He was right. The Grand Lumis had assigned Upraad as Kastor’s first target due to its perceived weakness. For years, the Upraadi revolutionaries had been growing in numbers, elevating their attacks, adding more stipulations to the constitution they demanded from Radovan—the problems of a lone wolf lumis and an isolated regnum.
The dry, craggy, unruly planets under Radovan’s dominion would be easy to subdue. Easy enough to accomplish through simple negotiation, while Kastor approached unarmed and a fleet of gunships guarded the Aegis in orbit. Kastor hated negotiation. He hated the vulnerability of it—granting something in exchange for something else. He worked better in combat than dealmaking.
“Perhaps the commoners blew themselves up before they learned how to use weapons,” Guerlain mused, leaning forward to watch the boats below. She kept a hand on Guarin’s thigh.
“Maybe they starved once Radovan cut off the dole,” Guarin said, interlocking his fingers behind his head.
Guerlain giggled, an evil sound. “What a depressing thought. No one to fight.”
“There’s already no one for us to fight,” Kastor said, rubbing his temple. The headache still lingered, exacerbated by the sounds of Swanspawn voices. “If there were,” Kastor went on, “Radovan wouldn’t be escorting us through the middle of his city to his capital, where he still lives. We’d be meeting him at a secret moon base somewhere.”
Guarin shrugged. “Maybe he’s bluffing.”
“He wouldn’t bluff with his life at stake,” Kastor said. “No, he has the situation under control.”
Guerlain trained her severe gaze on the cliff face. “I’m holding out hope to break some commoner necks.”
Kastor felt sickened. “You enjoy the thought of killing something weaker than you?”
She slashed her slitted eyes at him and grinned. “More than you, apparently.”
His fists formed reflexively, and his muscles clenched. Trajan, on the other side of him, gripped his forearm with long, soft fingers and shook his head. Kastor wanted to kill both of them and throw them off his shuttle, but his title of champion was more important—barely. He loosened his fists and exhaled.
“Pilot,” he said toward the comm panel in the arm of his seat. “How close are we?”
“Not long, Master,” the low female voice crackled through the speakers. “A few minutes. Canyon City stretches on like this for fifty kilometers.”
Trajan leaned toward Kastor. “Old Radovan is giving us a tour of his peaceful—”
Kastor’s eyes widened at an object streaking up at them from low on the cliff, trailing a line of gray smoke behind it. Some sort of projectile. One of the drones responded automatically, snap-aiming its machine guns and firing. The missile exploded, bursting outward and spreading lines of smoke through the air like a colorless firework. Two more projectiles zoomed through the haze. The drone blew up another above the first thick cloud, but the other missile streaked on and slammed into the drone.
Metallic debris erupted upwards as the machine became a writhing ball of flame. A strip of the wing flipped through the air and smashed into the window beside Trajan. The servant shrieked and recoiled at the steaming slab of metal lodged in the cracked ballistic glass. Red lights flashed in the ceiling as a frantic alarm wailed. The shuttle tilted and thrust away as another rocket flared past the space they had occupied milliseconds ago.
Kastor mashed the comm button. “Pilot, get us out of here!”
“Hang on!” the pilot replied through the speakers. “The missiles are guided!”
Across from Trajan, who trembling as he gripped his seat, the lump of hot metal gradually made deeper and longer cracks in the glass. They were carrying extra weight with it attached, but the atmosphere outside was noxious. It would poison their air inside the viewing compartment.
“Oxygen masks. Now!” Kastor shouted. A panel in the side of his seat popped open, and he slid the plastic mask over his nose and mouth. The Swanspawn did the same. Trajan hyperventilated as he fidgeted with his mask, trying to untangle the strap. Kastor grabbed the mask, ripped off the strap, pressed the cup over Trajan’s face, and raised the servant’s slender hand to signal him to hold it. Trajan nodded gratefully. Kastor unbuckled his safety belt, then lifted his boot and rammed his foot against the wingtip. Twice, three times, and it loosened. On the fourth kick, the slab of metal flew out the window and fell out of sight.
Another rocket blasted from a ledge on the cliff and spiraled through the air, heading toward the shuttle, teasing the drone’s bullets.
“Pilot!” Kastor growled inside his mask.
“I see it!” she shouted back.
The shuttle’s laser beams crisscrossed in the smoky haze, chasing the spastic rocket until one connected. The rocket sent a shockwave through the air as it detonated in blue fire, turning to a massive black cloud and casting an imperceptible veil before the shuttle. Kastor rocked back into his seat as the ship lurched away from the blast, losing altitude. Once they fell outside the black cloud, Kastor looked out and saw a pair of figures in armored helmets on a ledge maybe thirty meters distant. One aimed a launcher directly at them and fired, but a half-second later, a round zipped from overhead and blasted the rocket into an umbrella of fiery debris. The drone swooped down and fired its machine guns, sending a rapid, hollow clanking sound through the air. The ledge where the figures stood spewed dust and blood until nothing recognizable remained on it.
More identical drones arced over the top of the canyon and then stopped to hover while facing the walls. They fired upon any movement they detected.
“What the hell was that?” Guarin grumbled, muted by his mask.
Kastor liked hearing less of the Swan’s voice. Perhaps he’d make Guarin keep the mask on for the duration of their time together. Gravity returned to normal as the shuttle evened out and thrust forward again under the protection of the drones. The rockets had ceased, and the machine gun fire faded.
Guerlain leaned back in her seat and let out a gleeful laugh. “So much for your theory, Kastor.”
He ignored her. Trajan sat up straight, still pressing the mask to his face, and returned to his typical posture. Kastor met his wide eyes, and the servant blushed.
“I suppose . . .” Trajan swallowed. “Radovan’s city isn’t quite as peaceful as he led us to believe.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Radovan’s palace, if it could be called that, burrowed deep into a mountain overlooking the canyon. It wasn’t much more than a cave—tunnels carved in the spaces between natural caverns. Columns rose in the larger chambers beside the connected stalagmite-stalactite formations. Most of the stalagmites had been cleared to make way for mosaic tile floors, but the stalactites remained in the ceiling around hanging lamps. Shadows hid behind columns and streaked across the ceiling amidst the hanging calcium deposits.
The only color in the place came from long tapestries on the walls depicting the Lagoon’s lumises at various high points of their reigns. Harkley the Explorer, who had colonized the Lagoon systems, held an Upraadi rock in his hands. On another, Burnet the Builder stood at a rocky peak overlooking a deep chasm lined with scaffolding.
The contingent of troopers surrounding Kastor’s small company led them through a tunnel with elaborate wall paintings of the most recent lumis before Radovan. Flowing images showed Shonie the Sovereign, a burly man with a ragged beard and a hatchet that glistened red along the blade. Kastor had heard stories about that hatchet. Disquieting stories. The kind that gripped one’s imagination and wouldn’t let go. In an age of lasers and repeater guns, a man who killed with a blunt iron axe commanded respect.
Hard-faced guards holding repeater rifles eyed Kastor and his offworlder companions as they passed. The nobles didn’t share the refined, cosmopolitan look of their counterparts in the Sagittarian Regnum. Men hunched over stone tables, unshaven, fingers wrapped around mugs of beer from the royal brewery. Blazer swords hung from their backs, flechette pistols from their waists, insignias o
n their cuffs bearing the ironic wave symbol of Lagoon. None of the Lagoon systems contained a watery world. The closest approximation was a dwarf planet with swamps and creeks of liquid methane.
After so many generations, these frontier nobles had taken on the rigid, unforgiving look of their homeworlds. Even the women displayed a roughhewn ferocity over their genetic beauty. Leathery, calloused, suspicious, but still grouped mostly in pairs. The frontier maintained the old order of genetic coupling. Of course they would. Those bonds ran deep, like tumors with long tendrils.
Something caught in Kastor’s throat as they walked. He lowered his eyes and swallowed hard, willing those thoughts away.
“This is why I’m proud to be a Sagittarian,” Guarin murmured to his maiden. Guerlain snickered until one of the Upraadi troopers glanced her way.
Kastor leaned toward Trajan. The lofty retainer tilted himself to hear.
“We need to make sure they do none of the talking,” Kastor whispered.
Trajan gave a subtle nod. “I’m as revolted by them as you. But we must keep them happy until they report our victory to Zantorian.”
“You say it as if it will be easy,” Kastor muttered.
Trajan concealed a smirk. “That’s why the Grand Lumis sent you, Master.”
The group came upon a vast cavern supported by smooth, hulking columns. The prickly array of stalactites in the ceiling glistened from white lights, and a figure-eight-shaped fountain in the center of the courtyard made a trickling sound as water dribbled over stones. Black, skeletal, metal benches surrounded the fountain. Two soldiers with flechette rifles stood guard on either side of the unadorned slab doors. Across the courtyard, the low voices of a few noblewomen reverberated through the chamber. Otherwise, the empty space was quiet and eerie.
“How extravagant,” Guerlain whispered wryly. “If this is what counts as luxury, I can see why no one is happy.”
The leader of the Upraadi escort contingent stopped before the slab doors and faced them. His gaunt, scarred face scowled as he looked them over. When he spoke, Kastor was taken aback by the thickness of his ‘Gooner accent—harsh and halting.
“You may be something special in the Arm,” he said, “but here, you are foreign ambassadors. Nothing more. You will show deference to the lumis, and should you try anything, it will be my pleasure to end your lives.”
“You’d be lucky to get a shot off, friend,” Guarin countered.
Kastor was pleased. Perhaps the Upraadis would do him a favor and kill the bastard.
Instead, the escort leader trained his gaze on Guarin without a twinge of insult. “It’s my understanding you are not Zantorian’s champion but a mere attaché to the champion. If so, why are you the first to speak?”
Guarin fumed but gave no reply.
Kastor held back a smirk. “My apologies. His role as attaché is temporary.”
The escort leader shifted his disapproving glare between Guarin and Kastor, then wheeled around on his heels. “Come.”
The slab doors bellowed as they cracked open and groaned as they came to a halt. Kastor heard the slap of water against rock from inside. The escort troopers led Kastor’s crew into the even larger chamber ahead, where a carved path led to a short set of steps. On either side of the steps, stone basins protruded from the rocky walls, barely attached. Teal light glowed from inside, and silver orbs half as tall as Kastor levitated above. Whether they had some purpose or were mere ornamentation escaped him.
Beyond the steps, a circular atrium opened and revealed the source of the water sounds. Streams of teal water fell from various points and heights on the curving crag wall, collecting in a moat that bordered the circular atrium. It ran under a bridge past the steps. In the center of the atrium, a solid, ornately engraved obelisk rose halfway to the impressively tall ceiling. From a small aperture near the top, another waterfall of the same hue splashed into a rectangular reservoir—the greatest extravagance a planet of scant water could possibly display.
In front of the reservoir sat a stone throne, and in front of the throne stood a man. Others stood around him, a group of nobles talking as if they hadn’t yet detected the newcomers, but the moment Kastor saw him, he knew this was the Upraadi lumis. Radovan the Gracious. His piercing eyes, which met Kastor’s immediately, gave him away. The man was tall, hairless, muscled in a light and nimble kind of way, and stoneskinned. Every centimeter of exposed skin was gray and craggy like rock. But his teeth, which appeared as he cracked a smile, shone a brilliant white. And his brow lacked any painted black prongs.
“Silence!” Radovan called out. The group of nobles paused their conversations as well as the images projected from their cuffs onto the floor. Everyone looked at the foreigners. In the silence, the slapping of water echoed lightly through the court.
“Kastor, son of Tyrannus, champion of Triumph,” Radovan intoned in a surprisingly soft voice for a noble. “Welcome to Upraad. And to my court.”
Kastor felt strange, like arriving at a lord’s house in Eagle. Radovan radiated warmth and ease. The urge to tear out the iconoclast’s spine and beat him with it hadn’t come as he’d expected from a rebellious lumis.
Kastor bowed. The others in his party did the same. Trajan gave a particularly fancy bow, a gesture that resembled a curtsy.
“Thank you, Lord Radovan,” Kastor replied and waited for permission to approach.
A moment passed before Radovan shifted his feet and rolled his eyes with exaggerated drama. “Oh, for Nether’s sake, come closer so we can speak like human beings.”
Kastor exchanged a glance with Trajan, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “Apologies, my lord,” Kastor uttered.
The four of them walked forward, still surrounded by the armed escort. True to his word, the escort leader watched them like a tetchy hawk, hand on his holster. The splattering of water grew louder the further into the atrium they went—the sound of fifteen or more waterfalls cascading all around them.
Up close, Kastor realized Radovan bore a similarity to Zantorian—an utter lack of intimidation. An aura of relaxed power enveloped the Frontier Lumis, as if his rock-like epidermis were impenetrable. Kastor wondered if Radovan and Zantorian possessed this air of invincibility before they became lumises or if it developed during their reign.
“Thank you, Sylvan,” Radovan said in the direction of the escort leader. “You and your team are dismissed.”
The gaunt man scowled. “But, my lord, we cannot—”
“They didn’t come to assassinate me,” Radovan said.
Kastor listened close as the stoneskin spoke. There was the slightest rasp somewhere in the Frontier Lumis’s voice that sounded like two rocks rubbing against each other.
“Did you, Kastor?”
Kastor allowed his lips to break into a smile, feeling oddly unthreatened. “No.”
“See, Sylvan?” Radovan said. “Nothing to worry about. They haven’t come to assassinate me. They’ve come to enroll me in their Ponzi scheme.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Kastor said, feeling his smile fade.
“Ah.” Radovan laughed. “I await your version with bated breath.” The lumis set his eyes on Sylvan. “As I said, the escort is no longer required. You’re dismissed. In fact—” He wheeled around, looking over the rest of the nobles. “Everyone out. Continue your tasks elsewhere.”
The petulant nobles exchanged annoyed looks and shot glares at Kastor on their way out. Sylvan stepped close to the offworlders, saying nothing but communicating with his eyes that his statement from before still stood. Then he and his team vacated.
Radovan inhaled a long breath and smiled when the slab doors shut. Two motionless guards remained by the entrance, but the chamber now felt hollow.
“I’m thirsty,” Radovan said. “Will you join me for tea?”
A black iron table and four chairs rested off to the side of the obelisk. A servant appeared out of a stairwell bored into the ground holding a clay pitcher, poured steaming tea i
nto four ceramic cups, and then stood erect in the obelisk’s shadow. Trajan remained behind Kastor while the four nobles sat.
“Raku,” Radovan said after a sip.
“Excuse me?” Kastor replied.
Radovan downed the rest of his tea and turned the cup over in his hands, examining it. “The material these cups are made from. It’s called raku. In ancient Japanese tradition, they would drink from nothing else. The material is porous, you see. Tea soaks into the pores over time such that you could put hot water in here alone and it would draw the tea out of the cup. Fascinating, no?”
Guarin took his tea in one quick shot and muttered, “Riveting.”
Radovan set his cup on the table, and the servant returned to refill it. “It’s a convenient metaphor for the people of Lagoon.” The lumis lifted his cup. “Even when you take freedom away from them, freedom is still in them. It will emerge one way or another.”
“You mean the nobility has freedom,” Guerlain said. It almost sounded as if she might’ve been concerned with the plight of the commoners, but the disinterest on her face spoke otherwise. Her concern was limited to the nobility.
“Oh no, the common people, too,” Radovan said. “That’s how I got myself into this mess. I believe you were . . . made aware of it on your way in.”
“We were already aware,” Kastor said. He deliberated on how to proceed. All of this—this political posturing, negotiating, dealmaking—was foreign to him. He felt naked without a single weapon on his body. Exposed. Vulnerable. A crustacean without its shell. A bluntnose without its stinger. Pollaena had always been the personable one, the negotiator. Her absence gave him a worse feeling of nakedness—a gaping hollow inside his chest, like a lung forced to compensate for its missing counterpart. Kastor forced his attention back to the matter at hand.
“I admit,” Radovan said, “I am partly to blame for the commoner rebellion. Upraadis are factory workers and miners. They banded together to petition me for safety regulations and pensions, and what did I do?”
Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series Page 11