The Promise of the Child by Tom Toner Page A

eastern sea chamber, should you wish to rest before your onward journey. We would like to extend once more our immeasurable condolences.”
    â€œThank you,” Sotiris said, looking among the assembled Perennials, one of whom was a radiantly beautiful female Amaranthine whose name he could barely remember. He stood, nodding to her and placing a hand on the back of the ornamental chair. “What will become of the Melius I passed at the doors?”
    De Rivarol raised his eyebrows. “Thieves are thrown into the Orifice Sea. It is the law.”
    Sotiris considered the back of the chair, nodding. “I see. Well, I should take my leave.” He glanced with a weak smile at the Parliament. “It has been a long day.”
    Sotiris made his way alone through the long golden halls, pausing at a junction as he tried to remember the way. A Melius servant had been assigned to help him but he had sent it back, preferring to be alone. He stopped at a slanting patch of grey late-afternoon light, leaning to look through the circular open window to the shore below. Waves heaved and tore at the brown rocks beneath, hurling surf high into the wind. Sotiris gazed at the scene for some time, listening to the waves’ booming sigh as he took in the haze of Vaulted Land arcing above the furious sea.
    At length, he turned from the window, continuing in the dim golden light to the entrance of his chamber, where clean white linens had been stacked on a gilded footstool in anticipation that he would wish to bathe.
    Sotiris pushed open the door and went to sit on the vast four-poster bed that dominated the chamber like a golden sarcophagus, dumping the linen on the blankets. As the door swung shut, his breath caught slightly. He placed a hand to his eyes, fingers tightening at his brow as he held his breath. Finally—when he was sure the sound wouldn’t carry in the empty halls—he allowed it free in a trembling sigh, pressing his hands against his face as he wept.
    Witness
    Hytner glanced back. Two empty chairs sat at a table stacked with Sotiris’s books and two cups of pure water. He followed Stone’s footmarks in the dew to the edges of the meadow where it joined the river. Their reading sessions were at an end, apparently; Sotiris could come back and get his own books.
    â€œ Fine. ” Hytner sighed, folding his arms and contemplating his next move. And to think he’d actually expected Sotiris to come to his aid. To leave without even saying goodbye—well, he’d finally given an answer, even in such abrupt form. Stone would doubtless be taking Sotiris to Maneker now, to see the great treasure of which the Perennial had been awarded stewardship. Hytner was honest enough with himself to admit that he envied Sotiris his connections, that if it weren’t for his own principles of honour and tradition he would be right there in the front row, queuing for a chance to see this impossibly ancient Amaranthine and be rewarded in turn for his new loyalty. He suspected a few of the opposing Satrapies in the Firmament—among them the Virginis Parliament near where he stood—secretly felt the same, cheated out of the prize, bitter. But he was also deeply frightened. Maneker had drawn a clear line by accepting the Sixth Solar Satrapy of Gliese for himself and his Pretender, and to find oneself on the wrong side was to incur a penalty. Open opposition was evaporating already, disappearing almost as quickly as Sotiris had.
    He looked up, some movement in the sky catching his attention. There was nothing but the Organ Sun, roaring silently far above.
    And then it went out.
    He gripped his elbows in total blackness, the six-thousand-mile-wide cavern around him an empty space uncorroborated by any of his senses. Where the sun had been, a large green afterimage now floated in the dark, darting with his eyes. Inner Virginis, the Firmament even, had been reduced to the nothingness between his hand