Vac and Jaysynn made use of their resources (power cords they tore out of the monitors and other equipment in the room) and tied up the prisoners. They left the office to find the guards posted outside; they lay in blood that was done pumping out of their bodies.
“Oh, no,” Vac said, looking further down the hall while Jaysynn still gazed at the bodies. He hurried to another body crumpled on the floor. “Coonhil,” he said. His voice dropped as he said it, and the stone halls of the Old Fort trembled with a deep, grave echo.
Jaysynn knelt by Vac and put a hand on his shoulder.
Vac was breathing deeply, and dutifully keeping his composure. “Great things can change in the blink of an eye,” he said. “Kings live and die. Whole nations can rise up from nothing and crumble again into dust. The very laws of nature may seem to turn on their heads. But the order of life and death never changes.”
There in Coonhil’s hand was the poison dart. Vac pulled the fingers away and held it in his own hand, admiring Coonhil’s devotion, in life and in death.
“It’s the one certainty,” Vac went on. “Before the Cataclysm. After. The whole fabric is changing. Everything is in flux. But death still comes.”
He turned sharply on his heels and stabbed the dart into Jaysynn’s chest.
Jaysynn clutched at it. He pulled it out and threw it across the hallway, and, rising to his feet, stepped away from the Governor. But his ankle folded over sideways and he came tumbling down again.
Vac now stood, and though he was not a tall man, he was powerfully built, and he towered over Jaysynn now that the emperor was scrambling on the ground.
“You’re a liar,” Jaysynn said. He tried to stare up at Vac, tried to pour hatred out of his eyes. But he couldn’t keep them open. “You’re a rat.”
He tried to stand again, but he flopped around on the floor, unable to tell his muscles quite what to do. At last, he clutched at his head and at his ears. They were ringing wildly. But that, as with his vision and his vain attempts at movement, would soon cease.
Governor Vac stood over his prisoner.
He lifted his hand to his chin and gave it a broad stroke. He remembered again that he needed to shave. He remembered that Coonhil had scolded him for thinking of such a thing at a desperate time. He closed his eyes, and a tear ran down his cheek.
He went to find some living guards.
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