Demon in White

by Christopher Ruocchio

  No one spoke, unless it was the junior officers coordinating with the Falcon team aquilarii. Not Valka, not Alexander, not even I had words as the city burned and Falcons fell and burned themselves in the smoking ruins of the once-great city.

  I remember the hunched shape of Lorian Aristedes, red-lit from beneath by the glow of the console table, still and uncharacteristically silent. One might have thought him a statue, a gargoyle such as decorated Devil’s Rest and the cathedrals of old Europe, wide-eyed and watchful. He didn’t move, didn’t blink, but drew one knee to his chin in the high seat that was too big for him and stirred only to give some order or relay some news.

  And when the dust settled and the smoke was washed away by the wind, Deira was in ruins, a slagheap of blasted stone and twisted iron snarling from the Valley of the Diver like so many rotten teeth. The shattered shapes of siege towers smoldered amidst that ruin, and nothing moved.

  Across the landing field on the other side of the Storm Wall, the remaining host of the Pale waited, crouched in their vessels like a forest of angry knives. We had stung them, but ours was a passing victory. Storm clouds rushed in, and the wrack of winds came on with all the thunder and lightning they portended. Rain began to fall, waves beating against the panes of the Storm Wall’s narrow windows, and even through the steel and reinforced concrete of that cyclopean fastness one could hear the whine and howl of the storm winds.

  The true battle still lay ahead.

  CHAPTER 79

  THE DISMAL NIGHT

  THE STORM RAGED ON, and no word or shot came from the enemy across that endless-seeming no man’s land. The survivors of the fighting in the city were tended to, and I surrendered my damaged armor to Bancroft’s engineers for repair, pausing only to wash the sweat and stink of smoke away in the officers’ barracks adjoining the command center.

  The nights on Berenike were long, each more than fifteen standard hours. Two stood between us and the return of our nine legions on the third day. How foolish our plan to divide our forces seemed by the moonless dark of that dismal night, though it was perhaps our salvation. Had those legions stood arrayed against that alien horde in the first exchange, I think they too would have fallen.

  What I would have given to see again as I had seen on the Quiet’s mountain! To know the consequences of each choice before it was made! But as I have said time and again . . . I am no prophet. Whatever change the eldritch Quiet made in me, it was not to instill the gift of foresight.

  “What do you think they’re doing?”

  I had heard the prince approach, recognized the almost tinny sound of his bootheels ringing on the concrete. I did not turn, but folded the black-paged folio and peered once more out through the window I’d been sitting in. Rain lashed the round pane, and I could just make out the pits on the airfield below, lit by red landing lights beneath the wire frames of starship mooring towers.

  “Holding their breath,” I said at last, addressing Alexander’s pale reflection in the glass. The young nobile had aged decades in the last week. Even reflected, there were shadows beneath the Imperial green eyes, and a sunkenness to his features that spoke of a man of three hundred, not thirty. “They but wait for an opening.”

  The prince took a few steps nearer, image growing before me. “They say the storm will break sometime mid-morning.”

  “Then that is how long we have left,” I said. Presently the lightning flashed, revealing the dark towers and improbable shapes of Cielcin landing craft hunched at the extremity of the field.

  “I suppose they’ve no experience with storms where they come from,” the prince said.

  “Or weather of any kind,” I replied. “It is a pity the storm won’t hold until reinforcements arrive.”

  Alexander drew nearly level with where I sat, and I became aware of the shape of him hovering at my shoulder. Still I did not turn. I wished he were gone, or else still frozen aboard the Tamerlane. Our confrontation on Annica had been too painful a sequel in our ongoing comedy of errors. It would have been better, far better, to be quit of him. But Corvo and Aristedes alike had thought him safer in the Storm Wall and the bunkers beneath Deira than on the ship in battle above.

  They’d been proven right.

  “Did you find them?” he asked. I could feel his eyes burning the back of my head.

  Still not turning, I asked him, “Find what?”

  “They said you found them,” Alexander said. “Your xenobites.”

  I shut my eyes against the royal reflection. Someone had told the prince about Annica, about my little stunt with Bastien and the handgun, I could sense it in the tension on the air. The boy had come to see a miracle. But I would not provide one.

  “The Quiet,” I said. “Yes. I found it.”

  “It?” The confusion in Alexander’s voice was thick enough to cut.

  “It’s not a people,” I said in answer. “We were wrong.”

  The prince made a small noise of understanding, and I heard him shift nearer. Opening my eyes, I found his pale reflection looking down on me, framed against the night and the storm in the round window.

  “What happened?”

  “It sent me here,” I said. “It showed me the Cielcin fleet. The attack. That’s why we split our defenses.”

  Alexander’s voice tightened. “And got Hauptmann and the rest killed.”

  “Hauptmann did that himself,” I said, turning at last. Alexander was just outside arm’s reach, hands shoved into his pockets to disguise the fact that they were clenched into fists. “He thought the station defenses would hold, wanted to maximize the strength of our secondary fleet to match whatever they had coming.” I swallowed, leaned forward with hands between my knees. “It was a bad plan.”

  “We could die here,” the prince said, soberly. He took a step around me, moved closer to the window. “Did you really die? Fighting that Cielcin, I mean.” That asked, he fixed all his attention on me, searching for the real answer in my face.

  I shrugged. “Believe what you will.”

  I could not tell Alexander what had happened on Annica, should not have showed him Pallino’s recording. I was close to what the God Emperor had been. Chosen—not by Mother Earth—but by the Quiet. Chosen to play my part in their incomprehensible scheme where kings and emperors—even the God Emperor of old—are pawns.

  It wouldn’t matter. The Chantry, the Empress, the Old Lions all believed me some would-be usurper. I could deny it with every breath—deny it with my final breath—and they would not believe. I had denied I was anything like the God Emperor, and here I was cast in his mold. All the efforts of the Imperium to duplicate old William had come to naught, and I—a lesser cousin of the least line—found myself heir to all his legendary power.

  “Is that it?” Alexander almost sneered. “Believe what I will?”

  Looking at my face in the dark glass, I saw the familiar vision once again: the Emperor Hadrian seated—white-robed and crowned—upon the Solar Throne with Selene at his feet.

  I did not want it.

  I did not want Alexander to think I wanted it.

  Unable to bear the quiet, Alexander said, “You were supposed to be this great hero. But you’re a fraud. It’s all . . . stories, isn’t it? When that assassin tried to kill you . . . they said it was the Earth that saved you, but your bones were replaced with adamant. You said it yourself. It’s all tricks like that! You’re a fraud!” He broke off, and for a moment I thought he’d decided that he’d gone too far. “What did you find?”

  “I told you,” I said, coolly. “We found the Quiet, and it sent us here.”

  Alexander barked a hollow laugh. “The Quiet. I don’t believe it. I don’t.”

  “You were with us when we met the machine,” I said. “Horizon.”

  Anticipating where this bit of conversation was leading, the prince said, “You think I would trust the word of a
machine?” He shook his head, stepping back. “You say this . . . Quiet thing spoke to you. You act like you have visions. But you don’t.”

  I couldn’t stop myself. “You really are an idiot, aren’t you?” I asked, standing and advancing on the younger man. “You think this is about you? All this?” I gestured at the room about us, at the ruined city and the lurking force outside. “You think it was all for your benefit? Gododdin? Nemavand? The coliseum? Colchis and Annica? You think this has all been some play for your attentions? You think I’m trying to trick you?” I was standing mere inches from the prince by then. “Why would anyone go to such trouble just to impress you?”

  Alexander twitched and drew back. “Mother said you’re after power. That you want my sister and a seat on the council.”

  “Do you think I want these things?” I said. “You have traveled with me now for years, boy. Do you really think I want these things?” I could see uncertainty playing at the corner of the prince’s eyes. I had only to push a little further. “Do you really think I am the sort of man who wants power?”

  The prince hesitated, stammering, “I . . . I . . .”

  “You don’t know me at all,” I said. “I told you what I was after. I told you my dream: understanding, and a peaceful galaxy to seek it in. And to save everyone on this planet if I can. I do not want the Empire. I did not want any of this. We do not get to choose our circumstances or our trials. We can only choose how to respond to them.”

  Alexander remained silent for a long moment, longer than I’d thought him capable of, truth be told. Then he asked a question I had been asked already a hundred hundred times. “Whom do you serve?”

  The Emperor had last asked that question of me. I hadn’t had a good answer for him. Humanity, I’d said. Or the idea of humanity. I could not tell this red prince I served the Quiet, though perhaps that was true—at least insofar as our purposes seemed aligned.

  “The truth,” I said, and added, “the good.”

  The prince sneered, “What in Earth’s name does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, coolly defiant.

  Alexander turned away, disgusted. He made it three paces before I said, “But I know protecting our people is good, whatever else may be.”

  The Aventine prince whirled in a flurry of white cloth. “Mother was right about you,” he said. “You’re dangerous.”

  “I am no threat to your house,” I said, “whatever your mother may believe.”

  “If you are what they say you are,” the prince said, “prove it.”

  Hooking thumbs through the loops of my shield-belt, I raised my chin. “What do they say I am, Alexander?”

  The boy almost spat. “As if you don’t know! The Chosen! The God Emperor reborn.”

  Even to deny that charge was to confirm it in the mind of the young prince. How could I answer? How could I possibly give Alexander an answer he would accept?

  I couldn’t.

  I could only tell the truth.

  “I don’t know what any of that means,” I said. “I’m only me.” The prince’s scowl deepened, precisely as I knew and feared it would. Taking one careful step forward, I said, “What do you want of me, Alexander?”

  The prince chewed his tongue. “Kneel.”

  “I’m sorry?” I looked round. We were alone in the gallery. Had he really come here with no guards? Were they waiting in the hall outside?

  “Kneel.” Alexander’s voice was tight with angst, eyes smoldering.

  It was foolishness, a hollow exercise of power performed to salve the boy’s wounded ego. But it cost nothing, meant nothing, to kneel. My knee bent easily, and I knelt before Alexander as I had before his Imperial father. Not out of obedience, not for principle or for love of the person before me. But for peace.

  Alexander slapped me.

  The force of the blow turned my head, but did not stagger me. I kept my cheek turned away. “You are my servant! Mine!” the prince gasped. Turning only my eyes, I saw his hands were shaking. “You are a knight of the Empire. My Empire. My family’s Empire! We built it. Not you.”

  “Cling to your rights, Your Highness,” I spoke softly, still not turning to face the prince, “and you may find you cannot hold onto them.” It was a threat, and I ought never to have spoken it. A cold anger burned in me, clear and free, almost serene. Alexander raised his hand once more to strike me. Vision splintering, I chose.

  The prince struck my cheek in just the right way—in just the way I had chosen. The prince gasped and cursed, cradled his newly broken finger.

  “Careful,” I said, fixing the prince with my coldest glare. Let him guess it was me. Let him know.

  The prince’s eyes widened, though if he guessed at my powers there was no sign. Embarrassment flowered visibly, flushing up his neck as he stumbled backward, still grasping the injured hand.

  “Never forget what you are,” he said.

  For once, I let someone else have the final word. If we came out of this battle alive, I would have no choice but to put the young prince on ice until he could be returned to Forum.

  I was alone again.

  But there is alone and alone.

  “You heard all that, I gather?” I asked, speaking to the shadows.

  Valka appeared from behind one of the room’s large columns. She’d been listening for some time. I’d picked up the familiar smoke-and-sandalwood smell of her perfume. She must have entered by some door other than the hall, else surely Alexander or the guards I felt sure had accompanied him would have seen her.

  There were moments where she truly earned her reputation for witchcraft.

  “I did,” she said, and seated herself in the window seat where I had been sitting when Alexander arrived, her back to the night and the storm. “He is a problem.”

  “He is,” I agreed, and was shocked to find sadness in my tone. “Would it were not so.”

  “ ’Tis too late for such, I think,” she said, and glanced over her shoulder, exposing the glass-edged sharpness of her profile.

  Moving to join her, I said, “I know.” I did not sit, but stood over her, watching her watch the darkness. What her inhuman eyes saw there I could only guess, unless it was what little the lightnings revealed. Another bolt flashed then, and I saw a forest of alien spires like black teeth in gray gums, ships and weapons alike.

  “You don’t really think they’re waiting for the storm to break, do you?” Valka asked.

  Still she did not turn. “No,” I said. “They’re certainly not waiting for the dawn. I’m sure they’d much rather attack at night.” I looked over her head through the glass as if I could somehow see. The smoke of the ruined nuclear plant was lost in the darkness, and the rain had extinguished the flames. But I could feel the weight of the army there and the malice like the pressure of so many thousand eyes. “They’re waiting for something else,” I said.

  “For what?” she asked, and turned her face to me.

  “I wish I knew,” I said.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not you too,” I replied, and it was a struggle to keep the exasperation from my voice. “I can’t see the future.”

  Valka made a face. “I know that,” she almost snapped, voice sharp, “but you must have some idea.”

  I shrugged. “Reinforcements?” I said. “But what reinforcements do they need? We’re hopelessly outmatched. We’ve no ships. The Wall’s shields will hold unless they get inside, which they will do. It won’t even be hard. Even with our fortifications, we don’t have the men to hold the entire wall. Not for long.”

  “Then we should attack,” she said. “Send out the colossi.”

  “The colossi? Maybe,” I said. Lorian had weighed that option hours before, but the storm had made their deployment untenable. Not until the winds died down.

  “We cannot do nothing,” she said. Valka
seized my wrist and looked up at me imploring. “Do something.” I blinked. What did she expect of me? One of the miracles I barely understood?

  “I can’t,” I said. “I’m not ready. I don’t understand enough.”

  “Do something,” she said again. She stood, taking my gloved hand in both of hers. Something clicked in me, like a key turning. Valka was not imploring. She never implored, never begged. Her word was a command.

  I did not kneel. She did not ask it of me.

  I pressed my forehead to hers, and said, “As you will, then.”

  CHAPTER 80

  BLACK SUN

  AS WE HAD LONG believed, Berenike had been watched keenly and closely by intelligences alien to ours, if just as mortal. In the freezing Dark, where the light of the white sun faded at the system’s edge, there had lurked for years unknown and unseen a terrible menace of which the black fleet at anchor above our world was but a vanguard. Just how long it had waited there and spun its evil web, I dare not guess. But spun it had, and we were caught in its net.

  With our fleet more than decimated, its survivors fled, and the planet’s satellite grid in shambles, our first indication that it had stirred from its deeping haunt in the dark at system’s edge—our first indication that it existed at all—was the tides. All over Berenike, from the highland lakes to the south’s vast shallow seas, the waters rose and spasmed. Rivers flooded their banks, seas retreated and exposed beds untouched by sunlight for thousands of years. The world quaked, and dust fell from the roof above our heads.

  But that was only the beginning.

  I hurried from the conference chamber where I’d been overseeing a part of our defense and climbed toward the command center, taking the steps three at a time.

  Day had come to Berenike, and the gray and trailing clouds were passing, breaking upon the battlements of the Storm Wall. Pale sunlight fell on the landing field, illuminating the Boschian horror of the tableau. The Cielcin ships did not belong, as if the depths of the sea had come to land, or else the artifacts of some distant age had crashed against the shores of our present.