Howling Dark

by Christopher Ruocchio

  To my astonishment, the First Strategos of the Centaurine Primarchate and Duke of Andernach—one of the most powerful men in the Legions and in all the Empire—stretched out his hand to me and said, “Marlowe, isn’t it? A pleasure to meet you. First Strategos Titus Andrew-Louis Hauptmann, at your service.”

  I took his hand. “Hadrian Anaxander Marlowe, at yours.”

  “Anaxander?” The man raised one bushy eyebrow. “The devil sort of name is that?”

  I stifled an urge to say Precisely, replied instead with, “It means ‘leader of men.’”

  “Does it?” Hauptmann asked, glancing momentarily up at the taxidermy heads of creatures terranic and strange mounted to the black walls. “Does it indeed? Well, I suppose in your case then it is not inappropriate. Our Captain Lin tells us you performed admirably on that demoniac’s dreadnought. Slew that Pale chieftain your own self now, did you? Sit, please!” He gestured for me to take the gilt chair opposite his massive desk.

  I did so, trying not to show my reluctance. There was a piece of me that wanted to strangle this man, though I had never met him before. It had been his machinations that had doomed Prince Aranata and its people, his machinations that had cost Smythe and Crossflane their lives and the lives of so many good men and women. And yet I could not fault his strategy, the way he had played Lin and Smythe and myself, had played even the Cielcin prince and Kharn Sagara like pieces on a board . . . It was the sort of thing I might do myself, or consider doing in my darker moments. And it had worked. His machinations had rid the Empire of an entire Cielcin clan at a stroke, with maximum effect and minimal loss of Imperial personnel. The fleet, I understood, had sustained minimum damage in its surprise attack against the Bahali imnal Akura, while our desperate struggle to survive aboard the Demiurge had effectively decapitated the Cielcin leadership.

  It was—in the minds of the Legion and of Legion Intelligence—a perfect operation.

  Or nearly so.

  “Is it true their chieftain was close to negotiating some formal arrangement when our ships attacked? Lin’s reports to me aren’t quite clear in that department.” The strategos resumed his seat a little after I did, folding his hands on the rose quartz of the desktop.

  “Yes, I—” I broke off, hesitating. “The truth is, I’m not certain. Aeta Aranata had agreed to an exchange of what it called gifts, sir, but I’m not clear it understood the concept of an envoy.”

  Duke Titus frowned beneath his mustache. “It is a pity, I suppose. But what’s done is done.”

  I wanted to scream. This was the man who had led the assault on the Cielcin fleet, who had ordered Bassander Lin to kill Kharn Sagara and attempt to seize control of the Demiurge. What right had he to feel remorse? To second guess what he had done? Rage is blindness, I told myself, and tried to clench my useless left hand. The fingers twitched, bending weakly against my knee. “Respectfully, First Strategos. Why did you order Lin to interfere?”

  “Intelligence suggested an arrangement with the Cielcin was impossible.”

  “Only because no one had ever tried it before, Your Excellency.” My fingers ached, but had begun to curl in my lap beneath the strategos’s line of sight. The truth was that he may have been right. It may not have been possible to secure any sort of lasting arrangement with the Cielcin. One might as soon try to domesticate lions. There was no guarantee that our tenuous exchange of envoys—of hostages, really—meant much of anything, or heralded any change. I know that now, having seen much more of our enemy and learned. At the time, I could hardly keep my tongue in its sheath. I had been so long away from the Empire, so long among freeholders and Extrasolarians, that my polish had come off.

  The First Strategos arched thick brows. “You have a point, Marlowe, I’ll grant you. But tell me something. How long is it you’ve been at this business?” He touched a glass panel in his desk and slid a readout to one side as though sifting through leaflets. I saw a holograph of my face rotating there—a Legion Intelligence dossier, I guessed. “You left Emesh in ’171, is that right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hauptmann sucked on his bottom lip, made a hissing noise before saying, “Fifty-six years, is it? And how many conscious?”

  “About a dozen.”

  “About a dozen.” The older palatine drew back and folded his arms. He seemed to gain a century of wear and age in an instant, shifting from affable country squire to surly general, his whiskers from grandfatherly affectation to the fur of some predator. He reminded me a bit of Crossflane, but far more of my father. “Marlowe, I’ve been at this since I was a young man, almost since Cressgard. I remember standing in the assembly hall in the Ares Command School when old Titania Augusta announced first contact. That was almost four hundred years ago. Do you know how many systems we’ve lost to these . . . marauders since then? Hmm?”

  I remembered having a species of this conversation with Bassander Lin aboard the Pharaoh what seemed a lifetime ago, and so I merely braced myself for the figure when it came. “Nine hundred ninety-eight. Some sixty billion lives. Sixty billion. You’ll forgive me if I’m not patient with the enemy.” The shadow that hung over his face vanished with astonishing quickness, and he spoke lightly then, saying, “But this Aranata blighter, he’d done for more than a score himself, and you put him in the ground. The Empire’s grateful for that, son.”

  My new arm itched, but I dared not scratch it. I swallowed the lump in my throat instead, uncertain that I wanted the Empire’s gratitude. “I’d have liked to have brought you peace instead.” My voice was thin in my own hearing, tired and strained.

  “We have peace.” The shadow fell again on Hauptmann’s affable face and hooded his eyes. But there was no malice there, no hatred. Only tiredness, and I thought that here was a very old man, though his hair was more dark than white.

  Unable to help myself, I said, “You are confusing peace with quiet.”

  “Well,” the First Strategos said, “who can tell the difference anymore?” He rubbed his eyes with square fingers. “Gods of my fathers, but Lin warned me you were histrionic.”

  I felt a ghost of the old Marlowe smile return. Had I scored a point? Hauptmann looked away, up at the line of hunting trophies mounted high on the dark walls. I recognized the white lion, the rhinoceros, and the leopard seal. There were the massive, square-toothed jaws of an Athyrasene xanarth; and there were the three eyestalks—suspended on wire frames—of the Epidamnian megathere. And beside them?

  “Those are Cielcin heraldic spears,” I pointed, perhaps rudely. They looked akin to one Oalicomn had carried, complete with silver chimes and bangles beaded with lapis and jade.

  The strategos turned to look, a sure smile on his boot-leather face. “They are indeed. Salvage teams pulled them from the wreckage of those dirty great ships of theirs.”

  “May I?” I said, half-rising from my seat, the eager lord and schoolboy once more. The strategos made a gesture and I rose, crossing the carpeted floor to the space beside the red leather reclining chair where the spears were mounted parallel on the wall. Though each adhered to the same basic pattern, no two were quite alike. Each had the asymmetrical, broken-circle headpiece Oalicomn’s had, recalling for me the cruciforms of the adorator cult on my native Delos, or the Mah Mithra one sees on Jaddian flags, the crescent and star. The sigils that hung from the staffs all differed, showing the circular glyphs of the Cielcin Udaritanu, their letters that appeared so like the anaglyphs the Quiet had left in Calagah.

  “I’m hoping the lads will find Otiolo’s,” Hauptmann said, moving to stand beside me. “That will make another fine addition to the collection, won’t you say?”

  My eyes wandered across the collected trophies again. A piece of me—the oldest piece, and so in a sense the youngest—recoiled at the macabre collection, these mementos of enemies slain. But I reminded myself of the battle flags on the wall in the Mistral, and of the ring on my own
hand. They were not, as the naive or maleducated so often imagine, some fetish meant to stroke the ego of the conqueror . . . were rather monuments to the deceased and to the struggle victor and vanquished shared. They were not pleasant reminders, by design, but respectful ones.

  “Who was it said that our humanity begins with the respect we give the dead?” I asked, lightly touching one trailing bangle. As I spoke, my eyes trailed over the sideboard set against the wall beside the red leather chair. I’d expected to find the usual drink service there, or perhaps a holograph projector tied to his work desk. But there were only books. I reminded myself that Duke Titus would have had a scholiast for a tutor in his distant youth as well, and that I should not be surprised to see names like Impatian, Marcus Aurelius, and Musashi.

  “Orodes,” the strategos said.

  “That was it.” Twisting Aranata’s ring on my thumb, a touch self-conscious, I said, “You won’t find their standard in the wreckage—unless they had a spare—it was with the prince on the Demiurge when he died.”

  “Pity.” The older man seemed to deflate a bit as he said, “Though I understand you did for the prince yourself, and our man Lin says you were instrumental to the success aboard that Extrasolarian dreadnought.”

  Instrumental? I fidgeted with the unfamiliar ring again. It was loose on my too-small human hand. “I shouldn’t say that, Your Excellency. Doctor Onderra—our Tavrosi attaché, that is—it was she who came up with the notion to vent the Schiavona’s helium quench on the warp drive’s fuel containment system.”

  “Modest, too.” The strategos nodded approvingly, moving to resume his seat behind the baroque desk. “That was a clever blow with the quench coolant, to be sure, but Lin tells me it was your quick thinking that saved this Kharn Sagara’s life—was he really the Kharn Sagara? From the fairy stories?”

  Strong hand clasping the weak one, I bowed my head. “I believe he is, sir.” I did not try to explain that Kharn Sagara was now two persons. Or that one of them was a woman. Kharn’s process of reincarnation-regeneration and transformation violated at least two of the Chantry’s Twelve Abominations. Indeed, his cannibalization of his own clones might have called for the invention of a thirteenth. In any case, I deemed it wise to say as little on the subject as possible.

  “Good heavens”—Duke Titus shook his head—“thinking machines and clones and Kharn Sagara. What is the galaxy coming to? And you on top of everything else. You above all! I have some of your people swearing by the Mother that you died in the battle, Marlowe. Even my man Lin says you can’t be killed.”

  Your man Lin, I thought, struggling to keep all sign of bitterness from my face. Isn’t that the truth? I stopped fidgeting with the ring, distracted once more by the heraldic spears bracketed on the walls. I had prepared for this, and determined just what I should say. “It got close.” I patted my replacement arm. “The arm, you see. I’m not sure what Lin says, but he wasn’t there. I . . . it was a near thing, Your Excellency. I was very fortunate to make it out alive.”

  “In any event, it was your saving this Sagara that saved our forces aboard the Demiurge, Lin tells it. And you’re the first to kill a Cielcin War Prince hand-to-hand.” He laced his fingers together and dropped his hands on the tabletop. “I’ve sent my recommendation to the Imperial Office that you be granted a knighthood and granted the Order of Merit.”

  Had I been holding something, surely I would have dropped it.

  “The Order of Merit?” I stammered, genuinely shocked. I had not fought alone—and when I had I’d died. I’d as good as stabbed Aranata in the back, though I supposed no one had told him that. They’d only spoken in hushed whispers that Hadrian Marlowe could not be killed, and my legend had grown ahead of me. “A knighthood? Me, sir? Your Excellency?”

  “The thought pleases you?” said Lord Titus Andrew-Louis Hauptmann, First Strategos of the Centaurine Legions and Duke of Andernach. “You’ve earned it, son.”

  “I . . .” I did not know how to feel. A knighthood. Me. A knight, not just a soldier of the Empire. Hadrian. Sir Hadrian. I could imagine the look on my father’s face when the announcement came by courier or telegraph to the dusty halls of Devil’s Rest: that the prodigal son, cast away for his shortcomings, had received the Imperial Order of Merit at the personal request of a First Strategos in Centaurus. Father would have conniptions. For that reason alone—and the simple reason that all boys in the Empire dream of knighthood, and many girls, I’m told—I might have jumped for joy. And yet I could not shake my private fury. This man had ordered Lin to assassinate Kharn Sagara. This man had annihilated the Otiolo clan worldship and who knew how many million alien lives. This man had destroyed the tenuous hope of peace I’d striven toward, had destroyed my childhood’s dream.

  What was I supposed to say to such a man?

  What could I say?

  “Thank you, Your Excellency.”

  Duke Titus nodded, but raised a hand. “Don’t thank me yet, I haven’t told you Forum’s response to my request.” He watched me with hooded eyes a long moment, as if waiting to see if I would sweat. I didn’t. Unblinking, the old soldier swiped at his desktop, holograph after hologram cycling, staring through the glass. I realized that he expected me to say something, to ask just what exactly the Imperial Office on Forum had said about me. But I had an advantage: I had just spent several long months in the company of Kharn Sagara.

  I could wait.

  Presently the strategos made a tossing gesture above the surface of his desk, conjuring by that motion a holograph depicting the twelve-rayed Sollan Imperial sunburst that hovered in the air. I could still see Titus Hauptmann through its image, watching me for some reaction. I could just make out the security fractals embedded in the image, layer upon layer embedded beneath the surface image, proof of its authenticity.

  The seal faded, and a familiar figure appeared.

  My heart stopped.

  It was no servant, no logothete or grand secretary, no high minister.

  His Imperial Radiance, the Emperor William XXIII of the House Avent, Firstborn Son of the Earth; Guardian of the Solar System; King of Avalon; Lord Sovereign of the Kingdom of Windsor-in-Exile; Prince Imperator of the Arms of Orion, of Sagittarius, of Perseus, and Centaurus; Primarch of Orion; Conqueror of Norma; Grand Strategos of the Legions of the Sun; Supreme Lord of the Cities of Forum; North Star of the Constellations of the Blood Palatine; Defender of the Children of Men; and Servant of the Servants of Earth stood before me.

  His echo, at any rate.

  Caesar’s face was impassive as any pharaoh’s. Appropriate, I thought, for one who seemed chiseled of marble. The Lord Sovereign of the Kingdom of Windsor-in-Exile towered over me—though whether that was accurate or only a deceit of the projection I did not then know. He was dressed in the finest courtly style: velvets and silks of the most vibrant vermillion, his high collar and the plackets of his coat chased with gold. A single, massive ruby shone in the center of the starburst pin that held his white cravat, and its larger cousin—large almost as my eye—secured the fibula of the white-on-white patterned half-toga, draped in such a way as left both arms free.

  His hair was as red as his clothing, and cut in a fashion not at all unlike that which Duke Titus wore, combed neatly to one side and held there with oil, though his sideburns were shorter and thinner than the Duke’s. How many times had I seen that aquiline profile, nobler than that of any of the statues in my family’s necropolis? Ten thousand times? A million? In His Radiance they said the likeness of old King William of Avalon lived again, though perhaps they said that of all who sat the Solar Throne—and perhaps it was true.

  He kept one hand on the jeweled hilt of a saber as he spoke, saying: “Exalted kinsman, Hadrian, son of Alistair of Marlowe: we greet you.”

  It was only a projection, but the impulse to kneel screamed through me. I knew it was expected of me, knew it was the proper thing to do,
yet still I lingered a moment, only a moment—the space of two heartbeats—before I did. Long enough to note the eyes of the strategos on me, long enough to note that he noted my hesitation. If he marked it, or had some private theory with regards to the meaning of my actions, he did not show it. For my part, I think it only shock. Or perhaps my time among the Extras had put more oak in me than I thought, so that such bending did not come without difficulty.

  I went to one knee as the recording continued. “Our strategos has shared with us the news of your victory against the Cielcin. We are most pleased. Your actions in the face of our enemies are in keeping with the highest traditions of service. In light of which and in keeping with the recommendations of our First Strategos, we have determined to award you with our Order of Merit, and to elevate you to the position of knight.” It was real, then. Despite the conflict in my emotions, hearing the words from the Emperor’s own mouth, recorded though they were, moved me in ways I could not explain or have expected. My stomach clenched, eyes watered. But His Radiance was not finished. “Moreover, in light of the extraordinary conditions of your service, we have seen fit that you shall be inducted into the ranks of our Royal Victorian Knights. We request and require that you attend upon our imperial person at Forum. My Legions will see to it you are given a ship. Come at once.” And with that, the image of the North Star of the Constellations of the Blood Palatine vanished, leaving Duke Titus to watch me.

  Silence again. One of the deepest and the most profound silences I have ever heard.

  “Do you have any idea what sort of honor this is, Marlowe?” the Duke said.

  The Royal Victorian Knights. I nodded mutely. The order had been constituted in the Golden Age, when the Emperors of Man yet ruled but a portion of the Earth herself. They were servants of the Imperial family. Personal servants, bound not to the Imperial Office, but to House Avent in its capacity as the Kings of Avalon. In all the Empire, there were fewer than a thousand such men and women, many of them cousins or children of the Emperor himself. Even the First Strategos seated there before me was not accorded that particular honor, though the honors were piled high upon his name.