Resolution (42 page)

‘It’s called Oracle’s Dreams, old chum.’ Zhao-ji had seen what Tom was looking at. ‘If you’re exposed, however hard you fight... eventually, it gets you.’

‘Fate.’ Tom remembered the flash of sapphire he had glimpsed earlier at Zhao-ji’s wrist.

Years before, when they were both at school, their friend Kreevil had been convicted of theft. They had visited Kreevil once - and only once -after he had begun his sentence.

Inside a vast chamber filled with fluorescing blue fluid, strange shadows had been clumped. The convicts moved slowly in the fluid, breathing it and subsisting on it, their bodies linked by tendrils to the unknown shadowy forms.

At the time, Tom and Zhao-ji had been frightened off by the custodians of that place; but it came to Tom now that Zhao-ji had touched Kreevil, and been burned - or chilled - by that blue glowing stuff. Had it been working strange changes on him all these years? Another thing: why was it the exact same hue that Tom associated with Oracles and Seers?

‘Kreevil must be dead by now.’ Zhao-ji spoke with a stone-cold finality that chilled Tom. He had known just what Tom was thinking.

And how long do
you
have to live, old friend?

Zhao-ji’s dark eyes were giving nothing more away. Behind him, through the still-softened membranous door, shadowy outlines were visible: 49s, footsoldiers of the Strontium Dragons who would sell their lives - hard - to ensure Zhao-ji’s safety.

These aren‘t our schooldays any more.

Around the oval conference table, three small groups sat. Doria had made sure that her and Grax’s team members were being cared for, in a comfortable chamber equipped with food and drink and couches. Now Doria took the seat on Tom’s left, while Grax sat on the right.

Zhao-ji, in his lev-chair, positioned himself beside another Strontium Dragon officer. This other man was no mere footsoldier. Nevertheless, his elbow-length sleeves revealed white hairless forearms that were bulbous with muscle; and dark oval calluses covered his swollen knuckles.

Zhao-ji introduced him only as Lao.

Tom bowed to Lao and said: ‘We are honoured to have a Red Rod in our presence. And my old friend has surely advanced to
pak tsz sin,
White Paper Fan. Perhaps I do not go too far in suggesting he might someday be considered worthy of
heung chu
status?’

There might have been amusement in Zhao-ji’s eyes when he answered: ‘My Lord Corcorigan does me too much credit.’

Lao, the Red Rod,
might
have been quietly impressed. Though his rank was Zhao-ji’s equal, he was still an enforcer, with little hope of further advancement; but a White Fan was an Incense Master in waiting, and that was powerful indeed.

At least I know one party we’re negotiating with.

As for the other group: Trevalkin sat with Feltima on his left, and she bore herself with a watchfulness that suggested she was more than just an arachnargos (or mantargos) pilot. An unnamed man dressed in grey sat on Trevalkin’s right.

Did Zhao-ji speak only for the Strontium Dragons, or for allied Zhongguo Ren secret societies as well? Was Trevalkin representative of all the reactionary Action Leagues, or just his own small group of associates?

And was this a negotiation? With what goals?

The Anomaly is in our world, and we‘re not even talking yet...

Then Feltima made the introductions for her party:

‘You all know Viscount Trevalkin, of high standing as a Liege Lord, adviser to the Circulus Fidus, and a prime architect of Fire Watch, begging my Lord Corcorigan’s pardon.’

Tom inclined his head, conceding the right to argue.

‘He is also a member of the Grey Shadows High Command—’

‘What?’
Tom half-stood, hand going to his hip; but his poignard was not there.

‘—whose alliance with the former LudusVitae in no way indicates that social revolution is our primary goal.’

Trevalkin’s smile was cold.

Grey Shadows?

Slowly, Tom sat back down. Grax and Doria had pushed themselves back from the table but not risen.

‘You
want revolution? Equality for all?’

Trevalkin shook his head. ‘It won’t happen in my lifetime. I’ll enjoy my privileges while I can, thank you.’

The Grey Shadows were an ultra-secretive organization that remained a mystery to Tom. Elva had been raised to their cause, by common-born parents willing to sacrifice their daughters to achieve the Grey Shadows’ goals ... which had
not
been to keep people like Trevalkin in power. (Elva had not been in contact with the organization since the war ... as far as Tom knew.)

‘The thing is,’ said Feltima, ‘our objective has always been to guard Nulapeiron from its enemies.’

Tom leaned back in his chair.

But the Blight and the Anomaly are the first
external
enemies the world has faced.

These people were representatives of hidden networks of power which had evolved over centuries: networks which had taken on lives of their own, and would cooperate only when threatened, in order to achieve goals unknown to the world at large.

Grax broke the tension, hoisting a daistral jug and a beaker from a tray.

‘Does anyone else feel thirsty?’

Some twenty minutes later, they were deep into discussions of communications routes. Over the table hung a web of glowing holographs, arcs and nodes brightening as indicated whenever someone made a point. Analyses appeared and disappeared in briefly blossoming subsidiary tesseracts: a morass of confusing and conflicting details.

Doria was amending Feltima’s model of compromised Fire Watch cutouts - trying to work out which realms’ Fire Watch contacts could be trusted, and which ones had already been subsumed by the Anomaly -when something shifted and clicked in Tom’s mind. In an instant, some internal barrier fell down inside him, and he knew that everything he was doing was wrong: not just this meeting ... everything.

Tom pushed himself back from the conference table.

Maintain solidarity.

It is a primary rule of negotiation in teams: never betray a difference of attitude within the group, for it denotes a weakness, a fault line which an experienced opponent will crack open.

Elva. I need you here with me.

Not just as a former Grey Shadows operative, but as a tactician in her own right, Elva would laugh at the notion of negotiations without defined objectives.

I
thought I was protecting you.

Tom had failed. Elva was in Realm Strelsthorm (the former Demesne d’Ovraison) and he was in this place; and they were likely to die apart, never seeing each other again before their universe ended.

I’m a fool.

‘—Lord? You don’t agree?’

‘Sorry, Feltima, I... It doesn’t matter.’

Tom rose to his feet, feeling dizzy.

This is the moment.

Everything was spinning away from him, from everyone, in a world which might fall to the Anomaly in days.
Win or lose.
None of this talk was helping.
Right now. This has to change.
Tom took a deep breath and looked around the table, locked eyes with each person in turn, including Doria and Grax. Including Trevalkin.

Do it.

‘This is not working,’ he said.

‘What do you mean, Corcorigan?’

‘Misdirection and obfuscation and unfocused goals and crossed purposes.
None of it helps.
This is an alliance of confusion.’

Feltima rocked back in her seat.

Someone gestured the holodisplays out of existence.

‘Everyone here,’ Tom said, ‘knows the mechanics of phase transitions. It’s like heating a block of ice: it shifts into the liquid state just like’ - snapping his thumb -
‘that.
Given a critical mass of people Absorbed into the Anomaly, the effects will cascade through the world in a matter of days, maybe
hours.
Does anybody disagree?’

The others sat as though punched in the stomach.

None of them, not even Trevalkin, had a reply. They had been acting as though they were planning a long campaign; but time had already run out.

‘That being the case,’ Tom continued, ‘I am assuming command of this alliance. Right now.’

There were widened eyes, audible intakes of breath.

‘You will need to discuss this. I’m going to leave the chamber for ten minutes, so I suggest you decide quickly.’

Tom’s cape swirled as he turned away, and strode from the chamber with his heart beating hard, a paradoxical cold heat flooding through his body, experiencing the joy and fear of risking everything for a cause which he knew, finally and for sure, was right.

For Elva.

He stopped outside in a long chill corridor whose transparent panels looked out into the deep: into black waters where strange luminous predators swam.

For everyone.