Fear the Empire

by Jaron Lee Knuth

  “You're talking about overthrowing an entire government.”

  Tila smiled at Zana. “I'm also talking about replacing it with something much, much better.”

  Zana watched as the horse-people galloped across the field. Their movements were majestic, both powerful and graceful. It was the blend of the two that made it so incredible. Perfect, in fact. The two women remained silent as the sun dropped below the hills, watching the colored sky turn dark. The shimmer of stars appeared as the light of the sun faded, filling the sky with twinkling lights you would never see in a civilized society. The lights of cities and factories and work camps would make it impossible to see the stars. It was yet more proof to Zana that Therian was not cursed. It was blessed. You only had to see it for what it was, without the greed of needing to be like everywhere else.

  “You said before... if I thought I could rule better than those that were in charge...

  “It would be irresponsible not to try.”

  Zana closed her eyes and held her breath. She pictured her great-grandfather sitting upon the throne, reluctant to take on the duties of Imperator, yet graciously accepting the responsibility.

  Finally, she opened her eyes, let out her breath, and said, “Gather the women. We have much to discuss.”

  30

  MAKSIM

  It was easy to find Yuri. Maksim only had to fly toward the screams and wails of death. The Citadel continued to rumble as Maksim charged directly toward the room that contained the small boy, but as he neared the throne room, the sounds of terror subsided. A general calm rested within the Citadel, and when Maksim landed just outside the doors, the only sound he heard inside was a light weeping.

  He was ready to throw open the doors, to charge into battle, no matter how pointless the fight might be. The only chance he had was to catch the boy by surprise, and even then, he would need to find a way to end his life in an instant. If he gave Yuri even a second, the battle would be over and so would Maksim's life.

  He took a deep breath and pushed on one door, slowly peeking his head into the opening. Inside, he saw Magda sitting on the steps where the throne once stood, Yuri laying next to her with his head in her lap.

  “I'm sorry, grandmother. I am.”

  “Shh,” she whispered, running her hand over his head, her fingernails lightly scratching his hair. “There's no need to cry. Everything is going to be alright.”

  “No. Everyone hates me. No one will listen to me. That's why I had to kill them. Even my own father wouldn't listen to me.”

  The look in Magda's eyes was one of pure horror, like she was frozen in place by fear, yet she kept talking in the calmest tone as she said, “I know. I know. It's alright.”

  Yuri jerked up, making Magda flinch, like she was expecting a deathblow at any moment. “Everyone should listen to me! I'm the strongest. I'm the most powerful. Why won't they listen?”

  Magda peered back at the small boy like she was afraid to reply.

  Maksim shoved the door open, alerting them both to his entrance as he declared, “No one can listen to you if they're dead.”

  Yuri jumped to his feet, his hands balling into tiny fists and his eyes squinting, barely letting out the glare aimed at his uncle.

  Maksim held out his hands as a show of peace. “I'm not here to fight, Yuri.”

  “Then why are you here? Why don't you just go away? Leave me alone. You're not welcome here anymore. I don't want your help.” He gave a light shove to Magda, which threw her across the room, her body smashing into the wall, but Yuri didn't seem to notice.

  Maksim rushed to Magda's side, lifting her from the floor as she gasped for breath.

  “What are you doing? You could have killed her, Yuri. This is your grandmother. She may be the only person left who believes in you.”

  “I don't need her. I don't need anyone. I'll rule this world by myself.”

  “That's not how things work, Yuri.”

  Yuri lowered his head and peered out from under his furrowed brow. “That's how they work now.”

  “You don't understand. It doesn't matter how strong you are. You can't do everything by yourself. You need people. You need experts. You need armies. You need servants. The world is just too big for one person.”

  Yuri smirked. “Maybe it's just too big for you.”

  Magda coughed out her words through the blood on her lips. “That's what we're trying to explain to you, Yuri. The reason we're questioning your ideas is because you're just too young to understand how this all works. You need to-”

  The suddenness of the strike caught Maksim off guard, but the force of the blow felt like a bomb had gone off next to his chest. It was instantaneous. One second he was holding Magda in his arms, and the next, he was covered in the blood of her exploded body, with Yuri standing in front of him, his arms extended in a wrathful pose.

  “Stop talking to me like I'm a child.”

  Maksim's breath shuddered as he looked down at his own gore coated armor. His shocked gaze lifted to the boy in front of him and the words fell from his mouth.

  “You're not a child. You're a monster.”

  The next blow thundered against his armor, cracking it in half and throwing him backward. He crashed through the far wall of the throne room, continued through the far wall of the council chambers, and crashed into the family library, the wall of bookshelves crumbling down around him. Before he had even gathered his wits, Yuri was pulling him out of the rubble and lifting him off the ground.

  “You're pathetic,” the boy said, his eyes burning with an intensity that would not be extinguished. “My father used to talk about you like you were some great warrior. He said that was all you were good at. But he said we needed people like you. He said sometimes you can't out think a stone wall, and that sometimes we need blunt instruments to knock down those walls.”

  Yuri's grip on his throat tightened, and Maksim desperately tried to push his fingers under the boy's tiny hand, to relieve the massive amounts of pressure he was applying.

  “I remember really taking that to heart,” the boy continued. “I thought he was trying to tell me some wise thing about how everyone has their place. Everyone is strong in some way. But now I think he was just making fun of you. I think he was telling me how useless you are. Just an ignorant bull, marching headlong into danger, no matter what the consequences.”

  Yuri squeezed even harder as he looked into Maksim's bulging, bloodshot eyes. “Do you have any idea the lifespan of a creature like that?”

  Maksim gasped, unable to speak.

  Yuri smiled and said, “No? Well, let's find out.”

  He smashed Maksim against the floor with one hand, creating a crater in the marble tile. He continued to whip the body against the flooring like a rag doll until the floor itself gave way. Then he held Maksim out at arm's length with one hand and balled his other hand into a fist. With one solid punch, Maksim's body crashed through three more walls before it broke through the outer wall of the Citadel and plummeted toward the earth.

  The impact of his body hitting the farm field was like a small meteor, sending out a cloud of dust and debris for a mile in every direction. When Maksim managed to climb back to his feet, his legs wobbled underneath him. He found himself in a deep crater made by his impact. He knew he had only seconds to act, so he lifted himself into the air with his power of flight, and scanned his surroundings, trying to come up with a battleplan.

  When Yuri floated down toward the field, he was met by a tractor hurtling through the air straight at him. The metal frame wrapped around his body, but the boy acted like he barely felt it. He shrugged off the machinery and let it fall off his shoulders, turning toward the source of the throw, but he saw no one there.

  “Was that your plan?” Yuri giggled as he spun in the air, searching for Maksim. “Father was right. You are a simpleton. You really can't see past your own fist, can you?”

  The boy continued to spin, still searching. “Did you actually get smart and run a
way? That's honestly your only hope at this point. Hide in the deepest, darkest hole you can. Or maybe just try a different planet entirely.”

  “You first,” Maksim said from directly behind him, right before he grabbed onto his tiny frame and tossed him as hard as he could, straight up.

  The small boy was like a shrinking dot as he approached the outer atmosphere, disappearing into the sky. Maksim shoved his fists into the air and raced after him, wanting to make sure the boy had actually broken free from the earth's gravity, but as he passed the clouds and raced toward the blackness of space, he realized he had lost sight of his nephew.

  It only took a few more seconds for Yuri to show himself with two fists slamming down hard onto the back of Maksim's shoulders. It rocketed him into the ground below again, like a second bomb striking the Fatherlands. This time, before Maksim could climb back to his feet, he was being torn from the crater, and lifted into the sky. Yuri continued to drag him into the air until the cratered farm field was far below, and growing even smaller. The breathable air disappeared and the two of them floated far outside the atmosphere.

  Maksim looked at Yuri, who was saying something, but he couldn't hear him in the vacuum. The boy was grinning ear to ear, proud of himself for something, but he also looked distracted. Maksim exploited the opportunity to grab onto the boy's wrist with both his hands and twist. He wrenched Yuri's grip from his neck and reversed the hold, wrestling his fingers deep into the boy's long hair and whipping him around like a throwing hammer until he finally let go and watched Yuri shoot through space, toward the moon. A tiny cloud of gray dust plumed from the surface when he hit.

  Maksim did not hesitate. He took advantage of the brief respite and shot back toward the earth, pushing himself faster and faster as the Grand Citadel came into view. He rushed straight through the holes in the walls that his limp body had created, and landed hard on the throne room floor. Carmen was standing near the explosion of blood on the wall.

  “He'll be here any second,” Maksim said, rushing to her side.

  Both of Carmen's hands flared red with power. “You need to let me try. I'm the only chance we have.”

  Maksim looked down at her pregnant belly, wanting to protect his child, yet knowing Carmen was the only one who could do that now. The only way to truly protect their child, was to eliminate the threat. He reluctantly nodded to her, right before he heard the roof cave in above them.

  Yuri crashed to the floor, nearly bringing the entire throne room down around him. He rushed toward Maksim, slamming both of his palms into his uncle's chest. This time, Maksim was prepared for the strike, and readied his body for the blow, but it still managed to knock him through a wall. He crashed into a servant's quarters, which was luckily empty, and scrambled back to his feet. When he did, Yuri was stepping through the hole in the wall.

  “Do you realize I could have killed you at any point in this fight? Any strike, if I hadn't held back, would have pierced your supposedly invincible flesh. I could have torn out my choice of organs and strung them from the rafters. You may have been a Super Power of Mass Destruction compared to the mortal men and women that serve below us, but compared to me... you're just like them: a bag of blood waiting to be popped.”

  Yuri stepped up to Maksim, who stumbled trying to find his balance. The boy grabbed onto his neck again, but barely squeezed. It was as if Yuri were only trying to steady him.

  “I've been toying with you this whole time. You're nothing more than a plaything to me, uncle. Something to pass another day of boredom. But I'm growing tired of this game.”

  Yuri's hand squeezed without restraint and Maksim felt something burst in his throat. He let out a gurgle of pain as he felt the warmth of blood fill his mouth, but just as he was sure his last breath had escaped, the room filled up with a burst of red light and Yuri was torn from his body.

  When Maksim coughed out a hunk of black blood from his wheezing lungs, he saw his wife standing over him. She was staring across the room at Yuri, whose face looked melted and marred on one side, not unlike Maksim's scarred cheek. Yuri touched his face and his eyes lit up with recognition of the pain he was suddenly feeling.

  Both of Carmen's hands flared red with heat and her eyes burst with the power of the star glowing inside of her as she growled across the room, “Get away from my husband.”

  31

  WESLEY

  The sound of Kgosi's body being smashed against the walls of the room was like rotten fruit being splattered against stone. Zola continued her constant barrage of attacks, never giving him a second to think straight, to reach out and retaliate. If she allowed him even a moment to gather his thoughts, her time would be at an end.

  Wesley helplessly watched his mentor become a shattered mess of bones and flesh, dangling in the air like a broken marionette. He tried to shut his eyes, to reach out with his thoughts, to find a weapon in the room that he could use. A pebble. A bolt. A marble. A nail. Anything that might be lying around, waiting for him to strike out with.

  “It's no use,” Zola said as Kgosi's body smashed into the walls again and again, his head hanging lazily from his weakened neck. “I removed everything from this room that you might be able to use against me. Your power is so small, so infinitesimal, that these missing objects went completely unnoticed by our poor God-King.”

  She used his title like a slur, mocking the word she had elevated herself. The Mental Absolute. The Prime Mind. The Thought Perfection. He wasn't much more than a broken shell now.

  Wesley rose to his feet, glancing at the doorway for a moment. He thought that perhaps he could leave, find something in the next room to use against her. But then the body smashed against the wall again and Kgosi let out a sound like the wail of a ghost. His life was leaking from his body. He was a breathing corpse. Wesley knew he had little time, if any at all.

  He leaped at Zola, flinging a wild punch into her cheek. He smacked his fist against her face, knocking her head to the side, but her gaze reeled right back as she flashed him a wicked smile.

  “That all you got?”

  Kgosi's body dropped to the floor, crumpling into a pile of broken limbs as her attention became directed at Wesley. He instantly felt her mind grip onto his ankles and wrists, pulling each of them in opposite directions. He was strung up in mid-air, his limbs being pulled so hard, it felt like they might tear away from his torso.

  “I'm so sick of you. You have no idea. From the moment you knocked on that door, I could tell you were going to be trouble. But silly me, I listened to him. Even after I was convinced he was being deluded, or manipulated, I talked myself into believing you could still be of some use. And I suppose you did make a wonderful patsy.”

  She continued to talk, but her droning on about how smart she was drifted away as Wesley felt the strangest tickle in the back of his mind. At first, he thought Zola was doing something to him, but it felt comforting, like a parent trying to soothe their child to sleep. The tickle quickly became a surge of energy, no longer soothing him, but energizing him. It rushed over his mind, desperately trying to awaken something inside of him. It didn't take long for him to recognize the sensation, and as soon as he did, he closed his eyes and welcomed Kgosi's psionic energy into his mind.

  “You need to fight back,” Kgosi said into his mind, his body still laying near death on the floor. “She has broken me, my mind is shattered. Even now, my thoughts are slipping away from me, but you cannot allow her to win.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Wesley thought back. “There's nothing here for me to hold onto, nothing I can lift with my power. Everything inorganic in this room is too large.”

  “You're more powerful than you realize, Wesley. I know you are.”

  “Your belief in me is flattering, but I've tried to push past my limits. It's impossible.”

  “No. Listen to me. We were trying the wrong thing. We were trying for bigger. Heavier. That was the obvious direction. I want you to do the opposite, Wesley. I want you to wrap you
r mind around the smallest thing you can.”

  Wesley didn't understand what Kgosi meant, but as Zola's speech reached its crescendo, he could feel her pulling on his limbs even harder. A strike of immeasurable pain shot through his body as his left arm dislocated. He pushed the sensation out of his mind and let Kgosi's thoughts guide him.

  “Touch the wall, Wesley.”

  He reached out with his mind, running along the solid stone of the mountain that the temple had been built from. It was smooth and cold, with a never ending surface area that stretched out in every direction. He found no edge. It was the earth itself.

  “Change your thought. Stop looking for the edges to grip onto. Separate the wall into the tiny pieces that it is. Look deep within, between the atoms.”

  Wesley felt his right knee pop. Then his left. Zola was screaming at him to open his eyes, to look at her as she killed him, but he only understood her on an unconscious level. His mind was elsewhere.

  He cleaved his thoughts into the stone, breaking between the atomic structure, dividing the cold, hard earth into its most base properties. And that's when Kgosi's direction made sense. He saw them with his mind. Billions of atoms, each of them waiting to be held by his thoughts, light as air. He grabbed a hold of one and shifted it to the side with nothing but a brief consideration. It felt easy, natural. Like inhaling and exhaling. Each atom was right there, ready for his manipulation.

  And then he grabbed a second one.

  And a third.

  Soon, his mind was wrapped around every atom in the wall, each one lying in wait for his beckon. He controlled them all, and together, they were the mountain itself.

  When his right knee shattered, he shifted the wall toward Zola. The hard stone filtered into the room like blowing dust, every atom swirling in a cyclone of rock. Zola froze in place, momentarily mesmerized by the sight. The cluster of atoms swirled around her like mosquitoes that she helplessly tried to swat away from her, but soon they filled her ears and nose, they gushed down her throat, and snuck their way in between her eyeballs. They covered her body, from head to toe, still blowing through the air like a sandstorm. And then, with a simple thought, Wesley solidified them all.