by Terah Edun
Instead, Thanar said with a voice like rolling thunder, “There’s something you know, isn’t there? Something that I will have to beat out of you.”
Maradian smiled, and this time the smile was ever so gentle.
He turned and glanced over his shoulder, careful not to seem threatening. “And that, daemoni prince, is why I’ve always liked you. You know how to get things done.”
Thanar raised his wings, and Ciardis saw his power visibly arc over his head. A threat and a promise rolled into one.
“If you don’t want to be one hand short,” Thanar said softly, “I suggest that you begin, human.”
Maradian shrugged. “Your threats don’t worry me.”
“They should,” Sebastian cut in with words that could have sliced skin from bone.
“As I said,” Maradian continued while eyeing Sebastian thoughtfully, “I came to this throne eight years ago. For a reason. A reason that is steeped in this empire’s lore. Or, rather, the second empire’s lore.”
Ciardis stared at him. “What are you going on about?”
Maradian said calmly, “You’ve found the underground city, yes? The one your rebels inhabit like rats?”
Uneasily, Ciardis nodded. There was no use in denying it, if he already knew about the rebel base. She just hoped the Emperor had not already acted on that knowledge and killed more of the people she had come to know as friends.
Correctly interpreting the look of horror on her face, Maradian laughed and said, “Oh, not to worry, Weathervane. Your little rats are safe at the moment. Even I would not bring a battleground to the city beneath the city by the sea.”
“Why is that?” Thanar purred.
Maradian replied, “Surely you know your own legends?”
“Why don’t you tell us, Uncle?” Sebastian said firmly as he drew his sword and rested the point of the blade heavily on a piece of marble that somehow still remained intact and embedded in the floor. An ominous clang rang out in the ballroom.
Maradian got the message loud and clear. The imposter Emperor smiled as he said, “Well, if you must know—the underground city is a legendary secret. Built before the first Emperor set foot on these lands from a long journey across the Sahalia Sea. However you’ll be surprised to learn that the builders of the underground city were not unfamiliar with dragon kind before then.”
Ciardis frowned. Even she knew the legend of the first Emperor of Algardis and how he formed the empire after a long journey across the seas. But none of the history she had been told included a people inhabiting these lands before, let alone prior contact with the first emperor’s homeland.
Sebastian said slowly, “These builders you reference…we’ve always known someone came before us, but you and I both know that our predecessor was the first to claim these lands from Sahalia.”
Maradian smiled. “The first human, yes. The first individual? No, Nephew, that is not so.”
Thanar sucked in a harsh breath behind Maradian, but he didn’t interrupt. Maybe he knew that he couldn’t. Maradian may have been reciting this story to all of them, but his attention was solely focused on Prince Heir Sebastian. She and Thanar stood as bystanders witnessing knowledge passed from one generation to the next.
At the point of a sword, no less, but passed along it was.
Maradian continued on as if this was a conversation he had every day. “The city met the dragons in jubilation. They were an advanced people with magic and technology that far dwarfed our own. You would know that if you ever studied the markings and the residual magic left behind in their buried city. Fascinating skills those people had, far above our own.”
“I suppose they could fly too?” asked Sebastian dryly.
Maradian eyed him askance. “Actually, they could. Not unlike a certain race of winged warriors, with a prime representative standing behind me. The artistic renderings of their people in flight are absolutely stunning in the western half of the underground city.”
Ciardis felt a headache beginning to form. What did any of this history have to do with the matter at hand?
“If they were so wonderful, where are they now?” Sebastian scoffed.
“Dead,” said Maradian with a confused look. “Where else would they be?”
Ciardis couldn’t stand being silent for a second longer. “All of them?”
“Of course,” said Maradian.
Sebastian shrugged. It didn’t matter to him in the least, Ciardis could tell. Those people were long gone and of no concern, when he had an entire empire with thousands of people who were depending on him now.
“So how did they die?” Sebastian asked bluntly. “Disease?”
He was no doubt thinking of the prevalence of the Aerdivus infection which so far had spread without halting across half the empire. It was a very real concern.
But Maradian laughed as he said, “Of course not. These were a highly advanced people. A little disease would have been immaterial to them.”
“Little?” Ciardis murmured softly under her breath as she raised an eyebrow. She had to wonder if Maradian had actually ever been face to face with an individual ravaged by the ailment. There was nothing ‘little’ about an infection that destroyed tens of thousands of individuals from the inside out.
Sebastian, exasperated, asked, “Then what happened after they welcomed the dragons? Did they metaphorically pack up their tents and move across the seas as happy slaves? I suppose you’ll tell us now that we’re all descendants from this mythical population.”
“Oh no,” the Emperor said softly. “They were well and truly wiped out, their city buried under rubble. Less than a hundred survivors, if you could call them that, scattered to the four winds.”
“By what?” Sebastian asked.
“The dragons, of course,” said Maradian confidently.
8
“The history you know is only half the story.” Maradian continued. “Our founding ancestor wasn’t just a slave to the dragon rulers; he was one of their most favored sons. When he expressed a desire to tame new lands, the dragons did what they do best.”
Ciardis gulped. She wasn’t even sure that she wanted to know, but she forged on gamely.
“Insinuated themselves into the culture’s society and interfered in every aspect of their courtiers’ lives?” she asked.
Maradian said with a hint of bite in his voice, “No, not even close.”
Thanar growled menacingly behind him. The Emperor didn’t flinch, but he did continue on in a more conciliatory tone. There was even a hint of wit in his voice as he said, “However, I’ve always found your situation amusing, Ciardis Weathervane. Until you came to court, Ambassador Raisa was no more than a minor thorn in my side. A spy for the female dragon rulers back in her homelands who did nothing more than eat gluttonously and report back through magically sealed missives she sent by ship to Sahalia every week. I couldn’t fart without the entire dragon empire knowing about it eight days later. You, however, she has stuck to like a prickly burr for more than a year. She has even slacked in her ambassadorial duties, which includes challenging every edict I pronounce and watching my ship deployments like a nasty hawk.”
Ciardis had the strange sense that somewhere in that diatribe, Maradian had actually enclosed a compliment.
She glared at him with her arms folded across her chest. She didn’t think it said much about her, though, that the Emperor was praising her for distracting a vexatious dragon from his own unsavory plans.
In fact, she became quite sure of that with his next sentence.
“That is to say,” the Emperor said with a thoughtful glance at her, “thank you, Companion Weathervane, for allowing me to act without her obnoxious interference. With the dragon following your every move, I was able to put some strategies into play that I had long ago abandoned.”
Well, she couldn’t exactly let a ‘thank you’ pass unnoticed. She wasn’t ever likely to hear those two words pass through the Emperor’s lips again, no matter what the circumst
ances.
Ciardis snorted and said in a completely insincere tone, “You’re welcome, Your Imperial Majesty.”
As she watched him with a cautious eye she noticed something strange. Well, stranger than what she would normally register as a mental unstableness in his actions. His hands were tremoring. Quite frequently. Add on top of that the fact that he was acting even more deranged than usual, and if she didn’t know any better, she would say he addicted to something. Something as innocuous as power, or something as devastating as a substance. Either would be a problem. As he was the Emperor, she was inclined to believe the former. But Ciardis well knew that substance abuse didn’t discriminate between the rich and poor.
However, she couldn’t prove anything. Especially if it was a legitimate sense of withdrawal from all the magic he wasn’t pulling through his body. Something like that wouldn’t leave a physical trace, necessarily. But it wasn’t like the Emperor of Algardis to disclose so many personal thoughts unbidden. She didn’t think he was suddenly so forthcoming because he thought he would die today either, no matter what he said.
Ciardis Weathervane was no fool.
Then again, neither was Maradian Athanos Algardis. He wouldn’t have lasted so long and outwitted them at every turn if he had been.
That makes him even less likely to be taking any of those addictive street remedies, she thought. But his body, his true body, looked like it was ready to fall apart at any second. And some of those remedies, like qat, a sticky ball of resin that was directly absorbed into the human body through ingestion, could provide the user with wondrous properties—could even restore health to the dying.
As long as you got the right kind.
And the Emperor of Algardis, amongst all the souls of the land, would have access to the right kind.
But he was thready, rambling about underground cities, ordering his guards away, even dropping his glamour. It was much unlike the man she had come to know in her brief but memorable sojourns to court.
If it was Seven, that maniacal counselor from the west, standing in front of her, Ciardis wouldn’t have doubted the correctness of her suspicions for a second. But this was the man who dispensed order and justice throughout the land.
Impossible, she thought as Maradian’s face paled and she was left with a distinct suspicion.
Possible but improbable, corrected Thanar in her head.
Why? Ciardis demanded. She didn’t bother to ask Thanar how he knew what she was questioning, or insist that he get out of her thoughts. She was used to his interruptions by now.
Qat and its sister substances leave telltale marks on a person’s core, Thanar confided. Whether the user has access to magic or not, the right person—usually a healer—can always tell what it is they are using and imbibing.
And the Emperor? she asked.
Clean of what you suspect him of, Thanar said. Dark magic, however, is another spectrum of ‘use’ entirely.
Ciardis wanted to ask more, but she had to refocus on the actual practical matters at hand, and Sebastian, meanwhile, was getting more impatient.
The prince heir asked, “What does that have to do with the underground city and our ancestor?
Ciardis quickly went back over the previous conversation in her head. The Emperor’s tangent into why the rebel’s base was important; the history of the people who had lived and died at a dragon’s whim, and now—why the foundation of the empire was so important in this present day.
9
Ciardis felt like drumming her fingers on a table in irritation, but there was none in sight.
What there was, however, was a palace falling apart around their very feet and a dead-emperor-to-be.
She said, “All right, so they killed everyone in sight, and you decided to mimic those long-ago acts, which sound more myth than reality, by doing the same with your family. Both these ancient dragons and you are contemptible pieces of flesh bag walking around and yet somehow even they have the same moral complications as the mortals you so easily discard. So I ask you emperor, what is your point?”
“Fables they were not,” the Emperor said dryly. “Though I would expect such a dearth of knowledge from you, having grown up without the resources my nephew here did. That, however, gives no excuse to the young man who stands before me, a would-be emperor.”
Sebastian stiffened at the insult. “A would-be emperor I am not. Merely a prince heir on a quest for answers and looking for recourse to stop the vile acts you have taken upon yourself to commit in the name of our family and duty to the empire.”
“I did what I must, as you will soon realize,” the Emperor replied. “But you, Sebastian Athanos Algardis, will not find absolution here.”
Sebastian looked him straight in the eyes as he said, “But I will find justice.”
“Will you?” the Emperor said. “Is there justice in recrimination?”
“There is if the person is guilty of the crimes,” Ciardis said. “And for another matter, Prince Heir Sebastian needs no absolution. It is you who are the party to be judged for his heinous actions.”
Maradian gave her an empty stare. “You too will soon learn, though I am surprised you haven’t already, Companion Weathervane. The sins of the father are absolutely imparted to the son.”
Ciardis stiffened. She wanted to deny it, but the anger they had encountered in the city of Kifar for a ruling half a century old proved his words true in a way she could not deny. Would more of the past rulings come back to haunt them as actionable threats against Sebastian even though he had no part in them? Would the people condemn and betray him for something his forefathers had done before him?
She shivered at the very thought. Maradian must have seen the realization come over her face, because he laughed. It was a bitter bark that said he knew exactly what she was thinking.
Ciardis said with rancor, “Too bad you won’t be alive to be on the receiving end of the empire’s anger once the entire citizenry is shown the man you have become.”
She was allowed to sound spiteful after listening to him stoke her fears one by one.
The Emperor shrugged. “We shall see.”
“So we will,” Sebastian said firmly as he wrested control of the conversation back into his hands.
Maradian may have been walking around in a cloud of denials, but they were not.
“My point is this,” the Emperor said, “I had to move my family out of the way and assume the throne because I am the only one who understands what’s coming. The only one who can defeat the threat that looms.”
“Let me guess,” said Thanar. “You want to defeat a god yourself?”
Maradian laughed in contempt. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, it is only in recent times that your so-called god has been an issue.”
Ciardis bristled. “So-called? Are you saying it’s not real?”
“I’m saying,” Maradian said calmly, “that the only thing I’ve seen is rumors of a battle in the northern skies and more myths than substantiated facts.”
Ciardis drew in a breath to retort heavily, but Maradian waved a dismissive hand. “However, I am not interested in proving fact from fiction. In fact, this has played very well into my hands. The nobility believe your story, and you’ve been stirring up passions in the common folk as well. As long as they are focused on your cause and defeating an ethereal being, they cannot build successful coalitions against me.”
Sebastian said in disbelief, “You think this is a political game?”
“Everything is a game, my boy,” the Emperor replied calmly. “It just depends on how well you play it. I am not interested in being a player in yours, but you have begun to fit like puzzle pieces very well in mine.”
Ciardis asked in a furious tone, “And what exactly did you plan to do when the god arrived on your doorstep, Emperor?”
Maradian laughed. He actually laughed.
“Not a thing,” he replied after he recovered. “I have told you I have no interest in your god, and to all a
ppearances I have enthusiastically supported you in your quest to defeat him. I am untouchable. Besides, it was not I who opened the gates of Ban in the Northern Mountains, but now that the threat is coming to a head, I would encourage you to get around to dealing with that.”
Ciardis’s mouth dropped open incredulously.
Before she could splutter more contemptuous words, Sebastian hurriedly said, “Not that we couldn’t debate this particular point, but we did not come to discuss a god with you when you so clearly are justifying your actions based on another threat.”
Ciardis muttered in disgust, “Not that your actions could be justified in any manner.”
Sebastian paused thoughtfully, then continued. “So do tell us, Uncle, if not in an effort to defeat a god, why have you worked so hard to reap the power you have so coveted? Normally I would say that someone such as yourself would consider power alone as sufficient justification, but you so clearly think there is some threat that must be handled.”
“What…could be more powerful than a god?” Thanar asked in a soft voice. Ciardis glanced over at him. He had a tone of envy in his voice and interest sparked in his eyes. Her mouth twisted in displeasure, but it was true that even she wanted to hear Maradian’s answer.
“More powerful?” asked Maradian smoothly. “Not more powerful, but certainly a threat nonetheless.”
“Do enlighten us,” said Sebastian dryly.
“Centuries ago, when the dragons first struck the deal with our ancestor,” Maradian said slowly, “he and his descendants made a bargain. First: to share the rewards of all of our explorations with the empire across the sea. We have faithfully done so for centuries. Second: to never cross the sea in ships of our own making. All rewards reaped from our lands are sent by dragon magic to the female queens and none through our own hands.”
“And?” said Thanar puzzled.
