Android at Arms (11 page)

The newcomer was the woman whose face was pictured on the wall, save that it was not now set in the awesome, stiff pose demanded by Imperial art. She looked much younger and more human than her portrait. Her hair, like that of her attendants, was completely hidden beneath a tall, bejeweled diadem from which fine chains depended to take some of the weight of massive earrings. Her robe was of the Imperial purple much overlaid with jeweled embroidery until it made such a stiff encasing for her body that she moved very slowly under its weight.

Involuntarily Andas's shoulders twitched. He remembered only too well the weight of such garments and the way they plagued one through the long hours of some ultra-boring court ceremony. She must be glad to be in her inner chamber, able to free herself of that regalia.

She stood statue-like, stiff as her portrait, as the two ladies struggled with clasps and ties until they could bear away that robe. In her soft undergarment she looked again younger. And she continued to wait patiently as they bestowed the robe somewhere beyond Andas's line of vision and returned to take her crown. Then she raised her hands to her head and stripped off with a quick pull the tight net that had bound down her hair, allowing its wiry, curling lengths to puff up from her skull.

With the overshadowing of the crown gone, Andas could better see her features. She was no real beauty, yet there was that about her that drew a man's eyes.

“The Presence wishes—?” One of the ladies fell upon her knees, holding out a tray bearing a crystal goblet filled with a pale pink frothy drink.

The girl shook her head. “I have supped, I have drunk, past the point of feeling comfortable. One eats to forget the speeches of those who have nothing to say but recite it in a never-ending circling—” She stretched her arms wide. “Duse of the Golden Lips, how those trappings wear upon one! I think that some day when they are taken off, there will be nothing left of me but bare bone. You may go, Jacamada. Wait a little before you send my night maids. I need a moment to rest—”

“As the Presence wishes, so shall it be,” intoned the lady.

Andas moved impatiently. How it all came back—this smothering life of the Triple Towers! One might speak freely—a little—as this princess had just done. But the answers from all—save a tiny number of equal rank—would never be more than the formalities frozen into a set court speech by centuries of custom. Soon he would have no more freedom, perhaps even less than she whom he watched.

If this chamber was that of one of the Imperial princesses, he must now be on the outskirts of the Flower Courts. Yet his memories of the inner ways could not be that far wrong. This section of rooms had not been in use before. They were—he probed memory—yes, this was the court of Empress Alaha, who had been first wife to Emperor Amurak a hundred years ago.

Empress? No, the lady had addressed her as “Presence,” which was not a ruler's title. It was safer to assume she was First Daughter. He was trying to imagine their relationship when he saw that she was staring at the panel behind which he stood.

“Creeper—spy!” Her voice was cutting with its cold anger. “Carry what tales you will, but remember two can play at this game. And remember this also—I have a way of knowing when you watch me. It is one beyond your discernment since it comes from the hands of the Voice of the Old Woman of Bones!”

Andas's astonishment for a moment was true awe. Then the last name made the chill of fear touch him like a hand of ice reaching into this stuffy confinement.

Old Woman of Bones—but how had a First Daughter in the heart of the guarded Triple Towers had recourse to the Old Woman? Unless—dark rumors of old, stories that had been many times told within these walls, flowed from his memory. The Flower Courts had their own intrigues, and sometimes death had stalked there more ruthlessly even than in the Emperor's dungeons.

She raised her hand, drawing from the forefolds of her robe a chain on which slid a ring. This she was about to put on her finger, while her lips curved in a small, secret smile.

“I do not think,” she said, and the threat in her voice was open, “that you will return to your mistress with the same joy in life with which you left her—”

Because those old stories had a more potent influence on him than he would have believed, had it not been put to the test, Andas found the catch of the panel and watched the narrow slit open. He leaped out, his hands ready as if to meet an enemy.

He must prevent her using that ring, as the old tales said it could be used. She already had it halfway to her mouth. Let her breathe on it, activate it—

But she stared at him almost wildly, her gesture not completed. He was able to reach her, imprison her wrist, and twist it behind her back, using his other hand to cover her mouth lest she bring in guards with a scream.

She fought him, but he was able to pull her closer to the passage door. Now he released her hand long enough to grab at the ring. It was a tight fit on her finger, and he could not get it free as she battled him. Once more he tightened his hold until she could only get her breath in half-sobbing gasps.

For a moment he held her so; then she spoke.

“You have doomed yourself to the ultimate death, laying hands upon the person of the First Daughter.” Her voice was calm, almost too calm after the violence of her fight seconds earlier.

“I think not.” He spoke for the first time. “Look to your own safety, First Daughter, for you would have loosed the power of the Bones against the Chosen of the High Throne.”

She laughed. “Your wits are gone, skulker in the dark. There is no Chosen prince. I can say that in truth. I am First Daughter, without a brother, to whom my father, the Emperor, has promised the throne to share with a husband of our mutual choosing.”

“And what is the Emperor's name,” Andas asked then.

She looked puzzled, but she had regained her composure. When she spoke, it was not to answer his question, but as if some other subject were far more vital.

“I do not think that Angcela sent you.” She looked to the ring. “No, I have strengthened the warning with her blood and hair, she not knowing. She is not behind your coming. So, who are you—and why do you creep secretly so?”

“I asked you”—Andas shook her, hoping thus to establish some authority over her long enough to get straight answers—“Who is the Emperor?”

“Andas, son of Asalin, of the House of Kastor.” She studied his face, frowning. Then she asked, “My father was in Pav in his youth, but for the rest of his years he has been ever in the Triple Towers. He took no full wife before my mother, nor was it ever known—and you cannot long keep such a secret in the Flower Courts—that he ever made a lesser choice. Yet, you might be my father in his youth. Are you some secretly gotten son of his?” And her eyes blazed with what he was sure was pure hate.

“I am myself, Andas, son of Asalin.” He wondered if he could convince her, and beyond her the others, that another man ruled without right. But, she was the
daughter
of this false Andas! How long then—Once more he shook her.

“The year—in galactic reckoning—what is the year?”

“It is 2275.”

“Forty-five years—” he said, and without his realizing it, he loosed his hold. She, ready for such a chance, tore out of his hands. But he caught her quickly again.

“I do not know what you mean. If you are some ill-got son, you have no claim on the Emperor or the throne,” she spat at him.

“There is no true emperor on the throne,” he got out, hardly believing it himself—though it must be true, for here he was, and he did not doubt that she was telling him the truth. In other words, she was the daughter of the android who had taken his place. But could an android father children? He had no idea—many secrets could be hidden by the Emperor's will. She might be a substitute brought in to bolster up the other's claim to humanity.

“You are mad—totally mad!” She had lost most of her assurance and began to struggle again.

“There is no Emperor Andas because I am Andas—kidnaped and hidden.”

Her mouth twisted. “Have you looked into a mirror? You are a youth. My father is a man who has already had one renew-life injection. Do you think he could have deceived the medics then? You are the android—and mad in the bargain! Though the ring does not warn me, this must be some trick of Angcela's. She wants the crown so much that it has become food and drink, and she will die without it! But in you she has an imperfect tool.”

Andas hardly heard her. The court intrigues she mouthed about meant nothing. What did was that long tale of years he could not account for—the fact that here on Inyanga an Andas sat in power—an emperor who was—who
must
be—an android! Yet, had the stass at the prison kept him young? And if the Emperor had had an age-arrest injection, why the medics should know they were dealing with an android—

“I am not,” he said dully.

He did not see the spark flare in her eyes. She watched him now with a small cruel smile, like that she had worn earlier when she had detected him in hiding.

“Do you still doubt it? Come then, prove it! Look into the mirror yonder and tell me truly that you are an aging man. Come!”

She pulled at him, and hardly knowing why, he came with her to stand before a tall mirror, which reflected all before it with pitiless clarity.

There he stood, not quite as he had seen himself in the past, for the torn and stained coverall was far different from the clothes he had last worn when he looked at himself so. But he was as he had always been, his brown face thin, with the high bridged nose of the royal clans, his hair springing on his head like a dusky halo, dark eyes, teeth that shone the whiter against his skin. On his forehead was the delicate tattoo of the Imperial house—the Serpent of Dambo, a crown he could never erase in his lifetime.

She stood close beside him, for he still had wit enough to hold her beringed hand. And in this mirror she was a slighter, more fragile copy of himself. She could have been his sister, the relationship closely marked—he had to admit that. Though with the royal clans so intermated in the past, such a resemblance could well exist. Only, she was the Emperor's daughter—that he was forced to accept. The daughter of an emperor
Andas
who was not he.

He could see her in the mirror as plainly as he saw himself. She had lost that teasing smile that promised ill. In fact, she had changed somewhat.

“You—you are like my father in the tri-dees taken of his coronation. You are like—too like! What sorcery has Angcela brought into being?”

She tugged to free her hand and bent her head to raise that ominous ring to her lips. But he held it to him so he could see it the better. The setting was a round stone with a heart of coiling light. Then the light changed and made a shadow face, which grew stronger, sharper.

“Anakue!” He hailed that tiny portrait.

The girl stared at him as if she were frightened at last.

“Anakue the traitor! But—how comes he? I did not summon—and he was long dead before my birthing.”

“When did he die?”

She still stared at the ring and did not answer.

“I said,” Andas demanded sharply, “when did he die?”

“When—when my father was made Chosen. He tried to kill him. There was much trouble, and Anakue and several of the nobles were executed. My father, he uncovered the plot, and Anakue tried to claim that he wanted to kill the Emperor. But no one believed that, for my father could prove his loyalty.”

The planted android—had Anakue been behind that? But if
he
were the android—Andas shook his head. It was like being caught in a fog.

“Why did he show in the ring?” the girl continued.
“I
did not summon him! Was it because you held my hand and looked within? But the ring was not sealed to you! I saw Rixissa draw it from the fire heart, and she sealed it to me only. And you are a man, so cannot serve the Old Woman more than as a slave.”

“Which you would have made me, had I let you,” he said grimly. “Now—what is your name?”

“Abena, as you must well know. Yes, I would have in-tied you with the ring. It warned me that I was spied upon. I could have made you my tool against Angcela.”

“I do not know who this Angcela is, and I am no servant of hers. What I am—well, that I must prove. And, Abena, this is now necessary.”

His free hand rose and pressed a spot in her throat. She had no time for protest, and he caught her before she slipped to the floor. He brought her to the bed, turned back the covers, and pulled out the spicers, laying her in their place. And he lingered long enough to work that ring from her finger. He could not take her with him through the runways, but he made sure of her strongest weapon against him.

There was one way of proving, at least to himself, that he was who he claimed to be. If he were not of the authentic blood, or if he had not undergone, before his grandfather's eyes, the first of the Three Ceremonies, he could not hope to lay hands upon what he now sought. But the very fact that he could find it, hold it, would be an argument to prove his tale.

But, now he needed light. Fearing any moment to hear the scratch of a maid's warn stick on the door, he toured the room, finding what he sought in one of the window seats. They were deep enough to provide a slender set of shelves against the frames, enough to hold tri-dee tapes. And there was a small porto light there also, clumsy for a hand torch but usable.

Andas had sealed the ring into a seam pocket of his coverall. Nobody was going to see it much longer. There were a couple of wells down which it could be sent to oblivion. He paused for a moment by the bed. As she lay there, the princess looked very young and innocent. Yet the fact that she knew how to use the ring meant she had ability to draw on deep and dark knowledge that most men loathed and few women had courage to claim for their own.