The Final Key: Part Two of Triad (4 page)

"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 healers 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 Jager-nauL 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 bis 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 "modem" 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 star-spanning 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 self-doubt 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 wild-flowers 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 bis 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 had 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 ge-

netic connection to the Valdoria branch of the family, and they chose Eldrin because he and Dehya had the fewest deleterious matches among their genes.

It had dismayed Dehya and Eldrin. They fought the Assembly—and lost. So they married. As husband and wife, they remained formal, two strangers forced into a union neither wanted. And yet... as time passed, Eldrin acknowledged his affinity for his wife. They were Rhon. Like sought like. Even with his being a psion, it had been a year before he could believe the incredible truth, that he loved his wife— and she loved him.

He still felt out of his depth with her, a forbidden stranger in her royal apartments. He cared for their son, Taquinil, composed music, trained his voice, and gave concerts. It was a good life. He really did believe that—and if he drank too much at night when his son slept and he hadn't seen his wife in days, well, everyone needed a release.

A pleasant voice broke his reverie. "We have arrived, Your Majesty." It came from a comm near his chair. The engines of the flyer were fading into silence.

"Thank you." Eldrin felt odd thanking a machine, but it seemed appropriate. "Release pilot."

"Released." The control panels around his seat swiveled away.

Eldrin stood up slowly. Although he weighed less here than on Lyshriol, it was more than on the Orbiter space station where he normally lived. As he crossed the cabin, he had to retime his steps and modulate how high he lifted his foot. So strange, to analyze a process he usually took for granted. It was better now than a year ago, though, when he had first come here. Although the gravity felt awkward, he could handle the difference. He did exercises every day so he wouldn't lose his ability to handle heavier gravity. He wanted to ensure he could always go home to Lyshriol and to his family, no matter where they lived.

He paused, disheartened. He had come here to protect Taquinil from his nightmares. Eldrin loved his son more than his own life, but he knew he and Dehya should never have had a child. Their boy, so beautiful and brilliant, might never survive on his own. Born of two people on the

extreme end of empathic sensitivity, he couldn't block emotions with his mind. He had no barriers against the onslaught. It took another Rhon psion to provide the mental shields he lacked, which meant only the Ruby Dynasty could protect him. His doctors were searching for a treatment that wouldn't destroy the boy's magnificent neural structures, but unless they succeeded, Taquinil could never leave the protection of his family. It wasn't a problem for a seven-year-old boy, but that would change as he grew older. His independence could cost him his sanity.

Eldrin was also an unusually sensitive psion. If anything powerful happened to his family, he sensed it. He had taken easily to fatherhood because of his role model, his father, the Dalvador Bard, a man he loved and admired above all others. A link as strong as theirs could extend into Kyle space and reach Eldrin light-years away. But their closeness meant Eldrin endured any intense experiences his father suffered— including the agony inflicted by Vitarex Raziquon. Although over a year had passed since it happened, the memory continued to haunt Eldrin's dreams.

The violence of Althor's combat death had impacted Eldrin almost as much as his father's suffering. Of the ten Val-doria children, Eldrin was closest in age to Althor. Although Eldrin managed his grief during the day, nightmares haunted his sleep. It should have stopped: his father had escaped Raziquon—and Althor had died. But he continued to dream horrors.

It tore him apart to know that his dreams hurt his son. Only distance muted the effect; the greater his separation from Taquinil, the less his nightmares affected the boy. So he had left Taquinil with Dehya and come here, to Diesha.