Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome (2 page)

Treet had lived his life trusting his instincts, never looking back. Life was too short, he often told himself, to spend even a second in regret. Now, it appeared that his ever-trustworthy instincts had betrayed him and backward glancing would become a way of life.

On the strength of his gut feeling he had left the Fieri and their magnificent civilization to return to Dome on the narrowest of chances that he might somehow forestall the doom that only he seemed to see.

On the strength of his gut feeling he had sacrificed his own best chance for future happiness by alienating the only woman he'd ever really loved, the only woman who, quite possibly, had ever loved him.

On the strength of his gut feeling he had set in motion a series of events which had caused the messy death of a beautiful friend. He missed Calin—would have ached for the loss of her had not grief numbed him. Still, the thought of her death and the sting of his own guilt for the part he played in it were never far away. And the gruesome battle between him and the demented Crocker, which had claimed the gentle magician's life, was replayed nightly in his dreams in brutal, bloody detail.

All this—the torment of those memories, of second-guessing himself, dark bouts of self-accusation—he struggled to hold aside long enough to learn as much as possible about Empyrion Colony's past in the short time he had to give to the task. And, despite his growing uncertainty about his mission, he still felt this to be crucially important.

So, ignoring all else as he ignored the vacuum in his stomach gnawing at his concentration, he returned to the nest he'd made for himself on the floor and opened the notebook he'd been reading for the last few hours. The binding, brittle with age and cracked in a dozen places, bore the handwritten tag
Volume 19,
signifying he was one-quarter of the way through Empyrion's Third Age, as classified by Rumon.

He took out his bookmark—a folded sheet of paper bearing the notes he had scratched with an old polymer stylus found in a nearby bin—and read what he'd written:

Colony Foundation = 1 AA
Red Death = 98 AA
Plebiscite Rejected = 309 AA
Colony Splits = 311 AA
Second Split = 543 AA
First Purge = 586 AA
Directorate Installed = 638 AA
Flight of the Fieri = 833 AA
Fieri Settlement Est. = 1157 AA
Cluster Closed = 1270 AA
Fieri Scattered = 1318 AA
Directorate Overthrown = 1473 AA
Second Purge = 1474 AA
Threl Established = 1485 AA

It was the record of civilization born to turmoil, much the same as any civilization. But what made Empyrion's record so sad—and this was the part that really got to Treet—was that the colony had advantages never possessed by any other civilization he'd ever encountered: they had started out with all the tools for creating Utopia right from the very beginning; they had all of history to teach them how to organize and govern themselves. They might have chosen to recreate Eden.

Instead, they chose Hell.

Treet's list of major historical events was the record of a society descending inexorably into tyranny. From the rejection of the first citizens' plebiscite to the establishment of the Threl, Dome had consistently chosen the downward course, evading at every turn the opportunity to rise; choosing—not only once, but time and time again—the collective will over individual rights, manipulation over liberty, expedience over benevolence, repression over freedom.

Through years of upheaval, through painful splits and bloody purges, the leaders of Dome relentlessly pursued the downward track. It was all right there in the notebooks—the damning evidence of a society throwing away human rights and freedoms with both hands, shedding all the higher and ennobling qualities that enlightened governments had fought so hard for since the dawn of time.

Yes, Treet thought gloomily, it was all there, faithfully recorded in the notebooks.

He still had nine fat notebooks to go, but was beginning to doubt whether he could finish before hunger made it impossible. Already the hand-lettered printout pages swam before his eyes, and his concentration was so fragile he was forced to read a single paragraph several times to get anything out of it. But at least he had discovered that catastrophe had taken place in Empyrion's past to shape its future—a future he was living now: the Red Death.

Based on Rumon's scant reference, Treet strongly suspected a genetic experiment gone haywire. Perhaps they had been attempting to adapt an indigenous lifeform or create a new bacteria strain for some purpose past remembering. However it was, once the contagion was loosed upon the colony, nothing could stop it. The disease had killed, by Treet's calculation, close to twelve thousand people, three-quarters of Empyrion's total population; by comparison, not even the plagues of the Old Middle Ages were so devastating.

When the Red Death had finally run its course, Empyrion was changed forever.

Treet found his place in the book and began reading. In just a few minutes he was exhausted, but struggled to keep at it for a few hours more. In the end, he had no choice but to admit defeat and lay the notebook down carefully. He had to have something to eat. Now. But before he could eat, he'd have to find a way past the guard station outside the Archives and then a place to hide until Tvrdy could be contacted.

He took out the map he had found on his first day back in the Archives. There was no telling how old the map was, or how accurate. Though it only showed two lower levels, one of which was mislabeled Archives Level, he supposed it could be trusted to point the way to the Old Section where he hoped to find refuge.

Treet stood and steadied himself as spots like tiny black fireflies swarmed before his eyes. He left the hidden room, taking a last look behind him as he entered the dry pipeline and made his way back to the Archives floor. As he walked along, one arm outstretched, touching the side of the pipe, he thought again about how he might elude the guards. Surprise would be on his side, he figured, for whatever that was worth. And he supposed that he might find some sturdy hunk of something to use as a weapon. Beyond that, he had no notion of how he might proceed.

He retraced his steps to the junction box and continued along the second pipe until he reached the metal ladder leading to the Archive floor, placed his foot on the first rung, and hauled himself up. It was then that he heard the clang and groan and felt the tremor of a heavy machine rumbling across the floor above.

Tanais Director Tvrdy crept
along the darkened tunnel, pausing every few meters to listen again. He heard only the tick of his own footsteps echoing off the endless tile. He hunched his coat over his shoulders and wished for the millionth time that Pradim had not been killed. He would have trouble finding another guide—
if
he were ever to find one—who could be trusted so completely in so many delicate areas. Over the years, Pradim had become less a tool than a confidant and friend, and not incidentally a strategist of impressive powers.

If he missed the blind guide, the Cabal would miss him more. Reeling from the defeat Jamrog had forced upon them—for that's what Sirin Rohee's sudden and as yet unexplained death was: a crippling, paralyzing defeat—Tvrdy fought now just to maintain his position within the Threl. One way or another, Jamrog meant to have his head.

And one way or another, Tvrdy meant to keep it. If staying alive meant abandoning his Directorship, so be it. Only a fool like Hladik would insist on clinging to his dwindling power to the death. If Tvrdy allowed Jamrog to kill him in his bed, the Cabal was finished. And if the Cabal, small though it was and ill-equipped, passed from Empyrion, all resistance to Jamrog's rule would effectively vanish.

That was why he was making this journey now, alone, in the stark, predawn hours of a bleak and hopeless day, to make contact with Giloon Bogney, legendary leader of the faceless nonbeings, the Dhogs.

A message had been sent through the Rumon messenger network—Tvrdy didn't know how Cejka managed, but was thankful for such a clever and resourceful ally—and, what was most miraculous, an answer in the form of detailed directions had been received. Giloon agreed to a meeting in the Isedon Zone, that empty ring of ruined Hageblocks that formed the no-man's-land between the Hages and the Old Section. The condition was that Tvrdy come alone and bring some proof that he was in fact a Threl Director.

Tvrdy hated the thought of meeting the repulsive nonbeing alone in unfamiliar territory, but he was desperate. He would see Giloon, find out what his help would cost, and, with luck, estimate what that aid would be worth. The fact that Giloon had replied at all was a good sign; the crude map he'd sent was a better one. The Dhog wanted something, or he would not have responded at all.

Tvrdy came to a place where the tunnel ended, opening onto a deserted plaza lined with the charred stumps of once graceful feng trees. He consulted the Dhog's drawing and confirmed what he already guessed, that this was the entrance to Isedon, center of one of the original clusters of long ago; the only one still remaining. The dwelling-blocks on either side of the square—those still somewhat intact, at any rate—were smaller than in Hage, and were built in the ancient style: straight lines and flat surfaces. Tvrdy much admired the style and had copied it in his own kraam. The decrepit structures were dark and empty now. At least he supposed they were empty. The feeling of invisible eyes observing him intensified as he moved hesitantly to stand in the center of the plaza, overgrown with wireweeds and squatty lofo bushes that had insinuated themselves into crevices between the broken paving stones.

Tvrdy stopped when he reached the center and drew a shaky breath to calm himself. The air smelled foul and old, rank with decay. He shivered involuntarily; the place was a pest hole. He looked furtively around, imagining all sorts of crawling vermin creeping in the rubble of the tumbled buildings, and pulled his coat more tightly around him. The stiffness in his left arm reminded him of why he had come.

He and Cejka had had Cynetics' own luck that day when the Invisibles found them in the Archives. In the confusion of the travelers' escape, he and Cejka had—he still didn't know precisely how—convinced the savage Mrukk, Commander of the Mors Ultima Invisibles and Jamrog's personal lackey, that killing two Directors outright and without proof of treason would be a mistake that would be paid in blood.

Mrukk, his face rigid with hot frustration at seeing his quarry racing away on Fieri skimmers, had made the decision to try to stop them, leaving Tvrdy and Cejka behind as he turned his attention to the fleeing spies. Cejka's men had attacked the small security force as soon as the shooting started on the landing platform.

Cejka lost several good men that day—Tvrdy himself had been wounded—but the Directors had escaped.

Then followed one demoralizing setback after another as all their careful plans failed or were neutralized by some evasive tactic of Jamrog's. The Saecaraz Subdirector seemed always to be one step ahead of them as the rebel Cabal scrambled for leverage to force events their way. So far, success had proven as elusive as a Hage priest's blessing, and as costly. They had lost many followers, and their network of agents and informants lay in ashes.

Tvrdy was startled out of his morose inventory by the appearance of a short, thick-limbed figure scuttling toward him over the slanting stones of the deserted plaza. The man wore a long cloak that dragged at his heels and held a short bhuj in his right hand; the wide, flat blade glimmered dully in the murky light as its owner scrambled forward on stump legs.

The Dhog leader came to stand before Tvrdy, his face begrimed, the hair of his beard virulent, matted, and greasy. A vicious purple scar divided his low forehead like a jagged lightning bolt, parting his hair and plunging diagonally down to the left cheek, warping the left eye so that it looked upward askance, as if Giloon were continually watching the sky-shell of Dome for a sign.

“So, Tanais!” he said, his round face splitting like an overripe fruit. Ocher teeth shone through the mat of hair, and his pudgy nose wrinkled in wry good humor. His voice was coarse gravel grating on glass, a sound to inspire abhorrence. An odor like that of rotting meat came off the Dhog's filth-encrusted clothes—actually, rags patched with rags—offending the nostrils as much as their appearance assaulted the eyes. On his chest he wore the medallion of a Jamuna Hage priest: a double-ended arrow bent into a circle.

Tvrdy took this in with a grimace of disgust, almost gagging, but forcing a sickly smile of greeting. Why had he come? There was no point. The odious creature could do nothing for him. His heart shrank in despair, but he reached into an inner fold of his yos and brought out a packet which he offered.

The Dhog spat and looked at the packet. “Giloon don't needs it. Giloon be knowing you, Tanais, withouts it.”

Tvrdy replaced the packet, actually relieved not to have the Dhog paw through his personal documents. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me. You took a chance, giving me directions.”

Giloon tilted his face up and laughed. The sun had risen, but the weak light filtering in through the stained crystal panels overhead remained dusky. Very likely Old Section residents knew only two variations: twilight and deep night; their days were spent in the dim half-light of eternal gloom.

Giloon's laugh died. “What Tanais wants of Giloon Bogney?”

“Is that who you are?”

The Dhog raised the bhuj and laid the flat of the blade against his cheek and rubbed. “Who else? Anyway, as Giloon a nonbeing it matters no big much, seh?”

“I want your help,” Tvrdy said simply. He had been prepared to use elaborate persuasion and rhetoric to state his case, but decided to cut the interview as short as possible so that he could get away. There was no point in drawing out the hopeless affair.

“Help!” Giloon spat, dribbling spittle over his chin. “Help he wants!” He spun the bhuj in his hands and leaned on the haft, looking at Tvrdy with wild amusement on his dirty face.