by Terah Edun
But this seemed to be more than the normal idiosyncrasies.
Do you think he truly represents the council? asked Thanar.
I think he represents something, said Sebastian as they waited for Seven's response to Ciardis's request.
But until we find out what, Thanar said, we cannot act on the assumption.
No, we can't, Ciardis said while squeezing their hands in emphasis. But we can be wary. We can continue to plan and we can strike first…whenever that may be.
The males nodded, and she smiled with a fierce grin.
They'll never know what hit them, Ciardis said grimly. The triad of the imperial courts is on the case.
Seven smiled. “I'd hoped that you would be. This will be so much…easier if you're cooperative.”
“Cooperation,” said Ciardis coolly, “is the only thing we can promise you.”
What he didn't know was that she meant between the members of the triad.
But judging by the narrowing of his eyes and the slight pause, Ciardis thought that maybe he did.
Do you think he knows? she heard Thanar ask in her mind.
It actually startled her. She'd never heard him question an action before, let alone show some form of doubt.
She knew enough to not turn to look at him behind her, but she couldn't hide her startled emotions because Thanar said in her mind, Yes, Weathervane, I have doubts. Just like you. Just like a normal person.
Sebastian then spoke to them both: You? Normal? That's a claim I've never heard.
Thanar ruffled his wings, his equivalent of a dismissive sniff she now knew, and said aloud in an icy tone, “Very well, lead on.”
Seven had been eyeing them as if he could hear their thoughts and maybe even read their minds.
Don't be naive, said Sebastian quickly as they walked forward to follow Seven out of the door.
Ciardis stiffened.
Argh, no, I didn't mean that, said Sebastian.
Ciardis thought slowly, So you didn't think—
Ciardis, I just meant— replied Sebastian.
Stop it, both of you, snarled Thanar. Thoughts will slip through until we have better control. This is not the time to bicker.
Ciardis felt both her mind and Sebastian's settle down.
She let some amusement waft through her thoughts. Who'd have thought Thanar would be the voice of reason in this triad?
Someone has to keep you youths in line, the daemoni prince snapped back without a pause.
Ciardis snorted lightly.
Then Sebastian said, Anyway, what I was saying was that I don't think he can read our minds. Not now, anyway.
But? Ciardis thought at them both when she felt Sebastian pause.
But, Sebastian continued, I've been uneasy ever since we entered the city. His gift has been too great. Reaching even through the shielding. I can find no fault in it.
Ciardis swept her eyes from left to right as they entered the main courtyard and once more headed toward the city council headquarters.
Sebastian continued, It's almost as if it's omniscient, and that's not good.
Ciardis thought about it, but this sort of magic was outside of her realm of expertise.
Thanar? she queried as they climbed the stairs to go into the central chambers. Is he right? If Seven has a weakness, now is the time to speak up about it.
Thanar was quiet for a moment.
Then he admitted, I've been studying him. I can find no faults in his practical magic. No chinks in his armor.
Ciardis felt her shoulders slump.
But, added Thanar, it is in that perfection that I find weakness.
They finished climbing the stairs, and the doors to the city hall opened. They entered and turned a corner.
What do you mean? demanded Sebastian.
He's too powerful. Possessing a gift that is almost equal to ours, Thanar said. Yet, his aura capacity says it is not his.
Ciardis blinked and said, Say that again?
He's siphoning magic from the city, Thanar said. I'd stake my life on it.
Sebastian's mind lit up with emotions. Surprise and excitement among them.
So that's how he did it, the prince heir exclaimed.
Did what? Ciardis said in frustration—it felt as if she was missing half of the conversation.
Not half, countered Thanar, just the analysis we did while you slept.
Ciardis thought about countering that, but she realized, with access to Thanar's memories, that he wasn't castigating her. He was simply telling a fact.
“All right,” Ciardis said reluctantly in a whisper. “So what does that mean?”
She'd dropped out of the mind-to-mind link almost instinctively. It didn't feel natural to her to constantly talk in her head. But the two males continued with ease.
That's how he knew we were coming, said Thanar.
Using the city's own residual magic as a weapon against us, Sebastian added.
But that doesn't explain how he controlled the horde that greeted us, Ciardis said as she dropped back into the conversation reluctantly.
No, no it does not, said Thanar as they entered a large chamber with ten distinct podiums on risers ahead of them. But it gives us a start.
Ciardis watched as Seven took his seat at the only empty space on the council.
She swallowed thickly. They walked forward at a brisk but calm pace to face the Council of Ten. Ciardis felt her eyes wander as she took in a room practically overgrown with weeds, vines, and strewn with pieces of fallen concrete from walls that had nearly caved in.
She was most sad to see the jagged panels of glass in the dome above them.
It all symbolized what the city had become—a place more reminiscent of a backwater dump than what had once been a gleaming jewel in the crown of the empire.
She had to wonder why the council hadn't bother replacing the panes or tending to the council's seated room as meticulously as they had the guest lodging.
It was rather strange to see nature fighting human architecture in a room that was so clearly meant to be a shining sample of civilization.
As the rested group trained their eyes warily on the council, the ten looked down on them with expressions that showed everything from sheer hatred to calculated coldness to intellectual curiosity.
What was most curious about them all wasn't their expressions, however.
One and all, aside from the mysterious Seven, were marked with the scourge of the Aerdivus.
They were all prior victims. Victims who had survived.
One raised his hands and said, “I am Oiye, first councilor of the Council of Ten. One of you claims to be Prince Heir Sebastian Athanos Algardis. Let him step forward.”
His voice was unwavering and his gaze was pinned on Sebastian's stiff form. He clearly knew who Sebastian was, but for some reason known only to himself he chose to make Sebastian declare himself.
Willingly, the prince heir stepped forward.
When Samuel also stepped forward with a stiff upper lip and a look of contention on his face, Sebastian held up one hand, and Samuel slipped back into line as if a command had been voiced.
And maybe it had.
“I am Sebastian and I represent the Emperor Bastien Athanos Algardis,” said Sebastian coldly. “You have summoned me here and I will give you one chance, for maybe you do not know of the social contract between man and empire, city and empire, citizen and ruler, but you answer to my father and, by all rights, to me. I did not come here to be subjugated to your rule or to make explanation for my actions, past or present. I came here on a mission of protection and, hopefully, peace.”
As his last word echoed in the hollow chamber, Ciardis felt anxiety well up in her throat. She hoped Sebastian's speech would be enough. That they wouldn't have to use force that would kill more council members than she could stomach.
Councilor Oiye turned and spoke to an older woman at his side. She eyed Sebastian with contempt and nodded at whatever Oiye whispered in
her ear.
“Prince Heir Sebastian,” said Oiye firmly. “Your family is an old name in this empire.”
“We founded this empire,” Sebastian corrected with a swift snarl.
Oiye nodded. “And as such, you know the respect and weight your name carries.”
Sebastian shifted his stance but didn't speak. The statement wasn't really a question anyway.
Oiye continued, “We are and have always been loyal subjects of the empire here in Kifar.”
Sebastian replied, “That is good. And yet our reception in your fair city is one that does not live up to those words.”
Seven said with a brittle smile, “Well, we've had some new residents come along to our fair city in recent years.”
Sebastian turned his head to Seven with deliberate slowness. “Do you speak for this council now, Seven?”
Councilor Oiye spoke up before Seven, whose eyes turned flinty, could reply. “He does not. But his point is well taken and would be better understood if you allowed me to tell you how we came to be here in this predicament.”
Sebastian looked up at Oiye with stiff shoulders.
Ciardis could tell he was weighing his options carefully. Fight and destroy individuals who had yet to lift a finger against them. Or hear them out.
Sebastian may have been stronger than she had ever seen him before, but he was not callous.
He nodded and then said, “Speak and I will hear.”
His tone and his posture alone spoke volumes. As if the Council of Ten had convened in attendance of him and not the other way around.
Ciardis watched as emotions flickered across Oiye's face. Surprise. Then cautious hope.
Hope for what? she wondered.
It didn't matter, because he started to speak.
26
“Long ago,” Oiye said, “I was not a council member but a simple farmer of the crystals in the caverns.”
Ciardis felt surprise ripple through her. The land again.
As he spoke Ciardis looked from council member to council member. Noting their similarities.
Noting their differences.
They were all wasting away. Like cadavers, she could see the bones pressing against their flesh.
Skin as thin as paper with sunken eyes.
Truly they looked like they were starving dolls with large heads, big eyes, and thin, bony hands.
She swallowed harshly as she looked beyond just flesh and muscle, to see how the plague had carved into their paper-thin skin. Flesh wounds, round and bold, were like dried pockmarks against their skin.
Red and fresh like they’d just been stricken.
And yet, one and all, they seemed as though they’d endured their current states for far too long.
Ciardis took her gaze away from their wounds and focused her attention on Oiye as he continued his story. “When the Aerdivus hit our portion of the empire, it swept without mercy throughout the local communities.”
Sebastian interrupted, “It swept everywhere.”
“Yes,” said Oiye with a heavy breath. “But we peoples of the desert were lulled into a false sense of complacency.”
Seeing Sebastian about to object, Oiye quickly said, “Not by the emperor himself. But by our own folly.”
Sebastian visibly relaxed, and Oiye continued, as no further objections appeared to be in store. “We thought we were safe. The virus hit the smaller camps far away, people who were fools and traveled into the far-off, swamp-ridden lands of the west. Our local communities began to feel immune as it passed us by. Little did we know that the sands we called home were acting as…I don't know how you would term it—'firebreaks,' I assume.”
Ciardis thought about it and then nodded.
A woman on the council spoke up with bitter spite lacing her voice. “He means that as long as none in our communities felt sick, because no one journeyed very far from their homes, we thought we were immune.”
“But one by one each small hamlet fell before the scourge,” said a council member who was visibly trembling. Whether in fear or anger at relived memories, Ciardis wasn't sure.
“Then the large communities fell,” Oiye said in a heavy voice as that council member trailed off. “The survivors were fearful, but by now the caravans and the other lone communities had wised up. They turned them away. Even the vaunted citizens of Kifar, with their city full of healers and shamans, could not help, and turned the desperate away at the gates.”
Ciardis swallowed heavily. She could feel the heartbreak in the councilor's voice as fresh as if the crimes against humanity had happened that very day.
“In its infinite wisdom, the ruling city council of Kifar at the time elected to set up survivor camps,” Oiye said. His very voice dripped with horrified disdain.
Hatred flashed over Oiye's face so briefly that Ciardis almost didn't see it. As he closed his eyes and visibly sought to regain his composure, Ciardis could tell that he was incredibly troubled. Not by the individuals who stood on trial before him, but by events that passed into memory decades ago.
Memory often is the cruelest creature, Ciardis heard Thanar whisper in her head. It represents a time well past, and yet is conjured up as if it happened just this day.
Happy memories or sad, it doesn't matter, Sebastian added to Thanar's voice in her mind, into their shared minds. It wasn't so much a lesson as it was a shared understanding between the three of them.
Ciardis kept her attention on the council in front of them, however. Determined not to miss a word.
Councilor Oiye continued, “The survivor camps were no better than internment centers. They existed for one purpose and yet carried out another.”
The last member on the left, one who had not spoken yet, said, “They were supposed to be places were those who were ill and those who had not died could go for a tent over their heads and food prepared for them. A haven of sorts.”
“But they were anything but,” Oiye proclaimed solemnly.
“What else could they do?” interjected Seven bitterly. “The council could not risk the city, and the desert dwellers could not go home, where bodies piled high and herds had long ago died off or wandered away to die in the desert.”
Ciardis thought that this sounded like an old argument that had been hashed and rehashed long ago, but they let them continue with the tale.
“So they gathered,” said the woman who sat next to Oiye on the council, “like lost sheep, as the plague devastated our entire world.”
Oiye nodded. “And when we went in, we never imagined we'd never be let back out into the world again.”
When Ciardis heard him say “we,” she nearly curled in on herself in dismay.
It both did and didn't make sense that they had entered the camps and had survived.
There was a heavy pause as Councilor Oiye obviously thought about how he wanted to continue with what he had to say.
Ciardis thought about interrupting and asking a few of the hundred questions that were racing through her mind, but she didn't.
A calm sense of purpose had enveloped her, almost like a voice chanting in her head “steady, steady.”
It both was and wasn't in her own head, Ciardis realized.
It was in Sebastian's. He was assessing the situation and finding that he needed to wait.
Needs to wait and needs to move on, Ciardis knew.
They were all pressed for time. Who knew where the wyvern was, or the ravenous hordes, for that matter?
Who controls the latter, and how? Ciardis wondered.
That, at least, she planned to get a concrete answer to. Whatever the answer was, she was sure she wouldn't like it, but almost anything would be less objectionable than Seven and Seven alone having total control.
So she waited, and then Councilor Oiye spoke.
“You must understand that the camps were situated far from our homes,” he explained softly. “We had nowhere else to go, but even if we had elected to leave, there was nowhere to run. The mages had create
d portal gates to the camp locations. They didn't disclose to anyone before we agreed to journey there where we were going. Just that we would be housed, fed, cared for.”
“We thought they were our benefactors,” spat out one councilwoman in loathing.
“We thought they cared,” corrected Oiye gently as he gave the woman an understanding look.
“But they all found out how very wrong they were,” Seven said with contempt. Not for the council members who had been duped, Ciardis could tell, but for their aggressors, who had clearly done them great wrongs.
“Yes,” said Oiye with a heavy sigh. “The camps were far different from what we knew. I remember my first thought upon exiting the portal was that it was so cold.”
Another of the male council members nodded. “Like an iciness we felt down to our bones.”
“And it was muddy,” said Oiye. He said it with neither anger nor horror lacing his tone, just a matter-of-factness that told Ciardis he had become numb to the small details.
“When we got there,” Oiye continued, “the prisoners were shivering.”
Ciardis's group shuffled, and Oiye pinned them with a stern eye. “I do not use those words lightly. These people were not citizens benefiting from the empire's good will. They were chained to their beds like dogs.”
“Emaciated, sick, diseased,” said Seven. “They all had bugs crawling all over them.”
This time Ciardis caught the emphasis on “they” from Seven's lips. He practically spat it out of his mouth with rancor. She wondered how he'd lived amongst these people so long and had not only survived but remained free of the ravaged nature of the plague that left no other council members untouched.
Oiye said, “It didn't matter. Dead, dying, healthy, and whole. All were given a cot and a pair of iron shackles. We had no choice. Too many of our group were too weak to fight malnutrition and outright starvation. So we watched as one by one we were imprisoned like all the others there.”
“And just like the others,” another council member whispered, “we fell sick one by one. How could we not, living in such fetid conditions? Chained to our beds next to the ill and the plagued?”
Ciardis swallowed harshly.
