The Final Key: Part Two of Triad (Saga of the Skolian Empire)

by Catherine Asaro

  Eldrin winced. “I’m afraid I would be a lousy medtech.”

  “Are you a king?” the boy asked.

  Eldrin smiled, relieved to hear him speak. “Just a bard. I compose ballads.”

  The girl clapped her small hands. “Oh, sing!”

  Their mother, who had been staring at Eldrin with undisguised shock, finally recovered. “Honey, hush!”

  “It’s all right.” Eldrin knelt in front of the children. “What songs do you like?”

  “Pretty ones,” the girl said.

  The boy answered shyly. “Adventures.”

  Eldrin chose a ballad he had written about how the suns of Lyshriol hung above the plains at dusk, with floating bubbles silhouetted against them. His mother had taken him on a trip when he had been small, and he remembered that lovely sunrise as their ship took off. He began in his deepest voice, singing in Trillian:

  The sky curved wide

  It curved wide and long

  Curved wide above the suns

  Wide above my heart.

  His voice didn’t have its full resonance, but it was returning. He rose into his baritone range and his voice swelled with the excitement he had felt that day:

  The sky ship flew

  It flew long and high

  Flew clear above the suns

  Clear within my heart.

  He soared into the tenor section and even managed the high notes he had worked for so many years to perfect:

  The sky turned vast

  It turned vast and deep

  Turned with bright stars

  Graceful in my heart.

  As he let the last note fade, his eyes closed, and he felt the song within him.

  Silence.

  Eldrin opened his eyes. Many people had gathered to listen. It felt strange; he never sang in public, only in virtual concerts over the meshes. He was about to stand up when the girl put her pudgy arms around him.

  “Pretty song,” she said, her cheek against his.

  Eldrin hugged her. “Thank you.”

  “That was incredible,” her mother murmured.

  He rose to his feet, relieved they liked his offering. The boy put his arms around Eldrin’s waist, and Eldrin bent his head, his hands resting on the children’s shoulders. He would miss them. When he lifted his head, the mother bowed and spoke in formal tones, using the correct protocol for a Ruby heir, even the arcane phrasing specific to the Pharaoh’s consort. “I thank you for the grace of your time, Your Majesty.”

  Eldrin inclined his head, automatically lapsing into court protocol. “It is our pleasure.”

  The woman held out her hands to her children. “Come, you must let him go now. He has important matters to attend.”

  Eldrin couldn’t think of anything more important than ensuring the future of the Imperialate was well cared for in the person of its children. As one of the IRAS officers took them away, Eldrin murmured, “Gods speed.”

  He said his farewells to Kaywood. Then he went with the IRAS officers to face his future.

  21

  Gaps

  Soz felt strange coming home. A gold and black shuttle ferried her down from the battle cruiser Ascendant, and she walked to the village. A breeze whispered across her uniform, the black leathers of a Jagernaut, but without arm rings to indicate rank. The lavender sky, blue clouds, and silvery plains—nothing had changed. She had lived here all her life. It should feel the same as always. But it wasn’t, nor would it ever be again. The universe had turned inside out. ISC had just barely rebuffed ESComm, and they would have to live with the specter of the war’s possible return.

  Althor should have been here. Never again would he bring his Jag down in that spectacular flare of exhaust. It was all gone in the strike of an unseen enemy. Nor was it only Althor. Her father’s message had arrived on Roca’s Pride: Come see your mother before it is too late.

  Soz reached the top of the hill where her family’s house stood, a small castle actually, though these days it served an aesthetic rather than defensive purpose. She simply walked through the open gateway. No one had posted a gatekeeper. Her family had no real enemies in Dalvador, besides which, an orbital defense system monitored them, even more stringently after what had happened with Vitarex. Nor did anyone have reason to expect the return of the prodigal daughter. She had sent no messages. She had feared if she let them know, her father might change his mind and tell her not to come home after all.

  Inside the house, Soz wandered into the Hearth Room. No one lounged there today, nor did flames lick the glasswood logs in the hearth. Lamps stood in comers, elegant gold poles with stained-glass shades. A staircase swept up to her right and curved out of sight. She stopped and searched with her mind. Her father and some of her siblings were here somewhere, but she couldn’t find her mother.

  The next two rooms she checked were empty. Frustrated, she went to the Solar Chamber. It had many tall windows, which filled the room with sunlight this late in the day. Panels of yellow glasswood brightened the walls, and cabinets displayed vases in swirls of color. The place was full of light and warmth.

  Here she found her mother.

  Roca sat across the room, in an armchair by a window, gazing at the plains. Her hair poured over her body in a glistening fall of golden curls, with tendrils curling around her face. Her gold skin, eyes, and eyelashes glimmered. Relief flooded Soz. Her mother looked fine, as healthy as always.

  Soz paused just inside the entrance. “My greetings, Mother.”

  Roca continued to stare out the window. Then, slowly, she turned her head. “Soshoni?”

  Soz crossed through the gilded light, and Roca watched her with an oddly placid expression. Soz had never realized what a mobile face her mother had, or how much her intelligence showed in her alert manner, until it was gone. Today her face was too beautiful, soullessly perfect, all character lines smoothed away.

  “Mother?” Soz sat on the windowsill by Roca’s chair. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course.” Her voice was soft. “How are you?”

  “Fine.” Soz felt adrift. She had expected more reaction.

  “You look tired,” Roca said. “Are you sleeping enough?”

  “Probably not.” Soz shifted her weight. “Don’t you know where I’ve been?”

  Roca frowned. “Did you forget your homework?”

  A sinking sensation came over Soz. “Mother, I’ve been in combat.”

  Roca’s eyes filled with tears. “Soshoni, you mustn’t go where you might be hurt.”

  “It’s all right,” Soz said, bewildered. “I’m fine.”

  A man’s voice came from the doorway. “Soz? Is that you?”

  Soz jumped off the sill. For an instant she didn’t recognize the man in the arched entrance. Then it hit her; this was Denric , her little brother. Seventeen now, he was taller than when she had left home, his shoulders broadened, his face matured.

  “Deni!” Soz strode to him, and they collided in the middle of the room. She grabbed him in a hug and was startled to discover the top of her head only came to his ear.

  “Soz—” His voice sounded strained. “I can’t breathe.”

  Mortified, she let him go. “Sorry! I forget about all that hardware in my body.” Adapting to her enhanced strength was an ongoing process.

  He grinned, a yellow curl falling in his eyes. “You can be my bodyguard.”

  She glared at him. “I most certainly did not spend all that time learning to be a Jagernaut so I could stand around watching you read books.”

  Laughing, he pushed back his hair. “But they’re so good.”

  “Deni.” Roca spoke behind them. “Did you bring my book?”

  As Soz turned, Denric spoke gently to their mother. “I brought it earlier. Don’t you remember?”

  A shadow crossed Roca’s face. “No.” She turned back to the window. Sunlight made her skin glimmer. It disoriented Soz to see her look so well, because something was obviously very wrong.

  I
t is killing Father, Denric thought, guarding his mind.

  How much has she lost? Soz asked. She and Denric had often done this in their youth, shrouding their minds so they could talk without being “overheard” by siblings or parents. It worked only if they were close together.

  She doesn’t even remember she is an Assembly Councilor.

  Can anything be done?

  He glanced at their mother, who was either ignoring them or had forgotten they were in the room. Father is talking to the biomech doctors. Apparently Arabesque, her node, recorded her neural patterns. It already knew many of them, since it had been part of her brain for so many decades.

  How would it bring them back?

  Use the bioelectrodes in her neurons to reestablish firing patterns.

  Soz didn’t like the sound of it. That could cause more damage.

  That is what they fear. But it could also return part of what she’s lost.

  Does she understand the risks?

  Not really. The doctors say Father must decide.

  This had to be agonizing for him. Does she remember what happened on the Aristo ship?

  Some. Denric shuddered. would wish for her to lose those memories.

  Soz watched her mother. I also.

  Roca sat in the sunlight, oblivious to them.

  The Bard waited in the chamber at the top of the Blue Tower. The circular room fit his mood: smooth and empty, polished bluestone, with a blueglass door and domed ceiling, no furniture, only a few engravings, nothing else. Echoing. Like his heart.

  He stood at the window and gazed at the village and silvery green plains he had known all his life. He didn’t see today’s landscape; instead, he remembered lying with Roca far out in that waving sea of reeds, shimmerflies and bubbles floating above, just the two of them and no one else. Several of their children had been conceived under that vast sky. He remembered Roca laughing, Roca glowering, Roca orating in the Assembly. Roca touching him. He wanted her back. The doctors had healed her wounds, but the woman in the Solar Room was a lovely shell, an empty place where his wife belonged.

  He had told the doctors to go ahead.

  Arabesque claimed it could kick-start her brain. It might bring her back, but a good chance existed it would fry her neurons and take away what little she had left, leaving her incapable of even minimal care for herself. He clenched his fists and pressed them against the window that had been part of Roca’s wedding present to him; glass panes in all his houses. He had to try. She had never given up on him during his long recovery, even when he pushed her away. But if he made a mistake, if he condemned her to a living death, nothing he could do would heal it. He would care for her the rest of their lives and die each time he saw what he had done to his wife.

  A knock came at the door. Eldrinson turned, afraid to answer lest someone had come with news. I’m sorry, the procedure failed. Perhaps it was too soon to tell. She needed time to adapt, as he had needed for his legs and sight.

  He went to the door and found his son outside. Shannon had always been the smallest of his boys, the youngest except for strapping Kelric. Eldrinson was used to thinking of him as a child, but a man faced him, nearly as tall as Eldrinson, almost two octets old, an Archer with his own life far off in the Blue Dales.

  “My greetings, Father,” Shannon said.

  “My greetings.” Their formality troubled Eldrinson. It had been this way since he returned home. Once he and Shannon had been close. The boy had often run with him in the plains. But it had been years since then, two years since they had even spent time together. First he had let his convalescence separate him from his family; then he and Roca had gone offworld. He longed to take back that time. Nothing would fix his mistakes with Althor, but he had a chance with Shannon.

  “I am glad to see you.” Eldrinson stepped away from the door. “Come in.”

  Shannon entered. “I can’t stop worrying about her.”

  Eldrinson knew he meant Roca. “I also.”

  A mental knock came at Eldrinson’s barriers. He lowered his defenses and Shannon’s thought came to him: i keep acting her as she was after we pulled her from the trader ship into the archer camp.

  Show me.

  Shannon relaxed his barriers and let him see …

  Roca slowly took form out of the blue fog, coalescing out of the mist, a gold woman with haunted eyes. A lovely young female Archer held a blanket around Roca’s shoulders, and Shannon stayed at his mother’s side, kneeling in drifts of glitter. Nothing took away the terror in Roca’s eyes, that blankness where strength and a keen intellect had existed. She recognized Shannon at first, but then her awareness seemed to die.

  “Mother?” Shannon asked. “Don’t you know me?”

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  “Your son.” He used the edge of the blanket to clean tears off her face. “It’s all right. We will take care of you.”

  Her voice shook. “No more hurting.”

  “No more,” he swore. “Never again. I promise.”

  The scene faded into blue haze. Once again Eldrinson was standing with Shannon in the tower. Rage shuddered through him. The Traders had done this to his wife. He would take them apart, one by one, if only he could. He wouldn’t forget.

  nor will i. Shannon thought. Another memory came, vivid and clear: the Bard, broken and blind in the tent of Vitarex.

  Eldrinson took a deep breath. Vengeance had cost them their chance to question Vitarex. Remember it as a reason to protect what we love. Not for revenge. He spoke as much to himself as his son.

  mother knows how escomm broke the defense codes here.

  She does? Although ISC had figured out how ESComm sabotaged the Jagernauts, they still didn’t know how the Traders had infiltrated the ISC defenses on Lyshriol.

  it was in her mind when we pulled her off the trader ship.

  Eldrinson didn’t see how Roca could know. Have you told ISC?

  no. i thought you should choose whether or not to speak to outsiders.

  It was the way of the Blue Dale Archers, to put the tribe first. However, they had to inform ISC. I will talk with them.

  Shannon nodded, his silver eyes pale from lack of sleep. Neither of them would acknowledge that they might never speak with her again if the procedure failed. Instead they talked about Shannon’s life with the Archers. A name came up often. Varielle. She was the young woman in Shannon’s memory. Charmed by his son’s shy interest, Eldrinson wanted to ask about her. He held back, though, knowing the boy would tell him in his own time.

  A tap came at the entrance. Taza Rajindia, the biomech adept who had treated both Althor and Soz, stood in the archway.

  Eldrinson tensed. “You are finished?”

  Rajindia nodded with a neutral expression. “We thought you might like to be there when we wake her.”

  Roca opened her eyes.

  A ceiling curved above her. Pale colors. Pretty patterns. A face appeared, a woman with dark eyes. Her mouth moved and sounds came out. She went away. A man appeared. He made sounds. He seemed upset. Then he went away.

  Councilor Roca?

  Where did that come from?

  From your node. Arabesque.

  Where? …

  In your brain.

  Oh.

  Don’t you remember?

  No.

  The man reappeared. “Roca?”

  She would have answered, except she had nothing to say. He made more upset sounds and went away again.

  Councillor, Arabesque thought. You should have regained your memories.

  Go away. Roca closed her eyes and faded into a forever blue trance.

  Soz pressed her hand against the closed door. The room beyond had been a nursery years ago, then a family room after Kelric had his own bedroom. Now it was an infirmary for their mother. The door moved and Soz jumped back. A medtech came out, a short man with light brown hair. Soz didn’t know how she looked, but as soon as he saw her, sympathy softened his face.

  “How i
s she?” Soz asked.

  “It’s too soon to know.”

  It didn’t take genius to interpret his answer. Soz felt as if her stomach dropped. “I have to talk to the biomech adept.”

  “Rajindia is working with your mother.” He went to a wall niche with a bluestone fountain and filled a cup with blue water.

  “Look at me,” Soz said.

  He quit avoiding her gaze. “I can’t let you in.”

  She struggled for calm. “Can you give Rajindia a message?”

  “All right.” He gulped his water.

  “She needs to have the node use extra memory in my mother’s mind. Like mine does. I don’t know if my mother has as much, but she’s Rhon.” Soz wanted to stride into the room, grab Rajindia, and tell the adept herself.

  “I will tell her.” He went to the door, then paused with his hand on the antique doorknob. “Quaternary Valdoria, I’m sorry I don’t have better news.”

  She spoke awkwardly. “I’m no Quaternary. I haven’t graduated.”

  He nodded. Then he went inside and closed the door.

  The Bard sat by Roca’s bed, grieving. She responded to no one, did nothing more than open her eyes. The doctors knew. The worst had happened. He would have picked that up from them even if he hadn’t possessed a shred of empathic ability.

  Rajindia and a medtech were conferring in low voices. Eldrinson watched listlessly. Then he turned to Roca and hinged his hand around hers, his four big fingers holding her slender five. So soft. So precious. So empty.

  Rajindia joined him. “Your Majesty?”

  Eldrinson regarded her dully. “Yes?”

  “We would like to try one more procedure.”

  He wanted to shout at her to leave his wife alone, get away, spare her any more indignities. But he was the one who had asked them to try. How did you cure a deadened mind? He had no answer. So he said, “What procedure?”

  “We may be able to expand the memory used by her node.”