The Empress

by S. J. Kincaid

  And with that, she left us. Anguish and I exchanged a last heated glare, then I stalked out of his sight.

  • • •

  The docking bay was gone, so I struggled to orient myself as I entered the segment of the Sacred City nearest us. It took me some time to seal the doors, to switch back on the artificial atmosphere, but soon I could pull off my helmet and breathe in the chill air. In the days that followed, I went back and forth. I retrieved any freeze-dried rations I could find, any bots I could recover—functional or no—while Neveni worked on repairing a single bot to enable her to repair others.

  Four days. That was what it took. Four days of Neveni trying to figure out what did what, flitting through the Arbiter’s database when she came across something perplexing to her. Yet once she repaired a single bot, it repaired the others, and then they were all working on the hyperspace drive. I repressed the horrified, frantic thoughts that licked at my mind, telling me the time that was truly passing was so much longer than I knew.

  Then Neveni called us into the command nexus. “I think we can get out of here. Or we’ll explode. Either way, let’s find out.” Silence settled about us, thick, tense. She looked to Anguish. Nodded. They both turned to me, and I knew they were about to let me know how we would proceed from here. “Nemesis, we’re not going to the Chrysanthemum.”

  “Fine.”

  My agreement surprised Neveni. Anguish narrowed his eyes, not trusting me.

  “Fine,” I repeated, looking at him now. “I’ve given it thought, and we can fly from here to the colony of Caladrail. It won’t cost us too much time. I will drop you off, and then proceed without you.”

  “That won’t work for us,” Neveni said. “I’m a fugitive, remember? I can’t just go on with my life.”

  “Oh, yes. Your wrongful label as a terrorist,” I said dryly.

  Her lips curled at one corner. “I know I sort of fulfilled that prophecy, but the fact is, my reputation’s going to limit my options. I’d be caught in two seconds if we landed on Caladrale or any significant colonies, and we’d stick out too much somewhere smaller. We have to find a transient population . . . a frontier, maybe. And what about Anguish here? Can you imagine any reality where this guy would blend in with a crowd?”

  “Yes,” said Anguish. “I can.”

  “I was asking her, and I meant that to be rhetorical,” Neveni told him. “I was making a point that you’re enormous and terrifying.”

  I’d swear he looked flattered.

  “Where do you suggest, then?” I asked her.

  “I suggest we part ways,” Neveni said. “You can get to the Chrysanthemum without the Arbiter.”

  “How?” I snarled. “By floating?”

  “Turn yourself in. You’ll get brought to the Chrysanthemum for your quiet execution. I’m sure of it. Face it: you’re as good as dead if you return. So you might as well not drag the rest of us down with you. How does your corpse help out Tyrus, hmm?”

  “What is my alternative?” I raged. “Just leave him?”

  “Yes!” Neveni cried. “Leave him. You’ve already done it. You had to, and he wanted you to do it. You can’t save him.”

  “Yes, and I have you to thank for that,” I shot back.

  “Fine, go die for him. Great. What good does that do either of you?” She threw up her hands. “People love. People die. People lose those they love with all their hearts, and it happens all the time, Nemesis, and people move on. Look at me. My planet is dead. I have no one. My one friend now plans to go to certain death for the stupidest possible reason. You told us what you learned about the Venalox. If that’s true, he is not even going to care about you anymore.”

  “There is a chance if we stop wasting time and go right now,” I retorted. “Can’t we argue in hyperspace?”

  “That’s the real cruelty of making a Diabolic,” Neveni said. “We exist in this enormous universe with endless frontiers and infinite possibilities, and you only see as far as the bounds of a single person. If you want to throw your life away, I can’t stop you.”

  No. She could not.

  She turned to Anguish. “You stop her.”

  “Wait. What?” I said. I snapped into a defensive position—just as his fist impacted my face.

  • • •

  Someone was drilling into my head. My eyes opened and I moaned as light pierced my eyes. . . . My voice was strange. It sounded wrong.

  My gaze shot wide open, and I saw my space-sheath clad legs floating above me. With a jolt, I realized I was wearing the suit, and I had no idea where I was. My hand lashed out, connected with . . . stone. With stone.

  I dragged myself closer to the structure. An airlock door blurred in and out of my vision, and I shoved myself toward it, then forced my way inside. Long after the atmosphere repressurized, my brain seemed to jostle in my skull, and I groped for understanding.

  Then I saw the Interdict’s body on the floor where I’d placed him. Understanding came to me in a terrible jolt.

  “No. NO!” I shouted, my voice ringing out, and I rushed toward the window—but the Arbiter was not there anymore.

  Bright, surging ripples of hydrogen swam through the darkness of space, as far as I could see, and then the world dimmed about me and I felt like the air left my lungs. I knew what I was seeing. Gravity. Powerful gravity tearing at the Transaturnine System now that the gravital window had closed.

  “Neveni, I will kill you. I will kill you for this.” My words were flat, heard only by me.

  They stranded me and took the ship.

  They left me alone in the ruins of the Sacred City.

  I sank down to the floor, my head pulsing with pain, and the hideous reality of what had just happened sank into me. The schedule I’d examined, again and again, to determine the timing of our return to the Sacred City . . .

  I knew it by heart. I knew just what gravital window had closed, and when the next one would open. A scream seemed to build within me, but I choked on it.

  They’d stranded me here for twelve days.

  And on Tyrus’s end, when I emerged . . .

  Three years.

  38

  THREE YEARS.

  Three. Years.

  On top of the full year I’d lost, that meant four years of Venalox. The realization beat through my brain long after I’d screamed my voice out, long after the wild fantasies of strangling Neveni to death had receded.

  Four years of Venalox. I’d hoped to salvage something. I’d hoped to come back to whatever I could save after nearly a year away. . . .

  Not this long.

  It was too late.

  She’d left me rations. She’d scratched arrows into the floor, and when I followed them, I found myself gazing at one of the vicars’ travel pods. I might as well get into it now and let the gravity obliterate me. There was nothing I could do but wait here as time charged forward for everyone else. Yet I walked onward.

  I looked out into the wavering tendrils of starlight, twisting and spasming with the gravital forces of the black hole. A chunk of debris spun past the window in lazy circles. I pursued it from one window to the next. And then the next. Light glinted off its contours, and then I knew I was seeing the bronzed trees from Cygna’s metallic garden in the Hera.

  She’d contrived, manipulated, and maneuvered so many of her children into their destruction. Somewhere in between, she’d also looked upon an asteroid and envisioned just how to reshape it about a ship, and then carve it without and within. She’d schemed and wrestled for control over the Empire and yet must have paused now and then to touch this beautiful work she’d made and feel the quiet satisfaction of having done it.

  Half a lifetime of dedication, love, and effort, and it was demolished in a second.

  The universe was so cruel.

  What a fool I’d been to forget it.

  • • •

  Very little survived of the Sacred City. It was deathly cold with the environmental controls down, and some doors would not
open, alarms flashing to indicate that bare space lay beyond them.

  I sliced open the Interdict’s forearm and extracted the sliver of metal . . . that supercomputer.

  Neveni had taken the casing. If she still had it when I caught up to her, I would have to break her skull open with it.

  “At least she grabbed the wrong thing. We beat her,” I muttered to the dead Interdict. “Though I understand if you don’t particularly appreciate that. By the way, it’s cold enough here that I think I can answer your question. No, I do not hibernate.”

  And that began a very unhealthy habit. As I paced the confines of the Sacred City, exploring where I could, forcing open doors whenever there was air on the other side, I brought his stiff, dead body with me. There were no microorganisms to cause decay here, so it was like keeping the company of a very silent, asleep Orthanion.

  “I know the Arbiter’s transponder frequency,” I told him with dark satisfaction. “I know exactly how to track down the ship. I’ll get out of here, and . . . and she’ll pay for this.” Oh, so many torments I could envision for Neveni. And Anguish, he just had to die, and . . .

  It was easier to dwell on searing hatred for Neveni rather than my unfathomable horror at what had happened.

  I found some waste reclaimers, and began kicking them open, one by one. I only cast a cursory glance inside at their contents. I didn’t need anything. It simply passed the time.

  My thoughts couldn’t help returning to Tyrus. Four years for Tyrus meant he might already be married to another. He’d have an Empress. Some proper Grandeé. Pasus would select her. He probably would profit from the bribes of those seeking his support in such a union.

  They’d have little Domitrians. The line could not die.

  Would Tyrus be killed once he had a child? The thought paralyzed me for several heartbeats.

  “No,” I told the Interdict’s corpse, lying nearby. “He wouldn’t need a baby to hold more control over the Emperor. He has the Emperor. He can literally force him to do anything. A baby can’t even talk, much less play puppet. Not for a few years, at least.”

  No reply from the Interdict, of course.

  But I began to ponder what I’d said, and told Orthanion. “Or maybe . . . maybe he wouldn’t want a child born simply because that entails a parent. Someone would need to be the other half of the DNA, and if that happens, Pasus has to allow that much of an inroad to someone else. He won’t want that.”

  Then I laughed bitterly, because the realization came to me only now, too late to matter.

  Pasus would have chosen me as Tyrus’s consort in a heartbeat.

  He would not share influence. The Grandiloquy tolerated one of their number having such undue power because he’d ensured that they all incriminated themselves alongside him. They put up with his virtual ownership of the Emperor—and, coupled with his control of the Senate, of the Empire as well—because he doled out favors here and there.

  But there was one thing they would never tolerate from Pasus, and that’s if he sought to partner the Emperor himself. The ultimate power grab. I had no doubt whatsoever he’d considered it, but the Grandiloquy wouldn’t accept him as the Emperor consort. That was official power, naked and unmasked. Tyrus’s personal preferences were too well known for the Excess to believe it was a true union, and the Grandiloquy would take advantage of the chance to angle for a deal. They’d seek a pardon from Tyrus, even for genocide, and hope for gratitude—in exchange for liberating him.

  No. That would not happen. So truly, for Pasus, the ideal consort was me.

  No friends, no wealth, no allies, no charm, and by my very nature, I repulsed the other Grandiloquy. . . . I’d filled that slot of Empress perfectly and blocked anyone else from taking it. After learning of the Venalox, I believed Pasus wanted to remove Tyrus’s love of me so he could then kill me, or even convince Tyrus to do so.

  But that wasn’t the case.

  He’d meant all along to keep me around, even after Tyrus lost any semblance of love for me, so I could pass decades of misery and unhappiness . . . And Pasus would enjoy knowing he’d caused that pain. That was his revenge. I was too convenient for him. He needed me alive.

  If I’d simply known this sooner . . .

  There was no use thinking on it. No one could reverse time, but oh, if I’d realized what was to come, I would have learned to be charming! I would have learned to forge friendships, win allies, even . . . even flirt with the lecherous ones like Aton. That’s how influence was won, and that’s how I could have been useful to Tyrus as an asset—not useful to Pasus as Tyrus’s millstone.

  The thought tormented me as I kicked open the last of the reclaimers, already sorry I had no excuse to open them all for the first time again. . . . Which likely was a testament to how bored I was.

  Yet in this one, I picked out a distinct, rectangular form.

  I reached inside and pulled out the book. There was a skittering down my spine as I looked at its cover, in a language with only some hints of familiarity.

  My fingers traced the shapes of the letters. H-A-M-L-E-T

  I’d brought this here, hadn’t I? Tyrus and I had to scrape together tribute for the Interdict, just in case we encountered him. Tyrus had one thing on the Alexandria that couldn’t be found many other places: his books. He hadn’t believed there would be an Interdict, so he let me take a good number of them. He would have taken more care with it if he’d realized there truly was an Interdict and a Sacred City to receive his tribute. He’d loved those books.

  Locklaite had the Alexandria and its bookshelf.

  This might be the only one Tyrus had left.

  Fury boiled up in me. “How could you?” I said to Orthanion. “We gave it to you and you just threw it away. Do you know what this means to him?” I struggled for the best words to capture how profane this act was—throwing this book away! “You have . . . you have no concept of value. None at all.”

  And that felt right, and then I realized I was talking to a corpse and this was ridiculous. This was something a crazy person would do. I turned and walked away from the corpse. I had a book now.

  I couldn’t read the old language, but I could see the wear of Tyrus’s fingers upon the fragile paper. There were dimpled pages every so often, and Tyrus was not one who would drop it, or bend it to mark it. . . . I imagined him falling asleep while reading this, and then I grew so certain that had taken place, that I felt as though I’d been there and seen it happen.

  It didn’t matter that I couldn’t understand this ancient language, but for a few small words here and there. A hollow place within me filled, and peace settled over me.

  I would return this to him.

  I’d failed utterly, but this much I could do.

  • • •

  On day twelve, I gazed out the windows until the turbulence began to wane, and then I boarded the vicar’s pods. They had no propulsion of their own. They weren’t meant for long-distance travel, but simply for sailing the gravital currents of the Transaturnine system to standard space, where they would be received by Helionics waiting.

  I tucked the sliver of metal deep within the pages of the book, hugged it to my chest, and then launched myself into the grasp of those great, moving bodies bending space. Their gravity directed my momentum as a leaf might float in a river.

  It took a full day to reach the edge of the system, where the pod jostled and startled me awake, and I looked up to see a small vessel drawing me up into its bay.

  The chamber repressurized, and I glimpsed the eager faces of Excess waiting. They were Helionic converts and aspiring vicars, eager to show their zeal for the Living Cosmos by passing their lives among the stars, waiting for the rare decree from the Interdict.

  So when I opened the door and they saw I was no vicar, their mouths dropped open.

  “I can explain,” I said.

  “It’s you!” gasped one of them.

  “Nemesis Impyrean,” said another voice.

  “Nemisis is .
. .”

  “It’s her! She’s here!”

  I looked from face to face. They all knew me on sight. They all began to lower themselves down, to kneel, and my first impulse was to wave them up.

  No. Not yet. Use this, I thought.

  “I thank you,” I said, allowing them to kneel a moment longer.

  “You’re truly alive,” said the girl, closest to me.

  “I am. And . . . and I cannot explain why just yet. Do rise. I would like to hear from all of you—what has transpired since my . . . death?”

  • • •

  Tyrus was not married.

  There was no royal heir.

  There were painful taxes, rumors of mounting debt. Pasus was widely known to be the Emperor’s favorite, and the Emperor as a young man devastated by the violent death of his true love.

  To my surprise and slight amusement, the official narrative about Luminars destroying the Tigris was in doubt.

  Most believed it was an inside job. With a specific aim, by a specific person.

  “Everyone knows . . . ,” said one of the Excess, a young girl who couldn’t hold the alcohol she’d been drinking off duty. Then she realized herself, and bit her lip.

  “Go on. You have such insightful words. Speak.” I smiled at her, hoping I could entreat her into blurting it all out. If she did not, I would resort to threats.

  Her cheeks grew pink. “The Emperor loved you so. Oh, everyone knows how romantic it was! He defied everyone just because you meant so much to him, and then Pasus wouldn’t have it. He tried to kill you, didn’t he? He struck at you so he could remove your influence.”

  I quite liked this conspiracy theory. “I can say very little. The Senator was most desirous of my absence. He will not be pleased to see me return from death. Now, no more.” I pressed an enigmatic finger to my lips, and she mimed zipping her mouth closed, her eyes shining with adoration.

  They all looked at me this way. My every mundane quality had magnified into greatness after death. I could use this.