Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  The gloom beyond seemed somehow thicker, rich with foreboding. Evil things took place inside this vault, Cassimer could feel it, could sense it in the air. Hopewell made to step over the threshold, but Athens shook his head.

  "We wait here."

  Wait. Cassimer had played the towerman's not-a-game, but refused to stand on the cusp of an abyss and wait for another to make a move.

  "Why ask for me by name, Athens?"

  "Isn't it obvious? You are the closest thing the Primaterre has to an expert on the red demon. You, and your team from Cato. Their names are classified, but I assumed you'd have brought at least some of them along." Athens looked between the waiting soldiers, sniffing slightly. "Perhaps I was mistaken."

  Neither Hopewell nor Lucklaw took the bait, but Cassimer didn't care to let the insult go by unchallenged.

  "Or perhaps so much time in darkness has left you blind."

  "Perhaps, soldier."

  Soldier. The word, and the shift of tone in Athens' voice, made Cassimer's spine crawl. His hand fell to his Morrigan, and Athens quickly gave an apologetic wave.

  "Apologies, Commander. A simple test to see how well you truly know this Skald. Well enough to recognise its speech pattern, I see."

  "Speech pattern," Hopewell scoffed. "Or maybe you're one of its vessels, and we're fools for not shooting you on the spot."

  "If you could see what goes on across this threshold, you would know that I am not one of them." Athens gave a strained smile. "I'd let Major Juneau try out her h-chip detection tech, but it requires a deeper scan than I am comfortable with. You'll just have to trust me."

  "How do you know about–?" Juneau grimaced, shaking her head. "Never mind. Stupid question. Bloody Tower."

  "That doesn't answer my question, Athens. You've studied this thing for months. If anything, you must be the experts by now," Cassimer said.

  "We have learnt a great deal, but there is one thing you know how to do better than anyone. I think you know what, Commander."

  Yes. Killing it.

  "Is that why you sent for us?" Cassimer looked into the dark vault. "You need us to put it down?"

  "Oh no," Athens said. "This is a prisoner transfer."

  Three figures stepped from the shadows; two armed and grim-faced, one in manacles, beaming a smile that did not belong on its bony face. It was short and dark and female, and its lips turned the way Finn Somerset's once had.

  "You're here to ensure its safe transport. You're here to protect it."

  * * *

  The thing sat shackled inside the shuttle, between its two uncomfortable Tower guards. It rocked and groaned with pain, its expression shifting between shapes that fit the face and shapes that did not.

  Cassimer wanted to put a bullet in its head. But that was not the job, and if he didn't focus and keep moving, then what did he have? For Joy's sake, he had to hold himself together, and for that, he needed to do the job.

  But he needn't like it.

  "Why?" he asked Athens.

  "It is in possession of vital information."

  "It claims to be, perhaps."

  "It is. It knows..." Athens hesitated. "It knows things it shouldn't. Things we need to know more about. Trust me, Commander, we wouldn't remove it from the vault if we didn't think it of paramount importance."

  "Why take it out at all? Interrogate it all you want, but do it here."

  "It says it is difficult for it to access the information. That it can't focus so near the source of its pain."

  "Have you considered maybe not torturing the vessels?" Hopewell interjected, and Athens gave her a look of utter confusion, as though the idea had never crossed his mind.

  "End the pain exposure? It is our only weapon against this evil, Lieutenant. The pain keeps it at bay, stumbling and distracted. If we let it work unhindered, who knows what it would do."

  "We could ask it," Juneau said, peering curiously at the thing inside the shuttle. Another pet she'd take home and keep in a glass box, no doubt, given half a chance. "For all we know, it might not wish to cause any harm. Its actions on Cato were driven by a desire to escape, and its theft of arc ships was in the pursuit of survival. Of procreation. Calling it evil could be a gross over-simplification–"

  "Truth is simple," Athens said. "Only the impure believe otherwise. They see a truth and think that because it is simple, it must be incorrect. They turn it over and over, relativising and moralising. They think that truth is subjective, a thing that can be coloured by experience or perspective. But it is not, Major Juneau. Truth is–"

  "Truth is iron," Cassimer said, and tasted the tang of it on his tongue.

  "Yes." Athens gestured towards the thing in the shuttle. "And this Skald is creeping corrosion. It is rust, and it is evil."

  * * *

  "Is that you, soldier?" The demon rocked in its harness. Tears ran down its grimacing face, but it no longer shuddered, no longer wailed. "Is that you?"

  Nobody replied. But for Cassimer, nobody even looked at it. He'd rather not look either, but somebody had to keep an eye on it, and why not the expert?

  "Are you the one who tastes of citrus and starlight?"

  In its dark eyes, he saw Cato's tunnels, felt the raking of drifter nails on his cuirass. Yes, he was the one who tasted of citrus and starlight, and that was more than this evil should know about him, and more than his team and the two towermen should know. Only Joy, all of him for her alone.

  "Is that you, Constant?" It smiled as it mimicked a Kirkclair accent and tossed its head as though to flip hair over its shoulder. The body language was familiar, conjuring memories of pale skin and copper hair, and he felt sick, but they were in deep space and this was the job and he had to hold himself together.

  "Oh, I think it is. I think they wouldn't send anybody but you to take care of me. We're old friends, after all, aren't we? What do you say, you want to let me out of these shackles, for old times' sake?"

  He ignored it, and it tutted.

  "How rude. You owe me better than that. Think of all the gifts I've given you. Purity. Truth." Its smile turned wicked. "Joy. Without me, what would you have? Where would you be? Who would you be? Just a pawn; a figure-head. I made you real, Commander Constant Cassimer. I made the illusion true."

  It was necessary to keep an eye on it. It was not necessary to listen to it.

  Cassimer called up his Neave Crescent Creek playlist from his primer and, for once, skipped ahead in the track list, kept skipping until the first few notes of Pirgo Park began to play. The lyrics were so sweet and so simple that they were a kind of truth, and in his imagination, he stood underneath pear trees, felt their shade on his skin, heard the rustle of leaves and soft footsteps on grass. If he turned, he would see the sunrise; he would see August on Earth and glittering Perseids; he would see–

  –an inbox notification popped up on his HUD. New mail wasn't something he'd normally check on mission, but his filters had caught this one, tagging it a priority.

  Sender: Unknown, identifiable only through a string of numbers and letters that might make sense to Lucklaw, but none at all to Cassimer.

  Recipient: Cassimer, via a private address to which very few people were privy. Subject line:

  JOY

  And he was on mission, less than six feet away from a demon, and couldn't afford distractions, but it could be important. She could be in trouble. She might need his help. Something, Earth forbid, might have happened to her, and then what did any of it matter anyway?

  He opened the message.

  HAVE YOU HAD HER YET?

  HOW SWEET SHE TASTES.

  HOW SWEET SHE FEELS.

  HAVE YOU HAD HER YET?

  I HAVE.

  And then Hopewell was shoving him backwards, Rearcross struggling to restrain him, and Lucklaw stood wide-eyed and shocked between him and the laughing demon.

  Deep breath. Calm down. Keep cool even though he was burning up in his suit. He messaged his team to stand down. Rearcross and Lucklaw o
beyed immediately. Hopewell first shot him a

  you ok commander?

  and though it was impertinent, though she should just follow orders, the concern made breathing a little easier. He nodded, and she stepped back. Nothing between him and the demon now; not even its towerman guards dared get between him and it.

  "I'm going to kill you."

  "You've been killing me for months. What is it they say? The definition of madness is repeating the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result?" The demon cocked its head like Finn Somerset. "Perhaps Athens had the right of it and truth is a simple thing. Perhaps the definition of madness is simply you, Commander Cassimer."

  5.

  JOY

  The two most difficult days of Basic Training were also the last. Achall's gloom lifted as families and loved ones arrived, joyous tears and laughter echoing across courtyards more accustomed to cadences and shouting. The barracks emptied as recruits were let out for the evening, going with their families to share meals and stories. Vienna's parents had snuck their daughter comic books, and for Joy, a snow globe featuring Lysander's frozen oceans.

  "I knew you'd love it," Vienna had said. "Now you've got to come with me one day to see it for real!"

  Lysander's oceans were shadowed by craggy blue towers of ice. Whitecaps brushed the metallic hulls of tiny racer shuttles that zipped around the snow globe. It was beautiful, but when Joy dutifully shook it to make snow drizzle from the domed sky, it wasn't Lysander she was thinking of. In her hands, the snow globe felt tacky with bad memories, and on the shelf above her bunk, it sat like a reminder of Cato.

  As the barracks fell quiet for the first time in three months, and she was left alone with a confused regiment sergeant – "No family? None at all?" – the silence and the snow globe became too much. She wanted to smash it, but it was a gift, and that would be rude. Instead, she sat on her bunk and watched the snow swirl, convincing herself that she was no longer trapped.

  On the very last day of Basic Training, that thought became terribly difficult to hold onto. Thousands had come to watch the graduation ceremony; thousands straining to pick out their soldier in the marching columns; thousands of cameras filming, and not one of them there for her.

  Maybe she just couldn't see him in the crowds. Maybe he was there, and any second now, he'd come for her. Any second, he'd hold her and even though she was in uniform, even though everyone watching would recognise him (how jealous Vienna would be), he would kiss her, and suddenly Ach-all-Wrong would feel perfectly right.

  Silly. If he were coming, he would have told her. If he wasn't on Achall, he wasn't on Scathach either, but somewhere else, far across the galaxy. Another Cato, perhaps, knee-deep in mud with bullets leaving traces of fire in the air, and oh God, she didn't want to think about that. There were little over a thousand days left of her mandatory service, and every single one could be his last.

  She took a deep breath and tried to perceive the moment. The crunch of Achall gravel underneath her feet. The stiff collar of her dress uniform. The crackle of excitement in the air, so strong that when Vienna smiled at her, the smile was infectiously easy to return.

  "Can't wait to find out where I'll be stationed," Gogently said. "The instructor said we're finding out tomorrow, right?"

  "After the weekend," Hassleholm corrected. "They take two days to make the selections – longer, if there's a lot of interest."

  Their time in Basic had been scored and tallied, the results sent to Bastion, where the ultimate decision on their futures would be made. Some would be assigned to the sentinels or other duties that only required Basic, but plenty would go onto more specialised training. They'd all put in applications for occupational specialties and duty stations, but the drill instructor had explained that the applications carried about as much weight as a wish upon a shooting star, and that they'd all better prepare for disappointment – especially you, Gogently.

  But as they made for the assembly hall for the final part of the graduation ceremony, it became clear that Gogently hadn't taken the instructor's advice to heart one bit.

  "I've heard that the cataphracts sometimes recruit straight out of Basic," he ventured, and Hassleholm laughed.

  "Sure, but they usually look for recruits with scores higher than room temperature. With a rifle accuracy like yours, they wouldn't let you so much as shine their suits."

  "The banneretcy, then." Undeterred by Hassleholm's continued laughter, Gogently persevered: "I don't mind doing a couple of years as a sentinel first. Get the experience, earn the merits. Don't mind doing it the hard way. I'm going to make it, you'll see."

  "With that attitude, I believe it," Joy said, smiling, though she rather hoped he wouldn't. She'd seen firsthand what the banneretcy did, and it was hard to accept that the young men and women around her were so excited, so eager, to leave their homes for a world where enemies didn't care if they had the biggest Cassimer memorabilia collection on Lysander, and wouldn't listen to pleas for mercy from a boy who'd graduated the cadet program with the highest honours.

  "I just hope my score is high enough to get into Tech," said Vienna, who had very little affinity for tech work and whose typing was nearly as bad as Joy's. "Or Supply. Or even Treasury. Stars, I don't care anymore – as long as it's a job that doesn't require running, I'll do it."

  "I thought you wanted to become an interesting person," said Gogently, mimicking her voice. "With interesting stories. How're you going to get that in Supply?"

  "Well, the thing about stories, Gogently, is this: you can make them up. And they're a lot easier to make up sitting behind a desk than they are while sweating your butt off running twenty miles through muddy terrain. If only I'd thought of that before I enlisted. Earth have mercy, I am a fool."

  "A noisy fool," said Hassleholm, giving her a sharp glance. Vienna blushed, falling silent and into line, but there were three squads ahead of them, cheers rising from the assembly hall as recruits got onto the stage to receive their Basic Training Merit Award from the base commander, and eventually, even Hassleholm got bored of standing around. "So, what about you, Somerset? You've been pretty quiet about what you want to do next. Got something lined up?"

  There was a note of suspicion in his voice, as though he worried that the field recruit was going onto things greater than she deserved.

  "There's a park on Scathach Station, tended by Bastion rangers. They're technically combat units, but most of their missions involve assisting with the regeneration of purged worlds. When they're on base, they look after the park. It's bigger than you'd think, and so beautiful that you forget you're on a space station. I could feel the earth there, the connection... I..." She didn't know how to explain it. On Mars, she'd been a botanist who, thanks to chronic illness, had been unable to interact with nature. She'd read about plants, studied them in virtual reality settings and gone on the odd field excursion with a respirator strapped to her face, but for most part, her contact with flora had happened inside clinical labs. She'd gone into botany because of a genuine interest, but the love had been smothered by sterile walls and incubators.

  On Scathach's shade-dappled woodchip paths, meandering along stream banks soft with puzzlegrass, she had found it again. One hand in Constant's and the other running across the smooth trunk of a birch, she had found her place in the universe. It was earth, as real as warm sand and seashells in her hands.

  "I spoke to the rangers there, and they seemed to think that I'm qualified. I put an application in and crossed my heart."

  Hassleholm nodded, pleased with her low ambitions, but Gogently gave her an arched glare.

  "You've been to Scathach Station?"

  "Yes. My..." Hmm. Yes. My what, exactly? Her something. Her everything. "My boyfriend is stationed there."

  "I see." Hassleholm smiled smugly. "Finally, you begin to make sense."

  Rank and ceremony be damned, she wanted to tell him to shut the hell up. Even den Haag had implied that she was only Primaterre bec
ause Constant had fallen for her, but so what? There was no turning back and no point feeling bad about it. She'd earned her way on Cato and throughout Basic, and she'd continue to do so, no matter how many smug smiles came her or Constant's way.

  "Ah, right," Gogently said. "The mystery man you send all those videos to. Didn't know he was Bastion. What branch?"

  "The banneretcy."

  Well, that wiped the smile of Hassleholm's face twice as quick as telling him to shut up would have.

  "Stars." Vienna shook her head. "I can't even get a date, yet Somerset woke up from cryo sleep less than a year ago and not only does she outrank me, she's got a banneret man wrapped around her little finger too? Not bloody fair, is it?"

  And you have two parents and three siblings waiting to cheer your name in the assembly hall; no, it's not bloody fair, not at all. But Vienna didn't deserve the outburst, nor to be as overlooked as she was, so Joy smiled and squeezed her hand.

  "I'm also 125 years older than you, V. I think I've waited long enough for good things to come my way."

  "Is your boyfriend here today?" Gogently stood on his toes, trying to look over the queue ahead. "If I could talk to him, you know, maybe he'd see something that my scores don't show. A personal recommendation would go a long way in smoothing an application along."

  "No. He couldn't make it."

  "Aww." Vienna gave her a look that was probably meant to be sympathetic, but only annoyed. "I'm sure he'd be here if he could."

  "I know." But she also knew that she didn't care if he were, as long as he was all right. As long as he was alive, and as they waited for their turn to enter the assembly hall, she counted the seconds. Every one of them was another breath of his, another beat of his heart.

  * * *

  To the sound of polite clapping, Joy stepped onto the stage and received her Basic Training Merit Award. She shook the base commander's hand and thanked him as they were supposed to, and turned towards the crowd like they were supposed to, so that families could get pictures of their soldier.