The Empress

by S. J. Kincaid

  “Are you weak in the knees at the sight of me?” Pasus said.

  That’s when I realized why this magnetic clamp wasn’t giving. Why I felt strange and slow and swampy. Why there was a . . . noise on the air. Just below the buzz of lights, the churning of engines, the roar of oxygen vents . . . Something new. Something that didn’t belong.

  The neural suppressor, I realized with an electric prickle of horror. It was there, embedded in my lower back, too dangerously placed to remove.

  “Your fellow Diabolics told me of that suppressor,” remarked Pasus. “Remarkable instrument. That enormous one, Anguish, could be felled with one punch.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s been a great amusement for some Grandes to test themselves against a weakened Diabolic. I’ve made a tidy profit from it. And now . . . Here we are.”

  Pasus. Here. Gazing down at me with icy blue eyes, his black hair to his chin now, grown with time. I tried to pull free again, though I knew now it would not happen.

  “What do you want? Where’s Tyrus?” I knew this corridor. It was just outside the Emperor’s presence chamber. I’d fought Enmity to the death here.

  “The Emperor is very close. Entirely unaware of my presence, if those fools have followed their instructions and occupied him with their silly complaints,” Pasus said, nodding toward the presence chamber.

  “What are you going to do to him?” I demanded.

  “Perhaps you should be more concerned for yourself.”

  “Answer me!”

  “I’ve been waiting for you a long time now. I was all set to exile myself when Devineé perished, and how furious I was to realize you had poisoned her. Yet you didn’t return. Nothing. So I waited. And waited a while more still. That Excess girl surfaced with news of what had happened and I could have laughed for an age to hear it. I had her abducted right off the planet, taken here so we could learn everything. Do you know how many people in this Empire know the truth of the Sacred City? I could count them on one, no, two hands.”

  Sickness churned up within me.

  “Luckily, I was one of them. So I claimed the Chrysanthemum.” He knelt down before me, and oh, if he’d just draw closer, so I could kick him . . . “How cleverly he played it, only to lose it all on one devastating mistake. My, I would pay a fortune to have seen the look on his face when he learned of the time dilation factor. I imagine he’ll wear a similar expression when I walk in there.”

  I stared up at him, my heart slamming my rib cage, my focus narrowed upon his face. What did he plan? What would he do to Tyrus? To me? Why was I here, a prisoner, weakened, not dead?

  “You don’t intend to kill me,” I realized.

  Pasus straightened. “I would love nothing more than to strip the skin from your bones, Nemesis dan Impyrean. I doubt I could have resisted a year ago, but I have had time to think. You will be useful to me.” And then an odd look came over his face. He suddenly knelt down again, moved aside the collar of my tunic.

  He’d glimpsed it, then. The Interdict’s mark. Just the top, but now he saw the concentric suns and his face paled with the realization the “beast” who killed his daughter was now blessed by the Interdict.

  “It’s Nemesis Impyrean now,” I told him, my voice soft and deadly.

  Pasus recoiled from me. “He can’t have,” he said.

  “He did. I am beloved by your faith, Senator. Release me.”

  Rage flared on his face. “You think that means anything? Do you, monster?”

  “Your Interdict does.”

  He stared at the mark with revulsion, betrayal, almost.

  “Senator, release me. And whatever you’ve planned for Tyrus, abort the plan. The Interdict himself has—”

  “Has desecrated the Living Cosmos,” spat Pasus. “As our last Domitrian has tried to desecrate our Empire. Not any longer. It stops here.”

  My heart plunged. I gave a frantic tug at the clamp, but couldn’t free myself. “What are you planning, Pasus?”

  He feasted his eyes upon my face, relishing my distress. “I entertained so many ideas about what I’d do to you to avenge Elantra. So many, Nemesis. And when your fellow Diabolics ended up in my hands, I set out to see what terrified them. What hurt them. What degraded and broke them. And do you know what I found?”

  I didn’t venture a guess, just remained mulishly silent.

  “They never feared anything. They never broke. All they did was stare at me with the same cold, dead eyes I see in your face, and that’s when I realized they were invulnerable. Vulnerability is too human. So I cannot hurt you.” Then he smiled. “But you do have one weakness. One you will never overcome. You are invulnerable to me, but that young Emperor in there? He is not. I can hurt him. And anything I do to him, you will feel five-fold. So live, Nemesis. And watch.”

  I stared up at him in mute horror. He swiped his hand over the wall opposite me to flip on a viewing screen . . . a feed from the presence chamber.

  And then he moved to leave me.

  “No. Wait,” I said sharply, realizing he was trapping me here. Trapping me here to witness whatever was about to happen, and Tyrus on that screen was giving an impatient nod, and a move-along gesture as Wallstrom kept inserting herself back in front of him . . . babbling about something or other.

  Helping Pasus. They were all helping Pasus.

  “Pasus. PASUS!” I shouted at him, desperate not to be left here. . . . But he stepped through the door and there I was, helpless. Useless.

  On the screen, I saw Pasus enter the chamber. The Grandiloquy about him fell silent. Tyrus noticed their fixed attention and turned with a smile—perhaps expecting me.

  His smile disappeared as he saw Pasus too.

  23

  “YOUR SUPREME REVERENCE,” Pasus said. He did the full courtier’s gait, three steps forward, dipping to his knees with his hands to his heart, then three steps more.

  And thus he approached the thunderstruck Tyrus in the presence chamber, and other various privy councilors backed away to cede authority to him.

  “Senator von Pasus,” Tyrus said, looking and sounding unshaken, though I knew he was anything but. “An unexpected pleasure. Very unexpected.”

  Senator von Pasus reached out, captured Tyrus’s hands. “How excellent to see you once more.” He drew Tyrus’s knuckles to his cheeks in a slow, mock-reverent way.

  Tyrus snatched his hands back as soon as they were released, folded his arms to keep them from being grabbed again. More Grandiloquy streamed into the presence chamber from other entrances. . . . And Tyrus froze. His gaze lingered on Credenza Fordyce, a strange expression washing over his face just for an instant.

  I knew why. Credenza was one of the hostages who’d been left on Lumina.

  And another . . . Tyrus spotted Gladdic at the edge of the crowd.

  Both here. Free.

  Pasus had abducted Neveni. Had he demanded the dozen Grandiloquy released in exchange for her life? How had he managed to retain Neveni after that? Why would the Luminars fall for such a paltry bargain—twelve and all the advantages they conferred for just one?

  Tyrus looked to be thinking quickly. He now realized his Grandiloquy mobilized against him during our absence, and they’d also freed the hostages he’d left on Lumina—which meant the Luminars had cut a deal.

  Pasus spoke: “As you can see from the assembled company, I am here to lodge a formal protest on behalf of my family and others. We believe Your Supremacy should heed the will of your foremost Grandiloquy. In fact, we demand it.”

  There it was, the naked force he’d artfully concealed until now. He had Tyrus at knifepoint, and they both knew it.

  Tyrus’s gaze broke from the Senator’s and roved over the crowd in a long, slow sweep. A smile crossed his lips, his eyes chilly as night. “I see my allies are behind you,” he said bitingly. “How long did it take the lot of you to scurry to the nearest strongman?”

  A few such as Amador and Wallstrom stirred uneasily, those “allies” with Pasus now.

>   “What does it matter?” Pasus spread his hands. “You fled the consequences of a most terrible crime—the murder of your own cousin.”

  Tyrus’s gaze jolted up. He looked so genuinely surprised, he could almost fool me. “My cousin? What . . . Wait. She’s dead?”

  “Do not pretend to be ignorant.”

  “Did my cousin perish?” thundered Tyrus, looking at all the faces about him. Then, to Pasus, “You monster. What did you do to her?”

  “What did I do?” echoed Pasus.

  “Did she refuse to cooperate in your treason?” Tyrus said disparagingly. How furious he looked! “You abducted and murdered a helpless woman; now you dare to stand before me with her blood on your hands—”

  “You accuse me of her murder? You think anyone will believe these lies after you actively distributed heresies to the Excess?”

  Tyrus shook his head. “No. Not heresies. I’d say ‘no longer,’ but they never were heresies. The Interdict’s decree was misinterpreted. According to the Interdict himself.” He reached into his pocket, and many of those about him tensed as though preparing to draw weapons. He unveiled the wooden box holding the electronic decree the Interdict had given us. “Perhaps some of you own one of these from centuries long past. Look your fill.”

  A few muted gasps. They knew what they were seeing.

  “Within it is a decree,” Tyrus said. “From the Interdict Orthanion. With whom I passed many hours . . . Many months, you might say, in conversation.”

  With a snarl, Pasus charged forward and snatched the box, ripping it right from Tyrus’s hands.

  Tyrus let him seize it, a cool, triumphant smile on his face. “Feel free to examine it, Senator. My long absence was necessary. I had questions over the wording of our Most Ascendant One’s decree on the sciences, so I did as a person of faith must—and sought the man himself to clarify with his own lips.”

  Murmurs of amazement rippled about him.

  “I stood face to face with him,” Tyrus said, “as he personally ordered me to foster an intellectual rebirth. He has learned the state of the Empire and he is aghast. He has charged me with restoring the sciences. To help me in this great task, he has given Nemesis personhood. This very night I will share this news with the Excess and exhibit the Interdict’s mark over her heart—so all might see. I’ve been mindful of those vicars who have required persuasion on her account, and have gone to great lengths to satisfy their concerns, as they will all see. This matter is settled. You have your next Empress, and I trust the matter of the scepter will be resolved in short order.”

  Stunned silence met his words.

  “This document is very clearly a forgery,” Pasus declared. “This is a laughable deception, Your Supremacy.”

  If my eyes could have burned a hole into his image on the screen, they would have.

  “Do not lie to your peers,” Tyrus said, “for you know it is genuine. Your family has always championed our faith. How tragic to see a crooked branch of such a noble tree.”

  “This. Is. Heresy.”

  “You accuse the Interdict of heresy?” Tyrus said, soft danger in his voice. “You dare?”

  “I do no such thing!” cried Pasus. “Do not twist my words. Whatever deception you employed to manipulate him into honoring that creature, to manipulate him into desecrating his office . . .”

  “Now you accuse the Interdict of being feeble-minded?”

  Shocked gasps.

  “Don’t you dare,” Pasus said.

  “You dig your grave deeper with each utterance, Senator.”

  “This is not legitimate,” Pasus insisted. “This is what I think of it!” He dashed the document to the floor and stomped on it.

  But the reaction Pasus must have hoped for wasn’t there. Instead, there were cries, gasps, and the tiny ripple of glee over Tyrus’s face, quickly buried. “I am outraged, Senator. Outraged. You have insulted the intelligence of our Interdict, as good as called him a heretic, and now—now you destroy his decree? No more!” And before Pasus could argue, Tyrus went in for the kill, thundering to the chamber: “I look about me and I see a room of fine men and women, misled by a viper. His sin is unpardonable but not yours—not if you denounce him now.”

  My heart rejoiced and anticipation crackled within me, because yes. Yes. Tyrus had turned this around, and I could have danced for the delight of it if I’d been free to move. . . .

  “Let’s be absolutely clear about the stakes here,” said Tyrus, pressing his advantage. He spread his arms, and I saw then that he’d drawn the scepter to hold lightly in his hand, a symbolic reminder of the power he would inevitably hold, of the importance of winning his favor now.

  He could have commanded them without it. He wore none of an Emperor’s regalia, and he was younger than every Senator among them, yet he held them in thrall. A casual glance would pinpoint him as their leader.

  “Ally with this man today, and you are not just a traitor to your Emperor and your galaxy. You are declaring yourself an open and avowed foe of the Living Cosmos itself. The Interdict himself.” Tyrus let that sink in, let it settle in their minds like a tangible weight, before he said, “I was absent, and any actions taken in that situation are understandable and excusable. I do not condemn honest mistakes. All is forgiven and excused if you join your voices to mine now. All of you, denounce Pasus.”

  They swayed as a body, and the physical space about Pasus grew as though he radiated poison. I saw the moment of deathly terror on the Senator’s face as his isolation grew, stranding him alone and exiled. His allies were melting way in every sense and leaving him alone. . . .

  And then his face shifted. He tilted his chin up, some secretive knowledge settling in his mind. “Denounce me. But it does not change the past. We were united five months ago. In this very room, we made a decision together. And it will bind us all unto death.”

  And those words, those words . . .

  They rang over the chamber, and a total silence fell in their wake. Those who’d been withdrawing from Pasus froze. Those muttering, stirring as though ready to turn on their new master first . . . they closed their mouths. Those whose chests had swollen, whose faces had lit, who’d been just on the cusp of shouting their support for the Emperor (likely all eager to do it first) . . .

  Like a light, that impulse was extinguished. One by one, shoulders wilted, heads bowed, and whatever influence Tyrus had seized over the Grandiloquy vanished.

  Now Tyrus appeared alone among them, and from the way he looked from face to face—he didn’t understand what had happened here any more than I did.

  “You were very clever, Your Supremacy.” Pasus’s voice rang out. Tyrus turned sharply toward him. “Very clever, indeed. But you see, all of us in here took an action to mitigate damage you yourself had done. We all worked in concert. All of us, but for the few who were hostages still on that planet. We meant to address the heresies you seeded on Lumina. And do not tell me again that they are not heresies. Perhaps you did twist the Interdict’s arm, but I’ve seen no such decree and, in fact, must question it from a man who also gave a Diabolic personhood.”

  Tyrus opened and closed his mouth. He looked around incredulously, for the words were a shocking, open, blatant challenge to the Interdict’s authority.

  There should have been outrage.

  There was silence.

  Then Tyrus’s face took on that total absence of expression, the telltale sign he was growing afraid so he’d switched off some part of himself that felt it. Fear crawled into my heart too.

  “Gladdic.” Tyrus spoke very softly. “Approach me.”

  If I could just get free, I could make it through the door and . . . and what? What? I couldn’t help. I wasn’t even strong enough to hurt Pasus.

  Frustration raged through me as I watched Gladdic drop to his knees before Tyrus.

  “I’ve known you for a very long time,” Tyrus said, slicing his gaze down toward him. “You will answer me honestly.” Then something spasmed across T
yrus’s face, a crack of true emotion. “Is she still alive?”

  Me. He meant me.

  Pain burned in my chest. That was his first thought. He feared they’d killed me.

  “Yes,” Gladdic said quickly. “Nemesis is alive.”

  Tyrus’s expression twisted a moment before he schooled it back into impassivity, and I felt like I’d been dealt a blow that stole my breath. How I weakened him. He was so controlled in the face of every setback—except for the prospect of my destruction. I was his weakness just as he was mine, and if anything could override his good sense, it was his fear for me.

  Pasus stepped between them. “Your abomination lives. Because I chose to keep her alive—as a favor to you. You must be made to understand the situation you have returned to. Look over there.”

  He pointed to an imaging ring planted on the floor. A holographic projection fizzled to life above the ring, and I knew what it was showing. The Central Square on Lumina.

  “You gave them technology,” Pasus said as Tyrus, confused, watched the image of Luminars roving about their capitol city. “You gave them independence. Neither were yours to give. You were clever to leave them human shields of our ranks to protect them. We couldn’t possibly save all twelve from their different locations on the planet. So instead, we visited each in turn and inoculated them.”

  “Inoculated?” Tyrus echoed.

  And then I saw what the dozen Grandiloquy hostages had been inoculated against.

  Brownish-yellow clouds swelled amid the mass of people. And the crowds in that image began to run, but it was too late and the cloud expanded, expanded. My breath caught in my throat when a suspicion came over me about just what I was seeing.

  There was no sound, but the mouths of those we could see opened in screams as the cloudy wave began to consume Central Square.

  I had never seen it myself, but I knew what I was looking at: a bioweapon in action. The most potent bioweapon in the Empire.

  Resolvent Mist.

  Understanding crashed over me: the hostages hadn’t been rescued.

  They’d been shielded. Then everyone else around them had been killed. Every Senator in the presence chamber had been in on it.