Baranak_Storming the Gates

by Van Allen Plexico

  “I didn’t ‘mess with’ anything,” he said. “I merely stimulated your brain activity such that you could stay awake and alert longer.”

  “Even so—”

  “If I had not,” he went on, “you would already have been killed. At least once.”

  I simmered for a moment, then looked away and nodded once. “All right,” I said. “But you should have told me. At the time you did it.” I jabbed a finger at him. “And you will ask in the future before doing anything involving my mind. Anything.”

  He nodded his head once.

  The horses carried us across the grassy field at a trot.

  “Be warned,” Istari said after a few moments had passed and I’d calmed myself, “that time runs differently in each layer of reality. We spent no small amount of time on other planes. I cannot judge offhand how much time might have passed here on your world.”

  This took me aback.

  “You mean—this morning now...” I sought to find the right words. “...this morning might not be the one after the night when I left here?”

  “That is correct. We are surely further along in time now than otherwise would have been the case had you remained here.”

  “Are we talking a day?” I asked, a mild concern deepening within me as I thought about it. “A week?” I frowned at him. “More?”

  He shook his head. “I cannot say,” he replied. “We will know soon enough.”

  I wondered how the war was proceeding. Was it over? Had I missed it entirely? And—if so, who had won?

  Shaking my head to clear it, I put such thoughts aside. No point in getting all worked up before I had to. I pointed toward the far corner of the palace just ahead of us and to the right. “The stables,” I said. “Let us drop off our horses and then—”

  “You cannot mean to take me openly into the palace,” he interrupted, frowning. “That could precipitate things before we are fully prepared to deal with them.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed, yawned, and looked back at him. “No— no, of course not. Not yet, at least.” I hopped down from Comet and took him by the reins, then reached out and grasped the reins of Istari’s dark horse. My companion dismounted and stood there as I gazed up the hill in the direction of the stables. The area appeared deserted and idly I wondered where the family’s retainers were.

  “What will you do in the meantime?” I asked him.

  “I will be nearby. Have no fear of that. I will be watching and waiting for the proper moment.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of this so I shrugged and led the horses up the slope toward the stables. After several steps something occurred to me and I turned back.

  “You never told me the name of your horse—” I began, but he had vanished.

  I looked from the now-empty grassy field to the black horse. The animal seemed to regard me with curiosity bordering on dislike. I patted it on the nose. “Hmm,” I said. “I think we’ll call you ‘Sneak.’”

  The horse didn’t visibly react to that, though I’d half-expected it to. I had no idea what Istari’s kind might have done to their horses over the years.

  So I led Comet and the newly-named Sneak up to the stables and there I found a lone retainer—an elderly man with sparse, white hair, clad in dark blue overalls—cleaning the place with a hose. I nodded to him and he shut off the water and greeted me. I recalled his name was Roger.

  “Lord Gaius,” he said as he set the hose aside and came up to take the reins of the two horses. He stroked Comet’s nose and then gave Sneak a look of mild surprise, before leading them to open stalls. “They’ve all been wondering where you’d gotten off to,” he said.

  “Something unexpected came up,” I replied. I hesitated, then, “Can you tell me how long it’s been since I left?”

  He was in the process of lighting a pipe. He puffed on it for a moment, pursed his lips and thought. “Let’s see— you took Comet out on the evening of the twelfth. This is the morning of the sixteenth.”

  “The sixteenth?” I took this in and shook my head. More than three days had passed while I’d been off gallivanting about the cosmos with Istari. How much could have happened in such a long time? I looked around and reassured myself that the palace still stood—it wasn’t a smoking crater overrun with Verghasite troops—and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “How goes the war, then?” I asked him.

  Roger puffed on his pipe again, a cloud of smoke billowing about his head. “I’m sure your uncles could give you a much more detailed answer to that question, my lord,” he said.

  “Are we winning or losing? In general.”

  He spread his hands. “More winning than losing, I’d say. They’ve pushed the battle lines back in the direction of the enemy, from what I’ve heard. But don’t quote me on that,” he added with a smile.

  So Victoria wasn’t in imminent danger of being overrun by Verghas. Presumably neither was the larger world our moon orbited, Majondra. That was a relief.

  “Thank you, Roger,” I told him. “Please see to the horses. I may be back for them before long.”

  “I will, my lord.” He looked over at Sneak again and stroked his chin. “This is a mighty fine animal, if you don’t mind my saying so,” he added. “Might I inquire as to how you came by him?”

  “He belongs to a... a friend,” I answered hastily. “Take good care of him. But,” I added before I rounded the corner, “keep a watchful eye on him. I’m not entirely sure I trust him.”

  Roger started to laugh at this, then saw my grave expression and the laughter died in his throat. The last I saw of him, he was turning to look upon Sneak with a wary expression. Then I came to the stairs and started up to the landing and the side entrance to the palace.

  + + +

  All was a blur from the moment I entered the palace until Aunt Aurelia awoke me. I sat up and looked around. My eyes were crusty and I generally felt as if I’d been partially mummified, but the crushing weariness was gone. I was sitting on a couch in a corridor outside the kitchens—but how long I’d slept there, I couldn’t yet say. Clearly I hadn’t even made it to my bedroom, but had passed out on the first horizontal surface I’d come across. Aurelia was standing over me, clad now in a tight-fitting black outfit of some synthetic material or other, her red hair tied up atop her head. She was gazing down with a troubled look on her face.

  “Where have you been?” she all-but-demanded.

  “What time is it?” I countered.

  She looked annoyed that I’d deflected her question but replied, “Nine in the evening.”

  Nine. So I’d slept at least nine or ten hours. Good.

  “It’s a good thing Stephanie found you lying here and told me,” she was saying, “or else you might have slept through the whole rest of the war.”

  “Stephanie?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

  “She didn’t have the heart to wake you. Fortunately, I don’t share that limitation.” She rested her hands on her hips and repeated, more forcefully, “Where have you been?”

  “Right here for quite a while, it sounds like,” I said. “Since before noon.”

  “I’ve only just arrived from Tolkar,” she said, referencing the world that lay next to us along the line of Gates, in the direction of Earth and the opposite direction from Sarmata and Verghas.

  “What were you doing on Tolkar?”

  “Meeting with the Church leaders there. Discussing an alliance against the Verghasites.”

  “You mean Justinian hasn’t already whipped them?” I asked facetiously.

  She gave me a sour look. “He’s done a fine job thus far. Our forces have beaten the enemy back through the Gate and across the Sarmata system to their own Gate.”

  “Sounds like a new operation is being planned,” I said, “if he has you off making deals with the other worlds.”

  She looked as if she were going to make a smart remark to that, but then changed her mind and nodded. “Justinian wishes to secure alliances with Tolkar and Earth, at our
backs, so that we can more confidently prosecute the war against Verghas in front of us. We don’t want to face a two-front war.”

  “Makes sense.” I smiled at her. “Glad things are going well.”

  She looked even more annoyed.

  I stood, stretching and yawning. “So what else is new?”

  “The morning after our meeting in the library,” she said, “Justinian asked everyone to meet in the dining hall. There he assigned each of us a task to help win the war. But you, alone of all of us, were nowhere to be found.”

  I looked at her innocently. “Oh? So you mean Aunt Octavia finally showed up?”

  She frowned. “No,” she admitted almost reluctantly. “Octavia has yet to make an appearance.”

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t know where she is or what she’s doing, but I know what I was doing.”

  “And that was?”

  “Exactly what I told you and the others I would be doing: Investigating my father’s murder.”

  She looked bored by this. “And did you find anything?” she asked in perfunctory fashion.

  “I did,” I said—as much to gauge her reaction as anything.

  I was rewarded for this decision. Her eyes widened and she took a step back.

  “What?” she asked, her voice soft but filled with tension.

  “I found the... people... generally responsible,” I said. “And I also found a very interesting connection that leads back... here.”

  She appeared taken aback by that. Her eyes widened and she tried a couple of times to speak before words actually came out. “Back—back here? You mean...”

  “I mean someone here is involved,” I said. I knew this violated my arrangement with Istari about not spilling any beans too soon, but I felt that I was onto something with her and wanted to draw it out before she had a chance to recover and mask herself.

  “Someone here,” she repeated, staring back at me. “You mean—someone in the family?”

  I shrugged. “There are indications that might be the case,” I said. “But I can’t be sure yet.”

  She looked away for a long second, then back at me, and now her face was set in a grim, determined manner. “Tell me where you have been and who you’ve talked to, Gaius,” she said. “No more teasing.”

  “Not just yet,” I said. “I have a few more bits of information to gather and then I’ll speak to everyone, all at once.”

  I scooted out of there before she could object further. I did have other investigating to do, but before that, I wanted to check up on the two priestesses I’d left behind. They had almost entirely escaped my thoughts during the journey with Istari. Knowing now that they’d been here for almost four days without me... I was concerned.

  On the way there I passed the armory. There was no attendant present, so I stepped inside and took a quick look around. Most of the drawers and cabinets were locked, but I did spot a fancily-decorated set of components of deflector armor that lay on one table where a servant had been polishing them. They gleamed golden and possessed almost a medieval look, though their advanced materials and construction meant they would provide a decent amount of protection in battle. Certainly more than I had enjoyed up until that moment. I didn’t know when I’d have the chance to acquire something different or better so I donned the breastplate, boots and other pieces, tucked the gloves in my belt, and hurried back out.

  Up the nearest stairs and down a long hallway I traveled, moving about as quickly as I could get away with, amid all the statues and vases and whatnot that lined the walls. Coming at last to the room I’d given to the two women, I knocked.

  Nothing. I waited and waited, and no one answered.

  I knocked again, and got the same result.

  I tried the knob and the door opened. The room was in good order, but it was entirely empty.

  Walking back out into the hallway, I ran my hands through my hair and looked around. Perhaps they were at dinner, I thought. That would mean the others were aware of their presence but, given how long they’d been left here alone, I could hardly blame them if they’d revealed themselves eventually.

  I hurried down the main stairs, rounded a couple of corners and entered the main hall. And nearly ran into Jerome coming the other way.

  He looked at me and his eyes widened. “Well! There you are, at last.”

  I stepped back and regarded him: Tall, bald, and almost—but not quite—as imposing as my father had been.

  “It’s good to learn everyone’s been so concerned for my welfare,” I said. “Something came up. It kept me busy longer than I expected.”

  He looked me up and down, seemed to evaluate me, and nodded. “I see. Any progress with your investigation?”

  “I believe so,” I told him, watching him closely. I made the decision on the spot to do the same with him I’d done with Aurelia—to throw out a few tidbits and see if I got any bites.

  “Oh?” he asked, looking surprised. “Such as?”

  “I believe I know who was responsible, at least indirectly,” I said.

  Now he looked even more surprised. “Let us bring them to justice, then,” he said. “Do you require a detachment of troops, or—?”

  “The process of apprehending the guilty parties likely will prove a bit more complicated than that,” I replied. “And I have yet to identify all of them.”

  Jerome frowned at this. “It sounds as if you’re describing a conspiracy, not just a single assassin,” he said.

  “There was a single assassin,” I replied. “His name was Corindar Jeras. He was my father’s friend and religious counselor. Dad trusted him. But Jeras worked with certain individuals who apparently had a hold over him greater than his bond of friendship with Dad. They ordered the murder.” I gazed back at him, studying his every tiny reaction. “I now know who most of them are—but not all. Not quite all.”

  He nodded slowly. I could see no guile, no deception. Either he was very, very skillful or he was entirely innocent. I didn’t remember Jerome as particularly skillful at anything.

  “Very well,” he said. “Anything else you need to conclude your investigation, or to bring the guilty parties in, just let me know. All right?”

  I nodded. “I will.” I paused. “Say—what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with the fleet, and with Alexius?”

  “Normally I would be,” he said, “but Aurelia has been off negotiating with the leaders on Tolkar and we were to meet here to discuss what she accomplished. But I haven’t seen her yet. She’s late.”

  “I just saw her,” I told him. “She woke me up.”

  “She’s here?”

  “She was a short time ago. Down by the kitchens.”

  He blinked. “You slept by the kitchens?”

  I laughed. “I was pretty tired.”

  “You must have been.”

  “That old sofa there is pretty comfortable.”

  He smiled. “Oh,” he said then, “before I go looking for my dear sister.” He gestured behind him, toward the dining room. “I have a couple of your friends here.”

  “What?” I started to ask—but then I saw what he meant.

  Seated at two spots along the big dining hall table were the two dark-haired women I’d left behind when I’d ridden Comet off into the night, now four days past—the two priestesses from the Church on Sarmata. Sister Halaini and... I still couldn’t recall the name of the other one. Neither now wore the brown robes of a corinda; they were both dressed in the relatively comfortable daily-use blue uniforms of our family’s personal guard. Each had her hair tied back in a ponytail and each now gazed up at me with what looked to be a combination of surprise and anger, from what I could tell.

  “They came to me two days ago,” Jerome was saying as I strode around the big table toward them.

  “You never came back,” Halaini said as I approached. She was clearly not happy at all. “We were stuck in that room for two days.”

  “And then we decided to forget you and your secrecy and
take matters into our own hands,” the Sister Superior interjected. “Fortunately Jerome here was present and was good enough to see to us.”

  “Something I am very grateful for,” I replied, giving Jerome a solemn nod. He smiled affably back at me. As I said before, taken individually, my two younger uncles are not so bad.

  “Two days,” Halaini repeated, glaring at me, clearly wanting explanations I was not really in a position to offer.

  “I apologize,” I told them both instead of attempting to explain. “But I assure you it was unavoidable.” I offered them as sincere a smile as I could conjure. “And it’s safe to say that the events that detained me also shed a good deal more light on exactly what has been happening on both our worlds.”

  The two looked at one another, then back at me.

  “And what exactly—” the Sister Superior began.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  They came out of the dark recesses of the room. They moved fast, darting from cover to cover. I saw them immediately and yet my brain didn’t—or couldn’t—process exactly what I was seeing for a full two seconds. By then it was almost too late to react.

  They wore black robes and they carried long knives and they slid across the room like shadows crossing the lawn in late afternoon. Their lower faces were masked with black as well and only their eyes were visible. The blades flashed out and up and they were upon us, and it took all my years of military training to deflect and dodge the two who came for me.

  I spun aside and came up in a crouch, taking in the broad scene in a flash. Jerome had his blast pistol out and was giving ground as three of the shadows stalked him. His other hand clasped at something at his belt; I trusted it was a signal that would call the house guards. I certainly hoped it was, and that they were paying attention this fine evening. On the other side from me, another attacker had leapt onto the table and was menacing the women.

  “Stop,” shouted Sister Halaini, as she stood and raised both hands before her, facing our attackers. “What is the matter with you? These are not our enemies!”

  One of the figures in black backhanded her and she went down with a cry.