“True,” she said. Her eyes even danced with mischief. “What shall I buy that will render our family green with envy upon our return?”
“I have a marvelous idea,” I said, bestowing a pat upon her hand. “We will ask Her Excellence for advice. Perhaps you can even go shopping with her. And what a story that will be to take home!”
I could see the wheels already turning in my cousin’s mind. In fact, such an outing would be quite a coup, if we could arrange it.
To distract her on the rest of the walk to the palace, I regaled her and her friends with a couple of choice jokes that I had been saving for just such an occasion.
At a high, green hedge, Janice turned suddenly to the east. We followed her. Ahead, I could see the tops of cylindrical spires, gilded to catch the rays of the afternoon sun. Beneath them, the way was obscured by the crowns of heavy-leafed trees and a dim, cool arcade completely sheltered by heavy red canvas stretched all the way across the avenue. The buildings ahead vanished as we passed under the roof of cloth.
A horizon of bright sunlight appeared several meters ahead. As it grew, I realized the end of the arcade was at hand. Janice gathered us in a close group.
“You’ll have to go out in open sunlight for a few meters,” she said. “It’s going to burn. You’ve all had your treatments, haven’t you?”
“Yes, indeed,” I said. The others nodded.
“All right. Follow me.”
The sunlight became blinding as we walked. I became aware of a domed shape beginning to imprint itself upon the yellow glare. It rose dramatically higher and higher the closer we came to the end of the canvas roof until it was an imposing shadow surrounded by a halo of dancing golden fire. As one, my party released an awed breath.
“This is Her Excellence’s palace,” Janice said.
My eyes swiftly became accustomed to the brilliance of the sunlight. Luckily, we were not exposed to it for very long. It was no doubt the purpose of the architects and the landscapers to create the impression of grandeur and power. Before us, the land dipped down into a shadowy garden, through which paths wound in an organic maze without hard angles. I saw the bright sparkle of water leaping from at numerous crossroads within the labyrinth. At the far end, a sheltered portico gave access to a pair of enormous molded bronze doors, thrown wide to allow the gentle breeze inside. Lights of gold and green twinkled in numerous locations, making the entire palace seem as though it had been jeweled. I took it all in, enjoying the effect.
“The times of day when the effect is the most pronounced are midmorning and midafternoon, when the sun illuminates the front of the palace or the back,” Janice explained.
“Very impressive,” I said.
“Her Excellence will be pleased to hear you say so.”
“One small drawback that I can perceive: one can’t get there in a hurry, can one?” I asked. “You need to leave a good deal ahead of time to make an appointment, don’t you?”
We were fortunate to be accompanied by an experienced guide. Janice turned this way and that through the maze, taking passages and ducking underneath garlands that I might have blundered clumsily past, missing the only means of achieving the end of the twisting path.
“I think there ought to be a maze in the Imperium compound,” Jil said, laughing as her friends disappeared down narrow side corridors, only to reappear in the main path a few meters ahead, or have to backtrack completely to rejoin us.
“It would last precisely long enough for Xan to break the code on the head gardener’s hedge mower,” I pointed out. “Our cousin has a notoriously short attention span.”
“Oh, you’re not any better!”
“Did I pretend that I was?” I countered, ducking underneath a leafy bough past which Janice had just sidled. I glanced down at my viewpad, on which I was recording our route for future reference. “I say! Do you realize that the path we just described spells out words in the Uctu language?” I began to sound them out.
“Oh, show me,” Jil said. She giggled. Redius, too, leaned in over my arm to read them. His jaw dropped in amusement.
“Rude,” he said. “Low language. Most insulting.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “I believe that the architect of the maze held a grudge of some kind. I wonder whether the Autocrat who commissioned it ever paid him. It is quite cunning, hiding one’s disdain in plain sight. Of course, one would only see the message if one traced the path, as I have. Did you know about this, Ambassador?”
Janice looked a bit pained.
“Yes,” she admitted, beckoning us forward. “Please don’t mention that to Her Excellence.”
I mimed closing my mouth and locking it with a key.
“My observation is purely between you and me, madam,” I promised, ducking under the branch she held out of the way for me to pass. I glanced up, and felt my own jaw drop. “Aha!”
“Aha, what?” Jil asked, following close behind.
She emerged beside me, and looked up with wonder in her eyes. The prospect that met us was one of the most beautiful buildings I had ever beheld. The tiled walls told stories in mosaic of conquests and romances, flanked, footed and topped with small images—small in proportion; I imagined they were larger than I was up close—of haloed beings, winged reptiles, marvelous serpents, colorful birds and shimmering clouds. The bronze doors had been molded to represent the undulating shapes of sand dunes.
“Aha, this,” I said.
Janice could not forbear a little flourish, nor did I begrudge her the opportunity to make it.
“Welcome to the Autocrat’s palace,” she said.
“Hope to go in and come out again in same state,” Redius said, nervously.
CHAPTER 31
Inside the reception hall, whose walls were more mosaics, in even more vivid colors than those outside, a group of servants in long, fluttering robes surrounded us, offering pure, clear water, slices of fruit and squares of moist, rich pink cake.
“We are honored,” I said, in Uctu. I had read the Rules of Protocol, and was content to enter the palace in the steps that were prescribed. When we had consumed the Gift of Food and Drink, I brought out a handful of small gemstones that were the expected Thanks Offering in return. I poured them into the waiting palm of the chief servant, a female with pronounced jowls on her narrow mandible.
“We, too, are honored, in the Autocrat’s name,” she said, with a welcoming drop to her jaw for all of us but Redius. “Follow.”
Every step so far had been achieved exactly as the Rules had specified. I felt as though I were on an elaborate treasure hunt. Low, arched hallways with bronze traceries inlaid with colorful enamels and lit by small hexagonal lanterns of jewel colors led in and out of enormous reception chambers, tiny sitting rooms, galleries lined with two-dimensional pictures and holograms, and intimate dens seemingly created to display exquisite works of art on pillars and stands to passersby. If not for the viewpad in my hand, I would have lost my way again and again with all the twists and turns. The chief servant glided before us. We saw no one else on our journey, but I assumed we were constantly observed by both living eyes and surveillance devices. I distinctly heard a hum as we crossed a threshold into a gallery. The detector might have been looking for weapons, or it might have been reading our body temperature and odors, or even our genetic coding, to determine who went there.
At last, the servant brought us to a grand door banded with gold. Six keyholes of ancient design pierced its surface. The Uctu female drew from a pocket of her robe a ring of six silver keys. She merely touched each one to its corresponding lock. We heard a snap as the locks withdrew. The door rolled to the left into a wall niche. The servant beckoned us to follow her.
“This is the Room of Trust,” she said.
We stepped into a darkened chamber heavy with rich, musky, floral scent. The room was filled with curtains, elaborate swags and swoops of cloth, jeweled, beaded and adorned with silken cords and tassels. The servant did not pull them aside for us. Instead
, she disappeared into the folds of cloth, leaving us to follow the ends of her scaly orange tail as swiftly as we might.
I plunged in after her as if we were playing follow-the-leader through my mother’s well-stocked walk-in wardrobe. With my hands out in front of me, I felt blindly for the partings in the folds of cloth that would allow me passage. The fabric slid along my cheeks and hair, clinging briefly to my robe. I heard the sound of creaking hinges off to my left. I turned in that direction, but came to a set of narrow pillars. I turned back.
“Thomas, where are you?” Jil asked, somewhere behind me.
I felt to the left and right, trying to seek a meaningful path. I heard sounds all around, and felt a swift rush of air pass by my cheek from the left. Was that the way forward? I fumbled blindly, and crashed into a sharp corner face first. I rubbed my bruised nose and consulted the glowing screen of my viewpad, but it had gone blank. Something was blocking the signal. I put the device back into my belt pouch. I had to rely upon my senses alone. That wasn’t going to do me any good. I sought in two or three directions, and ended up eye to eye with Nesbitt.
“Sorry, my lord,” he said, pushing a swag of red velvet off my shoulder.
“Where do we go?” Jil cried, somewhere off to my right. “Ow! I tripped on something. It scraped my shin!”
“Quite a party game, isn’t it?” Banitra said. She appeared at my right elbow.
“It feels like one,” I said. “Though it reminds me of something a trifle more sinister.”
“We have similar myths, my lord,” Parsons’s voice came from the gloom behind me. “Do any that you have studied recently elicit an analogue to the present situation?”
“I hate it when you ask me to think, Parsons,” I said, peevishly. “It interferes with my natural intuition. Oh.” I stopped, as the entirely obvious occurred to me. From our most ancient heritage, a story that had come down to me through the Melarides line popped into mind. I raised my voice. “Jil, can you get back to the doorway?”
“I think so,” she said.
“If you take hold of anyone with whom you come into contact, it will save us being further separated,” I said, doing my best to keep panic out of my voice. “Think of it as a mobile game of Sardines.”
“I’ll help you,” Hopeli’s voice came soothingly. “I think it’s this way.”
Several false starts and a good deal of giggling later, I found myself with my left arm through Nesbitt’s, Banitra at my back, and Plet clinging to my right shoulder.
“Why start over, Lieutenant?” Plet asked.
“Because this is a test,” I said, lightly. “The servant called it the Room of Trust. Therefore, it is a mistake to second-guess her words and seek a deeper meaning, or a more complicated route to our destination than a straight line. So let us go directly forward, and trust that that is the right way.”
“That does sound too simple,” Jil said. She stood in the crook of my arm, all but trembling. She had illuminated the screen of her jeweled pocket secretary for comfort. It had been a difficult day for her already. Banitra and Hopeli stayed very close to her, stroking her hair and holding her hands.
I drew my face down so that we were eye to eye.
“Trust me, cousin. If it doesn’t work out, we can do it your way next.”
Jil wrinkled her nose. “Oh, all right.”
“Parsons, are you there?” I asked.
“Here, my lord,” said that ineffable voice, not a foot from my ear. That sound gave me a measure of comfort.
“Very well,” I said. “Together, now.”
Keeping our backs to the door, we shuffled forward en masse through the heavy scented hangings. Nesbitt and Redius lifted the swags to admit our passage. Each meter took a long while to progress.
After twenty meters or so, a bloodcurdling howl sounded right underneath my feet. I admit that I jumped in the air, dislodging those clinging to me. They did not notice, having had expressed surprise in their own ways.
“What was that?” Sinim demanded, throwing her arms around Plet, who had gone paler than usual.
I essayed a foot forward, until I came to a raised area in the floor no larger than the end of my thumb. Another screech issued forth. I tried it again, and was rewarded by a further ululation. Now that it was no longer a surprise, it didn’t scare any of us. My friends and I exchanged a glance.
“I am going to install some of these in the walkways around the compound,” I said, in delight. “Then lie in wait with my cameras at the ready. Imagine the expressions I will collect!”
“Oh, Thomas!” Jil said, punching me in the chest with a sharpened knuckle. “I was scared out of my skin!”
“Beware, cousin,” I said, austerely. “I will put some where I know you walk.”
“My lord,” Parsons said. “Would it not be wise to return your attention to the matter at hand?”
I glanced back at him.
“And that would be?”
“The open door before you?”
I turned. The unrelenting gloom of the Room of Trust had, in fact, relented and admitted rays of golden light above and below the festooned fabrics ahead of us. I pushed through the remaining barricades of cloth and pushed open the proffered portal. The others crowded up and around me. Anstruther let out a deep sigh of wonder.
The room was like a jewel box, coffered bronze ceilings gadrooned with pleasingly elaborate designs. Tapestries hung around the walls, billowing gently as though to suggest they concealed ventilation ducts. Certainly the room was pleasantly cool, a welcome contrast to the closeness of the rooms and corridors through which we had passed. The furnishings were very elegant, much softer and welcoming than the trappings of the Imperium court and rooms of state. Shojan, my cousin, preferred an austere setting. Servants in the same uniform robes as our guide flitted here and there with metal pitchers, coffers and trays.
In the middle of a wide, rectangular, backless couch draped and canopied with elaborately embroidered cloth-of-gold sat an Uctu female. I knew her from her Infogrid page and the files I had read since then: the Autocrat Visoltia. Her head scales still had shimmering turquoise spots above her eyes, showing that she was not fully mature. She wore a heavy cloak around her shoulders that had been painted and jeweled. I observed several panes within the design, suggesting that it was a narrative frieze of some kind. Since I had clothing of that type myself, I assumed that of the Autocrat served the same purpose as mine: to tell the story of one’s culture. A marvelous gold pectoral hung around her neck and shoulders. Each link contained an oval pattern of coral and blue. I realized with delight that they were portraits, possibly those of her lineal ancestors. The formal clothing seemed to swamp the Autocrat, burying her in millennia of history. She was the smallest adult Gecko that I had ever seen.
To either side of the Autocrat’s settee were arrayed a number of persons, all Uctu, whose manner of dress revealed their offices and honors. A small group of young females I judged to be her ladies-in-waiting. The rest were her inner cabinet, the most trusted and important ministers. I had met a number of Uctu in my life, but never seen such a representative sampling of sizes, shapes, tint and hue of scales, length of tail or width of finger pads all at once in a single place. It was an edifying moment. Similar scales of difference were to be seen in any crowd of humans on any Imperium world.
“Greetings!” I said in my best Uctu, holding out my arms. “I am Lord Thomas Innes Loche Kinago, representative of my cousin and your brother ruler, Emperor Shojan XII of the Imperium. I come in peace. As do my friends and relations here. And Ambassador Galeckas. But you already know her.”
I bowed deeply, switching the back of my robes to and fro to simulate a tail, since nature had not seen fit to furnish my kind with any for eons, and awaited an invitation to straighten.
A harsh rasp, the clearing of a throat, came from beside the Autocrat’s wide couch to my left. I hazarded a glance through my eyebrows. An Uctu male, clad in traditional military formal dress, a dark gre
en knee-length tunic over sand-colored ballooning trousers that fastened at the tops of thick-soled ankle boots, wore a glare that went well with the rasp. My studies under Parsons’s tutelage had not been for naught. I recognized the disapproving male as Corvain Rimbalius, the Autocrat’s Prime Minister as well as Grand Commander of the Military. In that latter office, he was my mother’s opposite number in more ways than one. They had faced off in the last battle of the border war, and my mother had been the victor. The usual human nickname for the Uctu was “Geckos,” but this large specimen fell into the much less employed moniker, “Dragon.” If it were possible for him to breathe fire at that moment, I believe he would have snorted flames from his curled nostrils. I wished I could offer him the maternal unit’s sincere messages of peace and reconciliation, but I was not to engage him either by look or voice until the Autocrat freed me to do so. The strictures rubbed irritatingly against my natural impulses, but I maintained my humble posture.
The Autocrat’s voice was a sweet, thin piping, but no less steely in her words.
“You are Kinago,” she said. “But you are also Loche. How dare my honored brother send an enemy as his envoy?”
I did not raise my head. Indeed, I gazed at the stone-tiled floor with the same intensity with which I would have studied the eyes of someone who was inclined to punish me for a transgression that they took more seriously than I did. But in this case, family pride drove me to eloquence.
“Your Serenity, I am indeed here as my cousin’s voice, and also as my mother’s son. Both of them wish to do you honor. The battles that our two peoples fought are behind us. I would hope that our enmity was left behind once Uctu and Imperium met to negotiate that permanent peace a dozen years ago. We have had a cordial trading relationship for some time now, and hope to become greater allies in the future. How more can they express their trust in you and hope for the future than by putting me into your hands? Naturally, I hope you will take the offer in a friendly fashion, because I would definitely like to return home intact, but I am at your service, in any way you require.”
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