Nemesis

CHAPTER 9
VICTIMS

The operation began at sunrise. It was not going well. It should have taken a few hours to cull hostages from the leading families of the Dal, the Vec, and the Kor, but as Dorian il-Dal stood on a broken wall in the ruined city quarter, studying his timepiece, he saw the roundup was entering its eighth hour. It would take longer still to get things recorded properly.

Greven descended on the crater with two thousand soldiers and as many moggs. He had a list of names drawn up by Dorian and his fellow courtiers, and he had to go house to house to find the people he wanted. Quotas called for no less than two thousand hostages from each group. Word quickly spread about the roundup, and finding the listed hostages got harder and harder. There were scuffles but no real fighting. Most of the hostages were quietly anxious or stubbornly sullen, but few offered open resistance.

Lines of captives, sorted by family and race, marched four abreast out of the City of Traitors under the Stronghold to the ruins beyond. Soldiers lined the way with arms ported.

"If I put whips in the hands of my moggs, the lines would move faster," Greven mused.

Dorian was horrified. "You can't do that! Moggs whipping the evincar's subjects! They'll riot-they'll rebel."

"Easy, old man," Greven said. "This job's about stopping a rebellion, not starting one. I was just thinking like a soldier." Thinking like a savage, Dorian thought. So the chamberlain stood on a tumbled-down wall with a trio of scribes below him, totting up the people as they trudged by. Each list was checked against Greven's master list to make certain the exact number from each group was represented. In an operation like this, Dorian stressed, no one race should be seen as being favored by the authorities. The resentment thus caused would undo the salutary lesson of taking hostages in the first place.

Greven turned away from surveying the operation. "What's the count?"

Dorian slapped his secretaries on the shoulder in turn. "One thousand, three hundred and forty-four of the Dal," said the first.

"One thousand, two hundred and eighty-nine of the Vec," said the second.

"Eight hundred and seventy-five of the Kor," added the third.

"Why so few Kor?"

"They're more elusive," Dorian said. "I've had reports that Kor from outside the Stronghold have not been taken at all." "The Fishers of Life?"

The chamberlain consulted a scroll. "Yes, that's the clan. How did you know?"

Greven didn't answer. Instead he asked, "Have the holding areas been prepared?"

"Such as they are. If we have to hold these people more than a few days, they'll not stand for the conditions here."

"They'll stand for what they're told to stand for," Greven snapped. He signaled his escort to form up. He wanted to see the holding area himself.

At the far edge of the ruins, near the city moat, three large squares had been cleared by mogg laborers. Rough walls made from the debris of fallen houses were piled up to create crude stockades. Each stockade had a single entrance. Hostages were marched into the stockades according to their race.

Some hours passed, and the lines began to thin. Eventually

Dorian and his secretaries appeared with the soldiers who'd been driving the lines forward. The chamberlain looked happy.

Greven turned his eyes to Dorian. "What's the final count?"

"We made up the Kor tally. A whole band of them arrived at the last minute," Dorian said under his breath. "The quota is within 20 persons of being prefect."

"Where are the Kor?"

"There, at the end of the line. They turned themselves in."

"What!"

Dorian shrugged. "They appeared on their own behind the escort detachment. One of them spoke to me and asked to be added to the tally."

Greven grasped Dorian's soft arm in a painful grip. "The Kor you spoke to-was his name Furah?"

The chamberlain grunted in pain. "Dread Lord, you're hurting me."

"What was the Kor leader's name?"

"Furah sounds right, or Furdah-some such uncouth name."

Greven released Dorian with a shove and waded through the ranks of guards. In front of them were the last hostages, in this case over a hundred Kor in identical gray leather outfits. Though Greven had lived his entire life on Rath with both Dal and Kor as neighbors, he'd never seen an entire clan look so identical.

Startled, Greven called out, "Furah! Furah, I want to speak to you!"

In one motion, a hundred-plus Kor turned and looked back at Greven. They were all Furah. The warrior shook his head.

"Did you see that?" Greven asked a nearby soldier.

"See what, Dread Lord?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

The night of the Hub wind, Belbe made her first inspection of the flowstone factory. She did this alone, or rather, with six moggs to carry the new machinery sent with her from Phyrexia. The court advisors she quickly dismissed as useless sycophants. Greven and Dorian were busy rounding up thousands of hostages, and Ertai was nowhere to be found. This last fact annoyed her in some ill-defined way. Belbe found herself wanting Ertai's company, and not having what she wanted made her feel thwarted.

She soon forgot about Ertai, Greven, hostages, and everything else once she was deep in the flowstone works. Unlike those parts of the Citadel adapted for habitation, the factory was the most Phyrexian part of the Stronghold, and in Belbe's short life, Phyrexia meant home.

The structure of the factory was purely organismic-the adamantine frames of the building were like bones, and the cladding was applied like muscle and skin over the factory's skeleton. The entire fortress cantilevered out from the side of the Stronghold cone and was studded with flues, exhaust ports, and enormous conduits channeling liquid flowstone outside the crater. Over the years, residue from the great works accreted outside like scar tissue, blunting the lines of the severe architecture. By the time Belbe arrived, the Citadel was like a vast wasp's nest, growing organically and infested with thousands of poisonous inhabitants.

In the domed control center atop the factory, Belbe stood in rapt fascination of the great cauldron at the heart of the Citadel. Here lava, the raw material of flowstone, met the energy beam sizzling down from the Hub. Atoms disintegrated in the energy stream were whirled about at extreme velocities and reformed into programmable nanomachines-flowstone. It was all so wonderful, magnificent, and efficient.

Moggs lolled on the floor behind her, taking a breather while Belbe was lost in admiration of the factory. She recovered her sense of purpose and ordered them to bring up the Nano-Machine Conversion Accelerator. This was a globe eighteen inches in diameter, whose outer skin was encrusted with extruded tubing, wires, and output jacks. It was a self-aware device, capable of accepting verbal orders and implementing them throughout the factory. Phyrexian technicians had designed the Conversion Accelerator to optimize production of flowstone. As things stood, the factory ran at one speed all the time. Actual output varied, however, according to the amount of energy from the Hub, the quality and amount of lava, and the purity of the raw materials used. The Conversion Accelerator would harmonize these elements so as to produce more flow-stone when conditions warranted, and expend less energy when conditions were unfavorable. Overall production efficiency was expected to increase by almost twenty-seven percent.

The moggs maneuvered the heavy module into place. Belbe made the master power connections, and the Accelerator came to life.

"Implement final installation," she commanded.

"Understood." The device extended sharp-edged feelers to the control console. The tubes punched through the flowstone skin. Thin yellow oil wept from the incisions, but they quickly healed.

"Connection complete," said the Accelerator. "Input flow nominal. Output flow at 117 percent."

"Reduce output to 100 percent."

"That is not maximum," countered the machine.

"This is a test of your verbal command structure. Reduce to 100 percent."

The Accelerator vibrated slightly on its new mountings. Lights all over the factory dimmed, brightened, then settled down. The constant drone of the molecular whirlpool in the factory core declined half an octave.

"Output flow 100 percent," the Accelerator announced.

Belbe adjusted some of the external controls on the module. One of them was the voice command recognition circuit.

"Who am I?"

"Emissary from Central Control, unit number 338551732-"

"Stop, you are correct. Do you acknowledge my authority?"

"Command authority is authentic."

"Are there any default authorities?" she asked, curious.

"The Evincar of Rath."

"Any others?"

"No others."

"Very good. Seal command authority to my voice and the evincar's."

The unit clicked loudly and said, "Sealed."

One task done, another major task remained. The moggs had a second carton to deliver. In her belt pouch she had the control unit for a transplanar portal, the only portable device of its kind on Rath. The second carton in her baggage was a Portal Generator, a special device that could open a portal to any plane in the multiverse.

The portal, if opened, would need space. It also needed to be out of the way. Where to install it? Belbe ran through the complex floor plan of the Citadel in her head. There was a place… she called the moggs. Installation of the Accelerator had taken so long, the moggs had fallen asleep leaning on the second carton. She shouted at them, and they twitched awake.

She took the catwalk that circled the mighty central crucible. This close to the factory, static from the tremendous energy input could be felt through the walls of the furnace. The moggs didn't like it one bit and slunk along, scratching their tingling skin on every available protrusion. Belbe found the prickling sensation stimulating, not unlike her experience with Volrath's bath.

When she reached the place she'd chosen, she checked carefully to be sure she was not observed. Location of her portal equipment had to be secret. There were people in the palace who would kill for a chance to leave Rath, and Belbe had explicit orders from her masters not to allow anyone access to the portal.

An hour later, the portal device was deposited in a seldom-visited part of the Citadel. Belbe made a mental note to ask Greven to execute the moggs who helped her install the machinery as a standard security precaution.

Belbe had minimal need for sleep. The glistening oil in her veins kept her active long after ordinary beings craved rest. At daybreak, she descended to the lower airship dock to see what progress was being made on Predator. She found the hull had been reassembled and new deck fittings were being installed. All that remained after that was the tricky job of installing the engines and rigging.

She spotted Greven's Vec foreman and asked him where his master was.

"I haven't seen him since yesterday, Excellency," said the Vec. "He left with Lord Dorian, and I haven't seen either of them since."

"Thank you-"

"Excellency, when you find Lord Greven, ask him please to come back as soon as he can. We don't dare set the engines in place without him."

Belbe promised to pass the word to Greven. On her way out of the ship dock, a guard stopped her.

"If you're looking for Lord Greven, Excellency, you'll find him in the ruins beyond the City of Traitors."

She searched her implanted memory and found she didn't know this place. "Where is that?" Belbe asked.

The guard stepped to the edge of the docking platform and pointed to the floor of the crater.

"See the lights down there, Excellency? That's the City of Traitors. If you head that way," he pointed to the far side of the crater, in the direction of the mogg warrens, "there's a lot of fallen-down buildings. That's where you'll find Commander Greven."

Belbe leaned on the railing. A warm updraft, smelling of molten rock and ozone, ruffled her hair and the tight sleeves of her teal gown.

"What's Greven doing down there?"

"Haven't you heard, Excellency? That's where he's taken the hostages-the hostages from the City of Traitors."

Belbe had a sudden urge to descend to the ruins and observe the operation for herself. Without the airship, it was a long journey to the crater floor. Belbe dismissed the guard and stood by the rail, gazing down at the hazeshrouded area, pondering how best to get there.

"Your Excellency?"

The second word was enunciated with ironic precision. There was Ertai, leaning casually on one of the inverted buttresses supporting the airship dock. Something was different. It wasn't just his appearance, though he had finally given up his tattered robes and donned Rathi garbhigh collared doublet, knee breeches, and ankle-high fleshstone boots, all in different shades of gray. It was something else about him, less tangible than a change of wardrobe. Ertai's presence was different.

"Someone needs to speak to the tailors in this place," he said. "They have no sense of color at all. But I did want to be presentable, since you called me."

"I didn't call you."

"You were thinking about me. I came to find you."

"I had work to do," she said, pretending not to care. "In the factory."

"Then I'm glad I missed it. There's nothing as boring as machinery." He came to the rail and looked down on the city. "Awful place," he remarked. He glanced upward at the vast overhanging bulk of the Citadel. "It's like living in a well with a boulder balanced over your head."

"I want to go down there," she said, pointing to the distant ruins. Ertai asked why. She reminded him of his hostage idea. "Greven and Dorian are down there now, gathering them."

Ertai's face darkened. "I'm sorry I suggested it. I don't know how such an idea came into my head." He shrugged. "Of course, it's a very good idea, from a certain point of view-like all my ideas. But no good will come of it."

"I want to go there," Belbe repeated.

Ertai took hold of her hand. She made a mild attempt to free herself, but he held on.

"Let me take you there, Excellency."

She stopped struggling. "You don't have to call me that."

"Don't I?"

"No."

"Very well, Belbe. I can get you down there faster than an airship or any silly flowbot crane."

"How?"

He let go of her hand, turned, and walked about six feet away. He sat down on the gritty floor, folding his legs in front of him. Ertai pressed his palms together and closed his eyes.

"Visualization," he said softly, "is the most important part of spellcasting."

Belbe watched him closely. Ertai trembled. His fingers went white from the pressure, and most of the color drained from his face. The collar of his new doublet wilted from perspiration.

Something disturbed the air behind her. Belbe turned and saw a large, vague shape with flapping wings hovering a few yards from the platform. Ertai's expression grew more strained, and the outline of the flapping object grew more distinct. Air itself seemed to be congealing to form the creature, which gradually assumed the form of a great predatory bird.

"What is it?" she asked, impressed.

Ertai did not answer. He opened his eyes and stiffly unbent his legs. His brow was etched with deep furrows as he fiercely maintained his concentration even with the distractions of open eyes and movement.

He extended a hand toward the phantom bird, drew it back, and closed his outstretched fingers into a fist. The giant bird flew into the dock, its wings and head passing through the solid structure of the platform without resistance. Yet when it reached Ertai, it extended a taloned claw and grasped him around the waist. He repeated the clasping gesture and the spectral falcon took hold of Belbe's waist as well.

"What's this?" she protested, trying to open the bird's talons. Though solidly in the creature's grip, her efforts to repel the bird met no solid flesh at all. It was most disturbing, being lifted by visible, yet untouchable claws.

"Stop it," she said. "I'll use the Citadel egress. It'll only take a few hours to go down there-"

Before she could finish the sentence, the spirit falcon rocketed away from the airship dock. Belbe, to her consternation, saw she was dangling beneath the translucent creation, hundreds of feet in the air. Some primitive part of her was thrilled with terror-an emotion she was learning on Rath-but her good sense told her interrupting Ertai's mental focus would be disastrous for them both.

The falcon descended in a rapid spiral through the hot, lava-scented air. They circled quite close to the upward flowing column of lava. Between the giant falcon claw clamped around Belbe's waist and the stifling heat of the lava, it was hard to breathe. Fortunately, the falcon's next loop took them away from the lava flow, well out over the City of Traitors.

As they coursed through the thin clouds, Belbe started to enjoy the experience. The sweep, the feeling of speed and power flying conferred was intoxicating. She looked down on the city below, marveling at the gridwork of streets and houses. It was some minutes before she realized the streets and squares were devoid of activity. Not a single Vec or Kor could be seen. Ertai started to choke loudly. His face had gone ghastly white, and blood was dripping from both nostrils. He let out a wracking cough, and to her horror, Belbe felt the falcon's claws thin and slip. They were two hundred feet above the city. If she fell from this height, not even her metal skeleton would save her, and Ertai would surely die.

They descended too rapidly as the falcon's wings faded in and out of existence. At fifty feet, rooftops rushed by, and chimneys became serious hazards. Ertai was hanging limply in the falcon's evanescent grip, blood staining the front of his new clothes.

Thirty feet. Belbe looked up. The body and wings of the falcon were almost gone, just the faintest outline was left. Abruptly, the magical creature vanished. Belbe lunged for Ertai. She caught him, twisted in mid-air until her feet were down, and braced for impact.

They hit the roof of an empty house, broke through, hit the floor of the second story, and went through that as well. When Belbe hit the ground, her legs jackknifed hard, but the Phyrexian alloys took the stress. Her augmented nerves signaled massive pain, then shut down. Over and over they rolled in the dust and debris of the abandoned dwelling, coming to a stop against an outside wall.

Belbe rose from the rubbish. Her ill-used legs quivered from the strain. Already her implanted healing systems were kicking in, repairing torn muscles and ligaments, and liberally dosing her nervous system with pain suppressants. She turned Ertai over. His color was already coming back, and his nose had stopped bleeding. Belbe had taken the full force of the fall for him.

"Ow," he said, clasping his head. "What a headache. What happened?"

"Your magical bird failed."

"My spell, fail? Impossible!" His conviction, strongly spoken, made his head throb unmercifully.

"It dropped us. If I hadn't caught you, you'd be dead now."

The dim interior of the ruined house, the drying blood on his face and neck, and Belbe's unflinching manner must have convinced Ertai that she was telling the truth.

"The Spirit Falcon is a taxing spell to perform, but I've never heard of it failing like this," he said, genuinely puzzled.

"It began to fade after just a few minutes."

He scratched his rusty blond head. "There must be something interfering with the flow of magical energy."

"Perhaps it's your healing treatment. The native energies of Rath must be very different from those of your home world."

Belbe helped him stand.

"Good thing we fell on an empty house," he said quietly.

For reasons she did not entirely understand, Belbe leaned forward and pressed her lips to Ertai's. He was so startled by this unexpected action he failed to respond in kind. Belbe drew back, expressionless.

"Did I do it incorrectly?"

"I don't know," he said. "I wasn't prepared-"

"Prepare yourself then," she said. "It may happen again." In awkward silence they made their way out of the ruined house.

The unpaved street was covered with sickly yellow moss and gray lichen, and clogged with blocks, fallen pediments, bricks, and shards of pottery. Belbe and Ertai picked their way through the ruins to the next street. This wide path was clear of debris, and the thick dust had been stirred recently by a large crowd of people.

"The hostages came this way," Belbe said.

"Must be hundreds of them."

"Thousands. Lord Greven is not one for half measures."

They walked down the broad, empty road. Ruddy light from the rising column of lava painted the ruins in shades of pink.

Ertai looked at Belbe. "May I ask you a question?"

She put her arms behind her head and stretched her healing limbs. "Of course."

"Do you ever ask yourself if you're on the right side or not?"

She looked at her feet. "Of the road?"

"No, in this struggle."

"No."

"Why not?"

"The right side is the side that succeeds," she said simply. "This is the basic truth my masters taught me."

"They could be wrong."

"It is possible but not likely. Time will tell."

"I used to think I knew right from wrong," Ertai said. "That was before I began my advanced studies in magic. Then I learned that power is power, regardless of its origin. Any species can be used to kill or cure, and if that's so, how can any of it be good or evil? It simply is. I think people are like that, too. We simply are."

"I will ask you a question," she said. He agreed. "Do you regret coming here? Do you miss your comrades on Weatherlight?"

He stopped, feet stirring little gouts of fine dust. "They left me here," Ertai said. "I was angry at them for that. Now, in an odd way, I think they did me a favor."

Amid the ruins, the sanguinary light of the lava column, the still, humid air at the bottom of the crater, Belbe had a strange, new experience. A more worldly woman could have told her she was feeling affection for the first time. As it was, she had to figure it out herself.

The hostages filled the stockades with resignation. Each family staked out a place in the dusty enclosures and waited for word they could go home again. Soldiers stood atop the low rubble walls, eyeing their quiescent charges.

Belbe and Ertai arrived to find Greven seated on a broken monolith. Dorian il-Dal was with him, a picnic lunch spread out on a cloth between them. When they saw Belbe approaching, both men rose and bowed.

"Greetings, Excellency! You are looking well today. Why didn't you let us know you were coming? I would have prepared a repast for you as well." Dorian said effusively.

"It's of no matter," she replied. "I do not eat."

"Are the hostages here?" Ertai asked impatiently.

"Six thousand of them," confirmed Greven.

"Five thousand, nine hundred eighty-eight, to be exact," said Dorian. He held up several loose scrolls. "I have the tallies here if Your Excellency would care to see."

She ignored the proffered scrolls and walked to the mouth of the Dal stockade. Moggs grunted and sidled away from Belbe. Guards on the wall snapped to attention.

Dorian, Ertai, and Greven came up behind her.

"What does Your Excellency require?" asked the chamberlain.

"A better view, first." She looked left and right, judged the far wall to be straighter, and sprang from a flat-footed stance to the top of the seven-foot-high structure.

Belbe looked out over the dusty arena, jammed with almost two thousand Dal. With designed thoroughness she catalogued the crowd: one thousand, five hundred and thirtythree adults, four hundred and sixty-one children. Most of the adults were elderly or female. She started counting crutches in the crowd and stopped when she passed one hundred and fifty. Distaste rose in her throat. She turned to the trio of men waiting below her.

"Who chose these people?" she shouted.

"Why, I did, Excellency, with Lord Greven's help," Dorian replied.

"Why take these particular people-women, children, the aged?"

"Come down, Excellency. I'd rather not have this conversation yelled from the stockade wall," Greven said, his face hardening.

She did come down, landing inches in front of the towering warrior. "Explain your choices, Chamberlain."

Dorian's lip trembled. "The-the Dread Lord and I discussed it. We agreed these would make the most effective hostages."

"Go on."

Greven stepped up. "Our goal is to keep peace inside the Stronghold. We chose people who have strong bonds with those not chosen. Dal men will think twice about rising against us if they know we have their mothers, fathers, wives, and children in our power."

"I think you've erred, Commander," Belbe said. "Now we're as much hostages as those people beyond the wall!"

Ertai spoke up. "What do you mean?"

"If any harm comes to these people, it will foment rebellion rather than quell it." She was angry, and she didn't know how to handle the emotions stirred up by the plight of the hostages. "Why didn't you round up young males instead? They're the potential allies of Eladamri, not these helpless folk."

"In matters of civil unrest, there are no innocent bystanders," Greven said.

"Be at ease, Excellency!" Dorian pleaded. "No one wishes harm to these people. When Lord Crovax returns triumphant, all will be well."

"And if Crovax loses?" asked Ertai.

The silence that followed was suffocating.