by James Axler
Only his family knew the formula for the precious black powder, and protected that prize by having a hundred different chems delivered to the mills when he needed only three. In recent years, Kinnison thought he would be the last of the noble line, taking the knowledge to his grave. But now he had a son to carry on the reign. In some indescribable way, that made him feel immortal.
Oddly, while black powder was the source of his island’s wealth, the Firebirds were its strength, the power that made his words into law. The sleek missiles obeyed his commands as if alive, and would never swerve from a target once it was in view.
More than a dozen times since skydark, other barons, coldhearts, pirates and muties had attempted to seize control of Maturo Island. But the Firebirds always slaughtered the invaders, and nobody had tried open rebellion for quite a while. However, the local barons were constantly testing him by sending old fish and sick slaves as their tribute. Sometimes even beer they watered down with piss. Each “mistake” was savagely answered by a barrage of Firebirds, and there would be no more trouble for years. That was, until some fool decided to try again. The dockyard dogs of his island feasted richly on the entrails of those who dared to challenge his power.
Approaching the throne room, trumpeters blared a herald for the arrival of the baron and his son, which naturally made the infant start to wail in fear. Seriously annoyed, Baron Kinnison glared at the men, and they quickly retreated down a side passage. Fused-brain idiots.
“My lord, a moment!” a sec man called from the attending crowd.
Turning in the doorway, Kinnison stared at the disturbance. It was a corporal from the coast watch. Evander something, good man, had chilled a guard with his bare hands for sleeping on a watch.
“What?” the baron demanded.
“My lord, pirate ships have been spotted on the horizon,” he reported. “And the quartermaster is unhappy with the number of Firebirds we have ready. I understand this is an important moment, the coronation of your first son—congratulations, my lord—but the safety of the ville may be in danger. Would it be completely out of the question to—?”
“You talk too much,” Kinnison snapped, and turned to the midwife.
“Take my son to his room. Double the guards and stay there until called. Understood?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said, bowing her head. “I shall guard the boy with my life.”
“You better,” the baron growled, touching the blaster at his side. The woman paled and raced away with a full squad of sec men in her wake.
Anxiously, the crowd waited to be told what was happening.
“Evander, with me, the rest of you stay here,” the baron commanded, and started along a corridor at his fastest pace.
Murmuring among themselves, the attendees did as ordered, nobody wanting to be the first to leave and risk the wrath of their brutal lord and master.
The sec men easily matched the speed of the ill man, and spread out in a standard defensive arc as he reached a massive door set in the stone block wall. It was a new section of the mansion, formed of solid granite blocks taken from the ruins of a lighthouse at the far end of the island.
Kinnison unlocked the door and opened it a crack to reach through and fumble with something on the inside. When the booby trap was deactivated, the baron swung the door wide and marched straight inside. The room was narrow and dimly lit by a single oil lantern hanging from the ceiling, the wick barely glowing red it was turned down so low. At the back was a honeycomb of bamboo tubes, every one filled with a Firebird, and both of the walls were lined with shelves filled with small bowls. Something in the bowls splashed about at his approach, and tiny tentacles writhed in the air as if waving in greeting.
Suddenly, Evander entered the room with a torch, the crackling light filling the tiny room with brilliant illumination. The things in the bowls began to shriek and wildly thrash their tentacles in blind panic.
“Out!” Kinnison yelled, and shoved the man into the corridor.
Evander stumbled from the room and dropped the torch. It rolled away, leaving a trail of burning pitch on the cold stone.
Leaving the room, Kinnison ever so gently closed the door, then turned on the sec man. “Idiot!” the baron shouted, backhanding the officer to the floor.
“I just wanted to see…” Evander began hesitantly. Suddenly, he felt the cold gaze of the other sec men directed toward him.
“The pilots are terrified of fire!” Kinnison raged. “You’ve weakened the defensives of the entire island! If the pirates attack now, we may lose because of this. It will be days, even weeks before the pilots calm down!”
Kinnison found he had trouble speaking, his mind was a hurricane of dark thoughts. To lose everything because of one small mistake. There was no torture awful enough to serve as punishment for this crime. Wait. Yes, there was.
“Guards, seize the traitor,” Kinnison commanded. “But no blasters! I want him alive when we feed him to the pilots.”
Evander went pale and backed away, clawing for his blaster. But the other sec men pounced on the former guard, easily disarmed him, then bound his hands behind his back.
“Mercy, my lord,” Evander stammered, tears running down his bruised face. “Castrate me, burn me at the stake. But not this! Anything but this, please!”
Kinnison said nothing as he watched the weeping prisoner dragged away, then sighed and sagged against the stone wall. He was feeling weaker every day, and the drugs were helping less and less. Death would be a sweet release. But this unexpected excitement of pirates and Evander had drained him completely. He felt sick to his stomach, and itchy.
“Here, my lord,” a sergeant said, offering a gourd. It sloshed from the slight motion.
“And what is this?” Kinnison demanded suspiciously, not accepting the container.
“Chancellor Griffin commanded us to start carrying some of your medicine with us while on duty,” the guard explained smoothly. “There is no reason our baron should ever be in pain.”
Kinnison looked at the gourd as if it were a fanged insect. “Thank you, Sergeant,” he spoke in an even tone. “Take that to the launch pods on the roof. I’ll be there shortly to direct the attack.”
“But…” The sec man stopped and saluted. “As you command, my lord.”
As the guards marched away, Kinnison decided that Griffin had to go to Davey. This was the most clumsy attempt on his life ever, and if the chancellor was this poor at his job, then of what possible use could he be to the ville? None. Simply more jetsam for the sea.
Flanked by the remaining sec men, Kinnison rushed along the corridor as quickly as he could, and forced himself up a flight of stairs to reach his private level. The guards at the iron gate saluted as he went through. Going directly to his bedroom, Kinnison used two keys to unlock the steel door. The guards stayed in the hallway as he went inside and threw the heavy bolts. Then he paused to catch his breath. His temples were throbbing like a ship’s cannons, his bandages felt tight, breathing was difficult and his skin felt prickly as if he were standing near a roaring fire. That sec man had been right; he needed more jolt immediately. But he wasn’t accepting any as a gift. How stupid did Griffin think he was? Something was happening, and the baron began to strongly doubt there were any pirates in the waters around his island. The real danger was under his own roof.
Rushing to a hidden compartment in the headboard of his bed, Kinnison slid back a grooved wooden panel that perfectly matched the rest of the intricately carved mahogany. Quickly, he extracted a jar full of white powder and shook some into his trembling palm. There was spring water in a crystal pitcher on the table, and red wine in sealed bottles filling a shelf near the rack of longblasters, but those were much too distant. Lapping the drug from his hand, he stayed kneeling on the quilt until the tremors passed. Feeling better by the second, he drained the pitcher of water and sat down in relief.
Kinnison first knew something was terribly wrong when a fuzzy warmth spread outward from his enormou
s belly, stealing the strength from his limbs. He tried to rise and found it impossible. What was happening? Had he finally crossed the line and was dying of an overdose? The baron had to concentrate to breathe. His fingers twitched for the bell rope to summon his healer, but the effort was too great. He felt woozy and confused, and trying for the rope was too great an effort.
The door swung open, and in walked Griffin with a huge revolver in his grip. Kinnison recognized it instantly; it was a gift to Samson, one of his personal guards, for saving the baron from a night-creep attack. But the sec man was fanatically loyal to Kinnison and would never give up the weapon. Unless he was chilled.
“Yes, he’s gone,” Griffin said with a grin, cocking back the hammer. “And the ones I didn’t ace personally, my gaudy sluts did. Every man and woman who supported you is dead. The palace is mine.”
A great well of fury boiled inside Kinnison, but he could do nothing. The chancellor seemed to be at the far end of a long white tunnel. The baron mouthed the word traitor, but nothing came out.
“Oh, I’m much more than that, you fat bag of pus.” The man chuckled and went to the door to slide back the heavy bolts.
As the door swung open, in came a dozen young sec men, their faces grim, hands full of rope.
“Hi, tubby,” Evander said, grinning. “Was I a convincing enough fool to bring on one of your fucking attacks?”
“I am baron,” Kinnison managed to whisper hoarsely. “This is my ville!”
“Was,” Griffin corrected with a grim smile. “Report, Colonel, how goes the revolt?”
“The mansion and armory are under our control. A few of his guards escaped into the jungle, but we released the Hunters to bring them down, so they’re meat in the ground. The gates of the ville are closed, the petey boats have only our men on board, and we have control of the Firebirds on the roof. The slaves tried to escape in the chaos, as you said they would. We shot some, and the rest went back to work. There is some fighting at the docks, but nothing we can’t handle. All is secure.”
It was so easily said. Maturo Island had fallen. Kinnison couldn’t believe he heard the words. Nightmare. This was another wild hallucination brought on by the jolt, nothing more. His ville was fine, everything was fine.
“Excellent work, Colonel,” Griffin said.
“Thank you, my lord.”
There it was. Chancellor no more.
“You and you,” Baron Griffin said, gesturing. “Bind that sack of shit with rope. Don’t worry about cutting off his circulation. It isn’t important.”
Pulling on canvas gloves to protect them from his sickness, the sec men bound Kinnison tightly. He wanted to fight back, to reach the machine pistol hidden in the bed, but his strength was gone. He felt like a fish on the beach, fighting to move, trying to breathe.
“How…?” Kinnison said, then broke into a cough, bloody flecks staining the floor. The sec men moved farther away. Dragging in a lungful of air, he tried again. “What…did you…give me?”
“Exactly what you came here for, fat boy,” Baron Griffin said with a sneer. “The jar was full of jolt. Not your painkillers and flash, with a trace of the drug. But pure quill jolt. Enough to stun a whale. I guessed it should be enough to dull your quivering bulk. Your own healer told me of the secret stash. I knew if a sec man offered you some openly, your natural paranoia would make you rush here for some clean drugs. You fell right into my hands.”
“And if you died,” a corporal said, “who’d give a fuck?”
The others agreed, some laughing, others staring with open hatred. Kinnison gave no reply, the growing buzz in his ears drowning out the world. He began to surrender to the warmth and closed his eyes. Then pain took the baron as his head snapped to the side, and he realized somebody was slapping him awake.
“Don’t you die on me,” Griffin snarled, backhanding his prisoner again. “I haven’t begun to take my revenge yet. Colonel, send some of your men to cast that new brat of his into the sea with a stone tied around its neck.”
“Yes, my lord.” The man grinned and exited the room.
“No!” Kinnison screamed, and in a rush of strength stood and charged for the usurper. Two sec man grabbed his bandaged arms, and he shook them off, the urge to kill driving him onward like a Firebird in flight. But Griffin merely laughed as the sec men wrestled him to the wall, pinned helpless under their combined weight.
“Not even a good try,” Griffin said haughtily.
“You’ll never keep the throne,” Kinnison growled, feeling the rush of strength ebbing away like the tide. “You can’t control the Firebirds!”
Leaning past the guards, Griffin whispered something into his ear and Kinnison went pale.
“Did you really think I never followed you?” Griffin asked, delighted at the expression on the man’s face. “Or listened at a keyhole? The rockets will obey my commands. I am in absolute control.”
“There’s still Lieutenant Brandon, sir,” a burly sec man reminded. “He’s got a dozen peteys, could be trouble. The ass is actually loyal to this blubbering thing.”
Griffin waved that aside. “Brandon is dead. That healer, Glassman, is in charge of those boats, spreading the word about the outlanders. If Captain Glassman tries anything, we nail his family to the front wall until he surrenders. Then we blow him out of the water with my Firebirds.”
Kinnison narrowed his piggy eyes and said nothing. For once he was thankful for the bandages that masked his features.
“What about the outlanders?” a sergeant asked. “I heard they took Cold Harbor ville in less than a day.”
“Send the word, chill them on sight.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Exhaling loudly through his nose, a guard moved his head away from the huge prisoner. “Shitfire, this diseased pus bag stinks something awful!” he stated.
The other guards muttered in agreement. They had never been this close to the former baron before, and were beginning to understand why dogs wouldn’t go near him, and his bed partners got drunk before and after sex. He reeked worse than a dead seal on a hot beach.
Baron Griffin sniffed the air and made a face. “Nuke me, he is pungent. Well, he’ll smell a lot worse when I’m done with him. Sergeant, have your men haul his wretched ass to the dungeon. I have something very special planned for our former lord and master.”
“Yes, sir!”
Dragging Kinnison into motion, the sec men kicked and shoved the fat man along the stony corridors of the mansion and down into the cellar. When Kinnison heard the telltale booming of the heavy door closing, he knew that there was every possibility that he would never leave the dungeon alive. A flare of pride overlook him, and he found the notion intolerable that the hideous tortures he did so often to others would now be done to him. Kinnison decided to try for a clean death. When the guards cut off the rope to shackle him to the wall, he’d grab a blaster and start shooting. They would be forced to chill him then, and he would be spared the humiliation of being taken apart under the sharp knives and red-hot tongs of his enemies.
But the sec men seemed to have expected that move on his part, because they shackled him first, and then cut away the ropes. Dangling helpless from the iron cuffs attached to the ceiling, Kinnison stood before the jeering men utterly helpless. They could do as they pleased with him now, and there was no way he could stop them. He was already dead. If he had a single minute alone, he might have a fleeting chance of escape, but that would never happen. Griffin was proving himself worthy to be a baron in every way.
“Let’s carve him up a little first,” a guard said, poking at the man with the tip of his knife. “Mebbe set him on fire first.”
“Cut off his fingers, feed them to the dogs!” another shouted.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Griffin said, testing the anchor bolt that held the chains. It was good and solid. “His heir is dead, his reign is over. Let him live out the rest of his miserable life down here in the cold and wet. The sickness will eat him alive,
and without his drugs or shine, it’ll be a much more painful death than anything we could do to him.”
Dribbling blood and pus from tied hands, Kinnison heaved for breath and remained quiet.
That wasn’t the reaction he wanted, so Baron Griffin took a bottle from a nearby table, grabbed Kinnison by the chin and forced him to look upward.
“Live forever,” he whispered, and pulled the cork with his teeth to pour the contents over the man, front and back.
Kinnison had only a moment to wonder what was happening before he smelled the strong aroma of alcohol. He watched in horror as the clear liquid seeped through his bandages and reached the open sores covering his skin. The screams exploded from him as searing pain burned into his flesh, his anguished cries almost drowning out the laughter of his captors. The agony seemed to last for years as he was doused with more shine, and then again, until he was finally swallowed whole by sweet blackness.
KINNISON AWAKENED with a scream, and it took a moment for him to realize he was alone in the cell. Then he shuddered in memory of what they had done. He ached from the beatings, and every sore felt brand-new, as tender as a bullet wound. Plus his clothes were filthy. The blood and pus had soaked through the bandages and stained his shirt and pants. His sandals were gone, his bare feet resting on the cold stone floor, and his left arm was broken, the job expertly done. There were no splinters of bone through the skin to cause major blood loss and a fast death. He could feel the splintered ends grinding against each other, but after a decade of pain, it was only a minor annoyance.
The cell was as he remembered, small and damp. There was only ambient light in the cell, a soft glow seeping around the door from the torches in the corridor outside. The wall shelf had been emptied of any tools. There were no sounds, but the scurrying of rats in the dank straw piled near the waste bucket.
Patiently, the man forced himself to wait, making sure he was truly alone. Griffin had made a terrible mistake letting him live. Soon he would answer for his crimes against the state. And for the death of his son.
