Skolian Empire: The Radiant Seas Part 27

Nor were military and emotional suitability the only factors to consider. Whoever joined the Triad as Imperator needed a mind having the least possible overlap with Dehya and Eldrinson. Roca's sons Eldrin, Del, and Havyrl were too much like their father. Taquinil and Aniece were too much like Dehya. Chaniece was more like Kurj, but neither Del nor Chaniece could even read and write. Roca didn't know about her sons Denric or Shannon; they had always been different, Denric with his sweet nature and penchant for books, and Shannon as the fey archer with white-gold hair. She suspected they were throwbacks to more distant ancestors, with no telling what would happen if either went into the Triad.

Which left her. She resembled Kurj not only in physical aspects such as her gold coloring, but also in her mind.

Roca spoke quietly. "For a decision like this, Dehya should be here."

"She sent me a message this morning," Eldrinson said. "She agrees with the a.s.sembly that you should become Imperator."

"How could she agree with us this morning?" Tikal asked. "We just made the decision."

No one answered. Roca suspected they had given up trying to fathom Dehya. She pushed her hand through her hair. "I'll let you know soon, Barcala. I need time to think."

But she saw no good answer.

17.

Cirrus stood at the gla.s.s doors in her bedroom and gazed out at her garden, with its neat lawns and flower beds, and the tangled woods beyond. The crescent of G4, the Unnamed Moon, graced the portion of the afternoon sky visible from where she stood. She wished her son Kai could be with her to see this beautiful place. She missed him. Kai had given her a family, something she never had before.

She had been raised by Silicate Aristos, in a crche designed to produce human merchandise. Her education consisted of learning how to serve Hightons. The Silicates also taught her how to look aesthetic while kneeling in a corner for long periods of time, a pastime that topped her list of stupid tasks.

When she reached physical maturity, they sent her to a pavilion, where she spent all her time learning what she would do for as long as genes and technology made her beautiful, which was giving Aristos pleasure. Before the Silicates sold her, they cheated and made her back into a virgin. They did it so well that the palace bodysculptors verified it and Emperor Qox paid a great deal more for her. So she lost her virginity three times: once just before she went to the pavilion, when a Silicate boy pulled her into a closet; once just after she went to the pavilion, in a ceremony with her instructors; and once when the emperor laid her across his glacial bed.

She never learned to read, write, or do numbers. She was never allowed to play as a child. She had no friends. She knew the word "love" only in reference to her training in the pavilion. Aristos decreed she should be grateful to them, but as far as she was concerned they could all fester with the plague.

At first she had thought her pregnancy was a bizarre new phase in the bodysculpting they were always doing on her body. Then she realized what was going on. She liked being fat. She had always wanted to be huge and wear hideous clothes.

The bodysculptors put her b.r.e.a.s.t.s back to normal. After Kai's birth, she saw why; the first thing he did was suckle, which he could never have managed with her enlarged nipples. Perhaps the emperor felt put out by the changes. She hoped so. For months he left her alone, except to visit the baby, who tended to spit up on him, which amused Cirrus no end, though she never let on.

As Kai grew, he pushed her parenting. She was unsure how to respond. He was the emperor's child, after all. When he yelled, "No!" did she give in? She soon discovered that such an approach made life miserable. So she set limits, and no lightning struck her for scolding a child with Highton blood. As had uncounted empaths before her, she reached in instinct for his mind, using empathy to love and understand him. That he grew into such a well-adjusted child at first puzzled her, seeing him so different from herself at that age. Then she decided, so what? He was happy and so was she.

But as Kai grew, she sensed a lack in his life. More and more he asked about his father. She wished he had someone other than Ur Qox to model his behavior on, but she had no way to offer or even define "more."

Kai knew when his father died. He cried while Cirrus rocked him in her arms. Then Empress Viquara separated them, much as she might sell one of two exotic vases in a matched set.

So Cirrus went to Vitrex. As it turned out, she bored him witless in bed. Not that she would ever suggest such a condition applied even when he was vertical. The nights he "allowed" her to provide for him were inescapable. After he satiated himself with her screams, he murmured endearments and fell asleep embracing her, a travesty of affection that left her emotions in an echoing place of emptiness.

What inspired him to pay so much in the auction, though, had as much to do with her abilities as a spy as anything else. So today he came to her suite.

"It is simple," he said as he folded his lanky body into a soft white lounger. "You do the same with Althor as with anyone else."

"But I don't know anything about interrogation," she said.

"You don't need to." He sprawled in his seat with his legs stretched long across the white carpet. "Bring me wine and I will explain."

So Cirrus brought a carafe and knelt at the lacquered table, where she filled his diamond goblet with red wine.

"Althor has neural blocks in his brain that keep us from finding out what he knows." Vitrex took the goblet and sipped from it. "He can't help us even when he tries."

She sat back on her heels. "What would you like me to do?"

With a smile, he cupped his hand under her chin. "What you do best, my love."

A panel glowed high in the cell, shedding dim light over the prisoner who lay sleeping on the cot, on his stomach, his fists clenched at his sides.

Softly Cirrus said, "Wake up, beautiful gold man."

He jerked, then lashed out with his fist as his eyes snapped open. The blow was brought up short by the chain that stretched from his wrist cuff to a ring in the wall. Vitrex had warned her about how Althor woke up, so she had stood out of range, a few paces from his cot.

He stared at her, his eyes bleared with sleep, and spoke in a hoa.r.s.e voice, his throat torn raw. "Who are you?"

"Cirrus." She twisted the sash on her thigh-length robe of yellow Hesterian silk. "Minister Vitrex sent me to you."

He pushed up on his elbow. "Why?"

"As a reward. Because you are trying to cooperate."

"I doubt that."

"It's true." She hesitated. "May I come closer?"

He jerked on his chain. "How do you know I won't try to strangle you with this?"

She lowered her gaze. Apparently Skolians weren't so different from Hightons after all.

"Ai. Don't look like that," he rasped. "I didn't mean it. Come here if you want."

Wary, she went over and sat next to him. Up close, she saw that he was drugged, in a daze. Feeling his hazed pain, both physical and emotional, she wanted to reach out to him. But she also felt the coiled danger in his ma.s.sive body.

He was lying on his side, propped up on his elbow. "I know why you're here," he muttered. "Won't work. The more you try to steal, the less there is to take."

"To take?"

"Memories. My web is erasing them."

"Good memories or bad?" She had many of her own she wished to lose.

The question seemed to confuse him. "Neither. Just data."

"Are you sorry to lose them?"

He lay down on his back. "Do you really want to do something for me?"

"Yes." She set her palm on his chest, feeling the rough weave of his s.h.i.+rt and the powerful muscles under it. "Whatever you would like."

"Slit my wrists. Better yet my throat. That works faster."

"Ai, don't say that, beautiful man."

I can't give you what you came for, he thought.

She nearly screamed. His thoughts rumbled in her mind, deep and resonant, without the torn quality of his voice. She scrambled off the cot and retreated to the far wall.

Althor sat up. Come back, he thought. That had a lonely edge to it, m.u.f.fled from drugs and fatigue.

Cirrus knew the cell was monitored. What would the guards think of her huddling against the wall for no reason? Nothing good, of that she had no doubt. So she made herself walk back to Althor, three paces across the floor, metal under her bare feet. Hugging her robe tight around her body, she sat next to him and waited to see what he would do.

He brushed his hand over her hair, then nudged apart her arms and tugged on her sash. As it came undone, her robe fell open, revealing her body. In a husky voice he said, "You are so very beautiful, did you know that?"

"Emperor Qox said so."

He cupped his palms around her face. "I would take you away from all this if I could, to a land where the sun always s.h.i.+nes." His voice drifted off and he dropped his arms. "I lived once in a place like that. Day for half the year. Because of the axial tilt ... It was on ... I don't remember."

"What would you like me to do for you?" Cirrus asked.

"Here..." He lay on his back, pulling her with him. She stretched out along his side and put her head on his shoulder, waiting for him to continue. But he just lay with his arms around her. So she closed her eyes. She picked up almost nothing from his mind, but that "nothing" came far more vividly than from any Highton. His mind was a place of gleams and columns, air and radiance, an open plaza framed by a circular building.

Locked doors showed in the building. She tried them all, with no success. Then she noticed a discreet door hidden in a recess behind a much heavier portal. Unlike the other barriers, this door had weakened under the onslaught of drugs and interrogation. It stayed hidden only because the larger portal shadowed it.

She opened it and walked inside. And there he was.

Jaibriol Qox.

He was sitting alone. Or was he alone? She couldn't see the entire room. On her left, it blended into a haze that separated this chamber from whatever hid behind the larger door.

Why are you here? Cirrus asked him.

I'm not here, he said, in Althor's voice.

Where are you?

I don't know. In exile. On an Allied World.

Her pulse raced. You are alive?

Yes. His answer echoed. Yes.

Althor stirred at her side, oblivious to her spying. "You smell wonderful." He nudged her onto her back, pus.h.i.+ng aside her robe as he stroked her belly. "Tell me," he murmured. "Tell me what you like."

"Like?"

"How do you like to be touched?"

She hated to be touched. But she could never say that.

You can to me, Althor thought. He sighed, his hand stilling as his lashes drooped closed over his eyes.

That caught Cirrus by surprise. No one had ever cared what she wanted before. They took as they pleased. She knew what Vitrex wanted. If she uncovered useful secrets from Althor, it would elevate Vitrex among the Hightons. And now she owned a priceless secret. Jaibriol Qox was alive. Vitrex would reward her. If she told the empress, the reward could be even better. The empress might reunite Cirrus with her son Kai.

But what about Althor? She had seen his mental places, so much cleaner in spirit than a Highton mind. And it mattered to him what she wanted. Or didn't want.

She tried an experiment. Althor?

Yes?

She blinked, startled at how easily it had worked. He looked like he was still asleep. I must tell them.

Tell what?

That Jaibriol Qox is alive.

His eyes snapped open. No! He's dead.

It's in your mind.

NO. You're wrong.

I saw it.

He made a choked sound. You must never reveal it. You can't begin to understand the damage it would do.

Saying nothing will do worse. To you. She touched his cheek, wis.h.i.+ng the caress could heal him. You are dying inside your mind. You must tell. Then they will stop hurting you.

If you say anything, they'll try that much harder with me, knowing they're close to something big. Desperation edged his words. I'm barely holding on now. If they push any harder, I-I don't think I can withstand it.

She felt as if walls were closing around her. As an empath, she knew he told the truth, as he saw it; besides which, he was too drugged to lie. I don't want to be the cause of them hurting you more. But what of her son?

Many people will be hurt if you tell. Maybe killed.

Cirrus stiffened. If she caused suffering or death, that made her like a Highton. But still she resisted, thinking of Kai.

He watched her face. Cirrus, please.

Again he caught her off guard. Hightons never said "please" to a slave. They gave orders. Althor needed something more important from her than any Aristo had ever wanted and he asked.

Cirrus, don't tell anyone. It could destroy my people.

She swallowed. I will keep your secret.

He thought, simply, Thank you, but the grat.i.tude he projected almost overwhelmed her.