Guns of the Temple (The Polaris Chronicles Book 1)

by Choi, Bryan

  “Bless the Trinity! At least I still have loyal subjects,” Niketas growled. “Constantin! You’re the only one who’ll tell me the truth. What is really going on in the north? I want to hear it from your mouth, not the rasping, sucking orifices of these leeches!”

  “Your Grace.” Constantin exhaled, steeling himself. “We have taken significant setbacks in most of the realm. However, we are working on-”

  “Did you take Kosovo back?”

  “No, Your Grace.”

  “And Macedon?”

  “The baron has turned traitor and sold his allegiance to the Imperium.”

  “And the Imperial army? Where does it camp now?”

  “North, in Thessaloniki. If they succeed in pushing past the Hot Gates, Athenaeum will fall within a month.”

  “Do you see what I mean?” the basileus shouted to the diacheiristes around him. “Of all of you, why is it that the mutant tells me the truth and you all don’t?”

  If Constantin bristled at the label of mutant, he did not show it. Neither did Hecaton. The others remained silent, some cowed, some simply distracted.

  “And that’s why I called him here today,” the basileus continued. “Because I won’t let my nation be overrun by shit-monsters and heretics! Make note, Logothete! Constantin is the final member of the diacheiristes, and now that we are all assembled, I am invoking the final protocol of the Argead Dominion.”

  “My word,” exclaimed one of the circle. “You want to open the Trident chamber?”

  The basileus nodded. “We Palaiologoi are not the kings of the Dominion for nothing. We carry the divine mandate to rule, and the sign of God’s decree to us on earth is that He left us His Hand! And I plan to use it to slap the shit out of the Imperium when they come knocking.”

  “Your Grace!” Constantin started to sweat. “The God Hand is a sacred relic! Any who use it stand to be destroyed themselves!”

  “Not if I’m far enough away, and the Hand reaches far indeed. Constantin, your army will hold the Imperial dogs at the Hot Gates, and while they’re bottled up there, I will have your best squad use the Behelit to guide the Hand and vaporize them all. This is my decree. I have followed the protocol laid out by the founders.”

  At this point, the metropolitan of the realm stood fuming behind his great, snowy beard.

  “Your Grace. As holder of the Apostle Paul, and guardian of the protocol of Exo, I cannot allow this to happen. Even if the gates may be overrun and our bodies put to the sword, we must not stain our souls by releasing the Hand on this world as our forefathers foolishly did! Hellfire will rain for centuries on our own soil!”

  “So you show your true colors after all, priest,” the basileus growled. “Praetorians, arrest him! And confiscate the apostle!”

  “Niketas, my child! I beg you to see reason!” the metropolitan protested. The praetorians keeping vigil at the door marched toward the dark-robed priest. Halfway across, they raised their rifles at him. “You are being corrupted! It’s Gillette’s fault! She pours poison into your ears. I beg of you to listen! The basileus of the Dominion has the responsibility to keep the God Hand hidden away from the world. Do not forget that!”

  Two praetorians had the Metropolitan on his knees. One of them smashed the brass butt-end of his long Temple rifle against the old man’s nose and broke his face. Blood and teeth splattered on the starry mosaic on the floor. The other roughly pulled the folds of the priest’s robes away from a sunken chest and yanked at an object held on a chain around his neck. Taki raised an eyebrow as he saw just what the apostle Paul actually was: a small, dully-colored key.

  “Gillette is the only one of you who has remained truly loyal to me to the end. Who among you has used funds from your personal treasuries to sustain me? Who here contributes to the costs of my servants and my fuel? That’s right, none of you greedy parasites!” the basileus spat. “Take him away! Throw him in the dog pits!”

  “Your Grace! Please see reason! Do not be swayed by her money and the pleasures it brings. She plots against you. She will be your downfall!” The Metropolitan sputtered and grasped vainly at cracks in the floor as he was dragged out of the nave. A thin trail of blood served as a wake for his passing. The golden doors slammed shut and his voice was heard no more.

  “A truly regrettable turn of events. I urge you to show mercy to the poor, demented old man,” Amilia said, shaking her head sadly. “At the very least, spare him the horror of being torn apart by mastiffs.”

  “Don’t forget your place,” the basileus warned her. “I shall punish him how I please. That goes for the rest of you. Now, Constantin, my attendants shall deliver the Behelit to your forces.”

  “Your Grace,” Constantin said, bowing again. A quick look to Hecaton suggested that it was past time to start leaving, lest they be the next victims of their ruler’s rage. The golden doors of the templon opened to allow egress, and they wasted no time leaving.

  “We adjourn,” the basileus said with a tired wave of his hand. “Gillette, I will speak with you later.”

  Taki bowed deeply while the discontented inner circle slowly rose and started to file out of the nave. He could not help but be troubled inside. What exactly was this “God Hand” everyone was so concerned with? How could anything alone destroy the entire Imperial Liberation Army? Just keep your head down and listen, he chided himself. An opportunity will come up.

  Much later at night, Taki had laid out his master’s bedding, he set to work oiling the floors. He preferred to wear a loincloth alone while performing the task, and was about to disrobe before a knock sounded at the front door of the manse. He bounded down to the doors, opened the viewing slit, and saw Amilia staring back at him. Without needing to be prompted, he lifted the inner bar on the door and pulled it open to allow her to pass. She strode in and he knelt.

  “Natalis, where is our master?”

  “In the study, Minister. Let me announce your arrival to him.”

  “Do so, and be quick about it.”

  Taki rose to his feet and padded down the great hall and into the wing where the basileus sat, staring at a small cluster of glowing embers.

  “Your Grace, I apologize for letting the fire die down,” Taki said. “I shall retrieve more wood forthwith.”

  The basileus nodded.

  “Also, Minister Gillette has arrived. Shall I show her in?”

  The basileus nodded again.

  He’s been tormented like this for weeks, now. Taki noticed that the lines in the man’s face had grown deeper since they had first met. More defined, as if the Imperial invasion was truly hollowing him out from the inside. Taki strode out of the study and gave Amilia a bow.

  “In the study, Minister. I shall retrieve more firewood for you both,” he said.

  She grasped him by the hem of his sleeve before he could turn away.

  “Do you still have what it takes to make a just kingdom, Natalis?” she asked.

  Taki blinked. “Yes. I do. Whatever it takes.”

  “Then be prepared. Go get the firewood. The man loves to lose himself in thought. He would have been a good ruler if only he weren’t such a fool whenever he opened his mouth.”

  Taki bowed again and exited out of the door he had let Amilia through. Wood had run short recently, and as a measure of desperation Taki had taken it upon himself to lop down some of the ancient, dying trees in the palace courtyard and use their trunks to feed the basileus’s need for distraction and warmth. He strode over to the pile he had made, and hefted two split lengths, each about the size of a burly forearm. When he came back, he heard voices. He stopped, and sidled up against the archway into the study.

  “I made a mistake, Gillette,” the basileus said. “The old metropolitan, I shouldn’t have killed him. I shouldn’t have brought up the God Hand. What evil possessed me to desire its use? It’s too much sin for a man, or even a king, to bear.”

  “But, Your Grace, we had little choice. The Imperium is at the gates. We must act, or lose every
thing we have.”

  “The exarch was right. I’m going to be cursed forever if I use this.”

  “Your Grace, do you have it? The Behelit?”

  “Yes, on the table. I brought it out like you asked. But I’ve decided something in the meantime. I’ll have it destroyed. It’s fragile enough. When Natalis comes back, Amilia, we’ll end this nightmare. We’ll also go back to the Ooss and fill the trident chamber with sand. It’s an accursed place, anyway. Men die horribly if they spend too much time in there.”

  Amilia sucked her teeth. “Then we will certainly fall to the Imperium. Are you prepared to be subject to their rule? Their Way that says that you are a mere commoner and not a king?”

  “Yes, I am. Look at me. I’m pathetic. No wife, no heir, no companions. The padishah’s hands are at my throat. My beloved brother Gul is dead, and my sworn vassals abandon me daily. The Palaiologoi are finished. Perhaps it was God’s will, but I’ll never know.”

  Taki’s grip on the wood faltered and one of the sections clattered to the floor. He immediately swooped down to pick it up. He needed to at least make an effort to seem like he wasn’t eavesdropping. Amilia looked knowingly at him.

  “Ah, Natalis,” the basileus said with a smile of relief. It was the first time Taki had seen him with any other expression but a brooding or angry one. “Just in time. Put a fresh log on and then when the flames are high, cast that thing into the hearth.” He pointed at a palm-shaped, tube-shaped object sitting on the end-table next to his chair. Taki knelt and placed one of the logs into the embers.

  Amilia shook her head and rose.

  “Actually, Your Grace, Natalis will do nothing of the sort.”

  The basileus frowned.

  “Are you betraying me, Gillette?”

  “As you said, Your Grace, it is the end of the Palaiologoi. I intend to protect the Dominion, even if you do not. Remember the words of the first basileus: ‘Don’t give up the ship.’ Trust me, Niketas, I will see us a better tomorrow.”

  “How dare you?” The basileus clumsily reached into his robes and drew a nickel-plated derringer. He pointed the muzzle at Amilia’s chest.

  Taki swung the remaining log and it collided with the basileus’s forehead with a dull thunk. Niketas Palaiologos’s head snapped back into the chair and then rolled forward on limp neck muscles. The gun clattered to the floor. Dilated pupils in the man’s open eyes refused to shrink, and the bony contour of his chest remained still and without breath. The basileus of the Argead Dominion was dead and his line had ended.

  “Perfect timing, Natalis,” Amilia said. She rose from her seat and walked over to the end-table. “This is the Behelit, in case you were wondering.” The short, squat object seemed almost innocuous in her hand.

  Taki dropped the wood. He had forgotten his own strength. Forgotten that the basileus of the Dominion was still an ant in comparison to the lowest-ranked polaris, and was just as easily and thoughtlessly crushed. I didn’t mean to kill him. Taki stared at Niketas’s waxy pallor and fell to his knees. Or did I? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now. I’m a regicide. The lowest class of criminal. I should be drawn and quartered for this.

  “Don’t worry, I still have use for you,” Amilia said, as if reading his thoughts. “You won’t be outed for his murder. This is an old building and there are many hazards to explain a sudden blow to the head. His death will be kept secret for now, especially since I have the loyalty of most of the diacheiristes, save for that bothersome metropolitan. His death was a most convenient occurrence.”

  “What would you have me do?” Taki whispered. He still could not bring himself to look at the basileus. There was a difference between pledging to kill a king and actually doing so. Part of him wanted to be gutted alive, despite all of his earlier convictions, and even despite the memories of Kosovo.

  “I intend to use the God Hand in a negotiation with the Imperium. Right now, our position is weak because they mass at the Hot Gates, but an actual threat of detonation will shift the balance in my favor. The enemy will send his best soldiers to try to retrieve the Behelit, which you will carry into battle and deploy.”

  “Minister, I have little strength. If they send their elites…”

  “I don’t expect you to beat them, Natalis. When they find you, I want you to hand their commander this.”

  She took out a battered, palm-sized object covered in innumerable scratches and colored dull gray, and pressed it into Taki’s hand.

  “What is it?” he asked. It was solid, but felt slimy at the same time. Or perhaps it was just the sweat of his palm.

  “A starspeaker. One of the last two in the Dominion, possibly the world. I have the other. When the time is right, I will send a message to the heavens, and celestial bodies will relay those words to the one in your possession. But have a care, for its remaining life is very limited, so don’t use it without my permission. Do you understand?”

  Taki nodded. He realized, at this point, that he was being used, just as Niketas had been. But being useful was the key to staying alive.

  “Good,” she said. “I trust you will not object to being sent back to your temple, then. You have done all you can here, but rest assured, I will have further need of your services.”

  All I can? I’ve just killed the rightful lord of the realm. Oh God, did all of my seditious thought lead to this? Can I take it all back? Please!

  Amilia lightly tapped Taki on the cheek, as if reading his thoughts.

  “Change requires sacrifice. If your earlier words were not mere bluster, then you will understand the necessity of what happened today.”

  Taki knelt, feeling more drained than reverent.

  “By your leave,” he said, and started to scoot away from her. For a moment, Amilia’s expression softened.

  “Here,” she said, and handed Taki an en-bloc clip of .30-06 cartridges. His eyes widened at the amount. Just one of those could buy lodging for a month. Eight was blatant excess. “For the journey back to the Cloud Temple,” she continued.

  “This is too much, Minister.”

  She seemed to ignore his objection. “Tell me, Natalis. Is it true that your company recovered Karma Gillette alive?”

  “Yes, Minister.”

  She gently closed Taki’s fingers around the clip.

  “Then give a few of these to my son, in whatever fashion you choose.”

  Days later, Taki returned to the Temple. The starspeaker was secreted away over his heart, and though it was of little mass, it still felt like a lead weight yoked to his neck. Amilia had arranged to send the Behelit through separate channels, citing the risk of interception. Like his journey to the capital, Taki’s return to the Temple was conducted under the veil of secrecy and thus he endured the indignities of the open road. Though he carried more milligrad in his pockets than he had ever possessed, he had realized early on that to try to spend one of the large battle-rifle rounds would only arouse suspicion. He subsisted on stale jerky and wild-gathered herbs, and drank from the least-muddy pools of water he could find along the way. In the end, he was thirsty, hungry, and footsore when he finally set foot the exarch’s demesne.

  “You look tired,” Lotte said. Taki looked to her in surprise. Had she been waiting for him to arrive? She cracked a smile and rose from her seat on a decaying wooden pallet. She seemed thinner than she had before, and one side of her jaw bore the telltale signs of a healing bruise. Seeing this filled Taki with guilt and he wiped at moist eyes. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and drew him close.

  “Captain, I—” He wanted to tell her everything. That he was not only a traitor but a regicide to boot. That he had left her and the others to the stingy mercy of the triada while he had lived in luxury in the royal manse. She stifled him with a fierce hug, and held him like that for a while. They walked back to the kitchens in silence, and Taki found the urge to belt out his crimes to the world fading with every step. How foolish he had been to wish for a transfer. The capital was a lonesome place
of callous intrigue, suffused with solitude and fear. The Cloud Temple, on the other hand, was a miserable rock constantly beset by chill and rain, and its denizens little more than prisoners and thugs. But it was home.

  12

  “I never thought I’d live to actually see the end of a nation,” Draco said as he inspected the arsenal laid out before him. “But here it is. Living proof that we’re about to go tits up. I mean, why else would they let us put our filthy mitts all over this stuff?”

  Around the squad, racks of Temple Guns gleamed in the eerie flicker of prism-reflected torchlight. They were deep within the shrine, far past where even the sextons would go to access milligrad. Earlier, the neokoros on duty had reacted in aggravated disbelief when Lotte presented him with a signed missive from Amilia Gillette to authorize unrestricted access to the consecrated inner sanctuary. Even now the man periodically ducked in unannounced to “check on progress” and make sure the group wasn’t stuffing their pockets with spare parts to sell to other squads.

  “Speak for yourself. I don’t grope and fondle every gun in sight like a horny baboon. I only finger the pretty ones,” Hadassah said, marveling at the smooth lines of the new rifle she clutched like a newborn. The Springfield she held was a fabled piece of ordnance even in ancient times and was prized for its accuracy and ruggedness. Without the need to manually cycle a bolt like on her Nagant, it fired as fast as she could pull the trigger. If rumors were to be believed, the special sight attached to the gun was worth even more.

  “You know that thing’s worth more than your life, right?” Draco said. “If for some reason we win, you’ll have to return it.”

  “I’ll tell ‘em I lost it in a boating accident. I’ll even cry a little too. No one takes my arms.”

  “Then they’ll send you to the mines forever, and make your shark-toothed, beady-eyed, knuckle-dragging children work off your debt long after you’re dead.”

  Hadassah punched him in the arm. “My hideous children can beat up your hideous children any day of the week, including and especially on Shabbat.”