Time of the Eagle (30 page)

Finally we passed down a hallway of gleaming black stone. At the end of it was a pair of high doors covered with gold. Six guards lay in their blood outside them, with the bodies of three of Boaz's soldiers. I held up my hand, and Ishtok stopped.

“Wait here,” I said.

“I'm coming with you.”

“No. He would try to get to me through you. He would do terrible things to you, just to break me. I can't protect both of us. This is my fight, Ishtok; I was trained for this.”

Unwillingly, he nodded. I went close to him and raised the amulet about his neck. Unutterable peace flooded over me. “If ever you are in need of help,” I said, “raise this to your forehead. You will see a vision of an old man. Do as he tells you.”

I kissed him, then said a prayer, and faced the golden doors. Pushing them open with both hands, I passed through. Beyond them was an archway heavily curtained. I pushed aside the drapes, and went in.

The room was full of fire. The sight of it, the sound of its roaring, the pungent smell of smoke, almost beat me back; but then—perhaps because I was protected—I realized that there was no heat. Then I saw that the red carpet beneath my feet did not burn, and that the white marble floor on either side remained untouched by the fire, though the flames licked and poured along it toward me. It was a strong illusion, and I knew that to believe in it even for a moment would be to feel its heat, to die in its intensity. Remembering all that Sheel Chandra had taught me, steeling my mind, giving doubt no place, I stepped into the flames. I cannot describe the feeling of walking in that illusion, the strangeness of the effect of heat beating all about me, of intense forces lifting my hair and brushing my face, indescribable radiance licking my skin, leaving me almost breathless; yet there was no heat, no burning. On I walked, and soon the illusion of fire faded and vanished away, and I saw near my feet, lying contorted, as if they had died in utmost agony, the bodies of two soldiers. One of them was Boaz.

Kneeling, I put my hand on his neck. There was no pulse. Neither was there a mark on him, though he had died screaming, with an arm across his eyes, horror and anguish in his face. For a moment I was almost undone, moved by sorrow and the enormity of the evil that had defeated him. I checked the other soldier, saw no mark on him, either, though he was dead. Gathering up my courage, I said a prayer for their souls, and
stood up and faced the way ahead. All the fire had gone, and the room shone in the early sun that poured in through tall windows on my right. The red carpet went on only a little farther, and at the end of it was a golden chair with cushions of purple velvet. On the chair sat a man.

He was leaning with an elbow on the arm of the chair, his elegant right hand stroking his oiled and curled beard. He was olive skinned, handsome, with very black eyes. He smiled a little as if he were amused and said, in a voice as soft as silk, “Welcome, daughter of Gabriel Eshban Vala.”

Slowly, again shielding myself with light, knowing that what I saw now was indeed reality, I approached the throne of the Emperor Jaganath.

H
e was a striking man, in a dark and evil way. Though perhaps more than sixty summers old, he appeared younger, potent and forceful. Smiling, still stroking his beard, he watched me approach. His fingers glittered with jewels, and his long robes, the color of emeralds, were richly embroidered with purple and gold, and there were gems sewn into his sleeves. His hair was shoulder length, curled into ringlets, and a narrow band of gold was about his brow. So lordly he was, so majestic in many ways, that I had a strong urge to fall to my knees before him. I remained standing. With my whole inner force I protected my mind, envisaging a helmet of light, and a radiant unseen armor all over me. Above everything, I did not want him to know my thoughts, to know of the full force of the tribes gathered against him. Here, now, in the arena of my mind, I faced the biggest battle of my life.

“I trust you haven't come to arrest me,” he said quietly, with a charming, deadly smile. “Others have tried that, and you passed their corpses. The mind is an awful and marvelous weapon. The
men you saw were killed by their own fear. It never fails to astonish me, the power of belief. But you are well aware of that. You must also be aware of the fact that it is impossible for any person on earth to overpower me.”

“I have not come to arrest you, Jaganath,” I said. “That is the task of the new rulers of the city. But I will take you prisoner and make you incapable of resisting them.”

He laughed softly. “You're a true Shinali,” he said. “Mad with dreams. I know that your people are on their way. The watchmen in the highest tower spied them the moment they came through Taroth Pass. Also, I saw them myself, in the mind of the soldier Boaz, before he died. I saw you, in his mind. I know all about you, Avala. Everything.”

He lied, I knew. I said nothing but kept my protection strong, unbreakable. He went on, still in a quiet, sardonic way, “I know all things, see all things. I know that your people march with deserters from my own army, led by that traitor Embry. When the battle begins you can watch with me. You will see your people slaughtered one by one, exterminated like rats on their own land. Even as we speak, I have my army on the move—six thousand men, fully armed, marching out to meet them. And how many on your side? A thousand?

“Did they grow impatient, your people, Avala? Were the Hena and the Igaal too set in the ways of old enemies, to become your allies? Was the nomadic life too hard for the soft Shinali? Was the great prophecy too long in being fulfilled? Did they decide to march anyway, aided only by Embry's treacherous little troop?”

Here it was, the truth, the hidden heart of what he wanted—information about the one thing that threatened him, his one
almighty fear. I saw it in his eyes, his suspicion of a trap. His lips curved, but his eyes were piercing and watchful, and I had the uncanny feeling that something cold and supernatural crawled about the edges of my mind, probing, seeking a way in. I closed myself against him, and spoke out my own little deception.

“We have a priest,” I said, “who is a great visionary and seer. He had a vision in which he was told that even the greatest prophecies cannot come to pass without the willing agreement of those destined to fulfill them. He was told that even the All-father cannot cross the free will of any human being. And that willing agreement we could not get from the Hena and the Igaal, for they remain our bitter enemies. But in his vision, our priest heard that another people would rise up to become our ally, and with them we must fight, and with them the Time of the Eagle would come. Then, soon after our priest's vision, we were found by the man called Embry and his Navoran army. And so we march, and the Time of the Eagle has come.”

For a few moments the Emperor was silent, watching me, seeking out a chink in my armor. I remembered Zalidas in a trance, his whole being caught up in the splendor of the other world, and that much I let Jaganath see, and no more.

Satisfied, the Emperor said, with a kind of glee, “Your poor, foolish priest! Your poor, foolish people! You all have been deceived. You see, Avala, I know the power of the old prophecy. Prophecies don't change. Your people
were
meant to join with the Hena and the Igaal. Then, and only then, can the prophecy be fulfilled. I know. Today is not the day for your people to march. Today is not the Time of the Eagle. Today is the day of doom for your people. They are cursed, for their stupidity and their
blindness and their impatience.”

“You lie,” I said, pretending doubt. “You know nothing about prophecies, about sacred visions. You deal in illusion, in what is false, in deceit.”

“Do I? Where do you think I learned my powers, Avala? I was one of the most powerful Masters at the Citadel, in days gone by. I had a great friend, Sheel Chandra. We were equal in power, he and I. But I left the Citadel, chose to be free, to use my power unhindered. Sheel Chandra was weak, he chose to remain there, his abilities tied up in knots by their petty laws and regulations. He taught your father. I would have been your father's teacher, if he had had the courage to walk out of the Citadel and ally himself with me. Gabriel could have been the greatest man in the Empire by now, next to me.” His voice fell, became soft and seductive. “I loved your father, Avala. He was my great enemy, but I loved him. I loved his courage, even when he opposed me. And I love your courage. I honor it, as I honor your skill in seeing through my illusions. It was no small thing you accomplished, walking through my fire.”

I said nothing, waiting for the next insidious attack.

Suddenly he lifted his head as if listening. Then he smiled, not a mocking, cruel smile, but one with joy. “Avala!” he cried softly. “This day all your dreams are fulfilled. There's someone here who wishes to see you.”

His voice, his eyes, his pretended joy, entranced me. Breaking his hold, I tore my gaze from his and looked instead at the wall behind his throne. There was a painting there of the city of Navora. And beside the painting, radiant as the morning sun flooding across him, stood my father.

So real he looked, with his crimson robes and green sash, and his red-gold hair curling on his shoulders, every strand clear and vivid in the sun. And his eyes—how they looked on me, so full of love, of joy! He spoke my name, and I knew, I knew, that was how his voice had sounded! He held out a hand toward me, palm up, the hollow of it filled with light. He was grave and glad, fierce and full of peace, and beautiful, all beautiful. I longed to run to him, to touch his hand, his face, to feel his warmth. Yet I knew that if I did he would change into something unspeakably ugly that would break my heart and haunt me for the rest of my life.

I said to Jaganath, “That is not my father.”

The Emperor gave a soft laugh, though his eyes on me turned hard, like the eyes of a snake. The illusion vanished. “Your father would be very proud of you, Avala!” he said. “He, too, was highly suspicious of me. You're very like him. Idealistic and passionate, with a little power. But you're also foolhardy and shortsighted. He crossed me, and died for it. The same fate will be yours. You made a big mistake, seeking me out. What did you hope to achieve? To confront me with my wrongs, the way your father did? To kill me, maybe? No—you won't do that. You have an aversion to violence. A horror of it. A fear. You're like your father, Avala. Weak. Spineless. Double-minded. Do you know what drove him to your Shinali people? To your mother? It wasn't love, Avala. It was guilt. Fear.”

I longed to answer him but closed my mouth, shut all myself against him. If just for a moment I believed him, he would have a hook into my heart and into my mind.

The Emperor went on, his voice velvet smooth, full of cunning. “I'll tell you why he was guilty. He stole something from
your people. Something priceless, a great Shinali amulet. He was only a boy when he stole it. He stole it from a wounded Shinali woman, and he left her there to die alone in the mud while he ran away with her amulet. And that was what drove him to your people—his guilt. He was a weak man, unworthy of the huge honor our Empire placed on him. He was never worthy of the Citadel. Never worthy of being taught by the Masters there. I wasn't surprised when I knew he'd abandoned them, betrayed his Empire and his own family, and gone to hide with the very people he had stolen from. And you are the same, with the same feeble-mindedness and hypocrisy. Like him, you're torn between two nations. Like him, you'll betray one of them in the end.”

The armor, the armor over me. How close he came to tearing it apart! He said other things, but I did not listen. I was somewhere else, in a high place, my head on Sheel Chandra's knee, and his hand was on my head, shielding me. When I was aware of the Emperor again, he was getting to his feet.

“I'm going to watch the slaughter of your people,” he said. “If you wish to take me prisoner, you'll have to follow. I presume that is still your plan?”

“At the right time,” I replied.

He looked amused. “Let us watch the slaughter first, Avala. Then we'll play your little game.”

He went to the corner of the room and through a curtained doorway. Beyond the curtains were more stairs. Like the stairs in the tower room at Taroth Fort, they wound upward, spiraling. Jaganath stood on the lower step, half turned, as if expecting me to be too afraid to follow. When he saw that I was with him, he smiled darkly and beckoned, then faced the stairs and ascended
them. I followed. He called down over his shoulder, in a friendly tone, “No need to fear, Avala. No more tricks, no more illusions. Reality will be hard enough for you to bear now.”

“I'm not afraid,” I said.

We came out in a rounded room with green carpets and a wide window. It had no glass, but thick wooden shutters were folded back and fixed against the stone walls. A large telescope stood by the window. Beyond, the skies were silver blue, the horizon streaked with a few clouds of pure gold. I was surprised to find it still early morning; already the day had seemed long.

The Emperor stood before the window, looking down. “Come and look,” he said. “It's a wonderful view. We're at the top of the highest watchtower in the city.”

I went over, as far from him as possible, and looked down. Far below was the city, parts of it smothered in smoke. Flames leaped from buildings, and the streets were full of people scurrying like ants. I could see, on the far side of the city, the closed gates in the walls, the road behind them blocked with people and carts and horses, frantic to get out. There was confusion everywhere. Beyond the city walls were the green hills, the farms far to my left. It was hard to see; distance, and the new-risen sun, blurred my sight.

“That instrument by you is a telescope,” said Jaganath almost kindly, not knowing I was familiar with such things. “Look through it. Through that small eyepiece, there, near you. It will make things that are distant seem very close.”

I looked through the telescope, and the farms, the Shinali lands, leaped into my view. Across the lands, just past the garden where our house had once been, a small army approached.
There were Embry's soldiers on horses, and they rode in formation, making a long V-shape about ten horses deep. Behind them, shielded by them, marched a group of people on foot. The Shinali. My mother, and Yeshi, and—

“Move the telescope,” said Jaganath. “Move it down a little, see what is closer, what is waiting for them.”

I did as he said. A black shape fled beneath my sight; I saw the sown fields, the Navoran houses. I had moved the telescope too far. Slowly, carefully, I went back. Back to the blackness on the earth. And saw that it was soldiers on horses, vast lines of them, many, many horses deep, standing along the edge of the Shinali land, waiting. I gazed along the lines; saw the plumes, the shining armor, the glint of sun on deadly Navoran crossbows and swords. Thousands and thousands of them.

I gazed at Jaganath. He was still smiling, leaning on the window edge, his jeweled fingers idly playing with the gems that hung about his neck in chains.

“As I promised,” he said, “we will have a good view of the extermination of the Shinali race. They'll be cut to pieces on their own land. You can go and burn the bits, after. If you're lucky you might find your mother's head, maybe even more of her. And when you've finished burning what's left of your nation, I have other uses for you. Your father robbed me of the pleasure of executing him; I shall have that delight, instead, with his daughter.”

I shut out his voice and looked across the Shinali lands, over the top of the telescope. The day was beautiful, calm. Far, far in the distance, I could see the blue of the mountains, the river snaking like a bright thread toward Taroth Pass. There was no
sign of any warriors, and my people were only an arrow flight away from war. For a few heartbeats, fear tore through me. Had something happened to detain the tribes? Had Jaganath tricked me, after all, and had the main part of his army already gone out, in the night, and slain the twenty thousand? Were my people all about to die?