarna wanted nothing to do with it. She bowed to give herself a moment for thought.

“Janaras,” she said, “of course Vashmarna is at your service. But at the moment our sole concern is to restore electricity to the towers, and we are employing every pair of hands to that end. Moreover, janaras, as you have so kindly observed, the fort has so far escaped the taint of plague, and I feel very urgently that if Vashmarna is to continue to be productive, we must guard against possible infection more stringently than ever. If there were no hope of returning to the bay, of course I would place all of my resources at the Ghar’s disposal, but as it is .

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