Sava's Journal, entry 1

26 Fevralye 4999 - Falling towards Istakhr

We are currently three days inside the Jumpgate of the Istakhr system. Istakhr itself is barely a pinprick of light; only great Harb is barely identifiable as a salmon-pink point, off to one side of Istakhr's sun through the viewport of our tiny vessel, variously named Ill-Conceived Embrace, Mendip II and That Damned Shoebox...

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It has taken me this long - nearly ten days ship-time out of Malignatius - to bring myself to the point of marking the virgin paper in this journal. I bought it from a vendor of religious texts and papers at New Jakovgrad, intending to keep a diary of my travels. I looked forward to the distraction that writing would give me in the endless days on this cramped vessel. But I find it hard to marshal my thoughts into a narrative. They endlessly reverberate inside the hull like gleamflies in a discarded food canister so that I am hypnotised into stasis by their buzzing.

But see: here I make my mark with the silver char-pen I inadvertently took from Boss Samho Hung's desk when I disciplined her. My thoughts are made permanent. My handwriting needs work and I can make no excuse for the indelible blackening the pen causes on the paper.

I do not know for whom I am writing. My father? You are first in my mind but I am hesitant to write to you. Perhaps this journal is a displacement activity. Perhaps I will present it to you when I return to Zuviev Estate. Perhaps you will tell me how to forgive Maya.

My confessor, sweet Sister Shui-Lin Li-Halan? But I confess to you - or at least, I will - in spoken words, and so then do your penance. I do not believe the thoughts I expect to record here are a matter for contrition as my actions are. You will question my motives in any case, and help me resolve moral quandaries. No, I do not write for you.

The Twins? You sent a sniper after me. Although I'm unwounded my feelings are hurt. I could easily hate you but I do not want to. Could I win your surrender by allowing you to understand me better? I don't think so. I find myself reluctant to try to find your head-space at all. All I see now is violent evil, and it appals me. No, I do not write for you.

The Jakovian Agency? Perhaps. I expect I will touch on mysteries of motive and discovery in these pages. Such things are useful intelligence. But I do not restrict myself to dry analyses and reports of investigations. I write purple prose that even to me seems mawkish and self-indulgent, and I beg forgiveness from you, my vastly-more-experienced reader. In the last month I have often felt and regretted my callowness. So Jakovian: read, and try to forgive.

Later

And so to narrative. Accompanied by Sister Shui-Lin I escaped Cadiz towards Severus and then onwards to Cadavus. I would have preferred Malignatius, as being on the more direct route to Nowhere, but connections were against us and I begrudged any time at all spent waiting in the shadow of my siblings' vendetta. I was still weak and under the sister's medical care as well as spiritual care. I was still somewhat surprised she had agreed to become my confessor, for she seemed so well-placed caring for the ill in the hospice. Destiny, perhaps.

I was not impressed by the very small part of Cadavus that I saw. Perhaps this is mere bitterness, for in order to make a pretence at concealment I did not present myself to my nearer relatives on the world and but abided incognito in the dusty Summer-scourged emptiness of the starport city. Obviously I'm not as good at this as I would like, for within two days on the world I was tracked down by Commander Teddy Valenti, former first mate of the Virtuously Mendip, on which I had previously travelled to Severus. Teddy offered me passage from Cadavus to Nowhere and I somewhat precipitously agreed. I thought it impossible he would be working for the Twins but he must have had his own reasons for attaching himself to me, for my passage will not make him rich, and (as circumstances have shown) are likely to put him into considerable danger.
Destiny addressed this latter element for me. I learned of an errant Brother Battle resident in a nearby tavern. I went there to ask him whether he would guard my party as I quested to Nowhere and he, Brother James, veteran of Stigmata, readily agreed. I confess I do not understand his motives for doing so either, but I will not look a gift brute in the mouth. Not that Brother James is a brute: he is one of the most skilled and savvy warriors I have ever met. I wonder, if he is the measure of the Brother Battle, why we have not won already on Stigmata. Or perhaps the Symbiots are just equally fearsome, which thought chills me to the bone.

Teddy had a condition for the passage to Nowhere: we would start with a quick run to Barter, which we would only just catch before it exited through the Jumpgate. I agreed, little understanding the time it would take. My party presented itself to Teddy's vessel, a jump-tug apparently named Ill Conceived Embrace, the next morning.

Would that I had walked away! ICE, a utility craft with delusions of adequacy, was cramped quarters for one person. For the four of us, plus a coffin-sized cargo container, it was hell. I can only consider that my madness began here, for so far I have voluntarily subjected myself to nearly a month aboard this space-borne standing-room-only oubliette. I am afraid that I am beginning to grow accustomed to its confinement, like wearing in a new corset or pair of boots. On Malignatius the inhabitants take dips in freezing rivers that they cut to through the ice, in order to better appreciate the warmth of a fire and the solace of vodka. Confinement on ICE is similar, I think. Never have I wanted to be anywhere as much as I want to walk free on Istakhr when we get there. I lie awake on my narrow bunk and its indifferently old, musty-smelling foam mattress, dreaming of the sensation of the wind on my cheeks - and air that does not smell like the insides of all our lungs and guts. I will drink clean cold water that has not passed through our bodies so many times... and so recently. I will gaze across vistas that are so big I cannot reach forward to touch them. I will step sideways if I want, or spin like a dervish with my arms outstretched. I will shout and dance and laugh. I will shuck off this tiny shell and spread my butterfly wings. There are tears of longing in my eyes as I write this.

This is the other purpose of the Ill-Conceived Embrace besides the journey itself. She makes it impossible not to lust for planet-fall. By the Pancreator, I was even glad to set foot on Cadavus again after we returned from Barter.

Barter was just about worth the trip. It is a travelling graveyard of spaceships welded together hodge-podge, inhabited by the venal and the desperate, all brittle with forced bonhomie because death by hard vacuum is only ever a thin and indifferently maintained membrane away. I met a vorox, Ungo, who was our guide on Barter. What a wonderful thing to enjoy the loyalty of such a creature - if only for coin, and only for a few hours!

It turned out Teddy's mission to Barter was a pretext to frame him for the murder of the ICE's previous owner and theft of the boat itself. Both charges were clearly ludicrous, and so to tie up loose ends the people responsible for the frame also hired two mooks to shoot Teddy. Teddy was indeed shot and injured, but Brother James and I dealt with the attackers before they could do any real damage. Later, I wondered at the fierce anger that awoke in my heart when Teddy was shot. I think it was because I had taken Teddy into my entourage and so was responsible for his safety: I let him down, failed in my duty, by allowing him to be injured. I don't think it was because I still fancied him as I had idly on the earlier journey from Severus. He's cute, but somehow he's just not my type. Ah, well. Brother James is also pretty hunky, but his serious, pious demeanour is off-putting. And dear Shui-Lin? I would not presume to sully her faith. I would never hurt her.

Fortunately for our collective tranquillity I have my own cabin on the ICE and an active imagination...

But I digress. Brother James and I killed the mooks. We determined they were low-ranking Muster hired by the Scraver cabal that had framed Teddy. Teddy decided to deal with the blot on his name by taking the evidence back to Cadavus to extract a confession of complicity from his hirer, the Charioteer Boss Samho Hung. It seemed reasonable even though it meant another week trapped in the ICE and a return to Cadavus, a world I should have left long behind. At least this time we had spices and sauces for the food cubes and I had alcohol to dull the pain of ennui, and a biography of Emperor Alexius to occupy my mind. Sister Shui-Lin took up translating Obun poetry, and I think I will follow her lead at some stage. Intellectual stimulation, problem-solving, must be a better time-killer than mere narrative.

Samho had also endured a long and tense fortnight, for her reaction on our entry to her office was to shoot me with a blaster pistol. Fortunately my Shield and armour absorbed all the energy! Samho was convinced to sign the confession (and I instilled some proper Fear in her for daring to shoot at one of the Decados), but on our way to the Agora and the Dean's Office, we were sniped at from a nearby rooftop. Samho was killed instantly and only my Shield saved me. I hoped briefly that it was merely the last act of Teddy's drama but the fact that I had also been a target forces me to conclude that the assassin was working for the Twins. I am annoyed at them. A sniper is so random, so undramatic. If I were to be sensible and teach myself to fear another sniper I would scarcely go planet-side at all, and that would cramp my tourisma. I will not let them force me to deny myself enjoyment of the places through which I travel.

We left Cadavus quickly after that, even though it meant, Pancreator spare us, another fortnight aboard the ICE.
Some time later we arrived at Malignatius, and left quickly again after stocking up on supplies and a new viewport that cracked as badly as the old one as soon as we hit vacuum. The look on Teddy's face was worthy of a portrait. There really isn't anything more to add about my exposure to Malignatius. It's cold and dull. At least, around the starport. Only in seeing a map of the world do I really begin to suspect how vast a planet is, and how superficially we treat them in favour of the cramped distances between them. When I am free of my quest and the vendetta I will travel more leisurely, and see more of these worlds. I hope.

Teddy hinted that he had tracked me down to offer me transport because 'some member' of the Charioteers was interested in my destiny. An investment, perhaps? The Guilds certainly outnumber the nobility so it is not implausible that they might assign entire guildsmen to run after the nobility to win their esteem. It seems arbitrary, however. I think this Charioteer cabal has its own purpose that not even Teddy might know. Perhaps some deal was done by Yevgeny in his own travels. I will continue to pry.

Later - two days out from Istakhr

Now that we are further from Cadiz I begin to see the uses of family. The firebirds Yevgeny gave me are significantly diminished in getting me even this far. I have needed to pay for food and shelter, mostly for discretion but also because I lack letters of introduction. I was unable in my short time on Severus to accept hospitality from any of my cousins at Hiram's court and so gain references from them onwards. I fear I must presume on some Decados as we travel, and compensate by being a more than agreeable guest. Ideally I would gain letters of introduction to Al Malik and possibly Hawkwoods as well.
And then there is always duelling. A good showing might win me friends and admirers. Worth thinking about - that and the opportunity to test my art against the techniques of other Houses! I'm certainly sick of practicing up and down the main corridor, too. I need some time in a far larger space or I will lose (more) condition.

Later - less than one day out from Istakhr (Pancreator be praised!)

I have confessed my sins on Cadavus, Barter and Malignatius to Sister Shui-Lin and received her penitent forgiveness. For a fact I think her sentence light. I am bemused by the way she regards the Decados way - in some fiefs her sentiments would be regarded as borderline Republican. Fortunately she is the confessor to a moderate who as yet, still feels the worth of letting her lessers retain their dignity. It was ever my intention to rule Zuviev - for such thoughts as I had ever given the matter - as my ancestors have done so. There is an ancient phrase: laissez-faire. So long as the serfs and yeomanry keep our peace and submit their service and taxes we do not interfere in their lives. We could most certainly work our people harder as some other Decados do but this is ultimately counter-productive. Unrest. Disease. Rapine. I would not rule a waste-land, especially one that I had created.

Surprisingly, Shui-Lin also questioned my habitual pious regret for my nature and suggested that I should not regard it as a sin since I was not responsible for it. She had a point about the Pancreator limiting His omnipotence to the extent of allowing us free will but I think I baulked on the subtleties of her point. I will ask further. I think in concealing half my identity I am not being true to myself, and the longer it goes on like this the less like the Pancreator's template for me I become. Istakhr beckons: the fashions of the Grand Bazaar are unrivalled among the Known Worlds. I will become myself, and I can only hope my travelling companions will cope.

What should I wear?