by J. L. Doty
Deland shook his head, his frustration easily visible. “No. As I said something blocks me from complete control of the one, and blocks me from even minimal control of the others. All I know is what I learned from the one: he is a guardsman somewhere in this city.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
Tranquility bowed and backed out of Deland’s presence. He had been tasked to find a man who apparently had the ability to single-handedly assassinate kings, if the man’s dreams of the woman and the dictator were true. Tranquility knew he must learn more about such a man, but said nothing to Deland.
••••
Grave detail again. As always, Choko drove the cart to the back entrance of the palace where he and Jack were admitted without preamble. A palace guard pointed to one of the cells and said, “Them there.”
In the cell lay a pile of a half dozen bodies. Jack and Choko lifted the first off the top, grunted and struggled as they carried it out to the cart. He had begun to think of them as Roebar’s victims, every bit as much as they were Deland’s victims.
The fourth body in the pile lay face down, but Jack recognized Tomasa’s leathers immediately. Choko started to lift the dead bard’s ankles, but Jack snarled, “Wait. Hold.”
Choko dropped the ankles as Jack squatted down and turned the bard over. So young, so handsome, so full of life, now shrunken and emaciated, the lines of his gray-white face sharp and jagged.
Choko squatted down opposite Jack. “Knew him, did ya?”
“Yah,” Jack said. “He was a friend.”
Choko nodded. “Seen a bit of that meself.”
Jack stared at the bard’s face for a while, couldn’t find a tear for the unfortunate young man, and felt guilty about that. He wanted to deny the evidence before his eyes, wanted to believe Deland had some sort of technology, and that the daily toll of death had nothing to do with the delay or reversal of aging. But looking into the young bard’s face, recalling all his hopes and dreams, in his heart Jack knew the lives of this planet’s inhabitants fed the youth of its nobility, a cankerous, parasitic relationship that leeched the vitality of this people. Jack realized then and there this relationship needed termination.
“Come on, Jakaboe,” Choko said. He glanced over his shoulder at the palace guard. “You don’t want no one seeing you unhappy about this. Won’t be good for your own health.”
They carried Tomasa out to the cart, and Choko was kind enough to treat him gently as they laid him there with the others. After they carried the last body out Choko swung the cart around toward their barracks, stopped in front of it, walked inside and returned a minute later with a couple of shovels. “We’ll give your friend a decent burial.”
They found a small glade just off the trail to the cliffs, and buried Tomasa there along with his hopes and dreams.
••••
Tranquility had to be careful with his inquiries. The servants and staff would take notice of even an apparently casual enquiry by the Lord Enforcer, and it might easily feed their gossip for days. The gossip would spread, and it wouldn’t do to frighten the man off. Still, in this city there were only so many places a man could find employment as a guardsman. The ship overhead had been in orbit for less than two months, and Deland was confident the spy had been active in the city for less than a single month.
He began with the palace guard, a cohort of some two hundred men; spoke with their commander whom he knew he could trust. The fellow had three new recruits that had joined within the last month, but all were either previously known or had verifiable backgrounds.
Tranquility then moved on to the lords and ladies of the court. Each employed a guard or two or three, so that proved to be a fairly small group that yielded only one possibility: a man in the employ of Lady Taress, one of the favoured. The man looked more like a courtier than a guard, and he had a somewhat mysterious background which made him suspect.
Tranquility made an appointment and met Taress in her apartments. “Lord Enforcer,” she said. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” She appeared to be in her early thirties, a beauty with blond tresses that, at the moment, spilled down to her waist. She wore a gown cut shamelessly low, like a trollop in a brothel.
“I’ve come to inquire about a man in your employ,” Tranquility said. “A fellow named Karilo. He’s employed as a guard, but he is clearly not the guard type.”
One of her eyebrows lifted knowingly and she stepped close to Tranquility. She ran a finger delicately along his jaw line. “Always the suspicious one, aren’t we?”
“It is my job.”
She smiled. “You should put your suspicions aside for once, enjoy the pleasures of court. I’d be most happy to help you delve into those pleasures.”
Taress was favoured because of her beauty and her talents in the bedroom, and it was well known that her appetites were insatiable. “Karilo, my lady,” he said. “Please remain focused on the subject at hand.”
She shrugged, lowered her hand, and ran a fingertip casually along the exposed swell of her breasts. “I have kept His Majesty happy with my talents for more than a hundred years. But sometimes I need someone to give me pleasure. Karilo is my great grandnephew, quite a pretty lad, and particularly well endowed with the tools I need.”
Great grandnephew! A few more questions and Tranquility established that she had known him since birth, was sponsoring him at court, and occasionally lent him to the king for the king’s pleasure.
Tranquility moved on to Roebar’s guard, and it didn’t take him long to focus on the Westerlander. A Westerlander, he thought, a man of unknown provenance recently employed by Roebar. No, not unknown provenance, but a man whose origins were a matter of only his own word which, conveniently, could not be verified.
It seemed appropriate to take a much closer look at this Westerlander.
8
Unmasked
PALASKI HAD FOUND his God. Agnostic by inclination, he could not deny the facts when God spoke directly to him inside his head.
Bring the shuttle, my child, God told him. Bring it to the surface of this planet and I will reveal myself to you.
Palaski curled up on his bunk, devastated that he must disappoint his God. “But I don’t know how to fly a shuttle, not in atmosphere.”
Then who does know how to pilot it?
“The captain. And the ensign. And of course Strand.”
The ensign? The young girl?
“Yes, Ensign Candow.”
Then force the ensign to pilot the shuttle down here. Use your gun, if need be.
“You said, down here. But I thought you’re everywhere.” Palaski felt panic rising up in his chest.
Just a turn of phrase, my child. Don’t worry about it, for now. Be at peace. Rest, and find peace and contentment.
Palaski curled up into a fetal position on his bunk and drifted off into sleep, content in the presence of his God.
••••
As Choko shook the cup, he held it to his ear and listened to the rattle of the dice within. “Come on little sweethearts,” the old veteran grumbled, “be good to your old Uncle Choko.”
The hot afternoon sun slanted harshly through the windows of the barracks, and with the exception of Jack and Choko and two other of Roebar’s guardsman, all seated at an old wooden table, the place was empty.
Choko upended the cup onto the table, lifted it and crowed with delight at the dice. He scooped up the money on the table, saying, “These little girls like old Choko.”
Sellis stuck his head in the door at the far end of the room and shouted, “Jakaboe, come with me. You’re wanted at the palace.”
The other three men seated at the table looked at him sympathetically. A summons to the palace made any common soldier uneasy.
Jack stood, turned to his bunk to pick up his sword and harness, but Sellis shook his head. “You won’t be needing that. Lord Enforcer heard we had a Westerlander with us, wants to ask you the same kind of questions I did.”
It
would look suspicious if Jack picked up his sword anyway, so he shrugged, left it there and followed Sellis out of the barracks. If worse came to worst, he had other weapons at hand.
He followed Sellis to a back entrance to the palace different from that where he and Choko picked up the bodies each day. Sellis led him through a maze of hallways that would have confused any other first time visitor, but Jack’s internal GPS stored everything in his implants. He could find his way out easily enough, if worse came to worst.
Sellis stopped outside a tall set of double doors, turned to Jack and said, “Stand at attention, be polite, answer his questions, and you’ll be ok.”
Sellis knocked, was answered by a soft voice that said, “Enter.”
Sellis opened the door and stepped through. Jack followed, stopped just within and came to attention, saw the warrior of his dreams seated behind a large desk. Jack was rather proud of the fact that he didn’t start or react in any way.
Sellis said, “I brought the Westerlander, Your Lordship.”
The warrior looked up slowly from the papers in front of him and his eyes met Jack’s. Jack again felt that odd sensation of being watched from within, and his implants said, Possible intrusion attempt of unknown origin, and unknown type. Attempt at code-segment alteration averted. Implant integrity fully operational.
The warrior’s eyes narrowed and he nodded slowly, then smiled. “Please. Relax,” he said. “There’s no need for you to stand in that uncomfortably formal stance.”
Sellis relaxed to a formal parade rest. Jack followed suit.
The warrior took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he appraised Jack. “You are the Westerlander?”
Jack said, “Yes, Your Lordship.”
“You won’t mind answering a few questions?”
“I’ll be happy to help in any way I can, Your Lordship.”
It was much like the dream-tavern. The warrior stared at him for a long moment like a silent, still statue, then asked, “You travel far from your home?”
That statement could mean so many things. But Jack ignored the other possibilities and gave the cover story about wanting to see where his father had come from.
“Are you looking for his family?”
“No,” Jack said. “I only know he came from somewhere in the vicinity of Parthan, don’t know enough to narrow it down more than that. Just looking around out of curiosity.”
The warrior nodded, seemed to accept that, and again turned statue still for a moment. Then he asked a number of questions about the Westerlands, much like those Sellis had asked. He questioned Jack for about half an hour, then dismissed him and Sellis. But as Jack stepped into the hallway the warrior called, “Traveler.”
Jack hesitated, turned slowly back to the warrior, his defenses on full alert. The man had called him by the name he used in his dreams. Jack asked, “Do you mean me, Your Lordship?”
The warrior smiled as if he fully understood Jack’s evasion. He said, “I hope you find what you’re looking for, traveler.”
••••
“Have you found him yet?” Deland demanded, storming into Tranquility’s office in a flurry of kingly robes. “The one fool crewman that I do control is too unstable to obey me properly.”
Tranquility took a deep breath and focused his thoughts away from the Westerlander, lest Deland glean some hint of his identity. “I am looking, Your Majesty. But it is a slow process of elimination.”
Deland leaned on his desk and shouted, “How many new guards can there be in this city?”
“Not that many,” Tranquility said. “And were I free to inquire openly, it would considerably shorten the search. But you know as well as I that if I, or you for that matter, inquire too openly, word will spread quickly of our interest, and we may scare him off.”
Tranquility watched Deland’s eyes, a madman’s eyes, as he considered that carefully, then saw the logic of it. “Yes, yes,” he said more calmly. “We mustn’t scare him off. If he’s out of my reach I won’t be able to control him.”
“Exactly, Your Majesty. Patience is a quality we sometimes must suffer.”
Deland nodded. “Yes. Patience.” Deland straightened. “Continue as you were, but my patience will last only so long.”
Deland turned without waiting for an acknowledgement, and stormed out of the room.
Yes, Tranquility thought. I have been patient for four hundred years. I can be patient a little longer.
••••
Jack looked up from his beer as the door to the dream-tavern swung open slowly on leather hinges. As in his previous dream the warrior stepped through the open door and across the threshold. He wore the same broad-brimmed black hat, long black cape, black leathers and long-sword strapped to his back. Again he popped a few buckles and shrugged out of the sword’s harness, then carried it in his left hand as he walked to Jack’s table and asked, “May I sit, traveler?”
Jack nodded.
As before, two nearby patrons moved to a table farther away, the tavern owner rushed up and the warrior ordered water. And again Jack had the strangest sense of being watched from within as the warrior sat there for several seconds completely motionless. When he finally spoke it was with an intensity Jack had not previously heard in the man’s voice. “Don’t let him off this planet, traveler. He covets your ship, needs your shuttle to get to it, and if he succeeds he will find devotees and spread this cancer, and it will destroy your civilization as surely as it destroyed ours. Better you and I and all the people of this planet were to perish, better all our deaths than that.”
Jack awoke in a smoldering sweat, kicked off his blanket and sat up. The night air hit the sweat on his face and he began to shiver, though perhaps it was not merely the cold of the night that made him shiver so.
••••
Jack didn’t dare try to explain his decision to Zarkovy. The captain would think he was nuts, though even he suspected his own sanity had begun to drift a bit.
Jack could no longer deny the evidence before his eyes. Deland and his favoured fed on the people of this planet, fed on their lives in some way, stole their lives from them to prolong their own. Jack had seen no signs of technologies retained from before this civilization had gone retrograde, which left him with a slowly growing conviction that there was some mental ability involved. But it didn’t matter, technology or mental mumbo-jumbo, the nobility of this planet were cancerous parasites, feeding on its people’s lives as a source of youth, an abomination of the worst sort.
And then there were the dreams. If Jack claimed he was communicating with a possible ally through his dreams, they’d lock him up for sure. But he could no longer deny the connection between his dreams and reality. And the warrior’s warning that Deland should not be allowed off-planet scared him as nothing else could. Until the warrior had spoken that thought, Jack hadn’t considered what an unfettered Deland could do to the Commonwealth if free to spread his corruption among is citizenry. It was time for intervention. Deland must be stopped. Deland must die.
Jack had his implants wake him at midnight. He’d slept in his cloths, so before he threw the covers off he stealthed, then picked up his belongings and stepped silently into the still night.
He ran a quick inventory of his equipment, ran a systems check on the reactor in the large belt buckle he wore, checked the reactors in his sword and knife hilts. Both blades were made of steel far finer than anything found on this planet. But when powered by the reactors in their hilts, the filaments woven into the blades would allow him to slice through stone and metal with only a little difficulty. Each blade also had a nerve prod built into its hilt that, when activated, with just the slightest touch would render any man unconscious for several minutes.
He checked the small grav-gun he carried. It used the same technology the big transition ships employed in their sub-light drives. He could adjust it to fire projectiles at anything up to Mach five. But supersonic projectiles made a lot of noise, so he dialed it down
to a little below Mach one. Other than the hiss of the slug slicing through air, it would be completely silent. And the slug was designed to shatter at impact into a cloud of tiny fragments, delivering maximum force to the target.
He also had four small isotope grenades, each about the size of his thumb but able to deliver an adjustable yield strength up to thirty pounds. He didn’t recall exactly what a pound was, had been required to memorize it during training, recalled now only that it was an ancient unit of measure for the weight of an ancient chemical explosive customarily used to gauge the yield strength of modern explosives. Thirty pounds was enough to level a small building. He could also dial in the type of yield: shock, flash, concussion, incendiary, any of about a dozen kinds. He set all four for a one-pound concussion yield.
He placed night-vision contacts in his eyes, and with the shadows of the night aiding his stealthed and silent concealment, it was a simple exercise to cross the distance to the palace. Slipping past the guards at the entrance proved to be even simpler. Now, to find Deland.
Jack had a good idea where Deland slept and lived. He’d been called to the palace a number of times on various errands for Roebar, frequently just to wear his livery and play honor-guard at some ceremony or event. He’d slowly built up an almost complete map of the palace’s floor plan, including the second and third floors where most nobility were housed. But the fourth and top floor was a glaring exception. He’d never been allowed up there, and had no information whatsoever on the fourth floor other than the fact that Deland lived there with his mistresses and catamites.
A massive stone stairway, wide enough for ten men to march abreast up its steps, dominated the center of the palace. Jack also knew of four smaller servant’s passages with stairs to all floors, but they were too narrow. If he encountered a servant on a late night errand, all the stealth in the world wouldn’t help in a passage only wide enough for one. And tapers lit the main stairway, casting dancing shadows everywhere, perfect for the stealth fields that protected him.
