Brother Scieran's scream continued. Raw and wild, and for a moment Sword thought he might lash out at Rune. Might hit her, attack her not as a person but simply as the closest thing that could take his wrath, his anguish.
Rune remained solid, remained in this Time, remained ready for her friend and teacher, and gave him what had to be her ultimate Gift – the Gift to choose what he would do without her intervention.
He fell against her. And it was as it had been outside. Only this time the young held the old.
Arrow was beside Sword. She felt his hand in hers. Not a romantic gesture, but the touch of another human witnessing light in dark.
Rune held Brother Scieran. Then Father Inmil and Father Akiro joined them. The old men touched Brother Scieran's head. Their own heads bowed.
They prayed.
Brother Scieran cried for a long time. Then he slowed.
Then he stopped.
Grief gives way to mere sadness. Mere sadness to silence. Silence to time. And time a return to self.
At last Brother Scieran stood. His eyes dry. He hugged Rune, then pushed her away. Not hard, not rudely. But firmly. There is work to be done, said the motion.
Rune nodded. "What do we do?" she asked.
Brother Scieran answered. Not in a single word or a short sentence. "We have to continue what we have started."
"How?" said Father Inmil. "We hadn't mobilized our forces in the first place. No one was prepared for us to move up any timetables, and even if we had been prepared, our forces are gone."
"Not gone." The shadows in the Small Cathedral lengthened a bit as someone stepped into the open doorway, blocking the sunlight for a moment.
They all turned.
"Smoke!" shouted Arrow.
The big man looked like he had been dragged through the eye of a hurricane. Dirty, disheveled. He had a small child in one arm.
He held Wind's hand with the other. She looked embarrassed when she saw the others noticing this, but didn't draw away. Instead, a smile played across her face.
Behind them: Cloud. He looked even worse than Wind and Smoke. Blood was caked over his ears and his neck, and he seemed even more subdued than usual – a feat Sword would have thought impossible. But he managed a weak wave.
And behind them: about a dozen men and women and children.
They were tired. They were exhausted.
They were alive.
Arrow hadn't let go of Sword's hand yet. He held it tighter.
More light had come.
More hope.
Father Akiro tottered over to them. He hugged Wind and Cloud, who only stiffened slightly when he did so. Then he ushered the refugees who had come with them out of the Small Cathedral.
"Where are you going?" asked Smoke, somewhat amused.
"To feed the body. Body first, then soul. That's the way of it," said Akiro. Then he was gone, and they heard him berating, "rude babies" and "irreverant scamps" as he led the refugees to the berry patch.
"Things have changed, I see," said Arrow. He was staring at Wind's and Smoke's clutched hands. "Finally went for that walk?"
Smoke chuckled. "After a manner of speaking." He quickly recounted what had happened. Sword noted he Signed much of it, and when he got to the part in the story where Cloud was deafened she understood why.
Gods, what must that be like? To lose your hearing at the hands of your own sister?
She didn't know if the fact that it had been his sister who did it made it better or worse.
"But we're here now," finished Smoke. "So what are we going to do?"
"You're raring to go," said Father Inmil. He managed a smile. It was welcome. The group actually felt alive for once.
"A walk along the waterfall will do that to a man," said Smoke.
"We continue the plan," said Brother Scieran.
"What plan?" said Father Inmil.
"We find the archives. We take them. We confirm a new heir." At the last he looked upon Sword. "We kill the Chancellor, and the Emperor."
"What if the Emperor doesn't deserve killing?" asked Sword. The others looked pained, as if she had just asked an inappropriate question.
Brother Scieran didn't look pained. He looked angry. "The time for that question is passed, Sword. The sides have been chosen. All who stand against us are enemies now." He sighed, and passed his large hands through his gray hair. "I say this partly because I am angry, I admit." Then he looked at them all. "But I also say it because it is right. At some point the time for repentnce passes. And judgment must come."
"Only the Gods judge righteous judgment," said Rune. Her voice was small, as if she wasn't sure if she even believed what she was saying.
"True," said Brother Scieran. "And so we sin even as we try to carry out their will. But try we must. And trust to Them to make up the difference. Now is the last time we may have to act."
"We don't even know where the archives might be," said Sword.
"I've been thinking about that," said Brother Scieran. "And I think I know. I think they're at the main Army base on the edge of Fear – the Acropolis."
There was a gasp of surprise. Though Sword wasn't quite sure why.
"And you conclude this based on what?" asked Father Inmil.
"The archives are – and have been – the most precious possession in the Empire, save only her actual coin. They would be in her most secure location. The Acropolis is guarded by the largest part of her Army, with high walls on three sides and a sheer dropoff on the third, unapproachable by any force. There are said to be catacombs below it, places one could hide something as large as an archive. And the comings and goings of Scholars and Archivists would hardly be noticed in a place like that – the Imperial Army has mountains of her own records that must be kept as well.
"Besides," he added with a dark grin, "one of our other objectives was going to be to kill the other Ministers below the Chancellor. So if we attack the Acropolis, there's a good chance the Minister of the Interior will be there and we can at least catch him."
"So you propose that we go up against an entire army, based in the most secure area in the Empire, perhaps facing flying machines the likes of which have never been seen, possibly the Emperor's Blessed Ones as well – since Gods only know where they are – with a force consisting of the people in this room?" said Arrow.
Silence.
Then Smoke said, "I like it."
Sword smiled.
Her friends.
Her family.
Live or die, they would play this game together.
4
The State of Fear is differs from the other places in the Empire.
It is a volcano. Capped, but with spurts of magma often surfacing. Forcing their way to the many slums and shanties that dot the landscape. People move in Fear. People cannot rest, they cannot acclimate to one place or another. They eke out subsistence, and wish for a better life while at the same time knowing that the only better life possible is the next one.
Suicides are not uncommon.
Fear is the only State that is not joined to any other State by skybridge. The only way in is by Imperial air-car or an unlucky birth. The only way out: Imperial air-car or a final, blessed death.
Other than rock, bare minimums of water and flora and fauna, and the people themselves, there are only three things in Fear: the Slums, the Prisons, and the Army bases. The Slums and the Prisons feed off each other, self-consuming beasts driven to a strange murder-suicide, and the Army bases are positioned there as the logical place to watch over the strange pact and ensure that the poor get no ideas about uprisings or even about leaving this, their proper place.
For all these reasons – and a thousand more, starting with the ash that always floated in the air, ending with the scheming and political in-fighting among his officers – Minister of the Interior Vuko, First Among Generals, Chief of the Imperial Army, hated this station.
And yet… it was power.
In this place, in Fear, he was supreme.
He could crook a finger, and a man would die. Nod, and a woman would be his.
He hated it here.
And loved it.
And hated, and loved. And on and on in a cycle no less self-consuming than that of Slum and Prison.
But now, even that cycle had been interrupted. Everything had changed when the air-car dropped to the base. When the men came out. Black-armed and -armored, like insects grown to awful size, and he knew the second he saw them that his rule in this place had come to an end.
The Emperor was no one – not really – so he had a moment of hope. Perhaps this was just an official visit. A bit of pomp and ceremony to be seen to before all returned to its normal, proper state of being. Though based on what was happening – the destruction of an uprising, the preparation for an attack that was years in the making – that was doubtful.
And when he saw the Chancellor disembark, his remaining hope withered and died.
Still, Vuko knew his place, so when he saw Chancellor and Emperor descend the steps of the air-car, arm in arm, he ran on his stubby legs to them and bowed and scraped as a man should before his betters. Vuko barely came up to the Emperor's chest, and could not even see over the Chancellor's belt – his position had not been won on the basis of battlefield prowess, but on his grasp of strategy and political cunning – so the bows were, he thought, quite impressive.
Still, the Chancellor sniffed. Barely nodded to him. Barely registered the obeissance that was being done, or the fact that it was being done by a man who had served the Empire so faithfully for so many years.
And then the tanks arrived. They came in near-silence, held aloft by the power of nearly every Push in the Empire, surrounded by a protective shield that Vuko did not pretend to understand. Just one more part of the Grand Plan that the Chancellor had not seen fit to share with him.
"My Lords," said Vuko, doing his best to ignore the machines as they landed in his practice fields, seemingly unaware of the men who were already there. Several unlucky soldiers who didn't have the sense to get out of the way were flattened.
Lucky.
"How wondrousful to be with you this finest of days." He bowed again. "I will make my most finest quarters available to you with all speeds."
The Chancellor nodded as though this was his due, his right.
Scum.
"And may I be so veriest presumptious as to ask what brings my Lords to my humble place here?" he asked. "Not that you needs to answer, 'course. Just it might be helpful…."
"What brings me – us – here is the plan, of course," said the Chancellor.
Vuko felt something knit his throat in uncomfortable knots. He was often scared – fear was one of his main motivators to success – but this was different. He didn't want this plan. Wanted nothing of it.
"Um… do we really… I mean, really?"
And then the Chancellor and Emperor brushed past him. Like he didn't even exist.
For a moment Vuko felt like he was back in the Slum at Deris. Always small, always teased. Always the only way to stop it a knife to the throat in the night.
I'd like to put a knife in you two, my Lords.
The Chancellor turned to look at him. And not for the first time did Vuko wonder if the man could hear his thoughts. The General bowed so deep his head touched the ash-laden ground. Then stood and smiled his most sincere smile. Which wasn't particularly sincere at all, but it seemed to mollify the Chancellor.
The Imperial Guard fell in behind the two men, their Captain at the front, all of them swiveling heads left and right as if they expected an assassination attack right here in the middle of the Acropolis. And a moment later three more people joined the group: a fat woman dressed like a harlot, a tall man thinner than anyone Vuko had ever seen, and a big man wearing the uniform of an Army lieutenant.
They fell in among the Guard, and somehow Vuko just knew that meant that these three were more important than him, too. Even before he glimpsed the black disc of the Blessed on one of them, he knew.
Everything's going to the Netherworlds. Right in front of my face. Everyone's more important than me and no one tells me nuffing.
Even the world itself seemed to agree with him: the sky here was always gray, always dim with ash. But now it seemed grayer still and he realized a storm was rolling in.
Gonna be a big'un, too.
Yup, going straight to the Nethers.
And that was when the first explosion hit the wall.
He couldn't tell where it had come from. Not until the second strike. And then he realized…. The attack was coming from the sky itself. Great arcs of lightning crashed from the swirling thunderheads, smashed down on the west wall of the Acropolis in strikes that came impossibly fast and impossibly close together.
How….
And then he knew. The rumors, the children's tales.
The Cursed are here.
"To the tanks! To the tanks, Gods blast your eyes!" he screamed. "Get to your stations!"
"What are we fighting? There was no alarm!" shouted one of the men – a sergeant, a man low enough in rank that normally Vuko would have had him flogged for daring to speak to him.
Now, though, he just grabbed him – by the belt – and shrieked, "Get. To. The. WALL!" And he shoved the man back hard enough he actually stumbled.
Vuko turned and looked for the Emperor. The Chancellor. The Blessed.
They were nowhere to be seen.
Of course. Cowards.
He ran in the direction they had taken, looking for them. The safest place to be would be wherever they were.
5
Arrow watched as Cloud slammed lightning strike after lightning strike into the wall. Watched as the wall peeled apart, brick by brick.
And he felt very small.
What am I doing here?
This was the most mountainous part of Fear. Volcanic rock – black and glassy – crunched underfoot with every step. There was not a tree in sight, and now that they were both standing, anyone with a sightglass would be able to see them from the walls of the Acropolis.
That included people with sightglasses on their rifles.
Cloud raised his hands higher. The storm battered at the walls in full now. Not just lightning but the wind itself, smashing into the west wall of the Acropolis, yanking it apart.
What am I doing here? Beside this kind of power?
Then Cloud's hands dropped. He trembled with exhaustion, gathering strength for the next attack seemingly from the air itself.
Arrow saw a glint on the wall. And his own Sight came into focus. He saw the man bringing a rifle to bear.
Arrow unslung his own rifle. Fast. So fast he knew that any normal person would see it not even as a blur, but as a mere ripple in the air.
He pulled the trigger.
The glint disappeared as Arrow's bullet slammed into the sightglass, through the twin lenses, and into the eye of the Imperial Rifleman behind the glass.
Another glint. Another shot.
Another. Another. Then the glints were gone – for a moment – and Arrow turned to picking off individual soldiers while Cloud rested. He moved so fast the shots all found their marks before the first man had even fallen.
He reloaded. Continued firing. The Small Cathedral had been a fallback position, so there was a stock of weapons and ammo there. Not an army's worth, but enough to keep him busy for a while.
Bambambambambam and then he got into a rhythm and it wasn't bambambam but ba-ba-ba and then b-b-b-b, his rifle barely stuttering out one shot before the next one launched, not even a single second between reloads.
The rifle grew too hot to fire. He dropped it and plucked another off the ground.
The west wall was empty.
And then the tanks rose into the sky from behind the wall, and turned toward them.
6
They waited. Longer than any wanted. Sword could tell they all ached to move. To help.
Cloud and Arrow might be engaged in the most dangerous part of the
ir attack.
If you can even call it that. Seven people against an Empire.
She looked at Brother Scieran. He hung beside her in the air. They had all tried to convince him to stay behind. Even though Father Inmil was technically senior to him in the Council – if there even was such a thing anymore – they all understood that he was the still-beating heart of the revolution. That if the Empire could be saved, it would be saved on the shoulders of men like him.
Rune and Arrow looked askance when he told them he was coming, but he cut them off before they uttered a word. "I am of the Order of Chain. I am a warrior of the Gods, and I will be their tool to return what has been to what is, and what may be."
That was the last of it. He went. And while Cloud and Arrow caused uproar at the front of the Acropolis, the rest of them – Smoke, Rune, Brother Scieran, and Sword – all went through the one place that no one at the Acropolis was prepared for: the back. Blown gently but firmly over the side of the mountain on a place so far down the cliff face that they could not be seen, then brought directly below the Acropolis, and then raised up behind it by Wind's Gift.
Sword looked at Wind. This had to be taking a toll on her. But the woman was expressionless. She was not wearing her mask, though Sword wasn't sure if that was because she had lost it in the cave below Faith, or simply because she sensed that this was not a time for masks, but for true things, true feelings, true faces. Perhaps both.
For a moment, Sword thought she saw the woman tremble. Then Smoke reached for her. Touched Wind's cheek. The trembling ceased.
They climbed. Slid over the edge of the cliff.
And were in the Acropolis.
They could hear chaos, but it was a chaos distant: Arrow and Cloud were doing their job. People were at the front of the Acropolis, mostly trying to man the partially-destroyed west wall. The other two walls were sparsely populated, and the back of the Acropolis – the place with no walls, because the cliff face was nothing but volcanic glass all the way down to the clouds, unclimbable and susceptible to no attack – had no one at all.
The Sword Chronicles: Child of the Empire Page 36