by Andre Norton
“Hiding places!” Grasty cut in. “What of your big promises, Prince, to return us to our own worlds? What lies here that you must hide from or keep us concealed from? I think that you have not been frank with us if we must skulk in ruins in your own palace.”
“If an android has taken my place,” Andas pointed out, “what would it profit me—or you—to go charging in without caution. I give you all the safety I can while I make sure of what has happened in my absence.” He did not add that his main fear now was just how long that absence had been. If the term of years was what it seemed at their comparing of dates—well, it was long enough to bring about a whole change of government. Surely his grandfather would long since have died. But who wore the crown of Balkis-Candace, the cloak of Ugana fur, and carried the pointless sword of Imperial justice?
The skimmer had left the foothills. Beneath them showed the wink of lights, in clusters to mark towns, singly for farms and villas. He had the power up to full speed, knowing he must reach his goal before the first graying of the dawn sky. And in so close to the palace, there would be no safe hiding place to wait for another night.
Andas picked up several reference points and knew now he was on the right course. He began to lose altitude. There would come a moment he must choose correctly, shut off the propulsion unit of the skimmer, and swoop in all the silence possible over that one strip of wall, and he mistrusted his own judgment so that now he was tense and stiff, his hands on the controls. The light glare in the sky ahead marked both the palace and Ictio on the other side of the river. Andas could count the beading of forts along the wall.
Down, down—cut speed—slacken—slacken—
He nursed the controls inch by inch, then cut off the power entirely. They swept between the two forts, over the wall, probably with hardly a handbreadth between them and it. Were they lucky, or had their passing been sighted by a sentry? There was nothing Andas could do now about that. If they could get down before any search party was out, they still had an excellent chance of playing a successful game of hide and seek. He could, in a last extremity, take them all into the passages.
Now he still had the engine off, but he dared to snap on the hover ray. Without the buildup of engine power it would not last long, just enough to cushion their descent. A loom of pallid white—Andas cut the hover and brought the skimmer to earth.
Its tail caught with a crackle, which sounded like a roll of doom drums. The light craft overbalanced and skidded ahead on its nose. Andas slammed the protecto, and its frothy jell squirted out about their bodies, thickening instantly as it met the air. By the time they had stopped, they were encased well enough to spare them more than a few bruises.
It took Andas a moment or two to realize that they had made it. And then the memory of the crash noise set him at the hatch. Surely that must have been heard in the watch towers. They would have to get under cover and fast. He half tumbled into the open and then turned to help, pull, and urge the others after him.
The skimmer, like one of the water insects it resembled, though giant-sized, was tilted forward on its nose, its battered tail upflung, looking as if it had been met in midflight by a blow from some fan of ceremony. It had earthed just where he had planned—in the Court of Seven Draks, though whether that was its rightful name he never knew. As a small boy he had called it that because of the fearsome drak statues that crowned the pillars at one end. This was one of the unfinished building enterprises of Asaph’s planning—consisting mainly now of only a smooth pavement of some treated stone that resisted the passage of time.
From here Andas knew well the way into the maze he defied any guardsmen to unravel. Of course, he had not meant to crack up the skimmer. But among all the various kinds of ill fortune that might have attended them this night, that was far less than most.
“Come on!” he urged them. “We must get away from here as quickly as we can.”
7
“Where do you take us? This is dark and smells of old evils!” Elys stood, her feet firmly planted, a little away from the opening, which was a narrow slit that Andas had just opened, thankful his memory served him so well.
“Old evils,” the girl repeated. “I do not go in there!”
Before any of them could move, she drew out of reach, flitting across the bare room into which Andas had guided them, her form alternately revealed in the moonlight through the windows and hidden in the shadows between.
“Elys!” He would have taken off after her. Yolyos caught his arm.
“Leave her to me.” The Salariki’s voice was the throat rumble of a hunting feline. “I will see to her. There are other hiding places here beside your hidden ways. And the sooner you learn what rights you may have, the better. I shall watch Elys and Grasty. Return here when you can.”
Andas wanted nothing more than to do as Yolyos urged, yet he felt a responsibility for the others. And when he did not move, the Salariki gave him a push.
“Go! I swear by the Black Fangs of the Red Gorp of Spal, I shall see to them.”
With an inward sigh of relief, Andas surrendered. But before he left, he made sure that the other understood how to open the door panel. Then if danger threatened, he could, with his charges, take to the hidden ways. Andas went in, the panels slipped into place, and he was in the dark.
Always before he had carried a torch. But there had been times when, under his father’s instructions, he had snapped it off and learned to advance a few steps at a time, trying to train other senses to serve him. One developed a guide sense through practice. And this part of the ruins held no unpleasant surprises.
Still he advanced with extreme caution, one hand running fingertips along the surface of the wall. Three side passages he passed, counting each in a whisper. At the fourth he turned into the new way. He should be passing now from the long deserted portion of the palace that had been erected at Asaph’s orders, approaching the section in general use in his time.
In his time? How far back was that? But he must not think of that now. It could even be that while in prison their memories had been tampered with to confuse the issue should they, as they had, escape.
Far ahead he saw a very faint spot of light. Toward that Andas crept, fighting down his desire to rush heedlessly to that spy hole. He sniffed. There was a scent here now, one strong enough to battle the dank smell of the ways. Flowers?
He reached the spy hole and flattened himself to the wall to get the widest view possible of what lay beyond. It was easy to see where that scent came from. This was a bedchamber, and the floor had an overcarpeting of scented flowers and herbs fresh laid. Also the handles of several spice warmers protruded from under the bedcovers, which had been drawn up over them to contain their scented vapors.
By twisting and turning against the wall, Andas was able to get a partial view of the rest of the room’s splendors. The ceiling, of which he could see only a palm’s breadth, was studded with golden stars against the pale green that was Inyanga’s sky tint on the fairest of days, while the floor under the herbs and flowers was a mosaic of bright color. The lower part of the wall was also a jeweled mosaic, and he focused on that. There was a line of figures in that company, all wearing dress of state. He could see four, and there was an empty space beyond the last of those as if the mural was not yet complete.
But there was no mistaking the robed and crowned man he faced the most directly. His grandfather’s harshly carven features were set in the impersonal stare that was the formal “face” worn at audiences. And next to him was another—two others.
Standing on equality with the Emperor Akrama was another wearing the state diadem and robe, plainly his successor. Successor! But Akrama—dead! Andas’s teeth closed painfully upon his lower lip.
If there was a new emperor—who? The face in the mosaic was familiar—he must know him—but it was not that of Anakue, Jassar, or Yuor. He could not set name to him.
A little beyond and lower than that unknown was the third portrait, this of a girl
, plainly one of the Wearers of the Purple, undoubtedly a First Daughter. But her face was strange to Andas.
There was no one in the room, he could see, and he was fumbling for the release of the panel door on this side when he heard voices. The great empear shell and silver door opened, and two women, wearing the green and white of ladies of the inner chambers, backed into the room, bowing low before a third.
The newcomer was the woman whose face was pictured on the wall, save that it was not now set in the awesome, stiff pose demanded by Imperial art. She looked much younger and more human than her portrait. Her hair, like that of her attendants, was completely hidden beneath a tall, bejeweled diadem from which fine chains depended to take some of the weight of massive earrings. Her robe was of the Imperial purple much overlaid with jeweled embroidery until it made such a stiff encasing for her body that she moved very slowly under its weight.
Involuntarily Andas’s shoulders twitched. He remembered only too well the weight of such garments and the way they plagued one through the long hours of some ultra-boring court ceremony. She must be glad to be in her inner chamber, able to free herself of that regalia.
She stood statue-like, stiff as her portrait, as the two ladies struggled with clasps and ties until they could bear away that robe. In her soft undergarment she looked again younger. And she continued to wait patiently as they bestowed the robe somewhere beyond Andas’s line of vision and returned to take her crown. Then she raised her hands to her head and stripped off with a quick pull the tight net that had bound down her hair, allowing its wiry, curling lengths to puff up from her skull.
With the overshadowing of the crown gone, Andas could better see her features. She was no real beauty, yet there was that about her that drew a man’s eyes.
“The Presence wishes—?” One of the ladies fell upon her knees, holding out a tray bearing a crystal goblet filled with a pale pink frothy drink.
The girl shook her head. “I have supped, I have drunk, past the point of feeling comfortable. One eats to forget the speeches of those who have nothing to say but recite it in a never-ending circling—” She stretched her arms wide. “Duse of the Golden Lips, how those trappings wear upon one! I think that some day when they are taken off, there will be nothing left of me but bare bone. You may go, Jacamada. Wait a little before you send my night maids. I need a moment to rest—”
“As the Presence wishes, so shall it be,” intoned the lady.
Andas moved impatiently. How it all came back—this smothering life of the Triple Towers! One might speak freely—a little—as this princess had just done. But the answers from all—save a tiny number of equal rank—would never be more than the formalities frozen into a set court speech by centuries of custom. Soon he would have no more freedom, perhaps even less than she whom he watched.
If this chamber was that of one of the Imperial princesses, he must now be on the outskirts of the Flower Courts. Yet his memories of the inner ways could not be that far wrong. This section of rooms had not been in use before. They were—he probed memory—yes, this was the court of Empress Alaha, who had been first wife to Emperor Amurak a hundred years ago.
Empress? No, the lady had addressed her as “Presence,” which was not a ruler’s title. It was safer to assume she was First Daughter. He was trying to imagine their relationship when he saw that she was staring at the panel behind which he stood.
“Creeper—spy!” Her voice was cutting with its cold anger. “Carry what tales you will, but remember two can play at this game. And remember this also—I have a way of knowing when you watch me. It is one beyond your discernment since it comes from the hands of the Voice of the Old Woman of Bones!”
Andas’s astonishment for a moment was true awe. Then the last name made the chill of fear touch him like a hand of ice reaching into this stuffy confinement.
Old Woman of Bones—but how had a First Daughter in the heart of the guarded Triple Towers had recourse to the Old Woman? Unless—dark rumors of old, stories that had been many times told within these walls, flowed from his memory. The Flower Courts had their own intrigues, and sometimes death had stalked there more ruthlessly even than in the Emperor’s dungeons.
She raised her hand, drawing from the forefolds of her robe a chain on which slid a ring. This she was about to put on her finger, while her lips curved in a small, secret smile.
“I do not think,” she said, and the threat in her voice was open, “that you will return to your mistress with the same joy in life with which you left her—”
Because those old stories had a more potent influence on him than he would have believed, had it not been put to the test, Andas found the catch of the panel and watched the narrow slit open. He leaped out, his hands ready as if to meet an enemy.
He must prevent her using that ring, as the old tales said it could be used. She already had it halfway to her mouth. Let her breathe on it, activate it—
But she stared at him almost wildly, her gesture not completed. He was able to reach her, imprison her wrist, and twist it behind her back, using his other hand to cover her mouth lest she bring in guards with a scream.
She fought him, but he was able to pull her closer to the passage door. Now he released her hand long enough to grab at the ring. It was a tight fit on her finger, and he could not get it free as she battled him. Once more he tightened his hold until she could only get her breath in half-sobbing gasps.
For a moment he held her so; then she spoke.
“You have doomed yourself to the ultimate death, laying hands upon the person of the First Daughter.” Her voice was calm, almost too calm after the violence of her fight seconds earlier.
“I think not.” He spoke for the first time. “Look to your own safety, First Daughter, for you would have loosed the power of the Bones against the Chosen of the High Throne.”
She laughed. “Your wits are gone, skulker in the dark. There is no Chosen prince. I can say that in truth. I am First Daughter, without a brother, to whom my father, the Emperor, has promised the throne to share with a husband of our mutual choosing.”
“And what is the Emperor’s name,” Andas asked then.
She looked puzzled, but she had regained her composure. When she spoke, it was not to answer his question, but as if some other subject were far more vital.
“I do not think that Angcela sent you.” She looked to the ring. “No, I have strengthened the warning with her blood and hair, she not knowing. She is not behind your coming. So, who are you—and why do you creep secretly so?”
“I asked you”—Andas shook her, hoping thus to establish some authority over her long enough to get straight answers—“Who is the Emperor?”
“Andas, son of Asalin, of the House of Kastor.” She studied his face, frowning. Then she asked, “My father was in Pav in his youth, but for the rest of his years he has been ever in the Triple Towers. He took no full wife before my mother, nor was it ever known—and you cannot long keep such a secret in the Flower Courts—that he ever made a lesser choice. Yet, you might be my father in his youth. Are you some secretly gotten son of his?” And her eyes blazed with what he was sure was pure hate.
“I am myself, Andas, son of Asalin.” He wondered if he could convince her, and beyond her the others, that another man ruled without right. But, she was the daughter of this false Andas! How long then—Once more he shook her.
“The year—in galactic reckoning—what is the year?”
“It is 2275.”
“Forty-five years—” he said, and without his realizing it, he loosed his hold. She, ready for such a chance, tore out of his hands. But he caught her quickly again.
“I do not know what you mean. If you are some ill-got son, you have no claim on the Emperor or the throne,” she spat at him.
“There is no true emperor on the throne,” he got out, hardly believing it himself—though it must be true, for here he was, and he did not doubt that she was telling him the truth. In other words, she was the daught
er of the android who had taken his place. But could an android father children? He had no idea—many secrets could be hidden by the Emperor’s will. She might be a substitute brought in to bolster up the other’s claim to humanity.
“You are mad—totally mad!” She had lost most of her assurance and began to struggle again.
“There is no Emperor Andas because I am Andas—kidnaped and hidden.”
Her mouth twisted. “Have you looked into a mirror? You are a youth. My father is a man who has already had one renew-life injection. Do you think he could have deceived the medics then? You are the android—and mad in the bargain! Though the ring does not warn me, this must be some trick of Angcela’s. She wants the crown so much that it has become food and drink, and she will die without it! But in you she has an imperfect tool.”
Andas hardly heard her. The court intrigues she mouthed about meant nothing. What did was that long tale of years he could not account for—the fact that here on Inyanga an Andas sat in power—an emperor who was—who must be—an android! Yet, had the stass at the prison kept him young? And if the Emperor had had an age-arrest injection, why the medics should know they were dealing with an android—
“I am not,” he said dully.
He did not see the spark flare in her eyes. She watched him now with a small cruel smile, like that she had worn earlier when she had detected him in hiding.
“Do you still doubt it? Come then, prove it! Look into the mirror yonder and tell me truly that you are an aging man. Come!”
She pulled at him, and hardly knowing why, he came with her to stand before a tall mirror, which reflected all before it with pitiless clarity.
There he stood, not quite as he had seen himself in the past, for the torn and stained coverall was far different from the clothes he had last worn when he looked at himself so. But he was as he had always been, his brown face thin, with the high bridged nose of the royal clans, his hair springing on his head like a dusky halo, dark eyes, teeth that shone the whiter against his skin. On his forehead was the delicate tattoo of the Imperial house—the Serpent of Dambo, a crown he could never erase in his lifetime.