Alien Chronicles 1 - The Golden One (31 page)

He didn’t look up, didn’t appear to notice who it was he answered. “No,” he said, still pacing. “But she is gravely ill. The eggs could not be saved. They raptured inside her and—”

Breaking off abruptly, he turned and strode to the window.

Ampris’s heart grieved for him and the lost hatchlings. She was well-aware of how precious offspring were to the Viis, who had fewer and fewer every year. The dropping birthrate concerned everyone, and now this tragedy had struck on the opening day of Festival, a time when everyone should have been rejoicing as eggs were laid both here in the palace and out in the public hatchery in the city.

More than that, Ampris felt sorry for lovely Zureal, who was young, kindhearted, and caught up in the joy of her first days at court. Zureal hadn’t deserved this tragedy.

“But it’s all so silly,” Israi said into the silence. Her voice was cool and unconcerned. “Such a terrible, tragic response to a simple prank—”

“It was not a simple prank!” the Kaa said, turning on her so violently she shrank back. “Above all else, Daughter, do not lie about that.”

“But—”

“You have been jealous of Zureal since the day of her arrival. You have refused to greet her, to speak to her, or to be kind to her. Simple courtesies are part of your responsibilities. You know that!”

“I was courteous,” Israi said, blinking rapidly as a blush deepened in her rill. “I exchanged gifts—”

“You set her up for intense public humiliation at her first official function.”

“If she is going to be at court, she must learn—”

“Silence!” the Kaa roared.

Eyes dilated, Israi stood there, breathing hard with shock. “You are angry with me,” she said in astonishment.

Even Ampris stared at him, amazed. She had never seen the Kaa lose his imperial composure. She had never heard him raise his voice, and certainly he had never spoken to Israi like this before.

“It is not your place, Israi, to dictate what our wives will and will not learn,” he said, raging. “You are sri-Kaa, but that does not set you so high you are above every consequence. You will be punished, Daughter. It is
you
who will learn.”

“Father, no!” Israi protested in dismay. She held out her hands. “I meant no harm to the eggs. For this, I will apologize—”

“For that, but nothing else,” he said flatly, glaring at her.

Israi blinked at him. “I don’t understand.”

“We think you do.”

“The blotches are not permanent,” Israi said finally. “She will recover her looks in a day or two.”

Disappointment filled his eyes. “Is this our beautiful daughter?” he asked. “Is her heart so cold, so petty, that she feels neither pity nor remorse?”

Israi flicked out her tongue. “Very well, Father, if you wish I will speak to Zureal personally—”

“We think not.”

“Then what is it you wish from me?”

The Kaa allowed his rill to lower. “All your life you have been spoiled and indulged. We loved you, Israi, so very much. Too much, it seems. We have given you everything, and you repay us with behavior unworthy of even a barbarian.”

Her rill flushed, and anger touched her eyes. “Father, that is very harsh.”

“Harsh?” he repeated in a mild voice that sent a shiver through Ampris. “We have never shown you harshness. Perhaps it is time we did. The Imperial Daughter has been shielded from grief and loss such as that which she has inflicted. Now that will change.”

Israi looked uneasy. “It is unfair to punish me for her overreaction.”

The Kaa lifted his hand to silence her. “Never again will we hear you assign blame to Lady Zureal. The blame is yours, and you will learn what it means to feel sorry. You will suffer as Zureal has suffered.”

Israi backed away from him. “Father!” she said in protest. “Surely you aren’t going to make me wear that perfume.”

“Guards!” he shouted, and they appeared at once from the sitting room. The Kaa swung around and pointed straight at Ampris.

“That Aaroun is the only thing you appear to care about besides yourself,” he said while Ampris gasped in dawning horror. “You will lose her as we have lost our unborn eggs. Grieve for
her
as we grieve for them.”

Fearfully Ampris backed away, but the guards pounced on her before she could elude them. Growling, she snapped and struggled, but they held her firmly.

Israi stared. “You wouldn’t take Ampris away from me,” she said in disbelief. “I don’t believe it.”

The Kaa’s face might have been carved from stone. Grief raged unchecked in his eyes. He pointed at the door and said to his guards, “Dispose of her at once.”

Ampris howled in fear, and Israi surged forward, screaming.

The guards, however, held the sri-Kaa back as Ampris was carried out, kicking and struggling. She could hear Israi pleading, could hear her cries, but more guards came to shut and bolt the doors to Israi’s bedchamber, locking the sri-Kaa in.

The reality of their separation sank in. Yet Ampris refused to accept it. No one could take her away from Israi. No one.

Ampris loosed a guttural roar from deep inside her throat and lunged at the guard on her left. Her teeth snapped closed on his rill and she shook her head with all her might, ripping the flesh with a spurt of blood that tasted sour and alien on her tongue.

The guard screamed, and his companion hammered a blow across Ampris’s shoulders that drove her to her knees. With her ears flattened to her skull, she hardly felt the blow and heeded nothing save the fury pounding through her. Pivoting on her knees, she swiped with her claws, going for the guard’s tail. Body armor protected it, however, and they dragged her upright, one holding her while the other hit her repeatedly.

Stunned, her wits spinning, Ampris lunged again with her teeth bared, but missed this time. They dragged her out bodily into the corridor, where courtiers had begun to appear, gawking in curiosity.

Lady Lenith emerged from her own small quarters, swathed in robes and looking bleary-eyed.

Ampris surged toward her, only to be pulled back by the guards. “Lady Lenith!” she called out. “Have mercy on me!”

Lady Lenith came hurrying forward. “Ampris? What is this?” she demanded. “What’s amiss?”

A sergeant at arms stepped between her and Ampris. “We’re acting on the Kaa’s direct order, my lady,” he said. “Do not interfere.”

Another guard rushed up with a restraint bar and muzzle. The latter he rammed down over Ampris’s head. Whirling, she butted him with her skull before he could switch on the restraint field, and ripped at his body armor with her claws.

“Get back, my lady!” the sergeant said, sweeping Lady Lenith aside. “Guards, restrain this savage at once!”

Battered to the floor, Ampris snarled and struggled with all her might, but she was no match for the training of palace guards. Within minutes the restraint bar was clamped across her wrists and a control on her muzzle was switched on. A force field shimmered around her, engulfing her. Her muscles spasmed and then locked up. Immobile, she lay there helplessly, unable to even speak.

The guard she’d wounded swabbed at the blood dripping from his rill and swore, low and furiously.

Behind them, Israi was still pounding on her locked doors and shouting. Hearing her muffled cries, Ampris struggled to rise, but the restraints held her fast. Fear returned to her as the guards dragged her upright. Her gaze went to Lady Lenith, beseeching her silently for aid. But Lady Lenith said nothing in Ampris’s defense.

Fazhmind came up, robed in vivid purple and fanning himself. A little purple cap of silk perched atop his head. It looked so ridiculous Ampris wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t. Tears welled up in her eyes, blurring her vision. She wished now she’d never played any tricks on him. She wished she’d never bitten him when she was little. Maybe then he would have had pity on her now.

“The mercy of the gods befall us!” he said, extending his rill. “This creature has finally turned on her illustrious mistress like the savage beast she is. Hear the wounded cries of the sri-Kaa.”

Around him the courtiers murmured in outrage and shock, while fresh fury filled Ampris. Glaring at Fazhmind, she strained against the force field which imprisoned her, longing to sink her teeth into his sour old hide. How dare he say such lies. She would never harm Israi—never.

“The sri-Kaa is well,” the sergeant hastened to announce before the crowd could panic. “Step aside, and let us carry out our orders.”

The courtiers parted, and Ampris was dragged bodily away. No one spoke in her defense. No one protested this cruel separation ordered by the Kaa.

Ampris wanted to cry out, to call to them again for mercy. These were people she’d known all her life. People who had trained her and helped raise her. Even if she didn’t like them, they were family. And now they refused to save her.

Bitter tears stung Ampris’s eyes. She couldn’t believe it. And yet, the guards were carrying her away like garbage to be thrown out.

“From the first day I predicted this trouble,” Fazhmind said loudly. “Did I not say she would grow up into an unruly beast? Yes, I said it. I warned the Kaa repeatedly, and now I am proven right. Good riddance!”

Ampris shut her eyes, hating him, hating the Kaa, hating everyone who stood in the palace corridors and watched her go by. But even those who stared and whispered could not distract her from the awful words that kept echoing in her head:
Dispose of her at once
.

Cold words, uttered without mercy by the Kaa, whom she had reverenced and admired with all her heart. She had been a loyal, faithful subject. She had been petted by him, had received his smiles, had benefited all her life from his kindness. And now, he had turned on her, without justice, without regard for anything except his own loss.

She wanted to cry, to howl, to empty herself in her terror. Yet the restraint field kept her from doing any of those things. There was only her pounding heart and the shortness of breath in her lungs as she was carried into the service area behind the palace.

A transport waited there, already loaded with slaves deemed too old, too stupid, or too untrainable. A Gorlican slave merchant stood next to it, studying a manifest. The torso shell beneath his tunic was mottled orange and brown, and beneath his mask, his beaked mouth opened and closed while he counted to himself.

“One more for the load,” the guards called to him.

The slaver glanced up, took a second look at Ampris, and came forward with a sudden gleam of interest in his yellow eyes. “This one sure?” he asked.

The guards removed her earring of ownership and the restraints, then tossed her onto the transport. She fell bodily against a whimpering Myal and was thrust off with a sharp elbow.

“She goes,” the guards said, and walked away without looking back.

The slaver slammed the hatch shut and peered in at Ampris. “Very pretty,” he said in approval. “Very good quality. You must have been a bad Aaroun, to get yourself thrown out, eh?”

Racked with misery, Ampris averted her gaze from him and wished with all her heart for Israi to come running to get her. The sri-Kaa would not let this happen to her. She knew Israi would find a way to appease her father and make him relent.

She watched the rear entrance, certain that it would open and the guards would return for her. Or that Subi would come. Or—

With a whine of its engines, the transport lifted above the ground and swung around, laboring beneath the load it carried. It flew away, and Ampris’s hopes were left behind in the deserted service alley.

The first time Elrabin made a dust run he was so scared he thought his fur might fall out. The next time he found the danger a thrill. After that, it fell into an easy routine.

Elrabin was offered a taste his first day. Like they thought him so stupid he didn’t know what it was. He never explained that he hated the sight and smell of it, or that he knew every grade on the streets and half the suppliers in the ghetto network. He was too relieved at not having to sell it himself. Delivery wasn’t so bad, although the risks—and the penalties if caught with it—were plenty.

Scar’s training was simple. “I give you these credit vouchers, see?” he said, handing over four thin disks, each one smaller in diameter than Elrabin’s palm and in four different colors that signified numerical amounts.

Elrabin stared at them, trying not to gasp out loud. They represented more money than his da had won in a lifetime’s gambling and grifting. Elrabin had never dreamed there could be so much money, at least not resting in his hand.

“They’re marked,” Scar said sharply, watching him. “You take off with them, you’ll be dead in two hours. You follow?”

Panting, Elrabin nodded. He did not ask how he would be watched. He believed what Scar said.

“Good. You go to the Street of Two Faces, down on the south side. You know where that is?”

“I can find it.”

“You go straight there, to the tattoo shop called Feilee’s. Say it back to me.”

“Feilee’s,” Elrabin repeated impatiently. “On the Street of Two Faces. I’ve got it.”

“You go in, ask for Feilee in the back, and don’t flash those disks! You’ll get your throat slit quicker than you can blink, see?”

Elrabin’s ears twitched nervously. He nodded.

“Go in back and talk to Feilee. No one else. Show him the disks. Tell him you’re from Barthul. If he don’t believe you, tell him the password I gave you this morning. You remember it?”

Elrabin repeated the strange words, feeling his fur prickle as he said them. He knew running dust could get him killed if a patroller spotted him. He still wished he’d never agreed to this. Like he had a choice. Like he would ever have a choice again. He belonged to Barthul now, and he might as well be a slave.

“You give Feilee the disks,” Scar said, “and take whatever he gives you. Bring it back here tonight.”

Elrabin blinked in surprise. “Tonight? Why not as soon as I get it?”

Scar bared his yellowed teeth. “Stupid! You think patrollers don’t watch Feilee’s? They know it’s a drop-off point. You got to lose the tail you’ll be picking up as soon as you walk out.”

Fear filled Elrabin’s entrails, making them burn. For a moment he thought he would be sick. He thought of the patrollers he had escaped in the Street of Regard, not because he was clever or slick, but because they had let him go. He remembered Cuvein’s face, defeated and afraid. He remembered his own humiliation and helplessness when he’d faced the wrist cutters. How well would he face a death penalty?