The Phoenix in Flight (42 page)

Anaris hissed involuntarily through his teeth. He was sure
Gelasaar knew what he had just done by standing on his enemy’s abasement rug.
The lines around Eusabian’s mouth deepened.

Barrodagh’s face blanched. “Kneel!” he whispered fiercely.

The Panarch’s only response was to lift his head, but not to
study the Avatar. This time he met Anaris’s gaze straight on.

What is this physical sensation caused by eyes meeting
eyes?
A spark of admiration, even the briefest flicker of regret, but above
all anticipation. Anaris smiled, hoping that Gelasaar would see the challenge.
If he took it as camaraderie—if it gave him strength—what of it? The duel would
be more interesting.

But Barrodagh clearly did not like that meeting of gazes,
the smile. With a voiceless snarl, Barrodagh jerked his head at one of the
Tarkans, who grabbed the Panarch’s neuro-spasmic collar with one meaty hand and
buckled his knees with a brutal kick behind them, lowering him just a bit too
slowly to the floor. The Panarch’s breathing harshened, then steadied slowly.
He sank back on his haunches, his hands on his thighs, his back rigidly erect,
and gazed steadily out at the assembled aristocrats.

Anaris smoothed his face, permitting no sign of his disgust
to show. By the time he reached his twelfth year, he had known he was strong
enough to break Gelasaar’s neck with his bare hands. This duel would be the
better for being one of wit. But Barrodagh, a master of the endless Catennach
dueling, relied not on wit but on secrecy and torturous byways. Here he was but
a creature of the Avatar, and his only goal was to make sure the formal
humiliation proceeded in proper order.

Barrodagh moved closer to the Throne, and, after a glance at
Eusabian, who had yet to move or speak, he turned to face the Douloi. He lifted
his voice, obviously straining to project into the vast chamber. “You have been
summoned here to swear fealty to the new Lord of the Mandala, the Avatar of
Dol, the Lord of Vengeance and the Kingdoms of Dol’jhar. On his right hand
stands life and prosperity. On his left hand—” Barrodagh gestured to the
kneeling Panarch. “—awaits only death. Choose now.”

Barrodagh pointed to the first Douloi, an aged woman with a
fierce, hawk-like face, but halted as Eusabian moved one hand in a sign of
negation. “Bring the beasts first,” he said, his distaste unsurprising to
Anaris.

Some Tarkans herded the Kelly trinity forward as Barrodagh
retrieved a transparent ball about two hand-spans in diameter. He handed it
gingerly to Eusabian; inside was a writhing, fluttering mass of bright green
ribbons.

The Kelly halted at the sight of the sphere and moaned, a
haunting triple croon laden with alien emotion.

“As it appears you have surmised, this is all that remains
of your Archon,” said Eusabian, holding the sphere up in one hand, “the only
hope for the continuation of...” His upper lip wrinkled in disdain. “... its
line and its memories. Its fate is yours to decide.”

The three Kelly stood silently, their head-stalks writhing
in an almost hypnotic pattern. Then they stilled. The central, smaller one
spoke in a mellow contralto blat counterpointed by a dismal, alien threnody
from the other two as all three stood stiffly, their head-stalks upright, their
blue eyes unblinking.

“There is only death here,” the Kelly said, almost singing.
“Death in your eyes, death in your mouth, death in your mind. The end of life
is carried in your scent. Not for you a third, for death rides in your loins as
well.”

Anaris pursed his lips.
How did they know that Eusabian
is sterile?
His father’s face had not changed, but a vein in his temple
beat visibly.

“Wethree will not serve you,” the Kelly sang. “Power you have,
but you are drone. Life rejects you, wethree reject you.”

With a snap of his wrist, Eusabian threw the sphere to the
floor in front of him. Thick veins of plasma snapped into being within it,
writhing across its inner surface with a crackling hum. The green ribbons
within convulsed frantically, withering to motionless black crinkles and then
collapsing into dust.

The Tarkan swordsmen strode forward. The Kelly did not move
as the blades swept hissing through their head-stalks in gouts of yellow blood
which splashed the Douloi to either side. The creatures collapsed slowly to the
floor, dying muscles twitching in triune rhythm. The severed head-stalks
writhed for a time, the blue eyes blinking, then were quiet.

Anaris looked away, struck by the profound contrast between
Gelasaar’s unhidden grief and Barrodagh’s open sneer.

The executioners shook off their blades and stepped back
into ready position, leaving space for three Tarkans to drag the bodies to the
left side of the Emerald Throne. As the first man’s gauntleted hand touched the
ribbons of the Intermittor who had spoken for the trinity, a thin stream of
smoke puffed up, then he screamed hoarsely and fell to the floor. His body
bowed backward until his head touched his heels and he screamed even louder,
but not loudly enough to drown the sickening crunching sounds as his tortured
muscles spasmed again and again, breaking his bones in a deadly struggle that
only ended when his diaphragm tore across and a gout of blood spewed from his
mouth.

If you really think of them as beasts, you are a fool
,
thought Anaris, looking at his father’s grim features. Anaris had never let a
Kelly touch him in the long years of his exile here, despite, or perhaps
because of, their reputation as the greatest physicians in the Thousand Suns.
An Intermittor had conscious control of the chemical composition of its
ribbons, and this one had poisoned its ribbons to take an enemy with it into
death.

Eusabian turned his head. The Tarkans took that as the
signal of mounting impatience that it was, but already someone in the
background had the wit to bring forward two-handed jacs, with which they
carefully shifted the mangled corpses to the side, leaving a yellow-green smear
to mix with the crimson and black blood from the dead Tarkan.

Barrodagh stepped around the slime to motion the old woman
forward.

I remember her
, Anaris thought as she turned her
head, her gray eyes narrowed, reflecting the star lights above as she met
Gelasaar’s gaze. The hooked nose and high cheekbones in her dark, wrinkled face
gave her the aspect of a predatory bird.
No wagers on just how much worse
this is going to go before the Avatar gets what he wants
.

She looked up at the Avatar and snorted. “Huh! You’re too
small for that Throne.” She waved a thin arm around. “And all these bully boys
won’t make your butt any bigger.” She coughed noisily, then leaned forward and
spat a foul wad on Eusabian’s boots.

Barrodagh blanched, and Anaris held his breath against a
betraying laugh.
Oh yes, I was right
. If this kept up, they’d be
knee-deep in blood, and Eusabian would be in a rage for days.

One of the executioners impaled the old woman on his sword.
She closed her eyes as agony distorted her face, but she made no sound other
than a grunt. The swordsman’s muscles bunched under his uniform as he swiveled
and used the sword like a pitchfork to throw her body over on top of the Kelly
near the Panarch. Her blood splashed on Gelasaar’s face and garments as the
sword pulled out of her body; the Panarch made no move to wipe it away.

The next seven Douloi chose the same fate. Anaris was
already bored. He watched Barrodagh, who shifted his boots as their blood
lapped against them, but he could not step back as his heels were already
against the final step of the dais. The hot-copper scent of blood lay heavy on
the still air. Many of the waiting Douloi looked greenish gray with nausea and
fear. Eusabian’s face was stone hard. Anaris kept his body under control.
Barrodagh’s frequent, sidewise glances upward were a measure of how unsafe
anyone in the Avatar’s proximity was when he was in this mood.

The ninth Douloi trembled so hard he could hardly stand, and
he would not look at the Panarch. He stood stoop-shouldered before Eusabian for
a trembling second.
Finally
, Anaris thought in derision as the man laid
himself flat on the floor, face down, in the obeisance that no doubt Barrodagh
had lectured the Douloi about before he’d permitted the Tarkans to bring them
into the Throne Room.

The Avatar’s lips eased a fraction. The man looked up in
question, and at a jerk of Barrodagh’s head levered himself to his feet and
stumbled over to the right side of the throne. His clothes were crimson with
the blood of his predecessors. Anaris heard the man vomiting, choking as he
tried to suppress the noise.

The man’s capitulation had broken the spell, and one by one,
with enough exceptions to visibly swell the pile of bodies next to the Panarch
and the pool of blood at the foot of the Throne, the remaining Douloi came up
and made obeisance. None of them would meet their former liege’s eyes. At the
end of the line were a number of older Douloi, their countenances expressive of
the grim, almost exalted determination of the martyr: what was left of the
Panarch’s Privy Council.
Doesn’t the Avatar see that?
More loyal
speeches and spitting ahead
, Anaris thought, bracing himself.

But when the Privy Council reached the Throne, Eusabian held
up his hand. “It is enough. These will share their master’s fate.”

One of the executioners pulled the Panarch to his feet and
pushed him roughly to stand before Eusabian. The old man gazed up at his enemy,
apparently oblivious to the threads of blood congealing in his white hair and
beard and on his face, and the lake of it pooling around his feet. On the left
side of the Throne a few bodies in the pile of those who had chosen loyalty to
the Panarch still twitched. The stink of death was overpowering.

“So, Gelasaar,” Eusabian said finally, “it appears rather
more of your Douloi chose life than death.”

The Panarch’s gaze had gone absent.
Come, Gelasaar
,
Anaris thought.
Don’t disappoint me.

The Panarch’s stance altered. Anaris heard him draw a breath.
“Say rather that some chose loyalty.”

The Avatar’s lips twitched.

The Panarch glanced at the Douloi who had made obeisance.
“Those who remain will die many times in nights to come as they remember this
day.” The Panarch lifted his voice to be heard by the survivors. “But I do not
judge them. Self-judgment is their one remaining duty, and they will execute it
faithfully.”

Eusabian smiled. His mood had changed to one of pleasurable
anticipation.
It’s almost time for the sons
, Anaris thought as the Avatar
said, “You are no longer in a position to judge anyone, Gelasaar. Henceforth
you will be the victim of circumstances, rather than their creator.”

The Panarch replied with the ease and readiness of the
lifetime speech-maker, “You know little of statecraft, Dol’jhar, if you think
the ruler of trillions is ever anything but the victim of circumstances.”

Nice beat and disengage.
Anaris wondered if his
father was aware that Gelasaar had chosen not to mirror his deliberate rudeness
in the use of his given name, replying instead as one sovereign to another.
Now
strike home, old man
,
before the boxes come out to shatter that wit
.

But Gelasaar’s verbal saber made another deflection. “All
one can do is assign priorities and pray.”

Eusabian uttered a soft huff of a laugh. Yes, he was really
enjoying himself. “It seems neither your prayers nor your priorities did you
much good.” He lifted two fingers from the throne arm, indicating the carnage
the Tarkans had created. “Nor your loyal subordinates.”

Gelasaar’s brows lifted, humor crinkling the skin around his
eyes. “Indeed, it does appear that I seriously overestimated your
intelligence.”

There’s your strike
, Anaris thought, suppressing a
grin.

Barrodagh tightened his grip on the collar control and
raised it slightly, then halted at a motion from Eusabian.

The Panarch raised his voice. Anaris watched the fragile
throat constrict, the old man’s ribcage lift as he made an effort to be heard.
Had the Tarkans ignored the orders to leave him unharmed? Anaris knew that
they’d taken a very liberal interpretation of those orders in regard to Admiral
Carr, but all Eusabian cared about was that victims were upright when it was
time to send them to their final judgment.

“Do you have any idea of the difficulties involved in ruling
hundreds of planets and countless Highdwellings?” the Panarch asked, and his
voice echoed in the vast chamber, gaining a curious resonance—though
Barrodagh’s voice, exactly as light, as tenor in modal register, had flattened
in the vast chamber, sounding thin and weak.

How does he
do
that?
Anaris was surprised at
the atavistic thrill that chilled his nerves as Gelasaar went on, “Some of them
are so far from here that it takes my commands many weeks to reach them, and as
long again for their reply. Why do you think the fundamental law of my rule is
called the Covenant of Anarchy? Even with the power of the Fleet behind me, the
best I could do was forbid interplanetary war and require free trade and
travel.”

The Panarch paused and looked up at the Avatar, and again
the light from the stars above seemed to enhalo his face. Maybe it was only a
matter of knowing exactly where to stand... except that Gelasaar had always sat
in the throne, not stood before it. “I can understand your success here and
elsewhere, perhaps, relying on sabotage and the greed of fools, but what more
can you expect to do with only the
Fist of Dol’jhar
and a ragtag gang of
Rifters to enforce your will? What will you do when the Fleet arrives?”

Anaris kept his hands gripped behind his back. He’d heard
the subtle emphasis on the word “elsewhere.”
He knows what’s coming
.