The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

But if she had also worn that look during her days in Sky, long before my birth, then it had nothing whatsoever to do with me.

There was no contest in her case, was there? I asked. I thought she was the sole heir.

No contest. There was never any question Kinneth would be the next head of the clan. Not until the day she announced her abdication. Sieh shrugged. Even after that, for a time, Dekarta expected her to change her mind. But then something changed, and you could taste the difference in the air. It was summer that day, but Dekartas rage was ice on metal.

That day?

Sieh did not answer for a moment. Abruptly I knew, with an instinct that I neither understood nor questioned, that he was going to lie. Or, at least, withhold some part of the truth.

But that was fine. He was a trickster, and a god, and when all was said and done I was a member of the family that had kept him in bondage for centuries. I could not expect complete trust from him. I would take what I could get.

The day she came to the palace, Sieh said. He spoke more slowly than usual, palpably considering each word. A year or so after she married your father. Dekarta ordered the halls empty when she arrived. So that she could save face, you see; even then he looked out for her. He met her alone for the same reason, so no one knows what was said between them. But we all knew what he expected.

That she was coming back. Fortunately she had not, or I might never have been born.

But why had she come, then?

I needed to find that out, next.

I offered Sieh the brush. He took it, sat up on his knees, and very gently began working on my hair.

* * *

Sieh slept in a sprawl, taking over much of the very large bed. I had expected him to cuddle close, but he seemed content merely to have some part of his body in contact with mea leg and a hand this time, tossed over my own leg and belly respectively. I did not mind the sprawl, nor the faint snoring. I did, once again, mind the daylight-bright walls.

Despite that, I dozed off anyhow. I must have been tired. Sometime later I half-woke and opened my eyes, bleary, to see that the room had gone dark. Since dark rooms at night were normal to me, I thought nothing of it and drifted off again. But in the morning I would recall somethinga taste in the air, as Sieh had termed it. That taste was something I had little experience with, yet I knew it the way an infant knows love, or an animal knows fear. Jealousy, even between father and son, is a fact of nature.

That morning I turned over and found Sieh awake, his green eyes dark with regret. Wordlessly he rose, smiled at me, and vanished. I knew that he would never sleep with me again.

10

Family

AFTER SIEH LEFT I ROSE EARLY, intent upon finding Tvril before the days visit to the Salon. Despite his reassurance that Id already met everyone who mattered, that had been in reference to the contest of heirs. In the matter of my mother, I hoped someone might know more about the night of her abdication.

But I turned left where I should have turned right, and didnt take the lift far enough down, and instead of Tvrils office I found myself at the palace entrance, facing the forecourt where my lifes most unpleasant saga had begun.

And Dekarta was there.

* * *

When I was five or six, I learned about the world from my Itempan tutors. There is the universe, ruled by the gods, they told me. Bright Itempas is chief among these. And there is the world, where the Noble Consortium rules with the guidance of the Arameri family. Dekarta, the Lord Arameri, is chief among them.

I had said to my mother, later, that this Lord Arameri must be a very great man.

He is, shed said, and that was the end of the conversation.

It was not the words that had stuck in my mind, but the way she said them.

* * *

Skys forecourt is the first sight that visitors see, so it is calculated to impress. Besides the Vertical Gate and the palace entrancea cavernous tunnel of concentric arches, around which stands the intimidating bulk of Sky itselfthere is also the Garden of the Hundred Thousand, and the Pier. Of course nothing docks at this Pier, as it juts out from the forecourt over a half-mile drop. It has a thin, elegant railing, about waist-high. This railing would do nothing to stop a person intent on suicide, but I suppose it provides some reassurance to everyone else.

Dekarta stood with Viraine and several others at the foot of the Pier. The group was some ways off, and they had not yet seen me. I would have turned at once and headed back into the palace if I hadnt recognized one of the figures with Dekarta and Viraine. Zhakkarn, the warrior goddess.

That made me pause. The other people present were Dekartas courtiers; I remembered some of them vaguely from my first day. Another man, not nearly as well-dressed as the rest, stood a few paces onto the Pier, as if gazing at the viewbut he was shivering. I could see that even from where I stood.