by Choi, Bryan
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Swords of the Imperium
1
Hadassah Mikkelsen licked the flat of her knife and smiled sweetly. “He’s being difficult. Let’s cut off his head, take his key, and open the chest already.”
“I don’t want to hang for fragging an officer,” Draco Emreis said. He unwound a length of hempen rope from around his fists and drew it tight. “If we all rush him at once, we can hog-tie him instead. Besides, who’s to say the key’s actually on him? What if he hid it somewhere?”
Karma Gillette smacked the wide end of a leather-wrapped cudgel against his palm. “I bet he shoved it up his rear. It’s like a hidden compartment for men.”
“I’m definitely not checking that,” Hadassah said.
“I’m in command,” Captain Lotte Satou said. “I’ll check.”
Draco looked surprised. “Captain? You sure?”
Lotte nodded grimly and spat into her right hand. “Mikkelsen, hold him down. He’ll feel more comfortable if women do the deed.”
Taki Natalis clenched his jaw as he swept his squad with the muzzle of his pistol. With his promotion to cornet came the privilege of carrying a side arm within the Temple. The Herstal he had been given was a third-rate castoff pockmarked by rust, but it worked. Taki was grateful to have the weapon, especially while backed into a corner and facing unspeakable acts. The only problem was that he only had a single dirty round to his name. “For the last time,” he said, “I’m not holding out on any of you! We are out of bullets. That is why you haven’t been paid.”
“Then go to the shrine and get more!” Draco flipped his hair in indignation. “I’ll hold your hand if you’re scared of being robbed.”
“You think I haven’t checked? There’s no more 'grad in our coffers. Hecaton Mezeta’s the one who fills our stores. She’s been missing for a fortnight!”
“Don’t we have savings?” Hadassah said. “Just give us our friggin’ pay! I thought we were friends! Why do you have to be so mean?”
“I’m not being mean!” Taki replied. “And you’re the one who wants to cut my head off or rape me or both!”
Hadassah sniffled and wiped at her nose.
Taki rolled his eyes. “Don’t you dare!”
Karma shook his head. “Are you really making a girl cry?”
“Don’t you feel bad about yourself, Natalis?” Draco asked.
For a moment, Taki considered shooting himself and trying to bleed all over everyone before he died. Hopefully, he’d make Hadassah throw up and Draco slip and break a rib. He wasn’t Lotte—he couldn’t simply beat them all to death—so suicide was the only alternative. He raked his fingernails against his scalp. “Oh, fine! This will definitely get me knouted, but fuck it. I’ll open the box and show you all, if you stop trying to murder me.”
“But I wanted to check!” Lotte said. Her fingers gleamed stickily in the torchlight.
Taki ignored her and holstered his gun. He knelt down, grasped the brass handle of a worn wooden chest, and dragged the chest over the stones until it was in full view of his squad. Then he reached into his leggings, grimaced, and produced a tarnished old key.
Hadassah gasped. “Was that in…in your bung?”
Taki shot her a vitriolic glare and turned the key. Slowly, he opened the lid.
“Damnation.” Draco tossed his rope away.
“You all owe me an apology!” Taki’s voice cracked, but his scowl held firm. The balding felt interior of the chest was completely bare. He slammed the lid shut. “I can’t believe you all tried to brutalize me! You know I can’t show you lot what’s inside!”
“All right, we’re sorry!” Draco looked at the others. “Why am I the only one abasing myself here?”
Taki crossed his arms.
Draco flinched. “You want me to kowtow to you? I’ll do it, so long as you stop looking at me like that.”
“That’s enough,” Lotte said. “I’m very sorry, Natalis. I shouldn’t have let things get to this point. But the issue still stands! We need funds. We’re hungry.”
Taki sighed and sat back on the paybox. His expression softened, if only slightly. “Captain, you know the answer.”
“Right. I’ll sell Emreis to a cathouse.”
“No. We have to find and talk to Mezeta. Without her, we starve.”
Draco’s eyes widened. “Wait a second. Let’s not do anything rash! Leave her lordship out of this, aye? We can all get by for a bit longer. After all, these are blessed times. We’re no longer in the kitchens, and most of all, that woman’s gone and fucked off to God knows where! My virtue is a small price to pay for it. I’ll make a fine courtesan. You know how good I look in a dress. I’ll call myself…Dulcinea.”
“Draco’s delusions aside,” Karma said, “didn’t Mezeta vanish because of a promotion?”
“Yes, and it’s just like her,” Draco said. “She’s the opposite of human decency! An ungrateful hag! Her Grace the Basileus appoints Mezeta the exarch’s direct successor and what happens? The woman deserts!”
“Wait.” Hadassah chewed a nail. “You’re saying that being nice to Hecaton Mezeta makes her vanish? We’ve been going about this all wrong for years.”
“No, and I’ll tell you exactly why you’re wrong,” Draco said. “We’re just stupid barbarians to that woman. We’re not her loyal Polaris of the Temple. We’re just shit-flinging monkeys she uses to troll the higher-ups for the sake of her ego. And even after we singlehandedly repulsed the Imperial horde while flying her standard, her way of saying thanks is to neglect to pay us. If trying to screw her and trying to appease her yield the same result, then I’d rather keep plotting her death. If for nothing else, then for the sake of my dignity!”
Hadassah cuffed Draco’s cheek. “You’re turning purple. And did you really just call me what I think you called me?”
“If she’d only dubbed our squad ‘The Dung-Chucking Gorillas,’ we’d all have been spared blasphemy charges and wouldn’t have had to do nothing but peel potatoes for two whole years.”
“So you did call me a poo-toucher! I demand satisfaction!”
Taki winced at the memory of punishment duty. Hecaton Mezeta was the squad’s commander, but she acted more like its owner. She led in a style that was equally mean-spirited joke, blatant sedition, and part of a greater, if completely incomprehensible, plan. “Captain,” he said, and shot Lotte a warning glance. “Enough dithering. Tell us what to do before we all resort to cannibalism.”
Lotte groaned. “Do you have to always be so forthright?”
“Yes. I’m a commissioned officer of the Polaris of the Temple. Aren’t you?”
“More sass, and I’ll spank you.”
“Go ahead. You’ll all starve in the end, anyway.”
Lotte looked wounded for a moment. “Fine. I think I know where Mezeta is. Come with me?”
Taki glared at her. “Is that your order, milord Captain?”
“If you’re going to be that way, then yes,” she said. “It’s an order. Mikkelsen, come with us. Gillette and Emreis, go round up dinner. Here’s the last of my funds.” She took out her revolver, swung out the cylinder, and held out an unfired cartridge.
“Captain,” Karma said, “I mean no disrespect, but there’s a reason we’re so poor right now. We’ve been eating market meat and fresh eggs at every meal. If we just restricted ourselves to the mess hall once a day, we’d save—”
Lotte mashed the lead nose of the bullet against Karma’s forehead and twisted. “I’ll kill us all before I eat another potato.”
Karma shuddere
d, latched on to Draco’s arm, and dragged the man away.
“Captain,” Hadassah said, “did you have to be quite so flirty with the man? And are you sure old Hecaton hasn’t just abandoned us for real?”
Lotte shook her head. “I’m afraid not. There’s a stench coming from her quarters.”
“I’m not toting her body.” Hadassah crossed her arms and spat.
“It’s not corpse flowers,” Lotte said. “Now move along.”
Hecaton Kheiris Mezeta, formerly a major but now a lord principality of the Cloud Temple, had hung a cheery “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door of her office. The office was not only barred from within, but also protected by a retribution mandala. Taki discovered it when he attempted to force the door open with a shoulder check and ended up unceremoniously sprawled on the floor.
“Milord Principality!” Lotte shouted. “Open up! We know you’re in there.”
There was no response.
“You weren’t kidding about the smell,” Hadassah said. She scrunched her nose up at the smoky, cloying odor wafting out from the doorframe.
Taki groaned and slowly rose to his feet. He wiped away a thin stream of blood from his left nostril and reached out to cast a sutra. Before he could follow through, Hadassah kicked him in the back of a knee. He stumbled, lurched around, and pushed her. She riposted with an elbow to his gut, and the two wrestled.
“Out of my way,” Lotte ordered. She knelt with palms upturned in supplication and started to invoke a sutra. “The mind commands the body, and it obeys. I am become Walking Death. I eat the hearts of my enemies, wear their skins, and become cuter."
Hadassah looked up from her efforts to drive her thumbs into Taki’s nostrils. “Captain? What are you doing? We can’t—”
Lotte inhaled and let out a roar before she lurched face forward at the door. Light lanced out from the wood to reveal a previously hidden mandala that blurred and dissolved under the assault. The door buckled and shattered like plate glass struck by a juggernaut, and Lotte careened in before coming to a stop in the center of the office.
Someone cackled. “Om mani padme hum.”
Taki extricated himself from Hadassah’s leg lock and limped into the office after Lotte. When he saw what lay within, his face scrunched in horror.
Hecaton sat atop her desk, cross-legged, with the tops of her feet flush against her thighs. A circlet of desiccated clover blossoms rested loosely across her brow, and she wore a robe of dirty, sweat-yellowed linen with a wooden begging bowl balanced in her lap. Before her, melted stumps of candles pooled wax across the wood and over the edge to form a stringy, multicolored waterfall.
“Milord Principality,” Lotte said, out of breath, “I apologize for the intrusion and the door, but we were all concerned for you.”
Hecaton smiled magnanimously. “My child, are you ready to shave your head and become a nun?” she asked.
“No. What’s all this about?” She motioned with her head to the rest of the office. Stolen laundry lines crisscrossed above with deep-ochre-stained undergarments hung haphazardly in the fashion of prayer pennants. Books and scrolls were strewn around the floor unopened, their pages ripped from the bindings and spit-glued into lewd sculptures attached to the walls. Incomprehensible red squiggles danced across the walls, as if children had been given buckets of paint and promised protection from their parents’ wrath.
“An offering, first.” Hecaton pointed to a large, pewter spittoon overflowing with ash. A handful of fresh joss sticks pierced the gray mound. “I am a twice born, you know. I’m one who’s entered the stream. If you give up your worldly desires and meditate every day, you can too.”
Lotte looked at the other two. “Natalis, use your power.”
Taki hesitated.
“Well, go on,” Lotte said. “Eastern gods eat the smells.”
“You’re sure, Captain?”
“Don’t question her orders,” Hadassah snapped. “Just do what she says! Wanna fight again?”
Taki shook his head. He edged closer to the spittoon with his arm stretched out, as if trying to avoid contamination. He flicked his fingers at the end of a joss stick but shook so much that the summoned flames missed their target entirely. The stick glowed feebly after a few more tries.
Lotte sighed. “Milord, there’s your offering.”
Hecaton nodded sagely. “Now, all of you clap twice and keep your hands pressed together. Bow at the waist and hold for ten seconds. I won’t make you kowtow, since you’re nonbelievers.”
“Enough sacrilege!” Lotte said. “You answer us now. Why have you refused all contact, even from the exarch? What are you doing here? Have you fed Babu?”
Hearing his name, a rotund, tiger-striped tom half leapt, half pulled himself onto the desk next to Hecaton and let out a yowl. Hecaton shot an imperious glare at the tom, and he responded by flopping down in her lap. “The basileus has offended me greatly. So I will not see her cronies until she kowtows to me and retracts what she has done.” She scratched Babu’s ears, and he nibbled the folds of her robes.
Lotte frowned. “You are a principality of the Temple. You are the next in line to guide the flock, and you lord over even the Agia Triada. How in the hell does that displease you?”
“I didn’t want it. I just wanted an egg—”
“Whether you wanted it or not is irrelevant. Besides, an increase in rank means more pay, more prestige.” Lotte stepped forward around the repurposed urn and put her forehead to Hecaton’s. “It means Her Grace wanted to reward you.”
Hecaton merely licked the tip of Lotte’s nose in repose. “That tastes like a lie!”
Lotte planted her hands on her hips. “Are you done playing dress-up? Can we move on?”
“You’re insulting my people.”
Hadassah waved. “Isn’t a promotion just the kind of thing you want, though? You know, to be in control so you can piss around with people’s lives and such?”
“All I wanted in life was to bake bread,” Hecaton said. “My father and brother were bakers, you know. They were making scallion dumplings the day I went to the bihara. And now…I don’t remember how they tasted!”
“Scallion dumplings are easy,” Hadassah said. “I’ll even be cute and teach you how. Does that make you happy?”
“No! They’re made in a specific way, and none of you barbarians could possibly appreciate their refinement.”
Lotte jabbed a finger at Hecaton’s nose. “You’re being rude.”
Hecaton clasped Lotte’s finger in her hands and peered at the tip while sucking her teeth. “Lieselotte, child, listen to me. I’m sorry, but you have leprosy.”
“No one has leprosy!” Lotte snapped her hand back. “Now, with all due respect, shut the hell up and listen to me! You’re acting like a godrotting child! If you’re so unhappy with Her Grace’s esteem, you can just leave! No one’s keeping you here against your will. Go ahead and resign right now so we can get paid!”
Hecaton blinked. “But I don’t want to. I like being around you dumb kids. Sometimes I think of you as my own.”
“If you truly think that about us, milord Principality, then please respect our need to eat. Or else we’ll all starve and possibly die.”
“You can always eat the exarch. He’s very fat and doesn’t run fast.”
Taki saw something wild cross his captain’s face, and bile surged up his throat. “Beg pardon!” He stepped between the two women but avoided touching either. “If the basileus offended you, why don’t you send a letter to her? Or even better, you can go visit Her Grace!”
Hecaton grinned and leapt from her perch to twirl around. “A splendid idea, my little regicide! We’re off to see the basileus, the wonderful basil of Oz! And if she doesn’t do what I want, I’ll shove this promotion up her ass!”
She kicked the spittoon over and took Taki by the hips to whirl around in a clumsy, parodic waltz. Tears formed in Taki’s eyes, and a thought crossed his mind: It’d have been better to starve.
“It’s decided,” Lotte said. She shook her head. “Accompany the principality to Athenaeum.”
Hecaton grinned and pirouetted while Taki scurried away. “Yes, come with me, my loyal onions, minions, or whatever you are! Company, to arms! And let us bask in obscene incandescence!” she said as she skipped airily out the door and left her choking subordinates in a cloud of ash.
“Wait, Captain,” Hadassah said. “If we don’t go with her, maybe she’ll get lost and die in a ditch. After all, she’s gone raving mad. We shouldn’t squander this opportunity to be rid of her!”
Lotte cuffed the redhead gently across the cheek. “Idiot, this is a lucid moment for our tyrant. Now get your damned guns and off to the capital with you.”
Taki chanced a breath through his nostrils and immediately wished he hadn’t. Effluvium coursed slowly down channels on either side of the boulevard he walked down and sent up an indescribable odor that cut his senses like a rusty shiv. Greenish-brown, the oily shit backed up everywhere and simply pooled on the cobblestones, making him step gingerly to avoid splashing it on his leggings.
The Argead Dominion, to which all Polaris of the Temple pledged their lives, was now a country only in name. A month earlier, the Osterbrand Imperium had overrun the borders in a sudden, brutal conquest. The surviving peerage of the Dominion now numbered less than a dozen, having been slaughtered in battle or hanged in front of their keeps. The assassination of the childless Basileus Niketas Palaiologos had further destabilized the faltering nation, and his successor had been forced to offer terms despite an improbable Dominion victory at the capital’s doorstep.
Because of that narrow win, Athenaeum had been spared a siege and thus was exactly the same as Taki remembered it: the smell of human waste intermingled with roasting harspud. Hecaton traipsed gaily ahead, still clad in her sweaty prayer robes, which dragged on the cobbles and smeared dust and filth in her wake. Taki shook his head at the sight and glanced at Hadassah, who was busy play-acting as a tourist and seemed indifferent to the smell.
