Warden's Vengeance

by Tony James Slater

  Couldn’t possibly be!

  But it was.

  The man stepped out from behind a curtain, heavy purple robes swaying as he approached the table. He looked the same, only not. Slightly older perhaps? Or maybe that was just the mood lighting. Tris couldn’t take his eyes off him. The glaive was in his hand before he knew it, the rifle forgotten. His fingers itched to swing the blade at that smug expression.

  “Gerian,” he said, pouring venom into the name.

  “Ah, you recognise the face. As well you might. You must have realised by now where you come from.”

  “My dad raised me himself,” Tris said, surprised to find his voice shaking. “He wanted no part of this bullshit.”

  The smile became indulgent. “Yes, he truly was the black sheep of the family. But for all his faults, Mikelatz was still my child. And he’s redeemed himself, it seems; he’s brought me you.”

  “I’m here to kill you,” Tris said, recovering from the shock. The man he was facing had to be a clone, from the same stock as Gerian. Or the original, perhaps? But that didn’t change anything. Hard as it had been to kill the Assessor General, and harder still to live with himself afterwards, he wouldn’t falter now. Not with so many lives on the line; not when hundreds or even thousands more had died to bring him to this moment.

  “And why would you want to do that?” The clone sounded honestly surprised. “Wouldn’t you rather sit down with me, here at this table? We can talk about the changes you’d like to make to my Empire. It’s yours as well, if you want it. We’re family, are we not?”

  Tris narrowed his eyes. “You’re stalling.”

  “Not at all! I made the same offer to your father. But he was the restless type, always wanting to wander off on his own, to see what was happening everywhere else. In the end, I left him to it.”

  “While you sat here and plunged millions of people into misery and fear? I know who I’d rather be descended from.”

  “Oh, my boy! You make it all sound so dramatic. You’ve had, what? A few weeks’ experience of my civilisation? And now you’ve become an expert. But people need a leader, and they need stability. Too much freedom breeds anarchy; they unite behind opposing candidates and battle for supremacy, over and over. You’ve lived on Earth; surely you’ve seen it? Fear is remarkably effective at keeping people alive. Without rules, and the fear of consequences, society would degrade within a generation. What would you have then? A galaxy filled with warring tribes, and many more would die. What I do is a necessary evil, and the people benefit from it more than they will ever understand.”

  “Justifying your actions doesn’t make you any less guilty of them,” Tris retorted. He squeezed the glaive’s handle, extending it to sword-length. “You’re a mass-murderer.”

  The Gerian-clone smiled again. “As are you, by all accounts! But it’s a burden I am willing to bear, for the sake of my people.”

  Tris wasn’t sure where this was going. He’d expected violence, but the man seemed in no hurry to attack him. “You’ll come with me then?” he asked. “Stand trial, and let your people judge you? You have to know that this is all over.”

  The clone came around the table to stand opposite Tris. “Not quite yet.” He made a subtle gesture and hooded, robed men stepped forward from all sides of the room. What trick of the mind had been used to hide them Tris didn’t know, but he raised his glaive to en garde position as they approached, surrounding him.

  But they came to a stop in perfect synchronisation, forming a circle just beyond the reach of his weapon.

  The real Keepers of the Faith, he guessed. His eyes flicked around the group. Twelve of them.

  He didn’t see any obvious sign of weapons, though the voluminous robes could be hiding anything.

  The clone came to take his place in the circle, facing Tris. “Let me show you something.”

  And as one, the other men lowered their hoods.

  Tris felt the floor lurch beneath him. Staring back at him from every opposing face was his dad’s eyes. His dad’s expression, when he was in a serious mood; even his dad’s posture.

  They were all identical.

  All clones.

  And he was going to have to kill them all.

  Not all of us.

  Tris gasped, as the thought entered his mind unbidden. Of course, the clone was psychic; both Gerian and his father had been.

  You keep thinking of me as a clone, child. But I am not. I walked the Earth before your ancestors laid claim to it; before my people set sail for the stars. This body has been replaced many times, but I am still here — the last of my kind. The last to remember.

  Tris couldn’t help himself. That’s not possible!

  You’ve seen our consciousness-transfer technology in action. It pre-dates our expansion into the universe. One thing those miserable Lantians couldn’t steal when they abandoned us!

  I… I don’t believe it.

  “Perhaps another lesson, then.” He waved at one of his fellows.

  With a shriek, the robed man attacked. Pulling a dagger from somewhere he sprang forwards, closing the distance in the space between heartbeats.

  Tris had the glaive swinging almost instantly, his reflexes on high alert. The blade sliced into his assailant, parting the unprotected flesh effortlessly, and the man crumpled to the ground, bleeding into his robes.

  None of the others so much as moved a muscle.

  They just stared blankly, while the man who was clearly their master gave mocking applause. “Swift justice,” he said. “So you see, the Keepers of the Faith are all me, my boy. They are all you.”

  Tris understood him, then. He risked a look into the minds either side of him; all were simply mirrors for the man in front of him. The physical bodies were mere shells, tools to be used by their master.

  And eventually, he would inhabit one of them permanently.

  Or maybe one of the next generation.

  It made Tris sick to think about it.

  At one point, growing up perhaps, every one of these bodies had contained its own mind — a unique personality. A soul. Then at some point, those minds had been discarded. Switched out like batteries, and replaced with…

  You.

  My name is Zeutagornius. Few souls have ever heard it. But on Earth, before the Fall, they called me Zeus.

  Tris’ mouth fell open beyond his power to control it.

  Still want to fight me, boy? Or would you prefer to join me on my Mount? The view from up here is a long one, unaffected by petty squabbles.

  “No,” Tris said, thrusting the other mind away from his. “I kill to free people, not to enslave them.”

  Zeus pulled a sad face. “Well, I tried,” he said. He made eye contact. “Goodbye, Tristan.”

  And suddenly, Tris knew why Zeus had cloned himself.

  All twelve minds slammed into him at once, their combined psychic power like a freight train.

  He screamed as he hit the floor, the pain of their attack indescribable. Individually they were hammers, but the concerted strike crushed his mind from all directions. His head was in a vice, and it was squeezing, tightening, compressing. They would crush the life out of him, he knew — but all other thoughts were denied him. There was only the agony as his mind began to buckle under the pressure.

  Then something broke inside him.

  And exploded.

  The surge of power was like being struck by lightening. It blasted out of him, flowing into the open channels still joined to him and following them back to their source.

  And in a burst of light, he was free.

  His head was ringing like a bell, and his body felt like it had been in a car crash. But his mind…

  For a split second it soared out, spanning the stars. Molecules formed, atoms burned, and the cold blackness of space vibrated with invisible energy.

  Then he was back in his body, feeling every ache and pain.

  And staring out at carnage.

  Of the twelve hooded clones, none
had survived. Their bodies had been tossed this way and that, and lay crumpled on the floor. A few had hit the walls hard enough to break necks; others had suffered a more grisly fate, blood streaming from their eyes and ears to pool beneath them.

  Tris had no idea what he’d done to them — only that it was a direct reaction to their attack. In forcing their way into his mind with such violence, they’d ruptured some kind of seal deep within him. The backlash had been so powerful he could still feel its after-effects, ricocheting around inside his skull like pinballs.

  He blinked the bright spots out of his vision and tried to take stock.

  Every one of his opponents was down. They’d all been connected to him when his mind went nova, cooking their brains inside their skulls by the look of things.

  Zeus lay a bit further away, twitching occasionally as though he was trying to get up.

  Tris glanced down.

  The glaive was still clutched in his hand.

  He lurched to his feet and staggered forwards, his legs slow to remember their role.

  Zeutagornius lay on his back, a trickle of blood coming from his nose. He was still alert though, his eyes bright with an emotion Tris had only ever seen once before on that much-loved face.

  Fear.

  From his mind, Tris sensed desperation; hardly surprising in someone who’d managed to keep himself alive for over ten-thousand years. Using the barest trace of the Gift, he slipped his own thoughts into the man.

  Body-thief. Torturer. Abuser of your own children. You made them, and stole their minds… how many times? Over and over, again and again. For centuries.

  “All… me,” Zeus rasped. “They were… all me.”

  “Not any more.” Tris took a deep breath. For what it was worth, he felt that a degree of formality was required.

  Because I’m not a murderer. And this is not vengeance. This is justice. And it’s long overdue.

  “Zeutagornius, for crimes against your own blood, against countless generations, and against all the citizens of Lemuria, I sentence you to death.”

  “You… can’t!” the man gasped. “You… are me… as well!”

  “No,” said Tris, shaking his head. “I am a Warden.”

  And he stabbed down.

  34

  Tris walked out of the Sacristy in a state of shock.

  Justice had been done; the sadistic ruler of the Lemurian Empire had died at his hand.

  He just wished he could feel good about it.

  He’d then had to go around the room to every one of his father’s clones, plunging his knife into each of them just to make sure.

  It was almost enough to break him.

  His genetic lineage was even more messed up than he could possibly have imagined. And instead of slowly coming to terms with it and moving on, he’d been forced to murder his own father over and over again, as though trying to drown his twisted legacy in blood.

  His first sight when stepping out of the Security Corridor was yet more death; a scatter of bodies on the far side of the foyer, brought low by the relentless accuracy of Kyra’s pulse rifle. Tris imagined that Kreon’s role in events had been as more of a shield.

  Still, there were less casualties than he’d expected.

  “They all buggered off when their weapons stopped working,” Kyra explained, as he stumbled over to her. “The computer must have been able to switch them all off.”

  ALI’s cheerful chirp issued from the console Loader had been working on. “We reached an understanding,” she said, sounding jubilant. “The AI in control of this facility has locked down all Church forces until further notice, and is currently in negotiation with the governing AIs of every Prime World in the Lemurian Empire. And I’m helping him!”

  Kyra jerked a thumb at the console. “Not bad, eh? That girl’s a machine.”

  Tris nodded, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “You okay? You look like hell.”

  He stared mutely at the floor, wrestling with his emotions. “I… I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

  “Great!” She threw an arm around his shoulders and dragged him in close. “Me neither. But we’re done here, right?”

  He nodded wearily. “We’re done.”

  “Excellent! Let’s get drunk and steal some shit.”

  Tris snorted in spite of himself.

  “What?” she protested. “Look at this place! We just conquered a castle, for Sydon’s sake. No way I’m leaving empty-handed.”

  Tris glanced at Kreon, wondering if the Warden had a verdict to deliver.

  But one look was enough. “Well done, Tris,” he said.

  Tris almost managed a smile. Those three honest words meant more to him than any of the Warden’s long-winded philosophising.

  A strange procession of small robots rolled up, all wheeled units not much bigger than a photocopier. Each had a central stem protruding upwards, and a variety of manipulator arms folded up against it. They seemed too small to be much of a threat, so Tris merely watched them as they trundled towards him. At the last moment the flock parted, the robots diverting left and right to flow around Kreon and Kyra. Tris turned to watch them pass, curiosity working its way through his bleak mood. The robots trundled off into the Sacristy, the door sliding open for them and shutting behind them.

  “Huh.” Kyra looked as bemused as Tris was. “Wonder if the AI summoned them?”

  Her question was answered when another robot appeared — this one larger, moving more slowly on treads. It was clearly a maintenance bot of some kind, heavily built with a sturdy torso reaching almost to shoulder-height. It slowed to a halt in front of them, then performed an about-face by rolling its treads in opposite directions.

  When it set off back the way it had come, its pace was sedate.

  Tris caught Kreon’s speculative look, and raised his palms.

  “Guess we’re going that way,” Kyra said.

  And they did.

  The robot led them past the bodies of the fallen soldiers, and through a rifle-strewn lobby where the air still smelled vaguely of ozone and cooked plastic. Doors opened in perfect synchronisation as the robot approached, and Tris followed along without question. Briefly, he wondered if the AI was bringing them to meet it. But what would that achieve, when presumably the sentient program was buried inside a computer the size of a bungalow?

  Then a final set of doors opened in front of them, and Tris saw sky.

  They walked outside, finding themselves on a balcony high above a wide plaza at the front of the Temple. Lush green lawns bordered the plaza, spreading out to meet a heavily-fortified steel fence.

  Loader hadn’t been wrong; an enormous crowd filled the area beyond the main gates, seething and yelling.

  This was the anger I felt earlier, Tris realised.

  Most of them carried large sheets of metal — not banners and placards, he realised, but more like makeshift shields. And the reason was obvious; hovering stationary in the air between the balcony and the crowd was a veritable fleet of deadly-looking drones. Each of the flying V-shapes carried a pair of blasters slung beneath its armoured shell. Tris winced inwardly; being part of that crowd while those things rained fire down around you… it didn’t bear thinking about. It certainly put his own crisis into perspective; here he was, alive and well, and moaning about having to kill a bunch of evil bastards because they looked like his dad. Whereas the people down there had lived under oppression for so long that they’d been willing to watch their friends and family being cut down right before their eyes for a chance at freedom.

  At least he’d done what he could to help them.

  He only hoped the death toll hadn’t been too high.

  A whirring sound caught his ears, and he looked back over his shoulder — to see a macabre procession emerging from the Temple.

  The small robots rolled forwards in pairs, in perfect formation. Supported on a framework of manipulator arms, each pair bore the body of one of the Keepers of the Faith.

  Tris ste
pped aside to let the convoy roll past him, bringing the reclusive Churchmen out into the light of day.

  There was a sudden buzzing in the air, and a number of the attack drones swooped down to meet the robots. Tris ducked reflexively; these drones had come from above them, and he hadn’t even noticed them. They were much larger than the ones that had been firing into the crowd; Tris didn’t want to speculate on their use, but heavy grasping claws extended from the bottom of them.

  In a smoothly-orchestrated dance, two drones collected each body, lifting it by its shoulders, and drifted down towards the plaza. Tris watched in fascination as the wheeled robots retreated in their pairs, vanishing back into the Temple with their task accomplished.

  The drones set the Keepers of the Faith down in a long row, taking time to ensure the bodies lay straight and flat. It was an oddly sombre operation, the mood exacerbated by the people in the crowd, all of whom had fallen silent to watch.

  When the last of the Keepers was lain out, their faces bright in the afternoon sunlight, the drones retreated.

  From somewhere in the crowd, a cheer went up — and in seconds it had turned into a mob of whooping, chanting, rejoicing people.

  The ones that survived.

  Tris could see dozens of dead bodies sprawled amongst the crowd, each one forming a little knot in the throng like the eye of a violent storm. People were dragging those bodies away now — of friends perhaps, or loved ones — and the crowd opened around them, making a path for the dead.

  It was enough to move Tris to tears.

  He wept silently, the tears tracking down his cheeks, and then he felt another hand in his.

  He looked down; Kyra’s fingers were interlaced with his own, both still clad in the thin black gloves. He glanced at her to see tears in her eyes, too; the impromptu ceremony below was too powerful not to be affected by.

  Only Kreon remained impassive throughout, staring out across the mass of cheering people.

  But when he turned to face them, there was pain and sympathy in his expression.

  Tris met his eyes briefly, then let go of Kyra’s hand and retreated into the building.