Nebula Awards Showcase 2010 (15 page)

“I hardly think you are fit to pass judgment on an emperor.”

“Why not? I know brutality when I see it.”

Gregor shifted his weight. “How he treats you and how he rules Othman are different matters.”

“Like hell.”

“At your age and with your female attractions—” He cleared his throat. “You don’t have what it takes to make such judgments.”

“I may be young,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean my brain doesn’t work. And what does you finding me sexually attractive have to do with my ability to think?”

His face turned a deep red. “You twist my words.”

“No, I don’t.” Frustrated, she said, “You make it sound as if I’m evil because I don’t want to go back to a man who plans to thrash me until my blood soaks his whip, after which he’s going to send it to my husband.”

“I have to do what I believe is right. I cannot sacrifice higher principles for your welfare.”

She regarded him steadily. “I question the validity of your principles.”

His face turned red. “If my principles weren’t
valid,
it wouldn’t have mattered to me whether or not you had reason to remain in your cold, soulless universe. You had no one there. Nothing to stop you from leaving.”

“What?” Janelle whispered. He couldn’t mean what she thought.

His voice quieted. “I saw them die. The nobleman in Andalusia. His lady. Their son.” Softly, he added, “Your family. I’m sorry.”

The air seemed to rush out of the room. At first she could say no more than, “He wasn’t a nobleman.” Then she inhaled deeply. “They were making bridges among different peoples. They
died
for it. How can you call that soulless?”

He shook his head. “Right or wrong, they left you alone.”

Footsteps sounded in the hall. Four men entered the room, all dressed like Gregor. Turning to them, he indicated Janelle. “We have a guest. We must send word to the emperor.”

 

The monks gave Janelle a cloth she could use as a shawl to cover herself, though she suspected they did it more for their own peace of mind than for her. They locked her in a high corner room, provided water and a basin, and brought her fruit, cheeses, and a carafe of wine. Then they left her alone.

As demoralized as she felt, she was ravenous. She wolfed down the food, then washed up and searched her cell. Shaped like a piece of pie, it measured five paces by three at the wide end. The walls were whitewashed plaster. A bench stood against the outer wall, and above it, light trickled in a window slit. Swirls on the cloudy glass reminded her of the Mandelbrot fractal. Had Dominick’s ancestors learned chaos theory?
What secrets were locked in that library?

She was still reeling from what Gregor had told her. He saw her family die. It was apparently part of what convinced him she was destined to come here. She knew he couldn’t have affected what happened through the Riemann screen, that he might not have even seen their actual deaths, only that horrific news clip of the car exploding. But nothing would stop the pain that flooded her.

Janelle rapped the walls; she prodded, scraped, pushed, and yanked anything she could reach. She pounded the window, trying to break the glass, even knowing she couldn’t wriggle out the narrow opening. It offered a view of the yard that fronted the monastery—and so she saw when the riders left, galloping down the same trail the cart had taken up here. She thought of Maximillian, and bile rose in her throat.

Eventually, she sank onto the floor in one corner and pulled her knees to her chest. Laying her head on her knees, she closed her eyes and gave in to her exhaustion.

Janelle awoke with sunlight slanting across her face. A clamor outside had roused her: men calling, biaquines trumpeting, boots stamping. Muzzy with sleep, she climbed onto the bench and peered out the window. Warriors filled the slice of the yard she could see, men in armor on biaquines.

And Maximillian.

Her panic flared. He strode across her field of view, his black armor absorbing the sunlight, his dark hair whipping around his face.

“No!” She scraped at the window, trying to dig out the glass. Only a sliver of stone crumbled under her assault. She kept going, frantic, knowing it would take hours to dislodge the window, that she wouldn’t fit through the opening anyway. But she couldn’t quit. She remembered the shackles, the whip and spiked belt, and the ugly hunger in Maximillian’s gaze.

A key turned in the lock.

Janelle spun around. Jumping off the bench, she pulled the shawl around her body, as if that could shield her.

The door opened, revealing Gregor. Maximillian towered in the shadows behind him, the hilt of his sword jutting above his shoulder.

Gregor stared at her, his face unreadable. He stepped aside and bowed deeply to the emperor. Then he left, his footfalls receding down the hall. Maximillian remained, his unsmiling gaze fixed on Janelle. With a slow tread, he walked into the cell—

And it wasn’t him.

“Dominick!”
Janelle flung herself across the room, and he caught her in an embrace. She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest, closing her eyes while tears squeezed out under her lids.

“Ai,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “I wasn’t sure what to expect. I feared hatred.”

“I don’t hate you.” Her voice caught. “I hate what you’ve done to my life.”

He drew back to look at her. Then he touched her bandaged wrists. “I swear my brother will never hurt you again.
Never.
”

She felt dizzy with the release of fear. “Gregor told me he was sending for Maximillian.”

“Whatever you said convinced him to seek me instead. His men found my army en route to Max’s palace.” Unexpectedly, he laughed. “You have sorely traumatized our Brother Gregor. He informs me that you are a most disturbing woman. He says he does not envy my marital state.”

She managed a smile. “Trauma builds character.”

“So it does.” His amusement faded. “I will leave my Sixth Regiment here. You and I can ride home with the rest of my army.”

From what Janelle had gathered, only twenty men lived at the monastery, scholars rather than warriors. “Do you really need so many to counter a few monks?”

“Not counter. Protect. In summoning me, they have risked Maximillian’s wrath.” He held out his hand. “Come with me, Janelle.”

She took his hand.

The library in Dominick’s palace awed Janelle. She wandered through room after room with bookcases built into the walls from the floor to the vaulted ceiling. Sliding ladders gave access to the upper shelves. Engravings in the wood curved in vine motifs, and marble panels bore quotes from scholars she didn’t recognize. Gold and burgundy brocade upholstered the armchairs. Tall lamps stood in the corners, flickering with flames behind their stained-glass shades. Most of all, books filled the rooms, embossed, gilt-edged, gleaming everywhere in the golden light.

Janelle’s bodyguards stayed back, giving her a semblance of privacy. She had barely spoken to Dominick during the ride here from the monastery today. She needed time to sort out her thoughts. Nor did she know what to say; they had so little in common, and she felt far out of her league with him. Yet he stayed on her mind. It was more than the physical attraction; he also intrigued and compelled her. But she wasn’t ready for this man who would be emperor.

Perhaps he understood. He hadn’t insisted on accompanying her here. He had to know she was avoiding him; what happy bride immediately sought out a library upon arriving at her new home? Then again, most brides hadn’t just discovered such a momentous trove of knowledge. Although Dominick seemed puzzled by her excitement, he didn’t resist her pursuit of the knowledge.

Judged from the most modern scrolls in this library, the year here corresponded to that in her universe. However, just as in Gregor’s library, the science collection had no recent books. The tomes were centuries old, the most recent dated 1557 A.D. A layer of dust covered them. She found no history of science, no explanation of how these people had once possessed such great knowledge and now had so little.

In fact, she found few histories of any kind, though she searched for an hour. Several works described the reign of Dominick’s family, but they didn’t go back to the sixteenth century. Although it was harder to read the historical accounts, they clearly focused on wars and politics, what the authors considered great deeds of the Constantines. Yet she found many hints that his ancestors had also distinguished themselves in scholarly pursuits, showing that same gift for abstract thought she had seen in Dominick and Maximillian.

One section of the library dealt with architecture, including books about the Palace of Arches. Nothing explained the Fourier Hall, but a few studies mentioned a “key” to that great room. She eventually found a description in a book on ancient military codes, of all places. Settling into an armchair, she pored over the text, puzzling out the words. The arches of that gorgeous hall formed a code. Their Fourier transform was a key. But to
what
?

Janelle sat back, thinking. In two dimensions, the transform would probably be a peak with rippled tails; in three dimensions, it might resemble the diffraction pattern for a circular aperture. The locations of the central peak would specify a time. For what? The text seemed to describe a portal, not the gate that had brought her here but something for a much bigger event.

She went to a desk and rummaged in its drawers until she found an inkbottle, quill, and parchment. It took her a while to figure out how to use the quill, but finally she set to work, trying to derive the Fourier transform of the arches. She couldn’t do it exactly; that would require a computer. But the book gave drawings and measurements for the hall, and she could model the arches as the sum of a few squared sine waves.

As she ground away at the equations, the lamp behind the desk burned low. The transform had the shape she expected, with a large peak at the number 2057. Why 2057? She thought it represented a time. Perhaps it meant 2057 years in the future or that many years since something had happened. Or the year 2057.

A chill went through her. In 2057, she would be seventy-one, about the age of the woman in the prophecy. This
couldn’t
connect to her—for that implied she would still be here in fifty years.

Dismayed, she went on another search—and hit gold: a modern account of the Jade Pool. The “jade-hued surface” had to be a Riemann screen. The author considered it an enigmatic artifact of mythical proportions and presented equations for it as if they were runes of a spell. Janelle could appreciate what Gregor had achieved, if he had unraveled practical knowledge from such fanciful treatments.

The book also discussed Riemann gates, which turned out to be a more complicated application of the screen. She didn’t understand the technology, but she worked through the equations. No matter how many times she tried to find a mistake in her work, she derived the same result: the gate didn’t depend on two sheets—it involved
hundreds.
Dominick had managed to go back and forth to her universe because he used the same gate, but it was closed now, and the entire cycle would have to complete before it reopened. That would take centuries, maybe even millennia.

She stared at the parchment with its blotted ink. Then she folded her arms on the desk and put her head on her forearms.

Sometime later, a man said, “Janelle?” A hand rested on her arm.

She lifted her head to find Dominick watching her. He had pulled a stool up to the desk and was sitting next to her.

“What happened?” he asked.

She shook her head, too disheartened to answer.

“Tell me,” he said softly.

“I don’t think I can go home.” The words burned inside her. “If you hadn’t opened the gate when you did, you could never have found me. I would have been long dead before the cycle returned to my universe.”

“You are telling me the prophecy created itself? That if Gregor had never said anything, you wouldn’t be here?”

She could only say, “Yes.”

He answered in a low voice. “Then I am doubly sorry.”

“Something happens in fifty years,” she said unevenly. “When I’m the age of the woman Gregor saw in the pool. Another gate is going to open. A big one. During those few months, your people may be able to do something incredible.”

He seemed bewildered. “What something?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated. “Maybe your ancestors didn’t strand you forever. Maybe you can find them.” She laid her palm against his chest. “Your family had the gifts to understand once.”

A strange look came into his eyes. “There is a saying.” He spoke in an unfamiliar language.

“What does it mean?”

“Roughly translated: Constantines are the key to the future.” She stared at him. “Who else besides you and the monks has a library like this, with the ancient books?”

“Just Maximillian.”

“My God,” she whispered. “It’s
you.
Your family.
You’re
the key. The Fourier Hall is a clue, or a remnant, like the waveforms on the walls, but you’re the guardians of the knowledge. It’s probably why your family ended up ruling Othman.” She motioned at the library. “Everything you’ve lost is still here. The ability to unlock it is
in
you, in your genes, your minds. If you can find it.” She felt as if she were breaking. “But why me? How could you reach across universes for someone to help you do this?”

He spoke in a subdued voice. “Gregor said the pool showed many futures. My father wanted the one that maximized his empire. I always assumed it depended on who ruled, Max or me, and that you came into it because you brought power into our family, probably through an alliance.” Quietly he said, “Maybe it is much larger than this battle between brothers. Perhaps it is something only you can do.”