“Mine,” Radmer answers calmly. “As Third Protector of Imbria.”
That sends a ripple of surprise through the guards. “You’re Radmer?”
“I am. Are you the captain here? Is Petro dead already?”
“Petro retired twenty years ago, when the haunted towers came down. I’m the captain, yes.”
“Well, Captain,” says Radmer, “I’m afraid we don’t have much time, for the enemy’s scouts are in yonder hills already, and will soon pin you against the sea. Come now: close the gate and do as I ask.”
At that, the Dolceti captain moves with amazing swiftness, drawing a short sword—an ordinary one, though an air foil hangs at his side as well. In an eyeblink, he leaps forward to lay the iron blade across Radmer’s neck. “I take no orders from—”
But Radmer has stepped aside, not quickly but at just the right moment, with the ease of long practice. Centuries of practice—millennia. He’s out of reach, untouchable. Then, with no greater urgency, he tosses a nearly full canteen at another Dolceti, whose rifle is aimed exactly between Radmer’s eyes. The guard doesn’t flinch, but he does swat the projectile aside with a viper-quick motion, letting his rifle waver for a second. Which gives Radmer enough time to draw his blitterstick without seeming to hurry.
Intended mainly for use against robots, a blitterstick—or blitterstaff, or blitter-anything—is an ungainly and rather cruel weapon to turn against human flesh. Rarely lethal, its shifting wellstone patterns—caustic and thermally abusive, alive with pseudoatom disassembly brigades—leave puckers and burns and worse disfigurements which, in a medically impoverished environment like this one, must surely be permanent. But Radmer’s only other weapon is a pistol, far more lethal.
What happens next strikes Bruno as something like a chess opening: no one attacks, but everyone glares and sidesteps, aims and tenses, lining up for a kill. The drop of a feather will set them off, but neither side is crass or undisciplined enough to engage. Not first, not in cold blood. The Dolceti outnumber the Olders ten to one, though, and from the looks on their faces they seem to think it will be enough. To penetrate the diamond weave beneath a soft Queendom skin? To shatter the brickmail and impervium of faxborn Queendom-era bones? Probably not, but they can still drag a man down and pinch his nose shut until he smothers. And they seemed prepared to.
“Always a pleasure, coming here,” Radmer says. “The Imbrians of Timoch are such a fine, appreciative people.”
For a moment, Bruno toys with the idea of unveiling his true identity. Perhaps the shock value will defuse this situation, and get the Olders inside without bloodshed. Then again, he would be a figure as remote in the Imbrians’ past as Aristotle and Alexander were in his own. Would they believe him? Would they recognize his name, or understand its burden of significance? Would they even care?
He is spared any further thought on the matter when a voice from atop the wall calls out “Glints!” in a tone that registers panic across all possible dialects. Bruno turns, looking back across the sloping plains he and Radmer have just crossed at considerable peril. And indeed, yes, the enemy is still at work out there: he sees the unmistakable glints and flashes of sunlight on superreflective impervium. Less than five kilometers away. Less than two.
Behind him, a ripple of concern passes through the Dolceti.
“You must attack,” Radmer says, simply and without fear. “They’re only scouts, but they’re right here, barely a rifle’s reach from your capital gates. And if they report back, the Glimmer King will know I’ve been to Varna and back in a sphere of brass. He’ll know I came here afterward. Assuming he doesn’t know it already.”
“Varna is in outer space,” the Dolceti captain replies, as if to a child’s bad joke.
“Aye,” says Radmer. “I had to launch from Tillspar, over Highrock Divide. All I can say is, thank God for pulleys. You might be interested in my catapult, by the way; properly cocked it can bombard any point on this planette’s surface.”
“You lie,” says a voice in the crowd somewhere.
“Do I? For what purpose?” Radmer’s tone is patient. “The enemy is that way, friend, and if you swear this man’s safety”—he points at Bruno—“upon all that is holy and dear, then I will fight at your side to defend these ill-forged walls.”
The captain is angry but not stupid; he considers the offer, considers the evidence before him. “What’s special about this man?”
“Wisdom,” Radmer answers. “And if you will not pledge his safe conduct to the Furies, then you’ll have two enemies, and no friends, and soon no country to defend.”
“Very diplomatic,” the captain grumbles, then steps forward to offer his hand. “I’m Bordi, grandson of Petro.”
The two men shake on it, prompting Sidney Lyman to mutter, “You’ll be the death of me, General. But I’ll not let you enter this fight by yourself.”
“Nor I,” says the Older named Brian, and the others grunt in assent.
“Natan,” says Bordi, gesturing sharply to one of the taller Dolceti. “Stay here, you and Zuq. Guard this Older, this font of wisdom, until I return.”
And with that, the Dolceti are off and running in a hooting, jabbering mob that quickly settles into three perfect V formations, like flights of geese. Not to be outdone, Lyman’s Olders follow on their springy well-leather boots, quickly overtaking the Dolceti, leaping right over the “human beings’” oversized heads and dashing out in front, to form a smaller, faster V of their own.
“Be safe,” Radmer says to Bruno, not in a kindly way but as a command. Then he, too, is sprinting toward the enemy.
Bruno still carries Radmer’s binoculars, and they’re of ancient design, wellstone lenses and all. He lifts them to his eyes now, and can clearly resolve the enemy squad: another group of twenty, moving rapidly toward the city on feet so dainty and small that a baby girl’s ballet slippers could easily fit them. They carry no energy weapons or projectile throwers, and except for the swords, and the black iron boxes affixed to the left sides of their gleaming faceless heads, they could easily pass for Queendom-era household robots. Valets, yes. Scullery maids. But already Bruno knows, from bitter experience, how fast and strong and remorseless these impervium soldiers really are. Delicate killers, bent on some demented form of world domination for this unseen Glimmer King.
“If ’ts metal they want,” says the Dolceti named Natan, “I say let ’em have it. Right through the ocular sensors and out through the box. Bap! I want to be out there, old man, not wiping your withered old nose.”
“Your captain must have great faith in you,” Bruno says, trying for some reason to be kind to this man, who seems little more than a figment of his senile imagination. Thus far he’s been driven forward by curiosity alone—a desire to see this thing through to the end, like a play. None of it feels real.
“Fester these robots,” Natan spits. He might use the word “devils” or “child molesters” in milder tones.
“They were once our servants,” Bruno says to him, because he’s not sure Natan even knows this.
“Really?” says the younger Dolceti guard, Zuq. He’s shorter, with light green hair underneath his yellow cap. “Well thank you very much. We’ve nothing but your Older mess to live in, and this really contributes. Thanks for the Shattering, too, and the Stormlands. And for Murdered Earth while we’re at it.”
“You’re welcome,” Bruno says dryly. His grief burned out a long, long time ago, and if he starts bogging himself down now in pointless guilt, then where will it lead? Whom will it benefit? “If you had seen the Queendom in its heyday you’d understand. It seemed worth any price. Truthfully, it still does.”