Dragon's Honor - Kij Johnson [58]
“Indeed,” Kan-hi said, agreeing with his brother for the first time that evening. “No one else has seen my hand, so they don’t know what my chances are. Should I be showing everyone my cards?”
“No!” Riker said. “I mean, that’s not necessary, Excellence. You know your hands, which no one else does, but they know their hand, which you do not. It is fair because it is mutual.”
“I suppose,” Kan-hi said, “but it still doesn’t seem honorable.”
“I would think that would appeal to you, brother,” the Heir said. “Certainly you have no talent for games of honor.”
Kan-hi jumped angrily to his feet. He wobbled unsteadily, the victim of too much wine in too short a time. “Take that back!” he demanded.
Damn, Riker thought. Just when he thought he had calmed the party down. His muscles tensed, ready to throw his body between the Dragon’s sons if necessary. He hoped Kan-hi would not try anything drastic.
“I think not,” Chuan-chi responded. “Your gambling debts alone testify to your incompetence in matters of sport, along with your many other failures at war and love.”
Kan-hi’s eyes filled with open hatred. “I challenge you to a duel,” he cried out. “Now, tonight, before the wedding!”
The Dragon-Heir calmly sipped his wine. “You are even drunker than you look. You are my brother. You cannot challenge me without our father’s permission.”
Is that true? Riker wondered. He couldn’t make head or tail of the Pai’s complex rules of honor.
Kan-hi’s fists clenched at his sides. He looked like he was ready to explode. Riker remembered his own “brother,” Thomas Riker, and some of their own bitter conflicts. Not to mention the malevolent jealousy of Data’s brother, Lore. Brother against brother. Was the sorry saga of Cain and Abel some sort of universal constant? Kan-hi definitely seemed ready to kill his older brother, in the name of who knew what ancient slights and rivalries.
Instead, he spun around and staggered, reeling, toward the exit. “I don’t have to stay here and be insulted,” he called out, “especially by you!” The door slid open and Kan-hi disappeared into the hall. Chuan-chi watched him go, a thin smile playing upon his lips.
“I fear my brother is not feeling well,” the Heir said to Riker.
“Shouldn’t someone go after him?” Riker suggested. How am I supposed to guard both princes if one of them goes storming off like this?
“No,” Chuan-chi said. “He will undoubtedly be back shortly. He loves gambling too much to stay away for long.”
“Perhaps we should not play—”
“Nonsense, Honorable Riker,” the Heir said decisively. “It was your idea, so we shall stay where we are and continue our game. Let my idiotic brother wallow in his wounded, misbegotten pride.”
Meng Chiao shook his head sadly. “The egg of the eaglet is the hammer of the woodsman.”
“Huh?” Riker said. Lacking any other options, he dealt another hand.
“Ah,” the Dragon said, rubbing his hands together. His fingers were sticky from the sauces and secretions of the last few hors d’oeuvres. “I’m afraid I have your Imperial Rat-Catcher cornered.”
Picard eyed the playing board. “Which piece is that?”
The Dragon cackled to himself. “Really, Captain, you are most amusing.”
Picard was losing badly, or so he gathered. Although ch’i looked not dissimilar to chess, he could barely keep up, not because he was not a good chess player but because he was, and kept expecting the piece that resembled a knight (if an incomprehensibly ornate knight) to move like one, only to learn that it did something else entirely. There was no apparent queen, only several sorts of nobles and other characters, each of whom appeared to move in different ways at different places in the game, which was turning out to be extremely long.
More important, he had made little progress in convincing the Dragon of the urgency of the Empire’s situation. Nor had Counselor Troi managed to turn the Dragon’s attention