Weekly Drabble #266: What the Serpent Sees (Patreon)

The prompts for this drabble are 'break before bend' from Krystal Boone and 'uncommon actions' from EBB, bringing back to the Unmade and their quest to unify the galaxy. Enjoy!

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What the Serpent Sees

In the end, the Grand Alliance of the Six Crescents bent the knee to the Ascendancy. In his wisdom, the Warlord allowed their Caliph to remain upon his throne and his realm spared further onslaught, but with some provisions. First among them was that now and forever, the Grand Alliance would be a vassal state of the Ascendancy. Its rulers, in whatever form or role they might take, would serve at his pleasure. A governor would be appointed, a garrison established and a tithe levied. The Alliance’s conquered worlds would gladly serve their liberators, but the Alliance themselves would have to be watched. The Black Fleets rarely stayed long in one sector of space, but they could not stretch themselves too thinly, lest their gains slip through their fingers. It was not enough to conquer, the Warlord had said time and again. They must also unify.

Proclamators and demagogues moved through the worlds who’d knelt in fealty to the Ascendancy, spreading its doctrine and ideology. A humanity unified, not torn into twenty thousand pieces, all pulling in different directions. They would restore greatness to a fragmented species, with freedom and safety given to all. Through unity, ascension. Through ascension, majesty. And most important of all, survival.

The Serpents were coming, a rapacious darkness that would descend on the million lights of mankind like wolves to a campfire. Even the mightiest fleets and most powerful nations of this era could not stand alone; they would be swept aside and butchered like those same hapless campers, with countless trillions destroyed. Only together did humanity have any chance at all, but over thousands of years of diaspora, there had only been increasing disunity and fragmentation. The Twenty Thousand Worlds were riven by war, mistrust, indolence and ambition.

We might already be dead, the Warlord thought. All of this might be for nothing. It didn’t escape him that he was, to use a historical parable, burning the village in order to save it. The destruction he wreaked on the worlds that defied him was a heavy toll, but it was not done lightly. He would take through diplomacy what he could and when that failed, he would leave as much intact as possible... but if a nation was determined to defy him, then if the example he made of it convinced others to submit without bloodshed, the cost was worth paying.

Why don’t you tell them the truth? He had been asked that before. For that, the answer was easy. There were countless raving doomsayers on street corners on any given civilized world. His tale was a little more fantastical than most, but that was all it was without proof: a story. Few believed him; even when they saw the Serpent’s gifts themselves, such as the slivers that bonded with every ship in the Black Fleet, growing through them like a symbiotic organism, they doubted.

Even many of his inner circle were not convinced. It could all be an accomplished trick, the thing a clever con artist might convince some enterprising engineers and technically-minded individuals to create to sell an idea. To build an image and mythos around a conqueror. He wished that was all it was, but the young man that might have done that had died a long time ago. All that was left was the Warlord of the Black Fleets, and his desperation to save humanity, even if all of it might be for nothing. He had to try. The Serpent he’d saved had left its mark upon him in more ways than one, and he could no more change his nature then the greast beasts could their own.

So I’ll burn a thousand villages to the ground even if I only save one. In the end, that was the only thing that mattered. His success was a humanity that survived the Serpents’ awakening. Lost culture could be reclaimed. Lost homes could be rebuilt. Lost lives could be mourned. Lost glories could be found again. Humanity would ascend from the ashes.

Extinction offered none of those possibilities. Only the silence of the same lifeless galaxy that humanity had inherited... and would pass to the next people to evolve. Perhaps they would be the ones to break the cycle if he failed. Or perhaps it would continue as each civilization reached into the stars, never knowing that the light they spread across those worlds was what would doom them, as it might already have humanity.

But I refuse to give up. The path then, was simple. Build. Ally. Annex. Conquer. Grow strong enough that he could make other nations submit without destroying them. Then... then he could find a way to deal with the oldest and most powerful of human polities, each night praying that he had one more day.

Simple... but not easy.

The Caliph and his Grand Alliance would have to be watched. This was a proud man; a dangerous thing when it was combined with his callousness and willingness to sacrifice his underlings for that same pride. The Warlord shared a brief glance with Lady Virago and Emeritus Ermine. Neither of them said anything, but he could see the same calculations running behind their eyes. Measures would be taken to ensure the Caliph and his people didn’t see the departure of the Black Fleets as an opportunity to rebel. Such a decision would go poorly for them, but it would consume more resources and more precious, painfully finite time.

But the day’s tributes were not done. Following the Grand Alliance’s delegation was one from the Consortium of Seven. Seven small star nations who’d banded together against the raiders and avaricious, predatory nations like the Grand Alliance within the region. Over the generations, pacts of mutual defence had become stronger and now each former nation was a province of a polity, larger, stronger and wealthier than all of them together could have been alone. It was a microcosm of the Ascendancy: disparate pieces forged into something stronger and better to face the threats beyond their own worlds. Ermine had assured the Warlord that the Consortium was reasonable and would take any offer of alliance with the Ascendancy under careful consideration.

Eight men and women approached the Warlord’s throne; one representative from each province and a chief ambassador selected to represent the Consortium as a whole. Each of them wore the traditional formal dress of their culture, but a common theme on the fabric and jewellery was a pattern of interlocking and connected circles that represented the formation of the Consortium.

The Warlord listened as the master of ceremonies’ voice, loud and strong, rang throughout the great hall, noting the name of each of his guests, though he’d been aware of who the Consortium would be sending for weeks. With the Grand Caliph, his demeanour had been insouciant, his posture dismissive – a reminder for the man that they were not equals. For the Consortium, the man sat straighter, his gaze on them less harsh and his attitude more respectful... but still commanding.

That was something the con artist had learned to master; the art of body language, tone and presentation was a powerful one. It could shift a mark’s own attitude from wary and cautious, to letting them think you were inviting them into a shared secret and building their trust. That was also why he could see the guarded tension in these men and women, eyes glancing among the assembled crowd, focusing most heavily on the guards that lined the approach to the throne.

He could understand that trepidation. No visitor was allowed into his presence without a thorough check for weapons or hidden devices. He’d already survived several assassination attempts and his subordinates were committed to making sure that there would not be any others. His guards might not be as polished as those of the Empire of Ashes or the Terran League, but they were still imposing, tracking the delegation with practiced eyes, passive scanners and visual modes watchful for anything out of the ordinary.

They were all former slaves, most from Unhall itself. Each of them was utterly loyal to the man who’d freed them and they served him not because they must, but because they chose to. In another life, that kind of dedication had been utterly alien to him and he’d have seen it as foolish and weak. Now, it was something that he felt humbled by. He could only trust that he wasn’t repaying that faith with a false prophet’s equally vacuous hope.

The Consortium delegation paused before his throne, bowing in deference as one. “Warlord,” their ambassador, Nigel Kowlowski, said. “Our thanks for your hospitality.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied. “I have heard many impressive things about the Consortium of Seven. My envoys reported that you were willing to discuss the possibility of a future with the Ascendancy.”

“Willing, yes. But there are questions. We have envoys and agents of our own, Warlord. They speak of the Black Fleets in hushed tones, of the ruthlessness of the Unmade and their master.” He cast an eye across the gallery, his throat tightening as he looked upon the men and women of the Ascendancy.

“I suspect a great many things are said of me and of my cause.”

“You deny them?”

“Some are going to be lies,” the Warlord said. “Those I deny. Some will be true. Those I accept. Some will be exaggerations and distortions spun by the fearful or those with their own agenda. We can discuss all of them.”

There was a pause from the ambassador. “No,” he said at last. “No, we have heard all we need to of the Unmade, and of you. We will not bend to you or any other despot.”

At his left, Helfer stirred, but at the Warlord’s gesture his general stilled. “I am sorry to hear you say that,” he said to his guests. “I offer your peoples and your nation more than an iron gauntlet. I offer them unity, strength and safety.” He gestured to the crowds and guards. “Everyone here began as something else. A slave, a pirate, a carpenter, a teacher. All of us have become something greater. Something more. That is the promise I make and the truth I offer.”

“Your promises are hollow and your truth empty,” Kowlowski spat. “You are a petty king sitting on a throne of lies, controlling your domain through terror. The Consortium renounces you, as will all other free people of the Twenty Thousand Worlds. Sic semper tyrannis!”

His hand curled into a fist, but in the instant before his fingers touched his palm, the Warlord moved. His damaged eye saw more than many suspected and the other man’s intent crystallized like a flare igniting in the darkness. He didn’t know what the weapon was, nor how it had gotten through the scans and searches, but he couldn’t let the Consortium ambassador carry out his plan.

He would probably survive. Dozens of others wouldn’t be so lucky. The rest of the delegation was already leaping into action, forming a defensive wall around their ambassador to keep the guards from reaching him or gunning him down before he activated whatever device he carried. Even the Ascendancy’s elite were only human and the heartbeats between the ambassador’s defiant cry and their response was going to be too long.

The Serpent’s blood burning in his veins, the Warlord threaded through the onrushing delegates like stepping through a display of mannequins, his right hand catching Kowlowski’s wrist, covering the ambassador’s palm with his own as his other grabbed the man by the neck, lifting him off the ground.

Kowlowski’s eyes bulged as his fingers met unexpected resistance, widening in shock as the man who’d been meters away from him from was now holding him by the throat. “If you will not bend....” the Warlord spoke as his guards rushed ahead, toppling the other Consortium delegates, those of them still conscious or alive staring up from the ground in pained surprise of their own.

The ambassador started to convulse in the Warlord’s grip, his free arm and kicking legs going slack. His skin turned pale and then grey. His flesh began to wither, as if he were desiccating... no. As if he were burning, consumed by an invisible fire. He opened his mouth to scream, but only reeking steam emerged. His eyes glazed as they rolled back in his head and shrivelled. Ashes dribbled out of his robes from the holes in his blackened skin. When the Warlord finally released him, all that was left of Nicholas Kowlowski fell to the floor as a gaunt corpse, burnt-out eye sockets staring up at the ceiling and its mural of the all-devouring serpent. The master of the Black Fleet still held the other man’s severed hand in his own. He looked at it for a few seconds, then dropped it, the dried and weakened bones shattering against the deck.

“...then you will break,” he said as he turned his back on the cowering delegates and once again took his throne.