The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (125 page)

“I don't know, but there'll be a fight either way.”

“This is a disaster.  I can't manage the Empress on my own, and you—  Oh!  Ama, dear!”  Dasira glanced in the direction Annia was calling and saw another lagalaina among the entourage—the dark-haired one who had been marched down to the village along with the other prisoners.  She looked vaguely familiar.  “Ama, come with me, you must help.”

The dark lagalaina narrowed her eyes, then gave a reluctant nod.

“Good, good.”  As Annia turned forward again, Dasira caught the mistiness in her gaze.  “We can at least take her somewhere quiet.  Make her comfortable.”

Dasira grunted.

“And what about you?” said the lagalaina, swatting her shoulder.  “The last time I saw you, you were a man!  And you'd switched sides!  And you
stabbed me in the back!
”

“In my defense, you were being a bitch.”

To her surprise, what came next from Annia's mouth was not a curse or a screech but a laugh, though a harsh one.  “Oh yes, blame me for my injury.  Just like one of them.”

“I'm not—“  Dasira shut her mouth.  This wasn't the time to fight, or to consider whether or not Annia was right.  “Look, I'm sorry.  I wish I could have done it differently, but you didn't give me much choice.  I avoided your spine though.”

“I missed you too.”

“Ugh.  Let's not get sappy.”

The glance Annia gave her was both amused and reproving.  She almost smirked in return, but caught herself.  She wasn't ready to mend fences.

Maybe after this was done.

“Eyes forward,” she said.  “It can't be long now.  We have to make sure our boys don't get themselves killed.”

Annia nodded, and together they marched like sisters to war.

*****

As the great double-doors of the throne room came in sight, Shaidaxi Enkhaelen struggled to contain his excitement.  Even if it didn't show on his face, the mentalists beyond the doors would feel it and communicate it to the Emperor—that great and terrible wild-card.  The less he knew, the more curious he would be, and the longer Enkhaelen could string this out...

It took him a few steps to realize that the others had stopped short.

Turning, he saw Rackmar extend a blade of white filaments from beneath his ceremonial armor.  It was no surprise; Enkhaelen had been there when the Field Marshal submitted to the process, kneeling before the Throne as the White Flame suit wove around him and filled his many wounds.  But with Cob at his right hand...

“I don't trust you,” the Field Marshal growled, tilting the blade toward the boy's neck.

For the first time in a while, Enkhaelen looked at Cob.  He'd felt something happen while his back was turned, and had glimpsed an emptiness beneath the others' spells, but had forced himself not to focus on it; this close to his captors, they could almost see through his eyes.  Looking now, though, he recognized the Guardian's absence, and saw the thin line of blackness that ran from the corner of his mouth to fall drop by drop onto the floor.

Oh Cob.

He dared not look around in case one of his fail-safes had triggered, but this did not bode well.  Another misstep and his plan could collapse.

He tried for bravado.  “What does it matter?  We're already here.  Let's get this over with.”

“True,” said Rackmar, “we are already in the Palace.  No soul can escape it, and I daresay no spirit either.  So it occurs to me that I have no need to bring this one to the Throne.”  The blade grazed Cob's throat, drawing a bead of blood; insensate, empty, he didn't move.

“You want your trophy now?” said Enkhaelen.  “Premature, don't you think?  The Emperor has yet to judge us, and he can't do so through the doors.”

The Field Marshal sneered.  “And that is what you want, isn't it?  To bring this pretense before our master.  Not to win, since you have no chance of it, but to prove some accursed point.  Well, your game is over!  I will permit it no more!”

“Who are you to dictate the Emperor's pleasure?”

“This is not his, it is yours!  We have all been dancing on your strings.  It is time that they be cut.”

With that, he raised the white blade high.  The word
halt
caught on Enkhaelen's tongue; if he used it, Rackmar would only enjoy his kill the more, and the boy was a husk now.  Valueless.

Yet not without use.  As long as Rackmar thought he held the Guardian, he was still a piece in the game.

“Coward,” he said instead, putting a laugh into it.  “You're like a child who kicks over the game-table when he's about to lose.”

“I will not lose!” the Field Marshal bellowed.  The blade hovered above Cob's bent head.  “This is the end for you!”

“Well, go ahead then.  I don't care.  Just don't rant and rave like this when we're in front of the Emperor.  You're like a rabid boar; it's embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?” Rackmar echoed coldly.

Enkhaelen turned up his smirk.  “Certainly.  I dread the day when you work yourself into such a froth that your withered little heart fails and I'm forced to resuscitate you.  You could at least do me the favor of cropping that crotch-growth beard so I can find your mouth.”

“
What did you just say?
”

He didn't answer; it wasn't necessary.  He'd learned long ago that a high, derisive laugh was more infuriating to such men than any insult.

It caught Rackmar like a hook.  Fury flamed in his eyes, and he took a step forward almost unwittingly, hostage forgotten.  The white sword quivered in his hand, tendrils separating as his concentration failed.  From the way his heavy jaw clenched, Enkhaelen knew he was trying to resist the urge—trying to stay on task despite the war-drum in his ears, the red pulse of hate.

So Enkhaelen pointed at him and laughed harder.  It wasn't difficult to feign.  This was his favorite part of the job.

His scorn uprooted Rackmar's feet, and suddenly the man was rushing him: three hundred pounds of flesh and steel unbound by the niceties of court.  He let it happen—the hands on his neck heaving him up and back, slamming him into the white material of the great doors like a carcass onto the butcher's block.  Struggle was necessary, so he kicked ineffectively at Rackmar's ribs with slippered feet, clawed at his gauntlets with bare hands.

Thick thumbs pressed into the hollow of his throat.  From this close, he saw the veins bulging on Rackmar's brow and pulsing in his neck, caught the adrenaline-stink in his sweat.  His nails found the gaps in the gauntlets; if he wanted, he could light the bastard up from the inside—roast him like a hog.

But if he did, the Emperor might not open the door.

So he held his power and just wriggled futilely, because Rackmar liked that.  Shade by shade, the blood left the Field Marshal's face until he was calm again, teeth gleaming like polished tombstones through his beard, eyes black wells.

“I almost wish you'd come out to play,” he growled.  “So I could do this for real.”

“Come get me.”

Rackmar threw him to the floor instead, then kicked him when he tried to rise.  No wards flared; he'd dispelled them all for this.  He faked a groan, then a yelp when the Field Marshal's hand clamped in his hair.

“I've changed my mind,” said the big man, grinning nastily.  “We'll have a chat with the Emperor, you and I.  Everyone else can stay out here until we're done.”

Under his other hand, the great double-doors cracked open.

Shit
, he thought, grasping for inspiration.  It wasn't enough that he be in the throne room; he needed the Guardian too, or one of the other fail-safes he'd set.  But the doors began closing again as soon as Rackmar dragged him through, and he couldn't think of a lie that wouldn't end in someone's swift execution.  He'd done his work too well.

He tried to get his feet under himself as the doors slammed shut, but Rackmar just yanked him off-balance again.  Though he couldn't see ahead, he heard the Midwinter hymns falter, the priests and pilgrims falling silent as Rackmar strode past.  With every step, his sense of his real body became clearer.

Completely foxed it.  No chance of repair.  Even if some of my servants are here, it's not enough—it won't work.

I should have come straight here instead of intervening at the village.  Should have cut my losses while I still could.

Too late now.  Too late—

No, wait.

Too early.  Kelturin was right on our heels...

He pushed his nails through the gauntlet's gaps again, and sent a shock: not enough to kill, just to make Rackmar's hand spasm.  The Field Marshal released him with an oath, and he scrambled away, sketching warding-runes with one hand as he staggered to his feet.

Rackmar's fist hit a blue barrier and was deflected.  “Now you resist?” he sneered.

Straightening, Enkhaelen took a moment to smooth his robes and look around.  He'd been dragged nearly to the mid-point of the throne room—a vast rectangular chamber with the doors at one end and the dais at the other, the rest of it thick with pilgrims and White Flames and priests in second-floor alcoves.  A narrow path had formed through the crowd, marking Rackmar's trajectory; at its end, the grand dais stood nearly bare, only the Emperor, Empress and Lord Chancellor in attendance.  A smattering of mages and wraiths lined the walls nearby like statues.

The first mentalist needle punctured into his mind, then a second and third.  He grimaced, but it was tolerable; they couldn't rake his memories without physically touching him, and this body was beyond their control.  He had a few moments still.

Rackmar had already moved from him to address the Emperor, deep voice booming over the hush of the crowd.  “Your Imperial Majesty, I bring to you the greatest traitor ever to live.  He has tainted your empire for too long, my liege.  I beseech you to pass judgment upon him now, during this darkest of nights, so that his poison cannot harm us in the new year.”

It was difficult to tell from this distance, but Enkhaelen thought the Emperor looked pensive—almost bored.  He wasn't shining either.  Perhaps it was the length of the Midwinter ceremonies, or perhaps he'd finally grown tired of his underlings' fighting.  Either way, it did not bode well.

“What have you to say for yourself, Shaidaxi?” intoned the Emperor levelly.

Enkhaelen's hands rose, then fell; he wanted to fix his hair, since Rackmar had pulled all the clips out, but he dared not give insult right now.  “I would know the charges.”

“Conspiracy!” roared Rackmar.  “Wanton destruction of Imperial property.  Mass murder.”

“Is that all?”

Rackmar started toward him again, but halted as the Emperor said, “Your response?”

“Guilty.  Absolutely.”

He saw a grin form on Rackmar's face but falter as suspicion set in, and was pleased to have tormented that man so thoroughly.

He added, “I would like to explain myself.  To you, Aradys.”

Gasps arose from the pilgrims; to the pious, it was unthinkable to address the Emperor by name.  But even from a distance, Enkhaelen sensed the Emperor's smile.  “Go on.”

There was no time to make an ordered speech.  Instead, he let the words bubble up from the depths into which he'd drowned them, over and over, for four hundred years:

“I hate you.”

Over Rackmar's snarl, he continued, “Simple, yes?  But we both know it's not.  You gave me exactly what I wanted; I'm the one who betrayed our trust.  And what you did to me, I understand.  A criminal needs a prison, a madman an asylum, lest he run wild and burn the world.

“And it's not about what you are.  Outsider, infiltrator, tyrant, torturer—what does it matter?  We've had worse kings grown from our native soil.  Compared to the ones I've known, you're almost kind.  You remember where you found me, in that ghastly tower.  It's not wrong to call you my savior.”

On the throne, he saw the Emperor's head tilt.  There was interest in his gaze, but also impatience.

“We've had good times too.  What you had me do, it's nothing I wouldn't have done on my own.  Kill your enemies?  Fine.  Kill
my
enemies?  Happily.  Create, experiment, vivisect, transfigure?  Gather knowledge and power, destroying all records in my wake?  Wipe away a vast span of history like it never existed—like it would somehow erase the scars upon this land?  Well, why not!  Sounds like fun.

“You wanted a murderer; I wanted a target.  Many targets—
any
target.  Anyone at all.”

Surging forward, Rackmar sneered, “And now you've—“

Enkhaelen smacked him across the face with a pane of hard force.  He stumbled to a stop, spluttering, then choked as a second pane slammed him in the throat.  His eyes bulged as he clutched at the sudden dent.

“It's rude to interrupt,” said Enkhaelen.  “If you're too vain to put your helmet on, just shut up.”

A wheeze broke through the block, followed by a spasmodic cough.  Hands up in self-defense, the Field Marshal took a step back; if not for the danger, Enkhaelen would have followed him and pounded a few more strikes into that hateful face.  He had restrained himself for so long.