"She went to your retreat."
Jaibriol stiffened. "What for?"
"I don't know. She wouldn't take her bodyguards."
"What?" Jaibriol strode toward the exit archway. It started to shimmer, but he burst through the airlock before it finished changing permeability. The membrane dragged along his skin.
"Robert!" he shouted.
His aide looked up from his desk. "I haven't found—"
"She's at the lodge," Jaibriol said. "Get my flyer. Now!"
Jaibriol jumped down from the flyer to the landing hexagon, his black jacket flying open. As he ran to the lodge with his guards, the harsh mountain wind whipped his hair back from his head. He burst through the front door into the main room.
The empty room.
"Tarquine!" he called. She could hear or see him on any screen; if she were here, she was either ignoring him—or she couldn't answer.
Jaibriol strode across the room. The lodge was too quiet, too still. He yanked aside the bead curtain in the morning alcove, but she wasn't there. He was running by the time he reached their bedroom. He turned in a circle in the middle of the room, looking around, his leather jacket crackling with the force of his motion, his hair disheveled on his forehead.
Then he saw it, across the room. Rumpled blankets lay bunched up on the mattress as if someone had lain in the bed. He strode over and jerked the covers off the mattress.
Blood covered the sheets.
"No!" He threw the blankets on the floor. The blood had spread in a terrifying stain. He looked frantically around for any sign of her, but there was nothing, nothing.
Jaibriol suddenly realized someone had closed the door to the bathing chamber. He ran to the wooden portal and threw it open. Mist filled the chamber beyond, rising from the pool, white and opaque. Heated water arched from the fountain into the air and sprayed across the pool, blue and clear. He went over and stared into the water, his heart dying as he looked for her body, a dark shape lying against the tiles.
The pool was empty.
Jaibriol gulped in a breath. He turned back and forth, looking, looking, but he saw no one. Steam and water dampened his hair and sheened his jacket. He was a dark shadow in a room of cloud. He strode around the pool and came into view of the back wall—
A woman was slumped there, a white shift dampened against her body, her black hair tangled over her face.
"NO!" Jaibriol ran to her, his boots hammering the tile floor, his Razers only steps behind him. Dropping to his knees, he heaved in air. "Tarquine." His voice broke as he cupped his hands around her deathly pale face.
She opened her eyes.
"Oh, God, my God." Jaibriol choked out the words. He pulled her into his arms, her slender weight limp against him. As he held her, his heart pounded in his chest and his arms shook.
"Your Highness," a voice said. "A doctor is on the way."
Jaibriol jerked up his head to see a Razer looming over them. "No," he said, knowing Tarquine would never want anyone to see her this way. "Leave us." He jerked his hand toward the door. "Go! No one is to disturb us."
"Yes, Your Highness." The startled guard bowed and quickly withdrew with the other Razers, closing the door behind them.
Jaibriol turned back to Tarquine and pulled the hair out of her eyes. "Are you all right?" He looked down, touching her, trying to find the injury. "Where are you hurt?"
She spoke in a dusky voice, as if her words were twilight. "Where is Hidaka?"
"Hidaka? What?" She was too pale; he was certain she had lost too much blood. "Who attacked you?"
She grasped his hand so hard, it hurt. "I have no injury. I am not the one they tried to murder on Earth."
"Ah, God. Hidaka is gone." He couldn't separate his shock over that loss with his fear for her. "You didn't know?"
"How could I not know?" Drops of water glistened on her hair. "Everyone across a thousand worlds knows. Your bodyguards died so that you could live."
"Tarquine, there's blood all over the bed."
"The blood of gods," she said. "Or is it slaves?"
"What are you talking about? Who hurt you?" He set his hand on his abdomen. "Is the baby all right?"
"No one hurt me," she said dully. "Your son, however, is dead."
He couldn't breathe. "It can't be."
Mist curled around them and blurred her face. "I can control the wealth of an empire and wield power our ancestors only dreamed of." Her voice cracked. "But it seems I cannot stop my body from losing a child."
He smoothed the tangles out of her eyes. "We'll call a doctor. The best. We'll—"
"Jai, stop." She laid her palm against his chest. "No doctor could have helped."
"I should have been here."
"It would have changed nothing."
"But why?" He couldn't see how his wife, a woman he had never seen ill, had lost her baby. "How?"
"Do you really believe I would birth a child who would grow up to crave his father's pain?" The murmur of the fountain muted her voice. "A child who might someday dethrone and enslave the man who most loved him?"
"What did you do?" he whispered.
"He was your son. Yours—and some long dead provider." She took a breath. "Your great-grandfather, Jaibriol the First, wanted a Ruby son. It took me years to unravel what he had done. The stored eggs still existed. Your great-grandmother wasn't the only candidate who carried Ruby DNA." In a low voice, she said, "I would have given you a Ruby son."
"Tarquine, no." He was breaking inside. "You can't. Only a psion can carry a Ruby child."
"I believed I could do anything," she said numbly. "If I were just strong enough."
It hit him then, why she had been willing to relinquish her title to Barthol: it would keep it within the Iquar bloodline—for the child she had carried had no Iquar blood. For him, she had made a sacrifice considered the ultimate crime for an Aristo.
Jaibriol pulled her into his arms and laid his head against hers, his face wet with the mist. It had to be the mist. He couldn't cry. Hightons never wept.
"Did you get what you sought on Earth?" she asked.
"Kelric and I signed the treaty."
"So we can sell his people Taimarsian squid?" Her voice shook with an incredulous laugh that held more pain than humor. "He risked execution for that?"
"No." Jaibriol drew back to look at her. "For peace."
She went very still. "You signed the peace treaty?"
"Yes." His pulse lurched while he waited for her response.
"It isn't valid unless Barthol, Erix, and Corbal sign," she said.
"Barthol will."
"You are astonishingly optimistic."
"Not if he expects the Iquar title."
In a deadened voice, she said, "And why would I do that?"
"For the son we will never have." His voice caught on what would have been a sob if he had let it free. "For the child who died because you loved your husband enough to offer him an heir who wasn't your own."
Incredibly, a tear formed in her eye and slid down her face. He had never before seen her cry, never once. "Erix and Corbal will never sign."
"They have motivation. As during the summit."
"Motivation is not enough," she said. "You must be willing to carry through the threats, my husband. Because if you can't, you are only bluffing, and they are far better at it than you."
Jaibriol no longer knew what he was capable of. To attain his goals, he would have to stoop to methods he despised, either with his people or the Skolians. He didn't know how much more of himself he would lose as he struggled to reach his dreams. He could think only that he would never know his son. He had thought Kelric sired a Ruby psion with his wife, the woman with the red hair, who wasn't a psion at all. He was wrong. He had seen Kelric's memories. The mother of Kelric's Ruby daughter had died in childbirth, in Kelric's arms while he wept. She couldn't survive the birth trauma of a child whose mind was so powerful, it tore hers apart.
"I can't lose you," Jaibriol
said.
"If I cannot give you an heir to love you as you loved your father," she said in her throaty voice, "then someday I will give you an heir of unparalleled strength and brilliance. An Iquar heir." Darkness saturated her words. "But if you cannot raise a son, my husband, then raise an empire as none has ever been known, until all humanity everywhere, from here to the ends of space, kneels to you."
XXXIV
A Choice Of The Ages
The Amphitheater of Memories overflowed with the session of the Skolian Assembly. No one knew Kelric was to appear. He entered the hall with Dehya and his guards through one of thousands of arches. A robot arm waited for them, with a console cup at the end large enough for six people.
All over the hall, the screens that usually showed speakers were instead replaying a broadcast that billions, even trillions of people had seen. Kelric stared at the images as they played throughout the amphitheater, larger than life. Less than two minutes of coverage had hit the meshes before the governments of three civilizations stopped it, but that was enough. Again he saw himself and Jaibriol stagger into the church. A few steps into the building, Jaibriol collapsed, half lowering, half dropping Kelric to the floor. Sunlight streamed over them, and Jaibriol's hair glittered. Exhaustion showed on his face, even desperation, but his haunted red eyes seemed to burn.
"Subtle," Dehya muttered. She sounded angry.
"His people think he set it up to kill me," Kelric said.
She looked up at him, and he knew her thought; if Jaibriol had set him up, Kelric was playing into his hands. By bypassing his right to a trial and throwing the decision for his fate to the Assembly, he left himself excruciatingly vulnerable. He saw no other choice; if whoever sought his death found the treaty, wiped it out of Bolt's memory, and denied knowledge of the document, no one would believe it existed. Without evidence, he could never justify his meeting with Jaibriol. The emperor had a copy, but Kelric had no idea what he intended. He didn't believe Jaibriol had planned the attack, but Qox was perfectly capable of using it to his advantage. Jaibriol had a choice to make, and the fate of three empires hung on his decision.
Thousands of voices clamored in the hall. The tiers of seats started far below the level where he had entered and rose far above. Kelric felt as if he were entering a giant arena with himself as the gladiator set to fight for his life.
The dais was halfway up the height of the hall. Protocol sat at a console there, and First Councilor Tikal stood next to her, peering at one of her screens. Tikal suddenly jerked his head up and stared straight at Kelric. The robot arm was only one of many ferrying people through the hall, but Kelric had no doubt Tikal knew he was there. Protocol, who controlled the dais, apparently realized it as well, for the platform was rising to meet them.
Within moments the media wizards who controlled the screens had picked up his arrival. The images of Jaibriol blinked out, replaced by real-time views of Kelric and Dehya standing in the console cup. A surge of emotions flooded him like storm waves; no psion, no matter how strong, could shut out that many minds in one place, all concentrated on him. Their shock poured over him, their disbelief, curiosity, hostility, and confusion.
Kelric knew he frightened people with his power, his size, his taciturn nature, and his unpopular decisions to use ISC forces on Skolian worlds. In the past, the good he had done ameliorated the effect, and yes, so did the protocol officers who endeavored to portray him as the handsome, golden prince rather than the hardened, metallic dictator. But now screens all over the hall showed him dressed in black, towering over Dehya, his huge bulk dwarfing her delicate form, and he knew they should never have entered together. Next to her, he looked like a monster.
Across the hall, Roca was staring at him, her face pale as she leaned forward. Her aides were working furiously at the console, undoubtedly trying to figure out what the blazes was going on. At the pharaoh's bench, Eldrin was on his feet behind his console, his gaze fixed on Kelric and Dehya. Kelric was grateful Ixpar and his children were on the Orbiter. He wished he could have spoken to them before all this happened, but perhaps it was better this way. If ISC convicted him of treason, he didn't want it to backfire on his wife and children.
As the robot arm docked with the dais, Tikal came forward, his expression thunderous. He spoke flatly to Kelric. "You cannot address the Assembly."
"He has the right," Dehya said.
Tikal swung around to her. "He betrayed his people, his title, his oaths, and your family. By any law, this man has no right to stand before this governing body."
She met his gaze. "It is the Assembly's right to decide if he may address them. Not yours."
Tikal made an incredulous noise. "Imperator Skolia, you do realize, don't you, that you are asking the Assembly to decide your guilt or innocence? With no preparation?"
"That's right," Kelric said.
Tikal looked from him to Dehya. "Have you both gone mad?"
"He has the right to ask," Dehya repeated, her voice hollow. She looked up at Kelric. "If this is what you truly want."
He nodded, wishing he could tell her more. But he didn't dare. Too much was at stake.
Tikal shook his head. Then he motioned to the dais as if he were inviting Kelric to a guillotine.
As Kelric stepped out of the cup, the guards took positions on the dais that blocked him from Protocol's console. So he stood by the glass podium on the edge. When the robot arm swung away from the platform, only a force net that surrounded the great disk separated him from the chasm of air below.
Dehya was arguing with Tikal in low, heated tones. Kelric knew she was trying to convince him to let Kelric speak before they took the vote. Tikal would never agree. Before her coup, she and Tikal had been allies, even friends. As much as Kelric understood why she hadn't wanted to execute the First Councilor, her decision had left her open to any retaliation he sought against her or the rest of the Ruby Dynasty. Whoever had planned the attempts against Kelric's life didn't have to be in the military. Tikal had the necessary resources.
Bolt, Kelric thought. Are you ready?
I have prepared, Bolt answered. I don't think you can reach the console, however. If you go for it, the guards will shoot before you can do anything.
I know. But I'm right next to the podium.
It doesn't have what you need.
It can launch the emergency protocol.
Do you mean for evacuation?
That's right.
You don't want to evacuate the amphitheater.
No. I don't. But the protocol can link this dais to everyone's console.
The amphitheater techs have probably shut you out of the system.
It's been less than a day since the story broke, Kelric thought. And no one had any idea I would come here. It's also a minor system, not one most people would think of first when closing me out.
Perhaps.
Kelric watched Dehya and Tikal. It doesn't look as if she's making headway.
No. It doesn't.
Let's do it.
He leaned his arm on the podium as if he were resting, except he laid his wrist over a prong in the glass. The prong clicked into his socket through a hole in his gauntlet.
Downloading, Bolt thought.
Throughout the hall, red lights flashed on consoles, indicating the emergency protocol had activated. Kelric could have done without that glaring announcement that he had accessed the system, but at least it meant no one had closed him out.
"Councilor Tikal!" Protocol called. "He's sending out a file!"
"Block it!" Tikal shouted, whirling to face Kelric, his face contorted with anger.
Protocol's hands flew over the console. "Blocked, sir. I caught it in time."
I'm sorry, Bolt thought. I went as fast as I could.
Kelric felt as if his last supporting strut had broken. You did your best.
Tikal stared at Kelric with his fist clenched. "Why? Are you plotting the overthrow of your own Assembly? Gods, Kelric, what did they promi
se you?"
"I wasn't conspiring with Qox," Kelric said. "Let the file out."
"And give you access to every person in this hall?" Tikal asked. "Do you think I'm insane?"
"Kelric, what is it?" Dehya asked.
"It doesn't matter," Tikal said. "You asked for a vote from the Assembly on your guilt, Skolia. You're about to get it."
Kelric spoke angrily. "Was it you who tried to kill me, Barcala?"
"What?" Anger flooded the councilor's face. "You violate a ruling from your own government forbidding you to meet with Qox, you go in secret, you nearly get killed by his secret police, and then you have the gall to accuse me?"