He tried to get his feet under himself as the doors slammed shut, but Rackmar just yanked him off-balance again. Though he couldn't see ahead, he heard the Midwinter hymns falter, the priests and pilgrims falling silent as Rackmar strode past. With every step, his sense of his real body became clearer.
Completely foxed it. No chance of repair. Even if some of my servants are here, it's not enough—it won't work.
I should have come straight here instead of intervening at the village. Should have cut my losses while I still could.
Too late now. Too late—
No, wait.
Too early. Kelturin was right on our heels...
He pushed his nails through the gauntlet's gaps again, and sent a shock: not enough to kill, just to make Rackmar's hand spasm. The Field Marshal released him with an oath, and he scrambled away, sketching warding-runes with one hand as he staggered to his feet.
Rackmar's fist hit a blue barrier and was deflected. “Now you resist?” he sneered.
Straightening, Enkhaelen took a moment to smooth his robes and look around. He'd been dragged nearly to the mid-point of the throne room—a vast rectangular chamber with the doors at one end and the dais at the other, the rest of it thick with pilgrims and White Flames and priests in second-floor alcoves. A narrow path had formed through the crowd, marking Rackmar's trajectory; at its end, the grand dais stood nearly bare, only the Emperor, Empress and Lord Chancellor in attendance. A smattering of mages and wraiths lined the walls nearby like statues.
The first mentalist needle punctured into his mind, then a second and third. He grimaced, but it was tolerable; they couldn't rake his memories without physically touching him, and this body was beyond their control. He had a few moments still.
Rackmar had already moved from him to address the Emperor, deep voice booming over the hush of the crowd. “Your Imperial Majesty, I bring to you the greatest traitor ever to live. He has tainted your empire for too long, my liege. I beseech you to pass judgment upon him now, during this darkest of nights, so that his poison cannot harm us in the new year.”
It was difficult to tell from this distance, but Enkhaelen thought the Emperor looked pensive—almost bored. He wasn't shining either. Perhaps it was the length of the Midwinter ceremonies, or perhaps he'd finally grown tired of his underlings' fighting. Either way, it did not bode well.
“What have you to say for yourself, Shaidaxi?” intoned the Emperor levelly.
Enkhaelen's hands rose, then fell; he wanted to fix his hair, since Rackmar had pulled all the clips out, but he dared not give insult right now. “I would know the charges.”
“Conspiracy!” roared Rackmar. “Wanton destruction of Imperial property. Mass murder.”
“Is that all?”
Rackmar started toward him again, but halted as the Emperor said, “Your response?”
“Guilty. Absolutely.”
He saw a grin form on Rackmar's face but falter as suspicion set in, and was pleased to have tormented that man so thoroughly.
He added, “I would like to explain myself. To you, Aradys.”
Gasps arose from the pilgrims; to the pious, it was unthinkable to address the Emperor by name. But even from a distance, Enkhaelen sensed the Emperor's smile. “Go on.”
There was no time to make an ordered speech. Instead, he let the words bubble up from the depths into which he'd drowned them, over and over, for four hundred years:
“I hate you.”
Over Rackmar's snarl, he continued, “Simple, yes? But we both know it's not. You gave me exactly what I wanted; I'm the one who betrayed our trust. And what you did to me, I understand. A criminal needs a prison, a madman an asylum, lest he run wild and burn the world.
“And it's not about what you are. Outsider, infiltrator, tyrant, torturer—what does it matter? We've had worse kings grown from our native soil. Compared to the ones I've known, you're almost kind. You remember where you found me, in that ghastly tower. It's not wrong to call you my savior.”
On the throne, he saw the Emperor's head tilt. There was interest in his gaze, but also impatience.
“We've had good times too. What you had me do, it's nothing I wouldn't have done on my own. Kill your enemies? Fine. Kill my enemies? Happily. Create, experiment, vivisect, transfigure? Gather knowledge and power, destroying all records in my wake? Wipe away a vast span of history like it never existed—like it would somehow erase the scars upon this land? Well, why not! Sounds like fun.
“You wanted a murderer; I wanted a target. Many targets—any target. Anyone at all.”
Surging forward, Rackmar sneered, “And now you've—“
Enkhaelen smacked him across the face with a pane of hard force. He stumbled to a stop, spluttering, then choked as a second pane slammed him in the throat. His eyes bulged as he clutched at the sudden dent.
“It's rude to interrupt,” said Enkhaelen. “If you're too vain to put your helmet on, just shut up.”
A wheeze broke through the block, followed by a spasmodic cough. Hands up in self-defense, the Field Marshal took a step back; if not for the danger, Enkhaelen would have followed him and pounded a few more strikes into that hateful face. He had restrained himself for so long.
But Rackmar didn't matter. Only the Emperor mattered, and even from here he could see the glitter of amusement in those pale eyes.
“I enjoyed our early partnership,” he told his master. “And I appreciate that you came back to me after the first time I spat in your eye. You forgave me. Who doesn't need that? I don't even begrudge you the two-hundred-plus years I spent bound up in that wall. I got a lot of thinking done. Learned a few things about myself.
“But you know that, don't you? You had mentalists on me as soon as it was feasible.”
“Shaidaxi,” said the Emperor calmly, “you are stalling.”
“I'm not stalling! I'm angry!” From this close, he could feel his real body—the speeding pulse, the crackling synapses. His voice rose of its own accord. “You let me out, and I was grateful, pitifully grateful! Until I saw what you'd done while I was gone. My world turned upside-down, my homeland and its rival both demolished, my line extinguished and legacy erased. My own memories made false by the lies of scholars and priests.
“I could have— No, I did adapt. By your leave—your oh-so-glorious magnanimity. And in return, you asked for this.” He gestured broadly to encompass the crowd. “Soldiers, servants, slaves. The reconstitution of your lost people. The control of all others.
“I obeyed.
“And then I sabotaged it, because that's what I do.
“I tore up the mindwashing schedule this summer. Most of our victims should awaken soon. And I introduced the flaws into the conversion templates long before that. Insanity, mutism, physical instability, progressive amnesia, sterility. You can't fix them without me.
“And you know that! You always have! I can't hide it from your mentalists or your sight, and the worst part is that you don't care!
“You will happily listen to people like Rackmar, who makes up sadistic and self-mutilating ceremonies in your name, and to General Lynned who wants to wipe out the Corvish, and to General Demathry who wants to subjugate the Riddish, and to the Lord Chancellor who's a piking wraith and will betray you the moment he can. You leave the governing to your Lord Protectors or subject kings and don't even bother putting out edicts, standardizing laws—doing anything to rule. You don't care how many Citadels I destroy, how many towers I burn. All you do is sit on that throne and watch.
“Even your son means nothing to you! Out of all your 'blessed' toys, he's the only one I didn't hamstring—the only one I tried to make perfect, because I thought he signaled a change. Pikes, you took a wife! I— When I married, when I made my daughter, I changed. I had to, or else—“
The words caught in his throat. Above, the Emperor's gaze had gone dull, mouth turned down distinctly. Rackmar, seething, was only a few steps away.
“I'm sorry,” said Enkhaelen. “I
know you only like me when I'm entertaining, but I can't do that anymore. You've turned me into you. I used to enjoy things. I took satisfaction in my work, my life, my rivalries—I had fire! But now I can't even start a fight without getting bored in the middle of it. I don't give a shit about those I kill because there have been so many. I don't want to be like this, living out eternity as a miserable husk, and I won't be your court jester any longer.
“I'm done.
“You can make your own monsters.”
*****
Geraad wasn't entirely sure how he had navigated the labyrinth, but he knew the great doors on sight. Beyond them, dim as a flame seen through smoke, was the light of Enkhaelen's rage.
Before them was a mob of soldiers, mages, and prisoners.
He, Tarren and Wydma were themselves leading a clump of pilgrims, who had accreted at their heels as if drawn to their determination. A few more trickled in from side-paths, but otherwise the large antechamber was bare, as if the tunnels had been rerouted in their wake. White helms turned en masse toward the intrusion, and Geraad felt a wave of hostility banking down the ambient aura of worship.
Frightened, he raised his hands in surrender. He was the only one of the newcomers not wearing white—an unfortunate oversight—and when a handful of the soldiers approached, their attention stayed fixed on him.
Thus they missed the other White Flame emerging from a side-path, black blade in hand to slash through the nearest guard.
Geraad could only gape as the sword cleaved through armor and flesh, spreading rot in its wake. That unfortunate guard collapsed in place, writhing; the others turned and extruded their own weapons, but the black blade's wielder paid them no heed. Its attention locked on a figure kneeling by the doors, and it moved in with confidence despite the assembling defenders.
Geraad caught Tarren's eye. The metastatic mage tugged at his white glove and raised his brows in question.
The White Flames converged on the renegade.
“Fight,” Geraad whispered.
In a blink, Tarren and Wydma had their gloves off, swollen fingers boiling with dark energy that seemed to peel away layers of skin. Wydma flicked her first sphere out as if skipping a stone and it hit a White Flame square in the back, splattering fleshily before spreading across the armor in a voracious wave. Tarren's took one in the helm, to the same effect.
From somewhere in the crowd came an earth-shaking roar, starting low then rising like a fox's shriek. A woman in white leather lurched away, wild-eyed—followed by a flung soldier, as a furred and feathered red-black monstrosity rose up by the door.
Geraad's first panicked instinct was to attack it, for with it came a sensation of crushing depths, deep forests, black caves. He caught himself though, and stepped back behind his comrades to raise defensive wards as the white-robed mages began to cast. The pilgrims at his heels scattered at a mental push, too confused to pick a side.
The black blade slashed and hacked, leaving dark afterimages where it passed. Black orbs flew from Tarren and Wydma's hands, the back-spatter fraying their sleeves away. Two mages went down without a chance to retaliate, writhing and clawing at their eroding flesh; the others gaped at the raw holes the spheres had made in the defensive wards, then reinforced their own. From the rear, a flare of white light lanced out to scatter off Geraad's ward in diamond and emerald sparks.
His heart thundered in his ears, head full of the crowd's fears. He'd never been in a real fight—and never imagined he'd start one. Something about the intensity of Enkhaelen's rage made him believe it necessary, but now that it was begun, he didn't know what to do.
Fortunately, the others knew their roles. The red-and-black beast tore at the guards from behind while the sword-wielder took the front; shoulder to shoulder, Tarren and Wydma advanced upon the mages, forcing Geraad to follow behind. As soon as they were close enough, they lunged like wolves, their misshapen hands burning through wards and robes and flesh. A stink of rot and ozone filled the air, constricting Geraad's chest into knots.
In the midst of it, he caught a flare of satisfaction from the sword-wielder, and saw the blade rise. Its target still knelt before the door, head bowed, dark hair loose across a slack but familiar face.
By reflex, Geraad formed a ward then broadsided the sword-wielder with it, slamming him into the wall in a flare of green shards.
He rebounded in an instant, psychic snarl so strong it hurt, but Geraad was already making another ward. This one he pressed directly to the man's sword-arm, pinning it to the wall and then spreading to his chest as he struggled. When he tried to switch his grip on the blade, Geraad formed another against the flat of the sword to hold it still. With so little surface-area to control, he could hold it forever.
By the kneeling figure, the furred monster straightened. It looked something like a fox, but with its colors reversed—black body, red tips—plus a hard pebbling over its shoulders, chest and thighs, like thick hide armor. Black feathers flecked its scalp, and two stubby horns protruded from its brow.
It stared at Geraad, and Geraad stared back, at a loss for what to do. It looked like it was protecting that other prisoner, but...
“Sir?” said Tarren, eyeing it too. Behind him came Wydma, wiping her splotched face with her scarf. Their foes—those that hadn't fled—had been reduced to suppurating lumps, their flesh sloughing off to merge with the floor in an expanding dark patch. In contrast, the ones the blade-wielder had slain lay like deflated suits, rotten within their armor but not infectious.
Geraad swallowed thickly. All his words had dried up, and what vestiges of nerve he'd found were now fading. Even as he fished for something to say, he felt a shiver of alarm from behind them, and glanced back to see another band of armed people coming up the passageway.
He recognized the leader at the same time the leader recognized him. “You! Enkhaelen's mage!” shouted the prince, reaching for his red-glass sword.
At his side, Tarren and Wydma formed new metastatic spheres, ready to pitch. Behind the prince were no familiar faces but quite a few anomalies—some White Flames but also women, abominations, and a short lady with a blade that burned red like the other burned black. He sensed the White Flames' confusion and the others' tension, hostility, concern—not so much about him as toward the great doors at his back.
Quickly he gestured his companions to stop, and stood aside as the prince's group approached. The prince's yellow eyes skewered him, then swept across the bodies and the crawling blackness, to the wall where the sword-wielder struggled against the wards, to the bestial figure and the kneeling one. “What in pike's name?” he said.
“Cob!” The short woman pushed past the prince, sheathing her red blade as she went. Another woman followed in her wake, then a wolf. By Cob, the great black fox-beast stepped back, ears laying flat, but made no move as the others crowded around the kneeling man.
More cautiously, the prince stepped into the center of the antechamber, eyeing the metastatic masses steadily eating up the floor. The taint had already begun to spread to the walls, running up individual threads to create erratic patterns within the material. “One of his projects?” he said with a sidelong glance to Geraad. “Something to fight my father?”
Geraad stayed silent. Beside him, Tarren and Wydma folded their hands into their tattered sleeves as if they could hide their malformations.
With a snort, the prince turned to address his own entourage. “This is between myself, my father, Enkhaelen and Rackmar. I'm sick of all of them, and I will see this empire change or die trying. Those of you who would rather not be involved, go now. If you stay, you fight for me, against all comers.”
One of the White Flames broke away to head down a side-tunnel. The rest lingered, their minds a mix of unease, respect, excitement and vindictiveness—except for two, who sparked with treachery. By reflex, Geraad reached out and marked them with green lights.
“Would-be traitors, Your Highness,” he said quickly when the prince looked at him.<
br />
The others turned toward the marked ones, extruding their blades. Outnumbered, the traitors chose flight.
Still staring, the prince said, “Can you control people as well?”
“I haven't— It's unlawful. I've never—”
“Try.” The prince pointed to the sword-wielder. “He's too dangerous to leave behind, but I'd rather not kill him out of hand.”
Letting me control him is your best idea? thought Geraad. When you plan to fight my master? Nevertheless, he turned obediently.
Despite the faceplate, he could feel the sword-wielder's glare as he approached. He wasn't sure how the armor worked, but it seemed unwise to touch—and direct control, like memory-delving, required physical contact. Without it, he was limited in his tricks.
The man's rage compounded the difficulties. Even through the dampeners, Geraad felt it keenly: obsessive, unyielding, fixated, and supported by the malevolence of his blade.
All directed toward Cob.
Geraad glanced to the passage where the man had entered. He'd come at the White Flame defenders blade-first, but only because they'd been in the way; his goal had always been Cob. So if Cob appeared to move...
Reaching out psychically, he touched the place in the sword-wielder's mind where images became sight—the locus of perception. Though not his forte, it wasn't difficult for him to blind the man to the real Cob and replace him with a mirage, which then rose to its feet as if awakened from its fugue. As it moved toward the doors, the sword-wielder's head turned to follow it.
The sword twitched, and Geraad felt a directional tug in the man's mind, still pointing at the real Cob. He squelched it.
“I have done what I can,” he told the prince, backing away.
With a curt nod, the prince stripped off his gauntlets and strode to the doors. As he planted his hands on them, his fingers seemed to split—becoming star-shaped splays of claws, feelers and glassy tendrils. His head bowed, hair rippling free of its illusion to become long white spines, fine spurs pushing out from the gaps in his armor.
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 102
