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CHAPTER 17

ARRIVAL


“Why would the beast kill two people fleeing the city?” Oberlin asked, leaning heavily on a silver-tipped cane as we climbed the rise overlooking the ruins of Phanamhara. Pale floodlights illuminated the dusty red hulks of excavators, and here and there a sentry in legionary white or in the desert camouflage of Gaston’s local guard moved. “It doesn’t make sense.”

The discovery of the wrecked flier and the dead fugitives had recalled Oberlin from his orbital remove. He wore one of the filter masks over his face.

“Perhaps we do well not to guess at the motivations of a creature so unlike us,” I said, and glanced back to where Priscian Lascaris followed, a few paces behind, ever mindful of his master’s condition. “Whatever sense there may be in its actions, I think it will not seem sense to us.”

Having reached the top, Oberlin paused. “That is not the answer you have been brought here to supply, Lord Marlowe.”

“What was it the doctor and her paramour stole?” I asked.

“A few tablets, one with gold inlay,” Oberlin said.

“That and the rusted hulk of what we think was one of their firearms,” Lascaris put in. “A beam weapon of some kind.”

I nodded tiredly, surveying the ruined city. I had seen the treasures removed from the wreckage, had seen many such weapons in various states of decay. They would have fetched a fine price.

“I can’t see why the Watcher would go to the trouble of hunting Doctor Kel and Irum down simply for some Vaiartu writing and an old laser rifle,” I said.

“You’re saying its actions are inscrutable?” Oberlin turned to glare at me.

“I’m saying what if its actions are caprice?” I held the smaller man’s gaze and did not waver. “What if it’s toying with us?” A blacker thought occurred to me, and I said, “What if it left that flier there because it knew I would be the one to find it?”

Oberlin was silent a long moment, passed it stabbing the dune with his cane. “The two of them fled the camp five months ago. You think the creature somehow knew you and your daughter would be on a flight above precisely that patch of desert precisely when the sand was cleared enough away for you to spot it?” Behind the glass, his eyes narrowed. “You recognize the madness in that thought, do you not?”

“No, I do not!” I said. “This whole thing is mad, Oberlin. This world, this mission—all of it. So forgive me if some of that madness is catching.”

The old man turned his face away, studied the illuminated ruins. “Perhaps,” he said at last, then thrusting out his cane like a finger, said, “I saw Valeriev’s report. They got a man through the shaft from below!”

“Just three days ago,” I said. Valeriev and his team had opened a channel in the collapsed tunnel wide enough for the diggers to climb out. “It’ll be another few weeks before the thing’s really opened up. Then they’ll have to see about moving the hand to the surface.”

“You still think that’s a fool’s errand?” Oberlin said.

“I think our quarry redoubled its efforts against us the moment we touched it,” I said. “And I worry that your attempts to move the hand will result in . . . unforeseen consequences.”

Oberlin dismissed this with a wave of one knob-knuckled hand. “If it forces the issue—”

“I also worry that we will not be able to evacuate the camp in time should we force the issue,” I said, thinking of the locals, like poor Doctors Mann and Kel. Thinking also of Williamtown, and Markov Station, and the rest of Sabratha’s sparse inhabitants.

And of the universe beyond.

The Director had not looked at me through all my words, had not taken his eyes from the crumbling ramparts and almost-pointed windows of the Enar city.

“It’s war, Marlowe,” he said at last. “And the creature is—potentially—the greatest military asset in universal history. You have seen the Vaiartu friezes. With the Monumentals to lead them, their armies burned the galaxy. Countless species and worlds. What will the Cielcin do with one of them to lead them?”

“Two,” I said. “You’re forgetting Dorayaica.”

So clearly, I saw the tendrilous thing slither from the Prophet’s wounded side.

“You’re sure he’s one of them?” Oberlin asked. “You’re sure he’s not something else?”

“What else would it be?” I returned. “At any rate, the sorcerers in its employ believed Dorayaica was becoming one of them—and about that at least they’d no reason to lie.” I blinked, realization dawning on me. “How do you know about Dorayaica? That was never in my reports.”

Oberlin stabbed the hilltop once more with his cane, swayed and widened his stance. Lascaris dashed to his side. “Yes . . . there is so much that never finds its way into your reports. His Radiance told me, before I sailed for Jadd. You shared that little piece of information with him on Carteia, if you recall.”

I did.

“And on the subject of your silence, my lord,” Oberlin continued. “Is there something you would like to add to your telegraph from a week ago?”

He still was not looking at me, and I marveled at how effective a tactic that was. My own father had employed the same pointed disinterest with long-practiced grace. I had used it myself. Had I grown so rusty in exile that I could no longer tolerate the chafe of it? Or had I only grown too old to be patient?

“No,” I said, and turned away myself.

“The Irchtani chiliarch would differ,” Oberlin said. “Something about a woman in black?”

I cursed under my breath, said, “You think me mad.”

“On the contrary,” said Friedrich Oberlin. “I am counting on your madness. It may be our greatest asset.” He was peering at me—finally—eyes white in the distant glare of the floodlamps, like an aged and featherless owl.

“I don’t know that it was a woman,” I said. “I don’t know why I thought it was a woman. I just . . . ”

“But you saw something?”

I chewed my tongue, nodded. “Standing on the dunes overlooking the wreck. A woman—a . . . figure—in a black veil, head to toe. It called down to me.”

Oberlin’s gleaming eyes grew narrow. “What did it say?”

“Nothing, nonsense,” I said.

Zae namen.

Muzu anaam?

It did not sound like the same language Miudanar had spoken to me on Eue long before, but not knowing either language—if they were indeed separate—it was impossible to say. That the second utterance had been a question seemed plain to me.

“You think it was our target?”

“What else could it be, Friedrich?” I asked, exasperation leaking from me like air from a punctured balloon. “It must have known I would find the flier. It exists above our dimension, you say. Surely it can see time like I can—and further.”

“You think it was setting a trap for you?”

“I don’t know, Friedrich. But I know what I saw. It’s watching us. Me . . . ” I grew silent then, a flash of insight coming to me in the lamplit gloom. “This was another warning. Maybe our last.”

Oberlin leaned toward me, weight heavy upon his cane. “Do you know something?”

I shook my head.

“You have to start trusting me,” he said.

“Trusting you? After how you squeezed the Jaddians into handing me over? After all this?” I gestured at the ruins, at the dead world all around. “You say I’m free to go. You think I don’t know what would happen if I did? What would happen to my daughter?”

The old man devolved into another of his coughing fits. “You think,” he started, coughed again—and I pitied him his mask—“you think I am your enemy, Hadrian. I am one of the last friends you have. Do you know how many assassination plans I argued against in Council? How many plots I stifled under the table? SpecSec wanted you dead. The War Office wanted you dead. The Empress is still after you. The Chantry. They wanted to hire a Vavasor of Aminon to kill you. Do you even know what that is?”

I confessed that I did not.

“They even bought the Prince of Oannos.”

That ground me to a halt. “The Prince of Oannos was paid to kill me?” I said. “If that’s so, whichever lord paid him wasted his coin. The Oannosene took the money and tried to kill Aldia du Otranto instead. I stopped them.”

Unimpressed, Oberlin felt the pockets of his jacket, searching for a kerchief—forgetting he wore the filter mask. “And thank Earth for that. Aldia has ever been a staunch ally. We would be poorer without him.”

“Says the man who put the screws to him securing my release.”

“I do what I do for the realm,” Oberlin said, “and for all mankind.”

We stood there watching the sand and the city. I studied its every rampart, half imagining that I saw once more the veiled figure, its stygian folds untouched by the cold, revealing light.

Why was it our artists always personified Death as a lady?

“Friedrich,” I said at last. “If something happens to me. If I die here, fighting this thing. I need you to swear something for me.”

The old man looked up at me, and I was struck once more by the degree to which Ever-Fleeting Time had worn away at him, at the wrinkles and liver spots, and the patchy white hair and drooping eyes. But he smiled, and for a moment I saw the thin, forgettable face of the young logothete whose little courage had delivered me from the Inquisition. He said nothing, but by the almost imperceptible tipping of his head, I knew I should proceed.

“Protect Cassandra,” I said. “See she gets to safety. Back to Jadd, if you can arrange it. It’s the only world she knows.” I did my best to smile, and turning faced him fully. “She’s nothing to your Imperial master.”

“I . . . ” Oberlin hesitated. “I will do all I can.”

“She cannot do what I can do,” I said. “I know the Chantry wants me vivisected. Don’t let them get to her.” I nearly laid my hands upon his shoulders, but recalling the sniper from our previous nighttime walk, I thought better of it. “Please.”

“I’ll do all I can,” Oberlin said again.

“She’s just a girl,” I said, though that was not strictly true. She was a Swordmaster of the Ninth Circle, but she had lived all her life in the Fire School, and though she knew something of courtly life, and a little more about hardship, she knew next to nothing of the ocean of stars. Of the galaxy, the Cielcin, and of man’s inhumanity to man.

“I know,” Oberlin said. “I do.”

“You believed in me, once,” I said, glancing to Lascaris, who stood by, haggard and long faced as ever. There were times I thought it seemed he was sicker even than his master, though he was burdened only by his cares. “You saved my life, and so I have no right asking for anything . . . but if I don’t . . . leave this place. Help her. Please.”

I realized, then, that I had never pleaded for anything in my life, leastways not with such naked honesty.

Old Oberlin reached out and gripped my hand. Not speaking, he nodded.

It was enough. Relief washed over me like rain, for it seemed the man answered me, and not his office. Then he let me go, and inhaling sharply with the change of subject, he said, “I sail for Williamtown in five days’ time. I plan to meet with Lord Hulle to discuss increasing the planet’s defenses. It will be dismal work. I told him you would accompany me.”

I was slower to adjust to the change of topic than he, and stiffened. “You what?”

“He is holding a fete in your honor. A private feast. I’m told there will be a small Colosso and games.”

“Is that . . . wise?” I asked. “Surely the locals should not know I am here. Men will talk.”

“What men?” asked Oberlin, smiling at Lascaris. “The governor-general’s office all know you are here. They do not know what we do, but that is another matter.”

“But what of our work here?”

“It is just one night,” Oberlin said. “You can return directly. I have succeeded in keeping Hulle from you for the last two years, but there are limits even to what I can do.”

I only glared at him.

“You would rather you were in a cell on Belusha?” Oberlin asked.

“I would rather I never left Jadd,” I said. “I am old, Friedrich. Too old.” I bore the full brunt of my age in that moment, felt the full weight of my each and every year.

Oberlin chuckled, coughed. “Speak not to me of age, lordship. Ever-Fleeting Time has been far kinder to you than I.” He fell silent, leaned heavily on his cane.

I chewed my tongue in silence a moment, said at last, “Time is never kind.”


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