Hidden Empire (38 page)
Even before the plague, though, Dio’sh had preferred a more solitary life. Oh, he had often entertained the Crenna Designate
and the settlers, but the colonists had much work to do and little free time. No one had ever expected him to spend his entire
day reciting stanzas from the
Saga
. During the good times on Crenna, Dio’sh had had many free hours to read and analyze obscure portions of the epic poem.
Now that he was back in the Prism Palace, recovering, Dio’sh decided to devote even more time to studying, digging through
ancient records, deciphering early written accounts. He would analyze shreds of apocrypha to uncover hints and texture in
what he and all rememberers knew as a matter of course. Many old documents and interesting recollections had never been incorporated
into the permanent
Saga
, and thus the incidents were nearly forgotten. Though such information was not considered canon, Dio’sh still felt that those
records might provide him with valuable insights.
He had promised Vao’sh that he would write up a personal account of the Crenna plague, memorializing the victims who had suffered
through blindness and isolation before death. He had lived through the epidemic, had watched it strike down the workers and
singers, the two kiths most susceptible to the disease.
It would take him a long time to gain perspective, but Dio’sh promised himself that he would keep alive the stories of bravery
and sacrifice. The Crenna Designate, a son of the Mage-Imperator, had tended the sick himself, despite warnings from the medical
kithmen. They had advised him to take a ship to where he would be safe, but the Designate had stayed in his colony town. His
death had severed the focal point of
thism
, leaving all the Ildirans on Crenna to shudder in the emptiness.
Dio’sh had documented the stories of other Crenna residents and heroes, recording the victims’ lives as they would have wanted
to be memorialized. But he had already written as much as he could bear about those experiences. Now he had other work to
do.
Vao’sh had warned Dio’sh against spending too much time in the alcoves studying and reading. He claimed that it was a waste
of time to absorb so much tangential apocrypha. “Any rememberer who holes up by himself is not remembering for any purpose.”
Dio’sh had reassured his comrade. “I will come back, Vao’sh. But the best way for me to heal is to have time to assess everything
I have experienced.”
Already, the younger rememberer had discovered a notation in one of the Earth encyclopedias obtained from human merchants—a
reference to a disease called cholera that spread easily from human to human when they lived in close quarters. Or the bubonic
plague, typhoid fever, AIDS. But the blindness plague was much worse.
Under the reassuring glow of wall-mounted blazers, he sat surrounded by scrolls and square-cut documents. The ancient records,
coated with flexible preservation layers and sealed in permanent storage vaults, had remained untouched for centuries. Dio’sh
felt like a brave explorer as he moved his fingers above the symbols, careful not to damage the ancient items.
Here in the archives, he had become obsessed with studying other plagues. He had searched through records and datafiles to
discover whether similar diseases had ever struck the Ildirans. Had epidemics wiped out other splinter colonies, like Crenna?
He needed to know. He couldn’t remember such a major event in the
Saga of Seven Suns
, but could even a rememberer grasp all the secondary story lines contained in millennia of history?
He knew one dark tale that many rememberers were reluctant to speak, because of its great tragedy. Thousands of years in the
past, at the beginning of recorded history, a firefever had swept through Mijistra. That fever had proved particularly deadly
for the rememberer kith, with the result that every historian in the Ildiran capital had been wiped out.
So many deaths during an early phase of assembling and recording the
Saga of Seven Suns
, before all stanzas had been written down, meant that an entire portion of the epic had been lost forever. Thanks to the
firefever, all prior history remained a blank spot in Ildiran memory—much to the dismay of the rememberers. Because of that
fundamental loss, Ildirans no longer could trace their history back to the dawn of civilization. Many imaginative tale spinners
had created fictitious adventures to fill the gap. But Dio’sh understood that such tales weren’t
real
and could not truly fill the void.
After much time deep in the archives, Dio’sh had dug out all of the records written at approximately the time of the firefever
epidemic. No one had been here in a thousand years, and many of the sealed lockers had begun to sag and crumble, their latches
weakened by gravity and age.
For hours, he studied the references for clues to where the fever had begun and how it was possible that so much vital history
could have been lost. On their deathbeds, did the last rememberers try to dictate all they knew to other kith, other listeners,
only to have the details lost after all? To a historian like himself, such a missing section of the
Saga
felt like a dead child, filling him with a great sense of loss.
Then Dio’sh found a small vault that had been locked and apparently cemented shut, but the seal had crumbled and the lock
itself degenerated so much that it easily broke in his hands. Feeling nervous, yet thrilled, the young rememberer probed into
the tiny vault that had been locked away and forgotten ages ago. With a gasp of discovery, he saw that it contained ancient
documents, sealed books that looked as if they had never been read. A treasure trove! Dio’sh eagerly took them back to his
work area, turned up the blazer illumination. His heart thrummed with excitement.
He began to delve into the words, magical symbols that transported him into tales he had never before imagined.
Real
history, lost events. The journals were detailed, and the records seemed to be accurate: true sources dating back to the
time of the firefever, contemporary diary entries and records kept by eyewitnesses. People who had actually seen the firefever
take its terrible toll.
Or… what accepted history had recorded as the firefever.
Dio’sh studied the ancient documents, reading with amazement and a growing sense of horror. Something was wrong—but this was
no hoax. The expressive lobes on his face flushed through a parade of vivid colors. These scrolls and testaments must be the
truth, regardless of everything he had been told and taught.
The rememberer sat back, astounded. Then, stricken with fear that someone might see him or discover what he had found, Dio’sh
closed and sealed the documents again and hurried to put them back into the hidden vault.
The revelation appalled him, and he didn’t know how to explain it. But he could not disbelieve what he had seen.
Those key rememberers from long ago had not died of any disease. There had never been a firefever. Instead, the rememberers—the
keepers of accurate Ildiran history—had been silenced.
Murdered
.
The lost section of the
Saga of Seven Suns
was not an unavoidable tragedy, but an appalling cover-up!
I
n his spherical contemplation chamber within the Prism Palace, Prime Designate Jora’h studied the records of his children
with pride. As was his duty, the handsome and virile prince took many lovers from among the various Ildiran kiths, siring
as many offspring as possible.
The eldest son of the Mage-Imperator, Jora’h had always known that the position would be his one day, after a century or more
of his father’s rule. He did not long for the day when he would sit in the chrysalis chair. That would be as much an ending
of his life’s pleasures as it would be a beginning of power. After the ritual castration ceremony to make him the next Mage-Imperator,
Jora’h would control all the
thism
. But not now.
He liked to be with his people, regardless of their kiths: swimmers and scalies, workers, bodyguards, or soldiers. They were
all Ildirans, and they all knew their places. His duty was to be loved by all the population—perhaps literally, if he did
his job properly—and to foster his numerous offspring. Jora’h smiled at the thought of all the sons and daughters, noble-born
scholars or half-breed workers, the fruits of his brief encounters with those lovers he selected from among the countless
females who had petitioned him.
Despite their briefness, though, these sexual encounters meant a great deal to him. Each child he sired with a member of the
noble kith gave him another descendant, another eventual Designate under his rule. Jora’h showered each of his sons and daughters
with gifts, even if they were of mixed kiths. He sent them messages, wrote them poems. He did not want them to forget who
their father was.
The sheer numbers of his offspring were daunting, though, and he needed time alone in his contemplation chamber simply to
assess them all, to put their names in order and keep track of their birth anniversaries.
According to Palace records, Jora’h’s own father, Cyroc’h, hadn’t been so devoted to his offspring. Yes, the Mage-Imperator
had paid attention to his eldest son, purebred and born of a noble concubine. The great leader had sired dozens of other sons
by noble women, all of whom became Designates on various colony worlds: Dobro, Hyrillka, Crenna, Comptor, Alturas, and many
others. The secondary sons remained connected to their father through the
thism
and thus were capable of ruling splinter colony worlds with the Mage-Imperator’s thoughts and decisions.
Jora’h, though, had been a resident of the Prism Palace for most of his life. He would not be a surrogate leader like the
other Designates; he was tied closer to the Mage-Imperator than any of them.
His own eldest noble-born son, Thor’h, now lived on Hyrillka in the mansion of the Designate there, enjoying life, confident
that he would not be called to the more difficult duties of leadership for many decades, perhaps even more than a century.
After the Mage-Imperator Cyroc’h, Jora’h would become the next ruler; many decades after that, Thor’h would need to concern
himself with his eventual fate and responsibility. But no one expected that of him yet. When it came time, the genetically
stored knowledge accessible through the
thism
would teach him all he needed to know. For now, young, spoiled Thor’h seemed to enjoy the company of his uncle, the soft
and placid Hyrillka Designate. Jora’h had been happy to indulge him for a few years.
As Jora’h finished going through the colorful images in many catalogs, selecting gifts for each of his children, he thought
of his half brothers, to whom he was not very close. The other Designates ruled entire planets, yet had no freedom.
Wistfully, Jora’h recalled a tale from the
Saga of Seven Suns
about a Mage-Imperator whose first-born had actually been twins. This had led to a terrible dynastic struggle, because each
had claimed to be the Prime Designate. Both young men wanted to rule when the Mage-Imperator died, until finally, through
a very risky undertaking, both of their minds were
fused
, joined through the
thism
into a single consciousness that lived in two separate bodies. Thus, the twins became one ruler with, it was believed, twice
the wisdom.
Finishing his duties inside the contemplation chamber, Jora’h glanced at the time marked on the wall and the positions of
the orbiting suns in the sky. He was expected to make another appearance, this time to watch a marvelous performance by his
son, Zan’nh, who had entered the Ildiran Solar Navy as an officer. Zan’nh was actually Jora’h’s firstborn, the eldest of his
many children, but because his mother had belonged to the military kith rather than the noble bloodline, Zan’nh’s younger
half brother would be the next Prime Designate.
Zan’nh had proved to be quite talented with spatial maneuvers and orbital tactics, and he also had the charisma and fortitude
to command. Since Zan’nh had been born of a high-ranking soldier woman, their kiths had combined to breed a natural military
officer, and the young man had the potential to be one of the very best. If today’s aerial display proceeded as expected,
Zan’nh was due for a promotion, and Jora’h had promised he would be there.
Accompanied by his attenders and an honor guard, the Prime Designate climbed aboard a personal transport craft and flew from
the Prism Palace, urging the pilots to hurry so he could observe the opening ceremonies. They flew over Mijistra to the open
plains that surrounded the capital city, where crowds of spectators had already gathered.
The transport craft docked, and Jora’h disembarked to stand beside Adar Kori’nh, supreme commander of the Solar Navy. The
Adar’s presence gave the day’s performance an added importance, and Jora’h suspected the commander had come here merely because
the Prime Designate’s son was to be recognized for his talents.
