Empire of the One (Wine of the Gods Book 14)

by Pam Uphoff

Chapter Thirty-three

  Paris, European Region

  14 Qadah 1396 YP

  Xiat watched Idlo drive off, Endi in the passenger seat. Hope he can pry some information out of him.

  She caught Rael's eye and they headed for Endi's room. The search didn't take long. A small selection of clothing. The riding boots were the only thing that didn't look fairly new. A picture frame the only personal item, and it only had a dozen pictures on it. Two kids on horses. The older kid was obviously Endi.

  "Ten years old, do you think?"

  Rael nodded. "That sounds about right, and the girl can't be but six or seven. And riding Herc."

  "Well, he did say Herc was his sister's horse." Xiat flicked the frame to change the picture. Endi on horseback again. So to speak. Standing on the horse's back, arms up and out, manic grin on his face. The horse appeared to running, sans bridle, saddle or any other restraint. She flicked back to the first picture. No tack on the chestnut there, either. She flicked through the pictures. Dogs, a couple—tall, muscular man with a trim beard, slender woman with bright blue eyes in a deep olive complexion, both looking a lot like Endi. Next picture, another couple. A gorgeous blonde woman with a deep tan. A broad muscular man barely taller. He looked a lot like Endi as well, hair darker, skin lighter.

  "None of them looked at all like Uncle Okni." Rael scowled at the pictures.

  A sheep, a ram with curling horns, glared out of the next file.

  "I didn't think sheep could have bad attitudes."

  Then pictures of places, both with and without people. Big barrels, racks of wine bottles. A bar, that on closer examination looked like it was made of a split trunk of a huge tree, the cut surface planed down and polished. A dark, hunched old man, sub Saharan, balding, filling a glass mug from a small wooden keg. A garden, with an old woman weeding. A school yard full of children. Horses grazing on a hillside. Then back to the start, children on horses.

  Xiat shrugged, copied them all, and cloned his minicomp.

  They locked up and headed for offices in the Palace. Xiat started with the books, comparing them to Izzo's list. "Hmmm. The man does a lot of reading. He's been here for two months, and bought thirty-two books. The president's official biography. Politics. Politics. Economics, current affairs. One on each colony. Ha! Finally some fiction. Spies, science fiction, mysteries . . . good grief. Romances."

  "No good grief about it." Rael smirked. "How else did he get the idea of getting his rivals' wives pregnant?"

  Xiat snickered. "He was doing that before he came here. Izzo didn't say anything about him reading romances."

  Rael shrugged. "Maybe he picked it up from movies." She printed copies of all the pictures and frowned at the two couples. "Bet you one is the parents, the other is aunt and uncle."

  "Could be . . . or grandparents. That dark complexion, on the blonde, lighter on the brown haired woman, lighter yet on Endi. What do you want to bet that the blonde woman and the man are the parents of the woman in the other picture? And that those are Endi's parents?"

  "Yeah. I can see that. In any case I'll run them through the facial recognition programs, and also try to find a match for these mountains in the background."

  In the small hours, Endi staggered in, an even less steady Idlo propping him up. Or being propped up. Or both.

  "Any volunteers t'put Idlo t'bed? He's nah my type."

  Rael cocked her head. "Is that an accent sneaking in?"

  Snickers from a cluster of Princesses. One of them swaggered forward. "Oh, look, Lord Stiff Neck is totally blotto."

  Another behind her laughed.

  "C'mon, Mac. Let's take care of the Poor Young Boy. I have some lingerie he'd be just precious in. Red and lacy."

  "Oh, Fool! You are so naughty! Let's do it." The two women swooped in and bracketed Idlo.

  Xiat eyed them in alarm. Mayc and Feol were both in their eighties, and cynical about men. Idlo, for all his snobbishness was still young and tender on the inside. "Don't go overboard!"

  "And for t'One’s sake, take tat bottle of wine away from him. He’s going t'have a bad enough hangover as it is." Without his anchor, Endi was pretty wobbly too. But he took aim for the stairs and headed for his room without assistance.

  ***

  Rael spotted Endi in the kitchen. Half a cup of tea and untouched dry toast in front of him. "Wouldn’t anyone cure your hangover?"

  "This is how I avoid becoming an alcoholic." He reached out blindly and fumbled for the tea.

  Rael shook her head. "Too pathetic." She called up a really nice combo spell she’d learned in Princess school. It would physically break up some of the poisons in his system, shortening the length of his misery, and a mild pain relief spell to reduce its current intensity.

  He eyed it, shrugged.

  Ha! He can see that. Highest rated Clostuone I've ever heard of. She cast the spell, and poured him more tea. "Drink it all. Idlo’s got two new little buddies babying him in bed. But you won’t let me do that, will you?"

  "Nuh. Ugh, how does he have t'energy? Did I get drunk enough to . . . Oh. Shit. I did dope his wine, didn’t I?"

  "Did you? With what? Apparently he was still operational when you dragged him in this morning. I thought those old cynics might humiliate him a bit, but apparently he turned out to be quite the seducer. Now he’s cashing in on the afterglow or something. Mac and Fool are slopping post orgasmic glow all over the place." Rael scowled. "I’ve nearly forgotten how that feels. And it’s all your fault."

  He sat back and blinked reddened eyes at her. "No it’s not. You’ve had plenty of opportunities t'go seduce someone else. It’s your own fault, for setting your sights so high."

  "Oh . . . it's good thing you look so pitiful. Drink more tea. You’re going to pay for that remark, once you're back up to par."

  He drank, and crawled back to his room. Idlo turned up for dinner, and they hauled him off to a corner table for questioning.

  Ahba shook his head. "That’s what you deserve for going out with low companions." He glanced toward a table full of princesses. Mayc and Feol had their heads together with four of their fellow guards. Giggles were heard, and many glances shot their direction. "Or should I say, undeserved reward?"

  Idlo grinned around a yawn. "Definitely the latter. All I found out is that he’s a wine connoisseur. And could drink an elephant under the table. Don’t ever let Endi juice up your wine. I dared him to show me how he seduced all those women, how he got those High Oner wives prego, and he brought out his hip flask and added some to my wine. Said it worked like a charm. It tasted fantastic. Last night. Then I think we hit every bar on the strip. Got thrown out of a couple. I danced. Falling down drunk. I let women haul me out to my car for a quickie. I’m surprised I didn’t get arrested. At least twice. Haven’t had so much fun since . . . ever?" He rubbed his temples. "Thank the One for hangover cures. And here comes the bad influence."

  Endi was looking bright-eyed and perky, hair a bit damp from the shower, smelling of soap and leather. "Me? You’re the man who knew where all the bars were. Are. I don’t think we broke any of them."

  Rael scowled over her shoulder as he loomed behind her chair. "And which of you drunkards drove home, eh?"

  Endi smiled. "That’s the beauty of the Parisian autodrive system. We sensibly got Idlo’s last girlfriend to get us out of the parking lot. Then with a touch of a button, we were delivered to the back gate. Well, with one brief stop at another liquor store. Idlo actually still wanted more wine. The guard at the back gate fetched someone to collect us and park Idlo’s very nice car. We weren’t drunk enough to try."

  "I was, but Endi wouldn’t let me. I think he wasn’t as drunk as me." Idlo shook his head. "I do not believe I did that. And I’d better go see what I missed, today."

  Ahba shrugged. "I stood your post. Tomorrow we get to go to a nice, tame, garden party and pick up gossip about who is supporting who for what office."

  "Parties as duty? That sounds hideous." Endi walked off t
o the serving line.

  Idlo nodded. "It’ll certainly be tamer than partying with him."

  Xiat grinned. "I hope you realize Urfa’s going to want a minute by minute report on the boys' night out."

  "Ha! It started out so ordinary. Dinner at an Italian restaurant. I made the mistake of ordering a good wine, and getting all snobby about it. Urfa’s going to love all the Oenologist talk that ensued. You should have heard him. ‘A late harvest grape. One can almost taste the cool autumn breeze sweeping across the sunny vineyard.’ One, that man can bullshit better than a politician."

  Rael eyed him. And left the table early. Idlo’s room needed a good cleaning. There was a wine bottle in the trash. She eyed the dribble in the bottom, and took it away. Judging by Idlo, Endi’s infamous endurance in bed may very well come out of a bottle. Old fashioned herbs, modern chemicals, or magic? Let’s find out. And maybe there’s something in there to explain his ability to get all those High Oner women pregnant. She dampened a finger and stuck it in her mouth. Nothing. Then a torrent of effects nearly knocked her flat. She boggled a bit, scrambling mentally to contain them, to analyze and destroy them. She sat down abruptly. Fanned herself. Lust in a bottle. The spells themselves were hidden, somehow. Just the effects could be detected and they were doozies. A couple of them felt like healing spells, but the mechanism of the effect curled up into incredibly delicate convolutions she’d never seen before. And an aphrodisiac that had her thinking about waylaying the nearest man and dragging him to the nearest bed. Or flat spot. Or pinning him to a wall. Or . . . How did Idlo drink enough to get blitzed on, without realizing that the effects were magic? Well, he’s young, and probably never trained to detect magic in potions. And drunk, but . . . Holy One. And I thought I had trouble keeping my hands off Endi before!

  She wrote a note and sent it with a tiny vial of the wine to the Princess School. Bet that’ll even boggle Jaaf. She calls potions an unexplored frontier of possibilities.

  Rael wandered back toward the common room and the laughing Princesses. Is there a fertility aid in there? Could this incredible potion overcome the Withione effect in a Princess? Mac and Fool may get One hell of a surprise. Each.

  . . . do I want one?

  ***

  "Oh, I forgot it was so late, did I get you up?" Xiat suppressed a twinge of guilt.

  Poppy yawned on the other end of the connection. "No, I was just getting ready for bed. What a strange day. Xiat? Do you know anything about genetics? How did my baby get a Y insertion? There’s nothing from Uzga, damn his . . . and of course I gave him the W, P and J. But I don’t have any Ys in my scan. So how can it be dominant. And the tech said that there was an R insertion. Neither of us has an R! And don’t say Endi, because he doesn’t have an R or a Y either. Well, that he uses. And anyway, he can’t be the father. He can’t."

  Xiat sighed. "Endi is hiding his background. No telling what his actual name is. And no doubt all the other War Party wives will be getting interesting news too."

  "Well, I hope not as interesting as mine. Giog. . . Oh. Dear. If Endi isn’t . . . If Giog’s baby is Endi’s, Opri’s not going to be happy. Neither is Giog, for that matter. She knows how the game is played! Oh. One. Xiat . . . we all had sex with that man and we all immediately got pregnant. Do you realize what this is going to do to the Party?"

  "Yes. And I really wonder how they’re going to handle it."

  "Handle . . . One. He did this deliberately, didn’t he?" Her voice sounded suddenly small and uncertain.

  "He appears to be exploiting every weak spot in the Party that he can find."

  Poppy heaved a sigh. "And he found all of us wives."

  ***

  "Records of minors, sealed. Tongues of neighbors, wagging. I swiped a saliva sample and dropped it off at the lab." Izzo waved Xiat to a seat in his office. He’d called her to let her know he was back with information and a DNA sample from the putative uncle.

  "So. Tell all."

  Without wariness or formality, the princess was incredible. Izzo blinked and dragged his attention back to work.

  "The neighbors were split on whether Ondi killed his wife and himself, or if Odki did the job to uphold the family honor. Most of the gossips wondered why he didn't kill the twins, too. For the area, the family was well to do. Good Old Uncle Odki ran through the money, sold the house, spent that money, was sued by the association that had custodial care of the twins, for misuse of their trust. Then the association went bankrupt, the patients scattered to other 'homes.' No one has a clue where the twins went. A cop came around once, with a warrant for the boy. Rumor says juvenile prostitution. There is a juvenile criminal record for Okni Clostuone, the boy twin, still sealed as the boy isn't yet eighteen. But he was convicted of something, two years ago. Girl's name is Niek."

  "I don't think Endi can be that young. Most likely the con man saw enough coincidence with what little Endi has said to try for some money."

  Izzo grinned. "Got money. Odki was drunk and bragging about how his nephew was going to keep him rolling in money from now on out."

  "Endi paid him? Now that is interesting. Rael was saying it looked like he took money from the uncle's bank card. Must have been putting money in. Guess we'll see if the DNA matches."

  "I hunted for other family, but the mother was a Halfer from outside, according to gossip, and there was no official marriage record, and only the one brother on the father's side. I've got a query in to the records office, there may be better info on the mother on the twins' birth certificates." Izzo’s comp dinged.

  "This is Etli. I have a quick match for you. Come and see."

  Dr. Etli projected a diagram showing the matches between Odki and Endi. "Note the matching transponds. Nice long stretches, typical of a close relationship. Overall match is eleven point three percent. Low for an uncle, but not astoundingly so. Definitely related, but this fellow got the short end of the family stick. If he's an uncle, he's the father's brother, not mother's, the mitochondria are different. His Y chromosome matches Endi's non-priest one, his X is an ordinary One type. Note that he is also lacking the three genes both your purported siblings are short of. If you can locate any female or female line relatives, I'd like to study the pattern of inheritance of the X with the double power gene." He curled his lip. "Mutants! Breeding!"

  "Certainly, Doctor. Thank you." Izzo frowned. "Earlier you said Endi had very little radiation damage to his ordinary genes?"

  "Not exactly. It would be more accurate to say he has an inordinate amount of the Prophets' genes. To a geneticist, that doesn't mean just the insertions, it also means the ordinary genes. The Prophets . . . have all the same genes in the same places as ordinary humans—from every world we've ever explored. But a whole lot of the alleles . . . those are the different versions of each gene . . . the Prophets had a large number of alleles, of a whole lot of genes, that are rare or absent from other human gene pools. They've gotten diluted in the One World, as they married Multitude. Most Oners now have between five and ten percent of those genes. Those genes are pretty easy to spot, because of the lack of radiation damage. If you remember your history, the Prophets lived a long time, married each others' daughters. Those children had around seventy-five percent of those alleles, and they were very strong magicians. Warriors of the One."

  Izzo nodded. "We know our history. They led the Islamic Union to victory and so forth."

  "Indeed. Well, Endi has ninety-three point four percent of those alleles. Astoundingly high. The Last Prophet died two hundred years ago. Otherwise I'd think Endi was the son of a Prophet." He scowled back at his lab. "What a horrible shame the man is a mutant drop. One of life's tragedies."

  Izzo blinked. "I . . . see. I didn't think the ordinary genes affected magic."

  Snort. "Of course they do, else there wouldn't be so much spread of abilities. It's just that we know that losses on the insertions make such obvious differences, those are all most people usually consider. The One considers them all. That's how th
ey choose which Princesses to train. And why some Priests are rejected." He eyed Izzo with a shade of contempt. "Those so called rape genes? They don't just up aggression and lower culturalization in some combinations. They actually divert so much power they lower overall magical ability."

  Xiat frowned suddenly. "Endi has none of those three genes, are you saying that lack increases his ability?"

  "It would if he didn't have so many irregularities of his power genes." The geneticist's brows pinched together. "If his power genes work . . . he could be very . . . he could be strong. You had better treat him as potentially dangerous."

  "Thank you, doctor." Izzo stepped back out of the lab and looked over at Xiat.

  "Well, One knows what Urfa will make of that."

  "I’d better go find out. Humph, all that looking for a gene lab; we ought to have thought about checking the most degraded environment on the One World. And those 'ordinary' genes . . . I wonder if they have an effect on the Oner fertility bar?" She waved and turned for the stairs.

  Izzo punched the button for the elevator up.

  "Gottcha. Endi Dewolfe." Izzo thought of the sealed juvenile records. "Sort of." He smiled a bit to recall what Glue had said about himself. Another shockingly highly rated son of a Servaone family. And Endi and his sister have pulled themselves out of a deep pit without family assistance. In fact, their family is the pit. I wonder about that criminal record, though. What did Endi do to get to where he is now?

  He stopped for a long moment, thinking of Prophets’ genes that didn’t add up to a Y or an R either. "Okni? Damn it all. I do not believe that man can be so slippery." He turned around and headed back to the lab. Not that they could say anything, other than that the uncle was borderline between which Prophets were numerically dominant, and could have been U as easily as O or I, and to point out that the Father had apparently been an N, like the son.