“That authority is yours, General Steuben,” Sukain replied before signing off. “Act as you deem prudent.”
Steuben watched Lord Ketrick in another screen cell rise from his chair. “Keep a camera on Ketrick,” he ordered, only to see him retreat down a corridor leading to the nearest restroom. The image showed the door closing behind him before revealing the inside of the room beyond. When it came to Palace security, guest privacy was not a major consideration.
“What happened?” Steuben demanded, not seeing Ketrick anywhere.
“The hidden cameras there appear to be malfunctioning, Sir,” a junior officer in the row of workstations below Steuben replied, busily working his controls. “Internal sensors indicate someone is in there. Lord Ketrick is just not showing up on camera. Any of them.”
“Given the layout of the room and cameras,” Steuben asked, “is that possible? Even if he knew where each camera was?”
“I have manually swept the entire room, Sir. We should see him somewhere.”
“Someone in the Palace is helping him,” said Steuben, turning to his adjunct. “Lock down the Palace. No one enters or leaves without my authorization.”
The adjunct nodded and moved to relay the command.
“And have security detain Lord Ketrick. I want to talk to him.”
- - -
In her own hiding place, flanked by her Dark Sisters already in the Palace, Lilth smiled like a child with an all-day pass to an arcade shooting gallery.
Jordan had just signaled her that he was safe beneath the shields of the deep vaults of the Palace. With his latest strumpet, no less, who would no doubt help him pass the time. When the fighting was over, he would then emerge in this period of crisis ready to take command, without ever having left the Palace... or those who had defended it.
Wyren had also signaled that he and his people were ready. He would keep close to Tenatte, and make sure he was saved for Lilth’s personal attention after all the initiates of the Holy Orders were neutralized.
This last group delightfully now included Derrick’s grandfather, whose shuttle had arrived. Briefly Lilth considered whether to have her witch sisters take Derrick right away, or wait for his grandfather to reach him so that they could have a short, bittersweet reunion before both being killed. With a shrug, she decided to skip the melodrama. No need for theatrical sentimentality to get in the way of a good, honest bloodbath.
“The attack on the Palace commences, my Lady,” said one Dark Witch before a rumbling passed through the building. A detonation of some kind had probably occurred outside the Palace’s shields. Lights from the nearby windows flashed on and off as lasfire was shot back and forth between the invading and government forces. The Palace shields would hold of course, for the attack would not last that long. After all, it was only a distraction from the real battle to be fought within.
How surprised that Sukain bitch and her new lapdog Steuben were going to be when they realized that the enemy bombardment from outside the Palace was only the start. Too bad it would be a satisfaction that she would not have time to see. The two would die certainly, but not by her hand. They were too far beneath her standing to warrant the privilege.
Lilth took one final breath and smiled again.
“All right, Sisters,” she said brightly. “Let’s go clean the Palace.”
- - -
XXIX
Vaid Ketrick sat in what he knew to be an interrogation room, having been escorted there after trying to retrieve a lasgun left for him in a Palace lavatory. Fortunately, he was not in possession of it when he was taken into custody, but the timing of it made him wonder if his plans had been compromised.
Another explosion shook the room, though its dampening field muffled most of the sound. Idly, he wondered which side was winning in the attack.
“Lord Ketrick,” Guard Commander Lerrero said as he entered. His smudged uniform was torn at the shoulder, but his sidearm appeared wholly undamaged, and ready for use. “General Steuben sends his regrets.”
“So, I owe my ‘protective custody’ to him, do I?” Ketrick replied. “And here I am safe from whatever is shaking things about?”
“That will depend on what you tell me about the attack, my Lord.”
“Attack? Commander, you surprise me. Who in their right mind would willingly go to the place he knew was about to be attacked?”
“Someone who knew that he would be safe behind the Palace’s shields?”
“All shields have a point of failure, and any sensible person would think on the Palace’s structural integrity. At this rate, how long can it take this pounding?”
“Long enough for you to tell me who is attacking us and why.”
Ketrick laughed. “Give me some visual feeds, so my guess can be sporting.”
“Enough of the games, Lord Ketrick.”
“So sorry, Commander. But you want answers that I cannot give you.”
“I could have a psychic initiate scan your mind, my Lord,” Lerrero growled.
“Really? Then why is one of your many spare adepts not here already?”
The guard commander’s hesitation brought a smile to Ketrick’s lips. All available members of the Holy Orders were doubtlessly combating the Palace intruders, NDB and Dark Witch alike. Lerrero himself had been lucky to reach Ketrick, with all the fighting going on. Ketrick would have been surprised if there was more than one guard standing on the other side of the door behind his captor.
- - -
Sukain watched the multiple security reports on the split-celled screen in her office as another explosion rumbled through the Palace. The orbiting government units Steuben had held in reserve were already engaging the enemy surrounding Pablen. Yet the Consortium-led forces were not retreating, which meant there was no telling how long the assault on the building would last.
As if to emphasize the point, another strike against the external shields made the room tremble. Pablen’s internal shields, of course, bolstered its structural strength. But eventually, with enough time and firepower, the Palace would fall.
The loss of another image on her viewscreen drew her attention. It was replaced immediately with another, but the implication was clear: the enemy inside Pablen was gaining ground. So far they were mostly in the lower levels of the Palace, which, with its shields at full strength, and the heavy fighting outside, made escape from Pablen essentially impossible. Among the first areas the Dark Witches had secured, no doubt with help from someone within the Palace’s own security forces, were the hangar bay, where the emergency escape craft were kept. Apparently, they had no intention of letting anyone out alive.
Another image showing fighting between Dark Witches and the Palace Guard went out on her screen. This time replacing it took a little longer. When a new image came up, it showed Dark Witches battling adepts from the Holy Orders. The Chancellor shuttered to think how long they would have lasted without help from the Holy Orders. She could only hope that it would be enough.
“Chancellor Sukain,” said one of her guards. “Lord Legan is being moved to a safer area of the Palace, but his defenders are encountering multiple enemy units. We think they are attempting to converge on his current location.”
“Go,” Sukain ordered. “And take everyone here with you.”
“Madam Chancellor, that will leave you completely unprotected.”
“Do it,” she snapped. “While there is still time.”
The guard bowed and left. Soon Sukain’s office suite would be empty, save for her. Even her secretaries were leaving, having already been given weapons and assigned to defensive positions. Returning to her desk, Sukain set the room shields to maximum and took out her own weapon. She would make her stand here, with the room’s heightened shields perhaps drawing some of the enemy forces away from Derrick.
Another tremor reverberated along the walls as another image darkened on her screen. It was not replaced. Putting a hand to her stomach and taking a deep breath, Sukain returned to her ch
air. She had just succeeded in settling her nerves when high-pitched sounds cut through the air. Enemy units had reached the outer shields of her suite. Knowing the shields would only last so long, particularly if any Dark Witches were around, Sukain mentally prepared herself to meet them.
“Hey, Madam Chancellor,” came a voice from behind her.
Sukain shook herself from her thoughts.
“Over here,” the voice said.
Sukain turned to her right and saw an opening along the side of an empty pedestal. “Over—Who are you?” she asked.
“Marcea Curreck,” the voice replied. The Palace Housekeeper’s face peeked out from the shadows. “Quick. This way.”
“This way?” Sukain never knew of her office’s secret door. It made sense that there would be one though, given that most designers of royal palaces subscribed to the idea that servants were better left unseen until needed.
“Hurry. Those turncoats from the Guard will be through soon.”
Any thought on why the secret door was not sealed off years ago was pushed aside by the continuous lasfire pounding the suite’s outer walls. Following the woman through a darkened passage, Sukain saw that Curreck was not alone. “So how did you know about the hidden door and secret way?” she whispered.
“I’ve been the Palace Housekeeper since retiring from HOPIS,” Curreck whispered back. “Let me tell you, the cleaning staff knows more about this place than anyone. And we know how to keep secrets.”
Turning a corner, they entered a junction where several others were waiting. From their uniforms, they were not just members of the cleaning staff, but cooks, room servants and even a gardener. And they were all armed like commandos.
“These witches were here before,” Curreck said, catching Sukain’s surprised look at their armaments. “When Jordan ran the place. They took a lot of us in some mumbo-jumbled attempt to find Lord Derrick. We knew they’d be back even with his return though. So we prepared.”
“For what?” Sukain asked incredulously.
“To beat them bitches back,” replied one of the cooks.
- - -
Steuben marched down a newly reclaimed corridor, ignoring the deep gouges and burns along the floor, walls and ceiling. The resident Palace security forces, aided by initiates of the Holy Orders, had finally pushed back against the Dark Witches and their traitorous allies. But in other areas of the Palace, those loyal to Derrick were still losing ground. If government forces did not lift the Consortium-led siege soon, Steuben feared for the safety of all those within.
He had to congratulate the enemy strategists though. The one weakness to their plan was not cutting power to the Palace defenses. Even if they were indifferent to destroying Pablen, cutting the external shields would risk killing their people inside. The cost was Pablen’s internal shields also being functional, which gave the forces loyal to Lord Derrick added defensive capability.
Reaching the interrogation room where Ketrick was taken, Steuben saw the guard on the floor and brought his own escort to a run. Without bothering to check if the man was alive, Steuben forced the door and lifted his weapon. Lerrero lay on top of an overturned chair, his eyes gazing at the ceiling, and his lasgun gone.
Goddamn that DuCideon sonofabitch, Steuben thought.
- - -
Ashincor Linse psychically scanned the room before entering. He detected no one, but was not surprised to see a Dark Witch standing near the opposite door. The last witch he and Ansel had encountered had cloaked her awareness as well.
“Patér Linse,” the witch said, gathering her power. “I have been waiting.”
“Be ready, Ansel,” Ashincor said to the side. “Like last time.”
“Now be fair, Patér,” the witch said, shaking her finger at him. “I am alone.”
“That is your mistake,” Ashincor replied.
“I was only trying to be honorable, since I have the advantage.”
“How is that? Do you value your life as much as Lilth Morays does?”
The Dark Witch’s answer was a bolt of electrical fire. Ashincor dodged left as Ansel dove right. His shields up, Ashincor readied to return fire when a hidden door opened to reveal screaming Palace staffers armed with lasrifles and grenades. The Dark Witch barely had time to turn toward them before their combined firepower reduced her to a smoldering heap. Watching the tiny band traverse the room without breaking stride, Ashincor caught the eye of one of them, a cook by her uniform. “Good afternoon, Patér,” she said, bobbing her head with a smile before she and her compatriots exited through another hidden door on the opposite side of the room, all just as quickly and efficiently as they had entered.
“What was that, Master?” Ansel was still splayed on the floor from his dive.
“Good people doing what they can to defend their home,” replied Ashincor, shaking his head at Ansel’s incomprehension. “Forget it.” He came to help Ansel up. “Come. There are still a lot of Dark Witches between us and my grandson.”
- - -
Lilth Morays, surrounded by a contingent of Dark Witches in the center of a large room, shot electrical fire from her fingers at the defending Palace Guards.
“You like that, don’t you?” she yelled with glee as she blasted away, her shields reconfiguring with each volley. While the firing mechanisms of soldiers’ guns similarly synchronized with their shields, Lilth’s heightened awareness often let her catch them the instant they were vulnerable. One newly arrived soldier fired at her from behind, the discharge bouncing off her shields and burning a small hole in a nearby wall. “Oh, you want some too?” Lilth asked, turning and roasting the man alive within his own shield.
With all the shields glowing as crisscrossing enemy fire met with their protective fields, Lilth and her Dark Sisters indulged their bloodlust. Savoring their kills, they even played with the soldiers, like malefic felines, acting not from hunger, but from inbred cruelty. Admittedly, this contributed little to their goal of eliminating Derrick, but the Viscountess knew that her other sisters would bring her the Linse-dropped lordling soon enough. Then the attackers pounding the shields of Palace Pablen would cease, and her brother would emerge as Legan’s new ruler. Her victory assured, why deny herself a little amusement?
Above her on the next floor, Lilth sensed the presence of two approaching guards, their limited abilities unable to sufficiently cloak their awareness. Smiling, she reached up with her psychic power, grabbed hold of them, pulled them down through the ceiling, and flung them at different groups of guards huddled defensively at opposite corners of the room.
She could not remember the last time she had so much fun.
- - -
“You are a man of great calm, Mister Tenatte,” Wyren remarked as another assault against the Palace shields caused a tremor throughout the building.
“So are you,” the Consortium boss replied as the sound of lasguns and electrical fire echoed through the halls outside the door.
“I am one with God,” the NDB Bishop declared.
“Even if angels descended from the clouds and proclaimed it with trumpets, I would not believe it.”
“Angels?” Wyren laughed mirthlessly. “The All Father speaks directly to Chosen Ones,” he said, leaning forward. “As you well know, my son.”
Allenford Biam, who was still in the conference room, looked from the NDB Bishop, to the man introduced as Anios Tenatte, to their respective retinues, and back again. All that separated the two sides was a long table. Attackers besieging the Palace or not, witches fighting in the nearby corridors outside or not, this room was not a safe place to hide. “Bishop Wyren,” Biam began, rising from his chair. His forehead glistened with sweat. “Uh, Sir, I feel I am intruding in a private matter. If you will excuse me, I will go find Lord Ketrick.”
The two NDB and Consortium delegates nodded with the barest movement, never taking their eyes off each other. Bumping into a chair, Biam hurried out a rear door. With the former government advisor gone, Tenatte’s face dissolv
ed into the visage of Courell Valmont as two metal pieces dropped from his eyes.
“How did you guess, Father?” Valmont asked, once his disguise was shed.
“You are not a man to lead the Consortium,” Wyren replied contemptuously. “And the forces outside attacking the Palace? Such foolishness could only involve the rebels, who do nothing save sip coffee and engage in useless banter unless someone else pays the bill. Who but the Consortium would do that now? And who but you, would have the Assembly sell their souls to such villainy?”
“You make a deal with Lilth Morays and her Dark Sisters to kill the Palace defenders, including members of the Mirans’ Holy Orders, and you criticize me?”
“This was nothing more than a strategic opportunity. Let the Witches and Mirans kill each other. Even if Derrick lives, Legan will be a better place for it.”
“Leaving only us,” Valmont said, meeting his father’s gaze.
“Leaving only us,” Wyren agreed.
-
Ketrick came to a corridor leading back to the conference room used for the supposed peace summit. Unlike other areas of the Palace he had seen, this one showed no signs of the fighting between Palace defenders and the Dark Witches. For some reason, however, he saw this merely as a sign of a battle yet to come.
After psychically scanning the room, which revealed nothing, he opened one door partway. Before him, the NDB and Consortium factions stared at each other from across the conference table. He was right about a battle yet to come. He was only wrong about the participants. “Is Advisor Biam here?” Ketrick asked.
“No,” Wyren replied, still eying a man from the Consortium. “He just left.”
“Looking for you,” said the man, his gaze also locked on his adversary.
“Thank you,” Ketrick said, not recognizing the last man who spoke. Backing out and closing the door, he did not bother asking what happened to Anios Tenatte.
- - -
Electrical fire burst from Patér Dolfini’s hands, engulfing the room in flames. “The room shields!” he cried, closing the door behind him.
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