The Electric Messiah

"Bellhine!" bellowed Maxine Hester, chief scientist of the RedHill Electrical Institute. "Bellhine! I need you!"

Sophie Bellhine hurried to the main laboratory, the largest of the institute's three principal electrical workrooms, shouldering her way past two lab workers who couldn't get out of the way fast enough. One of them, her arm bumped by the assistant scientist, dropped a handful of ceramic spacers and cursed violently as several of them shattered on the painted brick floor. Bellhine ignored her and hurried on, turning the corner with a high pitched slipping of her leather boots and grabbing hold of the door frame to stop herself.

"You called?" she said nervously. When her master was in this kind of mood, it generally didn't bode well. This time, though, the chief scientist seemed to be in a good mood. Her urgency was coming from excitement, not anger.

"Bellhine!" she said happily, brushing a few stray strands of straggly grey hair out of her eyes. "Take the contact of the second circuit! I've got it, Bellhine! I've finally cracked it!"

"You've achieved high frequency alternation?" said her assistant in surprise. She went to the area of the bench to which her master was pointing. The scorched and pitted wood was covered with a tangle of cloth covered wires linking a number of copper and ceramic components, some of which were smoking gently. She ran her eyes across it, trying to see where she'd made the alteration, but everything looked just the same as the last time she'd been there, when one of the parallel resistors had unexpectedly burst into flames. The same resistor was still there, she saw. Apparently none the worse for its experience.

The Tyne Cell powering the second circuit, it's zinc and platinum contacts pitted and eroded by corrosion, bubbled as it released nitric and nitrous oxide fumes into the air. Bellhine coughed as her lungs gave their usual protest to the toxic gases, then took hold of the contact, a small lever that would be thrown in place to complete the circuit.

"I've achieved high frequency alternation!" Hester confirmed excitedly. "I'll show you! Get ready to close the circuit!" She made some careful adjustments to the huge structure that formed the centrepiece of the experiment. A tower of copper coils from which the smell of ozone and tree sap exuded. Wires were draped across it, the cloth covering worn away in places to reveal the rubber that protected the bare copper inside, and small lead pipes carried cooling water, pumped by another assistant, Sydney Brown, as he turned a small hand pump. Behind him, a small window stood open, a threadbare curtain barely twitching as the very faintest of breezes struggled to force its way through.

Hester stepped carefully past the bucket of sand standing on the floor and checked the connections to the Master Cell, the large tank that supplied the bulk of the apparatus' electricity. The three foot tall glass cylinder contained a number of metal and ceramic vessels, one within another, each containing a different powerful acid. Hester clicked her tongue thoughtfully as she examined it, then went to one of the storage jars that stood against the wall. Bellhine winced nervously as her master removed the stopper and topped up the innermost of the vessels by hand, a small dribble of acid running a hairswidth past her bare fingers. Hester leaned forward to examine the acid level, ignoring the acrid fumes that rose from it, then nodded in satisfaction and stoppered the bottle again.

"You're supposed to wear gauntlets when you do that!" protested Bellhine as her master replaced the bottle against the wall.

"I'm quite capable of pouring a little liquid. Now, get ready!" She threw the contacts of the primary circuit and a large electric arc burst into life behind a glass window at the heart of the apparatus, sandwiched between the upper and lower coils. The arc crackled and hummed as it threw a beam of shimmering light across the gloomy room.

"Now, close the secondary circuit!"

Bellhine threw the small lever, then snatched her hand back as a fat spark of electricity jumped across to sting her finger. At the heart of the central apparatus, the Arc Oscillator, the arc intensified and grew brighter.

"I'd almost given up!" cried Hester in jubilation. "I tried one combination after another, nothing worked. Then inspiration hit me! It just came to me, just like that! I was right all along, the tuned circuit was the key! The secret to reliable and sustainable high frequency alternating current! Listen to this!"

She made an adjustment to the tuned circuit, a little way apart from the main circuit, and the electric arc began to emit a pure musical note. "You hear that, Bellhine? That's one hundred oscillations a second! The current feeding that arc is reversing itself one hundred times a second!" The note wavered, and the scientist glared at the arc, as if daring it to misbehave, but a moment later it settled down again and she relaxed.

She made another adjustment and the musical tone moved fractionally higher. "One hundred and ten oscillations a second! One hundred and twenty!" She laughed as she continued playing with the oscillator, and Clarke realised with a shock of amusement that her master was trying to play the national anthem on her equipment. "Perhaps we should do that for the King's next declaration day celebration! Should make quite an impression, don't you think? Ha! Take that, Andrea McCrea and your alternating current generator! I bet your generator can't reverse the current more than a dozen times a second! My apparatus can, in principle, reverse the current any number of times a second as one requires!"

"She will be green with envy when she finds out."

"She will! She will! With this breakthrough, practical power distribution is at last possible! Imagine it, Bellhine! A single power generator, producing thousands of watts, alternating with a frequency of fifty or a hundred times a second. with copper wires to carry the power for miles to where it is needed with virtually no loss! This will transform the world, Bellhine! A new era of electricity is upon us!"

"You will be renowned as one of the greatest scientists who ever lived!"

"Undoubtedly! Not that we do it for such mundane considerations, of course. Call the others! Call everyone! Let's show them the future!"

Bellhine went off to obey, and soon there were a dozen people in the room listening as Hester gradually perfected her rendition of "Land of Freedom!" The assistants and junior scientists clapped and cheered, and a casual observer might have thought that they were being frivolous as they called out requests for their favourite tunes. The Master Scientist was happy to oblige, though, until the Tyne Cell finally began to run out of power and the electric arc began to dim. Even the most junior of them understood the momentousness of the occasion, though, and Hester knew fully well that it was the scientific achievement they were celebrating, not the laughably crude musical renditions.

One man who missed the performance, though, was Geoffrey Barlowe, the institute's bookkeeper. "Where is he?" wondered Bellhine, looking from one familiar face to the next in an attempt to find him.

"Tiger man? Probably fixing his makeup," replied Sydney Brown with a chuckle.

Tiger man, as the others called him, only half in jest, was currently sitting at the base of a large oak tree, sobbing in misery and massaging his head as he waited in dread to see whether the unbearable pain that had driven him there would return. He had been in his study, doing the accounts, when the pain had come suddenly, all the more terrible for being so unexpected. If he hadn't been warned that such a thing might happen, he might have just screamed and whimpered until the torment either stopped on its own or killed him, but the possibility that this might happen was the very reason he'd been assigned to this post by his true masters.

He knew straight away what was causing it, therefore, and knew that he could lessen it by putting distance between himself and the main laboratory. He'd fled his office, therefore, and run through the fields of farmland surrounding the institute buildings, his hands pressed to the sides of his head and his teeth clenched in agonising pain. He had to travel more than a mile before the pain gradually grew less, and he was finally able to stagger to a halt by the oak tree, which he had collapsed against as if it were his lifelong comrade in arms on a battlefield. The pain was still there, a lancing pain as if someone was driving a nail into his head, but at this distance it was manageable and he was able to contemplate it with something less than total despair as it rose and fell in strangely discrete steps, as if his torturer was experimenting with nails of different sizes.

*Master! Master! Can you hear me?*

There was no reply. He looked up, and saw only one Radiant in the area. It was travelling much faster than they normally did, its dangling tentacles trailing behind it as it vented flotation gases from its siphon in order to speed across the countryside towards the river. No, not towards the river, Barlowe realised with shock. Away from the Institute! His master was in as much pain as he was!

Barlowe left the tree and staggered across the ploughed field, doing his best to appear casual and unconcerned to anyone who might happen to see him, but the pain was lessening on its own, and suddenly it went completely, as abruptly as if someone had thrown a switch. He gasped in relief and raised his arm to wipe the sweat from his brow, only stopping himself when he realised that it would wipe away the pink powder covering his face and hands. A farmworker mighty happen by at any moment. He couldn't allow his luminous skin to be seen, he'd be hard pressed to dispose of a witness in his current state.

When he had fully regained his composure, he tried once again to contact his master, and this time there was a reply. *I felt it too,* the Radiant replied. *What we feared has happened, sooner than we expected.*

*They must be killed!* Barlowe replied, the memory of the pain still making him shake a little.

*Yes, but it must look like an accident. They must not know that it was us. Start a fire. Tonight, while they are all asleep. Make it look as if the equipment overheated. None of them must survive.*

*They shall not. I promise.* He began to make his way back towards the institute. He had to be back in his office before anyone realised he was missing.

☆☆☆

Matron Darniss stood as she heard her visitors approaching. She smoothed down the prison smock she was wearing and examined the smudges of slime and small tears that marred it with approval. It made her look like a victim, especially if she stood there with a hurt, rather bewildered look on her face, a look that said I have no idea why this is happening me. People responded to that. The first impulse of most people was to protect an innocent victim, and it was so deeply ingrained in the human psyche that it still operated even when they knew that the person before them was guilty as hell. Darniss knew how to manipulate the people around her. She was very good at it. She would present herself as the person who had been wronged by history, driven to desperate measures to regain what rightfully belonged to her. It might elicit enough sympathy from her captors to delay her execution. The armies of Carrow were coming, she knew. Their victory was certain, and if she was still alive when the palace fell she might still be given what she'd been promised for her service. It was the only hope she had left.

It'll be the Questioners again, she thought. She'd already told them everything she knew, in between exquisitely genuine sounding pleas for forgiveness. She had held nothing back, given them no excuse to use their terrible methods on her, and the result was that she was still fully human, still in possession of all her cunning and intelligence. They kept coming back, though. Making her repeat it all over and over, and if she changed any slight detail they accused her of lying and threatened her with curses until her begging and pleading was earnest and piteous enough to convince them that she was telling the truth.

She wasn't worried about betraying Mandeville or Carrow. She didn't know anything that could be a threat to them, and so she felt no guilt or shame about telling the Questioners everything. Her true masters would understand, she knew, and one day, soon now, she would be mistress of this palace and able to punish her tormentors as they deserved.

Usually, the Questioners came in pairs, but this time there were three people coming. She could tell from the footsteps echoing from the damp stone walls. One set of footsteps was lighter than the others. A woman, then, accompanied by two guards. Her heart beat faster as a possibility occurred to her. Could it be...

She smiled. It was Princess Ardria, come to see the woman who had inflicted so much misery and terror on her. No doubt expecting her to be fawning and apologetic, to beg for mercy and forgiveness. She gave an inward sneer of contempt. As if she would lower herself like that for that little twit of a girl. In her mind, she dressed herself in her most magnificent gown, crimson trimmed with gold and with all her best pearls about her body. She imagined that the guards worked for her, and that they'd brought the Princess at her command, so that she, Darniss, could pass judgement on her. Her smile widened as she imagined what that judgement would be when the glorious day came.

She was careful to make sure that none of that showed on her face, though. She also had to be careful not to try to plead innocence. Her guilt was too well established, not least because she had confessed to the King himself in a moment of fury. If she tried to deny it now, she would lose all the sympathy she'd gained. No, she would be honest about her guilt, but try to paint a noble face on it. That way, she might at least gain their respect.

She sat on the edge of her cot, therefore, and as soon as the Princess appeared around the last bend in the corridor she leapt to her feet and ran forward, holding the bars so tightly that her hands were white with the effort. "Princess!" She cried. "Princess Ardria! I heard you'd been cured! I am overjoyed to see you restored to your natural beauty! I rejoice, as the whole kingdom must be rejoicing!"

She was rewarded by a look of puzzlement and uncertainty on the Princess' face. "Are you going to tell me that you regret what you did?" She asked. She stood with her back close to the empty cells behind her, as if afraid to come too close to the caged woman. Darniss felt warm pleasure flowing through her. It might be her in the cell, but it was she who was in control here.

"I know better than that, your Highness, but I never bore you any ill will. I did what I did in order to achieve a political purpose, to prevent your marriage to Prince George. You might want to thank me for that, by the way. I know him, and he is thoroughly vile." She watched the Princess for a reaction, but there was none. "Anyway, that purpose has been achieved, and I am delighted that my actions did you no lasting harm."

"But if it had done me lasting harm, you wouldn't have shed any tears about it."

"I won't insult you by denying that, Highness. You are a victim of history, as am I, but the fact remains that I am the rightful owner of this palace. I am the direct descendant of the last Duchess to rule from here, my claim to this palace is undeniable."

"The crimes committed by the Pardews render your claim null and void..."

"They were the lawful rulers of this land! Theobald Pardew was the rightful Duke, he had the right to rule as he saw fit! Your grandfather stole this land, stole this palace! All I want is what rightfully belongs to me! If a thief steals from me, am I wrong to try to get it back?"

"True power arises as a mandate from the people. The people your ancestors abused rose up and threw them down! My great grandfather was the champion of the people, he fought for their right to keep their own wealth, to protect their families from arbitrary accusation and murder."

"He saw an opportunity to seize power and he took it. He used the people, used their grievances, for his own gain. In the days before the uprising he oppressed them more cruelly than any Pardew ever did. He used his position as Sheriff to grind them down, make them hurt, all the time pretending to be on their side and blaming everything on my grandfather..."

"That is a lie!" Ardria took a step closer to Darniss and her guards stepped closer to protect her, aware that a trained killer could kill with a jab to the throat with outthrust fingers. One took her gently by the arm and urged her to step back, to her original position.

"Is it? Didn't you ever wonder how Bengoll Strake became Theobald Pardew's Sheriff in the first place? They were friends, they served in Carrow's army together, and they were very similar in temperament and ambition. I'm well aware that my grandfather's methods may have seemed excessive to some, but Strake earned his place at his side by being every bit as hard and unflinching as he was. And then he betrayed him."

Ardria laughed. "You speak of treachery! You!"

"I was always loyal to my true masters. I'm not a traitor, I was an undercover agent. Your grandfather, though..."

"I don't know what my great grandfather was like in his youth. Maybe you're right, maybe he was as you describe him. I don't believe it, but I wasn't there. People change, though. The histories all agree that by the time the uprising happened he'd become a true champion of the people."

"Histories written by your people."

The Princess sighed. "I didn't come to discuss history with you," she said. "I just wanted to see you, look into your eyes one last time. All my life, you seemed such a kind person. Loving, compassionate. Was that bitter, treacherous streak there all along and I just didn't see it? Was I that blind? I thought maybe you'd been coerced into it. Threats to you or your family maybe. I thought maybe you regretted what you'd done, that the Darniss I thought I knew might still be in there somewhere."

"I am the same Darniss I always was. You weren't blind, just innocent. Far too innocent to rule a kingdom. A ruler must be paranoid and cynical, must always suspect everyone around them. If, somehow, you did find yourself Queen of this land, you would make a bad one."

"Thanks to you, I'm less innocent than I was."

"And yet you still came here looking to find a loyal follower. Someone who would beg forgiveness and plead for mercy. I am not the sort to beg and plead. I am a ruler. I was destined to control the fates of many, and when the armies of Carrow are victorious our positions on either side of these bars will be reversed. Will you cope with this prison cell as well as I have? You are strong. You had to be, to survive your recent ordeal, but are you strong enough to survive this?" She waved an arm at the bare cell.

"Your Highness," said one of the guards, "We are doing no good here. Let us go..."

She waved him away, then took a half step back towards Darniss. "The real you is slipping out," she warned. "You speak of historic claims to this palace. How long did your family live here?"

Darniss lifted her head proudly. "Five generations. Nearly two hundred years."

"And before that? Who occupied this palace before that?"

Darniss looked at her, her face carefully expressionless, but said nothing.

"It was the Utrells, wasn't it? It was the Utrells who originally built this place, back when Marboll was a tiny, independent kingdom of its own. What happened to the Utrells? Do you remember?"

Darniss didn't bother arguing the point. "Land and property belongs to whoever can defend it. You..."

"We will defend it!" The violence with which she said it drove Darniss half a step back, her eyes widening in surprise. "We will defend it because we have something that you never had and cannot even understand! The support of the people! You and all Carrowmen rule with fear! You think you only have to fill the streets with soldiers and the people will fall into line! Pay their taxes, even though they're left starving. Do nothing but wring their hands when neighbours and loved ones are thrown into the dungeons for daring to protest! We in Helberion have taught our people that there is another way. To get the support of the people! To rule with them, not over them! I have been told how the people wept and prayed for me during my affliction. Do you think the people of Carrow would react the same way if Prince George were similarly afflicted?"

"Your people occupy the best, most fertile lands. Lands that always deliver a good crop. People with full bellies are always happy."

"The people of those lands chose to become part of Helberion. Eastern Helberion, the lands that Bengoll Strake liberated, is not especially fertile. Before the transition of the Tweenlands they struggled to feed themselves, but they loved King Bengoll's rule nonetheless. The armies of Carrow are fighting for money. It's just a job to them, an escape from a life on the farm, but the armies of Helberion are fighting to defend a country that they love! That is why we will win. You are not going to be freed from your cell by a victorious Carrow army. When you leave this cell, you will be escorted by guards working for King Leothan, and they will be taking you to your execution."

"I can see that you truly believe that," replied Darniss, "And it is a terrible pity that your sweet innocence must soon be destroyed by cruel, callous reality. The armies of Carrow outnumber yours three to one. When they come, your armies will forget their love for you, throw down their weapons and plead for mercy."

"Is that a tone of doubt I hear in your voice, Darniss? Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?"

"I have no doubt as to the outcome of this war, Ardria. The Empire has abandoned you. Your country stands alone. Enjoy your lifestyle while you can. Enjoy your fine dresses and your luxurious bedchamber. Fix it all in your memory so that when you are in the place that I currently occupy, you can close your eyes and try to imagine that it is nothing but a terrible nightmare."

"A nightmare, is it?" She looked at Darniss as if seeing her for the first time. She was struggling to seem strong and implacable, but the truth was that the cold, damp cell was taking its toll. Her composure had cracked, just for a moment, and suddenly the Princess saw nothing but a small, frightened woman dressed only in a prison smock. Her pale skin grimy and pocked with flea bites, her hair lank and greasy. Darniss regained control of herself, stood tall and confident again, but what the Princess had seen could not be forgotten. "Then I leave you to it. Farewell, Darniss. I shaln't be coming down here again. The next time I see you, you will be climbing the scaffold."

"One of us will," replied Darniss, but there was no longer any conviction to it. It was as if she only had the energy to go through the motions, to give the expected response. Nevertheless, as Princess Ardria turned and walked back towards the exit from the dungeons, followed by her guards, she couldn't help but feel as if she'd lost the confrontation, as if the former matron had scored more points than she had. She'd hoped that meeting and speaking to her former friend would give her a sense of closure, but the sense of shock and betrayal was just as strong as ever. I shouldn't have come, she thought. The guard was right. What did I think I was going to accomplish? And the worst part was that Darniss was right. The most important battle of the war was just about to start, and if the armies of Helberion lost, the nightmare Darniss had promised her would very likely come true...

"I understand why you did it," said King Leothan later, when Ardria had told him about the meeting, "and you're wrong. It did accomplish something. You showed her that you're not afraid of her and, more importantly than that, you showed yourself that you're not afraid of her."

"But I am scared of her!" replied the Princess. "Even now I'm still scared of her! What she did to me..." She shuddered at the memory. "I tried so hard to be strong..."

"You were unbelievably strong. I was so proud of you! You proved yourself to be strong enough to rule a Kingdom. When the time comes for me to go back into the ground, I know I'll be leaving Helberion in good hands."

"But I was so scared! I could feel my body changing! It wasn't just my appearance, I could feel things changing inside me! And my mind! I could feel the person I was slipping away! I was so scared, and for weeks the person who did it to me was right there, by my side, every day! When I found out it was her..." She paused, searching for the right words, and her father waited patiently for her to continue. "It was as though all the fear I'd been feeling became fear of her! Even after they arrested her, I was terrified that I'd turn a corner and she'd be there, ready to do something even worse to me! I had nightmares about her! I had to confront her, to prove to myself that I could!"

"And how do you feel now?"

"Still scared. She has a way of, of getting inside your head. She knows what to say to hurt you the most. Or at least she knows me well enough. She's known me since before I was human! She knows everything about me! What I'm afraid of, my weaknesses..."

"Everyone has fears. You showed that you can control them, that they don't control you. She has no power over you any more." He hoped it was true, but sometimes just saying it made it true. Especially if it was something they wanted to be true. He looked at her and saw her nodding thoughtfully and then a smile appeared on her face. He felt a great weight lifting from his heart. She was going to be all right. His daughter was going to be all right. She might have been crushed by her ordeal. She might have been left crippled by it. Mentally crippled, unable to face the world without a perpetual terror of the dangers it held. People sometimes healed from that kind of damage, but it was a long process and the scars never really went away. But Ardria was going to be all right. He thanked Those Above as they continued along the corridor, and he thanked the Brigadier. Once again you have saved me, old friend, he thought. Once again I am in your debt.

Guards in dress uniform stood at attention and saluted as they passed them, and when they reached the War Room the door was opened for them, allowing them to walk right in. It was the Princess' first time at a high level government meeting, and she looked around at the ministers and high ranking military men as they bowed to her and her father. "Still cheating at cards, Amberley?" said Leothan with a smile to the man whose uniform was the most splendid and colourful of everyone in the room.

"They haven't caught me yet, Sire!" The soldier replied with an answering smile, and everyone else in the room was smiling as well, although Ardria could see the nervousness hiding underneath. Today might be the day they learned that their country was doomed, and even the oldest warhorses were quivering like violin strings tightened to breaking point. Their fear was infectious, and the Princess found herself pacing up and down the room in an attempt to burn off the nervous energy that suddenly filled her. Her father caught her eye and gave the very slightest shake of his head. Ardria nodded back and made herself stand still, as the King was, and together they became a source of strength and confidence for the room.

As the others saw their rulers looking calm and unafraid, their fears lessened and gradually the tension in the room ebbed away. Ardria was astonished. To command a room so totally just by standing there and looking confident... For the first time she gained the tiniest glimpse of what it was to be a King, a real King. She'd said it to Darniss, just minutes before, but it had just been words then. Now, though, she saw it, began to really understand it. The way a King could lead not with fear, but by commanding the devotion and loyalty of his people. How did her father do it? she wondered. And would she one day have that same gift?

Ordinarily, protocol demanded that one did not speak to a member of the royal family unless they addressed you first or there was dire need, but that rule was broken that day as members of the War Council came forward one at a time to express their joy and delight at her recovery. She ignored the minor breach of etiquette, earning herself a pleased nod from Leothan, and thanked them as politely and gracefully as she could. "Darniss' execution will draw a big crowd," Minister Larren assured her. "We'll show the whole world what happens to those who attack our beloved royal family."

"She won't be going to the gallows anytime soon," said the King, though. "Not until the war's over. There are political considerations. She may yet have her uses."

"She can rot in that cell for a hundred years for all I care," replied Ardria. "Death's too good for her."

"So, Amberley, how's the war going?" asked Leothan, returning the room's attention to the matter at hand.

"The battle of Kapperwell should be over by now," replied the Field Marshall. "If the rider's been pushing his horse hard he should be getting here any time now."

"What do we know?"

"Our engineers, the ones who cut the telegraph lines, have been intercepting warning messages from Dyrell and sending back false acknowledgements, while at the same time sending messages to Kapperwell telling them that all is well. That part of the operation has worked flawlessly, and I intend recommending those engineers for high honours, if they make it back safely. The first three garrison cities had no warning. They were caught totally unprepared and fell easily."

The King noted the tone of uncertainty in his voice. "It was my decision to go for Kapperwell," he reminded him. "My decision to push our luck."

Amberley nodded gratefully. "By now, Kapperwell has had plenty of time to receive warning from Charnox the old fashioned way. Our pickets have intercepted some riders and massacred the local pigeon population, but there's no guarantee we got them all. If just one got through..."

"The scouts said there was no sign of any unusual activity in Kapperwell."

"That's the last information we had, yes. A rider or a pigeon may have made it through after our messenger left to come here."

"I understood that that was just minutes before the attack was due to begin. If a messenger did get through, how much time would they have had to prepare?"

"just a couple of minutes would have been enough. Time for the defenders to grab their weapons, run to their duty stations. That's all it would take to turn a victory for us into a disaster."

"And Nilon would have been desperate to warn them. He wouldn't have sent just a handful of messengers. He would have sent every man he could find. How many did we intercept? You said some."

"Nine, your Majesty. All travelling by slightly different routes, and our archers have killed hundreds of birds. Most of them were just birds, of course. It may take some time for the local pigeon population to recover."

"How long did it take, after the attacks began on the other three cities, before we knew for certain that we'd been successful?"

"We were pretty certain two hours after the attack began, another couple of hours before we were completely certain. They were told to wait for absolute certainty before sending a rider back to inform us. This time, of course, we don't have to worry about enemy soldiers getting out to warn the next city on the list. This is the last of the four. That'll help us. They can commit their entire force to the attack without needing to put a picket around the city to catch escaping messengers."

"And it's been four hours since the rider arrived to tell us the attack was about to begin."

"Yes, Majesty. We can expect news any time now."

Nobody was sitting, the Princess noticed. There was a table with a number of places set around it, each place with a folder containing facts and figures, maps and personality profiles, but each seat was empty. Every man was standing, most of them pacing back and forth, and some were chain smoking, trying to ease their strained nerves with tobacco despite the prohibition against doing any such thing in front of the King. She noticed that the minister for transport, the youngest and most recently appointed member of the War Council, was staring at the smokers with nervous trepidation, as if he thought that the King might take offense and threaten them with punishment and that this was a more terrifying prospect than the destruction of the Kingdom by victorious Carrow armies. She caught his eye and smiled reassuringly at him, but he looked hurriedly away and moved further from the smokers, as if afraid that anyone standing too close might become collateral damage of the King's wrath.

The King went to stand in front of the map hanging on the room's front wall, and some of the older, more confident members went to stand beside him. "Worst case scenario," said Leothan. "Our army is massacred at Kapperwell. Killed or captured to the last man. What are our options then?"

Amberley sucked in through his teeth. "If we scrape together every man we have left, probably about forty thousand men, and bring them here, we can mount a robust defence of the capital. If it comes to that, I can promise you that Carrow will pay a high price in blood for every street, every building. I suggest that you, the Queen, the Princess and the other members of the Royal Family flee to Kelvon. You'll be safe there, the Emperor will take you in, and you can rule in exile until we find a way to take back the Kingdom."

"The end will be certain, then. What's left of the army will be fighting only to prolong the inevitable."

"We'll give them hell, Sire. I can promise you that."

Leothan shook his head, though. "No. I won't have good men dying in a hopeless cause. So long as there is hope we'll fight to the last breath in our bodies, but there's no point in fighting after hope is gone. We have to give thought to what happens after, and we'll need all the good men we can find for that. Corpses in a military globularium are no good to anyone. You will escort the rest of my family to Kelvon, and then we will negotiate a surrender. I will hand myself over to them..."

"No, Majesty! I forbid it!"

Leothan smiled as he shook his head again. "If I run, they'll execute dozens of people every day until I turn myself in. They may come up with trumped up charges, but they'll make sure we know the real reason they're doing it. They may do it anyway to get the rest of my family, but I'm hoping that getting their hands on me will satisfy the bulk of their bloodlust."

"It will not, Majesty. So long as one member of your family is alive and free, they're a focal point around which resistance will gather. They'll expend just as much energy getting them as they would you. Handing yourself over to them would be a pointless gesture. Also, they could use you as a hostage." He turned to the Princess. "Suppose they threatened to execute him unless you turned yourself in. Suppose they promised you and the King a comfortable life in captivity if you came forward. What would you do?"

"My duty," Ardria replied. "And my duty is to my people, not to the King. I would remain free and rally the people to rise up and take back their freedom, no matter what they did to my father. Bengoll Strake did it. We will repeat his victory, even if it is my child or grandchild who eventually takes back the throne."

"You see, Majesty?" said Amberley. "Your daughter knows her duty, and yours is the same. To remain free and serve your people. I know how hard it will be to hide like a fox in a hole while your people are put to death in your name, but nobody ever said that being a King was easy."

The other members of the War Council were divided in their reactions. Some were shocked that Amberley could take such a tone with the King, while others nodded their agreement. The King's face became expressionless. "We're being premature, speaking of such things," he said. "Even now, news of a glorious victory might be racing on its way from Kapperwell."

"I am confident that that is the case," replied Amberley. Every eye turned to the door, as if a travel stained messenger might walk through at that very moment to deliver his report. A few moments passed, though, and the door remained closed. Then someone cleared their throat and everyone spun around to stare at him. The unfortunate man apologised in embarrassment and the others have him one last annoyed glare before dismissing him from their attention.

"If we have to go into exile," said Ardria timidly, "what will happen to Darniss?"

"That depends on the Carrowmen," replied the King. "Nilon will want someone to occupy this palace, to rule Marboll in his name. Darniss's ancestors lived here, so they can say that she has legitimate claim to the palace, and her loyalties are firmly with Carrow. She would be a good choice for them. We could use that. Gain concessions from Carrow for her safe return."

"So she could end up getting everything she wants! She taunted me with that possibility. I told her it would never happen!"

"Those Above grant that it won't, but the fact remains that she's too important to just execute right now. Even if we're triumphant at Kapperwell, we'll still be in the same position. We have to keep her alive in case the war goes against us."

"And she knows that! The bitch knows it!"

"When we've won the war, or at least secured peace, we can give her an execution the whole Kingdom will remember, but for the moment she's too important. Sometimes, ruling a Kingdom is about compromise. Not even a monarch can just do what he or she wants. In fact, a monarch often has less freedom than anyone else in the Kingdom! You will learn this in time. That's the reason you have to attend these meetings now, to learn how to govern a Kingdom."

"Assuming I have a Kingdom to govern."

The solemn comment fell flat in the War Room. Nobody could think of a good reply to it, not even the King, and so a gloomy silence fell as everyone waited and the door obstinately refused to open.

☆☆☆

Arwin Tsocco examined the small nude statuette curiously as the carriage clattered and bounced its way along the country road. "This is what the Hetin folk actually looked like?" he asked.

"We believe so," replied the Brigadier, sitting opposite. He was dressed in civilian clothes, the garb of a high ranking Helberion aristocrat. It made him look splendid and important, but Malone, also dressed in civilian clothes, couldn't quite get used to the sight of him not in a military uniform. It was as if it was a different man sitting there. Almost a stranger. "Every nude we've ever found, whether a statuette, a painting or an engraving in stone and metal, has the same anatomical differences. Nowhere do we see someone with the same physical form as ourselves."

"And is this a man or a woman?"

"A man. Their women were fairly similar to ourselves in the lower part of their bodies. There were differences, but their main difference was in the chest." He reached into the chest that sat on the seat beside him and produced the statuette of the breast feeding woman. Arwin took it and examined it with interest.

"She is monstrous and deformed compared to modern women," he said, "And yet there is something about those chest swellings that I find quite magnetic. I find it hard to drag my eyes away from them."

"Every man who's seen it feels the same way," agreed the Brigadier, "while women feel something similar regarding the male nude. We now know that we are not descended from these people. We are descended from the creatures that destroyed their civilisation. We are modelled physically upon them, though. They adopted creatures raised from globs, and those creatures became the first modern humans. I have a theory that our minds are also modelled upon theirs, that we like and dislike the same things that they liked and disliked. I suspect that each gender enjoyed the sight of the other gender unclothed, that they celebrated the anatomical differences between the two sexes, and that what we feel when we see these nude statuettes is the result of that modelling."

"But why were they different?" asked Malone, sitting beside the former ambassador. "Today, men and women are almost identical, physically. A newly declared human can decide whether he wants to be a man or a woman. I remember when I decided that I wanted to be a man. The idea of staying home all day, looking after the house, doing the bulk of the work of raising a child, just had no attraction for me. Nor did brain work like being an architect or a scientist, assuming I had a good enough brain for that. No, I wanted to see the world, test my strength against what the world had to offer. That's what makes me a man. Not some anatomical feature. I mean, suppose I was Hetin and I was born with those chest swellings."

"Breasts," said the Brigadier. "That's what Alfornus called them. The curator of the Hetin museum."

"Right. If I'd been born with breasts, would that mean that I had to be a woman? That I had no choice in the matter?"

"Further research will be needed to answer that question. There's so much we don't know about them."

Arwin put down the woman and picked up the man again. "Do we have any idea what these organs were for?" he asked.

"He seems to lack a groinal slit," said the Brigadier, "although, in the pose he's in, it's hard to be sure. The passage of urine was probably one of its functions, but it seems an overly elaborate design for such a simple task. Alfornus said he thought they were used for procreation, although he had no idea how they did this. Only that it somehow involved the production of small humans who grew bigger until they reached full size. What we need is an anatomy textbook. Something for children that explains how blood circulates, how food is digested and so forth. Presumably it would explain how they procreated as well."

"Maybe it was similar to the way plants reproduce. The male plant produces pollen, it fertilises the seeds of the female plant."

"Hetin males produced pollen?" said Malone is disbelief.

"I don't know. I'm just throwing ideas into the air here. What we do know, though, is that we are descended from invaders to this world, while both plants and the Hetin folk are native. Doesn't it make sense, then, that they propagated themselves in a similar way?"

"We can speculate until the cows come home, but it won't produce any new knowledge," replied the Brigadier, scratching at his neatly trimmed grey beard. "When we see the Emperor, we have to focus on what we know, the threat posed by the Radiants. If we allow ourselves to be distracted by speculation, he may think that it's all speculation. That would be disastrous. To us, to all of mankind."

Arwin nodded. He handed the statuette back, and the Brigadier put it safely back in the chest that contained the selection of books and artefacts they'd chosen to take with them, to show the Emperor. Outside, one of the Kelvon guards accompanying the coach glanced in at the passengers as he rode past, then geed his horse to a faster gait, to take up position at the head of the column. Must be his turn to scout ahead, Malone thought.

The sight of a member of their armed escort reminded him of the dangerous territory they were passing through. The quickest route to Kelvon took them through Carrow territory. As guests of a Kelvon official they should be safe, the Empire took a dim view of anyone molesting people under their protection, but if the Carrowmen learned that a Helberion aristocrat was passing through their territory, none other than the Brigadier himself, they might not be able to resist the temptation. Accidents happened, after all. These roads were plagued by bandits and highwaymen, and it would be easy to blame the deaths of everyone in the coach on a gang of criminals.

He reached a hand to his belt to touch the reassuring bulk of his pistol, and Arwin Tsocco, guessing his thoughts, smiled. "We've got twenty of Kelvon's best looking after us," he said. "Relax. Nothing's going to happen." Malone smiled nervously, folded his hands in his lap and made himself look out the window at the sparsely populated Carrow countryside.

"I wonder how the war's going," he said, just to make conversation. Neither of the other two men would have any more idea than he did. They probably wouldn't have any reliable news until they reached Farwell and were able to communicate with Marboll by telegraph. He sighed. It was going to be a long, anxious journey.

"Suppose we get there and learn that... That..."

"The fate of Helberion is out of our hands," replied the Brigadier, not without sympathy. "There are far bigger issues at stake. We might defeat Carrow, and then fall victim to the Radiants as they destroy us with storm and earthquake. King Leothan has his job, we have ours."

"So after all these years of defending the Kingdom, of fighting the enemies of the King, all of a sudden we're supposed to just not care?"

"I didn't say I didn't care, but we must care about the right things. If Helberion falls and is occupied by Carrow, it might be free again one day. Other countries have been conquered and later threw out the invaders. In some case it took generations. Look at Telmartin, for instance. Helberion itself was once part of Carrow and gained independence despite having no history as an independent country. If we did it once we can do it again. If the Radiants move against us, though..."

"Millions would die," agreed Arwin. "And the survivors might face a future of being nothing more than farm animals. Kept in pens, denied any form of technology. A life of just growing food and eating until one of them decides to adopt us. No life at all, in other words."

The Brigadier nodded, feeling great relief that the former ambassador now believed them so completely. He was aware that they had very little actual proof and that it was mainly his reputation that had convinced him. His exploits were legendary, even to his enemies. His victories and accomplishments too many to count. He had earned the right to be believed, even when making such as extraordinary claim, and if he could convince Arwin Tsocco there was at least the chance that they could convince the Emperor himself.

He looked at Malone, who nodded reluctantly. "But if Helberion is conquered, and if we find a way to beat the Radiants, I'm going to see the country free again if it's the last thing I do! The Radiants first, then Carrow, and Those Above help them when I get them in my sights!"

"You speak for us both, Malone," said the Brigadier, his eyes cold and hard. Arwin heard nothing but total sincerity in their voices, and it went a chill up his spine. Those Above forbid that I ever find myself on the opposite side of something from them, he thought. If all Helberians were like them, then Carrow has made a grave mistake in making them their enemies. And, maybe, just maybe, so have the Radiants.

The laboratory was spooky in the darkness, Barlowe thought. As if the restless spirits of past generations of scientists were flitting past the towering coils and scaffold beams. Restless because they knew what he was going to do.

Everyone was asleep. The whole faculty had been celebrating the breakthrough into the small hours of the morning, and Barlowe had waited with growing impatience as the youngest of the research assistants had refused to go to bed. The bookkeeper had offered them more and more wine in an attempt to put them to sleep, but for hour after hour it had only made them noisier and more boisterous. He tensed up with fear every time one of them went to stare in pride and delight at the Arc Oscillator, their great achievement, fearing they might replace the acids that powered the electric battery and turn the device back on. His head seemed to throb in anticipation of the return of the agony, but thankfully Barlowe had managed to tempt the young woman away each time with the promise of more drink.

He had almost collapsed with relief when the last celebrant had finally succumbed to fatigue and staggered off to find his or her cot in the institute's dormitory which, as luck would have it, was directly adjacent to the main laboratory. The building had originally been a clothes mill, back when this small town had been part of Carrow, and had been adapted to the pursuit of science when this whole part of the country had been taken over by Helberion fifty years before. For the most part the building served its new purpose very well, but the only room large and rainproof enough to contain the great coils and generators, the room that had once been the main textile storeroom, just happened to be next to the staff dormitory, and this couldn't be fixed without a major redesign of the whole building, an operation that would have wiped out the cost savings of using this building in the first place.

Assistants and junior technicians having their sleep disturbed by the noise of a major experiment was a common occurrence, therefore, but Barlowe didn't think there was much chance of their being woken tonight. And if the alcohol wasn't enough to make sure that their well deserved slumber went uninterrupted, Barlowe was on his way to take additional measures to ensure that it did.

He went along the length of the dormitory, past snoring faculty members collapsed on their cots in uncomfortable looking positions, and closed every window. The air in the long room soon became close and stuffy, but Barlowe doubted that anyone would complain. He then went to the rooms allocated to the senior staff, at the other end of the building, far away from the noisy equipment. Once again he closed every window, but he left the inner doors open, allowing the air in the whole building to circulate freely. He looked down at the gently snoring form of Maxine Hester as he entered the room of the Master Scientist. There was the woman who had caused his recent agony, the woman who had so recently become the single most dangerous member of the human race. For a moment he thought about simply cutting her throat. It would be quick and it would be certain. It would also give him a great deal of personal satisfaction. He put the idea out of his mind with an exertion of willpower, though. It had to look like an accident, or the threat would remain and another human might follow her work, forcing his masters to accelerate their plans dramatically.

He simply closed his window and left the door open, therefore, as he had with every other room. He paused in the doorway for a moment, looking back at the Master Scientist whose face was illuminated by a shaft of moonlight shining in through the murky window. Then he hurried along the corridor to the stairs down to the basement.

The wood burning furnace that heated the whole building was directly under the main laboratory. It was scarcely needed at this time of year, but a small fire was kept burning all year round, just so that it could be built up when needed. One corner of the room had been set aside as the caretaker's office and mess room, the place where he ate his lunch and had the occasional cup of tea. There was a comfortable armchair there, its arms threadbare and the colours faded but probably twice as comfortable as a new piece of furniture, and beside it was a small table with a folded newspaper and a tin of tea bags. Sounds of shuffling was coming from somewhere in the dark room, and Barlowe felt his heart sink. He'd hoped the man wouldn't be here. This would complicate things.

"Who's that there?" came a gruff voice, and an untidy looking man came shuffling out of the darkness with a broom in his hand. Timmons, his name was, Barlowe remembered. He was wearing a grimy white shirt whose sleeves were rolled up to the elbows and his hair was matted and greasy. His words were slurred by the cigarette he was holding between his lips as he stood staring at the intruder.

"Ha!" he said in recognition, removing the cigarette. "It's Tiger Man, isn't It? What are you doing down here? Lost your way?"

"I thought you'd be home by now," said Barlowe, struggling to think of a plausible reason for being there. "What are you doing still working at this time of night?"

"You get my age, you don't need much sleep, and there's nothing to go home to since my wife went back into the ground last year."

A faint bell tinkled at the back of Barlowe's mind. Yes, he remembered now. The news had rippled briefly through the building a few months ago, fuelling conversations for an hour or two before being forgotten. Most of the faculty members hadn't even known that the building had a caretaker, let alone that he'd had a wife.

"I just popped by to see how you were doing," he said therefore. "You keep the place running so quietly and efficiently that it's easy to just take you for granted. I don't want to be that kind of person. I care about the people who work here, and I wanted to make sure that you were coping with your loss."

"Well, I haven't lost her completely. When she went into the ground, I went back to visit her a few days later, took back a part of her." He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small mouse. It stared around, twitching its nose, peered around in every direction. It looked down at the floor and tensed itself as if about to jump from his palm, but the caretaker closed his fingers protectively around it. Barlowe came closer to see better, and reached out a hand, looking at the man for permission to touch it. The man nodded, and Barlowe stroked the soft, grey fur gently.

"I knew there were places where they did this," he said. "I didn't know they did it here, though. Some people think it a bit macabre. To take a piece of flesh from your wife's corpse..."

"Weren't flesh. It had turned back to globs by then, all breaking away from her bones and wriggling away into the ground. The tough part is to get some small creature to adopt them. A worm, a beetle. Then, when the glob's raised to a worm or a beetle, you have to get something bigger to adopt it. Getting it all the way up to mouse is quite an achievement, though I heard there were a man in Kelvon raised his father all the way back up to human!"

"But not the same human," pointed out Barlowe. "A different human. His son, in fact, with no memories of ever having been his father."

"Doesn't matter. It's still a part of her. Part of her flesh. It means a part of her's still with me, you see?" He tucked the mouse back inside his shirt. He'd need a cat or something similar to take the creature up the next rung, the bookkeeper thought, but how would the caretaker feel if the cat ate his pet mouse before the parent bond could form? Would he be hit by the grief of losing his wife all over again?

"So, you were raised by a tiger, were you?" asked the caretaker, coming closer to stare at his face. 'They say you got stripes under all that pink powder. Why hide them? If I had tiger stripes, I'd show them off to the whole world! Watch them stare! Ha!" He took a long drag from his cigarette, then dropped it and crushed it under his boot heel.

"Some people don't like being stared at," replied Barlowe, taking a step back. He was aware that he was perspiring in the heat, and worried that his face powder might be washed away in little rivulets of sweat down his face. Of course, that didn't matter here. He was going to kill this caretaker, so it didn't matter what he saw. "You do a very good job down here, and I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate it. You're a good man, and we're lucky to have you."

"And you chose this time of night to tell me?"

"Well, you know how it is. Everyone was celebrating the breakthrough, me as well, and as everything was winding down and everyone was collapsing on their cots it occurred to me that I hadn't spoken to you for a long time. I thought I'd better do it right away or I'd forget again. So many things to remember, you know how it is."

"So they made a breakthrough, did they? Wondered what all the noise was. Bloody scientists, making sparks fly and setting fire to the place. They'll burn the whole place to the ground one day, you mark my words."

No, thought Barlowe. That's my job. He held out his hand to the caretaker. "Anyway, well done." The caretaker stared at the outstretched hand suspiciously, then reached out and took it.

The moment the physical contact was made, Barlowe focused on forming a parent bond with the man. He had to make himself love him with all his heart and soul, as if they'd been family all their lives, as if they would do anything for each other, including kill and die. A normal man would have found it impossible to do such a thing in a mere moment of time, but Barlowe was a wizard and had practised the control of his emotions ever since he'd been declared human. The parent bond was two way, of course, and the caretaker felt it too, felt a sudden and total connection with this man he barely knew and had only spoken to on a handful of occasions. He had no idea what to make of this feeling, though, and could only stare in surprise as his eyes and that of the bookkeeper met in total love and adoration.

If Timmons had been less than fully human, Barlowe could have blessed him, raising him the rest of the way to full humanity. He could even have lifted him higher, sending him further up the rungs of life towards Radiancy, although without Radiant parents to raise him the process would have gone awry, with his body becoming deformed and monstrous and his mind warping to insanity. He had done this on occasion, for his own amusement, when it hadn't been necessary for his victim to die immediately, but this time he had no time to waste. The caretaker had to be disposed of, silenced, so that he could continue his work uninterrupted and without fear of reprisals from the authorities.

He twisted the parent bond around, therefore, and searched around in the other man's mind for the memory of the animal he had once been. Cursing a man, knocking him back down the rungs of life, was much easier than blessing someone, and the effects took place much faster. Timmons felt something happen to him, something bad, and he tried to snatch back his hand, but by then it was far too late and he could only wail in terror and misery as he felt, actually felt, his humanity being torn from him. Barlowe watched in fascination as years of uplift were undone in just a few seconds, the caretaker shrinking in physical size, his head narrowing and elongating, his hands turning into padded paws, and tough, wiry hair sprouting all over his body. Soon, the man was gone, and in his place was a dog, a whippet of some description by the look of it, whimpering in terror as it struggled to free itself from the caretaker's clothes.

The dog shrank away from him, its tail between its legs, no longer capable of understanding what had happened to it, only knowing that the man had done something to him, something terrible. Barlowe opened the door for it and the dog fled, whimpering, it's claws skittering on the tiled floor. Barlowe watched it go, then put it out of his mind. Time to get back to work. He got busy, therefore, aware that the darkest part of the night was over and that dawn was getting perilously near.

He opened the furnace door and backed away as a wave of heat rolled out over him. Then he threw in some of the blocks of wood from the great pile that stood beside it. He watched as they smoked, then slowly caught fire. As the flames rose he threw in more wood, then more, until the furnace was filled with a blazing inferno. Then he closed the door again, lifting the latch with an iron bar that was leaning against the wall nearby and that he presumed was used for that very purpose. The furnace was glowing with heat now, and yellow flames lit up the room as brightly as the sun as they shone through the door's sooty glass window.

There was an inspection hatch in the chimney above the furnace, just above where it bent to enter the wall up near the ceiling. Its purpose was to allow the caretaker to gain access to the interior of the chimney so that it could be cleaned and unblocked. Barlowe moved a chair to stand on and reached up to open the hatch. Inside, a thick column of smoke was rising from the furnace, and through it he was pleased to see a thick accumulation of soot on the inner surface. Clearly Timmett had been neglecting the furnace's essential maintenance, and that made his job a lot easier. He searched around, saw a broom leaning against the wall nearby, and used it to prod at the soot inside the chimney. A great slab of it fell away in one piece and came to rest just below the hatch, blocking the bend. Barlowe coughed and spluttered as more soot issued from the hatch in a great black cloud, and he closed the hatch hurriedly, then went back to look at the fire through the door's window. Some soot had fallen into the fire and was flaring as it burned, but then the inferno returned to normal, seemingly unaffected by the blockage in the chimney.

Nodding with satisfaction, he left the room, climbed the steps back up to the ground floor level, leaving every door open behind him, then left the building. He went around to the furnace's emergency air intake, a safety feature that ensured that the building didn't fill up with toxic fumes in the event that the furnace's chimney became blocked. It was hidden behind a clump of shrubbery, which the caretaker had kept pruned well back, keeping a wide open area around the six inch wide grated opening, and smoke was pouring out as it fulfilled its purpose. Preserving the lives of the slumbering scientists.

Barlowe looked around and saw that part of one bush had died. The thin twigs of which it was composed broke and snapped easily between his fingers. He took some and stuffed them into the air intake. He had to fill the smaller gaps with dead grass, but after a few minutes of careful effort he thought he had the pipe pretty well sealed, and anyone who saw it would take it for the action of animals or, at the very worst, mischievous half raised adopted animals.

The furnace would now be receiving very little oxygen but was, hopefully, far too hot to just go out. The wood would be burning incompletely, producing all kinds of toxic gases in the process. Barlowe thought that the floor to the furnace fitted closely enough to make a pretty good seal, but it had never been intended to be completely airtight. Deadly fumes would be leaking from it, therefore, filling the building by way of all the open doors, but unable to escape because of the closed windows.

Barlowe doubted there would be enough of the gas to kill everyone, and he wouldn't have trusted such an important task to such a hit and miss method in any case. Hopefully, though, it would keep them asleep, poisoned and unconscious, while he set the fire that destroyed the building. Returning to the main laboratory, he closed the doors between it and the rest of the building, then looked again at the Arc Oscillator. Most of it was made of metal and would be only partially melted and deformed by the fire. Other scientists would be able to reconstruct it with little effort, and so he spent an hour carefully disassembling it and placing the components at random around the room. By the time he'd finished, there was no way of telling what the scientists had been working on. When their notes were destroyed, their accomplishment would be totally erased from the world.

He used the notes to start the fire, crumpling them up and piling them up against a pile of discarded packing crates, smiling in amusement at the thought that their hard work and meticulous record keeping would now kill them. He found a spark igniter, put it against the driest part of the paper and clicked the trigger until the spark caused a small flame to rise. It spread rapidly, consuming the thin sheets with tiny crackles and a small coil of smoke, and Barlowe fed it bits of cloth covered wire until it was big enough to start burning wood.

Once he was sure it wouldn't just burn out, he opened the door connecting the laboratory with the rest of the building. The air that wafted in was thick with fumes from the boiler and the wizard backed away warily to the lab's external door. This door he left open as he passed through, wanting to make sure the fire had a good supply of oxygen, and then he paused a moment to watch as the flames spread up the wall and across the ceiling. When it reached one of the bottles of chemicals the bottle exploded with a loud bang and the tinkling of flying shards of glass. The flames, consuming the accelerant greedily, reared up like a roaring monster, engulfing the whole room and causing more bottles to explode with a sound like machine gun fire.

Windows exploded and the flames leapt out as if trying to escape. A wave of searing heat swept over Barlowe who jumped back in alarm, almost tripping in his haste. Bits of molten glass flew past his face, something sharp stung his side, and he turned and ran, suddenly afraid of what he'd unleashed. The fire was spreading faster then he'd ever imagined, fed by a bewildering variety of chemicals, and was already jumping to neighbouring rooms and up to the second floor. Everyone in the dormitory was almost certainly already dead, and the fire would reach the rooms of the senior staff within minutes. At least they'll feel nothing, Barlowe told himself. They may even have died already from the fumes from the furnace.

He turned and ran towards the small town at the end of the road, shouting for help, already composing in his mind the story he would tell the fire fighters.

☆☆☆

The fire burned all the next day and all through the night, the flames reaching so high into the sky that they were seen from twenty miles away. Volunteers from three nearby towns came to pump water from the nearby river but it did nothing and in the end they could only wait for it to burn itself out.

"Did anyone get out?" asked Pieter Rell, the assistant district fire chief. The blaze was almost too bright to look at and waves of heat washed over them every time the wind changed direction. All around, his men were forming a line and trying to push back the gawping spectators.

"Nobody from the main building," replied Jorn Tellern, his boss. "A couple of junior staff who lived in outbuildings. Cleaners, accountants and so on. All the brains slept in the building itself. Hopefully they were overcome by the fumes before the flames reached them. It spread fast, though. Very fast."

"Shit."

"Yeah." There was a crash as part of the ceiling collapsed and gasps of awe came from the crowd of spectators. Jorn stared at them in disgust.

"Where'd all these people come from anyway? We're in the middle of nowhere!"

"Fires draw people, it has some kind of hypnotic fascination for them. They see a glow on the horizon and they've got to go see what it is."

"But it's only four in the morning! Why aren't they all asleep?"

"We're here, aren't we?"

"We got the night shift. What other occupation has a day and a night shift?" He saw that some of the spectators had gathered in small groups and were chatting with each other as if they were at a party. He laughed aloud in disbelief. "The biggest fire for years, and they'd rather chat about the latest kickball match."

"They're probably talking about the town crier. One passed through yesterday, apparently. News about the war."

"Good or bad?"

"Dunno. Guess we'll find out when we get back." He went over to where his men were working the water pump and told them to stop. "There can't be anyone still alive in there," he said. "Might as well leave it to burn. The sooner it consumes everything there is to burn, the sooner we can get in there." The men nodded and stood back from the machine.

When the last flames did finally die, Jorn organised men to damp down the still smoking embers, and then they began the long process of sifting through the wreckage for any clue as to what had started it. Finding human corpses for decent burial was out of the question. Not even bones would have survived the heat of the inferno.

To his surprise, though, they did find bones. Blackened, crumbling, but still recognizably human. Jorn's first thought was that they must be the remains of an artificial skeleton, one of the ceramic skeletons used by medical students too squeamish to want a real human skeleton in their dorms, but closer examination of them where the heat had cracked them open showed them to have a complex internal structure with intricate voids in their centres criss crossed with delicate strands of the same substance. There was also the hint of growth rings, as if they had started out smaller and grown, like tree branches.

He removed the mask from his face, revealing a patch of clean skin around his nose and mouth. "What do you make of this, Pete?" he asked, holding one piece carefully between the soot stained tips of his thumb and forefinger.

Pieter made his way over to him, holding a twisted, half melted coil of copper wire in his gloved hands. "What on the name of Those Above did they do here?" he asked. "What is this?"

"Never mind that. Look at this."

Pieter took the cracked and blackened fragment of bone from him. "One end of a human femur. Wait a minute..." He held it closer to his eyes and examined it more closely. "What on earth..."

"Yeah."

"They kept all kinds of chemicals in there. Maybe one of them did this. Some kind of chemical reaction. Turned the collagen into something else."

"Maybe." Then he looked up. Some of his men were moving perilously close to a miraculously still standing brick wall that towered twenty feet over them. The heat had cracked and weakened it, though, and it was leaning inwards at a perilous angle. "Get back from there!" he yelled. "Stay in the safe zones!" They waved back and moved away from it.

"You don't sound convinced," said Pieter.

Jorn sighed. "I've seen chemical fires before. I've never..." He began coughing on the fine particles of ash that filled the air and replaced the face mask while scolding himself for an idiot. "I've never seen anything like this. I don't know. Maybe. Get the photographer in, get him to take some shots of this whole area. Then I'll send the whole skeleton off to Poonwell. Maybe they'll know what it is." He laid the bone carefully back down on the ground where he'd found it, then stood over the site to protect it from the other workers while his assistant picked his way carefully across the field of ashes and half melted scientific equipment.