Empire

by Michael R. Hicks

  She could see relief wash over Reza’s face. She was surprised how well she could interpret his body language, not because she could understand that of the humans, but because the language of his body had become Kreelan.

  “Esah-Zhurah…” he said. Then he stopped, not sure how to continue.

  She watched as he struggled with himself for a moment, until the strange strength that dwelt within him surfaced, washing away the creases of doubt on his face.

  “There is much for which I feel compelled to hate you, to hate your kind,” he explained, his eyes drawn to the fire as if in search of the meaning of his fate. “For the deaths of my parents, at the hands of the priestess herself. For the destruction of the world of my birth, and the many lives that perished there. For the destruction of the planet from which I was taken, a world I often hated, but which I had come to call home. And for all of the death that has been wrought upon my people, on a scale I will never be able to understand, and will never truly be able to feel in my heart.” He looked up at her, his face betraying an open vulnerability that shocked her as strongly as if she had been doused with freezing water. “For all this, I cannot find it in me to truly hate you, my tresh, my teacher. There are many among my kind who would condemn me to death as a traitor for those words, but they are nonetheless true, and to deny them, or leave them unspoken, would be to lie to myself.” He looked back to the fire, helplessly. “There was a time, not so long ago,” he whispered, “when I wanted to beat you, to destroy you, to make you feel pain a thousand times what I felt every time you beat me. But…” he shrugged. “But I found, after a while, that I wanted your respect, your trust, more than anything else.” He fell silent for a moment. “The greatest fear I have,” he went on, “is that I will fail you, will bring shame upon you. And that… you will shun me.”

  Esah-Zhurah did not know what to say. Never had she thought such a time as this would come, when this human, so full of fight and anger, would reveal such a thing to her, something that could be exploited as a terrible weakness.

  But that was the point, she told herself. He had laid himself open to her, in hopes that she would not turn his words against him, that he could trust her. And, in a decision that shocked the part of her mind that carried the xenophobic character of her race, a race that had exterminated over a dozen sentient species in past millennia, she committed herself to guarding his trust.

  “I will not abandon you,” she said simply, openly. “Whatever the Way brings us, we shall share in it together.”

  * * *

  Later, after they had banked the fire and lay down for the night, Reza remained awake. His mind was consumed by thoughts that swirled and circled like wolves around a stricken deer, darting just to the edge of focus before they faded into the shadowy darkness once more. The more he watched them, the more they seemed to carry the faces of people he had once known, some of them of a kind his people called “friends,” a relationship that did not exist among the society that had kidnapped him.

  One of the wolf faces, an old man with the eyes of a young warrior, especially troubled him. The eyes did not accuse, but Reza could not help but feel that he had somehow betrayed the being that lay behind the mask that lunged and retreated within his mind.

  Wiley, he suddenly thought, wincing at the foreign sound of the name even as he breathed it in his mind, am I a traitor?

  “Do whatever you can to stay alive, son,” the old colonel had said that day so long ago, “If anybody can make it, you can…”

  Wiley, Reza cried to himself, must I become one of them to make it? Do I have any choice? For just a moment, he bitterly resented the old man’s leaving him, going off to die himself as Reza was taken by the cruel fate that had pursued him since the fall of New Constantinople.

  But the moment blinked away into nothingness, just as the wolfish thought-face blurred into oblivion. Wiley had been wise enough to know when it was time to die, and had done so with the dignity of soldiers throughout history who had made one last, hopeless stand against the invaders of their homeland. And, aside from the admission letter he had given Reza for the academy, the old man had left Reza with the only other gift he could give: a chance at life. And Reza knew then that if he chose to trust this alien girl, to allow himself that vital weakness before her, Wiley would understand.

  Slowly, the beasts in his brain retreated into the darkness, only their glittering eyes remaining, flickering in the glow of the fire.

  He blinked, but the glowing eyes remained. Suddenly, he realized that he was seeing the silvery glint of Esah-Zhurah’s talons. Her hands lay on the skins near her face, the ebbing firelight making them twinkle like stars against the satiny glow of her deep blue skin as she slept. Reza felt another sudden twinge of guilt at the thought of how much he had come to need her, to rely on her. Worse, he found that he was beginning to like her.

  What might things be like, he thought, should she someday come to lead her people? Would her association with him have any effect, make any difference in how they viewed humanity? It was difficult for a boy, struggling simply to remain human, let alone to become a man, to comprehend the fact that he was an ambassador, of sorts, to these people. While this particular course of his life had not been chosen willingly, he was nonetheless determined to make the best impression he could, to do whatever he could to help the people of his own blood. Who could tell, he asked himself, if the girl who lay asleep an arm’s length away might not someday sit on the throne that commanded the Empire? The thought settled onto his brain like an insistent ache, an itch that insisted it be scratched.

  “Esah-Zhurah,” he said quietly, hating to disturb her, but unable to put off the question until morning.

  Her eyes flickered open and she looked around, confused. “What is wrong?” she asked, one hand instinctively reaching for the knife that lay nearby.

  “Nothing is wrong,” he told her, ashamed now for awaking her. But the question in his brain pounded against his skull. “Nothing. It is just that… I have to ask you something. I am sorry, but I did not think it could wait until morning.”

  Ah, she thought, he is back to his normal inquisitive self. Good. Even after the revelations earlier in the evening, he had still remained uncharacteristically quiet, and this urgent need for information reassured her that all was yet well. She knew that he would have to discipline himself against the urgency of his curiosity, but this was not yet something she thought fitting to punish or dissuade; in fact, it was a vice she found enjoyable. “What is it,” she asked, “that cannot wait for the light of the sun?”

  For a moment, Reza was almost afraid to answer, suddenly realizing that she had taught him virtually nothing about the succession rites, that his question might put him on perilously thin ice culturally: matters regarding the Empress were not to be addressed lightly. It was something they’d never talked about before.

  “I was wondering,” he began, swallowing as he forged ahead, “how… the Empress is chosen. I mean, could you someday become Empress?”

  Esah-Zhurah’s expression clouded, became unreadable. Reza feared that he had made a major blunder.

  “No, Reza,” she told him after a moment. She spoke not with anger, but with sadness. “Of all the things I may accomplish in my life, I may never become Empress.” She paused. “Never.”

  “Why?” he asked, rolling onto his side, propping his head up with his arm to look at her.

  “It is because of what happened long ago,” she began, “in a time when our Empire was of one world, when warriors – male and female – answered the call of their blood.” She rolled over on her back, her eyes focusing on the far distant stars. “Mine is a very old race, Reza, far older than your own. We live now in the time of the First Empire, which began over one hundred thousand of your Standard years in the past. But the earliest records of our civilization go back much, much further, perhaps as far as five hundred thousand of your years. And it is in the twilight ages between those times that the legend of the First
Empress was born, in the days when the Old Tongue was widely spoken and unbridled warfare was rife across the land.

  “Before the First Empire was founded,” she explained, “the legends say that rival city-states vied for dominance, for power. We rose to the pinnacle of civilization time and again during the course of many generations, only to be plunged into renewed dark ages by frenzied, uncontrollable warfare. Many times, leaders banded their nations together with strength and cunning to lead us out of darkness, but when they fell the land was plunged into chaos once more.

  “But there came a day,” she said, her voice filled with awe, “when a child was born in the city of Keela’ar, born to a great queen and her consort. The child, whose hair was white as the snow atop the mountains and had rare red talons, was named Keel-Tath.

  “Keel-Tath’s parents, as was the custom in those days, entrusted their daughter’s training to one of the warrior priestesses of the Desh-Ka, and in time she took the reins of her mother’s domain into her own hands.

  “Cycles passed, and time saw her expand her domain across the face of the known world. And before her hair had grown long past her waist, she stood before her entire race as Empress: the leader of all, the first to unite our world.

  “In the cycles after the Unification,” Esah-Zhurah went on after a moment of silent reflection, “Tara-Khan, a male warrior who was the greatest of his kind, perhaps the greatest who has ever lived, won her heart. He had slain her enemies upon the field of battle just as he now warmed her bed with his love. In time, she was with child, a child who would be born with white hair, who would someday become her successor upon the throne. The two were happy, so say the legends, and the Empire prospered in Her good graces.

  “But there came a warrior who sought to usurp the power of the Empress, a warrior whose name has long since been stricken from the Books of Time in the darkest of disgrace. For he was Tara-Khan’s tresh, and he betrayed his brother of the Way. As the Empress lay in her chambers, giving birth to her child, the usurper lured Tara-Khan away from her side, telling him of a plot within the palace to kill the Empress and her child. The usurper led Tara-Khan into a trap, where the betrayers and his followers fell upon him. Many did Tara-Khan slay, but he did not count on the treachery of his companion; the usurper’s blade pierced Tara-Khan’s back, and so did he fall.

  “When the deed was done, the usurper and his mistress, the high priestess of one of the ancient orders, now long forgotten in the depths of its disgrace, led more of their followers to the Empress’s chambers, killing all present save the Empress and Her child. ‘Give me the child,’ the usurper demanded of the Empress, ‘and I shall spare its life, and thus shall Your daughter live as mine own.’ For the great priestess was barren, and longed for what the Empress had, but she could not; and for his twisted love for this woman did the usurper demand the Empress’s child.

  “‘And what of Tara-Khan?’ demanded Keel-Tath as the evil ones surrounded Her. ‘His body feeds the wo’olahr of the forest, as yours shall feed my desires,’ the usurper spat in reply as he moved to force himself upon her in a grotesque consummation of his lust and greed.”

  Reza’s skin crawled at the thought, his long-forgotten memories of Muldoon’s diseased cravings suddenly surfacing in his mind.

  “But he was never to touch her,” Esah-Zhurah continued. “Her heart broken at the death of Tara-Khan, Her blood burning in blind rage, She invoked the Curse that has vexed us to this day. The conspirators did Keel-Tath curse, calling upon the powers that lay deep within Her, powers that could change the very shape of our nature.

  “First was cursed the usurper who had betrayed Tara-Khan and threatened to defile Her. Such was the power of his lust, Keel-Tath told him, that lust is all that would remain. And not just for him, but for all his kind. And in moments the warrior began to writhe in agony as his body withered to half its once-proud size, his head shrinking to house a brain that knew only of mating, and could never be home to another treacherous thought. But then she decreed that the urge would be satisfied only once, whereupon he would die in horrible agony. The legends say that on the day following her judgment, there were no more male warriors to be found in the world, only shells that were nothing more than breeding machines that could function but a single time. Only her imperial guards were spared this fate.”

  Reza shuddered at the thought. Even a boy such as he knew that legends were often no more than empty fairy tales, no more real than the Tooth Fairy. But Esah-Zhurah told the tale as if it had happened only yesterday, not millennia – a hundred millennia – before.

  “Then,” Esah-Zhurah went on softly, and Reza had to strain to hear her above the waterfall, “she cast judgment upon the usurper’s mistress. Her punishment was equally terrible. Keel-Tath decreed that the woman and all who shared her bloodline would have what they so desired: to be able to bear children. The usurper’s mistress would be fertile and forever intertwined with the usurper and those like him, now a mere animal in search of a female in heat. Her punishment was that she must breed every cycle of what we now call the Empress Moon, or she would die in terrible pain. She must embrace her lover once, then watch him die in agony. And so she would never forget that she had been barren, one daughter of every two would be infertile, and born with silver claws as witness. The claws such as are upon mine own hands.”

  She turned to face Reza, silently wondering what this alien, this outsider, could think at the misfortune of her race.

  Shocked, Reza understood. She was barren, disgraced by a nameless woman who died millennia ago, and only those who could bear children could sit upon the throne of the Kreelan Empire.

  “And what of the clawless ones?” Reza asked quietly, not wanting to dwell on Esah-Zhurah’s tragic fate. “Did they play a role in this?”

  Esah-Zhurah shook her head in the Kreelan way. “After Keel-Tath had delivered the curse upon the usurper and his mistress,” Esah-Zhurah went on, “She summoned the priestesses of the other orders and bade them to kneel before her. Handing the first her knife, the knife that had belonged to her mother, she commanded the eldest priestess to deliver up the talons of her hands, the very badges of warriorhood, as a sign of loyalty. And the priestess did this, cutting her talons from her fingers, one by one, and dropping the bloody claws into the urn the Empress held forward to receive them. The knife was passed from priestess to priestess and the ritual repeated. After the last had tossed her proud talons into the urn, Keel-Tath cast a spell upon them, that the children of their bloodlines would be born without talons, and would be known forever as those most loyal to Her will.”

  “What happened to her?” Reza asked softly. “To Keel-Tath?”

  “The legends say that she was stricken with grief at the death of her lover. That very day She gave up her child to the high priestess of the Desh-Ka, for her to bring up the child and teach her the Way as tradition demanded. And then Keel-Tath plunged a knife into her own heart, destroying the life in her body. Such was her sorrow, that her spirit did not seek a place among the Ancient Ones; instead, she sought out the Darkness to dwell in grief for all the days of Time.”

  Reza thought for a moment that the terrible tale was finished. But he could tell from her expression that there was something else, a final tragedy on that horrible day so long ago. And then he knew what it was.

  “Tara-Khan was not really dead, was he?” he asked.

  Esah-Zhurah’s eyes focused on him, her eyes gleaming as they reflected the fire’s flames. “And thus do you surprise me once again, Reza,” she told him before continuing her tale. “He made his way back to the palace, more dead than alive, driven by his love for Keel-Tath. But when he arrived, he found her slain by her own hand, and the infant Empress in the hands of the Desh-Ka, its young spirit crying in grief and incomprehension. He lay down beside his lover, and with his last breath did he vow to protect Her evermore from those who might travel beyond this world to seek Her power in the name of evil. And thus did he die. After that, no on
e knows exactly what happened to Her. Legend has it that Her body disappeared, Tara-Khan’s body and the imperial guard with it. No one knows where they may have gone.

  “Over time,” she said, drawing her tale to a close, “the bloodlines were said to merge, and now those of the black claws and those with none must mate every cycle, or death will take them. Of the children, those who bear these,” she held her silver claws to the light, “are only spectators to the continuance of our people, forever barred from the throne by sterility. And tradition demands that the Empress must be possessed of white hair, a direct descendant of Keel-Tath.”

  Reza didn’t believe in what sounded like magic in the legends, but with a race this ancient, who could know? Regardless, he felt sick. Despite the horrors he had suffered at the hands of these people, despite the untold suffering of humanity before their attacking fleets, he pitied them. With his entire heart, he pitied them. Such a wonderful and proud race, violent though it might be, doomed to such a horrible fate.

  “Esah-Zhurah,” he stuttered, wanting to offer something, but not really knowing what to say. “I am… sorry. For all of you.”

  She looked at him closely for a moment, and he thought for just an instant he saw punishment looming in her eyes. But it vanished with the shifting of the dying flames, and her beautiful cat’s eyes softened again.

  “Save your sorrows for your own people,” she told him. “The Children of the Empress need not your pity.” With that, she turned away from him, drawing her skins tightly around her as she fought to ward off the chill of the night and the visions of Keel-Tath’s legacy to her people.

  And as sleep stole upon her, she thought of something that never would have occurred to her, never in all her life, had not Reza asked his question this night.