Blood of the Emperor

by Tracy Hickman

  Only one thought drove her on.

  She had to find Drakis.

  The ruin of a stone fortress or temple—she did not care which—stood at the crest of the rise. It was being utilized by a pair of dragons as a place to sun themselves. They seemed unaware of the chaos that surrounded the hill beneath their perch. All about the base of the mound, angry, confused Drakis Pilgrims were making their way around the prominence from out of the thick woodland to the north before following a beaten trail back into the woods toward the south. Urulani noticed that Kyranish, the Lyric’s dragon was absent. Pyrash—the dragon who carried Jugar—was curled around the warm stones of the crumbling construction and Wanrah, the dragon that Ethis rode, lolled on a shattered tier of the ruin. The one dragon she hoped to find here was also absent; the presence of the green and yellow Marush would have confirmed that Drakis was here.

  Dragon or no, he’s got to be here, she thought. And he’s going to have to explain why the rest of us are here, too!

  Urulani saw a familiar shape near the base of the far slope surrounded by a circle of excited and angry beings all vying for his attention at the same time. There were many manticores in the throng marching into the forest but this was the only one who bore the crossed-sash of a Grahn Aur and the unmistakable harvest-gold-colored robe. She could hear his hoarse voice above the crowd. “We have to keep moving! You know what Drakis said. We dare not stop now!”

  “It’s been two days since we stopped to encamp,” Tsojai Acheran shouted, his featureless black eyes seeming duller than ever. “That’s well enough for the manticores and the chimerians but the elves among the company need to rest!”

  “There will be a time and a place for rest but it is not here!” Belag asserted, baring his teeth at the elven councillor. “You know that since we crossed the Malethic River we’ve been in Ephindrian territory. We are still moving somewhere between what Ethis calls Chythal and Hrynth lands. We were warned not to stop until we had passed beyond Pashorei lands and that’s two more days ahead of us.”

  Urulani had reached the edge of the circle of seething creatures that surrounded Belag but they were pressed tightly against one another. The crowd moving around them jostled her as she tried to break through the circle to reach the Grahn Aur.

  “Two more days?” Doroganda screeched. Her voice was shrill with displeasure. “You only say it will be two more days but I’ve seen the magic-ones and I have heard them talking! The distance breached by the folds is getting shorter with each move. They say that the power of the Aethereon grows dimmer as we move toward the Elven lands…and that it will fail us altogether in the face of the Rhonas Legions!”

  “You are mistaken in what you have heard,” Belag roared, his voice shaking the ground around him. “There will be Aether Wells aplenty when we have moved into the Pashorei lands from which the Aethereon may be replenished. There we shall have abundance. There we shall earn our rest. But we must not stop until then!”

  “You are eloquent and persuasive, Grahn Aur, as always,” Tsojai nodded his head as slightly as possible in acknowledgment. “Speak whatever speeches you want but there are pilgrims of this company who cannot go much farther, even among your own kind.”

  “They will have to get what rest they can while we organize our next fold transit,” Belag said, shaking his head. “I hear your words, friend Tsojai, and I am most sympathetic to them but until we have our people safely through these dangerous lands we have to…”

  Someone behind Urulani pushed her hard against Tsojai’s back. She stumbled, reaching forward to steady herself.

  “Belag!” Urulani croaked. Her throat was dry from the long flight.

  The great manticore saw her. She could see the tired, slightly bleary look in his eyes but there was a smile on his wide, feline face. He reached his enormous hand through the circling crowd and pulled her toward him.

  “Urulani, it is a relief that you have come,” Belag said. “Welcome to the Great Passage.”

  “Where’s Drakis, Belag?” Urulani demanded. “I’ve got to see him.”

  “I shall take you to him at once,” Belag answered. He held her tightly to his side with his left arm while gesturing for an opening between the still-circling council members. “Excuse us. Sky Mistress Urulani must meet with Drakis without delay.”

  “But we are not finished!” Tsojai snapped. “We have a number of pilgrims who have not reported in and may be lost! And the supply caravans have been complaining of thefts from several of their…”

  “We shall convene the Council of the Prophet after this transit of the folds is completed,” Belag said as he pushed his way past the still arguing council members. He pulled Urulani with him, merging into the jostling crowd of pilgrims. “Come together at the battle standard on the other side and we shall discuss the issues then.”

  Battle standard? Urulani wondered for a moment if she had heard Belag correctly.

  The loud, irritated mass of pilgrims closed around them like the waters of a great, noisy river, carrying them southward down the channel of the trampled road. The canopy of trees closed over them as they flowed with the crowd that extended beyond the flattened road out into the woods to either side.

  “Belag, let go of me!” Urulani snapped, shrugging his massive arm off her shoulders.

  “As you wish but you would be well advised to stay close to me,” the manticore replied. “Get lost in this panic and you may not be able to find Drakis.”

  “I almost didn’t find the encampment,” Urulani said. “And yet I found that a hundred thousand pilgrims were no longer there. I awoke on the back of my dragon flying through the Shifting Pass and all Kyranish would tell me is that we had been called to come this way. I thought I knew where we were supposed to be going. I thought we had a plan.”

  “Plans are always the first thing to change,” Belag observed.

  “Well this change is a problem!” Urulani snarled.

  They walked with the ebb and flow of the crowd, pushing and occasionally stumbling forward through the trees. The ground began to rise in front of them. Urulani could see lights through the forest between the heads of the diverse horde as they pressed forward. As they approached the edge of the forest, the lights appeared to extend down the ridge in either direction. It was as though a wall of lightning were dancing before them, luring them like moths to a flame.

  Quite suddenly they pushed past the trees. Urulani tripped over a broken crate, its contents of clothing spilled out over the ground and being trampled unheeded underfoot. They were moving quicker now, the packed mob giving way to open space and a threat of stampede. The vista opened up in front of them.

  A line of fold portals ran in both directions along the crest of the ridge. They reminded Urulani of the folds she had seen among the ruins in Drakosia as well as the one which Braun had demonstrated to her in Port Glorious but these were larger and, in some way, more terrifying. They were rough at the edges, the circle of light marking the interior of each portal shifting as though bolts of lightning were striking at the center. She counted fifteen of these portals extending along the ridge to their right and a good many more disappearing down the ridge to their left. A line of warriors from the Army of the Prophet stood as a cordon thirty feet in front of the magical folds, directing the constant flow of pilgrims into lines before each of the folds. They shouted the same litany over and over: to keep moving forward, to proceed quickly through the portal, and to only worry about reuniting with their families on the other side. Wails of the children and the tired sobs of their mothers mixed with the warriors’ shouts. The warriors stepped aside at Belag’s approach and Urulani followed him into the open space beyond. There she had a clear view of the streams of refugees passing the warriors heading toward the folds in ordered lines, ranks of them on either side as far as she could see.

  To the side of each of portal stood a figure, arms up-stretched toward the vertical circle of the fold, straining to maintain it. Each wore robes in various shades
of gray. In the bright light of the folds she could see the lines in their haggard faces, the strain in their muscles and the redness in their eyes.

  “What is that?” Urulani asked, pointing down the ridge to a strange device she had not seen before.

  It appeared to be an oblong box fitted with crystals along the sides and top. A large shard of bluish crystal protruded from the top while the entire assembly seemed aglow. Hovering about it was a human figure also in a gray robe, watching it intently from different angles and occasionally raising his hand, palm out toward it.

  “That is the Aethereon,” Belag nodded. “It is the symbol of our passage and our beacon that guides us toward…”

  “Belag…” Urulani’s voice rose in warning.

  The manticore chuckled and shrugged. “The elves have something called a ‘portable altar’ to maintain the devotion spells of their Impress Warriors. It allows the Aether to be stored and then distributed while at a great distance from the Aether Wells of the Elven Houses. Braun used to be a Proxi in our Centurai before Drakis freed us from the Devotions. He found a way to adapt it to our purposes. It provides the Aether needed to open the folds and move the encampment step by step, fold by fold, toward our objective. Braun never leaves it.”

  “He’s worried, isn’t he?” Urulani considered the human mage moving anxiously around the Aethereon. “The goblin was saying something about the fold distances getting shorter.”

  “There is no cause for concern,” Belag began. “The Aethereon is a blessing from the gods whose light…”

  A sudden cry rang out behind Urulani and she turned.

  The human mage three portals down the ridge had fallen to one knee, his arms quivering visibly in the light of the fold. He was screaming, his warning inarticulate.

  The fold was collapsing.

  The warriors rushed back from the cordon, cutting off the line of refugees and pushing them back. Those who were just entering the portal dashed forward in a panic, rushing through the opening as its edges became unstable, and its color shifted toward red. A young human male holding a baby in his arms leaped through the fold just as it slammed closed with a clap of terrible thunder.

  The mage lay unconscious on the ground. A small group of warriors gathered around him, lifting him up and carrying him to a large tent set up beyond the folds just behind the ridge. A few moments later, they emerged with another mage in gray robes—this one another human who looked as haggard and weary as the one who had just fallen. He took the place of the first and forced his hands into the air.

  Light wavered in front of him and then the portal slowly opened up once again.

  “There’s something wrong with the magic box,” Urulani said, facing the manticorian leader once again. “Isn’t there, Belag?”

  “It is providing us the blessings of…”

  “I’m too tired for this, Belag,” Urulani said angrily. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing is wrong with the magical device,” Belag said. “The problem is simply one of distance.”

  “Distance from what?”

  “Braun turned the Well in Port Glorious,” Belag explained. “I understand that you did something similar in Drakosia. This altar—this Aethereon—is tuned to that Aether and draws on it. The farther south we go, however, the farther we are from those turned Aether Wells. That means longer times for the altar to regain its strength and the weaker that Aether becomes.”

  “That is why the folds are not as far apart as they were earlier in your journey,” Urulani nodded.

  “So why are you in such a hurry?”

  “Because there are dangers in staying in Ephindria,” Belag said, leaning closer to Urulani so that only she could hear. “Because if we stop, there is a good possibility that we may never leave again.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Best Interests

  URULANI EMERGED FROM THE FOLD. She always found the first moments through a fold confusing. Stepping from one place into an entirely new place some distance removed from where she had been a moment before left her uncertain and confused. As a mariner, she had to rely on a keen sense of her surroundings and a mental image of where she was located relative to the coasts and landmarks that defined the borders of her seaborne universe. In her occasional treks across land, that same sense gave her an internal confidence regarding where she was at all times and a knowledge of her relationship to the larger world. All of that was lost when the Aether suddenly moved her from a familiar place to an entirely new location.

  She could not stop to get her bearings.

  “Keep moving! Do not stop! Do not block the fold exits!” Travel Masters from each of the Ten Camps of Drakis stood thirty to forty feet out from the fold exits, each wearily waving a flag with the symbol of their particular camp. Each called out in a hoarse voice a litany made dull from overuse. “Move past the flag of your camp to the next flag of your camp. Keep moving! Do not stop! Do not block the fold!”

  Urulani realized the folds had deposited them all in a broad valley between two ranges of hills. The sun was peeking above the crest of the knoll to the west, casting long evening shadows across the valley floor. The land grew marshy in that direction, giving way to a shallow lake. Tall trees with white bark and leafy tops grew thickly on the slopes to the east. They brooded over the valley floor as though their peace had somehow been offended.

  Everywhere else was pandemonium. A succession of flags from each of the camps waved in the air, drawing members of that camp toward them and beckoning them to more flags farther on and to their allotted space across the valley floor. Angry shouts punctuated the murmurs of the frantic crowd around Urulani as each member of the pilgrim encampment sought desperately to move toward the flag of their designated camp through a sea of others trying to move in every other direction. This struggling sea of manticores, chimerians, humans, gnomes, and elves was further thrown into disarray by supply wagons and carts struggling to continue forward through the throng and the occasional goblins on wyvernback adding even more confusion as they charged unheeding through the mob, scattering pilgrims in their wake.

  Where is the army? Urulani wondered, biting at her lip. Where is Drakis?

  Something caught her eye.

  The green and yellow markings of the dragon were distinctive. Marush craned his great neck skyward near the crest of a hilltop overlooking the valley from the east. Urulani could just make out the tent south of the dragon.

  She set her jaw and started pushing through the horde of exhausted and disheartened pilgrims, her eyes fixed all the while on Drakis’ tent.

  “We cannot stop now,” Ethis argued. His face was contorted both by fatigue and rage as he planted all four of his fists simultaneously on the map table between them. “We’ve got to press on!”

  “How?” growled Gradek, standing on the other side of the table. The manticorian commander swept his massive hand across the map laid between them. “How do we continue? The folds are getting shorter with each transit—the Aether magic of the humans is growing dim with distance. Without time for the Braun sorcerers to recover, we shall only grow weaker and may find ourselves in the midst of Ephindria without any magic and no means of escaping this place.”

  Drakis stood silently at the head of the map table, his arms crossed with his left hand resting over his chin.

  “But if we stop, the consequences would be unthinkable,” Ethis urged.

  “You mean in contamination of your precious chimerian society?” Gradek snarled.

  “I mean for us all,” Ethis responded, his frustration showing in his voice. “Since we have entered Ephindria we have lost members with every transit of the folds.”

  “Is there a problem with the folds then?” Jugar asked. The dwarf stood next to Drakis on his left. He was wearing his leather flying doublet but had somewhere found a long strip of crimson with which to form a sash. “Perhaps this magic of Braun is at fault?”

  “For the last time, we’re not losing them to the folds,” Eth
is asserted. “It’s when we regroup. For the first few transits, it was barely a noticeable problem but in the last three folds alone we have lost nearly a thousand from our company.”

  “Lost?” Jugar suggested. “As in misplaced?”

  “No! Lost as in having been lured away,” Ethis said. “The sirens have discovered we are here.”

  “Sirens?” Gradek sniffed. “They don’t exist!”

  “They have always existed,” Ethis responded. “ ‘Siren’ is the name we give to the young and unwary of our race, those who are in that dangerous age between acquiring their shaping ability and learning how to control it. We protect them, shelter them from the outsiders not just for the sake of our young but for the sake of those who fall prey to them. Sirens naturally desire to empathize with those with whom they come in contact but are unable to filter those feelings and thoughts or control their reaction to them. These sirens, through no fault of their own, do everything they can to give or show to those whom they meet the heart’s most secret desire.”

  “Well, now, that doesn’t sound so bad,” Jugar observed. “Sounds rather pleasant if you ask me.”

  “So everyone is tempted to believe,” Ethis said, his words coming in a chill voice. “But the granting of these visions and wishes is unrestrained by the sirens. These fulfillments are rarely permanent or real: they are promises without substance. Our experience is that other races are consumed by their desires when they are so freely given but never fulfilled, ensnared by having their own dreams constantly just beyond their reach and ultimately imprisoned or destroyed by their own passions that are never truly sated.”

  Gradek drew in a deep breath, his lionlike face grown stoic but horror reflected in his eyes. “A golden curse most terrible! Can we not deploy the army around the encampment…protect the pilgrims from this danger?”