Of Fire and Night (36 page)

90

ANTON COLICOS

F
or four days the spiked diamond spheres hung motionless in Hyrillka’s sky like armed bombs that could go off at any time. They made no move, sent no emissary, did not attempt to communicate. Anton felt as if he had been holding his breath forever.

Watching them, he thought about his calm and uninteresting job as a postgrad student of Ildiran studies on Earth. His archaeologist parents had taught him that the best knowledge and experience were acquired in the field, but he was having second thoughts. Considering the powerful warglobes, Anton might have been safer underground, sorting through obscure documents in the vault.

“I hope that isn’t something else I’m not supposed to see,” he said. “It’s a little late to keep me under house arrest again.”

“It is too late for many things,” Yazra’h said. “You are part of this story now, Rememberer Anton.”

“What could they possibly want?” Ridek’h asked.

“To intimidate the people,” Yazra’h answered.

“But for what?”

She could only shake her head.

Anton said, “If the Mage-Imperator worked out some sort of bargain with the hydrogues, then why are those things hovering overhead like a couple of barroom bouncers? What’s changed?”

Yazra’h turned cool again. “I do not know.”

Tal O’nh kept his Solar Navy warliners on high alert. The reconstruction efforts came to a standstill as people waited to see what would happen. They seemed reluctant to rebuild more if the hydrogues might smash it all again in another day or two.

“Look! The streamers!” Ridek’h pointed to where a group of seven sleek Solar Navy ships cruised around the hovering warglobes.

Anton couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Those pilots must either be completely insane or extremely brave. Are they trying to provoke an attack?”

“Tal O’nh sent those ships to transmit to the warglobes,” Yazra’h said. “He hopes to establish communication. Their message is simple: We do not want hostilities, but our warliners are ready to defend Hyrillka, if necessary.”

“Isn’t that . . . um, unnecessarily provocative?” Anton continued to watch the strange ballet overhead. So far, the warglobes didn’t even seem to notice the gnat-sized streamers.

Yazra’h shrugged. “It is the truth.”

“One warliner has already been sent back to Ildira at top speed with a report, but we have gotten no response from the Mage-Imperator.” The boy seemed to have confidence in Jora’h. “He is apparently occupied with other urgent matters.”

Suddenly the three hydrogues began to move, spinning, separating from each other. The Solar Navy streamers scattered and withdrew.

“What is happening, Yazra’h?” Ridek’h said. “Are they attacking us?”

The voice of Tal O’nh burst from the comm transmitter in the chamber. “Emergency! All warliners, be prepared. Designate Ridek’h, something is—”

Without waiting to hear the rest, Yazra’h grabbed the boy and pulled him from the open balcony and into the inadequate shelter of the citadel palace. Anton scrambled after them, keeping his eyes turned upward.

A group of fiery projectiles streaked across the sky—ten, fifteen, even more. The incandescent ellipsoids shot in from all sides, leaving trails of smoke and rippled air behind them. Seconds later, delayed by distance, sonic booms provided a fanfare of invisible explosions.

Anton suddenly remembered the new tale fragment Rememberer Vao’sh had shared several nights earlier.
A Great Light came forth to fight the enemy
.

“Look, the hydrogues cannot get away!” the boy shouted. “The faeros are coming!”

Like a fireworks display in reverse, fireballs intersected at the same spot in the sky and slammed into the warglobes. Most of the flaming torpedoes exploded on impact, shattering the diamond spheres. There were far more fireballs than necessary.

The fiery barrage was over in a few seconds, but rumbling aftershocks continued to throb in the air for long moments.

The smashed hydrogue vessels continued to break apart as they tumbled from their great height, and giant chunks of diamond debris fell to the streets below, crushing buildings. Pieces of broken warglobe hulls plowed long furrows through the burned nialia fields. Screaming crowds ran in all directions.

A few surviving faeros ships flitted back and forth above the scene like smug fireflies. Then they streaked away, rising high and dwindling into hot starry points before vanishing entirely.

Astonished, Ridek’h turned to Yazra’h. “Are . . . are the faeros our protectors now? They saved us!”

Yazra’h stared at dissipating smoke that looked like a spreading pool of blood. “Or perhaps they have just caused us a great deal of trouble.”

91

NIRA

N
ira had no doubt the Mage-Imperator would rush to Dobro after the uprising . . . and she would be waiting for him. She wanted desperately to see him, to look into his star-sapphire eyes and decide for herself what his true motivations were.

The sooty daylight was filled with an unbearable anticipation. She stared at her rough green hands. These fingers had spent years digging in arroyos to pry loose opalbone fossils. Her body had been abused in countless ways. Deprived of contact with the worldtrees, her soul had cried out in anguish. She had been torn from her love, and later even her children had been stolen from her. In the end, Udru’h had imprisoned her on an island. In escaping from that island, Nira had made herself stronger. Alone, she had endured, and endured, and
endured,
barely looking ahead, simply walking and living.

Jora’h would be here soon.

Osira’h seemed disoriented after the revolt, as if the girl didn’t quite understand how everything had happened, and what her own part in it had been. Sometimes, when she didn’t know her mother was observing her, Osira’h genuinely looked like a child. But that aura of innocence never lasted long.

As if sensing her mother’s scrutiny now, the girl offered her a strange smile. “Maybe we have changed things for the better. The Mage-Imperator is coming.”

“Yes, he is.” Nira’s voice was harsh from all the inhaled smoke and the shouting. She was ready . . . and terrified.

As the Solar Navy cutter descended through the sky and the young Designate emerged from the gutted buildings where he’d been clearing debris, the humans looked fearful again.

In a daze Nira hurried around the former boundaries of the camp to the landing zone. Her throat was dry, her heart pounding. She stared intensely at the shuttle, remembering Jora’h’s eyes, his feathery living hair, his warm kisses, his gentle caresses. She remembered the first time they had touched. And she remembered being attacked in the night, dragged away from the Prism Palace while Ildiran guards murdered old Ambassador Otema.

The ornate vessel approached in a tight circle, facing the still-smoldering main settlement as it came to rest. First to emerge from the cutter was a contingent of soldier kithmen prepared for a fight. They gazed at the dirt-streaked, haunted people who came forward like children who knew they must face a harsh punishment.

Then Jora’h stepped out wearing decorative robes sewn with ribbons that reflected the sunlight. His star-sapphire eyes found Nira, and he stared at her, drinking in the sight.

At first her legs trembled, and her feet felt as if they had taken root. Then something broke inside her, and all hesitation was gone. Before she knew it, she was sprinting with all her strength toward him.

The Ildiran guards drew their weapons to intercept her, but the Mage-Imperator raised his voice. “If anyone touches her, I will execute him myself!” The guards stopped in their tracks as if felled with a stun gun.

Nira kept moving toward Jora’h, but more slowly now, suddenly uncertain. When she stood before him at last, she was nervous about his touch—anyone’s touch. After her experiences it was impossible not to feel threatened. But she resisted the urge to pull away. They embraced with the sweetness of painful anticipation

“You are alive,” he said tenderly, disbelieving. “Alive.” She pressed her face into the ornate fabrics covering his chest and felt his heartbeat, listened to the warmth of his voice as he continued. “Udru’h told me—more than once—that you had been killed. Then he said you were alive. I did not know if I could believe him, but it is true.”

“Yes, it’s true.” She looked up at his face. “It’s one of the few things I know is true.” So much had come between them, so many storms and nightmares, such vast emptiness. “How much can I really trust, Jora’h? What can I believe anymore?”

The people of Dobro—Ildiran and human alike—waited for the Mage-Imperator to speak, fearing his reaction. Jora’h looked ready to collapse under the weight of impossible burdens, and Nira’s heart longed to comfort him in spite of her doubts.

He seemed to struggle for a long moment, searching for words before giving them voice. “I will show you what to believe. There will be no secrets between us . . . but it may take some time.”

92

MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

J
ora’h looked past Nira to see the scars where everything had burned to the ground. With a heavy conscience, he tried to imagine all the lives that had been consumed here in unwilling service to an unexplained distant goal.

Still holding her, he knew that Nira was one of those sacrifices. She had aged, her body worn by a harsh life and the torments she had endured. Jora’h’s heart ached from seeing the changes, knowing that he was partly to blame.

She looked at him with anticipation in her eyes. Her face, so lined with bad memories and experiences, brightened as if the dead sun of Durris-B had reignited to shine upon her features. But she was guarded. And no wonder, after all those years of suffering. What must she think of him?

Ever since ascending the throne, Jora’h had been torn by the schemes his father had set in motion, the plans he was forced to follow. Even as Mage-Imperator, he had not been able to escape those entanglements. He looked into the clear, empty sky, glad at least that the hydrogues had sent no watchdog warglobes to Dobro as they had to Hyrillka, Dzelluria, and at least eleven other splinter colonies as threats to ensure Ildiran cooperation.

How many Designates lived in fear because hydrogues loomed over their planets, while most of the Solar Navy gathered at Ildira to follow hydrogue orders? Adar Zan’nh had already departed for Earth with his supposedly benevolent offer. The deep-core aliens would be watching his every move.

But the fury of this riot had cut through the other distractions like a sharp crystal knife. From the
thism,
he knew that something terrible had occurred on Dobro. He mentally corrected his thought.
Something terrible has been occurring on Dobro for a long time
. He had raced here as swiftly as possible.

Now Designate Daro’h walked toward him, eyes cast down, as if he had failed. A contrite Osira’h accompanied him, both of them soot-stained, her small hand in her brother’s. Daro’h stopped in front of his father and completed the ritual salute. “We have established a truce, Liege. Both groups agree to put aside their anger and work side by side.”

The Mage-Imperator squared his shoulders. “Explain what happened here.”

“Do explanations change anything?” Osira’h asked, her voice sharp. “Do you care?” When the girl raised her small chin, Jora’h felt a shudder go down his back. He feared what she might say. In her face he saw a reflection of Nira, but with a harder edge. She came closer to take her mother’s hand. Jora’h looked at Nira, who was trembling.

Osira’h said, “I have always wanted to believe that you were a good man, Father. I wanted to be convinced that my mother’s love for you was not wasted. Do you know how many years she waited for you to rescue her? I know Designate Udru’h deceived us, but I am not sure about my own father.”

Again, Jora’h’s heart ached. “I have tried to be a good man.”

Now the girl flashed with the fire of anger. “You lie, just like my uncle!”

“Osira’h!” her mother cried.

The girl ignored her. “You have already made a bargain to doom the human race—and you used me to do it! You agreed to help the hydrogues kill my mother’s people! And you say you’re a ‘good man’?” Osira’h’s raw emotion struck him like a hammer in the face. “You are not honorable at all.”

Jora’h lowered his gaze. “Imagine an unreasonable beast looming over you, over your entire city—promising immediate eradication if you do not comply. The emissary came to me with his whole armada of warglobes in the sky.” The star-sapphire reflections flashed in his eyes. “The hydrogues would have slaughtered all my people—people I am responsible for! I am the Mage-Imperator. I hold all of them together through my
thism
. I had no choice.”

“There is always a choice,” Osira’h cut in. “And you chose damnation over failure.”

He turned to his beloved green priest, using all of his effort simply to remain upright. “Nira, you must believe me. There is more. Osira’h is a bridge to the hydrogues. They can see and hear through her.”

The girl frowned. “Only if I let them. When I choose to, I can shut them out and reestablish the connection at any time—on my terms.”

“You cannot be sure of that.”

“Yes. I can.” Suddenly through the
thism
he felt a current of chaotic thought flow toward him in a wave of burning cold and alien fury. Augmented by Osira’h? Rushing toward him, growing louder and louder and—just as suddenly it was gone. “The hydrogues don’t hear me unless I want them to.”

Jora’h believed her.

Nira stood closer to her daughter, and slightly away from him. “The question is, what will you do now?”

“I agreed to their demands in order to buy time. I could not let Osira’h see what I was really doing because I could not let the hydrogues know. That is why I sent her away. Immediately after she left Ildira, I called together my experts and commanded them to find me a solution, a way for us to fight the enemy.”

Osira’h sounded skeptical. “And did they succeed?”

Jora’h frowned. “Not completely . . . not yet. But I did not want the hydrogues to sense my intentions. I had to make you believe, Osira’h.”

The girl scowled, but said grudgingly, “It was a wise precaution, but unnecessary.”

More Ildiran workers and freed human captives came from the camp ruins, as if they expected the Mage-Imperator to pronounce judgment. Then an uneasy ripple went through them like a cloud passing over the sun. Jora’h turned to see the former Dobro Designate moving painfully toward him. Medical kithmen had bandaged him, and his face was mottled from severe bruisings and half-healed wounds. Udru’h looked as if he had been buried in an avalanche and clawed his way out. His eyes had a haunted look, especially when he looked at Nira; he would not even meet Osira’h’s gaze.

Two guards escorted him, but he did not lean on them, coming forward in a slow, laborious gait. The former Designate did not want help, did not want to show his weakness. Nor did he want to avoid facing the Mage-Imperator. He struggled to make the formal salute. “Liege, I accept whatever consequences you choose to impose upon me.” He looked around as if he still could not believe that the camp he had so lovingly tended was now burned wreckage. “The seeds of this turmoil were planted long before Daro’h became Designate. It is not his fault.”

Nira stiffened like a statue, and Jora’h could feel her cold anger toward Udru’h, as if she found his very presence repulsive. Osira’h, oddly, just smiled at him. The Mage-Imperator knew what his brother had done to Nira as part of the breeding experiments. He could not fault her reaction.

And yet . . . hadn’t the Dobro Designate been trapped by the schemes of his predecessors—just as Jora’h had been? When he’d first learned of the old Mage-Imperator’s plans and how Udru’h willingly went along with them, Jora’h had despised both men. He had wanted to halt the experiments immediately, but when he became Mage-Imperator himself, that proved impossible. Udru’h would have found it impossible as well.

“The crimes on Dobro were set in motion centuries ago,” Jora’h said, loudly enough for all to hear. “I could not stop them. My father could not stop them. Designate Udru’h could not stop them. Now they are finally over, and I am left to deal with the consequences of all those generations of planning. The hydrogues gave me an impossible choice, and I must still find an answer. Nira, Osira’h, please, return with me to Mijistra and we will try to work this out.”

“All of my children must come,” Nira said, indicating the other four wide-eyed half-breeds. Jora’h nodded.

Udru’h’s voice was a croak. “I would go, too, Liege, to assist you.”

“No. You will stay here. Humans and Ildirans will rebuild Dobro in whatever way they see fit. You are part of this process. I cannot punish you. But they can.” The former Designate stiffened, but did not argue. Jora’h raised his voice to the human settlers and made his pronouncement. “For generations, you have been told what to do. Now you will decide for yourselves.”

The human listeners looked more uneasy than the former Designate. Udru’h did not stand defiantly, nor did he make excuses. He accepted his fate without fear. “I will not beg for mercy, Liege.” He looked coolly at Nira, and his face fell when he turned to Osira’h. “I know what these people think of me, and I know exactly what I did to you. But I am not repentant, for I did only what our Mage-Imperators deemed necessary for our survival.”

Daro’h said to the people, “I suggest we allow the former Designate to recover from his injuries while we finish putting out the fires and clearing the wreckage. It will give us time to make a reasoned consideration of whether there has been enough vengeance and bloodshed.”

Jora’h said in a low voice, speaking only to Osira’h and Nira, “It is time for me to offer you a promise instead of a lie. I will not give up, and I will not sacrifice your race in order to save mine. It is not acceptable.” A sparkle of tears mixed with the reflections in his eyes. He drew a breath, as if fighting with himself about what he had to say. He knew what would happen if he defied the hydrogues. He also realized that worse things could happen if he did not.

“Help me find a way out of this trap I have built for myself.”