The Thousand Emperors

FOURTEEN

The journey to the well, the old man told Jacob, was likely to take the better part of a day, and quite possibly longer if the weather turned for the worse. For this reason they left not long after dawn the following morning, with Jacob once again hidden beneath a carpet in the back of Kulic’s horse-drawn cart.

At one point, as Kulic guided the cart out of the village, cajoling his horse with whistles and muttered grunts, he drew to a halt by the roadside in order to exchange a few words with a fellow villager. That proved to be the high point of what was otherwise a cold and desperately uncomfortable journey, marked by spine-jarring jolts and bumps that did little to improve Jacob’s mood. He hated everything about Darwin he had so far encountered; the early years of his life had been spent in Sandoz combat-temples amidst wild and tropical forests and, despite his training, he had never quite shaken his distaste for the cold and damp.

But what made it all so much worse was that the rag under which he was forced to hide for the first leg of their journey stank of shit and hay, while the only refreshment Kulic had to offer was a sealed clay jug of nearly intolerable home-brewed beer, alongside hard, unleavened bread that Jacob was forced to chew with grim determination before it became even vaguely digestible.

Jacob finally emerged from beneath the blanket an hour out of the village, but soon draped it back over his shoulders when it began to rain, a freezing drizzle that shrouded the hills and forest around them in shades of grey. Kulic had given him some of his father’s cast-offs – a rough woollen shirt and a pair of patched cotton trousers, along with a broad dark coat that swept against his ankles. Underneath it all he still wore his one-piece combat suit.

Kulic guided the horses along a dirt path that cut through the woods and ran roughly parallel with the course of a stream intermittently visible through the trees. Before long it became clear they were headed inland, towards a valley beyond which a Coalition city could be seen in all its shining technological splendour.

They stopped late that afternoon so they could both take a leak. When Jacob returned from the woods, he saw Kulic rummaging around in the rear of the cart, as if searching for something. As Jacob watched from amongst the trees, the old man glanced around with a furtive expression.

Jacob waited to see what the old man was up to, and watched as Kulic turned back to the cart, lifting out the case Jacob had earlier retrieved from his ship. Holding it carefully, Kulic turned it this way and that, as if trying to work out how to open it.

Jacob stepped out from his hiding place and quickly slipped up behind the old man without making a sound. Kulic was pressing dirty fingernails against the surface of the case, apparently trying to prise it open.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ asked Jacob, from directly behind him.

Kulic let out a cry of shock, and span around to regard Jacob with an expression of terror. ‘I’m sorry, I . . .’ his mouth trembled, the case still gripped in his shaking hands. ‘I was just . . . just curious.’

‘Curious about what?’ said Jacob, coming closer, so the old man was forced up against the side of the cart. Kulic’s mouth trembled with fear.

‘I . . . I just wanted to know what was inside.’

Jacob stared at him in silence for several long seconds, then reached down to take the case from Kulic’s grasp without breaking eye contact.

‘It’s lucky you have no idea how to open this,’ Jacob said quietly. ‘It would have killed you even faster than I could. Now get back on that horse and let’s be on our way.’

Kulic regarded him in much the same way a rabbit might a snake with its jaws fully extended. He swallowed and slid past Jacob, pulling himself back onto his ageing nag.

Jacob stared at the back of the old man’s head, then climbed into the back of the cart. The case was unharmed, of course. It would open only in response to Jacob’s unique genetic signature. He kept a hold on the case as Kulic snapped the reins, and they began to move forward once more.

The sky reddened as the evening deepened, and the first stars began to show themselves before they next spoke.

‘You asked me to tell you about life in the Tian Di,’ Jacob said, calling over to Kulic as the cart juddered and bounced beneath him. ‘Why don’t you repay the favour, and tell me something more about the people in the cities?’

A minute or so passed before Kulic responded. ‘I said they came to visit us from time to time, in disguise.’

‘You said,’ Jacob commented, ‘they didn’t appear to be human.’

‘They came to us in disguise as animals.’

Jacob smiled to himself. ‘Animals?’

‘You think I’m naive and foolish,’ said Kulic, his tone defensive, ‘but I’m not. We know how powerful the people in those cities are, and how lucky we are that they permit us to live our lives the way we choose; we know they can take any form they wish. One of Bruehl’s disciples came back with stories of multi-legged things that flew and crawled, of tiny darting machines that spoke with the voices of men.’ Kulic’s tone had become hushed, full of wonder and fear.

Mechants, in other words, thought Jacob. Or possibly extreme body modifications of a type not permitted within the Tian Di.

‘They’re not really people any more,’ Kulic continued. ‘Not in the way that you or I understand them. Villagers tell stories of walking through the woods and encountering beasts – sometimes just deer or birds, except that they have an uncanny intelligence about them that betrays their otherness. Sometimes the beasts are nightmarish things that have little to do with anything in God’s Creation, things that glow or fly or crawl on the ground.’

‘So why do they come?’

Jacob laughed, the sound harsh and bitter. ‘They are spectators come to gawk at the exhibits in a circus,’ he said.

The woods had become denser, the path veering off from the river, which had slipped between tall, crag-like rocks so that its passage could now only be distantly heard. ‘Did any of your people communicate with them, or them with you?’ asked Jacob.

‘No.’ Kulic shook his head. ‘Too many people in the villages are frightened they’d be carried away to the cities, which is silly, of course. There are regulations preventing any interference with our communities. Should any one of us make the free choice to leave the villages and make a new life in the cities, that’s another matter, but we can’t be forced to make that decision against our will.’

Kulic turned to look back at him. ‘If I may ask – is your mission to destroy the Coalition? Is that why you’re here?’

‘No,’ said Jacob, ‘that’s not my mission.’

Kulic turned back and said nothing, but Jacob could sense the old man’s frustration. Here he was, Jacob Moreland, a mysterious stranger from another world, full of answers to questions that must have been stirring through the old man’s thoughts ever since his father’s deathbed revelations.

Despite himself, Jacob felt a touch of pity for Kulic, and decided there was probably no harm in telling him a little more than was strictly necessary. Besides, he had come to a decision after catching the old man trying to prise his case open.

‘However,’ said Jacob, ‘I am here because of the threat of war between the Coalition and the Tian Di.’

Kulic stared round at him, suddenly desperately fascinated. ‘You mean like what led to the Schism?’

‘That wasn’t really a war,’ Jacob replied. ‘It was more of a standoff. Severing the transfer gates linking our worlds to yours prevented an outbreak of war.’

‘Then . . . where’s the danger?’ asked Kulic. ‘If all that either side needs to do is shut down the new transfer gate linking Darwin to Temur, then there can’t be any war.’

‘At the same time that Father Cheng has been ordering agents such as myself to Darwin,’ Jacob replied, ‘the Coalition have been sending their own secret missions to the Tian Di at sub-light speeds. There are offensive machines lurking in the cold outer reaches of our star systems, ready to strike if we do not agree to certain demands on the Coalition’s part.’ He had received this newest information from the transceiver hidden in Kulic’s basement.

Now that he had started, Jacob found it very nearly impossible to stop the flow of words pouring from his mouth. Even though only days had passed from his subjective point of view since he had been first loaded on board the tiny starship that brought him to Darwin, it felt as if it had been much, much longer than that. In truth, it felt as if he had not spoken with another human being for years. He knew this was ridiculous, a kind of delusion. And yet he could not help himself.

‘What kind of demands?’ Kulic asked in horrified yet fascinated tones. The path took a sharp turn downwards and the old man was forced to duck as they passed beneath low-hanging branches. They were entering the valley now.

‘The Temur Council has enemies, even amongst its own people,’ Jacob explained, ‘that want to bring chaos and anarchy raining down on all of the Tian Di. To prevent this happening, the Council’s wisest minds decided to seek out the means to defend themselves. And that means I must . . .’

Stop. You’re telling him too much.

Jacob felt abruptly ashamed of himself. ‘The details aren’t your concern,’ he said, quickly changing the subject. ‘How long before we reach this well?’

‘We’re just about there,’ said Kulic, leaning forward to mutter in his nag’s ear as the road took another sharp turn.

Jacob sat up as they turned into a clearing, at the centre of which stood the ruins of a stone building that surrounded a flag-stoned courtyard on three sides. A decrepit-looking well stood at the courtyard’s centre.

The courtyard, like the ruins, had become overgrown with bushes and weeds that pushed through cracks in the flagstones. Jacob walked around for a bit after climbing down from the cart, stretching tired limbs and massaging the muscles in his thighs. Kulic meanwhile guided his horse to some long grass, looping the animal’s reins around a low branch. Jacob watched as the old man then stepped over to the well, staring down into its inky depths.

Jacob came up beside him. ‘What we’re looking for is down there?’

‘It is,’ Kulic replied, reaching down to grab one end of a frayed-looking rope that hung over the lip of the well. He began hauling on it, hand over hand, in much the same way he had retrieved his father’s transceiver from the depths of a barrel. He struggled, however, and Jacob ended up doing most of the work, feeling the rope tremble and sway as something heavy connected to its other end swung from side to side in the depths below.

A large bundle, wrapped in more waterproof oilskins and bound up in rope, emerged into the evening light. They heaved it up the rest of the way, manhandling it over the lip of the well and onto the weedy flagstones by their feet.

Jacob glanced back down the well, thinking.

‘What is it?’ asked Kulic, seeing Jacob’s attention was elsewhere.

Jacob bent at the knees, picking up a rock and dropping it into the well. Several seconds passed before he heard a splash.

‘It’s nothing,’ said Jacob, glancing at the sodden rope tightly bound around the oilskin-wrapped bundle. ‘Do we have anything that can cut this rope?’

‘Just a moment,’ said Kulic, returning to his horse and producing a long knife from his saddle-pack. He used it to saw through the ropes, then stepped back so that Jacob could peel away the oilskins, revealing a heavy wooden chest.

Jacob opened the chest, lifting out some of the precious gifts that lay inside; various pieces of modular equipment and, most importantly, a plastic case containing another pin-sized transceiver, which sprang to life as soon as he picked it up.

He nodded with grim satisfaction at the new data the transceiver contained. Clearly, Sillars had been hard at work prior to his murder at the hands of his fellow agents. Indeed, given what the transceiver was telling him, Sillars had more than made up for the failings of his compatriots.

Jacob pulled off the ragged shirt and trousers given him by Kulic, wadding them up and dropping them into the well. Then he placed the miniature transceiver back in its case and pocketed it, before studying the rest of the chest’s contents. He discovered several pocket-sized A-M mines, each of which could gouge a crater a mile wide, along with a collection of slim metallic components that, separately, did not appear to have any immediate use but, when snapped together in the right order, comprised a powerful beam-based weapon scarcely less devastating than the mines. It was designed to be broken into parts that would each fit in the pockets and hidden recesses of his combat suit.

He quickly packed the contents of the chest about his person before standing and nodding towards the ruins surrounding the well.

‘There’s a cellar under this building,’ he announced to Kulic.

The old man peered towards the ruins, seeing only weeds, rotted wood and a few bricks outlining the position of the building’s foundations. ‘How do you know?’

‘Sillars left a message when he buried all this,’ Jacob explained, unconsciously brushing one hand against the pocket in which he had placed Sillars’ transceiver. He then stepped amongst the ruins of the building, pushing past a tangle of sharp-bladed bushes until he came to some half-rotten floorboards, which he stamped on with one foot until one of them cracked, fragments of it dropping into the darkness below.

Jacob pulled on a pair of gloves and began tearing away the clumps of bush and weed around him until more planks were exposed. He could just make out a dim shape in the darkness of the cellar beneath him, hidden under half-rotten rags that had been draped over it.

‘Give me a hand,’ Jacob grunted, bending down to lift one end of a plank.

Kulic stepped gingerly over, helping to clear away some more of the weeds covering one end of the plank. The plank shattered unexpectedly, the end Jacob was grasping nearly catching him under the chin as it angled upwards. Jacob batted it away, watching it drop into the space below.

They worked like this for several minutes, smashing or lifting planks, although Kulic proved too weak and slow to be of any real practical use. But he worked uncomplainingly, for which Jacob was grateful, until the cellar had been exposed sufficiently that Jacob could drop down into the darkened space below.

‘What is that thing down there?’ Kulic called down, his voice querulous.

‘A flier,’ said Jacob, stripping away the rotting sheets covering it.

The machine was a product of Coalition science, easily more advanced than even the starship that had brought him to Darwin. Its hull still gleamed despite its long years buried in dust and filth, and when Jacob reached out to touch its smooth hull with his bare fingertips, it shivered almost as if it were alive.

In a sense, the vehicle was alive. According to Sillars’ own memories, encoded within his transceiver, the distinction between organic and inorganic technology within the Coalition had by now become entirely academic. The flier could think and feel, after a fashion, and as his fingers brushed its skin, Jacob could sense something very much like loneliness radiating from it after so many long decades of waiting.

Jacob climbed back out of the cellar and dusted himself off with a grimace, before using the last of Kulic’s beer to wash the worst of the filth from his hands.

‘Step back,’ Jacob told him.

Kulic goggled as a low, grating hum began to resonate through the air, more dirt and wood tumbling into the cellar as the hum grew. The flier rose slightly from its resting place, pushing against those few planks that still remained in place. They soon snapped under the strain, tumbling down or spinning away as the flier’s AG field took hold of them.

The flier rose into the air above the ruined cellar, shedding yet more dirt, twigs, and bird-shit in the process. Kulic stared up at the craft in stupefaction as it moved towards a patch of clear ground next to the ruins, where it dropped back down and came to a rest.

Kulic turned to gape at Jacob, his eyes shining with undisguised awe. ‘And all this time . . . it was just waiting there? I never knew!’

‘Sillars never told the others about it – not Bruehl, and not even your father. He didn’t trust anyone else with the knowledge.’

‘And it was lying here all this time just waiting for you?’

‘For someone like me, yes,’ Jacob explained. ‘That was your father’s job, as it was Bruehl’s and Sillars’ – to find ways to exploit and subvert the Coalition’s security networks, and make it possible for me to fulfil my duty.’ Sillars had transformed the flier into a weapon no less deadly and efficient than any of the devices packed into the case that had so aroused Kulic’s curiosity.

Jacob stretched and flexed his fingers inside their gloves until he could feel the bones and muscles pop and stretch. A memory came to him, of long-ago training camps, where he had been forced to crawl through muck and dirt one day, then dart across boulder-strewn craters in near zero gee the next, while mechants armed with live weaponry attempted to gun him down. By the time his training had finished, he had learned dozens of new ways to kill people.

Kulic must have seen something in his expression. His face grew pale, and he started to back away, glancing towards his horse and cart still tied up nearby.

‘I’ll do anything I can to help you complete your mission,’ Kulic stammered, his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down as he swallowed. His voice took on a whining tone. ‘I helped you out of the woods and hid you. I . . .’

‘I know that,’ said Jacob, his voice soothing as he stepped closer to the old man. ‘And I’m grateful, really I am. But the fact is this mission is much too important to take any risks. Your father would have understood that.’

‘Is it because I tried to open that case?’ Kulic cried out, still backing away towards the well. ‘I didn’t mean any harm, I, I was just curious . . .’

Kulic nearly stumbled over a rock hidden amongst the weeds. Jacob glanced towards the well, and Kulic caught the look, glancing over at it himself before turning back to regard Jacob with bottomless terror.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Kulic whispered, his breath coming in shaky gasps. His ancient watery eyes stared at Jacob with something almost like longing.

He turned to run, but Jacob lunged forward, grabbing Kulic from behind before he could so much as put one foot in front of the other. Wrapping long, strangler’s fingers around the old man’s throat, he pulled him close in what was almost a lover’s embrace.

‘I promise this will be quick,’ he whispered, and began to squeeze.