The Council of Shadows

by S. M. Stirling

  “How did madame come to meet the duc?” Ellen said at last.

  Seraphine raised one elegant eyebrow. “We are cousins, of course.. . .”

  Wait a minute, there were black Brézés in Belle Epoque Paris?

  At Ellen’s look of incomprehension: “Ah, you mean my outfit! Beautiful, is it not?”

  We are definitely talking at cross purposes here.

  “It’s a beautiful dress,” she said.

  “Oh, no, I mean Ayan,” she said, and touched one finger to the opposite arm. “Gorgeous, n’est-ce pas?”

  For a moment the gesture itself distracted Ellen’s attention from its meaning; the way Seraphine held her wrist and moved the finger was. . .

  Exaggeratedly feminine. Effeminate, in fact; sort of like a drag queen or a really old silent film of Sarah Bernhardt . . . Why would she . . . Oh, that’s it. It’s Edwardian body language, or even Victorian. It’s what drag queens imitate these days, passed on down by generations of convention while the way actual women hold themselves and gesture changed. That’s the sort of posture that she picked up from her mother as a little girl, before she grew up and tortured her mom to death. She’s the real article in more ways than one.

  Seraphine went on: “We acquired her near Djibouti shortly before the Great War, when I was still corporeal. Actually bought her as a slave from some nomads, a strange experience but intriguing. Beautiful, and of a fierceness . . . She lasted an entire year and died exquisitely, such defiance mingled with the pain and despair.”

  Ellen paused with her fork halfway to her mouth, looked down at the little samosa on it, and doggedly chewed and swallowed.

  She’s wearing one of her victims like a dress, she thought. Oh, new vistas of ick-ness open at every turn!

  Then: Adrienne could have been wearing me for the next thousand years when she felt in the mood, calling up my body’s DNA from the memory bank; she certainly drank enough of my blood . . . and whatnot. God, but I’m glad she’s dead. Actually all-the-way dead.

  Seraphine turned to Adrian for a moment. “Your Ellen has the most intriguing mind, but what have you been doing with it? The surface is like the armor of an ironclad, there are so many wards and blocks and traps!”

  “Elementary precautions, my dear Seraphine,” Adrian said.

  Suddenly Ellen felt a warmth inside. He’s just tolerating them, she thought. Even they can’t tell, but I can. And he’s flaunting me partly just to piss them off, which I find I don’t mind at all.

  Étienne went on: “But killing your sister, and the Final Death at that . . . perhaps a little excessive, mon fils?”

  “It’s not as if she hadn’t tried to kill me often enough,” Adrian pointed out. “Serious attempts. And not only in the line of duty, as it were.”

  “Ah, well, sibling rivalry,” Seraphine said tolerantly. “Who can avoid it? I still remember how annoying little Anaïs was when we were children, taking up our parents’ time and being tiresome. And how often I tried to drown her or push her out of windows or set her on fire, even when Maman scolded me for it. What I am really annoyed about, mon chouchou, is that you have neglected us so long. Admittedly you were involved with those horrible Brotherhood vermin, but still, after the closeness of your childhood visits, it is a wounding.”

  The next course arrived: terre et rivière, a sea urchin–and-avocado dish, and truffe blanche d’Alba, gnocchis légères, eau de Parmesan, with beetroot and eel.

  “These Brittany sea urchins are unrivaled,” Seraphine said. “The current chef here is Breton.”

  “Oh, they’re better than the Santa Barabra variety, a little,” Adrian said. “But in my opinion those of Hokkaido are fully as good, if not better. The gnocchi are delicious, but extremely un-gnocchi-like.”

  Odd, Ellen thought. I can actually enjoy dinner under these circumstances . Am I getting callous? Or just . . . case-hardened? Or am I braver than I thought I was? Or has Adrian turned me into a compulsive foodie? Or all of the above?

  The contrast between the buttery richness of the avocado and the sea-kissed taste of the urchins was certainly arresting. They finished the champagne, and she cleared her mouth with some of the bread.

  “Ah, turbot with black-truffle emulsion,” Étienne pronounced. “Now with this, Meursault. Les Tessons Domaine Michel Bouzereau 2007, I think. It will serve admirably for the Noix de Saint Jacques en coquille senteurs des bois and even for the Jambon blanc truffe spaghetti au parmesan as well. One must not be a purist, like some visiting . . . foreigner.”

  He was about to say visiting American, I think, Ellen mused. Well, miracles never cease. Tact.

  The sea scallops in their shells were barely steamed, soft-textured and fragrant, with wild wood vegetables, salsify, tomato, turnip and black truffle.

  “I do prefer the ham,” Seraphine said, looking down in pleasure at the smoked meat in its rectangular nest of al dente spaghetti, with cèpe mushrooms and black truffles standing like the masts of a ship. “One grows nostalgic for a sauce that is a true sauce rather than an ethereal wisp, and the truffles are of the earth. I grant you that this is no longer the age of Escoffier, and one must move with fashion, but yet. . .”

  The white Burgundy blossomed in Ellen’s mouth like the scent of apple orchards in the springtime.

  “I notice Arnaud was not included in this little family gathering,” Adrian said. “It would, perhaps, be a little awkward just at the moment.”

  Ellen closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the way the dead man had fallen, and the other coming for her with the knife. And the mindless killing malice behind the fossa’s snarl. When she opened her eyes Seraphine’s yellow gaze was on her, avid, and her tongue came out to moisten her lips in what was probably an unconscious gesture; she returned the look with a bland smile and mentally elevated a finger.

  “Arnaud, Arnaud,” Étienne said with a regretful sigh. “I fear he is more and more a creature of impulse; and impulse always did govern him more than is good. He is unlikely to see the twenty-second century at this rate.”

  A smile that was at once cultured and feral. “Surely, my dear boy, you do not imagine that if I sought your death I would proceed in so amateurish a manner?”

  “Granted, Great-grandfather.”

  The table was cleared and the desserts came: a concoction of meringue, white chocolate and almonds, pastries filled with chocolate and an iced pistachio side, and a fantasy of cooked and raw grapefruit and lime sweet as palate cleanser. Then coffee, noir for the three Shadowspawn, and noisette for her in deference to American sensibilities, and cognac.

  She hadn’t liked brandy before she met Adrian—in fact, with her family history, she’d been at least mildly prejudiced against anything distilled.

  Of course, before I met Adrian I didn’t get Frapin Cuvee 1888 Rabelais, either.

  A taste of dried fruits slid across her tongue, nuts, candied oranges, and a wash of cacao and flowers and soft spices; it made you think of hot tropical sunrises seen past the curve of a sail,with the sea breaking white beneath your bowsprit.

  Étienne sighed. “Eighteen eighty-eight was a marvelous year. . . but perhaps I recall it so because I was young, eh? And this . . . like all the greatest pleasures, it is fleeting, impermanent. Little of this remains; perhaps only a few bottles, and once they are gone it will exist only in memory. As one accumulates experience, more and more resides there.”

  “I can see that you have reason for cultivating such an outlook,” Adrian said carefully.

  “Perhaps we come to the meat of the matter with the digestif, eh?”

  Ellen took a deep breath. Adrian went on, calm, his tone conversational.

  “I have no interest in who is selected to fill the vacant seats on the Council,” he said. “Save as it affects the plans for Operation Trimback.”

  “You are acquainted with that?”

  “Yes. Ellen received the details from Adrienne, and I have had Seeings.”

  “Ah.” Seraphine lifted her br
ows. “Strong ones? Apparently you remember my teaching.”

  “Very high orders of probability, and tied to my sister. Our world-lines were deeply entangled at the time.”

  “And which do you favor?” Étienne said. “The plague, as your sister did, or this rather drastic use of nuclear weapons to shred the humans’ electronic devices?”

  “The EMP attack,” Ellen supplied.

  The Shadowspawn master waved a hand. “I have no interest in the terminology.”

  “You should be interested in the effects,” Adrian said. “Have you Seen?”

  “Nothing immediate. That is a matter of subtlety rather than raw Power; dear Seraphine has always been more sensitive, doubtless you derive it from her. I have had glimpses of the far futures that might be. Quite pastoral and attractive, most of them. A few rather grisly—”

  Christ, what would he consider grisly?

  “—but those of much lower probability.”

  “Great-grandfather and lord, I do not think you appreciate just how much would be destroyed if the structure of the technological world were removed at once. Runaway nuclear reactors—scores in France alone!—ruptured oil refineries. . .”

  The older Shadowspawn began to laugh. Adrian merely raised a brow, but Ellen felt a surge of fury. It died as she realized that this wasn’t, or wasn’t merely, the usual schadenfreude and sadism. There was a genuine irony here.

  “I laugh, my dear boy, because I did not grasp the implications. I was quite taken with a return to the medieval period, with us as the noblesse. After all, the Power can do a great many of the same things as the humans’ technology. Until your sister carefully explained the problems to me.”

  He shook his head. “The al-Lanarkis are the primary advocates of the, ah, EMP. Trimback One. She demonstrated convincingly that they argued so because their primary territories would be least affected, and so all the other Shadowspawn would be weakened. They would probably have done it themselves, if I had not strongly hinted we would exterminate their clan down to the babes in arms if they did.”

  “And the humor?”

  “Well, Adrian, you did kill her. And here you are, repeating her soconvincing arguments to me!”

  Seraphine sighed. “I will rather miss Adrienne. She reminded me of myself at that age, so passionate and enthusiastic about her causes, yet so carefree and merry and natural.”

  Yeah, she longed to unleash a tailored supersmallpox on the world so she could take it over and be worshiped as a goddess, and she had a deep, carefree, merry enjoyment of. . . actually doing things to people that would be squicky even if you just played them. Doing them to me, in particular. And I’m not puritanical about that sort of thing at all.

  Étienne continued: “But something must be done. The humans are breeding like cockroaches and threaten to destroy the Earth. And while I could . . . how did Adrienne put it . . . turn myself into a guinea pig, walk into a steel box, and have Arianespace launch me to the moon, there would be no food and little amusement there.”

  Ellen surprised herself by chuckling. That was the sort of thing Adrienne would have said. It was easier to appreciate her sense of humor when you weren’t having your head held underwater as foreplay or being chained up and flogged.

  Though she was actually pretty good at the chaining and flogging. It was just the knowledge that she might decide to go on until I was dead or crippled. God, I’m glad she’s dead. How many times have I thought or said that? Not enough, dammit! I expect to spend the next sixty years being glad she’s dead.

  Adrian continued earnestly: “Yet you are the grand master. The human governments are under your control. Surely you could take other measures, slower and surer? Our great advantage is that we are not pressed for time.”

  Seraphine laughed again. “This is a game of intellectual musical chairs! Now you are taking my part, when we discussed this with Adrienne. I thought that the plague scenario was also somewhat risky. Things rarely go as smoothly as one plans, and we would be relying on human scientists doing work we did not understand ourselves.”

  Her husband looked at her with a crooked smile. “True. Since we are all Brézés, I suppose it to be expected that we find ourselves echoing one another’s thoughts. Though in Adrian’s case, I suspect his deplorable sentimentality about the cattle is involved.”

  Adrian shrugged. “True.”

  Why did he admit that. . .? Oh, they’re telepaths. I suppose true/false is easy to detect, even with screens.

  “But that does not affect my argument. Why take the hideous risks, when slower and surer methods are available?”

  Étienne shrugged again; it was worthy of Charles Dullin, and Ellen dropped her eyes to her brandy. The gesture was entirely natural, and it reminded her of how old this. . . manlike creature was.

  And Adrian will not die when his body does either, and he could Carry my soul forever.. . . Stop that! You don’t have to think about that for decades yet! The world may end in the interim. In fact, it probably will end in the interim.

  “It has been tried. The Chinese one-child policy, for example, which our good taotie allies implemented. But while we can make any particular government perform any particular action, we cannot force most of them to adopt many consistent policies over many years, which they are violently unwilling to do. Our puppets would be overthrown, and if we forced their successors to do the same then they would be overthrown . . . and meantime, our existence would become painfully obvious.”

  Seraphine sighed. “It is a paradox; we have all power, but only so long as we do not use it very often. It would be much more convenient if we were worshiped openly. Of course, that would also have certain dangers.”

  “Our existence will become very obvious indeed, if either of the Trimback options is used,” Adrian said.

  His ancestor nodded. “Yes, but by then the humans would be much weaker. We would be in a position to use the crisis to take control more directly.”

  Ellen swallowed. Adrian had shared his Seeings with her. They weren’t exactly prophecies, the future was a spray of alternate possibilities and not one fixed path, but they did represent the trend of events, the balance of possibilities. Most of them showed a wrecked world; many a world under the open rule of the Council of Shadows. Those were like Hell come to earth, in ways more horrible because they were quiet.

  “And besides,” the Shadowspawn archimage went on, “Adrienne also convinced me that if the humans are allowed to play with their scientific tools and toys much longer, they will stumble across us anyway. Neglecting to keep an eye on that monkey curiosity of theirs let them develop nuclear weapons, to which we are so vulnerable.”

  “Which was the result of the Council’s starting the world wars,” Adrian said. “Shadowspawn perceptions of the future do not altogether free us from the law of unintended consequences.”

  “Granted. Though the wars were amusing as well.. . . But that is all the more reason to end the project of science. It will let them acquire far too much understanding of the Power. That we cannot allow, and killing too many individual scientists again risks revealing presence by absence.”

  “Then you will back the EMP attack?”

  “No, no. You—and your sister—are quite right there. Far too dangerous. Let it be the plague; we and our servants—” He smiled grimly. “Our renfields, as the younger generation put it . . . Did I ever mention that I met the man Stoker? He was invaluable to us.. . . In any case, we will be prepared, and when the humans despair we will step forward and stop the pox . . . when their numbers have been culled sufficiently. Onesixth or one-fifth the current total, that would be more than sufficient. As many as there were when I was your age.”

  Seraphine smiled; the long, lean, aquiline face of the Somali girl she wore made it extraordinarily wolflike, and her yellow eyes glowed.

  “And then the world will be as we wish it, wild and free. Enough humans for servants and food and amusement, enough to make the things we need. Few enough that onc
e more the world will be sweet and uncrowded, the air and water clean, with many plains and woods and mountains empty save for great numbers of beasts. We will have the jets and yachts and things for our palaces and estates, and the humans will have just as much as we choose to give them, and they will worship us. As we wish it, forever.”

  Ellen sipped more of the brandy. The horrible thing is, that isn’t even the worst possible alternative.

  “Ah . . . would you need science for that?” she asked. “Ignorant serfs wouldn’t be much use in keeping the central heating going.”

  “No, no,” Seraphine said. “Not science. Only engineering, really. Science we could gradually abolish. A tiresome thing, in any case.”

  Adrian sighed. “I suppose I must support your position, then, Great-grandfather,” he said. “Option two it is.”

  He and his progenitor locked eyes for a moment, and then he finished his brandy.

  “It will be useful to have your support in Tbilisi, my descendant. You inspire a good deal of fear, which is of course in the end the basis of all respect.”

  Adrian’s bow was graceful. “Thank you for the excellent dinner.”

  “You would not care to join us for other fare?” His molten-gold eyes paused on Ellen. “Your . . . wife could participate, in a number of different ways.”

  “A thousand thanks, but not tonight,” Adrian said.

  Ellen buried her face in her hands and huddled against Adrian in the back of the limousine.

  “Oh, Christ,” she said.

  “You were splendid, my sweet. You were brave as a lioness.”

  His arm went around her shoulders, and she could feel the chuckle rumble through his throat. “And it is because of you that we know about the plague that Adrienne and her conspirators developed. And even now the Brotherhood is preparing.”

  She took a shuddering breath and let it out slowly. “Yes. Will they have enough vaccine?”