Path of Revenge (18 page)

Despair is the great enemy.
The thought rose from its deeply ingrained place, the Omeran answer to such thinking. Torve supposed it had been placed there by his mother and father, though he would never know: like all young Omerans he had been taken from his parents when very young, and could not remember their names or faces.
Learn your Defiance. Do not struggle against what others make you into. Despair is the great enemy.
A litany to keep a race alive in the face of a ruthless foe.

Torve watched the argument between the Syrenian and Anaphil Alliances gradually subside into bickering and snide comments. The two would-be duellists angrily pulled their hats back down onto their heads, then turned to their parents for more instructions. The Amaqi had succeeded in making slaves out of their own children. Look at those two: had the Emperor permitted them they would have fought to the blood, or perhaps to the death, over some point of pride, a minuscule tilt in the ongoing balancing between all the Alliances. Was it really
their choice?
Do they really have more freedom than me?
Was the Emperor the only free man in the empire?

The Emperor, free? A man enslaved by obsession, a man terrorised by the fear of death, bent into cruelty by it. A man so free he had not ventured from the city in more than a decade, and never left his Palace without a full complement of guards. A man whose uncovered face it was death to see. Who would be alone, without counsel, when Torve left with the expedition. Whose only consolation had been the Garden of Angels, a place of restful beauty and of searing evil. Oh, and the friendship of an animal.

Torve’s heart ached for him.

Trumpets blew, their fanfare billowing across Avensal’ibnu Square towards the golden Talamaq Palace. Soldiers and spectators alike waited, immobile. The male choirs, arranged on temporary scaffolding around three sides of the open space, began their deep humming. The sound from a thousand throats worked its stirring magic, as it always did. Certainly Captain Duon felt himself stirred, his own throat vibrating, the hairs on his arms and neck rising in response. Glorious. The word seemed to have a deeper meaning today. His skin prickled as a hundred sweet female voices joined the sound—glorious!—and the trumpets sounded again, this time taking the theme hummed by the choir and making of it a victorious paean to the empire.

At precisely the right moment the shimmering silver curtain behind the balcony of the Talamaq Palace parted, and the man in the golden mask came through. With deliberate steps he walked to the balcony’s railing, paused a moment, then lifted his hands to the heavens. The music ceased.

Glorious.

A cathartic silence settled upon them all.

It seemed every citizen of Talamaq, and many from the surrounding towns, had come to see off the fatherwards expedition. The Emperor’s great gambit. Twenty thousand men: a compact fighting force augmented by a hundred unstoppable chariots that would cut a bloody swathe through any enemy foolish enough to stand against them. Duon knew only a small proportion of Talamaq’s half-million residents could fit into the broad square before the Palace, but the knowledge did nothing to diminish his awe at the public display of power and glory.

The Emperor lowered his arms to his sides, and it seemed as though a grinding weight settled on the square. An enormous presence, said to be the legacy of a hundred emperors, the Spirit of Empire itself. Only the truly dedicated Amaqi could sense the Spirit. Duon knew himself to be gifted, a legacy from some mixed-blood ancestor, so his mother always said; but today his heart thrilled as he not only felt the weight, but also heard a descending note, a groaning akin to the fall of a mighty tree.

The citizenry knelt, while the soldiers remained standing. Duon wished he could prostrate himself on the ground and cry out his love for the Emperor.

In that moment of silence, just before the man in the golden mask began to speak, Captain Duon heard the faintest sound of mocking laughter.

It seemed to be coming from behind him. His right arm twitched, the beginning of a movement towards his belt knife, but he arrested the motion. He dared not turn his head, not in this sacred moment. To answer the laughter with death would be its own blasphemy. But he expected the crowd to descend on the one who laughed and tear him apart.

No one moved. Perhaps no one else heard the mockery. Nevertheless, it was a stain on the glory of the moment, and it filled Duon with anger.

The Emperor spoke.

‘Amaqi, welcome,’ he said.

‘Welcome, ma great sor!’ boomed the reply. Duon shouted with the rest, drowning out the dry chuckling.

‘We share with you today your great joy. The Elamaq Empire is to expand fatherwards into lands rich with bounty. Our expedition is our mighty hand reaching forth to take these riches. From now on we will be greater and more glorious than any people ever known.’

The crowd cheered madly, many throwing streamers carefully wound for the occasion into the air.

‘Foolishness,’ said a voice behind Duon.

This time he could not help himself. He spun around, hand on knife hilt, to meet the eyes of a dozen startled commanders. None of them had spoken, he could see it on their faces.

‘Let us honour those risking their lives for us,’ said the Emperor. ‘Captain Taleth Salmadi Duon leads our great army. Step forward, Captain, that our Amaqi may see the face of their hopes and dreams.’

A thousand subtle sounds of people shifting, standing on tiptoes, craning their necks for a better view. Duon knew he had been caught with his back to the Emperor, and turned to the man in the mask with as much dignity as he could raise. Deep breath, hands picking at the hem of his cloak as the silence deepened, another deep breath and a step forward into the open space below the balcony. A second step, then a third. He made obeisance to the Emperor, then stepped forward again. A second obeisance, then a third. Utter silence. He remained motionless, forehead to the burning cobbles, sweat running uncomfortably up his back and across his neck to drip on the ground. Then onto his feet, face up to the balcony, where the Emperor nodded. Finally Duon turned to the gathered citizenry.

A single trumpeter blew a fanfare, and the crowd cheered again. Such an honour! Captain Duon found himself filling with pride in the face of such sustained spontaneous adoration.

‘Spontaneous?’ came the voice from behind him. ‘Professional cheerleaders have been practising this for days.’

This time Duon’s muscles did not even twitch. There was no one behind him save the Emperor. And how could the speaker, wherever he was, have known what he was thinking?

It is a
jiran, he told himself in desperation as the Emperor continued to explain the purpose of the expedition to his citizens.
A sprite of the desert seeking to torment me, to bring humiliation to the Emperor.
But Captain Duon knew it wasn’t a
jiran.
The voice came from within his own mind.

The glorious day crumbled to dust.

The man on the balcony droned on for a long time. Lenares fidgeted in her palanquin, counting the number of stitches visible on the pillow beside her, then slid back the door still further for a better view of the square. She had resigned herself to the journey and was anxious to get it over with. She’d asked Mahudia and Nehane how long they would be away, how many days before she could return to resume her study of the hole in the world, but they had answered her evasively. She persisted with her questions, receiving a scolding from Mahudia for nagging. When Nehane admitted the expedition could take more than a week, anger had given way to despair.

Over the previous weeks the hole had become much larger, heading off in some unexpected directions. Vectors, she corrected herself, savouring the new word. She had hoped her calculations would have been predictive, but aside from the earthquake in
the Garden of Angels and its many aftershocks, so frequent she had given up warning people about them, she seemed powerless to deduce the shape or intention of the hole in the world. Yes, intention was a good word. It acted like it was seeking something or someone, reminding her of the stray kitten taken in by the cosmographers last year. Sneak, sneak, sneak, pause…
pounce.
Looking for her? No, looking for a number of people, she had decided, as it tore at the world in at least three different directions. Worse, it no longer expanded at a steady rate. Another week might see the damage increase until it was beyond repair. And now this fool wittered about the need for caution in all their dealings. Caution? They needed haste, not caution! Hadn’t she told the Emperor how serious the hole had become? Why did no one truly believe her?

On and on squawked the man on the balcony, like a demented bird standing on its perch. She took a moment to set herself, to establish her centre, in preparation for leaving the city. A deep breath, then a clearing of her mind save for the imprint of the Palace before her, the three rizen towers lining up with the three great avenues, each signalling a cardinal direction. Sonwards, the direction the sun rose on the longest day of the year. Fatherwards, the sun’s zenith. And daughterwards, the place of the setting midsummer sun. Superior to the graticular systems once used by the subjugated races of Elamaq. Left, right, forward and back, four directions only. With their counters, fatherback, sonback and daughterback, the Amaqi system offered six directions at sixty-degree intervals, not four at ninety.

Here I am, in the centre of the universe. See the three directions streaming out from me. As I count the steps I take and refer to the stars, I will retain contact with
Talamaq. I will be centred. My calculations will retain their context.

As long as nothing happens to interfere.

Finally the man stopped his useless barking and withdrew from the balcony. The moment he disappeared, his strange numbers gone from her vision, signalled the beginning of yet another rumbling aftershock. The scaffold underneath the balcony creaked, then something snapped and a cloud of plaster dust rose to obscure her view. When it cleared the structure sagged forwards, and on the ground below it two people lay unmoving amidst a scattering of rubble and scaffolding. An official poked her head out between the silver curtains, then withdrew it rapidly.

Lenares didn’t believe in omens, but knew that such beliefs, though outlawed by the Emperor, were still held among the Amaqi. However, aftershocks were now so common in the city that few if any citizens seemed to be making a fuss. Certainly they were leaving the square very quickly, but there was no evidence of panic.

They would make a fuss if they knew what she knew.

Ahead of her the expedition filed out of the square and along the Avensvala, led by the foot soldiers, ten abreast, flanked each side by camel riders. Rank after rank moved away, raising dust as they marched: she would count them as soon as she had an opportunity, but there were many thousands. She ran her eye down the ranks: an estimate flashed through her mind. Twenty thousand. Far too many for the sort of expedition she’d thought was being conducted.

In front of her the charioteers waited, their precious horses standing perfectly still despite the provocation of dust and noise. Watching the horsemasters train
these exotic beasts had been a favourite pastime before the numbers had taken over her life.

‘Ugly brutes, aren’t they,’ said Mahudia from the other end of the sumptuous palanquin.

‘I love the sound they make when you feed them grass,’ said Lenares dreamily. ‘They used to blow into my hand and make me laugh.’

‘I never understood your fascination for them. Camels are far nobler, far more intelligent. A proper beast for an Amaqi.’

‘Camels are stupid,’ Lenares said. ‘Little piggy eyes—’

The palanquin shook, then rose at the front end, tipping a squealing Lenares back against Mahudia. The ornate door slid shut with a snap, nearly crushing her fingers. Up came the back end, flinging Lenares into the pillows. Something crashed into her head, and wetness ran down her face. She shrieked.

Shouting came from outside. The palanquin was lowered to the ground, the doors were slid open and concerned faces peered inside. Lenares hissed at them.

‘My ladies, I am so sorry for what happened.’ A courteous voice, a soft fatherback accent, a beautiful face, deep brown eyes, long lashes, features almost too fine for a man. ‘Your bearers, they are untrained, they do not know how to treat their passengers with care.’ The man leaned into the palanquin, pulling silken sheets and pillows away from the cosmographers. ‘We will teach them, yes?’

‘Thank you,’ Mahudia said, and brushed her hair back with her hand. ‘You are very kind.’

The man smiled, all white teeth and dimples. ‘To me has been given the task of looking after the cosmographers. I have made a poor start, have I not? The Omerans assigned to your palanquin, they will be punished. I myself and three of the soldiers will carry you until your bearers recover from this punishment.’

‘Our sincerest thanks,’ Mahudia offered, and Lenares was surprised to see she blushed as she spoke.

‘Ah, this, this is the wonder of the Emperor’s court,’ the courteous man said, leaning further into the palanquin. Lenares looked around, then realised she was the object of his attention. She smiled nervously at him, an effort he repaid with a dazzling smile of his own, quickly replaced by a frown.

‘But you have taken hurt!’ he said, and took her face in his soft hands. ‘Struck by a cup of water, or something of the sort. You are wet, and you have a nasty bruise. I will attend to it myself.’ He made to draw something from his pocket.

‘No need,’ said Mahudia briskly. ‘I can deal with the girl. We will require fresh water and a cloth bandage to bring down the swelling.’

‘You guard her well, as all precious things should be guarded. Is she not to be approached?’ The man’s frank gaze swept over Lenares, making her flush despite herself.

Mahudia smiled encouragingly. ‘Lenares may not be approached, though you might have more success with her guardian.’