Imperial Twilight

by Eric Thomson

  He nodded once and withdrew.

  “Perhaps we should finish these before attacking the first course.” Reyes held up her whiskey glass. “Smoked longfish is too subtle for a peaty single malt. You were about to bore me with a long tale.”

  “I suppose I was.”

  — 7 —

  “There’s not much to tell. The distant past always fascinated me, especially eras when long-established civilizations faced rapidly increasing decay and collapse. My interest was perhaps even a touch morbid. In my younger days, I devoured dozens of ancient textbooks describing the effects of entropy on long-lived classical empires, accounts written long before humanity’s diaspora. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Oman’s The Dark Ages and his treatise on the Byzantine Empire were a few of the most influential.”

  Reyes gave him an appreciative look.

  “Ancient indeed, but still among the finest accounts of that troubled first millennium of the Common Era, and in my opinion, the most relevant to our current situation. The later accounts of post-industrial empires collapsing in the century before the first faster-than-light starships simply can’t compare. I’m impressed a naval officer found value in Gibbon and Oman when most of my learned colleagues teaching history wouldn’t know either from a black hole.”

  “There’s little to do aboard a warship when you’re not standing watch and I’ve always been a bookworm.”

  “A vice we both share. But please continue.”

  “Several years ago, maybe as much as ten, I realized we were living in a rerun of the fifth century. Our empire’s golden age died when Stichus Ruggero subverted the constitution and swept aside the careful balance that gave us eight centuries of political and social stability. I also came to understand how Dendera, in her attempts at becoming an absolute monarch, was finally pushing us over the edge. Not in two generations, not in one generation but within a few short years. The decline of the Western Roman Empire isn’t even a best-case scenario for us, let alone the Byzantine Empire’s long twilight.

  “When I decided there would be no way to arrest the decline, I read every theory on the collapse of complex societies I could find. It led me to the belief a human knowledge vault, hidden away on a planet far from the galactic mainstream, might offer a shortcut from collapse to rebirth, and see us reform a new interstellar polity in a matter of centuries, not thousands of years.”

  Reyes nodded.

  “The Long Night of Barbarism, a term popularized by Professor Nikolai Tchang, though I don’t think he coined it. I know the theory well. We seem to read the same books, you and I. Except I neither saw the imminence of the empire’s collapse nor did I think of preserving what we could here on Lyonesse. To my eternal shame.”

  Morane gave her a rueful shrug.

  “My first officer, Iona Mikkel, used to call it my monomania, but after witnessing the Fleet turning against itself in an orgy of fratricide in the two years since Admiral Loren gave Dendera the finger, she became a believer. As did everyone aboard my three remaining ships after we narrowly escaped rebels who turned most of my battle group, including over four thousand crew members, into so much dust without a shred of remorse or comradely feeling.

  “All of us understood we were destined to die at the hands of men and women wearing the same uniform as ours if we kept fighting for either side, along with millions, if not billions of our kind. The only way out was implementing my plan and fleeing for sanctuary.”

  “Perhaps that makes you a prophet of sorts. One who led his people to a promised land.” She raised her glass in salute and drained it, imitated by Morane.

  “You’d need to ask the Void Brethren. Prophecies are in their bailiwick.” Reyes poured the wine, then invited Morane to eat. He took his first bite, then a sip, and smiled with delight. “Very nice. This place is growing on me.”

  After another bite, he sat back and examined her.

  “Not that I’m a suspicious sort, but to what do I owe an impromptu dinner invitation from the Lyonesse University’s chancellor, the planet’s de facto top academic authority? We met for the first time only a few hours ago and didn’t actually exchange words, though I’m grateful for your support. I’m sure it helped sway many opinions in that, what did you call it again? Hall of the People?”

  “Are you wondering whether I have ulterior motives?” She gave him a coy smile that was only partially feigned. “Of course I do. I want the university to be at the heart of your proposed knowledge vault initiative. Consider this the first move in my campaign to make sure that the ever-scheming Hecht or Logran and their bureaucratic gnomes don’t screw up everything. Knowledge is power, and they live for power over there in the halls of colonial government. Besides, I need to tackle a challenge that doesn’t involve soothing ruffled academic feathers.”

  Morane took another sip of wine.

  “Why do you call Hecht a schemer?” He asked, remembering the man’s hard stare earlier that day, the one promising his support would come at a price.

  “How else does someone like him become Speaker of the Colonial Council, Lyonesse’s head legislator, so quickly after being appointed as a councilor? He vaulted over members with decades of honorable service and a better claim to the speaker’s chair when the previous incumbent retired. Since then, he’s been steadily working to increase the council’s authority at the chief administrator’s expense and has become an almost permanent fixture in Governor Yakin’s salon.”

  Morane finished his dish and dabbed the cloth napkin on his lips.

  “That was excellent, especially after months of eating standard shipboard food. Could I ask if you’ve been on Lyonesse long?”

  “You can ask me anything. Whether I’ll answer it is another matter.” That coy smile returned for a few seconds. “I arrived here six years ago to take up the chancellor’s job. Like our dear governor, my accepting a post in the empire’s furthest backwater wasn’t entirely voluntary. It was this or an end to my academic career. People with extensive, high-powered connections decided my outspokenness as vice-chancellor of Sanctum University on Caledonia was becoming a liability, and I needed to go in a way that kept the university’s reputation intact.

  “They thought it amusing to give me the chancellor’s job here, at a much smaller institution that exists in almost total isolation. I could have lodged a formal protest but decided to consider this appointment a new challenge, though I didn’t know then my move to Lyonesse would be permanent. But becoming chancellor here made me a pillar of the community, barely one step lower than Hecht or Logran on our fussy little social ladder. And that means I see and hear a lot.”

  “You said Elenia Yakin isn’t here voluntarily either…”

  At that moment, Horace returned, bearing the next course. He removed the empty fish plates and replaced them with soup bowls before topping up the wine glasses. When they were alone once more, Reyes nodded.

  “A bizarre story, that. I earned my ticket to Lyonesse for being too mouthy, but Elenia earned hers for not being mouthy enough, in a sense. She’s a baron’s younger daughter, hence her title as an honorable. She married an ambitious man, an officer in the Imperial Guards keen on raising his social status. He had a general’s stars in his eyes, but apparently in the Guards, unless you’re either titled or part of a noble family, you won’t make it past colonel.”

  “That would be true. It’s well known among the Imperial Armed Services the Guards place pedigree above competence at the higher ranks.”

  “Just like livestock breeders. When he realized Elenia wasn’t the sort of social climber he thought she might be, this charming specimen went on a hunt for a mistress with the right connections. Apparently, he’s a handsome, roguish sort, with no sense of morality. Keep in mind what I’m telling you right now comes from Elenia. One night, after a party at Government House broke up, I stayed behind at her request for a few more drinks, and she unburdened herself. It was mostly the booze talking, though I su
ppose she felt a bit lonely as well, surrounded as she often is by sycophants, suck-ups, and grifters.

  “I suspect Matti Kayne is her only real friend, though they’re commendably discreet. Anyway, our rogue found himself a titled paramour, but she didn’t wish to marry, nor did she want the lawful spouse around in case Elenia discovered the liaison and took public umbrage. So, as in my case, they found a suitably plausible excuse to ship her as far as possible from Wyvern, one that wouldn’t alert Baron Yakin to his son-in-law’s shenanigans. But enough gossip. Try the soup.”

  When Morane, who pronounced himself once more delighted, finished his dish, Reyes asked, “And who is Jonas Morane?”

  He took a sip of wine, then gave her a half shrug.

  “I’m just a simple Dordogne boy. Unlike Brigid DeCarde, who I suspect was born already wearing Marine battle armor, my family doesn’t have a history of military or naval service. By a miracle, I won a place at the Imperial Armed Services Academy, and upon turning twenty-one, became a clumsy, callow ensign in need of mentoring by wise, long-service chief petty officers. They must have succeeded because I climbed up the ranks with monotonous regularity and finally got my own command five years ago. Since the navy isn’t particular about titles of nobility, I might even have become a commodore, were it not for the Fleet falling into an orgy of self-destruction.”

  She smiled at him. “And yet, there’s much more to the man behind the uniform than that, I daresay, especially if you not only read Gibbon and Oman but understand what lessons they tried to impart. You might be the only imperial officer who saw this disaster looming and came up with the idea to salvage our history.”

  “I’m only what you see, Emma. Perhaps more bookish and inquisitive than my peers, but I’m no visionary.”

  “He says with unabashed modesty.” She raised her glass in salute. “You may not be a prophet or a visionary, but if you succeed, future historians may well consider that you triggered a black swan event. Are you familiar with the term?”

  Morane shook his head.

  “No.”

  “A twenty-first-century thinker by the name Nassim Nicholas Taleb, coined it, though he’s not widely known outside academia nowadays. Swans, an avian life form common on Earth, were normally white, and the birth of a black swan was considered impossible, though they supposedly existed. A black swan event is a metaphor to describe an event that occurs as a surprise and has a major effect on the course of history. An extreme outlier if you like. Of course, that’s a simplistic overview. If you want to read Taleb, the university has copies of his works.”

  “I would, though I doubt my actions come under this black swan event heading.”

  Reyes gave him a speculative gaze over the rim of her wine glass.

  “That’s not for us to say, Jonas. We merely need to make sure there will be future historians capable of looking back at today and deciding whether your arrival here fits the theory. Now tell me more about your knowledge vault and those mysterious Void Brethren you brought to Lyonesse.”

  — 8 —

  Mykonos

  Lengthening shadows chased the ragged band of fugitives through the city’s worst ruins. They saw no other humans among the debris, but Marta could feel countless eyes watching them, their owners choosing prudence at the sight of armored men and grim, black-cloaked monastics.

  After the first kilometer skirting rubble mounds, bomb craters and the occasional stench of mass graves, Sigrid and Stefan, exhausted by days on the run, faltered. At a gesture from Sister Heloise, the two burliest friars, Gellert and Alden, picked the children up and swung them over their shoulders without breaking stride.

  No one spoke, not even in a whisper, as if the sound of human voices in this place might attract more than just predators picking through what little remained of a once vibrant district. Ghosts, perhaps. The spirits of those buried where they died, murdered by either faction at the height of the fighting.

  Hartwood Cahal, grim determination writ large on his homely face, glanced back at them from time to time, though he provided no further sign of his commanding officer’s success in drawing off Jorge Danton’s soldiers. However, Marta found reassurance in the fact they heard none of the sounds she associated with a pitched battle between opposing troops.

  Nothing other than the low whistle of a chilly breeze passing through wrecked buildings and the distant hum of Petras’ undamaged section reached their ears. If not for the latter, Marta might believe the entire planet now looked like her immediate surroundings, the image of a civilization lost, perhaps forever.

  She wondered whether similar scenarios were playing out on every human world across the empire. The last subspace news packet from Wyvern before her husband lost his struggle against Jorge Danton hadn’t been encouraging despite the imperial propaganda service’s obvious slant. When Dendera’s bullshit artists couldn’t even find the heart to make their good news missives believable, things were worse than anyone might imagine.

  The detritus of a once vibrant city petered out as they reached the semi-wild forest which had replaced most of the farms surrounding Petras years ago in an unsuccessful attempt to give Mykonos’ capital a greenbelt. Designed by a long-dead governor general to imitate the one encircling the imperial capital on Wyvern, it had cost a fortune and created so much ill-will that her successors let it revert to native flora and fauna rather than spend a single cred on maintenance.

  But Norum found the time to bless that nameless governor general when her creation finally swallowed them. Hartwood Cahal led their party through the tree line and down an almost indiscernible game trail with the ease of one equipped to operate in complete darkness. Even the Void Brethren moved with soundless assurance though Marta could barely see her feet, let alone anything beyond Friar Sandor’s back two paces in front of her.

  Within minutes, the ruins were nothing more than a bad memory, a nightmare conjured by the savagery of Danton’s rebels.

  Then, the distant buzz of the city’s undamaged quarters faded away, absorbed by dense thickets which quickly gave way to towering trees. And a lot of nothing for someone without night vision gear or heightened senses. Marta stumbled on an exposed root and almost fell, but a steadying hand grasped her upper right arm.

  “You’re doing fine,” Heloise whispered. “Just a little more, then we can rest. The greenbelt’s center is so filled with life that our spoor won’t stand out on military sensors.”

  Norum offered the unknown governor general from another era a second blessing. If agricultural land still surrounded the city, their chances of hiding within a single night’s march would have been slim.

  After a week with little to no food — most of the scraps she found had gone to Sigrid and Stefan — what remained of her stamina was rapidly evaporating. And she was not an eight-year-old, small enough to ride on the shoulders of a fit, healthy friar.

  Then, just as Marta thought she couldn’t take one more step, Friar Sandor stopped walking. Since she’d not seen or heard a signal from their mercenary escort, Marta couldn’t figure out why until Hartwood Cahal’s face emerged from the darkness.

  “We make camp here for a few hours,” he whispered. “My men and I will stand watch, but this deep inside the forest, Danton’s killers won’t find us. Not with the hooting and howling from nocturnal critters. Some of the herbivores are almost human-sized and will give even the best sensing gear false positives.”

  “How long?” Heloise asked in the same tone.

  “Four hours minimum, but no more than six. It’s almost twenty-one-hundred now. I’d like to reach the river before sunrise, which is just after oh-five-hundred. Then, it’s another three hours to the rendezvous point south of the Lysistrata Bridge. If the boss broke clean, that’s where we’ll meet up.”

  “And from there?”

  “We either beg, borrow, buy, or steal a boat in Pheia and ride to Tiryns on the Celadon River, or we hike through the Lysistrata Forest which could ad
d days to the journey. Assuming Lady Marta and the wee ones can manage a long trek.”

  “What about food?”

  Cahal grimaced.

  “We’ll share our rations, but it’s not much. Certainly not enough for a long walk to Tiryns. If you folks carry funds or trade goods, we can see what’s available in Pheia when we look for a boat.”

  “Isn’t a shopping expedition risky? Even a tiny village will have its share of informants eager to ingratiate themselves with Mykonos’ new rulers.”

  The grimace vanished, replaced by a knowing smile.

  “That’s where you come in, Sister.”

  “I’m to be the buyer.”

  “We two will be the buyers. The others stay hidden. You can pass off as a harmless matron making her way west to rejoin family in Tiryns after escaping the last of the fighting in Petras, and I’ll be your security guard. Between us, we don’t look dangerous enough to harm a baby howler lizard.”

  Heloise considered the plan for a few moments, then nodded once.

  “Agreed. Although if Danton’s people were proactive and distributed images of my Brethren and me, it might become a tad risky. He’ll have seized the Mykonos Abbey database by now.”

  “Which will help them only if they can tally up the Brethren they murdered and decide half a dozen are still on the run instead of simply rotting in a ditch the soldiers forgot to check. And they can’t. I’m pretty sure of that. Danton might be a ruthless sonofabitch, but his intelligence analysts aren’t the cream of the crop. No one knows you survived the rebel killing fields. So long as you don’t behave like a sister...”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Now try to catch a few hours downtime. There’s a bed of native moss to your left. Lady Marta, the bairns, and your Brethren should be reasonably comfortable there, under the circumstances.”

  A few murmured orders later, Norum settled into a hollow between tree roots, Sigrid snuggled under her left arm and Stefan under her right. She tried to empty her mind, but in vain, and not only because of physical discomfort.