The Road North

She was aboard. Paladins of the Blue Lotus Society had examined everyone who boarded in first and second class, and she had wondered if she'd be able to board undetected. But they had waved third class through. Their southern minds couldn't comprehend an aristocrat who would hide among commoners; or perhaps one of them was a sympathizer.

There was plenty to sympathize with. A hundred years ago, just as the industrial revolution was beginning, the kingdom of Palanelé had been overrun by its old enemies, the Iraden nomads. Her great-grandparents in the female line, she was sorry to say, had essentially surrendered the kingdom, after their attempts to establish peace between the two sides had failed. She, Princess Auschakôro of the Ausharuhis, would not repeat that error.

Initially, the throne of Palanelé had been a game to her, her second serious challenge in a life of luxury. (The first had been putting off her mother. There were heroes of their army who would have happily accepted her hand in gift marriage; or had she married out, her bride price could have been a province. But she had kept fighting all through her teens and early twenties, and now, while she looked younger, she was twenty-five. Her mother had given up.)

But the deeper she had gone into her intrigues, the more she had come to think that there was an injustice here. The Iradens and the people of Palanelé didn't intermarry, even after a hundred years. They hated each other cordially. Couldn't they hate each other under different governments? And since the Iradens had been nomads, couldn't they be the ones to move?

And so she was going north, to the Iraden Empire. Five thousand herons in banknotes were sewn into her clothing. If she arrived, she would be queen of Palanelé within a year.

#

Auschakôro found a seat. An elderly Tacheiyic couple sat across the aisle, in the other two chairs of the row; they had tawny skin like her own, dark hair and eyes, and that proud hawk nose without which a face was incomplete. They saw her and swapped seats, the husband by the window, the wife by the aisle and able to talk to her.

"Good evening, dear," the wife said. "I'm Seihachu, my husband's Kurichas." Princess Auschakôro kept her expression neutral. Another Kurichas had been among her great-grandfather's closest advisors. "We're off for Tusoreané to visit family."

"It's good you kept in touch," Auschakôro said. "Did they come up in the wars?"

Seihachu laughed. "Oh, no. My brother-in-law Turifan is a doctor." In a hushed tone, leaning well into the aisle, she added, "The Society offered him triple his salary."

That meant the Alicorn Mountain Society, not the Blue Lotus. Both worshiped Khâratayi, the Chehiraineh crane god of justice and vengeance. They hated each other cordially.

The conductor passed through and punched their tickets. Auschakôro was grateful for the conversation. She'd dyed her hair, taken lessons to disguise her voice, and was traveling with false documents, but there was no hiding her ice-blue eyes.

"And who are you, miss?" Seihachu asked affectionately.

"I'm Rodohaisu," Auschakôro said. "I'm starting studies at Teyoru Koté. Investigative archaeology, but I'm on a field hockey scholarship."

"You look the part, child," Seihachu said, reaching across to pinch her strong arm. "You could get refugees across a continent all by yourself!"

Oh, right. The Sparrowhawk Company, her great-grandfather's unit, with which he'd founded the Ausharuhis. They'd originally been a field hockey team.

"Swift flight, Sparrowhawks!" Seihachu cheered. The whole car looked at her, and she cackled.

"Please don't," Auschakôro said. "We're traveling through Iraden lands, and they're sensitive about certain things."

"You from Launteneilis? The Chehirainan make you timid?"

"Raisithon," Auschakôro said. "But I understand courtesy."

#

They were deep underground now, on their three-day journey north under the Chaiselasu, the Little Emptiness: the vast desert on the eastern part of the continent. These tunnels were man-made, but they had been carved out long ago, long before even the Federation. They were made of the same cast quartz as the diamond forts, and the crystal city of Echasailis. Somehow, in a manner still unknown after a century of investigative archaeology, the air within them was always fresh, even with ammonia-burning locomotives plunging through the darkness.

Auschakôro passed an easy evening with her new friends. She loaned her pillows to another traveler, who was riding in a coach sleeper for the first time. She waved off a clever Chehiraineh peddler, passing through the compartment with pillows for sale at a ridiculous markup; but she put on her field hockey helmet, lined her seat with a change of clothes, and slept soundly. The great dangers in this sort of travel were boarding and departure, and she had several departure plans. She had made it.

#

The next morning -- they were still in darkness underground, but the train's lights had come up -- the intercom crackled.

"A largesse from Emperor Rekuhai! A pot of flan to everyone in third class, and a voucher for a bushel off for your next stay at a hotel! Long live the Iraden Empire!"

Largesses were a Chehiraineh thing, not an Iraden one. This was a modest largesse, but multiplied by the sheer number of people in third class, it would come to...

She bolted upright. There was a spy on the train. He had seen her. The Iradens were throwing away a fortune to catch her.

"Get a venison omelet for me, could you?" she asked Seihachu, handing her a quarter-gallon bill. Leaving her helmet behind, she ducked out to the washroom, at the front of the car.

#

The attendant pouring holly tea, serving flan, and taking breakfast orders was Chehiraineh, a neat little man barely more than five feet tall. But to Auschakôro's practiced eye, he was obviously a seihipati, a master assassin. The train's security were Iraden soldiers; he might be working for them, but was probably Blue Lotus. He was past her seat, but would find some excuse to double back. No matter; she already had a plan.

She returned to her seat, and took a sip of her tea.

"Princess Auschakôro," the seihipati said in disgust, to a woman three rows behind her. "I can't believe you'd bring children into this."

So much for the plan.

The woman three rows back was Tacheiyic; she was tall, and had blue eyes. But she broke down in frightened tears; the seihipati hesitated; and Auschakôro leapt out of her seat, and pinioned his arms.

"Security!" she shouted, thinking fast. "Security!"

Two Iraden troopers, in red armor and face-concealing helmets, submachine guns at the ready, were in the car in an instant.

"He's a seihipati!" she shouted. "He's working for Auschakôro!"

"What?!" one of the Iradens snapped.

"Search him!" she said. Her cover identity might not have known to say that. But the Iradens didn't notice.

The troopers had come in from the two ends of the car. One couldn't pass the flan cart, but the other handcuffed the attendant -- and a check of his pockets turned something up.

"Her signet ring," the Iraden whispered in awe. "I swear by Isheira that you won't be tortured," he said to the attendant, "but you'd better have a very good explanation for how you got this."

"You..." the seihipati said, looking at her. She smirked for an instant; his eyes widened. "You're the princess! You're Auschakôro! You dropped this in my pocket!"

The Iraden trooper turned, and looked keenly at Auschakôro. She made sure to tremble just enough for someone facing a false accusation. She hoped the red roots of her hair weren't showing.

Another trooper came in, and took the seihipati away. "I swear by Isheira that he won't be tortured," this trooper said, to the terrified passengers. And it was true; the Iradens had been civilized ever since the conquest. They'd question him with the help of drugs, and kill him cleanly.

If they killed him at all. They weren't stupid; they might figure out the truth. If they checked her signet ring and took everyone's fingerprints, it was over. Even if they didn't, she had lost a lot by losing this ring. She had gotten innocent people killed in her schemes, but seeing that process starting, face to face, had been too much. She would have to think about this... once she was safe.

"Miss," the trooper said in a pleading tone, "I understand it's frightening, but I need to see your papers."

Auschakôro handed over her false identity cards, her forged letter from the Teyoru Koté university, and her passport, with a two-bushel banknote tucked into it. The Iraden checked the cards, read the letter, half-nodded to the field-hockey helmet in the empty seat next to hers, opened the passport...

She hadn't known that a blank helmet could grimace.

"Look," he said, handing her papers back. "I don't know what they say about us in the backwoods of Raisithon, but we don't have to be bribed into doing our basic duties. I could arrest you for this. If you hadn't tackled that seihipati, maybe I would."

He fell silent. She noticed the rank on his shoulder: he was the commander of the train's guards.

He shook his head. "I don't want to overwhelm you. Go about your business, and I apologize for the trouble. I'll finish distributing the largesse."

#

Instead of her omelet, a poached venison steak arrived, with roast asparagus, oatcakes, and a glass of sweet plum wine. Auschakôro attacked this magnificent breakfast with zeal. Then she realized that she should have worried about poison, and about that Chehiraineh rule against eating before the hungry. She shrugged.

If the Iradens were going to work out who she was, they'd do it in an hour or less. She didn't want to wait around; if they arrested and searched her, it was over. But she still had one way out.

These underground tunnels ran on a grid, from one diamond fort to the next. The access tunnels at the next diamond fort had been cleared, and the governor there was a sympathizer. To judge by the clock, they were very close to that diamond fort, although they wouldn't stop there...

And these underground trains traveled at just sixty miles an hour, to minimize wear on the tunnels. That was survivable. Probably.

She buckled on her helmet, and donned the rest of her gear, muttering to Seihachu that it reassured her in times like these. She got up to go for a walk and clear her head. She passed a little roll of banknotes -- the innermost one worth a heron -- to the woman the seihipati had threatened, and kept walking too quickly for her to refuse them. She went back to the last car without trouble, but as she went to open the rear door, a guard stopped her.

"Liability issues, Miss. This is the last car; only staff can go out here while we're in motion. Not that there's much to see in the dark."

"I understand," Princess Auschakôro said.

Her spies had discovered a weak spot in the Iradens' standard-issue ballistic armor. They hadn't used it until now. She palmed a hidden dagger, and stabbed him.

The guard cried out in pain and surprise, and the whole car burst into chaos. Someone triggered a fire alarm, unlocking the doors and windows. She dove out through the rear door, and rolled down onto the tracks.