“I share your fears,” the Empress said simply, as they continued walking along the path. There were no lies told in the Empire, no exaggerations or deceit to misdirect or conceal, no factions battling for control. These things had been left behind long, long ago, cut away from their civilization by the wisdom and sword of the First Empress. “Long have we searched for the One who shall fulfill the ancient prophesies, just as we have searched for the tomb of the First Empress among thousands of stars in the galaxy. Much of interest have we found, but not that which we so desperately need.”
The Empress’s words chilled Tesh-Dar. She did not need to hear them to know they were true, but it was one thing to believe such a thing on one’s own, and quite another to hear them from Her lips so plainly spoken.
“There is no hope, then?” Tesh-Dar asked quietly, the hand not holding the arm of the Empress clenching so hard that her talons pierced the armored gauntlet she wore, and the skin beneath. She did not notice any pain.
Stopping in the middle of the path, the Empress turned to her, lifting up Her hand to caress Tesh-Dar’s face. “Do not despair so, Legend of the Sword,” She said, using the nickname She had given Tesh-Dar long ago, when she had been a child and under Tesh-Dar’s tutelage at the priestess’s kazha, or school of the Way. It was not merely a token of affection, for Tesh-Dar was the greatest swordmistress the Empire had ever known in all its history. Even before she became the last high priestess of the Desh-Ka and inherited her current physical form and the powers that were the legacy of that ancient sect, she had had no rival in the arena. Among Her Children, Tesh-Dar was indeed a living legend.
She gave the Empress a shy smile, something few of the peers had ever seen, her ivory fangs momentarily revealed through parted dark red lips. While her nickname was well-known throughout the Empire, none of the peers — save one — had ever addressed her as “Legend of the Sword.”
“Even with all the powers at My command,” the Empress went on, “I cannot see the river of time that flows into the future. Our own time among the stars grows short, yes. Yet we have been blessed with an enemy that may provide us the first key to the prophecies: one born not of our blood, yet whose blood sings.”
“And the tomb of the First Empress?” Tesh-Dar asked. The prophecies foretold that their race could only be redeemed, the ancient blood curse undone, if Keel-Tath’s soul returned to take its place among the thousands of other souls inhabiting She Who Reigned. The curse left by Keel-Tath had doomed their race to eventual extinction, condemning the clawless ones and the warriors with black talons to mate every great cycle or die. Over time, the Empire's population had become unbalanced, with more males and sterile females being born. If the trend continued, in only a few more generations their species would no longer be able to procreate. “How are we ever to find it?”
“That, My priestess,” the Empress said, turning to resume their walk along the path, “even the prophecies do not reveal. Yet, I believe that if we find the One, we are also destined to find Her tomb. The fates of the two are intertwined, inseparable. I must believe that the humans are the key.”
“You believe that the One is among them?”
“We must hope, Tesh-Dar,” the Empress said heavily. “For if not...” She did not have to finish the sentence. If the One was not found among the humans, the Kreela would join the races they had destroyed over the ages in dark oblivion. The chances of them finding another sentient race in what time remained to them was infinitesimal. “The One may not yet have been born,” She went on. “We shall give the humans as much time as we may to find him.”
Him, Tesh-Dar thought. She found it disquieting that the prophecies foretold that their race would be redeemed by a male. That thought led to another as they strolled along, and Tesh-Dar said, “Thy daughter, Li’ara-Zhurah, is to have her first mating. I have tended to her spirit, yet she remains deeply disturbed over what happened to her at Keran.” She paused. “I fear her mating will be difficult.”
The Empress looked up at the Homeworld, shining full above the great crystalline dome of the Garden, but her mind’s eye was on a far away nursery world where Li’ara-Zhurah waited for her mating time. The Empress knew well of what Tesh-Dar spoke, for while She could sense the feelings of all Her Children through the Bloodsong, She was even more attuned to those born from Her own body, as was Li’ara-Zhurah. From when their spirit first cried out in the womb to beyond death in the Afterlife, She could sense the feelings of all. Their joy, their pride. Their fear, their pain. Their sorrow, their anguish.
“I have no doubt it will be difficult,” She whispered. “It always is.”
* * *
Many light years away, Li’ara-Zhurah lay in her temporary quarters on one of the Empire’s many nursery worlds. To such worlds were the fertile warriors and clawless ones taken to mate and give birth once every great cycle. For if they did not, they would die in horrible agony that even the healers could not avert.
Any other time she would have found a room such as this a place of unaccustomed comfort. It was not large, but it was certainly more expansive than a warrior’s typically spartan quarters on a warship or in one of the many kazhas. It was well appointed with a thick pallet of soft skins for a bed, and a low table where she and any companions — should she have them — could kneel as was customary to eat and drink. A window of intricately stained transparency, made of material thinner than a hair’s breadth, yet strong as steel, was set into the smooth granite walls, flooding the room with serene light from the artificial sun that warmed this planet.
A construct of the builders, the caste responsible for creating anything the Empress called for, this world had been created from an airless rock drifting in deep space, far from any star. The planet was surrounded by a vast cloud of particles, a derivative of the matrix material that the builders used to create whatever the Empress required. The cloud was the planet’s primary defense and also what gave it the necessary light and heat to support life, in measure that was identical to the star of the Homeworld. Although every nursery world was zealously guarded by warships of the Imperial Fleet, should one of the nurseries be threatened, the thick but seemingly insubstantial cloud of wispy white matrix material would form into a shell that was impenetrable by anything short of the energies released by a star gone nova. The Empire's mothers and newborns, valued beyond all measure, would not easily fall prey to an enemy.
Even thought this place was warm and comfortable, her body shook from alternating hot and cold flashes. It had already been her time before the attack on the human world, Keran, but she had refused to go to the nursery world before the campaign had ended. She had fought too many challenges for the right to be there, and was willing to risk death from her rebellious body rather than give up her right to be among the first to do battle with the humans.
She had been wounded, her back burned during an attack on a human ship and her side pierced by shrapnel from an exploding human assault boat, but her true scars were inside, upon her soul. Tesh-Dar had been able to excise much of the anguish and confusion Li’ara-Zhurah had felt in the aftermath of the battle. Yet some wounds still lay open, beyond the reach even of the great priestess and, Li’ara-Zhurah feared, even the Empress herself.
The torment of her body from the growing imbalance in her reproductive hormones, however, was as nothing next to the painful fear of the mating ritual. It was not fear of physical pain, but fear of emotional emptiness. Fear arising from the certain knowledge that the creature she was soon to be joined with, one of the males of her species, was barely self-aware. As part of the curse that was the legacy of the First Empress, the males had been reduced to mindless breeding machines that only functioned a single time before dying in agony.
It had not always been so, Li’ara-Zhurah knew, for the Books of Time spoke of the ages before the Curse, when the males were proud warriors and artisans who lived alongside the females. There had once been a time when they mated with physical love, bonded for life as
tresh who lived as two individuals, yet were one. In the time since the Curse, her people bonded together in pairs, female to female, a bond that was only broken by death. They often might serve the Empress far apart, but their spirits were always entwined in the Bloodsong. And when one’s tresh died, it was a soul-wrenching experience. Li’ara-Zhurah’s tresh had died some years ago, and her soul had never entirely recovered. Even now, she would awaken at night with her tresh’s name on her lips. She could feel a glimmer of her tresh’s spirit from the Afterlife, but that was all, and it was not enough to ease the pain.
The room she occupied now had two doors: one that led to the corridor outside and the rest of the complex, and one through which the male would be brought when it was time. She nervously glanced from one door to the other, part of her wanting to get on with the ordeal, while the rest of her shamefully wished she could escape.
A gentle knock at the smaller door startled her, and she gasped in fright.
“Come,” she called through the haze of fear that clouded her senses, berating herself for being unable to control her emotions. You have fought in a true battle, she told herself, and proved yourself worthy. Be not afraid!
Telling herself to not be afraid was one thing, but didn't stop the fear from clutching her heart in a tight and icy grip.
A pair of healers entered, closing the door softly behind them. One was senior, as indicated by the many pendants hanging from her collar, and the other was junior. Like all of their caste, they could heal nearly any injury or disease. The specialty of these healers, however, was in understanding what Li’ara-Zhurah was feeling now and helping her cope with what was to come.
They knelt beside her on the soft skins, and the elder healer opened her arms to Li’ara-Zhurah, offering to hold and comfort her.
With a whimper of despair, Li’ara-Zhurah threw herself into the healer’s arms, burying her face in the elder’s shoulder. The other healer, the apprentice, wrapped her arms around Li’ara-Zhurah, adding her warmth and empathy, helping to soothe the frightened young warrior through the Bloodsong. Mourning marks, a display of inner pain, turned Li’ara-Zhurah’s skin black below her eyes, as she moaned and shivered in the arms of the healers.
“Be still, child,” the elder healer whispered as she gently rocked Li’ara-Zhurah. She could feel the young warrior’s torment in the Bloodsong, sharp and bitter. “Be not ashamed. What you feel now is what each of us feels the first time. Even the Empress Herself.”
Li’ara-Zhurah’s only response was to tighten her grip on the elder healer. She did not realize it, but her claws had drawn blood from the healer’s sides, staining the pure white robes with streaks of bright crimson.
The healer was accustomed to such pain and ignored it. Her attention was focused solely on her young ward. “When you are ready, we will prepare you,” she whispered as she gently stroked Li’ara-Zhurah’s hair. “It will be difficult, child, but will not last long. You shall endure.”
I do not wish to endure, Li’ara-Zhurah railed silently. I do not wish for any of this!
But there was no use putting off the inevitable. She was a warrior who had faced the fires of battle against worthy foes and survived. She could not allow herself to succumb to cowardice and dishonor now.
“Let it be done,” she rasped, reluctantly pushing herself from the healer’s embrace.
The healers helped her to her feet, then carefully undressed her, peeling away the black undergarment that was worn beneath armor, for the warriors, and the robes of the clawless ones like the healers. Then they removed her sandals. She then stood shivering, wearing nothing but her collar.
“Here, child,” the elder healer said, pointing to the center of the bed of skins.
Li’ara-Zhurah knelt down as she was shown, then leaned forward on all fours, placing her elbows on the skins, her head close to the edge near the wall. Before her were a set of soft leather cuffs bound by slender but unbreakable cables that were attached to the floor. Her stomach turned at the sight, for they reminded her of the shackles of the Kal’ai-Il, the place of punishment that was at the center of every kazha throughout the Empire. Without thinking, she pushed herself away, back up to her knees.
“It is so you do not accidentally injure the male,” the apprentice healer, even younger than Li’ara-Zhurah, explained as she and the elder healer gently pushed her back down onto the skins. “You will...not be yourself for a time.”
“It is for the best, child,” the elder healer said as she fastened the cuffs around Li’ara-Zhurah’s wrists, making sure they were fixed firmly but not over-tight. “And I will tell you this, even though I know you will ignore my words: it is best not to look at the male when we lead him in. They, too, are Children of the Empress, but they are different from us in more than just gender.”
Li’ara-Zhurah had heard the stories, of course, but she had never seen a male of her race. They were kept only on the nursery worlds such as this, never to be seen elsewhere in the Empire. She knew the healer’s words were well-intended, but they left her even more frightened. She shivered uncontrollably.
“Imagine how you would like him to appear,” the junior healer advised. “And do not fight against what must be. Your body will understand what to do. Close away your mind and let your body take control.”
“Do you understand, child?” the elder healer asked.
“Yes,” Li’ara-Zhurah said through gritted teeth. Her hands, bound now by the cuffs, fiercely gripped the skins of the bed, her talons cutting all the way through to scrape against the unyielding stone beneath.
“We shall return momentarily,” the junior healer told her before the two of them left through the door through which they had entered.
Li’ara-Zhurah squeezed her eyes shut, burying her face in the warm skins, trying desperately to gain control of her fears. Her breath was coming quickly, too quickly, as if she were still running after the great human war machine that had become her obsession during the battle on Keran.
She heard a sound at the door. Unable to help herself and just as the healer had known would happen, she turned to look. There, standing between the two healers, was a male. It - he - was clearly young, judging from the length of his braided hair, for there was no use for males other than breeding, and they were bred as soon as they were of age. And once they bred, they died. She had seen images of the male warriors during the time of the First Empress, from ages-old legend, but aside from the blue skin and black hair typical of her race, there was little in this creature that she could recognize from those ancient scenes. He only stood as tall as the healers’ shoulders, was dreadfully thin, and had a body that clearly had never endured the physical rigors of the kazha. Standing there without clothes, his maleness was alien to her, for she had never seen such, even in the ancient images.
The real shock was his face and head. While his eyes were bright and looked normal, they were set in a face that betrayed no sign of intelligence, with a forehead that sloped steeply back, part of a small skull that housed an undersized brain. From his lips began a high keening sound, for his body understood what his tiny brain did not: his purpose for existence was now before him.
Then she noticed his hands: the talons had been clipped from his fingertips, no doubt to keep him from injuring her in his witless passion.
She turned away in revulsion, fighting to keep hold of her sanity as the male eagerly moved toward her. The apprentice healer held Li’ara-Zhurah’s shoulders, trying as best she could to comfort her, while the senior healer guided the male’s efforts.
Li’ara-Zhurah’s thoughts faded to blackness as her body responded to the male’s pheromones. She cried out at the momentary pain, whimpering in her heart for the love of her Empress, and begging the First Empress — wherever She was — to return and lift this curse from them all.
What came after was blessed darkness.
* * *
Tesh-Dar stood in her quarters, part of the complex of buildings that made up the kazha of which
she was headmistress. Having returned to the Homeworld from her audience with the Empress on the Empress Moon, her thoughts remained fixed on Li’ara-Zhurah. She could clearly hear the melody of the young warrior’s Bloodsong that carried her fear and pain, and she ground her teeth at the thought that she was powerless to aid her. Tesh-Dar did not even truly understand what the young warrior was going through, for she herself had never mated. Being born sterile was both a blessing and a curse: she was not subject to the need to mate every great cycle to continue living, but she was a bystander in the continuity of her species, standing a world apart from those who could give birth.
She allowed herself a moment of guilt, for she did not feel this way for all of her wards. She cared deeply for all of them, every warrior of every generation she had helped to train here, but for a very few she found that she cared more. Li’ara-Zhurah was among them. It had nothing to do with her being a blood daughter of the Empress, for such things as favoritism had been bred out of her race eons before when the Bloodsong took hold and one’s feelings were exposed to all. That had triggered the age of Chaos, when her species was torn apart by countless wars before the First Empress and Unification.
No. She felt strongly for Li’ara-Zhurah because of who she was in her heart and spirit. A part of Tesh-Dar fervently wished that this young warrior would be the one with whom she could share her inheritance from the Desh-Ka order, who could follow in Tesh-Dar’s footsteps as high priestess. For Tesh-Dar was the last of her kind: after the death of the First Empress, the warrior priestesses of the ancient orders were only permitted to select a single soul as a replacement, transferring their powers to their acolyte in a ceremony that dated back tens of thousands of cycles before the Empire was founded. If Tesh-Dar died before passing on her knowledge, the powers of the Desh-Ka, the greatest of all the warrior sects in the history of her race, would be lost forever. She was already older by fifty cycles than was normal for her kind, and old age gave little warning before death would take her. There was no gradual descent into infirmity over the course of years for the warriors, no time to make considered choices for an acolyte: when a warrior’s body reached the time appointed by Fate, death came in days, weeks at most. Even the healers could not predict when it was time to pass into the Afterlife until a warrior’s body began to shut down.
In Her Name: The Last War Page 49