2196 Anno Arbitrium Electromagi

The air above Duke Jaegenn's spire was lost in a cloud of haze as dusk ruled a line across the western horizon. An armada of helicopters and zeppelins hovered in tight formation around the cerametal stamen of the tower, jockeying for position. Their halogen spotlights obscured the stars, slithering across a sea of faces down below.

They were waiting for blood.

Omnivasive had spared no expense to make this Game unforgettable. Bread and circuses, just like they used to do in Rome. And just like the old Emperors, Octavio Vanecke knew what kept his people happy. The lead-up coverage tonight was an hour of subliminals and bloodshed - a 'greatest kills' gallery presented with slick aplomb by Dave Levine.

It was almost time to go live…

A swathe of red carpet ran from the manicured park on Jaegenn Circle to the doors of the Lord's estate, a gauntlet of threedeeo cameras funneling the Kheptarchy into the arena. The crowds around it were already thirty deep, and Vanecke noted with delight that three people had already been trampled. A cachet of danger was always good publicity. It wasn’t just here, though.

All throughout Elysium the fans were massing, crowding around the immense inflatable twodee screens Direktor Vanecke had donated for the show. And all across the city the Compliance Division were stretched thin, one gunshot away from a massacre.

The fans were ready to cheer, and chant, and riot. And when Blaire finished this final round of slaughter, they would be ready to acclaim him Emperor, and bring about the culmination of Vanecke's plans. It had taken years, and enough leverage to pry open the gates of hell. But soon, so soon…

Now he was content to wait, drinking it all in through his dome of screens. Wait, and take care of the linchpin of his scheme, down below him in the Valley View. In a floating threedeeo orb in front of his tank, Octavio watched the static blink out to black, test patterns opening like neon flowers.

Once again, he was looking through the eyes of Simeon Blaire, staring at a torn rice-paper poster on a bloodstained wall. It showed a stylized, muscular Confucian soldier in linotype red and green, his A.K. raised over his head in a triumphant salute. Whatever had happened between that blast of static and the second when Jaq Haszan had brought the needle down was a mystery - but the minute details scarcely mattered. What was important was that the program had worked - that Simeon Blaire had led his followers into battle for the first time.

Thank the gods, and all the devils too. For a second there he'd actually thought…

But no. It was best not to even contemplate failure, not when he was this close…

Now it was time for an object lesson to strengthen their resolve. Now it was time for martyrdom.

Outside the gates of the Valley View a blue-ribboned army of Blaire supporters had been brought to their knees, hundreds of beaten revolutionaries kneeling inside a circle of tanks and Cyben guns. They would fulfill one final purpose, now that Simeon was back under control.

“Commissioner, this is Direktor Vanecke,” hissed a disembodied voice over a certain encrypted relay. “Thank you for your patience; you are free to issue the extermination order.”

Above a thousand public squares, in downtown bars and manufactorium mess halls, in bimburb homes and claustrophobic habs the screens were waiting. Soon they'd run red with blood…

 

Ω

 

Haszan waited for Simeon to go off like a bomb as his syringe slid its wires into the Kheptarch’s brain. He remembered Blaire’s predatory grin, his silver sword sketching an afterimage blur through the air… and he held his breath as he pushed the plunger home.

But there was nothing this time. Jaq slowly unclenched his fists, creeping back on the tips of his toes. He didn’t dare touch the needle again.

“Well, give it a minute. Watch his eyes, man. Watch his hands. There’s something wrong with this one. Badly wrong.”

Kaito had the kid he'd picked up somewhere along the way slung over his back like a sack of bricks, and he rested in a wary crouch, waiting for the predicted fireworks to start.

“He’s a Kheptic Lord junkie, Jaq! Of course there’s something wrong with him!”

“We won’t be findin’ out what's wrong with him today, Jaqub Haszan,” said Abdulafia, prying one of Blaire's eyelids back with two fingers. “He's out like a light!”

The Ashishim leaned forward over the warrior Lord’s shoulder, and for an instant his face was right next to the Kheptarch's. 'Afia wore a mask of dust and blood, but Jaq could spot the resemblance. Uncanny.

“Seriously, last time he had that exact same sword, and he tried to cut me to pieces! I’ve probably still got his ear here somewhere…”

He rooted around in the pockets of his trenchcoat, pulling out candy and bloodstained Slades and bullets; but no Kheptic trophy. Abdulafia stopped him with a wry little chuckle.

“Shit, boy… and you folks call us Ashishim a bunch of savages!”

“Well, I was always a firm believer in Orthodox Voodoo. Perhaps that’s what’s holding him back.”

“Perhaps… but I’d put my money on the syringe full of drugs you just slammed into his cortex. In my experience, that’s the kind of thing which gets results.”

“Haszan, forget the fucking ear - let's get out of here!” That was Kaito, adjusting the unconscious body of the kid across his shoulders. “The fire's spreading, and this place is falling apart!”

Haszan stepped away from Simeon Blaire, letting go of the Kheptarch’s shoulder as he pulled the needle free. It was stuck fast… so he left it there as Simeon slithered to the ground, a boneless black tangle of limbs with a pale and empty face.

“You coming with us, buddy?” he called to the Ashishim, who was ripping a chunk of machinery out of the ruined battletank. “Or do your brothers in the Revolution have a plan for this kind of thing?”

Abdulafia hefted the shiny black crescent which had housed CeeAn’s mind, connecting it to the Ghulam's ancient battery with alligator clips. Two of his duct-taped dreadlocks snaked into the memory cell, their plug-tipped ends finding matching sockets in its smooth surface.

“I'd be pleased to join you, gentlemen,” he drawled, hauling an oily canvas duffel bag from the tank as he spoke. “Word on the wire is that some baaad shit’s coming down on this location.” He rummaged in the bag with one hand, pulling out a pair of old-fashioned revolvers, so huge and brutal that they made modern railpistols look like cheap kids' toys. “Just out of interest, have you fellows ever seen what happens to dead Cyben?” He lobbed one of the cannons underhand to Haszan and the other to Kaito, smiling in a thoroughly disturbing fashion.

“Aren't they dead already? Y'know, when they're built?” asked the Kayzi, plucking the gun out of the air with his free hand.

“Well… I'll tell ya while we evacuate,” said Abdulafia, fishing in the sack for his own weapons. In the smoke and flamelight, Haszan could swear that he looked just a little too much like Lord Blaire for comfort…

It was the drugs catching up with him. It had to be.

They set off into the mall, away from the bleeding and broken bodies of Eddie Tsien and the immobile Simeon Blaire, the syringe still protruding from his neck like an exclamation point.

“Don't they just recycle them?” asked Haszan as he came up alongside the Ashishim. “Plug in a new set of batteries, a bit of synthetic flesh, and put them back on the street?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. See, what they do is… SHIT!”

“Gee, that doesn't seem very technical. I mean - ”

Sound being as slow as it is, Jaq actually saw the fat lead slug spin past his face well before he heard the gunshot. Then instinct took over for all of them – wartime hardwiring for ‘Afia, street-hustler survival reflexes for the two Elysians. Big saucer-sized craters were being chewed out of the concourse where they’d just been standing, letting the rays of the setting sun lance in through the smoke.

Then came the big one.

The explosion brought down a whole row of stores… most of them right on top of Eddie Tsien. At the same time its shockwave lifted Katio off his feet, throwing him and the kid into a ragdoll spin. Abdulafia managed to wrap one hand around a lamp-post as he was propelled backward, cursing, his bioelectric field flaring out like an aeroshield behind him.

Haszan heard the crash of broken glass as he spun upside down, then his head struck a big solid wall of cerametal with a billiard-ball crack. Groaning steel and stone echoed in his skull, counterpoint to the roar of flames. Whatever had come in through the roof had cut off their escape. Assholes!

It was one hell of a ‘whatever’.

Jaq watched through a haze of concussion as a giant khaki mantis levered itself down into the mall, quartering the ruin of the grand concourse with a pair of glowing white eyes. The jagged tips of its forelimbs bristled with heavy-caliber weaponry, and belts of bullets swung from its belly as ammo-feeds ratcheted and clicked.

Surely not. Surely not. Had he pissed off any giant insects lately? Where the fuck were those detox patches? Haszan found that reality was just as bad as the illusion as he slapped an orange demon-head to his temple.

It was a helicopter gunship, and its blades fanned the flames up and out in a fiery corona. In between its rocket pods and railgun sponsons somebody had stenciled the old eye-and-pyramid chop of Omnivasive, symbol of the free press. And those great dragonfly eyes were dangling searchlights, twisting on their mountings to transfix the tiny black figure of Simeon Blaire.

Hanging out of the control bubble at the nose of the gunship was the thin, hawkish face of Atticus Meaks. His camera goggles were pushed back onto his shiny forehead, and a drooping cigarette was clamped between his lips. He waved.

Haszan struggled forward against the gale, but Abdulafia was already taking aim, his big antique revolver pointing like an accusing finger. A claw on a long whiplike cable sprung from the belly of the chopper as he squeezed trigger. Haszan heard the revolver fire, saw the white muzzle-flash, but the Ashishim was too late. The bullet pared paint off the nose of the machine, whining away into the dark.

“You damn fools! What the hell are you shootin' for?”

“What am I shooting for? You started it, you little bastard!”

'Afia stood defiant, one arm crooked around the lamp-post for balance as his coat streamed about him in tatters. And Haszan saw that he WAS Simeon Blaire - saw that same maniac grin as the hammer came down on another shell, and the skin of the helicopter tore open in a hole the size of his fist.

“Aaah! Stop it! I didn't know who you were, O.K!”

“And I don't know who the hell you are! So here! Have another!”

That jointed steel cable had found its mark now, and spinnerets at its tip wrapped Blaire in a cocoon of wire. Another shot came from off to the right, and Haszan saw Kaito perched in the store window, holding his gun with both hands. This one almost blasted the stabilizing rotor from the chopper's tail, and Meaks screamed in alarm as his gunship slewed right, its blades missing a tangle of rebar by inches.

It was too late to stop them now. Meaks was cursing and swearing, spinning up the helicopter’s guns. Lead skipped and whined across the tiles as he opened fire. So Jaq brought his own revolver to bear, his servo-assisted thumb snapping back the hammer as he sighted along its long black barrel. There, right between the chainguns on the gunship’s belly - the maser beam Meaks had used to cut open the roof. Tanks of volatile liquids and coolants clustered beneath it, utterly exposed. One shot in the right place…

The helicopter ruined his shot by pulling up, dipping and weaving as Meaks tried to shoot and steer at the same time. Its whirling blades only had bare inches of clearance on either side of the hole, but he made it through, Simeon Blaire jerking along underneath on the end of his chain. Railgun slugs chewed great ragged holes in the Valley View’s few remaining stores.

Haszan and the Ashishim fired at once, but their target was rising too fast now, free of the mall and accelerating.

One bullet bit into its landing gear, bursting a fat black tire. The other nearly struck Blaire as he was pulled aloft, swinging wildly like a human wrecking ball. Haszan saw his face as he was pulled up through the smoke; he had the look of the dead Cyben about him; blank, cold and blissful, beyond the needs of the living.

It was then that Haszan remembered Atticus Meaks' promise outside the mall, and realized that their troubles had only just begun.

“General Extermination Order!” he coughed, choking on a lungful of smoke. He staggered over to the Ashishim, clawing at his sleeve. “I don't know what they're gonna do, but we have to get gone, NOW!”

Kaito was with them a second later, leaving B-Zerk tucked under cover in the ruined store.

“You RT guys are supposed to have all the secret tunnels and hidden doors,” he said to Abdulafia, tucking the revolver into his belt. “Is there some kind of way out of here that the Div don't know about?”

The Ashishim dropped his eyes, his knuckles white around the pistol grip.

“It was back there, I'm afraid. Entombed with my brothers.”

“So we go back,” said Haszan, contemplating the slew of flaming rubble which blocked off their escape. “At least Simeon bloody Blaire isn't in our way anymore.”

The lights on the strange crescent across ''Afia's chest flickered and winked in the flamelight, illuminating his face from below. Haszan could see now, close up, that this man wasn't an exact copy of his Kheptarch double. There were different lines and scars etched across the Ashishim's face, and a look of true, contrite regret there that Simeon Blaire would never know.

“I guess we do, then. The spirits tell me it's not our day to die - or else I'd be kind of worried.”

“What else do these spirits tell you?” asked Haszan, folding his arms across his chest. “They got any ideas about how to get through a line of Comp Div tanks?”

The Ashishim looked up at him with a sad smile on his face - past him, and into the gloom.

“Just this, Jaqub of the Hand of Fatima. There's something coming we have to face together. And it won't be the last time.“

Abdulafia pointed, and the others followed his gaze, back into the plaza where the smoke billowed and spiraled up out of a ragged circular hole in the ceiling. In that writhing pall they could all make out moving lights - small, red, purposeful eyes. They were coming closer. Jaq looked back the other way, and saw a swarm of them coming in from that side too.

“It'll be an honor to die with you if they're wrong, though,” said the Ashishim, checking the load of his revolver. Its cylinder whirred and clicked into place, and the hammer came back with a clear, punctuating snap. “And you'll both know what happens to them dead Cyben.”

“Hey!” said Jaq, finally catching up. “I never told you my name! How the hell do you know my…”

Then the Dervashi's first shot rang out, deafeningly loud, and Haszan turned to follow the bullet's flight.

He cursed.

Suddenly there was a whole lot more to worry about than Ashishim parlor-tricks…

 

Ω

 

In the palace of the Biotects darkness reigned, shrouding the dead in velvet.

Direktor Vanecke could never have come here in person, to the most hallowed altar of the Three Hundred Purest; not before, in his old life, his old flesh. And definitely not in his current state, as a brain trapped in an isolated, armored skull. Only once had he been let in. Once, and for a cost that would have crippled nations, to buy a child’s life and turn him into a weapon…

Even then he'd only been allowed down on the factory floor with the servants.

But his influence was here, in the form of a Slayer cloud, a tiny swarm of metal and silicon motes which ghosted through Universal's security grid in the dark. Emmanuel had given him the key to this place when he attacked Omnivasive. In death he'd proved to be a much more gracious host than he ever was in life.

Here under the unblinking optics of Vanecke's parasites lay the three hundred identical glass tanks. They held the new bodies of the Kheptic caste, his hated so-called superiors.

They were utterly vulnerable, naked and pink behind the dewy panes, like life-sized toys. And without their maker to protect them, they were just as breakable.

Octavio was busy tonight, as the Kheptarchy gathered in the shadow of Jaegenn's spire for their final futile game. Blaire had to be primed, and Leynna Mendelev-Singh would have to be taken care of. Kronos would have to be distracted from its vigilant death-watch over his own wasted body. But he would never be too busy to savor this moment.

The A.I. seneschal of Universal was completely compromised now, its access codes torn out of Lancaster's mind as he was devoured. Throughout his spire servitor creatures lay slumped in postures of death, unable to guard this holy of holies. And while they slept the lights began to dim, flickering from pale yellow to red as Octavio assumed final control.

The life-giving liquid inside the clone tanks was stained bloody crimson by emergency strobes as critical processes were diverted. Fat, fluttering bubbles seethed from their intrinsic recycling systems as the temperature rose, and caustic chemicals flooded in…

Octavio watched, transfixed, as the skin of the clones began to blister and wrinkle, peeling off in long lazy streamers from the flesh beneath. They were melting like plastic under a blowtorch now; Gideon, MacGill, Dawes, even a new and unmodified copy of Simeon Blaire, their tissue dissolving, sloughing off their bones in floating chunks. Disintegrating, like their dreams of power - like their influence, under the camera eye of Direktor Vanecke.

Of course, to murder a Lord was the most heinous of crimes - a transgression punished swiftly and fatally with all the might of immortal Kronos. Octavio was ambitious, and desperate, but he was no fool. His whole estate would be incinerated by orbital particle cannons if he so much as touched a hair on their heads. Inside the game it was different. When he'd tested his strength against them and failed, all bets had been off. The Game was sacred ground.

But here in the palace of the Biotects there were no Lords and Ladies of the Razor Clique. The things which he disposed of were nonpersons, mere chattels for all that they were exact living copies of the Khepts. This wasn't murder in the eyes of Kronos - because these simulacra weren't yet human.

This was just business.

At last even their bones cracked and dissolved, leaving each pod filled with a roiling broth of toxins. His work here was done. Tonight, when one of the high-born slipped and missed his strike the game would be all too real - and they wouldn't live to play another day.

 

Ω

 

The people of the Reclaimed Territories were on the move tonight, and the reverberation and echo of whole neighborhoods being shifted up inch by inch shook the very walls down here, in the steel-sky ghettos of the Ashishim.

Up above them the Subcity was in motion too - a hive of termites kicked open, its streets filled with rioters and revelers in equal proportions. Giant zeppelins branded with the logo of Omnivasive slipped between the cyclopean towers and smokestacks of Elysium, threedeeo screens on their flanks broadcasting the frenetic crush about Jaegenn's spire. The square at the base of his temple was filled to bursting with Blaire zealots in their blue uniforms.

In other, less public spaces throughout the Subcity - abandoned places and no-mans-lands at the fringes of habitation - the sects of the Reclamation were gaining ground.

Here an empty factory fell to the Aryan Confederacy, here a section of lightless tunnel was claimed by the Confucians. And everywhere, as the confusion spread, the tribes outside the city threw up their ladders and ropes, clawing to get in.

The Ashishim were no exception, because when a tribe had more people than space, every square inch was worth dying for. The ruins which separated the RT from the city itself were unprotected tonight, and their security cameras winked out one by one as black-clad sons of Alamut spraypainted over their lenses.

Down in the Citadel, at the heart of the Ashishim sect, the vast indoor fields of hydroponic ganja lay empty. The mess halls and scriptoria were silent, and the barracks and tenement tunnels were deserted. Every man, woman and child who wasn't out on the front lines was in the War Room, a great oval arena down below sea level. Its reinforced windows stared out into the oily black waters of the Atlantic, but nobody was here for the view.

Here, thousands toiled over a cobbled-together web of computer systems, patched up piecemeal from machines of many centuries. A wall of screens, from modern threedeeo globes to ancient green pixelated VDUs curved around the War Room, and on scaffolds before this edifice of flickering light countless Ashishim techs swarmed with handheld keyboards and headsets, coordinating operations.

Others bustled about the desks which covered the floor, bearing disks and papers, bottles of water and urns of scalding hot coffee, smoking pipes and styrofoam cups of ramen noodles for the staffers who sweated over the numbers.

In the eye of this cyclone a green silk pavilion rose from a mess of cables and plugboards, completely out of place among the heat and buzz of so many machines.

Inside, the Magi of the Ashishim attended their master.

“Unit seven has met Vatican resistance outside floor one-two-nine,” reported Magus Verlaine, pushing his 'mersive goggles back up his high forehead as he disconnected. “I've shut down their communications so the tunnel crawlers can get around their flank. The recycling mills on one-thirty-one will be ours within the hour.”

The six Magi were seated on a raft of embroidered cushions, amid the drifting smoke of brass filigree censers. Five of them remained in the reverie of control, their minds deep within the immensely ramified web of wetware which permeated the Last City.

Verlaine had only emerged to report his success and gulp down a few mouthfuls of sweet iced water from the pitcher at his elbow before he went under again. To tell the truth, he preferred the cool symmetry of the World Within to the stench and noise of the war room - Verlaine was utterly posthuman, disgusted by the rest of his species.

Oh, of course his Ashishim brothers treated him with the utmost respect, him and his five equals. They were ancients, after all - already retrofitted for efficiency and longevity when many of the sons of the sect were only infants. Verlaine had been eighty-nine when the Ashishim stole cloning technology from the Kheptarchy - too old and too laden with powerful machinery to benefit from its use. Now he was just a human face on a suit of damascened silver armor, unable to feel the cushions beneath him, but able to play the Wetsystems like a master musician.

Ordinary people, even the lesser adepts of the Electromagi, were alien to him now, and their company meant little to him - so long as they kept him connected.

“Our countervirals have just blocked another A.I. assault by the Vatican. They're trying to re-open their comms on 129.” Veraline blinked a layer of rolling code from his eyes, checking his bio-readouts on a tiny wrist screen. Another four hours inside without a protein infusion would be his limit. “I'm going to trace this one back, and deal with the source personally.”

He was about to slide the 'mersive rig back over his head when the figure seated in the center of the pavilion raised one hand, stopping him cold. The High Magus was steeped in shadow, his green robes pooling around him as he sat cross-legged and silent among his soldiers.

“Please, a second of your time, Verlaine,” he whispered, in that smooth and sibilant tone so like the disembodied voice of the wetsystems themselves. “There is a crucial diversion I have been overseeing alone… one which requires another pair of hands.”

Verlaine saw the flicker of a smile inside the shadows which cloaked the High Magus, and he felt his own pride unfold across the Vision.

The six of them were constantly seeking the favor of their master - a creature so revered and ancient that he needed no machinery, not the smallest augmentation to master the mysteries of the Wetsystems. Ashishim rumor whispered that Zeon was always connected, that he had subverted part of the system to act as an extra battery of minds, and that by this power he was all but omnipresent, omniscient.

“Of course, revered Zeon,” he replied, sneaking a glance at the other Magi as they lay in reverie around him. Was it just a coincidence of timing, of luck? Or was he really highest in Zeon's favor?

Of course, he was worthy of such trust. No doubt the Master, in his wisdom, could see the quality of his faithful servant… because others certainly had. Others who paid him good hard currency to watch his master and report back in iron-bound code. A true adept was only faithful to himself, after all.

“The one I want you to operate on is a Cyben, Magus Verlaine,” said Zeon, that voice sliding over the top of his thoughts like oil over water. “Access the node within Valley View Plaza first - the network there is in considerable disarray, but we trust in your skill. When you have found the node, locate a deactivated Cyben unit - the new model.”

Now the High Magus leaned forward, his hands reaching out to touch Verlaine's temples, to cradle his stainless-steel skull back down to the cloth-of-gold cushions.

“You won’t find a Vilicus drone to access – not with this one - but there are other ways to tame such a creature, as I'm sure you know. Re-activate him, and contact me when it is done.”

Verlaine felt the power which coursed through Zeon’s hands. It burned into his metal skin, expanding the already potent capabilities of his slaved processors. The world dropped away, revealing the immense shining rootwork of the Wetsystems… more capillaries and branches than he’d ever seen before. There, far below, was the tiny red pulse of his target, the snarled and knotted razorwire of security programs twined around a single infinitesimal human figure.

“Go with speed and skill, Verlaine. I have all trust in your abilities.”

The words of Illuminatus Zeon flooded him with purpose, and he leaped from the War Room of the Ashishim and into the systems like a hunting hawk, stooping on his prey with the speed of thought itself.

In the little silk pavilion, amid the clatter and hum and bustle of bureaucratic war, Zeon sat, and smiled, and waited. More than he trusted poor vainglorious Magus Verlaine, the lord of the Ashishim trusted his apprentice, the sword in his right hand. Soon Abdulafia would finish off the Vilicus drone which had once had its teeth in Tsien's spine. And then the Super-Cyben would be his to command, as well as its parasitic burden.

 

Ω

 

Simeon Blaire slept as Meaks' gunship rose up over the burning Subcity, floating like an ember from the blaze. It was as if his nightmares had been tapped down the wire in the back of his head, and projected huge and heaving across the skin of Elysium. Down there, an army of fanatics were chanting his name. They ground up against the barricades, banners held high, blue flags swirling in the smoke of tear-gas grenades - not just outside the Valley View, but all over the sprawling and rusted barrio that ringed the R.T.

Thousands of them lay handcuffed and broken in a circle of tanks outside the burning mall, and more still were crammed into overloaded meatwagons, cursing and crying. Unaware of the martyrdom and fury of his faithful Simeon Blaire slept in a cocoon of knotted steel tentacles, his mind absent, drained down a neural interface into hell.

Around him another city burned, wildfire tearing hungrily through silk and paper and cherrywood. Staccato explosions arose from all around him as sturdy bamboo poles exploded chamber by chamber, sending houses down into the inferno in clouds and veils of sparks. They called it 'the flowers of Edo', a beautiful euphemism for the destruction of an entire city.

Blaire thought that perhaps, to those who watched from the immune and impregnable heights of the fortress, that it really did look like a field of red and orange flowers.

He was ascending the stairs of that castle now, great slabs of black marble fronting doors of studded iron - a palace which had never stood at the heart of the old Nipponese capital. This was the dream fortress of his master, a gnarled and twisted spike of masonry which towered over the flames like Satan over Cocytus.

Rows of skeletal soldiers swum in the heat haze; Blaire was unsure if they were statues or living warriors. Showers of sparks reflected in the bright silver of their naked blades, the polished black lacquer of their armor… but their eyes were hollow holes. They seemed to smile knowingly as he passed. Simeon moved through seemingly endless hallways, their roofs torn open to the skies where a wrack of clouds burned red. Ashes fell across the polished floors like snow. And though the walls bent and wavered, and the floor stretched off eternally in an unbroken line, he knew he was moving ever upward.

The final door was a vast disc of nephrite jade, its immense face carved with scenes of war. Around its edges burned a sickly green light, a fire which lit the jade from within, making the carved soldiers struggle against each other as it shifted and pulsed.

Blaire felt his hand move, unbidden, to caress the smooth green surface of the door. He expected it to burn, to sear away his hand to a smoking stump - but the jade was cold, vibrating with power. It kicked under his touch like a great living heart.

“Welcome, my disciple. Welcome to your inheritance. Your destiny…”

A tectonic grind shook the building, sending dust sifting down from above. Then the door gave lurch, rolling away on deep tracks in the stone to reveal his master's sanctum. It was a place suffused with power, where helices of lightning wrapped tight around every pillar, and a rain of ashes fell gently, as silent as snow.

This was the crown of the impossible palace, the very tip of the black pagoda his Lord had dreamed into being. Three hundred arched windows looked out over a sea of fire, a hellscape of ruined buildings and black water. In each stone arch a body hung on barbed chains, crucified with hooks though its bleeding hands and feet. Blaire knew them, all too well. The aristocracy of Elysium were strung up bleeding there, all except one. Between the whipped and beaten corpses of Lords Kyrov and Valchek was an empty space, where hooks and chains spun in the wind. One place was left for him.

The shade of Tokugawa cast a crooked shadow across the octagonal flagstones from his ornate ivory throne, a dark shape in steel and black silk - except for the smoldering green light which issued from the eye-slits of his skeletal helm.

“Come closer, disciple.” hissed the shadow, beckoning with one unnaturally long claw. “It is time to begin our endgame.”

Simeon knelt on the inlaid platform before the throne, laying his sword in front of him in supplication.

“What is your command?” he asked, his eyes averted from that grinning death's-head in its cloud of shadows.

“Do you recall when we began this, Blaire?” asked Tokugawa, seeming to shrink and deflate to human size as he spoke. One hand traced the line of his disciple's bowed shoulders. “I gave you an advantage over all these poor deluded fools. I gave you the gift of life - by taking away your immortality.”

Simeon nodded - it was true. At first he’d been afraid to fight when the promise of a new cloned body had been taken away. But the thrill of battle was so much stronger and sweeter when his life was truly at stake. He had learned to channel that desperation into unstoppable rage, instinctive skill.

“And of course, you remember the fear.”

Blaire felt the power coursing through his master's hand as it wrapped around his skull, and he felt that fear wash over him again. The first engagement, knowing that if he failed it would be forever. The first time he felt a blade slice through his all-too-precious skin, the cold knot of terror blooming into anger, into killing rage.

“Tonight is the final game, Simeon. And so I have done the same for all of them.” Tokugawa gestured around the chamber, at the crucified bodies of the Kheptarchy swinging on their chains.

And Blaire saw the disintegrating faces of three hundred lords, their clone vats digesting them where they’d grown, the flicker of warning strobes across ranks of glass coffins…

“It is time, Disciple. Destroy them in their weakness!”

Green fire flared in the pits of his Master’s eyes, avid and hungry.

Simeon felt it coming, the itch at the base of his spine growing like a tumor, the artificial rage flooding his senses, narrowing his vision to a haze or red.

The room blurred up around him, liquid jade through with lightning. It became an endless vertical shaft down which he fell, plummeting like a great fatal comet-core toward the wall of consciousness…

From his window Octavio watched his helicopter gunship go scything through the smoky dusk, his life support tank swiveling to face the tall leaded panes. The tiny khaki machine settled like an insect alighting on an improbable flower; atop the glowing blue spire of House Jaegenn.

His weapon was prepared, and out of its cage. Soon the plans which Vanecke had put in motion decades ago would come to fruition, and the illusion of Tokugawa's palace would be made real - three hundred crucified lords paying dead-eyed supplication to his throne.