Hammer of Darkness

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The Viceroy's Palace is at the far end of the lake, where the dark water lightens into the brilliant blue bay and where the sun always shines, even when it has set.

  The swanboats do not go nearly that far, milling around as they do near the end of the Avenue of Emperors, not nearly far enough from a small square and a jet-black temple that has resisted a millennium and more of the Empire's best weapons.

  The temple is guarded only because it could not be destroyed, not without taking most of the city with it, and neither the Regent nor the Grand Duke had wished that, not when the Park of Summer had already been destroyed by the Dark One and the Tree of Darkness.

  The Dark One has not been seen since, excepting reports that He has reappeared on Aurore and will return to His true believers. Or reports that he has appeared on Tinhorn, or Mardreis, or Sileorn, or any one of a hundred worlds outside the mainstream of the Empire. In the interim, neither age nor weapons have changed the temple, and the faithful still worship, though no litany exists, nor any true priests.

  Martel knows these facts and quickens his pace. The Viceroy is waiting.

  * * *

  L

  The Viceroy has a name, not that anyone has dared to use it since the Great Upheaval. She is addressed as “Lady” and other honorifics by those who must answer to her, and in other terms by those who do not.

  She bites her lower lip as she gazes from her window at the morning light playing upon the blue waters of the great Lake of Dreams.

  The fallen one, the man in black who is more than he seems, will arrive shortly. Of that she is certain.

  Turning from the wide unglassed and open window, through which nothing but light and clean air can pass, she takes a deep breath. This day, the palace has given the air the delicate scent of sand fir.

  She returns to pondering the matter of the man in black. What remains most uncertain is the purpose for which he has left Aurore and come to Karnak. His modesty also bodes ill, for the gods of Aurore, who have seldom returned to the Empire, are not known for their modesty.

  The last time a god came to the people, rather than the other way around, led to the revivals that led to the Great Upheaval and the downfall of the Prince Regent. The Viceroy's edict banning organized religion still stands, although the temples, shrines, and churches are open to all—except for the one black marble temple. Anyone can worship any god, or none, but there are no priests and no services. The precautions have worked for a thousand years. Still… she shivers.

  Why would anyone want to leave being a god to come back to risk death, or destruction, at the hands of the Empire? She has no doubts that the full firepower of an Imperial battle cruiser will turn the strange man in black to ashes and vapor—at least away from Aurore. So why does he court death? Or does he?

  Is that flicker of black along the far side of the lake the man-god she expects? So soon? She speaks to the empty air.

  “A man in black will arrive shortly. I will see him as soon as he arrives.”

  “Yes, Lady.”

  The Viceroy taps a series of studs on the wide gold belt she wears, and she is enveloped in a coruscation of auras, each a defense against some form of attack. She is merely testing the system; the triggers are automatic.

  The room she enters and paces is not the largest in the Viceroy's Palace. Only a pinnace could be safely hangared within, and the weapons that the unseen guard operators can bring to bear on any intruder would destroy any such pinnace as well.

  Comforting herself with that thought, the cold-eyed Viceroy looks from the lake vista on the far wall to the crème-golden hangings of the room and the gentle arch of the high ceiling.

  Should she take her seat upon the raised dais, or should she greet the fallen one in midroom?

  She decides on informality, sacrificing some of the defenses contained within the dais.

  She hopes the man in black will come soon. One way or another she can dispose of the issue, perhaps of the man, and clear her mind for the everyday schemes necessary to keep Karnak supplying the bodies for the Fleet, the souls for the arts, and the young aristocrats for amusement. Waiting, the Viceroy ponders.

  Aurore, planet of eternal dawn, home of the gods, and refuge for independent newsies—pondering these, Kryn does not know which aspect of Aurore she likes least. Rulers distrust dawns, gods, and independent information media, and Aurore hosts all three. The Lady who holds an Empire shivers and waits, knowing she is wasting time, afraid she will recognize the man-god? in black, and afraid she will not.

  “The gentleman in black has arrived and is ascending. I asked his name, but he only said he was expected.”

  “Thank you. Put all internal defense systems on full alert.”

  “It is done, Lady.”

  That alone would set the firevine burning with gossip, she reflects. She had not ordered full internal defenses since the previous State visit of the Prince a century earlier. Internal defenses against a man whose only attribute is sleight of hand while wearing black clothing?

  Is he really the fallen one, the undeclared one, that even the gods of Aurore are rumored to oppose? The one who escaped the Assassins' Guild and her own sweepers' scans? Can she be sure? The port records missed that one's face also.

  Too many questions—for that reason alone the Viceroy must see the man in black. As a Lady she is also curious. A good millennium has passed since a man has refused her his name. The last had not fared well. She smiles at the recollection, and her eyes glitter ice-bright. She half turns at the internal warning of his approach. The man is stocky, but not big, nor overweight, and the top of his head reaches only to the shoulders of the guardsmen who flank him into the room.

  The guards halt at the arched entrance. Martel walks straight ahead to meet the Viceroy. “Lady, a pleasure to see you again after all these years.” She smiles, even with the icy stab of fear that penetrates her. She remembers not his face, but knows she should. She cannot recall the last time she forgot an important face.

  “I confess I do not recall our last meeting,” she returns with a smile that includes her eyes but not her heart. “That is not surprising, Lady. It has been some time.” He bends to touch his lips to the back of her extended hand.

  “Will you continue the mystery or enlighten me before we proceed?”

  “I notice you still have the lasers around the old temple,” he comments.

  “Yes. I see no reason to remove them. They do serve a useful purpose in attracting those who believe in death.” She realizes the man will not give his name until he is ready. “You admit that your subjects still respect death?”

  “There will always be those who reject life.”

  “Life and death are one and the same, Lady. After more than a millennium, you certainly should recognize that.”

  Something about his words bothers her, rings the faint chimes of a distant memory, a cold and faraway recollection of a time before…

  She inclines her head to the side, noncommittally. Martel sees her struggling with the memories she has suppressed. All souls have their price. All power is bought with the stuff of the soul and paid in pain. Martel had not wanted oblivion, only occasional forgetfulness, bought with a jasolite beaker and the routine of a practicing newsie/faxer.

  Never has he been more conscious, never has he realized…

  … how much Kryn and Emily are alike… almost as if…

  He thrusts the thought aside. That price he cannot pay, not now.

  Martel also knows Kryn will not accept him, readies himself, drawing his cloak of darkness from the closet of time around the corner from now, preparing to use it at the proper instant.

  “The Empire would not have survived without you and without Aurore and its gods, Lady and Viceroy. But the time has come for the people to accept both death and life and to create their own idols and their own rules.

  “Have we not had time enough to accept that, Kryn Kirsten?” He almost added the words “my love,” for she has been once, when
the Lake of Dreams was the Park of Summer, and the Prince Regent had ruled Karnak. “Strike!”

  Pale skin blanching, she triggers her own shields and the palace's full internal defense/attack systems. As she begins to glow in her cocoon of energy, before the lasers flash and the disruptors scream, the hall is filled with blackness.

  “Martin Martel, my god.” But her words are lost in the fury that fills the blackness.

  By the shore of the Lake of Dreams, Martel studies the Viceroy's Palace.

  The faint green corona shifts fractionally toward the blue as the internal defense systems continue squandering millions of energons trying to destroy a man who isn't even inside the palace.

  Martel begins his stroll back toward the black temple, this time along the populated and fashionable side of the lake, his feet not touching the silver sands, his black cloak flapping in the breeze like ravens' wings.

  As the golden dust inside the Receiving Hall of the Viceroy's Palace finished settling into a golden carpet, as the massive heat exchangers lower the temperature to where an unmodified mortal can exist unshielded, and as the various devices within the walls begin to re-create the golden hangings and the furniture that had been turned to dust, the Viceroy releases her shields.

  “I take it Martel escaped,” she notes to no one in particular or to the empty air.

  “No person was in the room besides yourself at the instant the disruptors focused.”

  She turns to the lake vista again, neither frowning nor smiling, to see if she can discern a flicker of black. “Martel…” The word dies softly in the empty hall.

  * * *

  LI

  “He has retraced the steps of the Fallen One,” observes the Goat, shedding light as a proof sheds water.

  “Is he the Fallen One?” questions a demigod at the edge of the circle that hovers above the sacred mountain.

  “How?” snorts the Smoke Bull. “When the Fallen One toppled the Regency, Martel was an apprentice newsie who had just fled the Grand Duke.”

  “But the holos?”

  “Holos be flamed! And you, too!” With that the god who has chosen the Bull (or perhaps it is the opposite, for on Aurore those things which are lies elsewhere may be true) makes an unnecessary gesture and trusses the outspoken demigod in ropes of dark smoke that drag the impertinent to the golden-green depths of the ocean. He will emerge a decade or so hence, reflects the Smoke Bull, chastened, strengthened, and more aware of his position.

  Apollo releases his hold on the rays of dawn, channels them, and stands, basked in their glow, at the center of the circle.

  Cooperatively the Smoke Bull places a wreath of darkness in the air at Apollo's feet, and the brilliance of the scene creates a contrast only a grand master could fully appreciate, or convey. But there are no mortals present, and the talents of the gods do not run to mere depictions of their realities. This scene, like so many behind history, will go unpainted, unholoed, unrecorded.

  “I am not concerned with what has happened, but with what may happen,” begins Apollo, his musical baritone cascading down and out from the mountain.

  By the time his voice reaches the resort town of Pamyra, with its homes clustered around the cove fifteen thousand meters below, all that remains is a series of carillon notes, a gentle melody that the locals have called the organ of the gods.

  Apollo knows this, has cultivated his voice, and is not displeased.

  “For I have monitored the field, and Martel is not drawing on it, though he maintains his link. Yet large mounts of energy are being expended in Karnak, and they center on Martel.”

  “Certain?” questions Emily, as curt among the gods as seductive among mortals. Deadly in both places.

  “You are welcome to check yourselves. I merely call it to your attention.”

  “Let me summon my chariot and my hammer and end this nonsense,” growls the bearded hammer-thrower, and his voice rumbles down the mountainside.

  “As you please,” murmurs Apollo. He sweeps his arm to encompass the group. “Should we send Thor after Martel, the hammer-thrower after the hammer?”

  “Chaos!” exclaims the Goat, and his hidden red eyes dance. His meaning is not understood, or ignored. Or ignored.

  “A hunt,” whispers the other Huntress, savoring the blood that has not been shed… yet.

  The handful of demigods, recalling the example of outspokenness that preceded the discussion, either nod in agreement or make no gesture.

  “I will wait,” mutters the Smoke Bull, and the storm clouds spin from his words.

  “Then it is decided?” asks Apollo, though his tone is rhetorical. “Decided!” claims Emily. “Decided,” adds the Huntress. “Decided,” agrees the Goat. “Decided in chaos.” The others say nothing, either through their voices or their powers. A demigod wrestles in the bottom of the sea with chains of darkness, and a tidal wave smashes the first line of houses on the beach at Pamyra, the ones reserved for the rich tourists.

  “Agreed,” rumbles the god of the thunder, summoning his chariot with a bolt of lightning. “Agreed.”

  Decided and agreed. The thought echoes from the darkness beyond Aurore, splinters the light corona around Apollo, and vibrates in the minds of the gods and demigods… decided and agreed…

  Emily looks at Apollo, who turns to the Smoke Bull. Their eyes meet, but not their thoughts.

  Thor ignores the thought and the three and vaults into his chariot for the trip to Karnak. The goats paw at empty air, and the battle cart is gone.

  * * *

  LII

  CLING!

  The off-key alarm note of the system jolts her awake instantly. Catlike, she stretches and keys into the full command network even before pulling her lean body into the golden singlesuit. “Report!”

  “Discontinuity. Class four. Vector Aurore to Karnak. Nondrive.” The disembodied voice goes directly into her nervous system through the command implant, but she prefers to believe she has “heard” it.

  “Ship class?” she snaps, though a subvocalization would have been sufficient.

  “Nondrive. No characteristics of known ships.”

  “Defenses on full alert. Response only. Response only, I repeat.”

  “From Aurore?” she mutters, forgetting to downgrade the commlink. “From Aurore, Lady.”

  The Viceroy downplays the link and finishes drawing on the singlesuit. The full defense belt follows, then boots.

  After splashing cool water over her face, patting it dry with the old-fashioned towel, she runs the styler over her hair, adjusts her complexion, and steps from her sleeping rooms into the lift shaft to the command center beneath the palace.

  While she plummets, her hands recheck her defense field, and her fingers tap the belt studs one by one, touching the smooth-gritty controls with the force of ingrained habit, hardly noticing the conflicting tactile sensations produced by the smaller Field that surrounds the belt itself.

  The energy barrier barring the entrance to Karnak's defense center flickers green as she passes through. With the same flicker, it could annihilate anything short of a full battle cruiser not attuned to the screen. “Lady, the center is ready,” offers Forde.

  “What is it?”

  “The source of the discontinuity, you mean?” Forde frowns and lowers a shoulder toward the Marshal for Strategy, who stands a half-pace behind him.

  “Ah… yes… Lady and Viceroy… the discontinuity. Could be caused by several phenomena—a new type of ship, a natural occurrence unobserved before, a generator malfunction in an existing ship…” His voice drags to a halt in the face of the Viceroy's glare.

  “Exactly how likely are any of those ridiculous possibilities?”

  “Almost nil,” admits Forde, smoothing a wrinkle in the front of his rumpled red tunic.

  “Something to do with the gods of Aurore?” suggests the Viceroy, twitching her nose in a frown.

  Forde backs off a pace, realizing his fear-drenched sweat may have reached her. He wipe's
his forehead with the back of his left hand, his right hand resting on the controls of his own shields—futilely, should the Viceroy have decided to terminate his position or him.

  “A possibility, admittedly,” offers the Marshal. “The measured field strength might be possible, although, as you know, we have been unable to obtain any accurate readings on the powers of the so-called gods of Aurore, and, so far as we know, none has ever left Aurore.”

  “If this is one, Marshal, he or she will be the third,” snaps the Lady.

  The Marshal darts a look at Forde. Forde wipes his forehead again.

  The Viceroy ignores both, steps around the two, and takes a quick dozen steps into the master control consoles and screens.

  Is Martin Martel really the newsie/demigod/god named Martel? Or is Martel the god toying with her? Has he come to repay debts, old debts?

  She shivers. Forde has followed her quickly enough to catch the gesture, but draws back again, wiping his sweat-streaming face. The control center air is cool, scented with lemon-orange.

  Forde wipes his forehead again as the Viceroy's fingers run over the power displays.

  The Marshal steps toward the board, theoretically his to command physically under the direction of the Viceroy.

  Forde's long arm comes up with a snap to stop the military officer's second step. The Marshal opens his mouth, looks at Forde, then at the stiff back of the woman controlling the center, and shuts his mouth without uttering a word.

  “Very sensible, Forde. Very sensible. You gentlemen may sit on the wing consoles, or leave, as you please.”

  Forde eases into the left wing observer's chair, the Marshal into the right.

  The screen is centered on the airspace above the temple of the Fallen One, ten kilos east of the palace.

  “Nothing yet to see,” comments the Viceroy. “According to the energy board, some minor but nonsystemic sources are building.”

  “Gotterdammerung,” mutters the Marshal, dredging the reference from he knows not where.