The Testimony of the Right Honorable Erich of Frostbane, Ta’al of Volparnu and Grand Vizier of the Skarsian Matriarchy
I thanked Lady Lorma for her assistance; it was brilliant thinking to contact etch. Utilizing the Thoughtful 45 app was 46 hours faster than if we had to send a messenger ship – a considerable savings. Plus, it has the not insignificant advantage of being far more subtle.
“Captain Zosim reports no change in the Archon’s condition,” she reported. “That means Neliit’s conclusion is right.”
I nodded. Lady Lorma was a woman of superior perception. “The SongLuminants haven’t abandoned their plan. They must have a built-in redundancy.”
“They might want to destroy us,” said Lady Lorma. “It’s not like they haven’t erased species.”
“But not Advanced Sentients. Also, the Champions of the Skylight Spin like to erase species, and they think humanity was mistakenly admitted into the combine. We don’t, however, know much at all about the attitude of the Panoply of the Ancient Foam – except that they’re clever enough to have their allies accuse them, ultimately making them look innocent.”
Lady Lorma looked thoughtful. “We have to consider the possibility that there’s another candidate with the Blood of the Matriarch.”
“Exactly,” I beamed. What a useful wench! And good with a sword, as well, I hear. Danak is a lucky fellow. “My guess is that girl Nan-Zee.”
“That’s my conclusion as well. She has prophetic powers, CenGov was certainly interested in her, and it only makes sense that they’d eventually want a Matriarch who could control the Archon. I’m guessing that Christolea was a stopgap, or maybe even a decoy. She was useless the last time there was a coup.”
“Or they needed her to gain control of the Staff. She had the advantage of being in the correct galaxy. Nan-Zee’s distance will buy us time.”
I ended our conversation on this hopeful note, but thinking that we have an enormous problem. I’d recently received a report from Shambhala stating that a number of the colonists had bought into Lamark’s story. They were distant from the Domha’vei, which means they were out of touch with what was happening here, and Lamark and Nan-Zee were on the spot to persuade them. This, despite the evidence of their eyes that Ashvattha was perfectly healthy. Colonel Graysal had mentioned an additional factor – since the first generation of Shambhala’s new nobility, the grand jeté hadn’t been held. In other words, there had been no possibility for new immortals, and the people were getting restless. A native archon could be seen as an answer to their dreams.
What we really needed was for Archon Balin to emanate at the colony, but that wasn’t going to happen. As a precaution, I sent a message to Graysal, telling him to increase security around the tree.
Then I messaged Wyrd Elma.
“What? It’s not even nine. You can’t expect me to think this early in the morning.”
“I’ll have the High Council chef make fresh biiskits,” I told her. “Get up here.”
What I wanted from Elma was a psychological profile of Nan-Zee. Elma had become her legal guardian after she was recovered from CenGov. They had been making their own version of a prophecy drug, one apparently more accurate than Gyre, but far more damaging to the human body. Nan-Zee had spent her childhood being used as a tool, an experiment, with little human contact until the plot had been uncovered by Ashtara, and the actions of Wynne led to her discovery and release.
“Yeah,” said Elma, crunching a biiskit, “she’s messed up in the head. But aren’t we all?”
“Assume that she holds the Blood of the Matriarch. Is she power-hungry? Will she want to crush her enemies?”
“I think she wants love and attention. She acts out if she doesn’t get it. Typically abused child.” Elma ate another biiskit thoughtfully. “I was a good choice for a trainer, but a crap substitute for a mother. I made sure that she had everything she needed, and taught her how to use Gyre. But we didn’t spend a lot of quality time together.” Elma waved a biiskit pointedly at me. “You know, giving custody of a vulnerable child to a drug addict, whose brilliant idea was that?”
“The idea of a childless woman married to a magic tree,” I replied. Having raised two sons, I would’ve known better. But at the time, my position in the government was not nearly so trusted for my advice to have been solicited in this matter.
“Anyway, she’s not malicious. Somebody put her up to this, hooked her up with a Cu’enashti. She always wanted to marry a Cu’enashti. She even subscribed to that teen media push series – you know the one – Emanation Monthly? The one that profiles one of Ashtara’s emanations every month, and you get t-shirts and holoposters and things?”
“Oh good grief.”
“But that was decades ago. I thought it was a phase. Every teenager falls in love with an idol.”
“Did you?” I remembered all too clearly my infatuation with Lola Swanlake, the Dom Queen of Fort Has’eim. She was the type of woman who existed everywhere, but not Volparnu. Not officially.
“Marlene Dietrich.” Elma dumps the tiny leftover biiskit pieces into her mouth. “More?” she says, holding out the empty bowl.