The Emperor of Everything

She laughed, though there was no trace of humor in that harsh sound. “I’d have liked to see that… but I think you must be lying, Ruiz Aw. She was a mountain, too strong even for you. How could any unaugmented person best her? You’re tricky. I’ll remember that when I have you back.” She jerked at some control, just out of sight, and to Ruiz’s horror, the airboat staggered and swooped in response.

The others woke, made various sounds of fright, and clutched at their restraining straps.

Flomel, the Pharaohan conjuror, shouted in a voice breaking with panic, “Lady Corean! I had nothing to do with it, I’d have warned your henchmen, had I known what this wild beast was up to.”

Ruiz glanced over his shoulder, saw Dolmaero whack Flomel across the mouth with a meaty hand. “Shut up,” said Dolmaero calmly. The conjuror stared at the Guildmaster, shocked speechless by this insubordination.

Ruiz gave his attention to the controls. They were still dead, but he was momentarily pleased to see that they didn’t respond accurately to Corean’s attempts to redirect the boat. It wobbled to the left, away from the arrow-straight course they had been pursuing, but it showed no sign of reversing directions, as was apparently her intent.

In the vidscreen Corean’s face reflected several emotions: triumph, then puzzlement, then frustration. She swore again, wrenched at her remotes again, which only served to produce a more pronounced drift to the left and a sickening motion, a combination of pitch and roll that had the other passengers moaning.

Ruiz looked out and saw that the boat was no longer heading for the pass through the blue mountains, but was instead rushing toward a sheer cliff. He grabbed at the velocity yoke, slowing the boat until it hung in the air over a talus slope, still shimmying with the eccentric motion Corean had given it.

“Make it stop,” Nisa said, in a small careful voice.

Corean had apparently heard, because an ugly smile floated on her lips. “He can’t,” she said. The boat jerked and shuddered, then darted forward, directly at the cliffside. “If I can’t have you back, then I’ll have to do the best I can.”

Ruiz waggled the yoke, but now the boat seemed completely out of control. He stared out at the onrushing stone as the boat accelerated. From the corner of his eye he could see an avid look on Corean’s perfect face, as if she hoped the communicator would survive the impact long enough for her to take a leisurely delight in Ruiz’s destruction.

For an instant his mind was empty, and then he saw a ruined body in the wreckage of the boat. Not his. Nisa’s.

He pushed the image from his mind’s eye. For some reason, he thought of poor mad Kroel, once a master conjuror of Pharaoh.

With the thought came an impulse, and he acted on it instantly. He raised the collar controller, which he had previously set to Kroel’s resonance. He’d intended to use the sedative ject if Kroel became dangerously agitated; now he thumbed the detonator switch.

A dull thump came from the hold, and the note of the engines changed, shrieking up the scale, louder and higher, until they seized with a final shuddering crunch — and the boat was filled with silence. Ruiz clutched at the arms of his chair and hoped for the best.

Just before the boat dropped and hit the talus, Ruiz glanced down at Corean’s image in the vidscreen. The slaver was watching him with a luminous intensity, and Ruiz thought she had never looked more beautiful and more terrible.

Chapter 2

By great good luck the airboat struck the talus slope in a nose-up attitude, pancaking into the loose detritus and bouncing up toward the base of the cliff. The initial impact almost tore Ruiz loose from his chair, but he managed to hang on. He hoped the others had braced themselves, but in any case, the acceleration webbing would protect them as long as the boat remained intact.

The boat slid upward, raising a cloud of dust, hull screeching against the rubble of the slope. It slowed, crunched into the ledge at the top of the slope, and stopped.

For a moment the boat rocked unsteadily, and Ruiz feared it might roll back down. He wondered how far the slope dropped. Had the slope ended at the top of another precipice, which then had dropped into a deep valley? He couldn’t quite remember; all his attention had been concentrated on Corean and her vengeful face.

But then the boat became still. Ruiz could hear nothing but the retching sounds Flomel was making. The vidscreen was a dead gray, and the control board was dark.

“Well,” Ruiz said. “We’re still lucky.” He turned to look at the others.

Nisa clutched at the webbing, her face pale and serious.

Molnekh smiled crookedly and pulled the hem of his tunic away from Flomel, who was making a mess. Dolmaero was impassive, staring out the port.

Flomel gained control of his stomach. “One day you’ll be sorry, casteless one,” he said, gulping air. “Now you’ve wrecked the Lady Corean’s miraculous vessel and we’re stranded in the wilderness.”