Queen of Candesce (26 page)

“They talk about places as being our homes,” she mused. “It's not the place, really, but the people.”

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean,” he said. His dry irony had no effect on Venera. She merely shrugged.

“You were right,” she said. He cocked his head to one side, crossing his arms, and waited. “After the confirmation, when you said I was still Sacrus's,” she went on. “And in the council chamber, even when we talked in your cell earlier tonight. Even now. As long as I wanted to leave Spyre, I was theirs. As long as they've known what to dangle in front of me, there was nothing I could do but what they wanted me to do.”

“Haven't I said that repeatedly?” He sounded annoyed.

“All along, there's been a way to break their hold on me,” she said. “I just haven't had the courage to do it.”

He grumbled, “I'd like to think I made the right choice by throwing in with you. Takes you long enough to come to a decision, though.”

Venera laughed. “All right. Let's do this.” She started to walk toward the locomotives.

“
There you are!
” Venera stumbled, cursed, and then flung out her arms.

“Bryce!” He hugged her, but hesitantly—and she knew not to display too much enthusiasm herself. No one knew they were lovers; that knowledge would be one more piece of leverage against them. So she disengaged from him quickly and stepped back. “What happened? I saw the semaphore station blown up. We all assumed you were…”

He shook his head. In the secondhand light he did look a bit disheveled and soot-stained. “A bunch of us got knocked off the roof, but none of us were hurt.” He laughed. “We landed in the brambles and then had to claw our way through with Sacrus's boys firing at our arses all the way. Damn near got shot by our own side as well, before we convinced them who we were.”

Now she did hug him and damn the consequences. “Have you been able to contact any of our—your people?”

He nodded. “There's a semaphore station on the roof. The whole Buridan network's in contact. Do you have orders?”

As Venera realized what was possible, she grinned. “Yes!” She took Bryce by one arm and Sarto by the other and dragged them across the floor. “I think I know a way to break the siege and save the other commanders. You need to get up there and get Buridan to send us something. Jacoby, you get up there too. You need to convince Sacrus that I'm ready to double-cross my people.” She pushed them both away.

“And what are you going to do?” asked Bryce.

She smiled past the throbbing in her jaw. “What I do best,” she said. “I'll set the ball rolling.”

Venera stalked over to the black, bedewed snout of a locomotive and pulled herself up to stand in front of its headlamp. She was drenched in light from it and the overhead spots, aware that her pale face and hands must be as bright as lantern flames against the dark metal surrounding her. She raised her arms.

“It is
tiiiiiime!
”

She screamed it with all her might, squeezed all the anger and the pain from her twisted family and poisonous intrigues of her youth, the indifferent bullet and her loss of her husband Chaison, the blood on her hands after she stabbed Aubri Mahallan, the smoke from her pistols as she shot men and women alike, all of it into that one word. As the echoes subsided everyone in the roundhouse came to their feet. All eyes were on her and that was exactly right, exactly how it should be.

“Today the old debts will be settled! Two hundred years and more the truth has waited in Buridan Tower—the truth of what Sacrus is and what they have done! Nearly too late, but not too late, because you, here today, will be the ones to settle those debts and at the same time prevent Sacrus from ever committing such atrocities again!

“Let me describe my home. Let me describe Buridan Tower!” Out of the corner of her eye she saw the army commanders running from their map table, but they had to shoulder their way through hundreds of soldiers to reach her, and the soldiers were raptly attentive to her alone. “Like a vast musical instrument, a flute thrust into the sky and played on by the ceaseless hurricane winds of the airfall. Cold, its corridors decorated with grit and wavering, torn ribbons that once were tapestries. Wet, with nothing to burn except the feathers of birds. Never silent, never still as the beams it stands on sway under the onslaught of air. A roaring tomb, that is Buridan Tower! That is what Sacrus made. It is what they promise to make of your homes as well, make no mistake.

“That's right,” she nodded. “You're fighting for far more than you may know. This isn't just a matter of historical grudges, nor is it a skirmish over Sacrus's kidnapping and torture of your women and children. This is about your future. Do you want all of Spyre to become like Buridan, an empty tomb, a capricious playground for the winds? Because that is what Sacrus has planned for Spyre.”

The officers had stopped at the head of the crowd. She could see that the commander was about to order her to be taken off her perch, so Venera hurried on to her main point. “You have not been told the truth about this war! Before we leave this place you need to know why Sacrus has moved against us all. It is because they believe they have outgrown Spyre the way a wasp outgrows its cocoon. Centuries ago they attacked and destroyed Buridan to gain a treasure from us. They failed to capture it but never gave up their ambition. Ever since Buridan's fall they have bided their time, awaiting the chance to get their hands on something Buridan has guarded for the sake of Spyre since the very beginning of time.” She was really winding herself up now and for the moment the officers had stopped, curious no doubt about what she was about to say.

“Since the creation of Spyre my family has guarded one of the most powerful relics in the world! It was for the sake of this trust that we kept to Buridan Tower for generations, not venturing out because we feared Sacrus would learn that the tower is not the empty shell they believed—afraid they would learn that it can be entered. The thing we guarded is so dangerous that my brothers and sisters, my parents, grandparents, and their grandparents, all sacrificed their lives to prevent even a hint of its existence from escaping our walls.

“Time came when we could no longer sustain ourselves,” she said more softly, “and I had to venture forth.” Dimly, Venera wondered at this grand fib she was making up on the spot; it was a rousing story, and if it proved rousing enough then nobody would believe Guinevera if he survived to accuse her of being an imposter.

“As soon as I came forth,” she said, “Sacrus knew that Buridan had survived, and they knew
why
we had stayed hidden. They knew that I carried with me the last key to Candesce!”

She stopped, letting the echoes reverberate. Crossing her arms, she gazed out at the army, waiting. Two seconds, five, ten, and then they were muttering, talking, turning to one another with frowns and nods. Some who prided themselves on knowing old legends told the men standing next to them about the keys; word began to spread through the ranks. In the front row, the officers were looking at one another in consternation.

Venera raised a hand for silence. “That is what this war is about,” she said. “Sacrus has known of the existence of this key for centuries. They tried to take it once, and Buridan and its allies resisted. Now they are after it again. If they get it, they will no longer need Spyre. To them it is like the hated chrysalis that has confined them for generations. They will shed it, and they don't care if it unravels in pieces as they fly toward the light. At best, Spyre will prove a good capital for the world-spanning empire they plan—once they've scoured it clean of all the old estates, that is. Yes, this cylinder will make a fine park for the palace of Virga's new rulers. They'll need room for the governors of their new provinces, for prisoners, slaves, treasure houses, and barracks. They might not knock down
all
the buildings. But you and yours…well, I hope you have relatives in one of the principalities, because rabble like us won't be allowed to live here anymore.”

The soldiers were starting to argue and shout. Belatedly the officers had realized that they weren't in control anymore; several darted at the locomotive but Venera crouched and glared at them, as if she was ready to pounce on them. They backed away.

She stood up, onto her tiptoes as she flung one fist high over her head. “We have to stop them! The key must be protected, for without it Spyre itself is doomed. You fight for more than your lives—more than your homes. You are all that stands between Sacrus and the slow strangulation of the very world!

“Will you stop them?” They shouted yes. “
Will
you?” They screamed it.

Venera had never seen anyone give a speech like this, but she'd heard Chaison work a crowd and had read about such moments in books. It all took her back to those romantic stories she'd devoured as a little girl in her pink bedroom. Outrageous theatricality, but none of these men had ever seen its like either; few had probably ever been in a theater. For most this roundhouse was the furthest they had ever been from home, and the looming locomotive was something they had only ever glimpsed in the far distance. They stood among peers who before today had been dots seen through telescopes and they were learning that however strange and foreign they were, all were united in their loyalty to Spyre itself. Of course the moment made them mad.

Fist still raised, Venera smiled down at the commander who shook his head in defeat.

Bryce and Jacoby Sarto clambered along the side of the locomotive to join her. “What's the news?” she asked over the roar of the army at her feet.

Bryce blinked at the scene. “Uh…they're on their way.”

Sarto nodded. “I semaphored the Sacrus army commander. Told him you realize your situation is hopeless, that you're going to lead your army into a trap.”

She grinned. “Good.” She turned back to the crowd and raised her fist again.

“It! Is!
Tiiiiiiiiiime!
”

The sound of bullets hitting Liris's walls reminded Garth Diamandis of those occasional big drops that fall from trees after a rain. Silence, then a
pat
followed in this case by the distant sound of a shot. From the gunslit where he was watching he could see the army of the Council Alliance assembling next to the rust-streaked roundhouse. In the early morning light it seemed like a dark carpet moving, in ominous silence, in the direction of Liris. Little puffs of smoke arose from the Sacrus line but the firing was undisciplined.

“Come away from there,” said Venera's friend Eilen. They stood in a musty closet crammed with door lintels, broken drawers, cracked table legs: useless junk, but impossible for a tiny nation like Liris to throw away. Lantern light from the corridor shone through Eilen's hair. She could have been attractive, a habitual part of his mind noted. At one time, he could have helped her with that.

“I have a good view of the Sacrus camp,” he said. “And it's too dangerous to be on the roof right now.”

“You'll get a bullet in the eye,” she said. He grunted and turned back to the view, and after a moment he heard her leave.

He couldn't tell her that he had recognized one of the uniformed figures moving down there. Maybe two of them, he couldn't be sure. Garth was sure that Eilen would tell him he was suffering an old man's delusions if he said he'd recognized his daughter among the hundreds of crimson uniforms.

He could be imagining it. He'd had scant moments to absorb the sight of her before she'd signaled her superiors and Sacrus's thugs had moved in on him. Yet Garth had an eye for women, was able to recall the smallest detail about how this or that one moved or held herself. He could deduce much about character and vulnerability by a woman's stance and habitual gestures; and he damned well knew how to recognize one at a distance. That was Selene standing hipshot by that tent, he was sure of it.

Garth cursed under his breath. He'd never been one to probe at sore spots, but ever since they'd thrown him into that stinking cell in the Grey Infirmary, his thoughts had pivoted around the moment of Selene's betrayal.

He had told her that he was her father, just before she betrayed him. In the seconds between, he'd seen the doubt in her eye—and then the mad-eyed woman with the pink hair had come to stand next to Selene.

“He said he's my father,” Selene murmured as the soldiers cuffed Garth. The pink-haired woman laughed.

“And who knows?” Selene had said. “He might well be.” She had laughed again, and Garth had glimpsed a terrible light in his daughter's eye just before he was hauled out of her sight.

There it was again, that mop of blossom-colored hair poking out from under a gray army cap. She was an officer. The last time Garth had seen her had been in a bizarre fever dream where Venera was whispering his name urgently. This woman had been there, among glass cases, but she was naked and laved with crimson from head to toe. Venera had spoken her name then, but Garth didn't remember it.

The sound of firing suddenly intensified. Garth craned his neck to look in the direction of the roundhouse. Sacrus's forces were moving out to engage the council troops on the inside of Liris. Behind him, though, he could see an equally large contingent of Sacrus's soldiers circling back around the building. Headed toward the edge of the world.

Garth had some inkling of what the council army was doing. They were pressing up against the no-man's-land of thorn and tumbled masonry, a scant hundred yards from the walls of Liris. From there they could turn left or right—inward or toward the world's edge—at a moment's notice. Sacrus would have to split their forces into two to guard against both possibilities.

It was an intelligent plan and for a moment Garth's spirits lifted. Then he saw more of Sacrus's men abandon their positions below him. They were leaving a noisy and smoke-wreathed band of some two hundred men to defend the inward side while the rest of their forces marched behind Liris and out of sight from the roundhouse. They clearly expected the council army to split right and try to relieve Guinevera and Anseratte at the hurricane-wracked world's edge. But how did they know what the council was planning?

He cursed and jumped down off the ancient credenza he'd been perched upon. The corridors were stuffed with armed people, old men and women mostly (strange how he thought of other people his age as old, but not himself ). He elbowed his way through them carelessly. “Where the hell is Moss?”

Someone pointed down a narrow, packed hallway. Liris's new botanist was deep in discussion with the only one of Bryce's men left inside the walls. “I need semaphore flags,” Garth shouted over two shoulders. “We have to warn the troops what Sacrus is doing!”

To his credit, Moss didn't even blink. He raised a hand, pointed to one man, then held up two fingers. “Forward stores,” he said. He pointed to another man and then at Garth. “Go with.”

It took precious minutes for Garth and his new helper to locate the flags. Then they had to fight their way to the stairs. They emerged outside to the mind-numbing roar of the winds and an almost continual sound of gunfire. Ducking low, they ran for the edge of the roof.

 

“They expect you to act as if you don't know about the key,” Venera was explaining for the tenth time. She was surrounded by nervous officers and staffers; the gray-mustachioed army commander stood with his arms crossed, glowering as she drew on the ground with a stick. “If you don't know about it, then the obvious strategic goal is to relieve Guinevera's force. Jacoby Sarto has told them that we are going to do that. This frees Sacrus to take Liris, their real objective.”

The commander nodded reluctantly. A bullet whined past somewhere too near for comfort. They stood behind a screen of brush on the edge of no-man's-land. An arc of soldiers surrounded them, far too few for Venera's taste. This force would hardly qualify as a company in Chaison's army. Yet Sacrus didn't have much more.

“So,” she continued. “We feint right then strike left. I humbly suggest that we start with sustained fire into Sacrus's position on the edge-side of no-man's-land.”

There was some talk among the officers—far too much of it to suit her—then the commander said, “It's too risky. And I remain skeptical about your story.”

He didn't believe the key was real. Venera was tempted to take it out and show it to him, but that might backfire. Who could believe a whole war would be fought over an ivory wand?

While she and the commander were scowling at one another Bryce ran up, puffing. “They're here!” Venera turned to look where he pointed.

She turned back, grinning broadly. “Commander, would you be more amenable to my plan if you had a secret weapon to help with it?”

The commander and all the officers fell silent as they saw what was approaching. Slowly, the commander began to smile.

 

“Damn it, they're ignoring us!” Garth ducked as another volley of fire from below raked the edge of the roof. His assistant slumped onto the flagstones next to him, shaking his head.

“Maybe they don't see us,” he said.

“Oh, they see us all right. They just don't believe us.” Garth risked a glance over the stones. The council army was pressing hard against the barricades hastily thrown up by Sacrus on the inward side of Liris. The bulk of their army was hovering on the far side of the building, ready to speed toward the edge as soon as they were given the word.

Another ladder thunked against the wall. That made four in as many seconds. Garth pushed his companion. “Back to the stairs!” Sacrus were moving to take Liris. There was nothing anyone could do to stop them.

Garth stood up to run and hesitated for just a second. He couldn't stop himself from looking down through the gunfire and smoke to find his daughter. The ground around Liris was boiling with men; he couldn't see her.

Something hit him hard and he spun around, toppling to the flagstones. A bullet—was he dead? Garth clawed at his shoulder, saw a bright scar on the metal of his armor but no hole.

“Sir!” Damn him, his helper was running back to save him. “No, get to the stairs, damnit!” Garth yelled, but it was too late. A dozen bullets hit the man and some of those went right through his armor. He fell and slid forward, and died at Garth's feet.

Garth had never even learned his name.

Up they came now, soldier after soldier hopping onto Liris's roof. One loped forward, ignoring rifle fire from the stairs, and pitched a firebomb into the central courtyard. The cherry trees were protected under a siege roof, but a few more of those and they would burn.

Swearing, he tried to stand. Something hit him again and he fell back. This time when he looked up, it was to see the black globe of a Sacrus helmet hovering above him, and a rifle barrel inches from his face.

Garth fell back, groaning, and closed his eyes.

 

“We've lost our momentum,” said Bryce. He and Venera were crouched behind an upthrust block of brickwork from some ancient, abandoned building. A hundred feet ahead of them, men were dying in a futile attack on the Sacrus barricade.

She nodded, but the council officers were already ordering a retreat. For a few seconds she watched the soldiers scampering back under relentless fire. Then she cocked an eyebrow at Bryce and grinned.

“
We've
lost
our
momentum? When did you decide this was your fight?”

“People are dying,” he said angrily. “Anyway, if what you say is true, there's far more at stake than any of us knew.” She shrugged and glanced again at the retreat, but then noticed he was staring at her.

“What?”

“Who are you, really? Surely not Amandera Thrace-Guiles?”

Venera laughed. He hadn't been there for her moment of humiliation at the feet of Guinevera—had, in fact, been flying through the air over brambles and scrub just about then.

She stuck out her hand for him to shake. “Venera Fanning. Pleased to meet you.”

He shook it, a puzzled expression on his face, but then a new commotion distracted him. “Look! Your friends…”

Through the drifting smoke she could see a dozen spindly ladders wobbling against the building's walls. Men were swarming up them and there was fighting on the roof. In seconds she could lose the people who had become most precious to her. “Come on!”

They braved rifle fire and ran back. The army commander was crouched over a map. He looked up grimly as Venera approached. “Can you feel it?” When she frowned, he pointed down at the ground. Now she realized that for some time now, she had been feeling a slow, almost subliminal sensation of rising and falling. It was the kind of faint instability of weight that you sometimes felt when a town's engines were working to spin it back up to speed.

“I think Sacrus cut one too many cables.”

“Let the preservationists deal with it when we're finished,” she said. “Right now we need to cut down those ladders.”

He shook his head. “Don't you understand? This is more than just a piece or two falling off the world. Something's happened. It—we…” She realized that he was very, very frightened. So were the officers kneeling with him.

Venera felt it again, that long slow waver, unsettling to the inner ear. Way out past the smoke, it seemed like the curving landscape of Spyre was crawling, somehow, like the itchy skin of a giant beast twitching in slow motion.

“We can't do anything about that,” she said. “We have to focus on saving lives here and now! Look, I don't think there's more than three dozen men on those barricades. The rest of their men are waiting on the far side for us to try to relieve Guinevera.”

With an effort he pulled himself together. “Your plan…Can you do it?”

“They'll start to pull back as soon as they realize we're concentrating here,” she said. “When they do, we'll have them.”

“All right. We have to…do something.” He got to his feet and began issuing orders. The frightened officers sprinted off in all directions. Venera and Bryce ran back in the direction of the roundhouse and as they passed the fringe of the no-man's-land she saw scores of men standing up from concealment in the bushes. Suddenly they were all bellowing and as more popped up from unexpected places Venera found herself being swept back by a vast mob of howling armored men. She and Bryce fought their way forward as hundreds of bodies plunged past them. She had no time to look back but could imagine the Sacrus barricades being overwhelmed in seconds; the ladders would tremble and fall, and when they rose again it would be council soldiers climbing them.

A small copse of trees stood at the end of no-man's-land; bedraggled and half-burnt, they still made a good screen for what hid behind them. Venera smelled the things before she saw them, and her spirits soared as she heard their nervous snorting and stamping.

With murmurs and an outstretched hand, she approached the Dali horse. A dozen others stood huddled together, flanks twitching, their heads a dozen feet off the earth. All were saddled and some of the horsemen were already mounted.

Bryce stopped short, a wondering expression on his face. Venera put her hand on the rope ladder that led up to her beast's saddle, then looked back at him. “See to your people,” she said. “Run your presses. If I live, I'll see you after.”

He smiled and for a moment looked boyishly mischievous. “The presses have been running for days, and I've sent my messages. But just in case…here.” He dug inside his jacket and handed her a cloth-wrapped square. Venera unwrapped it, puzzled, then laughed out loud. It was a brand-new copy of the book
Rights Currencies.
She raised it to her nose and smelled the fresh ink, then stuffed it in her own jacket.

She laughed again as Bryce stepped back and the rest of her force mounted up behind her. Venera turned and waved to them, and as Bryce ran back toward the roundhouse and safety, she yelled, “Come
on
! They're not going to be expecting
this
!”