“Treachery! Treachery!”
The crier stood upon a marble bench, hunched like a gargoyle to brace against the wind whipping him onto his heels. Each time a gust lifted the ragged cape of his overcoat (the sleeves long gone but the yellow leather of the breast bright beneath the stains), it appeared he would topple onto the grass; but his enormous gray beard seemed to act as a counterweight, and he remained atop his perch as he made his proclamation.
“My people! Baron Administrator Calrissian has betrayed us all! The Empire is here, and I cannot thwart this invasion. You must go! Flee while you can!”
The man surveyed the plaza and—pleased to see that his people were indeed fleeing, hordes of them dressed in finery and nightclothes, carrying suitcases and small children and sentimental knickknacks—he hopped off the bench, leaving nothing behind but the odors of mint candy and sweaty armpits. “Go!” he yelled, whipping his arm about. “Your master commands it!”
Then he dashed out of the stream of prospective refugees and into the vaulted halls of the merchants’ promenade. The shoppers were gone, but a few vendors struggled to pack their goods or lock their stalls. From somewhere outside came the electric snap of a blaster shot; he quelled the fear rising like bile in his throat and made for the far exit.
The voice that came through the intercom was nearly loud enough to muffle the chaos of the plaza—a low voice, smooth and grave and confident all at once. “This is Lando Calrissian. The Empire has taken control of the city. I advise everyone to leave before more Imperial troops arrive…”
“Treachery!” our lonely hero cried in reply.
For he was King Yathros Condorius the First, the man who had turned Cloud City from a gas miner’s watering hole to a galactic paradise. His ancestors had shared the blood of the Nothoiin nobles who had ruled the Anoat sector, and his edicts yet carried weight in the deepest pits of Bespin.
He was king, and Landonis Calrissian had been his regent, chosen to rule in his place. That choice had been the most grievous mistake of his very long life.
Treachery! he thought. Vengeance would be his!
* * *
—
It was only a few days since Yathros had become aware of Calrissian’s wicked plots. Oh, he’d long known the young baron administrator possessed an unsavory side—seen his serpentine ambition, his willingness to swindle and betray in love, cards, and dealmaking—but he’d believed (naïvely, foolishly) that Calrissian’s fondness for the ordinary folk of Bespin would overpower his darker half.
Yathros had been taking an evening stroll when the truth had become apparent. The night had been a pleasant one: He’d dined on buttery scalloped wing-eel at the Paradise Atrium (not inside the atrium, of course, where the presence of a king would’ve distracted other customers; but the owner knew Yathros well, and had left him a disposable container and dinnerware at their secret drop-off beside the kitchen door). He’d finished his latest proclamation—one regarding the treatment of the unfairly maligned silverchicks that had taken occupancy in the local parks—and turned the draft over to Or’toona Fleenk, the kindly artist who’d promised to transcribe it, print it, and post it where all of the king’s people could see. The only disappointment had come when the shuttle pilot refused to carry Yathros aboard the red line car heading to the north platform—demanding Imperial credits, as if the mark of King Yathros were insufficient. Yet even that nuisance was remedied through the intervention of a kindly Ugnaught (Yathros had always been friend to the Ugnaughts), and Yathros was able to admire his domain from the vantage he treasured most along the Grand Avenue.
Under the domes of the guildhalls, observing the cloud bands as they refracted the low evening sun, he heard a party approaching from the opposite end of the road. Turning to the sound, he saw Baron Administrator Calrissian in his usual finery (the man wore a fresh cape every day, it seemed to Yathros) flanked by two of his Wing Guards and speaking sharply to a pair of armored figures.
Yathros recognized neither of the men in armor. They were strangers in Cloud City, which was unextraordinary enough—Calrissian trucked with many outsiders, as part of his diplomatic duties. This pair, however—one in gleaming black, the other in dented green—unnerved Yathros. Neither appeared moved by Calrissian’s ire, and Calrissian appeared to flinch when the one in black replied.
It was when a third armored figure approached that Yathros understood. The newcomer wore the death-white garb of an Imperial stormtrooper and squawked urgently toward the group.
Shock mixed with fear and comprehension in the breast of Yathros, yet his duty as king was clear. With the instinct of a father swiftly correcting a toddler’s disastrous first step into a busy road, he swept forward and called, “Baron Administrator! What is this outrage?”
The group had already turned away to follow the stormtrooper. Calrissian offered a scornful glance toward Yathros before saying distinctly to one of the Wing Guards, “Take care of this. I don’t have time for his delusions.”
“The Empire will ruin you!” Yathros called, even as a Wing Guard in a pressed blue uniform made to intercept him. “Whatever pleasing treasures they offer, whatever promises they make, they know only how to consume and destroy! For your own sake, as well as Cloud City’s—”
The Wing Guard clapped a hand over his mouth. It smelled of soap and perfume. Yathros struggled, but his assailant turned him firmly about. “Not today, my king,” the man said. “Calrissian will see you another time, but not today.”
They moved together like dancers. Yathros pushed into the Wing Guard, and the Wing Guard pressed back, forcing Yathros to retrace his steps with a stumble. Yathros squinted into the face of the younger man. “You, too, Mr. Mizz? You know better than this. You recognize madness when you see it. Tell me what schemes Calrissian concocts! Have the Forbidden Acolytes poisoned his mind? Is this the work of the Invisible Cartel—”
“You can ask Calrissian yourself, another time.” The man called Mizz sighed, the frustration practically beading on his brow. “Trust me on this, King. Remember when I got you into the Miners’ Ball? You met my brother and his family. You thought Calrissian didn’t want you there, but I got you a formal invite and everything.”
“This is not a party!” Yathros cried, and slapped his palm upon Mizz’s breast. “This is the fate of our city!”
But Mizz only turned away and hurried after Calrissian and the Imperials, the lot of whom were already out of sight.
* * *
—
That had been days ago, and all Yathros could do now was right a scant few wrongs. He’d gone searching for Calrissian but found himself in the mid-levels of the processing facility, inspiring a band of Ugnaught workers (he had always been a friend to the Ugnaughts) on their way to evacuation. He raced behind them, calling, “Hurry! Hurry!” and listening to the howling winds beneath the catwalk.
The squat humanoids grunted and ran. Together, all of them passed into a tunnel rich with the wintry metallic odor of carbonite. The Ugnaughts stopped at a lift and—at the sight of something Yathros could not see—began to squeal in alarm.
“Speak to me!” he urged.
One of the Ugnaughts turned. “King!” she said in her native tongue, but she was not allowed to continue as the others cried, “Flee!” and the door to the lift opened upon an army of Imperial stormtroopers.
Or if not an army, numbers close enough.
The Ugnaughts flowed around Yathros like steam from a burst pipe. He was ready to turn around himself, but one of the stormtroopers raised a rifle, and he was possessed by an outrage at once distant and familiar. “You will not fire on my people!” he bellowed, or tried to bellow—his hands found the barrel of the rifle, jerked it up, but then something smashed into the side of his face. He tasted blood and fell hard onto the tunnel grating.
All he heard for a long while was the ringing of a bell. Indigna
tion kept him conscious, though his vision was blurred. Finally a boot prodded at his coat and an enunciated Core Worlds accent sneered, “Not even the rebels smell this bad.”
Yathros tried to speak around the crimson mess of his own mouth. “I needn’t be a rebel to understand what you are.”
“Let’s see some identification,” the electronic voice of a stormtrooper said. “Slowly.”
“Why, I’m Governor Tarkin! Or perhaps your nanny, come to scold you!” The taunts were feeble, and his grin was crooked; a spot of drool or blood welled at one corner of his lips.
“You’re about to be dead,” the stormtrooper said.
Yathros’s sight cleared enough to reveal the black moon of the muzzle pointed toward him. Terror buoyed him like drink and helped his words flow. “Your kind took everything from me once before. There’s little you can do today.”
Vision blurred again, mixing with memory. He saw the muzzle of the weapon; the white figures aboard his ship, Life’s Little Rewards; bloody hands; an empty cargo bay. Later an empty purse; an empty house. The boy gone.
Yathros preferred not to think of these things, and he nudged the recollections forward through time to when he’d found the ring, found the ticket to Cloud City. Found the picture of the crown on his head as a child, found the books his father had read to him. Found his greatness and was reborn! Those were memories worth keeping.
Now someone was stealing all he possessed again, but it wasn’t the stormtroopers who were wholly to blame.
“Calrissian,” he murmured. “Fate will not repay your acts kindly.”
He expected to hear a blaster shot. Instead the sneering man said, “You know Calrissian?”
Yathros arched his brow. “Know him? Indeed, I know him. I made him what he is, and I—”
A king must be cunning: This, Yathros had learned long ago, when he’d first arrived on Bespin with fifty-four credits to his name. (That was before he’d begun minting his own money—bless Or’toona Fleenk and her printing press!) He recognized the mixture of disdain and greed in the crisply dressed officer above him and saw an ally, if not a friend. Or perhaps a tool to avenge treachery.
“—I can find him,” Yathros spat. “For he struck one too many bargains with your kind, didn’t he? He thought he could trade my trust for Imperial favor—never realizing the Empire only takes, and does not trade. Now he flees us both, and as much as I loathe your Empire, it is Calrissian who betrayed me today. I can find him, and he will be yours.”
“Is that so?” The officer attempted to sound dubious for the benefit of his minions, but Yathros knew he’d piqued the fool’s interest. The man turned to the stormtroopers. “Pick him up.” Then, to Yathros: “Talk, you.”
Gloved hands launched Yathros upright. “He keeps a yacht at a secret dock,” Yathros said, swaying in the troopers’ hands. “I know exactly where it is! We dined there once when I took him as my apprentice, and it was where Queen Zeechay granted me the blessings of the Angels of Iego. Come quickly, before Calrissian—”
“Never mind,” the officer snapped. “He’s delusional. Shoot him.”
The troopers tossed Yathros away as if he’d suddenly produced a terrible stench. He managed not to fall, but he didn’t have time to wonder whether death was at hand before the world flashed red and filled first with the sound of energy blasts, then the sound of screams. He clapped hands to his ears and turned away, squeezing his eyes shut and stumbling along the tunnel. He didn’t know what was happening, but none of it surprised him—violence was the way of the Empire, and this was violence incarnate.
Callused, ungloved fingers smelling of soap and perfume ripped his hands from his ears. “Yathros!”
Darbus Mizz, Wing Guard and henchman to Baron Administrator Calrissian, stood among the bodies of the stormtroopers. He dangled his blaster in one hand. “Yathros,” he said again. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Yathros snarled and stumbled back. “Kouhun! Assassin! Blackguard!”
“What?”
“Calrissian sent you to silence me, eh? Before I could betray his hiding place, as he betrayed me.”
Mizz stared, clearly astonished that Yathros had recognized the situation for what it was. From one peril to another, Yathros thought, as Mizz gripped Yathros by the wrist and pulled him into the turbolift car.
“Not going to shoot me?” Yathros asked. The lift hummed and his knees wobbled. Mizz kept his blaster out, his eyes on the door. “Don’t tell me Calrissian blames me for all this. He plan to toss me in a dungeon? Punish me for predicting his downfall? Or perhaps—”
The lift door opened, and Mizz yanked him onto a broad platform open to the sky. The trees of the arboretum peeked over distant walls, and a trickle of refugees snaked among parked speeders.
“—or perhaps he needs me, eh? Is that it?”
Mizz growled and pushed Yathros forward with his palm, applying steady pressure between Yathros’s shoulders. Laser blasts flickered in the sky like some obscene auroral display. “Calrissian gave us a way out of here,” Mizz said. “You need to take it.”
Yathros snorted. Ire energized him despite the fatigue in his muscles and the bruises on his skin. “He remembers my tales of the hidden treasures of the Nothoiin Noble Court? Hopes to start a new life? Tell him that noble wealth is not for him!”
In the shadow of a hotel balcony, Mizz halted. “Enough, Yathros. Lando Calrissian sent me—”
“I know!”
“—because he likes you. He’s always liked you. It’s the only reason he put up with you all these years.” Mizz’s voice was rough and watery. Yathros let out a bark of a laugh, but the Wing Guard continued, “Anyone else would’ve had you arrested when you accosted casino patrons or issued proclamations on the street, but Lando thought you were charming. He didn’t pity you or laugh at you—he invited you to dinner more than once. When the Empire arrived he knew you’d get yourself killed, so he sent me.”
“Lies,” Yathros retorted, and spat a pink wad of phlegm onto the ground. “If you believe that—”
“Enough!” It was a roar, and Mizz was trembling now; he glanced about to see if anyone had heard. Then his shoulders slumped as he turned back to Yathros. “You’re not a king. Lando’s not a regent. I’m a badly paid grunt, not an assassin. But we’re all in trouble, and your fantasies are making things worse. Put them aside or we’re dead.”
They stared at each other awhile. Mizz was the first to break off, looking back to the road and releasing a hiss of breath.
He marched away. Yathros didn’t follow at first, but when Mizz returned and tugged him forward he did not resist.
* * *
—
It was a long way to the docks, and their route was twisted and tortuous. The Empire had shut down the shuttles first, then the trams; now most of the throughways were blockaded, and Yathros and Mizz were often forced to retrace their steps and seek alternative paths.
They didn’t speak. Yathros barely appeared to think, staring ahead into the middle distance, occasionally tripping over his feet and catching himself before Mizz could assist. Now and again frustration flashed into his expression only to vanish instantaneously, like drops of water bursting into steam. Mizz, meanwhile, moved with the jerky half-attention of a man too fixated on the outside world for grace. One hand stayed forever on his blaster while his eyes flickered to and fro.
Whatever outrages played through Yathros’s mind could be no more vile than the horrors the pair witnessed. Stormtroopers rounded up Cloud City residents like cattle. Shimmersilk duffels and portable safes full of valuables were “confiscated” by officers leering with greed. Yathros and Mizz heard a sharp crack upon crossing a bridge and both looked up to see a transport in flames, dipping as its engines failed and toppling into the clouds. For minutes afterward, the smoke they breathed tasted unholy.
When
the bridge was behind them, Yathros stopped short and tugged at Mizz. “The air whales,” he murmured. “The survivors will fall for many minutes. If we could but summon the air whales—”
“Not another word,” Mizz snapped. He sounded more exasperated than angry. “They’re dead, and we have too far to go.”
Yathros sucked in a breath but acceded to Mizz’s tug on his arm. For several minutes following he kept his eyes on the horizon where the ship had disappeared. When he looked back to his surroundings he noticed a tremble to Mizz’s step.
The Empire was not the only perpetrator of wickedness they encountered. At one junction, they watched three ragged Ugnaughts denied passage aboard a speeder cab in favor of a single Bespin aristocrat. Elsewhere, a mining engineer was selling tickets to a disaster shelter in the sublevels. Yathros stepped forward to object, but Mizz whispered, “Don’t.”
“A proclamation!” Yathros began. His voice was recovering its stentorian authority. “The people still recognize me. In this time of emergency, there will be no profiteering, no selling of safe passage. They will hear and obey!”
“Let it be,” Mizz said. “Please.”
Mizz’s own voice was quiet—the voice of a beggar or a despairing old man. Yathros felt a surge of pity he did not entirely understand, and the haunting sense of an echo whose source he could not recall. He nodded and they moved on.
The farther they went, the more Mizz’s movements became enervated; the more his eyes ceased to be watchful, focusing ahead like a pendulum coming to rest. It seemed his strength flowed into Yathros, who held his chin higher and often looked to his companion. Perhaps, Yathros thought, the atrocities that aroused the ire of a king were too much for a mere Wing Guard.
“We need to make a stop,” Mizz said, as they walked down a residential street. No light shone from doors and windows. “It won’t take long.”
Yathros grunted assent. Three blocks later they turned a corner and Mizz stopped abruptly, nearly toppling forward.
From a Certain Point of View Page 45
