Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  the sound of his voice as he held her, letting her cry as he told her things he'd never told anyone before; their sorrows shared, each helping the other carry their burdens

  his breath against her ear as he woke her in the morning, still cradled in his arms, artificial sunlight spilling across grey bed linen

  All that, and a terrible sense of longing, but she told Vienna none of this, or that the signature on her copy of The Hero of the Hecate was certainly forged.

  "I guess you haven't been around long enough to build up a collection. Tell you what though, you should come see mine one day. All my stuff is still at my parents' house on Lysander. We should make a vacation of it and go see the frozen oceans. That is," Vienna said, frowning as the lights dimmed, "assuming we survive Basic."

  Survival hadn't been on the forefront of Joy's mind for over two months. It was strange how quickly the tension had washed off her, how soon she'd felt like a person instead of prey. Order and security ruled within Bastion's walls, but though the training personnel were strict and the training was arduous, the Primaterre looked after their own. Her third night on Achall, she'd woken in tears from a nightmare in which Finn had died, slowly picked apart and absorbed by Skald. The worst of her nightmares since Cato, and this time Constant hadn't been there for her. But to her surprise, the regiment sergeant had appeared, quietly removing her to his office where he'd given her a blanket and a cup of tea and, his usual bark reduced to a murmur, told her: We're here for you.

  But as the assembly hall darkened to twilight and grey-armoured figures emerged from the shadows, Joy's spine tingled with survival instinct.

  One by one, recruits were escorted from the hall by wide-pauldroned men and women whose armour glowed with scrolling doctrine. Inquisitors, Hassleholm had said, but Joy's primer identified them as chaplains. Not technically Bastion but, apart from its elite purification units, Sanctum's men and women served embedded into every branch of the Primaterre military.

  When Joy's name was called, it was by the most intimidating chaplain. He wasn't tall, or strong or tanned or scarred. His face had a pleasant softness, his eyes warmly smiling. He looked like he had come to ask if she might consider donating money to help orphaned children, but the marks of rank and merit on his armour told a different, far bloodier story.

  Still, his story wasn't the problem. Hers was.

  * * *

  "I am Chaplain den Haag."

  He sat cross-legged on the floor opposite her. The room was small and windowless; a cell in every regard. She shifted, trying to convince her aching thighs that kneeling on a bare floor after a twelve hour march was perfectly fine and not a torment at all.

  "If a gun and a knife cost 1100 merits to buy, and the gun is 1000 merits more than the knife, how much will the knife cost you?"

  She blinked, taken aback, the words a hundred merits on the tip of her tongue before a switch in her brain flicked from tired to logical.

  "Fifty merits," she said, sparing a thought for Gogently who would absolutely get it wrong.

  "The correct answer is nothing. A gun and a knife are standard equipment, provided by Bastion." A beat passed, and then den Haag laughed. "The other chaplains, they don't understand, but I'll never tire of the look of a stunned recruit. Most exquisite on your face, Corporal Somerset. Such fine features. Do you think that is why Banneret Commander Cassimer recruited you?"

  "I–" She hesitated, at once appalled and frightened at the direction the chaplain was taking. No permission had been asked nor given, but den Haag's primer had linked itself with hers, invisible and suffocating. She was afraid to lie for fear that he might be able to tell, for fear that one lie might make him dig for others. But speaking the truth was almost as hard. "No. Not exactly."

  "But he loves you, does he not?"

  "You'll have to ask him." As if he'd dare.

  Den Haag smiled as though he'd read her mind. He couldn't really do that, she was fairly sure – but once, when she'd been in her guest quarters on Scathach and Constant had been called to the company commander's office, Lucklaw had come to see her. He'd sat on her bed rambling about mind-worms and towermen, and she'd understood just enough to be terrified.

  "One shuttle travels from Mars to Earth in seven minutes. Another flies from Earth to Mars in twelve minutes. How long–"

  "No shuttles travel to or from Earth."

  "Ask my fellow chaplains, they'd tell you the correct answer is eighteen light-minutes. Ask me..." He winked. "I'll say the same thing. Your mind is focused on solving the riddler, not the riddle, Joy Somerset."

  "Is that good or bad?"

  "I don't know. How did you feel when thousands of Primaterre personnel folded into Cato and died?"

  * * *

  The barrage of trick questions and personal jabs continued for hours. The cell had ceased to exist. All she could see was den Haag's face, his lips the only movement in the universe, the cold shock of each question the only thing keeping her awake. She answered as best as she could, truthful but reticent, and tried not to think of the feather-soft tether of connection between his primer and hers.

  This wasn't personal. This was part of Basic. Somewhere, in other cells, Vienna and Gogently and Hassleholm were going through the exact same thing. Hassleholm's fear made sense now. Whatever this was, no amount of weapons discipline or cardio could prepare a recruit for it.

  "How many trips must the ferryman make?"

  "Three," she responded, although in the back of her mind a tiny voice of logic-twisting defiance wanted to scream one, because ferries aren't rowboats anymore; they're great big lumbering things with space for cars, lorries and shuttles and they can certainly accommodate a fox, a rabbit and a stupid bag of cabbage.

  Another smile, another adjustment of his armour's high gorget. Every time he moved, wafts of lavender washed over her. Perfume? Or a drug, perhaps. Lavender oil was traditionally used for its calming effects, but to her, it summoned visions of Kalix.

  Constant had shown her pictures of his home planet, all ice and redwood and rolling fields of purple. He came from a world of colours, her black-and-white-minded man. Although he hadn't said so, she knew he wanted to take her there, to share of himself in ways that he didn't have the words, perhaps hoping that the hot-spring-heated soil would whisper to her of its lost son.

  She wanted to go, and she wanted to listen for those whispers, but as den Haag continued his questioning, all she could think was: why didn't you tell me about this, Constant? Why didn't you tell me that I would be alone and afraid and trapped?

  And then den Haag reached out and took her hands, and the electric touch of his gauntlets stirred the memory of Constant's parting words to her. The station's air had been heady with cedar, loud with arrival announcements and boarding calls, and he hadn't wanted to let her go. But he had no more choice in the matter than she did, and he'd kissed her in the shade of a mulberry tree, and murmured in her ear:

  "Cato was real and you survived it. Achall won't so much as challenge you."

  At the time, she'd thought it just another Constant-way of saying I love you, but now she understood. She understood, and she steeled herself and anchored herself to the moment. The pain in her legs would keep her alert, the pools of oil that den Haag poured in her palms serving as a reminder that she'd been through worse. This was training, not survival, and it would not defeat her.

  "The red demon spoke to you once, Joy Somerset. What would you say if you met it again?"

  "Nothing. There's only one mercy for demons, and it requires no words."

  He rubbed her palms together, heating the oil. Then he brought them to her face, anointing her skin and hair.

  "Primaterre protects us all," he said, and she echoed his words the way she was supposed to.

  A silence followed, soft and hazy like sweet incense, and she couldn't help herself. "Did I pass?"

  "Pass? This was no test, Corporal Somerset. This was guidance and preparation. Your mind has been laid bare to the vo
id. You bleed into the nothingness, giving the corruption your scent. Now you must hold vigil, and at the end of it, you will be pure. If you are not, you have my word that my mercy will be swift and kind."

  He turned, and without so much as a good luck, left the room.

  * * *

  Instructions glowed on the walls.

  Undress. Stand in the centre of the room. Receive cleansing.

  As soon as she dropped her clothes through a hatch in the door, it slammed shut. Water cascaded down from above, relentless like a rainstorm. Lavender fumes tickled her throat. The noise, the heavy droplets on her skin and the haze of steam became a waterfall washing away thought and emotion. She couldn't see, hear or feel anything but the water. She existed in a grey void, alone and isolated, her mind stripped back to its very essence.

  The water stopped falling, and the knee-high pool receded to inch-deep. No more instructions glowed on the walls, but she knew what to do.

  Contemplation had been the most surprising part of Basic Training. The meditative immersion in purity didn't seem particularly military, and none of the soldiers she knew seemed like people who took time out of their day to sit down and contemplate their innermost feelings. Certainly not Hopewell, always on the move. Constant, perhaps, although he hadn't once in the short time Joy had spent with him. When she'd asked the instructor, he'd told her that experienced practitioners didn't need to sit or be quiet:

  "The elite exist in a permanent state of contemplation, pure and analytical at all times. They operate on several planes of thought, able to separate action, emotion and reason. That's what it means to perceive the moment and to see with clarity. Banneret commanders don't need to think about purity to be pure. You, on the other hand, are going to need to sit down, shut up and meditate."

  Vienna had assured her that it was an intrinsic part of Primaterre society, not just Bastion. Every school and office had daily contemplation breaks, official contemplation programmes broadcast at all hours.

  Do you have to do it? Joy had asked. Vienna had given her a funny look and said: Well, no. But why wouldn't you?

  Why indeed. Though purity was a doctrine founded in lies, Joy had come to appreciate the contemplation and the clarity of mind it offered. It was decidedly better than marching through mud, at any rate.

  Hours passed. The lavender oil and her fatigue turned the cell into a blur, walls and floor and ceiling merging into spinning shadows, but the water was cold, biting her skin to keep her awake, to keep her watching the shadows.

  If she believed in demons, she would've been frightened. Instead, her thoughts went to her fellow recruits, who did believe. Poor Vienna, who swore up and down that she'd seen a demon as a child ("peering out from my bedroom closet"), and had to repeat the mantra truth is my sword and clarity my shield ten times every night before she could fall asleep. And Gogently, the only recruit in their squad to fail contemplation, something their incredulous drill instructor had said shouldn't even be possible.

  They believed in demons, and they were young and eager to serve, and this vigil was little better than torture.

  But what made her heart burn was the thought of Constant. Bastion had made him do this. They had taken a traumatised cadet and thrown him into a tiny cell and told him to be pure, or the shadows would come for him again.

  He had been wronged, and Joy saw with perfect clarity that she wanted nothing more than to make things right.

  * * *

  Twelve hours in, she briefly lost consciousness, drifting between shifting dream veils. Skald had once told her that Constant was an inferno in the shape of a man, but in her dreams, she was the inferno, blazing across the Primaterre Protectorate's fourteen systems.

  And then she snapped awake, and she was just a shivering corporal, naked before the gaze of Chaplain den Haag. He said nothing as he handed her a grey cotton robe. The fabric felt real and solid, like warm sand in her hand.

  The scent of lavender lingered, fainter now, yet somehow stronger, more vivid. The long night's vigil receded from her mind. The memory remained, but dreamy and distant. Unreal.

  And Chaplain den Haag's fingertips were still glossy with oil.

  "You've only been gone minutes, haven't you? Maybe less." She shivered, wrapping the robe tightly around her. "The water and the oil are sensory distractions to stop us from noticing when reality is switched for a primer-induced hallucination."

  "Hmm." Den Haag showed her out into the corridor. All up and down it, recruits were being escorted from cells. Some in tears; others, worse, and medics were on hand with sedatives and restraints. "You're more perceptive than your file would have me believe, Corporal Somerset. And, I think, more angry."

  More stupid, more like. We must be calm, Constant had said. We must swallow the lie and bear the burden in silence. But when she thought of him in that grey cell, her anger swelled, flushing her cheeks. It was in her eyes, too, she understood, by the way den Haag was looking at her.

  "Primaterre protects us all," she said.

  "Primaterre protects us all," den Haag agreed, two medics echoing his words in passing.

  "Then why do this? You call it a vigil, but it's torture. Just look at them!" She gestured towards Corporal Hassleholm who staggered from his cell, one hand pressed to his mouth.

  "Yes, look at them. Tended to by medics and chaplains. Wrapped in cotton, housed within the safest of walls, about to receive a hot meal. Such things will not be offered in the field – but then, you ought to know that, Somerset. Yes, the vigil is unpleasant; yes, it is harrowing, but to send recruits into the field unprepared would be unconscionable. When the shadows scream their names on some forsaken moon, there might be no chaplain to hold their hands. When corruption leaps from civilian to civilian and they are forced to kill their kin, there will be no cotton robes. I'd rather torture a thousand recruits than see a single one taken by demons."

  Den Haag believed in a lie, but he wasn't a liar. He cared, and it wasn't his fault that she knew a truth he didn't. Her anger was unjustly aimed. Neither he nor the chaplain who had been the one to lock Constant in a cell were to blame. Someone, or something, else was, and she only wished they had a name she could curse.

  "That said, we don't actually want our recruits to be possessed during Basic Training either. So yes, Corporal, the vigil is an illusion, created by tiny nudges to your neural and visual systems."

  "I thought organic hacking was banned."

  "As part of your terms of enlistment, you gave access and permission to training personnel. Once training is completed, your systems will be sealed. No one will ever steal time from you again."

  "I hope not. I've lost too much of that already."

  "We all have. Sometimes because we frivolously waste it, but more often because we spend it on matters we falsely believe to be important. Later – or perhaps never – the mistake is realised, but we cannot go back, Somerset. Only forward."

  "Ever onward," she said and wanted to cry. One life lost to history, another lost in a shipwreck. And now a third life, in a world full of strangers whose perspectives were separated from hers by a century and a truth.

  For the Primaterre Protectorate to ever become home had seemed impossible at first. Then one day, she'd sat on the top of a cliff underneath blazing artificial sunshine, artificial wind in her hair as she took in the view of Scathach's park. Constant, checking her harness before their descent, had still been awkward then, still so unsure of how to be with her. Every breath of his electric against her skin, every touch warmer than the sun.

  He'd looked at her, and said: "Keep your arms straight when climbing. You'll expend less energy that way."

  Except that's not what he'd really said. Not his eyes nor his hand, lingering at her waist. She'd kissed him, and that was the moment when he had finally realised that he was always welcome, always wanted. He had returned the kiss with all the confidence befitting a banneret commander, and that was the moment when she had realised that home wasn't lost at all. Home
was with Constant.

  But he was on Scathach Station and she on Ach-all-Wrong, and when Corporal Hassleholm sank to the floor, stifling a sob, Joy's vision blurred with tears.

  "You may find our methods distasteful, Somerset," said den Haag, misreading her expression, "but I think you'll find the results to your liking."

  "Yes, Chaplain den Haag," she replied, thinking never.

  "How disingenuous." He smiled. "Nearly sweet enough to believe, but sincerity, I think, is your greatest weapon. I'll enjoy writing my report on you, but our business has concluded, and you may go. Food is served in the mess."

  On her way down the corridor, she stopped by Hassleholm.

  "Stars," she said, the expression still foreign in her mouth. God was the word she wanted to use, but the drill instructor had whipped that bad habit out of her in the first week. No god in the Primaterre; only truth and clarity. "That was rough. You're so lucky having come up from the cadets. I imagined that prepared you pretty well."

  Nearly sweet enough to believe. Hassleholm looked up, eyes wide and shiny, and shrugged.

  "Truth is my sword and clarity my shield. Didn't you learn that in the field?"

  "My field experience was mostly limited to getting beaten or shot at." All truth, and maybe that was sweeter, because Hassleholm's eyes softened a tad.

  "Well, it's going to be different now that you've got proper training." He stood, his spine returning to its usual poker-stiffness. "Let's go, Corporal, before the privates eat all the dessert."

  * * *

  Bastion had set out a feast for their recruits, far richer than any food they'd tasted in months – in over a year, in Joy's case.

  "Oh stars," said Vienna between scoops of ice cream, "I'd do the vigil all over again for another serving of this."

  Vienna didn't really mean it – she'd arrived late to the meal, recovering from forced sedation – but as the evening progressed, her twitching eyelids relaxed. The quiet unease of the mess hall gradually became laughter and jokes, and soon enough Hassleholm was regaling the squad with boastful stories of his time in the cadets.