The will of the many, p.1
The Will of the Many, page 1
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For friends, lost.
CATENAN RANKINGS
RANK
RECEIVES WILL FROM:
1. PRINCEPS
40,320 PEOPLE
2. DIMIDIUS
20,160 PEOPLE
3. TERTIUS
6,720 PEOPLE
4. QUARTUS
1,680 PEOPLE
5. QUINTUS
336 PEOPLE
6. SEXTUS
56 PEOPLE
7. SEPTIMUS
8 PEOPLE
8. OCTAVUS
NONE
I
I AM DANGLING, AND IT is only my father’s blood-slicked grip around my wrist that stops me from falling.
He is on his stomach, stretched out over the rocky ledge. His muscles are corded. Sticky red covers his face, his arms, his clothes, everything I can see. Yet I know he can pull me up. I do everything I can not to struggle. I trust him to save me.
He looks over my shoulder. Into the inky black. Into the darkness that is to come.
“Courage,” he whispers. He pours heartbreak and hope into the word.
He lets go.
* * *
“I KNOW I’M ALWAYS TELLING you to think before you act,” says the craggy-faced man slouching across the board from me, “but for the game to progress, Vis, you do actually have to move a gods-damned stone.”
I rip my preoccupied gaze from the cold silver that’s streaming through the sole barred window in the guardroom. Give my opponent my best irritated glare to cover the sickly swell of memory, then force my focus again to the polished white and red triangles between us. The pieces glint dully in the light of the low-burning lantern that sits on the shelf, barely illuminating our contest better than the early evening’s glow from outside.
“You alright?”
“Fine.” I see Hrolf’s bushy grey eyebrows twitch in the corner of my vision. “I’m fine, old man. Just thinking. Sappers haven’t got me yet.” No heat to the words. I know the way his faded brown eyes crinkle with concern is genuine. And I know he has to ask.
I’ve been working here almost a year longer than him, so he’s wondering again whether my mind is losing its edge. Like his has been for a while, now.
I ignore his worry and assess the Foundation board, calculating what the new red formation on the far side means. A feint, I realise immediately. I ignore it. Shift three of my white pieces in quick succession and ensure the win. Hrolf likes to boast about how he once defeated a Magnus Quartus, but against me, it’s never a fair match. Even before the Hierarchy—or the Catenan Republic, as I still have to remind myself to call them out loud—ruled the world, Foundation was widely considered the perfect tool for teaching abstract strategic thinking. My father ensured I was exposed to it young, often, and against the very best players.
Hrolf glowers at the board, then me, then at the board again.
“Lost concentration. You took too long. Basically cheating,” he mutters, disgusted as he concedes the game. “You know I beat a Magnus Quartus once?”
My reply is interrupted by a hammering at the thick stone entrance. Hrolf and I stand, game forgotten. Our shift isn’t meant to change for hours yet.
“Identify yourself,” calls Hrolf sharply as I step across to the window. The man visible through the bars is well-dressed, tall and with broad shoulders. In his late twenties, I think. Moonlight shines off the dark skin of his close-shaven scalp.
“Sextus Hospius,” comes the muffled reply. “I have an access seal.” Hospius looks at the window, spotting my observation of him. His beard is black, trimmed short, and he has serious, dark brown eyes that lend him a handsome intensity. He leans over and presses what appear to be official Hierarchy documents against the glass.
“We weren’t told to expect you,” says Hrolf.
“I wouldn’t have known to expect me until about thirty minutes ago. It’s urgent.”
“Not how it works.”
“It is tonight, Septimus.” No change in expression, but the impatient emphasis on Hrolf’s lower status is unmistakeable.
Hrolf squints at the door, then walks over to the thin slot set in the wall beside it, tapping his stone Will key to it with an irritated, sharp click. The hole on our side seals shut. Outside, Hospius notes the corresponding new opening in front of him, depositing his documentation. I watch closely to ensure he adds nothing else.
Hrolf waits for my nod, then opens our end again to pull out Hospius’s pages, rifling through them. His mouth twists as he hands them to me. “Proconsul’s seal” is all he says.
I examine the writing carefully; Hrolf knows his work, but here among the Sappers it pays to check things twice. Sure enough, though, there’s full authorization for entry from Proconsul Manius himself, signed and stamped. Hospius is a man of some importance, apparently, even beyond his rank: he’s a specialised agent, assigned directly by the Senate to investigate an irregularity in last year’s census. Cooperation between the senatorial pyramids of Governance—Hospius’s employers, who oversee the Census—and Military, who are in charge of prisons across the Republic, is allowing Hospius access to one of the prisoners here for questioning.
“Looks valid,” I agree, understanding Hrolf’s displeasure. This paperwork allows our visitor access to the lowest level. It’s cruel to wake the men and women down there mid-sentence.
Hrolf takes the page with Manius’s seal on it back from me and slides it into the outer door’s thin release slot. The proconsul’s Will-imbued seal breaks the security circuit just as effectively as Hrolf’s key, and the stone door grinds smoothly into the wall, a gust of Letens’s bitter night air slithering through the opening to herald Hospius’s imposing form. Inside, the man sheds his fine blue cloak and tosses it casually over the back of a nearby chair, flashing what he probably imagines is a charming smile at the two of us. Hrolf sees a man taking liberties with his space, and curbs a scowl as he snaps Hospius’s seal with more vigour than is strictly necessary, releasing its Will and letting the door glide shut again.
I see a man trying too hard to look at ease, and do everything I can not to react.
Probably nothing. As much as I try to convince myself, after three years, I’m adept at recognising other actors.
Our visitor is nervous about something.
“Thank you, Septimus.” Hospius’s gaze sweeps over me, registering my youth and dismissing my presence, focusing instead on Hrolf. “I know this is irregular, but I need information from someone. A man named Nateo.”
Hrolf pulls the jail ledger from atop the shelf in the corner, flipping it open. There are a few seconds of him tracing down the paper with his finger. “Nateo, Nateo… here he is. Deep cells, east forty-one. Vis, you wait here.”
He grabs a key off the hook and takes three steps toward the jail’s inner door—just a regular lock on this one—but on his fourth, he stumbles. And when he rights himself, he peers around at me and Hospius with lost uncertainty. The expression’s gone in an instant, but I know what it means.
“My apologies, Septimus. I forgot about your bad knee,” I lie quickly, striding over and snatching the key from his hand before he can protest. “It will be faster if I escort the Sextus. Deep cells, east forty-one, you said?”
Hrolf glares at me, but I see his gratitude in the look. He knows what’s happened, but probably doesn’t even remember who Hospius is.
“My knee could use the rest,” he plays along. “If the Sextus has no objections.”
“None.” Hospius waves me on impatiently. I don’t think he’s seen anything amiss.
We enter the jail proper and I lock the door again behind us, hiding a vaguely dismayed-looking Hrolf from view. A lantern holding a candle, lit at the beginning of our shift and now closer to a stub, burns on the wall. I unhook it and hold it high, illuminating the narrow stairwell down. Clean-cut stone glistens wetly.
“Watch your step,” I warn Hospius. “It gets slippery down here.”
I walk ahead of the Sextus, too-dim light pooling around us as we descend. My back itches with it facing him. I can’t get his initial moment of affectation out of my mind. But his document—or at least, the seal affixed to it—was imbued by Proconsul Manius, impossible to fake. And I know better than to press. So I simply have to hope that his nerves, and his attempt to hide them, are not from anything untoward.
More importantly, I have to hope that whatever his purpose here, it will draw no attention to me.
Vek. Still inclined to curse in my ancestral tongue, even if I can only risk it in my head. I paste on a puzzled expression and cast a glance back. “What do you mean?”
“He’s been working here too long.” Hospius’s intense brown eyes search mine until I turn forward again, focusing on the steps. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t say anything.”
I force a chuckle. “I’m not sure what you think you saw, but you’re wrong.” If Proconsul Manius finds out, Hrolf will lose his position here. He’s old enough that he’d be placed in a retirement pyramid, and with a suspect mind as well, he’d almost certainly be demoted to Octavus. Forced to live with constant exhaustion as he’s slowly used up, the Hierarchy stealing years and quality from his life just as surely as they do the men and women here in the deep cells.
And, of course, I would have to navigate another new Septimus. Of the three who have managed Letens Prison since I started, Hrolf has been by far the easiest to deal with.
Hospius just grunts in response. He doesn’t sound persuaded, but nor does he press.
We reach the end of the stairs, my lantern revealing smooth walls slick with damp stretching both left and right. A low hum touches my ears, almost imperceptible. Even after more than a year here, I find it unsettling.
There’s a half cough, half gag from behind me. “What is that smell?”
“The prisoners.” I barely notice the stink of sweat mingling with urine anymore. It’s really not that bad, on this level.
“Why don’t you keep them clean?” Hospius is incensed.
“We do. We wash them twice a day, as best we can. But they can’t control their bowels in the Sappers.” I smooth the anger from my own voice, but can’t help adding, “Catenan regulations are to wash them twice a week.”
Hospius says nothing to that.
We turn several corners and start down another flight of stairs, leaving the upper floor in darkness. These lead to the deepest level, where the long-term prisoners are kept. Sentences of more than two years: murderers and purported Anguis collaborators, for the most part. It feels like we’ve been sending more and more people down here, recently.
“You know your way around.” Hospius’s deep voice booms off the austere walls, despite his attempt to match his voice to the hushed surrounds.
I don’t want to make conversation, but it’s riskier by far to be rude. “I have to come down here every couple of nights.”
“So you and the Septimus alternate looking after these prisoners?”
“That’s right.”
“Despite his bad knee.”
Vek. I shrug to cover my concern at Hospius’s persistence. “It’s sore, not crippling. And he takes his responsibilities very seriously.”
“I’m sure he does.” Hospius is walking alongside me now, the stairs wider than before. He’s taller than me by a head. I see him glance down at me, his interest apparently piqued. The opposite of what I was trying to achieve. “What’s your name?”
“Vis.”
“And how long have you been helping the Septimus here, Vis?”
“A few months.” Not a lie, even if it’s not what Hospius is really asking. I’m not about to let on how long I’ve really been exposed to the Sappers.
“You’re young, for this work.”
“Vis Solum.” I expand on my name by way of explanation.
“Ah.” The pieces click into place in Hospius’s head. I’m an orphan. Clearly one who’s had difficulty finding a home, given my age. So Religion—the third senatorial pyramid, who run the orphanages in the Hierarchy—and Military have found a use for me here instead.
We’ve reached the end of the stairwell; two pitch-black passageways branch out at right angles away from us, and another goes straight ahead. I move left, into the eastern one. “We’re almost there,” I say, more to head off any more questions than to fill the silence.
The stench becomes worse, thicker, and Hospius holds a kerchief to his nose and mouth as we walk. I don’t blame him. I retched the first few times I came down here. Accustomed to it as I am now, my eyes still water as my lantern casts its light into the first of the numbered cells.
Hospius comes to a dead halt, hands falling to his sides, smell temporarily forgotten.
“Never seen a Sapper before?” It takes all I have not to show satisfaction at the towering man’s horror.
The cells in Letens Prison are demarcated by stone walls, but there are no doors, no front sections to them whatsoever, making their contents easily visible. Only six feet wide and not much deeper, each unlit alcove contains only two things.
A prisoner. And the Sapper to which they are strapped.
The man in east cell one is around Hospius’s age, but the similarities end there. Fair skin is deathly pale in his nakedness, almost grey. Body thin and frail, cheeks hollow, blond hair long and matted. A wheezing rasp to his breathing. Steel manacles encircle his wrists and ankles, joined by dangling chains to a winch fixed above him. His blue eyes are open but filmy, unfocused as he lies atop the mirror-polished white slab, which is near horizontal but angles just barely down toward us. Toward the thin gutter that runs along the front of all the cells, where the worst of the prisoners’ waste can be easily washed away.
The truth of the Hierarchy is laid bare down here, as far as I am concerned.
“No.” Hospius’s answer to my question is soft. “I… no. How long has he been in here?”
Eight months. “I’d have to look at the ledger.” I remember strapping him in.
“What did he do?”
Does it matter? “I’d have to look at the ledger.” I keep my tone bored. Neutral. Try to make him understand that this is every day down here. “We should keep moving, Sextus.”
Hospius nods, though his eyes don’t leave the prisoner’s spindly form until the departing of our lantern returns him to the darkness.
We walk, and to our left and right, our small circle of light reflects copies of the first cell as we pass. Men and women, manacled and feeble and naked, all lying against cold white. Their emaciation is a result of the devices to which they are bound, I think, rather than lack of sustenance. I feed them far more at mealtimes than I would ever eat, and they get no exercise.
Hospius is silent next to me, no indication whether he is affected by the wretchedness of our surrounds. I want to watch him more closely—something still feels not quite right about him, his presence here, this entire night—but my desire to avoid notice is stronger. Regardless of whether he is all he claims to be, if he spots my suspicion, it will only draw attention.
“East forty-one,” I say as our flickering light reveals the number engraved large into the back wall of the stone recess. The man here, Nateo, has been with us for less than a month: I remember him coming in because unlike most prisoners, he’d evidently been transferred from another Sapper facility. He’s as gaunt as everyone else, cheeks hollow, combining with a hooked nose to give him a distinctly hawk-like visage. His stringy black hair splays against the white, down past his shoulders. It’s hard to tell prisoners’ ages, but I don’t think this one is older than thirty.
There is no response to my announcement. I glance across at Hospius to find that he’s peering at Nateo, a small, inscrutable frown touching his lips. The man on the Sapper gazes back glassily. No recognition, no reaction to the light or our presence.
“I need to talk to him.” Hospius steps forward.
“Stop.” I snap out the word in panic, then hold up a contrite hand immediately as Hospius freezes. “My apologies, Sextus, no disrespect intended. It’s just dangerous to get too close. It takes days to prepare a prisoner for a Sapper. Touching it could kill you. And everyone ceding to you.”
“Ah.” Hospius heeds the warning, doesn’t venture closer. “But you can shut it off? Temporarily?”
“I can winch him up. Break the connection.” Nausea threatens as I consider what is about to happen. “It will not be pleasant, though. Especially for him.”
Hospius rubs the dark surface of his shaven pate. It’s a moment of doubt—I’m sure I see it in the motion—but when he looks across at me, his face is hard. “I came here for answers. Do what you have to.”
