The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (6 page)

“Yes,” I say, and my voice is male, though high-pitched and nasal. I know myself to be Arameri. I feel myself to be powerful. I am the family head. “I would have been offended if they had come with even one soldier less.”

“Then since you are not offended, perhaps you can parley with them,” says a woman beside me. She is sternly beautiful: her hair is the color of bronze, and a pair of enormous wings feathered in gold, silver, and platinum are folded on her back. Kurue, called Wise.

I feel arrogance. “Parley? They’re not worth the time.”

(I do not think I like this other me.)

“What then?”

I turn to look at the ones behind me. Sieh sits cross-legged on his floating yellow ball. He has propped his chin on his fist; he is bored. Beyond Sieh lurks a smoking, pent presence. I had not noticed this one move behind me. He watches me as if he has been imagining my death.

I make myself smile, unwilling to reveal how he unnerves me. “Well, Nahadoth? How long has it been since you had any fun?”

I have surprised him. It gratifies me to realize that I can. An eagerness fills his face that is chilling to behold, but I have given no command, and so he waits.

The others are surprised, too, less pleasantly. Sieh straightens and glares at me. “Are you out of your mind?”

Kurue is more diplomatic. “That is unnecessary, Lord Haker. Zhakkarn or even I can take care of this army.”

“Or me,” says Sieh, stung.

I look at Nahadoth and consider how the stories will go when word spreads that I unleashed the Nightlord on those who dared to challenge me. He is the most powerful of my weapons, yet I have never witnessed any significant display of his capabilities. I am curious.

“Nahadoth,” I say. His stillness and the power I have over him are thrilling, but I know to keep my head. I have heard the stories, passed down from previous family heads. It is important to give just the right instructions. He thinks in loopholes.

“Go onto the battlefield and dispose of this army. Do not allow them to advance on this position, or Sky. Do not allow survivors to escape.” I almost forget but quickly add, “And do not kill me in the process.”

“Is that all?” he asks.

“Yes.”

He smiles. “As you wish.”

“You’re a fool,” says Kurue, abandoning politeness. The other me ignores her.

“Keep him safe,” says Nahadoth to his children. He is still smiling as he walks onto the battlefield.

The enemy are so numerous that I cannot see the end of them. As Nahadoth walks toward their front line he seems tiny. Helpless. Human. I can hear, echoing across the flat expanse of the plain, some among their soldiers laughing. The commanders at the center of the line are silent. They know what he is.

Nahadoth holds his hands out from his sides, and a great curved sword appears in each. He runs at the line, a black streak, and pierces it like an arrow. Shields split; armor and swords shatter; body parts fly. The enemy dies by the dozen. I clap and laugh. “What a marvelous show!”

Around me, the other Enefadeh are tense and afraid.

Nahadoth cuts a swath through the army until he reaches its general center. No one can stand against him. When he finally stops, having carved a circle of death ’round himself, the enemy soldiers are falling over themselves trying to get away. I cannot see him well from here, even though the black smoke of his aura seems to have flared higher in the intervening minutes.

“The sun comes,” says Zhakkarn.

“Not soon enough,” says Kurue.

At the center of the army, there is a sound. No, not a sound, a vibration. Like a pulse, except that it shakes the whole earth.

And then a black star blazes to life at the army’s heart. I can think of no other words to describe it. It is a sphere of darkness so concentrated that it glows, so heavy with power that the earth groans and sags beneath it. A pit forms, radiating deep cracks. The enemy fall inward. I cannot hear their screams because the black star sucks in the sound. It sucks in their bodies. It sucks in everything.

The earth shakes so violently that I fall to my hands and knees. There is a hollow, rushing roar all around me. I look up to see that the very air is visible as it flies past, sucked down into the pit and the ravening horror that Nahadoth has become. Kurue and the others are around me, murmuring in their tongue to command the winds and whatever other terrible forces their father has unleashed. Because of that we are safe, enclosed in a bubble of calm, but nothing else is. Above us, the very clouds have bent, funneling down into the star. The enemy army is gone. All that remains is the land we stand on, and the continent around it, and the planet beneath that.

I finally realize my error: with his children protecting me, Nahadoth is free to devour it all.

It takes all my will to overcome my own choking fear. “S-stop!” I shout. “Nahadoth, stop!” The words are lost in the howling wind. He is bound by magic even more powerful than himself to obey my commands, but only if he can hear me. Perhaps he intended to drown me out—or perhaps he is simply lost in the glory of his own power, reveling in the chaos that is his nature.

The pit beneath him erupts as he strikes molten rock. A tendril of fiery lava rises and swirls about the blackness before it, too, is swallowed. Tornado above, volcano below, and at the heart of it, the black star, growing ever larger.

It is, in a terrible way, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

At the end, we are saved by the Skyfather. The torn clouds reveal a light-streaked sky, and in the instant that I feel the stones beneath my hands shiver, ready to fly away, the sun peeks above the horizon.

The black star vanishes.

Something—charred, pitiful, not enough of a human form to be called a body—hovers in the star’s place for a moment, then falls toward the lava below. Sieh curses and streaks off on his yellow ball, breaking the bubble, but the bubble is no longer necessary. The air is hot and thin around me; it is hard to breathe. Already I can see stormclouds forming in the distance and rushing this way to fill the void.

The nearby capital… oh. Oh, no.

I see the broken shells of a few buildings. The rest has been devoured. Part of the land has fallen into the churning red pit; the palace was on that land.

My wife. My son.

Zhakkarn looks at me. She is too much the soldier to show her contempt, though I know she feels it. Kurue helps me to my feet, and her face, too, is blank as she faces me. You have done this, her eyes say.

I will think it over and over as I mourn.

“Sieh has him,” says Zhakkarn. “It will take him years to recover.”

“He had no business calling on that kind of power,” Kurue snaps. “Not in human flesh.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, and for once I am right.

The earth has not stopped shaking. Nahadoth has broken something deep within it. This was once beautiful country, the perfect seat for the capital of a global empire. Now it is ruined.

“Take me away,” I whisper.

“Where?” asks Zhakkarn. My home is gone.

I almost say anywhere, but I am not a complete fool. These beings are not as volatile as Nahadoth, not as hateful, but neither are they my friends. One colossal folly for the day is enough.

“To Senm,” I say. “The Amn homeland. We will rebuild there.”

So they carry me away. Behind me, over the next few days, the continent breaks apart and sinks into the sea.

YEINE.” MY MOTHER, murdered by jealousy, grasps my hand. I hold the hilt of a dagger that has been thrust into my own breast. Blood hotter than rage coats my hand; she leans close to kiss me. “You’re dead.”

You lie, Amn whore, bone-white bitch. I will see all your lying kind swallowed into the darkest depths of

myself

There was another Consortium session the next morning. Apparently this was the body’s peak season, in which they met every day for several weeks trying to resolve fiscal business before a lengthy winter break. T’vril arrived early that morning to wake me for the occasion, which took some doing. When I got up, my feet ached dully, as did the bruises I’d sustained running from Nahadoth the night before. I’d slept like death, exhausted emotionally and physically.

“Dekarta attends nearly all the sessions, when his health permits,” T’vril explained, while I dressed in the next room. The tailor had worked an overnight miracle, delivering me an entire rack of garments deemed appropriate for a woman of my station. He was very good; instead of simply hemming the long Amn styles, he’d given me a selection of skirts and dresses that complemented my shorter frame. They were still far more decorative and less practical than I was used to, not to mention constricting in all the oddest places. I felt ridiculous. But it would not do for an Arameri heir to look like a savage—even if she was one—so I asked T’vril to convey my thanks for the tailor’s efforts.

Between the foreign garments and the stark black circle on my forehead, I barely recognized myself in the mirror.

“Relad and Scimina aren’t required to attend—and they often don’t,” T’vril said. He’d come in to give me a shrewd once-over as I stood in the mirror; by his pleased nod, I evidently met with his approval. “But everyone knows them, while you’re an unknown quantity. Dekarta asks that you attend today in particular, so that all can see his newest heir.”

Which meant that I had no choice. I sighed and nodded. “I doubt most of the nobles will be pleased,” I said. “I was too minor to be worth their time before this whole mess. I imagine they’ll resent having to be nice to me now.”

“You’re probably right,” T’vril said, airily unconcerned. He crossed the room to my windows, gazing out at the view while I fussed with my unruly hair in a mirror. This was just nerves on my part; my hair never looked any better.

“Dekarta doesn’t waste his time with politics,” T’vril continued. “He considers the Central Family above such things. So naturally, any nobles with a cause tend to approach Relad or Scimina. And now you.”

Lovely. I sighed, turning to him. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance I might be disowned if I get myself involved in a scandal or two? Maybe then I could be banished to some backwater land up north.”

“More likely you’d end up like my father,” he said, shrugging. “That’s the usual way the family deals with embarassments.”

“Oh.” For a moment I felt uneasy for reminding him of tragedy, but then I realized he didn’t care.

“In any case, Dekarta seems determined to have you here. I imagine that if you cause enough trouble, he’ll simply have you trussed up and delivered to the succession ceremony at the appropriate time. Though for all I know, that’s how the ceremony usually goes.”

That surprised me. “You don’t know?”

“About the ceremony?” T’vril shook his head. “Only members of the Central Family are allowed to witness that. There hasn’t been one for forty years, anyhow—not since Dekarta’s ascension.”

“I see.” I put aside this information to consider later. “All right, then. At the Salon, are there any nobles I should beware of?” He threw me a wry look, and I amended myself. “Any in particular?”

“You’ll learn that before I will,” he said. “I imagine both your allies and your enemies will introduce themelves rather quickly. In fact, I suspect everything will happen rather quickly, now. So, are you ready?”

I was not. And I wanted badly to ask him about his last comment. Things would happen even more quickly than they had been? Was that possible?

But my questions would have to wait for later. “I’m ready.”

So T’vril led me out of the apartment and through the white corridors. My apartment, like that of most fullbloods, was on the topmost floor of Sky’s main bulk, though I understood there were apartments and chambers within the spires as well. There was another, smaller Vertical Gate on this level, intended solely for fullblood use. Unlike the Gate in Sky’s forecourt, T’vril explained, this Gate had more than one terminus; it apparently went to a number of offices in the city below. That way the fullbloods could conduct family business without getting rained or snowed upon—or without being seen in public, if they so wished.

No one else was about. “Has my grandfather already gone down?” I asked, stopping on the edge of the Gate. Like the main Gate and the palace lifts, it consisted of black tiles set into the floor in a mosaic that formed a gods’ sigil. This one resembled nothing so much as a huge spiderwebbed crack in the floor: an uncomfortably suggestive similarity that made me look away more quickly than usual.

“Probably,” T’vril said. “He likes to be early. Now, Lady Yeine, remember: at the Consortium you must not speak. The Arameri merely advise the nobles, and only Dekarta has the right to address them. He doesn’t do it often. Don’t even speak to him while you’re there. Your task is simply to observe and be observed.”

“And… introduced?”

“Formally? No, that will happen later. But they’ll notice you, never fear. Dekarta won’t need to say a word.”

And with that, he nodded, and I stepped onto the mosaic.

One blurring, terrifying transition later, I found myself in a lovely marble room, standing atop a mosaic of inlaid blackwood. Three Consortium aides—not so junior this time, or so surprised—stood waiting to greet and escort me. I followed them through a shadowed corridor and up a carpeted ramp to find myself in the Arameri private box.

Dekarta sat in his customary place; he did not turn as I arrived. Scimina sat on his right side. She glanced around and smiled at me. I managed not to stop and glare, though it took a powerful effort on my part. But I was very aware of the gathering nobles, who milled around the Salon floor as they waited for the Overseer to begin the session. I saw more than a few glances directed toward the private box; they were watching.

So I inclined my head to Scimina in greeting, though I could not bring myself to return her smile.

Two chairs stood unoccupied at Dekarta’s left. Assuming the nearer seat was for my yet-unseen cousin Relad, I moved to take the farther of the two. Then I caught Dekarta’s hand movement; he did not look at me, but he beckoned me closer. So I took the nearer seat instead—just in time, as the Overseer called the meeting to order.