The Thousand Emperors (10 page)

Much of this Luc noticed only peripherally, his attention being otherwise taken up entirely by the half-dozen men and women clustered together in the best lit part of the hall beneath a leaded
window. Not only did he see Bailey Cripps amongst their number, but also Joseph Cheng – the Benevolent Archon himself, Permanent Chairman of the Temur Council, and certainly the most powerful
man in all of the Tian Di.

He paused at the gathering before him, almost frozen to the spot.

‘Is that him?’ spat a man next to Cripps.

Luc stared at the man who had spoken before suddenly realizing who he was: Victor Begum, one of the two founders of the Sandoz Clans along with old Karlmann Sandoz. He was as muscled and
intimidating as Marroqui or any other Clan-leader Luc had ever encountered.

‘Easy, Victor,’ said one of the two women amongst the group, thick dark hair spilling like a wave across her shoulders. ‘You
are
Luc Gabion?’ she asked, glancing
towards him.

‘I . . . yes,’ Luc managed to say. ‘Yes, I am. I’m not sure why I’ve been brought here.’

He heard the door swing shut behind him, the sound echoing through the hall with all the finality of an executioner’s axe. For some reason, his feet had become unwilling to carry him any
further into the room.

‘Did the mechant that brought you here tell you nothing?’ asked the same woman.

‘No, except that there had been a – a murder,’ he replied, his voice pinching off slightly.

A small, balding man with round cheeks made a barking sound, his face contorted in anger. He took a step towards the dark-haired woman, who turned to face him, raising one hand as if to ward him
off.

the balding man scripted, glaring over at Luc as he did so.

Zelia.
Luc stared at the woman, remembering the details of the Archival record he had altered back at the hospital. She had to be Zelia de Almeida
,
formerly Thorne’s Director
of Policy.

de Almeida sent.

said the man called Ruy, staring furiously at Luc the whole time. protest as soon as we’re finished here.>

It took Luc a moment to understand that he was privy to a conversation he shouldn’t even have been aware was taking place; the permission flags surrounding Ruy and de Almeida’s words
made it entirely clear their conversation was intended to be private, and yet Luc was able to pick up every word.

you’re
here, Ruy?>, de Almeida sent in response, her eyes fixed on Luc as she scripted.

There was something calculating in her gaze, and Luc felt a flash of guilt that made him look away, as if he had done something wrong.

Ruy scripted back at her, growing ever more red-faced.

Joe
. Luc blinked, realizing with a start Ruy must be referring to Joseph Cheng. It felt strange to hear a man of such enormous power referred to in so avuncular a fashion.

‘Mr Gabion is here because Zelia made an excellent case why he should be present, Mr Borges,’ said Cheng, opting to speak out loud. ‘I hope you’re not questioning my
judgement in this matter?’

Ruy Borges’s face went from red to white in a matter of moments. He turned towards Cheng, first glancing quickly at Luc with the expression of a man who had just trod on something
unpleasant.

‘My apologies,’ Borges said to Cheng. he added.

Cheng replied.

Borges nodded, suddenly submissive where he had been demanding. why
he’s here?>

De Almeida turned to Luc. ‘Mr Borges is curious to know why I had you brought here,’ she told him. ‘I’m sorry for bringing you here with such little warning, but
I’m sure you understand why it was necessary.’

‘The victim – was it a member of the Council?’

‘It was, yes. A man called Sevgeny Vasili. Are you familiar with the name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I assume you also understand what would happen to you if anyone outside of this room were ever to discover the purpose or details of our meeting here?’

Luc nodded uneasily and swallowed. ‘I can make an educated guess.’

‘
No one
is allowed on to Vanaheim except for members of the Council and their guests, all of whom are strictly vetted and closely watched at all times. You can understand this
presents us with some difficulties when it comes to figuring out who might be responsible for Sevgeny’s murder.’

‘You mentioned “guests” – are there any on Vanaheim at the moment?’

‘Apart from yourself?’ asked de Almeida. ‘A few, all of whom are being detained until we can be absolutely certain they were not involved in any way. No one apart from yourself
is being allowed to pass through the Hall of Gates. Even so, the circumstances of Sevgeny’s death mean that we’ve been forced to some uncomfortable conclusions.’

Luc met her eyes, and had a fleeting mental image of something dark and winged, with outstretched talons, swooping down from out of the sky. ‘You think Vasili was killed by another
Councillor?’

‘No.’ Victor Begum stepped forward. ‘It’s ridiculous to suggest any one of us could have done such a thing to one of our own. It
has
to be someone from outside the
Council.’

de Almeida scripted, her tone weary.

Somewhere beyond the high narrow windows, Luc could hear waves crashing on the island’s shore. His lungs felt like they had turned to granite in his chest, fear sharpening his senses. He
was unpleasantly aware that any one of the men and women before him could order his death, without reprisal or consequences, and at a moment’s notice, if he failed to satisfy them.

‘Excuse me,’ he said.

They all looked over at him.

‘
If
I were to hazard a guess,’ he said, feeling cool sweat trickle past one eyebrow despite the chill air, ‘I’d say your biggest worry is whether you can trust
each other since, technically, any one of you could be responsible for Vasili’s murder.’

There; he’d said it. He waited, breath catching in his throat, fully expecting to die at any moment for words that sounded wildly heretical even as they emerged from his mouth.

‘He’s right,’ said de Almeida, turning to the rest. ‘This is why Father Cheng agreed to my proposal – we need the perspective of someone from outside of the
Council, someone who couldn’t possibly have an axe to grind with the victim.’

‘Yes, all very good,’ said Ruy Borges irritably, ‘but why
him
?’

Good question
, thought Luc, turning his gaze back to de Almeida.

‘Luc Gabion has entirely proven his loyalty, and his skill, by almost single-handedly apprehending the criminal Winchell Antonov,’ she replied.

‘Oh,’ said Borges, regarding Luc with new eyes and nodding slowly. ‘
Him
.’

Cheng clapped his hands together, almost as if he were hosting a dinner party. ‘I think it’s about time we took a look at the deceased, don’t you?’

Luc’s feeling of being out of his depth intensified as de Almeida beckoned him through a side-door. The smell of putrefaction, mixed with the scent of smoke, hit Luc as
soon as he passed through it. Sevgeny Vasili’s death had clearly not been a recent one.

Luc found himself standing inside the entrance to a library filled with two rows of tall bookcases. The shelves of the bookcases were lined with actual physical, bound volumes, and each bookcase
rose to well above head height, terminating just beneath a ceiling four or five metres overhead. Reading tables and thickly upholstered furniture on ragged and dusty-looking rugs filled the space
between the two rows, while the walls of the library appeared to have been cut from the same unadorned stone as the hall.

A body lay slumped a few metres from a pair of glass-panelled doors at the far end of the library, beyond which lay an outside patio with a view over the rest of the island. Two mechants hovered
near the corpse, presumably set there to guard it.

Luc stepped forward, then glanced back to see Zelia de Almeida and the rest of the Councillors gathered by the entrance to the library. De Almeida fluttered one hand towards Vasili’s inert
form as if to say
go on
.

Luc stepped around the body where it lay sprawled across a patterned rug. Part of Vasili’s head, along with much of his torso and almost the entire pelvic region, had been burned to ashes.
The rug beneath the body was crisped black.

Luc tried to keep his breathing shallow as he knelt on one knee by Vasili’s remains. He glanced toward the patio doors, thinking.

Vasili had hit the floor face-down, but the blackened remains of one arm reached towards the patio. Luc put one hand on the scorched rug near what remained of the head, then leaned down until
his cheek almost touched the floor, trying to get a better look at the dead man’s face without disturbing the body. One side of the skull had melted, exposing the brain, but the side of the
face that had been facing away from the blast that killed him was recognizably that of Sevgeny Vasili. That, at least, removed any doubts about who had been killed.

Luc sat back up and looked towards the patio doors, noting that the glass panels nearest the ground had melted and shattered.

He glanced back down at Vasili, and spotted something he’d missed at first glance. Leaning down again, he saw that a book lay wedged just beneath the body, and by some miracle appeared to
be intact. It lay partly open beneath Vasili’s chest, and what pages Luc could see had a slight metallic lustre to them, as if they were formed from sheets of some metallic composite instead
of paper. That, at least, might explain why the book had survived as well as it had.

He reached down to see if it was possible to carefully tug the book out from under the body without disturbing it too much. As he did so, his fingers brushed the edge of one page, and what
happened next took his breath away.

He stumbled into the library, frightened and alone. Beyond the patio, the sun cast long streaks of fire across the evening sky as it sank towards the horizon. He searched frantically for what
he needed.

There. He raced towards a shelf and picked out the book, catching sight of the lettering on the spine:
A History of the Tian Di
, by Javier Maxwell.

Stepping towards the glass doors, he peered out to see a flier drop towards the courtyard outside. Fear clutched at his heart, but then he took a deep breath, pressing trembling fingers
against the pages, desperate to record one last message . . .

‘Winchell,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘I was wrong, so very wrong. I see that now.’

Luc gasped, and rocked back onto his haunches, pulling his fingers away from the book and pressing them against his chest as if he had been scalded.

Just for a moment, he had
been
Sevgeny Vasili.

‘Mr Gabion? Are you all right?’

Luc turned to see Cheng standing halfway between the entrance to the library and the corpse. The rest remained huddled together by the door.

Luc glanced down at Vasili’s body, the book still mostly hidden beneath it. From where he stood, Cheng couldn’t see it.

‘I’m sorry, I guess this is all just a little . . .’ Luc shook his head, struggling to regain his composure and unsure what to say. Some instinct prevented him from mentioning
anything about the book.

jeered Borges.

‘Did you note anything of interest?’ Cheng pressed.

Yes.
‘If I may speak candidly once more . . . ?’

‘You may,’ Cheng rumbled, regarding him curiously.

‘Forensic investigation isn’t exactly my forte,’ he explained. ‘I’m not sure just how much good I can do you here without the help of someone who might be better
qualified.’

Cheng regarded him with mild amusement. ‘Zelia showed me the details of your record of service for Security and Intelligence’s Archives Division, Mr Gabion. It was all very
impressive. As Zelia already pointed out, you managed to track Winchell down essentially single-handed, not even counting several other lesser but nonetheless equally impressive triumphs earlier in
your career. Under the circumstances, I think she’s entirely right to think you’re more than sufficiently qualified to give us an objective opinion regarding what took place
here.’

It further occurred to Luc that if Vasili’s killer really was a member of the Temur Council, he could well be amongst those standing arrayed behind Father Cheng. And given the power of
life or death any one of them had over him – or, indeed, over almost anyone throughout the worlds of the Tian Di – there was a real chance he’d be putting his own life in serious
danger if he did mention the book. Nor had he missed Ruy Borges’s comment about Zelia’s need to be exonerated – but exonerated from what? From suspicion of murdering Vasili, or
something completely unrelated?

Whoever
turned out to have killed Vasili, the last thing he wanted to do, should the killer prove to be present, was blurt out that he’d found a piece of evidence. For the moment it
was best to leave the book where he had found it, tucked out of sight beneath Vasili’s corpse. Fortunately, none of those present appeared to have the least interest in getting close enough
to the body to see the book wedged beneath it.

‘Those mechants,’ said Luc, nodding up at the machines floating just overhead. ‘Did they belong to Vasili?’

‘They did,’ said de Almeida, stepping up beside Cheng, one hand covering her mouth and nose. ‘They’re linked into the security network for the whole island.’