by E G Manetti
Sevenday 59, Day 2
“Blooded Dagger!” Nickolas leaps to his feet in delighted affirmation of Blooded Dagger’s success in the annual Scoring. He is immediately joined by Irina, the other protégés, associates, and apprentices.
Lilian cheers as loudly as a grinning Rebecca while Chrys stamps his feet. In front of them, Tabitha jostles Gil, who is oddly silent. Shaking himself like a wet dog, Gil shouts, “Blooded Dagger!”
He is almost immediately challenged by Fletcher, rejoicing at his cartouche’s victory over Grey Spear. “Iron Hammer!”
Clarice leaps to her feet, screaming for her new cartouche. “Iron Hammer!”
“Grey Spear!” Martin’s affirmation is more snarl than war cry. He and his cartouche have been defeated for the second year running. It matters not that they placed well ahead of the Cartel associates and apprentices. To be third among the three Cartouche is to lose.
Lilian silently savors Martin’s humiliation. It is a small, petty retribution for his viciousness toward her and others. It is retribution all the same.
“He’s going to get the rough side of Monsignor Sebastian’s will,” Rebecca exults, as delighted as Lilian at Martin’s shame and for nearly as much cause.
“We must avoid him as best we can,” Chrys puts in wisely.
“Well spoken, Chrys,” Vicenza adds. “He will be nastier than ever for the next sevenday. Mayhap the next month.”
»◊«
“…Crevasse?” milord rumbles under Lilian’s ear, dragging her from the pleasant fog of her afterglow. Milord, in turn, is stretched out on the couch, one hand stroking her spine while the other traces abstract patterns on her buttocks. The success of the Scoring has the entire Cartouche smiling. Milord’s pleasure was prolonged and intense. She can only hope it has alleviated milord’s displeasure over Andreas.
Forcing herself to focus, Lilian attempts to recall the question. Something about the Great Crevasse. The demonstration. Seigneur Solomon has invited Lilian to tour the Great Crevasse and witness the demonstration of a new cutting tool.
Raising her head to meet milord’s gaze, Lilian responds, “If it pleases milord, I would like to attend.”
“Why is that? It is not required by your duties.” Lucius is well aware his apprentice finds the Great Crevasse disquieting. He cannot imagine why she would willingly enter it. “Few go willingly into the mine. The refineries are more agreeable, although many find the astringent odors unpleasant.”
“Vistrite is the foundation of all that is Cartouche and Cartel, milord. How could I not wish to see it?” It is not the Great Crevasse itself that disquiets Lilian. It is the night vista from milord’s penthouse that disturbs her, the illusion of the abyss created when the starlit night sky and the artificially lighted Crevasse merge as one. Ever since milord entrusted her with Desperation, Lilian has longed to inspect the creation of refined Vistrite.
“There cannot be a complete understanding with visuals only, milord. Visuals omit a great deal, including astringent scents.” Lilian unconsciously wrinkles her nose in anticipation.
It has been years since Lucius entered a mine or a refinery. He well recalls the same need to truly know the source of the wealth that has made his Cartouche and Cartel among the most important in the Twelve Systems. That his apprentice shares his fascination pleases Lucius. That she is willing to overcome her strange fear of the Crevasse pleases him more. “You have my leave to attend the demonstration. I will be interested in your thoughts afterwards.”
“My thanks, milord,” Lilian offers properly. She cannot resist the urge to lightly rub her breasts against milord’s nude torso.
Lucius revels in the wanton movement of Lilian’s breasts against his chest and the resulting pleasant tickle in his loins. Truly, there is no need to humiliate her further. Although, he will reinforce his will and ownership. “Tomorrow you are to be a Raven from the skin out.”
Skin out? Milord has released his displeasure? Warily eyeing milord, Lilian hazards, “The black lace is very soft.”
“It is my will.” Milord’s expression is as stern as his tone.
Milord has not completely released his displeasure. It is grace enough. “Yes, milord.”
»◊«
A black cloud obscures the heavy red sun hovering over the distant hills beyond the city. The storms of the dry season are brief, violent, and lacking in moisture. Turning the large, comfortably upholstered chair to fully view the expanse beyond his windows, Lucius sips icy citrus vodka as he awaits the pyrotechnics.
Turning her chair to face Lucius’ profile, Mistress Marieth continues her commentary on cartel gossip. “Seigneur Garwynn’s minions continue to torment Mistress Daphne. She bears it well, but it is becoming ludicrous.”
“Daphne?” Lucius turns the name over before he recalls, “The senior associate who aided Lilian when Martin went for her in the training chamber?”
Marieth nods as she takes a small sip of sherry. “Yes, Monsignor.”
“Did you not recommend we leave her in Garwynn’s jurisdiction on the belief Grey Spear would release its spite after a season?” The darkening storm over the hills finds an echo in Lucius’ frown.
Silver haired at twenty-five, Marieth’s silken locks are spun platinum at eighty. Lucius is certain she enhances her pale tresses as part of her intimidation tactics. Tactics she learned from a master when she apprenticed to Lucius’ grandsire, Jonah, who at the time was eighty-three and the Blooded Dagger and Serengeti Preeminence.
Of Marieth’s apprenticeship, Lucius knows nothing beyond the Cartel records, which are suspiciously sterile. In that, they are not unlike Lilian’s, which reveal no hint of her involvement with the counterfeiters, the initiation of Mercium, or the continuing search for the traitor. Lucius’ first recall of Marieth is of a composed woman in her early forties who guided his twelve-year-old self around the Serengeti. The newly named heir, Lucius was fascinated by Vistrite and dismissed associate gossip as unimportant. Since then, he has learned its value.
“Blooded Dagger’s increased ascendance has increased Grey Spear’s spite,” Marieth states. “Mistress Daphne’s situation is an excellent barometer of their frustration.”
Red and green daggers shoot from the purple cloud above the hills. A moment later, a series of hollow booms sound against the windows. Lucius fingers steeple as he considers his options. The associate’s loyalty to Blooded Dagger was proven with her defense of Lilian. She deserves better than misuse at Grey Spear’s whim. Extending his shadow to protect her within the headquarters will cause more problems than it solves, however. “Have Hadrian offer her a position in Blooded Dagger operations on the Southern Continent. Something with appropriate advancement.”
“As you will.” Marieth finishes her sherry.
“Is there aught else?” Lucius asks absently, riveted by a cascade of red and green lightning bolts.
“No, Monsignor.” Marieth rises to set her glass aside for the cleansing crew and to refill Lucius’ glass.
“Thank you, Marieth.” Lucius’ smiling dismissal reflects his appreciation for her decades of devoted service in all its forms.
As the scarlet door recesses behind Marieth, Lucius turns his attention back to the storm. With a final stutter of red and green, the dark cloud scatters to vapor, and the heavy sun emerges, if anything hotter for the interference.
Three warning pings announce the arrival of Lucius’ next visitor. Swiveling from the windows, Lucius waves Trevelyan toward the beverage console.
Briefly, Trevelyan hesitates before nodding and complying with the familiar ritual. We began as cosmic dust. Trevelyan reaches for the single malt, using the small task to gather his composure. Lucius’ after-commerce invitations are a random and informal ritual offered to a select few. Other than Lucius’s trusted kinsmen Marco and Solomon, only Marieth and Trevelyan are offered such familiarity.
We are formed of stellar glitter. Whether due to the Shades’ Grace or Universal Balance, Lucius exten
ded this invitation when Trevelyan needed it. What Trevelyan must reveal, Lucius will not find pleasant.
Turning from the console, Trevelyan remains standing as he takes a deep swallow of single malt.
Straightening in his chair, Lucius demands, “What have you?”
Loosely clasping his glass in his hands, Trevelyan leans back against the console as he asks with deceptive casualness, “Has Monsignor reviewed the visual record of Remus Gariten’s Final Draught?”
“To what purpose?” Lucius starts. It is enough the criminal is dead. “I have no interest in Gariten’s last words.”
“The visual runs forty minutes.”
With Trevelyan’s statement, Lucius’ interest sharpens. “Forty? The official record cited the customary fifteen.”
Both the militia guard and Lilian testified to the customary fifteen minutes when they sealed the record.
“Forty minutes, not fifteen,” Trevelyan reiterates somberly.
Demon shit! Lucius straightens in his chair, tension replacing his former relaxation. A perjury conviction could send Lilian to the Final Draught. To take such a risk, to falsify an official record, she must have desperately wished to avoid the scrutiny that would have followed a forty-minute execution. Abandoning his chair, Lucius moves to the scarlet couch and wall reviewer. “Show me.”
Wordlessly, Trevelyan follows Lucius to the couch and engages the reviewer.
The image forms revealing a small, windowless chamber with the riveted, gray metal walls. The incarceration cell holds a man in his early seventies, shackled at the ankle to a chair bolted to the floor. Attractive enough in his youth, age has not favored him. His once-athletic build is heavyset, and the full, wavy black hair has thinned and receded, revealing a mottled scalp. Watery blue eyes and sharp, narrow features hold enough malice to poison the water supply of a good-sized planet. To the right of the condemned man, a glass tube filled with the bright blue liquid of the Final Draught sits on a metal stand.
As the door opens, the angle shifts, placing Gariten in profile at the left side of the image. From the right, Lilian enters, dressed in black battle garb, a sheathed thorn on her left hip, her face set in the closed, stoic lines Lucius is coming to dislike. Behind her, appearing closer to nine than eleven, Katleen clings to Helena, the seer garbed in the distinctive flowing peridot-green robes of Sinead’s prelates. Bringing up the rear is a man in the uniform of a First System militia corporal.
Wordlessly, Lilian halts in front of Gariten, Helena and Katleen tight behind her in a frozen tableau. With a snarl, Gariten breaks the silence. “Worthless, misbegotten doxy, you have not won. You defied me from the day of your birth with your useless sex.”
Spittle forming on his lips, Gariten rises menacingly from his chair, crowding close to Lilian. “Sold it, I did. You will be worth something yet.”
One hand whips out to strike and falls short of Lilian’s face by less than an inch, evidence that she knew enough to stand out of range.
“Think your ridiculous Adelaide can stand against the eldest forces that ride me? You cannot fathom the shame that will be yours. The glory it will birth. You should have yielded to my will. Your defiance will be rewarded with pain and humiliation. You could have had power and place. You will be used and discarded, and serve you justly it will. You are naught but—”
“Socraide’s sword!” Lucius hisses.
“He is a foul one,” Trevelyan agrees tightly. The visual is no more pleasant on a second viewing.
“The abyss calls to Lilian. It will have her and hide her,” Helena intones, interrupting the tirade. Her unfocused gaze moves between her daughters. “Evil cannot hunt what it does not recognize. The brightest star will break your blackness and close the rift.”
Her voice rising in volume and pitch, Helena points at Gariten. “Reynald will rise. Your seed will die. The guardian will be preeminent, and the abyss will swallow all your dark confederates.”
Reaching back toward her younger daughter, Helena demands, “Katleen, have you my harp? We must sing to Sinead, she and Adelaide are kindred. They will use the past to protect the future. Have you my lute? Sinead requires our song.”
“Maman, do not. It will end soon.” The little girl tugs desperately on her mother’s hand.
“Regard the militia guard, Monsignor.” Trevelyan halts the display.
The corporal’s eyes are fixed on Lilian. His face is contorted with excitement and lust, one hand rubbing his crotch. The deviant is enjoying Lilian’s abuse, hoping to see her break. He has ignored his duty and allowed the ugly scene to play out well past stricture to feed his arousal. Such appalling perversion is the stuff of lurid entertainment. It is sickening to find it in an official execution.
At Lucius’ nod, the visual restarts.
“Useless, faithless vessel.” Gariten turns on his wife, spitting in her direction. “You betrayed me with two girls. You defied me with your silence. I should have broken you sooner. Think your treacherous Warrior can protect you? My forces will take you and the Shade of that ancient whore. I should have fed you to my need long ago. You have brought me to this. I will have retribution. You will beg for your shame to end in death. You and that mongrel bitch you whelped second.”
Gariten turns toward Katleen, who has gone pale to the lips, horror in every line of her body, tears streaming down her face. “I will see her—”
In a movement stunning in its force and swiftness, Lilian launches herself at the man who sired her, using her momentum to slam him back into the chair. One knee on his groin, the other leg braced on the floor, Lilian has her left forearm across his throat, her thorn pointed at his eye.
“Drink. Drink or I will take your filthy tongue and your eyes and force it down your throat.” Their eyes lock, and Gariten gathers for further histrionics.
Lilian will have it not. “Do it, and I will take your manhood before all else.”
The thorn scratches from Gariten’s eye to lip opening a bloody line. Deflating with the seeping blood, Gariten reaches for the tube. Lilian eases back the bare minimum needed to allow him to open his mouth and pour the bright blue liquid down his throat.
Stepping back, Lilian wipes her thorn on Gariten’s prison tunic before she returns the blade to its sheath. Helena and Katleen, the girl still streaming tears, huddle behind Lilian. In less than a minute, the criminal’s chest ceases to rise. The eyes stare, and the crotch of the dead man’s trousers darkens and starts to drip.
Striding forward, the guard accosts Lilian. “Foul, tainted slut. Know you the penalty for your actions?”
Unlike most other annihilation crimes, the death of patricide is primitive and unpleasant. While Lilian did not fulfill her threat and pour the Final Draught down Gariten’s throat, she has broken more taboos than can be named by threatening her sire and drawing his blood. That he is a condemned criminal does not release Lilian from the obligations of blood.
Face expressionless, Lilian replies, “Know you the penalty for failing in your duty?”
The corporal’s role is to ensure a swift execution in compliance with custom and stricture. To force it, if necessary, using the conveniently shaped vial. By allowing the ugly confrontation to play out, he has violated more taboos than Lilian and failed in his duty. That last could earn the guard his own Final Draught.
For several breaths, the two stare at each other. The guard breaks first. He pulls out a slate, makes a few quick taps, and encodes his seal. Turning the tool, he presents it to Lilian. She peruses it carefully, nods, and seals it, giving her oath to both the contents and the falsified timestamp. Placing an arm around her mother and sister to escort them from the chamber, Lilian says, “We are done here.”
“Does that guard still live, he should not.” Lucius cannot decide which causes him greater anger, the pervert’s behavior or that he has knowledge so dangerous to Lilian. Although Lilian did not follow through, her threats alone could compromise her trial. Perjuring an official record would end it. If this ugly
event comes to light after her trial, her integrity would be forever in question and her commerce future limited. “This is the only visual record?”
“It will be my honor to attend to the guard.” Trevelyan’s clipped tones rival his lord’s. “Monsignor owns the only visual record of these events.”
“It is well,” Lucius murmurs. “There is no question that Gariten’s ashes were scattered in the void between planets?”
“None, Monsignor,” Trevelyan affirms. “Both the public entries and visuals confirm the routine validation of death, cremation, and disposal.”
“Good,” Lucius nods. As long as there is no question that Gariten is dead, no one will care about the manner of the man’s passing. It is unlikely anyone will ever seek the visual record. If they do, its absence will be dismissed as a clerical error. There is little risk to Lilian.
Relief that Lilian is protected tempers Lucius’ rage at the soon-to-be-dead corporal. Sipping his now-tepid beverage, Lucius frowns and discards it. With relief has come curiosity. Stalking to the windows and the blood-red sky of the setting sun, Lucius demands, “Who else knows of this? How knew you to seek this?”
Cradling the single malt in his palms, Trevelyan follows Lucius to the windows. “I enjoyed an interesting visit with Mistress Katleen when I went to rid us of Andreas Chiang. She gave me cause to believe that events were irregular and that Lilian’s participation was more than that of a witness.”