DragonThrone02 The Empire of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  It was hard to realize that this genial host and companion would soon attempt to kill her if she did not turn to his side. It was, she thought, like playing with a half-tamed beast that might at any moment turn savage without warning. And as he showed no sign of being swayed by her arguments, she began to lose hope. She was running out of time, and she was also growing concerned about Syndra Magus. Though she never saw the woman—Mandrake must have instructed Syndra to keep out of her sight—Ailia half-fancied she could sense her presence always near at hand, like a taint in the air. Might Syndra poison Mandrake’s mind against her?

  “You are losing,” remarked Mandrake as they played a game of Stratagem that evening in the treasure room.

  Ailia looked up, wondering if he meant only the game. “I am losing because you are cheating,” she replied in mild reproof, glancing down at the silver and gold pieces on the board. “Mounted knights don’t take elephants. It’s against the rules.”

  “So you are paying attention, after all. I never play by the rules,” said Mandrake without looking up. “Those that attempt to bind themselves to a code of honor are always doomed to lose the fight. In any conflict, the strongest—or the most cunning—wins, not the most honorable.” He leaned back. “Your move.”

  There could be no doubt now that he was not talking about a board game. “It’s still better to be honorable,” she insisted after a moment’s thought. “You must believe that, or you would not have honored this bargain you made with me.”

  “Do you really believe what you are saying, Princess, or are you merely repeating the lessons that have been drummed into you all your life? Remember, you are free here, and so are your thoughts. You may do and say and think anything that you wish, and no one here will condemn you for it. This little kingdom I am creating is to be a unique place. Nothing may enter it without my leave; neither Light nor Darkness, good nor evil, can hold any sway here. The storm that rages outside blows past my door—I will not let it in.” He leaned his chin on his hand, gazing thoughtfully at her. “You desire freedom, too, or you would not be here. You escaped your keepers.”

  “Escaped? I sought you out to parley, and make a truce!”

  “So you told yourself. But did you not, in some deep recess of your being, wish to be free? Did that part not rejoice when you struck out on your own, unfettered, unguarded?”

  Again he compelled honesty from her. “Yes,” she said in a low voice, remembering her wild joy when she captained her flying ship and sent it into the Ether.

  “Well, now that you are here, why would you go back?”

  “Because I cannot live only to please myself! The Arainian people need me.”

  “But do they? And what of you? What does Ailia need? Why sacrifice yourself for a people who have never done a thing for you? Do you truly love them, or are you bound to them only by joyless duty? Has the human race always been unfailingly kind to you?”

  She recalled, unwillingly, the cruelty of the convent girls in Maurainia, the daily taunts and jibes that often had made her life there a misery. “You’re trying to make me hate,” she said calmly, sitting upright and looking him in the eye. He knew that she had suffered these things, and meant to use their memory to cause her pain and twist her thoughts. Yet in order to do so, must he not also understand what such suffering felt like? “They really hurt you, didn’t they?” she added, in a sudden flash of insight.

  “What?” said Mandrake, taken aback.

  “Those children who stoned you and insulted you, when you were a little boy in Zimboura—the scars have never healed, have they?”

  For an instant, a mere breath’s measure, he seemed to be taken aback. Then his golden eyes turned to shuttered windows. He rose abruptly from the table and went over to the tall bard-harp, picking out a rippling tune on its strings.

  Unsure whether she had scored a victory or suffered a defeat, she sought to assume a natural tone. “I didn’t know you played the harp, Mandrake,” she said.

  “One of the advantages of an extended lifespan is that one gets the opportunity to become an expert at almost everything. I have done, and been, many things in my time.” He contined to strum on the strings.

  “I know that song,” she said, still trying to make conversation. “It is based on a ballad of the Bard’s that I’ve always loved.”

  He made a face. “You have? It is overlong, and a trifle sentimental. I do not consider it one of my better efforts.”

  It took her a moment to realize what he meant. “You—!”

  “I,” he said gravely. “Yes, I was the so-called Bard of Blyssion. I went through a poetic phase once. Did it never occur to your estimable scholars that their anonymous bard was exceptionally long-lived? For any human to produce such a voluminous oeuvre in a mere four decades or so would have been quite impossible.”

  Ailia was stunned. He must be lying. This cold and cynical creature, the author of the poetic works she so loved? “But they are—so noble, so sensitive!” she protested, unthinking.

  “And an ignoble, insensitive man such as I could not create such works. Well, you could be excused for taking that view, I suppose.”

  “Forgive me—I didn’t mean—” It was too late: the words could not be recalled. His hand dropped from the harp-strings. “It is close in this chamber tonight. I think I will go up to the main tower for a breath of air. Would you care to join me?”

  It was, she knew, a reminder of the unfinished duel that would soon take place if she did not either surrender to or convert him. Her heart seemed to plummet, but she again attempted a casual tone. “Yes, that would be—pleasant,” she said, getting up and following him to the top of the tower.

  The country lay spread out below, many-shadowed under Nemorah’s three small moons. She went to stand by the parapet, struggling to compose herself. He moved to stand at her side, looking down at the lights of Loänanmar. Presently he spoke again. “So many lamps there are, now. I have watched this city and its inhabitants for centuries. It has been fascinating, in a way—”

  “You make them sound like a lot of ants,” she observed.

  “Ants!” he snorted. “Ants would be more organized. From this height humanity is reduced to insect proportions—and it suffers by comparison. It is always the same story, played out again and again: the rebels set out to overthrow the tyrannical authority, but once they succeed they take the tyrant’s place. That Overseer of theirs, now, is nothing but a tyrant.”

  “That’s true,” Ailia admitted. “Though I believe he meant well at first.”

  “Of course: his kind always means well—at first. He and his followers had a splendid time for a while, setting up their rules of order and justice—and killing everyone who disagreed with them.”

  She sighed. “I wonder what has happened to that baby I saw. The one whose mother looked drunk, or drugged.”

  “Very likely it is dead by now.”

  “I wish I had saved it.”

  “Why? The woman would only have another child, and it would starve in its turn. These people breed and die like the insects they are. You see, time makes a difference to one’s perception, too. I can’t seem to summon much compassion for these human mayflies. When I start to feel sorry for one, I feel the futility of caring for anything so evanescent.”

  Ailia tried desperately to think of an argument that would convince him. There would be peace then . . . peace won without war. She cherished no illusions about Mandrake. Even had she not known of his past crimes, she had glimpsed, despite his efforts to appear amicable, his callousness, amorality, and selfishness. But these faults were perhaps inevitable in one so exceptionally long-lived: watching generations of fellow beings die, it would become necessary to detach one’s emotions to preserve one’s sanity, and centuries of solitude would certainly make for a self-centered existence. And she found herself noticing, too, how unconsciously regal was his bearing, and how intelligent the gaze of his keen far-seeing eyes. She saw in him faint traces of the man he had o
nce been, king’s son and courageous knight, lingering even after five centuries. To destroy the creature he had become would be to deny that man a chance to live again.

  He talked on softly, still gazing on the city. “When the Archons first visited the original world over a hundred million years ago, it was inhabited by reptiles and little else. You saw the great long-necked beasts in the jungle, the tanathon—descendants of those taken from that planet by the Archons. They only exist here now: their kind died out there long ago. When the Archons went again to that world it was to find birds and furred beasts ruling in their stead: among these, the forerunners of the human race. No one knows who lives on the original world now. It may be that humans never arose on the primal planet at all—or if they did, they may have died out in their turn. Perhaps humanity is like the giant reptiles that went before it—a failed venture of the life-force.”

  Ailia thought of the suffering populace here and in Mera, the wise and gentle Elei, her family and friends—all of these, merely a failure? Then she remembered Auron’s kindly voice: “We call you the Makers. You humans never cease to amaze.” She took a deep breath. “Mandrake, everything in me tells me that if one infant doesn’t matter, then nothing does.”

  “Then perhaps nothing does. Leave humanity alone, Ailia. Let it go to Perdition if it wants to.” He turned from the view, as if in disgust. “The people down there will tell you grand and glorious tales of their city, their history, their ideals. But from this height I have watched that city-state spread, and I have seen it for what it truly is: a great cancer, spreading uncontrollably and spoiling the land all around it. Humans like to think of the Morugei as unnatural, monstrous abominations. But they are monstrous only in their outward forms. War, murder, cannibalism—there is not a single thing they do that has not also been done by the human race at one time or another. Beneath their hideous appearance they are no different from you, and that is why you recoil from them. King Roglug, now—he is base, vile, treacherous, untrustworthy, devoid of conscience, scruple, or higher feeling. But he will never stab me in the back, because I know not to let him get behind me. The truly dangerous people are those who offer you their eternal friendship and loyalty. Rog might do me any sort of harm, but he cannot ever betray my trust.”

  Lies and distortions she had been prepared for, but not this relentless barrage of truth. She stood gazing silently at the city, and for an instant she saw it anew. It had all the contours of the human soul, she realized, its aspiring heights and hidden places, its blend of darkness and light. “I see good down there too,” she insisted, thinking of Mag and her kindness.

  “Yes, there is,” he said, unexpectedly agreeing. “Good of a sort, though not the sort you are thinking of. Take the roses down there in the palace garden, for instance.”

  She turned to stare at him. “The roses? What of them? I think they are beautiful.”

  “Do you? I find them grotesque. Overbred, overlarge—many have no scent left in them. They have been tampered with, made to fit some human notion of beauty. And those fat, pampered little lapdogs that court ladies love: can you believe that their ancestors were wolves, hunting in the wild? Humans can’t resist perverting nature to create monstrosities, and the same was true of the Archons. Look at the Elei, the result of eons of their tampering. The Old Ones sought to create a new version of humanity.” He stood glaring down at the garden. “Pretty, docile, harmless. The lapdogs of the Archons.”

  “The Elei are happy.”

  “Too happy. They live in a fool’s paradise, and that is why they are doomed: they will be no match for the invading Morugei and Zimbourans, for the strong, grasping, rapacious life-force those races represent. They will be swept aside.”

  “That’s horrible!” she protested. But again she knew there was truth in what he said.

  He shrugged. “It is the way things are. There is no god as such—merely a kind of idiot force, which generates life and living systems, but has neither the foresight to avoid mistakes nor the wit to remedy them. But it is still a kinder master than the Archons, who bent and twisted nature to their own ends. The life-force at least has no favorites: it treats all things alike, with the same sublime indifference. And through this randomness it has by sheer accident created something precious: freedom. That is all that matters: the freedom of beasts to run wild; the freedom of humans to manage their own affairs, even if they destroy themselves in the end; the freedom of Ailia to do as she wishes with her own life. You never chose this role they gave you. Let it go, free yourself from it. Remain here in Nemorah.”

  It was no use; their talks always came back to the same point. “Shall we be exiles together then?” she asked. “Both of us cut off forever from the human race?”

  “Why should that trouble you? Now that you know you never truly belonged to it?”

  By night his slit pupils dilated hugely, turning his eyes into pools of darkness: she wrenched her own eyes away, and a little silence fell between them. Ailia turned her gaze up to the emerging stars. One was large and red as a brand; another, paler one shone not far from it. She caught her breath. The configuration was slightly different from that she had always known, but there could be no mistaking them. There burned the fiery orb of Utara, the Eye of the Worm, and beside it was Lotara of the hidden companion—the Black Star no eye could see.

  “They are so near!” she exclaimed involuntarily. “The Valei realms, I mean.”

  “Ah, yes.” He too looked skyward. “I have visited them. I have been to Ombar, the world that circles Utara, and I can tell you—”

  “Ombar!” Ailia gasped. “You have been—there!”

  His pupils were dark holes that drank in light, as if they had themselves become little black stars. “Yes. It is a curious world. So slowly does Ombar spin that rotation and revolution are matched, and one side of it is turned forever to the sun while the other lies in perpetual darkness. On Ombar, night is not a time: it is a place. And it is a place that we all know, though few in Talmirennia have ever gone there. For the Morugei have told many tales of the Nightlands and the things that lurk there, and over the ages these tales have found their way into humanity’s darkest dreams.”

  For some reason his words, and the knowledge that he had been to that evil world, filled her with a kind of dread. She drew away from him a little, and he hastened to say, “Enough. Let us talk of other matters. The second day has passed. Will you heed my offer?”

  “What if I do not accept? I don’t believe you would harm me, Mandrake,” she declared, emboldened by a sudden memory of her dagger lying with its blade toward her. “You could have done so by now. Whatever others say of you, I have seen your true self, and you are not a murderer.”

  “I am flattered,” he said dryly. “A murderer—no, I hope never to be that. I actually do possess a vestigial conscience. It gives me the occasional twinge, like gout. But the Stone and your so-called guardians are doing their utmost to transform you into an implacable, irresistible Power, and that is another matter entirely. You are a tool of the Archons, a last lingering vestige of their will to dominate the worlds. Have no illusions, Tryna Lia—I will fight you if I must, if you and your allies force me to. Don’t imagine I will hold back out of some foolish sentiment, or because you are young, or a woman. I take all my opponents seriously, though I am not lawless as some would have you believe. On the contrary, I obey the only law the cosmos itself acknowledges: the law of the jungle, the law of survival. It is the Nemerei who flout the order of things, not I.”

  He did not say these things out of any intention to deceive, she sensed. His words were deeply felt and sincere, however mistaken the underlying beliefs, and she looked at him with sudden understanding. Let me help you—let me save you! she implored silently. Leave the Valei and come back to us—poor old Ana would rejoice to have you back again . . .

  “The sight of the stars used to give me pleasure once,” he said, gazing upward again. “They seemed to me mysterious and magical. But I can harbor
no romantic illusions about them now. They are globes of flaming gases, nothing more. Though sometimes when I see them in the night sky, they make me think of dewdrops shining on a spider’s web: they seem to betray some vast and sinister design. If this cosmos is not a mere chaos, then perhaps it is something worse still: a trap spun in malice, in whose meshes we are all snared. Perhaps we truly are fated to fight one another, Tryna Lia. Three times in the past I have sought to keep you from rising to power, to prevent this duel of ours from ever coming to pass. Three times I have failed. Perhaps it is simply meant to be, and no act of ours can avert it after all.”

  “No—there is free will, I’m sure of it! How could everything be preordained like that? There would be neither good nor evil then, because no real decisions could ever be made. Mandrake, you hate the thought yourself, and that must mean you don’t really believe it, any more than I do.”