Ruler of Naught (40 page)

Then he lost himself in the story of the Praerogate Singh,
who, in contravention of his oath, delivered the Anathema of the High Phanist
Gabriel to the Faceless One following the Vellicor Atrocity. Singh’s dramatic
renunciation of fealty and suicide immediately thereafter isolated that
Panarch from his supporters and led directly to his deposition and death.

Shortly into the first act, the trumpets blazed forth with a
fanfare based on the Singh leitmotif.

Ivard made a noise, and Montrose stilled the chip with a
wave of his hand.

“Are you all right, Ivard?”

He really is worried,
Omilov thought.

“Uh, yes. Sorry. I guess I got to dreaming, and then I heard
this music, and I thought—” Ivard blinked up at the holo. “That’s the
Praerogate Singh!”

It was Omilov’s turn to be surprised. “You know Tamilski’s
Tragic
History
?” Except for the interminable waltzes that Montrose played when the
boy thrashed with nightmares, Ivard had never demonstrated any interest in the
music in Montrose’s library that Omilov had seen.

“Tamilski? No, but Singh was one of the most famous Invisibles,
and I really like...” He hunched up.

Montrose laughed, evidently understanding what was going on.
“Talk, Firehead.”

Ivard looked askance at Omilov, as if expecting mockery or
disdain. “I really like
The Invisibles
. I’ve collected almost a hundred
volumes.” He grinned. “With the loot from the palace I might even be able to
get an original Volume One. It was made in 248, over seven hundred years ago.”

So Osri was right, they really did loot the palace,
thought
Omilov.
Well, under the circumstances, there’s certainly no one to denounce
them.

Aloud, he said, “You’ve mentioned this ‘
Invisibles
’
once or twice before, but I must confess my lack of familiarity.”

“It’s a serial chip.” Ivard looked amazed at Omilov’s
ignorance, and motioned at the screen. “That music is just like the music on
the chips.”

Omilov laughed in delight. “A serial chip that’s been going
for over seven hundred years? It must have something to recommend it, then.
Certainly their choice of music couldn’t be bettered.”

“Sgatshi, it’s good!” Ivard exclaimed. “The others laugh at
me about it, sometimes, but Greywing, she said—” He broke off, his eyes wide
and shocked.

To distract Ivard, Omilov said, “I would certainly like to
see some of your serial chips someday soon, Ivard. I’ve never developed a taste
for them, but that is more likely a flaw in my character than a flaw in the art
form.”

Ivard winced, and rubbed his eyes as though trying to banish
a memory. Then he looked up doubtfully. “Really?”

Omilov wondered if he presented so fearsome an aura,
freighted with the complex associations inculcated by Archetype and Ritual
into the popular view of the Ranks of Service.

“Really. You have one about Singh?”

“Oh, yes, that’s one of the best.”

“Perhaps you’d enjoy seeing part of this opera, then. Then I
could view your chip, and we could see how the two types of art treat the
story.”

“Uh, sure. D’ya mind if I ask questions?”

“Not at all.”

Montrose reached to start the playback again, then paused
as Ivard spoke again.

“Well, I’ve got a question, but not about the opera.” He
leaned forward, all knotty elbows and knees. “Brandon told me you’re a Chival,
so that means you did the nickstrut in the Mandala.”

Omilov smiled.
‘Strut.’ An apt description for many at
Court.

“Yes, I did, for a time.”

“Did you ever meet a Praerogate?”

He stifled another laugh.
Every day, in the mirror.
Then came the chill of melancholy.
But does it have any meaning now?
The
knowledge that he could, if confronted with real evil, speak with the full
authority of the absolute ruler of the Thousand Suns, wielding the high and low
justice alike with none to gainsay him, had been a deep, if rarely considered, comfort
to him. Now that comfort was gone.

“Well, Ivard, there’s a problem with answering that—you
never really know until afterward. Of course, I’ve known some Praerogates
Overt, after they revealed themselves to put right a malignant situation, but I
had never known any of those while they were still Occult. So, to answer what I
think is perhaps your real question, there doesn’t seem to be anything to distinguish
a Praerogate Occult from any other person.”

“So, it’s just like
The Invisibles
. The evil blits
can’t tell until it’s too late!”

“Exactly. So, shall we proceed?”

Receiving Ivard’s assent, he settled back in his chair as
Montrose resumed the playback. From time to time during the opera he observed
Ivard, who was at fist restless, until the music gradually drew him in. During the
soaring Aria of Renunciation near the climax, Omilov was astonished, and
pleased, to see the luminosity of unshed tears in Ivard’s eyes. He felt an
answering sting in his own. He remembered what Osri had told him about Ivard’s
background, and thought,
There was no place for this ardent spirit in the
ordered world of the Panarchy, save in unskilled labor. Here, at least, he has
room to grow—there is no one to force him into a mold.

For the first time Omilov began to really understand the
large and unacknowledged part the Rifter overculture played in the life of the
Thousand Suns.

But now it is too late. We rejected them, and they have become
a tool in the hands of our worst enemy.

In the holo Macclom Singh lay dying before the Emerald
Throne. On the throne, the Faceless One—played, as always, by an actor in a
shimmermask, that nothing might lend that abhorred figure even the semblance
of a face and therefore anamnesis—slumped hopelessly as the realization of
defeat gripped him. Ivard was leaning forward in his seat, completely lost in
the action, his face shining with the mix of exaltation and sorrow that good
tragedy brings.

Not all of them,
decided Omilov.
This boy’s spirit
would not have survived association with anyone who would join Eusabian.
For the first time, despite his unfortunate interview with the captain, he
began to hope that they might yet win through to safety with the Heart of
Kronos.

We fear, we fear.

I do not understand your fear.

We fear the dissolution of Telvarna-hive, for to Eya‘a dissolution
of a hive is cessation.

Again I repeat, cessation-of-a-hive for Eya’a is
emendation for humans, just as emendation for Eya’a is cessation for humans.
Each one from this polity you call a hive will go on to join other polities,
and this we see as emendation. Again I repeat, Telvarna is not a true hive.

But Vi’ya is its world-mind, and the ones inside the
metal hive with him are his hivemates.

I hear as Eya’a hear, but I am not a world-mind. Humans
have no world-minds.

We fear.

Again I do not understand your fear.

The words we have celebrated carry images that change.
And we fear, because we are approaching a great chaos that has no center.

We come to a human polity called Rifthaven. I hear your
fear, and tell you to withdraw to your world-mind. Celebrate again the words
you have learned, but also celebrate my own confusion. I ask again: is the
world mind one hive or many?

Vi’ya felt the withdrawal of the Eya’a, as they began the
process of hibernation. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. the contacts
were easier every time she made them, but when they ended she could be thrown
into vertigo if she was not careful.

She opened her eyes to discover Lucifur lying across her
bunk, eyes slitted. She touched him, checking his mind. He was hungry.

She hit the hatch control. He leapt down and ran out, disappearing
with a flick of his tail.

Then she passed into the Eya’a chamber. Already the temperature
was dropping toward the frigid approximation of their upper-level caves where
the hivemates hibernated.

She found them, each curled up and wrapped in a silken cocoon
made of fine-spun metals. Staring at the small, still bodies, she wondered why
they had not answered her question about their world-mind. Hereto they had
always referred to it as a single entity, as if there were only one.

She had envisioned this world-mind as being a type of sentient
DataNet, connecting everyone across their world. What she had not been clear on
was the precise function of the male of each hive, outside of the obvious
procreative one: she knew that they did not move, did not speak, and were cared
for by the females.

In fact, it was the reverse of the hive patterns familiar to
Earth-descended biologies, the queens and drones. But they had been definite
about the pronouns: they themselves were females, would bear females in time,
except maybe one of them would be selected to bear a male, an experience—as
much as she could gather—much valued, though apparently the female did not live
beyond the birth.

She frowned down at the curled forms, remembering how they
had given her a male pronoun—the first time they had ever done so. They defined
her function as captain in terms of directing the fates of the others, and
listening to them on the mental plane. That argued a similar function for their
males.

Were the Eya’a males, then, the center of each hive
world-mind? This would mean...

Competition between hives. Which would suggest that the
mission of my two is to carry back information meant to give them some kind of
edge.

Interesting. This would bear further examination.

She checked the bank of mosses that they grew for sustenance,
and saw that all was well. The ship’s computer now ran the bio-tank she’d designed
for them. She reflected on their inability to interface with the computer on
their own. As one would expect from a race of telepaths, they had no written
language. And the humans confound them yet again with their quasi-religious ban
on machines with artificial intelligence.

Amusement at the dichotomies that made each race incomprehensible
to the other flickered through her mind as she ran her fingers over one of the
gossamer-thin weavings they were making. She recognized the stylized shape of
the
Telvarna
in it, and intertwined figures that might be humans, but
the fires and other symbols she saw were impossible to figure.

She looked around, feeling her skin thickening as the temperature
dropped. She could already see her breath, a white cloud that froze in tiny
droplets and fell before dissolving.

Time to go.

Time.

She walked out, checking her boswell link to the bridge.
Emergence soon, at which time she had the sequence of events planned out. Until
then, she just had—time.

She unlocked the wall cabinet, and pulled out the drawer
into which she’d set the Heart of Kronos. She grasped it firmly, ignoring the
nauseating side effects of its inertialessness. She’d thought to occupy this
time with the Eya’a in a last attempt to unlock the mystery of the thing, but
the exercise would be useless. They had established as much as they were able
that this weapon was missing an integral part. She dropped it into her pouch, wincing
at the strange feeling.

Time.

Now would have been the moment to be planning the next run
with the crew, but the next run was going to be solo, except for the Eya’a and
her three prisoners: the navigator, whom she could force to work, the old man
who knew something about the Heart of Kronos that he would not tell her, and
Brandon nyr-Arkad—no, he was vlith-Arkad now, wasn’t he? Markham had said those
words so often: Brandon nyr-Arkad.

She permitted the memories.
“Brandy said... ” “...
Brandon nyr-Arkad and I planned a... ”

I thought the Arkad was the satellite to Markham’s sun,
and I believe Markham thought so as well.

She smiled at the tapestry
. If I am right I will
use this Arkad star to torch my homeland.

It was a plan, which was better than no plan, or—

Regret is an illusion.

Regret was also one of the emotions she called the hiltless
knives. She’d never seen it before she met Markham, and she’d been fascinated
at how it shadowed his mind in unexpected moments of repose. They had talked
much about reactions and emotions, how they could vary to such extremes, as her
own background demonstrated when compared to his upbringing. Vi’ya remembered trying
so hard to understand Markham’s view of the universe that she still heard his
voice whispering to her, unless she consciously shut it out.

Regret was one of those things she couldn’t comprehend. To
desire that an action had never taken place—it seemed merely a futile line of
thought.

So she killed the memories, and went to wait on the bridge
for emergence from fiveskip. She had told Lokri that she would handle the
communication with Jaim’s brother herself, the better to sift his words for the
reality of Rifthaven in this new era.

o0o

Nukiel didn’t know the woman: perhaps eighty years of
age, short, stout, with an open, intelligent face. She was dressed in a costume
he didn’t recognize, comprised of a long-sleeved black robe with a stiff,
upstanding white collar, buttoned from her neck to the hem. He wondered
momentarily how long it took her to put it on.

He did know he was dreaming, and so, with a sort of
good-humored superiority born of that knowledge, he said to the dream woman,
“So where am I, and who are you?”

“This is Desrien,” she replied, “and you are summoned.”

Mandros Nukiel opened his eyes and sat up. He laughed, a
short, humorless bark, and swung his feet out of bed onto the deck. A dim light
sprang into being in response to his movement, leaving most of his cabin
obscured in shadow. The only sound was a quiet murmur from the tianqi; the
faintest ghost of a breeze caressed his forehead.