Assassinorum Kingmaker, page 29
‘Bet it paid for it.’ She laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Rotate it – slowly.’
He did, feeling it crackle like a kid crushing a handful of plastek packing material.
‘Golden Throne, Raithe. You’re dumber than I thought. I’m amazed you can turn a doorknob. How long has it been like this?’
‘During my last operation, so… a few months.’
‘You should’ve had surgery. Maybe an augmetic.’
‘Risky. If it doesn’t go perfectly it can throw the rifle off. That’d mean decades of training and experience out the airlock. And you know what happens if they pull you off operational, you never know if you’ll get back on. I’d rehabbed it to ninety per cent before this mission, but I’ve been hard on it since…’
‘Now do it backwards.’
‘Gaaaggghhh!’
Sycorax shook her head. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t tear it completely off the bone. No patch-up job in the galaxy could help then.’ She pulled out a needled phial.
Raithe shrank away.
‘Don’t tell me a man with that much scar tissue is afraid of needles?’
‘What’s in it? No painkillers. It can impact visual perception and reaction times.’
‘It’s polymorphine. A micro-dose. Helps the muscles find their proper place. Reknit and heal.’
‘I…’ He thought. ‘It can do that?’
‘Temporarily.’ She stuck him with the needle. Activated the syrette. ‘Good old polymorphine. If you were trained, the healing might be more permanent. But that would take years of focused meditation, higher doses and body-conditioning. Now rotate.’
He pulled the shoulder around, blinking. There was pain, but less pain. Like a bad bruise rather than a bayonet wound.
‘Keep working it, don’t stop. Just do rotations for twenty minutes or so. It’ll hurt worse before it gets better. But it will get better. Effects should last a few hours, more if you treat it nicely. Not a permanent fix, but enough to give you a break. Unless I’ve got the dosage wrong, in which case the fix will be permanent, in that your shoulder will have liquefied.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, rotating the arm. ‘No chance I could get a few of those phials for the next shoot, is there? Just in case.’
‘The Callidus Temple guards it jealously,’ she said, standing. ‘Especially from our rival temples.’
He nodded, mouth turning down.
‘But I won’t tell them,’ she said, setting a phial on the desk, ‘if you don’t.’
TESSELL: So we’re all agreed?
DASK: Before we vote, I wish to note that all candidates are under guard. We will not be having any more surprises.
HAWTHORN: A little late for that.
TESSELL: You’ve had the night. Now on the question of the Crown of Dominion, who casts their electoral vote for Lord Bazile Daggar-Kraine. I vote aye.
YUMA: Aye.
FONTAINE: Nay.
ACHARA: Aye.
DASK: Nay.
KRAINE: Aye.
TESSELL: Baroness Hawthorn?
HAWTHORN: He’s a Rau. The son of a Rau. You will not convince me otherwise. And he’s a coward on the Imperial matter.
TESSELL: This is not a time for speeches, baroness. Say either aye or nay.
HAWTHORN: But… Tiberius has agreed to give me half of the uplands so… long live High Monarch Daggar-Kraine, I suppose.
KRAINE: Is that an aye?
HAWTHORN: Aye.
THIRTY-THREE
‘On the spirits of my ancestors, on the glories of my house, I swear to defend Dominion from all evils within and without. To lead these noble houses in a manner consistent with the honours of the past and the achievements of the future. To remain pure in thought and noble in action, to defend any kinsman and battle any foe. By this I abandon all oaths to house or family, and pledge my remaining life to serve Dominion as High Monarch.’
– Coronation Oath of the Crown of Dominion
‘I never thought I would see this,’ said Rakkan. ‘A coronation, I mean.’
‘Did you not, lord?’ responded Koln, in her engine-master disguise. ‘Yavarius-Khau was an old man.’
‘Yes,’ said Gwynne. ‘The lamented monarch – may his soul echo forever in the Crown – had suffered much loss of function due to the extended wear on his biological parts.’
They were walking through the fortifications in front of the basilica, earthen ramps and sandbag positions thrown up during the riots and guarded by Stryder-Rau footmen. Most of them were from Daggar-Kraine’s personal house, Rakkan noticed, a gift to the new monarch-elect from his father, Baron Kraine. Given that the basilica faced the marshalling fields, they had a flat kill-zone leading all the way to the snow-laden mountains.
An officer, seeing Rakkan’s personal arms and the corresponding patches sewn on Gwynne, Koln and Raithe, waved them through the basilica’s great double doors.
‘I know he was old,’ Rakkan said, waving a hand at the officer in dismissive thanks, ‘but he seemed so solid. Eternal. I never thought–’
‘Rakkan.’
They turned, the retinue hastily bowing when they saw who had approached.
To Rakkan’s left, Dame Vossa strode out of the baptistry chapel. She was in her formal court attire, the gorget seal-lock of her pilot suit engraved in gold, the red tabard lying atop it carrying Baron Kraine’s device of a storm drake spewing lightning from its mouth.
‘We’re missing an Armiger pilot for the honour guard,’ she said, beckoning. ‘Too many dead in the crisis. And by tradition we need one crusade veteran among the Armigers. You’re the only one we have.’
‘But Jester’s in the stable…’
‘You’ll pilot Red Sky manually,’ she snapped. ‘Make haste! We don’t want to miss the procession to Gathering Palace.’
She turned towards the door, and he followed, shrugging at his retinue.
He saw Koln and Raithe exchange a glance, before they slipped into the basilica.
The trumpets sounded.
Within minutes, a new monarch would be crowned – and Dominion’s new era would begin.
Rakkan heard the trumpets when they were halfway down the cloister. The sound echoed hollow among the columns of the covered walkway. Behind, the muffled sound of the sacristan choir seemed to emanate from the basilica’s stones.
It prickled Rakkan’s skin, the transition between the packed, hot interior of the cathedral and this deserted cloister. The knowledge that the worthies of Dominion had all gathered, yet he was headed the other way, across a deserted courtyard.
‘This is my fortune, exactly,’ he said. ‘The only coronation in my lifetime, and I’ll miss it.’
‘Your mother wanted you in the honour guard,’ Vossa said, growling. ‘Baron Kraine too. He’s nobody’s squire, but everyone is so sweet on Rakkan.’
‘Still, I…’
‘Would you rather watch history, or be a part of it?’
‘When you put it that way…’
So many nobles stood in the basilica that from where Gwynne stood, Lord Bazile Daggar-Kraine looked the size of a doll as he mounted the golden staircase leading to the open hatch of the Crown of Dominion.
Daggar-Kraine, every part of his armour streaming with ribbons and purity seals, took each of the fifty steps with the Arch-Maintenancer by his side, reciting the oaths of investiture. He’d spent last night in the company of the sacristans, preparing himself to merge his soul with the venerable machine, descending deep into the crypts below the Cathedral of Maintenance to endure a second harrowing. A second Becoming ritual.
It was said his screams could be heard for hours.
From her place in the rear of the crowd, Gwynne could not see whether Daggar-Kraine bore any ill effects from the ritual. The most important nobles – court members, generals returned from the field, and the two house heads – stood in the front of the crowd, beneath the shadow of the great throne-machine. Then came the most important of the house nobles, separated by the centre aisle and arranged in order of rank.
Only then came the Armiger pilots, and the nobles of the Lists – at least what remained of them after the bloodshed of the last few days. It would, after all, have been gauche to have the first image a new High Monarch saw through the Crown’s oculars be their possible replacements.
Only then, at the very back of the basilica, came the retinues.
She was standing with Koln and Raithe, in the thin crowd of vassals at the rear. Wind blew in behind them, lifting robes and chilling her steel augments and data-inputs so they ached against her natural skin. They were lucky to be there at all – many full nobles had not rated an invitation, and were on a ballroom balcony at Gathering Palace, waiting to cheer the Crown of Dominion as it emerged. Others were still in the countryside, managing estates.
Gwynne knew a threat when she heard one, and ended the connection.
The coronation was starting.
‘Sycorax,’ Raithe murmured subaudibly. ‘What–’
‘–do you see up there?’
Up in the shadow of the vaults, Sycorax crouched on a falcon-headed gargoyle. Around her clustered eagles, skeletons wielding swords, roaring manticores and twisting dragons.
A crowd of fierce beasts. Fitting company for her, she thought.
‘Moment,’ she whispered.
She leapt to get a better line of sight, gripping a crossbar and swinging upward under it like a gymnast, passing between two banners and landing on another bar.
It was harder than usual, loaded down as she was. Raithe had asked her to carry his gear, just in case things went sideways. The weight of the zip-case on her back had given her an idea of why he’d torn that shoulder.
There was little organisation up here. Banners hung haphazardly on chains or were mounted in rows on rods that stretched across the whole of the basilica. No one but the servitors had been up here for centuries, and she chose her landing spots carefully, avoiding those that might prove too fragile and give way. Even her careful passage triggered micro-draughts of air, stirring loose threads and gold flakes from the disintegrating battle honours. They drifted down like snow, caught in the high air circulation of the massive vault, and dispersed.
Had anyone noticed, they would’ve seen that the shower of dust motes was moving towards the front.
‘I have eyes on Daggar-Kraine,’ she said, nestling down where a bar met a support pillar. A perfect vantage point, looking down through the threadbare gauze of a banner that screened the view of her from below. They couldn’t get this far and mess it up now. That was why she was up here, to watch for unpleasant last-minute surprises.
Forty feet below, she could see Lord Daggar-Kraine settling into the command throne of the Crown of Dominion. In Sycorax’s enhanced senses, she could make the words out as he swore to defend any kinsman and battle any foe, his face set in a frown of dutiful concentration.
‘He’s in the throne?’ asked Koln.
‘Affirmative,’ Sycorax responded. ‘I hope they cleaned it first.’
It was strange, she reflected, to see the Crown of Dominion without its face mask.
Yavarius-Khau’s death mask lay between the Castellan’s feet, nestled in a bouquet of yellow and white flowers – the colour of mourning, Koln had said. Apparently the old king’s ashes were sealed in a compartment behind the eyes.
Soon he would be hung above the great altar with the other monarchs, and the Crown would take on the new mask, which lay beneath a velvet drape, watched over by the servitor-falcons.
‘No threats?’ asked Raithe. ‘Everyone in their place?’
‘I don’t see Baron Fontaine,’ Sycorax shot back.
‘With the army, beyond the mountains,’ Koln said. ‘Ensuring there’s no mutiny during the coronation.’
‘A few squires missing,’ whispered Sycorax. ‘Vossa, Hawthorn’s new one… Andricus, was he? A few from Stryder and Rau nobles.’
‘The honour guard,’ said Koln. ‘They guard the procession out. Vossa took Rakkan for it. Apparently–’
‘He’s taking the oath,’ said Sycorax. ‘Not long now. Thirty minutes?’
‘We did it,’ said Koln. ‘Throne save us, we did it.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ said Rakkan. ‘Why do I need to do this in Red Sky?’
Twenty Knight Armigers stood ready in the basilica stable, ranked up alongside twenty Questoris Knights. An honour guard for the ages. Stryder. Rau. Court colours. Like nothing Rakkan had ever seen.
Though he had never seen a coronation.
‘Theofan died in the crisis,’ said Andricus. He was a minor cousin of Rakkan’s, still a teenager, and seemed almost too small for the squire’s tabard his mother had bestowed him with after Vossa slew Galvan. ‘We need you to take his place.’
Rakkan had paused on the lower rung of the mounting stairs, the ring of squires bracketing him in. Vossa seemed to be the leader, but there was also Sir Brovan Mortau, a Rau Knight squired to Lord Palladius. Dame Dasteva Calthanis, squire to Lady Gersanna of Stryder. There were more, perhaps twenty, arrayed like teeth of mismatching colour.
Only squires, the Knights were in the basilica.
‘But… I should process in Jester, surely? This Knight will not like being mounted so soon after losing its pilot.’
Rakkan was not sure he could command Jester, any more. Manually, of course, but he would need to reformat and reconsecrate the Knight before pairing with it again. He should be grateful his ruse had not been discovered.
But this felt…
‘There’s no time,’ said Vossa. ‘The coronation has started. We need to be in position. There’s no time to dally. Go!’
Rakkan took one step up, another. Vossa followed him, herding him up the stairs. ‘Now get in.’
Rakkan looked down at the squires as they stared up, expectant. And he saw what bothered him.
They were Rau and Stryder. Standing next to each other. No jostling, no sniping jibes. Squires who had crossed swords in back alleys stood quietly among each other as natural as tools in a drawer. And… hadn’t Vossa killed Galvan, so why was she with his replacement? Behind them, a semicircle of sacristans buzzed and hummed, bobbing in little bowing movements.
‘What is–’
Vossa grabbed him, snarling, pushing his head towards the cockpit. ‘Help me, you fools! Get the neural jack.’
They came up the ladder as swift as hounds and grasped him in their hands. Clawed at him, lifting him, dragging him onto the upper carapace of the Armiger and towards the open hatch.
He kicked out with his augmetic braces, sending one squire tumbling off the Knight. He caught another in the jaw with a weak punch. Then Vossa was jamming his father’s helmet over his head, locking the seal, shoving him down into the hatch and the unfamiliar, warm darkness of the Armiger. He felt a neural jack scraping at his skull-port as he fought, head hitting the spongy leather padding of the cockpit walls.
‘Embrace them, Rakkan!’ growled Vossa. ‘Embrace your ancestors.’
‘Embrace the Power of Eight,’ echoed the squires.
‘He’s almost done,’ said Sycorax. ‘Looks like we’ve wrapped this up. Prepare to be non-operational.’
Daggar-Kraine finished the oath, and the Arch-Maintenancer picked up the crown that lay on a pillow supported by one of her mechadendrites.
She held it up.
‘The honourable crown of Dominion!’ Dorthiya Tessell intoned. Internal hailers boomed her voice far beyond its natural range. ‘Given freely via the laws of this domain, with all fairness and nobility. By the electors and heads of houses, by the court and sacristan order, to King Daggar-Kraine.’
The crown was old, and not much to look at – a simple circlet of gold inset with jewels, with three finials at the front to represent the houses and sacristan order. In the rear was a skull input on a hinge, and when the Arch-Maintenancer lowered the crown onto Daggar-Kraine’s head, she gingerly reached back and rotated the data-spike into the new king’s implant.
Then she kissed the data-cable in the Throne Mechanicum, and connected it to the crown.
‘Dominion!’ she declared, standing back. ‘Hail your High Monarch!’
Daggar-Kraine went stiff, his eyes rolling back as the Crown merged with his mind. He jerked once, twice, in seizure. Foam dribbled from his mouth. Sycorax could hear reactor hum, smell an odour like circuits cooking.
‘I sense ozone,’ Koln warned.
‘He’s taking it hard,’ she whispered. ‘But so did I.’
The upper hatch closed to preserve the king’s modesty, and Tessell raised her arms in wonder and bowed as servitors dragged the rolling mounting stairs aside.
‘Your monarch!’ said Tessell. ‘Your monarch addresses you!’
The Crown’s head stirred, lifted. From the mouth-mounted hailer, exposed and insectile with the mask removed, came a booming voice.
‘SUBJECTS OF DOMINION. WE FACE A CRISIS UNLIKE ANY WE HAVE FACED BEFORE. AS THE CONCLAVE DEBATED, NO DOUBT THIS WAS PARAMOUNT IN THEIR MINDS – WE HAVE BEEN CALLED TO WAR.’
‘Here we go,’ said Sycorax.
Rakkan slammed his leg armatures straight, rocketing his helmet upward into Vossa’s unprotected face. He felt a cracking scrape on the helmet’s dome, and something small tumbled down, clicking as it hit the control console.
The data-jack dropped limp behind him, and he grabbed for purchase, trying to find anything that could give him enough leverage to pull himself upright. But all Knights were unique, and when he blindly reached for where Jester’s interior handrail should be, the rail moved.
