Apotheosis, p.21
Apotheosis, page 21
Luka tapped his lips thoughtfully, nodding his agreement. “You are, of course, correct, my lord,” he agreed. “It will be done.” He turned back toward Janek. “Meanwhile, I will send you and Mariam as an Ardisi envoy to Ondřej Matoušek in Kazakhstan, with Otto’s head as a gift. He is firmly in our debt anyway, but this will cement it.”
Janek nodded. Mariam was one of Luka’s favourites, a two-century-old Bureaucrat who had made the clan a small fortune running a corporate law firm in the pre-Upheaval days. She was certainly no warrior, but she was as hard as nails and even sharper. “Yes, my lords,” he said, and began to back away.
He stopped in his tracks as Miroslav addressed him. “Janek… Breathe no word of what you have heard here to anyone, either within our clan or outside of it. The machinations of the von Runstedts are worries for Luka and myself, no-one else,” Miroslav explained.
“Yes, my lords,” Janek repeated, but was stopped by Miroslav again.
“One final thing, Janek… You have probably surmised that we successfully captured Zoltan Karpati while you were abandoning your post near Boldogko Castle, and that I have woken Tamar and Mikhail that they might feed on his blood and feast on his screams…”
Janek nodded; he had thought as much, and he had indeed abandoned his post at Boldogko. Miroslav continued: “I will not tell you whether your surmise is true or not; if asked directly, you may truthfully say that you have no knowledge of these matters. Furthermore, you are not to spread any rumours or any information about any events that transpired after Plovdiv, including that I have returned to Georgia, or that Luka was never truly Tamar’s right hand while she slept.” Miroslav’s hideous grin grew wider for a moment, and Luka’s eyes burned into Janek’s. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lords,” Janek repeated for the final time. Bowing, he backed away for a handful of steps, before turning and walking out of St Nicholas’ Church, toward where Luka’s quartermaster stockpiled supplies and equipment within Narikala. He needed a new uniform, new boots, new weapons and a new pack freshly stocked with rations and ammunition, and then he needed a bottle of blood and a room where he could sleep for a day or two before he and Mariam would begin the long trek to Kazakhstan.
The tiny coven in Astrakhan had scant creature comforts to offer, but then all it protected were some fishing villages and a vast area of farmland. Many humans lived in the countryside, living their subsistence-farming lives, and trying to otherwise avoid notice. The coven was the last outpost of the Ardisi in this area; Volgograd to the north-west was a ghost city, completely depopulated and mostly destroyed, and the Yuskevich and Sibirsky covens were further north. The dry summer wind howled outside of the church, seeming to rise in intensity as Janek and Mariam stepped out into it. Janek frowned slightly at the hot wind and looked at Mariam, who returned his look with a fatalistic expression.
“His scouts haven’t seen anything of the Matoušek, nor heard anything about where they might be,” Mariam summarised. “We have to continue on foot; there will be no diesel to be had anywhere ahead of us.”
“Shall we head to Lake Balkhash?” Janek offered, sourly. “It is central, and its fish should help to sustain a decent population. Perhaps Ondřej Matoušek is there; or if not, perhaps the people there will have heard of a strong warlord in another part of the region…”
“It is as good a plan as any,” Mariam replied. “A journey of two thousand kilometres… at least we each have a couple of spare pairs of boots,” she noted with amusement, patting her backpack, which also held a few spare pairs of socks for good measure.
Janek nodded without amusement. His experience walking without boots across half of Romania back to Constanta had made him adamant not to repeat the experience. He knew that they had a months-long hike ahead of them, and multiple pairs of spare socks and boots were a necessity, not a luxury.
They began walking, the moon low in the sky, the wind seeming to propel them toward their destination far, far to the east.
Dust coated the inside of Janek’s mouth. He had wrapped a scarf around his head to keep the worst of the wind out of his eyes, but even so the dust got everywhere. It had been just over three months since they had left Astrakhan, and now, finally, he could smell water in the air: they were nearing Lake Balkhash. The first few weeks of their journey had been simple: skirt the edge of the Caspian Sea and head roughly east. There were plenty of humans around, so finding prey had been simple. The last five weeks, however, had been entirely different. Kazakhstan in late autumn was cold, windy and dry. They had hiked across plateaus and skirted small hills, followed dry creek beds and hopped from dry lakebed to dry lakebed. They went almost a week at a time without finding any prey, getting increasingly desperate for sustenance and moisture, fearing they would perish in the harsh desert. Each time, eventually the wind brought the scent of life to Janek’s nostrils, and they had feasted. Janek looked up into the night sky: clouds were starting to form, but they were high and promised no precipitation. It was cold enough that any precipitation that did fall would do so as snow. Janek found himself wishing that it would snow, just to keep the dust down.
He looked to this right. Mariam’s combat fatigues were brown with sweat and dust, and her face was similarly wrapped in a scarf. Exhaustion was writ large in every movement she made: she plodded her feet with every step, her arms barely swung as she walked, she didn’t look around for danger – she relied totally on Janek’s strength and skill to keep them both alive, as she had for the last few weeks. Feeling his gaze on her, she came to a stop and looked wearily at him as he stopped beside her.
“What?” she asked.
“Water. Ahead. We should reach it before morning. I think it is Lake Balkhash,” Janek replied, projecting a triumphant smile with his voice.
Mariam was too tired to rejoice, and too tired to respond, but when she started walking again, her steps were a bit livelier.
Janek began walking also. “The first thing I’m going to do when we reach the lake is wash all of this goddamn dust out of my mouth,” he said. Mariam groaned in response, not willing to be tortured by thoughts of the lake until it was right in front of her. Janek could not help but smile.
Their tired feet slowly ate the kilometres, one by one, until the ground started to feel different underfoot. Before it was hard, rocky and dusty and without mercy, but now it had some springiness, some give. The smell of water grew stronger, and eventually they started to hear noises: the buzzing of insects, the chirping of amphibians, the rustle of dry autumn foliage in the wind. Life. They crested a small hill, and then suddenly there it was, massive and silver in the pre-dawn light: Lake Balkhash.
Neither of them stopped to admire the view; they both plodded straight toward it until they were standing on its shore. Wordlessly, they both dropped their packs on the ground, undressed methodically, then walked straight in until they were up to their waists in the cold water before ducking under the water and scrubbing at their hair and faces, leaving muddy trails of dust in the water around them.
Janek sucked water into his mouth, swished and spat. “My feet hurt,” he announced, before sitting back in the water, floating, to take the weight off the aforementioned limbs.
Mariam didn’t bother to respond. Taking a handful of sand from the lakebed, she started scrubbing gently at her skin to remove dirt and dry skin. She was fastidious by nature, and this bath was a long time coming.
Tiny fish started to peck at Janek’s toes. He twitched at the ticklish sensation, causing the tiny fish to scatter. As the amount of light grew, the burble of life around the lake grew ever louder. Insects buzzed everywhere; frogs swam hither and thither, or croaked amongst the reeds; fish jumped occasionally, causing loud splashes. It was amazing to think that a few short decades ago, the lake had been almost destroyed by pollution and by farmers drawing too much water from it for irrigation. The Upheaval had caused the collapse of most high-tech industrial sectors and depopulated the cities, and now the lake was teeming with water and life, pure and clean again.
The first gleam of sunlight appeared at the eastern horizon. As if by silent signal, both Janek and Mariam stopped what they were doing and left the water. Shivering on the bank in the autumn wind, they each used a dry shirt as a towel to dry themselves, before dressing in another dry set of clothes. Their old, dirty clothes then got a quick wash in the lake before they both started to look around for a suitable spot to make a camp. Janek pointed to a small stand of white poplars a couple of hundred metres away from where they stood, and they gathered their things and headed in that direction. The sun was biting into them by the time they reached the green shade of the trees and, as exhausted as they both were, they were happy to be out of the direct sunlight.
Janek began scouting around for some slightly larger saplings and small trees that could be used to build a decent shelter, while Mariam began collecting dried rushes from the edge of the lake to weave into rough thatching for its roof. The sun was high in the sky by the time they were finished, but the shelter was sturdy, mostly wind-proof and waterproof, and almost dark inside. They stowed their packs against one wall, hung up their wet clothes on a nearby tree to dry, and then collapsed inside to sleep the day away, trusting on their instincts to wake them should some intruder happen to pass nearby.
Janek was woken by the howling wind. Mariam woke at almost the same time that he did, and they sat up, looking around. It was pitch-black outside and very cold, even though their shelter protected them from the worst of the wind. Mariam glanced at Janek, a wordless question in her eyes: she was hungry. Janek nodded back and they stepped outside into the wind. Snowflakes drifted down around them; this close to the lake, the humidity was high enough to bring snow. They both started shivering immediately. Mariam gestured to Janek, indicating that he should take the lead – she would rely on his instincts and skills during this hunt, just as she had for the last few weeks. Janek began heading toward their left, following the shoreline northward. As soon as they left the small stand of poplar trees, the intensity of the wind tripled. They darted between small bushes, rocks and crevices, trying to remain hidden as they stalked northward. Janek scanned the hills looking for any sign of a fisherman’s hut, which might house suitable prey. Despite his exhaustion and the howling, freezing wind, Janek felt a fierce rush of joy at the thrill of the hunt – even though he was only stalking humans. He dashed from one shadow to another, and the night’s darkness swallowed him.
The fisherman trembled and sweated. Janek’s hand was clamped firmly over his mouth, preventing any noise. The hut was solidly built but tiny, consisting of a single bunk, a small kitchen area with a wood stove and a wooden washtub, and a table and chair. The floor was covered by a rough woollen rug, which most likely hid a trapdoor leading to the root cellar.
Mariam looked down into the fisherman’s terrified eyes. “If you answer my questions honestly, I will not hurt you. If you evade my questions, or lie, I will hurt you very, very badly. Do you understand me?” She spoke Russian, and her voice was like a quiet whipcrack.
The fisherman’s eyes opened even wider in terror, but he nodded. Clearly he understood Russian, and had no wish to be hurt very, very badly.
“Who controls this area around the lake?” Mariam asked. “Who is the local warlord?”
Janek slowly released his grip on the man’s mouth, ready to clamp back down in an instant if it seemed as if the fisherman was about to scream.
“Bekzat Omarov. He controls Karagandy and Balkhash,” he stammered.
“How long has he ruled here?” Mariam asked, eyes narrowing.
The fisherman shrugged slightly. “I don’t recall exactly… maybe twelve years?” Fear that his inexact answer might displease caused him to stammer even more.
Tapping her lips thoughtfully, Mariam took a moment to consider before asking her next question. “This Bekzat Omarov… is it known whether he has… powerful connections?”
Nodding furiously, the fisherman quickly replied: “Yes, his men often boasted that Bekzat enjoys the patronage of a powerful Russian warlord. Some industrial factories in Karagandy are still running, to provide certain things of value to the Russians,” he explained.
Mariam glanced at Janek, who didn’t bother to glance back. They both knew what it meant: Sibirsky had his talons in the region. Matoušek would have been careful to avoid any attention and would not have set up his demesne nearby.
Mariam continued her line of questioning. “Does he often fight with other warlords? Have you heard of any new warlords to the south, perhaps?”
The fisherman shook his head slowly. “No-one fights Bekzat Omarov. He has too many men who are well equipped and well trained. Besides, the taxes he imposes aren’t too onerous, and his men regularly patrol the region, ensuring law and order is maintained. Most common folk like myself are happy enough that he is in control; we seek no return to the days of madness,” he explained. “If any upstart warlord did try to coerce people to provide him with resources, he would quickly find that those people would obey him in public but betray him to Bekzat Omarov in private.”
“That is well,” Mariam announced, and the fisherman relaxed slightly. He must have wondered whether his words would lead to his death or not: if Mariam and Janek were agents of Bekzat and he gave the wrong answer, they would likely have killed him on the spot. Mariam continued, “What about further south? Are there often warlords struggling for power further south, in what used to be Kyrgyzstan?”
“In the lawless lands far to the south, there are any number of petty warlords who struggle endlessly,” he said dismissively. “Bekzat Omarov hasn’t bothered to extend his protection south of Lake Balkhash.”
Mariam looked at Janek again, and this time he shrugged agreement. If Bekzat Omarov hadn’t bothered to extend his influence south, it was because the Sibirsky hadn’t ordered him to, which meant that they probably didn’t care what happened down there. Also, the lands to the south apparently had a reputation for constant struggles between petty warlords, so the emergence of a new warlord would not raise any alarm bells for the Sibirsky for years at least, if ever. It seemed likely to both Janek and Mariam that if Ondřej Matoušek were to be found, it would be far to the south.
Mariam looked back at the fisherman. “Thank you,” she smiled, and he relaxed for an instant, before going stiff with shock as Janek’s fangs pierced his jugular and he started to feed.
Their feet made dark smudges in the snow as they walked. After feeding on the fisherman and tossing his body into the lake for the crabs to feast on, they had gone back to their shelter and slept for the entire day. When they woke, they found that a couple of inches of snow had fallen while they slept; everything was white and cold. Winter had arrived. They had headed south immediately, toward the town of Bishkek, which was more than three hundred kilometres away. They were now just starting their third night of walking, after having rested the previous day, and expected to reach the Chu River sometime before morning, which they would follow south toward Bishkek. The terrain they were crossing between Lake Balkhash and the Chu River was dauntingly barren and exposed, and both of them were looking forward to reaching more hospitable soil again. They had found no prey during the previous night, and both were hoping that they would find someone to eat this night. To pass the time, Mariam was telling Janek some stories about her role in the clan prior to the Upheaval. He listened carefully: she had existed in a completely different – and very interesting – world compared to his role as a soldier.
“By the mid-eighteen-nineties, the seeds of the corporate law arms race had become firmly embedded in American corporate culture,” she explained. “The premier American vampire clan, who monopolised the oil and banking industry there, introduced it and did their best to spread it. Here in Europe, it was primarily us and the von Runstedt clan who tried to ensure that it became a dominant corporate culture.” She shook her head sadly. “We were not nearly as successful at it as the American clan had been; it is a shame that they were discovered and extirpated by the U.S. government,” she sighed, plaintive. “Nonetheless, the systemic parasitism of the culture they introduced was virulently contagious; their good work continued strongly even after all of the American vampires had been quietly disposed of, even though the recipients of the parasitised resources were not vampires, per se.”
Janek looked sideways at her. “I don’t understand.”
She looked back at Janek as if it should be obvious. “Corporations are like… large organisms, whose incentive is a profit-motive, devoid of any sense of ethics or place in the larger scheme of things. As such, they inevitably tend become rapacious and destructive, especially to the environment. Initially, the American clan ran such a company, but then they began to understand just how much impact modern technologies would have on the natural world, and how devastating it would be on the ecosystem.” Mariam waved one hand as she continued. “They began introducing corporate law as a way to maintain and grow the dominance of their own companies, including oil and rail companies. But they also began introducing corporate law as a way to parasitise resources from companies, to reduce the amount of impact a company could have on the environment by reducing its natural profitability.”
Janek tilted his head. “Are you saying that legal departments in companies are basically like… ticks drinking the blood of the host organism?”
Mariam nodded. “Precisely. They have no positive impact on the company, they don’t allow it to achieve anything that would have been impossible if they did not exist; quite the opposite, they prevent companies from doing things – both their own host company, and other companies around them.” She looked at Janek, her eyes underscoring that this was an important point. “If a company invents something, the legal department of that company ensures that a patent is filed, and that no other companies can use it – for decades – thus slowing down the rate of innovation. The first-mover advantage is usually enough to provide a company incentive to invent; in some industries where the barrier to entry is high due to large capital costs, a moderate invention-protection system may be useful. But the protections afforded by the patent system are obviously absurd if innovation is your systemic goal. Thus, the actual patent – the mechanism of protection – becomes just as valuable as the underlying innovation. It becomes just as valuable to invest in a legal team to file and protect patents as it does to invest in research and development. Indeed, investing in any R&D at all is pointless if you don’t have a good legal department in your company,” she laughs, ironically. “See? It is beautiful. But there is more: mountains of regulations, none of it clear or simple, particularly related to fiduciary responsibilities and process management. Significant percentages of company profits are siphoned off every year, in this way, preventing large amounts of growth-fuelled damage.”
