Mistress of the Empire (83 page)

Hochopepa crossed behind the imposing desk, plucked the chancellor’s own seat cushion from the floor, and removed it to the embrasure beneath the window, where a breeze refreshed the air; the room had been crowded throughout the morning, and the servants too timid to venture in and open the screens. Hochopepa sat down. He plucked a sweetmeat from a pottery urn left for guests and chewed, looking dangerously intent for a man with a round, merry face. ‘Oh, she will be here, certainly,’ he murmured around his mouthful. ‘The High Council is reconvening at this moment, and the Lady of the Acoma wouldn’t miss it. Never has there been one to play the Great Game like Mara.’

‘Quite,’ Motecha snapped irritably. ‘She would die first. As she will, the second we discover her location.’

Shimone looked faintly distasteful. ‘We all must die; it is a rule of nature.’

The Imperial Chancellor buried his discomfort behind a studied mask of urbanity.

Motecha glanced from one face to another, but said nothing. His colleagues were still. The suspicion that Mara was guilty of uncovering some of the most closely guarded secrets of the Assembly, secrets that for an outsider were a death warrant, seemed to color the very air with tension. Not even Hochopepa and Shimone had been able to deny that the willingness of the cho-ja to shelter her suggested worse: that she might have seeded a rebellion, a breaking of the treaty that had stood for thousands of years. As convincingly as Shimone and others had argued that the Servant of the Empire deserved a full hearing before her life became forfeit, this time their efforts had been overruled.

The Assembly had voted. Mara’s execution was now beyond debate.

Few would presume to act alone against the Servant of the Empire, but Tapek had, and the worst trouble had resulted.
Black Robes were starting at shadows in the suspicion that their privileged status stood threatened. Now more critical issues were at hand than a brother Black Robe’s rashness. Hochopepa and Shimone exchanged glances of understanding. They had, in their way, admired Mara, who had accomplished much good for the Empire.

But now she had dared too much. The stout magician felt drawn into conflict: his loyalty to the Assembly and the vows sworn there when he took the Black Robe, against the allure of fresh ideas, many of them prompted by the heresies that Milamber the barbarian had shared with him.

Hochopepa valued the legacy of his friendship with Milamber. Over the years the Tsurani-born Black Robe had increasingly employed his arts in the cause of the common people. Now, with changes in the wind too great for even his progressive thinking to encompass, he wished for more time. Hochopepa longed for clear conviction on which course was right to follow: to work with Motecha’s faction for Mara’s immediate destruction or to embrace her call for reform and consider the unthinkable, after a majority vote: to oppose the Assembly’s resolve, even perhaps save her life.

Suddenly Shimone took a long, swift step toward the window. He accompanied his movement with a penetrating glance at Hochopepa, who swallowed his sweetmeat more suddenly than he had intended.

‘You feel it, too,’ the fat magician said to Shimone.

‘Feel what?’ Motecha interrupted. And then he also fell silent, as he sensed what had alerted the others.

A creeping chill pervaded the air, not the simple cold of shadow, nor even the clammy feeling prompted by uneasiness. Each magician present knew the unmistakable, subliminal tingle of powerful magic.

Shimone poised like a dog on point. ‘Someone sets wards!’ he announced in clipped tones.

Hochopepa rose awkwardly to his feet. ‘No Black Robe creates this spell.’ His admission came with reluctance, as if he deeply wished to claim otherwise.

‘The cho-ja!’ shouted Motecha. His face deepened to purple. ‘She has brought mages from Chakaha!’

The small chamber erupted into chaos as the other Black Robes surged to their feet. Their expressions, to a man, were stormy. The Imperial Chancellor was forced cowering into the cranny behind his desk to stay clear of them, but no one heeded his discomfort.

‘Mara will die for this!’ Motecha continued. ‘Sevean, call at once for reinforcements.’

Even Hochopepa did not protest this order. ‘Hurry,’ he urged Shimone, and while the outrage of the assembled magicians whipped to a boiling rage, the fat magician and his slender companion were the first out the door.

The corridor beyond was deserted. Even the servants had fled. ‘I don’t like this.’ Hochopepa’s words echoed off the vaulted ceiling of the now empty wing. ‘In fact, I have the distinct impression that more than the High Council has been seeking unsanctioned convocation.’

Shimone said nothing, but reached for his teleportation device, activated it, and vanished.

‘Hrrumph!’ Hochopepa exclaimed in frustration. ‘Letting me know where you’re going wouldn’t exactly be idle chatter!’

Shimone’s voice replied out of the air. ‘You imply there might be a choice?’

Disgusted that his robe belt seemed suddenly to be cinctured too tight, Hochopepa pawed through cloth until he found his pocket. He grasped his teleportation device and engaged it, just as Sevean, Motecha, and the others shouted from the antechamber of the Imperial Chancellor’s office. As he disappeared from the hallway, Hochopepa felt his last disconcerting thought cut off by the disorientation of his
transfer: which party would accomplish Mara’s execution? He and Shimone, who acted only for the purpose of the Assembly’s self-preservation, or the others, led by Motecha, who lusted after revenge?

‘She has made fools of us, and worse!’ Sevean’s voice rang out just before the shift in Hochopepa’s location became accomplished.

Worse, the fat magician concluded as he reappeared, puffing, in the sunlit splendor of the courtyard outside the antechambers of the imperial audience hall. Mara had brought power to battle absolute power, and now far more than civil war might tear the Empire asunder.

The courtyard too was deserted. The flowering trees that bordered the wall and the approach to the wide steps hung still in the noon air. No birds flew, and no insects droned around the flowers. The din of the armies that clashed at the walls and the unceasing battering of rocks from the siege engines seemed distant and faint. If the noise was inconvenient, none of the Black Robes made any move at this juncture to quell it.

The warriors who defended the Imperial Precinct were best off distracted at the walls, to keep them unaware of the pending storm that soon must break over the audience hall.

Shimone stood in the center of the square, his head cocked slightly. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘The ward starts here.’

Nothing showed in the noon air that looked in the least arcane. ‘You can’t break through?’ puffed Hochopepa. He squinted, concentrated, and extended his senses to their utmost. At last he detected a faint shimmer that might have been due to heat; except that when he looked directly at it, the phenomenon disappeared. He pawed through his other pocket, pulled out a gaudy handkerchief, and mopped his streaming brow. ‘If that’s a ward, it hardly seems substantial.’

Shimone turned with an air of sharpened reproof. ‘You try and pierce it.’

Hochopepa extended his might, then suddenly widened his eyes as a rainbow of color played through the air before him. As if brushed aside without effort, the potency of his magic dissipated along the barrier created by the cho-ja. Hochopepa’s mouth sagged open in astonishment. Then a stray fragment of rock fired from without descended whistling toward his head. He recovered his poise and deflected it as casually as a man might bat aside a fly. Throughout, his attention remained focused on the cho-ja wrought protections. ‘That strong, eh? Fascinating. A very subtle piece of work. The way it lets you probe, then siphons off your energies and weaves them with its own …’ Immersed in scholarly study, he was slow to waken to the fact that the cho-ja had mages evolved considerably in their skills since the treaty had effected the ban. ‘This is unsettling.’

‘Very.’ Shimone chose not to elaborate as behind him other magicians arrived in the central square. More had joined the party that had stood vigil in the Imperial Chancellor’s chamber. Their number was two dozen strong, and growing. ‘There can be no argument now except force,’ Shimone concluded sadly.

Motecha picked up this last statement. ‘We should flame this palace to the ground! Burn every mind to idiocy that has dared to raise rebellion against us!’

Sevean stepped forward. ‘I disagree. Collapse these unsanctioned wards, yes, this is necessity. We must also destroy the cho-ja mages who work in violation of the treaty, and execute the Lady Mara. But destroy the Imperial Palace? That’s excessive. We may be outside the law, but we are still answerable to the gods. I doubt that heaven would sanction the priests of every order in the Empire dying along with Mara.’

‘The Holy Orders could be accomplices!’ accused one of the recently arrived Black Robes.

‘Indeed,’ Shimone cut in. ‘Or they could have been pressed into service by force. Better we hear their motives before we do their holinesses any violence.’

‘The wards only, then,’ Hochopepa summed up. He hitched at his too tight sash, and blotted with his dampened handkerchief. For all his outward resolution, his eyes were troubled. ‘We must break in without risking the lives of those inside the audience hall.’

The magicians banded together in silence, as carrion birds might who contemplated the spoils on a battlefield. They stilled in mind and body, and the air seemed shaken by a deep, subliminal vibration as they melded their efforts into one.

The sky darkened, though no cloud gathered. The garden courtyard lost clarity, seeming to brood with a greenish tinge.

‘Now,’ Motecha cried out.

Power speared down, lightning-bright, a sizzling bolt that appeared to bisect the heavens. It struck in a crack of violet sparks, but the ward seized the power, deflected it along the curve of its surface, then absorbed it. Heat flew back in a scorching wave. The stone faces of the buildings opposite blackened and cracked. Trees singed, and an ornamental fountain boiled dry in a puff of steam.

Untouched by the backlash, protected by their own wards, the gathered magicians exchanged dark looks of astonishment. They gathered for a second blow. A rainbow play of energies cascaded down upon the cho-ja barrier. It flared back a black opaqueness.

The Assembly magicians increased the force of their attack. Sparks jagged and flew, and thunder rumbled. Fire rained from the sky, and then charges of incandescent force.

‘Keep up the assault,’ shouted Sevean. ‘Spare no effort. The wards must eventually weaken.’

Winds howled, and fires raged. Tremors shook the earth, and paving cracked as gaps opened in the courtyard. The protective bubble of spells that sealed off the audience hall seemed to buckle, and shrink slightly inward.

‘Yes!’ Motecha redoubled his efforts. Lightning scored the invisible surface, and the winds raised by disturbed forces screamed around the spires of the Imperial Precinct like the howl of demons released.

One of the Black Robes with lesser strength crumpled to the pavement. The rest stood firm, sure now: the wards must break, over time. No magical defense could withstand such a concentrated onslaught for very long. As power hammered down, and split, and the rush of the gusts drowned even the din of the armies besieging the outside walls, the Assembly magicians immersed themselves in spells. In their collective fury only one objective remained: the hall of the imperial audience would be breached, now at the cost of any lives; even their own.

The high, vaulted skylights of the imperial audience hall went dark. Plunged into sudden gloom, gathered courtiers and priests shifted nervously in their places. The only remaining illumination was cast by the wildly flickering lamps kindled in honor of the Twenty Higher Gods. On the dais, the priest of Chochocan who presided over the imperial marriage ceremony faltered in his lines.

A bang of nearby thunder shook the walls. While many in the chamber trembled, and more than one priest made signs to ward off heaven’s displeasure, Justin’s voice arose over the early murmurs of confusion. ‘Proceed,’ he stated clearly.

Mara felt her heart nearly burst with pride. The boy would make a fine ruler! Then she bit her lip; first, he would have to survive his wedding and coronation.

The Princess Jehilia at his side looked white with fright. She fought to keep her chin high, as royalty ought; but more than anything, she wanted to cower behind her veils. Justin’s hand stole out and clamped around hers in a desperate attempt to share comfort.

After all, they were only children.

The floor shook under another concussion. The priest of Chochocan glanced about, as if seeking safe refuge.

Mara straightened. All must not be abandoned because one fainting priest lost heart! She tensed, prepared to intervene, although to do so was a risk: their holinesses would perhaps resent any further pressure from her. If she drove them too hard, they might mistake her motives for ambition, or worse: they might withdraw the power of their office and pronounce that Justin’s wedding to Jehilia went against the will of heaven.

Time was too short, and circumstances were too dangerous, to allow for long-winded justifications that after all had only circumstantial proof that the strike upon the cho-ja’s wards was effected by mortal men who happened to be magicians, and that their will was no more that of heaven than the actions of any Ruling Lord who murdered out of greed or ambition for power.