Novella Crowning Day

The Antarean Federation is a nation in chaos. Revelations of the Three Corners Conspiracy has unleashed a firestorm of unrest, as the lower orders seek revenge against the High Houses. The state stands paralyzed, and the Federation's enemies mass at the borders, Into this fray enters Ulric Tovengard, war hero and last scion of High House Andromedeus. Raised by the Order Custodes and fostered by House Tovengard, he stands at the head of a victorious army which grinds ponderously toward the capital determined to offer triumph for the Saviour of the nation. Many hope to use this young man's power for their own, but few realize how completely they have played themselves into his hands. The fulcrum of history will turn on his decisions as Crowning Day looms.

Dramatis Personae:

Antarean Reclamation Force

• Kera Cejeanus Setorian - Aedile Majoris
• Ulric Tovengard/Marius Lucan Andromedeus - Commodore, Acting Fleet Marshal

House Andromedeus

• Joachim Noa - Hand of the House

Custodes

• Bailith Ohr - High Pater
• Frantine - Brander Scribe

Chapter X

His return to the City of Splendors was anti-climactic. Marius had expected the House of Glittering Stars to be the most splendid of all, but he emerged from his shuttle to behold a bleak and ancient ruin.

Long and low, without towers or windows, it coiled like a great onyx serpent through a grove of black-barked trees whose brilliant viridian leaves framed the yawning maw of its iron portalium. No other buildings stood near.

This far out of Ostia, the aircar traffic dribbled to nothing. There was no wild-life in attendance, as if no animal dared violate the reverence of the moment.

Kilometer after kilometer of rolling hills turned over to crypts and shrines, watched over by scattered Custodes retainers, rendered an odd sort of silence. As if the spirits demanded reverence from the land itself. Marius' guard detachment fidgeted with their weapons as they scanned the surroundings through the electronics in their cowled visors.

The Custodes detachment was far more at ease, Frantine the brander scribe looked more curious than worried by the solitude.

Black tiles lined the road, many showing the wear of ages of exposure to sun and rain rather than the grind of foot traffic. The mortar between the stones was dry and crumbling. He understood why Bailith Ohr called it the Palace of Dust. Even Kera Setorian seemed disquieted by the sight of it. His guardian and friend suppressed a hiss of dissatisfaction as she scanned the narrow path from the landing yard to the building, gesturing for her men to take up positions further ahead to guard against threats from the grove. It was an ideal location for an ambush, but the young man was undeterred. Of the entire group, only Joachim Noa seemed more at ease with the place than the High Pater.

Marius allowed himself a small moment of relaxation as they trod beneath the dark bows.

"I would pay my respects." was his only response when Kera once again broached the subject of danger.

The praetoria majoris gave him a sour look. "Your Grace, remember Gerran ils'Dotter."

"I do." Marius said, suddenly decided. "I remember that he had knowledge. And that he failed to make proper use of it. We respect the old ways lest we drown in our own ignorance." The last bit was a quote from Literati en Carmine.

Bailith Ohr caught the reference and smiled thinly. "The child speaks as wisely as sage. Allow me to lead you."

"I am no child." A few in the party cringed, but he softened the retort with a smile. Marius followed nonetheless. There had been no condescension in the old man's voice.

"Forgive me your Grace. At my age everyone appears to dance in the springtime of youth."

It was darker than he would have thought under the black trees, and the way was longer. The path seemed to run straight from the landing yard to the door of the shrinehold, Bailith Ohr turned aside. When Kera questioned him, the Pater said only, "The front way leads in, but never out again."

Marius heard Joachim Noa chuckle at the explanation. But Setorian only grunted, waving a detachment of her guard to remain at the entrance while barking orders through her com unit for the rest to follow.

When they reached the portal-a tall oval mouth, set in a wall fashioned in the likeness of the emperors of old-they were found a single Custodes guard clad in ceremonial white armor gripping an energy lance, back straight at attention. The sentinel's face was hidden by a featureless mask the color of eggshells. Not a single tremor of movement greeted the party. Bailith Ohr paid the individual no mind, but Joachim Noa quietly stepped between the Andromodean heir and the guard.

Before passing his hand over the seal-plate, the old man spoke. "Heed my words Dominar. You were fostered by our Order, but the House was not made for mortal men. The rites must be performed alone. Take care and do just as I tell you."

"I will do as you say." Marius promised.

"When you enter, you will find yourself in a room with four doors: the one you came through and three others. Take the door to your right. You should come upon a stairwell, climb. Never go down, and Never take any door but the first on your right."

"The door to my right," Marius repeated. "I understand. And when I leave?"

"The same." Bailith Ohr said, "Leaving and coming, it is the same. Always up, always the door to your right."

Kera Setorian snorted at this directive. "Have you taken leave of your senses old man? This building is scarcely two stories tall. Should I have the shuttle await his Grace on the roof, then? Or perhaps higher." The ancient Custodes paid her incredulousness no heed.

"Enter no room until you reach the audience chamber. Anything there is yours. But take heed, If you wish to leave you may bring only one item with you. This is important, do you understand?"

"I understand."

After a long moment, Ohr seemed satisfied. He pressed his palm on the stone reader. For a moment, nothing happened, then a click sounded and the portal-mouth slid open, allowing a gust of warm, stale air to escape with a noise that sounded all the world like a death rattle. Setorian looked ready to renew her complaints but a single look from Marius rendered her silent, if still irritated.

"You may enter." The sentinel echoed, without moving. Marius did not spare his companions a final look. Instead he made the sign of the hydra over his breast, and went inside.

---

He found himself in a stone anteroom with four doors. One on each wall. Without hesitation he stepped through the door on his right and stepped through. The air was warm, and smelled faintly of incense and age. The walls were surprisingly bare. Most custodes shrineholds were adorned floor to ceiling with reliefs depicting whatever lives or event they were raised to honor. This structure felt more like a crypt.

The second room was a twin of the first. Again he turned to the right-hand door. When he pushed it open he faced yet another antechamber with four doors. By his reckoning he had nearly completed a circle, but upon opening the fourth door he found a room wholly alien to the first. Its walls were just as bare, but it was hexagonal in shape. Five additional doorways greeted him instead of four.

The queer impossibility did not deter him. He picked the rightmost door without hesitation or a look back and found himself in a long, dim, high-ceilinged hall. Fluted columns lined the way, illuminated by yellowish glow panels built into the floor in much the same fashion one might aboard a starship. Yet the construction was still stone. it all felt remarkably old, yet well-maintained.

At the end of the hallways was an arching portal. On closer inspection its stones had been inlaid with iron, upon which names were written in old-Antarean but scoured to unreabaility. He paid the inscriptions little heed. The area beyond held a curling stairwell, also of stone. A look down yielded nothing but shadows. Upward was no more promising.

Marius climbed. Finding himself standing in another nondescript antechamber with four doors. Again and again he chose right, striding through halls, and chambers and impossible stairwells for what seemed an eternity. Finally, he opened the door to a space unlike any other. At first it appeared a throne room. Its ceiling seemed to stretch higher than the strucutre outwardly had been tall. The same fluted columns that had adorned halls were present as well, only far more gargantuan. They stabbed up toward the roof which was covered in black tile and inlaid with gems. Perhaps most striking were the reliefs which covered every inch of wall and melted into the glittering darkness of the tiled ceiling.

A closer look at the panels revealed a tale of First Landing. Marius had read countless histories of Antares' early colonists and this version seemed far darker than even those he'd found within the Custodes' own walls. The memory of Axum's cleansing returned to him unbidden and he stepped away from the stonework. So much blood. Not the last sacrifice he'd made, nor the worst. But somehow the memory had taken on a life of its own. He resisted the urge to spit, then railed at his uncharacteristic of self-control. Something about the place ate at him. It was his penance, his own personal hell. I will bare it all, so no one else must.

He gritted his teeth painfully, but kept walking.

Other stone panels tempted him with lurid scenes of conquest and fire, during the days when Antares had been just another bandit kingdom, scratching at the fringes of colonized space. Only a single vertical stone had been left to depict the coming of the Light. When the children of Ios and beyond had brought the word of the Saint to the people of Antares. Curiously absent was any recognition of Father Church. Though influence from Tareno had come later, it was often featured in many of the Founding texts.

As Marius stalked down the hall he saw more familiar images. The breaking of the H'yun Tal against Antares, the subjugation of Bathis, and the Great Reform that brought the original Federation into being. More images of conquest, tragedy, and honor as the walls told the history of the Empire. From the treachery of Janos Starkasian to the alliance of the True Families, the depictions rolled on. Reif Andromedeus I was there. The First Emperor was depicted as a small, wizened man in robes of office brandishing the Scroll of Ministry rather than the Copper Sword, as many artists of historical fantasy were wont to depict him.

He saw others he recognized as well. Artesian II, the Mad King, with his patchwork face and legion of silent killers. He saw images of Odomi Andromedeus-Falco and her great host filling the night skies with so many points of light that they'd been dubbed the Tears of Iron as they descended on world after world. Bringing the Empess' Justice. On and on they went, curling from wall to column.

As he moved further into the hall, he realized that the reliefs ended abruptly with one scene. A man stood with his arms outstretched before a blazing nova, a hard smile on his face. The features were rough hewn and indistinct, but the unmistakable gash of a scar over the subject's right eye left a cold feeling creeping in his gut. The histories said that Lucan Andromedeus received a similar wound before his fall. But Marius found his hand tracing the outline of his own minor disfigurement. He had no mirror but he knew the livid lines of his pressure-scars would fade. His advisors advised he seek biosculpt to erase the wound, but Marius had denied them. The Old Ways demanded payment, and even victory had its price.

Panels of blank stone followed as he walked the remaining length of the hall. The glow panels brightened as he advanced on a raised dais. Atop it sat an oversized high-backed seat of polished copper. It was wide and deep enough to seat a giant. In its seat lay a shallow stone-chest of granite, which was large enough for Marius and half his retinue could bathe in comfortably. It had no inscription. An ancient genelock was inset into its top, though there were no discernable joints or latches.

He stood over the chest for a time, recalling Bailith Ohr's words and wondering again at the impossibility of the Hall's geometry. Without an iota of hesitation he reached down and pressed his palm against the plate. He felt it warm at his touch as the ancient molecircs tasted him. Suddenly grooves began to appear in the chest's top, which melted away to reveal a latch assembly. A nanocase.

The chest-top split as hidden mechanisms coalesced from inanimate stone. Newly formed gears whirred and spun, and the lid slid away. Marius blinked as the light glinted off the chest's contents, reflecting against the seat's mirror finish.

He stood over the open chest in silence. He felt older than his years. Bailith Ohr had been right. Damn him.

---

When Marius exited the structure, he did so through the front door. There had been a gasp from the Custodes in his retinue. Bailith Ohr looked worried, but gestured to the scribes. Frantine scribbled on vellum while the senior intelligencer behind her twittered something unintelligible as his optic implants drank in the scene for immortal posterity.

"I thought you said no one leaves through the front." Setorian said in a loud voice a moment later. The Pater declined to reply, though his grim expression spoke volumes. The color had left his face when he saw Marius was empty-handed. The Andromodean scion made a beeline for him, a glacial smile etched on features in acid. Noa bowed stiffly before his lord, before clearing the road. Marius nodded to his Hand as came to stand before Bailith Ohr.

"I am returned." he said in a hard voice.

"The spirits rejoice." the Pater replied.

"Do they? I have observed the rite. It is time Pater." The others were staring now, unsure of what was happening.

"Soon, your Grace. Though it is unprecedented for one to leave without an omenic. Pray, what did you find inside?" Ohr asked in a quiet voice.

Marius turned to the old man, his smile far kinder than it had been as he'd exited the House of Glittering Stars. He tapped his forehead, letting his hand drift to the top of his scar. "A reminder, Pater. Against the hubris of men."

The praetoria majoris motioned for their guard to assemble, and together the group made for the shuttle.

As the vessel lifted off into the afternoon crimson, the forest below woke with the sound of birds.

No one aboard heard.