“Oh, it’s true, I can feel it,” M’lani assured her. “I should have seen it when K’kadi spoke to you.”
“I–I . . .” B’aela’s voice trailed away. After a swift shake of her head, she continued, “There is something more I should say, but even with our new knowledge of each other, it is not easy to share intimacies.” She sucked in a breath and continued. “Last night I shared the admiral’s bed. It was not easy, or even passionate, after all that happened in Oban. But I was forced to admire him all the more for his patience and understanding. Tell Jagan and T’kal to have no fear for me. I know what I am doing. I am convinced that if we are careful, Kamal will not conduct a reign of terror.”
M’lani could not even imagine the courage it took to be B’aela Flammia. Older sister. Lover of the two most powerful men on Psyclid. “I look forward to seeing L’ira’s face when I tell her,” she said, humor lighting her eyes for the first time since she entered L’rissa’s shop.
B’aela seemed to recognize M’lani’s peace offering. “If I had known,” she returned carefully, “things might have been different.”
M’lani offered her a rueful smile. “I doubt it, but it’s not too late to try to be friends.” She extended a hand, B’aela took it. And suddenly they were kneeling in the aisle, clasped in each other’s arms, tears tumbling down their cheeks.
The number of royal children had grown to four.
“Ambassador, thank you for coming in.” Rand Kamal waved his visitor to a seat before resuming his position behind his desk in the Hall of Judgment. Royan del Cid’s innocuously handsome face revealed nothing more than polite inquiry. “I was curious about your home world, Ambassador. I had not thought Archeron at the advanced cultural level necessary before establishing relations with another planet.”
“Not at all unusual, Admiral. Archeron and Psyclid are both peaceful agricultural planets. We have much in common.”
“And yet, since your arrival, Ambassador, we have been beset by a number of—ah—disturbances. Enough that I cannot help but notice the coincidence.”
“As you say, Admiral. Coincidence.”
“And then there was your surprisingly rapid courtship of the Princess M’lani, a truly remarkable feat.”
“I was honored beyond measure,” the ambassador returned smoothly.
“Colonel Strang checked this office for illicit communication devices only an hour ago,” the admiral returned in a surprising non sequitur. “I assure you we can speak freely.”
Fizzet! The admiral’s awareness flooded through Jagan almost as strongly as he picked up emotions from his closest associates. Did Kamal have psychic gifts, or had he simply been on Psyclid too long?
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring out the dragon,” the admiral continued. “Or the wolf. I believe we may both benefit from a civilized discussion of our differences.”
“Do continue, Admiral,” the ambassador returned coolly, “though you should realize I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course,” Kamal murmured. “For a moment his eyes gleamed with amusement before his sober military façade snapped back into place. “Although I am merely a Rear Admiral, I have the ear of the emperor.”
“And that means?”
“I could perhaps persuade him that Psyclid is not worth the effort to maintain the Occupation. What do we gain? A few crops, excellent architectural models, some clever machines, and a people who make us uncomfortable, when not frightening us out of our wits.”
“And in return?”
“We would be free to fight the more serious rebel threat.” He paused. “Which we could do so much more efficiently if we knew where the rebels are headquartered.”
Fyd! Jagan was so startled he nearly dropped his disguise. After M’lani relayed B’aela’s warning, he should have anticipated this, but somehow he had not. He had hoped to turn the Reg admiral. Guess not. “In my capacity as Prince Consort, I will of course relay your message to the king and queen, but I must tell you I doubt they have contact with any rebels. King Ryal insists his subjects keep the peace.”
“I believe my message is clear enough, Ambassador, without reference to the king.”
Jagan stood. He was tempted, so very tempted to drop the disguise and loose his dragon. For the flick of an eyelid, his disguise wavered. Sharply, he took himself in hand, bowed, and strode out, expecting guards to set on him at any moment.
Never had he been more glad to see his marines falling in behind him. The three of them made it to the broad front doors, down the steps, past the guards outside. Into the ambassadorial hovercar. Jagan whooshed a sigh of relief as he settled onto the back seat. From now on, more caution, more “Archeron” guards, inside the embassy and out. More invisible travel. A definite lean toward ruthlessness instead of Ryal’s tender care for every last batani blade of Psyclid grass!
Today was the beginning of the end. By the Tri-Moon Festival Psyclid would be free.
But only if B’aela could keep Kamal from exposing the Archeron Ambassador . . .
And only if Kamal was not as loyal to the Empire as he appeared to be . . .
As Tor turned the hovercar toward the Archeron Embassy, Jagan scowled into the night. Their glorious, perhaps overly ambitious, plans teetered on the brink. One blast from a Steg-9 and he was dead. Could the Psyclid rebels manage without him?
The lowering response to that one was, they probably could. T’kal might not be a sorcerer, but his skills as a leader were far better than Jagan’s own.
If he was dead, no more M’lani. Surprisingly, the most devastating thought of all. Pok, dimi, and fyd! So he’d just have to stay alive, rely on B’aela to keep Kamal off his back . . .
Freedom was so close he could almost smell it. Yet before they could strike, they had to expand their forces to a hundred thousand or more, spread throughout the planet. Which meant a hundred thousand places where a weak link might lurk. Compared to that, the threat of a governor general who was the emperor’s nephew seemed negligible.
They had arrived at the embassy. The Archeron Ambassador stepped out of the hovercar, straightened his shoulders, and climbed the steps to the imposing building, head high, his two faithful “Archeron security guards” following hard on his heels. They were all still alive. For the moment that would have to be enough.
“I’m not sure you got the right impression,” M’lani said later that night. “There has to be some reason K’kadi linked the admiral with B’aela. And it wasn’t salacious—he hasn’t a gossipy bone in his body.”
“Kamal asked me, point blank, to betray Blue Moon!”
“I wonder if he was simply fishing.”
“Or as confused about his motives as we are,” Jagan added with a groan. “Or maybe the office wasn’t as clean as he said. Maybe someone was listening.”
“Jagan?”
“Hmm?”
“There’s something I’ve known for several days now, but it was so private I had to think about it a while before I told you.”
He frowned. One more problem and he was out of here, off to commune with his dragon in the woods somewhere.
“B’aela’s mother is a high priestess of the Golden Crystal, and she has revealed a surprising secret. It seems that, before L’ira and I were born, she had an affair with my father.”
As M’lani had, Jagan made the connection on the instant. No, no, no, no, no, no, no!
“It appears King Ryal has three daughters. The one you wanted, and the two you got,” she added dryly.
There were times when the only answer was silence. He would make it up to her, he swore, but right now he couldn’t even summon enough magic to light a candle.
“It’s true, you know,” M’lani continued. “Just think how K’kadi was able to communicate with her.”
He didn’t doubt it. That he hadn’t sensed it bothered him considerably. Maybe K’kadi truly should be Sorcerer Prime.
But if B’aela hadn’t known . . . perhap
s there was hope for him yet.
He should say something, do something, tell M’lani everything was going to be all right. But the irony was too much, even for the ever-cynical Jason Mondragon. Time to go and brood in silence until he could gather the shards of his discipline and become a sorcerer once again. But accepting the role of proper husband? That might be more difficult.
Chapter 33
M’lani sat upright in a dilapidated office chair pulled up to an equally worn conference table in the rebels’ meeting room in the Crystal City Archives. She was attempting to pay attention to Jagan and T’kal, who were outlining the plans for a communications blackout of Crystal City and the spaceport high overhead. But somehow her meeting that afternoon with her father refused to stop repeating itself in her head.
Coward that she was, she had put it off as long as she could—half a Blue Moon cycle, in fact. But today, when she knew her mother was occupied elsewhere, she paid a visit to Crystalia, and in an excruciatingly awkward twenty minutes with her father, she outlined what B’aela had told her. The king’s reaction? Instant sputtering denial.
“Then how is it K’kadi can speak to her?” M’lani demanded.
An agonized flash from Ryal’s azure eyes before he plunged his head into his hands.“I still say it’s impossible,” he muttered. “Morgana was a neophyte, back when we all were young. A lovely and fiery creature she was too. But, like all priestesses, she was well taught in methods of avoiding conception . . .”
“Which does not sound as if conception were impossible,” M’lani pointed out somewhat tartly.
Her father groaned. “Then why did she not tell me?” he demanded. “The Orlondamis are not barbarians. A king’s bastard is entitled to many privileges of wealth and rank.”
“Pride,” M’lani suggested softly. “Or perhaps she feared you would take the child from her.”
“Never!” Ryal slammed his palm on the arm of his chair, his eyes fierce with rage. “As you well know, your brother has been with his mother since birth.”
“I know,” M’lani returned, “but that was many years later. “Morgana Flammia had no way to anticipate what you would do.”
King Ryal shifted in his chair in something that looked very much like a squirm. From between clenched teeth, he grumbled, “I do not appreciate being told I have fathered my son-in-law’s mistress.”
How did he think she felt? “Nonetheless,” M’lani returned as evenly as she could manage, “it seems to be true. I believe her.” She stood up, intending to leave him to the privacy of his thoughts, then added, “B’aela asks nothing of you. I believe she told me only so that we might come to some sort of accommodation—that we might be sisters instead of enemies. I am not at all certain it will work, but I intend to try. There has been a great deal of sorrow over this—on both sides. It’s time we finished it.”
Reluctantly, Ryal nodded. “I am still inclined to think Morgana lied,” he muttered. “I must speak with her.”
“Then I pray you do it in private.”
“What?” he returned, his mind clearly elsewhere. “Oh. Of course I shall not invite her to the palace!”
“Perhaps you should not meet at the convent either . . .”
“Until you assume my place, M’lani Sayelle Zarana, you will remember that I am king, and I will decide what I will and will not do.”
M’lani had bobbed a curtsy and fled.
And now, when she should have been absorbed in the plans for the first major test of the communications breakdown, her head was wrapped in family matters that refused to rest. A hug and a few tears could not completely erase the anguish, the white-hot jealousy associated with B’aela Flammia—
“M’lani!” At Jagan’s sharp tone, she jerked to attention, her incomprehension and guilt clear enough for all to see. “Are your teams ready to keep the hospital and emergency services running?”
“Yes. I am confident we can keep everything running in spite of the blackout.” Ninety percent confident, that was. After all, that’s why they needed to run this test. No one could be certain until they’d actually tried it.
“I still think daylight would be safer,” L’rissa offered.
“Scarier at night,” T’kal countered.
“Less traffic to snarl,” Jagan said, “and T’kal’s right. “A power blackout at night is far more effective. Add a wireless communications blackout and the message has even more impact.”
“Showing the Regs we’re strong enough to shut down the whole city,” L’rissa declared proudly. Sounds of assent echoed from every corner of the room.
“Sunset, two days from now—what time?” Jagan asked. Half the room dived for their hand-helds. At an answer of 7:33, Jagan nodded. “At precisely 8:30 the exercise will begin. No power, no wireless communication, including the spaceport. For now we’ll leave Kepler alone—let them stew over why they’ve lost contact with the rest of us. So . . .” He looked at each face around the table, took in all those gathered behind. “Are we agreed? Two nights from now, 8:30 in the evening?”
M’lani’s lips suddenly twitched. No special allowance had been made for the palace. She’d best give her mother a hint to be home, so she could provide a fireball or two for light. Papa had enough on his mind at the moment without being obliged to trip over the furniture.
That said, she could hardly wait. Watching B’aela and Jagan work together at the wolf and oryx demonstration had not been pleasant. This time she too could participate. After the fact, she’d tell Papa about her role in protecting the hospital. He’d like that.
A fond smile crossed her lips. King Ryal could be obstinate and difficult, his policy against harming people detrimental to the rebellion, but he was her father, and even when he aggravated her, or disappointed her, she loved him.
And then there was Jagan. She sighed.
The night was crisp and cool. Auspicious, with Blue Moon hanging high in the sky. At precisely thirty minutes past eight o’clock the lights went out from the center of Crystal City to a radius of ten miles outward. Every building, every home, every street signal went dark. Comps, portapads, hand-helds, and vid screens as well. Far above, the rebel team on the spaceport reduced the giant artificial satellite to a chunk of dark metal floating in the sky, only life support still functioning.
Admiral Rand Kamal, working late in his office at the Hall of Judgment, swore and fumbled through his drawers for the emergency light baton he knew was there somewhere. Ah, there it was! He reached for his hand-held to call Colonel Strang and discovered his office’s electronic devices were also non-functioning. Fortunately, the colonel burst through his door, his own light baton in hand. Together, they peered out the window, discovering that every vehicle had ground to a halt, inert as all the other machines.
“Not just the electrical power,” Strang said. “Fyd! I wonder how they did it,” he added, unable to keep the awe out of his voice.
“Smarter if they left us some communication,” Kamal offered, “so we could be suitably impressed with how wide-spread this is.”
“Certainly as far as the eye can see.”
“Look over there,” Kamal said, pointing. “That glow in the distance. I suspect that’s the hospital. And there’s some light to our left where the policia has its headquarters.”
“You’ve got to give them credit,” Strang admitted, “but they— Aak!”
Both men gasped as a man materialized just outside their third-floor window. Tall, dark, lithe, with a face that reminded the admiral of Old Earth paintings depicting the devil. A face he had seen at the Emperor’s birthday ball and again while researching the Sorcerer Prime. An illusion, of course—which was also the only explanation of how he hovered there, just outside the second-story window, with no visible support. And when the sorcerer spoke, his voice easily penetrated the glass, though how, the admiral couldn’t begin to guess.
“I am Jagan Mondragon, Sorcerer Prime. The entire city is shut down. You already know we can freeze people in place. I
f we combine these powers, you have no defense against us. Your weapons will not work, your people will be unable to move, let alone communicate. Advise the emperor it is time for you to go home and leave us in peace.” The sorcerer tipped his head in a cool nod of respect. “Admiral, Colonel.” Then, instead of disappearing as Kamal expected, he simply rose up and up, as if ascending into the heavens. Illusion, the admiral told himself. It had to be an illusion.
“Great trick,” Strang muttered.
“And a sensible offer. Yet if I did as he asks, I would be relieved of my command and sent to playing childish games with poor old Yarian behind barred gates.”
The lights suddenly came on. Alric Strang blinked and tried to peer out the now dark window. “We did see the sorcerer, did we not?”
“Oh yes. And with a personality so strong I am surprised he does not constantly penetrate the bland façade of the Archeron Ambassador.”
Further speculation ceased abruptly as Kamal’s office went mad, with every Reg officer in Crystal City attempting to contact the GG at once. The two men settled down to calming nerves and deflating fury, particularly the wrath of the hot-headed captain of the frigate Kepler, who had viewed the entire disaster from space and was ready to rain down a few missiles if only someone would give him a fydding target.
It was nearly dawn before the admiral made his way to his top-floor apartment where he had installed B’aela Flammia. He had called her several hours ago, shortly after communication was restored. When she answered, he distinctly heard street noises in the background. If she had been where she was supposed to be, he would have heard nothing but the silence of a very expensive suite of rooms.
But then, was that not why he liked her? He had no doubt she had been up to her neck in tonight’s events. Without a word, he crawled into bed beside her, brushed a kiss to her cheek, and, good military man that he was, promptly fell asleep.
Sorcerer's Bride (Blue Moon Rising Book 2) Page 26
