The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (129 page)

Geraad shielded his eyes, too dazzled to see further.  His heart beat like a moth against his ribs, and part of him—the greater part—wanted to follow the shrieking crowd straight out the doors.  But there were others moving against the current, and when he sent out psychic feelers, he recognized them: Tarren and Wydma, plus two of the women who had come with the prince.

The Emperor's mentalists had noticed them too.

He couldn't tell where the metastatics were physically, but he had touched their minds before, making it easy to reestablish the links and block the mentalists out.  The women were more difficult, and as he fumbled at them, one of the Imperial mentalists slid below his guard to hit him directly.

With his emotions locked down and his thoughts just a thin stream, the only target left was perception.  Geraad's stomach lurched as the world spun, righted, then tilted again, kaleidoscope colors bursting from nowhere.  Planting his feet squarely, he closed his eyes and forced his sight to blank; while it couldn't keep the enemy's illusions at bay, at least he would know they weren't real.

His links remained, moving steadily through the firework-flares.  Nervous anticipation resonated from them, then a spark of love and regret—

Despite the danger, he had to look.  The illusion painted strong watercolors over Tarren as he charged up the dais, fused crystal blade in hand.  Above stood the burning figure of the Emperor, so radiant it was impossible to make out his features.  If there had ever been a time for a psychic attack, it was now.

But the Emperor had no mind to strike.

Geraad opened his mouth to cry out, but it was far too late.  A beam of sunlight lanced through Tarren's chest, then widened in an incinerating wash.  It did not stagger him—it had no force—and for a few steps he continued climbing, his robe catching fire around him.

Closer to the wall, Wydma darted up and past the Lord Chancellor without incident.

Tarren took another step, then raised his arm to interpose the crystal dagger between himself and the beam.  Shafts of blue and pink and gold scattered out to dance through the throne room, but then his hand caught fire, the flesh boiling off it in a black stream, and—

Breaking the link, Geraad focused on Wydma.  She was still going: now on the arm of the Empress's lesser throne, now leaping past her to the greater throne, now reaching up to stab her blade above its crest...

As it went in, the Emperor's beam punctured her side.

She tried to hang there.  He couldn't bear to witness it but couldn't tear his eyes away as the light cut up through her ribs then took her arm off at the shoulder, dropping her heavily at the Empress's feet.  Another bright streak vaporized her head.

The breath wheezed in his lungs.  He couldn't move, couldn't think, completely fixated on that scintillating blade.  Peripherally he saw the Emperor gesturing at it, his shining face contorted as if shouting, and on the other side of the Empress's seat he glimpsed the Lord Chancellor's disinterested response.

The Emperor's gestures grew fevered.  The Lord Chancellor shook his head.

The crystal blade sparked.

Then it blew, tearing chunks from the tops of both thrones and throwing the Empress down the steps.  The Lord Chancellor raised his arms defensively; the Emperor never moved.

In the wall, a pair of feet came visible through the haze of torn fibers.  They jerked, then kicked vigorously, and Geraad's eyes cleared as all the mentalists' attention turned there.

He thought to strike back at them, but the display on the dais wasn't done.  In his first move of the night, the Lord Chancellor stepped up to the top level, straight into the Emperor's beam.  It burned through his ceremonial robe only to scatter beneath his flesh, glints and flares shining out as if through painted glass.  With a flex of his shoulders, the Lord Chancellor unfurled into a wraith-thing of prismatic spines and prehensile wings, and reached up to grab the exposed feet.

The Emperor made a pulling gesture, and the remains of the Empress's throne lurched forward to close like a hand upon the Lord Chancellor—unraveling a huge section of wall in the process.  Even more came loose when the wings snapped out like shears to free themselves.  More tendrils lashed at it, but the narrow core within the slicing wings worked the prisoner out from the wall with indifference, until finally it found a hip and yanked—

A gout of light and heat surged out, brighter by magnitudes than the Emperor's beam.  Geraad covered his face with his arms, feeling his scalp singe and his hair crackle.  Even the Lord Chancellor made a fluting sound of alarm.

Then it dimmed, and he squinted out to see Enkhaelen curled up on the throne, still tethered to the wall by great spiderweb-bonds, with the Emperor standing before him like a guard.  A cord of brilliance ran from the necromancer's chest to the Emperor's back, infusing him with a light too bright to look at.  Two fierce blasts from his palm drove the Lord Chancellor into the air, wings folding forward to protect its core.

Enkhaelen was trying to cover the source, his bones visible like shadows through his back-lit skin.  Something was wrong with his hands, and amid the fibers that coated him like a caul, there were dark strands: his hair, corded into the Palace's substance by centuries of growth.

It was a shock.  Dimly Geraad realized he'd expected the necromancer to step free with a smirk and a spell—to banish this chaos and erase those deaths.  The bony prisoner on the throne was a far cry from the man he'd followed.

But one thing was clear.

He needs me.

As the Emperor's gaze turned elsewhere, he forced himself forward.

*****

Though Ammala Cray wanted nothing more than to attack the bastards who had harmed her children, she had agreed to help Lady Annia and would not renege on it.  The lady's locust-song cut through the crowd, peeling pilgrims from their path to let them pass through even the pinch-points, and despite her distaste, Ammala had to admit it was impressive.

She didn't know how to do it herself, and fervently hoped she'd never have to learn.  Even if there was no way to reclaim her original form, she had no interest in exploiting this one for any longer than it took to find her daughters.

Ahead loomed the dais, broken and stained.  She hadn't seen what damaged it, but the sunburst that had followed had touched her peripherally, sending a shiver of rapture through her like the dream-time in the hive.  Though a fainter light played up there now, it had the same ecstatic pull, its form surrounded by a corona of colors she could neither name nor describe.  Even when she turned her head away, it dragged at her eyes like a compulsion.

Fortunately, her daughter Izelina's obstinance had come from her.

It almost made her laugh.  As a child, she'd gotten into as much trouble with her mother as that girl had with her, and for the same reasons.  Now, with her transformation threatening to undermine her will, she felt herself falling back on that younger self.  The one who said,
No, no, never,
even when something was done in her best interest.

If Lady Annia felt the same pull, she couldn't tell.  The woman's gaze was fixed on the dais steps, and as the crowd finally parted, Ammala saw the Empress sprawled there like a discarded doll.  Though there were Imperial servitors near her—soldiers, mages, pilgrims—no one had moved to her aid.

With a sound of dismay, Lady Annia strode forth.  Ammala followed at her heels, struggling to keep her eyes down.  The strange colors intensified the closer she came to the dais, and as she set foot on the first step she felt them burn into her.  Skin tingling, eyes aching, she pursued the lady to the fallen Empress and stooped to take her arm.

The Empress recoiled with a wordless cry, the motion sharp enough to slide her down another step.  “Mithara, hush,” said the lady, hooking an arm under her, and as she was levered up Ammala saw the pain and bewilderment in her eyes.  Her pallid hair had come loose from its pins to hang in sheaves across her lined face; her diadem was gone, her finely embroidered dress twisted across her hips.  Though Ammala estimated her at a well-kept sixty-five, her mien was that of a battered child.

A flare of light passed over their heads, making the Empress squeal.  Ammala glanced up to see a great amalgamation of swirling crystal being flung backward, having apparently made a dive at the throne.  Strange colors cloaked it too—not as strong as those of the Emperor but sharper, more focused.  Painful to observe.

“Mithara, please cooperate,” said the lady.  Ammala copied her grip, and though the Empress squirmed and wailed, it was no worse than managing her mother-in-law's fits.  There was a reason Maegotha Cray had come to live with them rather than the families of her older sons: their wives hadn't been up to the job.

“Up we go,” said Ammala, and together they heaved the Empress to her feet. 

A quick glance, then Lady Annia tugged them onward, saying, “This way, into a corridor.”  Though Ammala could see the pilgrims still streaming that way en masse, she didn't object.  The possibility of being trampled paled against the danger of staying here.

Awkwardly, stumblingly, they made their escape.

*****

Beneath him, Kelturin felt the Palace shudder.  The blasts had driven him to his knees long enough for white threads to bind his legs down, but now they were loosening.  Either his father's attention had turned away, or...

They can't have killed him.  He's mine.

Tearing free of the tendrils, he levered himself up from the still-trembling ground and looked around.  Past the looming spikes, the ceiling and throne-area had dimmed; a wraith lofted upward from the direction of the dais, followed by a brilliant bolt that caught it in the wings.

Good, he's still there.

Go now.  Quickly.

Willing the crystal into a long blade, he cut diagonal slices through the spike-wall and kicked the severed chunk away.  Beyond it loomed another one, motionless and nonreactive as he carved through.  And then another, and another...

Bloody pikes, father!

Perseverance paid off after the fourth.  Stepping through the gap, he found himself a few yards from the dais, and for a moment could only stare at the chaos.  His mother's throne was gone, his father's broken; blackness streamed down from two bodies on the steps, tainting everything it touched.  The Lord Chancellor had vanished, and a wild glance showed him two women fleeing toward a side-door with a third in their arms—the lagalaina and his mother.

At the top, his father stood more radiant than ever, directing a current of light at the spreading stains.  The dais sagged there as if rotten; if his power was having any effect, Kelturin couldn't tell.

And then the first step was beneath his feet, the blade reassembling into a shield on his right arm, and he was climbing—no, lunging upward, more bloodthirsty than ever in his life.  His weapon could not be both sword and shield, but he would manage something, and he would end this for all time.

Through the vermilion crystal he saw his father's gaze turn upon him, and braced his feet as a man-sized shaft of light struck down.  The shield's facets scattered it into a million narrow streaks but couldn't deflect them all; a dozen seared through enamel and steel to ricochet harmlessly beneath his false flesh.  It didn't hurt—light and heat had never bothered him—but the influx of power frayed his tattooed bonds, and he lost control of his right arm and shoulder.  Damaged armor fell away as they burst into a hundred hooked sub-limbs, his side sprouting feathery tendrils in accompaniment.

The shield too was in flux, its multidimensional nature triggered.  Shards and facets broke off at random, hovering like insects or vanishing and reappearing in new places; the edges stretched and collapsed, twisted and flattened.  Only the core on his splitting arm remained stable, and then only just.

He considered jettisoning it and facing his father by will alone.  But he knew better.  For all his connection to the Palace and the Light, he was a material creature, and would evaporate under the full force of that glare.  Forcing the shield into a blade-like shape, he fixed all his strength upon keeping it—and himself—together.

Faintly, from the steps behind him, came the sound of slippered feet.

Then he was cresting the dais, the Emperor glowing like a bloody sun through the glass, and the radiance seared another layer of enamel from his gear.  Everything here shone; even Enkhaelen, pinned to the throne, was dimly incandescent, his arms wrapped around his chest as if to hide the hot bright circle at its center.

“My son,” said the Emperor.

It hit Kelturin like a spike to the heart, and though there was no force in it, the sense of focused attention locked his legs in place.  The eyes took him—shrank him—made him a child again, shaking a child's fist against the untroubled gaze of his creator.

I'm not your anything
, he wanted to scream, but there was no point.  Aradys had never listened to him, had always eclipsed him; this was the only way it could end.  Breaking the gaze, he raised the half-made blade and swung it with all his might.

It cut in, through, and out the other side of that shining torso.

In the wound was nothing but light.