Kelric didn't know how Jaibriol would survive among Aristos. His mind was a furnace, burning with power. Unless he learned to hide it better than this, the Aristos would soon realize the truth. Then what? They would have a Key. Jaibriol might have no interest in learning how to create a web, but if the Hightons turned their combined intellects to the problem, they would learn. And they would force him to build it for them.
"Kelric?" Jaibriol was watching him.
It startled Kelric to hear his personal name spoken by the Emperor of Eube. "Yes?" he asked.
"Your sister—" He stumbled over his words. "She was Imperator before you, wasn't she?"
Softly Kelric said, "Yes."
"Was she happy?"
"The last I saw her was almost thirty years ago." Kelric spoke with care. "Jaibriol, how could your mother teach you to splint a broken leg with tree branches?"
"She was good at—" He suddenly stopped, and panic flared in his eyes.
"That's an unusual skill for a sheltered Eubian empress," Kelric said.
Jaibriol turned his head away, and Kelric knew then that the young man could never speak the truth. It was locked within him by emotional scar tissue.
Kelric continued with the utmost gentleness. "When Soz was young, she loved to swim in a lake near our house. She would go up there when she wasn't supposed to be out and get into trouble when she came home."
Jaibriol gave an uneven laugh. "I can imagine."
Kelric remembered how Soz had laughed and teased, how she could grin one moment and glare the next. Seven brothers and one Soz, and they had never been a match for her. He smiled with his memories, though they hurt. "When I was eight and she was seventeen, we went hiking in the Backbone Mountains. We got caught in a storm. It frightened me, the lightning, the rain, the hail. It so rarely happened in the lowlands where we lived."
Jaibriol spoke softly. "You could have taken shelter in a cave."
A pain jumped within Kelric, a stab of loss and mourning and something else that felt like bittersweet joy. That hadn't been a guess about the cave. Jaibriol knew.
"Yes," he said. "A cave. We huddled in it while lightning cut the sky and thunder shouted. We were afraid. It comforted us to merge our minds. A full Rhon merge." Only Ruby psions could join minds that way, but they rarely did, for it was too powerful a link for most people to endure and too intense to sustain. But in those few moments, he and Soz had blended their thoughts down to a deep level. From that day on, he had shared a bond with her stronger than with his other siblings.
"Anyone fortunate to share such a bond," Jaibriol said unevenly, "would value it forever. She might—might even share the treasured memory with her children."
Kelric put his hand on Jaibriol's shoulder. "I can't help you leave the Triad." When alarm flared in the emperor's gaze, Kelric said, "Just listen. You don't have to admit anything." Softly he added, "You cannot return to Eube in your condition. I've been protecting your mind, but when we part, it will all come back, the agony, the loss of control, the pain. You'll be wide open to the Hightons."
"Don't," Jaibriol said.
"You must learn to control it."
"I can't," he whispered.
An idea was coming to Kelric, forming with the clarity of jeweled Quis dice in the sunlight. He looked around for support. A nearby deciduous tree had a thick branch, almost a second trunk, that grew horizontally a few feet above the ground. He limped over and leaned against it, half sitting, half standing. Then he untied the pouch from his belt. For a moment he stayed that way, looking at the worn bag bulging with dice. He had carried it for almost thirty years. The dice were as much a part of him as his limbs, his thoughts, his heart. They shaped his life. To part with them would leave a hole he could never fill even if he had a new set fashioned with identical pieces.
Kelric extended his arm with the pouch. "Use these."
Jaibriol's forehead creased. He came over and took the bag. Turning it over in his hand, he said, "What is it?"
"Dice."
The emperor opened the sack and shook a few gems into his palm. They flashed in the sunlight slanting through the trees and sparkled as if they were bits of colored radiance caught in Jaibriol's hand.
"They're beautiful." He looked up at Kelric. "What do you do with them?"
"Play Quis," Kelric said. "When pressure from the Hightons becomes too much, when you can't take any more, when you fight for control and can't find it, play Quis. It will calm your mind, help your control, perhaps even ease the pain."
Jaibriol looked bewildered. "I don't know how."
In the short time he had with Jaibriol, Kelric knew it would be impossible to teach him Quis at a high enough level to help. But he did have a way.
Kelric took a breath. "If you meld with my mind, I can give you the knowledge. Store it in your spinal node to study at your leisure." He felt as if a part of him were dying. If he joined his mind with Jaibriol, the emperor would probably pick up more than Quis from him no matter how hard Kelric tried to limit their meld—including how to use the Triad Chair to create a Kyle web.
"You would offer me this trust?" Jaibriol asked.
Kelric nodded.
"What if it injures my mind even worse?"
"You have to trust me. Just as I must trust you."
Jaibriol clenched the pouch until his knuckles turned white. "I cannot."
"You have to trust someone."
"I don't trust my own wife. Why would I trust you?"
"You came here to see me," Kelric said. "I can think of no greater show of faith."
Jaibriol's voice cracked. "I can. Asking me to let you into my mind."
Kelric waited. The decision had to be Jaibriol's; if the young man felt pressured, they couldn't create the blend. They stood in the early morning with sunshine filtering through the trees, a fresh green light that softened the day. Butterflies flashed orange and black among the foliage.
Finally Jaibriol said, "Yes."
Kelric released his breath. "Good."
"What do I do?"
Kelric spoke gently. "Nothing." Then he closed his eyes.
Bit by bit, Kelric lowered the barriers he had developed over his lifetime. He didn't have the crushing mental defenses Jaibriol used; his were more layered shields that had become so integral to his personality, he wasn't certain he could lower them enough. He concentrated on his memories of Quis. He also accessed files in Bolt where he had stored Quis concepts, rules, ideas, strategies. When he had been a Trader prisoner, he had even tagged his interpretations of their customs with Quis structures. He readied it all for Jaibriol.
Then he reached out a luminous tendril of thought.
Their minds touched, and Kelric scraped Jaibriol's mental scar tissue. He had never wished for Dehya's finesse more than now, for he feared his raw power would injure the emperor even more. But the scars gradually melted, like gnarled ice under the warmth of a sun. Slowly, he and Jaibriol blended, first the outer layers of their minds and then those that went deeper. Kelric offered his knowledge to the young emperor, the files from Bolt, then his own memories, both the vibrant images and those time had dimmed and bleached.
And he absorbed memories from the emperor.
Kelric saw Jaibriol's father, the previous emperor, and knew that those who had called the man a monster had erred on a mammoth scale. The father in Jaibriol's memories was kind, gentle, vulnerable. That same decency defined Jaibriol beneath the hard exterior he had developed to survive. The son had inherited his father's purity of soul. Kelric also saw what Jaibriol didn't realize, that his father hadn't been strong enough to survive the Aristos. The tenderness that had made him such a beloved father would have destroyed him as emperor.
And it was true: Soz was his mother.
Jaibriol had her incredible strength. Kelric saw his sister through her son, and it broke his heart. Soz laughed more with her husband and children. She could be tender with her babies and fierce when protecting them. Jaibriol's sole model for an
adult woman during the first fourteen years of his life had been one of the most complicated, strong-willed warriors of modern times, but what he remembered most about her was the depth of her love.
When Kelric opened his eyes, Jaibriol was kneeling on the ground, his head bowed, his shoulders shaking as tears flowed down his face. Kelric lowered himself next to the emperor, then put his hand on Jaibriol's shoulder and bent his head. He didn't know what Jaibriol had taken from his mind, but if the memories were as intense, as treasured, and as painful as those he had gained from the emperor, it was no wonder Jaibriol cried.
They knelt together in the forgiving beauty of a summer day and wept for the people they had lost.
XXXII
Stained Glass
On a summer day in the Appalachian Mountains, Kelric and Jaibriol reached the outskirts of a small town. Jaibriol sought help in a church, and they entered during Sunday services. Kelric could no longer walk on his own, even with the staff; Jaibriol supported him with Kelric's arm draped over his shoulders. Both of them were half- starved and dehydrated, and neither had slept much for two days. Jaibriol staggered inside the door, just enough to see they had found people. Then he sagged to his knees, no longer able to support Kelric's massive weight.
Kelric collapsed to the ground and rolled onto his back, his eyes closing. Jaibriol stayed with him, kneeling, while people rose from the pews, staring in bewildered shock. They approached with care, the reverend from the pulpit and parishioners from the pews. As they gathered around Jaibriol and Kelric, they spoke in English. Jaibriol peered at them, exhausted, unable to interpret the language he hadn't heard for ten years, and that he had never spoken as well as the Eubian or Skolian tongues he learned from his parents.
Jaibriol chose a church because he hoped they were less likely to turn away two people in need. After he had converted to Seth's religion, he had been baptized and received First Communion. He didn't think this was a Catholic church, but it had the same serenity he remembered from St. John's. He stared over the heads of the people to a high, round window aglow with sunrise colors and light.
Like Quis dice.
Patterns filled his mind, swirls of color and shapes.
The reverend knelt in front of Jaibriol and spoke in Eubian. "Can you understand me?"
Jaibriol tried to concentrate. "My friend is ill," he said. "He needs a doctor."
"We've sent for one." The man hesitated. "Can you tell me who you are?"
"You don't know?"
"No. I'm sorry."
It relieved Jaibriol that no one seemed to realize who had stumbled into their morning services. The idea that the Emperor of Eube and Imperator of Skolia would come into their church was probably too absurd for them to recognize either him or Kelric even if anyone had seen them on a news broadcast.
The other adults clustered around them. They were calm, but Jaibriol felt their confusion. Someone had taken the children away, or at least kept them back.
"Can you translate for him?" one of the women asked the reverend. She wore a blue dress with no shape.
"I speak English," Jaibriol said slowly.
Relief washed over their faces. "Can you tell us what happened?" the reverend asked.
"Someone tried to kill us." Jaibriol didn't know how much to say. "We need to contact your authorities."
"We've sent for the sheriff," the reverend said.
"What is sheriff?" Jaibriol asked.
"A law officer," the woman told him.
Kelric stirred and opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling of the church and spoke in Iotic. "What is this place?"
"A church," Jaibriol said, his voice ragged. "They've sent for help." His head swam with dice patterns. He didn't know what they meant, but they soothed him.
Kelric laboriously sat up, huge muscles bulging under his sleeves. With difficulty, he grasped a pew and climbed to his feet. At nearly seven feet tall, with a massive physique, he had a build heavier than occurred in the gravity of Earth. He loomed over everyone like a titan. The parishioners backed away.
Jaibriol stood up next to Kelric. "Maybe you should sit," he said in a low voice. His Iotic sounded odd in this place.
Kelric nodded, his face clenched from pain, and eased into a pew. He crossed his arms on the pew in front of him, laid his forehead on his arms, and closed his eyes.
The reverend was one of the only people who had stayed with Jaibriol. He was watching Kelric with concern. "The doctor should be here soon. Will he be all right until then?"
"I don't know." Jaibriol had no doubt Kelric could recover from a broken leg. What would happen when he returned home was another story.
A boy of about ten years old had inched over to them. He looked up at Jaibriol. "Are you a Trader?"
"Sean!" A woman pulled him back. "Leave the man alone."
"He looks like those pictures on the holovid," the boy protested as she hurried him away.
Glancing around, Jaibriol realized no other children remained in the church. The adults stayed back, watching him. They seemed bewildered. He didn't know what to tell them. The past two days had drained him: the attack, signing the treaty, the miraculous and terrifying mental blend, and two days of stumbling through the forest. He had hoped the destruction of the cabin would activate some monitor, but if it had, no one had responded. He and Kelric had hidden their visit too well.
The door of the church creaked open and sunlight slanted across the worn pine floor. A burly doctor with a balding head strode inside carrying a med box. He headed toward Jaibriol, did a double take, and then stopped and gaped.
"Good God," he said loudly. "You're an Aristo."
"Yes," Jaibriol said. "I am."
The doctor looked around at everyone. "You want me to treat a goddamned slave owner?"
"Grant, don't," the reverend said. "They need our help."
"Well, hell's hinges," the doctor muttered. Either he didn't know his words would result in his arrest on a Eubian world or else he didn't care. He came over to the pew and peered at Kelric, who had lifted his head.
"You the patient?" Grant asked in English.
Kelric glanced at Jaibriol, a question in his gaze.
"He asked if you're hurt," Jaibriol said. He turned to the doctor. "He has a broken leg."
Kelric slid along the pew, making room for the doctor, though he watched Grant warily. The doctor sat with no fanfare and bent over Kelric's leg. He poked and prodded, and checked it with a med tape. Glimmering holos rotated in the air above the tape like jeweled Quis dice.
Watching the doctor, Jaibriol realized it could help Kelric that everyone knew he had come in with an Aristo. It increased his chances of avoiding recognition, because no one in their right mind would expect the Imperator to be running around Earth with a Eubian nobleman. Kelric was wearing marriage guards, but if someone didn't know much about Eube, they could mistake them for the ID restraints of a taskmaker.
Whether or not Kelric could return home without anyone realizing he had been here was a different matter. If any news service picked up the story that an Aristo had walked into a church, that was it. One picture of him or Kelric on the meshes and their secrecy would evaporate. Even if they avoided that exposure, they had to get offworld without raising questions. They had also left thirteen dead people in the mountains along with a blasted cabin and burned out swath of land. Someone wanted to kill Kelric, and Jaibriol didn't believe for a moment that whoever masterminded the attempt had died with those commandos.
One powerful thought stayed with him; his wife and future heir were safe. He hadn't wanted an Aristo child, but it no longer mattered, for he already loved his unborn son.
"How'd you get this break?" Grant asked Kelric as he removed the splint. "You look as if you've been a-sortin' wildcats." He squinted at the Imperator. "Guess that would be tough for them, eh?" He chuckled and went back to work.
Kelric blinked at him, then looked up at Jaibriol. "Do you know what he is saying?"
Jaibriol
smiled. "He thinks you look tougher than a wild animal."
The doctor glanced from Kelric to Jaibriol, then went back to work. He spoke tightly to Jaibriol. "He your slave?"
"No," Jaibriol said. For people to make that assumption was one thing, but it could backfire spectacularly on him and their attempts to establish a treaty if Kelric's people learned he had made such an offensive claim.