A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (21 page)

Footsteps rang out on the stone flagging behind him, sharp against the background hum of the city. They were not, Ahasz thought, the dull heavy thump of military boots. A lighter step and more of a “click”. He dropped his foot from the embrasure and turned about.

Mayna!

This was a surprise. He had thought his sister left Shuto weeks before. Either to Syrena, the Vonshuan home world, or Angra, her personal fief world.

She glided forwards through the darkness, her long gown hiding her feet but not the noise they made on the flags. The duke and the marchioness were alike enough to be twins, although she was a handful of years his senior. Those years, however, had been kinder to her than to him. Her hair, as dark a red as his own, hung loose and artfully styled about her bare shoulders. Her face was carefully made-up, as though she had just wandered outside from some noble assembly.

“This is foolish, brother,” she said once she was within earshot.

“You’d not have said that if it had gone according to plan,” he replied testily. She always had him on the defensive, could make that handful of years seem an entire generation. Especially when she was in
this
mood.

He could recognise the signs for each of her “moods”. It showed not only in her expression, but in the way she dressed, held herself, used her cosmetics. There were, it often seemed, many personalities in there and different ones would come to the fore at different times. He was used to it.

“No,” she replied, halting beside him. She cast a dismissive glance at the city and then turned her luminous eyes towards him. “No, even if you had taken the Palace on the first day, I would still call it foolish.”

“Because I told you nothing?” he countered. Yes, he had kept his attack secret from Lady Mayna. She cleaved closer to their masters than he had ever done. And now he no longer followed their instructions.

“I read the signs.” In this mood, she would often make maddening claims to omniscience. “I’ll give you this: you’ve done a better job than I had expected.”

“But still not good enough?” Ahasz gave a wry smile.

“And a wasted effort.”

“Putting myself on the Throne could never be a ‘wasted effort’, Mayna. Even you must admit that.”

“But now you have the added difficulty of holding onto it until Dis arrives.”

Ahasz barked a laugh. “The least of my worries.” He turned and gestured at Congress and Ministries across the valley, great dark ships of rock moored amidst the city of light. “Providing I keep my promises to them, they care little who sits in the Palace.”

“But you won’t keep your promises to them, will you?” Lady Mayna smiled archly.

The duke smiled back. “No, I won’t. I’ll root out corruption and make this Empire a fit and just place for
all
.”

“As I said, a wasted effort.”

It had taken Ahasz many years to come to know his sister, and even then she felt a complete stranger to him on occasion. He had grown up away from her: his father dead, he had been brought up by seneschals and retainers. His mother had seen no reason for brother and sister to be together. There had been visits, of course; but they were infrequent and short. Until the age of eighteen, Ahasz had held Lady Mayna in no small degree of awe.

“So what brings you here?” he asked. “Other than just to tell me I’ve done wrong again.”

She hitched her glossy stole up about her bare shoulders and crossed her arms under her bosom. “I’m leaving for Angra,” she told him. “Tomorrow.”

“You’ll find out what’s happening with the Admiral? Her fleet must have left for Geneza by now.”

Lady Mayna nodded. “Some weeks ago. But it will be weeks yet before it arrives.” She smiled. “Perhaps I’ll meet your young nemesis in the nomosphere.”

Ahasz grunted. “Possibly.” Ormuz’s involvement had not been part of Ahasz’s plan. In fact, he had sent out assassins to destroy all of the knights’ sinister clones. But given that Ormuz had catalysed the Admiral into action… Well, Ahasz could not complain.

Mayna turned and watched as another cannon in the Imperial Palace fired. She sighed. “What have you done, Ariman?” she asked. “And why? In no more than a couple of decades, all this will be gone.”

“I can hardly surrender now,” Ahasz pointed out.

“True.” She turned back to him, and reached out and laid a hand against his upper arm. “It’s not necessary for our ultimate victory for you to sit on the Throne and welcome Dis with open arms. We
will
prevail.”

Ahasz shrugged. He had no intention of revealing his true motives to his sister.

“What if you were to throw down your arms?” she asked, dropping her arm.

“I’d be punished. Corruption of blood, possibly.”

Lady Mayna’s hand flashed up and slapped the duke across the face. “You dared risk
that
?” she demanded. Clearly, the thought had just occurred to her. “Without our position, we can do little.”

Corruption of blood
… A loss of all titles and privileges for the family and all subsequent generations. No duchy of Ahasz. The Vonshuans struck down to the proletariat. Five millennia ago, at the end of the Great Winter on Geneza, the Zimi, warriors of the frozen wastes of the north, had migrated south. And over the course of centuries, they conquered the entire planet. The Vonshuans had been Zimi. A five thousand year noble lineage.

Ended.

Ahasz ignored his stinging cheek. “Unlikely,” he replied, trying for nonchalance. “Execution, I expect. The Electorate support me; they’d never allow corruption of blood.”

“You put more trust in them than I would.”

“And so I should,” said Ahasz, smiling. “I’ve paid for it.”

Lady Mayna shook her head, then brushed her disordered tresses back from her face. “I’ll never understand this,” she admitted.

“Expediency,” put in the duke, before she could speak further. “The single most effective tool of politics. The Electorate will do whatever is necessary to maintain its power.”

Ahasz’s sister was plainly not interested. “I must go,” she said. “If I learn anything, I shall see it is passed on to you.”

She turned about, not bothering to make her farewell.

Ahasz had never sought his elder sister’s approval—he had grown up without her presence. Now, however, and for the first time, he felt sad at her censure. Of course, she still followed Dis’ orders, while he only pretended to. In that respect, it mattered little what she thought. But they were, after all, of the same blood—more than that: of the same DNA, albeit of different genders.

She left him, moving smoothly across the fortress’s roof before being swallowed by the shadow cast by a tower. Her footsteps grew fainter, the exact moment of their disappearance buried beneath the explosion of a cannon bolt hitting the earth by the trenches.

For several long minutes, Ahasz stared unseeing at the block of shadow cast by the tower. He did not move, ignored the fire from the Imperial Palace, the low rattle of trains on the tracks in the valley behind him. At length, he slowly lifted his gaze to the heavens. A clear night, the stars glittered and sparkled in the heavens, oblivious to the carnage below. One blinking constellation crossed the sky at a discernible pace:
Triumphant
and her support ships. As for the other stars… Each constellation had its name, its little history. There was the Waterfall, and there the Bird of Peace. Shuti names, Shuti mythology. Some had been applied by the Chianist faith; others predated it. Ahasz himself was an Henoticist. The Vonshuans had never converted to the Chianist Church, even during the turbulent years of the Intolerance. And to Henoticists, the stars were not manifestations of the Hidden God, but physical phenomena put there by Henos to light humanity’s way.

Ahasz had no idea which of the stars he could see was Syrena’s. If indeed it could be seen from Shuto. Topologic travel did not map onto the real universe. What was two weeks away through the toposphere could be clear across the galaxy. And what was four weeks away might be a stellar neighbour.

History could be seen in the same light. What actually happened did not map onto what was written. The Vonshuan secret history told Ahasz that much. And every noble house and institution in the Empire had its secret history.

And here he was making history himself. How, he wondered, would it be recorded?

Inspector Finesz was in the control cupola when
Lantern
arrived in the Yuotos system. One moment she looked out onto featureless grey, the next star-speckled black filled the view. And dead centre in it floated serenely the pearlescent blue globe of the planetary system’s gas giant.

“I want to stay no longer than is necessary. Do whatever you need to make this ship ready to leave and then we’re off,” Finesz told the sloop’s captain. “Tell the local registrations office we’re on important OPI business.”

She turned to go.

A signalman looked up from from his console and held out a piece of paper to her.

Puzzled, she took the signal. No one could know she was due in the Yuotos system—she had taken the fastest route from Linna and her departure from there had been decided very quickly. When she saw the signal header, she felt both relief and chagrin. A frigate on picket duty.

“Damn,” she said. She glanced across at Captain Parol. “No doubt word of the fleet gathering at Linna has reached them and they’ve calculated we’re just come from there.” She swore again and crumpled up the paper in her hand. “I’d hoped to get to Shuto without any trouble.”

“What do they want, ma’am?” Parol asked.

“To come aboard, of course. We’re to heave to or they’ll fire on us.” She gestured resignedly. “Better do as they say. I’ll be —”

She broke off. Of course. She had a serving Imperial Navy officer aboard: Commander Mubariz. If she could persuade him to play along, she could claim she was on urgent Navy business. It was not common for the OPI to assist the Navy, but she was sure she could come up with some plausible excuse.

She clambered down the ladder from the control cupola and hurried aft along the central gangway. Mubariz was not in the wardroom. She continued along the passageway to the passenger cabins. For the sake of propriety—although the crew undoubtedly knew of their relationship—Finesz and Mubariz occupied separate cabins.

She knocked on the door of his cabin, heard his gruff “Enter”, and pushed the door open.

“I have favour to ask, Abad,” she began immediately.

Mubariz pushed the chair back from the cabin’s desk and spun it to face Finesz. He put his hands on his knees and gazed at her patiently.

She stared back at him, once again wondering what it was she saw in this huge dark-skinned man with his immovable sense of honour. “I’m not interrupting, am I?” she asked. Although she felt comfortable in Mubariz’s presence, she also felt an uncharacteristic urge to be courteous.

“No,” he replied. “I was merely reading.”

“Oh?” She could see text on the desk’s glass, but could not read it.

“
A History of the Pacification Campaigns
by Poer Kwamatsz.”

“We have that in the ship’s data-pool?” Abruptly remembering why she had come to his cabin, she said, “We’re about to be boarded by a frigate. They’ve obviously worked out we’ve just come from Linna. Could you pretend to be an important passenger? We’ll say we’re ferrying you to Shuto in order to report to the Lords of the Admiralty on the Admiral’s fleet.”

“No,” said Mubariz.

Finesz frowned. “Why not?”

“It would be a lie, Sliva. I will no longer aid or abet the Admiral and especially not by being dishonest.”

“But otherwise they’ll commandeer
Lantern
and we’ll never get to Shuto.”

“Then so be it.”

He was maddening. “But you spent six years aiding and abetting the Admiral,” she pointed out. “You were her executive officer!”

The commander rose to his feet. In the small cabin, he seemed even larger than usual. Rather than being forced to step back into the gangway by his presence, Finesz found herself moving forwards.

“Precisely. They will also know I served under the Admiral and will imagine I am one of the mutineers. They will not believe you.”

“You think I should tell them you’re my prisoner?”

“Perhaps. They might allow you to continue your journey. They might equally well chose to take me into custody themselves.” He put out a hand. Finesz was close enough for it to fall on her shoulder. “Sliva, you would be best served by the truth. An honourable person should have nothing to fear from the truth.”

“You’d never make a good OPI inspector, Abad,” she returned, her smile taking the sting from her words.

The frigate, which had identified herself as
Cave Wolf
, approached to within a handful of miles of
Lantern
. She then put out a launch which, after crossing the short gap between the two ships, was winched into
Lantern
’s cramped boat-bay. Inspector Finesz and Captain Parol were on hand to greet the frigate’s officers as they clambered from the boat’s hatch. There were only two, accompanied by a pair of hulking rateds carrying billy-clubs. Sloops of the Office of the Procurator Imperial did not carry troopers of the Provost branch, and so Finesz interpreted the pair of Navy bully boys as a veiled insult.

The senior of the two officers, a lieutenant by his insignia, introduced himself with little grace and even less politesse: “Compliments of Captain Murë, Viscount Inugo.” He gave a brief bow, as to a social inferior and directed somewhere between Finesz and Parol. He possessed the thuggish build and features fitted to his attitude. “My name,” he said, “is Bandogge. You will relinquish command of this vessel to myself.”

“Sorry,” replied Finesz. She had been expecting something like this but even so the man’s bluntness came as a surprise. No, not his “bluntness”, his complete lack of interest in her own wants or wishes. “I can’t do that,” she said. “I need to get to Shuto.”

Bandogge’s expression did not change. “It was not a request, ma’am. You are under our gun. It would be wise to acquiesce.”

“And it would be wise, “ returned the inspector, “not to interrupt an OPI officer in carrying out her duties.”