The Line of Polity (49 page)

15

"The monster was as greedy to fill itself as were Sober and Judge, and so, to save her husband from its jaws, Judge stole food from the compound when there was no sinning Brother to be found there."

The picture explicated this with an animation showing Judge tramping a mountain path with a great sack of food slung over one shoulder. As she walked, she dipped a hand into the sack and crammed food into her great jowly face. The woman, just to be sure, closed the book to have a look at the cover, shrugged, then continued:

"On the seventieth day Judge could find no more sinning Brothers in the compound and no more food in the warehouses, so, with much sorrow, chose to lead Brother Evanescent to the bridge."

Brother Evanescent was obviously about half a second away from acquiring a halo and, considering all that had gone before, the woman clearly guessed what was going to happen to him.

"The monster rose up before Brother Evanescent, but he was not afraid. 'I am armoured with my Faith, the Word of God is my whip, and His Grace is my Spear!' he cried and, casting aside his white robe, the good Brother revealed golden armour that glowed in the sun. In his right hand he bore a long golden spear and in his left hand he bore a whip as hot as molten iron."

The woman and the boy observed with some perplexity that the picture was precisely in concurrence with the text,

"And so for one day and one night Brother Evanescent battled the monster from under the bridge," continued the woman. "Ah, now I see."

The Brother kept attempting to spear the siluroyne whilst, with a bored expression, the creature leant an elbow on the parapet and knocked the point of his spear aside with one claw. In the background Sober and Judge were stacking wood.

"With Faith you cannot come to harm."

When the two workers gave the signal, the siluroyne picked up Evanescent, and plucked away his whip and his spear as if taking away dangerous toys from a child.

"With God's word you will chastise your enemies."

As if preparing a kebab the monster threaded the spear through the back of the Brother's armour, and used the whip to bind his arms and legs in place.

"With God's Grace your enemies will be brought down."

The purpose of the two Y-shaped sticks on either side of the woodpile now became apparent. Once ignited, the wood burned as it never ever burned on Masada.

"With all three, the world will fall at your feet!"

The woman and the boy watched as Brother Evanescent was sufficiently broiled, with implausible speed, then Sober, Judge, and the siluroyne opened up the hot parcel of his armour to enjoy a merry feast.

Loman cupped a blue rose, brought it close to his nose, and closed his eyes as the subtle perfume drew him back to his childhood. The pain of thorns penetrating the flesh of his palm was also a reminder, for at one time he had been destined to join the Septarchy and had briefly experienced their bloody discipline. Opening his eyes he surveyed the ordered beauty that stretched far away from him, and blurred into rainbow hues riding up round the inner arc of
Hope
.

The gardens of the Septarchy were beautiful indeed, which was something Loman always found surprising, considering the gardeners themselves could have little appreciation of the colours; but then perhaps, with the
Gift,
they saw them through the eyes of others? He turned now to the First Friar and studied the man: he was emaciated, almost as if he suffered some wasting illness; his dark robes, tied close to his thin frame with twists of rope made from human hair, were worn thin and losing their dye through too-frequent washing, but of course the First Friar would not know this, since sewn in the place of his eyes were the ancient memory crystals that once contained the truths of the first colonists.

"They say you construct your gardens by scent alone, and that there is a whole landscape of olfactory meaning that those of us with eyes cannot appreciate," said Loman.

"The power of myth must never be underestimated," replied the Friar.

Loman stared beyond the cropped lawns and intricate stone gardens towards the great colonnaded sprawl of the main Septarchy halls. In their white uniforms the platoons of soldiers, marching in to take up positions around the beautiful white buildings, seemed in perfect consonance. The First Friar and the two young acolytes — with their sewn-up eye-sockets — could not see this, but would know soon enough. Loman glanced around at his bodyguard scattered between the borders and neat shrubberies, then at Tholis — who was Claus's replacement and a man thoroughly aware of the precariousness of his position.

"Subtle," he said, returning his attention to the Friar. "But in the end plain power is what must not be underestimated."

"That is something I never do," said the First Friar, at last beginning to sound worried.

"Why then do you persist in occupying the upper channels with your prayers and your chants?" Loman asked.

"They are offered to the glory of God," said the Friar.

"They were intended to keep Behemoth from taking hold of our minds, and now Behemoth is dead they are no longer needed."

"How can you — the Hierarch — say that prayer is no longer needed?"

Loman sighed and, shaking his head, held out his hand towards Tholis. The man did not need the brief instruction Loman sent him via aug. He drew his pistol and placed it into Loman's still-bleeding hand.

The First Friar now tilted his head. "Why have soldiers entered the Septarchy halls?" He turned towards Loman, and the Hierarch could feel the questioning probes coming through so many channels of his aug, his
Gift,
He replied with a simple statement:

"
One whole quarter of
Hope
used for your damned Septarchy halls and damned useless gardens.
"

Now he could feel the spreading
noise
as people in the area nearby, so accustomed to bloody pogroms, reacted with panic. The Friars themselves were not panicking, accustomed as they were to being above such pogroms. No one had been killed yet, as the soldiers herding the Friars out of the halls and into their gardens were showing greater restraint than they normally showed with other citizens. This, Loman knew, was not out of any respect, but through fear of the power these Friars had enjoyed under previous Hierarchs. It was time, he decided, for someone to die and, so deciding, pointed the pistol just to the First Friar's right and fired four times. Both acolytes dropped: one of them dead before he hit the ground, the other coughing up blood from shattered lungs until Loman fired again, opening a closed eye-socket and blowing out a froth of brains across the close-cropped grass.

"
No! You cannot do this!
"

Loman carefully clicked the pistol's safety switch across then tossed it back to Tholis who caught and holstered it in one swift movement. The Hierarch was pleased with this new commander of his guard, for the man so quickly anticipated his orders that it almost seemed unnecessary to give them. Already two of the guard were closing in to take hold of the First Friar, even as Loman unhooked from his belt the sculping tool he had taken from Amoloran. The Friar did not have eyes, but he screamed as if he did when Loman cut and gouged the two memory crystals from his head, then continued screaming as the neurotoxin worked its way through the exposed raw flesh of his eye-sockets.

"
Release him, now.
"

With the two bloody crystals in his right hand, Loman stepped back while the First Friar fell face-down and in his agony seemed to be trying to bite the ground. Glancing down to the Septarchy halls, Loman saw his soldiers now needing to use more brutality to get the blind friars out into the open. He sent instructions to Tholis:

"
Finish it on their lawns and throw their bodies into the flower borders.
"

Aloud, Tholis asked, "What
are
your orders, Hierarch?"

Loman turned and gazed steadily at him, then after a moment relented: it was understandable that the man wanted to hear a direct order witnessed by others.

"I want you to kill all of these Septarchy parasites on their wonderful lawns, and I want you to throw their bodies onto the borders, so that the flowers are fertilized by their blood. Is that clear enough for you?"

"It is clear, Hierarch," Tholis replied.

They first came in high over the inhabited lands: ion thrusters filling the sky with actinic white stars in rectilinear display, on wave after wave of bulky landing craft. Below each wave the flickering of orange lights ignited the sky beyond the edge of the crater, and soon the sound of a distant storm came grumbling down onto them.

"They're bombing something," observed Gant.

"Yes," said Cormac, "let's get our gear together and get out of here."

Out of sight the craft must have turned, because soon the first waves were coming in over their heads — now heading towards the inhabited area of the planet — and Cormac supposed it was too much to hope that the Theocracy would not come to inspect this site where the creature that had destroyed their arrays had come down. As the last line of craft rumbled over, one of them peeled away and descended on the eastern side of the crater.

"Mika, move it!" he shouted, as the Life-Coven woman once again turned on the inspection light she had secured to her temple with a skin-stick pad, and delayed to study some bizarre gory object and cut samples from it. She hurried to catch up, as he stood waiting with his boot resting on the bottom of the slab.

"We could hide here," she suggested half-heartedly, indicating the macabre architecture she had been studying, which now — in the semi-dark which was all of a night this place managed — seemed to be turning into an organo-Gothic monastery. It was a protest really — she just didn't want to leave this place of such reverential interest to her.

Trotting up behind her Gant said, "Not too clever an idea — only one way out, and they'll certainly be coming down here."

"There's so much more to learn — I've hardly scraped the surface," said Mika, looking back regretfully as she stepped onto the slab to follow Apis.

"I promise that when this is all over we'll let you come back here and dig it all up," said Cormac.

"A lot of digging," said Mika. "There is, by my calculation, only fifty per cent of Dragon visible here in this crater."

Cormac caught her arm. "What do you mean?"

She gestured to the slopes on either side. "The rest of it must be buried deeper under here, or it vaporized on impact," she said.

"Remember, a lot was already sheared away from the creature," he reminded her.

She shook off his arm and moved on up the sloping stone. "I have, of course, taken all that into account," she said haughtily.

"Oh damn," said Cormac, surveying the scene in the crater with infinite suspicion, before turning to Gant. "Where's Scar?"

Gant glanced up the slope to Apis and Mika, then quickly scanned all around. Abruptly his expression became puzzled, and he lifted his fingers to touch the side of his head. "He's not responding to his comlink," he announced.

And so it begins,
thought Cormac, then instructed, "Go with the others and get them under cover. I'll catch up with you."

Gant looked set to protest, but Cormac didn't give him a chance, quickly turning away and heading back the way they had come. A glance behind showed Gant hesitate, then turn to bound easily up the slab after Mika and Apis.

Cormac quietly initiated Shuriken as he moved into the shadows of the Dragon corpse. Many years ago he had been present when the entirety of this creature had apparently suicided. He'd foolishly believed it then, so to say he was suspicious now would have been an understatement.

"Scar?"

The dracoman was crouched by a charnel hillock of black bone and broken flesh. At first Cormac thought Scar was staring at him, until he moved aside and realized the dracoman was gazing directly at the slope Gant had just climbed. Cormac moved to his side and squatted down next to him, peering in the same direction.

"What do you see?" he asked.

Scar hissed, exposing his teeth — bright white in the moonlight — then turned and just looked at Cormac.

"We have to get out of here," Cormac said.

"I stay," said the dracoman finally.

Cormac shook his head. "You're not stupid, Scar. Theocracy troops will be down here soon to investigate this place. They may find you here, and if they find you they'll certainly kill you."

Scar seemingly did not consider this worthy of a reply, and Cormac understood that perfectly. The dracoman used only such words as were necessary and never bothered formulating replies to the patently obvious. Cormac reached out to touch the dracoman's shoulder, but Scar's hand snapped up and caught Cormac's wrist — that hand was hot, febrile.

"What is happening, Scar?"

"I stay... it is soon." Scar released his wrist, then returned his attention to the slope.

Cormac stood up: he had no time to spare, and he knew he would be wasting time trying to get anything further out of the dracoman. He stepped over and picked up the denuded pack of oxygen bottles Scar had discarded.

"Take care," he said, turning to go. The dracoman bared his teeth in what might have been a grin.

The stars were now easing into visibility between ragged strips of cloud — cloud that also parted coyly to reveal the distant baroque and glassy sculpture of a nebula. Glancing at this, Cormac realized it was the same one as filled the sky of Callorum, only there he had seen it from the opposite side. As he scrambled down the sloping debris into the flute grass outside the crater, one of the moons sped across the face of the nebula like a searchlight flung by a catapult — its tumbling light occasionally stabbing through cloud gaps. Gant still waited for him at the edge of the flute grass, then led the way into a dense area where the stalks gathered in a protective wall all around.