“A slap on the wrist?” said the Emperor, steepling his fingers. He had not changed from Enkhaelen's last visit, still in the plain robe and circlet, his hair perhaps a bit tousled. Playful but restrained, not manic as he sometimes got. His eyes, though, were piercing.
“If that is what you decide.”
“As I recall, the trail of destruction is usually restricted to the acts of our armies.”
“In which case, I've done less than usual.”
“Oh?”
“My game-piece Cob could have devastated several major cities by now. Your forces certainly haven't stopped him. And yet the only assaults have been on non-Imperial targets.”
“Therein is the problem, Shaidaxi. You attacked these places—not your game-piece. What am I to think of that?”
“I told you. I was tired of them.”
The Emperor's eyes hooded. That was bad. “Shaidaxi. Do you recall the deal we made, long ago?”
“I think upon it constantly.”
“Do you remember who it was you wished revenge upon?”
The Trifold, the Silent Circle, the Altaeran Empire, the Muriae, the world... “Yes, of course.”
“Is it a group that you have just decidedly blown up?”
“I don't see how that's relevant.”
“Shaidaxi, we agreed that for the game to remain enjoyable to both of us, we had to operate within certain rules. Indirect involvement was the first, but second was to not attempt goals that did not pertain to the current game.”
“...Yes.”
“Tell me, how were the Hawk's Pride and the Citadel relevant to your little Guardian friend's escapades?”
Enkhaelen hung his head.
“That is what I thought. I do not care that the Silent Circle does not legally belong to me. What I care about is that we had a deal, and you have violated it. Again.”
Mustering some extra ire, Enkhaelen looked up at the Emperor with the well-rehearsed glare of a petulant child and said, “I hate them! You know that. I always have, always will.”
“I thought your studies were going well.”
“My studies were boring!” He flailed his arms and caught Rackmar staring at him from the side. Usually he kept this behavior to his private discussions with the Emperor, but it was time to show off. “You know how restrictive the Circle is! Can't do this, can't do that, can't do anything fun. I know I said I'd use my freedom for the good of my work, but I can't take it anymore! They made me teach!”
“You said you enjoyed molding the curriculum.”
“That's not teaching! Teaching is wrangling a class full of reprobates into paying attention, behaving responsibly, doing more than just sitting there gape-mouthed—mark after mark, day after day! Year after decade after century!”
“It was not necessary for you to—“
“I couldn't stay a student! Me? Not be in control? But I thought it would be fun, lording it over the Energies discipline. Instead there's paperwork! Written exams! Practicums! Office time! I could amend the records any way we wanted but that wouldn't keep me from actually having to interact with people!”
“So you blew it up.”
“Yes!”
“And the Hawk's Pride?”
“I hate them too!”
The Emperor braced his head in his hands, massaging at his brow as if it could banish the lunacy. “You could have resigned.”
“Well, I figured...while I was there...”
“You would just destroy everything.”
“You know me, Aradys.”
“I have to penalize you.”
“But why?” Again, he saw Rackmar scowl, and considered upping the melodrama of his whine. He did not get many chances to annoy this man directly. Veracity and long-term planning took precedence though, so he restrained himself. “I agreed not to meddle personally with my game-pieces, so I needed some kind of outlet. You knew this would happen eventually.”
“I had believed you were learning self-control.”
“Well, it's not my fault you're delusional.”
The uproar from the gathered Generals nearly deafened him. He made a show of sticking his fingers in his ears and waiting it out; more than once he glimpsed Lynned at the periphery, trying to lunge at him despite the White Flames. To his other side, Rackmar stood red-faced, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he ground his teeth in slow rage.
The Emperor made a mollifying gesture, but his smile had narrowed. Dangerous ground. As much as they had their games, Aradys was still the master, Enkhaelen the servant. They were not friends.
“I meant no disrespect,” Enkhaelen said.
Too late. The Emperor just looked at him. He knew he should try to play Valent off as a burst of willfulness—a brief backlash against the strictures he worked under, which he would absolutely not repeat. But the truth lay bare between them. He had gone for one of his long-time targets, and would have one less regret if he was returned to the wall.
He had endangered all their plans.
“Look, I— It was a bad idea,” he said, dispensing with the foolery. “I thought it would be satisfying, but it wasn't—not at all. Everyone I want to hurt has been dead for centuries, and all those others, all those scurrying little ants...they're not even echoes. It was fun to fight again, but I could have gotten that anywhere. I'm sorry. I was stupid.”
Silence reigned in the wake of his words. He could see the light welling behind the Emperor's eyes, threatening judgment. The one thing he still feared.
“You have always been impulsive,” said the Emperor slowly. “Sometimes to our benefit, sometimes our detriment. We take a risk every time we let you out.”
“But the risks have been worth it!” Enkhaelen interrupted, gesturing toward the Gold General. “My work on your servants—“
The Emperor's eyes flashed, and suddenly Enkhaelen could not control his vocal cords. His awareness of his body shrank to two bright pinspots. In the remaining darkness, he felt his true flesh—the body he tried so hard to ignore, drowning in its untenable encasement.
Then he snapped back into the corpse, his fingers on the puppet-strings again. It took unusual effort to struggle up from his knees.
“Your work on the conversion templates has been spotty as well,” said the Emperor. The light remained in his eyes but not as fiercely; Enkhaelen could meet them and see the anger they held. “Nearly a century of experimentation and yet there are still flaws, still limitations. If I am to replace my people, I must have full conversion. No mistakes, no rejections, no bounds. And still you have not presented me with a working locust prototype.”
“No, Your Majesty. I've been tweaking the rovagi template, since you approved of the exoskeleton and the photosensitive—“
“Then where is it?”
“It's— I've been— There have been—“
“Distractions. Yes, I am aware.” The Emperor sighed and sat back on his throne, robe rippling briefly with muted light. “And in the past, I have encouraged them. You needed to be educated, to expand and refine your skills. This is why I permitted you to attend the Citadel. And we both required an outlet from this waiting, so I permitted the game. But you have become too much of a meddler, Shaidaxi. I warned you last time. If you do not focus on the purpose for which I freed you, I will have no choice.”
“Well, then isn't the destruction of the Citadel a good thing? I won't be distracted by it.”
“Do not attempt to reframe your mistakes.”
“No, Your Majesty. My apologies.”
“I trust you have not blown up your testing laboratories.”
“No.”
“Then devote your time to that, lest I cut it short.”
“What about the game?”
“No more games, Shaidaxi. They are tedious. You are tedious.”
“But I'm in the middle of my turn!” There was no fakery in this frustration. Gesticulating, he said, “It's taken years for me to set this up! Almost a decade, since the first iteration failed!”
<
br /> “And I have become bored with it.”
“But it's almost done! Three days—maybe four! And then we can take a break from games. I'll devote myself absolutely to the conversion process. We'll do test batches of the restricted types, the children and adolescents...I'll make it work. I just want to— You know how much I look forward to the assault phase of the game.”
“You have no army this time,” said the Emperor.
Enkhaelen straightened, tugged at the lapels of his coat, and puffed out his chest. “I don't need one.”
The Emperor laughed.
And that was that.
*****
The wolves came not long past dawn. Geraad had been aware of them for a while; having cast his senses out beyond the borders of their little haven, he had felt their intrusion on his perimeter like a wilder version of a mentalist gestalt. It would have been intriguing had he not been petrified. He had never seen skinchangers before.
Facing westward, the spell-warded entry provided barely enough light for him to see the wolves when they ghosted into view. Initially there were four—great greyish-brown beasts—but then more came into range, and more. Six, ten, twelve. He felt some circling the structure, some lingering at the fringes of the flat plateau on which it sat, but the first four never left his sight. They just watched from a stone's-throw away, blinking in the morning light.
He and Tarren and Wydma conferred on the subject. Tarren said they were a threat, no matter that Geraad felt no outright hostility from them. Wydma believed they had a connection to Enkhaelen and might possibly be allies. But none approached, and Geraad was loath to pry more deeply into their strange minds—and neither metastatic would let him step outside.
“It should be one of us,” said Tarren. “We probably taste awful.”
“Even if they're friends, we shouldn't tempt them with the likes of you,” Wydma agreed.
Geraad appreciated their protectiveness, but sitting here and waiting for Enkhaelen to come back seemed counterproductive. He'd told them to wait four days, then abandon the place, and the way he'd been dressed—and the finality in his mien—made Geraad worry he wouldn't return. What were they supposed to do about a bunch of wolf-people without him?
Under their unnerving stares, he and Wydma played black-and-white. They used coins instead of stones—tin and copper—and a piece of parchment for a board, for Enkhaelen hadn't provided them with anything better. Not that Geraad had seen, anyway. He was still too nervous to go rummaging about in drawers.
Tarren napped. He wasn't much for strategy games. Wydma was good, though, and her strong opposition to Geraad's rusty memory of the classic maneuvers managed to take his mind off the staring wolves for a while.
They were approaching the end-game, the board glittering with coins in nearly all the spaces, when a ripple passed through the wolfish minds outside. Geraad blinked and raised his head. Before, their minds had flowed in pictures and sensations, emotions; some had thought abstractly about fire or a bird, but most just acknowledged the snow, the building, each other, or dreamed of running or mating. Now there was agitation in them, and a taste of metal, a vision of wires...
He looked out the door to see them retreating through the snow, ears tucked back, gazes fixed somewhere to the side of the chamber.
“I think we have another visitor,” he said softly. Wydma nodded and reached over to shake her lover.
A snort, some protests, a group smoothing of robes, and they were on their feet, staring at the archway in anticipation. Geraad felt no other minds in the vicinity, but the skinchangers kept reacting as if something was there, which chilled him. Not for the first time, he realized just how out of his depth he was beyond civilization's walls.
The wolves had retreated nearly into the ruins by the time he heard the crunch of snow. Footfalls, slow, methodical, approaching from around the side of the chamber.
He told himself to breathe. This place was protected by Enkhaelen's magic. Nothing could harm him.
Then a metallic figure stepped into view.
It had a humanoid shape, if vaguely. The right number of limbs, and something resembling a head. But it was made up entirely of copper—not wire but native metal in weird fronds, from its fern-like mass of hair to its noduled face and knobby arms, to its overlong fingers and ragged, branching nails. Its 'eyes' were two empty pits in a meshwork face.
It halted a stride from the archway and went still, yet Geraad felt its attention move across him—then past him, to his bodyguards and the room beyond. He could not say how. It had no mind, no distinct facial expression, and nothing in those eye-pits to see with.
“The firebird,” it rasped finally, its voice like a whetstone on a blade. “Where is it?”
Geraad's mouth worked for a moment without his input. Then his brain caught up to it, and he said, “May I ask what this is about?”
The copper-leaf head turned very slightly, and he felt its attention like a nail between the eyes. His shields did nothing. A long moment, then the creature said, “I represent the Houses beneath these hills, the Copper and Iron and Brass, the Nickel and Lead. The firebird has been gone too long. Where is it?”
The creature could only mean Enkhaelen, but Geraad had not been warned of this. Behind him, Tarren and Wydma were just as tense, just as confused.
“You are a metal elemental?” Geraad hazarded.
It did not respond, just stared at him with its empty pits.
He dared not turn from it, but in his mind's eye he saw the painting that hung on the wall behind him. The silver-haired woman, Enkhaelen's Muriae wife. A metal elemental too—or so he'd gathered, though how one went about marrying something like that, he couldn't fathom. But if he'd done so, then perhaps this was his ally too?
“Did you know him before? Or his wife?”
“Jessamyn of the House of Silver,” it intoned, and twitched its head in something approximating a nod. “Where is the firebird?”
“He's...otherwise occupied. I don't know when he'll be back, and I don't think he was expecting you. Do you want to leave a message for him?”
For a long moment, the copper creature neither responded nor moved. Then it said, “What is its plan?”
“I'm... I'm sorry, I'm not privy to—“
“The firebird requires our aid. The white roots have spread too far. How does it desire that we aid it? What is its plan?”
Geraad chewed his lip. It didn't feel right to divulge information to this strange entity, but Enkhaelen was obviously a spiritist, and just as obviously sympathetic toward metal-folk. If Geraad was supposed to be his proxy here...
“I don't know much. I'm sorry,” he said, watching it closely for a reaction. “Anything that he's planned is happening far away from here, so unless you have some way to join him...”
“Where?”
“The Palace, I think. The Imperial City.”
“When?”
“The Midwinter Festival. Maybe. I'm not sure—“
“Why?”
Geraad squinted at the thing. It had not changed expression at all, not even moving its false lips. Its voice came from somewhere down the hollow column of its throat, the rest more like a husk than a body. And yet it was undeniably metallic, so he didn't fear that it was some wraith in hiding, or any kind of scry. No artificer's work was this weirdly natural.
“Honestly, I don't know,” he said. “He doesn't confide in me. I can make an educated guess, but all I have is pieces. And I don't know how to reach him. I can probably open a portal to the Palace”—the frame had to have at least one pre-set that went there—“but he told me to stay, or run if he didn't return. If you have another way of getting there...”
The creature said nothing, and Geraad had the uncomfortable feeling that he'd overstepped his bounds. Enkhaelen had never told him to stay silent, but perhaps it was because he'd thought it was obvious. Treason at the highest level, and perhaps an assassination attempt... Perhaps a civil war...
Then the cop
per creature jerked its head slightly, its leaf-like lips moving into a strange facsimile of a smile. “The Houses beneath the hills thank you, human. We will seek the firebird on our own.”
And it turned, and strode from view.
He felt its retreat through the minds of the wolves, their hackles slowly settling. Exhaling through his teeth, he looked to Tarren and Wydma, but their faces held the same bemusement.
“It couldn't hurt, right?” he said.
No one answered.
Chapter 25 – Shaken
In Cob's opinion, walking would get them to Keceirnden faster than the hog-drawn caravan they rode. But walking would mean breaking from the herd—being a three-person group instead of a sixty-person wagon train—and thus being under scrutiny from the blue-coated soldiers who patrolled the Finrarden-Keceirnden road.
There had been unusually few at the exit gate this morning: just a handful of harried-looking Riddishmen checking manifests and travel papers before shooing people out. But now the road buzzed with them, riding back and forth on Ten-Sky horses like messengers, and Cob wondered if they had realized he was here. That he had entered civilized territory again and they had missed him.
He kept the hood of his pilgrim's robe drawn up and his scarf wrapped around to obscure his face, even though it made him feel stifled. It was for the best, though; no one else had the Guardian's resistance to cold, and the morning had settled a veil of snow over the Riddish hills so fine that it could be taken for fog until its grains stung the eyes. His fellow travelers were bundled up just as heavily, and at his side both Fiora and Arik shivered in the chill.
They had been assigned space in one of the middle wagons along with half a dozen other pilgrims, but by mutual agreement had moved to the porch-like ledge outside the back door. Being cooped up in a creaking, bench-walled space with four coughing elders, a hefty clubfooted woman and a vague-eyed young man was not their idea of comfortable travel.
“Do you think the weather will cut into our time?” said Fiora, half-leaning on him.
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 76