Glen Cook - Surrender to the will of the night

“I had to help Great Grandfather seal off the Construct. Then I had to get some sleep. And then I had to help him set the trap that just got sprung.”

“That explosion?”

“That would be the most obvious part.”

“He’s making a habit of knocking this place down.”

“But that’s good. For you. It means the monster walked into the trap. It means you won’t have to fight it off.”

Hecht rubbed his left wrist. “I don’t know.” It felt like the Night remained plenty active.

Someone called out from below. He yelled back something about looking out for the Empress.

Lila said, “I have to go. I have to help Great Grandfather tonight. Don’t worry about the monster. The explosives were silver-charged. They shredded it.” She turned sideways.

Hecht turned himself. And found Katrin watching him, not looking the least bit drugged. “Who was that, Commander?”

“My daughter. The sorceress.”

The new collapse at the hippodrome served to declare a truce between the working people on both sides. A lot of rescue work needed doing, particularly of horses and the people who lived with them.

It was another long night affording little rest. On the plus side, casualties were amazingly few.

Lila said Muniero Delari was responsible. The Principat? had destroyed the thing in the catacombs again, maybe permanently this time. And the effects were immediate and far-reaching.

Come morning the city was quiet. And flooded with rumors. The squabble in the Collegium had taken a dramatic turn. Serenity’s most obdurate supporters had fled into Krois, where they would assist the Patriarch in waiting the several days it would take the Captain-General to come rescue them.

Whether or not Serenity liked it, Pinkus Ghort could not just turn his back on the Grand Duke. That would get him slaughtered. He needed to maintain a force capable of making a rescue.

Loud supporters of the Patriarch were scarce today. Those Hecht did see were in the custody of partisans of families not named Benedocto. There was no resistance.

Could that thing down under have been a revenant old god of strife?

Hecht delivered the Empress and her party to the Penital, where Ambassador va Still-Patter had been under siege for weeks. The besiegers had gone away during the night.

Hecht rubbed his left wrist. The amulet barely tickled this morning.

Principat? Delari had done good. He had done real good.

Military operations continued. Krois had to be isolated. The Chiaro Palace had to be neutralized. The north side gates had to be taken under control to forestall their use by the Captain-General, whose motley Patriarchal levies now outnumbered the Imperials harassing them.

Hecht went to one of the little gates of the Castella dollas Pontellas and asked to see his family. After he had made arrangements for his soldiers with families locally to visit their loved ones, with minimal risk.

Chaos waxed and waned. There were no serious outbreaks. No attack on the Devedian quarter materialized. Hecht was quick to encourage rumors that blamed him for having kept an attack from developing.

Hecht finally sat down with his family. Even Muniero Delari was there. Though triumphant, the old man looked like he was on his last legs, and believed that himself. “This time was too much, Piper. Protecting the Construct, harassing Doneto, slaying his monster, trying to turn the tide in the Collegium… All too much for one old man. And Doneto is still out there, scheming up something else.”

“You stop. He’s been thwarted. Leave the rest for someone else.”

“There is no one else.”

“Pella. I have a mission for you. You can draft Vali to help.”

“Dad?”

“Put this old coot into bed and sit on him till I tell you to turn him loose. Brothe will survive without him tinkering.”

Vali and Pella closed in on Delari. They did not have to drag him. And he did not protest.

All he needed was for someone to take the decisions away. He could then surrender to exhaustion.

“You’ve been unnaturally quiet since I got here,” Hecht told Anna, lying in bed. She had been powerfully responsive but otherwise uncharacteristically silent.

“I don’t know what it is. I can’t deal with all this emotionally. It’s so frustrating because there’s no way to make it change. We are who we are and the world is what it is, and, I firmly suspect, I wouldn’t be the least bit happier if everything suddenly changed to be exactly the way I think I want it.”

“You always were able to look past emotion. Better than me, really.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“This isn’t over by a long way. Pinkus is coming and he outnumbers me.”

“And you’ll fight. Of course.”

“Not if I can help it. If I can root Serenity out first…”

“No more. Just be here. And save all that for Titus and the others.”

“How are No? and the children?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from them since all this started. Hauf wouldn’t extend the protection of the Brotherhood to a family of Deves.”

“Titus went down there. We’ll know tomorrow.” He felt a deep and selfish dread that the news would not be good.

Bad news might cost him Consent’s talents.

He did not want to think about that. He did not want to think. He lost himself in the lovemaking.

Relative peace ruled the Mother City. There were skirmishes but no serious bloodlettings. Hecht stayed busy seeing all the people who felt they had a claim on his time. He figured Serenity was just as busy over in Krois.

There was good news. Titus had found his family safe and well and met his newest son for the first time. Further, No?’s family had, at last, forgiven her for having deserted the faith of her ancestors when her husband converted. She had reconciled with them.

Hecht never was convinced that Consent’s conversion was genuine so he had no trouble seeing No?’s as illusory.

No matter. He was pleased for Titus.

One of those who made demands was Addam Hauf, Master of the Castella Commandery. Hauf was deeply interested in exploring the Imperial commitment to a new crusade.

“That answer is simple,” Hecht told Hauf. “We go next summer, barring disaster. And barring any shortage of funds.”

Hauf chuckled. “Catch that rascal Doneto. Hang him up by his ugly big toes. Make him pay. He must have chests full of bribe monies by now.”

Not so. One reason some Principat?s were deserting Serenity was that he had not yet paid for their votes.

“He might not be so well off, now. Not getting any income out of the Empire since Katrin changed her mind.”

“Take it back.”

“Excellent idea. Easier said than done with him forted up inside Krois.”

Somewhere, remotely, a half-dozen falcons popped off. Probably weapons on the banks of the Teragi harassing Krois. The effort was psychological rather than practical. The projectiles were not massive enough to do serious damage.

Hauf said, “There are passages under the river.”

“And Serenity knows.”

“Death trap?”

“Absolutely.” Maybe. Principat? Delari was working on that. And having little luck.

“The Empire definitely is committed to a crusade?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Though even next summer may be too late.”

“Why is that?”

“While we’re fighting amongst ourselves here Indala is involved in a campaign to unite the kaifates so he can undertake a crusade of his own.”

“Really?”

“Really. Does that shock you?”

“It’s unexpected. And it can’t be good for us. But… He expects to prevail against Gordimer the Lion and the Sha-lug?”

“He’d have to, wouldn’t he? Or he wouldn’t have marched on Dreanger in the first place.”