the misfortune to be the only person handy when Cabal needed part of the emperor’s bulk moved out of the way so that he could get at some of the less savoury locations. “What are you doing?” asked the count, making conversation in an attempt to distract himself from what he was doing and where his hands were.
Cabal said nothing as he drew a full fifty millilitres of the fluid, carefully positioned the point of the great steel needle, and pushed it in with some effort and the sound of separating gristle. “Do you know what the ka is?”
“No.”
“Ki?”
“No.”
“Chakra?”
“Ah, now that’s a sort of round throwing knife from somewhere or other on the subcontinent. Fearsome thing, in the right hands,” Marechal said with enthusiasm.
Cabal paused for half a second before carrying on. “And that’s all?”
“Yes.”
“Then I can’t explain it to you. Come back when your education includes the details of life as well as the commission of death.”
Count Marechal looked at Cabal, paling with anger. Cabal looked back at him evenly, noting both how very easy Marechal was to provoke and the scar on his cheek that seemed to be visible only when he was angry. “You duel, Count?”
The count brought himself under control. “I did, when I was at university. You mean the scar? Yes.”
Cabal seemed to have lost interest. He’d moved on to the corpse’s legs and was inserting the needle behind the patella of the right knee. “You can put that down now. Unless you’ve developed a personal attachment, of course.”
The count let that comment pass, stood up, and walked to a sink to wash his hands. “You really believe you’re some sort of obscene parody of a doctor, don’t you? Saving lives after they’re already lost for the good of humanity.”
“‘Obscene parody’?” Cabal repeated without rancour. “I’m not sure that particular phrase was in my mind when I decided on my career. As for humanity, anything I do for it is purely by accident.”
“Then why? Immortality? Perhaps you should have become a vampire.”
Cabal stopped and looked at the count very coldly indeed. “Perhaps I should,” he said finally.
“These lands used to be full of them,” said the count conversationally, having entirely missed Cabal’s look. “Tottering old castles on craggy mountaintops packed to the rafters with them. More
“I beg your pardon?”
“They thought that, just because they’d dodged the certainty of death, dodging the certainty of taxes somehow went by on the nod.” He snorted. “They were wrong.”
Cabal momentarily considered the sight of bailiffs armed to the teeth with stakes, garlic, and court writs. Then he stood up and stepped out of the pentangle. “Finished.”
“What?” The count was incredulous. “Just like that?”
“He’s alive. Or at least he’s doing a convincing impersonation. I need some sleep. Then I shall require the text of the speech he is to deliver.”
“Why?”
“Because,” snapped Cabal, his tiredness catching up with him, “he’s nothing more than a heap of walking offal. He can’t possibly read the speech himself — it will have to be conditioned into him, like teaching a parrot.”
The count had walked over and was looking down on the emperor. He was undeniably breathing. He shook his head; he’d only half believed all this mumbo-jumbo could possibly work. “He doesn’t look very well.”
“He’s
The count stayed where he was. The plan to resurrect the emperor had always been a desperate contingency plan. It was very hard to accept that it seemed to be coming off. “Shouldn’t you put him on, I don’t know, a saline drip? Or glucose or something?”
“He’s only performing basic respiration. I think he has enough reserves to last a few hours,” said Cabal without even turning. Then he was gone.
Count Marechal was left with the undead emperor and his grand schemes.
Some four hundred years ago in Eastern Europe, Mirkarvia made significant inroads into the territories of two of its neighbours: Senza and Polorus. These conquests were accompanied and succeeded by a series of atrocities, mostly carried out under the pretext of counterinsurgency actions. Over the following decades, these acts settled into a pattern of ethnic discrimination and violent suppression. Finally, Senza — newly resurgent after the discovery of major gold deposits in the southwest and a generally burgeoning economy — militarised its border with Mirkarvia. The Mirkarvian emperor, Dulcis III, listened to the council of his hawkish generals, armchair strategists all, and declared war. This was exactly what the Senzans had anticipated; several secret treaties were triggered that ultimately resulted in Senza and Polorus, with support from their neighbouring states of Ruritania and Graustark, forming an alliance against Mirkarvia. The antiquated Mirkarvian army was quickly routed, and the captured lands recovered.
Polorus argued for the occupation of the Mirkarvian capital of Krenz, with the implied erasure of Mirkarvia as a state. Senza, however, had no desire to control lands containing ethnic Mirkarvians. Therefore, the Mirkarvian exchequer was emptied, large quantities of art treasures and transportable wealth were seized, and swingeing trade concessions were taken as reparation.
It took Mirkarvia generations to recover financially from these humiliations, and the scars still run deep in the national character. The days of the Mirkarvian Empire are domestically regarded as a golden age for all, the terrible crimes of that period expunged from Mirkarvian schoolbooks. Politically, the ramifications of the empire’s collapse are still evident in Mirkarvia’s dealings with its neighbours. Her only local ally is the notoriously backward Katamenia to the north. They share no borders, however; travel between them must go through a mountainous isthmus of Senzan territory extending from the bulk of the country off to the west, where strict customs inspections are the rule. The only other route would require travelling over the Gallaco Sea, but Katamenia has no coastline. Thus, any such journey would still require some travel through either Senza or Polorus.
(A) In what year did Mirkarvia invade Senza?
(B) I) With hindsight, what was Dulcis III’s most serious error?
II) And without hindsight?
(C) Discuss any two (2) of the following statements:
I) Mirkarvia behaved like a right bunch of bastards.
II) Polorus behaved like a right bunch of bastards.
III) All countries behave like right bunches of bastards.
(D) Write a political treatise — not to exceed 250,000 words or 500 sides, whichever is less — detailing your solution to stabilising relations in the region. Military force above brigade level is not permitted, nor is divine intervention. You may include diagrams.
