He shook his head.
“That was when humanity first contacted the Elves,” said Shane. “One of the NKVD researchers managed to make contact with an Elven noble named Kaethran Morvilind. This was during the war in Korea, and Stalin offered Morvilind whatever price he wished in exchange for bringing the Chinese to heel. Morvilind refused. For one thing, the royalist Elves were locked in their civil war against the Archons. For another, the NKVD was playing with the Dark Ones, and Morvilind hated the Dark Ones.
“Well, you know what happened next. The Cold War ended, and the Soviet Union collapsed. When it did, the CIA obtained all the KGB’s research into the Dark Ones.” Shane’s expression twisted in disgust. “All of it, the whole bloody, murderous damned mess. And the idiots started using it, improving on it. Many elements within the federal government wanted to exercise more direct control over the civilian population, and they thought that the Dark Ones might provide the means of doing it.” He scoffed. “The idiots were like toddlers playing with firearms. The damned fools! One of President Kerrigan’s predecessors had the bright idea of contacting Kaethran Morvilind himself and asking for magic to use against his domestic political opponents.” He smirked. “Morvilind’s response was rather insulting.”
I laughed, despite the grim situation. I could just imagine what Morvilind would have said to a human politician who asked him for help.
“And we paid the price for that man’s stupidity,” said Shane. “All of humanity paid the price. The Archons won their war. Tens of millions of royalist Elves were trapped in their final city on Kalvarion, ready to make their last stand. Then Morvilind had a bright idea. All those human leaders had kept contacting him and asking for his help? Well, maybe their world would make a good retreat point. The humans clearly didn’t have much magic of their own, or else they wouldn’t bother with the Dark Ones. So Morvilind suggested the idea to the High Queen, and she agreed. Morvilind opened the way to Earth, and tens of millions of magic-using Elves fled here to get away from the Archons.” A spasm of anger went over his face, and Shane hit the desk. “And that was why the goddamn Conquest happened. Because the goddamned politicians were playing with dangerous things they were too goddamned stupid to understand.”
He let out a long breath, calming himself.
“I happened to be out of Washington on Conquest Day,” said Shane, “so I avoided the High Queen’s purge of the government. Me and a few others started an insurgency. Fought enough insurgents in Iraq back in the bad old days, so it was time to become one. We made the Elves howl, let me tell you! I don’t know how the Elves conducted warfare back on Kalvarion, but it was obvious the Elves had never had to deal with a well-equipped insurgent force.”
He smiled, and then the smile faded.
“Then I found out about Operation Sky Hammer.”
He leaned forward, the dark eyes intense.
“It was so simple, so obvious,” said Shane. “The Sky Hammer wasn’t even a magical weapon like most of the stuff in Last Judge. Just plain old-fashioned physics. High-tech physics, yeah, but just physics. The High Queen wouldn’t expect that. Use it in the right place at the right time, and it would finish her. There wouldn’t be that much collateral damage if the weapon was used in the troposphere and the Skythrone was in a rural area.”
He stared into the camera, sighed again.
“We were ready…and then the High Queen requested a meeting with me. Duke Orothor arranged it.”
I remembered the picture I had seen in the museum, of Orothor smiling as Shane and the High Queen shook hands.
“You have to understand,” said Shane, drumming his fingers against the desk. “You can’t understand unless you’ve done the things that I have done. I have fought for this country since I was eighteen. I have killed for this country. I have looked into the eyes of young men and young women as I gave orders that I knew would send them to their deaths, and if they came back alive, they might be crippled for life. I have done all these things, so you know what it costs me to admit this. How important it is that you understand this.”
He leaned closer, those black eyes burning into the camera.
“The High Queen is right,” said Shane.
A thunderous scowl started to spread across Nicholas’s face.
“The Archons are fools,” said Shane. “They think they’re revolutionaries, but they’re the puppets of the Dark Ones. Their precious revolution and their death camps? A factory farm for the Dark Ones, so they can feed on the life energy and torment of slain Elves. And the Dark Ones will do the same thing to Earth if they can. They’ve been trying to do the same to Earth for millennia, ever since the Forerunner was first active in ancient Sumer. The Dark Ones are destroying the Elves. They are going to destroy humanity if they get the chance. Both races will be destroyed on their own.” He took another deep breath. “Which means that our only hope of survival is to work together.”
“Rubbish,” said Nicholas, his disdain clear.
“Tarlia is a tyrant and a cast-iron bitch,” said Shane, “but she has a conscience. She could have wiped out the human population and repopulated Earth with Elves, but she did not. She knows what it means to have authority, the responsibility that comes with it. She knows what it means to look into the eyes of young men and women and send them to their deaths. And she knows the Dark Ones will try to devour Earth as they are devouring Kalvarion.” He rubbed his face again. “As soon as I finish recording this damn video, I’m going to Chicago. I’m going to meet with the High Queen, and we are going to work out a peace and start planning for the campaign to defeat the Archons and reclaim Kalvarion for the Elves.”
That was why he had been assassinated. He had been planning to make peace with the High Queen, to find a way to work together with the Elves to defeat the Dark Ones.
I wondered what would have been different if he had lived.
“I might fail,” said Shane. “Not everyone in my organization approves of this plan, and they might take steps to remove me. So, whoever you are, you need to make this work. You need to make sure that the Elves and mankind work together. Else we are both doomed. It might take a hundred years, or a thousand, but in the end, the Dark Ones will destroy Earth. If you’re seeing this, I’m dead, so it’s up to you. Good luck.”
Shane started to rise.
“A pity,” said Nicholas. “He was farsighted in so many ways, but succumbed to foolishness at the end of…”
Shane sat back down.
“Wait, one more thing,” said Shane. “The Forerunner’s going to try to stop us, and he knows how to manipulate people. He knows how to corrupt them. He’s been doing it for millennia. The High Queen’s going to start an organization dedicated specifically to finding and killing the Forerunner – something called the Shadow Hunters. But there are going to be people who rebel against Tarlia, and the Forerunner will offer them the aid of the Dark Ones. Some idiots will be stupid enough to take the bait.”
“That’s enough,” said Nicholas. “We need to keep…”
“I’m not going anywhere until I see the rest of this,” I said.
“Unless he’s killed,” continued Shane, “the Forerunner is going to use the Dark Ones cults to create useful idiots. So, as my successor, you’re probably going to get approached by them sooner or later. Might be a Dark Ones cultist, or it might be some Marxist shithead who thinks more highly of himself than he should. Probably a dumbass who thinks he’s going to save the world. The Forerunner has a knack for finding idiots with delusions of grandeur.” Shane took a deep breath. “Don’t accept the aid of the Dark Ones for any reason. Their end goal is to enslave Earth and devour humanity. Remember that if we don’t work with the Elves, the Dark Ones will consume us both. Good luck, whoever you are. You’re going to need it.”
He reached into his uniform collar, pulled something loose, and put it in a drawer of his desk. Then Shane stood and walked out of the office on the way to his death, and the screens went blank once more.
> “That was a waste of time,” said Nicholas, his voice angry. “It is disappointing that Shane suffered such a failure of nerve before his death. We…”
“Yeah,” I said, “it is disappointing when someone describes your failings so accurately three hundred years before you were even born.”
Nicholas snapped something back, but I didn’t listen. I walked into Shane’s office, something scratching at the back of my mind. He had put something into the center desk drawer before the video had ended. Was it still there?
“Nadia!” snarled Nicholas. “Come back here now!”
I crossed around the desk and slid the drawer open, Russell and Murdo walking after me.
It contained two objects.
The first was a pair of metal tags on a chain. The tags had been stamped with Jeremy Shane’s name and a series of letters and numbers that were probably his blood type and an identification number. Men-at-arms in service to Elven lords carried similar tags.
The second object was an optoelectronic data rod, identical to the one Nicholas carried.
That rod was a master key to Last Judge…and there was a second copy right in front of me.
Which meant if I acted right now, I would have a master key that Nicholas didn’t know about.
I looked at Russell and Murdo, lifted a single finger to my lips, and with my other hand I grabbed the rod and slid it into the inside pocket of my coat. Russell’s eyes went wide, and he grinned, and Murdo nodded. I tugged my coat closed, and a half second later Nicholas, Corbisher, and Morelli stalked into the office.
“Why the hell are you wasting time in here?” said Nicholas. He looked angry, maybe angrier than I could ever recall seeing him.
I think he had admired Jeremy Shane for years, and so the video had probably upset Nicholas more than he wanted to let on.
Nicholas hadn’t been that upset when he had killed Hailey.
God, but I loathed that man.
“For these,” I said, holding up the ID tags.
“Shane’s dog tags?” said Nicholas. “Why do you want those?”
I grinned my mirthless grin at him. “To remind me of his excellent advice about the Dark Ones.”
A flicker of anger went over his face, and then it went cold again. “Keep them, if you want. A useful reminder of a failure of a man. Now, come. We’re going to succeed where Shane lacked the nerve.”
“Yeah,” I said, walking around the desk. “Though maybe Shane was right not to use the Sky Hammer. I mean, he was right about that whole Marxist shithead thing and…”
Nicholas whirled, his pistol pointed at my head, his eyes gone cold and flat. Russell pointed his AK-47 at Morelli, who answered in kind, while Corbisher took a prudent step back.
I grinned again at Nicholas. “Is this it, Nicky? Is our deal done? Are you sure you can get the Sky Hammer without my help?” I rolled my shoulders, fire starting to crackle around my fingers. “Because if you pull that trigger, our deal is broken…and I guess we’re gonna find out if you can kill me before I turn your hand into cinders.”
For a long, long moment no one moved or said anything.
Nicholas didn’t say anything, didn’t even blink. I realized that for the first time since Morvilind had sent me to help him, I had actually gotten under his skin, and I felt a perverse satisfaction. Or I would have if my whole attention hadn’t been focused on holding my magic to strike.
Slowly, Nicholas lowered the gun.
I almost taunted him again, but I realized that might result in six corpses in Shane’s office.
Instead, I wrapped the chain of Shane’s tags around my left wrist like a bracelet.
Corbisher snorted. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Like I said, I reminder,” I said. “What do you think? It matches my eyes, doesn’t it?”
“Actually, it does,” said Murdo.
“The two of you can flirt later,” said Nicholas, some of his calm manner returning. Some, but not all. His eyes looked like cold blue knives. “Let’s go. We’re almost there.”
Chapter 12: An Old-Fashioned Weapon
We crossed the operations center and came to a set of double doors beneath the giant map of the world. There was another lock terminal to the left of the doors, and a sign over the door read EMP RESEARCH.
“EMP?” said Russell. “That’s electromagnetic pulse, right?”
“Correct,” said Nicholas, sliding his rod into the lock.
“Uh,” said Russell, watching Morelli and Corbisher. “What’s an electromagnetic pulse?”
“Surge of electromagnetic radiation,” I said since Nicholas didn’t seem inclined to answer. “It causes voltage surges in electronic and electrical equipment. Basically fries anything that uses electricity. A big enough one can wipe out every electrical device on Earth.”
“But it’s unlikely,” said Murdo, his eyes sliding back and forth between Nicholas, Morelli, and Corbisher. “The High Queen was afraid someone would use an EMP weapon against her. A few decades after the Conquest, she ordered that every electrical device and cable include shielding against EMP.”
“Then why are we going to all this trouble to get an EMP weapon?” said Russell. “Because that’s what the Sky Hammer is, isn’t it? A big old EMP weapon? What good will that do you?”
Nicholas smiled a little as the terminal beeped and the doors began to unlock. “Just because you don’t have any nails, Mr. Moran, doesn’t mean that you can’t find a use for a hammer.”
“Hammer,” I said. “Ha. Funny.”
The doors slid the rest of the way open, and beyond I saw another room that looked like the lounge areas we had seen earlier, with a receptionist’s desk, tables, and chairs.
Except everything had been smashed to bits.
I took a cautious look around, holding my magic ready. The receptionist’s desk had been torn to splinters, and the chairs had been ripped apart. The tables lay in broken chunks. But nothing moved in the lounge, and it looked as if no one had been in here for a long time.
“Guess the anthrophages got angry,” said Russell.
“I don’t think anthrophages did this,” I said. “Look at the walls.”
There were dozens of small craters on the concrete walls. It looked as if someone had gone at the concrete with a jackhammer at random.
“And the floor,” said Murdo.
I glanced down. The floor was unadorned concrete, and it was also marked with hundreds of small craters. Someone had spent a great deal of time pummeling both the floor and the walls, and the furniture had likely been destroyed in the process.
“Any idea what did this?” I said to Nicholas.
“No,” he said. “Be wary. I suspect that this portion of the base has its own defense system.”
“So when the anthrophages and bloodrats happened to wander in,” I said, “the defenses came out and trashed the place.”
“Most probably,” said Nicholas. “Which is why I advise you to keep your eyes open.”
“Yeah,” I said, and I cast the spell to sense the presence of magic. I had already felt the presence of something powerful ahead, and now it pulsed against my senses. “There’s…something behind that door.” I waved my hand at the next set of double doors behind the ruins of the receptionist’s desk. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s strong.”
“She’s right,” said Corbisher, casting the spell to sense magic himself. “For once.”
“It feels like a warding spell,” I said. “I don’t think it’s what destroyed this room, though.”
“Well, then,” said Nicholas, “let’s find out what it is.” He paused. “Better be ready to fight.”
Morelli, Russell, and Murdo leveled their guns at the door. Corbisher held a spell ready, black fire dancing around his fingers. I gathered together my magic, forcing aside my growing fatigue. I had cast a lot of spells in a short time, and the strain of it was telling. The only consolation was that Nicholas, Corbisher, and Morelli would be just as fatigued whe
n our fight started.
Nicholas pushed the rod into the terminal next to the door, and as before, the terminal beeped, and the doors began sliding open.
Flickering blue light spilled through the doors, and I took a cautious step back. But nothing moved, and the doors slid the rest of the way open with a clang.
We stared at the thing in the next room.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
The next room was round, about thirty yards across, and the central half of the floor was taken up by a machine about the size of a dump truck. It looked like a combination of a gyroscope, a telescope mount, and some sort of clockwork gizmo, and it had been made of a bronze-colored metal that reminded me of the Eternity Crucible. Blue lightning flashed up and down its parts, and there was a computer terminal at its base, adorned with another one of those round locks. Floating above the machine was a symbol of blue light that looked like…
“That’s a Seal of Shadows,” I said, squinting into the glare. “At least, it’s mostly a Seal of Shadows.”
“This must be what’s blocking rift ways,” said Murdo.
“Fascinating,” said Nicholas. “They must have worked out a way to build a machine to create a limited Seal effect. Not enough to stop those dedicated summoning circles we found earlier, but enough to keep hostile rift ways from opening. The Knight of Venomhold can close the borders of her demesne to rift ways, of course, but the effect is entirely magical. Not technological. This will merit further study later.”
“There’s no damage to the walls or floor in here,” I said.
“No,” said Nicholas. “Probably the defenders were instructed not to damage this machine. No sense in having one portion of your defense disable another part of it, is there?”
We walked around the machine, the flickering blue light from the floating Seal and the arcs of lightning throwing harsh shadows against the concrete walls. I feared that one of the lightning arcs might reach out and hit us, but the lightning never passed a bronze circle set into the floor at the base of the machine. I noticed that the computer terminal was outside the bronze circle, which likely explained why it hadn’t been fried by the lightning.
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