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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.