“I assure you, Empress, you have no reason to be afraid,” Vy said, sounding uncommonly nervous.
“Good,” Mi Hiep said. “We are not, as you know, without resources. Or without weapons. We have, indeed, made much progress on that front, recently.”
“I see,” the hermit delegate Thich An Son said, his serene face almost—but not quite—undisturbed. The interview had not gone quite as planned. Good. “If I may be so bold, Empress?”
“Go ahead,” Mi Hiep said.
“On an unrelated matter … there are rumours that you might be…” He paused, seemingly to pick his words with care—but really more for show than for anything else. “… considering changes at court?”
Reconsidering your choice of heir. Locating Bright Princess Ngoc Minh and her errant weapons. Mi Hiep glanced at Huu Tam, knowing everyone would do the same. Her son still stood by her side; with no change in his expression. He believed his sister dead for many years, and the lack of a body, or the recent search, had not changed his mind. At least, Mi Hiep hoped it hadn’t; hoped he wasn’t the one responsible for Grand Master Bach Cuc’s disappearance. Whatever happened, his position at court was secure; and he knew it.
But, nevertheless, she had to make her point. She’d known she might have to do this beforehand; and had prepared both herself and Huu Tam for this moment.
“I believe there will be changes at court,” Mi Hiep said, coldly. “Though if you’re referring to my choice of heir, I see no reason to alter it.”
The envoys looked at each other. “I see,” Thich An Son said. “Thank you for the audience, Empress. We will not trouble you any further.”
After they had left, Lady Linh approached the throne, and bowed. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she said, without preamble.
Mi Hiep did not have the heart to chide her for the breach of protocol, though she could see a few of the more hidebound Emperors frown and make a visible effort not to speak up to censure either her or Lady Linh. “You said you didn’t know about how far their fleet was.”
“Yes,” Lady Linh said.
“It’s close,” Mi Hiep said, trying to loosen the fist of ice that seemed to have closed around her stomach. Close enough that they would send these envoys—not the ones that would lie and prevaricate better, not the ones that would buy time. The Nam Federation had seen no reason to do so; and that meant they expected to make an imminent attack.
“You gave them something to think about,” the Twenty-Fourth Empress said. Every time she spoke up, Mi Hiep’s heart broke a little—it was her mother as a younger woman, but the simulation had preserved none of what had made her alive—simply collated her advice and her drive to preserve the empire into a personality the alchemists had thought would be useful—never thinking that the child who would became empress would need love and affection and all the support that could not be boiled down to appropriate words. It was one thing to know this for the old ones, the ones she’d never known; but for her own mother.… “They think you have the Bright Princess’s weapons, or something close.”
“But we don’t,” Huu Tam said. “Her Citadel and weapons died with her.”
Mi Hiep said nothing for a while. “Perhaps.”
“Ngoc Minh has been dead thirty years, Mother,” Huu Tam’s voice was gentle but firm. “If she could, don’t you think she would have sent you a message? Even when she was in rebellion against the throne she sent you communications.”
She had; and in all of them she was bright and feverish; with that inner fire Mi Hiep so desperately wanted to harness for the Empire; and couldn’t.
Ngoc Minh, the Bright Princess, who only had to stare at things to make them detonate—her little tricks with vases and sand had expanded to less savoury things; to people who moved through space as though it were water, who would implant trackers and bombs on ship hulls as easily as if they’d been bots; to substances that could eat at anything faster than the strongest acid; and to teleportation, the hallmark of the Citadel’s inhabitants. It had given Mi Hiep cold sweats, thirty years ago—the thought of an assassin materialising in her bedchambers, walking through walls and bodyguards as though they’d never been here …
But now she desperately needed those weapons; or even a fraction of them. Now the Empire was at risk, and she couldn’t afford to turn anything down, not even her errant daughter.
“Has there been any word from Suu Nuoc?” she asked.
Lady Linh shook her head. “Some of your supporters are getting quite vocal against him,” she said to Huu Tam.
He looked affronted. “I’m not responsible for what they choose to say.”
Lady Linh grimaced, but said nothing. Mi Hiep had no such compunction. “They follow your cues,” she said to Huu Tam. And Huu Tam didn’t like Suu Nuoc—he never had. She didn’t know if it was because of Suu Nuoc’s bluntness; or because he had once been her lover and thus close in a way Huu Tam himself never had been.
“No accusations yet,” the First Emperor said. “But a couple strongly worded memorials making their way upwards to the Grand Secretariat.” He looked at Huu Tam with a frown. “Your mother is right. It is your responsibility to inspire your followers by your behaviour—” it was said in a way that very clearly implied said behaviour had not been above reproach, and Huu Tam visibly bristled—”or, failing that, reining them in with your authority.”
“Fine, fine,” Huu Tam said, sullenly. “But it’s all nonsense, and you know it, Mother. It’s not delusions that will help us. We need to focus on what matters.”
“Military research and intelligence?” Mi Hiep asked. “That is also happening, child. Don’t underestimate me.”
“Never,” Huu Tam said; and she didn’t like the look in his eyes. He was … fragile in a way that none of her other children were; desperate for approval and affection, even from his concubines. But, out of all of them, he was the only one who had the backbone to rule an empire spanning dozens of numbered planets. The best of a bad choice, as Suu Nuoc would have said—trust the man to always find the most tactless answer to everything. No wonder Huu Tam didn’t like him.
“We’ll get through this,” Mi Hiep said, with more confidence than she felt. “As you said, we are not without resources.”
Huu Tam nodded, slowly and unconvincingly. “As you say, Mother. I will go talk to my supporters.”
After he was gone, Lady Linh frowned. “I will ask the Embroidered Guard to keep an eye on him.”
He’s innocent, Mi Hiep wanted to say. A little weak, a little too easily flattered; but surely not even he would dare to go against her will?
But still … One never knew. She hadn’t raised him that way; and even he was smart enough to know that being family would not protect him against her wrath. He had seen her send armies against Ngoc Minh, when the threat of the Citadel had loomed so large in her mind she’d known she had to do something, or remain paralysed in fear that Ngoc Minh herself would act. She would weep if she had to exile or execute him, but she would not flinch. The Empire could not afford weakness.
Mi Hiep erased the folder from the communal network, and tried to remember what the next audience was—something about water rights on the Third Planet, wasn’t it? She had the file somewhere, with abundant notes on the decision she’d uphold—the district magistrate had been absolutely correct, and the appeal would be closed on those terms. But every time she paused, even for a minute, she would remember her daughter.
Ngoc Minh had said nothing, when Mi Hiep had exiled her. She’d merely bowed; but though she’d lowered her eyes, her gaze still burnt through Mi Hiep’s soul like a lance of fire, as if she’d laid bare every one of Mi Hiep’s fears and petty thoughts.
Officially, the Bright Princess had disobeyed court orders once too many; had refused to set aside her commoner wife as a concubine, and set up proper spouses’ quarters. It was one thing to take lovers, but fidelity to one particular person was absurd: those days, it wasn’t the risk of infertility—alchemists’ implantatio
ns had all but removed it—but merely the fact that no one could be allowed to own too much of an Empress’s heart and mind. Favourites were one thing; wives quite another.
Unofficially—Mi Hiep had seen the vase, over and over; the monks teleporting from one end to another of the courtyards; and thought of what this would do, the day it was turned against her.
“I will obey,” Ngoc Minh had said. Had she known? She must have; must have guessed. And still she had said nothing.
“You’re thinking of Ngoc Minh,” the Twenty-Fourth Empress said.
“Yes. How do you know?” She wasn’t meant to be so perceptive.
“I’m your mother,” the Twenty-Fourth Empress said, with the bare hint of a smile; a reminder of the person she had been, once, the parent Mi Hiep had loved.
But she was none of those things. An Empress stood alone, and yet not alone—with no compassion or affection; merely the rituals and rebukes handed on by the ghosts of the dead. “I guess so,” Mi Hiep said. And then, because she was still seeing her daughter’s gaze, “Was I unfair?”
“Never,” the First Emperor said.
“You are the Empress,” the Sixteenth Empress said.
“Your word is law,” the Twenty-Third Emperor said, his adolescent’s face creased in a frown. “The law is your word.”
All true; and yet none of it a comfort.
Lady Linh said nothing. Of course she wouldn’t. She had been imprisoned once already, she wasn’t foolish enough to overstep her boundaries again. What Mi Hiep needed was one of her lovers or former lovers—Suu Nuoc or Ky Vo or Hong Quy—to whisper sweet nothings to her; to hold her and reassure her with words they didn’t mean or couldn’t understand the import of. But there was a time and place for this; and her audience room wasn’t it.
But then, to her surprise, Lady Linh spoke up, “I don’t know. You did the best you could, with what you had. An Empress should listen to the wisdom of her ancestors, her parents and her advisors—else how would the Empire stand fast? This isn’t a tyranny or a dictatorship where one can rule as whim dictates. There are rules, and rituals, and emperors must abide by them. Else we will descend into chaos again, and brother will fight brother, daughter abandon mother and son defy father. You cannot do as you will. Ngoc Minh … didn’t listen.”
No. She never had.
But that wasn’t the reason why Mi Hiep had exiled her; that wasn’t the reason why, years later, Mi Hiep sent the army to destroy her and her Citadel.
Perhaps the rumours were right, after all; perhaps Mi Hiep was getting old, and counting the years until the King of Hell’s demons came to take her; and wishing she could make amends for all that had happened.
As if amends would ever change anything.
THE YOUNGER SISTER
Ngoc Ha had always felt ill at ease on The Turtle’s Golden Claw. It was there that she’d given birth; panting and moaning like some animal, bottling in all the pain of contractions until a primal scream tore its way out of her like a spear point thrust through her lungs—and she’d lain, exhausted, amidst the smell of blood and machine oil, while everyone else clustered around the Mind she’d borne—checking vitals and blood flow, and rushing her to the cradle in the heartroom.
Alone. On The Turtle’s Golden Claw, Ngoc Ha would always be alone and vulnerable, abandoned by everyone else. It was a foolish, unsubstantiated fear; but she couldn’t let go of it.
But Mother had ordered her to come, and of course her orders were law. Literally so, since she was the Empress. Ngoc Ha swallowed her fear until it was nothing more than a tiny, festering shard in her heart, and came onboard.
The Turtle’s Golden Claw was pleased, of course—almost beyond words, her corridors lit with red, joyous light, the poems scrolling on the walls all about homecomings and the happiness of family reunions. She gave Ngoc Ha the best cabin, right next to the heartroom—grey walls with old-fashioned watercolours of starscapes. Clearly the ship been working on decorating it for a while; and Ngoc Ha felt, once more, obscurely guilty she couldn’t give her daughter more than distant affection.
She had taken an escort with her; and her maid—she could have kept them with her; but they would have brought her no company—not onboard this ship. So she left them in a neighbouring room, and stared at the walls, trying to calm herself—as The Turtle’s Golden Claw moved away from the First Planet; and plunged into deep spaces—the start of their week-long journey towards the Scattered Pearls belt.
An oily sheen spread over the watercolours and walls, and everything began throbbing on no rhythm Ngoc Ha could name.
She logged into the network, and spent the next day watching vids—operas and family sagas, and reality shows in which the contestants sang in five different harmonies, or designed increasingly bizarre rice and algae confections with the help of fine-tuned bots. That way, she didn’t have to look at the walls; didn’t have to see the shadowy shapes on them; to see them slowly turning—watching her, waiting …
“Mother?” A knock at the door, though the avatar could have dropped straight into her cabin. “May I come in?”
Ngoc Ha, too exhausted and drained to care, agreed.
The small avatar of The Turtle’s Golden Claw materialised next to her, hovering over the bedside table. “Mother, you’re not well.”
Really. Ngoc Ha bit off the sarcastic reply, and said instead, “I don’t like deep spaces.” No one did. Unless they were Suu Nuoc, who seemed to have a stomach of iron to go with his blank face. And at least they were normal ones—not the other, higher-order ones the ship had accessed during her search for Ngoc Minh. “I need to stay busy.”
“You do,” a voice said, gravely. To her surprise, it was Suu Nuoc—who stood at the open door of her room with two Embroidered Guards by his side. His face was set in a faint frown, revealing nothing. Hard to believe Mother had seen enough in him to—but no, she wouldn’t go there. It had no bearing on anything else.
“I have vids,” Ngoc Ha said, shaking her head. “Or encirclement games, if you feel like you need an adversary.” She hated encirclement games; but she needed a distraction—they’d forced her to cut the vids; to pay attention to what was going on in the cabin …
Suu Nuoc shrugged. “You knew Grand Master Bach Cuc.”
“A little,” Ngoc Ha said, warily.
“How were her relationships with the rest of the court?”
Mother had said something about court intrigues, which had made no sense to Ngoc Ha. Then again, she supposed it was a case of the one-eyed man in the land of the blind—Suu Nuoc was a disaster at anything involving subtlety. “She was like you.” She hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but the faint smell of ozone, the slight yield to the air, the twisting shapes on the walls—they were doing funny things to her. “Blunt and uninterested in anything that wasn’t her mission.” And proud, with utter belief in her own capacities as a scientist in a way that could be off-putting.
“I see.” Suu Nuoc inclined his head. “But she must have had enemies.”
“She was no one,” Ngoc Ha said. Oily shadows trailed on the wall, unfolded hands like scissors, legs like knives. They were going to turn, to see her … “But her mission—that made her friends, and enemies.”
“Huu Tam?”
“Maybe.” She hadn’t had a heart-to-heart talk with Huu Tam since he became the heir—ironic, in a way, but then she and her brother had never been very close.
Unlike her and Ngoc Minh—a memory of fingers, folding her hands around a baby chick; of laughter under a pine tree in a solitary courtyard—and she breathed in, and buried the treacherous thought before it could unmake her. She’d never grieved for Ngoc Minh. Why should she, when she’d always believed her sister to be alive?
But sometimes, the hollows left by absence were worse than those left by death.
Focus. The last thing she needed was for this to intrude on her interview with Suu Nuoc—who would see her hesitation and interpret it as guilt or as Heaven knew what else. “If Ngoc Minh
had come back, things would have changed. But you know this already.”
“Yes.” Suu Nuoc’s face was impassive. “What I want to know is how they would have changed for you.”
“I don’t know,” Ngoc Ha said, and realised it was the truth. Why did Mother want Ngoc Minh back—for a change of heir, with the wolves and tigers at their doors; or simply because she was old, and wanted reconciliation with the Bright Princess, the only child she’d ever sent away? “Who knows what Mother thinks?”
“I did, once,” Suu Nuoc said. It was a statement of fact, nothing more.
“Then guess.”
“That would be beyond my present attributions.”
“Of course,” Ngoc Ha said. “Fine. You want to know what I think? I didn’t much care, one way or another.” Untrue—the thought of seeing Ngoc Minh again was a knot in her stomach that only tightened the more she pulled about it. “I wasn’t going to rise higher. We all know it, don’t we? I don’t have the ruthlessness it takes to become Empress.” Huu Tam was too amenable to flattery—and his brothers were too weak and too inclined to play favourites. Ngoc Minh … Ngoc Minh had been intensely focused, dedicated to what she felt was right. But what was right had not included Mother’s Empire.
“You might still not be very happy to be relegated to the background, again. She was your mother’s favourite, wasn’t she?” Suu Nuoc’s voice was quiet. The shadows on the walls were stretching, turning—reaching for her … “Would you have been happy to see her back in your life?”
It wasn’t that. She remembered a night like any other, when she had been tearing her hair out over an essay assigned by the Grand Secretary—remembered Ngoc Minh coming to sit by her—the rustle of yellow silk, the smell of sandalwood. She’d been busy by then; establishing her court of hermits and monks and mendicants, fighting the first hints of Mother’s disapproval. “You’re too serious, lil’ sis,” Ngoc Minh had said. “This isn’t what matters.”
Ngoc Ha wished she’d been smart enough then, to ask the unspoken question; to ask her what truly mattered.
The Year's Best Science Fiction - Thirty-Third Annual Collection Page 108