Mistress Of The Ages (In Her Name, Book 9) (45 page)

In that moment, she felt her powers return. Above, the opening in the top of the chamber again irised open, but instead of the sun, she saw the Great Moon glowing far above as the entire dome gave way.

But by the time the debris crashed down, destroying the ancient chamber, she and the others had already vanished.

***

Keel-Tath stood at the edge of a plateau in the mountains that overlooked the Great Wastelands. The bewildered survivors stood to either side, amazed to be alive. Far above, the fleet battle was all but over. She had willed the guns of the enemy ships to silence. While she knew that she could have simply destroyed them, she wished to give them a chance to die with honor or, better yet, to surrender with honor. She did not expect any of the Ka’i-Nur to do so, but she would accept any who did without question. For now, having taken in the powers of their Crystal of Souls, she could hear their spirits in the Bloodsong that coursed through her veins. For the first time in all the ages of their history, their people would be not seven, but one.

But the fate of Ka’i-Nur itself must be sealed forever. The ancient fortress was visible from this distance as a tiny black structure atop its ancient volcano. She could sense the sprawl of the city beneath the ground, spreading like malevolent roots for many leagues around the fortress itself.

“Must it be this way?”

She looked up at Tara-Khan, who stood close beside her. Dara-Kol, Ka’i-Lohr Drakh-Nur, and Sian-Al’ai were also there, their eyes fixed on the fortress. She did not need to read their faces to sense their anger at those who had nearly destroyed the Way, an anger, a quiet rage, that was reflected in her own soul. “You would show them mercy?”

He shook his head slowly. “No, my mistress. I simply wish we had another way.”

“You have a good heart, my love,” she told him, giving his hand a gentle squeeze for just a moment. Then she turned her attention back to the fortress. Spreading her arms much like the builders did during the act of creation, she focused her will not upon the fortress, but upon the magma chamber deep below the volcano that had been quiescent for tens of thousands of cycles. Keel-Tath could feel the molten rock, could sense its temperature rising, the pressure in the magma chamber growing as she poured her own power into it, bending it to her will.
 

Steam exploded from a pair of cones, so weatherworn from the ages that they were little more than subtle humps on the volcano’s flanks. Clouds of debris were sent flying high into the air by the force of the steam. The earth rumbled and the ground beneath their feet trembled. More steam exploded from the vents, and the side of the volcano facing them slowly began to bulge outward.
 

“Let it be done,” she breathed.

In the blink of an eye, the fortress of the Ka’i-Nur vanished in a titanic eruption that blew apart the upper half of the volcano. A huge cloud of ash and debris was blasted into the sky, and kept rising until it was leagues above the surface, where the swifter high altitude winds began to bend it to the side. Huge chunks of earth and gobs of magma, some of which were larger than the fortress had been, were hurled upward and outward, trailing streamers of smoke and debris behind them. They fell back to earth in graceful arcs, detonating like bombs when they struck the ground.
 

A deafening roar rolled across the plateau as the sound of the eruption finally reached them, accompanied by the remains of the shock wave that was still strong enough to stagger the awestruck onlookers.
 

What her companions could not see was the flow of magma that she forced through every tunnel, every chamber, of the ancient underground city. The Ka’i-Nur builders frantically tried to block the passages, but their efforts were in vain. Others tried to escape to the surface, but the magma followed them through their escape tunnels and hunted them down like a thing alive.
 

The creches were the hardest. The children shrieked with fear, then pain just before the molten rock took them. She cried out in anguish as she destroyed the first one and killed the younglings. That nearly broke her, nearly made her show mercy on the rest, but she could not. She dared not. Hardening her heart, she killed the children. All of them. With the death of every youngling, of every robed one, she felt as if a dagger was being thrust into her heart, but she kept telling herself that she had no choice.
It must be done.

At long last, the farthest reaches of the great city were consumed by the lava, the last of its denizens burned to ash. The Ka’i-Nur in the fleet, sensing the complete annihilation of their kin, lost their will to live along with their will to fight. To the last warrior and robed one, they committed ritual suicide.
 

With an agonized cry, Keel-Tath fell to her knees, grieving for the lives she had taken, the younglings most of all. That she had safeguarded the future of her kind was little consolation as she stared out at the smoldering ruins that glowed red like a bloody scar across the Great Wastelands. By her hand and by her will, the ancient bloodline of the Ka’i-Nur had ceased to exist.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“We are one.”
 

Those three words, spoken by Tara-Khan as he knelt upon the first step of the throne, signifying his ranking among the peers of warriors and robed ones, flooded Keel-Tath with overwhelming joy. In company with Ka’i-Lohr and Drakh-Nur, Tara-Khan had led her warriors in battle across the Homeworld to reclaim the honor of those who had been under Syr-Nagath. With her dead, their honor reverted to the next greatest among them, which resulted in a rapid fragmentation back to countless kingdoms and city states, just as in the days before Keel-Tath’s rise to power, and each one had to be claimed as demanded by the Way. Sometimes this was through single combat, sometimes through full scale battle. If single combat, it was only to the death if the opponent demanded such; otherwise, it was to first blood. Tara-Khan himself would not have fought except in larger battles, but nearly every leader wanted to face him in the Challenge, for to face such a fearsome opponent brought great honor to those he fought. And, of course, to her.

While Tara-Khan and his warriors reclaimed the Homeworld, Sian-Al’ai and Dara-Kol led the wars against the Settlements, bringing them back into the fold one city at a time. Of Dara-Kol was she especially proud, for Dara-Kol now not only wore the collar of the Desh-Ka, but was the high priestess of the ancient order. None, save perhaps Tara-Khan, had sacrificed more than had Dara-Kol, and none had been more faithful both to the child of prophecy and the legacy of Keel-Tath’s parents. She looked upon Dara-Kol, who knelt with Sian-Al’ai upon the second step from the throne, and smiled.
 

Dara-Kol was not the only one who had won the Collar of Honor. Keel-Tath had decreed that all who pledged their honor to her, no matter their standing among the peers, would wear the collar. From those whose accomplishments had not yet taken them above the bottom-most step of the throne to the most high among the priesthoods and Tara-Khan himself, all would wear the collar after taking their vows at the kazhas or the temples. It was both a promise of love from Keel-Tath and a promise of fealty from the bearer.
 

The thought brought great warmth to her heart, for many among the thousands now kneeling upon the steps to the throne and the floor leading to them had not so long ago been honorless ones. One in particular, Sar-Ula’an, who now knelt upon the fifteenth step from the throne, had proven himself a great warrior and a noble soul. She did not know why any of them had fallen from the Way before her ascension, nor did she care. They all were her children now, and in her eyes they all had been reborn, their sins washed away.

As her people had healed, so, too, had their worlds. The scars of the long war, the greatest that had been fought since the end of the Second Age, were beginning to fade as the builders and other robed castes bent earth and sea to their will. The countless dead had been given their last rites, their bodies cremated as tradition demanded. Devastated cities and villages were being rebuilt, first among them — by accolade among the builders — being Keel-A’ar, the city of Keel-Tath’s birth. She had no memory of it, for she had been an infant when it was laid waste by Syr-Nagath, but the builders and other artisans had lavished their love upon it, and it stood as a glorious work of art of which her father and mother would have been immensely proud. At that, she did not have to guess or surmise, for she could feel the songs of their spirits soar when she made to visit the rebuilt city and gazed upon the gleaming spires and graceful arches. It was a symbol of what her kind was becoming as it emerged from its ages-long slumber, breaking the endless cycles of rise and fall.
 

But her greatest joy was the child in her womb, the daughter of Tara-Khan. The child’s spiritual song was strong and pure, as was her body, kicking and stretching, as if eager to come into the world. While none, not even the healers, could be sure, she suspected that it would be today. It would be a good omen.

She turned her attention to the assembled multitudes in the throne room, who represented all of what had once been individual cities and villages throughout the Homeworld and Settlements. Those not present would hear her words from scrolls being written by Keepers of the Books of Time, but in the end, all of her kind would hear her words, and all would sense her emotions through the Bloodsong. “My children,” she began, her voice easily carrying across the expanse, “long have we awaited this day, since the end of the Second Age when the oracle Anuir-Ruhal’te set in motion the events that have brought us, all of us, together at last. As Tara-Khan just informed me,
we are one
. Never in the four hundred thousand cycles of our recorded history has a leader been able to stand before her people and say those words. Even in the time of the First Age were our people fragmented, divided. No more. We are bound to one another by honor and love, our spirits singing together in the Bloodsong, the endless cycles of wanton destruction ended.” She paused for a moment, savoring her next words. “This day we witness the birth of the Empire, which shall endure for as long as our kind lives and breathes.”

“In Thy name,” the crowd said in a clear voice, “it is so.”

“Go now to your people, and give them my word and my love. For I am pledged to you, my children, my spirit bound to yours for eternity.”

With the crash of thousands of fists in salute, the multitudes replied, “May thy Way be long and glorious, our Empress!”

In a smooth motion, they got to their feet. Tara-Khan, beaming, extended a hand to her, to escort her to their chambers. In a precise movement, those along her path parted, forming a living corridor down the steps and across the floor to the entrance that lay directly before the throne. The first steps held those who had fought beside her, those she held most dear, and she laid a hand upon their shoulders as she passed. Dara-Kol, Sian-Al’ai, Drakh-Nur, and the ever faithful Ka’i-Lohr. She lingered beside him, acknowledging the love that he had once expressed for her, knowing the flame still burned in his heart. She put a hand to his cheek and smiled, her heart tinged with sadness that he had not yet found a love to take her place in his heart, before she moved on.
 

As she reached each step, the warriors and robed ones standing upon it saluted and bowed their heads, and she was intoxicated by the symphony of love that poured through the Bloodsong. In that moment, perhaps more than any other save the night she realized that she carried Tara-Khan’s child, was she happy, so much more than she ever could have dreamed. It had been a long, dark and bloody road, but they had at last arrived. As she slowly descended the steps, she knew that nothing would stand in their way, that even the stars were not the limit of what her people could achieve. She knew that much of what her kind would accomplish would happen after she had passed from this life, but she also knew from what Tara-Khan had told her that her spirit would live on in those who followed in her footsteps, to whom the golden band about her neck was passed down.
You are the Mistress of the Ages
, he had told her, quoting the words of her ancient blood mother, Anuir-Ruhal’te, from one of the many ancient Books of Time he had read while under the tutelage of Ria-Ka’luhr.
 

Her child, as if unhappy that Keel-Tath’s attention was elsewhere, delivered a powerful kick as she squirmed in the warmth of her confinement. The healers she passed glanced up, their senses finely attuned to the body of their mistress, their Empress. She met their smiles with one of her own, and Tara-Khan beside her swelled with pride.
 

“Your time comes very soon, my Empress,” one of the elder healers noted quietly, reaching out with a gentle hand to touch Keel-Tath’s swollen belly.
 

The child, as if sensing the healer’s hand, kicked again.

With a smile at the healer, Keel-Tath continued down the many steps, acknowledging the representatives of her people, her heart filled with joy.

***

“She comes!” The healer knelt in the warm water of the birthing basin, focused on the child just beginning to emerge from her mother’s womb. “Push, my child!”

Keel-Tath, who had the power to move mountains if she so willed, had been laid low by her body’s primitive biological imperatives. Her labor had lasted nearly two days, and she was physically and emotionally exhausted, as much or more than after any battle she had ever fought. The healers had repeatedly assured her that all was well with her and the child, but her daughter had thus far steadfastly refused to come forth.
 

“A stubborn whelp,” Tara-Khan had observed from where he knelt beside the basin, holding one of Keel-Tath’s hands, having never left her side. He smiled. “Much like her mother.”

As she had countless times already this long night, Keel-Tath did as the healer ordered and pushed. And screamed with effort and pain. Then she pushed some more.