The Final Key: Part Two of Triad (7 page)

Eldrin paced the bedroom of the royal suite, unable to stay still. It was beautiful here, the mosaics sparkling and tall vases standing in the corners. Diamond chandeliers hung from the ceiling. But he felt suffocated. The heavy drapes closed in on him, and his head ached. He loathed the thought

of calling a doctor. Leaving Taquinil and Dehya because his mind endangered his son was torment enough; having to seek help for his extreme empathic sensitivity would be humiliating.

Gods, his head hurt. He strode to the cabinet against one wall and clicked open the crystal doors. The bottles inside were gorgeous, especially the carafe shaped like a flying dragon with wings spread. The deep blue glass and iridescent highlights pleased his sense of aesthetics, at least as much as he could feel pleasure when he was so uncomfortable.

His hand shook as he pulled out the decanter. Red wine sloshed within the bottle, too loud, grating on his nerves. He shook his head, trying to clear it, then winced as pain stabbed his temples. He grabbed a crystal tumbler, a smaller version of the dragon, and poured a drink. Too agitated to put away the wine, he set the decanter on the counter and paced away, across the room, to a wing chair upholstered in dark red brocade. When he sat down, the cushions shifted, trying to ease his rigid posture. He had only meant to sip his drink, to savor its quality, but he finished it so fast he barely tasted the wine.

He set his glass on a table by the chair and thought of getting more. Then he steeled himself. He wouldn't drink tonight. None of his medicine, either. Nor would he call for help. He was a fighter and a bard. He would get through this.

Eldrin closed his eyes, trying to ease the ache behind them. It had spread throughout his head. Sleep. He needed sleep. His augmentations could help. They included nanomeds that patrolled his body, repaired his cells, tended his health, and delayed his aging. The tiny molecular laboratories could release chemicals that would help him rest. He concentrated, using biofeedback techniques to enhance the response of the meds much in the way an empath could use biofeedback to heal himself, or others, if he turned his empathic abilities outward. Gradually he nodded off, dozing in fits and starts...

"Make it stop, Hoshpa." Tears ran down Taquinil's face, and his eyes were swollen from crying...

Eldrin jerked awake. His headache raged and sweat soaked his clothes. He would have lost his dinner, except he hadn't

eaten. He rose out of his chair, but then he fell, landing on his hands and knees, unbalanced by the Dieshan gravity. Diesha. He wasn't at home, caring for Taquinil. That had all happened over a year ago.

He remembered little of that first night after he had taken Dehya's medicine. The relaxant had drenched his mind. He had collapsed on the couch, and he hadn't come back to consciousness until the next morning, when he awoke to find Taquinil shaking his arm. Eldrin had spent the day in a haze of tranquillity, but the effects had faded over the next few days. Headaches had plagued him, and his hands had shaken so much he had trouble holding a glass. His condition affected Taquinil, not as much as Eldrin's horrendous dreams, but enough that the boy felt his distress. Then Eldrin's nightmares had started up again, for that had been during the time Vitarex Raziquon had been torturing bis father.

Finally he had given in, unable to bear the headaches or the dreams. He had taken Dehya's medicine again, cutting the dose by 80 percent. That solved his problems, replacing his pain with serenity. With the dosage so much lower, he didn't lose touch with the world, either. It had still been too much. He had trouble caring for Taquinil when he so easily became distracted, but when he didn't take the medicine, his distress made it impossible for him to function and his nightmares tormented his son.

If Dehya had spent more time with him, he could have injured her, too. She had noticed his erratic moods, and she had bothered him about what she called "his drinking." If she had realized the extent of his nightmares, she probably would have pressured him to see a specialist He couldn't bear the thought of a therapist poking into his private life, and he feared Dehya would turn from him if she knew the truth, that he was sick, using her syringe without her permission. He had known then he had to leave before he hurt his son and ruined his marriage. He hated being away from his family, but at least they were safe from him. When he recovered from these humiliating problems, he could go home.

In the year since he had left the Orbiter, he had suffered attacks in which his head seemed to splinter and his body shook with uncontrolled tremors. Only the medicine helped.

At a dosage equal to 10 percent of what Alaj Rajindia had given Dehya, it alleviated Eldrin's symptoms without incapacitating him. He wanted to stop using it. The medicine had taken over his life. Just this morning he had vowed, yet again, that he would take no more. Only now he was desperate. He tried to get up from the floor, but he was barely off his knees when his body went rigid.

Eldrin's father had told him once that he was never aware of his seizures, but for Eldrin it was excruciatingly different. He fell to his side, convulsing, and he felt every terrifying moment. The attack seemed to go on forever, a waking nightmare.

Mercifully, it finally stopped. Eldrin went limp on the floor, gasping. For a moment he just lay there. Then, clutching the armchair, he dragged himself to his feet. He stumbled into the bedroom where he had stored his travel bag, which he had never unpacked even though he used its contents, because he kept hoping he could go home.

His medicine was inside the bag.

With shaking fingers, he pulled out the syringe he had taken from Dehya's suite and programmed in the relaxant. He had just managed to inject himself when he collapsed on the bed and began to convulse again. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't make a sound. His throat closed up while his body arched and seized.

When his muscles finally released, Eldrin groaned with relief. The drug was taking effect. His body slowly relaxed, muscle by muscle, and his nausea receded. The pain in his head eased. For a long time he lay on his back. He didn't understand what was wrong with him. Only Dehya's syringe could be programmed to dispense this medicine he so needed with such urgency; others he had tried didn't even recognize the drug Alaj had prescribed her.

Eldrin would never forget its name.

Phorine.

i

The Claret Suite

Soz was almost ready to go to the starport. A shuttle there would take her to a transport ship in orbit, and the transport would carry her to her new assignment, a tour onboard the Imperial Fleet battle cruiser, Roca's Pride. Good name, that. She approved. But first she had two stops to make. After seeing her parents a few days ago, her mood had lifted. Her father hadn't been able to walk much, so she had kept the tour of the academy brief and spent most of the time talking to them. Even after they had left, her spirits had remained high. But now they dimmed.

She rode a mag-lev train into HQ City. It didn't take long to reach the hospital. Today she went inside Althor's room instead of staying in the viewing chamber. She walked quietly to the bed, though only she could hear her footsteps. He lay on his back, his face gaunt, his body kept alive by lines and machines.

Soz sat in a chair by the bed and spoke softly. "I came to say goodbye, but just for now." Her voice caught. "Althor, you must get better. You have to carry your half of this Imperial Heir business."

Only machines whispered in the room. Soz couldn't believe he had been dead for over two months.
Althor, come back
, she thought.

His eyes opened. She almost jumped out of her chair and shouted for the doctors. Then she saw his blank gaze. The monitors around his bed confirmed the truth: his condition hadn't changed. His brainstem had partially survived, and it continued to control his heart rate, breathing, reflexes, the contraction of his pupils, his swallowing reflexes. It even regulated his sleep cycles. Yesterday he had moved his fingers. If

a sharp edge touched his skin, he jerked. But he was conscious of nothing. His cerebral cortex had died. He had lost the functions that gave him personality, intelligence, memory. Modern medicine could do a great deal, but it couldn't repair his mind. The essence of Althor, her brother, was gone.

"I don't want to say goodbye." A tear ran down her face. "I'll see you again. I promise."

Soz walked out onto the training fields. She had one hour left, just enough time to complete one last task.

In a distant quadrangle, Lt. Colonel Dayamar Stone was working with a group of novices. Sunrays slanted across the fields, gilding athletes with antiqued light as if they were figures out of a legend rather than real people. They were doing calisthenics, led by a cadet in their class. Soz jogged over and walked around their formation, hanging back. Stone stood several meters to one side, peering at a holoboard. As she approached him, he glanced at her.

Soz stopped a few paces away and snapped a salute. "Sir!"

He returned her salute. "At ease, Valdoria."

Soz relaxed an infinitesimal amount.

"What brings you out here?" Stone asked.

"I leave tonight for Roca's Pride, sir."

"Yes. I heard."

"I was wondering—"

He waited. "Yes?"

"Sir, I'd like to run the Echo."

Stone visibly tensed. He was the one who had suspected her of cracking the meshes so she could cheat on the obstacle course. He hadn't had any evidence; Soz knew how to cover her tracks. If she hadn't confessed, they probably couldn't have proved anything. But she would have known. Her grief was no excuse. Confessing had been one of her hardest moments, and she regretted losing her honors status, but she couldn't have lived with herself otherwise. The cadets thought her clever for cracking the system, but to Soz, an accomplishment gained by unfair advantage meant nothing.

"You know the course has been reprogrammed." Stone made it a statement rather than a question.

"Yes, sir. That's why I want to run it." He considered her. "Very well."

Stone gave his holoboard to the cadet leading the exercises. Then he and Soz walked across the fields. She halted at the Echo and narrowed her eyes. This course had been her bane. Her half-brother Kurj, the Imperator, had ordered her to run it on one of her first days at the academy. But to do well on the Echo, a cadet needed the physical augmentation they received their third year. Although she had never run the course, she hadn't wanted to lose face in front of Kurj or her classmates. Then he had added one last command: beat the record of nine minutes, forty-three seconds. Soz had gritted her teeth, tried the impossible, and failed. Her time had been appalling. Only later did she learn that she had been the first novice in ten years to finish the course on her first try. Kurj had neglected to mention that fact. He was too busy giving her hell because she was his heir and his cocky sister and who the blazes knew why else.

Since then, she had tried the Echo numerous times but never beat the record. Often she limped off the course covered in mud and bruises, humiliated by her time.

Then the Traders had killed her brother.

Soz had gone a little crazy then, obsessed with revenge. She had sworn to rip through her training and graduate so she could go out and destroy the Traders who had ended her brother's life. She cracked the field webs, memorized (he Echo files, and pulverized the previous record. But it hadn't been real, and it hadn't helped her grief.

Today she again faced her nemesis, this time the honest way.

Stone held his timer and said, simply, "Go." Soz took off.

The entrance to the Echo looked like a dirt path, but it was actually perplex, a material saturated with sensors. It evaluated her stride, weight, brain waves, and any other data it could use to analyze and predict her actions. So she didn't go down the path. Instead she ran along a narrow bar at its border. Although the bar could also gather data about her, the information wouldn't be as accurate. Any advantage she gained, no matter how small, could help. She sped along the

bar, her speed and reflexes enhanced. It shuddered, trying to knock her back onto the perplex, but she outwitted its attempts.

A vaulting horse blocked the end of the path. Soz jumped in front of it, never breaking stride, and hurtled over the horse in a flip. She nailed her landing and sprinted forward, carried by her momentum. The scaffolding loomed ahead, a structure of metal struts that vibrated, bent, and snapped with rudimentary intelligence. When she jumped up and grabbed a bar, it almost succeeded in throwing her off. The techs had added odd nuances to its vibrations. She grabbed new bars as the ones she held sagged and jerked. She swung through the crazily shaking struts, letting go of each just before she grabbed the next, so that for an instant she was airborne with no handhold. She had discovered it confused the program that controlled the structure. The bars responded to her touch, and if she broke contact, they couldn't react as well.

She made it through the framework, but her unfamiliarity with the changes in its behavior slowed her down. At the other side, she let go from high up and dropped. The impact of her landing could have broken her knees before ISC had enhanced her body. Now they bent at exactly the amount necessary to cushion her landing, and her augmented legs absorbed the force. She took off and ran hard, her feet drumming the ground. The perplex surface bucked, trying to throw her off balance, but she had evaded enough of the Echo sensors that it had trouble judging her stride. It failed to toss her to the ground.

The pool lay before her, serene, reflecting the pale sky like a visual echo. Its mirror quality came from oil that coated its surface. The first times she had done the course, she had tried running around the stone rim, but keeping her balance had proved impossible. She always slipped into the oil and ended up covered with crud. Today she jumped. The pool was too large to clear even with her enhanced muscles, so she leapt to the rim, touched down, and leapt again. A third jump and she cleared the pool.