Free The Final Key: Part Two of Triad by Catherine Asaro Page A

a Primary.
    Soz shook her head. Her imagination was getting ahead of her. She had yet even to graduate.
    Eldrin was reading a novel when he heard the noise. He had been struggling with the words, looking them up in the dictionary that came with the holobook. Although he was no longer illiterate, he read slowly. Glyphs for the same words never looked the same to him, though he had come to understand that certain arrangements referred to the same word even when they showed up in different places, in different fonts, even different colors. It had taken him a long time to learn to process those differences. Reading was no longer an exercise in teeth-gritting frustration for him. It was even fun.
    He gradually became aware of the rattling. Nothing in the sitting room looked out of place, though. Just empty. The Ruby Palace always seemed that way to him even when he wasn't the only one here. He wished someone would visit. Not that anyone could come without his invitation; so many installations protected the palace, he could live here in peace and quiet even if a horde of maniacs was storming the mountains.
    Eldrin glanced at his holobook. He was reading about ISC. The Assembly wanted him to learn about the military in case he ever became a Key, a member of the Dyad. As pharaoh, Dehya was the Assembly Key: as Imperator, Kurj was the Military Key. Eldrin wasn't first in line for either title; Soz was Kurj's heir, and Taquinil was Dehya's. The Assembly wanted to name Eldrin as the second heir to the Assembly Key, though, after Taquinil. The title went according to ability as well as heredity. Although he didn't understand the technology of Kyle meshes, he apparently had the mental sensitivity required to create and manipulate them. He was much farther down the line of succession for Imperator, but he was in there somewhere, probably eighth or ninth.
    The Assembly Key didn't have to be the Ruby Pharaoh, but Dehya held both titles. The pharaoh's consort didn't assume her royal title on her death; traditionally it went to her oldest daughter. Dehya had defied tradition and made her son her heir, so Taquinil was also first in line for the Ruby Throne. Dehya's second heir was her sister Roca. That did put Eldrin in the line of succession, through his mother rather than his wife, making him third in line for the throne after Taquinil and Roca.
    Eldrin felt painfully unqualified for all three titles. He had been a good warrior on Lyshriol, with a sword and bow, but he didn't have the mind for modern warfare. He wasn't a politician, either, though he did attend Assembly sessions. It intrigued him to watch Dehya in that theater of" power. The title of Pharaoh was supposedly titular, but she had forged it into an immense, shadowy power he could barely fathom.
    He could work the web, though. For him, more even than for Dehya and Kurj, it came as naturally.
    A rattle disturbed the silence.
    "What is that?" Eldrin muttered. He put down his book and went to the console across the room. When he touched a fingertip panel, his personal EI spoke in a mellow voice.
    "Good evening, Your Majesty."
    "My greetings, Etude," Eldrin said. "Did you hear a noise?" "I detect many noises."
    "This one was out of place, like a rattle in the walls."
    "Ah. Yes, I heard it." Etude paused. "It came from the system that heats these rooms. A conduit is loose. I have sent a mechbot to fix it."
    "Good." The problem surprised Eldrin; the bots were obsessive about maintenance, if one could ascribe human attributes to machines. He supposed it was more accurate to say that whoever had designed them was dedicated to ensuring the palace stayed clean and well-organized.
    He went to the liquor cabinet and took out the dragon carafe. "Will it take long to fix?"
    "About ten minutes." Then Etude said, "Your Majesty, in the past few days you have consumed an amount of alcohol large enough to register as a concern on my medical scanners."
    Eldrin picked up a crystal tumbler. "Don't start