Blade of Empire

by Mercedes Lackey

  Then he glanced skyward, and the well-rehearsed words of his petition died in his throat.

  The moon was red.

  Red as blood, redder than any eclipse had ever rendered it. In its light everything was red. Hamphuliadiel raised his hands—to gaze upon them, to block out the sight, even he did not know—and they were as red as if he’d bathed them in the blood of the sacrifice. Warmth and wetness—impossible quantities of blood—covered his feet, rose to his ankles, soaked the hem of his robe. There was a soft sound as the bodies of his sacrifices, dead beyond spellbinding, collapsed limply to the sodden earth. As he looked, the blood rose up around them, staining them, covering them. It was everywhere, a black lake stretching into impossible distances, sparkling in the light of the blood-drenched moon, its surface punctuated only by the death-pale trunks of a dead forest. The wind was cold now, and held no scent of anything but blood.

  It came to his mind, with the insistent absolute knowing of a dream or a vision, that the stones of the Sanctuary were gone, its walls and doors were gone, that the Shrine was walled in not by limestone and granite, but by a bleached and desiccated tangle of bones rising higher than even the Astromancer’s Tower. Here in the Shrine of life there was only death.

  He would have run if there was anywhere to run to. He, who had spent every sunturn of his life seeking knowledge, hoarding secrets, would have cut this knowledge from his mind if he had possessed the means, but the knife was somewhere beneath the sanguinary tide he shuddered to touch. The liquid continued to rise, past his calves, past his knees, thick and greasy and stinking and warm, and as it did Hamphuliadiel saw all, everything, the answer to every half-formed question, every unarticulated wondering, answered now and forever.

  The Darkness of Amretheon’s Prophecy was real, and it had come. It was not black, this Darkness, but red as the blood in which the Darkness would drown the whole of the world until there was no other hue nor shade nor color anywhere in the world. The Darkness swept from east to west as if it rose in the heavens with the stars, and every creature possessed of breath and heartbeat fled from it.

  They were coming.

  “When stars and clouds together point the way,

  And of a hundred deer one doe can no longer counted be,

  When peace is bought with maiden mother’s blood,

  And those so long denied assert their ancient claim,

  When scholar turns to sword, and warrior to peace,

  And two ford rivers swelled with mortal gore…”

  Serenthon had been right. Celelioniel had been right. Vieliessar had been right. But if they had been right …

  A grief as compelling as nausea rose up in his throat, and Hamphuliadiel gagged. All was lost. The whole world, lost. All of his subjects, lost. He would be lost. His agile mind, his glorious wisdom, his compelling leadership—all snuffed out like the embers of a dying fire. Gone. Lost. Not because he had been wrong—no, never that! He had been right. He had always been right. All was lost because the enemy was too vast, too powerful, for any one, any thing, to prevail against it.

  That was it. That had to be it. Not that he was wrong, had failed, had hindered his only chance of survival. No one could win. Any resistance was futile, because no one could win.

  He retched and fell to his knees, sending a vast ripple through the lake of blood. He struggled to rise—oh precious Light, do not let me drown in this unnatural lake!—as his throat closed, strangling the harsh choking braying sounds of terror and grief.

  Is there nothing that can be done? Nothing?

  Once again Hamphuliadiel was the child of the disgraced kitchen slave, cowering against the hearth, his body aching with kicks and beatings, his stomach cramped with hunger and shame. He was of noble blood, scion of Bethros, his mother Einartha betrayed into slavery in Haldil by her sister, the woman she had trusted most in all the world, the knight to whom she had been Sword Page …

  His plans, his ambition of gaining revenge, of gaining the rank that was his by right of birth and bloodline, all were subsumed in the terror of a child alone in the dark.

  “When two are one, then one may speak for all

  And in that hour claim what never has been lost…”

  The words of that damnable Song echoed in his ears as if he were remembering rather than discovering. Now his inward-looking sight saw a cavern beneath the earth, so deep it took sunturns to reach it. There lay the weapon to stem the rising tide, there lay the promise of victory over the Darkness! He reached out to it greedily, eagerly. He would save them all! Vieliessar would kneel weeping at his feet and beg him to take the High King’s place. He would be worshipped as their great ancestors had been, and his shrine would never lack for offerings …

  But suddenly the vision came clearer. In the darkness, great yellow eyes and leathern wings. Anguish, and tears, and grief, a vast aching immeasurable grief …

  Hamphuliadiel screamed, over and over, clawing at his face, his neck, wallowing in the vast rising tide of blood.

  * * *

  Harwing Lightbrother woke abruptly. He sat up, gazing around himself in the darkness of the dormitory. What had awakened him? His brethren slept on undisturbed all around him. Yet Harwing was certain he had heard screaming …

  A dream. That’s all it was. An evil dream. Something from the past that Healer Momioniarch says you do not wish to remember.

  The phantom screaming echoed in his mind, but still no one roused. He eased his body cautiously from his bed and gathered the bundle of his clothing from the basket beside it, then crept to the door. He opened the door only wide enough to slip through it and closed it softly behind him. The stone of the corridor was chill beneath his feet and he dressed quickly, then hurried through the familiar halls and down the steps until he came to the door that opened into the garden. The way was more labyrinthine than it had been when he had been a Postulant, but the Astromancer had explained that the changes to the Sanctuary were to protect the Shrine of the Star from the Beastlings, so certainly the small inconvenience was worth it.

  … isn’t it…?

  Harwing frowned, pausing just short of opening the garden door. How did sealing off the Shrine and the Great Library protect them from Beastlings? The whole of the Sanctuary was their protection. And surely, if anything was anathema to the wrongness the talking animals represented, it would be the Shrine of the Star. All the changes had done was seal both places off from any person who might wish to visit either …

  Harwing shook his head in self-reproach. That was ridiculous! Why would Hamphuliadiel do such a thing…?

  Because he is tainted and twisted and power-mad. He is the High King’s enemy, and Gunedwaen was her most loyal lord until the candlemark of his death. If for no other reason, that is why you must choose her as your liege and lord.

  Harwing ran both hands through his hair, closing his eyes very tightly. The headache that was fast building behind his eyes had blotted out the phantom screams.

  Gunedwaen.

  He had not thought of his beloved in …

  He took a deep breath.

  Control, dissemble, this may be a trap as well. You awoke in the night and went to walk in the garden lest you disturb the others in your dormitory. The cause of your wakefulness you do not know.

  He set those thoughts upon the surface of his mind, where anyone who looked could see them, pushed open the door, and stepped into the garden. Above, the sky was darkly blue, filled with stars and the elvensilver ribbon of the Starry Road. Below, the high walls turned the garden into a piecework of light and shadow. The night was silent, but a mere twelve Wheelturns ago, the Sanctuary would have been busy at this time of year, for the new Candidates would have just arrived, and the War Princes would have come to make their sacrifices to the Starry Hunt for favor in the coming War Season. The Guesthouse would have been full to overflowing, and the pavilions of the latecomers would have been set all across the fields …

  No one has even asked if the sacrifices are still
made even without any War Princes to make them.

  Are they?

  Harwing frowned. He could not remember Hamphuliadiel saying anything one way or the other, in his frequent public exhortations to the Lightborn. Certainly he had not said that he did not make the sacrifices …

  But he has not said he does, either. Perhaps they are made at another of the Shrines—there are eight—nine, because Tilinaparanwira the Lost isn’t lost anymore …

  He gasped in shock as the whole of his pent-up memories rushed free. Gunedwaen. Vieliessar. The Domains of the Western Shore. Rondithiel had led the two grand tailles of Lightborn to their aid …

  Ten Turns of the Wheel of the Year ago.

  And we crossed the Mystrals and entered the West, and I knew as well as Rondithiel did that the High King wanted news of the Sanctuary of the Star and so I came to see what I could learn …

  And had stayed, because Hamphuliadiel had told him Vieliessar was the Darkness prophesied in The Song of Amretheon and Harwing had believed him. He had believed him. He, whom Gunedwaen Swordmaster had taught to believe no words and few sights.

  Why?

  Never mind “why.” “Why” is not the business of scholars, scouts, and spies. You did believe him, and you stayed, toiling away as his patient drudge and never questioning any orders he gave you.

  Suddenly he heard someone walking toward him, the motion but not the sound hidden in the shadows. “Who goes there?” Harwing whispered.

  “Only I, brother.” A tiny ball of Silverlight formed on the hand of the speaker, illuminating his face.

  “Irchel,” Harwing said in relief. “So I am not the only one to go sleepless tonight.”

  “Did you not come to relieve me of my watch?” Irchel asked, puzzled. “There is no need of it now, for the Astromancer took the colts to the Shrine not a quartermark past.”

  “The twin destriers foaled last spring?” There had been talk almost from the moment of their birth of their suitability as a sacrifice, for twin foals were rarely born and even more rarely survived. Harwing could not decide whether he was relieved that Hamphuliadiel had made the Springtide sacrifice, or …

  Or terrified by all that you forgot. Of course, why remember it when you were here in the place you belong? he added firmly, in case someone watched his thoughts.

  “Yes, Arja and Tarja,” Irchel said. “It is wrong to be sad that they are chosen, I know, for now they will run with the Starry Hunt, young and strong forever. But I would have liked the training of them.”

  Irchel Lightbrother had been born to a horsegroom in Mangiralas and had worked with the great herds until he’d been Chosen by the Light. And no wonder he thought you were to relieve his watch, for you were born in Thoromarth Oronviel’s stables …

  “There will be others,” Harwing said gently, reaching out to touch Irchel’s shoulder. “But I do not wish to keep you from your bed. I will stay here for a while, and hope that sleep will favor me again before morning.”

  “As you wish, brother. Go with the Light.”

  “And you as well,” Harwing said.

  He breathed a tiny sigh of relief when Irchel Lightbrother was gone, and walked on along the white stone path toward the edge of the garden. The garden was bound around by a wall more than twice Harwing’s height. Its surface had been smoothed by Magery until it was slick as glass. Hamphuliadiel had said it was only so that the stoneworking Lightborn would have something to practice on before trying their skills elsewhere, but it meant the wall was impossible to climb. In that moment, Harwing knew the thought that had been growing in his mind since the moment he awoke.

  Flee.

  But Gunedwaen—oh Beloved! I miss you so!—had told him over and over not to follow the first thought, but the best thought.

  He had come to gain information, and he had. But he had spent too long a time at it—far too long a time—and he had no idea what to do now. His information was worthless by now, and after so long he had no idea who to deliver it to. Following Rondithiel and the others to the Western Shore would be difficult if he tried to do so on his own—and who was to say any of them were still alive? That Amrolion and Daroldan were still there? Harwing’s knowledge of the world and the events which transpired in it now stopped at the edge of Areve’s pastures and ended ten Wheelturns ago.

  Struggling to control both his thoughts and his emotions, Harwing wandered until he came to the bench set beneath the ever-flowering Vilya. He remembered the last time the Vilya had borne fruit—he had still been at Thoromarth’s court then.

  But this Vilya did not fruit. Hamphuliadiel spellbound it so it would not, so he could use that as a legal pretext to remain Astromancer. And who will challenge him, with the Hundred Houses gone, and Vieliessar…? Where is she? The High King has not come west in all this time, and the last of the refugees we took in came two Harvests ago, and they were from domain Cirandeiron, and that is on this side of the Mystrals.…

  She had won. He remembered that. She might take a Wheelturn, or two, or even three, to consolidate her victory, but there should have been scouts sent over the Mystrals, and whether they reported back or simply vanished, the result would have been the same: the next Wheelturn, or the Wheelturn after, the High King’s army would have come west.

  So she is dead.

  But he did not believe that, either. If she were dead, her War Princes would have swept back into the west to retake their old domains and enlarge them at the expense of their neighbors. And if they did not, then the Houses of the Uradabhur, the Arzhana, and the Windsward certainly would have.

  No war lasts a decade. It made no sense. And it left him floundering.

  “When you don’t know what to do, do nothing. Sooner or later you will know—or you will know you should have been running away all along.” Gunedwaen had said that to him every time Harwing had fretted with impatience and the need to act. Tears prickled at the memory. Gunedwaen had been his world …

  Suddenly what he must do was clear.

  Gunedwaen had died because Ivrulion Light-Prince had been rotted through with ambition—the same ambition that marked Hamphuliadiel’s every act. Ivrulion was dead, but Hamphuliadiel was still alive.

  That could be remedied.

  He would have to plan carefully, because nobody amassed this much power without amassing protections and guardians for it. It wouldn’t do to fail because of haste. He would only get one chance.

  But he had one sterling advantage that gave him a near-certainty of success.

  He didn’t care whether he survived.

  * * *

  As the morning sunlight upon his face woke him, Hamphuliadiel Astromancer inhaled deeply and automatically, smelling the mingled fragrances of sun-dried linen sheets scented with lavender, of ripe naranjes sitting in a silver bowl beside his bed, of cedar and sandalwood clothing chests, fresh flowers, pine resin set out in bowls to sweeten the air …

  It was a dream, all a dream …

  Relief surged through his veins as he opened his eyes to regard his familiar bedchamber. A dream. The sacrifice must be tonight, then. And he had dreamed of it, nothing more.

  Though it had all seemed so real …

  But of course, as Astromancer, my dreams are more vivid than those of ordinary souls, Hamphuliadiel told himself. He would meditate upon what it had revealed before going to the Shrine tonight. That was proper and correct; behavior no one could whisper behind his back about. Or … perhaps he need not go at all? Perhaps the dream had been a warning, to tell him that entering the Shrine would be futile, and perhaps even dangerous …

  The surge of relief he felt convinced him that this was the correct interpretation. So be it. Perhaps he would send someone else in his place. Young Harwing Lightbrother, perhaps. Or that Lightsister from Daroldan; what was her name…?

  Still pondering, he sat up in bed, reaching for the bell to summon a servant to bring him his morning xocalatl.

  And with that motion, the last of his dream world faded. He saw th
e grit and mud that covered the bedclothes. He felt his hands covered with blood and earth, sticky and rough. He smelled mud and dried blood and black water and offal. He threw back the coverlet and saw that his whole body was covered with a dried slurry of filth. His face burned where he had clawed at it, and every muscle in his body ached as if with prolonged misuse.

  Hamphuliadiel whimpered despite himself, his gaze darting frantically about his cluttered and opulent bedchamber. Whether he was looking for aid, or reassuring himself that no one was here to see him, even he could not say. But what he saw made him wish there was someone here—someone else—upon whom he might blame the sight that greeted his gaze.

  The carven smokewood screen that masked the concealed doorway leading down to the antechamber of the Shrine lay on the floor where it had fallen. Bloody handprints marred the smooth whiteness of the wall, as if left by someone groping blindly to find their way. The rug between the door and his bed was marked with a line of bloody footprints and splashes of mud. His robe, no more than a sodden wad black with dried blood, lay beneath the window. It had struck the wall and slid to the floor; he could see the streaky brown stain.

  He had made the sacrifice already. Last night, as he had thought, on the first full moon of the Springtide, as custom demanded. And then he …

  The images of the night before tried to push themselves into his consciousness, and he thrust them brutally away. No. He would not permit himself to think of that. It was not real. If it was real, it was not true. It was a false vision, an evil vision, no true Foretelling at all. There was no Darkness. There was no threat so baleful and real that Vieliessar Farcarinon had torn all Jer-a-kalaliel apart because of it. There was a normal and ordinary explanation for everything that had happened. Only what he could see, and touch, and taste was real. The Silver Hooves had not come. The power of the Shrine had not awakened—no! The Shrine had no power to awaken. It was a myth, a fantasy, the Silver Hooves a survival from the days of ancient savagery. Not true Powers. Not real. The Starry Hunt, the Shrine of the Star, all nine Star-shrines, were nothing more than a hoax, a dream, an ancient custom given unnatural weight. He had been right to seal off access to the Shrine. It was only a trap for the gullible. The Light existed without it. The Light was created in the Flower Forests for the alfaljodthi to use—as much a commodity, a resource, as fields of wholesome grain or streams of sweet water. It was not capricious. It was not … sentient. The Light was all they needed.