The Ring of Five Dragons, page 65
part #1 of The Pearl Series
“How could you have acted otherwise? You were of the master race.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t even think it.”
Giyan smiled through her tears. Her heart was beating fast with her love for her child. “Yes, there was always another part of you, wasn’t there? The part that reacted to and remembered my love, the part that could not stand idly by while Kurgan Stogggul raped Eleana.”
“Eleana! You have seen her?”
“There is much to tell you, so many changes. She is waiting for us not six kilometers away.”
“She is well?”
“Quite well. She—“
“I want to see her.”
“And you will, Teyjattt. But, no, I must not call you that. Your identity must remain an absolute secret between the two of us. It is far too dangerous for anyone else to know.”
“Surely you cannot mean Eleana.”
“But I do.”
Anger flared. “I don’t care. Don’t you understand? I love her. I have to tell her who I really am. I do not think I could see her again without telling her. It would be sheer agony.”
“You are not thinking clearly. You are not Annon, any more than you are Riane. You are the Dar Sala-at.”
“I know who I am inside! You cannot order me to do something I don’t want to do.”
“True enough,” Giyan said softly. “But hear me well before you decide. It is written in Prophesy that of the Dar Sala-at’s allies one will love her, one will betray her, one will try to destroy her.”
“There, you see! Eleana loves me, I know she does.”
“So do I.”
Riane shook her head. “I don’t give a clemett for prophesy!”
“Stubborn as ever.” Giyan could not help a small smile. “Now you sound just like Annon.”
“Let us not quarrel.” Riane reached out to take Giyan’s hand, her eyes opening wide when she saw the chrysalides. “What is this? What has happened to you?”
“They are organic. They seem to have a life of their own.”
Riane held both of Giyan’s hands in her own. “Do they cause you pain?”
“From time to time. More frequently now. Soon, I think, they will break open.”
“This happened when you broke the circle of the Nanthera, didn’t it?”
Giyan bit her lip. “I had promised myself not to tell you. I did not want you to feel in any way responsible.”
“They are sorcerous,” Riane said. “Together we shall work on returning your hands to normal.”
“I would like that,” Giyan whispered, her voice at the point of breaking. Their eyes locked, and between them passed a current stronger than any other in the Cosmos.
“It always struck me as so strange,” Riane said at length, “that I felt closer to you than I did to my own mother. I used to fight off sleep wondering how that could be. I was V’ornn and you were Kundalan, and yet there was something between us, an umbilicus that was almost like a shared purpose. I guess I absorbed more from you than your stories, myths, and songs of Kundala. I came to care for its people, began, oddly, to feel that I was almost one of them.” She cocked her head. “Can you make sense of that?”
“Yes,” Giyan said as she fought back tears. “I can.”
“That afternoon when Kurgan and I went hunting, when we came upon Eleana, everything I had learned from you was crystallized by the violence of the moment. I could have killed Kurgan—would have, I think, had it not been for the gyreagle that appeared out of nowhere and wounded me.”
“Müna’s messenger.”
“More prophesy. Yes, the talon that pulsed in my chest, that guided me to the Storehouse Door, to Seelin the Dragon.”
While they had been talking, the bloody sun had slipped westward, impaling itself on the icy horns of the Djenn Marre. Swiftly now, as time began to run out, twilight stole over them.
“We had better go,” Giyan said. “Rekkk, Nith Sahor, Eleana are waiting for us. Friends who will help you get to the Ring of Five Dragons.”
As they turned to make for the gate, Giyan hesitated. “Riane, please, you must understand. I am the only one who knows your secret, who knows that inside Riane Annon Ashera still lives. No one else must know this. The regent’s spies are everywhere. The Gyrgon himself told us to trust no one. And now that Stogggul has somehow acquired the talents of a Dark sorceress we must be doubly vigilant. She found me once, perhaps she can again.” She took her child by the shoulders, her heart breaking. “When we leave here, when we meet our friends—even our friends, Riane—you are the Dar Sala-at and I am Lady Giyan. Understood?”
There was a terrible pain in Riane’s eyes. “But here,” she whispered, “in our private sanctuary, where we love and are loved, you will still call me Teyjattt, won’t you?”
Giyan was weeping as she pulled her child into a fierce embrace that shattered all her emotions and, in a magical instant, healed her heart.
The Daemon Is in the Details
Of course I recognize it.” Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha gripped the bracelet in one fist. “Do you not think I know the regent’s handiwork when I see it?”
“Perhaps I should not have pried it out of her fingers.” Kurgan’s head was bent, his expression downcast. “Perhaps I should have left it for you—“
“No.” The Star-Admiral’s hand made a cutting gesture. “You did the right thing, adjutant. I would not see her now—this last time—clutching Stogggul’s bribe.”
It was not lost on Kurgan that the Star-Admiral did not use the regent’s full name, that he spoke of him now with contempt as well as hatred.
Kinnnus Morcha willed Dalma to look at him, but her sightless eyes remained staring fixedly at the sky. Overhead, the clouds moved, but she did not. His boots crunched over white-marble gravel dark with her blood. It appeared as if her body was already sinking into the ground, becoming part of the neat path the violence of her last moments of life had disturbed. The entire park was surrounded by members of his personal wing. To a Khagggun, they faced outward, ion cannons at the ready, their backs to the tragedy. “What evil fate has overtaken me that I should have cared for such a one?” He took a deep, ragged breath. “I blame Stogggul for this. Not simply for her death, but for her corruption as well.”
“I am your right arm. I could do nothing while the regent’s troops defied your order to put Olnnn Rydddlin away. I am humiliated by my inaction. What would you have me do, Star-Admiral?”
“Do?” Kinnnus Morcha looked at Kurgan out of reddened eyes. He was dressed in full battle armor, as were all of his Khagggun. “You will do nothing. You will make no sound, take no action whatsoever. It seems the regent’s stupidity has surfaced sooner rather than later. He rapes and murders Dalma. He countermands my orders to have Olnnn Rydddlin locked away. Rydddlin is mad, of that you can be certain. But he is exceedingly clever, as mad V’ornn often are, to have persuaded Stogggul to give him succor. I see now that I have underestimated him.” His eyes sparked with rage. “Either that, or the cursed sorceress who stands ever by the regent’s side has taken him under her foul wing.” His fingers curled into a fist. “I would not put such a poisonous deed past that accursed skcettta! Poison seems to be her stock-in-trade. She has poisoned Wennn Stogggul’s mind, sure enough.”
Kinnnus Morcha knelt, cupped the bloody crown of Dalma’s skull. “You never knew how much I cared for you. I never told you; I never showed you. How could I? I am Khagggun. But I did care for you. You touched a part of me and made it live. Now it is as cold and dead as your poor self.” His fingertips moved over her brow, down her cheek. “Sleep now, and do not trouble yourself. Your pain is ended, but I swear to you on my own life that your murderer’s is just beginning.”
He rose then and turned away”from her. Signaling for First-Captain Julll to approach, he gave orders for Dalma’s interment. First-Captain Julll nodded, turned, and marched quickly away. It was a quiet time, a time of reflection. Kurgan observed everything with the detachment he had learned at the Old V’ornn’s knee. He felt nothing for these two allies turned antagonists—not compassion, not loyalty, not even the sweet taste of irony at his own role in the escalation of their enmity. If you were not detached you could not be objective, the Old V’ornn had said. And if you could not be objective, you could not see the big picture. If you were as ambitious as Kurgan was, seeing the big picture was everything.
When, at length, the Star-Admiral looked at Kurgan, he seemed his old self again. “No, we will let the regent and the traitorous Wing-General NeffT make their rash and ill-considered public moves, while in the privacy of our caste we will consolidate our power, prepare for battle. If it is a war the regent wants, then by putrid N’Luuura it is a war he shall get!”
Forgive me, Father,” Nith Sahor said, “for I have sinned.”
“It is no sin to follow your convictions,” the brilliantly plumaged teyj answered. “It is the way I taught you to live your life.”
“For good or ill.” Nith Sahor smiled and held out his wrist. The bird flew from its perch, its agile talons gripping the thick glove-grids. Immediately, its translucent yellow talons extruded, forging the link, making contact.
“This cortical net you made for me is extraordinary,” the teyj said, preening its feathers. “I revel in all these colors!”
Nith Sahor smiled. “You were quite an artist in your day, Father. You always had an extraordinary sense of color.”
“And I gave birth to a scientist! Who would have thought!”
“Once there were many artists among the Comradeship, but no more. You were the last of your kind, Father. Now we Gyrgon are of a piece, technomages all.”
“No, my son, you are not like the rest.”
“Too much like them, I sometimes fear. I wish I were more like you.”
“Well, perhaps it’s better that you haven’t followed in my footsteps. Children should have their own lives, not be saddled with living their father’s all over again.”
“Assuming there will be any life left to live,” Nith Sahor said.
The teyj looked around. “We are not in your tower.”
“Not in the Temple of Mnemonics at all. I had to put you to sleep for a time.”
“I hate when you do that,” the teyj said.
“Couldn’t be helped. My laboratory came under siege.”
“Nith Batoxxx?”
Nith Sahor nodded. “He is incensed that I have left the Comradeship. Others are falling in line.”
The teyj lifted its four wings and settled back. “How bad?”
“Bad enough,” Nith Sahor admitted. “The Comradeship is in disarray. Thanks to Nith Batoxxx their focus has shifted from pure science to political maneuvering. Nith Batoxxx has been the most vociferous voice raised in fury against the three who were killed by the Kundalan sorcery.”
“The Ring of Five Dragons! I wish I could write about it! What tales I could compose!”
“If you feel the urge to write, expose Nith Batoxxx and his poisonous tongue.”
“I told you he was a bad seed several hundred years ago.”
“I’m afraid I was too busy with my experiments to listen to you, Father. My fault entirely.” Nith Sahor made his way over the bare floor to a dusty window. “But my real mistake may be in breaking with the Comradeship.”
“Not if it is half as corrupt as you say.” The teyj swiveled its head, its golden eyes quick and darting. “Colorless, drab sort of place you’ve picked. Not a stick of furniture to be seen in this wasteland.”
“This warehouse is not pretty, but it suits my purposes. Look!” Nith Sahor activated his glove-net. Blue fire sparked around the bare room so that it shimmered, wavered. When it restabilized every nook and cranny was crammed with arrays of equipment neatly arranged on shelves.
“It’s a duplicate of your tower laboratory” the teyj exclaimed.
“One of several.”
“You keep altogether too many secrets from me, my son!”
“I need to find ways to keep you amused, Father.” He stroked the teyj’s feathers. “Creating this bio cortical net to house your electromagnetic force was difficult enough—I could not give you the means to express your artistic side.”
“Do not fret, my son. Think of what you have accomplished. I am alive again, and for that alone I am grateful. You have become a great scientist—a technomage for the ages!” The teyj peered out the window. “I see troops, many Khagggun in battle armor.”
“The regent and the Star-Admiral are having a bit of a disagreement. I believe they mean to kill eadh other.”
“I am not surprised,” the teyj said with asperity. “I have always held the firm belief that you cannot mix Great and Lesser Castes. There is an innate distrust among unequals. Why shouldn’t there be? Distrust is bred in their bones.”
“This goes deeper than a simple blood feud.” Nith Sahor took the teyj away from the window. “I feel certain that another force, powerful, subtle, something we have never before encountered is at work here. It has something to do with Kundala itself.”
“I know you have believed from the moment we made planetfall that this planet was special.”
“I persuaded none, I angered many. Now I am convinced I was right, Father. Kundala will either be our crowning glory or our doom.”
“Doom? Why do you say doom?”
Nith Sahor sat on a stool before one of his mysterious consoles. Banks of holographic runes—red, blue, yellow—spilled across the cortical interface like rain, disappearing and reappearing in a pattern so complex it gave the teyj a headache.
“Sometimes our mission seems endless, Father. We search for the Single Great Equation, the Unifying Theory that will explain the Cosmos. But the Cosmos is in eternal flux. It is Chaos. How can you make sense of Chaos?”
“That is what art attempts to do, my son. That is the purity of its purpose. It was the founding principle of the Comradeship. Now look what has happened. They have descended into the cauldron of politics. Now all they can do is make chaos out of order.”
“You are one of the few, Father. You are an artist. You understand uncertainty. But the Comradeship, as a whole, abhors uncertainty. It terrifies them. That is why they are so uneasy here in Kundala, why they have destabilized. There are too many mysteries they cannot solve. The harder they try, it seems, the further away the answers seem.”
“Perhaps, in this case, there are no answers.”
“That is the romantic in you speaking,” Nith Sahor said. “No, for every enigma posed by Kundala there is an answer, I know it.”
“What if the answer is not to your liking?”
“Still, we will have a better idea of our place in the Cosmos, won’t we?”
“You have my disposition as well as my blood, my son. You do not fear uncertainty.”
“On the contrary, I am drawn to it.”
“Then your break with the Comradeship was inevitable.”
“They will try to destroy me.”
“You will not let them.”
“Nith Batoxxx is clever, and gaining power inside the Comradeship. They have never had need of leaders. It seems he is a born leader.”
“So are you, my son. But you have yet to recognize that quality in yourself.” The teyj sighed, much as Nith Sahor’s father had sighed when he was alive. “Once we were all One. That was the nature of the Comradeship, after all. The reason it was formed.”
“What we have come to is a tragedy.”
“I know when it began,” the teyj said. “The moment we first engaged the Centophennni. From that point onward, nothing inside the Comradeship has been the same. That one act tainted us, what the doctrine of Enlil spoke of as the Original Sin. This, too, we have rejected as apocryphal.”
“You may be right.” Nith Sahor was staring at the hailstorm of runes on trie interface. “But at the moment, we have a more immediate problem. Nith Batoxxx and his cabal have found me.”
He leapt up, his floor-length greatcoat swirling around him. One wall of the warehouse was beginning to balloon outward. “I don’t like the look of this,” the teyj said.
Nith Sahor passed a hand over its head and the teyj collapsed into a stream of iconic positrons that flowed, merging into the holographic hailstorm of runes on the console interface.
“Sleep well, Father,” Nith Sahor said as he turned, engaging his ion exomatrix.
The walls of the warehouse paled, grew translucent, then transparent as the technomancy wielded by Nith’s Sahor enemies was brought to bear on the safeguards he had erected. Green ion fire leapt out from his fingers, shoring up the walls, but he knew it was a holding action at best. He could feel them, feel their enmity, their power, grown exponentially. There were too many of them for him to fight at this time, in this place. He would have to—
Something screamed in his mind as a ruby-red ion-particle beam lanced through the wall and struck him on the side of the skull. He staggered, gritting his teeth. He struck back, but it was no use, more and more of the ruby-red beams were slicing through the last of his defenses. He prepared himself, was almost done when he saw Nith Batoxxx, floating in the air just outside the warehouse. Nith Batoxxx bared his yellow teeth, his arm swept out, and another ion-particle beam sliced through the wall. The wall, stretched beyond its tolerance, shattered, and the beam caught Nith Sahor full on. He went to his knees, half-stunned, and Nith Baffoxxx came swooping in for the kill.
There’s something wrong.” Rekkk grabbed at the okummmon Nith Sahor had implanted in his left forearm.
“What is it?” Eleana asked.
“It’s throbbing.” He gritted his teeth. “The pain!” He fell to his knees in the second-floor room they had rented in the shabby roadhouse just outside Middle Seat. Eleana held him as he groaned, brushed the sweat off his face with her sleeve. The ceiling was low, smoke-stained. The windows were small as eyes. The furniture was barely usable. Outside, dusk was crawling toward them like a beggar on his knees. The litter-strewn courtyard was deserted except for a wagon pulled by two sorry-looking cthauros. A traveling knife-sharpener had set up shop during the late afternoon and was now plying his trade. Cicadas screamed in the ammonwood trees.
