BEHOLD A PALE HORSE

Silence.

The silence about the Solar Throne filled the great hall like water, like the deep dark of the sea. Not a soul stirred. From my place amongst the courtiers, I watched the two common soldiers where they knelt on the mosaic. They had crawled the length of the hall, proceeding down the central aisle flanked by members of the Martian Guard like scarabs in their formal blacks. How long had it been since two persons of so low a station had come to that exalted place? The white vaults had stood like Olympos atop the clouds of Forum for more than ten thousand years, and save for the artisans who had crafted them-creatures whom the nobile people about me would have spurned like insects despite the beauty they had wrought-I was prepared to wager my good right hand that fewer than a hundred serfs had knelt before our Radiant Emperor in all that time.

That they were in that place at all was a signal-clear as the changing of bells-that the world had changed. That they would speak in that place of gold and carnelian, that hall of ivory and jet, was a sign that the change was terrifying.

Both soldiers knelt at attention, eyes carefully fixed at the base of the dais where fifty-four steps rose toward the gleaming throne flanked by the Knights Excubitor in armor of mirrored white.

By the stars at her shoulders I saw that one of the soldiers was a ship's captain, but it was the other who spoke, rough tones betraying him for a common legionnaire. He had been prompted, coached on what to say by logothetes and by the eunuch homunculi who served the Imperial presence. But fear floated off the man in waves, and for a tenth and unnecessary time he bowed and pressed his forehead to the tile. "Your Radiance," he said, voice breaking. "Holy Emperor. I abase myself before you. I am Carax of Aramis. I have been your faithful servant for nearly eight hundred years." His tongue tripped over the words, and I could tell that he'd tried to rehearse them. "I were at Hermonassa, Radiance. Were on the Inviolate when it fell." From the reports I'd seen of the battle, I knew the Inviolate had been the flagship of the defense fleet at Hermonassa. It had died nameless, for once violated it was the Inviolate no more. The woman beside Carax had been its captain. By rights, she should have ended her life after so devastating a defeat. Perhaps she intended to do just that when this audience was ended.

Carax spoke, describing the Cielcin attack on the flagship. "The Pale come aboard. Cut through the hull and swarm in. Ship's leaking air. Life support's compromised. I don't know a thing about the battle outside, but the captain's ordered retreat and we're pulling back to decouple the bridge section when-"

"Get to the point!" snapped the slippered eunuch at the soldier's side. At a gesture from the androgyn, one of the Martians advanced to chastise the legionnaire with the haft of his energy lance.

"Let the man tell his story in his own way," came the voice Imperial, halting the androgyn and the Martian in their tracks. Carax and the captain at once pressed their faces to the floor as a child hides from the thunderbolt. Caesar's words resounded from the throne, amplified by speakers hidden in the filigreed vaults above so that he spoke God-like from every corner of the hall. When he spoke again, it was not unkindly. "He has traveled far and seen much that interests us. We would not have his tale hurried."

Spluttering thanks, Carax straightened, still on his knees.

"But you wanted to hear about it." Almost I thought I could hear Carax swallow. "About the Pale King." I guessed the man had given his official report when the survivors from Hermonassa had arrived on Forum, and from that report had been selected to come before the Emperor.

I glanced sidelong at Pallino where he stood beside me, but my old friend and bodyguard did not so much as blink.

I felt a shadow stir in my mind, but listened carefully as Carax continued. "My decade were left to guard the airlock. Last line of defense. On the Inviolate the bridge section's got to by this long hall, and Thailles-he was my decurion-Thailles had sealed the door. A foot and a half of solid titanium, only they got through." His voice shook on the last word, and he hunched where he knelt, eyes downcast. "Cut its way in with a sword like those our knights use. Highmatter. Cut through the bulkhead like it weren't nothing, Radiance. Lords and ladies. Only it weren't like no sword I'd seen. It were too big. And all . . . twisted. Cut through the bulkhead like it weren't there." He seemed to realize that he'd repeated himself, and his face darkened. "Cut through the men, too. I never seen one of the Pale so big. Had to stoop in the corridor as it came at us. All black and silver it was. And when it see us standing at the end of the hall behind the prudence shield it bares its fangs at us. Smiling, like.

"'Surrender!' it says, and Honorable Caesar I swear by Holy Mother Earth it spoke our words." He rubbed his arms. "Said our lives were forfeit. That they'd taken the shipyards. Broken the fleet. We fired on him, but they had shields. Never seen that before, neither. Pale with shields. They just laughed at us, and their king, he said he was . . ." The man struggled with the name.

I hardly heard him.

I knew the name.

Syriani Dorayaica.

The Scourge of Earth.

The soldier's words seized in me, and once again I beheld a vision I had twice seen. First in the darkness beneath Calagah, and again in the cold clutches of the Brethren of Vorgossos. I saw the Cielcin arrayed across the stars, rank upon rank, file upon file, ship and soldier and swords uplifted, scratching at the sky. And at their head there came one taller and more terrible than the rest. Black its raiment and black its cloak, and its horns and its silver crown were terrible as the glass fangs in its lipless mouth.

"Did it wear a crown?"

Silence again.

I realized a moment later that it was I who had spoken, I who had disturbed the air and perfect order about the Solar Throne. The courtiers about me drew away, leaving Pallino and me alone on a little island beneath pillars tall as towers. Someone giggled nervously, and I felt the eyes of the Martians pick me out through their suit optics, their faceless masks dispassionate.

Carax turned, and our eyes met. His eyes widened. Did he know me? I did not know him.

"We will have order!" cried a sergeant-at-arms.

Because it was expected of me, I went to one knee and bowed my head. I did not press it to the floor as the soldiers had. I was palatine, and distantly a cousin of our Emperor. Caesar's eyes were on me, twin emeralds in that alabaster sculpt he called a face. Was it my imagination, or had one corner of his mouth turned upward in ironic amusement? Whispers burbled around me.

"That's Marlowe, isn't it?"

"Hadrian Marlowe?"

"That's Sir Hadrian Marlowe, the Knight Victorian."

"That's the Halfmortal?"

"Is it true he can't be killed?"

The sergeant-at-arms slammed his fasces against the tiled floor, brass tip ringing against the stone. "Order! We will have order!"

The Emperor raised a hand, and order was restored. A moment later, His Imperial Radiance, William XXIII of the House Avent, spoke in a voice that brought to mind the touch of fire and the scent of old wood. "Answer our servant's question, soldier."

Attention returned steadily to Carax and his captain. His eyes stayed fixed on me as he answered, ignoring Caesar where he sat amidst gold and velvet. "A crown?" The words seemed alien to the man, and he mouthed them stupidly. "A crown? Yes. It were silver."

Alone, this revelation proved nothing. Prince Aranata had worn a coronet of silver. The Cielcin had dozens of princes, perhaps hundreds, each the master of a nation fleet that plied the waterless seas of space. I had no reason to believe that Syriani Dorayaica, whom the Chantry called the Scourge of Earth, was the creature from my visions.

And yet, I knew.

But Carax was not finished. "He called himself a king," he said, and turning broke the inviolable protocol of the throne room by looking up upon the face of the Emperor. "He said he was coming for your crown, Honorable Caesar." On seeing His Radiance enthroned atop the mighty dais, the soldier's voice broke, and he prostrated himself once again, lying almost flat against the tile. No longer the center of attention, I stood again, peering over the shoulders of the richly dressed personages before me. "Your Radiance, he let me live. Killed everyone else in my decade."

The smell of incense burning in golden thuribles above filled the air, but I smelled the smoke of fires and burning men. I saw the corridor in Carax's tale as he spoke. The Cielcin king-if king it was-striding relentless, pale sword flashing. I imagined plasma fire and bullets breaking against its shield as its sword fell like rain. How bright the flashing of that blade! How terrible its glass-toothed smile! And when its work was done it seized Carax by his throat and plucked him one-handed from a floor slick with blood and strewn with the limbs of dead men. How clearly I saw that moment then: Carax alone against the enemy. I pressed my lips together in pity. I had a vision of boots dangling useless above the floor, and of the Cielcin lord holding this man calmly in its grip.

"Tell your master I am coming," it said, and Carax shuddered to repeat the words. Then it threw the man down like a child's doll and turned, vanishing into the wreck it had made, and was gone.

"I don't like this one bit, Had," Pallino said when the audience was over.

"I know, Pal." I rubbed my chin, leaned my head back against the pillar behind me. The Martians had chivied the courtiers from the Sun King's...