Howling Dark (Sun Eater)

by Christopher Ruocchio

  I was. My hands burned where she had touched me—where I had touched her—as if with fever, and my breath came in ragged gasps. “Of this place,” I said, “of your master.”

  “Why? He likes you. He must like you—else he’d not have sent you me.” She advanced, leaning—leaning—over the table. “I like you, too—but then . . . I like everyone. It’s . . . my nature.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, though I had a suspicion. “You mean you don’t have a choice?”

  She showed her teeth again, knowing too well whence my treasonous eyes were drawn. “Ooh . . . none of us has a choice. We like what we like. We can’t explain it. We can only . . . explain it away.” Advancing, she pressed her hands against my chest. “Take off your boots, soldier. Stay a while.” She was very close. One arm snaked back behind my head and bent it down. Lips pressed against mine. Tongue. I’d forgotten where I put my hands, forgotten where to find them. She broke away, stepped back so that she could look over the length of me. I wore the same belted black tunic, high boots, and piped trousers I had worn on Rustam. “You look fit for the parade ground and I’m not wearing a stitch.” She pouted, then did something with her hand that pulled some howling animal from the lowest dungeons of my brain. “Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

  It didn’t seem fair at all, put that way. My tongue felt thick, and a red mist was rising in my mind. But there was yet a piece of me—the piece that drove me to write this account, I don’t doubt—which replied, “What makes you think I’m a soldier?”

  “Ooh”—Naia bit her lip—“the shoes mostly. Those boots. Like I said. I bet if you took them off you wouldn’t be a soldier, though. Only a man. Men are only men when you take their uniforms away.”

  I had no intention of allowing such to be done to me, and hurried past Naia to the door. As I did, I brushed up against my journal where it lay on the table’s edge and knocked it to the floor. “You should go,” I managed to say, fumbling with the locks.

  I wanted her to go. I wanted her to stay. I didn’t know what I wanted. We like to imagine that we are ourselves a unity: one mind, one spirit. Not so. In truth we are each a little legion, a pack of little personae—each one-eyed in its attentions and single-minded in its aim. I pulled in two directions, and so fumbled the door controls even as her hand seized mine and pinned it to the wall. I might have resisted, but resistance seemed wrong, somehow. Surely there was no harm in letting her stay? She wanted to stay.

  “Don’t say that,” she said, putting a hand on my cheek. “What’s wrong? Don’t you like me?” She took my hand and dragged it to her breast.

  I kept seeing Brevon’s secretary in the corner of my eye. Her dumb obedience. Her hobbled gait. The way she simply stood there, waiting. How many were there in her inner legion? How many had she been allowed to have? Brevon had made her that way to suit his own purposes. Kharn had made Naia, or bought her, to be precisely what she was. She’d said it herself. She could not choose, and my choices were narrowing, drowned by the red fog behind my eyes.

  A chill went through me even as she kissed me again. I felt her pressed against me. Her breasts, her hands in my sweating hair. What had been done to me? I could feel the resistant piece of me fading and threw up my hands to knock hers away. I told myself it was thoughts of Jinan that stayed me, some nostalgia for our shattered romance. I told myself it was principle, what I learned from Kyra. What I’d loathed in Crispin. In Bordelon. In my own mother. The tendency of power to corrupt and abuse. But I still wonder if it was only terror, fear of that place and its dread lord. Fear of the woman herself. Aching, I pushed her away.

  There was no hurt in her eyes. Laughing, she danced back. It was like she didn’t understand, like I was speaking to someone in the wrong language, communicating by the wrong signs.

  “Did you draw these?” she asked, stooping—legs apart—to collect my journal where it had fallen. From her smile I knew she’d acted deliberately.

  Relieved to have her off me a moment and to be able to marshal my thoughts and smooth my tunic, I said, “I did, yes.”

  Naia flipped through the little journal, images fluttering by one after another. She did not linger on any of them, not even on the images of Jinan that no eye was meant to see. She doubled back once or twice, shoulders folding in as she studied. After a moment she shut the book with a snap and fully turning said, “Do me.” She thrust the book at me, and I took it, studying it for damage. I don’t know why I bothered. The old thing had traveled in my coat through many dangers, and there wasn’t an angstrom of it undamaged. I must have studied it too long, for the woman said, “Draw me.”

  She didn’t wait for a response, but threw herself on the fainting couch, arching her back in a display worth commemorating. I could draw her, couldn’t I? Just draw her? Keep her off me, keep her at arm’s length long enough to gain a measure of control over the situation. So I seated myself opposite her and took out my stylus, pausing only long enough to master my breathing.

  I could hardly think, hardly hold the pen. My hand was shaking, but I began to draw her. Broad strokes, just taking in her shape. I did not speak, for to speak seemed too much an invitation, and I did not trust myself. She did not speak either, only watched me with unquiet intent, those dusky eyes alert and alive.

  I never finished that drawing. I tore it out after, contaminated by the event. She moved quickly—more quickly than I could have believed. She brushed my hands away, knocking my journal again to the floor, and straddled me, grinding her hips against me. Her lips found mine as she forced my head back, making me think again of the vampire. There was a strength in her clean limbs and an urgency that scattered my legion and left a single, one-eyed soldier at attention. Her breath came hot across my face and on the hollow of my throat and all my thoughts were drowned in that red and fevered fog. Her tongue was in my mouth. I remember the taste of spiced wine and the mint-like tang of hilatar.

  Naia let out a little moan and pressed herself closer to me. My hands traced up along her sides until I held her face between them, fingers in her hair.

  That was when I felt it, and froze.

  There was a metallic spur behind her right ear. At first I thought it jewelry, but with the cymbal crash of memory recalled the gleaming implant behind Kharn’s own ear. Nausea turned in me, and I stood, lifting Naia to throw her bodily on the couch.

  Boots still on, I towered over her. Those dark eyes turned to look at me, and I was unsure whether it was terror or longing in them. Her designer doubtless had not wanted me or any man to know. She laughed, thinking it some species of game, that I’d revealed myself—my soul—to her at last. Squirming, she spread her legs, small teeth playing against one lip.

  She did not speak.

  I did not stir.

  Words at last. Hers. Not mine.

  “What’s the matter, soldier?” she said. “Going to keep your boots on after all?” One hand descended, finding herself. “Fine by me.”

  “You’re him,” I said, hands clenched. “You’re a SOM.”

  Her brows furrowed, but she did not stir. “What?”

  “Don’t lie to me!” I snapped. “There’s an implant behind your right ear.” Here I lifted a finger and tapped my own head with a finger. “Don’t deny it.”

  Her hand stopped, whole body gone stiff. Something shifted behind those black and open eyes. The thin blue iris grew, pupils narrowing—as though she were coming down from some drug. Her posture shifted, and she crossed her arms, sat with knees apart, as a man does. The thing behind her eyes smiled up at me, mouth open. In a voice which was a parody of her voice, he said, “You are a strange one.”

  “You should talk.” I wore my anger like a cloak, clung to its folds with a desperation to fend off the sense of violation stealing over my bones. Naia—Kharn—bared her teeth in a wicked grimace. She stood, and tapping one golden earring restored the gauzy holograph shell she ha
d first worn. How I had thought it cloth before I couldn’t say. It shimmered, floated to a wind that was not there. She paced round the dining table, her back to me, her every contour yet visible through the cloth. “Why?”

  Kharn’s characteristic silence answered me. I was suddenly too aware of the highmatter sword resting on the tabletop. The concubine stood between it and me, and I stood like a fool with his tunic unbelted. “Did you not like her? Our Naia?” He traced a hand down her flank, turning as he did so. The gesture was obscene, as though her hand belonged to someone else . . . which I suppose it did.

  “Get out.”

  “Does she not look a bit like that friend of yours?”

  “Get out!” I almost shouted.

  Kharn grinned at me. “You must care for her.” Valka. He was talking about Valka. My sense of violation sharpened, deepened in that now I was not the only one violated.

  “Or else I’d have thrown myself on your slave?” I retrieved my journal from the floor. “You don’t know me, Lord Sagara.”

  “I might have.”

  I suppressed my creeping sense of horror and stood as before a firing squad, hands clasping my journal behind my back, chin raised. “You won’t.” He watched me with her eyes. I could see the light behind them. The shadow. Almost I could see Kharn’s ruined body on its pale throne, his craggy face upturned, staring into the darkness above him, peering out from Naia’s face. “Do you abuse all your guests?” I asked when I could stand his quiet no longer.

  “Is that what you call it?” He frowned. “She was meant to honor you.”

  “She was meant to amuse you,” I countered. “And what have you done with Naia?”

  “She sleeps with the others. Until I call for her.”

  “And she’s asleep now?” I had no idea what he meant, but decided that I did not want to know.

  “Yes,” he said. I tucked my chin to shade my eyes from Kharn’s pitiless examination. “You know, I thought for certain you’d flee with your companions.” He moved Naia’s body all the way around the table, so that she stood beneath the replica of Cottages at Cordeville. The painting struck an odd contrast, so bright and wholesome beside the devil in her white dress.

  I advanced to stand opposite the puppet homunculus across the table, placing my journal beside the half-finished remnant of my meal. My sword was still closer to Kharn, but I felt I stood a chance now if it came down to it. Trying to keep this concern from my face, I said, “I have a job to do.”

  “Indeed,” Kharn replied. “You know . . . I almost believe you.”

  “My companions will return the day after tomorrow,” I said with all the candor and sobriety I could muster. “You’ll soon see.”

  “I expect I will.” He turned her back on me, regarded his painting a moment. “They said the artist was too intense. That he frightened people. Seem it strange to you that such a thing might be said of he who made so innocent a painting?”

  I half-rounded the table, taking the opportunity to reclaim my sword, which I held carefully in one hand. A little closer now, I said, “It’s the color. People are afraid of color. Your painter saw too much of it.”

  “Is that why you only work in black and white?” he asked. “Because you are afraid?” I did not rise to the bait, and so Naia’s voice added, “An artist afraid is no artist at all.”

  “Is that why your palace is all gray stone?” I countered. “Because you are afraid?”

  Kharn Sagara watched me out of that woman’s face, eyes old as empires. “And do you abuse all your hosts?”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  The Undying barked a laugh—an astonishingly rough sound from so fine a throat. “You argue like a Eudoran actor.” He paused a moment, then without warning said, “I will take my leave of you.” He turned and on bare feet moved toward the door. Halfway between painting and portal he stopped. “Shall I leave the girl with you, Marlowe?”

  “Get. Out.”

  CHAPTER 36

  THE DEVIL AND THE GOLEM

  I COULD NOT SLEEP in my bed that night, nor upon the couch or in the winged armchair. Instead I spent an hour on the floor of the shower there, scalding myself, as if heat and pain could wash out the memory of her hands. I tried washing my mouth, but the taste of soap only reminded me of what had been done to me. The memory of Naia lingered with her perfume. I wrapped myself instead in my old coat in a corner of the room when the suite’s other doors would not unlock. It would not hide me from Kharn should he return—in one guise or another—but I was as far from the memory of the homunculus and her white arms as I could manage.

  I missed Jinan. And missing her made it worse.

  When I did sleep, I dreamed again, and dreaming was conscious of a wet wind blowing out of darkness and the sound of waves. I was not in my body. I was only a mote, like an ember cast from unseen fires, hurtling through the night. I sensed deep water below me, and the sky above was clouded and close as the roof of some limitless cathedral. Witch-lights the precise, greenish hue of those I’d seen on our descent from the orbital platform shone in the depths. They illuminated a round and broken arch, like the ring of some giant shattered but standing still.

  Hadrian . . .

  I stopped, hearing the voice—the same voice I had heard in my dream when we first arrived on Vorgossos—and called out, “Who’s there?” But I had no voice.

  Listen.

  The word echoed in eternity. Infinity.

  Listen to me.

  “Who goes there?” I tried to say.

  Listen!

  I had a body then. Without warning. Mass and weight. I fell like a stone, like a turtle dropped by an eagle. Plunging into the depths. I woke with a start before I hit the water.

  I did not explore the palace the next morning. I awoke to find food laid out for me—and the remains of the last night’s unfinished meal cleared away. I tuned my terminal to read to me and tried to pick up where I’d left off with Impatian’s First Emperors, but the life of Victor Sebastos held little shine for me, and I soon surrendered to the quiet.

  Somewhere far above, Valka and the others were returning to the Mistral, beyond the misshapen statues of the Furies at the top of the hightower. I imagined them stepping through the airlock back into known territory. Back onto familiar ground, back with familiar faces. I longed to leave with them, to take Otavia Corvo up on her offer: to leave this place and this foolish mission and never look back.

  Who did I think I was?

  I was no great hero—am no great hero. I was only a foolish young man very far from home. Forget the Mistral, I’d have given all I had to wake up in my room at Devil’s Rest, beneath my painted stars. This was all a nightmare, it had to be. I was in the palace of Kharn Sagara, a myth old almost as the Empire itself. I had seen demons and xenobites and imagined I could contend with them.

  Kings and pawns, I thought again.

  We’re all pawns, my boy. Gibson’s words echoed back to me. But remember, no matter who moves you, your soul is in your own hands. You have a choice.

  None of us has a choice, Naia said. Or was it Kharn? Had the Undying lurked behind her eyes from the very start?

  Choice.

  That is the question, is it not?

  Those who say we are only flesh must reason that we have no will of our own, that we serve our impulses, which are rooted in our brains and nowhere else. Such thinking gave rise to the homunculi, who are made happy in their servitude. After all, to such thinking we are all slaves, if only to our breeding. Thus it is no crime to create creatures such as Naia. And yet it is clearly a crime. Evil needs no explanation. You know it by its smell. That knowledge—that apprehension of the Truth which is there and obvious—spoke to me of something more. To us. In us. A quiet thing.

  I wonder now what I looked like to Kharn. He who had lived so long and so variously, who was no longer tru
ly human. I suspected then and know now that much of his mind was given over to machines. That they sustained him in his old age and ordered what flesh and chemistry would have long ago destroyed. Being so old and so much machine, I think we must look to him as dogs do to us. Animals do not think as we—cannot be said to think at all. Rather they inhabit their world and respond to it.

  They do not create.

  They do not choose.

  What Kharn had done was clear. Create a sealed environment. Introduce a stimulus. I’d been a lab rat and my sleeping chamber the maze. It had not gone as Kharn expected . . .

  However precarious my position, I had yet the will to choose. I was there, after all. Who would come to Vorgossos except by choice? Who would stay? I had made my choice, and had only to wait. My friends would return soon.

  The door cycled open, and Yume appeared, leading a laden food trolley. Some part of me expected that it would be Naia again, or one of the girls who served the lords and ladies of the vestibule. The android smoothly deposited the steam tray and a pewter carafe and drinking cup on the table, making no comment. I watched it work, sitting with my back against the wall on a cushion in the corner. Yume cleared away the remnants of that morning’s breakfast—and with it the torn-up image Naia had forced me to draw.

  It had been quiet a long while, and looking up I saw the golem watching me, unmoving.

  The moment my eyes found its one, Yume’s head twitched to one side. “You are on the floor.”

  “Well spotted,” I said, massaging beneath my terminal gauntlet with a finger. After the incident the night before, I’d kept my sword on my person at all times. It lay by my cushion then, near to hand, though I’d no notion how quickly the inhuman butler might move.

  The gears visible through the glass at Yume’s hips and shoulders turned over, filling the silence with the ticking of jeweled mechanisms. In its clear, patrician tones, Yume said, “The Master has asked that I apologize for the events of the previous evening, and he hopes no offense was given.”