A Matter of Oaths

by Helen S. Wright

  “Lord Dhur, sir.” The apprentice’s eyes swivelled from Ayvar to Joshim and back again, looking for differences.

  “Thank you, Fadir,” Ayvar said, smiling slightly.

  “Sir.” Fadir backed out, still comparing.

  “You have a fine ship, Captain Vidar,” Ayvar said. “Don’t let me keep you from your work.”

  “You’d better let the web-room know what’s happening,” Joshim said resignedly. “And break the news to Fadir and Rasil that they don’t get to join in.”

  “You need some sleep,” Vidar said pointedly. “I’ll be back in an hour to make sure you get it.”

  “Thank you for seeing me,” Ayvar said when Vidar had gone. “I won’t keep you long. But we ought to talk about Lin—Rafe, if you prefer—while we can.”

  “Before we know he’s alive?”

  “Trust me,” Ayvar said gravely. “I know Julur. He won’t kill him.”

  It would be a relief to have his certainty, Joshim thought with longing. Not to live with the misery of not knowing. Not to lie awake in the dark cataloguing the possibilities. Maybe he was right; the gods knew, there was nobody else qualified to understand the workings of an immortal’s mind. Or maybe Rallya was right, and Ayvar was as far from sanity as Julur was, if in a different direction.

  “What are you thinking?” Ayvar asked.

  “You’re right, or you’re insane, and I can’t tell which.”

  “And you’ve no talent for believing something because you want to believe,” Ayvar said sympathetically.

  “I’m an Aruranist,” Joshim said, amused. “I’ve heard it said that that’s wishful thinking.”

  “About reincarnation, I wouldn’t know. I can’t say that I’ve ever encountered anybody that I recognized from their previous life.”

  “You can’t remember everyone you’ve met.”

  Ayvar smiled unexpectedly. “A fact for which I’m grateful.”

  “Do you have any spiritual beliefs?” Joshim asked boldly.

  “Sometimes,” Ayvar admitted, “there are things that can’t be simply explained. Your encounter with Rafe for example, without which his memory would not have returned.”

  “And our resemblance.”

  Ayvar shook his head. “I’m afraid there’s a prosaic explanation for that. I’ve never been celibate, nor favoured men over women. And offspring, although extremely unlikely, have never been impossible.”

  “It must have been a relatively recent encounter, for the resemblance between us to be so strong.” Joshim ran a hand over his chin, trying to remember when he had last depilated it. Four days ago, on New Imperial. He must look as disreputable as he felt, and it was no comfort that Ayvar looked little better.

  “Indeed, and I shall have it investigated—for the safety of your family as well as my own. Lin would be furious if I allowed those you care about to remain at risk. And we still have to talk about Lin...”

  “He isn’t an Empire to be divided up by treaty,” Joshim reacted angrily.

  “That wasn’t what I intended,” Ayvar said. “I just don’t want to make it any harder for him than it has to be. Julur won’t kill him, but he won’t be gentle to him either. He’ll need time to recover, when we get him back. He’ll be in no condition to make a decision between us.”

  “So you want to make it for him now.” Joshim was still furious.

  “Not that either.” Ayvar sighed. “He makes his own decisions. He always has, and they’re often not the decisions I’d have him make. Like staying in the Guild. I’ve asked him to leave before. I shall be asking him again. This time, perhaps he’ll agree. He’s always said that his Oath binds him, but if the Emperors’ Oaths can be rewritten, his can be dissolved.”

  “He won’t give up webbing,” Joshim said confidently. “If you could web with him, you’d know that.” He felt a tinge of jealous pleasure at the knowledge that Ayvar could never do so.

  “He needs the power it gives him,” Ayvar admitted, “but there are other ways he can have that.”

  Joshim shook his head, although there was truth in what the Emperor said. Power would always be a lure for Rafe, the power of the web or the power hanging in the air around Ayvar which would call him like a sailfly to a flame. But webbing was not only power. There was the magic inherent in sharing that power with others, in guiding a junior who was learning their first skills, or working in the web in perfect concert with a team. Nothing that Ayvar could offer would give Rafe that joy, or the trust and companionship of a full web-room.

  “You don’t know him as well as you think you do,” he observed.

  “I know that he’ll be grateful to you. To everybody who helps to rescue him. And he’s obsessive about paying his debts.”

  So he may be generous to me, out of gratitude? The Rafe I know … could be that stupid, Joshim realized painfully. What if it was my face that attracted him, if he thought he loved me because of his love for Ayvar … Gods, it was too tangled to see a way through. Especially at Ayvar’s persuasive prompting.

  “I’m not fighting over him,” he said flatly. “He isn’t mine to fight over, any more than he’s yours. And neither of us can be sure what he’ll feel, what he’ll do. After ten years as Rafe, he isn’t the Lin you knew, and once he’s remembered Lin, he won’t be Rafe either.”

  “That may be true,” Ayvar conceded. He was silent for several seconds, then shrugged gracefully. “Go to bed, Joshim. And be glad you’ve got something useful to do. Having given your Commander a fleet and pointed her at Julur, there’s nothing for me to do except wait. And Lin would tell you, that isn’t my favourite role. It makes me bad tempered. Makes me want to settle the things that I can settle.” He laughed briefly. “And the things that I can’t.”

  It was an apology of a kind, or a peace offering. An appeal for sympathy. “You are worried,” Joshim realized.

  “The thought of Commander Rallya with a fleet at her back and an Emperor as her target would make any sane man worry. What if she decides she does want control of the Guild? And of both Empires? What would be the cost of stopping her?”

  “No. Not Rallya,” Joshim said positively. “You’d have to back her into a corner with no choices left before she’d accept any of it. And even then, she’d probably find a way to wriggle free.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “Want to tell me what you’re really worried about?” Joshim suggested.

  Ayvar looked at him quizzically. “Lin always said that Webmasters could read minds.” He linked his fingers together, stared at them. “What will you do, if what we get back isn’t Lin or Rafe but something that Julur has twisted or emptied?” he asked abruptly. “Something mindless or insane.”

  Joshim shook his head in distress. “I don’t know. There would be ways of healing him…”

  “I hope so, yes. Could you be part of that, Joshim, if you were needed? For as long as it took?”

  Gods, that was a question. Joshim took a deep breath, let it out without speaking. Was that the measure of how much he cared for Rafe, that he hesitated to give up the web for him?

  “I don’t know,” he said finally.

  “That’s an honest answer.” Ayvar took Joshim’s face in one hand and studied it as if he would find a different answer there. “I’ve always avoided getting to know my descendants. For Lin, I could make an exception.”

  There was a knock on the door. Ayvar released Joshim’s face.

  “Come in,” Joshim called.

  “General broadcast, just received,” Fadir said excitedly. “The Captain said you’d want to see it at once.”

  “Thank you.” Joshim took the flimsy that the apprentice was clutching, scanned it rapidly. “Did he tell you what it meant?”

  “He said we’d be fighting at Central, sir. If Commander Carher has declared Bhattya renegade, it means she’s decided to oppose us.”

  “She has no choice,” Ayvar said harshly. “If she runs, one of her supporters will execute her for Julur. But she
thinks she’ll have something to bargain with if she fights and wins.” He laughed contemptuously. “It won’t be enough, but she won’t find that out until it’s too late. If Julur doesn’t kill her, I will.”

  “Couldn’t we tell her that?” Fadir asked.

  “In my experience, Fadir, things are rarely that simple,” Ayvar said kindly.

  “The Commander will have thought about it,” Joshim promised. “But Carher wouldn’t believe us, and it would do her no good if she did. The best she could hope for from us is identity-wipe, and I doubt the Commander would be that merciful.” He sighed. “You’d better start packing, Fadir. The Commander may take us out early, before Carher gathers too much support.”

  “Do I have to stay behind, sir?”

  “Yes,” Joshim insisted.

  “I shall be needing somebody to carry messages for me,” Ayvar said. “Can I borrow Fadir from you?”

  “Do you mind?” Joshim asked the apprentice.

  “No, sir. I suppose it will be better than doing nothing,” Fadir said dejectedly.

  “Good.” Ayvar smiled generously. “If you remember to call me Lord Dhur in public, you can call me Ayvar in private.”

  “Really?” Fadir swayed in shock. “Is he, sir?” He looked to Joshim for confirmation.

  “He is,” Joshim said.

  “But only you and your Captain and Webmaster know that,” Ayvar warned. “And Commander Rallya, of course.”

  Fadir nodded gravely, the effect spoiled by the fact that he was blinking so rapidly that his eyelashes were almost a blur. “I’ll remember, sir,” he promised.

  “Good. I’ll wait here for you while you pack,” Ayvar offered.

  Fadir paused on his way to the door. “Can I bring Rasil with me?” he asked. “Two of us will be more useful than one, don’t you think?”

  “You’d better bring Rasil then,” Ayvar agreed.

  “That was kind of you,” Joshim said when the lad had gone.

  “The three of us can be miserable together,” Ayvar dismissed it. “Don’t worry. I won’t lay a finger on them. I only make my mistakes once, and anyway, they can’t have half the charm that Lin had at that age. At any age.” He lifted the pendant that hung around Joshim’s neck to examine it closely. “Will the Commander respond to that broadcast?”

  “She’ll have to, or we’ll be fighting ships at Central that think Carher is telling the truth.” Joshim grimaced. “We probably will anyway.”

  Ayvar let the pendant fall. “What will she send?”

  “I’m guessing,” Joshim warned. “A broadcast accusing Carher of Oath-breaking. Of murder. Of unlawful identity-wipe. Of conspiracy with Julur.”

  “She can’t,” Ayvar said tautly. “If she mentions Julur, he’ll know I know about Lin.”

  “She has to mention Julur. None of the rest makes sense without it. You won’t talk her out of it. She has as much responsibility for the people that might die because they don’t know what’s happening as she has for Rafe.” Joshim closed his eyes in despair. “You think it will stampede Julur into hurting him.”

  “The gods know. Julur knows the value of what he’s got. That’s why he tried the identity-wipe first. He’ll move slowly while he thinks he’s got the time. And he won’t believe that Rallya has the nerve to attack Old Imperial until it happens,” Ayvar said hopefully. “If she does…” He put a hand on Joshim’s shoulder and shook gently. “Get to bed, Webmaster. You’re dead on your feet and I’m relying on you to keep Rallya pointed in the right direction.”

  General broadcast from Rallya,

  Commander Bhattya

  To all ships and stations:

  Be advised that serious charges of Oath-breaking will be laid against Councillor Carher at the first opportunity, to include: conspiracy with the Emperor Julur to subvert the Guild; unlawful identity-wipe of a Guild member; and conspiracy to murder Guild members. Evidence will be presented at Central to support these charges. It is requested that Councillor Carher be detained until that time.

  Directive from the Emperor Julur to Palace Security Chief Braniya

  …I will move to the deep levels of the palace immediately. The prisoner will be transferred with me…

  352/5043

  IMPERIAL ZONE, OLD EMPIRE

  “The Emperor is pleased that you keep yourself fit,” Braniya announced herself from the entrance to Rafe’s stateroom.

  He paused in the daily sequence of exercises that he had set himself, to fill a little of the time while he waited. He did not have access to a console; nobody visited him except the pair of silent guards who delivered his meals. He had exhausted the possibilities for escape from the stateroom, not by trying them but by satisfying himself that there were none. All that was left for him to do was to be ready for the possibilities that there might be, in other places, at other times.

  “And the Emperor must be pleased at all costs?” He was pleased that his voice was steady, without a trace of his apprehension about her visit, his fear that it meant another session with Julur.

  “Most people find his pleasure rewarding.”

  “Faced with the prospect of a second identity-wipe—or worse—to please him, I can’t share their enthusiasm.” Rafe stood up and stalked through to the fresher to find a towel to dry his sweat. His legs were surprisingly steady too. “Was the state of my health the only reason for your visit?” he called back to her.

  “No. You’re being moved. Immediately.”

  “May I dress first?”

  “Do. Everything else will follow you.”

  Rafe chose breeches and a shirt at random. “Where am I going?” he asked as he pulled them on.

  “Down,” Braniya said succinctly. “The Emperor has chosen to move to the deeper levels. You’re to go with him.”

  “How deep is deep? This palace is rumoured to go a long way down, and I’d hate to be trapped at the bottom by a surface strike.”

  “Don’t alarm yourself unnecessarily,” Braniya advised. “The life-support systems down there are good for a few hundred years, and the planet would have to be destroyed to seal all access to the deep levels.” Her lips twitched. “Accommodation down there is not a privilege extended to many.”

  And you would dearly like to know why I am honoured, Rafe thought with malicious amusement. It was interesting to know that Julur was worried about an attack on his palace. Fear of the Guild might be enough to make him scuttle for shelter, if he thought they knew what he had done. Rafe tucked that speculation away for later examination.

  “Do I walk or will I be carried?” he asked Braniya lightly.

  “It would be quicker if you walked, and there are other matters which require my attention.” Her lips twitched again. “I am allowed to tell you that one of them is the execution of Lord Khalem.”

  “You could tell the Emperor that there are gifts I’d like better than Elanis’s death.”

  “I understand that the news is the gift, not the death. Are you ready?”

  “Does it make a difference?”

  “The Emperor requires you to be treated with courtesy.”

  That was not the description Rafe would have used for the interrogation Julur had carried out; but then the Emperor was exempt from his own requirements. It had been a shock afterwards to wake in a luxury stateroom with his mind—he believed—still intact; there had been no similar treatment ten years ago. He distrusted it, as he distrusted this move, judging that it was meant to unbalance him.

  There were six guards waiting for him outside, anonymous behind their visors. Rafe let Braniya set their pace, not bothering to conceal his interest in the route she chose, just as she did not bother to conceal her amusement at his interest. Not much profit in memorizing it, he reckoned, but he did anyway, in the faint hope that there was a pattern that would help him if he was ever free to chose his own route through the palace.

  The riser to which Braniya led him was locked to her voice, its controls not labelled with the levels it served. The desc
ent took ten minutes at high speed: a very long way down. Rafe’s ears popped with the changing pressure and his nose itched with the faintly musty smell that greeted them when they stepped out, the smell of infrequent occupation.

  The tunnels at the lower level were less ornamented than the upper corridors, their walls heavily reinforced and each junction marked by bulkheads waiting to be swung into position. It was possible to believe that Julur could live through a few hundred years down here. Rafe wondered if there was a similar bolt-hole beneath Ayvar’s palace. It was more likely that Ayvar had his hiding place somewhere else, somewhere his enemies would not know to look; he did not have Julur’s phobia of the universe beyond his palace.

  “Gods.” Rafe swore aloud at the sudden shooting pain in his arms and his back, leaned against the tunnel wall with his eyes closed fighting it. Web-cramp, he thought hazily, twisting away from one of the guards who was trying to urge him on. “Wait,” he pleaded.

  “What is this, Rafell?” Braniya demanded.

  “A minute,” he insisted. “Just that.” The pain was receding, to a level where he could stand straight again. He squinted at Braniya through watering eyes. “No trick,” he promised.

  “You’re ill.” It sounded like an accusation. As if she suspected him of arranging it deliberately.

  “Web-cramp,” Rafe said, moving away from the wall experimentally. “It’s over now. For the moment.” It would be back though, he thought bleakly.

  “You can walk?” Braniya asked. “It isn’t far now.”

  “Your concern is delightful.”

  “The Emperor requires you to be kept in good health,” she said stiffly. “I will be reporting this episode.”

  Much good it would do Julur to know about it. The cure for web-cramp was webbing, or deactivating the offending web, both of which would require the cooperation of the Guild. And if Rafe was right, the cooperation of the Guild was in short supply for Julur at the moment. He smothered a cynical grin. He might still manage to frustrate the Old Emperor’s plans. Admittedly, at the cost of considerable discomfort, but that was probably down on the agenda already; the web-cramp was just hurrying things along. The thought made him perversely cheerful.