Context

by John Meaney

  Or perhaps not quite one hundred per cent.

  Dart Mulligan. Do you survive still?

  For once, during the effort which had burned out half of his talisman crystal’s functions, Tom had made contact with ... something more than human, in the mu-space continuum.

  The original Dart, nearly thirteen hundred Standard Years before—though mu-space time is even more relative than its realspace counterpart—had sacrificed himself to save Karyn McNamara, and his ship had been absorbed by the ravening, quasi-sentient pattern of coruscating energies which had trapped both vessels in mu-space’s endless golden sea.

  Dart, who might have become a god.

  But the Dart with which Tom had communicated described himself thus:

  ##I AM A SYSTEM-REFLECTION OF WHAT LIES BEYOND##

  Which meant... what? A self-aware alter ego within the vast comms network which, Tom suspected, existed permanently in mu-space?

  But if a mere reflection could be as powerful as the being Tom had talked to, what was the nature of the true Dart consciousness, residing within the stuff of mu-space? Subsumed within the vacuum energy of a continuum where infinite recursion is realizable, where everything that is true can eventually be proven, where every paradox has a final resolution.

  And, if any of these speculations were even remotely true, he wondered what other powers might lurk within the universes, and what their capabilities and purposes might be, and whether ordinary human beings can have any influence over Destiny when such great beings decide to move upon the world.

  Dayshift was ending when he heard a whisper of sound nearby, and opened his eyes to see Draquelle watching him. Her long, prematurely silver hair glimmered orange with reflected lavaflow, and the white scars upon her face seemed to glow with an inner light of their own.

  ‘Madam Bronlah sends her greetings.’ Molten rock spat in counterpoint to her soft words. ‘And asks if you would like to make a journey on her behalf.’

  Tom let out a long slow breath. This was the payment he had implicitly promised to make.

  ‘As her representative?’

  ‘No. More’—with a tiny smile—‘as my personal bodyguard.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Perhaps you do.’

  Draquelle lowered her hand to the front of her silken tunic, and undid the magseal before Tom could stop her.

  ‘I don’t think—’

  But he had misread her intentions.

  Across her flat stomach, a silver-scaled reptilian shape slid and curled. Then, within the layers of her skin, it slithered smoothly round her torso, out of sight.

  ‘That’s a femtautomaton,’ he said as she re-sealed her garment. ‘She’s using you as a courier.’

  ‘Exactly right, my Lord. It’s not urgent, but it’s important: safety before promptness.’

  ‘Ah ...Perhaps we could forget my rank, all right? Just call me Tom.’

  ‘Whatever you say ...’

  The ‘my Lord’ was unspoken, but still implied.

  ‘So tell me, where are we going?’

  In answer, she held out a travel-tag, above which a tiny holo thread shone scarlet, woven among labelled outlines of the realms they would be travelling through. The itinerary meandered, in places almost looping back upon itself—but the quickest route was not always the shortest distance, when there were journey privileges to negotiate. Particularly during uncertain times.

  The demesne she was headed for was unknown to him. But beyond it lay another realm, one he had visited in his youth: ruled then by Duke Boltrivar. And may his soul dissipate in Chaos for all eternity, if he has one.

  Twenty-four days before the event—Tom remembered the exact figure, would never forget it—he had seen a truecast of the floods which would devastate the tunnels, drown thousands of Boltrivar’s loyal subjects. A small girl’s pudgy fingers, disappearing beneath roiling waves. He had tried to warn people ...

  But everyone knew that a truecast’s predictions were incontrovertible; that there was no point in even trying. Instead, the authorities had allowed him to help in the rescue mission afterwards, and when Corduven d’Ovraison collapsed in a nervous breakdown, it was Tom’s decisions -though he was still a servitor—which had saved so many lives, and made him someone whose progress was watched and encouraged by powerful allies.

  Corduven, my friend…

  The last that Tom had heard, the dead Duke (who ‘by chance’ had been away from his realm when the floods struck, but had perished later during the Flashpoint uprising) had left no heirs to his ravaged realm, and Corduven had been granted that site for his new Academy. The place where Elva had threatened to go, when she asked for allegiance transfer and Tom refused.

  Sweet Fate, Elva. If I’d only told you what I really felt.

  And was this a sign, that he should be obligated to travel so close to his old friend’s new demesne? Was this where he should go, in order to find the reborn Elva’s whereabouts?

  Or was it all the delusion of a driven commoner pretending to be a Lord, who had seen too much in his eventful, violent life?

  ‘What’s wrong, Gazhe? I mean ... Tom.’

  ‘This travel-tag, Draquelle…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s for three people.’

  ‘Ah.’ With a brief smile: ‘I wondered if you’d notice that’

  It was the next dawnshift, long after Draquelle had left, when a large figure strode in to join Tom beside the boiling lava pool.

  ‘Tom, my friend.’

  ‘Kraiv. How are you doing?’

  ‘Horush is gone.’ There was a strange look of acceptance in Kraiv’s eyes. ‘He was a warrior.’

  ‘Yes, he was.’

  Like firelight, orange reflections slid across Kraiv’s dark skin, stretched tight over massive muscles which bunched and flexed as he sat down beside Tom, and stared into glowing lava.

  ‘I’ve come to say farewell.’

  ‘That’s not necessary,’ said Tom.

  ‘I journey to the Manse Hetreece, where Horush’s family live. The arrangements are already made, my friend.’

  He would be travelling with access-permissions organized by the Bronlah Hong: their obligation, under their contract with the carls. But the Manse was situated by the Dorionim Goldu, Draquelle’s destination, and it was no coincidence that Draquelle and Kraiv were travelling in the same direction. The Hong’s long association with the Blue Lotus Zhongguo Ren society in Goldu—and their trading front, the Blue Lotus Hong—had led to their contract with the carls, some ten SY before. And possibly to Madam Bronlah’s marriage, though Tom could not be sure of that.

  ‘I know about your travel plans.’ Tom held his hand out to Kraiv, the travel-tag upon his palm. ‘I’ve got the details right here.’

  But there was one last thing to deal with, before leaving the Bronlah Hong for good.

  ‘Well met, my Lord Corcorigan.’ Lord Sumneriv, in the med centre’s antechamber, gave a small nod whose nuances spoke of frosty disapproval, without going so far as to deliver an insult which might lead to confrontation. ‘He is on the mend.’

  Unspoken: No thanks to you.

  ‘He’s lucky,’ said Tom with only partial irony, ‘to have such good friends.’

  ‘More than one of whom’—with the tiniest of sneers -’needed treatment in this place.’

  ‘And you’ve checked what les Accords d’Honneur have to say about interference on a duellist’s behalf?’

  A flicker behind Lord Sumneriv’s eyes told Tom that he had hit the mark.

  ‘Don’t worry, Sumneriv. I said it was over, and it is.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘All right, Corcorigan. You can see him now.’

  Vassals slipped out of sight as Tom walked along the corridor towards the treatment chamber. That was a bad sign, though not unexpected, given the nobility they had been dealing with recently.

  Or perhaps they had heard about Tom’s brutality, and th
e injuries he had inflicted upon the men who were supposed to be his peers.

  You think I’m as bad as Trevalkin?

  The Viscount had tortured another man’s vassals, put them to horrific death. And who knew what atrocities he had committed in the past?

  But while Tom had killed or injured only a handful of people, over the past half-dozen years, he had designed the simulation techniques which had led to the deaths of three thousand Oracles, and helped enable the uprisings which had cost tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives, without ever bringing freedom or equality to those troubled realms.

  Perhaps I’m worse.

  Viscount Trevalkin was sitting up in an autodoc.

  ‘So ... My resourceful adversary.’

  Tom brushed aside a memory of Horush in a similar position.

  ‘Did you rehearse that greeting?’

  ‘No more than you practised that duel. The choice of surroundings was exquisite. What did you call it? The Maze of Light and Dark?’

  ‘I also referred to it as Trevalkin’s Grave.’

  Trevalkin chuckled, though not pleasantly.

  ‘Happily, Fate has turned that into a misnomer.’

  ‘You tortured seventeen people, Trevalkin.’

  ‘And they screamed beautifully, for such a long time.’

  Tom raised his hand, clenched into a half-fist.

  ‘You wouldn’t get far,’ Trevalkin said. ‘The Halberdiers would hunt you down.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘I didn’t come down here without doing some research. You’re an intriguing man, Lord Corcorigan.’

  ‘An interesting endorsement, considering the source.’

  ‘I didn’t torture seventeen people, Corcorigan. I questioned a bunch of traitors to their species, who allied themselves with ...something ...whose presence is spreading, growing. And I mean throughout Nulapeiron.’

  Tom’s skin prickled. ‘Explain that.’

  ‘There are realms which have fallen under some dark influence, like the Aurineate Grand’aume ...Ah, I see that you’re not totally out of touch with current events.’

  Tension—and the memory of pain—tightened Tom’s entire body.

  Then, ‘I was in one of their dungeons,’ he said.

  ‘And escaped? You must talk to our strategic command. Anything you can tell them would help.’

  ‘I don’t have anything to say.’

  ‘Pity.’ There was a long pause, then: ‘No-one knows how it begins, Corcorigan. People disappear, a realm’s government becomes oddly organized, strange civil movements become coordinated, and then the repression starts. Opposition disappears. The previous rulers act as mouthpieces for something behind the scenes—or are replaced.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s no bad thing.’

  ‘Given the nature of their replacements, I think it’s very bad indeed.’

  ‘And the Dark Fire? What is that?’

  ‘There are strange tales of odd phenomena ...No-one knows, Corcorigan. But I meant it when I called it some thing. Whatever its nature, I don’t believe it’s human.’

  ‘But it’s spreading?’

  ‘Oh, yes. If you hear people talking about the Blight, they’re referring to the same thing.’

  Tom thought of the troops massing around Bilyarck Gébeet’s borders, and shook his head grimly.

  ‘This has nothing to do,’ he said, ‘with my objectives.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘And they’re none of your concern, Trevalkin.’

  ‘Purely selfish, then.’

  Elva...

  Perhaps it was self-centred of him to search for her. Or madness. And if she existed, might she be looking for him, too? But she would know better, he hoped, than to look for him in the Aurineate Grand’aume.

  Let them all go to Chaos, Elva. You’re the one who’s important to me.

  And yet, Kraiv’s and Draquelle’s itinerary took them close, very close, to the former Realm Boltrivar, where General Lord Corduven d’Ovraison was forming the Academy which was more—Tom was sure of it—than a mere training school.

  Elva. Is that where I need to go to find you?

  For certain, they would have intelligence resources beyond anyone else that he could think of.

  ‘Can you get me a noble-house thumb ring, Trevalkin?’

  It would give him access to other realms, to resources not available to any commoner. Tom’s own ring—a replacement for the one he had been given on his ascension to Lordship -lay somewhere in the Aurineate Grand’aume, its clearance signature automatically wiped clean after the long absence of contact with Tom’s DNA.

  ‘Maybe I could get you a ring.’ Trevalkin stared at him. ‘But if you’re travelling, it might be better to go incognito. You’d make an interesting prisoner. Valuable, I mean.’

  In your own torture cells, Trevalkin?

  But Tom did not utter the words which came first to mind. Instead, he said: ‘Then can you arrange a travel-tag, for one person? For entry to Realm Boltrivar. I don’t need passes to the intermediate demesnes.’

  ‘You want my help?’

  ‘You asked for mine.’

  Silence, then: ‘All right. I can do that for you.’

  ‘With no further questions?’

  Trevalkin smiled coldly.

  ‘Give my regards,’ he said, ‘to General Lord d’Ovraison.’

  But Tom did not get out of the treatment chamber that easily.

  He was at the square-arched exit when Trevalkin, with deliberate timing, called out: ‘The Codex Ariston has some interesting entries in its most recent edition. Old noble houses dying out. Parvenu outsiders elevated to Lordship.’

  Tom paused, only half-expecting the words to come.

  ‘Poet and psychopath. Logosophical killer. Not their exact words, you understand

  Tom shook his head and walked, but the final barb followed him into the stark corridor beyond.

  ‘So we’re brothers under the skin after all, my fine Lord Corcorigan. Wouldn’t you say?’

  Tom walked faster.

  ~ * ~

  27

  NULAPEIRON AD 3419-3420

  The scheduled duration was thirty to forty days: a long journey, mostly on foot, and with no certain knowledge of how far Draquelle could walk daily, over such a period. And the times were too uncertain to offer a closer prediction -Tom smiled at the term—than that.

  But it would not be long before he came to realize there were more subtle factors at work, which would make the journey both longer and more interesting than anyone expected.

  ‘Farewell, Ga— Tom. Er, my Lord ...’

  ‘Take care, Mivkin. And you, Jasirah.’

  She turned away, blinking rapidly.

  Tom bowed to Master Grenshin.

  “Thank you all.’

  He walked away quickly, more saddened than he had expected at leaving his fellow merchanalysts behind. And, in his satchel of supplies, was a small bundle: a fold-up cloak, lightweight but insulated. A present from his friends.

  A cheerfully rude gargoyle, with long protruding stone tongue, leered above the archway before him. Tom stopped, waved once at the small knot of people standing near the old merchanalysis hall, then ducked into the tunnel.

  Another journey.

  The old excitement of wanderlust was upon him again. In his childhood, Tom had been surrounded by families who had lived in Salis Core for generations, and rarely travelled further than a few kilometres from the marketplace which formed the centre of their lives. But, since then, he had been in so many realms he had lost count, stood on the highest and lowest strata of them all, had seen even the planet’s surface, been airborne in its creamy lemon skies ...

  I love this life.

  It was an unsettled and possibly misguided way to live. But anything else would be boredom.

  ‘Tom, my friend.’ Kraiv’ s basso profundo voice was calm, as he shrugged his big backpack in place, on top of his heavy cloak. ‘A new beginning.’

  ‘T
hat it is.’

  Water spilled into a round black pool, in which tiny yellow fish with long fluorescent tendrils swam.