I’d lost my two guards in the landing hangar and left Kyra to finish powering down the flier. But I was not alone; light-armored peltasts and hoplites with body shields and full ceramic plate were posted at intervals along the colonnade and the grand stair that led to the viaduct that fed into the plaza at the base of the Keep. There I rubbed shoulders with a throng of uniformed logothetes of the house staff who administered our little slice of empire. Even had I been the only one on the path, I would not have been alone. None of us was ever alone. The cameras were ever watchful.
I passed the statue of Julian Marlowe—long dead and mounted on his horse, sword held defiant against the heavens—and ascended the sweeping white marble stairs. I continued through the main gate, pausing to acknowledge Dame Uma Sylvia, the knight-lictor on watch at the door.
“My father?” I asked, the question ringing clear in the afternoon air.
“Still in the throne room, young master!” Sylvia replied, not breaking her perfect attention.
I crossed the white-and-black tiles of the floor, darting straight across the copper sunburst of the Imperial seal and toward the inner stair. Black banners hung heavy on the high walls, and the noise of foot and trumpet echoed up the hollow shaft in the center of the space for thirty of the Keep’s fifty levels. That noble banner, sigil of my fathers unto the very deeps of time, sullied now by my hand. Perhaps you’ve seen it? Blacker than the black of space, its red devil capering, trident in its hands above our words: The sword, our orator. Two such devils faced one another beside the wrought-iron doors to my father’s hall, dwarfing the pointed arch there and the men guarding it.
Strange things, those doors—weighty things of poured iron, raw and treated with some dull resin to guard against rust. Each door was three times the height of a man and several inches thick so that the confusion of human forms done in relief upon each surface stood out sharply. Each door must have weighed several tons, but they moved gently, balanced by slow counterweights so that even a child might open them.
“Master Hadrian!” said Sir Roban Milosh, a furtive, dark-skinned man with tightly curling hair. “Where have you been?”
My eyes narrowed, and I was a moment collecting myself, breathing a scholiast aphorism under my breath: “Rage is blindness.” Rage is blindness. To Roban I said, “I was detained with the Mining Guild, father’s orders. Are they inside?”
“For about the last thirty minutes.”
Uncomfortably aware of my disheveled appearance, of the wild tangle of my too-long hair and the wrinkled imperfection of my formal jacket, I clapped the knight on the arm. “That just means we’re through the boring part. Let me by.” I moved to pass him, pressing one palm flat against the door. Roban’s counterpart stepped forward and seized my arm. Outraged, I whirled and glared at the hoplite. His helmet, like the helmets of most combat suits, had no visor, only a ridged carapace of solid ceramic that hid his face. Cameras piped images to a screen inside his mask, giving the impression that he was a statue and not a man at all.
“Lord Alistair says no one’s to enter while he’s receiving the director.” He released me pointedly and firmly. “Sorry, young master.”
Working to contain my sudden surge of outrage, I repeated the scholiasts’ aphorism in my head, trying not to let myself focus too much on the persistent dread rising in me. I should have turned and walked away. It would have been easier.
Instead I cleared my throat. “Soldier, stand aside.”
“Hadrian.” Roban put a hand on my shoulder. “We have orders.”
I turned, and I confess that my frustration undid me. “Get your hands off me, Roban.” And I shoved the door open before either the knight-lictor or his lieutenant could stop me. The door made no noise as it swung inward. The damage done, I turned and glared at the hoplite, who was halfway to seizing me. I had the same eyes as my father and knew how to use them. The man quailed.
No fanfare accompanied my entrance, unless one counted the nods of the peltasts just within. There is a limit to the vastness of space which the human eye and mind can fully appreciate, beyond which the impact of grandeur overwhelms. The throne room exceeded that limit, being at once too tall, too wide, and too long. Rank and file of dark columns retreated left and right, supporting frescoed vaults depicting the death of Old Earth and the eventual colonization of Delos. Though human senses could not detect it, the distance between floor and ceiling subtly shrank between the doors and the dais at the far end so that the supplicant was deceived into perceiving the archon as larger than any human ought to be. It is said the Solar Throne on Forum makes use of such a trick, that the Emperor might dwarf even the lordliest duke of his constellation.
The throne itself sat wreathed in shadow, and the two curving horns at its back—in reality the ribs of a great brass whale—towered halfway to the distant ceiling, blocking the light from the rose window behind the throne so that the figure seated upon it was veiled.
The Consortium retinue stood assembled before the throne, standing tall at the base of the dais, their silhouettes absurdly stretched by the microgravity of the ships they lived aboard. There were seven of them, all in matching robes, attended by two dozen soldiers in matte gray, each carrying a short rifle instead of the energy-lances favored by my father’s troopers.
“Forgive my lateness, father.” I used my speaking voice, bringing the full force of the rhetorical training Gibson had given me to bear. “The Mining Guild representative went on a little longer than intended.”
“Why are you here?” The sound of that voice in this place curdled within me, and I felt a cold wind blow through my soul. Not only had Crispin known about the visitors from the Wong-Hopper Consortium, he had been invited.
I ignored Crispin’s petulant question and approached within ten paces of the line of Consortium guests as they stood beneath my father’s throne. I was not yet in the shadow of that great chair, and my father was only a darker shape amid the blackness of that ebony and wrought-iron seat. Going to one knee before the throne, I bowed my head before the Mandari visitors. “Honored guests,”—the practiced depth of my voice pleased me after Crispin’s whinging—“forgive my lateness. I was detained by local matters.”
One of the tall visitors took a couple of steps toward me. “Rise, please.” I did, and the Consortium representative turned to look up at my father. “What is the meaning of this, Lord Alistair?”
In his throne, my father stirred. “My eldest son, Director Feng.” His voice, which ought to have been as familiar as my own, was as a stranger’s to me.
The woman who had addressed me nodded, letting spidery hands fall to her sides in a rustling of gray sleeves. “I see.” The other Consortium members shuffled on slippered feet.
“Take a seat.” My father slowly resolved into focus as my eyes adjusted to the deep shadow of his throne. He was more like me in appearance than Crispin; the genetic looms had built father thin and lean and hard with an aquiline face, all sharp edges and hard angles. Like myself, my father eschewed the local fashion. His hair was long and combed straight back so that it curled slightly below his ears. His face was clean-shaven, thick-lipped, and cold, and his violet eyes watched all that was below him, unfeeling.
I swallowed and brushed past Director Feng and her associates, my attention on a line of three chairs below and to the right of the high seat. Crispin sat there alone on the seat nearest Father. I stopped, staring down at my brother as surely as Father was staring at me. “Move over, Crispin.” I kept my voice low.
My brother only raised his eyebrows, gambling—quite correctly—that I would not push the issue in front of our guests. I didn’t. I was too much the gentleman for that. But I was enough the child to pick up the small bloodwood chair next to him and carry it two steps up onto the dais. I sat, ignoring the muted outrage I could sense pouring from my father on his dark throne.
CHAPTER 4
THE DEVIL AND
THE LADY
“NOT YOUR SMOOTHEST PERFORMANCE, Hadrian.” My mother’s voice carried well through the darkly paneled door that separated my closet from my bedchamber. Contralto; rich with the accents of the Delian nobility; polished by decades of speeches, formal dinners, and performances. She was a librettist by profession, and a filmmaker.
“Crispin wouldn’t move.” It was all the response I could muster as I fussed with the silver buttons of my best shirt.
“Crispin is fifteen and ill-tempered to a fault.”
“I know, Mother.” I flipped my braces up over my shoulders, tightened them. “I don’t understand why Father didn’t . . . didn’t include me.”
From the dullness in her voice, I could tell Mother had moved away from the closet door and toward the high window that overlooked the sea. She often did this. The Lady Liliana Kephalos-Marlowe had a tendency to drift toward windows. We shared this—that desire to be somewhere else, anywhere else. “Do you really have to ask?”
I didn’t. Instead of answering, I slung on my silk-and-velvet waistcoat, smoothed the collar down. Sufficiently dressed, I opened the door and stepped out into my bedchamber, seeing that Mother had indeed moved to the window. My rooms were high in the Great Keep, built into the northeast corner of the square tower. From there I had a commanding view of the seawall and the ocean beyond, could see for miles to where the Wind Isles lay dim against the horizon, though they were invisible at sea level. Mother turned to face me. She never wore black, never adopted the colors and the heraldry of Father’s house. She had been born of House Kephalos; her mother, the vicereine, was also the landed duchess of the whole planet, and she wore it proudly. For this occasion—the banquet welcoming Director Adaeze Feng and her party—my mother wore an elaborate gown of white silk so tight it must have been synthetic. It fastened over one shoulder with a gold brooch fashioned in the shape of the Kephalos eagle. Her honey-bronze hair was pulled up in the back, left to fall in tight ringlets before her ears. She was beautiful in the way all palatine women are beautiful. An image of forgotten Sappho cast in living marble, and just as cold.
“Your hair is atrocious.”
“Thank you, Mother,” I said evenly, pushing my curling fringe behind my ear.
Lady Liliana’s red-painted mouth opened, searching for words. “It was not a compliment.”
“No,” I agreed and shrugged into my frock coat with the devil of my house embroidered above the left breast.
“You really ought to cut it.” She moved away from the window, reaching out to straighten my lapels with white fingers.
“Father confuses me with Crispin enough as it is.” I let her adjust my collar without comment save my most cutting glare. Her own eyes were amber, warmer by far than Father’s. Even so, I could not feel that warmth. I knew if she had her way she would be back in Artemia with her family and her girls, not with us Marlowes in this dim and ashen place. Us Marlowes with our cold eyes and colder manners, her husband’s coldest of all.
“He does no such thing.” From the muted haste in her tone, I guessed that she had missed my point.
“Then does he mean for Crispin to take my place?” Still I glowered at her as she smoothed the shoulders of my jacket.
“Isn’t that what you want?”
I blinked at her. I had no way to answer that, not without breaking the delicate balance of my world. What could I say? No? But I didn’t want my father’s job any more than I wanted to be First Strategos of the Orionid Legions. Yes? But then Crispin would rule, and Crispin . . . Crispin would be a catastrophe. I did not want to gain my father’s throne—I wanted Crispin to lose it.
Mother peeled away and returned to my window, heels clacking on the tile floor. “I can’t claim to know your father’s plans . . .”
“How could you?” I drew myself up to my full and unimpressive height. “You’re never here.”
Mother didn’t flare up, didn’t even turn to look at me. “Do you think anyone would stay if they had a choice?”
“Sir Felix stays,” I retorted, shrugging my jacket more tightly about my narrow shoulders, “and Roban, and the others.”
“They see the possibility of advancement. Lands, titles of their own. A small keep.”
“Not out of loyalty to my father?”
“None of them knows your father, save perhaps Felix. I married him, and I can’t say I know him.”
I knew that, but hearing it—hearing that my parents were strangers—shattered me every time. I allowed the smallest of nods, then realized my mother could not see it with her back turned. “He doesn’t inspire familiarity,” I said at long last, frowning in spite of myself.
“And neither should you, if you rule in his place.” Lady Liliana half turned to regard me through bronze curls, her amber eyes hard and tired. I think it was then that I first marked her age—not the early adulthood she wore outwardly, but the nearly two centuries she held in truth. The effect vanished in a snap as she continued, “You will have to lead your people, not stand beside them.”
“If I rule?” I repeated.
“It’s not a foregone conclusion,” she said. “He may yet choose Crispin or order a third child from the vats.” Anticipating my response, she added, “Just because House Marlowe has always honored the eldest child does not mean it must. The law permits your father a choice of heir. Assume nothing.”
A bit stung, I said, “Fine. It doesn’t matter, that’s—”
She cut me off. “Quite right, it does not matter. Come now, we’re nearly late.”
* * *
Stars, I thought, were born and died before dessert. I maintained my silence through the toasts, through the salad course, through cycles and cycles of servants setting and clearing the table. And I listened, all too aware of the anger that, like gravity, bent time and space around my father. Privately I was grateful the director and her contingent had displaced me far from my customary place at Father’s right. A day had passed since my late arrival to the throne room, and my father had yet to speak to me. That in itself was nothing strange, but that I had done what I’d done and not been reprimanded filled me with unease.
So I ate and listened, studying the strange, almost alien faces of the Consortium dignitaries. The plutocrats spent their lives in space, and the centripetal imitation of gravity aboard their massive spinships did not stop them from changing. Were it not for gene therapies almost as rigorous as my own, they would not be able to stand on Delos—with its one and one-tenth standard gravity—but would be crushed and gasping as boned fish upon the strand.
“The Cielcin have gone too far, pressing beyond the Veil,” said Xun Gong Sun, one of the Consortium junior ministers. “The Emperor should not stand for it.”
“The Emperor is not standing for it, Xun,” said Director Feng mildly. “That is why there is a war on.” I studied the director. Like all the members of the Consortium party, she was utterly hairless, her cheekbones and the shape of her brows enhanced to accentuate the slant of her eyes. Her skin was darker than that of the others, almost the color of coffee. She turned to speak to my mother and father where they sat at the head of the table. “The Prince of Jadd has committed twelve thousand ships to the war effort under the command of this grandson of his, this Darkmoon. Even the Tavrosi clansmen have set sail.”
My father set his glass of Kandarene wine down on the table, pausing a practiced second before responding. “We know all this, Madame Director.”
“Yes, indeed.” She smiled, lifting her own wine cup. Her fingers were like stick insects waving. “I only mean that all these ships will need fuel, my lord.”
The Lord of Devil’s Rest stared hard at the director, teeth sliding against his lower lip, and folded his hands on the table. “You don’t need to convince us. There’ll be time for it all soon enough.” This elicited mild laughter from the ministers at the foot of the table, and across from me Crispin smi
led. I glanced at Gibson, raised my eyebrows. “Fortune passes everywhere, and the current situation accords us a moment of advantage, despite the recent tragedy on Cai Shen.”
Often I had observed my father in this mode, didactic and imperious. His eyes—my eyes—never settled in any one place or on one face but drifted over all that surrounded him. His basso voice carried far, resonating in the chest rather than in the ear. He had an air about him, a cold magnetism that bent all who listened to his will. In another age, in a smaller universe, he might have been Caesar. But our Empire had an abundance of Caesars. We bred them, and so he was doomed to suffer Caesars greater still.
“Is it true the Pale eat people?”
Crispin. Blunt, tactless Crispin. I felt the muscles tighten in every person at that long table. I shut my eyes and took a sip of my own wine, a Carcassoni blue, waiting for the storm to break.
“Crispin!” Mother’s voice carried in a stage whisper, and I opened my eyes to see her glaring at my brother where he sat regarding the Consortium director. “Not at table!”
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