The Grace of Kings (53 page)

Torulu Pering was the only one who remained. “Marshal, be calm and think this through.”

“
Think?
We have to act! We must attack Goa immediately so we can get to Pan and catch the trickster Kuni Garu. I want to see the traitor's face—though he's probably too shameless to even understand that he's done me wrong.”

“Marshal, Kuni Garu might have snatched up Emperor Erishi like a sly vulture while you fought the empire like a lone wolf. But he
has
fulfilled the literal terms of King Thufi's promise, and it would appear poorly in the eyes of the world for you to fight him like a jealous child. Though the empire has fallen, open warfare among the great lords of the rebellion so soon after will bring all of us dishonor.”

“
He does not deserve it!
He stole a title that belongs to me!”

“It might be better to allow him to think that he has won it,” said Torulu Pering, “and that you acquiesce in his usurpation. Approach him. When his guard is down, and he away from his men, you can seize him and lay bare his trickery for the world to see. Then and only then can you properly claim the throne of the new Tiro state in Géfica for yourself.”

Marshal Zyndu sent messengers to Goa to congratulate the men in the fort for serving such a great lord as King Kuni of Géfica. Might the soldiers be willing to bring a message to their king?

Marshal Zyndu would like to congratulate his old friend on his amazing victory in Pan, and he very humbly requests that His Majesty, King Kuni, grant him the boon of an audience.

Of course Mata Zyndu could not stand to write the words “His Majesty, King Kuni.” He tried to do it because Torulu told him he had to, but he was so angry that he squeezed the wax stick until it melted in his hand.

He jumped up and told Torulu Pering to finish the message for him.

“I'm going hunting,” Mata said. “I have to kill someone or something right now.”

Kuni blanched as he read the sarcastic message from Mata.

“Whose idea was it to block Thoco Pass against Marshal Zyndu?” he asked. His voice trembled. “What happened to the messengers I dispatched to my brother to invite him to share my victory in Pan?”

Rin Coda stepped forward. “Marshal Zyndu is known for a streak of cruelty. I kept news of our victory here from spreading east and fortified Thoco Pass. I thought it might give us more time to secure our position in Pan and gain the support of the people.”

“Oh, Rin, what have you done?” Cogo Yelu shook his head in frustration. “You've openly challenged the marshal as though we were enemies rather than allies! Now even if Lord Garu's message gets out, no one will believe his good faith.

“Mata Zyndu has more than ten times our soldiers, and his reputation is as high as the midday sun. All the Tiro states revere him, and Lord Garu's claim to Géfica would not stand without Zyndu's support. Had we openly welcomed him into Pan, we could have made Lord Garu's surprise attack seem all along part of Marshal Zyndu's plan and gotten his support that way—”

“Not just
seem
,” interrupted Kuni. “Sharing the victory with my brother
was
all along my plan.”

“But that's no longer possible now,” lamented Cogo. “This is a mistake that will be hard to rectify.”

Fast riders were immediately dispatched to Haan to fetch Luan Zya. Kuni needed his counsel.

“Victory has not turned out to be as sweet as I hoped,” said Kuni to Luan.

Luan nodded, thinking of the loneliness and listlessness he experienced in the ruins of his ancestral estate in Ginpen as he waited for comfort from his father's soul. “The vagaries of the human heart are as hard to divine as the will of the gods.”

Philosophy aside, they still had to take care of the immediate problem. Kuni's forces had pulled out of Goa, and Mata's army followed close behind.

Luan Zya and Cogo Yelu carefully planned the retreat of Kuni Garu's forces from Pan. They sealed up the palace and put all the treasures that could be recovered back in their places. Cogo loaded the records from the Imperial Archives into oxcarts and brought them back to Kuni—Dafiro was now convinced that some secret treasure was hidden among them, but Cogo just shook his head sadly when Dafiro probed.

Then Kuni took the men he brought from Cocru and any surrendered Imperial soldiers who wanted to follow him ten miles west of the city and made a new camp by the shores of Lake Tututika.

The elders of Pan accompanied Kuni for miles. They had enjoyed Duke Garu's gentle rule, which was far preferable to Emperor Erishi's heavy levies and cruel enforcement. Marshal Zyndu's reputation—colored by the blood of Dimu, Wolf's Paw, and Géjira—made them reluctant to embrace the new conqueror. They begged Kuni Garu to stay.

“There has been a misunderstanding between Marshal Zyndu and me,” Kuni Garu said. “If I stay, it would make things worse.” But he remembered the death cries of the citizens of Dimu, and he could not drive away the pangs of guilt.

Kuni stared at the wide expanse of Lake Tututika. The water stretched all the way to the sky, like the sea, only calm and flat like a mirror.

“Now we have to wait and see how Mata will deal with us. I hope he can still remember our friendship and forgive the perceived insult.”

Once he arrived in Pan, Mata Zyndu ordered a general cleansing of the city by looting. His men had been promised the riches of the Imperial capital, and he wasn't going to deny them their pleasure. He did not exactly encourage the slaughter of Pan's citizens, who tried to welcome him as best as they could, but he didn't exactly forbid it either.

Cold, wintry rain fell, and as panicked people ran through the slick, slippery streets ahead of drawn swords, the rivulets in the city's gutters gradually turned red.

The boy emperor Erishi had been left behind in the palace when Kuni and his men left Pan.

“Please take me with you,” the boy had begged. “I don't want to face that butcher.”

Kuni had sighed and said that there was nothing he could do. Mata Zyndu was now the self-proclaimed Hegemon of All Tiro States. The emperor's fate was in his hands. Kuni pried the child's fingers from the sleeves of his robe and took his leave, but Erishi's piteous cries echoed in Kuni's head long after.

Mata Zyndu's men carted away all the treasure that could be removed from the palace. The soldiers then sealed the palace doors with the emperor and his few loyal servants inside.

Aloud, Mata Zyndu proclaimed the sins of the Xana Empire against the people of the Six States and set the palace on fire. The boy emperor was last seen jumping from the top of the tallest tower in the palace, having run out of places to hide from the rising flames. The fire raged on and on, and the people of Pan were forbidden from trying to put it out, however it spread. All of Pan eventually burned, and the flames smoldered for three months. The ashes and smoke from the destruction could be seen from as far away as Haan, rising like a black spear stabbing into heaven.

The Immaculate City was no more.

“With the death of Erishi, the empire is at an end,” Mata announced. “It is now the first year of the Principate.” The cheers from the crowd seemed to him subdued and lacking in enthusiasm. This irked him.

Mata Zyndu also sent his men after Emperor Mapidéré's Mausoleum. Almost every rebel soldier had known family or friends who were forced to work on it at some point—many of them dying on their corvée stints. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to destroy Mapidéré's final resting place for vengeance, and Mata thought it perfectly fitting.

The Mausoleum was an underground city built deep inside a hollowed-out mountain in the Wisoti Mountains.

Mata Zyndu's men quickly smashed the entrance to the city, a gate made of the whitest, purest marble. Beyond the gate, dug into the mountain, was a maze of twisty tunnels covered in intricate carvings. Many of the tunnels led to traps or dead ends, and a great number of men rushing in with torches and pickaxes without knowing which paths were safe were injured or even killed.

Only a few of the tunnels led to the underground city itself, where mercury-filled, jade-lined trenches and pools emulated the seas and rivers of Dara, and sculpted piles of gold and silver mirrored the Islands of Dara. On the model islands, their chief geographical features were re-created with jade, pearls, coral, and gems.

In the middle of the model of the Big Island was a raised dais, on which Emperor Mapidéré's sarcophagus rested. Around the sarco­phagus were placed smaller coffins, containing some of the emperor's favorite wives and servants who had been strangled and buried along with the emperor to keep him company in the afterlife. More bright jewels were set into the ceiling of the underground city to re-create the patterns of constellations and stars, and lamps fed with slow-oozing oil drawn deep from the earth were supposed to keep the underground city lit for thousands of years.

After the rebel soldiers pried out all the gemstones and smashed everything that could not be taken, they dragged Emperor Mapidéré's body from the tomb and whipped it in Kiji Square, the empty space in the middle of Pan. Then the frenzied mob set upon the body and tore it into a thousand pieces.