The Guns of Empire

by Django Wexler

  —

  When she woke, she had no idea how much time had passed, only that her mouth was dry and tasted of blood. She reached for the canteen strapped to her side and felt a moment of panic when her left arm wouldn’t move. It was tied to a splintery length of wood wrapped in threadbare cloth, with more strips of cloth binding it tight against her chest. That brought everything crashing back, and for a moment it was all she could do to fight back bile.

  Eventually, she managed to sit up and get the canteen out, awkwardly opening it with one hand and gulping the contents. Water splashed on her chin. Across the room, she heard someone stirring, though it was too dark to see anything.

  “Winter?” Alex said groggily.

  “Mmm.” Winter emptied the canteen and set it aside. “Yeah.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “A little better.” Her arm hurt, but it was a dull, red-hot throb instead of a white-hot burn. “You did a good job.”

  “Thanks,” Alex said. “I wanted to do something for Bobby, but I wasn’t sure where to start.”

  “Bobby’s demon will do more for her than we can.” Winter abruptly lowered her voice. “Have you heard anything?”

  “People moving around in the distance, a couple of times. They must be searching, but they haven’t come close yet.”

  “Do you have any idea where we are?”

  “I . . . think I do,” Alex said. “I know which direction the main stairs are, at least.”

  “That’s more than I’ve got,” Winter said. “So that’s good.”

  She paused, glancing in the direction where Bobby’s motionless, shadowed form lay. How long will it take her to heal? When the Desoltai had cut her down, it had been most of a night before she recovered, and this injury was probably worse. But she said the healing was getting faster.

  “Have you got any matches left?”

  “Yeah.” Alex shuffled closer. “Why?”

  “I want to take a look at Bobby.”

  A moment later a light bloomed in the darkness. Winter shaded her eyes briefly, then pushed herself over to where Bobby lay. She was liberally coated with blood, now drying into a flaking brown crust, and Winter brushed it off her face with her filthy sleeve. Her breath hissed. The skin of Bobby’s cheeks was shot through with white, like veins of marble embedded in the ordinary flesh. They spiderwebbed across her wherever Winter looked, crisscrossing her forehead and forming circles around her eyes. Part of her hair had changed, too, the brown streaked with stony white.

  “Karis Almighty,” Alex said. “What’s happening to her?”

  “It’s part of the healing,” Winter said. “Other than that, I have no idea.”

  Bobby shifted slightly, and she gave a faint moan. Alex shook out the match.

  “It won’t be long, I think,” Winter said. “Once she can walk, we’ll try to find a way out of here.” Assuming the Beast doesn’t find us first.

  “Yeah.” Alex’s shadow shuffled in place, folding in on herself. Her voice was very small. “Fuck. Why did it end up like this? Why did he . . . ?”

  “We didn’t know,” Winter said. That the pontifex had let the Beast loose. And Jane . . .

  “I should have . . . I don’t know.” Alex swallowed a sob, turning it into something more like a hiccup. “Fuck. After last time, after the old man, I swore that no one was going to be able to do this to me again. Then I get all sobby over the first pretty face that comes along. What the hell is wrong with me?”

  “Alex, please,” Winter said. “Don’t. He deserves better.”

  “I know.” Alex paused. “Who was that woman? The one who tried to . . . you know.”

  “Jane Verity,” Winter said. “My . . . lover.” And best friend, and savior, and the person I hurt more deeply than anyone, and lost and found and lost again . . . “She was my lover. And then she tried to kill me. I thought she ran away after that.”

  “But they brought her here and made her into the Beast?”

  “Apparently.”

  There was a long silence. “I’m sorry,” Alex said after a while. “I’m just . . . not sure what to say.”

  “Neither am I.”

  Alex’s voice went quiet again. “I just want to go home.”

  “Me too.”

  “Home” was a strange concept, Winter thought. There wasn’t a place she could call home in all the world. What she wanted to go back to was Cyte, and her old tent, and the comfortable routine of marches and drill and camp. Maybe home is just a matter of habits.

  “Alex,” Winter said. “If you were alone, could you get out of here?”

  “What?” Alex said. “Why does it matter? I’m not—”

  “Please. Just answer.”

  “I mean, probably,” Alex said reluctantly. “I can climb the walls and move a lot faster than the Beast’s people can. Unless it has any Penitents left.”

  “It doesn’t,” Winter said absently. “The Beast will extinguish any other demon it comes across. There isn’t room for two of them in one soul.”

  The poison demon had been banished as soon as the Penitent that carried it was taken by the Beast. Which means that Janus at least has a chance.

  “But why do you ask?” Alex said. “Please.”

  “If they catch us,” Winter said slowly, “and there’s no way for me and Bobby to get out, I want you to run.”

  “I won’t,” Alex said grimly. “I’m not just going to save myself while you—”

  “It’s not about you,” Winter said. “Listen. You wanted to help us, and now I’m giving you an assignment. We have to warn people about this—do you understand? The Beast is not going to stay here in Elysium. If nobody stops it, it will keep spreading, on and on, until there’s nothing left. Right now we may be the only people who know that it’s gotten loose.”

  “Oh,” Alex said. She sounded stunned. “I hadn’t . . . thought about that.”

  “So here’s your mission. First, go to the Mountain and warn the Eldest. He may know something important, and some of my people are still waiting there. Take them with you and go south. Find Janus.” She swallowed. “If he’s dead, find Marcus d’Ivoire, or Raesinia, or whoever’s in charge. But you have to warn them. We’re going to have to warn everybody.”

  “I understand,” Alex said. “But it won’t matter, because we’re all getting out of here.”

  Bobby gave another moan, and shifted.

  “Bobby?” Winter said.

  “Winter?” She sat up.

  “How do you feel?” Winter said.

  “Like I fell off a fucking cathedral tower,” Bobby said. “Are you okay?”

  “More or less. Can you walk? We need to move as soon as we can.”

  “I think I can walk, but I can’t see worth a damn. Where are we?”

  “Still in the cathedral,” Alex put in. “In the attics.”

  Bobby groaned. “If I never see another cathedral as long as I live, it’ll be too soon. What happened to the others?”

  “Dead,” Winter said simply.

  “Fuck,” Bobby said very quietly. Then, “Okay. What now?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  MARCUS

  Three of the identical masked copies rushed the doorway where Marcus and Sothe stood side by side. Sothe whipped a knife at them as they charged, sending one tumbling to the floor, and then she and Marcus met the other two with swords in hand. The strange duplicates were competent swordsmen, and Marcus fended off his opponent with a clumsy parry and watched him dance away from the return strike. As he closed in again, though, Sothe came at him from the side, having neatly disposed of her own enemy, and slashed him across the gut with her long blade.

  The bodies faded, just as they had before. The last remaining duplicate, standing at the end of the corridor, gave an exaggerated shrug.

  “I
can keep this up all day,” he said, the air blurring and fracturing around him. “Can you?”

  Then there were four of him again, and three were charging. This time Sothe’s knife blurred over the shoulders of the charging duplicates and sank deep in the chest of the one in the rear. He fell with a clatter, but this didn’t seem to discomfit the others. Two of them pressed the charge home, while the third pulled up short. Marcus surprised one of them with a low sweep that cracked his knee and sent him sprawling, while Sothe drove the other’s blade from his hands and skewered him. She stepped forward, another throwing knife already in hand, and whipped it down the corridor just as the air cracked and sparkled. The Penitent ducked, but not quite fast enough, and the blade slashed a line of blood along his shoulder. An instant later, there were four men in the corridor, all with identical wounds. The other duplicates, even the one Marcus had deliberately crippled but left alive, had vanished.

  “Ahhh,” Sothe murmured. “Marcus. You see?”

  “I think so,” Marcus said, “but—”

  The Penitent charged, and it was clear at once that he’d been toying with them. Duplicates engaged, slashed, took wounds, and reappeared almost instantly, the air a continuous sparkle of mirror cracks and flashing light. Even with the defensive advantage of holding the doorway, Marcus would have been overwhelmed at once if it hadn’t been for Sothe. As usual, she fought with an elegance and poise he couldn’t hope to match, cutting down one foe after another with barely a pause for breath.

  One of the duplicates threw himself at Marcus, arms spread wide, not even using his sword. Startled, Marcus instinctively thrust, and the black-masked figure impaled himself, hands reaching for Marcus’ wrist. The Penitent dragged Marcus’ sword down, and another duplicate bulled past, slipping to Marcus’ right until he was inside the suite. Sothe spun, slashing the duplicate in front of her and throwing a blade at the one that had slipped by, but it was too late. The air cracked and sparkled, and there were three Penitents in the room with them, spreading out to draw them apart while one still waited in the corridor.

  “Back to back,” Sothe said, turning to keep the figures in view. Marcus retreated from the doorway, snatching up a loaded pistol from one of the fallen mercenaries in his left hand. He set his back against Sothe’s and waited, as the four identical Penitents took up equally spaced positions around them.

  They all cocked their heads, mirrored gestures creepily synchronous. Then, again as one, they began to laugh.

  “What,” Marcus growled, “is so funny?”

  “I just realized who I’m fighting,” one of the Penitents said. “Our mutual friend the Last Duke has generously shared his files with us, you see. You’re Marcus d’Ivoire, aren’t you? And you we know very well, of course. The elusive Gray Rose. Orlanko is quite effusive about you, did you know that? Your betrayal hurt him deeply.”

  Gray Rose. Marcus blinked. I’ve heard that before.

  “Orlanko betrayed me,” Sothe said. “And every other loyal member of the Ministry. He betrayed Vordan and the king.”

  “Whereas you served them so well?” The Penitent laughed again. “Marcus, do you have any idea what this woman has done? How many hundreds she’s killed at Orlanko’s orders?”

  “I don’t deny what I am,” Sothe said.

  Ages ago, it seemed, Janus had sent him a file, decrypted from the Concordat archives. It had described the murder of Marcus’ family in numbing, clinical detail, another routine operation during the Ministry of Information’s reign of terror. At the time what had stood out to him was the fact that his younger sister, Ellie, had escaped their net. But the Concordat agent whose name was at the bottom, who’d executed the plan—

  “The Gray Rose,” Marcus whispered. “It was you. You killed them.”

  “Marcus—” Sothe began.

  “All this time,” Marcus said. “I’ve been fighting next to you, and you killed them.”

  “I can never make up for that, but—”

  “I think you can.” Marcus spun, turning his back on the Penitent, and raised the pistol. “You fucking monster. Balls of the Beast. Were you laughing at me when I said I wanted revenge?”

  “No,” Sothe said. She turned around, keeping her hands at her sides. “After I . . . left the Concordat, and I devoted myself to Raesinia’s service, I had a great deal of time to think. When you returned, at first I was frightened.”

  “Frightened? You?”

  “The only thing that matters to me is Raesinia,” Sothe said. “She got close to you, and I worried you might hurt her. I worried . . .” She took a deep breath. “I thought it might not matter. When we thought you were lost at Isket, I felt a moment of relief. It was a terrible thing to feel, a monstrous thing, but I did.

  “But then you came back. And something became clear to me. You are my punishment, Marcus. You were always meant to be.”

  That was possibly the most Marcus had heard Sothe say at any given time. He realized with a start that her eyes were gleaming with tears. He fixed her with his gaze, keeping his expression fierce.

  “You were right,” he said. “I am your punishment.”

  He pulled the trigger. At the same time, he spun, shifting his aim to the Penitent visible over Sothe’s left shoulder. The pistol went off with a wrist-deadening blast, and Marcus let it fall, already pushing off for a thrust at the Penitent by his own right shoulder. The man had stepped closer, fascinated by the confrontation, and Marcus’ sword slipped in smoothly under his rib cage. As he moved, he saw Sothe turning, glittering steel leaving both her hands at once.

  For an instant everything froze. Then four black-masked bodies collapsed simultaneously. This time none of them faded away.

  Marcus let out a breath. “Idiot. If he’d had any sense he’d have stabbed me as soon as I turned away.”

  “Indeed,” Sothe said. “I got the feeling he liked hearing himself talk—”

  She stopped as Marcus turned around, having retrieved a second pistol from the ground. He pulled the hammer back with a dull click, aiming it at her chest.

  “If he was lying,” Marcus said, “now would be a very good time to say so.”

  —

  Marcus wasn’t sure what he expected. A blur of steel possibly, as Sothe easily dodged his clumsy shot and sank her knives in his throat. His hands were slick with sweat, and his finger trembled on the trigger.

  “He wasn’t lying,” Sothe said. “I was . . . I am . . . the Gray Rose, Orlanko’s greatest assassin.”

  “You killed my parents.”

  “I did.”

  “You would have killed me, if I’d stayed in Vordan.”

  “That wouldn’t have been my decision,” Sothe said. “But I would have done it, if I’d been ordered to.”

  “Why?” Marcus’ vision blurred, and he blinked away tears, keeping the pistol trained. “For . . . some financial bullshit? A controlling interest in some company?”

  Sothe shrugged. “Because I was directed to do so.”

  “By Orlanko?”

  She nodded.

  “You never questioned him? Never thought that killing totally innocent people—”

  “Innocence or guilt was his decision. I carried out my tasks.”

  The barrel of the pistol fell a fraction of an inch. “What changed?”

  “Raesinia.” Sothe smiled, very slightly. “After she nearly died and Orlanko’s allies saved her, he gave me the task of watching over her. That was when he began to lay his plans for the regency. I had . . .” She gave a tiny shrug. “I had always imagined I was doing the king’s work, as communicated by his faithful servant. I realize now that I thought of the king as a sort of . . . god, a perfect being removed from the realm of mere mortals. But the king was dying, and Raesinia was going to be queen. And I knew her. She was human, just a scared girl who’d been forced into something she barely understood.
I could no longer deceive myself that Orlanko wanted the best for her.”

  “So you switched sides.”

  “In practice it was more complicated. I laid a false trail that kept the Concordat from realizing where I had gone. But essentially, yes.”

  “And I suppose,” Marcus said acidly, “you’ll tell me that everything you’ve done since has been trying to repent for what you did in Orlanko’s service.”

  “No. There is no question of repentance.” Sothe stood a little straighter. “I am a blade that opens throats in the dark. For a long time I was wielded for an unworthy purpose. Now I believe my wielder is worthy, but that is all that has changed.”

  “And if I shoot you?”

  “Then it will be what I deserve. And what you deserve, perhaps.” She closed her eyes.

  He wasn’t going to do it. Marcus had known that, at some level, from the very start. He couldn’t imagine facing Raesinia afterward, explaining to her what he’d done. Couldn’t imagine cutting down the ally who’d fought so skillfully and tenaciously at his side. But, more than any of that, shooting a person—a woman—in cold blood, when they posed no threat, was simply not something he was capable of. More fool me. He let the pistol fall to his side.

  “You can’t stay here,” he said. From now on, whenever he saw her face, he would imagine the flames. “Go. I don’t care where. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  Sothe opened her eyes and nodded.

  “Take care of Raesinia,” she said. “She isn’t as tough as she pretends to be.”

  “I will,” Marcus said. “She’s my queen.”

  He closed his eyes just for a moment. When he opened them again, Sothe was gone.

  —

  RAESINIA

  Raesinia did not, strictly speaking, need a heart.

  She sometimes fancied that the binding, and the sense it gave her of the functioning of her own body, meant that she knew more about how people worked than even the doctor-professors of the University. She could move, for a while, without blood pumping through her veins. It damaged the muscles, but the binding could repair that almost as quickly as it happened. The question is whether I can move fast enough.