The Secret Kings

by Brian Niemeier

  Astlin cried out as her hands blistered. She composed herself with an effort and focused on conforming her body to the ideal of her soul. The burns faded, but there was still pain in the little finger of her right hand. An orange-red band encircled it, and Astlin realized that it was Rosemy’s ring, still glowing from the heat of Kelgrun’s fire.

  She looked at the ring. It was actually a washer; part of a game that the girl’s father had made before he’d died. Astlin remembered her own father, gone these many years. She pictured her first life as an empty house—abandoned by everyone, including her. And now, as if recalling a childhood dream, she remembered what had drawn her back.

  I’m going to save him; all of them. I’ll take my family back from the Nexus.

  Kelgrun’s nexic shield kept her from approaching him, but it wasn’t skintight. With a thought she was embracing him. The body under his splendid robes felt soft and frail. His eyes widened behind his square glasses, but the fire still raged.

  “This is the truth,” Astlin said. “You’re just a dream, and so is everything you know.”

  Kelgrun smirked. “And yet I’ve won every round. What does that make you?”

  “A dreamer.”

  Bringing someone else when she moved by thought didn’t bode well for Astlin or her passengers. But this time Astlin didn’t care what happened to her, and she sure as hell didn’t care what happened to Kelgrun.

  Astlin pictured a black pyramid larger than worlds surrounded by rose-colored mist. Projecting Kelgrun there with her was like holding onto the idea of being him and herself at the same time. The effort was nauseating, but Astlin kept it up until the universe conceded that she and Kelgrun were floating in each others’ arms at the gates of the Nexus.

  Astlin spun Kelgrun around to face the god monolith and let him go. “Look!” she said. “All the knowledge you could ever want, and more.”

  Kelgrun didn’t say anything. At first Astlin thought she was seeing double, but it soon dawned on her that she really could see two Kelgruns—his empty body set adrift beside her, and his soul racing toward the Nexus along a silver cord.

  Astlin didn’t intervene as she had with Teg. She considered guiding Kelgrun through the Nexus to the light on the other side, or at least giving him directions. Instead she watched, silently and without remorse, as Zadok swallowed the tyrant whose secret reign had scarred countless souls, including her own.

  Then her will broke like a frayed thread. She fell into a dreamless sleep.

  24

  Celwen led Gien back inside immediately after Astlin’s departure. Her turbulent meeting with the strange woman had been unsettling, but Celwen hoped that her absence would be short.

  One reason was Gien. He had been Celwen’s overseer when she had betrayed her father to the Shadow Caste. Knowing that the Magist was responsible for his brutal torture and eventual death compounded her sense of guilt and deepened her hatred of him.

  Another reason was the squad of soldiers waiting for her and Gien in the dining room.

  The six men wore light blue uniforms with sidearms in white holsters at their hips. Two of them knelt beside the corpses of Zoanthus and Belar with disbelief etched on their faces, while three more stood guard.

  A final soldier—the leader of the group, judging by his impatient demeanor and his position at the center of the room, rested a hand on the grip of his pistol and frowned at the two newcomers.

  “Magist Gien,” the squad leader said, “are you alright, sir?”

  The other soldiers paused from their duties to stare at Celwen. Gien passed her on his way into the room. Broken glass crunched under his slippers.

  “I’m a little hungry,” the Magist said. “Had to leave dinner early. I hope you’re well, Capgrave.”

  Capgrave’s voice took on a practiced tone and meter, like one used to speaking with a flighty child.

  “Thank you, sir, but frankly my men and I are concerned. Magists Vilneus, Rathimus, and Kelgrun are missing. Magists Zoanthus and Belar are dead. And now you return in the company of the enemy. It would set us—and all of your loyal initiates—at ease to learn precisely what happened.”

  Celwen stepped forward. “I also serve the Shadow Caste. Let me help you end the siege of your world.”

  The guards stationed between the gates drew their weapons and pointed them at Celwen. She froze in place.

  Capgrave motioned for her to keep still with a raised hand. “I haven’t asked you any questions, Miss, though we’ll have time for that later. For now, consider yourself a prisoner of war. I’d keep quiet unless you want to be treated as a spy.”

  “It’s okay,” Gien said with a dismissive wave of his arm. “She’s with us. Has been since before your grandpa was an itch in your great-grandpa’s pants.”

  Capgrave raised a dark eyebrow. “Sir?”

  “It doesn’t really matter.” Gien bent down, poked through the debris on the floor, and picked up a broken gold-rimmed wineglass. “The Shadow Caste is over.”

  An uneasy look passed between the soldiers who were examining the bodies. The men on guard fidgeted.

  “What do you mean, ‘over’?” Capgrave asked.

  Gien let the glass fall from his fingers to shatter on the floor with a single crisp chime.

  “I mean we’re done. We failed to revive Thera. Then a Zadokim possessed by Shaiel broke loose and murdered everybody.” He winked at Celwen through his veil. “She helped me get away.”

  Capgrave’s face fell. He signaled for his men to holster their weapons, which they did with obvious reluctance.

  “If the other Magists are dead, Even Renneker and his bootlickers will catch on eventually. We should enact emergency protocols.”

  “Yes. That’s a good plan. Do that.” Gien shuffled across the floor to stand beside Celwen. “We’ll get out of your way.”

  Celwen suppressed a shiver as Gien took her arm and led her toward the dark green curtain. She balked at the thought of being alone with him but supposed that it was better than confinement in a stockade.

  Capgrave fell in beside Gien. “Beg your pardon, sir, but you are the last living member of this sphere’s ruling council. The elected government couldn’t run a birdwatching club under the best circumstances, and this is wartime!”

  “Absolutely,” said Gien. “What’s your point?”

  Capgrave pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “Don’t you think it wise for you to remain under guard in the Magisterial Tower? What if we require your insight and direction?”

  “I think you’ll come through just fine on your own,” said Gien, patting Capgrave’s shoulder. “Besides, none of the policy stuff was mine. That was all the Mithgarders; sometimes Belar. They’re dead now. Good luck!”

  Gien swept the curtain aside and led Celwen into the marble passage beyond. The Short hallway seemed to reach a dead end, but just before she walked into the wall, Celwen found herself treading on plush white carpet.

  “Where are we?” she asked, looking around what seemed to be a small amphitheater descending in three tiers to a circular floor below.

  Already tromping down the stairs, Gien called back, “We used to meet here—the others and me. We talked about our plans.”

  Celwen waited near the stairs, gripping the low wall that encircled the top row. “Astlin told us to meet her at the dock.”

  “She’s not there,” said Gien. He tinkered with a console set into the room’s back wall. “Look for yourself. You’ll see.”

  Despite herself, Celwen started down the steps. “You know more than you let on.”

  Gien sighed. His shoulders sagged, and he suddenly seemed very old. “The others—mainly Kelgrun and the Mithgarders—they helped kill most of your people.”

  Celwen found herself on the lowest tier of seats. Surely being with Gien approximated the primitive idea of consorting with demons. She listened intently.

  “They didn’t start it,” he said. “But they kept it going longer than it
should have. Kelgrun learned a way to steal your people’s lives; their powers, and add them to his. He shared it with a few others, like me.”

  Stepping onto the stage, Celwen stood behind Gien as he worked at the console.

  “People don’t change,” said Gien. “You can predict how they’ll act, if you study them long enough. Create situations where you know they’ll act a certain way, and you can control them.” He laughed. “It’s funny. The Gen had all the time in the world, but they never tried to control humans.”

  “It is not our way,” Celwen said. But the boast rang false, so she clarified, “The clay tribe’s empires seemed to rise in the spring and fall by winter. We never took enough interest in their affairs to govern them. None foresaw that their final dominion would outlast us.”

  The console gave a synthetic trill, and the wall above it seemed to become a window into a grey infinity.

  “We got control of the Guild,” said Gien. “It took a while, but eventually we made it run by itself. The others liked to play with different political systems. Temil was the opposite of the Guild. It’ll completely fall apart, now. That was the plan. After years and years of chasing power, in the end all we had was the plan.”

  Celwen couldn’t bring herself to pity a man who’d helped exterminate most of her race and drive the rest into exile. But she could imagine the dreariness of secretly ruling a civilization that ceaselessly repeated the same patterns for millennia.

  “Give me the nexic focus of your ship’s telepathic command channel,” said Gien.

  The command shocked Celwen from her reverie. “What?”

  “The ship in orbit. Give me its command channel so I can tell them we surrender.”

  The response stunned Celwen. She’d been sent to infiltrate the Shadow Caste and betray Temil to the Night Gen. Her superiors thought it was a suicide mission, but if Gien did as he said, total victory would fall into her lap.

  “Are you serious?” she asked.

  Gien stepped aside to make room for her at the controls. “Don’t worry. The gate’s the only way in here, and it’s nexically keyed to me. No one else will know you told me. It’ll be our secret.”

  Celwen approached the console as if sleepwalking. Just yesterday finding a nexic communications system on a clay tribe sphere would have surprised her. Now she mechanically keyed in the coordinates of Raig’s priority comm node in the Nexus and watched as the grey expanse became a window onto the admiral’s private quarters, where he sat meditating on a simple black mat.

  This device can display telepathic impressions as images and sounds. Not even our next generation systems will duplicate this effect!

  Night Gen comms were essentially artificial telepaths that connected two or more people mind-to-mind. Mediating telepathic conversations through an external display was revolutionary. How many other advancements had the Shadow Caste made in their restless centuries of stolen immortality? What else might they have accomplished if not for death’s delayed intervention?

  Celwen decided not to think about it.

  “Can he see me?” she asked Gien.

  “No,” said the Magist, “but he can hear us.”

  Raig remained seated, his eyes closed, as he spoke. “Celwen?”

  “Yes, admiral”

  A half-smile turned up the corner of his mouth. “I thought I had heard the last of your surprises, but it seems you have prepared just one more. You must realize that no rescue party can be sent to extract you. However, I will listen if you wish to confess your crimes and clear your conscience before the Shadow Caste execute you.”

  “Most generous of you, sir,” said Celwen, indulging in a smile of her own. “But I have not contacted you to report any crimes; only Temil’s surrender.”

  Raig’s blue-green eyes shot open. “I offer you a chance to make amends for your treason,” he said, pronouncing each syllable with slow precision. “Answering with jests or ruses will not increase the esteem in which your memory is held.”

  “If you mistrust my word, then allow me to introduce Magist Gien, sole surviving member of Temil’s ruling council.”

  Gien tilted his head toward the display. “Hello. Good evening, sir. Yes, we surrender.”

  By the time Astlin regained consciousness and returned to the Guild house dock, the Kerioth was gone—along with Xander and Izlaril. Only the catwalk, two of its sections scorched and twisted by elemental fire, gave any sign of the battle with Kelgrun.

  What could she do now? Transporting herself onto the Kerioth with Shaiel and his Blade would be taking a huge risk. Boarding the ship alone would probably lead to her death—or worse, Xander’s.

  Astlin felt as if a crushing weight had landed on her back. She leaned on the railing and groaned, looking down on the maze of walkways, ductwork, and ships stacked in layers all the way to the white floor half a mile below.

  I came here to find Xander, she thought, but Shaiel just snatched him away from me again. And he’s got Smith. And Teg’s in a coma.

  Since her return to Zadok’s domain, people had called Astlin a queen; even a demigod. All she felt like now was a bad wife and a worse friend.

  At least the Shadow Caste can’t hurt any more innocent people.

  Green-white light flashed behind her, and Astlin turned to see Celwen striding through the gate, followed closely by Gien.

  “I am sorry we kept you waiting,” Celwen said, practically beaming.

  Astlin waved off the apology. “I just got back a minute ago.”

  Celwen looked down at the first section of singed, warped steel. “You had nothing to do with this?”

  “That was Kelgrun,” Astlin said. When Celwen cast nervous glances around the dock, Astlin added, “He won’t be a problem anymore.”

  “He wanted to die,” said Gien, “so he got his wish. But he wanted to kill everyone else first, so he didn’t get all of it.”

  Celwen looked to the end of the catwalk and frowned. “When you told us to meet here, I thought you would find us a ship.”

  “Our nexus-runner was here,” Astlin said. She bit her lip. “But Shaiel got to it first. Sounds like we’re all in a rush to leave.”

  “We’re going up to the Night Gen ship so I can surrender,” said Gien.

  Astlin stared, wide-eyed, at the strange little man in his green robe, black cap, and veil. He seemed less like the ruler of a sphere and more like a clown.

  A mad, potentially murderous clown.

  Astlin pointed at Gien. “Is he serious?”

  “That is what I asked him,” Celwen said. “But yes, he has agreed to surrender Temil, and the fleet commander has called a tentative ceasefire. Gien has lowered the shield. We can depart the surface in a ship.”

  Celwen looked glumly at the ether-runners docked all around her. “But I can only fly nexus-runners.”

  “I can man the Wheel,” said Gien. “I really can. Pick any ship you want, and I’ll fly it.”

  Celwen’s face fell. “I am not entirely comfortable with that idea.” She looked hopefully at Astlin. “Teg mentioned that you are a pilot. Can you fly us to the Sinamarg?”

  “Teg!” Astlin slapped herself on the forehead. “He’s lying in some godforsaken hole on the Stone Stratum!”

  Astlin turned to Gien. “Did the Shadow Caste have some kind of secret medical facility where I can take him?”

  “I advise getting him off the sphere as soon as possible,” said Celwen. “The occupation will begin shortly, and my people will hold him as a spy if he is found.”

  Astlin searched the dock as if seeking a sign and saw one in the form of three scrap metal pods joined at an angle by two long pylons.

  “You two go ahead,” she told Gien and Celwen with a smile. “I’ll pick up Teg and take him back to the Serapis.”

  The Magist and the Night Gen started back along the catwalk, but Celwen paused and turned to face Astlin.

  “There is something I feel I must say.” Shame and resolve warred in Celwen’s eyes. “I do not
know why it feels right that I should say it to you. It just does.”

  Pity softened Astlin’s heart and face. “Go on,” she said. “If you want to.”

  A tear streamed down the Night Gen’s ashen cheek. “I think you saw,” she said, her voice starting to break. “When you said I deserve to—”

  Astlin covered the rest of the distance to the other woman in a few brisk strides and hugged her. Celwen’s body shook under her sharkskin garment.

  “Zan was your father?”

  Celwen nodded against Astlin’s shoulder.

  “He was my friend,” Astlin said.

  The Night Gen woman held Astlin in the emerald intensity of her eyes. “Do you know how he died?”

  Astlin hesitated before saying “Yes.”

  “I would know how it happened.”

  “It won’t be easy for you to see,” Astlin warned.

  Celwen’s sorrow became determination. “Show me.”

  It only took a moment. Astlin impressed her memories of Zan—from their first meeting on the Kerioth to his deadly betrayal of their friendship on the Serapis. She filled in his body’s destruction and his soul’s return to the Nexus from Xander’s accounts.

  Celwen slowly pushed herself back from Astlin and stood on the dock with no expression on her face.

  “Will you be alright?” Astlin asked.

  “Tell me,” said Celwen. “Are any people truly who they seem to be?”

  “Everyone has secrets,” said Astlin. “But people are who they are.”

  Celwen half turned away. She nodded to herself; then followed Gien back down the catwalk without a word.

  25

  Astlin stood at a wide oblong window looking in on the Serapis’ infirmary, where the ship’s surgeon dabbed his receding hairline with a hand towel after removing the last rock fragment from Teg’s back.

  The double handful of bloody gravel in the medic’s pan didn’t ease the worry that had nagged Astlin since she’d commandeered the Theophilus, picked up Teg on the Stone Stratum, and flown him beyond Temil’s moon to the Serapis.