by Sales, Ian
“And if she says no?”
“She knows her duty to the Family. She’ll bend.”
She had not, of course. She’d refused Ahasz and ignored her father’s instruction. Perversely, she had seen the duke’s proposal as a betrayal and her love for him had turned to hatred. He could not understand why. He still loved her; he had never loved another. Vonshuans customarily married late, but he doubted he would ever find a woman to replace Princess Flavia in his affections.
It would have been so much easier if she had assented—and how he’d relished the prospect of having her permanently at his side! The duke would have had High Prince Hubret removed—an arranged “accident”, perhaps. Putting Flavia on the Imperial Throne, with Ahasz as her Consort, after Willim either abdicated or died.
Instead, Ahasz had been forced to wage war. He had gathered his forces, paid garnishes, wielded influence behind the scenes… Conspired.
And now he was all but trapped in the Imperial Household District, trying to take an Imperial Palace which refused to be taken. The fortresses of the knights stalwart and knights militant had been easier.
The irony was not lost on the duke.
Black smoke scrawled across the sky, hanging heaviest above the aerodrome at Kukoi thirty miles away. The wind ripped streamers from the mass, smeared them across the city and left them to dissipate. The Duke of Ahasz lowered his hand from his brow and swore under his breath.
Turning his back on Toshi, he climbed the back-slope of Palace Road. A bolt from one of the Palace’s cannons shot overhead. Although some fifteen feet above him, Ahasz felt the heat of its passage. It hit the ground fifty yards away. Dirt exploded, steaming clods thrown up high, hot smoke drifting low across the scarred grass.
Below the peak of the raised highway, Ahasz entered the defile. Most of the damage from the previous day’s attack had been repaired, but blood still stained the wood and blackened the decking. The boom of a cannon bolt striking earth, and a cut-off scream, echoed along the trench. He passed the dark gaping mouth of command post doorway and dimly heard conversation from within. Next, a lit shaft in a niche, where a ladder nailed to the wall led down to the railway deep beneath. Soldiers in the red and black of the Housecarls, and the red of his household troops, trotted back and forth. At the junction, Ahasz turned left, marched to the nearest observation post and gestured away the trooper on watch with a curt nod of his head. Stepping up onto the dais, the duke put his eye to the periscope:
He saw one of the Palace’s emplacements fire. A minute later, a return bolt from a Housecarl basilisk shattered a decorative balcony above the emplacement. It was unlikely they had destroyed the cannon: the defenders fired and quickly moved their artillery to safety.
The Imperial Palace bore the wounds of a week of fighting. The statues of both Edkar I and Poer I were barely recognisable as human. Balconies and colonnades lay in heaped rubble at the foot of Mount Yama. The fountains had been switched off and the basins were now dry, their containing walls crumbled and blasted. The gentle slope to the foot of the Palace was scored and broken with glassy craters and scorched runs, the ornamental garden trampled and blasted. Lieutenant-Colonel Narry had died down there, pierced by a stave wielded by a knight stalwart. The man had died as foolishly as he had lived: he had ignored Tayisa’s suggestions and led an open charge on the Palace entrance. Most of the two companies he had taken with him had died too.
Ahasz stepped back from the periscope. Another bolt from the Palace shot overhead. Smoke, reeking of burnt stone, drifted across the open trench. He strode back to the entrance to the command post and entered. A dog-leg tunnel, to prevent shrapnel entering, led to a steel door, slightly ajar. Ahasz stepped into a square room with walls and ceiling and floor all of neatly-laid wooden planks. A handful of Housecarls lieutenant-colonels and regimental-majors stood about a battlefield-consultant in the centre of the chamber, talking over and at each other. Colonel Tayisa glowered to one side. Beside him stood a pear-shaped woman in a shapeless dark-coloured dress: Druzh.
“What in heavens is going on?” demanded Ahasz.
The Housecarls officers fell silent and turned to the duke.
“The aerodrome,” he continued. “The smoke. Explain.”
Two regimental-majors began talking at once but Ahasz could not make sense of their protestations. “Druzh,” he snapped. “You know what’s going on.”
Druzh stepped forward. “Imperial Commando attacked, your grace. In the ensuing fighting, several boats and ships were destroyed.”
“Did Alezred hold his position?”
“As soon as I learnt the Commando had abandoned their manoeuvres,” replied Druzh, “I took the liberty of suggesting to Colonel Tayisa that he reinforce the lieutenant-colonel with a battalion of household troops.”
Ahasz nodded. In a straight fight, the Imperial Commando were much better fighters than the Housecarls. But his household troops swung the balance in his favour. “So the aerodrome is still in our hands.” He scowled. “I thought the Commando were not going to interfere? We paid them enough not to do so.” Two battalions of Imperial Commando had been on manoeuvres on Shuto’s southern continent, Minami. Large garnishes had been paid to persuade them to remain there.
Druzh shrugged. “On the evening we took the District, Prince Hubret was at the Earl of Hoo’s palace —”
“He’s still chasing after Hoo’s youngest daughter?” interrupted Ahasz. Despite the earl’s unswerving loyalty to the Imperial Throne, the Emperor had other candidates—the daughters of more powerful nobles—in mind for the hand of the Imperial Heir.
“Yes, your grace,” continued Druzh. “But His Imperial Highness flew to Minami as soon as word of our assault reached him —”
“— and persuaded the Commando to follow him into battle,” finished Ahasz. He gestured dismissively. “Yes, yes. We could not have planned for it.”
To Tayisa, the duke said, “Are the surface-to-air swivels in place yet? The Navy have promised to keep the air above the District free of aerocraft and boats, but I’d sooner we had the capability to do so ourselves.”
“Soon, your grace. The mechanicians are fitting them now.”
“And the basilisks?”
“Dug in, your grace.”
Ahasz turned back to the Housecarls. He stepped forward to stand at the battlefield-consultant and gazed down at the map displayed in its glass. A zig-zag line stretched the length of the highway bisecting the Imperial Household District: Ahasz’s trench complex. It fronted the Imperial Palace, gave Ahasz’s army control of the area before Mount Yama. A handful of defiles led from the trenches onto the back-slope, providing access. Buried along those trenches were command posts and dug-outs, and shafts leading to the railway beneath the District. The duke’s forces controlled that too, and were using it to bring in reinforcements and provisions.
The Imperial Household District was sealed. No one could enter or leave without the permission of the Duke of Ahasz. The Imperial Exchequer and Imperial Chancery stood empty, sepulchral; no naval officer or Imperial Marine had set foot in the obsidian cube of the Imperial Admiralty Fort.
It was not a particularly effective siege. The Imperial Palace had sufficient provisions to feed its inhabitants for many months—although perhaps not to the level of sumptuousness to which they were accustomed. There were also escape routes Ahasz’s forces could not entirely control—a boat bay on the eastern flank of Mount Yama, a tunnel leading into Gahara. His swivels could shoot down anything using the boat-bay and he had troops covering the Gahara exit, but… How many secret entrances and exits were there to the Palace? Legend and rumour claimed Mount Yama was riddled with tunnels—some, unbelievably, predating the establishment of Toshi, millennia before Edkar I formed his Empire. Ahasz, himself a frequent visitor to the Palace and familiar with its precincts, knew of secret passageways within the mountain, and of levels and suites unused and sealed for centuries. But he was not aware of any hidden tu
nnels which led outside the Imperial Household District.
Privately, Ahasz was surprised the Emperor’s Own Cuirassiers had yet to venture from the Palace. Druzh’s spies had confirmed their presence within Mount Yama but they had not supported the knights stalwart or knights militants during their assaults. There was no other force on Shuto about which Ahasz need worry. The Imperial Navy would do nothing while he controlled their Navy Accounting Mechanism. Those nobles who wished to attack the duke’s army would be persuaded otherwise by those members of the Electorate who secretly (and expensively) supported Ahasz. Not that he considered their militia a threat. Nobles were allowed only a small force on their estates and the likelihood of them joining together to form an army was remote. Most such milita were ceremonial and poorly trained at combat. For now, the Electorate was content to leave the battle to Ahasz and the Imperial Family.
Despite an unbroken rule of more than twelve centuries, the Shutans were not well liked. They had not been popular in the Old Empire, centuries before Edkar I had seized the Summer Throne. Their high position had bred envy, their high-handedness had fomented resentment. Some still believed Edkar I had engineered the war with the Baal. Once the enemy had been defeated, forces had flocked to Edkar’s banner until he had enough to challenge the emperor.
Which he promptly did.
Ahasz had studied history at university and, unlike many of his peers, he’d been a diligent student. If not for his familial conspiracy, he might well have become a scholar. He had certainly analysed the Shutan’s 1,300 years of rule and had no intention of repeating their mistakes. Edkar I had been astute enough to broaden his power-base by bettering the lot of the lower reaches of Imperial society but he had failed to check the influence of the most powerful. Ahasz would not make that mistake.
Having said that, Ahasz was not the first to assault the Imperial Palace. Others had tried; none had succeeded. Most notably the Imperial Guard during the Second Century. That had seen the regiment disbanded, its senior officers executed and its secret history made public.
Ahasz did not intend to repeat their mistakes, either.
CHAPTER TEN
Beneath the universe lay two other realms. The first of these was the toposphere, used for interstellar travel by starships with topologic drives. In the toposphere, the distance between stars was greatly reduced and worlds were no more than weeks apart. The topologic drive had given the stars to the inhabitants of the planet Geneza. They had not invented it themselves but re-engineered it from three ancient starship wrecks they found in in orbit about their world. Even now, more than four thousand years after that discovery, no one truly understood how the topologic drive functioned.
Everyone knew of the toposphere, but few knew of the nomosphere. It lay beneath—or perhaps alongside—the toposphere. Ormuz was aware of only three people who could access it. He was one. In the nomosphere, all information was made manifest. Either information being transported through the toposphere or that being processed by computational engines—Ormuz did not know which. Both explanations had been offered and he had not had enough experience in that universe of data to form his own opinion.
Truth be told, while in the nomosphere, Ormuz thought little on what it actually was. His attention focused on the information he wished to learn. On this visit, he sought knowledge of the Serpent’s forces. Had more Imperial Navy warships joined his fleets, more suborned regiments enlisted in his armies? Previous trips to the nomosphere had given Ormuz a good indication of what the Admiral would face on arrival in the Geneza system but there was still the possibility of an unwelcome surprise. Ormuz’s ability to access the nomosphere was an intelligence tool without peer. Unfortunately, it was an ability also possessed by the Serpent. In fact, it was for that very reason Ormuz had the ability: he was a clone of the Serpent. He had been grown from a cell culture stolen from Ariman umar Vonshuan, Duke of Ahasz, by the Order of the Left Hand. He was not the first clone to be grown but he was the first clone to survive to adulthood.
It was not easy to visit the nomosphere. Ormuz tried each night but was not always successful. If he could find the edge of sleep, sometimes that was enough to manifest him in the nomosphere. He tried it now: closed his eyes, let his muscles relax, sensed sleep hovering in the darkness beyond consciousness. He willed himself closer, felt his mind begin to fade…
Success. Brightness consumed the cabin. The bulkheads, fittings, the bunk itself, all disappeared in glare. He was there. A universe of no colour, its sky peppered with constellations of blackness. He held up his hand. It too was black and without features: no hair, no nails, not even pores. It had the texture of some slick fabric.
Ormuz spun about. He was here for a purpose, but the temptation to play, to map his abilities, was irresistible. Fastening his gaze on a distant black star, he willed himself closer.
And was there.
No sensation, no memory, of movement. The transition was instantaneous. He stretched out an arm, watched it extend until it seemed yards long. Pointing at the star he orbited, he caused a promontory to break its surface. At the apogee of its arc, the star substance abruptly continued outwards, spanning the gap between them, centred on his pointing finger.
He drank in data. It was all useless and irrelevant. Reports from the Imperial Capitation Agency: population studies of various fiefs. Documents from the Imperial Tenancy Office, giving historical changes to fiefal boundaries. He gestured the data away and tried for more information. Yet another spout hurtled up from the black star’s surface and made for his hand. He brought his other hand forward, his palms together, and watched dark liquid spill into his cupped hands. It roiled and writhed like a living thing. Meaning sank into him.
He knew the Serpent, Ahasz, was on Shuto and he knew too that Ahasz could only access the nomosphere when travelling through the toposphere. They were, after all, clones and what held true for Ormuz also held true for the Serpent. But perhaps, he thought, there might be news floating somewhere about the Empire on the Serpent’s actions on the Imperial capital.
Sure enough, Ormuz soon found the information he sought. The news was not good. The Serpent’s troops had attacked the Imperial Palace. Four battalions from the Imperial Regiment of Housecarls, and ten of Ahasz’s own household troops, had invaded the Imperial Household District ten days before. The Admiral’s fleet had still been in orbit about Linna then.
The Admiral had to know. Ormuz had not imagined the Serpent would attack so soon. Vengeful was… Ormuz calculated swiftly. Journeys through the toposphere were measured in weeks; but time spent there passed more slowly than it did in the real universe. And that “slowness”, the time lag, was dependent upon the distance travelled. One week in the toposphere equated, for a warship, to eight days in the real universe; two weeks in the toposphere, thirty-two days. Vengeful’s trip from Linna to Geneza involved a one-week trip to Kunta, a further two weeks to Obok, and a final week-long journey to Geneza. So the Admiral’s fleet would, due to the time-lag, arrive at Geneza fifty-six days after leaving Linna.
Ormuz had believed the Serpent would wait until the battle at Geneza was over before launching his assault on the Imperial Palace. What could have caused him to attack so soon?
Who, rather, said a voice.
He spun about. A figure floated just beyond his reach. It was slim, well-formed, but entirely featureless. A pale blue in colour, it glowed with faint light. The head was a hairless faceless ovoid, the body smooth and sexless.
You, said Ormuz. He knew this “person”. On many of his previous visits to the nomosphere, he had been aided by the blue figure. It was the blue figure who had first explained to him the nature of the nomosphere and the reason for his ability to visit it. The talent was engineered into his genes. Or rather, those original genes from which both the Serpent and himself had been cloned.
He looked about but no figure of gold was evident. As Ormuz manifested as black in the nomosphere, so the Serpent was gold. But the Se
rpent, of course, was on Shuto. Attacking the Imperial Palace.
So who? asked Ormuz. Who caused him to attack so soon?
The knights signet. The blue figure drifted closer. It drew up its legs, crossed them and then laid its hands palms-uppermost on its knees. They came to arrest him. It forced him to advance his timetable.
His plans, it continued, had been in place for many weeks. However—The figure unfolded and loomed over Ormuz—the attack failed.
That’s it? The rebellion is over? Then all this was for nothing. Ormuz felt… Disappointed. Angry. Bitter. His chance for greatness taken away, his destiny not so mutable, after all. His heart lay heavy and still in his chest; the weight, the presence, of his relationship with the Admiral began to fade and lighten, to turn insubstantial.
Without the Serpent, he was nobody.
Not at all, the blue figure said. The attack failed but the Serpent has dug in for a siege. It may well be many weeks before he finally succeeds.
Disappointment turned to relief.
You will still have your day on Geneza.
I would rather people did not have to die, Ormuz protested.
And had you chosen the right course, they would not have had to, the blue figure replied.
No! There is no other way.
He’d had this argument many times with Inspector Finesz. She had sought to prevent the Serpent without casualties. Her proposed course of action had not struck Ormuz as effective then and did not do so now. He chose to change the subject: ever since learning that the Serpent had a sister, the Marchioness Angra, he had suspected the blue figure of being her. He asked as much: Are you my sister?
It was a moment before the blue figure answered. Genetically, yes. But relationships are more than mere biology. I have tried my best to make of you someone I would be proud to call “brother”. One day we shall meet in person.
