The Ruby Dice (29 page)

Kelric gazed at the pillar of light. He no longer had to squint against its brilliance. Something damaged the Lock.

I detect no damage here.

It's weakened.

Perhaps the problem isn't with this one.

Kelric rubbed his temple. I feel strange.

Are you injured?

I don't think so. After a moment, he added, I've a shadow.

All people have shadows, assuming proper light conditions.

Not that kind, Bolt. In my mind.

Is your link as a Key weakened?

No. It has a— He struggled to define his impression. Not a shadow, exactly. When you have a solar eclipse, the moon shadows the sun. The moon is present, but you don't see it, only the shadow. It's as if a moon cast its shadow across Kyle space.

"
Kelric?"

He jumped to his feet and whirled around, his body toggling into combat mode as he raised his arm to strike.

Dehya had entered the chamber and stood bathed in radiance from the singularity. Small and frail, she was little more than a third his weight. She looked up at his giant fist raised above her head.

Kelric stared at her, dismayed. What if he hadn't stopped his reflexes in time? He could have killed her with one blow.

He lowered his arm. "You surprised me," he said—and froze. He had spoken in low tones, but his words resonated with power.

"
What did you do?"
Her voice sounded as if it came from far away, blowing across the blue spaces of the Kyle.

I called the Lock at the SSRB, he thought. Usually mindspeech drained him, but in this interstice separating space-time and the Kyle, voices intruded. Something went wrong.

It died,
she answered.
Or ended somehow.

I can't tell what happened. My mind is too blunt.

I can't tell, either. My mind hasn't the strength.

We must combine efforts.

Kyle space is damaged. If we go in together, we could strain it too far.

Kelric feared she was right. With the combined power of their minds focused in the Kyle, they might destabilize its weakened structure and accelerate the implosions. But if they didn't find out what was wrong, they could be inviting a catastrophe of interstellar proportions. Something had happened when he touched the SSRB Lock, something so intense it had pushed him out of the singularity and seared his memory.

Dehya was watching his face.
It called to me for help, too, I think.

My gauntlets sent me a warning about the SSRB Lock. A memory leapt in Kelric's mind: he had met Jaibriol Qox there, ten years ago.

Dehya's thought drifted over him like mist.
Let me see.

Here in the chamber, his mind flexed as it never could in normal space. And he and Dehya were Keys. Their minds linked in ways no other humans could manage. He lowered his barriers so she could see pieces of the memory he had stored in Bolt ten years ago . . .

The emperor stood at his full height, over six feet tall. He was a boy, no more than seventeen. He crossed the dais to Kelric. When he stopped, only a rail separated them.

"
Go now," Jaibriol said. "While you can."

"You would let me go?" Kelric asked, incredulous.

Jaibriol regarded him steadily. "Yes."

Kelric didn't believe it. "Why?"

The emperor answered in cool, cultured tones. "Meet me at the peace table."

"You want me to believe you wish peace," Kelric said, "when you have a Lock and two Keys."

"What Lock?" The youth spread his hands. "It no longer works."

Kelric knew Jaibriol had seen him suspend the singularity. Yet the emperor hadn't asked if he could bring it back alive.

"We had one Key," Jaibriol added. "We gave him back."

"Gave who back?"

"Your brother. Eldrin Valdoria."

"Don't lie to me, Highton." Kelric knew the Eubians would never free his brother. Now that they had a Lock and a Key, nothing would convince them to surrender either.

"Why would I lie?" Jaibriol asked.

"It's what you Hightons do," Kelric said. "Lie, manipulate, cheat."

It happened then. Jaibriol's aloof mask slipped. In that instant, his face revealed a terrified, lonely young man trapped in a role beyond his experience. And his gaze was wrenchingly familiar. Kelric
knew
him, but he didn't remember how.

Then Jaibriol recovered, and once again the icy emperor faced Kelric. "I've little interest in your list of imagined Highton ills," he said. His disdain was almost convincing.

Kelric tried to fathom him. "Eube would never give away its Key. Not when you had a Lock. Nothing is worth it."

"Not even me?"

That stopped Kelric cold. "You, for Eldrin?"

"Yes."

It was the one trade Kelric could imagine them making. A vibrant young emperor on the throne would revitalize Eube. But at the price of their Key? It must have ignited furious debate.

"You are right," Jaibriol said. "It wasn't a universally popular decision. But it is done. I am emperor and your brother is free."

Kelric wondered if his face betrayed that much of his thoughts. He didn't fool himself that they had let Eldrin go. This new emperor was toying with him while guards waited outside.

"I am alone," Jaibriol said.

Kelric froze. "Why did you say that?" If he hadn't known better, he would have thought Jaibriol was an empath. But no Aristo could be a psion.

"You didn't wonder if I had guards?" Jaibriol asked. "I find that hard to believe."

"And you just happened to come in alone when I was here."

"Perhaps you could say I felt it."

"Perhaps," Kelric said. "I don't believe it."

"I suppose not." Jaibriol rubbed his chin. "I detected your entrance in the station web."

Kelric knew the boy was lying. But why? And why did Jaibriol look so hauntingly familiar?

"Imperator Skolia." Jaibriol took a breath. "Meet me when we can discuss peace."

"Why should I believe you want this?"

Jaibriol motioned upward, a gesture that seemed to include all Eube. "It's a great thundering machine I hold by the barest thread. If I am to find a way road to peace, I need your help."

It hit Kelric then, what he had known at a subliminal level throughout this surreal conversation. He felt the youth's mind. Jaibriol had mental barriers. They had been dissolving as he and Kelric talked, probably without the young man realizing it. His luminous Kyle strength glowed.

Jaibriol the Third was a psion.

Kelric spoke in a stunned voice. "You're a telepath."

"No." Pain layered Jaibriol's denial. He became pure Highton. Polished. Cold. Unreal. "I am what you see. Qox."

"At what price?" Kelric asked. "What must you suffer to hide the truth?" He couldn't imaginethe hells this young man lived, surrounded by Aristos, never knowing surcease.

Jaibriol met his gaze. "Was anyone here when I came into the Lock? I never saw him."

Kelric spoke softly. "Gods help you, son."

Strain creased Jaibriol's face. "Go. Now. While you can."

Kelric stepped into the Lock corridor. Then he turned and started the long walk down the corridor. His back itched as he waited for the shot, a neural blocker to disable him or rifle fire that would shred his body.

"Lord Skolia," Jaibriol said.

He froze. Would the game end now? He turned to face the emperor. "Yes?"

"If you make it to Earth—" Jaibriol lifted his hand, as if to reach toward him. "Go see Admiral William Seth Rockworth."

"I will go." He wanted to ask more, but he didn't dare stay longer. He set off again. As he strode down the corridor, he had a strange sense, as if Jaibriol whispered in his mind:

God's speed, my uncle . . .

The memory faded, and Kelric became aware of Dehya. He didn't recall moving, but they were both sitting on the floor. The light of the singularity rippled the air in the chamber.

He is a psion.
She didn't make it a question.

It took Kelric a moment to reorient. Yes, I think so.

We need to know more about him.

Have you had contact with Seth Rockworth? Qox lived with him for two years. He regretted needing to ask the question; he knew she avoided the topic of her former husband. Neither the Imperialate nor his government had formally acknowledged their divorce for fear it would invalidate the treaty established by their marriage. For Eldrin's sake, she kept the subject out of their lives.

I haven't spoken to Seth in years,
she thought.
I doubt the Allieds would let me near him. They've watched him continually since they learned he had Jaibriol Qox as his ward.

I'm not surprised.

I too have wondered about Qox, though.

Kelric tensed. In what way?

It's hard to explain.

He waited, but she said no more. It was her way; she often thought in patterns or equations that evolved in subshells of her mind before she spoke of them. It disconcerted most people, but it never bothered him. When she felt ready, she would explain.

In any case, he had another way to communicate with her. He took off his pouch and spilled his Quis dice onto the floor. The gems sparkled against the silvery-white composite, but the light that saturated the chamber washed out their sparkle. He lowered his defenses carefully, so he wouldn't injure her mind with the force of his own. He wanted her to understand Quis at a level deeper than even she could glean from a few sessions.

Kelric offered his knowledge of Quis, and he felt her mind blending with his as she absorbed the concepts. He placed the first die, an onyx octahedron he used for the Qox dynasty. Dehya studied it and then set down a gold dodecahedron. They built patterns of the Traders, the Imperialate, and the Ruby and Qox dynasties. At first, she did little more than mimic his moves. Then she began to mold the structures on her own. He felt the change on a visceral level, as her Quis took on the luminous character of her extraordinary intellect.

Kelric wasn't certain when he realized what Dehya was trying to show him. She knew too little about the game to clarify her patterns, but she learned fast. Incredibly fast. Her theory became clear; the implosions began on the planet Glory because the Lock was seeking the nearest Ruby psion.

Jaibriol the Third.

No! He built structures to overpower hers, yet no matter how hard he tried, they evolved back to the same pattern: the Lock sought a Key. It hadn't reached out to the Orbiter or Parthonia or anywhere else the Ruby Dynasty called home. Instead, it had touched the Qox Palace.

As to why Dehya believed Jaibriol was a Key, either she didn't know Quis well enough to develop the pattern or else she was holding back. Kelric pushed harder, building structures centered on the Aristo compulsion with the so-called purity of their lines. They were fanatical about their genetics. They would consider it an abomination for a psion to sit on the throne.

Dehya's patterns echoed his, but a stronger one swamped them out. Aristos had an even greater obsession: subjugating the Ruby Dynasty. They found the power wielded by the House of Skolia more intolerable than diluting their DNA, enough even for the Qox Dynasty to breed a Ruby psion in their Line.

Kelric exhaled. He had to acknowledge the possibility. He already believed the emperor was an empath. If Qox had the sensitivity of a Ruby psion, the young man's life had to be a never-ending hell.

A grim thought hit him. If I restarted the Lock, Qox can use it.

Dehya looked up.
We must discover what happened and decide what to do.

Affecting the SSRB Lock from so far away is difficult. I'm not sure what I'm doing.

I may be able to tell.

The Kyle might not support both of us at the same time.

We must try. The stakes are too high.

Kelric nodded, his motions slowed in the space of this interstice chamber. He put away his dice, and they stood up, regarding each other. Whether or not they would survive, neither of them knew, but the consequences of trying nothing were too serious to ignore.

Together, they stepped into the column of living radiance.

Jaibriol awoke into dimness. He lay on his side with blankets pulled over his shoulders. Opening his eyes, he stared across the room, which was lit with no more than a small night-panel by an unfamiliar door. He felt queasy and dull . . .

His memories trickled back then: the Lock, Colonel Muze, Hidaka, the nauseating stench of scorched flesh. Jaibriol groaned, and his stomach lurched.

A rustle came from across the room. "Your Highness?"

Hidaka? Jaibriol thought he spoke the name, but nothing came out. His giant bodyguard was walking out of the shadows, his projectile pistol large on his belt, his boots thudding on the floor, his tread slowed in the lower gravity of the space station. The gunmetal collar around his neck glinted.

Jaibriol laboriously pulled himself up to sit in bed. The covers fell around his waist. He still wore the black trousers and shirt from before, but someone had taken off his shoes.

Hidaka stopped by the bed, looking down, his face shadowed. "Are you repaired?" he asked.

Jaibriol squinted at him, disoriented. When his Razers talked that way, they did sound like machines. "I don't know." His voice was thick. "How long have I been unconscious?"

"Six hours, thirty-two minutes, and twelve seconds."

That long? His fear grew. "You shot Colonel Muze."

"Yes, Your Highness. He threatened you. I am tasked with guarding your life. So I removed the threat."

"What did you see?"

"You went into the corridor. It was too dark, and I couldn't find you."

"You followed me into the Lock?" Jaibriol hadn't had any idea. He had thought he gave his bodyguards the slip.

"Yes, Sire. So did Colonel Muze. When the Lock activated, it lit up the dais room. I saw him at the start of the corridor. He did not see me. He went down the corridor, and I followed."

Good Lord. Hidaka must have heard everything. But maybe he didn't realize what it meant.

"Do you know who I am?" Jaibriol asked. He wished Hidaka didn't loom so ominously over him.