Haze and the Hammer of Darkness (73 page)

The man who had been the victim has regained his feet, uncertain whether he can profit by picking on Gert or on the strange figure in black, uncertain whether he should run. He temporizes by darting behind a wastebloc.

Gert stares at his hands.

Martel feels some pity, but not much. He gestures, and behind the gesture makes a few adjustments to Gert and to his hands and arms.

“You sought to give death. That is not yours to give. I have returned life. But as my reminder … your hands will never heal.”

Gert's former victim looks at the slash in his tunic, at the man in black, and slinks quietly down the alley.

Martel steps around Gert and proceeds.

At the end of the narrow way, in a small square by itself, surrounded on all sides by another street wide enough only for a handful of people to pass shoulder to shoulder, stands a ruined dwelling. Wide steps of ancient green marble encircle the structure, modeled as it was after another ancient building on a long-forgotten planet. The columns are intact, but the roof has tumbled in.

Martel surveys the wreck. No life, except the rodents, the insects, and two tarrants who, weasellike, prey on the rodents. Drawing on the enormous field of energy poured at him by the proctors, he channels a portion into Polony's house, rebuilding, restoring, turning it to the function of the building from which it was copied.

At the center, in the hall of worship, he creates a black altar, a solid black cube with each side measuring exactly his own height. At another touch, he infuses the marble walls and columns with a slight glow, while changing the stone entirely to jet-black, streaked with a few isolated shots of silver. Finally he sets up the self-sustaining energy fields that will enable it to withstand the Empire's weapons for the centuries to come. His defenses will last. Time has proven that.

A quick tour of his handiwork convinces him of the faithfulness of his artistry and of his memory. He walks down the front steps, though “front” is not exactly correct, since the central hall may be approached through the columns from any side.

A small crowd is gathered by this time: several urchins, including the one in red and yellow; the shambling figure of Gert; a woman in a privacy cloak with the hard and painted eyes of a harlot; and, of course, the habitual representative of the Thieves' Guild, standing near the front, ready to demand tribute, and backed by several others in the shadows, who are armed with old projectile weapons and one stolen blaster.

Martel ignores the thief as he leaves the steps and stops to heal the skin ulcers of one of the urchins, a job that could have been done by any corner autodoc, though not so quickly.

“Don't you have something for me, stranger?” asks the thief.

“Life and death are one. You have life, and life is death. Without death there is no meaning to life. Without life there is no death. Be content with what you have.”

Martel makes the sign of the looped and inverted cross, the one he has remembered from his student days, bestowing it as a benediction, and continues up the narrow street.

The thief throws his first knife. It hits the swirls of the black cloak and drops to the pavement with a thud.

A child in stained maroon overalls scrabbles for the blade, but drops it as if it burned. It might, reflects Martel, since it is now solid rock.

The thief ignores the byplay and throws his second knife, which suffers the same fate, though none of the crowd attempts to retrieve the weapon.

The bystanders, increased by another cloaked harlot, an older unveiled woman with braided silver hair, and a bent old man with a cane who is neither bent nor old, but an Imperial agent, draw back.

The thief draws his projectile gun and sights it dramatically at Martel's back.

Martel freezes the man, turns, reverses the benediction he had made moments before, and addresses the man, whose eyes dart from side to side as he sees Martel approach.

“I withdraw my blessing, given though you had evil in your heart. Twice have you struck, and twice have you been warned. You have not turned from your wickedness, and your heart is like stone. So be it! Life and death are one, and life is death.”

The man makes no outcry, not surprisingly, for he, too, has been transmuted into black stone.

The urchin in yellow and red touches the stone tunic of the thief.

“Stone! The priest of death turned him stone!”

The Imperial agent scuttles away down another alley, hurrying as he can within the limits of his cover to make a report to the palace.

Martel turns, following the route he has pursued for the Viceroy a millennium later, not sure that anyone will pick up the parallel, but leaving the clue if anyone should choose to understand.

Every block or so he pauses, either rewarding or punishing as he sees fit. From the original crowd gathered at the temple steps, only the red-haired child has followed.

At last, on the outskirts of Old Karnak, he stops and climbs atop a stone bench on the edge of a neglected park.

All the pieces are in place from the past, and the puzzle is almost complete, except for the last pieces, and for those he must return to whence he came.

He raises his left hand.

“From the Fallen One I come, and to Him I go!”

A curtain of darkness drops across the long grass and cracked stones of the park, and when it lifts, the stone bench is bare.

The red-haired boy kneels and makes the sign of the looped and inverted cross.

 

lxi

The Viceroy makes no move to wipe the dusty streaks from her cheeks, but centers her screens on the row of burned-out yellow glowbushes that lies both beneath her tower apartments and nearly a kilo above her head.

A walk in darkness, with bushes like those glowing yellow, and a mist over the lawn … she had been afraid. Like a distant song, she remembers.

Afraid … you, the Viceroy, afraid? When?

And there had been a voice … “if I told you my name, I'd have to take that, too.”

Where have you heard that voice?

She does not want to know.

“Forde! Marshal Reitre!”

“Yes, Lady,” the two chorus from the observers' positions flanking her.

“It is time to do something about the interference from the so-called gods of Aurore. Assemble the Grand Fleet, with a great deal of fanfare.”

“But … my Lady … is that wise?” That is the Marshal.

“My Lady?” That is Forde.

“No, it is not wise. Wisdom would do nothing.” She looks at Forde. “Operation Suntunnel.”

Reitre blanches. Forde's face remains blank.

“You disapprove?”

“Against the power I saw on your screens, my Lady,” Forde draws his words out slowly, “I question the chances of success. There were only two, and well away from their base of power.”

“That is why we must remove their base of power. Without Aurore, and its sun, their power will dissipate.”

“Without the Fleet, so will the Regency's.” Forde's face whitens another shade as his words spill out.

“That is a chance, but unless we react to those who have smashed Karnak, the Empire will fall.” She gestures at the screen, which now shows the city as it appears from the palace tower. “Out there, at this moment, thousands are flocking to the temple of the Fallen One. The Brethren are emerging, and doubtless both the Fuards and the Matriarchy are mobilizing.”

As if to echo her words, the screen focuses on the small black temple, its steps packed, and the streets and lanes leading to it thronged with supplicants.

“The power of an Empire is nothing to the power of a living god.” She pauses and smiles a cold smile, one that Forde has not seen, ever, and one that bears a trace of godlike aloofness. “But if the Empire should destroy such a god…”

Forde bows.

She turns and leaves the control center to the two men and a score of technicians.

Instead of returning to her apartments, she takes the lift all the way to the top of the Regent's Tower, the highest point of the palace.

She studies the city, spending time at each battlement of the four-sided tower. Even from her height, it is apparent that the damage is nearly as bad as the time when the Fallen One destroyed the Park of Summer. Perhaps worse.

The shock waves of the graystone hammer amounted to the impact of a low nuclear airburst, whereas the energy and the crater created by the Fallen One had more the characteristics of a surface burst. In neither case had there been radiation, which made the situation more puzzling.

She tightens her lips. Maybe there had been no Fallen One, but who had created the black temple? If the Brotherhood had had the power to protect the temple, certainly they could have stood up to her father.

She frowns. The reports about the Fallen One had been all too clear. The temple had been restored and protected overnight, and the damage of the park had been inconsistent with any known weapon, not to mention the total destruction of the tree.

Before that, years before, there had been the power failure that had turned the Prince Regent into a blabbering idiot, swearing that a black demon had appeared in his private dining room, foretelling his fall.

According to the sealed records of the palace, the ones her father had kept, one tape of the appearance of the Fallen One in the park had been recovered and screened privately by the Prince, the Grand Duke, and the High Marshal. After the screening, the Prince had destroyed the tape and retired. His bodyguards found his body the next morning.

Shortly thereafter, the High Marshal had suffered a seizure and had been relieved of command by the Grand Duke, acting as Viceroy for the Emperor.

The Lady stares out at her city, the city that has been hers and hers alone for more than a millennium, while others have aged and passed away, while others have plotted and failed, while others have feared and died. She recalls what she knows, knowing again that she knows not everything, that answers to what she does not know or to the questions she asks are locked behind the sealed portal in her mind that does not let her remember growing up or the days before she returned to Karnak from her schooling.

The wind brings her the acrid scent of fused insulation and ozone, and she half shrugs. A millennium since has given her enough memories.

Then why are they so empty, Lady?

She triggers the screens and turns in time to see the energies wash over the man in black who had called himself Martel. Sees the energies dispel themselves without touching him.

“Why are you so concerned with my memories?”

“One hopes, Kryn. One hopes.”

Except for the distant wail of sirens, the tower top is silent.

At last, he speaks again.

“Why are you attempting to destroy Aurore? Both the Fleet and the Suntunnel will fail, you know.”

“I don't know.” She looks at him levelly. “As Viceroy, I have little choice. Karnak has been attacked.”

“Neither of us has any choice. Not now. And I'm not sure we ever did.” He smiles faintly, a smile that barely turns the corner of his mouth. “You'll lose. In losing, both the people and you will win, and in winning, the gods will lose.”

“What sort of double-talk is that?” she snaps.

“Just ask yourself three questions, Kryn. Why can't you remember growing up? Why don't you grow older? And why do you fear black?”

She triggers the screens again, futilely, she knows, as tears stream again from eyes she had thought never cried.

Martel is gone. She knows he is Martel, and that is more frightening than the thought that she will lose her Fleet.

She shudders, waits until her eyes clear, and walks toward the lift shaft back down to the command center.

First, the beginning of reconstruction. Then the attack on Aurore.

Martel will see. Flamehell, he'll see.

 

lxii

Again, around the sacred peak Jsalm gather the gods of Aurore. They assemble themselves for the second time in less than a standard year, the frequency in itself a remarkable occurrence.

The Regency gathers all its Fleet against Aurore.

Laughter suffuses the group.

Where are Thor and Dian? For surely Thor should stand in the forefront to defend us against the Empire, since he has caused this expedition of vengeance. And Dian should stand for Martel, who is no more.

Laughter again rains upon the assembled gods.

Apollo and the Smoke Bull cross glances, if Apollo's glance at the insubstantial substance and infinite depths of the Minotaur can be considered a crossing of glances.

Still, the meaning is plain, for each suspects the other.

No one answers the anonymous question. No one knows.

First, Martel has gone. Then Thor and Dian/Emily.

The unseen danger may be more threat than the Empire,
offers Thetis, green and wet.

The Smoke Bull nods.

After a time, Apollo agrees.

But first Karnak must be smashed, taught a lesson to end all lessons. Then we will seek out the unseen danger.

The gods and demigods find Apollo's summation to their liking, and they repair to where they individually repair and begin their preparations for the Grand Fleet of the Empire.

A sleeping woman turns over in silksheen sheets, where she has dreamed what has transpired, and sobs, but wakes not, and will remember nothing of what she has dreamed.

A man in black watches from a distance, and smiles a grim smile, and begins his preparations.

The Fleet Commander touches a switch, and the Grand Fleet swings to point toward a relatively ordinary star which is circled by an extraordinary planet.

The twenty-third Emperor of the Empire of Light shakes his head as a shadow passes before his eyes, but continues his play with his latest mistress.

A man in red addresses silent prayers to an undeclared god, while the Marshal of Strategy makes sure his laser is fully charged.