The Rifter's Covenant

by Sherwood Smith

  The meeting ranged over many other topics. It finally broke up as the diffusers high overhead dimmed into night, bringing dusk lapping against the dyplast dome. The Privy Councilors stood as the Panarch departed. Hesthar remained at her place as the others left, mulling over how much she would tell Srivashti and Torigan.

  She looked up. The artificial nightfall had turned the vast cliffs of the upcurving landscapes to either side into dark skies spangled with the faux constellations of various building and enclaves.

  Hesthar much preferred the night.

  Four hours later, as she moved from one crowded room to another aboard Srivashti’s fabulous yacht, she received a privacy from Stulafi Y’Talob. Half an hour after that, she saw Torigan’s massive frame in an adjacent corridor; together they rode the lift to another floor. Immediately the noise of the gambling party vanished into total silence.

  Felton stood outside the lift, waiting impassively. Torigan pushed past him without a glance, but Hesthar met his eyes, and seeing him nod fractionally, enjoyed a hot pang of triumph and anticipation.

  Srivashti awaited them in a spacious suite whose immediate attributes were comfortable wing chairs and expensive wood.

  “We should have at least half an hour before anyone misses us,” he said. “It should be enough time, but expedience—”

  Hesthar was not going to permit him to take control of the meeting by deciding who would speak and for how long. “Then let us begin,” she cut in smoothly, smiling at Torigan. She did not look at Srivashti except peripherally. His stillness indicated how angry he was. “Stulafi? Your affair?”

  Torigan gave her a brow-furrowed glance. “Preparations for the trial proceed apace. My counsel reports that the young man is in some physical distress. He seems to be resigned to his fate.”

  “A tacit admission of guilt, yes?” Hesthar said, smiling. “Visual proof is much more effective. I am glad you insisted on the public hearing.”

  Torigan shrugged. “Something to divert the crowd energies, that strange old ochlologist said. I don’t think Nyberg would have granted it but for that.” He frowned, and slurped at his drink. “I was initially surprised that the Rifter cook had the influence and credit to hire this Ixvan. He was evidently quite famous as a defense vocat in Ivory Sud.”

  “It was the Panarch, of course,” Srivashti said. “If only there were a way to find out what Ixvan knows!”

  “Tovr Ixvan won’t get anything through the DataNet that I don’t let him,” Hesthar said. “Since he first accessed it here on Ares I’ve had him chasing phantoms.”

  Torigan leaned back, licking his lips. “It doesn’t worry me,” he said smugly. “The fact that the Panarch was forced to permit this trial, but put a freeze on all other matters of jurisprudence external to Ares, seems to me to be evidence that he, at least, doesn’t know anything. And that ruling has been accepted widely as tacit acceptance of Kendrian’s guilt.”

  Hesthar tapped her diamond-pierced nails on the glossy table at her side. “Perhaps . . . but I would feel better if I controlled the Net completely.”

  Srivashti leaned forward, a quick frown contracting his brows. “You don’t?”

  “I was just coming to my report. As it is, I have been able to bias incoming data to play up the Rifter role in the war. By drawing attention to Kendrian’s Douloi origins, my Archetype and Ritual contacts tell me we can very effectively create and exploit a feeling of betrayal.” Neither of the others needed to know how far advanced that work really was. Thanks to Arret, her own ochlologist, she could trigger riots at any time now. But without Koestler, she lacked the manpower to properly exploit them.

  She swallowed her rage once again and smiled, drawing Torigan’s attention to the possibilities of her work. “The novosti have been doing an excellent job.”

  Torigan’s face eased a bit from its perpetual pout. “I’ve been using them to bring the Enkainion up again,” he said.

  Hesthar controlled her expression; peripherally she observed Srivashti’s narrowing of the eyes. He had to be as exasperated as she was at Torigan’s lack of subtlety. But then they had not brought him in for his skill at finessing.

  “Yes, we noted your interview on Ares 99. But, if you will honor me by considering it further, would it not be better just to let it echo against any lingering concerns over the Panarch’s role in that atrocity, since he appears to have surmounted that?”

  That fat fool Stulafi played the role of Crassus to perfection, she thought, hiding her contempt. The nullwit wouldn’t have known what she was talking about had she spoken aloud, but it was obvious who the weak member of this triumvirate was. Torigan thought in terms of striking and crushing. The power of data control manifested itself as sipping and swallowing, enfolding and smothering , cutting the victims off from reality by consuming and digesting, degrading their sources of knowledge. One person, or a million, it made no difference.

  Torigan deferred, his hands flat in the reservation-of-judgment mode. Irony—from that fool? She longed to dig her nails into his thick neck.

  “That’s all very well,” Srivashti said with a hint of impatience, then he turned his heavy-lidded gaze on Hesthar. “But the implication is that you are not in control.”

  “I am in as much control as I need to be,” she snapped. “However, under the pretext that there is too much work for one person, our new Panarch has seen fit to divide the position between myself and a Vice-Admiral Willsones, thus denying me untrammeled access to the deepest levels of the DataNet.” She sought to mollify Srivashti. He was still useful. “But what would really be helpful—if I may suggest—”

  Srivashti bowed, his face relaxing somewhat.

  “Find out what the crew members know.”

  Srivashti sighed. “Fierin did that, just after we arrived. Felton indicates she really thought she was subtle about it. If they had known anything, she would have been noising it all over.”

  Torigan snorted. “Or pretending to. She’s a pretty little thing, but witless. Quite witless. Even a child can figure out that if she did manage to get her brother cleared of the charges, she would lose everything to him.”

  Hesthar nodded his way. “Only a fool attempts to find anything from surreptitious whispers on a transtube pod. One needs time. And an atmosphere conducive to cooperation.”

  Torigan looked from one to the other, then grinned. “You mean drugs.”

  Hesthar shuttered her eyes to hide her overwhelming contempt.

  Srivashti said, “Never mind Fierin. She is gone—maybe dead.” He paused to give Torigan a narrow look, and Hesthar held her breath, thrilled with this unexpected wrinkle in events. Torigan could have had Fierin vlith-Kendrian killed, but she doubted he had the wit or the wherewithal to hide it.

  Srivashti went on. “I can’t get at Jesimar Kendrian, of course. Or the cook, or the drivetech. And I have to admit, the prospect of confronting the Dol’jharian tempath unmans me.”

  Hesthar laughed. “The youth is the obvious choice. Gossip says he’s half-crazy after inadvertently bonding with Kelly chemistry.” She made a moue of distaste. “But that might be to your advantage.”

  Srivashti bowed again, drank off his liquor, then rose to his feet and paced back and forth. “The rest of the meeting, Hesthar?”

  She gave a concise description of who was there and what was said, offering to boz the details to them. After that was done, Srivashti murmured, his yellowish gaze now turning Hesthar’s way, “If only I knew what happened to Fierin.”

  He dared to suspect her? A hot spurt of anger made it impossible for Hesthar to keep silent. “Whoever did it performed a favor for us all. She was a loose string, absolutely unnecessary; you should have disposed of her before you even arrived on Ares, and no one would have been the wiser.”

  “Sentiment is dangerous,” Torigan muttered, shaking his head. “Dangerous.”

  Srivashti’s fine mouth flattened in faint distaste, as Hesthar wondered how ‘dangerous’ it was to keep the fatuous cre
tin as part of their alliance. It was time for him to end a singularly worthless life, as soon as Kendrian was silenced.

  Srivashti said gently, “I couldn’t get rid of her, my dear Stulafi, and keep my connection with Vakianos. They knew I had taken her wardship, and unfortunately, she saw fit to retail our relationship to one of her cousins there. The connection would put me first in their suspicions, and I intend to annex Vakianos. Nothing will get in the way of that.” The quiet precision with which he spoke indicated how annoyed he was.

  Torigan flushed a dark purple. “You both think me a fool, but I am not the one who made the blunders placing us here right now.”

  Hesthar forced herself to relax, and she leaned forward to tap his hand. Stupid as he was, he could also be very troublesome. “You’re right, Stulafi. I apologize for my lapse. Attribute it to the stresses of the day. Perhaps we should return to the party and exert ourselves to enjoy the rest of the evening.”

  Srivashti bowed, his hand gesturing ironic agreement; she knew it was with her assessment, and not her words. “Let us, then.”

  Outwardly Hesthar maintained strict control, projecting serenity and calm, but as the evening wore on, her heart began to accelerate.

  The Consecrated One had summoned her. It was time for another dai-Ultschen. She knew it had to be on her behalf, to build her power.

  Her time had come at last.

  An hour later, the sharp scent of incense stung Hesthar’s nose. She breathed it in, anticipation tingling like fire along the nerves of her body.

  “Cleanse yourself,” came a voice from the darkness beyond the veil.

  Hesthar undid her jewels with quick fingers and flung her brocade gown onto a bench. Naked, she moved near the low brazier and walked counterspinwise around it, feeling the hot, dry smoke on her flesh.

  Wreaths of ghostly white drifted in her face. She caught up a tangled aranda frond from the pile next to the coals and waved the smoke toward herself, washing her body with incense.

  When she was cleansed, she slipped into the waiting black robe and tied the mask across her eyes. Ready, she parted the veil and knelt.

  “Who comes into the presence of the god?”

  “One who seeks death and rebirth.”

  “Whence come you?”

  “Away from the host of those who die once.”

  “Why do you come?”

  “That I may eat and be eaten, drink and be consumed.”

  “Enter, then.”

  She rose to her feet and lifted her eyes.

  All seven Third Circle Ultscheni on Ares stood there already, their identities masked. She bowed before the great altar. Above the thin stone slab, hanging without apparent support above the polished black floor, floated the ikon of the god, a circle of emptiness so profound that it pulled at one’s eyes. The light in the room touched it not. Hesthar knew how the illusion was produced, but it didn’t matter. This was but the semblance of the likeness of what they worshiped, which has had many names. Entropy is but one of Its faces.

  Suddenly the Consecrated One was there. Hesthar shivered with awe: this was one who, as a youth destined for death in the Opening, had spoken the unknown name of the god in ecstasy, marking him as the god’s own in life. That he might never risk that utterance again, the Circle of that day had burned out his speech centers. Then they had released him for the god to use. And Srivashti had found him.

  Hesthar shivered with acidic pleasure. Srivashti believed only in himself and thought nothing of the Ultschen. If he even knew. He would have no doubt of Felton’s loyalty if he did. But Felton was loyal to Nothing, that singularity which swallows all things in the end.

  At a gesture of command from Felton—alone, as the Consecrated One, unmasked—two of the Ultscheni left the sanctuary and returned with the Sacrifice, a powerfully built young man, robed in white and blindfolded with a red sash. They guided him before the Consecrated One, who leaned over and breathed delicately into his face. Hesthar could see the victim, still unaware of his fate, relax; she smelled the sweet, almost carrion tang of the seventh chord of the numathanat, that discipline of breath-borne poison of which Felton was a master.

  Then Felton took the collar of the young man’s robe and tore it asunder, ripping the garment from his body. Hesthar’s body tingled. The youth’s brown skin lay smooth and clear over powerful muscles. He stood with the grace of an athlete, even under the influence of the numathanat drug now coursing though his blood.

  A pang assailed her. The victim reminded her irresistibly of Swennis, her eldest son, brightest and most beautiful of her children, whom she had offered up for the selfsame Ritual of Opening so many years ago, bringing her to the Third Circle of Ultschen. She fought the feeling, burning it away with the remembered anger at his defiance of her, which had rendered him useless for any other purpose.

  Sentimentality was the greatest sin against the god.

  Entirely docile now, the young man suffered himself to be lifted onto the altar. Felton breathed upon the fingers of his left hand and touched the Sacrifice’s throat, taking up the knife with his right. From hidden sources swelled the sound of the god’s triumph, what some prescient ancient had called “the dismal universal hiss” that heralded the decay of Totality into the abyss that waited when Time ran down.

  The energy of its dissolution ran through Hesthar like a current of darkness; this was true Power, launching oneself into the future astride the irresistible arrow of Time, trampling over the fools who fought the flow of entropy, dissipating their powers in futile struggle. She surrendered to the praise of the god, feeling the random syllables rise from somewhere deep within, spitting them joyously at the altar as the Consecrated One opened the Gate. Time now ran confused as the god became manifest.

  The iron reek of blood filled the room as the seven shed their robes and crowded forward to anoint themselves while Felton filled a chalice with the hot liquid and breathed upon it. The red blood within turned black. Hesthar savored the bitter reek as she drank, for without it what followed would be not ecstasy, but painful death.

  A dry sibilance behind her announced the messengers of bliss. Hurriedly she anointed her seven chakra, reaching especially deep into the crevice of the second one. Then, not looking behind her, she backed away from the altar, bowed deeply, and lay down. She closed her eyes.

  The first touch of the serpents on her skin was chilly. She felt the cold feather touch of questing, forked tongues, delicately sampling the blood of the Opening. Then the chill transmuted abruptly into warmth at the first of the needle-sharp bites that announced their acceptance of her sacrifice.

  Her mind expanded as the venom and the antivenin of the numathanat-transformed blood warred within her. She saw the Panarch, Brandon hai-Arkad, kneeling before her, begging for the hand of her daughter, who was finally convinced of obedience by her long imprisonment.

  She felt a stronger presence and opened her eyes. Standing above her, Felton looked down at her, rampant, his long face split by a blood-tinged grin. He knelt between her legs, holding a messenger which he then carefully released, and she shrieked with mindless, helpless intoxication as the god entered her and swept her away in a wave of pleasure indistinguishable from pain.

  FLOWER OF LITH: BARCA ORBIT

  The starboard bay was chilly; the crisp air seemed to amplify the snapping of the static discharges as the shuttle eased through the lockfield in rainbow display.

  Norio was shocked at Hreem’s appearance, the more so when he sensed the captain’s curious emotional flatness. The big man’s face was haggard, and he walked with a slight stiffness, as though he’d been beaten. A large dyplast case gripped in his left hand slapped against his leg as he stepped out of the little ship.

  Hreem glared at the staring faces surrounding him. “What’re you narking at?” he snarled. His voice was as powerful as ever, echoing in the bay. But the affect behind them was forced, even subdued. Hreem’s emotions had always been far more violent than most men’s. What had t
he Barcans done to him?

  “You all right, Cap’n?” Erbee asked, his pimply, buck-toothed face worried.

  Hreem laughed. “You’d be walking like this, too, if you’d just bunnied nonstop for twelve hours. Those little trogs got some sextech you wouldn’t believe. And the Maters, they don’t seal a deal with a handshake!”

  The crew guffawed and Norio sensed Hreem relaxing fractionally.

  He relaxed, too. Perhaps the flatness was the result of extended passion. Norio sustained a surge of jealousy: he loathed being left out. Had Hreem encountered another tempath down there? There was no trace of that in his emotions.

  But Hreem never had a vid of the most hated man in his world burning to death, either. Wait until Hreem saw the show Norio had assembled to celebrate his success at obtaining the Ogres!

  Hreem strode to the lift and Norio followed him through the hatch. “News?” Hreem asked, but in a preoccupied voice.

  “Barrodagh has issued a call for tempaths.” And Norio waited for questions. Dissent. But all his carefully worked out explanations—teases about why he should go, the rewards, even—all so Hreem could argue against it were so much wasted effort.

  Hreem grunted with indifference. Norio flared hot with resentment, sensing that he could be leaving at that moment, and Hreem would not even notice.

  Norio probed with jealous urgency for the usual undercurrent of sexual tension that registered awareness of his presence. It was absent.

  “What should I send as answer to Barrodagh?” Norio asked, to break Hreem’s fixed stare.

  Hreem grunted. “Later.”

  To his surprise, Hreem tabbed the lift not to their quarters but to the engine room. Norio forbore to query him. Even a non-tempath would sense that he didn’t want to talk.

  He might as well be null for all he was getting from Hreem. Norio clenched his hands, loathing the vivid memory of the old Phanist Chenkrit at Glen Lleddyn on Desrien. You have chosen the path of entropy, to destroy instead of build. There will come a day when you will pray to be null, and there will be only one answer.