Asaro, Catherine - Quantam Rose

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The Quantum Rose:
By Catherine Asaro
I
Ironbridge
First Scattering Channel
Kamoj Quanta Argali, the governor of Argali Province, shot through the water and broke the surface
of the river. She tilted her face up to the sky, a violet expanse punctured by Jul, the sun, a
tiny disk of light so brilliant she didn't dare look near it. Curtains of green and gold light
shimmered across the heavens in an aurora borealis visible even in the afternoon.
Her bodyguard Lyode was standing on the bank, surveying the area. Lyode's true name was a jumble
of words from the ancient language Iotaca, what scholars pronounced as light emitting diode. No
one knew what it meant, though, so they all called her Lyode.
Unease prickled Kamoj. She treaded water, her hair floating in swirls around her body, wrapping
her slender waist and then letting go. Her reflection showed a young woman with black curls
framing a heart-shaped face. She had dark eyes, as did most people in Argali, though hers were
larger than usual, with long lashes that at the moment sparkled with drops of water.
Nothing seemed out of place. Reeds as red as pod-plums nodded on the bank, and six-legged lizards
scuttled through them, glinting blue and green among the stalks. A few hundred paces behind Lyode,
the prismatic forest began. Up the river, in the distant north, the peaks of the Rosequartz
Mountains floated like clouds in a haze. She drifted around to face the other bank, but saw
nothing amiss there either. Tubemoss covered the sloping hills in a turquoise carpet broken by
stone outcroppings that gnarled out of the land like the knuckles of a buried giant.
Kamoj exhaled. What she felt wasn't unease exactly, more a sense of troubled anticipation. The
afternoon hummed with life, golden and cool. Surely on this beautiful day she could relax.
Still, as much as she enjoyed swimming here, invigorated by the chill water and air, perhaps it
was unwise. She had her position as governor to consider. Kamoj glided to the bank and clambered
out, reeds slapping her body.
Her bodyguard glanced at her, then went back to scanning the area. Lyode suddenly stiffened,
staring past Kamoj. Then she reached over her shoulder for the ballbow strapped to her back.
Surprised, Kamoj glanced back, across the river. A cluster of greenglass stags had appeared from
behind a hill, each with a rider astride its long back. Sunrays splintered against the green
scales that covered the stags. Each animal stood firm on its six legs, neither stamping nor pawing
the air. With their iridescent antlers spread to either side of their heads, they shimmered in the
blue-tinged sunshine.
Their riders were all watching her.
Mortified, Kamoj ran up the slope to where she had left her clothes. Lyode took a palm-sized
marble ball out of a bag on her belt and set it in the sling on the targeting tube of her
crossbow, which slid inside a accordion cylinder attached to the bow string. Drawing back the
string and tube, she sighted on the watchers across the river.
Of course, here in the Argali, Lyode's presence was more an indication of Kamoj's rank, and her
desire for privacy while she swam, rather than an expectation of danger. And indeed, none of the
riders across the river drew his own bow. They looked more intrigued than anything else. One of
the younger fellows grinned at Kamoj, his teeth flashing white in the streaming sunshine.
"This is embarrassing," Kamoj muttered. She stopped behind Lyode and picked up her clothes.
Drawing her tunic over her head, she added, "Thas-haverlyster."
"What?" Lyode said.
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Kamoj pulled down the tunic, covering herself with soft gray cloth. Lyode was still standing in
front of her, with her bow poised. Kamoj counted five riders across the river, all of them dressed
in copper breeches and blue shirts, with belts edged by feathers from the blue-tailed quetzal.
One man sat a head taller than the rest. He wore a midnight-blue cloak with a hood that hid his
face. His stag lifted its front two legs and pawed the air, its bi-hooves glinting like glass,
though they were a hardier material, hornlike and durable. The man riding it gave no indication he
noticed its restless motions. His cowled head remained turned in Kamoj's direction.
"That's Havyrl Lionstar," Kamoj repeated as she pulled on her leggings. "The tall man on the big
greenglass."
"How do you know?" Lyode asked. "His face is covered."
"Who else is that big? Besides, those riders are wearing Lionstar colors." Kamoj watched the group
set off again, cantering into the folds of the blue-green hills. "Hah! You scared them away."
"With five against one? I doubt it." Dryly, Lyode said, "More likely they left because the show is
over."
Kamoj winced. She hoped her uncle didn't hear of this. As the only incorporated man in Argali,
Maxard Argali had governed the province for Kamoj when she was young and was shifting his role to
that of advisor now that she had reached her adulthood.
Lionstar's people were the only ones who might reveal her indiscretion, though, and they rarely
came to the village. Lionstar had "rented" the Quartz Palace in the mountains for more than a
hundred days now, and in that time no one she knew had seen his face. Why he wanted a ruined
palace remained a mystery, given that he refused all visitors. When his emissaries had inquired
about it, she and Maxard had been dismayed by the suggestion that they let a stranger take
residence in the honored, albeit disintegrating, home of their ancestors.
However, no escape had existed from the "rent" Lionstar's people put forth. The law was clear: she
and Maxard had to best his challenge or bow to his authority. Impoverished Argali could never
match such an offer: shovels and awls forged from fine metals, stacks of dried firewood, golden
bridle bells, dewhoney and molasses, dried rose-leeks, cobberwheat, tri-grains, and reedflour that
poured through your fingers like powdered rubies.
So they yielded-and an incensed Maxard had demanded Lionstar pay a rent of that same worth every
fifty days. It was a lien so outrageous, all Argali feared Lionstar would send his soldiers to
"renegotiate."
Instead, he paid.
With Lyode at her side, Kamoj entered the forest. Walking among the trees, with tubemoss soft
under her bare feet, made her more aware of her precarious position. Why had Lionstar come riding
here today? Did their lands now also risk forfeiture to his wealth? She had invested his rent in
machinery and tools for farms in Argali. As humiliating as it was to depend on a stranger, it was
better than seeing her people starve. But she didn't think she could bear to lose any more to him,
especially not this forest she so loved.
Drapes of moss hung on the trees and shadow-ferns attended their trunks. Far above, the branches
formed a canopy that let only stray sunbeams reach the ground. Argali vines hung everywhere, heavy
with the blush-pink roses that gave her home its name. Argali. It meant vine rose in Iotaca.
At least, most scholars translated it as rose. One insisted it meant resonance. He also claimed
they mispronounced her middle name, Quanta, an Iotaca word with no known translation. The name
Kamoj came from the Iotaca word for bound, so if this strange scholar was correct, her name meant
Bound Quantum Resonance. She smiled at the absurdity. Rose made more sense, of course.
Not all the "roses" in the forest were flowers, though. Camouflaged among the blossoms, puff
lizards swelled out their red sacs. A shaft of sunlight slanted through the forest, admitted by a
ruffling breeze, and sparkles glittered where the light hit the scaled lizards, the scale-bark on
the trees, and the delicate scale-leaves. Then the ray vanished and the forest returned to its
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dusky violet shadows.
Suddenly a thornbat whizzed past her, its wings beating furiously. It homed in on a vine and
stabbed its needled beak into the red sac of a puff lizard. As the puff deflated with a whoosh of
air, the lizard scrambled away to safety, leaving the disgruntled thornbat to whiz on without its
prey.
Powdered scales drifted across Kamoj's arm. She wiped off the shimmering dust, wondering why
people had no scales. Most everything else on Balumil, the world, had them. Scaled needles fat
with water nestled among the leaves, and roots swollen with moisture churned the soil. The trees
grew slowly, storing water and converting it into energy as a bulwark against summer droughts and
winter snows. Seasonal plants had other methods of survival. They lived only in spring and autumn,
but their big, hard-scaled seeds could lie dormant for long periods, until the climate was to
their liking.
If only people were as well adapted to survive. She swallowed, remembering the last winter, when
nearly a fourth of Argali had died in its blizzards and brutal ices. Including her parents. Even
after so long, that loss haunted her. She had been a small child when she and Maxard, her mother's
brother, became sole heirs to the impoverished remains of a province that had once been proud.
Glancing at Lyode, Kamoj wondered if her bodyguard shared her concern about seeing Lionstar on
Argali lands today. A tall woman with lean muscles, Lyode had the brown eyes and black hair common
in Argali. Here in the shadows, the vertical slits of her pupils had widened until they almost
filled her irises, like black pools. She carried Kamoj's boots dangling from her belt by their
laces.
"Do you know the maize-girls that work in the kitchen?" Kamoj asked.
The older woman glanced at her. "Three children? Tall as your elbow?"
"That's right." Kamoj smiled. "They told me, in solemn voices, that Havyrl Lionstar came here in a
cursed ship that the wind chased across the sky, and that he can never go home again because he's
so loathsome the elements refuse to let him sail again." Her smile faded. "Where does all the
superstition come from? Apparently most of Argali believes it. There is some story he's centuries
old, with a metal face so ugly that if you look at it you'll have nightmares."
"I'm not sure." Lyode paused. "Legends often have their seeds in truth." With a dry smile, she
added, "Though with the maize-girls, who knows? The last time I talked to them, they tried to
convince me Argali is haunted. They think that's why all the light panels have gone dark."
Kamoj chuckled. "They told me that one too. They weren't too specific on who was haunting what,
though." Legend claimed the Current had once lit all the houses in the Northern Lands. But that
had been centuries past. In fact, in the North Sky Islands the Current had died thousands of years
ago. The only reason one light panel still worked in Argali House, Kamoj's home, was because
before Kamoj's birth, her parents had happened upon a few intact fiberoptic threads in the ruins
of the Quartz Palace.
The threads were only one part in the panel, which used many components, all linked by cables and
threads that extended into the walls of the house and to the few remaining sun-squares on the
roof. No one understood anymore how any of it worked. Lyode's husband, Opter, had replaced the
fiberoptics. Opter didn't know how the panel worked either, nor could he fix damaged components.
But given undamaged parts, he had an uncanny ability to figure out how they fit into gadgets.
"Hai!" Kamoj grimaced as a twig stabbed her foot. Lifting her leg, she saw a gouge between her
toes welling with blood.
"A good reason to wear your shoes," Lyode observed.
"Pah," Kamoj muttered. She enjoyed walking barefoot, but it had its drawbacks.
A drumming that had been tugging at her awareness finally intruded enough to make her listen.
"Those are greenglass stags."
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Lyode tilted her head. "On the road to Argali."
"Come on. Let's look." Kamoj started to run, then hopped on her good foot and settled for a
limping walk. When they reached the road, they hid behind the trees, listening to the riders.
"I'll bet it's Lionstar," Kamoj said.
"Too much noise for five riders," Lyode said.
Kamoj grinned. "Then it's fleeing bandits. We should nab them!"
"And just why," Lyode inquired, "would these nefarious types be fleeing up a road that goes
straight to the house of the central authority in this province, hmmm?"
Kamoj laughed. "Stop being so sensible."
Lyode still didn't look concerned. But she slipped out a ball and readied her bow.
Down the road, the first stags came around a bend. Their riders made a splendid sight. The men
wore gold disk mail, ceremonial, too soft for battle, designed to impress. Made from beaten disks,
the vests were layered to create an airtight garment. They never attained that goal, of course.
Why anyone would want airtight mail was a mystery to Kamoj, but tradition said to do it that way,
so that was how they did it.
On rare occasions, a stagman also wore leggings and a hood of mail. Some ancient drawings even
showed mail covering the entire body, including gauntlets and knee boots, with ball bearings in
the joints to allow for ease of movement, and a transparent cover over the face. Kamoj thought the
face cover must be artistic fancy. She saw no reason for it.
Her uncle's stagmen gleamed today. Under their mail vests, they wore bell-sleeved shirts as gold
as suncorn. They also had gold breeches and dark red knee boots fringed by feathers from the green-
tailed quetzal. Twists of red and gold ribbon braided their reins, and bridle bells chimed with
the pounding motion of their greenglass stags. Sunlight slanted down on the road, drawing sparkles
from the dusty air.
Lyode smiled. "Your uncle's retinue is a handsome sight."
Kamoj didn't answer. Normally she liked watching Maxard's honor guard, all the more so because she
was fond of the riders, most of whom she had known all her life, just as she was fond of her
uncle. Maxard's good-natured spirit made everyone love him, which was why a wealthy merchant woman
from the North Sky Islands was courting him despite his small corporation. However, today Maxard
wasn't with his honor guard. He had sent them to Ironbridge a few days ago, and now they returned
with an esteemed guest, someone Kamoj had no desire to see.
The leading stagmen were riding past her hiding place now, the bi-hooves of their mounts whipping
up scale dust from the road. She recognized the rider in front. Gallium Sunsmith. A big man with a
friendly face, Gallium worked with his brother Opter in a sunshop, engineering gadgets that ran on
light, like the mirror-driven peppermill Opter had invented. Gallium also made a good showing for
himself each year in the swordplay exhibition at festival. So when Maxard needed an honor guard,
Gallium became a stagman.
Down the road, more of the party came into view. These new riders wore black mail, with purple
shirts and breeches, and black boots fringed by silver feathers. Jax Ironbridge, the governor of
Ironbridge Province, rode in their center. Long-legged and muscular, taller than the other
stagmen, he had a handsome face with strong lines, chiseled like granite. Silver streaked his
black hair. He sat astride Mistrider, a huge greenglass with a rack of cloud-tipped antlers and
scales the color of the opal-mists that drifted in the high northern forests.
Still hidden, Kamoj turned away from the road and leaned against the tree with her arms crossed,
staring into the forest while she waited for the riders to pass.
A horn sounded behind her, its call winging through the air. Startled, she spun around. Apparently
she wasn't as well concealed as she had thought; Jax had stopped on the road and was watching her,
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the curved handle of a flight-horn in his hand.
Kamoj flushed, knowing she had given offense by hiding from him. Her merger with Jax had been
planned for most of her life. He had the largest corporation in the northern provinces, which
consisted of Argali, the North Sky Islands, and Ironbridge. Argument existed about the translation
of the Iotaca word corporation: for lack of a better interpretation, most scholars assumed it
meant a man's dowry, the property and wealth he brought into marriage. A corporation as big as
Jax's became a political tool, invoking the same law of "Better the offer or yield" as had
Lionstar's rent.
Ironbridge, however, had given Argali a choice. Jax made an offer Kamoj could have bettered. It
would have meant borrowing every last bit of wealth owned by even the most impoverished Argali
farmers, but besting the amount by one stalk of bi-wheat was all it took. Then she could have
turned down the offer and repaid the loans. She had been tempted to try. But Argali was her
responsibility, and her province desperately needed this merger with flourishing Ironbridge. So
she had agreed.
Jax was watching her with an impassive gaze. He offered his hand. "It will be my pleasure to
escort you back to Argali house."
"I thank you for you kind offer, Governor Ironbridge," she said. "But you needn't trouble
yourself."
He gave her a cold smile. "I am pleased to see you as well, my love."
Hai! She hadn't meant to further the insult. Limping forward, she took his hand. He lifted her
onto the stag with one arm, a feat of strength few other riders could have managed even with a
child, let alone another adult. As he pulled her up, he turned her so she ended up sitting
sideways on the greenglass, her hips fitted into the space in front of the first boneridge that
curved over its back. Jax sat behind her, astride the stag, between its first and second
boneridges.
The smell of his disk mail wafted over her, rich with oil and sweat. As he bent his head to hers,
she drew back in reflex, before she could think. Although Jax showed no outward anger, a muscle in
his cheek twitched. Taking her chin in his hand, he pulled her head forward and kissed her,
pressing in on her jaw until he forced her mouth open for his tongue. When she tensed, he clenched
his fist around her upper arm, holding her in place.
A rush of air thrummed past Kamoj, followed by the crack of a bowball hitting a tree and the
shimmering sound of falling scales. Pulling away from her, Jax raised his head. Both the Argali
and Ironbridge stagmen had drawn their bows and had their weapons trained on Lyode. Kamoj's
bodyguard stood by the road, a second ball knocked in her bow, her weapon aimed at Jax.
All the stagmen looked uncomfortable, poised to return Lyode's fire, yet holding back. No one
wanted to shoot Kamoj's bodyguard. The Argali stagmen had grown up with her and Gallium was her
brother-in-law. The Ironbridge stagmen knew her as guardian of their governor's betrothed.
However, neither could they ignore that she had just sent a bowball hurtling within a few hand
spans of the two governors.
In a cold voice only Kamoj could hear, Jax said, "Your hospitality today continues to amaze me."
Shifting his attention to Gallium Sunsmith, he spoke in a louder voice. "You. Escort Lyode back to
Argali House."
Gallium answered carefully. "It is my honor to serve you, sir. But perhaps Governor Argali would
also like to do her best by Ironbridge, by accompanying her bodyguard back."
Kamoj almost swore. She knew Lyode and Gallium meant well, and she valued their loyalty, but she
wished they hadn't interfered. It would only earn them Jax's anger. She and Jax had to work this
out. Although their merger was weighted in favor of Ironbridge, it gave control to neither party.
They would share authority, she focused on Argali and he on Ironbridge. It benefited neither
province if their governors couldn't get along.
She spoke to Jax in a gentle voice. "Please accept my apologies, Governor Ironbridge. I will
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discuss Lyode's behavior with her on the walk back. We'll straighten this out."
He reached down for her injured foot, bending her leg at the knee so he could inspect her wound.
"Can you walk on this?"
"Yes." The position he was holding her leg in was more uncomfortable than the gouge itself.
"Very well." When he let go, his fingers inadvertently scraped the gash, and she stiffened as pain
shot through her foot. She held her silence and slid off the stag, taking care to land on her
other foot.
As she limped over to Lyode, bi-hooves scuffed behind her. Turning, she watched the riders thunder
up the road to Argali.
* * *
Jul, the sun, had sunk behind the trees by the time Kamoj and Lyode walked around the last bend of
the road, into view of Argali House. Legend claimed the house had once been luminescent pearl, all
one surface without any seams. According to the temple scholar, who could read bits of the ancient
codices, Argali House had been grown in a huge vat of liquid, on a framework of machines called
nano-bots, which were supposedly so tiny you couldn't see them even with a magnifying glass. After
the house was complete, one was to believe the machines simply swam away and fell apart.
Kamoj smiled. The old scrolls were full of absurdities. Jax had shown her one in his library that
claimed Balumil, the world, went around Jul in an "elliptical orbit" and rotated around a tilted
axis. This tilt, and their living here in the north, was purported to explain why nights were
short in summer and long in winter, fifty-five hours of darkness on the longest night of the
winter, leaving only five hours of sunlight.
One year consisted of four seasons, of course: spring, summer, fall, winter. More formally, they
called it the Long Year. A person could be born, reach maturity, wed, and have a family all within
one Long Year. For some reason the scroll described this as a long time: hence the name. For an
even more inexplicable reason, Kamoj's ancestors had partitioned the Long Year into twenty equal
time periods they called short-years. So each season was five short-years in length. People rarely
bothered to say "short-year," though. Instead, they used the word year to refer to the short-year
and always used Long Year when they meant the time it took for all four seasons to pass.
Although Kamoj followed the convention, it made no sense to her. Why call it a "short-year." It
wasn't an actual year, after all. The scroll claimed this odd designation came about because a
short-year on Balimul was close in length to a "standard" year.
Standard for what?
Still, it was more credible than too-little-to-see machines. Whatever the history of Argali House,
it was wood and stone now, both the main building and the newer wings that rambled over the
cleared land around it. Huge stacks of firewood stood along one side, stores for the winter. Bird-
shaped lamps hung from the eaves, rocking in the breezes, their glass tinted in Argali colors,
rose, gold, and green. Their radiance created a dam against the purple shadows that pooled under
the trees. Here in the road, a fluted post stood like a sentinel, with a scalloped hook at its
top. A lantern, molded and tinted like a rose, hung from the hook, its warm glow beckoning them
home.
They walked along the low wall that enclosed the house and entered the courtyard by a gate
engraved with vines. Five stone steps ran the length of the house, leading up to a terrace, and
five doors were set at even intervals along the front. The center door was larger than the others,
stuccoed white and bordered by hieroglyphs painted in luminous blue, as well as the usual Argali
colors.
As they neared the house, Kamoj heard voices. By the time they reached the steps, it had resolved
into two men arguing.
"That sounds like Ironbridge," Lyode said.
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"Maxard too." Kamoj hesitated, her foot on the first step.
Above them, the door slammed open. Maxard stood framed in the archway, a burly man in old farm
clothes. His garb startled Kamoj more than his sudden appearance. By now her uncle should have
been decked out in ceremonial dress and mail, ready to greet the Ironbridge party. Yet he looked
as if he hadn't even washed up since coming in from the fields.
He spoke in a low voice. "You better get in here."
She hurried up the steps. "What happened?" Had Jax been more offended than she realized?
Maxard didn't answer, just moved aside to let her into the entrance foyer, a small room paved with
tiles glazed white and accented by Argali designs.
Boots clattered in the hall beyond. Then Jax swept into the foyer with five of his stagmen. He
paused in mid-stride when he saw Kamoj. Then he went past her, over to Maxard, towering over the
younger man.
"We aren't through with this, Argali," Jax said.
"My decision is made," Maxard answered.
"Then you are a fool." Jax glanced at Kamoj, his face stiff with an emotion she couldn't identify.
Shock? He strode out the door with his stagmen, ignoring Lyode.
Kamoj turned to her uncle. "What's going on?"
He shook his head, his face impossible to read. Lyode came up the stairs, but when she tried to
enter the house, Maxard stretched out his arm, putting his hand against the door frame to block
her way. He spoke with uncharacteristic anger. "What blew into your brain, Lyode? Why did you have
to shoot at him? Of all days I didn't need Jax Ironbridge angry, this was it."
"He was mistreating Kamoj," Lyode replied.
"So Gallium Sunsmith says." Maxard frowned at Kamoj. "What were you doing, running around the
woods like a wild animal?"
Kamoj stared at him. She always walked in the woods after she finished working in the stables.
Maxard often came with her, the two of them discussing various projects for Argali or just
enjoying each other's company.
Quietly she said, "Uncle, what is it? What's wrong?"
He blew out a gust of air. "Wait for me in the library."
She studied his face, trying to fathom what troubled him. No hints showed. So she nodded, to him
and to Lyode. Then she limped into her house.
* * *
The centuries had warped the library door arch beyond simple repair. Kamoj leaned her weight into
the door to shove it closed. Inside the library, shelves filled with codices and books covered the
walls. The lamp by Maxard's favorite armchair shed light over a table there. A codex lay on the
table, a parchment scroll made from the inner bark of a sunglass tree and painted with gesso, a
smooth plaster. Glyphs covered it, delicate symbols inked in Argali colors. Kamoj could decipher
none of the writing. But as she took responsibility for Argali, Maxard had more time for his
scholarship. He was learning to read.
Behind her the door scraped open, and she turned to see her uncle. With no preamble, he said,
"I've something to show you."
Puzzled, Kamoj accompanied him to an arched door in the far wall. The storeroom beyond had once
held carpentry tools, but those were long gone, sold by her grandparents to purchase grain. Maxard
fished a skeleton key out of his pocket and opened the tanglebirch door. Unexpectedly, oil lamps
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lit the room beyond. Kamoj stared past him-and gasped.
Urns, boxes, chests, gigantic pots, finely wrought buckets: they all crammed the storeroom full to
overflowing. Gems filled baskets, heaped like fruits, spilling onto the floor, diamonds that split
the light into rainbows, emeralds as brilliant as the eyes of a greenglass, rose-rubies the size
of fists, sapphires, topazes, amethysts, cats-eyes, jade, turquoise. She walked forward, and her
foot kicked an opal the size of a polestork egg. It rolled across the floor and hit a bar of
metal.
Metal. Metal. Bars lay in tumbled piles: gold, silver, copper, bronze. Sheets of rolled platinum
sat on cornucopias filled with fruits, flowers, and grains. Glazed pots brimmed with vegetables,
and spice racks hung from the wall. Bracelets, anklets, and necklaces were everywhere, wrought
from gold and studded with jewels. A chain of diamonds lay on a silver bowl heaped with eider
plums. Just as valuable, dried foodstuffs filled cloth bags and woven baskets. Nor had she ever
seen so many bolts of rich cloth in one place: glimsilks, brocades, rose-petal satins, gauzy
scarves shot through with metallic threads, scale-velvets, plush and sparkling.
And light strings! At first Kamoj thought she mistook the clump thrown on a pile of crystal
goblets. But it was real. She went over and picked up the bundle of threads. They sparkled in the
lamplight, perfect, no damage at all. This one bundle was enough to repair broken Current threads
throughout the village, and it was only one of several in the room.
Turning to Maxard, she spread out her arms, the threads clutched in one fist. "This is-it's-is
this ours?"
He spoke in a cold voice. "Yes. It's ours."
"But Maxard, why do you look so dour!" A smile broke loose on her face. "This could support Argali
for years! How did it happen?"
"You tell me." He came over to her. "Just what did he give you out there today?"
He? She blinked. "Who?"
"Havyrl Lionstar."
Hai! So Maxard had heard. "I didn't know he was watching."
"Watching what?"
"Me swimming."
"Then what?"
Baffled, she said, "Then nothing."
"Nothing?" Incredulity crackled in his voice. "What did you promise him, Kamoj? What sweet words
did you whisper to compromise his honor?"
Kamoj couldn't imagine any woman having the temerity to try compromising the huge, brooding
Lionstar. "What are you talking about?"
"You promised to marry him if he gave you what you wanted, didn't you?"
"What?"
Anger snapped in his voice. "Isn't that why he sent this dowry?"
Kamoj stared at him. "That's crazy."
"He must have liked whatever the two of you did."
"We did nothing. You know I would never jeopardize our alliance with Ironbridge."
Her uncle exhaled, his anger easing into puzzlement. "Then why did he send this dowry? Why does he
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insist on a merger with you tomorrow?"
Kamoj felt as if she had just stepped into a bizarre skit played out for revelers during a harvest
festival. "He what?"
Maxard motioned at the storeroom. "His stagmen brought it today while I was tying up stalks in the
tri-grain field. They spoke as if the arrangement were already made."
It suddenly became clear to Kamoj. All too clear. Lionstar didn't want the ruins of an old palace,
or the trees in their forest.
He wanted Argali. All of it.
Strange though his methods were, they made a grim sort of sense. He had already demonstrated
superiority in forces: many stagmen served him, over one hundred, far more than Maxard had, more
even than Ironbridge. With his damnable "rent" he had taken the first step in establishing his
wealth. He even laid symbolic claim to her province by living in the Quartz Palace, the ancestral
Argali home. Any way they looked at it, he had set himself up as an authority to reckon with.
Today he added the final, albeit unexpected, ingredient-a merger bid so far beyond the pale that
the combined resources of all the Northern Lands could never best it.
"Gods," Kamoj said. "No wonder Jax is angry." She set down the light threads. "There must be some
way I can refuse this."
"I've already asked the temple scholar," Maxard said. "And I've looked through the old codices
myself. We've found nothing. You know the law. Better the offer or yield."
She frowned. "I'm not going to marry that insane person."
"Then he will be fully within his rights to take Argali by force. That was how it was done, Kamoj,
in the time of the sky ships. Do you want a war with Lionstar?" Dryly he added, "I'm not sure my
stagmen even know how to fight a war."
"There must be some way out."
He spoke carefully. "The merger could do well for Argali."
She stiffened. "You want me to go through with it?"
He spread his hands. "And what of survival, Governor?"
So. Maxard finally spoke aloud what they obliquely dealt with in every discussion about the
province. Drought, famine, killing seasons, high infant mortality, failing machines no one
understood, lost medical knowledge, and overused fields: it all added up to one inescapable fact,
the long slow dying of Argali.
With the Ironbridge merger, their survival might still be a struggle, but their chances improved.
At worst, Jax would annex her province, making it part of Ironbridge. She intended to do her best
to keep Argali, and continue as its governor, but if she did lose it to Ironbridge, at least her
people would have the protection and support of the strongest province on this continent. Although
Jax didn't inspire love among his people, he was an intelligent governor who earned loyalty and
respect.
And Lionstar? He might have wealth, but that didn't mean he was a good leader. For all she knew he
would drive Argali into ruin, famine, and death.
"Hai, Maxard." She exhaled. "I need time to consider this."
He touched her arm. "Go on upstairs. I'll send a maize-girl up to tend you."
"Lyode always tends to me."
"I need her elsewhere tonight."
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She scowled. "You? Or Jax?" When he didn't answer, she swore. "I won't have my people flogged."
She spun around to the door. "If you won't tell him, I will."
Maxard grabbed her arm, stopping her. Then he held up his other hand, a tiny space between his
thumb and index finger. "Ironbridge is this close to declaring a rite of battle against us. I've
barely thirty stagmen, Kamoj. He has over eighty, all of them better trained." He dropped his
arms. "It would be a massacre. And you know Lyode. She would insist on fighting with them. Will
you save Lyode and Gallium from a few lashes so they can die in battle?"
Kamoj swallowed. "Don't say that."
His voice quieted. "With the mood Ironbridge is in now, seeing you will only enrage him. He can't
touch you, not yet, so Gallium and Lyode are the ones he will take his rage out on."
Kamoj gritted her teeth. Knowing Maxard was right made it no easier. She wondered, too, if her
uncle realized what else he had just said. Not yet. Softly she asked, "And after the merger, when
the rages take Ironbridge? Who will pay the price of his anger then?"
Maxard watched her with a strained expression, one that reminded her of the wrenching day he had
come to tell her the bodies of her parents had been found, frozen beneath masses of ice in a late
winter storm. She had never forgotten it.
He spoke now in the same aching voice. "Does it occur to you that you might be better off with
Lionstar?"
She rubbed her arms as if she were cold. "What have I seen from Lionstar to make me think such a
thing?"
"Hai, Kami." He started to reach for her, to offer comfort, but she shook her head. She loved him
for his concern, but she feared to accept it, lest taking shelter from the pain would make it
harder to face her responsibilities when that shelter was gone.
Maxard had caught her off guard with his insight into her relationship with Jax. Her uncle had
always claimed he delayed her merger to give her experience at governing, lest Ironbridge be
tempted to take advantage of a child bride. Now she wondered if it might have also been because
Maxard had a better idea than he let on about the difficult life she faced with Jax. As an adult
she had more emotional resources to deal with it.
But Maxard hadn't guessed the whole of it. Kamoj knew from her own experiences what would happen
to Lyode and Gallium. The only difference was that in this case Jax would have one of his stagmen
mete out the punishment rather than taking care of it himself, in private, with only Kamoj as
witness-and recipient. She had never spoken of such incidents to Maxard, knowing that if he found
out, he would have broken the betrothal no matter what price Argali paid. Kamoj couldn't let that
happen. She would never set her personal situation over the survival of her people.
"Can you talk to Jax?" she asked. "Mollify him? Maybe you can keep him from hurting them."
"I will do what I can." He watched her with concern. "This will work out."
"Yes. It will." She wished she believed it.
After she left her uncle, she walked through the house, down halls paneled in tanglebirch, then up
a staircase that swept to a balcony on the second floor. At the top of the stairs she looked out
over the foyer below. The entrance to the living room arched in the right-hand wall, enough of the
room visible so she could see a chandelier hanging from the ceiling like an inverted rose,
flickering with candles. It reflected in the table beneath it, drawing gleams of green and blue
from the polished tanglebirch.
Behind the table, a light panel glowed in the wall, the last working one in all the Northern
Lands. When it failed, a thousand new light threads would do them no good. Even Opter Sunsmith
couldn't fix a broken panel. The knowledge had been lost long ago, even from the Sunsmith line.
Kamoj turned and walked along the balcony to her room. She opened the door into a chamber warm
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file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Catherine%20Asaro%20-\%20Quantam%20Rose.txtTheQuantumRose:ByCatherineAsaroIIronbridgeFirstScatteringChannelKamojQuantaArgali,thegovernorofArgaliProvince,shotthroughthewaterandbrokethesurfaceoftheriver.Shetiltedherfaceuptothesky,avioletexpansepunctu...

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