Part 38 (1/2)
”The power-link is collapsing,” Lahaylia said. ”It cannot take the power of our three minds. Yours and Jarac's are too alike. They interfere. They will cancel each other. You cannot both survive.”
”No!” Kurj let go of the columns and stepped down from the corridor. He faced Lahaylia, the two of them locked in a connection neither could break. Her gaze never wavered. He walked on, past Roca, and her mind felt his pa.s.sing like the gales of a mental hurricane.
Eldrin cried out and burrowed his head against her shoulder.
The transparent bubble of the observation bay curved out from the Orbiter's hull. The glory of deep s.p.a.ce surrounded Jarac. He stood on a transparent platform staring at the cosmos, his hands resting on the rail of dichromesh gla.s.s.
Kurj crossed the bay like a mammoth walking in s.p.a.ce. When he neared Jarac, his grandfather turned, his motions slowed by his large size. Jarac's face was drawn, strained, his eyes reflecting the same agony Kurj felt ripping him apart. Their minds were trying to fit in the same place, two leviathans superimposed on each other in Kyle s.p.a.ce.
Two minds.
One s.p.a.ce.
Only one could survive.
Kurj's voice crackled. ”Grandfather.”
Jarac's inner lids lifted, revealing his eyes. Deep lines furrowed his drawn face. His mental power was crus.h.i.+ng his grandson. Kurj had always believed himself the stronger of the two, but he knew now he had been wrong. Terribly wrong. Jarac's mind had more power, more strength, more will than his own. Kurj couldn't endure against him. Jarac would survive and he would die.
Suddenly Jarac's mind receded. Kurj didn't understand-and then realization hit him: his grandfather had relinquished his hold on life. He would let himself die so Kurj could live.
”No!” Kurj strode forward, knowing now, too late, that his grandfather meant more to him than the power of the Imperator. He wanted Jarac to live, wanted it with an intensity that burned.
Jarac sank to his knees, his great back bending as he lowered his head. Dropping next to him, Kurj grabbed his shoulders. ”You must not give up! We will find a way to coexist.”
”It is not possible.” Jarac lifted his s.h.a.ggy-maned head. ”We are too alike.”
”No.” Kurj felt as if a band were constricting across his chest. ”You are a better man than I.”
”Greatness is in you. You must find it now.”
”You must live.” Kurj would do anything, even beg the fates, to stop Jarac from dying. ”You must.”
”I am too old.”
”But you don't know. I found files about my birth.”
Jarac answered with infinite, agonizing gentleness. ”I know. I see it in your mind.”
The words wrenched out of Kurj. ”You are my father.”
Jarac took a deep, shuddering breath. ”I cannot forgive what the a.s.sembly has done. But I am as proud to have you as a son as a grandson.”
”You must live!” Kurj would say it a thousand times, until Jarac heard.
”Do you know their minds?” Jarac asked.
”Whose?” But Kurj felt it, what his grandfather meant. The minds of the Ruby Dynasty were linked, all of them. He, Jarac, and Lahaylia flared in a triangle of fire. Less intense, outside the Triad but still bright, the Ruby Dynasty burned: Dehya, intellect instead of force, sensitive, fragile, beautifully luminous; Roca, a blaze of vitality and health, with a love for her family that knew no bounds; young Eldrin, glowing within the circle of her light, unformed, full of promise, so very, very treasured.
And yes, Eldrinson was there, distant but full, a great swelling ocean of light. Kurj wanted to weep for the purity of that radiance, the untouched beauty of a mind that for all Eldrinson's physical suffering had remained unscathed.
Jarac clenched his forearm. ”The baby. He has not our strength. Protect.”
Kurj felt the wash of Eldrin's terrified impressions. The child was panicked, cowering from the inferno of the Triad, his mind huddled against his mother's, his thoughts instinctively fleeing toward love and warmth, desperate for the father Kurj had denied him. Eldrin was so enormously vulnerable. Jarac's dying, this agonizing pain, could devastate Eldrin the same way the deaths of Eldrinson's family had so traumatized Eldrinson in his infancy. Kurj reached out, swaddling Eldrin's mind in layers of protection, buffering him from the agony killing his elders.
”You feel them.” Jarac struggled to speak. ”They are yours now. You are the Fist of Skolia. The protector. Lahaylia and Dehya, they are the Mind. And know this, Kurj. Eldrinson and Roca are its Heart. You cannot deny them.”
”Father-”
”You must care for them, betraying none.” Jarac's voice rasped. ”Promise you will do this.”
”You are not going to die.”
”Promise.You will never betray any of them.”
Kurj took a shuddering breath. ”I promise.”
Jarac sagged forward, and Kurj grabbed his shoulders, trying to stop him. But like a great tree falling, Jarac settled onto his side, then on his back. Kurj knelt next to him on the transparent deck, bathed in starlight, moisture gathering in his eyes.
”I cannot heal the wounds that ravage your heart,” Jarac whispered. ”But I can give you a gift.” His ma.s.sive chest rose and fell with his strained breaths. ”Know the family we love...as I know them.”
And then he opened his mind.
Jarac's thoughts, emotions, hopes, memories, fears, longings, knowledge, loves-it all rolled into Kurj's mind. His brain, so much like Jarac's, imprinted with the neural pathways that formed Jarac's personality.
Kurj remained himself, aware of the pain in his heart, but in that instant, he also became his grandfather.
Kurj's voice caught. ”Forgive me.”
”Yes.” His father took a final breath. ”I do love you.”
Then Jarac Skolia, Imperator of the Skolian Imperialate, pa.s.sed from life into death.
26.
Ruby Heart.
Lahaylia Selei sat on the floor in her bedroom, against the wall, unmoving. After an age, or perhaps only a few moments, a man paused in the doorway. She made no move to look at him, speak to him, acknowledge him in any way.
Then he spoke. ”Lahya.”
”Ah, G.o.ds.” Sheknewthat voice. She couldn't help herself; she turned-and saw her husband in the doorway, his posture, his expressions, even his mind so achingly familiar.
Except it wasn't him.