Queen of Candesce

16

Venera’s parachute yanked viciously at her shoulders. All the breath drove out of her, the world spun, and then a sublime calm seemed to ease into the world: the savage wind diminished, became gentle, and the roar of gunfire faded. Weight, too, slackened and in moments she found herself come to a stop in dawn-lit air that was crisp but hinted at a warm day to come.

All around her other parachutes had bloomed like night flowers. There were shouts, screaming—but also laughter. Corinne’s people were taking charge; the air below Spyre was their territory. “Catch this rope!” one of them commanded, tossing a length at Venera. She grabbed it, and he began to draw her in.

The knot of people waited a hundred feet from the madly spinning hull of Spyre. Twenty had arrived here in the early morning hours, but more than seventy were leaving. There hadn’t been enough parachutes, but Sacrus had helpfully decorated its corridors with heavy black drapes. Many of these were now held by former prisoners. Having belled with air to brake them, the black squares were now twisting like smoke and were starting to get in the way as people tried to grab one another by wrist, fingertip, or foot.

She pulled herself up Garth’s leg, hooked a hand in his belt, and met him at eye level. “Are you okay?” He still seemed disoriented, and for a moment he just stared back at her.

“Did you come for me?” His voice was hoarse and she didn’t like to think why. There were burn marks on his cheeks and hands and he looked thinner and older than ever.

Venera smoothed the backs of her fingers down the side of his face. “I came for you,” she said, and was surprised to see tears start in his eyes.

“Listen up!” It was the leader of Corinne’s troupe. “We’ve just passed Fin, and I let out the signal flare. In a couple of minutes it’s going to come by again, and they’ll have lowered a net! We’re going to land in that net, all of us. Then we’ll be drawn up into Fin. We need to stick together or people will get left behind.”

“Isn’t Sacrus going to pass us first?” somebody asked.

“Yes. So everybody with a gun get to the top. And unravel those drapes, we can use them to hide behind.”

As Spyre rotated, first Buridan, then Sacrus would go by before Fin came around again. The soldiers of Sacrus had been right on their heels as Venera’s group crowded into the basement. Doubtless they would be bringing heavy machine guns down, or grenades or—it didn’t bear thinking about because there was nothing to be done. For a few seconds at least, Venera and her people were going to be helpless targets.

“Ouch!” said a woman near Venera’s feet. “I—ouch! Hey, ohmigod—” She screamed suddenly, a frantic yelp that grew into a wail.

Venera spun around to look. Dark shapes flickered around the woman’s silhouette, half seen but growing in number. “Piranhawks!” someone shouted.

A second later there were thousands of them, a swirling cloud that completely enveloped the screaming woman. Her cries turned to horrible retching sounds and then stopped. Buzzing wings were everywhere, caressing Venera’s throat and tossing her hair, but so far nothing had bitten her.

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved, and after a minute the cloud of piranhawks began to smear away into the air. They left behind a coiling cloud of black feathers and atomized red, at its heart a horrible thing bereft of blood and flesh.

“Brace yourselves! Here comes the airfall!” Venera looked up in time to see the latticework of girders that supported Buridan Tower flash past. In the next instant a fist of wind hit her.

Garth was nearly torn from her grasp by the pounding air. Two people who had refused to untie themselves from the black drapes were simply blown away, disappearing in moments into a distance blurred with barbed wire and mines. Others simply let go of their neighbors for a second and found themselves being drawn slowly, leisurely away as the airfall passed by and calmer air returned.

“Catch the rope! Catch it!” She watched the lines being tossed and frantic lunges to catch them, then one of the men who’d drifted a few yards away shuddered and spun. Dark lines stood in the air behind him for an instant before snapping and becoming thousands of red droplets. She heard machine-gun fire.

“Sacrus! Return fire!” Everybody opened up on the small knot of pipes and the machine-gun nest as it swept down and at them. Tracer rounds framed and dissected a vision of mauve cloud and amber sunlight. Venera blinked and couldn’t see, waved her pistol hesitantly. Then Sacrus lofted up and away and the firing ceased.

“Get ready!”

Ready? Ready for what—the net caught her limp and unresisting, and that probably saved Venera from a broken neck. As thin cords dug into her face and hands she was hauled into speeding air again, faster and faster until all breath was sucked out of her and spots danced in her eyes. Just as the howl and tearing fingers of the hurricane became intolerable it ceased so abruptly that she just lay for a while, staring at nothing. Gradually, she made out voices, sounds of something heavy being shut as the wind sound cut out. Lantern light glowed below a metal ceiling where shadows of people hove to and fro. She rolled over.

Garth Diamandis was sitting up next to her. He probed at the back of his head carefully, then darted his eyes back and forth at the people who surrounded them. “Where are we?”

“Among friends,” she said. “Safe. At least for now.”

Blood slid down the drain, miniature rivers in the greater flow of water. After all that had happened, Venera was surprised to find that none of it was hers. By rights she should have been riddled with holes last night.

The facilities of Fin were primitive, but the water was wonderfully hot. She dallied in the rusted metal cabinet that stood in for a shower, letting the stuff run over and off her in sheets, holding her face under it. Not thinking, though her hands still shook.

A loud banging startled her, and she almost slipped. Venera flung open the sheet-metal door. “What?”

Bryce stood there. His glower turned to distraction as he took in her naked form. In a moment of reflected vision, she saw his gaze lower, pause, drop, pause again. Then he caught himself and met her eyes. “You’re going to use up all the hot water,” he said in a reasonable tone.

She slammed the door, but it was too late; she could practically feel the line drawn down her body by his eyes. “So what if I use it all?” she said gamely. “You’re a man—take yours cold.”

“Not if I don’t have to.” She heard rattling around the side of the enclosure. “There’s a master valve here, but I’m not sure whether it’s for the cold or the hot. I’ll give it a few turns…”

She threw the door open again and stalked past him to grab the rag they’d told her was her towel. Wrapping it around herself as best she could, she did a double take as she saw him watching her again. “Well?” she said. “What are you waiting for?”

“Huh?”

“Get in there.” She crossed her arms and waited. Bryce turned his back to her as he undressed, but she didn’t give him any relief. It was her turn to admire. With a sour glance that held more than a little humor, he stepped into the stall.

Venera leaned over to look at the side of the enclosure; there was the valve he’d mentioned. It was momentarily tempting to give a few turns—she could imagine his shouts quite vividly—but no. She was an adult, after all.

She left the enclosure and stepped gingerly over the grillwork floor. Despite the stares of those billeted in the hallway, she made her way to where Garth Diamandis lay. He was awake, but listless. Still, he half smiled as he saw her.

“Ah, that you should dress so for me,” he murmured.

Venera smoothed the hair back from his brow. “What’s wrong?”

He looked away, lips twisting. Then, “It was her. She betrayed me to them.”

“Your woman? Wife? Mistress?”

A heavy sigh escaped him. “My daughter.”

Venera stepped back, shocked. For a moment she had no idea what to say, because her whole understanding of this man had been changed in one stroke. “Oh, Garth,” she said stupidly. “I’m so sorry.” We daughters will do that, she though, but she didn’t say it.

She held his hand for a minute until he gently disengaged it and turned on his side. “You must be cold,” he said. “Go get some rest.” So, reluctantly, she left him on his cot in the hallway.

She mused about this surprising new Garth as she threaded her way back to her sleeping station. It was hard navigating the place; the nation of Fin was less than thirty feet wide at its broadest point. Since it was literally a fin, an aileron for controlling Spyre’s spin and direction, the place was streamlined and reinforced inside by crisscrossing girders. The citizens of the pocket nation had built floors and chambers all through the vertical wing and grudgingly added several ladder wells. Where Garth lay was not a corridor as such, however—just a more or less labyrinthine route between the rooms that were strung the length of the level. Privacy was to be had only within the sleeping chambers, where the ever-present roar of air just behind the walls drowned all other sounds.

Fin didn’t have the capacity for an extra seventy or so people. Venera had been informed by an impatient Corinne that they must all leave by nightfall. That suited her fine—she had a meeting with the council later today in any case. But she needed to sleep first. So she was grateful for the little bed they’d prepared behind a set of metal cabinets. You had to squeeze around the last cabinet to get in here and there were no windows; still, it had an air of privacy. She rolled out of the towel and under the blanket.

Venera willed herself to sleep, but she was still a mass of nerves from the events of the night. And, she had to admit, there was something else keeping her awake…

A blundering noise jolted her into sitting up. She groped for a nonexistent weapon. Somebody was blocking the light that leaked around the cabinets. “Who—”

“Oh, no! You!” Bryce stood there, his nakedness punctuated by the towel at his waist. His hands were on his hips.

Venera snatched up the blanket. “Don’t tell me they put you in with me.”

“Said there wasn’t any room. Last good place was here.” He crossed his arms. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“You’ve had at least fifteen minutes to sleep. My turn.”

“Your—?” She reached for one of her boots and threw it at him. “Get out! This is my room!” Bryce ducked adroitly and stepped up, grabbing at her wrist. She rabbit-punched him in the stomach; the only effect was that his towel fell off.

He took advantage of her surprise to make a play for the bed. She managed to keep him from taking it, but he did grab the blanket. She pulled it back. She kicked him, and he toppled onto the mattress. He sprawled, laying claim to as much of it as he could, and pushed her to the edge.

“No you don’t! My bed!” She tried to climb over him, aiming to reconquer the corner, but his hand was on her wrist, then her shoulder and her breast, and his other gripped the inside of her thigh. Bryce picked her up that way and would have thrown her off the bed if she hadn’t squirmed her way loose. She landed straddling him and grabbed for the sheets on either side of his shoulders so when he pushed at her she had a good grip.

He was getting hard against her pubic bone and his hands were on her breasts again. Venera mashed her palm against his face and reared back but now his hands were on her hips, and he was pulling her hard against him. They rocked together and she clawed at his chest.

Grabbing him around the shoulders she kissed him, feeling her nipples tease the hairs on his chest. All their movement was making him slide against her wetness and suddenly he was inside her. Venera gasped and reared up, pushing down on him with all her weight.

She leaned forward until they were nose to nose. “My bed,” she hissed, grinning.

They were locked together now and each motion by one made the other respond. She had a hand behind his neck and his were behind her spreading her painfully as they kissed and the bed shook and threatened to collapse. She bucked and rode him like the Buridans must have ridden their horses, all pounding muscle under her until wave after wave of pleasure mounted up her core and she came with a loud cry. Moments later he did the same, bouncing her up and nearly off of him. She held on and rode it out, then collapsed on the bellows of his chest.

“See?” he said. “You can share.”

Well.

Venera wasn’t about to dignify his statement with a response; but this was certainly going to change things. Now sleep really was coming over her, though, and she had no ability to think more about it. She nuzzled his shoulder.

Damn it.

The Spyre Council building was satisfyingly grandiose. It sprawled like a well-fed spider over an acre of town wheel, with outbuildings and annexes like black-roofed legs half encircling the nearby streets, plazas, and offices of the bureaucracy. The back of the spider was an ornate glass and wrought-iron dome surmounted by an absurdly dramatic black statue of a woman thrusting a sword into the air. The statue must have been thirty feet tall. Venera admired it as she strolled up the broad ramp that led to the council chamber.

She was aware of many eyes watching her. Word had gotten around quickly of the events last night, and Lesser Spyre was quietly but visibly tense. Shops had closed early; people hurried through the streets. The architecture of the spider did not permit large assemblies—Spyre was not the sort of place to encourage mass demonstrations—but the people were a presence here nonetheless, standing in groups of two to ten to twenty on street corners and under the shadowy canopies of bridges. It was their presence, and not memory or reason, that convinced Venera that she had today done something highly significant.

Her own appearance must confirm that. She wore a high-collared black leather coat over a scarlet blouse, with her bleached shock of hair standing straight up and silver trefoil-shaped bangles the size of her hand hanging from her ears. Her make-up was dark—she’d redrawn her brows as two obsessively black lines. Trailing behind her in a V-formation like a flock of grim birds were two dozen people, all similarly startling to look upon. Some appeared pale and unsteady, their faces and exposed hands bearing bruises and burn marks. Others attended these souls, and marching behind like giant tin toys were soldiers of Liris and various preservationist factions. Venera knew that Bryce’s people peppered the crowds, there to listen and give an alert if necessary.

“Do you think Jacoby Sarto brings his gun to council meetings?” she asked off-handedly. Corinne, who was walking beside her, guffawed.

“Here,” she said, handing Venera a large black pistol, “try to take this in and see what happens. No, seriously. If they don’t stop you, then he’s probably got one too. You may need to get the drop on him.”

“I can do that.” She took the pistol and slipped it into her jacket, which promptly dragged down her right collar. She transferred it to the back of her belt.

“Not too obvious,” said Corinne doubtfully.

A preservationist runner puffed to a stop next to her and saluted. “They’re on the move, ma’am. Five groups of a hundred or more each were just seen exiting the grounds of Sacrus. They’re in no-man’s land now, but they have nowhere to go except through their neighbors… Of course, they own most of those estates…”

“What have they got?” she asked. “Artillery?” He nodded.

“We’re moving to secure the elevator cables, but they’re doing the same thing,” he continued. “There’s been no shots fired yet…”

“All right.” She dismissed the details with a wave of her hand. “Let me see what we can do in council. We’ll talk after that.” He nodded and backed off.

The big front doors of the building were for council members only. The ceremonial guards there, with their plumed helmets and giant muskets, raised their palms solemnly to exclude the people following Venera. She turned and gestured with her chin for them to go around the side; she’d been told there was a second, more traveled entrance there for diplomats, attachés, and other functionaries. She strode alone into the frescoed portico that half circled the chamber itself.

The bronze council chamber doors were open, and a small crowd was milling there. She recognized the other members; they were just filing in.

Jacoby Sarto was talking to Pamela Anseratte. He looked relaxed. She looked tense. He spotted Venera and, surprisingly, smiled.

“Ah, there you are,” he said, strolling over to her. Venera glanced around to see what other people—pillars or statues to hide behind—were nearby, and started to reach for the pistol. But Sarto simply took her arm and led her a bit to the side of the group.

“The preservationists and lesser countries are following you right now,” he said. “But I can’t see that continuing, can you? The only leverage you’ve got is the name of Buridan.”

She extricated her arm and smiled back at him. “Well, that depends on the outcome of this meeting, I should think,” she said. He nodded affably.

“I’m here to engineer a crisis,” he said. “How about you?”

“I should have thought we were already in a crisis,” she said cautiously. “Your troops are on the move.”

“…And we’ve seized the docks,” he said. “But that may not be enough to serve either of our interests.” She tried to read his expression, but Sarto was a master politician. He gave no sign that Spyre was balanced on the edge of its greatest change in centuries.

“Our interests aren’t the same,” he continued, “but they’re surprisingly… compatible. You’re after power, but not so much power as you’d have to have if you used the key again. It’s difficult—you possess the ultimate weapon, but no way to use it to get what you want. But the blunt fact is that as long as we hold the docks, the little trinket you stole from us last night is even worse than useless to you,” he said. “It’s an active liability.”

She stared at him.

Apparently oblivious to her expression, Sarto continued as though he were discussing the budget for municipal plumbing contracts. “On the other hand, the polarization of allegiance you’re generating is useful to us. I’ve been impressed, Ms. Fanning, by your abilities—last night’s raid came as a complete surprise, advantageous as it’s turned out to be. You got what you wanted, we get what we want, which is to flush out our enemies. The only matter of dispute between us, privately, is that ivory wand you took.”

“You want it back?”

He nodded.

“Go fuck yourself!” She started to stalk toward the giant doorway but couldn’t resist turning and saying, “You tortured my man Garth! You think this is a game?”

“The only way to win,” he said so quietly that the others couldn’t hear, “is to treat it as one.” Now his expression was serious, his gray eyes cold as a statue’s.

It was suddenly clear to Venera that Sacrus already knew what she had been planning to say and do here today—and they approved. She made an excellent enemy for them to rally their own forces around. If they had needed an excuse to extend martial law over their neighbors, she had provided it. If civil war came, they would have their justification for marshaling the ancient Spyre fleet. The civil war would provide a nice smokescreen behind which they could seize Candesce. It wouldn’t matter then whether they won or lost back home.

She had given them the enemy they needed. Sarto’s candid admission of the fact was a clear overture from him.

Venera hesitated. Then, deliberately clamping down on her anger, she walked back to him. They were now the only council members remaining in the hall. The others had taken their seats, and she saw one or two craning their necks to watch their confrontation.

“What do I get if I return the key?” she asked.

He smiled again. “What you want. Power. For the rest, take your satisfaction by attacking us. We know you’ll be sincere. We’re counting on it. Only return the key, and at the end of the war you’ll get everything you want. You know we can deliver.” He held out his hand, palm up.

She laughed lightly, though she felt sick. “I don’t have it with me,” she said. “And besides, I have no reason to trust you. None at all.”

Now Sarto looked annoyed. “We thought you’d say that. You need a guarantee, a token of our sincerity. My masters have… instructed me… to provide you with one.”

She laughed bitterly. “What could you possibly give me that would convince me you were sincere?”

His expression darkened even further; for the first time he looked genuinely angry. Sarto spoke a single word. Venera gaped at him in undisguised astonishment, then laughed again. It was the bray of disdain she reserved for putting people down, and she was sure Sarto knew it.

However, he merely bowed slightly and turned to indicate that she should precede him into the chamber. The doors were wide, and so they entered side by side. As they did so, Venera caught sight of Sarto’s expression and was amazed. In a few seconds he underwent a gruesome transformation, from the merely dark expression he’d displayed outside to a mask of twisted fury. By the time they split up halfway across the polished marble floor, he looked like he was ready to murder someone. Venera kept her own expression neutral, her eyes straight ahead of her as she climbed the red-carpeted steps to the long-disused seat of Buridan.

The council members had been chatting, but one by one they fell silent and stared. Several of those were gazes of surprise; although they were masked, the ministers from Oxorn and Garatt were poised forward in their seats as if unsure whether to run or dive under their chairs. August Virilio’s usual expression of polite disdain was gone, in its place a brooding anger that seemed transplanted from an entirely different man.

Pamela Anseratte stood as soon as they were seated and banged her gavel on a little table. “We were supposed to be gathering today to discuss the change of stewardship of the Spyre docks,” she began. “But obviously—”

“She has started a war!”

Jacoby Sarto was on his feet before the echoes of his voice died out—and so were the rest of the ministers. For a long moment everyone was talking at once while Anseratte pounded her gavel ineffectually. Then Sarto held up one hand in a magisterial gesture. He gravely hoisted a stack of papers over his head. “I hold the signed declarations in my hand,” he rumbled. “This is nothing less than the start of that civil conflict we have all been dreading—an unprovoked, vicious attack in the heartland of Sacrus itself—”

“To rescue those people you kidnapped,” Venera said. She remained obstinately in her seat. “Citizens of sovereign states, abducted from their homes by agents of Sacrus.”

“Impudence!” roared Sarto. Half the members were still on their feet; in the pillared gallery that opened up behind the council pew, the coteries of ministers, secretaries, courtiers, and generals that each council member held in reserve were glaring at one another and at her. Several clenched the pommels of half-drawn swords.

“I have a partial list of names,” continued Venera, “of those we rescued from Sacrus’s dungeon last night. They include,” she shouted to drown out hecklers from the gallery, “citizens of every nation represented on this council, including Buridan. The council will not deny that I had every right to seek the repatriation of my own kinsmen?” She looked around, locking eyes with the unmasked members.

Principe Guinevera’s jowls quivered as he thunked solidly into his seat. “You’re not going to claim that Sacrus stole one of my citizens? Surely—” He stopped as he saw her scan the list and then hold up her hand.

“Her name is Melissa Ferania,” said Venera.

“Ferania, Ferania… I know that name…” Guinevera’s brows knit. “It was a suicide. They never found a body.”

Venera smiled. “Well, you’ll find her right now if you turn your head.” She gestured to the gallery.

The whole council craned their necks to look. People had been filing into the Buridan section of the gallery for several minutes; in the ruckus, nobody on the council had noticed.

On cue, Melissa Ferania stood up and bowed to Guinevera.

“Oh my dear, my dear child,” he said, tears starting at the corners of his eyes.

“I have more names,” said Venera, eyeing Jacoby Sarto. Everyone else was staring into the gallery, and he took the opportunity to meet her eye and nod slightly.

Venera felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.

She had stage-managed this confrontation for maximum effect, calling for volunteers from the recently rescued to attend the scheduled council meeting with her. Garth alone had refused to come; pale and still refusing to talk about his experience in the tower, he had remained outside in the street. But there were prisoners from Liris here as well as half a dozen other minor nations. As her trump card, she had brought people taken from the great nations of the council itself.

Sarto seemed more than unfazed at this tactic. He seemed satisfied.

She realized that a black silence had descended on the chamber. Everyone was looking at her. Clearing her throat, she said—her own words sounding distant to herself—”I move for immediate censure of Sacrus and the suspension of its rights on the Council of Spyre. Pending, uh… pending a thorough investigation of their recent activities.”

For once, Pamela Anseratte looked out of her depth. “Ah… what?” She pulled her gaze back from the gallery.

August Virilio laughed. “She wants us to expel Sacrus. A marvelous idea if I do say so myself—however impractical it may be.”

Venera rallied herself. She shrugged. “Gain a seat, lose a seat… besides,” she said more loudly, “it’s a matter of justice.”

Virilio toyed with a pen. “Maybe. Maybe—but Buridan forgot its own declaration of war before it invaded Sacrus. That nullifies your moral high ground, my dear.”

“It doesn’t nullify them.” She swept her arm to indicate the people behind her.

“Yes, marvelous grandstanding,” said Virilio dryly. “No doubt the majority of our council members are properly shocked at your revelation. Yet we must deal with practicalities. Sacrus is too important to Spyre to be turfed off the council for these misdemeanors, however serious they may seem. In fact, Jacoby Sarto was just now leveling some serious charges against you.”

There was more shouting and hand-waving—and yet, for a few moments, it seemed to Venera as though she were alone in the room with Jacoby Sarto. She looked to him, and he met her gaze. All expression had drained from his face.

When he opened his mouth again it would be to reveal her true identity to these people: he would name her as Venera Fanning and the sound of her name would act like a vast hand, toppling the whole edifice she had built. Though most of her allies knew or suspected she was an imposter, it had been neither polite nor expedient for them to admit it. If forced to admit what they already knew, however, they would find her the perfect person to blame for the impending war. All her allies would desert her, or if they didn’t, at least they would cease listening to her. Sarto had the power to cast her out, have her imprisoned… if she didn’t counter with her own bombshell.

This was the great gamble she had known she would have to take if she came here today. She had rehearsed it in her mind over and over: Sarto would reveal that she was the notorious Venera Fanning, who was implicated in dastardly scandals in the principalities. Opinion would turn against her and so, in turn, she would have to tell the people of Spyre another great secret. She would reveal the existence of the key to Candesce and declare that it was the cause of the coming war—a war engineered by Sacrus for its own convenience.

And now the moment had come. Sarto blinked slowly, looked away from her, and said, “I have here my own list. It is a list of innocent civilians killed last night by Amandera Thrace-Guiles and her men.”

Braced as she was for one outcome, it took Venera some seconds to understand what Sarto had said. He had called her Amandera Thrace-Guiles. He was not going to reveal her secret.

And in return, he expected her not to reveal his.

The council members were shouting; Guinevera was embracing his long-lost country woman and weeping openly; August Virilio had his arms crossed as he stared around in obvious disgust. Swords had been drawn in the gallery, and the ceremonial guards were rushing to do their job for the first time in their lives. Abject, shoulders slumped, Pamela Anseratte stood with gesturing people and words swirling around her, her hand holding a slip of paper that might have been her original agenda for the meeting.

It all felt distant and half real to Venera. She had to make a decision, right now.

Jacoby Sarto’s eyes were drilling into her.

She cleared her throat, hesitated one last second, and reached behind her.