Hollow Empire

by Sam Hawke

  Zhafi had stiffened at my words, but then she sighed, her body slumping as if the pressure of holding it inside her had been released, and gave me such a frank look with her expressive blue eyes that I forgot, for a moment, that we were strangers to each other, not dear friends confiding. A taste of her powerful charisma; apparently I was far from immune. She looked away, lovely face grieved, and the urge to wrap an arm around her shoulders the way I might Hadrea or Dija was strong.

  She was silent a long time. “I begged to be allowed to come here,” she said eventually, so softly that I had to stand close beside her, almost touching, to hear. “Once I am in the north, there will be no more such opportunities. I have read so much, heard so many stories. But in some ways it is worse, now I am here. The kandu kesibor is very great.”

  I didn’t know the phrase. “Kandu…?”

  “It is, er. A feeling.” Her hands fluttered as she searched for the words. “It is like, to glimpse the pool, but not be allowed to bathe.”

  That I understood all too well. The ink stains on her hands, the insight in her questions, the appreciation of poetry and philosophy and, if I wasn’t mistaken about the wording glimpsed on the book in her hands, the ability to read at least one other language; this was a learned and intelligent woman glimpsing a society in which she might have more fully thrived. I didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound patronizing.

  Zhafi took a breath and then turned to face me, face composed again. “I am being maudlin. I am sorry, Credola Kalina. What must you think of me—my father and brother have given me so much, and here I stand, ungrateful.” She gave her head a little shake and tucked the book away in the folds of her clothes. The warmth in her eyes and the dimple in her cheek made her look younger. “I would have liked to watch your parade tonight, and give flowers and favors to all the suns who pass us by. Perhaps the Prince will allow it, even without Brother Lu to escort us.” She touched my hand. “Now, come! Your Chancellor and my brother will be wondering where we are.”

  As if he had been waiting for this, the servant reappeared from the main marquee and ran over. “Your Highness!” he said plaintively.

  “We are coming,” she said, head downcast.

  The crowd had already begun moving out of the marquee and down to the stage by the water, though I doubted we’d even hear the ceremony over the cheerful roaring of the Doranites. Zhafi and I joined Hiukipi and Kokush, who were talking with Prince Hanichii and Duke Lago. Lago caught my eye and smirked as he leaned down to say something to Kokush that I couldn’t hear. A few paces ahead, several Councilors were speaking to the Perest-Avani delegation, and Karista shot me a cool look.

  I spotted Tain, but not my brother. Erel was with the Chancellor, looking a bit bewildered, and gave a relieved smile in my direction, tapping Tain on the shoulder. Tain strode over at once, and took my hand. “I lost track of you. Is everything all right?” he asked urgently, in a low tone, and I smiled widely and squeezed his hand back, hoping he would be reassured by that private code if not my words. The Foreign Minister, at least, could understand our language.

  “Of course, Honored Chancellor. I have been well entertained by the Princess.”

  Tain favored Zhafi with one of his more charming smiles and offered a hand. “Thank you for returning my friend, Your Highness,” he said.

  “Where’s Jov?” I murmured, and Tain frowned.

  “He went off somewhere with Dee, I think,” he said. “I haven’t seen either of them for a while. He’s supposed to come with me to the winners’ lunch after the ceremony.”

  “You have been with the women, Credola?” Hiukipi broke off his conversation with Hanichii and casually dropped his half-eaten fishball into a servant’s hands as he turned around to face us. “What a dull time! All they do is sit and gossip.”

  The translator, a red flush creeping up his neck and onto his cheeks, stammered as he translated the Prince’s words, and Zhafi stiffened, but did not comment. Her confident rule over the women’s court might never have been, for all her meekness now. Tain, however, looked like he’d reached the end of his tether with the Prince.

  “Forgive us,” he said firmly, taking my arm and creating a larger space between us and the Prince. “Credola Kalina and I have another engagement right after the ceremony and I have a few more people to say goodbye to. It has been most interesting to talk with you, Your Highness. Thank you, Minister Kokush,” he added.

  “Thank you, Honored Chancellor,” Kokush said, in Sjon, then bowed to me and added, “I hope we will have a chance to talk properly soon, Credola, about your forthcoming appointment.”

  But Hiukipi, for whatever reason, seemed to have taken renewed interest in me. “I shall come to this luncheon, yes?” he announced.

  Kokush shifted weight between his feet and interrupted the translator before he could get more than a few words out. “Your Highness, you and the Princess Josta were to attend—”

  “Rearrange as you need to,” Hiukipi said, with the blithe unconcern of a person others carved their lives around, and who had never been inconvenienced.

  A man accustomed to having his wants met, Zhafi had said. Perhaps it would be good for the Prince to have to work a bit harder for something. “The Prince is going to accompany you,” I translated to Tain, whose pained look, bless him, signaled that he understood what I was about to do. I turned back to Hiukipi. “What a wonderful idea, Your Highness. And that frees your lovely lady wife to enjoy the masquerade parade with the other ladies this afternoon. Princess Zhafi, were you not just saying how much you wished to attend?”

  The Princess ducked her head, but the hint of a dimple appeared before she did. “Yes, Credola Kalina, that would be most lovely—but we have no masks, I fear.”

  “I feel quite confident your excellent staff can make arrangements,” I said smoothly, smiling at the servant. “That is no trouble, is it, sir? And I will speak personally to the owner of the Leaning Lady to lend you a staff member to assist with language, if you need it, because Trade will only get you so far if you need to explain the last-minute rush. Most of the shops will be sold out, but I know some people who could probably help.”

  Hiukipi said nothing, his eyes glittering as he watched me and his plump lips pressed together in a firm line. Helpless, the servant nodded. “Yes, my lady, I suppose we can—”

  “I have heard about this masquerade,” Hiukipi said. “I am not sure it is a godly event.”

  “We would only watch the parade, of course,” Zhafi said, head bowed. “I understand that without Brother Lu, His Majesty our father would be concerned for our safety.”

  There was a long pause. Then, “Send the servant out for masks,” he said, waving a lazy hand. “You can watch from the guesthouse garden. I wish to attend the celebration. I hear it is an opportunity to get to know many of the locals, eh?”

  When the translator converted it to Sjon, he omitted the leer, but Tain nevertheless looked vaguely revolted and I stepped on his foot before he smoothed his expression. “The parties can be quite raucous, Your Highness,” he said carefully. “It is a very emotional celebration for many people. Perhaps instead you might prefer the candle walk through the sculpture garden or—”

  “Do you dance in this celebration, Credola?”

  The translator dutifully translated, but once again Tain seemed to have read enough in the tone and body language to understand. His expression had cooled, and I spoke before he could. “I fear not,” I said. “I have a health condition.” I was conscious of Hiukipi’s pale eyes traveling over my body. “But thank you for your concern. In fact, you are right, Your Highness. I shall stay with Princess Zhafi. I can help acquire costumes and then we can watch the parade together. As you say, we ladies do love to sit and gossip.”

  By the time the translator had finished relaying my words, Tain released his breath very slowly, and shot me a look under his lashes, the merest twitch of his lips betraying his combination of irritation and amusement. Hiukipi’s face ha
d gone pink under his makeup. “I will look for you later, then,” he said. He whirled on the manager. “Well? Move, man!”

  Zhafi had her head bowed, her posture docile, but the moment her brother’s attention had moved away from her, she shot me—so subtly I might have imagined it—the tiniest wink.

  INCIDENT: Poisoning of Kai Doorevat

  POISON: Salgar (red death)

  INCIDENT NOTES: Victim experienced throat and abdominal pain and bloody stools for several days, missed vital speeches for Guild elections at which she had been lead contender for Stone-Guilder. Recently attended production of Casabi’s Lament by visiting dancing troupe—recalls lead dancer kissing her at conclusion of performance. Suspect salgar mixed with lip paint transferred to victim. Order Guards took troupe into custody in Telasa, arrested lead dancer, rumored to be notorious assassin known as “Red Piper.” Suspect escaped from Telasan jail, unable to confirm. Further investigation warranted?

  (from proofing notes of Credola Jaya Oromani)

  5

  Jovan

  For a few blessed moments upon waking, the only sign that something was wrong was my unusually dry mouth. So dry and sticky I could barely swallow, in fact. And then the pain kicked in.

  “I would not recommend trying to sit up just now,” a wry voice suggested. I blinked gummy eyes open, trying to focus on the figure in front of me, but my eyes were as dry as my mouth.

  “Can I have some water, Thendra?” My croaky voice was, apparently, a few moments quicker on the uptake than my brain, because only after I said the physic’s name did the crash of emotions follow. Thendra. I was in the hospital. I was alive, thank the fortunes, and …

  “Thendra?” A papery chuckle. “Oh, sweetie. Where do you think you are?”

  My senses were slowly coming back, fitting together again into a terrifying whole. The ground, gritty and hard under one of my shoulders. Deep, sullen pain in my abdomen and chest. My wrists behind my back, something rough binding them. My head pounded. The woman crouched in front of me seemed to be made of abstract geometric shapes and patterns, black and white. I licked my dry lips and blinked harder until she resolved into a proper human shape—or at least, something close to one. It still looked more skull than face, striped black and white, and long, tattery black hair flowed around her like ragged shadows. A nightmare face, a creature from my blackest childhood dreams.

  “Wraith,” I whispered. The evocative and creepy mythological villain in old folktales we’d all read as children, the Wraith was supposedly a spirit who had been trapped and tortured by humans thousands of years ago and sought eternal revenge. Yet there she was, right before me, straight out of a story.

  She sat back on her heels and laughed.

  “I haven’t given you that much yet, precious.” Her rough hand gripped my chin and held it fast even as I tried to yank away. She forced something small and hard between my lips. “Let’s have some more, then. Here, come on and swallow, now.” When I clamped my teeth together and pulled my head out of her hands, another set of hands, bigger and heavier, seized my shoulders and forced me flat, cracking my skull hard on the ground. They tipped my chin back, and suddenly water, warm and stale, filled my mouth, my nose, my throat, while the Wraith woman pressed down on my forehead. I thrashed around fruitlessly, sharp pain bursting in my torso as I struggled, but eventually had to swallow. The hands released me and I turned weakly onto my side, choking and coughing. I squinted up at the man. He was huge and his face, too, was unreal, a flat black circle with a long, vertical slit for a mouth, and no eyes I could make out.

  A whisperer. My confused, frightened brain made the link. The whisperers in folktales were the Wraith’s minions, spirit-world creatures that crept into homes at night and whispered dark and murderous thoughts into sleeping ears. They also happened to be the most hated monster of my childhood, the one peculiarly resonant with my personal fears. All too easily I could be that boy again, lying in bed, besieged by one dreadful whisper of a thought that then burrowed into my mind and took root. Whisperers were the part of myself I hated, given form.

  I’m dreaming, I told myself, as my vision swam and the shadows seemed to lengthen, to loom. This is a nightmare. As if in response to the thought, the pressure and pain eased. My head became light, so light I couldn’t tell anymore if it was touching the ground or floating. The spikes of fear grew in intensity. Already my brain was throwing up hateful thoughts of my youth. What if you spend all this time on poisons because you actually want to hurt people? What if you poisoned Tain by accident? On purpose? Why would you even think that, if you didn’t want to do it? Your mother knew you were like this, that’s why she left, she couldn’t stand to be around you.

  I pressed my head to the ground, suddenly afraid it would detach and float away. The room seemed to be moving. The whisperer leaned in and I tried to back away. She knew something wasn’t right about you. I could see my mother, in my head, her face young, but lined with exhaustion. Fortunes, can’t you make him stop, Etan? I can’t handle this. Her anger. What is wrong with him?

  “Stay with me now,” the Wraith said, sounding amused. “Don’t you go anywhere just yet. How interesting you’ve come to visit us, Credo Jovan, at such a crucial time. My superiors have such plans for you.”

  That was my name. The Wraith knew my name. That seemed both strange and funny, but when I tried to laugh nothing came out but an odd croak. That was funny, too, so I rasped on the floor. Was I on a ship? We definitely seemed to be moving.

  “How much did you give him?” The man didn’t sound amused. He didn’t sound anything. His voice was a deep, oddly expressionless rumble.

  “Relax. It won’t kill him.”

  “What we gonna do now?” A third voice. Reedy. Like a complaining child. Child. Something snagged in my train of thought. A child. There was a child.

  Dija.

  It was as though someone had slapped me. My mother’s voice receded. I had someone else to fail now, someone for whom I was responsible, who depended on me. And I’d led her into danger, I knew that, even if the details were elusive in my strange, fizzy head. How much did you give him, he’d asked. They’d forced me to swallow something—some narcotic—and that was why I couldn’t think straight, why my nightmares walked before me. And oh, fortunes, where was Dija? I squeezed my eyes shut at the remembered image of her scared face through the crack in a door, the door of the building I’d gone into … I’d …

  This time someone really did slap me. “Don’t go off on a dream, now, Credo.” The Wraith was close enough for me to smell the sweet-sour tang of janjan on her breath. Not the Wraith. Just a woman in a karodee mask. I scrambled to make sense of it all. Whatever they’d given me, it was making it hard to hold thoughts together in my head, hard to trust my senses. But I could trust one thing: Dija could still be somewhere nearby, and that meant she was in danger. I clung to that motivation.

  She was wearing a mask. Just makeup and a mask. I didn’t need to be afraid of her, she wasn’t a villain from a story come to get supernatural revenge. She was, however, holding me prisoner and force-feeding me drugs, so perhaps fear wasn’t entirely inappropriate. “What do you want?” I managed to say.

  “What do I want?” The black-and-white horror of her face split into a skeletal grin. “Sweetie, I just want to give you a good time.”

  * * *

  They were moving me. For a while I’d lost my sense of self and certainly of time, breaking in and out of dreaming hallucinations, a mix of physical and psychological sensations that left me dazed. Now I was being walked between two people, propped up with my arms over their shoulders. A hot wave of pain fizzed up one of my legs with every step we took, and something weighed my head down, obscuring my vision. A bag over my head? It was very loud, all of a sudden. We were outside. The sensations and realizations came slow as treacle, as once again my addled brain tried to pull itself out of the mire and back to the real world.

  Outside. Surely Dija would have gone for hel
p. Or had she stayed, too frightened to leave me there? What would I have done in the same position? Would Tain or Kalina have noticed my absence from the ceremony? I tried to swallow—honor-down, my mouth was so dry again—but there was something in the way. A gag. They’d gagged me, and put something over my head; a bag, perhaps, and now we were walking down what sounded like a busy street full of merry laughter, singing, and the smell and sizzle of sweet and savory foods being cooked on the street. Karodee. The bastards were walking me through the bloody masquerade.

  I tried to yell out, but managed only a muffled squawk. With so much background babble it was doubtful anyone could have heard me anyway.

  A prick of fresh new pain distracted me. Something sharp against my ribs. “None of that now, Credo,” the woman’s voice sounded in my ear. “You’ve just had a bit too much to drink, eh? Let’s not make it anything more serious.”

  Fuck that. I dropped all of my weight, going boneless, and they both immediately staggered under the sudden jolt, enough for me to twist hard and pull my arms free. I plunged forward, hobbling blind, trying to get as much distance as I could, screaming into my gag for help. My left leg slowed me, made me clumsy. Voices chattered all around me; someone would help, someone would—

  Smack. A tiny, disorienting moment where I was flying, and then something flat, hard, and immense smashed into my face and body, like someone had thrown a building at me. Dazed, I could do nothing as I felt hands at my shoulders, at my waist, concerned voices.