Iron Gold

by Pierce Brown

  “My century infiltrated Luna. But it wasn’t until we were pressing through the Citadel that I realized we were alone. No other century was on the grounds, let alone the moon. We’d been played as fools by the Ash Lord. By the Carthii. Our support did not answer on the coms, but the Ash Lord’s voice did speak. It was a prerecorded message….” He pauses, modulates his voice to a baritone rumble, “ ‘The seed of Valii-Rath will die with you and your brother. You will be forgotten. Lost to the stars. Farewell, Minotaur.’ I knew I was to die, so I made the effort to do so in glory by taking your head. I failed.” Apollonius shrugs. “But you knew much of this. You interrogated me, my men. So, again, I ask, why liberate me?”

  “Is it not obvious by now to your supreme intellect?” I ask. “There is only one thing you and I share. A common devil. I’ve pulled you from your prison to offer you the most precious thing I can offer a man like you: revenge.”

  “Revenge? Do tell.”

  “Like you, I seek the head of the Ash Lord. The difficulty is parting it from his body. In that, I require your assistance.”

  He’s suspicious. “I have no army, no weapons, nothing left to give but blood and bone. How can I benefit you, Darrow?”

  “It’s not what you have. It was what was stolen from you.” My smile is cold and hard. “Part of what I told you in the cell was true. The Ash Lord did not kill your brother. Tharsus is alive.”

  Apollonius is stunned. “How…”

  “You know the answer. You’ve wondered if it was possible. Tharsus sold your life for your title of paterfamilias of House Valii-Rath. For your monies. Your men. Your ships.”

  “I see.” The charm of the man vanishes. “If I agree to help you…what trust can there be between devils?”

  “This isn’t about trust. It’s about leverage. That bandage on the back of your head is from a particular procedure involving a cranial drill. There’s a quarter ounce of high-grade explosive embedded in your gray matter as well as a neural chip to stimulate your ocular nerve.” I activate the detonation timer on my datapad. Numerals appear on my datapad, but also in Apollonius’s vision, via Winkle’s biomod. A ten, then a nine, then an eight…“You have seven seconds to give me an answer. Yes or no.”

  Six. Sevro grins.

  Four. Apollonius stares blankly.

  Two. I back away from the glass.

  “Very well.” Apollonius smiles, though his anger has not abated. “I accept your proposal. But I have demands.”

  —

  Thirty minutes later, we watch Apollonius devour a two-kilogram steak in the Nessus’s officers’ dining room with the patience and manners of a well-bred crocodile. Each bite-sized piece is dipped into the jus and chewed laboriously before being washed down with a thick Bordeaux from our stores. When he has finished, he leaves several ounces of the steak unattended, as well as a thumb of the red wine, and has only a spoonful of the iced lemon dessert that he requested made for him by Tongueless. He leans back in his chair and blesses my lieutenants with an expansive smile as Alexandar takes his plate away. Apollonius levels his gaze at Alexandar.

  “You’re a pureblood-looking boy. What is your name?”

  “Alexandar.”

  Apollonius eyes him with interest and then gestures to Sevro and Colloway. “Does it not rankle you to serve such genetic inferiors, Alexandar?”

  “I’ve now seen sharks fly and lions bark.” Alexandar laughs. “A lecture over genes from a Valii-Rath.” He leans forward, Apollonius’s plate still in his hands. “It would have been a severe pleasure to see my grandfather educate you on the merit of your genes.”

  “And whom do you call kin, Alexandar?” Apollonius asks.

  “Lorn au Arcos.”

  “Well now! A griffin in the flesh.” Apollonius is impressed. “Blood of the Conquerors still in your veins makes you an endangered species. You must have been there when my baby brother was gutted by your grandfather on Europa. You would have been in the seed of youth. Eight, nine? Tell me, did the violence excite you?”

  “It educated me on how to kill Valii-Rath. In that, it proved most satisfactory.”

  “One could say we have a blood feud between us, young man.”

  “Please,” Alexandar says with another laugh. “I wouldn’t give your lowly house the dignity of my attention.” The insult finds its mark. Sevro shoos him out of the room with a fraternal slap on the backside.

  “Apollonius,” I say quietly. “If you insist on provoking my men, we will have a problem.”

  “Provocation is the nature of predators like us, Darrow.” He looks around. “But of course, where are my manners? Apologies for offending you.” He waves his hand to the walls. “This is not your moonBreaker. Nor a dreadnought or a destroyer. The officers’ mess is much too small. A torchShip perhaps? Smaller?”

  He’s a sharp one. “It’s a frigate. Xiphos-class.”

  “So they’re finally deployed. What a curious ship for a warlord, and custom tables…What a curious exodus from Deepgrave. If one didn’t know better, a sagacious intellect might suspect that something is foul in the state of the Republic.”

  “This is a black ops mission,” I say. The less he knows, the better. “The Morning Star is a little less than discreet.”

  “Indeed,” he says. “Now, I think it is time you tell me about my brother and what has befallen my house in my absence.”

  Sevro smiles. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

  “Your house is a shadow,” I say. “Your brother may have bought his life. But it was at a steep price. He is a political puppet. Your destroyers and torchShips have been given to your enemies, the Carthii of Venus. Your coffers have been drained into the Ash Lord’s own pockets. Many of your legions have been disbanded, the men conscripted to serve the Ash Lord. Your house is small yet again. Everything you built on the profit of war is gone….”

  “Except my name.” A great darkness has built in his eyes.

  “Give it a year,” Sevro says. “Men forget.”

  “How do you know all this?” Apollonius asks skeptically.

  “One of your family lawyers defected several years ago.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “Slipped in the shower,” Sevro says. “Our people found him in thirty-four pieces. Atalantia likes her assassins to make a statement.”

  Apollonius smiles pleasantly. “And what of my brother? Has he sat idle as the house of my mother and father was pillaged by that Lunese brute?”

  “The lawyer said Tharsus has given himself over to vice,” I say.

  “Oh, how typical of him.” He picks at his nails. “If my house has fallen to disgrace, what is my utility to you? In six years, I imagine the defenses for Venus have quite changed. I have neither information nor means.”

  “No. But your brother does.”

  I throw a holo of Venus into the air above the table. The verdant planet with two polar ice caps is ringed with metal and military ships. A great dark spot mars the center of one of Venus’s oceans. Starhall thinks that is where the Ash Lord resides, but his confidants are far more discreet than those of Valii-Rath.

  “This is the latest image of Venus from our spy telescopes,” I say. “Unlike Luna, she is self-sustaining. Farmland, teeming oceans, and vast mineworks. But the rigors of war are demanding. All production is geared toward the war effort. There is no trade. That means no ships in or out.”

  “There is trade from Mercury….”

  “No longer. Mercury’s skies are mine,” I say.

  Apollonius’s eyebrows float upward. “Indeed? Respect. How did you bypass the defense platforms?”

  “With an Iron Rain,” Sevro says.

  “What a price you must have paid. What a price.” He looks around the table. “Is that why you must risk life and limb for this desperate gambit, because you shattered your army?”

  I ignore him. “As you can see, there is an extreme military presence on Venus. The engines of this ship and the stealth capabilities could concei
vably run the blockade to escape Venus if we need to, but not to land there. We need you to help us land.”

  “As I said—”

  “Your brother may have tamed his spirit to survive. He may have bent a knee to the Ash Lord. But what is one thing that a brother Rath cannot tame?”

  Sevro looks at Apollonius’s plate. “His appetite.”

  “The rigors of war have forced even the wealthy to ration. But your brother has plunged himself into debt with his taste for blackmarket goods, and his appetite has not declined. Sevro…”

  He pulls up his datapad. “Ninety-nine boxes of Earth wine, two hundred bottles of baiji, two hundred bottles of brandy.” He grimaces and says in a small voice, “One hundred thirty-seven bottles of Earth whiskey. Four bottles from Mars.” I look back at him, noting the low count of Martian whiskey. Sevro remains assiduously looking down at his datapad. “Two hundred bottles of arrack. Two hundred bottles of schochu. Two thousand kilograms of beef, five hundred kilograms of lamb, four hundred snails, three kilograms of hummingbird tongues, three kilograms of caviar, and twenty imaginary Pinks of Quicksilver’s personal stock.”

  Slowly, Apollonius begins to clap.

  “Yes. Yes! Now, that is the Reaper I remember! Tharsus will not be able to resist. Avarice is his nature. He will have a broker beyond Venus, likely Bastion station. I suppose that destination may prove inconvenient.” I nod. “Then I will need a facial construct to alter my features and a com station with access to the main antenna array to contact the broker. But landing on Venus does not kill the Ash Lord. He lives in a fortress.”

  I point at the dark spot on the map. “Republic Intelligence’s working theory is that he hangs his crown in the darkzone. Can you confirm?”

  “There was talk of a cloaking device to absorb radio and lightwaves,” Apollonius says. “I see our engineers have made progress. That is the location of Gorgon Isle, his fortress. It is four hundred kilometers from my island. But you will need an army to breach his defenses.” He looks again at the narrow lines of the room. “And something tells me you have no army.”

  “But you still do,” I say. “The Ash Lord couldn’t have taken all of your men. And I wonder. What do you think will happen when we land on your island and your legionnaires see that Apollonius au Valii-Rath, the Mad Minotaur himself, has come home? He does not return as a prisoner of the Rising, but with a platoon of loyal commandos.”

  I take his Minotaur helm from a bag and slam it on a table.

  “I am not mad,” he growls.

  “The indomitable Minotaur,” Sevro tries.

  “Better.” He strokes his helm. “You would put me at the head of a legion?”

  “No,” Sevro says, dangling the bait Apollonius cannot resist. “Think bigger, Rath.”

  “A coup…” Apollonius says suspiciously.

  “Tharsus will give us the information we need, then your legion and my men will launch a joint attack on the Ash Lord’s fortress. When he dies, Carthii and the Saud will scramble to take his throne for themselves.” His lips curl at the mention of his Carthii enemies. “But to the Conqueror go the spoils. Your Praetors will return to fight for you. Your men will defect en masse when they hear you are alive. And in these cells beside you are ten blood family members of Houses Saud and Carthii, five from each. You will use them as bargaining chips in the ensuing struggle. We will leave Venus, but you will stay and once you have consolidated control and crowned yourself Tyrant in the Ash Lord’s stead, you will contact the Sovereign of the Republic and issue a conditional surrender.”

  “And what do you believe the terms of this surrender would be?”

  “You agree to end the war, to give us your rivals, including Atalantia au Grimmus, to be tried in Republic courts for war crimes. You give orders for the legions on Mercury to surrender. You rule Venus for the rest of your life—as you see fit.”

  “And what would stop the Republic from killing me when it’s all over?”

  “Me—and you can hold your own people hostage with the Saud atomic arsenal.”

  “Well, this is magnificent for you. Isn’t it? A coup with minimal Republic loss. Enemy gutted from the inside, and the only cost is that I betray my species.”

  “Species?” I ask. “You’re one of a kind, Apollonius,” I purr.

  “The Gold betrayed you, Apollonius. The Carthii helped the Ash Lord put you to rot. And because of that, you’re a footnote. A man in another man’s army. I’m offering you a chance at revenge against those who sent you to your death. And a chance to dwarf the Ash Lord in the memory of humanity. We both know you don’t care about Gold. So let me help make you the last legend of a crumbling age. The Minotaur of Mars.”

  “And Venus,” he says with a smile, picking up his war helm.

  —

  Sevro and I linger in the conference room after Apollonius is escorted back to his cell. “Do you think he knows that they’ll never unite behind him?” Sevro asks.

  “No. He’s insane. The Golds all know it. Saud and Carthii might have bent a knee to the Ash Lord, but they’ll never surrender their homeland to a Martian brute. But if we set him loose, he’ll tear Venus apart from the inside. We will descend on a fractured Venus. The Ash Lord wanted to give us a civil war. Fine, I’ll give the bastard one right back.” I take a sip of the wine he left behind. “And if, somehow, Apollonius is able to unite them, we release the video of this little conference and his own men might just kill him for working with me.”

  Sevro grimaces. “Pops would be proud of this one.”

  At the mention of his father, I touch Pax’s key under my shirt.

  “What’s that?” Sevro asks.

  I take it out. “Pax gave it to me.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “A gravBike he made. When I said goodbye, he told me I wouldn’t be coming back.” I look over at him. I know I should have put words to my regrets sooner. “I’m sorry I made you leave your girls. About Wulfgar.”

  “You didn’t make me do a damn thing.” He pats my leg. “Let’s just make sure all this is worth the price we’re paying.”

  “It is,” I tell myself. “It has to be.”

  “YE GODS, IT’S AMAZING. Better than a Rose spa,” Alban, the second valet to Kavax, says as a slender human-shaped robot massages his back with fifteen translucent fingers sprouting from four hands. The robot’s face and body are opaque white plastic. Beneath, a blue light pulses like it’s got a mechanical heart beating beneath its assembly-line shell. Is this what replaced my da in the mines?

  The personal traveling staffs of Houses Telemanus and Augustus lounge in a sitting room in Regulus ag Sun’s tower. Electronics and consumer goods litter the room—basket gifts for all the staff, even me. He’s the only man I’ve ever heard of who gives gifts to everyone else on his birthday.

  So what does Quicksilver want for this basket? I turn the attached card over in my hands. Lyria of Lagalos, it reads in flowery gold cursive, For your unsung service to the Republic. August wishes, Regulus ag Sun. Bribe or not, I cherish the card and rub my finger over the embossed winged heel.

  “As if you’ve ever gotten a massage from a Rose,” one of Niobe’s valets says.

  “I did one time, you know. Didn’t even have to pay.”

  “Liar. You’ve silver dripping out of your ears.”

  “Don’t I know. Oh gods, yes, robot, that is the spot.”

  “Harder, sir?” the robot asks in a hollow human voice.

  “Always! Ow! Ow! Not that hard, are you trying kill me?”

  “Impossible, sir. The First Law of Robotics states—”

  “I know what it states, you toaster.”

  I sip my ginger tea, wishing Philippe were here to lend his wry opinion. My own is not needed among the servants. I’m still an outsider to this little club of valets. Most, except Alban, are in their forties or fifties and have served since they were younger than I am. Their parents served and their parents before them, just like Garla and the docker Red
s.

  Everything in Quicksilver’s tower is shiny and sparse and silver and white, except the racing ships that roar out sound from a holographic projector on the far side of the room. Some valets and political staff sit there in tuxedos smoking or tapping away importantly at their datapads. Bethalia enters from the hall, speaking with Quicksilver’s steward and the Sovereign’s, a happy, plump man with quick fingers. Looks a bit like a giddy pig surprised to find himself in a tuxedo.

  We’re here for Quicksilver’s birthday. It was a sight as our caravan taxied in through the air to his skyscraper dock. Spotlights carved the November dark-cycle sky. Onlookers with cameras filled dirigibles and rooftops. I watched out a staff compartment window from one of our armored ships as the Sovereign and her son exited onto the silver carpet with the Telemanuses. For a moment I felt like I was back with my family watching the HC from half a billion kilometers away. The Augustans looked mighty fine. But I resented them all the same. This is their life. Galas and parties. I feel guilty for that resentment. I owe so much to Kavax.

  The guilt dissipates when I remember the feel of mud. The sounds of the flies on my sister’s body. They’ll never hear that sound. None of these serious, pompous servants have heard that sound. I think of Philippe, feel the weight of his Bacchus pendant, and take comfort in the fact that I’m not alone.

  My datapad vibrates on my wrist. I hesitantly approach Bethalia and wait till she notices me so I don’t interrupt her conversation.

  “Yes, Lyria?”

  “Kavax pinged me. Should I go in to the banquet?”

  She adjusts my collar absently. Unlike the men, the women don’t wear a tie. Our collars are stiff and high, and without undershirt. “Yes, but they’re not at the main party. Cedric, could one of yours guide her?” The other servants watch me jealously as I leave the room. I grin back at them for a little fun.

  One of Quicksilver’s security captains, a tall dead-eyed Gray, guides me through the halls past Lionguards. The woman has no interest in talking with me, so I return the favor. We divert to a small lift and take it down to a quieter level that’s more darkly lit by lights that run along the ceiling. Water sweeps under the glass floor. Strange shapes swim through it. I try to stop and get a better look, but the valet tuts at me, so I hurry along behind her. She leads me in to a large ivory door where several serious Grays in tuxedos with Augustus Lion pins on their chests loiter outside, weapons bulging under suit jackets. Two Obsidian men watch me from the shadows. I eye them warily, still terrified around their kind. They scarcely seem human.