Iron Gold

  “Ready for a genocide, sir,” Clown says, snapping to attention.

  “Remember, run silent. Stay tight. We’re Golds returned with the heir.” I turn to Apollonius, who alone wears no armor, and grin. “Let’s go meet the family.”

  The ramp lowers and we stare down the barrel of an anti-aircraft partical cannon with a Gray in the firing chair. Twenty other Grays and a clutch of armored Obsidians stand at the base of the ramp with their weapons casually shouldered, expecting to see a crew of motley pirates and not a garage full of heavily armored Golds.

  “On your knees or you will be fired upon!” their leader shouts.

  Apollonius steps forward into the floodlights, his hands held out. “Vorkian, is that how you welcome your master home?” he asks.

  A dark-skinned Gray with buzzed bright white hair and a face carved from old boot leather steps out from the ranks. “Dominus…” She falls to her knees, but cannot lower her eyes. “Is it you? Is it really you?”

  The men behind her fall to their knees before Apollonius even gets halfway down the landing ramp. “It seems the Void is not ready for me yet. For it is I, Apollonius au Valii-Rath, liberated from the depths and returned to command you, good Vorkian.”

  “Who are they, sir?”

  “Have you so long been idle that you fail to recognize loyal friends, Vorkian?” He looks back at me and smiles. I ready to blow the bomb in his skull. “They are my liberators.”

  “Sir, forgive me. I did not know you were alive—”

  Apollonius holds up a hand, cutting her off. “Endeavor only to serve me now, and forgiveness you may one day find. Will you serve me, Centurion Vorkian?”

  “I never left your service, sir. But your brother…”

  “Yes, I hear he has been busy despoiling the house of my mother and father. Where is the idle libertine?”

  “Swimming, sir.” Vorkian’s face darkens in disgust. “With his entourage.”

  “Magnificent. I am known to enjoy an aquatic fete.” Apollonius’s teeth glimmer. “Smile, Vorkian, the end of ignominy draws nigh. For we have glory to claim once again. Tell the guards and servants they are to retire for the evening to their barracks and quarters. There you will stay and rest, for this is a family matter.”

  “Some of the men do not know you, dominus. They’re the Ash Lord’s toads.”

  “Can they be overcome?”

  “Yes. The loyal stand ready.” Her men nod their heads.

  “Good. Pass the word. Take the Ashmen to the barracks, douse them with engine grease, and light them on fire. Then cut off their heads and arms and feed them to the crabs.”

  “With pleasure, dominus.”

  Vorkian and her men jog off into the darkness as we press into the main house. Green foliage consumes the place, jungle vines creeping on walls, trees leaning over walkways. Our path carries us into the complex through the glass doors at the base of a glass pyramid. We pass more guards, who, alerted by Vorkian, kneel at Apollonius’s arrival. Two are dragging a Gray officer beaten half to death.

  “Minotaur Invictus,” they say to their dread lord, and carry on their dark task. Soon, the complex is a ghost town.

  “There should be more of them,” Sevro mutters under his breath.

  We find a man swimming laps in the back of the complex, where the roof extends out over a rocky cove. The ocean water is lit from beneath with lights. Four other Golds lounge by the side of the water on divans, sipping wine and eating from small plates. Two are naked, the others wrapped in silk robes. Three Pinks flit about, distributing flutes and rubbing sore muscles.

  When Tharsus has finished his laps, he slides through the water to the edge and pulls himself out. He’s naked and less muscular than Apollonius, all arms and legs and a newly grown belly paunch. He goes to his towel, but picks up the glass of wine there instead. Hard to imagine he is one of the only Boneriders to escape capture. Last time I saw Tharsus in the flesh, he was trying to purchase Sevro’s corpse from Cassius. He stands, slouching to sip his wine while he fondles the breast of one of the Golds playfully. She swats at him with an annoyed laugh, but then acquiesces to a deep kiss.

  He dribbles wine over the Gold woman’s stomach till it collects in her navel. He stoops and she moans softly as he licks it out. The Pink who had been massaging the woman’s feet slinks away. None have seen us. We scan for signs of any guards.

  “You said that ship carries Frankian wines?” a muscled Gold man wearing nothing but a diamond necklace says in surprise.

  “Indeed,” Tharsus says.

  “It looked like an assault frigate. Wherever did you find it?”

  “Stolen from Quicksilver himself by my audacious armada. Treasure, my goodman, lies in the stars.”

  “Ever the mogul,” another sycophant adds. One of the Pinks hands him a flute.

  “We must throw a fete of bacchanalian proportions,” the muscled Gold says. “The new rationing restrictions are draconian. We’re practically nibbling on the crust of bread. I feel like a Raa.”

  “You’re as ugly as one,” Tharsus says.

  “I daresay, a party is a charming thought, Gregarius,” the woman says. “If Tharsus can control his appetites long enough to save some for the rest of us.”

  “We can invite the Ash Lord,” Tharsus adds, reaching for his com.

  “Oh, that old hermit,” the woman replies. “I daresay it will take more than a fete to lure him from his shell.” She shudders. “What if he brings Atalantia and her concubine?”

  “Vorkian,” Tharsus says into his com. “Vorkian, where is the damn wine? That ship landed twenty minutes ago. I’ll have you scourged if you make my guests wait any longer.”

  “Don’t you mean my guests?” Apollonius says, stepping onto the shadowed patio. We follow behind him, keeping our eyes out for unaccounted guards.

  Tharsus wheels on us, unable to make out our faces.

  “Who is that? How dare you wear armor in my presence. Vorkian?”

  “Not Vorkian,” Sevro says.

  “Who are you!” Tharsus demands.

  “Don’t you recognize your own blood, little brother?” Apollonius asks, stepping into the light. Tharsus goes sheet-white and steps back. Sevro joins Apollonius in the light and retracts his helmet.

  “Hello, boyo. Long time no see. Still want my rib cage?”

  Tharsus stares at him in abject horror.

  “Ares!” one of the Golds hisses, still holding her glass. The rest stare at Sevro in confusion. In that moment, they taste a small bit of the fear their slaves endure every day. The Pinks gawp at the sight of us. Grins split two of their slender faces. They rush off, knowing what comes next.

  “Take Tharsus. Kill the rest,” I say, pulling the railgun from the holster on my right thigh. I squeeze the trigger. The muscled Gold’s head explodes. Tongueless fires. The woman whose navel Tharsus drank from holds a hand up as if it can stop a toroid of superheated hydrogen moving faster than the speed of sound. Her hand disappears. The lower half of her jaw goes with it. One of the Golds charges us and Tongueless shoots him as well. A huge bloody hole opens up as the plasma eats out the other side of his chest. His body carries on. Sevro shoots his leg out and he spins sideways to the ground to mew and die.

  Tharsus springs sideways into the water. “Mine,” Sevro says. He shoots his stunFist into the water to the left of Tharsus. The electricity crackles through the wet conductor and electrocutes the man. He spasms in the water and then floats to the top. The rest of my men pour onto the patio, securing it. The last Gold uses the body of the first Gold I killed as a shield and searches frantically for a weapon.

  “Apollonius, stay,” I say. But he ignores me and slips forward, blocking my shot. The hiding man sees him coming and makes a break for the water of the cove. Apollonius tackles him from behind. The two wrestle on the ground until Apollonius rolls the man sideways, then snaps his neck with a single twist. He stands slowly from the corpse, watching in amusement as Sevro dives into the pool to ret
rieve Tharsus’s body.

  With Tongueless’s help, Sevro hauls him out of the water and onto the ground.

  Apollonius rejoins me. “I told you to stay,” I say.

  “Would Athena stay Odysseus’s hand when he returned to Ithaca? No Color is immune from my wrath.” He pours wine over his brother’s unconscious face. “Tharsus. Run away from the light. No time for dreams. Back to the land of the weary living.”

  Tharsus’s eyes open. He spits up water. “Apollonius?” he whispers hoarsely.

  “Hello, brother. Did you miss me?”

  AFTER THE PATIO IS SECURED, Tharsus sits with a robe around him in a chair apart from the bodies, his initial shock having given way to beleaguered contempt. “Apalling company you now keep, brother,” Tharsus hisses to Apollonius, who sits across from him.

  “Means to an end, Tharsus. Means to an end.”

  “And you brought them here. To my home.”

  Apollonius slaps his brother gently across the face. “My home,” he corrects. “I am the heir of Valii-Rath, not you. I know you haven’t forgotten that. Or else I doubt I would have been a prisoner for so long.”

  “I tried to rescue you,” Tharsus says convincingly.

  “Did you, dear brother?”

  “I spared no expense. Hired mercenaries, spent half my spies…”

  “Sorry, Tharsus,” I say. “There was one assault made on Deepgrave, and it was not for Apollonius and not from you.”

  “Slag you, halfbreed,” Tharsus says, spitting at me.

  Apollonius slaps him across the face, this time so hard he tumbles out of his chair. He waits for him to find his seat again. “Manners, brother; when at the mercy of your enemies, petulance demeans your entity.”

  “I reserve manners for people, not slaves,” Tharsus says. I stare down at him without pity. Apollonius has a measure of majesty about him, but Tharsus is a deviant with long eyelashes. His beautiful face no more than the evolutionary adaptation of a predator.

  “You’re confused, dear brother,” Tharsus says with a manic laugh. “Lost in the tumble of your own mind without me to help you sort it right.” He smiles softly up at the bigger man. “Now, I shudder to think what they want, what they’ve promised you. But they don’t care for you as I do. When they get what they desire, they will cast you aside.” He looks at Sevro. “Mongrels without code or custom.”

  “I might be a halfbreed,” Sevro says. “But at the end of the day, you’re still a bitch, and I’ve still got two ears.” He pulls the bootknife, grabs Tharsus’s hair, and cuts off his left ear. Tharsus cries out in pain and Tongueless steps toward Apollonius, but there’s no need. Apollonius watches with dispassion as Tharsus thrashes.

  “Apollonius…” Tharsus hisses.

  “I told you: mind your manners.”

  “Mother was right. You’re mad!”

  “I am not mad,” Apollonius growls, and steps forward. Tharsus reels back in sudden terror. But Apollonius’s anger dissolves as fast as it came. “I am not mad,” he says quietly, then breaks into a broad smile. “I simply lust for life and the thrill sport of war. Why should I deny myself the delight, when these two descended to offer me the ultimate play?” He sighs. “I know it is difficult for you to see me again, dear brother. Why, how easy it must have been when quarrelsome me was languishing in the abyss. But it was not easy for me. Neither the isolation nor the boredom nor the fear that my great strand of life would be cut short before the time of my glory. But do you fathom what the deepest, darkest lamentation was?” He leans forward. “Do you? It was the fear that my dearest, loving brother, my partner against the world, was complicit in my incarceration.”

  “Complicit? Ridiculous.”

  “Irrefutably complicit.”

  “That’s a lie,” Tharsus says. “They’ve filled your head with bilious dreck.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Dreck. Bold and grotesque.”

  “Come now, Tharsus. Do you really think I don’t know your tells by now? You could never hide them from me.”

  “Apollonius, I would never betray you….”

  Apollonius smiles. “You should be honor bound to a bloodfeud against Grimmus. Why would the Ash Lord keep you alive if you were not his creature? Did you think he would bring you to his side? Tharsus, the Pink drinker. Tharsus the Torturer. Tharsus the Vampire of Thessalonica? The Jackal might have treasured your cruelty, but these others see you and they laugh at you like the drunken jester you are. They think you a little nasty adolescent with blessed genetics, but, point of fact, you’re an adolescent with an army. So they kept you and let you distract yourself with idle playthings and helped themselves to that army. You let Grimmus give it to those clameater Carthii.” His lips curl back over his large teeth. “My army. The Ash Lord played you like a fool, brother. You knew. Admit it.” He leans forward. “Admit it.”

  “Yes…” Tharsus says. He looks down in shame. The blood flow from his ear now a sluggish trickle. “It is true. I knew.” He looks up with hopeful eyes. “But I had no choice.”

  “No?”

  “I had to survive!”

  “Why? For a facile existence of wetting your prick in myriad holes? You pathetic little deviant. You are not a child any longer.” He snatches his hair and finally Tharsus’s rebellious façade cracks. The hint of terror he let slip earlier gives way to a storm of it.

  “Don’t kill him,” I say. “We need him to get into the darkzone.”

  “Kill him?” Apollonius looks back at me, seeing my apprehension. “An ear is just an ear. But a life.” He shakes his head. “He’s my brother.” He looks back to Tharsus. “My brother who betrayed me. My brother who left his beloved kin to rot.” He squeezes his hair, pulling tighter. “My brother who wished to be an only child.”

  “I didn’t…”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “I didn’t want to die…” Tharsus says pitifully. “He said he would kill me if I didn’t comply. But if I did, the Valii-Rath name would live on. Mother and Father gone…I didn’t know what to do….”

  “Of course you didn’t. You need me,” Apollonius says soothingly. “You need your big brother.” He releases his hold and gently strokes Tharsus’s hair. “All this time by yourself. All these decisions. What horrible loneliness your ambition has brought.”

  Tharsus closes his eyes, sinking into the touch of his brother.

  “I am sorry….”

  “I know.”

  “If I could take it back…”

  “I know. But amends must be made. A pound of flesh taken.” He strokes Tharsus’s face as the younger man’s eyes, filled with tears, open to look at him in terrible fear. “No, not from you, brother. There’s only two of us left in all the worlds. And what pleasure would there be there in witnessing the rise of our house if I am alone? I forgive you, my darling.” Tharsus looks like he doesn’t understand. Apollonius leans forward to kiss the tears from his brother’s face. “I forgive you, Tharsus. For your sins. For your nature. For everything.”

  Tharsus bursts into drunken tears.

  The display does not warm my heart. It shows the vile, maggoty innards of this family. I feel tainted being here with them, breathing the same air, and want nothing more than to be done with this. To be home with my family, to feel real love, not this weird tapestry of domination and cruelty they’ve woven. Poor Tactus. What chance did ever he have?

  Sevro looks sickened by the display, and I feel heartbroken knowing I’ve taken him so far from his girls, from Victra, into this pit of devils. Maybe Victra was right. Maybe I should have left him behind. Then Wulfgar’s blood would not be on his hands, nor mine, and we would not have to share air with these men.

  “Thank you, Apollonius,” Tharsus says. “Thank you. But why are you here? Why with…them?”

  “Because our pound of flesh must be taken from the man who turned brother against brother. Soon, the Ash Lord will die. That is the cause that binds the Reaper to me. And you, my beloved, will deliver h
im to us.”

  “How?” Tharsus asks.

  “You’ll gain us an audience,” Sevro says. “Get us in nice and tight.”

  “But…the Ash Lord hasn’t had an audience in three years. He reigns in solitude.”

  “Three years,” I repeat, not believing it. “That’s absurd.”

  “Nonetheless, it is true.”

  “How the hell is that possible?” Sevro asks.

  “There was an assassination attempt, so the rumors say.”

  “By whom?” Sevro presses. One of Victra’s? None of mine got even close.

  Tharsus looks perplexed. “I assumed by you. No? If anyone wishes to see him, they must go through his daughter, Atalantia.” He looks to his brother, something passing between them, some unspoken knowledge that I don’t like. It was a risk in letting them reunite. Men with unspoken bonds like the one Sevro and I have are always the most dangerous. “But Atalantia has vanished,” Tharsus says.

  “What does that mean?” I ask. “A woman like that can’t just disappear.”

  “It means I don’t know where she is. If the Carthii or the Saud know, they aren’t telling me. I’ve been frozen out.”

  “Is the Ash Lord cloistered on Gorgon Isle?” I ask, hoping Republic Intelligence was correct about the darkzone. “At least tell us that.”

  “Yes.” Tharsus nods. “But you cannot approach the island without a summons. The place is a fortress.” Sevro looks over at me. “The air around the island is restricted to House Grimmus aircraft for two hundred kilometers. It will be defended by an army. His Ash Legions. You’ll never get in.”

  “Not unless we bring an army of our own,” Apollonius says with a smile.

  I RUSH TO CASSIUS AS DIDO sends her men to bring in the safe. He’s fallen to the floor. Color has fled his cheeks. I shake him. “Cassius…wake up!” Holding him now, I feel how limp he’s gone, how much blood of his has stained the white marble. “Stay with me,” I whisper, checking his pulse—so faint I can barely feel it. “Cassius!” His eyes open a sliver.