The Phoenix in Flight

by Sherwood Smith

  Gelasaar’s brows lifted, humor crinkling the skin around his eyes. “Indeed, it does appear that I seriously overestimated your intelligence.”

  There’s your strike, Anaris thought, suppressing a grin.

  Barrodagh tightened his grip on the collar control and raised it slightly, then halted at a motion from Eusabian.

  The Panarch raised his voice. Anaris watched the fragile throat constrict, the old man’s ribcage lift as he made an effort to be heard. Had the Tarkans ignored the orders to leave him unharmed? Anaris knew that they’d taken a very liberal interpretation of those orders in regard to Admiral Carr, but all Eusabian cared about was that victims were upright when it was time to send them to their final judgment.

  “Do you have any idea of the difficulties involved in ruling hundreds of planets and countless Highdwellings?” the Panarch asked, and his voice echoed in the vast chamber, gaining a curious resonance—though Barrodagh’s voice, exactly as light, as tenor in modal register, had flattened in the vast chamber, sounding thin and weak.

  How does he do that? Anaris was surprised at the atavistic thrill that chilled his nerves as Gelasaar went on, “Some of them are so far from here that it takes my commands many weeks to reach them, and as long again for their reply. Why do you think the fundamental law of my rule is called the Covenant of Anarchy? Even with the power of the Fleet behind me, the best I could do was forbid interplanetary war and require free trade and travel.”

  The Panarch paused and looked up at the Avatar, and again the light from the stars above seemed to enhalo his face. Maybe it was only a matter of knowing exactly where to stand... except that Gelasaar had always sat in the throne, not stood before it. “I can understand your success here and elsewhere, perhaps, relying on sabotage and the greed of fools, but what more can you expect to do with only the Fist of Dol’jhar and a ragtag gang of Rifters to enforce your will? What will you do when the Fleet arrives?”

  Anaris kept his hands gripped behind his back. He’d heard the subtle emphasis on the word “elsewhere.” He knows what’s coming.

  The Avatar had missed it—if it really was a cue. He smiled mockingly, his anticipation obvious now. “Your concern for my travails is touching, Arkad, but your grasp of my power is faulty. Just hours ago one of that ragtag gang, as you call them, compelled the surrender of Charvann, after but a half-day’s resistance. The battlecruiser Korion lasted only minutes in that same action, and that was one of the least of my victories.”

  “Charvann is three weeks from here,” the Panarch countered, lifting his voice slightly. “There is no way you could know that, even had it actually happened: I know of nothing that could overpower a battlecruiser’s shields in minutes, or a planet’s in hours.”

  “You may not, but the Ur did.” Eusabian smiled on his enemy.

  Though the Panarch’s lips were closed, the skin over his cheekbones, above his beard, tightened with the slight drop of jaw that signified shock.

  Eusabian saw that. He smiled broadly, and made an open-palmed gesture of mocking beneficence, toward Barrodagh. “Tel urdug paliachee, em ni arben ettisen.”

  The reversion to Dol’jharian was the signal that the formal completion of the paliach’s humiliation ritual was at hand. Here it comes.

  Barrodagh bowed deeply, then moved around to the back of the throne as the Avatar continued. “I see that you believe me, now.”

  His tone invited retort. Anaris could have told him that the invitation was too obvious, too heavy, and sure enough, Gelasaar waited, but Anaris saw the signs of fatigue in the man’s stance, feet planted and spine braced for endurance. He knew, and now he knows what’s coming.

  But Barrodagh had not seen the signs either. He reappeared, carrying the pair of translucent boxes as he said, his tone so gloating that Anaris wondered if he had practiced alone in his chamber, “So, Arkad, are you curious to know your fate?”

  The Panarch ignored him, his eyes following the boxes as Barrodagh took his time placing them at the foot of the Throne, careful to make certain the line between them and the Panarch afforded him the best view of Gelasaar’s countenance.

  The Panarch turned his gaze back to Eusabian, his voice gaining in resonance. “Your creature asked the question, no doubt to maintain your dignity, but I saw it in your face. I’m sure you’ve spent much of the past twenty years devising something sufficiently bloody, so my curiosity would be redundant.”

  The Avatar put his chin on his hand, his expression one of entertainment. “Bloody?” Eusabian echoed. “Yes, I suppose so, although not to match the hecatomb offered to Dol here today.” He made a benevolent gesture that encompassed the vastness of the Hall. “And it will not come at my hands. I need not exert myself to kill you—not when the denizens of Gehenna will do it for me.”

  A snort of amusement escaped Barrodagh. There was a rustle of movement from the assembled Douloi, both those to the right and to the left of the throne.

  “Your pardon, Lord,” Barrodagh said, his voice thin as he struggled to be heard. How was it that only Gelasaar’s voice resonated? Anaris had dismissed from early in his hostage days the legends about this room being haunted. He’d assumed from the very first that they were fabricated in an attempt to frighten him. Barrodagh seemed to hear how reedy he sounded, for he cleared his throat, then spoke again, his tone revealing the strain he exerted to be heard. “I was just imagining the celebration the Isolates on Gehenna will have when he arrives.”

  “Yes, it was the symmetry of the arrangement that recommended it to me.” Eusabian turned back to the Panarch.

  “But it’s a pity the portion of my paliach dealing with your sons could not be completed as nicely. Formal vengeance is rigidly defined among my people.”

  Barrodagh, reading his command in Eusabian’s voice, leaned over and tapped once on top of each box. Their fronts cleared to reveal the heads of two men, neatly preserved and mounted. Their eyes were open, fixed on infinity. The blood pooled at Eusabian’s feet cast a mocking flush of health on their pallor.

  “Unfortunately an overzealous subordinate ran your youngest son into a gas giant, so I can’t complete the set,” Eusabian said, betraying his own interest by leaning slightly forward in order to see his enemy’s reaction.

  Gelasaar did not try to hide the wince of grief, but then his face smoothed back into Douloi control. And something else. Did he still hope, lacking real evidence to the contrary, that Brandon was still alive?

  Anaris almost shared that hope, experiencing again the sharp disappointment that he’d felt on hearing that Brandon was dead. He knew that seeing Brandon alive again would have been impossible in any case, yet he’d sometimes entertained himself with imagining his own duel of wits with his hated rival—followed by some instructive explorations with pain to test the limits of that Douloi superiority.

  Eusabian’s dark eyes were wide and unblinking. “Has your famous wit deserted you?”

  “Brevity is the soul of wit, Dol’jhar.” Gelasaar looked around the Throne Room once more, as one does at the last sight of something familiar. His voice was more revealing than his face: breathy, a little tremulous, but once again it smoothed into Douloi cadence as he said deliberately, “And either is wasted on a fool.”

  Barrodagh’s lips parted, then he turned to the Avatar for a sign.

  Anaris mentally awarded Gelasaar another point in the duel of wits. Though he was going to lose, he would die fighting. Few survived addressing the Avatar with such freedom. Is he trying to goad Eusabian into ordering his death?

  But the Avatar didn’t look angry. If anything, he seemed interested. Anaris enjoyed the sheer unexpectedness, the unlikeliness: here was the enemy who had defeated Eusabian twenty years before, and who now had lost everything but his life, talking as freely as if the two of them stood alone on the deck of a ship somewhere, out in the reaches of space where titles and possessions had no meaning.

  Eusabian’s teeth showed in a strange, tight smile. “I think the evidence of f
oolishness points in quite another direction. It is you who lost your empire, your fleet, your heirs. It is you who never penetrated the secrets of the Ur.”

  Barrodagh brandished the neuro-spasmic control, as if to silence the Panarch, but Eusabian lifted two fingers in a gesture of abeyance.

  “But I have.” Eusabian sat back. “And I control the powers of the Ur as easily as that controls you.” He indicated the spasmic controller that Barrodagh still brandished, ready on an instant to unleash its charge.

  Gelasaar braced himself again. Yes, he was trying to hide pain. Either the Tarkans had beaten him, or he was exerting the last of his energy to control his reactions to the emotional shocks of the day. “Where are the Ur now, Jerrode Eusabian of Dol’jhar?” His voice had gone husky, but there it went, resonating effortlessly through the Throne Room. Anaris heard a faint echo from the far walls. I am going to find out how he does that, if I have to order Ferrasin and his techs to rip out the walls.

  “The Ur are gone, ten million years and more, and their fate has put a charged weapon in the hands of an idiot. You have gained an empire you cannot rule, and a throne you cannot keep.”

  Eusabian’s eyes narrowed. Barrodagh’s chin jerked up. With a vindictive stab he brought his forefinger down on the control’s tab.

  The collar around the Panarch’s neck began to pulse with light, a shrill keening emanating from it. Gelasaar’s face contorted. His chest heaved as he fought for breath. He’s trying to speak, Anaris thought in amazement.

  Then the Panarch convulsed, his head thrown back, his eyes so wide they bulged, reflecting all the stars overhead. His voice became distant, almost hierophantic.

  “Hear me, Dol’jhar,” he intoned, his eyes looking through his enemy to something far beyond.

  I should have guessed that Gelasaar would be one of those in whom the collar induces epilepsy, and sometimes visions.

  “I see your destiny now. This Throne is yours, for a time, then another, older one, and finally none.”

  Barrodagh stabbed frantically at the control in his effort to silence the man. The pulsing quickened, the keening grew in pitch and volume, yet the Panarch continued as though he had not noticed, as if held in the grip of some vast force welling up from the foundations of the Mandala. The sound of his voice rolled through the room, charged like a thunderbolt about to strike.

  “In the end, all time will be yours, yet no time will be enough...” The wheezing voice went on, the blue eyes reflected a glow of preternatural light.

  “Get out!” shouted Barrodagh to the terrified assemblage. “Now!” The Tarkans thrust the mob of Douloi away from the Throne.

  Barrodagh trembled, the control held high in his hands. Still Eusabian had not moved, had not touched the enemy, whose neck now displayed the blistered stigmata induced by the sonic component of the collar’s impulses.

  “A short reign, Dol’jhar... and an end violent beyond imagination,” the Panarch said, as Barrodagh shook the control in angry desperation.

  The Panarch sagged into a slouch. He could barely stand, but he twisted his trembling head to gaze directly at Eusabian. His blue eyes, that moments before had glowed—had appeared to glow, it was only trickery, reflections in this chatzing place—were now mild, their focus diffuse, the whisper wondering. “I pity you,” he said.

  He dropped flat on his face.

  Barrodagh lunged forward to kick the fallen man, as if to give Eusabian’s rage a focus before it struck at everyone around him.

  “No,” the Avatar commanded. “Do not touch him.”

  The entertainment has ended. Prudence dictated a tactical retreat. Anaris backed away slowly, retreating behind the Throne so that he could head for the far exit. He’d had high expectations, but Gelasaar had surprised him. How much of that vision was invented beforehand? If the Panarch lived past the next twelve hours, Anaris was going to find some way to interview him before the inevitable end.

  o0o

  Barrodagh blanched and backed away, bowing; then, terrified, he turned so fast he slid a little on the congealing blood, and almost fell. He hurried toward the exit, afraid to run and even more afraid of looking back. The delay caused by the knot of Douloi being herded out of the hall seemed endless, but he could not get around them.

  Finally he reached the massive leaves of the Phoenix Gate. He glared at the guards posted there. “Go in at his command,” he ordered, and only then did he dare to look back.

  At the foot of the Throne, black above red, Eusabian stood unmoving, a dim presence dwarfed by his surroundings, untouched by the light that haloed the man crumpled at his feet, the same light Barrodagh had seen reflected in the Panarch’s eyes before the throne.

  Barrodagh fled.

  TWO

  DIS

  Vi’ya hefted the Heart of Kronos.

  How was the artifact constructed? No matter how closely she scrutinized that mirror-smooth surface, she could descry no seam or join. Stranger even than the physical effect was the mental effect, which was roughly analogous. Her head panged warningly; the mental distortion translated into physical terms, like color saturation too bright, sounds too sharp, too loud, sensations intensified, rather like continuous electrical shocks.

  She was still testing the strange properties of the Heart of Kronos when she entered a small natural cave deep within the complex. The only other occupant of the room, a tall, spare man of about forty-five years, looked up from the large screen he’d been watching.

  “Learn anything?” he asked, with a slow smile that seemed to increase the hound-like sadness of his brown eyes.

  “Enough,” she replied, considering how much to tell him.

  Norton was her second-in-command, the captain of the only other armed craft in the organization’s fleet. Norton was one of those Rifters who had grown up to his vocation, inheriting his ship from a parent. His somber black jumpsuit carried a gold-ringed sun over the heart pocket, twin emblem to the blazon on the hull of his Sunflame. Honest and loyal, he knew little of Panarchist politics and cared less.

  She changed the subject. “How long until the repairs on the Sunflame are complete?”

  He pursed his lips, his long nose wrinkling thoughtfully.

  “I can’t say... Jaim is in there with Porv and Silverknife, and I just sent Marim out to give them a hand. Most of the exterior work is done. If I hadn’t been following every step of the work, I wouldn’t recognize the ship myself. There’s no chance Hreem or his gang will figure out it’s Sunflame, even if we fly right across their noses.”

  He studied the screen and continued musingly. “I’m still not sure that last jack against Hreem was wise—it was perilously close to infringing the Code. I’m still expecting a rogation from the Adjudication Consistory on Rifthaven.”

  Vi’ya shrugged. “I don’t expect any trouble. Considering the audits against him waiting there, I don’t think he will dare approach Rifthaven anymore. And he’s unlikely to demand one against us. He’d rather blow us out of space himself.”

  She looked down at the Heart of Kronos. Norton’s eyes followed her gaze.

  “What about the fiveskip?” she continued.

  “Can’t work on it until everything else is done. Expect it’ll take a day or two.”

  “You might have to do that in a Realtime Run. Break down everything here and fall back to the other base. Leave sufficient fuel for Telvarna at the cache. Don’t check in at Rifthaven on the way—wait until you’re established. I have an idea Marim—”

  “You’re going somewhere?” He was anxious and watchful, but that was his nature.

  “The Arkad and his furious liegeman want to be taken to Arthelion, though they lied when they said it was their original destination.”

  “The Panarchist secret base?”

  “Most probably. Likely on behalf of the Arkad, but also possibly because of—this.” She hefted the sphere, and watched Norton’s eyes narrow in puzzlement at its behavior. “Which makes me wonder again just why Hreem attack
ed a planet with no relative strategic importance... enough with that now! My first thought was to have you take this object to the other base, but the Eya’a are too agitated over it. Maybe they can figure out what it is during the transit time to Arthelion.”

  “Arthelion.” Norton’s voice was even, considering, but she could sense his reluctance. But she had learned not to react to emotions that people did not admit—unless they were a threat. “Vi’ya, I don’t think you should go. The Covenant is iffy enough for the Sodality these days, no matter where one goes, but the Mandala...”

  “I foresee little trouble, not while returning a lost Arkad to their keep, and I might be able to learn something of the matters that concern us. It would be interesting to know how good Panarchist information is about Hreem—and about Dol’jhar’s movements.”

  Norton’s narrow brow furrowed, then he said slowly, “You trust this Arkad not to simply hand you to the authorities?”

  “You must remember I know something of him from Markham. Though there’s little I can attest to in his credit—underneath Markham’s indiscriminate praise, he sounds much like the typical Douloi—I do not expect treachery.” Vi’ya dropped the sphere into her belt pouch.

  Norton’s gaze followed the odd movement of the sphere, but he said nothing.

  “No. We will probably be safer than you, until you get the Sunflame operational and out of here. Hreem has some sort of new weapon—Marim saw him blow away Korion with one shot.” Norton’s eyes opened wide. “And Charvann is likely to fall to him soon. He’s already got the Node and the Syncs. I’m afraid that he may get our location from the Panarchists. At that point the existence of this base will be measured in hours unless it’s shut down and thus undetectable.”

  Norton nodded soberly.

  “Even if Hreem is defeated, there’s still the danger from the demon-touched Aerenarch Semion, who undoubtedly had the erring Krysarch followed, and would leap at the chance to eliminate him under the guise of action against Rifters. Have the primary crew of Telvarna report at once, and run through status checks. I’ll take Ivard in Paysud’s place; it’s time he made a run on his own. I’ll cover Fire Control myself. “She smiled. “Or I may use the Arkad. We’ll see.”