The Empire of the Zon

by R. M. Burgess

  She thought of her mother’s pride when she had graduated from the Academy, the first electra in her family’s history. It had been difficult, but she had stuck it out. She never told anyone about the particularly nasty hazing that the seniors had designed especially for her. It got so bad that she began to think that they meant to kill her. “The little mongrel,” the seniors had called her, referring to her small stature and slanted eyes. In addition to the hazing, they routinely saved her all the dirtiest jobs. How hard she had worked, under so many supercilious commanders, to earn the centuria’s dagger insignia on her choker and bracers!

  The Zon High Command would want a scapegoat. She was beginning to feel sorry for herself when she remembered Laksa putting her finger on her lips with the command “Go!” and her calm manner as she faced certain death. She had called her beautiful! No one but her mother had ever called her that. No matter what they do to me, I will tell the Sisterhood the saga of Praefecta Laksa, she thought.

  She was jerked back into the present by one of her huntresses, who was pointing to the hovering airboat. Brendel had opened the large rear hatch and thrown down a rope ladder.

  “Form up and board,” commanded Ling Mae. “It will be a tight fit, but we are not leaving anyone behind.”

  FOURTEEN

  ELECTION DAY HAD dawned chilly, but the bright and intense reflected glare of the sunlight off the accumulated ice and snow had everyone in Atlantic City wearing their darkest eye-shields. The voting was not particularly heavy in the morning. Both candidates’ poll workers monitored the returns in real time as they came in over the comm. While there were many electrae in Aurora Citadel and some served in outlying stations, the overwhelming majority of those qualified to vote lived in Atlantic City. It was well known that elections were won or lost in the capital. By noon, Andromache had a comfortable lead, and the atmosphere in her poll offices in Chateau Regina was beginning to grow festive. By contrast, the ambiance in Deirdre’s adjoining suite of poll offices was growing glum.

  Deirdre had spent the morning drafting a statement describing the circumstances that had led to her discovering the queen’s transgressions. She had written and rewritten it a dozen times, trying to get just the right tone of horror and indignation that would most appeal to all electrae, priestesses and huntresses alike. She invoked the memory of their foremothers and had carefully selected historical video showing some of the worst excesses of the patriarchy on Eartha, transposed on some of the more repugnant practices of the barbarians on New Eartha. She had it all set up on her personal comm site. She was quietly confident that it would swing the election in her favor. About noon she had herself driven to her poll offices where she planned to make her announcement on the general comm.

  Just as her speeder entered the Chateau Regina complex, she heard a ping as a new comm channel was opened to her. She looked at her wrist bracer—it was the model favored by the priestesses, pinkanodized to match the pink priestess robes that she wore for Election Day. She rarely used this model, so her fingers slid around the smooth surface before they found the pressure point to open the channel. It was Praefecta Kyra Merlina, commander of the Queen’s Household Legion at military headquarters. It was a video comm, and Kyra’s face was set and worried.

  “First Principal,” she said rapidly as soon as the channel was open. “You must come to military headquarters immediately. The Ostracis Citadel is under heavy attack.”

  Deirdre was too much a professional to waste time in idle chit-chat.

  “I’m on my way,” she said, giving her handmaiden their new destination.

  She entered the situation room in the bowels of military headquarters within minutes. It was a hive of activity. Deirdre’s chief aide was there and had already assembled the First Principal’s staff in anticipation of her arrival. Kyra and Tignona were there with their entire staffs. They were all dressed in combat uniforms. A myriad of holographic images and three-dimensional terrain maps were projected to the huge central conference table, the situation and deployment of forces adjusting automatically as more data came in on the comm.

  The reports coming in were fragmentary and disjointed. There had been just a few official dispatches from Praefecta Laksa, but tens of thousands of Ostracis residents had opened channels to the general comm. The powerful Zon data processers at military headquarters were automatically assembling and analyzing the masses of uploaded raw data to create the detailed holographs on view. There were dozens of smaller viewscreens around the room on which the data processors were projecting some individual video feeds that the analysis flagged as particularly important. It was possible to get audio feed as well, though at the moment this was suppressed.

  The attackers had just overwhelmed the defenders on the upper slopes of the citadel and were pouring into Upper Town. The battle for the Keep had just commenced. Deirdre immediately took command, her pink priestess robes looking out of place in the midst of all the uniforms.

  “How soon can we get reinforcements to them?” she asked briskly.

  “At least four hours, First Principal,” said Kyra glumly. “We’ve worked out all the vectors. Thetis is at Nordberg, Hydromeda even further south. With these short winter days, even their ready flights will not be there before nightfall. And we need to remember that we have already lost one airboat to barbarian ’grator fire.”

  “How in Ma’s name did barbarians get ’grators?” demanded Deirdre.

  “We do not know, First Principal,” said Kyra hesitantly. “We think it is related to the disappearance of the troublemaker Dushka Karandarina and her associates. A few weeks ago, the Ostracis constabulary reported three guards found dead and weapons missing. The report was logged by the duty seignora when it came in, but you know…” She hesitated before proceeding. “Reports from Ostracis do not receive very high priority.”

  “How many of our weapons do they have? How much power?” Deirdre tapped her heel impatiently.

  “We have counted at least ten light and medium ’grators so far in the fighting in Upper Town, along with about a few dozen laser pistols. They are undoubtedly picking up some more weaponry from our dead as well. There is at least one medium ’grator down by the Ice Bridge, perhaps more.”

  The holograms adjusted again to show less and less fighting in Upper Town and the concentration of forces in the Keep.

  “Laksa Vertina is a tough old bird,” said Tignona dourly. “She will fight to the end.”

  “She won’t have a choice,” returned Deirdre acidly. “Look at the death’s head insignia on the barbarians’ collars. That is Shobar’s Skull Watch there. Death is definitely preferable to falling into their hands.”

  They all stood about, seething at their powerlessness, watching the battle unfold with grim fascination. There were groans and muttered oaths as the screams from Upper Town came through some of the individual open channels on the smaller terminals, mercifully somewhat obscured by static. The holograms showed the inexorable progress of the barbarians. It was slow in the first hour with the action centered around the Keep.

  Almost everyone in Atlantic City, commoner and electra alike, had loved ones—mothers, womb sisters, aunts, and cousins—in Ostracis. Those in the room were no exception. Many were thinking fearfully of their own kith and kin. They longed to go off duty so they could open comm channels to them.

  As the afternoon wore into early evening, the Keep fell, and it was clear that the citadel was lost. They logged the last report from Laksa from the Ravine Wall and then Ling Mae calling in to report the huntresses’ pickup in the airboat piloted by Brendel.

  “Twenty-two survivors out of two centuries!” exclaimed Deirdre. “The loss of a Zon citadel to the barbarians! This is a defeat unparalleled in the history of the Sisterhood. This will give heart to barbarians everywhere.”

  She looked about the room at the disheartened faces and knew that she must rally them: give them hope and raise their morale.

  “We must expect more reverses,” she said,
her powerful voice rising as she spoke. “But we have faced worse. Unlike in Queen Simran’s day, we are strong, we have power, and we rule New Eartha. Ours is an empire of the sky. We have conquered the barbarians and rule them by virtue of being mistresses of the air. Now our aerial supremacy is challenged—nay, threatened—by ’grators in the hands of barbarians. We must put down this rebellion quickly and mercilessly. For the last thing we want is an extended war of attrition: the risk of batteries falling into barbarian hands rises as the war drags on.

  “So this is what we must do. First, we must make sure that the entire Sisterhood is on a war footing. Then we must plan our counterstrike.” She struck her right fist into her left palm for emphasis. “We must crush the Utreans. We must hunt down and slaughter Shobar, his henchmen, and his Skull Watch to the last man. In the traditional way.”

  As she had expected, this speech brought grim smiles to the faces of the assemblage. They all knew the “traditional way”—a slow, painful death roasted alive on hot coals.

  “Kyra, Tignona, cancel all leaves and have all huntresses report to their units,” continued Deirdre. “Call up all reservists. Place all stations on Red Alert. The Residencies are valuable, but they are also our most vulnerable assets, deep in barbarian territory. Deploy a squadron of airboats to each one, along with enough batteries to last out a year-long siege. We must expect anything, even here in the Great Vale. Make sure that all the Guard Castles are garrisoned at full strength and have their weapons systems fully powered up.”

  Her praefectas put their hands on their hearts, saying, “I hear and obey” and immediately turned to their staffs to begin the complexities of mobilizing the legions and mustering the reserves. Deirdre turned to her chief aide.

  “Send a comm message to all outlying communities and farms,” she said briskly. “Tell them that we face the possibility of all-out war and that their safety cannot be assured. They should evacuate to the nearest citadel. Make sure all the citadels lay out facilities for refugees. Of course, I expect full body scans of all incoming refugees to ascertain their identities.”

  “I hear and obey, First Principal,” said her aide, who immediately turned to implement her orders.

  Deirdre tarried another fifteen minutes to make sure that her orders were being executed. Once she was sure there were no further questions, she said, “I must caucus with the queen and Princess Andromache. My comm channel is open; contact me immediately if there are any further developments.”

  She swept from the room trailed by her handmaiden. She was in Chateau Regina in minutes. Walking down the long halls, there were downcast faces everywhere. Everyone had an audio comm feed piped to their ear, tuned in to their own private link to the hell in Ostracis.

  She went to Andromache’s offices and was told that the High Priestess was with the queen in the cabinet chamber. Several members of the queen’s and the High Priestess’s personal staffs were clustered outside the great doors, talking together in low voices. One of the queen’s handmaidens opened a door and announced her. She entered without ceremony, asking her own handmaiden to wait outside with the others.

  The lights were turned down in the huge cabinet chamber, which looked both cavernous and somber with only two occupants. Hildegard was dressed formally and wore the state crown, the scepter on the conference table in front of her. They both looked up as Deirdre entered. Andromache said nothing, but her big eyes were pools of sorrow. Hildegard made an attempt at maintaining norms, bidding the First Principal welcome and offering her a seat and katsch from the urn that was on the table in front of them.

  Deirdre assented to the katsch, and Hildegard poured out a mug herself. Deirdre seated herself next to Andromache and blew on the steaming mug before taking a sip. Andromache put a hand on her arm.

  “I will lead a mourning mass this afternoon,” she said. “I know that you are terribly busy with military matters, but it would give heart to the Sisterhood if you could come, even for a few minutes.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Deirdre quickly. “I will be there.”

  Neither Hildegard nor Andromache brought up the ongoing election, but Deirdre knew it was on their minds. She also knew that this emergency would do far more than Hildegard’s transgressions to swing the election in her favor. Andromache’s election manifesto of making peace with the barbarians and with Utrea in particular would seem like appeasement now. Since all electrae could change their votes as long as the polls remained open, it was highly likely that there would be a landslide swing toward Deirdre.

  All of these thoughts had run through the back of Deirdre’s mind while she was directing operations in the military headquarters. Did she want to be queen? Certainly, she did. But did she want to be queen right now, when the Sisterhood faced its greatest peril in a thousand years? She would have loved to be a warrior queen like her ancestor, Simran the Merciless. But that was not the lot of modern Zon queens. As queen, she would have to stay cooped up in Atlantic City, perhaps directing operations, but at arm’s length from the legions. A huntress to the core, she thirsted for action, for revenge.

  Her stomach tightened as she thought of the War of Brigon Succession, when she had led the huntresses in the sacking of Dreslin Center. Every sword cut and laser blast had fed her desire for revenge for the death of her mother. I long to do the same to Nordberg, she thought. But I cannot do it as queen. The election could wait. She could afford to be magnanimous. She would lead the legions in this war, and then fight the election as the victor. In triumph, she could not fail to win. She tapped the conference table and addressed them both.

  “In this emergency, I cannot in good conscience allow the election to proceed. The Sisterhood is in mourning. It would not be fair to ask them to choose when they are so unsettled in their minds. Let us rally behind the queen for now—we must stand united against the barbarians! There will be time enough to fight an election after we have dealt with the Utreans.”

  Neither Andromache nor Hildegard spoke. They both eyed her expectantly, waiting for her operative statement. She let them wait for a few moments while she sipped her katsch. Finally, she spoke.

  “Your Majesty, will you serve as caretaker queen till we have put down these uprisings? Of course, I will expect you to heed my advice on all military matters.”

  Hildegard knew she had little choice.

  “I will serve the Sisterhood, as I have all my life,” she said.

  GREGHAR LED THE way, picking his way slowly along the Utrean side of the Fire Mountains, striking northwest. He tracked parallel to the Utrean troop of light cavalry and was relieved when its path diverged from theirs as it turned northeast toward Nordberg. Caitlin felt comfortable enough with him now to be blunt.

  “So what is this place of refuge we are making for, Greghar?”

  He did not answer immediately but plodded on, his horse’s hooves crunching through the crusty snow.

  “To my father’s brother, Lothar,” he said after a pause. “He is from the direct Nibellus line, and Shobar would kill him if he could. So he hides away in his island fastness in the Draigynys archipelago off the northwestern coast of Utrea. He is not a man of violence. He does not lust for power. But he is a righteous man; he will shelter us, I am sure. And if I can bring him to understand the travails of Utrea, I may yet rouse him to battle Shobar for the Masthead Throne that is his by birthright.”

  “I am astonished that you place your trust in him,” observed Caitlin with a trace of disdain. “If he hides away, refusing to fight for what he knows to be right, I wonder if he would have the bravery to shelter us.”

  “He is no coward,” responded Greghar sharply. “Have you ever seen the death and destruction visited upon a land by war? He has seen all that and more as Shobar consolidated his rule with fire and the sword. He has no wish to rekindle those fires. But I think I can convince him that Utrea suffers so much under Shobar’s misrule that the high cost of war is worth paying.”

  “The Draigynys Isles are a lo
ng way from here,” observed Nitya quietly.

  “Aye, it is a hard ride from here. We must take a rest and get supplies before we start the journey.”

  “Where will we do that, Greghar?” she asked. “You are a hunted man in Utrea. And the Thermadan Mission is almost as powerful in Utrea as in Briga—the news of their bounty must have spread here, so people will be on the lookout for Lady Caitlin and me.”

  Greghar retreated into silence for so long that they thought he would not answer. But finally, as they entered a forest of snow-covered firs, he spoke again.

  “I spent my teen years in a village not far from here,” he said finally. “My childhood wet nurse still lives there. She saved me from Shobar’s assassins when I was boy and brought me there. She is loyal to me, and so is the headman. I think we can shelter there, rest, and acquire supplies.”

  They rode for the rest of the afternoon with little further conversation. Both Caitlin and Nitya felt depressed by the overcast skies. But as light began to fade in the short, wintry day, Greghar began to recognize the terrain of his carefree youth and grew more talkative, pointing out hillock here, a stream there, and relating amusing stories of youthful sport and dares.

  “So what was your youth like, huntress?” he asked Caitlin, at length. “Surely you were not always so serious and virtuous.”

  Caitlin laughed self-consciously. How could she explain the luxury of the d’Orr palace, the affluence of Temple Heights, or the spotlessness and modern amenities of Atlantic City?

  “Oh, I had to go to school for most of the day,” she said offhandedly. “There was less time for carefree roaming.”

  “So you had no time for frivolity,” he returned. “No wonder you huntresses have no sense of humor.”

  “I had plenty of time for fun and games,” she retorted. But her memories of childhood fun were mostly related to activities organized by adults: sports, time spent with her mother, and parties at the homes of aristocratic friends. She had had little unsupervised time with her girls her own age. She continued after a pause. “But we Zon have a very competitive system. I am a d’Orr; so much was expected of me. I could not let my mother down.”