Haze and the Hammer of Darkness (71 page)

“Did the Council make any decision?” Martel asks.

“Of course! They made a decision to study the request. That's what happens most of the time.”

“How did you vote?” asks the Duchess.

“Last,” rumbles the Duke, “and for it—the study, that is. Stupid study, but stupid to oppose it now. Right, Milady?”

The Duchess nods.

“Don't they see the danger?” That comes from Herlieu.

“Which danger?” questions the Duchess. Her soft voice carries, silken with the feel of iron behind it. “The danger from within or the danger from without?”

“I'm a simple fighting man,” answers Herlieu, “and I worry about the dangers from outside. Once they're taken care of, you always have a chance to set your own house in order.”

“But doesn't a weak or disorderly house invite attack, and a strong one discourage it?”

“Makes my point, Your Ladyship. You have to be ready to fight in either case. If your house is disorderly or if it isn't.”

Martel adds nothing. The last time around, he hadn't cared to try understanding the intricacies of Regency infighting, and he still doesn't. The Duke admits voting for something that is worthless with a total stranger present, and the Duchess agrees.

Martel lets his mind soak up the loose thoughts.

Few escape from the Duchess … a loose mélange from Herlieu … and a surprisingly ordered progression from the Duke. Martel zeroes in on the big man.

Edwin … not half the man his father the Emperor is … queer … doesn't understand economics or military power … amused by politics … way to favor is to amuse him, and they all do … from Mersham to Stelstrobel … the Fuards pour credit after credit into R&D, ships, men … and Edwin asks about financing his annual carnival … Karnak, guard of the Empire's Marches, does nothing. You, admit it, Kirsten, you do nothing either … too many jackals … all ready to pull you down … amusing, they'd find it … and they're younger … maybe Kryn … if it's right … haven't thought that …

“Does Councilor Mersham feel more committed to internal or external problems?” ventures Martel.

“Councilor Mersham is gravely concerned about all problems, as they all are.”

“And the reaction to the Fuards?”

“Ha! We all are deeply concerned … deeply concerned … but also we are deeply concerned about the unrest caused by the latest tax levy which went to expand the Regent's Palace and for a ten percent increase in the basic dole.”

“Did the increase make people happier?” asks Martel, remembering full well how his mother had snorted.

He is rewarded by a sniff from Madame Herlieu, a thin-faced redhead, a snort from the good Captain, and a raised eyebrow from the Duchess.

“I can see why you sent your daughter away.”

“Not sure I agree now,” mumbles the Duke. “Seemed good at the time. Now I wonder.”

“Experience in other milieus might give her a broader outlook,” comments the red-haired woman.

The Duchess nods again, and Martel reaches for the thoughts behind the nod.

Needs a lot more experience … maybe trip to New Augusta itself when she gets back. Then a cadet tour. Not many women do, but she can. Kryn
will
handle it.

For not having had a daughter until that morning, the Duchess is certainly busy plotting the path Kryn will take, Martel thinks to himself, a bit sadly.

“Why so downcast, Master Seine?” booms the Duke.

“Thinking about your daughter, I just wondered. My children,” he lies, having none, “won't have to worry about high finance and privy councils, and sometimes I think they'll be the happier for it. Lady Kryn will become our outstanding Duchess, maybe more, but I wonder if she'll be happy.”

“Are any of us ever really happy?” replies the Guard Captain.

“Maybe not. Maybe we delude ourselves into thinking so. Is happiness everything? And can anyone stay happy if someone isn't out guarding, and someone else ruling?”

What's he want?

The Duchess is sharp, too sharp, and Martel keeps forgetting it. The sooner he leaves the better, and the less he says the better.

The main course is scampig, roasted and lightly basted with Taxan brandy. Martel enjoys it and says little.

“…'course the Prince got the next bird with that needle rifle. Not at all sporting. Single-action, but never have to reload. Real sport would do it with an old-style shotgun.… You hunt, Master Seine?”

“Not my province. Travel too much. Can't do something well, usually don't care to do it.”

I'll bet there are some exceptions your wife knows.
The unexpectedly salacious thought from Madame Herlieu catches Martel off guard, and he barely keeps from flushing.

The Duke doesn't notice.

“… and the time he decided to use a bow against the dualhorn. Sounds fair, but he used an explosive arrowhead. What's the difference between that damned electronic contraption he called a bow and a full-bored laser? Oh, so he could say he got the beast with a bow and arrow…”

Martel takes it all in, notes the names, and listens.

The dinner drags into the early afternoon, and later, and later.

It is close to 1600 before Martel walks out through the park gate, down the slight hill toward the Regent's Palace, and into nowhere.

He has several days, weeks, of hard work ahead. But this time, damned if
anyone
is going to see him!

 

lviii

What the hammer? What the forge?

What the bellows? From what gorge

Came the fire, came the light,

Came the beasts that sowed the night?

Martel knows that the gods on high, specifically on Aurore, do not know he is backtime. Knows, also, that they do not believe travel backtime is possible.

In his wrapping of time energy, he debates his next move.

Which player next? Or players? The Fallen Ones, the Brotherhood, the Prince Regent? All the pieces need to be moved quickly, before the disappearance/destruction of the hammer-thrower can be verified.

The Brotherhood is the choice.

Brother Geidren. The image of the brown-robed “brother” slips into his mind as clearly as if it had been yesterday when he confronted her across the shield wall in the underground headquarters of that secretive and now-exiled group.

None of his experiences on Aurore have shed much more light on his knowledge of the Brotherhood, and the questions have only grown with their banishment and disappearance.

Are the Fallen Ones an adjunct to the Brethren? Allies? Antagonists with mutual goals? All three rumors have persisted for a millennium … without answers.

Martel knows only when and where Brother Geidren had been once, and the single logical possibility is to relocate that position and follow with an appearance—once the Martel he had been has left for Aurore.

First, the underground and shielded quarters of the Brotherhood. That is simple.

More difficult is locating Geidren after Martin Martel has left for Aurore. Meeting himself would be catastrophic, in more ways than one. The energy release would render the entire point of the search moot, but not in any way in which Martel would be around to appreciate.

Are you ready for this?

Do you have any choice?

The answer to both questions is no.

From the requisite undertime distance, he tracks the departure of one young and stunned Martin Martel, and thence hastens back to the bunker of the Brethren, emerging in a silent corridor, wrapped in darkness, cloaked in his energies, and invisible to all but the most talented of espers.

Geidren is not alone, rather unsurprisingly, but with two others in a room which could only be described as a communications and command center.

Martel observes from a corner, bemused that the three, all espers, are so wrapped in their own dynamics and so trusting of their mechanical detectors and guard technicians that his presence goes unnoticed.

As an afterthought, he reaches out and puts the three guards who scan the command center into a deep sleep.

Kirsten? Main threat? Overthrow the Regent?
Those thoughts come from the thin-faced blond and bearded man. Call him Aquinas.

More than meets the eye. Foreboding … doom on the horizon. Aurore?
From the older man. Call him Mystic.

The Master Game Player? Or God? One choice or the other. Or your fears? Doesn't matter. We're outlawed. Queried Scholar pretext. How do we fight? Raise the Brethren? Underground? Passive resistance over time? Religion?
Gerri Geidren's thoughts ring with a soft chime.

Martel is impressed. Aquinas and Mystic are definitely second-raters next to the woman.

Religion … the great crusade,
offers Aquinas.

Put the Unknowable against the Empire? Pervert the sacrament of Faith?

Would it work?
asks Geidren.

Yes.

No.

NO!
Martel lets himself become visible, half shading his face in a shadow of his own, and offers an observation.

“The problem with relying on religion is that you give the temporal authorities the power to ban it. Banned religions are effective only in limited circumstances—like when the god involved is willing to use force on behalf of his or her followers or when the oppression of the regime approaches terrorism.”

His last half-sentence is lost in the blaze of the lasers concentrated on the corner where Martel stands.

He absorbs what he can, diverts the rest into his personal undertime/underspace reservoir that grows with each appearance and reduces his need to tap his own foretime reserves.

The way things are going, Martel, you're going to have your own fields back- and foretime, that is, if everyone keeps throwing energy at you.

Geidren stops the waste of energy with her own mental override of the controls she had activated. Mystic and Aquinas blanch as they see Martel still stands untouched.

“Trite, but who are you?”

“It doesn't matter. I'd like to offer some observations. One: The Prince Regent will fall, but the Regency will remain, more powerful than before. Two: Despite whatever you do, and it may be a great deal, the power of the House of Kirsten will wax, not wane. Three: There is a Master Game Player. Three at least, as a matter of fact. Four: You will not even attempt any injury to Martin Martel. It might make him angry, and it will definitely make me angry.”

Him? Master Game Player?

Can't be!

Three of them?

Martel decides to emphasize his points, and amplifies his next message to the split point.

THERE IS A FALLEN ONE. CALL HIM THE MASTER GAME PLAYER I REPRESENT. CALL THE TWO OTHERS APOLLO AND THE SMOKE BULL, IF YOU WILL.

Mystic and Aquinas crumple, both twitching heaps. Geidren leans heavily against the commset.

Don't overplay … your … hand.

Martel smiles, points at the commset, lets the energy flow from his fingertips, and waits until the equipment is a molten heap of slag.

At the first blast, Gerri Geidren has staggered back, staring as if to penetrate the shadow that surrounds Martel's face.

No esper … that power.

“As I said,” Martel resumes conversationally, ignoring the twitches of the two on the floor, “the Brotherhood will have to live with reality.”

What would you do?

Oppose the Empire.

“But,” she breaks out verbally, “you said that wouldn't do any good!”

“That is not what I said. I said the Regency would fall, but that Kirsten's power would not. In opposing the Regency and what follows, the Brethren can do a great deal of good by placing some checks on tyranny. The times will demand raw power. An organization based on promoting the best development of each individual's abilities is restricted by its very ideals from exerting the kind of power necessary. And if you give up your ideals, you lose the power you have. So … don't.”

Damned philosopher.

Few would call me that.

“Two facets work better than one,” he continues aloud. “You might call the churchly half the Church of Man, and in turn the Regency will come to regard its priests as the servants of the Fallen One, who has not really fallen yet. That should not frighten you, because the Fallen One is of and for the people, which should indeed frighten them.”

He is distracted by the shuddering gasp of Aquinas, who stops breathing. Martel turns his attention to the man, makes a few adjustments, and lets Aquinas slip into a deep sleep. He repeats the pattern with Mystic, and makes similar changes in the metabolism and body of Geidren.

You merely represent a Master Game Player?

“In a manner of speaking.”

Merely represent?

No man is a god, no matter how powerful!

Martel lets his thoughts check the area again, scanning the monitors that guard the control center. Still under the control of his earlier meddling, they show nothing amiss, and the guard technicians sleep peacefully.

“The other half,” he plods on, “the Brethren, could act as the temporal government in exile, doing what it can to remind the Empire and the Regency of the human rights of their people. Remember, neither will last forever, and some organized group should be there to guide the way when they fall.”

They? They fall? Why should we do what you suggest? They? Only one Empire …

Martel smiles.

“You can do whatever you want. But remember that your strength lies in your ideals.”

Still the damned philosopher-god.

No god, no philosopher, and a damned prophet,
corrects Martel in the instant before he vanishes.