Reign of Stars

by Tim Pratt

  At that point, the Sovereign clapped, and a dozen hunting dogs were released, dashing through the hall and devouring all the spilled food before being driven out again by their keepers. Alaeron looked at Skiver, who was laughing uproariously, deep in his cups. Thinking the dogs might signal the end of the feast, Alaeron began to rise, but then the servants returned, setting yet more food before them.

  A whole boar for the main table, and smaller pigs for the other tables, all surrounded by tiny piglets made of cake. A slave with a long knife cut open the huge boar, and a flock of thrushes flew out of its belly, flying wildly around the room. The slaves distributed nets to any guests who wanted them, and soon drunk courtiers were standing on tottering tables, trying to capture the thrushes as the terrified birds—first sewn inside a dead pig, then released into cacophony—frantically tried to escape.

  Then another huge pig, muzzled and dressed in bells, was led through the hall on a leash, only to be led back out again and later returned on a platter, apparently boiled, and set before the bride and groom.

  The Sovereign pushed a pair of slaves out of his lap, stood up, and bellowed, "Bring me the cook!"

  The room went silent as slaves scurried to obey, bringing out a small man in a bloody apron. "Your Grace?" he said.

  "Look at this pig's belly." The Sovereign's voice was a low, furious growl. "See how it bulges? You didn't remove its guts before you cooked it, did you?"

  The cook quailed. "I—Your Grace, it was a mistake, I'm sorry, I was so rushed—"

  "A mistake?" the Sovereign bellowed. "Forgetting the pepper is a mistake. You'd have my guests, my family, eat the shit-filled guts of a pig?" He snatched up a slender cane—Alaeron didn't want to know why he had one of those close to hand—and began whipping the chef, who hunkered down and sobbed.

  "Gut the animal now!" the Sovereign shouted. "Here, on this table!"

  The chef rose, bleeding through his clothes, and took a knife as two servants turned over the pig's carcass. He slit open the pig's belly—but instead of guts spilling out, heaps of blood sausages and puddings poured all over the table. There was a moment's quiet, and then the Sovereign laughed, and everyone else did, too, and the bleeding cook took a bow before returning to the kitchen.

  "It was a joke?" Skiver said. "What, they planned that little skit?"

  "Apparently."

  "But...the Sovereign really beat the man! Even knowing it was a trick, he beat him!"

  "The Sovereign takes his jokes very seriously, it seems."

  The feast wore on, with more food than anyone could possibly want, most of it wasted or thrown to the dogs (who now roamed freely). There were "fish" made from pork bellies, and "pigeons" shaped from lard, and quinces in the shape of sea urchins, all seemingly meant to be admired for the cleverness of making one food look like another rather than for any qualities of taste.

  Alaeron did try one of the elaborate cakes brought out to the table, wanting something bread-like to soak up the alcohol in his belly, but it was coated with some bitter yellow spice, and he spat it out. "This is terrible!"

  "It is," Skiver said. "That spice is not meant for sweets, but I hear it's good in savories. It's also expensive—I brought a sack of it imported from Katapesh and sold it to the head cook, and I think they used every bit of it tonight...I suppose just to show that they could waste something so valuable."

  Finally the Sovereign rose, threw one slave over his shoulder and grabbed another by the hair, and shouted, "Wake up and celebrate, you milkwater weaklings! If any should leave this feasting hall before dawn, he'll be served at the wedding feast tomorrow night, his mouth stuffed with cherries!" That pronouncement was, bizarrely, met by cheers, and the Sovereign went away, carrying his bed slaves and trailed by his guards.

  The festive havoc did not entirely diminish when he departed, but it certainly slowed down, and the bride leaned against her groom and appeared to fall asleep on his shoulder.

  Skiver yawned. "I believe it's dawn already, but I don't want to be the first one to leave."

  "Probably wise," Alaeron agreed.

  Someone touched his shoulder, and he looked up into Zernebeth's icy eyes. "Come with me," she said. "I have a cure for your hangover."

  "I'm not hungover," he said.

  "Only because you haven't slept yet." She tugged Alaeron out of his chair, and he waved vaguely to Skiver, who raised a glass to him and grinned.

  "Bothvald..." he muttered as she led him into the hallways, back toward the League compound.

  "No, thank you," she said. "I've never been one for groups in my bed, and if I were, I wouldn't choose him. Pursue him on your own if your interest lies that way."

  "No, he...he tried to kill my friend..."

  "That mangy dog you brought with you, who tried to drink all the Sovereign's wine personally? Who can blame him?"

  "He...Bothvald...it was a trick, to find out where you were sending me..."

  She sighed. "Alaeron, we can talk treachery tomorrow—or, that is, later today. I just spent an entire night enduring the Black Sovereign's idea of pleasure. Would you deny me some pleasure of my own?"

  "I...would not," he said. Then he leaned over and vomited.

  Zernebeth tsked. "Never mind," she said. "You can tell me about the treachery now after all."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dawn Departure

  Some hours later Zernebeth said, "You're going to the Felldales."

  Alaeron rolled over on the feather-stuffed mattress—no horrible springs here—and looked into his lover and mistress's face. "That," he said, "is truly terrible pillow talk."

  She did him the courtesy of faintly smiling before sitting up, sliding out of bed, and putting on a watered silk robe. "You leave in the morning, before first light, with one of my lieutenants I trust—as much as I trust anyone—and a handful of guards to do the fighting and lifting, and to act as trap detectors."

  "Trap de— Oh. I see. Send them into dangerous places and see if they get chopped in half. Seems a waste of a life."

  She shrugged. "If they value their lives, they'll be very careful, won't they?"

  "One hopes." Alaeron sat up, feeling remarkably well rested, all things considered. Zernebeth's hangover cure really was remarkable, though she said if taken too often it would do more damage to his liver than alcohol would. And, of course, he had the loose-limbed, tingly good feeling that came from vigorous and wholesome exercise. "The Felldales. Really? Craters and valleys, strange monoliths, colored mists that devour people, and, of course, annihilators? Those Felldales?"

  Zernebeth sat at her writing desk and began flipping through papers. "We send expeditions in there, every so often. They don't tend to come back, but I think most of them are just murdered by the locals—there are people living there, in the hidden valleys. Some I'm sure have never even heard of the Sovereign or the League. They can be...quite strange. But you won't be wandering around looking for likely sites to pillage. You'll have a destination."

  "Yes, I've been wondering. Where exactly am I going, and why do you think I should go there?"

  "Do you remember the letter I sent you? When I offered you this job?"

  Alaeron chuckled. "Yes. I vaguely recall it."

  "I was not entirely honest when I described my experience trapped inside the Mount." She turned in her chair and faced him. "I said I was preserved, and put into stasis, and that much is true, but there was more—something I didn't dare commit to paper and send partway across the world. Something I wouldn't even send in a cipher. But here, in my rooms, I am secure, and so I'll tell you: Silver Mount granted me a vision."

  Oh dear, Alaeron thought. Had Zernebeth been bitten by religion?

  "It was many visions, actually," she went on, her gaze faraway, lost in a memory. "I saw the stars, and I saw them through eyes that were not my own, eyes capable of detecting subtle gradations in heat and density, of seeing the winds of electricity and magnetism wreathing celestial bodies. I saw endless darkness broken b
y pinpricks of light, every one a possibility, every one a disappointment. And I saw something else, too: I saw the Rain of Stars. From the perspective of one of the stars."

  "You think you...tapped into some sort of ancient memory? Shared the experiences of someone or something long dead?"

  She shrugged. "There was no emotional component. I didn't feel like I was someone else—I simply saw. Perhaps what I experienced is what the denizens of the Mount had instead of books, or stories, or conversations. I believe that some guiding hand shaped the visions, though, edited them into a particular sequence—it was not a blank recitation of facts, but an artful presentation..." She shook her head. "In the vision, I saw Golarion, our blue-green world, rise up out of the black and grow larger, and then there was light, fire, heat, something wrenching and going terribly wrong, and suddenly, instead of a pebble suspended in the dark, our planet was a rock being hurled at me, and then my perspective seemed to shift, and I became something much smaller and more constrained, in a little room, and I was falling, falling. But there was a window, Alaeron, or perhaps a screen, or—I don't know. I could see beyond my own confines, though. I could look out that window, and see parts of the Mount itself, hurtling downward, cracking and breaking off and catching fire. But there was one part..." She took a deep breath. "It was a dome, of sorts, bulging from the side of the Mount. Bulbous, almost onion-shaped. It didn't seem to break away—instead it seemed to lift away, like a mosquito taking flight, as if it had detached intentionally, with purpose. Triangular wings unfolded from its sides, and I believe it actually flew, under its own power. That it didn't just plummet downward—that it was guided."

  "Like a lifeboat?" The idea was fascinating.

  "Perhaps. Or a command center. Or something designed to land on worlds like ours, a landing party. Or maybe it was a living thing, an alien parasite from the depths of space, that had clung to the ship to feed, and fled when the death of its host seemed imminent, the way fleas will leave the corpse of a dog. How can we possibly know? It flew away, but then...something went wrong. Another piece of the Mount broke free, and crashed into the black dome, and the parasite began to spew colored steam from its back, venting gases and fluids into the darkness. It spun wildly, and it crashed...but I saw where it crashed. I saw the marks it dragged in the earth when it landed. Oh, the country has changed since then, almost out of all recognition, but I am almost certain I know where it is—at the end of the longest of the many devastated valleys in the Felldales. When it crashed, it drove itself deep into the earth, and the years have surely driven it even deeper. But it is there, and mostly whole. I think it might be the most significant wreck in all of Numeria, next to the Mount itself, and it is wholly unknown to the League—except for me. And now you." She frowned. "Something...I think something wants me to find it, and offered me that particular vision to guide me. But that's only suspicion, not observation. You think I'm mad, don't you?"

  "It's one hypothesis," he admitted.

  "Let me show you something." She opened a drawer and removed a coin-sized, irregularly shaped bit of black glass. "This was found embedded in my body when they removed me from the Mount. Its effect isn't as powerful as what I experienced, not by orders of magnitude, but...here, touch it."

  Alaeron raised an eyebrow and took the glass.

  The effect wasn't as striking as what Zernebeth had described, but his vision did swarm with black spots, and he thought he glimpsed something—dark and twisting corridors, and a door covered in circles of various sizes, and a seething purplish cloud that sparkled with something like starlight, but darker. Something like a voice seemed to whisper, just at the edges of his hearing, insistent and mad. He gasped and dropped the glass. "That—"

  "What did you see?" she demanded.

  He described it as best he could, and she grunted. "Not quite what I saw. But, you see, there are visions, somehow embedded in the structure of the Mount—or at least that room where I nearly died."

  "I...Consider me convinced. What else did you see?"

  She laughed. "Everything spinning, and red flames, and darkness. And after the darkness—I saw me. And you. Entering the chamber in Silver Mount where you left me to be shocked and swallowed by the machines. That wreck, Alaeron...if someone tried to fly it away from the Mount, it could contain something profoundly important, something worth saving while the rest of the Mount was left to plummet to the ground. I schemed to take over the League; I pored over maps and drawings of the landscape, trying to match what I'd seen to reality; I spent all this time preparing, to gather the resources to go...but I walked myself into a trap. I can't leave here without jeopardizing my position in the League. My allies need to be managed and kept in line, and if I lose my power, someone else could gain enough power to take the expedition away from me. I won't have that. This wreck is mine. I needed someone I could trust. Someone with no interest in or aptitude for politics, but with sufficient intelligence, ambition, and survival skills to manage the expedition on my behalf. I immediately thought of you."

  "I suppose I am the man for the job."

  She laughed. "You don't bother with modesty. I admire that about you."

  "I am well aware of my limitations, but if you want someone to crawl into a hole in the ground and see what he can find there...I was made to do that."

  "And so you shall. Given Bothvald's meddling and his abduction of your friend the dog, I think you'd better get on your way. I don't fault Bothvald for his ambition, but it's inconvenient. First thing tomorrow, I'll send you with the team I mentioned—and you can take Skiver, I suppose. You'll start off heading to the east, to continue the charade that you're going to Gorum Pots or the Battle of Falheart, but my man will lead you around toward the Felldales on a roundabout path, toward my best guess for the position of the wreck. In my vision, one of the wings remained sticking up out of the ground, and I think even with the centuries that have passed, some portion of it might still protrude, and provide you with a marker. I doubt the substance of that craft could be damaged much by the elements, and I can draw the shape of what I saw to help you."

  "If there's something to be found, we'll find it."

  "I know you will." She gave him a cool smile. "Your amnesty depends on your success."

  Alaeron threw the blanket off his lap. "Are you sure there's nothing else I could do to earn clemency?"

  She clucked her tongue. "There's a time and a place, Alaeron. I'm done being your mistress for the moment—now I'm your master, and you should prepare for your journey. Besides, I want all your available blood in your brain, where it can do you some good."

  Alaeron sighed. "Too late for that. But I suppose my hydrostatic balance will reassert itself in time."

  "I do so love it when you talk technical to me," Zernebeth said.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  "Odds we'll die?" Skiver said.

  "What, both of us?" Alaeron paused in the middle of packing his bag. "Probably fairly low. More likely one of us will die and the other will see it and run away. We're both adept at running away."

  "All right, odds one of us will die, then."

  "We're resourceful men, experienced, we've survived Technic League assassins and the ruins of Kho...I'd say probably two chances in three."

  "Hmm. Good odds if you're the one running the house. Not so good if you're the player."

  "Ah, but the potential rewards are so great."

  "They always are. What else do you think draws the suckers in?" Skiver kicked the heap of crates piled in the room, painstakingly moved out of the black box, bound for their eventual destinations in the homes of the city's elite. "Zernebeth gouged me on this deal, you know."

  "She paid you up front, in gems and skymetal. I wouldn't have done that—I would have taken a few things on consignment, or promised you a percentage in profits, and then bet on you dying out in the wilderness so I'd never have to pay."

  "Ha! You have paid attention to my little lectures on how to build a good business. I made a profit
, no mistake, even giving the League its cut, and the skymetal is worth a lot more back home than it is here, but I was hoping to get rich enough to set up my own little fiefdom in the River Kingdoms, buy myself a palace. I'd look good in a palace."

  "Who needs a palace when we have my remarkable expanding black box?"

  "Your sense of decadence leaves something to be desired," Skiver said. "Though speaking of decadence, after the Sovereign's feast, I could go for simpler pleasures myself. Those revels gave me a taste for bread and water and a straw mattress. Nothing that tries too hard."

  "If you're ready to forgo luxury, you're in luck." Alaeron clapped him on the shoulder. "You're off on an expedition for the Technic League now. Comfort is a thing of the past."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Alaeron had hoped Zernebeth would see him off, if not with a warm (well, chilly) embrace then at least with a curt nod or a few words of stern advice. Instead, before dawn, she simply barked through the jewel in his ear that his team was waiting outside the city gates, the same place Lodger had dropped him off. Then she was gone, without so much as a "good luck."

  Skiver seemed untroubled at being awakened a few hours after going to sleep, and shouldered his pack without complaint, following Alaeron out of the compound and through the relatively quiet streets to the same gate they'd entered before. The door was watched by either the same guard or his twin, who gave a surly nod and let them out into the cold pre-morning. A group of men and women stood around, muttering and securing equipment to pack mules.

  "Greetings, sir!" Lodger said, bounding up to them with far too much enthusiasm, face probably friendly under all the twitches and tics. "Nice to see you again. I'll be handling transport for our little band."

  Skiver groaned. "Not the bloody annihilator again."