The Final Key: Part Two of Triad (39 page)

None of that mattered, though, when he realized the officers might have the answers he wanted. "My wife?" he asked. "Is she all right? My son? The rest of my family?"

Another officer answered, a tall woman. "Pharaoh Dyhianna is safe. Your son is with your father." Quiedy she added, Your father is now a Key."

Eldrin was certain he misheard. "What did you say?" "Your father joined the Dyad." She sounded subdued. His father? She couldn't mean what she had said. It was impossible. Then the rest of it hit him: a third Key would be a death sentence to one of the Triad. "What about Dehya? And Kurj! What happened to them?"

"Dehya?" the female IRAS officer asked. "Who is that?" At the same time, the male officer said, "Do you mean Imperator Skolia?"

"Yes. The Imperator. And my wife." Eldrin couldn't bear to lose them, not Dehya, not his father, not the half-brother who had treated him with a familial love Kurj showed few others. "The powerlink can't support three people." "All three live," the man said. "The Triad is stable." Eldrin's mind whirled. Triad. "This is—unexpected." It was probably the greatest understatement he had ever made. No one disputed his comment. "Gods," Kaywood muttered.

Eldrin turned to him. "Lane—" He didn't want the doctor to treat him any differentiy.

Kaywood spoke numbly. "You are the Ruby Consort." Eldrin could only say, "Yes."

"You worked with me for hours," Kaywood said, incredulous. "You never complained. You never asked for a single privilege. Nothing. You kept on going when you were

exhausted. You gave your rations to the children and took my orders as if you were a medtech."

Eldrin winced. "I'm afraid I would be a lousy medtech."

"Are you a king?" the boy asked.

Eldrin smiled, relieved to hear him speak. "Just a bard. I compose ballads."

The girl clapped her small hands. "Oh, sing!"

Their mother, who had been staring at Eldrin with undisguised shock, finally recovered. "Honey, hush!"

"It's all right." Eldrin knelt in front of the children. "What songs do you like?"

"Pretty ones," the girl said.

The boy answered shyly. "Adventures."

Eldrin chose a ballad he had written about how the suns of Lyshriol hung above the plains at dusk, with floating bubbles silhouetted against them. His mother had taken him on a trip when he had been small, and he remembered that lovely sunrise as their ship took off. He began in his deepest voice, singing in Trillian:

The sky curved wide It curved wide and long Curved wide above the suns Wide above my heart.

His voice didn't have its full resonance, but it was returning. He rose into his baritone range and his voice swelled with the excitement he had felt that day:

The sky ship flew It flew long and high Hew clear above the suns Clear within my heart.

He soared into the tenor section and even managed the high notes he had worked for so many years to perfect:

The sky turned vast It turned vast and deep

Turned with bright stars Graceful in my heart.

As he let the last note fade, his eyes closed, and he felt the song within him. Silence.

Eldrin opened his eyes. Many people had gathered to listen. It felt strange; he never sang in public, only in virtual concerts over the meshes. He was about to stand up when the girl put her pudgy arms around him.

"Pretty song," she said, her cheek against his.

Eldrin hugged her. "Thank you."

"That was incredible," her mother murmured.

He rose to his feet, relieved they liked his offering. The boy put his arms around Eldrin's waist, and Eldrin bent his head, his hands resting on the children's shoulders. He would miss them. When he lifted his head, the mother bowed and spoke in formal tones, using the correct protocol for a Ruby heir, even the arcane phrasing specific to the Pharaoh's consort. "I thank you for the grace of your time, Your Majesty."

Eldrin inclined his head, automatically lapsing into court protocol. "It is our pleasure."

The woman held out her hands to her children. "Come, you must let him go now. He has important matters to attend."

Eldrin couldn't think of anything more important than ensuring the future of the Imperialate was well cared for in the person of its children. As one of the IRAS officers took them away, Eldrin murmured, "Gods speed."

He said his farewells to Kaywood. Then he went with the IRAS officers to face his future.

21

Gaps

Soz felt strange coming home. A gold and black shuttle ferried her down from the battle cruiser Ascendant, and she walked to the village. A breeze whispered across her uniform, the black leathers of a Jagernaut, but without arm rings to indicate rank. The lavender sky, blue clouds, and silvery plains—nothing had changed. She had lived here all her life. It should feel the same as always. But it wasn't, nor would it ever be again. The universe had turned inside out. ISC had just barely rebuffed ESComm, and they would have to live with the specter of the war's possible return.

Althor should have been here. Never again would he bring his Jag down in that spectacular flare of exhaust It was all gone in the strike of an unseen enemy. Nor was it only Althor. Her father's message had arrived on Roca's Pride: Come see your mother before it is too late.

Soz reached the top of the hill where her family's house stood, a small casde actually, though these days it served an aesthetic rather than defensive purpose. She simply walked through the open gateway. No one had posted a gatekeeper. Her family had no real enemies in Dalvador, besides which, an orbital defense system monitored them, even more strin-gendy after what had happened with Vitarex. Nor did anyone have reason to expect the return of the prodigal daughter. She had sent no messages. She had feared if she let them know, her father might change his mind and tell her not to come home after all.

Inside the house, Soz wandered into the Hearth Room. No one lounged there today, nor did flames lick the glasswood logs in the hearth. Lamps stood in corners, elegant gold poles with stained-glass shades. A staircase swept up to her right

and curved out of sight. She stopped and searched with her mind. Her father and some of her siblings were here somewhere, but she couldn't find her mother.

The next two rooms she checked were empty. Frustrated, she went to the Solar Chamber. It had many tall windows, which filled the room with sunlight this late in the day. Panels of yellow glasswood brightened the walls, and cabinets displayed vases in swirls of color. The place was full of light and warmth.

Here she found her mother.

Roca sat across the room, in an armchair by a window, gazing at the plains. Her hair poured over her body in a glistening fall of golden curls, with tendrils curling around her face. Her gold skin, eyes, and eyelashes glimmered. Relief flooded Soz. Her mother looked fine, as healthy as always.

Soz paused just inside the entrance. "My greetings, Mother."

Roca continued to stare out the window. Then, slowly, she turned her head. "Soshoni?"

Soz crossed through the gilded light, and Roca watched her with an oddly placid expression. Soz had never realized what a mobile face her mother had, or how much her intelligence showed in her alert manner, until it was gone. Today her face was too beautiful, soullessly perfect, all character lines smoothed away.

"Mother?" Soz sat on the windowsill by Roca's chair. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, of course." Her voice was soft. "How are you?"

"Fine." Soz felt adrift. She had expected more reaction.

"You look tired," Roca said. "Are you sleeping enough?"

"Probably not." Soz shifted her weight. "Don't you know where I've been?"

Roca frowned. "Did you forget your homework?"

A sinking sensation came over Soz. "Mother, I've been in combat."

Roca's eyes filled with tears. "Soshoni, you mustn't go where you might be hurt." "It's all right," Soz said, bewildered. "I'm fine." A man's voice came from the doorway. "Soz? Is that you?"

Soz jumped off the sill. For an instant she didn't recognize the man in the arched entrance. Then it hit her, this was Denric, her little brother. Seventeen now, he was taller than when she had left home, his shoulders broadened, his face matured.

"Deni!" Soz strode to him, and they collided in the middle of the room. She grabbed him in a hug and was starded to discover the top of her head only came to his ear.

"Soz—" His voice sounded strained. "I can't breathe."

Mortified, she let him go. "Sorry! I forget about all that hardware in my body." Adapting to her enhanced strength was an ongoing process.

He grinned, a yellow curl falling in his eyes. "You can be my bodyguard."

She glared at him. "I most certainly did not spend all that time learning to be a Jagernaut so I could stand around watching you read books."

Laughing, he pushed back his hair. "But they're so good."

"Deni." Roca spoke behind them. "Did you bring my book?"

As Soz turned, Denric spoke gentiy to their mother. "I brought it earlier. Don't you remember?"

A shadow crossed Roca's face. "No." She turned back to the window. Sunlight made her skin glimmer. It disoriented Soz to see her look so well, because something was obviously very wrong.

It is killing Tamer, Denric thought, guarding his mind.

How much has she lost?
Soz asked. She and Denric had often done this in their youth, shrouding their minds so they could talk without being "overheard" by siblings or parents. It worked only if they were close together.

She doesn't even remember she is an Assembly Councilor.

Can anything be done?

He glanced at their mother, who was either ignoring them or had forgotten they were in the room.
Father is talking to the biomech doctors. Apparently Arabesque, her node, recorded her neural patterns. It already, knew many of them, since it had been part of her brain tor so many decades.

How would it bring them back?

Use the bioelectrodes in her neurons to reestablish firing patterns.

Soz didn't like the sound of it.
That could cause more damage.

That is what they fear. 5ut it could also return part of what she's lost.

Does she understand the risks?

Not really. The doctors say Father must decide.

This hadto be agonizing for him.
Does she remember what happened on the Aristo ship?

Some. Denric shuddered.
I would wish for her to lose those memories.

Soz watched her mother.
I also.

Roca sat in the sunlight, oblivious to them.

The Bard waited in the chamber at the top of the Blue Tower. The circular room fit his mood: smooth and empty, polished bluestone, with a blueglass door and domed ceiling, no furniture, only a few engravings, nothing else. Echoing. Like his heart.

He stood at the window and gazed at the village and silvery green plains he had known all his life. He didn't see today's landscape; instead, he remembered lying with Roca far out in that waving sea of reeds, shimmerflies and bubbles floating above, just the two of them and no one else. Several of their children had been conceived under that vast sky. He remembered Roca laughing, Roca glowering, Roca orating in the Assembly. Roca touching him. He wanted her back. The doctors had healed her wounds, but the woman in the Solar Room was a lovely shell, an empty place where his wife belonged.

He had told the doctors to go ahead.

Arabesque claimed it could kick-start her brain. It might bring her back, but a good chance existed it would fry her neurons and take away what little she had left, leaving her incapable of even minimal care for herself. He clenched his fists and pressed them against the window that had been part

of Roca's wedding present to him; glass panes in all his houses. He had to try. She had never given up on him during his long recovery, even when he pushed her away. But if he made a mistake, if he condemned her to a living death, nothing he could do would heal it. He would care for her the rest of their lives and die each time he saw what he had done to his wife.

A knock came at the door. Eldrinson turned, afraid to answer lest someone had come with news. I'm sorry, the procedure failed. Perhaps it was too soon to tell. She needed time to adapt, as he had needed for his legs and sight

He went to the door and found his son outside. Shannon had always been the smallest of his boys, the youngest except for strapping Kelric. Eldrinson was used to tMnking of him as a child, but a man faced him, nearly as tall as Eldrinson, almost two octets old, an Archer with his own life far off in the Blue Dales.

"My greetings, Father," Shannon said.

"My greetings." Their formality troubled Eldrinson. It had been this way since he returned home. Once he and Shannon had been close. The boy had often run with him in the plains. But it had been years since then, two years since they had even spent time together. First he had let his convalescence separate him from his family; then he and Roca had gone off-world. He longed to take back that time. Nothing would fix his mistakes with Althor, but he had a chance with Shannon.

"I am glad to see you." Eldrinson stepped away from the door. "Come in."

Shannon entered. "I can't stop worrying about her."

Eldrinson knew he meant Roca. "I also."

A mental knock came at Eldrinson's barriers. He lowered his defenses and Shannon's thought came to him:
I keep seeing her as she was after we pulled her from the trader ship into the archer camp.

Show me.

Shannon relaxed his barriers and let him see ...

Roca slowly took form out of the blue fog, coalescing out of the mist, a gold woman with haunted eyes. A lovely young female Archer held a blanket around Roca's shoulders, and

Shannon stayed at his mother's side, kneeling in drifts of glitter. Nothing took away the terror in Roca's eyes, that blankness where strength and a keen intellect had existed. She recognized Shannon at first, but then her awareness seemed to die.