A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  Still, she could not resist trying to confirm a guess of hers as to the phenomenal nexus of his vision on Desrien: was it that painting from which she’d seen him and Osri turn away?

  “They’re rather like the ball last night, aren’t they?” she said. “Thank you again for being my Vergil among the Tetrad Centrum Douloi.”

  Omilov exhibited no sign of recognition. Either Douloi control, or ignorance? She found the latter hard to believe.

  “Indeed,” Omilov murmured. He cradled his empty tea cup in his hands, the delicate porcelain cool against his palms. The leaf fragments stippling the bottom of the cup yielded no pattern. “Although they seem to have but one center. Why do they circle overhead like that?”

  He looked up as the old woman smiled at him from under her preposterous straw hat. The shade it cast across her round, seamed face did not hide those observant eyes.

  She saw too much, Omilov had already decided. Eloatri often affected an absent air that was quite disarming, especially given her grandmotherly appearance, the very model of the nested bushka dolls he’d picked up on Rodina years ago. The reception last night had changed something in her.

  “It’s not the same ones,” she replied, then chuckled. “Apparently the Cloister grounds generate a lot of hot air—a thermal they call it—and they use it to help launch themselves. The fees for their use of our bell tower are an important part of our maintenance budget.”

  “There are doubtless many places on Ares where such conditions obtain.”

  “Indeed. But none has as grand an construction as we.”

  Omilov showed no reaction at the forcible reminder of the High Phanist’s Polloi origins. She had chosen a dreadfully ambiguous Uni word to describe the tower. “Ah. And yet is it not your tradition that speaks of the danger of tall edifices?”

  Eloatri laughed. “Yes. But it’s really a story about power, and the delusions thereof.”

  The monneplat chimed, and two cups of a savory digestive tisane emerged. She began to hand one to Omilov, then hesitated, seeing his gaze fixed on the little console.

  Unbidden—unwanted—memory seized him, a voice chanting softly:

  “Through me you pass into the city of woe:

  Through me you pass into eternal pain:

  Through me among the people lost for aye.

  Justice the founder of my fabric moved . . .”

  Omilov made an effort and shook off the memory.

  He took the tea cup from the High Phanist, but the unfamiliar glyphs on the monneplat’s console shimmered distractingly at the edge of his vision. It was certainly no delusion that as a Praerogate Occult, he had only to speak a few words here, or anywhere within range of a computing device, to make himself master of Ares. No, the delusion was more likely that he would recognize the right moment when it came, if there even were to be a right moment. If he misjudged, than his blow would yield only wind.

  Worse, he could not assume himself to be the only Invisible on Ares. The Worm would answer to any of them. And the Dol’jharians knew their identities now, having mindripped them out of the Spider, Nahomi il-Ngari; could their technology of pain turn a Praerogate? Having experienced that technology himself, Omilov was not sure it couldn’t. Any incoming refugee might be such.

  He became aware of Eloatri’s gaze. “Forgive me,” he said. “My thoughts strayed to the refugees arriving daily.” A partial truth was always safe.

  Eloatri nodded; time to try again. “Ares has become an unexpected way-point in many journeys. I certainly never thought to occupy these quarters.”

  Another shadow flickered across the table, but this time its departure took Omilov’s cautious good mood with it and the darkness stayed. An internal whisper repeated the words he’d read in the cathedral, on that painting, before his . . . seizure: “Midway through my life’s journey I found myself in a dark wood, the true way wholly lost.”

  He was sure her use of the journey metaphor had been deliberate. The knowledge brought not fresh anger but a kind of relief, as it strengthened his conviction that his mind had been deliberately manipulated in some manner in Desrien’s cathedral. Had they done something similar to Brandon?

  Contrite, Eloatri watched her words strike home, evoking memory of the breathing of that vast unseen predator, passionless and without parts, that had stalked her in the fog of Desrien. Why should she expect whatever Sebastian Omilov had been found by on Desrien to be any less terrifying? “Of course, you could say that of all of us, and even more so of those we’ll be housing here—God knows we have enough room, more than we’re allowed to use, in fact.”

  Seeing the signs of discomfort in Omilov’s demeanor slowly ebb, Eloatri continued. “I have spent virtually all my free time since arriving on Ares exploring the Cloister, and I still cannot fathom the mind or minds that designed it. Starting with the fact that it was originally the private chapel of the Illyahin family. Can you imagine? It’s practically as big as New Glastonbury Cathedral!”

  He answered with a smile, but she sensed that it was politeness, not interest. She sighed. She was too new to her position, let alone her lodgings, and events had taken her away from Desrien before she’d even fully recovered from the spectacularly unconventional way in which she’d become High Phanist. Eloatri’s hand panged and she winced, reflexively rubbing it, and noting Omilov’s gaze flickering away. She put her hands in her lap, stretching out the scar tissue as she had been instructed by the chirurgeon.

  Eloatri did not suppose that she would ever be entirely free of the pain of the burn inflicted on her by the Digrammaton in its inexplicable leap across the light-years between Arthelion and Desrien. Not that she often had time to reflect on that: her time since then had been spent in learning a radically new—and often uncomfortable and even distasteful—religious tradition, and in seeking the persons the Dreamtime had bidden her follow. Except one, still unidentified, all had come to Desrien, had been seized by the Dreamtime, and now were here, with her, on Ares.

  Now what?

  It was with some relief that Eloatri saw her secretary Tuan approaching with a bit more urgency than he usually displayed, his undyed woolen tunic immaculate as always, in contrast to his wild hair. He had that hint of a crooked smile that warned her of another manifestation of the holy fool; Tuan was a Nazirite Woolgatherer. She sighed. She’d inherited him with the Cloister and could no more discharge him than remove one of the gargoyles that leered from unexpected perches throughout the Cloister, especially since he’d been appointed by Tomiko, her predecessor.

  Tuan could barely contain the bubble of amusement behind his ribs as he reached them. He wished he could have arranged to spring on the gnostor without warning what had just been delivered, but seeing the man’s face upon the telling would have to do.

  Tuan took a steadying breath, catching a sharp glance from the High Phanist. She already knew him too well.

  “Your pardon, Numen, gnostor.” He bobbed a slight bow toward Omilov. “Basilea Risiena has sent your wardrobe.” He paused, making certain of his voice. Then: “Thirty-seven left shoes, fourteen right boots, and it appears that at least some of the jackets and pantaloons have had their sleeves or legs sewn shut. A decon team has already dealt with the underwear.”

  “Tuan,” said the High Phanist, a line appearing between her eyes.

  Omilov’s lips parted, and he chuckled, forestalling the High Phanist with an upraised hand. “Let us just say that her tastes along those lines were somewhat . . . esoteric. Thank you, Tuan.”

  Omilov thought Tuan looked disappointed as he bowed and departed. But the secretary’s mention of underwear had triggered an image of Barrodagh with one of Risiena’s vile toys leeched to his thumb, and Omilov’s dark mood began to fade; he’d become expert at not thinking about what had followed. I hope he does trigger it.

  “I did not see the Basilea at the ball last night,” said Eloatri.

  Omilov winced. Such blunt statements were something he’d come to expect from the High
Phanist, especially when her odd little secretary was involved. But Omilov had already endured the verbal consequences of his wife’s failure to obtain an invitation for herself and her two daughters. The vandalism of his wardrobe left him unmoved. Two suits of clothes were all he required. But. “I fear my son Osri will bear the brunt of that . . . oversight.”

  Eloatri shifted in her chair. The disorienting pekeri fog of Desrien had its parallel in the house-of-mirrors existence of the Douloi. “Would it help were I to invite her to tea?”

  She saw the answer in an undisguised flash of horror, then he smiled, urbane again. “My wife has styled herself a head of state, as her position entitles her. That would make your tea a diplomatic event.”

  “A ladder to heaven for her,” said Eloatri. Risiena, at least, was easy to understand. She had no standing in the Tetrad Centrum Douloi forming a new elite on Ares, for no major Ghettierus clients or patrons were among the Douloi refugees so far. Her diplomatic status was her only claim to consideration, and it had not been enough for last night’s reception. The woman’s personality made Omilov’s reluctance to intervene easy to understand, as well.

  Omilov nodded agreeably, but then he glanced sideways, in the direction of the Arkadic Enclave, a kilometer or two away spinward along the oneill’s disorienting curve, looming uncannily above the eaves of the Cloister’s outer gallery. Another ladder to heaven, thought Eloatri. Why had he turned down the invitation to stay there?

  Even an upstart Polloi promoted to Gate of Telos couldn’t ask that question. The novosti would. She suspected they’d have little luck.

  Omilov shifted his gaze from the Enclave floating like a geometric moon above the roofline, aware of fatigue. Like a moon, its pull—the millennium-weighted symbolism of the Arkad line—was already raising tides on Ares. He’d felt their pull at the reception last night. He might have done some good if he’d accepted Brandon’s invitation.

  But that was immediate. And the very same reason made it impossible to accept Brandon’s invitation. As an Invisible, he might yet have to execute justice on his one-time charge. He would not make the betrayal greater by accepting his bread and salt.

  Omilov’s exhaustion manifested as a longing for the Cloister library in its fusty, narrow solidity, antonymic to his hallucination in the cathedral. It was time to make his excuses to his hostess.

  Eloatri watched as Omilov walked slowly toward the wing housing the library. Her conscience panged again: she’d found a hidden transtube entrance only steps from this verdant cove; it would have whisked him right to the elevator nearest his destination. But she wasn’t ready to reveal that and the other transtubes and similar secrets that were unfolding to her. She supposed there was some protocol in operation that was slowly accepting her.

  She glanced up at the Enclave again, wondering if the smiling, blue-eyed Aerenarch was going through a similar process, and how many secret egresses he’d found. Was it such that had saved him at his Enkainion?

  Regardless of how he’d escaped death, Brandon vlith-Arkad was now heir to the Panarchy of the Thousand Suns. At their first meeting he’d seemed to be as slippery as glass and about as deep, but in the New Glastonbury Cathedral she had seen underneath his shock a flash of intent, the same kind of high-energy focus that seemed to reach out from old vids of his ancestor Jaspar Arkad.

  Last night he had surprised her yet again, when he abandoned the mask of Douloi politesse to communicate with a dancing trinity of Kelly in un-Douloi trills, hoots, and slaps.

  Those same Kelly were to perform surgery on Ivard today, the boy for whom the Graal had apparently manifested on the altar of New Glastonbury, arresting his ongoing possession—there was no other word for it, really—by the genomic ghost of the Kelly Archon. But that genetic entanglement would still kill him in the end unless the Kelly succeeded in removing the emerald band fused into his wrist.

  She glanced at her chrono. Less than an hour to go.

  Time to try one of her private transtube accesses.

  o0o

  Osri Omilov sat up in bed, fighting a massive headache. He’d not trusted the dormaivu in his room—doubtless bugged like everything else—and he’d slept with his boswell on. The delicate chiming in his inner ear counterpointed the throb in his temples; he killed it hastily. Two hours of sleep, and less than that before his leave ended, requiring him to report for duty in the military portion of Ares Station, known as the Cap.

  The good thing was that he’d be given quarters among the rest of the Naval personnel. Reminded of the prospect of quitting his mother’s space, he found the energy to get up and into the shower.

  When he came out, his boswell blinked at him from the dressing table. He put it on, angled it to his gaze, and saw a single line across his field of vision.

  Need a favor. Meet me at 07:45? B.

  Brandon? Osri’s heart thumped in counterpoint to his headache as he dressed in his uniform and packed his few belongings.

  He picked up his duffel and tiptoed down the hall toward the entrance. The other bedroom doors were shut; his half-sisters still slept. Good.

  But exit was not to be achieved so easily. A servant in Ghettierus livery hovered before the door. “Her Grace desires speech with Your Honor.” And effectively blocked the door.

  Perforce Osri turned aside, and braced himself as he entered his mother’s room. She sat straight-backed in a huge bed draped with embroidered silk. At least she was alone.

  “Osri,” she said. So strange, to see his own dark eyes in her face, when he didn’t feel any kinship beyond the undeniable genetic.

  Risiena glared at her son as he bowed and said, “Mother.” How annoying, to see those Ghettierus eyes staring from a pudding-featured Omilov face. And those ears! She would have clipped them to decency after he was born, but that idiot she had married had insisted—legally—on leaving him be.

  “Who was that message from? How rude it was to send it to you alone when you are en famille.”

  His doughy face spasmed, causing her to scowl. Was that laughter? Osri was sadly lacking in respect for her rank. Just like his father.

  Osri looked away, unwilling to mention Brandon and start the hideous arguments all over again.

  Unexpectedly she relieved him. “It was your father, I suppose.” She made a rude gesture. “Gloating, no doubt, about his trick with the High Phanist. If he had simply told me—”

  Osri had been hearing her on this subject for three days. “My father congratulates me on my new teaching duties,” he said largely, glancing at the chrono. “Which begin in a few minutes.”

  “Teaching! Why aren’t you assigned to the Aerenarch’s personal staff . . .”

  “Have to depart, Mother.”

  If he reached the tube in about two minutes, he might make it to the Enclave in time.

  “You’ll be here when I entertain.” It was not a question.

  “As my duties permit,” he promised his mother, and departed, glad at least that he’d not had to promise his sibs as well.

  Osri found nothing to complain about. His mother’s domicile numbered among pleasingly designed buildings set on low hills, with farmland visible from all the windows. His mother, he knew, was angry because her neighbors were Naval captains and lower level Douloi. She felt that a Basilea ought to be ranked among the Tetrad Centrum Douloi housed around the lake near the Arkadic Enclave—those who had not claimed space on one of the luxurious yachts attached to the station. “We can’t even see the Enclave from here,” she’d complained. “Even at night.”

  Osri punched in his destination, then sank gratefully onto the tube seat, relieved to be alone, if only for a minute. He leaned against the window with his eyes closed.

  He’d meant to leave that damn party early, to rest before starting his new job, but he’d been detained not just by fellow Navy officers, who wanted to hear about his adventures since the attack on Charvann, but by a number of Douloi as well. Despite their smiling questions and open admiration, and despi
te the liquor offered as lubrication, Osri had kept his answers short and vague. Though his father seldom gave directives (unlike his mother), one of the lessons Osri had recently learned was to listen to his father’s occasional mild suggestions. Just before the party Sebastian had murmured, “I say as little as possible at these things. Less to defend later.” Osri heard it as advice, and took it.

  The tube eased smoothly to a stop. Osri debarked and walked quickly across the grass to the Arkadic Enclave gate.

  He exchanged salutes with the Marine honor guard, the gesture underscoring his safe return to the clear-cut world of the military; she murmured into her boswelled gorget as he entered the garden.

  The door stood open. Brandon, Montrose, and Jaim sat on a low, circular couch before a dyplast table so transparent their porcelain breakfast dishes appeared to hover in midair. Jaim’s long face was somber. Only Brandon showed no evidence of lack of sleep or excess of liquor—his eyes were clear.

  It was a testimony to Brandon’s practice at dissipation during the last ten years of his life, a fact that had angered Osri once. Too many things had changed since the days when he saw the universe in terms of Naval regs. Too much had been lost.

  Jaim thought Osri looked more sour than usual, although not as bad as he’d been on Telvarna. The stiff angle of his head made it obvious that he was suffering from a monumental hangover.

  “Good,” said Brandon as he looked up. “You’re here. Thanks for coming.”

  Jaim tapped his boswell. “This time of day it takes twelve minutes to get to the Cap.”

  Brandon swallowed his coffee and stood up. “Let’s go. Wait.” He eyed Osri.

  Montrose grunted, and said, “One moment.” He moved to the kitchen, and returned with a glass of milky liquid. “Here,” he growled, pressing the glass into Osri’s hand. “I made up plenty.” He jerked his finger at Brandon and Jaim. “Thought they’d need it.”

  Osri accepted it gratefully, remembering the efficacy of Montrose’s nostrums on Telvarna, and drank off the thick liquid. His stomach gave one lurch, then settled into quiescence. A cool, cottony sensation soothed the inside of his head.