The Diabolic

  “What’s happening?” I demanded. “Tell me at once.”

  No one issued orders to the Matriarch, but if Sidonia’s life was in danger, I needed to know immediately.

  “What do you think is happening?” she said. “My husband made a move against the Emperor! The fool thought he was being crafty. The Emperor would not loosen his restrictions on scientific education, so my idiot husband took the roundabout way—and sent information from those ridiculous old databases to some members of the Excess.”

  “The Excess,” I repeated, shocked. Was the Senator insane? “Is he hoping to be executed?”

  Her lips twisted. “He’s imbecile enough to believe he can force the Emperor’s hand. He thinks that if the Emperor’s worst fears come true and the Excess begin to develop their own starships, then the Emperor will insist the Grandiloquy follow suit and create new ones of their own. He thinks this will lead to the Emperor seeing matters his way.” She gave a bitter laugh. “He miscalculated, of course. The Emperor had those Excess killed. He just notified us that he’s aware of my husband’s role in the debacle.”

  I drew a sharp breath. “Madam, the Senator is becoming a threat to all of you. Let me—”

  “You are not to kill him.” She launched herself to her feet. “Don’t you see it’s already too late? Our necks are under the Emperor’s blade now. It’s done. And as usual, it falls to me to clean up my husband’s mess.” She closed her eyes, drawing several bracing breaths. “All we can do is wait. Whatever happens next, you and I will protect my daughter’s interests—at any cost.”

  “At any cost,” I agreed. If it meant I had to spirit Donia away from this place, I’d do so.

  Her grip clamped my wrist. “You will tell Sidonia nothing of this. She has a social forum coming up. She must have no stain of guilt on her conscience. If she seems totally ignorant, word will filter back to the parents of the other children. If Sidonia knows of this matter, she won’t be able to fool them. My daughter is many things, but a skilled liar she is not.”

  I nodded slowly. Donia’s innocence was her only protection. Her ignorance would shield her as nothing else could, not even me.

  “I’ll tell her nothing,” I assured the Matriarch.

  Donia was no liar.

  Luckily for her, I was.

  She stirred when I returned to her chamber that evening, and rubbed at her sleep-clogged eyes. “Nemesis, is something amiss?”

  “No,” I answered soothingly. “I was restless. I left to exercise.”

  “Don’t . . . ,” she said, yawning, “pull . . . a muscle.”

  I made my lips smile. “That never happens to me. Go back to sleep.”

  And she did, plunging back into a slumber of total innocence.

  I didn’t sleep again that night.

  The Emperor’s next move came quickly. I received a summons to the Matriarch’s chambers.

  It was rare that she requested me directly. The summons put me on edge. When I stepped inside, I found the Matriarch lying in her low-gravity bed, a beauty bot coloring her gray roots and smoothing the wrinkles from her face. At a glance, the Matriarch looked to be in her twenties. False-youth, it was called. Only her eyes betrayed her age. No young person could look at me the way she did now.

  “Nemesis. I was partaking of an opiate rub. Have some.”

  The offer surprised me. My eyes found the jar at her elbow. The opiate was a lotion applied to the skin. The Senator was fond of it, but it was rare for the Matriarch to partake. She scorned it as a weakness. The recreational chemicals she abused were those that made her sharper, more alert.

  “It would be wasted on me.”

  She shoved away the arm of the beauty bot with an impatient gesture. “Of course, you Diabolics metabolize narcotics too quickly. You’ll never know the thrill of a good intoxicant.”

  “Or the burn of a lethal poison,” I reminded her.

  She propped one high-cut cheekbone atop her fist as she studied me. The drug had made her pupils tiny and put an uncharacteristic sloppiness in her manner. I waited, painfully alert, to discover the reason she’d called me here.

  “A pity,” she said at last, dipping her finger in the opiate rub and smoothing it onto the pulse point of her wrist, “that you can’t feel this. I suspect you’ll shortly require it as much as I do.”

  “Why?”

  “The Emperor has ordered us to send our daughter to the Chrysanthemum.”

  The words were like a fist to my gut, an impact that drove the breath from me. For a moment, all I could hear was my own heartbeat, thrumming wildly in my ears.

  “What?” I whispered. “He wishes her to go to the Imperial Court?”

  “Oh, this is how it works,” she said bitterly. “My grandfather displeased him and he executed my mother. The Emperor rarely strikes directly—it’s the influence of that wretched mother of his. The Grandeé Cygna believes in striking at the heart to inflict more damage. . . .”

  Before I knew it, I had crossed the room. My hands closed on the Matriarch’s shoulders—more solidly formed than Sidonia’s, but no greater challenge for me to crush.

  “Sidonia won’t go.” My voice was low and bestial, cold dark anger like ice within my heart. “I will kill you before I let her go to her death.”

  She blinked up at me, looking curiously unmoved by the threat. “We have no choice, Nemesis. He demands her presence within three months.” Her lips curved in a sluggish smile, and she snaked a hand up to cup my cheek, her long fingernails pinching my flesh. “That’s why I intend to send you to the Chrysanthemum in her place. You will be Sidonia Impyrean.”

  It took me a moment to understand her words, and even when I did, they made no sense.

  “W-what?”

  “How stunned you look!” The Matriarch’s laugh was unsteady, but her pinprick eyes bored into mine, unblinking. “Must I repeat myself?”

  “Me?” I shook my head once. I had no great fondness for the Matriarch, but I had always supposed her to be intelligent. Sane. “You truly mean to suggest that I will pose as Sidonia?”

  “Oh, it will require some modifications, of course.” Her gaze raked down my body. “All that’s been seen of Sidonia is her avatar, which resembles her as little as you do. Your coloring, your musculature . . . We can fix that. As for your disposition, I’ve summoned my Etiquette Marshal to come teach you the essentials that she taught me in my own girlhood—”

  I reared back a step. This woman had lost her mind. “An Etiquette Marshal can’t give me humanity. You can tell just by looking at me that I’m not a real person. You’ve said so yourself numerous times.”

  The Matriarch tipped her head, her eyes glittering maliciously. “Oh yes. That cold, pitiless gaze . . . so utterly devoid of empathy. The very mark of a Diabolic! I rather suspect you’ll fit in better than you expect in that pit of vipers.” She laughed softly. “Certainly better than Sidonia ever would.”

  She rose with a swish of her gown, still smiling.

  “The Emperor wishes me to send my innocent little lamb to the slaughter. No. Instead, I’ll send him my anaconda.”

  4

  SIDONIA was in her art room when I returned, sketching a bowl of fruit. My eyes picked out her frail form silhouetted by faint starlight spilling in from the windows. I gazed at this frail entity I was going to impersonate, trying to imagine myself posing as her.

  It was total and utter madness. Like a tiger playing a kitten. No, not a tiger—something more monstrous and unnatural.

  My thoughts reached back to the thing I’d once been, the creature I’d been before I knew my own name, before I was civilized.

  I remembered the relentless hunger and fear. I remembered the anger at finding the world so confined, the walls a trap. I remembered when they released me with another creature for the first time. I was so hungry I killed it and consumed its fl
esh. All of it. I knew that was the right thing to do because my food rations increased after.

  I didn’t understand much back then, but I noticed cause and effect. When the weaker Diabolics were to be weeded out, they gave them to the stronger ones. Sometimes they simply gave us something pitiful and weak to kill, just to be certain we would show no mercy. I remembered the girl who was shoved into my corral with me. She cowered in the corner. It enraged me when she tried to drink my water, to eat my food. I killed her just like I killed everything else.

  A girl who could have been Donia. Just as small, just as weak.

  That had been my existence. Death and fear. I was afraid all the time. I feared the next second, the next minute, the next hour. Nothing beyond that, because there was nothing beyond that for me then.

  My life had no shape or form or purpose or dignity until the day Sidonia materialized in it. There’d been no compassion, not a hint of meaning, until I was bonded to her and learned to love something for the first time. I had a future now, and it was her future. Donia was the reason for anything good or worthy about me.

  Now I would have to be Sidonia. That seemed inconceivable, impossible. I felt revulsion at the mere suggestion that a creature like me could pose as something so wonderful as her—the mere suggestion was profane.

  When she looked up from her drawing, she gave a small jump. “Nemesis! I didn’t hear you come in. . . . Is everything okay?” Her worried eyes searched my expression.

  She was the only one who could pick up on my subtle changes of mood. I swallowed against a sudden knot in my throat. “Yes. I’m fine. Everything will be fine,” I told her.

  I had no soul and very little heart, but what heart there was belonged to her.

  The Emperor wanted Sidonia to come to him, so I would go in her place. There was no terror in that, no fear. I was grateful I could do so.

  Posing as Sidonia would save her, so I had no alternative.

  I would go.

  The Etiquette Marshal arrived within two weeks. Sidonia and I watched the ship slide through the bay doors of the fortress. Sidonia still didn’t know about her summons to the Chrysanthemum, so she had come to her own conclusions about the new visitor.

  “Mother must intend me to visit with another family,” Donia muttered. “There’s no reason she’d make me undergo etiquette training now. I hope she doesn’t want to marry me off to someone.”

  She retreated to her chambers in protest when Sutera nu Impyrean arrived, but I did not. The Matriarch summoned me to her side. It was most important, after all, that I listen to and learn from this woman.

  Sutera nu Impyrean was one of the Excess, and not one of the Grandiloquy. Unlike most of the Excess, though, she was a devout believer in the imperial system and had given her sworn allegiance and willing service to the Impyrean family. She’d earned the honorary “nu” appellation as well as the family name.

  I waited with the Matriarch in her antechamber as the woman swept into our presence. For a moment, she stood in the doorway, jeweled hand clutched over her heart in a show of allegiance to the Matriarch, and just gazed at her old pupil lovingly.

  My first thought was that surely this “Sutera” creature wasn’t an actual human being.

  Her skin wasn’t a smooth brown like the color preferred by the Matriarch and the Senator, but rather a patchwork of different colors as though her beauty bots had neglected some areas and saturated others when administering melanin. Not only that, but her skin looked worn, like it was oversize for her frame, even creased and spotted in parts.

  Even the Matriarch appeared taken aback by her appearance, just blinking at her for a moment. Then she reached out her hands. “My dear Sutera.”

  Sutera nu Impyrean dutifully crossed the room and took the Matriarch’s hands, dipping to her knees to bring them to her cheeks. “Oh, Grandeé von Impyrean. You look as fresh as the day I met you. And me—look at the ravages of planetary living.”

  “Nonsense,” said the Matriarch with a polite laugh. “A session with my own beauty bots, and a telomere treatment should—”

  “Oh, no. The wind, the dirt, the solar radiation. It’s a sun-scorned existence, dwelling planet-side.” She rose to her feet, her lips quivering. “The smells, they’re everywhere. And humidity! Oh, you can’t imagine what it is like, my Grandeé. If it’s too low, your skin cracks and bleeds, yet too high and every breath becomes an effort. It’s positively bestial. Oh, and the way the planet-bound breed uncontrollably, so many families with two or even three children . . . No wonder they are always strained for resources! I could tell you such stories. . . .”

  The Matriarch’s smile had grown thinner, more brittle. “Perhaps you should not. Maybe you should rest up before we speak again to recover from your long trip.”

  The warning in the words was clear: Sutera nu Impyrean was not here as an equal, as a guest, but rather to provide a service. Fond as she was of her old Etiquette Marshal, the Matriarch was now tired of hearing her go on about herself.

  The Etiquette Marshal remembered herself then. She lifted her chin, pride and professionalism evident in her demeanor. “Of course, I wouldn’t dream of slumbering before I’ve seen Sidonia and learned what we have to work with. Will you fetch her—” Her eyes moved to me, and she stuttered into silence.

  I stared directly back at her, and the Matriarch seemed amused, watching her old Etiquette Marshal try to figure out what I was. Clearly no Servitor, but no way was I Sidonia Impyrean.

  “What manner of creature is this one?” Sutera said.

  “This is Nemesis,” said the Matriarch.

  Sutera’s eyes narrowed as she tried to connect the name with a type of creature. I watched her closely, because the Matriarch had told me the Excess knew of Diabolics—we were a vague, threatening myth to them. They wouldn’t be familiar enough with the naming conventions or how we looked, so Sutera shouldn’t be able to figure out what I was.

  The Matriarch spoke again, pulling Sutera from her musings. “She is my daughter’s most beloved pet and her close companion. Sidonia is . . .” She groped a moment for the proper way to characterize her. “She is a willful child, very given to strange quirks.”

  “I will drill them out of her.”

  “No, alas. She’s not like I am. She’s timid yet very stubborn. No, you will use Nemesis.”

  “Nemesis?” Sutera echoed blankly.

  “You will teach Nemesis as you teach Sidonia.”

  “This one?” said the Etiquette Marshal, trying to fathom the meaning of this. “And the Senator wishes this too?”

  “My husband’s wishes are irrelevant. He is leaving this matter entirely in my hands. And you know my wish. Train them both.”

  The Matriarch looked at me, her eyes drilling into mine, our secret lurking dangerously between us. Sutera nu Impyrean was loyal to this family, and what was more, married to a low Viceroy on a moon in the next system. She posed no threat and could be trusted to conceal the minor secrets like the strange class of humanoid she’d encountered in her mistress’s household. . . .

  But sending me as hostage to the Emperor in Sidonia’s place was far beyond that. It was directly circumventing the will of the Domitrian family. It was high treason.

  The Etiquette Marshal could never know.

  “Nemesis and Sidonia will both undergo your training. When Sidonia sees Nemesis learning and refining herself, then my daughter will curb her rebellious impulses and be inclined to cooperate as well.”

  “Train them both.” Sutera looked me up and down. “I can do so, but . . .”

  “You’ve objections?” said the Matriarch.

  “None to your proposal, madam.” She inched forward and nudged my arm tentatively. Then, emboldened, she began to grope up and down my arms. “Such a sturdy thing.”

  I stared down at the odd little creature manhandling me, as perplexed by
her saggy skin and irregular coloring as she was by my muscles, my size.

  “She is remarkably . . . large. I can’t imagine her mastering the graces I’ll require of her.”

  The Matriarch laughed. She took Sutera by the shoulder and led her toward the door.

  “Have you ever observed a tiger? A true breed like the ones in the Chrysanthemum. Not those kittenish sorts like those in our cloisters. They’re all muscle and sinew, with jaws powerful enough to break the strongest man, yet if you see them stalk prey, if you see them hunt—the sheer strength gives them more grace than the most refined of delicate creatures. That’s Nemesis.”

  The next morning the Etiquette Marshal arrived in Donia’s chambers. The beauty bots had been at work on Sutera the night before. She’d given herself a new look, a showcase of recessive physical traits—single eyelids instead of double eyelids, blue irises in place of her old amber ones, and a new shade of scarlet red hair. Her wrinkles had been smoothed down as well, but nothing could truly hide the wear. This had to be what the Matriarch meant when she said people “looked old.”

  Sutera nu Impyrean must have expected the worst, because her face lit up when she beheld Sidonia, a delicate beauty and a far cry from me.

  “Why, Sidonia, this is a great honor. I remember when it was your mother’s time to travel the stars—”

  “I’m traveling somewhere?” Donia said shrilly. “I knew Mother wanted to send me away!”

  Sutera paused, taken aback. “Eventually, you must leave this place. You can’t expect to molder here your whole life.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere.”

  “But you have a role in the Empire.”

  “My parents have a role in the Empire. I don’t care about politics at all.”

  Sutera frowned and withdrew her fan, waving it at herself. “Your mother warned me you were quite . . . stubborn.”