A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  Finally the narrow gut of rock opened up into a cavern half-choked with fallen slabs of stone, mute record of the shock wave of the Skyfall. A path had been cleared among the massive shards; ahead, a dim red light grew.

  Londri wrinkled her nose at the vile smell that greeted them as they stepped beneath a fissured arch of stone into another, larger cavern. Ahead, suspended over a chasm in the rocky floor, a twisted stone-wood cage jutted from a precarious spear of rock. A man squatted in the cage, clothed only in his own hair; longer than his body, it trailed in wispy lengths through the bars beneath his feet, fluttering in the draft from the cavernous vent below. Londri heard a grunt of disgust from Anya; she tried to breathe in shallow gasps through her mouth. As far as she knew, the Oracle never left his cage, although it was not locked; indeed, there was no door, the back was open where it clung to the rock.

  They stopped ten paces back from the fissure beneath the cage. Wisps of vapor rose from the depths beneath; around them, oil fires burned in hollows carved in the jumbled rocks of the cavern, only dimly illuminating their surroundings.

  Slowly she became aware of movement in the shadows, hints of twisted creatures even more pitiful than the frog-thing that had summoned her. Rejected even by the people of Gehenna, who valued almost any human life, they found refuge here. Anya moved up next to her and put one big arm around her; Londri leaned into her gratefully.

  She looked steadily at the Oracle, more to avoid seeing the shadows more clearly than to discern his features, which were lost behind his matted hair and beard, stiff and yellow with filth and bits of food. He’d been landed in the reign of her great-grandmother. No one now living knew who he was or what his crime had been, only that he had been a Phanist of Desrien who had done something so horrible in the shrine entrusted to him that the Magisterium had commanded his exile.

  Finally Londri stepped away from the forge master. “I come as summoned, Old One. Tell me what Fate would have me know.”

  The Oracle motioned with one skinny arm, and several creatures—one had too many arms—humped to the edge of the fissure, pushing before them a vast earthenware vessel with a gritty scrape that shivered through Londri’s teeth. They tipped it over, releasing a silvery spill of water into the red-glowing depths. A billow of steam shot up, and the Oracle inhaled in deep tearing breaths. Then his limbs began to shake as the prophetic fit seized him.

  He chanted in a high, quavering voice:

  Steel’s mistress, Londri Ironqueen,

  When a new star blazes in the sky,

  Ferric House against a fallen fortress

  Leads both friend and foe to fate defy.

  Great the risk, reward is even greater:

  Within your grasp the author of your woe;

  Until betrayal shifts against the Crater.

  With wartime friend revealed as true foe.

  For then the best may be to cede desire

  The traitor’s triumph forcibly deny

  See hope consumed in clouds of hellish fire

  And wait another chance to end the lie.”

  He fell silent, and the echoes of his mantic voice died away in a susurration of echoes. Londri waited, but there was nothing more.

  No advice about the twins. Just war, betrayal, death, and hope lost. But that was life on Gehenna.

  A wave of fatigue threatened to overwhelm her. She was in no condition to interpret the prophecy. Leaning even more heavily on Anya Steelhand’s warm bulk, she retraced her steps.

  The legates of the Great Houses would be arriving in the morning, Aztlan and Comori among them, and she had a judgment to render.

  o0o

  Gnostor Stepan Jiuderik, late of the College of Archetype and Ritual, Carossa Node, stood in the Ironqueen’s Court and watched the pageantry that he himself had designed. It had been his gift to Londri’s mother, Sarrera, lover and sovereign, to strengthen her hold upon the Lodestone Siege, knowing the Gehennans would be helpless against his knowledge of archetypal semiotics.

  Around him the light of the cressets and candles flaring above sparked to life the glittering flecks of mica in the granite pillars and vaulted arches of the Skyfall Chamber. The wall tapestries’ faded colors were enriched by the flickering glow; the flayed skins of traitors and failed challengers to the rulers of the Crater stared down with empty eyes that seemed to follow the ceremony below.

  But Stepan Ruderik remembered the Mandala and the Tree of Worlds—and Gelasaar hai-Arkad seated there, dispensing justice. Pain seized him, and he tried to banish the memory of the man he’d once called friend.

  The legates of the Great Houses and their attendants entered in solemn procession, following the Ironqueen and her honor guard. Each of the vassal Houses was preceded by the standards of their heritage—scythe, sword, griffin, eagle, a star made of bones, a glass flower—all thrust aloft and waving, like a wind-tossed forest of heraldry. The rich garb of the nobles threw back the yellow light in subtle tints; their iron jewelry glinted dully, highlighted here and there with gems or the hypnotically iridescent blue-green pearls of the gauma.

  Memory delivered its customary scourge as Stepan Ruderik recalled the Douloi and their subtle dance of a power sovereign over trillions.

  The Ferric Fanfaronade pealed forth from the immense wooden hydraulics behind the Lodestone Siege, ringing from the stone walls in battering echoes that drowned the hum of conversation and the clattering of the boots of the attendant guards. But Stepan Ruderik remembered the Phoenix Fanfare blazing forth in the bright harmonies of brass; to his ears the Ferric Fanfaronade sounded dull and reedy. On Gehenna, metal was for war and the maintenance of political power; no one would squander it on a musical instrument

  With an effort he focused on the present. The Oracle’s messenger and the ensuing visit below House Ferric had upset him deeply. Even after nearly thirty years in Gehenna, there were aspects of the planet he could not adjust to. That he had been a Highdweller merely made it worse.

  Sarrera had mocked him affectionately for his refusal to reckon in Gehennan years, his flawless Carossa-accented Uni, and his other affectations, as she called them. He had never been able to make her understand that without them, Gehenna would long ago have devoured him. He thought he’d have better luck with her daughter.

  My daughter. He clamped down hard on the emotion that had no place in Gehennan life, for the harsh mathematics of infertility here made families matrilineal—a father was no more than an uncle. Londri could not understand the depth of feeling between a father and his offspring that was the norm in the Thousand Suns.

  The hydraulics stopped and the ringing of steel pulled from scabbard snapped his attention back to the Skyfall Chamber as the Ironqueen’s honor guard drew their weapons. Bright steel, the wealth of the Crater, drew all eyes as Londri Ironqueen mounted the dais and faced the assembly.

  Behind her crouched the Lodestone Siege, a twisted lump of meteoric iron wrought not by human hands but by its flaming descent from space in the Skyfall so long ago. Only vaguely throne-like, it was hers alone to sit on. Beside her, massive Gath-Boru stood rigidly, holding the Sword of Maintenance upright.

  “Hear ye, noble Houses of Gehenna and all the realms within the Splash, and all that desire justice of House Ferric here assembled.” Londri’s high, clear voice rang against the stone walls. “By bright steel and established custom, by the courage that preserves life against heaven’s hate, and by the wisdom of our mothers and their mothers’ mothers, I declare this court of judgment open to petition.”

  She seated herself on the Lodestone Siege, her white robes spilling in a graceful fall across its pitted surface; Gath-Boru carefully laid the heavy broadsword across her knees. She seemed distracted, her motions abrupt. Stepan turned a mute question to Lazoro, who shrugged fractionally, looking worried.

  The machinery of justice proceeded with deliberate grace. The legates of Comori and Aztlan stepped forward, accompanied by their standards, and presented their cases in measured tones. There wa
s no hint of the passions the case had aroused.

  Stepan grimaced. This was the true measure of Gehennan poverty: that a war might be fought over a biological fact that people in the Thousand Suns took for granted. Out there, if you wanted twins, you had twins, a simple task for obstetric technology. In here, no one alive remembered the last time twins had been conceived.

  Live birth was rare enough; every line craved new blood at least as much as iron. Perhaps more.

  The legates finished their perorations. Pivoting smartly about, they marched back to their House positions, established by custom and power. Londri’s eyes narrowed as she tracked the Comori noble. Stepan peered after to see what she observed, but saw nothing untoward.

  Silence fell.

  Slowly Londri lowered the point of the Sword of Maintenance to the floor before her and stood up, her hands on the hilt.

  “Comori,” she said loudly. “Stand forth.”

  Stepan started. This was not what he had expected. Nor had Aztlan. Anger contorted his face, while triumph filled that of Comori. Would she give the twins to Comori, after all?

  “Draw your sword,” Londri commanded.

  A hiss of surprise swept through the Skyfall Chamber. This was not according to form. The Aztlan legate’s face puckered in confusion, while Comori hesitated, fear wrinkling his brow.

  “Draw your sword,” the Ironqueen repeated.

  Slowly, with visible reluctance, the legate did so. This time the gasp from the assembly was nearly unanimous, and Stepan understood. A glow of pride filled his chest; truly, she was Steel’s Mistress.

  The sword was stone-wood, not steel: Londri must have seen its lighter swing against the legate’s side when he swiveled about. The Aztlan noble knelt before the Lodestone Siege, unsheathed his sword, and laid it on the floor before Londri.

  “It seems,” said the Ironqueen slowly, “that Comori has no faith in their plea, nor in the justice of House Ferric.”

  Comori lowered his sword, sweat springing forth on his forehead. His lord had been unwilling to risk precious steel in the presence of one he had evidently decided to defy if judgment went against him.

  A growl of anger arose from the other legates, and from the soldiers ranked along each wall. A tide of movement swelled toward the legate standing alone in the middle of the floor.

  “No!” Londri held up one hand, the sleeve of her white robe falling back from her sinewy arm. “This is a court of justice, not vengeance.”

  She bent her gaze upon Comori. “So be it, then. You yourself have rendered judgment; your plea is void. Surrender the second child to Aztlan or face the wrath of the Crater.”

  The legate sheathed his sword with a nervous thrust. “Comori maintains its right to the divided soul,” he stated flatly.

  A long silence held the hall suspended. Londri crowed for breath, her face contorted with pain. The Sword of Maintenance slipped from her grasp and clanged as it fell to the dais. The Ironqueen twisted on the Lodestone Siege, clutching at her stomach. Anya Steelhand ran to her.

  Again. Sickened with despair, Stepan joined them, Lazoro at his side, hesitating helplessly beside the throne as Anya supported Londri, whose teeth sank deeply into her lower lip. She made no sound, but all within the hall saw the stain of red spreading across her robes, and knew that Gehenna had claimed another life before it even began.

  Terror blanched the Comori legate a heartbeat before the shouts began.

  “The Hook!”

  “He bore wood, give him steel!”

  “Give him to the Hook!”

  Trembling, Londri raised herself partway up, and tried to speak. Tears blurred Stepan’s vision as Londri surrendered to pain, rage, and despair.

  She screamed, all the rage of Exile in that sound.

  The Skyfall Chamber erupted, and the Comori legate’s scream echoed the Ironqueen’s as the others fell upon him and dragged him out, to be hung by the jaw from the steel hook above the gate of House Ferric. He would be days in the dying; the armies of the Crater would march out to war beneath his twitching body.

  But Stepan had eyes only for his daughter, eighteen standard years of age, bleeding out the life of her fifth child: another victim of the polity that had rejected him and all upon this world.

  THREE

  ABOARD THE SAMEDI

  Emmet Fasthand snarled a curse and shut down his console.

  Nothing.

  He got up, stamped to the dispenser, and punched tabs to get something hot and intoxicating. Gulping down the scalding liquid, he retreated to his console again.

  No real data whatever on Gehenna above M-class—rumor and conjecture—and he knew he had everything available.

  He’d always been a data addict. Taught when young that information was power, he had always made certain he had the latest, most extensive info. It was this habit to which he attributed forty years of success in the Rift Sodality, a career not known for fostering longevity. Only once, in careless haste, had he slacked his habit, and the memory of the failed Abilard raid in ’58 still rankled, despite the destruction he’d wrought there recently for the Lord of Vengeance.

  He had not confined himself to the RiftNet, good as it was. Over the decades he had also accrued secret sources for high-code info culled from other parts of the DataNet. But the war had changed everything. At Rifthaven to fetch Eusabian’s Urian artifact, he’d spent recklessly, scooping up as much of the data released into the RiftNet by war, from chthons formerly far below his ability to dive. After he’d been given his orders for this present run, on his way to rendezvous with the Fist of Dol’jhar, he’d made another stop, this time seeking any data that might bear on the secret of Gehenna.

  A lot of what he had was so new, so raw, it had not been sorted and rated yet, but he ran his own searches, patient after years of practice.

  He’d always found some nugget of info that his enemies did not have. But this time he could find absolutely nothing about Gehenna, despite having spent himself and the ship into near poverty, not just for data, but for the additional arrays needed to process it. Nothing. Nothing at all about the planet. Even its location had remained hidden—that had been given him by that ice-faced chatzer Anaris.

  Worse—he got up again and ordered caf this time—the search he’d run on any ships that had tried rescue runs showed a uniform result: every one of them had disappeared, no messages, no traces. Every one, going back almost seven hundred years.

  Fasthand gulped at the spiked caf, trying to soothe his seething guts. Fear and fury warred in him, and he cursed that logos-loving Barrodagh, who had made this Gehenna run seem a sinecure.

  “You are to be congratulated,” he’d said in his oily voice. “You have been chosen to convey the Avatar’s prisoners to their prison planet, and with you will be Eusabian’s heir. Upon your safe return, your reward will be commensurate with the honor.”

  Return! What return? The Panarchists didn’t care—they knew they were dead, anyway. And as for Anaris . . .

  He has no intention of dying, that one.

  Fasthand grimaced, remembering the Dol’jharian corvette sitting in the port landing bay, the access guarded at all hours by a pair of those hulking Tarkans.

  It’s a matter of honor, that ugly little gargoyle Anaris had as secretary had said in his teeth-grating whine. His position requires that he travel with it, as with his honor guard, though he does not expect to use either. And then that weird laugh, like the gollup of a frog.

  Fasthand grimaced, reminded that the secretary was expecting to see him—on a matter of importance.

  Glancing at the chrono, Fasthand decided enough time had passed. He would not dare to keep Anaris waiting, a fact that enraged him. After all, this was his own ship. So he took his resentments out on the secretary, as much as he dared.

  He had no doubt what the chatzing trog was on about this time. The Panarchists, of course. Fasthand had found out about Moob and Sundiver’s escapade and its result from Tat Ombric. The captain grimace
d again, but not without humor; he was a little afraid of the vile-tempered Draco, and seldom interfered with her private pursuits. She was a dangerously expert scantech, and time and again had kept the Samedi safe from predators on both sides of Panarchist law, so he endured her. He hoped that someone had recorded the incident—he’d enjoy watching it. All right, you nasty crawler. Let’s hear what your damned master wants now.

  On the other side of the ship, Tat licked her lips, flexing her trembling fingers. Aware of the blood rushing in her ears, she activated her nark in the captain’s cabin and waited, with sickening expectancy, for some kind of alarm to trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  She used this nark seldom: only when she felt that she or her cousins were endangered—when it seemed worse not to use it. Lately she had felt the urge to use it all the time.

  She crouched on her pod, knees under her chin, as she watched Morrighon enter Fasthand’s barbarically splendid cabin.

  It was strange, and not at all pleasant, to watch someone who was unmistakably a Bori move with the arrogance of a Dol’jharian. Though Morrighon had none of the powerful physical grace of the heavy-worlders, he still commanded—and expected—more than his share of personal space, just as his overlords did.

  Fasthand dropped back a step in his own cabin, then flushed with annoyance. Fasthand did not like being intimidated.

  “I’m planning the approach to Gehenna,” he said. “Do you or your master have any special instructions?”

  Morrighon said, “When my lord wishes special instructions given, you may be sure that they will be given.” His head tipped sideways, as if he couldn’t hold it upright on his scrawny neck. The grav on Dol’jhar probably twisted him like this, Tat thought, shuddering. What’s it like in his cabin? For Morrighon’s quarters lay in the Dol’jharian portion of the ship, which had been set to the wearing acceleration that was the Dol’jharian norm.

  “My lord has given me instructions to pass along to you concerning the well-being of his prisoners,” Morrighon went on. “His father, the Avatar, requires them to be set down at their destination in perfect health. This means they are to receive adequate comestibles . . .” He went on, in his insinuating whine, to outline in precise terms the proper care of the Panarchists, right down to how much laundry they were to be allowed and when it must be renewed. From the first reference to his prisoners, Fasthand’s face had lengthened with annoyance.