The Final Key: Part Two of Triad (Saga of the Skolian Empire) Read online

  Finally they let each other go. Soz smiled awkwardly, aware of Jazar a few paces back. Roca appraised her with a firm gaze. “You aren’t eating enough. And are you going to bed on time? You look tired.”

  Soz laughed shakily. “Mother, I’m eighteen. Not ten.”

  A rosy blush stained Roca’s gilded cheeks. “I know that.”

  Soz beckoned to Jazar. “This is my friend, Jaz.”

  He came forward and bowed deeply. “My honor at your company, Your Majesty.”

  Soz almost groaned. She had convinced her friends to treat her like everyone else, and usually they forgot her royal heritage. The glamour fast disappeared when you woke up every morning with bleary eyes or stumbled off the training fields covered in sweat. Soz appreciated that Jazar offered her mother honors; Roca descended from the dynasty that had ruled the ancient Ruby Empire and she was the second heir to the Ruby Pharaoh. She had also won election as a Councilor in the modem Assembly that governed Skolia. But Soz hoped no one saw Jaz bowing. At DMA Soz was just another cadet, and she wanted it to stay that way.

  Roca smiled. “A friend of my daughter’s is a friend of mine.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He regarded Soz with a question in his gaze. She felt what he didn’t ask. Did she want him to leave?

  Soz glanced at her mother, but Roca had guarded her mind. After living in a family of empaths, they all knew how to keep their emotions private, and her mother was showing courtesy by holding back her preferences. Although Soz enjoyed Jazar’s company, she wanted to catch up with her mother in private, especially on news of her father. Realizing how much she missed her mother made her father’s absence that much more painful.

  Jazar was watching Soz’s face. Then he spoke to Roca. “It was a pleasure to have met you, Councilor.”

  Roca inclined her head. “A pleasure shared.”

  “I better go study,” he told Soz. “I’ve a test in Kyle space theory.”

  “Yes, of course.” She sent him a mental glyph of gratitude. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Sounds good.” He bowed to Roca and withdrew.

  Roca was watching Soz with veiled amusement. “He’s charming.”

  Soz scowled. “He’s a rogue.”

  “A handsome one.”

  “Don’t tell him that,” Soz said, alarmed. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  Roca’s smile seemed strained. “Ah, well.”

  Soz’s mood dimmed. “Did you see Althor?”

  “Yes.” That one word, full of sorrow, told Soz more than any description of her brother’s condition. He hadn’t improved.

  Roca spoke in a low voice. “Althor’s doctors want to know if we wish to keep him on the machines.”

  “Don’t take him off.” Soz’s voice caught and betraying moisture threatened her eyes. “Please don’t.”

  “Don’t cry.” Roca looked as if she wanted to shelter Soz the same way she had years ago, when scraped knees or night terrors had darkened her child’s life. She hugged Soz again, and somehow it seemed a little better. To Soz, her mother’s beauty had nothing to do with her face or form. It came from within, from a woman whose heart held boundless warmth for her family.

  But Soz couldn’t run to her the way she had as a small child. Those days had passed. She pulled back, unable to reveal her emotions for long, and spoke more formally. “It’s good to see you.”

  “And you, Soshoni.” Her mother paused. “I’m not alone.”

  “Did Denric come?” Of all her siblings, he was the only one Soz could imagine leaving their home. Next year he would go to the university on the world Parthonia. Her sister Aniece or her brother Kelric might have come, but they were probably too young.

  “Not Denric.” Roca hesitated. “He’s in the other common room. He wasn’t sure if you wanted another visitor.”

  Soz suddenly realized who she meant. Her brother Eldrin. He was eldest of her nine siblings, twenty-four, a father with a young son, her nephew Taquinil. She was a terrible sister! Normally he lived on the Orbiter with his wife, the Ruby Pharaoh, but he had been here for the past year, since the attack on their father had ripped apart their lives.

  Soz wasn’t certain what had happened to Eldrin; he kept it to himself. But she knew his mind had been unusually sensitive to the torture their father had experienced, perhaps because Eldrin was the most like him of all the children. Taquinil was an even more sensitive psion, and Eldrin hadn’t been able to stop him from experiencing his nightmares. To protect his son, Eldrin had come here, which meant he had been living by himself for the past year at the Ruby Palace high in the Red Mountains.

  It was only a short ride by flyer to the palace. Soz had little free time, but DMA did grant the cadets leave. She could have visited Eldrin. With all her demerit duty, she lost track of things. He hadn’t contacted her much, either, but he knew their father had disowned her, and he might think she was angry or uncomfortable about seeing any of the family.

  “Yes, of course,” Soz said. “I’d love to see him.”

  Roca looked relieved and a little confused. The doorway to a second common room was across from where Soz had entered this one. As she and her mother walked to its archway, Soz thought about how she would apologize to Eldrin. She should confess she had demerit duty. It would be mortifying, since he would ask why, but better he knew the truth than he thought she had been ignoring him.

  They entered a wood-paneled room. Eldrin was standing on the other side, dressed in a white shirt and blue pants, with dark knee-boots. He was studying a portrait of their grandfather. Soz hesitated. Had he lost weight? He seemed … odd. She recalled his shoulders as broader and his legs as longer. It worried her how tired he looked. His wine red hair was longer, almost to his shoulders. It had a streak of gray she didn’t remember. And why was he wearing spectacles—

  Soz drew in a sharp breath. It wasn’t her brother.

  It was her father.

  Lord Valdoria, the Bard, a leader among his people and the consort of a Ruby Dynasty heir, turned around—and froze.

  Soz felt as if her world stopped.

  His voice caught. “My greetings, Soshoni.”

  She wanted to answer, but the words caught in her throat. He leaned forward as if to take a step, but then hesitated and looked from her to her mother, his forehead furrowed.

  The dam within Soz broke open. “Father! You’re—you’re standing.”

  He didn’t answer. Instead he leaned on his cane, a staff of blue glasswood with an animal head at the top. Then he stepped toward her. Soz held her breath. He walked with such care, she feared he might fall. But he was walking.

  “Hoshpa.” For the second time this afternoon, she wanted to cry. “You can see, too.”

  Still he made no response. His concentration seemed absorbed in his walk, and he leaned heavily on his cane. She waited while he took step after resolute step, resting between each with his weight on the staff. Finally he reached her and regarded her with an uncertain expression. She wanted to throw her arms around him, but she wasn’t certain how he would respond.

  He took an audible breath. “I practiced what I would say to you for many hours during the trip here. Now it seems I have forgotten everything.” He hesitated. “If you will forgive my clumsy words, which lurch and stumble as much as my legs—I—I hope—you will always want to come home.” He reached out his free hand to her. “You are always welcome, Soshoni.”

  Soz felt as if a wind blew through her heart, cleaning out the debris of the last year. She took his hand and he pulled her into a hug, dropping his cane. A sob caught in her throat.

  “Always welcome,” he whispered.

  It was a while before she drew back, slowly, so he wouldn’t fall. She picked up his cane and handed it to him. “How?” she asked. “The last I heard, you would never walk or see again.”

  “Ah, well.” He shifted his grip on the cane from hand to hand. “It seems my mind is rather strange. It doesn’t respond the way these ISC healer
s expect. Their healing didn’t work. Not at first. Or at second or third, either.” He smiled ruefully. “But I’m a stubborn old barbarian. Eventually it worked.”

  “I’m so glad.” Soz rubbed tears off her cheek. “And you aren’t a barbarian.”

  Roca spoke to Soz. “You look as if you’ve had a long day. Perhaps we should sit down.”

  Soz knew her mother wanted her father to rest. But Roca wouldn’t hurt his pride by suggesting he was too tired to stand.

  “I’ve been cleaning robots,” Soz admitted.

  Her father frowned. “What for? You came here to be a warrior.”

  Embarrassed, she said, “Ah, Hoshpa, they think I misbehave. Can you imagine such a thing? Me, misbehave.”

  “Quite a concept, eh?” He laughed, a deep sound with a musical quality. “Cleaning robots is good for the character, I’ve heard.”

  “Then I must have great character,” Soz grumbled. For some reason, that made him smile. She would have glared at him, as she had often done as a child, except she was so glad to see him that she simply couldn’t.

  They went to a sofa against the wall, taking it slow. As they settled on the couch, it adjusted its cushions beneath them, easing tension it detected in their muscles. Her father sagged against the cushions with obvious relief.

  “Eldri?” Roca asked. “Are you all right?”

  “Just a little tired.” He considered Soz, who sat between him and Roca. “After I’ve rested, you must show us around this school that has so many robots to clean.”

  “I’ll do that.” Right now, Soz would have shown him the spamoozala grottos if he had wanted to see them.

  They spent a wonderful few hours together, and she rejoiced that they had found their way back to each other. But a cloud dimmed their reunion. Her father had also disowned Althor, for agreeing to take Soz away from home and for refusing to marry. For all that her father didn’t understand his massive, cyber-warrior of a son, Soz knew he loved Althor. She mourned that they could never reconcile.

  Soon she would receive her own commission as a Jagernaut. When that happened, she would go out and avenge her brother and her father. She would fight for the people of the Skolian Imperialate, the civilization named after her family, the Skolias. She would protect them all against the relentless onslaught of the Traders who sought to enslave an empire.

  2

  The Dyad Chair

  Eldrin returned home after the harsh Dieshan sun had set. His flyer settled onto the roof of the Ruby Palace, where onion towers were silhouetted against the sky in the afterglow of dusk. The sunset turned the world a rose color, deep and shadowed on the Red Mountains that surrounded the palace and stood high in the distance.

  The cabin of the flyer resembled an elegant hotel suite with carpet and wood paneling. Eldrin had taken the craft out to combat his boredom, but he had done little more than sit in the cushioned pilot’s seat while the flyer’s EI brain guided it through the mountains. Although for six years he had been a “modern” man, he had never felt at ease with all that it meant. After his rural childhood on the world Lyshriol, his life these days seemed a hard-edged universe of components and chrome. He had yet to make peace with the contrast between his rustic youth and his role now as consort to an interstellar sovereign.

  The Imperialate was a strange mix of advanced and primitive cultures. Six millennia ago, an unknown race of beings had taken humans from Earth and abandoned them on the world Raylicon. Some scholars believed calamity had befallen the abductors before they could complete their plans. Whatever the reason, they had vanished, leaving behind their empty starships. Over the centuries, from the records on those ships, the humans had gleaned enough knowledge to develop star travel. Then they had gone in search of their lost home. They never found Earth, but they built the Ruby Empire and scattered colonies across the stars. Lyshriol had been home to one such settlement.

  The Ruby Empire collapsed after only a few centuries. During the four millennia of Dark Ages that followed, many of the stranded colonies failed. Those that survived, including Lyshriol, backslid into primitive conditions. When the Raylicans finally regained the stars, they split into two civilizations: the Eubian Concord, also called the Trader Empire, which based its economy on the sale of human beings; and the Skolian Imperialate, ruled primarily by an elected Assembly that considered freedom a right of all humans. The Ruby Dynasty also survived, and wielded power behind the scenes. Earth’s people eventually developed space travel—and found their siblings already out among the stars, two thriving but irreconcilable civilizations. The Allied Worlds of Earth became a third, and the three powers maintained an uneasy coexistence.

  Eldrin’s father was a native of Lyshriol and descended from the ancient colonists. His mother was an offworld technocrat. She had brought advanced technology to her husband’s home, with caution. The Lyshrioli continued their agrarian lives, but they now had access to the advantages of an interstellar civilization. Like many of his people, Eldrin had never felt easy with his mother’s universe. It hadn’t mattered when his tutors said he had a good mind: he knew he was slow. A barbarian. It gave him a certain pride that he had ridden to war at sixteen and distinguished himself in combat, but remorse haunted him. What did he have to offer a starspanning empire—that he could kill with a sword, even his bare hands, but he couldn’t read or write? At home he had been a hero; anywhere else, his life would have marked him as a juvenile criminal.

  After his combat experiences, his confusion had surged. He hadn’t known how to deal with the vastly different cultures of his mother and father’s universes. Guilt and selfdoubt plagued him, and frustration with his inability to learn. He had grown angrier each day. Finally he lost control and went on a rampage in the school his parents insisted he attend—he who had fought as a warrior. His tutor had stood flattened against the wall, his face terrified, while Eldrin hacked apart the desk console with the same sword he had used to kill two men.

  His parents had sent him offworld then. At first he hadn’t understood. If he couldn’t manage his life at home, how would he deal with the Orbiter, a space station, a center of Imperialate civilization? But instead of the heartless ship he had expected, he found a paradise of rolling hills and wildflowers that existed within a gigantic sphere. The habitat had only one sun, a lamp actually, but it was extraordinarily beautiful. Its one city was all gossamer towers and pastel hues. His tutors at the school there specialized in “learning disabilities.” They said he had many talents.

  Then they taught him to read.

  It was one of the greatest gifts anyone had ever given Eldrin. They linked it to his music. He had sung all his life, as heir to his father, the Dalvador Bard. First Eldrin had learned to read music. The day he wrote the words of a ballad he had composed, he cried, in private where no one could see. He learned to read what other musicians wrote. Then he read about the musicians. One day, he realized he could read and write about other subjects. It was one of the most gratifying moments in his life.

  He and his son Taquinil. had studied together. Initially his tutors wanted to separate them, afraid it would discourage Eldrin to learn with a toddler who was less than two years old. Eldrin insisted they stay together. It gave him no end of joy that his miraculous son was a genius.

  Eldrin’s abilities with a sword bemused the people on the Orbiter, who seemed both fascinated and bewildered by his antediluvian talents. But they lauded his voice without reserve. In his first concert, when he had been seventeen, millions had tuned into the virtual mesh-cast. Millions. The Parthonia Choral Society had paid an exorbitant fee to provide listeners with verification that his voice, including his five-octave range, was genuine, untouched by technological improvements. Reviewers used heady words like “spectacular” and “unparalleled.” Doctors studied his vocal cords. Skolians championed his art. It changed his life, giving it exquisite textures he had never imagined.

  He was less sure of Dehya, his wife, this enigmatic pharaoh of an empire. They h
ad been strangers when the Assembly arranged their marriage, forcing the union despite their objections. Dehya was much older, though she didn’t look it, and related to him through his mother’s side. Legally, their contract was on shaky ground. The Assembly demanded it anyway, in desperation. They called on an ancient law that decreed a Ruby Pharaoh must choose her consort from among her own kin, supposedly because only they were exalted enough for such a union. It was ludicrous and the Assembly knew it, but the law had never been repealed.

  The Assembly wanted them to have children. Skolia couldn’t exist without the meshes that tied it into a coherent civilization, and fast communication across interstellar distances was possible only through the Kyle web, which existed outside of spacetime. Humans could enter Kyle space mentally but not physically. Any telop could use the Kyle web, but only a Dyad could sustain it. Without the Dyad, the web would collapse. Only the Rhon, the most powerful known psions, had the mental strength to create a Dyad. And the only known Rhon psions were the Ruby Dynasty. Eldrin’s family. It was why they had such power even in this age of elected government.

  The Kyle genes, a set of genetic mutations, created a psion. The Rhon had every one of the recessive genes. However, children couldn’t be Rhon unless they received the Kyle mutations from both parents. It took two Rhon psions to make a third. Unfortunately, in vitro methods of reproduction became unreliable for people with the Kyle mutations. The more Kyle genes they carried, the greater the problems. For Rhon psions, who had two copies of every gene, it was almost impossible to reproduce by artificial means. The doctors had explained it to Eldrin, about embryos and failed cloning techniques, but as with so much else about their universe, he hadn’t understood.

  What Eldrin did know was that both of his parents were Rhon psions, which meant their ten children were as well. They provided the Dyad with many heirs and spares. The Assembly still wanted to ensure a supply, especially given that the training for military heirs included combat experience. Eldrin’s mother had struggled with her pregnancies, and the doctors advised against her having any more. The solution was obvious, at least to the Assembly: make the Ruby Dynasty interbreed. They picked Dehya because she had less genetic connection to the Valdoria branch of the family, and they chose Eldrin because he and Dehya had the fewest deleterious matches among their genes.