Word came whispered down from one trooper to the next: they had reached a door. Tamerlane and the Inquisitor woman were examining it; obviously they wouldn’t want to just fling it open with no way of knowing what they were walking out into.
Everyone waited, holding their breath. The seconds ticked by.
And then they were moving again, as silently as possible. As Arani reached the doorway, she saw the door itself swung out toward her, and she could tell that it was old; as ancient as anything she’d encountered in the old cathedral on Ascanius. It looked as if it hadn’t been opened in a very long while. Obviously it was the final component, after the passage and the stairs, in a long-forgotten way that only the Grand Inquisitor still remembered. Arani found herself speculating on just how old Stanishur truly was.
Moving past the old door and through the low arched entryway it had guarded, she found herself and her troops standing at the rear of a long, narrow balcony that projected out over a large, well-lit open space. They had actually climbed up from the depths of the Heliopolis’s basement levels and then beyond that, up inside the walls of the palace. And it had to be the palace; the main throne room, in fact. Nothing else looked like this. Down below, a handful of figures in gleaming gold with enameled red and blue accents stood at attention on a pale, veined marble floor.
“What—?” she started to ask, only to be motioned sharply to silence by Tamerlane. She saw then that two Sand Kings in the same ornamental dress uniforms as those below, with energy lances held at their sides, stood at attention on the edge of the balcony. Fortunately for the party, the two guards were facing away from them, toward the interior of the hall.
Sister Delain moved quickly and silently to the front of the group. She gestured with one hand and then nodded to Tamerlane. “They have been silenced,” she whispered, “nor can they now hear.”
Tamerlane caught Titus Elaro’s attention and motioned for him to follow. Together, the two men slipped up behind the suddenly isolated soldiers. The Sand Kings were just beginning to wonder what was happening—why they could no longer hear the sounds from below, nor even their own voices—when the two intruders brought them down with swift blows.
No sooner had they dragged the two unconscious guards away to bind them than Delain stepped into the spot they had previously occupied, near the balcony railing. She raised her hands high as she whispered words unintelligible to the others. She’s shielding us from view, Arani understood. Keeping the others below from detecting us in any way.
Arani moved closer to Tamerlane, Elaro following behind her. “What’s the plan, General?” she whispered.
Tamerlane said nothing. Instead he pointed down.
Arani followed his gesture. Now that they were out near the edge of the balcony, she could see nearly all of the vast open space below. In particular, she could now see a man in powerful-looking, dull-red armor standing near the throne. The armor was remarkable to look upon; it appeared to fit him like a glove, leaving only his face exposed. It appeared almost to be composed of some sort of liquid metal that had been poured over him, leaving no seams.
Then Arani recognized the face of the man in the armor. “Rameses!” she gasped.
Tamerlane didn’t shush her this time. He only nodded. “Target acquired,” he whispered back.
Arani stared down at him, also taking in the sight of the others around him: a pale, slender figure, shirtless, in Egyptian-style headdress; an officer in I Legion colors, lying motionless on his back on a strange platform; a young, blonde girl, also lying apparently comatose on a catafalque, who had to be the missing princess; and a remarkably small number of Sand Kings in ceremonial armor and carrying ceremonial weapons. Arani studied the soldiers in particular and concluded that they might look like toy soldiers carrying toy weapons, but they were in actuality quite deadly.
Near all of them, a source of light radiated throughout the grand hall. Arani studied it momentarily. The brightness was coming from a golden bowl or basin resting on the marble floor. From it erupted a geyser not of water but of light and fire and pure, raw cosmic energy. Arani’s mouth dropped slowly open without her realizing it. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing, but something at a very basic level of her being sensed and appreciated that it was powerful beyond all reason.
“The Fountain,” said Tamerlane, very quietly but with great conviction. “They’ve recreated the Fountain of the Golden City.”
This didn’t mean a lot to Arani. Vaguely she flashed back to some of the tedious lessons of her school days, when the Ecclesiarchy would send a priest to instruct the children on the basic tenets of the state religion. The Golden City was a sort of Heaven, she recalled, and the Fountain was an important feature of it. Beyond that, she couldn’t remember very much. She hadn’t paid a great deal of attention.
Looking still closer at the people milling about below, she detected one other figure—one she hadn’t perceived at first. It was a man in red, she first thought. Then, to her horror, she saw that it wasn’t a man at all. It was larger than any human, horns grew from its head, and its face was a fearsome scowl. She saw it and she knew: it was a demon.
It hovered over the princess. And it was descending towards her even as they looked on.
Realizing that fact, Arani gasped. At Tamerlane’s puzzled glance she pointed with quick jabs toward the prone young woman and the creature. The general was clearly having a difficult time seeing it, or making out exactly what was happening. It was as if he had been somehow bewitched.
Arani hissed one word, sharply: “Possession.”
And then the scales fell from Tamerlane’s eyes. And he saw. And revulsion took him. He started to wretch. Before he could turn away, however, the room was flooded in a still brighter light. A swirling storm of fog and lightning erupted out of thin air, near the center of the chamber. A dark circle formed at its center. Human shapes could just be seen within the black. They were advancing.
“Looks like we aren’t Rameses’ only visitors,” Arani noted in a low whisper.
As both the palace’s official occupants and its hidden guests looked on, some two dozen armed soldiers rushed out into the throne room. They wore dark red uniforms with gold trim, and they carried blast pistols and energy rifles.
“It’s my Legion,” Tamerlane gasped, shocked. “The Lords of Fire! What are they—?”
From out of the portal, pushing his way past the I Legion troopers, came a somewhat shorter, stockier, and much older man also clad in the red and gold of the Lords of Fire. His hair was very short and gray and his expression was not one of the warrior entering combat but of the visitor confused by his surroundings.
“Hideo?” Tamerlane whispered, frowning. “Why would he come here himself? Has he lost his—”
Tamerlane’s voice trailed off as he watched Nakamura raise the weapon he carried up high and out before him. It was a sword—a long, broad one—and it gleamed golden in the light of the fountain. Everyone there recognized it.
“He’s brought the sword with him,” Tamerlane exclaimed. “The Sword of Baranak!”
10
A short while earlier:
“I fear I may have taken him too far, my lord,” Teluria said.
Darkness and silence greeted her statement. She waited, there in her quarters aboard the I Legion flagship, Ascanius, the lights switched off and the door locked to any outside intrusion. Before her, mounted on the wall, hung a golden icon with the image of a man in contemporary clothing etched into it. She took a knee before it and gazed down at the floor, waiting, her words hanging in the air.
“My lord,” she said again after an indeterminate time, “I find I cannot move the white king into position.” She waited; still nothing. She dared to look up at the icon. It was cold and dark. “I believe he was weaker that we first thought,” she continued. “He has deteriorated rapidly. He has grown entirely unresponsive.”
She waited and waited but there was no answer forthcoming. She took this to mean one of two
things: either her master was engaged elsewhere and too busy to commune with her right now, or else he was not interested in her problems and waited only for her to solve them herself. Either way, it amounted to the same thing: she was on her own.
Rising, she gave the icon one last look, her expression a combination of disappointment and annoyance. Then, drawing her crimson cloak tighter about her lithe form, she turned and strode toward the door. “Very well, my lord,” she whispered very softly. “Your plans are jeopardized, here on the very cusp of victory. But if you cannot be bothered to—”
The room lit up, bright as noontime. Teluria spun around, staring up in awe at the icon. It was now glowing with an inner light that nearly overwhelmed her. The image of the man upon it seemed now to breathe, and to move.
“Teluria,” came a deep, resonant voice from out of thin air. “You displease me.”
Quickly she knelt and bowed her head. “My lord,” she said. “I apologize.”
“You cannot carry out your task?” the voice asked. “You have failed me?”
Teluria looked up defiantly, right into the eyes of the image on the icon. “I have done precisely as you instructed, lord,” she said. “But we both misjudged the white king’s resilience. He has lapsed nearly into catatonia now.”
Silence for a long moment, as Teluria waited, anxious, fearing she had pushed things too far. A goddess herself, she knew full well her might paled before that of the one to whom she now spoke. Much as she might occasionally flirt with the idea of challenging his tyranny, she understood that she had joined her destiny with his, so many ages ago, and there was no going back now.
“And you would have me intervene?” the voice asked.
“I would have your plans come to fruition,” she replied.
Another long pause, and then the light in the room grew even brighter. A swirl of dark clouds formed within the light, circling tightly around a central point. What looked like a tunnel appeared in the center of Teluria’s quarters, and a figure emerged from it, walking out into the room.
Teluria bowed deeply. “My lord. Thank you for coming.”
Not deigning to reply, the man in black walked past her. The door slid open as he approached. Teluria hurried to follow him out into the corridor.
Along the way, the crew members they passed didn’t look at them or seem at all aware of their presence. No one so much as looked their way. Arriving at the entrance to the Taiko’s quarters, the man in black raised his left hand and the armed legionaries posted there instantly moved out of the way. The door hissed open.
The room was dark and stuffy. Only Nakamura was present, lying in seemingly deep sleep on a broad red sofa positioned against one wall. The man in black took one look at him and boomed, “Rise!”
Nakamura’s eyes opened and he slowly sat up. He stared straight ahead, eyes glassy, not focusing on anything in particular. His breathing was shallow.
“Your time has come,” the man told him. “You must rouse yourself. We have arrived at the endgame. Your final actions are required.” He smiled. “And then you can rest. Rest for as long as you like.” The smile widened. “Rest forever.”
Nakamura nodded slowly and stood, at attention, still staring into the distance.
“The situation is critical,” the man said, moving in close, his voice quieter now but just as intense, as if he were delivering important news to the Taiko. “The traitor Rameses acts without opposition. He has the little princess in his possession, and who can say what vile purposes he intends for her?”
At this, Nakamura’s eyes focused a bit. “The princess?” His voice was weak and thin. “Rameses has her?”
“Indeed he does,” the man in black said. “Furthermore, he has declared you deposed as Taiko. He has declared himself the new ruler of the Empire.”
Now Nakamura seemed to wake, and his expression darkened. “How dare he? Traitor!”
“Yes.”
“But—” The Taiko hesitated. “I have no armies left,” he said. “They are all out on the frontiers, pinned down, fighting for the survival of the Empire itself. What can I do?”
“What can you do?” The man in black scoffed. “You are virtually a god yourself. You possess the Sword of Baranak! What can you not do?”
Nakamura’s eyes lit up. “Yes! The sword!” He looked around. “Where is it?”
“It is on this ship,” the man told him. “You made certain of that before you set out. Remember?”
Nakamura rubbed his face with his hands, still seeming to be waking up. “Yes, yes,” he said. Then, “Guards,” he called. “Guards!”
Teluria tensed at the Taiko’s shouts, but relaxed once the soldiers rushed in and Nakamura merely ordered them to retrieve the Sword of Baranak from its place of storage.
After it had arrived, accompanied by some two dozen heavily armed troops that the Taiko had summoned, the entire party filed into the strategium. There, the man in black gestured casually and another swirl of light and smoke filled the center of the big, open chamber. A dark, circular dimensional portal opened at its center.
Teluria motioned toward it. “That way lies Ahknaton,” she said. “And Rameses.”
“And retribution,” Nakamura growled. Then he hesitated, looking down at the sword in his hands and then back at Teluria. Something clearly was bothering him. “The sword,” he said, frowning. “If carry it through—will there be an explosion?”
“No,” the woman in red told him. “Only a portal forced open by mortal machinery is vulnerable in such a way. When the gods open the way, there is no danger. Now go!”
Nakamura nodded. He raised the Sword of Baranak high, flames leaping up along his arm and along the blade as he did so. He faced the soldiers in their red and gold uniforms. “Men and women of the Lords of Fire,” he called. “We go to capture—or kill—the traitor Rameses! March!”
Teluria watched them rush toward the portal. In only a few seconds, they had all passed through and were gone. As it started to close behind them, she turned to address her lord. “So much for the white king, eh, my lord?” But then she realized that the man in black was already gone. She frowned, but had to admit to herself that she was relieved he had simply departed without upbraiding her further.
The strategium was empty. She started toward the doorway to exit when a technician entered and approached her.
“Ecclesiarch,” the man said, nodding respectfully.
“Yes?” she asked impatiently.
“You have a call.”
Teluria raised an eyebrow. “A call?”
“Over the Aether. From the Atlantia, near Earth. Shall I put it through?”
Teluria blinked. “The Atlantia? The II Legion flagship? What—?” Absently she motioned for the tech to open the connection.
The strategium darkened and a larger-than-life face formed before her in midair, by way of the holographic projectors. Teluria regarded the man whose visage hovered over her. She felt her bile rising.
“Ecclesiarch,” the rough-hewn man stated with no preliminary niceties, “your presence is requested aboard the Atlantia. Immediately.”
She gazed back at the face. “General,” she said. “We both know it will take some time for a shuttle to transport me all the way back to Earth. And that is even assuming I have the slightest intentions of jumping at your beck and call.”
The big face distorted into a smug grin. “Let us not kid one another, Ecclesiarch. We both know you can come here virtually instantaneously. I require that you do so.”
She reddened to nearly the shade of her cloak and hood. “You require? How dare you?” She exhaled slowly. “What in the name of the gods makes you think I would come running at your summons?”
“I note that you do not attempt to refute my larger point.”
She stewed for a moment. “And you didn’t answer my question,” she said finally. “Why should I come to you?”
“Because you want to know what I could possibly be up to. Because you don’t tr
ust me at all—just as I don’t trust you. But you’re curious. So you’ll come.”
Teluria started to reply but before she could speak the image crackled with static, turned entirely to electronic snow, and vanished.
Her fists bunching up tightly, the woman in red exercised all of her restraint to keep herself from screaming her anger and annoyance. Instead, she relaxed her fingers and raised both hands, opening a portal before her.
“Oh, I’m coming to you, alright, Iapetus,” she hissed.
She stalked through the portal and it snapped closed behind her. The strategium of the Ascanius was plunged into darkness. All that remained was the echo of her final words: “I’m coming— and you will sorely regret that fact, when I arrive.”
11
“What in the name of Those Who Remain does Nakamura think he’s doing?”
The question, asked by a shocked Tamerlane as he looked down from the balcony at what was transpiring below, hung in the air unanswered for several seconds. Everyone could see exactly what was happening—but no one could explain it.
Seconds earlier, a dimensional portal had opened there in the center of the throne room. From it had emerged a battalion of I Legion soldiers, the Taiko Nakamura at their head, the ancient and powerful golden relic known as the Sword of Baranak held aloft and blazing in his hand.
As they entered the throne room, the few remaining Sand Kings elite guardsmen didn’t attack but instead fell back, retreating into hidden spaces along the walls. Rameses and Zahir drew back with them, so that the invaders were the only ones left occupying the center space.
“Show yourself, Rameses!” called Nakamura. “Face me, coward!”
The I Legion troopers that had accompanied the Taiko looked around, moving in slow circles, their weapons up and at the ready, surprised by the utter lack of enemy resistance.
Tamerlane started to move, clearly intending to hurry to the Taiko’s side.
He never got the chance.
The Shattering: Omnibus Page 54