Avery threw himself into the trunk and pulled the blankets over his head, knowing even as he did what a foolish thing it was. If the shout had been given because he’d been seen, he had only cornered himself. Janx would never have been so stupid.
He waited, breathless, expecting to be discovered and taken prisoner, but instead, again miraculously, rough voices rose, then fell, and footsteps moved away; apparently members of the mob had emerged, consulted with the soldiers about Avery’s whereabouts and, hearing nothing amiss, retreated below.
Slowly, quietly, Avery let a breath out, then drew one in. Could he have possibly pulled this off?
It seemed he waited in the trunk for hours. Perhaps he did. Long enough for his joints to ache and for claustrophobia to dig into him again. Fortunately the trunk was porous, otherwise he would have had to lift the lid every so often and risk exposure. But eventually footsteps returned, a great many of them, and the airship shook as soldiers boarded it, and other sounds confirmed the boarding of the rest of the fleet. Avery assumed Denaris and Rigurd were among the group, but he didn’t dare look.
A captain called out, and Avery could feel the ship unmoor from the terrace and begin to rise.
They were away. Going to the Square.
Mentally, Avery did a checklist, detailing his resources. It didn’t take long. He had his god-killing knife, a couple of bullets in his gun, two fists, two feet, and surprise.
He wasn’t able to see by what mechanism the hole in the ground was concealed, or if it was at all (though his imagination painted them rising up through a hollowed-out building, perhaps a factory; the entrance was surely why Rigurd had chosen the town’s location), but shortly he felt the craft rock with wind and knew they were outside, in the open air. Judging by the creaking and snapping all around, the other ships of the fleet were, as well. Soldiers called to each other, going about the business of sailing through the air, and Avery tried to tune them out, concentrating on various scenarios by which to liberate Denaris without getting them both killed. The best thing to do would be to steal a dirigible and take off with her, giving the others the slip, but he had no idea which ship she was on—or which he was on, for that matter; Rigurd could be right outside, ready to eat him at a moment’s notice—or how to elude a full company of air-mobile soldiers, for that matter. The more he thought about it, the more he realized saving her was impossible, at least alone and airborne. There was always the chance that Janx would deliver his message to Layanna and that some opportunity would present itself on the ground.
Even so, Avery could imagine few likely outcomes that he, or Denaris, would live to see.
From time to time, frustrated by not knowing what was going on, he began to peek, lifting the lid of the trunk, just slightly, and casting his gaze quickly about before shutting it again. He saw mostly what he expected: a bustling dirigible surrounded by other dirigibles sailing over Hissig toward the Square. No sign of Rigurd, though the Collossum must be present. He did catch sight of Sheridan, who commanded a dirigible to port.
What surprised Avery—although, upon reflection, he didn’t know why; it was just so startling in and of itself—was the presence of the ray.
Vast, reality shimmering around it as it cut the sky, it plowed through the air above the fleet of dirigibles, blotting out the new-come stars and casting an enormous shadow over the city. Of course, Avery thought. Haggarty would want to keep order during the ceremony, and what better way than to have a tool that could throw any dissenters into paroxysms of fear the moment they acted out? Avery knew Layanna could counter the psychic aboard the ray, at least to a certain extent, but Rigurd would expect that. Which meant the Collossum believed he could defeat her if she showed herself.
Avery gripped the knife tightly, feeling his hand shake. How could he possibly stop Rigurd, a god surrounded by soldiers so zealous they had risked death to make themselves edible to it?
The fleet of dirigibles approached the Square, descending. As the deck rocked slightly, Avery caught glimpses of it, seeing a vast stretch of people—there must be hundreds of thousands—gathered before the rearing statue of Sir Haled on its raised dais, hemmed in by soldiers, both Army and Navy, and kept carefully back from the area of the statue itself. The ceremony would evidently be conducted right before it. At the moment some high Navy official was bellowing words through a bullhorn, trying to incite some excitement, or perhaps awe, into the crowd. Zeppelins cut the air overhead, shining spotlights down on the Square, and Avery supposed these, too, had been acquired from Octung, now operated by members of the Ghenisan Navy.
As the fleet lowered toward the Square, Sheridan herself broke off, taking her dirigible up. Avery watched her go, noting that she approached the ray. She would trust no one else but herself to command it during the ceremony.
The fleet descended to an area kept free of civilians near the statue’s dais and the soldiers aboard threw down ropes. Avery ducked again, feeling the ship sink to the ground, rock slightly as it settled, and then go still—but only for a moment. It shook again to the tread of boots, and Avery imagined the soldiers throwing down a gangplank and marching off to gather protectively around a disembarked Rigurd. At least one soldier would have remained on the ship, and there would be more on the ground. Their eyes would not be on the ships, though, but on anyone that strayed too close. And any sentries left aboard would be watching the ceremony, not their own craft ... or so Avery hoped.
Raising the lid, he saw one soldier on deck lighting a cigarette and, sure enough, watching the assembled soldiers escort a figure who must be Rigurd toward the cleared area before the statue, a sort of stage. There they paused. The man with the bullhorn was shouting, “...on your knees! On your knees before the Great One! ON YOUR KNEES!”
The throngs that had gathered, willingly or not, stared at the man, and Avery could feel their hate and fear. Many tried to catch a glimpse of Rigurd, but he was too tightly hemmed in by soldiers. One figure that they could see was Grand Admiral Haggarty, standing to the side of the statue upon the dais, hands behind his back and lancing the crowd with his gaze. He was a tall, severe man, not unhandsome, but cold, with a lean face and hard eyes.
A bank of television cameras filmed him, and Avery noticed some had been mounted in the gathering’s flanks, perched on cranes, and were filming the crowd’s reaction. Those at home would be getting quite a show.
At the moment, the crowd was resisting. Some had knelt, but most had not, and, seeing their resolve, some of the ones who’d already knelt began to stand again.
“ON YOUR KNEES!” the man with the bullhorn shouted. “ON YOUR—”
Admiral Haggarty strode forward and wrenched the bullhorn loose. Tossing it aside, he raised the microphone he carried, which trailed a long wire, and said, very distinctly, into it, “Soldiers—I will give the crowd ten seconds to kneel. After which I will order you to start firing. Ready your weapons. People of Hissing, your ten seconds begin—NOW. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven ...”
Slowly at first, then with panic, the people knelt. Everyone had fallen to their knees by the time Haggarty reached “Two”.
He nodded. “Excellent. I thank you. I do not want to begin my rule with a bloodbath, but I will do what is necessary to maintain order. I will let our new patron introduce himself in his own fashion. He is a great and high member of the Collossum, and we should all be honored that he deigns us with his presence and patronage. Know this: converting to the faith of the Collossum is mandatory, and necessary. It will save us all. Had we failed to do this, the Starfish would have wiped us out this very night. Even now it poises offshore, waiting to see if we carry this through.”
He let that sink in, then continued: “Many of you know that the former Prime Minister, Gwendolyn Denaris, has been arrested and detained on my orders, and there has been much gossip and rumor about what I intend to do with her. The truth is this: she was forcibly given the Sacrament only hours ago and will now be my first official offering to the Great Lord Rigurd. I give this gift to him on behalf us all, thus symbolizing the conversion of Ghenisa and sparing us from unimaginable horror. Do I speak for you all? Say ‘Aye’.”
There were some murmured “aye”s among the gathering, but they were few and weak.
Angrily, Haggarty said, “All say ‘Aye’ or I will have my men fire—”
“You’re a piece of shit!” shouted one young man on the third row, rising from his knees. He was a nasty-looking piece of work, with tattoos on his face and hair shaved into obscene patterns. Still, as he stood there with hate in his features and the light of television cameras drenching him, he represented the entire country. “I’ll say Aye to a fist in your throat, you cocksucker! It’ll be a windy day in my momma’s cunt before I—”
Using his own sidearm, Haggarty shot the man in the belly. The man gasped, blood bursting from his lips, and sank to his knees. Haggarty advanced, and the crowd drew back.
The Grand Admiral, stepping past the cordon of troops and through the bank of cameras, kicked the man in the face, spilling him onto his back, and fired several more times, hitting kneecaps and scrotum, before very calmly and slowly reloading his pistol, having to set the microphone down first, which he did patiently. Cameras whirred, and somewhere a woman cried—probably more than one; Avery could not hear over the murmurs of shock. The sentry standing guard on Avery’s dirigible had let his cigarette burn down to his fingers, and now he cursed and flung it away.
When he had slipped another magazine into the pistol, Haggarty swiveled his gaze around at the crowd, many of whom flinched and drew back, then studied the mewling, writhing creature before him.
“I won’t beg!” the man shouted, spittle spraying from his lips. “I won’t—”
Haggerty shot him through the head. The man slumped, blood and brains pooling under him. Then, without another word, Haggarty shoved the weapon back in its holster and returned to the center of the stage, but not before collecting the microphone.
“Once again,” he said, “when I give Denaris to the Great Lord Rigurd, do I speak for you all?”
There came a chorus of “aye”s.
“Well?”
“AYE.”
“Then let us begin.”
Haggarty turned to the side and nodded. Two soldiers dragged out a sick and weary-looking Denaris. She was obviously diseased, her skin a grayish-yellow and clammy sweat covering her face. She was not taking the Sacrament well. In any case, she was too weak to resist as the soldiers brought her before the Grand Admiral, though when they shoved her to her knees she did have strength to curse him.
“Bastard!” Her voice was so rasping and strained that Avery barely heard it, and he doubted the television cameras picked it up. “I—”
“That will be all.” Haggarty’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Your time has come, Gwendolyn. I am sorry. I tried to get you to surrender peacefully.”
“Peacefully? You—”
“Enough.”
His face was a rigid mask, but anger lurked beneath it, and Avery could well imagine what might happen if Denaris provoked him. She must have seen it, too, and not wanted her final moments remembered that way; she kept silent.
“This country now belongs to the Lords of the Abyss,” Haggarty said, “represented on land by those we know as the Collossum. All hail the Collossum!”
“Say ‘All hail’!” shouted soldiers to the crowd, and the crowd murmured, “All hail.”
“Say it!” shouted Haggarty.
“ALL HAIL.”
“Say it!”
“ALL HAIL!”
