The Encoded Heart

by Peter J Evans

  He'd discovered many things during those scream-filled moments, but one of the most telling facts emerged well before Godolkin began taking Silic apart. It was obvious that the torturer and his masters had never had an Iconoclast First-Class in their midst before. There were methods for restraining someone of his enhanced physical capacities, as Godolkin well knew. But canvas straps on a steel trolley didn't even come close.

  He stepped out into the corridor, his hands still damp from washing. He was bare-chested, his battle harness taken from him while he lay unconscious from the fall, but that didn't bother him. He needed no armour to prevail against these effete fools.

  As he was locking the door, the lights above him flickered, dimmed, then returned to normal brightness. Godolkin nodded to himself. Silic had told him all about the spate of systems failures that had the Keep in a panic. No wonder the interrogation had been so rushed, so botched. Something was happening to the Keep that no one yet understood, and it had all started when the mutant Durham Red was brought inside.

  Godolkin wasn't surprised by that. The Blasphemy drew chaos in her wake like a wedding train.

  The lights fluttered again and something in the walls groaned. Godolkin started away. The sooner he discovered where Red was, the more chance he had of leaving the Keep before it collapsed around his ears.

  15. RETURN TO NEVERLAND

  "What," snarled Vaide Sorrelier, aiming a needle-gun directly at Red's face, "have you done?"

  Red kept very still, her boots firmly planted on the shale. Sorrelier was furious, totally enraged. She had never seen him even close to being this angry. All his insolent calm, his languid demeanour, was gone. In the few hours she'd been away, he had been through some serious changes.

  His clothes were different, but that was only to be expected. The dark robes he had worn to the Masque - and in which he had gone flying over the balcony, back in the hangar - were replaced by a simpler outfit of blue and gold. He wore a long, brocaded coat, and his dark hair was draped freely over his shoulders.

  But he looked untidy. That, even more than his anger, surprised Red.

  There was a livid bruise on one side of his face, most likely from where she had hit him, and he hadn't even tried to powder it over. His collar was askew, and there were marks on his sleeves, scuffs on his boots.

  Something had gone very wrong for Vaide Sorrelier. Red could see that as clearly as she could see the tensing of his trigger finger, which further encouraged her stillness. She had no doubts about his intentions, nor his aim. Mutant reflexes or not, if she tried anything funny or even said the wrong thing, she'd end her days with a faceful of needles.

  And if he had ever truly believed that the surface of Magadan was infected, he was past caring.

  She held her arms out from her sides, hands open, and wore what she hoped was a calming expression on her face. "I just tried to escape, that's all."

  "That's all?" He shook his head. "Sorry, my dear, but that doesn't even begin to cover it."

  Red had very little idea of what he meant, but to say so might have tipped him over the edge. She glanced past him, up at the ship he had arrived in, wondering if there was any way she could reach it if she managed to distract Sorrelier and get the drop on him. But as she did so she saw the two sylphs up in the hatchway, aiming needle-rifles with the same lethal precision as their master.

  Not good.

  The flier had come down close to where Red was standing, angling its landing legs to compensate for the slope of the hills. It was a polished silver torpedo fifty metres long, with a faceted glass nose and slender, curved wings that slid smoothly back into the hull as it landed. As a design it was elegant, classic, more like piece of sculpture than a working aircraft. Red wondered what it was like inside, what luxuries Sorrelier had fitted for his in-flight pleasure.

  If she was careful, she might even live to find out. "It's true, Sorrelier. Whatever you doped me up with didn't last. I'm sorry I had to flatten a couple of your sylphs, but they were in my way."

  "And you expect me to believe that the skiff you stole was a random choice?"

  "Er, yeah."

  He sighed, and lowered the gun slightly. "You see," he said, moving towards her. "That's where your story starts to fall apart. There was no way you should have been able to take that boat out of its launch tube. I had my captain call the harbour master as soon as we saw you trying to steal it, but somehow the tube refused to lock down."

  That was news to Red. She had thought she'd succeeded in her escape because of her own skills, and maybe a little luck. Equipment failure hadn't entered into it. "Really?"

  "Oh yes. Furthermore, all airboat power plants are set to detonate once they go out of traffic-control range. The harbour master tried to take over your instruments, but again the system refused to let him. And then, oh miracle of miracles, your power-core failed to detonate."

  Red swallowed. "Bloody hell. Look, if I'd known that I wouldn't have tried to steal the damn thing, would I?"

  "Unless you knew that the boat had been modified."

  "How the sneck would I know that?"

  "You knew because it was part of your arrangement with that little catamite Saleph Losen!"

  Red stepped back, hands raised. "That shithead? No way! He's the bastard that had me locked up and drugged in the first place! Anyway, if I'd stolen some extra-safe aircar, it wouldn't have crashed, would it?"

  Sorrelier's eyes narrowed. "Crashed?"

  "In the swamp." She pointed vaguely over towards the Keep. "Back that way. I had to go wading through a ton of shit to get out, and since then I've been trudging through this bloody wilderness! You think I've got a fetish for blisters?"

  "I hardly know what to think."

  Red, however, was starting to believe she knew. From what Sorrelier was telling her, someone had let her escape. Let her out of the Keep with a rigged airboat and a broken launch tube, but only to get so far. And while she was out of the picture, Sorrelier had been put through the mill.

  She saw nothing wrong with that last part - in fact, as soon as the opportunity arose, she would be having a very final few words with Vaide Sorrelier. But as much as she disliked him, she disliked the idea of being used to bring him down even less.

  "We've been played," she told him. "Both of us. Played like a couple of snecking tambourines."

  Despite himself, Sorrelier nodded. "Losen."

  "Higher up than that."

  Sorrelier had a tale to tell, but it wasn't the kind of story he trusted to the open air. Once he had convinced himself that Durham Red wasn't the initiator of his woes, he was quick enough to invite her aboard.

  There was no great risk in what he did. Even if Red had wanted to attack him so early, she'd have the two sylphs to deal with, and their needle-guns were still on her. Instead she did as he bade her, and stepped past into a long central corridor.

  It led onto the flier's bridge. Red was shown to a seat, facing the glassy dome of the vessel's prow. It gave a good, if slightly vertiginous view of what lay outside: the glass replaced the entire forward part of the nose, and the bridge was built on frames within it. Red sat, looking down at the grey rocks beneath her dangling feet.

  Sorrelier gave a command to the captain, and the rocks dropped away.

  Red just about managed not to yelp. The take-off was sudden. She saw the ground shrink beneath her, then the craft began to power forwards.

  For a moment Red was convinced that Sorrelier was going to try and fly over the hilltops, and she almost shouted a warning. When she had tried to go past the brow of the hill she had simply turned back on herself, but the flier was a lot bigger than she was. Anything could happen. The vessel might break up, turn itself inside out, or worse.

  Luckily, the craft tipped over into a long, powered curve away from the hills, and back towards the Keep. Red let go of the seat's arms. She hadn't been aware of just how tightly she had been gripping them, until she felt the dips in the metal frame caused by her clenched
fingers.

  "Snecking hell," she whispered.

  Once the flier was on a level flight, Sorrelier rose from his seat. "Rimail," he said, addressing the ship's captain. "Back to the Keep, but not too quickly. Take a roundabout route, hmm?"

  The man nodded. "As you wish, sire."

  "And now, our guest and I have things to discuss. In private."

  Sorrelier's idea of "private" was himself, Red, and three sylphs in silent attendance. Two of them were the gun-carriers Red had seen before, and the third was Lise, the woman Red had been scratched by outside the Masque. "Don't concern yourself with them," he told her as he sealed the door behind him. "There's no way to make a sylph speak. They've lost the art."

  "Or had it taken from them." Red leaned back in her seat, stretched out her legs, and put her boot heels up on the table. "No more lies, Sorrelier. What do you do to them?"

  "Personally? Nothing at all. I buy them from a dealer on one of the common strata. His product is good, but expensive." He glanced appreciatively over at Lise. "Although every now and then one gets a bargain."

  Red gritted her teeth. "So what does he do, this dealer? Lobotomise them, or something?"

  "Nothing so crude. But we aren't here to talk about the staff, are we? I thought we had more important matters to discuss."

  Red folded her arms. Her eyes flicked from Sorrelier's face to the chamber where he had led her - a low-ceilinged place, ornately decorated and dominated by a vast desk of polished wood. A room for conducting business, far away from the Keep. Somewhere secure.

  And she was locked in. So far, Sorrelier was being careful. He was a smart one, she had to credit him with that.

  "Okay, let's discuss. What are you up to?"

  His eyebrows rose. "Me? What makes you think-"

  "Oh, for sneck's sake, will you just cut out the bullshit?"

  His gaze threw daggers at her for a long moment, then his shoulders slumped. "Very well. You realise I'll be breaking the habit of a lifetime."

  "My heart bleeds. Now tell."

  He told. Put simply, Sorrelier was plotting against the Magister. It was a plan he had been working on for years. "I have a small army, raised and trained in secret. Quite enough to mount a serious challenge."

  "You're crazy."

  "Far from it. This isn't some whim, Durham Red. I've got a thousand elite soldiers dispersed among my domains, weapons caches, spies in every other citadel. I've bribed, blackmailed, bought and sold. I've stolen and killed, and all for this. Never, in all the Keep's history, has anyone been so close to the top."

  Red closed her eyes, thinking hard. "Let me guess: someone sold you out."

  "Not exactly. To be quite honest, I let my greed get the better of me. I went after you."

  "Me?"

  "You're a prize, Durham Red. The Magister wants you, wants you badly enough to send Losen out to get you and risk Magadan being exposed to the very universe he fears so much. I don't know why, but I knew that your value to him would be of use to me."

  Red opened her eyes and grinned at him. "Flattery doesn't get to me, you know. Much."

  "Don't be flattered. As far as I can see, you were a juicy piece of bait, nothing more." He sighed. "They were waiting for me to make a play. And curse my impetuousness, I did. But as soon as you had gone from the Keep, and I tried to return to my domains, I found them under Magisterial Edict."

  "They knew what you were up to."

  "They do now."

  Red shook her head. "Close, but no cigar. Not yet. There must have been other worms the Magister could dangle at you, Sorrelier. Things you wanted more than me."

  "Possibly."

  "So why go to all the trouble? If the Magister is so scared of the outside universe - and sneck, he's got every right to be - why risk dragging me all the way back here? No, there's something else. He wants me for his own purposes, not just to draw you out."

  "In which case, we both have business with the man." Sorrelier put a finger to his lips, pondering. "I propose a truce. And a deal." He got up, and walked around the table to join her. "If I were to get you to the Magister, what then?"

  "Could you do that?"

  "If I had your help."

  Red looked away, gnawing a fingernail. She would rather have entered into a pact with a shoal of piranha fish, but she couldn't deny that Sorrelier's plan had a twisted kind of merit. The Magister, after all, held the answers she was looking for.

  He was also head of a society that used its own lobotomised citizens as slaves and sexual playthings. Sorrelier wanted to take the guy's place, swapping one tyrant for another. Well, when the time came, Red would have something to say about that, too.

  "Okay," she said. "Let's do it."

  They went back to the bridge, and on Sorrelier's instruction Captain Rimail poured on the power. Red felt the acceleration shove her back into the seat as the flier forged towards the Keep.

  As the tower began to grow in front of her, Red turned to Sorrelier. "I just had a thought."

  "My mind reels with sarcastic replies," he sighed. "What was it?"

  "You said that anything flying out of the Keep blew up if it didn't have the Magister's say-so. How did you get out here?"

  "I had the bomb taken out years ago, along with the control locks. You don't plot against someone without learning their little tricks."

  "All right, smartarse. If he knows what you're up to, how are we going to get back in?"

  He leaned close. "I have agents in one of the flight harbours."

  "Really? You've been gone a while. Are you sure you've got anything?"

  He sat back, his arms folded. "We'll see."

  The craft began to tilt, circling around the Keep. As it did so, something came into view that Red was sure should not have been there. "Is that smoke?"

  Rimail started checking his instruments. "Sire, I'm picking up radio traffic from the western harbour. There's been a crash."

  "No matter," Sorrelier replied. "Our berth is in the eastern."

  "Not any more. Rimail?"

  The captain jerked around, startled to be addressed in that manner. "My lady?"

  "Head right for that smoke. Get into one of the launch tubes while the place is still going apeshit." She turned back to Sorrelier. "Lesson number one, twinkletoes. When you're busting into a place like this, head straight for the chaos."

  "And if there isn't any?"

  "Make some."

  Close up, the entrance to the flight harbour was a honeycomb of launch tubes, large and small. Several had smoke gouting from them, and Red could see the brilliant yellow sparks of internal fires. As she watched, something inside the harbour detonated with a white flash, followed by a ball of greasy flame that vomited out of one tube. Debris spat past the schooner.

  The bridge rocked. "That one," Red told Rimail, her hand on his shoulder. "Six along, two down."

  "It's close to the blaze, lady."

  "That's the point." She got up from her seat and stood up. "Sorrelier, grab whoever you're taking and get ready. We'll have to jump and run."

  "Understood. Rimail?"

  "Sire."

  "Once we're in, take off again as soon as you can. Find a place to set down and await a signal."

  "And make sure you've got sunscreen," Red told him, as she headed for the rear hatch. "The weather's just to die for."

  The harbour, as Rimail's radio traffic had intimated, was a ruin. It looked like a schooner-sized vessel had come in at full speed, tearing up a hundred metres of launch tube before shearing through the docking clamps at the inner end and exploding. The debris had ripped through the complex of platforms and walkways, detonating fuel supplies, setting vessels aflame, killing dozens.

  Damage control teams had been called, but were quickly overwhelmed. As Red barrelled through the carnage the order was already being given to fall back.

  "There have been system failures all over the Keep," Sorrelier gasped, trying to keep up. He'd brought Lise with him, but if the sylph was
tiring she made no sign. "They started not long before I left. Small things, mostly, but it has some of the strata panicking."

  "Your people? Maybe shaking things up in your absence?"

  "Not my style."

  "Whatever. It's good for us, anyway. Should take some of the heat off," Red replied. She slowed, unsure of how best to leave the harbour. "Now, which way?"

  "The elevator," Sorrelier told her, pointing. As he spoke, something behind him blew up with a shattering roar, shaking the decks and sending shrapnel careening over their heads. "Or the stairs."

  The journey took them downwards, strata after strata.

  Once they were away from the flight harbour they felt it safe enough to travel by elevator, and for that Red was grateful. She'd been lying about having blisters, but she had walked a very long way. To get down to the Magister's strata completely on foot would have been like doing the whole trip again, from the swamp to the hills, but this time vertically.

  Finally, after an hour or so of continual travel, Sorrelier called a halt.

  The lower strata became progressively less like self-contained, artificial worlds. They were starting to reach the inner workings of the Grand Keep; the factory levels, the power and support systems. The surroundings were still lush, opulent, but grass had given way to carpet and polished marble, fake sky to gantried ceiling.

  The level Sorrelier had brought them to seemed to consist mainly of fountains, great eruptions of water dozens of metres high. They came up from a series of circular pools down on the stratum floor, leaping past and through each other in a ceaseless, gushing dance of brilliant clear water. The stratum was ringed with circular walkways, so long that they faded into threads as they curled away, then vanished behind clouds of vapourised water. The noise was deafening.

  Red and Sorrelier stood panting on the upper walkway, leaning against the rail. "What the sneck's this?" Red puffed.

  Sorrelier shook his head. "Something to do with purification, I believe. Although whether of water or air I have no idea."