He wavers on the stool. The passion drew too much energy from his reserves. With a sigh, he stands then makes his way to a well-worn couch. With his back turned, I snatch the scalpel and conceal it. He sits with a wince.
“I do not have much strength today, Lysander. But you have questions. Now that the deed is done, I will answer whatever you ask. I think that a fair thing to offer you. You can either try to kill me with that scalpel, or you can have a seat and learn how deep this tunnel goes.”
He gestures with his right stump to his abandoned stool. As I sit, another cheer from his men seeps through the walls. I don’t set down the scalpel.
“Fá used to serve with them, didn’t he? He was a Gorgon,” I say.
“A Gorgon once is a Gorgon forever. His birth name is Vagnar Hefga, and he is the finest soldier with whom I have ever served.”
“Is he actually the father of Ragnar Volarus?”
“Genetically, yes. But genetics alone hardly make a father. The two never met. The gens Grimmus made their fortunes as Obsidian breeders and dealers, remember. A good bull like Vagnar is worth much in those circles, and he was bred profusely after the Grimmus family purchased his people from the Julii. He has sired hundreds. Possibly thousands.”
“How long have you planned this attack?” I ask.
“Well, the operational parameters evolved several times after your grandmother banished me, but I have been working toward this since my brother allied with Darrow and waged war on the Society. What is it? Twelve years now? As they say, time flies.” When he sees I want more, he continues. “You must understand, when Octavia told me to not return until I’d exterminated the Ascomanni, my Gorgons and I knew we’d never feel the sun on our faces again. That was a difficult paradigm to accept. A paradigm I could not have survived without Vagnar.
“He became my friend. My confidant. A brother. Not a brother drunk on his own egoic concerns, but a brother with belief in something greater than himself. Banished to the dark, we found solace in the fact that we were spending our lives spreading the light of the Society. It was our sustenance. Our religion. Then came the Battle of Ilium. Then Luna itself fell. Then the light went out.”
He looks down.
“Nothing can live long without light. Nothing good. I yearned to return and set things right. But I didn’t have the ships or the men to turn the tide, so I used what tools I had. Patience, good soldiers, a few ships, and my education. The years we spent fighting the tribes of the Far Ink were mostly spent sniffing out their nests. You can’t imagine the endless black out there. I realized the only way to complete my mission was to treat the Ascomanni like ants: bait them out, then have them take poison back to their colonies.
“They hate each other, the Ascomanni. They don’t even know why, some grudges are so old. Fortunately, their hate is second only to their greed. So, I sent Vagnar with fifty Obsidian brothers to conquer small Ascomanni headmen at first, then warlords, and finally their version of kings. When word spread through the tribes of an invincible warrior from beyond the Void, one blessed by the Allfather himself, one declaring a holy war on me, on the Society, their individual grievances melted away. They realized if they united under Fá’s banner, the Moon Lords and their Sunlit Lands might finally be in reach.”
“You made a messiah. An Obsidian Darrow.”
“Yes. Still, the Ascomanni did not possess the skills or the armaments to take Ilium. So, I sent Xenophon, my best White, home to become useful to Sefi. Xenophon led her away from Darrow bit by bit, and eventually into the fold of Volsung Fá. By adding the Volk to his Ascomanni Horde, Fá finally had what they were missing—capital ships, heavy assault infantry, and experience in modern warfare.”
I lean back, stunned. Twelve years! The whole time Atalantia, her father, and Darrow have been trading planets and ships in the Core, Atlas has been working on this project.
“It was you. The helm cam footage the Ophion Guild sold to Dido. Proof that Darrow and Victra destroyed the docks…You pushed the Rim into war.”
He does not gloat, but he nods. “Atalantia’s contacts in the Ophion Guild, actually. She helped purchase the footage from a disaffected Valkyrie.”
I’m horrified by the implications. My fingers tighten on the scalpel. “Was it an accident Cassius and I stumbled across the Vindabona? Across Seraphina? Was I your pawn from the start?”
“I wish I were that omniscient,” he mutters. “Careful not to give me too much credit. Chance, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. Your free will is still somewhat intact. Until Mercury, I thought you were dead. Cassius hid you well.”
“I suppose congratulations are in order,” I say, bitter. “Romulus, Dido, and Helios are dead. Ilium is on its knees. What now then?”
“Autophagy.” I frown, and he explains. “The conserved degradation of cells to remove unnecessary or dysfunctional components. Nature is full of clever systems. Individual organisms turn damaged tissue into new growth. Whole species evolve to meet challenges, or they die out. Entire biomes shift, one generation of beings at a time, or become fossils beneath the surface. Old, unfit life is recycled into new, more successful life.
“Civilization is not a clever system. It is stupid—an artificial, unsustainable projection of man’s hubris. It feeds upon its own myths, and resists autophagy at every turn. Often on the grounds of morality, which usually attends prosperity. It is an evolutionary flatline.
“The Rim’s desire for independence has always been the Achilles’ heel of the Society. Dissent its dysfunction. Exploiting that fact is how Darrow rose to power: first by playing Bellona against Augustus, then Rim against Core. His interference is a poison in the corpus mundae. The body of worlds is made sick by our division. Our most noble families are rife with desire for vengeance. For power. Division is a cancer, Lysander, and I am excising the affected tissue.
“The Rim cannot help but seek division. Their naval pride, their warrior caste, the leadership of my family, all aid and abet the cancer that threatens the corpus mundae. Hence the Obsidians. Only when the Rim has been humbled, when its pride has been shattered, when it has been stripped of the tools it requires to perpetrate sedition, and remembers to fear chaos, a savior will arrive and bind them to her cause. Or…his cause.”
I blink at him. “His?”
“Atalantia plans to be the savior, and has for some time. Yet, I’ve begun to think it could be someone else. Someone more suited to the position.”
I say nothing. Atlas smiles and continues.
“It is a sad fact that those capable of gaining extreme power are often unfit to wield it judiciously. Neither you nor Atalantia is a perfect candidate. While she is cruel beyond excuse, you are moral beyond reason. Both are liabilities. But while yours is a virtue, hers is a fatal flaw. Atalantia gains power by dividing. But I’ve seen your maneuverings, young Lune.” He watches me swallow. “You gain it by uniting. I wonder, could you be the savior Society needs?”
“No.”
“No? You don’t want to save millions of Dominion lives? Billions of lives suffering under this unending war? You don’t want to be my cure for this plague? You don’t want me to set you on the Morning Chair so you can guide us to a brighter future?”