“Councilor Mersham is gravely concerned about all problems, as they all are.”
“And the reaction to the Fuards?”
“Ha! We all are deeply concerned… deeply concerned… but also we are deeply concerned about the unrest caused by the latest tax levy which went to expand the Regent's Palace and for a ten percent increase in the basic dole.”
“Did the increase make people happier?” asks Martel, remembering full well how his mother had snorted.
He is rewarded by a sniff from Madame Herlieu, a thin-faced redhead, a snort from the good Captain, and a raised eyebrow from the Duchess. “I can see why you sent your daughter away.”
“Not sure I agree now,” mumbles the Duke. “Seemed good at the time. Now I wonder.”
“Experience in other milieus might give her a broader outlook,” comments the red-haired woman.
The Duchess nods again, and Martel reaches for the thoughts behind the nod.
Needs a lot more experience… maybe trip to New Augusta itself when she gets back. Then a cadet tour. Not many women do, but she can. Kryn will handle it.
For not having had a daughter until that morning, the Duchess is certainly busy plotting the path Kryn will take, Martel thinks to himself, a bit sadly. “Why so downcast, Master Seine?” booms the Duke. “Thinking about your daughter, I just wondered. My children,” he lies, having none, “won't have to worry about high finance and privy councils, and sometimes I think they'll be the happier for it. Lady Kryn will become our outstanding Duchess, maybe more, but I wonder if she'll be happy.”
“Are any of us ever really happy?” replies the Guard Captain.
“Maybe not. Maybe we delude ourselves into thinking so. Is happiness everything? And can anyone stay happy if someone isn't out guarding, and someone else ruling?” What's he want?
The Duchess is sharp, too sharp, and Martel keeps forgetting it. The sooner he leaves the better, and the less he says the better.
The main course is scampig, roasted and lightly basted with Taxan brandy. Martel enjoys it and says little. “… 'course the Prince got the next bird with that needle rifle. Not at all sporting. Single-action, but never have to reload. Real sport would do it with an old-style shotgun… You hunt, Master Seine?”
“Not my province. Travel too much. Can't do something well, usually don't care to do it.”
I'll bet there are some exceptions your wife knows. The unexpectedly salacious thought from Madame Herlieu catches Martel off guard, and he barely keeps from flushing. The Duke doesn't notice.
“… and the time he decided to use a bow against the dualhom. Sounds fair, but he used an explosive arrowhead. What's the difference between that damned electronic contraption he called a bow and a full-bored laser? Oh, so he could say he got the beast with a bow and arrow…” Martel takes it all in, notes the names, and listens. The dinner drags into the early afternoon, and later, and later.
It is close to 1600 before Martel walks out through the park gate, down the slight hill toward the Regent's Palace, and into nowhere.
He has several days, weeks, of hard work ahead. But this time, damned if anyone is going to see him!
* * *
LVIII
What the hammer? What the forge? What the bellows? From what gorge Came the fire, came the light, Came the beasts that sowed the night?
Martel knows that the gods on high, specifically on Aurore, do not know he is backtime. Knows, also, that they do not believe travel backtime is possible. In his wrapping of time energy, he debates his next move. Which player next? Or players? The Fallen Ones, the Brotherhood, the Prince Regent? All the pieces need to moved quickly, before the disappearance/destruction of the hammer-thrower can be verified. The Brotherhood is the choice.
Brother Geidren. The image of the brown-robed “brother” slips into his mind as clearly as if it had been yesterday when he confronted her across the shield wall in the underground headquarters of that secretive and now-exiled group.
None of his experiences on Aurore have shed much more light on his knowledge of the Brotherhood, and the questions have only grown with their banishment and disappearance.
Are the Fallen Ones an adjunct to the Brethren? Allies? Antagonists with mutual goals? All three rumors have persisted for a millennium… without answers.
Martel knows only when and where Brother Geidren had been once, and the single logical possibility is to relocate that position and follow with an appearance—once the Martel he had been has left for Aurore.
First, the underground and shielded quarters of the Brotherhood. That is simple.
More difficult is locating Geidren after Martin Martel has left for Aurore. Meeting himself would be catastrophic, in more ways than one. The energy release would render the entire point of the search moot, but not in any way in which Martel would be around to appreciate. Are you ready for this? Do you have any choice? The answer to both questions is no. From the requisite undertime distance, he tracks the departure of one young and stunned Martin Martel, and thence hastens back to the bunker of the Brethren, emerging in a silent corridor, wrapped in darkness, cloaked in his energies, and invisible to all but the most talented of espers.
Geidren is not alone, rather unsurprisingly, but with two others in a room which could only be described as a communications and command center.
Martel observes from a corner, bemused that the three, all espers, are so wrapped in their own dynamics and so trusting of their mechanical detectors and guard technicians that his presence goes unnoticed.
As an afterthought, he reaches out and puts the three guards who scan the command center into a deep sleep.
Kirsten? Main threat? Overthrow the Regent? Those thoughts come from the thin-faced blond and bearded man. Call him Aquinas.
More than meets the eye. Foreboding… doom on the horizon. Aurore? From the older man. Call him Mystic.
The Master Game Player? Or God? One choice or the other. Or your fears? Doesn't matter. We're outlawed. Queried Scholar pretext. How do we fight? Raise the Brethren? Underground? Passive resistance over time? Religion? Gerri Geidren's thoughts ring with a soft chime.
Martel is impressed. Aquinas and Mystic are definitely second-raters next to the woman. Religion… the great crusade, offers Aquinas. Put the Unknowable against the Empire? Pervert the sacrament of Faith? Would it work? asks Geidren. Yes. No.
NO! Martel lets himself become visible, half shading his face in a shadow of his own, and offers an observation.
“The problem with relying on religion is that you give the temporal authorities the power to ban it. Banned religions are effective only in limited circumstances—like when the god involved is willing to use force on behalf of his or her followers or when the oppression of the regime approaches terrorism.”
His last half-sentence is lost in the blaze of the lasers concentrated on the corner where Martel stands.
He absorbs what he can, diverts the rest into his personal undertime/underspace reservoir that grows with each appearance and reduces his need to tap his own foretime reserves.
The way things are going, Martel, you're going to have your own fields back—and foretime, that is, if everyone keeps throwing energy at you.
Geidren stops the waste of energy with her own mental override of the controls she had activated. Mystic and Aquinas blanch as they see Martel still stands untouched. “Trite, but who are you?”
“It doesn't matter. I'd like to offer some observations. One: The Prince Regent will fall, but the Regency will remain, more powerful than before. Two: Despite whatever you do, and it may be a great deal, the power of the House of Kirsten will wax, not wane. Three: There is a Master Game Player. Three at least, as a matter of fact. Four: You will not even attempt any injury to Martin Martel. It might make him angry, and it will definitely make me angry.” Him? Master Game Player? Can't be! Three of them?
Martel decides to emphasize his points, and amplifies his next message to the split point.
THER
E IS A FALLEN ONE. CALL HIM THE MASTER GAME PLAYER I REPRESENT. CALL THE TWO OTHERS APOLLO AND THE SMOKE BULL, IF YOU WILL.
Mystic and Aquinas crumple, both twitching heaps. Geidren leans heavily against the commset. Don't overplay… your… hand.
Martel smiles, points at the commset, lets the energy flow from his fingertips, and waits until the equipment is a molten heap of slag.
At the first blast, Gerri Geidren has staggered back, staring as if to penetrate the shadow that surrounds Martel's face. No esper… that power.
“As I said,” Martel resumes conversationally, ignoring the twitches of the two on the floor, “the Brotherhood will have to live with reality.” What would you do? Oppose the Empire.
“But,” she breaks out verbally, “you said that wouldn't do any good!”
“That is not what I said. I said the Regency would fall, but that Kirsten's power would not. In opposing the Regency and what follows, the Brethren can do a great deal of good by placing some checks on tyranny. The times will demand raw power. An organization based on promoting the best development of each individual's abilities is restricted by its very ideals from exerting the kind of power necessary. And if you give up your ideals, you lose the power you have. So… don't.” Damned philosopher. Few would call me that.
“Two facets work better than one,” he continues aloud. “You might call the churchly half the Church of Man, and in turn the Regency will come to regard its priests as the servants of the Fallen One, who has not really fallen yet. That should not frighten you, because the Fallen One is of and for the people, which should indeed frighten them.”
He is distracted by the shuddering gasp of Aquinas, who stops breathing. Martel turns his attention to the man, makes a few adjustments, and lets Aquinas slip into a deep sleep. He repeats the pattern with Mystic, and makes similar changes in the metabolism and body of Geidren. You merely represent a Master Game Player? “In a manner of speaking.” Merely represent?
No man is a god, no matter how powerful! Martel lets his thoughts check the area again, scanning the monitors that guard the control center. Still under the control of his earlier meddling, they show nothing amiss, and the guard technicians sleep peacefully.
“The other half,” he plods on, “the Brethren, could act as the temporal government in exile, doing what it can to remind the Empire and the Regency of the human rights of their people. Remember, neither will last forever, and some organized group should be there to guide the way when they fall.”
They? They fall? Why should we do what you suggest? They? Only one Empire… Martel smiles.
“You can do whatever you want. But remember that your strength lies in your ideals.” Still the damned philosopher-god.
No god, no philosopher, and a damned prophet, corrects Martel in the instant before he vanishes.
The next step is forty years forward in time and to the palace of the aging Prince Regent.
* * *
LIX
3. And it came to pass in those days, when the son of the King of Kings sat upon the gilded throne of Karnak and ruled, and saw naught, that upon that night that was declared the servants brought food to the great table. When it was served, the lamps flickered. Flicker did the lamps twice, and after the third flicker were they extinguished, though no man had laid hands upon them.
4. Light! Let there be light! commanded the Prince, who was mighty and beholden in all the universe only to his Father, the King of Kings, the Emperor of Man. But the darkness remained, and the servants fell to their knees, and the courtiers were struck speechless.
5. Let there be light! demanded the Prince, and he stamped his boots, and the echo filled the halls, but there was no light.
6. In the midst of the darkness then appeared a light, and in that light was a demon in the likeness of a man, and he wore the black of a prophet.
7. What mean you, miserable creature, to deny a Prince of Princes light in his own hall? So saying, the Prince cast a thunderbolt at the demon. But the demon raised his hand, and the thunderbolt returned to the Prince and struck him dumb.
8. Mark well what I say, responded the demon, and low was his voice, yet all in the great halls of Karnak that was heard it, from the kitchens to the dungeons and even unto the towers that speared the heavens and called unto the stars.
9. Mark what I say, for thy days are numbered, even as the hour after the opening of the seventh seal. You shall be extinguished even as I have extinguished the lights of your hall and your mightiness. And none shall mourn you. No, none shall mourn you.
10. Before this shall come to pass, I will raise a temple, which cannot be cast down, though you and your legions will try. The mightiest tree of the world shall be uprooted, and the heavens will open, and a woman shall save thy people. And she will lead them.
11. Your people will be saved, but not you. For none shall mourn you and your passing, not even the King of Kings. For though I am vested in dark, I will bring light, and though you claim light, you are a judgment of darkness.
12. Dumbstruck stood the Prince of Princes until the demon had vanished and the lamps had rekindled themselves.
13. What heard you? asked the son of the King of Kings. What heard you?
14. But of those who heard the black demon none would look to their ruler, nor would they speak.
* * *
LX
Martel holds the nexus point, hangs in the gray of not-time, thoughts seeking the true timeline to the Karnak he had known as a student, to the time when he and Kryn had strolled the ways of the great Park of Summer, Park of the Regent.
Is the true path the reedy gray line twisting into the dark that becomes black, or the pulsing red one?
The colors he perceives are all in his mind, for the gray chaos where he waits has no color, but color is how he sees them. The solid black path, almost a road arrow of time, leads back to Aurore. That aura leaves no doubts.
A green line is the one he wants, and Martel wills himself back against the current until the feel of the reality outside the undertime river matches his images. Physics says there is no flow to time, that the flow is only in the mind of man; but Martel is used to fighting his own mind, if indeed that is where the flow of time exists.
He emerges from the undertime next to a towering red-barked tree, just outside the silver glitter fence that surrounds the giant. So high is the mutated sequoia that its noon shadow covers acres.
Martel's black cloak droops over him in the windless quiet. Cling! Cling! Cling!
The chimes from the carillon announce the beginning of the Moments of Thankfulness. Thankfulness for the generosity of the Prince Regent. A time when all stand silent. A time when the blue-uniformed proctors ensure that silence.
Martel throws his cloak over his shoulders, casts his senses out across the acres, knows he will do what he now knows he did, and draws an aura of blackness around himself.
He strides across the shadowed grass with a light step—jaunty, daring the blue proctors and their blue helmets and their blue blast rifles to incinerate him.
Fifty-one paces later—not that Martel has counted them, he knows—the first proctor has Martel in his sights. Martel pities the man, raises his hand, and points. The blast rifle melts.
The proctor drops it, suffers a burn as a splash of molten metal splats on his lower forearm, eats through his gauntlet.
Proctors travel in pairs. His companion, seeing the damage, turns, sights, and fires.
He explodes in a column of flame as the blast bends, impossibly, and returns to him.
Martel leaves the shadow of the mighty Tree of the Regent and casts his own acres-long shadow as he marches toward the golden towers of the palace.
In their dark blue singleskits, a second set of proctors races toward the black interloper. They race from the blue cupola that stands at the corner of the ten-kilometer-square park closest to the palace.
Any military authority would deem the singleskits, armed as they are with disruptors, stunners
, tanglers, and full riot-control equipment, more than a match for a single black-shadowed man who marches upon the palace. Deeming is not sufficient. Martel waits to see if the bluesuits are determined to destroy him merely for moving at the time appointed as sacred to the Prince Regent. They are.
First, they focus the longer-range disruptors, for they are well over a kilo from Martel. The disruptors refuse to operate. As the two proctors scream closer the shock waves bend the ornamental shrubs that line the carved stone walks, rustle the leaves of the trees the singleskits barely clear, and bowl over the few children who are in the park at noon.
Martel gestures, and the proctors and their vehicles are gone. Not destroyed, although that would have been easier. Gone. Thrust through the tunnels in the around time and place to the Star Room of the Marshal of Proctors. The Marshal is not present, but the defense systems are always alert, and there will be enough wreckage to confound the Prince Regent and the Marshal.
The flow of energy from another set of disruptors bouncing from his screens draws Martel from his thoughts back into the park.
Martel admires efficiency, and the kill instinct of the bluesuits is efficient.
Less than units in the Park of the Regent and six proctors have attempted to destroy him for being so inconsiderate as to ignore the ritual silence and stillness devoted to the Prince. The last two are squandering energy on yet another attempt.
Martel's cloak flaps in the energy currents swirling around him, drips bits of shadow toward the burnt grass beneath his feet as he channels the energy into the reservoir from which he draws, and walks toward the remaining two singleskits, walks through the curtain of fire, through the disruptor beams and accompanying harmonics. Cling! Cling! Cling!
The carillon chimes the end to the five units of stillness devoted to the greatness and beneficence of the Prince Regent whose minions continue their efforts to annihilate the Fallen One, for who but a Fallen One would dare profane the sacred stillness?
Hammer of Darkness Page 24
