Crown Of Fire (17 page)

Over a magnificent sapphire blue dress tunic brocaded in pearl white thread, two wide black belts crossed each other at his waist. On one belt he openly wore a holstered blazer, handgrip exposed. A dress rapier, basket handled with its blade hidden in a long silver-trimmed sheath, hung at his left hip. Midnight blue trousers vanished into supple, high black boots. At his collar, to her relief, she saw a thin rim of silver-white fabric like the body armor Governor Danton had sent her.

"My lord consort," she murmured, dropping a half curtsey. "Pray, would you grant me the first dance tonight?"

He glanced down and touched the sword hilt. "I think this part of the costume was created for sound effects." He jingled its harness. "The blade is sharp, though." He smiled faintly. She knew how he felt about bladed weapons since Three Zed.

She eyed his high boots. "You'll be able to run, at least," she said. Ruefully, she tugged her scarlet gown. "If I leave Netaia without a tri-D of you looking like that, it won't be for want of trying."

His tense smile relaxed into something more sincere. He strode closer and took her in his arms. She felt his crystace, solid and hard through his left sleeve. "The grounds have been sealed and searched, and everyone who arrives is searched, too. There's a good chance they'll have him before we walk out into the aisle."

She kissed the side of his neck. "Brenn, we could still back out. If you want to, I will."

"No," he said firmly. "For Kiel and Kinnor's sake, we will take down these murderers." Ignoring the dressers and both their bodyguards, he kissed her deeply. He had told her that before Three Zed, before Veroh, he enjoyed the challenge of hazardous missions. She'd complicated his life ... for the better, she hoped.

To Firebird's satisfaction, the door guards admitted a tri-D man half a minute later. For fifteen minutes she struck poses, several of them with Brennen. If Rogonin had ordered portraits done now, instead of later, he probably planned his own interruption for the ceremony.

The Federates were ready.

An electoral policeman slipped in, holding the door with one half-gloved hand. "Any need to delay, my lady?"

"No," she said in a firm voice. "I'm ready. . . . Almost," she added after the redjacket left her dressing room. "Kiss me once more. Please?"

He took her in his arms and held gently, kissing her eyes with his stare before touching her lips. She felt a gentle quest-pulse assure him of her decision. Then a wash of smoky-sweet calm started beneath her consciousness and welled upward until all doubt dropped away.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"I want you standing tall."

"Me? Tall?"

He leaned down and pressed his smooth cheek to hers. "You, Firebird Mari. Show them you were born for this, whether or not they let you claim it. You can demonstrate that without pride. Anything less would be false humility." He looked left, then right. "Uri? Shel? Ready?"

"Yes," said Shel. Firebird saw Uri nod at the corner of her vision.

Brennen held the door open, and they rode the lift together. In the long narthex, the procession was forming. A redjacket led her to her place in line, behind six skirted heralds. His red coat looked drab against the rich scarlet train Firebird's dresser carried, draped over one arm.

Shel and Uri stepped back to stand flanking Brennen. Slowly, the line moved forward. Heads approached an archway ahead, then disappeared. This morning, she couldn't hear the organum from back here. A nave full of bodies deadened its acoustics.

She stepped along the narthex. On both sides of the entry, waiting for the procession to pass, stood men and women in midnight blue, her honor guard. Now she could see that Brennen's task force had raised a glasteel arch, turning the aisle into a long, clear security tunnel. She still felt uncannily calm, steadied by Brennen's epsilon blessing.

She edged forward again. Now she could hear ceremonial music swell out of the nave. She'd despised many of Netaia's formalities as a child, but never its music. A commissioned composer could push for drama at the confirmation of an heir or heiress. The swell of the Hall's massive organum wall, brass and string banks pealing together, reminded her of a Song she'd heard once, in a vision . . . though not nearly as grand as that had been. Firebird had attended services in the Great Hall whenever her duties required it, and watched tri-Ds of her mother's coronation, and—of course—attended Phoena's confirmation.

Odd that she'd seen no tri-Ds of Carradee's coronation. She must ask a palace staffer to send over a copy.

And where was Carradee's portrait?

Still no one hurried up with word that they'd found an intruder.

The glasteel arch opened to her. She moved into position and stepped onto the main aisle. She paused, looking down its scarlet short-weave carpet toward the sanctum steps.
Here I am, Shirak. Show yourself.

The Assembly stood.

Guard my heart, Singer. Protect me from pride.
Feeling like a character in a myth, Firebird followed her golden-skirted heralds into the aisle. They raised their horns and answered the organum's peal of chords with a harmonized blast.

Then she walked the aisle.

She wouldn't stumble. She'd rehearsed her lines. There would be cues, too. The aisle seemed a kilometer long. Maybe it was. She let her feet follow the music and glanced side to side, through the glasteel, past security posts, into a blur of faces. High-commoners in their finery stood next to the low—and even servitors—in their cheapside best, for the first time in the Hall's history. What a gesture to offer the Federacy, a truly unifying event.

Step on, measured and slow. Had the Shuhr gotten an agent inside after all? She felt Brennen behind her and guessed he, Uri, and Shel walked in cadence, scanning the hall with their epsilon senses. Nearer the sanctum, but short of the now-perilous electors' boxes, several sashed nobles held cock-hats like Tel's against their chests. She spotted Tel between a black-coated Enforcer and his bodyguard, Paudan.

She didn't see one empty seat.

First Lord Erwin stood at the broad steps' right, dressed in his white ceremonial robes. To her surprise, he clutched the rod of regency across his chest.
Rogonin's presence by proxy,
she realized.

He wouldn't be any friendlier.

Maybe Micahel, seeing their security arrangements, was waiting for the motorcade, larger crowds, and easier escape routes.

She wouldn't be in that palace car, though. She let herself relax slightly as she mounted the steps. Smoke drifted down from a censer, acrid and invigorating. A half circle of motley faces grinned down from the electors' seats. She couldn't help grinning back. Then she hastily composed her face. Who, she wondered, had selected the people to sit up here? Maybe the first arrivals were given that option, or Hall staff chose them at random. She hoped the Netaians hadn't minded
too
much when Federate guards searched them.

With a final crescendo, the march theme ended on three crashing chords. She stood on the trap's trip plate. She could almost feel the winding of springs.

She spoke her lines in a satisfyingly firm voice, substitutions and all. Near the end of First Lord Erwin's speech, his words nudged her out of the overwhelming spell of organum music. "And you shall consider yourself at the mercy of your people," he called in a theatrical, subtron-ically altered bass-baritone, "should they call upon you to assume the throne. Will you stand ready to serve, should the high calling to which you are now declared an heiress ever fall to you?"

Firebird glanced at the redjacket who stood behind the gowned ceremonials director, guarding the tiara that gleamed with square-cut rubies. Never the throne. Not unless all twenty-six electors changed their minds about her.

But she gave the ritual reply, knowing that even modified, it legally bound her. "I hope to serve Netaia's people," she called in a clear voice.

Frowning severely, he nodded. The director reached around for the tiara. A servitor at each side of Firebird offered an arm, and they steadied her against the costume's weight as she knelt. First Lord Erwin slid the tiara above her ears. "Let us then invoke the Powers that you shall represent," he said.

He'd made a small change in his own lines, adding
that you shall represent.
Firebird jerked her head up. "No," she said loudly. "Lord Erwin, I will not—"

As if he hadn't heard, he droned on. "Fill this your servant, O Strength ..."

The servitors had backed away, so Firebird couldn't even stand up to make her objections heard. She could only glare and refuse to listen. Instead, she thought ahead to her Naming.
Not something horrible, like Indomitability. Please make it Mart.
Brennen's boots shone on her right, Shel's low shoes on her left.

Maybe by now, Danton's people had caught Micahel or another infiltrator—outside. That would be better than her happiest dream.

The tiara's weight forced her balance forward.

She tuned back in to Baron Erwin for a moment. He'd gotten past Resolve to Authority. Two Powers to go. Firebird strained to look up, but she couldn't see the tiara's diamond drop.

Erwin's voice droned on. "Let this woman show your face to all the worlds, Mighty Indomitability. . . and Pride, let yours be the Power that fills her spirit and mind." He raised his head, then gave a quick, self-satisfied nod.

Like a meteor burning down from the sky, something drove into Firebird's shoulder.

Brennen flung her toward the nearest wall before pain even registered. Fiery pressure tore through the muscles near her neck and deep into her chest. As from a distance, she heard shouts.

Brennen fell to his knees and seized hold of her shoulder. Mixed with the gentler heat of his access, she felt his horror.

Past Brennen, she thought she saw First Lord Erwin—someone, anyway, a white blur trying to shout orders. Tel dashed up the steps to stand behind Brennen, his own small blazer already drawn. Then a midnight blue cordon blocked her view.

So this was how it felt to be shot.
Catch him,
she begged, more of a plea than a prayer.
Catch him! He's here!
"It. . . burns," she told Brennen, reaching into her side pocket for that square of cloth tissue, "but—"

"Don't talk unless you have to." He still knelt, closing his eyes. Uri crouched beside him, covering his efforts. Firebird hoped he was remembering to look helpless.
The media's here, Brenn!
She felt a deep drain on his nervous system. When he opened his eyes, his cheeks looked pale, his scar dark. "It's an explosive projectile."

Uri nodded grimly.

She objected, "But it didn't exp—"

He seized the cloth and pressed it firmly against the top of her shoulder, close to her neck. The pressure made her gasp. "Shuhr work. It has both a shield and a timer."

Tel dropped down beside him. "Timer?"

Brennen glanced sharply at Tel and told him, "It's lodged in her upper lungs. They—" She felt the resonance vanish as he blocked fear from her perception. "It's designed to explode well after impact, and the mechanism is epsilon shielded. But they made sure I'd be able to count it down if I weren't really disabled."

Inhaling was agony. Exhaling was worse. "How long?" she asked.

"Just under five minutes," said Uri. He stood over Brennen, shielding them both with his broad back.

Tel sprang to his feet. "That's barely long enough to get her out the south door. What can we do?"

She felt queerly clearheaded, possibly from the acrid incense, maybe from adrenaline—or whatever Brennen had done to her alpha matrix before the processional—or maybe from the realization that pride had put her here.

She lay still, staring up at the men, not daring to move for fear she'd set off the . . . the tiny. . .

There was a bomb in her chest?

The gown's broad neckline and her bowed head had given the sniper a clear shot from above, despite Danton's body armor. And cruelly, he'd waited for the end of the Powers' blessing.

"Dig it out with a crystace." She looked down, coughing. Shiny blood pooled below her shoulder on the red Hall carpet. As she watched, another stream trickled down to spill over the step.

"That would kill you," Brennen said.

She had to ask, "Five minutes?"

Brennen's chin firmed. "Four. Uri, can you move it?" He shut his eyes again. She watched Uri raise a hand, felt something tug deep inside her. She gritted her teeth to keep from crying out.

Uri's hand shook. "It won't come cleanly. It's expanded in the tissue. No one can command it out without bringing most of your lung with it."

From between two other Sentinels guarding the foot of the steps, Dr. Zoagrem rushed forward. "Caldwell. How bad is it?"

"She's conscious." Brennen clenched her shoulder. Anguish started to fray the edges of his control, even his shielding. Several Sentinels stood aiming their weapons upward.

Another shot fell from the ceiling. Brennen twisted aside, flinging his arms wide. A tiny dart drove into the carpet between them, pinning Firebird's train to the floor.

They'd set a trap, too! They wanted Brennen—not dead but alive, and crippled by bereavement shock.

Her quest-pulse would accomplish nothing. "Fusion," she gasped to Brennen. "Can I help you? Is there something we can do—unless—" They'd been ordered not to use fusion energy in public, but. . . but the Mighty Singer knew she wanted to live! She felt almost giddy with relief that they didn't want Brenn dead after all. His guards would keep the Shuhr from seizing him. These consequences of her pride were hers to bear. . . except. . .
Oh, Singer, he'll suffer if I die.
She glanced at Shel, then back to Brennen.

Zoagrem pushed something against her shoulder. The sting made her gasp.

Brennen's stare refocused onto some unknown distance. Fusing energies could kill
her this time, since she was already wounded—but if they did nothing, she would die. Absolutely.

"No time to experiment," he said. "We'll have just one chance." He touched her temple.
"Can
you turn?"

Doubt sickened her. She'd almost failed to turn under pressure at Three Zed. And could Brennen think clearly? She couldn't. He must choose between her life and his orders, but unless she survived, he couldn't use fusion to strike at Three Zed.

She clenched her teeth. "Don't. . . if there's a funeral, Brenn, don't let them invoke the Powers. Please."

"Never," he declared.

Shel, who'd been speaking over an interlink, hurried up. "Forgive me, Brennen, this is asinine, but His Grace insists the crown be removed."

The ruby half circlet mustn't be damaged. Firebird reached up, but she couldn't raise her right arm far enough. Shel carefully slid off the tiara as Firebird released the belt of emblems.

Zoagrem held the stinging substance against her shoulder. A Sentinel shouted orders.

Catch him,
she pleaded silently,
trap him up there—just don't let him get away!
She heard more shouting out in the nave.

It took less than one of the minutes she had left to beg the Singer to care for Kinnor and Kiel. Her head swirled with disconnected thought, as if she already lay halfway Across into the Singer's world. "What are you going to try?" she whispered.

Brennen's inner shields were fully in place, and that frightened her worse than anything else. "Commanding it out, unless . . . no, there isn't any alternative. It'll wound you, but Zoagrem's here, and Uri or Shel can put you in t-sleep until we get back to base. If I get it out, though, the projectile will explode here on the dais." He wiped his mouth with one arm. "Uri, have Tel and Dr. Zed move away."

Neither budged. Tel stood between Brennen and Paudan while Zoagrem fumbled in his case. She wondered if Codex newsmen were moving into balcony position for spectacular, grisly imagery.

Brennen had trouble remote-moving objects. Even using fusion,
could
he—

"Brenn. Brenn," she said, and this time, inhaling deeply made her grunt.

"What, Mari?" He bent close to her lips. Glints in his eyes made a blurred, fiery dance in her vision.

"Could you . . . instead of trying to move it, could you make a field, a shield . . . around it? To try and absorb the . . . explosion?"

He looked at the time lights on his wrist, then back into her eyes, projecting controlled assurance that wobbled with each of his heartbeats. "Is that what you want me to try?"

"I don't know," she moaned, and then she regained control. If this was death, she didn't want Brennen remembering her weak and frightened. "Yes," she said. "Try it. Thank you, Brenn."

"By the Word, I love you." He turned his head. "Zoagrem. Give her something for pain."

She scarcely felt the jab. Hypnotized, she watched time lights change on Brennen's wrist. Twenty seconds. Fifteen. She gathered herself for the effort and felt him do the same.

He clutched her hand.

As she groped for her carrier, she felt Brennen breaching to access. Energies fused. With all the strength left to her, she clung to his point of presence, hiding from death with Brennen's strength. He would not let her see it.

Tel couldn't believe this was happening. Shel ran along the sanctum steps, shouting and shoving people away. Another pair of Sentinels tried to fire toward the traceries, but their weapons kept malfunctioning.

Did it only take one Shuhr to render them all helpless?

Paudan seized Tel's arm and pulled him down the steps to crouch behind a golden anointing font.
Ten,
Tel counted to himself.
Oh, please.

Seven . . .

Then a second tiny dart dropped from the ceiling, striking Bren-nen's neck, near his hairline.

"No!" Tel cried, leaping forward. As he batted off the dart, a golden figure plunged out of the tracery into the pews. Midnight blue figures converged on him from three directions as several small explosions started people screaming again.

Tel only had eyes for Firebird.

Her legs convulsed. Brennen drew up straighter, then crumpled across her. Zoagrem plunged forward and attended to Firebird. Tel pulled Brennen's shoulder up. The Sentinel's sapphire blue sleeve was soaked in blood. Tel couldn't look down any farther. Another center of shouting and scuffling erupted near the south door.

Brennen's eyes barely opened as he pushed up to crouch. Shel Mat-tason hurried to his side.

"No pulse." Zoagrem reached into his case for another injection ampule. "Did you . . . could you contain the—?"

Caldwell exhaled, shaking. "Not completely."

Tel looked now. Where he'd feared to see her torn open, she lay unconscious. . . no, Zoagrem said her heart had stopped. Dead? Her eyes rolled upward. Her lips had drawn back, showing her teeth.

Zoagrem pressed the ampule to her shoulder, watching his scanner. "It's trying to beat and can't. The sinoatrial node must have been destroyed, and Powers only know how much heart and lung."

Caldwell rubbed his mouth with one sleeve again. This time the sleeve left a bloody stripe across his chin. "Shel," he managed, "I've lost my turn. Put her in t-sleep. Hurry." Then he collapsed.