The Wizard of Time (Book 1) (24 page)

“You must kneel,” Pishara whispered from beside him

Gabriel looked at the throne and Kumaradevi seated upon it, staring down at him with a wicked smile, and made a decision: he would not kneel.

As he stood there the smile faded from Kumaradevi’s face, and her eyes changed from wide and joyous to narrow and angry.

“Why do you not kneel before your Empress?” Kumaradevi said, the anger of her face flickering away to be replaced with a charming gaze.

He knew it was the wrong thing to say, but for some reason he couldn’t help himself, and even as he spoke the words, he knew he would regret them.

“Because I am the Seventh True Mage, and you are not.”

The pain seared into his head like a white-hot blade driven into his skull. He tried to cry out, but the sound caught in his throat. He tried to bring his hands to his head, but they would not move. His arms were as frozen as his voice. He knew through the blinding pain that there was only one movement his body could make. Only one action that would stop the pain. Tears filled in his eyes, and he felt them running down his face, but it didn’t matter. The pain became so intense that he could no longer see the throne room or Kumaradevi or anything else. He knew what would stop the pain. Knew what would make it cease immediately. But he didn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. He could feel the pain beginning to peak, and he knew he would pass out in a matter of moments.

“You are a very stubborn little boy.”
He heard the words in his mind, echoing like a foghorn in a giant cave.
“You seem to think you still have a choice in obeying me. Let me show you how many choices you have.”

Gabriel felt a pressure through the pain. A pressure on his shoulders, pushing him down. He struggled against it, but his legs were no longer his own. His right leg bent and his left even more so as the pressure on his shoulders pushed him to the ground. Kneeling on one leg, the pressure continued to press at him, forcing him to bow his head in imitation of the hundreds of others behind him.

“That is better,” Kumaradevi said. “We would not want people to think you were ungrateful for your rescue.”

The pain vanished as quickly as it had come, but Gabriel still could not move, even to raise his head. The same invisible force that had pushed him to his knee still held him in place. Seething at Kumaradevi’s words as much as her actions, he found he could speak.

“I am most grateful for my rescue,” Gabriel said, staring at the granite mosaic at his feet and knowing he was again about to say something he would probably regret. “One day, I will be sure to reward you for it so you will know my gratitude.”

Gabriel felt his head pulled back by the invisible force until he stared at Kumaradevi’s face. It was a beautiful face, he thought. The only pleasant thing about her. He noticed that those beside him looked up at her. Kumaradevi ignored his words as she spoke.

“It is with great pleasure I present to you the Seventh True Mage, Gabriel Salvador,” Kumaradevi said, her voice ringing unnaturally loud through the cavernous audience chamber. “The forces of darkness have been allied against us for centuries, but now, with the power of the Seventh True Mage at our side, we shall once again reach forth from our sanctuary of light and claim that which has been denied us for so long. Soon, once his training is complete, we shall free ourselves from the shackles that the so-called Council of the Continuum has placed upon us, and we shall destroy the usurper and his mindless minions, and we will take our rightful place as the ruler, the Empress of All Time.”  The assembly behind him raised their voices in a cheer. Gabriel stayed silent. He wondered what sort of world considered the Council a force of darkness and Kumaradevi the embodiment of light.

“You have all served the Empire with great skill and devotion,” Kumaradevi said, “and when we have taken the Continuum, you will have your reward of the spoils. There will be hundreds of worlds like this one created, and those of you who please the Empire will have your kingdoms there.” Another cheer arose from the assembly of mages, and Gabriel felt his stomach turn to ice. Hundreds of worlds like this? And she planned to use him to accomplish it? And if he resisted? He brought his mind back to the present as Kumaradevi spoke again.

“When our champion, the Seventh True Mage, the Destroyer of Worlds, the Breaker of Time, has brought us our victory, all those who have opposed us shall suffer for their crimes. Just as others, who once opposed us, suffer now.” As she spoke, Kumaradevi raised her eyes toward the ceiling of the chamber. Gabriel followed her gaze upward. A gasp of shock escaped his lungs. He had not noticed it when he entered the chamber, his eyes distracted by too many things, but near the chandeliers hovered a woman encased in a sphere of flickering yellow and red electric bolts of light. She looked frozen, as though suspended in motion. Suspended in the act of screaming. Suspended in agony.

Nefferati.

Gabriel’s mind reeled. He had wondered what might have happened to the real Nefferati. She had been captured to become a display piece for Kumaradevi’s palace. A reminder to all who came to seek audience with her of what became of her enemies. At least she was still alive, Gabriel thought. He doubted that Kumaradevi would have killed Nefferati when she could keep the Grace Mage alive in anguish. As Gabriel brought his gaze back down to meet Kumaradevi’s eyes, something she had said gave him almost as much discomfort as having seen Nefferati dangling in the air above. She had called him the Destroyer of Worlds. The Breaker of Time.

That could not be good.

“Our day is upon us,” Kumaradevi said. “Our victory is at hand. Now we prepare for the Great Battle.” She rose from the throne and glided down the steps to the floor of the audience chamber. The cheers continued, but no one rose to their feet as she passed. Everyone stayed kneeling. Gabriel found himself dragged to his feet by the invisible force of Kumaradevi’s magic after she had walked past him. He heard her voice in his mind.
“Follow me.”
He felt an invisible hand push him forward, and he followed her down the long black carpet, through the audience chamber. Glancing behind, he saw that Pishara and his guards followed.

As Kumaradevi exited the audience chamber, several servants in long gray robes stepped behind her. A man carrying a small stack of books joined a woman holding a tray with goblets of wine, followed by a thin man holding a tray of cheeses, breads, and fruits. Beside him walked another woman carrying a small table with paper and pen. Behind all of them all walked a woman holding a bowl of water and a small towel. Apparently, Kumaradevi believed in having her needs met at any moment wherever she went. And she liked supplication wherever she went as well. No matter who they passed, each and every person dropped to one knee and bowed their head.

She led the procession through the main corridor and down another, up three flights of stairs, and through a wide courtyard filled with small gnarled trees and tall statues similar to the ones he had seen before, looking like half-human creatures twisted in pain. Past the courtyard, they came upon a wide stone terrace with a marble railing carved to resemble a snake writhing atop a string of sword tips. The terrace held a raised platform and a throne chair similar to the one in the audience chamber. Carved from a solid piece of granite, this one resembled a mass of human bodies bent beneath a great weight. Gabriel ignored the throne as he stepped up beside Kumaradevi at the railing.

“Behold the Palace of Light,” Kumaradevi said, spreading her arms wide to indicate the size and opulence of the palace grounds. The balcony offered a good view of the rest of the palace. Gabriel could see hundreds of buildings, dozens of courtyards and gardens, and the pyramid temple he had glimpsed earlier from his room. He could also see a building that looked like a coliseum and a smaller arena directly below the terrace that looked like it was used for fighting. As he saw what filled the arena, he could not help but jump back from the railing in surprise. Kumaradevi laughed and pushed him forward again.

“Is…Is that…” Gabriel stuttered, “is that a dragon?”

“What does it look like?” Kumaradevi said.

“It looks like a dragon,” Gabriel said.

“Then I suppose it is,” Kumaradevi said.

“How is that possible?” Gabriel asked as he stared at the dragon. It must have been nearly a hundred and twenty feet long and thirty feet tall at the shoulders with a neck that stretched well beyond that. Its leathery wings clung tight to its blue and green-scaled body, held close like a cloak wrapped against a chill. It swung its head around, and Gabriel could see that its eyes were glazed and milky. The way it moved made him realize that it was blind. He looked more closely at the dragon’s scales and the way it shuffled slowly, dragging tree-thick chains connected to huge metal shackles around its legs. Gabriel suspected that the dragon was very old.

“It is possible,” Kumaradevi said, “because I made it possible. I see your magical education has been limited to say the least. I will teach you, in due time, how to create dragons if you wish. It is not all that hard. Once you find the proper beasts to alter and blend together. They are marvelous creatures, if fashioned properly. Difficult to keep fed, but wonderful to watch in battle.”

Gabriel tore his eyes away from the dragon and noticed for the first time that people stood in the sunken stone arena. Three people tied to large wooden stakes with kindling wood piled to their chests. Gags filled their mouths, but their eyes were not covered. The woman bound between the two men could not look at the dragon, keeping her head turned completely to the side. In contrast, the men on either side of her could not take their eyes off the beast, their heads weaving back and forth with every movement of the dragon’s long neck, large mouth, and man-sized teeth. The three looked thin and bruised. It seemed they had been starved and beaten for weeks.

Gabriel found his stomach suddenly queasy and his legs weak. He did not have to be told what was coming next. He looked away from the scene below as Kumaradevi’s voice drew his attention.

“Your insolence today was unacceptable,” Kumaradevi said with a hard look in her eye, “but I blame myself. It was not properly explained to you how to behave in my royal presence. You were uninformed. So, I will inform you now of how you must behave. And to drive the lesson home, I will show you what happens to those who displease me.” She gave Gabriel a sparkling smile. She might have been offering to make him cookies from the way her lips curled. “You will always kneel upon greeting my royal presence, in the audience chamber or anywhere else. You will speak only when given leave to do so, and you will stand only when I request it of you. As you are to be my apprentice, when we are not in formal situations, you need not be so formal. However, you will request permission to approach me and to speak to me. When you address me, it will always be as Empress, or Your Royal Highness, or Your Grace. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “Your Grace.” He tried to keep his face neutral, but it was a struggle. He had never really felt hatred for anyone before, but he was beginning to feel something hot and unpleasant burn in his heart for Kumaradevi.

“Now then,” Kumaradevi continued, “violation of these very simple principles will be punished. Severely. Below us, you can see three people who have displeased me. I want you to watch what happens to them.”

“May I ask a question, Your Grace?” Gabriel said. He wanted to proceed cautiously.

“You may,” Kumaradevi replied, tilting her head with curiosity.

“What did they do to displease Your Grace?” Gabriel asked.

Kumaradevi’s eyes narrowed, but she replied. “That man on the end, he disobeyed a direct war command to slaughter a village. He seemed to think that sparing the village was the noble thing to do. When I want nobility, I will order it. The woman was caught trying to poison my food. While we are True Mages, even we can fall prey to poison if it is the right kind. I forced her to eat poison herself for the past month. A slow poison. Very painful. But she seems likely to die soon, and I know for a fact that she fears dragons more than anything else. Her family was killed by dragons when she was a child. She still has the burns along her back from her escape. She’ll soon have burns on the front to match.

“The other man was a great disappointment to me. I had charged him personally with increasing the imprints of a certain sword, and he used that blade to defend a woman and her child from his own men. It completely warped the imprints of light and contaminated them with darkness.” Gabriel knew that by darkness she meant positive imprints of Grace. The men were being killed for showing compassion, and the woman for trying to put an end to the horror of Kumaradevi’s world.

“Empress,” Gabriel began, “would it not be more fitting to suspend these traitors in time the way you have Nefferati?” They might remain trapped in a moment of agony for years, but they would be alive when Kumaradevi was defeated. And he already nurtured a strong seed of determination to see Kumaradevi defeated.

“How did you know Nefferati was held in time stasis?” Kumaradevi asked.

“I could sense it,” Gabriel said. “Your Grace.” He was trying desperately to remember to add that sickening phrase whenever he spoke.

“Really?” Kumaradevi said. “I’m surprised, given the paucity of your education to date. But to answer your question, if I imprisoned every slave, soldier, and servant who displeased and betrayed me in a time-stasis bubble, I would have the entire palace lit up like a bonfire.”

“May I ask, Your Grace, why you have imprisoned Nefferati rather than killing her?” Gabriel said. Maybe he could postpone the execution long enough for him to think of a reason for Kumaradevi not to kill the people tied to the stakes below.

“I imprisoned her because she does not deserve death,” Kumaradevi said.

“What did she do to displease Your Grace?” Gabriel asked.

“She killed my husband and son, for one,” Kumaradevi said, her voice suddenly filled with bitterness. Gabriel had not expected this, and he could see the anger rising in her eyes as she thought of it.