“Come here.” Catching me by the waist, he drew me to him. “Lovely,” he whispered, brushing his knuckles over my cheek. Slowly, almost reverently, he kissed the corner of my mouth.
“Promise me,” he said, and I closed my eyes. Something in me went instinctively rigid at the sight of his false face, which I associated with all the ugliness that had passed between us over the years. But the sound of his unchanged voice reached deep inside me, to a soft and tender place.
“Promise you what?” I murmured.
“Whatever happens, do everything to survive it.”
I opened my eyes and looked into his. “Both of us will,” I said in a hard voice.
A clattering announced the completion of the docking process. Tyrus’s face went oddly blank; he took a long, steady breath, as though gathering himself.
“Don’t forget this,” he said, pulling away to grab a satchel from a nearby shelf. It was heavy, filled with several books he’d hastily discussed with me this last hour.
I slung it over my shoulder. “Go.”
After one last, too-brief kiss, he turned on his heel and walked away. His posture and gait shifted, his smooth prowl becoming a swagger. His shoulders hunched slightly, conjuring an air of abandon. By his third step, he had effortlessly reinhabited the role of the mad Divine Emperor.
As the doors opened, I darted backward, out of sight of the waiting Grandiloquy who’d gathered in the Valor Novus to greet his return. Tyrus sauntered directly into the crowd, who erupted in cheers. In response, he flung open his arms. Those nearest him promptly hurled themselves to the ground to prostrate themselves, shouting, “Hail to the Divine Emperor! Hail!”
“Your Divine Emperor is back among you,” said Tyrus in a familiar, false, cruel drawl. “He returns from a victory over the venal Partisans, with prisoners in his hold and destruction in his wake. He carries booty plundered from their ships that he wishes to give to his favored few, and yet how is he greeted?” He turned, taking a derisive survey of the groveling Grandiloquy, all of them now rubbing noses with the floor. “Where is the triumphant light show in his honor? Where is the worship for your Divine Emperor’s magnificence?”
As they crawled forward, crying praise for him, reaching out to touch the hem of his coat, revulsion weltered in my stomach. I did not know how Tyrus could endure this.
I emerged from my hiding place to follow Tyrus at a distance. The Grandiloquy were too busy crawling after him to notice me, much less remark my “blasphemy” in having failed to fling myself down like the rest of them.
Their distraction gave me an opportunity to scan the grand, high-ceilinged chamber for possible threats. But no danger lurked in the empty balconies that ringed the room. Meanwhile, some of the Grandiloquy had dared to rise to their knees to ease their shuffling pursuit of Tyrus. Their equanimity astonished me anew. How comfortable they were in worshipping their tyrant! I supposed they’d been bred to it, since for over five hundred years, their ancestors had been obediently placating whichever Domitrian ruled over them.
They must like it, I thought. For when Tyrus and I had challenged this group conformity directly, they’d massed to destroy us.
But now that he demanded their mindless submission, they were eager to provide it, never knowing that in doing so, they were bringing on the very extinction they feared.
I fought down the nagging fears and reassured myself with the sight: he was safe here among them. Of course he was. I could afford to leave him.
It would be difficult.
Tyrus was still addressing the crowd in that bombastic, infuriating voice. “Your Divine Emperor sees your every sin—cowardice foremost among them. You craven curs who fled from battle—were you truly so foolish as to believe I had perished?”
Quick murmurs of denial, though the Grandiloquy had no doubt assumed just that. They had, after all, returned from the chaotic gale to a disarranged Chrysanthemum ringed by dead security bots.
“Here is your punishment,” Tyrus said scathingly. “Your Divine Emperor has commanded all security bots to stand down. He has willed the Chrysanthemum into disorder. And so it will remain, until you do penance.”
As the assembled crowd gamely shifted into proclamations of faith—apparently every one of them had always known he’d return—I quietly slipped past. I aimed myself through familiar corridors, fighting a surreal sense of having slipped back in time as I walked. I’d never expected to set foot in the imperial power center again.
Little had changed. Every face I glimpsed was beautiful, honed to perfection by beauty bots. Every room shone more brightly than the last. I passed diamond-and-crystal windows that winked with prisms, and vast views of the starscape that dizzied those who stared too long. In some rooms, gardens appeared to stretch into a lush, fragrant eternity. Others held makeshift plazas fashioned from jade and malachite, or golden depictions of Domitrians from ages past.
Everything in the Chrysanthemum dazzled the senses. But after years spent among the Excess, the extravagance felt nauseating. I had seen real beauty now—the chaos of planetary weather, untamed animals, flowers growing ragged and wild. The Chrysanthemum drew inspiration from real beauty but concentrated it into overwhelming potency. Flawless faces, sparkling garments, intoxicating scents… everywhere one looked, one saw perfection.
Was it any wonder the Grandiloquy were such empty, hollow people? Ordinary people passed their lives rewarded by the occasional brush with sensory delight, and these brief joys motivated them to endure struggles to find further joy, made all the more satisfying for having been hard-won.
The Grandiloquy, on the other hand, led lives saturated by the rewards they unrestrainedly granted themselves, and they struggled not at all. They squandered fortunes, knowing their wealth could not be exhausted. They intoxicated themselves, knowing the damage could be healed. They lived amid intense beauty, but their appreciation of it was dulled by how easily and often they came by it. When everything was gifted, nothing had value.
Only power was rationed here. So the Grandiloquy worked to gain more of it. Whatever the Domitrian dictate might be, they obeyed it to gain an advantage over each other. Once it had been Randevald demanding enthusiasm for animal blood sports and hatred for the sciences. Now it was Tyrus demanding that they revere him as a god. No matter. No wrong could be done, no punishment suffered, so long as one did not displease the Domitrian in power. From the Domitrian, all things flowed.
I trailed to a stop outside the imperial quarters. After a long hesitation, I stepped inside, making my way by memory toward the privy chamber.
Diamond thrones stood side by side beneath an effervescent stenciling that twined elaborately over the ceiling. I walked up to them, my chest oddly hollow as I touched the gleaming arm of the Empress’s chair.
Once, we’d planned that I would rule alongside Tyrus—that together, we would lead the Empire into a more just and equitable future.
Instead Tyrus had sat alone, looking down on crowds of vapid and venal courtiers, while he wove a grand and glorious plot to destroy himself. Instead, I had forged through bedraggled crowds of strangers on rundown streets, desperate to preserve Anguish, mustering the will to battle the man I loved.
I wanted to smash them, these stupid chairs. Neither of us had wanted them. Tyrus had felt obligated by his debt to those lost on Anagnoresis. And I had felt obligated to him. Stars, stars, how I wished we’d aimed for that black hole outside the Sacred City, after all.
Had we taken that course, we’d have forged into a future in which we were unknown. But if Tyrus succeeded now, the future would remember him too well. He would be reviled as the greatest villain of the Domitrian line—the agent of the Empire’s destruction.
No one would ever know he’d really been the hero, not the villain.
And I did not know if I could save him—from others, and from himself.
So I let go of the throne and backed out of the room. I retraced my steps through the enchanted halls of the Grandiloquy,
until I found the boarding artery that connected the Valor Novus with Gladdic von Aton’s Atlas.
Then, on a bracing breath, I stepped inside to seek my last chance at a kinder fate.
43
“I AM TOLD you are responsible for my rescue.”
I spoke as I stepped into Gladdic’s study. He cast me a distracted glance, before recognizing me through the disguise. He dropped his tablet and shot to his feet, clutching his chest as though to hold in his heart.
I stopped, dismayed by his obvious fear. “Are you all right?”
“Nemesis!” He flew across the room and grabbed me into a hug. “You’re alive! You’re all right. Thank the stars.…”
As I returned the hug, he spilled a frenzied story into my ear—his panic upon escaping the Arbiter, being found by Tyrus’s ships before he’d decided what to do next, taken forcibly into custody.… “The Emperor paced,” he told me, “as I recounted what I’d seen. I tell you, it distressed him to know you were in danger. I was certain he would have me hurled out an air lock, or crushed in the gravital chamber, but then… he just seemed to forget I existed.”
“How lucky for you,” I said dryly.
“Lucky!” He drew back, gawking at me. “I felt the farthest thing from lucky, let me assure you! His servants brought me back here while he departed with as many vessels as he could muster. When they returned without him, without you…” His hands were shaking on my shoulders. “Nemesis, I’m so glad you’re alive.”
“I was never in any danger,” I told him.
Tears blurred his bright green eyes. “What? But I—she was going to kill you!”
I gently took his hands, then led him back to his seat at the desk. I’d rehearsed this story several times on my walk here.
“The Partisans didn’t kill Anguish,” I said. “They… they fooled me as well.” It seemed more efficient, and also kinder, to persuade him that we’d both been kept in the dark. “You see, they wanted you to get the impression I was in danger so you’d inform the Emperor. In truth, Neveni had prepared a trap for Tyrus. She revealed it to me after you escaped.”
“What?” Gladdic knuckled his eyes. “So you weren’t… harmed?”
“No. When I learned what she had planned, I decided to help her.”
“But you’re here. The Emperor is here!”
“The plan to defeat the Emperor was only partially successful, Gladdic. But it was partially. Surely you can see that.” I looked meaningfully out the window, which offered a view of the disorganized arrangement of the Chrysanthemum’s vessels.
“Oh,” Gladdic murmured. “He…” He seemed fearful to say it. “The machines… he no longer controls them?”
“He denies it to the Grandiloquy, but yes, he lost his connection to them. Nevertheless, he survived the attack. He captured me. He holds Neveni and Anguish as well. I think he intends to kill them. He…” I made a delicate pause. “He believes the best of me. I suspect he is still in love with me.”
Gladdic gave a soft laugh. “That became obvious when I told him what had befallen you.”
His gaze was tender with compassion for me, and I found myself remembering why I’d chosen Gladdic.
It was this empathetic quality, vanishingly rare among the Grandiloquy, that distinguished him.
He had other strengths too. The time he’d served as Tyrus’s propagandist told me he was easily coached and able to convincingly deliver words scripted for him.
The Excess trusted him, though he was Grandiloquy. He was the only member of the elite who could claim widespread support and acceptance among the galactic masses. But he also remained friends with many of his high-born peers. The way he straddled the class divide meant it was unlikely he’d lead or support the Excess in an all-out genocide following the overthrow of the Grandiloquy—something I could not say for Neveni.
He was kind and merciful. He would consider the perspectives of those he fundamentally disagreed with and take time to explain his own position to them too.
Gladdic had no lust for power. He would not use his new stature or exploit his popularity to seize the throne. I knew in my heart he’d turn down any exalted title or position, unlike many who would covet power the moment they overthrew it.
And most importantly, most critical of all:
Gladdic was not me.
I did not want to stand before recorders and make a case for liberty. I had no desire to motivate the great multitudes of this galaxy to join together to destroy the man I loved. I did not want to weaponize their anger and hatred against someone I wished to protect, nor did I desire them to scream, “Nemesis lives!” as I issued marching orders for this parody of a conflict, one in which the outcome had already been decided by the ultimate target of its aggression.
I wanted to stay in the shadows, close to Tyrus, watching him weave his own downfall and that of his Empire, while using Gladdic as his puppet. Then, when the winds turned violent, I would seize him and extract him from the eye of his storm. We would escape together and let these people sort out their new galaxy all on their own.
I would not accept, as Tyrus had, that his survival was inevitably futile—that he could not transform the galaxy without being destroyed by it. Nor would I reduce myself to a tool for those who hated him, who wanted vengeance for all the wrongs that had warped their lives. Darkness had been gathering for centuries now, and absolutely no part of me wished to catalyze this anger—not after that day at the Clandestine Repository, where I’d had my final brush with pure, unleashed brutality.
There was a better way, one more to my liking.
And stars help me, I had found it.
This responsibility would not be mine.
It would be Gladdic’s.
It was my private hope that when the time came for Tyrus’s downfall, I could leverage my influence with Gladdic to ensure Tyrus’s escape. I’d find a way.
“Gladdic,” I said now, “sometimes when I was troubled, Sidonia would read to me. I know you did the same for Tyrus when he was indisposed. Would you indulge me now?”
“Of course, Nemesis,” he said kindly.
“You’ll need to translate. I don’t speak the ancient languages myself.”
I tugged the satchel off my shoulder and extracted the first of the books Tyrus had given me.
This galaxy is going to need to rediscover the principles of the Enlightenment if we’re to move to a freer system, Tyrus told me. There are certain fundamental ideas in representative government that have been tried and tested in history, so Gladdic needs to be exposed to the intellectual thought that birthed past democracies and republics. Start him with this book.
“Do you know ancient languages?” I handed him the book.
He had to be familiar with them. The virtual educational programs young Grandiloquy undertook always included Heritage Studies and taught a basic understanding of the dominant tongues spoken by the early settlers. I’d listened to Sidonia practice those unknown syllables for hours on end.
Gladdic took the book from me and flipped through the pages. “Yes, I know this one—English.” His brows furrowed. “Where did you get this?”
It took me a moment to think of a believable lie. “From Donia. She told me once this was… was the sort of philosophy that should shape the future.”
“John Locke. Two Treatises of Government.”
I flung myself down onto a nearby divan. “Translate it for me.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“It’s long.”
“Start at the beginning. We have time.”
Gladdic eyed me uncertainly, and then he settled down next to me and began to translate, reading the original language aloud before roughly interpreting it. He had fallen into a hypnotic rhythm by the time he reached the sentence: “ ‘All peaceful beginnings of government have been laid in the consent of the people…’ ”
Then Gladdic fell silent.
“What’s wrong?”
He fingered
the corner of the page. “This is a book of democratic thought. The Emperor would not like us reading this.”
“He will never know. I told you, he’s lost his control of his machines. He isn’t watching us now. Keep reading, please.”
He considered me for a long, doubtful moment. Then, after a glance out the window at the broken Chrysanthemum to reassure himself, he forged onward shakily.
And I listened to him read, hoping the words were being embedded in his memory. You do not need to believe these sentiments, Gladdic, or even like them, I thought to him. But learn the words and you will be able to speak them.
By the time he was prepared for his role, he’d have the weapons in hand that could remake an entire galaxy.
* * *
It was the first book I made Gladdic read me, but not the last.
Pasus had destroyed many of Tyrus’s volumes, so he had to search to unearth works by Thomas Paine, by John Stuart Mill, and other ancients. Most he found in electronic archives and funneled them to me, whereupon I found more reasons “Donia” had been interested in them, and made Gladdic read and discuss them with me.
Some of the works were old national constitutions. Gladdic spent a long evening with me using a service bot to translate the ancient language of French.
“ ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’ is all well and good, but the French Revolution became a mass slaughter with guillotines,” Gladdic remarked to me. “And the American republic eventually morphed into an undeclared oligarchy with a repressive surveillance state.”
“It doesn’t change the purity of the sentiment that birthed those representative governments,” I said to him. “We can repeat what was done correctly in the past without making the same mistakes they did.”
Doubt flickered over Gladdic’s face, but he read the rest.
So I passed the next weeks, updating Tyrus periodically—but mostly keeping my distance so as to conceal our secrets. Tyrus found me one evening after I’d donned a servant’s gear and slipped into the ball dome, posing as a maintenance worker—a necessary function now that his control over the bots was gone. We’d arranged many such discreet meetings, and I updated him on Gladdic’s progress.
The Nemesis Page 29