Exile (16 page)

Standing outside Tabrel's locked door with her kit of potions, flanked by two guards, Kamath Clan said, "You must leave me with her now."

"No! I will stay with her! I want to see what you do to her!"

Jamal's singsong voice, risen in such panic, made him sound ineffectual and, indeed, unstable.

"You are overly worried, Jamal," Kamath Clan said. She opened her hand, palm up, to show two pale violet tablets. "These will help you to be as you should be on your wedding day."

Wide-eyed, Jamal shrunk back in terror. "No! I won't take your poison!" He looked at the locked door. "And I won't let you give it to her! I've changed my mind, Mother!"

Coolly, Kamath shook her head.

"You've done the right thing, Jamal. I will handle things now."

Kamath made a quick motion with her head and the two guards approached, taking a firm grip on Jamal.

"Help him dress," the queen ordered. "And give him these." She thrust the two pills into the nearest guard's hand, looking sternly into his face.

"Make sure he swallows them."

The guards bowed and began to drag an hysterical Jamal Clan away between them.

"Mother! Please!"

"Don't worry," Kamath said, unlocking the door. "I will make everything right."

"You've greatly disappointed my son," Kamath Clan said. "He may be foolish to have fallen in love with you—but love is beside the point. There will be a wedding today."

"Not without my assent," Tabrel said defiantly.

"That is where you are wrong," Kamath Clan answered in a toneless voice. "The union is legal and will proceed—one way or another."

On the floor, Kamath Clan carefully opened an ancient wooden case. Inside, cradled in blue velvet, were bottles of various make: heavy and thin glass, dull and polished metal. Tabrel saw a smoky green bottle labeled "Obedience," a slim red carafe designated "Truthfulness"; there was a pewter decanter entitled "Affability," and a blackened bottle called "Death." A clutch of silver syringes were labeled "Sleep."

Kamath Clan withdrew a thin rosy liquid in a clear tube, unstoppered it with care, and held it out toward Tabrel.

"This is a mixture of many things. Imbibe." Tabrel nearly laughed. "Do you think I'm foolish?"

"No, not at all."

With a movement like a huge cat, Kamath Clan now hovered over Tabrel. The woman's sudden grip was like being caught by a cold iron machine. Ka-math Clan's horrid visage filled Tabrel's sight; and now she felt her lips being pried apart, the vial of rosy liquid drawing near.

Tabrel tried to fight, to clamp her mouth shut. But she found she did not have the strength to resist. Kamath Clan pinched the back of her neck, jammed the vial against her opening mouth, and upended its contents.

A thin line of burning cold traced Tabrel's throat.

It blossomed within her, and she felt tentacles of shadow reach out from within and fly to the extremities of her body.

Abruptly, she was not herself.

She wanted to scream, but her lips would not obey, and what's more, they did not wish to obey.

"Now, my dear," said Kamath Clan, "shall we get dressed for your wedding to my son?"

"Yes!"
Tabrel's radiant face smiled as she reached a hand that was no longer hers to caress a silken lilac gown, whose folds were as soft as butter, which Kamath Clan, smiling also, held out for her inspection.

It was a wedding such as Titan had never seen.

Bathed in beautiful lights of rose and dim green, the Temple of Faran Clan—the secular philosopher of the end of the twenty-first century, known as the Moral Guide, whose teachings had blossomed with the blossom of colonization of other worlds—had never beheld such a ceremony. It was Faran Clan who had taught the importance of ritual and ceremony: that balance within the soul and body can only be attained by balance outside the flesh; that the human being needs these things for true attainment of peace. After the Religious Wars on Earth in the middle 2100s, his lessons, after a slow beginning, had grown, finding more fertile ground on some settled worlds than on others. It was Faran Clan's own son, Pen Clan, who had led the earliest settlers to Titan, after the beginnings of persecution on Earth and the movement's ahd failures on Mars.

And ceremony was in evidence this day. The twin gothic spires of the temple, borrowed from the ancient religions, echoed with the chants of blessing and happiness, some of which the Moral Guide himself had written before his death. The pews were festooned with garlands, the air spiced with fir and pine and spices.

And also—for remembrance—with sulfur, from yellow lo, the Jovian moon.

And Jamal Clan, nervous as any bridegroom, stood fidgeting by the pulpit in front, his mind on fire with worry.

Until

With the swelling of the mixed chant, the Chorus of Happiness, which signaled the appearance of the bride, all his doubt flew away like birds, and he was filled with sudden joy.

"Oh, Mother!" he exclaimed to Kamath Clan, who had made her way silently up the side aisle, provoking whispers and glances as always, to join her son. She nodded to various dignitaries, including Commander Tarn, who occupied a place of honor in the front pew.

For a moment Kamath's heart froze, thinking she had spied Quog among the crowd behind Commander Tarn—but it was only a young boy who had leaned his head sideways to rest it upon his mother's shoulder.

With effort, she resumed her duties of acknowledgment, then stood still beside Jamal.

There was a hush of expectation, and then singing voices rose, filling the vault with sound as Tabrel Kris—head high, face caressed with the barest of veils, her gown magnificent, a living flower, its train trailing like petals behind her—made her way in halting, imperious steps up the center aisle.

Jamal's eyes welled with tears.

"She is so beautiful!"

"This is true," Kamath said, the barest of emo
tions entering her words. "And finally, the houses of Clan and Kris will be joined."

"Yes!" Jamal said.

A precise three meters from Jamal, Tabrel Kris stopped, lowering her eyes.

Jamal, too, lowered his gaze.

Immediately the chanting stopped, leaving the temple in an echoing hush.

Tabrel raised her eyes slowly and spoke in a loud, strong voice:

"I, Tabrel Kris of Mars, do take you, Jamal Clan of Titan, with heart, mind, and soul, to be my wedded husband."

Jamal raised his eyes to meet hers. His heart was pounding within his breast.

He knew what was expected of him now, but he turned instead to look up at his mother, a sudden fear filling him at the sight of Tabrel's smile.

"Is she mine, Mother?" he whispered fiercely. "Is she really mine?"

His mother looked down emotionlessly. "She is yours. What part of her is not will follow."

Without hesitation, Jamal took a deep breath and stepped forward to lift, with gently trembling fingers, the veil from Tabrel's face:

"And I, Jamal Clan of Titan, do take you, Tabrel Kris of Mars, with heart, mind, and soul, to be my wedded wife!"

With abrupt, choking terror, he knew that something was not right within Tabrel's gleaming eyes. He saw another kind of terror deep within them.

But still, he took her two soft hands into his own, preparing to say, with her, the words that would lock them forever together.

The spices in the air intensified.

And then suddenly the smell of sulfur, a vague, unpleasant backdrop until now, became overpowering.

Vast plumes of yellow vapor roiled up the center aisle in a billowing cloud, overtaking Tabrel and Jamal and expanding to fill the temple. Sounds of choking filled the air.

With a mixture of anger and panic, Kamath Clan strode toward the side entrance of the temple and threw open the large doors. She lurched outside into artificially lit daylight, followed by the rest, all save Kamath wiping at their eyes and gagging.

The queen marched into clear air and looked back at the temple: Its clean, tall lines and twin spires pointing toward the heavens were enveloped in a yellow fog, made ghostly by the bright lights focused on the structure.

"Who dares to interrupt this service?" Kamath Clan roared.

Kamath Clan followed the line of the spires and looked upward.

Her breath caught in her throat.

There, barely illumined by the upward-reaching spotlamps, hung the belly of Wrath-Pei's huge ship. It covered the sky nearly from horizon to horizon, its sleek cone suspended like the hugest of toys on a string.

Commander Tarn, still fighting to regain his breath, staggered past; Kamath gripped his arm and pointed angrily upward. "What is
that
doing here?"

"My God," Tarn said, his jaw dropping open. "You assured me our shield was inviolable!" Tarn gaped from the gargantuan ship to the queen's visage. "It is!"

"Obviously that is not true!"

"I will go see—" Tarn said, attempting to break away.

"Tarn!" came a nearby voice, even colder than the queen's.

Tarn's knees instantly turned weak, and Kamath Clan had to support him.

Wrath-Pei's gimbaled and cushioned chair drew out of the thinning fog like a floating specter. Ka-math knew that it was only a form of sloth that kept him in the chair—though he showed nothing of laziness in his body, which appeared in every way perfect, from the silver mane of hair swept back from his high forehead down through the sculpted cheeks, Roman visage, chiseled features, and commanding eyes, and on through the muscled, tight body, well-advertised through his tight black clothing.

Commander Tarn had turned the color of ash at Wrath-Pei's voice. "Y-Yes, Your Grace?"

Wrath-Pei smiled, lynxlike. "Why haven't you returned my calls? Hmmm?"

Tarn bowed. "I apologize, Your Grace. But with the wedding—"

Wrath-Pei clicked his attention from Tarn to the queen. "The wedding!" he said. "And why wasn't I invited?"

Choking back wrath and fright, Kamath Clan bowed and said, "An oversight, Your Grace. My underlings will be duly punished. They must have thought Your Grace was not available—"

"But of course I'm available—I'm here, aren't I?" His grin widened, sending Tarn into a near swoon. "And I must say that it was not an easy thing to get here! It seems someone in Tarn's command—an
underling,
perhaps—left Titan's shield on at full capacity! Imagine! But, well—" he said, waving his hand as if in dismissal of unpleasant thoughts, "I'm here now, and that's the important thing. And on young Jamal Clan's wedding day! How glorious!"

He opened his hands in mild benediction in the direction of the temple, which was now becoming visible again through the dissipating yellow smoke. "But first, before we resume the ceremony, there are a few matters to discuss," Wrath-Pei said earnestly. "You don't mind, do you?"

"Of course not, Your Grace," Kamath said.

By this time they were joined by Jamal Clan, who stood in near shock, staring at Wrath-Pei and his magical chair, and his new bride, Tabrel, who stayed back a step, with no expression on her face.

Wrath-Pei nodded toward the newcomers, yet Spoke to Kamath Clan.

"Good. Good. It seems that my old friend Prime Cornelian, who now fancies himself something called High Leader—" Wrath-Pei paused to chuckle, "anyhow, Prime Cornelian has taken it into his head that he would very much like me to return this young lady, here"—Wrath-Pei lifted a finger to point at Tabrel—"to her native Mars. In fact, he's very insistent on this matter."

"No!" Jamal blurted out, earning him the sternest of glares from his mother.

Wrath-Pei laughed. "A boy in love! How charming and rare! However," he continued, his expression thoughtful, "this is what my colleague, the 'High Leader,' demands."

There was silence for a moment until Wrath-Pei blew out his breath softly. "However, I don't believe I'm willing to do that. Because I'm afraid that the High Leader has something nefarious in mind for young Tabrel Kris. And, being a moral man, I don't believe it would be the right thing to do."

Kamath Clan had to restrain her son from throwing himself at Wrath-Pei's feet.

Wrath-Pei showed a slight smile. "Consider it one of my wedding presents," he said.

"Thank you, Your Grace!" Jamal said, breaking out into sobs and stepping back to clutch Tabrel.

"By the way, is she . . . awake?" Wrath-Pei said, studying Tabrel.

"Yes . . ." the Queen said, and when Wrath-Pei caught her eye, he winked.

"I see.... Anyhow, I feel we should all get back to the wedding, after I cover one small detail. in fact, I'll need to speak to you about this in more detail privately, Tarn—but that chat can wait until after the ceremonies."

The color drained from Tarn's face.

"The basic point, though, is that I . . . believe we should approach the future security of Titan from a . . . different perspective, if you will. In fact, I believe I should be responsible for the protection of Titan from now on."