Decius had arrived with yet another list of policy changes he wanted to make. Liber glanced through them. They all seemed worthy. Except, of course, there was no way to pay for them. He put the list aside. “Not enough revenue,” he murmured.
“The key to revenue collection is to prove to citizens that their taxes will be spent wisely,” Decius pointed out. He always pointed this out.
“Yes, yes,” Liber agreed. “But we can’t build new aqueducts when we can’t even pay our troops. In any case I have another issue to discuss: Affron.”
“What about Affron?”
“I want to hunt him down and kill him.”
“Ah.” Decius considered this. “Is your hatred of him that deep?”
“It is deep enough. But he is also a danger to the empire. He is the only one who can unite the priests against the Gallians. And he has a power that could be stronger than gants.”
“True. But I doubt that Affron would be interested in leading a rebellion. I don’t think he cares enough.”
“We can’t take that chance. Do you have any information about him—where he went after he disappeared from Roma?”
“We searched for him afterward,” Decius replied. “My spies on the waterfront found out that he’d boarded a ship headed to Britannia, along with Valleia and Carmody. I sent a letter to the governor of Britannia inquiring about them. His information was that they sailed from Britannia to Scotia, although he couldn’t be certain of this. In any case, by the time I received his reply, the Gallians had taken over, and no one cared about Affron anymore—including me.”
“Scotia,” Liber repeated.
“A little kingdom north of Britannia. Full of wild men and wilder weather, I’m told. The empire never bothered to conquer it—not worth the trouble. If you wanted to hide out from us, it would be as good a place as any.”
“Perhaps it’s worth sending someone there to track him down.”
“Why?” Decius asked. “Affron could be anywhere by now. Finding one person in all of Barbarica is an impossible task.”
“Affron is worth it,” Liber replied.
Decius appeared uninterested. “As you wish.” He returned to his list of policy changes. But Liber wasn’t paying attention.
He was thinking about Scotia.
Gretyx
Gretyx no longer went to the temple every day, but she was left with a hard ball of anger inside her.
Her daughter was dead.
Her son was a drunken braggart.
Her husband was an ineffectual fool.
And the empire they possessed was falling apart.
At long last, it was time to do something.
She was meeting with Feslund’s new chief minister, the ex-priest whose only qualification for the job was that he had managed to turn Feslund into some kind of god. This was not an insignificant accomplishment, but hardly sufficient for running an empire.
The man bowed low as he entered the room. Feslund sat sullenly at the table next to her. Carolus cowered in the corner. Her husband didn’t want to possess the empire; he was sure this would all end badly. As always, he underestimated his wife.
She gestured for Liber to sit. He seated himself opposite her and folded his hands on the table. He returned her gaze; he did not look nervous. He had once been in training to be a viator; presumably viators did not get nervous. “We are in trouble,” she said to him. “This does not surprise me. You are chief minister. Tell me what needs to be done.”
He nodded. “Thank you for asking my advice, my lady,” he began. “Our greatest problem is money,” he said. “People aren’t paying their taxes.”
“Can’t we punish them if they don’t pay? Throw them in prison?”
“We have no way to punish them. Our administration in many provinces has effectively collapsed.”
“Can we not simply mint more coins?”
“Not easily, not quickly. We could use less silver in the coins, but that would reduce their value.”
“Then we can demand higher tribute from foreign lands.”
“They will only pay tribute if we can enforce payment. But we can’t pay our soldiers, so the army is shrinking.”
Gretyx was annoyed. “What, then?” she demanded.
“We need to collect taxes differently,” Liber said.
“How?”
“Put tax collection in private hands, my lady. They did this in the old days, before the priests. Enter into contracts with rich merchants and landowners in each district. They hire their own people to collect the revenue; how they do the collection is their business. They pay us for the right to collect the taxes, and then they pay us a percentage of what they collect. The more they collect, the richer they become.”
Gretyx considered. “But we lose that percentage of the revenue.”
“Yes, we will collect less than is fair, but more than we are capable of collecting on our own.”
This seemed like a reasonable idea. “We will do it, then,” she said. “What else?”
“The magic cream, my lady,” he replied. “We should obtain a larger supply of it and—”
She waved aside this suggestion. “The cream has done its job,” she replied. “We need some for our own use, that is all.”
This got Feslund’s attention. “The people want me to cure them,” he protested. “Why should I stop?” He enjoyed being a hero, of course.
“You have created the legend; that is enough,” Gretyx said. “Using the cream was a good idea, but now it is a waste of time. In the future, we can simply make up stories and circulate them around the empire. Why do they need to be true? The people will tire of this trick eventually and demand ever greater miracles. We will then simply invent the miracles.”
Feslund pouted; Liber merely shrugged. “Yes, my lady.”
“What else?” she asked.
“The legions, my lady,” he replied. “Even if we find the money to pay them, they must be put under Gallian generals to ensure their loyalty.”
“Surely you can help with this, Feslund?” Gretyx asked her son.
“I thought I had.”
“My lord,” Liber said, “you promised to provide me with a list, but—”
“Yes, yes,” Feslund muttered.
“How about Ploterus?” Carolus asked, speaking for the first time. “I have always liked Ploterus.”
“We need many more than just that one general, my lord,” Liber pointed out.
“Work with him, my dear,” Gretyx said to her husband. “I do not know these military men.”
“Delighted,” Carolus said. He was happy to have a task.
“Good. And what about viators?” Gretyx asked Liber. “I have been told we need viators if we are to obtain more of these gants. Have you found any?”
“No, my lady. We started our search too late, it seems. The viators disappeared after the fall of Urbis, and we’ve been unable to find them. But we believe we know where one of the most influential of viators is. His name is Affron, and he is thought to be in Scotia.”
“Scotia?”
“A kingdom to the north of Britannica. It is possible that he has other viators with him—he has always had followers. I would like to send some men to capture them.”
“Of course. Do whatever you need to do. If the viators will not cooperate, kill them.”
Liber inclined his head. “Very good, my lady.”
The meeting continued. Liber was better than she had expected, but she still did not trust him. She trusted no one but herself. And there was much more to be done.
Liber
The meeting could not have gone better, Liber thought. But now he needed the right man to find Affron. He didn’t trust soldiers; they wouldn’t understand Affron, so they could not hope to capture him. Who, then?
The answer was clear, if unpleasant.
His name was Harmalo. Liber dispatched Cingulus to find the man, and after a search his secretary found him on the waterfront, where he had an unsavory job handl
ing smuggled goods for one of the gangs there. Cingulus brought him directly to Liber’s chambers in the pontifex’s palace, where Liber was reading by firelight.
Harmalo stood just inside the door, saying nothing, waiting. If he bowed, it was just the slightest inclination of his head. Liber waved Cingulus away and gestured to the jug on the table next to him. “A cup of wine after your journey?” he asked Harmalo.
Harmalo shook his head. “No thank you, my lord.”
He rarely drank wine; Liber should have remembered that. It was one of many irritating things about Harmalo. He was taller than Liber, and more distinguished looking—beardless, his hair now streaked with silver. He had the dark, piercing eyes of a viator. But, like Liber, he was not a viator. Unlike Liber, he had not quit; he had been dismissed. Not because he wasn’t smart enough, but because of a streak of cruelty so powerful that it overcame even his ambition. Liber had never liked him; no one had liked him, really. But Harmalo didn’t seem to mind.
And if he was impressed at Liber’s sudden rise under the Gallians, he wasn’t going to show it. If he was desperate for respect, or success, or money, he wasn’t going to show that, either. But he had come. He could have refused. He could have laughed at the very idea of helping the Gallians or Liber. But he hadn’t.
“Sit down, then,” Liber said.
Harmalo came over and sat opposite him in front of the fire. Liber fought the urge to pour himself another cup of wine. He was in control here. He could have Harmalo killed if he chose. He had no need to be frightened of the man.
“Do you remember the viator Affron?” he asked.
“Ah, Affron. Somehow I knew this would be about Affron.”
“I need to have him killed.”
“That is to say, you want me to kill him,” Harmalo replied.
Liber nodded.
“So, the first time you have any power, you decide to kill your own enemy.”
The key to dealing with Harmalo was to not let him anger you. “He is a danger to the Gallians,” Liber pointed out. “He can rally other viators to oppose them, if he chooses.”
“Where is he?”
“A land called Scotia, we believe.”
“Scotia?” Harmalo shook his head. “Scotia is…nowhere,” he murmured. “A strange place from which to start a rebellion. Why is he there?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time.”
Liber could see no harm in telling him the story, and so he did.
Harmalo listened, eyes half-closed.
“So, he may or may not be in Scotia,” he said when Liber finished. “He could be anywhere.”
“True. He could already be dead.”
“And he may or may not have two other people with him—Valleia and some man who was with them in Roma. Probably a man from another world.”
“True.”
“Does Affron have a gant?”
“I don’t think so,” Liber replied. “He had a gant—Decius saw it. But he apparently gave it to the boy and girl who were with them. The boy and girl ended up in Gallia, and they used the gant to help the Gallians conquer Urbis.”
“Very odd. And where are they now?”
Liber shrugged. “No one knows. Dead, probably.”
Harmalo steepled his fingers under his chin. “And why me? You are chief minister of the empire. Others can do your bidding.”
“Others do not know Affron’s true power. I think you do.” Liber had made the mistake of talking to Harmalo about Affron once, years after both had left the priesthood. It was clear that Harmalo hated Affron too; but then, Harmalo hated everyone associated with the priesthood.
“You have told me of his power,” Harmalo agreed. “And that means I know the risk I’ll be taking.”
“I’ll pay you a thousand denarii. And I will give you a diplomatic retinue and make you an official representative of the empire.”
Harmalo shook his head. “Five thousand denarii.”
Liber was shocked; this was an absurd amount of money. Then again, he had the queen’s support. “Very well. Half now, half when you return with his head.”
“That is acceptable. But there is one more condition.”
“What is that?”
“I will need a gant.”
Liber shook his head. “I can’t give you a gant.”
“Why not? You are chief minister. Surely you have access to them. Without a gant, how do you expect me to defeat Affron? Either you want this done or you don’t.”
Liber hadn’t considered this. The idea terrified him; gants terrified him. But he understood Harmalo’s argument. To defeat Affron, he would need a power comparable to Affron’s own; a gant was the closest thing on Terra to such a power. “You will use it only on Affron,” Liber said. “If you encounter Valleia or other viators, you will bring them back to Urbis. We need them here. Do you understand me?”
“Of course. When do I leave?”
“We will need to make preparations. Cingulus will summon you when we are ready.”
Harmalo nodded and arose. “This should be quite interesting,” he said.
Liber watched him leave; he was already wondering if this was a mistake.
Nevertheless, he proceeded.
Obtaining the gant was surprisingly easy. He had been prepared to invoke the queen and Feslund, but the officer in charge at the armamentarium deemed Liber’s authority sufficient. Perhaps he should institute greater restrictions, along with all the other security changes that he had already made. A matter for another day.
The officer was named Armindor, a gruff red-headed Gallian. He unlocked a room on the second floor of the armamentarium and led Liber inside. They gazed upon several shelves lined with the small weapons, all glowing a pale blue.
“Take any that you like, my lord,” Armindor said.
Liber walked over and picked one of them up. It was heavy and slightly warm. He understood nothing about the object.
“You’ll be returning it, my lord?” Armindor inquired.
“Eventually,” Liber replied.
Liber put the gant in a pocket of his robe. Armindor leaned over and made a notation in a book sitting on a table in the corner. Then they left the room, and Armindor locked it behind them. And that was all that needed to be done.
Harmalo was summoned again a few days later, and this time they met in Liber’s office in the palatium.
“Cingulus has given you what you need?” Liber asked, gesturing at the satchel Harmalo was carrying. “The documents? The funds?”
Harmalo nodded. “Your secretary is most efficient,” he replied. “The ship and men await me. But of course there is one item remaining.”
Liber took the gant out of his pocket and handed it to him.
Harmalo stared at it. “How does it work?” he asked.
Liber shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not hard to figure out, I’m told. Do not use it unnecessarily—if used too often, its power fades. When you are done with it, you will return it to me. If you do not, we will hunt you down and kill you. Do you understand?”
“Of course. For Affron alone. And how do I bring you proof of his death, if the gant is as powerful as you say?”
“That is your problem to solve.”
They both fell silent and stared at the blue glow of the gant. Finally Harmalo placed the weapon in his pocket and stood up.
“Do not fail me,” Liber said.
“Affron is as good as dead, my lord,” Harmalo replied. And then he left the room.
A mistake, Liber thought once again. But it had to be done. And Harmalo was the man to do it.
He returned to the business of the empire. But he couldn’t wait for the day to end and he could go back to his chambers, and the jug of wine awaiting him there.
Seventeen
Larry
Affron would watch him from the other side of the room. Occasionally he murmured a suggestion; the suggestions never made sense.
“You can’t will a portal in
to existence,” he said once. “You need to dream it into existence.”
“What does that mean?” Larry demanded.
“It means that trying too hard won’t work. I tried for years, and nothing happened. I knew it was there—somewhere—but I couldn’t find it.”
“So how did you find it?” Larry asked.
“I didn’t. It found me.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“It’s the best I can do.”
It wasn’t good enough.
How did the brain work exactly? Larry didn’t really know. Did anyone know, in all the worlds of the multiverse? Trillions of neurons, all connected in endlessly branching and looping networks, firing and pausing, sending and receiving their tiny electrical signals. And out of it all came thought and desire and intention and wisdom. Works of genius and acts of inexplicable heroism. And sometimes, it seemed, something more. Sometimes the neurons thought about themselves thinking about themselves, an infinite regress, a hall of mirrors. And sometimes, in the thinking, things happened.
What things?
“Can anyone create a portal?” Larry asked.
“Anyone?” Affron replied. “That seems unlikely, don’t you think?”
“How should I know?”
“There is a reason you and I are sitting here,” he replied. “It says nothing about our virtue or our temperament or our hard work. It is a gift, but a gift that no one has given us. A trick of history, a mistake of the multiverse.”
“Why not just ignore it then?”
Affron shrugged. “Go ahead and try. You don’t need to be here. You can go home. You can go back to Terra. You can do anything you want. I think perhaps that my telling you I would take you home was what caused something to break free in you, what got you started. But I don’t know. My offer still stands.”
But Larry couldn’t leave. He knew that the gift was there if he could find it—if it could find him.
Time passed. A month? A year? Larry ate. He slept. He felt himself growing, changing. He moved his hands through the air.
And nothing happened.
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