THE CITADEL OF WEEPING PEARLS
Aliette de Bodard
The Officer
There was a sound on the edge of sleep: Suu Nuoc wasn’t sure if it was a bell and a drum calling for enlightenment, or the tactics-master sounding the call to arms in that breathless instant—hanging like a bead of blood from a sword’s blade—that marked the boundary between the stylized life of the court and the confused, lawless fury of the battlefield.
“Book of Heaven, Book of Heaven.”
The soft, reedy voice echoed under the dome of the ceiling, but the room itself had changed—receding, taking on the shape of the mindship—curved metal corridors with scrolling columns of memorial excerpts, the oily sheen of the Mind’s presence spread over the watercolors of starscapes and the carved longevity character at the head of the bed. For a confused, terrible moment as Suu Nuoc woke up, he wasn’t sure if he was still in his bedroom in the Purple Forbidden City on the First Planet or hanging, weightless, in the void of space.
. . .
