The Giant's Almanac by Andrew Zurcher (black female authors .txt) 📕

Dina has tapped four Prents to fill their places. Dolly is the new Keeper, Payne is the Sweeper, Padge is the Commissar, and Russ – little Russ, as if he could ever be anything but himself – he’s the Jack.’

A vision of the Officers in their masks, dancing round him, lit by a thousand lanterns, weaving, drunk with murderous cruelty, swam before his eyes. Dolly. Russ. Fitz fought it off, trying to get back to what was in front of him – to the fires –

‘Navy,’ he said.

The fires were moving, coming down the hillside, crossing the valley.

Fires. Moving in the valley. A week has passed. Behold me, that I am alive, and have come of age. They will come for me.

‘Navy, they’re coming for me again. Wispers from the Mountain. Now. Tonight. Just like before – but more, many, many more. You can see them in the valley. The Master has called them, and they’re coming.’

Fitz pulled himself on to the window ledge, turned the handle of the window, and threw it open in the cold, quiet air. Even from so far, the sound of whispering on the night, floating as if on a mist – vaporous, uncohering – reached them with unmistakable clarity.

Navy leaned forward over the ledge, her face warm against his side, her eagerness warm beside his fear. ‘How long do you think, before they’re here?’ Navy asked, her voice caught up in the wonder that shortened her breath.

‘Half an hour,’ Fitz answered. He turned to her, and took her by the hands. ‘Navy, you were right. Something awful is happening in the Heresy. It starts with us, but it’s much bigger than us. It’s unspeakable. It’s unspeakable, so I’ll show you.’

‘Fitz, you’re talking like the Riddler.’

‘Trust me. You said you’d follow the Master anywhere. Now’s your chance. Follow him. You said I belonged here. Maybe you were right. But I only belong here because, like the Master, I have the courage to leave, the courage to pay the price of my own freedom. We’re leaving, Navy, and we’re going to do whatever we have to, to leave for good. We have half an hour – half an hour to break the Master from the tower.’

‘The Master from – how?’

Fitz watched the fires bobbing on the darkness of the valley, a line of torches advancing, trailing flames. He thought there were hundreds of them. A rescue party. An attack. A rescue attack. They weren’t coming stealthily, but openly, drawing every eye in the Heresy. He thought of Clare and Ned among them, in each of their hands aloft a burning brand, trailing smoke and purpose as they wove pathless across the valley floor, trampling the heather and gorse.

Drawing every eye.

‘No one will see us.’

It’s a diversion.

Fitz pulled free of Navy’s arms that still gripped him by the shoulders.

‘Can you get into his cell?’

Navy held out her hand. The little seeds still lay in it.

‘By order of the Rack,’ she said, ‘Warden of the high tower.’

‘Take this,’ Fitz told her. From his bed he had retrieved the lamp, and wound round it its little cord. ‘When you’re in the tower, open the north door, and show the light. That will be my target.’

Navy had been watching the roofs of the Heresy while Fitz spoke. Now she turned to him, taking him full in the face. ‘Target for what?’

‘Dolly’s crossbow. Can you get it for me?’

‘Yes, but Fitz, from where’s – there’s no way you can make that shot from the ground. That angle – even Dolly couldn’t.’

‘From there.’ Fitz pointed in the darkness, to the little cupola on the top of the Palace of the Heresiarch. It would be almost a straight shot from the top of the Heresiarchy into the door of the tower.

They didn’t speak. Skipping as many steps as they could, they ran out of the tower and into the court of the Master. From the pen where Dolly slept in the Keep, Navy fetched the crossbow and twenty metres of the cable. Together they doubled back to the Heresiarchy, through courts beginning to stream with Serfs and Fells. The Door of Humility had been thrown wide, and tides swept from the Rack’s arsenal on to the lawns, wielding staves, knives, bows, spears, even swords – whatever the ancient weapon store would yield. Alone beside the rush, unnoticed, Navy put her hand once more to Fitz’s elbow.

‘Do you think you can do it?’

He looked at her.

‘Go – in there? The Heresiarchy?’

‘It’s not locked,’ he answered.

‘But Dina –’

‘I can do it.’

‘Give me ten minutes,’ Navy said. ‘I’ll open the north door of the tower.’

Navy slipped into the darkness, weaving between the unseeing eyes of the men and women pouring in the opposite direction, heading for the tower cell. Fitz watched her go, unwilling for a moment to open the Heresiarch’s door. He took a deep breath, stood, strapped the bow to his back, and looped the cable over his head so that it sat snugly round his chest.

He had to push the door with all his force, grinding his heels into the stone paving for pressure. When it was open just enough, he sliced through the gap, then pushed it closed behind him until he felt the bolt make contact with the latch – and there he left it, in case he needed to get out. Then he turned on his heel, lifted his head, and surveyed the interior of the Palace of the Heresiarch.

It took his breath away.

It’s empty.

The whole hall, the dome, everything – nothing – it was all a huge void. Around him, grey stone walls rose vast and dark on every side, brooding, silent and hollow, a towering shell of stone as still and as secret as the air that filled it. He had expected rooms, stairs, an orderly progression of levels, even locked doors. He had expected impediments. Instead, there was nothing at all.

There was one exception. A hundred exceptions. The walls rose in a broad ring to the dome