Reign of Stars

by Tim Pratt

  "I'm awake!" he called, pulling a sheet around himself. He felt sticky and disheveled, but it couldn't be helped. Zernebeth kept a tub in her workshop, complete with its own water tank so she could fill it at will, but being basically immune to cold, she never bothered to heat it, and he'd declined her offer of a dip in icy water when they were done.

  Skiver pushed open the door and strolled in. He had somehow acquired clothes that fit in better at court, with too-tight green breeches and a loosely flowing pale yellow shirt. Whenever Skiver wore anything other than black clothes suitable for an assassin it looked like he was wearing a disguise, but at least he was making an effort to blend in.

  "You missed breakfast," Skiver said. "Decent food, though a bit bland. Better than what we could've bought at the market last night. I wandered down to the kitchen and made a deal with the cook to sell some of my more exotic spices. She made me an appointment with the Sovereign's personal chef, too. Care to open up the black box for me? I need samples. I'm going to go see Malica shortly, too, see if she can help me move a little merchandise."

  Alaeron complied, then washed his face in the basin and dressed. Skiver emerged from his personal warehouse carrying cloth sacks slung over his shoulders and dangling from his hands; he looked like a man imitating a mule. "You could summon a slave to carry those for you," Alaeron said.

  Skiver sniffed. "I'm Andoren, Alaeron. I don't hold with slavery. I felt uncomfortable enough having them bring in a tub and hot water last night, and when one asked me if I wanted someone to ‘warm my bed' I very nearly lost my temper. I've bedded men in exchange for coin, now and again, but that's business, entered into freely by both parties—someone who'll be whipped or worse if they don't obey isn't my idea of a willing partner."

  "Peace." Alaeron held up his hands. "I wasn't saying you should sleep with the slaves, just that someone would be happy to do the carrying for you."

  "Happy? Ha. There are no happy slaves in Starfall, any more than there are honest men in my extended family. I'll do whatever I can do myself by myself, thanks. Be careful you don't go native, now. Being at the top of the heap here in Numeria could be pretty pleasant, if you don't think about all the people you're standing on top of."

  "I have no illusions about the nature of the League," Alaeron said, and that was true; he just didn't think about it much. Terrible situation, certainly, and if he'd been sitting in a taproom back in Almas and heard that the peasantry had risen up and deposed the Black Sovereign, he'd have cheered with everyone else at the spread of liberty and so on, but really, it was nothing to do with him.

  "Meet you back here before the big party?" Skiver said.

  "I think so. I've got some, ah, League business to take part in first, apparently."

  "I can't wait to meet this Zernebeth." Skiver went out the door, then poked his head back in from the hallway. "After all, any woman who can distract you from your research long enough to get into your pants must be quite something, eh?"

  Alaeron blushed ferociously as Skiver walked off, chuckling.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Alaeron had never attended a meeting of the Technic League council, the gatherings where captains squabbled for resources, made outrageous demands, and tried to find out what secrets their fellows were hiding without giving anything away themselves. The meeting room was in the basement of the main building of the League compound, in an egg-shaped room with silvery walls dominated by an immense table in the shape of a right triangle, which seemed to be made from the charred fin or wing of some otherworldly vehicle. Alaeron sat in a low chair against the wall, along with a handful of other people who weren't captains but had some sort of status that allowed them into the chamber—favored apprentices and lieutenants, no doubt.

  Zernebeth sat at one point of the triangular table, with ten captains arrayed around the other sides, presumably ordered in some significant if mysterious way. The gnome was there, fiddling with a device made of interlocking rings. Others included the man with the metal eyepatch; four Kellids—two men and two women—with shaved heads and silver jewelry in their ears, dressed in matching black cloaks, sitting close together on the long edge of the triangle; a bored-looking sorcerer who might have been Varisian, wearing star-patterned robes and making flames dance in the palms of his hands; an elaborately tattooed Shoanti waiting patiently with folded hands; a dwarf wearing immense red-tinted goggles and openly assembling what appeared to be a long gun from the factories of Alkenstar, but altered to incorporate Numerian relics; a birdlike brunette woman who wouldn't have attracted a second glance from Alaeron if she'd been sitting beside him at a café in Almas, sipping a cup of tea she'd apparently brought in with her; and a smirking Ulfen man with long blond hair and a perfectly trimmed beard, sitting at Zernebeth's right hand. They were a motley crew, demonstrating a diversity unusual for the nation, but that was the nature of the League: any arcanists with the strength and intelligence to brave the interior of the Mount and emerge with useful things were welcome in the League, until they ceased to be useful or successful.

  Zernebeth pounded on the table with a hammer of adamantine; the fact that the table's surface didn't break meant it was made of similar stuff. "We have a few items of business to discuss." She spoke Taldane, the common trade language of all the Inner Sea nations, rather than the Hallit most people in the country spoke, presumably as a nod toward the diversity of the gathering. "Lofan and his conspirators didn't survive their visit to the subbasement. It seems our artificial hearts still need a bit more work. Oh, well—lesson learned. If anyone else wants to kill me and steal my secrets, at least have the decency to be better at this business than I am, all right? Krastus has claimed Lofan's workshop, and my cohort agrees he should have it—he needs a place to keep the augmented animals he's been working on, and I like the idea of half-clockwork dogs shitting all over Lofan's precious Tian carpets. Elias, I know you want more prisoners, and I spoke to the Sovereign's Minister of Retribution about it in my role as liaison to the court, but things have been quiet lately among the people. You'll have to make arrangements with one of the other captains to take their share of the condemned—or else go out and subtly stir up some dissent among the populace, get some conspirators and revolutionaries arrested and handed over to us."

  She turned and gestured toward Alaeron. "This is an alchemist I've taken on as an assistant. I don't propose to give him membership in the League, but he has skills I need for a particular project, so no one kill him, all right? His face may be vaguely familiar to some of you—he's the one who killed Gannix, and left me for dead in Silver Mount."

  The dwarf laughed harshly. "And you're rewarding him?"

  "I'm giving him a chance to redeem himself. I'm sending him into the Battle of Falheart in the next day or two to follow up on a rumor I heard from some half-drunk shepherd. If he brings back something useful, I'll grant him amnesty. If not..."

  "It's a death sentence." The soft-spoken Ulfen looked at Alaeron and lifted an eyebrow. "You go willingly?"

  This was the first Alaeron had heard of going to the Battle of Falheart—site of some old conflict, a cursed place none dared to approach, though he didn't remember details—but he shrugged. "I was under a death sentence anyway. I've been hounded by assassins since I left this place. This arrangement, at least, gives me a chance to escape the shadow of my past crimes."

  The Ulfen grunted. "Killing a Technic League captain isn't a crime, necessarily, it's just politics—if I recall correctly, your real crime was stealing relics that belonged to the League."

  "And if he replaces them with something of greater value, I will argue strongly that he should be forgiven," Zernebeth said.

  "Still—" the Ulfen began. "Most irregular."

  "Do we care about irregularities, or about results?"

  "An excellent point." The Ulfen bowed his head. "Do continue."

  "Oh, thank you, your entirely unnecessary permission to speak is welcome." Several other captains, presumably Zernebeth's allies an
d cohort, chuckled. "I trust most of you plan to attend the Sovereign's revelries tonight? Apparently he's fond of this cousin, so we may as well show the flag—it costs us nothing, and the Sovereign is easier to deal with when he thinks he's being respected. Except you, Callis. It's up to you, of course, but you might prefer to stay home. You know the Sovereign finds gnomes disturbing."

  "Oh no," the gnome said, voice high-pitched and ethereal. "I won't get to eat spiced goat meat with a horde of barbarians, how sad."

  Zernebeth chuckled. "Indeed. It is very good goat meat, though—no extra heads or anything. It will be a party, so we might as well enjoy ourselves, as much as we're able. Any other business? No? Fine." She rose, flapping her hands impatiently, and the others sauntered out, talking among themselves, followed by their assistants.

  Soon only Alaeron and Zernebeth were left. "The Battle of Falheart, is it?"

  Zernebeth snorted. "Of course not. You think I'd tell them where I'm really sending you? They all knew I was lying, of course, but I've started two nesting rumors about other places I'm sending you. The first is the place I'm actually sending you, but that information will be so easily discovered that they'll dismiss it as an obvious fabrication, too, and when they dig a bit deeper, they'll think the truth is that I'm sending you to the Gorum Pots."

  "So where am I really going?"

  "Listen for the rumors and find out. Or wait two days. You're too unpracticed at deception and discretion for me to tell you that now, Alaeron. Can't trust you to keep your mouth shut. As I discovered last night. Though I didn't mind in that context." She touched his cheek, then ran one cool fingertip across his lower lip before dropping her hand. "Speaking of, maybe I'll let you come to my rooms after the revels tonight, so go easy on the wine." She turned away. "Char!" she shouted, and her incorporeal apprentice drifted through the wall. Interesting—the chamber wasn't skymetal, then, but something more mundane. Maybe silver.

  "Ma'am?" the incorporeal man said, paying no attention at all to Alaeron's presence.

  "Keep an eye on Bothvald, would you?"

  The apprentice opened his mouth, then shut it and nodded.

  "Looks like your servant wants to object." Alaeron regretted speaking even as he was doing so. He'd always been bad at keeping his observations to himself.

  "Yes, but Char is very loyal, so he didn't." Zernebeth sighed. "He wanted to point out that Bothvald—that's the blond one, by the way—was the captain who revealed Lofan's treachery to me. ‘Saved me from the adder nestled against my very breast,' to use Bothvald's own poetic turn of phrase—he's very loquacious for an Ulfen. Char thinks the man should thus be considered above suspicion. But Char realized I know that, and that I must therefore want Bothvald watched anyway, no doubt for my own sophisticated reasons. Correct?"

  "Correct." Char looked at Alaeron with an expression so blank it could only qualify as smugness.

  "And those sophisticated reasons are simply this: no one is above suspicion. Bothvald has proven his loyalty to me many times—he is first in my cohort—but he still bears watching. He wants to sit in my chair so badly I'm surprised he doesn't just settle himself into my lap. Speaking of, Alaeron, I have a few moments before my next meeting—care to help me pass the time?"

  The expression on Char's face was still almost entirely blank, but it was no longer even remotely smug.

  "With pleasure," Alaeron said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Experimental Interrogations

  Alaeron returned to his room feeling, if not refreshed, then at least very pleased with himself. The connecting door was open, so he strolled through in search of Skiver, but found only a slave busily stripping the bed. "Excuse me. Do you know where Skiver is?"

  The slave, who wore a copper collar marking him as fit for little more than emptying chamber pots, gave Alaeron a terrified look and shook his head, muttering in Hallit, something about League business.

  A cold ball of dread formed in Alaeron's stomach. He'd left Skiver alone here, in Starfall, even in the Technic League compound, without a second thought, because he was so used to the man's absolute confidence and his ability to lie, connive, outthink, or, if necessary, stab his way out of trouble. But Numeria was not civilized Almas, or even the entirely wild lands around the Ruins of Kho—it was a place with very specific rules, and they were rules Skiver didn't know. "Tell me what you know."

  The slave bowed his head as if anticipating a blow. "League. Business." He repeated.

  Alaeron took a step forward. "I am part of the League," he said, though it was stretching the truth to say so. "And so it is my business. Where is he?" The alchemist swallowed. "Where has he been taken?"

  "This one...this one cannot say..."

  "I have a magic box," Alaeron said. "Dug up from out of the ground. Perhaps you saw it, when you cleaned my room? A black cube, perhaps this big? I can open the box, and fold and unfold it until it becomes large—as large as a coffin. The League uses it to dispose of the corpses that are too devastated to be any use anymore. Anything that goes into the box disappears, forever. Would you like to go into the box? To see what's inside? Even I don't know that. I'm very curious."

  The slave sank down to his knees, shaking his head, and then whispered, "The subbasement. The last subbasement. Captain Bothvald took him."

  The laboratories. The ones where they did experiments on humans. Zernebeth had told him the very deepest basement was a special project, created at the Black Sovereign's direction to help root out treachery in the court. It was an experimental interrogation laboratory, where the most gifted torturers in the League or the Sovereign's employ used cutting-edge drugs and stress techniques (and actual cutting edges, because developing new techniques didn't necessarily mean throwing out the old ones) to get the truth out of people, or at least make them suffer mightily while they lied.

  "How long? When?"

  "Not long. Few moments. Captain said clean the room, he wouldn't be needing it anymore—"

  Alaeron turned away. "Zernebeth? Are you listening?" No answer. Alaeron teetered for a moment, torn between trying to chase down his mistress to have her intercede on Skiver's behalf and taking more direct action. He could race all the way back upstairs to her rooms, but what if the door was barred, or she wasn't there? Surely she had preparations to make for the revels. But he had precious little real authority, so if he charged into the basement—

  He had to charge into the basement. They could already be removing Skiver's eyelids or something. And if Alaeron didn't have real authority, he'd have to make do with fake authority—which was to say, terrible weapons.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Alaeron brazened his way past the first guards with arrogance and a sneer; not that it was all that hard—anyone who walked into the basement without a good reason to be there would probably end up regretting the decision anyway, so why keep him out? The basements were dank and quite terribly lit, and they smelled of harsh chemicals splashed over old blood, but he found his way to the iron trapdoor that led to the experimental interrogation level without much difficulty. The guards there were better armed and less friendly—people being taken through that trapdoor were probably the sort to resist mightily, since their lives could hardly get any worse. "Is Captain Bothvald still down there?" Alaeron snapped.

  "He is. Who are—"

  "I'm the new personal assistant to captain Zernebeth!" he said. "I have an important message for Bothvald about the prisoner he just brought in."

  The guards looked at one another and shrugged. Either Alaeron was telling the truth, in which case standing in his way would get them into trouble, or he was lying—in which case he'd be a liar in a dungeon with assorted torturers and a League captain, at which point he'd have worse problems than the guards could provide anyway. "Go on down." One of them knelt, unbarred the trapdoor, and lifted it open. Someone below sobbed and screamed, but it didn't sound much like Skiver. "They're in Room One."

  Alaeron gave them his haughtiest look and walked
down the stairs, resisting the desire to sprint. His hands strayed to his pockets, touching the vials there. He probably wouldn't be able to fight his way out of here alive, but he could do damage on his way down, and spare Skiver suffering. There were things worse than dying quickly.

  The subbasement was better lit than the upper levels of the underground labs, with alchemical lamps hanging from hooks at regular intervals along the stone corridor.

  "I'm a bloody guest here!" Skiver called from a room off to the left. "You can't—" he trailed off and fell silent, and Alaeron rushed to the door. Heavy wood, reinforced with metal at the edges. He pounded on it. "Open up in the name of Captain Zernebeth!"

  The door opened, and Bothvald stood there, his expression one of polite interest. He looked Alaeron up and down. "Zernebeth sent you, did she?"

  Alaeron wasn't about to let himself get distracted. He tried to shove past the Ulfen, but more or less bounced off; he might as well have tried to shoulder his way past a stone wall.

  "Where I'm from, laying hands on a man in that way could be considered an insult, or at least an unwarranted liberty, and could thus be cause for a duel." Bothvald didn't sound annoyed—more as if he were informing Alaeron of something he might find interesting. "I haven't dueled since I was so young I barely had hair anywhere other than my head, before the thirst for wisdom led me away from the raiding life and brought me here, to the League, my true family. And yet, I still remember how to duel. It's very simple. You stick a sword in the other man before he can stick one in you. I ask you again: you say Zernebeth sent you?"

  "You took my friend," Alaeron said, through clenched teeth.

  Bothvald's eyes widened in what seemed like genuine surprise. "That scuttling little fraud is a friend of yours?"