by Neal Jones
Turn the page for an exclusive excerpt from Book 3:
Acts Of Peace And War
( 1 )
LADY PRINCESS VATRA INEHL ADJUSTED her veil and examined the woman staring back at her in the holoscreen's reflective surface. A pair of handmaids hovered close by, one of them staring at Vatra with an unabashed expression of pride and rapture on her face. Vatra had never been as stern with her servants as her brother or father. She permitted her handmaids to look her in the face, to offer their opinions even when not directly asked, and to sit while in her presence. Vatra adjusted the veil once more, turning its silver crown just a hair's breadth to the right, and then smoothed out the silk skirt, allowing her fingers to linger on the shimmering gray fabric for several moments. She turned to the servant girls.
"Well?"
"You are truly a sight of beauty, m'lady," the older one said, smiling.
The other girl was young, new to the palace, and she kept her face downcast while daring to glance up with her eyes at the lady princess. "Yes, m'lady," she echoed softly.
"Thank you." Vatra smiled as well, but it was a tired, worn expression. She turned back to the holoscreen. "You may leave now. Go to the kitchen and fetch yourselves some breakfast."
The girls bowed and then eagerly scurried from the bedchamber. Vatra sighed as she stared at her reflection, arranging her expression so as to hide her anxiety. She had slept little last night, tossing and turning in her large bed by herself, until she had finally summoned Druskk to her chamber. He was her favorite servant, pleasuring her in ways that no other man had ever been able to satisfy her, and when he was done she allowed him to remain in her bed until dawn. It was their last night together, after all, for R'Daak had been clear in his message to Vatra a month before. She would be allowed no servants of any kind on J'Vel Sonri, the private colony that was to be her new home.
Vatra ran her fingers along the row of tiny, silver buttons that fastened her intricately patterned bodice, watching them catch the light in her reflection, winking like distant stars. He wedding gown was made of Filarian silk, the finest – and rarest – cloth in the whole Emperium. It was so expensive that only royalty and the very wealthiest of the noble houses could afford it, and the long skirt rustled softly as Vatra moved to a nearby chair and sat. She gathered the equally long train and tucked it beneath her feet before reaching for her cup of tea.
The cup had been sitting untouched for a long while, and Vatra forced herself to swallow the lukewarm beverage. She had added to it some krelian herbs that would calm her nerves, and she sat back, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply. In less than hour she and Jharek would be transported to the Barvin district of Gtheldron, the Jha'Drok homeworld's capital city. That was where the Temple of Sh'allis was located, one of only four on the entire homeworld. Vatra had been surprised to learn that her new husband was a follower of the goddess Sh'alla, one of the more obscure and less worshiped deities from Jha'Drok history.
The Sh'allanites were a small group, numbering less than ten thousand followers in the whole empire, and Vatra had only heard it referenced once in her life. She'd once accompanied her father on one of his tours of the homeworld, and they had passed through the Barvin district. It was one of the oldest sections of the city, and Vatra – who'd only been about five or six at the time – had turned to her father and asked what the large, plain gray building directly below them was. He had cast a disparaging glance at the silver dome and said with a sneer, "The Temple of Sh'allis. A waste of perfectly good space if I ever saw one." Now, thirty-three years later, Vatra was to be married in that 'waste of space'.
She sighed once more as she tapped a command on her terminal to change the holoscreen display. A flourishing blue and green meadow beneath a purple sky replaced the reflection of her bedchamber. Vatra sipped the rest of her tea as she watched a firehawk dip and glide across the horizon, no doubt tracking a rodent in the meadow far below. She could almost feel the breeze from the bac'la trees at the far edge of the plain, and Vatra leaned back, closing her eyes. The krelian herbs were finally taking effect, and she took another deep breath as her thoughts wandered to the images of J'Vel Sonri that she had downloaded to her terminal last week.
J'Vel was a small planet in the Kelvana star system, on far edge of the Tasumlor sector, where the twenty-sixth legion was currently assigned. There was only one colony on the planet, and, according to the information R'Daak had supplied Vatra in his first official message to her four months ago, the current population was around seven thousand. Sonri's people were mostly the wives and children of the officers serving under R'Daak's command. It was against military regulations for soldiers' families to reside aboard Imperial Warships, so colonies like J'Vel Sonri were common throughout the Emperium. The images that Prokal had included with his message showed the colony itself to be a lovely city, situated at the foothills of a towering mountain range that stretched for at least a hundred miles. On the other side of the city was a wide river that tumbled out of the mountains and flowed all the way to the coast, some three hundred miles away. The climate was temperate, since the part of the continent that Sonri was located on was near the planet's equator. Prokal's message ended with a warning to Vatra to pack light, summer clothing. The humidity on the surface of J'Vel, particularly near the equator, could be quite high for those who weren't used to such climates.
A boy's eager shout interrupted Vatra's reverie, and she opened her eyes. Her twelve year old son, Jharek bounded into the outer room, nearly tripping over his new shoes.
"Mother!"
"I'm in here, Jhar, there's no need to shout."
"Sorry." He appeared at the door to her chamber, tugging at his waistcoat and adjusting the high collar of his dress shirt. "May I come in?"
"Yes." Vatra sat up. "Come over here. Let me have a look at you."
"I don't like this coat. And my shoes are too big."
"Your shoes are fine. Stand up straight, stop fidgeting." She smiled as she straightened his jacket and pulled up his pants. "Tighten your belt some more."
Jharek obeyed, scowling. "There. It's the last notch. Why couldn't we just get me some new pants?"
"You should have told me two weeks ago that these were too big. There's no time now to get a new pair." She smoothed his hair away from his forehead and adjusted the ceremonial sash. "Good. Now stand back and let me look at you. Stop fidgeting!"
Vatra swallowed the lump in her throat as she gazed upon her handsome son. He had grown another three inches in the last few weeks alone, and his face was starting to lose the soft angles of boyhood. In another couple years, he would be almost as tall as his mother, and she smiled as she gazed into eyes that were so much like her late husband's.
"Your father would be very proud to see you today, Jhar," she managed, swallowing again.
"Aawww, mother, you're not going to start crying again, are you?"
Vatra laughed and wiped her eyes. "Of course not. I wouldn't dream of embarrassing you. Now help me stand up."
Jharek stretched out both hands, and, once she was on her feet, Vatra switched the holoscreen back to its reflective display. She stood behind Jharek, her hands resting on his shoulders. "What do you think?" she asked quietly.
He scrunched his nose thoughtfully, cocked his head, and then nodded. "You look awesome, mother. You look like a lady princess."
She smiled again, patting his shoulders. "Thank you, son. You look like a prince."
"Mom," he said, turning to look up at her. "How come we're not living on the warship with...father?" He stumbled slightly over the last word, still not accustomed to using the familial term with a man he had met for the first time two months ago.
Vatra sat on the edge of her bed and took both her son's hands in hers. "I already explained that, Jharek. It's against military rules to have families on warships."
"But I heard that sometimes people like father can have families if they want. He's a second lovar now."
"Yes, that's true," Va
tra admitted. "And, honestly, Jhar, I don't know why he's chosen for us to live on J'Vel Sonri. But it's a lovely world, and you'll have lots more boys your own age to practice Skelperi with."
He smiled, but she could see it was forced. "I guess. A warship would be way more fun, though."
A chime rang softly from the com panel beside the entrance to the bedchamber. Vatra rose to answer it.
"M'lady, it's time. The car is waiting."
"Yes, I will be out in a moment." Vatra turned and held out her hand. "Come, Jharek."
( 2 )
The hovercar glided above the city, its ebony hull glistening in the morning sunlight. Vatra laid back in her seat and looked out the window at the gleaming spires and domes of Gtheldron as they sailed by. The capital city had always been her home, and until today she didn't realize how much she was going to miss it. Gtheldron was the oldest and largest metropolis on homeworld, with a population if nearly one million. The few times she had been allowed to go with her mother to the market were joyous occasions, for Vatra loved to walk among the crowds, listening to the dissonance of the shopkeepers calling out their wares and the customers haggling with them over prices. Children ran freely in and out amongst the throng, laughing and chattering to one another like swamp birds. Vatra, of course, was royalty, and lady princesses did not behave in such a manner. So she had contented herself with simply watching, soaking in the color and noise, while always surrounded with a security detail of no less than four guards of course.
When she was older, Vatra's education had included field trips to the museum, the aquarium, the arboretums, and other educational sites that were located mostly the in the northwestern districts of the city. Her favorite excursion had been the Museum of Ther'gh when she was twelve. She had gawked for several minutes at the high, vaulted ceilings of the main atrium, the tall, thick marble pillars, and the engraved stone floors. Not even the palace had the grand, ancient architecture of the museum or the Orina'tt Library. Now, passing over the eastern districts, it never ceased to amaze Vatra of the way that the old merged with the new – the thermobrick stacks of apartments in a habitat district next to the gleaming glass and steel towers of a commerce court; the stone and darawood steeples of the Cathedral of Jha'Dar facing the newly remodeled campus of L'loun Omeress University; rows upon rows of square, squat housing units that were over three hundred years old interrupted here and there by the spire of a business tower or a newly constructed shopping center. From high above, the city appeared as a giant mass of steel, wood, stone, chrome and glass – a man-made forest lit here and there by the artificial colors of the advertising screens that streamed commercials to the masses day and night. The hovercar traffic above the city only made it seem even more chaotic, but Vatra had always loved sneaking out of the palace late at night to find a balcony somewhere where she could gaze upon the city and all of its chaotic glory.
The lady princess sighed inwardly as she tried to recall the last time she'd been able to do that – at least ten years, or was it twelve? She shook her head, trying to remember back to a time when every single entrance to the palace had not been so closely guarded and sealed. Thanks to terrorist groups like the Shouk Drigald, the monarchy had become more fearful of its citizens. When she was young, Vatra had been allowed to spend as much time in the gardens of the palace grounds as she wanted, with only a pair of guards to follow at a safe distance. As long as she was inside the high walls that surrounded the palace and the Hexagon, she was safe. Now, not even that was a guarantee of security, not since a disgruntled soldier had found a weakness in the energy grid surrounding the wall and attempted to assassinate Erengaar as he practiced Skelperi one summer afternoon. Lord Emperor Emkai Valayne, Vatra's and Erengaar's late father, had decreed that his children were not allowed outside the palace itself, and that had been the end of Vatra's field trips to the city with her tutors.
Now, being chauffeured to her wedding on the day before she was to leave homeworld indefinitely, Vatra suppressed a surge of anxiety at the thought of leaving her comfort zone, even though her position in the palace had grown more and more precarious in the last year since her father's death. While a part of her was relieved to be leaving the hornet's nest that had become the royal court since Erengaar had ascended the throne, another part of her was going to missed the tumultuous harmony of Gtheldron. There truly was no other city like it in all of the Emperium, and Vatra vowed silently that she would return to the city of her birth someday, even if it took her the rest of her life to make her way back.
Vatra blinked as a soft chime on the wall screen in front of her seat indicated that the hovercar was about to land. She glanced over at Jharek, his face pressed against his window, eagerly looking for the landing port where they would disembark. He'd been that way the entire trip, and it was a testament to his upbringing that he restrained himself from chattering about the grand view of the city as they passed over it. He looked back at his mother and grinned.
"The temple looks really neat from up here, mother!" he exclaimed, his green eyes flashing with boyish delight.
Vatra nodded, smiling. "We should have taken more tours like this, huh?"
"Yeah! That would have been awesome."
The car settled onto the landing pad with a brief jolt, and beyond the landing port Vatra could see a large crowd that had gathered to watch the ceremony on the portable screens set up on the grounds outside the temple. The shuttlepad, as well as the walkway leading to the temple a short distance away, was cordoned off and a line of soldiers of the Emperor's Guard stood between her and the disgruntled throng. Vatra was grateful that the mob was relatively small compared to the size of crowd that had appeared for her father's weddings. She wondered if this was another sign of the distaste for the monarchy that had grown steadily in the last three decades, or if it was because of the location. As far as she knew, she was the first royal bride to be married in this temple, and she wasn't sure whom to curse for this decision – Erengaar or R'Daak. Her brother should have been doing everything in his power at this time to curry favor with his people, but instead he was alienating them even further by having his sister's wedding held in the temple of an obscure religion whose followers shunned excess wealth and gaudy displays of power or prosperity.
The hatch opened, and Vatra reached for Jharek's hand as they disembarked. The spectators sent up a cheer as mother and son stepped onto the tarmac, but it was obvious that the sound was forced and artificial. No one dared to openly mock or deride members of the royal court, for one never knew where the eyes and ears of the Talik'Jhor were hidden, but neither would they go beyond the bare minimum required for the occasion. After all, even the Talik'Jhor would not be so ridiculous as to arrest a citizen for not cheering loud enough.
So it was with an awkward grace and poise that Vatra and Jharek proceeded past the crowd and into the plain, gray foyer of the Temple of Sh'allis. Beyond the arched doorway that opened into the wide auditorium she could see that all the seats were filled. At least Erengaar had made sure of that much. The audience was made up entirely of lords and ladies of the royal court, and probably a few of their extended relatives as well. Many of the faces, however, were unfamiliar to Vatra, and she had no doubt that, in order to fill all the seats, her brother had allowed his nobles to invite their extended relatives who had otherwise not been permitted a place in the court.
"Hello, sister," Erengaar said sweetly from behind her. He emerged from a side room, resplendent in his ceremonial suit and baldric. The tiny emeralds in his gilded crown caught the light of the ornamental candles in sconces on either side of the doorway, flashing like miniature suns. Beside him, Larewyn, six months pregnant, beamed at Vatra with smile that anyone else would have thought of as genuine but didn't fool the lady princess.
"Hello, brother," Vatra replied, bowing. She turned to Larewyn. "Lady empress, you look lovely today."
"As do you," she said with false warmth. "That's a beautiful gown."
"Thank you."
"Filarian silk is so nice, isn't it? Although, in a temple such as this, I feel so silly wearing all this refinement." She fingered the large, gleaming necklace that surrounded her neck.
"Yes, I do feel a little out of place myself," Vatra agreed, glancing pointedly at her brother.
Erengaar laughed, tossing his hand in a dismissive gesture. "My apologies, Vatra. Had I known that Prokal was one of these followers, I might have thought twice about joining you to him."
A movement beyond the doorway caught Vatra's eye, and she turned to see a line of men in gray cloaks with hoods file across the stage at the front of the auditorium. They were wearing masks that appeared to have been carved by hand and were painted dark shades of brown, gray and blue. Each of them wore a medallion of wood with a strange symbol on it around their neck on a leather strap. As soon as the last of them stepped onto the stage, the group began to chant softly in a foreign tongue.
"Well..." Larewyn remarked. "How quaint. Some of kind of chorus?"
"Yes," Vatra replied. "I forget their traditional name, but the masks represent the faces of their souls, of all men's souls. That's why these people don't believe in decorating themselves with jewelry or displays of wealth. It hides the true face of their souls." She glanced again at Erengaar. "A very strange religion, if you ask me."
He merely smiled. "Come, Larewyn. We should be getting to our seats. Jharek, you're going with us as well."
Larewyn took her husband's hand and nodded to Vatra. "Much joy and many blessings to you on this glorious day, lady princess." It was a traditional phrase spoken at union ceremonies, but of course Larewyn's tone made the blessing sound trivial and condescending.
Vatra leaned down to kiss her son's forehead. He was scratching at his collar again. "It's all right, son. I don't think this ceremony will be too long, and then you may change before the feast."
He grinned. "Thanks, mother." He left quickly to catch up to his uncle.
The outer door opened and Second Lovar R'Daak stepped into the foyer. He was a tall, authoritative figure, with a distinctly aristocratic profile that reminded Vatra too much of her late father. Fortunately, the military officer bore no physical resemblance to Emkai Valayne. He had a rather narrow face with eyes that seemed a little too close together, a high forehead, and a wide mouth that always seemed drawn into some form of a disapproving frown. His dress uniform made his stern appearance even more striking, and Vatra reminded herself to keep her shoulders squared back and her gaze even with his as he examined her appearance.