23
“YOUR SUPREME REVERENCE,” Pasus said. He did the full courtier’s gait, three steps forward, dipping to his knees with his hands to his heart, then three steps more.
And thus he approached the thunderstruck Tyrus in the presence chamber, and other various privy councilors backed away to cede authority to him.
“Senator von Pasus,” Tyrus said, looking and sounding unshaken, though I knew he was anything but. “An unexpected pleasure. Very unexpected.”
Senator von Pasus reached out, captured Tyrus’s hands. “How excellent to see you once more.” He drew Tyrus’s knuckles to his cheeks in a slow, mock-reverent way.
Tyrus snatched his hands back as soon as they were released, folded his arms to keep them from being grabbed again. More Grandiloquy streamed into the presence chamber from other entrances. . . . And Tyrus froze. His gaze lingered on Credenza Fordyce, a strange expression washing over his face just for an instant.
I knew why. Credenza was one of the hostages who’d been left on Lumina.
And another . . . Tyrus spotted Gladdic at the edge of the crowd.
Both here. Free.
Pasus had abducted Neveni. Had he demanded the dozen Grandiloquy released in exchange for her life? How had he managed to retain Neveni after that? Why would the Luminars fall for such a paltry bargain—twelve and all the advantages they conferred for just one?
Tyrus looked to be thinking quickly. He now realized his Grandiloquy mobilized against him during our absence, and they’d also freed the hostages he’d left on Lumina—which meant the Luminars had cut a deal.
Pasus spoke: “As you can see from the assembled company, I am here to lodge a formal protest on behalf of my family and others. We believe Your Supremacy should heed the will of your foremost Grandiloquy. In fact, we demand it.”
There it was, the naked force he’d artfully concealed until now. He had Tyrus at knifepoint, and they both knew it.
Tyrus’s gaze broke from the Senator’s and roved over the crowd in a long, slow sweep. A smile crossed his lips, his eyes chilly as night. “I see my allies are behind you,” he said bitingly. “How long did it take the lot of you to scurry to the nearest strongman?”
A few such as Amador and Wallstrom stirred uneasily, those “allies” with Pasus now.
“What does it matter?” Pasus spread his hands. “You fled the consequences of a most terrible crime—the murder of your own cousin.”
Tyrus’s gaze jolted up. He looked so genuinely surprised, he could almost fool me. “My cousin? What . . . Wait. She’s dead?”
“Do not pretend to be ignorant.”
“Did my cousin perish?” thundered Tyrus, looking at all the faces about him. Then, to Pasus, “You monster. What did you do to her?”
“What did I do?” echoed Pasus.
“Did she refuse to cooperate in your treason?” Tyrus said disparagingly. How furious he looked! “You abducted and murdered a helpless woman; now you dare to stand before me with her blood on your hands—”
“You accuse me of her murder? You think anyone will believe these lies after you actively distributed heresies to the Excess?”
Tyrus shook his head. “No. Not heresies. I’d say ‘no longer,’ but they never were heresies. The Interdict’s decree was misinterpreted. According to the Interdict himself.” He reached into his pocket, and many of those about him tensed as though preparing to draw weapons. He unveiled the wooden box holding the electronic decree the Interdict had given us. “Perhaps some of you own one of these from centuries long past. Look your fill.”
A few muted gasps. They knew what they were seeing.
“Within it is a decree,” Tyrus said. “From the Interdict Orthanion. With whom I passed many hours . . . Many months, you might say, in conversation.”
With a snarl, Pasus charged forward and snatched the box, ripping it right from Tyrus’s hands.
Tyrus let him seize it, a cool, triumphant smile on his face. “Feel free to examine it, Senator. My long absence was necessary. I had questions over the wording of our Most Ascendant One’s decree on the sciences, so I did as a person of faith must—and sought the man himself to clarify with his own lips.”
Murmurs of amazement rippled about him.
“I stood face to face with him,” Tyrus said, “as he personally ordered me to foster an intellectual rebirth. He has learned the state of the Empire and he is aghast. He has charged me with restoring the sciences. To help me in this great task, he has given Nemesis personhood. This very night I will share this news with the Excess and exhibit the Interdict’s mark over her heart—so all might see. I’ve been mindful of those vicars who have required persuasion on her account, and have gone to great lengths to satisfy their concerns, as they will all see. This matter is settled. You have your next Empress, and I trust the matter of the scepter will be resolved in short order.”
Stunned silence met his words.
“This document is very clearly a forgery,” Pasus declared. “This is a laughable deception, Your Supremacy.”
If my eyes could have burned a hole into his image on the screen, they would have.
“Do not lie to your peers,” Tyrus said, “for you know it is genuine. Your family has always championed our faith. How tragic to see a crooked branch of such a noble tree.”
“This. Is. Heresy.”
“You accuse the Interdict of heresy?” Tyrus said, soft danger in his voice. “You dare?”
“I do no such thing!” cried Pasus. “Do not twist my words. Whatever deception you employed to manipulate him into honoring that creature, to manipulate him into desecrating his office . . .”
“Now you accuse the Interdict of being feeble-minded?”
Shocked gasps.
“Don’t you dare,” Pasus said.
“You dig your grave deeper with each utterance, Senator.”
“This is not legitimate,” Pasus insisted. “This is what I think of it!” He dashed the document to the floor and stomped on it.
But the reaction Pasus must have hoped for wasn’t there. Instead, there were cries, gasps, and the tiny ripple of glee over Tyrus’s face, quickly buried. “I am outraged, Senator. Outraged. You have insulted the intelligence of our Interdict, as good as called him a heretic, and now—now you destroy his decree? No more!” And before Pasus could argue, Tyrus went in for the kill, thundering to the chamber: “I look about me and I see a room of fine men and women, misled by a viper. His sin is unpardonable but not yours—not if you denounce him now.”
My heart rejoiced and anticipation crackled within me, because yes. Yes. Tyrus had turned this around, and I could have danced for the delight of it if I’d been free to move. . . .
“Let’s be absolutely clear about the stakes here,” said Tyrus, pressing his advantage. He spread his arms, and I saw then that he’d drawn the scepter to hold lightly in his hand, a symbolic reminder of the power he would inevitably hold, of the importance of winning his favor now.
He could have commanded them without it. He wore none of an Emperor’s regalia, and he was younger than every Senator among them, yet he held them in thrall. A casual glance would pinpoint him as their leader.
“Ally with this man today, and you are not just a traitor to your Emperor and your galaxy. You are declaring yourself an open and avowed foe of the Living Cosmos itself. The Interdict himself.” Tyrus let that sink in, let it settle in their minds like a tangible weight, before he said, “I was absent, and any actions taken in that situation are understandable and excusable. I do not condemn honest mistakes. All is forgiven and excused if you join your voices to mine now. All of you, denounce Pasus.”
They swayed as a body, and the physical space about Pasus grew as though he radiated poison. I saw the moment of deathly terror on the Senator’s face as his isolation grew, stranding him alone and exiled. His allies were melting way in every sense and leaving him alone. . . .
And then his face shifted. He tilted his chin up, some secretive knowledge settling in his mind. “Denounce me. But it does not change the past. We were united five months ago. In this very room, we made a decision together. And it will bind us all unto death.”
And those words, those words . . .
They rang over the chamber, and a total silence fell in their wake. Those who’d been withdrawing from Pasus froze. Those muttering, stirring as though ready to turn on their new master first . . . they closed their mouths. Those whose chests had swollen, whose faces had lit, who’d been just on the cusp of shouting their support for the Emperor (likely all eager to do it first) . . .
Like a light, that impulse was extinguished. One by one, shoulders wilted, heads bowed, and whatever influence Tyrus had seized over the Grandiloquy vanished.
Now Tyrus appeared alone among them, and from the way he looked from face to face—he didn’t understand what had happened here any more than I did.
“You were very clever, Your Supremacy.” Pasus’s voice rang out. Tyrus turned sharply toward him. “Very clever, indeed. But you see, all of us in here took an action to mitigate damage you yourself had done. We all worked in concert. All of us, but for the few who were hostages still on that planet. We meant to address the heresies you seeded on Lumina. And do not tell me again that they are not heresies. Perhaps you did twist the Interdict’s arm, but I’ve seen no such decree and, in fact, must question it from a man who also gave a Diabolic personhood.”
Tyrus opened and closed his mouth. He looked around incredulously, for the words were a shocking, open, blatant challenge to the Interdict’s authority.
There should have been outrage.
There was silence.
Then Tyrus’s face took on that total absence of expression, the telltale sign he was growing afraid so he’d switched off some part of himself that felt it. Fear crawled into my heart too.
“Gladdic.” Tyrus spoke very softly. “Approach me.”
If I could just get free, I could make it through the door and . . . and what? What? I couldn’t help. I wasn’t even strong enough to hurt Pasus.
Frustration raged through me as I watched Gladdic drop to his knees before Tyrus.
“I’ve known you for a very long time,” Tyrus said, slicing his gaze down toward him. “You will answer me honestly.” Then something spasmed across Tyrus’s face, a crack of true emotion. “Is she still alive?”
Me. He meant me.
Pain burned in my chest. That was his first thought. He feared they’d killed me.
“Yes,” Gladdic said quickly. “Nemesis is alive.”
Tyrus’s expression twisted a moment before he schooled it back into impassivity, and I felt like I’d been dealt a blow that stole my breath. How I weakened him. He was so controlled in the face of every setback—except for the prospect of my destruction. I was his weakness just as he was mine, and if anything could override his good sense, it was his fear for me.
Pasus stepped between them. “Your abomination lives. Because I chose to keep her alive—as a favor to you. You must be made to understand the situation you have returned to. Look over there.”
He pointed to an imaging ring planted on the floor. A holographic projection fizzled to life above the ring, and I knew what it was showing. The Central Square on Lumina.
“You gave them technology,” Pasus said as Tyrus, confused, watched the image of Luminars roving about their capitol city. “You gave them independence. Neither were yours to give. You were clever to leave them human shields of our ranks to protect them. We couldn’t possibly save all twelve from their different locations on the planet. So instead, we visited each in turn and inoculated them.”
“Inoculated?” Tyrus echoed.
And then I saw what the dozen Grandiloquy hostages had been inoculated against.
Brownish-yellow clouds swelled amid the mass of people. And the crowds in that image began to run, but it was too late and the cloud expanded, expanded. My breath caught in my throat when a suspicion came over me about just what I was seeing.
There was no sound, but the mouths of those we could see opened in screams as the cloudy wave began to consume Central Square.
I had never seen it myself, but I knew what I was looking at: a bioweapon in action. The most potent bioweapon in the Empire.
Resolvent Mist.
Understanding crashed over me: the hostages hadn’t been rescued.
They’d been shielded. Then everyone else around them had been killed. Every Senator in the presence chamber had been in on it.
Tyrus took a reflexive step back from the imaging ring as those people in the square began to boil about with panic. They scrambled to escape the very air, piling atop one another in their desperation, clawing at the ground, at one another, at themselves. . . .
So this was their covenant. This was the bond too powerful to be broken: they’d committed an act of mass murder together. As I stared at the image of Lumina, where dying Luminars glowed at me, a deep certainty welled in my heart: Tyrus and I were doomed. The Luminars had been his most stalwart allies, and Pasus had done this to them. They were ordinary people and he had done this. How cruelly and cleverly he’d struck this blow, and implicated every last one of the power players in the Empire in his scheme to ensure they would never betray him for Tyrus.
Because Tyrus could not let this stand.
Tyrus would avenge this, if he had the power. They all shared this guilt. They all merited punishment.
No decree from the Interdict, no appeal to reason, no clever maneuvering could overcome this.
A buzzing sound filled my ears as I watched the victims on Lumina expelling the blood they were hemorrhaging inside by coughing, vomiting, then collapsing. . . . And so swiftly it struck, and so swiftly it receded. In less than a minute, all had gone still.
I stared at the feed in the presence chamber—where Tyrus was transfixed by unvarnished horror at the sight before him. Tyrus spoke, his voice strangled: “That wasn’t real. Surely that . . . You didn’t . . . That didn’t happen.” But he cast a look about, waiting for someone to reveal the jest, and he paled as no one confirmed that his fears were empty.
In Tyrus’s shock, Pasus asserted mastery. He strode up right behind Tyrus and clapped his hands on his shoulders. He drew him back toward him in an overly familiar manner that reeked of disrespect.
“What you saw is what happened,” he said quietly, speaking right near Tyrus’s ear. “It was a dreadful and doleful event, and it was done because of you.”
Tyrus couldn’t seem to muster a word. All that careful self-control, all that self-discipline was extinguished by shock, and had I been in there . . . I could have offered nothing. Now I just stared in mute bewilderment, for none of it felt quite real.
“I have assumed the regency in your absence with a very heavy heart, Tyrus, fearing you would never return . . . Preparing in case you did. Concealing my hand, even cloaking all news of Lumina from the rest of the galaxy under the guise of protecting those precarious independence negotiations . . .”
The words seemed to snap Tyrus out of some paralysis. He ripped forward out of Pasus’s grasp. “How many?” he demanded.
When no answer came, he whipped around, staring with a ghastly look on his face at those Grandiloquy all about him. “HOW MANY? Someone must know. How many people did you murder on that planet? How far did that weapon spread?”
When there was still no answer, he raised his hands, clutching at his hair, the frozen reflection of the holograph casting a sickly light on his face. “There are billions on Lumina. Someone tell me. How many died?”
Pasus finally answered.
“All of them.”
All of them.
All. The words resounded through my head.
The world swayed. I had to get into the next chamber. I had to get there now. But the magnetized clamp trapping me against the wall wouldn’t give, however I pulled on it. With a roar of frustration, I pulled with both hands, then even pushed with my neck. . . . That wasn’t a good idea.
I gasped for breath, as trapped as before.
Voices floated from the feed of the presence chamber. . . .
“Your Supremacy surely sees now the position you are in. I will list our terms for you.” There was no answer for a beat, and Pasus took that as a reason to go on: “We require an Emperor. That much was clear before you disappeared for a long interval. In fact, we do want to see you wielding the scepter once more, but only—”
“Are you mad?” Tyrus rasped.
I angled myself to the side so it wasn’t my esophagus pressing against the clamp. I bent my legs so I could push with all four limbs, and . . . and the slightest give! It pulled away, but then fastened back against the wall.
I was on the right track. I just needed to recover my breath—and then use all the force I could muster.
“Are you utterly mad?” roared Tyrus again, and I twisted about to see him encircled by them in the presence chamber. “What . . . what kind of . . . What . . .” He stumbled over his words as though he could find none for this. . . . And then he howled at them: “How can you see that and live with yourselves? How can any of you? You have terms? TERMS? You honestly believe I will turn away from genocide?”
He surged toward Pasus but bodies blocked his way, and Tyrus seemed afire with fury, madness.
“You think I will consent to be your puppet, and rule as you say, as you wish, when you have murdered all those people? I would sooner fall into a black hole! The lot of you deserve to burn for this!”
With a gritting of teeth, I threw myself back and yelled out as this time, the magnet was driven from the wall, and with a twist of my body, it whipped away from my neck and reconnected to the wall with a clang.
I collapsed to the ground, gasping for air, bathed in sweat. I surged to my feet, and how heavy, how wrong my legs felt even now with the neural suppressor humming in the air, but I shoved my way through the door as Pasus purred, “You seem to think we are asking you to behave as we wish. You’re mistaken.”
Bodies blocked my way. I raged at the strength I’d lost, for normally I could fling them aside like so many puppets, or hurl myself onto their shoulders.
“We anticipated your resistance, Your Supremacy,” said Pasus. “And that’s why I had the foresight to spare your abomination. She will even be permitted to sit at your side as Empress, provided you cooperate.”
My steps paused, for that was why I was alive. He meant to use me against Tyrus.
“I don’t believe you,” Tyrus said scornfully. “You will kill her one way or another. I won’t even give you that chance.”
Through the gap in the bodies, I saw him pull something from his sleeve—an energy weapon. Shouts and cries sounded about me, and Pasus’s servants and lackeys formed a human shield before him. Behind the shelter of their bodies, he called to Tyrus, “What does Your Supremacy think you will gain?” There was amusement—damn him—in his voice as he spoke. “You cannot hope to kill all of us with that!”
Tyrus took one deliberate step back after another. “You’re right.” His voice was quiet, resolved. “I only get one shot. Best make it count.”
Then Tyrus angled his weapon toward that thin sheen of diamond protecting the chamber from the unforgiving void beyond.
So he could blow out the window. And vent every last person in this chamber to space.