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Science Fiction Stories

Astralis

Written by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

In the muted light that occurs once a century when the Three Sisters all shine full upon the Great Plaza of Astralis, a man stands within a tall and graceful tower and before a mirror of silver eternaglass nearly as old as the fabled walls of Astralis itself, those ramparts of gray granite bleached almost as white as marble over the long generations under the unforgiving glare of Soleilgrand. Alone in the high and spacious apartments, he straightens the uniform of a skylancer—his uniform. It fits him well although it has been many years since last he wore it. There is also a Priority Marshal’s uniform hanging in the large wardrobing chamber, but he has chosen the captain’s garb because the captaincy was the last rank he knows he truly earned.

“Vanity. Another form of vanity.” He laughs. “What else is left?” Turning from the mirror, he strides swiftly from the dressing room and through the bedchamber, then down the hallway and past the formal sitting room. Is there a glow from the single lamp, illumining the high-backed reading chair last occupied by his wife before he dispatched her with their children, and all others within and without the City, to the highlands west of the Ramparts of the Sky? She and the children are safe. That he knows.

He slows and looks again, but the lamp has long since guttered out.

“Why you?” she had asked on the last day they had shared, her silver eyes intent on him, her glittering hair flowing over her faultless shoulders.

“Can I ask it of any other and remain who I am? Can I be certain that what must be done will indeed be done? And that, and no more?” His eyes had met hers.

“It is so . . . so . . .” She shook her head.

She had not needed to finish her sentence.

“I cannot let all that is good vanish,” he had said, though he knew his words had been as unnecessary as that single word she had not uttered.

Terrible. Beyond terrible, if that were indeed possible.

In the end, she had offered no reply, her only response an embrace and unshed tears, before she had gathered their son and daughters and flown westward, while he had watched from the skytower. Then he had watched as the City emptied.

None of those few who had known what he would do had dared to call him “fool,” or “evil beyond belief,” or worse, although they had doubtless thought him such, even as they hoped for—and feared—his success.

The man in the skylancer’s uniform shakes his head and puts his memories aside. He leaves the inner hall and crosses the outer foyer to the open shaft, where he steps into the emptiness and drops swiftly—but not too precipitously—downward through the darkness. In moments, he steps out at the Plaza level, ignoring the depths to which the shaft drops below. He walks toward the Great Foyer of the Residence. Before him, the elaborate and shimmering metallic doors gape open onto the receiving courtyard. Why now would there be any reason for them to be otherwise? No one else and nothing of value remains in the Residence . . . or in the City beyond.

His boots carry him outward and across the courtyard toward the outer gates, also open, their fine tracery dark against the full light of the Three Sisters, a graceful scrollwork around the symbol of Soleil that belies the strength of those heralded gates. The cool and pervasive glow of the triple moons lightens the stones of the Plaza beyond into a gentle white, also softening the towering barriers formed by the distant City walls into a near-misty whiteness. The stones of those walls and pavement had been laid so firmly in their courses that generations had believed them eternal. Yet he knows that, although mortal will once shaped and raised those very stones, the stones’ strength still remains, while human will has been eroded by indulgence and complacency.

“Not mine,” he murmurs, knowing his words contain hope as if it were fact.

The impact of his boots on stone echoes across a Plaza that holds no other souls. That, too, he had assured, although there might be a few who had defied the remnants of the Legions.

At the far side of the Great Plaza, he pauses, then glances down the narrower avenue that angles to the southwest. He frowns. Two long blocks away, two brilliant lamps frame an archway into a modest building. There should be no lights. The City should be empty, save for him.

He turns toward the avenue leading to Priority headquarters, where a single skymount awaits him. Then he stops and turns back, as if his feet remember that he must.

No matter. He has time. More than enough. Those words come from deep within his thoughts. He should not waste time. Yet . . . his skymount and deadly cargo can wait for a short while. A short while.

His strides are long, throwing forth equally long and distant echoes as his boots strike the time-polished stones of the pavement, which is even more ancient than he recalls. His hand rests on the butt of the deadly sidearm that is but a child’s toy compared to the weapon he will soon unleash.

How has it come to this? The question echoes in his mind, not that he has not pondered it long before now, and he has heard the dry words reported by the Priority’s First Skymarshal, repeated time and time again.