The Emperor of Everything

Yubere looked up at his brother with an oddly affectionate pride. “What an engine of destruction Remint is, Corean. Did you know, he once killed a Moc in unarmed combat? It’s true the Moc was old, and suffering from a degenerative chitin disease — but still, a formidable feat. And he is much stronger now; reengineered bone and tripled muscle fiber. Monomesh embedded in his skin. Other enhancements. I think now he might even best your Moc, terrible as it is…. Anyway. Remint, you must obey this woman as you would me; unless of course she orders you to do something detrimental to my interests. But you already understand that, don’t you, brother — now and forever-more?”

Corean repressed a shudder. She had always considered Alonzo Yubere a passionless calculating man — how wrong she had been.

Only after she had taken Remint away did it occur to her to wonder what scheme or act of Yubere had caused Remint to turn against his brother.

Flomel found his new quarters no more satisfactory than his last — it was, after all, little more than a cell.

When the back door opened, and the woman in the vidscreen told him to go out and socialize with his fellow slaves, he went gladly.

He moved through the door and found himself in a vast high-ceilinged room. Little knots of people stood about, talking. Others copulated in upholstered niches along the wall, or sat at tables playing board games. Flomel curled his lip in distaste. What a frivolous people the pangalacs were — or maybe it was their slaves who were frivolous. On Pharaoh the slaves were not notably serious-minded. Probably it was the same in the wider universe.

He walked among the other prisoners, avoiding eye contact and studiously ignoring the vulgar activities of the folk in the wall niches.

Suddenly he stiffened, unable to believe his eyes. Dolmaero, Nisa, and Molnekh sat at a small table, drinking from tall glasses and watching the other slaves.

His first impulse was to rush gladly up to them, to greet them like long-lost friends, but then he remembered the way they had cooperated in the abuses the casteless slayer had inflicted on him. A rage rose up in Flomel, and he clenched his fists. For a moment he wanted to rush at them, to destroy them with his hands. Ruiz Aw was nowhere to be seen; they were unprotected. But then he controlled himself. He could be patient; soon Corean would come for him, and until then he could make himself valuable to her by learning what he could. Corean would punish them, he had no doubt. He composed himself, pasted a glad smile on his face, and rushed up to them, shouting out a cheerful greeting.

Nisa lifted her head at his shout and saw Flomel, who wore a crooked smile of such naked falsity that a chill shivered down her backbone.

“Dolmaero! Molnekh! How good to see you.” He widened that obscene smile. “And you too, Nisa, of course. Where is your gallant snake oil man?”

She could not force herself to speak. Flomel’s sudden unlooked-for appearance seemed an evil portent.

But Dolmaero answered for her, in a guardedly polite manner. “We don’t know, Master Flomel. He left us here, to find a buyer for us — or so he said. But, what an unexpected coincidence, to find you here too.”

“Yes, I’m astonished,” said Flomel. He drew up a chair and sat down uninvited. “So, he has abandoned you to your fate,” he said, triumph flickering across his face, to be instantly replaced by an almost-convincing expression of sympathetic commiseration.

“I fear so,” said Dolmaero glumly, and Nisa was moved to admiration for his thespian skills. Perhaps the Guildmaster should have been a conjuror — certainly he acted his part more convincingly than Flomel did his. On the other hand, perhaps Flomel’s hatred for Ruiz Aw was far too huge for him to entirely contain it. Dolmaero was acting from a cooler and more calculated impulse.

“Well, I never trusted his generosity — and you’ll remember how he rewarded my caution? He’s a bad one, and I’m relieved to see that you’ve come to share my opinion — though I’m sad to see us all come to such an end,” said Flomel in a voice ringing with insincerity.

Nisa had to control her urge to defend Ruiz; she clamped her lips shut and nodded jerkily.

Flomel laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, and she struggled not to shudder. “This disappointment must be particularly difficult for you, dear,” he said with a condescending smile.

Dolmaero must have sensed her distress, because he spoke quickly, as if to distract Flomel from the vindication he was so obviously savoring. “And what of you, Master Flomel? How did you come to be here?”

A brief confusion passed across Flomel’s face, then cleared. Nisa thought: He’s decided which lie to tell.