The Thrones of Kronos

by Sherwood Smith

  And saw in the tightening of Anaris’s own smile that he understood very well the threat.

  Anaris then lifted his eyes and for the first time addressed Vi’ya directly. “You have something of mine, which I will expect returned.”

  Vi’ya did not speak.

  There was no change in Anaris’s demeanor, but Brandon was convinced that the duel was a side issue after all, that this was the purpose for the comm.

  “Do not force me to come after you,” Anaris said to Vi’ya.

  She raised the back of her hand to him.

  Anaris’s finger shifted; the screen blanked.

  On the bridge, Margot Ng stared at Anaris’s image, still frozen on the screen. “Well, that was sufficiently grim,” she said.

  “I’ll freely admit that I’d enjoy getting the order to dispatch him with all the rest of the verminous detritus left over.” Captain Krajno frowned at Anaris’s sneer. “Commander, clear that.” As the screen blanked, he turned to Ng. “Admiral?”

  Ng understood the unspoken question. Since the comm had ended, there had been no communication from Brandon’s cabin. What did he want?

  I know what he wants. Ng thought of her empty bed and fought back the exhaustion-propelled wave of desolation that threatened to topple her. The only gift I can give him—time.

  She straightened up, flicked a bit of dust from her cuff, and said, “Any further communications for His Majesty can be directed to me. Let’s get started on the salvage.”

  It soon became obvious that they’d be lucky to save even a fraction of the ships damaged in battle before the supernova rendered all space around the Suneater unnavigable, and there were more Rifters to rescue than naval vessels. The skipmissiles of the Rifter destroyers had so grown in power at the end that most of their victims were blown to vapor—only casualties from earlier in the battle remained.

  At least we won’t have to worry about anyone reclaiming the Telos-damned Suneater, assuming it survives. Even the strongest shields couldn’t stand up for long to a star blasting out more radiation than every other star in the galaxy combined.

  Ng sighed, seeing her future. It would be decades before they recovered even a fraction of the strength they’d had before the war. As the litany of lost and damaged ships poured in, she thought of the ships that even now would be departing Ares for Arthelion. What would they find there?

  Time passed swiftly so that it seemed like only minutes before the light-speed data they had been waiting for arrived. “Ten minutes,” said the science officer assigned as liaison to Omilov.

  Krajno took the Grozniy out and over the Suneater system, aligning it for maximum sensor effectiveness. Upon emergence, a brilliantly sharp image of the black hole and the exploding sun sprang up on the screen, while subsidiary screens displayed other images, including the Suneater, floating serenely against the hellish background of the accretion disk. As they watched, the expanding shell of gas from the supernova reached the black hole and the Suneater simultaneously.

  Someone on the bridge gasped. A shock wave formed around the Suneater as something deflected the ravening wall of plasma around it, but it was not this that attracted everyone’s attention. Instead, it was the sudden, lightless void opening at the center of the accretion disk, as though the singularity had been made visible. Ng thought she glimpsed stars through it, and then it dwindled and vanished.

  No one said anything; Omilov was absorbed at his console.

  “How much time do we have left?” Ng queried finally.

  “Astronomy estimates about eight hours before our shields can’t take it anymore,” answered Krajno. “And we’re in better shape than any other ship.”

  “Then it’s up to us to make the salvage as effective as possible.”

  As the fiveskip hummed to life, Ng glanced one last time at the strange image frozen on-screen, wondering what that glimpse of stars had meant. Then she put the thought aside. That was for the future to deal with. For now, she had enough to do.

  o0o

  For a long time, neither Brandon nor Vi’ya spoke.

  But presently the devouring sunfire of desire dwindled to two tired human beings, lying side by side.

  Brandon studied Vi’ya’s dark-lashed eyes, the extravagant spread of blue-black hair across them both, and wondered if he would ever become accustomed to the sight. Her eyes were open, and clear.

  She smiled. “What are you thinking?”

  “Wondering what the hell Anaris meant by that last.”

  There was no mistaking the genuine confusion in her eyes. “I don’t know. Unless he’s angry because I have Tatriman and her cousins, but they signed on with me free and clear.” She made a dismissive gesture.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, just for the pleasure of hearing her speak.

  She smiled, a sudden transformation that took his breath away. “Hreem is dead,” she murmured. “Markham is avenged.”

  “Then let us celebrate him.” Brandon held out his arms.

  And so, in silence and unmeasured time, they employed arts learned from the same beloved as a master musician employs all the harmonic elements at his command, and cauterized the passion of anger. And then, having erased the borders of self, they shared together the passions of tenderness, and sorrow, and laughter, and joy.

  SEVEN

  ARTHELION

  Vannis Scefi-Cartano emerged from her private suite into the informal antechamber where, in the old days, she had interviewed staff and service.

  There she found a waiting crowd, just as in the old days, except these were not polite, deferential servants in their elegant but subdued livery. She saw three governmental staff members, two Palace officials, and a young military attaché.

  Is Brandon’s reach already so powerful? she thought.

  For she knew their deference was not to her but to the Panarch they assumed she represented, even though, since the failure of the hyperwave that had announced the end of the war, he could issue no further orders until he himself reached Arthelion.

  That in itself was a measure of the future she could expect, for she knew Brandon would not hesitate to exploit this perception of her position, and so her place was secure. My place with respect to the new government, and old society. But what about my place in his life?

  That would have to wait. In the meantime, there was much to be done.

  As she offered refreshments to those who had waited for her, she reflected that she was glad she had resumed her old chambers, twin to the Aerenarch’s.

  She’d debated this on the long journey from Ares, contemplating the implications of several courses of action. By the time of her arrival, the Mandala had been secured. Luckily Steward Halkyn numbered among the survivors, and on Vannis’s arrival, almost her first order was to turn over to him the task of reordering the Palaces Major and Minor. With the frenzied energy of pent-up hatred, Halkyn and his army of workers—which grew each day—labored to remove all traces of the Dol’jharians.

  At her orders, her staff reopened the Aerenarch-Consort’s suite. Nothing had been touched; all her clothing was there, and after consideration she resumed wearing the fashions previous to the attack.

  It was the right thing to do. Everyone who had known the Palace before the war seemed to be relieved to go back to the old rooms, and old ways, as much as possible. Vannis listened to many stories, most of them tragic, a few triumphant, about who was killed out of hand that first terrible day, and during the subsequent nightmare, and who had managed to escape and how. There were also anger-fueled whisperings of collaboration with the enemy.

  Only the personal areas of certain people still remained untouched, except by the roaming dogs, pending orders directly from Brandon: Gelasaar’s wing; the suites of all three of his sons; and the Ivory Antechamber, which was still unsafe to visit for more than a few minutes.

  Vannis had, with Halkyn’s aid, evolved a daily schedule.

  As the business of dispensing food and drink ended, Vannis sat
down in her chair as the crowd sorted itself out with polite deference.

  Most of their questions she was able to resolve: the disposition of an influx of refugees; the testimony of the two officials against their supervisor, who they said had compromised with the enemy; and the construction of a new boost field, as the departing Dol’jharians had blown up the old one as their last gesture—probably in retaliation for the abortive attempt on the part of the Resistance to grab their hyperwave while they were in the midst of their withdrawal—unaware, in terrible irony, that the device no longer worked.

  The story of compromise she saved for last, and when the room was empty, she said to the expectant pair, “These questions must wait for the Panarch. I suspect, from the message sent to Rifthaven, that there will be general amnesty for all those who were not oath-sworn. For those who were, it will be a matter for the Justicials.”

  Without speaking they bowed and retreated.

  Given this unexpected respite—previous days had seen upwards of five or six solid hours of petitioners—she retreated to her inner chambers. Passing the carved door connecting to the Aerenarch’s rooms, she paused briefly. Would it be locked? Or open? She laid her hand on the door, then took it away again. It didn’t matter anymore. Semion had never once opened that door himself. When he had wanted to issue orders to Vannis, he had summoned her to him, and then the door would be unlocked. She remembered how, when they were first married, she had found this locked door perplexing—and then sinister.

  Now she smiled with a regret she could scarcely define and passed on to the discreet door that the servants used. The hall beyond was empty, except for the tick-tick of canine toenails as one of the roaming dogs went about its business. She’d never been able to figure if the animals roamed randomly, or on some type of patrol. She’d always meant to ask the Panarch Gelasaar, but she’d seen him alone so seldom, and those times, she’d never remembered the dogs.

  Accessing the House computer once more, she obtained directions to the old Hegemonic detention area and found a lift. As she followed the directions, she wondered at the easy compliance of the computer. Some of the requests she’d made since her arrival should have bounced, for her access level was not high enough. Yet she had encountered no problems. She had heard rumors of strange goings-on involving the computer, and had even queried Metellus Hayashi, leader of the Resistance, but he had been unable—or unwilling—to enlighten her.

  As the lift arrived, she put the problem aside. It was not really important. What was important now was this, her own private quest, to trace Brandon’s steps that day when he raided Palace with his Rifters. She wanted to do it quickly, before any remaining traces were removed by the indefatigable cleaners.

  Her first stop had been to the Ivory Antechamber, to view the empty places where once had been displayed—some for hundreds of years—the artifacts taken by Vi’ya’s crew. Longest she paused before the plaque on the wall where the Stone of Prometheus had hung. She tried to envision where Brandon had stood, and where Vi’ya, and his manner as he gifted her with the priceless artifact.

  Challenge? Humor? Promise? Vi’ya’s manner as she accepted it would, of course, be cold and impassive, as befitted a Dol’jharian, but underneath that, what had been her emotions—if she had any?

  I don’t know either of them well enough, or I should be able to see it as it was. Vannis moved away.

  Her goal was the subsidiary kitchen, where they had battled the Dol’jharians before their retreat to their ship. The area was deserted, the air still. She spotted the pretty mosaic-inset wall consoles. She tapped out a query. And was on her way, the House computer complying instantly.

  It was a shock to discover how very close Brandon had been to the room where Gelasaar had been imprisoned. Perhaps he had even passed down the same hall. Did Brandon know it? She wondered if, after his return, he would retrace his own movements that day. Will he do it alone, or with Vi’ya?

  She turned away from the plain door indicated by the computer and walked down the silent hall to the kitchen.

  Halkyn’s cleaners had not yet penetrated this far underneath the Palace. The Dol’jharians had cleared away the bodies and the ruined machines, but the burn marks still remained, and here and there corners or crevices displayed a dried crust of greenish material.

  She walked slowly through the silent room: here Brandon had hidden, at this console. And the others? She envisioned the Dol’jharians at one side and the Telvarna’s crew at the other. At the back the mechwaiter door where they had made their escape. She was about to open it when her boswell alerted her to an urgent message.

  Activating it, she recognized Nik Cormoran’s voice: (Where are you? We have the day’s propaganda to arrange.)

  Propaganda. (On an errand. I will meet you in the audience chamber in half an hour.) She ended the connection in case he tried running a locate on the signal.

  He would probably find his way to these rooms sooner or later, for more of the lurid stories his subscribers liked, but for now, on matters touching Brandon personally the House computer cooperated only with Vannis. That, too, was strange. Her skin prickled as she looked around the deserted kitchen. The shadows suddenly seemed menacing. Autonomous behavior? And what of the Ban? Perhaps there were secrets to the Mandala that only the Panarch knew. And maybe those secrets had died with Gelasaar.

  Resolutely suppressing remembered fragments of history chips on the Adamantines, Vannis left the kitchen, turning her thoughts to Cormoran and the problems he represented.

  Because they had dealt well enough in the past, and because he and his team had managed to get on the same Ares transport, Vannis had asked Cormoran and Y’Madoc to serve as novosti liaison with the first wave of Panarchists returning to the Mandala.

  They had agreed promptly, and for the first days, it had been fun combing through the daily courier reports to put together broadcasts meant to reassure the Thousand Suns of the efforts to reestablish order.

  Prompted by this cooperative spirit, she had experienced an impulse to appoint Nik and Derith her official spokespersons, but was glad she had not given in. Of late Nik questioned more and more of her decisions, and Vannis found evidence of Derith’s data excavations.

  Vannis felt compelled to hide more and more data from them—all of this being a reversion to the normal give-and-take of political life. It was not in Nik’s or Derith’s natures to be mouthpieces. They would want to resume providing the Thousand Suns with their view on the truth, and they were honest enough to tell Vannis first.

  Honest enough and pragmatic. They must know they are probably going to be the wealthiest of their kind once they start sending out what they already have stored up.

  But in the meantime, it would take months to find out what was happening elsewhere in the Thousand Suns—the DataNet was horribly fragmented. In lieu of news from elsewhere, the novosti would perforce concentrate on the Mandala. And the reestablishment of the government, and Brandon’s coronation, were, in a very real sense, the most important news of all, for they would serve as the cement to rebuild the foundations of the Panarchy.

  Composing her thoughts—and considering what to say and what to hide—she retraced her steps.

  GROZNIY: PHOENIX SUD OCTANT

  Manderian stood next to the High Phanist as the whirling, writhing, graceful but profoundly alien sentients termed Kelly by human beings danced mournfully about the floating biers carrying the bodies of Portus-Dartinus-Atos, killed aboard the Telvarna by order of Anaris Eusabian. Their path took them between two rows of Marines in full-dress uniforms drawn up before the tripod of Kelly ships in a landing bay on the Grozniy, an honor guard ordered by the Panarch.

  The Kelly’s threefold voices raised in alien song sent shivers through him, body and spirit, emotions heightened by the knowledge that these Kelly, whose names to humans were Shtoink, Nyuk2, and Wu4, in homage to the ancient human comedians they called the Blessed Three, held memories reaching back to the beginning of their race’
s sentience.

  No wonder, Manderian thought, that even when they spoke in Uni, he found it difficult to understand them. He had decided that their communication was based on a fundamental synesthesia that he could appreciate on a theoretical level, but which slipped away from his comprehension somewhere in his brain between the imagistic and linguistic centers.

  So he composed himself to absorb what little he could from this ceremony—at least honoring the dead by his attendance—and contemplated the swift series of surprises that had taken place since his arrival on the Grozniy. For so very long reality had been measured by hours, and days, of waiting for news: first on Ares, then in space, when Eloatri declared that she would need to rendezvous with the Grozniy on its return in triumph to the Mandala.

  They had seen Eusabian’s horrifying end, and knew from the failure of the hyperwave that the war was over, the Dol’jharians driven from the Suneater, but little else.

  The military courier that had been assigned to bring them to the rendezvous had had scant data in its banks. Since their arrival seventy-two hours ago, they had been immersed in new data, from the purely military to this present mélange of sensory perceptions.

  The unrelenting bombardment of data was made necessary because the Kelly had apparently been asked to convey the Eya’a back to their home planet. The two sophonts had—somehow, despite their apparent lack of comtech—been recalled to return to their hive.

  And a few hours previous to that, a pod of Kelly ships had blipped out of hyper, in order to escort the Elder on threir mission.

  The Kelly emerged from threir ship. The trinity stood silently outside the hatch, waiting, but not for long, for an hatch leading to the interior of the battlecruiser hissed open and the Telvarna’s crew emerged.

  It was not quite the same crew that Manderian had known so briefly on Ares. It still pained him to think that Ivard had been left behind on the Suneater, his fate unknown—and unknowable.