Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [167]
‘And what effect on Haurstaf?’ Briana asked.
Mara rolled his pencil between his fingers. ‘We did try them on one girl, but I should probably speak to you about that in private. The results were . . . dramatic and rather messy. Suffice to say, a sensitive mind reacts much more severely to the lenses, which begs the question as to why Ianthe should be immune to their effects.’
Rast gave a bellow of frustration. ‘The lenses were obviously created for her. The facts here are clear. She attacked a room full of Guild psychics and left the single Unmer prisoner unharmed.’
Briana thought about this. ‘He survived because she didn’t target him directly,’ she said. ‘But he didn’t escape unharmed. His mind lost all of its higher functions.’ She leaned over the table. ‘Ianthe’s anger was directed at the room, at those who were pushing her to do something she didn’t agree with. I was there. What I saw was an emotional outburst from a sixteen-year-old girl, not a carefully engineered plan.’ She left the rest of her reasons for doubting the commander unspoken. It had seemed to her that Ianthe had held back.
And yet she couldn’t deny that the girl had much in common with the Unmer: her resistance to any ill effects caused by the lenses, her channelling of power from somewhere outside her own body, her uncanny ability at finding lost trove. Had Maskelyne spotted the connection, too? Briana had been foolish to underestimate him once, and now she had a sixty-foot-wide hole in the side of the palace to remind her of that fact.
‘And what news of Maskelyne?’ she said.
The Guild commanders shook their heads. Rast himself looked suitably ruffled. ‘He couldn’t have passed through the lines,’ he exclaimed. ‘Either he’s still in the palace, or he martyred himself in that explosion.’
‘He didn’t seem like the martyr type,’ Briana muttered.
‘If he’s alive,’ Rast added, ‘then he’ll stay close to the girl. The two of them are in this together.’
Briana experienced a moment of doubt. Could the commander be right, after all? Maskelyne’s timely disappearance suggested that someone had informed him of his impending execution. She shook her head. She simply couldn’t imagine Ianthe in that role. Given Maskelyne’s background, the traitor was more likely to be someone in the military. After all, back in Ethugra, he had recruited mercenaries and privateers as a matter of course.
‘What do you want me to do with the girl?’ Torturer Mara said.
‘Execute her,’ Rast said. ‘No fuss, no ceremony, just put her down before she wakes up.’
‘Not yet,’ Briana said. ‘She’s channelling power from somewhere. I’d like to know where she gets it from and how she does it, before any of our other girls learn how to do the same thing. Her powers are growing stronger all the time. We don’t yet know what else she’s capable of.’
Sister Ulla sat up. ‘I agree,’ she said. ‘We have a chance here to study something completely new.’
‘A thorough dissection would tell us a lot,’ Mara said.
‘You’ll get your moment, Torturer,’ Briana said. ‘But in the meantime, I want her broken, stripped down. Peel back the layers until you’ve bared her soul. I want to know what’s in there.’
Ianthe dreamed she was in a ballroom with tall shuttered windows and golden chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. A blonde Unmer girl sat on a three-legged stool, gently plucking a harp. She was pale and terribly thin, and her physical weakness translated into the music she played. Every fragile note seemed to quiver on the edge of oblivion.
Ianthe had never heard anything so sad and so beautiful before. She stood there for a long time, listening. And then the music suddenly stopped, and the girl was looking at her defiantly. ‘Who are you?’ she said.
‘Just a friend.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I came to deliver a letter.’
The blonde girl shook her head. ‘You’re with them,’ she said. ‘Don’t you know that I could destroy you? As easily as this . . .’ She moved her hand through the harp strings, and they snapped one by one with a series of sharp, discordant sounds. ‘I’ll take away your fingers and