Demetos rapped his knuckles against the palisade and watched the ugly, dark river slither before him like a black snake with no beginning or end. He refused to drink anything but rainwater in this forest. He’d seen soldiers who had spent too long away from the forts turn crazy.

  They should have returned by now.

  He looked down and turned the scroll over in his hands. It was addressed using his full name and title: Advocate-General Kostalyn Demetos of the Sundered Republic. He opened and scanned it a second time. Ingo was coming on well. The young man from the Hallin clan had been captured by his soldiers months ago. They only wanted to probe him for information about the forest. At that time, Demetos had still not located the fire-powder the clans called Terlos’ Soap – the rock that rendered saltpetre obsolete and handed him the power of firearms. Ingo had been tight-lipped and loyal to his people and had disclosed nothing… For a while. But in time his curiosity had gotten the better of him. He was exceptionally bright, and what intelligent person could live among Republicans and their creations without turning away from the darkness of this blighted forest?

  The soldiers on duty called to him from below and Demetos peered out as boots snapped branches on the other side of the river. He gripped the scroll tightly and leaned over the edge of the palisade. Red tunics emerged through the trees. Did they succeed? His hands toyed with his neat, white beard as he waited.

  The first soldiers to return carried the bodies of three men. Neither Hesio nor Gavan were among the dead. Demetos breathed out in relief.

  They had erected a simple, wooden bridge across the river which allowed the soldiers to pass two by two. The guards opened the gate and extra hands rushed out to carry the wounded and dead inside. Demetos kept his eyes on the treeline.

  Slowly, five more soldiers emerged. Hesio pulled a rope from the lead and Gavan walked beside him. Those two made an almost comical pair. Hesio was short and powerfully built; almost as wide as he was tall. Gavan loomed over him, pale and thin, like a weak sapling swaying in the breeze. These two were the best he had in their own ways, unless Ingo could one day replace them. He’d need a replacement for Gavan sooner than Hesio.

  The object they pulled heaved into view. Demetos’ breathing turned quick and shallow and he forced his hands to be still. The soldiers below glanced up at him as much as they watched the thing their comrades were dragging into the fort. He’d worked tirelessly for this, but he must not appear anxious for its success. A leader should not be surprised when their schemes unfold as planned.

  As it drew closer, bumping and scraping over rocks, the captured creature pulsed against the netting as though it sensed a point of no return. It resembled an octopus though it was the size of a bear, and its skin looked rough and thick like bark.

  Demetos had not seen a live one before. The soldiers described them as monsters in hushed tones full of fear. But there were no monsters in this world; only creatures not yet studied and understood. Some confronted fear by fighting their demons. Demetos confronted his by peeling back their layers with forceps and a scalpel.

  Hesio and his men hauled the sleeper over the shallow bridge and stopped beneath the gate. Hesio looked up at Demetos, awaiting the instruction. His weathered, impassive face bore a hint of the great weariness he must have felt after such a struggle.

  “Bring it in, Hesio. The cage is ready.”

  This was the second sleeper they had captured. They’d lost fewer soldiers this time, in the initial battle at least, and constructed a better cage. They had discovered last time, at the cost of many lives, that these beasts could fit their strange bodies through bars only a handspan apart. Fortunately, Demetos had been away from the fort at the time.

  The soldiers heaved again and pulled their captive in. Its hissing raised in pitch to something between a whistle and a whine. In the centre of the courtyard stood a metal cage: a cube of two metres on each side. Twisted steel filaments criss-crossed each face. When Demetos had told Gavan that he would be staying in the fort with the creature they caught, the sickly soldier had spared no expense in the design of its prison. Demetos had given him every resource he requested. After all, he intended to stay this time as well.

  “On the count of three!” Hesio shouted. “One, two, three!”

  They pulled the netted sleeper towards the open cage and the guards pushed it from behind with their shields. It rolled in as though it were asleep – or dead.

  Hesio swung the cage closed and locked the deadbolt. They all stood back. Demetos remained on the platform of the palisade, looking down from on high. He stepped slowly towards the stairs, but stopped at the top.

  “It’s not moving,” he called down to them. “Did you use the firearm?”

  “Not one shot fired,” Hesio answered proudly. “She's alive.”

  It, thought Demetos. He did not like to hear his own student speak as though these things were people, as though they were intelligent; not because he thought they weren’t, but because it magnified the fear they held over his men.

  He descended the steps and stood beside Hesio. Gavan sidled up to him and he turned to inspect the tall, pale soldier. Gavan also showed signs of exhaustion, though it was of a different kind. He grimaced as though in pain.

  “Is he right, Gavan? Is it still alive?”

  Gavan nodded and whispered:

  “She– It’s alive.”

  “Cut the nets,” Demetos commanded.

  Hesio nodded at a soldier who reached his sword inside the cage and gingerly hooked it under one of the knots. The blade grazed the sleeper's skin as it cut the rope. A trickle of black, sticky blood oozed from the wound, but the creature did not move. The soldier repeated the process at another knot, and then another. He grew bolder and cut faster, and Demetos clenched his fists tight and watched for movement to confirm it had not died.

  The movement came.

  At the fifth cut, the mass of limbs writhed into the new gap and burst from it like the soft flesh of a fruit exploding from an aperture in the skin. The netting ripped and shreds blew through the gaps of the cage.

  The sleeper slammed against one side with such a force that it almost tipped its prison over. The soldiers yelped and leapt back. It hissed so loudly that Demetos winced, and a black mist filled the air. The cage rocked again as the panicked beast threw its weight against a different side.

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  “Back away!” Hesio commanded the men who were already moving.

  Demetos remained. He was afraid, but knew that if the creature escaped in this fit of rage, it would make no difference whether he stood two or five yards away. Gavan groaned loudly and sank to the ground.

  The creature went quiet and the mist cleared.

  The sleeper stood still in the middle of the cage, its body resting on three of the limbs which held it up like a tripod, while the other five crawled like black snakes up and down the inside of the cage. Its body was still, and Demetos now discerned two tiny, black eyes like beads pressed into the skin. Beneath them, its mouth opened. A circle of white teeth, as thin as pine needles revealed itself and a sweet, sickly odour assailed his nostrils.

  He stared at it.

  “What secrets will you reveal to me?” he whispered.

  As though in response, one limb slithered between a gap in the netting. It reached an arm’s length towards him before its girth was too much for the opening. It twisted in the air a few inches from his face and slunk back in. Demetos made a mental note of the distance.

  He looked down to see Gavan rocking, doubled up on the ground and holding his knees. He muttered something and Demetos crouched to listen.

  “What is it, Gavan? Can you hear it? Does it speak to you?”

  Gavan held one hand over his thigh and groaned. It was the place where one of the creatures had bitten him months ago.

  “She hates the light,” he whispered. “She hates it. Cover her, please.”

  The hint of a smile curled on Demetos’ lips. He looked up at the captured sleeper from where he crouched beside Gavan. Yes. We'll speak.

  “Cover it!” he shouted to the soldiers behind them.

  Racing to compensate for their moment of ill discipline the soldiers took sheets from the ground and threw them over the top of the cage, then secured them with stakes. It looked like a tent had been erected in the middle of the courtyard. They stood back and the fort was silent. Above Demetos, a bird called and passed overhead. Gavan moaned quietly.

  “All men who took part in the capture,” Demetos announced, “will be rewarded with double pay this month. Take Gavan to my doctor. Darius knows what he needs.”

  Two soldiers took Gavan, one at each arm. New faces arrived to take the place of the guards, and the survivors of the hunt staggered away to wash their wounds and settle their nerves with ale.

  Hesio stood beside Demetos. They stared at the silent, still cage beneath the sheet. It was there, huddled in the darkness, waiting for an opportunity to escape. Demetos wondered if they had the capacity to listen and, if they did, what kind of sounds they heard.

  “We risked a lot to bring it in, Advocate,” Hesio stated.

  Demetos answered the question behind the statement.

  “We have much to learn from it. This is the next great mystery of the forest, Hesio, after the powder. If even half of what Ingo has told me is true, these creatures may be older than humans. Wiser too, in their wicked way. We will tame their wild knowledge and bend it to our purposes.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Hesio replied, sounding unconvinced. He lacked vision. Even since the sleeper's bite made Gavan cold and withdrawn, Demetos still appreciated the younger soldier’s company more. Ingo, too, had the courage to dream.

  The big soldier lingered.

  “Is there something else, Hesio?” Demetos asked.

  “A new shipment arrived: fresh firearms from the forge-city, courtesy of the Mad Tyrant of the Murrows.”

  “As per her obligation,” replied Demetos tersely. “It is no courtesy.”

  Fearful of the threat that Ilargia Landstrom posed to his authority and in need of her forges, Demetos had spun a web of bribery, deceit and manipulation to bring her into his circle. For his part of the deal, he had publicly made her his right-hand woman and promised to secure her a permanent seat on the Assembly. For her part, she had shared the designs of her new weapon and committed to manufacturing a hundred of them for his army.

  “I made sure her men saw our own firearm,” Hesio said. “And I implied that our production is gaining pace.”

  Demetos smiled appreciatively. While Gavan was the most technically talented of his proteges, at least before Ingo, Hesio compensated for his duller mind with a political astuteness which many lacked. The less Advocate Ilargia understood how much Demetos needed her shipments, the longer he could rely on her continued loyalty.

  Demetos spoke in a low voice, as though the shadows of the trees or the cage were listening.

  “We have the best source of fire-powder, too, in the caves. There's nothing like it outside the forest, and that gives me leverage over her. Still,” he added in a mumble, “I could use a victory or a new discovery, sooner rather than later.”

  Since Demetos’ defeat at the forest border the more moderate advocates had drifted away from him. With the supposedly impartial Listener Norlon in his pay and Advocate Ilargia publicly sworn to his cause, he could weather a little storm. Eventually, though, he must return with something to show for it: new land to buy the people's love or new discoveries to add to his fame. Ideally, he would secure both.

  Hesio looked down at the scroll still scrunched in Demetos’ hand.

  “Ingo wrote to you?”

  Was that hurt in Hesio's voice? He had once been Ingo’s captor. He was the one who placed a rope around the boy's neck and dragged him away from his home in the forest. But over time, an affection had grown between them.

  “He’s doing well,” Demetos replied. “I’ve sponsored his entrance to the Institute. In his heart he has already turned away from the gods.”

  “He still thinks to save his people,” Hesio said. “Should we not encourage him to do so? He might help us broker a peace with the forest clans and go to the Institute after that.”

  Demetos shook his head and replied quietly:

  “He doesn’t know how much blood is being spilled. He may think differently about us, if he sees the front, and I still need his knowledge of this forest. Besides, he's already inside. He cannot leave now until he passes the first exam.”

  Hesio made no reply, but excused himself with a nod.

  Demetos looked at the letter from Ingo again. It was true, what he said to Hesio; the young man was making great strides. But Demetos frowned as he re-read the final passage.

  I delight in the books here at the Institute, but I long to bring Republican learning to the forest. I heard rumours of soldiers being killed by Seveners. Is it true? If I speak to them, I might change their minds! I think they would welcome some of the writings of Syrus. Let me come! As Advocate, you could allow me to leave for a month.

  Even sequestered in the heart of the Institute, surrounded by Demetos’ servants, rumours from the forest had reached his keen ears. And, to complicate matters further, he had somehow learned that Demetos alone could grant an acolyte a sabbatical from their studies.

  He's not ready to know the truth, thought Demetos. But the truth will look different when he has finished his studies. The battlefields will be cleared and the bodies burned.

  He folded the scroll and pushed it into his pocket. He turned his back to the captive ‘monster’ and returned to his quarters.

  How do I unlock the secrets of this beast? What can I ask Ingo that will help me, without letting him know what’s happening? And what trophy can I send back to the city to convince the waverers of my inevitable victory?

  Whatever the currents that appeared in the river, he would find a way through them. He was Kostalyn Demetos: the longest serving member of the Assembly of the Republic. He weaved the needs of his friends and enemies like the mathematicians of the Institute constructed equations. Politics and mathematics; variables and unknowns; it was all about balance.

  He would find the answers. He would unlock all mysteries.

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