by John Meaney
“All right, Stavrel, mate.”
The two went inside.
“I know you.” Stavrel.
Astounded, Tom realized that the two men who had gone inside might be Padraig and Levro.
“That’s mutual,” said Tom. “Sadly.”
“What’re you, then? Freemerchant?” A smirk. “Who’d ya bugger to get that, then?”
The same old feeling prickled up Tom’s back.
“I tell ya.” Stavrel wiped the back of his hand across his nose. “I heard you been learnin’ how to fight. So you can defend yourself from me, eh?”
He knew of Tom’s training, but not his rank. Twisted rumour, or mistaking Tom for someone else?
Involuntarily, Tom smiled.
I don’t believe it.
It was a very gentle smile. It was as though all his birthdays—and Anniversaries of Elevation—had come at once.
“You little—” Stavrel’s voice faltered.
Red lights, but Tom blinked them away, not needing the tacware’s overlay.
“Er, well then ...” Stavrel’s gaze broke, eyes shifting to the left. “I better find my mates.”
Tom stood aside and let him pass.
After a few moments, one of the troopers came up.
“I thought you were going to kill him, my Lord.”
Tom shook his head.
“It wasn’t necessary.”
“Dance, my Lord?” It was the bride, Trilina, eyes modestly downcast but cheeks flushed with happiness.
“My pleasure.”
Tom followed her out onto the circular dance floor. He had been looking for Dervlin—that shock of cupric hair should stand out in a crowd—but had seen him nowhere.
With athletic abandon, Elva was dancing a reel with her brother Odom.
“Thank you for coming, your Lordship—”
“Call me Tom. Please.”
There were scarlet ribbons in Trilina’s hair and wound around her sleeves; Odom wore crossed sashes of the same material.
“Great ceremony,” Tom added, joining in the dance.
The tune was a complex reel, played by the chamber’s in-built system, and it took Tom a while to recognize the refrain: “The Borehole Lilt,” embellished.
“Are you OK, my—Tom?”
“Just tired. I think I need to sit down.”
Too many memories.
Tom bowed and left her. He took a glass of sparkling water from the buffet table, and went to stand by himself against the stone wall.
For a while he was content to watch the dancing, but then the music died softly away, and the guests clapped as Dervlin, appearing from behind a brocade-edged arras, ascended the small stage.
Fate, Dervlin! We’ve a lot to talk about.
“I’ve just got a short speech to make—” Dervlin pulled out a huge mock infocrystal from his pocket and pretended to load up a display as laughter rippled around the chamber. “Since I’ve known Odom for many years, and there are a few things about his early life he may not have told the lovely Trilina ...”
Hoots and guffaws.
“... when the five Tildrilli sisters took him to see their tunnel…”
A bit near the knuckle, thought Tom, but laughed along with everyone else. He fetched a second glass of water.
“…or the time he—”
An amber beam split the air.
Then a massive thud.
What’s happening?
Explosion.
Its percussive wave smacked Tom flat against the floor.
Dust clouds billowing. Screams and low moans.
“My Lord!”
Hands pulling him upright.
“What the Chaos—?”
Sore cheekbone. Warm blood, trickling.
“Come on.”
Slipping on ceramic shards underfoot, sliding on rubble.
“I’m OK.” Recovering, he pushed the trooper’s hands away.
“It’s Jivrin.” The trooper pointed to a ragged body, opaque eyes staring sightlessly. One of Tom’s men.
I didn’t even know his name.
All around them, people were running in random directions, yelling, or cowering silently upon the floor. Tom pulled his cloak across his face, trying to filter out the choking dust.
A wide-shouldered figure stepped easily across the rubble, a child under each arm.
“Dervlin! I’ve been wanting to-—”
“Young Tom.” A grim smile. “All grown up . . . Here. You’d better take these kids.”
From outside, distant shouts. The sizzle and crack of graser fire.
“What’s happening?” Tom took one of the children, a small girl, by the hand; the trooper scooped the other child up into his arms.
“Our people are holding them back. Militia raid.”
Coughing, Tom looked out past the scorched hanging, but the corridor was still clear.
“Right.” Tom glanced around the chamber: amid the confusion, there was a general scramble now towards the chamber’s rear.
“Get going, Tom. We’ll catch up on old times later.”
A tiny floor-level opening. It must lead into a service shaft: people were already crawling through on hands and knees.
Tom said, “How many action-trained cell members do we have?”
An agonizing scream from outside, suddenly cut short.
“There is no we, laddie.” Dervlin took the dead trooper’s— Jivrin’s—graser in his right hand; in his left, he carried only a monographite drumstick. “You’re getting out of here.”
Soft whimperings from the shocked and wounded.
Tom unclasped his cape and threw it aside.
“I’m going to—no, thanks.” He waved away an offered graser as his other two troopers came up. “I don’t like the noise they make. If you lay down covering fire”—he pointed—”I can make it outside to that side tunnel. From there I can circle round, with luck.”
The two young children whom Dervlin had rescued blinked, wide-eyed.
“You don’t understand, do you, boy?”
Stiffening, Tom looked up at Dervlin. Despite the blistering sizzle of renewed graser fire outside, he almost laughed: no-one had spoken to him like that for years.
“You might be their target, Tom. Hadn’t you thought of that?”
Ice across his skin.
This is my fault?
But it might be true. The militia’s intelligence could be partial: perhaps they knew that a ranking executive officer of LudusVitae, carrying priceless strategic plans in his head, was in the vicinity . . . but they did not know who he was.
Suddenly, travelling under less than complete anonymity seemed a stupid idea.
My fault.
A corollary: Dervlin knew everything, including the local situation. In his judgement, Tom had to flee.
Good enough.
“We’re going.” Decision made, Tom again took one child’s hand. “You three are coming with me. Is there any ID?” He looked down at Jivrin’s body. “We’ll take him with us.”
“No, I’ll deal with him.” Dervlin. “Hurry now, lad.”
“I—Take care, Dervlin.”
“Go on.”
Then Tom was rushing across the chamber, towing the little girl, while his guards kept in formation around him, one of them with the other child cradled against his tunic. Ahead, by the low exit, Elva was pushing people through the opening.
Triple beams spat and bodies fell.
Fear bathed Tom in sweat. Shame pulsed inside as he crouched down at the tiny exit.
“Elva, you have to come, too.”
“My Lord, I—”
“We can’t risk your being identified.”
The bride and groom were already gone. Tom had caught a glimpse of tattered gown, scarlet ribbons flying, as urgent hands pulled them into the escape shaft.
Sizzle, crack of graser fire—yelling—inside the chamber now.
When he looked back, Dervlin’s face was bathed in bright blood but he was r
eturning fire.
Move it!
Tom was galvanized into action, scooping up the little girl, ducking down and scrambling through.
Hurry.
He carried the child into the grey, dusty horizontal shaft as fingers of light flickered, questing—very close—and he could smell his own hair burning.
“Look out!”
Save the girl.
Then they were upright in the shaft, running—it was high but narrow, their shoulders brushing the walls—but up ahead orange light cut through the wall, and a figure dropped in a flurry of rustling purple silk.
Precious bundle.
Run!
Tom kept the little girl tight against his chest as he jumped over the dead priestess’s form and kept running. Behind him Elva shouted to the troopers.
Choking now, vision obscured by dust, Tom half stumbled—don’t drop her—as they came into a wider, broken-floored space. Service-shaft intersection: eight tunnels met here, and people were scurrying in all directions, splitting up.
“Second right!” yelled Elva, and Tom leaped into the shadowed tunnel’s mouth and began to sprint.
“OK soon, sweetheart,” he said to the child.
Faster now.
It was a good choice. Dark, with puddles underfoot, but this tunnel’s floor was relatively unbroken and the air smelled cleaner as he poured on the speed.
No time to glance back, but footsteps splashed and thudded behind: they were keeping up.
The young girl he was carrying made no sound.
Don’t be afraid.
“My Lord—”
Faster.
“Can’t keep going ...”
He slowed, stopped. Looked back.
Elva was bent over, clutching her side.
“Just a . . . stitch, my Lord.” Her face was wan, illuminated by sickly fluorofungus clinging to the damp wall.
Don’t worry, little one.
The three troopers came splashing up behind her, then turned and went down in the puddles on one knee, chests heaving, grasers pointing back the way they had come.
Just a moment’s rest, and we’ll continue.
Then Elva, trying to control her breathing, was saying, “I’ll take her, my Lord.”
Other hands steadied him as he swayed. “No ...”
Taking the girl.
No.
Suddenly, he pounded the wall with a hammer-fist.
“NO!”
But they found an alcove, and Elva gently laid the dead child down. Eyes closed, as though sleeping.
“Come on, Tom.” Elva took his sleeve. “We have to carry on.”
~ * ~
55
NULAPEIRON AD 3414
They were waiting for him in the Palace.
It’s all going wrong.
“If you would follow me, my Lord.”
The alpha servitor and his attendant betas bowed low, then walked ahead of Tom and his group, leading the way—you think I don’t know this place?—along an eggshell-blue and yellow corridor which Tom had walked a thousand times before.
“They’re all inside.” Gesturing with a white-gloved hand towards the shimmering white/gold membrane. “And the others?” Raised eyebrow, asking Tom what Elva and the three men should do.
“Show them to my suite.”
“Very good, my Lord.”
Tom slowly exhaled. The membrane slipped softly across his skin as he stepped inside.
Lacking clean-gel, they had washed using water stolen by Elva from a restaurant kitchen—wasting a precious resource—but Tom thought he could still smell burning, even above the clean yet musty smell of his new clothes. The garments had come from a small marketplace and been legitimately paid for by Elva, whose original outfit had been comparatively unmarked, while Tom and the three troopers remained hidden.
“Tom.”
“My Lady.” He smiled. “Sylvana.”
He felt disadvantaged: skin scaly with old sweat, fifth-stratum clothes—pale yellowish pink and burnt orange predominating—and exhaustion weighing him down.
“It’s good to see you, Tom.”
By Palace standards, the chamber was modest. Round, low-ceilinged, in scarlet encrusted with gold. Some twenty nobles were in the room, in small groups of three or four, attended by only three alpha servitors.
“I’m looking forward to the big party.”
“Me, too.” Sylvana took his arm, and the thrill washed through him, even in his condition. “Though this thing here is not quite the happy affair I’d hoped.”
Lord A’Dekal, white-haired and frowning, tracked Tom’s progress across the room. But, behind him, Lady V’Delikona’s eyes twinkled as she caught sight of him.
“Is that Lord Corcorigan I see over there?”
“The same, ma’am.” He hurried across, bent over her offered hand and kissed it.
“Delighted, old chap”—A’Dekal’s tone was frosty, conspicuously lacking delight—”that you could make it.”
Danger here. Did he suspect where Tom had been?
“We were discussing the latest outrages.” Another Lord, whom Tom did not know. “Three robberies in the sector this past tenday, and some kind of disturbance today, in this very realm.” Sipping clear wine, he added, “Down below, of course.”
“Of course,” murmured Tom.
“What do you think we should do, Tom?” asked Lady V’Delikona seriously. “About these terrorists, I mean.”
“Does anyone”—he put the question, knowing the answer— “actually know what they want?”
The unknown Lord snorted, and Lord A’Dekal said: “Brigands, pure and simple. We should sweep through the place with full military forces. Through every single stratum of every single realm, if we have to, until we clear the devils out.”
“Easier said than done, I think,” Lady V’Delikona replied before Tom could.
Control your anger.
But that, too, was more easily said than done, and bright-red target spots leaped out across A’Dekal’s skin—limp body, Elva lowering the lifeless child—as Tom felt the growing pressure inside him to strike out and kill.
“—is why,” Lady V’Delikona was saying, “I especially asked for you, Tom.”
“I . . .”
Control.
“. . . thank you, of course.”
Breathe, relax.
“I would say”—A’Dekal’s tone was clipped—”you could bring a unique perspective to the team, Corcorigan.”
Tom bowed slightly, as though that were a compliment.
“Define for me exactly,” he said carefully, “this team’s objectives.”
“A think-tank,” said the unnamed Lord, as Lady V’Delikona nodded agreement. “To advise on counter-terrorist strategies for the entire sector.”
Chaos!
“For brainstorming sessions only, I take it?”
“Oh, no. With a large budget and the ability to initiate projects.”
Projects. That could mean anything.
“Any military involvement?” Tom asked.
“The overall responsibility, of course”—A’Dekal—”rests with the military. But the group will be presided over by a high-ranking officer; that’s a measure of our serious commitment.”
“And who will—?”
But another group of Lords was approaching, and at their centre was a gaunt, blond man with taut skin, pale in contrast to his dark grey military uniform.
“Lord Corcorigan”—A’Dekal fingered his white beard as he spoke—”may I present General Lord Corduven d’Ovraison.”
“Good to see you, Tom.” The others had left them alone for a time; it was just Tom and Corduven. “Shame about the circumstances.”
“Just what I was thinking.”