The Empire of the Zon

by R. M. Burgess

  “Please bring us some clove wine,” said Hildegard to her second handmaiden.

  Sipping their clove wine, they exchanged pleasantries until Hildegard said, “Something is troubling you, dear. You must tell me what it is.”

  Andromache took another sip of her wine before replying.

  “I have just been to visit Vivia’s airboat factory,” she said. “We have paid in full, but the work is barely proceeding at all! The workers say that we are victimizing poor Vivia and that they will not work to arm an administration that persecutes their mistress.”

  “Eventually the news of Vivia’s treachery will out,” said Hildegard, reaching over and patting her thigh. “Then her popularity will evaporate.”

  “I don’t understand it,” said Andromache, perplexed. “I have never seen such hostility toward the electrae. It is as though we are the enemy, not the barbarians. Everywhere I go, I find that I am asked, often in insulting tones, about The Eight Percent—that horrible program full of lies and innuendo. I was not born an electra! I worked very hard, and I qualified for every Temple—the same path open to any commoner. True, I wear the royal tiara of Saxe, but it did not qualify me. Look at my mother—she was a lowly assistant medica in Repro for her whole life. She failed to gain admittance to Magis not once, but three times!”

  “Everything you say is true, my dear,” said Hildegard gently. “But remember that no one likes to admit that their failures are their own fault. It is very easy to convince anyone that the only reason they are not successful is because the system is rigged. Especially when everyone sees that the two senior-most electrae—after the queen—are the two royal princesses.”

  “But why now? The huntresses are fighting and dying, and the priestesses are working ’round the clock on support services, weapons development, and medical care. In contrast, what we are asking of the commoners is so little—just the food rationing, some power conservation and a small reduction in their benefits to pay for the war.”

  “It seems little to us, Andromache. But to the commoners, living down in the Lower Wards in two- and three-room apartments, it seems unjust.”

  “So what are you advocating? I was so incensed after one meeting yesterday that I felt like giving the whole crowd to Duke Hilson’s men. Then they would know how easy they have it, thanks to the hard work of the electrae.”

  “In politics, image is everything, as you well know, Andromache. Reality counts for very little. Vivia has created an image of raising the commoners and giving them opportunities, and they love her for it. It doesn’t matter that she lives more luxuriously than any electra. We must fight fire with fire. We must produce programming showing how well the Trading Guild is doing and how they pay a fraction of their huge incomes in taxes. The Guild Mistresses are a tiny fraction of the commoners, but they are the wealthiest members of the Sisterhood. Further, they depend on the huntresses to protect their trade—huntresses that live in frugal barracks and are away from home for months at a time on the airships and in the Residencies. And these huntresses are retired to Ostracis, just like any commoner, when they suffer career-ending injuries.”

  Andromache nodded slowly.

  “I have some very talented priestesses in the media division,” she said, smiling.

  “But in the longer run, my dear, we must rethink our entire system of choosing electrae. It is far too one-dimensional. Many of the best people in the Trading Guild would have made great priestesses—consider Vivia herself, most of the Guild mistresses, and many of their high-ranking staff. They may not rival the priestesses in terms of abstract thinking, but they are sharp, practical, and have valuable skills. Perhaps if we broaden the selection criteria, the electrae may one day comprise twenty or even twenty-five percent of our population. That will cause the Trading Guild to stop vilifying the electrae, reduce the commoners’ resentment, and strengthen the Sisterhood.”

  “I don’t know about that, Your Majesty,” said Andromache, falling by habit into formality. “They would elect someone like Vivia—Ma help the Sisterhood under the rule of the Trading Guild!”

  TWENTY

  LADY SELENE WAS in her spacious office with Esme. She looked over at Esme, now cleaned up and looking rather self-conscious in a Zon gown. Jena was the closest to her in height and had lent her one of her gowns. Like many huntresses of her generation, Jena modeled herself on Diana, combining extreme ruthlessness with extremely bold femininity. The outfit was typical of her, diaphanous hot pink with wide expanses of revealed skin that made even Esme’s most racy gowns look modest by comparison. But without a temperature shield, she was very cold.

  Lady Selene realized Esme’s predicament and discreetly moved to stand by her, widening her temperature shield to warm her. She put a hand on her bare back and said, “You have had a harrowing night, Queen Esme. So I am pleased to see you looking so beautiful.”

  “I thank you for giving me the means of saving my Harald,” she replied, with only a slight tremor in her voice. “And I apologize for some of the harsher things I said earlier.”

  Lady Selene waved it away.

  “It is nothing,” she said quickly, hiding her dislike. “You were tired and under great tension. I think we will grow to understand each other better from now on.”

  The door chimes sounded, and Lady Selene called out, “Enter!” in her imperious voice.

  It was the senior medica of the Residency. She bowed to Lady Selene and nodded to Esme.

  “Let us sit down,” suggested Lady Selene. “And let me offer you both some katsch.”

  Lady Selene and Esme sat on the couch, and the medica sat on a facing overstuffed chair. The Resident unhurriedly poured out three mugs of the steaming beverage from a warming urn on the low table between them. The two Zon blew on theirs and Esme mimicked them before taking a very small exploratory sip. It was unlike anything she had ever tasted, but the aroma was delightful to her nostrils, and the warmth and sweetness went down very well.

  “This is excellent,” she said sincerely. The medica also nodded in appreciation.

  “Yes, it is my personal stock,” said Lady Selene, pleased in spite of herself. “Well, to more serious issues. Medica, what is your prognosis?”

  The medica looked grave.

  “I have examined King Harald with my assistant,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. “I am afraid I do not have very good news to report. The barbarians burned his eyes out with a hot brand. The optical nerves have been damaged beyond repair. Neither biological nor mechanical transplants will restore his sight. The best we can do is to give him infrared capability.”

  “I do not understand,” said Esme uncertainly.

  “We cannot restore his sight,” said Lady Selene. “However, we can give him some sensing capabilities—the ability to discern heat sources.”

  “But this cannot be!” cried Esme desperately, turning to the Resident. “You Zon have magic, you must use it!”

  “I am afraid there is a limit to our powers, Queen Esme.” The Resident’s tone was brittle. “I am sure our medicae have explored every option.” Here the medica nodded in agreement. “We are undone by the brutality of your father. It is always easier to destroy something than to build it or repair it. I thank Ma that we were in time to save his life, for I doubt they would have let him survive for long.”

  They sat in silence for a while, each with her own thoughts. They finished their katsch, and the medica took her leave. Lady Selene steepled her long fingers and looked at Esme for a moment. Gazing into the distance with an expression of deep sadness, the Queen of Briga looked very young and very vulnerable. She could be my daughter, Lady Selene thought, though she had never in her life considered motherhood. She is stupid and ambitious, but not evil.

  “Queen Esme, I am afraid I must ask you some further questions about your dealings with Vivia Pragarina,” Lady Selene said finally. “If we are to defeat your father and restore Harald to the throne, we must know exactly what we are facing and who we can trust. Ca
n you tell us the names of any other Zon involved in this plot?”

  “I have already told you everything I know,” said Esme in a dull monotone. “Red Khalif Alumus came to me saying that Vivia Pragarina of your Trading Guild had contacted Numius, a merchant in Chenak, with an offer to sell explosive material to us. I sent this information to my father through my cousin, Cheval Kantus Hilson. I met no Zon. I have already told you all of this.”

  Suddenly she beat her small fists on the low table in front of her.

  “I never dreamed my father would turn on Harald!” she cried. She looked at Lady Selene with wild eyes. “I know, you will hate me for this, but I wanted to destroy the Zon Sisterhood. I thought that was the way to make Harald Emperor of Tarsus. I wanted my father to support my husband and me! I never wanted this terrible choice between my husband and my father.”

  “It is truly said that among the barbarians, ‘kingship knows no kinship,’” said Lady Selene icily.

  Esme felt a sharp retort rising in her throat but bit her tongue and held it back. She slowly regained her composure and sat back on her cushions.

  “Lady Selene,” she said finally, in the cut-glass Brigon accent of the court. “May I request permission to see my husband and spend some time with him?”

  “Of course, ma’am,” said Lady Selene curtly. She tapped her wrist bracer and called Megara.

  The tall huntress entered in a few minutes, saluted Lady Selene, and nodded to Esme, saying, “I will lead you to your husband, ma’am. Please follow me.”

  Esme was grateful not to be blindfolded this time. Megara walked by her side but with her long stride, Esme had to virtually run to keep pace.

  “Jena’s gown suits you, ma’am,” she said, looking down at her. “You look well in it.”

  “Perhaps, but I am very cold,” Esme returned, rubbing her hands together in an attempt to keep them warm.

  With a smile, Megara widened her temperature shield, and in the comforting heat, Esme relaxed.

  Eventually they arrived at the infirmary. There was a clear portal through which Esme could see white walls and green floors. Megara touched the panel, and the portal hissed open. There was a nurse at the receiving station, and she rose and bowed to Megara.

  “We are here to see the barbarian, Harald,” said Megara.

  It grated on Esme’s nerves to hear Harald so described, but again she held her tongue.

  The nurse nodded and said, “Follow me.”

  They passed several suites crammed with complex equipment and finally came to a portal at the end of a long corridor. The nurse touched the panel and stepped aside to let them enter. The portal sealed behind them.

  It was a luxurious room. Harald was being monitored wirelessly by a number of different devices. Many of them had screens with complicated displays and flashing lights. He sat up against a set of high pillows, staring ahead sightlessly, but with a slight smile on his face, tapping his fingers on the sheets in time to the classical Zon music that was piped in from unseen speakers. His eyes were bandaged, and numerous dressings could be seen on his upper body through the thin infirmary gown.

  Esme ran forward and threw herself on him. He recognized her touch and smell immediately and suppressed the stab of pain he felt as her weight fell on his injured body. Instead he gave a cry of joy and held her close.

  “My darling, I have been counting the minutes,” he said fondly. He ran his fingers over her face and felt her hot tears. “Shh. There is nothing to cry about. We are together; Axel is safe. Nothing else matters.”

  “But Harald,” blurted Esme. “Your sight, it is…it is… all my fault.”

  “Oh, don’t blame yourself, my dear,” he said tenderly. “I knew Alumus was plotting with your father. Baron va Haxos urged me to mobilize my loyal barons; he warned me that da Coel was not to be trusted. But I was too consumed with my leisure pursuits and childishly dependent on Lady Selene and the Zon for protection. If I had been conscientious in my duties as king, none of this would have happened.”

  DARBENI MILSINA SAT in the luxurious stateroom of Vivia’s spacious personal airboat and looked out of the viewport at the gray sky and threatening high winter clouds just beneath their keel. She sipped fitza out of a roc-glass stem from Rocness in Utrea. The bubbly white wine was one of the best vintages, and roc-glass was so rare that Darbeni did not even attempt to assess the value of the stem. Nothing but the best for High Mistress Vivia, thought Darbeni, without resentment. The bond between them was very strong—for the High Mistress was her biological mother.

  Vivia was already a mother when she decided to have another daughter to guarantee herself a worthy heiress to take over her enterprises. However, with all the work of building up her business, she had allowed herself to slip a bit and failed an Excellence board. Repro turned down her application for motherhood on the basis of this failure. She was furious and while she worked hard to pass her next board, she decided to defy Repro and have a daughter anyway. She picked a wholesome groom from her stables and contracted with her to carry her fertilized egg to term. Darbeni was the result. But when the child was registered at Repro, the genetic analysis inevitably revealed her proscribed parentage, and she was disbarred from ever becoming an electra. The fact that Vivia was her biological mother was not made public. Her name was registered as that of her birth mother, and she carried it still. Vivia had told her of her true parentage when she came of age, but outside of Repro, their relationship was known only to Darbeni’s birth mother—and she had been well paid to keep her mouth shut.

  In time, Darbeni took and passed all the tests for admittance to the Lower Temple, Lysia and then for Middle Temple, Magis. In fact, she passed them all with flying colors, achieving some of the highest scores ever recorded. But because of her illegal birth, she remained a commoner. The irony was that Vivia’s older, legal daughter was a priestess of Magis, but she had no interest and little regard for her mother’s businesses, and there was no love lost between them.

  The door chimes sounded, and Darbeni unsealed the portal. It was Yukia. She came in and took a roc-glass stem from the sideboard and poured herself some fitza. She read the label on the bottle and then held up the stem to the overhead light panel. The roc-glass seemed to explode with twinkling multicolored lights—it looked incandescent.

  “Roc-glass stems, vintage fitza, every luxury!” Yukia said, seating herself in a comfortable club chair opposite Darbeni. “I’ll wager even the queen does not have a stateroom to rival this one. But I don’t understand why you rate the stateroom, and I am put in a cabin. After all, I am Vivia’s star property!”

  “Indeed you are,” said Darbeni mildly. “And I am sure it was a mistake on the flight manifest and will be corrected on our next flight. But for now, please allow me to enjoy this uncharacteristic luxury—I am sure you travel like this all the time.”

  Yukia was only slightly mollified.

  “I would have thought the difference in our status is obvious,” she said with a frown. “But I am a big softie; I will let you have the stateroom for now. After all, this may be your only chance, while such luxury is normal for me.”

  “You are too kind,” said Darbeni.

  “When will we arrive in Aurora?” asked Yukia. “We left in such a hurry, I could not bring my staff. I must contact our local LOS people in Aurora—it will not be as good as having my own people, but I must make do.”

  “We will be in Aurora by this evening,” said Darbeni. “We are making a slight detour to the small port of Goset. I have some business to transact for High Mistress Vivia there.”

  “What business could the High Mistress possibly have in that Ma-forsaken place?”

  “Nothing particularly important,” said Darbeni vaguely. “But it is not far out of our way and will only take a couple of hours.”

  Yukia finished her fitza, and Darbeni invited her to stay and join her for lunch.

  An hour later they had just completed a light but excellent lunch served with aplomb by V
ivia’s competent cabin crew, and the pilot opened a comm channel to Darbeni to tell her that they were over Goset, riding on sky anchors. Thanking the pilot, she closed the comm channel and begged leave from Yukia to dress. The LOS hostess departed the stateroom in a bit of a huff, passing Vivia’s beautician at the portal. Darbeni waited till the portal had sealed behind Yukia before speaking to the girl.

  “You have the clothing?” she asked.

  “Yes, Chief Counsel. High Mistress Vivia had her designer drop everything and spare no expense to produce this kanjiam gown. A gown made completely of kanjiam! It is a masterpiece! It falls and moves like liquid silver. It would make anyone look gorgeous, but you have such a fine figure, it will make you irresistible.”

  Darbeni smiled, acknowledging the compliment, and led the way to the stateroom’s boudoir. The beautician went to work, first on Darbeni’s skin and face with lotions and creams to bring out her pale luster, then dressing her in the spectacular gown and silver high-heeled slippers. Finally she did her hair, working in oils to bring out a brilliant dark-brown sheen, building a beautiful coiffure that graced Darbeni’s head like a crown. Vivia had given her beautician a selection of her jewelry, so now she planted diamond studs in the coiffure to create a mock tiara and cinched a diamond choker around Darbeni’s throat.

  Darbeni stood and twirled in front of the full-length mirrors. The gown was more revealing than anything she owned, but it did flatter her figure. She looked and felt more beautiful than ever in her life before. She had always thought of her looks as rather ordinary in the Sisterhood, where beauty was the norm and being unattractive led to exile. But that creature in the mirrors is gorgeous; she would turn heads in Atlantic City, she thought. Is she me? Or is this a dream?

  “Look at the beauty you have been concealing beneath frumpy clothes and plain makeup,” the beautician said, bringing an uncharacteristic blush to Darbeni’s cheeks. With difficulty, Darbeni reminded herself that this makeover had a purpose. She opened a comm channel to the pilot.