The Ruby Dice (9 page)

"I was guessing," Jeremiah said. Mortification came from his mind. "Playing dice with your life."

Kelric wondered if the young man realized just what he had accomplished. "Such a problem take more than guesses."

"I was lucky."

Kelric's voice gentled. "You are not what I expect."

Jeremiah watched him with large brown eyes that had probably turned the women of Coba into putty. "I'm not?"

"The genius who make history when he win this famous prize at twenty-four?" With apology, Kelric added, "I expect you to have a large opinion of yourself. But it seems not that way."

"I didn't deserve the Goldstone." Jeremiah hesitated. "Besides, that's hardly reason for your military to rescue me."

"They know nothing about this." Kelric wasn't certain how much to tell him. "I take you to a civilian port. From there, we find you passage to Earth."

Jeremiah's brow furrowed. "At Viasa you spoke in Teotecan. You even knew how to read my name from the Calanya bands. How?"

Kelric thought of Ixpar, his wife, at least for one hundred and nine more days. He answered, but not in Spanish this time. He spoke in Teotecan. It had been ten years, but it came back to him with ease.

"It doesn't seem to bother you to speak," Kelric said.

Jeremiah's eyes widened, and he just stared at Kelric. It was a moment before he answered, this time in the Coban language. "Well, no. Should it?"

Kelric spoke quietly. "It was years before I could carry on a normal conversation with an Outsider." He used an emphasis on
outsider
only another Coban would recognize, as if the word were capitalized. Calani were Inside. The rest of the universe was Outside.

Jeremiah froze, his eyes widening. He shifted his gaze to Kelric's wrist guards, and his jolt of recognition hit Kelric like mental electricity.

"You were a
Calani
?" Jeremiah asked.

Kelric took a gold armband out of his pocket and handed it to him. "I thought this might answer your questions."

Jeremiah turned the ring over in his hands, and his shock filled the cabin. "You're him." He raised his astonished gaze. "You're
Sevtar.
The one they went to war over."

Sevtar. Kelric hadn't heard the name in a decade. Sevtar was the dawn god of Coban mythology, a giant with gold skin created from sunlight. He strode across the sky, pushing back the night so the goddess Savina could sail out on her giant hawk pulling the sun.

"Actually, my name is Kelric," he said. "They called me Sevtar."

"But you're
dead.
"

Kelric smiled. "I guess no one told me."

"They think you burned to death."

"I escaped during the battle."

"Why let them think you died? Did you hate Coba so much?"

Kelric felt as if a lump lodged in his throat. It was a moment before he could answer. "At times. But it became a home I valued. Eventually one I loved." He extended his hand, and Jeremiah gave him back the armband. Kelric ran his finger over the gold, then put the ring back into his pocket. Those memories were too personal to share.

"Some of my Oaths were like yours," Kelric said. "Forced. But I gave the Oath freely to Ixpar Karn. When I swore my loyalty, I meant it." He regarded Jeremiah steadily. "I will protect Ixpar, her people, and her world for as long as it is within my power to do so."

Sweat beaded on Jeremiah's forehead. "Why come for me?"

"It was obvious no one else was going to." Dryly Kelric added, "Your people and mine have been playing this dance of politics for years. You got chewed up in it." He touched his wrist guard. "I spent eighteen years as a Calani. Everything in me went into the Quis. I was a Jagernaut. A fighter pilot. It so affected the dice that the Cobans went to war. I had no intention of leaving you in the Calanya, another cultural time bomb ready to go off."

Jeremiah didn't seem surprised. After spending a year in the Viasa Calanya, he probably had a good idea how influential the Calani could be with their Quis.

"You knew Kev," Jeremiah said.

Kelric thought of the Third Level he had seen. "He lived at Varz Estate when I was there. Kevtar Jev Ahkah Varz. He called himself Jev back then, because people mixed up our names." As a Third Level, he had an even longer name, now. Kevtar Jev Ahkah Varz Viasa. He would be one of the most powerful men on the planet.

"Why did you tell him not to say anything?" Jeremiah asked.

Kelric wondered if he could ever fully answer that question, even for himself. "I don't want my family seeking vengeance against Coba for what happened to me. They think I was a POW all those years. I intend for it to stay that way."

Jeremiah's posture tensed. "Who is your family?"

Kelric suspected Jeremiah would recognize the Skolia name. It was, after all, also the name of an empire. For most of his life, Kelric had used his father's second name because fewer people could identify it.

"Valdoria," Kelric said.

Jeremiah stared at him. Although he seemed to recognize the Valdoria name as belonging to an important family, he gave no indication he realized the full import of what Kelric had just told him.

"Maybe someday I can return here," Kelric said. "But not now. I don't want Ixpar dragged into Skolian politics unless I'm secure enough in my own position to make sure neither she nor Coba comes to harm." Wryly he added, "And believe me, if Ixpar knew I was alive, she would become involved."

Jeremiah smiled shyly. "Coban women are—" Red tinged his face. "Well, they certainly aren't tentative."

It was an apt description of Coba's warrior queens. Kelric couldn't bring himself to ask more about Ixpar; he didn't want to hear if she had remarried. So he said only, "No, they aren't."

"I thought I would never see my home again," Jeremiah said.

"Your rescue has a price. If you renege, you'll face the anger of my family. And myself." Kelric thought of his children, those miracles he had hidden within Coba's protected sphere. He could sense their minds like a distant song. No matter who might claim it was impossible over such distances, he felt his link to them even now, perhaps through the Kyle. They were happy. Well. Safe. He wanted them to stay that way.

"I'll never reveal you were on Coba," Jeremiah said.

"Good."

"But how do I explain my escape?"

Kelric smiled. "It's remarkable. You managed to fly a rider to the port on your own." He motioned at the controls. "I've entered the necessary records and had the port send a message to Manager Viasa, supposedly from you."

"So she will tell the same story?"

"Yes."

Jeremiah spoke softly. "I'll miss her."

Kelric thought of Ixpar, of her brilliance, her robust laugh, and her long, long legs. "Coban women do have that effect." Then he remembered the rest of it, how they had owned and sold him among the most powerful Managers. "Gods only know why," he grumbled. They are surely maddening.

Jeremiah laughed softly, with pain. "Yes, that too."

Kelric hesitated. "There is a favor I would ask of you."

"A favor?"

"I should like to play Calanya Quis again."

The youth sat up straighter, as if Kelric had offered him a gift instead of dice with someone who hadn't done it properly for ten years. "I would like that."

Kelric pulled a table-panel between their seats as Jeremiah untied his pouch from his belt. The youth rolled out a jeweled set similar to Kelric's, though with fewer dice. Soon they were deep in a session, their structures sparkling in towers, arches, pyramids, and curves. Kelric could see why Manager Viasa had wanted the youth's contract even though Jeremiah had no formal training for a Calanya. His Quis had clarity and purity. He made creative moves. Kelric had no problem anticipating them; Jeremiah had a long way to go before he mastered his gifts. Kelric could have turned his game around, upside down, and inside out. But he didn't. He didn't want to discourage the fellow.

With subtle pressure from Kelric's Quis, Jeremiah built patterns of his first years on Coba. During the day he had worked in Dahl, a city lower in the mountains, and at night he had worked on his doctoral thesis. He considered it an idyllic life. He never had a clue that Manager Viasa had noticed him during her visits to Dahl—until it was too late.

After a while, Kelric realized Jeremiah was trying to draw him out. So he let his life evolve into the dice. Twenty-eight years ago, his Jag fighter had crashed in the mountains, and the previous Dahl manager had rescued him. Ixpar had been visiting Dahl, a fiery-haired child of fourteen. Kelric later learned it was Ixpar who had argued most persuasively that they should save his life, though it would violate the Restriction.

When he had realized they never intended to let him go, he had tried to escape. But the crash had damaged his internal biomech web and injured his brain. While fighting to free himself, he had lost control of the hydraulics that controlled his combat reflexes and killed one of his guards. Desperate to save the other three, who had befriended him during his long convalescence, Kelric had crippled himself to stop his attack.

The Cobans had been terrified that if he escaped, ISC would exact retribution against their world that would make the guard's death look like nothing. They had been right. They should have executed him, but instead they sent him to the prison at Haka Estate. What swayed the Minister who ruled Coba to let him live? The arguments of her fourteen-year-old successor. Ixpar.

"Good Lord," Jeremiah murmured. "I never learned any of this in Dahl."

"I doubt they wanted it in your dissertation," Kelric said.

The youth regarded him with a look Kelric had seen before, that awed expression that had always disconcerted him. "The way you play Quis is extraordinary," Jeremiah said. "And you were holding back. A
lot.
"

Kelric shifted in his seat. "It's nothing."

Jeremiah made an incredulous noise. "That's like saying a supernova is nothing compared to a candle."

His face gentled. "Your Quis is far more than a candle."

"Do you miss Calanya Quis?"

"Every day of my life."

"Perhaps you and I could meet sometimes—?"

Kelric wondered what Jeremiah would do when he realized he had just asked the Skolian Imperator to play dice with him. No matter. It was a good suggestion. But unrealistic.

"Perhaps," Kelric said, though he knew it wouldn't happen. He doubted he would see Jeremiah again after they parted.

"You know," the youth said. "It could work in reverse."

"What do you mean?" Kelric asked.

"Quis. We worry about Outside influence on Coba, but think how Coba might affect the rest of us." He gathered his dice back into his pouch. "They're so peaceful here. Imagine if they let their best dice players loose on all those barbaric Imperialate warmongers." He froze, his hand full of jewels, staring at Kelric as he realized he was talking to one of those "warmongers."

"I'm sorry," Jeremiah said, reddening. "I shouldn't—I didn't—that is, I didn't mean to offend."

"You didn't," Kelric said. He knew all too well how the Allied Worlds viewed the Skolian military. He also preferred peace to hostilities. In theory. In reality, he fully intended to build up ISC; they needed more defenses against the Traders, not less. But he wasn't blind. Jeremiah had reason for his views. Only a thin film covered the Imperialate's conquering soul. It gleamed, bright and modern, but it could rip all too easily and uncover the darkness under their civilized exteriors.

Aristos filled the conference room, their gleaming black hair reflected in the white walls. Jaibriol felt as if he would suffocate from the pressure of their minds. After ten years of guarding his mind, his defenses were mental scar tissue, gnarled and rough. He had to deal with the Aristos or they would destroy him, but he could manage it only by locking himself within layer after layer of soul-smothering mental defenses, until he felt as if he were dying from a lack of air.

He met often with his top Ministers: Trade, Intelligence, Finance, Industry, Technology, Diamond, Silicate, Foreign Affairs, Domestic Affairs, and Protocol. High Judge Calope Muze also attended the meetings at Jaibriol's request. Lord Corbal Xir came, too. Both Corbal and Calope had been first cousins to Jaibriol's grandfather, and until Jaibriol sired an heir, they were next in line to the Carnelian Throne, first Corbal, then Calope. It bemused Jaibriol that he, a man of only twenty-seven years, had two people over a century old as his heirs. At 141, Corbal was the oldest living Aristo.

Corbal's son Azile served as Intelligence Minister. In the convoluted mesh of Aristo Lines, Jaibriol was even related to Tarquine; she had been the maternal aunt of his grandmother, Empress Viquara. Except the empress hadn't truly been his grandmother. He couldn't fathom how his grandfather had convinced her to participate in that mammoth fraud, one that would tear apart the Qox dynasty if it ever became known.

With Jaibriol on the throne, Corbal had expected to rule from the shadows, with Jaibriol as the figurehead and himself hidden. But he had found the new emperor less malleable than he expected. Jaibriol had been painfully naïve, yes, and so unprepared to deal with Aristo culture he had practically signed his death warrant the day he asserted his right to succeed his father. But he had never been malleable. He and Corbal had existed in a constant state of tension since then.

The worst of it was, Corbal was the closest he had to a friend. His few pleasant memories among the Aristos came from dinners with Corbal, Azile, and Corbal's provider, a woman named Sunrise. Corbal never admitted he loved Sunrise or that he never transcended with her. Although many people knew he favored her, he hid the full extent his feelings, perhaps even from himself. He would never reveal such affection for a provider, for it was considered aberrant to love a slave.

Today, Jaibriol sat at the gold octagon table and listened to his advisors argue about reopening treaty negotiations with the Skolians. They disguised their maddeningly convoluted discourse as small talk. Corbal sat across from him, watching everyone with a scrutiny Jaibriol knew well, given how often Corbal turned it on him. Calope Muze sat next to Corbal, cool and aloof, shimmering pale hair curling around her face, her elegant features suited to a classical statue.