The Final Key: Part Two of Triad (9 page)

"It's disheartening."

"Yes." Kurj's inner lids slid up, revealing his gold eyes. 'Tell me something more cheerful, heh? That's why I came home." He let his body sink into the sofa and made a visible effort to relax his tensed muscles. "How are Dehya and Taquinil?"

"Beautiful," Eldrin said. "Dehya's tired, though. The Kyle web takes a lot out of her. Both of you."

"That it does. It's like a quicksand, an endless pit." Kurj shook his head. "It takes everything we have and wants more. I don't know how much longer Dehya and I can maintain it."

Eldrin hadn't expected that. "But the two of you can find a solution, can't you?"

"Just between you and me," Kurj said, "no. I don't see how."

Eldrin stared at him. What Kurj had just revealed went against every public portrayal he had seen of the Dyad. Although Dehya shielded her mind, he had picked up hints from her. He knew she was exhausted. But he hadn't realized it was that bad. "What will happen to the Kyle web?"

"As long as Dehya and I can keep going, we'll be all right" Kurj downed the rest of his kava and set his mug on the table. "Just pray nothing happens to either of us."

Eldrin felt cold. "And if it does?"

"Your son is too young to join the Dyad." Kurj spoke quietly. "Mother is the next in line. Or you."

"You know I'm not ready," Eldrin said. Putting him in the Dyad was a surefire way to ensure the fall of the Imperialate.

Kurj smiled. "Don't look so alarmed. I'm not planning on dying any time soon, and I'm sure Dehya feels the same way."

uoas, 1 nope so. niann couian i near to uuiik 01 ujsmg his wife. So much responsibility for the survival of the Imperialate rested on her fragile shoulders. Alaj had prescribed a phorine dose for her ten times what Eldrin took and it barely affected her. That told him volumes about how much her work tied her mind into knots, yet even with that, she had shielded him and Taquinil from the worst.

"She is going to Parthonia," Kurj added.

"Parthonia?" Eldrin tried to reorient his thoughts. "She didn't mention it to me." He shouldn't be surprised; Parthonia was the Imperialate capital, after all. Dehya attended Assembly sessions there, either in person or as a simulation through the meshes. He could see why she would go in person for the upcoming session; after the lapses in ISC web security that had allowed the ESComm attack, no one trusted the web. But it bothered him that Kurj had known her plans first.

Kurj was watching him. "I talked to her before I came here."

"Oh," Eldrin said. Nothing required his wife tell him first. He should stop being so insecure. "Is she taking Taquinil?"

"She wants to," Kurj said. "I don't think it's a good idea. No other Rhon psions are on Parthonia to protect him, which means he will have to go to the Assembly sessions with her."

Eldrin took a swallow of kava, then remembered his resolution and set the mug on the table. "I can take care of him."

"Have your nightmares stopped?" Kurj asked.

Eldrin wished he could say yes. But he dreamed of Al-thor's death often. "No."

Kurj had the kindness to say nothing more. If Eldrin had thought he could protect his son from himself, he would have gone home in a moment. But he couldn't.

"At least Althor isn't in pain," Kurj said.

No, he wasn't in pain. He was dead. "I don't understand why I have nightmares about him," Eldrin said. "Is it possible I'm picking up his dreams?"

"You couldn't. He has no higher brain functions." Kurj spoke quietly. "I'm sorry."

Eldrin struggled with his grief. "Maybe my mind can't

accept that." He truly could use a strong drink. He glanced at the steaming kava, but left it on the table.

A chime came from across the room, originating with an artfully rounded console that matched the gold and red wall mosaics, like part of the decor.

"Jason, what is it?" Kurj said.

Eldrin blinked. "Who is Jason?"

"Earth mythology," Kurj said absently. "He had Argonauts."

A deep voice came from the console. "A flyer is arriving at the palace."

"Jason is your EI?" Eldrin asked. It hadn't occurred to him to ask the palace if Kurj had a personal EI here. Perhaps he should have, as a courtesy. Could you be rude to an EI? After so many years, he should know what etiquette applied to created intelligences, but none of it felt natural.

"Yes," the EI said. "I am Jason."

"My greetings," Eldrin answered, feeling awkward.

"Who is on the flyer?" Kurj asked.

"Councilor Roca and her consort," Jason said.

Eldrin sat forward with a jerk. "My father?'

"Both of your parents are in the flyer," Jason told him.

Kurj wasn't smiling. "My stepfather never comes here."

"He is tonight," Jason said.

Eldrin couldn't believe it. His father, who had refused to see any of his family for over a year, was here? He had come, even blind and unable to walk? Eldrin flushed, uncertain whether to rejoice or worry about the unexpected visit from this man he always thought of as the Bard, in honor of his glorious voice and the love of singing he had imparted to Eldrin.

Kurj, however, didn't look surprised. Eldrin's anger sparked. Had Kurj known Eldrin's parents were on Diesha and never told him? Gods, Eldrin hadn't seen his father in two years. Kurj had no right to keep this from him.

Enough, Eldrin thought. He took a slow, calming breath. Kurj could have forgotten. He had other matters to consider, after all—like an interstellar war.

The Imperator was watching him, his mind shielded.

Eldrin suspected his own emotions were far more obvious to Kurj than the reverse. He had never been good at hiding them.

"I've been in conference with Dehya and my commanders," Kurj said. "I haven't had time for personal matters."

"Of course." Eldrin had to accept that explanation. But his parents didn't know he was here. If they had stayed somewhere else instead of the palace, he might never have known they had come to Diesha.

At night, the temperature in the Red Mountains dropped sharply. Eldrin pulled his climate-controlled jacket tighter around his body. He was standing outside the circle of light shed by lamps around a landing pad on the palace roof. The flyer had just finished setting down. Its engines died, and an oval-shaped airlock snicked open in its side.

Eldrin's mother jumped down onto the tarmac. Her skin and hair glimmered in the lamp light. Eldrin started toward her, his mood lifting, but when she turned back to the hatchway, he froze. He had forgotten the medtechs would need to carry out his father. He stepped back and waited with Kurj, in the darkness beyond the light. A lump seemed to have lodged in his throat. After more than a year of worrying, he would see his father. Roca waited on the tarmac, looking up at the flyer.

A figure appeared in the hatchway.

Eldrin's breath caught His father was standing, gripping the edges of the hatch, silhouetted against the light inside. Standing—and seeing. He wore a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. He smiled at Roca, then looked out beyond the circle of light. It didn't surprise Eldrin that his father had chosen to wear glasses; the Bard had always avoided more advanced technology if he could manage on his own.

He knew the moment his father saw Kurj. The Bard's posture went rigid and his expression shuttered. His mind became closed. At Eldrin's side, Kurj seemed to turn into stone. He had raised so many mental barriers against bis stepfather, bis mood became opaque, even to an empath of Eldrin's strength. But he needed no empathy to know that

Kurj was no happier to see his stepfather than the Bard was to see him.

Suddenly the Bard's mood lightened. With a start, Eldrin realized his father was looking at him. Serenity flowed to Eldrin from his father, real this time, nothing induced by phorine or alcohol.

Eldrin walked forward. Roca turned to him, and welcome filled her mind. Eldrin reached her first, and he hugged her tightly, his eyes closed, his head bent next to hers. When they separated, he looked up at the flyer and offered his hand. As soon as he saw his father stiffen, Eldrin regretted the gesture. He should have remembered his father's pride, which among Roca's people was sometimes all he had to buttress himself against their disdain.

Then the Bard reached out and grasped Eldrin's wrist in a hold they had often used when climbing in the Backbone Mountains, two fingers on each side of his wrist. Eldrin closed his four-fingered hand around his father's wrist and braced his feet so the Bard could use him for support.

His father let himself down from the hatchway. Straightening up, he dropped Eldrin's arm and stood on his own. He regarded Eldrin steadily, and the lenses of his glasses caught a glint from the light in the flyer. Eldrin experienced the same odd disorientation that he had felt since he was fourteen. It came to him every time he stood next to the Bard and realized he had grown taller than his sire. He grinned and his father's face warmed with affection. Then his father clapped him on the shoulder.

Kurj stood back, watching them, his mind shadowed.

Roca selected rum from the well-stocked cabinet in the living room where Kurj and Eldrin had relaxed earlier. Kurj dropped onto the brocaded couch. A robot trundled in with a tray of steaming kava in mugs shaped like the bells of sunset-dragotus blossoms.

"We arrived on Diesha this morning," Roca said. "We came straight from Lyshriol." She leaned against the cabinet. "It took three days, ship's time."

"It seemed longer." Eldrin's father lowered himself into

an armchair and exhaled as the cushions eased his body. It told Eldrin a great deal about his father's exhaustion that he so obviously appreciated the chair's ability to deduce his needs and provide comfort. Normally the Bard abhorred technology.

"Space travel feels long to me, too," Eldrin said as he settled into his own armchair. They had pulled the seats into a semicircle facing the couch. Even with everyone guarding their minds, Eldrin sensed how much his father's legs ached. Sometimes he and his father seemed like two parts of one mind. But Eldrin had come to the Orbiter as a teenager, apparently during a surge of neural development in his brain. Whether or not that had made it possible for him to learn to read and write, he couldn't have said, but he did know he had become less like his father then.

Right now, something felt odd in their connection. Wrong. He sensed ... static. The Bard was staring blankly ahead.

"Father?" Eldrin asked. "Are you all right?"

The Bard continued to stare, looking at no one.

Roca turned from the cabinet where she was putting away the rum. "Eldri?" As soon as she saw her husband's face, she went over and knelt on a footstool by his chair, bringing her eyes level with his. She touched his cheek. Then she lowered her hand and simply waited.

"What's wrong with him?" Kurj demanded.

"It's a seizure," Roca said.

The Bard suddenly blinked. He rubbed his eyes, then let out a long breath and lowered his arm. For a moment he just looked at Roca. Then he said, "I think I need to lie down."

Lines of worry creased her forehead. "Are you all right?"

"Just tired. It was a long day, eh, with Althor and Soz?"

"Quite a day." Roca stood and offered her arm. He even let her help him to his feet. He seemed confused, his motions slowed. Eldrin also stood, intending to offer support, but his mother shook her head slightly at him. He understood. His father disliked revealing his vulnerability, especially in front of Kurj.

The Bard nodded good-night to both Eldrin and Kurj. With Roca at his side, he limped out of the semicircle of chairs toward an archway that exited the room.

Kurj rose to his feet, towering. "I'll go wake his doctors."

With a slow pause and turn, the Bard looked back, his face strained. "That isn't necessary."

"We can't take chances with your life," Kurj said.

The Bard's voice tightened. "The doctors will tell you what I already know. I need to lie down. If you must have your EI monitor my room, go ahead."

Roca turned to her oldest son. "He will be fine."

"You are certain?" Kurj asked.

"As certain as is possible," she said.

Eldrin knew why Kurj was asking. As Imperator, he was charged with the protection of the Ruby Dynasty, and that included his stepfather whether he liked it or not. Eldrin shielded his mind from Kurj and directed a private thought to his father.
You look tired.

I am fine
, his father answered.

Roca frowned at her husband.
This has happened every day for the past ten days.

Every day? Eldrin had never known his father to have such frequent seizures. Kurj's thought rumbled.
Every day hardly sounds like "fine"

Eldrin winced. Apparendy he hadn't hidden his thoughts as well as he believed. The Bard recoiled from Kurj's force, taking an uneven step backward. Eldrin felt his father shut his mind, locking them all out so he could escape the mental power of his formidable stepson.

Kurj exhaled, his face drawn, his inner lids down. He jerked his chin at the archway. "Go ahead," he told his stepfather. "Rest. Let us know if you need anything."

Roca inclined her head to her son. The Bard gave the barest nod, just enough so he didn't ignore the Imperator. He left then, leaning on Roca's arm. That he accepted her help, even with Kurj watching, told Eldrin a great deal about the severity of his condition. Eldrin wanted to go with his parents, but he held back, knowing his father would prefer privacy.

When Kurj and Eldrin were alone, Kurj asked, "Are you sure he will be all right?"

"I think so." Eldrin wasn't certain, but bis mother would see that his father had whatever he needed. She had been

doing it for twenty-five years. He was in good care. The last thing he needed was Kurj's hostile attention.

The two of them sat down, awkward. Eldrin didn't know what to say. He could sense a bit of his brother's mood even through Kurj's barriers; whatever the Imperator thought of his stepfather, he was genuinely concerned for his health. The Bard's epilepsy was growing worse despite his treatments.