Dark Age

by Pierce Brown

  “PDMs aren’t that strong.”

  “His are.” Theodora smears the smelling salt under Holiday’s nose. “Should be lucid now. Do tell us if you start getting a little warm down between the thighs, dear.”

  A flush spreads across Holiday’s cheeks. “I’m fuckin’ fine.”

  Theodora turns back to me. “You were right for us to use salts. He’s also trained in psychesonics. Even my Splinters had to wear earcaps to filter.”

  I sniff the air. “Smells like roses and poppyseed oil.”

  Theodora is impressed. “You can actually distinguish it? My, my. Would I love to take your nose on a walk through the forest.”

  “Yes, well, sewers are interesting. How did Ephraim manage against that man?” I ask. “Those pheromones would knock Darrow on his ass.”

  “Zoladone,” Holiday says. “He was jacked to the gills for a decade.”

  “Of course. Conclusion on our breed hypothesis?”

  “Custom hybrid, Eunomian embryo and either Priapian or Aenean sperm. Whichever it is, it made a Rose of a very dangerous strain.” Theodora looks back at the cell with a contempt so gracefully articulated with her lips and eyes that it makes me feel as coordinated as a bowlegged colt. “Rarer even than mine. I believe he came from the Hysperia Gardens breeding tubes.”

  “Hysperia.” Holiday’s eyes go sour.

  “You’ve heard of it?” I ask.

  She nods. “Trigg and I were sent there on a Dracones kill detail once. We saw the death rooms. It was what made Trigg pull the trigger to seek Ares.”

  “I believe they were called pruning chambers,” Theodora says.

  “Atalantia was a patron,” I say, examining the man. Could he serve her? Would he still? This whole charade doesn’t fit Atlas. But even absent hard evidence linking Atalantia, it’s certainly eccentric enough for someone who learned her trade in the silk viper pit that was Octavia’s court. I knew Atalantia for a little over a year. She made even Daxo seem tame. “Octavia often worried her erotophonophilia spoke of greater character flaws—not that I can imagine anything worse than deriving sexual pleasure from executions. Aja despised her for it.”

  “And now the psycho has the Gold war machine.” Holiday grunts. “Shame your brother’s pet crashed her ship into Hysperia. Trigg and I had a date with the proprietors.”

  This Duke of Hands will have seen the worst of my kind. I feel no small amount of pity for that. But the two women standing with me are proof anyone can write their own destiny. I open my white box and head to the cube. “I’ll conduct the extraction myself.”

  “You’ll want the salts,” Theodora says, glancing warily at the cylinders in the box.

  “Please. This horse rides for only one man.”

  * * *

  —

  An hour later, pressurized air hisses as the door seals me inside again. The walls, ceiling, and floor are white, but there are no corners and no perceivable curvature. It is as if the slender man sits in a chair at a table suspended in nothingness.

  Even with his pink hair lank and a bruise swallowing his left eye, the Duke of Hands is how I imagined Narcissus would look, mythic vanity made supple flesh and angular bone, so physically attractive he could drown himself in his own reflection and not pity his own death. Already his body will be adjusting to me, intuiting my predilections, beginning its assault on my sexual drive. But they didn’t call my father a cold fish for nothing. Houses of the Conquering, especially mine, learned long ago the dangers an alluring Pink could pose to the young scions of their line. In reply to this one’s pheromonal assault, my neurological defense systems activate. Deep in my medulla my chemoreceptor trigger zone detects the pheromones, interprets them as emetic agents, and relays stimuli to the integrative vomiting center, which nearly triggers emesis. It feels rather like radiation poisoning. Familiar.

  Thank you, Father.

  Swallowing the nausea, I peek around the table at the Duke’s pink feather loafers. “Ridachi?”

  He snorts in amusement. “Quite.”

  “Hummingbird?”

  “Griffin.”

  I wag a finger at him. “The Valkyrie would have your rib cage.”

  “Oh dear, a pity you’ve none about. Word streetwise is that they’ve simply vanished. Like a carnival trick. That must set you on edge…my Sovereign.”

  Not quite. The words are true, verbatim to the ones he spoke when he first saw me an hour ago.

  Incredible, the brain’s consistency.

  I’ve planned this meeting for some time, and prayed it would happen before Sevro found this chief prize. On the day my son disappeared, the master thief had already vanished into the city when my Lionguard arrived at his Endymion highrise, leaving only his blood behind. It’d been sprayed with an agent to destroy its DNA markers. Seeking him has been like catching smoke.

  “When I was a child…” I begin.

  “Oh Jove, a story.”

  I smile at the déjà vu. What a peculiar feeling this is. Does he not notice the ache at the back of his skull?

  “—my father took me to visit the gens Votum. He was keen on impressing upon me the vagaries of gens Votum diplomacy. But I was a young girl and easily bored. I looked at Mercury and I did not see iron or political intrigue. I saw a strange, violent little planet with a Master Maker who carved desert mountains into wonders, and jungles so deep and dark you’d think you’d lost the sun and ended up on Pluto.

  “I begged Father to let me see the jungles. Simply begged. Till at last even he could not do anything but send me off. It was a ridiculous procession. Votum botanists and scientists accompanied me and Lionguard and my father’s politico, Pliny, into the heart of the jungle. There were many odd sights there, as you can imagine. But there was one that arrested me. One that reminds me of you.

  “It was a scene I witnessed at dusk not far from our camp. I was watching a zebracore drink from the banks of a river when suddenly the jungle moved and a bush hydra struck from the treeline. It choked the zebracore to death and then unhinged its jaw to swallow it whole. I’d never seen anything like it. There it lay, perversely gorged and supine. Right there, on the bank of the river. Couldn’t believe my eyes. But it gets better. As it digested its meal, a single sarissa ant discovered it. You know of them, of course. We found them in your highrise. Soon there were two ants. Then ten. Then a million floating like water across the jungle. And, as the hydra lay glutted on the ground, too full to escape, I watched them devour it till all that was left was a skeleton around another skeleton.”

  He’s been excreting pheromones at a phenomenal rate. “Don’t you think we’d be better without all those eyes watching us?” he purrs. His eyelashes flutter. “I wither under lights. Wouldn’t you like to turn off the cameras?” he asks. “So much stress on those shoulders of yours. Wouldn’t you like release?” His tongue wets his upper lip. “I can do that. You’ll believe you’ve ascended into the clouds of Jupiter.”

  I lean forward, as if drawn to his magnetism, then squeeze his nose and make a farting sound.

  His eyes go rancid. “Cold bitch.”

  “Waste of hair.”

  He sneers because my insult was better, and leans back. “They all say you’re the brightest star in all the heavens, a face to make angels weep and a mind to make a shadow of the sun, but you’re just withering meat like all the rest. Aren’t you?” He sniffs. “I can smell the decay. Your tits already stretch and sag from childbearing, your mind murmurs of the madness that ate your psychotic brother and wanders to the fate of your marooned husband and your little boy, and slowly you begin to wonder if you’re not a tragedy instead of a triumph.” He laughs so sweetly you’d think he was massaging my feet. “I suppose those maladies give you allowance to make such opera out of your childhood.” He bats his eyes and leans forward, mouth open seductively. “Honestly—”

 
; “Do I look a hydra?” I finish for him. He pauses in confusion as I steal the words right out of his mouth. I keep going with what he’s going to say, because he said it just forty minutes ago. Not that he remembers it. “My bones are brittle as porcelain. My nerves tender and tight. Why, with one swat of your hand, you could shatter this frail anatomy. No. I am no hydra. I am the ant, and you are the fat snake who has swallowed what you cannot digest. And we surround you, devouring bite by bite by bite.”

  He’s dumbstruck. Not understanding how I could possibly predict his little soliloquy. “Perhaps,” I say in reply to myself. “Perhaps you are right. Time will tell. But insects have short life expectancy. So I guess time kills too. Tough metaphor for you.”

  He swallows, seeking confidence, some semblance of control. All my life, I’ve tamed myself to not frighten others. Sometimes it is fun to let the lion out.

  “Have we met before?” he asks.

  I lean forward. “Wouldn’t you remember?”

  He considers the question, his mind stumbling over the gaps I made in his memory. He shakes his head. The tweaks I made to the psychoSpike implanted in the back of his skull have improved results drastically. Octavia was so close to perfection with her Pandemonium Chair. The device was stored in her Crescent Vault. It has the capacity to shift through and edit memories. But while the chair is a blunt-force instrument, my psychoSpikes are scalpels.

  “You really look so thin on the holos,” the Duke of Hands says, eyes tracing my legs, “but you must have me by fifty kilos for the chair to sag like that. The bone density is startling. I would ask if it is hard to swim, but I suppose everything is proportionate. I wonder…” His eyes settle on my knuckles. “Could you shatter my skull with one punch?”

  “Like a soft-boiled egg.”

  “It must be…intoxicating. Godlike.” He admires it. He craves it. He knows he’ll never have it. Like my brother with Father’s love. I’d feel bad if I didn’t know the dangerous pressure that puts on a naturally cruel soul. “But of course you do not notice.” He licks his lips, nervously, off his game. He’s gotten used to owning the conversation. “What do you think would happen if I were you and you were me? If I was given that warborn body of yours, and you were given this frail vessel of mine? Do you think you would have the courage to do as I have done? To wait behind a door, no older than fifteen, wondering who your master has sold your body to?”

  He’s said this before, but I let him say it again. No one should steal these words from him. It is immoral.

  “And then to see them enter, and look at you like a meal without conscience or soul? Could you stomach it once? Twice? Satiating them. A thousand times watching yourself be devoured, feeling them throbbing inside of your body, violating the only possession you were given in this world until they shudder in ecstasy and at last withdraw and look at you with contempt. Are you that strong?”

  “No,” I continue his train of thought, now allowed to steal the very words that he said from our earlier conversation. For the speeches to be so similar, he must have rehearsed this meeting many times. “How could you ever sit where I sit now and face you down, never having been the stronger party in a fight? I daresay it would have broken you. But it did not break me. If I were given your body, your life, why, your hardest day would be a mean meal, and I”—I touch my chest—“would be king of all things.”

  He’s given up confusion for horror. “Cat got your tongue?” I say with a toothy smile. “Now is where I offer you a reward for the Queen. You spit in my face. You tell me you need no trinkets, you’ve gained them yourself. You are not my whore. What you have, you’ve taken. What you want, you will take. You are a man, not a rat. And a man must have a code. But it seems we are two apes dancing around fire. Shall we poke the blaze? You want to ask about your little boy, don’t you?”

  His unspoken words from my mouth incite a frenzy in him. But I keep going, torturing him, making him tiny. “He’s been raped and fed to dogs,” I sneer. “Piece by piece. They started with the legs, and saved the eyes for last. Not even a twitch? Iceheart would have fit better. Don’t you care about your son?”

  Words have deserted him. He’s trapped in a nightmare.

  “Of course I care, but you don’t have him,” I say. “Someone far more dangerous, but far more predictable does.” I glance at my datapad. Holiday has given the signal. Finally. The novelty was wearing off. Fidelity is confirmed. I have what I want.

  “Bitch…” he hisses. “How are you in my head? What is this?”

  “In part, this is me measuring the fidelity of your brain patterns and predictive behavior to help me develop an evolving technology. But more to the point, this is me killing time.”

  His pretty eyes narrow. “For what?”

  Finally, the lights go out. “The Goblin of Mars.”

  “YOU HAVE TO PROTECT ME.” The Duke strains on his handcuffs. I’ll never get used to seeing the fear Sevro wakes in people. Deep down they know Darrow is operating on a framework of logic. No one, not even me, believes that Sevro is completely sane.

  “How’s the saying go?” I ask the Duke. “That’s right. ‘The Reaper may go through you, but the Goblin stays for seven courses.’ ”

  “I’m a prisoner. I have rights. You can’t let him butcher me. I don’t have the little bastards! I’m a prisoner of the Republic. I have rights.”

  “I’ll see if he agrees. Wait, please.”

  I disappear out the door as the Duke shivers in terror.

  With the power cut, the warehouse is dark but for the lights around the small camp outside the interrogation cube. Theodora and Holiday sit at the table sharing tea and quietly debating whether the white sand beaches of South Pacifica or coastal vineyards of Thessalonica are more pleasant. I join them and kick my feet up. “Obviously South Pacifica. Impossible to get the stench of the Valii-Rath out of Thessalonica. Could you please pour me a cup, Centurion?”

  “Sugar?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “A little indulgence never hurt anyone,” Theodora says. I raise an eyebrow toward the screaming Duke in his cube. “Well, except for him.”

  I sip the sugarless tea and scan the shadows, wondering if he’s already there. “Sevro, stop wanking off in the shadows and come down.” No response. “We have tea.”

  A shadow parts from the darkness amongst the rafters and lands in the center of the floor. The short, plump figure wears light-absorbent tactical gear and a lupine helmet with a snarled snout and feminine ears. It is severely damaged and torn in several places. The helmet slithers back into its catch to reveal a round face with flushed cheeks. Pebble’s smile is awkward.

  I tip my cup. “ ’Lo, Mars.”

  “ ’Lo, Minerva.”

  “How is Luna treating you these days?”

  “Garbage detail, you know. Better than dead horses, I guess.”

  “Is Sevro joining us for tea or just going to skulk up in the rafters?”

  “Boss?” she calls up. “Think it’d be rude at this point not to—”

  “I hate tea,” a synthesized voice growls from above. “It’s just coffee with piss instead of coffee.”

  “He says—”

  “He’ll like this kind. I brewed it for him.”

  “She said you’ll like this kind. She brewed it for you.”

  “Ask her what kind of tea it is.”

  “He wants to know what kind of tea it is.”

  “Wolfsbane, obviously.”

  “She says it’s wolfsbane tea.”

  Silence. “That’s fucking hilarious.”

  A second shadow parts from the ceiling and falls twenty meters to land with a thump beside Pebble. Covered head to toe in battered scarabSkin and weapons, my son’s godfather stands to his full, unimpressive height. He swings his multiRifle around to his back, where it attaches to its magnetic hols
ter. Though his fingers play with the hilt of his father’s old razor. Never has trusted me fully.

  He stops as he passes Theodora and fixes his helmet’s eyes on her citycloak. “Where’s your wand, Merlin?”

  “Where’s your wife, savage?” She eyes the scalps hanging from the hook on his utility belt, hardly impressed. “Vile. Have you gone full Ascomanni, my dear?”

  “Please. The petty pirates copied me. Like Rollo with that goatee.” Sevro raises two fingers twisted together in the crux and slumps into the chair I kick out for him, though he does take a diva’s care not to rumple the rancid wolfcloak that hangs from his left shoulder. Holiday pours him a cup from a second thermos.

  “You look ridiculous,” I say. “Take off the helmet.”

  “Slag off. This is custom Cyther armor.” The weird wolfhead regards the cup with crimson duroglass eyes. “I drink coffee.”

  I squint at the armor. “I knew it. You can’t see color in that thing.”

  He pauses. Then the cracked snout and spiked ears ripple backward into their catch to reveal a pinched, cruel face, pitted by relics of childhood acne, and almost more feral than the helmet itself. His head is shaved but for a short warhawk with a zigzag running down the center of it. He squints at the cup, sniffs, and finds that it is indeed coffee, not tea.

  “You think your tricks are so charming,” he says. He picks up the cup, pretending he isn’t desperate for his private stash of Jamaican Blue Mountain. “If I get even a slight bit dizzy, you get a tranq in the face from Min-Min.”

  Holiday snorts. “Like that ruster could hit the broad side of a Telemanus’s ass.” In mockery, she holds up her teacup by its handle. Half the teacup in her hand turns to powder as a silent rail slug passes through it and into the wall behind, striking it like a gong. Unimpressed, Holiday measures the remaining half of the cup and holds up the measurement to wherever Min-Min is as if the Red were a sloppy shot. Guess it gets boring on campaign.

  Sevro mutters under his breath and nods to Holiday. “Holi.”