Crown Of Fire (9 page)

Rogonin jerked up his head. He eyed the House Guards at his doorposts. "They wouldn't dare."

"They wouldn't dare come here without bringing assistance, Your Grace. I would suggest rescreening all palace employees. We could help," Talumah said softly. "We know
them
when we see them."

With his daughter's ball impending—should he?

"No," he said. That would be collaboration. "Thank you for the information, but my security staff will investigate."

"As you wish, Your Grace." Shirak chuckled.

His laughter shattered Rogonin's temporary languor. He sat upright. "I can spare no more time." He flicked his fingers in dismissal.

Talumah bowed and turned away, but Shirak stood his ground. "Do you remember," he said, "that General Caldwell's brother and his family were murdered?"

Drawn oddly to the man, Rogonin answered, "Of course. That came over Federate newsnets. Though we distrust the sources, we did use Caldwell's bereavement as an occasion to open a case of old southern wine. Is it true?"

Shirak crossed his arms. "I killed them. I will kill again, this time for you. Set aside a case of old southern wine to drink with me. When
she
is dead."

Rogonin raised an eyebrow.

Shirak pivoted and strutted to the door.

Rogonin watched until the massive gold panels shut them out. Yes, he decided, Shirak looked like a murderer and a braggart. Deciding to have him tailed, Rogonin reached for his desk pad.

Oddly, the screen glowed with military information. He didn't remember calling that up.

He frowned, blanked it, and tapped out an order to Enforcement.

Early the next morning Brennen's interlink gave off a soft tone. Firebird rolled aside as he retrieved it from the nightstand. "Caldwell," he said.

"Good morning, Caldwell," she heard. "Danton. Nothing new on yesterday's callers to Tellai's house, but one of your quiet help reported suspicious presences last night. There's a chance the Shuhr have tried to contact the senior authority."

Firebird blinked. The interlink channel was supposedly secure, but neither Brennen nor Danton would refer to Sentinel infiltrators in the palace.

"No changes to our staff? We'll have a quiet morning and an afternoon fitting. The Rogonin ball is tonight."

Firebird sat up, and Brennen's amusement followed her delight like an echo. He had no intrinsic interest in meeting that protocol requirement. She, on the other hand, might have been tempted to interpret protocol a little too strenuously for the chance to dance a triplette in his arms—

But as their second most public appearance, it was one more chance to draw out a Shuhr agent without endangering too many civilians. There would be thousands in the Hall of Charity. Already, their palace-staff infiltrators would be jockeying to serve on tonight's shift. Her own assignment was simply to be as visible as possible, and the dance floor would serve nicely.

"We'll be ready," Danton said. Brennen thumbed off the interlink.

The "quiet" morning would give Firebird one more chance to prepare herself, mentally and spiritually, for the days ahead.

First, she spent half an hour at her studies in
Mattah,
the Sentinels' holy book. She'd been battling with the issue of atonement. Self-sacrifice was something she'd always understood—but for her full and final justification, according to
Mattah,
she must trust in an atonement the Eternal Speaker would make . . . someday, in the Word to Come's time. That was less clear.

After reading several chapters of the historical Second Confessions and one in the meatier Wisdom of Mattah, she set the book aside. Again, she'd found more questions than answers—but Brennen had gone out. Intellectually, she could understand the idea of substitution-ary death, of escaping the consequences of her own actions thanks to someone else's sacrifice. She knew that the Singer had laid a covering over her so she could stand in His presence. Still, in her heart of hearts, she felt that if a sacrifice needed to be made for her full and final cleansing, she must make it. Herself.

This was progress. Back when she honored the Powers, she'd had to be the sacrificial victim.

She took a fast turn in the vaporbath, then settled in Phoena's parlor with Shel. After months of effort, she'd learned to touch her epsilon carrier. It was the first skill all Sentinels learned.

This was pathetic progress, but because of her oddly polarized epsilon carrier, it allowed the unprecedented explosion of power they now called epsilon fusion. RIA alone wouldn't guarantee their safe passage through the renegades' fielding net. They would need her—and fusion. College researchers had all but proved that she'd killed the Shuhr who attacked her by fusing carriers and amplifying their deadly intent.

The researchers had also measured considerable scarring to the ayin complex in her midbrain. The more she practiced fusing carriers, the sooner she would destroy it altogether. That made her more determined than ever to learn how to shield her mind from attack.

Shel sat in a straight-backed waiting chair. "Try this," she suggested. "Think of the air around you as neutral, uncharged. With your carrier, you want to charge it positively, so it will repel other positive energy. Can you think at the electrical level?"

"Perfectly," Firebird answered, "if it's pertaining to a shipboard console."

"Go ahead, then."

She quieted her thoughts and forced herself to relax. Turning inward, she first faced the flaming darkness, the taint in her soul that surrounded her epsilon carrier. She no longer felt compelled to find an intellectual explanation for its existence. She was learning to focus on the Mighty Singer instead, and to be grateful He could use her flawed gifts. Cautiously, she touched the carrier itself.

Colors suddenly brightened, while common sounds developed a deep, eerie music. Holding that mental posture, she tried Shel's suggestion, envisioning air molecules charged with energy. She tried imagining them turning different colors. She tried shifting them into sound waves.

Nothing happened.

She let go of her epsilon turn and drooped against the back of Phoena's deep chair.

Shel shook her head. "I can't tell if you have the idea," she complained, "not when I have to stay shielded this way."

Firebird understood the danger. If she and Shel accidentally created fusion, Shel might be killed. Cassia Talumah and Harcourt Terrell had died this way, according to the Sentinel College's current theory.

"I understand," Firebird said. "I'll try again."

Several attempts later, while holding the depth of her turn, she remembered the visualization she'd first used to find her carrier: the stone wall surrounding the Angelo estate at Hunter Height, where Phoena nearly executed her. In her vision, that barrier walled a perpetual inner darkness away from conscious perception—and with it, the carrier.

What would happen if she tried to take part of the wall down?

She imagined herself drifting alongside, considering its lichen-crusted strength.

What if she imagined a crack?

Wanting to find it, longing to find it, she wasn't surprised when a crack appeared some ways ahead, between stone blocks. She forged a firm link between her point of consciousness and the convoluted cord of energy behind her. Grounding herself in that power, she thrust at the crack. Thrust, again—

And fell back in her chair. "I almost had it." She shoved hair back from her forehead. "Did you feel anything that time?"

"No," Shel admitted, "but if you felt that was progress, try again."

This time, when Firebird shut her eyes and rested back in her chair, Shel Mattason dispersed her shields. Like most Sentinels, she'd picked up her basic skills without weird visualizations—but Firebird was notoriously unique. Shel had been warned to avoid creating any situation that might produce the potentially deadly fusion, even though the masters' research reassured everyone that Firebird could now control whether or not fusion occurred.

The faintest tendril of epsilon presence touched her. Instantly, Shel shielded herself.

Firebird had gone stiff again, her hot brown eyes open wide. "What was that?" she exclaimed. "Something happened."

"I don't know." Startled, Shel sat back down. She didn't remember standing up. "It was no shield, but I think it was almost a quest-pulse. Could you do it again?" This time, she shielded heavily.

Firebird shut her eyes. This time, the only outward sign of her effort that Shel could see was a bead of perspiration that trickled down her forehead, along her left eye, and then down the edge of her cheek.

She was trying. Desperately. She couldn't make it happen again. Eventually, she gave up.

"I think," Shel murmured, "you're too tired to go on. Do this, though—remember what you did the first time. Let me watch you remember. Just don't pull me into your turn."

"I won't." Firebird felt the weird otherness of Shel's epsilon probe slide into place. As soon as she knew the Sentinel could observe, she touched her epsilon carrier. She recalled the effort of thrusting at the chink in that everlasting wall, battling until a tiny granite chip split off its surface. She was through! On the outside, she felt the slightest echo of another epsilon presence.

She opened her eyes.

"That," Shel pronounced, "was a quest-pulse. Not very strong, but it was real. Well done!"

Firebird cocked one eyebrow and barely smiled.

"Take a minute to let your carrier rebuild, then try again while your memory is fresh. Do it over and over, until you can do it under consistent control."

"What good is it? That slowly—that weakly—I need to be able to shield, Shel! To put out fifty times that much energy." And to hold on to consciousness after fusion. She hated the thought of sparking fusion for Brennen, deep in enemy territory, and then falling unconscious.

Shel frowned. "Sometimes, the Holy One gives us only one skill for a number of months. It's like His call on our lives. We don't necessarily understand, but He'll give us whatever we genuinely need, and always in time."

Firebird gripped her armrest. Coming from the bereaved Shel, that encouragement carried considerable weight. Surely these infinitesimal achievements wouldn't feed pride, not the pride she would feel if she saved Netaia, even if achieving that glory cost her life—

Whoops! Again, she caught herself in Powers-based thinking. She could not shake the idea that if any sacrifice had to be made for her sake, then she must be directly involved or it would count for nothing. It was a virulent Netaian sort of pride, the exact opposite of the future atonement taught by her Path instructor, in Second Confessions, and in the Wisdom of Mattah.

Intellectually, she had almost grasped it. Obviously, she still believed otherwise.

"So practice," Shel said. "You'll build speed that way."

Firebird pushed away her theological reflections. "What good is a quest-pulse, Shel?"

"Controlled, it can be used to find a person whose mental savor you know, or to send energy in small packets, or communicate your presence. Brennen will be delighted," she added. "And sorry he wasn't here to see."

Brennen was engaged in his own struggle. In Uri Harris's elegant parlor in the adjoining consort's suite, they both sat in straight-back chairs. Brennen was relearning to remotely lift simple objects—starting with a shoe, then his crystace. They'd progressed to nudging pieces of furniture away from the walls and then back. Even the precursor skill, focusing epsilon energy in his hand's long nerve bundles, no longer came consistently. Once, all this had been so easy that he could control his own rate of fall.

Now it felt like trying to fly through syrup. His spiritual father had recently said, "Rarely do we experience a true spiritual victory without afterward being tempted to believe we have lost something precious. Other temptations will come, too, because the Adversary tries to avenge his losses. You won a great victory at Three Zed. Do not forget that."

Brennen exhaled heavily. In one way, it was a relief to lay down some of his ancestors' burdens, the psi powers that resulted from unconscionable gene tampering. His losses, and his new fears, must strengthen his faith. He must focus his reliance on the Holy One.

That wasn't easy for a gifted man. He had to sympathize with Mari's struggle against the pride that kept her from dying to willfulness and being fully used by the Eternal Speaker. As the Caldwell-Carabohd family's eldest surviving heir, he had to live by that highest standard of humility. He'd been tempted by a conqueror's pride, back before he lost so much epsilon ability.

Guide me, Holy One. Help me walk this new Path.

Uri rested his chin on one hand. "Before we try springing this trap at the ball," he said, "you and Lady Firebird ought to try fusion again. Shamarr Dickin was firm about being prepared. All this, everything else we've tried, strikes me as avoiding the real issue."

"And no one has heard the call," Brennen pointed out. It had been decades since Sentinel forces found the enemy's stronghold, and still they waited. Previous shamarrs, speaking on behalf of the Holy One, had warned them to hold back until the chosen moment.

Uri nodded. As commissioned officers, they should obey Federate orders, even to a premature strike, if there was no overwhelming moral reason to disobey. . . but Special Ops had already warned Regional command that sending a Sentinel force too early might result in losing it.

Brennen hoped his orders might include a discretionary provision. That could be granted under extraordinary circumstances. Assuming they gave him command, he might have several hundred lives resting on that judgment call. Uri, for example—the son of parents with ES scores too low to qualify for training—really hadn't wanted to become a Sentinel at all, but acquiesced to his parents' wishes. Brennen might have to decide whether to risk Uri's life.

"Hiding our gifts," Uri said, "is one way of misusing them."

Brennen rested his head against the wall behind his chair. "So we have the Codes." He had only to look at the Shuhr to see what his people would be without those restrictions on using their skills. "I wonder," Brennen said, "if they are already cloning offspring from Phoena's cells. If she inherited a reversed carrier, too, that might give them fusion-capable warriors in just a few years."

And my own cells?
Would there be Caldwell offspring among Three Zed's next generation?

He must not think about that.

"And passive fusion-partners even sooner, if they manipulate development." Uri stroked the side of his chin with two fingers.

If the Shuhr attacked Federate worlds using RIA and fusion, they could take anything. Everything.

They
must
catch one Shuhr. Maybe then they would be called. This, not Mari's inexplicable passion to try dancing with him, was the real excuse for attending Esmerield Rogonin's ball.

"If I could wish," Brennen said, stretching the kinks from his back, "I would wish there were some way to show mercy. To win them to truth. To show we could destroy them but would rather hold back." He'd toyed with one perilous idea. If Three Zed's fielding could be taken down, he might go in under a flag of truce and try to negotiate, even knowing he might be killed by his own forces if the Shuhr refused to cooperate and the Federates had to attack. He hadn't forgotten disobeying Federate orders to go to Hunter Height. That incident had put a count of insubordination in his master file.

But if the true call came, he would not disobey, even to save his life. He couldn't save it, anyway. . . only lengthen it.
Let a door open to mercy,
he prayed,
or else show us your will. Plainly.