Dark Foundations

by Chris Walley

  How can I answer? If you substituted forest for beach, I could echo every word.

  Vero answered for him. “Sarudar, if peace were an option, we would take it ourselves. But it isn’t. The Dominion is coming. And if Farholme is taken, you will be taken too.”

  Azeras nodded heavily. “Yes. Nezhuala’s forces wouldn’t overlook me. Eventually they would find me.” Azeras turned to Merral. “If I joined with you, served as what—a military advisor?—what would I be rewarded with?”

  “We would give you the wages of a representative.”

  Azeras smiled briefly. “Which are, I gather, the same as those of a refuse collector.”

  “You have learned something about us. What had you in mind?”

  “A house by the sea, a supply of wine, a woman.”

  Merral heard a sharp intake of breath from Perena.

  “The first we might manage; the second would involve you growing your own vineyard. And as for the third? I think Captain Lewitz ought to speak.”

  As Perena turned to Azeras, Merral sensed anger in her eyes. “In the Assembly, Sarudar, women are not commodities to be mentioned in the same breath as properties or drink.”

  “My apologies, Lady Captain. I must retrain my tongue.”

  “Sarudar—if I may be so bold—you must go deeper and retrain your mind too. I do not care to be stared at as if I were some delicacy on a table.”

  Azeras nodded. “If you fight as you talk, Lady Captain—forgive me, Captain—then the Dominion may be in for a surprise. But I accept the rebuke. I apologize.”

  “Thank you.” Perena hesitated. “The apology is accepted.”

  “And our offer?” Merral asked. This better work.

  Azeras shook his head. “No. I can’t accept it. Not in that form. I have made oaths to the cause of the True Freeborn Worlds.” He held up his arm so that they could see the bracelet. “This is more than jewelry. It is a symbol of my allegiance to them. I cannot fight for another cause. But there is an alternative to becoming a member of the Assembly.”

  “Which is?” Merral asked.

  “I remain a servant of the Freeborn Worlds, but enter into an alliance with you. I will serve you faithfully and offer my services for your standard rates of pay.”

  “But the Freeborn worlds may, by now, no longer exist,” Vero said.

  “Sadly true. If we knew that for sure, my loyalty would be ended and my response would be different. But though I fear it, I do not know for sure. And in the meantime I offer you an alliance.”

  Merral looked at the others. “Excuse us for a moment.”

  After a ten-minute discussion at end of the corridor, Merral and the others returned to the room to find Azeras leaning on the windowsill and staring out the window.

  “So,” he said, as he turned to look at them, “do we have a deal?”

  “Yes,” Merral replied, trying to withhold a sigh. “We will accept you on that basis. We will protect you and treat you fairly if you promise to serve us honestly and not betray us.”

  “Sounds like a deal to me.”

  “Good. Do you promise on oath? By all that you believe in?” I wish I could get him to make a firmer oath.

  “I’ll promise to serve you honestly and not betray you. On my honor: on the solemn oath of an officer of the True Freeborn.” He touched his bracelet.

  “Very well.” What choice do we have but to accept this?

  They shook hands.

  “Now, Sarudar Azeras, I think there are things you need to tell us.”

  “Indeed. There are things you need to know if you—we—have any hope of defense. I feel fit enough to walk a little. May we sit outside?”

  They found Azeras some overalls and got together a tray of cold drinks. While Vero and Perena walked out with the sarudar to the chairs under the shelter, Merral caught up with Lloyd, who he had left to mind his diary on the veranda. There had been a call from Clemant and, anxious not to deepen any suspicions there, Merral returned it.

  It was a long but routine matter and as he talked, Merral watched the group as they settled under the shade of the shelter after Vero lopped off a strangling palm frond with the bush knife to cover a hole in the roof. Soon, Azeras, Perena, and Vero were deep in conversation. Every so often glances would be thrown Merral’s way.

  Finally, the interminable call ended and Merral handed the diary back to Lloyd. “Sergeant, I don’t want to be interrupted unless it’s an emergency.”

  As he walked over to the shade, the group stopped talking.

  Aware of a strained and preoccupied silence, Merral helped himself to a drink and sat down.

  “Sorry. The pressures of being a commander. Have I missed anything?”

  He caught awkward, almost guilty looks from his friends, but Azeras spoke.

  “First of all, Commander, this has intrigued me.” He picked up the bush knife Vero had used earlier and ran his fingers gently along the edge, puzzlement in his gray eyes. “It’s sharp, but not that sharp. Yet Sentinel Enand here lopped off that frond without an effort. What’s going on?”

  Taking the blade back and closing it up before laying it by a tree, Merral said. “The edge is molecularly tuned for wood and parts the wood molecules as it strikes. We have blades for different substances. You don’t have this sort of thing?”

  “No. It is interesting. There are some areas where your technology exceeds ours.”

  In a flash of insight, it occurred to Merral that the technology of the Freeborn emphasized power. It’s how we differ. Where we would seek a subtle blade, they would just make a more powerful one.

  Merral turned to Azeras.

  “This Nezhuala—the Dominion—is coming. What do they want?”

  “Ah.” Azeras said. “That’s what I’ve been explaining to your friends. There is a problem.”

  Vero interrupted. “It’s the baziliarch, Merral.”

  Merral felt a shadow of fear fall on his mind.

  “Tell me more, Sarudar. Betafor mentioned these creatures.”

  Azeras sighed in a way that hinted at depths of pain. “We first met one at Tellzanur. We know little of them. They are powers from the Nether-Realms. They are potent on the battlefield; they destroy all morale. But the problem is this: they can rip information from minds.”

  “So Betafor told us and it worried us.”

  “Now, Commander, let me ask you a question. If the Dominion forces bring a baziliarch—and I’m sure they will—and they want to know everything about the defenses, who will they use it on?”

  There was a long silence in which Merral heard, as if a long way away, the cries of the terns, the crash of the waves, and the creak of the palm trees.

  “Me,” he said.

  Vero and Perena nodded, looking uneasy.

  Azeras gave a rough smile. “Exactly. They’ll get the head of the Defense Force and pump his head dry.”

  “My friend,” Vero said in a low voice, “we do have a problem. I guessed as much when this was first mentioned.”

  “Sarudar, what do you suggest?”

  Azeras smiled again, but Merral found no warmth in it. “The only answer, Commander, is for you to know as little as possible.”

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “You already know too much. That cannot be helped. But if I am to help your defense I cannot risk having any dealings with you. Betafor and I must disappear.”

  Vero gestured to Azeras. “Sarudar, you’d best leave us for five minutes. We need to talk.”

  Azeras grunted agreement. He slowly rose and walked down toward the sea’s edge.

  “This is impossible!” Merral said. “I’m head of the defense forces. I have to know what’s going on!”

  Vero and Perena looked at each other.

  “My friend, we heard this from Betafor. I think there is a risk here that we must treat seriously.”

  Perena leaned toward Merral. “There is a precedent. You already have the irregulars and you don’t know what’s happening with them
in detail. Assign Azeras and Betafor to them and let Vero take charge of them.”

  After further arguments, Merral was forced to reluctantly agree. He did however win a promise that both Vero and Perena would supervise matters.

  Azeras was called back. “Good,” he said when told of the verdict. “That is a refreshing sign of wisdom. But, Commander, I have been thinking and I realize that there are some things I can tell you about what you will face. Indeed, there’s a matter that we need you to make a decision on.”

  “Go ahead.”

  There was another rough smile. “The lord-emperor wants his ship back very badly. He wants Rahllman’s Star.”

  Funny. I remembered it being called Slave of Rahllman’s Star earlier.

  Vero pushed his dark glasses up his nose and gestured at the sea. “Well, he’s lost that. It’s in a million pieces at the bottom of Lake Fallambet.”

  “Ah-ah.” Azeras wagged a reproving finger. “There are some things that none of you know. How do you think we got here, Commander? Do you think that ship brought us here? Did you believe we could fit a Nether-Realm drive into that hull?”

  Perena placed her glass on the table with exaggerated care. “Are you saying, Sarudar, that you did not travel here on that ship?” Her words held an electric tremor.

  “Of course not. It was not built for that. It’s the lander—what we call a ‘slave.’ That’s where the name comes from: Slave of Rahllman’s Star.”

  “T-there’s another ship!” Vero said and, beneath the glasses, Merral saw a look of puzzlement visibly transforming itself into one of understanding. “Oh, what a fool I’ve been! Another ship. Why didn’t—?”

  Azeras raised a hand to quiet him. “The parent ship is the Rahllman’s Star—A much larger vessel with a Nether-Realms drive. And it’s hidden.”

  “Where?” Merral asked, a hundred implications cascading into his mind.

  Azeras gestured upward. “In the Nether-Realms or what you would call Below-Space. I have the coordinates and, if I can get near it in Standard-Space, I can summon it.”

  “It will work?” Perena asked, eagerness and hope erupting in her voice. “Will—?”

  “C-can it get us to the rest of the Assembly?” interrupted Vero.

  “Slowly!” Azeras said. “I knew this would be news. Let me take it bit by bit. There is a ship buried in Below-Space. Probably no more than two or three million kilometers away by now; it was set to drift toward your world. It can be accessed, but it would take perhaps two or three days to get it up and running again. You could replace the Slave unit by one of your own ships, but you’d have to do some engineering in order to dock it smoothly. I’d guess a week’s work to get everything done.

  “How quickly can we—?” Vero began.

  “There’s where you need to make a hard decision.” Azeras’s tone was sharp. “I’ve done the calculations on the time for a ship to return to the Dominion and a military force to be sent out. The lord-emperor will not have delayed. I think they will be here soon—very soon. And if they surface while the Rahllman’s Star is in Standard-Space, we’re all finished. They may be lurking in the uppermost Nether-Realms even now. So we could try and recover the ship now. But it would be risky.”

  “But won’t they find it when they come?” Merral asked.

  “No, at those depths, the Nether-Realms are too deep and too dark.”

  Perena nodded. “The opaque zone.”

  “Yeah. Oh, after a lot of fishing they might find it. But unless they know our exact trajectory, it might take a year.”

  Vero stared at Azeras. “But if we found this ship, brought it to the surface, took it over, we’d reach Bannermene when?”

  “Four weeks or thereabouts.”

  “Four weeks!” The excitement rang in Vero’s voice.

  Merral gestured caution. “There are decisions we need to make before that happens, Vero.”

  Azeras grunted. “If you go, you ought to go soon. The chance of being caught is high and it is rising by the day.”

  Perena raised a finger. “Why does this lord-emperor want this ship so badly?”

  “He’ll probably want to recover the ship so it doesn’t fall into Assembly hands. But he particularly wants it because Zhalatoc is on it.”

  Merral remembered the disfigured bust he had seen on the ship with its defaced inscription: Zhalatoc, Great Prince of the Lord-Emperor Nezhuala’s Dominion. “Zhalatoc is living on this ship?”

  “Living?” Azeras gave a sour grin. “Bah! That’s an overstatement! Zhalatoc is biologically dead and has been for centuries, or so I’ve heard. But his body is kept—I’m afraid there is no Communal word for much of this and you won’t like it—intact. And his spirit and mind reside in it. Sort of. And as he is a close ancestor of Nezhuala’s, the lord-emperor wants him back. That’s partly why they pursued us. It’s clan honor.”

  Perena shook her head. “This is almost too much. But why is this done? Why isn’t he allowed to die? Why all this nightmarish stuff with his being kept alive?”

  Azeras stared at her. “Captain, they fear death. So they seek to stay alive. By whatever means.”

  Perena blanched. “Those who belong to the Assembly do not fear death. We know what lies beyond it for the King’s people.”

  Azeras bowed his head. “Ah, fine words, as ever, Captain. Perhaps when you meet death you may reconsider.”

  “Please!” Merral said sharply. “But how do they do such things?”

  “They have agents—the Wielders of the Powers—who deal with the beings in the Nether-Realm. They ensnare the steersmen for the ships; they give them bodies and use their powers to bind the dying so they cannot die. Only Nezhuala himself has greater abilities than the Wielders of the Powers.”

  “Is that what happens among the True Freeborn as well?”

  “Those faced with death sometimes seek such a remedy. I do not deny it.”

  “You realize,” Merral said with haste, “that anything like contacting these powers is utterly detestable to the Assembly?”

  “I understand.”

  “Very well, this Nezhuala will want the ship you stole. But what will he want of us? Will he come himself?”

  “He may send others. We’ve . . . I’ve heard of a project that occupies him. . . . I will not speak of that today and not because it needs to be hidden from the commander.” He sipped his drink noisily. “Nezhuala’s ambition knows no limits. By now he will, I expect, have finished off the True Freeborn and all the twenty-five worlds will be his. Even without any gap in the barrier, I’d have predicted that his ambition would now turn to the Assembly. Now that venture is certain. And I can promise you this: he’ll aim for conquest. His goal will be to join all the worlds of humanity under the Dominion’s banner.”

  “The uniting of the realms,” Merral said aloud, remembering the steersman’s threat and wishing he could forget it.

  Azeras looked keenly at him. “That phrase. The uniting of the realms. Where did you hear it?”

  Merral hesitated, resolving not to mention the dreadful words that had followed about the coming of the end of the Assembly. “The steersman said it. I didn’t understand it at the time.”

  “‘The steersman said it?’ Ah, very interesting. It is a phrase Nezhuala used as the watchword of his campaign against us. I had always taken it to refer to the Dominion and the True Freeborn worlds. But perhaps it means more than any of us had seen.”

  It was Perena’s turn to speak. “But, Sarudar, how can Nezhuala hope to win against the Assembly? By your own admission, the Dominion is a fraction of the size of the Assembly.”

  Azeras bowed his head. “As ever, Captain, a good question. But remember that neither size nor numbers is everything. You are unarmed and Nezhuala’s forces are powerful; more powerful than you can imagine. But he will proceed carefully. And there, I think, lies your world’s hope.”

  “Our hope, Officer,” Perena added.

  “I stand corrected, Captain.” His half smi
le seemed uneasy. “You seem to be disposed to ensure that I do not overlook you. But I think whoever he sends here will want to learn all he can about you. It is an ideal chance to learn about the Assembly. And he wants the Assembly, but he fears it.”

  He leaned back in his chair, picking his teeth with a sliver of wood and staring toward the sea. Suddenly he glanced at the toothpick and tossed it over his shoulder. “Sorry. I must learn manners. Still you have more pressing problems than etiquette.”

  “Indeed.”

  Vero leaned forward. “He fears us? Why? How?”

  “You may have overlooked us, but we have never forgotten you. Through the history of the Freeborn, the Assembly has always been a shadow on the edge of our lives. On Tellzanur, children are taught to fear that one day Ringell—”

  “Ringell?” Merral gasped.

  There was a puzzled look from Azeras, but he continued. “Ringell and his men would descend in the night and slay them.”

  “Why him?” Vero asked, screwing up his dark eyes.

  “Lucas Ringell led the attack in the battle at Centauri. It was he who killed Jannafy. It was he who, it is presumed, stopped the seventh ship from leaving. What more do you need?”

  “But he is long dead,” Merral protested.

  There was a dismissive shrug. “Such figures live on in legend. And legend says that as the great adversary, Ringell will return.”

  “‘The great adversary’?”

  “Part of the myth. A soldier from the Assembly that the Freeborn will have to defeat or else they will be destroyed. Ringell, or someone like him. It’s not clear—I told you, it’s a legend.”

  “And the Dominion believes in this figure?” Merral asked.

  “Probably. They have no doubt altered the belief. They have their own myths.”

  Vero raised a finger in inquiry. “If the Dominion comes, what forces will they have?”

  Azeras thought for a moment. “A full-suppression complex, I’d guess. Great big ugly slab of a ship, well over a kilometer long, with enough firepower to reshape a world. A single Y-class caused a world to surrender.”