Song of the Dragon Page 14

  Drakis stared back at him.

  “I know it all by heart,” the lion-man spoke with pleading tones. “ ‘He will come with power to throw down the pillars of the oppressor’s might . . . ’ and you did, Drakis, you released us from our bondage.”

  “Wait, Belag,” Drakis said, shaking his head, “that’s not true, I didn’t . . .”

  “The Northern Prophecies?” Jugar interrupted, stepping in front of Drakis as he spoke. “Those legends of the masters of the Desolation who once commanded the monsters of the world and would return again?”

  “Aye!” Belag replied quickly. “In the final days of the world, when hope was lost and darkness held the plains of Chaenandria in their grip, a warrior-king—a hoo-mani of the ancient days—would come again out of the north country, beyond the Straits of Erebus, a living man from the land of the dead. He would walk the face of the world for a time, hidden from the eyes of the sharpest watchers, and then—then he would make his great journey of conquest in the name of light, bring down the darkness, and usher in ten thousand years of peace!”

  Five notes . . . Five notes . . .

  Your fate you will loom . . . the weave of your doom . . .

  “I hate to disturb this reverent scene,” Ethis said with both sets of hands folded across his chest, “but unless we get far from here very quickly, we won’t be enjoying anything like ten thousand years of peace. The dwarf is right about one thing—we have to stay a step ahead of what happened here or it’s all over for us.”

  Drakis pulled his gaze away from the wild-eyed manticore with difficulty. “Yes . . . we have to get away from here. The quickest way would be to use the folds . . . with most of the Centurai not yet returned, we may be able to get through some of them.”

  “And then what?” Ethis asked at once. “Do you have a plan, or do we just wander about the countryside pillaging until the odds catch up with us?”

  Drakis considered the chimerian for a moment before he answered. He suddenly realized that while he was surrounded by those he knew . . . several of whom he had this morning counted as more dear to him than his own life . . . he really didn’t know any of them at all.

  “. . . Sure, Drakis, your father came from the northlands beyond the dwarves,” his mother said as they washed their master’s clothes. His feet dangled from the edge of the stone shelf. “Must I tell you again of how we were freeborn in the wilds . . . ?”

  “We go north,” Drakis said, his words defying anyone to contradict him. “We make our way as far as we can passing through the folds, and then we set off on foot.”

  “Such a wise choice, Master Drakis, a wise choice indeed,” chirped the dwarf. “I know those lands well. and, leaving all modesty aside . . .”

  “An easy task,” Ethis sniffed.

  “. . . I can tell you that no creature who breathes today can help you pass through those wide, untamed lands safer than Jugar Dregas, King of Jesters and Jester to kings! You won’t regret it . . . not one bit!”

  “I’m already regretting it,” Drakis replied, “but as none of the rest of us have any idea about the world beyond the totems of Timuran, we’ll just have to bring you with us.”

  “North?” Ethis said, raising one hairless brow. “Why north?”

  Hear the call of the song whispering . . .

  Follow the Northern Wind’s call . . .

  Training and instinct.

  “Because it pleases me,” Drakis replied.

  “How far north?” Ethis pressed.

  “. . . Forget it, Dre,” the tall boy said smiling down at him as they worked under the sunshine in the fields. “It’s too far to walk no matter how long . . .”

  “As far north as we must,” Drakis snapped, then turned to Belag. “So this is all there is then?”

  “Aye,” Belag nodded his great head. “Many are dead . . . many more have lost their minds . . . others deny their own thoughts and can imagine no other life. We are all who have come.”

  “Then it will have to be enough,” Drakis turned, but the large hand of the manticore turned him back around.

  “Please,” Belag said, his huge, yellow eyes peering into Drakis’ face. “Tell me . . . I have to know . . .”

  “Belag, we’ve got to move now while . . .”

  “Please,” the manticore said, gripping the human by both shoulders. “I have to know . . . are you the One?”

  Drakis let out a quick, short breath.

  Jugar spoke from behind somewhere at his back.

  “Yes,” the dwarf said with words deliberate and carefully spoken. “Tell us: Are you the warrior-king of the prophecy?”

  The Hall of the Past soared above him, not yet fallen to flame and rubble but as it stood just hours before.

  “Are you a god?”

  The dwarf smiled in return, “Ah . . . you want to know if I am a god?”

  Drakis glanced at the flaming ruin across the hilltop.

  “Belag,” he said, his mouth suddenly dry. “That depends.”

  The manticore gazed at him, his eyes puzzled for a time, and then he nodded slowly as he turned away. Belag gathered the still-shaken RuuKag and the Lyric to him and then moved with them down the hill following the line of darkened totems. Ethis considered for a moment and then gathered the cloth at the back of the dwarf’s neck into one of his strong hands. The two of them followed the manticore and his charges down the slope.

  Drakis watched them for a moment and then turned and bent down, offering his hand to the woman with whom he had hoped for so much earlier that same morning.

  “Mala, it’s time to go.”

  The young human woman sat on the ground, her face turned toward the flames. She spoke, but it was not for anyone’s ears. “I liked it here. It was . . . terrible and . . . unspeakable . . . but at least I didn’t have to know about it. Now I’ll have to carry it with me . . . and I don’t want the burden. Was it so bad, really, just to love you and hope for something better . . . even if it would never come . . . rather than to know it could never be?”

  “It was a lie, Mala,” he said softly.

  “But it was a lovely lie,” she sighed.

  He drew her up from the ground. The others had already started down the slope, following the now-dead totems, their lights extinguished, back toward the Fold Temple. He turned away from the ruin of his former life and led her by her hand down the slope.

  Mala followed, her eyes looking back all the way.

  Book 2:

  THE PREY

  CHAPTER 16

  Heart of the Empire

  SOEN TJEN-REI, Inquisitor of the elven Order of the Iblisi, stepped through the delicately inlaid twenty-foot tall doors, grateful for the warmth of the radiant sun that thawed his chill bones. The grand reception hall had been unbelievably cold—undoubtedly someone’s interpretation of the Emperor’s Will—which even his layers of ceremonial robes were of little help in keeping at bay. It might have felt warmer to him, he reflected, if he had had any real interest in the proceedings. Imperial audiences were, it was true, generally convoluted and complex as the centerpiece of the game of Imperial politics should be. And yes, there was an occasional death and even moments of honest surprise to be had, but this was a game for the Ministers and Masters of the Orders to play . . . not an elf like him.

  He was an Inquisitor of the Iblisi, and his province was the truth—something generally unknown and unwanted in the Imperial audiences.

  He stood at the railed edge of the Emperor’s Cloud Palace and surveyed the enormous city arrayed below him. The palace was currently facing west toward the setting sun. Its rays reflected off the thousands of gleaming avatrium that hung over the city like glorious lilies floating on an invisible pond. Many of those closest to the Emperor’s own floating palace were of extraordinary grace and size, an obvious display of power and wealth that required no further word to be spoken on the subject. That they grew smaller and, in his eye, more reasonable the farther they were situated toward the horizon was ye
t another indication that he was standing at the very center around which the entire world revolved.

  At least for today, he thought with a frown. For today.

  Below him and between the forest of avatrium, Soen caught sight of the Coliseum and the northern edge of the great Circus. Several gladiators were practicing on the Coliseum floor, smaller than ants to his eye at this distance. Almost overshadowing them was the towering avatria of Myrdin-dai—the center of that Order’s mystical power and teachings. The Myrdin-dai were currently basking in the glory of their contribution to the victory over the last of the Dwarven Kings. Their planning, execution, and management of the folds had been publicly recognized as a contributing factor in the conquest, and the grace of the Imperial thanks rested with them. This praise went down very hard with the Occuran, the Order that was in constant competition with the Myrdin-dai for control of the Aether and the network of folds that it powered. The Myrdin-dai’s recent management of the fold system for the war seemed to be a shift in the Imperial favor—and the Occuran were forced to offer their respects with as much dignity as society demanded. His own Order, the Iblisi, was closely tied to the Occuran. Soen’s presence at the audience today was intended to demonstrate to the Myrdin-dai that the Iblisi would not be diminished in the eyes of the Emperor despite their ties to the Occuran.

  He sighed and looked west down the curving length of the wide avenue known as the Vira Rhonas until his gaze drifted to the horizon and the setting sun.

  How did I come to this? he thought as he shifted uncomfortably in the layered, exquisite robes. An Inquisitor of the Iblisi whose very name has been whispered with dread and awe in the farthest outposts of the Empire, and now I stand here as an errand boy fawning to the Imperial Will. He had seen more of the Empire than any other living elf, so far as he knew, and at that it was only a fraction of the glory that rested under the sure hand of the Emperor. He had stalked rebel manticores across their own rolling plains in the Chaenandria Reaches. He had sailed in war galleys against the separatists of the Benis Isles and infiltrated the conspiracy of the Aergus Coast Barons.

  That was what had done him in; the fall of the Barons had whispered his name in the Imperial ear. He was no longer an Inquisitor but had somehow transcended that to become a symbol—the incarnation of Iblisi fealty to the Emperor and his damnable Will. That Soen’s original mission had been merely to investigate whether the Iblisi should give covert aid to the Barons was conveniently washed away in a sea of sophistry, and he emerged from the cleansing a pure hero and loyal servant of the Empire.

  Such was his fate—a comedy for the enjoyment of the gods while he languished in the cold heart of Imperial Glory.

  Soen turned from the railing. Such melancholy did not become him, he decided, as he stepped across the polished granite, rounding the path that circumnavigated the base of the Cloud Palace’s enormous avatria. Though the way was broad, it quickly became crowded with petitioners, guildmasters, clerks, cagistrates and ministers, not to mention the ubiquitous Cloud Guardians.

  Soen knew from the chevrons on their breastplates that the Guardians were of the Order of the Vash—one of three separate military orders who vied for Imperial favor in the Empire. Each maintained their headquarters within the boundaries of Tsujen’s Wall, the demarcation of the older part of the city and romantically considered the most blessed by the gods. The Iblisi had a number of agreements in place with the Vash and often supported them in their dealings with the Ministry of Conquest. Their being entrusted as the Cloud Guardians—replacing the Order of the Krish—should have worked to his advantage.

  But no advantage, it seemed, could get him off of the Cloud Palace any faster. There were seven towers rising from the perimeter of the garden far below and surrounding the great palace’s hovering avatria. Each tower represented one of the Seven Estates of elven society, and each provided ascending and descending shaft access to the palace . . . limited, of course, to those of a specified Estate or higher. That he would mix at all with the Sixth or Fifth Estate traffic was unthinkable, and though he could see the Fourth Tower entrance, the very thought of packing himself in with the rest of the lowing herd of guild traffic made his skin crawl. He could, he knew, turn and reenter the palace itself, but that held the danger of encountering someone that he either knew or should know and thereby being trapped in yet another round of favor trading, positioning, and influence bargaining, all delivered in subtext, context, and always from behind a smile.

  Though he personally had an intense dislike of being touched by anyone, he would rather push his way through a mob than deal with another politician. He managed to cut his own path through the throng and was relieved to see the wide walkway beyond leading to the Tower of the Third Estate free of all but a handful of masters and ministers. He quickly followed the gleaming path as it continued around the base of the Cloud Palace until it came at last to a nearly deserted platform and its bridge to the Third Tower.

  Soen had long ago set aside the privileges associated with being a descendant of a noble House . . . but at times like this, he reflected, it had its convenient uses. He quickly crossed the bridge with its crystal lattice railings and ornate renderings of the crests of those Houses that had donated to its construction. Then he passed through the archway into the tower itself.

  Soen stood on a wide platform opening onto one of two shafts that plunged down the full height of the towers. This one was the descending shaft and was filled with a blue swirling light. He stepped out over the precipice without hesitation and began his slow drift downward through the air.

  It was a fine defensive mechanism, he thought, as he drifted down past the occasional window cut into the curved wall. You had to have access to the Aether to use the shaft—and the only ones who had access to the Aether were the elves.

  Soen frowned. The elves had not always been the only ones to command the power of Aether, he knew, but that fact was only one grain of sand in the mountain of secrets that he and all of the Iblisi kept.

  Keeping the truth safe was the essence of their work.

  The Iblisi’s feet touched softly on the fitted stones at the base of the Third Tower, and he stepped quickly through the arch opening into the evening air. The Garden of Kuchen spread before him, teaming with elves as was common at this time late in the day. The setting sun cast a warm glow across the wide garden. It was a beautiful place, carefully manicured and maintained in honor of the Emperor’s wife, for whom it was currently named, and shaded over all by the titanic bulk of the Cloud Palace directly overhead. It smelled green and alive and called to the souls of the elves who came to it each day that they might forget the walls they had built to enclose themselves and the desperation of their spirits that longed for open space but had compromised themselves into servitude to the Will of the Emperor in all its incarnations.

  Soen hated it, for it reminded him of the true fields and green spaces that were far from this place. Having tasted of its truth, it was hard for him to endure the lie. So he walked around the edge of the garden as quickly as he could on the south side, following the fitted cobblestones of the Vira Rhonas past where they intersected with the Vira Condemnis to the south. He barely glanced in the direction of the Forums of the Estates, which stood behind rows of standing columns down the arcade to his left. Both the Circus and the Coliseum could be found in that direction, but he had little use for the games and no time for them in any event. Beyond the forums the Vira Rhonas widened, cutting a broad curving path through the heart of the Imperial City that was nearly as old as the Empire itself.

  The Vira was just beginning to come to life with the evening revels. Litters supported by teams of manticorian slaves quickly jogged up and down the street, bearing their masters to and fro at their whim. A number of Fifth Estate hawkers served their guild Orders by calling out their wares to the growing crowd. As he walked down the street, Soen saw a dwarf—a rare enough sight even in the Imperial City—dancing nervously before a group of jeering elven y
outh. They prodded the stumpy creature with their ornamental swords.

  Soen shook his head. Poor dwarf. The youth today had taken to wearing these next-to-useless engraved blades as a fashion. Now, with the news of the victory over the Last Kingdom, that dwarf was almost certain not to live through the night of celebrations.

  Next his eye was caught by a string of Muserian slaves—orange-hewed barbarian elves from the southern Aergus Coast—being pulled wide-eyed behind a manticorian overseer. He walked beside them, eyeing them with mild curiosity before the overseer turned southward down the Vira Coliseum. They were destined for one of the newer noble Houses that had sprung up on the west side of the River Jolnar against the Mnerian Hills, Soen thought idly. Poor fools.

  But poor fools aren’t we all, he reflected as he continued between the buildings on either side of the paved stones. The structures on his right were known collectively as The Ministries. There were no fewer than thirteen separate main ministries and more than an equal number of subministries making up each of those. The mandates of the various ministries overlapped each other in the most confusing of ways, and yet it was the Emperor’s Will not only that this mess not be straightened out but that it reflected a wonderful redundancy in the government—that should one ministry fail to work toward the Imperial Will, then another would surely do so. The jurisdictional battles among the separate ministries of Health, Nutrition and—for reasons beyond Soen’s understanding—Caravans were perennial. The Ministry of War and the Ministry of Security, it was said, fought more battles between them as allies in the Emperor’s Will than in the field against any enemy.

  This was further complicated by the strict caste system of the Estates, which dated back to the founding of the Empire by Rhonas and which had since those ancient days been so carefully codified that progression between the estates was, by Imperial decree, to rest only in the hands of the Emperor personally.