Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

Not that I uh, actually accept that tenet , Galat had hastened to assure Archeth one afternoon at the rail, as the frigate forged its way upriver toward An-Monal. The Revelation is subject to such revision of course , through the wisdom of learned debate and prayer. But I see no reason to adopt every position proposed in the Mastery, simply because it is proposed. And I uhm, you know, actually I cherish the part your people have played in Yhelteth’s rise to its holy destiny .

How very enlightened of you . Archeth had promised the Emperor she would be polite. I’ll be sure to keep that quiet when we get back. Wouldn’t want you getting in trouble with your superiors .

He flushed, and left her largely alone after that.

Which was what she wanted, but now she wondered if antagonizing him had been wise. She doubted he could derail the intentions of Nyanar and Hald if they chose to back her—an invigilator’s so-called supreme moral authority was actually a pretty tenuous thing when it butted up against the blunt pragmatism of the Empire’s career military officers—but he could certainly pour some cold ecclesiastical water on any enthusiasm she managed to generate in men who, to be honest, were already looking decidedly dubious about the turn events had taken.

“We are a small force,” Hald pointed out. “And we don’t really know what it is we’re dealing with. Would it not make more sense to carry this news back to Yhelteth and organize a fully equipped expedition?”

It would—except for the fact that, under current circumstances, Jhiral wasn’t about to spare such a fully equipped force for anything that didn’t involve securing the northern borders or holding the line against rioting religious idiots in Demlarashan. And while the young Emperor had no time for the warmed-over superstitions muttering out of the Citadel these days as dogma, he didn’t have much time for the Helmsmen, either. Certainly, he wouldn’t trust one any farther than you would a steppe nomad with your wife. And in this he was, for once, representative of the people he governed. An-Monal stood empty and decaying for a reason.

So no, she fucking couldn’t go back to Jhiral with this one, and Hald probably knew it. She paced her words for conciliatory aplomb.

“I do not believe, Commander, that this is an operation requiring much military force. Certainly nothing that your men could not handle. Manathan was vague, but—”

“Vague indeed,” rumbled Nyanar. “A messenger in need of escort. Quote, unquote. That’s not much to go on.”

“And not much out there.” The frigate’s second officer nodded soberly at the map they’d spread across the table. Pinned out between a pair of heavy silver paperweights carved like slain dragons, the thick yellow parchment showed the full extent of the Y’hela River as it reached back from Yhelteth and the coast, past the huge bulk of the volcano where An-Monal was built, and then on into the interior. The land around it was largely arid and featureless. No cities marked. “If this is a messenger, then where’s he come from?”

“Shaktur, perhaps?” Someone trying to be helpful.

“They are already represented at court,” Hald said. “And anyway, if this messenger’s come all the way from the Great Lake, why does he suddenly need an escort now? We’re deep inside imperial territory here. No barbarian incursions, no banditry to speak of. Compared with the eastern marches, this is a pleasure park.”

“From the south, then?”

Nyanar shrugged. “Same applies. Anyone coming up from the desert has to pass through rougher terrain than this. They made it this far, they don’t need our help with the last leg.”

“Unless they’re in trouble,” Hanesh Galat offered unexpectedly.

Everyone looked at him. He blushed, seemingly as surprised as anyone else that he’d spoken up.

“That is,” he pressed on, voice gaining a little force as he spoke. “Perhaps in coming this far, the messenger and his party have suffered privations that mean they can go no farther without our help. In which case, it would actually be our bound duty under the Revelation to bring aid to them.”

Archeth shut her mouth. Cleared her throat.

“Well, quite,” she said.

An uncomfortable silence settled around the table. It was an instinctive reaction where matters of doctrine were concerned. No one who valued their position in Yhelteth society would ever willingly be seen to call the tenets of the Revelation into question, least of all where those tenets had just been subject to interpretation by an accredited invigilator. However…

“My concern,” said Hald carefully, “is that this may be a trick. Maybe even an ambush of some kind. The Helmsman has said that this messenger is waiting for us. Is that not so, my lady?”

“ Will be waiting for us, yes.”

The marine commander gestured. “Yes. Will be waiting for us, or is already. In either case, my lady, and outside of sorcery, how is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” Archeth had to admit. “High Kiriath is a complicated tongue at the best of times, and the Helmsmen frequently speak it in arcane inflections. Maybe I’m just not translating very well.”

Yeah, Archidi, and maybe that’s lizardshit. Maybe you’ve told these humans exactly as much as you want them to know, because anything else is going to make their support even harder to enlist. Maybe there are details and questions you’d really rather they left alone, not least so you can do the same and just concentrate on this bright new thing the Helmsman has brought you .

This bright new thing…

“DAUGHTER OF FLARADNAM.” MANATHAN’S TIGHT-EDGED TONES FELL somber in the cold air of her father’s study. Shadows across the walls, broad fading angles of light from the high windows as the afternoon closed down outside. “There is a message for you.”

“What message?” Not yet paying much attention, working with her tongue at a shred of apple peel caught in her teeth, looking absently around at the room instead, wondering as always where exactly in all this architecture the Helmsman was actually located. It was something she’d never managed to persuade Flaradnam to tell her.

“Well, a message of some importance, I imagine.” Impossible to read if the Helmsman’s voice was edged with exasperation or not. “Since the messenger is coming all this way to deliver it to you in person. Speaking of which, he will be here , more or less. And”—she thought she caught some subtle amusement in the voice—“he will wait for you.”

A twist of reddish light kindled at one corner of the room, unwrapped into a floating map of the local region. She wandered over, made out An-Monal, the volcano’s cone, and the city itself on the western slope. The road down to the harbor, the flex of the river as it skirted the volcano and backed off into the eastern hinterlands. Symbols she could not understand flared yellow across that portion, some kind of path laid out in an arc across the desert, and finally a pulsing marker, some fifty or sixty miles upriver.

“Here?” She shook her head. “But there’s nothing out there.”

“Well, then you’d better hurry up and collect him, hadn’t you? Wouldn’t want him to go hungry.”

Archeth passed her hand through the phantom fire, not quite able to suppress the shiver of wonder it always engendered when the contact did not burn. She’d grown up with these things, but where some aspects of her father’s heritage had worn smooth with use over the years, others were still a jagged shock every time they manifested. She rubbed at her hand anyway, instinctively.

“And you say this messenger has come for me?”