The two young emissaries took her arms again and urged her forward; the three of them sat on the bottom step of the dais, their bodies twisted slightly so that they could still see Molgarin. He put his arms out to his sides slowly.
“I felt that you insulted my young emissaries here,” Molgarin said. (The two young men both smiled smugly at her.) “And through them,” Molgarin said, “me.” He shrugged. “And so I punished you. I always make a point of punishing those who insult me.”
“Yeah,” the emissary in front of her said. “You should see what we have planned for that cousin of yours.”
Molgarin cleared his throat and the young man glanced up at him, then back at Sharrow with a conspiratorial leer. The spotlights reflected on his bald head.
“Whatever,” Molgarin said, “the wretch is dead. But please don’t imagine that all that has happened has been done to upset you, or as revenge on Kuma. My purpose has rather more substance than that.”
Molgarin settled back in his throne, clasping his hands again. “You have-as you have doubtless realised by now-been used, Lady Sharrow. But used for something infinitely more worthwhile than personal gain or individual glory. The interests I am pleased to represent, and I myself, have little enough concern with the trappings of power. Our concern is with the health of Golter and its system; with the good of our species.”
“You’re not just another dick-head power-junkie?” she said matter-of-factly. “Oh, that’s all right, then.”
Molgarin shook his head. “Oh dear,” he said. “Something worse than cynicism must be abroad if even our aristocracy cannot accept that the rich and powerful may be motivated by purposes beyond acquiring yet more money and increased influence.” He put his head to one side, as though genuinely puzzled. “Can’t you see, Lady Sharrow? Once one has a certain amount of both, one turns to hobbies, or good works or philosophy. Some people become patrons of the arts or charities. Others may-charitably-be said to raise their own lives to the state of art, living as the common herd imagine they would live if they had the chance. And some of us attempt not merely to understand our history, but to influence meaningfully the course of the future.
“I grant that, in my case, because I am beyond the jurisdiction of the chancre we call the World Court, I have a greater personal interest in the future than most, because I expect to live to see it, but…” Molgarin hesitated, anticipating a reaction where she had given none. He went on. “Yes, I am what we choose to call immortal. I have been so for four centuries and expect to be so for considerably longer than that… But I can see you are not impressed. Probably you don’t believe me.” He waved one hand. “Never mind.”
“He is, you know,” the emissary behind her whispered.
“Romantic children like your cousin,” Molgarin continued, “would try to return us to a golden age that never existed, when people respected the aristocracy and power rested safely in the hands of a few individuals. My colleagues and I believe a more enterprising, more corporate style is required: one that releases the natural resourcefulness and entrepreneurial spirit of humanity; freeing them from the dead hand of the World Court and its miserable, gelding restrictions.
“For this, we-like your cousin-thought it prudent to gather as many of the treasures and achievements bequeathed to us by earlier and more progressive eras as we could, especially given the decidedly feverish atmosphere beginning to be generated by the approach of the deca-millennium. Though in our case this sudden burst of acquisitiveness was as much to prevent the artifacts concerned from falling into hands as rash as your cousin’s as to assist directly in our own plans, which do not need to rely on such vulnerably physical specifics.”
Molgarin shrugged. “It’s a shame, really; we thought at one point that your cousin might be of a mind with us. We even invited him to join us, but he proved to have these silly, vainglorious ideas of his own. He has, frankly, been a considerable annoyance to us.” Molgarin shrugged. “No matter. Now that we possess all that you have so kindly provided us with, he can be dealt with at our leisure. These… gadgets will act as bait, if nothing else.” Molgarin smiled thinly. “Your friend Elson Roa learned what happens when somebody at first cooperates and then opposes us; your cousin will find the lesson equally hard, though I intend to draw the process out a little where he is concerned. Conversely, those who help us-like Seigneur jalistre, whom I believe you know from the Sea House-find the rewards considerable. I think I might give him something from this selection as a present.”
Molgarin looked to one side. More ceiling lights came on, revealing Feril standing ten metres away, a bulky collar round his neck. The Lazy Gun was nearby, resting on a thick column of clear glass beside the odd vehicle with the single slanting wheel she had seen underneath the tower, and a dozen or so other bits and pieces of what appeared to be suitably ancient and exotic technology, none of which she recgnised.
“Call me a sentimentalist,” Molgarin said. “But I thought it only right to rescue everything the tower and its undercroft contained, even though all the rest is baublery next to the Lazy Gun. See; we even brought your little android friend.” Molgarin raised his voice fractionally. “You may wave, machine.”
Feril raised one hand stiffly and waved.
“It is worried about the restrainer collar,” Molgarin explained to her, smiling. “Really, it is safe as long as it takes no more than a step or so from where it is now.”
Molgarin got up from his throne and went over to the Lazy Gun. He was a little less plump and rather taller than Sharrow had guessed. He patted the Gun’s gleaming brushed-silver casing. She noticed that there was some sort of device fitted to it, too; a thick looped metal bar twisted round the right-hand grip, secured with a lock, prevented access to the trigger mechanism.
“This will,” Molgarin said, “when the time is right, make life considerably easier for us.” He turned to smile at her. “Really your family has done so much for our cause, despite opposing us at practically every turn, that I feel almost mean that I have had to do what has been done.” He moved away from the Gun, though not towards his dais. “Not to mention what has to be done.”
Another spotlight came on, and revealed a figure standing beside Molgarin. It was her.
Sharrow looked at herself. Her image was blinking in the strong overhead light, looking with an expression somewhere between fear and bewilderment at Molgarin.
This new Sharrow still had all her long, black, curled hair; she was dressed in a long, conservatively dark suit identical to that Sharrow had chosen earlier and now wore.
Molgarin reached out a hand to the other Sharrow; the woman offered him her left hand. Molgarin curled it up in his.
Sharrow felt the fingers in her own left hand start to ache. She tried to rise but the young man behind gripped her round her neck while the one in front grabbed her feet.
Her image, hand crushed inside Molgarin’s, cried out just before she did.
The pain disappeared, cutting off. She saw her image crying and touching her injured hand with the other.
Molgarin shook his head and smiled broadly at the real Sharrow. “If you only knew the self-restraint I have had to exercise with this toy,” he said. He turned and stroked the woman’s cheek. She seemed not to notice. “Though of course I have enjoyed her,” Molgarin said. He looked back at Sharrow. “Quite empty,” he said, nodding at her image. “Her mind is quite empty.” His smile grew wider. “Just as it should be, really.”