Emperor of Thorns

‘So why aren’t you?’

‘Why aren’t we what?’

‘Seen? Why was it just you haunting that cellar?’

Another smile, more of bitterness in it than of friendship. ‘Second class citizen. The menial duties fell to me. Keeping an eye on the savages.’

I had to remind myself that the Fexler who shared anything with me lay on the floor, his blood cooling around him. The Fexler talking to me was not a man, just the idea of a man, an idea held in a machine. I reached out a foot to nudge the dead man. Fexler’s echo shuddered as if the action disturbed him.

‘So why did he kill himself?’ I asked. ‘And what stopped him?’

‘He started a war,’ Fexler said. ‘And finished it.’

‘Hell I lit up one of your suns, it didn’t make me take a knife to my throat straight after.’

‘The weapons Fexler Brews launched could not be detonated with a fire.’

‘You saw that?’ Fexler’s ghost had been watching me six years back, under Mount Honas?

‘Our weapons burned like suns – exactly the same way. Each needs a trigger to ignite it, a smaller, more primitive implosion. Your fire at Silo Eleven using weapons relocated from Vaucluse melted the implosion components into a critical mass. What you saw was a partial ignition of the trigger that would then light the sun. The fuel for the “suns” is short-lived, it’s a matter of half-life, the fuel for the rockets that bore them lasts little longer. All that remains now are the triggers.’

I wondered if the original Fexler had liked the sound of his own voice so much. In any event it was a sobering thought to know I laid waste to Gelleth with a fraction of the spark that would light a true Builder Sun. And despite my words, the dead of Gelleth had haunted me, literally and in dreams. To have burned the whole world in such fashion would have been … uncomfortable.

‘And even with his gun he didn’t manage to kill himself?’ With such toys at their disposal it seemed unforgivable for any Builder to fail in the act of taking a life.

‘These cubicles were designed to hold key personnel in stasis until conditions improved to the point where life might be sustained outside again. Fexler was perhaps not thinking clearly as he sat here wrestling with his conscience. Maybe he didn’t appreciate that the automatic systems would kick in to preserve him or perhaps he just didn’t realize how quickly they could act.’

‘Either way, he left you in the shit along with all the real people in the world.’

‘He did.’ Fexler’s image flickered, a frown above his eyes.

I grinned. It must have been odd to spend a thousand years cursing the man you were copied from. ‘So now I’ve freed you and you get to swim in your sea with the big fish, and not waste time watching the savages. What do I get out of it?’ Still holding the view-ring to my eye I pulled the gun from Fexler’s warm, dead hand, careful not to point the business end my way. He seemed reluctant to let it go.

‘Unfortunately we need to watch the savages even more these days,’ Fexler said. ‘The machines that still keep running won’t run for ever, and unless you people get past swords and arrows there’s never going to be anyone to maintain them. Maintenance requires civilization, and we’re not going to get civilization again until all the wars stop.’

‘You couldn’t stop your own wars, Fexler.’

‘He couldn’t.’ Fexler looked down at his corpse. ‘I’m another matter.’

I pursed my lips. ‘Either way – it sounds as though you’d like there to be an emperor on the Gilden Throne.’

21

Five years earlier

In the dry and deathless halls of the Builders, beneath the poisoned dusts of Iberico, I sat half-delirious with fever and spoke to a ghost who had helped me kill the man from whom he sprang.

‘And who do the ghosts in your machines want to rule this empire of servants for them?’ I asked.

‘Orrin of Arrow is favoured by our projections,’ Fexler said. ‘A peacemaker. A man of progress.’

‘Hah!’ I spat from a dry mouth, aching in every limb. ‘So you’ve no real interest in my leaving here to stop him then?’

‘Projections favour Orrin,’ Fexler agreed.

I kicked the warm corpse at my feet again. ‘Are you … is he likely to stand up again? I seem to have made a new friend, the Dead King. Takes an unhealthy interest in me. I find him watching out of any pair of dead eyes that are handy. Would it upset you if I dismember him … you … a little? Just to be sure?’ Part of me hoped Fexler would object and save me the effort of all that hacking. He shook his head as if the matter were unimportant.

‘Projections favour Orrin, but some of us prefer to bet on longer odds for greater rewards,’ Fexler said.

‘Why so? What rewards? I’d bet on Orrin too if I had a stake.’ The words tumbled from numb lips, the poison pulsed in me, I could smell my wounds. That’s what happens when you stop. Take a rest and the world catches up with you. Lesson in life – keep moving.

‘You may recall,’ Fexler stepped closer, edging between me and his earthly remains, ‘that we spoke about a wheel. About how my generation’s greatest works were nothing to do with new ways to scorch the earth but how to change the rules of everything, how to alter the way in which the world worked?’

‘Vaguely.’ I waved a trembling hand. ‘Something to do with making what we want matter.’ It didn’t seem to have worked. I wanted him to shut up now and leave me alone, and that wasn’t happening.

‘Almost.’ Fexler smiled. ‘The physicists called it an adjustment of quantum emphasis. But the effect was to change the role of the observer. Of you and me. For the will of the observer to matter. So man could control his environment directly through the force of his desire, rather than through machinery.’

I had the feeling that if I died he would carry on saying his piece to my corpse.

‘Unfortunately that wheel wasn’t just turned – it was set turning. It hasn’t stopped. In fact, like so many things in nature, the process has a tipping point and we’re reaching it. The fractures in the world, in the walls between mind and matter, between energy and will, between life and death, they’re all growing. And everything is in danger of falling through the cracks. Each time these powers, the ability to influence energy or mass or existence, are used, the divergence grows. These are the magics you know as being fire-sworn, or rock-sworn, or as necromancy and the like. The more they are used, the easier they become, and the wider the world is broken open. And this Dead King of yours is just another symptom. Another example of a singular force of will being used to change the world and, in doing so, accelerating the turn of that wheel we released.’

A sigh, and a panel I hadn’t seen before opened on the wall to my left. Enough light came from the cavity behind to illuminate the room. I lowered the view-ring but Fexler vanished, so I set it back to my eye.

‘Take the pills.’ Fexler pointed to the cavity. ‘Swallow two a day until they’re gone. They will cure your sepsis.’

I got to my knees and scraped the handful of yellow tablets from the alcove. They were the only thing there, and I saw no means of delivery. My throat hurt as I swallowed two of them. They could be poison but Fexler likely had a thousand ways to kill me if he wanted that.