The Thrones of Kronos

by Sherwood Smith

  Replacing him and Marim were three Bori, one of whom clung to the other two like a lost child. The female of the trio was still convalescent, as was Sedry Thetris, the quietly-dressed gray-haired woman who walked with Montrose.

  Manderian caught Montrose’s eye and nodded, receiving a grin. The man strode with confidence, resplendent in a scarlet tunic with exotic gold embroidery. Behind him Lokri—born Jesimar Kendrian—lounged, handsome and sinister in black and silver; next to him walked Jaim, the quiet drivetech in his ubiquitous gray. Last came Vi’ya. Manderian was startled to see her clad in deep forest green, though the clothing itself was a plain flightsuit. Shadowing her, as before, were the Eya’a.

  Manderian and Eloatri stepped forward, and the Eya’a stopped and faced them. They greeted the High Phanist with their unique deference, covering their eyes and exposing their throats. She said nothing, only touching them lightly on the tops of their heads.

  Then the little sophonts turned to Manderian, using their simple we-see-you semiotics. He bowed deeply, knowing that the gesture meant nothing but the impulse behind it would reach them. The Eya’a turned away, and they and Vi’ya approached the Kelly, while the rest of the crew stayed a few paces back.

  The Eya’a signed at the Kelly with blurring speed, who blatted melodiously in return. Manderian comprehended that humans were peripheral to this meeting. The Panarchy would have little to contribute to the future of Kelly-Eya’a relations, for it was apparent that the two races could communicate far better than could humans and Eya’a, and perhaps even better than humans and Kelly.

  The six figures stood before the Kelly ship in silence as Eloatri rubbed absently at her scarred palm. Then the Eya’a entered the ship at their customary quick pace, without a backward glance.

  Vi’ya, looking much younger than he had remembered, showed no reaction. But Manderian was sure this was due to his inability to read her, for he knew from their fleeting contacts that in her the currents of human emotion ran very deep indeed.

  With no further ceremony apparent to human senses, the Kelly ships lifted off the deck and drifted through the e-lock in rainbow display, dwindling swiftly against the stars and then vanishing in the eerie manner of the Kelly stealth-skip.

  As the gathering in the landing bay dispersed, Manderian turned to Eloatri. “Why, do you suppose, were the Eya’a so adamant about going now?” he asked. “They’ve been with Vi’ya so long, why not wait a few more weeks, especially since the Kelly indicated wanting to be at the coronation?”

  “They are not Children of the Vortex,” Eloatri said. “We have little to offer them.” She chuckled. “I do not think Archetype and Ritual can ever accommodate them.” Then the humor faded from her expression, and she rubbed unconsciously at her palm again, where the image of the Digrammaton was reproduced in seared flesh. Her gaze was distant, and Manderian felt that she was not so much speaking to him as to herself. “Although,” she said softly. “They may still have much to offer us.”

  ARTHELION

  They were due in two days.

  In two days Vannis, gowned and jeweled for an occasion that would live in memory as long as their civilization endured, would welcome the returning Panarch and the government-in-exile. From now until then every moment of her day would be filled with the logistics of preparation. The news was still fresh from the courier, speeding ahead of the Grozniy, and still spreading, but she had a few hours yet to herself. It was time to make her last pilgrimage.

  Incident by incident she had trod in Brandon’s steps, trying to follow his actions—and his thoughts—when he had last visited his home. For last, she had saved his point of departure. Not the gazebo through which he and the Rifters had run, before their desperate escape from Eusabian’s vengeance, but his own departure, the day—the hour—the war began.

  “Comp,” she said in the hallway outside Brandon’s suite, where for generations Arkad siblings had lived. “Open, please.”

  The door hissed open, and she walked in, expecting anything from a bomb-blackened room like the Ivory Antechamber, to four bare walls, like Gelasaar’s library in the Karelais wing.

  The outer room seemed untouched, though she would not know. The bite of irony accompanied the realization that she had never before seen these rooms. Semion would have been furious—and even if she had shown any interest in the supposedly stupid, drink-sodden youngest son, there had been so many of her spouse’s spies about she never would have approached him here.

  She passed through to the private chambers. The air was still and cold, smelling of wet dog; the tianqi had been shut down. There was Brandon’s bed, the bedclothes still rumpled. From the dog hairs scattered in the sheets, dogs had slept here, probably ever since Brandon’s departure. Had they found the scents comforting?

  Discarded clothing lay where it had been dropped. Her gown rustled as she bent to pick up his shirt. A faint but distinctive blend of rose and jumari still clung to it, impacting her limbic system like a blow. She was thrown back a year, among ghosts.

  Who? Who? It was imperative that she remember. She sniffed again, and there it was: Eleris vlith-Chandreseki’s sweet, calculated laughter, her pretty voice, her bright layers of moth gauze drawing attention to her generous curves. I should not be surprised that she’d hooked Brandon, Vannis thought, though she deplored his boyish predilection for computer games and gambling. From the scent, she’d hooked him the very day of his Enkainion, but that, too, figured: as Vannis gently laid aside the shirt, she was willing to gamble any sum that Eleris had done her best to claim Brandon’s escort for the select party after the official Enkainion ball. Under the arrogant, judgmental nose of the Krysarchei Phaelia Inesset, whom Semion had intended Brandon to marry.

  Brandon had jettisoned them all—including his brother Semion.

  Dead, all dead.

  Vannis walked on, finding two empty cups, one with chalky-white sides, the other with a ring of coffee stain.

  Beyond the bedroom was the bain, and beyond that the dressing room, still wide open. There hung the splendid maroon tunic Brandon was to have worn to his Enkainion. Undisturbed below it lay a row of inherited decorations, each worth a fortune.

  Emotions, like the ghosts of wailing children, enclosed Vannis in a vortex of the might-have-been. Should have been.

  So he really did leave before the bomb. The wardrobe was too neat for a last minute, hasty decision. Everything looked orderly, as it would after a deliberately planned removal.

  Brandon had gone off, expecting to leave not a chaos of death, but a chaos of angry, affronted people.

  If that bomb had not gone off, where would he be now? Jacking Navy ships?

  No, that didn’t seem right. Despite the presence of his things, she was no closer to his inward mind.

  If the bomb had not gone off, he still would have met Vi’ya.

  This journey of hers was mere self-indulgence, without insight.

  The console bleeped: the inhuman voice murmured, “Fierin vlith-Kendrian for you.”

  Vannis said, “Accept, voice only.”

  Fierin said breathlessly, “Vannis, I think you’d better come. Here’s the location.”

  The computer screen flashed a graphic with a pulsing point.

  Vannis tabbed an acknowledgment before shutting down the console. Her pilgrimage was done; the past had passed. Whatever the future held, she would not look back.

  She walked out of the wardrobe, through the bain, and Brandon’s bedroom to the outer rooms. When she reached the hall, the door hissed shut and locked behind her.

  Fierin waited inside the air car watching the fuel gauge tick away the charge. It was impossible to think—it was time to act, only what to do?

  When Vannis emerged on the terrace, she threw the car into motion and swooped down on her, the backwash sending furniture sliding into the low wall.

  Flying this close to a building was strictly forbidden on just about every planet, but Fierin did not care.

  Vannis frowned as
the wind took her hair and gown every which way. She stood her ground and when Fierin drew level and called “Get in!” she climbed in and sat down.

  “What—”

  Fierin did not give her time to finish the question. Sending the car into a steep climb and roll, she jammed the acceleration stick forward to the max, pressing them both against the padded seats.

  When the car leveled out, Vannis’s annoyance fled when she took in Fierin’s grim profile. “Fierin?”

  “I hope we’re in time,” Fierin said, gritting her teeth. The fuel gauge was at less than half, but she couldn’t spare the time to use a slower, fuel-conserving speed, even if they had to walk the long kilometers back to the Palace.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Watch,” Fierin said.

  A breeze buffeted the car and Fierin had to fight the controls. The wind was not strong, but at these speeds its vagaries could be dangerous.

  Vannis stiffened. “I know this place. It’s Havroy Bay!” She frowned. “Isn’t it? This is where it should be, but what happened?”

  “You tell me,” Fierin said, exerting strong effort to keep her voice from trembling. This was not the time to talk about how she had wanted to make this pilgrimage when she was small—how the old Archonei of Torigan, before she went mad, had wanted to bring her, but for some unaccountable reason Stulafi Y’Talob, then holding her wardship, had forbidden it. I always thought it was because I was tainted by the accusation against my brother—that I wasn’t worthy. What an irony to find out that he was the one tainted, that he probably feared someone finding out our story, and probing it. Yet she could see now how that decision had shaped her own self-image, right up until recently.

  They passed over the last of the scorched, treeless hills, and swooped low over the windswept sands as Fierin said, “I was out walking with Trev and Gray. They sniffed every blade of grass and every tree. Then they stopped dancing around and started barking.”

  Vannis glanced below, and drew in a sharp breath when she saw the lumps in the sand, where either people or nature had tried to bury the dead, just to have the remorseless wind uncover them again. Arm bones, leg bones, skulls, lay all along the shore, a heartbreakingly uncountable crowd.

  “I could hear these dogs barking in the distance, and ran to see what was wrong. Saw this.”

  Vannis turned toward the crescent where once, for almost two thousand years, the statue of the Havroy had stared out over the sea—replaced by a black, glassy-sided crater, at the bottom of which lay a dark, stagnant pool of water.

  “There.” Fierin banked the car with a stomach-turning lurch.

  Below small figures made their way toward the lip of the crater. As Fierin neared, the slow ones resolved into children moving at a deliberate pace except for one boy, who struggled mightily against the bigger, stronger pair who held his arms. Around and around the children a mixture of Arkad and other dogs ran, hackles up, alternately barking and whining. The children ignored the dogs.

  “I was on foot,” Fierin said tersely. “Out of bozzing range. Ran all the way back. Left the dogs and found this car and bozzed you. I didn’t know what else to do. They didn’t see me, and I overheard them holding some kind of tribunal. They voted to tie that boy up and push him over the edge of the crater.”

  The children, determined on their task, also ignored the air car until Fierin, with an angry smack of her hand, forced it to drop like a stone, to halt between them and the crater. The children stopped, ranging themselves silently before the air car.

  “He wouldn’t be able to stand up. He’d drown,” Vannis said, her eyes widening, greeny-brown in hazy sunlight.

  “I think that’s the idea.”

  Vannis hit the door control. Despite her short stature—the two holding the struggling boy were taller—she had assumed the aspect of command.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. “What is going on here?”

  A thin girl of maybe ten years stepped forward. Her clothes were ragged, and over them she wore a torn Navy tunic, several sizes too large for her.

  “I’m Moira,” the girl said, proud and defiant. “We’re the Rats. This—” She pointed a stiff finger directly into the tear-stained face of the boy. “—is a collaborator.” She spat the word hatefully.

  “I am not!” the boy shrieked, then gave a sob of rage and shame. His face was filthy, smeared with dirt and tears, his long yellow hair stuck to cheeks and chin as he fought desperately to free his wrists from the grip of the boy and girl holding him. At the sight of the blood smeared on his arms, Fierin’s insides tightened.

  “Let him go,” Vannis ordered.

  The children stood there glaring at her, and Fierin’s heart pounded with fear. One of the dogs tried to thrust a muzzle under Vannis’s hands; when Vannis looked down, distracted, the dog whined softly.

  Fierin held her breath. Despite her weeks of Ulanshu training, they were just two, and she knew she couldn’t defend herself and Vannis against a pack of what looked like feral children, unless the dogs would come to their aid. But Fierin was not sure the dogs would attack children, any more than Vannis would order them to. Even feral children.

  Feral children, in the Mandala! After we have made peace. When will the horror stop?

  Vannis studied the girl who had spoken. She said, “If you try anything with that child I will order this dog to defend.”

  “That’s Angela. She won’t attack me,” Moira stated belligerently.

  “Whom is she heeling next to?” Vannis retorted. “Even a dog knows what you are doing is wrong. Do you want to try me?”

  Fierin did not see a signal given, but the boy was let loose. He fell to the ground and wiped his face with his ripped, dirty shirt.

  “Now,” Vannis said, “the Panarch’s decree about collaborators was proclaimed days ago. You are breaking the law. Tell me why you do not deserve to be put into detention.”

  “Because we fought against the guks,” Moira stated. “Because some of us got hurt real bad by them—just for sport—and seven of us got killed, and a lot of our families were shot and will never come back.”

  “Never!” another girl shrilled.

  A boy on the verge of adolescence burst out, his voice cracking and honking, “Why should these chatzers have it comfortable because they were taking orders from the guks?”

  “And they get to be comfortable now?” Moira finished angrily.

  “I didn’t have it comfortable,” the boy screamed, past caring about control. “They said if my mother didn’t keep doing her job, then they’d kill me and my little brother and my grandmother in their mindripper and make her watch. And I had to work, too, but every day people spat on us, and ruined our food, and . . .” His voice was suspended by tears.

  “Very comfortable,” Fierin said wryly, then wished she hadn’t spoken. The children glanced briefly her way, then back to Vannis, who rested her hand on the dog’s head. The dog remained still, brown eyes unblinking.

  “You were given orders by Captain Hayashi before we came. And you have since heard the Panarch’s decree. Why did you ignore their orders?”

  Fierin saw uncertainty for the first time in the children. They were all too thin, with unkempt hair, and most of them had bare feet. The old naval shirts were worn like capes—badges of honor. They’ve created their own little war, and now their own rituals. And it had happened here, where the Havroy had once sat gazing out to sea and freedom.

  “The Mask—Captain Hayashi only gave us one order,” a boy said sulkily. “To disband. To report to the medics, and those civ baby-minders, and we haven’t seen him since.”

  “Then I will repeat the Panarch’s decree once more,” Vannis said. “You may submit a list of names and crimes. They will be duly examined by the Justicials. Before then, any attempting to take justice into their own hands will also be submitted to the Justicials, on my order.” She turned to the boy. “You are free to go. If anyone does anything more to you or your family, you are to report it
directly to me. My name is Vannis Scefi-Cartano. I was once the Aerenarch-Consort, and the Panarch ordered me to come here and take charge of the Mandala.”

  The boy executed a short, awkward bow, then turned and ran.

  Vannis gestured at the crater. “This is another problem,” she said, her voice lighter. As if she was talking about a summer’s day, or a party—as if the foregoing scene had not taken place.

  The children exchanged covert, unsettled glances.

  Vannis walked to the edge and looked down. An unhealthy breeze wafted up the smell of stagnant water and rot. Fierin glanced down once, thought of being flung into that murk, and wondered how long one could struggle against those glassy sides before giving up. She shuddered, hands gripping her elbows.

  “The Havroy is gone,” Fierin said. “Shall we scrape what we can of her remains out of this crater and recast her?”

  Again the children exchanged looks. Then a girl said from the back of the crowd, “It wouldn’t be the same.”

  “No,” Vannis said, her voice musing, her eyes on the horizon. “I remember coming here when I was twelve, all the way from Montecielo. The journey to and from took several weeks, and I’d planned for it ever since I was six.” She faced the children. “What will the girls who’ve lived through the war have? And their daughters? The Dol’jharians took the Havroy away and gave you this.” She pointed with scorn at the crater. “Do you really want their present? If you do, the Dol’jharians have won.”

  Moira said, after a long pause, “What do you want us to do?” She scowled, angry, doubtful. Wary.

  “Well, that’s up to you,” Vannis said. “I cannot think of anyone more appropriate to decide what’s to be done here than you. The survivors.”

  “We’re the Rats,” Moira said proudly, her chin up, though her lips trembled. “The Rats of the Resistance. We fought the guks.”

  Vannis nodded. “Yes. Captain Hayashi has spoken of you. There will be a place for you in history now. What’s the ending of your story to be? Are you going to keep the status Jerrode Eusabian forced on you: savages, living hand to mouth, uneducated and untrained, and pursuing vengeance like your conquerors?”