Into their silence, a humming rose, soft, implacable. The air began to shimmer. The wand laid over Charles’s knees shone all at once with a brilliant light, picked up a high-pitched overtone from the hum, and quite simply dematerialized.
Both dukes stood up at once.
Naroshi spoke a curt command to the steward, and the Chapalii servant turned on his heel and hurried away. But even as the steward crossed under the double arches, the arches themselves vanished. The air shimmered, melding, blending; the whole huge chamber melted away and the grand architecture was overwhelmed by another locale.
The change occurred over seconds—minutes, perhaps—but it was hard to keep track of time when you were floating in immaterial space, in a shifting void. David caught a glimpse of the mosaic wall, of a hollow-eyed man draped in robes splintered by a sudden bright light, and then it, too, was gone. They stood in a chamber so vast that David could not see walls but felt the presence of still air enclosing him. In such space there ought to be a breeze, some sense of the air being alive; there was not.
He stood on a silver floor that shaded to translucence and then became transparent, and he stared down, dizzy with vertigo, at an expanse of towers and avenues laid out so far below that this floor must have been hundreds of meters above the ground. Darkness swept over and swallowed the city below like a wave and David could only mark each tower now by the single light at its tip. Or were they now stars? Was he standing above space itself, staring down into the vast deeps? He tilted his head back, to look up, and got dizzy, felt the galaxy whirl around him. Staggered a little, steadying himself with a touch on Marco’s arm.
Now he felt like the floor was moving, or that he was; he couldn’t be sure which. Only the two dukes appeared stable to his eyes. He fixed on Charles.
The air shone in front of Charles, took on weight and coalesced into matter. A braid of silver fire hung in the air. David saw the shift as gravity grabbed hold of its substance. The air stilled. The braid fell. But Charles caught it before it could touch the floor. David saw how heavy it must be by the way it weighted down Charles’s arm. “Seal the braid of fealty.”
At that instant David understood. The braid of silver was the emperor’s seal. And he had delivered it to Charles in order to seal with imperial approval Charles’s act of taking the Keinaba merchant house into the Soerensen ducal house. But where had it come from? How had it reached them? There had been nothing there; Charles now held a silver braid that undeniably possessed mass and volume. The problem, the possibilities, made David's head whirl. He just stood there and let the chamber reel around him and after a moment, as he forced himself to focus on the silver braid in Charles’s hand, the world stopped moving.
The stars vanished. Now they stood in a glade carpeted by perfectly manicured pale orange grass; probably not grass at all, but that was what it looked like. Twenty-one white-barked trees ringed them. Slender trunks shot up, endlessly up, to a kaleidoscopic canopy so high above that David could not measure it. Beyond, impossibly high, he saw the faint spires of towers.
Naroshi stood opposite Charles. Against the stark white trees, Naroshi’s complexion bore the barest tinge of blue, so pale that in any other surroundings David would not have noticed it. Blue was the color of distress. Clearly, Naroshi was not happy to be here—wherever here was.
Charles faced Naroshi across the pale grass, and Marco and David flanked Charles. David wondered if they really had been somehow transported into the imperial presence—into the emperor’s presence—or if this was just an incredible projection. If he stepped forward, would he bang into the couch? He felt it the safer option not to move at all.
“I thank you,” said Charles into the silence, hefting the braid in his hand. “I ask permission for myself and some companions to visit the planet where my sister and heir has ceased to exist, so that we may suitably mourn her, without interruption.”
Marco glanced sidewise at David and winked. Yes, clearly that last little qualifier was aimed at Naroshi. But Marco’s ability to remain unawed in the most awe-inspiring circumstances gave David heart. He winked back. Against the purity of the white bark of the trees, Naroshi’s complexion shaded in the slightest degree from blue to green, the color of disapproval.
The humming stopped. David had not really noticed it until it ceased. Then he was aware of its absence, and as abruptly as a light is switched from light to dark, they stood in the octagonal chamber again. Mosaics glowed on the far walls, seen through the double arches. The images flowed, as if the figures stirred, but David could not be sure if they really moved or if he was still recovering from the whirling of the stars.
A pink scarf lay draped over Charles’s shoulders. Pink was the color of approval. For a moment, Charles simply stood there. Then he lifted his free hand to touch the scarf, to check its color. His chin shifted, just a little, but David knew him well enough to know that he was pleased. He bowed, low, to the precise degree by which a duke honors the emperor, dipping to touch one knee to the floor. Then he straightened and regarded Naroshi in silence.
In this light, David could discern no slightest tint of color in Naroshi’s pallid complexion. “I will watch your progress with interest,” said Naroshi.
Charles inclined his head in acknowledgment, but said nothing more.
The steward reappeared and led them out the way they had come. By unspoken consent, the three men did not talk at all until they left the secured line on Staten Island and transferred to a lev-train that would take them back to London. Charles sank into a seat. He draped the silver braid across his thighs. It was as heavy as gold, and as supple as the finest silk. David and Marco sat on either side of him. It was the old pattern from their university days: Marco on the right, David on the left.
“‘I’ll be watching you,’” mused Charles as he stared out the window at the gray ocean. “But is Naroshi for me or against me?”
Marco shrugged. “Does our concept of dualism even apply to the Chapalii? Maybe he’s for you and against you.”
“I hate equations that don’t add up,” muttered David.
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About the Author
Kate Elliott has been writing stories since she was nine years old, which has led her to believe that she is either a little crazy or that writing, like breathing, keeps her alive. Her most recent series is the Spiritwalker Trilogy (Cold Magic, Cold Fire, and Cold Steel), an Afro-Celtic post-Roman alternate-nineteenth-century Regency ice-punk mashup with airships, Phoenician spies, the intelligent descendants of troodons, and revolution. Her previous works include the Crossroads trilogy (starting with Spirit Gate), the Crown of Stars septology (starting with King’s Dragon), the Novels of the Jaran, the Highroad Trilogy, and the novel The Labyrinth Gate, originally published under the name Alis A. Rasmussen.
She likes to play sports more than she likes to watch them; right now, her sport of choice is outrigger canoe paddling. Her spouse has a much more interesting job than she does, with the added benefit that they had to move to Hawaii for his work; thus the outrigger canoes. They also have a schnauzer (a.k.a. the Schnazghul).
April Quintanilla
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1992 by Katrina Elliot
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ign by Angela Goddard
978-1-4804-3522-3
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
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