An explosion suddenly filled the air around Drakis with dust, smoke, and debris. Drakis jumped toward the opening beyond the platform. He landed hard, rolling into the curved hallway. Choking, he struggled to his feet as the dust cleared.
The balcony was gone. Drakis looked down over the shattered edge. Soen may have taken care of the Guardians on this level but several of their ranks several levels below remained unaffected. A war-mage among them had obliterated the landing from under them just as the dragon came to rest. Suddenly deprived of his expected perch, Marush fell out of the sky with Urulani still attached to the saddle harness, both tumbling down the face of the Cloud Palace along with the shards of the balcony. Drakis stared in horror as the dragon spun, his wings beating frantically at the air as he fell. Fortune favored the dragon, however, as it fell faster and faster down the sheer face of the palace, its wings finding purchase in the air with its renewed speed. Marush suddenly righted himself just above a lower level, skidding slightly in the air before suddenly soaring outward from the palace and over the city. More bolts from the war-mages below pursued them as they swung around in the sky.
Drakis gritted his teeth. He could not wait for them. It was only a matter of time before the Cloud Guardians from the unaffected lower levels made their way up to the Emperor’s Devotions. They were running out of time and opportunity.
Drakis drew his sword and darted down the curving hall.
The interior was a curving maze of corridors as Soen had instructed them before they took flight. Soen had also said that once they understood where they were on the Devotions level, finding the Emperor’s Devotions would be simple. The problem was that Drakis had no idea which of the terrace entrances he had come in and nothing in the multiple intersecting arched corridors afforded him any recognition of his location.
A voice hissed behind him. “Is the Man of Prophecy lost?”
Drakis wheeled around, weapon readied in his hand.
Soen arrested Drakis’ sword hand in a powerful grip, his wide, sharp-toothed grin frightening. “There’s no time for games. Follow me!”
Soen led Drakis around a long curving corridor, then down a series of shorter corridors. Drakis was suddenly uncertain about the path back. In each successive passage, Cloud Guardians lay slumped to the floor. Several looked almost blissful as they lay in a heap against the walls or sprawled on the polished marble underfoot.
“What did you do to them?” Drakis asked.
“A little something I learned in a most embarrassing manner,” Soen said as they turned into yet another corridor, “from Braun.”
This corridor opened into a wide, curving gallery extending thirty feet above their heads to buttress arches bending toward the inner wall. The gallery looked as though it might form a huge circle in the center of the palace avatria. A number of additional Cloud Guardians lay along the length of the gallery in both directions, mixed with a number of comatose courtiers in different types of dress. Drakis guessed that their outfits must have been highly significant in terms of their official positions in the Imperial Court, but he was completely unfamiliar with what Orders or Ministries they must have represented.
“Here!” came the deep, echoing voice from their left. “This way!”
The dwarf waving his ax was just visible around the curve of the gallery. Soen and Drakis ran quickly toward Jugar, finding him standing next to a pair of ornately carved onyx doors more than three times the height of the dwarf.
“Well, so you’ve finally come! I’ve been waiting here for an unreasonable count of time but your triumph being so near at hand, I wanted to wait until Drakis himself arrived to confront the Emperor and let him feel the just results of his crimes!”
“You mean you could not open the door,” Soen said.
“Oh, and I suppose you can?” Jugar fumed.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Soen affirmed.
“Right, then,” Jugar snarled. “You open the door, we go in, separate the Imperial head from its Imperial body and end this thing once and for all!”
“No!” Soen said with vehement conviction. “Whatever happens, do nothing to harm the Emperor until I’ve got control of the Devotions altar. It is critical that an elf take control of the altar first.”
The dwarf sputtered. “Why, that’s the biggest nonsense…”
“Remember what happened at the Citadels, Drakis?” Soen asked. “You couldn’t open the Well because you needed humans to make it work. This is no different: the Emperor’s Devotions altar was created only to accept elven control. You may not need an elf to invert the Well, Drakis, but you certainly need one to take control of the Devotions.”
“Is that where Braun went wrong?” Drakis demanded. “He couldn’t command the altar in Tjarlas and so that’s why Jugar couldn’t save him?”
A roaring sound echoed down the gallery. Drakis felt a sudden flash of heat.
“It’s the dragons,” Soen said. “Trying to keep the Guardians occupied.”
“We’re wasting time!” Jugar urged.
“Very well, Soen,” Drakis said. “Be quick!”
Soen nodded, reached toward the center of the onyx door and pressed the release.
The door slid downward, vanishing into the floor. Soen slipped quickly through the opening. Drakis and the dwarf both followed him with their weapons in their hands.
Drakis was dashing into a meadow surrounded by towering forests. A sweet, fresh breeze filled the air, blowing across a small pond at the edge of the meadow. Six snow-capped peaks pierced the sky in the distance all around the glade. In the center of the meadow stood a small, grass-covered mound.
Atop the mound, sat the Emperor of Rhonas in serene repose.
“I’ve had about as much of that as I can take!” grumbled the dwarf. He pulled from his pouch his strange, dark stone.
“The Heart of Aer!” Drakis said in surprise. “What are you going to…?”
“See a little more clearly,” the dwarf answered.
As he raised the stone, it seemed to Drakis to emit a pulsing darkness that began to eat away at the beautiful mountain scene. The meadow dissolved into a black stone floor. The lush forests gave way to dark columns of red marble. The pond vanished altogether. The mound was transformed into a raised dais that supported a throne of granite shot through with veins of glowing crystal. The darkness from the dwarf’s stone reached higher into the octagonal hall. The distant mountains became six enormous Aether Well crystals, six feet across at their base where they plunged into the stone floor, each of which converged fifty feet directly over the throne.
“The Well of the Empire,” Soen whispered in awe. He turned back toward the onyx door, once again closed behind them. He pressed a release and the door locks slammed hard into place.
“The Well, yes…but where’s the altar?” Drakis asked.
“That’s the altar!” Soen took a hesitant pair of steps forward, eyeing the dais. “The throne is the altar.”
“Well, then, do it,” Drakis urged. He gestured toward where the Emperor sat with his eyes closed in quiet repose. “Take control of the Devotions while the Empire sleeps!”
Soen ran his tongue over his pointed teeth, hesitation in his dull, black eyes. “We never anticipated the spell would penetrate this far. We certainly didn’t think it would work here in the Well of the Empire. We need to…consider this for a few minutes…”
“Consider it!” Drakis hissed. “The Guardians will be here at any moment!”
“You’re right,” Soen nodded, looking back toward the sleeping Emperor. “I’ll have to…”
Suddenly Soen’s eyes flew open wide. The elf’s pointed skull snapped backward, his spine arching as he drew in a gasping breath.
“Soen?” Drakis asked in alarm.
The elf pitched forward, falling to the ground.
A dwarven ax was lodged squarely in Soen’s back.
“Jugar!” Drakis cried, stepping back.
The dwarf stepped forward, reaching ca
sually down for the handle of the ax lodged in Soen’s split rib cage.
“I wouldn’t worry about one dead elf,” Jugar said, and then his face broke into a gap-toothed smile. “There’s going to be a lot more of them by nightfall.”
Drakis thought he heard the Emperor stir behind him.
CHAPTER 36
Endgame
“JUGAR, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” Drakis gasped out in horror.
“What I’ve had to do.” Jugar was having some difficulty extracting his ax from Soen’s back. The dwarf placed his boot against the elf’s spine, yanking on the handle as he tried to dislodge the blade. “What I swore I would do with every breath since the elves took my crown. We never thought they would bother with us. We were under the mountain and thought, ‘Let the elves conquer their neighbors and all the world under the sun for all we care.’ But ruling the light wasn’t enough for them. They had to have the dark as well. My dark. My stone. My kingdom. I watched the Nine Thrones fall one after another until none were left…none but mine.”
“Yours?” Drakis stepped back, raising the tip of his blade in front of him.
“Yes, mine!” Jugar grimaced, twisting the handle and pulling hard again. “Sorry to disappoint you, Drakis, but while you were so intent on taking the Crown of the Ninth Throne you never thought the dwarf you killed wearing it could be anything but the king. Who would have expected a jester to wear the crown? But the crown was nothing—the Heart of Aer was everything! That’s where the true King of the Ninth Throne was during the battle: below your feet and out of sight and mind. While you killed each other over the crown, all I had to do was wait under the throne with the true prize until you all chased each other out.”
“But I was still there,” Drakis nodded.
“Yes, lad,” The dwarven ax blade suddenly came free with a sickening, sucking sound. “I may have been wearing the jester’s costume but you got to play the fool.”
“This has been your plan all along?” Drakis’ mouth had suddenly gone dry. “To kill the Emperor?”
“Kill the Emperor?” Jugar jeered. “No, Drakis, I’m not going to kill the Emperor—I’m going to kill his Empire. I’m going to free all the world from these damnable Devotions all at once, utterly destroy Aether magic, and then watch the Empire plunge into madness and drag all the rest of the sunlit world down with it into its own death throes.”
The dwarf spun the ichor-covered ax skillfully in his hands. “You can come watch, too, if you like. It’s the least I can do for the human that made it all possible.”
“No,” Drakis said, shifting his stance to place himself between the dwarf and the Imperial Throne.
Jugar’s broad grin faded slightly, menace in his eyes. “Do you really think this wise, lad?”
“Don’t do this, Jugar,” Drakis said. “It doesn’t have to end this way.”
A sudden pounding sounded at the onyx door behind the dwarf. Muffled cries could be heard coming from the other side.
“It was always going to end this way!” Jugar growled. “Get out of my way, boy!”
“No, Jugar, please…Don’t make me stop you…”
“STOP ME?” The dwarf charged forward, his ax swinging quickly in his powerful hands. Drakis barely managed to counter the blow with his sword, the blade scraping down the shaft just below the ax blade, deflecting it to the side. “You can’t stop me! You’re nothing!”
Drakis took another step back. He shifted his sword, anticipating another swing of the ax but Jugar shifted his grip, thrusting the top of the ax straight at Drakis’ face. The blunt top of the ax slammed against the human’s forehead. The pain exploded above Drakis’ eyes, sending him reeling several more steps before he could regain his footing.
“I’m Drakis!’ the human said, his breath ragged. “You said I was the Man of Prophecy.”
“Because I made you!” Jugar shouted as he quickly closed again with Drakis, his ax now arcing high above his head. Drakis managed to set his stance barely in time to intercept the haft with the hand guard of his sword, arresting the swing and binding up both weapons. “You were no one—a slave among slaves who just happened to have the right name.”
Drakis kicked with his right foot, planting a blow against the dwarf’s chest. The blades of both weapons rang as they separated.
“I molded you, shaped you, forged your worthless life into a legend,” the dwarf raged. “I sold your story to the gullible because they had to believe in something. They don’t believe in you because you’re great, Drakis. They made you great because I swindled them into believing in you!”
“But you helped us!” Drakis cried out. “You even tried to save Braun in Tjarlas!”
“I didn’t try to save him,” the dwarf bellowed. “I was trying to stop him!”
The dwarf charged again, his ax flashing in the light of the six Aether Well crystals towering above them. Drakis’ own blade danced quickly to counter the blows raining down on him in rapid succession. The razor-keen edge of the ax connected with Drakis’ shoulder plate, glancing downward into his left arm. Blood welled up from the wound as Drakis cried out but he managed to spin around, clouting the dwarf in the head with the hilt of his blade. The dwarf toppled sideways from the blow, rolling twice across the ground.
The pounding on the doors was becoming more pronounced.
Drakis’ left harm hung limp at his side, his sword held in his right hand. His breathing was ragged as he strode toward the dwarf. “I’ve always thought I was a fraud—but not today. I may not be the Man of Prophecy but someone has to be that man here and now—and I guess it has to be me.”
The dwarf pushed up away from the floor with a terrible cry, snatching his ax up as he stood. Drakis ran directly toward him, his sword clutched in his right hand. The dwarf howled, throwing the ax with both hands directly at the charging human. Drakis saw it coming, swung his sword and connected with the heavy ax in flight. The force of the blow made him stumble, halting him a dozen feet from the dwarf. Drakis shifted his gaze back from the ax to the dwarf.
Jugar was grinning at him though there was a hint of sadness in his eyes.
The ax had been a diversion.
The dwarf was holding the Heart of Aer in his left hand, his right arm extending as a spell formed on his lips.
Drakis reacted at once from his instincts as an Impress Warrior. He fell to his knees, sliding across the polished floor toward the dwarf. He could only hope that the spell would somehow miss him.
Jugar looked away from Drakis, his attention now on the throne, his eyes suddenly wide.
“NO!” the dwarf screamed.
Drakis plunged the tip of his sword into the dwarf, the blade sliding expertly up under his ribs. Drakis drew the weapon free of the dwarf, pitching to one side.
The Heart of Aer tumbled from the dwarf’s hands as he fell to the ground. The dwarf’s blood welled up from under his body, flowing around the dark, strange stone.
Drakis, now face down on the floor, raised his head to see what had distracted the dwarf.
The lifeless body of the Emperor laid sprawled down the steps of the dais.
On the Throne of the Emperor’s Devotions…sat Soen Tjen-rei.
“Where are we going?” Shebin asked, darting glances around her. A sign fixed to the side of the narrow alley declared it to be the Atje Hranoshei, a name that struck Shebin as being longer than the passage was wide. Walls of subatria crowded in on either side and ran between the foundations in a wandering maze. Shebin had some vague notion that slaves and members of the Lesser Estates may have used these same routes in the course of their duties to the Empire; duties that were far beneath her notice let alone her station.
“Not much farther now,” K’yeran repeated the answer she had given only minutes before.
At least these alleys were abandoned. She could still hear the muted sounds of the mobs and the almost constant rumble of warmage magic in the distance beyond the narrow canyons of the alley walls. The Vira Rhonas proved impassibl
e, as was the Vira Condemnis. The Iblisi woman that had rescued her from the Cloud Palace had managed to get them out of the Garden of Kuchen before the horde closed around them. Somehow they had crossed the Vira Condemnis into the alleys just north of the Forums of the Estates. She could still see the tops of the towering Forums minarets barely visible to the east above the subatria walls around her.
The Atje Hranoshei ended abruptly at a cross alley whose weathered sign declared it to be the Atje Nyelo. Shebin had never heard of these names before and was thoroughly confused about where they were. She determined to see K’yeran punished in the most painful manner, and not for the first time since meeting her that morning.
K’yeran turned to the right almost immediately through an arched, dark alleyway that opened into a plaza so small that Shebin doubted whether the name Pazi D’hin could even properly be applied to it. It seemed more like the accidental space created by several subatria foundations that didn’t quite fit together and had left this space abandoned and useless. The plaza was filled with dried and rotting leaves and dirt accumulated for uncounted time. It remained in the perpetual shadows of the shining avatria piercing the sky around it.
Shebin had lost sight of the Iblisi, giving her another reason to see the woman tortured, and she moved quickly toward the obvious exit: a wall opening to the left. The moment she had turned into it, however, she realized that it had been sealed closed and now appeared to be only an alcove.
“Do you hear that, Shebin?”
The daughter of the Emperor spun around. K’yeran was standing next to the entrance to the Pazi D’hin, leaning back against the wall, her arms folded across her robes.
“Do you hear it?” K’yeran asked again. “Listen, Shebin. Listen so that you will always remember the sound of it.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Shebin said, striding toward the arched exit from the Pazi.
K’yeran moved sideways, her body blocking the opening. “That’s right, Shebin. You don’t hear anything. Where is the thunder of Imperial war-mage magic being deployed against the invading army? Where are the cries of the rioting mobs? Where is the roar of dragons circling the Cloud Palace? Do you hear them, Shebin?”
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