Emperor's Edge Republic (7 page)

Before their eyes, the dock faded, cracked, and splintered. The boards sagged and warped.

“I don’t know,” Sespian said, “but it’s only happening to the five feet around that bud.”

“Where the spores landed,” Mahliki agreed. “Or whatever they were.”

One of the boards snapped in half and fell through to the water below. Others grew thinner and frailer, as if they were aging a hundred years in a matter of seconds.

Mahliki wriggled free from Sespian’s grip and darted back to the bud.

“What are you doing?” he blurted.

She stabbed her specimen with her dagger and turned, intending to sprint back before the weakened boards gave way. One collapsed beneath her heel, and her foot plunged through. She yanked it free, but another one groaned beneath her other leg. She flung herself to the dock to spread out her weight and crawled back to Sespian. He had dropped his sketchpad and had been about to lunge out after her. She was glad he hadn’t; their combined weight would have sent them both plunging into the icy water.

“Getting my specimen,” Mahliki answered his question. She opened her jacket to peek at the vials, bottles, and fine tools she kept strapped to the lining, but none of the collection cases was big enough. She dug into her satchel and pulled out a glass box. She stuffed her half dissected bud into it, grabbed a sturdy lid, and fastened it as if speed counted for everything. Maybe it did. “You don’t mind drawing it through the glass, do you?”

“No,” Sespian said. “Not at all.”

In the handful of seconds since she had been back with him, the dock had continued to deteriorate. Disintegrate, almost. By the time it finally collapsed, only splinters remained to float on the water below. Mahliki shuddered, thinking about what might have happened to her if she had been caught by those spores.

“I think this may be important enough to warrant a favor from Father after all,” she said lightly, though she would have preferred to stand in Sespian’s arms again. She would have to find a way to thank him for using his quick reflexes to pull her to safety.

“I’d say so. We’d better warn the enforcers and the fire brigade too. If they blasted one of those buds with a gout of flame...”

“It could be ugly, yes.” Mahliki peered down at her specimen. The tonsil had stopped pulsing, but it was still the strangest thing she had seen in her years studying biology. “What
are
you?” she whispered to it.

She didn’t receive a response.

• • • • •

After checking the office, the library, the conference room, and all the other places people liked to waylay Rias, Tikaya headed to the basement of the old hotel. The four-story, three-hundred-year-old Emperor’s Bulwark had been converted to presidential use in the aftermath of the election, the mostly destroyed Imperial Barracks being deemed inappropriate housing for a nation’s new leader. Considering all the tents, huts, branches, and bare ground Rias had slept in and on during his life, he probably wouldn’t have been bothered by living in a room with one wall missing and shrapnel and soot adorning the rest. Tikaya appreciated the comforts of the hotel, even if it had been donated by one of the remaining leaders of the disbanded business coalition responsible for so much of the trouble in the capital of late. The donation had been less about charity and more about ingratiating oneself to the new president. That seemed to be everyone’s agenda when interacting with Rias.

In contrast with the crisp evening air outside, the basement had the humidity of a greenhouse. Pipes knocked and hissed, and raucous laughs and cheers came from down a hallway marked Gentlemen’s Gymnasium. Tikaya had been in the smaller Women’s Gymnasium a few times, though she hadn’t found many women in it to exercise—or socialize—with. Even in this reformed Turgonian government, the majority of posts were filled by stodgy military men, with the exception of the treasury and economics branches, where more women had run for office. Rias had rejected her suggestion that he take on a female vice president, choosing instead the man who had been the runner up in the election. Dasal Serpitivich was pleasant enough, and Tikaya understood making choices to appease the populace, but thought Rias had missed an opportunity to initiate
real
change.

“Incremental changes, love,” he had said. “We’re already bending the blades of brittle old swords.”

Tikaya walked down the dim hallway toward the laughs. Doors to either side had labels such as Steam, Heat, and Structure Manipulation, leaving one to wonder if the rooms were for bath-related activities or for repairing one’s steam carriage.

A door opened, emitting a cloud of vapor and a man with a towel draped over his shoulder and nothing else. He turned toward her, but halted with an ungainly stumble.

“My lady,” he blurted, sweeping the towel down to cover himself. “This is the men’s gymnasium.”

“Yes, I know. I’m looking for a man. My husband, specifically. Have you seen him?” The man—a military intelligence officer she vaguely remembered as a chief of somebody’s affairs... Kendorian, maybe—shrugged. “Yes. No. I mean, you’re not supposed to be
in
here, my lady.”

“Half of the public baths in the city are mixed gender,” Tikaya pointed out.

“Yes, but not the
lodges
.”

Ah, she had scrambled up into his girls-not-allowed tree fort. Too bad. “My husband? Is he here, or not?”

The man stepped aside and pointed toward the end of the hall. “I believe he’s meeting with the heads of our department in the Rings.”

“Thank you.”

Tikaya strode down the hall, passing a few other nude men, some who appeared scandalized by her presence, some who smirked and bowed, and others who merely gave her the same polite, professional, “Evening, my lady” that they would when fully dressed and passing in the halls upstairs.

The laughs, she soon learned, were coming from the Rings portion of the basement. Here, the space hadn’t been divided into smaller rooms. The entire end of the building lay open, the cement walls bare with exposed pipes running along the ceiling. A handful of circles of various sizes had been painted on the floor, and a bunch of men, some in exercise togs and others in nothing, were gathered around the closest one. The sound of flesh smacking against flesh rang out more than once, and a bevy of jeers and catcalls erupted from the onlookers.

Tikaya had no more than started toward the ring when spectators leaped aside so a familiar bare-chested man could skid out of the boundaries on his back, a wince on his face.

She stopped at the gray-haired head and peered down. “Good evening, love.”

President Sashka Federias Starcrest blinked a few times before focusing on her. “Why, good evening. Do you... need me?” From flat on his back, he gazed about at the manly decor, such as it was, as if he couldn’t believe there might be another reason she would have stepped foot down here.

“Is it my imagination, or do you sound hopeful that I do?” Tikaya asked.

“Yes. This meeting is proving painful. In more ways than one.” Rias propped himself up on his elbows and stared at the person who had sent him flying.

“You told me not to hold back,” the man said. He, too, was bare-chested, though only a few flecks of gray marked his short black hair. His battered nose had been broken at least twice, and a thick, knotted scar occupied the hollow where his left eye should have been. Apparently the compromised vision didn’t affect his boxing prowess overmuch.

“I tell everyone that,” Rias said, waving away a couple of offers of help and climbing to his feet on his own. “You’re the only one who listens.”

The man bared his teeth in something that wasn’t quite a smile. Given his pugilistic exterior, Tikaya expected half of those teeth to be missing, but they were straight, white, and all present.

“Is this... some old enemy of yours?” Tikaya asked. Her husband had a knack for turning enemies into allies, if not always friends, exactly.

“Close,” Rias said. “My brother’s son. Daksaron Starcrest.”

“Oh?” Tikaya considered the man anew, wondering if any of the family intellect lurked beneath his brutish facade. Rias had quite a few scars as well, she reminded herself, though none of the blows to his face had stolen his ability to draw a lady’s attention, even now in his sixties. It was hard to judge intelligence from peering into a man’s eyes—
eye
—she supposed, but she did find a hint of humor there at least.

“Call me, Dak, my lady.” Rias’s nephew thumped his fist to his chest and bowed.

“Why don’t
we
get to call him Dak?” a man in the crowd whispered.

“With your checkered record, you’re lucky he lets you call him Colonel,” his comrade whispered back.

Rias and Dak were grabbing towels and pretended not to hear the commentary.

“Continue without me, please, gentlemen,” Rias said.

“Wait, My Lord,” a middle-aged man implored, managing to appear quite earnest despite having nothing except a towel around his waist. “What about the Nurians? They’re the last thing on the agenda, remember? Those two spies we caught...” He glanced at Tikaya, as if he worried she wasn’t on the list of people allowed to hear state secrets.

Technically, she supposed she had never signed any paperwork promising loyalty to Turgonia, and she certainly hadn’t given up her Kyattese citizenship. As far as she knew, Rias didn’t keep any secrets from her, though with as little as she saw him lately, he had scant time to divulge the details of what he had for breakfast, much less anything juicy about the new republic’s enemies.

“Ah, yes,” Rias acknowledged, then gave Tikaya an apologetic look. “Can you give me fifteen minutes? I’ll meet you in my office. We can have a nice lunch delivered.” He brightened so at the notion of a private meal, one that might even involve sitting down to eat, that she was reluctant to mention...

“It’s after dark, love.”

His smile faltered, but he recovered it. “Dinner?”

Tikaya had already eaten with Mahliki, but she would take any time she could steal with him. “Yes, I’d like that. And while you’re being beaten up by more of your men, could you ask someone to scrounge up a couple of diving suits?”

Rias had been turning back to the ring, but he halted at this. “For... the plant?”

“Yes, Mahliki wants to get samples of the roots and take a good look at it from down below.”

“She can’t wait until Sicarius returns with the submarine?”

“It’s growing at an alarming rate,” Tikaya said.

“That will be dangerous,” Dak said. He’d had his arms folded as he watched a pair of younger men square off in the ring, but he scowled at Rias now. “I have all the latest reports on that thing.”

“Mahliki is capable of taking care of herself,” Tikaya said.

“Yes, I have all the reports on her too.” The hint of amusement had returned to his eye, but something about the way his eyebrow twitched made Tikaya wonder if her daughter had been up to some trouble this winter beyond her studies, trouble she hadn’t mentioned to her parents.

“I called Dak back from his post at Fort Deadend to head the intelligence office here,” Rias explained.

“Fort Deadend...?” Tikaya remembered the remote military installation well; it was the northernmost outpost in the empire and had its nickname because everyone knew no career advancement happened there.

“I didn’t get along well with those Forge snails spying from within the intelligence office in the Imperial Barracks,” Dak said. “Someone whispered in the right ear, and I was sent north two years ago.”

“An extreme posting,” Tikaya said. “What did you say to the, ah, snails?”

“I punched them.”

“Multiple times, I hear,” Rias said mildly.

Tikaya couldn’t decide if there was censor in his statement or not. If so, it seemed odd. Yes, Rias usually came up with creative ways to solve problems, but he wasn’t above fisticuffs. That seemed to breed true in Turgonian men, no matter what their intellect.

“They deserved it,” Dak said. “Send a few men with your girl. Some of the rumors about that plant aren’t as farfetched as they sound.”

“Yes, Mahliki had an... experience with it this afternoon. She’s aware of the danger. She also said Sespian would go down with her.” Tikaya had found the dreamy-eyed look in Mahliki’s eyes as she mentioned this amusing, though she had seen her daughter infatuated a few times before and didn’t know what to think of this new selection yet. Tikaya hoped to return home after Rias finished his five years here, but what if Mahliki were to fall in love with a Turgonian? To
marry
one and want to stay?

“I could find a couple of big, burly types,” Dak said.

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Rias said, “though Sespian might surprise you.”

“As I recall, he mostly surprised his own weapons training instructor with all the creative ways he discovered to get out of practice.”

“He’s a decent fighter now,” Rias said, “Quick, agile. Given who his father is, it would be surprising if he
weren’t
.”

Dak grunted. “Blood doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

Tikaya tried to gauge if that was some comment about their own shared blood, but his craggy features didn’t reveal much.

“My Lord?” the earnest man from before called. “The Nurians?”

“Yes, yes.” Rias smiled at Tikaya. “See you shortly.”

“I’ll arrange for the suits and the men.” Dak grabbed a shirt and pulled it over his head.

Rias gave him an acknowledging wave. Tikaya was surprised he had volunteered. If Dak was running the intelligence department, he had to be every bit as busy as Rias. This ought to be the sort of task that could be delegated to a lower-ranking man.

“My lady,” Dak extended an arm toward the hallway. “I’ll come with you. If your daughter’s upstairs, she can give me some measurements and her opinions on whether she wants a couple of bright officers or a couple of dull muscle-heads that she can order around.”

“I imagine she’ll end up in charge of any young men you send her, rank regardless,” Tikaya said as they walked toward the lift. “Her physical attributes are much better proportioned for that than mine ever were. I haven’t decided yet whether that’s a kindness or a handicap for her.”