Ruler of Naught, page 48
part #2 of Exordium Series
Again the image of the Goddess amidst the destruction of Sync Ferenzi possessed his mind. “But I thought... I was summoned.”
And then the woman’s face, formerly soft and almost grandmotherly, settled into an expression of almost inhuman pity. Nukiel couldn’t say why, but a thrill of terror spiked into his vitals—and as she spoke, the reality of Desrien reached out and grasped him in a grip that he knew would never be relaxed.
“I’m sorry, Captain, but the Goddess has given us no message for you. Your time is not yet come.”
The image dwindled away like a flame and vanished.
o0o
Artorus Vahn stood against the wall of the Captain’s dining room, thinking about the grilling he and the steward would get later from shipmates about what they’d seen and heard, even though they knew they’d get nothing from either of them. But this meeting had been so long deferred that their exigent curiosity would be excusable.
The dinner itself was done, the steward efficiently laying out the after-course and silently vanishing, but not before a glance passed between her and Nukiel when Commander Efriq raised an eyebrow at the Pnahian offering among the cheeses, safely restrained under a bell jar. Thankfully, no one decided to sample it. Vahn couldn’t imagine which of the rare liqueurs and wines would go with it.
Laughter interrupted his thoughts. The Krysarch Brandon—now Aerenarch—dropped his napkin back in his lap and reached to move some of the silver about on the table as he illustrated his story.
“So then the Kug jumped the Draco at this intersection, and while they enthusiastically tried to quarry each other’s innards, we fell into an access hatch here—and into the waiting arms of a gang of feud-bent Yim, who were hoping we’d be Draco...”
The Aerenarch was describing his run through Rifthaven before he and the Rifters lifted off in the Columbiad. He made it vivid, and funny, and Nukiel and Efriq seemed to be enjoying it. The tone of hilarity also, Vahn noted, appeared to inspire a joking answer to the occasional direct question from captain or commander. There was certainly nothing overtly evasive in the Aerenarch’s manner, and he readily described in detail certain things they asked for.
My younger brother is the smartest of us, Krysarch Galen ban-Arkad had said once. He’d added thoughtfully, I hope he discovers it before anyone else does.
The ‘anyone else’ had to refer to Semion, then Aerenarch, who had posted Vahn to Talgarth with orders to report every conversation he overheard. For security reasons, he’d been told. The ban-Arkad’s mind is always on music and he wouldn’t know if an assassin or a spy was among the loyal. It had taken almost half a year before Vahn could see past the distorted lens of the training he’d received on Narbon, to appreciate Galen’s freedom of thought and speech not as weakness but as something quite different. And he also had realized that the only people permitted around Galen for any length of time were Semion’s spies—and that the older brother was the only inimical thing in Galen’s life.
Though that turned out not to be true, Vahn thought, as the men before him refilled their glasses and toasted the Panarch yet again before drinking. The news passed on by Grozniy ate at him sometimes, at night: could he have saved Galen if he hadn’t transferred away from Talgarth?
“... so these Rifters have no allies, as far as you are aware, Your Highness?” Commander Efriq asked after a pause. The dapper man’s finicky manner hid a very acute mind.
“Their allies were killed when one of Eusabian’s Rifters found their base,” the Aerenarch answered. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of Hreem the Faithless?”
The captain shook his head, and Commander Efriq murmured, “Would we find the name on the bonus chips?”
“Safe bet,” the Aerenarch replied.
“The vids the Grozniy captured at Treymontaigne,” Nukiel said. “They make it look like the Rifters armed by Dol’jhar have embarked on a sacking spree that Eusabian has done little to control.”
“That’s certainly what rumor said on Rifthaven,” the Aerenarch agreed, showing no reaction to the oblique reference to the looting of the Palace Minor by the Rifters of the Telvarna. “No controls at all. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“I expect we’ll see a pattern develop as more intelligence comes in,” Efriq put in. “Loose control in peripheral areas to spread terror and confusion, and more coordinated attacks on strategic points. The two sector capitals we have some data on don’t seem to have suffered as much.”
Nukiel set his wineglass down and steepled his fingers. “Your Highness, do you know what Captain Vi’ya planned to do once the Telvarna was safely away from Rifthaven?”
“That was under discussion right before Karroo sent half the ships in orbit after us,” the Aerenarch said, smiling. “I know they had a second base, where perhaps they could hide out until things got resolved one way or the other—or supplies gave out.”
Efriq said mildly, “Did those plans include you and the Omilovs, Your Highness?”
Vahn knew the Aerenarch perceived how carefully the question was worded. He didn’t seem unduly worried as he drained his third glass of wine and reached for the decanter.
One goal of this dinner was certainly to establish whether the Aerenarch was with these Rifters by accident—or by design. Having spent as much time as he had with Brandon on the long flight from Rifthaven, he knew the captain and his XO were unlikely to discover the answer tonight.
“Perforce,” Brandon said presently. He grinned over the cut crystal in his fingers. “As you doubtless know, one of the other things they discovered while on Rifthaven was that the Dol’jharian taste for thoroughness in revenge had inspired Eusabian to put a price on my head worth a few dozen planets. I get the impression that some of Vi’ya’s crew wavered between the dreams of trying to collect and the reality of how long they’d live under Dol’jharian ministrations if they did try to turn me in. Right before your ruptor finished off their drive, we had just established that Vi’ya was disinclined to put us down anywhere. Thought we’d be easy targets.”
Which answers the superficial question and sidesteps the real one, Vahn thought appreciatively.
He’d been born on Arthelion—both parents had been Marines—and he’d grown up absorbing the lacework of protocol that dictated life there. The problem here was a potentially messy one: there was not only the matter of civilian hierarchy, but military vs. civilian, augmented by the Aerenarch’s sudden departure from military life ten years before. If he held even nominal rank, Nukiel could have ordered him to talk and be protected by regs.
“True.” Nukiel’s expression sobered. “And she’d be afraid that you’d lead the Dol’jharians right back to her and her crew.”
“Willingly or not,” Brandon said, again putting a spin on the direction of the questions. “Sebastian would not live long under one of their torture machines again, despite their best efforts.”
“So the medics tell us, Your Highness,” Efriq said softly. “Our CMO has offered him the reconstructive work his heart needs, but the gnostor insists on waiting until we arrive at Ares. He says his oath requires it.”
A glance went between captain and commander, no more than a flicker. Vahn knew that the old man was a Chival of the Phoenix Gate, but how did he think that would help the now-Aerenarch? That rank would be of little account on Ares, and less here. The interchanges between Brandon and Gn. Omilov had not offered any clues—they were as opaque as any Douloi interactions Vahn had ever witnessed.
And there was certainly no clue in Brandon’s face now, still hard to read under myriad healing bruises, nor in his posture, relaxed as he watched the play of light on the liquid in his glass.
“But all that must wait until we finish our business here at Desrien.”
“Ah. Desrien,” the Aerenarch said, looking up. “How did this side journey come to pass?”
Vahn realized that this was the first time he had asked a question this evening. He won’t ask anything that might require Nukiel to define his status—as citizen or prisoner. What is he trying to protect?
“You appear to have business there,” Nukiel replied. “The whole matter is still mysterious to me, but the High Phanist was quite clear in her orders—”
The Aerenarch cocked an eyebrow and Nukiel paused.
“‘Tomiko was on Arthelion’ was what the Numen said to me,” the captain interjected. “She now has the Digrammaton.”
The Aerenarch blinked, the humor vanishing from his expression, to be quickly replace by the same bland mask that Vahn had seen Galen assume whenever discussion of Semion arose.
“In any case,” continued Nukiel, “you, the Omilovs, the Rifters, the Eya’a, and even the dogs and the cat—who, by the way, spends each night in a different cabin, so popular is he among the junior officers—are to be sent down in the Columbiad, I assume for a meeting with the High Phanist.”
The skin around the Aerenarch’s eyes tightened very slightly—a subtle sign that Vahn wasn’t sure either the captain or the commander noted, or understood if they did. It momentarily increased Brandon’s resemblance to his eldest brother.
He’s not pleased, not pleased at all. Vahn could hardly blame him. No royal had set foot on Desrien for nearly 150 years, not since Burgess III at the end of his long reign. He had abdicated in favor of his daughter, taken the robe of an Oblate, and vanished forever among the shrines of Desrien. Jaspar Arkad had accepted the nascent Magisterium as one of the poles of power in his reconstruction of interstellar politics a millennium ago, but no Arkad was likely to be comfortable with a power that had once overthrown a reigning Panarch.
“Have you told the Rifters?” the Aerenarch asked.
“I have not,” Nukiel said. “My interview with Eloatri—the new High Phanist—took place directly before we came here.” He indicated the table, then turned to Efriq, who looked back with dry humor. “It appears you have been more successful at communicating with them than we have, Your Highness. Would you like to be the one to tell them, since you’re visiting Ivard regularly?”
“I will,” the Aerenarch said slowly. “When do we shuttle down to the planet?”
“At oh eight hundred.”
And I’ll be with them, Vahn thought, with no particular pleasure. What he’d heard about Desrien did not appeal to him at all.
“Thank you.” The Aerenarch rose. “Perhaps I’d better do it now,” he said. “So we all get what sleep we can before the ordeal.” His tone made a joke of the word “ordeal,” which deflected attention—at least superficially—from the fact that he, and not the captain, had brought the interview to a close.
As he jeeved out behind Brandon, Vahn reflected on the Aerenarch’s masterful handling of the interview with Nukiel and Efriq. He wondered how that skill would serve Brandon on Desrien.
FIVE
TELVARNA
“Beacon acquired,” Lokri said.
Data leaped to Vi’ya’s console in a brief twitter. Montrose took in Lokri’s hot flush of rage and Vi’ya’s cold fury as she set up their course.
The rest of their flight down to Desrien was accomplished in silence. On a viewscreen assigned to the aft imager the massive battlecruiser dwindled. They fell toward the planet, the stars fading as the glowing limb of Desrien slowly filled the forward view.
The entire crew was on the bridge, even the Eya’a and the Omilovs. Jaim stood at the com console, working with Marim to repair the damage caused by Nukiel’s ruptors. The engineer’s bitter sadness—his mate Reth had often spoken of making a hejir—contrasted with Marim’s flippant attempts to hide her fear. For Jaim, at least, there was no other place to be: the captain of the Mbwa Kali had ordered the fiveskip of the Telvarna disabled and the engine room sealed shut.
To distract himself from his own ghosts, Montrose looked around the bridge as the atmosphere of the planet began to whisper over the ship’s hull. Vi’ya sat still at her console, the unusual precision of her movements revealing that fury. Nearby the Eya’a stood unmoving, facing her. They paid no attention to the viewscreen.
Marim kept her eyes away from their destination. Instead, her attention was divided between Jaim and Ivard, the latter prompting fascinated disgust.
Montrose sighed. It was unlikely that the boy would survive to return to the Mbwa Kali. The cruiser’s medics, despite their best efforts, had been unable to arrest the deterioration of his immune system, or the increasing dementia that the Kelly ribbon had triggered. The dogs had helped, but the visit of the Aerenarch the night before had been the occasion of Ivard’s last coherent words. Now he sat on the deck, rocking slightly back and forth and buzzing to himself from time to time; his skin was almost translucent, greenish yellow and badly bruised, like that of a victim of a blood cancer. His arms twitched, fingers and head writhing ceaselessly in spasmodic movements. Despite this, Trev and Gray remained lying pressed up against him on either side, their ears twitching uneasily. Gray whined softly from time to time.
At the fire-control console, sealed and dark, Brandon sat looking down at the ring on his hand, ignoring Lucifur cheek-stropping one of his boots and purring loudly. The two Marines assigned to accompany them stood against the bulkhead, alert and silent.
Sebastian Omilov sat at Ivard’s station, his eyes closed, his aspect tired. Beside him his son stood, radiating distrust.
Montrose looked up at the viewscreen, feeling curiously empty. It was as though the planet now filling the viewscreen had sucked some vital essence from him. Bleakly he realized that alone of all those on the bridge, he knew that there was no limit to the changes this planet could ring on the human spirit.
For Tenaya, his wife, had been a haji. He had seen the change in her, in the few short weeks they’d had together between her return from her pilgrimage and her death. She had been different, vastly different: even more loving and vital, yet somehow distant, as if ever hearing some music that was inaudible to him. They had had too little time for him to fully come to terms with that: he would never know what life might have held for them after she was touched by the Dreamtime.
He blinked, fighting back memory. A once-familiar voice whispered in memory, But in the Dreamtime there is neither past nor future...
The ship shuddered and the plasma jets whined to life as the Telvarna entered aerodynamic flight, arrowing across the face of Desrien toward their unknown goal.
o0o
As the engines spun down into silence, Vi’ya cleared her board with a swipe of her hand. Then she stalked off the bridge toward the mid-ship hatch. Osri moved hastily aside as she passed him. He didn’t have to look at her face to know how angry she was.
Everybody was angry, except poor Ivard, who seemed beyond human emotions entirely.
One thing they all shared: no one wanted to be here.
One by one the others followed the captain, the two Marines shadowing the Aerenarch.
The ramp whined down and thumped onto the ground, and a brisk breeze whirled into the open lock, bringing with it the scent of grass and damp earth, overlaid with a heat smell from the hull of the Telvarna, pinging softly as it cooled. At first no one moved, then Lokri snorted and pushed past Marim. He trotted down the ramp, the metal booming underfoot.
Outside, the sky was a rich blue-green between towering clouds, gray underneath and blinding white above in the light of the yellow-white sun. Before them a long meadow stretched up toward a hill crowned with a few twisted trees. A racing cloud shadow sped across the slope toward them; the air chilled Osri as the sun vanished.
The opening of the lock seemed to have focused Ivard somewhat. He got to his feet and approached the lock. The dogs began to follow, but then bolted past him down the ramp with a scrabble of claws, giving the high-pitched bark that hitherto they had only used to greet Brandon. Lucifur swarmed after, vanishing into the riot of greenery behind the dogs.
Ivard gave an incoherent shout, and Marim cursed. Everyone else was quiet and wary. The only sound was the wind, and then the soft booming of the ramp as the others slowly began to debark.
o0o
The ramp of the Telvarna thudded open. The rich smells of Desrien crowded into the lock and shouted in Ivard’s skull. The blue fire around his wrist pulsed in delight; images fountained from two faceted flames nearby, quicksilver brightness, multiple flashes that broke through the veil that hung between him and the world he had once known. The muttering pain slashing across his back hung red behind him, pushing him forward.
The two small flames on either side of him flashed by, followed by another, smaller one. He called out to them, but they vanished swiftly. He felt incomplete, isolate, but the blue fire rose up in him and his distress dwindled somewhat.
The other, taller flames around him moved, and he followed. Their anxiety and fear clawed at him, borne outward by the complex stew of chemicals they generated without a trace of control.
He tasted the clangor of metal. One of the flames spoke; this time the words broke through to Ivard.
“New Glastonbury.”
Ivard didn’t know what that meant, but the blue fire leapt higher, a shimmer of satisfaction welling from it. Around him small flames flickered in a web of life and movement, slow and fast. Around the base of one of the tall flames—he’d exchanged life-stuff with that one—some of the tiny flames changed color, some flickered out. He danced a protest, but received no response.
Abruptly the veil cleared, revealing a tall building intricate beyond any he had ever seen. It tugged at him, rhythms in stone and glass drawing him on. He responded with a dance of celebration and recognition. One of the others had shown him, had played this—no, there was no room on the Telvarna. The confusion dropped the veil across his vision once more; he tasted comments from the others but did not understand, wandering in a blue-shot haze, following the flames as they resumed their progress.
