The febrile atmosphere was infectious, but they’d been enjoying the spectacle for only a few minutes when an inky blue raindrop landed on the back of Guyen’s hand. He wiped it away. Feeling an energy in the air, he looked up. The sky was considerably darker than it had been a moment ago. A red flicker lit up clouds on the horizon.
A knight clattered into the barrier in front of them as another drop fell, distant thunder rumbling. Then the inky rain began to pit-patter, and the noise around the bowl changed from whoops and cheers to worried murmurs. A few thousand spectators got to their feet. Guyen held out his hand. The blue-black liquid turned clear as it hit his skin. He tasted the residue. Just water.
“Strange weather, brother,” he murmured.
Yemelyan glanced nervously around. “Everyone’s leaving.”
“You think they know something we don’t?”
A gong sounded, and the match came to an abrupt end, the players heading for the cover of the outbuildings. The crowds jostled for the exits, the hexium emptying fast. The sky flashed red again, a frisson of energy thickening the air. The clamour rose up, whistling, distracting. Guyen breathed, holding Toulesh in tight. Something felt wrong. The rain intensified, running down the sides of the embankment like an ink pot tipped from the sky, pooling clear on the ground. What was happening?
“We should definitely go,” Guyen said, urgently surveying their surrounds. How did they get out? The wall they’d dropped down was too sheer to climb from this side, the embankment likewise. The wooden barrier circling the pitch was their only escape route.
“Come on!” He vaulted it. Yemelyan followed, joining him in the deserted arena.
A side gate opened, and a lean man with a well-kempt beard appeared, a blanket over his head. He shouted, “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
They sprinted for the opening, rushing him. He stepped aside, cursing as they darted through.
Some ran, others walked. Those without tricornes or bonnets covered their heads with shawls and bags. The cliffs provided no shelter up here. Muttered concerns were rampant. These storms had begun six months ago. They had people worried. A man had even died several weeks back, hit by a cartwheel-sized chunk of black ice falling from the heavens. There was no sign of anything like that today, but they were soon drenched, if not stained by the inky downpour.
They’d been tramping along in the strange rain for several minutes, a quarter way back to town, when a violent arc of red lightning flashed above, ripping a gash in the sky to both edges of the horizon. Toulesh exploded out, fizzing around like a madman. Growling thunder boomed. The whistling clamour began to whine. Rikesh joined Toulesh in his berserk behaviour, both simulacra flickering in and out of being, remaking themselves. They’d done similar during the storm aboard the cursed ship. Something pinged Guyen’s hat. And again. Suddenly, black hail fell like peppercorns. A few seconds later, it fell like the gods rained volleys of musket fire down upon them. The inky pellets piled on the ground, bursts of red lightning projecting jumping negative-pink shadows on the road. A pumpkin-sized chunk of black ice shattered on a rock a few feet away, strafing them with inky shrapnel. Panic filled the air, the crowds jostling to get away.
“Shit!” Guyen swore.
“Quick, that tree,” Yemelyan shrieked, pointing to a single pine up the slope. They ran for it, squashing in beneath its branches with a dozen locals. Less fortunate Flags fans rushed past, eying the haven jealously.
“It ain’t natural,” one of the sheltering men said to his companion.
“Brulus says it’s a curse from the gods,” the other man said. “For our sins.” He drew the symbol of Holy Fire in the air, a ritual blessing sacred to the followers of Issa. The twins remained silent. They’d likely be ejected into the onslaught if the locals picked up on their accents.
For several minutes, chunks of black ice peppered the ground, Toulesh and Rikesh still losing coherence with every lightning flash. Then the hail reverted to inky-black rain, the precipitation ceasing altogether a moment later. The sky cleared as quickly as it had darkened. They stepped out from beneath the tree, the relief palpable, and continued on their way.
The simulacra walked ahead, darting in and out between groups of hurrying townsfolk, still unnerved by the storm.
“Did you see Rikesh during the lightning?” Guyen said.
“What about him?”
“You didn’t notice?”
“No, what?”
“He was fading in and out.”
Yemelyan shrugged. “Well, that’s what they do.”
“No, not like that. They were flickering, like under attack from the storm—disintegrating and reforming.”
Yemelyan screwed up his eyes, staring at his clone. “Maybe you imagined it.”
“And that would be better how?”
He grunted. “Never heard of no storm affecting your simulacrum. How could it?”
“I don’t know, but it affected me too. Same as on the ship.”
“What do you mean?”
“I felt an energy.”
“What energy?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s my curse at work again.”
“Storm cursed too now, are you?” He laughed. “I wouldn’t worry. As long as we’re not caught out in them, we’ll be fine.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I always am.”
They ambled along, discussing nothing in particular, reaching the Impossible Bridge a quarter of an hour later. Usually, lamp lighters would have been over it by now, but the way was almost dark in the fading light. Still, it wasn’t so treacherous that they couldn’t see the road.
“This is a strange country,” Guyen said, glancing down at the estuary churning away beneath them. Something seemed different about it today, but he couldn’t place what.
“Strange doesn’t come close, brother,” Yemelyan agreed.
Now was as good a time as any to tell him. “I’ve no intention of staying at the foundry, you know.”
Yemelyan glanced across. “You haven’t?”
“No. I won’t be a slave for these bastards. I’m wasting my life away.”
“But they’ll arrest you.”
“Not if I’m out of the country.”
They continued in silence. Yemelyan broke it. “Where will you go?”
“Who knows? Damor, perhaps.”
Yemelyan muttered a curse. “I heard if you abscond from your Assignment, your family becomes liable.”
“What?”
“If you go, it’ll be Mother, Father and me who pay.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
Yemelyan’s face was as bitter as his tone. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be deported. But they’ve hung people for less.”
Damn. Could that be true? Actually, it sounded about right. “This country’s fucking evil,” Guyen muttered. Toulesh somersaulted over the railing, folding in through the bottom of the roadway. Guyen pursed his lips. “Something will happen to change all this. It has to. Maybe the weather’s a sign.”
“I hope so, brother.”
They stepped onto the West Cliff and headed up the road into the immigrants’ quarter, turning up the lane to the cottage. The atmosphere seemed awry, neighbours’ shutters closed even though it wasn’t dark yet. They pushed through the backdoor. Everyone sat at the parlour table, faces sombre, apart from Nazhedra who scrubbed furiously at the stove.