The Phoenix in Flight

by Sherwood Smith

  None of your guardians, or mine. But the search will begin soon.

  Brandon paused and looked back at his boswell.

  Deralze said, “What have you recorded in it?”

  “I’m not sure,” Brandon said.

  Deralze nodded, unsurprised. Brandon had the very best type of boswell made, and its data capacity was enormous. And it almost certainly had redundant tracking devices implanted, for the sake of security.

  As if reading his mind, Brandon crossed the room to the disposal and thrust the boswell in. The disposal emitted a warning trill, indicating the presence of something other than a document.

  “Fanfare for a private Enkainion,” he said, and tabbed the confirm. The muffled whoomp from the shredder fields was only a little louder than usual. Then he said softly, “Let’s go.”

  A strained sense of unreality gripped Deralze, questions that had haunted him like the shades that would soon depart the Palace Major’s Ivory Hall. The rest of the plot would go forward, and half a rotten government vanish in the blast, which would enable Galen to begin anew. That much of Deralze’s promise he could keep. He owed nothing to the Panarchy.

  The only loss would be his, if he didn’t show up on Rifthaven with the preserved head of Brandon nyr-Arkad for that collector.

  Whether it’s a good or bad decision to keep him alive, I cannot judge. I will have to leave that to you, Markham.

  His sleeve brushed the wardrobe door, reminding him of the weapon concealed there. Feeling as if he watched himself and Brandon on a vid-screen, he paced beside the Krysarch through the suite.

  Brandon whistled, and waited as several dogs including Nemo bounded through the dog doors. Brandon knelt, face hidden as he ruffled each dog’s head, scratching along the slight groove on top of their skulls and running his fingers down behind their ears into their ruffs as he murmured endearments.

  Then he straightened up and snapped his fingers. The dogs obediently backed away, some sitting expectantly, the younger ones romping off to play.

  “I suspect I will miss them far more than they will miss me.” Brandon hit the door tab. “Nemo’s managed to seduce at least one friend per level into feeding him illegal snacks, and I think most of the staff sneak him bacon.”

  Still, he looked grim, closed-in as they took the VIP elevator down to the maglev transport terminal deep underground.

  The door slid open as two high-ranking naval officers crossed the quad from the military side of the complex. Deralze and Brandon stilled in the dim-lit doorway until they passed. Across the low-lit quad, through a line of attractive potted flowering shrubs arranged to screen off the less elegant portions of the terminal from the eyes of the guests arriving for the ceremony, personnel oversaw the arrival of the first wave of bejeweled and beglittered civilian attendees.

  Brandon paused, studying the guests gathering, then walked silently to the VIP sub-tube access. Deralze followed.

  Brandon keyed it open with the Family override code, and inside the pod he stepped into the operator’s booth and activated it with a quick and experienced hand. Outside, the heavy door slid shut with a subdued clank as the vacuum lock engaged, and the pod lifted off the rail, humming faintly.

  Brandon punched the drive button and sat back, staring pensively out the window at the featureless wall of the tunnel whizzing by, as the pod shot toward the 285-kilometer-distant booster field, part of an older spaceport now used only by small charter vessels carrying semi-official incognito traffic.

  The ghosts fled down the dim tunnel with Deralze, forcing him to review his own actions for the past ten years. He’d moved through life as if asleep, and now, though he felt as if he moved in dream time, his mind was truly awake.

  Brandon’s brooding gaze backwards was that of a man severing ties.

  He remained silent when he paused at a console, and used his Royal override to erase the record of their journey—not that any record completely vanished. But in the chaos soon to be unleashed, by the time the Palace noderunners untangled the interlocking permissions needed to penetrate the Panarchic override, Brandon and Deralze would be long gone from Arthelion into untraceable safety.

  An automated jitney took them from the private VIP access to the waiting ship, anonymous among many others. The field’s traffic was heavier than Deralze remembered, no doubt due to lower-priority traffic diverted away from the vast complex on the other side of the Archipelago to make room for all the VIPs arriving for the Enkainion.

  “Oversaw the last modifications myself,” Deralze said, the paralyzing sense of unreality having coalesced into a new reality, one that gave meaning to their actions. Brandon never lost faith with Markham, just as Markham never lost faith with him.

  He said, “One- or two-person operation, inter and intra-system ... everything. Of course, the field comps show it still needs a week’s work or so.” He glanced up at Brandon. “The booster module’s set for automatic lift, under ship control—it’ll just be an anonymous blip on the screens at the Node.” He paused. “They’re probably starting to search for you.”

  Deralze looked from that steady regard to the cloud-streaked sky, and the night birds wheeling over the wide field, his heartbeat accelerating.

  “Are you coming with me? I always regarded you as backup I could trust. I’d like to have you with me,” Brandon said lightly.

  “I’ll stick by you, Highness,” Deralze said.

  “Then call me Brandon. I’ve heard they don’t use titles where we’re headed.”

  For the first time in ten years, Deralze laughed, though it came out sounding strangled. He followed Brandon up the ramp.

  Inside the silent vessel, Deralze watched, pleased, as Brandon looked around slowly at the yacht’s neat proportions, then breathed in deeply, as if tasting the new-smell that lay with its own peculiar promise in the as-yet uncirculated air.

  “A possible change in plan. There is one person who didn’t come today who I wanted to say good-bye to,” Brandon said. “And as it happens, he lives on Charvann. I can’t resist the symmetry. Mind if we make one stopover?”

  Deralze shrugged. “I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

  Brandon accessed the navcomp to load his destination. The boost light on the console came on, and a faint green light washed the field briefly before the viewscreen blanked, and the booster launched them toward radius and the untraceable freedom of the fiveskip.

  SEVEN

  The novosti Leseuer wasn’t sure when it happened, but partway into the Enkainion’s elaborate pre-ritual party, the last of her egalitarian cynicism vanished, and she knew that whatever her planet Ansonia’s decision, she was now and forever a Panarchist.

  All around her, the fulgent panoply of a wealthy, ancient and complex civilization blended in a synergy of color and sound and scent. Exalted, she walked among the men and women mingling and conversing in the exquisite pavanne of courtesy and grace that was second nature to the Douloi.

  (You’ve gotten quite good at this.) Leseuer flushed slightly as the boswelled voice of Ranor, her tutor from Archetype and Ritual, interrupted her thoughts. There’d been a time when she’d thought she would never master the art of ajna-imaging. It was so subtle and hard to control compared to the primitive vidcams used back home.

  (Hush!) she subvocalized back to him. (It’s hard enough without you chattering in my ear.)

  (Not your ear, love.) He chuckled and fell silent. She glanced at the boswell on her wrist, careful not to move her head. Neural induction still felt like magic to her, despite a year of practice.

  She panned slowly across the tall stained-glass windows of the Hall of Ivory. The last light of a long summer day modulated by slow cloud shadows lent animation to their colors and brought the tapestries on the walls to polychromatic life. High above her head the chandeliers, elegant structures of glass and metal hovering without visible support, flamed and sparkled in the sunset light. A beam of light lanced through a window and splashed against the massive doors guarding
the entrance to the Throne Room, picking out in bold relief the riotously complicated abstract mural inlaid in them: the Prophetae Gennady’s Ars Irruptus.

  But the richness of the room paled in comparison with the sumptuous clothing and glittering decorations of the Douloi assembling to pay honor to the Krysarch Brandon nyr-Arkad. The traditions of a myriad of cultures and centuries of history were represented here, for the collective memory of the Panarchy reached back to a planet forever beyond recovery.

  A hush descended on the Hall as the huge inlaid doors opened slightly, barely wide enough to admit one person. It was time for the first of the Three Summons.

  Leseuer triggered the ajna on her forehead to a narrow focus on the doors, feeling its delicate pull on her skin as the semi-living lens adjusted. Her boswell briefly flashed framing lines across her vision; she was pleased to see that her target was already centered.

  The floor in front of the doors cleared as the Laergon of the College of Archetype and Ritual strode forward with a measured pace. His arms were extended rigidly overhead, firmly gripping the glittering Mace of Karelais: the ancient scepter of the first kingdom to indite the Covenant of Anarchy that ushered in the Jaspran Peace. His gold-trimmed purple robe of state swirled around his stout figure as he stopped before the door.

  Behind him, the representative of the Polloi, stark in her uniform of black and white, her features hidden by a shimmermask, held aloft the golden manacles of Service on an ebon tau-shaped staff with a silver snake twined around it. The music that had formed an unacknowledged background to the gathering now changed, becoming slower, measured, laden with tonalities evocative of time and the long chain of lives that linked them all to Lost Earth.

  The Laergon shook the Mace in a long arc over his head, bending so deeply to either side that its ends tapped the marble floor. The resulting spray of harmonics from its crystalline core, ranging from a deep booming that recalled the restless sea to teeth-aching supersonics, effectively stilled the last remnants of conversation in the Hall of Ivory.

  The Laergon straightened up and grounded the Mace in front of him. “His Royal Highness, the Krysarch Brandon Takari Burgess Njoye Willam su Gelasaar y Ilara nyr Arkad de Mandala!” His voice echoed into a stillness broken only by the musical clangor of the Manacles as the Polloi brandished them at the partly opened doors to the Throne Room.

  The Laergon turned away from the doors and retraced his steps in measured pace, followed by the Polloi, and the doors swung shut again. Around the perimeter people stirred once again, the machinery of state resuming, and Leseuer marveled again at the effortless combination of unstudied elegance and careful ceremony that was the hallmark of government in the Thousand Suns.

  Who knows what will be decided here tonight? she thought. The result of some carefully arranged encounter that I probably wouldn’t recognize as significant even if it happened right in front of me. A shiver of awe flooded her nerves: one of the decisions reached tonight might be the status of her planet in the Panarchy.

  (That’s definitely on the agenda, but I think more people are wondering about the absence of the Aerenarch-Consort.) Ranor chuckled. (You’re subvocalizing again.)

  She flushed. Then, amazed that she had not previously noted her absence: (Aerenarch-Consort Vannis Scefi-Cartano? She’s not here?) Leseuer looked around the vast room again, as if she could have missed the familiar small, elegant figure. Seen from a distance, the Aerenarch’s wife had always reminded her of a knife worn hidden in a sleeve. Nothing important happened at Court without her presence. (What does her absence mean?)

  (That’s what everyone is trying to figure out. It could be a message from the Aerenarch Semion, or it could be a message to him. Or it could be a message from the Cartano family to the other principal Mandala families.)

  Leseuer suppressed the chill of memory. She’d been presented to the Aerenarch on Narbon, on her way to Arthelion. She’d known almost nothing of Panarchic politics at the time, but had sensed tension around the heir and his court made up mostly of military captains, a tension only strengthened by her year at the court of Gelasaar III.

  (The man that hath no music in himself

  Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds,

  Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;

  The motions of his spirit are dull as night,

  And his affections dark as Erebus:

  Let no such man be trusted.)

  Ranor quoted softly, as if sensing her unease. Perhaps he had: the boswell’s ability to indicate subtle muscle movements sometimes gave its use the quality of telepathy. (But don’t worry,) he continued. (It’s unlikely to have any effect on the Ansonia question. Tonight’s maneuvering is merely detail.)

  (And?)

  (Oh, I don’t know what’s been decided. I just know how these things work. This is far too high a ceremony to host a major negotiation.)

  Leseuer shook her head. She didn’t expect she’d ever fully understand Panarchic politics: the perplexing interplay of spontaneity and choreography amidst the splendors of Douloi ceremony, the wheels within wheels wherein a shrug or a lifted eyebrow could set off a swift interchange of events that would decide the fate of millions. But the politics merely reflected the nature of these people: shrewd, cosmopolitan, self-controlled, and wise with a weight of years and tradition that had no counterpart on her world.

  Ansonia was fiercely proud of its hard-won democratic principles and devotion to rational government, re-established with such difficulty following the decades of Dol’jharian oppression, and deeply suspicious of the bizarre Panarchist combination of anarchy, ritual, and absolute monarchy.

  Her throat tightened as she realized how important it had become to her that her planet understand what was offered them, despite its strangeness.

  Across the Hall the gee-bubble of a nuller floated through the entrance doors; he or she—so wizened by the great age conferred by life in free-fall that Leseuer could not distinguish—was upside down with respect to the Hall. She still didn’t understand how these rare, almost immortal humans fit into the careful structures of Douloi life, with their disregard for the conventions of placement and preference.

  The nuller’s bubble hovered over a far group as a whisper, no more than a susurrus of summer leaves, rustled through the company. Leseuer felt it more than she heard it. Some heads turned toward the great doors, so her head turned as well—

  (The Krysarch,) Ranor said. (He has not yet been seen.)

  (Isn’t he supposed to appear after the third call?)

  (But he should be here waiting for the last summons, and he is nowhere to be found. Perhaps he’s en route through the complex via unorthodox ways—the Arkads are rumored to know most of the secret passageways this place is honeycombed with. If so, he’d better hurry and appear. The Household is in a panic.)

  Just then a flash of livid green caught the edge of her vision as a Kelly trinity entered the hall. She stared in fascination at the first nonhuman sophont she’d ever seen in the flesh, one of the few yet discovered in the Thousand Suns. The three sophonts were short, rotund tripeds covered in a dense lacework of fluttering, tape-like ribbons. Armless, each had a single, long headstalk springing from its torso, crowned with a mouth like a fleshy lily with three bright blue eyes under the lip. They wore no clothing. As she watched, she became aware that they were heading directly for her.

  The two larger, yellow-green Kelly pivoted in a waltz-like movement around the smaller, bright green one in the center of the trinity. Their headstalks—each adorned with a gaudy, bejeweled boswell—twisted in a constant helical motion, gently intertwining and touching each other with the soft pseudopods arrayed around their mouths. The constant caresses somehow reminded her of an infant playing with its fingers and toes. As they came closer she could hear their claws clicking on the floor in an elaborate trinary rhythm.

  (Threy want to meet you,) said Ranor. (Since I wasn’t told in advance, we must assume this is a test, of you and of Anso
nia.)

  (But you haven’t finished briefing me on the Kelly yet,) she replied, a knot of panic forming in her stomach. All she’d seen was an ancient pre-Exilic flatvid—monochrome, yet—that was too silly for words, interrupted by a summons from her Ambassador for yet another meeting. Ranor had introduced the vid by remarking that it was the starting point for the ceremonials that Archetype and Ritual had developed to bind the Kelly into the Ranks of Service. He hadn’t had a chance to explain further, and now the sophonts were only a few meters away.

  (That is the Kelly Archon. Threir adopted names are Lheri, Mho, and Curlizho. The one in the center, the intermittor, is Mho. She will speak for threm.)

  (What! But that’s the vid. . .)

  (Yes. Threy use those human names because we can’t pronounce threirs, and for other reasons that will become apparent. I haven’t time to explain now. Just do exactly what I tell you, no matter how strange it seems. Exactly! And don’t move unless I tell you to.) She could hear an edge of panic in his voice, which only intensified hers, and then the Kelly halted in front of her. The blason de soleil—the sunburst of direct aegicy that marked those who received authority directly from the Panarch, rather than by delegation—glittered brightly against their green pelts. She wondered distractedly how the decorations were fastened on.

  “Well met, Leseuer gen Altamon,” said the alien. “Wethree welcome you.” Its voice was a mellow, reedy blat; its breath and body scent were an odd mixture reminiscent of cut herbs and burning plastic. Without warning it reached out and slapped her hard on top of her head, waved its headstalk up and down in front of her face, and then tweaked her nose. Its lips? fingers? were warm and soft.

  (Now slap her on top of the body, wave your hand side-to-side in front of her headstalk, fingers pointed at her, and then poke her in the eyes with two fingers!) said Ranor. (Quickly! Like the vid. You won’t hurt her.)

  Confused and frightened, Leseuer reached out and hesitantly slapped the Kelly next to where the headstalk joined the torso; belying their appearance, the glossy ribbons were exquisitely supple and velvety. As she waved her hand back and forth the Kelly’s headstalk followed it with a sinuous motion. It didn’t flinch when she gingerly stabbed at it, but her fingers were deflected by a hard, horny membrane flickering across the two of its three eyes facing her.