‘Unfortunately, yes.’
‘When I heard the news I sent for the Cherished Star to aid them,’ he said, ‘but the Crilshan armada is so strong they were unable to get close without risk of being overcome. They’re waiting by for our decision before they move. We have to send help, right away. I fear for the colony’s survival.’
‘I share your fear, don’t doubt it.’
‘I say we send three vessels to combat the invasion,’ he said. ‘And dispatch Captain Ferranti onboard the Stellarstream to lead the counter-assault.’
‘I am to speak with the Council at midday,’ she said. ‘I’m confident they will agree to your proposal. Now come, tell me of your trip! What did Lord Mokrikov have to say of his summons?’
The General spent a moment considering his reply. ‘Support is lacking, my lady. The prime minister was much less forthcoming in his cooperation than even I had thought. I admit I suspected possible dealings with the Dishan before I’d even heard news of the invasion.’
‘I thought as much. A negotiation gone wrong, you feel?’
‘Perhaps. But our situation is worsening too. It’s clear we will have to lead the campaign against the Dishan Alliance; no other state in the Alignment will dare step forward. And countless worlds have, in the past week alone, either refused or immediately dropped their collaboration, and I suspect have done so under duress of the Dishan.’
‘The Council has discussed this to death,’ she said. ‘What do you suggest we do, General?’
‘Stop talking and act. Meet him head on. Push ahead with the Baren Igoth and increase the pressure on Crilshar to cooperate. It’s possible that with a great portion of the Alignment united we can force the Dishan Alliance into contraction, or at the very least moderate the antagonism of their leader.’
‘And if the pressure doesn’t result in them submitting?’ she asked, sitting down behind her wooden desk. ‘I have to plan for the worst. And right now their movements are filled with nothing but enmity. When was the last time the opposing Crilshan Houses of Halagas or Thimes fled from confrontation? I recall there was a time when they would do anything to sate their blood lust. But now they conceal themselves and refuse to fight.’
He bowed his head. ‘The last decades have allowed only one power to ascend in Proxima.’
‘Truly.’
And now for the bomb shell, she thought.
Sensing something was wrong, Ruben cocked his head and said, ‘What is it, my lady?’
‘Something we both feared,’ she said. ‘Something inevitable. With the autocratic system they now have below Crilshar, it was only a matter of time. The competing Crilshan Houses have submitted to the Dishan, and I believe they have done so because they, and others, know something for certain which we do not.’
‘What ever do you mean?’
Maxim Pinzón clasped her hands, lowered her voice, and leaned forward. ‘There have been rumours, rumblings, secret wittering amongst the Alignment Worlds, but our spies have heard. Tell me, General, have you knowledge of the rumour of Erebus?’
Ruben folded his arms, leaned back, and sat chewing over the question for almost a minute. Then he said, ‘Some years back our intelligence picked up the rumour of a Grade X weapon named Erebus, but nothing tangible could be found. Many had heard the story. From what I recall they referred to it as the Weapon to Destroy Worlds. Frightening stuff. Only no one had heard anything more than the rumour.’
‘Frightening indeed,’ she said. ‘While you were away I was informed by a senior intelligence director of a report. Just one. This particular package, received from our agent below Crilshar, said, and I quote: “Crilshan intelligence points to an encounter with the Weapon X.”’
What she told him was true . . . for the most part. The report did indeed contain such an assertion, but she had received it herself. A so-far-reliable agent below Crilshar had transmitted the message mere days ago. The agent was hers alone. She did not know his identity, and shared him with no one.
‘Well?’ she said.
‘You’ll need to give me more than that.’
She shifted in her seat. ‘Don’t you see? Not a weapon, the Weapon.’
‘I generally make a point of not holding too much stock in theories. However,’ he said, seemingly able to notice the agitated look present upon her expanded features, ‘such moles are required to report using only that language which is necessary. If this particular mole referred to the weapon, we must assume he meant the Weapon X. At least until we’re proven wrong.’
‘Do you think it possible the Dishan have discovered its whereabouts?’ she asked.
The very fact that Ruben had to think about the answer told Maxim he did not think so. He massaged the ashen hair on his chin. ‘Let us hope not.’ He breathed in. ‘Now let’s pretend you did not just lie to me.’
Maxim found herself unable to formulate a response.
‘The Weapon X was classed confidential,’ he said. ‘Above the sanction of a senior intelligence director. Hell—it’s almost above me. So I’ll assume you have told no one else.’
‘And you’d be wrong.’
‘Whom?’
‘General Mauldeth.’
‘I see.’ His lips tightened.
There existed only two generals on Titan at present. While Ruben oversaw the distribution and running of all foreign operations from abroad, General Slimar Mauldeth remained on Titan and performed much the same job, only with a cosier routine and much deeper pockets. Something of a rivalry had developed between them in the last few years, with Mauldeth disagreeing with Ruben’s attitude to the established military statutes. As long as it did not stop them doing their jobs, Maxim couldn’t give two brain waves.
‘Mauldeth and I have discussed this,’ she told him. ‘I’ll send you the report. Let you get up to speed. There are some noteworthy findings which have led me to only one conclusion: Crilshar has attained the Weapon X. They have Erebus.’
‘Again, let us hope not,’ he said, standing. ‘I’ll do some investigating of my own. I shall let you know what I find, if anything, right away.’
‘Certainly,’ she said without moving. ‘I will expect to see you tomorrow. We need a public statement of some nature. And seeing as you’ve already promised the people news of the Systems, I’ll leave the speaking to you. We both know how much you’re loved, and the extent to which you relish any opportunity to preach in public.’ She grinned mockingly.
Ruben smiled, bowed, and left the office, leaving Maxim sat back in her chair. Rocking gently she felt, if less hopeful, at least slightly more amused than when she had entered.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE UNRELENTING GALE struck Anna Berenguer like a jagged sting throbbing through her face. The coarse spray of the sea collided harshly with her skin. She could hear everything, from the powerful waves crashing all around to the rash movements of the figure looming behind. She closed her eyes, held the blade tightly in her grasp.
The figure struck—
Anna lunged down and forward, and in one swift motion blocked her foe’s assault, rolling over and bringing her blade around, en route for his naked jugular. Amid the moist-ridden haze the strong outline of her attacker appeared to evaporate, and not a second later materialized behind her. Throwing all of his weight into one final assault he forced Anna to the slippery verge of the raised platform, where he wavered. Anna took the opening and drove him back to the slipping pivot of the structure, parrying twice and finally thrusting the tip of her blade up to the man’s neck.
Another wave broke into the side of the platform, drenching them both in a freezing torrent. Anna lifted the blade higher, slowly pushing it into his neck, a smirk appearing on her soaked, sweating face.
‘Your next move?’ she asked, confidently.
But the face of the man stood opposite had not yielded. He glanced down. Anna followed his gaze, but it was too late; her footing was poor and it proved her undoing. The man’s heel stamped down on the open grate upon w
hich she was positioned and the metal flooring underneath fell through.
As she dropped he offered his hand to catch her, but in the moment Anna chose not to take hold, and allowed herself to fall into the raging waters below. She took a gasping breath and plunged down deep. Her very core froze, legs kicked wildly beneath her. Very rapidly she realised she was unable to pull herself back up, engulfed completely and sinking.
Then, while the cold of the water took hold, Anna’s eyes widened in shock and the apparition in front of her stopped her fighting for the surface. ‘No!’ she uttered, releasing a mouthful of panicked gurgles. An enormous sphere of fire floated in the water before her. Utterly black and darker than anything she had ever seen, she looked right into it . . . and it looked back. Into her very soul.
As it seemed she would never again taste the crisp, quenching air, the water surrounding her disappeared all at once, stealing with it the colossal darkness. Just as quickly as it had appeared, the orbed fire was submerged, and vanished. The water fell beneath her and she plummeted hard, landing with a hurtling thump onto the metallic floor metres below. She lay there, coughing uncontrollably as she fought to breathe, spitting water everywhere. Black boots landed forcefully beside her and she sat up, spluttering.
‘You didn’t take my hand!’ shouted the young man, sheathing his weapon. Dark haired, bronze-skinned, and only a couple of years her elder, Jon Del’oueste had always been the better fighter.
‘Jon,’ she pleaded, ‘don’t—’
‘Why didn’t you take my hand?’
‘You beat me.’
‘You’re stubborn—’
‘I lost!’
‘Could’ve died!’
‘Yes,’ Anna said, standing, ‘but I didn’t.’ She moved closer and hugged him, bringing her lips to his ear. ‘I saw it again!’
Jon pulled back, holding both her arms. ‘The dark orb? The black fire?’
She sighed. ‘Yes . . .’
‘Annie!’ They both looked up to the training room’s viewing platform, high above. ‘Annie, you lose again?’ her younger sister taunted.
Anna turned back to Jon. ‘Don’t mention it to anyone, okay? We’ll talk about it later.’ And with that she climbed out of the watery pit, drying her face with a cloth waiting at the top.
Out of all the recruits currently training for positions within the Titanese Guard, Anna Berenguer was always lagging. Combat exercises usually ended with her bleeding or else drenched in something cold. Even bladed training like today saw to it that she looked ridiculous. Her best friend, who was not even a Guard-in-training, could beat her.
‘Annie! Annie!’ Gílana Berenguer came charging down the stairs, as vivacious aged sixteen as she had been at six, a huge smirk appearing on her attractive face. She bore the same olive skin as her older sister, but retained the blonde curls of their late mother. When she saw Jon stood half-naked, drying himself off, she blushed and ignored him.
‘I didn’t lose,’ Anna muttered, mopping her own long hair.
‘Oh, yes?’ Gílana pulled a face and made a shaming impersonation of her big sister.
‘Oh, shut up!’ she said, punching Jon on the shoulder for laughing. ‘What is it you wanted?’
Gílana grinned. ‘She wants to see you after classes.’
‘Furka!’ Anna swore loudly.
‘Who?’ Jon asked. ‘Callista?’
‘You really don’t like her, do you?’ Gílana giggled.
‘No . . . well, yes, I hardly enjoy my sessions with her.’
‘Then what’s wrong?’
‘It’s my class! I’m late!’
‘Again?’ Gílana giggled, shooting Jon a quick, timid look, before sprinting back up the steps. Anna went to follow but Jon seized her arm.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I think you should tell someone about the visions . . . about the dreams.’
‘Who?’
‘Your uncle?’
‘He barely has time to see me as it is,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t have time for silly nightmares.’
‘So they’re not horrifying anymore?’ he asked, sardonically. ‘What about her? Callista? She’d want to know, especially seeing as it’s all been getting worse lately.’
He was right: it had been getting worse. Anna had considered telling her guide about the terrifying orb; she told her about the other things she saw. But the orb was different. The things she normally saw passed by and more often than not she forgot about them in a day or two. But the orb. It was like it stared back, as though she was not meant to see it.
‘Anna?’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she said. He looked at her incredulously. ‘I’ll think about it!’ She could tell he knew that’s the best he would get for the time being, and he allowed her to let her dash off and get changed for class.
CHAPTER NINE
CENTRAL CITY’S OUTSKIRTS held many secrets. Only one mattered to Ruben Berenguer. Butterflies danced about his stomach as he walked along a silent corridor. At its end lay a dark, dusty room. This dark, dusty room smelled, looked, and even tasted rotten. She would have it no other way. Ruben placed his hand upon the edge and poked his nose through a slight opening in the door, to be met with the stomach-turning, intolerable tang of scented spices.
Thwack!
He cringed in pain as a thin, wooden cane came into contact with his knuckles. The door swung open.
Thwack! struck the cane a second time.
‘Ouch!’
‘Thought you’d sneak up on an old woman, ‘ey?’ came a croaky voice.
‘I wasn’t—’
Thwack!
‘Ouch. Stop it.’
‘Oh, shush!’ the inhabitant shot back as he entered. ‘You always were a complainer!’
‘Your beatings had a way of revealing that side of me,’ he mumbled, massaging his hand.
‘But never ridding you of it!’ The old woman pursed her lips into a taunting smirk.
The General entered to find that the room was, as usual, filled with the normal indistinguishable clutter Callista Berenguer kept in her stale and dusty bedsit. The windows were closed off, not allowing even a hint of light into the undersized space, which was instead lit by at least two dozen wax candles. Her scents meant it burned to breathe.
Callista stood watching him, leaning breathlessly on her cane.
The General recognised the glance and acknowledged her own introduction. He closed the door and held out a large, egg-shaped stool for her to perch herself on. Callista dropped down into the stool before it was even beneath her, causing Ruben to rapidly pull it into position. She threw the cane she had held high into the air behind her, barely caring that it landed in amongst a pile of valuable-looking pottery. It hardly mattered; the room itself was chaotic and cluttered, full of old memorabilia and throwaway debris.
Sharply, Callista turned to Ruben; her eyes dimmed and he could feel her pupils studying him squarely. He tugged down his gold-pleated pockets, standing tall and sudden with his feet together as though he were on inspection. No one else could make him act or feel like a ten-year-old boy again. Not getting any younger himself, he had no idea what age the wise old woman must have been. Pushing one-hundred-and-twenty at least, he thought. He wasn’t sure even she knew. With leathery, dark skin and carelessly uncombed fuzz resembling something long dead, the old woman, it seemed, had given up on her appearance.
After a few moments the General relaxed. ‘How’ve you kept?’
‘How was your trip?’ she asked, ignoring his question.
He wet his lips with his tongue. ‘Enlightening. Disappointing. Exhausting.’
‘We have no allies left,’ she said slowly.
‘What?’ He sat down beside her.
‘The mother Titan once had an array of allies throughout the Systems,’ she said. ‘But her leadership is failing. Now you can trust nobody. Nobody. Your enemies knock on your very door, and I fear they are in the course of letting themselves within—if they haven’t already.’
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He leaned in closer. Her hands shook, with skin creased in unpleasant folds, covered in dull, aging cloth. ‘You’re sure? You dreamt this?’ Seldom was she ever wrong in her observations, and he trusted her judgement before any intelligence his Guard could put before him. He’d seen what she could do. He’d witnessed her strength and her many abilities since he was a young boy. For Callista was a great Iástron of old: once known as Lucasta; a mystic—powerful and ancient.
And extraordinarily crabby to boot.
‘The forces working against you, my little Ruben, are stronger than you, and they are darker and more terrifying. The followers of the High Lord Dishan on Crilshar are everywhere, and they make themselves known only when it suits them.’
Ruben knew she was right. Fortune of late had been against the general from Titan, for he deemed that upon Rotavar opposing forces had arrived first, offering gifts and dark promises. Lies—untruths delivered through guileful lips speaking of peace and war as though they were material offerings bandied around without a second’s thought. In the past the leaders of the Alignment worlds had been easily fooled and took from the Dishan, believing their futures secure and prosperous, and ultimately giving what was asked of them.
Submission.
‘What do you know of the Weapon to Destroy Worlds?’ he asked her.
‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘Never heard of it. How’s the young captain of yours?’
‘Who, Mendoza?’
‘Yes, her. Have you made the commitment yet?’
‘Not this again. It’s not going to happen, Callista. You know it can’t.’
‘You won’t be in the Guard forever, Ruben. You need someone too.’
‘I have you, don’t I?’ he grinned.
She turned away. ‘The astral energies tell me much, but one thing I feel is absolute. A darkness is approaching. However, it is much more frightful than Crilshar alone. Something else is coming, Ruben, and Titan’s end is near.’
With those words she fell forward in weariness, as she so often did when recounting what she saw in her dreams. The General caught her and held her close. He rocked her frail figure gently and she closed her eyes, sleeping. Placing her on her bed in the far corner, he turned to leave.
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