In the Courts of the Crimson Kings

by Stirling, S. M.

  People thronged the terraces; they weren’t crowded, but as close to it as it came on Mars, many of them leaning on the balustrades whose uprights were carved in the likeness of predatory dhwar with their wings outstretched, making an endless series of arches. It was quiet, much quieter than it would have been with a Terran crowd of the same size, despite a fair number of children being held up so they could see; just a murmur running like the wind through leaves. And it was warm, which was also something he hadn’t often experienced on this icebox of a planet.

  Then his mouth quirked as he realized that it was only about sixty degrees Fahrenheit—his standards had changed. He was still sweating a little in his longjohns and desert wear and robe. It was moist, as well; an artificial waterfall ran down the opposite side of the bowl, flanked by broad staircases and sprouting upward in a fountain at each level. His sinuses and nose drank in the vapor gratefully and greedily, and he could feel the constant slight ache there start to abate. He’d gotten so used to it that it was the fading that attracted his attention.

  “Well, that’s extravagance,” Jeremy muttered in his own language.

  He fell silent when one of the guards prodded him with the narrow muzzle of her dart pistol.

  Well, it is, he thought resentfully. It’s like having a bunch of diamond-and-emerald mechanical birds in the trees in your garden, even if it’s recycled. It’s like the sort of thing the French court did at Versailles before the Revolution. Look at the way the kids are being shown the rare sight of actual running water in the open air . . . though I suppose the dome counts as a kind of cover.

  The center of the bowl-like courtyard dropped sheer for twenty feet, down to an octagonal platform of white marble, cut into squares by strips of jet. It was surrounded by a water moat . . .

  Jesus, that’s an atanj board! But it’s huge! And where are the . . . uh-oh.

  The Game of Life was occasionally played with living pieces, particularly here in Dvor Il-Adazar, where archaic habits lingered on; he didn’t think that any Terran had ever seen it done, certainly nobody from Kennedy Base. Each of the eight sides of the board had an arched stairway leading up to the surface level, gossamer-light structures like spun silver, built so that they could be retracted. They were the “Despot’s Road,” the way for the master player to access the surface below. Two of them were extended now, one on the eastern side and one on the western.

  I don’t know what’s going on here, but I certainly don’t like it.

  On the side of the wall opposite the stairs-and-waterfall arrangement was a tall gate, wrought in curling black iron and polished bronze in the shape of lilylike flowers. That showed how old this place was; it had been built during the Lilly Period. A prickle of awe touched his spine. Atanj matches had taken their bloody course here when his ancestors were cracking hand-axes out of flint and each other’s heads with the result. However many times everything had been renewed, it was a place that had seen crowds like this during the Great Tranquility.

  The gates swung open. A flock of ruby-colored birds with blue crests and golden rings on their claws flew through, their long tails following them like foaming curls of plumed silk and their six-foot wings stroking the air in an intricate dance. They cried out, their high musical voices chiming in eerie silvery unison with an effect like echoes from wind chimes:

  “Genomic Prince Heltaw sa-Veynau, Proprietor of Aywandis! Through inheritance and ability in the possession of one eighth of the Tollamune genome as a cross on the purest Imperial Administrator breeding, and holder of vast economic resources! Let persons of inferior genetic standing and lesser possessions show due deference!”

  There was a long rustle as the crowd adopted social-deference postures; he could hear a child’s voice in the sudden hush, asking as his mother tried to shush him:

  “Who is that person, mother, and why does he have so many birds talking about him?”

  A hundred Coercives came through on unicycles, leaning into the curves as they wove around the perimeter of the atanj court. Their blue-trimmed black armor glistened, but it was entirely functional as well. Behind them followed what looked like an oblong brass tray ten feet by five, with a dozen feet on either side, shaped much like a dog’s but nearly as large as a tiger’s, on the ends of short digitigrade legs that grew from the bottom of the machine. They padded forward with an evenness that left the metal surface moving as smoothly as if it were floating in a bath of oil. On it stood Prince Heltaw, dressed for travel—or war—in a short-sleeved robe that came to his calves, practical dark jacket, trousers, and boots, with only a few platinum ornaments on his harness.

  The haughty face was calm, and his long, raven hair was caught back in a fighting bun at the nape of his neck. The tray came to a halt beside Jeremy, and Heltaw flicked out his left hand. A long, thin line looped through the air toward the earthman, swift as the crack of a bullwhip. Jeremy started to dodge, but the pistol prodded him again, and it wasn’t the pain-snake after all. Instead, something like the manacles settled around his neck and tightened; it had prickles on the inside, and his skin itched the way it would after pressing too hard with a razor when you shaved—just a hint of rawness and pain. And there was a weird undertone to it, growing as he noticed it, as if he were suddenly not seeing, but feeling himself doubled, as if his body had been copied and another of him was a few feet away.

  “Step onto the traveling platform, man of the Wet World,” Heltaw said.

  Jeremy did; there was no give or rocking at all, and it felt like stepping onto a solid ingot; the thing around his neck seemed to contract in perfect unison with his movements, remaining in a taut thumb-thick line between his neck and the Martian’s wrist before vanishing up his sleeve.

  He noted as he stepped up that the front part of the platform had two eyes tucked underneath it, on stalks that let them see backward as well as to the front, and a foot-long mouth. Luckily, it seemed to be toothless; fangs would have made him more nervous.

  “I shall inform your ignorance: This organism linking us is the Dead Man’s Worm, connected to my nervous system and now to yours. Should I die, it will instantly crush your throat, at the same time injecting a slow-acting but absolutely lethal neurotoxin for which there is no remedy. This will result in a lethal excruciation, the discomfort of which will make all my previous efforts to that end seem—metaphorical mode—to have been pleasurable caresses. Should I feel pain, you will share it, redoubled.”

  Heltaw tapped his left heel down on his own right toe. Jeremy suppressed a yelp; there had been a sharp stab right in his big toe, exactly as if someone had stamped on it . . . hard.

  “It is now in your interest to hope most earnestly for my physical well-being. Do you comprehend your position?”

  “Yes. I’m standing next to a maniac,” Jeremy said, trying for the dry tone he thought Teyud would use.

  Instead it came out as a croak from a dry throat, but it was the best he could do. Heltaw gave him a glare, but didn’t do anything.

  Right. He can’t excruciate me directly either. This must be a two-way link. He can only hurt me by hurting himself.

  Heltaw signaled to the platform with a slight whistle; it turned in place and headed down to the atanj board, stepping confidently down the slender bridge. The prince took the position with his back to the west; that was the Usurper end, and a frank statement of self-confidence. At once he stepped down from the traveling device, and Jeremy hopped off as well. The platform turned and trotted back up, laying itself down and training its eyestalks on its master, a pink tongue hanging slightly over its broad lips.

  They waited. Jeremy found himself trying not to swallow, because doing so pressed his Adam’s apple more against the thing around his neck.

  The acoustics here were fantastic. He could hear the voices of people in the crowd almost as if they were beside him, the shifting rustle of a robe, a chuckle, a clink as a globe of essence was set in the matching depression in the top of a balustrade, and he suspected that the
reverse was true as well.

  At least nobody’s selling hot dogs and beer, he thought sourly. “Watch the soppy Terran get it where the domestic egg-layer got it in the esophagus!”

  Then the gates opened again. His heart thundered at the sight of the tall, striding elegance he saw before him, and a pair of yellow eyes met his. Then she nodded very slightly and put her foot on the crystal bridge.

  Teyud took in the situation as she walked down the staircase, keeping her hands carefully away from the hilt of her sword and the butt of her pistol.

  A pity, she thought. Heltaw is not altogether lost in hubristic self-regard and consequent arrogant dismissal of possibly negative randomness. But then, if he were, my father would have killed him before this date. Either that, or had no need to kill him.

  The Dead Man’s Worm had been developed precisely for this sort of contest . . . what had Jeremy called it? Yes: a Mexican standoff. Even if she were quick enough to slash it before Heltaw could command it to administer its agonizing death, it would do so in the spasm before it died itself, which would leave her with no alternative but to kill Jeremy to spare him excruciation. Her eyes probed his anxiously, but despite gauntness he seemed to be fully functional. He was so gentle and empathetic that you tended to underestimate his core of toughness.

  Odd that he should care for me so deeply, she thought. From his perspective, it must be—metaphorical mode—similar to mating with a Paiteng.

  And through the Invisible Crown, his emotions blazed even more brightly than the chill of Heltaw’s malice and throttled rage, a hundred times more than the vast but detached and diffuse interest of the crowd, few of whom really cared who prevailed here. The intensity of the Terran’s focus on her made her feel a little abashed; he had forgotten all apprehension for his own safety or the prospect of unbearable pain, and was concerned only for her.

  I am committed to this pair-bonding, even though the gaps between us are very large and our time of acquaintance so very short, but can I equal his intensity? she thought. On balance, do I even wish to do so?

  A moment’s thought as she glanced within herself; the Crown seemed to make that easier as well, as if she could examine her own emotions from a spectator’s perspective.

  Fascinating. I do wish to match them. All the more imperative to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion for me, and a deeply distressing one for my remote cousin from Aywandis.

  The staircase retracted smoothly behind her. She clasped her hands and inclined her head fractionally, the greeting of equals. It would not do to anger Heltaw, and he seemed abnormally sensitive to matters of status. Of course, this was Dvor Il-Adazar, where such concerns were savored like fine essences, and considered as essential to life as water.

  And if I triumph in this game, I must endure this metaphorically flatulence-ridden atmosphere for—possibly—centuries. Like gravity, irony is a force which suffuses the universe with its power.

  “In accordance with your communication, I have come to discuss our antagonistic interests,” she said.

  “You were accompanied by a unit of Thoughtful Grace enrolled in the Sword of the Dynasty?”

  She adopted a posture of slight regret. “It was necessary to direct them otherwise, before their conviction that I was making a serious blunder could overcome their reluctance to compel me. They were ready to make Apology afterward.”

  “Thoughtful Grace are given to immoderate passions and to swiftly decisive action in their pursuit,” the Prince said. “In my opinion, the Dynasty allows them entirely too much autonomy in the interpretation of their instructions. Your order was to a high degree of probability a necessary move if we are to conduct our negotiations unhindered.”

  She ignored his own household Coercives who ringed the rim of the floor around the great sunken atanj board, though they were close enough for very good shooting to kill her and spare him. There was something else the Prince was contemplating . . . but she found that the Crown required much more effort to tap the thoughts of someone with Tollamune genes. That was logical; otherwise usurpation would have been impossible in ancient times, which from the chronicles was obviously not the case.

  He must control me, or at least my heredity. If I am dead, he becomes once again the nearest heir, although my father may not let that influence him; if I am under his control, the likelihood of the Emperor acceding to his desires is still greater. Controlling my genome combined with my death is an intermediate position, not as satisfactory but better than merely killing me.

  “I presume that you will now release the Terran?” she said aloud. “Since I have complied with your wishes.”

  Heltaw raised one eyebrow. “Please, let us not delay. To survive, I must ascend the Ruby Throne.”

  Teyud kept her hands in her sleeves, and her body loose and ready to respond instantly. The Imperial Administrator lineages could be physically formidable, and this specimen had been crossed with the Tollamune four generations back; that made him even more dangerous. And she would have to be strictly on the defensive.

  “Kill him!” Jeremy cut in, and suddenly lunged backward, dragging his captor off balance.

  Heltaw’s eyes darted sideways in surprise. Teyud was surprised as well—the move was nonsensical—but reacted instantly nonetheless. The Prince’s free hand flashed up and caught her by the wrist as she lunged, but her strength was greater; her dagger pricked him under the angle of the jaw. Jeremy gave a little gasp and clapped his hands to his throat, blood welled between them.

  “You cannot kill me without killing your paramour,” Heltaw pointed out, breathless and still off balance. “I confront your Despot.”

  “It is my estimation that you will kill him in any case,” Teyud said.

  Something, something . . . he feels insufficient fear and far too much hope . . .

  “Therefore release the Dead Man’s Worm without harm to him. If you do so, I pledge the Tollamune Oath that you and your lineage will not be excruciated or executed or required to make apology.”

  “Very well,” Heltaw said, face like something cast from glassine as he concentrated.

  The noose slumped from around Jeremy’s neck; he tore the slackening creature free and threw it into the moat around the atanj board. Something thrashed in the water as it attacked and ate.

  Teyud opened her mouth to speak. Instead she half shrieked, half grunted at the stabbing pain at the base of her head, like a hot needle rammed home into her spine over and over again. Volition fell away; her body staggered, then rose erect again, but as if it were under the control of someone else . . . which was more or less the case.

  Heltaw straightened and adjusted his harness and weapons. When he spoke it was in a clear carrying tone.

  “I have treacherously violated the implicit terms of my negotiated meeting with Deyak sa-Sajir-dassa-Tomond, in order to secure her compliance through the implantation of a mind-control parasite,” he said.

  There was a rising murmur of dissatisfaction from the gathered crowd. Heltaw adopted a pose of rueful acknowledgment, tinged with regretful firmness, and continued: “This is in no way a change of policy on my part; I recognize that even the most powerful of individuals must generally maintain his pledged word, even when it is seriously inconvenient in the short term. However, the negative and positive incentives before me were such that I accept the damage to my reputation for probity. If I achieve my goals, I shall make restitution, and as earnest of this: I shall not kill her vaz-Terranan paramour at this time, though it is now within my power to do so.”

  “Oh, shit,” Jeremy said quietly.

  An unearthly wail came from the amphitheater’s gateway, followed by words.

  “Tollamune! Tollamune! Tollamune!” a voice cried. “The King Beneath the Mountain comes! Let all align their behavior with his will! Let none harbor thoughts of disloyalty to the Crimson King! Sh’u Maz! He who maintains the Harmony of the Real World comes! Show deference!”

  There was a manifold rustle of cloth as t
he crowd, including Heltaw, took knee. Only Teyud stood, lost in the vastness of her skull, looking through eyes like inverted telescopes. Another wave of needles seemed to penetrate the base of her skull, as the creature drove its tendrils into the structure of the brain itself, probing for the higher centers of cognition.

  “Abandon all anticipation that I will merely accede to your wishes, Prince Heltaw,” Sajir said. “The probability of refusal approaches unity.”

  The Tollamune Emperor made a small tsk sound at the sight of his daughter standing like something carved from a block of wood. Reports indicated that infestation with the control parasite was excruciation of unparalleled intensity.

  That was, if not deserved, only to be expected. What had happened to her was obvious; the Thoughtful Grace were too headlong, and they did depend too much on the straightforward blade. She had probably been alert for all ordinary treachery, ready to meet or parry outright violence. Of course, she had also had the disadvantage of being away from court intrigue and faction most of her adult life. That would have dulled her instincts.

  “It would seem that I command the significant pieces,” Heltaw replied, with a spare gesture.

  Sajir raised a brow. “The vaz-Terranan? They are useful at times, true, but I have one of my own.”

  He indicated Binkis with a slight flick of one ear. The Terran was staring at the rigid form of the Emperor’s offspring; there was something disturbing in his fixed gaze. But then, Binkis had always been disturbing. It might be simple madness . . . or could he perhaps sense the Invisible Crown? Data did suggest that persons once touched by the ancient devices remained somehow in contact, as if their world-lines were thereafter entangled. What had Binkis said once . . .