The Phoenix in Flight

by Sherwood Smith

  Barrodagh drew another breath. He had anticipated correctly the thrust of his lord’s concerns: how would this development affect his planned attack on the Panarchy? It had taken the computer techs all night to map out the complex interplay between the Panarchy’s ship-borne communications and the infinitely faster communications that Dol’jhar and its Rifter allies enjoyed.

  Those comms are ten million years old, and they still work as well as the day they were made, Barrodagh thought, and continued, secure now in the knowledge of his reprieve, for he had the answer Eusabian would want to hear. No warning from a planet or base under attack could reach any other important Panarchist stronghold in time to warn it before it, too, was attacked.

  “No, Lord. Our calculations indicate that the delays involved will be less than the space-time lag of Panarchist communications in all cases, especially since Charvann is so far off the Tetrad Centrum.”

  “Then my vengeance shall be accomplished.” Eusabian looked down at the cord in his hands. After a long moment he pulled on the ends of the dirazh’u, and the knots vanished as the cord stretched taut between his hands. “Let it be as you have said.”

  As Eusabian turned back to the window, already weaving a new pattern, the Bori bowed deeply again and withdrew, stumbling to his chamber to be sick.

  FIVE

  NARBON

  The flyer arced into the air, and Sara Darmara Tarathen looked down at the roof of the ancient, dark-stoned manor that she’d been forced to live in for most of five years. The golden roof tiles gleamed with thousand-fold reflections of the westering sun, but she did not perceive the beauty. At the sight of the house the fear and anger that had been Sara’s constant companions for five years constricted her chest.

  For a short time she was suspended between earth and sky; the semblance of peace brought an old song from the pain in her heart through her lips. She gave the song to the wind, singing until the flyer settled in the court of the rustic house on the mountain that Semion used as his most private retreat.

  She scanned the arched windows of the small house: no one visible. No last-minute panics or warnings.

  Not that she had expected any. The plan was simple enough. The only part beyond Sara’s control was the mysterious contact that her old friend Martin Cheruld had supplied; either he was there, or he wasn’t.

  Or... It would be so like Semion to play along until the end, then, with that cold smile, expose them all...

  She forced herself to stroll at a leisurely pace up the pathway toward the house, the fine, glistening-white gravel scrunching under her feet. The fear intensified into nausea, but she schooled her face and kept her walk slow.

  Bear it. Soon you will be with Galen again.

  The name released a measure of her tension, like the most powerful of mantras. Galen. Galen ban-Arkad, second son of the Panarch of the Thousand Suns, soon to be vlith-Arkad, heir to the Emerald Throne once Semion was dead. Galen always knew without asking the moods of people around him, and wherever he was, music was not far distant. When he read poetry, one glimpsed—however briefly—stillness and harmony in the universe. Life around Galen meant peace, beauty, joy, everyone valued for themselves, not for family connections or wealth

  Five years used as a hostage to force Galen’s compliance.

  Resolutely she stilled the anger as she approached the house. Semion kept few servants here unless he planned to be in residence. That small staff was a necessary part of her plan. She walked slowly past the steward, and for once she was able to ignore how his offensively-open hot gaze followed her into the house.

  Her maid, whom she’d sent ahead, flitted out from the bedroom to meet her. Alarm kindled inside Sara at the woman’s wide, anxious eyes; she’d been with Sara since the days when Sara was primary singer at Rifthaven’s Genjei Club, and had followed her to the university where Sara had tried to start a new life.

  Where she met Martin Cheruld, and fell in love with Galen.

  The maid looked around, then murmured, “Sara, there’s a courier com for you.”

  Sara said, “Thank you.” And with a meaningful glance at the door, “That will be all. Go on holiday. Be back next week.” That was the maid’s signal to get away—not return to Semion’s citadel, but to escape, as far and as fast as she could.

  Whatever happened next, her loyal maid and friend shouldn’t suffer the consequences. Her leaving was a signal that there was no possible turning back.

  Sara made a start toward Semion’s suite. Before decrypting Cheruld’s coms she’d always used the Family security code that Galen had taught her. She began tapping the code, then stopped. No use worrying about that anymore. If Semion knows, I’m wasting my time, and if he doesn’t, he never will.

  She glided with outward calm into the little guest chamber, locked the door, sat down at the console, and keyed in the code she knew by heart. Her anxiety stretched out the fractional pause before the screen lit and Martin Cheruld’s face stared out.

  Her alarm intensified into terror at the sight of his smooth blond hair lying tousled and grimy on his brow, the sheen of sweat on his olive skin, now blanched to yellow, and the exhaustion and fear in his slanted eyes. Even in their young university days she had never seen him anything but immaculate, a Douloi coolly amused by the vagaries of the world. Yet he, like Galen, had not cared about her background—their friendship, formed around music, had transcended political boundaries.

  It was Cheruld who had extended the possibility of freedom, and justice, through the Poets’ conspiracy.

  As he began to speak he half reached a hand out, as though to touch her. Though she knew the com had been sent many days ago, from an unimaginable distance away, the gesture gave her an unsettling sense of immediacy.

  “Sara—I hope this will get to you in time. We’re going to need Semion alive. Much more is involved than just Semion’s assassination... I’ve discovered that the Poets are just a small part of a massive plot aimed at the entire Panarchy. We’ve been used and betrayed by Jerrode Eusabian of Dol’jhar.” His voice hardened as he spat out the faint gutturals of the name.

  He clearly expected Sara to recognize it and hate it. Oh yes, those horrible heavy-planet people who had murdered the Kyriarch’s peace mission.

  Hadn’t Eusabian of Dol’jhar’s son been hostage on Arthelion?

  She shook her head.

  “Dol’jhar intends to have Galen assassinated at the same time Semion was to die, and he intends to kill the third son, Brandon, at the same time, at his Enkainion on Arthelion. In the heart of the Mandala, the center of the Thousand Suns!” Cheruld paused, rubbing trembling fingers across his eyes. “All three of the Panarch’s heirs... It’s Eusabian’s revenge against the Panarch.”

  Sara’s mind was caught like a faulty record chip. They’re going to kill Galen? Blood sang in her ears, and the room grayed, but she forced herself to listen.

  He gave her a swift description of the plot engineered for Galen’s death, then added, “You must tell Semion, regardless of what it costs me or you.”

  “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no, no, no.” Her voice had become a moan. She clapped her hand over her mouth.

  “... It’s the only way we can smash Eusabian’s plot before it starts.”

  Sarah did not hear his closing remarks. Her fingers automatically hit the code that would dump the com. Then, after taking a deep breath, she murmured, “Calculation.”

  The green light glowed.

  “Spacetime graph for...” Where was Cheruld? “Qoholeth and Narbon, Qoholeth and Talgarth, Qoholeth and Arthelion.” She responded mechanically to the computer’s queries: DataNet, scheduled couriers, comparison timings delimiting the progress of the plot as outlined by Cheruld.

  The fact that he had said the assassinations were scheduled for the same time made it easier for her. Too easy. Although born a Rifter, she had been conditioned by nearly ten years of the certainties of planetary seasons and the clockwork cycle of day and night: space-time was no
w merely an abstraction to her. On the screen a deceptively simple pattern of red and green lines grew from pale blue dots haloed by the uncertainty assigned by the program.

  In obedience to its programming, the computer calculated from what it was given, and Sara stared dully at the completed graph, noting only the green line of Cheruld’s message falling short of Talgarth—a pale blue dot transfixed by the bloody red line of Dol’jhar’s successful plot. Cheruld’s message would not, had not, made it in time.

  The plot was a lie, and Galen is dead.

  Her palm slammed down on the cancel pad and the light winked out. She rose, clutching her forearms against herself.

  Semion was probably this very moment hearing that Sara had taken the flyer to the retreat on her own, something she had never before done. She knew he would not be able to resist following her, if for no other reason than to chastise her for her temerity.

  She must make a decision now.

  She moved to a window and glanced up through the ever-green leaves of the conservatory trees at the wall of glass, in time to see a bright pinpoint of blue light etch slowly down the purpling sky. Semion’s armored shuttle. He was right on schedule.

  She opened her travel case. Her fingers trembled as she changed into a soft silk wrapper, then hesitated. Though she had seen nothing, she was certain of one thing: the assassin waited in Semion’s bedroom, concealed in the old dumbwaiter. The air in that room seemed subtly different... charged.

  This would have been impossible at the citadel, for Semion kept himself surrounded by layers of Marine guards and combat-trained servants. Sara smiled grimly. She remembered the Arkad dogs frolicking around Galen on Talgarth, a layer of unsubornable security. But Semion had no dogs; he had told Galen, when he tried to send Sara one of the new pups, that he was too busy for the stupid creatures, and had it sent back to Talgarth.

  Here there were none of those spying eyes who never let her forget that she was not Douloi, that she had been born on Rifthaven, sold by her mother into the sex trade the day she reached menarche. Servants reflected the attitude of their master.

  She wanted Semion to die, and she wanted to choose the moment when it happened. She would have liked it to be in the bedroom where she had been subjected to five years of little deaths, but it would be equally just if it happened here, in Semion’s private retreat, where he thought himself safest.

  And Cheruld wanted her to save him? Is evil to win again? she thought bitterly, stalking into her bedroom and sitting down at her ancient carved-wood desk.

  What had Cheruld said? Eusabian of Dol’jhar. She thought back to the attack on the Panarchy, when she was a little girl on Rifthaven. The Dol’jharians were tall, imposing, with strange (some said savage) customs—everyone had been afraid of them, that much she remembered. Perhaps that was why Martin, who hated Semion almost as much as she did, wanted Semion to live. Semion held flag rank in the Navy, and had ships at his command. An emergency like this would override the unspoken exile the Panarch had imposed on Semion after the night of Galen’s Enkainion.

  All the sons to die, and the Panarch, too, no doubt.

  She frowned sightlessly at the desk, thinking of the third son, Brandon, whom she had met just once, that horrible night of her single visit to Arthelion. She remembered the pride in Galen’s voice when he talked of his younger brother’s brilliance, despite there having been some sort of scandal that had resulted in Brandon’s being removed from the Naval Academy a few years before.

  She pressed her hands over her eyes. In spite of the terrible pressure of her decision, no, because of it, she retreated into the glory of memory.

  How happily the visit had begun, how loving was Galen’s pride when he introduced Sara to Brandon. “Here is my future wife,” he’d said. “Just as our father married our mother, I’ve chosen my own partner.” And Brandon had bowed just as one would to a kyriarch, then took her hands, and said, “Welcome to the family!”

  The Enkainion of an Arkad required Galen to be alone, but Brandon had postponed his yacht trip so they could have that one evening, just the three of them. She sighed. The brothers had talked so fast, finishing one another’s sentences, sometimes launching into song. Sara had joined them or just listened, as she wished, oh, the freedom of singing when she chose, and how intently they had listened!

  One evening of laughter, talk, and song, until the room filled with Navy people, and Semion himself was there; the last Sara saw of Brandon was an honor guard of Marines escorting him back to his yacht.

  And then... and then... Sara had tried ever since to suppress the memory of Semion’s command that she leave them to talk in private for a moment—a moment that had stretched to five years. Never to say good-bye, to see Galen’s face or hear his voice again. All she had of him was Semion’s words, when he came to her cabin on the private yacht that night: “My brother, it seems, needs a lesson in the political verities that you seem to have mastered. How fitting that your lives balance against the other’s cooperation. We will begin now...”

  Sara did not know what the Panarch had said to Semion shortly after; she had only felt the result in Semion’s cold, and unrelenting anger when he was forbidden to return to court.

  Sara had heard very little news of the outside world other than through her secret channel to Martin Cheruld. The bits of gossip about Brandon she’d garnered reported that he did little but carouse and lose great sums playing games, as publicly as possible.

  Whether true or not, whether Brandon lives or not, he can do nothing against Semion.

  She shook her head, fighting against the tears that burned her eyes. lf Galen is dead, then so is life, and joy, and meaning. Yet Martin wants Semion spared, just to exchange one evil for another? Semion shall not live to triumph.

  Men’s voices: in the hall, downstairs.

  She lifted her head, recognizing in the echoing laughter a familiar hard edge. Even on retreat, Semion always traveled with half a dozen formally uniformed officers around him, as well as the swarm of servants. They are Semion’s dogs, she thought.

  The servants would no doubt be sweeping the rest of the house, but they would not step in here unless Semion commanded it. Sara picked up her quill and dipped it, and began writing random sentences. Since her own exile here on Narbon she had quickly embraced the aristocratic practice of penning one’s own letters—how graceful and leisurely! And how extravagant, to send a piece of paper between star systems! But she wrote no letter now. He must only see the pose, and would not have time to read over her shoulder.

  She heard the hard impact of his boots on the polished wood floor, and smiled. I’m sorry, Martin. Your news only hardens my resolve.

  Semion walked into the room. “This is intriguing, Sara. You desired a retreat? Alone, or had you someone in mind to share it with?”

  Despite the frantic beat of her heart, she managed a steady voice. “I trust your intervention was successful?”

  He gave her a scornful smile. “We found no sign of Rifters anywhere in that sector. That fool Wortley pays altogether too much attention to his Highdweller connections. I’ve replaced him with a sensible Downsider. Jeph Koestler will restore order. There is no need for my supervision.”

  One of his hands was already unbuttoning his dark blue tunic as he advanced into the room, and Sara, unnerved by the approaching climax of her plans, forced her face to assume the calm expression that had been her only shield for five years.

  Semion’s hard eyes narrowed, and his lips tightened. “What’s wrong, my dear?”

  The hateful distortion of that my dear infused her with angry energy. She smiled straight into his eyes and laid her hands on his shoulders, pushing him so that his back was now squarely to the monneplat, which would deliver not drinks but death.

  His fingers ran up her sides and started to part her wrapper as he muttered, “I trust I am not inconveniencing some lucky underling?”

  The words rolled over her tongue with a rare, rich taste, the vintage taste
of the wine of vengeance, five years in the aging. “For your pleasure,” she said: the code words her assassin listened for.

  She watched hungrily, drinking in his expression as the amusement became a mild puzzlement at the unfinished, unexpected sentence. She heard the faint spit; his face reflected surprise and momentary pain, then his eyes lost all expression and the dead fingers traced down one of her breasts as he crumpled to the floor.

  The assassin parted the tapestry and stood facing her, jac still in hand. Between Sara and the assassin a thin curl of smoke rose from the tiny charred pit in Semion’s back, like a sacrifice of incense to an unloving god. The assassin was a couple of years younger than she, with the empty eyes of a psychopath, and the pallid face of one who spent his time in darkness and secret byways unlit by any sun. His eyes slid to the open “V” of her wrapper, which revealed her flesh in a clear line to her stomach. She made no effort to close it as she read in his eyes what was going to come next, and what she must do.

  She lifted a hand to brush her hair off her forehead, smiling vacantly at him, watching lust quicken in his pale eyes as they followed the shifting movement of her clinging silk gown. She thrust one hip subtly forward and noted his hand clenching on his jac.

  “I’m supposed to kill you, too,” he said, his voice already getting raw.

  “Oh, please,” she murmured, as though reading lines in a bad wiredream drama. “I’ll do anything.”

  His face reflected his thoughts as clearly as if he spoke aloud. The assassin kept the jac clutched in his hand while he used her, there on the bed next to the dead body of the Aerenarch. At the end she shut her eyes, thinking: the last time.

  He stood up and straightened his clothing, and she lay there watching him, smiling with promise. He stood looking at her as he fingered his jac, then abruptly sheathed it and turned to the corpse on the floor. She heard a brief shivery sound terminated by a soft crunch, then the rumple of cloth. The assassin straightened up and glanced at her with a sated smile, his eyes manic.