Ruler of Naught Read online

  Ruler of Naught

  Exordium: Book 2

  Sherwood Smith & Dave Trowbridge

  Copyright © 2011 Sherwood Smith and Dave Trowbridge

  ISBN: 978 1 61138 148 1

  Book View Café

  December 27, 2011

  PROLOGUE

  The gnostors of Hypostatics will tell you that space-time is isotropic, that there is no center: all locations are equally central and equally peripheral.

  Perhaps.

  But every haji knows different. Those who survive that pilgrimage know there is a place different from all other places, a Center to the sentient universe.

  Its name is Desrien.

  From orbit, Desrien at first appears no different from any other planet cherished by humankind: a blue-white sphere marbled by cloud-whirls, a sight resonant with memories of the Exile and our lost Mother. But there are no Highdwellings. Aside from the Node, here uninhabited, the only stars in the night sky of Desrien are those placed there by the unimaginable Hand of Telos. The planet lies open to space, unprotected by the webs of forces and vessels so familiar to interstellar travelers.

  It does not need them. Those who are uninvited do not land, or if they do, they do not leave again. Unmappable, unnavigable, alone among all worlds Desrien stands exempt from the Jaspran Unalterable of Free Passage. For there is found an interface between the transcendent and the mundane that flouts the metrics of our sciences and defies the power of our machines, where Totality is unknowable except through human senses and perceptions.

  Desrien is the heart of an immense engine, powered by the sleeting archetypal energies of the Nous, the emanations of the trillion-fold mentalities in the Thousand Suns that are focused there by the mystical lens of the Mandala. There, stretched tight by the weight of dreams, the skin of the world is eminently fragile. The featherweight blow of a single thought can open a wound through which myths both fearful and beloved erupt into the waking world, so that the pilgrim enters fully conscious into the Dreamtime of humanity and walks among archetypes awakened into the light of day.

  Every visitor to Desrien who truly surrenders to its mysteries thus confronts enfleshed the myths by which they live—which may not be the ones they thought they knew.

  The title Haji, then, is an honored one; but those who bear it rarely speak of what they saw and lived on Desrien. It is enough that their lives are wholly changed.

  Gn. Ali byn-Ibrahim Japhez

  College of Archetype and Ritual

  Desrien, The Hinge of Time

  Sync Achilenga, 615 a.a.

  In the place of the Omnipotence there is neither before nor after; there is only act.

  Charles Williams

  Descent into Hell

  Lost Earth, ca. 300 b.e.

  There was nothing, in no time, neither perception nor non-perception. Neither movement nor non-movement, neither identity nor difference, neither eternity nor boundedness.

  There was a blow, impalpable, disturbing nothing. Nothing dwindled and resolved, rising through depths of abnegation to the awareness of a flame, suspended in a darkness evocative of incense and the faint tang of fresh fruit. Beyond the flame a golden blur, sharpening to a vast face of inhuman calm indwelling with transhuman compassion, its lips curved in a smile terrible with possibilities, knowing everything, rejecting nothing.

  The bodhisattva Eloatri gazed up the Buddha. The faint scent of green tea from the kitchen beyond the dharma room tickled her nose. She let the sensation go, not thinking about it, merely experiencing it.

  There was no sound. Above, the narrow windows against the roof admitted the pale light of false dawn, barely illuminating the riotous profusion of images that framed the gilded statue of the Awakened One. The vihara was asleep around her; alone among the sleeping monks and nuns their abbot meditated.

  Had been meditating. There was no one in the room; no reason for whatever had breached her repose in the higher dhyanas. Eloatri closed her eyes.

  There was nothing, in no time, neither perception nor non-perception...

  There was a blow, impalpable, and nothing fled before a flare of light resolving into the nine-headed form of Vajrabhairava, the terrifying aspect of the bodhisattva Manjushri, who is the strength of the spirit of the Buddha. Locked in sexual union with his consort, trampling beasts and men underfoot, his thirty-four arms juggling the flaming sword of knowledge, his eighteen-fold gaze sought her out, pinned her against the darkness. With a terrible smile he sought her, the sword transforming to a silver sphere which he hurled at her head and Eloatri shouted and opened her eyes to the calm of the dharma room.

  The echo of her shout died away, replaced by the soft slap of bare feet in the corridor behind her. She ignored the presence behind her, breathing for a time until her heart slowed, gazing into the compassionate eyes of the Buddha. Meaning would come when it would come. Rising to her feet in a fluid motion that belied her eighty years, she clapped her hands before her and bowed deeply to the Buddha. It was time.

  She met the calm eyes of the monk Nukuafoa, then his eyes widened as she removed the blue cord knotted around her waist, and put it into his hands.

  “The Hand of Telos is upon me,” she said. “And my third hejir is before me. You are chosen.”

  He bowed. She felt the pressure of responsibility settling around him, she felt his question as she walked to her cell, where she collected her staff and cloak, begging bowl and sandals.

  Then she left the vihara that had been her refuge for twenty-one years, driven out upon the third pilgrimage of her life, devotee and victim of that Unconditioned which humankind calls Telos, on a planet called Desrien.

  PART ONE

  ONE

  ARTHELION

  The lock of the shuttle hissed open on a spacious garden, severe in aspect.

  Anaris rahal’Jerrodi recognized it as the formal rooftop landing area of the Palace Major. Tall spindles of foliage formed narrow windows on distances soft in the morning sun.

  Anaris strode down the shuttle ramp, the familiar scents catching at his throat. The complex of emotions evoked an Uni word he’d had no occasion to use since he’d returned to Dol’jhar: Home. Recognition overlaid amusement on his speculations about the purpose of his father’s sudden summons. When he’d last stood here, he’d been on his way back to a Dol’jhar that existed only in his mind, distorted by time and youthful memory.

  Home. Dol’jharian had no equivalent: the closest was probably jhar, fortress. Walls, dead ends, eyes.

  Here, on the highest point in the Mandala, all was air and light, softly drowning the black garb and rigid postures of the Tarkan honor guard drawn up facing the shuttle. Harsh ozone from the shuttle overlaid more subtle, resinous scents. Anaris inhaled deeply, reveling in a sense of expansiveness, and turned towards the lift adit for the Ivory quadrant, where the Palace Minor lay. Why had the pilot landed the shuttle sideways?

  A double-thunderclap pulled his attention upwards, then another. His skin prickled. High above, jagged contrails scarred the sky. He’d felt the Fist of Dol’jhar’s ruptors fire, just once, yesterday. Then the comm filters came down, hard. No one had told him who, or what, they’d fired at.

  There had been no response from the Dol’jharian interdiction system hastily installed when Mandalic protocols took down all planetary defenses, so whatever was going on, it was some distance from the Palace.

  Anaris shot a glance at his new secretary at the foot of the ramp behind him. Morrighon flinched, his gaze turned downward toward his useless compad. Anaris had only been able to discover that Juvaszt, kyvernat of the Fist of Dol’jhar, had been ordered down shortly afterwards.

  And now my father summons me. This must be the next step in
the succession duel. Watching for any hint of why it was happening at this moment, Anaris took a step toward the Ivory lift.

  “Your pardon, Lord. The Avatar awaits you this way,” said Morrighon, as he gestured towards the Phoenix adit directly across from the shuttle’s lock. The secretary’s voice had a resonance reminiscent of the mindripper, an insinuating whine that turned everything he said into a complaint against the universe at large.

  He has reason to complain. The Bori was short, dumpy, with an asymmetric, pockmarked face and a widely divergent gaze. Anaris wondered how Morrighon had escaped culling.

  His ugliness alone had made Morrighon Anaris’s first choice to replace the secretary purged by Eusabian when Lelanor’s presence on the Fist was discovered. Anaris still had not found out who had reported his secreted lover, forcing him to kill her in front of his father to spare her death by torture.

  He doubted it had been Morrighon. All the records he’d found about this Bori indicated a love of rigid routine and a lack of imagination, surprising to find in the Catennach, the Bori elite. Anaris wanted just that if he had to have a secretary. This Morrighon had seemed to be the ideal buffer, busying himself endlessly over minutiae. His inevitable reports to Barrodagh could be easily shaped.

  Best of all, Morrighon’s cullish appearance, grating voice, and low ranking in the Catennach hierarchy would have made his assignment an insult had Barrodagh offered it, so Anaris’s choice overthrew all calculations. Including, perhaps, his father’s.

  This meeting will be interesting, at the very least. His father had the advantage of established power. Anaris had the advantage of being the sole surviving heir—he was not expendable. And he had grown to manhood here in the Mandala, from where his father now ruled the Thousand Suns. I was a hostage then. I will not be a hostage now.

  Amusement flared again as they approached the Phoenix lift adit along an avenue of pleached trees ablaze with sweet-scented blossoms in every shade of red and orange. Anaris knew where the lift would deposit them. My father’s touch, part of purging the Panarchist poison.

  As expected, the lift debouched them at the inner end of the antechamber to the Phoenix Hall, a long corridor lined with the busts of former Panarchs and Kyriarchs, set in alcoves. When they passed the bust of the Faceless One, Anaris wondered what the Avatar had made of that symbol of refined Panarchist revenge.

  Anaris lengthened his stride, impatient with the roundabout route his father had prescribed. He could hear Morrighon’s breath rasping in his throat in counterpoint to the echoing clatter of boots on marble as the Bori struggled to match his pace. Morrighon’s lumpy body looked ridiculous in an ill-fitting tunic, the gray of service personnel. More ridiculous were the three communicators clipped to his waistband, plus the compad clutched fiercely under Morrighon’s left arm.

  As they left the antechamber, a shadow flickered across their path and melted into the opposite wall. The leading Tarkan grunted and jerked his weapon up.

  “Ni-Dolchu karra bi-stest j’cha!” exclaimed another of their escorts—Dol-forsaken lurking demon-spawn—in tones that combined superstitious fear and long-suffering acceptance of a condition that couldn’t be helped.

  Controlling his own spike of reaction, Anaris continued on his way, forcing the Tarkans to scramble to keep ahead of him. He’d recognized that flicker. Old resentment sent blood surging to his head, but puzzlement was equally strong: what had reactivated that old trick of Brandon’s?

  But the Arkad was dead. Anger faded. The best his shade can contrive is a computer-generated haunting. Anaris laughed sardonically, which caught the Tarkans by surprise.

  They slowed, unable to avoid glancing at him in fearful respect. Acting on impulse, Anaris bared his teeth and rapped his hand on the wall from which the haunt had emerged. “Ka-nimichh duuni ni-pelanj marhh,” he said. The shade of my enemy holds no power over me.

  One of the Tarkans blanched before both resumed the forward march. The rank-inflection Anaris had used for the word “enemy” made it obvious to whom he referred. Coining so soon after their passage through the Phoenix Antechamber, the effect was all he could have wished.

  He was aware of Morrighon’s observant gaze, but when Anaris turned his attention that way, the secretary properly looked down. He was apparently unaffected by the haunting. Does he see what I’m doing? The real questions was what he might report, and to whom. The Bori’s ugly face gave no hint of his thoughts. Anaris began to suspect that more than simple routine-keeping was going on in that head.

  After crossing another garden to enter the Palace Minor, their escort halted before a set of tall, carven doors guarded by another pair of Tarkans. The guards grasped the door handles and the doors swung open, releasing a waft of cool air against Anaris’s face. Inside, the marble flooring gave way to a soft, high-napped carpet in burgundy and subtle greens, with dark wood paneling below a high, white ceiling. Anaris recognized the room as one that the Panarch had often used to receive minor officials, or to speak in petto with those he did not wish to expose to the glaring publicity of court. Near the windows, against a rich backdrop of drapery whose heavy folds admitted only a sliver of bright daylight against the mellow light within, a tall chair framed the straight-backed figure of Anaris’s father, the Avatar.

  His eyes alone acknowledged Anaris. There was a hint of thunder in his brow and the set of his broad shoulders.

  Near him, in smaller chairs set before a small table, sat others. First was the Avatar’s secretary Barrodagh, whom Anaris had not seen for a very long time: their communications had been through labyrinthine channels. The Bori’s short, slight figure seemed thinner than ever, his pale skin stretched over his bones as if tension had been his only companion for far too long. Barrodagh glanced up at him, his dark eyes betraying no recognition, though he nodded respectfully.

  Anaris turned his attention to the others gathered there: Almanor, a Catennach woman second only to Barrodagh; Kyvernat Juvaszt, and two other men Anaris at first didn’t recognize. Then, as he approached his father, he realized that the small man was Lysanter, the Urian specialist. The other was a tall, fat young man with a florid complexion and the demeanor of a technician. Anaris guessed this was Ferrasin, a Panarchist computer tech who was now showing up in Anaris’s reports with much greater frequency since Morrighon became his secretary.

  Anaris stopped before his father and bowed. Eusabian acknowledged by indicating a seat, which Anaris took, opposite his father. Morrighon sat next to him.

  There was silence for a time. Juvaszt sat as if carved from stone. Barrodagh’s eyes ferreted back and forth between Anaris and the Avatar, and Anaris knew without looking that his secretary’s were doing the same. He stifled a spurt of amusement, remembering Morrighon’s wall-eyed stare. No one can tell where he’s looking—definitely a survival trait on Dol’jhar.

  The Avatar spoke to Anaris. “I will open my mind to you regarding my paliach.”

  Anaris hid his reaction as the ritual formula confirmed his guess; another step in the struggle for succession. Another layer of secrecy stripped away. Now he would see much that Barrodagh had not been allowed, or had not wished, to share with him.

  His father gestured, and Barrodagh stood. He faced Anaris but, as was proper, did not look directly at him as he spoke.

  “All major centers of Panarchist resistance have now fallen.” Barrodagh’s voice was slightly hoarse. “We are on-schedule for establishing control of the anachronic hubs. Our forces have begun the next phase of occupation, dealing with secondary centers, while administrators have been dispatched from Dol’jhar to the octant capitals. Drafts of labor and materiel will soon begin to flow as we regain control of the Acheront sector.”

  As Barrodagh continued with supporting details, Anaris saw that Morrighon had several other windows open on the data now flooding in. He seemed to be paying little attention to Barrodagh, but then, the Avatar’s secretary was merely rehearsing what Anaris already knew. Anaris’s fingers itched for his o
wn compad, but no Dol’jharian lord could be seen in public dependent on a mere device. Even though they’re generally more trustworthy than a Catennach.

  Anaris studied Barrodagh’s haggard face. The Avatar’s lieutenant had not interfered with Anaris’s other channels of information. He was playing a careful game.

  Even so, what hidden struggles have I missed?

  “Operating through the Syndics of Rifthaven, we have encouraged raids elsewhere in the Thousand Suns by non-allied Rifters to confuse the strategic picture, with excellent results.” Again, more familiar details followed.

  In the normal course of affairs a succession duel would take years. But we are no longer on Dol’jhar. Eusabian no longer had the luxury of time, just as the Panarch had said, in the fey convulsions induced by a shock collar. Whether my father realizes it or not, the Panarchy is far more dangerous and subtle than Jhar D’ocha. There is much room for error.

  And Barrodagh knows that applies to me as well as to my father.

  The thought gave him a frisson of challenge.

  “As a result, resistance has been sporadic and ineffective, and is dwindling rapidly. Our force’s ability to keep ahead of the news of the attack combined with the power of their weapons guarantees that nothing can stand between us and complete control of the Thousand Suns,” Barrodagh finished.

  He had elided immense complexity, but it would not do to underestimate the Avatar’s secretary. Eusabian’s fierce will had driven the war, but Barrodagh’s planning had carried it off.

  Eusabian remained still.

  “Nothing except Ares, and the Fleet,” Juvaszt finally said in a flat voice, with a glance at the Avatar.

  “They cannot stand against the power of the Suneater, even without the Heart of Kronos,” Barrodagh stated.

  Heart of Kronos? Anaris had learned about the Suneater when he was briefed about the imminent attack on the Panarchy, but he had been given few details. He cut a questioning glance at Morrighon, whose compad’s display flipped to accommodate him.