Use of Weapons (8 page)

The
very top of the keep was out of bounds to the public; it bristled with aerials
and masts and a couple of slowly revolving radar units. Two floors below, once
the tour party had disappeared round the curve of the gallery, Sma and the
machine stopped at a thick metal door. The drone used its electromagnetic
effector to disable the door's alarm and open the electronic locks, then
inserted a field into a mechanical lock, jiggled the tumblers and swung the
door wide. Sma slipped through, immediately followed by the machine, which relocked
the door. They ascended to the broad, cluttered roof, beneath the vault of
turquoise sky; a tiny scout missile the drone had sent ahead sidled up to the
machine and was taken back inside.

'When's
it get here?' Sma said, listening to the warm wind hum through the jagged
spaces of the aerials around her.

'It's
over there,' Skaffen-Amtiskaw said, jabbing forward. She looked in the
direction it had indicated, and could just make out the spare, curved outline
of a four-person module, sitting nearby; it was giving a very good impression
of being transparent.

Sma
looked around the forest of masts and stays for a moment, the wind ruffling her
hair, then shook her head. She walked to the module-shape, momentarily dizzied
by the sensation that there wasn't anything there, then that there was. A door
swung up from the module's side, revealing the interior as though opening a
passageway into another world, which was - in a sense, she supposed - exactly
what it was doing.

She
and the drone entered. 'Welcome aboard, Ms Sma,' said the module.

'Hello.'

The
door closed. The module tipped back on its rear end, like a predator preparing
to pounce. It waited a moment for a flock of birds to clear the airspace a
hundred metres above, then it was gone, powering into the air. Watching from
the ground - if they hadn't blinked at the wrong moment - a very keen-eyed
observer might just have seen a column of trembling air flick skyward from the
summit of the keep, but would have heard nothing; even in high supersonic the
module could move more quietly than any bird, displacing tissue-thin layers of
air immediately ahead of it, moving into the vacuum so created, and replacing
the gases in the skin-thin space it had left behind; a falling feather produced
more turbulence.

Standing
in the module, gazing at the main screen, Sma watched the view beneath the
module shrink rapidly, as the concentric layers of the castle's defences came
crashing in like time-reversed waves from the edges of the screen; the castle
became a dot between the city and the straits, and then the city itself
disappeared and the view began to tip as the module angled out for its
rendezvous with the very fast picket
Xenophobe.

Sma
sat down, still watching the screen, eyes searching in vain for the valley on
the outskirts of the city where the dam and the old power station lay.

The
drone watched too, while it signalled to the waiting ship and received
confirmation the vessel had displaced Sma's luggage out of the trunk of the car
and into the woman's quarters on board.

Skaffen-Amtiskaw
studied Sma, as she stared - a little glumly, it thought - at the hazing-over
view on the module screen, and wondered when the best time would be to give her
the rest of the bad news.

Because,
despite all this wonderful technology, somehow (incredibly; uniquely, as far as
the drone knew... how in the name of chaos did a lump of meat outwit and
destroy a
knife missile
?), the man
called Cheradenine Zakalwe had shaken off the tail they'd put on him after he'd
resigned the last time.

So,
before they did anything else, Sma and it had to find the damn human first. If
they could.

The
figure slipped from behind a radar housing and crossed the keep's roof, beneath
the wind-moaning aerials. It went down the spiral of steps, checked all was
clear beyond the thick metal door, then opened it.

A
minute later, something that looked exactly like Diziet Sma joined the tour
party, while the guide was explaining how developments in artillery,
heavier-than-air flight and rocketry had made the ancient fortress obsolete.

XII

They
shared their eyrie with the state coach of the Mythoclast, a cluttered army of
statues, and a jumble of assorted chests, cases and cupboards packed with
treasure from a dozen great houses.

Astil
Tremerst Keiver selected a roquelaure from a tall chiffonier, closed the
cabinet's door and admired himself in the mirror. Yes, the cloak looked very
fine on him, very fine indeed. He flourished it, pirouetting, drew his
ceremonial rifle from its scabbard, and then made a circuit of the room, around
the grand state coach, making a 'ki-shauw, ki-shauw!' noise, and pointing the
gun at each black-curtained window in turn as he swept by them (his shadow
dancing gloriously across the walls and the cold grey outlines of the statues),
before arriving back at the fireplace, sheathing the rifle, and sitting
suddenly and imperiously down on a highly-wrought little chair of finest
bloodwood.

The
chair collapsed. He thumped into the flagstones and the bolstered gun at the
side fired, sending a round into the angle between the floor and the curve of
wall behind him.

'Shit,
shit, shit!' he cried, inspecting his breeks and cloak, respectively grazed and
holed.

The
door of the state coach burst open and someone flew out, crashing into an
escritoire and demolishing it. The man was still and steady in an instant,
presenting - in that infuriatingly efficient martial way of his - the smallest
possible target, and pointing the appallingly large and ugly plasma cannon
straight at the face of deputy vice-regent-in-waiting Astil Tremerst Keiver the
Eighth.

'Eek!
Zakalwe!' Keiver heard himself say, and threw the cloak over his head. (Damn!)

When
Keiver brought the cloak down again - with, he felt, all the not inconsiderable
dignity he could muster - the mercenary was already rising from the debris of
the little desk, taking a quick look round the room, and switching off the
plasma weapon.

Keiver
was, naturally, immediately aware of the hateful similarity of their positions,
and so stood up quickly.

'Ah.
Zakalwe. I beg your pardon. Did I wake you?'

The
man scowled, glanced down at the remains of the escritoire, slammed shut the
door of the state coach, and said, 'No; just a bad dream.'

'Ah.
Good.' Keiver fiddled with the ornamental pommel of his gun, wishing that
Zakalwe didn't make him feel - so unjustifiably, dammit - inferior, and
crossed in front of the fireplace to sit (carefully, this time) on a
preposterous porcelain throne stationed to one side of the hearth.

He
watched the mercenary sit down on the hearth-stone, leaving the plasma cannon
on the floor in front of him and stretching. 'Well, a half watch's sleep will
have to suffice.'

'Hmm,'
Keiver said, feeling awkward. He glanced at the ceremonial coach the other man
had been sleeping in, and so recently vacated. 'Ah.' Keiver drew the roquelaure
about him, and smiled. 'I don't suppose you know the story behind that old
carriage, do you?'

The
mercenary - the so-called (Ha!) War Minister - shrugged. 'Well,' he said. 'The
version I heard was that in the Interregnum, the Archpresbyter told the
Mythoclast he could have the tribute, income and souls of all the monasteries
he could raise his state coach above, using one horse. The Mythoclast accepted,
founded this castle and erected this tower with foreign loans, and using a highly
efficient pulley system powered by his prize stallion, winched the coach up
here during the Thirty Golden Days to claim every monastery in the land. He won
the bet and the resulting war, disestablished the Final Priesthood, paid off
his debts, and only perished because the groom in charge of the prize stallion
objected to the fact that the beast died of its exertions, and strangled him
with its blood and foam-flecked bridle... which, according to legend, is
immured within the base of the porcelain throne you're sitting on. So we're
told.' He looked at the other man and shrugged again.

Keiver
was aware that his mouth was hanging open. He closed it. 'Ah, you know the
story.'

'No;
just a wild guess.'

Keiver
hesitated, then laughed loudly. 'By hell! You're a rum chap, Zakalwe!'

The
mercenary stirred the remains of the bloodwood chair with one heavily-booted
foot, and said nothing.

Keiver
was aware that he ought to do something, and so stood. He wandered to the
nearest window, drew back the drape and unlocked the interior shutters, levered
the external shutters aside and stood, arm against the stones, gazing out at
the view beyond.

The
Winter Palace, besieged.

Outside,
on the snow-strewn plain, amongst the fires and trenches, there were huge
wooden siege structures and missile launchers, heavy artillery and
rock-throwing catapults; juried field projectors and gas-powered-searchlights;
a heinous collection of blatant anachronisms, developmental paradoxes and
technological juxtapositions. And they called it progress.

'I
don't know,' Keiver breathed. 'Men fire guided missiles, from their mounts'
saddles; jets are shot down by guided arrows; throw-knives explode like
artillery shells, or like as not get turned back by ancestral armour backed by
these damned field projectors... where's it all to end, eh, Zakalwe?'

'Here,
in about three heartbeats, if you don't close those shutters or pull the
black-out drapes behind you.' He stabbed at the logs in the grate with a poker.

'Ha!'
Keiver withdrew rapidly from the window, half ducking as he pulled the lever to
close the external shutters. 'Quite!' He hauled the drape across the window,
dusting down his hands, watching the other man as he prodded at the logs in the
fire. 'Indeed!' He took his place on the porcelain throne again.

Of
course, Mr so-called War Minister Zakalwe liked to pretend he did have an idea
where it was all going to end; he claimed to have some sort of explanation for
it all, about outside forces, the balance of technology, and the erratic
escalation of military wizardry. He always seemed to be hinting at greater
themes and conflicts, beyond the mere here-and-now, forever trying to establish
some - frankly laughable - otherworldly superiority. As though that made any
difference to the fact that he was nothing more than a mercenary - a very lucky
mercenary - who'd happened to catch the ear of the Sacred Heirs and impress
them with a mixture of absurdly risky exploits and cowardly plans, while the
one he'd been paired with - him, Astil Tremerst Keiver the Eighth, deputy
regent-in-waiting, no less - had behind him a thousand years of breeding,
natural seniority and - indeed, for that was just the way things were, dammit -
superiority. After all, what sort of War Minister - even in these desperate
days - was so incapable of delegating that he had to sit out a watch up here,
waiting for an attack that would probably never come?

Keiver
glanced at the other man, sitting staring into the flames, and wondered what he
was thinking.

I blame Sma.
She got me into this crock of shit.

He
looked around the cluttered spaces of the room. What had he to do with idiots
like Keiver, with all this historical junk, with any of this? He didn't feel
part of it, could not identify with it, and he did not entirely blame them for
not listening to him. He supposed he did have the satisfaction of knowing that
he had warned the fools, but that was little enough to warm yourself with, on a
cold and closing night like this.

He'd
fought; put his life at risk for them, won a few desperate rear-guard actions,
and he had tried to tell them what they ought to do; but they'd listened too
late, and given him some limited power only after the war was already more or
less lost. But that was just the way they were; they were the bosses, and if
their whole way of life vanished because it was a tenet of that way that people
like them automatically knew how to make war better than even the most
experienced commoners or outsiders, then that was not unjust; everything came
level in the end. And if it meant their deaths, let them all die.