Domes of Fire Part 45

'Please, Caalador,' Stragen said, 'spare me the folksy ebie. Get to the point.'

''Taint really natch'ral, Stragen.'

'Do you mind?'

Talen, Stragen and Caalador were meeting in a cell near the waterfront. It was mid-morning, and the local thieves were beginning to stir.

'As you've already discovered, the brotherhood here in Matherion's afflicted with a caste system,' Caalador continued. 'The thieves' guild doesn't talk to the swindlers, and the beggars guild doesn't talk to the wh.o.r.es-except in the line of business, of course-and the murderer's guild is totally outcast.'

'Now that there's realnt on-natch-ral,' Talen observed.

'Don't do that, Talen,' Stragen told him. 'One of you is bad enough. I couldn't bear two. Why are the murderers so despised?'

'Because they violate one of the basic precepts of Tamul culture,' Caalador shrugged. 'They're paid a.s.sa.s.sins actually, and they don't bow and sc.r.a.pe to their victims before they cut their throats. The concept of courtesy overwhelms Tamuls. They don't really object to the notion of someone murdering n.o.blemen or hire. It's the rudeness of it all that upsets them.' Caalador shook his head. 'That's one of the reasons so many Tamul thieves get caught and beheaded. It's considered impolite to run away.'

'Unbelievable,' Talen murmured. 'It's worse than we thought, Stragen. If these people don't talk to each other, we'll never get any information out of them.'

'I think I warned you not to expect too much here in Matherion, my friends,' Caalador reminded them.

'Are the rest of the guilds afraid of the murderers?' Stragen asked.

'Oh, yes,' Caalador replied.

'We'll start from there then. What's the general feeling about the emperor?'

'Awe, generally, and a level of adoration that hovers right on the verge of outright worship.'

'Good. Get in touch with the murderers' guild. When Talen brings you the word, have the cutthroats round up the heads of the other guilds and bring them to the palace.'

'What are we a-fixin' t' do here, m' friend?'

'I'll speak with the emperor and see if I can persuade him to make a speech to our brothers,' Stragen shrugged.

'Have you lost your mind?'

'Of course not. Tamuls are completely controlled by custom, and one of those customs is that the emperor can suspend customs.'

'Were you able to follow that?' Caalador asked Talen. 'I think he lost me on that sharp turn right there at the end.'

'Let's see if I've got this straight,' Caalador said to the blond Thalesian. 'You're going to violate every known propriety of the criminal culture here in Matherion by having the murderers kidnap the leaders of the other guilds.'

'Yes,' Stragen admitted.

'Then you're going to have them all taken to the palace compound, where they're absolutely forbidden to go.'

'Yes.'

'Then you're going to ask the emperor to make a speech to a group of people whose very existence he's not even supposed to know about.'

'That's more or less what I had in mind.'

'And the emperor's going to command them to suspend aeons-old custom and tradition and start cooperating with each other?'

'Is there some problem with that?'

'No, not really. I just wanted to be sure I had it all down straight in my mind, that's all.'

'See to it, would you, old boy?' Stragen asked. 'I'd probably better go talk with the emperor.'

Sephrenia sighed.. 'You're being childish, you know,' she said.

Salla's eyes bulged. 'How dare you?' he almost screamed. The Styric elder's face had gone white.

'You forget yourself, Elder Salla,' Zalasta told the outraged man. 'Councillor Sephrenia speaks for the Thousand. Will you defy them? And the G.o.ds they represent?'

'The Thousand are misguided!' Salla bl.u.s.tered. 'There can never be an accommodation between Styric.u.m and the pig-eaters!'

'That's for the Thousand to decide,' Zalasta told him in a flinty tone.

'But look at what the Elene barbarians have done to us,' Salla said, his voice choked with outrage.

'You've lived out your whole life here in the Styric quarter in Matherion, Elder Salla,' Zalasta said. 'You've probably never even seen an Elene.'

'I can read, Zalasta.'

'I'm delighted to hear it. We're not really here for discussion, however. The High Priestess of Aphrael is conveying the instruction of the Thousand. Like it or not, you're compelled to obey.'

Salla's eyes filled with tears. 'They've murdered us!' he choked.

'You seem to be in remarkably good condition for a man who's been murdered, Salla,' Sephrenia told him. 'Tell me, was it painful?'

'You know what I mean, Priestess.'

'Ah, yes,' she said, 'that tiresome Styric compulsion to expropriate pain. Someone on the far side of the world stabs a Styric, and you start to bleed. You sit here in Matherion in protected luxury feeling sorry for yourself and secretly consumed with a gnawing envy that you're being denied martyrdom. Well, if you want to be a martyr so badly, Salla, I can arrange it for you.' Sephrenia was coldly angry with this babbling fool. 'The Thousand has made its decision,' she said flatly. 'I don't really have to explain it to you, but I will-so that you can convey the decision to your followers-and you will explain it, Salla. You'll be very convincing about it, or I'll replace you.'

'I hold my position for life,' he declared defiantly.

'Precisely my point.' Her tone was ominous.

He stared at her. 'You wouldn't!' he gasped.

'Try me.' Sephrenia had wanted to say that to someone for years. She found it quite satisfying. 'It goes like this, Salla-feel free to stop me if I start going too fast for you. The Elenes are savages who are looking for an excuse to kill every Styric they see. If we don't a.s.sist them in this crisis, we'll be handing them that excuse on a velvet cushion. We will a.s.sist them, because if we don't, they'll slaughter every Styric on the Eosian continent. We don't want them to do that, do we?'

'But-'

'Salla, if you say "but" to me one more time, I'll obliterate you.' She was startled to discover just how enjoyable it was to behave like an Elene. 'I've given you the instruction of the Thousand, and the Thousand speaks for the G.o.ds. The matter is not open for discussion, so quit trying to snivel or wriggle your way out of this. You will obey, or you will die. Those are your options. Choose quickly. I'm in a bit of a hurry.'

Even Zalasta seemed shocked at that.

'Your G.o.ddess is cruel, councillor Sephrenia,' Salla accused.

She hit him before she even thought about it, her hand and arm seeming to move all on their own. Shehad spent generations with the Pandion Knights, and she knew how to get her shoulder behind the blow. It was more than an ineffectual slap. She caught him sollidly on the point of the chin with the heel of her hand, and he reeled back, his eyes glazed. Sephrenia began to intone the words of the deadly incantation, her hands moving quite openly in the accompanying gestures.

'I won't do that, Sephrenia.' Aphrael's voice rang sharply in her mind.

'I know,' Sephrenia threw back the thought. 'I'm just trying to get his attention, that's all.'

Salla gasped as he realised what she was doing. Then he screamed and fell to his knees, blubbering and begging for mercy.

'Will you do as I have commanded you to do?' she snapped.

'Yes, Priestess, yes, please don't kill me!'

'I have stopped the spell, but I have not cancelled it. I can finish it at any time. Your heart lies in my fist, Salla. Keep that firmly in mind the next time you feel an urge to insult my G.o.ddess. Now get up and go do as you're told. Come along, Zalasta. The smell of selfpity in here nauseates me.'

'You've grown hard, Sephrenia,' Zalasta accused when they were back out in the narrow streets of the Styric quarter.

'I was bluffing, my old friend,' she told him. 'Aphrael would never have responded to the spell.' She touched her forearm gingerly. 'Do you happen to know where I might find a good physician, Zalasta? I think I've just sprained my wrist.'

'Not very impressive, are they?' Ulath suggested as he, Tynian and Kring walked back across the neatlytrimmed grounds of the imperial compound toward the Elene castle.

'Truly,' Kring agreed. 'They seem to spend all their time thinking about parades.' The three of them were returning from their meeting with the Imperial High Command. 'They're all show,' the Domi concluded. 'There's no substance to them.'

'Uniformed courtiers,' Ulath dismissed the Tamul general staff.

'I'll agree,' Tynian concurred. 'The Atans are the real military force in Tamuli. Decisions are made by the government, and the general staff simply pa.s.ses those decisions on to the Atan commanders. I began to have some doubts about the effectiveness of the imperial army when they told me that rank is hereditary. I wouldn't want to rely on them in the event of an emergency.'

'That's G.o.d's own truth, friend Tynian,' Kring said. Their cavalry general took me to the stables and showed me what they call horses here.' He shuddered.

'Bad?' Ulath asked.

'Worse than bad, friend Ulath. Their mounts wouldn't even make good plough-horses. I wouldn't have believed that horses could get that fat. Anything faster than a walk would kill the poor beasts.'

'Are we agreed then?' Tynian ' asked them. 'The imperial army is totally useless?'

'I think you're flattering them, Tynian,' Ulath replied.

'We'll have to phrase our report rather carefully,' the Alcione Knight told his companions. 'We probably shouldn't offend the emperor. Could we say "undertrained?"' That's the truth certainly,'

Kring answered. 'How about "unversed in modern tactics and strategy?"'

'No argument there,' Ulath grunted.. '"Poorly equipped?"'

'That's not exactly true, friend Tynian,' Kring disagreed. 'Their equipment is of very good quality. It's probably the best twelfth-century equipment I've ever seen.'

'All right,' Tynian laughed, 'how about "archaic weaponry"?'

'I could accept that,' the Domi conceded.

'You'd rather not mention fat, lazy, stupid or inept, I gather?' Ulath asked.

'That might be just a shade undiplomatic, Ulath.'

'True, though,' Ulath said mournfully.

Pondia Subat did not approve. Emban and Vanion could sense that, although the prime minister's face and manner remained diplomatically bland. Emperor Sarahian had, as promised, spoken at length with his prime minister, and Pondia Subat was going out of his way to be co-operative and to conceal his true feelings.

'The details are very commonplace, my Lords,' he said deprecatingly, but then, the details of day-to-day government always are, aren't they?'

'Of course, Pondia,' Emban shrugged, 'but when taken in the ma.s.s, the accretion of detail conveys the sense of governing style, wouldn't you say? From what I've seen so far this morning, I've already reached certain conclusions.'

'Oh?' Subat's tone was neutral.

'The guiding principle here seems to be the protection of the emperor,' Emban told him. 'That principle's very familiar to me, since it's identical to the one that dominates our thinking in Chyrellos. The government of the Church exists almost entirely to protect the Archprelate.'

'Perhaps, Your Grace, but you'll have to admit that there are differences.'

'Oh, of course, but the fact that Emperor Sarabian's not as powerful as Archprelate Dolmant doesn't really change things.'

Subat's eyes widened slightly, but he instantly gained control of his expression.

'I realise that the concept is alien to you, Pondia,' Emban continued smoothly, but the Archprelate speaks for G.o.d, and that makes him the most powerful man on earth. That's an Elene perception, of course, and it may have little or nothing to do with reality. So long as we all believe it, though, it is true. That's what those of us in church government do. We devote a great deal of our effort to making sure that all Elenes continue to believe that Dolmant speaks for G.o.d. So long as they believe that, the Archprelacy's safe.'

The fat little churchman considered it. 'If you don't mind an observation, Pondia Subat, your central problem here in Matherion stems from the fact that you Tamuls have a secular turn of mind. Your church has been diminished, probably because you can't bring yourselves to accept the notion that any authority might equal or exceed that of the emperor. You've erased the element of faith from your national character. Scepticism is all very well and good, but it tends to get out of hand. After you've applied it to G.o.d-or your G.o.ds-it starts to spill over, and people begin to question other things as well-the rightness of government, imperial wisdom, the justice of the tax system, that sort of thing. In the most perfect of worlds, the emperor would be deified, and church and state would become one.'

He laughed in a self-deprecating little way. 'Sorry, Pondia Subat. I didn't mean to preach. It's an occupational compulsion, I suppose. The point is that both Tamuls and Elenes have made the same mistake. You didn't make your emperor a G.o.d, and we didn't make our Archprelate an emperor. We've both failed the people by placing an incomplete authority over them. They deserved better of us. But I can see that you're busy, and my stomach's telling me rather pointedly that it's lunch-time. We'll talk again-soon. Coming, Lord Vanion?'

'You don't actually believe what you just said, do you, Emban?' Vanion murmured as the two Elenes left the office.

'Probably not,' Emban shrugged, 'but we're going to have to do something to widen the crack in that stone sh.e.l.l around Subat's mind. I'm sure that the emperor's offer to have his head docked opened his eyes a bit, but until he starts actually thinking instead of simply plodding along the well-worn paths of his preconceptions, we're not going to get anything out of him. Despite his general disapproval of us, he's still the most important man in the government, and I'd rather have him working for us than against us. Do you suppose we could step right along, Vanion? I'm definitely getting hungry.'

'It should be blue, though,' Danae was saying. She sat with Mmrr in Emperor Sarabian's lap, looking directly into his eyes.

'For an Elene, yes, but-' The Emperor sounded dubious.

'Right,' she agreed. 'Tamul skin tone would be better with-'

'But not red-red, though. More scarlet, perhaps even-'

'No. Maroon's too dark. It's a ball, not a-'

'We don't wear dark clothes at funerals. We wear-'

'Really? That's a very interesting notion. Why do you-?'

'It's considered insulting to-'

'The dead-'