by Julie Ishaya
Kieriell stared in awe. He could swear that the center structure of the configuration was glowing as if swelling out with energy so that it wasn't so much a pyramid formed at the center of the joined titans as it was bulging out to become a sphere. "Has anyone ever been to the center?" he asked breathily.
Adam chuckled mildly at the question and said, "Well, it would take years just to reach it, even using space displacement." He gestured toward the wonder of the grid's center, then he sobered when he saw the serious speculation that Kieriell beamed at him. He said then, "No Nexian has ever been there. I don't think we're quite ready for it, if there is anything there worth finding." He eased back against one of the study carols and allowed the chamberlain to step in.
"There are also grids within grids," the chamberlain explained. With a gesture he appeared to conjure a greater web of micro titan walls that filled in the spaces between the mother grid. "You see why it is called the infinity grid? Everything is connected within."
Kieriell nodded. "So, what does this have to do with me and teleporting?"
"Well," the chamberlain replied, "everything within this model represents a macrocosmic level. But on a microcosmic level, we believe there is a collective code connected with the larger structure. We believe it's in all organisms. . . this energy that by quantum standards enmeshes every thing together. But not everyone is able to tap it. We believe there is something in a transcendant's genes, a sequence that taps that micro grid, opening a pathway to the macro. There are beings we've documented who are evolved to completely identify with their macro-cosmic gridcode. They can travel through the grid lines without the aid of technology such as that of Nex."
Kieriell arched one quizzical brow, an incredulous glint in his eyes. "Excuse me, transcendant?" Again his father and the chamberlain exchanged a glance, and he felt a little stab of impatience. "Why do I feel like you've been leaving something out here?"
The chamberlain seemed to ignore his pupil's expression. "They are non-physical beings, more consciousness and energy than anything. For you, however—a physical being from a race that can shift—you have the ability to take that shift one greater step further into a non-physical state of your own energy and pierce the grid lines by sheer instinct alone. We believe that one day you will be able to traverse these dimensions without rift-tech." Behind the mask, his green eyes burned. "You are what every Nexian desires to be, Kieriell."
"Come on." Kieriell shook his head. They were making him nervous with such talk, and he wondered how mapping a universal grid and dimensions had suddenly come back around to his abilities. "I teleport. It's a psionic gift. Rare, maybe, but nothing like you're saying."
"No," the chamberlain said, taking an insistent step closer. "There is much more. You are too precious to all of us. You are the key that we've all been waiting for."
"Waaaahat?" Kieriell laughed and his voice raised a little more than he expected to. "Why would every Nexian desire to be me?"
"I've told you," Adam finally spoke up again, "how the shift takes us to a dark place. We become monsters, but you can go in a totally different direction. That's why." He unhitched himself from where he leaned on the podium and stepped forward. "You know, I've not yet seen you teleport."
"You saw me in the throne room."
"No, I saw you dangling by your neck in the throne room. I didn't see you actually teleport in." He fingered his chin and cocked his head with a look of scrutiny that Kieriell suddenly found unbearable. "Teleport for me."
"I would like to see as well," the chamberlain said.
Kieriell hesitated, pondering how to go about this. Teleport to elsewhere in the room? Maybe even all the way back to his own chamber?
"Perhaps some motivation would help," the chamberlain said.
Kieriell noticed first that the eyes within the mask shifted to deep red and the pupils narrowed at him, before energy rippled out from the chamberlain's hand. The shadow didn't form a blade but rather branched out with rippling speed into a blunt instrument that shoved Kieriell in the chest, knocking him back a few steps.
"Ouch!"
"Do you need so much stimuli?" the chamberlain asked with a harsh tease in his voice. Again he jabbed the air with the blunt shadow force.
Kieriell stumbled back. "Gad!" He rubbed a sore spot on his chest. The same force jabbed at him again. "Stop it!"
As it came at him again, he felt his body tingle, motes of light swirling around his vision, before it consumed him for a matter of seconds and then he found himself on the other side of the room near the door and looking back at his father and teacher. They were still looking around the room, Adam spinning where he stood as if trying to follow the course of a flying insect.
Kieriell cleared his throat loudly. They stopped searching, and he was rather amused at the dumbfounded look on his father's face. "Well, I gave you what you wanted. What do you think?"
A few hours later, Adam had excused himself, but lessons with the chamberlain had continued in the presentation area of the outer room. Kieriell propped back in an auditorium chair and peered over the side of the library's second level at the blank screen on the far wall. He'd just finished a course on grid coordinates and found it far easier than expected to understand. He sensed that things were wrapping up for the day. "Well, I believe I understand the basics of your mapping techniques. What about history?"
"I'll outline early Nexian history for you," the chamberlain said, "and feel free to ask questions and take any books from this place back to your room. I think that it's more important that you look at the Nexian political structure and how it ties into our history, and then later you'll learn more about our means of generating revenue through the mines and outworld trade."
"Go ahead," Kieriell insisted. "I need the orientation like no body's business."
"You're already familiar with the basic structure. There are nine orders, each one ruled from a Nexian asteroidal body all of which fall under the central order of Dyss." The screen behind him flickered to life and cast the three dimensional effect of looking into Nex space at the light of Arctus and the bodies surrounding it.
"How do you do that?" Kieriell interrupted. "The screens just pull up what you want them to."
"They are all neurally accessed and react to your will. Whatever images you wish to see, the screen will provide."
"Neat." Kieriell sat up and absorbed the effect of Nex as it could be seen from the dome.
"Dyss," the chamberlain continued, "is the highest order and holds the throne. The mantle of Asmodéus is also the title of the emperor. The other eight lords are not exactly sovereign, but they do independently carry out their duties on their respective orders. After a period of two millennia each lord passes on his or her mantle to an heir. The current Astar'Æth, the Lord of Hella, is one exception. He is the twin brother of your grandsire."
Kieriell raised a curious brow and nodded for the chamberlain to elaborate.
"Nine-hundred years ago the ruling Astar'Æth went insane and died without an heir. The consulate met to elect a new lord, and Kaman Arius was chosen. Up until then, there had been a mild dispute between your grandsire and his brother over who had the right to the throne and the mantle of Asmodéus. Your grandsire, Arctus Asmirrius, had been born first, and that was the means by which he became Asmodéus. Kaman took the title granted him, so now you know that the current Astar'Æth is your uncle."
Kieriell acknowledged this with a thoughtful, "Hm." He absently scratched at his cheek in thought. "So why did the previous Astar'Æth go insane?"
"His only heir died," the chamberlain replied evenly, "and he felt responsible." The eyes within the mask appeared to concentrate on Kieriell, looking for the slightest reaction to what came next: "She was a transcendant."
Kieriell fidgeted uneasily. He preferred not to learn how the child of the former Astar'Æth had died. But—he reminded himself of what the chamberlain had just told him—that had happened over nine hundred years ago. Abruptly changing the subject was not so har
d, although he could tell that the chamberlain expected him to pursue the issue. Instead he pressed forward with, "Tell me about the Shiv. Why so much hostility between them and the Nexians?"
"Ah, so you've already heard about the Shiv."
"My father mentioned them, yes."
"That gets complicated. The Shiv are a race as ancient as we are. While the Nexian orders have been in existence here for over fourteen thousand years, the Shiv claim to have been here longer. Within less than five millennia after the dated establishment and colonization of Nex, the Shiv had mined and used up most of the star energy in their system. When they tried to reach out for other systems, they found us blocking their way."
"I see." Kieriell nodded, remembering his father's earlier commentary on the Shiv and their technology that had stripped the stars clean. Something about that thought chilled him.
The chamberlain paced, his hands folded together. "The Shiv will compose a good majority of your political studies. With the next ballot in less than three years, you will need to study the Shiv language, and you must learn the etiquette of dealing with them."
"What about Asmodéus?" Kieriell interrupted.
"What about him?" the chamberlain frowned.
"Isn't there something more I should know about him?" Kieriell shrugged. "You know, before I accidentally get him boiled up again?"
"I think that's something you must learn on your own, Kieriell. You will only know Asmodéus through your own efforts."
That wasn't what Kieriell wanted to hear. If there was any question he sought the answer to, it was that one. Under all of that steadfast rigidity his grandsire displayed, he knew there was a Nexian man who had not always been the emperor. "In the throne room," he went on, "I experienced some sort of compulsion. It was Asmodéus, you know, controlling me."
"Yes." The chamberlain's eyes looked amused. "Psionic compulsion is one of the emperor's skills. He could force an enemy to walk over a cliff if the need arose. Never underestimate him. And he is not the only one. Psionic issues embed our very codes."
"I'm getting that."
"Watch your back, Kieriell. Swear that you will never go any place foreign to you without someone with you."
"I swear." He sighed, wishing he could lean back and prop his feet up without a care. "So, what's the plan for tomorrow?"
The chamberlain replied, "You and I will meet in the green room to work on your teleportation skills. That was an interesting display you put on in the map room. It proves that much of your skill is controlled by instinct. We've got to get you over that."
"How so?"
"You must be quick, like you were today, but you should be certain that when you call on your ability, it will always answer."
Kieriell blinked and sat forward. "Come again?"
The chamberlain's voice dropped. "I mean that without training, there may come a time when you will need most desperately to teleport, but you will find yourself unable. Perhaps because you have exhausted yourself." His eyes hardened. "Or perhaps you over-estimated your skills playing games, and when you really needed them the most, they failed you."
Kieriell knew he had been guilty of playing games all along. At the school, when he teleported to Jarren's dorm and overheard the conversation within, he had been making a game of it. Teleporting to the throne room to gaze out the dome had also been a game. Neither situation had ended happily, and so now he understood on at least one level what the chamberlain meant. "All right," he replied. "Tomorrow then."
9
"You know what I really hate about this place? There aren't enough windows." Kieriell stood in the passage to Adam's office and propped against the wall with his arms crossed to support the small burden he carried.
Adam looked up from the scattering of parchment work before him and a screen book where he'd been organizing it all into a neural cell. He noted that Kieriell had two medium-sized books tucked in his arms along with a long, half-crushed roll of film paper. Several hours had passed since the meeting in the library, and Adam couldn't explain the strange numb feeling that had taken over his chest. The light of Kieriell's body disintegrating flashed in his mind. The jolt he had felt in his heart lingered. Hearing about his son's talent and actually witnessing it were two different things. Now he would know the true meaning of regret should any harm come to Kieriell. "You had a good discussion with the chamberlain?"
"Fine." Kieriell dropped an arm and almost lost his hold on the books. He fumbled to catch them back up and settled again. "There's a lot to cover, huh? He recommended these." He indicated the items.
"And you understand the concept of the infinity grid?"
"It's not a matter of understanding so much as just keeping up with numbers, and I really would like to study more on the worlds that have been documented." Kieriell took a slow, uneasy step forward. "The chamberlain also told me that Lord Astar'Æth is Asmodéus' twin brother. You never told me about that. I guess it makes your job as ambassador a little easier?"
Adam didn't reply. He glanced back down at his work and sighed, one fingertip poised upon, and rolling about, a small crystalline orb, which he inadvertently rolled back toward himself when Kieriell stepped even closer.
"What's that?"
Adam knotted his fist around the object and felt it grow warm against his skin. "Sending amplifier. It's how we send missives." He uncurled his hand and held it up before his son, displaying the orb on the tips of his fingers so that Kieriell could see the circuitry within. Thin gold lines, criss-crossed in an intricate triangular pattern, almost mimicking the grid's structure.
Kieriell recognized it. "Oh, I've seen one of those, on Maven Arhden's desk." He blushed slightly. "I'm afraid I mistook it for a paperweight. How does it work?"
"It's powerful enough to pierce dimensions and carry messages through. It can create a closed or open link to the recipient, for whom it will appear in her mind as a holographic projection. You have to be versed in telepathy for it to work, so when your other psionics start to develop, I'll show you how to use it."
"Her mind?" Kieriell asked. "Are you sending a missive to Mother?"
"I thought I might later." He rubbed at his eyes and sat back from the desk. "I never told you about the windows."
"Windows?" Kieriell arched one brow. "Oh, windows! Right, there aren't enough."
"Actually, they're everywhere." Adam stood. "Come, I'll show you." He led the way to Kieriell's chambers. In the lounge he paused to stare at Jenesaazi's portrait. How it gazed back at him with that knowing glimmer in the eyes. He wanted her. Now. Just as he had wanted her for three tedious years. Her smell still lingered on his body, in his hair, from their last moments together.
"Well?" Kieriell muttered impatiently, dropping the books and other objects on the couch.
"Windows," Adam said passively. "Foundation control, deactivate wall holography for this series of chambers." At that, several panels of the rock face began to sink in and smooth out. "The palace has its own shape shifting qualities," he explained.
The panel adjacent to the lounge entrance, across from the couch and bookshelves, became as glass built into the wall. Beyond, lower Nex space appeared. Within the connecting chambers, more panels revealed themselves.
"It's not a real window," Adam explained, watching Kieriell wander closer to touch the glass. "The real views from the palace's outer walls are transferred in as images over the neural system, kind of like the brain receiving and processing the vision of the eyes."
"It looks so real."
"Will that do?"
"I guess it will have to, won't it?" Kieriell gave a satisfied smile. He moved into the bedchamber and found a larger panel covered the wall behind the bed. "I can sleep turned this way," he said, and gestured that he would lie down with his head turned toward the stars.
"Well, then I—" Adam caught himself, about to turn and leave. Kieriell's smile stopped him.
"This is just ripping!" Kieriell moved before the wall and pressed his hands and f
ace against the glass, made foggy patches with his breath and drew in them with a fingertip. "It feels like you could fall right through into space."
Indeed, Adam thought, the window was so realistic as to imply that the room ended and the space field ran directly underneath it, creating a drop into nothing. "Each screen has a different view depending on which direction it faces," he went on. Again he caught himself. He could see that the details didn't matter to Kieriell. The boy only wanted windows. He didn't care if they were real or not, or how they worked. Again Adam felt that same dread as in the library. What if something happens to him? he asked himself. The wards were still strong in Kieriell's psyche though he remained unaware of them. Adam, however, felt their force as he reached out, just barely touching his son's mind, and was immediately repelled. Damn you, Asmodéus. And yet he recognized the necessity of the wards. Kieriell would be an open book in the presence of one of the adversaries or any Shiv diplomat that happened to be visiting. He gritted his teeth and withdrew from the attempt to estimate how happy his boy was.
Kieriell moved over to the toilet area and found the next panel in front of the bathing pool. Grinning almost madly, he turned back to his father and followed Adam back into the lounge where both stared at the portrait of Jenesaazi Mahlharium.
"Are you going to ask me to give that back to you?" Kieriell said, disturbing the silence that had fallen in Adam's mind.
"No," Adam chuckled. "No, it's yours. Your mother—" He laid a fist over his heart, realizing he still held the sending amplifier snugly in his palm. "She's here." It was almost too much to bear, and as he had done in the library, he quietly excused himself, leaving Kieriell to enjoy the gift of stars.
The tabernacle was located deep within the asteroidal. Asmodéus stepped from the lift onto the balcony of the tenth level and noted that every officer stood firm at his or her station. The crystalline wall behind him pulsed with red energy. Yellowish veins branched throughout the division and condensed at the inner chamber where the palace's neural core rested.