Ruler of Naught (37 page)

From time to time she saw eyes in the mist, some lambent
yellow, others glowing green, but they looked past her—they were not part of
her story. She would have welcomed the sudden leap of some beast of prey, to
save her from her fate, but the predator that followed her had neither parts
nor passions, nor would It ever tire. She stumbled onward, exhausted beyond
thought, a hunted creature in the forests of the night.

Now she could hear a breathing behind her, a diapason of
power, rising from the stony bones of the planet under her feet. Soon, she felt
sure, It would form her name, and she would turn...

Eloatri began to run, at eighty years of age a frightened
child lost in the dark. Her fear-sharpened senses brought vivid impressions:
the cool earth under her feet, her hoarse panting, the ear-deadening blanket of
the fog. The damp air carried a sweet scent, a gentle perfume that intensified
inexorably.

Then she blundered into a thorny hedge. Its clawed embrace
enfolded her as she tried to fight her way through it, panicked by the sound of
her pursuer. A clearing loomed ahead; she pushed frantically toward it,
heedless of the ripping of her robe. The thorns caught at her flesh.

She stopped. Before her stood Tomiko, his features shadowed
in his cowl. As she stood panting, the High Phanist pushed back his hood.
Eloatri gasped. His face was terribly disfigured, seared and blistered. His
eyes were milky white and blind, and yet she knew he saw her. Wordlessly he
held out his hands, one palm up, beseeching, one palm down with fingers curled,
concealing some small object.

She stood still for a timeless moment. He said nothing, but
she could feel his entreaty. Slowly she stepped toward him. The reek of burned
flesh filled her nostrils. She placed the begging bowl in his upturned hand.

He smiled, a ravaged grimace full of painful joy. “The gates
of the teaching are many; I vow to enter them all,” he whispered: the third
bodhisattva vow. She held out her hand, and he opened his. The Digrammaton,
symbol of his office, dropped into her hand, searing hot, then fell to the
ground as Eloatri shrieked, flinging it from her and curling up her hand around
the pain. She, too, fell to the ground.

o0o

The sound of chanting awoke her. She sat up. Dappled
sunlight played across her through the leaves of the massive flowering thorn
tree against whose trunk she sat. Her hand throbbed and burned. She opened it
and looked at the image of the Digrammaton, Aleph-Null, in the white puffiness
of a second-degree burn.

Eloatri found the reverse image in a metallic gleam a few
feet away, and reached cautiously to pick it up. It was cool now, but her hand
flared with agony.

Then she raised her head. Across a little valley loomed the
joyful exuberance of New Glastonbury Cathedral, its spires and buttresses
leaping toward heaven in celebration of the goodness of Creation and the
transforming power of descending Love. Eloatri blinked.

A procession wended slowly toward her across the grassy
sward, men and women, some in glorious robes and some in stark black and white.
She could smell sweet resinous incense and see its smoke rising among them, and
their words came faintly to her:
“... Fons vivus, ignis, caritas, et
spiritalis unctio... ”

She smiled; the sound was beautiful. Meaning would come later.

“You didn’t think you drank that for yourself?”
Eloatri
laughed. This had not been Tomiko’s way, nor hers. Was it the redheaded boy who
needed this? Or some part of herself not yet revealed? Or both? Then the shadow
of sadness dimmed the light engulfing her soul. Tomiko was dead by violence,
and he had been on Arthelion, among the High Douloi. There might be many now
who needed the message of a faith that saw history as a story with a purpose.

But that was in the Hand of Telos.

She faced the approaching group. Now that they were closer
she could see that one of the processors carried a tall, pointed hat, strangely
divided, another a folded garment more glorious than any of the others, and
another a tall staff whose top was bent in a graceful crook. The procession
made straight for her.

She stood up, and the last tatters of her yellow robe fell
away from her. A gentle breeze caressed her body and the sun shone warm on her
flesh as she advanced down the hill to meet her new life and await those who
would come.

o0o

Osri sat back, replete after a feast of uncountable exotic
dishes. He’d never actually had a meal in low-gee before, but it had been
easier than one might expect, especially since the preparation featured sauces
that bound ingredients together.

The large cubical room that had only hours ago been the
scene of a pitched battle had been reconfigured to accommodate guests unused to
microgravity, with spacious balconies on four of the six walls overlooking the
interior space still uncompensated. At his right, his father was deep in
conversation with Montrose, his face more relaxed than Osri had seen it since
the long-ago days on his verandah on Charvann. The Eya’a had returned to the
Telvarna
,
and Jaim was with them, ostensibly to supervise refueling, and to hold the con.
But the others were all present, even Ivard, who’d insisted on bringing Lucifur
and the two dogs.

His mood hovering between celebration and grief, Osri held
up his wine bulb and stared at the ripples in the ruby ovoid. He had drunk the
light, expensive wines first presented to them, his first drink in what seemed
eons: he remembered, with a twinge of shock, toasting a fellow officer on
Merryn just before departing for The Hollows and the interrupted visit with his
father. Qu’isran had gone up the S’Lift to take ship for his new posting.
How
long did he live beyond his promotion?
The memory brought the oppression of
sorrow. Whatever happened to his father and himself now, there was no
returning to the old ways, for Tanri Faseult, the enlightened Archon of
Charvann, was dead, and jackals much worse than Nokker and his gang ran wild in
once-peaceful Merryn.

Forcing his mind away from the past, Osri scanned the room
as a group of musicians played an unending selection of complicated music from
many worlds.

It is not just the drink,
Osri thought as his gaze
went from one person to another.
It’s reaction
.

Across the room Ivard sat between Vi’ya and Montrose, his
thin face flushed and his eyes reflecting the lights. Whether it was fever or
some other reaction, his pupils were enormous, and Montrose glanced Ivard’s way
quite often. Ivard seemed happy as he watched the free-fall dancers performing in
the center of the room, gyrating with lascivious agility in the center of the room,
reaction modules at wrists and ankles emitting puffs of sweet-smelling smoke.
At their center Marim performed with skylark grace, her blonde hair swirling
about her laughing face, and her nearly naked body decorated with a
crisscrossing of bells and beads.

Next to Vi’ya, Lucifur lay on a table, batting lazily at the
muzzle of one of the Chang dogs, who lunged at the big cat with its mouth open
in a canine grin. The two Arkad dogs lay at Ivard’s feet, their eyes intent on
Brandon, who floated at an angle in the center of the room with Granny Chang
and older members of the family. He was dressed in a splendid tunic that
someone had produced from somewhere. It fitted his slim body to admiration, as
did the tight black trousers and the high glossy boots.

Nearby, Lokri lounged amid a group of ornamental young
Changs of both sexes, their laughter frequent, though the angle of Lokri’s body
aligned less with the Changs and more with Brandon.

Brandon was at his very best in the social arena, Osri had
to admit: dividing his attention equally among all his hosts, he kept them
amused and entertained, especially Granny.

After ten years, Brandon should be good at it, Osri thought.
It wasn’t like he’d been doing anything else—except playing games.

Games
. Not Phalanx, but mimicry. Osri considered his
earlier observation, wondering why it had struck him as important. He knew now
what the discrepancy between Brandon’s parody of Douloi movement and his unconscious
elegance later had reminded him of: it was that same incident with Markham,
who, when he had finished his story, moved back across the room with that very
same elegance born of control and command.

But why was it important? Osri tried to blink away the
muzziness threatening his skull from the unaccustomed alcohol.

“You are silent, son,” his father said. “Is something
amiss?” Above the polite smile, his eyes betrayed anxiousness.

He sees me as a wayward child to be humored.
The
observation came from that same part of his brain that urged him to make the
connection in his observations, that insisted on their significance.

“I am merely tired, Father. Remember, it was just at the
start of our Z-watch when we docked.”

“I think we are nearly finished here.” Omilov sighed.
“Though I must say, I am reluctant to leave.”

“Enjoy it.” Osri forced a smile, hating to see how
worn-out—how old—his father looked. “I am.”

That answer seemed to ease Omilov, who settled more deeply
on his pillow, then pulled a wine bubble from the cluster designed to mimic a
bunch of grapes.

Just then Granny Chang touched a control on her chair, and a
ringing chime cut through music and talk. “It is time,” she said, lifting her
voice slightly, “to hear what our honored guest has to say about events
outside.”

The group quieted and those in free fall moved and oriented
themselves to center on Brandon. Testament either to the Changs’ politeness, or
to their veneration for Granny Chang. Maybe it was both.

To Osri’s surprise, he didn’t utter one of his typical
social fatuosities. “Arthelion has fallen,” he said in a clear voice, mild but
not indifferent.

Absolute silence met these words.

“I understand you have been hearing rumors, some of which
conflict. We have come straight from Arthelion, and what I say I either
witnessed myself, or heard from a source I trust. This is what I know: My
brothers are dead, and my father lies secreted somewhere, awaiting transfer to
Gehenna. In my father’s place is Eusabian of Dol’jhar, and these deeds are part
of his vengeance for his defeat at Acheront twenty years ago.”

Brandon looked around in the silence, his expression the
deceptive shield of mildness that Osri had always equated with weakness.

Then the observation was there: Markham vlith-L’Ranja,
standing in a group telling a story with just such sureness, except his face
had always reflected his thoughts.

“Adopted into the L’Ranjas from an obscure background...
”
His own sneering words came back to him.

Markham was a perfect mimic.

Osri remembered the mocking pantomime in the cadet lounge,
the slight exaggerations that had still managed to convey a clear portrait of
an unloved instructor whose social ambitions much outranked his station.
Afterward Markham had returned to the others with just the grace that Brandon
moved with now: Markham had always been a mimic. He learned to move from
watching Brandon, Osri realized as the alcohol fumes blurred Brandon’s
outlines. For a moment he could have been Markham, except Markham was blond,
and his laughing face had never—

He learned the moves, but never the shield.
That was
it. Osri had raged ineffectually as a youth against the blank-faced Krysarchs,
whose control had seemed so innate.
Even when they were punished, they hid
their thoughts, just as they always read mine.
But Markham had recognized
that he could never learn it, and so he had never tried.

Why was this important? Because...

But the answer wouldn’t come. Instead, his mind splintered
into a collage of memories overlaid with angers past and present, and sorrow,
and plain human exhaustion.

And through it all came Brandon’s voice, outlining with
graphic imagery the destruction of the Korion above Charvann, and the race in
the little courier to escape a Rifter destroyer. He described the crash-landing
on the moon Dis, and how the Telvarna had gone to Arthelion. Then he told them
about the raid against the Mandala, the polite Douloi cadences innate in his
speech somehow sharpening the horror found in the Hall of Ivory. Osri was
shocked—he had heard nothing of this, and he sustained another wave of horror
when Brandon talked of Eusabian’s torture room, and Omilov imprisoned there.

Brandon mocked himself as a clumsy figure stumbling after
the others, a wounded dog in his arms. Osri observed sympathetic glances taking
in the dogs at Ivard’s feet. Then came the headlong flight through the palace,
chased by Eusabian’s deadly Tarkans, and how Greywing, Ivard’s sister, was
killed and Ivard wounded, and when it seemed almost unbearable he gave them a
humorous release as he described the fight in the kitchens with the little
mechwaiters as weapons.

Brandon’s tone had taken on color and expression. Osri’s
guts tightened as he relived the terror of the
Telvarna
’s race up the
Node cable toward radius and escape. One by one Brandon touched on heroic
actions of the
Telvarna
’s crew: Lokri, who carried Ivard to safety,
Montrose in his rescue of Omilov. Jaim and Marim working against time to salvage
the ship’s engines enough to enable their escape.

The listeners were still with tension as Brandon told of the
appearance of Eusabian’s
Fist of Dol’jhar
, though several people gasped
when he told of its last attempt, the ruptor beam that must have ripped apart
the Node and killed everyone living on it.

Then he told them what they found at Dis, and how Vi’ya had
driven Hreem’s watchdog into Warlock. He finished with Osri’s own part, how he
gave them a margin of safety despite dangerously low fuel as they came directly
to Chang’s. Osri felt an unaccustomed glow of pride, but then another thought
occurred:
he has not mentioned my father’s artifact
. And then:
he has
not talked about his part, except for carrying that dog
.