Independence Day

by P. Darvill-Evans

  It was tempting to stay where she was and lob lighted sticks of explosive towards the carts and trucks. They’d burn well, and if they contained ammunition they might make some truly awesome explosions.

  But the vehicles were surrounded by soldiers. She couldn’t do it.

  She retraced her steps into the narrow, curved space between the high walls. She looked up. Here the battlements were deserted, as the soldiers were concentrating their fire further along, opposite the plaza. And here, she realised as she felt along the wall, there was a doorway. And the door was unlocked.

  She slipped inside, into a dark passage that ran along the base of the wall. When her eyes were accustomed to the gloom she began to look for places where explosive charges would do the most damage to the fabric of the structure.

  The sounds of the battle hardly penetrated into the passageway, buried in the thickness of the wall. Ace worked patiently, knitting together the fuses. She hadn’t been able to resist packing all ten of the cylinders together: if you’re going to make a bang, she reasoned, make it a big one.

  She struck a match, put it to the end of the fuse, and watched for a few seconds to make sure it burnt well.

  She grinned in the darkness. Best not hang about, she told herself. Back to the throne room, I think. That’ll be the best place to watch the action.

  Lafed’s troops were becoming a motley crew. Madok might have laughed had the situation been less serious. In addition to Madok and the five men from Harran, who were dressed as farmers, there were now clowns, acrobats, robed mystics and black-suited mourners fighting alongside the surviving uniformed men from Lafed’s original force: three of the covert teams had emerged from the city, drawn by the sound of the battle.

  ‘It makes no difference, Madok,’ Lafed shouted. ‘We’re still stuck here. Pinned down.’

  The wall behind which they were sheltering consisted now of only a few courses of bricks, and these were being shot away. Madok and Lafed were lying on their stomachs, and Madok knew that within minutes they would have to crawl back to a less exposed position.

  ‘Great heavens!’ Lafed exclaimed. ‘What was that?’

  The ground beneath them had moved. It had leapt up and struck Madok’s chest, winding him. It was still shuddering.

  He became aware of a rumbling that seemed to come from below the ground. It was so profound that he felt rather than heard it. The gunfire petered out. The rumbling, too, faded, but only to be replaced by another sound: a wrenching, cracking noise, as of a thick branch being slowly broken -

  but much, much louder.

  ‘Ammunition dump gone up,’ Madok choked out. ‘Must be.

  Big explosion.’

  ‘The wall, Madok,’ Lafed said. He was pointing away to the right of the twin-towered gateway. ‘Look at the wall.’

  A section of the stone-block wall appeared to be quivering.

  Smoke billowed from cracks that widened and raced across the surface even as Madok watched. Cries of alarm could be heard from within the gates.

  And then the blocks began to fall. The battlements toppled, and slid down the cracked face of the wall, smashing the cobbled streets where they fell. The structure began to lean outwards. The topmost blocks of stone curved gracefully away and seemed to hang unsupported in the air before plummeting to the street.

  ‘Pull your men back now,’ Madok urged Lafed, ‘while the King’s men are still wondering what’s going on. And then form them up. The wall’s breached, and we’ll force our way in.’

  It was dirty, frenzied, hand-to-hand scrapping. Madok and Lafed were at the front of the squad that ran in first, before the stones had stopped falling. Madok yelled at the top of his voice, because the smoke and dust, as thick as autumn fog, blinded everyone. He charged up the jagged hillock of fallen blocks and hoped his men were behind him. To his right he heard Lafed’s voice. In front of him, flashes of light and sudden shocks penetrated through the dust: the two reserve squads were throwing grenades through the breach in the wall to deter the defenders.

  Madok did not expect to be fired upon from within the palace. The guard commander would know that he had to keep out the attackers, and therefore he couldn’t afford to have his men stand back from the wall and try to pick off the attackers as they came through the breach. Sure enough, Madok’s charge was opposed by guards wielding swords.

  They appeared suddenly out of the mist, scrambling up the other side of the fallen wall, trying to take the peak before the attackers could reach it.

  Madok had time to fire two shots, and then he drew his knife and it was steel against steel. He could barely see the man in front of him, but he could hear all around the clanging of swords, and cries and grunts.

  He won the crest of the jumbled hillock of stone blocks. On both sides he heard his own men pressing forwards. He spat to clear the dust from his throat. Fortune was playing tricks with Kedin’s cause, he reflected. To be held at bay at the palace gates, until failure seemed certain, and then for the wall to be blown down by some unknown agency - it was beyond belief.

  Now they could succeed. Vethran would be overthrown, Tevana would be reunited with Kedin. Why, Madok himself might even find Ace, eventually.

  He sheathed his knife, readied his gun, and strode forward into the palace.

  Ace smiled as she ran. She was deep inside the palace again, but even here she felt the floor shudder beneath her feet.

  There was almost nothing she liked better than a good, big explosion, and it was particularly satisfying when she caused one herself.

  Soldiers appeared in a doorway ahead of her. She slowed to a walk, and balanced the pitcher on her shoulder. Frankly she had the impression that she wouldn’t get arrested now even if she started shouting and breaking the furniture: everyone she came across was running and looking very preoccupied. But there was no point in taking unnecessary risks.

  She turned to her right at the next junction, in order to avoid meeting the soldiers, and found herself walking down a set of stairs. She was in a part of the palace she hadn’t yet explored.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a door. It was locked, and bore a sign which said PRIVATE. It was the first such sign Ace had seen in the palace.

  ‘Well intriguing,’ she said, and kicked open the door.

  There was nothing of interest beyond the door: just a long, narrow, dark corridor. But Ace could hear the booted feet of the soldiers approaching the top of the stairs, so she took the key that was in the corridor side of the lock and set off at a jog along the passage.

  As she ran she tried to estimate the length of the corridor.

  It seemed to go on for ever. It had taken her below ground level, far from the front wing of the palace, where she had gone down the steps. She reckoned that she was once again close to the dungeons.

  At last she reached the end of the corridor. Another locked door. She opened it with the key. She entered a small chamber, lit by gas lamps on the walls. A narrow staircase wound upwards. In front of her was another door marked PRIVATE. It also said KEEP OUT.

  Or in other words, Ace thought, INTERESTING STUFF IN

  HERE.

  The door wasn’t locked.

  Truly, wickedly interesting stuff, Ace thought, as she surveyed the laboratory that she found she had walked into.

  Around the walls were cabinets full of glass jars containing powders and specimens of plants. Sprawling across two wide benches were labyrinths of tubes and flasks that reminded Ace of old horror movies. She recognised some of it as distillation equipment.

  What’s this lot for, then? she asked herself. What are the King’s scientists cooking up down here?

  She found the answer on a desk at one end of the room.

  She put down her pitcher and studied the row of exhibits, which were conveniently labelled as if in a museum.

  At one end of the row was a nondescript plant which, according to its label, was called spore or spore-weed. Ace didn’t recognise it, and she wondered whether it was
a species indigenous to Mendeb Three.

  Next came a little dish of the plant’s seeds, and then a dish of the seeds ground to a powder, and then a flask containing spore-seed powder in a solution. Next to this was a smaller flask containing a clearer fluid: spore-seed distillate.

  Finally there was a row of ten stoppered test tubes, each containing a fluid of a slightly different colour. The first was labelled SSI, and the last SS10.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ a voice said, suddenly.

  ‘Return to your duties at once.’

  Ace turned. A man with a deeply-lined face, spectacles and a white coat was standing in the doorway. He approached Ace cautiously.

  ‘You’re his Majesty’s new Two,’ the scientist said. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  Was there any chance at all, Ace wondered, that this bloke would be fooled by her dumb waitress act? No harm in trying, she supposed.

  She kept her face blank and her voice expressionless. ‘His Majesty sent me here,’ she said. ‘The guards who came with me were called away. His Majesty said I would be interested to see the work you are doing here.’

  The scientist appeared sceptical. ‘Do you have any knowledge of the science of chemistry?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ace said. ‘I almost got an O-level.’

  ‘I see.’ The scientist seemed impressed. ‘So you understand the procedure for which this equipment has been designed?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s for distillation.’

  ‘Quite right,’ the scientist said. ‘But there’s more to it than that. The seeds of the spore-weed plant, in their natural state, work on humans as a mild narcotic. Our ancestors discovered that smoking the powdered seeds in a mixture of dried leaves produced feelings of relaxation and well-being.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ace said. She wanted to keep him talking. She had a premonition that he was going to reveal something dark and terrible.

  The scientist warmed to his theme. It seemed he rarely had a captive audience for his lectures. ‘But we have found that the seeds of this plant are very adaptable. The distillation of the essence, the application of different levels of heat, the addition of various chemicals - by these means we have been able to produce a range of complex compounds, each with its own unique effect on the human physiology.’

  Hurry it up, Ace thought. There’s a big fight going on upstairs, and I want to be there at the finish.

  ‘And here are samples of the ten compounds,’ the scientist said, moving to stand in front of the desk. Ace stepped back as he waved his arms to indicate the row of test tubes. ‘Our crowning achievement, of course, is SS10. That’s the compound that you were given when you were processed, before being brought to this planet to serve us. Its effect, as you know, is to remove the subject’s volition, without affecting intelligence or memory. It makes remarkably good servants, and its effects are permanent.’

  That’s what you think, Ace silently told him. ‘And you invented this stuff, did you?’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the scientist said proudly reaching for the tube of SS10. His hand stopped: he had realised that Ace had spoken without being told to. ‘Perhaps you’d like to try some more of it?’

  ‘Born yesterday, was I?’ Ace said, and clocked him on the back of his head with the butt of her gun.

  He fell to the floor. Ace resisted the urge to give him a good kicking. No time for that: she wanted to get back to the fighting.

  ‘Great heavens, what are those?’ Lafed’s hand pointed to the row of posts that lined the wide path that led across the plaza from the gatehouse.

  Madok turned. ‘Disgusting, isn’t it? Vethran calls it Traitor’s Way: the bodies of the poor wretches he executes are strung up in those cages. I imagine the display is intended as a deterrent.’

  Lafed swore. ‘It’s reassuring to be reminded we’ve right on our side,’ he said. ‘Have your men cleared the buildings on the far side?’

  Madok nodded. ‘Vethran’s guards have pulled back into the central wing of the palace,’ he said. ‘I doubt we’ll meet much resistance until we reach the throne room. Is the gatehouse secure?’

  Lafed looked up at the twin towers. ‘There wasn’t much structural damage,’ he said. ‘We’ve patched it up as well as we can.’

  ‘In that case,’ Madok said, ‘I’ll borrow your radio set, if I may. I’ll tell all units to come through here. And I’ll give Kedin the signal to come in now. You know, Lafed, for the first time I really believe we’re going to do this. In an hour or less we’ll have no king.’

  ‘And then what?’ Lafed said. ‘There’s much to be set right.’

  ‘More hard work, eh, Lafed? It never stops.’ Madok cast his gaze round the perimeter of the plaza, stopping when it reached the gaping breach in the outer wall. ‘I wonder what caused that explosion,’ he said. ‘I suppose we’ll never know.’

  He turned, entered the gatehouse, and made his way up the spiral stairway. Lafed’s radio set had been installed in the topmost garret. Madok had good news for Kedin Ashar.

  The throne room was eerily quiet. Polygonal ribbons of light still hung against the night sky; lamps still burned along the walkways and on the tables. But the diners had gone, and had left their meals half-eaten and their wine glasses undrained. Chairs lay where they had been pushed over.

  The servants and the Twos, who had a short time ago outnumbered the noble guests, and who had scurried back and forth across the concourse bearing plates of food, silver cutlery, pitchers of wine, napkins, were also all gone.

  Except one. With a studied air of detachment, and still carrying her pitcher, Ace made her way up the steps of the Grand Terrace and towards the throne.

  Outside the dome, and seemingly in another world, there were occasional sounds of battle: a gunshot, an exchange of fire, a shout. All around the perimeter of the dome, facing outwards, crouching behind the bases of statues and behind stone paling, there were guardsmen, silently waiting for the inevitable assault.

  Still, Ace said to herself, old Vethran doesn’t look that bothered.

  The King was lounging in his throne, listening to the animated conversation of his Councillors. One of the dining tables had been dragged up to the terrace, and was now set in front of the throne, covered in charts and papers and surrounded by nervous aristocrats. Ace recognised among them the stocky figure of Balon Ferud.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ one of them was saying, ‘I spoke only moments ago to the technician who operates the Citadel’s radio set. He has received messages from the Duke of Jerrissar. And the Duke knows nothing of the attacks on the palace.’

  Vethran laughed. ‘He says he knows nothing.’ He leant forward and struck the councillor on the head. ‘You’re an idiot, Chalon. He’s close. He’s here. I can almost smell him.

  Go and fetch Tevana Roslod. Bring her to me.’

  The councillor hurried away. Vethran looked round and saw Ace.

  ‘Ace. You’ve returned. Where have you been?’

  ‘Been busy, your Majesty,’ Ace said. ‘Things to do.’

  The King gazed at her, letting his eyes linger as they scanned her body. ‘Come here,’ he said. ‘Stand beside me.

  You can be my lucky mascot in the coming struggle.’

  ‘Yes, your Majesty,’ Ace said. I’ll lucky mascot you, she thought, you lecherous git.

  She had to grit her teeth to prevent herself shuddering as he touched her. But he seemed lost in thought, and simply caressed the material of the sleeve of her jacket.

  The Councillors continued to gabble to each other. As far as Ace could tell they were merely reiterating, over and over again, the positions and likely movements of the opposing forces. A soldier ran towards the terrace and up the steps to the throne. He knelt in front of the King, then stood and saluted to one of the Councillors.

  ‘We’ve had a message from the last of the far riders, sir,’ he reported. ‘The Norbalt regiment has been alerted and is marching south with all speed. That means all but one of the riders got through,
sir.’

  The Councillor turned to the King. ‘All but one of the far riders have delivered your orders, your Majesty,’ he said. ‘The Norbalt regiment will be here by tomorrow night.’

  ‘I know,’ the King said. ‘I heard this trooper say so. Do you think I’m deaf?’

  ‘Of course not, your Majesty. I apologise. But the news is good. The Norbalt men alone could deal with these insurgents. And there are five other regiments, and three motorised units, all making their way here as fast as is possible.’

  Vethran shook his head. ‘And they will all be a day too late,’ he said. ‘This business will be settled within the hour.

  Ah! But look! My beloved approaches.’

  Ace tried to look sideways without turning her head. The Councillor named Chalon was walking up one of the staircases, and behind him were two soldiers and a tall, slender woman with a mass of golden, curly hair. In principle Ace held the view that blondes look dumb, but she couldn’t help feeling a pang of envy. The woman was a real looker, Ace decided: not merely beautiful, but poised and elegant with it.

  This, then, was Tevana Roslod: the woman prisoner with whom Ace had held a whispered conversation through a locked door.

  Ace had thought at the time that she sounded like a cool customer. As she glided along the terrace towards the throne she looked completely calm.

  ‘Tevana and I are to be married,’ the King said. There were stifled exclamations of surprise from the Councillors. ‘Isn’t that so, Tevana, my love?’

  ‘Yes, Vethran,’ Tevana said with a smile.

  ‘Sit by me, my angel,’ the King said, and Tevana took his proffered hand and arranged herself on the ornate seat next to the throne.

  Another soldier ran up the steps. He knelt before the throne. ‘Strategic report, your Majesty,’ he gasped.

  ‘Stop!’ The King held up his hand. ‘Let me guess. There are still incidents occurring across the city which require the presence of my guards, but the perpetrators of the incidents have yet to be apprehended. The gates of the inner city are still broken open. The west gate of the Citadel is still in the hands of the attackers, who are still moving through the palace and converging here. There is still no clear identification of the attackers, although a suspiciously large number of them have been recognised as coming from the estates of the Duke of Jerrissar. And where is the Duke himself? No one has any idea.’