I am clean of Symbiot taint. The examiners, interrogators and chirurgeons of the Brother Battle are sure of this. I have spent most of a week with them, hiding nothing, completely complicit in their torture of my body, mind and soul. We were rigorous in my scourging: to be anything less, to be careless, would have had too high a price.
It was not a pleasant experience nonetheless. I was made to reveal all my secrets, shameful in my deviation from the human norm. The worst part was that they did not seem to care. As long as I was not tainted, I was not their problem. In a way it was worse than the Avestites: at least they took an interest.
My friends are clean too. The Pancreator be praised!
19 Aprelye 4999 — the Ill-Conceived Embrace, Ishtakhr orbit
Once more Ishtakhr’s dusty horizons curve behind us. It has been a torrid few days. I am sadder and I feel older. At least we have now some of the puzzle.
We came to Ishtakhr once more as discretely as we could, setting down at Baram, Prince Amir’s capital, rather than at Samarkhand. We were hunting Freka Decados. I reasoned that even if she had left Ishtakhr after our last encounter there, she would leave behind agents to continue tracking us. Ishtakhr is just too good a transit point not to watch, especially as it was not a huge leap to deduce that were headed to Nowhere via Stigmata, and so would be likely to return the same way. I wanted answers from her. I was prepared to be unpleasant about it. I did not need to. I was forgiving instead.
After returning to Samarkhand via aeroplane we booked into the ‘Royal Gwynneth’, a hotel catering to the Hawkwoods. I found its environs restful, if prissy, its staff attentive, if sniffy, and its atmosphere of genteel calm beyond reproach. I was amused at the occupants’ reaction to my obvious house affiliation, but they were not too proud to take my money.
We split up to pursue Freka according to our means. Shui Lin checked the Amalthean hospice for injured parties. I remade the acquaintance of Sir Juan Cadesse de Hazat. Teddy checked with the Charioteers and the word on the street (or at least, in the pub). All drew blanks. At the hospice, Shui Lin learned that a wounded man answering the description of the one Teddy shot in the last fight with Freka’s men had checked in and out some weeks ago. Sir Juan had never seen Freka again after Prince Amir’s party, but did give me her address, an apartment. This had been relet by a selchakah-addicted Al Malik lordling. There was no sign here of Freka.
Freka’s cell was not active. The desert dunes at the edge of the spaceport were mazed and fractured with plasma-glass and craters: Teddy’s escapade had probably led to our missile-firers being vaporized.
It was all very frustrating. I could not think how to find her had she left Ishtakhr after all, or even where to look next for guidance. We mused desultorily over a fine but stodgy Hawkwood-style dinner and retired to our rooms.
In my room The Assassin lay in wait. Literally. On my bed. I cursed my foolishness for not insisting on barbarically wearing my rapier down to dinner. I could see it still sheathed on the dressing table. Fortunately I was still wearing my shield!
But The Assassin had not come to attempt to kill me again. She made no sudden moves, but began to speak of her experiences in hunting me. I found my gaze unable to shift from regarding her: her skin piebald with pigmented camouflage; her fingers and toes startlingly expressive with their extra joints; her eyes dark; her curves slender and athletic but no worse than mine; her lips full and moist…
There was no hint of love here, but there was lust. I could see it was reciprocated. But we spoke for a time first. She told me her handler was the man I had met as ‘Jakob’. Jakob was safe. She had given up the vendetta job as soon as she found out Freka was doing her own thing. Which was her business reason for breaking into my suite: she knew where Freka was. Her price was not objectionable to either of us.
It was an interesting encounter, and she was gone before I awoke. A pity. I would have liked to have returned some of the fear she caused me.
Somewhat refreshed the next morning, I took Brother James with me into the warrens of dumble-homes on the outskirts of Samarkhand. We hired a storage building and a groundcar and bought rations. We scouted the address The Assassin had given me and found it completely unremarkable.
We stormed into the hovel and were nearly repulsed by the stench. Freka lay delirious on a pallet, one side of her body burned to a turn by a plasma bolt’s near miss, suppurating gangrenous pus that seemed almost to phosphoresce in the guttering light of the candles. The smell was amazing: I hope I never smell it again. James did what he could to get her mobile. I gave her Elixir and she recovered enough to beg for death. All my desire for her further pain crumbled. We took her to our storage building and lay her on a clean pallet — there was no need to secure her. Brother James fetched Shui Lin and Teddy. Shui Lin began to attend to Freka while we stood around like guilty children.
Days passed. We forced Shui Lin to eat to keep up her strength and ran her errands. Finally Freka was fit to be moved again, and we took her to the hospice for better care. But it was too late. Freka sank quickly. She was conscious enough at the end to garble out some of the answers we required of her. And at least she smelled better now. When she was finished, I allowed her to be forgiven her treachery and let her die a soldier of the Decados. It was all I could do.
It was at her bedside that I learned that feudal loyalty works upwards as well as down. Freka had been betrayed by her lords, my siblings. She was not the traitor.
Freka: you sought to bring down the Decados. You sought to kill or detain me and my people for unknowable purposes. You killed in our name. But in death, you are still ours, and we will not forget your name. Pancreator forgive you, Pancreator accept you into the Light, Freka.
Freka told us of the Twins. She told us how they had suborned two Jakovian cells. She described how they had come to her and her men like angels of the Pancreator, like the Pancreator itself, so worthy of love and worship that will and judgement just had to be suspended, except where it served the Twins and their greater glory. She did not know why the Twins sought to wreck Charioteer trade with the Decados or to invite the storm of the Symbiotes onto our worlds. All she wanted to do, even at the end, was to serve the Twins and above all, to just see them once more.
Freka had been a witch of some power. I became concerned at the power the Twins wielded even over one such as her.
We left Ishtakhr for Malignatius soon after that, seeking a quick resolution to the vendetta in accord with my vision. For concealment The Ill-Conceived Embrace was bodily loaded aboard the Spittein Paulisch, a bulk freighter whose captain apparently owed a favour to Teddy. The rest of its cargo hold is filled with medical supplies bound for Malignatius, where rumours have it that the recent ‘troubles’ have been resolved with supernatural swiftness by the Twins. Somehow they have ended up in charge of the Decados contingent from Stigmata, and used this to suppress the revolt. Or perhaps they are just charming every party with their new-found witch power.
25 Aprelye 4999 — the Ill-Conceived Embrace, Malignatius jumpgate
We have learned that the Twins have left the Malignatius system a few days before we arrived. They are bound for Cadiz, where they will be hosting a reception for Prince Hyram who will reward them for their great achievement. We have to follow them! Even now the Spittein Paulisch is swinging back to the jumpgate and to go through to Cadiz system. We have to get to them before Hyram can be made part of their empire of mind-control. I have to kill my siblings.
6 Maya 4999 — Zuviev Estate
Even as a bright pinpoint, one’s home sun is a welcome sight. Now, after several days on Cadiz I can’t believe that I once took this light for granted. It’s brighter than the light of Malignatius but dimmer than the glare of Istakhr’s redder sun. It’s warmer and softer than the suns of Nowhere and Malignatius. It’s less aggressive than the sun of Severus. I am in love with my sun’s colour. It is my family too.
The Twins are dead. I killed them. The Vendetta is satisfied. I am strangely not. There is blood on my hands, the same colour as my own. I held Konstantin in my arms as he bled out from a torn femoral artery. The rain made a blur of his precious blood spilling across the landing pad. I tore him apart. I am the Zuviev, if Yevgeny can not be found alive. I am truly a Decados. Perhaps I am damned like them. Like us.
On reaching the Cadiz system, we discovered ourselves to be only a handful of days behind the Twins. There was a surprisingly small amount of traffic in the system — evidence of their actions against the Charioteers. At my request Teddy attempted to send a message to Yevgeny but this was intercepted. One merchant ship, the Hand of God 137, altered course to intercept our host the Spittein Paulisch. Our course was obvious: board and storm, but only Teddy agreed with me. I ended up ordering Brother James to play his part, and that felt discordant. I had previously enjoyed his methodical approach to our objectives but I did not realise that he could not act outside this mindset. We were on the verge of catastrophe. Anything less than swashbuckling just would not serve us, no matter what the risk. I am glad, however, that Brother James was professional enough to follow his orders even if he didn’t agree with them, and in the resulting chaos, he served me as well as he always has. I have grown accustomed to his looming form at my shoulder. I think I would feel undressed without him there. But now that my pilgrimage is over, I must give him the opportunity to serve another more deserving cause.
A small fleet jumped into the system behind us, and I recognised Prince Hyram’s flagship. This hailed us and soon I was summoned to speak directly to His Highness. Even over a scratchy intercom, it’s a good voice. It’s like being smothered in velvet.
But I digress. The Prince accepted my warning about the Twins’ witch powers with an indulgent air (he already knew to take precautions), and told me he expected the matter of our vendetta solved before the reception at Zuviev Estate. He would celebrate with ‘…whichever Zuviev lord survives to welcome him’. This, apparently, is the Decados way. Fortunately in this time it was in accord with my own plans.
Teddy took the Ill-Conceived Embrace out of the Spittein Paulisch and set us to intercept the Hand of God 137. For all its lack of amenity the ICE is apparently a superb interceptor, with its overpowered engines and industrial-grade tractor beam making the intercept very simple. Or perhaps it was just Teddy making it look easy.
The Hand of God 137 did what it could to avoid Teddy’s assault but their pilot was nowhere skilled enough. A fast approach thwarted their eluding us; a sudden spin and a frantic burn from the main thrusters thwarted their missiles; our tractor defeated their efforts to escape. Teddy and Brother James secured the Hand of God 137 with efficient ease and took its pilot prisoner. We learned from him of the Twins’ agents’ general orders to respond to anyone using the name Yevgeny, or ours.
We took both ships to Cadiz orbital and docked the ICE, making planetfall after four days at Elibyrge in the Hand of God 137. Such space! Although, much to my chagrin, I find my attitude to the ICE softening in recognition of its sterling potential as a raider. Not much of a yacht, however.
Returning to Elibyrge spaceport was odd. I found myself half-expecting to be arrested again by Death Dolls and taken to my father, who would explain the plot to me. I was disappointed when I decided I was on my own. This was asserted by the one final thing Yevgeny left for me: at the lost property office, a box containing a note from him telling me he had left the estate behind for Manitou. The mess was all mine to deal with. And I now had only a couple of days left to do so.
As commercial travellers we journeyed to Zuviev and its homely familiarity was heart-breaking to me. All was as I had left it: same skies, same horizons, same scents, same people, same accents. But I was kept apart from it: as if a sheen of glass were between me and any real contact with my place; like the couple of times in my childhood when my immune system was disconnected and I lived in a sterile room at the Institute, touching nothing, breathing no-one’s breath.
We found rooms at a poor hotel at Sailmakers Beach and began to scope our task. Teddy went to the Guilds; Shui Lin returned to her home hospice; I tried to find my old doctors from the Institute. Many of these had disappeared, which in hind-sight is a very bad sign. The Twins had set agents out to catch my fumbling attempts at infiltration, however, and one, a nurse-acolyte at the hospice, tumbled Shui Lin and alerted the Twin’s security — Zuviev security — against us. It was no worse than I anticipated. I was beyond worry at this stage: my fears for my life and my friends’ weal, and my fear that I would actually have to kill my own siblings, added to the dissociation I felt. I went through the motions.
Teddy managed to bluff his way into the Muster contingent bolstering Zuviev security at Feodosiya. I consciously fought back despair in order to use again the lesson the Gargoyle showed me, and we planned a raid on the estate that night. Shui Lin, Brother James and myself used a small boat to approach the estate from the river, while Teddy was our inside man. This proved the salvation of the plan since the mud had shifted since last I sailed on the canal and I beached our dinghy mid-water. In dealing with the guards in the grounds who heard us squelch ashore, one of them got a pistol shot off and the alarm was raised. Teddy distracted the guards and let us into the house.
We sped upstairs to hopefully find the twins. We were met on the first floor by Death Dolls. Bad. Fortunately they were yet loyal to House Zuviev and not the twins and agreed not to stand in the way of our vendetta. In hindsight this makes me think that they are shielded against witch powers (their masks? Implants?). This makes me happy.
The Death Dolls located the Twins in the Institute for me. A squad of Muster guards gave me some exercise and a pass-card needed to get through the first-floor door separating the wings of the house. We passed from the Decados opulence of the Zuviev home into the stark white surgery-space of the Zuviev Institute. I used to love this transition when I was a child.
Konstantin controlled the Institute’s security system and mocked us with it, but he had not anticipated that we would have a pass-card and could not lock that out without preventing his goons getting to us. We decided to take the security room on the ground floor, hoping to catch Konstantin there, or failing that to seize a strategic advantage over the guards.
There were six guards waiting for us in the lobby. They shot at us as soon as we emerged from the stairs. We — I — were a rabble. Shui Lin was somehow in the front of our group and took two or three bullets; I watched as if in slow motion her stumbling as the bullets hit her. I expected more blood. Why did they shoot her? She was enrobed as an Amalthean! Who shoots Amaltheans? I think a part of me died to watch her fall. After it, everything became simple. Teddy shot; James shot and charged; but by that time I was already among the guards and my dance was death. Steel shone and screamed electricity. Flesh parted, repulsed from my work like a snail from salt. Blood shouted. None of it was mine. No more of it was ours.
In the end there was the silence of the dead and dying, a relief after the gunfire. In this pause we heard a shuttle landing on the roof-port. Teddy assessed Shui Lin’s condition and I handed him the rest of my elixir to steal her back from death. We were successful — or perhaps the Pancreator had already put a protecting hand between Shui Lin’s soul and the consequences of our folly. Shui Lin lived. And so then, did my soul.
Of course, now it was full of anger. Teddy was possessed by a similar demon, I think — he stormed ahead of us in the stairwell. At the top were more guards: he bluffed past them without even slowing.
We ran to catch up. There were more guards at the top of the stairs and upon the roof.. Brother James tossed them like dolls. And I did not slow down from killing them, my passage a line of bright death.
On the roof the Twins were standing at the foot of a shuttle’s entry ramp. There were more guards with them but no Death Dolls. It was raining: one of the seasonal storms blowing in from the Eilyat Sea was dropping sheets of water from low gunmetal clouds. The lights of the landing pad and shuttle cast strips of colour across the wet maxicrete. The air steamed and shimmered off the shuttle’s skin and engine sponsons. My sword was washed clean of blood.
Everything was simple. I was still operating in some clean, mechanical mental space that matched my MercuryWire, perhaps. Konstantin gloated for a bit and then shot a blaster pistol. I don’t recall seeing its impact. Oxana ducked into the body of the shuttle. I charged across the water at Konstantin, hurtling through the Dance written in the lights in the water, while Teddy shot at him. His shield flared. He raised a textbook rapier to deflect my onslaught but it was pitifully too little. I thrust my blade into his thigh, into a soft gap between mechanism and bone, and tore out his femoral artery with a twist. The dance ended with the soft collapse of the universe. The colour collapsed out of Konstantin’s face, so much like my own. His strength washed out of his with his bright red blood in the rain and he fell heavily onto me. I helped him down to the concrete. Somewhere else Oxana howled, an insane thing with half her brain, half her soul, excised.
I killed my own brother. My life-time’s practice in the art of killing, the artifice of my fine body, and my love for my art, reached apotheosis in this moment: I had become an angel of death. I felt through our touched cheeks his heart stagger and stop. I heard his last breath lurch out of his lungs. It sounded like a curse. I am not surprised.
As I sat in misery, my tears invisible in the rain, the shuttle ramp closed — Oxana was recovered enough to attempt a getaway. Teddy shot at the shuttle’s engines and severed a feedline but it was not enough. The shuttle staggered skywards, swinging out to sea. The machine was easy to find once more. I took a squawker and took control of the defences. I ordered the shuttle cut out of the sky. At several kilometre’s distance, my vendetta struck it down with missiles and in a chrysanthemum of savage light amid the sheets of rain, it was done. Burning metal fell into the bay.
I slew my own sister.
They left me in the rain for a decent interval, but soon the Death Dolls came to me and took me to safety. This is what they do. Later they told me that the shuttle had emitted two scrambled messages in its final moments: execute, execute. I dread that I will soon find out what my sister’s retribution will look like.
Tomorrow Prince Hyram Decados will attend a reception in his honour at Feodosiya. I will host. Soon after that we will venture back into the Institute to determine what the Twins wrought, and to cleanse it of links with the Symbiote, which is very much what I fear we will find.
And then there is Maya, my mother. She is guarded now by Death Dolls. I have not spoken to her yet. Another of my fears is that she is still a tool of the Twins.
And in the near future, we will return to space to race another ‘execution’ to Leagueheim and Teddy’s mother. Manitou is on one route from Cadiz to Leagueheim. Perhaps we can race Yevgeny there.
