A Confusion of Princes Read online

  ‘I’d better go and see him then,’ I said as I got dressed, transferred my weapons to the new uniform, and sealed it up. ‘Um, what happens after that?’

  ‘Usually you would be given a week’s leave or more in order to establish your household, Highness, before commencing the Academy’s training program.’

  ‘Usually? What do you know, Haddad?’

  ‘I have no definite information, Highness,’ replied Haddad. ‘However, I have seen that this academy is not entirely run on orthodox lines. Any commanding Prince in such a situation has considerable latitude in how they apply Navy regulations. Prince Huzand appears to have taken that latitude further than most, probably because he is well protected higher up the chain of command by other members of House Jerrazis.’

  ‘He can’t assassinate me, though, can he?’ I asked, trying hard to disguise my anxiety. The misplaced confidence I had built up over the years had been dissipating rapidly ever since my ascension and had taken some particularly hard knocks in the last little while. ‘Or kill me in a duel or something?’

  Haddad didn’t answer immediately, which did nothing to reassure me.

  ‘A Prince cannot challenge a junior or senior officer of any service while on active duty. Nor would it be legal for a senior Prince to assassinate you. But they can influence more junior Princes in indirect ways. It would be best to presume that this academy is not as secure a territory as I had predicted and wise to keep up a connection to the Imperial Mind at all times.’

  ‘I’m doing that now,’ I said. ‘I think . . . but I can feel the connection go through you and then priests here in the temple. What if they stop relaying?’

  ‘The relay is now being undertaken by your own household priests, Highness,’ said Haddad. ‘They were assigned to you several minutes ago, but they will not appear as unique individuals in the relay chain until you have met them. At that point, you will be able to relay to any of them even without me being part of the chain.’

  ‘I’ve already got some priests? That’s good. Uh, how many of them are there?’

  ‘You have been assigned twelve, which is more than usual, Highness,’ said Haddad. ‘The number is supposed to be random, as modified by the availability of priests, number of new Princes in the area, and so forth. However, most new Princes would be fortunate to be granted more than a single priest in their first year.’

  ‘And I’ve got twelve?’

  Haddad’s face did not show any surprise, but it sounded like a big deal to me. I’d been given twelve times as many priests as a normal Prince starting out? Maybe I was even more special than I’d thought. My confidence and natural sense of superiority, nurtured for so long in my candidate temple, began to return in full force.

  Unfortunately, massive overconfidence is not a survival trait.

  ‘It is also . . . unusual . . . that all of Your Highness’s priests serve one Aspect, in this case that of the Inward Traveller.’

  ‘You mean they’re not from the Aspect of the Noble Warrior? I thought this was their temple.’

  I didn’t add that the arch-priest I had met was the head of the Aspect of the Emperor’s Discerning Hand. There would be time enough for that later, in more private circumstances. I was very curious that the arch-priest had said I could tell Haddad, and I wanted to know what he thought about it, for I felt he was the one person I could trust, based on what he had already done to keep me alive.

  Also, like all Masters of Assassins, he had been directly assigned to me by the Imperial Mind, which meant by the Emperor Hierself, so surely he was completely trustworthy? Though I was a bit confused about that now that I was connected to the Imperial Mind myself. Was it actually the Emperor talking to me when the Imperial Mind spoke in my head? It didn’t feel like an individual, like when a priest was mentally communicating with me. In some ways it was almost like hearing myself think.

  ‘There are always priests of other Aspects in any temple,’ explained Haddad. ‘However, each temple is consecrated to a particular Aspect and managed by priests of that Aspect.’

  ‘So I’ve got a dozen Inward Traveller priests. They’re Psitek specialists, right? Navy communication and control? That kind of makes sense.’

  ‘It leaves your household very weak in Bitek and Mektek, Highness,’ said Haddad. ‘Though perhaps this weakness is counterbalanced by a strong and highly redundant connection to the Imperial Mind. In any case, as soon as Your Highness has been assigned quarters, you will meet your priests. In time I hope we will be assigned more, from other Aspects, and I will also be able to recruit apprentices from the nearest Temple of the Aspect of the Shadowed Blade.’

  ‘Good,’ I muttered. ‘Uh, how do I get more priests? And how many am I allowed to have, like in total?’

  ‘The basic allotment is, as we have discussed, somewhat random,’ replied Haddad. ‘More can be granted to you by your superiors in whatever service you join, in this case the Navy, for particular tasks; or by the Imperial Mind, as rewards and acknowledgements of particular services. Certain Imperial honours also come with assignments of priests or other additions to your household. It is worth noting that priests can also be taken away by the same process. As for apprentice assassins, the number depends upon the rank of the Master.’

  ‘How many apprentices can you have?’ I asked.

  ‘Between four and forty-eight apprentices, graduated in fours, Highness,’ answered Haddad.

  ‘So how many can you have?’ I repeated.

  Haddad hesitated, which was interesting. I thought a Master of Assassins had to answer their Prince’s questions without hesitation. And also act on their orders without delay.

  ‘Thirty-six, Highness,’ he said, very softly so the priest on the bridge couldn’t hear. ‘But it would be best to keep that to yourself.’

  So Haddad was a very senior Master of Assassins indeed. Why had he been assigned to me? And why had I been sponsored to join the Imperial Mind by an arch-priest, the head of an Aspect I’d never even heard about, read about, or suspected existed?

  It was all very puzzling, and slowly—much more slowly than I should have—I was beginning to realise that I needed to know a lot more about what being a Prince of the Empire actually meant. In fact, I needed to know a lot more about the Empire.

  The naïveté of my youth and the arrogance that had been built up in the process of making me a Prince had combined to make an impressive barrier of ignorance. But that barrier now had the slightest crack in it. At least now I knew that I might not be the best thing the galaxy had ever had the fortune to see, and that I was about as uninformed as a cockroach. Hopefully, despite this lack of information, I would prove to be as impossible to eradicate as those dull, black-carapaced beetles that had accompanied humanity everywhere across the stars.

  If I was to prosper, or even survive, I had to become a lot smarter.

  Unfortunately, becoming smarter isn’t something that happens immediately. I could have done with being very much more intelligent and knowledgeable before my next encounter with the forces that would shape my life, in this case in the person of Prince Huzand, Captain of the Imperial Navy and Commandant of the Kwanantil Domain Naval Academy.

  4

  THE TRANSITION FROM the temple to the Naval Academy itself was quickly achieved. We simply followed another plain tunnel drilled through the rock till it ended in a massive armoured door. Two mekbi troopers outside the door came to attention as I approached, and the great slab of metal and Bitek armour cycled open. The corridor on the other side was brilliantly lit and perfectly rectangular, and the bare rock sides were now clad in smooth Bitek panels interspersed with occasional metal plates indicating various access points or emergency equipment storage.

  There were four mekbi troopers on this side, who snapped to attention as a bored-looking Prince in cadet uniform with silver epaulettes rose from behind a Bitek desk that had been extruded from the floor. He sketched something in the air that was presumably a salute. I knew from his broadcas
t that this was Prince Janokh, who was a senior cadet officer, hence the silver epaulettes.

  ‘You’re six and a half minutes late, Cadet Khemri,’ he said sourly. He looked more closely at me and added, ‘What is that on your face?’

  Though I’d wiped it off, the goop had left a bright green stain across half my face, a stain that would need attention from some sort of nanocleanser to remove.

  ‘Bitek digestive gel,’ I answered. ‘Someone tried to assassinate me on the other side of the temple. I’ll get it cleaned off before I—’ ‘Too late for that,’ said Prince Janokh. ‘The Commandant already ordered you to report at once. Assassination, huh? It looks to me like you just fell in the base recycling swamp.’

  ‘No, the bridge I was on was destroy—’

  ‘Save it for your biography,’ interrupted Janokh. ‘And get a move on.’

  At the same time, he sent me directions, providing the required path as an illuminated overlay I could call up over my normal vision.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  He didn’t respond, turning back to his desk with studied indifference.

  As I hurried along the white corridor, I thought about my first two meetings with other Princes. Both had been surprising, in their own ways. I had not expected to see Princes in such menial tasks as commanding a patrol of mekbi troopers, at least not in person. And I certainly didn’t expect to see a Prince sitting at a desk as a not at all glorified doorkeeper.

  Everything I had read or seen about Imperial Princes to date always had them on the bridges of mighty warships, or directing vast enterprises from the centre of a glittering headquarters, surrounded by attentive priests. It hadn’t occurred to me that there might be some intervening stage before even a Prince of the Empire could reach those heights of power.

  Perhaps you could call it an awakening of sorts. I was busy thinking about all this as I turned down another equally featureless corridor of white, descended a riser (checking it myself before Haddad could do so), passed another pair of mekbi troopers and another great armoured door, and entered the outer office of the Commandant.

  My third encounter with a Prince didn’t make my thoughts about my own future more positive. Another third-year cadet with silver epaulettes, she sat at attention behind an antique (or Bitek reproduction) desk of very shiny mahogany at the far end of the Commandant’s outer office. There was a very long honour board on the wall to the left of her desk, an antique possibly made out of real polished timber rather than a Bitek extrusion. It was headed OUTSTANDING THIRD-YEAR CADET and had names on it going back about a hundred years. A priest was carefully painting on the latest name in gold.

  It was ATALIN again.

  I sniffed and resolved that I would never be that much of a suck-up. Who wanted to have their name on a piece of ancient wood anyway?

  There were numerous other priests here as well, a score or more of them all along one wall, interacting with Psitek visualisations or Mektek projections, presumably to do with the operation of various systems in and around the Academy.

  As I got closer to the desk, I picked up the Prince’s identity. Prince Lucisk. Like Prince Atalin, she was a senior cadet, returned from a year-long operational Navy tour for advanced studies at the Academy and to act as a cadet officer.

  ‘Prince Khemri,’ she said, standing as I approached. ‘The Commandant will see you now. Master Haddad, would you care for refreshment?’

  ‘No thank you, Highness,’ replied Haddad. He stepped aside and, when I arched an eyebrow at him, gave a slight affirmative nod. Clearly a new Prince and officer cadet did not take his Master of Assassins with him into an interview with the Commandant of the Academy. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen any masters or even apprentices around Prince Janokh, and none of the priests in the outer office looked like assassins to me. This sent a small shiver of apprehension through me. I had already come to heavily depend upon Haddad, and if he couldn’t be with me in the Academy . . . that would not be good.

  I made sure that I could feel the connection with the Imperial Mind, the slight buzz at the backs of my eyeballs and the base of my skull, which meant it was bearing witness. Whatever I experienced would be recorded far away at the Imperial Core and could be replayed if necessary. If something terrible happened to me, justice would be done.

  Also, if I got killed, it should not be a final death. Again, I wasn’t sure of the details, but I knew that if I stayed in contact, I would be resurrected. Or at least my life would be weighed up by the Priests of the Aspect of the Discerning Hand and, presuming I wasn’t found wanting, I would be reborn. And since I hadn’t had the chance to do anything bad yet, I was pretty sure I’d be approved for another go at the Prince business.

  Pretty sure . . .

  On an even less comforting note, I didn’t know what would happen if I just got really badly injured but was still alive. While I had a redesigned nervous system that included a very high pain threshold, I still felt pain. Pain was a necessary warning system and couldn’t be done away with altogether.

  Thinking cheery thoughts like this almost made me fall over the Bitek-cloned hound that was lying near the door. A long, six-legged beast with jaws the size of my torso, it growled angrily and began to get up as I lurched around its chosen place of repose.

  ‘Down, Troubadour,’ called out the Commandant. He was at the far end of the office, a ridiculously large, bare chamber almost devoid of furnishings and fittings. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all wooden panelling, some of the boards treated with a Bitek luminescence, so the light was soft and diffuse. There was a Mektek command chair in one corner, with two priests standing on either side of it, but that was it for furniture.

  The Commandant was standing in the middle of the room, looking imposing and much taller than any of the other Princes I’d met. It took me a second to work out that he was actually on a kind of ramp that slowly sloped up from where I was, making him a good ten centimetres taller—provided I advanced no farther. Which I wasn’t going to do, because there was a visual schematic coming up in my left eye, sent from one of the priests, and it showed a line a few steps ahead of me, and along the line, in flashing letters, CADETS DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE.

  ‘I am Prince Khemri,’ I said, unnecessarily. He knew who I was, just as I’d got the broadcast from him telling me he was Prince Huzand, Captain of the Imperial Navy, Hero of the Empire Third Class, Initiate of War (Gunnery), Vermilion Wound Badge, Companion of House Jerrazis, and so forth.

  ‘You mean, “Cadet Khemri reporting, sir”, said Huzand. ‘You’re late. And what’s that filth on your face?’

  ‘It’s a Bitek digestive agent,’ I said. ‘Someone tried to drown me in the stuff on the way to the temple.’

  Huzand glared down at me. I’d been worried that I might not be very handsome among Princes, but looking back at him, I knew I’d done all right in the looks department, comparatively speaking. He wasn’t ugly—no Prince is ever actually ugly, unless it’s by choice, like not having a wound fixed properly—but he had a very round head and sticking-out ears. He looked a bit like the Karruskan cabbage that Uncle Coleport, my last teacher priest when I was only a Prince candidate, had been so fond of. A Karruskan cabbage sitting on top of a very smart tailor’s dummy, since Huzand was wearing full dress uniform, complete with illuminated medals and a blindingly white holster at his side that contained a millennia-obsolete gunpowder revolver with an ivory grip, prominently tagged in my visual overlay as GIFT OF THE EMPEROR TO THE TALENTED DUELIST PRINCE HUZAND, PRESENTED ON THE OCCASION OF HIS FIFTEENTH VICTORY.

  ‘The Imperial Mind has no record of any such attempted assassination,’ he said. ‘In any case, it—’ ‘I hadn’t connected to the Mind when it happened—’ I started to say.

  ‘Silence!’ shouted Huzand. Now he looked like a red Karruskan cabbage. I wondered why he let his face change like that. He must like it that way, because he could easily dial down the capillary response. ‘You still haven’t introduced yourself prope
rly. Take one demerit, and another for your improper turnout.’

  I felt the transition of data concerning me from Huzand to one of his attendant priests nearby, and then to the Imperial Mind, and checked it out. It was not good, as it turned out. Apparently I’d been formally in the Navy only since walking into Huzand’s office, and I was already in trouble. The actual record went like this:

  Enlistment recorded Imperial Navy Prince Khemri <> Cadet Ordinary Commence Naval Record 10:47:05 IST

  Naval Record Demerit Applied Authority Huzand <> 10:47:50 IST

  Naval Record Demerit Applied Authority Huzand <> 10:48:05 IST

  I queried the Mind to see what a ‘demerit’ actually was and came up with the fact that it was a negative value in a score that was used to determine my eventual success at the Academy and graduate outcome in terms of rewards and appointments, but also—more important to me at that exact moment—every demerit meant a week confined to the cadet barracks.

  I mean, what is the point of being a Prince of the Empire, one of the masters of the whole damned galaxy, and then you get stuck with stupid stuff like this?

  ‘I never wanted to join the Navy anyway,’ I said. ‘How do I get out?’

  I said this aloud, but I also sent it as a question to the Imperial Mind. Naturally, I didn’t like the answer.

  :Initial Service must be completed by order of Hier Majesty:

  ‘I can well believe that you didn’t want to join the Navy, Cadet Khemri,’ said Huzand. ‘I’m sure the Navy does not want you. I suspect you would do far better in something like Colonial Government. However, you have chosen the Navy, and the Emperor has accepted you. Now we must try to make you into an officer. You will begin by reporting correctly.’

  I didn’t answer for a few seconds. I was still fuming inside, partly at myself. I was going to be stuck in this place, answerable to Huzand and every single Prince downward from him, for a whole year!

  But a Prince can do a lot of thinking in a few seconds. I went from anger to consideration to something like acceptance. I was only going to make things worse if I didn’t obey Huzand. I had two demerits already, and a quick scan of how they worked showed up worse things than not getting leave from the Academy.