"She's preparing for the wedding. Unless you're here to help her with that, you can't see her."
"But she'll want to see me."
"I don't think . . ."
"She'll want to see me! Just tell her I'm here, and she'll have you show me in."
"I don't think so."
"She will! Go in there."
"No. She won't. She knows you're on-planet. She's told me that she can't see you."
That was quite enough. Danai had steeled herself for this meeting, and she was not going to be put off.
"Like hell," she said, and took Ilsa's dressing assistant down with a leg sweep and a shove on the back of her shoulders. She pulled the door open behind the assistant and charged in.
And there was Ilsa. In her wedding dress. It was unzipped in the back, so it hung loose at her shoulders. She stood on a small platform, the relatively simple white dress trailing a single meter behind her. The room around her was filled with flowers, which had been tossed onto tables and chairs without much thought for aesthetics or for preserving the blooms. Her arms were folded, her eyes lit with cold fire and she seemed utterly unsurprised at Danai's arrival.
"I knew I should have put more people at the door," she said conversationally. "Hello, Danai."
"Hello. Mother." She put a full load of venom into the last word.
Again, Ilsa looked nonplussed. "I had heard Daoshen told you he is your father. I wasn't sure he had told you the rest of it, but I supposed you would put it together yourself before too long. So. Now you know."
"That's it? That's all you have to say?"
Someone grabbed Danai's arm. She turned to see a very determined assistant behind her, pulling fruitlessly on her elbow. Danai rolled her eyes.
"Never mind, Mei," llsa said. "She made it this far, no thanks to you. She might as well stay. Zip me up, please, and then you may go until I summon you back."
Mei, head bowed, moved forward, grabbed the zipper, pulled it to Ilsa's neck, then shuffled out of the room.
Zipped, the dress was quite modest—high-necked and flowing rather than clinging.
"I can't imagine Humphreys picked that dress out himself," said Danai, momentarily forgetting her anger and treating llsa like her sister again.
"The duke didn't pick it out," llsa responded. "I need the poor man to be able to focus enough to get through the ceremony. He'll have plenty of other chances to see me in other sorts of dresses."
Which brought them right back to the point at hand and ruined the small moment of rapport.
"How can you marry him, llsa?" she said. "Don't you understand what kind of life you'll be condemning yourself to? After all you've gone through with Daoshen . . . how can you do this?" llsa, oddly enough, seemed on the verge of smiling. "Well, you suddenly seem to have learned a lot about my life. I don't want to sound ungrateful, but before you offer me advice we should talk over a few matters." She sat at a dresser with a large oval mirror and started trying on earring after earring after earring. She had at least two dozen pairs lined up. "I heard about your diplomatic mission to the Oriente Protectorate last year," she said. "By all accounts it was a grand success. Do I have that correctly?"
"It went well," Danai said guardedly. llsa inserted a set of pearls into her ears. "So well, in fact, that I believe you were able to ask for a favor and have it granted."
Ilsa clearly had good sources, but Danai would expect nothing less. "Yes," she said.
"You took Aldebaran, and then got Zurich to surrender as well. A fine coup for the Confederation. You have gained praise throughout the realm, and I'm quite proud. I would like you to remember, though, what made all that possible. You could sign a treaty with the Oriente Protectorate because you could promise them that Andurien would not be a threat. And the only reason you could promise that is because of my arrangement with the duke."
Suddenly she turned, a pair of dangling earrings swinging as her head moved. "Everything you've accomplished, your grand conquest, your diplomatic victory, happened because of what I am doing today. You would have had nothing without this. You owe me everything, and you stand here asking how I can do what I'm doing? Have you learned nothing from your time in the Confederation?"
Danai's anger rose to meet Ilsa's. "How are you so loyal to the Confederation? To Daoshen? After what he did to you? If I were raped"—she almost said "when"— "—I would never cooperate with the man who did that to me! He would be dead to me! I couldn't stand the sight of him, much less walk next to him day after day after day. Do you see what he made you? And now, to serve his will, you're doing thisl What did Daoshen ever do to earn this loyalty?"
Muscles eased in Ilsa's body, starting with her neck. It relaxed, her shoulders fell and her entire body slumped slightly. Then she gave an amused smile.
"Raped? My, my. Who told you that?"
"Aunt Erde."
Ilsa laughed, a cruel sound. "That explains it." She sat back down and resumed making her way through her earrings. "Danai, you are an excellent warrior and have served the Confederation well, but you still clearly have much to learn. Daoshen never raped me. I'm sure you know of the power women have—I've seen you wield it yourself. I've seen how men look at you, how they follow you. Haven't you seen that look in Daoshen's eyes when he looks at me? If you haven't, you would be the only noble in the Inner Sphere not to notice.
"I first saw that look when we were teenagers, and it didn't take me long to learn how to use it to my advantage. Daoshen was at my beck and call. Like a puppet on a string. At first it was just games, child's play, but then I saw how serious his feelings were, and just what I could get from him. I could preserve the Magistracy, keep it safe from Capellan aggression for decades. Better yet, I could make it the Confederation's closest ally. All I needed to do was give Daoshen the two things he wanted most—myself, and an heir. I succeeded in both counts, and you see the results. The Magistracy is more secure than it has ever been, and it is poised to grow stronger.
"You ask me how I could do what I have done. How could I not? I have been as dedicated a servant as the Magistracy could hope for. I have led the leader of the Capellan Confederation by the . . . nose, I suppose I should say, and in exchange for occasionally granting him small favors I have received vast concessions. I regret nothing."
Danai stood over her mother, watching her put on earring after earring after earring, going through all the pairs, then going through them again. To her own surprise, Danai felt strangely unmoved by the conversation. The nerves, the unrest she had felt before this meeting had faded. Instead of anger, she felt pity. Her mother was more like her father than she had guessed. In the pursuit of a stronger political realm, they had parted with their souls decades ago, and neither now had any interest in regaining what they had lost, because neither was capable of feeling the void inside them. They were mere tools, serving political ends and machinations that had been set in motion by people long dead.
Danai loved her nation, and she would continue striving to be a worthy servant of it. But she would do it her way, with her whole soul, instead of with an empty shell. She would never again think of herself as her parents' child.
Acknowledgments
Jason M. Hardy
As always, plenty of help came from various quarters on this book, and the biggest challenge is remembering everyone I owe a debt to. If I forget anyone, it's because my mind isn't always good, not because you weren't helpful.
I have to thank Randall Bills, and not just because I always thank him on general principle. Without his creativity and support, I couldn't have done anything on this. He was very generous at a time when I really would have understood if he wasn't.
At GenCon 2005, I not-so-subtly hinted to Sharon Turner Mulvihill that I'm always available for work she might want to throw at me. Her reply was along the lines of, "Why do writers always say that? I love my writers! Of course I'll give them work!" A few months after GenCon, this book came along to prove her point. I'll never doubt her again. I sho
uld also add that the book would have suffered greatly without her guidance and comments.
BattleCorps.com members SkuggiSargon, Tenaka- Furey and Paul all were helpful when I wandered into BattleChat or AIM with various questions. I'm incredibly grateful for their cheerful assistance. And just think—if you were a BattleCorps member, you might see your screen name acknowledged some day!
My brother who shall remain nameless for my own secret purposes helped on some of the Chinese phrases that appear in the book, though cursing was not his strong suit.
While writing this book. I was also reading Shelby Foote's three-volume work on the Civil War, and it greatly increased my understanding of tactics and military thinking (not to say that I'm in any way an expert or even accurate). Oddly enough, the one direct reference to a Civil War person in the novel is a story not contained in Foote's work.
My wife, Kathy, is an absolute treasure in all ways. Period.
My son Finn's pretty good, too.
Randall N. Bills
First and foremost to Sharon Turner Mulvihill, for always helping me pull out the best story possible in a book . . . and, this time around, for her forgiveness as life kept getting in the way of this book.
To Jason Hardy, who as ever was willing to step in with a monster-sized helping hand and write one incredibly good book.
Finally, to my wife, Tara, and children, Bryn Kevin, Ryana Nikol and Kenyon Aleksandr: All too often I live in so many realities. Thanks for grounding me in the most important one (and for your forgiveness when my realities collide).
About the Authors
In the course of writing this book, Jason M. Hardy thought way too much about how to destroy things with a very large ax, so if you see him on the street in the near future, it might be wise to give him a wide berth. He is the author of the MechWarrior: Dark Age novel The Scorpion Jar and the recent Shadowrun novel Drops of Corruption. He also contributes short stories to BattleCorps.com.
He lives in Chicago with his wife and son. randall n. bills began his writing career in the adventure gaming industry, where he has worked full-time for the past decade. His hobbies include music, gaming, reading and, when he can, traveling: he has visited numerous locations both for leisure and for his job, including moving from Phoenix to Chicago to Seattle, and numerous trips to Europe, as well participating in an LDS mission to Guatemala.
He currently lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he continues to work full-time (and then some) in the adventure gaming industry while pursuing his writing career. Randall has published six novels and two Star Trek novellas; this is his seventh novel.
He lives with his wife, Tara Suzanne, and children, Bryn Kevin, Ryana Nikol and Kenyon Aleksandr, along with an eight-foot red-tailed boa named Jak o' the Shadows.
Contents
Prologue 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Principles of Desolation Page 28
