Say what you like about them, they work their tits off when they care enough, he thought, impressed, as he approached the emergency hospital. There had, prior to last night, been no such building in Kadar Ydril, but given the sudden spate of injuries the various Alvere who had healing skills, who normally just practised from home, decided they would do better to consolidate their efforts. Accordingly, in a matter of hours they had set up a large pavilion not unlike a Brython longhouse, but made mainly of wicker panels entwined together with branches, many still bearing green leaves and buds. Is it just my imagination, or do those branches actually look as if they might be rooted in the ground? As he drew closer, he could see clearly that it was not his imagination, although it was possible that the healers had simply erected the hospital where some young trees had already grown and incorporated them into the design, letting their layout determine the size and shape of the building. Maybe, though they do look suspiciously regular. I’d love to catch them building one of these places some day … though I’ll be moderately surprised if I’m not booted out of Alvenheim for good within the hour. Steeling himself, he swung open the wicker-work door and entered.
Inside, a soothing incense hung in the air, and the bare earth floor had been covered in dry, clean rushes, although he noticed a bloodstain here and there. The injured lay upon mattresses of noctys silk while the healers hastened to and fro, carrying herbs, tinctures, crystals, and some vicious-looking instruments of sharpened obsidian and varg chitin, which Lycon could all too easily guess the purpose of. Herbal decoctions and sympathetic magic are all very well, but there's still no cure for a crushed limb that beats a tourniquet and a good, sharp saw. There were no cries nor groans from the patients, though. Even the ones now missing extremities seemed to be taking it all pretty calmly. It must be good stuff they’re giving them. I’ll have to remember to take some of it with me on my imminent enforced ‘holiday’ …
The Queen did not seem to be among them, however. He was about to ask the healers where she was, when he was addressed by one of the patients in a slightly slurred, but unmistakably cold and insincere voice.
“Lycon? You survived, then. Good show. Pity about poor Maradith. I’m sure you did all you could for her, though.”
“Kasimir?” he asked, at first confused, but the more he looked at the wounded Alvere the more obvious it became. The former secretary’s changed features and the bandage around his head had deceived him less, however, than his haunted expression. He had not worn a look so redolent of despair even after his humiliating audience with Gloriana, and that did nothing positive for Lycon’s own morale. “Where is she?” he asked, curtly, having no wish to linger in the man’s presence any longer than necessary.
“At the back, behind the partition. They’d hardly keep her in here with us proles, would they? She’s still Queen, even if her domain’s now hanging by a thread.”
“Is it? We’ll see about that,” declared Lycon, with a hint of indignation. Much as he had himself strongly suspected that Lucinia would shortly take advantage of last night’s disaster to crush Alvenheim for good, it was somehow more vexing to hear it from the mouth of that nation’s former representative. If there’s any way I can help her prevent that, even if she never lets me in her sight again, I’d consider it a honour and a privilege just to deny those smug bastards an easy prize. He was about to continue on his way, when Kasimir spoke again.
“Tell me … how did Delator Maradith die?”
Stupidly, and unnecessarily, Lycon thought, but he was not feeling quite ill-disposed enough to voice that opinion. “In the course of her duty,” he settled for. “Fighting for … justice, I suppose, and protecting your embassy.” Counter-productively, as it turned out, but let’s not split hairs. “I daresay that’s probably the way she’d have wanted to go.”
“I wasn’t aware she was in any hurry, but I suppose that’s something to tell RepSec when I file the claim for her death benefits. I can at least make sure that her mother has the means for future survival, for whatever we’ve left her to live for. I might leave out the part about Maradith swearing allegiance to Gloriana in her final days, though. I’ve a hunch that won’t do her case any favours.”
“Right … May I assume you’re not planning on returning to Lucinia to do this?” Lycon asked, with a warning note. “I’d rather the Senate had to wait as long as possible to hear about last night, and I’m honestly surprised that you’d want to put yourself in their sights again any time soon … My Lord of Falkraine.”
“I’m neither an imbecile, nor suicidal,” replied Kasimir, bitterly. “I know what to expect if I show my face there. If they don’t just execute me as a defector, they’ll certainly haul me off to the dungeons for a long spell of enhanced interrogation. They’ll want to know what happened here in painstaking detail, and if I was to tell them … She was wrong, you know,” he declared, the haunted look back in his eyes with a vengeance.
“Who, Maradith?”
“Gloriana, about the creators and the temples … and Saskia, of all people, was right. The gods are dead, if they’re lucky,” he added, ominously. “The thing they created will have tried to deny them even that mercy … not that they deserved any better. It would do the same to us, given half the chance, but that won’t deter the Senate or the Lyceum from trying to use it for their own selfish ends, if they knew about it. Do you imagine I’d want to be the one who enlightens them?”
“Does it matter?” asked Lycon, concealing his anxiety with irritation. “With several tons of ex-palace now sitting on top of whatever’s left of that unholy thing, I don’t imagine anyone at all will get to use it now.” Kasimir treated him to a nasty, joyless smile and a shake of the head before replying.
“You think it’s dead, do you? You’re a fool, Lycon. We didn’t even cut off one of the hydra’s heads. At best, we pulled a tooth. I was inside it … I was it … and I was everywhere. The leypaths: there isn’t a square kilometre of land or sea in the whole world that they don’t cross. They’re just a bit denser in Alvenheim than in other places, but there’s no escaping it. We’re all part of the same machine. Funny, isn’t it?” he added, with a hollow laugh. “I used to be so fascinated by the Alvere; by their magic, their faith, their deep connection to nature. It was almost like my antidote to the smoking factories, the grinding metal, and the godlessness of Lucinia … and now it turns out that the Alvere ‘gods’ were no better than us, their ‘magic’ was just some even more advanced and immoral science, and this world isn’t even natural: they engineered it for themselves, knowing that they were going to screw up their own world beyond redemption. Gloriana realised some of it, but to imagine that she could control it … I really doubt you made much of a difference by spilling Corin’s blood in the circle,” he declared, almost reassuringly. “Even if she’d mastered the thing for a time, it would have turned against her sooner or later. It’s had all it means to tolerate of creatures like us, and now we’ve gone and provoked it. If she doesn’t exile you or have your head off, for Alyssa’s sake get your girlfriend to leave that stuff alone in the future. I’ve no doubt it will wipe us all out eventually, but the fewer ambitious meddlers who insist on poking about with it, the better all our chances of living to old age.”
“In our case, that’s liable to be a good few centuries,” pointed out Lycon, his own lack of enthusiasm at the prospect reflected on Kasimir’s pale, drawn face, “so let’s hope you’re exaggerating,” at which he gratefully turned away from his fellow exile and continued on his way to the partition. Although he could not dismiss Kasimir’s words as easily as Ceolwyn had, Lycon had never been one for dwelling on the insoluble, however apocalyptic. My immediate future looks bleak enough as it is, he thought, as he paused at the edge of the wicker screen, drew a deep breath, and crossed the threshold into the Queen’s makeshift private ward.
He found her reclining upon a large mattress, her right arm in a sling and her naval greys in dust-smeared tatters. She was wearing her mask a
gain, although it was now so badly dented that it could no longer lend any symmetry to her face. He doubted, however, that this was the reason why she immediately turned away from him as he entered her presence. She blames me for the failure. Curse that circle, and that interfering whoreson Corin. I should have just sent him a nice assassin for his birthday ages ago. Nevertheless, he tentatively approached, hoping that she might be the one to break the excruciating silence and at least relieve the tension. When, at length, she did speak, it came as somewhat of a relief, albeit a surprise.
“Lord Lycon … I’m glad you made it,” she began, her tone sincere, but with a hollowness and weariness that did little to raise his hopes, being all too reminiscent of Kasimir’s. “Are you here to arrest me, then or to take me hostage? Better late than never, I suppose … although not for all the poor souls who died last night.”
“Arrest? I …” he replied, torn between relief for his own sake and awkward pity for hers. “No, I just … I thought I’d see how you were, but … why in Thalassa’s name would I want to arrest you? You’ve being talking to Lord Doomsday out there, haven’t you?” he asked, gesturing back in the direction of the main ward.
“There’s not a whole lot else to do when you’re trapped in a dark cave for hours on end, other than dodging vargs,” she answered, bleakly. “I hoped at first he was just delirious or concussed, but the more he told me about the things he saw, the things he knew … To think how I idolised the makers of those temples and the circles, almost as much as our ancestors who made gods of them, while all the time the evidence of their ruthlessness was right before me. The Reapermen … but I just could not associate such great knowledge with evil, which is ironic considering that my own lust for their knowledge has now made me infamous, and cost the lives of many who trusted me. Poor Leolah,” she added, making Lycon wince in shame and frustration. Merciful Anākai, is everyone going to keep bringing her up? “Is there even a name for my crime? How does ‘Attempted Omnicide’ sound? It was never my intention to raise the bar for being an evil overlord quite so high, but what matter if I did so by intention or by reckless irresponsibility? The damage is done, regardless.”
“You are no criminal, Your Highness,” answered Lycon, forcefully. “Blame Corin, or blame Saskia … or blame me, damn it. Thalassa knows, I’m the only expert on being an evil overlord in this room, and you’re not even a passable apprentice … with all due respect. Oh yes, you killed your predecessor and his cohorts, very brutally too, and I wasn’t alone in thinking that it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving crew. But once that was out of your system, how did you decide to repay the Lucinians for their ancestors’ crimes, and my people for their conniving treachery? With a great blessing, freely and sincerely given. It’s not your fault that the world’s full of self-serving scum who can neither appreciate your gifts nor use them wisely, but I suppose that’s part of why the Alvere made you their queen: in the teeth of the evidence, you somehow manage to have faith in people.”
“Oh yes … My ‘gifts.’ Poor Lycon,” she declared, and although such a phrase or tone from anyone else would have made him want to punch them in the gut, her heartfelt pity almost knocked the wind out of him instead. “What have I done to you? You stand to lose your titles, your estates, your–”
“Alvere or not, I’d like to see who dares take those from me,” he interrupted, with renewed resolve. Although those very thoughts had oppressed him all day, somehow hearing them from another appealed to his anger and determination rather than to his self-pity. “They’ll try, of course … but what of it? If I’m to live for centuries, then I’ve ample time to teach my enemies the error of their ways.”
“May you get the opportunity,” she said, hopelessly. “For all Lord Kasimir’s fears, I do believe the spirit we awakened is dormant now, but who knows when it might be triggered again? If the Republic condescends to spare my life – unlikely as that is – then I would dedicate my research to finding ways to exorcise it completely and for good … assuming that the world as we know it can actually survive without its connection to the leypaths and the Darkshift,” she added, deeply troubled at the thought. “What we think of as ‘nature’ has been so interfered with, it is impossible to say what the effects might be. Think of it: humanity, nature, maybe life itself … just the twisted dreams of a mad, artificial ‘god,’ that might unthink us all if it ever wakes up fully. It doesn’t leave a great deal for one to have faith in.”
She left a prolonged pause after this, and turned her gaze fully on him, until it dawned upon him that she was looking for some reassurance. Since when did I become spiritual as well as military counsellor to royalty? I suppose they do say there are no atheists on a gun-deck … Plumbing the murky depths of his own mainly sceptical mind, he looked for things he could say that might lift her shattered spirits.
“Well now, Your Highness … I wouldn’t call myself a godly man, and the idea that the gods, if there were any, were just as corrupt, cowardly, and greedy as us mere mortals disturbs and surprises me less than I could ever express. Still, don’t you find something to be hopeful about in their sheer incompetence? Their plan, their ‘magic,’ their science, or whatever … none of it worked out for them. When you and I first came here, that temple was as dead as a doornail. If you hadn’t repaired it, for all we know it would have stayed that way. I’ll wager that wasn’t part of these tinpot gods’ plan. Life has a will of its own, Your Highness, and if all of you damn smart-arse Lucinians weren’t so much up your own … with respect, but you can’t make life run on rails like your steam diligences. We may be made after the image of these ‘gods,’ but that doesn’t make us their clockwork puppets.”
“Doesn’t it? And how would we know?” she asked, still forlornly. “Suppose their plan did succeed, suppose that the creators have already put their essence into us, and that the spirit they devised and enslaved to carry out that task was simply left to decay and languish in the Darkshift, no longer necessary to them. That would certainly explain its vengefulness … to say nothing of why our own world seems to be heading so eagerly down the same destructive paths as the one before it.”
“Right … I don’t mind admitting that you and the Lucinian laughing boy are a bit ahead of me on this subject, but I think you’re reading far too much into it. Anyway, as you say, how would we ever know? I suppose I could waste my life flagellating myself for speculative sins I might have committed in some former existence, though I’d as soon not trouble myself with idle thoughts. I’ve enough atoning to do for the sins I’ve committed in this life, and hopefully time to squeeze in a few more,” he added, and wondered if she might interpret it as a hint. Because gods forbid you should just take the brave option and be straightforward with her …
“Always so practical, Milord,” quipped Gloriana, her tone a little less dejected, but offering no evidence that she had taken the hint.
“Well, mostly … except possibly in my affections,” he declared, with unmistakable emphasis. Gloriana’s battered steel countenance betrayed no emotion, but she left a significant pause before replying, guardedly.
“Really? You surprise me, Milord. I’d heard that the late Contessa Marcia was a woman of exceptional wisdom, as well as being of the very highest lineage in the isles. A fair catch even for a lord of your calibre. Indeed, one gathers her father thought her somewhat too good of a catch …”
“Aye, true enough,” he replied, containing his frustration. Still more games, is it? Just a part of what makes us such a well-matched pair of devious bastards, I suppose. “She was wise, beautiful, gracious, well out of my league, as her dad and his battle-axe were all too keen to remind me. Still, one will forgive almost anything in love: being forced to swim the Drennholm Strait in midwinter, having to strive that extra bit harder to impress one’s disapproving in-laws to be, putting up with one’s beloved having curious hobbies like designing weapons of mass destruction, waking up ancient abominations … that sort of thing.” Sweet fucking Thalassa,
that was well put, he thought, with deep and reproachful sarcasm. There was another brief, tense pause before Gloriana replied, very cagily.
“Please tell her from me to take up stamp-collecting, then.”
“First things first,” he answered, with less whimsy and more firmness. “I need to tell her to stop being coy with me.” Another pause ensued, before Gloriana reached up with her stiff, awkward left hand, and pulled the dented mask away from her face. Without the crystal eye, her scarred patch was merely a dull, inexpressive, void. Lycon found it barely noticeable, especially when placed next to the part of her face that could still radiate expression. Tears trickled from the remaining eye, but a glint of hope also seemed to shine in it, although the undamaged side of her mouth was sadly downturned. For a short while, they simply exchanged stares, until she spoke again, almost in a whisper, as if fearful of the answer that she might receive.
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