The night offers surcease, heart-aching hope,
Or painful, streaming cruelty.
Pray withhold your chilling blue transcendence
In the deep, purpling dawn.
The singing of the ancient provider broke Jaibriol's heart, for the music was impossibly beautiful and impossibly sad. He grieved for the love of the family he had lost, for the family he would never know, and for the crushing, bitter weight of Aristo cruelty that would be his for the rest of his life.
Deep within the Kyle, the emperor wept.
XX
Dyad Quis
Jaibriol dragged himself out of the singularity on his hands and knees. He sprawled on the floor while his head reeled with power. It was unbearable. He would drown in the streaming blue of the Kyle.
His fingers spasmed as he clawed the floor. For ten years he had hidden, repressed, constrained, and constricted his mind, and now the Lock had ripped it wide open. Power flooded him as his thoughts encompassed a universe. He wanted to scream, but he could barely breathe.
His muscles clenched as if he were convulsing. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours. Then they released, and he choked out a sob. He crawled another few feet, pulling his body along the floor. Light filled the chamber, mercilessly bright. With tears streaming down his face, he pushed up on his hands—
And stared into the maw of a laser carbine.
Too much in shock even to register fear, Jaibriol raised his head. In the brilliance of the Lock, he could barely see the man who held the gun. But he recognized the eyes. They were the only color in the chamber, red and hard. And when the man spoke, Jaibriol knew his voice.
"The fates of Eube are truly capricious," Colonel Muze said from behind the gun, "that they would give us a Ruby Key in the person of our own emperor."
The Lock had shredded Jaibriol's defenses, and the Aristo mind of the colonel surrounded him in a great icy void that froze his thoughts, his heart, his being. He felt Muze transcending, and he silently screamed with the torment. In one horrifying moment, he had given Eube everything it needed to conquer the Skolians and condemned himself to a life of agony so much worse than what he already lived that he knew he would go insane.
"No." Jaibriol thought he whispered, but the word thundered in the chamber as if he were one of those fates Muze had evoked.
The colonel backed away from him. "Get up."
Jaibriol couldn't move.
"Get up!"Muze shouted, and his fear saturated the air.
Jaibriol dragged himself to the console, which glowed like alabaster. Clutching the chair, he pulled up to his knees. With his arms shaking, he struggled to his feet. Then he just stood, staring at Muze. The violation couldn't have been worse than for an Aristo to enter the Lock.
"For ten years, you've corrupted the throne." Loathing filled the colonel's voice. "I always knew you were flawed, but I had no idea just how great the filth you brought among us. We will cleanse Eube of your stain." His voice was harsh with revulsion. "And you will serve us, provider. Have no doubt; you will pay for this crime beyond all crimes."
The light suddenly flared even brighter, blinding him. A backlash of violence hit Jaibriol, not physically, but crashing through his mind. He stumbled away from the console and tried to scream, but no sound came. He teetered at the edge of the pillar of light, the singularity that had thrown him into Kyle space, and he knew without doubt that if he fell into it again, the power would kill him.
The singularity died.
Darkness dropped around Jaibriol. The pillar was gone. He no longer felt the presence of the Lock. The astringent smell of a laser shot and the stench of melted composites filled the air—that, and another smell he couldn't identify but that raised bile in his throat. He couldn't handle the sensory onslaught; his mind was shutting down.
He staggered backward and hit a wall. The blackness wasn't complete; dim light filtered into the chamber from the corridor, enough to see whatever had killed that Lock had also slagged the console. Vatrix Muze no longer stood anywhere Jaibriol could see. He didn't understand why the colonel had fired. Did he sicken Muze so much that the Aristo would seek to destroy a Ruby Key who had joined the Triad? If that were true, Aristo thought processes were even more alien than he had ever comprehended.
He stumbled toward the entrance, a dim octagon of lighter shadows. A towering figure appeared there, silhouetted against the dim light. Jaibriol lurched to a stop, unable to push himself any farther.
A deep voice spoke. "Can you walk, Your Highness?"
Jaibriol wanted to weep. "Hidaka?" He barely whispered it, and yet his voice echoed.
"I have stopped the assassination attempt." Hidaka's usually impassive voice sounded shaken. "You must leave this place, Sire."
Jaibriol stared at his bodyguard. Hidaka had to know what he was seeing. He had to have heard what Muze had said. Why would a Razer call a false emperor Sire?
Something grotesque lay in a twisted, smoldering pile across the chamber. Then Jaibriol recognized the stench that filled the room. Cauterized human flesh.
Hidaka was holding a laser carbine. His bodyguard had murdered a high-ranking Aristo who had just made possibly the most valuable discovery in the history of the Eubian empire.
"Ah, no." Jaibriol swayed, and his vision dimmed.
"Sire!" Hidaka lunged into the chamber.
Jaibriol's legs buckled, and Hidaka caught him as he fell. The giant Razer lifted Jaibriol into his arms as easily as if the emperor were a broken doll, and blackness closed around him.
Kelric slowly lifted his head. He was sitting sideways at a console in the Lock chamber on the Skolian Orbiter. The singularity glowed next to him, but it seemed oddly dim. Although his head throbbed, he sensed no damage to himself. None of his internal warning systems had activated.
Bolt? he asked. Are you there?
Yes. I'm fine.
How did I get here? The last Kelric remembered, he had been deep within a fracturing Kyle space. He had reactivated the SSRB Lock many light-years distant at a Eubian military complex.
I don't know. Bolt, who was supposed to have no personality, sounded bemused. My memory has a gap. I have no other data until you became conscious of sitting here.
Kelric gazed at the pillar of light. He no longer had to squint against its brilliance. Something damaged the Lock.
I detect no damage here.
It's weakened.
Perhaps the problem isn't with this one.
Kelric rubbed his temple. I feel strange.
Are you injured?
I don't think so. After a moment, he added, I've a shadow.
All people have shadows, assuming proper light conditions.
Not that kind, Bolt. In my mind.
Is your link as a Key weakened?
No. It has a— He struggled to define his impression. Not a shadow, exactly. When you have a solar eclipse, the moon shadows the sun. The moon is present, but you don't see it, only the shadow. It's as if a moon cast its shadow across Kyle space.
"Kelric?"
He jumped to his feet and whirled around, his body toggling into combat mode as he raised his arm to strike.
Dehya had entered the chamber and stood bathed in radiance from the singularity. Small and frail, she was little more than a third his weight. She looked up at his giant fist raised above her head.
Kelric stared at her, dismayed. What if he hadn't stopped his reflexes in time? He could have killed her with one blow.
He lowered his arm. "You surprised me," he said—and froze. He had spoken in low tones, but his words resonated with power.
"What did you do?" Her voice sounded as if it came from far away, blowing across the blue spaces of the Kyle.
I called the Lock at the SSRB, he thought. Usually mindspeech drained him, but in this interstice separating space-time and the Kyle, voices intruded. Something went wrong.
It died, she answered. Or ended somehow.
I can't tell what happened. My mind i
s too blunt.
I can't tell, either. My mind hasn't the strength.
We must combine efforts.
Kyle space is damaged. If we go in together, we could strain it too far.
Kelric feared she was right. With the combined power of their minds focused in the Kyle, they might destabilize its weakened structure and accelerate the implosions. But if they didn't find out what was wrong, they could be inviting a catastrophe of interstellar proportions. Something had happened when he touched the SSRB Lock, something so intense it had pushed him out of the singularity and seared his memory.
Dehya was watching his face. It called to me for help, too, I think.
My gauntlets sent me a warning about the SSRB Lock. A memory leapt in Kelric's mind: he had met Jaibriol Qox there, ten years ago.
Dehya's thought drifted over him like mist. Let me see.
Here in the chamber, his mind flexed as it never could in normal space. And he and Dehya were Keys. Their minds linked in ways no other humans could manage. He lowered his barriers so she could see pieces of the memory he had stored in Bolt ten years ago . . .
The emperor stood at his full height, over six feet tall. He was a boy, no more than seventeen. He crossed the dais to Kelric. When he stopped, only a rail separated them.
"Go now," Jaibriol said. "While you can."
"You would let me go?" Kelric asked, incredulous.
Jaibriol regarded him steadily. "Yes."
Kelric didn't believe it. "Why?"
The emperor answered in cool, cultured tones. "Meet me at the peace table."
"You want me to believe you wish peace," Kelric said, "when you have a Lock and two Keys."
"What Lock?" The youth spread his hands. "It no longer works."
Kelric knew Jaibriol had seen him suspend the singularity. Yet the emperor hadn't asked if he could bring it back alive.
"We had one Key," Jaibriol added. "We gave him back."
"Gave who back?"
"Your brother. Eldrin Valdoria."
"Don't lie to me, Highton." Kelric knew the Eubians would never free his brother. Now that they had a Lock and a Key, nothing would convince them to surrender either.
"Why would I lie?" Jaibriol asked.
"It's what you Hightons do," Kelric said. "Lie, manipulate, cheat."
It happened then. Jaibriol's aloof mask slipped. In that instant, his face revealed a terrified, lonely young man trapped in a role beyond his experience. And his gaze was wrenchingly familiar. Kelric knew him, but he didn't remember how.
Then Jaibriol recovered, and once again the icy emperor faced Kelric. "I've little interest in your list of imagined Highton ills," he said. His disdain was almost convincing.
Kelric tried to fathom him. "Eube would never give away its Key. Not when you had a Lock. Nothing is worth it."
"Not even me?"
That stopped Kelric cold. "You, for Eldrin?"
"Yes."
It was the one trade Kelric could imagine them making. A vibrant young emperor on the throne would revitalize Eube. But at the price of their Key? It must have ignited furious debate.
"You are right," Jaibriol said. "It wasn't a universally popular decision. But it is done. I am emperor and your brother is free."
Kelric wondered if his face betrayed that much of his thoughts. He didn't fool himself that they had let Eldrin go. This new emperor was toying with him while guards waited outside.
"I am alone," Jaibriol said.
Kelric froze. "Why did you say that?" If he hadn't known better, he would have thought Jaibriol was an empath. But no Aristo could be a psion.
"You didn't wonder if I had guards?" Jaibriol asked. "I find that hard to believe."
"And you just happened to come in alone when I was here."
"Perhaps you could say I felt it."
"Perhaps," Kelric said. "I don't believe it."
"I suppose not." Jaibriol rubbed his chin. "I detected your entrance in the station web."
Kelric knew the boy was lying. But why? And why did Jaibriol look so hauntingly familiar?
"Imperator Skolia." Jaibriol took a breath. "Meet me when we can discuss peace."
"Why should I believe you want this?"
Jaibriol motioned upward, a gesture that seemed to include all Eube. "It's a great thundering machine I hold by the barest thread. If I am to find a way road to peace, I need your help."
It hit Kelric then, what he had known at a subliminal level throughout this surreal conversation. He felt the youth's mind. Jaibriol had mental barriers. They had been dissolving as he and Kelric talked, probably without the young man realizing it. His luminous Kyle strength glowed.
Jaibriol the Third was a psion.
Kelric spoke in a stunned voice. "You're a telepath."
"No." Pain layered Jaibriol's denial. He became pure Highton. Polished. Cold. Unreal. "I am what you see. Qox."
"At what price?" Kelric asked. "What must you suffer to hide the truth?" He couldn't imaginethe hells this young man lived, surrounded by Aristos, never knowing surcease.
Jaibriol met his gaze. "Was anyone here when I came into the Lock? I never saw him."
Kelric spoke softly. "Gods help you, son."
Strain creased Jaibriol's face. "Go. Now. While you can."
Kelric stepped into the Lock corridor. Then he turned and started the long walk down the corridor. His back itched as he waited for the shot, a neural blocker to disable him or rifle fire that would shred his body.
"Lord Skolia," Jaibriol said.
He froze. Would the game end now? He turned to face the emperor. "Yes?"
"If you make it to Earth—" Jaibriol lifted his hand, as if to reach toward him. "Go see Admiral William Seth Rockworth."
"I will go." He wanted to ask more, but he didn't dare stay longer. He set off again. As he strode down the corridor, he had a strange sense, as if Jaibriol whispered in his mind:
God's speed, my uncle . . .
The memory faded, and Kelric became aware of Dehya. He didn't recall moving, but they were both sitting on the floor. The light of the singularity rippled the air in the chamber.
He is a psion. She didn't make it a question.
It took Kelric a moment to reorient. Yes, I think so.
We need to know more about him.
Have you had contact with Seth Rockworth? Qox lived with him for two years. He regretted needing to ask the question; he knew she avoided the topic of her former husband. Neither the Imperialate nor his government had formally acknowledged their divorce for fear it would invalidate the treaty established by their marriage. For Eldrin's sake, she kept the subject out of their lives.
I haven't spoken to Seth in years, she thought. I doubt the Allieds would let me near him. They've watched him continually since they learned he had Jaibriol Qox as his ward.
I'm not surprised.
I too have wondered about Qox, though.
Kelric tensed. In what way?
It's hard to explain.
He waited, but she said no more. It was her way; she often thought in patterns or equations that evolved in subshells of her mind before she spoke of them. It disconcerted most people, but it never bothered him. When she felt ready, she would explain.
In any case, he had another way to communicate with her. He took off his pouch and spilled his Quis dice onto the floor. The gems sparkled against the silvery-white composite, but the light that saturated the chamber washed out their sparkle. He lowered his defenses carefully, so he wouldn't injure her mind with the force of his own. He wanted her to understand Quis at a level deeper than even she could glean from a few sessions.
Kelric offered his knowledge of Quis, and he felt her mind blending with his as she absorbed the concepts. He placed the first die, an onyx octahedron he used for the Qox dynasty. Dehya studied it and then set down a gold dodecahedron. They built patterns of the Traders, the Imperialate, and the Ruby and Qox dynasties. At first, she did little more than mimic his moves. Then she began to
mold the structures on her own. He felt the change on a visceral level, as her Quis took on the luminous character of her extraordinary intellect.
Kelric wasn't certain when he realized what Dehya was trying to show him. She knew too little about the game to clarify her patterns, but she learned fast. Incredibly fast. Her theory became clear; the implosions began on the planet Glory because the Lock was seeking the nearest Ruby psion.