Paul Mcauley: Ancients of Days

“I pray you are right. I think that Prefect Corin is still searching for me, and he is a high official in Indigenous Affairs.”

They had talked about this before. Tamora said with exaggerated patience, “Of course I am right. It is how it has always been, since the world was made. If it were not for the ancient protocols, there would be constant civil war here. Your Prefect will not be able to interfere. I am sure the Indigenous Affairs sent those fools to ambush us, and perhaps Prefect Corin had a hand in it, but now we are inside the boundary of this Department he will dare do nothing else.”

“Listen. Here is the problem. Not your Prefect, but the real problem. We fight because we’re paid. Once captured no harm will come to us. But the thralls fight because they’ve been told to fight, and they’ve been told to fight because that fat fool who rules this place and claims to see into the future predicts victory. The thralls know in their guts that she is wrong. That is why they are so sullen.”

Yama said, “We do not know that Luria does not have the powers she claims.”

“Grah. She knows that she doesn’t, and so does Syle, and so do the thralls. And the other pythoness is no more than a whey-faced wet-brained child stolen from her cradle. I have not heard her speak a single word since we came here.”

Pandaras said, “From what I hear, Daphoene might be young, but she does have power, and that’s why she is forbidden to speak. Luria fears her because she thinks that one day innocent Daphoene will expose her fraud. Master, I must speak with you about what I heard.”

Yama said, “Daphoene is very young. She may appear to keep her own counsel, but perhaps she has none to offer.”

Tamora laughed. “Yama, you’re so innocent that you’re a danger to all around you. For once your pet rat has said something sensible. If Daphoene does have true foresight, then Luria has every reason to keep her quiet. Syle too, and that bloodless wife of his. For Daphoene will know how badly the defense of this place will go.”

Yama said, “Well, we will see her at work soon enough.”

In two days, the oracle would be opened for public inquisition, and the pythonesses would answer the questions of their petitioners. It might be the last time the ceremony was held, for ten days after that the deadline for challenging the quit claim would run out. The Department of Indigenous Affairs would be allowed to march on the crumbling glory of the High Morning Court of the Department of Vaticination, and occupy the place where once Hierarchs had swum amongst maps of the Galaxy’s stars, ordering the voyages of ships that fell from star to star through holes in space and time.

Pandaras told Tamora, “My master has paid you to help him find his bloodline, and it is a better and more honorable task than this game of soldiers. As you will at once see, if you let me tell my tale.”

“You run if you want,” Tamora said. “I’d like to see you run, rat-boy. It would prove what I’ve always thought about you.”

Pandaras said, with an air of affronted dignity, “I’ll ignore the slights on my character, except to say that those who attribute base motives to all around them do so because they expect no better of themselves. But while you have been playing at soldiers, I have been risking my life. Master, please hear me out, I must tell you what I heard.”

“If this is more kitchen gossip,” Tamora said, “then hold your yap. You’d inflate the breaking of a glass into an epic tragedy.”

“Neh, and why not? It’s a painful death for the glass concerned, leaves its fellows bereft of a good companion, and makes them aware of their own mortality.”

Yama said, “Pandaras claims to have overheard a conspiracy.”

“Master, she will not believe me. It is not worth telling her.”

“Out with it, Pandaras,” Yama said. “Forget your injured dignity.”

“There were two of them. They were whispering together, but I heard one say, ‘Tomorrow, at dawn. Go straightaway, and come straight back.’ This was a woman. The other may have been a servant, for he simply made a noise of assent, and the first said, ‘Do this, and I see a great elevation. Fail, and she lives. And if she lives we all may die.’ Then they both moved off, master, and I heard no more. But it is enough, don’t you think?”

Tamora said, “We should expect nothing less. These old departments are rats’ nests of poisonous intrigues and feuds over trifles.”

Pandaras said, “If we can trust no one here, why must we stay? We should cut our losses and run.”

Yama said, “You have not told us who these plotters were.”

“Ah, as to that…”

Tamora scowled. “Grah. You were scared, and didn’t dare look.”

“Had I leaned out over the gallery rail, I might have been seen, and the game would have been up.” Pandaras batted at the pair of fireflies which circled his head; they dipped away and circled back. “These cursed things we must use instead of candles would have given me away.”

“As I said, you were scared.”

Yama said, “It does not matter. The gate is closed at night, and opens again at sunrise. Whoever leaves when it opens tomorrow will be our man.”

Tamora said, “And when we catch him we can cut the truth from him.”

“No,” Yama said. “I will follow him, and learn what I can. If there is a conspiracy, of course. There may be an innocent explanation.”

Drilling the thralls was all very well, but Yama had done little else in the three days since they had arrived here. He was beginning to feel as if he was suffocating in the stale air of the Department of Vaticination, with its meaningless ceremonies and its constant reverent evocation of the dead days of its long-lost glory. He wanted to see more of the Palace. He wanted to find the records of his bloodline and move on. He wanted to go downriver and plunge into the war at the midpoint of the world.

“It’s obviously some plot against the fat bitch,” Tamora said thoughtfully. “It’s because of Luria’s refusal to bargain with the Department of Indigenous Affairs that we’re here. Without her, there would be no dispute.”

“ ‘Fail, and she lives. And if she lives we all may die,’ “ Pandaras said.

“When your rat-boy agrees with me,” Tamora told Yama, “then you know I must be right. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to do nothing. In any case, you should not leave this place, Yama. We are protected by law and custom only as long as we stay within the boundaries of the Department of Vaticination. I know that you want to begin your search for the records of your bloodline. But be patient. In a decad, the Department of Indigenous Affairs will take this place, no matter how well we train the thralls. Then we can search together, as we agreed. You’re already wounded, and we have been misled about the kind of troops we were to command, and our employers plot against each other. It’s clear someone here has allied themselves to Indigenous Affairs, and hopes to make a bargain after assassinating their rivals. It doesn’t matter who is plotting against who, for there’s no honor to be won here. The defense is simply a matter of form before the inevitable surrender. Like all of Gorgo’s little jobs, this has nothing to commend it. Another reason to kill him, when we are done here.”

Gorgo was the broker who had given Tamora this contract. He had tried to kill Yama because Yama had cost him the commission on a previous job and because he suspected that, with Yama’s help, Tamora might free herself of her obligation to him. Yama had killed him instead, riddling him with a hundred tiny machines, but Tamora had not seen it and she did not or would not believe in what she called Yama’s magic tricks.