Read Empire Dreams for Free Online

before the complex manuals, he touches a key here, a tab there, and swells the long room with music. He plays for many hours, filling the House with towering toccatas of dizzying virtuosity, intricate fugues, and moody sonatas until at dawn he emerges, his fury spent, and announces to his household that all is well, he will retire to his rooms for a short rest. As the doors close behind him the servitors all notice that the portraits of the Exalted Ancestors Beneath the Sea seem to be smiling the same smile.
    * * * *
    Now we see a strange thing, for, since those of the Gracious Castes seldom visit those older parts of the city given over to the commonalty and the artisiers, there is a certain unseemliness in Dom Perellen’s stealthy passage down branching waterways which grow out of each other, increasingly narrow and overshadowed by crumbling mansions. Slipping past sludge-boats and fishing-cogs, between the baroque barges of the transtellar merchants and the vigilant dark launches of the St. Charl Guards, he comes upon a quiet, deserted water alley enclosed by sheer walls of rusting iron balconies and peeling wooden shutters, overhung by the pale banners of fresh laundry. At the water-steps of St. Audeon’s Place, he leaves his gondola and proceeds with two wardens (one fleshly, one mechanical) into the labyrinth of lanes and entries where he finds a place he knows well but has never seen.
    Brothers Ho
, says the sign above the door,
Importers and Purveyors of Exotic Creatures: Taxidermists
. Behind the latticed window a patchy stuffed padishant bows and curtsies to the passersby. Kittens in pinafores caper about a table in parody of a nursery tea-party, birds sing and display, gorgodrills rise up upon their hind legs and open their ruffs, fritillaries flitter and fret, and the imported exotics lurk within their protective glass environments.
    “Lo, Brothers Ho,” whispers Dom Perellen, “a moment of your time for a dear sibling, a favor given, a favor taken?” The door pays no heed. There are no sounds of motion from within. “Lo, siblings, if you will not open the door to your dear brother, will you open it to good custom?” After a long time oiled bolts are drawn back and the door opens. Quick as thought, Dom Perellen is through it. He finds himself in a well-appointed parlor, low-ceilinged and lit by warm yellow gaslight. Every available inch of wall space is taken by some stuffed and mounted creature, every part of the room subjected to the scrutiny of their black glass eyeballs. Behind him the window displays perform their mechanical pantomimes for the amusement of the lanes and alleys. Before him stand two men, tall for the artisan castes, dissimilar in age but in every other way as alike as two peas in a pod.
    “Which are you?” asks Dom Perellen. Both men answer together, “We are Adam Beth and Adam He,” which is no answer at all. “So few?” asks Dom Perellen. One of the brothers shrugs, the other replies, “Brother Adam Zayin is in the workship, patron; the other four brothers are out among the Known Worlds procuring stock, thanks entirely to your continued patronage, Grace, in obtaining visas for us.”
    “It was the least I could do. We look after our own, even the discredited sons of our father. But I have some business for you; a matter of some delicacy which demands your particular skills and customary discretion. Now, if I may make myself comfortable?” Chagrined by their lapse of common etiquette, one of the brothers hurries to prepare tea while the other takes Dom Perellen’s mantle and street mask. It is then that we see that the faces of Dom Perellen and Adam Ho are like one face reflected in a mirror. After tea has been served Dom Perellen leans forward confidentially across the low table. The swiveling glass eyes of the stuffed animals follow every motion from their high perches.
    “I want someone killed.”
    The Brothers Ho smile politely.
    “Go to the assassins, patron. Employ