Old friend. Kazu thinks I’m my father when he’s not lucid, he realized.
Kazu rested a gentle hand on his arm. “Look,” he said, indicating the screen. There as a small black dot in the distance. “The portal. Your father and I traveled through it a thousand times. You’ll do the same.”
He stared at the tiny black circle. They were still hours away, but he felt the sudden weight of expectations fall on his shoulders. Karsath’s, Kazu’s ... and his father’s.
“Listen closely to me, Southwark, if you want to survive the day, and renew your father’s legacy.”
They were closer to the portal now, its dark mouth seeming to expand as the Satori drew near. He fixed his eyes on it, losing himself in its emptiness.
I may not survive this. Standing inside the cage, his pulse quickened at the thought. Kazu had hammered it into his head that failure inside the portal put not only the ships he was controlling at risk—but his own life as well.
“Tadao would have given his life a thousand times over if he could have spared the lives of the soldiers he killed during a crossing,” said Kazu. “But he did fail, from time to time, when his control faltered. En route to the annexation of Senorat, fifty-four warships vanished into nothing.” Kazu snapped his fingers. “Just dust and vapor. He told me later that he happened to think of his mother on approach to the portal. It ruined him, and it dealt a blow to the fleet that it almost didn’t recover from.”
“Senorat?” He closed his hands around the blades of the cage. The planet was one of the core worlds. It was hard to imagine the planet ever having been annexed.
“Yes, Senorat. He pulled through the portal with half the number of ships with which he entered. It devastated the fleet, even though the battle was won.” Kazu studied him. “The foolishness of youth,” he said. “There were other mistakes. But Senorat was the worst, and left the deepest scars in your father. It was a long time before I could convince him to join in another annexation.”
“You’re two thousand years old?” he asked Kazu, his face straight. If Kazu was lying ... it was one hell of a lie.
Kazu smiled grimly. “More or less, boy,” he said. “Though have no fear. I’m no god. This body will die just as yours will, if you fail—but of course, you will not.”
“Karsath said I would not be permitted to die,” he said. “What did he mean, Kazu?”
The old man’s gaze didn’t waver. “You will not fail,” he said, evading the question. “I know you will not.”
“I’m not ready,” he said. “I can still sense it ... the fear.” The rage, his mind added silently.
“To feel an emotion is not the same as being controlled by it. You cannot control your emotions or your instincts. All you control is your response.” He moved towards the cage. There was a gleam in his hand. He raised the knife he always carried with him. “How many times have you felt the bite of my blade against your jugular? If you had allowed panic to take control of you, boy, you would have bled out inside the Satori a long time ago.”
He stilled himself, refusing to flinch before Kazu’s dagger. “You’d risk your life for this?” he asked, aghast. “This is reckless.”
Kazu smiled. “Reckless. Yes. I’ve risked my life on less worthy men and bloodlines,” he said. “But I have put my faith in the Southwark line, and it seems to me that the finest parts of your father have bred true in you.”
He glimpsed the portal over Kazu’s shoulder. “I suppose we’ll find out sooner rather than later,” he intoned, dread coiling in the pit of his stomach.
The vast bulk of the Satori began to accelerate as it drew near the portal.
“Remember what I’ve taught you,” Kazu said. “Empty your mind of thoughts at the moment we cross into the portal. Think of nothing, and hold still. And then—open your consciousness. Let everything in. If you did it right, nothing will escape you.”
He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the abyss yawning before them. “You’re not making any sense.”
Kazu chuckled low in his throat. “I suppose I’m not. I’m only telling you what your father told me about entering the portal. But you will either do as I have said, or you won’t.”
“I’m not ready. Slow the ship down and pull her away.”
“No,” Kazu said. “The more memories you create, boy, the more things that you remember ... and the riskier this first attempt becomes. It is good that they delivered you to me without real memories or attachments. You have felt it, haven’t you? The artificiality of your memories after the synaptic transfer. You have no attachments. The lack of an identity frees you.”
“Then why didn’t you take me here immediately?”
Kazu’s eyes were hooded. “I had to make sure you were who you appeared to be,” he said. “Only for a Southwark would I be willing to risk everything.”
“You’re a fool,” he said, surprised at the venom in his own voice.
Kazu drew back as if he’d struck him. “Ah,” he said, a smile returning to his lips. “That spirit. You are indeed your father’s son.”
He listened to his breath, drawing it out as the Satori raced towards the pitch-black circle. He tried to keep his mind empty—and was failing.
Obliteration. Total obliteration. That’s what’s going to happen.
Kazu stood next to him, saying nothing now. The trial would soon begin.
The nose of the Satori angled up—the darkness grew, the mouth of the portal seemed to widen.
He took one last ragged breath.
The portal swallowed the Satori.
He exhaled, but there seemed to be no air in his lungs. He was in a place of smothering darkness.
Am I inside? He willed his eyes to open, but he wasn’t sure if he was really seeing with his eyes.
Obliteration, his mind thought. Suddenly, everything seemed to dim, as if he truly was being suffocated.
He could feel everything vibrating, as if drawing on his fear and fury.
The ship could come apart, he thought. Dust and vapor, like Kazu said ...
The thought of Kazu suddenly braced him. He remembered the old man’s ice blue eyes, his kind-cruel laugh, the feeling of his knife at his throat.
The knife. Don’t let the fear control you, he said. He clung to the words.
In that moment, he saw his own fear, as if from a great height. He divorced himself from it by pure force of will.
Where am I?
It seemed to him that he still stood inside the cage. Its blades were curved, but they still held as he grasped them. Everything around him seemed to be distorted, as if reality had suddenly gained an extra dimension.
He looked beyond the cage. Kazu stood there, his eyes staring into nothing, his body frozen.
But I can move. He sluggishly raised a hand towards his face, but it was difficult. He noticed a strange pressure on his consciousness now. It was growing more urgent. He didn’t have long here, he realized.
There was more to this place, he observed, with what remained of his logical mind. Dark and light. Shades of black.
It was beginning to affect his consciousness. It shattered the identity he’d built with his artificial memories. The thoughts and memories he’d been given seemed to cut into his awareness as if they were parasites and foreign bodies that his mind was now rejecting.
I can’t, he thought. Can’t ...
His vision blurred.
“Southwark,” he heard the familiar voice say. “We’re alive.” There was elation in that voice, as if something unexpected had happened.
Kazu’s face came into focus. The man stood in front of the cage, his hands grasping the bars. “Southwark!” he said.
His head ached. He was slumped at the bottom of the cage, his head resting against the blades. The metal was painfully unyielding but he didn’t care.
“What was that?” he rasped out. “What I saw. In the portal.”
Kazu’s face grew serious. “That, my boy, was darkspace,” he said.
“I di
dn’t like it,” he said bluntly. “I almost—we almost died in there. I almost lost control.”
“Ah, but here we are,” said Kazu. “You survived, and brought the ship through in one piece. The trial is complete. You’ve passed.”
There was a faint, bitter taste of bile in the back of his mouth. “I’m a Southwark,” he whispered.
“You are,” said Kazu, a mix of pride and satisfaction in his voice. He moved towards the navigational controls. “Now, a new day dawns.”
“What happens now?”
“Now you must master darkspace,” said Kazu. “We’ll re-enter the portal. Again, and again, until you understand it and gain full control of your abilities. Until you are ready to take through an entire fleet. Only then will you leave Arkona, and only then will you take your place in the Empire.”
He drew himself up slowly, his jaw clenched tight against the throbbing in his skull. His thoughts and memories were bleeding.
As the Satori drifted towards the portal again, he wondered how long it would be before he went insane.
Chapter 27
“You cannot leave this room,” he warned her. “Do you understand me? Stay here until I return. No wife or concubine is allowed beyond her master’s quarters without an escort. And the last thing we need is for you to end up in an interrogation chair in the Imperial Citadel, of all places.”
“I can do more outside this room than in,” she argued. “Time is limited, and the data terminal here is too restrictive. I need to connect to the mainframe if I can—”
“You’ll do no such thing,” he said, leveling a stern finger at her. “Not without my direct supervision.”
She shoved his hand away. “Don’t underestimate me,” she warned.
“Judging by what happened on Alpha Station, I’m in no danger of doing that,” he said. “I don’t know when I’ll return, or what particular duty Karsath has for me. All I know is that when I return, you will be here. And the door locks will be untouched.”
“You don’t trust me,” she said. “Do you?”
He rubbed his temples. “No,” he said. “Because, my dear, you strike me as being infatuated with this boy. And being in love will make a person do supremely irrational things.”
“I would do this even if Conrad weren’t a factor,” she countered, a second too quickly.
“Perhaps. But you are compromised by your emotions.” He studied her face, his expression softening just an iota. “Believe me, my lady, I understand a thing or two about that.”
She folded her arms, unwilling to meet his eye.
He sighed and lifted up her chin with the tips of his fingers. “If you do this,” he warned, “you put everything at risk. Your mind. My ship. Your ship. Qloe Apta. Conrad Redeker. The whole damned Federation. Listen to me, Jira Tai, and obey.”
Obey. The word stung. Jira watched him leave, her eyes burning into the steel doors that closed behind him.
He can’t possibly think I’m going to do that, can he?
An unshakable sense of doom descended on Tarillion as he left his quarters.
The girl can’t be trusted. He’d locked her in, but there was no doubt that she was skilled enough to break through them if she wanted. He hoped that his final admonition was enough to keep her from doing anything rash, but he had a sinking suspicion that he would return to an empty room.
His hands curled into fists. He forced them to relax as he approached his destination. He forced his features to settle into a neutral mask as the guard outside admitted him into Admiral Karsath’s war room at the heart of the Citadel.
As far as Tarillion knew, the Lord High Admiral couldn’t read minds—though it certainly seemed that way, at times. He exhaled slowly. Let Karsath see that he was nervous. That was no lie. He had never been able to feel fully at ease in the admiral’s presence.
Karsath was sitting in his chair, surrounded by holographic reports and images, all of which he dismissed with the wave of a hand as Tarillion approached, his hands clasped respectfully behind his back. He gave a slight bow and waited.
“Ah, Captain Tarillion,” said Karsath. “Welcome back to Secundus. You’ve been away too long.” Tarillion didn't miss the touch of reproach in his greeting.
“There was a small insurrection on Seo Cire after the last Vehn attack,” he explained. “I was forced to return there for pacification. The natives want more protection against future Vehn incursions.”
“Conquered people are never content. Send ships, and they’ll complain of cruelty and oppression; take them away, and they’ll claim we’re leaving them undefended.”
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” said Tarillion, his head still lowered.
“You are correct,” said Karsath. “And I hope to resolve such problems as that within my lifetime.”
Tarillion dared to raise his eyes. “With the boy I delivered to you, sir?”
Karsath smiled, his eyes gleaming as if sharing a secret. “Yes. Precisely.”
His mind raced. What could he find out about Redeker without implicating himself in treason?
“Is he on Secundus, sir?”
“No.” Karsath dismissed the question. “He’s somewhere—safe. Far away from here, being trained. I understand that it’s going well. You’re to be commended, again, for bringing him to me.”
Tarillion forced down a stab of guilt. “I only did my duty.”
“Yes, and you will be rewarded for it.”
This was his opportunity. “Admiral—I received a notice of reassignment. Before Moruus, you said that if I performed to your satisfaction, I would be permitted to choose my next assignment. The annexation went according to plan, and I returned to the frontier as I requested. I even brought the boy from Seo to Secundus. If I may be so bold, I would like to request a reward for his capture. I hope to serve the Empire by returning to my long-standing patrol circuit on the frontier.” He got it out in one breath.
Karsath’s face went from relaxed to inscrutable in the span of a second. “An interesting request,” he said, his tone giving no clue as to what he meant by interesting. Tarillion held his breath. “Have you not enjoyed the opportunities I’ve given you, Captain? The prestige, the responsibilities?”
“I have, sir,” he said, feeling a bead of sweat slide down his neck. “It has been an immense privilege.”
Karsath settled back in his seat. “Are you aware of what happened to your ... rival? Captain Adon Heik?”
Tarillion could hardly forget Heik’s arrogance, his unwavering determination to defeat him in search of the Locc. Tarillion had won that particular battle, of course, and won Apta’s affections in the process ... but he had simply assumed that Heik had moved on to some other assignment.
“I’m sure he went on to great things,” he said diplomatically.
“Adon Heik is dead,” said Karsath.
Tarillion’s eyes widened. He looked down. “I hadn’t realized,” he murmured. Did he order Heik’s death for failing to find the Locc?
“I sent him to take on a Federation fleet at Baro,” said Karsath. “It was the first battle of our major offensive against the insurgents. We won the fight, but as far as we can tell, the Secace went through a portal and came back through in a spray of dust and subatomic particles.” He folded his hands as he spoke. “But his death confirmed what powers the boy possessed ... and confirmed that he was with the Federation. Heik’s life was not wasted.”
Tarillion swallowed. “I regret his loss,” he said formally.
Karsath inclined his head slightly, accepting the customary expression. “The Federation is on the other side of galaxy,” he said, his voice rising. “They think they have escaped the order of the Empire. But we have the boy, and not a single system will escape Imperial dominion.”
A chill descended on Tarillion. The other side of the galaxy ...
“This next annexation will be an important test,” he said. “As for you, Captain, and the Lusus—you will serve where I see fit. Your assignme
nt to the capital fleet is permanent. And you will serve on the front lines of this annexation.”
Tarillion walked away from Karsath, his steps slow at first.
Death ... reassignment ... annexation. He processed it with grim determination. My crew deserves better than this.
He felt another pang of guilt for pulling the men and women who served on his ship into his own private war. They were faithful to a fault and would follow him to the ends of the universe, even beyond the Empire; but it was his entanglement with Qloe Apta that had led to their present circumstance. He’d offered them all opportunities to transfer, but none had accepted. At the time, he had felt grateful; now, he wondered if he was leading them to their deaths.
I’ll give them one last chance to leave, he decided. As soon as I get back to the Lusus.
In the meantime, he had to find his so-called concubine. His pace accelerated as he moved further away from the war room, his hand sliding over the hidden locator packet under his sleeve. He had no delusions that she had obeyed him and stayed in his quarters.
Where are you, Jira Tai?
Jira’s skirt tangled around her ankles as she ran. She cursed. She hadn't worn a skirt since her escape from the palace, and she was unpracticed with the physics of running with a swath of silk around her legs and hips
This is Tarillion's fault, she decided. I should have just dressed as a man.
She ducked into an alcove, surveying her surroundings. She was still in the residential base of the Citadel; like the Imperial palace, the more important offices and war rooms were higher up. She had to get to a lift.
She plastered herself against the corridor walls, moving from alcove to alcove, ducking away from the surveillance cameras. For a half subcycle it was only hundreds of feet of dull gray residential entryways.
Sanctuary's Gambit: The Darkspace Saga Book 2 Page 17