Schism: Part One of Triad (Saga of the Skolian Empire)

by Asaro, Catherine

  However, if these men followed Vitarex, they had sworn loyalty to him, possibly even by the Ritual of the Blade. Although the ceremony had become less common since the war ended five years ago, men continued to vie in competitions, keeping fit for any skirmishes they might end up fighting. They might support Vitarex even against a Bard. Or they might come from Tyroll. Vitarex’s bodyguards had murdered Eldrinson’s men with no provocation and no sign of remorse.

  “I will say nothing,” Eldrinson said.

  “Good.” Vitarex tapped his long finger against a gold leaf embedded in the lacquered stand. A bell chimed. A moment later, the young woman who served him entered and bowed.

  Vitarex waved at Eldrinson. “Free him.”

  The woman nodded, her face composed, but Eldrinson sensed her disquiet. As she approached, her mood jumped out to him: distress at his pain, confusion about the situation, fear of Vitarex. From her whispered comments to her husband, Eldrinson knew she hesitated to refuse the Aristo. She and her husband had sworn fealty to him. They owed him their loyalty. And he paid well, in semiprecious stones; without that income, their family might starve and they would be unable to build a house where they could live instead of sleeping in the forest. It wasn’t her nature to go back on an oath, nor did she want to endanger her family, but she was finding service to Vitarex miserable. Eldrinson’s pain dismayed her.

  She knelt by him, her violet eyes downcast, and fumbled with the ropes knotted around his wrists. He gritted his teeth as pain shot up his arms. She kept struggling with the knots until finally he groaned, his eyes tearing up from the agony. Her alarm washed over him. She was so upset, her hands shook.

  Vitarex sighed.

  The woman let go of the knots and turned to the Aristo. She spoke in a soft voice with no chimes at all. “I cannot free him, Lord Vitarex.”

  Lord? Eldrinson gritted his teeth. Only Bards carried the title “Lord,” and he didn’t believe for one instant Vitarex was a Bard. He might be a lord among Aristos, but if he insisted his staff call him “Lord” here in Rillia, he was putting himself on the same level as the Rillian Bard, a grave insult. True, Lord Rillia was a terrible singer, but no one ever mentioned that nor let it affect their respect for his leadership.

  “How odd,” Vitarex murmured, watching Eldrinson. “It seems your bonds don’t want to come off.”

  Eldrinson knew the semi-intelligent ropes were resisting any attempt to loosen them. He met Vitarex’s stare. “Coward.”

  “What was that?” Vitarex asked politely. “I didn’t hear it.”

  Eldrinson regarded him steadily. “I said you are a coward. It is easy to torment a bound man.”

  The Aristo’s eyes glinted. “You should learn more respect.”

  Eldrinson desired only to learn how many ways he could punch that superior look off Vitarex’s face. He clenched his jaw and held back his words, lest the wrong ones come out and defeat his purpose. When he had control over his anger, he said, “I can’t fight anyone tied up this way.”

  “I suppose not.” Vitarex extended his long finger to the lacquered stand and tapped its scrolled border.

  The cords around Eldrinson’s arms fell away. He froze, expecting a trick. When nothing happened, he lowered his arms with great care. Pain stabbed his muscles anew, and he squeezed his eyes shut, struggling not to cry out. Vitarex was a fool to consider giving him a sword. With half a chance, he would turn it against the Aristo.

  Eldrinson opened his eyes. The young woman was kneeling at his side. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Enough!” Vitarex said. “Come here, girl.”

  The woman rose to her feet and went to stand before Vitarex, her hands folded before her body, her gaze averted. He considered her, his eyes narrowed, and for one sickening moment Eldrinson thought he intended to make her kneel. He felt the Aristo restrain the impulse and stay in his guise as a Lyshrioli man. Eldrinson doubted Vitarex realized how powerful an empath he had captured or he would have guarded his reactions better. Or perhaps he just couldn’t fathom how an empath could read moods.

  “Pour me some wine,” Vitarex told her.

  She bowed deeply to him. Then she crossed to a table where they kept the wines in bottles of vivid, stained-glass colors. Eldrinson began the laborious process of stretching out his legs. He wanted to groan as aches stabbed through his knees, but he barely even grunted. Damned if he would let Vitarex hear his discomfort.

  The woman brought Vitarex his wine, a ruby-red liquid in a blue goblet. He idly waved his hand. She apparently understood the gesture, for she moved around and took up a position behind the lounger, standing, silent and waiting.

  “So.” The Aristo drank his wine as he watched Eldrinson. “Think you will be ready to fight this evening?”

  “Yes.” Eldrinson doubted that were true, but he didn’t intend to give Vitarex any excuse to tie him up again.

  “Ah, well.” Vitarex rose languidly to his feet and stretched his arms. He turned to the woman, towering over her. “You will tend to his needs. See that he is fed and rested.”

  She nodded. “Yes, milord.”

  Eldrinson wanted to snort. Milord indeed. No one here used that title. He knew it only from Roca. Her people called him all sorts of strange things, including “Your Highness,” as if he were in the mountains, “Your Majesty,” which made him want to laugh, and “Milord,” which perplexed him. Apparently he was “Your Highness” as Roca’s consort and “Your Majesty” as the purported King of Skyfall. He had given up trying to make them stop and just answered to whatever they felt was appropriate.

  After Vitarex left, the woman came back over and settled gracefully next to Eldrinson. “I’m sorry.”

  “It isn’t your fault.” This was his first chance to speak with her alone. Perhaps she would help him—

  Eldrinson froze. Ah, no. An all too familiar queasiness spread through him. His fingers twitched. Not now …

  “ … wrong!” The woman cried. “Please, what’s wrong? Can’t you hear me?”

  “Wha—?” Dizziness rolled over Eldrinson in waves. He was disoriented, nauseated, confused. And so very tired.

  After a moment his head cleared enough for him to think. The young woman was leaning over him, her face flushed and concerned. He must have experienced a seizure, a minor one he thought. He just blanked out during the small ones and stopped responding. He knew only because people told him; he never remembered the seizure himself, though he could feel it coming on. The small ones caused no real injury, but they served as a warning.

  Apprehension swept over him. Gods, don’t let it start again. It had been years since he had suffered any serious problems. The big seizures, the generalized tonic clonic attacks, had stopped altogether. He rarely even had the small ones. Yet in the past few days he had suffered one of each. Yes, he had been under strain, but this wasn’t the first time. In the past, he had ridden to war, been injured and in pain, fought with adrenaline pumping, and had no attacks. The treatments for his epilepsy no longer seemed to be working as well.

  Eldrinson spoke raggedly. “In my travel bags—there was a long tube … ?” He needed his air syringe.

  “I don’t know.” She seemed close to tears. “A guard has your bags.”

  “Do you know which one?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Goodman Shannar.”

  “Shannar?”

  “This is not your name?”

  He started to tell her, then stopped. Eldrin wasn’t a common name, and people knew the Dalvador Bard was called the son of Eldrin. He said only, “You just surprised me. How did you know?”

  “You spoke it in your sleep. I asked if it was your name and you said yes.”

  He suspected he had been having a nightmare about Shannon being hurt. Her misunderstanding protected him. Vitarex knew his prisoner might give a false name while he was awake, but people didn’t lie in their sleep.

  She indicated a pile of rugs across the tent. “Would you like to rest?�
�

  Eldrinson nodded, grateful. He had hurt too much to sleep much, and when he did manage to doze, he dreamed of Shannon trudging through snow saturated with dusty glitter, plowing on and on, his hair tangled, his body gaunt. He didn’t know if the nightmare came from his condition or if he had picked up his son’s distress. Was Shannon wandering, lost and hungry, dying? The pain caused by that thought went far deeper than any ache in his body.

  Surely they had found Shannon by now. ISC knew how to nullify a jammer field. They had done so the last time one of his sons absconded with one of the blasted things. Vyrl had “borrowed” a jammer when he ran off with Lily. A battle cruiser in orbit had finally penetrated the shroud it created, but that had taken over a day, more than long enough for the two young people to marry. ISC had improved the design since then, but surely they also improved their techniques for neutralizing it. They had to find Shannon. The boy was off in his own world too much to plan such a trip properly. He could end up lost or fallen down a cliff or starved.

  As for himself, it frightened Eldrinson that no one had come for him. They had to know he was missing. Denric had expected to meet him yesterday and they were supposed to check in with Roca and Brad regularly. Foreboding grew within him. For Vitarex to remain undetected here, he needed equipment far more sophisticated than the small jammer Shannon had stolen. The Aristo’s shroud probably covered a far wider area, possibly even extending into the mountains. ISC could counter their own equipment, but they had less knowledge of Aristo technology. And Shannon could be anywhere. If he was within range of Vitarex’s shroud, ISC might not find the boy even if he turned off his jammer.

  Eldrinson became aware someone had spoken. He realized his eyes had unfocused, blurring the room. He turned his attention outward to find the woman watching him with concern.

  “Goodman?” she said. “Can you hear me?”

  He shook his head, though he heard her now. He couldn’t keep his body upright anymore. With a sigh he lay down on the carpet that covered the floor of the tent.

  The woman rose and padded out of view. He closed his eyes, content to lie still, so relieved to stretch out that he could almost ignore how much he hurt. Her footsteps rustled as she returned, and she laid a rug over him, warming his body. He tried to thank her, but he didn’t have enough energy to speak.

  Eldrinson slipped into the welcoming oblivion of sleep.

  11

  Blue Dales

  The Dieshan Military Academy had stood in the foothills of the Red Mountains for over two centuries. Desert bordered it to the north and south, and in the east the towers of HQ City lifted into the red sky. Soz and Althor strode up the wide, white walkway to the academy entrance, to those famous soaring arches supported by columns three stories high. Its crenellated watchtowers reminded Soz of home, though on Lyshriol they fought with bows and arrows instead of intelligent missiles and antimatter beams.

  The stark white stone glittered, accented by black marble borders on the windows in the face of the building. The age and grandeur of the place felt tangible. She had seen it in holos, memorized every detail, read all she could, but none of that seemed real now. This was no holo. She had reached the academy.

  Althor walked at her side dressed in his Jagernaut blacks, the trousers, pullover, and boots of their everyday uniform. The cadet’s insignia flashed on his shoulders.

  He caught her looking at him and grinned, his teeth a flash of white in his gold face. “So what do you think?”

  “It’s incredible.” The words hardly did justice to what she felt. She paused as they reached the bottom of the stairs that led up to the colonnade. The steps stretched out on either side of them all the way down the building, white and brilliant in the harsh sunlight. Fifty people could have walked these stairs abreast. She and Althor started up, crossing a threshold that existed as much in her mind as in the real world.

  They entered the academy through a massive pair of arched doors that swung slowly inward in response to Althor’s slight push. Although the doors looked antique, wood and stone with no visible mechanism, they swung far too easily to be moving purely on their own momentum. Soz thought she heard the hum of an engine, but it was almost inaudible.

  Inside, a few meters on the left, a woman in Jagernaut blacks stood behind a white console-podium. She was speaking with a young woman about Soz’s age, taking ID it looked like. This was the second time Soz had noticed a human touch in the automated city, both cases dealing with military personnel. It bemused her; she had always thought of soldiers as the tougher side of humanity, making their way in less humanized, less hospitable areas than the loved ones they protected. That certainly described warfare on Lyshriol.

  Here in HQC, though, the reverse seemed to be true; the more deeply involved a person was with the military, the more humanized their treatment. Perhaps it was an attempt to keep a balance, to account for the inhuman conditions of the war they fought. The definition of “less hospitable” changed in space, describing combat fought by machines at accelerations that obliterate unprotected humans. Battles spread across vast areas of space and throughout the shadowy information universes created by the information meshes that spanned the stars.

  Althor waited with Soz behind a glowing white line to the left of the entrance. When the woman behind the console finished with the other girl, she sent her on into the building and then motioned to Soz and Althor.

  As Soz and Althor walked forward, Soz inhaled deeply. Even the air here seemed laden with history and tradition. Actually, it was rather dusty. She bit her lip. What if they had no records for her? Tahota said DMA had approved her admission, but in Soz’s experience nothing ever happened among her mother’s people without endless and onerous documentation, none of which she had even begun let alone sent to Diesha.

  When they reached the podium, the woman spoke briskly. “One at a time, please.” She nodded to Soz. “You can wait behind the line.”

  “We’re together,” Althor said. It apparently wasn’t a typical response, given the way the woman frowned at him. Before she could say more, he clicked a small disk out of his gauntlet and handed it to her.

  With an impatient huff, the woman scowled at him. When he just met her gaze, she shook her head. But she did snap the disk into a slot on her console. The flat holoscreen in front of her glimmered and holos appeared, flowing through the air, going by at the wrong angle for Soz to make out details. They looked like hieroglyphics in Skolian Flag, a structured language developed as a common tongue by the many and varied peoples of the Imperialate. Then a set of more elegant glyphs appeared. Those she recognized: Iotic. It was spoken as a first language only by the noble Houses and Ruby Dynasty.

  The woman stared at the holos, her mouth opening, her face flushed. When the display faded, she looked up again. Her frown had vanished. She spoke in a subdued voice. “You may proceed.” She made no attempt to verify their identities. No questions, no checks, nothing.

  Althor nodded, seeming subdued himself. He took the chip she handed to him and clicked it into his gauntlet. “Thank you.” To Soz he said, “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Soz wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she doubted it was routine. She hurried to catch up with her long-legged brother as he strode out into a huge lobby. Its domed ceiling curved so far overhead, their entire house at Dalvador could have fit inside here, even its towers. Fluted columns bordered the lobby. White tiles patterned the floor, and also the insignia of the Skolian Imperialate in blue and gold, several meters across, the silhouette of an exploding sun within a circle.

  “Wow.” Soz gaped at the place as they walked. “It’s even more impressive in real life.”

  “It’s supposed to be.” Although Althor laughed, his voice had an odd, edgy quality.

  Soz stopped gawking. “What’s wrong?”

  “That disk had our identities on it.” After a moment he added, “Including that we were Kurj’s heirs.”

  Gods. “No wonder she let us through so
fast.”

  “I don’t want special consideration.”

  Soz agreed. Their dynastic family name was Skolia, but she wouldn’t use it here. She would loathe having people believe she gained admission through nepotism rather than merit. No one would recognize the Valdoria name. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  “I don’t.” He lifted his hands and then dropped them. “It doesn’t help. He comes to the academy sometimes. As soon as we’re together, everyone knows we’re related.”

  Soz could see what he meant. It wasn’t only that he and Kurj looked so much like each other, but also that they looked like no one else. Their kin ties were obvious. The same wasn’t true in her case. She didn’t resemble Kurj at all. Perhaps no one would guess the relation.

  “Has it caused you problems?” she asked.

  “People are more careful around me than they should be.” He tapped his finger on his gauntlet. “I won’t use that chip again.”

  “Neither will I.”

  Her brother grinned. “You can’t. I have it.” When she glared, he smirked. “I’m older, Soz. Got seniority.”

  She crossed her arms and turned her head away rather than deign to accept that answer.

  Althor laughed. “You’re too easy to bait.”

  “Pah.”

  “Soz, look.”

  Curious despite her intent to be aloof, she looked. An archway stood ahead of them, leading out of the lobby. “What about it?”

  “That’s where new cadets go.”

  A thrill went through her, followed by alarm. “Me.”

  “Yes.” His teasing smile faded. “I have to use another entrance.” He drew her to a stop. “From here on, you’re on your own.”

  Suddenly she wasn’t annoyed at him anymore. “Thank you for coming with me. And for being my support.”

  “I don’t know, Soz.” Although he tried to appear dour, mischief danced in his gaze. “DMA might not thank me, after you whip through here like an exploding antimatter plasma.”