A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  Then the clearing dissolved into fighting as the Elite Guard of House Aztlan turned on their erstwhile allies, and the Tasuroi cannibals poured into the clearing. Gath-Boru shouted commands as he threw himself forward and picked the Panarch up in one massive arm. He started toward the shuttle with a small detachment, carrying the wounded ruler of the Thousand Suns, while the Ferric Guard coalesced around the Ironqueen and Stepan and began to fight its way back to the main body.

  “‘The traitor’s triumph forcibly deny!’” the huge general shouted as the fighting carried him away from his Queen. “We will hold the sky machine until it can launch.” He slashed at a Tasuroi who lunged at him, cleaving his head in two.

  “And we will be free!”

  ABOARD THE CORVETTE

  Anaris’s corvette scudded low over the planet, laying its deadly cargo. “Sneak-missiles discharged,” reported the Tarkan at the Weapons console.

  In the main screen, coming over the limb of Gehenna, appeared the crater near which the Panarch had been landed, a minute pockmark slipping into the shadow of night. The matte-black missiles vanished as they fell away from the ship, awaiting the signal that would wake them to deadly life, undetectable until then.

  Anaris lifted the ship away from the planet, arcing away toward the nearest moon. From the communications console the recorded voice of the Panarch repeated its dispassionate message, reporting the position of the shuttle and its condition.

  “Communications,” said Anaris. “We’ll take up station behind the moon. Stand by to deploy a relay.”

  He gave Morrighon a mordant smile. “It should be a touching reunion,” he said.

  ELEVEN

  GEHENNA

  Gath-Boru carefully set the old man down against a wall and lent his strength to closing the doors.

  “We can’t hold the outer hatch shut against a determined assault,” said one of the Panarchists, a short, dark-brown man. “And we still have the Rifters to deal with.”

  As if to underline his words, the little metal room resounded to an impact on the doors. Gath-Boru motioned the guards with him to help hold it closed.

  The Panarch looked up from where he sat, wincing as a small woman carefully cut through the arrow shaft in his shoulder with some sort of metal tool. Gath-Boru stared; it cut the tough ironwood shaft as though it were a reed.

  “I don’t think they’ll be a problem. Our friend here brought along some of that bioweapon they use—” He looked up at the general. “What do you call that dust that kills?”

  “Spore-tox.”

  “Their sensors will have revealed its toxicity. It only needs a small hole through the hatch, which they know they can’t prevent.” The old man smiled at Gath-Boru. “Even without it, one look at you would probably convince them to surrender.”

  The general smiled back, uncertain how to respond.

  “It missed the major vessels and nerves,” said the little woman. “If you’re careful, you’ll do.”

  Evidently seeing Gath-Boru’s expression of incomprehension, the sky-lord explained the situation to him. The ship’s control was held by enemies. Once they were overcome, the ship could lift off, if they could hold the lock against the Tasuroi.

  “And if you cannot?” asked Gath-Boru. He remembered what the old man had said to the Ironqueen about the engines.

  The Panarch comprehended instantly. “We will not allow this vessel to fall into the hands of your enemies.” The old man’s smile was grim. “Is it your custom to burn your dead?” he asked.

  Gath-Boru hesitated at the oddity of the question. “Yes.”

  “Then, if we fail, your pyre will consume your enemies in thousands.”

  “We won’t fail,” said a tall, thin man, addressing the Panarch. “You and Matilde can run the lift-off from the bridge. The rest of us can hold the lock—the Rifters have a couple more jacs, and there are enough breathing masks in the locker for us and our new allies.”

  He turned from Gelasaar to Gath-Boru. “We should be able to hold the lock long enough to lift off.”

  Gath-Boru saw comprehension in the Panarch, sorrow and gratitude, and he understood. It was unlikely anyone in the lock would survive.

  “Until death take me, or the world end.” The other Panarchist woman in the room smiled, though tears glittered along the lower rims of her eyes.

  Her oath expressed, in different words, the oath he himself had taken to the Ironqueen, and with a full heart Gath-Boru knew that these men and women from beyond the sky understood loyalty and love just as he did.

  “This is a good company to die in,” he said, and their responding smiles were all the answer he needed.

  o0o

  Londri’s forces stopped the Tasuroi at the breastworks on the crest of the hill from which they had attacked the shuttle that afternoon. The cannibals fell back, decimated by determined archery and a squad of artillerists armed with sporetox—fortunately the lack of wind favored its use.

  Londri dispatched runners, but war-horn interrogatives brought back grim news. Comori had fallen, and reinforcements would not reach them anytime soon. It would be all they could do to hold this position. They could only harass them with archery, and their arrow supply was low. The two heavy catapults left from her own assault had fallen to the Tasuroi before the Ferric Guard threw them back; at least the crews had cut the cords before fleeing, rendering them useless.

  But the Tasuroi had lost interest in them, turning instead to assault the ship; she could do nothing to stop them. She cursed under her breath as the hordes gave way to allow a company of Aztlan soldiers to bring up spore-tox and never-quench, while the cannibals pried at the doors to the grounded vessel.

  After a time, they succeeded in levering them open and jamming them with a log. A thread of fire lanced out of the crack they’d forced and speared a Tasuroi who had not backed away fast enough; his head exploded in a flare of bloody smoke, the body flopping in senseless spasms to the burned and ashy ground.

  A hail of arrows clattered uselessly against the doors and surrounding hull. Several flew through the opening. Another line of fire lanced out.

  Londri watched as a light catapult took aim. The spore-tox bolt flew true against the doors, bursting in a deadly haze through the slit between the two halves.

  The Tasuroi ran forward again, accompanied by Aztlan soldiers, only to be met once more by the fire weapon: two bolts lanced out, swinging from side to side in a deadly scythe that tore through flesh and armor with equal ease.

  “They are no doubt wearing masks against toxic substances,” said Stepan from behind her. “Never-quench will do little more, except perhaps from fire-tubes.”

  “How long will it take for them to be able to fly?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “We can only hope it’s less time than it takes the Tasuroi and Aztlan to overcome the lock party.”

  “And if not?”

  Stepan shook his head. “Then they will trigger the engines, and we will all die.”

  Inside the shuttle, Yosefina called at last, “Bridge secured!”

  She didn’t wait for the shouts of relief and thanks, but hastened to the com. A short interval passed, as everybody paused to draw breath, then she called out, “The Rifters surrendered. Matilde estimates ten minutes to lift-off. Wants to know how we’re holding up.”

  Mortan Kree stepped forward, laughing. “Tell him we’ll make it—”

  He jerked, clutched his shoulder where an arrow suddenly sprouted, but he did not drop his jac. Yosefina Paerakles turned away from the com and checked the power on her weapon.

  Mortan began to check his jac, but stopped as a burning sensation flared in his shoulder. Horror bolted along his nerves when he saw the brownish-red fuzz erupting from the arrow wound. Spore-tox. He turned to the massive Gehennan general. “Do you have an antidote to this?”

  Gath-Boru shook his head. “It can’t be used on living flesh. Fire sometimes works.”

  Kree motioned Caleb clos
er and indicated his jac. “Try setting that to wide dispersion, lowest power setting. Let’s see if cautery will slow it down.”

  Caleb grimaced, but did as suggested. The Gehennans looked on dispassionately. Kree guessed they were used to much worse.

  The pain of the burn blinded him with excruciating white heat for an endless pulse, then the agony dwindled to the red-hot of burning coal. Kree blinked through blurry eyes at the wound. The cautery did seem to slow the spread of the fungus, or whatever it was.

  More arrows clattered against the back wall. Yosefina stepped up and fired back, drawing a scream of agony. She grinned over her shoulder, but before she could speak a thin tube thrust through the crack and a stream of liquid drenched her. Her clothes smoldered for a second, and then she shrieked as she erupted in a column of flame, her skin cracking open and peeling away.

  The firestop in the bulkhead foamed her, too late. Somehow, fumbling with fingers burned to the bone, she reset her jac, stumbled to the door and released the entire remaining charge at full aperture, provoking a chorus of screams as she took her killers into death with her. Then she toppled through the doors and was gone.

  Weakness spread inexorably through Mortan Kree’s arm, cold ramifying into his chest. This is it, he thought; the numbness spread, damping all emotions except focus as he forced his clumsy fingers to dial his jac to the same setting.

  He grinned at Caleb and Gath-Boru, feeling one side of his mouth droop as the toxin mounted toward his brain.

  “My turn now,” he said, and stepped into the opening of the doors, the spore-tox already blooming around his shoulders and head. He triggered his weapon. A flare of light accompanied by agonized screams announced the death of countless more attackers. Then an arrow lanced into his throat and he fell bonelessly out of the ship.

  At the other end of the shuttle, Matilde sat back, wiping her good hand down her clothes. “Core regeneration complete. Lift-off in three minutes. Radiant flush cycle initiated.” She poked her little finger in the air. “We’ll even have a little left over for shielding, so it won’t matter that the lock is jammed open.”

  The Panarch smiled at her. Outside, a star flickered in the twilight sky, growing in brightness against the lightning-like discharges of the Knot.

  “There he is,” he said, jutting his chin at the screen. “We’ll meet him halfway.”

  At the lock, the doors began to grind apart. The last Privy Councilor fired carefully at the ends of the wooden levers, but he could only delay the inevitable. The doors opened wide and the Tasuroi poured in.

  The jac charred the first wave of attackers, exploding bodies in a bloody fog; then the beam of power from it faltered and died. The next wave of attackers rolled over the Panarchist, who tried to counter a blow with his weapon, but the weight of the Tasuroi’s club bore the weapon back against him and crushed his skull.

  Motioning his soldiers back around him, Gath-Boru backed up against the inner door, meeting the onslaught with the steel that had given the Crater hegemony over the kingdoms of Gehenna, and soon the metal room was splashed with blood.

  And then the floor quivered.

  From outside, Londri watched in horror and rage as Aztlan directed the assault on the ship. “Damn the traitor!”

  Then a puff of steam lifted lazily from beneath the machine.

  “I believe they are preparing to lift off,” Stepan declared.

  Both he and Londri fell silent, their hearts and minds with Gath-Boru, whose Ferric Guard fell one by one to the clubs of the Tasuroi until Gath-Boru alone was left. He had always known his huge body had condemned him to an early death from heart failure: it was the mark of his line, so he did not fear dying. He feared only failure, but that was the specter that haunted him now as the Tasuroi pressed ever inward, disregarding the scything sweep of his sword. The door behind him was locked, but it would fall all too soon to the battering rams of Aztlan if he fell.

  His arms grew heavy, but he knew if he faltered they would overwhelm him in a moment.

  Then, louder than his laboring heart, the machine gave a coughing roar, like the great saber-cat of the Surimasi Mountains. A flare of light joined the maddened howls of the damned. The Tasuroi fell back; emboldened, he pushed into them, slashing until the room was empty of aught but the dead. The roar repeated, and brought with it a wave of heat.

  The attackers had fallen back at last, but the sound of the wind rising replaced their shouts. He peered around the door and his breath stuttered in his chest.

  Far below, burned bodies heaped around a shallow, glassy crater; and around that, the scattered forces of the two armies looked up. He caught a glimpse of a pale face upturned, above gleaming red armor, but the ground fell away too fast for him to be certain.

  Gath-Boru watched, fascinated, as the battlefield dwindled into insignificance and vanished. Soon the horizon took on a definite curve; he squinted as the sun rose again, but the sky darkened. He gasped for air, but did not move away from the door—he appreciated that something was keeping the wind of their flight away from him.

  His nose began to bleed, and his vision blurred, but joy burned inside his chest, expanding fiercely. As the world became a vast blue-white bowl beneath him, his last thought was that he had done what Londri had always wanted: first of all those born upon Gehenna, he had escaped.

  Gath-Boru smiled, and then the darkness closed in and carried him away.

  ABOARD THE GROZNIY

  Ng leaned forward in her command pod, as if she could impel the cruiser to greater speed.

  In the main screen the Knot flared with actinic brightness, great sheets of lightning-like discharges sweeping through canyon walls of light. The huge ship could no longer safely skip, and the bright point of light ahead that was Gehenna grew with painful slowness.

  “I have a visual, sir,” said Wychyrski.

  The screen blanked, filled with static, then cleared enough for her to make out the cramped bridge of a standard shuttle with four people, two seated at the consoles and two standing in the background. The dapper bearded figure in the center caused a surge of overwhelming emotion. “The Panarch!” Then her nerves chilled when she saw a bloody wooden shaft protruding from his shoulder.

  “Your Majesty,” she said, rising.

  Belatedly—a measure of the stunning sight of their ruler in real-time—her crew also rose.

  The famous face smiled across the distance between them. “No time for niceties, Captain: well done.” Then, apparently seeing her alarm, he touched his wound. “This is not as serious as it looks.”

  Ng bowed again as the crew sat down slowly. “Status, Your Majesty?”

  Gelasaar hai-Arkad turned to the soot-smeared figure at his right. Ng recognized Matilde Ho, Gnostor of Energetics, only by her voice as she said crisply, “We’ll clear atmosphere in three minutes.”

  Below Ng, Lieutenant Mzinga turned to her. “Tractor range in four minutes.”

  The Panarch’s gaze shifted past Ng to Brandon, still standing silently behind the captain’s pod, and his lips parted.

  “My son,” the Panarch said, joy changing the timbre of his voice.

  Ng’s throat hurt. At the edge of her peripheral vision she saw Brandon give a profound bow. Then he said, “Are you well, Father?”

  “I am, my son. The time for reflection granted me has sharpened my vision. And you?”

  Nothing. Ng thought, midway between tears and laughter, not even danger and the threat of death, can eradicate that inbred Douloi singsong.

  “My travels seem to have led me full circle,” Brandon said.

  “Ah, yes, the Mandala,” the Panarch replied. “I heard a little of that. How fares our home?”

  He means the raid, Ng thought, but Brandon’s answer was completely unexpected.

  “On the eighteenth, I left the Hall of Mirrors,” he said, his voice so light it was nearly inaudible. The Panarch watched intently.

  “No sign of the corvette,” said Wychyrski.

  But
he’s got to be out there. Ng nodded. Eighteenth—the Enkainion! But wasn’t that in the Ivory Hall? Then all her assumptions splintered: they were talking not in code, but so elliptically only they could understand one another.

  And they do. They both know Anaris has to be listening, and that everything said here will be hashed over by millions, for years and years.

  A burst of static lit the screen, then resolved into a muddier view of the Panarch, who stepped closer to the imager. “. . . It was Jaspar’s path, was it not?”

  Brandon did not answer, but again made a profound bow. Ng realized that—somehow—Brandon had explained himself, and his father not only understood but concurred. Hall of Mirrors—repetition—Jaspar . . . Brandon left to escape Semion, but he meant to come back, she realized. To create a new system, if he saw his brother ruining the old. The insight made her almost dizzy.

  “Come on, come on . . .” Ng gripped the pod arms so hard her hands ached.

  “Three minutes to tractor range,” said Mzinga.

  Aboard the corvette, Morrighon watched his lord watching the Panarch and his son talk. Most of it was Panarchic silliness, but Anaris listened, his profile intent.

  A murmur on the bridge, too low through the static, made Morrighon sat up. He swallowed once, twice, then spoke. “I believe the cruiser is almost in range.”

  Anaris waved his hand negligently.

  Morrighon sat back, wondering if he’d gone mad. Why didn’t he just blow the shuttle up and have done? Reluctantly he returned his attention to the screen.

  The Panarch said, “There is so much I want to tell you, son, but words are not enough. First, though, I must discharge a debt of honor. The first decree from the Emerald Throne must be to end the Isolation of Gehenna and bring the planet fully into the Thousand Suns.”

  Brandon bowed a third time.

  The Panarch’s eyes shifted. “Sebastian! Do you remember the poem you taught Brandon about words?”

  Morrighon heard a voice, hesitant with surprise: