by Julie Ishaya
"This is not the time or place for personal discussions," Lord Astar'Æth commented to them both.
Nehmon ignored him. "Still brooding over problems of the past?" he said. His tone remained surprisingly reasonable. "The emperor had best put his problems away," he added to the others, "don't you think? He'd best put his problems away before he drags the rest of his realm into matters of sentiment, loses focus and calls meetings over matters such as little Shiv mishaps."
Asmodéus straightened, re-summoning all of his dignity. "Very well," he replied. "I warned you not to test me here; regardless, you bring up the past. I assume then that we can continue focused—" he used Nehmon's own word choice against him, "—after your dismissal. You obviously don't want to be here."
Nehmon's mask angled around the room as he studied the other lords. They remained silent, waiting. Neither of the other two adversaries came to his defense. With a single swift motion, he brought his hand up and stripped the mask away from his face, revealing a set of harsh, bronzed features. Black eyes flared at Asmodéus.
"Leave, Nehmon," Asmodéus affirmed.
Standing and pulling back from the table, Nehmon attached his mask to his belt. "Give my regards to the crown prince," he said under his breath. Once more he glanced at his fellow lords, then he turned and strode from the room.
"Am I to be dismissed too, then?" Rai Jinn asked. "I gave you an explanation."
"Not yet." Asmodéus calmed, his gaze lingering on the passageway. "We still have arrangements to make for the transference of the protein sample."
Attempting to refocus and understand the exchange below, Kieriell raised a hand to his forehead and massaged at his temples. He'd heard the argument well enough, but a throbbing ache was already banishing it from his mind. In fact, every part of him felt disconnected, as if his own skin didn't quite fit correctly. "What did he do to me?" he groaned.
The chamberlain hushed him. "Shiv mindsting. Be still. The effect will wear off."
Kieriell still tried to organize what had just happened. One moment he merely looked at the Shiv's eyes, the next his head was swimming.
And those eyes!
Their piss-yellow hue surrounded by gray flesh sickened him. Yet he would have kept staring, focusing harder, examining the gleam of the short pale lashes, the moist-pink tear ducts, that neutral, consuming gaze draining his strength.
So, he thought with another groan, he had seen his first Shiv.
"I didn't mean to look at him," Kieriell still protested to the chamberlain and his grandsire as they walked him into the chamber. He pulled free and fell forward to crawl onto the dais steps in Asmodéus' office and sit hanging his head between his knees.
Asmodéus climbed the steps past his grandson and grasped the edges of the desk. He closed his eyes, still shaken by the argument and Nehmon's audacity. After the consulate settled the primary matter with Rai Jinn, he had dismissed them all quickly in order that he see to Kieriell's condition.
"I didn't mean—" Kieriell's breath hitched and shivered.
"You could not help it, boy," Asmodéus declared with dying patience. He watched the chamberlain continue to examine Kieriell's condition, looking into his eyes, angling his face from side to side and dabbing at the beads of sweat emerging from his hairline.
"My Lord," the chamberlain said, "the prince didn't know to look away, and Rai Jinn cannot be held accountable. If anyone is to blame, it is myself for not warning Kieriell before he made himself vulnerable."
(The wards should have stopped it,) Asmodéus commented in closed sending, (so I am to blame as well. But the attack must have been much stronger than normal.) He glanced down at Kieriell. (He should not be this weakened.) He removed his mask and watched the huddled form on the dais. To speak to Kieriell now with telepathy would mean to send him into convulsions of mental pain. He stepped back down and knelt beside the lower step. (If you would, fetch some water with sweet oils in it,) he told the chamberlain.
"Yes, my lord." The chamberlain departed.
"Kieriell," Asmodéus whispered. "Look at me." He gently grasped Kieriell's face and raised it. The youth's eyes brimmed with moisture and rolled back in his head as if fighting the pull of sleep. "You could not have done anything."
Kieriell shook his head in partial delirium. "I looked at him. I saw his eyes."
"Quiet. It's all over."
"I caused a scene again."
Asmodéus sighed a laugh and stroked his grandchild's damp hair. "Yes, you did. But then, so did I." He used an edge of his cloak to dab at Kieriell's forehead. "I do it quite frequently."
"Re—really?" Kieriell coughed.
The chamberlain returned with a large goblet of water. He knelt and held it to Kieriell's lips. Kieriell took one sip, licked at the lightly sweetened liquid on his lips, then upturned the entire cup. Thin rivers spilled down his chin. He drained the vessel and weakly handed it back to the chamberlain.
Asmodéus stood back and watched. (He will not survive here,) he stated. (Not like this.)
The chamberlain's eyes shot him an almost scathing glare, but the counselor nodded agreement. (No, he won't.)
(We will proceed with his training, but we cannot afford for him to learn at the normal rate. We cannot dally or make light of this.)
(Agreed. We can only hope that Rai Jinn didn't take the chance to instigate a full probe and discover his teleporting skills.) The chamberlain began to help Kieriell back to his feet. (I will take him to his chambers.)
Asmodéus nodded and returned to the top of the dais. He turned sideways just enough to watch Kieriell taking slow, deliberate steps supported by the chamberlain. Just at the door, however, he turned back into the room so quickly he almost went plummeting to the floor.
"Kieriell," the chamberlain gasped.
"What happened between you and Lord Nehmon?" Kieriell half-croaked.
Asmodéus absently ran the tip of a talon along the edge of the desk. He straightened and falsified an indifferent tone. "It doesn't concern you, boy. Years of hostility between Dyss and the adversarial orders."
"And why. . ." Kieriell stammered, swallowed to get a bearing on his vocals. "Why didn't you do something about Rai Jinn after he attacked me?"
Asmodéus looked away with his chin up, deciding that enough had been said. The boy still didn't quite understand Nexian codes or that there was nothing that could have been done.
Kieriell seemed to realize that he would have no answer. "All right. I see," he gruffed. He reached out to grasp the chamberlain's shoulder for support, then he eased back around and the two made it the rest of the way out of the passage.
Asmodéus clenched his eyes shut, his brows knitting together, etching canyons of lines in his face. All he could think about was Nehmon, how the fiend spoke and smiled, unfazed by all warnings to cease. How it all angered Asmodéus, and what a looming weakness that anger proved to be. This had not been the first time he had broken the consulate's code of decorum by displaying his irritation toward the Ionan order and its lord. But then, Nehmon had also broken the code by removing his mask. The only penalty for such actions was a festering sense of shame, and every lord on the consulate already harbored plenty of that, especially the emperor.
12
The green room was located far below the central palace, further down than the neural net reached, but security was still prime, and only the royal family and a few select grounds keepers had access. The corridor leading from the lift doors was equipped with an escape route to a shuttle, which the chamberlain claimed was camouflaged against the outer asteroid rock.
At the entrance to the green room, a platform of natural stone overlooked a cavern of life. The air was as moist and warm as that of a Valtaerian rain forest, and the rock walls were covered in leafy vines. Blossoming trees with twisted trunks clung to some of the more jagged outcrops, and a small waterfall hushed from the rock on the left of the cavern and into a shallow pool surrounded by wild flowers. A grassy clearing led off through a gro
ve of bushes and trees.
Kieriell often observed the details such as a tiny colorful worm crawling along a leaf hanging just out of his path. He might drop his head back and look straight up just as a tiny drop of cool water would splash his cheek. Although the crusty ceiling was too high for him to note details, he realized that an environment as delicate as this must require countless facets of care. It included a system for simulating rainfall in the ceiling, and the false but inviting daylight came from an orb implanted in the ceiling, a miniature version of the dome over the colony.
Exotic birds sang and flew about. Frogs croaked and bubbled near the waterfall. Across the terra-formed cavern, a great round window, ivy growing around its edges, looked out on space and Kieriell recognized the view as that also seen from the largest window in his own chambers.
Near this eye on the cosmos, the ground was elevated and then leveled off, the area making a perfect base for training. The only drawback to the green room was its isolation. It began to numb Kieriell with longing for the school grounds, for Jarren and his other friends.
For eight cycles he underwent intensive meditation exercises to strengthen his psionic affinity. Sitting on his knees before the eye on space, he would listen to the chamberlain's instructions to breathe deeply, to focus inward and analyze how he tapped each psionic ability. But still uncertain in the skill of sending, he put up a stubborn resistance.
After meditations, teleportation exercises began. The chamberlain supplied fresh towels, water, and other comforts for his toiling student. Kieriell's efforts were usually accompanied by a great deal of verbal abuse aimed at no one in particular, but he tried to carry through despite persistent self-doubt.
"You will teleport to these areas with only a brief pause to determine you're in the correct location," the chamberlain told him now.
They had settled into a game routine, but like all games, it began to lose its creative flavor for the student, especially after the twentieth round.
Sighing heavily in response to the current instructions, he glanced at the six locations around the green room to which the chamberlain had affixed bright red marker plates. He concentrated, felt the now familiar light tingling in every nerve and fiber. Then in a flash of brilliant white he hit the first marker on the steps. He checked himself then cleared the second marker on a mossy rock near the waterfall. He made the third accurately, but in frustration he missed the fourth, hit the fifth, and couldn't find the sixth.
After manifesting on the steps again, he returned to the chamberlain's side, his face paling with hopelessness. "I'm tired," he complained. Recovering from Rai Jinn's mindsting had seemed easier than this. "Is this all you'll ever have me do? I haven't even been down to the colony yet."
"Later," the chamberlain replied. He went about pulling up the markers.
Kieriell had broken a steady sweat and the school tunic he wore clung to his body, contouring over back and biceps. He collected a towel that was draped over a small bush and mopped off his face and neck then tossed the cloth over one shoulder.
The chamberlain reapplied the markers to new places and returned to his pupil. "Now, go again."
"What's the big make over this anyway?" Kieriell slouched, one hand raised and opened as if to grasp a physical answer.
"You know well enough, Kieriell. The gridcode, remember?"
"I don't give a damn about the gridcode."
"You will when you learn vertical teleportation."
"What does that mean?" Kieriell watched the chamberlain pace slowly then walk over to the eye and face outward in silent contemplation.
"Vertical teleportation is just a term for the movement from one dimension to another," the chamberlain explained. "Horizontal teleportation is what you do now, moving within a single dimension." With his back still to the youth, he straightened and allowed his hood to fall away. While Kieriell stared at the pale hair revealed, the rest tucked down inside the cloak, the chamberlain leaned forward and propped against the window. "We can also determine that you are able to carry objects with you. We have the example of your clothes. They go with you every time you horizontally teleport."
"So, you think that I could carry people with me as well?"
"Possibly. Although that might be more complicated. There is less danger of disfiguring an inanimate object because, in the case of clothing, you aren't thinking too hard about it, yet you are aware of it around your body. Some instinct is involved there as well. Another organic, animated body is different, and separate from you."
"But rifting ships do it all the time with several passengers," Kieriell said as he pondered it further.
"Again, that's different," the chamberlain explained. "The neural core of a rifting ship scans its passengers to reassemble the details, right down to the last cell and atom. In your case, the reassembling is up to you. You would have to keep a very focused mind."
"So you're saying that I might reassemble a passenger all wrong?"
"Perhaps."
"So do you think that there are any transcendants among the Shiv?" He knelt to the floor and began to do stretching exercises. "You think the gridcode could manifest for one of them?"
"Who knows?" The chamberlain shrugged, and sighed in a way that indicated his patience was running out. "None have ever given us the opportunity to fully study them."
Kieriell smiled. "Who would want to? You people are always studying everything." He bounced from one knee to the other.
"Are you quite finished?"
"You told me to ask all the questions I wanted to," Kieriell persisted.
"That's during lecture time. You're here to work on teleporting and other psionics."
Kieriell groaned. "Ah, don't make me do this."
"I'm going to count to four, and you'd better start, or else. . ."
"Or else what?"
The chamberlain raised his hand and in an instant the undulation of a shadowy telekinetic field emerged and grew into a full-length blade.
Kieriell's curse disappeared into the burst of light that consumed his body and abated away, just as the shadow came down where he had been standing.
Instead of staying in the green room, however, he found the way to his chambers and reappeared in the lounge. With a loud whoop of a laugh, he threw himself onto the couch regardless of his sweaty body staining the fine fabric and pillows.
"How's that?" he asked the air. "Just try that trick again, my friend."
On that note, he decided not to bother going back to the green room. He was tired, bored, and primarily fed up with exercises that didn't seem to do much for him. Glancing at the bookshelves, he thought he might immerse himself in his more interesting studies.
Within five cycles after the consulate meeting, the psionic field in Shiv space had died down to a frequency less noticeable to Nexian sensors. The requested protein sample arrived on a Shiv envoy ship accompanied by three small fighters. Asmodéus wasted no time in having the substance analyzed. It had proven exactly what Rai Jinn had claimed: a concentrated amino strain that had little use beyond building the receptors in a neural core. The only fault Nexian scientists could find with it was that too much of it would have exactly the reaction that occurred on the Shiv world as the neural core fought to assimilate it. In short, the Shiv had given their own core an overdose.
Word passed to the other orders, and a response from Iona followed three cycles later. Asmodéus now paced before the screen in his inner chamber beside the office, while Nehmon's unmasked face gazed back at him in amusement.
"Disappointed?"
Asmodéus didn't reply. He took a breath and released it along with his temper.
Nehmon apparently took the silence as a rebuke. "I merely wanted to apologize for my behavior at the meeting, and to note your reaction to the analysis of the protein sample. After all, it came to everyone's attention that you might actually want the Shiv claims to fail."
Asmodéus maintained his own smooth glower at the adversary's routine interrupti
on of his affairs. "No matter how true the Shiv's claims proved to be, we must all still exercise precaution. With the next ballot for unification scheduled in just two and a half years, I would suspect we will see undeniably good behavior from the kai. Besides, we can't even be sure that sample was the original substance they claim caused the disturbance."
Nehmon laughed, though not offensively. "Admit you are more concerned about being on even ground with the kai. Unification would bring him up to our level, and our power over Shiv space would become limited."
"We don't keep them in check because it's power, Nehmon."
"We can't keep denying them either," Nehmon argued.
The emperor turned away from the screen and went to pour a chalice of wine at the bar directly across from the wall. "True," he had to admit, "but you hardly ever express any true opinion of these matters. Why do you vex me now?"
"Aren't your hands full with that young half-breed you're looking after?"
Asmodéus stopped in the midst of sipping from the cup. He refused to dignify the question with an answer.
Nehmon pursued the issue one step further. "I sensed the fledgling that he is. You were too far chafed when I asked about his mother."
"His background is none of your concern. By the time the mantle descends on him, you and I will be quite dead."
"Ah, yes, but don't you want a secure future for him, just like you did for Adam?" A sliver of sarcasm ran with the last words. "Ah, Adam Asmirrius, our tragic crown prince returned from exile. You still don't trust him, or you wouldn't stick him with that lame ambassadorship on Hella."
Asmodéus' throat began to tighten. He allowed Nehmon to test him now as a means of measuring his own tolerance levels. His silence, this time, went untouched by the adversary. The face on the screen appeared neutral, though beneath the surface lurked the bitter residue of ancient conflict. Asmodéus felt the rivalry reach deep into the marrow of his bones, fluent as the bloodline he carried. Adam had already come to know it, and Kieriell would too. "Enough of this," he uttered. "I'll speak with you more later." On his silent command, the connection terminated, and he roamed back into the office, carrying the chalice. He ascended the dais and sat behind the desk.