The Phoenix in Flight (14 page)

The Laergon shook the Mace in a long arc over his head,
bending so deeply to either side that its ends tapped the marble floor. The
resulting spray of harmonics from its crystalline core, ranging from a deep
booming that recalled the restless sea to teeth-aching supersonics, effectively
stilled the last remnants of conversation in the Hall of Ivory.

The Laergon straightened up and grounded the Mace in front
of him. “His Royal Highness, the Krysarch Brandon Takari Burgess Njoye Willam
su Gelasaar y Ilara nyr Arkad de Mandala!” His voice echoed into a stillness
broken only by the musical clangor of the Manacles as the Polloi brandished
them at the partly opened doors to the Throne Room.

The Laergon turned away from the doors and retraced his
steps in measured pace, followed by the Polloi, and the doors swung shut again.
Around the perimeter people stirred once again, the machinery of state
resuming, and Leseuer marveled again at the effortless combination of unstudied
elegance and careful ceremony that was the hallmark of government in the
Thousand Suns.

Who knows what will be decided here tonight?
she
thought.
The result of some carefully arranged encounter that I probably
wouldn’t recognize as significant even if it happened right in front of me.
A
shiver of awe flooded her nerves: one of the decisions reached tonight might be
the status of her planet in the Panarchy.

(That’s definitely on the agenda, but I think more people
are wondering about the absence of the Aerenarch-Consort.)
Ranor chuckled.
(You’re
subvocalizing again.)

She flushed. Then, amazed that she had not previously noted
her absence:
(Aerenarch-Consort Vannis Scefi-Cartano? She’s not here?)
Leseuer
looked around the vast room again, as if she could have missed the familiar
small, elegant figure. Seen from a distance, the Aerenarch’s wife had always
reminded her of a knife worn hidden in a sleeve. Nothing important happened at
Court without her presence.
(What does her absence mean?)

(That’s what everyone is trying to figure out. It could
be a message from the Aerenarch Semion, or it could be a message to him. Or it
could be a message from the Cartano family to the other principal Mandala
families.)

Leseuer suppressed the chill of memory. She’d been presented
to the Aerenarch on Narbon, on her way to Arthelion. She’d known almost nothing
of Panarchic politics at the time, but had sensed tension around the heir and
his court made up mostly of military captains, a tension only strengthened by
her year at the court of Gelasaar III.

(The man that hath no music in himself

Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;

The motions of his spirit are dull as night,

And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.)

Ranor quoted softly, as if sensing her unease. Perhaps he
had: the boswell’s ability to indicate subtle muscle movements sometimes gave
its use the quality of telepathy.
(But don’t worry,)
he continued.
(It’s
unlikely to have any effect on the Ansonia question. Tonight’s maneuvering is
merely detail.)

(And?)

(Oh, I don’t know what’s been decided. I just know how
these things work. This is far too high a ceremony to host a major
negotiation.)

Leseuer shook her head. She didn’t expect she’d ever fully
understand Panarchic politics: the perplexing interplay of spontaneity and
choreography amidst the splendors of Douloi ceremony, the wheels within wheels
wherein a shrug or a lifted eyebrow could set off a swift interchange of events
that would decide the fate of millions. But the politics merely reflected the
nature of these people: shrewd, cosmopolitan, self-controlled, and wise with a
weight of years and tradition that had no counterpart on her world.

Ansonia was fiercely proud of its hard-won democratic
principles and devotion to rational government, re-established with such
difficulty following the decades of Dol’jharian oppression, and deeply
suspicious of the bizarre Panarchist combination of anarchy, ritual, and
absolute monarchy.

Her throat tightened as she realized how important it had
become to her that her planet understand what was offered them, despite its
strangeness.

Across the Hall the gee-bubble of a nuller floated through
the entrance doors; he or she—so wizened by the great age conferred by life in
free-fall that Leseuer could not distinguish—was upside down with respect to
the Hall. She still didn’t understand how these rare, almost immortal humans
fit into the careful structures of Douloi life, with their disregard for the
conventions of placement and preference.

The nuller’s bubble hovered over a far group as a whisper,
no more than a susurrus of summer leaves, rustled through the company. Leseuer
felt it more than she heard it. Some heads turned toward the great doors, so
her head turned as well—

(The Krysarch,)
Ranor said.
(He has not yet been
seen.)

(Isn’t he supposed to appear after the third call?)

(But he should be here waiting for the last summons, and
he is nowhere to be found. Perhaps he’s en route through the complex via
unorthodox ways—the Arkads are rumored to know most of the secret passageways
this place is honeycombed with. If so, he’d better hurry and appear. The
Household is in a panic.)

Just then a flash of livid green caught the edge of her
vision as a Kelly trinity entered the hall. She stared in fascination at the
first nonhuman sophont she’d ever seen in the flesh, one of the few yet
discovered in the Thousand Suns. The three sophonts were short, rotund tripeds
covered in a dense lacework of fluttering, tape-like ribbons. Armless, each had
a single, long headstalk springing from its torso, crowned with a mouth like a
fleshy lily with three bright blue eyes under the lip. They wore no clothing.
As she watched, she became aware that they were heading directly for her.

The two larger, yellow-green Kelly pivoted in a waltz-like
movement around the smaller, bright green one in the center of the trinity.
Their headstalks—each adorned with a gaudy, bejeweled boswell—twisted in a
constant helical motion, gently intertwining and touching each other with the
soft pseudopods arrayed around their mouths. The constant caresses somehow
reminded her of an infant playing with its fingers and toes. As they came
closer she could hear their claws clicking on the floor in an elaborate trinary
rhythm.

(Threy want to meet you,)
said Ranor.
(Since I wasn’t
told in advance, we must assume this is a test, of you and of Ansonia.)

(But you haven’t finished briefing me on the Kelly yet,)
she
replied, a knot of panic forming in her stomach. All she’d seen was an ancient
pre-Exilic flatvid—monochrome, yet—that was too silly for words, interrupted by
a summons from her Ambassador for yet another meeting. Ranor had introduced the
vid by remarking that it was the starting point for the ceremonials that
Archetype and Ritual had developed to bind the Kelly into the Ranks of Service.
He hadn’t had a chance to explain further, and now the sophonts were only a few
meters away.

(That is the Kelly Archon. Threir adopted names are
Lheri, Mho, and Curlizho. The one in the center, the intermittor, is Mho. She
will speak for threm.)

(What! But that’s the vid. . .)

(Yes. Threy use those human names because we can’t
pronounce threirs, and for other reasons that will become apparent. I haven’t
time to explain now. Just do exactly what I tell you, no matter how strange it
seems. Exactly! And don’t move unless I tell you to.)
She could hear an
edge of panic in his voice, which only intensified hers, and then the Kelly
halted in front of her. The blason de soleil—the sunburst of direct aegicy that
marked those who received authority directly from the Panarch, rather than by
delegation—glittered brightly against their green pelts. She wondered
distractedly how the decorations were fastened on.

“Well met, Leseuer gen Altamon,” said the alien. “Wethree welcome
you.” Its voice was a mellow, reedy blat; its breath and body scent were an odd
mixture reminiscent of cut herbs and burning plastic. Without warning it
reached out and slapped her hard on top of her head, waved its headstalk up and
down in front of her face, and then tweaked her nose. Its lips? fingers? were
warm and soft.

(Now slap her on top of the body, wave your hand
side-to-side in front of her headstalk, fingers pointed at her, and then poke
her in the eyes with two fingers!)
said Ranor.
(Quickly! Like the vid.
You won’t hurt her.)

Confused and frightened, Leseuer reached out and hesitantly
slapped the Kelly next to where the headstalk joined the torso; belying their
appearance, the glossy ribbons were exquisitely supple and velvety. As she
waved her hand back and forth the Kelly’s headstalk followed it with a sinuous
motion. It didn’t flinch when she gingerly stabbed at it, but her fingers were
deflected by a hard, horny membrane flickering across the two of its three eyes
facing her.

All three Kelly burst into a quiet paroxysm of honking and
hissing, their headstalks slapping each other’s torsos frantically and twining
about each other in a confusing snarl.

(That ancient vid was the breakthrough that enabled us to
develop rituals and symbols that Kelly and humans could share,)
commented
Ranor, relief audible in his voice.
(They are very physical beings in whom
the sense of touch is highly developed.)
His boswell transmitted the
strange sound that indicated a sigh of relief.
(You did very well; threy are
quite pleased.)

The mixture of plural and singular forms had merely added to
her disorientation, and Leseuer groped for something to say as she tried to
recover from the Kelly’s greeting. Her chief emotion was amazement. Her first
encounter with these beings, foreshadowed by that old flatvid, brought the
insight that what might be silly for one culture could be the most serious for
another.

“Well met indeed, Your Grace,” she finally replied as the
snaky writhing of the Kelly subsided. “I am honored.”

She was saved from the effort of further conversation by the
Second Summons, which followed the pattern of the first. The Kelly did not
change the position of their torsos; only their headstalks twisted to watch. As
the great doors closed the second time, the Laergon strode past her with a look
of distraction, even worry, on his face.

(Has the Krysarch been found?)

(No.)
The short answer carried with it a wave of
anxiety. Mho twisted her headstalk back toward Leseuer. “You humans always do
important things in threes. That’s what convinced us you are truly civilized.”
The other two Kelly moved closer, and throughout the ensuing conversation they
softly touched her shoulders and arms in a gentle, patting motion. Despite
their strangeness—or perhaps because they did not at all resemble humans, and
thus had nothing of deformity about them—she found the contact strangely
comforting.

“Speaking of threes,” continued the Kelly, “wethree congratulate
you on your completion.”

Leseuer kept her face blank as she tried to unravel the
meaning of that comment.
(Completion?)

“Wethree have met Ranor, and look forward to greeting your
third.”

(Third?)

(Our unborn child.)
Ranor’s love and delight bathed
her nerves in warmth.

(But we only just found out. But how did they know?)

(The Kelly have chemical awareness far beyond our range.
Some say they also use ultrasound to sense attitudes—muscle reading.)

She bowed. “We are honored.” She emphasized the pronoun.

Mho abruptly changed the subject. “Will Ansonia accept a
Protectorate?”

Leseuer hesitated, sensing heightened alertness in the
watching aristocrats. There was no comment from Ranor. “That is something my
Ambassador would have to answer.”

The three Kelly blatted; a derisive noise. “He is
ribbonless,” said Mho, her tape-like pelt fluffing out. “Sterile, a drone.”

(The intermittor’s ribbons are the genetic material of a
trinity—essential to threir reproduction, and threir racial memory,)
said
Ranor suddenly.

“No,” continued Mho, “it is you, and the other artists like
you whom the Panarch is guesting, that will answer that question. You are the
lips—excuse me, eyes—of your people.” Mho’s headstalk briefly caressed her
cheek. “You in particular, Leseuer gen Altamon. Had you been born in the
Thousand Suns, wethree have no doubt you would have been one of the Prophetae.” The
Kelly fell silent, and all three headstalks bent toward her, bringing nine
lambent blue eyes to bear on her with grave regard.

Leseuer was stunned by the extravagant compliment. The
Prophetae were the top level of Archetype and Ritual, gifted artists who
explored the noumenal world, emerging with new and reinterpreted archetypes to
unify the many cultures of the Thousand Suns. She sensed she was now the focus
of attention for many of the Douloi nearby, and realized that the Kelly had,
with the indirection typical of Panarchic politics, announced their support for
an Ansonian Protectorate, rather than continued Probation and Quarantine.

“I hope we will,” she finally replied.

“So do wethree. You have much to offer, and more to gain.”

An eddy in the crowd around them revealed the stately figure
of the High Phanist of Desrien standing to one side, the Digrammaton of
Aleph-Null bright upon his chest. Leseuer hoped he wouldn’t approach her. She
was an agnostic, and the preposterous religious eclecticism of the Magisterium,
the religious authority of the Thousand Suns, both repelled and fascinated her.
She didn’t know what she would say to him. But the Kelly rescued her.