"qr1" - читать интересную книгу автора (2001 - Catherine Asaro - The Quantum Rose)

June 27 @ 9:00 pm EST Far Future Fiction Nancy Kress and Sean McMullen. Find out more.

The Quantum Rose: Part One	By Catherine Asaro
"The Quantum Rose: Part One" first appeared in the May 1999 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.

I
Ironbridge
First Scattering Channel
Kamoj Quanta Argali, the governor of Argali Province, shot through the water and broke the surface of the river. She tilted her face up to the sky, a violet expanse punctured by Jul, the sun, a tiny disk of light so brilliant she didn’t dare look near it. Curtains of green and gold light shimmered across the heavens in an aurora borealis visible even in the afternoon.
Her bodyguard Lyode was standing on the bank, surveying the area. Lyode’s true name was a jumble of words from the ancient language Iotaca, what scholars pronounced as light emitting diode. No one knew what it meant, though, so they all called her Lyode.
Unease prickled Kamoj. She treaded water, her hair floating in swirls around her body, wrapping her slender waist and then letting go. Her reflection showed a young woman with black curls framing a heart-shaped face. She had dark eyes, as did most people in Argali, though hers were larger than usual, with long lashes that at the moment sparkled with drops of water.
Nothing seemed out of place. Reeds as red as pod-plums nodded on the bank, and six-legged lizards scuttled through them, glinting blue and green among the stalks. A few hundred paces behind Lyode, the prismatic forest began. Up the river, in the distant north, the peaks of the Rosequartz Mountains floated like clouds in a haze. She drifted around to face the other bank, but saw nothing amiss there either. Tubemoss covered the sloping hills in a turquoise carpet broken by stone outcroppings that gnarled out of the land like the knuckles of a buried giant.
Kamoj exhaled. What she felt wasn’t unease exactly, more a sense of troubled anticipation. The afternoon hummed with life, golden and cool. Surely on this beautiful day she could relax.
Still, as much as she enjoyed swimming here, invigorated by the chill water and air, perhaps it was unwise. She had her position as governor to consider. Kamoj glided to the bank and clambered out, reeds slapping her body.
Her bodyguard glanced at her, then went back to scanning the area. Lyode suddenly stiffened, staring past Kamoj. Then she reached over her shoulder for the ballbow strapped to her back.
Surprised, Kamoj glanced back, across the river. A cluster of greenglass stags had appeared from behind a hill, each with a rider astride its long back. Sunrays splintered against the green scales that covered the stags. Each animal stood firm on its six legs, neither stamping nor pawing the air. With their iridescent antlers spread to either side of their heads, they shimmered in the blue-tinged sunshine.
Their riders were all watching her.
Mortified, Kamoj ran up the slope to where she had left her clothes. Lyode took a palm-sized marble ball out of a bag on her belt and set it in the sling on the targeting tube of her crossbow, which slid inside a accordion cylinder attached to the bow string. Drawing back the string and tube, she sighted on the watchers across the river.
Of course, here in the Argali, Lyode’s presence was more an indication of Kamoj’s rank, and her desire for privacy while she swam, rather than an expectation of danger. And indeed, none of the riders across the river drew his own bow. They looked more intrigued than anything else. One of the younger fellows grinned at Kamoj, his teeth flashing white in the streaming sunshine.
"This is embarrassing," Kamoj muttered. She stopped behind Lyode and picked up her clothes. Drawing her tunic over her head, she added, "Thas-haverlyster."
"What?" Lyode said.
Kamoj pulled down the tunic, covering herself with soft gray cloth. Lyode was still standing in front of her, with her bow poised. Kamoj counted five riders across the river, all of them dressed in copper breeches and blue shirts, with belts edged by feathers from the blue-tailed quetzal.
One man sat a head taller than the rest. He wore a midnight-blue cloak with a hood that hid his face. His stag lifted its front two legs and pawed the air, its bi-hooves glinting like glass, though they were a hardier material, hornlike and durable. The man riding it gave no indication he noticed its restless motions. His cowled head remained turned in Kamoj’s direction.
"That’s Havyrl Lionstar," Kamoj repeated as she pulled on her leggings. "The tall man on the big greenglass."
"How do you know?" Lyode asked. "His face is covered."
"Who else is that big? Besides, those riders are wearing Lionstar colors." Kamoj watched the group set off again, cantering into the folds of the blue-green hills. "Hah! You scared them away."
"With five against one? I doubt it." Dryly, Lyode said, "More likely they left because the show is over."
Kamoj winced. She hoped her uncle didn’t hear of this. As the only incorporated man in Argali, Maxard Argali had governed the province for Kamoj when she was young and was shifting his role to that of advisor now that she had reached her adulthood.
Lionstar’s people were the only ones who might reveal her indiscretion, though, and they rarely came to the village. Lionstar had "rented" the Quartz Palace in the mountains for more than a hundred days now, and in that time no one she knew had seen his face. Why he wanted a ruined palace remained a mystery, given that he refused all visitors. When his emissaries had inquired about it, she and Maxard had been dismayed by the suggestion that they let a stranger take residence in the honored, albeit disintegrating, home of their ancestors.
However, no escape had existed from the "rent" Lionstar’s people put forth. The law was clear: she and Maxard had to best his challenge or bow to his authority. Impoverished Argali could never match such an offer: shovels and awls forged from fine metals, stacks of dried firewood, golden bridle bells, dewhoney and molasses, dried rose-leeks, cobberwheat, tri-grains, and reedflour that poured through your fingers like powdered rubies.
So they yielded–and an incensed Maxard had demanded Lionstar pay a rent of that same worth every fifty days. It was a lien so outrageous, all Argali feared Lionstar would send his soldiers to "renegotiate."
Instead, he paid.
With Lyode at her side, Kamoj entered the forest. Walking among the trees, with tubemoss soft under her bare feet, made her more aware of her precarious position. Why had Lionstar come riding here today? Did their lands now also risk forfeiture to his wealth? She had invested his rent in machinery and tools for farms in Argali. As humiliating as it was to depend on a stranger, it was better than seeing her people starve. But she didn’t think she could bear to lose any more to him, especially not this forest she so loved.
Drapes of moss hung on the trees and shadow-ferns attended their trunks. Far above, the branches formed a canopy that let only stray sunbeams reach the ground. Argali vines hung everywhere, heavy with the blush-pink roses that gave her home its name. Argali. It meant vine rose in Iotaca.
At least, most scholars translated it as rose. One insisted it meant resonance. He also claimed they mispronounced her middle name, Quanta, an Iotaca word with no known translation. The name Kamoj came from the Iotaca word for bound, so if this strange scholar was correct, her name meant Bound Quantum Resonance. She smiled at the absurdity. Rose made more sense, of course.
Not all the "roses" in the forest were flowers, though. Camouflaged among the blossoms, puff lizards swelled out their red sacs. A shaft of sunlight slanted through the forest, admitted by a ruffling breeze, and sparkles glittered where the light hit the scaled lizards, the scale-bark on the trees, and the delicate scale-leaves. Then the ray vanished and the forest returned to its dusky violet shadows.
Suddenly a thornbat whizzed past her, its wings beating furiously. It homed in on a vine and stabbed its needled beak into the red sac of a puff lizard. As the puff deflated with a whoosh of air, the lizard scrambled away to safety, leaving the disgruntled thornbat to whiz on without its prey.
Powdered scales drifted across Kamoj’s arm. She wiped off the shimmering dust, wondering why people had no scales. Most everything else on Balumil, the world, had them. Scaled needles fat with water nestled among the leaves, and roots swollen with moisture churned the soil. The trees grew slowly, storing water and converting it into energy as a bulwark against summer droughts and winter snows. Seasonal plants had other methods of survival. They lived only in spring and autumn, but their big, hard-scaled seeds could lie dormant for long periods, until the climate was to their liking.
If only people were as well adapted to survive. She swallowed, remembering the last winter, when nearly a fourth of Argali had died in its blizzards and brutal ices. Including her parents. Even after so long, that loss haunted her. She had been a small child when she and Maxard, her mother’s brother, became sole heirs to the impoverished remains of a province that had once been proud.
Glancing at Lyode, Kamoj wondered if her bodyguard shared her concern about seeing Lionstar on Argali lands today. A tall woman with lean muscles, Lyode had the brown eyes and black hair common in Argali. Here in the shadows, the vertical slits of her pupils had widened until they almost filled her irises, like black pools. She carried Kamoj’s boots dangling from her belt by their laces.
"Do you know the maize-girls that work in the kitchen?" Kamoj asked.
The older woman glanced at her. "Three children? Tall as your elbow?"
"That’s right." Kamoj smiled. "They told me, in solemn voices, that Havyrl Lionstar came here in a cursed ship that the wind chased across the sky, and that he can never go home again because he’s so loathsome the elements refuse to let him sail again." Her smile faded. "Where does all the superstition come from? Apparently most of Argali believes it. There is some story he’s centuries old, with a metal face so ugly that if you look at it you’ll have nightmares."
"I’m not sure." Lyode paused. "Legends often have their seeds in truth." With a dry smile, she added, "Though with the maize-girls, who knows? The last time I talked to them, they tried to convince me Argali is haunted. They think that’s why all the light panels have gone dark."
Kamoj chuckled. "They told me that one too. They weren’t too specific on who was haunting what, though." Legend claimed the Current had once lit all the houses in the Northern Lands. But that had been centuries past. In fact, in the North Sky Islands the Current had died thousands of years ago. The only reason one light panel still worked in Argali House, Kamoj’s home, was because before Kamoj’s birth, her parents had happened upon a few intact fiberoptic threads in the ruins of the Quartz Palace.
The threads were only one part in the panel, which used many components, all linked by cables and threads that extended into the walls of the house and to the few remaining sun-squares on the roof. No one understood anymore how any of it worked. Lyode’s husband, Opter, had replaced the fiberoptics. Opter didn’t know how the panel worked either, nor could he fix damaged components. But given undamaged parts, he had an uncanny ability to figure out how they fit into gadgets.
"Hai!" Kamoj grimaced as a twig stabbed her foot. Lifting her leg, she saw a gouge between her toes welling with blood.
"A good reason to wear your shoes," Lyode observed.
"Pah," Kamoj muttered. She enjoyed walking barefoot, but it had its drawbacks.
A drumming that had been tugging at her awareness finally intruded enough to make her listen. "Those are greenglass stags."
Lyode tilted her head. "On the road to Argali."
"Come on. Let’s look." Kamoj started to run, then hopped on her good foot and settled for a limping walk. When they reached the road, they hid behind the trees, listening to the riders.
"I’ll bet it’s Lionstar," Kamoj said.
"Too much noise for five riders," Lyode said.
Kamoj grinned. "Then it’s fleeing bandits. We should nab them!"
"And just why," Lyode inquired, "would these nefarious types be fleeing up a road that goes straight to the house of the central authority in this province, hmmm?"
Kamoj laughed. "Stop being so sensible."
Lyode still didn’t look concerned. But she slipped out a ball and readied her bow.
Down the road, the first stags came around a bend. Their riders made a splendid sight. The men wore gold disk mail, ceremonial, too soft for battle, designed to impress. Made from beaten disks, the vests were layered to create an airtight garment. They never attained that goal, of course. Why anyone would want airtight mail was a mystery to Kamoj, but tradition said to do it that way, so that was how they did it.
On rare occasions, a stagman also wore leggings and a hood of mail. Some ancient drawings even showed mail covering the entire body, including gauntlets and knee boots, with ball bearings in the joints to allow for ease of movement, and a transparent cover over the face. Kamoj thought the face cover must be artistic fancy. She saw no reason for it.
Her uncle’s stagmen gleamed today. Under their mail vests, they wore bell-sleeved shirts as gold as suncorn. They also had gold breeches and dark red knee boots fringed by feathers from the green-tailed quetzal. Twists of red and gold ribbon braided their reins, and bridle bells chimed with the pounding motion of their greenglass stags. Sunlight slanted down on the road, drawing sparkles from the dusty air.
Lyode smiled. "Your uncle’s retinue is a handsome sight."
Kamoj didn’t answer. Normally she liked watching Maxard’s honor guard, all the more so because she was fond of the riders, most of whom she had known all her life, just as she was fond of her uncle. Maxard’s good-natured spirit made everyone love him, which was why a wealthy merchant woman from the North Sky Islands was courting him despite his small corporation. However, today Maxard wasn’t with his honor guard. He had sent them to Ironbridge a few days ago, and now they returned with an esteemed guest, someone Kamoj had no desire to see.
The leading stagmen were riding past her hiding place now, the bi-hooves of their mounts whipping up scale dust from the road. She recognized the rider in front. Gallium Sunsmith. A big man with a friendly face, Gallium worked with his brother Opter in a sunshop, engineering gadgets that ran on light, like the mirror-driven peppermill Opter had invented. Gallium also made a good showing for himself each year in the swordplay exhibition at festival. So when Maxard needed an honor guard, Gallium became a stagman.
Down the road, more of the party came into view. These new riders wore black mail, with purple shirts and breeches, and black boots fringed by silver feathers. Jax Ironbridge, the governor of Ironbridge Province, rode in their center. Long-legged and muscular, taller than the other stagmen, he had a handsome face with strong lines, chiseled like granite. Silver streaked his black hair. He sat astride Mistrider, a huge greenglass with a rack of cloud-tipped antlers and scales the color of the opal-mists that drifted in the high northern forests.
Still hidden, Kamoj turned away from the road and leaned against the tree with her arms crossed, staring into the forest while she waited for the riders to pass.
A horn sounded behind her, its call winging through the air. Startled, she spun around. Apparently she wasn’t as well concealed as she had thought; Jax had stopped on the road and was watching her, the curved handle of a flight-horn in his hand.
Kamoj flushed, knowing she had given offense by hiding from him. Her merger with Jax had been planned for most of her life. He had the largest corporation in the northern provinces, which consisted of Argali, the North Sky Islands, and Ironbridge. Argument existed about the translation of the Iotaca word corporation: for lack of a better interpretation, most scholars assumed it meant a man’s dowry, the property and wealth he brought into marriage. A corporation as big as Jax’s became a political tool, invoking the same law of "Better the offer or yield" as had Lionstar’s rent.
Ironbridge, however, had given Argali a choice. Jax made an offer Kamoj could have bettered. It would have meant borrowing every last bit of wealth owned by even the most impoverished Argali farmers, but besting the amount by one stalk of bi-wheat was all it took. Then she could have turned down the offer and repaid the loans. She had been tempted to try. But Argali was her responsibility, and her province desperately needed this merger with flourishing Ironbridge. So she had agreed.
Jax was watching her with an impassive gaze. He offered his hand. "It will be my pleasure to escort you back to Argali house."
"I thank you for you kind offer, Governor Ironbridge," she said. "But you needn’t trouble yourself."
He gave her a cold smile. "I am pleased to see you as well, my love."
Hai! She hadn’t meant to further the insult. Limping forward, she took his hand. He lifted her onto the stag with one arm, a feat of strength few other riders could have managed even with a child, let alone another adult. As he pulled her up, he turned her so she ended up sitting sideways on the greenglass, her hips fitted into the space in front of the first boneridge that curved over its back. Jax sat behind her, astride the stag, between its first and second boneridges.
The smell of his disk mail wafted over her, rich with oil and sweat. As he bent his head to hers, she drew back in reflex, before she could think. Although Jax showed no outward anger, a muscle in his cheek twitched. Taking her chin in his hand, he pulled her head forward and kissed her, pressing in on her jaw until he forced her mouth open for his tongue. When she tensed, he clenched his fist around her upper arm, holding her in place.
A rush of air thrummed past Kamoj, followed by the crack of a bowball hitting a tree and the shimmering sound of falling scales. Pulling away from her, Jax raised his head. Both the Argali and Ironbridge stagmen had drawn their bows and had their weapons trained on Lyode. Kamoj’s bodyguard stood by the road, a second ball knocked in her bow, her weapon aimed at Jax.
All the stagmen looked uncomfortable, poised to return Lyode’s fire, yet holding back. No one wanted to shoot Kamoj’s bodyguard. The Argali stagmen had grown up with her and Gallium was her brother-in-law. The Ironbridge stagmen knew her as guardian of their governor’s betrothed. However, neither could they ignore that she had just sent a bowball hurtling within a few hand spans of the two governors.
In a cold voice only Kamoj could hear, Jax said, "Your hospitality today continues to amaze me." Shifting his attention to Gallium Sunsmith, he spoke in a louder voice. "You. Escort Lyode back to Argali House."
Gallium answered carefully. "It is my honor to serve you, sir. But perhaps Governor Argali would also like to do her best by Ironbridge, by accompanying her bodyguard back."
Kamoj almost swore. She knew Lyode and Gallium meant well, and she valued their loyalty, but she wished they hadn’t interfered. It would only earn them Jax’s anger. She and Jax had to work this out. Although their merger was weighted in favor of Ironbridge, it gave control to neither party. They would share authority, she focused on Argali and he on Ironbridge. It benefited neither province if their governors couldn’t get along.
She spoke to Jax in a gentle voice. "Please accept my apologies, Governor Ironbridge. I will discuss Lyode’s behavior with her on the walk back. We’ll straighten this out."
He reached down for her injured foot, bending her leg at the knee so he could inspect her wound. "Can you walk on this?"
"Yes." The position he was holding her leg in was more uncomfortable than the gouge itself.
"Very well." When he let go, his fingers inadvertently scraped the gash, and she stiffened as pain shot through her foot. She held her silence and slid off the stag, taking care to land on her other foot.
As she limped over to Lyode, bi-hooves scuffed behind her. Turning, she watched the riders thunder up the road to Argali.
* * *
Jul, the sun, had sunk behind the trees by the time Kamoj and Lyode walked around the last bend of the road, into view of Argali House. Legend claimed the house had once been luminescent pearl, all one surface without any seams. According to the temple scholar, who could read bits of the ancient codices, Argali House had been grown in a huge vat of liquid, on a framework of machines called nano-bots, which were supposedly so tiny you couldn’t see them even with a magnifying glass. After the house was complete, one was to believe the machines simply swam away and fell apart.
Kamoj smiled. The old scrolls were full of absurdities. Jax had shown her one in his library that claimed Balumil, the world, went around Jul in an "elliptical orbit" and rotated around a tilted axis. This tilt, and their living here in the north, was purported to explain why nights were short in summer and long in winter, fifty-five hours of darkness on the longest night of the winter, leaving only five hours of sunlight.
One year consisted of four seasons, of course: spring, summer, fall, winter. More formally, they called it the Long Year. A person could be born, reach maturity, wed, and have a family all within one Long Year. For some reason the scroll described this as a long time: hence the name. For an even more inexplicable reason, Kamoj’s ancestors had partitioned the Long Year into twenty equal time periods they called short-years. So each season was five short-years in length. People rarely bothered to say "short-year," though. Instead, they used the word year to refer to the short-year and always used Long Year when they meant the time it took for all four seasons to pass.
Although Kamoj followed the convention, it made no sense to her. Why call it a "short-year." It wasn’t an actual year, after all. The scroll claimed this odd designation came about because a short-year on Balimul was close in length to a "standard" year.
Standard for what?
Still, it was more credible than too-little-to-see machines. Whatever the history of Argali House, it was wood and stone now, both the main building and the newer wings that rambled over the cleared land around it. Huge stacks of firewood stood along one side, stores for the winter. Bird-shaped lamps hung from the eaves, rocking in the breezes, their glass tinted in Argali colors, rose, gold, and green. Their radiance created a dam against the purple shadows that pooled under the trees. Here in the road, a fluted post stood like a sentinel, with a scalloped hook at its top. A lantern, molded and tinted like a rose, hung from the hook, its warm glow beckoning them home.
They walked along the low wall that enclosed the house and entered the courtyard by a gate engraved with vines. Five stone steps ran the length of the house, leading up to a terrace, and five doors were set at even intervals along the front. The center door was larger than the others, stuccoed white and bordered by hieroglyphs painted in luminous blue, as well as the usual Argali colors.
As they neared the house, Kamoj heard voices. By the time they reached the steps, it had resolved into two men arguing.
"That sounds like Ironbridge," Lyode said.
"Maxard too." Kamoj hesitated, her foot on the first step.
Above them, the door slammed open. Maxard stood framed in the archway, a burly man in old farm clothes. His garb startled Kamoj more than his sudden appearance. By now her uncle should have been decked out in ceremonial dress and mail, ready to greet the Ironbridge party. Yet he looked as if he hadn’t even washed up since coming in from the fields.
He spoke in a low voice. "You better get in here."
She hurried up the steps. "What happened?" Had Jax been more offended than she realized?
Maxard didn’t answer, just moved aside to let her into the entrance foyer, a small room paved with tiles glazed white and accented by Argali designs.
Boots clattered in the hall beyond. Then Jax swept into the foyer with five of his stagmen. He paused in mid-stride when he saw Kamoj. Then he went past her, over to Maxard, towering over the younger man.
"We aren’t through with this, Argali," Jax said.
"My decision is made," Maxard answered.
"Then you are a fool." Jax glanced at Kamoj, his face stiff with an emotion she couldn’t identify. Shock? He strode out the door with his stagmen, ignoring Lyode.
Kamoj turned to her uncle. "What’s going on?"
He shook his head, his face impossible to read. Lyode came up the stairs, but when she tried to enter the house, Maxard stretched out his arm, putting his hand against the door frame to block her way. He spoke with uncharacteristic anger. "What blew into your brain, Lyode? Why did you have to shoot at him? Of all days I didn’t need Jax Ironbridge angry, this was it."
"He was mistreating Kamoj," Lyode replied.
"So Gallium Sunsmith says." Maxard frowned at Kamoj. "What were you doing, running around the woods like a wild animal?"
Kamoj stared at him. She always walked in the woods after she finished working in the stables. Maxard often came with her, the two of them discussing various projects for Argali or just enjoying each other’s company.
Quietly she said, "Uncle, what is it? What’s wrong?"
He blew out a gust of air. "Wait for me in the library."
She studied his face, trying to fathom what troubled him. No hints showed. So she nodded, to him and to Lyode. Then she limped into her house.
* * *
The centuries had warped the library door arch beyond simple repair. Kamoj leaned her weight into the door to shove it closed. Inside the library, shelves filled with codices and books covered the walls. The lamp by Maxard’s favorite armchair shed light over a table there. A codex lay on the table, a parchment scroll made from the inner bark of a sunglass tree and painted with gesso, a smooth plaster. Glyphs covered it, delicate symbols inked in Argali colors. Kamoj could decipher none of the writing. But as she took responsibility for Argali, Maxard had more time for his scholarship. He was learning to read.
Behind her the door scraped open, and she turned to see her uncle. With no preamble, he said, "I’ve something to show you."
Puzzled, Kamoj accompanied him to an arched door in the far wall. The storeroom beyond had once held carpentry tools, but those were long gone, sold by her grandparents to purchase grain. Maxard fished a skeleton key out of his pocket and opened the tanglebirch door. Unexpectedly, oil lamps lit the room beyond. Kamoj stared past him–and gasped.
Urns, boxes, chests, gigantic pots, finely wrought buckets: they all crammed the storeroom full to overflowing. Gems filled baskets, heaped like fruits, spilling onto the floor, diamonds that split the light into rainbows, emeralds as brilliant as the eyes of a greenglass, rose-rubies the size of fists, sapphires, topazes, amethysts, cats-eyes, jade, turquoise. She walked forward, and her foot kicked an opal the size of a polestork egg. It rolled across the floor and hit a bar of metal.
Metal. Metal. Bars lay in tumbled piles: gold, silver, copper, bronze. Sheets of rolled platinum sat on cornucopias filled with fruits, flowers, and grains. Glazed pots brimmed with vegetables, and spice racks hung from the wall. Bracelets, anklets, and necklaces were everywhere, wrought from gold and studded with jewels. A chain of diamonds lay on a silver bowl heaped with eider plums. Just as valuable, dried foodstuffs filled cloth bags and woven baskets. Nor had she ever seen so many bolts of rich cloth in one place: glimsilks, brocades, rose-petal satins, gauzy scarves shot through with metallic threads, scale-velvets, plush and sparkling.
And light strings! At first Kamoj thought she mistook the clump thrown on a pile of crystal goblets. But it was real. She went over and picked up the bundle of threads. They sparkled in the lamplight, perfect, no damage at all. This one bundle was enough to repair broken Current threads throughout the village, and it was only one of several in the room.
Turning to Maxard, she spread out her arms, the threads clutched in one fist. "This is–it’s–is this ours?"
He spoke in a cold voice. "Yes. It’s ours."
"But Maxard, why do you look so dour!" A smile broke loose on her face. "This could support Argali for years! How did it happen?"
"You tell me." He came over to her. "Just what did he give you out there today?"
He? She blinked. "Who?"
"Havyrl Lionstar."
Hai! So Maxard had heard. "I didn’t know he was watching."
"Watching what?"
"Me swimming."
"Then what?"
Baffled, she said, "Then nothing."
"Nothing?" Incredulity crackled in his voice. "What did you promise him, Kamoj? What sweet words did you whisper to compromise his honor?"
Kamoj couldn’t imagine any woman having the temerity to try compromising the huge, brooding Lionstar. "What are you talking about?"
"You promised to marry him if he gave you what you wanted, didn’t you?"
"What?"
Anger snapped in his voice. "Isn’t that why he sent this dowry?"
Kamoj stared at him. "That’s crazy."
"He must have liked whatever the two of you did."
"We did nothing. You know I would never jeopardize our alliance with Ironbridge."
Her uncle exhaled, his anger easing into puzzlement. "Then why did he send this dowry? Why does he insist on a merger with you tomorrow?"
Kamoj felt as if she had just stepped into a bizarre skit played out for revelers during a harvest festival. "He what?"
Maxard motioned at the storeroom. "His stagmen brought it today while I was tying up stalks in the tri-grain field. They spoke as if the arrangement were already made."
It suddenly became clear to Kamoj. All too clear. Lionstar didn’t want the ruins of an old palace, or the trees in their forest.
He wanted Argali. All of it.
Strange though his methods were, they made a grim sort of sense. He had already demonstrated superiority in forces: many stagmen served him, over one hundred, far more than Maxard had, more even than Ironbridge. With his damnable "rent" he had taken the first step in establishing his wealth. He even laid symbolic claim to her province by living in the Quartz Palace, the ancestral Argali home. Any way they looked at it, he had set himself up as an authority to reckon with. Today he added the final, albeit unexpected, ingredient–a merger bid so far beyond the pale that the combined resources of all the Northern Lands could never best it.
"Gods," Kamoj said. "No wonder Jax is angry." She set down the light threads. "There must be some way I can refuse this."
"I’ve already asked the temple scholar," Maxard said. "And I’ve looked through the old codices myself. We’ve found nothing. You know the law. Better the offer or yield."
She frowned. "I’m not going to marry that insane person."
"Then he will be fully within his rights to take Argali by force. That was how it was done, Kamoj, in the time of the sky ships. Do you want a war with Lionstar?" Dryly he added, "I’m not sure my stagmen even know how to fight a war."
"There must be some way out."
He spoke carefully. "The merger could do well for Argali."
She stiffened. "You want me to go through with it?"
He spread his hands. "And what of survival, Governor?"
So. Maxard finally spoke aloud what they obliquely dealt with in every discussion about the province. Drought, famine, killing seasons, high infant mortality, failing machines no one understood, lost medical knowledge, and overused fields: it all added up to one inescapable fact, the long slow dying of Argali.
With the Ironbridge merger, their survival might still be a struggle, but their chances improved. At worst, Jax would annex her province, making it part of Ironbridge. She intended to do her best to keep Argali, and continue as its governor, but if she did lose it to Ironbridge, at least her people would have the protection and support of the strongest province on this continent. Although Jax didn’t inspire love among his people, he was an intelligent governor who earned loyalty and respect.
And Lionstar? He might have wealth, but that didn’t mean he was a good leader. For all she knew he would drive Argali into ruin, famine, and death.
"Hai, Maxard." She exhaled. "I need time to consider this."
He touched her arm. "Go on upstairs. I’ll send a maize-girl up to tend you."
"Lyode always tends to me."
"I need her elsewhere tonight."
She scowled. "You? Or Jax?" When he didn’t answer, she swore. "I won’t have my people flogged." She spun around to the door. "If you won’t tell him, I will."
Maxard grabbed her arm, stopping her. Then he held up his other hand, a tiny space between his thumb and index finger. "Ironbridge is this close to declaring a rite of battle against us. I’ve barely thirty stagmen, Kamoj. He has over eighty, all of them better trained." He dropped his arms. "It would be a massacre. And you know Lyode. She would insist on fighting with them. Will you save Lyode and Gallium from a few lashes so they can die in battle?"
Kamoj swallowed. "Don’t say that."
His voice quieted. "With the mood Ironbridge is in now, seeing you will only enrage him. He can’t touch you, not yet, so Gallium and Lyode are the ones he will take his rage out on."
Kamoj gritted her teeth. Knowing Maxard was right made it no easier. She wondered, too, if her uncle realized what else he had just said. Not yet. Softly she asked, "And after the merger, when the rages take Ironbridge? Who will pay the price of his anger then?"
Maxard watched her with a strained expression, one that reminded her of the wrenching day he had come to tell her the bodies of her parents had been found, frozen beneath masses of ice in a late winter storm. She had never forgotten it.
He spoke now in the same aching voice. "Does it occur to you that you might be better off with Lionstar?"
She rubbed her arms as if she were cold. "What have I seen from Lionstar to make me think such a thing?"
"Hai, Kami." He started to reach for her, to offer comfort, but she shook her head. She loved him for his concern, but she feared to accept it, lest taking shelter from the pain would make it harder to face her responsibilities when that shelter was gone.
Maxard had caught her off guard with his insight into her relationship with Jax. Her uncle had always claimed he delayed her merger to give her experience at governing, lest Ironbridge be tempted to take advantage of a child bride. Now she wondered if it might have also been because Maxard had a better idea than he let on about the difficult life she faced with Jax. As an adult she had more emotional resources to deal with it.
But Maxard hadn’t guessed the whole of it. Kamoj knew from her own experiences what would happen to Lyode and Gallium. The only difference was that in this case Jax would have one of his stagmen mete out the punishment rather than taking care of it himself, in private, with only Kamoj as witness–and recipient. She had never spoken of such incidents to Maxard, knowing that if he found out, he would have broken the betrothal no matter what price Argali paid. Kamoj couldn’t let that happen. She would never set her personal situation over the survival of her people.
"Can you talk to Jax?" she asked. "Mollify him? Maybe you can keep him from hurting them."
"I will do what I can." He watched her with concern. "This will work out."
"Yes. It will." She wished she believed it.
After she left her uncle, she walked through the house, down halls paneled in tanglebirch, then up a staircase that swept to a balcony on the second floor. At the top of the stairs she looked out over the foyer below. The entrance to the living room arched in the right-hand wall, enough of the room visible so she could see a chandelier hanging from the ceiling like an inverted rose, flickering with candles. It reflected in the table beneath it, drawing gleams of green and blue from the polished tanglebirch.
Behind the table, a light panel glowed in the wall, the last working one in all the Northern Lands. When it failed, a thousand new light threads would do them no good. Even Opter Sunsmith couldn’t fix a broken panel. The knowledge had been lost long ago, even from the Sunsmith line.
Kamoj turned and walked along the balcony to her room. She opened the door into a chamber warm with candlelight. It glowed on the parquetry floors, worn furniture, and her old doll collection on the table, her one concession to sentimentality. Her bed stood in one corner, each of its four posts a totem of rose blossoms and fruits, ending at the top with a closed bud.
A voice spoke behind her. "Ev’ning, ma’am."
She turned to see Ixima Ironbridge, a young woman with a smudge of flour on one cheek. Jax had sent the maize-girl to Argali last year, so Kamoj could get to know her. That way, when Kamoj went to Ironbridge she would bring a familiar face with her, someone who already knew the province. The thoughtful gesture had both touched and confused Kamoj. How could Jax be so considerate one moment and so harsh the next?
Ixima spoke in her heavy Ironbridge dialect. "Shall I be a’helpin’ you change, ma’am?"
"Thank you." Kamoj sat on her bed. As Ixima knelt to take off her boot, Kamoj said, "Can you treat cuts?"
"I donnee know." Ixima slid off the boot and peeled away the sock. Kamoj winced as the cloth ripped away from her toes. Her foot must have bled during her walk and then dried her sock to her skin. Lifting her foot, she saw dirt ground into the gash.
"I should soak it in hot water," Kamoj said.
"I donnee see how a’rubbin’ it would help," Ixima said. "You rest, hai, ma’am? Tomorrow it be feeling better enough to scrub."
Kamoj knew she should treat the cut now. But she was tired and had much to consider. Besides, she always healed well. Tomorrow she would tend to it.
After Kamoj was settled in bed, the maize girl darkened the room and left, leaving one candle flickering on the window sill. Kamoj lay on her back, her hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling. If she refused the Lionstar merger, it would placate Jax but break the law. If Argali and Ironbridge combined forces, they would have an army almost equal to that of Lionstar. But if Lionstar attacked, Kamoj would have to send people she loved into a rite of battle, including Maxard and Gallium. A good chance existed they wouldn’t come home.
She knew what she had to do. As she made her decision, she felt a sense of lightening. She had no way to guess what Lionstar intended, but no matter what happened, never again would Jax raise his hand or quirt to her. Never again would he use the lives and well-being of her people as a weapon against her.
It was a bitter victory, given what she had seen of Lionstar, but it was all she had.
II
Lionstar
Second Scattering Channel
Kamoj squinted at the mirror while the threadwoman fussed over her. She heartily disliked formal clothes. Leggings and a farm tunic were more comfortable. But today was her wedding and at one’s wedding one wore a wedding dress.
This dress had the weight of tradition behind it, not to mention the weight of impractical amounts of cloth. Her mother and grandmother had also worn it. Dyed the blush color of an Argali rose, it fit snug around her torso and fell to the floor in drapes of rose-scale satin. Hand-made lace bordered the neckline and sleeves, and her hair fell in glossy black curls to her waist. The Argali Jewels glittered at her throat, wrists, and ankles, gold circlets designed like vines and inset with ruby roses. She hadn’t expected ever to wear them. She had been on the verge of selling them, in fact, to buy grain threshers.
With tugs and taps, the aged threadwoman tightened the dress at the waist and tried to make it stretch to fit Kamoj’s breasts. She cackled at her reluctant model, her eyes almost lost in their nest of lines. "You’ve no boy’s shape, Gov’ner. You be making Lionstar a happy man, I reckon."
Kamoj glowered at her, but the seamstress was saved from her retort by a knock on the door. Kamoj limped across the room in her unfamiliar shoes, heeled slippers sheathed in rose scale-leather. She opened the door to see Lyode.
Her bodyguard beamed. "Hai, Kamoj! You look lovely."
"It’s for my wedding," Kamoj said.
Lyode’s smile faded. "Maxard told me."
Kamoj dismissed the seamstress, then drew Lyode over to sit with her on the couch. The older woman started to lean against the back of the sofa, but jerked when her shoulders touched the cushions and sat forward again.
Watching her, Kamoj said, "You’ve huge bags under your eyes."
"I had–a little trouble sleeping last night."
Kamoj wasn’t fooled. But Maxard must have mollified Jax to some extent; otherwise Lyode wouldn’t have been able to move at all.
"How is Gallium?" she asked.
Gently Lyode said, "He’s all right, Kami. We both are."
Kamoj crumpled her skirt in her fists. "I hate all this."
"Hate is a strong word. Give Lionstar a chance."
"Lyode–"
"Yes?"
"About tonight . . ." Although in theory Kamoj knew what happened on a wedding night, it was only as vague concepts. But she felt awkward asking advice on such matters even from Lyode.
"Don’t look so dour." Lyode’s face relaxed into the affectionate grin she took on at the mention of her own husband, Opter. "Weddings are good things."
Kamoj snorted. "You look like a besotted fruitwing." When her bodyguard laughed, Kamoj couldn’t help but smile. "How will I know what to do?"
"Trust your instincts."
"My instincts tell me to run the other way."
Lyode touched her arm. "Don’t judge Lionstar yet. Wait and see."
* * *
At sunset the Argali coach rolled into the courtyard, pulled by four greenglass stags and driven by a stagman. Shaped and tinted like a rose, it sat in a chassis of emerald-green leaves. Unlike Argali House, which had only legends attesting to its construction, the coach was inarguably one surface with no seams, glimmering like pearl. Its making was so long in the past, no one remembered how it had been done.
Watching from her bedroom window, Kamoj heard the door behind her open. She turned to see Lyode framed in the archway, the bodyguard dressed in her finest shirt and trousers, with her bow on her back.
"It’s time to go," Lyode said.
Kamoj crossed the room without a limp. She felt nothing in her foot now: it had gone numb. She had soaked and cleaned the wound this morning, but it remained swollen. Normally she would have paid more attention, but she had too much else to think of now.
Maxard was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She smiled to see him. Today no lack of splendor would shame Argali. Her uncle’s mail vest gleamed, a gold contrast to his black hair and eyes. He wore a suncorn shirt, wine-red suede breeches, and a belt made from green, gold, and red quetzal feathers. Green feathers lined the tops of his gold knee-boots, and a ceremonial sword hung at his side, its scabbard tooled with Argali designs.
As Kamoj descended the stairs, her uncle watched with a smile that showed both pride and sorrow. When she reached him, he said, "You look like a dream." His voice caught. "Just yesterday you were a child. When did all this happen?"
"Hai, Maxard." She hugged him. "I don’t know." It was true. She had been a child; now she was an adult. Nothing separated the two. It gave her an inexplicable sense of loss. Why? Why should she want more time as a child?
She knew the stories, of course, of the rare child who took longer to reach adulthood. Rumor claimed Jax Ironbridge’s youth had stretched out far longer than normal. At her age he had still been an adolescent, tall and gangly, with only the first signs of his beard. He continued to grow long past the age when most youths reached maturity. He came into full adulthood well after most men his age–and by that time he was taller, stronger, and smarter than everyone else.
With Maxard and Lyode on either side, Kamoj left the house. A group of her friends had gathered in the courtyard, young women with rose vines braided into their black hair. They waved and smiled, and Kamoj waved back, trying to appear in good spirits.
Gathered around the coach, ten stagmen sat astride their mounts, including Gallium Sunsmith. A smudgebug flittered into the face of one stag and the animal pranced to the side, crowding Gallium’s greenglass. As the rider of the first animal pulled back his mount, his elbow accidentally bumped Gallium’s back. Kamoj saw the grimace of pain Gallium tried to hide, just as Lyode had done when she sat back on the couch.
Kamoj’s smile faded, lost to dismal thoughts of Jax. As she passed Gallium, she looked up and spoke softly. "My gratitude, Goodman Sunsmith. For everything."
He nodded, his face gentling. Lyode opened the coach door, and Maxard entered first, followed by Kamoj. Lyode came last and closed the door, shutting them into the heart of a rose. The driver blew on his flight horn, and its call rang through the evening air. Then they started off, bumping down the road.
The three of them sat in silence, at a loss for words. The coach rolled slowly, so the people walking could keep up with it. Even so, it seemed to Kamoj almost no time passed at all before it came to a stop.
The door swung open, framing Gallium in its opening. Beyond him in the gathering dusk, the golden face of the Spectral Temple basked in rays of the setting sun. Kamoj’s retinue of stagmen and friends, and now many other villagers too, stood waiting in the muddy plaza before it.
Lyode left the coach first. Kamoj gathered up her skirts and followed, but in the doorway she froze. Across the mud and cobblestones, a larger coach was rolling into view. Made from bronze and black metal, it had the shape of a roaring skylion’s head with wind whipping back its feathered mane. Every burnished detail gleamed. The eyes were emeralds as large as fists. Kamoj wondered where Lionstar found such big gems. Argali’s jewel-master had checked and double-checked the ones in his dowry. They were real. Flawless and real.
As soon as the coach stopped, its door opened. Two stagmen came out, decked out in copper and dark blue, with cobalt diskmail that glittered in the sun’s slanting rays. Sapphires lined the tops of their boots.
Then a cowled man stepped down into the plaza.
Kamoj shuddered. Lionstar towered over everyone else, easily the largest man in the courtyard. As always, he wore a blue cloak with a cowl pulled up over his head. Only black showed inside that shadowed hood; either he had a cloth over his face–or he had no face.
Maxard took her arm. "We should go."
His touch startled her into motion. She descended from the coach, onto a flagstone that glinted with mica even in the purple shadows. Her heels clicked as she crossed the courtyard, stepping from stone to stone to avoid the mud.
The Spectral Temple, also called the Special Functions House, was a terraced pyramid with a staircase climbing its left side. Rays from the setting sun hit the stairs at just the right angle to make a snake of light curve down them to the statue of a starlizard’s head at the bottom, creating a serpent of radiance and stone.
On the front face of the temple, a huge starlizard’s head opened its mouth in a roar, forming an entrance. Its front four legs stretched out on the ground, its back legs were braced against the slanting wall, and its tail coiled around the base of the pyramid. As Kamoj watched, a sunray hit the lizard’s crystal eyes and arcs of light appeared on either side of its head, an effect created by the temple’s ancient architect to mimic the Perihelia spirits, sometimes called Sun Lizards or Jul Lizards, that guarded the temple.
True sun lizards appeared in the sky as partial halos of light on either side of the sun, like pale rainbows, with a long serpent’s tail of white light extending out from them. Their favored time was near dusk, as the bright, tiny Jul descended to the horizon, scantily dressed in wispy clouds, while the sky overhead darkened to a deep, deep violet. During winter, when ice crystals filled the air, Perihelia and Halo spirits graced the heavens in arcs and rings, and even appeared around the head of a favored person’s shadow when it lay across a dew-covered expanse of tubemoss at dawn.
Lionstar’s group reached the Jul Lizard first. He stopped under the overhang of its fanged mouth and waited, his cowled head turned toward Kamoj. She came up with her retinue and they stopped. After they had all stood that way for several moments, she flushed, wondering what Lionstar wanted. Didn’t he know he should go in first?
One of Lionstar’s stagmen spoke to him in a low voice. He nodded, then turned and entered the temple with his retinue. Relieved, Kamoj followed with her own people. No one spoke. She wondered if Lionstar could even talk. No one she knew had ever heard him do it.
Inside, sunset light trickled through slits high in the walls. Stone benches filled the interior, except for a dais at the far end, where a polished stone table stood. Decorating the table were carvings of Argali vine designs, those motifs known as Bessel integrals in ancient Iotaca. Genuine rose vines and ferns heaped the table, filling the air with fragrance, fresh and clean.
Around the walls, more garlands hung from statues of several Current spirits–the Airy Rainbows, the Glories, and the Nimbi. In the wall slits above the statues, light slanted through faceted windows with water misted between the double panes, creating spectral arcs of color. Music graced the air, from breezes blowing through fluted chambers on the ceiling, hidden within bas relief depictions of the Spherical Harmonic wraiths. Today it all seemed unreal.
As the retinues and villagers sat on the benches, Kamoj walked to the far end of the temple with Maxard at her side and Lionstar preceding them. The priestess, Airysphere Prism, waited by the flower-bedecked table. Taller than average, Airys had dark eyes and glossy black hair that fell to her waist.
When Lionstar reached Airys, he turned to watch Kamoj. At least she assumed he was watching. His cowl hid his face. Even when she reached him, she saw only darkness within that hood, perhaps a glint of metal.
Maxard bowed to him. "Argali welcomes you, Governor Lionstar."
Lionstar nodded. After an awkward silence, Maxard flushed, though whether from anger or shame at the implied insult in that silence, Kamoj didn’t know.
Finally her uncle took her hands. "May the Current always flow for you, Kami."
She squeezed his fingers. "And you, dear Uncle."
Maxard swallowed. Then he let her go and left the dais, going to sit on the front bench with Lyode.
"It is done?" Lionstar asked.
Kamoj almost jumped. His voice was deep and resonant, with a heavy accent. On the word "is," it vibrated like a stringed instrument.
Airys blinked, the vertical slits of her pupils opening wide in the shadowed temple. With her large eyes and delicate features she looked almost ethereal herself. "Do you refer to the ceremony?" she asked.
"Yes," Lionstar said.
"It hasn’t begun." She took a scroll from the table and unrolled it. Glyphs covered the parchment in starlight blue ink and Argali colors. She offered it to Lionstar, and he took it with black-gloved hands.
"Governor Argali," Airys said. "Give me your hand."
After Kamoj extended her arm, Airys took it and said, "In the name of Spectra Luminous I give this man to you." She turned. "Havyrl Lionstar, give me your hand." When he complied, Airys took a vine from the altar and tied his and Kamoj’s wrists together, bedecking them in roses and scale-leaves. Looking up at Lionstar, she said, "You may read the contract now."
Kamoj waited for him to decline. No one ever actually read the contract. Only scholars knew how to read, after all, and only the most gifted knew ancient Iotaca. Most people considered the scroll a fertility prayer. Kamoj had her doubts; Airys had managed to translate a few parts of it for her, and to Kamoj it sounded more like a legal document than a poem. She supposed lovers preferred to see matters in terms of moons and fertility, though.
In any case, the groom always returned the scroll. Then the wedding couple spoke a blessing they had composed themselves. Kamoj hadn’t written anything and she doubted Lionstar had either, so they would simply go on with the ceremony.
Except they didn’t. Lionstar read the scroll.
As his voice rumbled, indrawn breaths came from their audience. Kamoj doubted anyone in Argali had ever heard the blessing spoken at a merger, let alone with such power. Lionstar had a deep voice, with an unfamiliar accent and the burr of a vibrato. It also sounded slurred.
When he finished, the only sounds in the temple were the faint calls of evening birds outside.
Finally he said, "This ceremony, is it done?"
Airys managed to recover. "The vows are finished, if that is what you mean."
He gave her the scroll. Then he untied the vine joining his and Kamoj’s wrists and draped it around Kamoj’s neck so the roses spilled over her breasts. She stiffened, jarred by the break with tradition; they weren’t supposed to undo the vine until they consummated the marriage. Before she had a chance to speak, he took her elbow, turned her around, and headed for the entrance, bringing her with him.
Murmurs came from the watchers, a rustle of clothes, the clink of diskmail. Belatedly Kamoj realized he had misunderstood: he thought the ceremony was over when it had hardly begun. But the rest was only ritual. The vows were said. Argali and Lionstar had their corporate merger.
They came out into a purple evening. It happened so fast Kamoj barely had time to catch her breath before they reached Lionstar’s coach. Lionstar stopped, looking at something over her head, and she turned to see Maxard coming up to them, flanked by Lyode and Gallium.
Lionstar spoke to her uncle. "Good night, sir."
Kamoj wondered what he meant. Was "good night" a greeting or a farewell?
Maxard bowed to him. Lionstar nodded, then motioned to his men. As he raised his arm, his cloak parted and revealed his diskmail, a sapphire flash of blue. What metal he did use, to create such a dramatic color? One of his stagmen opened the coach door, and Lionstar put his hand on Kamoj’s arm, with the obvious intent of passing her into the coach.
It was happening too fast. Kamoj balked, turning from Lionstar, and went over to Lyode. As she and Kamoj embraced, Lyode murmured, "You’re like a daughter to me. You remember that. I will always love you." Her words had the sound of tears.
Kamoj’s voice caught, muffled against her shoulder. "And I you."
Stepping back, Kamoj turned to Maxard. But before she had a chance to bid him farewell, Lionstar took her elbow and drew her toward the coach. She almost pulled away again, but hesitated. Antagonizing the man who had just taken over Argali would be a poor start to their merger. She gave Maxard a farewell glance and he nodded, his and her eyes both wet with unshed tears.
Then Lionstar passed her to one of his stagmen, who handed her up into the roaring lion. Its interior was somber, panelled in black moonglass wood and upholstered in dark leather. A window showed in the wall by her seat. Turning to watch Lionstar enter, she saw another window in the door behind him. Yet from outside, no windows had shown at all.
As a stagman closed the door, Lionstar sat next to her, his long legs filling the car. His cloak fell open, revealing ceremonial dress much like Maxard’s, except in darker colors. The coach rolled forward, and Kamoj looked out the window, to catch a final glimpse of her home. But the "glass" was fading into a blank expanse of wood. Alarmed, she turned to look out Lionstar’s window, only to find it had gone away as well.
With such a dark interior and no lamps, it should have been pitch black in the coach. But light still filled it. She bit her lip, wondering where the luminance came from.
"Here." Lionstar tapped the ceiling. His voice had a blurred quality to it.
Puzzled, she looked up. A glowing white strip bordered the roof of the coach. It resembled a light panel, but made as thin as a finger and flexible enough to bend.
"That’s what you were looking for, wasn’t it?" he said. "The light?"
How had he known? "Yes."
He nodded, then reached into his cloak and brought out a bottle. Shaped like a curved square, it was made from dark blue glass with a gold top. He unscrewed the top, lifted the bottle into his cowl, and tilted back his head. After a moment he lowered the bottle and wiped his hand across whatever he had for a face. Then he returned the bottle to his cloak.
Kamoj blinked, catching a whiff of rum. Then Lionstar turned and slid his arms around her. With one black-gloved hand, he rubbed the lace on her sleeve, rolling it between his fingers. Then he folded his hand around her breast, under the vine of roses, and pressed his lips against the top of her head while he caressed her.
Embarrassed and flustered, Kamoj sat utterly still. But his hand soon stopped moving. In fact, after a few moments, it slipped off her breast and fell into her lap. His whole body was leaning on her now, making it hard to sit up straight. She squinted up at him, wondering what to do. While she pondered, he gave a snore.
Her new husband, it seemed, had gone to sleep.
She gave him a nudge. When he made no objection, she pushed him into an upright position. He lay his head back against the seat, his mail-covered chest rising and falling in a deep, even rhythm. Just as she started to feel grateful for this unexpected reprieve to absorb her situation, he tried to lie down again. The coach didn’t have enough room for his legs, so he stretched out on the seat with his feet on the ground and his head in her lap. Then he went back to snoring.
Kamoj scratched her chin. Of all the possible scenarios she had imagined for their ride to the palace, this wasn’t one of them. She stared at his cowled head in her lap, the hood lying across his face. Was he truly as hideous as everyone claimed?
For a while she resisted her curiosity. The longer he slept, though, the more the thought nagged at her. How would he even know if she looked?
Finally she could take it no more. She tugged on his cowl. When he made no protest and showed no sign of waking, she pulled more. Still no response from Lionstar. Emboldened, she brushed the hood back from his head–and nearly screamed.
He had no face.
No eyes, no nose, no mouth. Just metal. His head was man-shaped, with the contours of a face, but instead of skin and human features, he had only silver scales.
"Hai," she whispered. She drew in a shakey breath. So. Now she knew.
As her pulse calmed, she took in more of his appearance. He had human hair. No, not human. It too had a metallic cast. Thick glossy curls spilled to his shoulders, a mixture of gold, bronze, and copper, with silver at the temples. It was glorious. She had never seen those colors, though. Some farmers in Ironbridge had yellow hair, but nothing like this multi-hued mane.
In fact, it fit his name almost too well. A remarkable coincidence, that someone named Lionstar happened to have such a leonine mane, like the skylions of the upper mountains, with their six-legged scaled bodies and feathered manes. Then again, maybe his ancestors adopted the name because such hair ran in his line. People had done stranger. She was named for a plant, after all, and the Current only knew what Quanta meant.
Kamoj brushed a finger over his curls. He kept on sleeping. At least she thought he was sleeping. How did one tell when a person had no eyes? In any case, he gave no evidence he disliked her touch. She slid her hand deeper into his curls. Hai. They felt as good as they looked.
As she stroked his hair, her fingertips scraped his face. The metal felt smooth under her skin. She ran her finger down to his jaw and pushed the scales.
His face slipped.
Kamoj jerked away her hand. When he still showed no sign of waking, she leaned over and peered at the metal. It had indeed moved. She pushed it again–and it crumpled, uncovering a stretch of skin.
A mask. He was wearing a mask. She almost laughed in her relief. She hadn’t married a man with no face after all.
Sliding her finger along the mask, she peeled it away from his head. It came off like a flexible skin, revealing a face that was unusual, but human. He was nowhere near as old as rumor claimed, only about forty, perhaps a bit more. His features were handsome, with high cheekbones and a straight nose. His lashes lay long against his cheeks, in a lush gold fringe, real metal, soft enough so they probably didn’t irritate his eyes, but still unlike human hair. His skin had a gold tinge. When she touched his face, though, the skin felt warm. Human. His lips were full. Sensual. She ran her finger along the lower one and it yielded under her touch.
His breathing sounded strained, and dark circles of fatigue showed under his eyes. She also smelled the rum more. The mask had helped hide the odor on his breath before, but now it filled the coach, mixing with the scent of the scale dust.
As his breathing grew more labored, Kamoj became alarmed. She spread the mask back over his face, but no matter how she placed it against his skin, she couldn’t get it to stay.
Suddenly he moved, rolling onto his back to look up at her. He croaked words in a language she didn’t understand and clawed at the mask. Dismayed, she pushed it into his hand. Before he could put it on, his entire body went rigid and he began to choke, his fingers clenched around the crumpled metal skin.
A siren pierced the air, coming from nowhere Kamoj could see. Frantic now, she pried the mask out of his fist and pressed it against his face again. Still it wouldn’t stay.
The coach lurched to a stop so fast it threw both she and Lionstar onto the floor. The door slammed open and two stagmen jumped inside. One pulled Kamoj back out of the way while the other knelt by Lionstar. The second stagman had another mask in his hand, this one firmer, and translucent, with a tube connected to a metal cylinder. He set the mask over Lionstar’s face and a hissing noise filled the coach.
Kamoj tried to pull away from the stagman holding her, but he wouldn’t let go. She looked up and saw him staring at the mask she held. Then he called her a name, one she had never thought anyone would say to her. A stagmen behind them opened his mouth to chastise the man who insulted her. Then he saw the mask she held and whatever he had meant to say died on his lips.
A groan came from the floor. Turning back, she saw Lionstar breathing from the new mask. The stagman gripping her arm relaxed, though not enough to let her pull away.
Lionstar sat up, holding the mask in place. When his man tried to offer assistance, the governor shook his head. So the stagman withdrew, stepping out of the coach. Lionstar stood up, one hand braced against the wall, bending his head so it didn’t hit the roof.
He moved his mask aside and spoke to the man holding Kamoj. "Let her go, Azander."
"Sir, she took your breathing skin off," Azander said.
Lionstar waved the mask. "Curiosity’s nay murder. Go’n. Drive us home."
"Yes, sir." As Azander backed out of the coach, he gave Kamoj a hard look. She recognized the warning. If she hurt Lionstar, Azander would see that she paid for it.
Within moments they were rumbling along the road again. Seated next to Kamoj, Lionstar leaned back and closed his eyes, holding the new mask over his face, with the metal cylinder at his side. She wondered if he really believed she had taken off his other mask out of curiosity, or if he suspected what Azander almost said, that his new bride had tried to murder him.
Sitting up again, Lionstar took out his bottle and fumbled with it, trying to open it one-handed. Finally he dropped the mask in his lap and used both hands to open the bottle. He drank deeply from it, his throat working as he swallowed.
When he finished, he handed Kamoj the empty bottle. "Put top back’n." Then he put his mask over his face again, holding it with one hand.
Kamoj replaced the top, wondering if he always drank this much. Maybe that was why he didn’t care that he lived in the ruins of a palace.
The new mask covered only his mouth and nose, giving her a view of his eyes. They were large, and a remarkable color, dark violet. Red and violet, actually; they would have been beautiful if they hadn’t been so bloodshot. Even stranger, though, were the pupils. Rather than vertical slits, his were round. Although odd, the effect wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it had a sense of "rightness" that puzzled Kamoj, an inexplicable familiarity.
Right now those unusual eyes were watching her. Lionstar pulled aside his mask. "Why’d do it?"
She knew what he meant. "I wondered what you looked like."
"You could have just asked."
"I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would hurt you."
He nodded. Then he lay his head back and closed his eyes. After a moment the mask fell out of his hand and into his lap.
"Governor Lionstar." Kamoj shook his shoulder. "Your breathing skin." When he opened his eyes, blinking at her, she gave him the silver mask. He tried pressing it into place, with no more success than she had managed earlier. He squinted at it, then flipped the metal skin over and tried again. This time it stayed in place, leaving his face a smooth sheen of silver, with black ovals for eyes.
"’S better," he mumbled. He laid his head back and the ovals closed, taking away that last vestige of humanity.
III
Pacal
Scattering Kernel
They rode for an hour, Lionstar sleeping while Kamoj sat in bored silence. Finally the coach rolled to a stop. Azander opened the door and took in the scene, Lionstar dozing, Kamoj holding the empty bottle. The stagman didn’t look surprised.
Leaning inside the coach, Azander shook Lionstar’s shoulder. "Prince Havyrl. We be home."
Kamoj blinked at the archaic title. Prince? Of what?
Lionstar’s eyes opened, black on silver. "What?"
"Home," Azander repeated. "You and your bride."
"Bride?"
"Yes, sir. Your bride."
"What bride?"
Azander tilted his head toward Kamoj. "The Governor of Argali."
"Oh. Yes. Of course." Lionstar sat up, rubbing his hand through his hair. "See to the stags."
"Yes, sir." Azander backed out of the coach.
Lionstar followed him out into the night, which was lit by a faint radiance. As Kamoj stepped down from the coach, he offered his hand. Taking it, she thought she felt callouses under his glove. That made no sense, though. A man of his power would hardly have the callouses of a farmer.
Then she turned around–and froze in astonishment.
They were in the courtyard of the Quartz Palace. Gone were the crumbled ruins covered by tangled vines, briars, and roses. Now the rose-quartz palace gleamed, restored to its full beauty and more. Long and narrow, with a terrace that stretched its length, it had nine evenly spaced entrances. A tower reached up at each end, topped by red turrets. Bird-shaped lamps hung in the windows and from the eaves, making the walls glow. Above it all, the aurora borealis shimmered in the sky, curtains of gold and pink luminance undulating across the heavens.
"Sweet Airys," Kamoj whispered. "It’s lovely."
"S’pretty," Lionstar agreed.
He took her elbow and led her toward the steps that went up to the terrace. The double doors in the center swung open and more radiance spilled into the night, backlighting three people. She recognized two as villagers from Argali, a man and woman, each of normal height, both dressed in servant’s clothes.
The third person came out to meet them. Tall and gaunt, with a craggy face and short graying hair, the woman was like no one Kamoj had ever before seen. She wore a form-fitting gray suit made in one piece, with gray knee-boots. A patch on her shoulder showed an exploding star within a triangle.
She met them half-way down the steps. Lionstar nodded to her, and they all walked up the stairs together. Although the woman looked hale and fit, her breathing was growing labored, as if she had just run a race instead of walking only a few steps.
At the top of the stairs, Kamoj froze. A few paces away, a shimmer of light hung in the open doorway.
"’S even nicer inside," Lionstar said, mistaking her hesitation.
No one else seemed bothered by the curtain of light, and Kamoj didn’t want to look foolish. So she took a breath and walked with them through the shimmer. It clung to her like a soap bubble, sliding over her face, hair, and clothes.
The entrance foyer looked as she recalled, a small room with tiles on the floor enameled in Argali rose designs. Except now the tiles were whole and the walls smooth, each brick snug with its neighbors, none showing their former chinks and cracks.
Lionstar peeled off his mask and Kamoj tensed, afraid he would choke again. But no one else acted alarmed. In fact, she had never tasted such pure, rich air. It made her dizzy, almost euphoric.
The tall woman was breathing normally now. She asked Kamoj a question, but Kamoj had trouble with her heavy accent. The woman was speaking Bridge, Kamoj’s language, but she used the same odd dialect as Lionstar. Like Lionstar, she also mixed in words from Iotaca.
The woman tried again. "Are you all right, Governor Argali?"
Kamoj stood up straighter, trying not to feel intimidated by the woman’s unusual height. "Yes."
"She’s fine." Lionstar waved his arm at the two Argali servants. "Jus’ like them. Fine."
The woman glanced at him, then at the bottle Kamoj still held. She spoke to Lionstar in another language, her voice tense. Lionstar answered with a scowl, then turned away and took Kamoj’s arm. He led her to an archway across the foyer, where another shimmer curtain hung. Kamoj held her breath as they walked through it, but nothing untoward happened.
The air in the Entrance Hall, on the other side, felt as pure as in the foyer. New panels of mellow sunglass wood covered the walls. She had never before seen the paintings Lionstar’s people had hung here, scenes of the Argali countryside. He must have commissioned them from the villagers, which meant he was supporting the Argali economy.
Then she saw the other additions to the hall. Light panels–light panels!–glowed near the ceiling.
Lionstar was watching her face. "’S good, yes?"
"Yes." She had never expected this generosity. He didn’t even own this building he had refurbished. Then it occurred to her that perhaps it wasn’t such generosity after all. He did own the palace now, as well as everything else that had belonged to her family. Including her.
They walked down the Entrance Hall, accompanied by the two servants and the tall woman. The hall ended at a gleaming ballroom that stretched to their right and left. Radiance from its chandeliers reflected off the walls and parquetry floor, yet she saw no candles within the chandeliers, only shimmers of light.
They crossed the width of the ballroom to another archway that opened into the Long Hall, which ran the length of the palace perpendicular to the Entrance Hall. Moonglass paneled its walls and a dark carpet covered the floor. Lamps set in rose-shaped molds glowed at intervals along the walls.
Lionstar set off down the hall, still holding Kamoj’s arm. The tall woman easily matched his stride, but Kamoj and the servants almost had to run to keep up.
Lionstar didn’t stop until they reached a door at the east end. Then he turned to the others. "You can go. I’ll take her up."
The tall woman spoke. "Perhaps Kamoj would like to meet the staff. Look at the palace. Have dinner." Dryly she said, "Catch her breath."
"Who?" Lionstar asked.
"Kamoj," the woman said.
"Who’s that?" he asked.
This isn’t happening, Kamoj thought.
The woman stared at him. "Your wife."
Lionstar turned to her. "Kamoj? Is that your name?"
"Yes," Kamoj said.
"’S pretty," he said. "Like you."
"She hasn’t even had a chance to unpack," the woman said.
"Unpack what?" he asked.
"Her suitcases. Trunks. I don’t know." The woman looked at the two servants. "Whatever her belongings came in."
"She donnee have any, Colonel Pacal," the plump woman said.
The tall woman looked startled. Turning back to Lionstar, she said, "Saints above, Vyrl. Didn’t you arrange for her things to be brought up?"
"If it hasn’t been done," he growled, "then do it."
The woman blinked at him. Then she turned to Kamoj and spoke gently, as if Kamoj were a child instead of a grown woman. "Do you have things you would like? We can send someone down to Argali House in the morning."
Kamoj nodded. "Thank you. Lyode will know what to send."
"Lyode?" the woman asked. "Is that a person?"
Lionstar scowled. "Dazza, stop interrogating her."
Kamoj wished they would decide what to call one another. Was the tall woman Dazza or Colonel Pacal? Was Lionstar a governor or a prince? The tall woman had called him Vyrl. A shortened version of Havyrl, probably. Perhaps if she thought of him by a nickname, it would make all this seem less intimidating.
Vyrl dismissed the servants and Dazza again, and this time he glared until they left. Then he pushed open the door. The staircase beyond spiraled up inside the tower at this end of the palace. Although the steps had been repaired, the rough stone was otherwise untouched. The only windows were slits high on the walls. No glass showed in them, just the light curtains.
They climbed three flights to a landing. Vyrl opened the door there and escorted her into a spare chamber only a few paces across, its stone walls polished but unadorned. Its inner door opened into a large, austere bedroom.
Kamoj had last seen this suite with snow drifted across its broken floor. Now the floor was whole, a smooth expanse of stone with no rugs. The walls were also bare stone, except for two crossed swords over the bed. No fire burned in the hearth, yet the room felt warm. The tanglebirch furniture was new: a solid desk, chairs, and a wardrobe against the far wall, all made from wood with blue and green highlights in scale patterns. The bed on the dais to their left had always been there, but now its posters were repaired and varnished, its covers and canopy new. In the wall next to it, a door stood ajar, revealing a corner of the bathing room. Everything was clean, fresh, and devoid of ornamentation.
One unexpected touch softened the decor; across the room, a curtain made from strings of sparkling beads hung in an archway.
Vyrl squinted at the room. "’S not so good for a wedding night, is it? Solar told me this."
"Solar?" Kamoj asked.
"One of the housemaids." Vyrl led her to the beaded archway. "She said she’d prepare a place for you." He pulled back the beads, moving aside for her.
Kamoj stopped, both charmed and awkward with his offer to let her enter first. Deciding it would be ruder to refuse his courtesy than to precede him, she walked into the small room.
She saw the difference immediately. This room felt warm in a way that had nothing to do with temperature. Tapestries softened the walls and the delicate sunglass furniture sparkled. The shutters across the room were open, revealing a stained glass window with a rose in its center. To her right, a comforter lay on the floor, and posts rose from each of its corners, totems like those on her bed at home. Kamoj wondered why they put the bedding on the ground. Then she remembered. This chamber had been a second bathing room. Vyrl’s people must have filled the small pool with mattresses for her bed.
"This is all for me?" she asked.
"Can’t be for me," Vyrl said. "I’d break those chairs if I sat in them."
She almost laughed, but held back, unsure if he meant it as a joke. Jax never joked about himself, a subject he considered of great weight.
Watching her, Vyrl smiled. It gentled his entire face, making him look like a farm boy. He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her into an embrace. "Ever since yesterday, I’ve been thinking about you. I still can’t believe you agreed to this." Then he bent his head to kiss her.
Flustered again, Kamoj stood still while his pressed his lips against hers. The rum smell of his breath clogged her nose.
Vyrl lifted his head. "Is it that bad?" Wincing, he said, "I am as rude as Dazza suggests, yes? I’ll go clean up." He tilted his head at a wardrobe against the wall. "Will it harm your dress to go there tonight? Tomorrow the housemaids can tend to it."
The wardrobe, an antique called the rose cabinet, gleamed now. Someone had even redone its carvings, and a mirror bordered with frosted vines hung on one door.
"Camber?" Vyrl asked.
It took her a moment to realize he meant to say her name. "Kamoj," she said, too disconcerted to stop the correction before it came out of her mouth. Too late, she realized what she had done. Tensing, she started to raise her arms, to shield her face.
But Vyrl didn’t hit her. Instead he reddened, as if embarrassed. "My sorry, water sprite. I’m terrible with names." Taking her shoulders, he kissed her again. "Don’t go away." Then he spun on his booted heel and strode out of the room. The bead curtain swung in his wake, clinking and sparkling.
Kamoj blinked, even more unsettled now. She pushed her hand through her hair, mussing the vine of roses that hung around her neck. Then she went to the curtain and looked out. The main bedroom was empty, but she heard water running in the bathing room. She slipped off her shoes so she could walk without being heard. As she limped to the entrance, pain stabbed her heel. Crammed in her shoe, her foot had gone numb, but now that she had freed it, the wound began to hurt again.
Under her push, the foyer door swung open as smooth as oil on glass. She crossed the entrance chamber and edged open the outer door.
Guards.
Two stagmen stood posted on the landing, Azander by the door and another man several paces away by the wall. She had seen the arrangement before, with Jax’s bodyguards outside his room when he stayed at Argali House.
Azander looked down at her. "Be there a problem, Gov’ner?" Although his accent wasn’t as thick as an Ironbridge dialect, it wasn’t pure Argali either.
"Nothing, thank you." She closed the door, uncertain herself what she had wanted. Why did they guard Vyrl in his own bedroom? To ensure she did him no harm? That seemed rather silly, given his size and strength compared to hers, especially now that he didn’t need his mask. Besides, they were outside and she was in here. Perhaps they were there to keep her from leaving.
She returned to her room and undid her dress, letting it fall in a heap of satin around her feet. It left her standing in her wedding silks, a translucent pink underdress that came to her knees and pink stockings held up by lace garters. Lyode had claimed such underclothes would evoke pleasant reactions from her groom. Kamoj didn’t see why, but she had figured it was worth a try.
She scooped up her dress–and nearly passed out when she stood up. Black spots floated in her vision. The air was too thick, so rich it made her giddy. She swayed, waiting until her head cleared. Then she put away her clothes in the rose cabinet.
Feeling self-conscious, she sat on the bed and sank into its billowy comforter. It it was hard to keep her eyes open. She lay down and let them close, just for a moment.
IV
Stained Glass Moons
Eigenstate Interactions
A crash woke Kamoj. She sat bolt upright, trying to fathom her surroundings. As she came more fully awake, she remembered. She was at the Quartz Palace.
Groggy from sleep, she got up, went to the window, and pushed open the stained glass panes, hoping the night air would clear her head. Outside, the East Sky Mountains slumbered under their carpet of trees.
Three of Balumil’s six moons were visible. The Elder Brother shone high in the sky, almost full, casting blue light over the world. The Wild Stag made a ragged green shape just above the trees, lagging behind his brother. For every four times the Elder Brother crossed the heavens, the Wild Stag only managed three. The Brother always presented a serene face to Balumil, passing with regular precision through his phases. The Wild Stag knew no such civilized behavior. Chaotic and unpredictable, he changed both shape and size as he tumbled through the heavens, varying from an uneven disk to a squashed sausage.
The auroras were quiescent, making it one of the rare times Balumil’s faint ring showed in the sky. Kamoj could just make out the gold thread curving up from the horizon in the southeast and back down in the southwest. The gibbous disk of the Shepherd Moon glistened pink above the ring. From the positions of the moons, she guessed she had slept seven hours. Dawn was still a long time away: in mid-autumn the days split evenly, thirty hours of darkness and thirty of light. During this season, she usually slept twice at night, once during the hours after sunset and then again in the hours before dawn.
A puffbug flew against the shimmer curtain in the window and stuck. With a frenzied beating of its scaled wings, it freed itself and trilled off into the night, its golden puff vibrating as it sang. Curious, Kamoj pushed her hand through the shimmer. The curtain stretched along her arm like a film. When she pulled her arm back inside, the shimmer clung to her skin, returning to its original shape.
Kamoj closed the window. So odd. For all the beauty Vyrl had restored to her ancestral home, he also brought these strange changes.
Where was Vyrl? The fountain still gurgled in the bathroom. What if he had passed out and fallen in the water? Azander already suspected her of foul play against her husband, and many people knew she had dreaded this merger. If something happened to Vyrl, she was the obvious suspect.
Kamoj limped into the main bedroom and went to the bathing room. The door stood ajar, but no one answered her knock. She nudged it all the way open, revealing a chamber larger than hers, though still smaller than the main bedroom. A pool filled most of it, tiled in pale blue squares enameled with roses. In its center, the sculpture of a rose opened to the ceiling. She remembered crawling into that bowl as a child and playing with dried leaf-scales that had drifted into it. Now water surged out of the fountain and cascaded down its sides.
A larger-than-human statue stood at the corner of the pool, the figure of a quetzal, that bird named for a mythical creature on a mythical world no one had ever seen. This statue was actually a great stone chair, its scaled head raised high, its back designed from its feathered wings, its upper legs as armrests, its middle legs encircling the seat, and its lower legs as the base of the statue, along with its glorious feathered tail.
Sprawled in the chair, a naked Vyrl was sound asleep.
Kamoj blushed. She didn’t know whether to stay or leave. She saw what had caused the crash that woke her. Blueglass shards from a shattered bottle lay scattered around the base of the quetzal. The bottle must have slid out of Vyrl’s hand, probably resting on an edge of the statue, gradually slipping, until it fell. His legs were braced against a ridge in its base, his muscles tense even in sleep. It was apparently all that kept him from sliding into the pool.
Picking her way through the glass, Kamoj went to Vyrl. She couldn’t stop staring at him, at his broad shoulders and chest, his narrow hips, his long legs, all well-muscled, his skin flushed with health, his magnificent hair tousled around his handsome face. The lamp light made his metal lashes glitter. For all her attempts to imagine his appearance, it had never occurred to her that he might be beautiful.
But did he always drink this way? She thought of Korl Plowsbane in the village, old before his time, wandering with his bottle. Kamoj balked at believing the same of Vyrl. Even if he was like Korl, he couldn’t have been drinking that heavily for long. He seemed too healthy. Perhaps he had simply been edgy today over the impending merger.
Still, what she had so far seen didn’t look auspicious. She inhaled, letting her nostrils widen so their membranes captured every stray scent under the odor of rum. She caught traces of trees and ferns, a hint of sun on scale-leather, even a lingering trace of Vyrl’s disk mail. It all mixed with a strong soap smell and another scent harder to define, a masculine smell she liked. Drawn by Vyrl’s scent, she stopped closer and rubbed her fingers along the knuckles of his hand where it lay on his thigh.
"Higher," he said drowsily.
Kamoj snatched back her hand. He was smiling at her, his eyes half open.
She flushed. "I didn’t mean to wake you."
He sat up straighter, rubbing his eyes. "How long have I been in here?"
"A few hours."
"Ah." His gaze wandered over her body. Mortified, Kamoj realized she was wearing nothing but stockings and a translucent underdress. Then again, given his "clothes," she was overdressed.
Vyrl grinned. "You look beautiful." He slid out of his chair, and she jumped back, losing her balance as she put her weight on her injured foot. Teetering on the edge of the pool, she flailed her arms.
With unexpected grace, Vyrl slid out of the chair and caught her around the waist. Holding her bent over his arm, he leaned down to kiss her. Startled, Kamoj just stared up at him.
He stopped, then straightened up, bringing her with him. "Don’t you ever smile?"
"Well–yes. Of course."
Vyrl stepped away from the pool. "Maybe we should–ah!" He lifted his foot and pulled a shard of glass out of his heel. Blood welled up from the cut. With a grimace, he stuck his foot in the water and swirled it around until the blood washed away. His graceful way of moving made her think of a greenglass stag.
He smiled. "Either that’s a compliment to me or an insult to the greenglass, I’m not sure which."
"How do you do that?" she asked.
"Do what?"
"Know my thoughts."
"I don’t." He took her hand. "Come on. Let’s go somewhere with less glass."
They picked their way through the shards and went into the main bedroom. Although he walked reasonably well, several times he put one foot down on the other and stumbled. When they reached the dais with his bed, he stopped, said, "We should do this right," and hefted her up into his arms.
Hai! The last thing Kamoj wanted was a half-drunk man carrying her up stairs. "It’s all right," she said. "I can walk."
He started up the dais. "You hardly weigh anything."
They made it to the top with no mishaps, but then he tripped. He took a huge step forward, lunging for the bed, and tossed her across it as he lost his balance. She hit the mattress with a thud, pillows tumbling around her head, and Vyrl landed on top her. Her breath wumped out with a muffled "oomph."
"Ai," Vyrl muttered, rolling off her. "My sorry, Chamois."
This time she was too flustered even to think of correcting the name. When he pulled her into his arms, she stuttered, "Maybe you should, uh, call a healer." She knew she was talking too fast, but she couldn’t stop. "For your–for your, you know. Your foot."
"My foot?" He smiled at her. "Why?"
"It’s just, mine swelled–Vyrl! What are you doing?"
"Looking at my beautiful wife." As his hands moved, he slid lower along her body. Then he closed his mouth around her breast and suckled her through the glimsilk of her underdress.
Kamoj flushed, blinked, said, "Oh, my," cleared her throat, and coughed. Then she sighed and put her hands in his hair, tangling her fingers in his curls.
Some time later she murmured, "You’re different than I expected."
He came back up, cradling her in his arms. "How is that?"
Too late, she realized how her answer would sound: I thought you would be cruel. She tried to hide the thought, imagining a blanket to cover it. "You’re younger."
Vyrl grinned. "Such sweet words." He fingered the garter that held up her stocking. Then he sat up and tugged the lacy ring off her leg. Setting it on his palm, he squinted at it as if it were another life form. "It’s pretty," he said. "But who’d ever think to make such a thing?"
"I don’t know," Kamoj admitted. Lyode had given it to her.
Vyrl set the garter on the bed. Then he touched her thigh where the garter had held up her stocking. "So soft . . ." Taking her stocking by the toe, he pulled it off through the gold circlet around her ankle. "And soft here–saints almighty, what is that?"
She wished he would go back to showing her what was soft. "What?"
Vyrl peered at the sole of her foot. "This is serious." He lay on his back and stretched out next to her, reaching his arm out to a tanglebirch stand by the bed. He so distracted Kamoj, she barely noticed him press a panel on the nightstand.
A drowsy voice came out of the air. "Colonel Pacal here."
"Hai!" Kamoj sat bolt upright and clamped her arms over her breasts, looking around for the owner of the voice.
"I need you up here," Vyrl said to the air.
The woman suddenly sounded awake. "On my way."
"For flaming sakes," Vyrl said. "Don’t say it like that."
"Like what?" the woman asked.
"Like ‘What has he done to that poor girl?’"
"Is she all right?"
"Her foot is hurt."
"I’ll be right there."
"All right. Out." Vyrl pushed the panel again.
After the room remained silent for several moments, Kamoj’s pulse calmed. "Who was that?" she asked.
"Dazza." Vyrl drew her back down next to him. "My doctor."
"What is a doctor?"
He tugged apart her arms and pulled them around his waist so she was hugging him. "Healer."
"But where is she? We’re the only ones here."
Kissing her, he murmured, "She’s coming."
After several moments of discovering that she liked kissing Vyrl far more than she had ever liked kissing Jax, Kamoj moved her lips to his ear and spoke shyly. "If someone is coming up here, shouldn’t we get dressed?"
"Ai . . . " He sighed. "I guess so."
While Kamoj sat up, pulling her dress into place, Vyrl went to the wardrobe across the room and took out a blue glimsilk robe with iridescent green and gold highlights. As he was putting it on, a knock came from the entrance foyer. Tying his sash, he crossed the room and opened the door.
Dazza stood outside in rumpled trousers and a shirt, her hair tousled as if she had just pulled herself out of bed. She had something in her hand, Kamoj wasn’t sure what. A large black book? As the doctor entered the suite, she glanced at Kamoj, at the stocking on the bed, and at Vyrl. Then she reddened. It didn’t surprise Kamoj that the colonel looked like she wished she were someplace else.
"It’s her left foot," Vyrl said.
While Vyrl leaned against the bedpost with his arms crossed, Dazza sat on the bed and lifted Kamoj’s foot. Her awkwardness vanished as she focused on the problem. "Did you treat this cut?" she asked Kamoj.
"I soaked it in water," Kamoj said.
Dazza looked up at her. "Right away?" When Kamoj shook her head, the doctor said, "If you ever get a cut like this again, clean it as soon as you can." She set down Kamoj’s foot and opened her "book." Its top lifted like a box, revealing tubes and squares. When Dazza touched a small square, ghost pictures appeared above the box, rotating in the air, each with a different view of a woman’s body. Red and blue lines veined one, another showed a skeleton, and a third internal organs. Kamoj had heard tales of how the ancients made ghosts dance this way, but until now she had never believed them.
Dazza studied symbols flickering on the rectangles on her box. "You’re a healthy young woman." She snapped a featherless black quill off her book and bent over Kamoj’s heel as if she were going to write on it.
Kamoj jerked away her foot. "What are you doing?"
"Numbing the area." With a gentle touch, Dazza tugged back her foot. "So it won’t hurt when I drain the wound."
Although Kamoj found that hard to believe, the pain did indeed recede after Dazza wrote on her heel with her quill. The doctor kept working, though Kamoj couldn’t see what she was doing.
"Gods," Vyrl said. "That’s a bad one."
Intent on her work, Dazza said, "If we hadn’t caught it in time, she could have lost the foot."
Kamoj blanched. No wonder it had hurt so much when Jax jabbed it.
"Kimono?" Vyrl said. "Are you all right?"
Dazza made an exasperated noise. "Saints above, Vyrl. Her name is Kamoj."
He reddened. "My sorry, Kamoj."
Smiling, she said, "It’s all right."
Dazza withdrew her quill, catching drops of blood from its tip with her finger. She cleaned Kamoj’s heel with a white mesh and then removed a new quill from the box. When she pressed a knob on it, a spray came out of its tip and coated Kamoj’s sole.
"The nanomeds will aid the healing," Dazza said. "Then they’ll dissolve in your bloodstream."
"Non-muds?" Kamoj asked. That made no sense.
"Nanomeds," Dazza said. "Each has an active moiety linked to a picochip–" She stopped, watching Kamoj’s face. Then she said, "They’re like machines, but so small you can’t see them."
"Nanobots?" Kamoj asked.
"Say again?" Dazza asked. "I have trouble with your accent."
"She said nanobots," Vyrl said. "She’s speaking Iotic."
Kamoj stared at him. He understood Iotaca? Then again, he had read the contract scroll at their wedding, which was written in pure Iotaca. Maybe he could clear up the mystery of what the blasted thing said.
Dazza, however, also looked puzzled. "Why do you say it that way, as if she used a different language for ‘nanobot’? Everything we’ve said is in Iotic."
Vyrl shook his head. "You and I may be speaking Iotic, but the people here don’t. Or not pure Iotic. Their ‘Bridge’ language is a dialect."
It would never have occurred to Kamoj to describe Bridge as a dialect of Iotaca. The differences seemed too extreme to call them two forms of the same language. But then, to the people of the Northern Lands any change was extreme.
"Nanobot is a word from the temple language," Kamoj said.
"I haven’t heard enough of your temple language to be sure," Vyrl said, "but I think it’s what we call classical Iotic. That contract I read at the ceremony was written in it. What Dazza and I are speaking now is modern Iotic."
Dazza regarded him with curiosity. "You speak the classics?"
"I learned them when I was a boy," he said.
The doctor looked impressed. "You must have had a good education."
He shrugged. "There were no schools where we lived, so my parents brought in tutors from offworld."
Kamoj wondered what he meant by offworld. Whatever it was, she too found the result impressive. "I can pronounce words and phrases in Iotaca," she said, "but I don’t understand it all. Like nanobot. I know the word but not the meaning."
"Do you know what ‘molecule’ means?" Dazza asked. When Kamoj shook her head, Dazza said, "It’s like a tiny machine. A nanobot is designed for a specific duty. Different types have different duties. The ones we carry in our bodies, that help make us healthy, we call nanomeds. Each one has a picochip attached to it, a quantum computer." She paused. "Think of it as a brain. The picochip tells the nanobot what to do and how to make more of itself. If you put a lot of them together, their chips combine into a what we call a picoweb. A bigger brain."
Kamoj blinked. "You put all that in my foot?"
A smile gentled Dazza’s face. "I did indeed. Three types of nanomed, in fact. Two help ferry nutrients and structural materials to the wound and maintain your physiological balance while you heal. The third catalyzes molecular repair processes."
"Catalyze?" Kamoj asked.
"Helps them go faster."
"Is she going to be all right?" Vyrl asked.
"She’ll be fine by tomorrow." Dazza snapped her quill into her box. Concentrating on her displays, the doctor said, "She should stay off that foot for the rest of the night, however."
Vyrl started to speak, then just smiled. Kamoj flushed. Walking clearly wasn’t what he had in mind for the rest of the night.
Dazza closed the lid of her book-box and looked up at Vyrl. "Did you talk to Azander after you arrived?"
"Not really," Vyrl answered. "Why?"
"He said you were followed by Ironbridge stagmen."
"Ironbridge? Why?"
"Azander seemed to think you would know."
"I’ve no idea," Vyrl said.
His response disquieted Kamoj. Ironbridge was nothing to ignore. What was Jax up to?
Watching her, Vyrl sat on the bed. "What is it, water sprite? What troubles you about Ironbridge?"
Dazza drew in a sharp breath. Startled, Kamoj glanced at her. The colonel had the look of a healer whose patient had just showed signs of a recovery the healer had feared would never happen. It made no sense to Kamoj. Vyrl wasn’t sick, at least that she could see. Except for the rum. But he wasn’t drunk now, and all he had done was ask her about Ironbridge.
He hadn’t noticed Dazza’s reaction. Intent on Kamoj, he said, "Talk to me."
"It is forbidden," Kamoj answered.
"To talk to me?"
"For me to talk of Ironbridge."
"Why?"
"Because you and I have a dowered merger."
"Why does that make a difference?"
She wasn’t actually sure why tradition forbade discussing other bid candidates with the winner of a hostile merger. Rules changed in situations like this, when the balance of power tipped so far in favor of one party. "Hostile" was probably the operative word; if she spoke about Ironbridge she could aggravate Vyrl and so bring harm to herself, Argali, and Ironbridge.
"It is forbidden," she repeated.
Vyrl glanced at Dazza with an expression that clearly said: Can you do something with this?
Dazza considered her. "If Prince Havyrl gives you permission to speak about Ironbridge, can you do it?"
Vyrl made an exasperated noise. "She doesn’t need my permission to talk."
Kamoj looked from Vyrl to Dazza, at a loss to understand the strange hierarchy of authority here.
Dazza tried again. "Can you talk to me about it?"
"No," Kamoj said.
"Who can we ask?"
Who indeed? Maxard, perhaps. He hadn’t married Vyrl. He was less likely to incur Lionstar wrath by talking about Kamoj’s relationship with another man.
"My uncle," Kamoj said.
"We can send someone to Argali tomorrow." Vyrl grimaced. "Which’ll be forever with how long the nights here last."
Kamoj wondered what he meant. Nights weren’t long in autumn, not compared to winter, when snow covered the world and blizzards roared down from the North Sky Islands.
Dazza was watching her. "This is about your customs, isn’t it? All of you here, you’re afraid of showing disrespect. That’s important. Respect. To custom, to authority, and to the land."
Relief settled over Kamoj. Dazza understood. "Yes."
Vyrl blinked at the doctor. "Where did you get all that?"
With a scowl, Dazza said, "From talking to your ever-so-patient butler the last time you went riding during one of your binges. I wanted to know why no one stopped you."
"Don’t start with me, Dazza."
"Why? Because you happen to be more sober now than you’ve been in weeks? You’re going to kill yourself."
Vyrl ignored the comment. "What did my butler tell you?"
Dazza tilted her head at Kamoj. "They all feel that way. I think they’re genetically engineered to obey authority. I’ve never known such a docile, cooperative people."
"They have armies." Vyrl paused. "If you can call thirty farmers who practice ritualized swordplay every now and then an army."
Kamoj wondered why he found that strange. An incorporated man’s stagmen rode in his honor guard when needed and otherwise worked to support their families. Ironbridge had the only army that trained all year round. Only Jax could afford to pay a good wage in every season.
Given what she had seen in the past two days, though, it wouldn’t surprise her if Vyrl had his men training all year too, while he supported them at a rate ten times greater than anyone else without even realizing it. Most of his staff and stagmen obviously came from Argali. She and Maxard employed the best in the village, so Vyrl must be drawing from the outlying hamlets, which were even more impoverished. By hiring locals instead of his own people, he had been supporting her province even prior to their merger.
"Their ‘wars’ are more like arguments," Dazza was saying. "In the rare instances when they do fight, it’s a ritualistic ceremony. Ironbridge is the only province with real calvary or troops, and they’re more of a police force. I doubt you could convince these people to defy authority even if you paid them to do it."
Kamoj blinked. What an odd notion. Why would anyone pay them to be defiant?
Vyrl smiled at her. "They wouldn’t. It was just a manner of speech." He didn’t see Dazza’s startled look; by the time he turned back to the colonel, her face had resumed its normal mien.
"I’ll send someone down tomorrow morning to talk to Maxard Argali," he told her. "See if we can untangle all this."
"I think that’s a good idea." Dazza packed up her book. She smiled at Kamoj, gratitude on her face. Why? Kamoj saw nothing she had done to make the doctor grateful.
After Dazza left, Vyrl lay back down on the bed. The bags under his eyes had darkened again.
"You look tired," Kamoj said.
"Just a headache. I should have asked Dazza for something." His scowl came back. "But then I would have to listen to her harp on ‘my drinking.’ Tell me she can ‘treat’ that too. As if I have a problem. It’s ridiculous. I have a few drinks, I go to sleep, I’m fine."
Kamoj knew he wasn’t fine. But she had no idea what to say. All she could think of was, "I can rub your head."
"That would be nice, Kamoj." He paused. "Is that right? Kamoj?"
"Yes." She drew his head into her lap. As she massaged him, he sighed and closed his eyes.
After a while he said, "What you said before, about us having a ‘dowered merger’–what does that mean exactly?"
"Merger is perhaps not the best word." It implied a more balanced partnership. "Your corporation absorbed Argali."
He opened his eyes. "My what?"
"Your corporation. It was far too big for us to best."
He sat up, facing her. "I don’t understand. It was a dowry. I know that’s the word. Our anthropologists double-checked. The dowry is the property a man brings to his wife at marriage, right? Drake told me that in your culture, inheritance goes through the female line, and that the women court the men. To get a highborn wife, you need a good dowry. So I, uh, got one."
Dryly she said, "The man is usually more subtle in making his interest known."
He squinted at her. "I don’t actually remember what I did. I think I told my stagmen to clear out a storeroom and send the contents to Argali House. I almost fell over when they said you had accepted it."
She stared at him, unsure which stunned her more, his manner of instigating the take-over, or the extent of his corporation. "That was only one stockroom’s worth of your dowry?"
"Well, yes, I guess you could put it that way." He studied her face. "I don’t understand how the idea of a corporation got mixed up here with a dowry. You make it sound like I bought you."
That was, in fact, how it felt. Kamoj doubted he would appreciate her saying it, though, so she hid the thought by imagining a blanket over it. "It seems normal to me." She tugged on his arm. "Come lie down again."
His face gentled. "I won’t argue with that." He lay down, putting his head in her lap, and closed his eyes. As she rubbed his head, she thought what an irony it was that a merger certain to become a legend may have been a whim born of a drinking binge. Would he regret it tomorrow? What if he changed his mind? She had no wish to return to Jax. He might not want her anymore. If Ironbridge spurned her, Argali would starve, and even if Jax wanted her back she would still be humiliated by the Lionstar rejection.
Vyrl spoke quietly. "My father told me something when I was young: If you plant in the wrong place, you still have to tend the crops."
"Was he a farmer?"
"Yes."
"Am I the wrong place?"
"Gods, no." He opened his eyes. "You’re like sunlight. I was lucky. What if the beautiful nymph I saw rising out of the river turned out to have a personality like shattered glass? But regardless, it’s my responsibility to see this through now. I would never humiliate you."
Relief trickled over her. She also rather liked being compared to sunlight.
His grin flashed. "I’m glad you like it."
Blushing, she said, "How do you know everything in my mind?"
"I don’t." When she raised her eyebrows, he added, "Usually I just pick up emotions. My ability to do even that falls off with distance, roughly as the Coulomb force."
Coulomb force? "I don’t understand."
"It’s complicated."
Her voice cooled. "And I am too slow to understand?"
"Kamoj, no. I didn’t mean that. I just don’t know how to explain it, except as I learned it."
"Then explain it that way."
He hesitated, as if unsure how to proceed. "I’ve an organ in my brain called the Kyle Afferent Body. The KAB. It’s too small to see without magnification. Certain molecules in it, that is, certain bits of my KAB, undergo quantum transitions according to how they interact with the fields produced by the brains of other people. That means–well, I guess you could say my KAB varies its behavior according to what it detects. Those variations determine what neural pulses it transmits to certain neural structures in my cerebrum, which interpret the pulses as thought." He stopped, watching her face. "I’m not doing this very well, am I?"
"I don’t know," she admitted. "I don’t understand some of your words."
He tried again. "My brain can pick up signals from yours and interpret them. The process isn’t all that accurate, so it’s easier to get emotions than thoughts. It only works close up because the signals aren’t that strong."
Although the words made more sense this time, it sounded as strange as before. "You do that with me?"
His voice gentled. "For some reason you’re more open to me than most people. I felt it that first time I saw you, when you were swimming. You were so beautiful. So alive. So happy."
She smiled. "So naked."
Vyrl laughed. "That too."
She went back to massaging his head. After a while his lashes drooped and his breathing deepened. Then he jerked, and opened his eyes. When they closed again, he forced them open. Watching him struggle, Kamoj wondered why it was so important to stay awake.
The third time he started to fall asleep, he rolled on his side and pressed his lips against her leg. Distracted, she stopped rubbing his head. He was peeling off her other stocking, kissing her thigh as the silk slid away. After he had pulled it all the way off, he slid his hand back up her leg. "Your skin is even softer than glimsilk."
Kamoj reddened, flustered again. "Ah. Uh. Oh."
For some reason her idiotic response made the corners of his mouth quirk up. He sat up and pulled her into his lap. "I always thought I liked this room austere. I never realized before how cold it is."
She laid her head on his shoulder. "It would look softer in moonlight."
"Morlin," he said, "turn off the lights."
"Their web contacts aren’t complete," a man said.
"Hai!" Kamoj sat up with a jerk and yanked her dress down over her thighs.
Vyrl stroked his hand down her back. "It’s all right. He won’t bother us."
"He is here? Watching?"
"‘He’ is just a computer web. I call him Morlin." Vyrl hesitated. "The name was supposed to be after an ancient Earth wizard, but I think I got it wrong."
"I’m having trouble completing the contacts," Morlin said. "The molecular engines that repair the fiberoptic cables in this wing stopped replicating centuries ago."
Kamoj pressed her fist against her mouth. Morlin didn’t exist, yet he was here.
"I suggest you reconsider trying to use the original web in the palace," the voice continued. "These problems continue to–"
"Morlin," Vyrl said. Watching Kamoj, he added, "We’ll deal with it later."
It was quiet after that. Whatever Morlin was, apparently he answered to Vyrl. Gradually, as Vyrl explored her body, Kamoj relaxed against him. She breathed in his scent, spice-soap mixed with his own natural smell.
"Connection established," Morlin suddenly said. The lights went out.
"Hai!" In reflex, Kamoj jerked up her hands to ward off a blow.
"It’s nothing," Vyrl murmured, stroking her hair. In a louder voice, he said, "Morlin, shut up."
Kamoj made herself lower her hands. "Does he obey you?"
"Well, yes, you could say that." Vyrl gave her a curious look. "It’s just your computer. We’re using the old web in this building. Parts of it, anyway. Some of the components are too decayed. Their repair bots failed a long time ago."
Kamoj wasn’t sure what he meant, but she knew the palace had been in abominable shape when he rented it. That Vyrl repaired her ancestral home meant more than she knew how to say. She had always longed to do it, but she could hardly have used precious resources to fix a building when babies in Argali needed cereal.
"Look," she said, gazing over his shoulder.
Vyrl turned to look. A ghostly image of the stained glass window in her chamber stretched across the floor out here in the main bedroom, laid there by moonlight slanting through her room. Sparkles glistened in the image, from where the light hit the bead curtain.
"It’s beautiful," he said.
She slid off the bed and held out her hand to him. He took it, his face gentling. Together they crossed the room, their fingers intertwined. When they entered her chamber, strings of beads trailed along their arms. The window glowed with light from the Sister Moon.
As Vyrl laid her on her bed, moonlight cast shadows on his robe, making him look as if he were cut from onyx. His callouses felt nubbly on her skin when he peeled off her underdress. Then he paused, kneeling between her legs. Too self-conscious to meet his gaze, she sat up and took off his robe, shy and unsure, trying to act self-assured. She didn’t succeed, but he seemed to like how she touched him anyway. She couldn’t look at his face because–she wasn’t sure why. If she looked, he would somehow acknowledge her touch, making her too embarrassed to continue.
Kamoj tried to relax. Most women her age were already married, even mothers. Lying down, she reached her arms out to Vyrl. When he stretched out on top of her, he supported his weight on his hands so he didn’t crush her under his body.
He took their lovemaking slow and gentle, giving her as long as she needed to relax. Even so, when the time came, she tensed up. It was tearing–she wanted him to stop–
He went still on top of her. "Kamoj–?"
Hai, she thought, mortified. If she kept this up she would still be a virgin after her wedding night. "It’s all right."
Vyrl handled her even more gently after that. The moons shifted in the sky, their light casting a stained glass rose on the floor. He murmured against her ear, saying her name over and over, and right this time. His intensity increased, until finally he drew in a breath and blew it out, the stream of air wafting tendrils of her hair around her cheeks. Then he relaxed on top of her, still murmuring, his voice a soft current of sound against her ear.
After a while his murmurs trickled into silence and he lay still, one hand curled around her breast. He breathing deepened, until eventually it came with a faint snore at the end of each breath.
Kamoj blinked. Apparently they were done. Although the experience had been pleasant, after the initial pain, it seemed incomplete. Was this why Lyode extolled marriage? Certainly it was nice, but Kamoj didn’t see why it made her usually no-nonsense bodyguard smile like a besotted fruitwing. Kamoj wondered if in her shyness, she had somehow overlooked or missed the important part.
Vyrl felt heavier now that he wasn’t supporting his weight. She nudged him until he rolled off her and stretched out along her side. Then she turned onto her side, her body spooned into his, her back against his chest. He slid his arm around her waist without a break in the rumble of his sleep.
Kamoj drifted in a doze, like the fever-sleep of a delirium, her body so sensitized that she felt air currents whisper across it. She felt restless. Incomplete. Sometimes she awoke to find herself rubbing her own body.
When Vyrl’s arm shifted, at first she thought he was restive in his sleep. Then he slid his hand down over hers. As she moved against his hand, he kissed her neck, his teeth playing with her necklace. Whatever he was doing, he knew how to do it well. She felt as if she were trying to climb a peak she couldn’t reach. Then the release came, like a crest with many bumps. It spread to the rest of her body, until she lost control and cried out.
When she calmed, Vyrl murmured, "Sweet water sprite."
Kamoj wanted to say soft words too, call her husband beloved and other endearments. Yet she didn’t feel she knew him well enough. So strange, to be so intimate, yet so unfamiliar at the same time.
Languor settled over her like a downy quilt . . .
* * *
Kamoj wasn’t sure what woke her. The moonlight had dimmed, both the Sister and the Far Moon having finished their voyages across the sky. The sense of drowsy satisfaction had also left the room.
She rolled over. Vyrl was lying on his back, staring at the canopy above them, a fixed stare that saw nothing. The tendons in his neck had pulled taut, and his jaw had clenched so hard the bones stood out against his skin.
"Vyrl?" She pushed up on her elbow. "What’s wrong?"
He jerked his head. Then he sat up, his face contorting.
And he screamed.
It shattered the silence. He sat with his fists clenched on his thighs, his face twisted until she hardly recognized him.
Boots pounded in the main bedroom. "Prince Havyrl!" a man called. The bead curtain rattled as Azander and the other bodyguard swept it aside and strode into the chamber. Scrambling to her knees, Kamoj yanked on Vyrl’s robe, covering herself.
Vyrl showed no hint he saw any of them. Staring straight ahead, he worked his mouth like a man in a nightmare trying, with horrific futility, to scream again.
Azander knelt by the bed and shook Vyrl’s shoulders. "Prince Havyrl, wake up! You’re all right. It only be the nightmares. Wake up!"
Vyrl swung his fist so fast, Azander had no time to duck. Vyrl hit him in the chin, and the bodyguard flew over backward, hitting the floor with a thud.
"Get out!" Vyrl said. "Now."
Azander stared at him, holding his chin. Then he jumped to his feet and the two bodyguards left fast as they had come.
Kamoj slid back, away from Vyrl, until the wall stopped her retreat. Had she been mistaken about her new husband? But no. This was different from rage. Something was wrong, very wrong. He leaned forward, his arms wrapped around his stomach, as if he hurt somehow, not a physical hurt, but something else.
She didn’t know how long they sat that way. Finally she moved closer to him. Then she waited. When he neither objected nor showed anger, she came the rest of the way to his side. He turned to her, moisture gleaming under his eyes.
She touched his wet cheek. "What is it?"
"Nothing." He took a breath. "Go back to sleep."
Nothing? He had just split open the night with his scream. She wanted to offer comfort, but she feared it would anger him instead, a risk she couldn’t take, not when the well-being of Argali depended on his good will. So she did as he asked, lying down with her eyes closed. She heard him put on his robe, then heard the bed creak and felt the mattress shift.
Kamoj opened her eyes. She was alone. She put on her underdress and got out of bed. Her footsteps made no sound as she crossed to the curtain and peered through the beaded strings into the main bedroom.
Vyrl had opened the window above his desk and was sitting in his chair, staring at the night, his body silhouetted against the sky. He raised a bottle to his lips, and the cloying smell of rum drifted in the air.
Watching him, Kamoj knew that whatever troubled Vyrl, it went far deeper than the rum could reach. What had happened to give a man of such power the terrors that haunted his dreams?

---

Read "The Quantum Rose: Part Two."

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June 27 @ 9:00 pm EST Far Future Fiction Nancy Kress and Sean McMullen. Find out more.

The Quantum Rose: Part One	By Catherine Asaro
"The Quantum Rose: Part One" first appeared in the May 1999 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.

I
Ironbridge
First Scattering Channel
Kamoj Quanta Argali, the governor of Argali Province, shot through the water and broke the surface of the river. She tilted her face up to the sky, a violet expanse punctured by Jul, the sun, a tiny disk of light so brilliant she didn’t dare look near it. Curtains of green and gold light shimmered across the heavens in an aurora borealis visible even in the afternoon.
Her bodyguard Lyode was standing on the bank, surveying the area. Lyode’s true name was a jumble of words from the ancient language Iotaca, what scholars pronounced as light emitting diode. No one knew what it meant, though, so they all called her Lyode.
Unease prickled Kamoj. She treaded water, her hair floating in swirls around her body, wrapping her slender waist and then letting go. Her reflection showed a young woman with black curls framing a heart-shaped face. She had dark eyes, as did most people in Argali, though hers were larger than usual, with long lashes that at the moment sparkled with drops of water.
Nothing seemed out of place. Reeds as red as pod-plums nodded on the bank, and six-legged lizards scuttled through them, glinting blue and green among the stalks. A few hundred paces behind Lyode, the prismatic forest began. Up the river, in the distant north, the peaks of the Rosequartz Mountains floated like clouds in a haze. She drifted around to face the other bank, but saw nothing amiss there either. Tubemoss covered the sloping hills in a turquoise carpet broken by stone outcroppings that gnarled out of the land like the knuckles of a buried giant.
Kamoj exhaled. What she felt wasn’t unease exactly, more a sense of troubled anticipation. The afternoon hummed with life, golden and cool. Surely on this beautiful day she could relax.
Still, as much as she enjoyed swimming here, invigorated by the chill water and air, perhaps it was unwise. She had her position as governor to consider. Kamoj glided to the bank and clambered out, reeds slapping her body.
Her bodyguard glanced at her, then went back to scanning the area. Lyode suddenly stiffened, staring past Kamoj. Then she reached over her shoulder for the ballbow strapped to her back.
Surprised, Kamoj glanced back, across the river. A cluster of greenglass stags had appeared from behind a hill, each with a rider astride its long back. Sunrays splintered against the green scales that covered the stags. Each animal stood firm on its six legs, neither stamping nor pawing the air. With their iridescent antlers spread to either side of their heads, they shimmered in the blue-tinged sunshine.
Their riders were all watching her.
Mortified, Kamoj ran up the slope to where she had left her clothes. Lyode took a palm-sized marble ball out of a bag on her belt and set it in the sling on the targeting tube of her crossbow, which slid inside a accordion cylinder attached to the bow string. Drawing back the string and tube, she sighted on the watchers across the river.
Of course, here in the Argali, Lyode’s presence was more an indication of Kamoj’s rank, and her desire for privacy while she swam, rather than an expectation of danger. And indeed, none of the riders across the river drew his own bow. They looked more intrigued than anything else. One of the younger fellows grinned at Kamoj, his teeth flashing white in the streaming sunshine.
"This is embarrassing," Kamoj muttered. She stopped behind Lyode and picked up her clothes. Drawing her tunic over her head, she added, "Thas-haverlyster."
"What?" Lyode said.
Kamoj pulled down the tunic, covering herself with soft gray cloth. Lyode was still standing in front of her, with her bow poised. Kamoj counted five riders across the river, all of them dressed in copper breeches and blue shirts, with belts edged by feathers from the blue-tailed quetzal.
One man sat a head taller than the rest. He wore a midnight-blue cloak with a hood that hid his face. His stag lifted its front two legs and pawed the air, its bi-hooves glinting like glass, though they were a hardier material, hornlike and durable. The man riding it gave no indication he noticed its restless motions. His cowled head remained turned in Kamoj’s direction.
"That’s Havyrl Lionstar," Kamoj repeated as she pulled on her leggings. "The tall man on the big greenglass."
"How do you know?" Lyode asked. "His face is covered."
"Who else is that big? Besides, those riders are wearing Lionstar colors." Kamoj watched the group set off again, cantering into the folds of the blue-green hills. "Hah! You scared them away."
"With five against one? I doubt it." Dryly, Lyode said, "More likely they left because the show is over."
Kamoj winced. She hoped her uncle didn’t hear of this. As the only incorporated man in Argali, Maxard Argali had governed the province for Kamoj when she was young and was shifting his role to that of advisor now that she had reached her adulthood.
Lionstar’s people were the only ones who might reveal her indiscretion, though, and they rarely came to the village. Lionstar had "rented" the Quartz Palace in the mountains for more than a hundred days now, and in that time no one she knew had seen his face. Why he wanted a ruined palace remained a mystery, given that he refused all visitors. When his emissaries had inquired about it, she and Maxard had been dismayed by the suggestion that they let a stranger take residence in the honored, albeit disintegrating, home of their ancestors.
However, no escape had existed from the "rent" Lionstar’s people put forth. The law was clear: she and Maxard had to best his challenge or bow to his authority. Impoverished Argali could never match such an offer: shovels and awls forged from fine metals, stacks of dried firewood, golden bridle bells, dewhoney and molasses, dried rose-leeks, cobberwheat, tri-grains, and reedflour that poured through your fingers like powdered rubies.
So they yielded–and an incensed Maxard had demanded Lionstar pay a rent of that same worth every fifty days. It was a lien so outrageous, all Argali feared Lionstar would send his soldiers to "renegotiate."
Instead, he paid.
With Lyode at her side, Kamoj entered the forest. Walking among the trees, with tubemoss soft under her bare feet, made her more aware of her precarious position. Why had Lionstar come riding here today? Did their lands now also risk forfeiture to his wealth? She had invested his rent in machinery and tools for farms in Argali. As humiliating as it was to depend on a stranger, it was better than seeing her people starve. But she didn’t think she could bear to lose any more to him, especially not this forest she so loved.
Drapes of moss hung on the trees and shadow-ferns attended their trunks. Far above, the branches formed a canopy that let only stray sunbeams reach the ground. Argali vines hung everywhere, heavy with the blush-pink roses that gave her home its name. Argali. It meant vine rose in Iotaca.
At least, most scholars translated it as rose. One insisted it meant resonance. He also claimed they mispronounced her middle name, Quanta, an Iotaca word with no known translation. The name Kamoj came from the Iotaca word for bound, so if this strange scholar was correct, her name meant Bound Quantum Resonance. She smiled at the absurdity. Rose made more sense, of course.
Not all the "roses" in the forest were flowers, though. Camouflaged among the blossoms, puff lizards swelled out their red sacs. A shaft of sunlight slanted through the forest, admitted by a ruffling breeze, and sparkles glittered where the light hit the scaled lizards, the scale-bark on the trees, and the delicate scale-leaves. Then the ray vanished and the forest returned to its dusky violet shadows.
Suddenly a thornbat whizzed past her, its wings beating furiously. It homed in on a vine and stabbed its needled beak into the red sac of a puff lizard. As the puff deflated with a whoosh of air, the lizard scrambled away to safety, leaving the disgruntled thornbat to whiz on without its prey.
Powdered scales drifted across Kamoj’s arm. She wiped off the shimmering dust, wondering why people had no scales. Most everything else on Balumil, the world, had them. Scaled needles fat with water nestled among the leaves, and roots swollen with moisture churned the soil. The trees grew slowly, storing water and converting it into energy as a bulwark against summer droughts and winter snows. Seasonal plants had other methods of survival. They lived only in spring and autumn, but their big, hard-scaled seeds could lie dormant for long periods, until the climate was to their liking.
If only people were as well adapted to survive. She swallowed, remembering the last winter, when nearly a fourth of Argali had died in its blizzards and brutal ices. Including her parents. Even after so long, that loss haunted her. She had been a small child when she and Maxard, her mother’s brother, became sole heirs to the impoverished remains of a province that had once been proud.
Glancing at Lyode, Kamoj wondered if her bodyguard shared her concern about seeing Lionstar on Argali lands today. A tall woman with lean muscles, Lyode had the brown eyes and black hair common in Argali. Here in the shadows, the vertical slits of her pupils had widened until they almost filled her irises, like black pools. She carried Kamoj’s boots dangling from her belt by their laces.
"Do you know the maize-girls that work in the kitchen?" Kamoj asked.
The older woman glanced at her. "Three children? Tall as your elbow?"
"That’s right." Kamoj smiled. "They told me, in solemn voices, that Havyrl Lionstar came here in a cursed ship that the wind chased across the sky, and that he can never go home again because he’s so loathsome the elements refuse to let him sail again." Her smile faded. "Where does all the superstition come from? Apparently most of Argali believes it. There is some story he’s centuries old, with a metal face so ugly that if you look at it you’ll have nightmares."
"I’m not sure." Lyode paused. "Legends often have their seeds in truth." With a dry smile, she added, "Though with the maize-girls, who knows? The last time I talked to them, they tried to convince me Argali is haunted. They think that’s why all the light panels have gone dark."
Kamoj chuckled. "They told me that one too. They weren’t too specific on who was haunting what, though." Legend claimed the Current had once lit all the houses in the Northern Lands. But that had been centuries past. In fact, in the North Sky Islands the Current had died thousands of years ago. The only reason one light panel still worked in Argali House, Kamoj’s home, was because before Kamoj’s birth, her parents had happened upon a few intact fiberoptic threads in the ruins of the Quartz Palace.
The threads were only one part in the panel, which used many components, all linked by cables and threads that extended into the walls of the house and to the few remaining sun-squares on the roof. No one understood anymore how any of it worked. Lyode’s husband, Opter, had replaced the fiberoptics. Opter didn’t know how the panel worked either, nor could he fix damaged components. But given undamaged parts, he had an uncanny ability to figure out how they fit into gadgets.
"Hai!" Kamoj grimaced as a twig stabbed her foot. Lifting her leg, she saw a gouge between her toes welling with blood.
"A good reason to wear your shoes," Lyode observed.
"Pah," Kamoj muttered. She enjoyed walking barefoot, but it had its drawbacks.
A drumming that had been tugging at her awareness finally intruded enough to make her listen. "Those are greenglass stags."
Lyode tilted her head. "On the road to Argali."
"Come on. Let’s look." Kamoj started to run, then hopped on her good foot and settled for a limping walk. When they reached the road, they hid behind the trees, listening to the riders.
"I’ll bet it’s Lionstar," Kamoj said.
"Too much noise for five riders," Lyode said.
Kamoj grinned. "Then it’s fleeing bandits. We should nab them!"
"And just why," Lyode inquired, "would these nefarious types be fleeing up a road that goes straight to the house of the central authority in this province, hmmm?"
Kamoj laughed. "Stop being so sensible."
Lyode still didn’t look concerned. But she slipped out a ball and readied her bow.
Down the road, the first stags came around a bend. Their riders made a splendid sight. The men wore gold disk mail, ceremonial, too soft for battle, designed to impress. Made from beaten disks, the vests were layered to create an airtight garment. They never attained that goal, of course. Why anyone would want airtight mail was a mystery to Kamoj, but tradition said to do it that way, so that was how they did it.
On rare occasions, a stagman also wore leggings and a hood of mail. Some ancient drawings even showed mail covering the entire body, including gauntlets and knee boots, with ball bearings in the joints to allow for ease of movement, and a transparent cover over the face. Kamoj thought the face cover must be artistic fancy. She saw no reason for it.
Her uncle’s stagmen gleamed today. Under their mail vests, they wore bell-sleeved shirts as gold as suncorn. They also had gold breeches and dark red knee boots fringed by feathers from the green-tailed quetzal. Twists of red and gold ribbon braided their reins, and bridle bells chimed with the pounding motion of their greenglass stags. Sunlight slanted down on the road, drawing sparkles from the dusty air.
Lyode smiled. "Your uncle’s retinue is a handsome sight."
Kamoj didn’t answer. Normally she liked watching Maxard’s honor guard, all the more so because she was fond of the riders, most of whom she had known all her life, just as she was fond of her uncle. Maxard’s good-natured spirit made everyone love him, which was why a wealthy merchant woman from the North Sky Islands was courting him despite his small corporation. However, today Maxard wasn’t with his honor guard. He had sent them to Ironbridge a few days ago, and now they returned with an esteemed guest, someone Kamoj had no desire to see.
The leading stagmen were riding past her hiding place now, the bi-hooves of their mounts whipping up scale dust from the road. She recognized the rider in front. Gallium Sunsmith. A big man with a friendly face, Gallium worked with his brother Opter in a sunshop, engineering gadgets that ran on light, like the mirror-driven peppermill Opter had invented. Gallium also made a good showing for himself each year in the swordplay exhibition at festival. So when Maxard needed an honor guard, Gallium became a stagman.
Down the road, more of the party came into view. These new riders wore black mail, with purple shirts and breeches, and black boots fringed by silver feathers. Jax Ironbridge, the governor of Ironbridge Province, rode in their center. Long-legged and muscular, taller than the other stagmen, he had a handsome face with strong lines, chiseled like granite. Silver streaked his black hair. He sat astride Mistrider, a huge greenglass with a rack of cloud-tipped antlers and scales the color of the opal-mists that drifted in the high northern forests.
Still hidden, Kamoj turned away from the road and leaned against the tree with her arms crossed, staring into the forest while she waited for the riders to pass.
A horn sounded behind her, its call winging through the air. Startled, she spun around. Apparently she wasn’t as well concealed as she had thought; Jax had stopped on the road and was watching her, the curved handle of a flight-horn in his hand.
Kamoj flushed, knowing she had given offense by hiding from him. Her merger with Jax had been planned for most of her life. He had the largest corporation in the northern provinces, which consisted of Argali, the North Sky Islands, and Ironbridge. Argument existed about the translation of the Iotaca word corporation: for lack of a better interpretation, most scholars assumed it meant a man’s dowry, the property and wealth he brought into marriage. A corporation as big as Jax’s became a political tool, invoking the same law of "Better the offer or yield" as had Lionstar’s rent.
Ironbridge, however, had given Argali a choice. Jax made an offer Kamoj could have bettered. It would have meant borrowing every last bit of wealth owned by even the most impoverished Argali farmers, but besting the amount by one stalk of bi-wheat was all it took. Then she could have turned down the offer and repaid the loans. She had been tempted to try. But Argali was her responsibility, and her province desperately needed this merger with flourishing Ironbridge. So she had agreed.
Jax was watching her with an impassive gaze. He offered his hand. "It will be my pleasure to escort you back to Argali house."
"I thank you for you kind offer, Governor Ironbridge," she said. "But you needn’t trouble yourself."
He gave her a cold smile. "I am pleased to see you as well, my love."
Hai! She hadn’t meant to further the insult. Limping forward, she took his hand. He lifted her onto the stag with one arm, a feat of strength few other riders could have managed even with a child, let alone another adult. As he pulled her up, he turned her so she ended up sitting sideways on the greenglass, her hips fitted into the space in front of the first boneridge that curved over its back. Jax sat behind her, astride the stag, between its first and second boneridges.
The smell of his disk mail wafted over her, rich with oil and sweat. As he bent his head to hers, she drew back in reflex, before she could think. Although Jax showed no outward anger, a muscle in his cheek twitched. Taking her chin in his hand, he pulled her head forward and kissed her, pressing in on her jaw until he forced her mouth open for his tongue. When she tensed, he clenched his fist around her upper arm, holding her in place.
A rush of air thrummed past Kamoj, followed by the crack of a bowball hitting a tree and the shimmering sound of falling scales. Pulling away from her, Jax raised his head. Both the Argali and Ironbridge stagmen had drawn their bows and had their weapons trained on Lyode. Kamoj’s bodyguard stood by the road, a second ball knocked in her bow, her weapon aimed at Jax.
All the stagmen looked uncomfortable, poised to return Lyode’s fire, yet holding back. No one wanted to shoot Kamoj’s bodyguard. The Argali stagmen had grown up with her and Gallium was her brother-in-law. The Ironbridge stagmen knew her as guardian of their governor’s betrothed. However, neither could they ignore that she had just sent a bowball hurtling within a few hand spans of the two governors.
In a cold voice only Kamoj could hear, Jax said, "Your hospitality today continues to amaze me." Shifting his attention to Gallium Sunsmith, he spoke in a louder voice. "You. Escort Lyode back to Argali House."
Gallium answered carefully. "It is my honor to serve you, sir. But perhaps Governor Argali would also like to do her best by Ironbridge, by accompanying her bodyguard back."
Kamoj almost swore. She knew Lyode and Gallium meant well, and she valued their loyalty, but she wished they hadn’t interfered. It would only earn them Jax’s anger. She and Jax had to work this out. Although their merger was weighted in favor of Ironbridge, it gave control to neither party. They would share authority, she focused on Argali and he on Ironbridge. It benefited neither province if their governors couldn’t get along.
She spoke to Jax in a gentle voice. "Please accept my apologies, Governor Ironbridge. I will discuss Lyode’s behavior with her on the walk back. We’ll straighten this out."
He reached down for her injured foot, bending her leg at the knee so he could inspect her wound. "Can you walk on this?"
"Yes." The position he was holding her leg in was more uncomfortable than the gouge itself.
"Very well." When he let go, his fingers inadvertently scraped the gash, and she stiffened as pain shot through her foot. She held her silence and slid off the stag, taking care to land on her other foot.
As she limped over to Lyode, bi-hooves scuffed behind her. Turning, she watched the riders thunder up the road to Argali.
* * *
Jul, the sun, had sunk behind the trees by the time Kamoj and Lyode walked around the last bend of the road, into view of Argali House. Legend claimed the house had once been luminescent pearl, all one surface without any seams. According to the temple scholar, who could read bits of the ancient codices, Argali House had been grown in a huge vat of liquid, on a framework of machines called nano-bots, which were supposedly so tiny you couldn’t see them even with a magnifying glass. After the house was complete, one was to believe the machines simply swam away and fell apart.
Kamoj smiled. The old scrolls were full of absurdities. Jax had shown her one in his library that claimed Balumil, the world, went around Jul in an "elliptical orbit" and rotated around a tilted axis. This tilt, and their living here in the north, was purported to explain why nights were short in summer and long in winter, fifty-five hours of darkness on the longest night of the winter, leaving only five hours of sunlight.
One year consisted of four seasons, of course: spring, summer, fall, winter. More formally, they called it the Long Year. A person could be born, reach maturity, wed, and have a family all within one Long Year. For some reason the scroll described this as a long time: hence the name. For an even more inexplicable reason, Kamoj’s ancestors had partitioned the Long Year into twenty equal time periods they called short-years. So each season was five short-years in length. People rarely bothered to say "short-year," though. Instead, they used the word year to refer to the short-year and always used Long Year when they meant the time it took for all four seasons to pass.
Although Kamoj followed the convention, it made no sense to her. Why call it a "short-year." It wasn’t an actual year, after all. The scroll claimed this odd designation came about because a short-year on Balimul was close in length to a "standard" year.
Standard for what?
Still, it was more credible than too-little-to-see machines. Whatever the history of Argali House, it was wood and stone now, both the main building and the newer wings that rambled over the cleared land around it. Huge stacks of firewood stood along one side, stores for the winter. Bird-shaped lamps hung from the eaves, rocking in the breezes, their glass tinted in Argali colors, rose, gold, and green. Their radiance created a dam against the purple shadows that pooled under the trees. Here in the road, a fluted post stood like a sentinel, with a scalloped hook at its top. A lantern, molded and tinted like a rose, hung from the hook, its warm glow beckoning them home.
They walked along the low wall that enclosed the house and entered the courtyard by a gate engraved with vines. Five stone steps ran the length of the house, leading up to a terrace, and five doors were set at even intervals along the front. The center door was larger than the others, stuccoed white and bordered by hieroglyphs painted in luminous blue, as well as the usual Argali colors.
As they neared the house, Kamoj heard voices. By the time they reached the steps, it had resolved into two men arguing.
"That sounds like Ironbridge," Lyode said.
"Maxard too." Kamoj hesitated, her foot on the first step.
Above them, the door slammed open. Maxard stood framed in the archway, a burly man in old farm clothes. His garb startled Kamoj more than his sudden appearance. By now her uncle should have been decked out in ceremonial dress and mail, ready to greet the Ironbridge party. Yet he looked as if he hadn’t even washed up since coming in from the fields.
He spoke in a low voice. "You better get in here."
She hurried up the steps. "What happened?" Had Jax been more offended than she realized?
Maxard didn’t answer, just moved aside to let her into the entrance foyer, a small room paved with tiles glazed white and accented by Argali designs.
Boots clattered in the hall beyond. Then Jax swept into the foyer with five of his stagmen. He paused in mid-stride when he saw Kamoj. Then he went past her, over to Maxard, towering over the younger man.
"We aren’t through with this, Argali," Jax said.
"My decision is made," Maxard answered.
"Then you are a fool." Jax glanced at Kamoj, his face stiff with an emotion she couldn’t identify. Shock? He strode out the door with his stagmen, ignoring Lyode.
Kamoj turned to her uncle. "What’s going on?"
He shook his head, his face impossible to read. Lyode came up the stairs, but when she tried to enter the house, Maxard stretched out his arm, putting his hand against the door frame to block her way. He spoke with uncharacteristic anger. "What blew into your brain, Lyode? Why did you have to shoot at him? Of all days I didn’t need Jax Ironbridge angry, this was it."
"He was mistreating Kamoj," Lyode replied.
"So Gallium Sunsmith says." Maxard frowned at Kamoj. "What were you doing, running around the woods like a wild animal?"
Kamoj stared at him. She always walked in the woods after she finished working in the stables. Maxard often came with her, the two of them discussing various projects for Argali or just enjoying each other’s company.
Quietly she said, "Uncle, what is it? What’s wrong?"
He blew out a gust of air. "Wait for me in the library."
She studied his face, trying to fathom what troubled him. No hints showed. So she nodded, to him and to Lyode. Then she limped into her house.
* * *
The centuries had warped the library door arch beyond simple repair. Kamoj leaned her weight into the door to shove it closed. Inside the library, shelves filled with codices and books covered the walls. The lamp by Maxard’s favorite armchair shed light over a table there. A codex lay on the table, a parchment scroll made from the inner bark of a sunglass tree and painted with gesso, a smooth plaster. Glyphs covered it, delicate symbols inked in Argali colors. Kamoj could decipher none of the writing. But as she took responsibility for Argali, Maxard had more time for his scholarship. He was learning to read.
Behind her the door scraped open, and she turned to see her uncle. With no preamble, he said, "I’ve something to show you."
Puzzled, Kamoj accompanied him to an arched door in the far wall. The storeroom beyond had once held carpentry tools, but those were long gone, sold by her grandparents to purchase grain. Maxard fished a skeleton key out of his pocket and opened the tanglebirch door. Unexpectedly, oil lamps lit the room beyond. Kamoj stared past him–and gasped.
Urns, boxes, chests, gigantic pots, finely wrought buckets: they all crammed the storeroom full to overflowing. Gems filled baskets, heaped like fruits, spilling onto the floor, diamonds that split the light into rainbows, emeralds as brilliant as the eyes of a greenglass, rose-rubies the size of fists, sapphires, topazes, amethysts, cats-eyes, jade, turquoise. She walked forward, and her foot kicked an opal the size of a polestork egg. It rolled across the floor and hit a bar of metal.
Metal. Metal. Bars lay in tumbled piles: gold, silver, copper, bronze. Sheets of rolled platinum sat on cornucopias filled with fruits, flowers, and grains. Glazed pots brimmed with vegetables, and spice racks hung from the wall. Bracelets, anklets, and necklaces were everywhere, wrought from gold and studded with jewels. A chain of diamonds lay on a silver bowl heaped with eider plums. Just as valuable, dried foodstuffs filled cloth bags and woven baskets. Nor had she ever seen so many bolts of rich cloth in one place: glimsilks, brocades, rose-petal satins, gauzy scarves shot through with metallic threads, scale-velvets, plush and sparkling.
And light strings! At first Kamoj thought she mistook the clump thrown on a pile of crystal goblets. But it was real. She went over and picked up the bundle of threads. They sparkled in the lamplight, perfect, no damage at all. This one bundle was enough to repair broken Current threads throughout the village, and it was only one of several in the room.
Turning to Maxard, she spread out her arms, the threads clutched in one fist. "This is–it’s–is this ours?"
He spoke in a cold voice. "Yes. It’s ours."
"But Maxard, why do you look so dour!" A smile broke loose on her face. "This could support Argali for years! How did it happen?"
"You tell me." He came over to her. "Just what did he give you out there today?"
He? She blinked. "Who?"
"Havyrl Lionstar."
Hai! So Maxard had heard. "I didn’t know he was watching."
"Watching what?"
"Me swimming."
"Then what?"
Baffled, she said, "Then nothing."
"Nothing?" Incredulity crackled in his voice. "What did you promise him, Kamoj? What sweet words did you whisper to compromise his honor?"
Kamoj couldn’t imagine any woman having the temerity to try compromising the huge, brooding Lionstar. "What are you talking about?"
"You promised to marry him if he gave you what you wanted, didn’t you?"
"What?"
Anger snapped in his voice. "Isn’t that why he sent this dowry?"
Kamoj stared at him. "That’s crazy."
"He must have liked whatever the two of you did."
"We did nothing. You know I would never jeopardize our alliance with Ironbridge."
Her uncle exhaled, his anger easing into puzzlement. "Then why did he send this dowry? Why does he insist on a merger with you tomorrow?"
Kamoj felt as if she had just stepped into a bizarre skit played out for revelers during a harvest festival. "He what?"
Maxard motioned at the storeroom. "His stagmen brought it today while I was tying up stalks in the tri-grain field. They spoke as if the arrangement were already made."
It suddenly became clear to Kamoj. All too clear. Lionstar didn’t want the ruins of an old palace, or the trees in their forest.
He wanted Argali. All of it.
Strange though his methods were, they made a grim sort of sense. He had already demonstrated superiority in forces: many stagmen served him, over one hundred, far more than Maxard had, more even than Ironbridge. With his damnable "rent" he had taken the first step in establishing his wealth. He even laid symbolic claim to her province by living in the Quartz Palace, the ancestral Argali home. Any way they looked at it, he had set himself up as an authority to reckon with. Today he added the final, albeit unexpected, ingredient–a merger bid so far beyond the pale that the combined resources of all the Northern Lands could never best it.
"Gods," Kamoj said. "No wonder Jax is angry." She set down the light threads. "There must be some way I can refuse this."
"I’ve already asked the temple scholar," Maxard said. "And I’ve looked through the old codices myself. We’ve found nothing. You know the law. Better the offer or yield."
She frowned. "I’m not going to marry that insane person."
"Then he will be fully within his rights to take Argali by force. That was how it was done, Kamoj, in the time of the sky ships. Do you want a war with Lionstar?" Dryly he added, "I’m not sure my stagmen even know how to fight a war."
"There must be some way out."
He spoke carefully. "The merger could do well for Argali."
She stiffened. "You want me to go through with it?"
He spread his hands. "And what of survival, Governor?"
So. Maxard finally spoke aloud what they obliquely dealt with in every discussion about the province. Drought, famine, killing seasons, high infant mortality, failing machines no one understood, lost medical knowledge, and overused fields: it all added up to one inescapable fact, the long slow dying of Argali.
With the Ironbridge merger, their survival might still be a struggle, but their chances improved. At worst, Jax would annex her province, making it part of Ironbridge. She intended to do her best to keep Argali, and continue as its governor, but if she did lose it to Ironbridge, at least her people would have the protection and support of the strongest province on this continent. Although Jax didn’t inspire love among his people, he was an intelligent governor who earned loyalty and respect.
And Lionstar? He might have wealth, but that didn’t mean he was a good leader. For all she knew he would drive Argali into ruin, famine, and death.
"Hai, Maxard." She exhaled. "I need time to consider this."
He touched her arm. "Go on upstairs. I’ll send a maize-girl up to tend you."
"Lyode always tends to me."
"I need her elsewhere tonight."
She scowled. "You? Or Jax?" When he didn’t answer, she swore. "I won’t have my people flogged." She spun around to the door. "If you won’t tell him, I will."
Maxard grabbed her arm, stopping her. Then he held up his other hand, a tiny space between his thumb and index finger. "Ironbridge is this close to declaring a rite of battle against us. I’ve barely thirty stagmen, Kamoj. He has over eighty, all of them better trained." He dropped his arms. "It would be a massacre. And you know Lyode. She would insist on fighting with them. Will you save Lyode and Gallium from a few lashes so they can die in battle?"
Kamoj swallowed. "Don’t say that."
His voice quieted. "With the mood Ironbridge is in now, seeing you will only enrage him. He can’t touch you, not yet, so Gallium and Lyode are the ones he will take his rage out on."
Kamoj gritted her teeth. Knowing Maxard was right made it no easier. She wondered, too, if her uncle realized what else he had just said. Not yet. Softly she asked, "And after the merger, when the rages take Ironbridge? Who will pay the price of his anger then?"
Maxard watched her with a strained expression, one that reminded her of the wrenching day he had come to tell her the bodies of her parents had been found, frozen beneath masses of ice in a late winter storm. She had never forgotten it.
He spoke now in the same aching voice. "Does it occur to you that you might be better off with Lionstar?"
She rubbed her arms as if she were cold. "What have I seen from Lionstar to make me think such a thing?"
"Hai, Kami." He started to reach for her, to offer comfort, but she shook her head. She loved him for his concern, but she feared to accept it, lest taking shelter from the pain would make it harder to face her responsibilities when that shelter was gone.
Maxard had caught her off guard with his insight into her relationship with Jax. Her uncle had always claimed he delayed her merger to give her experience at governing, lest Ironbridge be tempted to take advantage of a child bride. Now she wondered if it might have also been because Maxard had a better idea than he let on about the difficult life she faced with Jax. As an adult she had more emotional resources to deal with it.
But Maxard hadn’t guessed the whole of it. Kamoj knew from her own experiences what would happen to Lyode and Gallium. The only difference was that in this case Jax would have one of his stagmen mete out the punishment rather than taking care of it himself, in private, with only Kamoj as witness–and recipient. She had never spoken of such incidents to Maxard, knowing that if he found out, he would have broken the betrothal no matter what price Argali paid. Kamoj couldn’t let that happen. She would never set her personal situation over the survival of her people.
"Can you talk to Jax?" she asked. "Mollify him? Maybe you can keep him from hurting them."
"I will do what I can." He watched her with concern. "This will work out."
"Yes. It will." She wished she believed it.
After she left her uncle, she walked through the house, down halls paneled in tanglebirch, then up a staircase that swept to a balcony on the second floor. At the top of the stairs she looked out over the foyer below. The entrance to the living room arched in the right-hand wall, enough of the room visible so she could see a chandelier hanging from the ceiling like an inverted rose, flickering with candles. It reflected in the table beneath it, drawing gleams of green and blue from the polished tanglebirch.
Behind the table, a light panel glowed in the wall, the last working one in all the Northern Lands. When it failed, a thousand new light threads would do them no good. Even Opter Sunsmith couldn’t fix a broken panel. The knowledge had been lost long ago, even from the Sunsmith line.
Kamoj turned and walked along the balcony to her room. She opened the door into a chamber warm with candlelight. It glowed on the parquetry floors, worn furniture, and her old doll collection on the table, her one concession to sentimentality. Her bed stood in one corner, each of its four posts a totem of rose blossoms and fruits, ending at the top with a closed bud.
A voice spoke behind her. "Ev’ning, ma’am."
She turned to see Ixima Ironbridge, a young woman with a smudge of flour on one cheek. Jax had sent the maize-girl to Argali last year, so Kamoj could get to know her. That way, when Kamoj went to Ironbridge she would bring a familiar face with her, someone who already knew the province. The thoughtful gesture had both touched and confused Kamoj. How could Jax be so considerate one moment and so harsh the next?
Ixima spoke in her heavy Ironbridge dialect. "Shall I be a’helpin’ you change, ma’am?"
"Thank you." Kamoj sat on her bed. As Ixima knelt to take off her boot, Kamoj said, "Can you treat cuts?"
"I donnee know." Ixima slid off the boot and peeled away the sock. Kamoj winced as the cloth ripped away from her toes. Her foot must have bled during her walk and then dried her sock to her skin. Lifting her foot, she saw dirt ground into the gash.
"I should soak it in hot water," Kamoj said.
"I donnee see how a’rubbin’ it would help," Ixima said. "You rest, hai, ma’am? Tomorrow it be feeling better enough to scrub."
Kamoj knew she should treat the cut now. But she was tired and had much to consider. Besides, she always healed well. Tomorrow she would tend to it.
After Kamoj was settled in bed, the maize girl darkened the room and left, leaving one candle flickering on the window sill. Kamoj lay on her back, her hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling. If she refused the Lionstar merger, it would placate Jax but break the law. If Argali and Ironbridge combined forces, they would have an army almost equal to that of Lionstar. But if Lionstar attacked, Kamoj would have to send people she loved into a rite of battle, including Maxard and Gallium. A good chance existed they wouldn’t come home.
She knew what she had to do. As she made her decision, she felt a sense of lightening. She had no way to guess what Lionstar intended, but no matter what happened, never again would Jax raise his hand or quirt to her. Never again would he use the lives and well-being of her people as a weapon against her.
It was a bitter victory, given what she had seen of Lionstar, but it was all she had.
II
Lionstar
Second Scattering Channel
Kamoj squinted at the mirror while the threadwoman fussed over her. She heartily disliked formal clothes. Leggings and a farm tunic were more comfortable. But today was her wedding and at one’s wedding one wore a wedding dress.
This dress had the weight of tradition behind it, not to mention the weight of impractical amounts of cloth. Her mother and grandmother had also worn it. Dyed the blush color of an Argali rose, it fit snug around her torso and fell to the floor in drapes of rose-scale satin. Hand-made lace bordered the neckline and sleeves, and her hair fell in glossy black curls to her waist. The Argali Jewels glittered at her throat, wrists, and ankles, gold circlets designed like vines and inset with ruby roses. She hadn’t expected ever to wear them. She had been on the verge of selling them, in fact, to buy grain threshers.
With tugs and taps, the aged threadwoman tightened the dress at the waist and tried to make it stretch to fit Kamoj’s breasts. She cackled at her reluctant model, her eyes almost lost in their nest of lines. "You’ve no boy’s shape, Gov’ner. You be making Lionstar a happy man, I reckon."
Kamoj glowered at her, but the seamstress was saved from her retort by a knock on the door. Kamoj limped across the room in her unfamiliar shoes, heeled slippers sheathed in rose scale-leather. She opened the door to see Lyode.
Her bodyguard beamed. "Hai, Kamoj! You look lovely."
"It’s for my wedding," Kamoj said.
Lyode’s smile faded. "Maxard told me."
Kamoj dismissed the seamstress, then drew Lyode over to sit with her on the couch. The older woman started to lean against the back of the sofa, but jerked when her shoulders touched the cushions and sat forward again.
Watching her, Kamoj said, "You’ve huge bags under your eyes."
"I had–a little trouble sleeping last night."
Kamoj wasn’t fooled. But Maxard must have mollified Jax to some extent; otherwise Lyode wouldn’t have been able to move at all.
"How is Gallium?" she asked.
Gently Lyode said, "He’s all right, Kami. We both are."
Kamoj crumpled her skirt in her fists. "I hate all this."
"Hate is a strong word. Give Lionstar a chance."
"Lyode–"
"Yes?"
"About tonight . . ." Although in theory Kamoj knew what happened on a wedding night, it was only as vague concepts. But she felt awkward asking advice on such matters even from Lyode.
"Don’t look so dour." Lyode’s face relaxed into the affectionate grin she took on at the mention of her own husband, Opter. "Weddings are good things."
Kamoj snorted. "You look like a besotted fruitwing." When her bodyguard laughed, Kamoj couldn’t help but smile. "How will I know what to do?"
"Trust your instincts."
"My instincts tell me to run the other way."
Lyode touched her arm. "Don’t judge Lionstar yet. Wait and see."
* * *
At sunset the Argali coach rolled into the courtyard, pulled by four greenglass stags and driven by a stagman. Shaped and tinted like a rose, it sat in a chassis of emerald-green leaves. Unlike Argali House, which had only legends attesting to its construction, the coach was inarguably one surface with no seams, glimmering like pearl. Its making was so long in the past, no one remembered how it had been done.
Watching from her bedroom window, Kamoj heard the door behind her open. She turned to see Lyode framed in the archway, the bodyguard dressed in her finest shirt and trousers, with her bow on her back.
"It’s time to go," Lyode said.
Kamoj crossed the room without a limp. She felt nothing in her foot now: it had gone numb. She had soaked and cleaned the wound this morning, but it remained swollen. Normally she would have paid more attention, but she had too much else to think of now.
Maxard was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She smiled to see him. Today no lack of splendor would shame Argali. Her uncle’s mail vest gleamed, a gold contrast to his black hair and eyes. He wore a suncorn shirt, wine-red suede breeches, and a belt made from green, gold, and red quetzal feathers. Green feathers lined the tops of his gold knee-boots, and a ceremonial sword hung at his side, its scabbard tooled with Argali designs.
As Kamoj descended the stairs, her uncle watched with a smile that showed both pride and sorrow. When she reached him, he said, "You look like a dream." His voice caught. "Just yesterday you were a child. When did all this happen?"
"Hai, Maxard." She hugged him. "I don’t know." It was true. She had been a child; now she was an adult. Nothing separated the two. It gave her an inexplicable sense of loss. Why? Why should she want more time as a child?
She knew the stories, of course, of the rare child who took longer to reach adulthood. Rumor claimed Jax Ironbridge’s youth had stretched out far longer than normal. At her age he had still been an adolescent, tall and gangly, with only the first signs of his beard. He continued to grow long past the age when most youths reached maturity. He came into full adulthood well after most men his age–and by that time he was taller, stronger, and smarter than everyone else.
With Maxard and Lyode on either side, Kamoj left the house. A group of her friends had gathered in the courtyard, young women with rose vines braided into their black hair. They waved and smiled, and Kamoj waved back, trying to appear in good spirits.
Gathered around the coach, ten stagmen sat astride their mounts, including Gallium Sunsmith. A smudgebug flittered into the face of one stag and the animal pranced to the side, crowding Gallium’s greenglass. As the rider of the first animal pulled back his mount, his elbow accidentally bumped Gallium’s back. Kamoj saw the grimace of pain Gallium tried to hide, just as Lyode had done when she sat back on the couch.
Kamoj’s smile faded, lost to dismal thoughts of Jax. As she passed Gallium, she looked up and spoke softly. "My gratitude, Goodman Sunsmith. For everything."
He nodded, his face gentling. Lyode opened the coach door, and Maxard entered first, followed by Kamoj. Lyode came last and closed the door, shutting them into the heart of a rose. The driver blew on his flight horn, and its call rang through the evening air. Then they started off, bumping down the road.
The three of them sat in silence, at a loss for words. The coach rolled slowly, so the people walking could keep up with it. Even so, it seemed to Kamoj almost no time passed at all before it came to a stop.
The door swung open, framing Gallium in its opening. Beyond him in the gathering dusk, the golden face of the Spectral Temple basked in rays of the setting sun. Kamoj’s retinue of stagmen and friends, and now many other villagers too, stood waiting in the muddy plaza before it.
Lyode left the coach first. Kamoj gathered up her skirts and followed, but in the doorway she froze. Across the mud and cobblestones, a larger coach was rolling into view. Made from bronze and black metal, it had the shape of a roaring skylion’s head with wind whipping back its feathered mane. Every burnished detail gleamed. The eyes were emeralds as large as fists. Kamoj wondered where Lionstar found such big gems. Argali’s jewel-master had checked and double-checked the ones in his dowry. They were real. Flawless and real.
As soon as the coach stopped, its door opened. Two stagmen came out, decked out in copper and dark blue, with cobalt diskmail that glittered in the sun’s slanting rays. Sapphires lined the tops of their boots.
Then a cowled man stepped down into the plaza.
Kamoj shuddered. Lionstar towered over everyone else, easily the largest man in the courtyard. As always, he wore a blue cloak with a cowl pulled up over his head. Only black showed inside that shadowed hood; either he had a cloth over his face–or he had no face.
Maxard took her arm. "We should go."
His touch startled her into motion. She descended from the coach, onto a flagstone that glinted with mica even in the purple shadows. Her heels clicked as she crossed the courtyard, stepping from stone to stone to avoid the mud.
The Spectral Temple, also called the Special Functions House, was a terraced pyramid with a staircase climbing its left side. Rays from the setting sun hit the stairs at just the right angle to make a snake of light curve down them to the statue of a starlizard’s head at the bottom, creating a serpent of radiance and stone.
On the front face of the temple, a huge starlizard’s head opened its mouth in a roar, forming an entrance. Its front four legs stretched out on the ground, its back legs were braced against the slanting wall, and its tail coiled around the base of the pyramid. As Kamoj watched, a sunray hit the lizard’s crystal eyes and arcs of light appeared on either side of its head, an effect created by the temple’s ancient architect to mimic the Perihelia spirits, sometimes called Sun Lizards or Jul Lizards, that guarded the temple.
True sun lizards appeared in the sky as partial halos of light on either side of the sun, like pale rainbows, with a long serpent’s tail of white light extending out from them. Their favored time was near dusk, as the bright, tiny Jul descended to the horizon, scantily dressed in wispy clouds, while the sky overhead darkened to a deep, deep violet. During winter, when ice crystals filled the air, Perihelia and Halo spirits graced the heavens in arcs and rings, and even appeared around the head of a favored person’s shadow when it lay across a dew-covered expanse of tubemoss at dawn.
Lionstar’s group reached the Jul Lizard first. He stopped under the overhang of its fanged mouth and waited, his cowled head turned toward Kamoj. She came up with her retinue and they stopped. After they had all stood that way for several moments, she flushed, wondering what Lionstar wanted. Didn’t he know he should go in first?
One of Lionstar’s stagmen spoke to him in a low voice. He nodded, then turned and entered the temple with his retinue. Relieved, Kamoj followed with her own people. No one spoke. She wondered if Lionstar could even talk. No one she knew had ever heard him do it.
Inside, sunset light trickled through slits high in the walls. Stone benches filled the interior, except for a dais at the far end, where a polished stone table stood. Decorating the table were carvings of Argali vine designs, those motifs known as Bessel integrals in ancient Iotaca. Genuine rose vines and ferns heaped the table, filling the air with fragrance, fresh and clean.
Around the walls, more garlands hung from statues of several Current spirits–the Airy Rainbows, the Glories, and the Nimbi. In the wall slits above the statues, light slanted through faceted windows with water misted between the double panes, creating spectral arcs of color. Music graced the air, from breezes blowing through fluted chambers on the ceiling, hidden within bas relief depictions of the Spherical Harmonic wraiths. Today it all seemed unreal.
As the retinues and villagers sat on the benches, Kamoj walked to the far end of the temple with Maxard at her side and Lionstar preceding them. The priestess, Airysphere Prism, waited by the flower-bedecked table. Taller than average, Airys had dark eyes and glossy black hair that fell to her waist.
When Lionstar reached Airys, he turned to watch Kamoj. At least she assumed he was watching. His cowl hid his face. Even when she reached him, she saw only darkness within that hood, perhaps a glint of metal.
Maxard bowed to him. "Argali welcomes you, Governor Lionstar."
Lionstar nodded. After an awkward silence, Maxard flushed, though whether from anger or shame at the implied insult in that silence, Kamoj didn’t know.
Finally her uncle took her hands. "May the Current always flow for you, Kami."
She squeezed his fingers. "And you, dear Uncle."
Maxard swallowed. Then he let her go and left the dais, going to sit on the front bench with Lyode.
"It is done?" Lionstar asked.
Kamoj almost jumped. His voice was deep and resonant, with a heavy accent. On the word "is," it vibrated like a stringed instrument.
Airys blinked, the vertical slits of her pupils opening wide in the shadowed temple. With her large eyes and delicate features she looked almost ethereal herself. "Do you refer to the ceremony?" she asked.
"Yes," Lionstar said.
"It hasn’t begun." She took a scroll from the table and unrolled it. Glyphs covered the parchment in starlight blue ink and Argali colors. She offered it to Lionstar, and he took it with black-gloved hands.
"Governor Argali," Airys said. "Give me your hand."
After Kamoj extended her arm, Airys took it and said, "In the name of Spectra Luminous I give this man to you." She turned. "Havyrl Lionstar, give me your hand." When he complied, Airys took a vine from the altar and tied his and Kamoj’s wrists together, bedecking them in roses and scale-leaves. Looking up at Lionstar, she said, "You may read the contract now."
Kamoj waited for him to decline. No one ever actually read the contract. Only scholars knew how to read, after all, and only the most gifted knew ancient Iotaca. Most people considered the scroll a fertility prayer. Kamoj had her doubts; Airys had managed to translate a few parts of it for her, and to Kamoj it sounded more like a legal document than a poem. She supposed lovers preferred to see matters in terms of moons and fertility, though.
In any case, the groom always returned the scroll. Then the wedding couple spoke a blessing they had composed themselves. Kamoj hadn’t written anything and she doubted Lionstar had either, so they would simply go on with the ceremony.
Except they didn’t. Lionstar read the scroll.
As his voice rumbled, indrawn breaths came from their audience. Kamoj doubted anyone in Argali had ever heard the blessing spoken at a merger, let alone with such power. Lionstar had a deep voice, with an unfamiliar accent and the burr of a vibrato. It also sounded slurred.
When he finished, the only sounds in the temple were the faint calls of evening birds outside.
Finally he said, "This ceremony, is it done?"
Airys managed to recover. "The vows are finished, if that is what you mean."
He gave her the scroll. Then he untied the vine joining his and Kamoj’s wrists and draped it around Kamoj’s neck so the roses spilled over her breasts. She stiffened, jarred by the break with tradition; they weren’t supposed to undo the vine until they consummated the marriage. Before she had a chance to speak, he took her elbow, turned her around, and headed for the entrance, bringing her with him.
Murmurs came from the watchers, a rustle of clothes, the clink of diskmail. Belatedly Kamoj realized he had misunderstood: he thought the ceremony was over when it had hardly begun. But the rest was only ritual. The vows were said. Argali and Lionstar had their corporate merger.
They came out into a purple evening. It happened so fast Kamoj barely had time to catch her breath before they reached Lionstar’s coach. Lionstar stopped, looking at something over her head, and she turned to see Maxard coming up to them, flanked by Lyode and Gallium.
Lionstar spoke to her uncle. "Good night, sir."
Kamoj wondered what he meant. Was "good night" a greeting or a farewell?
Maxard bowed to him. Lionstar nodded, then motioned to his men. As he raised his arm, his cloak parted and revealed his diskmail, a sapphire flash of blue. What metal he did use, to create such a dramatic color? One of his stagmen opened the coach door, and Lionstar put his hand on Kamoj’s arm, with the obvious intent of passing her into the coach.
It was happening too fast. Kamoj balked, turning from Lionstar, and went over to Lyode. As she and Kamoj embraced, Lyode murmured, "You’re like a daughter to me. You remember that. I will always love you." Her words had the sound of tears.
Kamoj’s voice caught, muffled against her shoulder. "And I you."
Stepping back, Kamoj turned to Maxard. But before she had a chance to bid him farewell, Lionstar took her elbow and drew her toward the coach. She almost pulled away again, but hesitated. Antagonizing the man who had just taken over Argali would be a poor start to their merger. She gave Maxard a farewell glance and he nodded, his and her eyes both wet with unshed tears.
Then Lionstar passed her to one of his stagmen, who handed her up into the roaring lion. Its interior was somber, panelled in black moonglass wood and upholstered in dark leather. A window showed in the wall by her seat. Turning to watch Lionstar enter, she saw another window in the door behind him. Yet from outside, no windows had shown at all.
As a stagman closed the door, Lionstar sat next to her, his long legs filling the car. His cloak fell open, revealing ceremonial dress much like Maxard’s, except in darker colors. The coach rolled forward, and Kamoj looked out the window, to catch a final glimpse of her home. But the "glass" was fading into a blank expanse of wood. Alarmed, she turned to look out Lionstar’s window, only to find it had gone away as well.
With such a dark interior and no lamps, it should have been pitch black in the coach. But light still filled it. She bit her lip, wondering where the luminance came from.
"Here." Lionstar tapped the ceiling. His voice had a blurred quality to it.
Puzzled, she looked up. A glowing white strip bordered the roof of the coach. It resembled a light panel, but made as thin as a finger and flexible enough to bend.
"That’s what you were looking for, wasn’t it?" he said. "The light?"
How had he known? "Yes."
He nodded, then reached into his cloak and brought out a bottle. Shaped like a curved square, it was made from dark blue glass with a gold top. He unscrewed the top, lifted the bottle into his cowl, and tilted back his head. After a moment he lowered the bottle and wiped his hand across whatever he had for a face. Then he returned the bottle to his cloak.
Kamoj blinked, catching a whiff of rum. Then Lionstar turned and slid his arms around her. With one black-gloved hand, he rubbed the lace on her sleeve, rolling it between his fingers. Then he folded his hand around her breast, under the vine of roses, and pressed his lips against the top of her head while he caressed her.
Embarrassed and flustered, Kamoj sat utterly still. But his hand soon stopped moving. In fact, after a few moments, it slipped off her breast and fell into her lap. His whole body was leaning on her now, making it hard to sit up straight. She squinted up at him, wondering what to do. While she pondered, he gave a snore.
Her new husband, it seemed, had gone to sleep.
She gave him a nudge. When he made no objection, she pushed him into an upright position. He lay his head back against the seat, his mail-covered chest rising and falling in a deep, even rhythm. Just as she started to feel grateful for this unexpected reprieve to absorb her situation, he tried to lie down again. The coach didn’t have enough room for his legs, so he stretched out on the seat with his feet on the ground and his head in her lap. Then he went back to snoring.
Kamoj scratched her chin. Of all the possible scenarios she had imagined for their ride to the palace, this wasn’t one of them. She stared at his cowled head in her lap, the hood lying across his face. Was he truly as hideous as everyone claimed?
For a while she resisted her curiosity. The longer he slept, though, the more the thought nagged at her. How would he even know if she looked?
Finally she could take it no more. She tugged on his cowl. When he made no protest and showed no sign of waking, she pulled more. Still no response from Lionstar. Emboldened, she brushed the hood back from his head–and nearly screamed.
He had no face.
No eyes, no nose, no mouth. Just metal. His head was man-shaped, with the contours of a face, but instead of skin and human features, he had only silver scales.
"Hai," she whispered. She drew in a shakey breath. So. Now she knew.
As her pulse calmed, she took in more of his appearance. He had human hair. No, not human. It too had a metallic cast. Thick glossy curls spilled to his shoulders, a mixture of gold, bronze, and copper, with silver at the temples. It was glorious. She had never seen those colors, though. Some farmers in Ironbridge had yellow hair, but nothing like this multi-hued mane.
In fact, it fit his name almost too well. A remarkable coincidence, that someone named Lionstar happened to have such a leonine mane, like the skylions of the upper mountains, with their six-legged scaled bodies and feathered manes. Then again, maybe his ancestors adopted the name because such hair ran in his line. People had done stranger. She was named for a plant, after all, and the Current only knew what Quanta meant.
Kamoj brushed a finger over his curls. He kept on sleeping. At least she thought he was sleeping. How did one tell when a person had no eyes? In any case, he gave no evidence he disliked her touch. She slid her hand deeper into his curls. Hai. They felt as good as they looked.
As she stroked his hair, her fingertips scraped his face. The metal felt smooth under her skin. She ran her finger down to his jaw and pushed the scales.
His face slipped.
Kamoj jerked away her hand. When he still showed no sign of waking, she leaned over and peered at the metal. It had indeed moved. She pushed it again–and it crumpled, uncovering a stretch of skin.
A mask. He was wearing a mask. She almost laughed in her relief. She hadn’t married a man with no face after all.
Sliding her finger along the mask, she peeled it away from his head. It came off like a flexible skin, revealing a face that was unusual, but human. He was nowhere near as old as rumor claimed, only about forty, perhaps a bit more. His features were handsome, with high cheekbones and a straight nose. His lashes lay long against his cheeks, in a lush gold fringe, real metal, soft enough so they probably didn’t irritate his eyes, but still unlike human hair. His skin had a gold tinge. When she touched his face, though, the skin felt warm. Human. His lips were full. Sensual. She ran her finger along the lower one and it yielded under her touch.
His breathing sounded strained, and dark circles of fatigue showed under his eyes. She also smelled the rum more. The mask had helped hide the odor on his breath before, but now it filled the coach, mixing with the scent of the scale dust.
As his breathing grew more labored, Kamoj became alarmed. She spread the mask back over his face, but no matter how she placed it against his skin, she couldn’t get it to stay.
Suddenly he moved, rolling onto his back to look up at her. He croaked words in a language she didn’t understand and clawed at the mask. Dismayed, she pushed it into his hand. Before he could put it on, his entire body went rigid and he began to choke, his fingers clenched around the crumpled metal skin.
A siren pierced the air, coming from nowhere Kamoj could see. Frantic now, she pried the mask out of his fist and pressed it against his face again. Still it wouldn’t stay.
The coach lurched to a stop so fast it threw both she and Lionstar onto the floor. The door slammed open and two stagmen jumped inside. One pulled Kamoj back out of the way while the other knelt by Lionstar. The second stagman had another mask in his hand, this one firmer, and translucent, with a tube connected to a metal cylinder. He set the mask over Lionstar’s face and a hissing noise filled the coach.
Kamoj tried to pull away from the stagman holding her, but he wouldn’t let go. She looked up and saw him staring at the mask she held. Then he called her a name, one she had never thought anyone would say to her. A stagmen behind them opened his mouth to chastise the man who insulted her. Then he saw the mask she held and whatever he had meant to say died on his lips.
A groan came from the floor. Turning back, she saw Lionstar breathing from the new mask. The stagman gripping her arm relaxed, though not enough to let her pull away.
Lionstar sat up, holding the mask in place. When his man tried to offer assistance, the governor shook his head. So the stagman withdrew, stepping out of the coach. Lionstar stood up, one hand braced against the wall, bending his head so it didn’t hit the roof.
He moved his mask aside and spoke to the man holding Kamoj. "Let her go, Azander."
"Sir, she took your breathing skin off," Azander said.
Lionstar waved the mask. "Curiosity’s nay murder. Go’n. Drive us home."
"Yes, sir." As Azander backed out of the coach, he gave Kamoj a hard look. She recognized the warning. If she hurt Lionstar, Azander would see that she paid for it.
Within moments they were rumbling along the road again. Seated next to Kamoj, Lionstar leaned back and closed his eyes, holding the new mask over his face, with the metal cylinder at his side. She wondered if he really believed she had taken off his other mask out of curiosity, or if he suspected what Azander almost said, that his new bride had tried to murder him.
Sitting up again, Lionstar took out his bottle and fumbled with it, trying to open it one-handed. Finally he dropped the mask in his lap and used both hands to open the bottle. He drank deeply from it, his throat working as he swallowed.
When he finished, he handed Kamoj the empty bottle. "Put top back’n." Then he put his mask over his face again, holding it with one hand.
Kamoj replaced the top, wondering if he always drank this much. Maybe that was why he didn’t care that he lived in the ruins of a palace.
The new mask covered only his mouth and nose, giving her a view of his eyes. They were large, and a remarkable color, dark violet. Red and violet, actually; they would have been beautiful if they hadn’t been so bloodshot. Even stranger, though, were the pupils. Rather than vertical slits, his were round. Although odd, the effect wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it had a sense of "rightness" that puzzled Kamoj, an inexplicable familiarity.
Right now those unusual eyes were watching her. Lionstar pulled aside his mask. "Why’d do it?"
She knew what he meant. "I wondered what you looked like."
"You could have just asked."
"I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would hurt you."
He nodded. Then he lay his head back and closed his eyes. After a moment the mask fell out of his hand and into his lap.
"Governor Lionstar." Kamoj shook his shoulder. "Your breathing skin." When he opened his eyes, blinking at her, she gave him the silver mask. He tried pressing it into place, with no more success than she had managed earlier. He squinted at it, then flipped the metal skin over and tried again. This time it stayed in place, leaving his face a smooth sheen of silver, with black ovals for eyes.
"’S better," he mumbled. He laid his head back and the ovals closed, taking away that last vestige of humanity.
III
Pacal
Scattering Kernel
They rode for an hour, Lionstar sleeping while Kamoj sat in bored silence. Finally the coach rolled to a stop. Azander opened the door and took in the scene, Lionstar dozing, Kamoj holding the empty bottle. The stagman didn’t look surprised.
Leaning inside the coach, Azander shook Lionstar’s shoulder. "Prince Havyrl. We be home."
Kamoj blinked at the archaic title. Prince? Of what?
Lionstar’s eyes opened, black on silver. "What?"
"Home," Azander repeated. "You and your bride."
"Bride?"
"Yes, sir. Your bride."
"What bride?"
Azander tilted his head toward Kamoj. "The Governor of Argali."
"Oh. Yes. Of course." Lionstar sat up, rubbing his hand through his hair. "See to the stags."
"Yes, sir." Azander backed out of the coach.
Lionstar followed him out into the night, which was lit by a faint radiance. As Kamoj stepped down from the coach, he offered his hand. Taking it, she thought she felt callouses under his glove. That made no sense, though. A man of his power would hardly have the callouses of a farmer.
Then she turned around–and froze in astonishment.
They were in the courtyard of the Quartz Palace. Gone were the crumbled ruins covered by tangled vines, briars, and roses. Now the rose-quartz palace gleamed, restored to its full beauty and more. Long and narrow, with a terrace that stretched its length, it had nine evenly spaced entrances. A tower reached up at each end, topped by red turrets. Bird-shaped lamps hung in the windows and from the eaves, making the walls glow. Above it all, the aurora borealis shimmered in the sky, curtains of gold and pink luminance undulating across the heavens.
"Sweet Airys," Kamoj whispered. "It’s lovely."
"S’pretty," Lionstar agreed.
He took her elbow and led her toward the steps that went up to the terrace. The double doors in the center swung open and more radiance spilled into the night, backlighting three people. She recognized two as villagers from Argali, a man and woman, each of normal height, both dressed in servant’s clothes.
The third person came out to meet them. Tall and gaunt, with a craggy face and short graying hair, the woman was like no one Kamoj had ever before seen. She wore a form-fitting gray suit made in one piece, with gray knee-boots. A patch on her shoulder showed an exploding star within a triangle.
She met them half-way down the steps. Lionstar nodded to her, and they all walked up the stairs together. Although the woman looked hale and fit, her breathing was growing labored, as if she had just run a race instead of walking only a few steps.
At the top of the stairs, Kamoj froze. A few paces away, a shimmer of light hung in the open doorway.
"’S even nicer inside," Lionstar said, mistaking her hesitation.
No one else seemed bothered by the curtain of light, and Kamoj didn’t want to look foolish. So she took a breath and walked with them through the shimmer. It clung to her like a soap bubble, sliding over her face, hair, and clothes.
The entrance foyer looked as she recalled, a small room with tiles on the floor enameled in Argali rose designs. Except now the tiles were whole and the walls smooth, each brick snug with its neighbors, none showing their former chinks and cracks.
Lionstar peeled off his mask and Kamoj tensed, afraid he would choke again. But no one else acted alarmed. In fact, she had never tasted such pure, rich air. It made her dizzy, almost euphoric.
The tall woman was breathing normally now. She asked Kamoj a question, but Kamoj had trouble with her heavy accent. The woman was speaking Bridge, Kamoj’s language, but she used the same odd dialect as Lionstar. Like Lionstar, she also mixed in words from Iotaca.
The woman tried again. "Are you all right, Governor Argali?"
Kamoj stood up straighter, trying not to feel intimidated by the woman’s unusual height. "Yes."
"She’s fine." Lionstar waved his arm at the two Argali servants. "Jus’ like them. Fine."
The woman glanced at him, then at the bottle Kamoj still held. She spoke to Lionstar in another language, her voice tense. Lionstar answered with a scowl, then turned away and took Kamoj’s arm. He led her to an archway across the foyer, where another shimmer curtain hung. Kamoj held her breath as they walked through it, but nothing untoward happened.
The air in the Entrance Hall, on the other side, felt as pure as in the foyer. New panels of mellow sunglass wood covered the walls. She had never before seen the paintings Lionstar’s people had hung here, scenes of the Argali countryside. He must have commissioned them from the villagers, which meant he was supporting the Argali economy.
Then she saw the other additions to the hall. Light panels–light panels!–glowed near the ceiling.
Lionstar was watching her face. "’S good, yes?"
"Yes." She had never expected this generosity. He didn’t even own this building he had refurbished. Then it occurred to her that perhaps it wasn’t such generosity after all. He did own the palace now, as well as everything else that had belonged to her family. Including her.
They walked down the Entrance Hall, accompanied by the two servants and the tall woman. The hall ended at a gleaming ballroom that stretched to their right and left. Radiance from its chandeliers reflected off the walls and parquetry floor, yet she saw no candles within the chandeliers, only shimmers of light.
They crossed the width of the ballroom to another archway that opened into the Long Hall, which ran the length of the palace perpendicular to the Entrance Hall. Moonglass paneled its walls and a dark carpet covered the floor. Lamps set in rose-shaped molds glowed at intervals along the walls.
Lionstar set off down the hall, still holding Kamoj’s arm. The tall woman easily matched his stride, but Kamoj and the servants almost had to run to keep up.
Lionstar didn’t stop until they reached a door at the east end. Then he turned to the others. "You can go. I’ll take her up."
The tall woman spoke. "Perhaps Kamoj would like to meet the staff. Look at the palace. Have dinner." Dryly she said, "Catch her breath."
"Who?" Lionstar asked.
"Kamoj," the woman said.
"Who’s that?" he asked.
This isn’t happening, Kamoj thought.
The woman stared at him. "Your wife."
Lionstar turned to her. "Kamoj? Is that your name?"
"Yes," Kamoj said.
"’S pretty," he said. "Like you."
"She hasn’t even had a chance to unpack," the woman said.
"Unpack what?" he asked.
"Her suitcases. Trunks. I don’t know." The woman looked at the two servants. "Whatever her belongings came in."
"She donnee have any, Colonel Pacal," the plump woman said.
The tall woman looked startled. Turning back to Lionstar, she said, "Saints above, Vyrl. Didn’t you arrange for her things to be brought up?"
"If it hasn’t been done," he growled, "then do it."
The woman blinked at him. Then she turned to Kamoj and spoke gently, as if Kamoj were a child instead of a grown woman. "Do you have things you would like? We can send someone down to Argali House in the morning."
Kamoj nodded. "Thank you. Lyode will know what to send."
"Lyode?" the woman asked. "Is that a person?"
Lionstar scowled. "Dazza, stop interrogating her."
Kamoj wished they would decide what to call one another. Was the tall woman Dazza or Colonel Pacal? Was Lionstar a governor or a prince? The tall woman had called him Vyrl. A shortened version of Havyrl, probably. Perhaps if she thought of him by a nickname, it would make all this seem less intimidating.
Vyrl dismissed the servants and Dazza again, and this time he glared until they left. Then he pushed open the door. The staircase beyond spiraled up inside the tower at this end of the palace. Although the steps had been repaired, the rough stone was otherwise untouched. The only windows were slits high on the walls. No glass showed in them, just the light curtains.
They climbed three flights to a landing. Vyrl opened the door there and escorted her into a spare chamber only a few paces across, its stone walls polished but unadorned. Its inner door opened into a large, austere bedroom.
Kamoj had last seen this suite with snow drifted across its broken floor. Now the floor was whole, a smooth expanse of stone with no rugs. The walls were also bare stone, except for two crossed swords over the bed. No fire burned in the hearth, yet the room felt warm. The tanglebirch furniture was new: a solid desk, chairs, and a wardrobe against the far wall, all made from wood with blue and green highlights in scale patterns. The bed on the dais to their left had always been there, but now its posters were repaired and varnished, its covers and canopy new. In the wall next to it, a door stood ajar, revealing a corner of the bathing room. Everything was clean, fresh, and devoid of ornamentation.
One unexpected touch softened the decor; across the room, a curtain made from strings of sparkling beads hung in an archway.
Vyrl squinted at the room. "’S not so good for a wedding night, is it? Solar told me this."
"Solar?" Kamoj asked.
"One of the housemaids." Vyrl led her to the beaded archway. "She said she’d prepare a place for you." He pulled back the beads, moving aside for her.
Kamoj stopped, both charmed and awkward with his offer to let her enter first. Deciding it would be ruder to refuse his courtesy than to precede him, she walked into the small room.
She saw the difference immediately. This room felt warm in a way that had nothing to do with temperature. Tapestries softened the walls and the delicate sunglass furniture sparkled. The shutters across the room were open, revealing a stained glass window with a rose in its center. To her right, a comforter lay on the floor, and posts rose from each of its corners, totems like those on her bed at home. Kamoj wondered why they put the bedding on the ground. Then she remembered. This chamber had been a second bathing room. Vyrl’s people must have filled the small pool with mattresses for her bed.
"This is all for me?" she asked.
"Can’t be for me," Vyrl said. "I’d break those chairs if I sat in them."
She almost laughed, but held back, unsure if he meant it as a joke. Jax never joked about himself, a subject he considered of great weight.
Watching her, Vyrl smiled. It gentled his entire face, making him look like a farm boy. He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her into an embrace. "Ever since yesterday, I’ve been thinking about you. I still can’t believe you agreed to this." Then he bent his head to kiss her.
Flustered again, Kamoj stood still while his pressed his lips against hers. The rum smell of his breath clogged her nose.
Vyrl lifted his head. "Is it that bad?" Wincing, he said, "I am as rude as Dazza suggests, yes? I’ll go clean up." He tilted his head at a wardrobe against the wall. "Will it harm your dress to go there tonight? Tomorrow the housemaids can tend to it."
The wardrobe, an antique called the rose cabinet, gleamed now. Someone had even redone its carvings, and a mirror bordered with frosted vines hung on one door.
"Camber?" Vyrl asked.
It took her a moment to realize he meant to say her name. "Kamoj," she said, too disconcerted to stop the correction before it came out of her mouth. Too late, she realized what she had done. Tensing, she started to raise her arms, to shield her face.
But Vyrl didn’t hit her. Instead he reddened, as if embarrassed. "My sorry, water sprite. I’m terrible with names." Taking her shoulders, he kissed her again. "Don’t go away." Then he spun on his booted heel and strode out of the room. The bead curtain swung in his wake, clinking and sparkling.
Kamoj blinked, even more unsettled now. She pushed her hand through her hair, mussing the vine of roses that hung around her neck. Then she went to the curtain and looked out. The main bedroom was empty, but she heard water running in the bathing room. She slipped off her shoes so she could walk without being heard. As she limped to the entrance, pain stabbed her heel. Crammed in her shoe, her foot had gone numb, but now that she had freed it, the wound began to hurt again.
Under her push, the foyer door swung open as smooth as oil on glass. She crossed the entrance chamber and edged open the outer door.
Guards.
Two stagmen stood posted on the landing, Azander by the door and another man several paces away by the wall. She had seen the arrangement before, with Jax’s bodyguards outside his room when he stayed at Argali House.
Azander looked down at her. "Be there a problem, Gov’ner?" Although his accent wasn’t as thick as an Ironbridge dialect, it wasn’t pure Argali either.
"Nothing, thank you." She closed the door, uncertain herself what she had wanted. Why did they guard Vyrl in his own bedroom? To ensure she did him no harm? That seemed rather silly, given his size and strength compared to hers, especially now that he didn’t need his mask. Besides, they were outside and she was in here. Perhaps they were there to keep her from leaving.
She returned to her room and undid her dress, letting it fall in a heap of satin around her feet. It left her standing in her wedding silks, a translucent pink underdress that came to her knees and pink stockings held up by lace garters. Lyode had claimed such underclothes would evoke pleasant reactions from her groom. Kamoj didn’t see why, but she had figured it was worth a try.
She scooped up her dress–and nearly passed out when she stood up. Black spots floated in her vision. The air was too thick, so rich it made her giddy. She swayed, waiting until her head cleared. Then she put away her clothes in the rose cabinet.
Feeling self-conscious, she sat on the bed and sank into its billowy comforter. It it was hard to keep her eyes open. She lay down and let them close, just for a moment.
IV
Stained Glass Moons
Eigenstate Interactions
A crash woke Kamoj. She sat bolt upright, trying to fathom her surroundings. As she came more fully awake, she remembered. She was at the Quartz Palace.
Groggy from sleep, she got up, went to the window, and pushed open the stained glass panes, hoping the night air would clear her head. Outside, the East Sky Mountains slumbered under their carpet of trees.
Three of Balumil’s six moons were visible. The Elder Brother shone high in the sky, almost full, casting blue light over the world. The Wild Stag made a ragged green shape just above the trees, lagging behind his brother. For every four times the Elder Brother crossed the heavens, the Wild Stag only managed three. The Brother always presented a serene face to Balumil, passing with regular precision through his phases. The Wild Stag knew no such civilized behavior. Chaotic and unpredictable, he changed both shape and size as he tumbled through the heavens, varying from an uneven disk to a squashed sausage.
The auroras were quiescent, making it one of the rare times Balumil’s faint ring showed in the sky. Kamoj could just make out the gold thread curving up from the horizon in the southeast and back down in the southwest. The gibbous disk of the Shepherd Moon glistened pink above the ring. From the positions of the moons, she guessed she had slept seven hours. Dawn was still a long time away: in mid-autumn the days split evenly, thirty hours of darkness and thirty of light. During this season, she usually slept twice at night, once during the hours after sunset and then again in the hours before dawn.
A puffbug flew against the shimmer curtain in the window and stuck. With a frenzied beating of its scaled wings, it freed itself and trilled off into the night, its golden puff vibrating as it sang. Curious, Kamoj pushed her hand through the shimmer. The curtain stretched along her arm like a film. When she pulled her arm back inside, the shimmer clung to her skin, returning to its original shape.
Kamoj closed the window. So odd. For all the beauty Vyrl had restored to her ancestral home, he also brought these strange changes.
Where was Vyrl? The fountain still gurgled in the bathroom. What if he had passed out and fallen in the water? Azander already suspected her of foul play against her husband, and many people knew she had dreaded this merger. If something happened to Vyrl, she was the obvious suspect.
Kamoj limped into the main bedroom and went to the bathing room. The door stood ajar, but no one answered her knock. She nudged it all the way open, revealing a chamber larger than hers, though still smaller than the main bedroom. A pool filled most of it, tiled in pale blue squares enameled with roses. In its center, the sculpture of a rose opened to the ceiling. She remembered crawling into that bowl as a child and playing with dried leaf-scales that had drifted into it. Now water surged out of the fountain and cascaded down its sides.
A larger-than-human statue stood at the corner of the pool, the figure of a quetzal, that bird named for a mythical creature on a mythical world no one had ever seen. This statue was actually a great stone chair, its scaled head raised high, its back designed from its feathered wings, its upper legs as armrests, its middle legs encircling the seat, and its lower legs as the base of the statue, along with its glorious feathered tail.
Sprawled in the chair, a naked Vyrl was sound asleep.
Kamoj blushed. She didn’t know whether to stay or leave. She saw what had caused the crash that woke her. Blueglass shards from a shattered bottle lay scattered around the base of the quetzal. The bottle must have slid out of Vyrl’s hand, probably resting on an edge of the statue, gradually slipping, until it fell. His legs were braced against a ridge in its base, his muscles tense even in sleep. It was apparently all that kept him from sliding into the pool.
Picking her way through the glass, Kamoj went to Vyrl. She couldn’t stop staring at him, at his broad shoulders and chest, his narrow hips, his long legs, all well-muscled, his skin flushed with health, his magnificent hair tousled around his handsome face. The lamp light made his metal lashes glitter. For all her attempts to imagine his appearance, it had never occurred to her that he might be beautiful.
But did he always drink this way? She thought of Korl Plowsbane in the village, old before his time, wandering with his bottle. Kamoj balked at believing the same of Vyrl. Even if he was like Korl, he couldn’t have been drinking that heavily for long. He seemed too healthy. Perhaps he had simply been edgy today over the impending merger.
Still, what she had so far seen didn’t look auspicious. She inhaled, letting her nostrils widen so their membranes captured every stray scent under the odor of rum. She caught traces of trees and ferns, a hint of sun on scale-leather, even a lingering trace of Vyrl’s disk mail. It all mixed with a strong soap smell and another scent harder to define, a masculine smell she liked. Drawn by Vyrl’s scent, she stopped closer and rubbed her fingers along the knuckles of his hand where it lay on his thigh.
"Higher," he said drowsily.
Kamoj snatched back her hand. He was smiling at her, his eyes half open.
She flushed. "I didn’t mean to wake you."
He sat up straighter, rubbing his eyes. "How long have I been in here?"
"A few hours."
"Ah." His gaze wandered over her body. Mortified, Kamoj realized she was wearing nothing but stockings and a translucent underdress. Then again, given his "clothes," she was overdressed.
Vyrl grinned. "You look beautiful." He slid out of his chair, and she jumped back, losing her balance as she put her weight on her injured foot. Teetering on the edge of the pool, she flailed her arms.
With unexpected grace, Vyrl slid out of the chair and caught her around the waist. Holding her bent over his arm, he leaned down to kiss her. Startled, Kamoj just stared up at him.
He stopped, then straightened up, bringing her with him. "Don’t you ever smile?"
"Well–yes. Of course."
Vyrl stepped away from the pool. "Maybe we should–ah!" He lifted his foot and pulled a shard of glass out of his heel. Blood welled up from the cut. With a grimace, he stuck his foot in the water and swirled it around until the blood washed away. His graceful way of moving made her think of a greenglass stag.
He smiled. "Either that’s a compliment to me or an insult to the greenglass, I’m not sure which."
"How do you do that?" she asked.
"Do what?"
"Know my thoughts."
"I don’t." He took her hand. "Come on. Let’s go somewhere with less glass."
They picked their way through the shards and went into the main bedroom. Although he walked reasonably well, several times he put one foot down on the other and stumbled. When they reached the dais with his bed, he stopped, said, "We should do this right," and hefted her up into his arms.
Hai! The last thing Kamoj wanted was a half-drunk man carrying her up stairs. "It’s all right," she said. "I can walk."
He started up the dais. "You hardly weigh anything."
They made it to the top with no mishaps, but then he tripped. He took a huge step forward, lunging for the bed, and tossed her across it as he lost his balance. She hit the mattress with a thud, pillows tumbling around her head, and Vyrl landed on top her. Her breath wumped out with a muffled "oomph."
"Ai," Vyrl muttered, rolling off her. "My sorry, Chamois."
This time she was too flustered even to think of correcting the name. When he pulled her into his arms, she stuttered, "Maybe you should, uh, call a healer." She knew she was talking too fast, but she couldn’t stop. "For your–for your, you know. Your foot."
"My foot?" He smiled at her. "Why?"
"It’s just, mine swelled–Vyrl! What are you doing?"
"Looking at my beautiful wife." As his hands moved, he slid lower along her body. Then he closed his mouth around her breast and suckled her through the glimsilk of her underdress.
Kamoj flushed, blinked, said, "Oh, my," cleared her throat, and coughed. Then she sighed and put her hands in his hair, tangling her fingers in his curls.
Some time later she murmured, "You’re different than I expected."
He came back up, cradling her in his arms. "How is that?"
Too late, she realized how her answer would sound: I thought you would be cruel. She tried to hide the thought, imagining a blanket to cover it. "You’re younger."
Vyrl grinned. "Such sweet words." He fingered the garter that held up her stocking. Then he sat up and tugged the lacy ring off her leg. Setting it on his palm, he squinted at it as if it were another life form. "It’s pretty," he said. "But who’d ever think to make such a thing?"
"I don’t know," Kamoj admitted. Lyode had given it to her.
Vyrl set the garter on the bed. Then he touched her thigh where the garter had held up her stocking. "So soft . . ." Taking her stocking by the toe, he pulled it off through the gold circlet around her ankle. "And soft here–saints almighty, what is that?"
She wished he would go back to showing her what was soft. "What?"
Vyrl peered at the sole of her foot. "This is serious." He lay on his back and stretched out next to her, reaching his arm out to a tanglebirch stand by the bed. He so distracted Kamoj, she barely noticed him press a panel on the nightstand.
A drowsy voice came out of the air. "Colonel Pacal here."
"Hai!" Kamoj sat bolt upright and clamped her arms over her breasts, looking around for the owner of the voice.
"I need you up here," Vyrl said to the air.
The woman suddenly sounded awake. "On my way."
"For flaming sakes," Vyrl said. "Don’t say it like that."
"Like what?" the woman asked.
"Like ‘What has he done to that poor girl?’"
"Is she all right?"
"Her foot is hurt."
"I’ll be right there."
"All right. Out." Vyrl pushed the panel again.
After the room remained silent for several moments, Kamoj’s pulse calmed. "Who was that?" she asked.
"Dazza." Vyrl drew her back down next to him. "My doctor."
"What is a doctor?"
He tugged apart her arms and pulled them around his waist so she was hugging him. "Healer."
"But where is she? We’re the only ones here."
Kissing her, he murmured, "She’s coming."
After several moments of discovering that she liked kissing Vyrl far more than she had ever liked kissing Jax, Kamoj moved her lips to his ear and spoke shyly. "If someone is coming up here, shouldn’t we get dressed?"
"Ai . . . " He sighed. "I guess so."
While Kamoj sat up, pulling her dress into place, Vyrl went to the wardrobe across the room and took out a blue glimsilk robe with iridescent green and gold highlights. As he was putting it on, a knock came from the entrance foyer. Tying his sash, he crossed the room and opened the door.
Dazza stood outside in rumpled trousers and a shirt, her hair tousled as if she had just pulled herself out of bed. She had something in her hand, Kamoj wasn’t sure what. A large black book? As the doctor entered the suite, she glanced at Kamoj, at the stocking on the bed, and at Vyrl. Then she reddened. It didn’t surprise Kamoj that the colonel looked like she wished she were someplace else.
"It’s her left foot," Vyrl said.
While Vyrl leaned against the bedpost with his arms crossed, Dazza sat on the bed and lifted Kamoj’s foot. Her awkwardness vanished as she focused on the problem. "Did you treat this cut?" she asked Kamoj.
"I soaked it in water," Kamoj said.
Dazza looked up at her. "Right away?" When Kamoj shook her head, the doctor said, "If you ever get a cut like this again, clean it as soon as you can." She set down Kamoj’s foot and opened her "book." Its top lifted like a box, revealing tubes and squares. When Dazza touched a small square, ghost pictures appeared above the box, rotating in the air, each with a different view of a woman’s body. Red and blue lines veined one, another showed a skeleton, and a third internal organs. Kamoj had heard tales of how the ancients made ghosts dance this way, but until now she had never believed them.
Dazza studied symbols flickering on the rectangles on her box. "You’re a healthy young woman." She snapped a featherless black quill off her book and bent over Kamoj’s heel as if she were going to write on it.
Kamoj jerked away her foot. "What are you doing?"
"Numbing the area." With a gentle touch, Dazza tugged back her foot. "So it won’t hurt when I drain the wound."
Although Kamoj found that hard to believe, the pain did indeed recede after Dazza wrote on her heel with her quill. The doctor kept working, though Kamoj couldn’t see what she was doing.
"Gods," Vyrl said. "That’s a bad one."
Intent on her work, Dazza said, "If we hadn’t caught it in time, she could have lost the foot."
Kamoj blanched. No wonder it had hurt so much when Jax jabbed it.
"Kimono?" Vyrl said. "Are you all right?"
Dazza made an exasperated noise. "Saints above, Vyrl. Her name is Kamoj."
He reddened. "My sorry, Kamoj."
Smiling, she said, "It’s all right."
Dazza withdrew her quill, catching drops of blood from its tip with her finger. She cleaned Kamoj’s heel with a white mesh and then removed a new quill from the box. When she pressed a knob on it, a spray came out of its tip and coated Kamoj’s sole.
"The nanomeds will aid the healing," Dazza said. "Then they’ll dissolve in your bloodstream."
"Non-muds?" Kamoj asked. That made no sense.
"Nanomeds," Dazza said. "Each has an active moiety linked to a picochip–" She stopped, watching Kamoj’s face. Then she said, "They’re like machines, but so small you can’t see them."
"Nanobots?" Kamoj asked.
"Say again?" Dazza asked. "I have trouble with your accent."
"She said nanobots," Vyrl said. "She’s speaking Iotic."
Kamoj stared at him. He understood Iotaca? Then again, he had read the contract scroll at their wedding, which was written in pure Iotaca. Maybe he could clear up the mystery of what the blasted thing said.
Dazza, however, also looked puzzled. "Why do you say it that way, as if she used a different language for ‘nanobot’? Everything we’ve said is in Iotic."
Vyrl shook his head. "You and I may be speaking Iotic, but the people here don’t. Or not pure Iotic. Their ‘Bridge’ language is a dialect."
It would never have occurred to Kamoj to describe Bridge as a dialect of Iotaca. The differences seemed too extreme to call them two forms of the same language. But then, to the people of the Northern Lands any change was extreme.
"Nanobot is a word from the temple language," Kamoj said.
"I haven’t heard enough of your temple language to be sure," Vyrl said, "but I think it’s what we call classical Iotic. That contract I read at the ceremony was written in it. What Dazza and I are speaking now is modern Iotic."
Dazza regarded him with curiosity. "You speak the classics?"
"I learned them when I was a boy," he said.
The doctor looked impressed. "You must have had a good education."
He shrugged. "There were no schools where we lived, so my parents brought in tutors from offworld."
Kamoj wondered what he meant by offworld. Whatever it was, she too found the result impressive. "I can pronounce words and phrases in Iotaca," she said, "but I don’t understand it all. Like nanobot. I know the word but not the meaning."
"Do you know what ‘molecule’ means?" Dazza asked. When Kamoj shook her head, Dazza said, "It’s like a tiny machine. A nanobot is designed for a specific duty. Different types have different duties. The ones we carry in our bodies, that help make us healthy, we call nanomeds. Each one has a picochip attached to it, a quantum computer." She paused. "Think of it as a brain. The picochip tells the nanobot what to do and how to make more of itself. If you put a lot of them together, their chips combine into a what we call a picoweb. A bigger brain."
Kamoj blinked. "You put all that in my foot?"
A smile gentled Dazza’s face. "I did indeed. Three types of nanomed, in fact. Two help ferry nutrients and structural materials to the wound and maintain your physiological balance while you heal. The third catalyzes molecular repair processes."
"Catalyze?" Kamoj asked.
"Helps them go faster."
"Is she going to be all right?" Vyrl asked.
"She’ll be fine by tomorrow." Dazza snapped her quill into her box. Concentrating on her displays, the doctor said, "She should stay off that foot for the rest of the night, however."
Vyrl started to speak, then just smiled. Kamoj flushed. Walking clearly wasn’t what he had in mind for the rest of the night.
Dazza closed the lid of her book-box and looked up at Vyrl. "Did you talk to Azander after you arrived?"
"Not really," Vyrl answered. "Why?"
"He said you were followed by Ironbridge stagmen."
"Ironbridge? Why?"
"Azander seemed to think you would know."
"I’ve no idea," Vyrl said.
His response disquieted Kamoj. Ironbridge was nothing to ignore. What was Jax up to?
Watching her, Vyrl sat on the bed. "What is it, water sprite? What troubles you about Ironbridge?"
Dazza drew in a sharp breath. Startled, Kamoj glanced at her. The colonel had the look of a healer whose patient had just showed signs of a recovery the healer had feared would never happen. It made no sense to Kamoj. Vyrl wasn’t sick, at least that she could see. Except for the rum. But he wasn’t drunk now, and all he had done was ask her about Ironbridge.
He hadn’t noticed Dazza’s reaction. Intent on Kamoj, he said, "Talk to me."
"It is forbidden," Kamoj answered.
"To talk to me?"
"For me to talk of Ironbridge."
"Why?"
"Because you and I have a dowered merger."
"Why does that make a difference?"
She wasn’t actually sure why tradition forbade discussing other bid candidates with the winner of a hostile merger. Rules changed in situations like this, when the balance of power tipped so far in favor of one party. "Hostile" was probably the operative word; if she spoke about Ironbridge she could aggravate Vyrl and so bring harm to herself, Argali, and Ironbridge.
"It is forbidden," she repeated.
Vyrl glanced at Dazza with an expression that clearly said: Can you do something with this?
Dazza considered her. "If Prince Havyrl gives you permission to speak about Ironbridge, can you do it?"
Vyrl made an exasperated noise. "She doesn’t need my permission to talk."
Kamoj looked from Vyrl to Dazza, at a loss to understand the strange hierarchy of authority here.
Dazza tried again. "Can you talk to me about it?"
"No," Kamoj said.
"Who can we ask?"
Who indeed? Maxard, perhaps. He hadn’t married Vyrl. He was less likely to incur Lionstar wrath by talking about Kamoj’s relationship with another man.
"My uncle," Kamoj said.
"We can send someone to Argali tomorrow." Vyrl grimaced. "Which’ll be forever with how long the nights here last."
Kamoj wondered what he meant. Nights weren’t long in autumn, not compared to winter, when snow covered the world and blizzards roared down from the North Sky Islands.
Dazza was watching her. "This is about your customs, isn’t it? All of you here, you’re afraid of showing disrespect. That’s important. Respect. To custom, to authority, and to the land."
Relief settled over Kamoj. Dazza understood. "Yes."
Vyrl blinked at the doctor. "Where did you get all that?"
With a scowl, Dazza said, "From talking to your ever-so-patient butler the last time you went riding during one of your binges. I wanted to know why no one stopped you."
"Don’t start with me, Dazza."
"Why? Because you happen to be more sober now than you’ve been in weeks? You’re going to kill yourself."
Vyrl ignored the comment. "What did my butler tell you?"
Dazza tilted her head at Kamoj. "They all feel that way. I think they’re genetically engineered to obey authority. I’ve never known such a docile, cooperative people."
"They have armies." Vyrl paused. "If you can call thirty farmers who practice ritualized swordplay every now and then an army."
Kamoj wondered why he found that strange. An incorporated man’s stagmen rode in his honor guard when needed and otherwise worked to support their families. Ironbridge had the only army that trained all year round. Only Jax could afford to pay a good wage in every season.
Given what she had seen in the past two days, though, it wouldn’t surprise her if Vyrl had his men training all year too, while he supported them at a rate ten times greater than anyone else without even realizing it. Most of his staff and stagmen obviously came from Argali. She and Maxard employed the best in the village, so Vyrl must be drawing from the outlying hamlets, which were even more impoverished. By hiring locals instead of his own people, he had been supporting her province even prior to their merger.
"Their ‘wars’ are more like arguments," Dazza was saying. "In the rare instances when they do fight, it’s a ritualistic ceremony. Ironbridge is the only province with real calvary or troops, and they’re more of a police force. I doubt you could convince these people to defy authority even if you paid them to do it."
Kamoj blinked. What an odd notion. Why would anyone pay them to be defiant?
Vyrl smiled at her. "They wouldn’t. It was just a manner of speech." He didn’t see Dazza’s startled look; by the time he turned back to the colonel, her face had resumed its normal mien.
"I’ll send someone down tomorrow morning to talk to Maxard Argali," he told her. "See if we can untangle all this."
"I think that’s a good idea." Dazza packed up her book. She smiled at Kamoj, gratitude on her face. Why? Kamoj saw nothing she had done to make the doctor grateful.
After Dazza left, Vyrl lay back down on the bed. The bags under his eyes had darkened again.
"You look tired," Kamoj said.
"Just a headache. I should have asked Dazza for something." His scowl came back. "But then I would have to listen to her harp on ‘my drinking.’ Tell me she can ‘treat’ that too. As if I have a problem. It’s ridiculous. I have a few drinks, I go to sleep, I’m fine."
Kamoj knew he wasn’t fine. But she had no idea what to say. All she could think of was, "I can rub your head."
"That would be nice, Kamoj." He paused. "Is that right? Kamoj?"
"Yes." She drew his head into her lap. As she massaged him, he sighed and closed his eyes.
After a while he said, "What you said before, about us having a ‘dowered merger’–what does that mean exactly?"
"Merger is perhaps not the best word." It implied a more balanced partnership. "Your corporation absorbed Argali."
He opened his eyes. "My what?"
"Your corporation. It was far too big for us to best."
He sat up, facing her. "I don’t understand. It was a dowry. I know that’s the word. Our anthropologists double-checked. The dowry is the property a man brings to his wife at marriage, right? Drake told me that in your culture, inheritance goes through the female line, and that the women court the men. To get a highborn wife, you need a good dowry. So I, uh, got one."
Dryly she said, "The man is usually more subtle in making his interest known."
He squinted at her. "I don’t actually remember what I did. I think I told my stagmen to clear out a storeroom and send the contents to Argali House. I almost fell over when they said you had accepted it."
She stared at him, unsure which stunned her more, his manner of instigating the take-over, or the extent of his corporation. "That was only one stockroom’s worth of your dowry?"
"Well, yes, I guess you could put it that way." He studied her face. "I don’t understand how the idea of a corporation got mixed up here with a dowry. You make it sound like I bought you."
That was, in fact, how it felt. Kamoj doubted he would appreciate her saying it, though, so she hid the thought by imagining a blanket over it. "It seems normal to me." She tugged on his arm. "Come lie down again."
His face gentled. "I won’t argue with that." He lay down, putting his head in her lap, and closed his eyes. As she rubbed his head, she thought what an irony it was that a merger certain to become a legend may have been a whim born of a drinking binge. Would he regret it tomorrow? What if he changed his mind? She had no wish to return to Jax. He might not want her anymore. If Ironbridge spurned her, Argali would starve, and even if Jax wanted her back she would still be humiliated by the Lionstar rejection.
Vyrl spoke quietly. "My father told me something when I was young: If you plant in the wrong place, you still have to tend the crops."
"Was he a farmer?"
"Yes."
"Am I the wrong place?"
"Gods, no." He opened his eyes. "You’re like sunlight. I was lucky. What if the beautiful nymph I saw rising out of the river turned out to have a personality like shattered glass? But regardless, it’s my responsibility to see this through now. I would never humiliate you."
Relief trickled over her. She also rather liked being compared to sunlight.
His grin flashed. "I’m glad you like it."
Blushing, she said, "How do you know everything in my mind?"
"I don’t." When she raised her eyebrows, he added, "Usually I just pick up emotions. My ability to do even that falls off with distance, roughly as the Coulomb force."
Coulomb force? "I don’t understand."
"It’s complicated."
Her voice cooled. "And I am too slow to understand?"
"Kamoj, no. I didn’t mean that. I just don’t know how to explain it, except as I learned it."
"Then explain it that way."
He hesitated, as if unsure how to proceed. "I’ve an organ in my brain called the Kyle Afferent Body. The KAB. It’s too small to see without magnification. Certain molecules in it, that is, certain bits of my KAB, undergo quantum transitions according to how they interact with the fields produced by the brains of other people. That means–well, I guess you could say my KAB varies its behavior according to what it detects. Those variations determine what neural pulses it transmits to certain neural structures in my cerebrum, which interpret the pulses as thought." He stopped, watching her face. "I’m not doing this very well, am I?"
"I don’t know," she admitted. "I don’t understand some of your words."
He tried again. "My brain can pick up signals from yours and interpret them. The process isn’t all that accurate, so it’s easier to get emotions than thoughts. It only works close up because the signals aren’t that strong."
Although the words made more sense this time, it sounded as strange as before. "You do that with me?"
His voice gentled. "For some reason you’re more open to me than most people. I felt it that first time I saw you, when you were swimming. You were so beautiful. So alive. So happy."
She smiled. "So naked."
Vyrl laughed. "That too."
She went back to massaging his head. After a while his lashes drooped and his breathing deepened. Then he jerked, and opened his eyes. When they closed again, he forced them open. Watching him struggle, Kamoj wondered why it was so important to stay awake.
The third time he started to fall asleep, he rolled on his side and pressed his lips against her leg. Distracted, she stopped rubbing his head. He was peeling off her other stocking, kissing her thigh as the silk slid away. After he had pulled it all the way off, he slid his hand back up her leg. "Your skin is even softer than glimsilk."
Kamoj reddened, flustered again. "Ah. Uh. Oh."
For some reason her idiotic response made the corners of his mouth quirk up. He sat up and pulled her into his lap. "I always thought I liked this room austere. I never realized before how cold it is."
She laid her head on his shoulder. "It would look softer in moonlight."
"Morlin," he said, "turn off the lights."
"Their web contacts aren’t complete," a man said.
"Hai!" Kamoj sat up with a jerk and yanked her dress down over her thighs.
Vyrl stroked his hand down her back. "It’s all right. He won’t bother us."
"He is here? Watching?"
"‘He’ is just a computer web. I call him Morlin." Vyrl hesitated. "The name was supposed to be after an ancient Earth wizard, but I think I got it wrong."
"I’m having trouble completing the contacts," Morlin said. "The molecular engines that repair the fiberoptic cables in this wing stopped replicating centuries ago."
Kamoj pressed her fist against her mouth. Morlin didn’t exist, yet he was here.
"I suggest you reconsider trying to use the original web in the palace," the voice continued. "These problems continue to–"
"Morlin," Vyrl said. Watching Kamoj, he added, "We’ll deal with it later."
It was quiet after that. Whatever Morlin was, apparently he answered to Vyrl. Gradually, as Vyrl explored her body, Kamoj relaxed against him. She breathed in his scent, spice-soap mixed with his own natural smell.
"Connection established," Morlin suddenly said. The lights went out.
"Hai!" In reflex, Kamoj jerked up her hands to ward off a blow.
"It’s nothing," Vyrl murmured, stroking her hair. In a louder voice, he said, "Morlin, shut up."
Kamoj made herself lower her hands. "Does he obey you?"
"Well, yes, you could say that." Vyrl gave her a curious look. "It’s just your computer. We’re using the old web in this building. Parts of it, anyway. Some of the components are too decayed. Their repair bots failed a long time ago."
Kamoj wasn’t sure what he meant, but she knew the palace had been in abominable shape when he rented it. That Vyrl repaired her ancestral home meant more than she knew how to say. She had always longed to do it, but she could hardly have used precious resources to fix a building when babies in Argali needed cereal.
"Look," she said, gazing over his shoulder.
Vyrl turned to look. A ghostly image of the stained glass window in her chamber stretched across the floor out here in the main bedroom, laid there by moonlight slanting through her room. Sparkles glistened in the image, from where the light hit the bead curtain.
"It’s beautiful," he said.
She slid off the bed and held out her hand to him. He took it, his face gentling. Together they crossed the room, their fingers intertwined. When they entered her chamber, strings of beads trailed along their arms. The window glowed with light from the Sister Moon.
As Vyrl laid her on her bed, moonlight cast shadows on his robe, making him look as if he were cut from onyx. His callouses felt nubbly on her skin when he peeled off her underdress. Then he paused, kneeling between her legs. Too self-conscious to meet his gaze, she sat up and took off his robe, shy and unsure, trying to act self-assured. She didn’t succeed, but he seemed to like how she touched him anyway. She couldn’t look at his face because–she wasn’t sure why. If she looked, he would somehow acknowledge her touch, making her too embarrassed to continue.
Kamoj tried to relax. Most women her age were already married, even mothers. Lying down, she reached her arms out to Vyrl. When he stretched out on top of her, he supported his weight on his hands so he didn’t crush her under his body.
He took their lovemaking slow and gentle, giving her as long as she needed to relax. Even so, when the time came, she tensed up. It was tearing–she wanted him to stop–
He went still on top of her. "Kamoj–?"
Hai, she thought, mortified. If she kept this up she would still be a virgin after her wedding night. "It’s all right."
Vyrl handled her even more gently after that. The moons shifted in the sky, their light casting a stained glass rose on the floor. He murmured against her ear, saying her name over and over, and right this time. His intensity increased, until finally he drew in a breath and blew it out, the stream of air wafting tendrils of her hair around her cheeks. Then he relaxed on top of her, still murmuring, his voice a soft current of sound against her ear.
After a while his murmurs trickled into silence and he lay still, one hand curled around her breast. He breathing deepened, until eventually it came with a faint snore at the end of each breath.
Kamoj blinked. Apparently they were done. Although the experience had been pleasant, after the initial pain, it seemed incomplete. Was this why Lyode extolled marriage? Certainly it was nice, but Kamoj didn’t see why it made her usually no-nonsense bodyguard smile like a besotted fruitwing. Kamoj wondered if in her shyness, she had somehow overlooked or missed the important part.
Vyrl felt heavier now that he wasn’t supporting his weight. She nudged him until he rolled off her and stretched out along her side. Then she turned onto her side, her body spooned into his, her back against his chest. He slid his arm around her waist without a break in the rumble of his sleep.
Kamoj drifted in a doze, like the fever-sleep of a delirium, her body so sensitized that she felt air currents whisper across it. She felt restless. Incomplete. Sometimes she awoke to find herself rubbing her own body.
When Vyrl’s arm shifted, at first she thought he was restive in his sleep. Then he slid his hand down over hers. As she moved against his hand, he kissed her neck, his teeth playing with her necklace. Whatever he was doing, he knew how to do it well. She felt as if she were trying to climb a peak she couldn’t reach. Then the release came, like a crest with many bumps. It spread to the rest of her body, until she lost control and cried out.
When she calmed, Vyrl murmured, "Sweet water sprite."
Kamoj wanted to say soft words too, call her husband beloved and other endearments. Yet she didn’t feel she knew him well enough. So strange, to be so intimate, yet so unfamiliar at the same time.
Languor settled over her like a downy quilt . . .
* * *
Kamoj wasn’t sure what woke her. The moonlight had dimmed, both the Sister and the Far Moon having finished their voyages across the sky. The sense of drowsy satisfaction had also left the room.
She rolled over. Vyrl was lying on his back, staring at the canopy above them, a fixed stare that saw nothing. The tendons in his neck had pulled taut, and his jaw had clenched so hard the bones stood out against his skin.
"Vyrl?" She pushed up on her elbow. "What’s wrong?"
He jerked his head. Then he sat up, his face contorting.
And he screamed.
It shattered the silence. He sat with his fists clenched on his thighs, his face twisted until she hardly recognized him.
Boots pounded in the main bedroom. "Prince Havyrl!" a man called. The bead curtain rattled as Azander and the other bodyguard swept it aside and strode into the chamber. Scrambling to her knees, Kamoj yanked on Vyrl’s robe, covering herself.
Vyrl showed no hint he saw any of them. Staring straight ahead, he worked his mouth like a man in a nightmare trying, with horrific futility, to scream again.
Azander knelt by the bed and shook Vyrl’s shoulders. "Prince Havyrl, wake up! You’re all right. It only be the nightmares. Wake up!"
Vyrl swung his fist so fast, Azander had no time to duck. Vyrl hit him in the chin, and the bodyguard flew over backward, hitting the floor with a thud.
"Get out!" Vyrl said. "Now."
Azander stared at him, holding his chin. Then he jumped to his feet and the two bodyguards left fast as they had come.
Kamoj slid back, away from Vyrl, until the wall stopped her retreat. Had she been mistaken about her new husband? But no. This was different from rage. Something was wrong, very wrong. He leaned forward, his arms wrapped around his stomach, as if he hurt somehow, not a physical hurt, but something else.
She didn’t know how long they sat that way. Finally she moved closer to him. Then she waited. When he neither objected nor showed anger, she came the rest of the way to his side. He turned to her, moisture gleaming under his eyes.
She touched his wet cheek. "What is it?"
"Nothing." He took a breath. "Go back to sleep."
Nothing? He had just split open the night with his scream. She wanted to offer comfort, but she feared it would anger him instead, a risk she couldn’t take, not when the well-being of Argali depended on his good will. So she did as he asked, lying down with her eyes closed. She heard him put on his robe, then heard the bed creak and felt the mattress shift.
Kamoj opened her eyes. She was alone. She put on her underdress and got out of bed. Her footsteps made no sound as she crossed to the curtain and peered through the beaded strings into the main bedroom.
Vyrl had opened the window above his desk and was sitting in his chair, staring at the night, his body silhouetted against the sky. He raised a bottle to his lips, and the cloying smell of rum drifted in the air.
Watching him, Kamoj knew that whatever troubled Vyrl, it went far deeper than the rum could reach. What had happened to give a man of such power the terrors that haunted his dreams?

---

Read "The Quantum Rose: Part Two."

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