Chapter 7
The government in exile had come to this place because it was not too far from the Capitol but was far more secluded and defensible. Only a token force of warriors remained in the Capitol itself to guard the priceless treasures kept there from opportunistic bandits, while the remaining first caste had gone to the other side of Mount Metoro, where supposedly the ground was too hard for demons to burrow beneath.
The Order of Astronomers was headquartered in a small town in the desert whose only real industry was to stare at the sky. It was usually a quiet, sleepy place, but was now overflowing with officials from all the other Orders who were still trying to fulfill their obligations. Estates that had once held a single family were bursting at the seams housing refugees from the Capitol. High-status arbiters were living in homes meant for workers, and those workers had gotten shoved into the barracks that had up until recently housed casteless.
Above all that crowded restless mess, built where the mountainside shielded it from the polluting lights of the Capitol, was the Observatory. It was an edifice that was as sacred to the Astronomers as the Great Library was to Rada’s Archivists, and the Capitol Museum was to the Historians. But those places were open to anyone of sufficient status to come and study. The Observatory, on the other hand, was exceedingly private, for the Astronomers were a peculiar and insular Order, and outsiders were forbidden. The only extra funding they ever asked for was to buy more Zarger glass to be used in their telescopes. For the most part, the Astronomers were overlooked and ignored in the bustle of Capitol politics. Unimportant, because their only obligation was to look at stars. What was the point of that?
Rada was about to find out.
Chiranjeet had met her at the main gates to let Rada and her escort in. At Devedas’ insistence, she rarely went anywhere without at least a dozen guards in tow. All of them put together were no Karno, but they were good soldiers obligated from Vassal House Garo, and so loyal to her husband that they’d rather die than allow any harm to befall her.
The judge led them through a courtyard toward the Observatory itself, which was an imposing sandstone edifice with a great dome atop it. It had once been as finely decorated as any structure in the Capitol, but the harsh desert wind had worn the carvings down over time until all that remained were blobs that had once represented constellations. It seemed the Astronomers were too preoccupied looking upward to care much about their surroundings at ground level.
“We are on a tight schedule, but as we walk allow me to explain that this is the third observatory that has been constructed on this spot since the beginning of the Age of Law, with each one being larger and more advanced than its predecessor. As you can see—”
“I mean no offense, Judge, as normally I would find this all very educational, but it is very late, and I’m very tired.” Rada had been cursed with a weariness lately that seemed beyond even what running an entire government should cause. Every Order of the Capitol clamored for her attention, but all she wanted to do was nap. The inability to do so had left her grumpy. “I’ve come to learn about the Chief Judge’s private council, not to take the Historian’s tour.”
“Of course, Maharani. Right this way. Though your guards must wait outside.”
“By the command of Maharaja Devedas, that’s not going to happen,” said the nearest Garo, a proud risalder by the name of Kumudesh. He’d been one of the men who’d fought to save her from the demon in the Library, and his left arm was still in a sling from the wounds he’d taken that awful day.
The judge ignored the warrior and spoke to Rada as if the lesser caste wasn’t there. “The matters we are about to discuss are beyond the capability of the uneducated to comprehend. This knowledge has been kept secret from the overwhelming majority of the First and shared only with a select few declared trustworthy by the Chief Judge himself. This has been the tradition since the dawn of the Law.”
“The Chief Judge still got murdered by a fish-eater with Fortress alchemy, so that’s not the compelling argument you think it is,” the warrior said. “Where she goes, we go.”
Rada was in no mood for pretentious foolishness. “Risalder Kumudesh.”
“Yes, Maharani?”
“Pick three men who can keep a secret. They will accompany me. The rest will stay here and guard the doors.”
“As you wish.” Kumudesh pointed at two of his soldiers. “You’re with me.”
Chastised, Chiranjeet opened the door. “Forgive my impertinence, Maharani. Your reputation for respecting the other castes is well known. I am elderly and forget that tradition has been trampled by recent circumstances…Welcome to the Observatory, honored guests.”
Most of the interior was taken up by one exceedingly large room, but it was hard to tell just how big it was because it was so dim the opposite end could not be seen. The only illumination came from a handful of scattered candles. In the center of the space was a marvelous contraption of steel and brass. Complex and gigantic, the telescope appeared to be moved about the room by giant gears, controlled by teams of Astronomers pulling upon big levers. There were also hundreds of smaller levers mounted upon plates along the telescope’s sides, probably to provide much finer adjustments while aiming the device. The huge tube was pointed upward through the dome, which appeared to be made of movable panels. There were more Astronomers working up there, tied to scaffolding by ropes. Rada was unused to seeing members of the first caste doing so much manual labor, but she supposed it wasn’t that different from her people stacking books. Either Order would rather die than let mere workers handle such sensitive things.
“Behold, the pride of the Astronomers’ Order. This is the finest telescope of this age. It is said the ancients had devices ten thousand times greater than this, but the knowledge of how to build such things has been lost to us.”
“As so much has. Still, this looks impressive,” Rada said, even though she knew very little about such things. Her knowledge of using glass to aid vision was limited to the kind she wore on her face.
As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw that upon the walls were thousands of drawings of constellations. These appeared to be very complicated maps of the sky. There were desks for scribes, and shelves full of paper with what had to be generations worth of observations recorded upon them. There was a large wooden cabinet on one wall, inside of which were many clicking gears and a swinging pendulum, and atop that cabinet was the largest clock she’d ever seen. Rada was surprised to see that this particular clock had three hands for measuring time, which was most impressive, as the finer ones sold in the Grand Bazaar of the Capitol had but two.
“The astronomical clock is the most precise device of its kind in the world,” Chiranjeet said with quite some pride. “The nightly phenomena are recorded with great accuracy to watch for anomalies.”
Several men of obvious status were waiting for her by the telescope. Introductions were made, for among them were judges and senior obligations Rada had not even known were still alive.
Historian Vikram Akershan was also in attendance. He gave her a very deep and respectful bow as she approached. She returned the gesture.
“It has been a while. Congratulations on your marriage and your promotion, Librarian.”
“It is good to see you’re still breathing, Vikram. Is your wife still angrily ranting about my Order?”
“Despite the Inquisition’s best efforts, I live, and my family is safe.” The canny old warrior-turned-Historian gave her a kind smile, for he had been a friend of her father and known her since she was a child. “I’ve been told you put the treasure I entrusted you with to good use.”
“An Archivist never shirks her obligation, whatever it may be.” She patted the satchel, which rarely left her side. She’d carried the Asura’s Mirror across the continent in a bag made of leather so it wouldn’t accidentally eat her fingers, but now it rode in a purse made of fine silks and decorated with jewels, as befitted her office. Most would assume it was simply a lady’s fine purse, and not that it held a deadly implement of black steel.
“Don’t worry, Maharani. Everyone on this council is aware of the artifact’s existence.”
“It’s a bit worse for wear. I’m afraid it got a crack in it.”
“A small price to pay for calling down fire from the moon sufficient to cauterize demons from the land. Yes, I was informed of that. Most impressive. All those years I kept it safe, I never thought it could do that. Has it spoken to you?”
The odd occasional whisper directly into her mind was something she’d told very few people about. So rather than answer directly, she asked Vikram, “Did it speak to you?”
“Yes, albeit rarely.”
“What did it say?”
“That I wasn’t the one.” Vikram spread his hands regretfully. “Yet it also implied that I would know the bearer when we met. It is good to see that I guessed correctly.”
She’d never asked to be a bearer of a black-steel artifact, especially one so obstinate. She’d gotten tantalizing glimpses of the knowledge contained within, but that all seemed locked away except for in times of the direst emergency. “It contains an incredible amount of information, thousands of pages, if not more, but it is very stingy as to what it chooses to reveal.”
“According to the Historians’ Order, that has been the case since the beginning of this age,” Vikram explained. “The mirror deciding to participate in the affairs of man once again should have been a warning that the end-time was drawing near, but sadly our council had lost our way, and too many of us sat useless as the world changed around us.”
“Agents of our own government were our undoing,” said another Historian. “Curse Omand to the sea.”
“Regardless, we were supposed to be a council of vigilance, and we became a council of complacency.” Chiranjeet hurried and made certain that Rada was familiar with the rest of the members. Alas, no one knew what had become of the Library’s representative, as her father, Durmad, was still unaccounted for, as was the rest of Rada’s family. Hopefully, they had escaped Omand’s purges and made it back to Nems safely.
That thought left her in a sour mood. “Every one of you is an illustrious and respected man. So what was the secretive purpose of this council? If it was to watch for signs warning us the demons were coming back, it certainly failed there.”
“That was part of it,” Chiranjeet admitted. “Except we were too suspicious of the sky, and not the ground beneath our feet.”
“Sadly, it seems the only voice of warning about the Capitol’s fate came from a man all the Law-abiding world had dismissed as a mad criminal,” Vikram said. “If we had listened to Black-Hearted Ashok, many lives would have been saved.”
That was a somber thought, but a true one. “Lessons have been learned. The truth is more important than the source. Proceed, councilmen.”
One of the Astronomers glanced toward the loudly ticking clock. “It’s nearly time.”
“This way, please.” Chiranjeet directed Rada toward a cushioned seat beneath the telescope. “Place your face against this leather cup. The adjustments have already been made so the telescope is pointing in the right place.”
Rada tapped her glasses. “Will these matter? I need them to see things up close.”
“This is the most distant thing you will have ever seen, Maharani, but if the view seems blurry to you, turn that dial there beneath your right hand until it seems clear to you.”
“Very well.” The device’s operation seemed straightforward enough, so she peered into the eye tubes. It took some moving her head about to get a clear image, and then she suddenly giggled with joy—which was an undignified sound for a Maharani to make—but she had never known there were so many stars. It was astoundingly beautiful. Growing up in the Capitol with all its lanterns it wasn’t until she’d been camping in the desert with Karno that she’d realized just how many stars there really were. Yet this wonderful device revealed that even the darkest blank spots between those desert stars were secretly filled with lights.
“This is a truly lovely light, but I don’t understand the importance.”
“Fifty seconds,” warned the Astronomer who was watching the clock.
Chiranjeet explained, “Demons nearly destroyed mankind, but it did not take long for religious fervor to nearly destroy us again afterward. The Law was created to prevent us from going down that fanatical path once more. However, some of the ancients’ works were so great, so astounding, that it is impossible for lesser men to look upon them and not worship.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“For this reason, the Historians had to hide many artifacts, your Archivists had to lock up some books, and the Astronomers have managed to keep telescopes this potent as illegal as Fortress rods to the masses. To do otherwise would be to paint the ancients as gods. It is said when the demons came to this world, they fell from the sky. That is partly correct.”
“It should be in view now.”
A black shape blotted out some of the stars as something came into Rada’s view.
Her gasp was so loud that it startled her bodyguards and made them reach for their swords.
She hurried and twisted the knob to try and bring clarity to the oddity. Having it come into focus more clearly only made matters worse.
“The religious fanatics talk of there having once been castles in the skies, where their imaginary gods once dwelled. Perhaps there is some truth to that foolishness, but it is a simplification. The Astronomers track the path of our two moons, Canda and tiny Upagraha, but we also look far beyond them. You are a learned woman, so surely you know there are other planets which appear to be nothing more than bright stars to the ignorant.”
“Of course.” She had read a book on astronomy once, though it had no mention of anything like this.
“Not so distant as those planets, is the anomaly which we call the broken circle.”
It was a ring of black, its shape revealed by the stars in the middle and the stars all around, as if it was defined by the absence of light. Yet that circle was incomplete, as if pieces were missing.
“What is it?” she demanded of the judge, still struggling to comprehend what she was looking at. “What is this vast thing?”
“Its true nature is lost to us, Maharani.”
“Not entirely,” Vikram stated.
“Don’t be tempted to stray into illegal religion, brother,” warned one of the other Historians.
“Call it what you will. Our cowardice has been our undoing so far. If Rada’s husband is our Chief Judge now, and she is his proxy here, then she must know all that we’ve theorized, whether we’re certain it’s true or not.”
“Speak, Vikram,” she ordered, because no matter what he had to say, it couldn’t be more unnerving than what she was staring at right now.
“There were legends once that said the circle used to be unbroken. It was a gate, through which man first arrived on this world.”
“From where?”
“Unknown. The many religions which used to exist all had their own myths concerning the creation, but all we do know is that centuries after we arrived, the demons followed us.”
“Could the circle be some kind of natural phenomenon?”
“We do not know, Maharani.”
If this was some manner of construction, then it was of an immensity beyond comprehension. When she’d studied the ancient forbidden tomes, locked deep in the basement of the Library, she had read about the so-called war in the heavens. It had seemed like fanciful tales to her, but what if those ancient historians hadn’t been exaggerating. Was this the aftermath of that war?
“Was it the demons who damaged the ring?”
“It is said that our ancestors did that to protect us.”
She remembered hiding in the Library with an angry demon right outside. “They closed this door so no more demons could come here.”
“That’s the theory at least, Maharani,” Chiranjeet said. “And as the Protectors watched the shores for danger, the Astronomers have watched the skies. It was all for nothing as we got slaughtered by those who had burrowed beneath the ground. The belief had been handed down from the judges of our council, through the generations, that if the demons were to make war against us again, there would be signs in the heavens first.”
Rada’s frustration was apparent in her voice. “There were signs! While our people wallowed in self-imposed ignorance, keeping secrets from each other, the demons prepared for war. The religious fanatics are quick to brag about how they got their prophetess from a fiery bolt from the sky, the arrival of which was seen across all the west!”
“We recorded that event as a simple meteor,” said one of the Astronomers apologetically.
“A meteor that gives the gift of prophecy! And what of Upagraha?”
“What do you mean?” another of the Astronomers asked.
“If your purpose is to watch and warn, why didn’t you speak up when Upagraha launched its cleansing fire against Vadal? Surely your marvelous machine was able to see the pillar of fire that the entire world could see with just their naked eyes.”
“Upagraha did appear to be a slightly different shape afterward,” he admitted. “Except at the time—”
“Your leader had just been killed, the Chamber of Argument was in shambles, and you were scared of what manner of leader Devedas might prove to be.” The fear and uncertainty her beloved had caused in his rise to power had silenced this particular warning. “Oceans.”
Would knowing about these ancient rumors beforehand have changed the Capitol’s fate?
There was no way to know now, and Rada had no room left to carry any more guilt. Ignorance of these signs had left the Capitol vulnerable. Ignorance of their history had allowed a casteless genocide. As every Order kept its secrets, any group that might have understood what was happening had been cowed into silence by another. Their insular nature had been their undoing. None among them had possessed full vision, and there was no wheel to turn to make the truth come into focus.
This sight had filled her with awe at first, but now that was replaced with anger.
She forced herself to look away from the terrifying enigma, back toward the council. “Is there more secret knowledge out there that any of you have been hoarding in wait for these signs?”
“It is difficult to say. Each Order has specific things it has been entrusted with, Maharani,” Chiranjeet answered. “Our number were scattered. Of those present, the answer is no.”
This offended Rada, not just as the ruler and responsible party, but as a scholar. “The Capitol fell as a result of our corruption. The time for hiding from our past is over. Summon all your obligations, from each of your Orders—all of them. Whatever you have in your vaults, or your secure collections, or hidden in some Historian’s basement in the desert, gather it all. If it pertains to the ancients or the demons, bring it here.”
“There are surely things which have been concealed because of the Inquisition,” Vikram said. “But their fangs have been removed.”
“To the oceans with the Inquisition and all the useful knowledge they destroyed with their zealotry. If they’d deem it religious, all the more reason for us to study it now. What’s forbidden religion to us was just life to the ancients. Knowledge is a weapon our people have deprived ourselves of for too long because we were scared of the wrong thing. We hid the truth from ourselves because it pointed us in uncomfortable directions. It shouldn’t matter. Truth is truth. If any warrior had failed in his duty as thoroughly as our scholarly Orders have failed our people, he’d cut his own throat because of the dishonor.”
The warrior Kumudesh grunted in agreement at that, and all the high-status men looked down in shame.
Rada understood what they were feeling right now better than they could possibly understand, for she had once violated her oath of honest scholarship, and millions had suffered because of it. All that could be done now was to try and put things right. She’d certainly tried. It wasn’t enough, but it was something.
“Forgive us, Maharani,” one of the Historians wailed. “We abandoned our watchtower when we were needed most.”
“The enemy is here, but the war’s not lost yet. Knowledge is a weapon. So let us arm our people as best we can.”