Vigil said, “Allowing the ship to land may introduce vectors to defeat what Rania has planned—if we are wise enough to know whether opposition to Rania is justified. We swore oaths to her, unbreakable oaths, and if the wisdom she brought back from beyond the galaxy is wisdom we cannot bear—who are we to pit our minds against it?”
The Aruspex said coldly, “It may be that there are reasons sound and sensible to sacrifice our sovereignty of this world to upend the Plan for Universal Peace, which is a fraud. Maybe that is so. But whether so or not—you, My Lord Hermeticist, you have no right to threaten the world with destruction if the Table fails to halt this warship and make that sacrifice. You boast that you will never break an oath. Will you obliterate us with that sword for upholding rather than breaking ours? For to land this warship would be the abolition of the Stability, in whose name that sword is given its power, and your hand given to hold it.”
Vigil raised his eyes, tilting the blade this way and that, as if reading the ancient letters again. “Well? Is there still a case against this Chamber, these men, this order, this world, this age? Do I still have jurisdiction here?”
He winced as information forms like hot needles entered his brain. Despite all that was said, this remains a matter for the mortal order to judge. It is not permitted that we should advise you. Condemnation and clemency are still yours to grant or withhold.
Vigil lowered the sword again, weary, confused, defeated. He turned and looked left and right. Here was the Terraformer in green, the Lighthousekeeper in white, the motionless Chrematist in red, propped up at the Table. Opposite him was the Aedile in gold, nervous, and the senile Chronometrician in saffron. He looked at the Portreeve in his dun uniform. “Who sent the Myrmidon to save me from my attackers? I assume it was you.”
But the Portreeve touched one ear and displayed his palm, fingers spread. Signal loss: message not understood. It was the old gesture indicating confusion.
Vigil supposed it did not matter. As if his eyeballs weighed more than nature allowed, he found his gaze being pulled back to the mocking horror of the Peace Plan inscribed in the Table. It promised so much and delivered nothing at all.
Vigil tried to imagine the seventy suns of mankind shining on the fourscore worlds and the forty-two sailing vessels, larger than continents, carrying their millions in long flight through the night. Each sun and world, each radio house and interstellar laser, all were manned and crewed and served by the Loyal and Self-Correctional Order of Prognostic Actuarial Cliometric Stability.
He said aloud, “How can the secret future brought back from M3 by the Swan Princess be so horribly wrong, so horribly false? Everyone knows she solved the riddle called history! How can there be a warship in existence at all? How can there be war?”
The counselor behind him named Cricket said, “Well, scabby scrotum of the damned devil, I know the answer to that! It’s obvious. Been saying for years. No one listens to me.”
But another voice spoke over him and drowned him out: There is war because the Master of Empyrean has willed it. He is conquering all the worlds as he comes!
7
The Ambitions of the Imperator
1. The Dead Speak
Vigil saw the potent glitter in every eye in the chamber and realized that the Lords of the Stability, Companions, and Commensals were all raising their intelligence as rapidly as they could, reckless of their energy budgets. Then he realized that the dead man had just spoken, and he started doubling his intellect as well.
The Chrematist stood, and as he did so, the color left his red robes, turning all the fabric black. The whiteness left the skin cells of his face and hands as the hibernation of untold years was ended. The features grew young, sharp-cheeked; a face of striking aquiline comeliness peered forth from the departing hoarfrost. The white hair turned black as rapidly as burning paper, as did the pointed beard and slender mustachios beneath a long, straight nose. The wrinkled skin grew young. The eyes were green as the eyes of a beast of prey.
He threw back his hood, revealing the crown upon his head.
2. The Dead Coronet
Despite the strangeness of this dead man seemingly returning to life, Vigil was fascinated, even shocked, by the sight of the coronet.
As an antiquarian, Vigil recognized it as a material object which was not self-organized, as a living machine was organized, or a house, or a weapon, or any other thinking thing. Neither was it a man-made artifact, as he understood the term, meaning anything built up from the molecular level, such as an apple tree or an eyeball. Neither was it a Potentate artifact, built up from the atomic level, such as unobtainium or argent, or any of the other frivolously named elements nature could not make. The crown was dead matter crafted by hands, apparently without the use of machinery, since there were (so eyes like Vigil’s could detect) microscopic defects and asymmetries throughout. It was neither dead matter, natural, nor living matter, artificial.
It looked like a thing a schoolboy would make, or a Nomad, or someone else whose matter-printer was rudely programmed. But it was not. It was not printed at all. It was bits of matter put together by hand, macroscopically, and the bits were dead throughout the whole operation. It was handmade in the original sense of the word: made by hands.
Vigil sent an internal creature into the world archives, like a bright fish disappearing into a dark ocean, seeking a reference to what this crown was, or whence it came.
3. The Living Master
The Aedile, staring bright-eyed at this stranger, laid his hand on the table and spoke. “I call upon the Table itself to forefend us. We are breached!”
The cold voice, speaking in the ancient language, hummed from the dark surface of the invulnerable metal, as if far underground thunder were speaking, and Vigil’s teeth ached with the echoes. “None is here unwarranted, unasked, uninvited, or without ancient right.”
The dark stranger spoke in a voice of firm command, perhaps with a hint of laughter hidden in it. “I am the Founder of the Starfarer’s Guild, and my authority is supreme and paramount. Hear your master, and obey! Sieges! None sit in my presence!”
Vigil had no idea how many thousands of years old these ceremonial chairs were or how old was their programming. But he leaped to his feet.
Others were not so swift. The Terraformer and the Chronometrician were deposited unceremoniously on the floor. The other lords and dignitaries swayed or stumbled or clutched the Table edge when chairs bucked their occupants free, and then came to their feet with as much dignity as they could muster.
The dark and princely stranger raised his finger and pointed at Vigil. “You alone have obeyed the most ancient rules and iron laws eons ago I here established. For this, I commend you and grant to your family, race, and clan a boon, anything you wish, up to and including sovereign rulership of this world as my vicar. But know this: there is no law requiring the Lords of Stability to ignite the deceleration beam for a warship! Therefore, they are not in violation, and you must put up your sword and yield it to me once more, its true possessor.”
And he held up his left hand, drew back the dark fabric of the sleeve, and displayed an amulet of dark red metal, identical to the appliance connected to Vigil’s own wrist.
The internal creature he had sent into the archives returned and spoke inside his mind: This is the Iron Crown of Lombardy. He who wears it is the Most Noble Master of the Empyrean of Man.