The Thrones of Kronos (85 page)

The military courier that had been assigned to bring them to
the rendezvous had had scant data in its banks. Since their arrival seventy-two
hours ago, they had been immersed in new data, from the purely military to this
present mélange of sensory perceptions.

The unrelenting bombardment of data was made necessary because
the Kelly had apparently been asked to convey the Eya’a back to their home
planet. The two sophonts had—somehow, despite their apparent lack of comtech—been
recalled to return to their hive.

And a few hours previous to that, a pod of Kelly ships had
blipped out of hyper, in order to escort the Elder on threir mission.

The Kelly emerged from threir ship. The trinity stood
silently outside the hatch, waiting, but not for long, for an hatch leading to
the interior of the battlecruiser hissed open and the
Telvarna’s
crew emerged.

It was not quite the same crew that Manderian had known so
briefly on Ares. It still pained him to think that Ivard had been left behind
on the Suneater, his fate unknown—and unknowable.

Replacing him and Marim were three Bori, one of whom clung
to the other two like a lost child. The female of the trio was still
convalescent, as was Sedry Thetris, the quietly-dressed gray-haired woman who
walked with Montrose.

Manderian caught Montrose’s eye and nodded, receiving a
grin. The man strode with confidence, resplendent in a scarlet tunic with
exotic gold embroidery. Behind him Lokri—born Jesimar Kendrian—lounged,
handsome and sinister in black and silver; next to him walked Jaim, the quiet
drivetech in his ubiquitous gray. Last came Vi’ya. Manderian was startled to
see her clad in deep forest green, though the clothing itself was a plain
flightsuit. Shadowing her, as before, were the Eya’a.

Manderian and Eloatri stepped forward, and the Eya’a stopped
and faced them. They greeted the High Phanist with their unique deference,
covering their eyes and exposing their throats. She said nothing, only touching
them lightly on the tops of their heads.

Then the little sophonts turned to Manderian, using their
simple
we-see-you
semiotics. He bowed
deeply, knowing that the gesture meant nothing but the impulse behind it would
reach them. The Eya’a turned away, and they and Vi’ya approached the Kelly,
while the rest of the crew stayed a few paces back.

The Eya’a signed at the Kelly with blurring speed, who
blatted melodiously in return. Manderian comprehended that humans were
peripheral to this meeting. The Panarchy would have little to contribute to the
future of Kelly-Eya’a relations, for it was apparent that the two races could
communicate far better than could humans and Eya’a, and perhaps even better
than humans and Kelly.

The six figures stood before the Kelly ship in silence as
Eloatri rubbed absently at her scarred palm. Then the Eya’a entered the ship at
their customary quick pace, without a backward glance.

Vi’ya, looking much younger than he had remembered, showed
no reaction. But Manderian was sure this was due to his inability to read her,
for he knew from their fleeting contacts that in her the currents of human
emotion ran very deep indeed.

With no further ceremony apparent to human senses, the Kelly
ships lifted off the deck and drifted through the e-lock in rainbow display,
dwindling swiftly against the stars and then vanishing in the eerie manner of
the Kelly stealth-skip.

As the gathering in the landing bay dispersed, Manderian
turned to Eloatri. “Why, do you suppose, were the Eya’a so adamant about going
now?” he asked. “They’ve been with Vi’ya so long, why not wait a few more
weeks, especially since the Kelly indicated wanting to be at the coronation?”

“They are not Children of the Vortex,” Eloatri said. “We
have little to offer them.” She chuckled. “I do not think Archetype and Ritual
can ever accommodate them.” Then the humor faded from her expression, and she
rubbed unconsciously at her palm again, where the image of the Digrammaton was
reproduced in seared flesh. Her gaze was distant, and Manderian felt that she
was not so much speaking to him as to herself. “Although,” she said softly.
“They may still have much to offer us.”

They were due in two days.

In two days Vannis, gowned and jeweled for an occasion that
would live in memory as long as their civilization endured, would welcome the
returning Panarch and the government-in-exile. From now until then every moment
of her day would be filled with the logistics of preparation. The news was
still fresh from the courier, speeding ahead of the
Grozniy
, and still spreading, but she had a few hours yet to
herself. It was time to make her last pilgrimage.

Incident by incident she had trod in Brandon’s steps, trying
to follow his actions—and his thoughts—when he had last visited his home. For
last, she had saved his point of departure. Not the gazebo through which he and
the Rifters had run, before their desperate escape from Eusabian’s vengeance,
but his own departure, the day—the hour—the war began.

“Comp,” she said in the hallway outside Brandon’s suite,
where for generations Arkad siblings had lived. “Open, please.”

The door hissed open, and she walked in, expecting anything
from a bomb-blackened room like the Ivory Antechamber, to four bare walls, like
Gelasaar’s library in the Karelais wing.

The outer room seemed untouched, though she would not know.
The bite of irony accompanied the realization that she had never before seen
these rooms. Semion would have been furious—and even if she had shown any
interest in the supposedly stupid, drink-sodden youngest son, there had been so
many of her spouse’s spies about she never would have approached him here.

She passed through to the private chambers. The air was
still and cold, smelling of wet dog; the tianqi had been shut down. There was Brandon’s
bed, the bedclothes still rumpled. From the dog hairs scattered in the sheets,
dogs had slept here, probably ever since Brandon’s departure. Had they found
the scents comforting?

Discarded clothing lay where it had been dropped. Her gown
rustled as she bent to pick up his shirt. A faint but distinctive blend of rose
and jumari still clung to it, impacting her limbic system like a blow. She was
thrown back a year, among ghosts.

Who? Who? It was imperative that she remember. She sniffed
again, and there it was: Eleris vlith-Chandreseki’s sweet, calculated laughter,
her pretty voice, her bright layers of moth gauze drawing attention to her
generous curves.
I should not be
surprised that she’d hooked Brandon,
Vannis thought,
though she deplored his boyish predilection for computer games and
gambling.
From the scent, she’d hooked him the very day of his Enkainion,
but that, too, figured: as Vannis gently laid aside the shirt, she was willing
to gamble any sum that Eleris had done her best to claim Brandon’s escort for
the select party after the official Enkainion ball. Under the arrogant,
judgmental nose of the Krysarchei Phaelia Inesset, whom Semion had intended
Brandon to marry.

Brandon had jettisoned them all—including his brother
Semion.

Dead, all dead.

Vannis walked on, finding two empty cups, one with
chalky-white sides, the other with a ring of coffee stain.

Beyond the bedroom was the bain, and beyond that the
dressing room, still wide open. There hung the splendid maroon tunic Brandon
was to have worn to his Enkainion. Undisturbed below it lay a row of inherited
decorations, each worth a fortune.

Emotions, like the ghosts of wailing children, enclosed
Vannis in a vortex of the might-have-been. Should have been.

So he really did leave before the bomb. The wardrobe was too
neat for a last minute, hasty decision. Everything looked orderly, as it would
after a deliberately planned removal.

Brandon had gone off, expecting to leave not a chaos of
death, but a chaos of angry, affronted people.

If that bomb had not
gone off, where would he be now? Jacking Navy ships?

No, that didn’t seem right. Despite the presence of his
things, she was no closer to his inward mind.

If the bomb had not
gone off, he still would have met Vi’ya.

This journey of hers was mere self-indulgence, without
insight.

The console bleeped: the inhuman voice murmured, “Fierin
vlith-Kendrian for you.”

Vannis said, “Accept, voice only.”

Fierin said breathlessly, “Vannis, I think you’d better
come. Here’s the location.”

The computer screen flashed a graphic with a pulsing point.

Vannis tabbed an acknowledgment before shutting down the
console. Her pilgrimage was done; the past had passed. Whatever the future
held, she would not look back.

She walked out of the wardrobe, through the bain, and
Brandon’s bedroom to the outer rooms. When she reached the hall, the door
hissed shut and locked behind her.

Fierin waited inside the air car watching the fuel gauge
tick away the charge. It was impossible to think—it was time to act, only what
to do?

When Vannis emerged on the terrace, she threw the car into
motion and swooped down on her, the backwash sending furniture sliding into the
low wall.

Flying this close to a building was strictly forbidden on
just about every planet, but Fierin did not care.

Vannis frowned as the wind took her hair and gown every
which way. She stood her ground and when Fierin drew level and called “Get in!”
she climbed in and sat down.

“What—”

Fierin did not give her time to finish the question. Sending
the car into a steep climb and roll, she jammed the acceleration stick forward
to the max, pressing them both against the padded seats.

When the car leveled out, Vannis’s annoyance fled when she
took in Fierin’s grim profile. “Fierin?”

“I hope we’re in time,” Fierin said, gritting her teeth. The
fuel gauge was at less than half, but she couldn’t spare the time to use a
slower, fuel-conserving speed, even if they had to walk the long kilometers
back to the Palace.

“Where are we going?”

“Watch,” Fierin said.

A breeze buffeted the car and Fierin had to fight the
controls. The wind was not strong, but at these speeds its vagaries could be
dangerous.

Vannis stiffened. “I know this place. It’s Havroy Bay!” She
frowned. “Isn’t it? This is where it should be, but what happened?”

“You tell me,” Fierin said, exerting strong effort to keep
her voice from trembling. This was not the time to talk about how she had
wanted to make this pilgrimage when she was small—how the old Archonei of
Torigan, before she went mad, had wanted to bring her, but for some
unaccountable reason Stulafi Y’Talob, then holding her wardship, had forbidden
it.
I always thought it was because I was
tainted by the accusation against my brother—that I wasn’t worthy. What an
irony to find out that he was the one tainted, that he probably feared someone
finding out our story, and probing it.
Yet she could see now how that
decision had shaped her own self-image, right up until recently.

They passed over the last of the scorched, treeless hills,
and swooped low over the windswept sands as Fierin said, “I was out walking
with Trev and Gray. They sniffed every blade of grass and every tree. Then they
stopped dancing around and started barking.”

Vannis glanced below, and drew in a sharp breath when she
saw the lumps in the sand, where either people or nature had tried to bury the
dead, just to have the remorseless wind uncover them again. Arm bones, leg
bones, skulls, lay all along the shore, a heartbreakingly uncountable crowd.

“I could hear these dogs barking in the distance, and ran to
see what was wrong. Saw
this
.”

Vannis turned toward the crescent where once, for almost two
thousand years, the statue of the Havroy had stared out over the sea—replaced
by a black, glassy-sided crater, at the bottom of which lay a dark, stagnant
pool of water.

“There.” Fierin banked the car with a stomach-turning lurch.

Below small figures made their way toward the lip of the
crater. As Fierin neared, the slow ones resolved into children moving at a
deliberate pace except for one boy, who struggled mightily against the bigger,
stronger pair who held his arms. Around and around the children a mixture of
Arkad and other dogs ran, hackles up, alternately barking and whining. The
children ignored the dogs.

“I was on foot,” Fierin said tersely. “Out of bozzing range.
Ran all the way back. Left the dogs and found this car and bozzed you. I didn’t
know what else to do. They didn’t see me, and I overheard them holding some
kind of tribunal. They voted to tie that boy up and push him over the edge of
the crater.”

The children, determined on their task, also ignored the air
car until Fierin, with an angry smack of her hand, forced it to drop like a
stone, to halt between them and the crater. The children stopped, ranging
themselves silently before the air car.

“He wouldn’t be able to stand up. He’d drown,” Vannis said,
her eyes widening, greeny-brown in hazy sunlight.

“I think that’s the idea.”

Vannis hit the door control. Despite her short stature—the
two holding the struggling boy were taller—she had assumed the aspect of
command.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What is going on here?”

A thin girl of maybe ten years stepped forward. Her clothes
were ragged, and over them she wore a torn Navy tunic, several sizes too large
for her.

“I’m Moira,” the girl said, proud and defiant. “We’re the
Rats. This—” She pointed a stiff finger directly into the tear-stained face of
the boy. “—is a collaborator.” She spat the word hatefully.

“I am not!” the boy shrieked, then gave a sob of rage and
shame. His face was filthy, smeared with dirt and tears, his long yellow hair
stuck to cheeks and chin as he fought desperately to free his wrists from the
grip of the boy and girl holding him. At the sight of the blood smeared on his
arms, Fierin’s insides tightened.