Empire - 03 - Mistress Of The Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

She knew better than to believe she was safe. Between gasps, she said, 'You . . . are bound to obey . . . the Assembly's . . . edict! You must . . . not fight!'

  The cho-ja ignored her. They could not do battle in any event, being workers unspecialised for combat. No weapons or tools were carried among them. But as they knotted tighter around Mara, and her pursuers sprinted out of the trees, she realised: the insectoids could not fight, but only die.

  The lead warrior screamed to his companions, and in a rush, they charged. Swords flashed in late-day sunlight as they hewed down a worker marching in procession with its fellows.

  It fell without sound, kicking and rolling in its pain. As if only now cognisant of their threat, the workers left living clashed together into a single body, with Mara wedged at their center. She was pressed too close to fall to the ground; neither could she shove her way against the current as the insectoids simultaneously thrust forward in a teeth-rattling sprint. Like flotsam caught in a current, she was carried along. She could not see for the dust and the clack of chitin-covered bodies. Turf ripped at her feet. She lost a sandal. Then the mound of the hive rose up, suddenly, and they descended into darkness.

  The Minwanabi in false armor shouted and raced after them into the tunnel.

  Mara gave up the distraction of thought. Borne along with the workers, and blind in a morass of unfamiliar smells and sounds, she made no effort to analyse. Her eyes adjusted slowly, and she twisted her head to make sense of the commotion and clamoring behind her. For a long moment she did not identify the strange, scraping rattle of blades striking unprotected chitin.

  Cho-ja bodies littered the tunnel floor, and still the false warriors came on. The cho-ja about Mara slackened pace with a jerk, and a high-pitched buzzing stung her ears.

  The next instant, a dark tide eclipsed the last light from the entrance. She knew that cho-ja workers were inserting themselves in the path of flight and that the pursuing soldiers could do nothing to reach her unless they hacked themselves a path though living bodies.

  Mara felt too pummeled with weariness to weep for grief or relief. Her mind was punished with the recognition that, even though this hive was under attack, its warrior defenders dared not risk a response for fear that the Assembly might charge its denizens with breaking the treaty. Although she knew that the cho-ja counted individual lives — workers in particular — as expendable at need, she knew regret that any such life should be sacrificed to save her.

  The last faint daylight vanished, as the cho-ja rounded a corner. Mara was conducted in total darkness. Aware as she was since her trip to Chakaha in Thuril that cho-ja were by nature day creatures, she perceived strategy in the lack of illumination. Her escorting party of workers was leading her ever deeper into the hive, past countless twistings and turnings of the way. The Minwanabi were being lured into following. Doom awaited them. They would never come alive out of this maze. The cho-ja need not trouble themselves with killing. Humans who lost themselves in the tunnels beneath the earth would wander until they perished, wasted from thirst and hunger.

  'Convey my thanks to your Queen,' Mara murmured.

  The worker cho-ja deigned not to reply. It might have been the treaty that held them silent, or it might have been sorrow for their fallen fellows. Mara felt the touch of their bodies against her, no longer crushing, but as tender as if she were cradled within a giant fist. It occurred to her belatedly that she had been caught up to the point of blindness by her personal concern for Justin. These cho-ja were doing her no favor but perhaps in their way lending her aid for the sake of their own cause, since she had brought back cho-ja mages for the purpose of defeating the Assembly.

  These beings saw their freedom in her survival.

  Mara realised that the slavelike workers might be forbidden to communicate. But the possibility existed that their Queen was not acting from strict neutrality but, in her covert way, as an ally to Mara's human cause.

  The workers were going somewhere quickly. They showed no sign of spacing their bodies apart to let her fall by the wayside. What if they had been sent on an 'errand' that by design was meant to coincide with the direction she desired to go? Or worse, what if they went mindlessly on about their hive's purpose, and she was carried in a direction she did not care to go? Time, above all, was of the essence. Her children's survival depended upon swift action.

  Mara gulped a breath. Her legs were spent. Even had she wanted to, she could not achieve so much as one step unassisted. Neither could she stay safely wedged between the carapaces of a dozen fast-moving bodies whose destination was unknown.

  If she dared to presume, she might ask to ride.

  The effrontery of that supposition might get her killed — should she slip while trying to climb on a moving cho-ja, encumbered as she was by her armor, the cho-ja continuing to ignore her as they trampled her fallen body.

  Worker cho-ja had no appreciation of the Tsurani concept of dignity. Still, Mara could not bring herself to think of them as mere beasts of burden, and that bias, along with her recovering strength, kept her silent. She recalled Lujan's expression on that long-past day in Dustari when the slave Kevin had made the preposterous suggestion that had led her armies to victory on the backs of cho-ja warriors.

  Tears flooded her eyes at the memory. Lujan had looked pale and sick as he stared at the broad, black body he was expected to mount. Yet he had done so, and gone on to win a great war.

  Who was she, to risk such as he on the Plain of Nashika, and yet not dare the same heights?

  Her heart faltered at the prospect. Yet she was lost if she did not find a way to unite the cho-ja in rebellion against their oppressors, and rejoin the Chakaha mages who waited in hiding in burrows back at her estates; her son and daughter would be dead, at the hand of the first rival claimant to the golden throne. If the pretender was not to be Jiro, there would be others equally merciless.

  And the Assembly of Magicians would never while she breathed forgive her slight to their omnipotence.

  There remained her last card left to play, the final desperate plan she had outlined during her last council before war had broken out. For that, she must reach the Queen of this hive and be received for audience.

  She did not feel bold, and had to force courage. Her voice sounded shaky, when at last she summoned nerve to try speech. 'Take me to your Queen,' she requested.

  The workers did not respond. 'I must have words with your ruler,' Mara insisted louder.

  The workers did not answer, but they stopped. The sudden jolt into stillness all but spilled Mara from her feet. 'I have to see your Queen,' she cried, shouting now, and raising a storm of echoes.

  Light bloomed down a side corridor. Mara turned that way and, over the humped carapaces of the worker party, saw an approaching band of warriors. These were Tsurani-bred cho-ja, helmed as men would be, with a Strike Leader wearing plumes at the fore. He reached the juncture of the tunnels and turned eyes like onyx upon the disheveled woman amid the workers. 'I am Tax'ka. I have come to grant your request and conduct you to this hive's Queen.'

  Mara forgot weariness in a great wash of relief. As the workers parted to clear her way, she stepped forward, and came as near as a breath to howling frustration as her fickle knees gave way.

  The cho-ja Strike Leader knelt. 'You may ride,' it intoned. 'Our Queen is not minded to wait upon your weariness.'

  Mara was too tired to bridle at a remark that from a human would have been taken for insult. She struggled back to her feet and accepted a worker's assistance to help her mount on the Strike Leader's midsection. She settled astride, insecure upon the black and slippery carapace. Her sweating hands found no grip that seemed trustworthy, and the cho-ja in its silence seemed unwilling to spare concern for her human discomfort.

  'Go,' she said, resolved. 'Take me to your Queen with all haste.'

  The cho-ja's stride as it surged forward was startling for its smoothness. Mara clung without further worry, leaning forward, so that she might grip tight
to the warrior's chitinous neck. She had no clue how far the cavern of the Queen might lie from this outlying tunnel. Some hives were so vast she could be riding cho-ja back for hours to cross them. The spice-scented air of the tunnel fanned her face. Her sweat dried, and her breathing returned to normal.

  She had leisure to notice smaller discomforts: the cramp of overtaxed muscles, and the maddening sting of blisters beneath her armor. The passages the Strike Leader and his company traversed were unlighted. Lacking any sense of vision, Mara was reduced to clinging blindly while her escort sped on its errand.

  The journey was the strangest in her memory. The darkness was unrelenting, never giving way to the chiaroscuro of blacks and greys found in the stormiest night upon the surface. As she was jostled and jarred, Mara could only wait for vision to return. Yet every expectant moment was followed by another, until she had to clamp her teeth to stifle a rising scream.

  At some point in the journey, Tax'ka inquired after her well-being. Mara gave back vague reassurance, though she felt none within; the rapid travel in utter darkness became a timeless voyage through contemplation. Fatigue and tension ruled her mind, providing sights where light and nature did not: imagined movements glimpsed at the edge of her vision caused her heart to pound and her breathing to become rapid and shallow. In time she shut her eyes, to make the darkness seem less menacing. The measure was a stopgap, and gave no sense of security. Each time she forgot herself and tried to see again, only blackness met her efforts. Her terror returned redoubled.

  At last she sought calm in silent meditative chants.

  An interminable interval later, a voice called her name.

  Mara opened her eyes. She blinked at the surge of light, for not only were cho-ja globes glowing blue all about her, but oil lanterns burned hot-white with flame.

  She awkwardly dismounted.

  The Force Leader who had carried her saluted, and said, 'At your command, mistress. Our ruler awaits.'

  Mara glanced across the cavern. Ahead of her rose a half-familiar shape, a dais fashioned of banked earth. The cho-ja Queen reclined upon it, the enormous mass of her body screened from view behind rich hangings. As Mara met the gaze of the being who towered above her, her knees did not tremble only from fatigue.

  * * *

  The cho-ja Queen watched with eyes like black ice as her human visitor arose from her bow. Before Mara could utter even the most basic polite greeting, the ruler spoke. 'We cannot help you, Lady Mara. You have by your actions set the Assembly of Magicians against you, and we are forbidden to aid any they call foe.'

  Mara forced her back straight. She removed her helm and raked back the damp coils of her hair. Letting the useless helmet hang by its strap from her hand, she nodded. She had no choice now but to take the boldest course she had ever dared attempt. 'Lady Queen,' she said as steadily as her state of nerves would allow, 'I beg to differ. You must help me. The choice has been taken from you, for the terms of your treaty with the Assembly are already broken.'

  Silence fell with the abruptness of a blow. The Queen reared back. 'You speak from ignorance, Lady Mara.'

  Never more aware of her danger, Mara closed her eyes and swallowed. She struggled against an irrational instinct to flee: she was underground, very deep. To run would avail nothing. She was at these cho-ja's mercy, and if they could not be made to help her, all causes were lost.

  Mara called back. 'Not as ignorant as you think.'

  The Queen stayed neutral. She did not settle to recline on her dais. 'Speak on, Lady Mara.'

  Mara chanced fate. 'Your treaty has been violated,' she ventured. 'Not by your kind, good Queen. By me.' The silence in the chamber was like deafness, it was so complete. Mara swallowed fear and resumed. 'I broke your treaty, which by any unbiased judgment was unfair. I went to Chakaha. I spoke with your kind, and saw them as they were meant to live, free, and aboveground. I presumed, good Queen. I made a judgment, for the good of your race as well as my own people. I dared to ask alliance, and when I returned to the Empire's shores, I brought with me two cho-ja mages sent to aid your cause.'

  The hush became more profound at this news. Mara felt as if she raised her voice against a crushing weight of unspoken disapproval. 'These mages shelter in an unused burrow within the hive near my estates. The Assembly will not pause to distinguish whether your kind are innocent of their harboring. They will act as if all cho-ja are conspirators. Therefore the treaty is broken already, by my hand, for the betterment of this Empire, for which the cho-ja must now fight to reclaim their rightful free share.'

  The heavy silence became prolonged; 'Have you anything more to say?' The Queen's tone was like the ring of struck crystal.

  For reply, Mara bowed deeply. 'My word to you is complete.'

  The Queen expelled a hiss of air. She swayed back and forth once, twice, then subsided onto her dais. Her eyes glittered. 'Lady, still we cannot aid you.'

  'What?' The expostulation left Mara's lips before she could think. She remedied her lapse with another bow, this one low enough to be counted almost subservient. 'The treaty's terms are broken. Will you not rise to opportunity and bid to recover your freedom and reclaim your rightful destiny?'

  The cho-ja Queen seemed sad as she gathered herself to answer. 'Lady, we cannot. Our word was given. The breaking of the treaty was your doing, your treachery. You do not truly know our ways. It is not possible for us to violate an oath.'

  Mara frowned. This interview was not proceeding as she had pictured. Driven by a raw fear, she said, 'I don't understand.'

  'The breaking of promises is a human trait,' the Queen stated without rebuke.

  Still puzzled, Mara struggled for comprehension. 'I know that your kind never forget a memory,' she mused, attempting to unravel this impasse.

  The Queen voluntarily qualified. 'Our given word cannot be broken. That is why humans over the years continually had the better of us. Each war ended in a treaty that we were compelled by our nature to abide by. Humans have no such instinctive restraints. They break honor, and do not die of it. We recognise this odd behavior, but we cannot — '

  'Die!' Mara interrupted in shock. 'Do you mean that you cannot survive the breaking of a promise?'

  The Queen inclined her head in affirmation. 'Just so. Our given word is binding upon us, inextricably linked with the hive mind that itself is sanity and life. To us, a promise is as confining as walls and chains would be to a human — no, more. We cannot rebel against the tenets of our ancestors without calling madness upon the hive, a madness that brings death, for we would cease to feed, to breed, to defend ourselves. For us, to think is to act, and to act is to think. You have no words to embrace the concept.'

  Mara gave in to the weakness in her knees. She sat abruptly upon the bare earth, her armor creaking in the stillness. Her voice was small, as close as she had ever come to sounding mollified. 'I didn't know.'

  The Queen said nothing to exonerate Mara. 'That is a common response by humans who at last perceive their error. Yet it changes nothing. You did not swear to the terms of the Forbidden. You cannot break what does not bind you. Only the cho-ja or the Assembly can violate this ancient pact.'

  Mara cursed herself for pride and vanity. She had dared to think herself different from her fellow Ruling Lords; she had presumed to know her cho-ja friends, and had been guilty of an atrocity as great as any that her kind had perpetrated against the insectoid race in the past.

  The Chakaha council had trusted her: wrongly, it would seem. She shrank from the association that eventually the mages she had cozened into coming to the Empire must know how poorly she had judged.

  How many times had Ichindar, on his seat of power, suffered for his human follies when they had come to adversely affect the people he had been set by fate to rule? Mara felt diminished with shame. She had aspired to set her son on the golden throne; to save his life, she believed.

  How little she had reckoned the ramifications at the time, to set a weight of responsibility not even sh
e could encompass upon the untried shoulders of a boy.

  Mara set her face in her hands, burdened with something worse than mere despair. She contemplated the finality of death, that she had stubbornly named a waste of resource; now she was no longer sure. The gist of her philosophy had altered under her, until no course of action felt sure.

  'The magicians will seek reprisal against your kind,' Mara ventured at last. She looked up humbly at the Queen. 'What will you do?'

  The massive insectoid regarded her with an expression no human could interpret. 'Some of us will die,' she replied with the implacable honesty of her kind. 'This hive will very likely be first, since you were permitted an entry and an audience.'

  'Can you not flee?' Mara badly wanted to hear one word of hope or encouragement, that all was not lost for these creatures whose friendship had sustained her through a lifetime of trial and difficulty.

  The Queen twitched a forelimb, perhaps in the cho-ja equivalent of a shrug. 'I am already within the deepest chamber of this hive. It is not possible to move me anywhere else. Once our Queens mature enough to lay eggs, we lose our mobility. Here, at least, I will survive until the last. Your Great Ones may destroy my body, but the hive mind will preserve my memory, and the record of all that passes here. Another hive will protect our mind, and when a new Queen is spawned, the mind will renew with her.'

  Small comfort, Mara thought, not to be forgotten for eternity. She did not speak of the foreboding in her heart, that worse might happen: there might indeed be an end without memory for the cho-ja nation held captive in the Empire. Her brashness might have bought their permanent extermination. She recalled the trust she had won from the Chakaha council, and her need to weep became painful.

  She was given no chance to dwell upon guilt or misgiving. The next instant the Queen cocked her head to one side as if listening.

  A rapid-fire, high-pitched buzzing was exchanged between ruler and her servants. The communication ceased as if cut off. Workers and warriors departed, and the Queen tilted her head toward her human guest.