by Adam Burch
I am fourteen, and soon after my birthday, I learn that far more people are in on the show. Phaestion calls us to the throne room and presents us with beautiful blonde Nightsider concubines. One girl for each of us, even Edgaard, and a pretty, young boy for Hanschen. They gracefully walk toward us one by one as their names are mentioned.
My stomach turns at the suggestion that I’m supposed to become enamored with one of these girls simply because I’m told to. I feel embarrassed and ashamed when my concubine comes down the steps and touches my arm. The stirring I feel inside, the desire to grab her and press my mouth to hers, is irresistible and disgusting all at once. I’m almost a man now, and I’m supposed to know so much more about what is happening, but I feel so lost in my own body.
Then all of a sudden I think of Nadia when the girl touches me. I shove her gently and say, “No thank you.”
Phaestion is perplexed when I demand to speak to him alone, but before he sends the others away, he plays another game.
“Sigurd.” He motions the giant to step toward the throne. Phaestion reaches up, grasps the back of Sigurd’s neck, and pulls him forehead to forehead in the gesture of brothers. “You are the only one my equal, the only one I trust to carry out the vision I have. We will share these spoils tonight, you and I, together.”
Sigurd grins; the praise he hears undoubtedly echoes what he feels he deserves. I see Perdiccus scowl with jealousy and Hanschen look away. Hanschen knows it’s a game, playing favorites and having us compete for Phaestion’s affections, but it still cuts him. Phaestion wants us all to be friends with one another, but he wants us to love him more. He bestows praise and affection on one then removes it suddenly, tossing his favoritism to another so easily these days I can’t keep track of who is considered the best of us. My love for him sours to bitterness when I reconsider all the moments on Bone and then in the infirmary as merely part of his grand act.
I feel nauseated when one of the concubines escorts my brother, now nine years old, from the room along with the others. Finally, however, it’s just Phaestion and me again, at last, after so long. But my heart has become stone.
“Why did you do that?” I ask. “Why are you forcing us to be around these . . . concubines?”
“It’s part of the programming, Edmon.”
“Programming?” I demand.
“Camglobes record our actions and broadcast them over the nets,” he explains as if to a child. “All of Meridian!” He gestures out the large bay windows to the megalopolis. “Of course it’s edited, but we’re very popular.”
“It’s our private lives!” I feel my anger growing.
“It generates a lot of revenue from merchants and vendors who want to sponsor the feed. Entertainment is an important source of income for House Julii. It helps the people get to know us, Edmon. You know better than anyone that leaders need the love of their people in order to govern. The programming creates personas that people bond to. When we’re of age, they’ll do whatever we want because we entertain them.”
I can’t argue with his logic, even though I feel extremely violated.
“Why haven’t I heard from my mother?” I ask suddenly.
It has been months since I’ve thought of home. My letters have become fewer and less frequent. I guess these concubines and Phaestion’s mention of governing have suddenly made me think of Bone and what I’ve been missing.
“You know your mother’s attempted insurrection prevents her from communicating with you. Parental interference isn’t allowed—”
“But everything is fine, right?” I regret my tone, but he shouldn’t expect me to be his best friend if I only get to see him once every few months.
He puts his hand on my shoulder and says warmly, “Your letters diffused mass violence. You did a great service for your people and for the Pantheon.”
I’m still uneasy. “Does my father know about all this? That you record us?”
“Of course!” Phaestion exclaims. “He’s proud of you, Edmon.”
He’s lying.
“You just sent Edgaard off with a girl four years older than him. He’s too young.”
“He’s young,” Phaestion says, nodding. “But he’s one of us. If he endures the same pains, he certainly should enjoy the same pleasures.”
This feels wrong. Not a year ago he was saying that I wasn’t ready to see such things on an aquagraphic. Now he parades sexuality in front of my nine-year-old brother without a care? Things are changing so fast. I am changing so fast, I feel like I’m losing myself.
“Edmon, my brother, you worry so much.” He shakes his head and smiles.
And you, Phaestion, my brother, are playing with us, like an orca plays with his food.
The coldness of my thoughts sting, and anger begins to burn inside me.
It is sleeping hours after the yearly Combat and Pavaka in Meridian. A champion from House Temujin has won in the arena. The Census, in their faceless masks and black robes, have claimed the unfit babes from the mothers of the city. They’ve marched them to the cauldrons for extermination in the Pavaka. For the first time, The Companions are old enough to attend the subsequent fertility ritual in celebration of a new year. After the killing of the Combat and the culling of the Pavaka, the orgiastic rites represent a rebirth. All men and women of reproductive age mate in a drunken haze to release the pain of the past days and begin a new generation. It is supposed to be a joyous occasion. I have refused, instead choosing to return to my quarters and sleep. I don’t feel very joyous.
I turn over and curl into a ball, trying to relax, but my body is tense. I’m angry at everything—this strange surgery that was forced upon me, the behavior of these Nightsider boys, the fact I am growing and becoming more and more like them every day. It’s been two years. I miss my mother and Nadia and Gorham. I miss the sunlight . . .
To the fathoms with you, Phaestion! I thought you were my friend. All you do is keep secrets. You think you’re special. Well, you’re not the only one. Not anymore! I rip the covers off me and throw them to the floor. A silver camglobe whisks through the air to avoid the sheets.
Damn thing! I leap off my bed and snag it midair. I hurl it against the wall, smashing it to pieces. I’m tired of being a good little cadet.
I head into the hall, crouched low like a spy. Everyone should be in the throne room, but House Julii’s camglobes hover everywhere. I pad barefoot down the hallway toward the pneumovator. “Up,” I whisper. The ride is a matter of seconds but feels like an eternity with the fear that I’m being watched. When the doors open, I find myself in the maze of white halls where Phaestion brought me that day a year ago. I hear a noise, and I quickly turn a corner so as not to be discovered.
“This way.” The voice is Hanschen’s. I peer around the edge. “I think there’s an empty room over here,” he says.
He is coming from the throne room where the festivities of the fertility ritual are taking place. Shirtless, his pale skin shows the lithe musculature of a boy maturing into a teenager. I can’t see who is holding his hand, though, so I hold my breath, only releasing it when they’ve passed.
I haven’t gotten what I came for yet, but I can’t help myself. I have to take a look. I pad to the double doors that open to Phaestion’s personal throne room. I gently push back one panel and peer in. The chamber is full of naked bodies, undulating against one another. They moan and yell, but I don’t think they’re in pain, or at least it’s an unfamiliar kind of pain. Some are on tables, others pressed against walls. Some lie nude on the floor. I see Perdiccus and Sigurd among the throng. I even spy our teachers Michio and Croack and Commandant Vetruk, all naked and entangled with one another and the concubines of House Julii. A pair of bouncing breasts flashes across my vision. Hips grind against one another. Drums beat. This is not the gentle Eventide feasts of Bone, though. This is something different, something wild.
Phaestion sits lazily on the throne, taking in the scene with cool gray eyes, even as several naked girls faw
n over him. Talousla Karr hovers behind him, his freakish blue cat eyes observing with alien detachment. Only Alberich stands fully clothed and apart. He scowls and shifts nervously through the whole endeavor. I silently close the door and take a few steps back.
At least they’re occupied, I think as I take off down the hall at a sprint. I turn one corner and then another, navigating my way through the maze of white halls. Finally, I arrive at the nondescript door that I remember from a year and a half ago.
In the unadorned room stands the weapons rack and the iron suit—the Arms of Agony. I step forward, somehow knowing what I am about to do will, in my friend’s mind, transgress beyond anything I’ve just witnessed. I enter the suit.
Instantly, I’m enveloped in a new world, a wasteland of gray sand and tumultuous clouds. Lightning sparks from the swirling nimbus above, seeming almost alive. There is some sort of structure on the distant horizon. I cannot make it out from here, but it looks like a white rose beneath the eye of the maelstrom. Lightning discharges from the storm, striking the distant rose.
This world is alien, yet it feels somehow strangely familiar . . .
“You’re not Phaestion.”
I whip around to identify the speaker. I find myself face-to-face with a boy. He has thick dark hair and green eyes. His skin is tanner than I’ve seen it lately. He stares at me kindly. I haven’t seen that expression in quite some time, either. “And you’re not Edmon,” I reply acidly.
The boy attempts to circle me. I match his movements. It is like staring into a perverse mirror.
“Are you here to fight me?” pseudo Edmon asks. Suddenly, a sword is in his hand. It is beautiful, silver, with a hollow pommel and a leviathan bisecting the empty space.
“No,” I reply.
“Are you here for other things?” the boy asks.
“What other things?” I remember the weapons rack. Through my peripheral vision, I spy it a few meters away in the wasteland. I sidle to it, and my hand grips a sword.
“Sometimes we war. Sometimes we touch,” the boy says and smiles. “Like Chilleus and Cuillan.”
I’m betraying Phaestion by being here, but is it any worse than the way he’s betrayed me? I haven’t seen him for months. Now, I come to find that all this time he’s been training, not alone, but with me—a corruption of me. If this thing’s words are to be believed, Phaestion has taken liberties with this pale shadow that he knows I would never allow.
“I’m here to fight,” I say, “but not you.”
The boy freezes. His head cocks to the side. “Recalculating parameters,” it says. “Recognize subject, Leontes, Edmon. Recalibration completed. Please specify opponent.”
“Phaestion of the Julii,” I say.
The boy’s face melds into the perfectly symmetrical features of the red-haired prince. He stands a few centimeters taller than me, his shoulders broadened by the beginning of his maturation. His single sword has become two—rapier and dagger. The resemblance is uncanny. “Note the representation of subject Julii, Phaestion is not complete.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Subject’s athletic creativity is beyond the scope of artificial pattern recognition,” the new boy says.
“Understood.”
No sooner do I say the word than the simulacrum leaps toward me with blinding speed. I barely have time to move from the attack. Phaestion stutter steps, and I misjudge his feint. His dagger plunges into my thigh. I feel every inch of the blade as it slides through my flesh, even though I know it is only virtual. Our swords clash. I’ve improved much in the months with Alberich’s tutelage and alongside the other Companions. This, however, is inhuman.
My arm is cut. I transfer my sword to my other hand to deflect his next strike. I shoulder into the boy to tackle him, only to find him easily sidestepping my blow. My face plows into the gray ash of the desert. The boy laughs. “Oh, Edmon, so silly to even think . . .”
I stand, readying myself again. The ersatz Phaestion smirks, excited for the challenge. Well, they got that part of the simulation correct, I think.
The way he moves, so quick, is always keeping me off-kilter. I can’t time him. My belly is sliced. Then my back. It’s not just that he’s too fast. He’s too unpredictable.
I remember something that Gorham told me once. The balance of music is defined not by the sound, but the negative space created in the absence of it. The friction between the beat and the silence is what beckons the listener. Phaestion’s fighting is beyond even the improvisational songs of the Eventide feast. He’s not using known patterns or even layers of patterns in his creations. It’s pure chaotic noise, but there is a musicality through the negative space. If I can time that, then . . .
There! My sword strikes toward the earth where he should not step. It impales his foot and pins him in place. I grin with satisfaction.
“Not bad, Leontes,” he says. He lashes out with an elbow, smacking me in the face. I’m stunned. He wraps his white arms around me in an embrace. “But not good enough.”
Suddenly, my body vibrates as Phaestion’s mouth opens. He releases a scream. My nose and ears bleed. My brain feels like it will liquefy. Lightning swirls around us. The Arms of Agony, I realize.
“What level is this?” I cry above the noise.
“Level one,” the voice says almost directly into my mind.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I shout. “Give me more!”
“Commencing level two.”
“More!” I scream.
“Initiating level three.”
My body vibrates with so much energy that I feel it is disintegrating atom by atom. Then suddenly all is black. I awake panting on the floor of the practice room in a cold sweat. Phaestion, the real Phaestion, stands over me.
“Did you see that?” I gasp with giddiness. “The Arms of Agony, Phaestion. Level three.”
I look up into his face. He is not smiling. All I see is the accusation of betrayal behind his gray gaze. “You think you’ve beaten me?” he asks. I’ve seen haughtiness in him before, competitiveness, yes, airs of superiority, sure, but never has he seemed truly angry. Is it because he’s actually threatened by the fact that I’ve achieved something he hasn’t? Or is it that I went behind his back to do it and used our friendship for my own gain?
Now he’s not the only one who can use and manipulate friends, I think.
I slowly stand. I feel almost the same as when I awoke from Talousla Karr’s twisted surgery—reborn. “I don’t think I’ve beaten you. I know.” It’s the cruelest thing I can think to say to him in this moment, challenging his precious pride. I don’t know why I hit him so decisively where I know he is vulnerable. Is it because I’m hurt by the fact that I’m no longer special to him, above the other Companions? Is it because I know he has secrets and plans that he doesn’t share with me? Maybe it’s also partly because I just want to see if I can.
Rage boils inside him; I see it in his eyes, and it is frightening. For the first time since our friendship, I’m scared that challenging him will lead to serious hurt.
Then it is gone instantly, and he walks away, saying over his shoulder, “It’s just a simulation. I’ll have a real test for you soon, son of Leontes.”
CHAPTER 9
BANDA
I await a punishment that doesn’t come. Time passes more swiftly than I realize, and my dread slowly recedes as I carry on at the Julii Academy. Respite from cares comes with music lessons at the end of the day. It’s the only time the camglobes are not hovering and watching everything, the only time I feel alone and truly unconfined. Even with the constant criticism . . .
“Ho-ho! Ho-ho! Ho-hey!” I sing.
“From the dan t’ian, Edmon!” The Maestro shouts.
“Schmie-de mein ham-mer ein hartes Schwert!”
“Attack the notes!”
“Ho-ho! Ha-hei! Ho-hey!”
“Sforzando! Remember, you are Siegfried reforging your father’s sword!”
“Einst farb-te Blut de
in fal-bes Blau!”
“Enough! Enough!” The Maestro taps the edge of the music stand with his baton.
Damn it. My ancient German was off.
The tongues of the ancestors aren’t exactly intuitive. (Except maybe ancient Italian. Italian rolls off the tongue as if it were the only language ever meant to be spoken.) The Maestro didn’t like my vowel tones. He didn’t like the way I held the dotted quarter on the last phrase. I threw the timing off.
By the twisted star!
I’ve never had a tougher teacher, but every moment is worth it. I could do this forever. So I’m ready for the complaints leveled against me.
“Why did I stop you?” Maestro Bertinelli peers over his spectacles.
At fifteen, I’m already several inches taller than him. My gangly body is awkward, out of proportion. Just when I was getting coordinated enough to be able to stand against the others in Combat training, it feels like I have to relearn everything. My voice breaks, and I’m forced from my comfortable alto vocal range into tenor and baritone. My joints still ache, but the pain is starting to lessen. I don’t know if it will ever go away completely.
The Maestro doesn’t comment on these changes. He only proceeds to give me new music with relentless instruction. I learn to hit notes in both tenor and bass range. The Maestro makes me work harder. He’s frustrated I spend time in classes other than music. If he had his way, I’d study only opera, but Commandant Vetruk makes no exceptions.
“You’re lucky to be here at all,” he says.
I’m ruining his perfectly homogenous student body.
“Phaestion’s an exception,” I point out.
Vetruk’s face pinches. “Do not question me, cadet.”
That’s the end of that.
So I practice, practice, practice, singing whenever I can.
“You can only be truly great at something if you dedicate your life solely to that thing!” exclaims The Maestro over my singing.
I’d do music and nothing else if it were my choice, though sometimes I wonder if a life dedicated to only one thing is really that wonderful of a life.
