by Sales, Ian
“You will not be so amused shortly, Ahasz,” came the Admiral’s voice.
He put his head down and pretended to be cowed.
They climbed in silence, saving their breath for the ascent. The stairs became a narrow corridor, which stretched some hundred feet, turned a corner, and then once again became stairs. Several times it did this, crossing from one part of the Palace to another on a level, before climbing again. Not every floor they reached gave access to the Palace interior. They passed archways onto corridors which led deeper into proletarian areas. Ahasz himself had never been in this part of the Palace, although he knew of it. He had first visited the Palace as an adult and not—as he imagined Princess Flavia umar Shutan had done—spent childish hours exploring such “forbidden” areas.
At length, they reached the first floor of the Imperial Apartments, and rested for a moment. The Imperial Marines, of course, were not even out of breath. Looking across at Finesz, Ahasz saw that she appeared hot and harried, and he smiled because he too was not as young as once he had been. She smiled back and fanned her face theatrically with a hand.
A pair of marines were first to exit the service corridor. Five minutes after disappearing through the door, they reappeared and declared the route safe. Ahasz followed the others and found himself in a passage that was not too badly damaged. The luxurious carpet underfoot was black with mud and soot, and there were black streaks on the striped wallpaper. Over there, a pilaster had cracked and a knife-sized splinter had fallen from it. To his right, a glass door ringed with shards gave onto a balcony which no longer existed.
He expected them to turn left and head deeper into the mountain, but the Admiral instead crossed to a door on the opposite wall and some ten feet to their right. It was only as he approached the doorway that Ahasz recognised his surroundings.
Of course, the Emperor’s private study. He had met Willim here on several occasions.
Once, the room had been walled with book-shelves, but they had not all survived the siege. One entire wall was gone, leaving the room open to the air. Ahasz glanced that way and shuddered at the view over the District. He was more than one hundred and sixty feet above the ground. Nothing protected him from the drop but a few yards of damaged stone flooring. And his marine guards.
There was a desk opposite the door. It was dusty, the lamp upon its top broken and jagged. Seated in the chair behind the desk was a large man with a spade beard.
Emperor Willim IX.
“Willim,” Ahasz said. He pushed forward between a pair of his guards.
“Ariman,” replied the Emperor, rising to his feet.
Ahasz stopped before the desk. He looked back over his shoulder, saw the Admiral and her protégé standing side by side. He turned back to the Emperor.
His Imperial Majesty Willim IX put his hands on the desk-top, leaned forward… and bellowed: “Look what you’ve done to my Palace, damn you!”
Then, he straightened and swept out an arm, indicating the damage. “How could you do this, Ariman?”
Ahasz shrugged. “You were more prepared than I expected.”
“You’ve destroyed it! Priceless artworks—lost! It’s going to cost me a damn fortune to repair it. We can’t live here anymore. One thousand years of Shutans—of my ancestors!—have lived in this mountain and you’ve forced us out. We’re going to have to move into the Old Palace.”
“Your comfort,” Ahasz replied, “was not something I troubled to think about.”
“Damn it, Ariman. Where am I going to get the funds to sort out this damn mess?”
“The same place you always get them: the Electorate.”
“Some of the artworks you destroyed were priceless. Priceless!”
Ahasz sighed. “To tell you the truth, Willim, I don’t care. I tried to take your Throne for the people’s sake, not so I could live in this damn museum, this monument to your family’s egomania.”
“What about the books?” The Emperor pointed to the bookshelves opposite his desk. “You always admired my collection. Now see what you’ve done to it.”
“I would still put the life of one proletarian above a book, no matter how old that book is.”
“But you wouldn’t put a prole’s life above your principles,” put in Ormuz.
Ahasz turned to him in surprise. “People would die to defend a principle. Is it so much of a stretch to wage war in the service of one?”
“It must have been an important principle,” Ormuz continued. “Look at the damage it caused, look at the number of people it killed.”
“Who is this?” the Emperor demanded, peering at Ormuz with a frown. “Flavia? Who is this person? Why does he look like Ariman?”
Ormuz stepped forward and answered unashamedly, “I am a clone of the duke.”
There was a moment of silence. He should not have said that, thought Ahasz.
“I’m the one who persuaded the Admiral to gather a fleet to battle Ahasz and defeat him.”
And he certainly should not have said that.
“Clone? He’s the prole my knights have told me about? I’ll not have him in here. Tell him to leave.” Willim gestured peremptorily for Ormuz to depart, but no one stepped forward to enact the Emperor’s will.
“He has every right to be here,” the Admiral said. “But for him, Ahasz would be sitting on the Throne.”
“He could never win!” Willim said. “I had my knights. I had the cannons. He was out there for weeks and weeks, and he never once managed to storm the lower levels!”
“Why did you let him get that far?” Ormuz demanded.
A good question, thought Ahasz.
Willim rounded on the Admiral. “You permitted this?” he demanded of her. “This arrogation? Someone arrest him, arrest this… this… clone.”
The fear and loathing the Emperor loaded into that word, thought Ahasz. All this time, he had felt that way; and yet Ahasz himself was a clone.
A figure appeared in the doorway, halted a brief moment and then stepped into the room. Ahasz recognised him—not just for what he was: the silver ovoid mask said he was an Involute. But Ahasz also recognised the man’s shape and his way of moving. He was the Involute the duke had met all those weeks ago in the Viscount Mubona’s pavilion.
“You,” the Emperor said, pointing at the Involute. “Arrest him.” He swung his arm to point at Ormuz.
The Involute nodded in the Emperor’s direction, but otherwise ignored him. He crossed to the Admiral, reached up a hand and put the caster he used to communicate up by her ear. Ahasz could not hear what was spoken. Nor, from his expression, could Ormuz.
The Admiral nodded. The Involute left the room and the Admiral followed him.
Ahasz perched his rear on the desk, thinking that the situation was becoming interesting. He glanced back over his shoulder at Willim, who stood there, a puzzled frown on his face as he started to realise his powerlessness. And Ormuz, his young clone, he stood staring after the Admiral, equally nonplussed, perhaps wondering why he had not been invited.
Prince Casimir, that was what they called the young prole. Ahasz had heard him mentioned as such by the Admiral’s troops. The young man was a surprise. Yes, they had met in the nomosphere and battled there too. Only a few hours ago, they had met in personal combat—and he had proven an excellent swordsman. A master. How could a prole become so skilled in such a short time? Something in the genes, perhaps? Something carried in the reflexes?
Unlikely. Ahasz had spent years of practice to become a master swordsman. He was deemed talented, yes; but not so talented he could make master swordsman less than a year after picking up a blade for the first time.
Definitely an interesting young man. There was no trace of his proletarian upbringing. If he had not known, if his clones had not tried to assassinate the young man several times during the past year, Ahasz doubted he would have guessed. Very polished. And assured.
Ahasz crossed his arms, and watched Ormuz as
he paced back and forth, keeping a boat-squad of marines between himself and the missing wall which gave onto the Imperial Household District.
Inspector Finesz crossed to the young man, put a hand to his arm and bent to speak into his ear. Ormuz glanced across at the door sharply, then nodded, and turned away. He crossed his arms and stared moodily at His Imperial Majesty Willim IX.
The Involute and the Admiral re-entered the room. She crossed to the desk to stand beside Ahasz. He rose to his feet and turned about so that, like her, he faced the Emperor.
“Father,” she said, “you will vacate the Throne. You will step down in my favour. Hubret is no longer heir.”
“Flavia!” burst out Ormuz.
“Quiet, Casimir!” she snapped.
“You gave an oath,” he insisted mulishly.
She gestured brusquely. “The situation has changed. There is urgency now.” She did not remove her gaze from the Emperor. “Step down, father. The Imperial Throne is mine.”
The Emperor seemed to deflate. He sank into his chair as if his bones had turned liquid. Putting a hand to his cheek, he stared imploringly at the Admiral. “Flavia… But why?”
“Because we need a strong empire and we need a strong hand at its helm.” She jerked her head to indicate the study’s missing wall. “I have an army out there, father, and a fleet above. They are loyal to me—to me personally. Step down, father, or I unleash them.”
Ahasz barked a laugh, greatly amused at history repeating itself. Almost thirteen hundred years ago Admiral Edkar umar Ribuan had built himself a fleet that was personally loyal to himself during the War with the Baal. He had taken that fleet to the Old Empire’s capital world, Geneza, and seized the Summer Throne.
And now the Admiral—Imperial Princess Flavia umar Shutan—had done just the same.
The Involute had gone. The Admiral’s demand to her father, to vacate the Imperial Throne in her favour, left the room silent and shocked. The Emperor—ex-emperor—sat at his desk, defeated, a man in the grip of historical forces he could not understand. The anger he’d directed at Ahasz for the destruction of the Palace had gone, and now he gazed sorrowfully down at the polished wood of his desk-top.
Inspector Finesz sank onto a chair in a corner of the study, oblivious to the dust covering its cushion and now staining her OPI uniform. Although he did not know her well, Ahasz suspected the tight-lipped smile she wore signified amusement.
The Admiral’s marines, and their commander, stepped out into the corridor. Ahasz could hear shouts from deeper in the Palace, as her army rooted out the defenders and persuaded them the siege had finally been lifted. There would, the duke suspected, be many new medals minted in the coming weeks. And perhaps even a few patents of nobility drawn up.
He watched his clone cross to the Admiral and sidled closer to overhear their conversation. Neither seemed to notice him. So strange to see his clone in the flesh. Like meeting a younger self. But not quite—the boy’s upbringing had made a different man of him. It only remained to be seen if it had made a better man of him. Not so accomplished, of course: Ahasz had been educated and trained by the best. But a more moral man, perhaps.
“What did he say?” demanded Ormuz of the Admiral.
They stood close and spoke quietly, but Ahasz could hear every word.
“Nothing that need concern you,” the Admiral replied.
“You’re taking the Throne! Of course it concerns me.” Ormuz laid a hand on the Admiral’s arm.
Ahasz almost laughed. They were lovers? So Finesz had been telling the truth. She had spurned him but could not resist his clone. It was, in a fashion, the ultimate betrayal.
“Do not get above yourself,” the Admiral said. “I have been persuaded by the rightness of this.”
“By an Involute? They created me, Flavia. They set this whole thing up!”
“You cannot know that.”
Oh but she could, thought Ahasz. Everything had been orchestrated. He and the Admiral had used the knights sinisters as their go-betweens when planning this conspiracy and counter-conspiracy. Not all of it had been foreseen, however: Ormuz’s survival and subsequent involvement, or Ahasz’s own failure to take the Imperial Throne.
And certainly not this desperate grab for the prize by the Admiral.
Ahasz was beginning to wonder if the Involutes had played him for a fool. He’d duped his sister, Mayna, and he’d suffer for that later. But the Admiral? Had she too been in bed with the Involutes, manipulating Ahasz as they had done?
“Why, Flavia?” Ormuz insisted. He chopped the air angrily. “Why?”
“Because a strong Throne is needed. My father is weak.”
“Why do we need a strong Throne?”
Ahasz smiled. Would she tell him?
“It is none of your concern.”
No.
“I think it is. You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me!”
Ahasz remembered when he’d had that much passion. A pity it was wasted.
“You forget yourself,” hissed the Admiral. She leaned closer to Ormuz. “You are nothing but a copy of him.” She threw out an arm to point at Ahasz. “I chose to follow you because the timing suited me and…” Her expression softened and she did not complete her explanation. After a moment of silence, she continued, her voice colder than before: “You were useful to me. That place you visited, the nomosphere. I could not refuse that gift.”
Oh she was so cold. Ahasz had forgotten that, how she could make the temperature of a room plummet when she wished to. Ormuz clearly had no experience of it. He stepped back from her in horror.
“Is that all I meant to you?” he said, so quietly the duke barely heard him.
The Admiral did not reply.
Ahasz glanced across at Finesz, but she was gazing idly at the spines of the surviving books on the shelf beside her.
“Do not question me.” The Admiral crossed her arms tightly across her bosom.
Ahasz knew her well enough to realise she was hurting—at something—but Ormuz plainly did not.
The young man stared at her in silence for a minute or so. The duke watched the emotions at war on his face. He felt some small anger at the thought of Ormuz in the Admiral’s bed, of him occupying the place in her heart that was by rights his own. But to see the young man’s ideals so crudely dismissed, the young man’s emotions trampled upon, moved the duke to pity. Her years in the wilderness had hardened her yet further. She would do well on the Imperial Throne.
“If you’re wrong, Flavia, I will question you,” Ormuz said.
“It must be done.”
“Tell your father you were mistaken. Help him, there’s no need to overthrow him.”
“There is need, Casimir.” She looked away from him. “I have made my decision, I will not change it.”
“But it’s wrong!”
She turned back to him. “It is no longer your concern,” she spat. “You have served your part. I will hear no more from you, or must I have you arrested for arrogation?”
Ormuz stared at the Admiral, shocked. The Admiral’s will was not something lightly overcome, as Ahasz knew himself to his cost. Nor was the word “wrong” in her vocabulary.
Abruptly, Ormuz unbuckled his belt and dropped his sword at the Admiral’s feet. He turned on his heel and stormed across the room. At the doorway, he turned and looked back. From his expression, he plainly wanted the Admiral to change her mind, to apologise and call him back to her side; but she would not meet his gaze. Disgusted, he stepped out into the corridor.
Ahasz watched his clone leave with mixed feelings. He would have been dangerous, and Ahasz could understand why the Admiral had pushed him from her. Yet, having Ormuz close to her would have felt, in part, as though he were himself at her side.
No matter. The parts they had all played may have been rewritten during this final scene but the end result remained the same.
The duke crossed to Finesz and looked
down at her.
She must have sensed his presence. Still gazing at the book-shelves, she said: “Look at the books they have here. Some of them must be worth a fortune. And I’ll bet not one of them has been read.”
“Who would read them?” replied Ahasz, amused. “Willim?”
She looked at him. “I thought he was supposed to be a scholar of some sort.”
“Oh, he is. The worst kind of scholar: a narrow focus and an ignorance of everything outside it.”
“What’s his subject of study?”
“The reign of Emperor Mikul the Mad.”
“Oh.” Finesz looked away. She scanned the room and frowned. “Where’s Casimir?”
“He left. Flavia—the Admiral—and he had a falling out.”
The inspector rose to her feet. “I should go after him…”
Ahasz gestured dismissively. “Let him go. He’ll be back.”
“Perhaps not. He has principles, you know.” She looked down at herself. “Dear Lords, look at me.” She began to slap one-handedly at her legs and hips to remove the dust she’d picked up from the chair. With each impact of her palm, a small white cloud exploded from the black cloth of her uniform.
“You seem remarkably unconcerned at Flavia’s seizure of the Throne,” Ahasz remarked.
Finesz looked up at him from her bent-over posture. “And we went to war to prevent you doing just that. Ironic, isn’t it?” She straightened, grimaced at her hand, which was now pale with dust, and then wiped it several times with her other palm. “Quite frankly, your grace, I’ve given up. As far as I can tell, all this squabbling has had very little effect on anyone outside the Household District. At least the Admiral is actually in the line of succession. And —” She leaned in close and adopted a conspiratorial whisper— “I’ve met Prince Hubret and he’s, well… I think many won’t be upset he’s been passed over for the Throne.”
“In other words, a coup among the Imperial Family is acceptable.”
“Ah. No. Not when you put it like that. I mean, there are laws governing this sort of thing.”
