Empire - 03 - Mistress Of The Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

  Motecha advanced on his colleague as if he faced an adversary sworn to murder. 'You deny the law!'

  'I'd still rather not turn the Imperial Palace into a charnel house, if you don't mind.' The young magician gave Mara a wry shrug. 'Good Servant, we have reached a difficult impasse.' He indicated the Great Ones at his back, many of them eager to call down immediate attack on her person, a hundred Imperial Whites, and two cho-ja masters who might or might not have skills enough to defend. 'If we don't find a quick solution, many will die.' He smiled in sour humor. 'I don't know if we must take your cho-ja friends at their word, or test to see whose magical prowess is the greater.' He glanced at Motecha. 'But given the difficulty we had in entering this very chamber, I have an inkling of the disaster that might result.' Again he considered Mara, not entirely without warmth. 'I have no doubt you wish to live and guide your son's steps to maturity.' He sighed and admitted, 'There are those of the Assembly who would spend their lives to eradicate you for this rebellion immediately. Others would prefer peace, and use the opportunity to study what our cho-ja counterparts could offer to expand our knowledge of the great arts. I exhort every man and mage to step back and refrain from profitless destruction until we have exhausted all other options.'

  The cho-ja magician at Mara's right hand furled its wings; its companion followed suit and said, 'In this, perhaps we can assist.' It added a cantrip in its native language and waved short forearms. An unseen disturbance seemed to pass across the chamber, and the tension between the combatants began to leach away.

  Motecha fought to preserve his anger. 'Creature!' he cried. 'Cease your . . .' But speech died in his throat. Against his will, his contorted face relaxed.

  The cho-ja magician chided gently, 'Magician, your fury clouds reason. Let peace ever be my gift to you.'

  Akani studied the magnificently marked carapace, veiled now in a translucence of folded wings. His shoulders relaxed and settled. 'Although I revere our tradition,' he admitted, his regard encompassing his fellows, 'I also recognise what I sense in these emissaries from Chakaha. Look well and deeply. They bring us something . . . rare.' To Motecha he added, 'Their presence is not an offense. We are fools to cling mindlessly to tradition and not explore the wonders we are offered.'

  Hochopepa pushed to the fore. 'Yes, I feel this, too.' He sighed. 'I know both . . . wonderment and' — the admission came with difficulty — 'shame.'

  Mara broke the stillness, 'Can any Great One deny that nothing of hate or anger motivates this act of kindness?'

  Hochopepa allowed the wave of calmness to envelop him wholly. He smiled. 'No.' Then his pragmatism reasserted as he said, 'First, your son's ascension to the Throne of Heaven may be proper according to law. But your transgressions are . . . unprecedented, Good Servant. We may never be moved to forgiveness, Lady Mara.'

  Muted muttering resumed among some of the Lords in the hall, but no open opposition arose. Motecha added, 'The Assembly's course is clear. We cannot accept as Justin's regent a ruler who has defied us. The precedent is dangerous. We are outside the law for valid reasons.' As he calmly studied Mara, all anger gentled from him by the workings of cho-ja magic, Motecha's clear reason stirred agreement among his colleagues. 'I have accepted Justin's coronation, but that does not free Lady Mara of responsibility for her disobedience. When she opposed us, she repudiated the law!' Across the space before the imperial dais, he locked gazes with Mara. 'You dishonor your rank and heritage if you shelter behind alien magic, Lady of the Acoma! You must reject cho-ja protection and voluntarily embrace your due punishment. Justice must be served.'

  'Indeed,' said Mara softly. Her shoulders stayed straight only out of habit. She had no more ploys left; she alone was near enough to perceive the fine tremors of exhaustion that played through the cho-ja mages. The calming spell had been called up from reserves that were already exhausted. They had no hidden miracles in them to offer. Too quietly for anyone but those closest to her and the cho-ja to overhear, she said, 'You did your best. We have won a review of the terms of the great treaty, no matter what becomes of me.'

  The mage to her left stroked her wrist with a gentle forelimb. 'My Lady,' it intoned in her mind, 'among our kind your memory will never die.'

  Mara forced her chin up. To all who were gathered in the audience hall she said, 'I once thought to dedicate my life to service in the Temple of Lashima. But fate decreed that I assume the mantle of the Acoma. I will be heard. The gods have given into my care more than my house and my family.' Her voice strengthened, carrying into the farthest corners of the domed chamber. 'I have undertaken to change traditions that have shackled us into stagnation. I have seen cruelty, injustice, and the profligate waste of worthy lives. For this have I set myself up as midwife to a rebirth, without which we as a people will die.' No one interrupted while she drew breath. 'You all know of the enemies I have defeated. They have varied in their cunning from base to brilliant.'

  She looked from face to face, seeing her appeal touch some of those before her. Motecha and many others simply listened. 'Our Ruling Lords craved power for honor, for prestige, for the enjoyment of themselves, with no thought for the suffering of subjects under their sway. Our noble families and clans play the Game of the Council for stakes that spill blood to no purpose! To kill me in the name of justice, before my son has achieved manhood and can rule without guidance from a regent, would be to condemn the Nations to stagnation and ruin again. Our Empire will fall, for our flaws. That is the price of my death, Great Ones. That is the epitaph your justice will write on our future. That is the cost our people must pay for your privilege of acting outside the law!'

  Silence claimed the audience hall while all present pondered the import of Mara's words. She herself stood rigid, while behind her the priests shuffled in their ranks and whispered among themselves. Pride forbade Mara to look around. She saw the concern on Hokanu's face. Mara dared not acknowledge his worry for her, not with so much as a glance. To meet her husband's eyes would be to lose her grip and break down weeping in public.

  She stood statue-straight, as a Servant of the Empire and a daughter of the Acoma, and prepared to meet her fate.

  The magicians were once more unsettled, the effects of cho-ja magic wearing thin.

  'She's gone too far now,' Shimone murmured. 'No argument can save her, for our Assembly is answerable to no law. This must not be misconstrued as a privilege. It is our right!'

  Fumita averted his face; Hochopepa looked troubled.

  Sevean said, 'You will die, Lady Mara. Cast off the alliance of your emissaries from Chakaha, or they will perish with you. I say they cannot defend you. When we destroy you, the priests will return to their rightful place in the temple and leave politics to others.' Indicating the High Priest of Jastur and the Sisters of Sibi, he said, 'Or let them challenge us if they feel they must. We are still supreme in our arts! Our powers broke the wards over this hall! Perhaps these cho-ja have learned to lie in the lands outside the Empire! I say you attempt to deceive, Lady Mara, and that you have no means of self-defense.'

  Motecha looked startled for a moment. Then his expression hardened. He studied the Chakaha magicians and saw they made no gestures to protect Lady Mara. His eyes narrowed as he felt Sevean's power manifest. Again Motecha raised his hands, and again his magic coalesced into a fiery lash of green light. He muttered a harsh incantation, fierce in his concentration.

  This time nothing would stop him and his colleagues from striking down the Good Servant.

  The priests seemed distressed. Many of them stepped back, as if trying to set distance between themselves and the Servant of the Empire. Hokanu looked anguished, until his First Adviser, Dogondi, stepped between, shielding his view of Mara's plight. 'Don't look, my Lord,' he murmured.

  Enthroned on the imperial dais, Jehilia gripped Justin's hand, while the boy stared at his mother with wide, hard eyes that had all the fear scoured out of them. 'The Great Ones will pay,' the young Emperor vowed in a monotone. 'If they kill
her, I will see them destroyed!'

  Jehilia tugged his hand in anxiety. 'Hush! They will hear you.'

  But the Great Ones had no attention to spare for the children who sat on the thrones of power. As a body, they banded together, conjoining their powers with Motecha's spell. Only three remained apart, as the incantation for the death spell neared its climax: Hochopepa, looking miserable; Shimone, his stern face twisted with regret; and Fumita, who could not entirely release his ties to family and contribute in killing a woman who would have been his daughter-in-law.

  Mara stood straight on the polished stone floor below the imperial dais. At her sides, the Chakaha mages crouched now with furled wings. Behind her stood the High Priest of Turakamu, leathery and old, but erect under his trappings of office. He laid a thin hand on her shoulder, as if in comfort to one who would shortly be greeting his divine master, just as Motecha flung out his arms.

  Green light exploded in a blinding coruscation, and a report slammed the air that threw many notables at the forefront headlong onto the floor. Mara and the priest were lost in the raging heart of the mage fire that caused solid stone to turn red and run molten. A column collapsed like an overheated candle, and the stone paving puckered and puddled into lava.

  'Behold the price of defying those who are outside the law!' Motecha cried. He clapped his hands together, and the spell died out with a snap.

  The light vanished. Through stinging, tearful eyes, the onlookers beheld a circle of charred flooring, and waves of heat from stress-heated rock that caused the air to buckle and shimmer. Inside that expanse where the very forces of nature had been skewed into violence, the Lady stood untouched. Her robes were unmarked; not a hair on her head was out of place. The pair of Chakaha mages were both bowing in homage to the priest, who now raised his quavery voice in a paean of thanks to his god.

  'What is this?' shouted Motecha. He was shaken, white to the roots of his hair. 'She lives! How is this?'

  The priest of Turakamu ceased his hymn. He stepped forward, patiently smiling. 'Great One, you may claim to be outside the laws of mortal men. But you are yet answerable to the higher order of heaven.'

  'How?' Mara began weakly, and the cho-ja mages steadied her as she swayed.

  The priest of the Red God turned his back on the baffled magicians and addressed her. 'Lady Mara, you once visited the high father superior of Turakamu's temple in Sulan-Qu. He showed you his powers and explained that my god does not act out of turn. Your policies revitalise our people. You have never spurned the temples in your manipulation of politics — you have always been a respectful daughter of our faith, unlike those who mouth loyalty for tradition and spurn spiritual righteousness.'

  'But how?' Mara began, a little stronger, as her stunned mind accepted the impossibility that she still lived.

  The High Priest grew solemn. 'The temples support you. Our pledge was not merely political. It was agreed among us that my god, who holds all men's deaths, should determine whether this moment was your time. Had you lacked heaven's support, you would have died.' He spun with a rattle of corcara skulls to face the ranks of the Great Ones. 'Which she did not!'

  The chilling voice of the senior Sister of Sibi said, 'And should our Dark Lady's little brother not summon Lady Mara, our goddess refuses to send her to the Red Halls.' The featureless opening of her robe moved, as she gave a rapacious survey of every soul in the room. 'There are others here my divine mistress would gladly dispatch.'

  Even some of the magicians made signs of protection from evil. Unfazed, even amused by their posturing, the priest of Turakamu pronounced, 'My God has awarded the Good Servant his divine protection. Her life is sacrosanct, by the will of heaven, and let any man, magician or otherwise, act against her at his peril!'

  Motecha of the Assembly stiffly accepted his defeat, but his expression remained implacable. 'The Lady's life is not ours to take; this has been unequivocally proven. Yet her right to act as regent is contestable still. Lord Jiro of the Anasati also held forth a claim to the golden throne. He acted, as Mara has, to seize power whatever the cost. Are not the Lady's ambitions the same, if she rules as Justin's regent until his twenty-fifth year? Why not have an Omechan take the post, or a Xacatecas, or one of a lesser house with no claim upon the Warlordship, perhaps the Netoha or Corandaro?'

  Recovered now from her close brush with death, and stern in her resolve, Mara cut off the chance for traditionalist supporters to seize the opening. 'No. I give you a choice.'

  Stillness rippled through the crowd of priests and courtiers, from the high dais and its new-made Light of Heaven, across the band of magicians packed in the broad central floor, to the double doors by the entry, still presided over by the requisite pair of heralds, and the stiff rows of Imperial Whites. All waited upon Lady Mara to hear her unprecedented intent. Mara ascended one stair of the dais. Over the sea of watching faces, she raised her voice. 'I could stay within these halls, acting as my son's regent. His rule would be held stable by an alliance of Lords who understand, as all eventually must, that change must come to the Empire. The cho-ja would mediate willingly as allies to enforce a new order that will end the wrong done them centuries ago. Their warriors will stop internal bickering between noble houses and avert this civil war. For Justin's first action as ninety-second Emperor will be to free them from all constraints imposed by humans.'

  Mara paused for a steadying breath. But before insurrection could stir Ruling Lords to shout her down, she hurried on.

  'I offer peaceful change! As senior adviser to the late Emperor, I know the workings of imperial government. As Servant of the Empire, I submit that I alone hold the power and the prestige among both Ruling Lords and the populace to quell the riots. The alternatives are plain. The Omechan have already taken the field against me, laying siege to Kentosani. They will soon be joined by allies of the late Lord Jiro, and other Lords who support the traditionalist party. If this trend is not stopped, we shall have civil war unmatched, to the very ruination of the Nations we profess to serve.'

  Hochopepa coughed drily. 'That justification has been offered in the past, my Lady. The bloodshed in most instances was none the less for the argument.'

  Mara gestured in repressed anger, that she should, even by implication, be apportioned the motives of her power-hungry past enemies. 'Bloodshed, you say, magician? For what end? There is no Warlord's mantle left to be won. The High Council is abolished!'

  Many Lords stirred in unsettled protest at this, but again Mara overrode them. 'Our taste for murderous political infighting must be stopped. The Game of the Council shall no longer be a justification for war and assassination. Our concept of honor must be revitalised, and our traditions that endorse cruelty rejected. We shall be a nation of laws! Whatever the crime, from lowest to highest, every man and woman must be equally answerable to imperial justice. From this new code of decency not even our Light of Heaven's actions shall be exempt.'

  Motecha waved a fist. 'But we are outside the law!'

  Mara descended the stair and advanced until only the rail that separated the high dais from the Emperor's petitioners stood between her and the packed ranks of Great Ones. Her gaze met Motecha's squarely, then swept over his black-robed fellows who crowded on either side. 'Every man and woman,' she insisted firmly. 'No Ruling Lord who does murder shall be applauded, even should the traditional forms be observed. No beggar, no slave, and no child of noble birth shall fail to be lawfully punished for criminal acts; you of the Assembly most of all. Your kind will no longer be free to keep hideous secrets: to kill baby girls and women who manifest the power.'

  Muttering arose as this time her accusation was loud enough to be fully public and not only Black Robes were inflamed to a shifting of feet. 'Yes!' Mara cried over the rising tumult that swept through the Lords and courtiers. 'I speak the truth! The Assembly has done murder for years beyond counting, and for reasons our gods would never sanction.'

  The priest of Lashima brandished his staff of office, streame
rs and corcara shell tokens waving to garner attention. 'Listen to the Lady. She does not lie to make her case. Last season a young woman who was to be tested as an acolyte was taken from the very temple courtyard. She has not been seen by our priest or her family since the day the Great One came for her.'

  Hokanu looked faintly sick; among the Black Robes, Fumita stared at the floor. He did not glance toward his son. More than a few noblemen of the court showed shock that daughters called to serve by the Great Ones were not still alive in the City of Magicians. Angry eyes swung toward the Black Robes, while Mara continued her oratory quickly to redirect a mounting wave of ill feeling. 'As a community, you should continue to govern yourselves — as must the Lords of each family . . .' Relief visited the nobles at this assurance of their rulers' prerogatives. 'Within the law!' Mara snapped. 'But the Assembly will no longer be proprietors of privilege. The study of arcane arts will not be theirs to dictate. Any who practice magic must have license to freely pursue their art. Those lesser magicians, and women who develop arcane talent, may study under the Assembly or not, as it pleases them! Those that prefer to seek knowledge elsewhere may do so.'

  The Chakaha mage nearest to the Great Ones raised a forelimb. In gentle tones it offered, 'We will be glad to teach any who seek wise use of their gifts.'

  Though the offer may have mollified some magicians, others looked vexed as Mara added, 'I have walked in the shoes of a captive, in Thuril, and I have shared imperial decisions, under Ichindar. I alone in this company can assert the validity of the claim that every man, woman, and child deserves protection. Only when this' — she frowned as she sought the term that her beloved Kevin had mentioned with such passion — 'Great Freedom is bestowed upon us all will any one of us be safe. The Game of the Council has become both perilous and bloody beyond endurance, and I would see that end. True honor does not condone murder. True power must equally shield the weak that we, for centuries, have thoughtlessly trampled under our feet.'