“Why?” he asked, rolling onto his side, propping his head up with his arm to look at her.
“It is because of what happened long ago,” she began, “in a time when our Empire was of one world, when warriors – male and female – answered the call of their blood.” She rolled over on her back, her eyes focusing on the far distant stars. “Mine is a very old race, Reza, far older than your own. We live now in the time of the First Empire, which began over one hundred thousand of your Standard years in the past. But the earliest records of our civilization go back much, much further, perhaps as far as five hundred thousand of your years. And it is in the twilight ages between those times that the legend of the First Empress was born, in the days when the Old Tongue was widely spoken and unbridled warfare was rife across the land.
“Before the First Empire was founded,” she explained, “the legends say that rival city-states vied for dominance, for power. We rose to the pinnacle of civilization time and again during the course of many generations, only to be plunged into renewed dark ages by frenzied, uncontrollable warfare. Many times, leaders banded their nations together with strength and cunning to lead us out of darkness, but when they fell the land was plunged into chaos once more.
“But there came a day,” she said, her voice filled with awe, “when a child was born in the city of Keela’ar, born to a great queen and her consort. The child, whose hair was white as the snow atop the mountains and had rare red talons, was named Keel-Tath.
“Keel-Tath’s parents, as was the custom in those days, entrusted their daughter’s training to one of the warrior priestesses of the Desh-Ka, and in time she took the reins of her mother’s domain into her own hands.
“Cycles passed, and time saw her expand her domain across the face of the known world. And before her hair had grown long past her waist, she stood before her entire race as Empress: the leader of all, the first to unite our world.
“In the cycles after the Unification,” Esah-Zhurah went on after a moment of silent reflection, “Tara-Khan, a male warrior who was the greatest of his kind, perhaps the greatest who has ever lived, won her heart. He had slain her enemies upon the field of battle just as he now warmed her bed with his love. In time, she was with child, a child who would be born with white hair, who would someday become her successor upon the throne. The two were happy, so say the legends, and the Empire prospered in Her good graces.
“But there came a warrior who sought to usurp the power of the Empress, a warrior whose name has long since been stricken from the Books of Time in the darkest of disgrace. For he was Tara-Khan’s tresh, and he betrayed his brother of the Way. As the Empress lay in her chambers, giving birth to her child, the usurper lured Tara-Khan away from her side, telling him of a plot within the palace to kill the Empress and her child. The usurper led Tara-Khan into a trap, where the betrayers and his followers fell upon him. Many did Tara-Khan slay, but he did not count on the treachery of his companion; the usurper’s blade pierced Tara-Khan’s back, and so did he fall.
“When the deed was done, the usurper and his mistress, the high priestess of one of the ancient orders, now long forgotten in the depths of its disgrace, led more of their followers to the Empress’s chambers, killing all present save the Empress and Her child. ‘Give me the child,’ the usurper demanded of the Empress, ‘and I shall spare its life, and thus shall Your daughter live as mine own.’ For the great priestess was barren, and longed for what the Empress had, but she could not; and for his twisted love for this woman did the usurper demand the Empress’s child.
“‘And what of Tara-Khan?’ demanded Keel-Tath as the evil ones surrounded Her. ‘His body feeds the wo’olahr of the forest, as yours shall feed my desires,’ the usurper spat in reply as he moved to force himself upon her in a grotesque consummation of his lust and greed.”
Reza’s skin crawled at the thought, his long-forgotten memories of Muldoon’s diseased cravings suddenly surfacing in his mind.
“But he was never to touch her,” Esah-Zhurah continued. “Her heart broken at the death of Tara-Khan, Her blood burning in blind rage, She invoked the Curse that has vexed us to this day. The conspirators did Keel-Tath curse, calling upon the powers that lay deep within Her, powers that could change the very shape of our nature.
“First was cursed the usurper who had betrayed Tara-Khan and threatened to defile Her. Such was the power of his lust, Keel-Tath told him, that lust is all that would remain. And not just for him, but for all his kind. And in moments the warrior began to writhe in agony as his body withered to half its once-proud size, his head shrinking to house a brain that knew only of mating, and could never be home to another treacherous thought. But then she decreed that the urge would be satisfied only once, whereupon he would die in horrible agony. The legends say that on the day following her judgment, there were no more male warriors to be found in the world, only shells that were nothing more than breeding machines that could function but a single time. Only her imperial guards were spared this fate.”
Reza shuddered at the thought. Even a boy such as he knew that legends were often no more than empty fairy tales, no more real than the Tooth Fairy. But Esah-Zhurah told the tale as if it had happened only yesterday, not millennia – a hundred millennia – before.
“Then,” Esah-Zhurah went on softly, and Reza had to strain to hear her above the waterfall, “she cast judgment upon the usurper’s mistress. Her punishment was equally terrible. Keel-Tath decreed that the woman and all who shared her bloodline would have what they so desired: to be able to bear children. The usurper’s mistress would be fertile and forever intertwined with the usurper and those like him, now a mere animal in search of a female in heat. Her punishment was that she must breed every cycle of what we now call the Empress Moon, or she would die in terrible pain. She must embrace her lover once, then watch him die in agony. And so she would never forget that she had been barren, one daughter of every two would be infertile, and born with silver claws as witness. The claws such as are upon mine own hands.”
She turned to face Reza, silently wondering what this alien, this outsider, could think at the misfortune of her race.
Shocked, Reza understood. She was barren, disgraced by a nameless woman who died millennia ago, and only those who could bear children could sit upon the throne of the Kreelan Empire.
“And what of the clawless ones?” Reza asked quietly, not wanting to dwell on Esah-Zhurah’s tragic fate. “Did they play a role in this?”
Esah-Zhurah shook her head in the Kreelan way. “After Keel-Tath had delivered the curse upon the usurper and his mistress,” Esah-Zhurah went on, “She summoned the priestesses of the other orders and bade them to kneel before her. Handing the first her knife, the knife that had belonged to her mother, she commanded the eldest priestess to deliver up the talons of her hands, the very badges of warriorhood, as a sign of loyalty. And the priestess did this, cutting her talons from her fingers, one by one, and dropping the bloody claws into the urn the Empress held forward to receive them. The knife was passed from priestess to priestess and the ritual repeated. After the last had tossed her proud talons into the urn, Keel-Tath cast a spell upon them, that the children of their bloodlines would be born without talons, and would be known forever as those most loyal to Her will.”
“What happened to her?” Reza asked softly. “To Keel-Tath?”
“The legends say that she was stricken with grief at the death of her lover. That very day She gave up her child to the high priestess of the Desh-Ka, for her to bring up the child and teach her the Way as tradition demanded. And then Keel-Tath plunged a knife into her own heart, destroying the life in her body. Such was her sorrow, that her spirit did not seek a place among the Ancient Ones; instead, she sought out the Darkness to dwell in grief for all the days of Time.”
Reza thought for a moment that the terrible tale was finished. But he could tell from her expression that there was something else, a final tragedy on that horrible day so long ago. And then
he knew what it was.
“Tara-Khan was not really dead, was he?” he asked.
Esah-Zhurah’s eyes focused on him, her eyes gleaming as they reflected the fire’s flames. “And thus do you surprise me once again, Reza,” she told him before continuing her tale. “He made his way back to the palace, more dead than alive, driven by his love for Keel-Tath. But when he arrived, he found her slain by her own hand, and the infant Empress in the hands of the Desh-Ka, its young spirit crying in grief and incomprehension. He lay down beside his lover, and with his last breath did he vow to protect Her evermore from those who might travel beyond this world to seek Her power in the name of evil. And thus did he die. After that, no one knows exactly what happened to Her. Legend has it that Her body disappeared, Tara-Khan’s body and the imperial guard with it. No one knows where they may have gone.
“Over time,” she said, drawing her tale to a close, “the bloodlines were said to merge, and now those of the black claws and those with none must mate every cycle, or death will take them. Of the children, those who bear these,” she held her silver claws to the light, “are only spectators to the continuance of our people, forever barred from the throne by sterility. And tradition demands that the Empress must be possessed of white hair, a direct descendant of Keel-Tath.”
Reza didn’t believe in what sounded like magic in the legends, but with a race this ancient, who could know? Regardless, he felt sick. Despite the horrors he had suffered at the hands of these people, despite the untold suffering of humanity before their attacking fleets, he pitied them. With his entire heart, he pitied them. Such a wonderful and proud race, violent though it might be, doomed to such a horrible fate.
“Esah-Zhurah,” he stuttered, wanting to offer something, but not really knowing what to say. “I am… sorry. For all of you.”
She looked at him closely for a moment, and he thought for just an instant he saw punishment looming in her eyes. But it vanished with the shifting of the dying flames, and her beautiful cat’s eyes softened again.
“Save your sorrows for your own people,” she told him. “The Children of the Empress need not your pity.” With that, she turned away from him, drawing her skins tightly around her as she fought to ward off the chill of the night and the visions of Keel-Tath’s legacy to her people.
And as sleep stole upon her, she thought of something that never would have occurred to her, never in all her life, had not Reza asked his question this night.
What would it be like, she thought to herself as she drifted away into the land of dreams, to become Empress, the Ruler of Eternity?
***
Reza’s eyes snapped open. His heart was tripping like a hammer, and he found himself breathing rapidly, as if he had been running for leagues. He looked around cautiously, but could see only the ethereal glow of the moss that lined the bottom of the grotto, twinkling in the mist from the waterfall. Other than that and the light from the stars, it was completely dark. The night was yet full.
Had he been dreaming, he wondered? After a brief inspection of his body’s condition, he decided that no, a dream was not the cause of his unease. He had awakened from the combat reflex that was slowly but surely becoming an integral part of him, his senses having warned him through his subconscious that something was wrong. But he did not yet know what.
Esah-Zhurah continued to sleep peacefully, her body turned away toward the grotto beyond the shelter of the alcove. He found it difficult to believe that whatever had awakened him had failed to do the same to her, but he was even more skeptical that the hairs standing on the back of his neck were a mistake.
His eyes darted about their limited field of vision as his nose and ears searched for clues as to what was troubling him. He lay perfectly still, searching. He had learned long before that to move before isolating a hidden threat was often a fatal mistake. One did not have to be a veteran of the Challenge to know that.
There. The cry struck him like a blow. It was the sound of the magtheps outside the entrance to the grotto, screaming in fright.
“Goliath!” he said, throwing aside his blankets and getting to his feet. He had no idea what was out there, but his instincts – even bred as they were from a different order of evolution – were crying out in alarm. He bolted toward the rocky trail that led to the opening to the side of the mountain where the magtheps had been grazing.
“Reza!” Esah-Zhurah called, grabbing his arm. “Wait!”
“But–”
“Listen.”
And then he heard it, a basso growl that ripped across every nerve in his body like a twisted, clawed hand. He had never heard such a frightful sound before, but he knew it was close. Too close. Even in the darkness, he could tell that Esah-Zhurah’s skin had paled. Her hand was gripping his arm so hard she had drawn blood. She was terribly frightened.
“What is it?” he breathed.
“Genoth,” she whispered hoarsely, her body beginning to tremble.
Reza looked at her, the word meaning nothing to him. “What does that mean?”
“It is terribly dangerous, Reza,” she said, drawing herself closer to him, dropping her voice even further. “It is a… a dragon, a great carnivorous beast.”
Reza looked up toward where the magtheps’ cries had echoed through the portal, but could see nothing. The sounds had faded without any squeals of pain.
“Goliath and your animal must have fled down the mountain,” he said, relieved that they might be safe.
The growl came again, louder this time, and Reza realized with sudden dread that the sound had begun to echo. It was in the caldera.
“It is in here,” he whispered, stepping carefully beyond the alcove’s overhang, scanning the walls around them.
“Reza, do not–” Esah-Zhurah’s voice caught in her throat as she saw the shadow atop the far side of the grotto, a great dark blob of matter that seemed to consume the stars in the sky. “There,” she whispered, pointing to where the beast sat, perched atop the grotto’s rim.
Of all the ways to die, this was the one that Esah-Zhurah feared most of all: to be eaten by another creature that was ignorant of all things but hunger and primal instincts.
The creature remained dormant for a while, and the two young warriors waited through minutes that seemed like ages, waiting to see what it would do. Hoping beyond hope that it would turn and leave them alone, they knew with the certainty of those condemned that it would not; that it would, at long last, begin its fateful descent.
Reza’s mind was working frantically. Somehow, there had to be something they could do, something better than an offering of token resistance that would not even serve to annoy the beast as it gobbled them up. He had never seen what one of these creatures looked like, but from the silhouette on the grotto’s rim he could tell that it was huge, and Esah-Zhurah’s fear was an indicator of how fierce it must be. He cursed himself silently, tearing his eyes from the beast to search the grotto, thankful that the sound and mist from the waterfall seemed to have protected them from detection thus far.
They were trapped, he thought desperately, trapped in a tomb of beauty, but a tomb nonetheless. If only–
The waterfall…
–there was somewhere–
The waterfall…
–they could hide.
“The waterfall,” he murmured, his eyes fixed on it now. And then he knew. “Of course,” he said. “The cave!”
“What?” Esah-Zhurah asked, barely able to shift her attention from the mesmerizing form of the beast as it sat, waiting. Watching.
“We have to get to the water,” he told her.
“Why?” she asked, pulling on his arm as he tried to creep forward.
“Do you not see?” he asked, roughly pulling her to him, his face so close to hers that their noses touched. “We will be safe in the cave behind the waterfall!”
“No,” she said, trying to pull away from him, her fears doubled now at the prospect of having to swim in the dark water. She would rather
face the genoth, a fear and enemy her heart and mind could cope with, not like the shadowy darkness of the water, which perhaps was the water of her nightmares. “I cannot. I–” A roar that shook the entire grotto drowned out her words. The black shape that was the beast shifted and became smaller, then disappeared against the darkness of the side of the caldera.
“It is coming down the wall!” Reza hissed, knowing now that it had spotted them. “Come on!”
Pulling Esah-Zhurah behind him, he half led, half dragged her toward the edge of the pool, stumbling and tripping over the rocks that were only shadows upon shadows. Guided more by the sound of the falling water than the dim glow of the moss illuminating the pool, he suddenly felt the cool water lapping around his feet, and he surged forward.
“No!” Esah-Zhurah cried, pulling her arm away, turning to run back toward the shore.
Reza cursed in frustration. His eyes caught a glimpse of a dark form slithering down the wall as his ears picked up a faint click-click-click as it came for them.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and whirled her around to face him. “Esah-Zhurah,” he said quietly, holding her with all his might against her struggling, hoping that she would not decide to impale him with her claws, “you must trust me. Please.” She broke his grip and raised her hands toward him, ready to strike. “I trusted you this night,” he said hastily. “Now it is time for you to do the same.”
She paused, his words echoing in her mind, echoing with the sound of truth, of wisdom. Then her eyes caught sight of the genoth as it casually scaled the grotto’s wall toward the bottom. Toward them. Her eyes wide with fear, she nodded assent, and Reza quickly turned and began to splash further out into the water, holding her hand like a child’s.
“Here,” he told her, turning to hold her with one arm crossing over her breast and up to the opposite shoulder. “Just relax and let me do the swimming,” he said.
In Her Name Page 21
