Blood of the Emperor (39 page)

He thought he could hear the cries of the city in the distance behind him but wondered if they could be heard only in his mind.

“Will Lord Drakis hear me in this matter?”

Drakis looked up sharply.

Urulani caught her breath.

Drakis rose at once, wary at the unexpected figure making his way into the pavilion.

An elf pushed carefully through the crowd. His Iblisi robes were a shambles, torn in many places and their original color almost completely obscured by dust and stains. He held his Matei staff in his hands, gently using it to part the assembly in front of him. Behind Soen walked a second Iblisi, a female elf with her head bowed slightly. She, too, carried a Matei staff and by the markings on her robe, she, too, was an Inquisitor.

“Soen,” Drakis barely managed to speak the name.

The former Inquisitor opened his arms with his slight bow. “I am pleased you remember, having so carelessly forgotten me once before on the plains to the north. But I have come to add my knowledge to this assembly and its deliberations…for we are a delegation from within the walls of Tjarlas.”

“You were there?” Drakis whispered.

“Yes, Drakis, I was there,” Soen replied. “I have seen too much, heard too much, and learned far too much. I watched as the Legions of Ghenetar Praetus Betjarian fought the very citizens and slaves they were sworn to protect down the length of the Vira Planesta. I saw them stopped by the fallen ruins of the Farlight Palace’s avatria and forced to enter the narrower maze of streets to the west of the High Estates, desperate to reach the fold near the Emperor’s Gate. Not one of them emerged from those warrens alive—not that it would have mattered if they had. The fold had already collapsed, the Occuran Priest having torn both the fold and himself apart long before the Legions attempted their escape.”

“What are you doing here?” Ethis demanded.

“It would be better to ask what I’ve
been
doing there,” Soen said.

“Very well, then,” Drakis said. “What have you been doing?”

“Restoring sanity,” Soen smiled. “Including my own.”

The elf moved in front of Drakis, casting his glance over the council before continuing. “The Iblisi Order have long professed themselves to be the guardians of what they believed was the truth. But Braun, the Master of Aether, believed in me when others did not. He believed that I would be a hope not only to the other acolytes that studied beside me but also to the devout believers in Drakis and beyond…as a hope for the elves who suffer under the oppression of the Imperial Will as surely as the slaves oppressed in turn by them.”

Soen turned to face Drakis. “Braun needed his secret kept safe with someone that he knew could do so. That is why Braun taught me what he knew about inverting the Aether Wells…and how to uphold the Devotions at the same time.”

“No!” the dwarf shouted. “Are we now to entrust our conquest and justice into the hands of an elven Inquisitor? He lies!”

“Braun taught me truth—a new truth,” Soen spoke loud and clear so that his voice would carry throughout the pavilion. “What I once thought was true is no more. Braun believed in Drakis and gave his life for that belief. I now offer myself in his place—to do what he promised.”

Soen swung his Matei staff in front of him, grasping it with both hands. He raised his knee, planting it against the shaft.

“I choose a
new
truth,” Soen shouted. “I choose Drakis.”

Soen pulled hard. The Matei staff splintered in two with a terrible crack. Soen tossed the shattered pieces at Drakis’ feet.

“The dwarf Jugar is right,” Soen said in a clear voice raised to be heard by the crowd in the pavilion. “We must attack Rhonas at once. The Legions have all rushed northward, drawn there in the belief that you and your army are there. Now, because Tjarlas has fallen, they are stranded without the use of Aether or their precious folds. It will take them months to return on foot. All that stood between you and the Imperial City itself were the Legions that remained in Tjarlas and now they, too, are gone. The Iblisi were to have returned to Rhonas with a call for aid but the city fell too quickly and no word was sent.
Nothing
stands between you and the Imperial City—a city that does not suspect your approach.”

“Then we have them!” Jugar shouted, his joy unrestrained. “The prophecy of vengeance shall be fulfilled and justice will be ours! The
treasures looted from the world will be taken back and we shall glory in the suffering of our enemies!”

Another great cheer rose up from the warriors in the pavilion. It rolled beyond the canvas and out into the Clan-Legions of the Encampment until the members the Army of the Prophet were all cheering the call to make war against the throne of Rhonas itself.

Drakis became pale. He sat back on his throne.

His hands began to shake again.

Nothing At All

S
JEI-SHURIAN, GHENETAR OMRIS OF the Order of Vash leaned forward on his high-backed chair, his face coming dangerously close to the light. “Nothing? You know nothing? Is it possible that the Keeper of her Order has such a desire to insult this council that she might stand before us and tell us that she knows
nothing?
”

“I am the Keeper of Truth!” Ch’drei Tsi-Auruun, Keeper of the Iblisi, stood uncomfortably bent over in the column of light cast down from the circle in the domed ceiling of the Modalis chamber in Majority House. “This council knows well my calling is defined by the Will of the Emperor and I answer to his authority alone. I have come here in my capacity as Keeper for the purpose of ascertaining that truth—certainly not to be lectured or questioned by a spear-carrier whose discipline rankings at the Vash Squires Academy were the worst of his class!”

Ch’dak Vaijan, Minister of Law stifled a laugh as Liau Nyenjei, the Minister of Thought, coughed nervously from his seat across the rotunda.

Sjei pushed himself back against the chair in frustration.

“Perhaps,” came the smooth, lilting voice to Sjei’s left, “the Keeper could enlighten us with that which she does not know.”

Sjei turned in the shadows bathing his throne to look at Shebin even as Ch’drei turned in the light to do likewise. Shebin had taken to her role on the Modalis council with relish and, Sjei had to admit, the
young woman had a flair for intrigue. Her placement next to the Emperor was invaluable to the Modalis but Sjei could not lose the feeling that she was no longer under anyone’s control—perhaps even her own.

“Shebin, favored daughter of the Emperor,” Ch’drei bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment. “It is what we do not know that we fear the most—especially regarding the war being undertaken in your most illustrious name. We do not know what has become of the north. We have lost all contact with any of our Quorums operating in conjunction with your Army of Shebin’s Vengeance. Indeed, we have had no communication with any of our order in Tjarlas nor any point beyond, either in the Eastern Provinces or those to the north. Ghenetar Omris Shurian, have you had any word from Praetus Betjarian?”

“No,” Sjei grumbled.

“Nor from any of his command?” Ch’drei asked.

“We have had no word from anyone in Tjarlas,” Sjei acknowledged. “In truth, we were desiring your aid in contacting them.”

“Restoring contact is the province of the Occuran, I believe. Is that not right, Master Xiuchi?” Ch’drei said.

“We cannot reestablish the fold in Tjarlas,” Kyori-Xiuchi said, clearing his throat. “Our attempts to do so have met with repeated failure over the last three days. Worse, the flow of Aether from the Northern Provinces and the Aether farms in Ephindria as well as the Southern Steppes has stopped altogether. We are having to draw more Aether from the Western Provinces as well as the Southern Reaches. I feel sure this is just a temporary problem…”

“A temporary problem quite like the ‘temporary problem’ that obliterated our northern armies by these Drakis Rebels before,” Sjei said, his voice raised. The elven warrior was frustrated and angry. There was a strange feeling in Rhonas Chas, a perceptible tension that made the skin on the back of his pointed skull itch. “We lost a Legion then—are we about to lose an army now?”

“We need to send for the southern Legions at once!” said Arikasi Tjen-soi. Sjei could hear anxiousness in the Minister of Occupation’s quivering voice. “Bring them north into the capital as a precaution.”

“And leave our southern borders open to Lyrania?” Sjei scoffed. “Even if we did strip the southern defenses it would take them a week just to arrive. By then, whatever this problem is may well have been
resolved and we will have left the defenses of the Empire in complete disarray!”

“The honored Ghenetar of the Vash knows well that there is but a single Legion garrison in Rhonas Chas—only one,” Arikasi responded with such vehemence that spittle flew from between his sharp teeth. “Everything else was committed to the north!”

“They are still there, I tell you!”

“Where? You don’t even know where they are…”

“There is no point in this endless speculation,” said Ch’dak Vaijan. The normally calm Minister of Law made his own frustration evident as his raised voice echoed through the round hall. “We need truth—not wild imaginings! I thought that was the purpose in speaking with the Keeper today. We cannot act on fantasies and pretend our decisions are wise. If the Keeper will indulge us a bit longer, we might secure her aid and that of her most capable Order in determining the truth which all of us so desperately…”

The large doors to the rotunda banged open, slamming against the walls so loudly that it startled everyone in the room.

“By Mnearis’ Cloak!” Sjei swore, leaping to his feet. “Who dares disturb the deliberations of this council?”

An Iblisi Indexia ran unceremoniously into the shadowy hall. She completely ignored Sjei’s demand as she rushed across the polished stone floor directly toward the amazed Keeper. The Indexia came to a stuttering halt and leaned over at once to speak into the Keeper’s ear.

Ch’drei suddenly straightened her back in surprise, staring with her flat, black eyes at the Indexia before her. “Are you certain?”

“Yes, Keeper,” the Indexia replied. “They await you now.”

Ch’drei turned to address the shadows that surrounded her in the hall. “Councillors of the Modalis—citizens of Rhonas all—I must beg your leave on a matter of—of some urgency.”

“Our deliberations have not been concluded, Keeper Ch’drei,” Sjei said, his black eyes narrowing.

“The council asked for truth from the north,” Ch’drei responded. “And when I return, I may have what you ask.”

Ch’drei Tsi-Auruun sat on her throne beneath the low ceiling of her audience hall, her long, bony fingers moving anxiously along the shaft of the Baton Seal of the Iblisi Keeper.

It started here
, she thought.
It seems like a lifetime since I sent him on this chase. Here we are safely beneath the ground, but we are not nearly so deep as he will soon be, nor so safely hidden from the world above along with all the other truths entombed here. How sad that it must end this way.

The double doors at the end of the low, onyx hall opened.

Ch’drei lifted her head.

K’yeran Tsi-M’harul strode into the hall. The Inquisitor confidently swung her Matei staff as she approached. Her robes were still covered in ash and soot and torn in several places but she held her head high.

Ch’drei barely noticed her.

It was the bent and shackled figure behind the confident elf woman that held the Keeper’s fixed gaze.

“Soen, my son,” Ch’drei sighed.

Soen shambled into the hall. He no longer had his Matei staff. His robes were faded and filthy, ragged in places. His gaze was fixed toward the floor as he approached.

K’yeran stopped before the throne of the Keeper, standing straight and proud. At last, Soen arrived beside the Inquisitor, still not having raised his eyes to face the Keeper.

The doors to the audience chamber closed at the back of the hall.

“You have done well, K’yeran,” Ch’drei said quietly, her eyes still fixed on Soen.

“No, Keeper, I have not. I have failed you entirely,” K’yeran answered. She turned to Soen. “Will you be all right?”