Searching for the Kingdom Key

by TylerRose.

  “We’ll pick one out for you tomorrow morning. Depending on where it is, it will arrive by Gathering time.”

  “I have a question. You know the guy next door treats his villagers badly. Why don’t you do something?”

  “Because there is nothing I can legally do. It is not my land. They are not my tenants. He is not respected and some do no business with him; but it is no one’s place to interfere.”

  She let it go for now. He was a smart man and if she pursued the matter, he’d guess her aim. The break in the morning had to be utterly convincing and the best way was for him to know nothing about her investigation.

  He took her to her door, kissed her hand and bid her good rest. Pisod went in with her, took the opposite end of the sofa to watch the planetary news on the wall screen while she sat to continue writing.

  “Do you ever sleep?” Pisod asked some time later.

  She looked up to see the time. First hour.

  “Not so much as I did a few months ago,” she admitted. “Since the Widening, I don’t need as much sleep.”

  “Go to bed, Tyler. I’ll sleep on the sofa in case anyone comes in the night.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “It absolutely is. Aside from the fact that you are stirring extremely dangerous pots and seem completely oblivious to what you’re doing, my brother Shestna would have me skinned and turned into a chair if I was in my own bedroom while you were attacked in yours. He made that abundantly clear.”

  She chuckled at the thought and leaned in to him to speak quietly.

  “I know exactly what I’m doing, Pi. Having the appearance of carelessness, recklessness, apparent vulnerability?...has a way of making the enemy stupid. They reveal themselves more readily because they think I do not notice. They forget I am a telepath—if they even knew in the first place. They broadcast their plans, wallow in patting themselves on the back. They tell me everything without telling me a thing.”

  He grinned. “No wonder my brother is besotted with you.”

  “Besotted?” she questioned. “Seriously?”

  “He did not ask our father to send me. He outright demanded it. He told our father that princesses going shopping did not need me because anyone could do that. He insisted that you require the specialized protection of a fully charged Crystal Warrior. Father acquiesced.”

  “He doesn’t act besotted.”

  “Because he is a Prince of Voran. He knows you are not careless or vulnerable, and he would not show you his emotions since he cannot ever have you.”

  “I never said never.”

  “No. He did. He said something about common cats not being suitable lovers for goddesses.”

  She had no reply, took her night clothes to the bathroom to change and wash her face and perform her usual nightly routine. She climbed into the bed closet to lie down, and quickly found she could not shut the door. She couldn’t be shut away in the dark. She needed to see into the room, see who was coming. She curled up to face the open door, her alarm set to wake her in time for the morning Gathering. She had to see that.

  Dozing rather than sleeping, she passed the night in an unfamiliar bed. Fits and starts, half-dreams and strange energies. Finally in a more solid sleep, she went into REM sleep.

  Cities burning, people dying, alien soldiers and machines destroying everything, killing or capturing every man and raping every woman of breeding age. Killing women too old to breed. Taking some young women prisoner as a prize for Adamantine to beat and rape. They were fragile creatures, these humans, but he enjoyed their spirit.

  Tyler woke with a panicked start, the room gray with pre-dawn. She left her bed to stand at a window and look out at the expanse of land and sky.

  “Are you okay?” Pisod asked from the sofa.

  She quickly wiped her eye, saying nothing, and he was behind her in two seconds.

  “What is it? Tell me,” he urged, an arm around her shoulders.

  “I hear them. I feel them. The people who survived the attack on Earth. They have nightmares. They relive their guilt. It’s like I’m living it myself. I feel their terror, their pain.”

  He held her close and tight and she cried openly. Hot tears that leaked and dropped and flowed in waves. He wondered if this was really why Shestna had sent him.

  “Do you still hear them?” he asked when she calmed.

  Pause.

  “No.”

  “The Crystal power probably stopped it. I’ll lie beside you in the bed so you can sleep in peace for a couple hours.”

  “I’d prefer the sofa. The bed closet is going to take some getting used to.”

  “As you choose,” he conceded.

  He got her blanket and laid it down first, then reclined on his side against the back of the sofa. She had plenty of room, and spooned backward against him under the blanket. Settling in was no swift thing. She adjusted and was still, twitched suddenly to jerk back awake, finally fell asleep again nearly half the hour later.

  Phone in hand, Pisod tapped out a message with his thumb, asking Shestna the question of remote viewing nightmares being the real purpose for his presence.

  I would never admit to such a thing, came the reply, and was followed by an order to keep the Crystal power fresh.

  Her alarm went off too soon and she was at once wide awake. She prepared in her room while he went to his own for the fastest shower of his life. She was an inferno in her sleep, body radiating intense heat. His clothes were soaked with sweat. Rinsed down, dried, into comfortable pants and boots with a nice but not overly fancy court tunic, he was ready when she was.

  They walked down together using the front stairs, and she actually did walk them now the half-steps were in place. He took a place at the bench table with his plate while Mankell greeted her and walked the buffet. Saber compiled her plate as she tasted her way down the two tables.

  The four who were going to defect were together on the end of the second long table, deciding their moment. They waited for Mankell to finish eating, waited for the plates and tables to be taken away, thus clearing the center of the room to remove anything he could throw at them. At last they approached, standing on the short runner of rug, and Volf stepped closer to speak for them.

  “Gar Mankell, we have made our decision. We are leaving your House and will work for Captain Osan.”

  “After I expressly forbade it?” Mankell challenged.

  “You can forbid men who wear your House patch,” Volf said, and tore the patch from his arm to the astonishment of those watching.

  The other three ripped theirs off as well and handed them to Volf. Piled, he reached out his hand to give them to G’Ven.

  “I no longer wear the patch of your House, Gar Mankell. You do not permit or forbid me anything.”

  “Then be gone from my House and pray the Raas show you mercy when you must stand before them and account for yourselves.”

  That was it. The four men turned around and walked out with all eyes staring after them. The room erupted into a clamor of voices, half the men following the defectors out to the portico. Mankell took the four patches from G’Ven and left out the nearest rear door of the Hall.

  Tyler was mildly disappointed there was no thunderous arguing. Mankell had taken it far better than she’d expected. She went outside as well, to watch as the men walked the drive up to the road, then took the road to the next drive west. Down that drive and they disappeared behind the South House. She teleported from the portico to the gardens in back, picking a bench to sit on until Mankell saw her and approached on his own.

  “So you have seen one of the most humiliating situations of being Gar. Men leaving to serve a lesser House.”

  “I am sorry,” she said with all sincerity. “But it was necessary.”

  “You knew of this?”

  “I instigated it. Tell me something, Kell. Do you really think the Rosaas have all sanctioned his piracy? I know La’Sek’o is your father. Would he really agree to his people attacking oth
er ships and stealing from them?”

  “I know he does not. It’s complicated. The three of them say publicly that they do not condone it. None will admit that they are behind it.”

  “So he really doesn’t know how it’s happening. If one of the Rosaas is doing this for his own personal gain and was keeping his involvement secret, would that be against K’Tran law?”

  “Is that what this is about? You sent those men to infiltrate Osan’s operation and find these things out?”

  “Would you be furious with me if I said yes?” she asked.

  “This morning’s production was to make a good show of it? Make it real,” he said.

  “It had to be real. You had to be real. You had to react as you normally would.”

  Relief washed over him, palpable and huge. He kissed the pile of badges in his hand.

  “Raas watch over them. If Osan finds them out, they are dead.”

  “Only one of them knows the real mission. The tricky part will come when they’re back with their information and I have to expose everyone involved and send men to jail.”

  “We will keep silent on the matter,” Mankell agreed. “Let us go inside and pick out your new bike.”

  Half an hour of looking at models for sale and she selected a silver model with purple iridescent swirls that could be delivered before midday.

  “Tell me,” Mankell opened, sitting closer to her on his own sofa. “Why would you risk your own safety for our people?”

  “Because it’s right. I’m not allowed to fix what happened on my planet. I’ve been threatened with imprisonment if I try. But I can fix this right here and make lives better.”

  “You have no idea how desirable that makes you.”

  “Don’t turn Gar on me now. We were doing fine.”

  “I know no other way to be, Lar Tyler. You are not my possession but I do want you.”

  “Ask nicely.”

  A blaze of outrage passed through his eyes. A Gar should ask?

  “Will you allow me to kiss you?” he finally managed to say.

  “Yes.”

  He moved in for a press of lips that became a long and deepening string that led to her tank top pulled down. A catch of his breath to see her so pale, with tips so pink and…different. K’Tran women did not have this abundance of flesh that could be cupped and squeezed and held tight.

  Lips that had to feel, mouth and tongue that had to taste, a grate of teeth over sensitive nipple to see what it did to her.

  “Come to my bed,” he said, leaning over her with her breast in his palm and nipple between his fingers.

  “Ask nicely.”

  “Father, Lar Tyler’s grav-bike has arrived.”

  He turned away to reach for the phone and yell at his daughter. Tyler was off the sofa with her shirt fixed to cover herself, walking away. The moment was gone and she was out the door before he could stop her. He swore his fury to the Raas for their timing. Catching up to her outside, she was already on the machine with Pisod and her two guards on theirs. Heading up the drive toward the road, he would not give chase.

  “She said she will be back for the evening Gathering,” Kellina told him.

  Glowering at her, he turned around to go inside and take care of House business, and called his father to request they take the midmeal together in privacy.

  “Where to this time?” Saber asked when she finally stopped to look around two miles down the road to the south.

  “What’s that way?” she asked, nodding to the road they were already on.

  “Braksity is about thirty miles. They have a museum of the history of K’Tran.”

  Museum it was, and she did her best to keep the voices of all the things at bay. They weren’t as bad as could have been. Not nearly so loud and intrusive as the day she’d been at the Tower of London.

  They took a meal at an outdoor café. She nibbled from her plates while writing in a second journal. She’d already filled the first.

  “That is not Earth English,” Pisod said from across the table.

  “It is not,” she replied. “I’m using a language no one at the AASTT should know. I’ll translate it for my typed report. Keeps nosy people from reading.”

  “I am not nosy.”

  “Didn’t say you were,” she smiled, and closed it.

  She finished her meal and they walked through a market before heading back to the House. She found several notes on the small table behind her sofa. Invitations to several Houses for evening Gatherings and tours of their land and villages…and one from Mankell inviting her to a private supper in his suite.

  “Do you want me to come knocking and insist you come to bed at some point?” Pisod asked.

  “Given his reaction when his daughter interrupted us earlier, I think that unwise.”

  “You already know that you will go to bed with him? It’s not my business; but as the man assigned to watch over you, I feel a need to know your intentions.”

  “His attentions are not unwelcome. It’s how he goes about it that I don’t appreciate. When he does it the K’Tran Gar way, he gets nowhere. When he treats me like an intelligent equal, he gets much farther.”

  “That sounds like an extremely rude awakening,” Pisod chuckled.

  “Oh yeah. I’m going to soak in a tub for a while.”

  She took her phone and headphones with her, to listen to music. There was no private room here to play it loud and sing. She had to content herself with lip syncing or just listening, not an easy feat for a singer compelled to sing every song she knew the words to. When the water was too cool, she washed her body but not her hair and got out.

  Wrapped in a towel, she came out to find Pisod dozing on the sofa.

  “Chi?” she said from inside the door.

  “Yes, Ma’am?”

  “Come in here a minute.”

  Shutting the door behind himself and staying near it, trying not to notice she was nearly nude.

  “Of the clothes I have, what is most appropriate to wear to a private supper with a Gar?” she asked, opening the closet doors.

  “The Gar would no doubt prefer you wear as little as possible,” he replied, eyes darting to the sofa as Pisod sat up from his nap.

  “I’m sure,” she smiled at the joke that wasn’t so much a joke.

  “A private dinner is as formal as any in the Hall. You should dress the same as you would for the nightly Gathering and go to the Hall itself as you would any other night. He will escort you to his rooms when he is ready to have the meal.”

  “Who would normally be present at a private supper?”

  “A team from the kitchen will arrive to lay out the table. They will, of course, vacate immediately. The table will not be cleared until morning, when that meal is brought.”

  “So a private supper in the Gar suite is expected to turn into an overnight stay,” she concluded.

  “I think Gar Mankell is smart enough not to expect anything out of you by now. Were you a K’Tran female, you would be very pleased with the invitation, knowing it was your first step into residence in the North House.”

  “Thank you, Chi. You and Saber can go about your day. Take some time for yourselves. No doubt Mankell will not want guards standing around his bed.”

  “You intend to yield to him?” Ch’Wik questioned.

  “My sex life is none of your business, soldier.”

  That shut him up. But the thoughts kept on going.

  “What is your concern?” she asked.

  “Gars understand mating as consent by the female to being his property. Yes, slavery is ended. Or, supposed to be ended. But if you go to his bed, he will think you have given yourself to him in the manner to which he is accustomed. He is accustomed to having ownership of his females.”

  “Thank you. Shut the door on your way out.”

  A door that opened and closed quietly.

  “Nothing surprising in what he said?” Pisod asked, having turned on the video screen on the wall.

 
She snorted, pulling out the blue sheath dress and then unfolding the screen on the inside of the door.. “Name me a place where the dude does not think he owns the chick he fucks.”

  “Point taken.”

  “You may as well take the night off as well.”

  “No. I will sit outside the door. If you are there all night, I will have a cot brought.”

  “Just go back to your room. It’s literally forty feet away,” she said.

  “Companion guards do not get time off, Lady Tyler.”

  “Drop the Lady when we’re alone.”

  “As you choose.”

  “Is that another reason Sta picked you?” she asked. “He knows you won’t shirk the duty and go find a whore for an hour?”

  “Probably. Here’s something interesting on the news. A shipment of raw ore blocks is due to be moved from an Ercoli mine to the auctions on Deek’Trai IV. That would be worth stealing.”

  “What kind of ore?” Tyler asked, stepping into the pumps.

  “It says the mine is known to have deposits of diamonds but how much is in a block is the gamble of the auction.”

  “That would be worth stealing,” she agreed. “We’ll consider that prospect number one. When’s it due to move?”

  “The auction is in nine days. They don’t like to have property in the facility more than one day early. It’s three days from Ercoli to the auction house with a fairly fast ship. So five to eight days from now.”

  “Osan flies in three days. Couple days to get to the transport ship. Make the hit somewhere halfway between? Is there someplace the ship is going to be more vulnerable? I don’t know anything about shipping lanes or how it works like that out here.”

  “For not knowing, you have hit on the idea. Ercoli is rather remote. The ship will be vulnerable to attack the entire first and a half day of the voyage. Couple days to get back here and deliver to the Rosaas.”

  She sat at the vanity to put her eyes on. “Unless there’s another mark to hit. Keep looking for possible targets. We can’t really warn them, though. We have to let the attacks happen. We need to catch them back here with the goods and a Rosaas in complicity.”