Blood of Fate

by Dan Sugralinov

  Things were moving on steadily, and the looming war promised fun times. True, concerns of safety meant that he’d had to cancel a visit from his teenage son. There was always the chance that he might end up in danger; who knew what these barbarians might think to do? His and Herdinia’s son was their only child. They had too little favor with the Sacred Mother to birth a second. Anthony, not daring to hope for a successful Selection, had decided to prepare his son for the role of Overseer, just like his own father had done for him.

  And now, this morning, something had changed. The shifts in Ma Ju Ro’s behavior were so significant that even the constantly bored Cross noticed it. Not understanding what was happening — Herdinia was behaving very strangely too in indulging the emperor, — he’d used a gadget that was originally developed as a means of communication, but over time had taken on a mass of other functions. Genetic analysis had become so commonplace in their society, where genes decided whether or not you had rights, that it was built into all electronic devices, even watches. But Anthony had decided to save that test for later. The first thing he did was analyze the emperor’s voice.

  The data amazed him and he’d spent the remainder of the council session with his eyes fixed on Ma Ju Ro, and later he’d tried to get an explanation from his wife. Herdinia had wrinkled her nose and stated that yes, the emperor was unusual, but there was nothing strange about that. The way she said it, the emperor was bored of entertainment and now burned with the desire to personally bring order to the country, which was most laudable and beneficial to Herdinia herself, who was used to the palace and didn’t want that Rezsinius boy to take over.

  Anthony didn’t answer, and silently returned to the emperor to test his DNA.

  * * *

  As he looked at Fourth Advisor Cross, it occurred to Luca that he was looking at the most perfect man in his life. Even Esk’s legacy agreed: this male member of Homo Sapiens seemed an ideal specimen. Genetically perfect for this form of intelligent life. He was six and a half feet tall, athletic, although within the limits of necessity, without excessive muscle mass, with a handsome face and a finely outlined chin, with perfectly smooth skin without defects. The man of thirty years wore a wide smile, showing off a row of perfect teeth.

  “Who are you, you son of a bitch, and what did you do with Ma Ju Ro?” There was no anger in those words, but an amused perplexity could clearly be heard.

  “Advisor Cross?” Luca made as if he was immersed in thought. “Did you ask me something?”

  Without answering, Cross extended a hand. Luca shook it, puzzled. He took the opportunity to take a DNA sample and discovered that the senior Cross was already over fifty, but the advisor, as it turned out, did the same thing. Without releasing the emperor’s hand, he placed a glass disc against his forearm, held it there a couple of seconds, then quickly pulled away and stepped back.

  Turning away, he kept his gaze fixed on the disc for some time, then chuckled in stunned surprise and dropped down onto a chair.

  “Alright...” The advisor looked up at the ceiling and chose his words carefully. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what’s going on, and that bothers me. I don’t like strangeness and uncertainty. And all this is highly anomalous.”

  “What exactly, Anthony?”

  “As I already said, my device does not make mistakes. During the council session, it stated in no uncertain terms that the structure of your speech, your sentences, even the intonation you use — none of it has even the slightest relation to the Emperor Ma Ju Ro the Fourth whom I have known since birth. And even if I paid no attention to all that, I couldn’t fail to notice the changes in your behavior. Yesterday I heard rumors from the palace, but I have to admit, I lent them no weight. Who knows what that idiot might be smoking now, I thought! But today... today I personally saw something so outside the bounds of normality that I suspected something was wrong. I observed you and tried to figure out what it was until I decided to analyze your speech and perform a simple comparison with source data on your usual behavior.”

  Cross rose and walked to the broad windows overlooking the imperial park. He started patting his pockets, found what he was looking for and lit a cigarette. Luca watched him patiently. The man hadn’t yet stated his verdict, so the emperor didn’t quite know how to deal with the shrewd advisor. Deprive him of his life? Would that draw a counterstrike from those who Terant called racants? The richest and most influential families of the Great World, the most genetically superior, not as perfect as the royal family of the Ra’Ta’Cants, but very close to it. No, it was best to wait and see where his advisor took this.

  In the meantime, Cross finished holding his theatrical pause, returned to the table and, taking a drag from his cigarette with pleasure, continued.

  “Let me explain something to you, Ma Ju Ro. Everything living on this planet has its own unique code. I doubt you understand this, but try. We call it DNA. Your code is absolutely identical to the one saved in my database as belonging to the true emperor. This means I can conclude that the body is the same. And no technology yet exists to transfer consciousness, in spite of all our efforts. That means that you really are the true emperor. But!” Cross raised his index finger. “At the same time, you’re someone else. I could have written it off as the influence of psychotropic substances, narcotics, alcohol... But you’re clean! Nothing clouds your blood. It’s as clean as a babe’s. And that makes me nervous, Maj!”

  No wonder, Luca thought. Metamorphosis neutralizes everything, it doesn’t even let me get tipsy. Cross fell silent again, but this time it wasn’t an artificial pause. He was waiting for an explanation.

  “I had a transfusion, Anthony,” the emperor answered simply. “Something went wrong during the procedure. It’s as if my brain has been cleansed of fat and my mind is unclouded. I don’t know if you’re aware, but there was another assassination attempt yesterday on top of Naut’s. Something changed in me after that. The scales that have been growing over my eyes for decades, the filth accumulating in my mind... It has all fallen away.”

  “There we go again! Talking like you never have before!” Cross exclaimed, hitting his palm with his fist. “But go on, continue. You’re on fire, Maj!”

  “I want to live, Anthony,” Ma Ju Ro said, ignoring his advisor’s words. “But to do that, I need to bring order to the country and become the man my father wanted me to become — a wise and visionary ruler. I understand your surprise, but this is how it is. And I very much hope that you will help me.”

  “I see,” Cross drawled. “Well, I accept your explanation, but if you’re relying on my help and support, you fat old savage, you can think again. I don’t care who’s in power here. There’ll always be a fourth advisor, and the Cross family will ever rule over this land. I have spoken.”

  With those words, he rose in silence and left the room without so much as a good-bye.

  Chapter 35. Kora and Prisca Dezisimu

  WHEN HE RETURNED from the council hall to his own chambers, Luca found chaos and pandemonium. Keirinia had woken up, and was walking around in a short gown with a cup of grain brew in her hands, lazily bickering with Herdinia. Once she saw the emperor, she immediately threw her arms around his neck. He freed himself from her passionate embrace with difficulty and again noted how easily he drove his first favorite to extreme arousal. Luca glanced quickly at Herdinia.

  The new first advisor gave no sign that the scene before her upset her. It seemed passion had not conquered her mind, and she’d decided to keep her affair with the emperor secret, if there was one at all.

  Herdinia nonetheless remained true to herself, and apart from simultaneously managing to give curt orders to a couple of underlings and to find out why Koerlig had brought his majesty two street tramps, she still had time to send some venomous remarks the way of the first favorite.

  The street tramps, cowering in the corner of the room and not daring to sit down, turned out to be Luca’s mother and sister, and his heart began to bea
t faster, which metamorphosis immediately reported, asking whether the carrier wanted to slow his heart beats. Waving it away, Luca worriedly looked at his sister’s face, trying to find signs of a transfusion. He exhaled in relief when he saw that his sister’s age was still the same — she was the same fifteen-year-old. Fine — almost sixteen.

  “Sire, the Dezisimu family is here as per your order,” Koerlig reported gallantly as he stood to attention. Hector’s influence was clear in his tones. “Should I leave them here, sir?”

  It seemed as if the future leader of the first imperial clinic kept his gaze locked on him, but Luca noticed that the boy somehow managed to mischievously glance from side to side occasionally. There was definitely something cunning in him, Hector was right.

  “We’ll talk on the terrace,” the emperor said. “Thank you, Koerlig, you may go.”

  “Forgive me, ruler,” Herdinia interjected, “but I need to discuss a number of questions with you regarding the free clinic. Lee Vensiro was overzealous in his duties, and his criers are going to declare the opening of the clinic as early as this morning. Koerlig, come!”

  “I’ve missed you, your majesty,” Keirinia said in playful tones.

  From somewhere behind the door came the grumbling of General Hustig as he rebuked the guards, and Luca realized that the revolving door of business would never let him out once he got in, and again he’d have to put off meeting his family. So he gave Herdinia strict instructions that he be left in peace, then went over to his mother and sister, noticing that Kora was struggling to keep her mouth shut, and her demeanor in general was far from friendly. It seemed she was planning to scream as loud as she could, but her mother convinced her not to and held her back for now.

  To avoid exacerbating the situation, Ma Ju Ro gently pushed aside Keirinia as she clung to him like a limpet, asking her to go run some errands. He walked to his mother, took her by the hand and led her out to the terrace, the only place in the palace where he was sure they wouldn’t be overheard. The balcony hung over an uninhabited rocky shore, and the sound of the surf covered all conversations.

  “Tell me what you’ve done with Luca!” Kora shouted as loud as she could as soon as they got outside and the doors closed behind them. “Where’s my brother?!”

  “Kora, daughter... This is the emperor himself! His majesty Ma Ju Ro the Fourth!” her mother mumbled in shame, trying to embrace her daughter, who instead pulled away and rushed toward Ma Ju Ro and started hitting him in the chest.

  There was still plenty of fat left to absorb her strikes — he didn’t feel any pain. The girl started crying.

  “Tell me, where is Luca? Please...”

  Answering nothing, the emperor embraced his sister and stroked her back until she calmed down. Prisca stood nearby all this time, not daring to intervene and crying silently.

  “How do you feel?” Luca asked her quietly over Kora’s shoulder.

  “Much better,” his mother answered gratefully. “I haven’t felt this good for a long time, to say it true. And Kora is feeling better too, after those inhumane experiments from that wicked healer!”

  Luca sat his sister down in a seat, sat opposite her and leaned forward.

  “Tell me, what did he do to you? Did he lock you in that cellar with the chinils? Did he beat you? Senior Apprentice Pen didn’t do anything to you, did he? Kora!” he took her by the hand. “It’s all... It’s all over, my dear...”

  The girl drew back sharply and tried to stand up, but Luca stopped her.

  “What did you call me? And how do you know all that? Did you order him to do it?”

  “Listen to me, Kora. Calmly, without interrupting. Can you do that?”

  The girl thought for a moment and then nodded.

  “Why are you so kind to her, ruler?” his mother whispered, hearing his warm and trustworthy tone.

  “You’ll understand, Prisca,” Luca answered and moved his gaze to his sister. “Will you listen? Let me try to explain.”

  “I will,” Kora nodded. Her gaze brightened. “Go on... that is, if you want to, your majesty.”

  “Alright. But first ask me a few questions that only your brother can possibly know the answer to.”

  “Why?” the girl said in surprise.

  “I’ll explain later. Ask them.”

  His mother moved a little closer as she listened to their conversation. Kora frowned and wrinkled her nose, thinking of what to ask. Finally she thought of something.

  “What did I ask him for at our last meeting?”

  “You asked him to convince Yadugara to help your sick mother,” Luca answered without thinking.

  “Hah! The healer himself could have told you that!” Kora exclaimed. “Or that ugly fat Aunt Mo! What song did my brother like to sing when he was going outside?

  “Kora!” her mother reddened. “How would his majesty know that?”

  “He asked me to ask him! Come on, your majesty, tell me, what was the song called?” It seemed his sister had gotten into the spirit of the game, and she looked at the emperor victoriously.

  “Please pay her no mind, your majesty, my daughter is just talking garbage, how would you know a song thought up by...”

  “By Luca himself, called Running Boy? About a boy who couldn’t walk and who learned how anyway, and ran and never stopped again, afraid that if he did, he’d forget how. He skipped along, smiling a big smi-i-ile...” Ma Ju Ro sang quietly. “And the wind itself couldn’t keep u-u-u-up...”

  Their eyes filled with tears Kora swallowed a lump in her throat and opened her mouth, staring dumbfounded at the singing emperor. He finished the verse, gently stroked Kora’s head and spoke quickly and passionately.

  “He came up with that song when he was twelve. On that day, while mom was delayed with her customers, you took him to the market without permission, Kora. And the innkeeper Nemania’s son Karim Kovachar and his friends Fat Pete, Natus and Jamal, they all pushed his wheelchair over in the mud. You washed his clothes while your brother sat blushing in nothing but his underwear as all the people walked by. Then you went to watch an acrobatics show together. That was when Luca came up with those words. And he heard the melody at that very same show. When you were eight, you took your brother to the sea. The wheelchair got stuck in the beach sands, but you pulled it to the water, dragging it through the sand. Then you both nearly drowned...” Luca felt himself barely holding back tears too. “Ask a third question, Kora.”

  She shook her head.

  “I just don’t understand,” his mother broke the silence. “How do you know all this, your majesty?”

  “I also know that your son stood up for you against Nemania, who suggested you pay for his misdeeds with your body, and that’s how your son ended up in prison.”

  “How?” his mother whispered. “He told you?”

  “Don’t you get it yet, mom?” Kora cried.

  “Get what?”

  His sister didn’t answer. She jumped up from the seat, took Ma Ju Ro’s face in her hands and looked into his eyes for a long time, trying to find at least something that reminded her of her brother, but she found nothing.

  “Kora...” Luca said. “Did you know what Yadugara wanted from you? He was trying to take away years of your life. They call it a ‘transfusion procedure’...”

  “I know!” the girl interrupted him sharply. “He was whispering about that with that disgusting Penant boy! That chump pretended to be nice at first, then groped me! He came in the night, but I kicked him in the balls so hard that he whined like a beaten dog! True, I got a bad beatdown after...”

  “Did they manage to transfuse from you?”

  “They’d only just started when that man from the palace got there. He brought watchmen with him, and Yadugara had to let me go.”

  After her words, Luca realized that the decision to transform into the emperor had saved his mother and his sister’s lives. If he’d hesitated and just tried to run...” He felt as if a huge weight had dropped from his shoulde
rs.

  “How did you end up with him?” Luca asked.

  “Reyna took me there, that’s his lover. She wrapped me round her finger! She pretended to be a friend, said she’d bring me to you, and when I was in the house, the guard ran in. He accused me of sneaking into private property, said I was a thief!” Kora frowned. “Well yeah, sure I might’a taken a couple of apples before and... it doesn’t matter, I didn’t steal anything this time!”

  “And then Yadugara just bought you at the trial for a few gold?”

  “For a hundred. There were lots of potential customers, to tell the truth...”

  “I remember how happy I was when I saw you at my trial. And then they took you both away, and that horrible ‘healer’ Yadugara bought me just like he bought you...” Luca faltered a moment, realizing what he’d said. “Abyss!”