The Poison Master Read online

  EPILOGUE

  If mankind had to choose between a universe that ignored him and one that noticed him to do him harm, it might well choose the second. Our own age need not begin congratulating itself on its freedom from superstition till it defeats a more dangerous temptation to despair.

  E. M. W. TILLYARD, The Elizabethan World Picture

  LATENT EMANATION, MONTH OF ICE

  Alivet's hands rested on old wood, bleached by salt and light. She looked out over the fens, tranquil now beneath the winter sun. A thin skin of ice frosted the water underneath the deck of the cabin, trapping the reeds. She could see the silvery form of a fish, idling in the cold water under the ice. This weather should please Ari Ghairen, Alivet thought. It would become as chilly as Hathes itself very soon, now that the Month of Dragonflies was past and the winter had begun. Certainly he seemed in no hurry to depart, now that he had sent for Celana. She would be arriving soon, on the next drift-boat to visit Latent Emanation.

  Across the fens, far on the edge of the horizon, the shattered remains of the easternmost Palace of Night was just visible. Only a couple of days, and already it looked like the most ancient of ruins. The other three palaces remained; there was talk of moving the university into one of them, or perhaps a pleasure complex similar to Port Tree. Now that Latent Emanation would be welcoming visitors from elsewhere, there seemed plenty of scope.

  Inside, Alivet could hear the voices of Inki and her aunt, arguing over the best way to prepare rush fennel. Inki, it appeared, had plans. There would be no question, she had said firmly, of Alivet sacrificing anything to take care of her; she was quite capable of looking after herself. She did not want to become an apprentice apothecary or go and live in Shadow Town, even if they could afford it, or any of the grand dreams that Alivet had entertained on her behalf. She would open a restaurant, she had told Alivet, in one of the now-vacant Night Palaces.

  “After all,” she had said, “it isn't as though I don't know my way around the kitchens.”

  And Alivet, standing openmouthed, had no option but to agree.

  Behind her, the veranda door opened, letting out a breath of heat. Alivet turned, to see Ghairen.

  “It's too warm in there,” he said. “And I think I'm in the way.”

  “You're not in the way out here,” Alivet told him, rather stiffly.

  “Thank you, Alivet.” He gave her a sidelong look of mock gratitude.

  “Tell me something. Did you ever really believe we'd succeed?”

  “I did not dare to think of such a thing. If I'd failed this time, the Soret would have had me assassinated.”

  “Assassinated?”

  “That is why I couldn't wait another year. When the previous attempts ended in disaster, the Soret gave me an ultimatum.”

  “Why did they choose you, and not another Poison Master?”

  “Because I am supposed to be one of the best. And also, I don't know if you remember my telling you this, but my daughter Ryma's mother is the child of a member of the Soret. There was some—ill feeling, when we separated. It has crossed my mind on more than one occasion that certain members of the ruling class might have wanted an excuse for me to fail.” He frowned. “It wasn't so much the prospect of death that I minded, as the professional humiliation.”

  “But why didn't you tell me?”

  “I didn't want to put you under any more pressure. If you knew that my head was destined for the block if we failed, then where would that have left you? Of course, I didn't know you thought I was to be your murderer.”

  So he had only been trying to protect her. All the mysteries, the secrets, for her own benefit. Did that mean that the incomplete seduction was less of an attempt to use her than something genuine, something real? Alivet found herself smiling. But if the Soret had so ruthless an approach to their own people, then did that make them any better than the Lords? What plans did they really have for Latent Emanation? Out of the frying pan, Alivet thought, and into what fire?

  “Where do you think the Lords are now?” she asked.

  “Back in their own dimension, I hope. They must have been so frustrated. Their home within view, through those minute rents between dimensions, and they could no longer reach it. Until the light in the tabernanthe blasted darkness apart.”

  “And that glimpse through the rift: the four-faced beings. Was that the Lords' true form, or just another way of perceiving them?”

  “We'll never know.” Ghairen's face was grim. “When I sent word to Celana, I told her to get rid of that statue in the bedroom. I know you saw it,” he added, before she could interrupt. “You seem to have been most enterprising in your midnight wanderings.”

  “I had to be, given that you locked me in my room.”

  “It was for your own protection.”

  But if he had not suspected Ust until it was almost too late, who had he been protecting her from? Did he think Celana might have tried something unpleasant, during the course of her own “midnight wanderings”? Even if Ghairen was by no means the monster she had feared, and even if Celana's own terrors had been laid to rest, it was a further hint of a disturbing family dynamic. If we should ever share a bed, Alivet thought, I think I will insist on one of those force- fields. Just in case.

  “Why was the statue even there?” she asked.

  “A reminder. It's old. It came from a Sanguinant temple. At first, I used to lie there and look at it and make sure that I did not sleep too easily until the Lords were gone. Later, of course, it became unnecessary. I have not slept well since the Soret issued their ultimatum.” He paused and she knew that he did not want to talk about the Lords anymore. “It's quiet out here. Very peaceful.”

  “More peaceful than the city, anyway.” Alivet grimaced. “A bloodbath, I heard. People hunting down Unpriests, scores being settled…”

  “Perhaps it's for the best. Latent can start again, with a clean slate. All revolutions are founded in blood.”

  “Inki told me that the Unpriests were those of the Enbonded who showed a particular loyalty to the Lords, who would plot and scheme and sacrifice their fellows.”

  “Even after they themselves had suffered—forced as punishment to peer into another dimension, blinded as a result. They used it as a badge of honor, I believe. People who have been abused seek power where they can get it.”

  “I can't mourn them too much.”

  “Unpriests aren't the only plotters, though. Just look at your former employer, Genever Thant.”

  Alivet stared at him. “What about Genever Thant?”

  “I spent the morning making inquiries about Thant and the ‘murder’ victim. If my information is correct, Madimi Garland will be marrying him a week on Marsh Day.”

  “What?”

  “Madimi Garland is not dead, just as the anube told us. You certainly did not kill her. It seems that on the night that I approached you in Port Tree, my plotting met someone else's. While you were out of the fume room, Genever Thant gave Madimi a dose of a poison called merope, used by the anubes in their spirit journeys. As I'm sure you know, it comes from the spotted toad of the fens. It has two stages. At first, it causes unconsciousness, and then, if a suitable catalyst is applied, it mimics death. And the catalyst is a substance found in the most common brand of smelling salts. When you held them under Madimi's nose, you plunged her into coma.”

  “But the apothecary found no trace of it, only a smear of darkness on the handkerchief.” That must have been from the sorbet, Alivet realized. “And why would Genever poison his own client?”

  “So that the blame would fall on you.”

  “Why should Genever seek to blame me? I never did anything to him.” Alivet was conscious of a growing outrage. After all the trouble she had gone to in order to be a supportive assistant…

  “I doubt whether it was personal. You were convenient and expendable, that's all. After you ran away, Genever went to the Unpriests and informed them that you had made an attempt on Madimi's life. I don't know
what story he used to account for this, but whatever it was, they believed him. They also believed him when Genever told them that he could cure Madimi, who at that point was lying cold on a mortuary slab. The family gathered round, tragic and weeping; Genever scattered a few drops of an antidote upon the motionless girl and a few minutes later, like the heroine of a fairy story, she opened her eyes and sat up. I imagine it was extremely dramatic. In fact I'm thinking of offering Genever a position in the Tower of the Poison Clans, since he seems to have demonstrated such an aptitude for the art. Anyway, having achieved this miracle, I'm sure you can imagine the result. Madimi's family pressed gifts and money upon their savior, which Genever modestly turned down. That was probably enough to make an impressionable, traumatized, and exceedingly wealthy heiress fall in love with him. As I say, the wedding's on Marsh Day.”

  Alivet, after a dumbfounded moment, said, “I hope there's no longer a warrant out for my arrest?”

  “With the Unpriests gone, I doubt it.” He drew closer as she stood by the veranda rail and Alivet found herself acutely aware of his presence, and of the sexual menace beneath the civilized facade.

  “Alivet. Where do we go from here?”

  “I think we should start making a list of exportable products, between Latent and Hathes. Then, secure the Lords' drift-boat, wherever it is. Procure cargo. And I intend to grow my hair.” She was aware that she was babbling.

  Ghairen sighed. “I had taken note of your singlemindedness. It was partly why I enlisted your help in the first place, so I suppose I've only myself to blame. I was not referring to our economic options, as I suspect you are aware.” He took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Was it what happened between us that night? Did I frighten you?”

  “I scared myself. I haven't had much time for men. Only for drugs and my work.”

  “But now you have all the time you want,” Ghairen said. He looked pensively down at her. “We work well together, it seems to me. The drug-maker and the Poison Master.”

  He has a point, she thought. Her heart sailed up at the thought of a life with him. It would never be dull. But she foresaw shoals and rapids ahead: there was the entire question of his work, after all. She did not want to be a party to assassination and murder. How far could love transform a man? Alchemy was surely easier.

  “We complement one another,” Ghairen went on. “And besides,” he looked up, with a sharp red gaze and she caught her breath at what she read in his face, “it's more than that for me.”

  “Ari, I am an alchemist and an apothecary. You cannot rush an experiment, without unpredictable consequences. Alchemy so often results in nothing more than lead. Conjunction of the wrong substances can result in explosions, too.”

  “And conjunction of the right substances?”

  “Then,” Alivet said, and reached out to him, “if you're very lucky and very careful, sometimes you can get gold.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Liz Williams is the daughter of a stage magician and a Gothic novelist, and currently lives in Brighton, England. She received a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Cambridge, and her career since has ranged from reading tarot cards on Brighton pier to teaching in Central Asia. She has had short fiction published in Asimov's, Interzone, The Third Alternative, and Visionary Tongue, among other publications, and is coeditor of the recent anthology Fabulous Brighton. She is also the current secretary of the Milford UK SF Writers' Workshop. The Poison Master is her third novel. She is working on her fourth.

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  Here's a special excerpt:

  KAZAKH/UZBEK BORDER 21ST CENTURY

  They had reached the border early that morning, leapfrogging the grim skein of industrial towns that strung from Almaty to Chimkent. The early part of the journey now seemed remote: a grimy memory that made Elena's skin crawl with remembered pollution. It had taken almost four hours to reach the Uzbek border, crawling all the way, with the powerful wipers of the Sherpa grinding the snow into a grey slush. The slush accumulated at the bottom of the windscreen, periodically slewing down the hood and turning to packed ice beneath the wheels.

  Atyrom drove without speaking, occasionally groping on the dashboard for cigarettes. He smoked Marlboros, which Elena hated. Halfway to Chimkent his sister Gulnara, who was supposed to have given up smoking, broke down and reached for the lighter. Acrid smoke filled the van like the ghost of an American dream. The lack of conversation was compulsory, since Atyrom insisted on playing Uzbek rock at a level that could have woken the dead. It veered from maudlin ballads to aggressive nationalistic anthems that made Atyrom pound the steering column in erratic accompaniment.

  Bleary with lack of sleep, Elena stared out across the pale and endless expanse of the steppe. In summer, the land was constantly changing under the light: alternately subtle and harsh, depending on the time of day. Sometimes, she and her sister would borrow her cousin's car and drive out to Lake Kapchugai to sit by the quiet water and watch the shadows lengthen across the steppe, the afternoon sun striping the land with colors that had not changed since prehistoric times: ocher and mauve and red. Now, in late February, the steppe remained featureless beneath the snow; they could have been driving over the moon. Shortly before seven in the morning, they reached the border and the tailback.

  It was still snowing, and Elena could not see very far ahead. The rear lights of the truck in front of them glowed crimson, then died as the truck stopped. Atyrom gave a snort of irritation and switched off the engine. There was a sudden, shattering silence.

  “How long do you think we'll be here?” Elena asked.

  Atyrom glanced at her with manifest contempt. “How should I know?”

  “You've done the trip before,” Elena said, reasonably.

  “It's different every time.” Atyrom answered, dismissing the issue. He settled back against the seat rest and closed his eyes. Elena decided not to argue. Atyrom was doing her a favor, after all. If it had not been for his offer, she would have had to take the train down to Tashkent, lugging the heavy bag of black market clothes with her.

  She turned to look at her friend. Gulnara was also asleep, curled on the back seat with her face squashed uncomfortably against the doorframe. Elena watched her for a moment before fishing in the glove compartment for diversion. There was nothing but a week-old copy of Karavan. Gloomily, she perused the for-sale advertisements and the lonely hearts, but there was nothing of interest to buy and she was not interested in romance with anyone. Not after Yuri.

  The cosmodrome seemed suddenly very far away: another Elena; another life entirely. It was growing cold in the cabin of the van. It had been 15 below when they left Chimkent. She chafed her hands in the thick leather gloves and opened the door of the Sherpa. Atyrom muttered a brief protest as she stepped down. The cold hit her like a hammer, slamming its way into her lungs. Her eyes prickled and her cheeks started to burn. Squinting, Elena wound her scarf more securely around her face and trudged slowly up the line.

  After a seemingly unending procession of trucks and vans, she turned the corner and saw the ramshackle customs post ahead. Blue lights sparkled eerily through the falling snow and unease settled in an icy lump in Elena's throat. She walked up the line toward a little knot of people; they were talking to someone in a Lada through the open door of the car. Elena made her way to the edge of the gathering. These were presumably the customs officials, but as everyone was bundled up under several layers of clothing it was difficult to tell. One man had the insignia of the Kazakhstan militzia. What were the police doing here? A pink-nosed face peered at her like a rabbit from a burrow. Elena glanced past him, to where the driver of the vehicle sat staring peacefully ahead.

  “Won't he get cold like that?” Elena asked inanely.

  The custom officer's face twitched with something that could have
been a smile. “He's not likely to get any colder.” And then Elena realized that the man was dead.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, stepping back and slipping a little on the icy surface of the road.

  “Not the only one,” the customs officer said, with a kind of gloomy satisfaction. He pointed to the customs post, where figures were loading a stretcher into an ambulance. “Frozen stiff. Happens a lot this time of year.”

  “Look,” Elena said. “I don't want to sound callous, but how long is this going to take?” She had no intention of emulating the driver of the Lada.

  The customs officer shrugged. “We're moving as fast as we can. But the road's blocked, just beyond the post. They're trying to clear it now. I suggest you go back to your vehicle.”

  Elena rubbed her face indecisively, but there was nothing that could be done for the driver, and the ambulance was there, anyway. Her cheeks felt raw and red, and her lips were already chapped. Ice crackled in her hair; she could see a frosty blonde fringe just above her eyes.

  “All right,” she said at last, and walked back along the line. She did not dare look through the icy windscreens of the other cars; she was afraid of what she might see.

  Atyrom stared at her as she climbed back into the Sherpa.

  “Where have you been?”

  Tersely, Elena explained, haunted by the memory of the dead man's silent, frozen face.

  “Well, never mind,” Atyrom said, with something that almost approached cheerfulness. “As long as it's not us, eh?”

  Elena couldn't help agreeing with the general sentiment, but not with the way in which it was expressed. She mumbled something. Through the frosty windscreen, she could see the lights of the ambulance as it came back down the road. But just as it drew level with the truck in front, the truck driver chose that moment to open his door and leap out. The ambulance veered clear of the door and the driver slammed on the brakes. The wheels of the ambulance spun, hammering it against the door of the Sherpa.