Forged In Flame (In Her Name: The First Empress, Book 2)

by Hicks, Michael R.

  More time passed, days when he lost more faith just as his body wasted away. He listened to Keel-Tath’s song day and night. He had, in fact, become so attuned to it that he sensed little else.

  Then, one day, something changed. She was engaged in battle, he could tell easily enough. But the fear and bloodlust gave way to fear and a hopelessness so profound that he was jarred out of his meditative state.

  Then the pain began, an agony both spiritual and physical that caused him to cry out as the song of her blood carried it through his veins. It was worse than the fire of the Crystal Of Souls.

  He forced himself back to full consciousness, a dark rage rapidly rising, filling him with a cold fire. He knew there was only one thing that could cause such tearing of the body and soul.

  Ignoring the pain and stiffness in his joints as he forced himself to his feet, he stormed out of his room and made his way to T’ier-Kunai’s quarters.

  “She is not here.” It was Anakh-Lehr, and he could tell by her horrified expression that she knew of Keel-Tath’s agony, and also knew the only possible cause.

  Ria-Ka’luhr and two other priests came running in, with more right behind them.

  “The conclave is conducting an inquisition,” Ayan-Dar told them. Most of those who now stood before him had never heard of such a thing, unless they had unearthed the knowledge in the Books of Time, for inquisitions had only rarely happened over the ages. And it could only take place with the participation of the most high of all six orders, and that meant that T’ier-Kunai was involved. “Ria-Ka’luhr, Anakh-Lehr, and the two of you,” he nodded to the two other priests who had come with Ria-Ka’luhr to his room that day, “will come with me. The rest,” he looked at the others who were quickly gathering behind and raised his voice that he could be heard, “prepare for the coming storm, and prepare well, for it will be like no other we have ever faced.”

  “How will we find her?” Ria-Ka’luhr asked. “It could take us days with our second sight to locate her.”

  Ayan-Dar shook his head. As he looked at the young priest, he saw himself as he was many years ago, and for now, even if it were just for this moment, he felt young again, renewed. He was going to do what he should have done from the very beginning and take back his daughter. “I believe I know exactly where she is.” He clenched his hand about the handle of his sword. “Follow me.”

  The four of them nodded, and together they vanished as the others carried word through the temple of what was happening.

  ***

  Keel-Tath’s eyes flickered open as a blast of frigid air washed over her. Ayan-Dar stood beside her, and he was not alone. Behind him were Ria-Ka’luhr, along with two other priests and a priestess of the Desh-Ka, the cyan runes on their breast plates glowing in the torch light, the sigils on their collars gleaming.

  Ayan-Dar looked upon her with his good eye. Though he was gaunt, as if he had eaten nothing since the day she left his side, she saw in his gaze the warrior he had once been, the hero who had once saved the Homeworld. “I am here, my child,” he said softly into the stunned silence that filled the great hall. With a wave of his hands, the shackles that bound her fell away. Then he turned to the guards who held her companions captive. “Release them or die where you stand.”

  The guards looked at Syr-Nagath, who glared with fiery rage at Ayan-Dar and his entourage, but they feared the Desh-Ka priest more than her, and wisely so. Fumbling with the keys, they released the shackles that bound the others and stepped back, melting into the gaping onlookers.

  Dara-Kol was the first to reach Keel-Tath’s side, followed by Tara-Khan and Ka’i-Lohr. Drakh-Nur, his head covered with matted blood, stood over them, glaring at the members of the conclave and the Dark Queen like an angry mountain. The four others of the priesthood who had come with Ayan-Dar formed a protective circle around them.

  “You go too far,” said the high priest of the Nyur-A’il, whose hooded eyes narrowed. He raised his hand, palm out toward Ayan-Dar as he had with Syr-Nagath.

  “Do not try your feeble tricks on me,” Ayan-Dar hissed, “or I will turn you to ash.”

  The priest bared his fangs at the old warrior and clenched his open hand into an impotent fist.

  Ignoring him, Ayan-Dar stepped closer to T’ier-Kunai, his face a mask of cold rage. “What madness is this? I do not hold it against you that you did not convene a conclave when I called for one, but to give in to the manipulations of this honorless creature?” He pointed at Syr-Nagath. “It is insanity!”

  “We must know what she is,” T’ier-Kunai said quietly, nodding toward Keel-Tath, “and the threat she poses to the Way.”

  “Threat?” Ayan-Dar laughed. “Fools, all of you! She is the Way’s salvation! Do none of you understand that when our race is united before her, as prophecy demands, there will be nothing we cannot achieve? And the priesthoods, you who fear such change, will remain a vital part of the Way that must come, only in a different fashion. We will no longer suppress the destiny of our race as we have for countless centuries, but become part of its future. Do you not see?” He turned to look at the other members of the conclave, who stared at him with guarded expressions. “Do not any of you see?”

  “Perhaps we should all gouge out an eye that we may see the world as you do, Ayan-Dar,” said the high priestess of the Kura-Hagil. “But it is you who do not understand. Never before, in all the ages past, have the powers to heal, to control water, to forge metal, been embodied in a single individual, let alone a warrior. And even from what we have seen in the inquisition so far, that may not be all she can do. Not all, by far.”

  “We would know the secrets of her soul and her flesh,” said the high priest of the T’lan-Il. “When we are finished here, we will know all.”

  “I beg to inform you, high priest,” Ayan-Dar told him, his voice dripping with contempt, “but your inquisition is over. Discuss in your precious conclave what you would. Confer with Syr-Nagath at length if it is your wish, letting her tongue fill your ears with more lies and deceit. Soil your hands and your honor by ignoring the good you may do in the world. But no more harm will come to Keel-Tath or her companions. I forbid it.”

  “Have a care at your words.” Keel-Tath could hear the edge in T’ier-Kunai’s voice, and could sense her rising anger. Her words echoed the expressions of the others of the most high, for Ayan-Dar was treading perilously close to casting a challenge against all of them.

  “I do have a care, my priestess.” He looked at Keel-Tath, and she could feel the love he felt toward her, and a bottomless well of guilt and shame. “She lies there, where you, her own priestess, cast her into unimaginable suffering.”

  “I am no longer her priestess. Do not place the blame at my feet.”

  “She is blood of my blood!” Ayan-Dar’s shout echoed through the hall. “She is bound to you just as she is to me, even in her exile.” His voice softened. “Turn away from this insanity, T’ier-Kunai. I beg of you.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then shifted her gaze to his four co-conspirators. “Leave this place now and return to your duties at the temple, and we will speak no more of this.”

  All of them lowered their eyes, but they said nothing.

  “They would not have come if they were to be so easily cowed,” Ayan-Dar told her. “They believe in the words of Anuir-Ruhal’te, as I do. And there are others who would believe, if they could see what Keel-Tath has become.”

  “She will become nothing, priest of the Desh-Ka.” These words were spoken by Syr-Nagath, who had regained her courage, or fallen further into insanity. “When the conclave finishes with her I would—”

  “Draw your sword and claim your challenge,” Ayan-Dar told her in a voice as cold as the glaciers at the top of the world. “Otherwise, hold your tongue, or I will cut it out.” He was sorely tempted in that moment to simply kill her and be done with it. He was already beyond redemption in the eyes of the conclave. What more harm could be done?

  “Syr-Nagath is under
our protection here,” T’ier-Kunai said, as if reading his mind. “Ayan-Dar, I will only ask this once more: depart now, that the conclave may finish the task set before it. We will have words when we return, but in the end you will be forgiven.”

  “I do not ask your forgiveness,” he replied, shaking his head. “Not this time.”

  “Enough of this.” The high priestess of the Ima’il-Kush drew her sword, as did the others of the conclave.

  After a moment, T’ier-Kunai drew hers as well, the black streaks of mourning coursing down her face. “You leave me no choice,” she said in a heartbroken voice.

  “So be it.” Ayan-Dar and the others with him drew their swords, and the great hall erupted in pandemonium as the thousands inside turned to flee. While it was not unheard of for priests to honor challenges in the arena with swords, this was not a battle for honor. For the conclave, it was to punish, to destroy. For Ayan-Dar and the others, it was to protect Keel-Tath and the future she represented. Some would die by the sword, but in battle, the main weapons of the priesthoods were far more deadly than their blades.

  Keel-Tath could feel the rising energy in the hall, as if the air itself were electrified. Ria-Ka’luhr and the others with him gathered closer in a protective ring around her and her companions. In the great hall, dust motes began to swirl, and the stone beneath their feet became hot to the touch.

  Then, in the blink of an eye, battle was joined. The hall was filled with deafening thunder as T’ier-Kunai threw a massive bolt of cyan lightning at Ayan-Dar, who in the same instant erected a wall of kindred energy to deflect it back. The priests and priestess who had come with him formed a protective shell of energy around her and her companions, and the last she saw of Ayan-Dar was a shadow through a wall of lightning, whirling in a dance of death with the members of the conclave. She screamed at him to get away, but knew he could not hear her.

  The sides of the shell began to deform, pressing inward, as if being crushed by a titanic hand, and the air grew too hot to breath. Then she felt Ria-Ka’luhr’s hand on her shoulder, and the world became black and cold.

  ***

  Old then young, young then old. Keel-Tath witnessed the birth of the Universe and its death as she traveled through space and time that did not exist.

  When she blinked her eyes, she was home again, at the temple of the Desh-Ka high on its plateau. Dara-Kol and the others were with her, having been brought here by the other priests and priestess.

  But the temple did not look now as when she had left it. For a moment, she thought the chaos was a figment of her imagination, a dream left over from traveling through the darkness to get here. But the shouts and screams, the bolts of lightning, did not stop. The temple was at war. Acolytes and disciples fought one another with bloodthirsty abandon amidst priests and priestesses who dueled with snarling bolts of cyan energy and swords that slashed and thrust at blinding speed.

  “What has happened?” She shouted over the din at Ria-Ka’luhr, who appeared as stunned as she felt.

  “Civil war!” he shouted back. An enormous cascade of energy flared near the Kal’ai-Il, and two of the enormous pillars were sheared off, crushing half a dozen acolytes who were battling beside them. “It would seem there were more who believed than we realized, and they were not content to wait for our return before deciding the matter.”

  Half the buildings were on fire, and Keel-Tath could see the wardresses of the creche, holding the precious younglings, streaming toward the path that led down to the valley, along with the other robed ones. She was relieved to see that the guardians attended them. Not only would they not be in the fight, but the children and the robed ones would be protected, come what may.

  The other priests and the priestess with them fended off the few nearby challengers, but they could not stay here, near the center of the maelstrom. The entire plateau was alive with cyan discharges.

  “Where can we go?” Keel-Tath cringed as a bolt came perilously close, but was blocked at the last instant by Ria-Ka’luhr.

  “To the coliseum!” It was Ayan-Dar, who appeared beside them. His left side was badly burned, and a chunk of his breast plate had been blasted away, the edges still red hot. “Quickly!”

  With Anakh-Lehr in the lead, they fought their way through the temple complex. Ka’i-Lohr and Tara-Khan helped her along, for her body was still weak and wracked with pain from the torture inflicted by the conclave. Drakh-Nur and Dara-Kol had picked up weapons from fallen acolytes, and added their toll to the butcher’s bill, while Ayan-Dar and the other rebels of the priesthood blasted away at the loyalists who stood in their way.

  Keel-Tath and her companions followed Ayan-Dar toward the great dome that now rose above her. She gasped for air, not from the pain that still had hold of her body, or even the fear and exertion of fleeing across the temple compound, but the empathic shock of the deaths of those around her. On both sides were priests who had taught and nurtured her, acolytes and disciples who had been her companions since the days of the creche, and every one of them who died tore at her heart. They were her family, her beloved, and all of them were dying over her. Some died to protect her, others to kill her.

  As they approached the door to the coliseum, T’ier-Kunai appeared before them, her fangs bared in rage, her bloodied sword held out to one side. She opened her mouth and bellowed a challenge. “Ayan-Dar!”

  Without hesitation, the old warrior swept forward, sword held high. They fought in a whirlwind of slashing steel and cyan lightning. Tara-Khan drove Keel-Tath down to the ground, covering her with his body as a huge release of energy swept over them, knocking the others, save those of the priesthood, off their feet. She was deafened by a cascade of explosions, and had to keep her eyes squeezed shut to avoid going blind. The air over the center of the battle between the two most powerful members of the priesthood grew so hot that dark, ugly clouds began to form and swirl overhead.

  At one point the lightning stopped and they both vanished together, then reappeared moments later, covered in snow as they grappled with claw and sword. T’ier-Kunai finally gained the upper hand, driving Ayan-Dar back against the door of the coliseum with blazing fast overhand strikes from her sword. With one final slash, she knocked Ayan-Dar’s sword away, leaving a clear path to his chest. She lunged forward, plunging her blade through his breastplate, just below his empty left shoulder. Keel-Tath saw the tip of the blade emerge out her mentor’s back, red with blood.

  But the killing blow was the dagger that Ayan-Dar had drawn from his belt. Shoving himself forward, driving T’ier-Kunai’s blade even deeper, he rammed the dagger up beneath her breastplate, the tip piercing her heart.

  She stared at him in shock, her mouth open wide. As her body went limp and the two of them collapsed to the ground, he cradled her in his arms, the marks of mourning streaming down his cheeks. “I am so sorry,” he rasped. He turned to Ria-Ka’luhr. “Pull out her sword.”

  The younger priest took hold of the sword’s handle and yanked it free, Ayan-Dar grunting with pain.

  “Keel-Tath and Ria-Ka’luhr, with me,” the old priest gasped as he reluctantly let go T’ier-Kunai’s body and struggled to his feet with Ria-Ka’luhr’s help. “The rest of you, find what refuge you can and await our return.”

  “We would guard the door!” Tara-Khan said.

  “This door needs no guard,” Ayan-Dar explained. “Where we go, none may follow.”

  With a touch of his hand, the massive door opened, and the three of them rushed inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Crystal Of Souls

  Keel-Tath stumbled blindly into inky darkness as the massive door closed behind them. As it slammed home, the terrible sounds of battle outside ceased. Other than her breathing and the sound of her feet shuffling through what must have been sand as she groped blindly forward, the inside of the coliseum was quiet as a tomb.

  “Ayan-Dar?” She waved her arms around, trying to find him, but her hands found only empty air. In a rising voice
, fear taking hold of her, she called out. “Ria-Ka’luhr?”

  Just before she was about to shout out to them, the darkness was displaced by a soft glow that swiftly grew brighter, fully illuminating the chamber. She could not see the source of the light, for there were no torches or fires. It simply was.

  “Here, child.” Ayan-Dar beckoned to her from the central dais of what she instantly recognized as a massive arena that took up the entire area under the dome. Her eyes flicked upward, taking in the detail of the carvings on the curved walls and ceiling. She would have liked to study them, for they were among the most beautiful she had ever seen, but there was no time, not now.

  Forcing aside her own lingering pain from the conclave’s inquisition, she rushed to his side. The old warrior priest knelt on the stone dais, his face a sickly cyan. Blood dripped in a steady flow from the wound above his heart where T’ier-Kunai’s blade had found its mark, and a crimson pool had formed on the stone beneath him.

  Kneeling by his side, she held him as he blinked and began to fall over. “Where is Ria-Ka’luhr?”

  “He…” He paused, then gasped, “There is…no time.”

  The dais began to tremble, the very earth beneath them shaking before the stone at the center, not a hands breadth from where she knelt, fell away into utter blackness. She tried to drag Ayan-Dar clear of the terrifying abyss, but he held her tight.

  “No,” he said, blood running from his lips. “Here.”

  Not understanding what was happening, she was frightened, but did what he asked.

  The ground continued to shake, but above the low rumble she heard something grinding, stone against stone.

  A pillar emerged from the abyss, rising as if forced upward by the earth itself, driven by the pressures deep in the planet. It kept rising, slowly rising, until the top of it, which was barren except for the concave surface of the stone itself, was nearly as high as she stood tall.

  As the rumbling below her feet stopped, a brilliant light shone from above. She looked up, but had to raise a hand to protect her eyes as something, a tiny point of cyan fire, fell toward them from high above the dome.