man laid his rifle down, though he held the pistol steady as he reached for Ash’s grasp. Ash pretended he was unable to reach any further with his hand. The Acolyte leaned out to grab it.
Their hands met and clasped together. With a grunt, Ash heaved with all the strength in his arm and pulled the Acolyte forwards, off balance, so that the man toppled over the parapet and fell.
He heard a shout as the Acolyte went past him, and then nothing.
Ash hauled himself up over the parapet. He regained his feet, scanning the surrounding rooftops. No other Acolytes were looking his way. He exhaled long and hard, and glanced back over the parapet. The Acolyte lay crumpled in the rain-gully between two of the playhouse’s roofs.
‘Huh!’ Ash exclaimed.
He stepped out into the chaos of the Serpentine with his hood pulled low over his face. It was a scene of festa in the wide boulevard and the side streets branching off from it. Many in the crowds seemed intoxicated already, and people waved the red-hand flags of Mann, or garlands of white and red flowers bought from the many flower sellers who had suddenly appeared on every street corner, next to the street merchants selling hot food, alcohol, narcotics. Soldiers were clearing the road and forcing everyone back to the sidewalks. He knew what that meant; knew too why they were flying batwings over the district and so earnestly checking the rooftops.
He jostled through the press, his roll of belongings carried under his arm. He found a clear space in an archway next to a hot-food vendor, from where he purchased a paper cup of hot chee and a wrap of pork meat and peppers, and enjoyed breaking his fast as children shrieked in excitement all around him.
An old mangy-coated dog came up to him, and sat and looked up at his food with drool dangling from its panting mouth.
‘Hut,’ he said to the dog as he tossed the last third of the wrap into its mouth. The dog wagged its tail across the paving, wolfing down the food in a few swallows. It looked up at him for more, its tail still swinging.
Ash wiped his greasy hands and held them up empty for the dog’s inspection. ‘No more,’ he growled.
The dog lay down. Ash tried his best to ignore it as he leaned against the wall to ease the weight on his feet. There he waited beneath the archway, his eyes cast along the winding canyon that was the Serpentine, towards Freedom Square and beyond, where the Temple of Whispers reared high above a rabble of roofs and chimney stacks. He scratched his unkempt beard and listened to snatches of conversation around him. People spoke of the invasion ships in the harbour getting ready to set sail; of the Matriarch setting off for war. Questions abounded as to where they were destined.
At noon, a great battle-cry rose up from the direction of the square. Minutes later, it was followed by more cheering from further along the Serpentine. Over countless heads Ash spotted a procession making its way along the avenue. Painted red hands swayed from the tops of elaborately carved poles, and beneath them priests rocked to the same rhythm, decked out in their white robes and mirror-masks of burnished silver.
He turned his back to the street and bent low over his roll of belongings. The dog blinked and watched what his hands were doing as Ash tugged free the crossbow and locked its arms back into their firing position, glancing over his shoulder to see if he was being observed. He pulled the double strings back and fitted a bolt into place, then another, the scent of grease filling his nostrils.
For a moment, he experienced the sense of wani; of having lived this moment before, and then it was gone.
When Ash stood with the crossbow gripped within his cloak, the van of the procession was already passing by. He surveyed the balconies across the street filled with families rejoicing. Above them, Acolytes were positioned on several of the rooftops, studying the scene below through the eyeglasses of their longrifles.
A roar from the crowd was spreading towards him like a wave, matching pace with a high palanquin that moved slowly along the street, near-lost in clouds of red and white petals, people flinging them from the sidewalks or from the balconies above. He caught a flash of her, Sasheen.
Soldiers struggled to hold back the crowds that surged forward for