The Throne of Crowns (The FirstLord Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  6

  13th day of Spring, 902 XE

  The Island Palace, Zarr, Xunna

  Standing at the panoramic window of his office, Jaddra watched as the WarMaker’s private aircraft touched down at the palace’s skyzone.

  A squad of Invincibles disembarked and formed an honour guard around the ship’s exit hatch. Hannsto Vallmar and a platoon of his men lined up to face them.

  Yasstan Lanndra stepped out of the hatch – an intimidating figure even from a distance. Hannsto bowed respectfully to him and led him towards the palace’s main entrance.

  Jaddra turned away from the window and frowned. He wasn’t looking forward to this meeting. He was afraid of the WarMaker and knew it. And yet he was determined to prove to Lanndra that although he was young, he was a FirstLord to be reckoned with.

  “Anthall,” he prayed, “give me courage to face this man.”

  A few moments later there was a knock on the door.

  “Enter,” said Jaddra.

  His manservant Hajjat Bennosh stepped through the doorway and announced Lanndra’s arrival: “His Excellency, the Supreme WarMaker.”

  Lanndra entered the room, carrying with him an almost tangible air of power and menace. “Good day, my Lord,” he said, bowing, his voice deep-chested and authoritative.

  “Good day, Lanndra. Please be seated.” Jaddra gestured to one of the room’s luxurious armchairs. Bennosh left, shutting the door behind him.

  Jaddra and Lanndra sat down facing each other. “You have a report for me?” asked Jaddra, referring to the investigation into his father’s assassination being jointly conducted by the Military Intelligence Corps and the Elite Police.

  “Yes, my Lord,” answered Lanndra. “My MIC agents have ascertained that the assassin, Gannor, jumped from a Krallish civilian skyship in flight near Zarr at night, 85 hours prior to the time of the crime. Using a long-range Z-Field backpack, he flew to the Army training district in the Shannvarl Hills – the pack was too small an object to be detected by our military SkyScan. Having landed, he buried the pack in a forest, which was where my agents discovered it.

  “The fact that Gannor knew precisely where and when to attack suggests there are some high-ranking traitors within the Supreme Government. It seems the KIM are far more influential and resourceful than we’d imagined. Also, we need to find out who gave Gannor that enhanced Brallshar. The technology’s only recently been developed by the SciCom, and it’s still strictly classified.”

  Jaddra was silent for a moment, pondering all this. Then he asked, “Do you have anything else to report?”

  “Not at present, though several lines of enquiry are still being vigorously pursued.”

  “Very well, WarMaker. I’m satisfied with the investigation so far. Keep me informed about any new developments.”

  “Of course, my Lord.”

  “Now,” continued Jaddra, “there’s something you should know. Because the Invincible Corps failed to prevent the assassination of my father, I have no confidence in it as a security force. Therefore I’ve decided to form an entirely new Bodyguard for my own protection. It will consist of a hundred men, commanded by my trusted friend, Hannsto Vallmar. He was the officer who met you at the skyzone just now.”

  This was not news to Lanndra – his MIC agents had already told him about it – but it was still irritating. The Invincibles were, in his view, the cream of Xunnish manhood, recruited from families who firmly embraced the Xunnland’s ancient militaristic traditions. By rejecting the Invincibles, Jaddra was also publicly rejecting those traditions. Moreover, Lanndra’s eldest son Forrta, the new commander of the Corps, would now suffer a loss of status. However, it was a plain fact that the Invincibles had failed the late FirstLord, so Lanndra had no reasonable grounds for questioning Jaddra’s decision.

  “But what purpose will the Invincibles now serve if they’re no longer the protectors of the FirstLord’s person?” asked the WarMaker.

  “They’re said to be the best soldiers in the Xunnland. Surely that should be enough for them. I’m content to let the Corps continue to exist as an elite military unit alongside the regular Army.”

  “Very well, my Lord,” said Lanndra with a frown, knowing he had to give in on this particular issue.

  Jaddra hesitated before broaching the next subject. He wanted to clarify matters between himself and Lanndra, and he couldn’t think of an easy way to do it – because there was no easy way.

  “You’ve heard, no doubt, that I intend to reform the Xunnland …” began Jaddra.

  “I have indeed, my Lord, but I don’t yet know what specific changes you’re considering.”

  “I intend to announce the main elements of my reform programme at the first Supreme Council meeting after my coronation. But for now I simply want to tell you this: I will not tolerate any opposition or obstruction from you and your allies! Is that clear?”

  The leader of the mighty Lanndra Family didn’t appreciate being spoken to in such a manner, and by a man half his own age, even if that man was the FirstLord-to-be. He stroked his thick red beard, choosing his words carefully.

  “My Lord, I know you have the good of the Xunnland at heart,” he said in a slightly patronizing tone. “In that at least, we’re in complete agreement. I too love the Xunnland, and I’ve devoted my life to strengthening her. But – I must speak plainly, my Lord – I’m concerned that what you call ‘reform’ will weaken her rather than benefit her. And I’ll not stand idly by if I perceive that her safety is at risk!”

  Within the strict bounds of Xunnish aristocratic etiquette, that was the closest Lanndra could get to outright defiance. He wanted to say much more, but had the wisdom to hold his tongue.

  “Your concern is noted, WarMaker,” said Jaddra with icy formality.

  A long and awkward silence fell between the two men. They knew they were destined to be enemies, and there was nothing either of them could do about it. Jaddra was determined to reform the Xunnland, and Lanndra was determined to stop him.

  Jaddra wanted to wind up this difficult meeting. “Well, I think we’ve both made our positions clear,” he said. “Is there anything else you wish to say?”

  “No, thank you, my Lord,” answered Lanndra, his manner polite but subtly disrespectful.

  “Very well. You may go, WarMaker.”

  Lanndra rose from his seat, bowed stiffly and left the office.

  When he was gone Jaddra sighed with relief and poured himself a large shot of Zeeman brandy. Downing it in one gulp, he wondered if it had been wise to confront the WarMaker so directly. Perhaps not. But at least there would be no ambiguity about their relationship now. War had been officially declared …

  *

  Later that day Parrja Dassan, Overseer of the Civil Command, came to Jaddra’s office with the Elite Police report on the assassination of Ammzal.

  A tall slim man in his early fifties with greying hair and beard, Dassan was one of Jaddra’s closest friends. As the Xunnland’s most senior civil servant, he wielded enormous political power, and he fully supported Jaddra’s plans for social and constitutional reform. And, like Jaddra, he was a secret Follower of the Anthall.

  “Take a seat, Parrja,” said Jaddra, working at his desk.

  “Thank you, my Lord.” Dassan sat down in front of the desk and handed over a data chip, which Jaddra inserted into his Yevv. While Dassan waited, Jaddra began to read the extensive report that was now displayed on his virtual screen.

  “Did the Invincibles and the Intelligence Corps cooperate fully with your investigators?” asked Jaddra.

  “Yes. They seemed genuinely keen to get to the bottom of the matter.”

  Jaddra scrolled down to the end of the report and read its conclusions. “So it’s clear that the KIM committed the crime,” he observed. “I don’t believe the WarMaker was involved in the plot – do you?”

  Dassan shrugged. “There’s certainly no evidence to connect him to it. And besides, what could he have hoped to gain from
it? He and the late FirstLord were close allies. The sudden death of Ammzal has hastened your accession to the Throne of Crowns – hardly a turn of events the WarMaker would have wanted to bring about!”

  “Quite so,” agreed Jaddra, closing down his Yevv. “So what do we do now?”

  “My Lord, we should send a large taskforce of Elite Police agents to Kralla without delay. We need to find out who helped the assassin, and how widespread the KIM’s influence really is.”

  “Very well. Tell your men to leave no stone unturned.”

  Dassan stood up and bowed to Jaddra. “I’ll get to work on it immediately,” he said, and left the office.

  Alone once more, Jaddra pondered his father’s assassination – a chain of distressing thoughts that had passed through his mind again and again every day since that terrible event. A part of him still couldn’t believe it had really happened …

  7

  13th day of Spring, 902 XE

  The evening rush-hour, Zarr, Xunna

  Roshka Vellz, a balding bearded man in his early fifties with a waistline that somehow expanded slightly with every passing year, boarded the train and edged his way into the densely packed crowd of weary homeward-bound commuters.

  Since all the seats were already taken (as usual), Vellz grabbed one of the flexisteel straps hanging from the concave ceiling of the carriage and studiously avoided eye contact with the other passengers (one of the unspoken rules of life in the capital).

  A moment later, its Zemmka-Field motors humming efficiently, the wheel-less train slid smoothly out of the station and continued its journey along Glideway 15, part of Zarr’s omni-connective never-resting mass-transit system.

  Vellz was not a man who frequently pondered the meaning of life. The demands of making his way in the world and raising a family of five boys and three girls on his meagre pay had preoccupied almost his every waking thought for the last three decades. But he did occasionally permit himself to wonder what the point of it all might be – especially on days such as this, when he had been grilled alive by his supervisor for a few minor mistakes he had recently made.

  Since the age of 18 he had been a clerical worker in Administrative Hub 24A – a nondescript 40-storeyed steel-and-concrete tower in the City Government District. Through intelligence and hard work, he had gained some promotion, but he knew he could never rise any further.

  All the jobs in management were reserved for men from the Minor Families, the Xunnland’s middle class. The top positions, of course, were all taken by members of the Great Families, the biggest beasts in the socio-economic food-chain. At the very bottom of the pile were the Populace (or the Pops), the 2 billion-strong working class – people like Vellz.

  He knew that he and his family were doomed to live the rest of their lives in their cramped apartment in the Wattra Complex, a gigantic ugly high-rise block housing 20,000 Pops. It was in dismal places just like this that the great majority of ordinary Xunns lived.

  About 400 years ago Vellz’s ancestors – peasant farmers in Jattpar, a remote northern region of Xunna – had been forced off their farm by the local landowner to make way for more efficient agriculture. Like countless other impoverished country families, the Vellzes had migrated to Zarr to find work in its rapidly expanding industries.

  During the following four centuries the Xunnland’s rural population had steadily declined as farming had become ever more mechanized, and the cities had grown at a phenomenal rate – culminating in today’s demographic situation, in which 97 per cent of Xunns were city-dwellers. For these urban poor, opportunities for social or economic advancement were severely limited by the Xunnland’s rigid class system.

  Vellz felt that he and his kind were little more than talking chickens in a huge high-tech coop. In his dreams, he sometimes found himself wandering in the fields and forests where his forebears had lived and toiled. He had no illusions about his ancestors. He knew their lives had been hard, but he suspected that, somehow, those lives had been less … pointless than his.

  He didn’t think of himself as a malcontent or a subversive. To all outward appearances, he was a loyal Xunn, a respectful subject of the FirstLord. He worshipped regularly at the three local temples of the State Religion (even though their rituals were, in his private opinion, outdated and irrelevant). He was a dutiful member of the Army Reserve. But sometimes, on miserable days like this one, he found himself questioning the fairness of it all.

  Why should the Great Families be so absurdly rich? Why should the Minor Families get all the good jobs? Why should the Populace be powerless and poor? Why did things have to be this way?

  The priests in the temples said the existing social order was the will of the gods and could not be challenged. But Vellz had his doubts about that. Sometimes he even wondered if there really were any gods at all …

  He mostly kept these thoughts to himself. Sedition and heresy were capital offences – not just for the man who was found guilty, but for his entire family. But Vellz knew that vast numbers of the Populace thought the same way he did. He also knew there was nothing they could do about it. Nobody could change the system – except, perhaps, the new FirstLord himself.

  Rumour had it that Jaddra had big plans to reform the Xunnland. Well, good luck to him – he’d need it! The rich and powerful would do anything to stay rich and powerful. And, in the brutal logic of Xunnish economics, that meant Vellz and his kind would have to stay poor and powerless.

  For 45 minutes the train had crawled through the vast grey suburban regions of Zarr, stopping at 14 stations along the way. Finally it halted at Vellz’s destination, hovering next to a long grimy concrete platform. He and hundreds of other fatigued commuters disembarked, exited the drab station and trudged up the broad steel walkway into the Northern Segment of the Wattra Complex.

  The scene in the huge crowded foyer was a nasty but familiar one. A platoon of policemen were dealing forcefully with a group of rowdy youths.

  Gang warfare was an everyday fact of life at Wattra and all across the city. There were too many young men doing mind-numbingly boring jobs, with no adequate means of venting their natural aggression. What the Xunnland needed, in Vellz’s opinion, was a really big war. That would knock some discipline into these young hotheads!

  He lingered in the foyer, keeping his distance, while the policemen finished the job, using long steel clubs to beat the youths into submission. Finally, the lad who had resisted the longest time – presumably the leader of the gang – turned and fled up one of the three wide corridors leading off the foyer.

  The police were in no mood to pursue him. One of them unholstered his Brallshar pistol and shot the fleeing young man – a thin red beam of lethal energy stabbing him in the middle of his back. The policeman went to the fallen fugitive and examined him briefly.

  “He’s dead,” he called to his comrades, with grim resignation. All in a day’s work. He didn’t have the time to be upset about it.

  “All right, everyone!” said the captain of the platoon to the hundreds of nervous onlookers. “The show’s over. Get moving!”

  The crowd obediently shuffled away, eager to get to the safety of their homes.

  Vellz entered an elevator along with about 50 other people. It stank of their sweat and bad breath. As it climbed slowly up to the 25th floor where Vellz lived, he wondered what his wife Yilljesh was cooking for supper.

  Yilljesh …

  A little smile of genuine joy lit up his chubby bearded face. His life was hard and unsatisfactory in many ways, but he had no complaints about his wife. She was beautiful (in his eyes, at least), fertile, and a fine cook.

  What more could any man ask for?

  8

  14th day of Spring, 902 XE

  MilCom Headquarters, Zarr, Xunna

  Mazzra Fonnash entered the WarMaker’s office and saluted. Lanndra, busy with his Yevv, pointed to the seat facing his desk. Fonnash obediently sat down and waited.

  An agent in the Military Intelligenc
e Corps, Fonnash was tall, with short red-brown hair and beard, and a copper-pink-brown freckled face. He looked just like a hundred million other Xunnish men. This made him someone who could blend into a crowd anywhere in the Xunnland. He was a born spy.

  His only distinguishing characteristic was the tendency of his eyes to be half-closed, as if he were either deep in thought or trying to make out a distant object.

  After a few moments the WarMaker shut down his Yevv, pushed his chair back on its rollers and looked enquiringly at Fonnash.

  “Did you find out anything significant, Captain?”

  “Yes, Excellency,” answered Fonnash in his toneless voice.

  “My suspicions about Jaddra weren’t groundless, then?”

  “They certainly weren’t, Excellency.”

  The WarMaker tilted back his chair and braced himself to hear the bad news. As Fonnash gave him the results of his secret investigation into Jaddra’s private life, Lanndra’s face became a picture of brooding anger.

  For over a year he had suspected that Jaddra held some subversive beliefs. Now Fonnash was confirming his worst fears. Jaddra was indeed a member of the illegal group known as the Heretics – secret worshippers of the Anthall, the Varrdish deity. He regularly attended the clandestine meetings of a Heretic cell in the capital.

  It appeared he had been indoctrinated during his student days by Parrja Dassan. Evidently Dassan had been covertly promoting the Varrdish religion among the Xunnland’s nobility for many years.

  Fonnash finished his report and waited nervously for the WarMaker’s response. He knew that Lanndra’s wrath was unpredictable, liable to lash out even at those who had given no offence.

  “You’ve done well, Fonnash,” the WarMaker eventually said through gritted teeth. “Dismissed.”