Last to Rise(39)

Of course, Perak had a master plan – he always did, that was the problem. The other problem was, he was being all cagey about said master plan. All I knew was it involved our sister Lise and some contraption she had in mind. I trusted her ingenuity more than I trusted Perak’s planning, if I’m honest. Perak is far too fair-minded to be properly sneaky. While being fair-minded is useful in some, probably most, situations, when you’re about to plunge into a war it’s a hindrance. But hey, Perak was Archdeacon. Who was I to argue? Of course, that didn’t mean I hadn’t. But still, Perak was being distressingly obstinate and vague, while Pasha and I were whacked out on pain and juice.



Speaking of obstinate, here Perak was now, breezing up to the office like an old statesman, saying goodbye to Erlat at the door with a knowing look, making me wonder what was going on when I wasn’t looking. Perak came in, glad-handing Lastri, putting her on the back foot – oh yes, didn’t I love that! – taking the time to ask after Pasha, and apologising for keeping Jake away from home so much.



Jake herself was a step behind him, freshly back from her reconnoitre of the pass. I tore my eyes away because I could feel Pasha’s gaze burning a hole in my neck, and concentrated on Perak. He looked nervy now, like he was strung out on something. Stress, no doubt – I wouldn’t have swapped places with him for anything. Storad at the gates and half his remaining cardinals at his back, either hating him or hoping to sneak their way into his job when he fucked up. The other half of the cardinals were ratting it out, and I could hardly even blame them, though naturally I did, at vitriolic length.



“A good job at the gates,” Perak said, but there was an edge to his voice, a suppressed… something. “Should give us some extra time.” He lowered his voice so that Dendal and Lastri – despite her loitering with intent to eavesdrop – couldn’t hear. “We’ve got something to show you.”



There was something in the way he said it that jerked me back to full awakeness. Like we were boys again and he wanted to show me something he’d discovered – what happened when he mixed these two chemicals together, or some little gizmo he’d not only repaired but improved. The look in his eye for his big brother, and surrogate father, that said “Look at what I did!” I’d missed that, and had forgotten I’d missed it.



He glanced at Pasha and nodded towards the door. He took us through the pain room, through Lise’s work room which was a riot of bits of metal, brightly coloured cables and cans of oil, racks of tools that looked like instruments of torture, half-built gadgets and machines. On the other side of her work room was a door that was, or always had been when I’d noticed, kept locked. Perak glanced my way with a conspiratorial grin and took out a key.



The room the other side of the door was just as incomprehensible to me as all the rest of Lise’s gadgets and gizmos. A contraption stood in the centre of the floor. I’d be more specific but it looked like a big pile of complicated metal to me. I could see about half of Lise – her top half seemed to be inside the machine and I could hear the tinkle of metal being adjusted and her cursing under her breath.



She pulled out when she heard us come in, her face smudged with oil and her dark hair tied back tight so as not to get in the way. “I think it’s done,” she said to Perak. “But I’m not sure about the couplings.”



They launched into a conversation that I only understood about half the words of, so Pasha and I took a closer look at the machine. It came up to about my chest, and like the pain-room generator it had a seat attached and a rig for taking magic – that is, for siphoning off a mage’s pain. It isn’t pleasant and this rig in particular looked even less so, a nest of cables around shining pistons and toothed cogs and other things I have no name for. It reminded me of nothing so much as a tiger, of Namrat, Death, always chasing us, wanting to eat us. Death was never far away. It made my stomach turn.



“That thing scares the shit out of me,” Pasha whispered.



“Me too.”



Lise started to talk in a language I could understand – she knows how I feel about alchemy and all the rest.



“I think we’ve got it right. I think this is what we need, what will keep us safe till we can make something, or do something, to fend off the Storad for good. I’ve got some plans for some machines like theirs. Got a factory working on them, but it’ll take longer than we have, and even longer to scrounge up the raw materials we need. So, to give us some time, I made this. It might even help against the machines Allit saw, the ones on their way.”