Hollow Empire

by Sam Hawke

“He’s so heavy,” Dee said, to nobody in particular.

  I touched her shoulder gently, knowing what had prompted the comment. “You did everything you could,” I said fiercely. “I couldn’t move an unconscious man and I’m more than twice your age. I need you to stop wondering if you should have done things differently. You got us here and we’re going to get him out, all right?”

  She didn’t answer. “All right?” I repeated, and stared down at her until she gave a tentative nod.

  “All right,” she said. She hastily wiped under her glasses with the edge of her scarf and I pretended not to notice.

  Hadrea was already halfway up the crangelter, which seemed to comfortably bear her weight. “You’re on watch,” I said to Dee. “Keep out of sight but you let us know if it’s not clear for us to get out. No one can see us.”

  She nodded, and melted back into the garden. The street had been quiet but if there was a private party in this building, doubtless people would continue to come and go throughout the evening. It wasn’t even midnight yet. I breathed out, trying to let my body relax, but it was a lost cause; hauling myself up the thick, rough bark of the tree was an exercise in sheer nerves, especially knowing the horror that might greet me at the other end if we made it safely. One shitty thing at a time, I told myself.

  The tree wasn’t that bad. My hands shook but I never felt in real danger of falling because the windy trunk was solid against the brick. It was the gap between the buildings that made my heart race and my throat go dry and thick with fear. Dee had wedged the stake firmly and Hadrea crossed easily with only one light step on it, with no sign of movement of the makeshift bridge. But it still involved taking a step into a dark chasm. I wished, as I stood there, sweating, panting, shaking with exhaustion, that I was as small as Dee and could crawl across it, but at my size there was no way to safely balance, not to mention it would involve too much time relying on the stake to hold.

  Hadrea had made the window ledge and was looking back at me, mouthing come on. After a moment’s hesitation, I blew out my breath again, blinked hard, then took the step.

  For just a sliver of a moment I thought I’d mistimed it or stepped at the wrong angle; my left foot slipped on the stake as I tried to transfer to my right and for that tiny moment I thought I was going to fall. Then I was thumping ungracefully against the wall, my cheek hitting brick, and Hadrea’s strong arm slapped around my back, keeping me safely pressed against the wall until my bearings returned.

  “Thanks,” I whispered. We both shrank to a careful crouch; the sill wasn’t really wide enough to accommodate adult visitors, but there were plenty of handholds here at least. The open shutters provided us with cover but also made it hard to see into the room. “Can you hear anything?”

  “Someone groaning,” she breathed back. My heart did a strange palpitation, simultaneously relieved Jov was alive and worried about what state he would be in. “Nothing else. I think we go in.”

  I squeezed her hand in reply, and we edged our way past the shutter.

  The room was quiet and unlit, though the full moon provided some cold and thin illumination. We hovered there a moment, looking for signs of movement, but no one stirred. Hadrea slipped in and dropped noiselessly to the floor, and I followed, legs shaking with relief to be back on solid ground.

  There were two figures on the bed, but Hadrea crossed straight to the door and looked for a latch. She had a short, decorated stick prop from the Darfri ceremony that she unhooked from her skirt and held aloft now as a weapon. It looked comfortable in her grip. She gave me a jerk of the head and I crossed quickly, but reluctantly, to the bed. Part of me didn’t want to look, because once I looked we had moved into the next step, the step where Jov was definitely hurt and I had to find out how badly.

  The next shitty thing, then.

  Dija had said he’d been put in a compromising position, and she’d not exaggerated. The strong smell of vomit and bile overwhelmed me. Jov was facing me, lying next to a pool of what must have been his own vomit, his eyes open only a slit and his breath coming out in a weak pant. “Jov,” I whispered, touching his cheek with a hand as gently as I could. “Jov, can you hear me?”

  He stopped panting. There was an agonizing moment when I thought he had stopped breathing altogether, and my heart plummeted in my chest, but then he took a breath so deep and slow it reminded me of water coming up from a well. His brown eyes opened wider, meeting my gaze. They looked glazed and unfocused, but they were definitely responding to my voice. I found his slack, warm hands and put them in my own, pressing our palms together and entwining our fingers. My eyes pricked with tears. “Jov,” I said again. “It’s me. Wake up.”

  Something changed in his vacant expression. His eyes narrowed and his eyebrows came together. “Lini?” Like he was struggling to remember a long-lost cousin.

  “Yes, Jov. Come on. You have to—”

  Something seemed to swell in my chest and throat, cutting off my breathing.

  A man lay right beside Jovan, pressed up against his back, his pale chest bare, ribs and hip bones protruding. There was a fraction of a moment in which I froze, afraid we would wake him, but then the fear intensified in the worst possible way. We wouldn’t wake him, because he was dead. Demonstrably, indisputably dead. And worse: I knew him.

  It took a moment to understand why, to place the bearded face, but then it clicked. This poor soul was Tuhash, the guard I’d had to break apart from the Talafan Princess. What in all the fortunes had happened between then and now? How had he found his way to this party, not even speaking Sjon, in such a short space of time? What had happened here?

  I stared at him, paralyzed with horror, unable to move, unable to think, to process it. He was dead, and partially nude, lying facing Jov, the smell of alcohol and sex and smokes and perfumes mingling with the stench of the vomit, wrapping the corpse, clutching at me. I couldn’t breathe. Bright fabric stood out against the pale skin of his neck and chest, wound round his neck like some strange fashion, its riotous colors an obscene contrast to his blank face. I recognized the fabric as the cording from my brother’s paluma. The man’s eyes were wide open, too wide, almost bulging. A shocking pink sliver of tongue protruded from between his lips and the faint dusting of sugar still lightened his beard below his mouth. It was grotesque. I couldn’t look away, could barely blink.

  Jovan finally saw where I was looking, and a kind of visible tension bound up his shoulders so his neck got smaller and smaller; he looked so sad, so alone, so guilty, that I was sure he had been conscious enough to understand what was happening to him, even if he’d been unable to do anything about it. “He’s not much more than a kid,” he grunted through gritted teeth. “I tried to fight. Couldn’t stop them.” His hands slapped weakly at his clothes and I knew he was looking for his concealed pouches. “I tried to dose the big one but I didn’t make it. I got the purge, but dropped the powder.”

  I looked at the vomit with sudden relieved understanding. “You threw up some of the drugs.” Likely the only reason he was awake and able to sit up. “Come on, we have to get you out of here.” I tried to help my brother maneuver around the smelly sick puddle but his coordination was impaired.

  “Hadrea?” Jov blinked across the room, where she stood by the door, on guard. She gave him a weary smile but kept her attention on the door and the hallway.

  “Jov, we have to move fast. He’s Talafan.” I nodded to the body, trying not to convey the full extent of my horror at this. “He’s an Imperial soldier. I…” I cleared my throat. “I saw him earlier. He’s got connections. We can’t be found with his body.”

  “I hear something,” Hadrea hissed suddenly. “Move.” I redoubled my efforts but Jov was heavy and clumsy and struggled to bear his own weight. We needed to be gone before anyone discovered us; it was going to be hard to get him safely out that window but a hell of a lot easier than being chased down by criminals or Order Guards.

  We got to the window but Jov was so unbalance
d as he tried to mount the sill he was certain to fall off the other side, and even at my most healthy and energized I wouldn’t be confident of being able to hold him up. Now? I had no chance. “Hadrea, you’re going to have to take him,” I whispered, and she took in the situation with a single glance, then nodded. She strode over and handed me the baton before slipping under Jov’s arm, propping him up with her shoulders.

  “I have you,” she said to him quietly.

  I tracked back across the room, baton slipping in my sweaty hand. Hadrea had eased the door open a narrow crack but there was no lighting in the hall and I couldn’t see if anyone was approaching. It was silent. Maybe Hadrea had imagined it. I glanced back over my shoulder. I could see the shape of their figures silhouetted on the sill. Back to the doorway; still nothing. I relaxed, just a fraction. We might still make this without anyone knowing.

  Then, a distinct noise. A thud, like someone bumping heavily against a wall. Footsteps. Heart pounding, sweat wetting the back of my neck, baton trembling, I watched. Nothing, yet. I chanced a quick glance at the window. I could no longer see Hadrea and Jov. Did I risk following them now, or stay to give them more time? I could try to pull furniture in front of this door, stop anyone coming in, but then it would be obvious where we’d gone. Or did I wait it out, hope whoever it was wasn’t coming in for us?

  Jov needed to be away. I couldn’t risk us being found escaping out a window—that would make everything worse. So I stayed, weak and terrified, at the door, hoping.

  He appeared, a hulking shadow, up the second set of steps and into the hallway. The sheer size of him, a blacker shape barely distinguishable in the dimness, made my heart race even faster. It was hard to release the stale air in my lungs or to listen properly over the roar in my head. The figure moved with a strange gait, plodding, going from side to side in the hallway like he was sweeping up after a particularly messy child. Was he looking for something? Listening at doors? The frustrating lack of light, and my narrow viewing slit, made it impossible to tell. Then, another thud as he appeared to collide with the wall. The figure stopped.

  Drunk. Just a bloody drunk, lurching around, barely able to keep his balance. The fear leaked out of me, leaving me dizzy with relief. But I still didn’t want him trying this door; there was no way to lock it and my body weight wouldn’t stop him pushing it open. I took a steadying breath, counting as I held it, the way I would during one of my lung episodes.

  Then I stepped out of the doorway swiftly and closed it behind me.

  The man took a comically long time to react. I was already halfway toward him by the time he had focused on me, and I saw with some relief that up close and with my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I did not recognize him. He was a fat, handsome man, perhaps in his thirties or forties, not a Credo, but wealthy, by the look of his clothes, even rumpled as they were. He blinked at me, started to say something, and burped.

  “Excuse me, excuse me,” he said, catching his balance by throwing out a hand to prop on the wall. “Sorry about that. Where’s the—” He burped again, but this time turned his head away, covering his mouth with incongruous delicacy. “Where’s the washchamber? I swear they said go upstairs, but these—” He thumped the nearest door with one big hand to demonstrate. “—these are all locked.”

  I gave my best attempt at a giggle. “I came up for the same reason! But I tried every door down this hall and not one is a washchamber. I reckon—” And here I paused, held up a finger, giggled again. His drunken gaze focused on the finger like a beacon. “I reckon we came up too many stairs. Let’s go back down.” Very gently I indicated the direction from which he’d come, and he obediently turned his head and began to shuffle back down the hall.

  Then he spun around, faster than I expected.

  “Or we could just piss in the hall!” he suggested. “Their own fault for making it so bloody hard.” Ignoring my gentle protests, he grabbed fistfuls of his long tunic and adopted a broad stance facing the wall. Honor-down, I’d not have been surprised if he pissed pure alcohol, but I was in no mood to find out exactly how much urine he could produce, not when Hadrea and Jov were waiting for me, probably starting to get worried.

  “You know what’d be funnier,” I said quickly. “What’d really show them? Why don’t we go piss on the stairs back to the basement. Then when they come upstairs they’ll see firsthand what happens when you don’t give clear directions.”

  He blinked, staring at me, both hands still in the process of lifting his clothing. Then his face split into a huge grin and he dropped the tunic to slap me on the shoulder instead. “I like the way you think,” he boomed. Laughing, he preceded me down the hall and began lumbering down the stairs, still chuckling. I felt a moment of vague remorse when he adopted his pose again at the landing; this kind of behavior at a party was likely to stifle his social invitations for a good period, but then again, given the crowd he was partying with, I’d likely done him a favor.

  While he was busy letting out what sounded like an unhealthily forceful waterfall of piss down the stairs, I slipped back up silently, then fled down the corridor and back to the room I’d abandoned. I raced to the window and peered down. Dee’s anxious face was visible in the foliage next door, and I saw the relief in her as she pointed me out to my brother, slumped next to her. Hadrea, whose nimble form was halfway back up the tree, gave me an anxious look, and I waved her back down. I was halfway out onto the sill before I remembered.

  The cording.

  I’d nearly forgotten. I sprinted over to the bed, my stomach turning over and over like washing sluiced in a pail, threatening to overwhelm me. I didn’t want to touch him, but there was no way of unwinding the cord from his neck without it. I’m sorry, I thought, trying to avoid his dead, empty gaze. Shit, shit, I’m so sorry, Tuhash. The waxy feeling of his skin beneath my fingers as I unwound it was repulsive. You deserved better than this from our country. It was taking too long. Move faster! Fortunes, his face. I’d separated him from the Princess and a few hours later he was dead, a victim of a plot against a family he knew nothing about. I pushed the guilt back down, concentrated on the cord, and then it was free at last. The indignity of leaving him here, vulnerable and half-dressed, seemed a final cruelty. I was able to tug the sheet free and throw it over him, covering up to his shoulders. It wasn’t much, but it was all I could do for him now.

  INCIDENT: Poisoning of Sjemma “Meg” Iliri, Heir to Chancellor Jay Iliri

  POISON: Bluehood

  INCIDENT NOTES: On tour of Moncasta, the Heir’s recurring long-term illness suddenly increased in severity. Two days later the Heir was urgently returned by boat to Silasta after displaying additional motor weakness, vomiting, and diarrhea. Physics in Silasta concluded that the local physic in Moncasta, possibly due to pressure of unexpectedly treating the Heir, accidentally administered treatment of bluehood instead of sunfinger tincture to ease symptoms, thus causing the additional damage. Heir made full recovery and incident was deemed accidental.

  (from proofing notes of Credola Robynn Oromani)

  7

  Jovan

  This time when I woke up and saw a figure by my bed, I did not assume it was a physic. Instead, I feigned sleep, and stole a hand to my waist to retrieve a weapon sooner rather than later. But there was nothing there. My chest was bare and my clothes, pouches and all, gone. That blow struck hard, but weapons or not, this time I wouldn’t wait around to have more control ceded from me. I rolled hard to the opposite side of the bed and almost sent myself crashing out. Firm hands caught and steadied me.

  “It’s all right, Jov. You’re safe.” My sister’s voice, it was definitely my sister’s voice. My vision blurred and wobbled and then cleared.

  “Lini,” I said, and my eyes felt suddenly wet. “It’s really you.”

  “It’s really me.” A smile in her voice even though her expression was serious. She took my hand and smoothed my hair back from my forehead. We were in my bedchamber, and the lamp was lit; it was not
yet dawn. Also there, watchful and solemn, was the physic Thendra; I blinked a few times to make sure it was really her, this time. Hadrea hovered on the other side of the bed. She looked terrible, her hair matted and face smeared with the remnants of face paint. She was wearing a plain dress I recognized as Kalina’s, and I caught a faint hint of woodsmoke as she shifted.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked. Confused, messy memories of the last day tumbled back. “And Dija, where’s Dija? Is she all right?”

  Hadrea had a strange expression on her face as she perched awkwardly by the side of the pallet, but her voice was gentle. “I am not hurt. I was just inadequately dressed.” She shot Thendra a look, then added, “And yes, Dee is fine. She is asleep now. She was frightened and worried half to death but none of them ever saw her. She has more stealth in her than you do, Jovan.”

  I managed a smile at the longstanding joke. “Wouldn’t be hard.”

  “No.” The silence following turned brittle; Hadrea and Kalina exchanged a look, but neither spoke.

  Thendra handed me a cup of water, which I gratefully drank and only half-spilled. “You are asking about everyone else, Credo. It is for you that I have been dragged from my patients in the middle of the night.”

  Experimentally, I tried moving various body parts. My arms and hands felt fine, but moving my left ankle made me wince, and I could not take a deep breath without several sharp pains in my chest. I’d damaged ribs before, and had not particularly wanted to repeat the sensation. Thendra watched me wince and pulled away the bed coverings to examine my ankle. “It is swollen,” she said. “But I do not think there is a broken bone. Now you are awake, I would recommend submerging your foot in a bucket of water, to keep it cool. The ribs—” She gestured to the bruising already visible on my skin. “—there is not so much I can do for you. There is a bruising poultice by the bed.” She frowned. “I was also informed you had substances in your system, yes?”