The Diabolic Page 3

  Then the Matriarch said, “That’s the avatar of Salivar Domitrian. Everyone will soon be fighting for an audience with him. Go pay your respects before he is swarmed.”

  Then, a few minutes later, “Why are you at the edge of this crowd, Sidonia? You are flanked by nobodies! Move lest someone think you belong here!”

  At one point, both Donia and the Matriarch tensed up. I straightened, watching their backs, wondering who they’d just seen to put them both on edge. The Matriarch’s hand whipped over and clenched Donia’s shoulder.

  “Now, tread very carefully around this Pasus girl. . . .”

  Pasus.

  My eyes narrowed as Donia nervously conversed with the girl who had to be Elantra Pasus. I knew her family well because I’d made it my mission to acquaint myself with all the Impyrean enemies—Sidonia’s enemies. I’d watched the Senate feed live a year before as Senator von Pasus gleefully denounced Sidonia’s father. Pasus and his allies were the most ardent Helionics in the Senate, and they’d had enough votes to formally censure Senator von Impyrean for “heresy.” The Impyreans suffered a dreadful blow to their reputation, for which the Matriarch still couldn’t forgive her husband.

  Privately, I resented Senator von Impyrean as well, for he’d endangered his daughter by publicly speaking on those matters that were supposed to be left unvoiced. He questioned the wisdom of forbidding education in the sciences. He possessed strange ideals and an absurd devotion to learning. It was one reason he collected old databases containing scientific knowledge, those databases the Matriarch and I had hastily concealed from the Inquisitor. He believed humanity needed to embrace scientific learning again, and he never gave a second thought to how his actions would impact his family.

  He was reckless.

  And now because of him, Donia had to interact with Senator von Pasus’s daughter as though their fathers weren’t rivals.

  Donia did not converse long before hastily making her excuses to walk away.

  Surprisingly, the Matriarch patted her shoulder. “Well done.” It was rare praise.

  It seemed an eternity before Donia could tug off her headset, dark shadows of exhaustion under her eyes.

  “Let’s discuss your performance,” the Matriarch said as she rose imperiously to her feet. “You were very good about evading forbidden subjects, and your interactions were most cautious, but what did you do wrong?”

  Donia sighed. “I’m certain you’ll tell me.”

  “You sounded meek,” the Matriarch railed. “Self-deprecating. I even heard you stammer several times. You are a future Senator. You can’t afford to be weak. Weakness is a sign of inferiority, and the Impyrean family is not inferior. One day you’ll lead us, and you will squander everything your ancestors have won for you if you don’t learn to show some strength! There are other members of the Grandiloquy slavering to take what we have thanks to your father’s idiocy, covetous Grandes and Grandeés who would rejoice to see the Heretic’s family fall! Your father is set on bringing this family to ruin, Sidonia. You will not take after him.”

  Donia sighed again, but I watched the Matriarch from where I lurked, forgotten, in the corner of the room. Sometimes I suspected I valued her wisdom more than her daughter did. After all, Donia had very little instinct for self-preservation. She had never required it, growing up sheltered as she had. The idea of enemies creeping in from the dark remained foreign to her.

  I was not like her. I had not been sheltered.

  As ready as I felt to tear apart the Matriarch and break her every bone when she slapped or pinched her daughter, I also recognized the cold, merciless wisdom of her warnings. I knew she believed she was acting for Donia’s own good when she was harsh and brutal with her. Donia’s father had placed the family in danger with his brash and opinionated conduct, and the Matriarch had the survival instinct to know it. She was the only one of the Impyreans who seemed to appreciate the threat that the Inquisitor’s visit had posed.

  The Matriarch hauled Donia from the room so she could critique her in front of Senator von Impyrean—hoping, no doubt, to show her husband that he was failing to teach his daughter sense. Usually I followed them, but today I had a rare opportunity.

  Donia’s retina was still scanned into the computer console.

  One look, I thought, moving toward the console. It might be the only time I’d get to see the avatars of these aristocratic children for myself. . . . The one chance I’d have to gauge the dangers on Donia’s horizon with my own firsthand judgment. I would avoid speaking to anyone.

  I pulled on the headset, and disorientation swept over me as my environment shifted. I snapped into a new scene, Donia’s avatar standing on one of a series of glass platforms—totally surrounded by bare space.

  A swooping sensation filled my stomach. I swallowed hard, shaking off the feeling. As the strangeness receded, I grew aware of the other avatars. . . . The finest-dressed young Grandes and Grandeés of the Empire were scattered about me, laughing in a void that would kill them in real life, the starlight artificially bright to bring out the unnatural beauty of the computerized personas they’d chosen for themselves.

  Acutely aware that I was using Donia’s avatar, I slowly mounted the crystalline stairs between platforms, moving wherever my mind willed me to go, passing avatars that seemed oblivious to me. I remained silent, hoping to avoid attention. Apart from a few surprised greetings at Sidonia’s abrupt return, none seemed the wiser.

  Snatches of conversation floated to my ears:

  “. . . the most enticing intoxicant . . .”

  “. . . embedded lights have to be tastefully implanted or they cross the line from flattering to gaudy . . .”

  “. . . such a crude avatar. I can’t imagine what she was thinking . . .”

  Relief rippled through me as the vapidity of their conversations registered. After several minutes of eavesdropping, nothing reached my ears that alerted me to any unusual cunning or craft. These were children. Spoiled, vapid children from powerful families, glorying in their rank.

  If there were vipers among these young Grandiloquy, they’d either cloaked themselves so cleverly that their fangs remained invisible, or they hadn’t grown into their venom yet.

  And then a voice spoke from behind me.

  “How intently you observe everything, Grandeé Impyrean.”

  I jumped in real life, startled, because I’d believed myself at the edge of the crowd. I never would have missed someone creeping up like this in the real world, but my virtual senses were undeveloped, totally askew.

  I turned to behold an avatar very unlike the others.

  Very unlike them.

  This young man was totally naked.

  He smiled at my shocked appraisal, sipping languidly at a goblet of wine that had to mirror whatever his real-life body was drinking.

  His avatar didn’t resemble the others’ sheer gleaming perfection. Instead, it was an exhibition of flaws: his hair a messy mop of copper, his eyes a startling, almost unnerving pale blue, his face lightly blotched by sunspots. Freckles—the word came to me as I stared. Even his muscles were unfashionably crafted, their slight asymmetry detectable after a hard moment’s study. His beauty bots had failed him . . . or he’d earned his muscle through actual physical exertion.

  Impossible. None of this empty-headed lot would willingly choose to exert themselves.

  “And now, Grandeé,” the young man noted, amusement in his voice, “you stare so intently at me.”

  Yes, I was doing that behavior Diabolics were known for: fixing him with an intent, predatory gaze, too unwavering for a real human’s. My eyes were empty and absent of feeling unless I faked it. The Matriarch claimed this look made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Even with Sidonia’s avatar, my true nature had slipped through.

  “Forgive me,” I said, stumbling over the unfamiliar phrase. No one eve
r required apologies of a Diabolic. “You must realize it’s difficult not to stare.”

  “Is my outfit so mesmerizing?”

  That confused me. “You’re not wearing anything.”

  “Ridiculous,” he said, and he sounded genuinely outraged, as though I’d insulted him. “My technicians have assured me they programmed this avatar in accordance with the finest imperial fashions.”

  I hesitated, truly baffled—an unfamiliar, thoroughly unpleasant feeling. Surely he could just look down and see that he was naked. Was this humor? Was he joking? Others must have told him he was naked already. It had to be a jest.

  I did not trust myself to mimic laughter; the sound did not come naturally to a Diabolic. So I settled on a neutral remark. “How fine a performance you put on.”

  “Performance?” A sharpness had stolen into his voice, but it smoothed away as he continued. “Why, whatever do you mean?”

  How would Sidonia reply? My mind came up blank, so I forced a smile, wondering if I’d misread him. “Someone so eager to attract the eye is surely performing.” A strange notion crept over me from what I’d learned of battle, of killing people. Feinting to one side often exposed weakness in an opponent’s other side. “Or maybe you wish to draw the eye in one direction so no one will look in another.”

  An odd look passed over his face—narrowing his pale eyes, tightening his expression so the strong bones of his face became more prominent. For a moment, I glimpsed how he would look as a full-grown man. He reminded me of someone, though I could not say who.

  “My Grandeé Impyrean,” he said very mildly, “what intriguing notions you have of me.” His avatar leaned negligibly closer to mine, unblinking. “Perhaps some who are close to you should embrace such tactics themselves.”

  The statement snapped me to attention, and a demand leaped up in my throat. What had he meant by that? Was that an insinuation? A warning? But I dared not ask. Donia wouldn’t, and if I was wrong . . .

  And I never had a chance to speak further. At that moment, several avatars descended upon us. They dropped to their knees before the naked young man, drawing his knuckles to their cheeks. Their simpering words reached my ears:

  “Your Eminence, how wonderful you’ve paid us the honor of your visit!”

  “What a magnificent outfit you’ve chosen for your avatar.”

  “Such fine clothing!”

  Suddenly I realized how I recognized him. He resembled his uncle—the Emperor.

  Here before me, naked and unashamed, was Tyrus Domitrian. Tyrus, the Successor Primus. . . . The young man who would one day inherit the throne.

  Even I knew about Tyrus. The Matriarch and Senator von Impyrean chuckled over evening meals as they discussed his latest antics. He was the disgrace of the Empire because he was utterly insane. In his madness, he probably hadn’t realized he was naked—and because of his rank, no one had dared to point it out to him.

  No one but me.

  I eased myself back from the scene, prickling all over with the awful realization of what I had done.

  Long minutes after I had logged out, horror still beat through me.

  I had thought to learn more of the spoiled young Grandiloquy, the better to protect Sidonia. Instead, I’d won her the attention of an infamous madman—one who had the power to destroy her.

  3

  “PERHAPS some who are close to you should embrace such tactics themselves. . . .”

  Tyrus Domitrian’s words rang in my ears over the following days, so much like a warning, and yet . . . And yet I wasn’t certain whether I could credit the words of a madman.

  The Domitrian family was called “sun-scorned” because so many of them died young, but the truth was one of those secrets everyone knew and pretended they did not: the Emperor and his mother had murdered most of his rivals for the throne. Tyrus was the only survivor from his immediate family. Perhaps that was what had driven him mad: witnessing the murders of most of his family by others in his family.

  I told Sidonia of Tyrus’s warning that evening after she’d returned from her father’s study, but she shrugged it off and told me, “Tyrus is a lunatic. You can’t take anything he says very seriously. And please stop worrying about whether he’ll remember anything about your manner that was strange. . . . He never seems to recall anything from the forums.” She gave a wry smile. “Too bad you can’t always go in my place. Then I could skip socializing and spend all my time studying the stars.”

  She was in one of those strange dazes that came over her after poring over the old scientific databases with her father. Such evenings always left her dreamy, optimistic, those mysteries of the universe unfolding with answers for her.

  Despite my desire to keep her focused on Tyrus’s words, on the threats facing her, I couldn’t help but give in when she patted the mattress next to her. I sprawled out next to her, an odd, warm feeling settling over me at the familiarity of this. From my first days at the fortress, Donia had nestled up next to me like a . . . like the way I’d imagine sisters did, to tell me things. Like two people, two friends, speaking to each other as equals. Stories, sometimes. Once she’d begun showing me images of letters, determined to teach me to read. I’d learned within a few weeks.

  Today she related to me some of what she and her father had read in his study. “I told you how our bodies are made of tiny atoms, these things called ‘elements,’ didn’t I? Well, it’s most incredible, Nemesis. Do you know where those elements come from?”

  She leaned her head against my shoulder, and I felt that odd indulgence I only felt toward her. “I couldn’t begin to guess. Tell me.”

  “From within stars! Think of it.” She stretched her arm up above us, marveling at it. “Every single bit of us comes from this process called nuclear fusion that only happens inside stars.” She stifled a yawn. “Strange to even think of it. We are all of us but stardust shaped into a conscious being. The Helionics and the old scientists really do agree, even if no one realizes it.”

  I pondered her words, weighing them. If what she said was true, this bed, the fortress walls about us, everything came from those glowing lights outside the window.

  Donia smiled at me sleepily. “I told you that you have the same divine spark I do. I was right all along, Nemesis.”

  She fell into a slumber at my side, and I watched her chest rise and fall for a while before slipping off her bed to my place on my own pallet. A strange pit settled in my stomach as I turned over her words. Donia had the temperance of her mother and the curiosity of her father, but she was kinder than both of them.

  She could be great one day. She could do what her father never could and bridge those two factions in the Senate, unite the Helionics with those who wished a return of scientific pursuits . . . if she survived long enough to do so.

  And she would survive.

  A sharp determination spiked through me.

  As long as I had breath in my body to defend her, she would survive.

  I’d heard the tale from Sidonia and the vicar many times. It was one of the central Helionic myths. Centuries ago, there’d been five planets dedi­cated solely to storing all the accumulated scientific and technological wisdom of humanity on massive supercomputers. A great supernova had wiped away all of them at once. It was an important event to all Helionics. To them, the stars were the means by which the Living Cosmos expressed its will. The Interdict—the spiritual leader of the Helionic faith—declared the destruction wreaked by that supernova a divine act.

  The Empire suffered a devastating blow. The Emperor of that day united his domain in common cause by declaring a Helionic crusade. The faithful systematically destroyed other repositories of scientific and technological knowledge. Education in sciences and mathematics was banned as blasphemy. And ever since then, no new technology had been created. The only starships and machines in existence were those constructed by human
ancestors before the supernova. The starships still functioned because machines repaired them, and other machines repaired those machines, though all of them were deteriorating. This technology rested solely in the hands of the Grandiloquy.

  The Excess, those humans who lived on planets and obeyed imperial rule, had to content themselves with only the machines they were lent by their Grandiloquy betters. Because it was blasphemy to learn sciences, they would never be able to build starships of their own.

  The stability of the Empire hinged on this basic divide between the Excess and the Grandiloquy.

  In rallying members of the Senate to challenge the ban on scientific education, Senator von Impyrean had threatened the very balance of power. The Inquisitor’s visit signaled growing royal impatience with his actions.

  It was a warning the Senator did not heed.

  A transmission came from the Emperor one evening. The shouting that ensued jerked me from my sleep. Donia slept through it, unable to hear as well as I could. I slipped from my pallet and rushed down the corridor. Just inside the Senator’s atrium, I found them: the Matriarch in her nightclothes, striking at her husband’s arms, and the Senator cringing back from her blows.

  “Fool! You FOOL!” she screamed. “Did you think no one would find out? You have destroyed this family with your actions!”

  I closed the distance and wrenched the Matriarch away from her husband. Sturdy as she was, the woman proved no match for my strength. The Senator stumbled back, straightening his tunic.

  “Idiot! Miscreant! We are all undone!” screamed the Matriarch, still struggling against my grip.

  “My dear,” said the Senator, spreading his arms, “there are things more important than whether one person lives or dies.”

  “And our family? And our daughter? We will lose everything!” She turned and seized me. “You.” Her wild eyes found mine. “You, take me from here. I can’t bear to look upon him a moment more!”

  I cast the shaken Senator a long, measured look, then drew his wife away. The Matriarch shook where I held her. I led her like an invalid toward her chambers, where she promptly collapsed onto a chair, clawing at the fabric with her hands. “Undone . . . We are all undone. . . .”