by Wren, M. K.
The drum roll had stopped. Soon. They would come for him soon, take him to the executioner.
“. . . Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .”
Footsteps. Boots. Every thudding impact set off blue lightnings of pain along his nerves. Knife-edged voices sounded in unintelligible crossfires.
“. . .I shall fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me . . .”
Adrien, my second linked-twin soul . . . I had to try. I had to try. Adrien, my love, my wife, mother of my sons, who will be the only testament to my existence . . .
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies . . .”
He felt the presences behind him, sure of their pending nearness, yet no one touched him.
Now. Take me now, in the name of mercy. I can’t hold the fear and pain at bay past the end of the song. For all those who depend on my courage, now and in the future, test it no further.
“Thou anointest my head with oil . . .”
Even the sanna was faltering. Please. Now. Please.
The cadence was falling into disarray. Behind him, voices, words, shouts. And, always, the pounding of boots.
“But, my lord . . .”
Only the Bonds called him that now, and they were all kneeling out there, singing. Except they weren’t. The song was raveling out before its end.
“Yes, my lord.”
“. . . my cup runneth over. . . .”
He raised his head, wondering if he could, by some effort of will, see why the sanna came to an end in a murmuring like a gentle summer surf. There was Izak kneeling, looking up in wondering awe. Yet he’d stopped singing.
More amplified words barked out. Is that how they killed the sanna? Strange, when it survived the drum roll.
Go home.
He thought he heard that among the word/sounds. No. He must be hallucinating again. The words stopped. He closed his eyes again; only the murmuring surf was left.
He felt a hand on his left shoulder.
Now.
Finally, it was now, and the sanna was gone.
Adrien, for our sons, then. I’ll die with my courage intact for them. He gathered himself, waiting for the hard grip on his arms, the jerking upward pull.
It didn’t come.
The hand still rested on his shoulder. A presence. Close enough so he could hear a long, aching sigh. Alexand opened his eyes, waited until dim shapes materialized before them, then turned his head. For a long time, his mind wouldn’t accept the image his eyes presented it.
It admitted recognition. This was one of the first faces he’d ever learned; that code would never be lost. But his mind balked at recognizing this face in this context, at finding it here so close he might have kissed that cheek, as the child Alexand had done so many times. And his mind balked at seeing those eyes drowned in tears; there was no code for that anywhere in his memory.
Yet, in the end, it had to be accepted.
His mind conceded, This is your father.
Phillip Woolf looked out at him down a long tunnel of years and said, “Alexand, forgive me.”
A True Path.
Even the doors that would otherwise be closed to him were easily opened.
As he approached the check station, Bruno Hawkwood studied the guardsman. He was close to panic, left alone at his post with a near disaster occurring in the Plaza, and treated only minutes ago to a heated exchange between two Directorate Lords.
And now Bruno Hawkwood.
“G-good evening, Master Hawkwood.” Then, with a furtive glance down the hall, “Who was . . . I mean, that woman—was she . . . uh, someone you—”
“An acquaintance of mine, Leftant.” He looked past the guardsman to the screens, to the one focused on the execution stand, and permitted himself a smile.
His Sight hadn’t failed him. This death that would have torn the weave of Fate had been averted. Already the Conpol ranks were dispersing, the guardsmen filing back into the Hall, the crowds shifting and fragmenting, the exodus begun. In the center of the stand the Lord Woolf knelt holding his son in his arms. The Bonds were singing. Even at low volume, the exultant ring of the song could be heard. Hawkwood felt cool resolution in his veins. A True Path.
And even as he watched, a slight figure ran down the white tiers of steps, a woman with dark hair catching the wind of her precipitous descent. At the execution stand, one of the SSB officers met her—and there was an oddity: the man had switched off his face-screen and he made no effort to stop her, but escorted her to the spot where Woolf knelt supporting his son. She made it three kneeling figures, a composition of fortuitous grace and balance, something that should be transmuted into stone or bronze by a comprehending artist’s hand.
In the dark beginning of this day, after his meeting with Lord Woolf, Orin Selasis had for Hawkwood’s edification congratulated himself on his acuteness in judging human nature.
“What the unfortunate Lord Woolf likes to call honor, Bruno, is a luxury. In poor times, one learns that luxuries must be put aside if one hopes to survive. But Phillip is learning that lesson, however reluctantly.”
Perhaps honor should be considered a luxury, it was so costly.
When Lord Woolf left the Chamber with that defiant affirmation of a truth, he couldn’t have been unaware of the price of this luxury. Orin Selasis, in his rage, spelled it out: Woolf had forfeited the Chairmanship and thus surrendered himself and his House to ruin.
But Selasis had also spelled out his own fate.
“. . . as long as I live.”
The guardsman, noting Hawkwood’s interest in the screens, turned to see what roused it, and that was all Hawkwood needed. The leverage was bad since he had to reach across the counter, but within seconds the guardsman crumpled to the floor. He would be unconscious at least ten minutes.
Hawkwood paused to gauge his own physical state. His range of focus had shortened, his pulse was fast and erratic, and the constriction in his throat made breathing difficult unless he paced it carefully.
Still, there was time enough.
He pushed his cloak back from his right shoulder—he would need his arm free—then took the Dagger of Will from the sheath at his waist. The translucent blue blade was marred with an oily stain. He found the Chamber door control behind the counter, and with a soft rumble, the panoplied panels slid back.
The carpet was a golden, harvest-ripe field, the windowall a panorama of purple sky still lighted with sunset, the Plaza a multicolored montage with the ten Directorate chairs stark, dark silhouettes against it. The chairs were empty, the Directors stood at the windowall, all intent on the execution stand.
His Lord was at the center of the panorama.
“I believed him! But he’s demonstrated the error of that! The Chairman Designate in collusion with the enemy! And how long have he and his traitor son been planning his ascendancy to the Chairmanship over the dead body of Mathis Galinin?”
Lord James Cameroodo was a looming shadow to the left of Selasis; near him stood Lazar Hamid, the nervous movements of his hands casting off jeweled reflections. Next, Charles Fallor, gray and stooped, then Sandro Omer, urbanely aloof, his anxiety evident only in the tense set of his shoulders. On Selasis’s right, Sato Shang, as gray and bent with age as Fallor, but still in command of his dignity, and, finally, Honoria Ivanoi and Trevor Robek. Robek seemed to be attending Lady Honoria, as if she might need support, but Hawkwood knew that was unlikely.
None of them heard the doors open, or Hawkwood’s footsteps, quieted by the harvest carpet. He moved through the circle, then stopped, a distance of four meters separating him from his Lord. His time was calculated, the remainder of minutes and seconds left him diminishing, yet he wasn’t impatient. He waited, the Dagger of Will in his right
hand at his side, and listened to his Lord rage against treachery.
The Lady Honoria was the first to sense his presence. Garbed still in mourning, pale hair drawn back under a black-veiled koyf, she turned from the windowall, eyes fixing briefly, contemptuously, on Selasis, then moving in an unbroken arc backward, resting finally, as if on something she sought, on Bruno Hawkwood.
Her breath caught on a question, not surprise, but she didn’t ask it. She didn’t even speak his name. That was left to Trevor Robek, who was standing close enough to be alerted by the turning of her head.
“Hawkwood!”
All the Directors turned, their eyes making the same arc. Hawkwood waited for his Lord to recognize him.
Heavy robes fanned as he whirled. Black. Why did he choose that color today? Premature mourning for Mathis Galinin? Or perhaps Selasis was granted Sight on some level he would never understand or admit.
“Bruno!”
The name hissed explosively, his single eye glittered, half hidden in its pouched socket.
Hawkwood bowed. “Yes, my lord.”
Then, because he had no intention of drawing this out, nor time to waste explaining what would be inexplicable to his Lord, Hawkwood raised his right hand, concentrating on the Dagger, its trajectory, and its target, and his arm made a quick, downward snap. The knife flew free.
It made no sound on impact; none audible over the cry of chagrin wrung from his Lord’s open mouth, echoed by the other Directors. The left shoulder. He’d aimed for the heart, but it didn’t matter.
Selasis staggered, right hand seeking the hilt; he seemed relieved that it had only lodged in his shoulder.
That passed an instant later when he began choking for breath, when he tried to free his laser from its sleeve sheath and his muscles wouldn’t respond, when he tried to take a step toward Hawkwood and his knees buckled under him.
“You—I . . . I’ll kill—kill you! Kill . . . you!”
“No, my lord.” Hawkwood turned to Robek and Cameroodo, who were moving warily toward him. “You can do nothing for him, or to me, my lords. I’ve taken the same poison with which that blade was tipped. It has no antidote.”
They stopped, staring incredulously at him, while Selasis fumbled at the knife, face wrenched and reddened, head lolling, taking his eye in a circuit of his fellow Lords.
“Do . . . some-something! Why are you . . . damn you! Damn you all! Damn . . . da——”
No one moved or spoke. He toppled, hitting the floor with an impact that forced a guttural shout from him. He floundered like a beached sea beast, until in a flailing frenzy he turned himself on his back so he could fix his eye in dumb rage on Hawkwood. But with that his strength was nearly spent; he lay quivering, chest heaving with every desperate breath.
Hawkwood heard his own rasping breath, felt the solid pain occupying his heart and lungs. When he reached into a pocket under his cloak, his muscles responded errantly, and when he crossed the few steps to Selasis, his feet dragged, his knees wouldn’t hold. He sank beside his Lord, kneeling as if in prayer.
“Take comfort . . . my lord.” His numb lips defied the words. “Even in this, your . . . shadow follows. My lady Honoria? Where . . . where are you?”
Perhaps he wouldn’t see Selasis die. The poison worked more slowly when taken orally, but there had been delays.
A shaft of black appeared before him. He looked up and at length found Honoria Ivanoi’s face.
“My lady, I have . . . no right to ask anything of you, and yet I must . . .” He paused for breath, and as he spoke, had to calculate the words to coincide with each labored exhalation. “I ask a . . . death boon.”
A soft rush of satinet; she knelt so he wouldn’t have to strain upward to see her, yet her voice was distantly cold. She despised him passionately; he knew that, but he would trust no one else here to honor this death boon.
Honor. It was her name.
“What boon, Master Hawkwood?”
“This . . . tape spool” He reached across the black, heaving bulk of his Lord. “My lady, give it . . . to the Lord Woolf. The . . . elder Lord Woolf. No one . . . else.”
Honoria Ivanoi took the spool. It couldn’t weigh more than a gram, she knew, yet it seemed an icy weight burdening her palm. Hawkwood’s hand fell away from hers, dropping against his thigh; his pale eyes, the color of winter grasses, looked out of shadowed sockets in a face in which the bronzed planes seemed dusted with silver.
She stared down at the spool, and found words almost as difficult to shape as he did.
“What . . . is this?”
He said, “My death testament. The attempt on Galinin’s life, Lord Karlis’s . . . illness. And more. My lady . . . the truth.”
“Nooohhhhhh–”
Honoria rose, recoiling in frank fear. Selasis heaved himself up, clawing toward her, toward the spool.
It was his last living movement.
He fell back, head thudding against the floor, his eye turned upward, and a cryptic stillness seemed to descend upon him. Honoria stared, transfixed, and as it always seemed inconceivable that the living could cease to be living, now it seemed inconceivable that this silent object had ever sustained a motive force called life.
In some dim distance, a bell began tolling.
A single bell monotonously repeating its one doleful tone. She recognized it. It had only to be heard once to fix itself forever in memory. It came from the Cathedron.
The death knell.
Perhaps Hawkwood heard it, too. He drew a long, painful breath that whispered out with his last words.
“Destiny writes itself out in paradox. . . .”
He sank within himself, sagged slowly forward, and at length fell across the lifeless mass that had been his Lord. Honoria watched the inconceivable process of death a second time, finding some elusive meaning in the stark patterns of black and brown against gold. Hawkwood’s left hand was flung out toward her, nearly touching the hem of her gown. There was a narrow gold band on the fourth finger.
Paradox.
Nothing within her cognizance now didn’t seem a paradox; the patterns of black and brown on gold, the patterns of lives and deaths, here in this Chamber, outside in the Plaza where the fragmenting crowds, having witnessed the preservation of life, paused to hear the tolling of a death knell.
Paradox, that she had always known, but could never prove, that Orin Selasis and his henchman, his Master of Shadows, were together guilty of her husband’s murder, and now they lay dead before her, she had watched them die, and yet she felt no satisfaction. All she felt was grief, the old grief for Alexis, renewed and even more mordant.
She felt the cold weight in the palm of her hand. The truth. Paradox that Bruno Hawkwood had become a source of truth.
In the Plaza, beyond the listening multitudes, the Fountain of Victory came to life, lifting its exalting white plumes against the indigo sky. She thought of Phillip Woolf, and that dulled the edge of revived grief. Phillip, who had watched his son kneeling in prayer to stop a disaster, and recognized it as an ultimate act of self-sacrifice, who had recognized then that the terms of survival offered him by Orin Selasis were unacceptable.
He is my son, and he is innocent. I will not let him die, I will not let him be sacrificed to the greater glory of Orin Selasis!
Honoria became aware of the other Directors, like somnambulists, rousing themselves to wonder where they were, what had happened, exchanging tentative, consulting glances.
Trevor Robek touched her arm. “Honoria? Are you . . .?”
“I’m all right, Trevor.”
Then Cameroodo, standing over the two bodies, seeming to find their presence here vaguely puzzling.
“We must . . . notify someone. . . .”
A dull rumbling; they all turned. The doors were opening.
At first, Honoria didn’t recognize the man who entered, he was so pale and disheveled.
Master Selig.
She watched him make his way toward them in odd starts and stops, as if he were blind and seeking the occupants of the room by sound alone. Her heart began pounding in alarm.
The death knell.
Only now did its real meaning penetrate the barrier of mental shock. That mourning bell wasn’t tolling for two deaths that no one outside this Chamber could know about.
“My lords, my lords, my lords—oh, Holy God!”
Selig came to an abrupt halt when he saw the two silent shapes on the floor. Trevor Robek went to him and put a bracing hand on his shoulder.
“There’s been . . . a tragedy here, Master Selig. We haven’t had time to—”
“Tragedy . . .” The word had a strangely calming effect; Selig seemed to lose interest in the incredible fact of two bodies, one a Directorate Lord, in this august Chamber. He gathered himself into a semblance of his usual dapper dignity.
Honoria turned away, hands in fists as if she could defend herself in that sense from what she knew was coming.
She heard Master Selig say, “My lady, my lords, I have . . . I must inform you . . .”
He couldn’t seem to manage the words. She understood that; shaping grief into words inevitably destroyed the clinging vestiges of hope.
Honoria Ivanoi looked out at the white affirmation of the Fountain and spared Selig the necessity of speaking the words he found so painfully difficult.
She said them for him.
“The Lord Mathis Daro Galinin is dead.”
PHOENIX MEMFILES: DEPT HUMAN SCIENCES:
HISTORY (HS/H)
SUBFILE: PHASE I: HOUSE OF WOOLF GALININ
LETTAPE #6: FROM LORD ALEXAND WOOLF GALININ
TO DR. ANDREAS RIIS 13 OCTOV 3259
DOC LOC #819/8-161-8237-122016 #6: 1237/118-13103259