Her concern immediately dissipated, slipped from her like water might. She made out the shadowy forms of the cho-ja mages, crouched on either side of her. They had been busy in her absence. The burrow they inhabited was now adorned by furnishings created by their craft. The peace that Mara now experienced was also due to their influence. ‘You practice your arts already, spellcasters?’
One mage returned a gesture of reassurance, forearms turned so that the sharp edges were averted from chance accident. ‘Your aura was tinged with fear and anger. If I presumed to ease your mind, forgive me, but the time is now for clear-headedness, yes?’
Mara swallowed. ‘The hive was destroyed by the Assembly. I am sorry.’
The second mage shifted with a rustle of wings. ‘Necessary sacrifice,’ it intoned in emotionless brevity. ‘The Queen’s memory is preserved intact, and the unjust treaty has been broken at last. Cho-ja warriors are freed to march within the Empire. They will now support your cause, Servant of the Empire.’
Her cause! Mara felt cold at the words. She had wished to secure her children’s safety, and to expunge stagnation and cruelty from her people’s culture. But an entire cho-ja hive had just been sacrificed to save her, and now she was being called to fullest account for her pledge to the council in Chakaha. The Empire’s Queens held out the expectation that she would go on to win freedom for their race.
‘Yes,’ the cho-ja mage to her left intoned in response to her thought. ‘The imperial seal with temple endorsements on a document that restores cho-ja to full citizenship should be sufficient to revoke the Assembly’s unfair judgment.’
Mara gathered her inner strength. ‘First, the Great Ones must be defeated,’ she warned. The prospect of outright confrontation with the magicians terrified her.
The mages inclined their heads in what seemed maddening serenity. ‘The means are at hand. But time grows short.’
The speed at which events were overtaking the Lady of the Acoma carried its own weight of care. Mara fought off overwhelming despair. She had lost her advisers. Arakasi was gods alone knew where. Lujan’s fate was unknown to her. The Acoma armies might now be ashes, and her husband could have been obliterated by the Assembly in the moment when they declared her its enemy. Jiro of the Anasati might already be in the Holy City, and her children dead. And even if by miracle the Imperial Precinct was still secure and under the protection of the Imperial Whites, there remained the armies of the Anasati and the Omechan poised outside the city walls.
Mara chided herself. Listing every possible ramification of misfortune served nothing, but would only cancel what slender advantage the Chakaha mages had won for her. She saw death at every turn, whether she acted or not. Better to fight, and take matters in hand as best she could. Whether Justin and Kasuma were well or not, or whether an Omechan or an Anasati pretender had already assumed the golden throne, she owed the cho-ja who had spared her an honorable best effort.
‘I need information,’ she urged, rising immediately to her feet. Her whole body ached. She ignored its twinges, and briskly turned toward the Chakaha mages. ‘Your aid will be necessary. Once I understand the array of the forces laid against us, I will need to reach the Holy City more swiftly than the wind.’
The Chakaha mages straightened from their crouch. They bowed to her and then flanked her. ‘Your will is as our command, Lady Mara,’ said one. ‘Ask us what you would know. We will engage our arts to show you.’
Filled with trepidation for the losses she now had no choice but to count Mara forced herself to bear up. ‘My husband, Hokanu,’ she opened, the tremble in her voice scarcely controlled. ‘Where is he?’
‘Close your eyes,’ bade the Chakaha mages.
Mara obeyed, foreboding in her heart. An energy tingled through her: magic. She beheld more than darkness behind her lids: caught by a sensation akin to dizziness, she saw Hokanu bending over a tactical map of the Holy City. He gestured to rows of white pins on the walls, his helm cradled in his hand, and his face worried. He looked as though he had not slept in a fortnight.
The sight of him was more than Mara could bear. ‘He is alive!’ she cried, near tears in her relief. Her joy and thanksgiving to the gods for this turn of fortune left her weak. Then she set aside wonderment to consider the practical. The mages informed her that Hokanu and his company of swift cavalry had crossed the city gates ahead of the siege. The Shinzawai infantry companies still marched from the North, but they would be of no use as relief forces, Mara saw, as her cho-ja mages showed her Black Robes forbidding the ranks of blue-clad warriors access to the Holy City.
Mara had been declared enemy, and her allies were forbidden to give aid. Without orders to defy the Great Ones, Tsurani training came to the fore and Hokanu’s warriors obeyed.
‘The Imperial Whites,’ Mara mused. ‘They will defend. Who beside Hokanu might command them?’
For answer, she was given a second view of the chamber where the council discussed tactics. Mara identified the figures who clustered about the Shinzawai Lord whose dreams matched her own: Arakasi was present, quiet as a shadow, and looking grim. Near him was the Shinzawai First Adviser, Dogondi, his face implacable, as he conducted animated discussion with another that Mara recognised with a start for Chumaka, who was the Anasati First Adviser.
Unthinking, she questioned aloud. ‘What does Chumaka do here?’
For answer, the mages showed her more images: a glade in a forest where Hokanu twisted and twisted a leather thong, choking the life out of Jiro. The faded color and rippling quality of the vision identified the seeing as a past event. Mara saw Jiro go limp in Hokanu’s grip. The Lord of the Anasati was dead!
And yet, based upon her husband’s current activity, Kentosani suffered under siege. ‘Who directs the attack on the Holy City?’ she demanded to know.
The scene behind her eyes spun and shifted focus. She beheld armies and wooden engines, and a Force Commander in Omechan colors. The outer walls had crumbled and been breached. The Imperial Precinct itself was under attack, and the plumes on the walls showed several factions defending: Imperial White, and another. In amazement Mara made out the purple and yellow of Xacatecas. ‘Hoppara is in Kentosani?’
‘Sent by his mother, Isashani,’ one Chakaha mage intoned. ‘He whom you name Hoppara reached Kentosani ahead of the attack, and organised the Imperial Whites to defend. The Omechan Lord knows of Jiro’s death, but he dreams of seizing the Anasati plot as his own. You still have a foe who wishes to rule upon the bodies of your children.’
Mara bit her lip. Her own armies – if they had escaped destruction, and if the magicians had not already forbidden them movement – would be too far south to attack the force menacing the Imperial Precinct. Her other allies appeared to have fled, or were stalling elsewhere, fearful of transferring the aroused wrath of the Assembly against themselves.
Her dismay must have been evident. ‘Lady,’ one of the mages broke in. ‘You are not without an army. Every cho-ja warrior in the Nations is yours to command.’
‘How can they be?’ Mara’s tone was bleak. ‘The Queen of the hive that was sacrificed inferred that cho-ja can never break a promise. The warriors you offer to my cause are already sworn to answer to other Ruling Lords. Your people have contracts of service that span generations.’
The mages buzzed in what Mara had come to interpret as cho-ja laughter. ‘No longer,’ said one. ‘Close your eyes,’ the second directed. ‘Let us show you.’
Infused with a growing wonderment, Mara did so. She beheld a dry field upon which the armies of two minor nobles engaged in battle. A fat young man in Ekamchi colors was exhorting one of his Strike Leaders. ‘But they can’t quit the field,’ he shouted, his sword arm waving dangerously near the face of his senior adviser. The servant jumped back in vexation as his master ranted on. ‘These cho-ja owe me and my father their allegiance.’
The Strike Leader shook his head, stiff-faced. ‘They say not, master.’
‘How?’ The Ekamchi son redd
ened under his battle helm. ‘Their kind are as slaves! They never break an alliance!’
‘They do now.’ The Strike Leader turned from his commander and watched with stony eyes as rank after rank of cho-ja warriors disengaged from combat and marched in swift order from the field.
‘This cannot be!’ shrieked the Ekamchi son. He ran forward and planted himself in the path of the ranking cho-ja Strike Leader. ‘You are traitors,’ he accused. ‘You break oath.’
The cho-ja officer returned a click that showed scorn. ‘Three thousand centis in metal and gems have been delivered to your father’s treasury. Such was the price that bought our service. All past bargains and alliances are ended; all payments are refunded.’
The Ekamchi boy spluttered, but as the cho-ja officer crouched into a posture that threatened attack, he was forced to give ground.
Mara opened her eyes, shaking with unbridled laughter. ‘What a surprise to most Ruling Lords that the cho-ja were something more, or perhaps less, than loyal mercenaries.’
‘Humans have much to learn concerning our kind,’ the Chakaha mages agreed tactfully. ‘Old ways have changed. Not even the Assembly could wring from our people another treaty like the one that endured in such misery through thousands of years. When the war of the mages was lost, our magic was not developed for defensive purposes. Be sure that such weakness has been remedied in those lands beyond the Empire.’
Mara beheld the perilous glitter in the eyes of the Chakaha mages, and her blood ran cold in her body. Traditions were broken, and danger was in the wind, and now was her moment to seize advantage if she would, to secure the next age’s peace. She mastered her inner trepidation and opened. ‘Messages must be sent, and actions taken to enforce Justin’s claim to the golden throne before the Assembly can interfere. Here is what must be done.’
Mara waited, suppressing the deep quiver of fear. Her hair was piled high on her head, elaborately looped and braided, and fixed with precious metal pins. Golden pins, she thought, and the arrogance of her presumption, to put on imperial gold, made her feel the more small and uncertain. And yet there could be no half measures, if the Empire as a Nation was to survive.
Her head swam with recollection of the orders she had given between her bath and her robing. She drew a deep breath. To the cho-ja Force Commander, who crouched at her elbow, she said, ‘Where are we exactly?’
Like his counterparts in free Chakaha, this warrior eschewed the trappings of human commanders. His jet-dark carapace had begun to show a faint turquoise stripe, perhaps a decoration, perhaps a mark of rank. Mara looked forward to the chance to study such distinctions, if the gods saw fit to grant her victory. Then she dismissed speculation as the warrior pointed upward and said, ‘Directly above is the imperial antechamber. The ones you requested should gather for a legal coronation ceremony already await inside the audience hall. All preparations are in order, and your people anticipate your arrival.’
Mara braced herself. She waved away the maid called in from the Imperial Palace, who had edged between the ranks of the warriors for one last adjustment of her dress. The gown she wore could not possibly hang without wrinkles, taken as it had been from attic storage. It had belonged to the last dowager Empress, a larger woman than Mara, but it was the closest to Acoma green that could be found, so it would have to do. Hasty stitches had gathered in the waist, and pins nipped up the long hem. Mara felt encased in layers like a needle cushion. The heavy fabrics chafed the sores left from her armor, and rice powder could never conceal all the scrapes and scratches she had sustained in her flight though the forest.
Feeling every inch the hoyden bundled under a disguising mass of finery, she said, ‘When you cut through to the outside from this tunnel, the Black Robes will know something is afoot.’
The mages inclined their heads. ‘We are prepared for them, as best we can be.’
Mara took a grip on her nerve, which seemed by the minute to ebb. ‘Then send me Arakasi. I would confer with him before we start the final move.’
It was still disconcerting to the Lady how swiftly the mages could translate her merest wish into command. She had no sooner finished speaking than her Spy Master was delivered into her presence, as disgruntled as anyone had ever observed him.
Arakasi arose from where he had been dumped by the spell, face down upon the earthen floor. Unlike the imperial maids who had been summoned earlier by magic to attend to Mara’s robing, the Spy Master did not lose his wits. His raised brows settled into a frown that immediately smoothed as he glanced about and identified the presence of cho-ja. Next he fixed upon his mistress, who was almost unrecognisable in imperial robes of state.
Then he was on his knees, bowing. ‘My Lady.’ Where once his voice would have been expressionless, now there was a tremulous note of joy. ‘I am glad to see you well.’
‘Rise,’ Mara commanded. She came as near as her nervousness would allow to laughter. ‘Justin wears no crown as yet, and I am due no such obeisance. It is a custom I would see dispensed with, if our plans succeed as we hope.’ She peered through the gloom at the long-missed person of her Spy Master, and, abashed by the intentness of her scrutiny, Arakasi bent his head, chagrined.
‘You wear the clothes of a cleaning drudge!’ Mara exclaimed.
Her Spy Master gave back a broad chuckle. ‘How better to spy upon one’s superiors without drawing undue notice, my Lady?’ His nose wrinkled. ‘Though I would prefer to attend Justin’s wedding and coronation in garments that were not caked with scouring sand.’
Both Lady and Spy Master quieted as the pressure of events forced sobriety. ‘The priests of all the orders are gathered,’ Arakasi affirmed. ‘Some may be a little shy of perfect in their robing, since a few were summoned directly from their beds. Once we had their honorable selves all present in the great audience hall, those who complained could not be permitted to leave. According to Chumaka’s study of the law, Justin’s claim could be disputed if even one High Priest failed to be in attendance. Getting the Sisterhood of Sibi to come was the most difficult task – not even the High Priest of Turakamu was willing to contact them.’
‘How did you manage?’ Mara asked.
‘Without alternative, I simply went into the temple myself. I was allowed to live long enough to tell them why I did what few men have dared.’ Arakasi smiled slightly at his memory. He was perhaps the only petitioner in centuries to enter the Temple of Sibi uninvited, and certainly the only one allowed to leave. ‘The temples support your cause at this time, since the alternative would set them the more firmly under the heel of the Assembly. But sentiments could change, if civil order is not swiftly restored. We’ll get no second chance. Great Ones are out in force in the city. More than a dozen watch the entrances to the palace, as they are certain you’ll somehow try to mask your arrival in the confusion.’
Mara’s frown was instinctive. ‘They’ve entered a city under threat of civil war, and done nothing to repress the Omechan siege?’
Arakasi looked grim. ‘Indeed not. My best impression is that they have forsaken their insistence on peace in favor of their own concerns.’ He looked hard at the diminutive woman who seemed half-smothered under the weight of her imperial overrobes. ‘I don’t know what you’ve accomplished in the South, but I would hazard a guess, my Lady, that the Black Robes have learned to be afraid of you.’
‘Not of me,’ Mara corrected, embarrassed. ‘Of these.’ Her gesture encompassed the cho-ja mages who stood like sentinels to either side.
Arakasi regarded her alien companions, his eyes widening at the splendor of their many-colored wings. ‘I never knew your kind could be so beautiful,’ he said in awed reverence.
The Chakaha mages brushed aside the human praise without awkwardness. The left-hand one addressed Mara. ‘Good Servant, danger grows as we speak. Human warriors are entering the tunnels by the Great Ones’ command, searching for word of your hiding.’
‘Where?’ Mara demanded, the memory of the burned-out hive that she
had so narrowly escaped all too recent a horror. ‘Has there been bloodshed?’
‘Not yet,’ the second mage replied. ‘The warriors obey the restraint of the Assembly not to fight unless they meet opposition. And the cho-ja will not embrace conflict until they are confronted without alternative. For now, they abandon the hives that are invaded, leaving many empty galleries and tunnels to be searched in profitless darkness. The human armies make poor progress. This moment they concentrate their sweep to the south, near the estates of your birth. But the search will be widened, very soon. Your Great Ones are not fools.’
‘Then the hour is come,’ Mara said, startling all present with what seemed an indomitable strength. ‘We will go forward.’
At her word, the cho-ja mages gave a signal. A task force of workers marched to the fore of the tunnel and began to burrow upward. Dirt pattered down, and then chunks of mortar and tile. Light pierced the gloom, yellow and clear, from the domed skylight over the imperial antechamber.
A cho-ja stuck his head through the opening. He buzzed back a brief communication, and the mage to Mara’s left said, ‘The antechamber is clear of enemies. Your husband and son await.’ Then it paused, as if in hesitation. ‘Lady,’ it intoned, ‘we wish you luck and brave fortune. But move swiftly. Our spells cannot stay the Black Robes’ attack indefinitely. You will have a short time to achieve all that you must, and then there will be chaos and a devastating backlash of thwarted energies. We wish you to know, if you fail, or if we fail you, that it was for this battle that we were sent from Chakaha. We are more than your defense, Good Servant; we are an embassy to bring in a new order.’
Mara looked upward into the mages’ alien visages, which reared above her with expressions no human alive could fully know. It did not escape her that both had unfurled their wings into fighting stance, as they prepared to stand down the might of a unified Assembly. Their courage moved her to tears. ‘Let it be known, good friends, that so long as I live, I will not fail you. We will triumph or die together.’
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