Blood of the Emperor

by Tracy Hickman

CHAPTER 38

  Pyres

  THE STREETS OF RHONAS CHAS were deserted of its citizens. The warriors of the Imperial Garrison, with trepidation at first and grim duty afterward, had cleared the avenues and alleys of the Imperial City, urging its citizens—largely with patience and occasionally with force—to return to their homes and to remain there until the army heralds summed them from their homes the following morning. It had taken the better part of the day to restore order in the city but by early evening Ch’drei received word from Soen that she should come to the Cloud Palace.

  Ch’drei walked across the God’s Bridge over the south branch of the River Jolnar. She left instructions with the members of her Order to remain within the Keep until she returned. Only one Inquisitor accompanied her: K’yeran Tsi-M’harul who had come to summon her.

  “It is so quiet,” Ch’drei said as they walked down the Vira Rhonas past the marketplace. “I have wondered sometimes if Rhonas Chas were spoiled by so many citizens but now I find this silence discomfiting. It feels like the city is waiting to die.”

  “Or perhaps it is holding its breath,” K’yeran observed. “Waiting to be born.”

  “What an odd thought!” Ch’drei glanced at K’yeran. “You always could find a different way of looking at things, K’yeran!”

  “I prefer to see new opportunities, Keeper,” K’yeran offered. “It is better for a tree to bend than to break, is it not?”

  Ch’drei nodded but remained silent. They passed the Vira Coleseum with the Great House of the Myrdin-dai on the corner. How strange, Ch’drei thought, that they should have been so powerful for so long and been brought low by this Drakis. Change was the one constant in the Empire, she thought, and perhaps that was good after all.

  They came at last to the Garden of Kuchen. Ch’drei naturally moved to the Tower of the Third Estate. A pair of Cloud Guardians stood watch at its entrance but the access to the Cloud Palace was otherwise completely deserted.

  “Soen is taking no chances, I see,” Ch’drei observed.

  If K’yeran heard the Keeper, she offered no reply.

  They both drifted upward in a column of light until they reached the platform surrounding the base of the avatria of the palace itself. K’yeran walked before Ch’drei, bringing her across the polished granite to the twenty-foot-tall, delicately inlayed doors that led into the grand reception hall. K’yeran opened the door slightly, the light within spilling out across the platform. Ch’drei nodded in acknowledgment and stepped inside.

  The Keeper took two more steps into the hall before coming to a halt.

  The enormous room was familiar to her. Its sweeping pillars reached high into the dome overhead. There, at its apex, the Aether-driven faux-sun still shone down and illuminated all below in its radiant light. The Emperor’s platform still floated above the floor although now barely a few feet above the level of the polished floor.

  What was different was that the hall was largely deserted except for a number of key figures of the Imperium. All of the Modalis was represented. Sjei-Shurian, the Ghenetar Omris of the Vash and Sinechai of the Modalis, stood at their head, looking thoroughly miserable. Kyori-Xiuchi of the Occuran stood behind him but would not look at the Keeper at all. Minister of Thought Liau Nyenjei, Minister of Law Ch’dak Vaijan and the Minister of Occupation Arikasi Tjen-soi stood with their heads bowed down.

  Ch’drei frowned. There was another member of the Modalis, she thought, but she could not remember the name right now nor even picture a face.

  But it was not just the Modalis that was present. Ghenetar Omris Qi’sei Nu’uran of the Nekara and Ghenetar Omris K’don Usk’dasei of the Krish were both present as well. That constituted the command of all the elven Legions. Pak Getsok and Pak Temenosh of the Paktan and Daramoneti Guilds represented the workers of the Fourth Estate and a number of other major and minor functionaries.

  Soen had gathered in the reins of the entire Empire.

  Yet this was not what stopped the Keeper of the Iblisi in fear.

  It was the manticore seated on the Throne of the Emperor. On the lion-man’s right, he was flanked by Soen as well as another elf unknown to Ch’drei and an unkempt mud gnome. To the manticore’s left was a chimerian—Ethis, she thought—and a female goblin who could not seem to keep herself still for her delight.

  K’yeran closed the door, her voice echoing through the immensity of the hall. “Council of the Drakis Republic; allow me to present Ch’drei Tsi-Auruun, Keeper of the Order of the Iblisi.”

  Ch’drei spun around to the Inquisitor holding the doors closed behind her. “What is the meaning of this, K’yeran?”

  “It means the Prophecy has been fulfilled,” K’yeran said with a thin, satisfied smile crossing her features. “It means that the Empire has fallen—long live the Republic.”

  “But…”

  “The wind is blowing, Keeper Ch’drei,” K’yeran whispered. “Will you bend or will you break against it?”

  Ch’drei straighted up and turned. Slowly, she walked the length of the audience hall to stand before the Council of the Prophet but she faced Soen.

  “So I am the last one brought to grovel at your feet?” Ch’drei asked.

  “You were the last called here,” Soen acknowledged, “but your surrender will not be to me.”

  “But you were Emperor, weren’t you?” she said.

  “All I ever wanted was to be an Inquisitor in the service of the truth,” Soen answered. “And I still am. You are being given a great gift, Ch’drei. Not only will your Order remain intact, it is going to play an essential part in what is to come. The Order has been hunting down the truth and burying it from its inception. Now we’re going to put it to some living use.”

  “And where is Drakis?”

  “Dead, Keeper,” Soen answered. “I bequeathed the Empire to Drakis…and Drakis gave the Empire to the people represented in this council.”

  Ch’drei considered this for a moment, sighed, and then turned to face Belag.

  “How do I address you?” she asked.

  “I am the Grahn Aur,” Belag replied.

  Ch’drei painfully knelt down on one knee. She felt her age as she did, wondering if she had lived too long after all. “Grahn Aur, in the name of the Order of the Iblisi, I offer our allegiance.”

  “To the Rhonas Republic,” Belag prompted.

  “Not to Drakis?” Ch’drei asked.

  “No,” Belag said. “He wanted it this way.”

  Early the next morning, the Army of the Prophet charged the walls of Rhonas. They met with no opposition but were allowed to break down the Benis and Patrician’s Gates as well as the Meducean Gate that led directly onto the Vira Rhonas. It was largely for the Chaenandrian manticores who desired honor in their conquest. The fact that the city and the Empire as a whole had fallen the day before would be forgotten in the stories they would tell upon returning to the Chaenandrian Steppes.

  Later that morning, the Army of Drakis organized itself in a triumphant march into the city. The citizens of Rhonas Chas watched in some confusion at their conquest but were comforted in some part by the quick assurances of the Council of the Republic that the occupying army was not bent on revenge or looting.

  It was later that same afternoon that word came to the warriors in the city that Drakis had died on behalf of their cause. The victory of the morning was tempered by the knowledge that the symbol of their freedom had given everything for them. The story of his final moments spread like lightning from post to post and camp to camp. That evening, at sunset, all of Rhonas looked up in wonder. Urulani was on the back of Drakis’ dragon, Marush. They were told that she was flying northward with the remaining dragons; Pyrash of the dwarven hero Jugar, and Wanrah, freed by Ethis in memory of Drakis’ sacrifice. Many tears were shed on behalf of Drakis as the dragons flew northward and some watching claimed that they saw a second figure seated behind Urulani as the dragons flew higher into the northern sky.

  “Perhaps,” some said, “i
t was Drakis’ soul rising up to meet the gods.”

  Jugar Edorak Aerkan, King of the Ninth Dwarven Throne, was returned to the dwarves beneath the Aeria Mountains with all the honor and respect that the elves could afford a hero of the Republic and the dwarf who died trying to save Drakis. In his name, the elves withdrew from the dwarven halls they had conquered, abandoning them to the dwarves once more. With Jugar’s body, the Rhonas Republic also returned to them the Heart of Aer as a token of their goodwill.

  The dwarves accepted both with thanks and wisely remained beneath the ground, unseen by man or sun.

  The exhausted, ragged remains of the Army of Imperial Vengeance in time returned to an Empire that no longer existed. Nevertheless, the Republic welcomed them and even sanctioned a parade of victory in their honor. They were then quietly absorbed into the new Republic—and could no longer remember why they had gone to war in the first place.

  Ten years later, Urulani returned to Rhonas Chas. She came with her husband, a builder and conjurer from Drakosia, and their two children on the back of Marush, Drakis’ dragon who had never left her.

  There was a week of celebrations in her honor. Though the midnight color of her face was now showing a few wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, she was heralded as the most beautiful sight in the entire Republic. She kept her family apart from the official celebrations and allowed only two visitors into their private chambers in the Cloud Palace of the Grahn Aur; Iblisi Keeper Soen Tjen-rei, the architect of the Republic’s Enlightenment, and Ethis, the Ambassador of Ephindria.

  Marush proved to be a celebrity equal to Urulani. He lolled about the Garden of Kuchen beneath the Cloud Palace to the delight of the citizens who came out in droves to see the dragon of Drakis curled up near the tomb of his master.

  It was to that tomb, at the end of their sojourn in the City of the Republic, that Urulani came to pay her respects with her family.

  “It is rather impressive,” Urulani said as they walked slowly up the wide steps to the tomb. “What do you think of the likeness?”

  “I think they have made him rather too tall,” her husband chuckled. The bronze-and-steel statue of Drakis atop the granite tomb was over thirty feet in height, his sword somewhat incongruous above the peaceful garden around them.

  “He was a great hero,” Urulani said, wrapping her arm around that of her husband. “The greatest I have ever known.”

  “Yes, I believe he was,” he responded. He reached down, gently taking the flowers from his son and daughter. He stepped toward the tomb, knelt down, and laid the flowers beneath the name.

  DRAKIS

  MAN OF PROPHECY

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “I did the best I could in your name. You took everything from me and gave me everything in return. Whoever or whatever you are, Drakis, I had to be you for a while. Someone had to be Drakis—I hope you understand that I did the best I could.”

  He stood up and stepped back from the tomb.

  “Drakis!”

  He turned toward the screeching sound.

  “Drakis!”

  It was a shriveled, cadaverous elf. Her frame was so emaciated that it was barely possible to tell that she was a female. She wore tattered rags for clothing; her hands were like callused claws reaching out for him.

  “You’ve come back for me!” Her voice was like a rusted hinge. “You remember me! You must remember me! You loved me!”

  He stared at her without comprehension. Urulani pulled her husband back to her. A pair of Cloud Guardians at the corners of the tomb noticed the frantic elf woman and quickly approached.

  “It’s me!” the woman wailed as the Guardians gripped her arms, pulling her away. “Shebin! Your Shebin!”

  “My apologies, Flight Mistress,” one of the Guardians said as he struggled with the elf. “There’s always some insane elf woman coming around the tomb, going on about Drakis.”

  “No! Let me go!” the elf woman howled. “Drakis has come back! He’s come back for me!”

  “Does this happen often, Guardian?” Urulani asked, gathering her children about her.

  “Every day, Flight Mistress,” the second Guardian answered as he tried to pull the clawing elf woman away from them. “That’s why we we’re stationed here, to take care of these deranged elves as kindly as possibly.”

  “Are there many of them?” her husband asked.

  “Don’t know,” the Guardian shrugged. “We never seem to remember them once they’re gone.”

  “My thanks, Guardian,” Urulani nodded then looked down at her children. “Do you think it’s time we fly home?”

  Both children cheered.

  Urulani turned her children around and started walking down the broad steps from the tomb. Marush was already attentive, stretching his wings over the garden before them and inviting them back to the sky.

  Urulani turned to her husband and spoke in quiet concern. “She said her name was Shebin.”

  “Common enough name,” her husband replied.

  “Didn’t we know a Shebin once?”

  “Yes, many years ago, as I recall.”

  “You don’t think it’s actually her, do you?

  The man once known as Drakis shrugged then smiled at his wife. “No. I just don’t remember her, Lili.”

  The family climbed up onto the dragon’s harness. Marush gave a great push with his wide wings and together they vaulted into the sky, sailing between the avatria on either side of the broad avenue once called Rhonas but since renamed as the Vira Drakis.

  Forgotten entirely was the elf woman far behind them who was being dragged by the Guardians from the garden as they had unwittingly done every day for a decade. In a city still struggling with its dark past, it was a kindness to this elven female that they should care for her. In her madness, she had not yet embraced the healing and compassion brought by the Iblisi enlightenment. So they would be understanding of her and gentle, even as she kicked at them and whispered in endless repetition…

  “Drakis is returned! Drakis is returned!”