The Argument of Empires

by Jacob T. Helvey

  “Then the whole world really is falling apart around me,” Tain said. He didn’t sound sad, even surprised. More matter-of-fact.

  “Then I’ll leave you to watch,” Grith said. He turned and walked over to the rock on which he had waited. He took a deep breath and picked up the pack.

  “No,” Tain growled, coming towards him. He undid his own sword, pulling at the knotted cords in a way that told Grith he wasn’t planning to use the weapon. He held the sheathed saber forward in one hand, his other palm up. “Trade you. That pack for my sword.”

  Grith stopped dead. “What?” This made no sense. It wasn’t how it was supposed to have gone. Where was the anger? The threats? The fighting? Tain didn’t look calm, far from it in fact, but he seemed to accept what Grith had done in killing his master. That alone disturbed him more than anything.

  “You shouldn’t be the one walking out onto those plains,” said Tain. “I should.”

  “What about the army? Irrin’s lords?” Grith didn’t even know if the High Lord had a child. He’d never bothered to ask. If he was without an heir, then the succession would be a bloody mess, especially without the guiding hand of the Emperor to oversee it.

  “My duty was to Irrin, not to his lords. Now that he’s…” He took a deep breath. “Now that he’s gone, I have nothing left holding me here. You do.”

  Grith shook his head and motioned towards the shadowed camp. “What could I possibly have here?”

  “You’re one of the finest Delvers I’ve ever seen. You killed that Cutaran Enforcer single-handedly.” He pointed back towards the camps. “Go,” he implored. “Join the Emperor’s Delvers. If Hadan really is dead then you won’t lack for work.”

  Tain motioned again with his left hand. “Please. Just give me the pack.”

  Part of Grith still itched for the road, for that path home. But Tain was right, as much as he hated himself for admitting it. He could better serve his people here than back in the Marshes. If there were problems with the succession, as that girl Kareen had said, then he could do his part in deciding who took the throne. Perhaps in the end, he might even be able to gain freedom for his people. The Shaleese could become their own province, maybe even their own nation. That would be a fitting justice for Itte and Yiven, wouldn’t it? More fitting perhaps, than the death of the High Lord who had seen them put in the ground.

  He let the pack fall from his shoulder and onto the hard packed clay. Tain stepped forward, placing the saber in Grith’s fingers and taking up the pack in a single smooth motion.

  Grith’s master, the man who had taught him Delving, true warfare, trudged out onto the darkened plains, alone.

  Grith returned to his seat on the rock and watched him until he became little more than a shadowed speck on the horizon. He looked down at the blade in his hands… and was suddenly revolted. This was the sword that had cut down Yiven. But it also killed Xisa, he told himself.

  He sighed and strapped the El’kabal blade at his belt. It was just a weapon. Just a tool, like his father’s spear, and as he had been up until this moment. That would change. He would join the Emperor’s Delvers, yes, but it would be on his own terms.

  Thirty-Eight:

  Ytan

  Blood spattered the Imperial Audience Chamber. It stained the red and white tiles and was smeared across the bare walls. Most would have been disgusted by the carnage. Ytan Tylis instead found himself exhilarated.

  It wasn’t that blood had been spilled today, or the bodies left in the wake of his advancing soldiers, quickly cleared away in preparation for his arrival, that held him in the grips of anticipation. He had long ago learned to control his base desires at El’kabal. People assumed you traveled to the far off desert temple to learn the sword. That was partially true, but there were far more esoteric gifts in its distant subterranean halls for those with intellect to seek them.

  Ytan shifted the saber at his belt, the only memento of his time at the school, and stepped forward. General Tharn had assured him that this level of the palace had been cleared of enemy soldiers, but it could never hurt to be cautious. The walls echoed with his footfalls, the sound mixing and intermingling with the shouts and clash of steel from the floors below.

  Shel’wai still held out down there…

  The Archon had always been stubborn, a trait old Hadan had found endearing in many of his closest confidants. Ytan sighed. He’d have to smoke the bastard out of the palace vaults before this was all said and done.

  “Your Highness!” Tharn called from the other side of the chamber. He came jogging over, helmet in his hands, a portly scribe struggling to keep up at his right. The compact Toashani man—young for a general—ran a hand through his thinning hair and glanced around the room.

  “Amazing, isn’t it? A shame we have to sully it like this.” Ytan shook his head. He would have expected a man like Tharn to refrain from gawking at the grandeur of the Palace.

  “Keep your head on your shoulders, general,” Ytan reminded him. Tharn caught himself and came to attention suddenly, hand to breast, covering the golden viper of House Ysse. The High Lord Ysse was a powerful man, but not particularly skilled in the ways of war. It wasn’t uncommon for nobles of such limited ability to hire a general like Tharn to lead their armies.

  “Yes, Your Highness. It’s just this place…” He cleared his throat. “Ever since I was a child, I imagined walking these halls, perhaps as a war hero.”

  “Never as the conqueror, I bet.” Ytan patted the man on the shoulder and stepped past him, heading towards the doors behind the grand dais that sat at the far end of the chamber. That door led to the Emperor’s personal apartments, unoccupied since his trip to Fanalkir months ago.

  He passed the throne as he went, sparing a glance at the chair. It just sat there upon its perch, as if waiting. But waiting for what, Ytan couldn’t tell. It wasn’t particularly ostentatious, as thrones went. Many High Lords’ asses warmed much finer seats. But nothing about Hadan had been ostentatious. The chair had plain wood carvings in place of inlayed gold leaf, and was upholstered in white cotton, instead of silk and silver thread. Truly the throne of a man who had understood what it meant to rule.

  “No, Your Highness.”

  Ytan passed the throne without a second glance. There would be time to take the seat later, when all this was done. “How many men do we think the Archon has down in the vaults?”

  “No more than a hundred. Mostly Highlanders, as far as we can tell. If only we knew where they are. Those cellars are a damn maze.”

  “Check the third basement level cellar, behind the fifth wine rack on the left wall. There’s a bolt hole that Hadan had placed there in case the palace was ever taken.” He turned, fixing the general with a hard gaze. “And be careful. The place is a fucking deathtrap.”

  Tharn saluted, seemingly surprised at Ytan’s expert knowledge of palace’s layout. “Yes, Your Highness.” He jogged towards the open door to the Emperor’s private chambers, his scribe in tow.

  Ytan would need to send some soldiers to the docks, where the bolt hole let out. They couldn’t afford for Shel’wai to escape. Ytan had already been forced to fight to secure his throne. Akiv had fallen with surprising ease, all things considered. The bribes were more effective than he would have first thought. Soldiers, sympathetic to his cause and the silver he provided, had opened the gates for his meager force of disparate lords and their retinues. Together they had swelled his army to nearly fifty-thousand. More than enough to overwhelm the Palace’s small garrison.

  Ytan followed Tharn at a leisurely pace, letting the general get far enough ahead of him that he was allowed a little privacy. He breathed in the early morning air gusting in through windows thrown wide, fresh and clean after a night filled with the acrid stench of blood. The halls of the Emperor’s chambers hadn’t seen much fighting. The bare stone, austere as was Hadan’s style, reflected Ytan face. By th
e Stars in the Heavens, he was getting old. His hair was beginning to gray at the temples and he had started to develop a heavy set of bags beneath his sharp eyes. He was still a fearsome warrior, but… for how much longer would that be true? He had to secure this legacy, his throne, before then.

  Ytan shook his head and kept his eyes forward, away from his own grim visage. “I patrolled these halls once,” he said to the shadows. “At about this time of day, actually.”

  “You know,” came a voice from behind and slightly to his right, provincial and clipped. “What is it about getting old that causes people to get so wistful?” Onir had yet to reveal himself, but Ytan had worked with the Delver long enough to pick up on the cues that he was present. The air shifted in strange ways around him, creating a slight warped space where the man should have stood. That shift in light would be nearly impossible to pick out, if Ytan hadn’t know what he was looking for.

  “It’s strange to be back here after so many years. El’kabal, then the time spent building the foundations of this coup… it makes it all seem like a lifetime ago.”

  “I thought we agreed on not calling it a coup,” Onir reminded him. He finally materialized out of air in front of Ytan. It was all the newly made Emperor could do to stop from jumping. The damn Delver still scared him, even after all these years. The War Mind, they had taken to calling him. The name fit. True Pretes were rare, and most of those could hardly do more than lift a pebble.

  Onir, on the other hand, could throw boulders with a glance, and tear men apart with nothing more than a cruel twist of his hand. Ytan had seen him do it on more than one occasion. Even after five years spent with the skinny Vashavan, the true extent of his powers were still a mystery. Behind those blues eye and pales skin was a monster and a genius. If only the boy could be more like Iara. Ytan could at least understand the woman… well, most of the time.

  “In public perhaps. To the people, this has to seem like a smooth transition of power.”

  “I don’t think smoke and the sounds of fighting coming from the palace exactly constitute a ‘smooth transition of power.’” Onir clicked his tongue and slowed to match pace. From the pocket of his tunic, he produced a pipe and pouch of tobacco. “Have a match?”

  Ytan sighed. “No, I don’t.” Such a disgusting habit. How could anyone think inhaling smoke into their lungs was good fun?

  Onir clicked his tongue again. “Damn! I’ve been at work all day, Ytan. I was looking forward to just being able to sit back with my pipe.”

  “When this is all done, I’ll buy you as much tobacco as you can smoke, and matches enough to light it all. Until then, I need you alert. On your toes, understand?”

  “Alert for what?” Onir asked. “Highlanders?”

  “You heard what the one I sent to Fanalkir did to Hadan, didn’t you? If you think for a second that the ones who serve Shel’wai are any less dangerous-”

  The Prete held up a hand. “Didn’t mean to offend you. I was just saying: we got them on the run, don’t we?”

  “Hiding,” Ytan corrected, as they reached the stairs that led down to the kitchens. From there, it would only be a short walk to the Vaults. “Down in one of the bolt holes.”

  “The ones you told me about?”

  Ytan nodded.

  “It’ll be a hard fight, rooting them out of there.”

  Ytan raised an eyebrow. “Why do you think I brought you along?”

  “The company?” Onir shrugged.

  “I’ve got Iara for that. You, on the other hand, are here because you can tear through anything I put in front of you.”

  While Ytan had been speaking, Onir had pulled a piece of dry meat from his pocket and began to chew on the stuff. Another one of the boy’s annoying habits. “Tell me,” Ytan began, curious and hoping for a distraction from the sound of the Delver’s smacking lips. “Could you breach through to the bolt hole from here?”

  Onir frowned and considered the tiles beneath their feet. “First thing’s first. How many floors between us and the Vaults?”

  Ytan kept his expression blank, trying not to show any of the awe that he felt. The boy wasn’t thinking about actually trying it… “Five. All solid stone.”

  Onir nodded. He stopped and waited for General Tharn to descend the stairs that led to the kitchens. With any witnesses gone, Onir knelt and reached his hand out, caressing the tiles. Ytan wasn’t sure, but he thought he could feel the air take on a certain… weight.

  Onir breathed in and then let out a slow, controlled breath. The air grew tense. Something was about to happen… something beyond Ytan’s ability to understand.

  “Too many people down there,” the young man said casually, rising to his feet. “I’d turn half of them to dust, the others into red paste.”

  Ytan let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding and looked down the hallway. Was the boy serious, or was he just trying to posture? Men his age were known to do such things when met with a challenge they couldn’t overcome. Hell, Ytan himself had done similar things in his youth.

  “But you can do it?” he finally asked after several moments of tense silence.

  “Of course. You give me a wall, and I’ll go right through it. Give me five and I’ll do the same.” Onir rose to his feet as if he hadn’t been about to do the impossible. “It’s not the amount that matters, more the…” he seemed to be searching for the right words. Onir often struggled to describe his abilities to those without his gift, once saying it was “like trying to teach Sasken to a pig.” “It’s more the composition, sometimes the distance, that can really get you.”

  “Good to see your ego is still as strong as your abilities.” Ytan turned on his heels and headed towards the stairs, Onir close behind.

  * * *

  “The old bastard won’t give up!” Iara told Ytan as he stepped into the cellar. The Vault walls were lined with rack upon rack of bottles—wines, liquors, and even fine meads, each worth their weight in gold. He had perused these vintages in his youth, marveling at the names of famed vineyards and distilleries, oftentimes centuries old. But there would be time to peruse his newly acquired stock when this was all over. For now, there was business to do and little time to do it.

  “Have you tried your feminine wiles yet, Iara?” Onir asked, passing the Ignean and heading towards the false wall that had hidden the bolt hole. It had been opened recently, revealing a dark recess in the stone that led into the vast network of tunnels that snaked out of the palace and into the city beyond.

  “Wiles, Onir?” Iara asked. “After all these years I thought you would know that I don’t do whiles.”

  “That’s right,” the young Prete replied, nodding. “Don’t need wiles when you can throw burning arrowheads.”

  “I don’t know,” Ytan said, humoring his two Delvers for the time being. “I’ve found the danger has a certain appeal.”

  Iara took his head in her right hand and gave him a peck on the cheek. Before he could resist, she had him firmly in her arms, her lips pressed hard against his own. She smelled of brimstone and forge scale, not the most romantic of perfumes, but on Iara, the scents fit like a glove.

  “Not in front of the men,” he chided, finally managing to push her away. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her kiss, her touch. By the Eternal Stars he loved it, loved her. It just wasn’t the sort of thing you did in front of your men. The room was full of soldiers and within hours each and every one of them would be regaling their bunk mates with stories about how they had seen Emperor Tylis cavorting with one of his own Delvers.

  He hadn’t learned much from the lords and hangers-on that Hadan had insisted on keeping around the palace, but they had taught him one thing. A ruler had to seem eligible, available for marriage at any time. Ytan often had to remind himself that some fights were won before the altar, not on the battlefield.

  “And why not?” Iara dema
nded, taking a step back, her expression growing dark. Stars, even in anger, she was beautiful. Her face was long, her body willowy, her hair black as pitch and cut short so that it hung around her ears. Even in her battle attire—an assortment of armored scales covered by a thin cloak—she was beautiful.

  Ytan sighed. “You know why.” They’d talked about this before, and had both agreed: if an eligible match appeared someday, he should take the chance at tying the knot. Just because he’d marry the woman, just because he’d likely father her children, didn’t mean she would have his love.

  That would be reserved for the woman who stood before him, and she alone.

  Dragging his thoughts back to more pressing matters, Ytan stepped towards the bolt hole where General Tharn stood, directing his men. He noted that the hundred or so soldiers all made sure to stay well clear of the darkened entrance, going so far as to walk behind one of the rows of wine bottles to create a shield between themselves and the entrance.

  “Problems?” he asked Tharn, coming up behind the man and trying to keep his voice low. He didn’t want Shel’wai to hear him. Better to give the old man a surprise when Ytan finally decided to reveal himself.

  “Two of my men were hit opening that false shelf.” He grimaced. “Bolts, tipped with some kind of toxin. They started bleeding from their eyes and just… fell over.”

  Ytan shook his head. “I should have told you up above: the Highlanders have always had a fondness for poisons.” He knew the layout of the bolt hole well enough. He had patrolled them in his youth as part of Hadan’s House Guard. You’d be lucky to get two men abreast into that particular tunnel. As Tharn’s men moved forward, they would come to two arrow slits flanking an oak door. If the first flight of bolts didn’t kill them, the ones from the murder holes along the sides of the tunnel would finish the job.

  All-in-all, Shel’wai had picked good ground on which to make his last stand.

  “So, how do we do this, Highness?” Tharn asked, looking to his soldiers.