Swords of the Imperium (Dark Fantasy Novel) (The Polaris Chronicles Book 2) (2 page)

“Out of my way,” Lotte ordered. She knelt with palms upturned in supplication and started to invoke a sutra. “
The mind commands the body, and it obeys. I am become Walking Death. I eat the hearts of my enemies, wear their skins, and become cuter.”

Hadassah looked up from her efforts to drive her thumbs into Taki’s nostrils. “Captain? What are you doing? We can’t—”

Lotte inhaled and let out a roar before she lurched face forward at the door. Light lanced out from the wood to reveal a previously hidden mandala that blurred and dissolved under the assault. The door buckled and shattered like plate glass struck by a juggernaut, and Lotte careened in before coming to a stop in the center of the office.

Someone cackled.
“Om mani padme hum.”

Taki extricated himself from Hadassah’s leg lock and limped into the office after Lotte. When he saw what lay within, his face scrunched in horror.

Hecaton sat atop her desk, cross-legged, with the tops of her feet flush against her thighs. A circlet of dessicated clover blossoms rested loosely across her brow, and she wore a robe of dirty, sweat-yellowed linen with a wooden begging bowl balanced in her lap. Before her, melted stumps of candles pooled wax across the wood and over the edge to form a stringy, multicolored waterfall.

“Milord Principality,” Lotte said, out of breath, “I apologize for the intrusion and the door, but we were all concerned for you.”

Hecaton smiled magnanimously. “My child, are you ready to shave your head and become a nun?” she asked.

“No. What’s all this about?” She motioned with her head to the rest of the office. Stolen laundry lines crisscrossed above with deep-ochre-stained undergarments hung haphazardly in the fashion of prayer pennants. Books and scrolls were strewn around the floor unopened, their pages ripped from the bindings and spit-glued into lewd sculptures attached to the walls. Incomprehensible red squiggles danced across the walls, as if children had been given buckets of paint and promised protection from their parents’ wrath.

“An offering, first.” Hecaton pointed to a large, pewter spittoon overflowing with ash. A handful of fresh joss sticks pierced the gray mound. “I
am
a twice born, you know. I’m one who’s entered the stream. If you give up your worldly desires and meditate every day, you can too.”

Lotte looked at the other two. “Natalis, use your power.”

Taki hesitated.

“Well, go on,” Lotte said. “Eastern gods
eat the smells
.”

“You’re sure, Captain?”

“Don’t question her orders,” Hadassah snapped. “Just do what she says! Wanna fight again?”

Taki shook his head. He edged closer to the spittoon with his arm stretched out, as if trying to avoid contamination. He flicked his fingers at the end of a joss stick but shook so much that the summoned flames missed their target entirely. The stick glowed feebly after a few more tries.

Lotte sighed. “Milord, there’s your offering.”

Hecaton nodded sagely. “Now, all of you clap twice and keep your hands pressed together. Bow at the waist and hold for ten seconds. I won’t make you kowtow, since you’re nonbelievers.”

“Enough sacrilege!” Lotte said. “
You
answer
us
now. Why have you refused all contact, even from the exarch? What are you
doing
here? Have you fed
Babu
?”

Hearing his name, a rotund, tiger-striped tom half leapt, half pulled himself onto the desk next to Hecaton and let out a yowl. Hecaton shot an imperious glare at the tom, and he responded by flopping down in her lap. “The basileus has offended me greatly. So I will not see her cronies until she kowtows to me and retracts what she has done.” She scratched Babu’s ears, and he nibbled the folds of her robes.

Lotte frowned. “You are a principality of the Temple. You are the next in line to guide the flock, and you lord over even the Agia Triada. How in the hell does that displease you?”

“I didn’t want it. I just wanted an egg—”

“Whether you wanted it or not is irrelevant. Besides, an increase in rank means more pay, more prestige.” Lotte stepped forward around the repurposed urn and put her forehead to Hecaton’s. “It means Her Grace wanted to
reward
you.”

Hecaton merely licked the tip of Lotte’s nose in repose. “That tastes like a lie!”

Lotte planted her hands on her hips. “Are you done playing dress-up? Can we move on?”

“You’re insulting my people.”

Hadassah waved. “Isn’t a promotion just the kind of thing you want, though? You know, to be in control so you can piss around with people’s lives and such?”

“All I wanted in life was to bake bread,” Hecaton said. “My father and brother were bakers, you know. They were making scallion dumplings the day I went to the bihara
.
And now…
I don’t remember how they tasted
!”

“Scallion dumplings are easy,” Hadassah said. “I’ll even be cute and teach you how. Does that make you happy?”

“No! They’re made in a specific way, and none of you barbarians could possibly appreciate their refinement.”

Lotte jabbed a finger at Hecaton’s nose. “You’re being rude.”

Hecaton clasped Lotte’s finger in her hands and peered at the tip while sucking her teeth. “Lieselotte, child, listen to me. I’m sorry, but you have leprosy.”

“No one has leprosy!” Lotte snapped her hand back. “Now, with all due respect, shut the hell up and listen to me! You’re acting like a godrotting child! If you’re so unhappy with Her Grace’s esteem, you can just
leave
! No one’s keeping you here against your will. Go ahead and resign right now
so we can get paid
!”

Hecaton blinked. “But I don’t want to. I like being around you dumb kids. Sometimes I think of you as my own.”

“If you truly think that about us, milord Principality, then please respect our need to eat. Or else we’ll all starve and possibly die.”

“You can always eat the exarch. He’s very fat and doesn’t run fast.”

Taki saw something wild cross his captain’s face, and bile surged up his throat. “Beg pardon!” He stepped between the two women but avoided touching either. “If the basileus offended you, why don’t you send a letter to her? Or even better, you can go
visit
Her Grace!”

Hecaton grinned and leapt from her perch to twirl around. “A splendid idea, my little regicide! We’re off to see the basileus, the wonderful basil of Oz! And if she doesn’t do what I want, I’ll shove this promotion up her
ass
!”

She kicked the spittoon over and took Taki by the hips to whirl around in a clumsy, parodic waltz. Tears formed in Taki’s eyes, and a thought crossed his mind:
It’d have been better to starve.

“It’s decided,” Lotte said. She shook her head. “Accompany the Principality to Athenaeum.”

Hecaton grinned and pirouetted while Taki scurried away. “Yes, come with me, my loyal onions, minions, or whatever you are! Company, to arms! And let us bask in obscene incandescence!” she said as she skipped airily out the door and left her choking subordinates in a cloud of ash.

“Wait, Captain,” Hadassah said. “If we don’t go with her, maybe she’ll get lost and die in a ditch. After all, she’s gone raving mad. We shouldn’t squander this opportunity to be rid of her!”

Lotte cuffed the redhead gently across the cheek. “Idiot, this is a lucid moment for our tyrant. Now get your damned guns and off to the capital with you.”

Taki chanced a breath through his nostrils and immediately wished he hadn’t. Effluvium coursed slowly down channels on either side of the boulevard he walked down and sent up an indescribable odor that cut his senses like a rusty shiv. Greenish-brown, the oily shit backed up everywhere and simply pooled on the cobblestones, making him step gingerly to avoid splashing it on his leggings.

The Argead Dominion, to which all Polaris of the Temple pledged their lives, was now a country only in name. A month earlier, the Osterbrand Imperium had overrun the borders in a sudden, brutal conquest. The surviving peerage of the Dominion now numbered less than a dozen, having been slaughtered in battle or hanged in front of their keeps. The assassination of the childless Basileus Niketas Palailogos had further destabilized the faltering nation, and his successor had been forced to offer terms despite an improbable Dominion victory at the capital’s doorstep.

Because of that narrow win, Athenaeum had been spared a siege and thus was exactly the same as Taki remembered it: the smell of human waste intermingled with roasting harspud. Hecaton traipsed gaily ahead, still clad in her sweaty prayer robes, which dragged on the cobbles and smeared dust and filth in her wake. Taki shook his head at the sight and glanced at Hadassah, who was busy playacting as a tourist and seemed indifferent to the smell.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Taki said. He scrunched his nose up. “Well, what do you think of it? The jewel in the Dominion crown?”

“Disappointing. I expected more rubble and bodies falling from the rooftops. Or at least more fires. There hasn’t been a single screaming woman or roasting child. There’s nothing to loot, either.”

“Why are you so preoccupied with looting? And with death and carnage?”

“Because I love shiny things and I’m not afraid to kill for them. Aren’t I too perfect?”

“You’re a criminal.”

“We both are. Except I didn’t, you know, kill the last of the Palaiologoi or nothin’.” Hadassah slid a finger across her throat and let out a gruesome rattle.

“I didn’t…” Taki began, but his words died in his throat.
I didn’t what? Mean to do it?

“Did you drown him in the tub? Or shank him on the shitter?”

“Nothing of the sort! Just…just shut up! Please!”

She wrapped an arm around his and squeezed. “Don’t get me wrong, Natalis. There are lots of people out there who had it in for the old basil. And maybe some who’d call you a hero or a savior. So don’t be glum. The rest of us don’t think ill of you, and even though you won’t fess up to it, we know.”

Taki blinked and unclenched his jaw. He let out a breath and murmured his thanks. “I appreciate it. I really do. I just need time to figure out some things.”

Hadassah smiled. “Did you put something up his bung?”

Taki frowned and wormed his way out of her grasp. “Forget it! If you’re just going to jape at me, then I have no further words for you.”

“Your problem is that you’re too damned uptight. You’re so focused on your own stupid virtue that you end up being an ass most of the time.” She took a too-large bite of a harspud ball impaled on a stick and started to pant.

“I hope you get the shits from that.”

“Speaking of which,” Hadassah said, “where’s old Mezeta gone to?”

Taki swore and frantically looked around. The old woman was nowhere to be seen. He sprinted up to the edge of the square but realized quickly that finding her would be impossible in the crowd. He jogged back over to Hadassah, who hadn’t moved an inch and was still chowing down like a yokel. “Damn you! She was just here! If you hadn’t distracted me…”

He squatted and ran his fingers through his hair. Now he’d done it. The old hag had gone insane, slipped away, and would kill the new basileus for fun. He’d be a double-regicide now. Cries and gunshots erupted in the distance. The two Polaris looked at each other and took off running.

It wasn’t long until they came up to the wrought-iron gates of the Mitripoli, only to be confronted by a line of bayonets and muzzles. Nearby, Hecaton stood with her hands on her hips, seething. A battle line of praetorians with rifles barred the way to the palace. From behind marched up a platoon of city garrison with brightly painted shields and spears, backed by crossbowmen. Taki raised his hands in surrender. There was no escaping now.

“Milord Principality,” Taki said. “What happened?”

“One of them spat on my robes,” Hecaton said. “I took offense and made them pay. Now the others will learn some proper respect. Because fuck turning the other cheek.”

“Why didn’t you wait for us?”

“You two were having fun. I didn’t want to be a burden.”

Taki rolled his eyes. “No, you wanted to ditch us and start a meaningless fight.”

“Maybe?”

“What’s the meaning of this?” Amilia Gillette said. She stood on the opposite side of the iron fence with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed. The ivory robes of the basileus contrasted with the brown of her hands and face and the silver of her hair. When she saw Hecaton, she sighed.

“Your Grace!” a praetorian shouted. “You must get to safety!”

Amilia shook her head. “Lower your weapons, open the gate, and resume your posts. I’ve been expecting this one and her entourage. I’ll see you inside, Hecaton Mezeta. Be a dear and wipe your feet.”

The praetorians slowly withdrew, disbelief written on their faces. One of them grudgingly unbarred the entry and pulled the gilded doors open. Hecaton strode nonchalantly inside without a word to her subordinates.