Imperial Night (Ashes of Empire, #3) Read online

  The man who spoke, the eldest of the three, wore what Mirjam thought of as a fresh convert’s glow on his narrow face, the sort that smoothed out the deep lines around his prominent nose. Even his silver hair seemed to shine preternaturally, but it was merely an optical illusion caused by the stained glass windows on either side of the wide door. Although he appeared as serene as any of the Order’s friars, the frequent bobbing of his prominent Adam’s apple betrayed a remnant of unconscious inner agitation. Bright brown eyes deeply set beneath heavy brows watched her intently.

  The man had been, until recently, the most dangerous criminal on Lyonesse, someone condemned to exile for life on the imperial prison planet Parth because of his family connections instead of being executed for his crimes. He’d been saved from a slow and agonizing death because a twist of fate put him in a stasis pod aboard the Imperial Correction Service Ship Tanith, along with hundreds of political prisoners who’d fallen victim to Empress Dendera’s rampant paranoia.

  President Morane, at the time captain of the former imperial cruiser Vanquish and commander of the 197th Imperial Battle Group’s remains, had salvaged Tanith after Grand Duke Custis’ adherents ambushed and abandoned it. Morane brought her to Lyonesse, where the authorities separated the real criminals from the politicals and ensured the former served out their original sentences.

  The man who wanted to call himself Erasmus, along with his two companions, were the most dangerous humans carried in Tanith and, therefore, the most dangerous on Lyonesse. But since the empire hadn’t ordered their execution, Lyonesse’s high court declined to change the original sentence of exile for life. So, they were transported, along with others, to the newly independent republic’s version of Desolation Island, from which escape was impossible due to distance, deadly storms, and insanely aggressive aquatic megafauna.

  “You may — Erasmus. Why that name?”

  He shrugged.

  “I can’t rightly tell you. It came to me in my dreams last night and feels right. A suitable name for someone who will henceforth be an unselfish person, a servant of the Almighty. It celebrates my rebirth.”

  “Fair enough.” She looked at the other two men. “And you?”

  “I’m content to stay known as Shakib,” the youngest of the trio, a dark-complexioned, black-haired man with hawk-like features, replied in a soft voice.

  “And I as Marnix,” the third, a tall, bald, painfully thin individual with leathery skin and a permanent squint said. “Although I feel reborn in the same way as friend Erasmus, no new name came to me in my dreams, and I’ll take it as a sign from the Almighty that my current designation is satisfactory.”

  Mirjam led them on a familiarization tour of the priory, explaining each room’s function and the associated protocols along the way, before ending in the dormitory. There, she assigned each a small, monastic cell no different from those occupied by members of the Order including Mirjam. The size of cabins aboard small starships, these cells contained nothing more than a bed with a side table, a small desk with a chair, and a shelving unit for clothes and other items.

  “How many of the Brethren live here?” Erasmus asked after carefully unpacking his meager possessions.

  “We are forty, all of whom either work as healers, counselors, or agricultural advisers for the inmates and penal colony personnel.”

  “And what will our role be?”

  “You will undergo the training given to every postulant, and then, depending on your aptitudes, you will help the Brethren in carrying out their duties and work in maintaining the priory and its grounds.”

  “I see.” Erasmus met Mirjam’s eyes. “And when will we be permitted to leave the Windy Isles?”

  “Not for some time, if ever. The president must commute your sentences before you can reintegrate into normal society, which means Governor Parsons or one of his successors will have to convince the Secretary of Public Safety you no longer present a risk. Considering the magnitude of your crimes, you may well spend the rest of your lives as members of this priory, even if the procedure you underwent removed any chance of re-offending.”

  “I see,” Erasmus repeated. His tone betrayed no emotions, not even resignation. “We are no longer prisoners in the penal colony but remain exiles in the isles. What is your Order’s saying? The Void giveth, the Void taketh away.”

  “Blessed be the Void,” Mirjam responded. “That is indeed our saying. You will find life among us meaningful and rewarding. Serving others as a way of expiating the sins you no longer remember will repair the damage to your souls. The evening meal is at eighteen hundred hours. You will meet everyone else at that time.”

  “Will there be an initiation rite?” Shakib asked.

  Mirjam shook her head.

  “Not for postulants. Should you show yourselves ready to become friars at a future date and Sister Gwenneth, who leads us, approves, we will formally induct you into the Order. You will find clothing in your cells. Please shower and change now, then dispose of the prison garb by adding it to the proper bin in the laundry. Once cleaned, we will return everything to the Correctional Service.”

  The men inclined their heads by way of acknowledgment.

  “Afterward, I recommend silent contemplation in your cells until mealtime. You will find printed copies of our holy books and a treatise on the Order’s Rule in your desks.”

  With that, Mirjam pivoted on her heels and left the dormitory, headed for her office on the principal building’s upper floor where the friar assigned as the priory’s property manager and now a trainer for the new postulants waited.

  As she entered the spacious room overlooking the atoll’s central lagoon, Friar Rikkard, one of the many rescued by the Order’s fleet of ships and brought to Lyonesse during the empire’s collapse, climbed to his feet and bowed from the neck in greeting. Stocky and muscular. with a broad face tanned by the sun and wind, he had bright, observant brown eyes beneath thick brows and wore a neatly trimmed beard, though his skull was as devoid of hair as Marnix’s.

  “You observed our arrival?” Mirjam nodded toward the bank of displays on the far wall.

  “I did. They appear untroubled, but then, their sort are chameleons, able to become whatever others expect of them.”

  Mirjam dropped into the chair behind her simple wooden desk.

  “Still not convinced?”

  “I’ve never seen a violent criminal suddenly develop a conscience. The Almighty might work in mysterious ways, but I doubt men of that sort can be saved before they’re called into the Eternal Void.”

  “And yet our tests prove they no longer show the brain anomalies that took away their humanity.”

  “Which still doesn’t give them a soul, and that means they’re what?” After a momentary pause, Rikkard shrugged and answered his question. “Empty vessels, I suppose.”

  “Ready for your teachings.”

  “Aye. And I’ll do my best to see they become useful members of the Order. Or failing that, non-consecrated servants, since I doubt the president will ever pardon them, and we certainly can’t send them back to the penal colony.”

  Mirjam gave him a brief smile.

  “I know. That’s why I chose you as postulant master.”

  Rikkard let out a soft snort of amusement.

  “Considering the dearth of friars in this priory, there’s not much choice.”

  “I could have arranged for one of the teaching friars from the abbey.”

  “True.”

  “Besides, you possess enough of the talent to detect something going wrong up here.” Mirjam tapped the side of her head with an extended index finger. “And that means I need not divert a sister from her duties to watch them.”

  “Aha! You’re not fully convinced either, are you?” A smile split Rikkard’s gray beard. “I knew it.”

  “Oh, I’m convinced the changes we made to their engrams are permanent and removed e
very last trace of aberrant thought, but Gwenneth urged caution nonetheless.”

  “And how is our abbess these days?”

  “Dealing with internal politics, as usual. How she’s done it for so long without tiring is beyond me.”

  “I hear they erected a motherhouse-sized Orb while you were there. Does that mean Gwenneth will declare Lyonesse the Order’s new home?”

  “Perhaps. There is growing pressure among the Brethren to do so and break with the past.”

  Rikkard raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Just break with the past? I seem to remember the Order exercised a lot of secular power in the Lindisfarne system.”

  “Gwenneth will never go down that path. Nor will the republic’s citizens allow us to meddle in matters of planetary governance.”

  “Fair enough.” Rikkard stood with a vigor that belied his age. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll introduce myself to the postulants and get a better sense of their characters. One can only divine so much via the security system.”

  — 7 —

  ––––––––

  Stearn Roget’s eyes fluttered open of their own volition. Within seconds, a blurry face filled his field of view.

  “Awake at last, are we?” A low-pitched woman’s voice asked. “You gave us quite a scare.”

  “W-what?”

  “Take it easy.” The face that came into focus as he adjusted to his surroundings was round, pleasant, and unmarked by age or privation. However, her intelligent brown eyes seemed almost ancient with wisdom, though he also saw a hint of mischief. They met his gaze without guile, and he felt a sense of calm envelop him. A gentle hand landed on his forehead. “Your body was in worse shape than anyone figured. It’s a miracle you survived so long after the crash. You collapsed moments after entering my sickbay. We placed you in a medically induced coma.”

  “H-how long?”

  “Seven days. I’m Sister Cory, by the way. Dawn Hunter’s medical officer. Sister Milene, the assistant medical officer, and I took turns caring for you. She’ll be here in a moment. Your internal injuries were extensive. How you survived almost two weeks before we picked you up is a question only the Almighty can answer. But life is vigorous within you, my friend. Extraordinarily so. Your healing has progressed beyond my wildest hopes, which is why I decided it was time to end your coma. We’re on our last leg home in case you were wondering. Once we cross this star system, we’ll enter the Lyonesse Branch, a wormhole network dead-end well defended by the republic’s naval forces. I daresay your troubles are almost over.”

  “Which system?” Roget’s words came out as a broken croak.

  “Arietis.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Cory laid a warm, dry hand on his cheek. “Most of the people who lived there when the empire pulled out either emigrated to Lyonesse or found other homes. Last we checked, there were no longer any humans on Arietis. Even the barbarians bypass it, but this system is a major wormhole junction with six termini. One of them leads home, and the one we just exited leads back to where the empire once ruled. The other four connect to star systems on what was once the imperial frontier and were overrun by barbarians, if not outright sterilized.”

  Roget felt his skin tingle beneath her hand. It quickly spread across his face and into his skull, and the residual throbbing he’d felt moments earlier vanished. But before he could comment, the ship’s public address system came to life, though it wasn’t nearly as loud in the sickbay as elsewhere aboard.

  “All hands now hear this. The traffic control network detected five bogies exiting Wormhole Arietis Three less than four hours ago. The last known course was in the direction of Wormhole Six.”

  A frown creased Cory’s smooth forehead as she withdrew her hand.

  “Unless the Navy sent out an expedition during our absence, that’s not pleasant news. Wormhole Six is the terminus of the Lyonesse Branch.”

  Roget sat up slowly, eyes darting everywhere.

  “You run a traffic control network in an uninhabited system?”

  “Yes, and a subspace relay. We occasionally need to replace the odd wormhole traffic control buoy that didn’t go silent fast enough after reporting intruders. But they can no longer surprise the picket ships at the Corbenic end of Wormhole Six, where the Republic of Lyonesse begins. Few survive the attempt even if they make it through the minefield, and none try a second time, because they’re either destroyed or captured.”

  “You mean Lyonesse has the technological base to produce sensor buoys with subspace transmitters?”

  Cory nodded.

  “And more. We even began building faster-than-light starships from scratch, though none are yet in service. The Navy’s combat vessels are former imperial units, and the Void Ships such as Dawn Hunter once belonged to the Order of the Void’s commercial arm, which means they’re old and wearing out. Captured units aren’t any better.”

  “Like Antelope, no doubt.”

  “Oh, based on ship’s gossip, she was in even worse shape.” When Cory saw the question in Roget’s eyes, she chuckled as she raised the diagnostic bed’s upper half, transforming it into a backrest. “If you’ll recall, you gave Koris Leloup a copy of Antelope’s database and log. He uploaded the data and made it accessible. Since we’re a little short on fresh entertainment, a lot of crew members are reading up on what happened to your former ship.”

  Roget leaned back and nodded.

  “Of course.”

  “The fact it took you ninety-one days to reach the Montego system from Scotia has our navigator shaking his head in despair.”

  A scowl briefly flashed across Roget’s face.

  “While fixing one failing component after another during the entire trip. Euclid Barnett was a cheapskate and a fool. Oh well. The crash smashed his head like a giant egg, so I suppose he got his comeuppance for what he put us through, the Almighty damn him. The universe is better off without his sort.”

  “Any man’s death diminishes me,” Cory quoted in a soft tone, “because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

  She gave Roget a tight smile.

  “John Donne, from his poem ‘No Man is an Island.’ He lived two thousand years ago, yet his words still resonate. If you take vows and join us, you’ll become familiar with his work and his thoughts. Donne’s argument that it was better to examine one’s religious convictions with care rather than blindly follow any established tradition — a revolutionary idea at the time — was in many ways a precursor to the Order of the Void’s underlying philosophy.”

  “And when will I find out why I should become one of you, if I may ask, Sister?”

  “After a lot of thought and discussion among us, Sister Katarin, who leads our little contingent in Dawn Hunter, has decided you should meet our abbess, Gwenneth, on Lyonesse before any further discussion about your future in the Order.”

  “If I ask why, I suppose you won’t tell me.”

  She patted his arm, then stood.

  “You’re catching on. And you’ll stay here until we’re home. I released you from your coma, but you still need around the clock medical attention and plenty of rest. Sister Milene will be here shortly with a light meal, and there’s a reader on the side table, connected to the ship’s non-classified data stores. Read whatever you want on Lyonesse and the Order of the Void. I must report to Sister Katarin and go through my daily meditation regimen.”

  “Thank you for everything, Sister.”

  “Healing is what I do, Stearn. Best thank the Almighty for the vitality he gave you. It made all the difference. Without that physical toughness, you wouldn’t have lived until our fortuitous arrival.”

  “Why would the Almighty care about me? I’m not a man of faith.”

  “Perhaps the Almighty has plans for you.”

  Wi
th that, Cory left the compartment. Roget picked up the reader and activated it. If he was stuck in an otherwise empty sickbay, he might as well acquaint himself with his saviors.

  **

  “Reivers?” Lieutenant Joyann Prusak, Dawn Hunter’s first officer, and currently officer of the watch, asked as she turned to face Captain Kuusisten.

  “It can’t be a convoy of Badlands Revival Collective ships intent on saving Lyonesse from the Empress of Darkness. They went out of business when President Morane was just an imperial captain dreaming the impossible dream.”

  Prusak smirked at her commanding officer’s questionable sense of humor.

  “Do you think there’s any point in contacting the Outer Picket ships and advising them we’re inbound?”

  “Probably a good idea, even though any situation that might develop will be resolved by the time we reach Wormhole Six.” Kuusisten glanced at the communications watchkeeper. “Are we hooked into the subspace relay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Make to Outer Picket. Hunter is plotting the final leg at Wormhole One. Understand bogies traveling FTL between Wormholes Three and Six. Advise if we should wait.”

  The communications petty officer repeated Kuusisten’s message verbatim, and when she received his nod, she sent it off, encrypted, on the Lyonesse Navy’s emergency subspace frequency.

  “Joyann, we will hold off on going FTL until Outer Picket replies,” Kuusisten said.

  “Understood, sir.” A pause. “Captain?”

  “Yes?”

  “Sister Cory reports our passenger is awake, lucid, and on the mend.”

  “Excellent. Ask Sister Katarin if she can meet me in sickbay. I’d like to speak with this mysterious Stearn Roget. If Outer Picket says we can go ahead, take us FTL at once.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Kuusisten and Katarin reached the sickbay door simultaneously.

  “Do you still intend to stay silent on exactly how and why we found him?” The former asked.