“Other than saving Miryam from being gang-raped and probably murdered, you mean?” replied Gloriana, with gentle but incisive sarcasm. “Not that I don’t take your point … but I would rather you left me to deal with our Lucinian guests. I have plans of my own for them.”
The tone of the Queen’s voice settled it for Maradith. She drew her breath, reached into her robe, pulled out the shortsword, and with the blade held downwards she rapped hard on the door with the pommel. There was an urgent but incoherent burst of whispering, a tense pause, and then finally the Queen’s voice again, courteous but intensely cautious.
“Enter, please, whoever you are. I think it might be as well that you know I am neither alone nor unarmed. One can’t be too careful these days.”
A wise girl, thought Maradith, gloomily, as she opened the door. The voice was coming from the room directly ahead, at the far end of the antechamber. The interior doorway was open but narrow, so all Maradith could see of the room as she approached was a long, velvet-curtained window on the far wall, and a desk covered in books and papers. As her leaden, reluctant feet brought her closer, and more of the room became visible, she made out bookshelves and wooden benches on which stood retorts, test tubes of chemicals, burners, and a spherical silver device that looked like a small galvano-static generator. Originally, this had probably been Prince Rowan’s study, but Maradith somehow doubted that the laboratory equipment dated from his residence. As she crossed the threshold, the room’s inhabitants finally came into view. An unarmoured Shadow Guard, presumably Hermylla, stood just inside the doorway, poised for action. The fact that she was only wearing her silk undersuit did little enough to detract from the threat of the dagger-like weapon in her left hand: one long, sharpened shard of obsidian, set into a wooden hilt and surrounded by smaller shards in a petal-like formation. Judging from the expression in her large, glaring eyes, it would have given her no small pleasure to have an excuse to use it. Gloriana herself sat at one of the wooden benches, her expression as ever masked and impenetrable, but from her right hand the six barrels of a silver-plated Kyttsen Revolver glinted threateningly at the delator.
“It’s that Lucinian bitch, and she’s armed.” declared Hermylla, fiercely and urgently, as her poise tensed even more and her grip on the dagger tightened. “What did I tell you? Let me–”
“Calmly, Hermylla,” interrupted the Queen. “She’s hardly in a position to do much harm with it. If I may say, Delator,” she added, turning to Maradith, her tone perfectly collected, “a seax is a fairly clumsy choice of weapon for an assassin.”
“That’s as may be, Your Highness, but it’ll serve for what I’ve got in mind,” replied Maradith, her stomach churning and her head close to spinning, but just about managing to maintain her outward composure. “I’d like to ask one question first, if I may.”
“Then you have my permission, and my curiosity. Please ask.”
“This plan of yours … to change everyone,” she asked, hesitantly, and saw no gesture of denial in Gloriana’s still, silent posture. “What are you expecting to happen in Lucinia afterwards, when everyone’s been affected?”
“Revolution, I would hope. We have friends, Delator. Mostly dissidents and political criminals, I grant you, but not all of them. We have secret supporters in the press, the People’s Assembly, the Secretariat, the Steel Dome … even a couple of junior senators. Not all of them, you see, are wholehearted supporters of this dirty little racket which I assume you have been ordered to defend at all costs. After the ritual is carried out, our sleeper agents will bombard the Lucinian people with information: pamphlets, broadsheets, public speeches … The truth of how they were cheated will spread like wildfire, and since everyone below the most elite ranks was cheated, including your fellow delators and the army, I don’t imagine the Senate will be left with much rank and file support. They could call us liars, of course, but that is hardly plausible when the people, now reborn, will themselves be the very evidence against them. Thus, I sincerely hope Lucinia will cleanse itself of corruption, and from then on live with Alvenheim – now very obviously their kin – in a true peace, and not one of mere political convenience. Do you disapprove?”
“I suppose … but what about the reform camps, and the labour communes?” asked Maradith, stricken by a painful afterthought.
“Will be very unlikely to endure, I should think. As I said, the rank and file will know better than to trust their masters on that day, and in any case, we have even more friends and supporters inside those camps than outside them, although hopefully that will not apply for much longer. Why do you ask?”
“Doesn’t matter, Your Highness. I just needed to know, before … Well, I’m not really sure how this goes,” she said, with intense awkwardness, whereupon she descended to her knees while Hermylla stared incredulously and Gloriana’s blank eyeholes followed her impassively. Her head bowed to the floor, Maradith held out the shortsword in both of her hands, the blade flat against her left palm. “Pledging allegiance to a queen, that is. I know a saw a picture like this in some old book of romances we once purged, though. My sword is yours … if you’ll have it.”
“This is–” began Hermylla, almost certainly intending to follow it up with something along the lines of ‘preposterous’ or ‘disgraceful,’ but she stalled in her fury as Gloriana raised her free hand in a commanding gesture. In the tense silence that ensued, the Queen laid her revolver upon the table, then rose and walked around to where the delator knelt. For a few seconds she just gazed down upon Maradith, who dared to return the look. Up close, she could make out a slightly narrowed, curious expression in the Queen’s good eye, and a bizarre clash of colours in her crystal eye. After a few seconds, Gloriana reached out her right hand, but instead of taking the sword, as Maradith had supposed she would, she paused with the signet ring on her middle finger hovering just centimetres away from Maradith’s face.
Kiss the ring? Fair enough, thought Maradith, but before she could act on it, the Queen reached out with her left hand, took the seal of the signet ring between her fingers, and delicately unscrewed it from its base. As it came free, Maradith saw that there was a tiny, dimpled reservoir underneath it, containing a small quantity of clear liquid. Her confusion at this gesture was brief, as Gloriana subtly but meaningfully edged the ring in the direction of Maradith’s mouth, but comprehension was not much consolation for the fear this gave her. Leap of faith, is it? she thought, unhappily, while staring at the mystery substance in the poison ring. Like I should expect them to trust me on sight. I guess that would be a bit of a stretch. I wouldn’t. Slowly, she leaned forwards until her lower lip brushed the cold metal edge of the ring. Gloriana then bent her fingers, allowing its contents to flow into Maradith’s mouth. The liquid was tepid and tasteless, but seconds after she had swallowed it, Maradith felt her head swimming. Did I just do something really dumb? she asked herself, but as if by way of answer Gloriana, having screwed the top back on her ring, laid a steadying hand upon her shoulder and spoke reassuringly.
“There will probably be some disorientation, but don’t be concerned. It will pass. Well, Hermylla, it looks as if you’ll have a new Shadow Guard to instruct before too long, although I daresay you will find her very competent to begin with. The training of delators is second to none, within the Republic.”
“As you wish,” replied Hermylla, steadfastly if hardly with enthusiasm. “Right now, though, I’m more worried to hear that they’re onto our plans.”
“A legitimate concern. Concentrate, Maradith,” said Gloriana, firmly but not unkindly, as she cupped the ex-delator’s swaying head in her right hand. “I prefer first names, though. What is yours?”
“It’s …” began Maradith, almost in a drunken haze. She was surprised how difficult it was to extract this simple fact from her brain, but was no longer afraid. Her emotions had blurred into a warm, pleasant fog of serenity, which was just as well since her physical senses seemed to be overloading. Sounds were becoming both louder and sharper, c
olours and textures more vivid, and the chemical smells more tangy and acrid. “It’s Leolah, Your Highness.”
“Tell me, Leolah: did Lord Citizen Kasimir send you here to assassinate me? Remember to whom you now owe allegiance.”
“He never did … I swear. Senate’s orders, but he was coming here before me … Wanted to talk you out of it … He didn’t come, though? Then where … ?” she tailed off, with an element of confusion now disturbing her inner peace. The east wing was not a tiny building, but it was hardly likely that Kasimir would have gotten lost in it, and since his mission had not required any secrecy, any of the servants or guards could have directed him to the Queen’s chambers. Maradith tried hard to think of a reason for his having failed to come that was both plausible and reassuring, but such rational efforts were beyond her, and for the present she had no choice but to endure this gnawing sense of anxiety which penetrated even through the exhilarating sensory chaos of her transition, along with the voices of the Queen and her bodyguard.
“Talk me out of it?” asked Gloriana, amused. “I see these Lucinians are every centimetre the ruthless murderers you believe them to be, Hermylla.”
“I’d agree they weren’t if he’d actually come,” replied Hermylla, deeply unconvinced. “How do we know he didn’t change his mind, though? He might even be selling us out now.”
“You do have an inventively suspicious mind. Still, your instincts have served me well before, but to whom would you suspect him of selling out to? Not the Brythons, surely. He is wise enough to know that they are not trustworthy custodians of the mandala. Not even Lord Lycon, alas.”
“His own people, then. He could use the telegraph to send for reinforcements. We should have that filthy machine ripped out and broken up, if you ask me. The damn line’s a blight on our landscape, anyway.”
“It’s too valuable for that. We might well need it to spread the word and keep track of events after the ritual. We’ll place a close guard on it, though. No-one uses it without my express authority.”
“Very good, Your Highness. And the Secretary? Do you want me to get a team together to find him and bring him in?”
“Yes, but be discreet, and gentle. I would vastly prefer him brought to me in one piece, if at all possible. Now let us make ready. Things are moving faster than I had hoped, I admit, but we only progress through adaptation. Come along, Leolah,” she said, taking Maradith by the arm and leading her with them, out of the room and along the antechamber. Since her transition still felt uncannily similar to tripping out on some mind-bending drug, she was very glad of the guidance. “You’ll get used to it quickly enough, and then you can assist us with the ritual. Hopefully, your former master will be joining us. I have something special in mind for him.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – THE HIEROPHANT
Headache. Cold, hard stone. Smell of piss. Can’t be good …
Kasimir opened his eyes, but to little purpose. The room he was in was almost pitch-black, save for a tiny skylight that was so high above him that its pathetic ray of sickly sunlight struck the opposite wall several metres above him, and illuminated nothing of the floor area in this dank, chimney-like cell. He thought that he heard a rat squeak nearby. It sounded rather put out with the accommodations, with which he could only sympathise. But how in Alyssa’s name did I end up here? he wondered, hauling himself into a sitting position, and wincing as the effort caused his head to throb even more. He had been attacked, of that there was little doubt. The last thing he remembered was heading down the corridor to the throne room, in the hope that the Queen might be hearing petitions and that he could take the opportunity to beg a confidential audience of her, but that memory ended abruptly, only to recommence on this cold, hard, piss-stinking floor. That fact, along with the detail of his headache being particularly pronounced towards the back of his skull, suggested that his mission had been rudely interrupted by a blunt instrument. But who?
He racked his brain, not that it needed any more torture, but he found it no easy matter to draw up a suspect list. Although he had made few enough friends since coming to Alvenheim, he could not think of anyone who stood to gain from his abduction. Saskia would certainly win no support from Lucinia by holding him hostage, and Gloriana would only succeed in cementing her popular image as a terrorist. Staakys, greedy bastard through he was, was an improbable suspect at best, as he would be unlikely to throw away the rich concessions he had only just gained for whatever meagre ransom he thought that a battered bureaucrat might fetch.
“Which still leaves that man-ape Corin,” he thought aloud, while clutching his head and trying in vain to massage some relief into it, “though unless it’s mere revenge, I don’t know what in the Abysm he expects to–”
“Don’t concern yourself with Corin, Lord Citizen,” said a calm, familiar, and icily threatening voice from behind him. “He and his men will be on the march now, Thalassa willing. They will rejoin their marauders in Falkraine’s Corridor, then ride north to meet their ships. They will then sail east to harass the Autokracy’s merchant shipping, thus sparing your precious border-landers any more aggravation. Can I assume that makes you happy?” he asked, ironically.
“Lord Lycon?” he asked, making no effort to conceal the high-pitched note of dread in his voice. He knew all too well of how this man was capable of treating his enemies, and he had no shame in being afraid of that.
“You expected someone else?” asked Lycon, nonchalantly, as he walked around Kasimir and into his view, albeit only as a tall, vaguely human-shaped patch of deeper darkness. “Alas, no-one else was available. I regret to announce that Lord Olfrud took a turn for the worse, and we decided it was best if he returned to Brythenedd without delay. Lord Staakys is seeing him back in lofdreki number six. No doubt the fastest way, but even if we allow him five hours there, as many back, and time to get the ship refuelled and the poor old gentleman safely delivered into the hands of his family retainers, that still leaves us well over half a day to kill … which may not be quite as dramatic as killing a queen, but I’ll make the most of it.”
“I’ve no idea what you–” replied Kasimir, none too optimistically, and he was thus mentally prepared to be interrupted, although he had dared to hope for a verbal interruption rather than the back of Lycon’s leather-gloved hand. As he went sprawling across the cold stone again, his head now slightly more balanced for pain, if not at all improved, Lycon spoke again, with cold derision.
“No, of course you haven’t. A completely innocent party. Butter wouldn’t melt in your mealy little mouth, or so I thought, but you forget: you Lucinians aren’t the only people who know the arts of sordid intrigue. I myself have friends in your Secretariat … Friends for the right price, that is. They were good enough to send a courier who arrived this morning, with some very interesting news. According to him, you and your delator friend were sent here with a somewhat broader remit than that of simple, peaceful ambassadors. Of course, espionage alone would merit death, which makes it hard to know how I ought best to reward attempted assassination.”
“I would never … Gloriana’s the only thing holding this sorry realm together,” Kasimir answered, but his telepathy showed him all too clearly that his words were wasted. For beneath his icy surface, Lycon was a seething pool of hatred, resentment, and sadistic pleasure. He felt genuine fury at having discovered the Senate’s secret agenda, but it came with a distinct sense that he was pleased to have this excuse to inflict suffering on the man who had smeared his reputation before the Queen. Realising that he would get no mercy, Kasimir made less effort to contain his contempt as he continued to defend himself. “She’s the one good member of your rotten junta. I’d sooner kill the rest of … well I’d never have killed her,” he hastily added, rather more cautiously, as Lycon raised a fist again. “Nor would Maradith.”
“Well, at least you’re not insulting my intelligence enough to deny the espionage part,” replied Lycon, still with his air of offhand cruelty but at least unclenching and l
owering his fist. “I suppose we must count our blessings. Yours, of course, are tragically few, though it might comfort you to know that my agents have somehow lost sight of your accomplice … or so they claim. I have my suspicions they just turned coward at the idea of tackling a delator. Sadly, that does give you some value as a hostage against the Queen’s life, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to remain one hundred percent intact to be a negotiable commodity … However, before we actually move onto the business of working out your most extraneous body parts, and how best to relieve you of them, I might as well ask straight off if you’re willing to confess what you’ve found out about Gloriana’s plans.”
If this had been a promising option for saving his life, to say nothing of any body parts, extraneous or otherwise, he would have gladly confessed and thrown in any other sins and secrets Lycon cared to hear. However, although Lycon’s tone was as ruthless as ever, there was a hint of desperation that anyone without Kasimir’s unique sensitivities would have missed. Keen to grasp at any available leverage, he immediately turned his mental focus back upon the sealord’s mind, and caught several vivid images. He was looking across a desk in a ship’s cabin, at a figure in a long black cloak with a lowered hood. He felt intrigued but suspicious, believing that his visitor was hiding something. He put the question …
“But a woman of your obvious talents … It doesn’t add up. Why would you want to put so much effort into seizing a petty dunghole like Kadar Ydril?”
“It’s our home,” she answered, with exaggerated indignation, but it did not fool him, and he stared steely-eyed at her until she came clean, or at least cleaner. “It’s … strategically important. The weapons I have promised you are mere toys compared to the power our most distant ancestors wielded. Kadar Ydril is the key to that power. I suggest you keep this to yourself, though. You are reputed to be the only man of both status and vision in Brythenedd. I will not risk power of this magnitude falling into the hands of a mere brigand, whatever his rank.”
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