Wings of Retribution (42 page)

And yet, when Ragnar looked, he caught none of the unnaturally smooth faces of a Utopi anywhere.  Everyone seemed to be aging…naturally.

“Where
are
we?” Paul whispered, seemingly noticing the same things.

A bejeweled guard stepped away from the leg of the sun-tent and stopped in front of them.  The young Emperor seemed to be trying to show an impression of interest in a blooming yellow rosebush, but he was watching the exchange out of the corner of his eye with the flush-faced excitement of youth.

The guard snapped his fingers loudly in front of Ragnar’s nose, startling Ragnar into returning his attention to the man’s hard-lined face.  It was painted with flowing colored lines that looked like feathers and dusted with yellow sparkles.  Up close, his polished armor looked to be struck of solid gold.

“You will not look at the Emperor,” the man barked in his archaic Common.  “You will not speak to the Emperor unless it is his Will that you answer a question.  You will not spit, fart, or make any rude gestures in the Emperor’s presence.  You will keep your hands at your sides unless it is the Emperor’s Will to move them.  You will not make sudden movements in front of the Emperor.  You will not try to flee.  If you do any of these things, the Warriors will punish you.  Do you understand?”

Because he got the idea that punishment at the hands of this hard-faced gorilla—a man who wore solid gold like plates of tin—would be rather unpleasant Ragnar nodded.

The Warrior moved back to his spot at the tent’s leg and assumed a stone-still pose of attention.

Ragnar became aware of a white blur moving toward him, but he kept his eyes firmly on the ground.  The last thing he wanted to do was to insult the young boy’s tender pride, especially when he knew with gut-curdling certainty that the boy could offhandedly say a single word and he and his comrades would all be executed instantly.

“It is Our Will is that you lift your head,” the boy said. 

Ragnar swallowed when he realized the youth was standing right in front of him.  Tentatively, he looked up.

The boy-emperor was only a yard away, gazing upon the three of them with hungry, eager brown eyes.

“Step forward.  Just you in the front.”

Trying not to let his nerves show, Ragnar closed the distance between them.

The boy-emperor circled him, eying him like a head of cattle.

“You are to remove your clothes.”

Ragnar did so, having no human aspirations at modesty.

“It is Our Will to know if you have trouble holding that image.  You may speak.”

“No,” Ragnar said.  “Once I shift, I stay in the new form.”

“You may put your clothes back on.”

Ragnar did.

“It is Our Will to know your name.”

“Ragnar Reeve.”

“Is this your true name or an alias?”

“My true name.”  Ragnar could not pronounce his birth-name using a human tongue, and he had been ‘Ragnar’ for so long that he even had trouble remembering all the syllables.  He also didn’t want to have to explain all that to this child-emperor.  Overall, he got the distinct impression that the less talking he did, the safer he was.

The boy-emperor stroked his beardless chin in an imitation of sagely thought.  “We have learned that you three are nobles among your kind.  It is Our Will that you be hosted as Nobles of the Second House here on Xenith.  Do you understand what this means?”

Ragnar shook his head.

Immediately, a Warrior leapt from the sun-tent and slammed a fist into Ragnar’s gut—the most tender spot upon a L’kota’s body.  Ragnar’s vision immediately burst into a thousand tiny points of light and he crumpled to his knees.

“It is Our Will that the shifters not be harmed,” the Emperor said.  He sounded impatient.

“This humble Warrior apologizes, Emperor,” the man in gold said, falling to the ground in a clatter of heavy metal.  “He will gladly slit his own throat if it is your Will.”

Holding his stomach, Ragnar groaned and stood.

The Emperor was looking at him, brown eyes curious.  “We’ll let Ragnar Reeve decide.  He is a Noble of the Second House until We say otherwise.”

The warrior did not get out of his prostrate position at the Emperor’s feet, but Ragnar could see that the man was trembling.

“What is your opinion, Ragnar Reeve?”

Ragnar glanced back at his father, who gave a slight shake of his head.

“Let him live,” Ragnar said.  “He was only trying to best serve you.”

That seemed like the correct answer, since the man got up from the ground and resumed his post at the tent pole as if nothing had happened.  He was, however, paler than his bronze-skinned comrades.

“They may be trying to serve Us,” the boy-emperor said, “But they can grow cumbersome.  It is Our Will that they take the priestesses and depart.  Our Guiding Light will protect us.”

The four men backed away without question and took the two scarlet-clad priestesses by the arms and led them off in such a way that they resembled captives.

The Emperor must have seen Ragnar’s curious look.  “The Priestesses of the Light are blind and deaf.  All priests and priestesses of Xenith must live as such, to grow closer to our divine purpose.”

“What is that?” Ragnar asked.  Then, catching himself with a wince, he added, “If I may be so bold.”

“It is that which our Emperor embodies,” the white-clad woman said as she approached.  She had a hard look to her that made Ragnar think of Athenais.

She also had perfectly smooth skin.

“Minds that convey messages without words,” she continued.  “Bodies that can heal others with only a touch.”  At that, she pulled an obsidian knife from her belt and drew the glittering black blade across her palm.  It cut deep, slicing into the flesh of her hand.  When she withdrew the blade, blood began to spurt from the wound.

The Emperor moved toward her and took her hand in his.  He moved a finger over the cut and it stopped bleeding.  Behind Ragnar, his father muttered something softly under his breath.

The woman sheathed her knife without glancing down at her hand.  Ragnar didn’t like her eyes.  A soft blue-green, they were also dead.  Utterly devoid of any emotion.  The kind that belonged to a mass-murderer…or a psychopath.

Proudly, the woman said, “Our society on Xenith constantly moves toward humanity’s ultimate goal.  Each Emperor is stronger than the last as the power builds within us and within our children.  In just a few millennia, Xenith will control its own destiny.  We will emerge to rule our own quadrant of space and all the ships in the Utopia will not be able to stop us.”

“You speak as though a few millennia is a small thing,” Morgan noted softly behind him.  “You’re another of the originals, aren’t you?”

The woman gave Morgan an odd look, the flatness of her eyes flickering for a moment.

“What does he speak of?” the Emperor said.

“He is confused,” the woman said, and it sounded as if she were speaking to Ragnar and his brethren, not the Emperor.  “I am the Guiding Light of Xenith.  I am a manifestation of the earth, the sky, the water.  Neither Death nor Life may reach Me, for the planet nourishes and protects Me.  A flutter of My hand can mean life or death to every inhabitant of Xenith.” 

Her words left Ragnar with a coldness pooling in his gut, and he suddenly very much wanted to be anywhere else but standing in the rose garden with the woman and her child emperor, the pleasant twitter of birds in the trees all around them.

The Emperor nodded his agreement.  “Our Guiding Light chose the first priests, who chose the first Emperor.  She built our society from a forgotten colony many thousands of years ago and Xenith remains unknown to the Utopia through Her guidance.”

“So what do you want with us, if I may be so bold?” Ragnar asked.

The Emperor smiled.  “It was Our idea.  We bought you to keep you out of Utopian hands, and to give you sanctuary on Our planet.    We paid an enormous price to get you here.  We had to trade raw metals and gems for your lives, both of which are very rare on Xenith.  It was a great expense.  Yet you will be safe here.  The Utopia considers this part of the galaxy dead space.”

“Not to offend you,” Paul said gingerly, “But what if we don’t want to stay here?”

The Emperor’s face darkened.  “It is Our Will that you stay.”

“We have a friend who can pay you double any sum you spent on us,” Ragnar said.  “She has vast accounts throughout the Utopia.”

The woman scoffed, “Look behind you, children, and tell Me that Our Emperor is in need of your petty wares.”

Ragnar did, and his breath failed him.  The palace at his back was not just a single story as he had guessed, but forty.  Beyond that, spires rose from the glittering black roof and jutted into the sky.  In either direction, the palace went on forever.  He could see no end to the elegant stone architecture, which towered above hills in the distance.

“What could We possibly need?” the woman said, much too smugly.

Ragnar turned back with difficulty.  “She could get you ships.”

“The skies of Xenith would darken with ships if it were Our Will,” the Emperor interrupted.  “But it is Our Will that you stay, instead.  Propagate amongst yourselves as We are propagating with Our subjects and create a new colony of your kind hidden from the Utopia’s eyes.  I am giving you sanctuary.  Your children will rise with us when the citizens of Xenith move to establish Our dominance of this quadrant.  Your progeny will create a new caste amongst Our people.  You will be Our assassins, Our thieves, Our spies.  We will send you abroad to infiltrate the Utopia to prepare it for Our ascendance to divinity.”

Ragnar glanced at the other shifters.  “Propagate amongst ourselves?  He is my father and he is my brother.  We’re all of the same gender, more or less.”

“We have others,” the child-emperor said quickly.  “None with your extraordinary talents, however.  Our Guiding Light tells Us that you are of a special caste of shifters.  Royalty, more or less. 
Ishala.”

“Your Guiding Light seems to know a good many things about the universe,” Morgan said.  He was scowling at the smooth-faced woman.

“You are royalty because you can perform the
yeit
,” the boy said.  “Is that not correct?”

“We can,” Ragnar said.

“Then it is Our Will that you begin breeding immediately amongst the others.  You will pass your abilities on to your children and eventually, all will be able to
yeit.”

Ragnar felt his muscles stiffen.  “
Ishala
don’t
breed
with non-
ishala.
  It would dilute the blood.  Would you ever marry a commoner?”

The Emperor’s face clouded over, approaching the ominous darkness of a thunderhead.  “The priests chose Us from amongst the Strangers.  We were two days from having Our face tattooed.  The blood of Strangers is no different from the blood of Nobles.  Should We marry, We would gladly choose from the Stranger women.  But with Our Guiding Light beside us, We will never need marry.  We will propagate Our seed amongst many, to strengthen Our blood.”

“Perhaps your ‘
Guiding Light
’ didn’t explain this to you,” Ragnar said, “But we’re not animals.  You’re not going to breed us like horses.”

The boy-emperor turned his back to them.  “It is Our Will that these three return to their cell.  We will give them time to think about what We said.”

“Nice, Ragnar,” Paul muttered.

“Follow me,” the woman said.  She stepped between them and began walking back into the palace.  Reluctantly, Ragnar and his kin followed.