Princes' Game Series Guide: Only the Open

I feel like these are getting harder the further I get along. Maybe because I'm closer to them? Or because they're just getting more complicated? Lol, I don't know. Anyway, thank you for feedback on the earlier ones! I've incorporated it into my master copy. Keep it coming!

Here's Book 4. Read on, as you feel ready to!

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Book 4: Only the Open

Rating: R. Back to rape, slavery, and violence.

“The book where the Emperor gets his comeuppance.”

Long, long ago, back when Book 1 was all by its lonesome, I remember one reader commenting that they didn’t believe the Emperor had really changed—that he hadn’t earned his redemption. This comment stuck with me to become one of the central themes of the series. Do people change? If so, what does it take to change them? And when have they done enough penance for things they regret doing? (These move alongside other themes, like “can you expect moral behavior out of people who were raised in an immoral culture.”) We knew, from Book 1, and from bits of Book 2, that the Emperor had a change of heart. But was that enough? That was my central question as we move into Book 4.

Previously, in Amulet Rampant, we learned that the Chatcaavan Queen and her Knife attempted to contact the Emperor to ask him about Second’s trustworthiness… and couldn’t reach him, something that the Knife said shouldn’t happen. When Book 4 opens, we are backtracking in time a little, following the Emperor on the flagship of the Naval fleet he’s about to take into battle against some of his rebelling system lords. This ship is stopping in Apex-East, the primary Naval stronghold of the Empire, there to pick up the remaining ships to fill out their numbers before they move to their target.

The Eastern sector navy, you will recall, produced Second (who was Command-East) and the male he put on the throne (Logistics-East). Apex-East is its capital system.

You can probably guess where this is going.

The Emperor is betrayed. Overwhelmingly. The commander of his fleet, the Admiral-Offense, buys him enough time to flee, something he does only because he can’t avenge himself on these traitors if he dies in the first battle. He crashes a single-man fighter on the Apex system’s sole habitable world in his attempt to lose his pursuers. Crippled by a concussion and multiple wounds, he tries to decide where to hide and stumbles onto the Worldlord’s estate. There he finds a human slave and begs her to give him her pattern. Surprised to be asked anything by a Chatcaavan, she agrees. The Emperor Changes shape and is discovered by the Worldlord’s steward and one of the Worldlord’s visiting guests, Deputy-East, a Naval contractor in charge of the solar system’s security. They presume him to be an escaped slave, perhaps from the neighboring estate of Manufactory-East, the Naval contractor charged with the factories on the moon and asteroid belts. Manufactory-East is known to be obnoxious (and a violent master), and he hasn’t made friends among the other powers in the system: as one of those powers, Deputy-East is pleased to steal something from him.

The Emperor, in this human shape, is brought into the estate and processed as a new slave. He is given a slave name, “Dainty,” painted, pierced, and decorated. They even microchip him, like an animal, in case he gets lost and they need to prove ownership. All this infuriates the Emperor, who decides there has to be a better way to hide until he can find a way to contact help. He decides he has to leave…

…except the concussion prevents him from Changing back. He is trapped, and helpless against his captors, who take to abusing him in the same fashion he once abused his own slaves. It does not take much of this treatment to reduce him to despair, terror, and thoughts of suicide. But there’s no way out of his current situation, so he stays, and heads quickly toward rock bottom.

The Emperor’s situation is the main thrust of this book. But in Part 1, we do some set-up for the next two books in the series. There’s some interweaving of these scenes, but for the sake of clarity in the summary I’ve separated them completely. 

On the Alliance side, then, Lisinthir and the Fleet operatives are on their way to the borderworld to greet the incoming Chatcaavan Queen and the refugees. Lisinthir’s plan is to ask her what made her decide to leave. When they arrive, they find Amber and Sediryl already there… and bickering, because Amber can’t believe Sediryl is endangering herself on the border of the Empire, where women go to get captured by Chatcaava. Sediryl naturally does not take kindly to being told not to trouble her pretty head about men’s work, and is gratified when Lisinthir takes her side (by pointing out that Chatcaava take males captive too—they just kill them, instead of leaving them alive to plot their demise). Their situation is complicated by the arrival of the Knife, Uuvek, the Mother and the Priestess, along with the last of the refugees… but not the Chatcaavan Queen, because—as they relate—the Chatcaavan Queen has remained behind to see what she can learn on their behalf.

This motley group confers on what to do next, and decide they need to discover the Emperor’s fate: an Empire without him to lead it is a significantly different problem for the Alliance than one with him trying to hold it together. Lisinthir sends a message, requesting that Jahir join them on the borderworld, and asks Sediryl if she’ll pick him up from the port—she has her own ship, a loan from Liolesa, which is crewed by a Digital Personality (D-per), ex-Fleet, named Maia.

There’s a lot going on here with the relationship between Sediryl, Amber, Lisinthir, and Jahir (or the assumption of Jahir, since he’s not there yet). Amber is bitter at Bethsaida’s fate, and at how she’s been cast aside by Liolesa in favor of Sediryl. Sediryl still feels like she has something to prove, thanks to her mother disinheriting her—she’s been waiting for the opportunity to do something worth doing for most of her life, and now that she’s got it she’s going for it at top speed. And Lisinthir, of course, needs to go to war for his beloveds—he is proud of the Chatcaavan Queen for deciding to spy, but afraid for her and the Emperor both.

Back in the Alliance, Jahir is reunited with Vasiht’h after their separate vacations, and they have a tender talk about their future. When Jahir receives Lisinthir’s message summoning him to the borderworld, Vasiht’h agrees to accompany him that far to see him off, and then return to Veta to start arranging for their new life circumstances (including the families they want to have). They are almost to the borderworld when their liner is attacked by pirates. Jahir uses his mind-mage abilities, in tandem with Vasiht’h, to drive them off. But it leaves him prey for the Chatcaavan raider that was waiting in line behind the pirates. They are both taken prisoner.

The Chatcaava are looking for Lisinthir. Jahir, who has the Fleet roquelaure assigned to Lisinthir, decides to use it to impersonate his cousin so that the Chatcaava will believe they’ve captured him, reasoning that they must not want him at large. He’s right, and Jahir is sent on a separate vessel to the Chatcaavan throneworld. Vasiht’h, though, is remanded to a new set of pirates, where he finds himself in the unexpected company of the Chatcaavan Queen. She was written off by the Lord of the Twelveworld as a gift to the pirates he wants to use as a decoy on the Alliance border.

Before the Queen left the palace, she was contacted by one of the servants, a eunuch named Oviin, and through Oviin she was able to get a message out of the palace confirming Second’s treachery and naming him and the Usurper (this message was received by Uuvek, whose main work is sneaking through the Chatcaavan data nets looking for information). Now that she is bound for the pirates, she intends to learn what she can about them and find a way to report it from wherever she ends up. Vasiht’h is nowhere near so calm, but this link to his previous life—for he knew about the Chatcaavan Queen from conversations with Lisinthir in Book 2—gives him enough equanimity to hope for rescue.

Sediryl, having been sent by Lisinthir to meet Jahir at the port, finds the ship missing; she decides to investigate with her D-Per’s help. Maia traces them back to the point where their liner was attacked and confirms they’ve been taken, so Sediryl tells Lisinthir she intends to find out where they’ve gone, and he wishes her luck. (This puzzles her—she expected him to tell her to come back. They have an interesting conversation at that point about Lisinthir’s expectations of the women in his life; this gives Sediryl a great deal to consider.)

Back on the borderworld, the message the Queen sent through Oviin gives Lisinthir and the Fleet personnel a place to start looking for the Emperor. 

At this point, everyone is in motion: Lisinthir, with the Fleet operatives, the Knife, and Uuvek are heading for Apex-East. Sediryl is following the pirates. Jahir is on his way to the Chatcaavan throneworld as a prisoner, having convinced the Chatcaava that he is Lisinthir. And Vasiht’h and the Chatcaavan Queen are on their way to the pirate stronghold. (Amber, too, is dispatched, to accompany the Mother and Priestess and the rest of the Chatcaavan refugees into the Alliance, an errand he undertook under protest, believing himself better suited to fighting the Chatcaava than Sediryl.) 

We leave almost everyone in the background now to follow Lisinthir and his people into Apex-East, where some snooping uncovers four survivors of the Emperor’s flagship… including the Admiral-Offense. From him, they learn that the Emperor probably went to ground on the Apex world.

They need information, and snooping the net isn’t helping them. The situation in Apex-East is fraught, thanks to the war: all the Naval units that will be fighting the Alliance are mustering in the solar system, along with all the militia units supplied by the system lords. (If you are thinking ‘wait, aren’t they usually enemies?’, good catch. They are. And yet, they’re all being summoned to the same place to wait for instructions on launching the first initiative against the Pelted…)

With all these Chatcaavan military ships loitering, the captain of the Fleet vessel does not want her ship in system any longer than necessary. They contrive a plan: Lisinthir, wearing a (newly supplied) roquelaure, will impersonate a Chatcaavan freelance raider. These raiders are being invited to join the war, so his cover story involves arriving to investigate that offer, and also to see if he can sell slaves, who of whom he brings with him: Laniis and… the Knife, who has finally learned the Change and taken to it with religious enthusiasm. (Literally—the Change is something enshrined in the oldest religion.)

To find the Emperor, they have to position themselves to hear local information, so they target the Worldlord (who is in charge of the world, unlike the other two powers, Deputy-East and Manufactory-East, who are Naval contractors who oversee things in the solar system) for a visit. The Fleet ship drops them off and they make it known they have slaves to sell, and the Worldlord invites him to show them off.

The Worldlord is an interesting character. A complicated male, a grandfather who still cares about his children in the old ways. A power too, with talons in many, many pots. He is watching what’s going on with the war and wondering what it means, and how it will affect him, his family, and the things he cares about. He is hosting a huntparty when Lisinthir arrives: Deputy-East and Manufactory-East are staying with him. Deputy-East is the Worldlord’s ally already, but they are attempting to woo Manufactory-East because they perceive that the Navy is about to rip the Empire apart and they want to consolidate their allies in-system, just in case.

Introduced into this intimate but volatile environment, Lisinthir does what he does best: he changes the Worldlord and Deputy-East. Only Manufactory-East hates him, because Lisinthir manages to humiliate him. Several times. (On purpose, even, because Lisinthir has already marked him as an abusive sociopath.)

The Worldlord, of course, keeps slaves. They have been trying to help the Emperor, whom they know as the Survivor, stay sane and not managing because Manufactory-East keeps abusing him. They are the ones who tell Lisinthir, Laniis, and the Knife that the Survivor was a Chatcaavan who fell over the wall of the estate and asked for a human pattern. So they have found the Emperor, but he is… not in a good place, mentally. Lisinthir promises them all freedom, but they have to wait for the Fleet vessel to creep back in-system before they can go.

There are a lot of things that happen at the Worldlord’s estate, and a blow-by-blow recounting would take… a long time. It’s half of the book. By the time Lisinthir leaves, both the Worldlord and Deputy-East give him their Alliance slaves willingly, including the Emperor, still trapped in human form. Lisinthir never breaks cover—he remains the Sword, Chatcaavan freelancer, for the entirety of his stay on the Apex world. But as he’s leaving, Manufactory-East, whose staff has spotted a sensor ghost they have identified as an Alliance vessel operating under stealth, arrives to arrest him as an Alliance spy. The Worldlord and Deputy-East tell Manufactory-East to submit proof of this, and since he can’t, Manufactory-East is forced to give up his accusation. But when he realizes Lisinthir is in the process of stealing his slaves, he decides to kill him.

This doesn’t work very well against a mind-mage and a fighter who honed his skills attacking and being attacked by the Emperor, who was good enough to fight his way to the Chatcaavan throne. Manufactory-East dies his richly deserved death, and Deputy-East drives Lisinthir and his load of slaves to the port. When they discover Manufactory-East has destroyed Lisinthir’s shuttle, Deputy-East volunteers (grumbling) to take Lisinthir into space to rendezvous with his ship.

It is when the Fleet ship contacts them, and the Admiral-Offense addresses the Emperor (still in human form), that Deputy-East discovers he’s been raping the Emperor of the Chatcaavan Empire. He falls prostrate, expecting to die… but the Emperor says he can’t punish Deputy-East for sins he has himself committed. Deputy-East is severely shaken by this, and promises Lisinthir that he and the Worldlord are at their service. They don’t know what to think of the Emperor, but they do know the Usurper is going to tear the Empire apart with this war, sending system lords off with the Navy in the same fight (and then saddling them with ridiculous rules, like requiring all plunder to be consolidated in Naval warehouses and then doled out according to people’s performance in battle). And Lisinthir, as the Sword, has won them over completely.

Lisinthir, the slaves, and the Emperor return to the Fleet vessel, which starts creeping out of this (very busy/cluttered system) toward safer space. After a long stay in the clinic, the Emperor finds he can again change shape. But he remains shattered by the experience he had in the Worldlord’s slave annex. He has gone from the highest of the high to worse than nothing, from titled to named, from a king and a warrior to anyone’s meat. He realizes just how wrong he’s been about everything, how many sins he has to make up for, how unworthy he is. He feels broken, and he doubts he will ever be fixed.

Nor is he the only broken thing, by his accounting. In a conference on the Fleet vessel, the Emperor reveals that even fighting for the Empire, he doesn’t believe it can be saved. That it will inevitably rupture, and it will be their job to save the pieces worth saving.

We leave them there, sneaking out of the Apex-system. Lisinthir and the Fleet operatives have fulfilled their mission: they’ve recovered the Emperor. Now they have to figure out what to do next.

Elsewhere, Sediryl has followed the pirate vessel carrying Vasiht’h and the Chatcaavan Queen to its final destination, where she finds a fleet of at least three hundred ships. Many of them are stolen Fleet vessels. This is enormously bad news: no one is expecting pirates in these numbers, and if the Chatcaava succeed in bringing them over to the fight (and using them to distract the Alliance, particularly with their own vessels!), it will go badly for the Pelted. (Some of you may remember news of these stolen ships from both “Her Instruments” and the short story “Stormfront”… now you know where those ships were going.) Sediryl, seeing this, knows they have to get more intelligence on these pirates to the Alliance, and she and Maia resolve to creep as closely as they can to get numbers and ship strengths so they can send that data back. That’s where she is when the book closes.

Our last scene follows Jahir to the throneworld, where the Usurper, believing he’s talking to Lisinthir, has him chained to the study wall, where he can see all the maps and hear all the meetings discussing how the Alliance is going to fall to the Empire. This is, the Usurper thinks, a fitting end for an alien who believed himself the equal of a Chatcaavan in the games of Chatcaavan politics.

Jahir is stunned at the magnitude of this opportunity: the Usurper wants him to know all these things? He has only to find a way to communicate this intelligence out of the palace…

Book 4 ends here. Much cliffhanger. So wow. Author sorry. *rueful*

Military/Political Stuff

A lot of the moving parts in this book are set-up for the final acts in Books 5 and 6. We learn that the Chatcaavan Navy is under the command of Second, who uses it to betray the Emperor (and, presumably, kill him). But that there are many Chatcaava in the Navy who are uncomfortable with this. The Navy was supposed to be the one place where betrayal doesn’t happen: there are contests of strength to decide who gets to lead, but there’s no backstabbing. The unrest in the ranks starts bubbling after the ambush. In addition to this, the Usurper and Second are gathering all the ships—Naval and System Militia—for the war in the Apex system, where they have to stare one another in the eye: two elements in the Empire, traditionally enemies. That might have worked had they been sent on different errands, or to different fights, but  they’re starting to bristle at one another, hanging around in the solar system together.

(If this does not seem smart to you, excellent. It isn’t smart. We learn why it was done anyway in the story to come.)

Additionally, we discover that the Empire has been using its contacts with pirates to harry the Alliance border in an attempt to deflect some of Fleet’s strength away from their planned target. Given what Sediryl finds , this isn’t a minor threat. Pirates are supposed to come in ones and twos, not in fleets of three hundred, including stolen Pelted military vessels.

Fleet has sent out war warnings, based on Lisinthir’s intelligence in Book 3. They’re hoping that the Emperor will keep the Empire in check—the fact that he’s been betrayed and that the Empire is now under someone else’s command is a big deal, and that’s the intelligence that Lisinthir and his Fleet companions are about to communicate to them in the beginning of Book 5 (once they clear the Apex system).

Finally, we suspect, with the Emperor’s observation, that there won’t be putting this particular egg back together now that it’s cracked. The Empire isn’t in a civil war… yet. But it’s heading for one.

New Characters

Again, lots of new characters now.

• Maia – The Digital Personality that crews the ship Liolesa lent to Sediryl (this ship is the Visionary… distinct from the Fleet ship Lisinthir’s borrowing for his ride, the Silhouette). Maia is ex-Fleet and presents as a glittery Seersa, most of the time, of indeterminate gender (but accepts ‘she’ as a pronoun).
• Oviin – The gentle, castrate servant who relays the Chatcaavan Queen’s message out of the palace will become very important in Book 5. He also gives us our first glimpse into the menials of the palace who do the scutwork of cleaning, cooking, etc. (also castrated Chatcaavan males, or ugly females.)
• The Admiral-Offense – This Chatcaavan male is the head of all active naval operations. If you’re looking at the Chatcaavan Navy from the top down, the head of the Navy is Apex-Navy. Then there’s the Commands for each sector (Command-East, Command-West, etc), which are administrative posts associated with fixed assets, logistics, and strategic operations. The Admiral-Offense is the post that deals with the actual active duty fleet and what it’s up to. This male has known the Emperor a while, and the Emperor will realize later that they are friends. (Something Chatcaava don’t admit to.)
• The Worldlord – In the Apex-East solar system, the Worldlord is in charge of the single habitable planet. He is also a bit of an eminence gris, and has a lot of contacts and pull in both the system lord network and the Naval network (because he is a system lord, but in a system given over to the navy, and his sons are involved in both networks).
• Deputy-East – The male in charge of system security for Apex-East’s solar system. Think of him more as local police, to the Navy’s military which has a naval base.
• Manufactory-East – Dies in this book, but he’s an important part of it anyway. He is (was) the male in charge of the mines and factories in the solar system, including the extraction facilities in the asteroid belts and the moon.
• Andrea and the Worldlord’s Slaves – All the Worldlord’s slaves play an important role in this book. Emlyn (a Hinichi male), Dominika (a Harat-Shar clouded leopard female), and Simone (a Karaka’An female) have minor roles; the major role is played by Andrea, the human woman who gave the Emperor her pattern so he could hide in the harem. She becomes important in later books as the Emperor’s friend, where she represents the entirely puzzling (to him) worldview of Christian charity. They have many discussions about this (and other religions in the Alliance, and how they relate to the abandoned Chatcaavan religion).

JUST FOR FUN: READER HIGHLIGHTS

He had always longed for knowledge, craved it with a ferocity for which he’d earned endless teasing as a youth. The cache he’d fallen into when he’d crashed over the Worldlord’s wall was beyond anything he’d imagined as that youth, and it was bitter and beyond price.

“I’m not going to go into my new life shoving the people around me into cages as a condition of accompanying me.”

“I realized that it didn’t matter whether I wanted them to suffer or not,” Laniis said. “What did matter is that… maybe they had to.”

“Even if I die here, I’ll still be an EMA, and a child of God, and not all I’ve suffered here will ever change that.”

“And that’s just the physical trauma. Everyone comes back from emotional trauma differently. You’re stringing sentences together and you’re acting functional. That might last, or you might find yourself having flashbacks or bad episodes. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you should be acting more upset or less than you feel.”