Tatja smiled at Cor and Svir, the scornful smile that was now so familiar. “You never were very bright, were you? It’s possible that I’ll take over the world. As a matter of fact, I probably will. It will be a by-product of my other plans. I chose Crownesse very carefully. The country has immense physical resources. If there are large heavy-metal deposits anywhere, they are in Crownesse. The government is talented and dedicated. Most administrative posts are awarded on the basis of civil service tests. And the entire bureaucracy is fanatically dedicated to one person: the legal holder of the crown. They served Tar Benesh and his evil for twenty-five years, and they will serve me just as faithfully. I will not be bothered with coups and elections, as I might be if I took over one of the archipelagates.
“We’ve reached a critical point in the development of civilization, in case you haven’t noticed. In the past century there have been a number of basic scientific discoveries. The pharmacists of the Sutherseas have developed drugs which control most of the major diseases. A physicist in the Osterlai Archipelagate invented that picturemaker we use. All over the world, revolutionary advances are being made. Rey Guille was right, you know: Organizations like Tarulle are responsible for this. For centuries they spread ideas from island to island until finally scientists stopped thinking of them as fantasy and actually invented what writers described. I’m making a gift of that Fantasie collection to Tarulle, by the way.”
“How magnanimous.”
Tatja ignored him. “These inventions and techniques are going to have effects far beyond what is obvious—just think what that picturemaker will do for parallax astronomy, If they all were brought together and worked over intensively, the changes would be even more spectacular. But you people on the islands are too lazy to do that. The people of Crownesse are not. They’ve had to work awfully hard just to stay alive here on the Continent. They will take your inventions and use them and develop more inventions, until they control the entire planet.”
She looked up into the sky, at Seraph and the bright star Prok. “I’ve had five years on the Tarulle Barge, enough time to sail the world, enough time to guess what this place really is. Myth and standard archeology agree that we originated somewhere deep in The Continent, that man moved to the islands recently—just before the rise of civilization. What else could explain the absence of prehistorical remains on the Islands? But every year the biologists and the explorers come closer to the true answer. That truth would be known around the world if I published all the stories I am getting at Fantasie: the human race originated in the islands—and in the historical past.
“Do you understand me? This is a world of shipwreck, where people lost their memories and their minds.” Her arm brushed at the sky. “And Seraph is too near; any fool can see that. Out there must be empires so vast they can ‘lose’ whole planetary systems.”
Tatja’s voice changed, lost its authority and its spite. She turned to look at Svir and Cor; her eyes were soft. For a moment she wasn’t the master of all events, but a young girl, very much alone. “You call me megalomaniac. That is to laugh. What is worth having here? Ruling this world does not interest me, except for one thing: I’ve never found anyone I can talk to, anyone who can understand the things I often want to say.”
Svir suddenly understood the meaning of her scornful smiles: hopeless envy.
“And that is why I am going to turn this world upside down, and make of it a fire so bright that someone real will notice.”
The fallen goddess turned from the parapet and the gay crowds. She didn’t look up as she walked away.
PART 3
THE FERAL CHILD
THIRTEEN
The astronomer royal was all wet. At Bayfast the Waterfall lasted more than forty days: nearly a fifth of the year. For the last thirty-eight days and nights it had rained without pause. The city’s troughed streets were filled with swiftmoving water. Behind all sounds was the rumbly hum of myriad droplets striking stone and wood and water. After four years, the astronomer royal was still not accustomed to the monsoon climate of the Continent. At the back of his mind was the irrational thought that when the rain stopped, Seraph might be washed from the sky.
Svir Hedrigs considered returning to his carriage. It wasn’t worth it; he was already too wet. By the Bayfast logic, if the rain is warm—why stay dry? With a mixture of irritation and envy, he watched the guardsmen on the pier. They appeared to enjoy being wet to the skin. They wore their black uniforms with a cockiness that said being soaked was the height of fashion.
His carriage was parked on the roadway at the root of the pier. Beyond the roadway were the naval warehouses, constructed of marble bricks and rock paste. The quarries on the inland cliffs seemed inexhaustible, and the Crown’s Men had used them to build one of the most beautiful warehouse districts in the world. Architects claimed that this part of the port could survive artillery attack and was absolutely nonflammable. Svir wasn’t so sure about the first claim, but he was certain that during the Waterfall no fire would start outside the warehouses. The pier had an inch of water on it even though it was more than ten feet above the bay.
Perhaps he should have stayed in the dryrooms of the keep. But as astronomer royal, he felt this was a job which could not be delegated. The fastboat they expected was to bring the latest reports from the Doomsday observatory, four thousand miles upcoast and more than twenty-nine thousand feet above sea level—above the monsoonal precipitation. During the Waterfall, the Doomsdaymen were the most important source of astronomical information the crown possessed. Svir’s job was to arrange such reports for Marget’s consideration. And since Marget really needed no help in the interpretation of astronomical data, the astronomer royal frequently felt superfluous. So it did his ego good to come down to the most restricted area in the naval district and welcome a fastboat that was—incidentally—from a war zone.
In fact, thought Svir as he glanced around, he was the highestranking officer in the area. The only other first-level officer was a vice-admiral from naval intelligence. The broad band on Svir’s sleeve identified him as a high minister. He generally tried to conceal the tiny crown above that. The crown indicated he was an appointee rather than a member of the civil service.
The astronomer royal squished unhappily across the pier, toward the admiral. The navy woman saluted. “Good day, m’lord.”
Svir suppressed some sarcasm as he noticed there was no humor in the admiral’s blue eyes. “I was told the fastboat would arrive by twenty-five hours.”
“That’s right, sir. But unless the wind is steady, the hydrofoils are useless and the boat is as slow as any other.”
Svir didn’t point out that, except during the Turnabouts, the Monsoonal Drag always blew right for high-speed travel along the coast. The admiral seemed worried enough. Svir casually covered the crown on his left sleeve with his right hand. Four years ago, who would have guessed that one day the most powerful people in the most powerful country in the world would address him as their superior? Even more fantastic, who would have guessed that he would be married to someone as wonderful as Coronadas Ascuasenya? Ever since that night in Krirsarque, his life had been like the story of the Little Sailmaker: success piled upon fantastic success.
But he did not delude himself. He was riding the bow wave of the most spectacular success story in the history of the human race: the career of Tatja Grimm, aka Marget of Sandros, Queen of Crownesse. Tatja’s rise to power had been miraculous, and her progress since even more so. Many of her projects seemed pointless, extravagant, half-witted. But a half-wit she was not. For every person who despised her, there were now three who worshiped her. And that ratio was improving. Her fastboat program had seemed ridiculous. Who wants to know what’s happening on the other side of the world within twenty days of the event? But that program had already repaid itself five times over. With a comparatively instantaneous picture of the world’s markets, Crownesse merchants came close to their wildest dreams of avarice. Such success gave peopl
e an excuse to overlook her other projects. As far as Svir knew, there were only two people besides Tatja who knew her ultimate purpose—and he was one of those two. He often thought his present post was pay for his silence. Marget was merciful.
Svir glanced at the admiral, and wondered what her explanation of the Marget Mystery might be. The officer was staring across the bay at the inland cliffs. On the ridge line stood the signaling mosaic that relayed messages from the seaward cliffs: the Somnai. through the rain, Svir could barely see the shifting patterns on the mosaic. “That’s it, sir!” the admiral said. “The Somnai batteries have spotted the fastboat … . It’s entering the bay right now.” Her relief was plain. The expedition sent to put down the Picchiu rebellion had been lightly equipped. It had been Marget’s idea to use fastboats to transport two thousand troops for a surprise pincer attack in cooperation with the Loyalists. This insurrection was the only blot on the queen’s record. Forty days earlier, fastboats from the north reported rumors claiming Marget was an impostor and that her accession had been accomplished by fraud. This claim was especially disturbing because it was true. Four years had passed since the accession, and except for the deposed Tar Benesh, no one had protested before (though Svir suspected that the highest members of the bureaucracy guessed the truth). Then the rumors blossomed into armed insurrection. Marget’s shock troops had departed just ten days ago. The returning fastboat would bring news of the battle as well as the astronomical reports that Svir was interested in.
A half-hour passed. The fastboat appeared in the rain-grayed distance. The bay was comparatively windless, and the boat’s crew was rowing it slowly toward the pier.
Svir shook his sleeves, hoping to free the sticky linen from his skin. He had had about enough of feeling like a drowned rat. He squinted, trying to get a clearer view of the fastboat. Its boom masts were in the vertical position and its sails were reefed, but there was something strange about it, nevertheless. Then he realized that the boat’s port side had only three masts while the starboard had four. He could see the stub of the amputated boom still hanging in the extended position. The boat listed slightly to port.
He pointed to the boat. “Admiral, that boat’s been shot up.”
The old woman stared for a few seconds. Then she glanced back at the astronomer royal, noticed the crown on Svir’s sleeve. “So it has.” Apparently the admiral reserved “sir” and “in’lord” for her real superiors: civil service people. She turned and walked quickly away, toward the end of the pier. Svir followed.
There were two large holes in the fastboat’s hull, barely above the water line. A suspicious brown stain covered portions of the foredeck. The Guardsmen made way for Svir as he walked to the edge of the pier. Now he was only a yard from the little craft. A sickly smell came from below-decks. He looked at the sailors. They were busy making the boat secure. They moved quickly, efficiently, but their faces were strained and their eyes fixed.
Finally the main hatch opened and the commanding officer appeared on deck. His uniform was as sharp as fatigues ever are, but his arm was in a sling and the left side of his face was a smear of medicant and blood. Following close behind him came a sailor carrying the strongbox that was the fastboat’s cargo: the reports from upcoast, from the war zone.
Svir felt a bit nauseated. He knelt to give the wounded man a hand up. The fellow saw the gray band on his sleeve, came to attention, and saluted.
“Lieutenant Mörl reports return Fastboat One Nineteen, in’lord,” he recited.
“Gods, man, what happened?” Behind him, Svir felt the admiral trying to maneuver him away from the edge of the pier. High minister or not, Svir’s question was a substantial breach of protocol—if not security. But the wounded Lieutenant Mörl was too exhausted to notice much beyond the rank on Svir’s sleeve.
“The Rebels have artillery, sir. I don’t know how. They wiped out our main force in half a day. My recon group followed the Rebels into the Doomsday area. They fought the Loyalists at Kotta-svo-Picchiu. The city was razed. We left then. Apparently they saw us. Overtook us in one of our own fastboats.”
The admiral gasped, and Svir could imagine her surprise. Artillery? Reliable, accurate artillery? So the Crownesse military no longer had a monopoly on the ultimate weapon.
But the admiral was shocked by the wrong thing. Kotta-svo-Picchiu had housed the second-largest telescope in the world. The insolent Doomsdaymen often insisted that the queen use the Kotta Eye for her projects, rather than the High Eye at the top of Heavensgate Mountain. Marget was not going to be happy about this turn of events.
FOURTEEN
Svir leaned forward, delighted by the feel of a dry shirt sliding across his back. Thank goodness these ministerial conferences were held in a dryroom—at least the Bayfastlings wanted their maps and documents kept dry. The room was deep within the Crown Keep. Along the walls were racks of maps and overlays—one of Marget’s innovations. The ten top ministers of Crownesse sat at the table. All wore plain black uniforms. Sometimes Svir thought these bureaucrats were ostentations in their worship of the utilitarian. Only once in a generation did they all wear their dress uniforms.
Tatja. Grimm stood at the head of the table, a pointer in her hand. As Queen of Crownesse she was expected to dress lavishly at all times, but at cabinet meetings she could get away with a jeweled semiskirt and silk blouse, her red hair combed smoothly over her shoulders. The ruler of half the civilized world appeared to be around thirty years old. Svir knew that was due to artful makeup. In fact, she was not much past twenty, and in some ways still younger than that.
The report from upcoast had seriously disturbed her, though Svir might be the only minister who saw this. When she was truly upset, she often lost her ability to gauge the understanding of her audience; sometimes her speech became so elliptical only a mind reader could follow. Other times—as in the present case—she went to great lengths to explain the obvious. At the moment she was lecturing them about the Upcoast situation map. It showed the Continent stretching west and northward from Bayfast. The four-thousand-mile-long Doomsday Mountain Range separated a narrow coastal strip from the Interior. That coastal strip was the breadbasket of Crownesse. Now the northernmost province, Picchiu, had revolted against the crown.
“Fortunately, Sfierro Province remained loyal to our rule, and has raised a large army to oppose the Insurrectionists. Ten days ago we sent two thousand troops to land north of the Picchiui—here.” She tapped the pointer on a spot some ten miles south of Kotta-svo-Picchiu, at the border of the Doomsday Province. “Doomsday refused to supply troops,” she grimaced, “but we hoped to trap the Insurrectionists between our well-trained troops on the north, and the Sfierranyii on the south.
“Gentlemen, we were stomped. Our so-called shock troops were decimated. If not for the ‘undisciplined’ Sfierranyii, the Insurrectionists would have it all now. Instead, the Loyalists chased the Rebels north, to the Picchiu River. In the most recent battle we know of, Kotta-svo-Picchiu was destroyed. We are now fighting a war on the very borders of Doomsday Province.
“In its way, this is as bad for us as if the Picchiui had been victorious. The Doomsdaymen need little excuse to declare their independence of us. Their lands are beyond the effective range of our military forces. The destruction of Kotta-svo-Picchiu—a Doomsday city, despite its name—gives them excuse. The fortyinch telescope just outside the city was destroyed.” She took a deep breath. “Gentles, you know I have my … quirks. One of them is a profound love for things astronomical. I needed that telescope. I also need the good will of the Doomsdaymen to give me access to their other telescope—the High Eye. We must not lose the Doomsday area.” She looked at the bureaucrats, and Svir knew she saw the signs of amusement and relief on the ministers’ faces. Doomsday Province was important to them for its metals production, not its astrological/astronomical cult. It was good news that her commands did not conflict with national interest. The bureaucrats were loyal, but some monarchs had set the nation back
years with fanatical hobbies. It was nice to have a queen with innocuous interests. Tatja smiled back at them, and turned to the Minister of Information. “All right, Wechsler, what do your spies say?”
Haarm Wechsler stood and moved to the head of the table. Wechsler barely topped five feet, and weighed not more than one hundred pounds. But as Minister of Information, he was a man with a long lever; he controlled the most extensive espionage operations in history. He bowed spastically to Tatja. “Thank you, Marget. I’ve reviewed the reports Lieutenant Mörl brought from my agents Upcoast. They mosaic an interesting picture. All we’ve known till now is that the Picchiul Assembly simply passed a resolution declaring that Your Majesty—your pardon—achieved power through fraud. This was so obviously ridiculous that we ignored it—until the assembly further resolved to sever its connections with what it claimed was an unlawful government here in Bayfast. Now my agents report this is all the work of one Oktar Profirio. Profirio is an elusive individual—and a preternaturally talented one. He is a member of the Provincial Assembly—an appointee, replacing a member who died last year. That appointment was on, uh, 17 Summer 936. Before that date he had no fame whatsoever.” Wechsler set his notes on the table and looked about the room impressively. “In fact, I suspect the name is an alias. Through Profirio sounds like an Upcoast name, there is no clan in Picchiu which bears it.”
Tatja interrupted. “It could indeed be an alias, Minister Wechsler. But about thirty years ago a family of poor nobles named Profirchte moved from the Tsanart Islands to Picchiu. I understand they changed their name to Profirio.”
The Minister of Information flushed. It was well known that he had the ego (and raw talent) of ten. Rarely was he bested. It was this occasional display of omniscience that more than anything else kept the ministers of Crownesse personally loyal to Tatja Grimm.
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