Palatine First (The Aurelian Archives) (40 page)

“Charles Eldritch,” the Vee at the flightpanel said in a scratchy voice, “there has been a malfunction in one of the heat vents. The pipes—”

Eldritch’s gaze twitched to the window and back. “We do not seem to be losing altitude.”

“No.”

“Then I do not wish to be interrupted.” Pausing, Eldritch looked around the room, ignoring the hand holding a stunned and struggling Reece. “Hmm. Miss Sophie should be here by now. Gustley, toddle off and see what’s keeping our little friend, won’t you?”

Nodding his many chins, Gustley scurried to the translocator hatch and disappeared down the shaft.

Reece’s heart was pounding at unprecedented speeds. Choking, he gasped, “Been taking the Vees’ serum, Eldritch? Still power-hungry, after everything?”

Eldritch threw back his head and laughed. For an instant the laughter sounded dual-toned, harmonized, as if there were two different people laughing together inside Eldritch’s one body. It sent goosebumps rioting down Reece’s arms.

Eldritch suddenly heaved him across the room; he crashed to the floor in a rolling sprawl, knocked breathless. He felt two of the burstpowder marbles tumble out of his pocket and skitter across the carpet.

“Is that really necessary, Headmaster?” a familiar voice said from the doorway.

There was a cold, plunging sensation in Reece’ stomach. The voice. He’d thought...but hadn’t the duke said…

His elbows shaking, Reece rose to his hands and knees and dragged up his heavy head. The man standing in the doorway wore a golden mask that covered his full face, but he had familiar eyes, brown eyes, eyes like Reece’s…only blacker. He was holding a windswept Nivy pinned with her arms behind her back.

Eldritch gasped with delight, clasping his hands together. “Nivy! My dear! Well, doesn’t this make short of our chase?”

Reece was still staring at the golden-faced man, thunderstruck. He could be hallucinating, he supposed. His head
had
suffered enough recent trauma.

But no, when the man reached up a gloved hand and pushed the mask to the back of his head, it was
Liem
looking down at him. Reece’s brain was still muddled; he couldn’t make out individual emotions anymore, just feel the wild rush of them all, like a torrent inside of him.

“She must have somehow recognized me as I boarded the ship,” Liem was saying in answer to a question Reece hadn’t heard. “She pulled me aside and asked for my help. For him, I assume,” Liem nodded at Reece. The offhand acknowledgement twisted the imaginary knife stuck in Reece’s back. “She didn’t seem surprised to see me. I suppose she must have suspected I was being kept alive as a tool against the duke.”

“Perhaps,” said Eldritch thoughtfully, stroking his chin. He seemed amused. “Or perhaps not. Nivy always was admirably clever. I would not be surprised at all to learn she revealed herself to you because she knew you would bring her here, to me and to Reece.”

Reece met Nivy’s urgent stare. He couldn’t put the energy into reading her thoughts. He was confused to the point of lightheadedness—though again, that could be the head trauma—and all his willpower was going into containing the storm building power inside of him.

“My plan hasn’t gone too far awry after all,” Eldritch mused. He suddenly chuckled to himself and performed a little pirouette. “Oh, Nivy, Nivy,
Nivy
! I should never have doubted you! Bring her in, Liem, I want your brother to see something.”

When Nivy and Liem drew close enough, Eldritch reached out his bony but, as Reece vividly remembered, unnaturally-strong hands and caught her by the shoulders. He turned her to face Reece. She was snarling, her teeth bared.

“As you have deduced, Mr. Sheppard, Nivy is not from Honora, nor any of our near-lying neighbors. Her people are from The Ice Ring, an outlying cluster of frigid planets on the other side of the sun. They call themselves The Heron. And allow me to say, Nivy, that your audacious people have been a thorn in The Kreft’s foot since the day we crossed into the Epimetheus Galaxy.”

“Headmaster, is this the time?” Liem asked, throwing an unreadable look at the Vees by the flightpanel. With his eyes roving, Reece was able to study him. He looked thinner, paler, his unkempt hair longer, though it seemed to be falling out in places. Good. Sleepless nights were the least of what he had coming to him.

Eldritch’s attention wasn’t on Liem, but on Nivy’s neck, and the ribbon ringing its base. His fingers skimmed across it, and Reece’s anger flared up out of the mass of his other emotions, sharp and invigorating. He sat up a little straighter.

“You once wondered, Mr. Sheppard,” Eldritch said breathily, “if Nivy was a slave. You concluded that she wasn’t. That she had been Col
lared by her people—The Heron—to protect their secrets. You were correct.”

Reece didn’t ask how he knew this. Eldritch had browsed his memories of Nivy, but Reece was certain he’d eavesdropped on his conversations before now. Kneeling, Reece grabbed hold of the silver cufflinks on his sleeve, ripped them off, and cast them at Liem’s feet. He should have realized when the alarm had gone off at the gate—those cufflinks Liem had left behind hadn’t been a clue, they’d been a trap. They were broadcaster links, relaying everything they heard to a receiver likely in Eldritch’s possession at this very moment. Reece scanned Eldritch through squinted eyes, and
homed in on the gaudy ring on his middle finger.

“Ah, very good,” Eldritch praised, not at all thrown by the interruption. He lifted the bejeweled hand and twisted the ring’s gem like a dial so that it gave off a whistling white noise like a wireless trying to tune in to a station.

Liem looked duly mortified. He gave the cufflinks a wide berth as he nervously took a seat.

“As I was saying,” Eldritch continued after he’d switched off the receiver ring. “Nivy’s collar was my very quandary. Nine years ago, an escape capsule identical to hers crashed on Atlas…as you are well aware, I know. But I wonder, did you make the connection that Liem himself witnessed the crash?”

Eldritch waited for a long moment for Reece to reply. Finally, Reece nodded, his stare still divided between his stepbrother and Nivy.

“Very good. Liem, perhaps you would like to…?”

Paling visibly, Liem shook his head. “I’d rather—”

“Tell him, Liem,” Eldritch purred. “It is only fair he should know the full truth, for what you have done to him. It is a tenuous balance The Kreft always observe in dealing with our enemies. Your brother has earned the right to hear how you have bested him. You are showing your superiority in telling him.”

Swallowing silently, Liem nodded. He raised his eyes and stared at a spot over Reece’s head.

“It was the year you came to The Aurelian Academy. The escape capsule disrupted the bus-ships’ engines as it passed in close proximity to them—The Academy almost suffered several crashes. As it was, my bus-ship was knocked so off course that we landed in the Atlasian Wilds and had to be retrieved by automobile. The students explored the area while waiting on our transportation. I wandered and stumbled upon a crater in the woods.”

Liem glanced at Eldritch, who nodded encouragingly, still stroking Nivy’s necklace. Nivy was maintaining an aloof posture, standing stiffly with her hands in fists at her sides.

“It all happened so quickly,” Liem went on, picking up speed. “The capsule opened, and a…a man came out of it. He saw me, and I was so frightened I started to run, but he followed me. Chased me back into the woods. Then The Veritas came out of nowhere…they took him to the ground. He didn’t even cry out as they beat him.”

Nivy shut her eyes, and Reece felt his insides lurch for her. He wondered for the first time if that person in the capsule had been someone of special significance to her.

“I thought my presence had escaped The Veritas’ notice, but I was wrong. They came and found me at The Owl and…” Liem trailed off, mouth opening and closing without sound.

Eldritch swooped around Nivy and knelt beside Reece, still smiling. “The Kreft offered him a future. We made a deal, him and I, a pact.” He popped his P loudly.

It was enough to turn Reece’s stomach. He glared at Liem, watching him squirm. “Coward. What did you have to gain?” he demanded. “You’re the bleeding Palatine First. You were going to be duke! Why—” He choked as Eldritch elbowed him in the chest, and coughing, doubled over.

“Come, you’re cleverer than that, Reece. Did you really think
I
would be king over this self-important planet?”

Wheezing and clutching his chest, Reece lifted his head.

It is the control The Kreft want, not the power of one planet. The control.
The duke’s words. And then the Vee’s:
They are artists at manipulation, thriving in the shadows of ambiguity
. Reece had assumed Eldritch would set himself up a throne after the duke’s assassination, installing The Veritas’ new order of justice in exchange for their loyalty to The Kreft. He’d been wrong. That had never been Eldritch’s plan. Eldritch, who intimidated Parliament from the wings, pulling political strings from the shadows. By putting a king of his choice on the throne, he could fashion The Kreft another puppet. And if that king was someone who had been heir to Honora anyways, well, that just guaranteed the approval of the Honoran people.

This way both The Kreft and Liem got what they wanted. The Kreft the control, Liem the spotlight.

“You see it now, don’t you?” Eldritch stood and sauntered in a circle around Reece. “Yes. I offered Liem the throne I planned to instate. There were stipulations, of course, but he was amenable. “You see, the survivor of that first crash wore a collar just like Nivy’s, so I could not force him to tell me anything, even by torture—which I still tried, of course. That’s what killed him, in the end. But he likely wouldn’t have broken even if he had been allowed to speak. The Heron have a regrettable inclination for secrecy.”

Eldritch’s eyes suddenly flashed, and his smile became a wicked leer. “They condition themselves to withstand torture. The collaring of their spies is an added precaution against The Kreft. They’ve become nearly impossible to break.” Following Reece’s train of thought, the headmaster held up a finger. “You are wondering, I take it, about the Spinner I used on you. The answer is simple.” Despite Reece’s noise of warning, Nivy stood still and let Eldritch gently press the golden bug to her temple. It refused to attach, falling to the floor. “Kreft automata doesn’t work on The Heron. Not since their rebellion infiltrated our science facilities some two centuries ago and discovered how to make their bodies immune to the three basic elements of our technology. An unfortunate gain for them, one that tipped the scales in the war.”

Reece didn’t think the answer was simple at all, but he held his questions at bay, in part because he was still feeling the repercussions of the elbow’s impact with his sternum. Clutching his chest with one hand, he stood, teetering slightly on unwilling legs.

“What did you…want from the survivor?”

“The same thing I want from Nivy.” Eldritch suddenly thrust Nivy forward, sending her sprawling face-down on the carpet. “And what your memories, Mr. Sheppard, will now help me get.”

From beneath his jacket, Eldritch pulled out a sleek silver gun: the lightning weapon of The Veritas. He took aim, and before Reece could do more than shout, fired.

The blue fizzing projectile hit Nivy squarely in the back as she was rising to her knees.

She cried out.

Reece dove forward, bent on tackling Eldritch. In the time it took him to take one step, The Veritas were on him. He hissed as they twisted his arms and forced him onto his toes.

“Electrical pulses disrupt the collar’s mechanism,” Eldritch said calmly, studying the gun as Nivy trembled on the floor beneath him. “I noticed this in your memories of your daytrip to The Tholos Stone…ah, what you would call the Veritas’ base of operations. Nivy?”

Nivy’s watering eyes rolled up and glared daggers at Eldritch.

“Come now, girl, don’t try to be noble. Speak.”

There was a pause. Reece thought he could hear the muscles in his arms straining to hold his joints in place.

Nivy abruptly twisted around and looked up at him. “Reece, listen to me, The Kreft, they’re not human! They—” She cut off with a gag, lifting a hand to her throat.

Her voice was different than Reece had always imagined it. Low, with a lilting accent. Her words ended on the up, as if she was asking a question. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the voice, but it made him feel like he knew her that much less.

Tut-tutting, Eldritch gestured for the Veritas to sit Reece down next to his white-faced stepbrother. Not human? Reece had little trouble believing it. There was something eerie about Eldritch—something more than just his Vee-like strength and oily smile. Teeth grit, Reece glared at The Kreft. What
was
he?

“I recognized Nivy’s escape capsule as it came through Atlas’s atmosphere,” Eldritch explained, gesturing unhurriedly. “My first thought, understandably, was to take her and torture her like the last Heron who came to Honora. But she would most certainly have a collar like her predecessor. How was I to learn her very valuable secrets? The Heron and The Kreft have been at odds for millennia, Reece. They are the very reason we were drawn to Epimetheus, following rumors of a great weapon they had at their disposal. A weapon, we thought, that would lend itself to our ambitions in conquering the known galaxies.