Irona 700 (15 page)

Dychat stood up, pale at being singled out by the First. He nodded, then found his voice again. “He asked me to nominate … a certain person … Your Reverence. …”

Knipry gave him a grandfatherly nod and smile. “In that case, Honored Chairman, I ask that the Assembly go at once to Item Seven on the order tablet.” Gathering his red robes, he sat down.

Byakal's air of surprise was not convincing. “The Assembly thanks His Reverence for this guidance. Item Seven: Election of a governor for the fortress at Vult, a term of two years or until relieved, the stipend to be ten—Goddess, is that all? I call for nominations.”

Young Dychat bounced up again like a leaping dolphin and screamed, “I nominate Irona 700!”

Nominations were neither applauded nor jeered. In the expectant hush, Irona rose and walked to the front, wondering why being posted to the barren Dread Lands of the north for two whole years should feel like a triumph. She bowed to the First and then to the Assembly.

Redkev was frantically trying to signal to Seven Kapalny, but Kapalny had been struck with inexplicable impairment of vision. He nominated Redkev 676, who then had no choice but to heave up his bulk and proceed to the front.

There were no more nominations. No one, even Kapalny, raised a hand for Redkev.

Everyone else voted for his opponent. That was the moment for applause; it rolled and echoed around the chamber.

Again the First intervened, this time requesting immediate consideration of Items Ten and Eleven, neither of which was clearly explained on the order slate. Item Ten turned out to be a brief notice, read by the chairman, that the Seven had approved certain recommendations from the Army Board, one of which was a new commander for Vult. Item Eleven was a joint request from the Geographical Section and the Office of Decency—respectively, the secret police and the witch-hunters—for permission to question Chosen Redkev and, when available, Zajic 677. This was approved without dissent.

As the fat man slunk out to meet whatever fate awaited him, Irona noticed the First beaming his best grandfatherly smile at her. She had been a Knipry favorite ever since she announced her plan to deal with Captain Shark. She had gone to Udice for him, and now he was sending her to Vult.

By then Irona had graduated to an office one floor down from the attics, with two chairs and a larger table. When she arrived there the following morning, whom should she find waiting but Sazen Hostin, her gnomish agent in the Geographical Section. He smiled his rabbity teeth at her but did not quite wiggle his ears. She did not invite him to sit.

He offered her a report, a stack of four wooden tablets, whose tiny, cramped writing would require at least two hours' study.

“A report on recent increases in the fixes trade in the Empire, ma'am.”

“I think I have already read that,” she said.

“Chosen Ledacos's copy, I expect? Virtually identical, but we always insert very slight changes, so that we can trace any leaks back to their source.”

She had not known that. What she did know now was that almost every Chosen used bribery to milk information out of the Geographical Section and she was grossly overpaying Sazen. The Seven knew what was happening, because they had all done it themselves in the past, and it saved them having to pay the clerks much. In a sense, the corruption kept the clerks honest, because they did not wish to risk losing such incredibly profitable employment. The Seven might even decide which secrets could be leaked and which couldn't. But now Sazen had just volunteered something, which was a first, perhaps a sign of Irona's growing status.

She pointed at a chair, the first time she had ever given him leave to sit in her presence. “Now tell me about the ghouls. Not the legends or the bogeyman stories, the truth behind them. What did Eboga and Eldborg really fight?”

He sat and folded his hands on his lap. He did not ask why she had helped to engineer her own election to the governorship without finding out about the enemy first. The reason, of course, was that such questions would have advertised her candidacy.

“The records support the legends, ma'am. They were called the Shapeless because witnesses often disagreed. One man might see a great serpent and another a corpse riding on a dog's back. Giant spiders or carpets of rats. Beautiful naked women with fangs were a popular choice. They never appeared in direct sunlight, rarely in daytime at all.”

“But they were real, not just illusions?”

“Oh, yes. Real enough to bite chunks out of men, or tear them apart. Swords and spears and fire would kill them, and then they often crumbled to dust.”

Irona said, “Mm,” and put that information aside to discuss with the Office of Decency, the experts on Maleficence.

“When I got home last night, I found Sebrat House surrounded by grizzlies of the Palace Guard. Who ordered that?”

“Sounds like the sort of thing we might do,” Sazen said thoughtfully. “We weren't good enough to protect Chosen Ledacos completely, though, so please be careful.”

“So my election was organized by the First and the Geographical Section, with Ledacos and me as joint puppets?”

The little man looked profoundly shocked. “Oh, I wouldn't say that, ma'am!”

Irona was amused. This Vult enterprise was the most important and dangerous assignment of her life so far, and already she was enjoying the thrill and the challenge. She was descending into a world of bats and spiders, the shadowy landscape patrolled by the Geographical Section. “Not an approved crime? Well, what can I do for you?”

“I feel the need for a change of air, ma'am. You will need a reliable secretary during your tenure, will you not?”

“Not just the governor and commander? You're saying that even the Section's resident spies have been corrupted by Eldritch?”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that, ma'am!”

In his world of keyholes and whispers, that sometimes meant yes, sometimes no.

“I don't believe my nit-sized stipend will let me hire any staff at all.”

“I am confident that, at your meeting today, the First himself will offer you a substantial contribution from his discretionary funds to tide you over, plus a guarantee that Sebrat House will be preserved and guarded during your absence, and so on … ma'am.”

A bribe to uphold the law must be something new.

“I wasn't aware that I had an audience with the First scheduled.”

Sazen's remarkably outstanding ears did wiggle then. That happened, Irona had decided, whenever he felt pleased with himself. “At midmorning, ma'am.
Sea Dragon
will depart on the noon ebb, so we have taken the liberty of warning your majordomo that your baggage should be ready well before then. Once you are at sea, the malefactors will be unable to get at you.”

“I have promised my vote—”

“For Ledacos 692's election as Seven? He will be a shoo-in now, ma'am.”

That was going too far, much too far! The Seventy prided themselves on being inscrutable and utterly independent. Having a minor clerk from the depths of the government dare to predict one of their decisions was intolerable.

“You seem remarkably sure of that!”

Sazen flashed his buckteeth at her. “But there was an attempt on his life! That hasn't happened for eighty-nine years, not since—”

“I suppose,” Irona barked, “that there can be no doubt that the evil magic peddlers were truly responsible for Honorable Ledacos's sudden indisposition? It was not, perhaps, sleight of hand by the Section to make certain I would be elected? And now him also?”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that, ma'am!” The little man frowned. “I cannot recall anyone ever being elected by diarrhea.”

Sea Dragon
was one of the navy's newest biremes, powered by a crew of two hundred. She led a flotilla of three, the others being her sister ships
Sea Dog
and
Sea Demon
. Irona felt flattered that she inspired so much hard work by twelve hundred male biceps.
Sea Danger
and
Sea Death
were to follow later in case reinforcements were needed. The Navy Board was not noted for imagination when it came to names.

It was good to go to sea again, to feel the salty wind in her hair, to sleep, often, on beaches and listen to the cry of gulls and the rush of surf on shingle.

In addition to Governor-Elect Irona,
Dragon
also carried Vlyplatin, Sazen Hostin, and the new marine commander of the Vult station, Quebrada Bericha, ranking as both general and commodore. He was probably little older than Irona herself, but he weighed twice as much and looked as if he might wrestle walruses for recreation. He had coarse features and no detectable sense of humor. She knew at a glance that she was going to have trouble with him.

During the five-week voyage, though, he was rarely in evidence. He rowed like a common marine all day, every day, just for the exercise, albeit wearing his bronze helmet so everyone would notice. When
Sea Dragon
beached, as happened roughly every second night, he went for an hour's run or swim. On nights when the flotilla pulled into a port to top up its stores—six hundred hardworking men went through incredible quantities of food and fresh water—the local magistrates always invited the visiting Chosen to a hastily prepared banquet. Then Bericha had to accompany her, but he did so unwillingly and displayed few social graces.

The goddess sent calm seas appropriate for galley travel, and Irona enjoyed herself thoroughly. She had Sazen Hostin to entertain her by day with long and detailed histories of the Empire's struggle against Maleficence. Vult was the limit of imperial power, a permanent blockade to the importation of evil.

By night she had Vlyplatin Lavice for company, whether in a tent or the guest suite in a succession of mansions. At first Vly seemed convinced that with enough effort they could produce nine babies in one month. Gradually, though, as the voyage continued, a change came over him; his mood darkened and even his lovemaking faltered, which had never happened since they had become lovers that epic night of the Naval Ball in 703. He wouldn't say what troubled him, but she suspected he was starting to learn just what they were in for and blamed himself for it.

Irona's Vult mission would be a total failure in her own eyes if she didn't produce a baby there.

On what she expected to be the third-last day of the voyage, Irona paraded along the catwalk between the upper ranks of rowers. She had waited for a water break, when the men were given a chance to rest on their oars and enjoy a drink. That many of them used the opportunity to do another sort of watering did not bother her; they were all facing outboard and nobody shouted rude things at a Chosen. She reached the bow and came back, stopping at Quebrada Bericha's cushion.

“Tonight,” she said, “right after the meal, I want you at a council.”

He feigned ignorance. “About what, ma'am?”

“If you have to ask, I have more problems than I thought.” She went back aft, to the canopied area where she could sit in comfort and admire all those arms.

“You should have sent me to tell him,” Vly said accusingly.

“Oh, I enjoyed it!” In truth, the crew would have called him nasty names, which would have embarrassed her.

By evening, the weather was changing, the sky cloudy, rain spitting, a sign that they were drawing close to their objective. The marines pitched Irona's tent on the only decent patch of grass in sight, between the shingle beach and the inland scrub. She had just finished her meal in her tent when Bericha loomed huge outside the doorway. He wore a simple smock and carried his helmet under his arm. She wondered if he slept in it.

She sent Sazen and Vly away. They both frowned at this dismissal, but she wanted no witnesses to the coming confrontation.

The commander-elect settled on the stool Vly had just vacated. It creaked ominously. He smiled, which made his face even more gruesome. “Now, ma'am, what's worrying you?”

“Nothing except the weather, which we can't do anything about. But we must agree on what will happen when we arrive at Vult. The fortress cannot be approached unseen, I am informed. So the garrison will know we are coming.”

He nodded. “But we outnumber them. They won't give us any trouble.”

A promising draft text for an epitaph, that. “The fortress is reputed to be invincible. Better to avoid the use of force if possible, yes?”

“Of course,” he said, looking as if he didn't agree at all. Peaceful transactions won no medals.

“And it is normal for the new governor to arrive in one galley, not three.”

“Ah!” He leaned back as far as he could on the stool and crossed one massive thigh over the other. “But my orders are to protect you, ma'am, so if you are going to suggest that I don't go in with my full complement, then I will have to disagree.”

She was tempted to squelch him right there, but she would have to work with this muscle-bound dugong for the next year.

“What happens after, Commodore? You land your men on the beach and … ?”

“First I relieve General Gabulla of command and place him under arrest. Then I proceed to locate Governor Zajic and arrest him, also. And after that, I report to you, ma'am, that the post has been secured and you can disembark and take over.” He beamed reassuringly. Nothing to worry her pretty little head about.

“The only problem with that, Commander, is that you have no authority until I have read myself in as governor. Suppose this Gabulla man arrests you instead?”

Bericha colored. “That is an absurd suggestion, ma'am! I have my orders!”

“So do I,” she said. “Have your orders, I mean. I have a copy of them, and they clearly state that you are under my command unless and until your men come under attack. Only in the face of armed rebellion or breakdown of civil authority can you overrule me. Correct?”

He nodded, redder than ever.