Salute the Dark

This room, however, she had found for herself: an armoury on the third floor of the palace, stripped of its contents when the new garrison quarters had been built elsewhere in Capitas. No alternative use for it had yet been found. It had one main door and one hidden door, as was the case with most of the military rooms in the palace, for Seda’s father, the late Emperor, had been a man given to surprises and ambushes – and so had his chief advisor, the infamous Rekef, whose name lived on in the force of spies and agents that he had fashioned.

The secret entrance was crucial. It was of the utmost importance that nobody realized just how many people she was meeting here. Otherwise it would be so easy for word to get to her brother Alvdan, and then everything would be thrown into disarray.

Already, General Brugan had his men posted nearby, watching all approaches, turning passing servants away. Alvdan and his lackey Maxin need never know what had transpired here.

She wondered if Uctebri would, however. The Mosquito had ways of spying on her that she could not control, just as she could not control him. His invisible eyes could be present here, in this very room, as she received her fellow conspirators and told them what they must do for her. Like all the others, Uctebri had missed discovering the real Seda. She had grown up in continual fear of her life, and her one defence was to seem vulnerable and helpless. She had lived with Maxin’s knife poised over her, and Alvdan’s temper always ready to give him the word. She had made her way through the world with meekness as her only shield. She had cultivated it assiduously, seeming a willing tool to every purpose. When she was young, she had feared that General Maxin could read minds, that he would register even the slightest flicker of rebellion or resentment.

But now she had as her doubtful ally a man who really could read minds, and she was practised enough to place there in front of him just what he wished to see. Even the master-sorcerer himself would have to dig very deep to find the real Seda beneath her camouflage.

He was clever, was Uctebri the Sarcad, clever enough to plot the downfall of an Emperor, but she hoped that, like so many clever men, he underestimated the intelligence of others. She now gazed about the room at her assembled allies. They included General Brugan, of course, solid and dependable and very much hers since her brother had made Maxin the lord of the Rekef. The suspicious death of General Reiner looked enough like a precursor to his own that he was now entirely Seda’s to play with. She liked him, too: in face and body, here was a man to be admired, and with an uncommon streak of integrity that she found intriguing. She knew what he hoped from her, and she had given him nothing to dispel those expectations. They would prove useful to her.

She also had three of the Imperial advisors on her side now: there was old Gjegevey, who saw her as a victim who needed nurturing, and two of the older Wasp councillors who could feel their seats beside the throne being prepared for younger men now dearer to the Emperor. Two years ago such treason would not have been thinkable, but the war within the Rekef had made men fearful for more than just their station or reputation. General Reiner’s death had scared a great many powerful people.

She had both of the palace stewards in her party: considered lowly menials who ordered the servants and slaves about, nobody cared much about them; one was a Wasp woman, the other a Grasshopper slave. Being strictly civilian, they were firmly under the heel of the Empire, and nobody save Seda had realized quite how much power they wielded and what they could accomplish. Beyond that, she had several military officers: a colonel and two majors from within the Capitas garrison, and a scattering of others from outside it. They were disaffected men that Brugan had been watching, and normally he would have caused them to disappear, thus increasing that fear of the Rekef that kept ambitious officers throughout the army in line. But now he had made them her offer.

From face to face she looked in turn, seeing there her own fragile empire ready to set against her all-powerful brother – and against the unthinkable Uctebri.

She smiled at them warmly, and set about explaining precisely what they must do for her.

* * *

‘You’ve got another visitor,’ came Ult’s voice. Tisamon opened his eyes, his mind falling back from dream-tormented sleep to the gloomy confines of his cell.

‘Keep your visitors.’

‘What can I say? You’re a popular man.’ Ult grinned mirthlessly. ‘Never had a prisoner get so many visitors wanting to see him.’

Tisamon shrugged. ‘To the pits with them.’

‘Don’t be like that. You’re denying me a chance to make a fortune.’