A Prison Unsought (48 page)

For she was a tempath—a telepath now—and to deny nature, to
shutter the instinctive urge to touch that other mind, the one that, after all,
she had really been attuned to all these years, caused a terrible mental
feedback that made her head reel with pain, muting sound and sight. Each breath
rasped her dry throat, and the need to remain still took every vestige of her
energy.

But she welcomed it. Pain was immediate, it required no
risk, it was merely there to be endured: it was the anodyne to passion.

When Gelasaar was brought to Anaris’s cabin, he spoke
before he even sat down. “You said before that there were two things you did
not understand. Marriage was one, and the second?”

“The second,” said Anaris, willing—for now—to permit the
deposed Panarch to guide their talk, “is regret.”

“Ah.”

“It seems an utterly futile emotion,” Anaris said. “Why
think at all about that which cannot be changed?”

“One cannot mend the past,” the Panarch said, “but regret is
a motivator for shaping the future.”

“I do not see that,” Anaris said. “I formulate my plans, I
carry them through. In this way, the future becomes today, exactly as I would
have it.”

The Panarch looked down at his folded hands for a time, then
at last said, “In so doing, you merely perpetuate the mistakes of your
forebears. If this is the extent of your goal, then so be it. But I do not
think it is.”

“Say, then, that it is not, for purposes of discussion.”

“I would direct you to read the words of Sanctus Gabriel, in
his discourses on the teaching stones. He calls regret, remorse, mercy,
compassion, patience, and humility the rocks that one carries in one’s rucksack
on the uphill journey.”

“And then presumably one sets them down at some point?”
Anaris asked, still amused.

“Never. But one becomes strong enough to bear them, and
eventually to replace them with the burdens of one’s accrued responsibilities.”

“You describe a servant, not a leader,” Anaris said, making
a dismissive gesture with his dirazh’u.

“The best leader serves,” Gelasaar replied. “If you want to
lead people, you must learn how to follow them.”

Anaris extended a hand, encompassing them both, there in the
hold of the commandeered Rifter ship, he in his family’s accustomed black, and
the Panarch stripped of all insignia of rank, garbed in prison gray. “A leader
leads,” Anaris corrected gently, setting aside the dirazh’u to summon the
guards. “I bring you when I wish, I dismiss you when I will. You follow my
lead. Next time, let us discuss our perceptions of the word ‘strength.’”

Light-headed with pride, Kestian Harkatsus stood back
against the wall and surveyed his salon. The room, too small by Douloi
Highdweller standards, and set with furniture that in times of sanity he would
not have given his servants, gained in significance what it never had in grace
by virtue of its occupants: the most powerful people in what remained of the
Panarchy of the Thousand Suns.

His pleasure was too boundless to rein in, so he stood in
the background, watching as they arrived one by one and settled into the plain
Navy-issue chairs, ordered food or drink from Tau Srivashti’s silent liegeman
Felton, who had come early to aid Kestian’s servant in vetting the place for
intrusive devices.

Srivashti and Stulafi
Y’Talob had enjoined everyone to secrecy, to which Kestian had agreed, but
still, unknown to them, Kestian was recording it all in his boswell for
posterity.

Future generations
will remember this day.
Kestian wished he could use his boswell imager, but there was no hiding that.

“We will await
Hesthar,” a husky male voice rose above the rest: Tau Srivashti.

Who was the fool who
had called Srivashti passionless?
Memory goaded Kestian, bringing the old anger
and humiliation, stirred up like black mud in a Downsider stream. He forced it
to settle again. In spite of his twenty-year-old grudge, he had come when
Srivashti snapped his fingers, during the desperate flight from the Dol’jharian
butchers. He had carried that chatzing vid in his cryptobanks because Srivashti
promised a suitable reward, and he had laughed in private when whatever
Srivashti had planned to do with it was effectively scuttled by the Navy’s
making the vid public.

But Srivashti had exhibited no sign of disappointment,
saying only that pettiness was not for those who guide the destinies of
planets.

Since those early
days, Kestian had learned that he had not been the only newly-titled youth whom
Srivashti had romanced and dropped.

Srivashti has a taste for the young
, he’d overheard the
former Aerenarch-Consort saying to someone at a party, while they watched
Srivashti dancing with that little Kendrian heir.
But there’s nothing of the hot-house
for him: his toys are always innocent, handsome, and of course well born, and
as soon as they gain experience, he marries them off into some alliance he’s
arranged to their benefit.

She’d spoken with an amused drawl, but Kestian, sensitive to
a subtle tone he could not even define, had wondered if she, too, had been one
of his toys. Painful as it had been to have his own experience described—and so
baldly!—as a caprice, Kestian had given no sign of remembering those days,
taking his cue from Srivashti.

His gaze was still on Srivashti’s bent head, so he saw the
flicker of those half-shut eyelids: a signal to Felton. Kestian had learned
very early to be wary of Felton, who seemed to enjoy only pain. Very smoothly,
Felton stepped forward and poured more of a curious thick black liqueur into
the Archon of Torigan’s cup.

Stulafi Y’Talob drank deeply, then rubbed his fleshy face
and snorted. “Damned inconvenient.”

Inconvenient? Angered, Kestian thought the insult directed
at his lamentably small quarters, but a few words caught him up: they were
still talking about the Aerenarch’s concert.

“Inconvenient?”
said little Fierin, who was settled quite close to Srivashti. Judging from the
past, she’d enjoyed Srivashti’s capricious benevolence longer than most.
Kestian wondered whether she ought to be considered for Dandenus, once Srivashti
spotted his new chase.
Find out her
holdings first—and if this scandal of hers is really settled.
Someone said the brother is not dead, after
all, but is here on Ares.

Y’Talob had not answered her. His one glance in Fierin’s
direction made clear his scorn for her lack of power or rank.

“Inconvenient?”
The old Archonei of Cincinnatus keened her high, shrill laugh. “I’d say he
threw that Lusor rizz right into your teeth.” Her eyes darted around, reminding
Kestian of a reptile. “Who noised that foolery about again?”

Hands reached for drinks or beckoned for servants to bring
more: everyone remembered Torigan’s little speech after Srivashti’s dinner the
other night.
Our Aerenarch’s tentative
status might take harm,
he’d sneered,
if
people remember that he has no commission because he was thrown out of the
Academy ten years ago—he and Lusor’s adopted son, Markham vlith-L’Ranja.

“NorSothu nyr-Kaddes was babbling on about it in front of a
dozen people,” Hesthar al’Gessinav said from the back of the room, her whispery
voice somehow carrying. “KetzenLach was a favorite of both Lusor and his son,
and the
Memoria Lucis
—played by a
Rifter follower of L’Ranja, no less—at the end made it fairly clear that the
concert was a tribute.”

She entered slowly, taking her place with the self-assurance
of one who knew that even important meetings would await her presence.

And she exulted in the oblique signs of hatred and wariness
cast her way. Knowing very well what she was doing, she stretched out her hands
for a goblet, permitting the edge of her emerald sleeve to fall back enough to
reveal the Mark.

Kestian stared at some kind of complicated tattoo on her
smooth gold-brown skin; he couldn’t make it out exactly, but the indistinct
shape made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

Hesthar’s gaze met Felton’s. She smiled thinly, and her
sleeve slid to her wrist again.

Srivashti stirred, drawing attention his way. “It would
appear that the incident is redounding to Aerenarch Semion’s discredit, and not
to our present Aerenarch’s. You must remember that His Highness is remarkably
adept at expressing himself through the social medium, if I may employ so inept
a term.”

The old Archon of the ice planet Boyar spoke up, a very rare
occurrence: “Evoked the Mandala as well.”

“Which
we may take as a challenge,” Hesthar said.

“What
kind of challenge?” Y’Talob grunted, thrusting a finger toward al’Gessinav.
“Defense of his favorite’s family, or—?”

“A
threat? To us?” Kestian asked.

Heads swung briefly in his direction.

A privacy came promptly from Srivashti:
(Let us endeavor to remain positive. Stulafi
is with us now, but his loyalties are notoriously flexible. And I fear we have
a limited amount of time
.)

Srivashti lifted his hands, once more summoning attention.
“Friends,” he said, “you talk as if we were gathered together to plot something
dire. Far from it: we are here to form a council of advisers for His Highness.
If he wishes to restore the memory of the House of L’Ranja to its former honor,
why should we not help him as much as we are able?”

Fierin made a small, nervous gesture; the more observant in
the group wondered what the Lusor affair had been to her? Ah, the Lusor scandal
had removed the scandal of her parents’ murder by her brother from the public
arena.

Y’Talob smirked at Srivashti, and Vannis—silent and
observant—recollected that the Kendrian scandal had taken place on his own
planet.

“A
more constructive topic would be how, since the machinery of government has
been effectively destroyed, to achieve our transition as smoothly as possible,”
Srivashti suggested.

To which Y’Talob retorted, “We must stay secret until we
have control.”

“Permit
me to disagree.” Srivashti gave Y’Talob a profound bow. “And honor me with your
pardon: remember, we’ve four days.”

“Inertia
might keep any rescue from going out,” Cincinnatus added. “If no one gives the
Navy the command, the deadline passes.”

“But
Grozniy
has been repaired with a
speed that hints at purpose,” Hesthar said. “Please, Tau. Finish your thought.”

Srivashti bowed. “As time is so short, and we do not know
what the Navy might be planning, it is time for us to gain the support of the
Service Families, which means we must emerge into the open.”

It was Y’Talob’s choice, as the challenged one, to demur or
to concede. He bowed from his seat on the couch, a perfunctory rippling of his
massive frame, but it was a concession.

Srivashti did not appear to notice his tight face. “I thank
you, Stulafi, for your forbearance.” Srivashti’s respectful deference was an
exercise in grace; when Y’Talob did not respond, he continued. “His Highness
appears to be taking his expected place in the social hierarchy, and I believe
it ought to be there that our gesture of unity begins. Kestian: it falls to you
to give a few stirring words concerning our goals.”

Kestian bowed, not trusting himself to speech. Srivashti’s
pale eyes caught golden highlights from the twisted dragon wall sconces, and
reflected the tawny shades of the intricate embroidery on his long wine-colored
tunic.

Vannis took in Srivashti’s smiling countenance. Triumph?
What is he not telling us?

“We’ll have to neutralize the Masauds.” Cincinnatus sighed.
“They’ve all gone insane over that gesture with the diamond.”

“It was a splendid gesture.” Vannis smiled at them all. “We
know that the Masauds are notoriously heart-driven.”

Hesthar’s thin lips vanished in a tight line at the mention
of Masaud.

Srivashti looked amused. “Exactly. You are both correct,
Vannis, Cassir.”

“The Masaud masquerade,” the Archonei said. “It must be
there.”

“Yes. So.” Y’Talob lifted a hand and closed it into a fist,
his rings sparkling. “As hosts, they’re immobilized. Now, how do we neutralize
the Navy?”

“They exist to serve,” Srivashti said, his voice gentle. “We
have no need: when the time comes, our united voices will give them the
directive that the Panarch’s regrettably absent leadership cannot. But they
must be distracted long enough to prevent preemptive action, should any desire
such.”

“You may leave that to me.” Hesthar gave Srivashti a slow
nod. “An intimate gathering for Nyberg and his staff will suffice.”

Srivashti bowed to her. “Then we need have no further
concern in that direction. There are, however, other interests that we must
consider. We will have to be vigilant, but I think we can convince the greater
portion of those sworn to Service to see our way.” Srivashti’s voice remained
bland.

Hrishnamrutis of Boyar spoke once more. “Aerenarch.”

Silence fell, but Hesthar, then Srivashti, then Cincinnatus
moved subtly: Privacies.

Annoyed at being left out, Kestian said, “What about the
Enkainion? Is that what we use to gain his cooperation?”

No one moved or spoke.
It was that stillness that convinced Kestian that the Aerenarch’s Enkainion
mystery had been the subject of the privacies, and he flushed with annoyance at
being left out.

That is not triumph,
Vannis thought. As the captor watches the prisoner, so too does the prisoner
watch the captor, each revealing to the other. Kestian saw what he wanted to
see, but Vannis let the clues accumulate: Srivashti’s shoulders, his fingers,
his wide eyes betrayed suppressed tension, excitement, a mixture of anger and
challenge.

He’s on the hunt.
Doubt curled within Vannis; the secret
had something to do with the Enkainion, and most of these people here seemed to
think that Srivashti held some secret against Brandon. Vannis thought,
If he
had something against Brandon, now would be the time to share it. What if it’s
not about Brandon at all?