Gloriana's Masque

by Eleanor Burns

  “Yes, I see your point. Especially when the market rate for transitions is so high,” remarked Kasimir, and although Saskia looked very much as if she would have liked to have spat venom all over him, he resumed too quickly for her. “Mind you, I don’t see where you get the idea that it would be impossible. I’m no expert on Alvere alchemy, of course, but I thought Gloriana made it sound very plausible.”

  “Which only goes to show that she is an ignorant fool and you even more so … She knows something of the Rite, though?” asked Saskia, after a thoughtful and unhappy pause. “If that is so, whichever adept taught it to her should be excommunicated and stoned to death.”

  “I see. Not so much shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, as kicking the crap out of it in frustration, then? Good luck with that, anyway, but I think you’re wasting your time. Like as not, she worked it all out by deduction. She may not be an adept herself, but she’s the most intelligent person you’ve probably ever let into your temples, and the Rite isn’t all that complicated anyway.”

  “You know of it too?” Saskia asked, her tone caught between severity and dismay. “That is supposed to be our most guarded secret. I warn you, if you speak of this to any–”

  “Then I’ll probably wake up in a white room in the Presidio’s deepest dungeons, naked and bruised, in the company of a large and angry man with a galvanic cattle-prod,” Kasimir finished for her, scathingly. “I’m not an imbecile, priestess, but no threats you can come up with are likely to eclipse what the Senate will do to me if I breathe a word of this in Lucinia, so save your breath.”

  “I would know what the Queen told you, though. Perhaps she knows less than she believes,” added Saskia, wishfully.

  “It’s all in here,” he replied, flicking through the papers Maradith had transcribed, “but if you’re that eager to hear it, by all means. It’s a potion, isn’t it? You make it with a base of pure spring water, then you add some herbal tinctures as catalysts, but ydrillite is the key element. The adept who carries out the Rite wears a pendant of ydrillite. When the new recruit is blindfolded and the potion prepared, he dips the crystal into it while reciting a specific mantra. Seconds later, it’s ready to be drunk, and he takes the crystal out and gives the potion to the lucky candidate, who is thus very little the wiser for what happened. Dead simple, really.”

  “It may be simple, but it doesn’t sound very scientific, Lord Citizen,” pointed out Maradith, dubiously. “I mean … water, herbal tinctures, and a dangly jewel. It doesn’t sound much for changing someone into a whole different species.”

  “It’s … a different kind of science, perhaps,” Kasimir admitted, choosing his words carefully. “Certainly, it makes no sense as medicine, but this potion isn’t a drug, as such. It isn’t a medium for getting an active ingredient into your body, dissolved in the water. Rather, the ritual activates something in the water itself, changes its structure at a fundamental level. Gloriana, you see, believes that the Alvere state is latent in everybody. Like in the legend of Azelia, she believes that non-Alvere are essentially not quite ‘finished’ beings. It might be that some very powerful adept in ancient times designed the Rite to benefit all people, but they were only able to half-complete their work. Gloriana believes that all the modern Rite does is to reactivate the stalled process, which only takes a very subtle push. A code or a signal, if you will, that can be contained in such a basic substance as water. I’ve no proof for that, but it fits the simplicity of the ritual. The fact that they managed to keep it secret for all this time is certainly one heck of a testimony to how efficiently the People’s Information Office disgraces its own name, and how effectively and forcefully the delators assist them in so doing … No offence, Maradith,” he added, reassuringly, as the delator blushed in mortification. She had never been high enough in RepSec to be privy to such information, but it was still a heavy blow to bear, to think that she might have played even an innocent part in concealing the truth, arresting people under who knows what feeble pretexts just to protect the Senate’s dirty little secret.

  “How nice it must be, to be so clever you can reduce centuries-old mysteries down to facile little gropings in the dark,” scoffed Saskia, but Maradith could sense from her tone that Kasimir’s ‘gropings’ had at least hit closer to the truth than the priestess was comfortable with. “Explain to me this, though, if you and she are so intelligent: how would she ever distribute such a huge quantity of potion without your government noticing and taking measures to prevent it, not to mention all the other governments that fall within the scope of her ambitions? We Alvere have few ships, and none of your smoke-spewing dirigibles to let us spray potion over your people from on high. Also, as I believe I told you before, we once tried to make converts of everyone our armies could reach. It was a disaster, and now we have no armies. If we take that course again, your people will annihilate us. I hope for all our sakes that you and she are indeed spewing nonsense.”

  “I wish I could say you didn’t you have a point,” replied Kasimir, pessimistically. “If only she’d given as much thought to the aftermath as the plan itself … But as for distributing the potion, I believe her intention is simply to propagate the effect of the Rite throughout every drop of water in the world, and I’m afraid she’s pretty confident the means for that already exist. The Alvere have believed for centuries that there are lines of invisible force that link places of great supernatural and religious significance: ancient megaliths, shrines, temples, and so on. Well, she believes it too, but she states that they exist by design.”

  “Naturally. Temples tend not to get built by accident, in my experience,” sneered Saskia, but Kasimir was for once in no mood to appreciate her caustic sense of humour, and shook his head impatiently.

  “Fine. Be obtuse,” he said, sourly. “You know what I meant.”

  “Err, I didn’t, sir,” pointed out Maradith, tentatively, and Kasimir softened his tone as he explained.

  “According to Gloriana, Delator, primitive people didn’t originally build temples or raise stone circles because they wanted to create sites of spiritual power per se, but because they sensed that there was something there already, invisible but very powerful, and they wanted to tap into that power. She refers to it many times, and gives it a name: ‘Darkshift.’”

  “You mentioned that before. What is it, like, some kind of other world?”

  “That, or perhaps a hidden infrastructure to this one, like the inner workings of a watch, and we’re just the hands and numbers, to put it very crudely. We can’t see the Darkshift or affect it under any normal circumstances, but it exercises an influence on us … or it used to, at least. Gloriana seems to think that a lot of it is now lying dormant if not completely dead, but she believes that in ancient times whoever controlled this Darkshift would have had powers over this world that even a god might envy. These significant sites, and the force lines that connect them run all over the world, she claims, like some colossal galvanic circuit, though many of them are now damaged, or lack the power to function as they did of old. She also says there’s one of them right under this building: some ancient temple from back when the Alvere were major players, built into a natural cave. Is that true?” he asked Saskia.

  “It exists,” she answered, dismissively. “It’s in the palace crypt: a carved circle, and a few monoliths. It’s a relic, nothing more. I know of no adept nor priest who has had a vision in there for the past five hundred years … unless you want to count the drunken orgies Prince Rowan occasionally threw down there for the entertainment of his inner court. The crypt is built onto a wide shelf overlooking the main cave, and it amused our late ruler to occasionally hurl a condemned prisoner to the vargs, while his whores and flatterers egged him on. Still, even he was neither deranged nor depraved enough to contemplate such a dire heresy as you are suggesting. Even assuming that … I’m, sorry, I didn’t realise delators could be so squeamish,” she interrupted herself, misinterpreting Maradith’s involuntary frown
of disgust. “I forget though, it’s been all of four or five days since you last had the opportunity to torture a dissident to death. My humblest apologies.”

  “That’s not …” began Maradith, defensively, but she quickly stopped herself from rising to the bait. However adeptly she had avoided involving herself in the typical abuses of a delator’s career, more often than not to the detriment of her own, now was not a good time to feign any pride about working for the Republic. Still, she did consider it somewhat rich that she should be criticised by someone who had, by their own shameless admission, profited from the corruption of the Republic, and she could not resist challenging Saskia on that point. “Personally, I just can’t see why you’re so against her plan. If you’re genuinely concerned about your people dying out, then I’d have reckoned you’d be right behind the Queen.”

  “Oh would you? But that should not surprise me. I must remember, Lucinian, that Gloriana is one of your kind, who measures everything in cold, hard numbers. The survival of our people and all that makes them unique is not a matter of mere quantity, and even a dull-witted watchwoman like you should have the brains to deduce one thing: since your wretched society has spent centuries portraying my people as inferior beings and enshrining their degradation in law, do you really think the first action of Gloriana’s new legion of converts will be to race up here, fall on their knees, and thank her for their unasked-for transition? Personally, I think she will only escape being lynched by all of the nations if they are too busy fighting each other to find the time to deal with her, which is depressingly likely. There will be anarchy throughout the civilised world. Your master knows it,” she added, gesturing towards Kasimir, who looked deep in troubled thoughts. “His own romantic stupidities do not blind him to the truth, thank Goddess. You would do well to listen to him.”

  “That … might be true,” said Kasimir, with an air of deep reluctance. Maradith sympathised, as part of her was stringently arguing that Gloriana’s plan, even if feasible, was unlikely to have a pretty outcome, but she fervently wished that this was not the case, and not just to avoid agreeing with Saskia. The Queen never wanted to invade us or kill us. She just wanted to give us what our own lousy lords and senators kept to themselves for all these years. Sadly, that kind intention did not diminish the probability of Saskia’s grim prediction, and Maradith could see from the secretary’s downcast, frowning expression that he was understating his own pessimism. There was, of course, no way for this fact to slip past the attention of the telepathic priestess, and she leaped upon it eagerly.

  “‘Might be true?’ Don’t delude yourself, Secretary. You know very well that it will mean war and death. Young Alvere are impulsive enough at the best of times, and ‘the best of times’ would be a poor description indeed for the morning after an unexpected and unwilling mass transition. Let me spell out your thoughts: first, the common citizens would riot, loot, and generally raise chaos in the streets. Then, your government would rally what loyal forces it could, along with all of their most lethal weapons, and unleash a holocaust to wipe out as many of their enemies as possible and re-establish control over the wretched survivors. I expect nothing less of the Autokracy and the Confederacy. All are as bad as each other, and all are likely to take bitter reprisals against Alvenheim, sooner or later. Do I paint an accurate picture?”

  “A rather one-sided one … but the thought had occurred to me, I admit,” confessed Kasimir, eliciting a grim smile of satisfaction from Saskia as she continued.

  “I know, and you also take these lunatic schemes of Gloriana’s deadly seriously. Much as I find then hard to credit, I must therefore treat them seriously too, but my ability to oppose her is limited. Even if I could quickly raise support from the temples, she is invulnerable as long as she has the support of these accursed Brythons. If, on the other hand, I had the military might of Lucinia behind me … I should perhaps emphasise,” she added, in such a blatantly conspiratorial tone that Maradith had the instinctive urge to put her in manacles, “that any aid rendered in preventing this disaster would be counted as a great service to the Alvere people. Consider it well. Perhaps in that ancient time you spoke of, when the Rite of Transition was first conceived, it was then appropriate to give it to everyone, but the ancients failed to do so and times have moved on. The world is too populated and too distrustful to allow anything but a cataclysm if all its people become Alvere. However, when it comes to the right people joining us … those whom our society could benefit from, who are gifted in ways that may not even be valued by their own people, but among us would give them the potential for high advancement … I promise you, Lord Citizen, if you pledge me your support it will not be forgot–”

  “Would you mind,” interrupted Kasimir, quietly but contemptuously, “just taking the papers and getting out of here before I have Maradith arrest you for attempted bribery?” Much as Maradith admired the secretary’s principles, she would have been happier had he chosen to express them differently, as she could not think off-hand of any way to go about arresting a senior Alvere cleric that would not be the diplomatic equivalent of stepping in a big pile of bonnacon droppings. Probably just as lethal for my health, if not my shoes … Thankfully, after a tense pause, Saskia’s face curled into a frustrated scowl, she snatched up the papers from the table, and she stormed from Kasimir’s room with a final, scornful declaration.

  “So be it. You’re a fool, but unless you want to swim in blood you’ll heed my words when you make your report. Think on it,” whereupon she swept into the corridor and left Kasimir with a confused expression, which he quickly turned upon Maradith.

  “‘Report,’ Delator?” he asked, displeased. “Is that damn woman now so close to the Senate that they deliberately keep her informed of our orders before they even make it to my ears, or have I simply missed something?”

  “It wasn’t deliberate, Lord Citizen,” Maradith assured him, although unhappily. She had been no more looking forward to breaking this news than she had enjoyed receiving it herself. “When I was heading back to the palace with her, one of the Shadow Guards came running out of the embassy to meet us. Only trying to be helpful, I guess, but lousy timing. She gave me this,” she declared, taking a small slip of paper out of her pocket. It was narrow, curling, and inked with a simple, linear pattern of lines and dots. “Came through early this morning. I should have waited before reading it, I know, but I completely forgot that damn woman was telepa–”

  “Hold on. You read it?” interrupted Kasimir, in surprise. “I thought you were word-blind, or doesn’t that apply to code?”

  “I find it very difficult to read, sir,” she replied, with slightly strained patience. No amount of repetition would ever make this her favourite topic to explain. “I can get by with simple things, and I do know enough VK-Binary to be able to read the code for ‘Report at once’ without much hassle. I didn’t reckon that priestess would know the code at all, so I thought it would be safe enough to read it there and then … forgetting that she could just read it out of my mind, of course, the sneaky bitch.”

  “It hardly matters,” said Kasimir, waving his hand dismissively. “What could she do with the information? Other than hold us over a barrel if we withhold anything from the Senate, that is,” he added, as a nasty afterthought. “There is that, of course. I can’t say I was terribly keen on telling them everything we’ve learned about the Rite, bearing in mind we’re not supposed to know anything about it at all. Still, better if it comes from us rather than from her … I suppose,” he declared, unenthusiastically. “Yes indeed, I think we’d better not keep them waiting any longer than we must, Delator, but let’s be sure to emphasise that we now have all of the information we need for the Lyceum to start work on copying Gloriana’s weapons. Hopefully that news should soften their tempers. As for the rest of her journal … well, perhaps Saskia’s right, and it’s all a load of hubristic nonsense,” he suggested, with no conviction at all. “At any rate, it’s all just wild theories right now. A
curious hypothesis, maybe, but not even an experiment, until we actually see some physical evidence of it.”

  Which is likely to be in the form of millions of folk suddenly changing into Alvere, thought Maradith, gloomily, but she was no keener than Kasimir to dwell upon that aspect. For one thing, if the Senate were to take it seriously, they would almost certainly sign the Queen’s death warrant in an instant, and Maradith was not at all convinced that Gloriana deserved it, however reckless her plan. Secondly, hers might not be the only death warrant that was signed, since lowly delators and even, it seemed, relatively well-respected bureaucrats were not meant to be privy to the secret of the Rite. Maradith had a nasty suspicion that the best hope for all three of them might be if the Senate was so obsessed with the weapons intel that, in their excitement at finally getting it, they cut the report short before she and the secretary had a chance to mention anything else. She knew it was far from being a good hope, but it was something to cling to, however pathetically fragile. As she was pondering that, Kasimir rose and made for the door.

  “Off to the embassy then, Lord Citizen?” she asked, following him.

  “You are,” he answered, leading the way down the corridor. “As for me … I need to find her, and talk her out of it, somehow.”

  “Saskia, sir?” she asked, suspecting this to be the very definition of a waste of time, but trying her best to keep that defeatism out of her voice.

  “Of course not. I meant Gloriana,” he replied, not doing much to lift Maradith’s defeatism. “I know she’s had fifty years or more of brooding over her injuries and injustices, and in such interesting and uplifting company as our charming friend Saskia, mark you … Still, there must be something of her old self left,” he added, with somewhat desperate hope, as they descended the stairs. “The responsible scientist, who considered the consequences of her experiments before unleashing them on the masses, that is. A part of her that will still listen to reason.”