Read The Gathering Flame Online
Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald
The Gathering Flame (21 page)
ENTIBORAN REGNAL YEAR 38 VERATINA/1 PERADA
T
HE STATIS-PRESERVED body of Veratina Rosselin had lain in state on the unlit pyre in the Grand Plaza since late afternoon. Ranks of Domestic Security personnel stood about the perimeter of the immense open area, keeping back the local citizens, the curious foreigners, and the holovid news crews from all over Entibor. A light wind stirred the petals on the funeral garlands draped across the pyre: fragrant flowers, relics of an era when not even a Domina of Entibor could rely on a statis field to keep away the final indignity of fleshly decay.
HE STATIS-PRESERVED body of Veratina Rosselin had lain in state on the unlit pyre in the Grand Plaza since late afternoon. Ranks of Domestic Security personnel stood about the perimeter of the immense open area, keeping back the local citizens, the curious foreigners, and the holovid news crews from all over Entibor. A light wind stirred the petals on the funeral garlands draped across the pyre: fragrant flowers, relics of an era when not even a Domina of Entibor could rely on a statis field to keep away the final indignity of fleshly decay.
As soon as full darkness fell, the bronze doors of the Palace Major swung open and a double line of palace servants bearing torches filed down the marble steps into the open square. The smoky orange flame of the torches reflected off the darkened windows of the palace and cast disturbing shadows on the statues of long-dead heroes. When all the torchbearers were in place, a small figure in the white garments of mourning emerged from the palace and descended the steps at a stately pace, a taller, dark-clad figure walking behind her.
“The Domina Perada,” murmured Gentlesir Festen Aringher from his place among the honored outworld guests. He spoke for the benefit of his companion Mistress Vasari, but also for a palm-sized holorecoder that had escaped the attention of Domestic Security. “And her Consort, General of the Armies Jos Metadi, late of Gyffer by way of Innish-Kyl.”
The Domina stepped up to the funeral pyre and reached down into the blanket of garlands. The night breeze stiffened, blowing the flames of the torches sideways against the dark as she lifted the Iron Crown from Veratina’s body and raised the dark tiara of twisted metal up into the firelight. The watching crowd fell silent.
A moment longer Perada held up the Iron Crown where everyone could see it. Then she lowered it onto her own head, and a cheer rose up that echoed off the palace walls.
“Metadi’s come a long way in a short time,” Mistress Vasari observed under cover of the noise. From experience, she pitched her voice to escape the holorecoder’s audio pickup. “Consort and General, no less. I wonder what the lady’s getting from him besides the obvious?”
“I have my theories,” Aringher said. “Handsome young men are two for a credit on any planet you care to name, but successful privateers are a much rarer commodity.”
He waved a hand at Vasari for silence as the cheering died, and spoke again for the benefit of the holorecorder. “The Domina Perada has just formally assumed the Iron Crown of Entibor. We’ll be hearing the funeral elegies for Veratina shortly; after that, the lights will go on again in the Palace Major, where tables are laid for the formal reception that will mark the official beginning of Perada Rosselin’s reign.”
In the center of the square, one of the torchbearers stepped forward. A profound quiet descended over the crowd as Perada took the flambeau and touched it to the base of the flower-draped pyre. At first nothing happened; then there was a sound of rushing air as the oil-soaked wood ignited in a splash of orange-and-yellow flame. The delicate garlands shriveled in an instant, and the Grand Plaza began to fill with the mingled odors of ceremonial incense and burning flesh.
“‘Take the war to the Mages,’ the man said.” Gala pressed her fingers against her forehead and sighed. Behind her, on the broad desk that had been Admiral Pallit’s, the comp screen continued playing its simulation unheeded. “Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut and let them court-martial me instead.”
“It could be worse,” Brehant said. “You could be at the Domina’s reception with all the rest of the brass.”
“I could be snug in my own bunk, too,” she told him. “If I knew where that was. Something tells me fleet admirals don’t sleep in the visiting officers’ quarters.”
She turned back to the simulation and frowned. “This isn’t telling us anything we didn’t know already. We need to take and hold the Mageworlds before we can end the war, and we need the cooperation of at least one other space fleet before we can even stop losing. Two or more fleets if we’re serious.”
“Talk about things we don’t have and can’t get.”
Gala switched off the simulation. “I’ll be saying as much in the OpPlan when I deliver it.” She picked up her stylus and made a check mark on her datapad. “That’s one more document I can add to the stack I’ve got for our newly minted General. My letter of resignation. I can join Pallit in early retirement.”
“Put the letter of resignation on the bottom of the pile,” Tres advised. “And don’t date it.”
“All right,” Gala said, assembling her documents. “No date. But it goes in. Saves everyone concerned some time and trouble if they’ve got it on file.”
She slipped the collection of documents into a courier pack and summoned a messenger. “Deliver this to the office of the General of the Armies.”
“What, no personal delivery?” Brehant said after the courier had departed.
“No—we’re the high command, not a, bunch of errand-runners. Besides, he might think we don’t have enough to do.”
“And do we?”
“You know it,” she said. “Now that we’ve got our wish list finished, we need to review personnel records for the whole Fleet. I want to know who’s loyal to whom, and why. And after
that
, I want you to gen up messages to my opposite numbers in all the fleets that have suffered Mage raids, plus the commanders of all the fleets that might someday suffer Mage raids, plus the commanders of any other fleets you think could be useful.”
that
, I want you to gen up messages to my opposite numbers in all the fleets that have suffered Mage raids, plus the commanders of all the fleets that might someday suffer Mage raids, plus the commanders of any other fleets you think could be useful.”
“Why not the Mages, too?”
“If I knew their address,” said Gala, “I might.”
Tres shook his head and made a note on his own datapad. “Notes to commanders. Got it. What then?”
“We wait for responses. Anybody who comes up friendly or even neutral gets offered everything we have on the location, capability, and intentions of the Mageworld raiders.”
“No request to reciprocate?”
“No.”
“You aren’t even going to ask permission first?”
“It’s in the OpPlan,” Gala said. “Annex L. If the General doesn’t like it, that’s what the letter of resignation is for.”
She pushed back her chair and stood up. “Oh, and one more thing: the officers who resigned or retired this morning while General Metadi was making his tour of headquarters. I want citations awarding them all the Legion of Merit.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Serious as radiation burns,” she assured him. “So get to work on it. In the meantime, if you want me, I’ll be in my quarters—assuming I can find them.”
On the other side of An-Jemayne, two men sat at a table in an outdoor cafe. The establishment’s usual patrons were absent—watching the old Domina’s public burning on their home holosets, most likely—and with the exception of a surly waiter and an even surlier cook, the pair had the place to themselves. They nursed their cha’a and watched night-flying insects blunder in and out of the glow of the lanterns. Finally one of them looked at his chronometer and said, “It’s time.”
They abandoned their table, leaving an octime tip, and wandered over to the café’s outside wall, where someone had pasted up a large advertising poster full of sporting announcements. The first man looked at the calendar block for the twenty-third of the month.
“Heavy-grav wrestling in the Old Arena,” he commented. Next to the announcement for the twenty-third was a tiny mark like an accidental smudge of ink. “We don’t want to miss that.”
“No,” said the other.
They left the café and went on foot through the deserted streets of the working-class district, into an area of more prosperous homes. At the third house from the corner on a certain street, they went up the front walk. The first man palmed the lockplate beside the door.
The door slid open. The two men passed through the vestibule into a sitting room full of overstuffed furniture done in glossy fabrics: An out-of-season flame display flickered on the artificial hearth, casting its light on the man who sat in an armchair nearby.
“Were you followed?” he asked.
“No,” said the man who had palmed the lockplate.
“Can you swear to it?”
The other newcomer frowned. “Do we have to go through this stuff every time?” he complained. “Nobody followed us. Nobody ever does.”
“It’s necessary,” said the man in the armchair. He stood and led the way toward the back of the house, through an unused kitchen into a small room that might once have been a pantry. Now it was bare except for a row of pegs along one wall. Most of the pegs were empty, but long black robes hung from three of them, along with featureless black masks of molded plastic.
The three men moved quickly, shedding their street clothes and putting on the masks and the hooded robes. Black staves, hidden until now, hung from leather cords on the pegs where the robes had been: heavy rods of ironwood or ebony, each half again as long as a man’s forearm. The men took these down also and slipped them underneath their belts.
When they were done, they went back out through the deserted kitchen to another doorway, this one opening onto a short flight of steps. The steps led down to a basement chamber hung on all sides with heavy curtains of black cloth. Floor and ceiling were also dead black, with the exception of a white circle some eight feet across painted on the floor in the center of the room. A thick candle on an iron stand cast its light on the figures who knelt around the circle’s perimeter.
The leader spoke. “Tonight the young Domina takes the Iron Crown. Her luck is strong: already she dispels the fear that she might be another like Veratina, and she has named as her Consort one of our greatest enemies. We have to break her luck, and break it soon. But first—”
He paused and looked around the group. The flame of the candle was reflected in the shiny black of his mask as he swung his head to look at each one of the others in turn.
“First,” he said again, “I have someone to show you.”
The leader pulled aside one of the black curtains. It concealed an alcove that might once have held laundry equipment. Reaching down, he dragged out a bound and bleeding form.
“This man,” he said, “works for the Minister of Internal Security. I found him spying on this house. I suppose he wanted to see what we do here. What do you say—shall we gratify his curiosity?”
“Damned sorcerers!” the prisoner choked out.
“Not really,” the leader said, “but you can call us that if it makes you happy. It won’t matter for long.” He turned back to the others. “To break the Domina’s luck will require all of our energy, and more: an effort this great requires a life. I stand ready in the Circle; is there anyone who will match me?”
No one moved. Then one of the kneeling figures stirred and rose. The leader shook his head.
“Your offer does us both honor; but no.” He pointed at one of the two late arrivals, the man who had palmed the lockplate and been the first to enter. “You.”
Fireworks lit up the night sky over An-Jemayne. Inside the Palace Major, the long, high-ceilinged banquet hall was almost as crowded as the Strip in Waycross. The new Domina sat in a chair of state at the far end of the room, with Jos Metadi standing behind her, while the people with important greetings for the new ruler came and went, making their brief speeches and fading again into the press.
Tillijen wished she hadn’t come. She and Nannla had chosen to wear their best port-liberty clothes, sans visible weapons as a concession to court protocol. The leather and brocade and fine white spidersilk weren’t like anything now fashionable in An-Jemayne, and she hoped that the extravagantly unusual outfits would keep people from remembering too much about her face. Her own memories—of features, of mannerisms, of all the gilded and jeweled trivia that filled this life——were coming up with too many matches for comfort.
“I was an idiot to agree to this,” she muttered. She clutched her goblet of sparkling punch in a desperate hand and wished that the recipe—already not a drink for weaklings—had been made even stronger. “I should have stayed back on the
’Hammer
and spent the evening polishing the tableware.”
’Hammer
and spent the evening polishing the tableware.”
Nannla gave Tilly’s free hand a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry so much. Even if somebody does recognize you, what are they going to do? Challenge you to a duel right here in the middle of the Domina’s inaugural bash?”
“Don’t laugh. It could happen. I got into a lot of trouble back when I was a kid … you’ve never heard the half of it. Some people might still be mad at me.”
“Angry?” Nannla snorted in disbelief. “At the new Consort’s official nearest female sort-of-relative? Tell me another one.”
“I hope you’re right—Lords of Life!” Tilly blanched and pulled Nannla around into a quick one-hundred-eighty-degree course change. “That was Khrysil Gandeluc. If she’d recognized me … I should have gone to Ophel when I had the chance. I swear, if I hadn’t promised Jos I’d stand by him I wouldn’t be here at all.”
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