Storm breaking (35 page)

The long walk down the castle corridors, accompanied by the silent and ever-present Imperial Guards, allowed him to rid himself of some of his irritation. He knew that there was something in the air when he entered the Throne Room; nervous whispering did not cease at his entrance, as it often did, and the Iron Throne itself was vacant.

Melles made his way up to the foot of the Throne and his own proper place as First in the Court. General Thayer was already in attendance, with a frown on his face that told Melles he had no more idea than anyone else why the Emperor had called this particular Court into session. The General was also in full regalia, ceremonial breastplate gleaming over the somber livery of Imperial Army full-dress uniform, his ceremonial helm with its jaunty crest of purple horsehair tucked under his left arm, from which position he could fling the useless piece of pot-metal at a would-be attacker while he pulled his not-so-ceremonial sword with his right hand. On one occasion, the General had actually stopped his attacker with the helmet before the man ever came within reach of his sword.

"Have you heard anything?" he asked Melles under his breath. Melles shook his head, and the General swore several pungent oaths, his face darkening. "I don't like this," he said. "Charliss never used to call full Courts without notice. He's been closeted with a messenger or an informant—and now he calls a full Court. He's not acting rationally anymore, and the Hundred Little Gods only know what he can inflate out of tiny rumors. If he's heard something—"

"It won't be about us," Melles said smoothly. "We are proceeding splendidly, and the law-abiding citizens of the Empire are very happy with us, and with the Emperor. Look at the reports—look at the streets! And he signed every law, edict and change to procedure we've instituted with his own hands. Whatever he has heard, it will concern someone else's activities, and not ours."

At just that moment, Emperor Charliss appeared, draped in his own ceremonial robes, moving slowly toward the Iron Throne flanked by two of his guards, with four more following. Melles was shocked at his appearance, although he doubted that anyone other than a highly trained Adept would notice the level of deterioration in Charliss' protections and rejuvenation magics. It only showed in small things—in the careful way that Charliss moved, and in the signs of pain and illness around his mouth and eyes—but it was very clear to him that Charliss was losing his personal battle against age and the mage-storms. And as Thayer had said, only the Hundred Little Gods knew what that deterioration was doing to his mind.

In the past, the Emperor's mind had been the very last thing to go; all of the Emperor-Adepts had died with their minds clear even as their eyes closed for the last time. But that was in the past, with magic working properly; what if the reverse was happening, and Charliss' mind was decaying faster than his body? What if the poisons of age were pouring into his brain, acting like insidious drugs on his thinking processes?

The Emperor surveyed his Court with cold eyes, then placed himself in the chill embrace of the Iron Throne, and regarded his assembled Court again, as if searching for signs of insurrection. Finally he gestured, and a single, weatherbeaten man in the garb of an Imperial soldier stepped out from behind the screen of guards, moving down the stairs to stand below the Iron Throne.

"One of Our agents has returned from the west," the Emperor rasped. "And meanwhile, there have been petitions and questions brought before this throne. Some among you doubt the wisdom of Our declaring a second heir, saying that the rumors concerning the Nameless One are only that, and that We should wait until We had real proof before We acted. We have brought you all here to witness this report, so that you may see that the Emperor rules over you because he is wiser than you."

The man stepped forward, went on one knee before the Throne, and began reciting a report in a dispassionate and unaccented voice. His report was virtually identical to everything that Melles already knew, and he didn't pay a great deal of attention to it. Granted, he had not realized that Tremane had looted the Imperial supply depot in Fortallan quite so
thoroughly
—the man had practically taken the very walls of the place, and Melles had to give him credit for the sheer audacity of the undertaking—but it was still hardly what he would call
news
. Charliss himself had known all of this; he'd made it public when he'd declared Melles as his new heir, and there should have been nothing in these words to cause the Emperor to feel the need to call a formal Court just so everyone could hear it.

In fact, there was something odd about the fact that Charliss felt the need to address the petitions and questions of Tremane's few friends in the Court. Charliss had always ignored such voices of dissent in the past. It wasn't at all like the Emperor to behave in such a fashion, anymore than it was normal for him to sit and listen to a report he'd already heard several times over. Nevertheless, Charliss was clearly agitated by what he heard. and grew more so with every word the agent recited.

Then the man reached the part of his report that was actually new information—a speech that Tremane had allegedly given to his troops, the contents of which were very clearly treasonable. Melles was fairly certain that the speech was accurately reported, in no small part because the agent kept referring back to notes he had taken, held in a small book that he took from his belt-pouch.

Melles paid very close attention to that speech, once he realized this was the reason that Charliss was so agitated. As the man spoke, the Emperor's hands clutched the arms of the throne, and he leaned forward with his eyes narrowed, cold rage in every nuance of his posture. This was a problem; the old Charliss would never have betrayed the fact that something angered him, but this was not the old Charliss. If the Emperor lost his temper violently in public, it was possible that his competence might be called into question. If that happened, his choice of Heir might also come under fire. The last thing that Melles needed right now was a Court on the verge of deposing the Emperor and finding a new and more tractable Heir.

Supposedly, Tremane accused the Emperor of violating his own sacred oaths to the Army. He accused Charliss of being the one who created the mage-storms, as a mad experiment in weaponry of mass destruction. He told his troops that Charliss deliberately sent them all out to be left in the area of effect of this new weapon, just to see what would happen to them. He claimed that Charliss had then deserted all of them, leaving them to face mage-storms. and hostile enemy troops on their own, with no supplies, no pay, and no reinforcements. Lastly, he declared that they would have to make their own way, for the Empire no longer cared what became of them.

A strong speech, and one that Tremane might well have believed himself. Certainly, with no clear source for the mage-storms, one could make a case for them coming from the Empire rather than the insignificant little nation of Valdemar. Given that the Empire had centuries of tradition of magic use, and Valdemar, so far as anyone knew, had none, it would be far more logical to assume that combat-mages within the Empire had originated the mage-storms. In fact, if Charliss had actually possessed such a weapon, he might very well have used it in exactly the way he was accused. The Emperor was guilty of such callousness so often that a great part of his anger might stem from the fact that he had been accused when for once he was actually innocent.

Then the agent dropped real news, rather than just relating a speech. By working a team of mages together, his group had managed to get a clean scrying on Tremane until the last mage-storm had passed through. They had proof, besides the speech, of Tremane's perfidy. He had made common cause with Valdemar and her allies against the Empire. He had joined the Alliance, and would soon be crowned the new king of Hardorn, the land he was supposed to have taken for Charliss. And one of the stipulations that the Hardornens had insisted on was that he and his men, Imperial soldiers, would defend Hardorn against any further attempts by the Empire to invade and conquer their land.

It was at this point that Charliss exploded with fury, halting the recitation in mid-sentence.

Melles and Thayer exchanged a startled glance, for neither of them had ever seen the Emperor react in this uncontrolled a fashion. And the moment that the Emperor paused for breath—which was, thanks to his poor physical condition, after no more than a dozen rage-filled words—they both stepped up onto the dais and flanked him.

"
I
will handle Tremane, Lord Emperor," Melles said before Charliss could start again. "That is why you chose me, and believe me, he will live just long enough to regret his actions."

"And
I
will deal with the traitors who decided to cast their lot in with him," Thayer rumbled. "They are Imperial soldiers under my command, and as such, they will be executed by Imperial hands." Charliss looked up at them both, face still contorted with rage, and started to rise.

Melles again exchanged glances with Thayer, and nodded at the side door that led from the dais to the Imperial quarters. Melles moved his head in agreement, and each of them took one of Charliss' arms to help him to his feet.

"The Emperor wishes to confer with us as to the appropriate punishment for these traitors," Melles proclaimed, as they got Charliss up and standing between them. It wasn't a good answer, but it was better than saying nothing, and far better than letting the courtiers make something up for themselves. Before Charliss could say anything else, they had him moving, and once they had him started in the right direction, he continued until he was back in his austere, gray marble, high-ceilinged, private chambers. Wisely, the guards did not hinder them, perhaps because they knew that if Charliss went into a spitting, foaming rage in public, it would not do anyone any good except the rumor mongers.

Once Melles and Thayer got Charliss into a seat, however, the temper tantrum they had prevented from occurring in public broke out in private.

Charliss hissed, spat, pounded the arms of his white-leather chair, and probably would have thrown things if he'd had the strength to rise. Flecks of foam dotted his withered lips, and the pupils of his eyes were dilated. The guards stood at the door, eyes straight ahead, pretending to be deaf.

Most of what he babbled was incoherent, and it was painfully clear that Charliss had completely lost control of his formidable temper and of his ability to think. If it had not been for the fact that he was so angry he couldn't even control his voice, his shouts would have informed everyone in Crag Castle just how out-of-control he actually was.

But between his rage and his physical state, his voice didn't get much above a hoarse growl, and much to Melles' relief, he also could not get out of his chair to pace—or to destroy the contents of his chamber, as he had once or twice in the past decades. He could only beat impotently on the padded arms of the chair as he cursed Tremane's name and lineage back to the days of the First Emperor.

He and Thayer took turns trying to soothe the Emperor with promises of personal revenge and Imperial justice, not that any of those promises had any likelihood of being fulfilled. The agent had made it quite clear that there were no more "loyal" Imperials with Tremane's troops; for one reason or another they had all defected over to him. The only way to get at Tremane now would be to send a magical assassin—and that would take the combined abilities of several mages. In light of all of the other pressing needs there were for the little magic that could be made to function, a magical assassin would be an extremely stupid thing to waste time and energy on.

While it was Thayer's turn to distract the Emperor, Melles sent one of the guards for his physicians, and looked around for something that might serve to blunt the Emperor's anger—or at least anesthetize him. This was a fairly public room, filled with gray or white-leather chairs arranged in small groups, with a white desk of bleached wood that was too clean to be used very often off in a corner, and rugs made of bleached sheepskin scattered about on the white-marble floor. There was a sideboard of gilded gray marble to Melles' right that was even more impressive than the one in Melles' rooms; it was loaded down with crystal decanters of liquors he recognized and those he did not. What, in the name of the Hundred Little Gods, would a drink as yellow as a buttercup or as blue as a berry taste like? Or one as green as new spring grass?

Or did he really want to know?

Probably not. If Charliss was used to entertaining the minor rulers of his possessions here, he would probably keep a stock of every vile concoction that every pelt-wearing barbarian ever invented in the name of "something to drink." Over the years, Melles had sampled a few of these, and he was not eager to renew his acquaintance with any of them. There were some things man was not meant to know—or imbibe.

By carefully sniffing the necks of each of the likely bottles, he found a decanter of the same potent brandy he himself had been drinking when the formal Court had been called. He poured a much larger portion than he would ever have drunk himself, and took it to the Emperor.

Charliss seized it in a clawlike hand and downed it without even blinking, then threw the glass across the room, where it hit the wall and shattered, leaving sparkling shards and a few ruby-red drops of bloodlike liquid on the white floor.

Melles raised an eyebrow at Thayer, who shook his head. Evidently the General figured he had the situation in hand and didn't need to turn the Emperor over to Melles just yet. Melles nodded, got another two glasses of the wine, kept one for himself and brought the other to Thayer. Then he stood back until Thayer needed him.