A Confusion of Princes (5 page)

Unlike back in my candidate temple, this time I was armed and ready and looking for further assailants. I took in Haddad nearby, skating on the gloop, so clearly his contragrav array had some power left or he had managed to partially recharge it en route via the base’s energy web, something I should have thought to do. He slid to the nearer novice and a loop of scarlet energy took off the priest’s head, even as the assassin raised his sorting staff, the barrel of an energy gun protruding from the crocodilian tail.

A second novice was only a few metres away from me. He looked straight at me, his face vacant under the hood of his protective garment. He was about my own age, I thought, himself plucked from his family to join the priesthood, just as I had been taken from mine to become a Prince.

I saw no menace in him, and he did not move.

But I shot him anyway, because I could take no chances. A pulse from the deintegration wand struck him high on the chest. His headless torso stood straight for a moment, then toppled into the muck. A few seconds later, blood swirled to the surface.

I stared at the pattern it made, my internal Bitek systems going into overdrive, trying to calm the human response inside me. I felt sick and triumphant and overexcited all at the same time. I had read and watched so much about Princes destroying their enemies in combat, but the reality was different, even from the Psitek simulations I had experienced in some of my combat training, which were supposed to feel just like the real thing.

They didn’t. Nothing did. Nothing was as horrible, or as compelling, as watching that swirl of blood and knowing that I had killed a human being. Though all my training said it was entirely right to do so, that a Prince of the Empire can and must kill, somehow it did not
feel
right.

Haddad broke me out of my reverie.

:Highness! To the northeast door, fast!:

I ran, waist-deep in the muck, lunging forward to increase my speed. I made it to the door, with Haddad circling behind me, and sent a Psitek opening order. The door slid up, and I jumped through, my weapons ready.

But the corridor beyond was empty. Haddad sealed the door behind us and bent close to my face, his eerie Bitek eye glinting as he examined the goop that my helmet was trying to flush away from my face without notable success.

‘Normal digestive gel,’ he pronounced. ‘You can just wipe it off for now, Highness.’

I wiped, but the stuff was very sticky and wouldn’t come off, which was disturbing, even if Haddad had declared the material to be innocuous.

‘So I’m safe?’ I asked. ‘We are in the temple proper,aren’t we?’

‘We are. But never presume complete safety, Highness,’ said Haddad. He was looking all around us, the blue fluid in his temples pulsing with Psitek activity. ‘However, the probability of hostile action has greatly decreased, and will decrease further as soon as you are linked to the Imperial Core. The sanctum is that way.’

He pointed to the left. The corridor was a simple bored tunnel and had no markings of any kind, either physical or any kind of tek overlay. Nor did I have a map. When I was formally inducted into the Navy, I would receive both a Mektek virtual reproduction and a Psitek experiential grid of the base, but right then it was just a featureless maze, and I recognised again that without Haddad I would be lost, in more ways than one.

‘So who set me up for that assassination attempt?’ I asked as we walked along the tunnel.

‘It is impossible to determine at this point,’ replied Haddad. ‘As you are not connected to the Imperial Mind and not yet enlisted in the Navy, you are essentially fair game to any Prince of sufficient cold-blooded determination. But it had to be a Prince with some authority over the utility spaces between the Academy and the temple, and over Naval armaments.’

‘The directions you got,’ I said a few metres farther along. ‘They were from Prince Atalin’s Master of Assassins?’

‘Yes,’ said Haddad. ‘However, it would not be the cadet herself who arranged the attempt. That Bitek penetrator must have been in place for a long time, a trap set for just such an opportunity. A cadet, even a cadet officer, could not have obtained it, nor would they have sufficient authority to replace the usual priests of the gunge room with their assassins. Atalin’s Master of Assassins was simply being used as a conduit to direct us to the assassination venue.’

‘So why
did
we follow those directions?’ I asked.

‘Because I knew there would be an attempt if we did, Highness,’ replied Haddad. ‘And as soon as we entered the recycling swamp, I knew it would be there. Better that than a total surprise.’

I frowned. This didn’t sound right to me.

‘Couldn’t we just have gone a different way?’

‘Yes, Highness,’ said Haddad. ‘But by confronting the ambush site, we have now taken out two assassins of the Prince who plots against you rather than leaving them in place for potential later action.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Strategy. Good. Uh, just let me know next time, okay?’

‘I will endeavour to do so, Highness,’ replied Haddad.

Even back then I knew Haddad wasn’t actually agreeing that he would tell me next time. But before I could take him to task, we arrived at a much more ornate door than the previous examples. This one had gold trim around it and looked as if it might be made of some ancient, precious timber.

‘We are here.’

There were no novices beyond this door, for we had reached the sanctum of the temple. Sanctums differed according to the traditions and choices of the upper priesthood of each Aspect. This one was a cavernous room that had been made to mimic a forest glade on long-ago Earth. It had a blue sky and an artificial sun that sent warm beams of light down between tall stands of bamboo, flickering across the clear, rushing water of a stream that flowed in from an unseen bulkhead behind an illusory hill to our left and into the bamboo forest.

‘Go on,’ said Haddad. ‘I will await you here, Highness.’

‘Uh, this is just like the sanctum back at my candidate temple, right?’ I asked. ‘I mean, it looks different, but there’ll be a senior priest somewhere in the middle of all this . . . won’t there?’

Haddad nodded and pointed to the beginning of a rough path that led into the bamboo forest alongside the stream.

‘Imperial Mind,’ I muttered. ‘Connection time. Here goes . . .’

I walked into the bamboo, following the path. After a dozen metres or so, the stream curved to the right and spread more widely, as the bamboo grew more sparse, to make a forest clearing.

A small stone bridge spanned the stream, and sitting in the middle of the bridge was an arch-priest with a fishing pole. I knew she was an arch-priest, for she had a band of clear crystal set into her skull all the way around, not just the two panels at the temples of an ordinary priest. Blue fluid boiled and pulsed inside, giving momentary glimpses of the woman’s brain.

I had not been expecting an arch-priest. As far as I knew, they were normally found only at the Imperial Core, and certainly not at small temples in secondary Naval academies out on the fringes of the Empire. But I quickly rationalised it as being obvious in retrospect. I wasn’t just any old Prince, so naturally there was an arch-priest waiting for me.

I stepped forward proudly, my footsteps loud on the timber slats of the pathway that led to the bridge.

At the bridge, I stopped. The arch-priest sat where she was, eyes following her line down into the water. She was utterly still, the only movement I could see the flash and roil of the fluid in her head.

‘Uh, Great-Aunt,’ I said, lifting my chin and attempting to sound commanding. After all, even arch-priests were at least technically subservient to Princes of the Empire. ‘I am Prince Khemri. I desire . . . I wish to connect to the Imperial Mind.’

The arch-priest turned her head. She looked no older than Haddad, perhaps forty or fifty Earth years, but was undoubtedly far older. Her eyes were Bitek replacements, each with three pupils like shrivelled black currants arrayed in a triangle within an orb of yellow gel.

:Remove all your clothing and enter the stream, Prince Khemri: she sent, and turned back to look down her fishing line to the water below.

I turned around, not from modesty, but to look back along the path through the bamboo for Haddad, seeking reassurance. But he was nowhere to be seen, and the boundaries of the glade appeared to have extended. I could see more stands of bamboo, and larger trees, in all directions, and my observational tek told me they were not some sort of projection but real. Either the chamber was getting bigger—which was certainly possible—or my systems and mind had been subverted.

‘If you wish to join the Imperial Mind, enter the stream,’ said the arch-priest aloud.

Her voice was quiet, but redolent with authority. She spoke without any indication of impatience, but I suddenly felt that there was no time to be wasted. At a command, the suit fell away from me; I quickly removed my undergarments and, without further hesitation, strode into the river.

Almost immediately, I realised it was not water that I was entering but some kind of clear Bitek fluid. A moment later this realisation turned into fear, as I lost control over my limbs. There was no warning; none of the defensive measures that had been grown, implaced, or inculcated within me were activated. I was simply paralysed and fell face forward into the swiftly flowing stream of liquid.

As my head submerged, all my awareness of the physical world of the temple vanished. Instead I found myself suddenly transported to a void where I was shooting through empty space like a projectile, twisting and dodging to avoid intense energy beams of different colours that were coming toward me. It was all happening incredibly fast, and it got faster still. I accelerated, and more and more energy beams shot at me, now coming from all directions, and I twisted and flipped and turned—all without any conscious direction on my part—as I dodged them and continued on to whatever might be my final destination.

Then I saw it—or sensed it, as I wasn’t entirely sure how I was experiencing this whole thing. I was travelling at some phase-shifted speed toward a vast ball of blue-white incandescent gas, which was also the source and somehow the target of the energy beams.

The next second, I smashed into the surface of this object and everything went black, just for a second, accompanied by the most intense pain I had ever felt, pain that exploded out from the very centre of my brain.

:Welcome to the Imperial Mind, Prince Khemri:

The voice was soft but penetrating. It cut through what I realised were my own mental moans and whimperings. As it continued to speak inside my head, the pain diminished.

:Connection established Prince Khemri <> and running nil interruption to date. Check. Check. Return to physicality:

Suddenly I was back in my own body, choking, my nose and mouth full of fluid as I flailed about in the strange stream. Something touched my chest; I grabbed it and hung on.

It was the arch-priest’s fishing pole. I held it in a death grip as she effortlessly hauled me out of the fluid. I could still feel the presence of the Imperial Mind in the back of my head. It was like sitting close to someone, feeling the occasional shift of their body, hearing the soft repetition of their breath. I knew that with this connection, sustained by my own or other priests, I could call upon the Imperial Mind to bear witness, to look out my eyes, to use my ears, to feel what I touched, to experience what I experienced. I could communicate with the Mind and, via it, with other Princes, no matter how distant, provided there were sufficient relays between.

Information flowed to, through, and from me. I was a node in an information network of unrivalled capacity and sophistication. I could query the Imperial Mind on any subject, could retrieve data on anything the Empire knew, or at least would allow me to know.

I was now truly a Prince of the Empire.

‘Yes,’ said the arch-priest. ‘You are indeed.’

I looked at her suspiciously.

‘I don’t think you’re meant to monitor my thoughts, Great-Aunt,’ I said stiffly. ‘Nor is it supposed to be possible.’

‘A great many things are not as you have previously thought, Highness,’ said the arch-priest. ‘We have very little time before you must report to the Commandant of the Academy; let us not waste it. First of all—’ ‘I’m sure I can report whenever I choose,’ I interrupted. I was flush with the confidence of being connected to the Mind, and I wanted to show my superiority.

‘I said we cannot waste time,’ repeated the arch-priest. Blue fluid flashed in her head, and I was suddenly struck down, to lie panting on the bank of the stream near my abandoned clothing.

‘But . . . but I am a Prince,’ I protested. ‘You can’t—’

‘I can,’ said the woman. ‘I am your sponsor before the Imperial Mind. I hold the keys to your augmentation, across all teks. I am a surety for the Emperor, one additional safeguard for your loyalty.’

‘No one told me,’ I grumbled. I wished I did not sound so pathetic, but it is difficult to be dignified when you are naked and have been struck down from inside your own head. ‘Who are you, anyway?’

‘My name is Morojal, and I am Arch-Priest of the Emperor in Hier Aspect of the Emperor’s Discerning Hand. Listen carefully.’

‘I’m . . . listening,’ I muttered. Inwardly I was wondering what was the sphere of responsibility of the Aspect of the Emperor’s Discerning Hand. At that time, I’d never even heard of it, and I thought I knew all the Aspects. Later on, I would find out that this Aspect was, as far as most Princes knew, concerned only with the death and rebirth of Princes. But its priests also pursued more shadowed activities.

‘First of all, you will never mention that your connection to the Imperial Mind was facilitated by an arch-priest to anyone save your Master of Assassins. I was not here, you did not meet me, you will never mention my name. This applies particularly to the Commandant. You are permitted to disobey orders of your Naval superiors in this particular matter by command of the Emperor.’

‘It’s all very well to say that—’ I started to complain, only to be struck down again. This time my paralysis was accompanied by a direct communication from the Imperial Mind.