A Confusion of Princes (37 page)

It had to be witnessing.

Unless there really were more candidates than Morojal had told me. . . .

Exerting all my remaining strength, I somehow managed to stand up. The pain was excruciating, and I almost fell again as it struck me. Sobbing, I wrapped both hands on the blade of Atalin’s sword, under the hilt, and steeled myself for what must come next.

I pulled the sword out. It came free with a sickening jolt that sent another blinding wave of pain through me. This time I did fall, onto my knees and elbows. For a moment I almost fell flat on my face, and darkness spread across my eyes, threatening unconsciousness, but I fought back.

I had come so far. I could not falter now.

Atalin still breathed, her pallid face only a handsbreadth away from mine, though surely the end was near.

Up in the box in the stands, a glowing figure rose and began to float through the air toward us. I knew who it must be now. The Emperor, or perhaps a holographic avatar of the current ruler of the Imperal Mind, coming down to welcome Hier successor to the throne.

Which would be me, if I was the last Imperial candidate left alive.

Slowly, far slower than I would have liked, I pushed myself up off my elbows. Still kneeling, I reversed Atalin’s sword, digging the hilt into the deep sand ahead of me. Then I placed the so-very-sharp point of the blade at the base of my sternum, leaning on it lightly, just enough to keep it in place.

A triangle of deadly possibility. Me, the sword and my sister— all together on the sand that was stained with our cojoining blood.

I looked across at Atalin. Her chest rose once, and fell, and didn’t rise again. A soft, choking rattle came from her mouth.

In that moment of her death, I let my full weight fall forward upon the point of my sister’s sword.

26

T
HAT WAS MY third death.

Unlike my other deaths, this time I didn’t wake in a comfortable bed with the sensation of having been asleep for a long time. Instead, only a moment after I felt the sword run through my heart, I found my consciousness hurtling through space at an incredible velocity, heading straight toward a blue-white ball of incandescent gas while beams of multicoloured light sprayed in all directions around me.

Then, all of a sudden, I was inside the Imperial Mind, or it was inside
my
mind. Not just communicating with me but all too present. I felt the incredible pressure of all these other thoughts from a thousand or more former Emperors, so many that I almost lost myself and could not be sure who I was, and beyond the thousand there was an unsortable, unstoppable stream of information flowing from all the millions of Princes out in the Empire who were currently witnessing, all of it swamping into my mind.

I fought them off, refusing to accept the connections, refusing to allow them to draw me into the great mental morass of the Empire.

I will not be Emperor, I told myself. I am Khem, not Khemri.
I will not direct the Mind!

:But I will. Leave him:

That thought was like a lightning bolt passing through the roiling storm of too much information. It was acted on instantly, the close identities withdrawing from me and the geysers of data from the Princes beyond cut off.

I was alone, a detached intelligence, free of my body, free from the pain of my wounds. I felt detached and light, as in that last waking moment before diving into long-awaited sleep.

But only for a brief moment. The directing thought came again, spearing into me with a jolt that was akin to that sword thrust in the guts. All of a sudden I was connected again, but the minds I had felt before were veiled, the pressure of their thoughts held back by the single presence that spoke to me.

:You were meant to be Emperor, Prince Khemri. Not I:

I felt a tremendous surge of relief, a relief that could not be hidden from this inquiring mind, though I did not articulate it.

My plan had worked. I had died at exactly the same time as Atalin, and I had managed to keep myself separate from the Mind. I was clearly
not
the Emperor.

:We have failed greatly with you, Khemri. You should have wanted to be Emperor more than anything, and claimed it as your right:

:Part of me still does. But it is the lesser part. The greater whole . . . me . . . I . . . I only want to be reborn into my nonaugmented body and be allowed to go where I want:

:To Kharalcha?:

I hesitated before answering, but the Emperor knew anyway, knowing everything about every Prince and priest and connected mind in the Empire—if she cared to look.

:Yes:

:Why should we allow this? No Prince has ever been permitted to leave the Empire in such a way:

:Because you promised, sister:

There was a long silence. I felt the single mind falter and the other intelligences behind it draw closer, like wolves to the kill. All the past Emperors within the Imperial Mind were not going to let me have my heart’s desire. They didn’t even allow the existence of such a thing, nor recognise any possible familial connection for a Prince.

I thought that I’d gambled and lost, before the lightning thought struck again, splintering the massed, anonymous minds of so many subsumed Emperors.

:I have decided. We shall do as I command:

There was a flash of white light, a single image burned into my mind, and I was gone.

The next thing I knew, I was taking a shuddering breath deep into my lungs. I was born into flesh again, in darkness. Unaugmented flesh, for no systems reported their status and I felt nothing inside me but the slow beat of my own heart, the pulse accelerating in sudden fear. But even as I reached out with trembling arms, I tasted salty water and felt relief as I thought I recognised where I was, something confirmed when I saw a strip of light in the distance.

Climbing slowly and wearily out of the bath, I crawled toward the light. I had made it only a few metres when the door slid open and the familiar silhouette of Elzweko filled the entrance.

‘I am not to know who you are,’ he said, his back toward me. ‘Do not speak, do not use your Psitek, and put on this suit.’

The suit was a current, Imperial-issue Bitek vacuum suit. Elzweko threw the suit backward, touched the panel to bring light to the room, and shut the door again. I crawled to the suit, touched the front, and let it flow over me. The helmet visor was set to be silvered from the outside and had been altered so that it could not be changed.

I lay inside the suit for some time, recovering my strength. As I got up, the Imperial Mind spoke inside my head.

:A capsule has been readied for you. Elzweko will take you to it. He has been told you are an Adjuster on a particularly secret mission. The craft has been directly preprogrammed by me for Kharalcha, which will remain an Imperial protectorate, at least for the next twenty years. Upon your departure from the final Imperial wormhole, your Psitek signature will be marked for immediate pursuit and destruction if you are within the bounds of the Empire. Do not come back, Khemri:

:I won’t. But I thank you, Atalin:

There was no reply.

I opened the door and found Elzweko waiting. He did not speak, but as he had done before, what felt like so long ago, he took me through the false wormhole-drive door, past the mekbi troopers there—where I tensed for the final betrayal I still half expected to come—and into the storeroom where once again I was invited to collect all that I might need for my mission ahead.

Sensibly, I took the things I thought that I, or the Kharalchans, might need. It could well be the last chance I had to get my hands on some half-decent tek.

There was another Prince in the dock, a young woman wearing an ancient vac suit rather like my old Ekkie. She glared at me but also did not speak. It was just as well my visor was silvered, for I knew her well. I was only a little surprised to see Tyrtho, though I wondered how her plan to stay on safely at the Academy had been diverted into being recruited by Adjustment.

It was her capsule I was taking, I could see, delaying her test. There was another being readied by mekbi drones, but it would take them hours. I felt a little sad that I could not speak to her, but I knew that doing so would be a death sentence for both of us.

The Empire could never let it be known that a Prince could even want a different life.

Let alone find a way to have one.

Two weeks later, my capsule emerged in the Kharalcha system. There was no report of recent combat this time, but there were ships on patrol near the wormhole. Some I knew as KSF at once, even before the capsule finished analysing the scan. But there were more ships present, and better ones, and within a few minutes I was being hailed by them, as well as by the KSF.

It was the Confederation fleet, of course, only six months late. But I did not answer their rapid questioning. There was only one ship I wanted to talk to, and more particularly, one person.

‘Calling KSF
Firestarter
, KSF
Firestarter
. This is Khem Gryphon. Do you have Raine Gryphon aboard?’

The answer came back after a long, long minute. The voice was familiar, and extraordinarily welcome.

‘Khem Gryphon, this is Raine Gryphon, on KSF
Firestarter
. What is your message?’

Raine sounded cool and calm. More than I did, I was sure, particularly as I found that I had been holding my breath. I let it go, and spoke.

‘Request permission to be picked up.’

‘Do you have an atmosphere problem?’

I smiled.

‘Negative. Status green on all counts. But I would like to be picked up just as soon as you can.’

‘Understood, Khem Gryphon. Stand by for retrieval. And . . .’

There was a slight catch in her breath, quickly suppressed.

‘Welcome home.’

Epilogue

T
HAT IS THE story of my three deaths. All that I will be able to tell, for there will be no rebirth from a fourth and final death. But I do not regret giving up the long, long life of a Prince of the Empire and all that goes with it. I do not miss the power of life and death over ordinary folk, nor the trinity of teks that lived within me and made me both more and less than human.

For I have gained far more than I have lost, even if not in anything the Empire would care to measure.

Raine and I continue to love each other, something I discover is not an automatic state but must be worked at, like an ever-changing tactical problem, though I would never describe it that way to my beloved.

I am really a trader now, but not a travelling one, and a reserve commodore in the KSF, though I am pleased that apart from my one month a year of active duty, I have been called on only twice in the last decade to actually fight, first against a new pirate force and once against a Deader reconnaissance squadron. That last was tough, for Deaders always fight to the bitter end and self-destruct when they can fight no more, often taking their opponent with them. But thanks to the Confederation, and in some small part to my own knowledge and the old Imperial tek of Prince Xaojhek we found in the gas giant rings, the KSF is about as smart and strong a force as you’ll find anywhere in the Fringe.

Raine and I have a child now, too. A little girl who has reached the age of five, who I give thanks every day will never be taken from her parents to be made a Prince.

She calls herself Attie, as does everyone else. It is generally known to be short for Hattie, as it appears in the records: Hattie Anza Gryphon. Only Raine and I know she was named in our hearts for Atalin. That is a name of infamy in Kharalcha, one we could never give a child, but I thought we owed my sister something.

I told Raine everything soon after my return to Kharalcha. That I had been a Prince, that I had been part of the Empire that had killed so many of her people. But she said that was all washed clean by what I had done of my own choice.

Raine said to me then, ‘The Empire made you into a Prince, Khem. But you have made yourself into a human.’

Sometimes I think about that, and I wonder what is happening back in the Empire, though I seldom wonder for very long. Mostly what I ponder is how Atalin might be doing as Emperor, and whether she has been able to make any changes, or has even wanted to try.