“Oh for flaming sakes,” Soz said. “He’s just my brother Althor. Sit down, Grell.” DMA regulations required novices to Salute upperclass cadets, but the instructors had ruled libraries exempt after juniors and seniors began using the rules to bedevil novices, making it impossible for the younger students to study.
Grell sat down. “My apologies, sir.”
Althor smiled at her. “It’s no problem.”
Grell blushed and averted her gaze. Soz wasn’t sure what flustered her roommate—Althor’s upperclass status, his sinfully good looks, or his resemblance to Kurj. She scowled at him just for good measure, but he only grinned.
“How do you like DMA?” he asked Grell.
She looked up. “It is an honor to be here, Your Highness.”
Soz inwardly groaned. It had taken days to convince her roommates to treat her like a normal human. Living together helped; the glamour fast disappeared when you woke up every morning with bleary eyes just like everyone else or stumbled in covered with sweat after a workout. But here was Grell treating Althor like some glorious prince of the empire. He was, actually, but that made it no less irksome.
Althor smirked at Soz. “You know, contrary to your opinion of brothers as a lesser life-form, we’re actually human.”
Soz reddened. “I never said lesser.”
Grell was watching them, intrigued now. She motioned at the four gold bars on Althor’s shoulders. “So you’re a senior?”
He turned the full force of his dazzling grin on her. “For you, I’ll be anything.”
Grell blushed, and this time Soz did groan. Mercifully, Althor just grinned. As the three of them talked, Grell relaxed, and Althor soon had her laughing. Soz said very little. She was growing angry, but she didn’t want to ruin their good time.
Finally she stood up. “I better go. I’ll see you around.”
“It’s still early.” Grell sounded disappointed.
“I have droid duty.” Soz winced. A pox on whoever dreamed up the concept. They weren’t even real droids. She had to clean the mechbots that tended the academy grounds. By the time she finished her shift tonight, she would be covered in oil and dirt, and exhausted, but she would still have to finish her chemistry, since she had spent her free time daydreaming.
Althor looked amused. “Lovely job.”
Soz gave him a quelling look. “It isn’t funny.”
He didn’t look the least quelled. “Just how many demerits do you have?”
Soz picked up her flat-pack, stuffed in her holobook, sealed up the pack with far more force than she needed, and slung it over her shoulder. To Grell, she said, “See you tonight.” Then she stalked off. She knew she shouldn’t treat them this way, but anger drove her away.
She had almost reached the library entrance when Althor caught up with her. “Soz, wait.” He put his hand on her arm and pulled her to a stop. “What’s wrong?”
Too furious to answer, she just shook her head.
He drew her into a secluded alcove behind several shelves of books. “Why are you angry at me?”
“You were flirting with my roommate.”
“So?”
“It’s fraternization.”
“What fraternization?”
Her anger surged. “You can’t date her, Althor.”
“For flaming sakes, we were just talking.”
“You’re both cadets.”
“I won’t be for much longer.”
Soz clenched her fists. “Grell is my friend. She doesn’t deserve for you to lead her on.”
“What makes you think I was leading her on?”
“Oh, come on, Althor. You aren’t interested in her. Not the way she thinks.”
His expression tightened. “How the blazes would you know what interests me?”
“You going to ruin some woman’s life by marrying her, is that it?” Her voice grated. “Condemn her to a life of disappointment just so our father will let you come home?”
His posture went rigid. “It’s none of your business.”
“No, none of my business.” She lowered her voice. “It’s none of my business that Kurj treats me like a smart-mouthed, cocky cadet he has to cut down to size when I’m the best damn novice here. It’s none of my business that I can’t seem to prove him wrong, because maybe I am a damn smart-mouthed, cocky cadet. It’s none of my business that we talk for hours in that think tank about invasion, and that under their veneer, our instructors are scared to death those scenarios will come true.” Her voice cracked. “One of these days I’ll go out and fight Aristos, defend my people, my family, maybe even lose my life, and goddamnit, my own father won’t even answer my letters.”
Althor exhaled. He said, simply, “Yes.”
Her anger fizzled. “Why am I mad at you? You did nothing wrong. You never do. You’re perfect. The golden boy, literally. Except you gave Father a little shock.” She spoke tiredly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should try to be what he wants. I hurt him so much. I hate knowing that. What does it mean to defend those we love if we lose their love in the process?”
Althor laid his hand on her shoulder. “He never stopped loving us. That’s why he’s so upset. He doesn’t want us to give our lives in combat, especially in a war he can’t understand.”
She rubbed the tears gathering in her eyes. Had it been anyone except Althor, she would have left then, unable to let her vulnerability show. He more than anyone understood the pressure of being Kurj’s heir. But how could they talk when that pressure created a barrier between them, the knowledge that Kurj would choose only one as his successor? He set brother against sister, and it created a rift she didn’t know how to bridge. They could no longer trust each other with their concerns, lest it tempt one to use that knowledge against the other in this forced rivalry.
A thought came to Soz, one she hated but couldn’t deny. Kurj had assumed the title of Imperator through the death of their grandfather, Jarac, the previous Imperator. Had Kurj set her and Althor against each other because he feared they would otherwise turn against him, coveting his power? Jarac had died when Kurj joined him and the Ruby Pharaoh in the Dyad that powered the Kyle web. Kurj had made the Dyad a Triad.
The Kyle web existed in Kyle space, a universe outside of spacetime. Any strong psion could access the web, but only the Rhon could power it. Without the web, ISC would lose the communications that tied the military together as an interstellar force and Skolia as a civilization. Without the Dyad, there was no web, and without the Ruby Dynasty there was no Dyad.
The Dyad consisted of two Keys—two Rhon psions: Kurj, the Imperator, and Dyhianna, the Ruby Pharaoh. The Dyad before them had been Soz’s grandparents, the previous Ruby Pharaoh and Imperator. When Kurj joined them, the power had surged catastrophically. Unable to support three such incredible minds, the link had overloaded and destroyed Jarac. In trying to create a Triad, Kurj had instead killed his predecessor and taken his title.
Lahaylia had died several years later of old age, after a life of several centuries. That left Kurj as one of the most powerful human beings alive, perhaps even more so than the elected leader of Skolia, Lyra Meson, the First Councilor of the Assembly. He commanded the Imperialate military, a war machine with no match except ESComm, the Trader military.
Someday that would all go to either Althor or Soz.
Now Soz found herself staring at Althor, the brother she loved as much today as in their childhood. A wall had come between them. By making them vie for the title of Imperial Heir, Kurj made them into rivals. He had to know they would become warier of each other as the years passed and the stakes rose for the power they had to gain, until someday they might have nothing left but distrust for each other.
Tonight, she and Althor each went their way for the evening, the raveling bond of their kinship repaired for now. But Soz feared Kurj would never choose an Imperial heir, that he would wait for them to make the choice for him. He was wrong if he expected one of them to assassinate the other; she could
never harm her own kin. But the war might do it for them. Nothing would remove this wall between them except death itself.
Roca sat at the long table in the breakfast room, her arms crossed on the table, her body slumped, her head hanging down. Footsteps crossed the room, but she was too exhausted to move.
“Councilor?” The voice came at her side.
Roca lifted her head. Brad was standing next to her, dressed in dark trousers and an old sweater, his salt-and-pepper hair curled tightly against his scalp, his dark skin wan with fatigue.
“Is it dawn yet?” she asked. Her words sounded as heavy as she felt. So tired. So very tired.
He nodded, sitting next to her. “Del and Chaniece are loading the flyer with supplies for our search today. The shuttles have already left.”
“They have to be out there,” she whispered. She fumbled for a blueglass tumbler on the table.
Brad poured her a glass of water. “We’ll find them. I swear it.” His voice rasped, though with fatigue or apprehension, she couldn’t tell. Both, she thought. Brad and Eldrinson had been friends for over thirty years.
Roca drank deeply, her arms shaking. She held the glass with both hands to keep from splashing out water. In the past fifteen days, since Eldri’s disappearance, she hadn’t slept a single night all the way through. She paced the castle wall outside for hours, trying to reach her husband with her thoughts, unable to penetrate the static in his mind. He was in pain, terrible pain, but they couldn’t find him, neither she nor Brad nor the children nor the entire goddamned orbital system. How could ISC have such formidable defenses around this planet and be unable to locate one man and one boy?
“It can’t just be Shannon’s jammer.” She set down her water and sat up straighter, rubbing the small of her back. “ISC should have broken through its interference days ago.”
Brad leaned his head against the high back of his chair. “Colonel Majda is coming down again today to talk with us.”
“I’d like to do a stint in the flyer first, if we have time.”
“We should.” Brad stood up, then paused as Roca rose to her feet. “Denric said he would come with us. Del and Chaniece are riding with the army personnel who came down yesterday.”
They left the breakfast room and headed out. Neither of them spoke. Roca couldn’t voice the dread that grew larger within her each day. Shannon’s jammer might have malfunctioned in some incredible manner to cause this disappearance, or some other extenuating circumstances might exist that they hadn’t accounted for, but the more time that passed, the harder that became to believe. Only ESComm technology could hide someone this well, even from ISC. But surely the Traders couldn’t have taken Eldri or Shannon. It couldn’t have happened.
If even Lyshriol wasn’t safe, where would she protect her family?
The Blue Dale caravan wound through the trees and stirred up the glitter that piled so deeply here, where humans rarely wandered. They had traveled for days, venturing lower in the mountains, until finally they left the Blue Dales. The closer they approached the Rillian Vales, the more uneasy the Archers became. Even the brighter colors of the trees seemed to unsettle them.
All of the Archers rode, the men, women, and children. They passed through the mist as if they weren’t solid themselves. Here in the lower mountains, the fog burned off in the late morning, leaving them unveiled from the sky. It made them uneasy, restless. Vulnerable. Shannon knew that soon they would go their own way, back up into the mountains, and he would follow his insubstantial nightmare alone.
His legs ached constantly now, and though he blamed it on riding for many hours each day, he knew the truth. It came from the dreams that drove him onward, down and down, toward the western fringes of Rillia, those isolated wilds beyond the thriving towns or even the outlying farms.
Elarion rode up alongside him, his silver lyrine large for the Archers but only medium compared to Moonglaze.
“My greetings,” Shannon said. He enjoyed Elarion’s company. “How are you this morn?”
“Hot.” Elarion’s long hair swirled around his body and glistened in the sunlight. Tufted ends of his arrows stuck up out of his quiver behind his back. Shannon had previously used bits of glasswood twigs on the ends of his arrows, but the Archers preferred twists of cloth they wove from flexible hemp-reeds that grew in the upper ranges. He had discovered that such twists gave his arrows better balance. He knew from school that on Earth they used “feathers” from birds. Lyshriol had no birds, besides which, he found it hard to believe such filmy material could be useful for an arrow.
Elarion noticed him staring at the arrows. He reached over his shoulder and pulled one out, a long tube of purple glasswood with a razor-sharp point. He offered it to Shannon. “For you.”
Shannon blinked, confused. “Thank you.”
Elarion smiled. “It is a token. For yesterday, during the archery practice. You shot well.”
“You honor me.”
“Aiya, Shannon,” two musical voices crooned. The trill of sweet laughter followed the lovely sound.
Startled, blushing, Shannon turned around. Two girls were riding by on silvery-blue lyrine, their silver eyes teasing him. They giggled at him and rode on.
“For flaming sake,” Shannon muttered. Why did girls always giggle at him? It was as bad here as at home.
Elarion chuckled at his side. “They like you.”
He slanted Elarion a wary look. “They bedevil me.”
“It is the way always with women,” the Archer said good-naturedly. “The tall, handsome stranger comes into their midst and they vie for his attention.”
Shannon’s face was burning. Elarion couldn’t be serious. He twirled the purple-glass arrow Elarion had given him, turning it around and around in his hand as he looked up the line of Archers. Varielle was about seven riders ahead of him, riding alongside one of her friends.
“They confuse me,” Shannon admitted.
“Who?” Elarion closed his eyes and tilted his face to the sun, letting his lyrine pick the way.
“Women.”
“Ah.” Elarion looked at him. “So it has always been.”
It wasn’t the world’s most useful advice, but he suspected it was all he would get from the taciturn Elarion. Varielle remained a mystery. He had thought she liked him, but now that they no longer needed to ride the same lyrine, she often went with her friends, leaving him alone. Just when he thought she had forgotten him, she would seek out his company. But before he could find the courage to take matters further, she would go off again with her friends. She kept him off balance, off kilter. Maybe his initial impression of her interest had been wishful thinking. Why would a woman such as Varielle spend time with a boy? Although he hadn’t told her his age, he probably came across as young. His height couldn’t hide the truth for long.
“Shannon, bannon,” voices chimed at his side. “Sing a song.”
He smiled as two small boys rode next to him, both on one lyrine, their small faces beaming, their wild gold hair tousled down their necks and around their ears, their upward-tilted eyes full of silver mischief.
“My greetings,” Shannon said.
“Sing the story about the night and dawn,” they chimed.
“It would be my pleasure.” Shannon had sung earlier for the adults as they rode, so his voice was warm and relaxed. He hummed a few notes, then let a ballad flow out of him, using his tenor range:
Ralcon, god of night,
Spreading stars wide,
Spreading stars through the sky,
The dark sky,
Dark as his eyes,
Dark as his hair,
Dark as the night.
The charmed goddess rose,
The goddess of light,
The goddess of Dawn,
Of luminous new Dawn.
Ralcon, god of the dark,
Of fertile, sensual dark,
He brings the Dawn,
The pearly Dawn,
But lives beyond her
light.
While he sang, the boys made appreciative chimes with their voices, like music to accompany him. The melody sparkled among the trees. Other riders had pulled closer as Shannon sang, and now they added rills of approval. It made Shannon smile. He had spent many an hour with his father during his childhood learning to sing. He had so loved those days.
His good mood faded. Never again would his father sing with him.
He talked with the boys for a while, but eventually they rode off to explore the woods, away from adults, which apparently included him. Shannon wished he could go with them. He missed running through the Dalvador Plains.
“You are good with them,” Elarion said.
“They remind me of myself.” Shannon’s mood had turned pensive as he thought of his childhood.
“It is good, the things you tell them.”
That surprised Shannon. “What do you mean?”
“It is hard to say exactly.” Elarion paused. “Your words have honor. Your ken has music.”
Shannon rolled the arrow Elarion had given him between his fingers. Then he reached back and pulled an arrow out of his own quiver, a green glasswood beauty he had carved last night. He offered it to Elarion. “For friendship.”
The Archer inclined his head as he accepted the arrow. “May we share it always.” He put the green arrow in his quiver and Shannon slid the purple one into his. In Dalvador, it would never have occurred to him to offer an arrow to express friendship, but here it felt right.
A commotion came from farther up the caravan. Shannon leaned over Moonglaze’s neck, trying to see through the stained-glass trees. The tip of someone’s bow hit a tree-bubble and popped the large sphere, filling the air with glitter that obscured his view. Voices floated back to him, chiming with excitement.
Curious, Shannon urged Moonglaze forward and rode through the veils of glitter dust, brushing it out of his face as it settled over his body. Up ahead, the Elder, Tharon, and several other Archers had gathered around a man on a silver-white lyrine, one of the scouts who had been ranging ahead of the caravan. The trees were too thick here for the caravan to go at any signif icant speed and still remain well hidden, so they traveled more slowly while their scouts ranged out and kept watch for anyone who might see them.
Schism: Part One of Triad (Saga of the Skolian Empire) Page 21