“First,” Asari said, “they want to know whether we will listen to them. They want an honest hearing.”
Aldassi nodded. “Fair enough. I'll talk to my father when I get a chance,” he said. “I'm not promising anything.”
“Of course,” Asari said, bowing.
#
Rebiri Nazakri stared at his son, and Aldassi suppressed a shudder. The magic had changed the old man, Aldassi thought. His father had always been cold and hard, but now he scarcely seemed human. Even when he was not actually holding his staff the Nazakri seemed to be surrounded by darkness, and his eyes, always dark, now seemed to almost possess the black-beyond-black of a nightwalker's eyes.
Ungrateful though the thought was, Aldassi could not help being relieved that he had not himself tried to bind darkness in his power-trapping crystals. His was still the same New Magic that Tebas Tudan had taught, capturing sunlight, and with it the energy of the gods themselves.
That had initially been his father's choice, not his own – Rebiri had told Aldassi that the wise warrior always carried more than a single weapon. Better they should have both the light and the dark in their arsenal than to rely on only one or the other.
Aldassi had not argued. He was comfortable with the light, while the darkness made him uneasy – and he suspected that he had become sufficiently fraught with the sunlit magic that the deep darkness would never come near him. Tebas Tudan had told Aldassi privately, before the two Olnami left the school in Fadari Tu, that he was twice the magician his father was, and there might even have been some truth in it, but Aldassi doubted that he could have handled those dark things as well as Rebiri did.
“Are they Domdur?” Rebiri demanded.
“What?” Aldassi asked.
“These people who want to bargain with us,” Rebiri said. “Are they Domdur?”
“I don't know yet,” Aldassi admitted, “but I think so.”
“If they are, they must die,” Rebiri said. “I won't let any Domdur traitors survive my vengeance – being Domdur is enough, and being traitors to their own kind dooms them a second time. If they're Diknoi or Matuan or some other such tribe then they may live, and serve the Olnami if they choose. I have no objection to setting ourselves atop a new empire, if that's what they want – but not if it means sparing any of the Domdur.”
“But, Father,” Aldassi said, “what if – ”
Rebiri held up a hand, and his son fell silent.
“I did not say we would not deal with them,” the old man said. “If they offer to help us, we will accept that aid. But understand, my son – our word is good, yet the Domdur must die. Say what you must to convince them to destroy their own people, but you must not swear any oaths that would bind us as we would not be bound. My ancestor Basari made that mistake, and we will not repeat it. Speak gently, twist words – make them hear what they want to hear, rather than what we say.”
Aldassi nodded. “I understand, and I'll do my best.”
“You have your staff,” Rebiri said.
“Of course.”
Rebiri nodded. “If you must fly to Seidabar to treat with these people, you have my blessing to do so,” he said. “But make no promises! Let them fool themselves, Aldassi. Do not lie – but tell only those truths that will aid us.”
“Yes,” Aldassi said. “As you say.”
Three days later Aldassi sat in a small, richly-appointed chamber and spoke to a high-ranking Domdur lord. He said, “We can promise nothing before we have seen proof that you are truly on our side.”
He did not say that they would promise nothing in any case, or that no Domdur could ever be on the Olnami side.
He said, “We will find places for those who please my father.”
He did not say that for some the places the Nazakri would find would be graves, or that no Domdur could ever please Rebiri Nazakri.
His listeners heard what they chose to hear.
The Nazakri's army marched westward, and as it marched there were some who awaited its eventual coming not with dread, but with anticipation.
Chapter Twenty-Four
An hour after their talk with the magicians, Malledd and Vadeviya were back in Vadeviya's study. This time Malledd took the window seat, looking out over the rooftops of Biekedau, while Vadeviya sat at the writing table. Malledd's belly was satisfied, but his mind was not.
He had spoken with three of the magicians in all, and with an aide to the Imperial representative in Biekedau who had come in with a message to send. The aide had refused to say anything definite about almost anything – but then, he wasn't a priest, and Malledd had not tried to use Dolkout's letter as leverage with him.
The three messengers had all agreed, though – the army in Seidabar was large and growing, enthusiastic but lacking in training and armament, while Rebiri Nazakri's capabilities were unknown.
“What would happen,” Malledd asked from the window seat, “if the Nazakri did destroy Seidabar?”
“That would depend on many things,” Vadeviya replied. “Are you supposing that the Empress and her court escaped, or not? Are you assuming Rebiri Nazakri would be satisfied by the destruction, or that he would die in accomplishing it? Do you think the gods would intervene?”
“I don't know,” Malledd said, looking out the window. The sun was sinking westward, and the town was criss-crossed by lengthening shadows. He had never seen it from this angle before, had never before looked down on any town from a window like this. “It's so hard to believe, this talk of a war hundreds of miles away, with nightwalkers and evil magicians.”
“I doubt Rebiri Nazakri considers himself evil, Malledd.”
“But isn't he evil?” Malledd asked. “He wants to destroy the government that's kept the world happy and at peace for centuries.”
“The way he sees it, he wants to destroy the people who defeated and subjugated his ancestors.”
“His ancestors are long dead. Destroying Seidabar won't bring them back.”
“But it will avenge them.”
“What good will that do?”
Vadeviya didn't have an answer for that.
“If Seidabar falls,” Malledd asked again, “what will happen to the rest of the world?”
“No one knows,” Vadeviya replied. “I would guess that other people in various parts of the world will see it as the end of the Domdur Empire, and dozens, or hundreds, of provinces will rebel and reassert their independence. If the Empress dies violently, there will probably be civil war among the Domdur as various claimants vie for the throne – Prince Graubris' presumed succession is already troubled by the lack of oracular confirmation, and a military disaster would serve to discredit it completely. It won't be very pleasant.”
“But how could anyone oppose the Prince's claim?”
“His older sister could easily argue that her seniority is more important than her sex, Malledd, while Prince Zolous, who is, after all, only ten minutes younger, could point out that of the Empress' three children, only he has heirs of his own.”
“I hadn't thought about that,” Malledd said. “It seems so far away.”
“It is far away. But there could be a civil war, all the same.”
“And if there is a civil war, or rebellions in the outlying provinces,” Malledd asked, “how far would it spread? Would anything happen here? Or in Grozerodz?”
“Probably,” Vadeviya said. “Armies will be marching, and they'll need men and supplies. No place would be entirely safe.”
“The gods would allow it – civil war and rebellion? They would allow the destruction of Seidabar?”
Vadeviya nodded. “As far as we know, yes,” he said. “Unless you believe the legends about the days before the Selection of the Domdur, the gods have never really interfered all that much in human affairs beyond guiding the Empire with oracles and champions. Now they don't even do that. Since the oracles fell silent there hasn't been a single documented case of divine intervention.”
“But don't they favor t
he Domdur?”
Vadeviya was slow to answer that, but at last he said, “For a thousand years, they did – but the gods can change. Perhaps they favor us no longer. It might well be that some dark god has granted this Rebiri Nazakri his power specifically to overthrow the Domdur.”
Malledd's head snapped around, and he stared at the old priest.
“You're a Domdur priest,” he said, “yet you can doubt the gods' favor?”
“I am an honest man, Malledd, even with myself,” Vadeviya replied. “Or at least I try to be. The gods will no longer tell us what they want, or what they intend; we don't know what they're doing. It may be that they have deserted us – or it may be that they're testing our faith by feigning such a desertion, and they'll save us in the end. I don't know. No one does.”
“You don't even know, then, if I am the gods' champion, with the gifts they promised.”
“True enough,” Vadeviya agreed. “You were truly the chosen one when you were born, and in all the thousand years of the Empire no champion has ever been renounced – but never before were the oracles silent. It may be that you are only a smith, and Rebiri Nazakri is now the gods' chosen one, or that some other has been chosen, or that there is no champion.”
Malledd was silent for a moment. Then he asked, “Such uncertainty does not trouble you?”
“Oh, it troubles me very much,” Vadeviya said. “Just as it's troubled you all your life. I'm not going to deceive myself to end my discomfort, though, any more than you have. You're here today because you're unsure what you should do, where your true duties lie. You want me to tell you, and to put all my authority as a senior priest behind it. Well, I'm sorry, Malledd, but I can't do that, because I don't know where your duties truly lie. I believe that you have a responsibility to the Empire that supersedes your desire to stay safely at home with your wife and children, if only because they'll be in as much danger as any other Domdur family if Seidabar falls, but I don't know it to be true – it may be that the gods will strike the Nazakri dead tomorrow. I believe you're still the gods' champion, because while the gods can change, they have never been so capricious as such a change would be – but I don't know.”
“I never asked to be champion,” Malledd said.
“None of us asked to be born what we are,” Vadeviya replied. “I did not choose to be a man, but I accept the responsibilities of manhood.”
Malledd shook his head. “It's not the same,” he said. He sat speechless for a long moment, thinking, remembering what he had told Anva. He had said he would come straight home from Biekedau.
But that was before he had heard the magicians talking about the inexperienced Imperial Army facing this infernal wizard. Hundreds had already died at Nazakri's hand, and hundreds more might die. Seidabar might fall. The whole world might collapse into chaos.
And what would stop the chaos from striking at Grozerodz, at Anva and Neyil and Poria and Arshui?
It seemed much more real, much more immediate, here in Vadeviya's study than it had back home. His own designation as the gods' chosen seemed more believable than ever before when he saw the priests waiting on his every whim; whatever his own doubts, it was clear that the people of this temple believed every word in Dolkout's letter.
He could return to Grozerodz for now – the enemy was still far to the east – but he feared that if he once went back then all he had seen and heard here would fade, that he would be unable to tear himself away from Anva again.
He had told Anva he would come home to her – but he couldn't yet.
He struggled to convince himself. At last, he said, “I will go to Seidabar – as a smith, though, no more. You may believe I am still the chosen of the gods, but I do not.”
Vadeviya nodded.
“I would ask one more favor before I go,” Malledd said. “Might I have paper and pen, and would someone take a message to my wife in Grozerodz?”
“Is that all?” Vadeviya asked. “You forget, Malledd, that whatever you may believe, you can still can command every priest in this temple as if we were your slaves. If you ask, we will send a dozen priestesses to wait on your wife hand and foot, and a dozen strong priests will carry you to Seidabar on their shoulders, singing your praise with every step.”
“I am only a smith,” Malledd insisted. Then he hesitated. “But if you could send a woman to help Anva with the children, perhaps...” He flushed with embarrassment at his own presumption.
“It will be done,” Vadeviya promised. “In fact, I'll send two.”
“Then I had best be going.” He rose from the windowseat. “It's a long way to Seidabar.”
“Too long to start tonight! We'll find you a bed here, and leave in the morning.”
“We?” Malledd asked, startled.
“Certainly,” Vadeviya said, smiling. “You've never been to Seidabar, have you?”
Malledd admitted he had not.
“Then you'll need a guide, an advisor. I spent three years in the capital as a novice, and I've visited on occasion since; I don't know its every street and building, but I can provide at least a little help.”
Malledd hesitated. “But... don't you...”
“I have no duties here any more, Malledd,” Vadeviya said, his smile fading. “I'm an old man who's finished his assigned tasks, and is kept on out of loyalty. I would like very much to accompany you to Seidabar, to see what happens there – after all, however the war turns out, think what a tale it will be to tell my sister's grandchildren if I am witness to the final battle. To say I saw Rebiri Nazakri slain on the banks of the Grebiguata, or that I watched him march in triumph through the burning ruins of Seidabar – that's a story worth the seeing, and worth the telling, isn't it?”
Malledd had no further arguments to make; after all, he couldn't prevent Vadeviya from coming to Seidabar if the priest chose to do so, and to be honest, a familiar face might be very welcome in a strange city.
“As you wish,” he said. “But I do ask that you tell no one – no one – that I am the gods' chosen unless I have consented beforehand.”
Vadeviya smiled. “Agreed,” he said.
Malledd smiled back, then turned his gaze out the window again.
The shadows were thick in the streets and creeping across the lower rooftops, the sky in the west beginning to redden. In the distance, almost on the horizon, Malledd could glimpse a sliver of gold that he recognized as a bend in the Vren River, well downstream from Biekedau.
Tomorrow he would cross the Vren for the first time in his life, leave the familiar hills for the plain, and set out for Seidabar, the Imperial City, home of Her Imperial Majesty Beretris, Queen of the Domdur and Empress of All the World.
He shivered at the thought, and turned away.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I don't care what Mother says!” shouted Princess Darisei, stamping angrily across the lush Iyaran carpet in a fashion more suited to someone a tenth her age. “Why should an Emperor be preferable to an Empress? She's done just fine for the past fifty-five years!” She reached the broad, many-paned window and spun to face the others, the bright summer sunlight pouring in around her.
“The Empire was always at peace then,” her brother Zolous said calmly. He was settled comfortably in one of the big tapestry-upholstered chairs, watching his elder sister with brotherly tolerance. He had a rather strong suspicion that her sex was merely an excuse, and that their mother had chosen their brother Graubris for more personal reasons.
“The Empire will be at peace,” Granzer said, from where he stood beside the unlit hearth. “This stupid rebellion can't last long.”
“You're sure of that?” Zolous asked.
“I hope you're right,” Graubris remarked. He was slumped into the other tapestry chair, in the shadows beside the window.
“Of course I'm sure, and of course I'm right,” Granzer replied, leaning back against the stones. “We're destined to rule. The gods aren't going to reverse a thousand years of history.”
“W
e are destined to rule,” Darisei corrected him from her place in the sun. She pointed a long finger at Granzer. “You just married me.”
“If you like,” Granzer said mildly.
Zolous suppressed a smile – Darisei would not have appreciated it had she seen him smiling, but he could not help being amused, all the same. Here they were, the three siblings bickering over who would rule the Empire when their mother died – as Zolous certainly hoped she wouldn't do any time soon – when their cousin Granzer, as the President of the Imperial Council, actually ruled the Empire now.
Zolous had to admit, to himself at least, that he harbored hopes of somehow taking the throne himself someday; certainly he thought he could do a better job than his hot-tempered sister, and he thought he could match anything Graubris might do. Graubris had been moody ever since poor little Maurezoi died; Zolous suspected that the relationship between Graubris and his wife Gaudiga had never recovered from that blow. Zolous had noticed that Gaudiga was not at the family meeting Darisei had called.
His own wife, Daunla, wasn't there either – but she had never been very concerned with politics, and was at home, three floors below and one wing over, helping their daughter Dallis plan her wedding.
And that brought up a key reason that Zolous was not terribly concerned if he himself had little chance of becoming Emperor. Zolous had surviving children, while neither Darisei nor Graubris did, which meant that whoever succeeded Beretris, the chances were very good that it would be Zolous' children who carried on the dynasty in the long run. Darisei was over fifty, too old to have any children of her own; Graubris could theoretically still father heirs, but showed no signs of doing so. That left Zolous, with his four daughters and two sons, as the dynasty's best hope for the future. No matter who succeeded Beretris it seemed inevitable that eventually Dallis or Vali or one of their sibs would reign in Seidabar. Zolous smiled, despite trying not to; he might have lost out on the throne by being born ten minutes after his brother, but he had the satisfaction of knowing that his offspring would almost certainly inherit anyway.
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