Imperial Night

by Eric Thomson

  “One can’t. That’s why the sisters are conditioned against entering another’s mind, absent medical or psychological needs. Even then, they proceed gingerly, ready to withdraw at the slightest hint of awareness.” Loxias stood. “Meet me in front of the administration building at thirteen-hundred hours. Wear your best garments.”

  “Will do.”

  Roget watched Loxias wend his way across the refectory before vanishing through the main door. As he finished his tea, he found himself anticipating the Chamber of Commerce meeting with unexpected interest. It would offer a welcome antidote to Marta’s endless training sessions and put him back in touch with the real world. Loxias was onto something when he accused the sisters of looking inward, even though this new and perilous era demanded the Order look outward as well. The future belongs to those who show up instead of meditating endlessly on the Almighty’s various permutations in the Infinite Void.

  **

  A few minutes before the appointed time, Roget, wearing an immaculate, black friar’s habit, crossed the quadrangle to where a ground car, doors open, waited silently. No sooner did he reach it that Loxias walked out the administration building’s main entrance with his usual energetic stride. He was also clad in an immaculate friar’s habit but wore a small, shiny Void Orb on a simple metal chain around his neck.

  Loxias gave Roget a comradely thump on the shoulder.

  “Shall we head into Lannion and promote the Order’s interests with our republic’s captains of industry?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer but climbed into the car. After a moment of hesitation, Roget took the front passenger seat.

  “Stick with me. I’ll do the introductions,” Loxias said once they were beyond the abbey’s walls, “and when we take our chairs, you just sit along the wall near my table. Listen and don’t speak unless someone asks you a question. Now, remember these people, because I want you to watch them closely during my introductions and the meeting.” He rattled off six names, including Hecht and Downes, then said, “They’re sharp, so don’t be obvious about studying them.”

  “May I ask why these particular individuals interest you?”

  “Hecht is CEO of Lyonesse’s largest industrial conglomerate, Downes heads that conglomerate’s board of directors and the others because they run the second to the sixth-largest businesses in the republic. Collectively, those six enterprises and their subsidiaries own almost forty percent of the planet’s economic assets. When one of their senior people speaks, the government listens, even Jonas Morane. They’re our way into the corridors of power, my friend. As you rise through the Order’s ranks, you’ll spend more time with them, meaning it’s important you learn what you can about their characters.”

  “You want me to peer into their souls and see what’s there. If they have souls, that is.”

  A bark of laughter filled the car’s passenger compartment.

  “If I didn’t know you were Marta’s student, that statement would set me straight. I don’t share her mysticism, but there’s no denying her trainees are among the most powerful minds of their generation.”

  “I don’t share her mysticism either, but after spending time on the Windy Isles, I can confirm what Marta calls a soul is real. We can debate whether it’s a soul in the religious sense or not, but I’ve met prisoners who are utterly empty inside and others who are nothing but chaos. Are the empty ones devoid of a soul? And are the chaotic ones possessed? Interesting questions, don’t you think?”

  Loxias shrugged, as if unconvinced but willing to go along.

  “Perhaps. It’s no worse an interpretation than any other the Order has contemplated over the centuries. In any case, peer into the souls of our Chamber of Commerce grandees and tell me what you find. I already enjoy good relations with Gerson Hecht, though Downes doesn’t like me much, and I can’t figure out why. The others are friendly enough, but a bit standoffish. The one thing you’ll notice is neither Hecht nor Downes like Morane and his cronies, such as DeCarde. Both harbor a deep-seated grudge against him for events that happened long ago. They’re outwardly civil toward Morane and Gwenneth when she makes an appearance, but anyone trained the way we are can’t fail but see it. Not that the president attends something as prosaic as Chamber of Commerce meetings, though most of the time, he sends one of the cabinet secretaries.”

  The car entered Lannion’s northern outskirts, and they soon found themselves driving along the Haven River toward downtown and the stone, two-story Chamber of Commerce Building close to Government House. As Roget noted when he looked the Chamber up in the abbey’s database, its headquarters was one of the oldest structures on the planet and housed the colonial administration during Lyonesse’s early years as a distant outpost, one which the imperial government mostly ignored.

  They soon turned off the capital’s main avenue and entered a courtyard already filling up with various vehicles, both aerial and ground. A large sign over the building’s front door grandly announced its only tenant. Loxias parked them neatly beside a luxury vehicle bearing the Hecht Industries logo. He and Roget climbed out of their car and headed for the entrance where a thin, dark-haired man in his early thirties wearing a business suit greeted them with a polite nod.

  “Friar Loxias. Welcome. And who is your companion?”

  “This is Friar Stearn, one of my most trusted aides, Mister Pitt.”

  “Welcome, Friar Stearn.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The members are assembling in the ballroom where refreshments await. Enjoy the meeting.”

  Loxias bestowed an avuncular smile on Pitt. “Your courtesy honors you, as always.”

  Roget could have sworn he sensed a mental eye roll from the man. “You’re too kind, Friar.”

  As they walked down a broad, carpeted corridor whose walls were paneled with honey-colored wood, a growing murmur of conversation reached their ears.

  “Sounds like a full house,” Loxias remarked with an air of satisfaction.

  Roget gave him an amused sideways glance.

  “You enjoy this sort of thing, don’t you? Hobnobbing with the republic’s upper crust.”

  “It makes a refreshing change from the solemnity and single-mindedness of our Brethren, especially the sisters. Ah. Here we are.” Loxias pointed at an open double door on the left as the buzz of voices reached a crescendo.

  Upon entering, Loxias, a pleasant smile plastered on his face, headed directly for a middle-aged man in a severely cut business suit while nodding at people as they passed them. He stood near a long table covered with cups, jugs, fruit bowls, and pastries, talking to a tall, squarely built woman whose short blond hair was liberally sprinkled with silver strands.

  “That’s Ari Hodson with Defense Secretary DeCarde,” he murmured in an aside to Roget. “Ari is the Chamber’s president. I guess DeCarde is this meeting’s sacrificial cabinet member.”

  When they came within earshot, Hodson broke off his conversation and turned to Loxias. “Friar! How nice to see you again.”

  “Ari, always a pleasure.” Loxias bowed his head in greeting. “May I present Friar Stearn, my most trusted aide, and someone destined for glorious things in the Order?”

  Roget imitated Loxias’ bow.

  “You know Defense Secretary DeCarde.” Hodson gestured at the woman beside him.

  “Of course. How are you, Madame Secretary?”

  “Doing tolerably well, Friar.” DeCarde glanced at Stearn. “Aren’t you the one Dawn Seeker picked up on Yotai?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Stearn is extremely talented, as you’ll no doubt see over the coming years, Madame Secretary. Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

  Another bow and Loxias led Roget around the room, introducing him to each Chamber of Commerce member in attendance before both took a cup of tea and a small pastry.

  “You might have noticed DeCarde isn’t a fan of the Order, something she shares with other members of Morane’s cabinet. Hopefully, his successor’s appoint
ees will be friendlier.”

  Stearn thought it might be more a case of DeCarde not liking Loxias personally rather than the Order itself, but he knew better than pointing that out. Instead, since this was his first time among non-Brethren other than the Windy Isles exiles since arriving on Lyonesse, he wondered how ordinary human minds would seem to his partially trained senses.

  He cautiously lowered his mental shields, expecting something akin to Supermax’s cacophony, though perhaps not nearly as pronounced, but what he picked up was only the mental counterpart of the quiet conversations around him. Roget looked around the room to match what he sensed with individuals but in vain.

  A bell tinkled, and most voices trailed off. Once he had everyone’s attention, Hodson said, in a surprisingly strong basso, “Ladies and gentlemen, if you would please move to the banquet hall next door so we can start the meeting.”

  Roget followed Loxias, but once in the banquet hall, he peeled off to one side where chairs lined the wall while his superior joined Gerson Hecht, Severin Downes, and a few others at one of the many cloth-covered round tables. The room filled quickly as Hodson stood behind a rostrum bearing the Chamber’s logo, a green double-headed Vanger’s Condor clutching a banner with the words ‘The Spirit of Enterprise’ written on it.

  While Hodson waited for everyone to settle down and face him, Roget scanned the tables looking for those Loxias named on their way here. Once he fixed their position in his mind, he turned his eyes on the rostrum, like everyone else present.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, today is the last Lyonesse Chamber of Commerce meeting before this year’s general elections. With the increasing peril posed by plague ships and the ensuing demands placed on us to support the Navy’s expansion, our interest in who will form the next senate and elect President Morane’s successor is greater than ever. Simply put, we must make sure our views are well represented. I propose we debate senatorial endorsements after dealing with regular business.”

  Roget noticed Loxias and Hecht exchange glances and idly wondered how close they were. Animated discussions soon broke out, but instead of listening, he focused on his targets, since he knew nothing about Lyonesse politics. Yet the more he studied them, the more frustrated he became. Despite everything Roget tried, he couldn’t distinguish their minds from the background noise, and the physical tells he’d been taught to look for weren’t much in evidence. It left him with the study of body language, tone, and degree of participation in the debate, things he couldn’t yet analyze with any confidence. Loxias would be disappointed, but what did he expect of a partly trained friar, even one with a sister’s abilities?

  Unless he took a step into the realm of dragons.

  Roget looked inward at the third eye Marta’s training showed him. Opening it might allow his talent to zero in on individual minds without touching them and thereby match emotions with demeanor. Where was the harm in that? Brethren took every opportunity for self-improvement, so long as they didn’t violate any article of the Order’s Rule. And since he’d not sworn the oath yet, there could be no violation.

  Who first?

  His eyes rested on Severin Downes’ sharp, patrician profile a few meters in front of him. Downes struck Roget as a weak man when Loxias introduced him earlier, though he couldn’t figure out why. Perhaps it was Downes’ supercilious demeanor and the almost discourteous way he’d returned Roget’s respectful greeting. Roget knew from experience forceful characters rarely wrapped themselves in a cloak of superiority because they didn’t need one. They knew their worth and their place. Weak characters, on the other hand...

  He concentrated on the mental image he’d created of his third eye while staring at Downes. After a few moments that felt more like eons, his inner eyelid quivered, then snapped open, and he saw Severin Downes’ soul, writhing within the controlled envelope of a man who would always be at war with the universe.

  At that same instant, half a planet away, the Order of the Void’s most powerful teacher woke with a start and checked the time, wondering what could disturb her sleep at the hour of the wolf, when night’s black cloak smothered the Windy Isles.

  PART III - THE HOUR OF THE WOLF

  — 36 —

  The more Stearn’s third eye peeled back the layers of Severin Downes’ personality, the more he pitied him. Downes’ strongest emotion was smoldering anger deep within. It lived side-by-side with resentment, hunger for power, and an unfulfilled thirst for respect. He was an insignificant man whose role in the republic’s future was almost nil, and deep within, he understood that.

  After a few minutes, Stearn closed his third eye for a brief rest and turned his gaze on DeCarde. He’d already decided the former commander of the Lyonesse Defense Force and current Defense Secretary was perhaps the most honest individual in the room. She exuded self-confidence and openness. Stearn could well believe she’d backed Morane’s proposal Lyonesse build a Knowledge Vault and make itself independent of the crumbling empire.

  Her name wasn’t on Loxias’ list, but he wanted to look at her mind anyway. A few deep, controlled breaths, then Stearn opened his inner eyelid, though not without difficulty. It resisted him, as if under a spell. Yet when he looked at DeCarde, he saw nothing. It was as if she had mental shields of her own. Or perhaps she kept such a tight leash on her emotions that the inner woman mirrored her outer manifestation.

  Curious, Stearn formed mental fingers and reached across the room so he could examine her up close, mindful he was broadening his violation of Marta’s strictures. But what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt him, no matter how strong her talent. None of the sisters, not even Marta, could force her way into his thoughts, he was sure of that by now.

  When his fingers brushed up against the energy field that was DeCarde’s mind, he felt a strange tingle but no shield. She really was extraordinarily self-possessed. Remarkable. Unexpectedly, DeCarde glanced at Stearn, as if she detected the intrusion. He instantly withdrew and closed his third eye, fearful DeCarde was one of the rare people Marta had mentioned.

  Both successful attempts proved Stearn could reach out at will, even without further training, although he couldn’t yet manage the energy expenditure. Surely sisters who worked as counselors, the most mentally draining of jobs, knew how. And there were probably advanced techniques on interpreting another’s brain waves with greater precision. Yet what he’d sensed from Downes and DeCarde so closely corroborated his initial assessment of them that Stearn couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride unseemly in a friar.

  He spent another ten or fifteen minutes listening while he recuperated before turning his attention on Gerson Hecht. The head of Hecht Industries was outwardly as self-possessed as DeCarde, though without the latter’s aura of openness and palpable honesty. Stearn expected the same sort of quiet mind, one which needed a closer examination before revealing its secrets.

  Yet when he reached out with his mental fingers, Stearn found nothing. Hecht was a man without feelings and without emotions. Perhaps even without a soul. At least as far as he could tell. Maybe the planet’s leading industrialist was what Amelia called a highly functioning psychopath, one who avoided criminality and channeled his energies into legitimate pursuits. Being devoid of empathy would certainly present advantages in someone who led the republic’s largest conglomerate. For one, he wouldn’t waste time worrying about the welfare of those over whom he rode roughshod on his way to success.

  Though weariness was settling in after three attempts, Stearn nonetheless studied the others on Loxias’ list and found a mishmash of personalities, none quite as remarkable as either DeCarde or Hecht nor as perpetually furious as Downes.

  **

  “Though I’m always glad to speak with you, it’s the middle of the night in the Windies. Why are you calling me?” Gwenneth frowned at Marta’s image on her office display.

  “What is Stearn doing at the moment?”

  “I couldn’t say. Hang on.” Gwenneth raised her voice. “Landry, please find ou
t where Stearn is.”

  The young friar poked his head through the door seconds later. “He’s been shadowing Loxias since Marta left, and Loxias is at the quarterly Lyonesse Chamber of Commerce meeting this afternoon.”

  Gwenneth mentally rolled her eyes. The Chamber of Commerce had invited the Order to join it, or rather Loxias’ allies arranged for the invitation, shortly after she’d first sat with the Estates-General. Though the Order’s involvement in the medical and academic fields was extensive, the abbey wasn’t a big commercial player, despite its traditional monastic food and drink production. However, hobnobbing with the republic’s captains of industry kept Loxias happy, and so she’d accepted.

  She glanced at Marta. “You heard?”

  “Yes. Do me a favor and peel Stearn away from Loxias the moment they return, then see that he swears the oath and receives the conditioning. I should never have left him at this critical juncture in his development.”

  “What is it you fear?” When Marta didn’t immediately reply, Gwenneth gave her a knowing look. “You felt a premonition, didn’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a premonition, but something pulled me from my sleep. Since the bond between teacher and student is strong, and Stearn is a stronger student than any I’ve taught, I fear he did something he shouldn’t during that Chamber of Commerce meeting, likely at Loxias’ urging. Since Loxias shows an unseemly lack of restraint in pursuing his ambitions, I fear he might take Stearn down the wrong path.”

  Gwenneth would suspect any other sister with such fears of having an overactive imagination, but not Marta. She’d been right often enough over the years, eerily so sometimes.

  “Katarin will resume Stearn’s training next week. She’s the most appropriate teacher for him but has a firm commitment right now — a patient undergoing treatment at the University Medical Center.”

  “Then either you do it now or forbid him from leaving the abbey grounds until Katarin returns. If he’s been peeking into non-Brethren minds at that meeting with no inhibitions keeping him from violating their privacy, who knows where it’ll lead. Especially if there’s another Pendrick Zahar in the crowd.”