by Jo Zebedee
“I stand as his father.”
Pride swelled through Baelan. He barely believed it, yet here he was, standing for him, naming Baelan worthy to be his son.
“I, Taran Phelps, who commanded our Lady’s forces, stand for him.”
The Great Master nodded his acceptance and Baelan blew out a hard breath in relief. He was to be named, not cast out. He would live.
“The boy’s quest to be a man?” asked Taluthna. Baelan waited, excitement making it hard to stand still. A role in the war against the Emperor? Perhaps a mission that would take him back into the city? He squeezed his eyes closed in a quick prayer.
“To restore our Lady’s powers.” Phelps’ words rang out. Baelan struggled not to gasp. Never in all his dreams had he expected such a quest. He wanted to protest that it was beyond his ability, that it was his father’s powers – what he was renowned for – which held his Lady’s back, but no tribesman refused their quest.
“And the boy’s life-long oath which must be met?”
Baelan took a deep breath. He needed his voice to stay steady and sure. This was his to answer: to be a man, he must know and state his life’s meaning, but when he went to say it, his voice failed and nothing came out. His stomach contracted in disappointment, but he swallowed his nerves and squeezed out the words: “To kill my father, who declares himself Emperor in our Lady’s stead.”
He lifted his head now his oath had been made. His eyes met the Great Master’s. Taluthna touched Baelan’s head, a short benediction, before placing the ankhar over his neck. It would never be removed unless he was cast out from his tribe.
“Baelan of the Benadii, know your oath has been heard on this day, in the temple of our Lady. Tomorrow, you leave to fulfil your quest.”
Baelan, legs shaking, bowed. Phelps handed him a draught of nightfire and he drank it in a gulping swallow, taking more than he’d intended. It burned, bringing tears to his eyes, but already the room seemed more vibrant, full of layers that hadn’t been there before.
He left the dais, his feet seeming to touch the ground too quickly, disorientating him. He could sense the emotions of those around him, more strongly than ever. That, combined with the nightfire, made him stop walking and stand for a moment, overwhelmed.
Later, when the fire was low in the pit, and the night-moths were all around, the group gathered and broke the day’s fast.
Talk moved to the lady Empress. Baelan knew most of the stories, but listened as if for the first time, the nightfire making his focus stronger than ever. He was a man now; it was his history to understand. Every sensation was heightened, made more real. Tonight, he wouldn’t dream, the nightfire dousing the subconscious beneath, but sleep a deep sleep, one to give strength. Behind him, his mother sat still and straight-backed as the Great Master told of Lady Averrine coming to the tribe as a waif, and how she rose to lead them to their status as the esteemed people of the desert.
Phelps spoke of how he had hunted Varnon and brought him down. He talked of the rebellion against his Lady; how Varnon had tricked her into meeting with him before imprisoning her power. His voice was soft, his eyes glistening in the firelight. He seemed wistful, shrouded in sadness, far from the commanding officer Baelan was used to.
The fire died to red splinters in the darkness. Phelps and Taluthna talked of allies in the great families, a tower to be compromised, how Abendau city would be theirs once more. They discussed parameters and how a clone would have been easier, if only the Lady Averrine had agreed. Baelan drifted into sleep; his last thoughts of his quest ahead and the sense of lingering fear accompanied him into sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
Lichio sat up, stretched, and pushed the covers back. Morning sun filtered through the window shades, much brighter than it should be. Crap. He started to get up, and Shadeen stirred beside him.
“You have to go?” she asked, sitting up. Her dark hair fell around smooth shoulders, spilling over the sheet held against her naked body.
“I’m afraid so.” He reached for his trousers but stopped at the light touch on his back. He turned to her, pushing the sheet away, and rubbed his fingers lightly over her breasts, making her arch against him. Her mouth opened under his, inviting. He moved so he was over her; a few more minutes couldn’t hurt, surely. She pulled him down, skin smooth and smelling lightly of something musky, almost secretive. His comms unit buzzed and he groaned.
“Shadeen, I’m sorry, I do have to go.”
She pouted, and he hid a smile; she suited a pout. He pushed her hair back, meeting her eyes.
“You’re very lovely,” he said, and meant it. He wished things could be less complicated, that he could enjoy her company without guilt crawling through him. She knew they weren’t exclusive, that their relationship was a casual one, and she’d accepted it. But she didn’t know what she was covering for him. He was a coward; she deserved better.
“Then stay.”
“You know I can’t.” He pulled on his shirt and trousers and lifted his jacket from the seat beside him.
She got up, the covers wrapped around her, and led him down the narrow corridor. At the front door, she leaned against the jamb, arms crossed. “Don’t leave it too long.”
He stopped and kissed her, his arm encircling her waist, and she moved against him, teasing him. Another hint of musk, a reminder of the previous evening. He pushed her away, swallowing hard. “I really do have to go.”
She smiled and he gave a mock salute. He stepped out onto Palace Boulevard, lined with embassies and ambassadors’ residences. By habit, his eye picked out one of the embassies, its proximity to the palace showing its valuable status as an ally: Mersor, one of the middle zone planets, with a high-profit commerce sector, just the sort of planet Kare was trying to woo. On another day, he’d cross to the embassy and duck into the sunlit corridor he knew well. He’d go to the comfortable room at the back of the house overlooking the garden, and sit, savouring the privacy.
Major Ward climbed out of a discreet ground-transport waiting at the edge of the boulevard. Not today, sadly; too many eyes. Besides… Lichio glanced at the time. “Shit.” He reached the transport.
“Where to, sir?” asked the major.
“The port, please.” Lichio climbed into the vast back seat, the major into the front. “A military transport should be waiting.” He touched a comms unit built into his seat. “Secure.” A force-field formed in front of him. The noise of the engine grew muffled. He pulled out his own unit, smiling as it connected.
“Mersor ambassador speaking,” Josef said. He sounded relaxed, his warm tones ringing out, and Lichio found his shoulders going down, the ever-present tension dissipating a little.
“It’s me,” he said.
“I wondered where you’d got to last night.” Josef sounded more amused than annoyed. “I stayed up.”
“Sorry. Security has been heightened ahead of the anniversary events. I couldn’t get away from my team.” He looked at the major in the front, a sergeant alongside him. The outer perimeter team would be tracking the transport as well, ready to move on any divergence. “An escape artist couldn’t manage it.”
Josef gave a soft laugh, making Lichio’s stomach lurch. “I’m sure someone kept you warm, Lich.”
“Something like that.” Lichio smiled. At least with Josef he didn’t have to hide things. “I’ll be back in the city in a couple of days. We’ll hook up then. Have a meal somewhere discreet.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“I will too.” The transport pulled up at the port annexed to Abendau palace. When it was a military port, he’d have been through it no time. Now it dwarfed the old commercial hub in Bendau, its main mall full of tourists and commercial travellers. Lichio ducked away from the main thoroughfares, quickly into the section secured for the military, and followed the walkway to his private transport. Its checks were already complete, and its hatch stood open, waiting for him. Power hath its privileges
, and all that.
He climbed in, sat at the small desk, and pulled out his data pad. First, the overnight reports. He scanned them, but there was nothing untoward – the scaled-up security presence must be putting half the city’s criminals out of business. He brought up his schedule, and a man’s face appeared in holo-form. Swarthy and fey, Sil-Farran was unmistakably a Roamer. Lichio brought up his data file. By the time the transport landed, he’d know things the Roamer ambassador’s own mother didn’t about him.
***
Leaning forwards, Farran checked his ship’s coordinates. Ahead, Belaudii waited, a giant of a planet hued orange by its deserts. Farran set his coffee pod on a raised shelf, took one last deep breath, savouring the quiet, and joined the Roamer mesh.
Thoughts merged with his, the continual circling of Roamer people. In the centre, his Queen held the mesh in shape, imbuing it with a deep sense of her sadness and need. It made his heart quicken, to feel her like that, and know that easing her sadness rested on his shoulders.
He couldn’t think about that now. He had a ship to land, and work to do. Quickly, he took the power he needed to Control space, ensuring it was just enough for his purposes, and zoned out the babble of minds. He shifted to manual control, projecting the on-board data to the HUD, and assessed the ship’s speed and proximity to Belaudii before switching to the planetary drive. More minds joined the mesh, including some younger Roamers closely supervised by their mentors – no one was prepared to miss this day.
His approved credentials and pre-authorised voice checks took him past security, and he descended to the planet. The city of Abendau spread beneath him, its palace glittering in the hot sun. The gardens looked sparser than they had under the Empress, and it seemed more appropriate on the desert world. The sprawl of buildings extended to the city walls, their red stone merging with the desert. He streaked over the sands until a vast military complex came into view, its grey stone contrasting with the desert, cannon-ports bristling at each corner – evidence of the robust militancy in the desert.
Three fighters emerged from the compound to flank him. His control panel flashed authorisation to land, and he descended on a shallow, easy flightpath, taking care to keep exactly to that authorised. No need to make anyone jittery.
The shimmering veil of a force-field over the docking bays lifted, and he took the ship in. The mesh was tense and still, fully focused. He swallowed nerves; he’d been given this role because he was an experienced, and effective, ambassador. He’d need every bit of that skill. Sonly le Payne was a skilled negotiator, one of the best. He’d have preferred not to negotiate directly with her, but had no choice: she held the key to Karlyn.
CHAPTER THREE
Sam put his arm around his son’s thin shoulders. The three-day space journey to Belaudii had been challenging even with an upgrade to a family cabin; Cai had spent most of it asking if they were there yet and bouncing from bunk to bunk. At least the planet-hopper provided for the trip to the compound was private, giving Cai a chance to let off some steam, and Nina some privacy to feed and settle the baby.
“Daddy, it’s huge!” Cai spoke so quickly Sam could barely follow his words. “No one in Miss Dayne’s believed me about getting to the actual compound. This is so cool.”
“Let’s see then.” Sam leaned over and whistled; the complex was massive, much bigger than when he’d left eight years ago. He had to smile, though. It was very Kare-like in its lack of niceties or symbols of power. There were no embellishments on the walls, no softening of the building with planting or gardens, no flags to announce it was the Emperor’s residence. It was so unlike the glittering palace his mother had built, Kare could have erected a sign stating his intention to have nothing to do with the gaudy displays of power she’d insisted on.
“Will I really meet him?” asked Cai. Much of the excitement had gone from his voice, leaving a muted tone of worry. He’d known since he was four that the Emperor was his dad’s friend, and told everyone he met: everyone. No amount of warning that he wouldn’t be meeting the poised leader from the newsnets, but someone more private, seemed to have got through to him.
“You will.” Sam checked his son’s restraints. He hadn’t convinced Cai, but hopefully Kare had heeded his warnings about the hero-worship. He tapped Cai’s arm until he looked up, his sandy hair and round face much like Sam’s, the dark eyes those of his mother. “Remember, just treat him the same as anyone else.”
Nina, across the aisle, rolled her eyes, but it was Cai who responded. “Daddy, he’s the Emperor. He’s not normal – he’s awesome.”
The highest praise Cai had for anyone. Sam smiled; it was impossible not to catch some of his enthusiasm. “He is. Don’t tell him, though. You want him to think you’re pretty together, yeah?”
Cai nodded and went back to looking out of the window. They passed over the compound’s single courtyard, surrounded by utilitarian barracks, workshops and armouries. One side – the northern block, if Sam had it right – had been taken by Kare for his family, but the look of the place remained militaristic. It wasn’t subtle, but as a reminder that Kare had taken his empire by force and was prepared to hold it in the same manner – had done, against two uprisings – the compound was effective.
Nina put her hand on his knee, stopping it from jittering. “You’re as edgy as Cai.”
It wasn’t nerves that had built as they’d neared the compound, but memories, clawing at the edge of his attention. That and the sour taste of guilt in the back of his mouth, a guilt he thought he’d come to terms with when he’d left Abendau and started a new life. It turned out the guilt had been waiting for him all along, and he couldn’t decide if he should be sorry or glad. Some things shouldn’t leave him, no matter how hard they were to face. But they were his to face, not his family’s.
“I’m just fed up being cooped up,” he said.
“We all are.” She gave a smile that told him she wasn’t fooled. “You’re worried.”
“I’m always worried.” The ship banked, long and smooth, bringing it back around to the compound. “It should be my middle name.”
“You could be reading too much into things.” She was, as ever, maddeningly calm. “Maybe you should wait and see what you find.”
“I know.” He twisted away from Cai and lowered his voice. “But Kare has definitely been avoiding my messages.”
Nina shushed the baby. “He might be busy, Sam. His job doesn’t leave much time over. And it carries a lot of stress.”
It did, and Kare’s history couldn’t help, either – a history Sam had walked away from. Kare had never been able to. The thought, as ever, hit him like a sucker-punch – that he’d had it easy, again.
“We’re landing!” shouted Cai.
Sam put his hand on the back of the seat in front. The sound of thrusters filled the cabin, hurting his ears, and then faded.
“I worry because I don’t think the others understand,” he said, unstrapping himself. He shouldn’t keep going on about it, he must be boring Nina, but, damn it, he knew things weren’t right; he’d seen the signs too often before. “It’s not like I don’t have grounds to worry.”
“There’re about a hundred soldiers out there,” Cai said.
Nina looked out her own window. “Make that about ten. Sam, last time his marriage had broken down; it’s a big trigger.”
“And the ten-year anniversary of him taking Abendau isn’t?” Sam instinctively blocked Cai as he tried to push past. “Just wait, until they tell you to.”
“Either way, there’s nothing you can do,” said Nina. Her eyes held a warning, and he knew what was coming; it was the only reason she’d agreed to come with him on this cross-systems trek. “You aren’t here to be a doctor. This is our holiday, remember? You promised that the only work you’d do was one speech.”
“And we’re going to go to the multi-planetary zoo.” Cai managed to wriggle into the aisle. “And the museum of space flight.”
>
“Oh, yeah, so we are.” Sam faked a smile; he’d hoped Cai might have forgotten that in the excitement of coming to the compound. The thought of Cai let loose on a simulator….
Maybe Nina would cover in exchange for a meal in the Old Quarter. He would get someone to look after the children and they could go out, just the two of them. It’d be like the old days when being a doctor in Abendau had been what he was most proud of, before he’d been assigned to Omendegon. The name was enough to take him back a decade. He could almost smell the chambers, the dankness of a world lost to anyone sane, the smell of piss, of blood. His mouth filled with bile at the memory of having to walk into that hell-hole and do a job without looking at his patient because that would mean facing what he’d enabled.
“Dad!” Cai’s shout brought him, mercifully, out of his memories. He was glad he’d brought the family. He didn’t know if he could have faced coming on his own. He glanced at his wife, who caught his eyes and half-smiled. And she’d known it.
“Come on! The hatch is up.” Cai pulled him down the gangway. There were, as his son had mentioned, guards waiting for them.
“Proceed to security clearance,” one said.
Sam nodded and gave in to being dragged across the hangar. A moment later, Cai stopped, his mouth open. “Daddy! That’s a Roamer ship.”
Sam stopped, too. He’d never seen one so close. He glanced back at the guards, and the captain nodded. “Let the lad look – the rest of us have.”
“Thanks.” Sam took Cai closer, so they could see the detail of the painted decorations the whole way along each flank – stylised planets and stars intertwined in bright, primary colours, all hand-done if he was any judge, a work of art that must have taken months. When Sam touched one of the decals it was smooth and glossy, like glass – it had been coated so it didn’t burn away. He lifted Cai to let him run his hands along the freighter.