A Confusion of Princes (33 page)

Cheerful thoughts like this occupied me on my way up to the dais to meet the Grand Admiral of the fleet. Prince Itzsatz was a charming fellow who didn’t look anything like his 157 years, until I got up close and saw his eyes. They were old, and very, very cold—and the smile on his face never touched them.

‘Well done, Prince Khemri,’ he said as I put my cap under my arm and knelt on the cushion provided. He draped the ribbon with its heavy medallion around my neck. ‘The Empire needs more young Princes like you. Straight into the enemy with a singleship, that’s the way! I saw good things about your ground action against the Sad-Eyes, too. Keep it up, keep it up, haw-haw!’

I stood, replaced my cap, saluted, and executed a perfect right turn to march out of the side door—and saw Arch-Priest Morojal standing there, just out of sight of the main chamber.

I almost hesitated, but training took over. Without conscious direction, I marched through the doorway. Morojal beckoned to me, and instead of continuing along the broad main corridor the other Princes had taken, which led back to our waiting compatriots and Masters of Assassins, I followed the arch priest along a much narrower passage.

I was not overly surprised when the light began to change and the sharp edges of the white palace corridor began to transform into the stands of bamboo, through which I could see a forest. A few minutes later, the corridor was entirely gone, and I was following Morojal along a slatted path through the green forest.

The stream burbled through the clearing, and the two chairs set there might not have been moved since I had last sat in them, when I was given the choice of joining Adjustment.

‘Sit,’ said Morojal.

‘Only if you answer my questions,’ I said belligerently.

‘I will answer what I am able to answer,’ said Morojal. ‘Sit.’

‘Why was I given the Imperial Star of Valour for killing pirates that Prince Atalin cleared the way for and that had also obviously been given Imperial tek as well?’ I said. ‘And why is Kharalcha all of a sudden an Imperial protectorate?’

‘We thought you would like it done,’ said Morojal, answering my last question. ‘Consider it a reward. It is not particularly meaningful, but it will make it more difficult for someone like Prince Jerrazis to send a Naval force to attack it.’

‘So Atalin was following Jerrazis’s orders?’

‘Yes. Prince Jerrazis has been building his influence in that part of the Fringe, using the Porojavian Co-Prosperity Collective as his tool. That is over now. He will direct his ambitions elsewhere.’

‘So that’s why you sent me to Kharalcha. It wasn’t just a test; it was an Adjustment. You, or the Imperial Mind, wanted those pirates defeated.’

‘Yes,’ replied Morojal. ‘The Mind does not consider it in the best interest of the Empire to allow Admiral Jerrazis and House Jerrazis to build up a strong independent force in the Fringe. However, the primary purpose was to test you, Highness.’

‘And since I’ve been reborn, I’m guessing I passed,’ I said.

‘But why did you let me think I would permanently die in my nonaugmented body?’

‘To test you properly, we needed you to think of yourself as being alone, with no chance of rebirth,’ replied Morojal. ‘But you are correct. You have passed the test to become an Adjuster.’

I felt a small, slight hope come to life inside me. If I could work as an Adjuster to save systems like Kharalcha from the depredations of Princes like Jerrazis and Atalin, perhaps my life would be worthwhile. Perhaps I could be someone that I wanted to be; I could become someone Raine would respect, someone that I could respect myself . . . though deep inside I doubted whether it would be possible. Being a Prince precluded so much else.

‘So what happens now?’ I asked.

‘In a normal year, you would be given Adjustment assignments by the Imperial Mind,’ said Morojal.

She paused and looked at me with her ancient, triple-pupilled eyes.

‘But this is not a normal year. You have been selected not only to be an Adjuster but, as will be announced later today, an Imperial candidate. Congratulations, Highness.’

‘What?’

Every time I got almost used to what as going on, Morojal changed the situation.

‘An Imperial candidate,’ repeated Morojal. ‘To be the next Emperor.’

‘One of the thousand,’ I said slowly. ‘Announced at the Imperial Core—and there’s a thousand of us being decorated. . . ’

‘Yes. All will be announced as candidates shortly.’

‘One becomes Emperor and the others . . . get listed simply as “candidates” forever after. What happens to them?’

‘One ascends,’ said Morojal. ‘As for the others . . . you will find out, Highness.’

‘What if I don’t want to be a candidate?’ I asked, though I knew it was no more than a formality, because I knew the answer. ‘What if I don’t want to be Emperor?’

‘It becomes one step easier for those who do,’ replied Morojal. ‘However, I would urge you not to take such a foolish action. As you must be aware by now, you are not merely one of a thousand candidates. You are the favoured candidate of the Emperor and thus of the Imperial Mind.’

Before Kharalcha I would have taken this entirely at face value, and entirely as my due. Now I was suspicious.

‘Why?’ I asked bluntly. ‘And why am I a candidate at all, out of all the Princes who could be chosen?’

There were ten million Princes in the Empire. Choosing one thousand to become candidates couldn’t be easy, and knowing the Empire, it was almost certainly more complicated than it might appear.

‘The latter question is relatively easy to answer, though it is of course an important secret. First of all, very few Princes have the extraordinarily high degree of native Psitek ability needed to ascend the throne and direct the Imperial Mind. Even fewer have the proven ability to exist without connection to the Mind, which is necessary again to dominate the Mind as opposed to being subsumed by it. You have proven ability in both.’

‘So only a thousand Princes every twenty years qualify?’ I asked.

‘No,’ replied Morojal evenly. ‘Two thousand years ago, it was a thousand Princes, and that number is chosen and announced as a matter of tradition, and also to cloak the real facts.’

‘How many are there now then?’

‘Five,’ answered Morojal.

I stared at her for a long, long second.

‘Five!’

‘You will not, of course, be able to reveal this fact to any other candidate at the ceremony,’ said Morojal.

I felt a slight pain deep behind my right eye as she said this, and blue fluid swirled around her head. Psitek intervention, to make sure I couldn’t talk about it even if I wanted to.

Which I didn’t. I was still taking it in. Ten million Princes and only five candidates who could become Emperor?

‘There is a mutation involved,’ said Morojal. ‘One that we cannot yet induce or breed for. Once it was more common. Now it is rare.’

‘Why change Emperors at all then?’ I asked.

‘We do not exactly change Emperors,’ said Morojal. ‘Have you ever wondered what the Imperial Mind actually is?’

‘No . . .’ I said slowly. Why hadn’t I wondered? The Imperial Mind just was . . . whatever it was.

‘That is part of the making of a Prince,’ said Morojal. ‘In the same way that we mind-program servants, Princes are made not to question certain things.’

‘Who is “we”?’ I asked sourly.

‘The Imperial Mind and its most important servants, the Arch-Priests of the Sixteen Aspects,’ replied Morojal.

I sat silently, taking this in. I was neither appalled nor greatly alarmed by this revelation, which I suspected would not be the usual reaction of most Princes. I hadn’t felt like I was the ruler of anything much, and I had begun to question whether the apparent power of a Prince was to be wished for anyway.

‘The Imperial Mind,’ continued Morojal, ‘is a gestalt identity of all the previous Emperors, directed by the present incumbent. However, typically after twenty years the directing identity begins to be subsumed, and a new directing identity is needed. A new Emperor.’

‘So if I become Emperor I just . . .
join
the Mind?’ I asked.

‘You retain your mental identity for twenty years,’ said Morojal. ‘And in that time, you have total power to direct the Mind, and through the Mind, every Prince and every priest. You command the totality of the Empire. It is
absolute
power.’

I felt something surge up inside me as she said that, an almost overwhelming desire. I wanted absolute power. I wanted to become the Emperor. I had to become the Emperor!

I fought against it, because I knew it was not my feeling. It was something implanted in me, something
done
to me.

‘You said there are five candidates,’ I said, my voice husky, my throat dry. ‘How exactly is the Emperor chosen?’

‘In the time-honoured way of the Empire,’ said Morojal.

‘Survival of the fittest. There is a test. Only one of you will survive.

‘You can even get a head start. Kill Atalin in your duel. She will not be reborn. Then there will only be four.’

‘Is Atalin my sister?’ I asked.

‘Of course,’ said Morojal. ‘Though this is not relevant. She is merely an opponent. It is you who are the favoured candidate. You have the best chance of the five to become the Emperor. You must take your rightful place.’

It was what I had always wanted, what I had believed for so long was my rightful destiny. I should have been ecstatic, overjoyed by the news.

Part of me was electrified and joyous. But there was another part of me, perhaps the greater, which recoiled from the news, and I experienced a strange, momentary hallucination, as if a shadow had suddenly fallen inside my head, shutting me off from any hint of open space and sunshine.

23

H
ADDAD WAS WAITING for me when I stumbled out of the bamboo forest, rejoined the line of exiting honorees, and came into a garden full of gloating Princes toasting themselves and perhaps their peers with the best vintage champagne that Bitek cornucopias could produce.

‘I was delayed by the arch priest I met before,’ I whispered to him as he bowed to greet me, his head close.

‘I understand, Your Highness,’ said Haddad. ‘The duel with Prince Atalin has been scheduled in one hour, in Duelling Chamber Erodh-Azkhom. Do you wish to proceed there now?’

The duel. The present and its needs broke through the warring parts of my personality that were grappling with what Morojal had told me about my future.

I was to become the Emperor. . .

‘Do you wish to proceed there now?’ repeated Haddad.

His words were accompanied by a data overlay indicating that the duelling chamber was within easy walking distance. I could stay and toast my decoration, and probably be toasted, since there were few Princes who had received the Imperial Star of Valour that day. But I didn’t want to stay, and I knew from Haddad’s lessons that it was always advisable to be early to a duel, to allow plenty of time for everything to be checked out in case of dirty tricks. Also, as always with Haddad, just by asking the question he was also suggesting a course of action.

I forced myself to focus on the moment.

‘Yes,’ I replied, and strode out through the crowd, acknowledging the occasional waves and salutes as I went by, nearly all of which came from members of other services, or the few other Naval officers who also wore the Imperial Star of Valour.

Most of the other Naval Princes seemed keen to ignore me, so they might celebrate their own, lesser decorations without comparison.

Outside the garden, away from the crowd of Princes, Haddad led me across a lawn toward a sunken pathway bordered by hedges.

‘My apprentices have secured this path,’ he said quietly as we approached. ‘And I have another team at the duelling chamber now—as does Prince Atalin’s Master Vivaldra. Can you tell me what was the import of Arch-Priest Morojal’s meeting with you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I trusted Haddad more than anybody else. In the Empire at least. ‘I have been selected as a candidate for the Imperial Throne.’

‘Ah,’ said Haddad. ‘I wondered.’

‘Did you?’ I asked. ‘I had no idea.’

‘My first Prince was a candidate, twenty-two years ago,’ replied Haddad. ‘Prince Emzhyl. She was chosen for Adjustment and then a few years later became a candidate. I notice similarities in your own capabilities and career path, Highness.’

‘She could be the Emperor now!’ I exclaimed.

‘Perhaps,’ agreed Haddad.

‘Do you know anything about the challenge that candidates face?’ I asked eagerly.

‘No,’ replied Haddad. ‘Prince Emzhyl told me she was chosen as a candidate . . . and then the next morning she was gone, and I was reassigned.’

‘Oh well,’ I sighed. ‘I guess it was too much to hope for some advance knowledge.’

‘You should concentrate on the forthcoming duel, Highness,’ said Haddad. ‘Though you have had some practice with bolt-and-cable guns, I fear that you are far from a master. Do you recall the basic strategies?’

I nodded. Bolt-and-cable guns fired penetrating bolts that would stick in almost anything—flesh, bone, rock, Bitek building materials—and trailed an immensely strong but thin cable that remained connected to the gun until it was released by the firer. A duel with the weapons was conducted on a miniature mountain two hundred metres high built within a duelling chamber. The mountain, with its four peaks and many cracks and crevices, provided a challenging battlefield where the bolt-and-cable guns were needed for climbing, swinging, and moving about as much as for shooting at an enemy. Each gun contained ten bolts and Bitek spinnerets that would produce five hundred metres of cable.

We would each start on top of one of the minimountain’s peaks, just out of the bolt-and-cable gun’s range. Whoever was better at manoeuvring their way around the mountain and could get close enough to the other and get off an effective disabling or killing shot would win.

In Atalin’s case, I knew that a killing shot of mine would probably mean a final death for her, if Morojal’s words could be trusted. I couldn’t stop thinking about this as I walked with Haddad. It changed the whole nature of the upcoming duel.