They filed around the corner to the secondary portal, marked with yellow and green, the official colors of Ke-i’dzei House. The Me’xeit commanded the entrance in his deep bass voice. “To skoa kei leo, Ke-i’dzeit ei.” I proclaim our right to enter, being of Ke-i’dzei. The portal hissed open.
One by one, followed by their droning Gamma, they entered the foyer and saluted the House te-idze’ike. Xai, being illegitimate, bowed before it, to show respect—ostensibly to the te-idze and through the te-idze to Messim, but in actuality to her grandfather. Xai hadn’t reached eighteen by being stupid—she knew the uses of Protocol. The arrival of the troops had brought up all her grandfather’s bad memories. He could be vicious when angry—she had a broken arm to remind her of that fact, in case she ever forgot.
The Me’xeit hadn’t signalled a dismissal, so they followed him into the hall—a long, large, dark room, the only bright things about it the Ke-i’dzei banners hanging from the ceiling. At the far end, between two pseudo-braziers, was the Aegis—the eighth of the Xan’ta’lei crown given to Ke-i’dzei when the Cousins finalized the Makori Covenant. Had they been on Messim, this area would have been lit with kansa fires, but no open flames were allowed on the station.
The Me’xeit walked on to Primary Post, to the left of the Aegis, his hand flicking out a reform. Her uncle and cousins faded into position, Delzein in First Rank, T’ek and Kekka in High Second. Xai slipped into Last, flanking the second portal.
From his position at the Aegis the Me’xeit turned to survey the House: twenty-four men, women and youths standing at Parade. All the children too young to be trusted in formation had been sent to chambers—although, Xai thought wryly, knowing M’ek, they were probably watching everything over closed circuit.
“Where are they?” her grandfather asked.
T’zein stepped out of his place at High First. “At the primary portal,” he replied. “They requested entrance in the ancient form,” he added.
The Me’xeit glanced at his son, startled. “Temple business?” he said, sounding almost uncertain.
T’zein shrugged—a beautiful, studied gesture. “They will not say,” he replied. “They are marked,” he added, his mouth twisting with distaste.
Xai’s grandfather sniffed and looked down at the Aegis, his expression impenetrable. “Bid them enter,” he said finally, his tone sharp.
T’zein called the portal open. “The House gives leave,” he said.
There was a moment’s silence. Two soldiers appeared, silhouetted in the frame of the doorway. Both were in Rest Fatigues, without helmets. They both had the tattoos of Third Squad, First Battalion—the face of a mei-pan, a large, ferocious cat native to Messim.
Everyone seemed to stiffen. Even the soldiers stopped for a moment, examining Ke-i’dzei House ranked in perfect order before them. Their faces reflected almost perfectly the disdain aimed at them from the collected members of the House their Battalion had been instrumental in ousting from power, nineteen years earlier. One of the soldiers, a small, hard woman in her early fifties, might easily have participated in it, and there was a still, alarming texture to the air, one filled with potential violence.
“Let Kesta be gentle to this House,” the woman said in the ritual tones of the ancient greeting.
“Between these walls you will find shelter,” the Me’xeit replied. He sounded as reluctant as she did.
The two soldiers marched into the room, stopping only when they were at its center, surrounded by the Ke-i’dzei. As Xai watched, the young man’s hand twitched slightly, almost forming a fist—a small, nervous, subconscious gesture. It was a brave thing they were doing, allowing themselves to be surrounded. But then, they were on Temple business.
“We seek one who has found shelter here,” the woman announced. Someone murmured—probably Tekat, Meezein’s eldest daughter and never one very good at maintaining the stiff Ke-i’dzei façade. Had they sought the Me’xeit, they would have requested the one who gave shelter.
Her grandfather drew himself upright. “If they are here, they will answer,” he said, his tone sharp.
“Xai’andra zein Ke-i’dzei kal’e Tal’ei,” the soldier said stiffly, “the Temple summons. Take your name.”
Xai felt sweat break out all over her body. Her backache, her foot ache and her headache all disappeared. She couldn’t believe her ears. The Me’xeit was staring at her, his eyes dark, lustrous pools. He would kill her. But she had no choice—she’d had nothing to do with it. She didn’t even know how to respond—being illegitimate, she’d never been included in Temple Etiquette training.
She glanced around the room again. The only ones looking at her were the Me’xeit and T’zein. The others stood at perfect attention, as they had been taught. But the Me’xeit and T’zein—they stared at her, their eyes filled with anger.
Xai took a deep breath. What could she do? It was the Temple. One didn’t ignore the Temple. The Temple was the core of Messim, what made Messinians what they were, what had held their people together for thousands of years. Even if she wasn’t a real Ke-i’dzei, she was still Messinian. If the Me’xeit had pounded anything into her thick skull, it was that.
With a trembling heart Xai stepped forward and out of formation. “I have been given that name,” she said.
The two soldiers turned on their heels in one, smooth motion. It seemed, suddenly, to Xai, looking at those two faces, that only they and she were in the room, looking at each other, herself and those two soldiers, human faces inside the gaping maws of beasts.
The soldiers looked back at Xai with strange, intent expressions. The woman let out a small quiet breath that sounded painfully loud in the silence of the room.
“Xai’andra zein Ke-i’dzei kal’e Tal’ei,” the second soldier said suddenly, abruptly, his voice ringing through the room, “rankless child of X’zeindra, sixth of the fourth cycle of Ke-i’dzei, out of Tal’ei, hear the Summons of the Temple. Thus speaks the Oracle: what was begun must be ended. You have been called to take the Long Walk. Before the meeting of the moons you must stand before the Oracle and accept your fate.”
Xai’s jaw practically dropped. She had no idea what that meant. She glanced up at her grandfather. He stared down at her, his eyes yet more impenetrable than before. The soldiers stood still, waiting.
“Ta,” she said finally, not knowing what else to say. I obey. The Me’xeit’s jaw flickered slightly. Xai battled down a sigh. That had evidently been a mistake.
The soldiers bowed to Xai, to the third degree, a show of respect. Cautiously, Xai imitated them. The soldiers then turned back to the hushed room. For a moment they merely examined the Ke-i’dzei ranked before them. Then, abruptly, they gave curt, first degree bows—bows of simple acknowledgment. “Shelter in the heart of she who loves,” the woman said.
“She who loves will shelter you,” Me’xeit replied, his tone as hard as hers.
Ke-i’dzei House watched silently as the soldiers marched back out of the portal.
Chapter Eight
XAI stood with her head bowed, feeling the eyes of all her kin boring into her back.
“The ‘Zein and Xai’andra will remain,” the Me’xeit said abruptly. “T’ek, Kekka, return to the Avenue. The others are dismissed.”
Xai listened to everyone of her generation file out of the room. Soon the only people left were her grandfather, her aunt, her four uncles and herself, all in Parade, the shadows cast by the pseudo-braziers flickering across their expressionless faces, moving shapes strangely reminiscent of the modern Messinian soldiers’ tattoos.
The Me’xeit gestured to the dais. Without a word his children went to sit in their allotted seats: in the first, the eldest of the fourth generation, T’zein, then K’zeinda, followed by Zazei, Delzein, and Meezein in the order of their birth. The last seat was left empty, in recognition of X’zeindra, Xai’s mother. The cushion at its back was black, to remind everyone she had brought dishonor to their House. X’zeindra had been dead for as long as
Xai had been alive and yet still they kept the memory. It was this sort of thing that always baffled Marcus. He was such a Primer in that way, so unabashedly modern. Xai envied him that.
The Me’xeit moved to the high seat. With a flick of his hand he motioned Xai to take her place. She knelt outside the circle, in Submission.
“I convoke the Council,” the Me’xeit said calmly, the thousand-year-old ritual phrases sounding somehow natural on his lips. “Let us speak with truth; let the words spoken remain within these halls; let there be no ill-will against those who speak; and let Kesta’s will be accomplished with the turning of the tides.” Tides—the movements of oceans against continental shores—were caused by the gravity of a planet’s moons. They were supposed to imply implacability. Xai couldn’t understand why a liquid would be considered implacable, but they said it was the case, and she certainly wasn’t in a position to argue.
“Let it be so,” murmured the others.
There were the gentle shuffles of people making themselves comfortable. Silence followed, as everyone waited for the Me’xeit to start the conversation. “The Temple has summoned her,” he said finally. His tone was entirely neutral.
Xai kept her head down.
“Did you contact them?” her uncle T’zein asked abruptly, his tone a strange mixture of violence and incredulity.
“How could she have contacted them?” Meezein asked T’zein. “She has no means.”
“What about her friend, the Primer?” T’zein retorted, his gaunt, strangely beautiful face twisting with distaste. T’zein hated Primers with a passion.
“According to Prime law he’s still too young to have access to dependant planets,” Xai’s aunt Zazei said mildly.
“She received a direct summons from the Temple,” K’zeinda said pensively. Of all the fourth generation he bore the greatest physical similarity to his father. “That happens once in a generation. If that.”
Silence followed. Xai quashed the sudden urge to fidget and stared at the ribbed metal sheet that made up the floor.
“Tesla X’tei was a bastard,” Zazei said suddenly, referring to the illegitimate son of Torr Xan’ta’lei, fourth king of the First Age. After a rather tempestuous youth Tesla had become the eighteenth abbot of the Oracle’s Temple, and a surprisingly good one at that.
“You think she was Chosen?” Delzein said incredulously. “You believe she might be called to lead the Temple? The child of two people who undermined our whole way of life?”
“What are we going to do?” Meezein said abruptly. “We have to help her. It is our duty.”
“We cannot,” K’zeinda told him.
“We must!” Meezein retorted. “Would you have our House incur further dishonor by ignoring the will of the Temple?”
“What can we do?” K’zeinda replied, shrugging. ‘We are powerless on this station.”
“Storms that topple the oak,” Zazei said almost dreamily, “leave the grass still standing.” She was quoting Teksa Wu, the great Post-Covenant Strategist.
“Teksa Wu was never kept base-bound,” K’zeinda retorted, his tone hard, “by an artificial intelligence. We are not dealing with something that can be analyzed or manipulated. Xella Tal’ei was quartered twelve times before he finally escaped. A human enemy would have killed him far earlier.”
“A human would have been wise,” Delzein interjected. Everyone fell to silence. Xai kept her head down.
“The Oracle has spoken,” Meezein said stubbornly, shaking his head. “We are the Ke-i’dzei, the builders of the Covenant. If we do not assist her in fulfilling her duty, we have no right to that name, nor to the position for which we still fight.”
“We might lodge a request,” Zazei suggested mildly. “On religious grounds. Perhaps if the Oracle were to tell Prime that it needed her?”
Xai wondered why the Me’xeit and T’zein said nothing. Usually they controlled the conversation.
K’zeinda shook his head. “Prime’s directive is to ensure that no one of the Ke-i’dzei bloodline ever leaves this station,” he said, waving a hand in a gesture eerily reminiscent of his father. “They signed a treaty to that effect. They will not break it.”
Meezein glanced at Xai, his expression sad and yet oddly hopeful at the same time. “But perhaps they might make an exception,” he said, “knowing who her father was?”
There was another of those sticky, uncomfortable pauses.
“I claimed her,” the Me’xeit said suddenly, making Xai start. “She is of Ke-i’dzei House.” His children fell silent at that. For a moment, the sound of the piped-in winds was achingly loud.
Alpha sang an incoming, keyed to T’zein. At the Me’xeit’s nod he rose to his feet and went to the data port. His stride was swift, almost excited.
“Perhaps we should contact Rydia,” K’zeinda offered.
Zazei shook her head. “Gangcat House has already attained minor status within Rydia,” she said calmly. “They have the Emperor’s ear.” Gangcat House had left at the end of the Tal’ei Uprising, transferring the entirety of their assets into Rydian Holdings. With their aid they had slowly been climbing the ranks of the Emperor’s court. If they had the Emperor’s ear, the Ke-i’dzei would have to go through them to reach him. That would mean the Ke-i’dzei submitting to the Gangcat, and the Me’xeit would see the House Aegis smelted and its colors ritually burned before that happened.
“If Rydia will not help us,” K’zeinda said, “we have nowhere to turn but Fleet.”
There was silence. Xai shuddered slightly, aghast at the idea of contacting Fleet—a huge and slowly decaying military empire with the avowed intention of galactic conquest and a profound belief in its own genetic superiority.
T’zein came back from the data port, his face flushed. “Tek has found him,” he told his father. “She is bringing him here.” The Me’xeit sighed softly, a sound akin to relief.
“Found whom?” Meezein asked. Delzein glanced nervously at Zazei, who sat next to him, her features blank and impassive.
“Four times the effort goes into making than unmaking,” the Me’xeit said softly. He was quoting Ke-i’dzei Xan’ta’lei, the founder of their House. “Four times the effort in doing than undoing. The wise leader will merely assist his opponent in undoing himself.”
“Xai‘andra,” T’zein said suddenly, his tone harsh, “you are dismissed.”
Xai rose to her feet, bowed to the fifth, and left.
Chapter Nine
XAI found Marcus on the second deck of the Holo Arcade, sitting at a table in the café, watching the milling soldiers with an expression somewhere between fascination and dread, his eyes flicking up occasionally to the Strip to check their tattoos against Prime data banks. The soldiers ignored him, as soldiers tend to do, more interested in their drinks and the prostitutes across the street. Marcus didn’t mind. He was trying to figure out what the tattoo was on a woman’s head when suddenly the entire room fell to silence. He looked up to see Xai standing in the doorway—a figure right out of an old two-dem, a small, precise girl with straight hair and delicate features, wearing ceremonial robes of green and gold. When she didn’t move she looked like a doll—perfect, expressionless.
“Telkal Ke-i’dzeit,” the man next to Marcus hissed in a tone that didn’t sound complimentary. Marcus Stripped for a translation. Child of Ke-i’dzei. Someone snorted—a deep, contemptuous sound.
“Suchow Ke-i’dzeoi,” another one responded. Traitor Ke-i’dzei. Or perhaps, betrayer of the Covenant.
Xai ignored the glaring eyes and wove her way between the tables to fall into in a seat next to Marcus. The burble of sound returned slowly to the room.
Xai sniffed derisively and looked around. If Marcus hadn’t known better, he would have thought she was looking for trouble—but Xai was too smart for that. Besides, her grandfather would probably break her other arm if she did. The penalties for disobedience were high, where Xai came from.
“A Fleet Two-Ton,” Xai told the droid which had
descended to take her order.
Marcus winced. That was about the hardest drink in the house, and Xai wasn’t renown for her ability to hold liquor. “It didn’t go well, I take it.”
Xai took the drink that had just appeared before her and drank half of it. She snorted loudly. “Does it ever?” she asked.
Marcus attempted tactful silence. Xai grunted irritably and looked around the café. “Why are they here, anyway?” she asked. “Why aren’t they out patrolling and looking dangerous?” she added loudly. Several men at a table nearby darted Xai dirty looks.
“They’ve been stood down,” Marcus explained. “The news came that Rydian troops have crushed the uprising.”
Xai drank another quarter of her drink. “They’re so mercenary,” she said abruptly, irritated. “Rydians. Profit!’” She shook her head in disgust.
“Profit can be a very useful motivating factor,” Marcus said placidly.
“When did you become the sociopolitical expert?” Xai asked belligerently.
“When you started drinking more than you could handle,” Marcus replied, his tone mild.
Xai made a face. Then, as if unable to maintain her surly frame of mind, she giggled. Marcus sighed.
“Maybe I’d better take you home,” he said.
For some reason Xai found that funny and started to laugh.
“Kat Ke-i’dzeoii,” said the man next to Marcus. “Suchown, t’ai qoun so Prima tek.” To hell with the Ke-i’dzei. I say Prime is a fool to maintain traitors. His tone was loud enough to be heard in half the bar.
For a moment Xai sat smiling, staring at the table beneath her fingers. Then, finishing her drink, she turned to look at the man who had spoken—a squat, muscular man completely covered in red and black tattoos, with yellow fletchings near the eyes. Her expression had faded to its customary impassive calm.
Prime- The Summons Page 4