"So," Kollberg said flatly. "It's clear what we can do for you. Make me understand what you have to offer us."
That worm of doubt began to wriggle through the gates of Tan'el-Koth's mind, as though Hannto were trying to gain his attention; there was something about the way Kollberg spoke, something eerily familiar about his affectless voice and academic diction. Tan'elKoth stepped on that worm and ground it beneath his mental heel; he had no leisure for second thoughts.
He spread his hands. "In my role as the rightful ruler of Ankhana—who is also a citizen of Earth--I can petition the Leisure Congress for the aid of the Overworld Company. I can invite you into the Empire. I can ensure that your bleeding hearts, as you call them, support your occupation, instead of oppose it."
"You may perhaps be useful, after all."
"I am more than useful. I am necessary. Without me, your plans cannot even be initiated." Tan'elKoth gestured to the mirror that flickered upon his desktop. "Have you forgotten Caine?"
Michaelson was saying, "Of course, that recording was never intended for public release. We didn't want a panic. I've directed Studio Security to open an investigation into the source of the leak. There's been a lot of outcry already, but it's important for your viewers to understand that thanks to an immediate, aggressive response by the Studio itself—the crisis is already under control."
"And what was the Studio's response, Administrator?"
"Well, I guess I can take some of the credit for that myself When you're married to a goddess—" He gave a brief, self-deprecating, professionally charming chuckle. "—a lot of problems just aren't as impossible as they might look"
Kollberg grunted wordlessly at the screen.
"Do you understand yet how thoroughly your masters have been outfought?" Tan'elKoth asked. "You cannot even retaliate; not only is he once again a public hero, he is surrounded by thousands of his most devoted admirers—anything that happens to him will be witnessed by all Earth. By the time this convention has ended, it will be too late. Pallas Ril will have utterly destroyed your plan."
Kollberg only grunted again. His shoulders flexed, and his hands worked back and forth across the front of his pants. Tan'elKoth noted with swift distaste that the man had an erection—and he was rubbing it through his dungarees.
Clearlake continued to lob Michaelson his lines with clean-cut good nature. "Did you ever consider that this might have been nothing but a hoax?"
"Sure. Sitting here, on Earth, we can't possibly know the truth. It could be a hoax—or it could be a catastrophe. Sending Pallas to Overworld is a measured response—if this is a hoax, it hasn't cost anybody much. If this is a real crisis, she can handle it. Speaking strictly for myself, I believe that elf was telling the truth. Look at him. Listen to his voice. You'll believe him, too. You know my philosophy: hope for the best, but plan for the worst."
"There's been some public speculation that this outbreak might not have been an accident," Clearlake said, "that it was deliberately inflicted on Overworld by a terrorist group, or some kind of psychopathic personality within the Overworld Company, or even the Studio itself"
"I'm inclined to doubt it," Michaelson said seriously, "but the possibility must be investigated. I'm told the Overworld Company's Internal Security unit is already looking into this, but I believe that a situation as potentially grave as this one requires a response by the Studio itself. I've already spoken with Studio President Businessman Turner and offered my own services as a special envoy for a fact-finding mission to Transdeia. I've, ah, offered to go over on ammod. As you know, my thoughtmitter is, still in place; on ammod, everything I see will be transmitted and recorded instantly on Earth. There'd be no possibility of mistake, or question of concealment—I'd be like a Registered Witness. The whole world would see how committed the Studio—and the Overworld Company—is to the welfare of the natives of Overworld."
Clearlake had given one of his familiar suave, knowing chuckles. "Ever the man of action, eh, Hari? Showing a little of that old Caine spirit?"
"Well, Jed—" An answering chuckle. "—sometimes a little of that old Caine spirit is exactly what we need."
Another chuckle from Clearlake, this time less knowing, more openly appreciative. "Well, I for one would certainly pay a mark or two to see Caine back on-line. How can the Studio resist?"
Tan'elKoth allowed himself a grim smile.
Michaelson went on, "And an investigation should be opened here on Earth, as well. We need to know how this happened. We need to make sure it can never happen again."
"Do you see?" Tan'elKoth said to Kollberg. "Do you see the avalanche as it descends upon you?"
Kollberg nodded. "He must be stopped."
"You must understand that you cannot simply kill him. Not now. His energies have already been directed against you and your masters; his sudden death—even by accident or `natural causes'—will result in an explosively destructive release of those energies."
Kollberg's head swiveled as though mounted on gimbals, and his gaze met Tan'elKoth's with the blank incuriosity of a lizard's. "Expand on this."
Tan'elKoth compressed his lips. "Consider only the most obvious, surface level of the effect: Anything that happens to Michaelson will be taken by Caine's admirers as hard evidence of a sinister conspiracy—and there are many admirers of Caine sitting on the Leisure Congress itself. The best you could hope for would be a public investigation into the practices of the Studio and the Overworld Company. You would bring about precisely the events that you hope to avert."
"I do not see how this is related to Michaelson's so-called energies."
"I am not responsible for the limitations of your vision," Tan'elKoth said sourly. "Those energies have little to do with Michaelson. They are Caine's. It is not Michaelson who is beloved by a billion fans and more. And even that love is the merest iceberg tip—but how can you comprehend the enormity that lies below the surface, when you are blind to the decimus in plain view?"
"What solution do you propose?"
That worm of doubt wriggled beneath Tan'elKoth's mental heel, and suddenly grew into an icy serpent he realized why Kollberg's manner was so eerily familiar. He spoke exactly like a meat-and-bone version of the Board of Governors.
A premonition of disaster rose up in his throat like vomit.
"The key to successful solution of your Michaelson problem is analysis," he said briskly, to cover his momentary lapse. "Reduce the problem to its components, so that the necessities involved in successful resolution become clear. The Michaelson problem breaks down neatly into two components: dealing with Pallas Ril, and dealing with Caine. Dealing with Caine also breaks down into two components: the public and the personal.
"The public side of the Caine component is his popularity: the attention—and even love—he commands worldwide. This is more susceptible to resolution than it may at first appear; one must simply be conscious of what it is, after all, that Caine's fans love. It is not Caine himself, despite what they may claim, and even believe. What they value so highly is the myth of Caine: the drama and adventure he has brought into their dull workaday lives. Thus: the necessary resolution of the public component must have a certain high drama—a sort of poetic thunder that will satisfy his fans."
Kollberg said flatly, "They won't mind that he dies, so long as he dies well."
"Precisely. It must have every necessary element of a Caine tale: villains and heroes, a struggle against hopeless odds, and an apocalyptic denouement."
"This can be done?"
Tan'elKoth met his blank gaze without hesitation. "It can. Most of these elements are already in place; success is only a matter of the proper orchestration. It requires, if I may extend the metaphor, the proper conductor."
"This being you."
"This being me." He nodded to himself, he liked the way this was going, now—despite Tan'elKoth's misgivings, Kollberg seemed eminently pragmatic and accessible to reason. "Caine's public energies are not the only energies at his comma
nd. The private component deals with his will itself—one might call it his rapier, by contrast with the more public bludgeon."
Tan'elKoth rose restlessly and began to pace: a tiger prowling the limits of a cage marked by the silent, motionless Social Police officers. "The successful resolution of the private component—blunting, as it were, Caine's rapier—involves diverting him, scattering his energies, overwhelming him with multiple problems until he cannot focus on any single one. It is insufficient to defeat him objectively—we must beat him subjectively. We must demonstrate to him beyond any shadow of dispute that he is helpless. We must teach him to think of himself as a defeated man."
A hint of a smile began to twitch the corners of Kollberg's thick, deadmeat lips. "You want to break him before you kill him."
Tan'elKoth halted his pacing and met Kollberg's empty eyes. "Yes." "Is this a true necessity? Or is this revenge?"
"Does it matter?" Tan'elKoth shrugged. "In this case, the concatenation of necessity and pleasure is fortuitous—which is to say: yes, we must do this ... and yes, I shall enjoy it."
The liver-colored tip of Kollberg's tongue circled his lips. "I approve," he said.
Tan'elKoth gave him a slim smile. "Now, we turn to the Pallas Ril component. This breaks down neatly into another pair, as well: the mystic and the physical. The physical difficulties are obvious, I think. Pallas. Ril is a creature of nearly unlimited power, able to sense—and theoretically to affect—every living thing in the entire Great Chambaygen watershed; she can act at nearly any distance. She can stride the length of the Empire in a single hour; even granting the ability to defeat her, she cannot even be located unless she wishes to be found."
"You make her sound invincible."
"No one is invincible," Tan'elKoth said darkly, "as I have learned to my eternal shame. It is a matter of selecting the proper weapon."
Kollberg's eyes were flat and dull as chips of slate. "Go on."
"The mystic component is still more parlous. To simply slay her is not enough; she has imposed her will upon Chambaraya to the extent that the death of her body would do far more harm than good, insofar as the success of your plans is concerned."
His great hands knotted behind his back, but his tone remained dry, precise, clinical: the clipped delivery of the professional lecturer. "Consciousness is a patterning of energy; infused with the power of Chambaraya, her consciousness cannot be overcome by a merely physical death. Will is expressed through a body, and is to some extent limited by the body that expresses it. To merely destroy Pallas Ries body would release her consciousness—and that consciousness could pattern the river itself, the entire Great Chambaygen watershed, as its body. We would have made of our enemy a god in truth, instead of a part-time Actress playing with unearned power."
He turned and regarded Kollberg with a trace of a smile. "On the other hand, she is the only part of Chambaraya that cares a whit whether the races of Overworld live or die. To Chambaraya, life is life: the maggots that would feed upon their corpses are every bit as precious as elves and dwarfs and even human beings slain by your disease. So the solution is obvious: we must separate her from the river. In this fashion—only in this fashion—can the Pallas Ril component be successfully resolved."
Kollberg's reptilian gaze never wavered. "How will this be accomplished?"
"Not by me personally, you may be assured," Tan'elKoth said. "She would become aware of me with my first breath of Home air, and would be on her guard. No more must Caine be aware that my hand is against him to give him a clear vision of his enemy is to hand him victory."
Tan'elKoth allowed his smile to sharpen to a razor edge. "The components have been analyzed; the true measure of success shall be the elegance of their solution. We have regarded them individually. We must resolve them simultaneously"
"You say you can do this," Kollberg murmured tonelessly.
"I can."
"Then do it."
Tan'elKoth leaned comfortably back in his chair, taking a deep, slow, easeful breath. He glanced at the four distorted reflections of his face in the mirror masks of the Social Police, then let his gaze slide back to Kollberg.
"First—as Caine would say—let's talk deal."
4
Vinson Garrette, Viceroy of Transdeia, leaned forward onto the table, holding his cut-crystal wineglass before his eyes, examining the way the rich cabernet shaded to rusty earth tones at the intersection of wine and glass. "What if we—the Artan rulers—as a gesture of good faith," he said slowly, meditatively, "to cement our . . . relationship ... with the Monasteries, were to give you something that you want? Hypothetically. Something of small value to us, but substantial value to the Monasteries. To you personalty, Your Excellency."
Raithe folded his skeletal hands and stared past his own wineglass, untouched on the table. "What—hypothetically—would we be talking about, Your Highness?"
"What would it be worth to you, for example—" Garrette leaned back into his ornately carved chair at the head of the table. "—to get your hands on Caine?"
Raithe sat motionless as a lizard for a very long time; he did not even blink.
Then he reached out and grasped his wineglass, and raised it slowly to his lips.
5
As His Radiance Toa-Sytell, Patriarch of the Ankhanan Empire, stared at the image of Ambassador Raithe in his Mirror, he wondered if the young Ambassador had any idea how much the Empire was already learning of the inner secrets of the Monasteries.
In only a month, the Artan Mirror had revolutionized communica tion in the Empire. Now there were at least one or two Artan Mirrors in every major city and not a few of the minor ones; each major military outpost had its own. Only three days ago, a young thaumaturge in the service of the Eyes of God had reported that he had discovered a way to eavesdrop on Mirrored conversations without the knowledge of the speakers at either end.
Toa-Sytell used his free hand to mop faint beads of sweat from his upper lip; he'd been feeling a bit under the weather for a day or two, and now it seemed he might be developing a fever. His discomfort made it difficult to fix his attention on the young Ambassador's words.
"—as you know," the Ambassador was saying, "the Council of Brothers supports fully the Empire and the elKothan Church. The gesture we are prepared to make, we offer without any expectation of return."
Toa-Sytell flicked a glance at the Eye Mirror-speaker, whose hand he held. The Eye nodded, indicating that the Ambassador was telling the truth as he knew it. This was another of the innovations from the Eyes of God researchers: the Eye would have heard the untruth of any lie. "All very heartwarming," the Patriarch responded with his characteristic dry irony, "but I was told this is some sort of emergency?"
"What is urgent, Your Holiness, is our need for reassurance that our gift will be put to its proper use."
"And that use would be?"
"It is a gift for the Festival of the Assumption, Your Holiness, A very, very special gift, to honor the Empire, and the Church."
Again, the Mirror-speaker nodded.
"Yes, yes," Toa-Sytell said testily. "Go on; what is it?"
"What, if you had the power," Raithe said with a secretive smile, as though he already knew the answer, "would you do with Caine?" Toa-Sytell jumped, and his eyes took fire. "Caine ..."
"Caine was never officially sentenced for his murder of the late Ambassador Creek. He is, insofar as the Monasteries are concerned, a free man, innocent of any crime," Raithe said. "However, I believe his status with the Empire is rather different."
Toa-Sytell barely hear the words; he found himself on his feet, trembling, crushing the Mirror-speaker's hand until the poor man blanched. "You can give me Caine?"
Within his head roared the flames of a Festival auto-da-fé; in his nostrils the scent of Caine's burning flesh; in his ears the cheers of Beloved Children around the world; around his heart coiled the old, cold serpent that whispered sweet revenge.
Raithe smiled. "If I can?"
&n
bsp; "I swear—We swear, I and God Himself—" Toa-Sytell said, forcing the words from his breathless chest, "you will not be disappointed."
6
The face of the woman on the screen was attractive, even without makeup, even puffy with interrupted sleep, even though past seventy without ever indulging the vanity of cosmetic surgery. A long straight nose, planar cheeks, strong jaw, eyes the crystal blue of a Nordic winter sky; her hair was cut to a uniform half inch, a skullcap the color of steel. Only her mouth marred her classic beauty: it was a thin, lipless gash like a hatchet wound in her face.
Tan'elKoth allowed himself to study her. His video was refused; on her end, she glared with sleepy antagonism into a blank screen. Past her shoulder he could see a wrought-iron bedstead, and he could glimpse the curve of a young man's back half buried in tangled bedcovers at her side.
Tan'elKoth glanced up at the Social Police; they stood in an arc behind him. Kollberg pressed close to his side, his breath bloody and rank.
"I don't know who you are or how you got this code," Businessman Avery Shanks said, her voice thick and clumsy, the way it always was when she was unexpectedly awakened—the sedatives she'd been using intermittently for forty years always left her a bit dazed. "You should know I have no tolerance for pranks. SynTech security is tracing this call."
There it was: that tone of generalized threat he remembered so well. He let the sound of her voice call forth Lamorak.
Overpowering love swelled within his captured memory, leaving him breathless; one enormous hand came up to touch the unfamiliar curve of his face, as he remembered being smaller, blond and graceful, a master swordsman—and smaller yet, coming in tears with scraped elbows and knees to this woman's hard, unforgiving lap. She had never been comfortable—but she had always been protective, and vengeful as a dragon.
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