Mistress Of The Ages (In Her Name, Book 9)

by Michael R. Hicks

  As the sun continued to rise, the others, those who had survived the destruction of the temple, gathered outside, and he could not help but hear their voices. With great care, he extracted his hand from Keel-Tath’s and slowly, quietly, rose to his feet and left the shelter.

  “While she sleeps, our enemies prepare to strike.” Alena-Khan, who now held the honor of high priestess of the Desh-Ka after the death of T’ier-Kunai and the other elders, said. “The child may be the chosen one, but she knows nothing of war. We dare wait no longer. We must act.”

  “She sleeps to regain her strength,” Tara-Khan said as he emerged from the entrance of the hastily erected shelter that had protected Keel-Tath from the heavy rain that had deluged the plateau. An unnaturally fierce storm had swept through not long after the battle at the temple had ended. “Tell me, did your hands touch the Crystal of Souls when you became a priestess? Or were you merely singed by its fire?”

  The priestess’s eyes widened and her hand dropped to her sword.

  “Tara-Khan! Enough!” Dara-Kol waded through the ankle deep water toward them, Ka’i-Lohr and the hulking Drakh-Nur in tow.

  “I will let your arrogance pass, child,” Alena-Khan hissed. “This time.”

  Stepping closer, his own hand gripping his sheathed sword, Tara-Khan said, “I do not fear the sword in the hand of another, even a priestess of the Desh-Ka.”

  Dara-Kol grabbed the top of his breast plate and pulled him so close that their noses, dripping water from the rain that still poured from the sky, touched. “Have not enough of us died already? Think! You cannot serve Keel-Tath if you are dead.”

  He wrenched free of her grip and stepped back. He held her stare for a moment before finally dropping his gaze. “My apologies, priestess,” he mumbled in Alena-Khan’s direction, barely audible above the rain.

  “Accepted,” Alena-Khan grated. To Dara-Kol she said, “What did you discover?”

  Dara-Kol, Ka’i-Lohr, and Drakh-Nur had been tasked with a reconnaissance of the approaches to the plateau. It would have been an easy task for any of the priesthood, but Keel-Tath had ordered them to find any survivors in the wreckage of the buildings and aid the builders in preparing what defenses they could against the attack that must soon come. With so many lost during the fierce fighting at the temple, every Desh-Ka had become that much more precious.

  “At least eight legions have gathered near the trailhead leading from the valley,” Dara-Kol answered. “More were visible on the plains before the rain shielded them from view, but they were too distant to see clearly.”

  “At least as many have taken up positions to the north, on the far side of the river,” Ka’i-Lohr added. He and Drakh-Nur had made a harrowing ride on magtheps to the opposite side of the plateau, which was bounded by a swift flowing river in a deep gorge. “The river has already risen so far from this infernal storm that the bridge was swept away. Syr-Nagath’s forces are trapped on the far side.”

  “As we are here,” Alena-Khan concluded, frustration plain in her voice.

  “They would be as helpless meat before your swords, let alone your greater powers,” Tara-Khan said. He looked up, letting the rain splatter in his face. “I do not understand why you fear them. They would never even realize we were upon them in this weather. Not until it was too late.”

  Alena-Khan grabbed his arm and whirled him toward the Kal’ai-Il, where a mass of robed ones huddled in silent misery. They were guarded by four warriors of the creche, and the cries of younglings rose above the pelting of the rain. They had returned after the battle had finally ended. “In case it escaped your notice, not all of us here are warriors. Would you have the younglings snapped up by the Dark Queen? Let her slaughter our robed ones as she has done elsewhere when it suited her? No, I say. We are beholden to them. Our honor and duty extend beyond personal glorification. This is something a true warrior understands.” She let him go with an angry shove. Turning back to Dara-Kol, Alena-Khan said, “We can hold off Syr-Nagath’s legions for a time. The trail to the plateau is narrow, and they…”

  “They need not use the trail,” Ka’i-Lohr reminded her with a glance at Tara-Khan, who nodded, his expression even more grim. “Her forces attacked Ku’ar-Amir from the sea and the air.”

  “Even as weakened as we are, such fragile things as those airships would be a trifle for us to deal with,” Alena-Khan assured him.

  “And the ships she plans to use to cross the stars and attack the Settlements?” Ka’i-Lohr persisted. “What if she uses those?”

  Alena-Khan opened her mouth, then slowly nodded. None who stood here now had been born when the last war across the stars had been fought, but all had been told the tales from the generation that had come before them. The Desh-Ka had, at the end, turned the tide and defeated the invading fleet. But the builders had been given months to prepare the temple’s defenses, creating great machines that the keepers of the Books of Time had brought forth from the temple’s storehouse of ancient knowledge. But those machines, as the Way dictated, had been done away with, their essence converted by the builders to other uses, once the war was over and the great cycle of civilization began again. But now, with Syr-Nagath’s legions at the temple’s very gates and the other priesthoods likely gathering to contain the Desh-Ka’s heresy, the builders would not have months. They likely would not have hours beyond what it had taken to help recover those who had been trapped in the buildings that had collapsed during the battle.

  Alena-Khan swept her eyes around the plateau. Little was visible through the rain beyond the distance of a stone’s throw, but she did not need her eyes to see that doom was upon them. “We will fight and die with honor,” she said, “but in the end it will all be for naught.”

  “Do not despair, high priestess of the Desh-Ka.”

  Startled, they all turned to find Keel-Tath standing outside the entrance to the shelter. She wore a new set of armor to replace that which had been scorched and melted when she had touched the crystal. The cyan rune of the Desh-Ka glowed in the center of her breastplate, and some trick of the dreary light made a halo that framed her snow white hair. The sword of her father, Kunan-Lohr, murdered by Syr-Nagath, was strapped to her back. A smaller sword, better suited to her still growing frame, was at her waist. The rain seemed not to touch her.

  “Mistress,” Alena-Khan said, bringing her left fist to her chest and bowing her head in the tla’a-kane, the ritual salute. The others, not just in the circle, but all who could see Keel-Tath, fell to one knee and saluted.

  As Keel-Tath stepped forward, she gently put a hand on Tara-Khan’s shoulder. He looked up, their gazes meeting for a brief moment before he averted his eyes.

  “Arise,” Keel-Tath told them, a bloom of warmth expanding in her chest at the honor they rendered to her. “Alena-Khan is right,” she said. “With all the Homeworld now bound to Syr-Nagath and the other orders aligned against us, the Settlements would not likely shelter us, so we are indeed trapped. There is nowhere we can go where the Dark Queen or the priesthoods will not eventually find and overwhelm us.” She flashed her fangs in a fierce smile. “Or so we would have them believe.”

  “What do you mean?” Alena-Khan asked.

  Keel-Tath’s smile faded as she stepped close to the priestess. “There is one place where we may find sanctuary, but the door is locked and only I have the key. You must take me there.”

  “Mistress…” Tara-Khan stepped toward her. “Wherever you would go, I would go with you!”

  “No,” she told him, sensing his fear, his concern. His love. While she could hear the spiritual song of all those in her bloodline, the Bloodsong, his had become stronger than any other after she had saved his life, and its melody was pleasing to her soul. “This I must do alone, dear one.” Taking Alena-Khan’s hands, Keel-Tath said, “I know I now have the power to whisk myself from one place to another, but I do not yet know how to use it and we have not the time for you to teach me. I can guide you, but until I learn, you must take me
upon your wings.”

  “Are you sure, mistress? Such a thing has been done before, but is terribly dangerous.”

  “Yes, I am sure,” Keel-Tath said in what she hoped was a brave voice. Inside, she was shaking. To the others, she added, “Make ready to leave as soon as we return.”

  “But where are you going?” Dara-Kol cried. “Wait!”

  There was no answer. Alena-Khan and Keel-Tath had already vanished.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Syr-Nagath, born of Ka’i-Nur and now undisputed ruler of the Homeworld, strode into the great hall of the palace of Ku’ar-Amir. Porters of water were still at work, cleaning the blood stains from the healer Syr-Nagath had killed before the inquisition of Keel-Tath, and builders were repairing the damage inflicted on the hall during the brief but fierce battle when Ayan-Dar had come to rescue the girl and her companions.

  At first convinced that the Desh-Ka would upset her plans, Syr-Nagath had howled with glee when she saw, through the eyes of Ka’i-Lohr, that the Desh-Ka were gutting themselves over the white-haired abomination. The ancient priesthood still posed a threat, but one that could now be dealt with far more easily than before. Unwittingly, they had done her a great service, and she made note to personally thank Keel-Tath when they next met, which would be soon. Using those she controlled through ancient magic drawn from the Books of Time held deep in the fortress of Ka’i-Nur, she ordered her legions to surround the Desh-Ka temple and prepare to destroy the priesthood. For the attacking warriors, there could be no greater honor than to die at the hands of a Desh-Ka, and they marched with haste born of anticipation of combat as much as fear of Syr-Nagath’s wrath if they failed in their task.

  “You presume too much, Syr-Nagath.”

  She favored Ulan-Samir, the high priest of the Nyur-A’il with a contemptuous look. She knew that he could easily kill her with the power of his mind, choking the life from her body with an act of whim. But he had dishonored himself when the Desh-Ka had arrived to rescue Keel-Tath. He should have challenged Ayan-Dar, but had backed down from the one-eyed priest in scarcely concealed fear. That he had remained here, rather than returning to his temple to consult with the elders of the order, told her that he was afraid to face them. Syr-Nagath knew the measure of Ulan-Samir now, and found him lacking. He was perfect for her needs.

  “You dislike my attire, Ulan-Samir?" she said, turning in a full circle with the grace of a dancer. She still wore gleaming black ceremonial armor, just as would any warrior in garrison. But her breast plate now bore a cyan rune that had not been worn in such a fashion in long millennia: that of the Ka’i-Nur priesthood, which had fallen from grace near the end of the Second Age. Her Collar of Honor bore an oval of living metal inscribed with the same rune, and a black robe with silver piping rippled from her back as she turned.

  “You are no priestess!” Ulan-Samir spat.

  Syr-Nagath came to him, her mouth twisted in sudden rage. “Do you, high priest of the Nyur-Ai’l, for one moment doubt that I would be high priestess of the Ka’i-Nur if our Crystal of Souls had not been taken from us?”

  Ulan-Samir’s eyes narrowed. “It was never taken from you.”

  “Do not bandy words with me, priest,” she snarled. “If what is yours is placed by another’s hands forever beyond your reach, it has been taken. I wear these adornments by right, and by right I should have the powers of the crystal of the Ka’i-Nur.”

  “But you do not,” Ulan-Samir said, his face twitching up into a thin smile, “and never will.”

  “Do not be so sure,” she told him, her opinion of him falling even more. One such as Ayan-Dar would have had my head for speaking in such a fashion, she thought. She knew through Ka’i-Lohr that the old priest was dead, and the thought saddened her. She would have liked to watch him burn alive, turning on a spit over an open fire after she had finished skinning him.

  She turned her attention to the enormous table that was the centerpiece of the hall. Half of it was covered with a map of the world, unrolled from an enormous scroll and tended by several keepers of the Books of Time that showed the disposition of her forces across the planet. Legions of warriors and the robed ones who attended them were moving toward the seven locations where her builders were creating the ships that would travel across the stars to the Settlements. Favoring the great map with only a rapid glance to make sure all was proceeding according to plan, she moved to the part of the table that held a smaller map showing just the part of T’lar-Gol where stood the temple of the Desh-Ka. A total of forty-seven legions, nearly a quarter million warriors, were converging on the temple. She had ordered them to march weeks before, anticipating this battle long before the events of the conclave of the priesthoods had made it inevitable. She must destroy the Desh-Ka priesthood and its warriors. On that, all her plans depended.

  But something was amiss. The miniature likenesses of the warriors that represented her legions were tightening the noose around the temple, but the fish-shaped airships, carved in exquisite detail, were approaching the temple from east and west. “Why are the airships moving in now? They must wait for the ground attack!”

  “The weather, my priestess,” said Syr-Nagath’s First, her voice quaking with fear. She had only been the right hand of her sworn mistress for two days, which was twice as long as her predecessor had lived before Syr-Nagath had taken her head in a fit of rage. Being chosen as a First was a great honor, but under Syr-Nagath it tended to be a brief one. “A sudden storm swept across the plateau, bringing heavy rain and strong winds at altitude. The airships are advancing now, taking advantage of a lull to get into position to strike. The legions on the ground can still attack…”

  “Hold back the airships until the Desh-Ka are fully engaged on the ground,” Syr-Nagath grated, “or I will have the heads of those in command. Their attack must be closely synchronized with the legions.”

  “But…but mistress, er, my priestess, if the airships delay their approach and the winds aloft quicken…”

  In a blur of glimmering steel, Syr-Nagath’s sword sang from its sheath. The blade of living metal was sharp enough to shear metal and stone, and met no resistance as it sliced through the First’s neck. The warrior’s face never had time to register fear or surprise before her head toppled from her torso to land with a wet thud on the cold stone floor. With bright arterial blood fountaining from the neck, the body crumpled. In a reflexive move, Ulan-Samir took the hem of his cloak and brought it up in time to shield his glossy armor from the crimson rain that came his way. Syr-Nagath did not bother. She did not so much as blink as the blood struck her face and splattered over her. A few drops landed close by her mouth, and her tongue snaked out to lick them away.

  Blood. Syr-Nagath had tasted so much, nearly gorging herself on it, since she had begun the great conquest that would return Ka’i-Nur to the fullness of its deserved glory. She had fought endless challenges to win the honor of those now bound to her, and had punished countless warriors who chose to defy her. Still bound to the Way as maintained by the priesthoods since the end of the Second Age, those she conquered had yet to embrace the Way of the Ka’i-Nur, which was brutal and unforgiving, where pain was meted out and accepted as a matter of course, and often for its own sake. And in that feral, primal spirit Syr-Nagath saw the ultimate beauty that she intended all of her kind to share, willingly or not. Many who pledged their honor to her rebelled when ordered to kill robed ones or younglings, and many had been the fires that had consumed them alive before the eyes of their kin, after she had taken the Braid of the Covenant from those who had betrayed her. Having set enough such examples for others to witness, few now chose to forsake their honor after offering her their sword.

  Giving her former First one last, disgusted look, Syr-Nagath returned her sword to its scabbard. To the nearest warrior, who stood at rigid attention, she said, “You are now my First. Did you hear what I told this craven fool?”

  “Yes, my priestess!” The male warrior bellowed.

  “Then
do as I command, lest you suffer the same fate.”

  “At once, my priestess!” Without another word, the young male dashed for the adjoining chamber where keepers of the Books of Time were gathered. The empathic links of keepers were stronger than that of the other castes, and they could convey instructions to one another in messages akin to waking dreams. Other keepers were deployed with Syr-Nagath’s forces to receive commands and report back on their progress, or lack thereof.

  Ulan-Samir, having lowered his arm and the shield of his cape, looked at the map showing the Desh-Ka temple and the attacking forces arrayed around it. “What makes you believe you will succeed? They have never been defeated in open battle, not once in all the Books of Time.”

  Syr-Nagath slowly wiped her former First’s blood from her face with the back of her gauntleted fingers and licked it up with her tongue. “Your records do not reach far enough into the past, high priest of the Nyur-A’il,” she said with a smile, the lines between her teeth glistening with crimson. “The Books of Time held by the Ka’i-Nur are far older, and they tell a different story.”

  ***

  The three worlds of the ancient settlements beyond the Homeworld bore the names of the priesthoods that had been tasked with their stewardship at the end of the Second Age. Like the Homeworld, kingdoms great and small on each of the Settlements rose and fell time and again, with the priesthoods ensuring the feet of those in their charge remained firmly on the path of the Way. The three settlements and their priesthoods also balanced out the power of the Homeworld for those rare times when a leader arose to gather enough power and resources to attack across the stars. None had ever been victorious, but that would never stop a warrior intent on conquest. So it had been for a hundred thousand cycles of the Homeworld about its sun until this very day, when all that the priests and priestesses had sought to preserve, the very equilibrium of their ancient civilization that had enabled them to survive so long, was threatened with destruction.