The Moon's Shadow (Saga of the Skolian Empire) Read online

  “Can we escort you anywhere?” one asked.

  Their behavior bewildered him, so much that he couldn’t answer. The Traders had never let him leave his room. In truth, he had little wish to go anywhere; what he really wanted was the sleep his tormentors had denied him for days.

  Probing their behavior now, Eldrin returned to his suite. The guards came, too, and took up their posts outside. Finally convinced they intended nothing dire, he went back into the suite to the bedroom, where he collapsed on the bed.

  Eldrin’s last thoughts, as he fell asleep, were of Dehya, her dark hair flowing. Dehya. Dyhianna Selei. The Ruby Pharaoh.

  His wife.

  They had told him she died.

  3

  The Gilded Cage

  Corbal Xir poured the wine. It flowed into the crystal goblets, sparkling like rubies.

  He offered Jai a drink. “It is from my vineyards, Your Highness.” He said the title easily, as if he had addressed Jai that way for years.

  At a loss, Jai took the goblet. His inclination was to thank Corbal, but he had no idea how an Aristo would respond. So he said nothing. He had been in the embassy for only a few minutes and already he felt as if he were treading water in an ocean where he could all too easily drown.

  The room disoriented him. It was circular rather than square. Plush red upholstery covered its walls, and gold shone everywhere, from the moldings that bordered the ceiling to the onion-shaped arches above the doorways. Crystal sparkled on the chandelier, and the black lacquered tables gleamed. It all made him feel suffocated.

  He and Corbal were nominally alone; their guards had stayed outside. But Corbal surely had security watching the room. Jai was clenching the stem of his goblet so hard, his hand ached. He felt so far out of his league, he had no idea where to begin.

  Corbal raised his drink, his smile as smooth as glass. “To your health.”

  Jai just nodded, afraid to drink. Corbal took a long swallow, then lowered his goblet. He glanced at Jai’s glass with concern. “Does the wine not please you?”

  “Yes, certainly.” Jai waited longer, but Corbal showed no distress. Relieved, Jai lifted his own goblet.

  Corbal caught the glass just before the wine touched Jai’s lips. Without a word, he pulled away the goblet.

  Jai stiffened. “What are you doing?”

  Disappointment showed on the older man’s face, though whether it was real or planned, Jai couldn’t tell.

  “Come,” Corbal said.

  He took Jai to an antique stand by the wall. A gold cage hung from a hook at its top, and inside a bird fluffed red feathers. Corbal opened the cage and set Jai’s goblet inside.

  The bird chirped. It dipped its translucent beak into the goblet, sipping the wine, and gave an appreciative trill. Just as Jai smiled, the bird went silent. Swaying on the perch, it tilted its head. With a harsh cry, it toppled off the perch and hit the bottom of the cage with a thud.

  Jai stared at the bird, then at the wine in his goblet next to it. Without a word, he reached into the cage and picked up the bird. It lay inert in his palm. Dead.

  “Gods,” Jai whispered.

  Corbal took Jai’s glass and went to a pearly oval set into the wall, what Jai had thought was part of the decor. When Corbal opened the panel, Jai realized it was a disposal unit. Corbal dropped in the goblet, and the hum of its disintegration filled the room.

  Jai felt ill. “You poisoned the wine.”

  Corbal slowly turned, his face and manner cool. “It’s possible. Or perhaps I put poison in your glass or an antidote in mine. Maybe I have internal systems that neutralize unwanted chemicals. Or the bird might be sensitive in ways we aren’t.” He leaned against a darkwood desk that reflected the chandelier in its polished surface. Then he took a long swallow of his own wine.

  Jai set the bird in the cage. His heart was racing, but he made himself speak without losing his cool. “You won’t kill me.”

  “No?” Corbal smiled pleasantly. “And why is that?”

  “You gave away Prince Eldrin. The greatest prize Eube ever attained, and you let him go.” Somehow he kept his fear out of his voice. “No trade in the universe is worth that crime—except one. The Emperor of Eube.” He prayed he was right. “Fail to produce me, and the other Hightons will obliterate you.”

  Xir sighed. “You are so painfully innocent.”

  Jai gave a short laugh, hoping Corbal couldn’t see the fear it hid. “So I turn to the wisdom of my mentor, the mighty Lord Xir? I don’t think so, Uncle.”

  “Actually, we are cousins.” Corbal paused much the way Jai’s mother had often done when she accessed her internal computer. “Your first cousin, twice removed. I was your grandfather’s first cousin.”

  Like a sharp pain, Jai suddenly longed for the family he would never see again. He could never admit that the girl and two boys who had been foster children with him on Earth were actually his younger sister and brothers. He had no friends here, no one he could trust, nowhere he could turn. He fought the foolish, lonely part of him that wanted Corbal to fill the gap left by the loss of his family, friends, and the life he had known.

  Xir finished his wine. Then he smiled, his face as cold as his ruby gaze. “Welcome to Eube, Your Highness.”

  Jai swallowed. The words sounded like a curse.

  Lady Tarquine Iquar, the Finance Minister of Eube, appreciated the hospitality offered to her and the other bidders invited to the auction. Admiral Taratus, the seller, had provided a sumptuous dinner for the bidders. The dining chamber had the octagonal shape he seemed to favor, with gold walls and a domed ceiling tiled by platinum mosaics. An air-bed stood discreetly in one corner.

  Three other Hightons sat at the low dinner table with Tarquine. They reclined in loungers, two other women and a man in the uniform of an ESComm general. Tarquine sipped wine from her goblet. As the Highton Minister of Finance, she advised the emperor on the economy. Although she kept her appearance at a healthy and vibrant forty years old, she had lived 104 years.

  The chamber contained one other person, the provider on auction. At the moment, he was sitting on the floor by another of the Highton women. Tarquine studied the man. He was an unparalleled item, no doubt. Tall and well built, with long legs, a muscular physique, and an athletic grace, he compelled attention. The age lines around his eyes and the maturity of his features added to his allure; this was no untried youth or body-sculpted mannequin.

  But this provider had more to him than his beauty. Although his hair and eyes appeared light brown, Tarquine knew otherwise. He had bought some cheap genetic tattoo job that changed his coloring; reverse the tattoo, and he would shimmer gold, his hair, his skin, even his eyes.

  Yes, she knew. Only she had recognized him. He was supposedly a Skolian psion Admiral Taratus had captured, but that barely touched the truth. Tarquine believed him to be Kelricson Valdoria Skolia, a Ruby prince killed in battle eighteen years ago. He looked remarkably fetching for a dead man. Here he was, a long lost heir of Imperial Skolia, kidnapped by pirates barely two months after the end of the war and put up for auction.

  Fascinating.

  Tarquine took a sip of wine, listening as the others questioned Kelric. He answered in one-word sentences, with no attempt to hide how much he hated the auction. His resistance attracted her.

  It didn’t surprise Tarquine that no one else recognized Kelric. He had been in the news only briefly, thirty-five years ago, when he had wed a Skolian noblewoman, and then again when she had died two years later. But Tarquine had never forgotten the gold prince of those newscasts, because she had so greatly coveted him. He looked different now, older, experienced, his physique more heavily muscled than the leggy young man from over three decades ago. When Taratus had sent holos of the provider he had to auction, she hadn’t been certain it was Kelric. But now, seeing him in person, she had no doubt.

  Of course she wouldn’t reveal his identity. If ESComm learned that Eube had another Ruby prince, they would take him
for interrogation. She couldn’t allow that—because no matter how much it cost, she intended to own Kelric Valdoria.

  Corbal Xir wasted no time taking Jai to the capital planet of Eube. They arrived only a few days after they met on Delos. Jai’s great-great-grandfather, Eube Qox, had named this world Eube’s Glory. Eube had redesigned its solar system to please himself: he terra-formed Glory to fit his taste, destroyed several planets he didn’t like, and removed an asteroid belt that annoyed him. It gave Jai a window into his progenitor’s mind, offering whole new insights into the word “megalomania.”

  Over a century and a half ago, Eube had comissioned the construction of a mansion for his sister Ilina on her marriage to a Lord Xir. Corbal was Ilina’s son. Jai found it hard to absorb that his cousin had been born 132 years ago. It made Jai acutely aware he was only seventeen, terminally young and inexperienced.

  Corbal had brought him here to the Xir mansion after their arrival on Glory. It relieved Jai; he didn’t want to see the Qox palace yet. His palace. His mother’s forces had left it in ruins. She had come for his father, but both of them had died trying to escape. Jai wasn’t ready to face so many reminders of what he had lost.

  He went out onto a balcony and rested his hands on the rail, a bar of platinum engraved with abstract tessellations. This rail alone was worth more than everything his family had owned in their exile. He would have traded a thousand such bars to have back that simple life.

  A spectacular landscape spread out below this high mountainside that served as home for the Xir mansion. In the distance, across a valley, the Jaizire Mountains sheered into the sky, shrouded in mist. Primordial forest tangled on their slopes and carpeted the lowlands. Jai inhaled the cold, thin air, adjusting to its strange scent.

  “A striking view,” a voice said.

  Startled, Jai looked around. Corbal had joined him, elegant and imposing in his dark clothes.

  “Indeed,” Jai said. Corbal often used the word, though it meant nothing as far as Jai could tell. Right now, it was conveniently vague.

  His cousin motioned at the valley. “This is my land. You own the Jaizire Mountains and everything beyond them.”

  Jai stared at him. He owned that landscape? Surely he had misheard.

  “You will need to visit the palace now and then,” Corbal continued as if his new sentence was a perfectly logical continuation of the last. “Make appearances to your staff.”

  Corbal’s conversation disoriented Jai; his cousin talked in circles, twists, and turns. Nor could he sense Corbal’s mind that well. Aristos didn’t project their emotions as strongly as psions, and Jai had fortified his mental barriers so much that he had trouble now picking up more than bits and pieces from anyone.

  He spoke with caution. “I will need more than brief appearances to do my job.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Jai waited, hoping for clarification, but Corbal said no more. Jai had wearied of trying to untangle Corbal’s speech. So he looked out at his mountains.

  “You haven’t asked about your providers,” Corbal said.

  Jai felt as if Corbal had kicked him in the gut. “I have no providers.” The idea made him sick.

  “Of course you do. You inherited everything your father owned, billions of taskmakers and dozens of providers.”

  Jai swung around to him, staring. Billions? He couldn’t imagine it. Nor would he ever believe his father had kept providers. It was impossible.

  Corbal was studying his face. “You own several hundred worlds, including everything and everyone on them.”

  The idea revolted Jai. Knowing any remark he made would come out inadvisably hostile, he said nothing.

  “Perhaps you would like a provider this evening?” Corbal asked pleasantly. “I would be happy to offer you your choice of mine.”

  Jai was aghast, or so he told himself. Appalled. Ah, hell. Corbal had just offered him his pick of among the most desirable pleasure slaves in an empire. It would take a saint not to respond, and Jai was no saint.

  His cousin smiled. “Take any girl. As many as you like, as often as you like, for as long as you like.”

  Jai’s face was burning. “That’s, uh, generous of you.”

  Corbal indicated the glass doors leading into the living room. “Come. Look at my stock. See if any pleases you.”

  Stock? The word hit Jai like ice water. His anticipation turned to disgust. “Maybe later.” His body had other ideas, but he pushed away the thought, angry at himself. If Corbal thought he could control his young cousin with pleasure girls, he was mistaken. It was hard to stop thinking about them, though.

  Corbal laughed. “Saints, but you’re young.”

  Was he that easy to read? “I’ve no idea what you mean.”

  His cousin leaned against the rail. “You lived in seclusion all your life, with your mother, yes?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Your Aristo mother.”

  “Yes.” Jai’s pulse jumped at the lie.

  “And there?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Always, Your Highness.”

  Gods. Conversing with Corbal was maddening. “What did you mean, ‘And there’?”

  “Where did you live?”

  Sweat broke out on Jai’s forehead. “I don’t know.”

  “Interesting,” Corbal murmured, “that you lived there but didn’t know where it was.”

  “Only my mother needed to know the planet’s location.”

  Corbal studied his fingernails. “Odd that we have no record of this woman.”

  Jai restrained himself from wiping his sweating palms on his shirt. “My father wanted to protect me from assassins. So he hid both my mother and me and told no one about us. Even I didn’t know all the details.”

  Corbal exhaled. “The hell of it is, that makes sense.”

  Personally Jai thought it made his father sound like a paranoid lunatic. But maybe Aristos found such behavior logical.

  “Of course,” Corbal added, “it makes just as much sense that you are an impostor.”

  “You’ve analyzed my DNA.” Jai had no doubt Corbal was having that analysis verified. His cousin could have easily stolen a sample of Jai’s tissues during the past few days. Jai wasn’t worried. His genes offered the necessary proof. Before contacting Corbal, he had also bought an expensive genetic tattoo that made him appear more Highton.

  Corbal waved his hand. “Oh, I’ve no doubt you’re the son of Jaibriol the Second. But you have no proof he married your mother.”

  Jai scowled. “My birth is legitimate.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  He could, in fact; their marriage was recorded on Earth. But he doubted it would do him any good to prove his father had married the Skolian Imperator. So he summoned up the most arrogant bearing he could manage. “I find your implication offensive.”

  Corbal looked amused. “That may be. But nevertheless, you have no proof of your legitimacy.”

  Jai shrugged. They both knew Corbal had to produce an emperor after giving up Prince Eldrin.

  Corbal sighed. “I suppose proof can be supplied. An impeccable Highton woman, young and beautiful, though of course we Hightons are all uncommonly pleasing to the eye.”

  Modest, too, Jai thought.

  “It should of course be possible to find your father’s records of the marriage,” Corbal added.

  “Of course.” Good gods. It sounded like Corbal had offered to falsify records proving Jai’s mother had been an empress. It was a crime punishable by execution. Then again, if Corbal didn’t produce an emperor he could also end up dead. The more important question was why he had accepted Jai as the emperor in the first place. Even after only a few days with the Xir lord, Jai had no doubt about one thing; if he just came out and asked why, Corbal wouldn’t give him a straight answer.

  “You look like him, you know,” Corbal said.

  “My father?”

  Corbal nodded. “You have his face. His build. You even soun
d like him. Except—” He let the word hang.

  “Yes?” Jai asked.

  His cousin tilted his head as if searching for words, though Jai suspected he knew exactly which ones he wanted.

  “You’re more,” Corbal said. “Taller, stronger, broader in the shoulders, more hale. You have an intensity he lacked.”

  Jai spoke quietly. “He was more than I will ever be. I can only hope I am worthy of his example.”

  Corbal snorted. “I hope not. He is dead.”

  “Everyone dies.”

  “Follow your father’s example,” Corbal said, “and so will you—long before your time.”

  4

  Carnelian Throne

  Jai waited with his bodyguards in a lobby of the Qox palace, outside the Hall of Circles. It was too much to absorb; he felt like a desiccated sponge submerged in water, at first too dry to take in liquid, then gradually soaking in the full import of this place. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had been born in this palace. His mother had come for his father here and destroyed half the palace in the process. The weight of its history pressed on him as if it could mold him into an Aristo by its sheer gravity.

  The half-ruined palace had once been a spectacular work of architecture. This wing remained intact, though cracks showed on one wall. Black and gold diamonds tiled the floor, and columns graced the airy space. The walls were made from a blend of gold and snow-marble created atom-by-atom by specialized nanobots.

  Four men waited with Jai, all in the midnight uniforms of Razers, the secret police that served the emperor. Jai didn’t understand their status; gunmetal collars circled their necks, indicating he owned them, yet they seemed more his jailers than his bodyguards. The captain of the four stood silent, his posture alert, his face neutral. The red tint of his coppery eyes gave witness to his heritage; either his mother or father had been an Aristo, the only Eubians with red eyes. His other parent would have been a slave, possibly a taskmaker but more likely a provider.