A sample chapter of Garth Nix's Confusion of Princes (part 3)

The last part of first chapter of the new not yet published book of Garth Nix.

My internal chronometer said I had been a Prince for all of thirty-five minutes. If I made

it through another twenty-five minutes, I’d be ahead of the statistical curve. . .

‘Our first priority must be for you to connect to the Imperial Mind,’ said Haddad. ‘This
will have three positive results. Firstly, it will remove the possibility of permanent death, and
so the benefit of assassinating you will reduce, possibly enough that any plans already laid
will be postponed. Secondly, it will allow you to access resources and information necessary
for your protection and future plans. And thirdly, you will be able to call upon the Mind to
witness, and this will make blatant breaches of the law against you more unlikely.’

‘What?’ I exploded. This was getting worse and worse. ‘Blatant breaches? You mean a Prince could act against the Imperial Law?’

‘It is a question of the potential benefit versus the potential punishment,’ replied Haddad.
‘There are also ways and means of obscuring the Mind’s viewpoints and capture of
information so that it is not entirely clear whether a breach has been committed or not—’
‘I’m going to go and ask Uncle Coleport some serious questions,’ I interrupted. ‘With a
knife.’

‘There’s no time for that, Highness,’ continued Haddad, as unruffled as ever. ‘Do you

have any possessions you need to pack?’
‘What?’
I was stuck thinking about what Haddad had just told me. I had been taught that the
Imperial Mind watched over everything, that it knew everything, and that Imperial Law was
always followed to the letter. Though of course Imperial Law was not for the ordinary
citizens of the Empire. They had to do whatever their ruling Prince decreed. Imperial Law
was for Princes, setting down how the authority of a Prince worked with other Princes, the
precedence of Princely commands, and so on.

‘Possessions . . .’ I repeated slowly. Though my mind was supposedly as accelerated as

my body, I did not find my thoughts coming quickly.
I looked around my living chamber and through the doorway to my bedroom. All my
clothes were brought to me, fresh and new, each morning. Information flowed to my mind
directly, or sometimes via secure pods that were also brought to my rooms. Practice weapons
came from the armory and went back there at the end of a session.

‘No. I have nothing. Uh . . . where are we going and . . . why are we going anyway?

Surely it would be better to stay here and . . . um . . . plan . . .’
My voice trailed off. Though I had long imagined the day when I would become a full
Prince, none of my daydreaming had included being almost killed and then having to flee.
Mostly it had consisted of looking at the specifications of various extremely fast and deadly
starships.

‘We can’t remain here,’ explained Haddad. ‘This temple will not allow you to stay

beyond the first hour, Highness, and we must reach a place of relative safety, somewhere
where you can access the Imperial Mind. Had you planned which service to join for your
initial career?’

Princes supplied the officers of all the key services of the Empire: Navy, Marines, the

Diplomatic Corps, Survey, Imperial Government, Colonial Government . . . but they all
sounded like hard work, and though I had expected I would join one of them at some stage,
the thought of yet more training did not appeal to me. Also, it would mean putting myself
into a hierarchy of Princes where I would be the lowest of the low. It would be much more
fun to simply go somewhere interesting and be a Prince at large, preferably the only one
around. Then I could do whatever I wanted.

‘Uh, I don’t want to commit to any service and all that training malarkey,’ I said. ‘I want

to enjoy myself first. Get a ship—you know, a corvette or maybe something smaller, of
course with high automation, head out for some distant stars, see something beyond this
moldy old temple, smoke a few Naknuk ships or the like. . . ‘

I looked at my Master of Assassins.

‘That’s not going to happen, is it?’
‘Not advisable,’ said Haddad tersely. ‘The nearest shipyard that might have a vessel not
already earmarked for a Prince or under the aegis of a Prince would be . . . Jearan Six. We’d
have to go commercial from here, several changes, several lines—the risk would be
extremely high. Also, it would mean delaying your connection to the Mind.’

‘Can’t I connect here, before we leave?’ I asked. I knew the procedure. Though I would

later be able to communicate with the Imperial Mind wherever there were available priests to
relay, my first connection needed to be from within the inner sanctum of a temple.
‘It is forbidden for Princes to enter the sanctums of temples other than temples of their
own service when on duty, or on direct Imperial orders,’ said Haddad.

‘But I go to the sanctum here often . . . ah . . . when I was a Prince candidate I went there

. . .’
‘Exactly, Highness. The optimum possible node now is the Temple of the Aspect of the
Noble Warrior on Kwanantil Nine, which serves the Kwanantil Domain Naval Academy of
the Imperial Navy.’

‘But you said a Prince can only enter the sanctum of a temple of their own service, or

with direct orders,’ I said. My augmented and accelerated brain clearly wasn't working as it
should.

‘Yes, Highness,’ said Haddad.
‘You mean I’ll have to join the Navy.’
‘Yes, Highness.’

My dream of a slender space yacht, lavishly appointed and crewed by suitably attractive

mind-programmed servants, disappeared, driven away by the fresh, sharp memory of the
flower-trap’s sunbeam going over my head. Next time, there might be more than one
assassin, more than one sunbeam. . .

‘In addition to connecting to the Imperial Mind, the Navy would also offer you a high

level of protection, Highness. Apart from the vacation period, cadets at a Naval Academy or
officers on active service may not be assassinated. Not legally, though accidents do happen.
You must always be vigilant.’

‘It just gets better and better, doesn’t it?’

Haddad nodded. I wasn’t sure if this was in agreement or just some kind of punctuation.
‘What are the alternatives and the probability of success?’ I asked as crisply as I could.
This line was straight out of one of my favorite Princely biographies, a Psitek experience of
thirty-nine episodes entitled The Achievements of Prince Garikm that I had lived through
numerous times. Garikm was always snapping it out, or some variation, like the immortal
short form
‘Alternatives! Probabilities!’

‘Without a priest to calculate the probabilities I cannot say exactly, Highness.’

Oh yeah. I’d forgotten that when Garikm said the line, he had about fifty fawning priests
standing by to figure out probabilities. All I had was one Master of Assassins and a lot of
problems. I had also just begun to realise that the ‘biographical’ Psitek experiences were
probably a load of crap. At least none of them ever showed Princes just killing each other or
organizing assassinations. It was all formal duels and clever outmanoeuvering that left one
Prince looking stupid. Not lying headless on the ground with a burning wound where their
neck used to be.

‘Despite the lack of probability analysis, I believe a fast transit to Kwanantil Domain

Naval Academy and entry into the Navy provides the optimal path for your survival.’
‘Right,’ I said. For a moment I adopted my ‘Prince Garikm thinking’ pose, but unlike
when I’d posed in a Psitek simulation, it just felt silly now. Resting your chin on two bunched
fists is pretty unnatural. Instead I paced around my room. I didn’t even notice I was flicking
my fingers nervously until I hit my own leg and flinched.

What the hell was I going to do? Haddad knew far more about my situation than I did,

and obviously had a much better grasp of what could be done. But could I trust him? Maybe
there were some other alternatives, but how could I find out what they were in the twenty-odd
minutes before we got kicked out of the temple? The temple that was the only place I really
knew, though I would never call it home . . .

‘We must move soon, Highness,’ said Haddad as I continued my pacing. I stopped and looked at him. He’d saved me once already, maybe twice.

‘Okay, damn it,’ I said. ‘I’ll join the Navy. So let’s go to Kwanantil Nine.’
I paused, then added, ‘Uh, how do we get there?’
‘I have an idea, Highness,’ replied Haddad. ‘But I am afraid it will not be a comfortable
journey.’
He quickly outlined his plan, which of course I approved, given that I had no other ideas.
Then he gave me two of his many weapons: a three-shot deintegration wand that went into
two loops on my inside left sleeve, and an egg-shaped phage emitter that I had to initialise
with a lick of my tongue so the Bitek agents inside would not act against me. That sat in the
top of my boot, in a pocket that had always seemed extraneous frippery. My clothes had
many such loops, pockets, and pouches. I had never wondered why they were there before.

‘I am ready,’ I pronounced.

But I wasn’t, not at all.