by Dan Abnett
‘I have this, bitch,’ Tchaikov replied, and executed a flourish with the blade.
Holding her shivered sword up in her right hand, Kara beckoned with the fingers of her left.
‘Then let’s go,’ she said.
‘Well, this is unexpectedly annoying,’ Carl Thonius said.
‘What is?’ I asked.
‘This,’ he said, indicating the engraved glass cube sitting on the top of an otherwise plain burrwood desk in Tchaikov’s private quarters.
‘Oh, good,’ I replied. ‘For a moment I thought you were still banging on about the slight tear in your furnzi mantle.’
He looked wounded, and glanced sadly at the pulled threads on the hem of his expensive, fur-lined cape. He’d caught it on a doorpost coming in.
‘Well, that is a dreadful crime. I love this mantle so. But I had put it out of my mind and moved on to other things. How shallow do you think I am?’
‘Want me to answer that?’ I replied. ‘We’re raiding a premises, and you come dressed up for a gaudy night.’
Carl adored fine clothes, and prided himself on his turn-out. For this endeavour, where the rest of the team were wearing bodygloves and wire armour, he’d chosen the mantle, a silk blouse embroidered with silver thread, perskin pantaloons and little slippers of gold crepe.
‘You can talk,’ he said. ‘You got dressed up too.’
It was true. I had. I was waring Zeph Mathuin. My physical form was a considerable distance away, in Miserimus House, watched over by Wystan and Zael. My mind had possessed Mathuin’s body for the duration of the mission.
Waring is a skilful, strange activity. I am able to ware almost anyone, though the level of trauma for both me and the subject increases dramatically if they are unwilling. I hardly ever used Nayl, Kys or Carl this way, except in emergencies: it was too much like hard work. Kara was more pliant, though waring left her weary and strung out. For some reason, Zeph was the most usable candidate in my team. I could slip in and out of his mind with a minimum of pain. He never objected. It was one of the reasons he remained in my employ.
Waring gave me a physical presence I otherwise lacked, and the opportunity to empty the skills and talents of the subject directly. Zeph Mathiun was a tall and powerful man, an ex-bounty hunter like Nayl. His skin was dark, and his black hair tightly braided out down his back. His eyes were little unreadable coals of red-hard light. His left hand was a polished chrome augmetic tool. He was a mystery, his past a secret, a blank. Even from inside his mind, I knew little about him expect that which he was prepared to tell me. I never probed. Mathuin worked for me because he liked the work and he was good at it. He could keep his secrets; that was all that mattered.
Clothed in his flesh, I felt strong and vital. I felt the weight of his leather stormcoat hanging from his shoulders, I felt the solidity of the matt-black Bakkhaus laspistol in his right hand, I felt the beat of his heart as if it were my own.
‘What is it?’ I asked, gesturing with Mathuin’s hand at the cube.
‘Unless I’m mistaken – which I’m not – it’s a gullivat riddle box. Rare. Priceless, actually. It explains a lot.’
‘I’m glad. Now you explain a lot.’
Thonius shrugged. ‘It explains why we’re here. We were forced to mount this raid because I couldn’t hook in to Tchaikov’s data systems covertly from outside. Couldn’t get a line, not even the whiff of data heat. This is why. She doesn’t use a data system.’
‘Not at all?’
‘You see any cogitators? Any codifiers? Any data engines at all?’
He was right. The room was devoid of any computation devices. There wasn’t even any electrical wiring, no ports, no vox links, nothing. Tchaikov ran her entire operation on paper, the old-fashioned way. There was nothing that could be hacked or broken into.
‘She’s from Punzel. They pride themselves on mental rigour there, the old ways. Didn’t you see the abacus frames the warehouse stackers were using as we came in?’
I had.
‘Plus, of course, the records suggest Tchaikov was Cognitae-trained. The Cognitae use machines as little as possible, preferring to trust their own minds.’
‘Indeed.’
‘We could take her paper files – if we had a bulk lifter – and check through them, but I can tell you now, they’d only be legit accounts and manifests. Her secrets are in here. Stored in a non-electronic format.’
I raised Zeph’s pistol and head shot a moody hammer who had run into the chamber behind Carl.
Carl flinched. ‘Throne! Some warning, if you don’t mind!’
‘You mean like “Look out Carl, there’s a man behind you with a gun, oops too late, he’s shot you”? That kind of thing?’
‘Smart ass. You know about riddle boxes, don’t you?’
‘Not really.’
He stroked the edges of the glass cube gently. ‘They were made by the gullivat three thousand years ago, before they suffered their cultural backslide. The gullivat are now a proto-primitive race unable to fathom the mechanisms they created. They adored secrets and puzzles. Indeed, to this day, no one knows why their culture collapsed in the first place. The riddle boxes are artefacts. They come up for sale, once in a while. I doubt Tchaikov was rich enough to buy one. The cartel must have given her this to run their dealings.’
‘How does it work?’
‘It’s inert, a crystal cube within a crystal cube within a crystal cube, et cetera. There’s no way of knowing how many layers it has. Usually, they are built with anything from ten to seventeen layers. You see the figures carved into the sides?’
‘Yes?’
‘The riddle box must be turned, each layer in sequence, carefully rotated, until a final alignment is made. Then it opens. Inside, there will be a codex stone, the size of a small pebble, a perfect glass sphere onto which all Tchaikov’s secrets are etched in microscopic form.’
I glanced around. Outside, in a nearby hall, I could hear Nayl and Kys engaging fiercely with the last of Tchaikov’s household guards.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘It could be just a curio, an ornament.’
Carl shook his head. He pointed to a side table on which sat a complex instrument that looked like a microscope to me. ‘There’s the reader. You place the sphere in here, and study it via the scope. And look, here’s the etching needle mount that swings in when she wants to add new information.’
‘So we just break it open,’ I suggested.
‘It’s constructed to grind the sphere clean if the cubes are tampered with.’
‘I see. So why didn’t Mamzel Tchaikov take this vital piece of data storage with her?’
‘Because they’re not called riddle boxes for no reason,’ Carl said. ‘Unless you know the key, they’re utterly impossible to open.’
I was about to retort, but a las-round ripped across the chamber between us and hit the far wall, bringing down a silk hanging. Two house guards, both hammers of the K Bright clan, had burst in through the west door, weapons up. I started to turn, but Carl had already swung round, bringing up the Hecuter 6 Will Tallowhand had given him years before.
The 6 barked loudly, its fatnose rounds slamming both hammers back off their feet in showers of gore. Empty casings tinkled onto the marble floor. Carl walked over to the twitching bodies, and put a round through each one’s forehead.
Carl Thonius was famously unhappy around guns. In fact, he was all but allergic to combat and physical confrontation. He was a thinker – a near-genius thinker – not a doer, and that was partly what endeared him to me and made me choose him as my interrogator. Let Nayl and the others handle the bloodshed. Carl’s worth was his mind and all the skills that lay within it.
Indeed, he’d never fired his weapon in anger before that awful night on Flint, a year ago, and then only in desperation. Now he used it with the nerve and confidence of a seasoned gunslinger. I was impressed, and not a little unnerved.
‘You’ve been practising,’ I said.
&nbs
p; ‘Oh, you know…’ he replied, bashfully holstering the piece. ‘The cosmos moves on and all that. Besides, I was tired of you taking the piss all the time.’
‘Me?’
‘No, Mathuin.’
‘This box, Carl. Who has the key?’
He smiled. ‘My guess… Tchaikov and Tchaikov alone.’
+Kara. Whatever you do, don’t kill Tchaikov.+
‘Not actually a problem,’ Kara Swole replied, diving sideways in order to keep her head attached to her shoulders. Tchaikov’s vampiric blade raked sparks from the metal deck. ‘Any chance you could give this bitch the same advice, vis-a-vis me?’
+She’s wearing some sort of damper. I can’t get in. Sorry.+
‘I had to ask.’
Kara leapt up and around, and cycled with the shivered sword, but Tchaikov was there to deflect the strike – a ringing chime – and then plough under with a gut-stab.
The very tip of the power blade managed to slice into Kara’s midriff armour and draw blood before she managed to cartwheel clear.
Tasting blood, the vampire sword began to scream.
‘Soon,’ Tchaikov said, patting the sweating blade.
Kara landed stuck, feet wide, shivered sword horizontal at forehead height, left arm extended. Tchaikov turned her back and then came in again, sweeping up and low as she twisted. The blades met… once, twice, three times, four times, parry and redirect.
‘It’s tasted you now,’ Tchaikov spat. ‘This is over.’
Kara blocked two more strokes, then staggered back, gasping. She clutched her belly and stared in disbelief. Blood was leaving her body. It was leaving her body through the cut, tumbling in droplets through the air, the slow arc of red drizzle pulled towards Tchaikov’s blade.
Kara fell on her knees. Her blood was flying out of her now, like red streamers, flowing towards the thirsty sword, collecting like dew on the blade.
It was sucking her dry.
‘Throne!’ Kara gasped. ‘Help me…’
Patience Kys landed on the loading deck with a thump. Her kineblades orbited about her body like pilot fish around a shark. She blinked and they flew forward at Tchaikov… and then clattered to the deck, dead, a few metres from her. Tchaikov’s damper had cancelled out Kys’s telekinesis.
‘Oh gods!’ Kara cried, falling onto her side, trying to stop the blood from leaving her body with her hands.
Patience ran forward a few steps, but Tchaikov turned and aimed the point of the blade at her.
‘You’ll be next, witch,’ she warned.
‘No, I’ll be next,’ said Harlon Nayl. He staggered onto the dock through one of the inner gates, his bloody left arm limp at his side. His right hand raised and aimed his Tronsvasse Heavy.
Tchaikov turned to face him, Kara’s lifeblood drooling off her blade.
Nayl fired. Tchaikov swung the sword and deflected the shot so it ricocheted away across the warehouse and buried itself in a bale of fabric.
Nayl fired again, and again Tchaikov knocked the round aside in mid-air with her sword.
Nayl nodded, impressed. ‘A guy like me could grow to love a woman who can do that,’ he said.
Tchaikov bowed slightly in acknowledgement, and then readdressed, her sword upright in both hands, angled over her right shoulder.
Nayl raised his handgun again and slid his thumb across the selector lever.
‘How do you do on full auto?’ he asked.
The gun began to fire, roaring, one squeeze of the trigger unloading the full clip at auto-max. To her credit, Tchaikov parried the first three shots.
The fourth hit her in the left thigh, the fifth took off her right leg at the knee. She fell and the rest went wide.
The sword clattered to the deck, and then began to inch itself towards the pool of hot blood spreading from Tchaikov’s severed leg. It rattled itself into the pool and began to drink.
Tchaikov moaned, twitching.
Nayl holstered his weapon and walked over to her. He squeezed his gunshot left arm with his right hand and spattered blood onto the ground. The sword writhed and turned, scenting a fresh victim. It slithered towards Nayl.
He squeezed his wound harder and more blood spurted out. That was too much for the sword. It flew at him.
He side-stepped, and caught it by the hilt as it flew by. As soon as it was in his hand, he wrenched round violently and swung it down into the deck.
It took three, savage blows before the blade finally shattered. By then, the deck was deeply gouged. The blade wailed as it died.
Nayl threw the broken hilt away. He walked over to Tchaikov.
‘The key, please,’ he said.
‘Never!’ she hissed.
‘You’re bleeding out fast, mamzel,’ he noted.
‘Then I will die,’ she replied, her rapid breath wafting her molidiscu mask.
‘Doesn’t have to be that way,’ Nayl said.
‘What? Are you proposing to save me? Spare me? Get me to the medicaes?’
Nayl shook his head. He reloaded his handgun and aimed it at her right temple. ‘My offer is to make it quick. One brief instant of pain compared to a slow, lingering death.’
Tchaikov gasped. ‘You are a man of honour, sir. I thank you. The key is five-two-eight six-five.’
‘And thank you,’ Nayl said. He rose and began to walk away.
‘I gave you the key!’ Tchaikov cried. ‘Now do as you promised! Finish me!’
Nayl continued to walk.
‘All right! All right!’ Tchaikov called. ‘Five-eight-two six-five! That’s the key! The real key! I lied before, but that’s the real truth! Now kill me! End this pain! Please!’
Nayl kept walking. ‘Still going to check,’ he said.
Eight
Wystan Frauka heard the low warble of the detector alarm. He shot a look at Zael and put a finger to his lips, then he got up, took a chromed autosnub from his jacket pocket, and went over to the portable vox.
He pushed the set’s ‘active’ key.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s us. Screen down, pop the locks and let us in.’
Frauka turned to the portable console nearby which controlled the security screens Harlon had set up around Miserimus House and deactivated them. He also turned the auto-locks.
‘Clear,’ he said into the vox.
A minute or two later the five figures came tramping up the stairs. Zeph Mathuin led the way, followed by Thonius, who was carrying some kind of glass box.
‘How did it go?’ Frauka asked Mathuin, knowing full well that it wouldn’t be Mathuin who replied. Ravenor’s dormant chair sat in the corner of the room where Frauka had been keeping company through the evening with Zael.
‘Badly,’ said Ravenor in Mathuin’s voice. ‘We got what we needed, but it turned into a bloodbath.’
Zael had got to his feet, and was now staring wide-eyed at the returners. Nayl had a messy wound in the arm, and he was half-carrying Kara, who looked pale and ill.
‘This is beyond our basic medical ability,’ said Ravenor. ‘We’re going to need a physician. Someone who won’t ask questions.’
‘I’ll go find one,’ said Kys grimly.
‘I know where to find one,’ said Zael. They all looked at him. ‘I come from here, remember? I know a guy.’
‘Very well,’ said Kys to the boy. ‘You’re with me.’
They hurried out. Nayl took Kara to one of the bedrooms and made her comfortable.
‘Carl, get to work deciphering the contents of the box,’ Ravenor said. ‘Oh, and check on Skoh too, please.’
Thonius nodded and hurried away with his prize.
Ravenor sat Mathuin’s body down in a battered armchair.
‘Not a good night then?’ Frauka said.
‘Tchaikov’s security was on a hair trigger. The moment they thought something was wrong, they just went off. It was bloody. We ended up torching the place to cover our tracks.’
‘You burned it down?’ Frauka asked laconically, light
ing a lho-stick.
‘There were a lot of bodies,’ Ravenor said. ‘The longer it takes anyone to figure out what happened, the better. Tchaikov was a powerful underworld figure. From the mess we left, people will suspect she ran foul of a rival operation.’
Mathuin sighed. Ravenor had just released him. He blinked and looked up at Frauka.
‘Hey, Wyst,’ he said. He got to his feet. ‘I’m hungry,’ he muttered, and left the room.
The support chair hummed and swung around, prowling across the room towards Frauka.
‘So Nayl took a bullet?’ Frauka said. ‘What happened to the redhead?’
‘Some kind of warped blade.’
‘All in a night’s work.’
‘I suppose so. I’m going to check on her, then I’d better help Thonius unravel the data.’
‘Uh, before you go…’ Frauka began.
‘Yes, Wystan?’
‘While you were all gone, the boy seemed to get a bit edgy. So I stayed with him, just chatting, you know.’
‘Improving your people skills?’
‘Whatever,’ Frauka took a drag on his lho-stick. He seemed uncomfortable, as if not sure how to say something. ‘We talked about this and that, his past, growing up here. I think coming back to Eustis Majoris has woken up some memories. He was telling me about his granna, and his sister.’
‘Well, I’m glad he was able to confide in y–’
Frauka held up a hand and waved it gently. ‘No, it’s not that. Do you know what his name is?’
‘Of course,’ Ravenor replied. ‘It’s Zael Efferneti. One of the first things he told me.’
‘Yeah,’ said Frauka. ‘Efferneti. His father’s family name. But in our little chat tonight, it just slipped out that Zael’s ma and pa never actually applied for a marriage licence from the state.’
‘So he was born out of wedlock. So what?’
‘Well, just as a technicality, that would mean his surname should actually be his mother’s family name, not his father’s, the one he adopted. Right?’
‘Right. But it is just a technicality. Why do you think that’s important?’
