A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (49 page)

Dai crossed to him. “You’re wounded? Let me see.”

“It’s just a flesh wound.”

“Bloody idiot,” muttered Dai. She pulled Lotsman’s hand from his side and carefully parted the rent cloth of his Imperial Commando coverall. “Looks nasty.” She straightened. “Nothing we can do here.”

Lotsman returned his hand to the wound and kept it pressed hard. He could feel blood slick beneath his palm, the cloth of his coverall slimy with it. If they had been on a battlefield in these uniforms, he thought ruefully, he would have been carrying field dressings. Those would have come in very useful.

“Let’s go,” urged Dai.

They ran through the garage, between limousines of many shapes and sizes, all floating serenely a foot above the rock floor. Dai could hear Lotsman panting behind her. He would not last long unless he received medical attention soon. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw he was having trouble staying upright. He put a hand to a limousine and left a bloody palm print on its bodywork.

She silently urged the pilot to keep moving. They had to get away from Ministries as quickly as possible. There was no way of knowing if their escape had been discovered.

Tovar was dead!

What had gone wrong?

Clearly, they were no longer required by their masters. Worse, they were a danger to them. That bitch Involute had set assassins on them. Yet there was a puzzle here. The assassins had been clad similarly to those who’d attacked
Divine Providence
on Ophavon. Why would a knight sinister use such people? Had the attack on the ship all those weeks ago been part of a knight sinister plot?

Dai could not think. It was all too complicated—wheels within wheels within wheels. She’d never had much patience for that sort of thing. That was why she’d loved being a ship’s engineer. Everything was straightforward in an engine-room. Machinery broke, you fixed it. Everything worked according to known and obvious rules.

She slowed and allowed Lotsman to catch up. She put out a hand to help him but he waved it away. His face was white and glistened sickly.

“We… need… train…,” he gasped.

“I bloody know,” snapped Dai. “I’m trying to get us there. But I don’t know the way.”

“Go… on…” He gestured weakly for her to continue.

The garage was a vast space, punctuated by support pillars. Dai could see no end to it, just row after row of vehicles. She knew thousands worked in Ministries, but the number had meant nothing to her until now.

And outside Ministries, in the tenements which filled the valleys of Toshi, were millions. She could not imagine the numbers—

She heard a thud behind her.

Lotsman. He had fallen. She rushed back to him. He lay on the floor, panting, blood leaking from his wound. Was the bleeding worse? It seemed to be. He tried to get to his feet. Dai grabbed his uninjured arm and hauled him up.

“Come on, Lex,” she hissed.

“I’m… trying,” he snapped. Bu there was no power in his anger.

They set off again, at a slower pace. Lotsman could maintain only a heavy-footed jog and even that caused him to grunt with pain at each step.

Ten minutes later, they reached the wall of the garage. Dai turned left, although there seemed no good reason to go that way in preference to the other. Happily, a few minutes later, she came to a section of wall clad in smooth-faced stone blocks and pierced by a trio of rounded arches. She glanced at Lotsman, who was some ten yards away, unsteady on his feet but still going, and then stepped through the first of the arches. She found herself in a rectangular chamber, much like the one in which Tovar had died. The only exit appeared to be an ascending ramp.

She put a foot to the ramp, but some trick of perspective made her look more closely at the room’s rear wall. She crossed to it…

An optical illusion. The back wall was actually in two parts, the section to the right being nearer the ramp than the section of wall to the left. Between the two walls was a passage of rough rock walls and floor. For proletarians—drivers, tigers, and the like.

There was a scraping noise from the arches. Dai stepped back into the chamber. Lotsman. He stood just inside, one hand to his side, the other out to the wall and holding him upright. His coveralls were sodden with blood about his wound. She rushed across to him.

“We… have… to…” He broke off with a gasp, barked a cough and then drew in a shuddering breath. “Marla.”

“We have to tell someone,” she said.

“Yessss.”

“Who, Lex? Who?”

He drew in a deep breath, straightened, and, for a moment, she saw the Lotsman she knew. “There’s only one person… we can tell…” He bent forward, coughed again. Scarlet dripped from his mouth and fell in glutinous strings to the floor.

“Who?” She leaned closer.

“Cas.”

“No!” She turned from him, took a pace. “No,” she repeated, chopping down with a hand. “He’s with the Admiral. He’s with
them
.”

“No.” The pilot’s voice was so faint, she at first did not hear him. “Cas.”

She was angry now. “Look. This is all bloody irrelevant. We need to get you to a surgeon.”

She put an arm about his waist, carefully avoiding his wound, and eased him from his stance against the pillar. Together, they shuffled towards the prole exit from the chamber.

Lotsman seemed to plumb some deep reservoir of strength once they had entered the passage. Some of the weight he had rested on Dai’s shoulder lifted and his step seemed a little lighter.

For ten minutes they made their way along the tunnel. Several side-passages joined it but they ignored each one. With each minute, Lotsman grew heavier and heavier on Dai’s shoulder. She wondered how close they were to a train station. There had to be one somewhere under Ministries. More than one. If all those cars in the garage were indicative of the number of nobles who worked in Ministries, then a thousand times that number of proles must also be employed within this lump of rock.

Just when she thought she could go no further, when Lotsman’s continued survival no longer astonished her… she heard the low sussurrus of people’s feet on stone, of conversation, of wind being forced through tunnels by trains.

“Nearly there,” she told Lotsman.

He grunted in reply.

The passage debouched into a much larger one with walls of faced stone and an arched ceiling. There were some dozen or so people present, busy about their business. One or two glanced at Dai and Lotsman. Expressions of shock flickered onto their faces when they saw the blood. But as soon as they had registered the military uniforms, they turned away.

Dai swore under her breath. She had not expected help. Neither had she imagined they would be ignored.

She could hear a train arriving at a platform across the way, a soft whisper of sound followed by a bird-like shriek of brakes. She dragged Lotsman to the platform. There was a crowd there, waiting patiently for the train to halt. A lacuna formed among them around Dai and Lotsman. She glared at those surrounding her, but none looked her way. She glanced down, saw the tendrils of blood blindly seeking a route from Lotsman’s boots. She could barely feel him breathe against her.

Movement to her left caught her attention. She twisted her head to look. A young man, dressed in black, with round innocuous features and short-cut brown hair. Another flicker of movement to her right. Another young man in black. She looked from one to the other. They were identical.

The one to the left stepped closer, and she saw the flash of a short blade in his hand.

“Go!” hissed Lotsman. “Tell Cas.”

Weakly, he tried to pull her arm from about his waist.

“No,” she told him.

“Go.” He pushed against her.

She wouldn’t let go. Tovar was dead, she wasn’t going to let Lotsman die too.

He pulled to the left, towards the assassin with the dagger. Dai tried to haul him back, but he was determined. Where had he found the strength? Reluctantly, she let go. He staggered forwards, bringing his hands up as if to fight. He let out a deep groan of pain.

Dai looked back over her shoulder. The other assassin was waiting patiently behind her. The crowd about them was beginning to move. The train had stopped and its doors opened. Dai waited.

Lotsman reached the man with the knife. He swung out a fist, slowly, so slowly. The assassin moved out of the way. Lotsman fell forwards. He managed to grab the man’s shoulders. Dai saw the blade slide in. Lotsman jerked. His grip loosened and he slid to the ground.

Dai spun about. She charged at the second assassin, taking him by surprise. Her raised elbow caught him across one cheekbone. He fell back. She crossed the platform and stepped onto the train. The two assassins moved towards the carriage.

They had misjudged it.

The door slid shut. They rushed forward and thudded into the closed door. Dai watched them. Their faces had not changed expression.

She continued to watch them as the train pulled away from the station.

S
tikker had no information on Norioko’s whereabouts, had not in fact seemed to care overly much where he was. So much, thought Finesz, for her most useful contact in Congress. She left him ruminating on the intelligence she had given him—it had been a somewhat one-sided transaction, she belatedly realised—and headed towards the Corridor of Power. As she strode towards the entrance to Congress, she wondered where Norioko might be. The Bailiff at the House of Rectitude had not told her who had released him but… Could it have been the knights sinister? Involutes? They were the only group which had the authority to do so. She very much doubted the regnal government was conducting business as usual—for all that the civil government appeared to be doing so—while the Imperial Palace remained under siege.

As if summoned by the thought, she spotted an Involute ahead in the Corridor of Power, recognisable by the blank silver ovoid of his head. He was a stout man, and he marched with a forcefulness which, Finesz realised with a sinking heart, was all too familiar. She knew that gait, knew that physique. Her step faltered. She put a hand to her mouth and stared at the Involute. She left the side-passage, and stood there in centre of the Corridor, an eddy in the flow of people, watching the Involute march away from her…

His head did not turn. He did not bring the black glasses of his eyepieces to bear on her. He had not seen her.

Now she knew what had happened to Norioko.

How long had he been in the Order of the Left Hand? How long had he been an Involute?

She could be mistaken, she hoped she was mistaken. She had trusted the man implicitly for years, had thought she knew most of his secrets. Even ones he did not know she knew—like the yeoman mistress and her four sons he had kept for almost two decades.

She watched Norioko enter the entrance hall and vanish among the great columns. There was a bench nearby and she crossed to sit down. She took off her cap, held it before her and gazed at the badge above its bill. The Office of the Procurator Imperial’s sword of justice. Why, she asked herself, was she surprised? She knew Norioko was ambitious and loyal. Her own career had hardly been usual: courtesan, then Norioko’s mistress, and then OPI Enquiry branch.

Her discovery had driven all thought of her intentions from her mind. She realised she had come to Congress to learn Norioko’s whereabouts. And she had just seen him. She jumped to her feet and, cap in hand, hurried towards the columned entrance hall. So much of this conspiracy, of the events of the last year, were changed by her discovery. Norioko’s visit to Darrus, for example. He must have known of Ormuz’s importance even then. That was why he had warned her off. He knew Ormuz was a clone of Ahasz, and he knew the knights sinister would be taking the young man on Kapuluan.

She had worked against him every step of the way, without realising it.

She kept an eye on the Involute as he waited for his limousine, while she used one of a bank of public casters to call for Assaun. She urged the troop-sergeant to be quick; she didn’t want to lose Norioko.

Assuming, of course, it
was
him.

His vehicle had arrived. He clambered into its rear—and the way in which he did so only increased her certainty it was the baron. She looked around for her own vehicle and saw it pull up at that exact moment.

Scrambling into the staff car, she said, “That limousine there. Follow it. Discretely.”

The staff car lurched into motion. Finesz scrabbled at her sword, trying to remove it from her belt. Her cap she threw down beside her. The staff car left Congress and swooped down the road heading to Imperial Boulevard.

Assaun did as instructed. While the black staff car boasted the sword of justice on bonnet and both sides, it was not an especially remarkable vehicle. But for the OPI crest, it could have been any car of its size; and black, the colour of order, was a popular choice for vehicles. The troop-sergeant, however, was careful to ensure he was not spotted. For all his taciturnity, and perhaps his resentment at having been taken from Darrus—Ormuz had suggested Assaun might feel so, but that did not make it true and Finesz did not have the courage to ask—for all that Finesz had commandeered Troop-Sergeant Malak Assaun from the Darrus OPI bureau, he had proven steadfast in his service and surprisingly broad in his talents. Now he covertly tailed the Involute’s limousine with a caution born of experience. Finesz resolved once again to see that Assaun left her service—when she felt ready to let him go—with a promotion and a glowing letter of commendation.

They drove along Imperial Boulevard, passing the entrance to the Imperial Household District. Though she peered out of the window, Finesz could see little that was different about the gap in the mountains and the two citadels guarding that gap. No, it
was
different. Looking closer, she saw that a barricade, a high and solid berm of earth, now blocked the entrance to the District. She turned her attention to the traffic both before and after her vehicle, and that travelling in the opposite direction, and she wondered once again that life should carry on as normal while a battle for the Throne raged in that pocket in the mountains.