A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2)

by Sales, Ian

  “Good morning,” she said brightly.

  “Is it?” replied one sourly. She was tall and thin, with big hands and a long face. Her chestnut hair hung to her shoulders in two braids. According to the insignia on her epaulets, she was a regimental-captain.

  Her companion was a regimental-lieutenant, with a round face, full lips, narrow eyes and hair cut close to her scalp.

  “Have you been here long?” Finesz asked. She wondered why her conversational skills had apparently deserted her.

  “Long enough,” said the regimental-captain.

  A voice behind Finesz said, “I say, you’ll not get pleasantries from those two.”

  Finesz turned about. A Cuirassier, and a… regimental-major. He certainly looked the dashing soldier: wide shoulders, narrow waist, open honest features. But for the moustache which spread in two wings across his cheeks, he reminded Finesz a little of Rinharte’s pet marine-captain.

  “You are an Oppie, I take it?” the regimental-major said.

  “Inspector Rizbeka demar Rinharte, yes. And you are?”

  He sketched an abbreviated bow. “Zabla. Regimental-Major Odmun mar Zabla, Baron Kopia.” He stepped closer. “And what brings you here?” With an ease born of unshakeable confidence and long practice, he hooked one of his Finesz’s arms in his own, turned her about and began walking her away. Over his shoulder, he told the two Artillery officers, “I hope you won’t mind, my ladies.”

  Finesz laughed. She may not have met Zabla at Imperial Court but she was certain he’d spent a great deal of time there.

  “We were all taken by Ahasz’s troops during the fighting but how in heavens did you end up here?”

  “I came to the talk to the duke,” replied Finesz. She carefully extracted her arm. She was not at Imperial Court now.

  “Uhm?”

  “To ask him to surrender. He refused.”

  “Dear me, inspector.” Zabla seemed quite shocked. “Why did you do that?”

  For a moment, she wondered if Zabla had lost his wits. “To stop the war,” she explained slowly.

  “Indeed.”

  He was, Finesz now noticed, directing her towards a shelter on the other side of the yard. No doubt it was his. She glanced at him sidelong, and it occurred to her that while there was indeed dirt on his dark blue uniform tunic, there was less of it than she had expected. He could not have been a prisoner for long. No, that was wrong. Before being taken, he must have been in the Imperial Palace. Judging by the state of Mount Yama, that could not have been a very clean billet.

  In fact, she saw as she looked about the stockade, all of the prisoners seemed surprisingly well-groomed.

  “You’ve been a prisoner long, my lord?” she asked with a studied nonchalance.

  “A good five weeks, inspector.”

  “Then I’m impressed you’ve remained so, ah, civilised in appearance.”

  Zabla laughed. “It’s almost impossible to keep clean in here. But we give our parole each weekend and they let us return home.” The major grinned. “Of course, we have to be back for the start of the week.”

  “You go home?” Finesz asked in disbelief.

  “Indeed. We ship out on the railway. Ahasz has control of it, you know.”

  “Yes, he said as much.” Finesz was too stunned—and, embarrassingly, amused—by Zabla’s revelation to do more than mumble a reply.

  But, if true… she had no reason to doubt it. She could be out of here in a day or two. The thought lifted her spirits and she could not help a small smile appearing.

  They had reached Zabla’s shelter. Although only temporary, it was a rude thing: three walls and a sloped roof, a wooden floor raised some three inches above the ground. A canvas curtain had been pulled back to one side. At the rear of the shelter was a bed, made of plain wood but incongruously made up with fine sheet, blankets and an embroidered counterpane. Finez took the latter’s design to be the major’s coat of arms: some sort of six-legged creature with large colourful wings.

  There were a pair of upholstered armchairs at the end of the bed. They were plainly second-best furniture and Finesz guessed they would be thrown—or given to some grateful prole family—after Zabla was finally released.

  “If you would…?”

  She turned about. Zabla had a hand out, inviting her to sit. She did so. He clapped his hands smartly. A batman quickly appeared, and Zabla told him to bring a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  This was not, Finesz reflected, what she had expected on being told she had been taken prisoner. There was little privacy and the accommodations left a lot to be desired… But. Wine. Weekends at home. Of course, it was a slum compared to the House of Rectitude. But this was a war-zone.

  “How is the Emperor?” she asked Zabla.

  The batman returned with a tray containing the wine. He quickly poured two glasses, and served Finesz and then his master. She sipped the ruby liquid, and was surprised to find it rich and spicy. She liked it, very much.

  “Wouldn’t know,” Zabla replied. “Never saw him. We were moving up floor by floor as each one proved unsafe, but the Family… They shot straight up into the Apartments. Didn’t come out for anything.”

  “But you don’t think Ahasz will be able to take the Palace?”

  “Not a chance, inspector. Place is thick with knights stalwart and knights militant. What with them and the Cuirassiers, he’d not get ten feet inside.”

  “So he’ll just starve them out?”

  Zabla scratched his chin, before taking a mouthful of his wine. He swallowed audibly. “I’ll not say we ate well in there.” He held up a hand. “I’m not saying we ate like damn proles, you know, but the nosh was definitely sub-par after a couple of weeks. Was always plenty to go round, though.”

  Over the bottle of wine, and another to follow it, Finesz quizzed the regimental-major on conditions inside the Imperial Palace. Zabla’s news was five weeks out of date, although he maintained he’d spoken to more recent prisoners and found little changed. The Imperial Family were, apparently, unharmed. The Palace boasted more than enough defenders to rout a frontal assault. Supplies were good for another half-year, possibly longer if the nobles showed enough intelligence to ration them. (Finesz suspected the proletarian staff were already on rations.)

  And so it went. When night fell, small light-panels scattered about the compound, and in every occupied shelter, lit. Finesz was reminded of camping trips as a child, although all the uniforms lent the resemblance an odd character. Zabla’s servant appeared with food—it was not as good as the Palace’s, Zabla explained, but more than adequate given the circumstances. Finesz had eaten worse. All the way from Geneza aboard Lantern, in fact. But she did not say so. She suspected her palate had been well and truly ruined since joining the OPI, and this was neither the time nor the place to mourn that loss.

  Later, Zabla sent his batman off to find an empty shelter for Finesz and repeatedly assured her she’d be safe.

  “Guards’ll make sure of that,” he told her, gesturing somewhat drunkenly at the stockade’s gate.

  Later still, he gestured peremptorily for her to leave and stretched out on his bed. His batman led Finesz to the shelter—a cell, of sorts, she supposed—he had chosen for her. The bed had been made, no doubt with some of Zabla’s spare linen and, judging by the batman’s carefully neutral expression, with neither the regimental-major’s knowledge or approval. She thanked him kindly, as she had done after every task he had performed. Before leaving, the batman made to pull the canvas curtain across the shelter and said, “Good night, my lady.”

  “Wait.” She held up a hand.

  “My lady?”

  “Breakfast?” if there was a slightly pleading note to her question, then it was the wine which had put it there. Or so she told herself.

  “What time would my lady like?”

  “What time does whatsisface—Odmun—take it?”

  “No earlier than eleven.”r />
  “Heavens. I can’t lie in bed all that time. Not this bed anyway.” She waved a hand vaguely. “Wake me about seven, if you don’t mind.”

  “Certainly, my lady.”

  He pulled the curtain shut, sealing Finesz in. She sat on the bed, put her hands to her knees, and gazed slowly and blearily around her new “home”.

  At least, it would be her home until the weekend.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  The search had been a failure. There were too many places to hide aboard Empress Glorina, so Rinharte had reluctantly called it off. The death of the ship’s corporal was not mentioned. Ormuz felt responsible, although he knew he was only reacting to the gruesome way in which the man had been killed.

  For two days, Rinharte was unapproachable, fuming over their inability to find the missing midshipman. She was so difficult about it, in fact, that Mate Maganda sought out Ormuz and asked if there was anything he could do.

  “In what way?” he asked her.

  They occupied a pair of armchairs in the Great Hall. He had been seated there with Varä but when Maganda approached, the marquess had made his excuses and left. She’d seemed agitated, so Ormuz had ordered coffee from a steward.

  “The nomosphere,” she replied. “Commander Rinharte explained it to me. You can find out anything there.”

  Ormuz shook his head. “Not ‘anything’. I don’t think I’ll find any clues to the clone’s hiding-place there.”

  Ormuz had never understood how and why information appeared in the nomosphere, but he had a feeling what Maganda wanted was information of an entirely different nature. He had not visited the nomosphere since leaving Geneza. There had seemed little point—they already knew what to expect on arrival at Shuto.

  And, of course, there had been that strange incident with Konran…

  “What else can we do?” Maganda asked plaintively.

  The steward chose that moment to appear with a tray. Ormuz sat back and watched the mate as the steward set the tray on the table and quickly poured coffee from a silver pot into two cups. Maganda perched on the edge of the armchair, her hands on her thighs, long fingers drumming against her kneecaps. Ormuz did not know her well. He’d met her several times during visits to Tempest, but had barely exchanged two words with her aboard Empress Glorina. Which was, he realised, a surprise; or a failing on his part. Maganda was not the only officer aboard of his age, but she worked closely with Rinharte, who he knew and liked. And, he had to admit, she was pretty, personable, and he was enjoying her company.

  The steward withdrew. Ormuz leaned forward and picked up his coffee.

  “I don’t think there’s much we can do,” he said. He sipped his coffee. “This ship is enormous. We can only hope someone spots him and tells us.”

  “But what if he sabotages something?” Maganda ignored her drink.

  “Then we’ll find out about it.”

  “But we might not find out until we leave the toposphere. Imagine he sabotaged the navigation mechanism, and we entered the Shuto system and found ourselves locked into a course heading directly for the sun?”

  “Is that possible?”

  She gave a sheepish smile. “Not really. But he could trigger the torpedoes to all implode together once we’re in formation in real space.”

  “Vardr checked the magazine. There was no sign of tampering. And now it’s completely sealed.”

  “He must be planning something.”

  Ormuz agreed. It was possible the clone was merely hiding, and planned to escape once they reached Shuto. However, he thought it unlikely—there was more to be gained by putting Empress Glorina out of action. And he had seen before how little the clones cared for their own survival.

  “I don’t see that we can do anything,” he told Maganda. “The crew have been told to keep an eye out for him, and Vardr sends regular patrols of ship’s corporals down to the lower decks. Sooner or later, someone will see him.”

  He took a sip of his coffee. “Of course,” he added, “there’s a possibility he’s now in a coma, like the clones you had aboard Tempest. Rizbeka suggested that perhaps they can leave their bodies while travelling in the toposphere.”

  “So where do they go?” asked Maganda. She hitched further forward in her chair and reached for her cup. Her gaze still on Ormuz, she lifted the coffee to her lips and drank. “I mean,” she continued after lowering the cup, “are there disembodied minds floating about in the nomosphere? Have you seen anything like that there?”

  The only people Ormuz had seen in the nomosphere had been the Serpent and the blue figure, his “sister”, Lady Mayna. He explained this and added, “When I go there, they manifest as sort of featureless figures—as, I suppose, I do myself. If the clone assassins, the—what did Rizbeka call them? Urbat?—if the Urbat are in the nomosphere I imagine they would have the same appearance. But I’ve never seen any.”

  “Would they be able to stay there, for days and weeks? I mean, we had Tempest for several weeks and they only came alive after we left Linna.”

  “I don’t know.” Every time he had visited the nomosphere, he had done so in private. He had no idea what happened to the body he left behind. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  She frowned in thought. “Well, it’s not like they’d need food or water if they’re disembodied,” she mused, “so perhaps they could live there indefinitely. They’d only need to come back to their bodies when they had to.”

  “But their bodies would need food and water,” pointed out Ormuz.

  “Hence the sarcophagi.”

  Ormuz sat back and looked at the mate. She gazed back at him, and he knew she had reached the same conclusion. If, as they surmised, the Urbat used the nomosphere—or perhaps some other level of reality—to travel between bodies, then there must be a sarcophagus somewhere aboard Empress Glorina.

  “But how would we find it?” Maganda asked breathlessly.

  “We don’t know there is one. The clone might just be hiding in a store-room somewhere.”

  “But there are plenty of places aboard to hide a sarcophagus.”

  It occurred to Ormuz there were two levels to the conspiracy against which he fought. He was a little surprised he hadn’t noticed this before. There were those who had been suborned by Ahasz—the regiments they had fought on Geneza, the ships they had battled in orbit about that world. Much as he disliked the man, Ormuz suspected Courland fell into this category. But there were also the Urbat, the clone assassins. The fact of their existence was unusual enough, and the sarcophagi they had used aboard Tempest were odd, not something for which the Empire was known. Imperial life and death sciences had reached a sophisticated level—they could clone people, after all!—but for all their hoses and pipes and dependence upon a computational engine, there had been something a little “alien” about the sarcophagi…

  It had seemed quite simple: the Serpent, the Duke of Ahasz, intended to seize the Imperial Throne. Ormuz, his clone, would stop him. But who were these Urbat? And Konran… Ormuz was not a religious man, did not in fact believe in Chian and Konran. Or rather, he hadn’t until he’d met the latter.

  Were there gods now involved in this fight? Were the Urbat the minions of Konran? If so, where was Chian? Why had He not made an appearance?

  Did Ormuz have a heavenly mandate? Who exactly was using him?

  He leaned forward and returned his cup to its saucer with a clatter. He looked up at Maganda and she recoiled from his expression. He tried for a reassuring smile but it felt incomplete. “You’re right,” he said, “we must look for the missing clone. I have… questions I need answering.”

  Ormuz tried to organise further search parties, with Maganda’s help, but he had no real authority over Empress Glorina’s crew. The Admiral seemed content to let the clone hide in the depths of the battleship, as if he were no more than vermin, capable only of filching supplies or chewing data-hoses. Instead, Ormuz and Maganda, when Rinharte would allow her
, accompanied Pulisz and his ship’s corporals on their patrols through the lower decks.

  It was three days before they found their man, and even then Ormuz and Pulisz might as well have spent those days at their ease in officer country. It was a petty officer who made the discovery. In the course of her duties, she passed a storeroom and noticed the door had been forced. She called for the ship’s corporals.

  A runner found Ormuz in the Intelligence Office, perched on a desk and chatting idly to Maganda. They were due to go on patrol in half an hour, and he had come to see if she had permission to accompany Pulisz and himself. Ormuz had found himself enjoying the mate’s company more and more, and had barely exchanged five words with the Admiral in the last week. The nearer the fleet drew to the Imperial capital, the more she seemed to distance herself from him. It was, he felt, as if she did not intend for their relationship to survive the battle on Shuto. Perhaps that was being uncharitable, but Ormuz could think of no other explanation for her recent aloofness.

  “My lord! My lord!” the runner called from the entrance.

  Ormuz slid from the desk. “Yes?”

  “Compliments of the Provost-Aboard, my lord. They think they’ve found the clone.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m to instruct you, my lord, he’ll meet you in the Great Hall.”

  The runner turned on his heel and ran away.

  “Well, you heard the lad,” said a voice.

  Ormuz looked across and saw Rinharte in the doorway to her office. She had her scabbarded sword in her hand. “Let’s get to it,” she said.

  “Ma’am, I’d like to come too,” Maganda said, glancing quickly at Ormuz.

  “I need you here to coordinate,” Rinharte replied. She set about attaching her sword to her belt.

  “We’ll be one party,” Ormuz pointed out. “Besides, I’m sure one of your petty officers is more than capable.”

  Rinharte straightened. She glanced at Maganda, then at Ormuz, then back again to the mate. “Very well,” she said.