Blaise was a frozen statue, but great beads of sweat were squeezing through the skin on his forehead, matting in the red sideburns, rolling down through the blood on his cheek. Bat’tam, armed with a broken, blood-drenched goblet, was slowly gnawing through his lower lip. Blood was beginning to run down his chin.
Kelly crept past Durg to Bat’tam’s side. The elderly noble put an arm around Kelly’s waist, held him close – but gently, so gently. A part of Durg’s mind registered this development and wondered if the boykisser was going to be a problem requiring a permanent solution.
“Release him,” Durg ordered.
An alien emotion ran like a furtive animal through his guts. Then Durg tensed, and as Bat’tam’s desperate mind control relaxed, the Morakh swiftly slapped Blaise across the face. “Are you mad? You rule House Vayawand. How can you fear a pregnant female?”
“I don’t want there to be even a chance that Tachyon can recover his body. She” – Blaise’s out-thrust arm was so taut that it shivered with strain as he pointed at Kelly – “is useless to us now. I want her dead.”
“Useless?” Bat’tam’s fingers tightened briefly on Kelly’s waist. The man’s nervousness jumped in each syllable. “My lord, in this body reposes ten thousand years of planned breeding. The finest genetic legacy the Ilkazam could create. This is a treasure not to be wasted.”
“You don’t give a shit about irreplaceable genetic material, you just want to fuck my granddaddy,” Blaise spat. Bat’tam bowed his head. “Get out of here, faggot.” Bat’tam hastened to obey.
Durg allowed the silence to stretch into an agonizingly long minute. Gave the killing frenzy time to die. “Perhaps his motives are not the most pure, but if the reasonable argument does not appeal… consider how it would complicate Tisianne’s life if we raided the Ilkazam gene pool,” Durg said softly.
The final flicker of insane fire faded from Blaise’s dark eyes. He tugged thoughtfully at his lower lip and regarded Kelly. “What did you have in mind?”
“Marriage is a very useful institution.” After a moment’s hesitation Blaise began to laugh.
There was nervous shifting from the nobles all huddled in the bow of the gondola. Blaise’s face darkened. “Are any of them spying on me?”
Durg shrugged. “It’s possible. I’m the wrong person to ask.”
“I can’t trust any of them.”
“You have the sworn personal loyalty of every Morakh in House Vayawand. The Zal’hma at’ Irg need not concern you.”
Blaise was shaking his head, sending sweat and blood droplets flying. “I think we ought to get the hell out of here. I’ve got to have support…
Durg held himself in close control. Watched the careful facade of nerve and competence he had constructed and coached into this boy crumbling like an avalanche. Sought a solution. Then softly he said, “My lord, the psi lords are not the only people on Takis.”
Chapter Twenty
“How the hell does a sixteen-year-old kid become a king in six weeks? A month? Whatever it’s been in Takisian time?” Jay blurted.
“I was hoping you would enlighten me,” Taj said.
“What does it matter?” Tis said bitterly. “Now it will require a war to dislodge him. I’ll have to use Zabb, I can’t trust him, and he may kill both Blaise and my body.”
“Hey, man, like don’t forget about us,” Mark said with a significant lift of the eyebrows, and an obvious head jerk to Jay.
Sadness washed across the old man’s face. “Over the weeks I’ve watched the well-bred of House Vayawand kill each other like maddened sinde. It culminated with L’gura’s suicide. Ancestors know I hated that bloodless bastard, but he deserved to be ruined by a gentleman, preferably me.” Taj smiled, but the momentary flash of humor died fast. “Not manipulated by a piece of unplanned afterbirth.” Taj sighed. “Well, his death shall be avenged. Now that I know this is a mentatic phenomenon, it can be countered.”
“With difficulty,” Mark warned.
In painfully slow, excruciatingly bad English, Taj said, “Adversity is a state I understand. Achieving the impossible commonplace. What is merely difficult should be easily achieved.”
There was a soft chime, and Tis keyed the desk. A holo of the door guard sprang to life on the desk. The man’s face registered shock, and he couldn’t seem to say a word.
“Yes? What is it?” Tis asked. Nothing. Irritated, Tis pushed. “You interrupt me, it must be something.”
Taj stepped to her, laid a hand on her shoulder. “They don’t know you, and he’s never seen a woman in that chair.”
Relieved at seeing Taj, the man reported that Zabb was requesting an audience.
Taj glanced at Tis. She nodded wearily. “Let him in.
Zabb entered in his usual sweeping style. “We’ve got trouble. Remember that claimant Baz mentioned? Well, they’re attempting to ram through an elevation before any of us can react. I think we had best react.”
“Curse that motherless Egyon,” Taj said. “I wonder what spooked him.”
“Probably me wandering about the halls,” Zabb said. “And you know a palace, rumors pump like bile through the halls. The word must be out that Tisianne has returned. Either one of us has a superior claim to the Kou’nar line.”
Taj summoned the guard, who wrapped themselves like a protective cloak about the Takisians and the humans and hustled them through the corridors of the sprawling House.
While they walked, Tisianne explained how her entire plan rested on her ability to command the troops of the House Ilkazam. “If I lose the Raiyis’tet, it’s a sure bet that the new Raiyis won’t help me recover my lost body. If he does, he costs himself the throne.”
They kept nodding sagely, but Tis wondered how much they had really grasped. Ideal! She wondered how much she had grasped. It was all happening too quickly. There was no time for her to ease back into the life of a world she had left half a lifetime before.
She didn’t know how to conspire anymore, she didn’t want to. Resentment and weariness chewed at her. She wanted to react to the familiar faces she saw throughout the ranked bodies of her armed guards. She wanted to savor childhood memories brought back with painful vividness by the scent of baking pastries, or a particular tapestry. She didn’t want to be thrust willy-nilly into the battle. She wanted someone to bring her her stolen body and put her back where she belonged. She wanted to be at peace for the first time in forty-four years.
Illyana sent a wave of warmth and love from the womb to her mother’s mind. Tisianne’s breath caught at the overwhelming sweetness of it. At three months the baby had been little more than a sensory sponge. Now at seven and a half months she was becoming an individual. And the problem, you little demon, Tis sent to her daughter, though she knew the ideas were too complex for the baby’s developing mind to comprehend.
I love you and I want you, but I don’t want to birth you. I’m frightened – of the pain, of the entire experience… Ancestors! I don’t have time for these thoughts, I have to preserve my House, my station. I have to be warrior, not woman. No, that’s not right. Cody would be quick to jump down my throat. Women can be fighters. Mother then, my mind more on life than death… Hush, Illyana, sleep, baby, don’t distract me now.
Through the doors, and into an elaborate audience chamber. Tis remembered it being much larger. Had it shrunk or had she somehow grown? A knot of people were gathered about the platform holding the chair of the Raiyis of Ilkazam. It seemed to have been carved from a piece of glacial ice, filigreed with snowflakes. It was in truth constructed of an almost obscene number of diamonds supported on a platinum frame. Such conspicuous consumption on a planet so mineral poor. We’re psi lords, mentats, Most Bred, the Zal’hma at’ Irg, Tis reminded herself. It didn’t do much to assuage the guilt. Too long on Earth, she thought.