The Nemesis Page 2

  Today would mark the culmination of those efforts.

  Long-range satellites projected a holographic image into the very center of the presence chamber. It glowed in imposing size amid the gathered Grandiloquy. The image was a live feed of the hypergiant, Hephaestus, the largest and most powerful of those six stars. Malignant space reached for it in ever-multiplying tendrils, stripping away layer after layer of hydrogen.

  “Any moment now,” breathed the Emperor, staring entranced out at space.

  He stood at a remove from the company of the others. His Grandiloquy exchanged uneasy glances behind his back but dared do nothing more. The security bots linked to the Emperor’s mind were arrayed above the company’s heads, mechanized eyes fixed unblinkingly on all the faces in the chamber, watching for any threats to the Emperor’s person. The Grandiloquy had not yet gauged the extent of their Emperor’s control over the machines.

  For some Domitrians, keying into the scepter gave them voice command over the bots in direct sight.

  For others, they could peer straight across star systems as though they were machine men themselves, looking through virtual eyes, issuing commands to distant weapons.

  The assembled group had no illusions of their Emperor’s mercy. They had assisted him in killing thousands of their political rivals. The most prominent Grandiloquy had choked to death on Resolvent Mist, or been cast into malignant space to die. They’d assisted the Emperor in bringing about the destruction in hopes of gaining more influence and power.

  Instead they now stood as virtual prisoners of the security bots overhead, silent and petrified. For their young Emperor had turned into a terror, a creature of unpredictable moods and merciless whims. He was awaiting the catastrophe to come with an air of calm expectation. Even the hint of a smile.

  That smile widened as it happened: Hephaestus hemorrhaged the last of its hydrogen.

  On the holographic image between them, the vast star abruptly shrank and collapsed inward. A collective cry—a mingling of awe and horror—rose from the observers.

  Then the star exploded outward, and in the window beyond the Emperor, a great explosion of light swelled across the blackness.

  “There it is!” The Emperor broke into a laugh as Hephaestus went supernova against the vast tapestry of darkness. The vivid explosion fanned larger and larger. Rays of light ballooned outward, the most ferocious of nature’s phenomena lighting up the great void. Pitch darkness lit to blinding light and drowned away the stars, before fading once more.

  The Emperor turned to look upon the observers, his form rendered a dark silhouette against the great destruction blooming behind him. He spread his arms expectantly, invitingly.

  “Behold,” said the Emperor. “Our triumph.”

  For a long, frozen moment, a horrified silence hung in the air. There was no triumph here, just pure destruction.

  “You who fear the Excess,” jeered the Emperor, “can you imagine them ever defeating such might? I wielded malignant space. I ignited a supernova. The power over the Cosmos belongs to me now. And my loyal few—to us.”

  At last, understanding sank into the assembled Grandiloquy… awe. Then one or two of their number, clever and ambitious, realized the proper response. They began to applaud.

  As soon as that first smattering of applause filled the air, more hands joined into a chorus of approval. The Emperor broke into a broad, self-satisfied grin.

  As if by instruction, the clapping swelled to wild cheers, to toasts with glasses of wine. The Grandiloquy shouted themselves hoarse in praise of the “most glorious light show” in imperial history. They hailed their young Emperor for this remarkable feat.

  The Emperor spoke: “Most Ascendant One, come forth.”

  The Vicar Fustian nan Domitrian—an imposter currently pretending to be the Interdict, the highest-ranking member of the Helionic faith—stepped out of the crowd and threw himself to his knees at the Emperor’s feet, pawing forward for his ruler’s knuckles to draw them to his cheeks.

  The Interdict would never bow to an Emperor.

  But the real Interdict was dead. This was a puppet wearing the face of a holy man, here to speak the words the Emperor wished, and do as the Emperor bade.

  “Tell me something,” the Emperor said softly. “The stars reflect the will of our divine Cosmos, do they not?”

  “Indeed, they do, Your Supreme Reverence.” Fustian’s voice shook a little.

  “So it might be said, the sacred is what influences the stars.”

  “Indeed, that is true.”

  The Emperor’s lips curved into an odd smile. “Most Ascendant One, I just influenced the stars.”

  Fustian opened his mouth but had no reply. He gawked up at the Emperor, no doubt trying to divine from that mysterious smile what he was supposed to say.

  “I created malignant space. I caused a supernova. I.” Tyrus stared down at him expectantly.

  “In-indeed, you did.”

  “So what is the meaning of that, Most Ascendant One?”

  Fustian began to tremble. “I… I know not.”

  The Emperor’s unblinking stare was as empty and flat as a reptile’s. A building hum came from the security bots overhead, causing many in the room to gasp and shrink into themselves. The lethal killing machines began to crowd together over the Emperor’s head, their mechanized eyes fixed on the cowering Fustian.

  “Hazard a guess,” the Emperor suggested.

  He spoke very blandly, but the words themselves were the warning. The wrong answer would mean death. None here doubted it. After all, in the ball dome of this very starship, they had watched him drive a sword through his wife—the woman he’d valued above all others, for whom he’d gambled everything.

  They had hated her. Detested and feared her. Yet they had not celebrated her death for very long before a new understanding had set in.

  If the Emperor could murder his own wife, then their lives would be nothing to him.

  Though Tyrus von Domitrian had beamed upon them all but a moment ago, a swift undercurrent of fear stole through their ranks at the realization of what he could do to them if they gave him cause to frown.

  Fustian bowed his head, deathly pale, and took a deep, audible breath. Then his gaze shot up, milky and desperate—eager. Yes, he knew just what to stay.

  “You influenced the stars, Your Supremacy, so you must be a… a god!”

  Only the greatest fools in the room let their incredulity show.

  But their Emperor gave a maddening smile, his eyes warm with approval. “Think you so, truly?”

  “I am certain. I am absolutely certain,” burbled Fustian. “You are a god!” He rose and turned to the others. “Do you not see it? Do you not understand?” Desperation frayed his voice. “How… how he glows with a holy light? How he shines with it?”

  Stunned silence answered him.

  “You must see it!” Fustian shielded his eyes, as though blinded by Tyrus’s essence. “Oh, it is inspiring! How lucky we are! There is a living god in our midst!” He fell to his knees again, then fell flat on his belly, his diaphanous ceremonial robes spilling around him. “Hail! Hail, Divine Emperor Tyrus! Hail to the Divine Emperor!”

  The Emperor despised Fustian nan Domitrian. In the past, he’d been seen kicking away the puppet Interdict’s hands as they pawed at his feet, sneering at his captive vicar’s simpering reverence.

  Today, though, the Emperor smiled at him broadly, fondly—like a parent to a child who’d offered some small gift.

  “You see it truly, then,” Tyrus said tenderly. He reached down to raise up Fustian’s trembling form, and cupped the man’s shoulders gently. “I will see you rewarded beyond your dreams for this… understanding.”

  “Your Supreme… Divine Reverence, I thank you,” Fustian whispered, awestruck.

  The Emperor turned his expectant gaze toward the rest of the Grandiloquy.

  “Hail!” Fustian bellowed at them, chest puffed out now—emboldened. “Hail! As Interdict
, I command you all to hail our Divine Emperor Tyrus!”

  Behind the Emperor, the window still bloomed with the vast glow of the supernova, while the star-shaped metal security bots re-formed themselves into a circle above Tyrus’s head, a crown made of deadly weaponry, awaiting a single thought from their master.

  But it was Tyrus von Domitrian’s next utterance that at last stirred them: “If I am indeed a divine being, I must need my most favored subjects. My most valued of disciples. What say you?” His gaze traveled over the Grandiloquy, glittering with a promise the courtiers of his Empire could not dare to resist.

  Many of them had, in the past, clashed with Tyrus—back in those idealistic days when he’d been swept up in youthful dreams, in love with a Diabolic, ready to sacrifice them on the altar of some egalitarian vision for the galaxy. Yet the creature—the Emperor—before them now was shaped by cynicism, by Venalox, and yes, by avarice into a form they could clearly discern, for at last, this Tyrus von Domitrian was an Emperor they could understand.

  In his demand for worship, there was a promise in return:

  Profane yourselves for me and I will reward you beyond your wildest dreams.

  And so came the first: “Hail!”

  “Hail!” came another voice.

  “Why, the light is blinding!” cried a third. “He is a god!”

  “Our Divine Emperor!”

  “The Divine Emperor Tyrus!”

  As a wave, the Grandiloquy threw themselves to the floor, crying, “Hail to the Divine Emperor! Hail!”

  Soon there was no question of remaining silent, no restraint to temper the Grandiloquy in gleefully prostrating themselves before Tyrus, because he seemed to have at last been born to their ranks. This was no god, but it was certainly a cynical, power-grasping megalomaniac, and the Empire had long shaped itself around just such tyrants.

  What was a god, after all, but the arbiter of destiny? One who could ignite a supernova, who could kill a man with a single thought, who held the entirety of the galaxy and the Helionic faith in his hands: Was that not a god? His power over their lives was complete and unbreakable. Was that not a kind of divinity?

  Tyrus gave a laugh as they knelt, and he began to call out promises: “A monopoly on the Novashine trade to you, Senator von Sornyx! And you—Credenza von Fordyce—I mean to give you Gorgon’s Arm for this show of faith!”

  The shouts and cheers grew louder. As the presence chamber at the heart of the galactic Empire filled with voices crying, “Our Divine Emperor! Hail to our God-Emperor!” the Emperor passed through their midst, giving favors even as he graciously allowed them to clutch at his feet, receiving their reverence as his right, and after all, was it not all his? He had triggered a supernova, and even the most restive of the Excess would quail before an Emperor—united with his Grandiloquy—with such destructive power at his fingertips.

  Overhead, below, all around, the Chrysanthemum’s surveillance machines recorded this moment, capturing it for posterity. And for eons to come, historians of the tragic and violent reign of Tyrus von Domitrian would debate the significance of this day. Was it here that the Emperor’s madness had truly begun? Was this the defining moment of his reign?

  Some would argue vociferously against it. They would point instead to an earlier time, to the years Tyrus spent under the control of Alectar von Pasus. The Senator had forced upon his captive Emperor the neurotoxic drug Venalox, one notorious for its deleterious effects upon character—one that eroded one’s empathy, one’s conscience. This, they would argue, was the formative period that turned a young idealist into a brutal tyrant.

  But gradually, over the centuries, a consensus would form. Neither von Pasus nor delusions of divinity could account for what the Emperor became. The key to that transformation was found elsewhere, in the single person who influenced his rise, his degeneration, and then his fall.

  She alone had the influence to oppose the mad Emperor. She alone had the will and strength to speak when others were silent, and the ferocity to attack when none other dared raise arms.

  The historians did not know as much as they thought, nor were their records as complete as they assumed. Nevertheless, they knew enough.

  And so they looked to Nemesis.

  1

  I HAD THE MOST FAMOUS face in the galaxy, but no one recognized me.

  Today, there were eyes on me. I felt them.

  My feet scuffed to a stop.

  A split second later, another pair of footsteps halted.

  I was being followed.

  My steps resumed their smooth stride down the street. Interesting. It had been months since I’d faced a threat. In truth, I’d grown rather restless with boredom.

  Misery was a constant of life on Devil’s Shade. In this most distant and hopeless of provinces, frustration boiled in every heart, leaked through every strident voice. Anger sought an outlet.

  A lone young woman drew predators.

  I could have avoided trouble, if I’d tried to blend in. I could have cut my long locks, worn large jackets, ducked my head… my size alone could have convinced hostile eyes that I was a decently muscled male. But something hard and vicious in me took pleasure in refusing to hide.

  Instead I wore my long white-blond hair down. I’d made the color fashionable and saw it everywhere now, so why change it? When I walked down the street, I did not slouch. I made no effort whatsoever to avoid strangers’ attention. I met every stare with a stare.

  They were just humans. Let them hide from me.

  The only disguise that obscured me was the burn across the right side of my face. I had Neveni Sagnau to thank for that tiny scrap of anonymity. If I ever met her again, I meant to return the favor.

  My steps slowed again so I could gauge how many pursued me. The subtle pause between the steps grinding to a halt…

  Three.

  Pity.

  I’d been hoping for a challenge.

  My mind rushed over the rules I’d laid out for myself: no attacking without provocation, and no chasing however much it entertained me. After all, it was never fair, and giving chase stoked a dark instinct in me, one I had resolved to battle.

  I was a Diabolic engineered for murder, but I was not some crazed beast.

  A rational being did not chase one who fled, nor could I assume anyone’s motives without evidence. Yet even as I reminded myself, I strained my ears for the shuffling of footsteps, and a pleasant excitement began to shiver through my limbs.

  Stop. Do not indulge this, I told myself, and stopped walking.

  It took several lingering, sloppy seconds for my pursuers to catch up to me.

  The trio of shadowy men broke into jeering smiles as they fanned out around me. “You look lost,” called the largest of them.

  I regarded them for a long moment.

  My total lack of fear often frightened away those men who sniffed about for the vulnerable. Most heeded their instincts that something was “off” about me and escaped with their lives.

  “Understand me,” I said quietly and clearly. “I don’t want to be followed. I am going to walk away and you will go in another direction. I will show no mercy on you otherwise.”

  Then I turned my back to them. A dank alleyway presented itself, and I swerved into it. A dead end: perfect. I leaned against a wall to wait.

  They followed.

  “You looked better from behind,” called the scraggly-haired one, and the other two laughed. “What’s that on your face, a disease?”

  I could have lied about my scars and said it was a disease. Skin-rot, maybe. It might have driven them away.

  But I was not in the mood to be kind. I just waited.

  “Answer me, you ugly bitch,” the man snarled. “I’m being nice to you.”

  “Yeah, we’re real nice,” said the largest of them, elbowing the third, the quiet one hanging back. “Aren’t we?”

  Uneasy laughter and a muttered, “Maybe we should go,” from the third.

  “No, no, sh
e’s got to tell us we’re nice,” said the scraggly one. “Actually, maybe thank us. Thank us for being nice to such an ugly bitch.”

  The scraggly one crossed the distance to me and invaded my space, until I could smell his body odor, until I could see the pores on his nose, the missing teeth bared by his smile. He planted one palm on the wall next to my head, and then the other.

  “Well? Gonna say anything now?” he said. “How about… now?”

  Then he laid his hands on me.

  I’d warned them.

  I rammed an uppercut into his jaw, and his bones gave a satisfying crunch as his neck fractured, killing him instantly. Forward I shot, snagging the arms of both his companions before they could react, dragging them bodily closer to me.

  “Who’s next?” I roared, my voice bestial.

  Panic lit their faces. I crashed my head into the larger man’s face, then sank a roundhouse into the ribs of the other, hearing the splinter on impact.

  The larger one had stumbled back from me, clutching his head, and now he stumbled over his dead friend. He gave a squawk of anger at the sight of him.… “Murph? Murph! She killed him! She…” His hand dove into his jacket and withdrew a blade that gleamed in the light.

  It slashed at my face. Too easy. I caught his wrist. His eyes met mine, disbelief ablaze in his face as I slowly twisted his arm about to turn his blade back toward him. This man was so large, he’d likely never been overpowered in his life, and now he found himself at my mercy.

  “Having second thoughts?” I whispered.

  “You bitch—” he rasped, and sealed his fate.

  Enough. I stopped holding back and stabbed the blade through his eye.

  Then I turned on the third man, the most hesitant of the three, who was sprawled on the concrete of the alley.

  “Well?” I spread my arms invitingly.

  He gawked up at me, wild-eyed with terror, and he finally saw me.

  My size. The white-blond of my hair. The dead men behind me, battered with my unnatural strength, murdered so easily with an unnatural skill…