Skolian Empire - Quantum Rose Part 1

The Quantum Rose.

By Catherine Asaro.

Part One

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 p.r.o.nounced as light emitting diode. No one knew what it meant, though, so they all called her Lyode.

Unease p.r.i.c.kled 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 antic.i.p.ation. 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 cl.u.s.ter of greengla.s.s 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 embarra.s.sing," 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 gla.s.s, 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 greengla.s.s."

"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 mola.s.ses, dried rose-leeks, cobberwheat, tri-grains, and reedflour that poured through your fingers like powdered rubies.

So they yieldedand 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 misp.r.o.nounced 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 superst.i.tion 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 greengla.s.s 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 greengla.s.s 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 greengla.s.s 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 pa.s.s.

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 a.s.sumed 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 impa.s.sive 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 greengla.s.s, her hips fitted into the s.p.a.ce in front of the first b.o.n.e.ridge that curved over its back. Jax sat behind her, astride the stag, between its first and second b.o.n.e.ridges.

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 sc.r.a.ped 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 gla.s.s. 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.