by Kate Elliott
Anatoly did not like being condescended to. Nor did he appreciate being thought stupid simply because he came from a culture they thought primitive. He took refuge in silence for the rest of the long meeting. He maintained a serious expression and nodded his head when it was appropriate. Inwardly, he burned with anger.
Because he had learned manners in a harsh school, he stood when they left, but he did not escort them out of the ship; that was not his prerogative, nor did he intend to show them any such favor. Soerensen wisely took up the rear, but his only comment was to let Anatoly know that the yacht would leave immediately.
Finally, Anatoly was alone. He had too much nervous energy to sit still; he paced. Quickly enough, though, the lounge seduced him: lean chairs carved of ebony wood and smoothed into a sheen so perfect that he had to touch them; a drop-leaf table of a wood so pale that it could only have been placed here to contrast with the dark chairs; two couches that splashed a rich blue into the monotone setting. Anatoly ran a hand up and down the fabric absently, feeling the soft weave.
“Screen,” he said. One wall faded from white to a flat, expectant gray. “Outside cameras. No sound.”
The wall lit to show the concourse, narrowing in on the crowd that still hung around outside the pier. But the edges of the crowd frayed and shrank as the main players emerged from the pier and marched off with their respective entourages, and the last hangers-on shuffled off discontentedly as the big woman cycled the outer lock shut and sealed the cargo hatch. Anatoly sank back into the couch that faced the wall and leaned his head on the curve of a plush pillow, kicking his legs out in front.
“Flight plan of Gray Raven, last five ports and all subsequent stations between Devi and Chapal. No voice.”
The picture split into four smaller rectangles, showing a star chart, vector calculations, a basic quartermaster’s log, and a web of numbers and lines which Anatoly did not quite understand.
The door opened and Moshe ducked inside furtively. He stood there without speaking, biting a knuckle.
“Yes?” Anatoly asked, a little amused by his behavior.
Moshe removed the knuckle. “We’re about to unlock. You should really get in a crash seat. There’s a couple tucked away into the stern if you don’t want to sit on the extras up in the bridge.” He shook his black hair out of his eyes and grinned.
And Anatoly had it: He’d seen that smile before, although never, of course, directed at him. The resemblance was suddenly clear, although he couldn’t imagine how it had come about. “How do you know about Rhui?”
Moshe looked pleased and embarrassed. “I was born there.”
“Born there!”
“My biological mother died right when I was born, she was a native Rhuian like you, and Dr. Hierakis took me away and when I was two years old Branwen adopted me and I’ve been here on Gray Raven ever since.”
In cases like this it was always rude to ask after a child’s father, since it was clear that some kind of illegitimacy was at work, but Anatoly had an idea that the boy wanted him to ask. “What about your father?”
Moshe’s face lit sweetly. “Oh, he’s a grand adventurer. Just like you. I mean, I don’t think he’s been in wars or anything, but you’re both scouts in a way, only he’s an explorer. Maybe you even know him?” He bit at his lower lip selfconsciously. “I mean, I know it’s a big planet and there isn’t any reason you should ever have met him but I know he traveled with the jaran for a while. Madrelita tells me all about what he’s been doing whenever we get a dispatch or at least she did, but now I can read them myself, the ones that aren’t classified.”
A shudder rang through the ship. The intercom snapped into life and Anatoly heard a man curse in a foreign language and then a woman laughing, and then Captain Emrys, sounding amused, said: “Oh, shut up and get the second cable uncoupled. Summer, what’s your status?”
Summer—that was the big woman—reeled off a string of numbers while Anatoly examined the illegitimate and evidently abandoned son of the man who had been his greatest rival for Diana’s affections.
“I have met Marco Burckhardt,” he said finally.
“Will you tell me about Rhui?” asked Moshe, by which Anatoly heard him to mean: Will you tell me about my father.
“All hands take your places,” said the captain over the intercom in the bored voice of someone who has said those words so many times that they’ve lost their meaning. “That means you, Moshe. Quit bothering our guest, if that’s what you’re doing.” But her tone was gentle. “Or at least show him where he can strap in.”
Anatoly got up from the couch and went over to the door. The boy was as tall as he was already, and bound to grow more. He looked like his father, especially through the eyes, and Anatoly recalled with an amazing flash of jealousy how much he had disliked Marco Burckhardt. But like Valentin, this boy had neither father nor uncle to direct his education, although it was true that the khaja educated their children differently.
But still.
“Of course I will tell you about Rhui,” Anatoly said, and let Moshe show him to the crash seats. As the door closed behind him, he saw the screen in the lounge blink off and the roll of numbers and destinations vanish into a gray sheet. They were on their way to the heart of the Empire.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
A Twist of the Knife
THE SOUND NAGGED HER through her dream, chasing her down a knife-edge ridge while a wind streaked the sky with silver threads and the land beneath shone with the scattered remnants of the burning tails of comets. Tess woke up with a headache, convinced that someone had put a call through to her on the console in the library. She knew she would not be able to sleep again until she checked.
She eased out from under the warm and now heavy arm thrown across her torso, but where Ilya, once fully asleep, could sleep through the worst storms and commotions and her nightly peregrinations, Kirill woke instantly.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Just going out.” She pressed a finger to his lips, and he shut his eyes and was back asleep within seconds. Ilya, once woken, would have stayed awake. Gods, she missed him, and yet at the same time, she wasn’t sorry to have this time, however brief it might prove to be, with Kirill.
She dressed quickly, slipped into the outer chamber, and kissed both sleeping children. Throwing her cloak over her shoulders, she went out into the night.
It was bitterly cold, courtesy of a sudden cold front that had swung down on Sarai from the north yesterday. The sky had the hard glare of glass, punctuated by the stabbing light of the stars and wandering planets. Her eye caught on a faint star moving across the heavens; a ship must be in orbit. What did the priests of Hristain think of such sights? Did they think an angel traversed the sky, on an errand for God? What did Ilya think of such sights? She couldn’t believe he never noticed such things. She shook off the thought with a toss of her head, greeted the night guards, and struck out across the plaza to the library.
She banked her path left, toward the side entrance, but stopped in front of the steps. Through the stone grill that surmounted the double doors, she saw the gleam of light. Who was in the main hall of the library at this hour? It must be the ke. She went up the steps. The small door inlaid within the great double doors opened noiselessly and she slipped inside.
It was the ke. She played khot at one of the tables—with Sonia.
Hearing Tess’s footsteps, Sonia looked back over her shoulder. “Oh, hello. You couldn’t sleep either?”
“What are you doing here?” Tess demanded. Her headache had subsided to a dull throb.
Sonia rubbed her skirt where it curved over her belly. “Too uncomfortable to sleep. And we’d left off right in the middle of an exciting game. What are you doing here? You never have trouble sleeping that I know of.”
“I woke up.”
The ke pondered the board and did not respond to the conversation nor to Tess’s entrance except to mark her with a nod of her head. Tess glanced at the l
ayout of the stones: They made a pleasingly chaotic pattern, scattered across the board in odd polymorphic shapes of white and black. The ke finally placed her hands one on top of the other on the table. It was the closest Tess had ever seen the Chapalii come to using the hand gestures that were a vital part of at least one strata of Chapalii society.
“The game is yours,” said the ke in passable Rhuian. Her accent was uncannily sterile.
Sonia smiled with satisfaction.
Tess was stunned. In formal Chapalii, she said, “How did you learn to speak Rhuian?”
“A method exists to accelerate language acquisition,” replied the ke in formal Chapalii.
“I thought daiga languages were considered too primitive to be worth learning.”
“They are, but….”
Tess would never have said that she knew the ke well, nor that in the three years the ke had lived here in Sarai and Tess had been able to see the ke frequently that she had gained any significant understanding of the ke’s personality, if indeed the ke had a personality in human terms. But Tess had never seen the ke quite so hesitant before. She waited.
“This nameless one wished to speak with the daiga Sonia, so the program was activated.”
“I enjoyed our contest, holy one,” said Sonia smoothly in Rhuian, politely ignoring the interchange. “Perhaps we may play again.”
“Tess wishes my assistance,” said the ke, canting her veiled head so that she appeared to be looking at Tess.
“No, no,” said Tess hastily. Gods, what would she say to Sonia, then?
But it was too late. “Where are you going?” Sonia asked with apparent innocence. “May I come with you?”
Tess swore under her breath in Anglais. She met Sonia’s clear-sighted gaze, and it was like being slugged. She knew Sonia very well indeed after twelve years, knew her well enough to read many things from her expression alone. Sonia knew damn well what she was asking. She knew Tess was concealing something, and whether through chance or choice or simply the restlessness brought on by her pregnancy, she had decided to force the issue now.
Except she had left Tess the option to say “no.”
The word came out of Tess’s mouth before she knew she meant to say it.
“Yes.” Then she blanched. But it was too late.
Sonia cocked her head to one side, regarding Tess quizzically. She stood up and shook out her skirts with the same brisk gesture her mother used, and she waited. The ke stood also. After a few moments, Tess managed to get one of her feet to move. Her thoughts raced wildly, jumbling in on top of each other, but like the throb of her headache, one emotion drowned out the others finally: Relief. Whatever the consequences, she had finished with deception. Taking hold of Sonia’s hand, she led her back to the ke’s suite, past the anteroom and into the private office. A lit bar on the console bled a line of red into the darkened room: a call had indeed come in.
“Lights,” said Tess, and the walls lightened until they shone with a soft white glow.
Sonia shook free of her hand and walked over to touch one wall. But she said nothing. Instead, she turned to survey the chamber: the long bank of the console, the shining walls, a wooden table with two chairs, and the red and gold couch.
“This is the fabric that Mitya’s wife gave you,” said Sonia, going over to run a hand down the curve of the couch. Her voice sounded very odd in this room, because Tess had never expected to hear it here. “I always wondered what became of it. It’s very fine. It’s a shame to hide it in here.”
She did not need to say aloud: Why do you hide it in here? The jaran had many small formalities with which they smoothed over the constant rubbing of lives lived in close quarters, and it was not unknown for a woman or man to simply ride out for hours, seeking solitude. But to have a private chamber, closed away, must seem inexplicable. Privacy lay outdoors, cloaked by the anonymity of the sky.
Sonia grinned. “You khaja are very strange.” She brushed a hand over the console, and Tess saw how she started and, more curious now, slid her fingers along the pale gray surface, tracing around the pads and bars without touching them. “What is this? The walls, the way they light without a flame, and this table, they all remind me of things I saw at the shrine of Morava.”
Tess finally found her voice. “They are like. I have to get a message.” She joined Sonia at the console. Gave a great sigh. “Sonia, there’s a great deal I haven’t told you.”
“I had figured that out for myself.”
“Play incoming message,” said Tess in Anglais.
The air spun into a cloud above the console and coalesced into…
“Charles!” said Tess, startled to see her brother. These days he rarely sent direct links to her.
Sonia stared.
“Hello, Tess,” said Charles’s image, which seemed to rise from the console. Sonia crouched down and peered up the incline of the console, as if to see where he was hiding. “I have important news about Anatoly Sakhalin. He went with the Bharentous Repertory Company to Naroshi’s palace, and ran into Naroshi’s sister in nesh, which led him to an audience with Duke Naroshi. But the odd thing is, Naroshi honored Sakhalin as if he was a prince, and he—Sakhalin, that is—has been called to appear before the emperor. As you can imagine, this has thrown the council and the Protocol Office into an uproar, and I want you to be prepared in case some idiot tries to come nosing around on Rhui. It’s unlikely they’ll get through. I’m going to add security at all gateways onto the surface, but forewarned is forearmed. I will give you an immediate report when he returns. If he returns. Of course we don’t have a clue what the emperor intends, if indeed he intends anything at all. Nor do I have any real assurance that Sakhalin will behave in a rational manner. He intends to issue his full report to his uncle and Bakhtiian, but I can prevent that. The Interdiction proceeds normally for now. A more extensive report will arrive in coded bursts over the next two days. Soerensen off.”
The image froze, Charles’s torso and head resting a finger’s breadth above the gray sheen of the console. There was silence in the room. The ke waited, a cloaked backdrop. The thin whine of a fan buried in the machinery hummed away, oblivious to their measured breathing.
“He is not truly there,” said Sonia finally. “How can he appear to you so?”
“It’s a message, sent from far away.”
“Sent from across the ocean? What carries it?”
“I guess you could say that Father Wind carries it.”
“But that is not what you would say.”
“No.”
Sonia rapped the console’s surface gently with her knuckles. “Are there other things hidden in here?”
“Yes.”
The console was backed up against one wall, but Sonia got down on her hands and knees and investigated all its angles and shadows. She found the latch that opened the catch-door, and popped it. Tess did not need to cross over to her to know what she saw inside: the modeller banks themselves, sealed away from air and dust and the corrosive sweat of human hands. For a long time Sonia crouched, chin on hand, and peered inside. She did not try to touch anything. After a while, she rose, carefully closed the door, and walked over to the couch. She sat down.
“What message did he send you? He spoke of Anatoly Sakhalin.”
Tess sighed and sat down next to her. The ke, silent, un-moving, remained standing by the door. “A strange message, in truth. The Chapalii emperor has sent for Anatoly Sakhalin to appear before him.”
“Ah,” said Sonia wisely. “He has learned that a prince of the Sakhalin resides in his country.”
“Uh, well, it’s not quite that… simple.”
Sonia chuckled. “Is it ever? Does Ilya know that your brother sends you messages that are carried on Father Wind? No, of course he does not.”
“I can’t—”
“You needn’t make excuses to me, Tess. If this is some kind of khaja magic—”
“It isn’t magic.”
“If this is some kind
of khaja tool, a way to send messages faster even than our post riders, then it is perhaps no wonder that you keep it to yourselves.”
“You have kept nothing to yourselves,” said Tess miserably, “not from me, at any rate.”
“We don’t need to.”
Tess had to laugh, because even Sonia wore arrogance like another suit of clothes, as all the jaran did. “Can you forgive me, Sonia?”
“For what? I have never forgotten you are khaja. That does not mean I love you any less.”
“For lying to you.”
“Have you lied to me?”
“More or less. I’m not really from Jeds. I am from Erthe, but she doesn’t truly lie across the seas. Or at least, not the ocean as you know it.”
“Are you sure you want to tell me this?”
“Yes. No. Yes. I don’t know. I’m just tired of hiding the truth.”
Sonia looked up, examining the ke. “As the holy one is hidden, in plain sight, but concealed by her robes.”
“Huh. Perhaps.”
“You are with us, but part of you remains unseen.”
“Not all the threads in a rug are visible.”
“Ah. You mean to best me at my own game. If Erthe does not lie across the ocean, then there are only two other places it can lie, if it truly exists: in the high mountains that lie south and east of the plains or else in the heavens, where the gods live.”
“It does not lie in the mountains.”
Sonia crossed her arms over her chest and for a long, uncomfortable moment examined Tess skeptically. “Are you saying that you come from the gods’ land?”
