“He made me promise not to tell you what’s in it,” Merlin told her. “But I will tell you that this is something he had Owl whip up especially for you. And Owl had to do quite a bit of research to pull it off, too.”
“Really?” Ohlyvya’s eyes sparkled, and she set the package on one of the balcony’s stone tables to open. “Nahrmahn always has loved thinking up presents no one sees coming. I think it’s part of the little boy in him. I remember once he spent five-days meeting with Hahl Shandyr. I thought they had to be working on some kind of deep, dark international plot. Then, on my birthday, I found out he’d had Hahl’s agents interview my parents’ stable master to find out which had been my favorite horse as a girl, and then sent an order to the same breeding farm—this was thirteen or fourteen years later, you understand—to get—”
She stopped in midsentence as the package came open. It contained two items, and her fingers were very gentle as she picked up the first one and tilted it to catch the lamplight through the glass door.
Golden glory glittered on her palm. The locket was an inch across, the golden links of the chain which would support it around her neck were set with small, perfectly cut rubies, and the pendant’s face bore her and Nahrmahn’s interlocked initials.
“It’s beautiful,” she half whispered.
“Open it,” Merlin said. She looked up at him, then obeyed his invitation, and her lips trembled as she saw Nahrmahn looking out of it at her. It was a much younger Nahrmahn, standing arm in arm with a much younger Ohlyvya.
“How—?”
“He had Owl make it from the state portraits the two of you sat for on the first anniversary of your coronation,” Merlin replied. “He said he thinks they got the colors right.”
“Oh, they did—they did!” Ohlyvya shook her head. “This is so much better than the portraits, though. They’re so stiff and formal! We should’ve commissioned one just like this at the time.”
“Then I’m glad Owl was able to help repair the oversight. And if anyone asks where it came from, just tell them he had it made for you and left it for me to deliver as a surprise.” Merlin smiled. “It’ll even be the truth.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. She gazed at the portrait for several more seconds, then closed the locket, slipped the chain over her head, and turned to the second item in the package.
Her eyebrows rose as she lifted the gossamer fabric and held it up against the light. It felt insubstantial as air, yet it was totally opaque. Or it appeared to be, at any rate. Not the slightest gleam of lamplight leaked through it, yet it was curiously hard to determine where its edges ended. Indeed, she could scarcely see it—even its color seemed oddly elusive and hard to pin down—but it was clearly a garment of some sort, even though she’d never seen anything like it.
“What in the world is this?” She shook her head with something suspiciously like a giggle. “I’d have a pretty fair idea of what he had in mind if he were here to give it to me himself! Of course, in that case it would’ve been a lot more transparent. Besides”—she looked up at Merlin with a wicked smile—“he always preferred fluttery, floaty négligées.”
“Somehow I’m not incredibly surprised,” Merlin said dryly, and for just a moment Nimue Alban looked out of those sapphire eyes at Ohlyvya in shared, fond amusement. But then he shook his head and his expression turned more serious. “Actually, what you have there is a VR suit.”
“A ‘VR suit’?” Ohlyvya repeated carefully, and he nodded.
“As I said, Nahrmahn and Owl had to do quite a bit of research before they could build it. No one’d used them in the Federation for a good seventy years before the Gbaba turned up—not since we developed direct neural interfacing—so Nahrmahn had to reinvent the wheel to figure out how to make it work. And, to be honest, the technology available before we shifted over to the neural interface wasn’t nearly as good as what he and Owl put together for this one, even if Owl did have to figure out about a third of it from scratch.”
“This is a piece of technology?” Her tone was dubious, and he chuckled.
“Oh, yes! We all know Nahrmahn’s always been an ingenious fellow when it comes to getting something he really wants. The minor bagatelle of being dead hasn’t changed him one bit in that regard.”
“But what’s it for?”
“Well, as you may’ve noticed it has neat little footies and gloves. It opens up the back so you can climb into it—I’ll show you how that works—and once you’ve sealed it again, it’ll extrude a hood that covers your head, as well.”
“That sounds … ominous.” She held it up and looked at its opacity again. “I don’t know if I want to wear a blindfold and fall over the furniture, Merlin!”
“Oh, that’s not going to happen. What this is, Ohlyvya, is your own virtual reality unit.” Her eyes darted from the fabric to his face, and he smiled. “I know it makes steel thistle silk feel like lead, but don’t let that fool you. It’s riddled with molycirc sensors and biofeedback contacts, and the inside of the ‘hood’ provides complete audio and visual—and olfactory—input. And it’s tied directly into Owl’s CPU, Ohlyvya. As long as you’re wearing it, you can visit Nahrmahn. And you will be able to touch him again when you do.”
Her eyes glowed, and his smile segued into a grin.
“Obviously, you can’t just wander around in public with a hood over your head. And, as I’m sure you’ve figured out, this is something that needs to be next to your skin. On the other hand, as you and I have both observed upon occasion, Nahrmahn’s a devious sort who tends to think ahead, and according to him, the suit’s smart fabric will mold to your skin once it’s on, and it’s programmed to externally duplicate skin coloration and texture.
“Owl loaded the entire operator’s manual into the suit’s memory, and you’re not going to want to leave it on for any extended periods until you’ve had the opportunity to read that fully and get used to how it works, if only because of the disorientation that can cause. In fact, the software’s governors will kick you back out into the ‘real world’ if you try to stay in VR for more than a couple of hours at a time. They can be adjusted later, or even turned completely off, but it’d probably be a good idea to leave them until you’ve got a lot more experience with it. Once you’ve gotten used to it, you should be able to wear it—and use it—a lot more freely. Of course, you’re going to want privacy while you’re working on building that experience! In fact, Nahrmahn suggested to me that I might want to get it to you as early in the evening as possible so you could begin practicing with it this very night.”
Ohlyvya snorted and rolled her eyes, and he chuckled.
“On the other hand, he also asked me to tell you that when the suit’s deactivated, the hood and the gloves reabsorb into the rest of the suit, which means you can wear it under your regular clothing and ‘turn it off’ if something comes up that requires your attention while you’re using it. The entire shutdown cycle takes less than three seconds. And, obviously, when you’re able to guarantee you won’t have to deal with someone else.…”
“I understand entirely, Merlin Athrawes,” she told him firmly. “And, bearing in mind that I do, would you mind very much helping me figure out how to climb into this thing—Nimue—and then taking yourself off?”
“Oh, I think that could probably be arranged, Your Highness.”
* * *
He stood on the balcony, looking out across the moonlit water, listening to the wind while he nursed a glass of wine. It was very quiet, aside from the ceaseless voice of that wind, and he took another sip, thinking about his life, the decisions he’d made, the things he’d done … or not. The compressibility of his transformed existence gave him plenty of time to think, and—
“Nahrmahn?”
The soft, beloved voice came from behind him, and for just a moment he froze. Despite all he’d done so that he might hear it once again without the interface of a communicator, despite how desperately he’d longed for this moment, he froze. Unable
to breathe—although, to be fair, he really didn’t need to breathe, any longer—he stood very still, prolonging the moment, the exquisite pain of anticipation. And then, slowly, he turned.
She stood on the balcony, just outside the glass door to the suite they’d shared for so many, many years. Her dark hair, lightly streaked with silver, stirred on the breeze, a golden locket gleamed on its ruby-set chain about her neck, and her heart was in her eyes.
“Ohlyvya,” he breathed softly, her name almost but not quite inaudible against the background wind song. “Oh, Ohlyvya.”
He heard the tremble in his own voice, and he couldn’t see her very clearly for some reason. He blinked hard, feeling the tear trickle down his cheek, feeling the thunderous beat of the racing heart death had stilled so many months before, and raised one hand, holding it out to her.
“Ohlyvya,” he said, one more time, and then she was in his arms, her lips soft and warm upon his own, and the wall between their realities came crashing down.
SEPTEMBER
YEAR OF GOD 896
.I.
Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark
The weather-battered galleons made their stately way towards the docks and quays lined with silently watching Siddarmarkians. The frenetic cheers which had greeted the first wave of Charisian soldiers were muted, and the crowd seemed poised, waiting, without the jagged edge of desperation which had spurred those earlier cheers. The sense of anticipation, of relief, was no less, but the wave of fire and destruction sweeping across the Republic had been halted, or at least stayed, by these men’s predecessors. It would have been too much to say that the people of Siddar City felt confident of the war’s outcome, but the despair which had hung above the city like smoke had been replaced by determination and something which bade fair to become confidence.
Merlin Athrawes stood with Lord Daryus Parkair and the bevy of senior Siddarmarkian officers waiting at quayside. Emperor Cayleb had intended to be there, but he and the lord protector had been delayed in a meeting with the Council of Manufactories Stohnar had created to rationalize the Republic’s contribution to the Allied war effort. From what Merlin could see courtesy of the SNARCs, that meeting was probably going to continue well into the evening.
He watched canvas vanishing from yards, saw the spurts of white as anchors plunged into North Bedard Bay’s deep blue water. Spacious as Siddar City’s waterfront was, it could berth only a tithe of the transports, far less their escorting warships, and large, oared lighters were already heading out to meet the others. The oar-powered tugs fussed around the closest galleons, nudging them towards the quays, and the Republic’s seneschal stirred beside him as Parkair recognized the standard of a Charisian general officer flying from the lead ship’s mizzen peak.
Fenders squeaked and groaned as the galleon nuzzled ponderously against them. Mooring cables went aboard, tension was taken, and the gangplank ran out from dockside. There was silence for a moment, broken only by the waterfront sounds which never completely stopped—the cries of birds and wyverns, the endless, patient slapping of waves and water, the background of workmen’s voices, the crackling pop of flags and command streamers. Then a stocky, gray-haired man in the still bizarre-looking camouflage-patterned field uniform of the Imperial Charisian Army with the golden sword of a general on his collar came down the gangplank, followed by a very young golden-haired army captain and a grizzled-looking colonel.
The quiet held until the general’s boot touched the stone of the quay, and then the regimental band at the seneschal’s back burst into music. The music was high, fierce, and wild, rising on the skirling voice of the war pipes, founded on the percussion of the Republic of Siddarmark Army’s deep-voiced drums, and the name of that song was “The Stand at Kharmych Crossing,” the march written by Fhrancys Kaisi a hundred and ten years before to commemorate the 37th Pikes epic stand in the Battle of Kharmych. The cheers which had hovered unvoiced burst free as the gathered civilians and officers recognized the defiance of that music, for the 37th Infantry Regiment, heir to the 37th Pikes’ battle honors, had stood just as valiantly in the Sylmahn Gap this very year—stood in the teeth of rebellion, mutiny, and treason; stood in the face of atrocity and massacre; stood amid the bodies of its fallen; stood until it was no more than a colonel, a captain, and a single understrength company … stood until the Republic’s Allies had stormed to its rescue and driven the Army of God back up the Gap like a hurricane from the sea. No one on that waterfront could miss the meaning of that music, and they rolled up upon its wings, those cheers, waves of sound beating at the heavens, as Daryus Parkair stepped forward under the bright September sun to exchange salutes and then clasp Ahlyn Symkyn’s forearm firmly.
* * *
The lamps burned in weary eyes as efficient servants refilled the various glasses, tankards, and steins. The Republic of Siddarmark, Merlin Athrawes reflected, was the only Mainland realm where an emperor, the elected ruler of almost a hundred and thirty million people, half a dozen generals (all but one of them of common birth), a lowly major, the wealthiest banker in the entire Republic, two foundry owners, the grand master of the Gunmakers Guild of Siddarmark, and an industrial expert who’d never known his father’s name could sit around a table littered with maps, charts, dispatches, the ruins of sandwiches and salads, fried potato slices, overflowing ashtrays, and their choice of beer, wine, or whiskey. The mere thought of the highest of the high rubbing elbows with such plebeians in a rolled-up-sleeves conference would have sent any Mainlander aristocrat storming out of the room. And that fact was one of the many reasons Siddarmarkians and Charisians got along so well … and why those other Mainland realms should tremble in fear.
“I don’t know about you, Your Majesty,” Greyghor Stohnar said, pinching the bridge of his nose and leaning back in his chair, “but I’m exhausted. Of course,” he lowered his hand and smiled at Cayleb, “I’m also a rather older man than you are. No doubt my endurance isn’t what it was once.”
“Your endurance seems to be doing just fine, My Lord.” Cayleb grinned. “Not that I’m above pretending I’m only deferring to your advanced decrepitude when I graciously agree to stagger home to bed, you understand. I believe it’s called ‘diplomacy.’”
Stohnar snorted, and laughter muttered its way around the table.
“With your permission, Your Majesty, I’ll admit I’m looking forward to a bed that doesn’t move tonight, myself. Sailing beats the Shan-wei out of marching, but it wasn’t the very smoothest passage in the history of the world,” Ahlyn Symkyn said, with generous understatement, considering the stormy weather the troop convoy had encountered. Then he laid one palm flat on the marked up map in front of him. “And at the moment, my brain’s fair bursting with all that’s been crammed into it, come to that.”
“Yours isn’t the only worn-out brain at this table, General,” Daryus Parkair said wryly. “Mind you, I think it’s been worth it.”
“Yes, it has.” Stohnar’s tone was much more serious. “It’s been very much worth it … assuming it all works.”
“With all due respect, My Lord,” Henrai Maidyn corrected gently, “if even half of it works, it’s been entirely worth it.”
Stohnar looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
“A valid point, Henrai. And I agree entirely. I suppose it’s a bit greedy of me to want all of it to work.”
“After last winter, My Lord?” Cayleb snorted harshly. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect things to even out. Your people’ve stood up to attack on a scale the world’s never seen, never imagined. There’s not another Mainland realm that could’ve survived something like the Sword of Schueler, and everyone around this table knows it. I think we owe your citizens a little something for that kind of fortitude—and we damn well owe Clyntahn’s butchers a little something on their behalf. I’m looking forward to making a rather large downpayment.”
The sound that went around the table this time was much colder, Merlin thought. Colder …
and hungry.
And well it should be. I suppose the Canal Raid could be considered a downpayment, and so could what’s happened in the Sylmahn Gap and the Glacierheart Gap. But much as we may’ve hurt them there, we still haven’t hurt them anywhere nearly as badly as they hurt Siddarmark over the winter and spring. Despite what Eastshare did on the Daivyn, we’re still playing defense. It’s past time we found a way to make them dance to our tune for a while, and these are just the people to make that happen.
He looked around the chamber, under the canopy of pipe smoke drifting about the age-blackened rafters, and considered all that had been “crammed into” the minds of the men in it.
Another thing that set Siddarmark apart from the rest of the Mainland—and underscored its kinship with Charis—was the fact that the generals seated around the table hadn’t turned a hair when they found civilians seated with them. And not simply civilians. Even the most senior of officers occasionally had to accept that civilians would have a voice in their deliberations if the civilians in question happened to be their political masters. But these civilians were merchants, bankers, and even mere artisans who worked with their hands. Those were the civilians who got their orders after the great and the powerful had decided what was to be done, and their function was to obey those orders, do as they were told, and otherwise keep their mouths shut. It certainly wasn’t to argue or make excuses about why it couldn’t be done.