I had lost a piece of myself, and feared to lose more.
The other hand, the head—again—the heart that was with Valka.
Not for the first time, I wondered if Lorian was right. Perhaps I was a replica, a changeling built by Sagara. I had awoken on the Demiurge, after all. But I remembered my right arm lying on the stone of the lakeside, remembered holding the same hand up to my face, flexing the fingers. I remembered also the sword Prince Aranata had carried as it hunted after Valka on the hills of the meadow aboard Kharn’s black ship. My sword.
There had been two swords, for a moment, just as there had been two hands.
I have often wondered if Valka’s special brand of magic allowed her to read minds—or if her clairvoyance was only a symptom of just how long we had been together. For though neither of us spoke, she pushed the wine bottle into my hands. Taking it, I drank. It was a Kandarene red, dry and spicy, a cousin to the bottles Sir Elomas had brought with us from Borosevo to Calagah so long ago. A cousin to the bottle we had shared that night on the seashore when the Cielcin fell from the sky and the war—my war—had begun. Tasting it I felt almost I could peer across the years and the light-years and spy that younger Hadrian, as one catches a glimmer of movement in the corner of a mirror.
I hoped he could not see me.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, handing the bottle back. “Maybe I have changed.”
“Take my word for it, anaryan,” she said, and cocked an eyebrow. “I’m something of an expert on the subject.” As she spoke, she scooted along the marble sill between us until the warmth of her thigh bled through her dress and warmed my own. “I’m cold,” she said.
“Shall we go in?”
“No.”
Wordlessly, I reached under my right arm and undid the baldric that secured my cape. Knowing full well what she wanted, I drew off the heavy white-on-white jacquard, which—just as I had done with my old coat in the dungeons of the Undying—I draped over her slim shoulders, careful to keep the hem out of the water. After a moment, I said, “I’m not sure white’s your color, either.”
“ ’Tis most certainly not,” she said, but drew the garment closer with her tattooed hand. So dark and beautiful was she, like an image of the witch Ayesha reborn, and so severe that even swallowed by my cape she seemed regal as any queen.
Broken smile returning to my face, I said, “I love you.”
“You’re not wrong,” she said, and matched my smile. I did not sit again, but stood listening to the music of the night wind. Sheets of cloud rolled over us, spun swirling up into the moons-lit dark. A great bank of it rolled from the ramparts above, so that the palace about seemed espaliered in rosy cloud. Valka broke the quiet. “ ’Tis not all bad, you know?”
“What’s not?”
She stood. “You.”
A short laugh escaped me as she drew near. “Oh. Is that all?”
Her smile bared just a glint of tooth.
She kissed me a moment after. Her fingers seized on my belt and kept me close. I tasted wine again. Kandarene red. Pepper and spice and the memory of Emeshi nights. Of Calagah and the young man I had been.
At length we broke apart, and she said, “I liked what you told the prince, you know? On Gododdin.”
“About Ilex and Aristedes?” I asked. “I always believed that.”
Valka narrowed her eyes, as if she did not believe me. “I could have strangled those other princes.”
Cold fire shot down my spine, and I grabbed her by both shoulders. “You shouldn’t say such things.” I glanced over my shoulder, half-expecting to see the nearest Martians abandoning their posts to come collect us both.
“You heard how they talked about me!” Her hand tightened on my belt. “It makes me so angry that some people can just . . . say these things and get away with it.” Gold eyes narrowed. “That’s one of the things about you that changed, you know? You fought a man once for calling me a witch, but you just stood there.”
“You wanted me to fight them?” I asked, incredulous. There was a part of Valka that had never forgiven me for attacking Gilliam Vas over her honor. “Those men were princes of the Empire, Valka. There wasn’t anything I could do.”
“You could have said something!” she said, releasing me. “You just stood there like a good little subject and let them both call me a whore.”
“I can’t challenge an Imperial prince, Valka!” I exclaimed. “Are you trying to get me killed?”
She sniffed. “You challenge that brat Alexander all the time.”
“Alexander is a brat,” I agreed. “He’s an arrogant prick. But he’s my squire. It’s my duty. I don’t want him hanging around any more than the rest of you. You think I like having him around?”
There came a sharp intake of breath from the stair behind me, and I turned in time to see a shock of red hair retreating back down the steps toward the palace. My heart sank, hit the core of the planet beneath me before I heard Valka say what I already knew was true.
“ ’Twas Alexander.” She took a step past me to look down the winding stair toward the ballroom and the hedge maze down below. “He must have been listening.”
The angry coals that had flared in my belly a moment earlier grew cold and slimy. I shut my eyes. The greatest part of me screamed to run after him, but I knew doing so would only make me seem the guilty lick-spittle, and would avail nothing.
The damage was done.
Something of my newfound terror must have scrawled itself across my face, for Valka softened and—I think—understood. She was nodding steadily, and lifting the remnants of the bottle to her lips she drained it all away. “Now I’m the one who’s sorry. I forget sometimes just what this place is like.” Valka turned and thudded the bottle down on the sill of the fountain, eyes turned up to take in the bronze seraph that stood upon the plinth, flaming sword upraised, his six wings spread wide and defiant. “We should go home.”
CHAPTER 32
LIONS
THE WEEK OF CELEBRATIONS at last concluded, I retreated to orbit and the Tamerlane. I knew I would be called before Legion Intelligence to give further reports on Iubalu before long, on the disposition of the legions at both Gododdin and Nemavand, and on the recordings from what the propagandists in the Ministry of Public Enlightenment were calling the Battle of the Beast. I’d seen some of the film clips already. Composed perhaps of one part genuine footage to ten parts computer generation, they showed the heroic Devil of Meidua and his noble soldiers in their battle against the Cielcin—a battle equal parts cunning strategem and desperate struggle. The best of these was called The Demon in White, which showed a highly fictionalized account of my battle with Iubalu intercut with footage of the triumph in the Campus Raphael. The footage from the triumph, at least, was entirely genuine, and I was delighted to see that—though they had not been permitted to enter the Peronine Palace—Barda, Udax, and the other Irchtani had not been omitted from the war films.
A week of waiting dragged to two, then to a month. The calls came only rarely, and Alexander never came. There was no word from Selene, either, nor from any of the Imperial house. Caesar and his Olympian ilk had forgotten their pet hero, or so it seemed.
I slid back into my classic routine, arising early to take my breakfast alone in the officers’ mess before my exercise and my rounds of the ship—listening to my reading as I walked. By then Valka would awaken and I’d return to our apartments for lunch—her breakfast—after which we would talk or review some piece of work regarding the Quiet or pore over data recovered from Iubalu’s ship.
We’d disabled the vessel, and Mahendra Verus has remained behind to oversee the mop-up. It was not often that one of the Cielcin worldships was taken intact, and an enormous amount of arms and artifacts had to be sorted through, cataloged, and understood. We had much work to do, for I had requisitioned copies of all the texts we’d recovered from
the ship and had combed over them with Valka for anything, any scrap that might better illuminate the connection between the Cielcin and the Quiet.
We found nothing.
Iubalu’s was a warship, and carried nothing that might light our way or answer our questions.
Reader, I shall not bore you with the details. The countless hours of reading, nor the longer hours of meetings I came to attend at the behest of Legion Intelligence and the Ministry of War. I shall linger only briefly with Director Breathnach and Lord Bourbon, for they return to our stage.
* * *
“And the beast knew you?” Breathnach asked, looming over me from his place in the center of the arc of table beside Augustin Bourbon.
Turning from the previous questioner to face the Lord Director of Legion Intelligence, I said, “I have already told you that it did.” There is a certain degree of redundancy packed into every military inquest, but sometimes I think the men like Breathnach enjoy it.
Lorcan Breathnach brushed the glowing holograph panels that hovered before him aside with the air of one sharpening an ax. “And did you know it?”
“As I indicated in my initial report, lordship,” I hooked my thumbs through my belt and stood with feet apart, happy to once again be wearing my customary blacks, “the creature and I had never met before. Its familiarity with me appears to have been a consequence of my reputation.”
Bourbon’s grumbling voice interrupted, “Your reputation?”
“Yes, my lord. You might have noticed it yourself.” It was all I could do to keep a wan smile from my face.
“You did not encounter this creature at Arae?” asked a senior logothete I recognized as M. Rinehart, one of Lorian’s compatriots.
“Messer, if I had, it would have died at Arae with the others.”
“Or perhaps on one of your sojourns among the Extrasolarians?” Rinehart asked.
Breathnach’s nasal tone cut through this cross-examination. “And yet you seemed to understand its frankly . . . insane statements easily enough.” He peered down at what I assumed was the transcript of my exchange with the vayadan-general. “This talk of Watchers . . . Makers and the like.”
Eyes shut, I took a measured breath before responding. “Your lordship will recall that I am an expert on the subject of the Cielcin and their culture—or near as any man may claim. You can find explanations for all of this in my report.” The last thing I needed was to face a Chantry Inquisition, and so everything I knew—and all Valka’s notes—were kept locked in a safe on the Tamerlane or encrypted in the neural lace within her head. There was more I could say, but nothing I should. I did not, for example, explain that I believed the references to Prince Syriani’s visions were genuine.
Better to be believed mad, or a charlatan.
“Nevertheless, the fact remains this prince, this . . . Aeta . . .” Breathnach stumbled over the alien word, “seems to have an unusual fascination with you. I don’t know what to make of that.”
I thrust out my chin and answered, “Neither do I.”
“I find that hard to believe,” said Augustin Bourbon, peering gimlet-eyed down at me. “You seem to have an opinion about everything.”
“Call it an occupational hazard,” I said stiffly, eyes sweeping over the panel before. Fifteen in all, a dozen men and three women arranged in an arc that closed about me like the limbs of an advancing army. Twice as many white banners hung on the wall behind them, each depicting the Imperial sunburst above the shield symbol of the Legion Intelligence Office. The impression given was one of superhuman impartiality and control—a strange backdrop for what felt so deeply petty and personal.
“According to the transcript this chieftain . . . Dorayaica, is that how you say it? Dorayaica intends to unite the Cielcin clans,” Bourbon said. “Do you think it can?”
I looked down at the tiles between my feet, marinating. “The vayadan-general seemed to think so, lordship. It speaks like a fanatic in the transcript, but I think we should take it at its word. The Cielcin dominate by acts of violence, but they break totally in defeat. If Dorayaica can best the other princes in warfare, he will find himself with new lieutenants and a larger and larger force with which to challenge us.” I held one hand out like a blade, palm up as I’d been taught. “This so-called Prophet is not like any other Aeta we have encountered. His attacks have been measured, calculated. He’s shown an understanding of our tactics, our infrastructure, our psychology. He is not simply raiding us like wolves might raid a sheepfold. The attack on Hermonassa, on the shipping lane across the Centaurine Gulf . . . these demonstrate a clear understanding of our methods, an understanding only compounded by his willingness to align with the Extrasolarians.”
“Could arrangements be made with the other chieftains? Alliances? In return for their independence?” asked Sir Friedrich Oberlin, the quiet, junior man who had always seemed so favorable to me.
I had to chew this one over a moment, one hand still tucked into my belt. “It’s possible. During the Vorgossos affair, Prince Aranata was willing to consider a joint operation to attack the other clans. Hasurumn and Koleritan were mentioned by name. Perhaps two of the larger clans? The Cielcin will never agree to an equal partnership, but it might be possible.”
“Decapitating this threat from Dorayaica seems like our best course.”
“You’re assuming we can,” I said acidly, raising my hand again. “With respect to Sir Friedrich, this talk of alliances is all well and good, but we have no means, no method for contacting the Cielcin, nor especially for locating a particular scianda. First Strategos Hauptmann saw to that.” I clamped my jaw shut. The sting of Hauptmann’s attack on Prince Aranata’s worldship still rankled despite the long decades. I knew perfectly well that we would never have made peace with the chieftain, but we had lost not only a temporary ally in the form of one Cielcin clan, but the aid of Vorgossos as well. And as much as the memory of Kharn Sagara chilled my blood, there was no denying the man had knowledge which no one in the entire Sollan Empire possessed.
“Perhaps the Halfmortal will find us a way,” Director Breathnach sneered. A few of the junior logothetes laughed nervously as the old patrician smiled. “Do you see no way forward with these visions of yours?” He looked left and right, soliciting further laughter from his compatriots. M. Rinehart, to his credit, only narrowed his eyes. Sir Friedrich looked down at his papers. “Did not this clairvoyance of yours deliver the enemy into your grip, Lord Marlowe? That is what they say.”
I opened my upraised hand. A kind of shrug. “I am not responsible for what they may say, Lord Director. I do not have visions. The Earth and her oracles do not speak to me. You gave me an impossible task, and I succeeded. Was I meant to fail?”
Neither Breathnach nor Bourbon answered me—nor any of their subordinates.
I knew the answer.
We all did.
CHAPTER 33
THERE ARE ENDINGS
“I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY’VE still not given us new orders,” Pallino said, voicing aloud the thought that had been at the back of mine and everyone else’s minds for more than two months. The once-old chiliarch reclined on a low couch against the far wall of my quarters, hands behind his head, staring blankly at the holograph opera unfolding on the plate before us.
Returning from the lift with another bottle of wine, Elara said, “I don’t know . . . it’s nice to have another break, isn’t it?” She seated herself at the end of Pallino’s couch and busied herself refilling the wine cups that congregated on the table.
“Hear hear!” Siran said, leaning in to place her cup with the others and pinch a piece of the spiced Jaddian cheese Elara had sent one of the servants to acquire in the city markets. Her cup recharged, she lifted it. “To not fighting for our lives for once!” Elara joined her, and from his spot on the couch, Pallino raised an agreeing fist, but kept his eyes on the holograph plate. On it, an ancie
nt knight in metal armor vaulted over a castle wall just as the ramparts were engulfed in flame and a dragon landed on the battlements, its massive claws crushing stone and corpses alike.
Valka shifted where she lay against my chest, but said nothing. I was sure she slept.
On the holograph, the dragon moved to devour a group of women cowering in a ruined hall. Its jaws opened! Fire flared blue-white in the gloom! A knight fell from the rafters above, and with his shield held the dragonfire at bay, shouting, “Go!”
It was one of my mother’s operas—though I told this to no one. Oft times when we put in to some Imperial harbor I would search them out, discover that she had made another one or several while I journeyed between the stars. More often than not I would watch them alone, but on rare occasions I would share them with the others—when I found I could not be alone.
“Isn’t it nice, Had?” Elara asked, all smiles.
“Keep it down!” Pallino exclaimed, the picture of focus.
Unbothered by Pallino’s interjection, Elara asked again, “Don’t you think it’s nice?”
Smiling, I answered her, “Elara, Pallino’s trying to watch the holograph.”
She threw a cheese at me. I let it hit the couch above my shoulder before eating it. “I’m only grateful there’s been no word from Alexander.”
“Do you think he’ll do something?” Siran asked, sitting back in her chair and cradling her wine.
“No idea!” I said. “But you saw what he’s like.”
We sat quietly a moment then—much to Pallino’s relief, I’m sure. One of the knights in the opera had jumped upon the dragon’s back with sword in hand and thrust the point downward.
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