Lenic Deralze was not surprised when Nemo met him at the adit Brandon had specified in their second exchange of messages. The Arkad dogs ranged freely throughout the Mandala and the surrounding archipelago, aided and tracked by the Palace computer, making up a formidably loyal additional layer of security.
With Nemo at his side, no one would question his presence, for they would assume that without the dog, no door would open to him, no lift or transport operate. Unless he had a fairly high-level override, as indeed he did, courtesy of the Poets.
As the gray walls of the sub-tunnel whizzed past, Deralze looked down at the dog curled up at his feet and reflected on the history the animal represented. A thousand years ago Nemo’s eponymic ancestor had saved the life of the boy Jaspar Arkad, who would become the first Panarch. Was this Nemo now shepherding the intended assassin of Jaspar’s remote descendant to his victim, thus closing a millennial circle? Deralze would have answered that question without hesitation a month ago, before his meeting with the Krysarch at the spaceport bar. Now he felt less certain.
The transport carrier stopped and hissed open. The lift opposite opened as the dog approached.
The lift moved more slowly than Deralze remembered. When it stopped, he took a deep breath and keyed the door, which slid open silently. Deralze was unprepared for the blow to his emotions when he smelled the familiar air of the Palace Minor, and saw the same elegant hallways he’d walked during the years he was Brandon’s bodyguard.
As was traditional on the night of an Arkad’s Enkainion, no one was about. Still expecting a trap—there’s nothing like a conspirator on the watch for conspiracies—he made his way quickly to Brandon’s suite.
Just short of the door, Nemo stopped and watched as Deralze approached it.
It didn’t open. The Poets-supplied override wasn’t high enough for this wing of the palace.
“Ghay mahl,” he said to the dog, the words coming back to him despite ten years’ absence.
The dog just stood there, his mouth slightly open, his thickly-furred tail held low and twitching slightly side to side.
Deralze let his breath out, reaching for the calm at the center of the Ulanshu Disciplines. He wasn’t about to try for his sleeve weapon, even though the poison slivers it delivered were near-instantaneous in effect. A dead dog wouldn’t open the door.
He approached the dog. Nemo nosed his crotch, then trotted past him through the door, which whisked open silently.
No guards or servants were within. Tradition demanded that Arkads be alone to meditate before making their Enkainion, and again, the heir before his or her coronation. Brandon’s suite looked unfamiliar without the usual swarm of valets, dogs and guards, yet it was familiar enough to cause a tightness in Deralze’s chest.
Nemo trotted toward the bedchamber, looking back at Deralze as he paused at the door. Deralze followed the dog inside, where a single figure was outlined beneath the covers. The anger sparked again. Meditation on a life of Service? Brandon was sound asleep.
I could take his head right now.
Deralze was expected to. Some collector on Rifthaven, anonymous behind an escrow account, was waiting for the perfectly-preserved head of an Arkad.
But that could wait. Lenic Deralze leaned down, hesitated, then ignoring the residual habits of his training, touched the bare shoulder of the young man lying asleep on the dormaivu.
The reaction was instantaneous and violent.
Brandon flung aside the bedcover and lifted his arm as though sighting along a firejac. Taking aim directly at Deralze’s face, he mumbled, “Under fire. Where’s the comm?”
The dog came to alert, his fur ruffing up.
Habit forced Deralze back a step and poised his wrist just short of delivering his sleeve-weapon... but there was no weapon in the Krysarch’s hand.
Nemo barked once, ears intent as he focused on Deralze, then he relaxed as Brandon collapsed back in the bed.
“Dream,” Brandon said, the hand that had pointed at Deralze dropping. “Hell. That you, Deralze?”
Deralze pointed up at the ceiling.
“No telltales,” Brandon murmured hoarsely. “Long ago learned how to get around Semion when I needed to. Damn, what a headache. And what a nightmare. Markham and I, under attack—” He squinted around the room as though shards of his dream images still lingered in the silent, vaulted corners. Then gave a twisted rueful grin that reminded Deralze of the young Krysarch he had served.
The dog padded back to one of the many dog couches all over the suite.
Markham. Deralze stared down in some bemusement at Brandon, who sat naked in his bed, digging the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. Under attack? Deralze had spent years making sure that the nyr-Arkad had never seen any kind of action, and had never experienced a threat from anyone.
Nor, if rumor was correct, had he since Deralze left. The first and last time Brandon had been attacked had been the occasion of Deralze’s assignment to guard him, sixteen years ago. Brandon’s nightmare could only have been a residue of some expensive wiredream, compounded, no doubt, by a hangover, sexual exhaustion, or both. From the condition of the dormaivu, and the settings Deralze had glimpsed on the console, he guessed the party hadn’t happened here.
Ten years of anger welled up in Deralze with undiminished strength. No telltales? He flicked a glance at Nemo. The dog’s head was down, but he was watching Deralze, the sable accents above his clear brown eyes underscoring his attention.
Then caught a brief, speculative glance from Brandon’s blurred, bloodshot blue eyes.
Does he see the threat, then? He hasn’t asked where I went after I disappeared from his service.
“What did Eleris put in those drinks?” Brandon asked the ceiling, and yawned.
“Shall I call up some detox, Highness?” Deralze spoke. Of course he just assumes my loyalty. He doesn’t see the threat—can’t imagine a threat—and so Markham was ruined, and he sits here pretending to hold a firejac after a night of carousing. Markham thinks Brandon was Semion’s real target? Markham was blinded by loyalty. And see what result it got him.
“Detox.” Brandon sat up. “And coffee. Real, not caf. Bath.” He thrust his dark hair out of his eyes, then winced as if even that much movement was painful. “Chatz, my head hurts.”
Deralze moved to the dormaivu’s console and tabbed the inlaid keys. From the bain came the sounds of water running. The door stood open, and Brandon breathed deeply of the drifting steam.
Abruptly the wait hum ended and the dumbwaiter door opened above the console. Two glasses stood there, accompanied by the aromatic smell of real coffee, but Brandon picked up the cold glass of milky liquid first, grimaced at it, and gulped it down. He shuddered, then reached for the coffee, his face relaxing slightly as the detox diminished what must have been a lethal hangover.
When Brandon looked up, his eyes were noticeably clearer. “Anyone see you come in?” he asked.
“No one, Highness.” Deralze tried to hide his irritation. The stupidity of the question was a measure of Brandon’s hangover
Brandon grinned, once again looking young despite the marks under his eyes and the bristle of day-old beard on cheeks and chin. “Doesn’t matter anyway, does it? With Nemo you’re basically invisible.”
“Noticed a few more dog doors since my day.”
“Always room for more dogs.” Brandon rubbed his eyes a last time. “But the Enkainion made it easy to bring you in. I can count the times I’ve been truly alone since...” He half-lifted a hand, almost a gesture of appeal, then opened it outward, toward the door. “You’ve done what I asked?”
“The ship sits at the booster field right now.”
Brandon grinned. It transformed his face, reminding Deralze of the old days, when Brandon and Markham studied together through nights, then sneaked out to get extra time in the piloting sims when the seniors were asleep or on duty. When they talked out every hundredth-point on the exams that they earned top scores at—scores that Markham was falsely accused of cheating for and cashiered while Brandon stood by and did nothing.
I just wish you’d be able to find out how Semion is going to pay for that, before you pay, Deralze thought.
The comm interrupted with its quiet bell-tone.
“Yes?” Brandon said.
The house computer’s even, singsong voice was just audible above the rushing of the water in the bain. “Holocom from the Aerenarch Semion vlith-Arkad, recorded, urgent, released 12-15-65 Standard from the planet Narbon.”
“It can wait.” Brandon carried his coffee into the bain. A faint hiss indicated one of the dog doors opening, and in trotted a smaller edition of Nemo, an Arkad bitch, with a lanky pup at her heels.
“If you want any coffee, help yourself,” Brandon said as the dogs sniffed each other and danced around Brandon.
The Krysarch knelt down, wincing at his headache as he ran his hands over the new pair of dogs. “You saw Markham? And he asked about me?”
“Yes, and yes.” Deralze did not intend to permit any of his ambivalence to show, but Brandon must have heard something because he gave Deralze an odd, narrow-eyed look, then straightened up, and the dogs trotted into another room and vanished.
Brandon stepped down into the rushing water of the bath. Deralze saw little of the effects of what gossip reported to have been a spectacular ten-year drinking orgy in the slim figure. There was no flab on Brandon’s frame. The smooth brown skin was innocent of any scars, except the one along the back of his shoulder blade from the day Anaris, the hostage, attacked him.
“Are you regretting your duplicity?” Brandon’s smile was wide, his gaze intent. “Now’s the time to make your choice.”
“Choice?” Deralze’s heart slammed. His wrist flexed slightly below the sleeve jac. “Duplicity?”
Brandon’s smile was twisted. “You made vows once to protect the system, and now you’re helping me to escape from it. My oldest brother, at least, would classify—”
The bell toned again. “Chival Eleris vlith-Chandreseki, real-time, urgent,” the indifferent voice of the comm reported. The blue light on the little console indicated a two-way visual request.
“Sorry. I’d better take this.” Brandon splashed to the edge of the bath, next to the inlaid console, and looked down, water dripping off his nose. “One last try,” he muttered under his breath; Deralze wondered if he was supposed to hear it. Then Brandon lifted his head. “Comm. Voice only.”
At once, a musical soprano filled the steamy room. “Brandon darling...” Deralze had heard about the heir to the once-prominent Chandreseki shipyards. Looks of a holovid star and the morals of a chatz-house professional. He sidled a glance at Brandon. Why didn’t he take this com privately?
“Good morning, Eleris.” Brandon grinned up at the afternoon light streaming in the high window on the other side of the bain.
Her laugh rippled. “Good evening, my love! You could have stayed. Your special day is not yet over. I have many more delights planned for us.”
“It was a wonderful day, Eleris, as was last night and the day before.”
Her musical laugh rippled again, as calculated and lovely as a waterfall onstage. “Only I know how much you value your independence, Brandon dear, for you know I am exactly the same way.”
She thinks Brandon is stupid.
Brandon splashed water over his head, then sent an expressive look at Deralze. “Forgive my being stupid, Eleris,” he said, his words running in unsettling parallel to Deralze’s thoughts. “But I have to understand you. Are you suggesting we run away together—and kiss our hands to our relatives, and our lives of dreary protocol—and the Panarchy?”
“Oh, Brandon!” The pretty sigh betrayed just a hint of exasperation.
Deralze remembered the Gnostor Omilov taking Brandon and Galen semmata-fishing the first summer of his duty as bodyguard, in the Gulf of Luan on Charvann: the delicate play of man and massive fish, linked only by a gossamer thread that either could easily snap, but for the skill of the fisherman. Eleris’s voice reminded him of that thread.
“So you won’t run away with me, then,” Brandon’s voice expressed only disappointment.
“Brandon, there’s very little time left, and I must discuss tonight with you.” Eleris’s Douloi singsong became somewhat brisk. “I understand that the Arkads must ally with the Vakianos cartel, and you will signify your marriage with Phaelia Inesset by escorting her to the Enkainion Ball. My concern is the private reception afterward. Really, my dear, should we not begin as we mean to go on? If you are with me, you will find yourself pestered by fewer of the upstarts who wish to use your family connection to...”
“Eleris.”
The aria stopped. “Yes, my darling?” Her voice sounded as breathy as silk.
“I’m sorry, but an urgent com from Steward Halkyn is incoming.”
“Then I shall use the time to get ready for your Enkainion. But, Brandon, do not forget our arrangement. This is not the night to be abstracted, and it’s only for your own good...”
‘Good-bye, Eleris.” Brandon ended the com. “Abstracted,” he said to the water. “Extracted, rejected. It was the money after all, or maybe it wasn’t the money, but it was not me. The fool is always the last to know.” He splashed back, his mouth wry. “Money. Deralze? What was I talking about? Either you take the money and run—”
The tone sounded again, and the computer softly identified the caller: “Dowager Archonei Inesset, real-time, urgent.”
“Fire away!” Brandon squirted water between his hands, watching it shoot into the air and splash down again. “Audio, no image.”
“Your Highness,” an imperious female voice drawled in the purest Tetrad Centrum Douloi singsong. “I am calling you at the express request of the Aerenarch your brother. He indicated that he was sending you a congratulatory holocom...” She paused expectantly.
Brandon hit the mute on the bath-side console. “Semion can’t be here, so he’s sent the heavy guns in,” he said, as if discussing someone else’s affairs—someone far away, not very well known, or liked.
He lifted his finger off the mute. “I’ve not seen my brother’s communication yet,” he said pleasantly, letting his head fall back on the soft tile surrounding the bath so he could gaze at the sunburst mosaic on the ceiling.
“I can tell you the content, Your Highness.”
There was a stinging emphasis on the honorific. Deralze’s memories of Phaelia, encountered the year before Brandon went to Minerva as a cadet, stung with similar insistence: a sanctimonious girl who tattled on Brandon and Galen’s practical jokes, she’d insisted on rank precedence at all times, exhibiting a martyred affront when Brandon had relaxed it at social affairs.
The Archonei’s voice thinned with false-ringing graciousness. “The Aerenarch, your esteemed brother, enjoined me to emphasize that should you wish to please your father. . .”
“My father,” Brandon repeated voicelessly, and with a surge, rose out of the bath, then buried himself in a towel, his head bent—leaving Deralze wondering why Brandon did not want the Archonei hearing the Panarch named, yet permitted her to hear the surge and splash of the bath.
The Archonei’s tone tightened a degree. “...you will escort Phaelia to your Enkainion. As a member of the Family I believe I may speak frankly, and I think it ramshackle to be arranging these things so late. You might have answered anytime during these last three days. I find it difficult to believe that you had business that necessitated remaining incommunicado.”
When Brandon didn’t answer, the Archonei switched back to the graciousness, even coaxing. “But I do not intend to rebuke you on your day of honor. My daughter is willing to forgive these little slights as heedlessness resulting from the press of obligations surrounding your Enkainion. She has never failed in her duty, and stands ready to escort you to the Enkainion Ball, as a preliminary step toward the marriage treaty that will be to the benefit of us all. I say nothing about the reception after, though your accompanying her to it would enable you to avoid the impositions of those who wish to use your private life as a vector for their ambitions.”
“No danger of that.”
Archonei Inesset’s fastidious phrase private life had been delivered in the tone of voice usually reserved for the discovery of a sixteen-legged sleggishin in one’s after-dinner mousse.
“I must say, I am relieved to hear it,” the Archonei went on. “You will send your personal phaeton for Phaelia and me? We three can dispatch a holocom to the Aerenarch before we depart for the ceremony. I know well how much it would please him, and therefore your esteemed father.”
“One moment,” Brandon interrupted gently. He paused then continued. “Excuse me, the com from my brother has arrived at last.”
“Very well. We await confirmation of his plans.”
Brandon terminated the communication, but immediately the console’s inhuman voice spoke, with the typical redundancy of machine communications. “Holocom queue: from the Panarch Gelasaar hai-Arkad, recorded, urgent, released 12-16-65 Standard en route to planet Lao Tse; from Krysarch Galen ban-Arkad, recorded, urgent, released 12-13-65 Standard from planet Talgarth.”
“Execute,” Brandon said.
Deralze said quickly, “Highness. Do you want to view these in private?”
Brandon looked up from his bath, his gaze blue and cold. “Why? These messages weren’t made in privacy.”
Surprise, anger, all dissolved when the holo of the Panarch appeared before them. Deralze had not seen the man in person for twelve years, and he had avoided him in image. The effect of the short, slim, and dapper figure in his faultless white uniform, his silver beard neat, was profound.
A surreal sensation imbued Deralze with old memory and newer words reviewed: always in the past the Panarch had reminded him of a sun, remote yet benevolent, but also, like a sun, removed by unimaginable distance from the affairs of individuals.
The Panarch gazed out at them through blue eyes very much like Brandon’s. The back of Deralze's neck prickled and he was glad he was still standing. Though this was only a holocom, and days old at that, the effect of the Panarch’s presence was strong.
“Welcome, my son, to the ranks of those who serve.” The Panarch’s lined face was transformed by a sudden smile, one of humor and regret, that made the man look younger—emphasizing the resemblance to Brandon.
For a moment it seemed as if he really did look across time and space to smile at his son, and again Deralze sustained that preternatural tingle through his nerves.
“I will forbear making a long preachment. I expect you will get your surfeit and more of well-meaning speeches today,” the Panarch went on. “I wish I could be there. I wish tradition did not dictate that you must face your peers alone. But so it is, and there is a reason for this tradition. This may be the last time you are granted the precious rarity of time to reflect.”
Brandon’s mouth tightened.
“You will receive many gifts today, most of them costly and some of them even useful. I will leave you with two intangibles. The first, the words my mother spoke to me by holocom, on the eve of my own Enkainion: When you stand before your peers to speak the vows of Service, remember the Phoenix, ever consumed by the demands of Service, ever regenerate from the flames. Remember also the Polarities of our ancestor Jaspar Arkad.”
Brandon shut his eyes. “What does he mean by that?”
“The second thing, from me, from my heart: remember my love, and your mother’s love, which is eternal. I have faith in you, and so I hope to tell you when we see one another before long.”
The holo winked out. Brandon stilled, unbreathing, then tabbed the wall console with unnecessary violence, using his fist. “And what did he mean by that?” He tabbed the console again. “Call through to Steward Halkyn.” When the comm chimed, Brandon said, “Hal?”
“Sir?”
“My message to my father. Any update on when it might have reached him?”
There was a brief pause. “No, sir. Best estimate is still on or about the 16th.”
“Thank you.” Brandon leaned over and pressed the cancel pad, leaving his hand in place, his face pensive.
What was his message to his father? Deralze wondered. Had the Panarch not yet received it before composing the message just delivered, or received and ignored it? That would have been a significant rebuke.
Brandon’s fingers tensed, the tendons standing out, then he called up the next message in the queue.
Krysarch Galen appeared in holo, tall, thin, and dark-eyed. There was tension in Galen’s high brow, though his smile was gentle.
“Brandy,” Galen said, “I hope you enjoy your Enkainion. My own was filled with music and poetry—”
“I remember your Enkainion,” Brandon muttered. “And what it was full of.”
“—though nothing was as splendid as the sunbird you and I used to try to catch out in the sequoia gardens. Remember that?” He shifted position a little, to a more formal pose, and Deralze’s interest sharpened. A code, that about the sunbird. Both Galen and Brandon expect Semion to view this holo himself. I wonder who the sunbird is?
“I composed a poem for you, a ghazal in five couplets.” Galen’s long hand, so much like Brandon’s, flashed up in a poetic gesture as though Brandon needed to count the fingers.
At first Deralze concentrated closely for key words or phrases, until distracted by Galen’s fingers flickering as he touched his chest. Fingers. Deralze remembered the hand codes that some Douloi used, mostly the older generation. The young consider it rude, Deralze had been told during one of his many briefings on Tetrad Centrum Douloi manners. It was popular during the days when court was expected to know a lot of poetry, and most of the codes were just signals about each other.
The poem was ending. Galen’s hand stretched out in appeal. “... in closing, my best wishes to you today, and I hope we will see one another soon.” The holo winked out.
Deralze exhaled slowly. Galen and Brandon use the hand code. Why? Galen would know that Semion would see this, so I will wager anything there has to be double meaning for every gesture. Which means they must have had their own code as boys.
That directly contradicted what the recruiter for the Poets had said: “Galen is sequestered by Semion against his will, with the full support of Brandon, who intends to take his place as Galen is forgotten.”
What really happened at Galen’s Enkainion? Deralze wondered as Brandon walked into the spacious wardrobe.
Deralze followed slowly. He and the other Poets were risking their lives to put Galen on the throne. Semion’s death promised, a coin more precious than mere gold, and Brandon to die for the greater good. So why did the contact lie?
“Let’s end this,” Brandon said, and Deralze looked up sharply.
But Brandon did not see. He said, “Holocom to Krysarch Galen on Talgarth... Wait... N-no... cancel. I’ll call him when she’s free.”
“She?”
“That would be the best surprise, and if he doesn’t know, Semion can’t—”
His assumptions smashed, Deralze waited as Brandon once more struck the wall console with his fist. “First, let’s hear what my beloved brother has to say. You remember Semion?” Deralze had never heard that bitterness before. He would not have recognized Brandon’s voice.
Brandon met Deralze’s gaze across the width of the wardrobe, and said, “You and Markham disappeared, Deralze, and Semion won yet again. But it’s taken me ten years to figure out that I can’t fight him within the system, so I have to do it from without... Except—” He stared at the holopad where his father’s image had stood. “Is the system worth saving, Deralze?”
“Is the system worth saving?” That decision is out of your hands, Krysarch, Deralze thought, and for the first time, the inexorable weight of the justice he’d actively worked for pressed on him. Not justice. Vengeance— Vengeance? Where had he heard that, as a title—
Again he saw that tall, cruel-faced young man called Anaris, son of Eusabian of Dol’jhar, who had lived right here in the Mandala as a hostage for some eighteen years. Deralze was thrown back to the day he met Brandon, a weedy young teen, bruised and bandaged after the much bigger Anaris had attacked Brandon, his intent to rape and then kill him, in accordance with some Dol’jharian ritual.
You are not to refer to the incident in word or report, Deralze had been told by Meliarch Youssef, head of the Arkads’ personal security detail. This is by the Panarch’s own wish. Anaris is still to be treated as one of the Panarch’s own sons. You will see to it that Anaris and Brandon, if they meet, are never alone.
Brandon had never referred to the incident, though the bruises took weeks to heal. Deralze, who’d escaped the violence of his early life by taking the Panarch’s coin and becoming a Marine, had not been able to understand how these civilized Douloi could go on as if nothing had happened.
His feelings then had been as unsettled as they were now. Brandon, too, seemed unsettled as he gazed at the splendid tunic and trousers hanging next to the wall-mirror. The suit was royal Arkadic blue—with gold stitching on collar, cuffs, and down the seams of the trousers. Jeweled decorations lay on the low table below, along with Brandon’s elegantly plain boswell, reflected darkly in the flawless obsidian surface. On another table sat a pair of beautiful single-seamed boots.
Brandon stepped to the side of the mirror and touched a control. The mirror slid silently into the wall, revealing rows of neatly hung clothing ranging from formal to everyday. He flung aside the towel and pulled out a plain shirt, a well-made tunic bare of decoration, and some dark trousers, and tossed these on the table over the medals.
“Comm,” Brandon said. “Run the holocom from Semion. Freeze.”
He turned toward the slender inlay-patterned table by the door. A miniature projection of the heir to the Panarchy appeared. Deralze studied the hard face, well-shaped lips with sarcasm ingrained at the mouth corners, the heavy-lidded blue eyes. An angry face. Semion looked older than his mid-forties as he stood stiffly, his image frozen by the comm, the decorations glittering on his formal black tunic.
“Proceed.” Brandon turned away as the image began speaking and went on with his dressing, slowly, thoughtfully, one item at a time, as he listened.
“Brandon, today you will make your formal entrance into the Douloi, the Ranks of Service, embarking on what will be a lifetime of commitment. I wish, of course, to congratulate you on your new status, and to express the wish that you enjoy the festivities arranged in your honor. It is not appropriate for any of us to be there...”
The irony in Semion’s voice caused Brandon’s chin to come up. What was that about?
“... for you must face your peers alone. That is tradition. However, I desired Vannis to be there as my representative. Perhaps you have heard from her by now.”
Brandon gave Deralze a comical grimace. “There’s one I haven’t heard from—Semion’s wife. I wonder to what I owe that stroke of luck.”
“You will no doubt be receiving a congratulatory message from the Panarch our father. He has indicated to me in private communication his pleasure that you have at last chosen to assume your responsibilities. I understand you desire private audience: perhaps, after you have accustomed yourself to the demands of your duties, a meeting will be arranged.”
Brandon’s mouth tightened, and Deralze thought, Brandon really is a prisoner. The messages to his father, everything, goes through Semion. The question is, does the Panarch know it?
And an even deeper question, How far does the plot really extend?
Brandon went on with his dressing as Semion’s holo resumed lecturing, “One way to gain his favor, and thus your interview, would be to comply with our wishes and accompany Krysarchei Phaelia to your Enkainion, signifying the approaching marriage. But you should have completed the treaty weeks ago.”
Brandon laughed softly. He rummaged in a drawer, lifted out some socks, then sat down and slowly pulled one on as his gaze remained on the holocom of his brother’s face.
“I should like to add a word about your personal and private life.”
“By all means!” Brandon waved the other sock in a regal gesture.
“You must learn to keep your private and public lives separate. Though our father made a romantic marriage, and we all regret the demise of our mother, too many breaks in the careful structure of tradition is dangerous, especially these days. We need this alliance with Inesset. I remind you that you need never see Phaelia except on public occasions, and the demands of your personal friends would be effectively silenced. Court expects to see Vannis Scefi-Cartano with me when my duties permit me once again to attend court functions...”
Deralze remembered the Aerenarch-consort, though he’d only seen her half a dozen times. Now there is a supreme fisher.
“...as tradition decrees. My wife also serves as my deputation at those public affairs that I cannot attend.
“My private life is confined to my private residence, which effectively limits political fallout. It is vital, Brandon, that you perceive the distinction for the reasons I just stated, but we will have the leisure to discourse more fully on this subject when we see one another next.”
Brandon’s lips thinned.
“I await confirmation from you and Archonei Inesset. Have an enjoyable evening.”
Brandon smiled faintly as the hologram disappeared. He pulled on the expensive boots, then stood up to face Deralze. The humorless smile tightening the corners of his mouth increased the resemblance between him and Semion. Brandon must have seen something of Deralze’s reaction, for the expression deepened for a second, then disappeared as he laughed ruefully. “I trust you will favor me with the unvarnished truth with which you benefited me ten years ago, and tell me whether you wish to take the money and run, or to come with me.”
“To?” Deralze asked, his heart beating in his ears.
Brandon tipped his head. “I thought you knew that.”
Deralze could not hide his surprise.
“You do know how to find Markham, don’t you? Wasn’t that why you came? Markham’s message. What better way to answer it than to join him?”
“Yes.” Deralze expelled his breath. “He has a base on a moon called Dis in the Charvann system.”
“Charvann?” Brandon repeated, his brows up.
But Deralze ignored that, for he was thinking of the jac in his sleeve, the knife in his boot, and the biostasis sack in his belt pouch. He spoke slowly. “What I said that day...”
“I was in shock. Not in compliance.” Brandon dropped his gaze to his empty hands. “You vanished. Not that I blame you. I suspect you would have been made to vanish permanently, because you were the only witness who could testify that while Markham and I bent the rules, it was no more than anyone did. We never broke them. You know that.”
“Yes.”
“And neither of us ever cheated. You know that, too.”
“Yes.”
Brandon’s palms turned out. “In my interview with Semion, while Markham had to stand up before the entire Academy to be formally cashiered, my brother made it clear that I could do nothing. He laid out for me in excruciating detail just how helpless I was, how anything I could say or do would worsen the disgrace for us both. Deralze, I didn’t know what...” Brandon shook his head. “We can talk over every step of that hellish day later. Though there is probably no use in it. It’s past. There is no going back.”
His gaze shifted to his boswell lying on the low table. He picked it up, weighing it in his hand. “There is no going back,” he repeated. “The question now is, how safe is this?”
Certainly no Downsider or Highdweller would leave their lodging without that indispensable link to memories, obligations, and as much computer access as one’s money or position could buy. Not even Rifters.
Safe? While Deralze arranged for the ship, he’d also done some digging into the other Poets. No such group was ever airtight. The Poets were no exception. Leveraging his key position, he’d found out that it was hired Rifters who had made the Ivory Hall into a deathtrap, not local talent. But not Markham’s group. His request seemed random, but was it? Again I see a circle—but not a thousand years across this time, merely two years.
Brandon shrugged and dropped the boswell back on the table. “There’s nothing in there that would do me any good out there, anyway,” he said.
He keyed open the concealed drawer in the table and removed a huge sum in medium-denomination AU, and another in large, this last which he handed to Deralze, who stared down at the bills. They were the fashionable new Archaic Style notes from the Carretta Mutual Assurance Sodality; the visage of Brandon’s ancestor, Jaspar I, founder of the dynasty, stared back at him. Some trick of the engraver’s art imbued the formal portrait with the hint of a grin.
“You know the Polarities of Jaspar I, don’t you, Deralze? Begins ‘Ruler of all, ruler of naught, power unlimited, a prison unsought.’ My well-meaning father has never seen that those are polarized between his offspring: Semion has claimed the first and third, leaving Galen and me gripped by the other two.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I find it singularly appropriate that it’s one of old Jaspar’s Unalterables that will help us leave no trace.”
Deralze said, “The right of sophonts to untraceable monetary exchanges shall not be infringed.” Otherwise the boswell would long ago have made cash obsolete, rendering one’s every move visible to the authorities. And would have made it easy for Semion’s coverts to catch up with me. Deralze drew in a slow breath. “So you want to leave? Now?”
“There isn’t a better time, is there?” Brandon countered. “Every one of my guardians is at the Palace Major, and none of them know what I’m doing—”
None of your guardians, or mine. But the search will begin soon.
Brandon paused and looked back at his boswell.
Deralze said, “What have you recorded in it?”
“I’m not sure,” Brandon said.
Deralze nodded, unsurprised. Brandon had the very best type of boswell made, and its data capacity was enormous. And it almost certainly had redundant tracking devices implanted, for the sake of security.
As if reading his mind, Brandon crossed the room to the disposal and thrust the boswell in. The disposal emitted a warning trill, indicating the presence of something other than a document.
“Fanfare for a private Enkainion,” he said, and tabbed the confirm. The muffled whoomp from the shredder fields was only a little louder than usual. Then he said softly, “Let’s go.”
A strained sense of unreality gripped Deralze, questions that had haunted him like the shades that would soon depart the Palace Major’s Ivory Hall. The rest of the plot would go forward, and half a rotten government vanish in the blast, which would enable Galen to begin anew. That much of Deralze’s promise he could keep. He owed nothing to the Panarchy.
The only loss would be his, if he didn’t show up on Rifthaven with the preserved head of Brandon nyr-Arkad for that collector.
Whether it’s a good or bad decision to keep him alive, I cannot judge. I will have to leave that to you, Markham.
His sleeve brushed the wardrobe door, reminding him of the weapon concealed there. Feeling as if he watched himself and Brandon on a vid-screen, he paced beside the Krysarch through the suite.
Brandon whistled, and waited as several dogs including Nemo bounded through the dog doors. Brandon knelt, face hidden as he ruffled each dog’s head, scratching along the slight groove on top of their skulls and running his fingers down behind their ears into their ruffs as he murmured endearments.
Then he straightened up and snapped his fingers. The dogs obediently backed away, some sitting expectantly, the younger ones romping off to play.
“I suspect I will miss them far more than they will miss me.” Brandon hit the door tab. “Nemo’s managed to seduce at least one friend per level into feeding him illegal snacks, and I think most of the staff sneak him bacon.”
Still, he looked grim, closed-in as they took the VIP elevator down to the maglev transport terminal deep underground.
The door slid open as two high-ranking naval officers crossed the quad from the military side of the complex. Deralze and Brandon stilled in the dim-lit doorway until they passed. Across the low-lit quad, through a line of attractive potted flowering shrubs arranged to screen off the less elegant portions of the terminal from the eyes of the guests arriving for the ceremony, personnel oversaw the arrival of the first wave of bejeweled and beglittered civilian attendees.
Brandon paused, studying the guests gathering, then walked silently to the VIP sub-tube access. Deralze followed.
Brandon keyed it open with the Family override code, and inside the pod he stepped into the operator’s booth and activated it with a quick and experienced hand. Outside, the heavy door slid shut with a subdued clank as the vacuum lock engaged, and the pod lifted off the rail, humming faintly.
Brandon punched the drive button and sat back, staring pensively out the window at the featureless wall of the tunnel whizzing by, as the pod shot toward the 285-kilometer-distant booster field, part of an older spaceport now used only by small charter vessels carrying semi-official incognito traffic.
The ghosts fled down the dim tunnel with Deralze, forcing him to review his own actions for the past ten years. He’d moved through life as if asleep, and now, though he felt as if he moved in dream time, his mind was truly awake.
Brandon’s brooding gaze backwards was that of a man severing ties.
He remained silent when he paused at a console, and used his Royal override to erase the record of their journey—not that any record completely vanished. But in the chaos soon to be unleashed, by the time the Palace noderunners untangled the interlocking permissions needed to penetrate the Panarchic override, Brandon and Deralze would be long gone from Arthelion into untraceable safety.
An automated jitney took them from the private VIP access to the waiting ship, anonymous among many others. The field’s traffic was heavier than Deralze remembered, no doubt due to lower-priority traffic diverted away from the vast complex on the other side of the Archipelago to make room for all the VIPs arriving for the Enkainion.
“Oversaw the last modifications myself,” Deralze said, the paralyzing sense of unreality having coalesced into a new reality, one that gave meaning to their actions. Brandon never lost faith with Markham, just as Markham never lost faith with him.
He said, “One- or two-person operation, inter and intra-system ... everything. Of course, the field comps show it still needs a week’s work or so.” He glanced up at Brandon. “The booster module’s set for automatic lift, under ship control—it’ll just be an anonymous blip on the screens at the Node.” He paused. “They’re probably starting to search for you.”
Deralze looked from that steady regard to the cloud-streaked sky, and the night birds wheeling over the wide field, his heartbeat accelerating.
“Are you coming with me? I always regarded you as backup I could trust. I’d like to have you with me,” Brandon said lightly.
“I’ll stick by you, Highness,” Deralze said.
“Then call me Brandon. I’ve heard they don’t use titles where we’re headed.”
For the first time in ten years, Deralze laughed, though it came out sounding strangled. He followed Brandon up the ramp.
Inside the silent vessel, Deralze watched, pleased, as Brandon looked around slowly at the yacht’s neat proportions, then breathed in deeply, as if tasting the new-smell that lay with its own peculiar promise in the as-yet uncirculated air.
“A possible change in plan. There is one person who didn’t come today who I wanted to say good-bye to,” Brandon said. “And as it happens, he lives on Charvann. I can’t resist the symmetry. Mind if we make one stopover?”
Deralze shrugged. “I’ve got nowhere else to go.”
Brandon accessed the navcomp to load his destination. The boost light on the console came on, and a faint green light washed the field briefly before the viewscreen blanked, and the booster launched them toward radius and the untraceable freedom of the fiveskip.