Sword of the Lamb

by M. K. Wren

  There could be only one reason. No holiday prompted this unexpected return, and there had been no warning of it. Alexand closed his eyes, wondering why he felt no pain.

  Three years. Three years playing henchman in the guise of duty; three years carrying Rich’s secret with him.

  Now Rich had come home.

  “We heard there was some trouble in the Sudani area, my lord.” The statement was a question.

  “Yes, Hilding, there was . . . some trouble.”

  “We were afraid you were involved since your unit is stationed in Zandria.”

  “I was involved. The Lord Orongo called us in.”

  “Uprising in the mines, I understand. Terrible affair.”

  Alexand made no reply. No words were adequate, except perhaps Hilding’s. Terrible affair.

  At least—terrible.

  “I heard it was that—that Society . . . the Phoenix, I guess they call it, that set off the uprising, my lord.”

  “Where did you hear that, Hilding?” No shade of expression in his voice.

  “Oh . . . I don’t know. I was just talking to some of the guards.”

  “In other words, gossip.”

  “I—well, yes.” He laughed uneasily.

  “Hilding, I don’t know if there’s any truth to the rumor. There’ll be an investigation, I’m sure.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  Hilding’s noncommittal tone was eloquent. The investigation would be fruitless, and if the Phoenix was left to bear the burden of blame, it was only because Conpol didn’t even know what questions to ask.

  Alexand had asked questions of his own among the survivors at the mine, but none of them knew what had triggered the bloody, futile mutiny, and they had been too busy tending the injured and counting the dead to care.

  Hilding was moving down into the exit grid; the mass of Concordia’s lights were behind them, and ahead on the crest of the ridge Alexand saw the familiar pattern of lights.

  Home. Rich had come home. To die.

  2.

  There were no guards at the family wing entrance, an anomaly to which Alexand gave scant attention. But Gate Steward Maxim Lews was waiting In the entry foyer.

  “My lord, are you . . . are you all right?”

  He looked at the old man, wondering at his shocked expression until he caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the glassed walls. It was a grim, begrimed image.

  He smiled mechanically. “Yes. Maxim. Quite all right. Where’s Rich?”

  “In the upper terrace salon. Lord Woolf and my lady are with him, and the Lord Galinin.”

  Galinin. He frowned, then started down the corridor.

  “Go to bed, Maxim. It’s late.”

  “Thank you, my lord, but I have instructions.”

  Alexand paused. “You’re expecting someone else?”

  “Yes. my lord.”

  “Who?”

  “I wasn’t told.”

  Alexand left the pedway and turned down a side corridor, his pace quickening as he neared the salon, but when he reached it, he hesitated before touching the doorcon.

  It had been four months since he’d last seen Rich. The ravages of the illness in that time . . .

  A slither and click; then, as he stepped into the room, the sound repeated itself in a silence.

  The salon was a favorite of Elise’s, full of light at almost any hour of the day, its décor a comfortable mix of periods with individual pieces chosen solely for their beauty or personal meaning, the colors tending toward warm browns and golds. The ceiling was high and intricately coffered, with deep light wells, and the long windowall to his left as he entered offered a fine vista of Concordia. Tonight the light level was low, providing no distraction from the view, but the family was gathered at the other end of the room by the fireplace, his mother seated with her back to the door, Mathis Galinin on her right in a deep armchair by the hearth, Phillip Woolf standing on her left, gazing into the fire, the flames casting flickering lights on his aquiline profile. And on the other side of the fireplace in his nulgrav chair, facing the door—

  Rich was dying.

  Strange that it was one thing to know he’d come home to die, but another to see that he was dying. His body seemed weightless, as if it exerted no pressure against the cushions, and so frail it seemed the smallest movement would shatter him; his hands lay on the chair arms like exquisite abstractions of glass.

  Alexand had anticipated the accelerated deterioration, but he encountered here something entirely unexpected: an inexplicable beauty, something refined to its essence. There was an aura, as if this fragile being were in process of consumption by some purifying white fire that burned from within. It was in his face, the skin taut and translucent over the fine structure of his skull, and it was most of all in his eyes. His eyes were lenses concentrating the inner fire, the clear, depthless blue of summer skies.

  Behind those eyes, something unknowable. They saw past the rim of life. Alexand had the startled sense of finding himself in the presence of—what? He could find no words, except one his mind objectively rejected: holy.

  “Hello, Alex.”

  He crossed to Rich and took his hand, painfully aware of its frailty, of the dry, chill feel of the skin.

  “Rich—dear God, I’ve missed you.”

  It was perhaps some momentary shift in Rich’s gaze that reminded him that they weren’t alone. Alexand looked to his left, finding it an effort to call up a smile.

  “Father . . .”

  “You arrived in good time, Alex.”

  He only nodded, then went to his mother and kissed her cheek. He frowned at the smear of grime left by that brief contact. It sullied her clear skin.

  “Mother, I’m not fit to touch anyone at the moment. How are you?”

  The smile was too forced, the handkerchief she raised to wipe away the smear was twisted and crumpled. For the first time, he realized she was showing incipient signs of age, and it came as a shock. Somehow it had never occurred to him that Elise Galinin Woolf was subject to the process of aging.

  “How are you, Alex?” she asked, studying him anxiously. “You look so . . . tired.”

  He turned to Mathis Galinin, deeply ensconced in the armchair, sitting it like a throne.

  “I am tired, Mother. Grandser, it’s been a long time.”

  “So it has, and we’re both the worse for wear. Alex, have you heard from Adrien lately? How is she?”

  He tensed inwardly at that. Not that he didn’t appreciate the affectionate concern in the query. Perhaps it was because Adrien seemed a last bastion of gentle rationality, something too precious to talk about only hours away from the Orongo mines, as if those horrors sullied her as the dust did his mother’s cheek. He took off his cloak, noting the sheen of dust clouding the black cloth.

  “She’s well, Grandser. I called her . . . three days ago.” It seemed much longer.

  “A lovely young woman. She’s entirely captivated me.”

  Elise smiled up at Alexand. “You aren’t alone in that. Father. Alex, have you eaten? Would you—”

  “Now. there’s a typical mother.” His smile faltered; the thought of food was intolerable. He turned and crossed to the refreshment ’spenser in the corner, tossing the cloak over a chair on his way. “I’m not hungry, Mother, but I could use a drink.”

  Galinin swiveled his chair around. “Alex, was that uprising under control when you left?”

  He paused with his hand on the switch that set the revolving bottle rack in motion: the crystal decanters tinkled faintly among themselves. Then he jerked a towel from the dispenser and wiped his hands and face, staring at the dark smudges.

  The question came from the Lord Galinin. the Chairman. It wasn’t idle or gratuitous, and it couldn’t be
ignored.

  “Yes. Grandser, it was under control, or nearly so.”

  “Have you any idea what started it?”

  He took a decanter from the rack and read the imprint. “It began at the entrance of the main shaft. That’s all anyone knows.” He frowned at the bottle. “Canadia?”

  Woolf responded absently. “I’m on speaking terms with Charles Fallor again. He sent over a few cases.”

  Alexand pulled the stopper, feeling out his father’s constrained attitude. It seemed more than grief. He poured the whiskey indifferently. Fallor’s whiskey had never impressed him, but the bottle was in hand.

  “Will anyone join me?”

  There was no response to that. He capped the decanter.

  “Alex, I’ve had reports from Conpol,” Galinin said, “but they were garbled, as usual. You were there. I must know what happened.”

  Alexand stared at the quivering reflections in his glass. “I talked to some of the Fesh who were near the main shaft when it started, but they had no conclusive answers.”

  “Did you talk to any of the Bonds who were on the scene at the outset?”

  He watched his own hand, resting on the counter, curl into a fist at his father’s curt, impatient interjection.

  “The Bonds? What good would it do to talk to them?”

  And Alexand wondered if any of the Bonds who might have answered these questions had survived, if the answers weren’t buried in the deepest shafts, strewn in mangled—

  He squeezed his eyes shut, teeth cutting into his lip.

  Adrien said he was damned with a conscience, but he was more damned with a clear memory, one that never ceased functioning, like heart and breath, outside conscious control, constantly gathering new images for new nightmares.

  “Alex?”

  Galinin. But Alexand was no longer capable of regarding him as the Chairman; it was all he could do not to shout.

  “Grandser . . . please. Not now. The questions need answers. But I . . . need a little time.” He took his glass and went to the empty chair between Rich and the hearth. He had to move slowly; he was assaulted by unexpected periods of dizziness. But they passed.

  He turned to his brother and wondered why his direct, almost expressionless gaze made him suddenly aware of the ominous character of the silence around them. It was more than a response to Rich’s agonizingly imminent death.

  His mother’s smile faltered when he looked at her: her hands tightened on the twisted handerkerchief. He turned to Galinin. surprised to see him avert his eyes. His father still stood staring into the fire, his face momentarily unguarded, the grief nakedly exposed. And something else.

  Anger. And a pain that wasn’t grief.

  The answer to this silence came indirectly. When Rich began to speak, Alexand expected it, but his words at first seemed to lead away from it.

  “Grandser, I’m concerned about Alex.”

  “We all are, Rich.”

  “In one sense or another, yes. I’m thinking of the effect of my demise on—”

  “Rich, please—”

  “No, Alex, don’t put me off.” He waited until Alexand silenced his own objections with a nod. “Grandser, the real nature of my illness has never been made public, but it will become self-evident in the near future, and that will make Alex extremely vulnerable.”

  Galinin pursed his lips, glancing up at Woolf, but he seemed out of touch, tuned out of this conversation.

  Alexand laughed. “Ah. I see. You think someone might try to rid the House of its sole heir. Well, that wouldn’t be so difficult. A Bond uprising would make such a convenient cover for an ‘accident.’ ”

  Rich nodded soberly. “Yes, Alex.”

  He couldn’t muster a shred of concern for his vulnerability, and he laughed again, despite Galinin’s stern look.

  “Well, Rich, you have a point there, especially since I still have the extraordinary privilege of being assigned to the same unit as Karlis Selasis. Lord Orin’s behind that somewhere; it has his malicious stamp.”

  Rich didn’t respond to that. He turned instead to Galinin.

  “Grandser, I know you’ve been stymied at pulling any strings for Alex; Selasis is watching for it, and he’ll raise a howl. Fortunately, Alex only has two more months of active duty, but still, I think you should take the risk. His unit is being transferred to Leda in four days, and that will put a great deal of distance between him and any protection you and Father can provide.”

  Alexand’s head came up at the matter-of-fact announcement of the transfer; he’d been told nothing of it. And Woolf was roused from his inward reverie, his response cold and bitterly sarcastic.

  “We appreciate your keeping us informed of Confleet plans, especially since that transfer is classified Pri-One!”

  Alexand didn’t hear Rich’s reply. He closed his eyes, stunned, the trembling going out of control. The answer to the weighted silence in this room was in his father’s words.

  Alexand knew the source of Rich’s information: the Phoenix. He was only surprised about the transfer. And Woolf knew Rich’s source, too. Otherwise, he’d have asked how Rich came to be in possession of Pri-One information. And that coldness, the icy contempt that had never been turned on Rich . . .

  Alexand remained motionless, eyes closed, sorting the mixed threads of his own emotions, certain only of uncertainty. They were all at a nexus in their lives. There were factors here outside his ken, potentials only dimly sensed. A crossroad; a junction in timeliness.

  He opened his eyes to find himself the focus of every other eye, yet when he spoke it seemed to startle them. Except Rich. He was waiting for the question.

  “Rich, how did they find out?”

  “I told them.”

  Woolf cut in. “Alex! You know about this? How long have you known?”

  Alexand looked up at his father and understood the anger now; pain transmuted. He considered himself betrayed.

  “Rich talked to me before he accepted the Leda post.”

  “Before he—Holy God, all this time you knew, and you didn’t tell me? Didn’t you think it might be of some interest to me that I was harboring a traitor in the House?”

  “I don’t consider Rich a traitor.”

  Woolf went white. “Then how do you account for the fact that he admits himself a member of the Phoenix?”

  “Does that automatically make him a traitor?”

  Woolf stared at him, his hands knotting. “Alex, I don’t understand you!”

  Elise’s hand went out, resting on her husband’s closed fist. “Phillip, please. Don’t blame Alex for not telling you. Rich is his brother—”

  “And Alex is my son, my first born! Has he no obligation to me—to the House?” Then he sagged under her penetrating, dry-eyed gaze. “I’m sorry, Elise, but this is all so incomprehensible.”

  The tension that had been close to a breaking point ebbed, and Galinin said levelly, “Alex’s motives are beside the point now, Phillip, and neither of you are in a frame of mind to discuss them objectively.” Then he turned to Alexand. “I’m sorry you’ve had to come home from that uprising to this, but obviously Rich has created problems here that must be dealt with.”

  Alexand nodded and took a swallow of the whiskey. It might have been water, but it helped wash away the smell. He caught the brief closing of Rich’s eyes. Pain. Not something born of the mind; it was simpler and more tangible. Physical pain.

  “Rich, how much have you told them?”

  “Everything I could without endangering the Society.” He took a pill vial from his tunic and held it hidden in his hand. “It would have been easier for all concerned if I’d kept the secret, and I wanted to.”

  “Yes. I know.” He watched numbly as Rich opened the vial and slipped a pill into his mouth, and he
wondered what kind of medication it was.

  “But I couldn’t take the easy way, Alex, and the reason will be familiar enough to you. An accident of birth. I’m the only member of the Phoenix who could gather in one room the Lord Mathis Galinin, Chairman of the Directorate, the Lord Phillip DeKoven Woolf, a Director and heir to the Chairmanship, and their mutual heir. I have two purposes in returning to Concordia. One is to act as an envoy, to give these prime movers of the Concord a true accounting of the Phoenix.” He paused, his mouth shadowed with an ironic smile. “And to prepare them for the time when they come to the bargaining table with us in the age-old custom of merchants and princes to haggle over the fate of civilization.”

  “Never!” Woolf exploded. “The Concord doesn’t bargain with thieves and traitors!”

  Rich only nodded. “Thieves and traitors. Catchphrases are dangerous, Father. Those are your words. And scapegoating is even more dangerous; far more dangerous. It too often lets the real culprits escape unnoticed and unpunished.” Then he sighed. “No, the Concord won’t bargain with us. Not until it has no choice. The Phoenix is working toward that day, and it will come, or there may be no civilization left to haggle over.”

  “No doubt the Phoenix will see to that if we won’t surrender to your demands.”

  Rich’s head moved in a negative motion against the cushions of his chair.

  “I think I made it clear that the very reason for our existence is to prevent a third dark age. When we haggle, it will be over the means of maintaining civilization. I know you think we’ll never come to terms, and you may be right, but if you are, it will be because the Concord fails before the Phoenix is strong enough to force it to the bargaining. I expect no converts now. I only hope that later, and it may be years later, what I’ve said here will be remembered.” He looked at Alexand, a mute sadness in his eyes. “The seeds I sow may never take root, but I was the only one who could sow them in this particular ground.”

  This particular ground. Alexand looked at his father, his uncomprehending anguish turned to implacable obduracy. This sterile ground. Perhaps Galinin offered more fertile ground, but he was an old man, and Phillip Woolf was heir to the Chairmanship.