Citadels of the Lost (6 page)

“Then tell us what happened,” Ch'dak spoke gently.

Shebin raised her eyes toward Ch'dak but seemed not to see him as she spoke in flat, distant tones. “It was during our evening Devotions. Father had heard the report from a few of his returning Centurai warriors early that afternoon in his court. They were the first to return from the Dwarven Wars and had been expected as their trophies from the war had arrived earlier in the day. Father was angry with the Captain of the First Octia because he had lost the great prize in the final battle and had only returned with meager and unimportant dwarven trifles . . .” Shebin's voice trailed off to nothing.

“You say this warrior had lost a prize?” Ch'dak prompted.

“Yes,” Shebin said, gaining her voice once more. “The warrior had reached the Crown of the Last Dwarven King and held it in his hands. Then he had thrown it away.”

“Thrown it away?” Arikasi Tjen-soi chuckled loudly. Arikasi was the Minister of Occupation whose concerns largely touched on any of the conquered lands beyond the traditional borders of Rhonas. Once, many years before, he had been a warrior subjugating those lands—now, by the look of his growing midsection, he preferred to administer them from a distance. The fall of Aether Wells in the Western Provinces was of peripheral interest to Arikasi who preferred distant maps to nearer territories. The conquest of the Ninth Dwarven Throne and its associated crown, however, was firmly within his purview and seemed to awaken him. “You are mistaken, child. That crown was the expressed objective of the campaign, burned into the Devotions of every Impress Warrior taking the field that day. None would have been capable of doing such a thing.”

“My father believed that it happened,” Shebin replied, lifting her chin with just the right mixture of pride and hurt in her expression. “The other warriors who were with him confirmed it . . . and I heard it from his own lips.”

“But why?” Arikasi pressed. “Why would a slave so willfully break the bounds of his Devotions?”

Sjei frowned. Arikasi was derailing Shebin's narrative with unnecessary issues. The Sinechai leaned forward, opening his mouth to speak.

“I cannot say, Master,” Shebin responded. “Perhaps it was his first willful act of rebellion . . . the moment when the Captain of the First Octian conceived the tragedy that destroyed my home, saw my father torn limb from limb and my mother's charred remains impaled atop the ruins of our subatria wall with a spear.”

Sjei leaned back slowly. Shebin was good indeed. In a stroke she had both answered Arikasi's question and put him back on the point of this entire performance.

“Go on, child,” Kyori urged quietly into the short silence that followed. “Tell us what happened.”

“It was during evening Devotions,” Shebin said quietly. “All of the household and most of the slaves had already received their Devotions. We were all in the garden courtyard. I was down near the center next to the House Altar with Father and Mother—just next to the Aether Well. We heard sounds—shouts and screaming, I think—from the edge of the courtyard. I looked up with alarm and saw one of the slaves—that same Captain of the First Octian—brandishing a sword and threatening my mother and me.”

Sjei glanced around at his fellow members on the council. There were conflicting accounts as to exactly what happened in the Timuran House courtyard that night and not one of them corroborated the story Shebin told. It did not matter what the facts were—what would the council believe? Did Shebin's story go too far?

Not even Wejon challenged her.

“The House Guards approached him at once, and my father rushed to help them but it was too late,” Shebin continued. “Drakis turned toward the Aether Well . . .”

“Drakis?” Arikasi asked. “Who's Drakis?”

“The Captain of the First Octian, Master . . . the human warriorslave,” Shebin replied. “He turned toward the Aether Well, held out his free hand, and then there was a terrible bright flash of light and the sound of a thousand thunders. Pieces of the Aether Well flew . . .”

“Pieces?” Kyori exclaimed.

“Yes, Master,” Shebin shook visibly as she spoke. “It shattered—like dropped glass—its pieces falling like bright rain all about the courtyard.

Ch'dak turned to speak to the Modalis. “The Well not only was broken but exploded. I have seen the reports from the Iblisi Quorum who investigated. An Inquisitor by the name of Soen Tjen-rei reported that there were no pieces of the Aether Well remaining that were much larger than a finger of his hand. It was this event that caused Wells all across the Western Provinces to fail in turn. It was only by fortune that these cascading failures did not reach Rhonas itself.”

A murmur rose in the hall at this statement. Sjei raised his hand. “Brothers! Order! Let us proceed.”

Ch'dak turned back to face Shebin. “What happened next, child?”

Shebin's lips began to quiver, her black eyes shining under the light from above. “The . . . the slaves all went mad. It was like Drakis had cast a horrible spell upon them all. They began raving . . . murdering . . . they wouldn't stop. The . . . the avatria started to fall and our Tribune Se'Djinka pulled me out from under it. I saw my father. He was fighting with his sword, but there were so many! I couldn't see my mother at all. The slaves tore at me, tried to pull me among them, but Se'Djinka kept them away . . .”

“Who is this Se'Djinka?” Arikasi blurted, trying to follow the narrative .

“The House Tribune,” Ch'dak offered. “He commanded the Timuran Centurai at the Battle of the Ninth Throne.”

“Wasn't there a Ghenetar by that name?” Arikasi mused. “Fought in the Benis Isles campaign years ago.”

“I believe your memory serves you too well,” Sjei said quietly. “It is the same elven general but some history is best forgotten. Please, Tsi-Shebin Timuran, continue: what did Se'Djinka do?”

“He pushed me back toward the Hall of the Past. The avatria crashed down into the garden and fell over. It crushed so many . . . He pushed me into a hidden room . . . a room I'd never seen before . . . and told me to stay there until he came for me . . . Until he came for me . . .”

Shebin's voice trailed off, her eyes unfocused.

Ch'dak nodded. “How long were you there?”

Shebin's mind seemed to have taken her to a place far removed from the chambers of the Modalis. “The sounds were so chilling . . . the screams went on and on . . .”

Ch'dak tried again. “Shebin, how long were you there.”

“What did you . . . what?” The young elf girl blinked, trying to focus.

Ch'dak drew in a long breath between his sharp teeth.

“He found me, you know,” Shebin suddenly whispered across the silence with just enough strength to be heard clearly throughout the hall. “With the house burning and my parents dying somewhere out in the ruins—he found me in that filthy little room. The Aether was gone. I . . . I had no magic to defend myself and there he was coming toward me with that . . . that terrible grin on his face! I tried . . . but he was a warrior . . . a warrior, you see . . . and he kept touching me and pulling at my dress . . .”

Ch'dak looked away from her.

Sjei did not move. He knew this part was an outrageous twisting of the truth, but he could read the faces of his fellow council members.
We've got them,
he thought.

“My dress,” Shebin murmured, fingering the tears in the cloth. “It used to be so beautiful . . . and he had to ruin it all.”

“Who?” Ch'dak said as if on cue. “The slave who did this, who was it?”

“Drakis,” Shebin said through stuttering breaths. “The human slave named Drakis.”

“Thank you, Tsi-Shebin Timuran,” Ch'dak said in quiet respect. “We hear your words and shall deliberate on your justice.”

Shebin nodded hesitantly and then walked quietly from the room, her head bowed. The dark doors closed quietly behind her.

Wejon barely waited for the sound of the latch before his voice filled the hall. “What is all this to us? There is nothing new in this report that was not known to us.”

“To what are you referring, Wejon,” Liau observed coolly, ‘that all the Aether Wells collapsed at once in the Western Provinces or that it was all caused by this one human named Drakis?”

“It's one escaped slave!” Wejon squealed, his voice echoing in the hall. “That House Timuran fell is a tragedy. I feel nothing but the deepest of sympathies for this unfortunate young woman who has stood before us. Sad, indeed, is her tale. More tragic still are the hundreds perhaps thousands of others who did
not
survive this unfortunate accident to come and tell their tales to us as well . . . but we are still talking about a single, unimportant slave!”

“A slave who caused the fall of all the Western Wells,” Liau replied with, for the first time in Sjei's memory, an edge of anger in his voice. “The power of the Aether is what supports the very foundations of this entire Empire. We maintain control of our slaves by it. We command our armies through it. All trade is built upon it. Our lives are sustained by it. Our very walls are supported with it. Your own Order's
only
purpose in existence is the distribution of this power and your enrichment through it yet when all of this was shaken by the hand of a single slave, you consider him ‘unimportant'?”

Wejon bristled once more. “It was not
our
Wells that failed, but those of our Occuran brothers. Is it our fault that their poor craft left the Western Provinces in such a state that their Wells threatened the Empire itself?”

Kyori's hands gripped the rests of his chair until all color had left them, but a single warning look from Sjei kept him in his place.

“No,” answered Kyori with barely restrained fury. “But it seems that the efficient auspices of the Myrdin-dai managed to facilitate this ‘unimportant' slave's escape.”

“It is a lie!”

“I have seen this same report from the Iblisi, my brother Ch'dak,” Kyori said in even tones. The Occuran could smell Wejon's panic at being cornered. “It further states that this ‘unimportant' slave Drakis used the Myrdin-dai folds to escape northward and beyond.”

“But is this not what your friends the Iblisi do . . . capture escaped slaves?” Wejon snapped. “If they had escaped into the northern lands, then it was the Iblisi's responsibility to retake them.”

“And so they tried,” Ch'dak said.

“Tried?” Liau asked.

“This same Soen Tjen-rei . . . this Iblisi Inquisitor whose report has been quoted . . . left to do exactly that several weeks ago,” Ch'dak said, shifting his gaze to the elf from the Ministry of Occupation. “Arikasi, you remember Soen . . . he was the Iblisi representative at court at the time.”

Arikasi considered for a moment behind a frown. “Yes, I remember him. Unpleasant and always moving about.”

“That's him,” Ch'dak continued. “His reports refer to an ancient prophesy about a human named Drakis and how he would return to oppose the Empire. It's all nonsense, of course, but a large number of the Sixth Estate believe in it. They are all looking for some prophet to save them. Shortly after studying these prophesies, Soen went north to hunt down those slaves—and was followed immediately by a full Quorum of Iblisi who had orders to kill him.”

Sjei raised his eyebrows slightly. This was something he had not known—and he hated surprises. They always had a tendency to bite you when you were not looking.

“Not only did this Drakis escape again but Soen has vanished as well,' Ch'dak continued. “The Iblisi believe that Soen may have joined this Drakis. They have secured an Imperial Edict for his execution although from what I understand of this elf, asking for his death will be far easier than obtaining it. They're looking for both this Prophet and Soen now and appear to be going to great lengths to find each, but so far without success.”

Sjei turned to the Minister of Occupation. “Have you heard anything from the northern marches about either of these persons?”

“Wait a moment,” Arikasi said. “Someone said something just the other day . . .”

Come on, you used-up old fool,
Sjei thought.
Make the connection!

“A Prophet! I remember!” Arikasi exclaimed. “A trader working the Northmarch Folds told the Paktan guildmasters that there were mass migrations in the north . . . entire villages of Sixth Estate races just picking up and leaving. Everyone was moving past the Shadow Coast up toward Nordesia. Something about a gathering to a prophet who would free the slaves.”

Liau breathed out a sigh. “It's Drakis . . . all those migrations . . . he's raising an army in Nordesia.”

Arikasi suddenly sat forward. “Rebellion? In Nordesia? It must be put down at once!”

The Modalis all turned to Sjei.

“What should be done?” Kyori asked the Sinechai.

Sjei had engineered this moment and, despite a few unexpected bumps along the way, he had never doubted it would come.

“If it is the will of the Modalis,” he said with practiced modesty, “I believe I know what to do . . .”

T
HE SMALL SIZE OF THE ELVEN COURTYARD was more than compensated for by the elegance of its execution. Graceful curves formed the three walls around the central space, beautiful sweeping lines that spread like beckoning arms to the weaving, broad latticework of pale pink that held the carefully beveled panes of glass rising from the floor to arch overhead. The glass was imbued with Aether, making each pane completely transparent from inside the courtyard looking out. When viewed from the outside, however, the panes perfectly matched the opaque, dull white pattern design that formed the peak of the understated avatria above “Majority House.” The avatria rotated specifically to the whim of the current occupant, allowing just the right amount of brightness by day to come into the central space and the perfect view of the streets and lights of Rhonas Chas at night. Raised gardens were set with exquisite taste in elegant harmony, their flowers, herbs, and greenery in delicate and perpetual balance. It was a study in peace and tranquility, spotless and perfect.