Hugh Cook - The Worshippers and the Way

But they were still far short of the palace when they met Umka Ash, he of the uncertain breeding – his piebald skin a mass of white and black blotches, and birthmarks in both red and in purple.

"Hatch!" said Ash.

"What is it, Combat Cadet?" said Hatch.

Then Umka Ash gave him the bad news. In the face of a revolution by the Unreal, the Free Corps had joined with certain officers of the imperial guard in launching a coup to "stabilize the situation".

"A coup!" said Hatch, in disbelief. "What do you mean by a coup?"

"I mean," said Ash, "that they said they were making a coup, and killed three men who were fool enough to disagree with them."

"Killed?" said Hatch.

"Yes," said Ash. "Unless you believe a man can have his head chopped off and still live, they were killed. I saw it."

"But," said Hatch, still at a loss, "what do they hope to achieve by this – this coup?"

"I am going back to the Combat College to write you a formal paper on the analysis of that very point," said Umka Ash dryly.

"Wah!" said Hatch, trying to absorb the implications of this news of a coup. "A real night for lunatics!"

"So what are you going to do with me?" said Scorpio Fax.

"We'd best be back to the Combat College," said Hatch. "Both of us."

"Does this mean I'm pardoned?"

"Am I the emperor, to be giving pardons?" said Hatch. "Come on. Let's be gone."

So Scorpio Fax and Asodo Hatch started back to the Combat College, in company with Umka Ash. But they had not gone far when Fax suddenly broke away and fled into the night.

"Fax!" roared Hatch. "Come back! I'm ordering you!"

But it was no use.

Fax was gone.

"What now?" said Umka Ash.

"We proceed to the Combat College," said Hatch. "There you can write your paper of analysis, but I for my part intend to rouse our fellow students out for action."

The readiness with which Hatch said this disturbed Ash greatly, who said:

"Sorry," said Ash. "I've been thinking, and my family…"

"Go, then," said Hatch.

Ash went, and Hatch continued to the Combat College on his own, trying to work out what to do. Rouse students for action? it was easily said. But who could he rouse, and exactly what could they do to bring the city to order?

Asodo Hatch was on his own, with no communications and no access to any kind of data flow. His emperor was missing. A group of over-excited soldiers and Free Corps types had declared themselves masters of Dalar ken Halvar. A half-coordinated revolution was in progress in the city.

Hatch was tolerably certain that his family would be safe enough on the Frangoni rock, at least for the moment. He decided that he should push on to the Combat College, set up his own command center, send out scouts to bring him information, organize the information on a battle-map, and find volunteers who would be prepared to act under his command and restore order in the city once the rioting burnt itself out.

So to the lockway went Asodo Hatch, and found it a scene of burnt-out wreckage, for every stall on Scuffling Road had been smashed, looted, wrecked and burnt. The kinema, the amphitheater outside the lockway, was lit by the lurid light of the Eye of Delusions, which was showing a cartoon in which the gross and hideous savages of one of the Wild Tribes – savages who gibbered in the triumph of their bloodlust – were cutting out the hearts of hapless victims.

Tonight, nobody was in the amphitheater watching the Eye. The attractions of the city were greater.

"A bad business," said Hatch.

He strode toward the lockway itself. The lurid cartoon-light of the Eye flickered across the red dust of the Plain of Jars, dust which was rucked with scuffled footprints, and stained and besplattered with darkness.

Hatch halted.

Something was wrong. The – the lockway! The outer door was gone! There was no kaleidoscope, no slob, no nothing. The mob had – no, that was impossible. No mob could encompass the breach of such a barrier. Rather – well, the obvious alternative was worse.

The door had failed. It no longer worked. It had ceased to function.

Hatch entered the outer chamber of the airlock, which was smeared with blood. The central door still stood firm, but its kaleidoscope dissolved away to nothing as he entered. It reformed behind him, trapping him within the airlock, which was bathed by an unearthly green light. Green light? This was new, weirdly so.

Hatch experienced a moment of claustrophobic dread. What if the airlock malfunctioned terminally and trapped him here?

"Our culture is our greatest treasure," said the platitudinous voice of the airlock, maintaining its habitual custom of idle lecturing in complete disregard of the realities of the moment. "Have you listened to an original musical composition recently?"

Blood everywhere. Blood underfoot and blood on the walls.

Smeared handprints. Bloody scrabblings. What the hell had been going on?

There was a hiss of air under pressure. Then the airlock began listing compositions which Hatch should listen to, only to have its lecture interrupted by the dissolution of the innermost door. Hatch stepped through, entering the tunnel which led deep into the depths of Cap Foz Para Lash.

The customary white brightlight of the tunnel had failed.

Instead, the tunnel was lit by a dim emergency pink, by which Hatch saw the bloody footprints which tracked their way to the bloody bundle of – no, not a bundle. A body. But small, so, so – Hatch stooped to the body, shook it by the shoulder, and it flopped, revealed its face. Lucius Elikin. Combat Cadet. Aged 11.

And dead, quite dead.

"Lucius," said Hatch, in the loud and demanding voice used to challenge fatigue and stupor. "Lucius, wake up!"

But already he was quite sure the boy was far too late for challenging. Even so, he slid two fingers down to the windpipe to check for a carotid pulse. None. And the wound, oh – down beneath the ribs, down by the kidneys. A deep rip. Lethal. But the boy had tried. He had scrabbled this far, struggling inward, striving for the safety at the heart of the Combat College, the cure-all clinic. And had died far short of his goal.

Hatch stood up, and hastened down the corridor. The dorgi did not come lurching out of its lair to challenge him. He gave it a glance in passing. It was silent, stolid. Sleeping? Sulking? Dead?

He gave it a heartbeat's thought then forgot about it as he hurried on toward Forum Three.

The student body: Dalar ken Halvar's Combat College accepts 30 new students per year, entrance age being typically 11, though older students are sometimes accepted. Students who begin the standard course at age 11 graduate at age 27; imperial levies, such as Hatch, break their training for seven years of service with the imperial army. The number of Students of all ages now in training in the Combat College is 353. Of these, 29 are Startroopers and the remainder, of course, are Combat Cadets.

So young in youth the would-be warriors

Dream desire as blithe abandon -

Till drawing days from days the war

Lights monotonies of dust,

And lighting lights

Encasement of routine.

On entering the Combat College, Asodo Hatch naturally headed for Forum Three, for that lecture theater was where Paraban Senk habitually dealt with matters of communal discipline or communal crisis.

Forum Three was a steeply banked amphitheater in which seating and desking was ranked in a semi-circle above a small stage. The backdrop to the stage was a large communications screen, which was at present displaying the image of a lotus in full flower. There was seating for as many as 680 people in Forum Three, but at the moment it had fewer than five dozen occupants.

Hatch remembered the last crisis of common concern, when Paraban Senk had summoned all students after Hiji Hanojo had been found dead – dead at the age of 40, in the thirteenth year of his instructorship. Forum Three had been positively crowded then. But now, with trouble on the loose in Dalar ken Halvar, some students were fighting with the Free Corps, others were guarding their homes, and some had doubtless joined in the lawless rioting.