Warlord

Raj nodded, still dazed by the echoes within his head, wanting nothing so much as a long sleep, and. .

'I'll have to tell Suzette; she'll. .'

observe.

There was a blinking before his eyes, and suddenly he was in his rooms, near the Vice-Governor's section of the Palace. Suzette was across from him, and he could see bewilderment giving way to horror on the smooth aquiline features. She nodded, smiled, left: then the priests came, the Healers of the Troubled speaking soothingly and maneuvering him toward the coat with the crossed arms.

The chamber snapped back. 'Shit,' he said disgustedly, then blushed at the sacrilege of swearing here. 'I thought she'd believe me.'

not without proof which i will not furnish, Center replied, knowledge of my existence would render further calculation impossible.

Raj shrugged. 'All right, let Thom go.'

no.

The man remembered the bones outside the door; it suddenly occurred to him what it would be like, waiting in the dark unable to control so much as the expression of your face. Unable to blink, feeling your eyes drying out, waiting for thirst or madness to take you.

'Oh, yes you will, angel or no,' Raj said flatly. His hand fell to the butt of the useless pistol, not so much a threat as a statement of intent. 'A Whitehall doesn't abandon a friend, not for any reward.'

poplanich is too close to the old dynasty. Which Vernier had overthrown; old Morris Poplanich had died without male issue. . of natural causes, or so most thought. Vernier Clerett had been CIC, Residence Area Troops, which had usually counted more than heredity in succession disputes, throughout the Civil Government's history, now thom poplanich is of age, and is popular, widely respected among the older families. Which the Cleretts were not; Vernier had been no wealthier or better born than Raj Whitehall himself, an upstart to the ancient kindreds. Just another uncouth Descotter, who wore his spurs indoors, when barholm clerett assumes the chair, poplanich dies, observe.

Images. The gongs of the Temple ringing out in mourning, black headbands in the streets. Barholm ascending the steps to the Chair, cheeks flushed, a hard triumph glittering beneath the mask of grief. Troopers of the 2nd Gendarmerie dragging Thom Poplanich out the gate of his family's townhouse; the young man wrenching his arms free and smoothing his coat, walking with quiet dignity toward the black two-dog wagon. Raj watching in the ranks of Barholm's Guard as Thom was strapped to the iron column in Remembrance Square, with the heralds reading out his crimes-'treason against the Civil Government and the Spirit of Man of the Stars'-while the bare-chested executioner in his black hood stood by the scissor-switch to the thumping generator. Barholm stood; the crowd jeered and pushed behind a threatening line of dragoons. The thunder-growl of five hundred wardogs was the louder, until the switch went home and Thom screamed, screamed and sizzled and smelled like roasting pork.

Raj felt sweat on his palms, trickling down his flanks, but there was no controlling these visions. More: Raj with officers he recognized, talking quietly in the rear room of a tavern. Older men there; Berzetayz of the Governor's Council, leader of the Hemmar River clique, the big landowners. Alois Wijolska the iron-smelting magnate. Gunfire in the Palace; men falling before the two-meter cast-bronze doors of the inner chamber, and his own dog rearing to crash it open with its forepaws. Barholm startled out of bed, standing back naked against the tapestries with his hands before his face. His wife Anne, equally naked and cursing defiance as she raised a pistol. Volley fire from behind him.

Fragments. A view that it took him a second to recognize as being from the Chair, and the High Priest raising the Diadem over his own head. Suzette dying-Suzette! — her lips blue with poison. Chancellor Tzetzas going to the pillar himself; the crowd cheering this time, and the Chancellor spitting at the executioner's feet as Governor Raj Whitehall raised his arm. Raj leading troops, but the enemies were Civil Government forces, others in the outfits of noblemen's household retainers. Other battles, a kaleidoscope.

One final scene. Raj Whitehall stumbling at the stirrup-iron of a man he recognized all too well, from Intelligence reports, his hands tied to the leather. Tewfik, amir of the Army of the South, one-eyed eldest son of the Settler; not his heir, no man not whole in body could be, but certainly his commander in the field, and not because of his blood, either. This field was the East Residence, burning, with bodies lying in the rough heaps as the death- squads had left them. Another row fell before a Colonist firing squad as he watched, and a white-bearded imam preached from an open Koran behind them as a new batch marched up. Others, women and children mostly, stumbled by chained neck-and-neck under the whips of mounted guards. Wagons of white salt rumbled up the street.

'We will sow it with salt,' Tewfik said, looking down at the bloodied face of his captive. 'But do not worry. The hot irons will ensure you see no more.'

* * *

'No,' Raj said. He could taste the iron-and-copper of his own fear, smell it. Suzette had died hard, blind animal pain in her eyes, nothing human left. 'No. I still won't let you kill Thom. A man who doesn't stand by his friends is no man.' And if I give in on this, I'm a dove. I'll serve the Spirit of Man, but damned if I'll be a dove even to a god.

again, excellent. Amusement at his indignation. a successful general must know loyalty, before he can evoke it. poplanich will come to no harm: i can hold his body in complete stasis, and provide more than sufficient mental stimulation. Was that some sort of joke?

you may return and visit occasionally, when this will not excite suspicion.

He hesitated.

remember that if he leaves here now, he dies, and not him alone.

'Raj.' Whitehall's head shot up. Thom's voice; the smaller man turned to face his friend. 'Raj, I'm all right. . it's showing me the most amazing. . the most amazing things. . '

He froze again, but this time the expression was one of wondering delight, not fear. Raj took a tentative step forward, and found that he could. His fingers reached out and touched his friend's skin; it was already cooling, slightly rubbery under his palm. There was a slight shimmer in front of Thom's eyes, like a trick of vision seen out of the corner of the eyes, and Raj could see his pupils expanding and contracting, as if they were moving across a landscape of light and shadow.

'Goodbye,' he said; and saluted, for some reason he could not have explained even to himself.

* * *

The corridor of bones was as he had left it, save that the door two meters above its surface was open. No other help was offered; evidently Center expected him to make his own way in the world.

Raj Whitehall nodded once, and stopped to reload the revolver before he jumped to plant fingers on the edge. It was lucky not many knew Thom and he had gone exploring together; he had not even told Suzette, she had been dropping more and more hints about how dangerous Poplanich was to know.

Not that dangerous, Raj thought, grinning humorlessly into the dark as he chinned himself and threw a knee over the doorsill. Not nearly as dangerous as knowing me seems to be.

Chapter Three

'Captain the Honorable Messer Raj Ammenda Halgern da Luis Whitehall, Whitehall of Hillchapel, Hereditary Supervisor of Smythe Parish, Descott County, Guard to the Exalted Vice-Governor, presents himself for duty!'

Raj winced as the herald's bellow rang deafeningly in his left ear; she was using a megaphone that was no less functional for being built of thin polished silver with decorations in niello and diamond chip. The jostling crowds of petitioners fell silent for a moment, craning their necks towards the main doors and pressing against the line of Gendarmerie troopers in dress uniforms. The rifles they held were richly inlaid but loaded and in perfect working order; the whole hall where the Gubernatorial Levee was held was like that, he supposed.

All of two hundred meters long and fifty high; the ceiling was a mosaic, a wheeling galaxy of stars against indigo night, with the head and shoulders of the Spirit of Man looming above it. Much like the one in the Temple, and like that it always gave you a slight creeping sensation between the shoulderblades, as if the huge dark eyes