Howling Dark

by Christopher Ruocchio

  And then he did something incredible: he thrust out his hand. Not to shake mine, I realized, but to touch me—as though I were the hem of some nobile’s robe as he rode through the crowd in triumph. I recoiled, shocked, but Bassander did not drop his hand, only held it out as in benediction.

  “I didn’t do anything, Bassander,” I said, moving past him toward the hall, Valka following on behind. There was no reason to deny it, not with someone who was there. “I know what you saw, what you think you saw, but I don’t understand it.”

  A little embarrassed perhaps, Lin closed his hand into a fist. “Then it really is a miracle.”

  I froze on the threshold. Bassander Lin had never struck me as a religious man, but then, I had been born a palatine, and it is said that palatines go to the sanctum only to be seen, that it is the peasantry who light all the candles. I have always considered myself agnostic, but there are few of that effete class amongst the soldiery. Soldiers, someone told me, do not have the luxury of disbelief.

  Still, this new dimension to Bassander Lin surprised me, and though I stood now fully in the hallway I turned. The stoic captain I had known was gone, and gone the line of fire between us. If he had been my rival, he was no longer. That Captain Lin was gone, transfigured by what he had seen: my death and . . . return. The Lin that stood before me was something else. Something smaller—so it seemed—for it seemed that I looked down upon him, though we stood on level ground, him in darkness, me in light. Or no, that wasn’t it. I did not look down on him—though I hated him still for the role he’d played in all this—rather he was looking up at me, as one looks upon the face of a mountain, as I’d looked up and seen myself pointing in the Dark.

  “A miracle,” Bassander Lin repeated. I took a couple of steps backward, edging out not—as I’d expected—onto a hallway, but onto a catwalk that overlooked the very cargo bay from which I’d led our desperate charge into the helium fog. Bassander followed me, with Valka now close behind, watching me carefully. I was suddenly, painfully aware of the crowd milling about beneath us, soldiers and mercenaries, technicians and medical personnel alike, busying themselves with the sorting and securing of cargo. The din of laughing voices and barked commands rose all around us, muffled before by some static field in the door to the airlock vestibule.

  Bassander stepped out with me, so that we stood opposite one another as we had on the Balmung so long ago. And then he did the second incredible thing he’d done in a matter of moments. He knelt. Perhaps not so incredible: he was a soldier of the Empire, and I a palatine lord and cousin of the blood imperial. But this was Bassander Lin, and I was Hadrian Marlowe.

  “I don’t know what any of it means,” he said. “This thing you can do.”

  Valka was standing behind the man, smiling in wry bemusement. I tried not to look at her, terrified that I might laugh, might sneer.

  I heard a hush go through the crowd below. Then someone’s upraised voice. “Hey! Look, the captain!” The quiet deepened.

  The captain did not seem to notice. He did not raise his eyes. “Maybe the Earth has sent you, I don’t know. But you died, Marlowe. I saw you die.”

  “So did I!” one soldier called.

  “And me!”

  “A miracle!” The cry went up. “A miracle!”

  I’ve lost control, I remember thinking. Somewhere in all this, I lost control. We are not always the authors of our own stories. Some of us never are. I think that is what we struggle for: the command of our own lives. We struggle against our families, against the state, against nature, against our own weakness. All that we might choose for ourselves, if only for a moment.

  If only once.

  But Bassander Lin had chosen for me, and set my feet upon the path. Turning, I looked down upon the sea of faces on the level below me: rough mercenaries beside shave-pated legionnaires in black fatigues and the officers in their long coats. There was Lieutenant Cartier, overseeing the final preparations. And beside her stood Otavia Corvo and Bastien Durand. And there were Pallino, Elara, and Siran. And there—not far—were Ilex and Crim, forever inseparable—and Tor Varro, of all people, standing near the rear among medical personnel in their white habits. All of them watching, all of them seeing.

  I was uncharacteristically speechless, and stood clutching my useless arm, eyes moving from Bassander to the crowd—back to Bassander, who said, “Maybe you’re the one. The one who will bring an end to all this . . .” He shook his head. His transformation was so complete that it astonished me. Perhaps that was why I could not speak, so horrified was I by this display, by his reduction. Before, he had been a proud soldier—perhaps he was one still—but the man kneeling on the catwalk at my feet seemed more a creature, my creature, than a man. I heard the echo of Brethren’s words in what he said, and I shivered.

  The man to end it all.

  “You don’t know that,” I said, and made a weak gesture that Bassander should rise. The embarrassment ran thick over me as crude oil. I wanted desperately to be away. To be anywhere else.

  “You’re immortal,” Bassander said. “That’s proof. That’s a sign.”

  “He’s half mortal!” someone interjected. Was it Crim?

  “Half mortal?” someone echoed, quieter than the first.

  And then it began for true. “Halfmortal!” someone repeated, and made of the joke a cry. A declaration. A name. “Hadrian Halfmortal! He died! We all saw it! Halfmortal!”

  “Halfmortal!”

  “Halfmortal!”

  Half-dead, I thought, and turned from Bassander to face the people below. In doing so, I turned and stepped onto the path Bassander’s newfound awe and piety had marked out for me. They all looked up at me, hands raised, fists thrust in the air. Most of them had seen me perish, and those who did not knew at least that I had been the one to slay the prince. They cheered for me, and shouts of “Halfmortal! Hadrian Halfmortal!” were mingled with cries of “Had! Had! Had!” from those few myrmidons who had come up with me out of Emesh.

  “Halfmortal!”

  It was the name Brethren had given me, whispered by unseen mouths above the waters of a sunless sea, spoken again by chance or fortune by the lips of some unknown soldier. Halfmortal. For all the light of that shining instant, I felt a shadow move beneath me. Pale, bloated hands seized on my heart. I am old now, and have known enough of time to see the patterns of it, to see the path—like a river—at my feet beginning to carry me away. I did not know then where it led, or that the light that smiled upon us in that livid instant was only an echo, a foretaste of that final fire.

  I did not know it, but I had taken my first steps—forward, down—toward Gododdin.

  Toward the end.

  Toward light and fire.

  But I was young! And I was alive! And hailed by all who knew me. I had gone into darkness and deep water and come out again. Changed—as we always are by such experiences—but alive. My new arm hung at my side, part of me but not a part. I tried to close the new fist, but it would not go—and though it would grow strong in time and the horror of it would fade, it would serve as a constant reminder of the horrors of Vorgossos and the people and the life I had lost there. I turned and looked past Bassander toward Valka, gestured that she might come and stand beside me. Smiling, she shook her head, remaining in the shadow of the doorway behind the still-kneeling Bassander Lin.

  Cries of “Halfmortal!” still rose up from below. Fists raised in triumph. Hands in praise.

  I raised my strong right hand in answer.

  There are endings, Reader, and this is one. Some endings are beginnings. Such is this. As the Phoenix is reborn from its ashes, as new gods are ever born from the bodies of the old, so too was I reborn by that lakeside beneath that glassed-in sky. I left much of what I was by those waters: my scars from Emesh, my dreams of peace. Most of life consists of such transformations. If what I have done disturbs you, Reader, I do
not blame you. If you would read no further, I understand. You have the luxury of foresight. You know where this ends.

  I shall go on alone.

  Dramatis Personae

  THE MEIDUA RED COMPANY

  NEVER FORMALLY A MERCENARY company, the Meidua Red Company was concocted as a front by Hadrian Marlowe and Dame Raine Smythe of the 437th Centaurine Legion with the express purpose of locating the Extrasolarian kingdom of Vorgossos. Joined by a contingent of Jaddian soldiers at the behest of the Satrap Kalima di Sayyiph, they posed as a mercenary outfit, and traveled among the Norman Freeholds for decades. During this period, they built a reputation as mercenaries in the hopes of finding a lead to Vorgossos, most notably toppling the military dictatorship of Admiral Marius Whent on the planet Pharos, during which time they acquired two new ships and several hundred recruits. During this period, the company numbered perhaps two thousand strong (Lord Marlowe is vague in this account) spread across three vessels. The first was the Balmung, an antique Punisher-class destroyer kept in the holds of the supercarrier Obdurate. The other two vessels, the Mistral and the Pharaoh, were acquired during their campaign against Whent’s government on Pharos.

  Lord Marlowe was the nominal head of the company, but that position was a facade. The official commander in this period was then-Captain Bassander Lin, and the rivalry between the two men led to tension within the company. This tension worsened following the addition of the Norman troops after Whent’s defeat, as they were more loyal to Lord Marlowe than to Captain Lin. Much of that tension and more is detailed in Marlowe’s account.

  Here follows a list of those members of the Red Company mentioned in this second volume of Lord Marlowe’s account:

  LORD HADRIAN ANAXANDER MARLOWE, nominal Commandant of the Meidua Red Company. Disowned palatine lord and immunis attached to the 437th Legion. The Halfmortal, the Sun Eater, Starbreaker, Palekiller, Deathless. Notorious genocide responsible for the death of the entire Cielcin species.

  —His myrmidons, friends and former coliseum fighters from Emesh:

  —WILLIAM OF DANU, called SWITCH, Lord Marlowe’s personal lictor.

  —His former master, SET, a procurer.

  —GHEN OF EMESH, centurion. Formerly a convict.

  —SIRAN OF EMESH, centurion. Formerly a convict.

  —PALLINO OF TRIESTE, prime centurion. Formerly a convict.

  —His paramour, ELARA OF EMESH, quartermaster on board the Balmung.

  VALKA ONDERRA VHAD EDDA, a xenologist from Edda in the Demarchy of Tavros. Nominally scientific advisor to the Red Company.

  BASSANDER LIN, a captain of the 437th Legion, posing as Commodore of the Red Company fleet and captain of the Pharaoh. An ethnic Mandari and lifelong officer in the Imperial Legions.

  —His First Officer, PRISCA GREENLAW, lieutenant in the 437th Legion. Staunchly loyal to Captain Lin.

  —On board the Pharaoh:

  —LUANA OKOYO, chief medical officer. A Norman officer recruited during the Pharos affair.

  —SOISSON, lieutenant. Legion officer attached to the company since Emesh.

  —DULIA, lieutenant. Legion officer attached to the company since Emesh.

  —ETIENNE, a decurion and former lover to William of Danu.

  The Other Captains:

  —JINAN AZHAR, a lieutenant in the Jaddian army loaned to the Red Company and captain of the Balmung. Lover to HADRIAN MARLOWE.

  —Her First Officer, ALESSANDRO HANAS, lieutenant in the Jaddian army loaned to the Red Company.

  —On board the Balmung:

  —ARTURO, a Jaddian officer.

  —BRUX, a Legion officer. Ship’s supercargo.

  —OTAVIA CORVO, captain of the Mistral and former second-in-command to the late Emil Bordelon. Betrayed him and Whent’s cause at Lord Marlowe’s urging. A Norman officer recruited during the Pharos affair.

  —Her First Officer, BASTIEN DURAND, commander. A Norman officer recruited during the Pharos affair.

  —On board the Mistral:

  —KARIM GARONE, called CRIM, lieutenant. An ethnic Jaddian raised in the Norman Freeholds. Joined along with Captain Corvo during the Pharos affair.

  —ILEX, lieutenant. A dryad homunculus with background in computer systems and engineering.

  THE 437TH CENTAURINE LEGION

  Constituted in ISD 11907 under the Fifth Centaurine Legionary Act drafted by Primarch Ambrose Surabian, the 437th Centaurine Legion has defended Imperial interests in the Centaurus Arm of the galaxy. During the Cielcin Wars, the Legion was under the command of Sir Leonid Bartosz, a career soldier born into the Legions—as so many are—his parents both being lifelong officers. To all accounts, Bartosz was an able commander, but he figures only little in the narrative of history. He is thought to have been among the casualties at the Battle of Gododdin, when he was lost with the legion’s flagship, the ISV Deluge, along with all hands. A victim of Hadrian Marlowe and the Sun Eater. Of his four tribunes, only Dame Raine Smythe is of much note, being the one to recruit Lord Marlowe to the Legions as an immunis after the Emesh affair.

  Here follows a list of those members of the 437th Centaurine Legion and its Jaddian allies mentioned in this second volume of Lord Marlowe’s account:

  LORD TITUS HAUPTMANN, Duke of Andernach and First Strategos of the Legions of Centaurus.

  —SIR LEONID BARTOSZ, Legate of the 437th Centaurine Legion.

  —DAME RAINE SMYTHE, 4th Tribune of the 437th Centaurine Legion, Captain of the ISV Obdurate. A patrician of plebeian birth.

  —Her First Officer, SIR WILLIAM CROSSFLANE, Commander, First Grade; an elderly palatine.

  —On board the Obdurate and the Schiavona:

  —LUDOVICO SCIARRA, Commander and third officer aboard the ISV Schiavona.

  —MARIS CARTIER, Lieutenant.

  —TOR VARRO, Chalcenterite scholiast and Cielcin translator attached to the Legion. Brought on at Hauptmann’s insistence.

  THE KINGDOM OF VORGOSSOS

  According to legend, Vorgossos is a lost world orbiting a brown dwarf, settled in ancient times by the ancestors of the Extrasolarians fleeing the early Empire. Lord Marlowe’s account indicates that the settlement of the planet may go back further, that the city he visited may have been a Mericanii stronghold during the Foundation War. Whether or not that is true, it appears certain from his account that the myth surrounding Kharn Sagara and his conquest of the Exalted is. If Lord Marlowe is to be believed, the ancient warlord found a manner of immortality by relying on abandoned Mericanii technology and has ruled the planet ever since, providing a hideaway for pirates, mercenaries, and all manner of unsavory activity: notably the black market genetics and cybernetics trades.

  Here follows a list of those denizens of Vorgossos mentioned in this second volume of Lord Marlowe’s account:

  KHARN SAGARA, called the UNDYING, King of Vorgossos. Presumably the same Kharn Sagara from the ancient legends, implying that he is nearly fifteen thousand years old.

  —His children, REN and SUZUHA, apparently his clones.

  —His servants:

  —BRETHREN, a Mericanii artificial intelligence composed of human tissue designed to grow forever. Confined to an underground sea in order to support its weight.

  —YUME, an android which acts as the Undying’s caretaker and butler.

  —CALVERT, the Exalted in charge of Kharn Sagara’s cloning program and body farms.

  —NAIA, a homunculus.

  —The suppliants:

  —LORD KIM HAE SONG, the former Baron of Munshin.

  —LADY CATHERINE DOMITIA HARFLEUR, the Baroness of Varadeto.

  —LADY MARIETTA CALUSA, the Marquise of Sarmatia.

  —LORD SENDHIL RAMANARAYAN, the Grand Duke of Milinda.

  —PARDOS, ARCHIBALD, and FREDERICK, various members of the galaxy’s elite.

  —In the city:

  �
�SHARA, a beggar woman.

  On board the Enigma of Hours:

  CAPTAIN EIDHIN, captain of the Enigma of Hours. An Exalted sworn to the service of the Undying in Vorgossos.

  —His ship’s mate, NAZZARENO, a tender pilot and de facto customs officer. Exalted.

  —MARKO and JARI, Exalted, possibly members of the Enigma’s crew. The latter had mutated on exposure to the Deep on Apas; the former is his caretaker.

  —JACOPO, a merchanter and natalist.

  THE CIELCIN AND CLAN OTIOLO

  Not much is known of the history of the Otiolo clan. The only contact between the Itani Otiolo and the Sollan Empire was during the Vorgossos affair as recorded in this text. Aside from military reports made by members of the 437th Centaurine Legion and members of Strategos Hauptmann’s staff, Lord Marlowe’s record is the only one touching on the clan at all—and is at any rate the most comprehensive. Piecing together what we can from the available sources, it seems that the clan Otiolo was a young, fairly minor tribe. Marlowe’s text says the Prince Aranata took its people “out of Utaiharo.” This suggests that Prince Aranata defeated another prince in combat and took his tribe for his own, making him the first chieftain of the Itani Otiolo, as any Cielcin who kills an Aeta becomes an Aeta. Such short-lived clans appear to have been common among the Cielcin, their being a species of tyrants (which explains the necessity of the Baetan class, who appear to maintain the continuity of the tribe as it changes hands and identities as it moves from Aeta to Aeta. Not much else is known of this particular clan, any primary documents and artifacts having been lost in the annihilation of the Bahali imnal Akura during Strategos Hauptmann’s offensive.