Mistress of the Empire

Raymond E. Feist was born and raised in Southern

California. He was educated at the University of

California, San Diego, where he graduated with

honours in Communication Arts. He is the author

of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Riftwar

Saga (Magician, Sil`,erthorn and A Darkness at

Sethanon), Prince of the Blood, Faerie Tale, The

King's Buccaneer and Shadow of a Dark Queen.

Feist lives with his wife, novelist Kathlyn Starbuck

and daughter Jessica Michele in Rancho Santa Fe,

California.

Janny Wurts is the author of several successful

fantasy novels including the Cycle of Fire trilogy

(Stormwarden, The Keeper of the Keys and

Shadomiane), a short story collection, That Way

Lies Camelot and The Master of Whitestorm. Her

epic new series, The Wars of Light and Shadow

begins with Curse of the Mistwraith and coritinues

with The Ships of Merior . All of her novels have

been published to great accalim.

Also by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts

Daughter of the Empire

Servant of the Empire

Also by Raymond E. Feist

Magician

Silverthorn

A Darkness at Sethanon

Prince of Blood

Faerie Tale

The King's Buccaneer

Shadow of a Dark Queen

Also by Janny Wurts

Sorcerer's Legacy

Stormwarden

Keeper of the Keys

Shadomfane

The Master of Whitestorm

That Way Lies Camelot

The Curse of the Mistwraith

The Ships of Merior

SCIENCE

FICTION

FANTASY

RAYMOND E. FEIST

and

NANNY WURTS

Mistress of the Empire

Ha~perCollinsPublishe~s

HarperCollins Science Fiction 8` Fantasy

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

77-85 Fulham Palace Road,

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

This paperback edition 1994

3 S 7 9 8 6 4

Previously published in paperback by Grafton 1993

Reprinted twice

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollinsPublishers 1992

Copyright ~ Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts 1992

The Author asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

ISBN 0 586 20379 6

Set in Sabon

Printed in Great Britain by

HarperCollinsManufaauring Glasgow

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior

permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,

by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or

othetwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent

in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it

is published and without a similar condition including this

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This book is dedicated to

Kyung and Jon Conning,

with appreciation for giving us insights and friendship

Acknowledgments

In the course of five years, in writing three novels together,

we are indebted to the following people without whose

contributions the work would have not been as rewarding,

for either ourselves or the reader. Our thanks:

To the Friday Nighters, who started it all way back

when R.E.F. asked where Midkemia was, thereby making

it .mpossible not to write the story.

To our editors along the way, Adrian Zackheim, Jim

Moser, Pat LoBrutto, and Janna Silverstein, for turning us

loose.

To Elain Chubb, for continuity and finish.

To so many people at our publishing houses who care

more than the job requires and work above and beyond

the call of duty, those gone on to other places and those

still with us.

To Jonathan Matson for being more than an agent.

To Mike Floerkey for spreading the word and technical

suggestions.

And to Kathlyn Starbuck and Don Maitz for putting up

with R.E.F. and J.W. respectively while we were impossible

to live with for the last six years. The fact we're still married

speaks volumes for your patience and love.

Raymond E. Feist

Janny Wurts

San Diego, CA/Sarasota, FL

June 1991

1

Tragedy

The morning sun shone.

Dew bejeweled the lakeshore grasses, and the calls of

nesting shatra birds carried sweetly on the breeze. Lady

Mara of the Acoma savoured the air, soon to give way to

the day's heat. Seated in her litter, her husband at her side

and her two-year-old son, Justin, napping in her lap, she

closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh of contentment.

She slipped her fingers into her husband's hand. Hokanu

smiled. He was undeniably handsome, and a proven

warrior; and the easy times had not softened his athletic

appearance. His grip closed possessively over hers, his

strength masked by gentleness.

The past three years had been good ones. For the first

time since childhood, she felt safe, secure from the deadly,

unending political intrigues of the Game of the Council.

The enemy who had killed her father and brother could no

longer threaten her. He was now dust and memories, his

family fallen with him; his ancestral lands and magnificently

appointed estate house had been deeded to Mara by the

Emperor.

Superstition held that ill luck tainted a fallen family's

land; on a wonderful morning such as this, misfortune

seemed nowhere in evidence. As the litter moved slowly

along the shore, the couple shared the peace of the

moment while they regarded the home that they had

created between them.

Nestled between steep, stone-crested hills, the valley

that had first belonged to the Minwanabi Lords was

not only naturally defensible, but so beautiful it was as

10 Mistress of the Empire

if touched by the gods. The lake reflected a placid sky,

the waters rippled by the fast oars of a messenger skiff

bearing dispatches to factors in the Holy City. There, grain

barges poled by chanting slaves delivered this year's harvest

to warehouses for storage until the spring floods allowed

transport downriver.

The dry autumn breeze rippled golden grass, and the

morning sun lit the walls of the estate house like alabaster.

Beyond, in a natural hollow, Force Commanders Lujan and

Xandia drilled a combined troop of Acoma and Shinzawai

warriors. Since Hokanu would one day inherit his father's

tide, his marriage to Mara had not merged the two houses.

Warriors in Acoma green marched in step with others

in Shinzawai blue, the ranks patched black, here and

there, by divisions of insectoid cho-ja. Along with the

Minwanabi lands, Lady Mara had gained an alliance with

two additional hives and with them the fighting strength

of three more companies of warriors bred by their queens

for battle.

An enemy foolish enough to launch an assault would

invite swift annihilation. Mara and Hokanu, with loyal

vassals and allies, between them commanded a standing

army unsurpassed in the Nations. Only the Light of

Heaven's own Imperial Whites, with levies from other

houses under his sovereignty, would rival these two armies.

And as if fine troops and a near-impregnable fortress did not

in themselves secure peace, the title Servant of the Empire,

bestowed upon Mara for her services to Tsuranuanni, gave

her honorary adoption into the Emperor's own family. The

Imperial Whites were as likely to march in her defence, for

by the honor central to Tsurani culture, insult or threat to

her was as an offense visited upon the Light of Heaven's

blood family.

'You seem delightfully self-satisfied this morning, wife,'

Hokanu said in her ear.

Tragedy

11

Mara tilted her head back into his shoulder, her lips

parted for his kiss. If, deep in her heart, she missed the

wild passion she had known with the red-haired barbarian

slave who had fathered Justin, she had come to terms with

that loss. Hokanu was a kindred spirit who shared her

political shrewdness and inclination toward innovation.

He was quick witted, kind, and devoted to her, as well

as tolerant of her headstrong nature, as few men of her

culture were inclined to be. With him, Mara shared voice

as an equal. Marriage had brought a deep and abiding

contentment, and though her interest in the Great Game

of the Council had lessened, she no longer played out of

fear. Hokanu's kiss warmed the moment like wine, until a

high-pitched shout split the quiet.

Mara straightened up from Hokanu's embrace, her

smile mirrored in her husband's dark eyes. 'Ayaki,' they

concluded simultaneously. The next moment, galloping

hoof beats thundered down the trail by the lake.

Hokanu tightened his arm around his wife's shoulder as

the two of them leaned out to view the antics of Mara's

older son and heir.

A coal black horse burst through the gap in the trffl,

mane and tail flying in the wind. Green tassels adorned its

bridle, and a pearl-stitched breastplate kept the saddle from

sliding backward along its lean length of barrel. Crouched

in the lacquer-worked stirrups was a boy, recently turned

twelve, and as raven haired as his mount. He reined the

gelding into a turn and charged toward Mara's litter, his

face flushed with the thrill of speed, and his fine, sequin

stitched robe flying like a banner behind.

'He's becoming quite the bold rider,' Hokanu said admiringly. '

And the birthday present appears to please him.'

Mara watched, a glow of pleasure on her face, as the boy

reined in the mount upon the path. Ayaki was her joy, the

person she loved most in life.

The black gelding tossed its head in protest. It was

spirited, and eager to run. Still not entirely comfortable

with the huge animals imported from the barbarian world,

Mara held her breath in apprehension. Ayaki had inherited a

wild streak from his father, and in the years since his narrow

escape from an assassin's knife, a restless mood sometimes

claimed him. At times he seemed to taunt death, as if by

defying danger he could reaffirm the life in his veins.

But today was not such a moment, and the gelding had

been selected for obedience as well as fleetness. It snorted

a gusty breath of air and yielded to the rein, falling into

stride alongside Mara's litter bearers, who overcame their

inclination to move away from the large animal.

The Lady looked up as boy and horse filled her vision.

Ayaki would be tall, the legacy of both his grandfathers.

He had inherited the Acoma tendency toward leanness, and

all of his father's stubborn courage. Although Hokanu was

not his blood father, the two shared friendship and respect.

Ayaki was a boy any parent could be proud of, and he was

already showing the wits he would need when he reached

adulthood and entered the Game of the Council as Lord

of the Acoma in his own right.

'Young show-off,' Hokanu teased. 'Our bearers might

be the only ones in the Empire to be granted the privilege

of sandals, but if you think we should race you to the

meadows, we'll certainly have to refuse.'

Ayaki laughed. His dark eyes fixed on his mother, filled

with the elation of the moment. 'Actually, I was going to

ask Lax'l if I might try our speed against a cho-ja. It would

be interesting to know whether his warriors could overtake

a troop of the barbarians' cavalry.'

'If there was a war, which there is not at the moment, gods

be praised,' Hokanu said on a note a shade more serious.

'Take care you mind your manners, and don't offend Force

Commander Lax'l's dignity when you ask.'

Tragedy

13

Ayaki's grin widened. Having grown up around the alien

cho-ja, he was not at all intimidated by their strange ways.

'Lax'l still has not forgiven me for handing him a jomach

fruit with a stone in it.'

'He has,' Mara interjected. 'But after that, he grew wise

to your tricks, which is well. The cho-ja don't have the

same appreciation of jokes that humans do.' Looking at

Hokanu, she said, 'In fact, I don't think they understand

our humor.'

Ayaki made a face, and the black curvetted under him

The litter bearers swerved away from its dancing hooves;

and the jostle disturbed young Justin. He awakened with

a cry of infant outrage.

The dark horse shied at the noise. Ayaki held the animal

with a firm hand, but the spirited gelding backed a few

steps. Hokanu kept a passive face, though he felt the urge

to laugh at the boy's fierce determination and control. Justin

delivered an energetic kick into his mother's stomach. She

bent forward, scooped him up in her arms.

Then something sped past Hokanu's ear, from behind

him, causing the hangings of the litter to flutter. A tiny

hole appeared in the silk where Mara's head had been

an instant before. Hokanu threw his body roughly against

those of his wife and foster child and twisted to look in the

other direction. Within the shadows of the bushes beside

the path, something black moved. Instincts honed in battle

pressed Hokanu to unthinking action.

He pushed his wife and younger child out of the

litter, keeping his body across them as a shield. His

sudden leap overturned the litter, giving them further

cover. 'The brush!' he shouted as the bearers were sent

sprawling.

Guards drew their blades in readiness to defend their mistress.

But seeing no clear target to attack, they hesitated.

Mara exclaimed in puzzlement from beneath a tangle of

14 Mistress of the Empire

cushions and tom curtains, over the noise of Justin's wails.

'What -'

To the guards, Hokanu shouted, 'Behind the akasi

bushes!'

The horse stamped, as if at a stinging fly. Ayaki felt his

gelding shudder under him. Its ears flattened, and it shook

its heavy mane, while he worked the reins to soothe it. 'Easy,

big fellow. Stand easy.' His stepfather's warning failed to

reach him, so intent was he on steadying his mount.

Hokanu glanced over the litter. The guards now rushed

the bushes he had indicated. As he fumed to check for

possible attack from the other quarter, he saw Ayaki

frantically trying to calm a horse grown-dangerously over

excited. A sparkle of lacquer in the sunlight betrayed a tiny

dart protruding from the gelding's flank. 'Ayaki! Get off!'

His horse gave a vicious kick. The dart in its hide had

done its work, and nerve poison coursed through the beast's

bloodstream. Its eyes rolled, showing wide rings of white.

It reared up, towering, and a near-human scream shrilled

from its throat.

Hokanu sprang away from the litter. He grabbed for the

gelding's rein, but slashing hooves forced him back. He

dodged, tried another grab, and missed as the horse twisted.

Familiar enough with horseflesh to know this animal had

gone berserk, he screamed to the boy who clung with both

hands locked around the beast's neck.

'Ayaki! Jump off! Do it now, boy!'

'No,' cried the child, not in defiance, but bravely. 'I can

quiet him!'

Hokanu leaped for the reins again, frightened beyond

thought for his own safety. The boy's concern might have

been justified if the horse had simply been scared. But

Hokanu had once seen the effects of a poison dart; he

recognised the horse's shivering flesh and sudden lack

of coordination for what they were: the symptoms of

Tragedy

15

fast-acting venom. Had the dart struck Mara, death would

have taken seconds. In an animal ten times her size, the

end would be slower, and brutally painful. The horse

bellowed its agony, and a spasm shook its great frame.

It bared yellow teeth and fought !he bit, while Hokanu

again missed his grip. 'Poison, Ayaki!' he shouted over

the noise of the frantic horse. Hokanu lunged to catch

the stirrup, hoping to snatch the boy clear. I-he horse's

forelegs stiffened, bracing outward as the muscles locked

into extension. Then its quarters collapsed, and it toppled,

the boy caught like a burr underneath.

The  of the heavy body striking earth mingled with

Mara's scream. Ayaki refused to leap free at the last. Still

riding his horse, he was swept sideways, his neck whipped

back as the force of the fall threw him across the path. The

horse shuddered and rolled over upon the boy.

Ayaki made no sound. Hokan' avoided a hedge of

thrashing hooves as he darted around the tormented

animal. He reached the boy's side in a bound, too late.

Trapped under the weight of dying, shivering horseflesh,

the child looked too pale to be real His dark eyes turned

to Hokanu's, and his one free hand reached out to grip that

of his foster father's a heartbeat ahead of death.

Hokanu felt the small, dirty fingers go limp inside his

own. He clung on in a rage of aerial. 'No!' he shouted,

as if in appeal to the gods. Mara's cries rang in his ears,

and he was aware of the warriors from her honor guard,

jostling him as they labored to shift the dead horse. The

gelding was rolled aside, the rush of air as its lungs deflated

moaning through its vocal cords. For Ayaki, there would be

no such protest at shattering, untimely death. The gelding's

withers had crushed his chest, and the ribs stood up from

mangled flesh like the broken shards of swords.

The young face with its too white cheeks stared yet,

open-eyed and surprised, at the untroubled sky overhead.

16 Mistress of the Empire

The fingers that had reached out to a trusted foster father to

stave off the horror of the dark lay empty, open, the scabbed

remains of a blister on one thumb a last testimony to diligent

practice with a wooden sword. This boy would never know

the honors or the horrors of a battle, or the sweet kiss of

his first maid, or the pride and responsibility of the Lord's

mantle that had been destined one day to be his.

The finality of sudden ending left pain like a bleeding

wound. Hokanu knew grief and stunned disbelief. His mind

worked through the shock only out of reflex trained on the

fields of war. 'Cover the child with your shield,' he ordered.

'His mother must not see him like this.'

But the words left numbed lips too late. Mara had rushed

after him, end he felt the flurry of her silken robes against

his calf as she flung herself on her knees by her son. She

reached out to embrace him, to raise him up from the

dusty ground as if through sheer force of love she could

restore him to life. But her hands froze in the air over the

bloody rags of flesh that had been Ayaki's body. Her mouth

opened without sound. Something crumpled inside her. On

instinct, Hokanu caught her back and bundled her against

his shoulder.

'He's gone to the Red God's halls,' he murmured. Mara

did not respond; Hokanu felt the rapid beat of her heart

under his hands. Only belatedly did he notice the scuffle in

the brush beside the trail. Mara's honor guard had thrown

themselves with a vengeance upon the black clothed body

of the assassin. Before Hokanu could gather the wits to

order restraint - for, alive, the man might be made to say

which enemy had hired him - the warriors made an end

of the issue.

Their swords rose and fell, bright red. In seconds Ayaki's

killer lay hacked like a needra bullock slaughtered in a

butcher's stall.

Hokanu felt pity for the man. Through the blood, he

Tragedy

17

noted the short black shirt and trousers, the red-dyed hands,

as the soldiers turned the body over. The headcloth that

hid all but the eyes of the man, was pulled aside to reveal

a blue tattoo upon the left cheek. This mark would only

be worn by a member of the Hamoi Tong, a brotherhood

of assassins.

Hokanu stood slowly. It did not matter that the soldiers

had dispatched the killer: the assassin would have died

gladly before divulging information. The tong operated to

a strict code of secrecy, and it was certain the murderer

would not know who had paid his leader for this attack.

And the only name that mattered was that of the man who

had hired the Hamoi Brotherhood's services.

In a cold corner of his mind, Hokanu understood that

this attempt upon Mara's life had not come cheaply. This

man could not have hoped to survive his mission, and a

suicide killing would be worth a fortune in metal.

'Search the corpse, and track his path through the estates,'

he heard himself saying in a voice hardened by the emotions

that seethed inside. 'See if you can find any clues as to who

might have hired the tong.'

The Acoma Strike Leader in command bowed to the

master, and issued sharp orders to his men.

'Leave a guard over the boy's body,' Hokanu added.

He bent to comfort Mara, unsurprised that she was still

speechless, fighting horror and disbelief. Her husband did

not fault her for being unable to keep composure and show

proper Tsurani impassivity. Ayaki had been all the family

she had known for many years; she had no other blood

kindred. Her life before his birth had already been jarred

by too much loss and death. He cradled her small, shivering

body against his own, and added the necessary instructions

concerning the boy.

But when the arrangements were complete and Hokanu

tenderly tried to draw Mara away, she fought him. 'No!'

18 Mistress of the Empire

she said in strangled pain. 'I will not leave him here

alone!'

'My Lady, Ayaki is beyond our help. He already stands

in the Red God's halls. Despite his years, he met death

courageously. He will be welcomed.' He stroked her dark

hair, dampened with tears, and tried to calm her. 'You

would do better inside with loved ones around you, and

Justin in the care of his nurses.'

'No,' Mara repeated, a note in her voice that he instinctively

knew not to cross. 'I won't leave.'

And though she did after a time consent to have

her surviving child sent back to the estate house under

protection of a company of warriors, she sat through the

heat of the morning on the dusty soil, staring at the stilled

face of her firstborn.

Hokanu never left her. The stinks of death did not drive

him away, nor the flies that swarmed and buzzed and sucked

at the eyes of the seeping corpse of the gelding. Controlled

as if on a battlefield, he faced the worst, and coped. In quiet

tones he sent a runner slave to fetch servants, and a small

silk pavilion to offer shade. Mara never looked aside as

the awning was set up above her. As though the people

around her did not exist, she sifted torn earth through

her fingers, until a dozen of her best warriors arrived in

ceremonial armor to bear her fallen son away. No one

argued with Hokanu's suggestion that the boy deserved

battlefield honors. Ayaki had died of an enemy's dart, as

surely as if the poison had struck his own flesh. He had

refused to abandon his beloved horse, and such courage

and responsibility in one so young merited recognition.

Mara watched, her expression rigid as porcelain, as the

warriors lifted her son's body and set it on a bier bedecked

with streamers of Acoma green, a single one scarlet, in

acknowledgment of the Red God who gathers in all life.

The morning breeze had stilled, and the warriors sweated

Tragedy

19

at their task. Hokanu helped Mara to her feet, willing her

not to break. He knew the effort it took to maintain his own

composure, and not just for the sake of Ayaki. Inside his

heart, he bled also for Mara, whose suffering could scarcely

be imagined. He steadied her steps as she moved beside

the bier, and the slow cortege wound its way downslope,

toward the estate house that only hours earlier had seemed

a place blessed by felicity.

It seemed a crime against nature, that the gardens

should still be so lush, and the lakeshore so verdant and

beautiful, and the boy on the bier be so bloody and broken

and still.

The honor bearers drew up before the front doorway

used for ceremonial occasions. Shadowed by the immense

stone portal stood the household's most loyal servants.

One by one they bowed to the bier, to pay young Ayaki

their respects. They were led by Keyoke, First Adviser for

War, his hair silvered with age, the crutch that enabled him

to walk after battle wounds cost him his leg unobtrusively

tucked into a fold of his formal mantle; as he intoned the

ritual words of sympathy, he looked upon Mara with the

grief a father might show, locked behind dark eyes and

an expression like old wood. After him waited Lujan, the

Acoma Force Commander, his usual rakish smile vanished

and his steady gaze spoiled by his blinking to hold back

tears. A warrior to the core, he scarcely managed to

maintain his bearing. He had taught the boy on the bier

to spar with a sword, and only that morning had praised

his developing skills.

He touched Mara's hand as she passed. 'Ayaki may have

been only twelve years of age, my Lady, but he already was

an exemplary warrior.'

The mistress barely nodded in response. Guided by

Hokanu, she passed on to the hadonra next in line.

Small, and mouse-shy, Jican looked desolate. He had

20 Mistress of the Empire

recently succeeded in intriguing the volatile Ayaki with

the arts of estate finance. Their games using sEdl counters

to represent the marketable Acoma trade goods would

no longer clutter the breakfast nook off the pantry. Jican

stumbled over the formal words of sympathy to his mistress.

His earnest brown eyes seemed to reflect her pain as she

and her husband passed on, to her young adviser Saric,

and his assistant, Incomo. Both were later additions to the

household; but Ayaki had won their affection no less than

the others'. The condolences they offered to Mara were

genuine, but she could not reply. Only Hokanu's hand on

her elbow kept her from stumbling as she mounted the stair

and entered the corridor.

The sudden step into shadow caused Hokanu to shiver.

For the first time, the beautifully tiled stonework did not

offer him the feeling of shelter. The beautiful painted screens

he and Mara had commissioned did not warm him to

admiration. Instead he felt gnawing doubt; had young

Ayaki's death been an expression of the gods' displeasure,

that Mara should claim as spoils the properties of her

fallen enemies? The Minwanabi who had once walked

these halls had sworn blood feud against the Acoma.

Eschewing tradition, Mara had not buried their natami,

the talisman stone that secured the spirits of the dead

to life's Wheel as long as it stood in sunlight. Could the

lingering shades of vanquished enemies visit ill luck on her

and her children?

Afraid for young Justin's safety, and inwardly reprimanding

himself for giving credence to superstitions, Hokanu

focused upon Mara. Where death and loss had always

hardened her to courage and action, now she seemed

utterly devastated. She saw the boy's corpse into the great

hall, her steps like those of a mannequin animated by a

magician's spell, She sat motionless at the bier side while

servants and maids bathed her child's torn flesh, and robed

Tragedy

21

him in the silks and jewels that were his heritage as heir of

a great house. Hokanu hovered nearby, aching with a sense

of his own uselessness. He had food brought, but his lady

would not eat. He asked for a healer to make up a soporific,

expecting, even hoping, to provoke an angry response.

Mara dully shook her head and pushed the cup away.

The shadows on the floor lengthened as the sun crossed

the sky, and the windows in the ceiling admitted steepening

angles of light. When the scribe sent by Jican tapped

discreetly on the main door a third time, Hokanu at last

took charge and told the man to seek out Saric or Incomo, to

make up the list of noble houses who should be informed of

the tragedy. Plainly Mara was not up to making the decision

herself. Her only movement, for hours, had been to take the

cold, stiff fingers of her son in her own.

Lujan arrived near dusk, his sandals dusty, and more

weariness in his eyes than he had ever shown on campaign.

He bowed to his mistress and her consort and awaited

permission to speak.

Mara's eyes remained dully fixed on her son.

Hokanu reached out and touched her rigid shoulder. 'My

love, your Force Commander has news.'

The Lady of the Acoma stirred, as if roused from across

a great distance. 'My son is dead,' she said faintly. 'By the

mercy of all the gods, it should have been me.'

Rent to the heart by compassion, Hokanu stroked back

a fallen wisp of her hair. 'If the gods were kind, the attack

should never have happened.' Then, as he saw that his Lady

had slipped back into her stupor, he faced her officer.

The eyes of both men met, anguished. They had seen

Mara enraged, hurt, even in terror of her life. She had

always responded with spirit and innovation. This apathy

was not like her, and all who loved her feared that a

portion of her spirit might have perished along with

her son.

22 Mistress of the Empire

Hokanu endeavored to shoulder as much of the burden

as possible. 'Tell me what your men have found, Lujan.'

Had Mara's Force Commander been a more traditionbound

man, he would have refused; while Hokanu was a

noble, he was not master of the Acoma. But the Shinzawai

faction of the household was sworn to alliance with

the Acoma, and Mara was in no condition to make

critical decisions. Lujan released an almost imperceptible

sigh of relief. The strengths of the Shinzawai heir were

considerable, and the news Lujan brought was not cheering.

'My Lord, our warriors searched the corpse to no avail. Our

best trackers joined the search and, in a hollow where the

assassin had apparently been sleeping, found this.'

He offered "a round shell token, painted scarlet and

yellow, and incised with the triangular sigil of House

Anasati. Hokanu took the object with a touch that bespoke

disgust. The token was the sort a Ruling Lord might give

a messenger as proof that an important errand had been

carried out. Such a badge was inappropriate for an enemy

to entrust to an assassin; but then, the Lord of the Anasati

made no secret of his hatred for Mara. Jiro was powerful,

and openly allied with houses who wished to abolish the

Emperor's new policies. He was a scholar rather than a

man of war, and though he was too clever to indulge in

crude gestures, Mara had once slighted his manhood: she

had chosen his younger brother for her first husband, and

since that day, Jiro had shown open animosity.

Still, the shell counter was blatantly unsubtle, for a

working of the Great Game. And the Hamoi Tong was

too devious a brotherhood to consent to the folly of carrying

evidence of which Lord or family might have hired it. Its

history extended back for centuries, and its policies were

cloaked in secrecy. To buy a death from it ensured absolute

discretion. The token could be a play designed to throw

blame upon the Anasati.

.

Tragedy     23

Hokanu raised concerned eyes to Lujan. 'You think Lord

Jiro was responsible for this attack?'

His query was less a question than an implied expression

of doubt. That Lujan also had reservations about the

placement of the token was evident as he drew breath

to reply.

But the name of the Anasati Lord had pierced through

Mara's lethargy. 'Jiro did this?' She spun from Ayaki's body

and saw the red-and-yellow disk in Hokanu's hand. Her

face contorted into a frightening mask of fury. 'The Anasati

shall be as dust in the wind. Their natami will be buried in

offal, and their spirits be consigned to the dark. I will show

them less mercy than I did the Minwanabi!' Her hands

clenched into fists. She stared without seeing between her

husband and her Force Commander, as though her detested

enemy could be made manifest through the force of her

hatred. 'Not even that will pay for the blood of my son.

Not even that.'

'

Lord Jiro might not be responsible,' Lujan offered, his

usually firm voice torn by grief. 'You were the target, not

Ayaki. The boy is the nephew of the Anasati Lord, after

all. The tong assassin could have been sent by any of the

Emperors enemies.' ~

But Mara seemed not to hear. 'Jiro will pay. My son will

be avenged.'

'Do you think Lord Jiro was responsible?' Hokanu

repeated to the Force Commander. That the young Anasati

heir still felt as he did, even after inheriting the mantle and

power that had been his father's, bespoke stubborn, and

childish pride. A mature mind would no longer nurse such

a grudge; but in vain arrogance, the Anasati Lord might

well wish the world to know whose hand had contracted

for Mara's downfall.

Except that since Mara was Servant of the Empire, her

popularity was too widespread. Fool Jiro might be, over

24 Mistress of the Empire

slighted manhood, but surely not so much that he would

invite the Emperor's wrath.

Lujan turned dark eyes toward Hokanu. 'That bit of

shell is all the evidence we have. Its very obviousness might

be subtle, as if by calling attention to House Anasati, we

might dismiss them at once and look elsewhere for the

culprits.' Fury coiled beneath his words. He, too, wanted

to strike in anger at the outrage that had been committed.

'It matters very little what I think,' he finished grimly. For

honor demanded that he do his Lady's will, absolutely and

without question. If Mara asked him to muster the Acoma

garrison and march suicidally to war, he would obey, with

all his heart and will.

Dusk dimmed the skylights in the great hall. Servants

entered on quiet feet and lit the lamps arrayed around

Ayaki's bier. Scented smoke sweetened the air. The play

of warm light softened death's pallor, and shadow veiled

the misshapen lumps of the injuries beneath the silk robes.

Mara sat alone in vigil. She regarded her son's oval face,

and the coal-dark hair that, for the first time she could

remember, had stayed combed for more than an hour.

Ayaki had been all of her future, until that moment of

the gelding's crushing fall. He had been her hopes, her

dreams, and more: the future guardian of. her ancestors

and the continuance of the Acoma name.

Her complacence had killed him.

Mara clenched white fingers in her lap. She never, ever,

should have lulled herself into belief that her enemies could

not touch her. Her guilt at this lapse in vigilance would

follow her all her days. Yet how bleak any contemplation

of tomorrow had become. At her side lay a tray with the

picked-over remains of a meal; the food had no taste that

she could recall. Hokanu's solicitude had not comforted;

she knew him too well, and the echoes of her own pain

Tragedy

25

and anger she could sense behind his words galled her into

deeper recriminations.

Only the boy showed no reproach for her folly. Ayaki

was past feeling, beyond reach of sorrow or joy.

Mara choked back a spasm of grief. How she wished

the dart had taken her, that the darkness which ended

all striving could be hers, instead of her son's. That she

had another surviving child did not lessen her despair.

Of the two, Ayaki had known the least of life's fullness,

despite his being the elder. Fathered by Buntokapi of the

Anasati, whose family had been an Acoma enemy, in a

union from which Mara had derived much pain and no

happiness. Political expediency had led her to deeds of

deceit and entrapment that to her maturer view seemed

no less than murder. Ayaki had been her atonement for

his father's wasteful suicide, brought about by Mara's

own machinations. Although by the tenets of the Game

of the Council she had won a telling victory, privately she

considered Buntokapi's death a defeat. That his family's

neglect had made of him a tool open for her to exploit

made no difference. Ayaki had offered her a chance to

give her first husband's shade lasting honor. She had been

determined that his son would rise to the greatness that

Buntokapi had been denied.

But the hope was ended now. Lord Jiro of the Anasati

had been Buntokapi's brother, and-the fact that his plot

against her had misfired and resulted in a nephew's death

had shifted the balance of politics yet again. For, without

Ayaki, the Anasati were free to resume the enmity quiescent

since her father's time.

Ayaki had grown up with the best teachers, and all of

her soldiers' vigilance to protect him; but he had paid for

the privileges of his rank. At nine he had nearly lost his

life to an assassin's knife. Two nurses and a beloved old

household servant had been murdered before his eyes, and

26 Mistress of the Empsre

the experience had left him with nightmares. Mara resisted

an urge to rub his hand in comfort. The flesh was cold, and

his eyes would never open in joy and trust.

Mara did not have to fight down tears; rage at injustice

choked her sorrow for her. The personal demons that had

twisted his father's nature toward cruelty had inspired

melancholy and brooding in Ayaki. Only in the past three

years, since Mara's marriage to Hokanu, had the sunnier

side of the boy's nature gained ascendancy.

The fortress of the Minwanabi, Ayaki had been fond of

pointing out, had never been so much as besieged. The

defences her;,,were impregnable to an enemy. Moreover,

Mara was a Servant of the Empire. The title carried favor

with the gods, and luck enough to ward away misfortune.

Now, Mara berated herself for allowing his childish,

blind faith to influence her. She had used traditions and

superstitions to her advantage often enough in the past.

She had been a vain fool not to see that the same things

could be exploited against her.

It seemed an injustice that the child should have paid,

and not her.

His small half-brother, Justin, had helped lighten Ayaki's

bleak spells. Her second son was the child of the barbarian

slave she still loved. She had only to close her eyes for

an instant and Kevin's face came to mind, nearly always

smiling over some ridiculous joke, his red hair and beard

shining copper under Kelewan's sun. With him she had

shared none of the harmonious rapport she now enjoyed

with Hokanu. No, Kevin had been tempestuous, impulsive,

at times passionately illogical. He would not have hidden

his grief from her, but would have freed his feelings in an

explosive storm; in his intense expression of life she might

have found the courage to face this outrage. Young Justin

had inherited his father's carefree nature. He laughed easily,

was quick to get into mischief, and already evidenced a fast

Tragedy

27

tongue. Like his father before him, Justin had a knack for

snapping Ayaki out of his brooding. He would run on fat

legs, trip, and tumble over laughing, or he would make

ridiculous faces until it was impossible to be near him and

stay withdrawn.

But there would be no more shared laughter for Ayaki

now.

Mara shivered, only that moment conscious of the

presence of someone at her side. Hokanu had entered

the chamber in the uncannily silent manner he had learned

from the foresters on the barbarian world.

Aware that she had noticed him, he took her cold hand

into his warm one. 'My Lady, it is past midnight. You would

do well to take some rest.'

Mara half turned from the bier. Her dark eyes fastened

on Hokanu's, and the compassion in his gaze caused her to

dissolve into tears. His handsome features blurred, and his

grip shifted, supporting her body against his shoulder. He

was strong in the same sparely muscled way of his father.

And if he did not kindle the wild passion that Kevin had,

with him, Mara shared an effortless understanding. He was

husband to her as Ayaki's father had never been, and his

presence now as grief crumbled her poise was all that kept

her from insanity. The touch that sought to soothe her

sorrow was that of a man well capable of command on the

field of war. He preferred peace, as she did, but when the

ways of the sword became necessary, he had the courage of

the tigers that inhabited the world beyond the rift.

Now, belatedly, the Acoma would need those skills

in battle.

As tears rinsed Mara's cheeks, she tasted bitterness that

knew no limit. The guilt inside her had a name she could use

as a scapegoat. Jiro of the Anasati had murdered her son;

for that, she would destroy his house beyond the memory

of the living.

28 Mistress of the Empire

As though he sensed the ugly turn of her thoughts,

Hokanu shook her gently. 'My Lady, you are needed. Justin

cried all through his supper, asking what had happened

to his mama. Keyoke called each hour for instructions,

and Force Commander Lujan needs to know how many

companies should be recalled from garrison duty at your

estates near Sulan-Qu.'

In his inimitably subtle way, Hokanu did not argue the

necessity for war. That brought relief. Had he offered

questions, had he sought to dissuade her from vengeance

against Jiro upon grounds that a single shell token offered

too scanty evidence, she would have turned on him in a

fury. Who was not with her at this moment was against

her. A blow had been struck against the Acoma, and honor

demanded action.

But the form of her murdered son sapped her will; life

in any form seemed sucked dry, devoid of interest.

'Lady?' prompted Hokanu. 'Your decisions are necessary

for the continuance of your house. For now you are the

Acoma.'

A frown gathered Mara's eyebrows. Her husband's

words were truth. Upon their marriage, they had agreed

that young Justin would become the Shinzawai heir after

Hokanu. Fiercely, suddenly, Mara wished that promise

unspoken. Never would she have agreed to such a thing

had she realised Ayaki's mortality.

The circle closed, again. She had been negligent. Had

she not grown dangerously complacent, her black haired

son would not lie in state inside a circle of death lamps.

He would be running, as a boy should, or practicing the

skills of a warrior, or riding his great black gelding faster

than the wind over the hills.

Again Mara saw in her mind's eye the arc of the brute's

rearing form, and the terrible, thrashing of hooves as it

toppled . . .

Tragedy

29

'Lady,' chided Hokanu. Tenderly he pried her fingers

open, and endeavored to stroke away her tension. 'It is

over. We must continue to strive for the living.' His hands

brushed away her tears. More spilled between her eyelids

to replace them. 'Mare, the gods have not been kind. But

my love for you goes on, and the faith of your household

in your spirit shines like a lamp in the darkness. Ayaki did

not live for nothing. He was brave, and strong, and he did

not shy from his responsibilities, even at the moment of his

death. As he did, so must we or the dart that felled the horse

will deal more than one mortal blow.'

Mara closed her eyes, and tried to deny the oil-scented

smoke of the death lamps. She did not need reminding

that thousands of lives depended upon her, as Ruling

Lady of the Acoma; today she had paid for the proof

that she did not deserve their trust. She was regent for

a growing son no longer. There seemed no heart left in

her, and yet she must prepare for a great war, and achieve

vengeance to keep family honor, and then, she must produce

another heir.

Yet the hope, the future, the enthusiasms, and the dreams

she had sacrificed so much for had all gone to dust. She felt

numbed, punished beyond caring.

'My Lord and husband,' she said hoarsely 'attend to my

advisers, and have them do as you suggest. I have not the

heart to make decisions, and the Acoma must make ready

for battle.'

Hokanu looked at her with wounded eyes. He had

long admired her spirit, and to see her beautiful boldness

overcome by grief made his heart ache. He held her close,

knowing the depth of her pain. 'Lady,' he whispered softly.

'I will spare you all I can. If you would march upon Jiro

of the Anasati, I will stand at the right hand of your Force

Commander. But sooner or later, you must put on the

mantle of your house. The Acoma name is your charge.

Ayaki's loss must not signify an ending but create a renewal

of your line.'

Past speech, beyond rational thought, Mara turned her

face into her husband's shoulder, and for a very long

time her tears soaked soundlessly into the rich blue silk

of his robe.

2

Confrontation

Jiro frowned.

Though the unadorned robe he wore was light and the

portico around the courtyard adjacent to his library was

still cool at this early hour, fine sweat beaded his brow.

A tray of half-eaten breakfast lay abandoned at his elbow,

while he tapped tense fingers on the embroidered cushion

he sat on; his eyes unwaveringly studied the game board

spread at his knees. He considered the position of each

piece singly, and sought to assess the probable outcome of

each move. A wrong choice might not seem immediately

obvious, but against today's opponent, the consequences

were apt to prove ruinous several moves later. Scholars

claimed the game of shah sharpened a man's instinct for

battle and politics, but Jiro, Lord of the Anasati, enjoyed

puzzles of the mind over physical contests. He found its

intricacies hypnotic for their own sake. -'

His skills had surpassed those of his father and other

teachers at a precociously early age. When he was a boy,

his older brother, Halesko, and younger brother, Buntokapi,

had often as not pummeled him for the contemptuous

ease he displayed in defeating them. Jiro had sought

older opponents, and had even contended against the

Midkemian traders who visited the Empire more and

more often, seeking markets for their otherworld goods.

They called the game chess, but the rules were the same.

Jiro found few in their ranks to challenge him.

The one man he had never defeated sat opposite him,

absently scanning through an array of documents piled

meticulously around his knees. Chumaka, E;first Adviser

32

Mistress of the Empire

to the Anasati since Jiro's father's time, was a whip-thin,

narrow-faced man with a pointed chin and black, impenetrable

eyes. He checked the game board in passing, now

and again pausing to answer his master's moves. Rather

than being irritated by the absent-minded fashion in which

his First Adviser routinely defeated him, Jiro felt pride that

such.a facile mind served the Anasati.

Chumaka's gift for anticipating complex politics at times

seemed to border on the uncanny. Most of Jiro's father's

ascendancy in the Game of the Council could be credited

to this adviser's shrewd advice. While Mara of the Acoma

had humiliated the Anasati early in her rise to greatness,

Chumaka had,offered sage counsel that had sheltered family

interests from setbacks in the conflict that had followed

between the Acoma and the Minwanabi.

Jiro chewed his lip, torn between two moves that offered

small gains and another that held promise of long-term

strategy. As he debated, his thoughts circled back to the

Great Game: the obliteration of House Minwanabi might

have proven a cause for celebration, since they had been

rivals of the Anasati - save that the victory had been won

by the woman Jiro hated foremost among the living. His

hostility remained from the moment Lady Mara named

her choice of husband, and picked his younger brother,

Buntokapi, as her consort over Jiro.

It did not matter that, had his ego not suffered a

bruising, Jiro would have been the one to die of the

Lady's machinations, instead of Bunto. Enamored though

he was of scholarly thought, the last surviving son of the

Anasati line stayed blind to logic on this point. He fed his

spite by brooding. That the bitch had cold-heartedly plotted

the death of his brother was cause for blood vengeance;

never mind that Bunto had been despised by his family,

and that he had renounced all ties to Anasati to accept the

Lordship of the Acoma. So deep, so icy was Jiro's hatred

Confrontation

33

that he preferred obstinate blindness to recognition that he

had inherited his own Ruling Lordship precisely because

Mara had spurned him. Over the years his youthful thirst

for retribution had darkened into the abiding obsession of

a dangerous, cunning rival.

Jiro glared at the shah board but raised no hand

to advance a player. Chumaka noticed this as he riffled

through his correspondence. His high brows arched

upward. 'You're thinking of Mara again.'

Jiro looked nettled.

'I have warned you,' Chumaka resumed in his grainy,

emotionless voice. 'Dwelling on your enmity will upset your

inner balance and ultimately cost you the game.'

The Lord of the Anasati indicated his contempt by

selecting the bolder of the two short-range moves.

'Ah.' Chumaka had the ill grace to look delighted as he

removed his captured minor player. With his left hand still

occupied with papers, he immediately advanced his priest.

The Anasati Lord chewed his lip, vexed; why had his First

Adviser done that? Enmeshed in an attempt to fathom the

logic behind the move, Jiro barely noticed the messenger

who hurried into the chamber.

The arrival bowed to his master. Immediately upon

receiving the languid wave that allowed him leave to rise,

he passed the sealed packet he carried to Chumaka.

'Your permission, master?' Chumaka murmured.

'The correspondence is coded, is it not?' Jiro said, not

wanting the interruption as he pondered his next move.

His hand lingered between pieces, while Chumaka cleared

his throat. Jiro took this for affirmation. 'I thought so,' he

said. 'Open your dispatches, then. And may the news in

them for once dull your concentration for the game.'

Chumaka gave a short bark of laughter. 'The more

scurrilous the gossip, the keener I will play.' He followed

Jiro's indecision with an amusement that almost, but not

34 M'stress of the Empire

quite, approached contempt. Then he flipped over the

pouch and used the one thumbnail he left unbitten for

the purpose to slit the tie.

As he thumbed through the papers inside, his brows

arched. 'This is most unexpected.'

The Lord of the Anasati's hand hung in space. He looked

up, intrigued by the novelty of his First Adviser's surprise.

'What?'

Servant to two generations of Ruling Lords, Chumaka

was rarely caught out. He regarded his master, speculation

in the depths of his eyes. 'Pardon, my Lord. I was speaking

of this.' He drew a paper from the pouch. Then, as his

peripheral sight took in the piece under Jiro's poised hand,

he added, 'Your move is anticipated, master.'

Jiro withdrew his hand, caught between irritation and

amusement. 'Anticipated,' he muttered. He lounged back

on his cushions to settle his mind. From this changed

vantage, the game board showed a different perspective;

a trick picked up from his father at an early age.

Chumaka tapped a leathery cheek with the document

that had caused the interruption and smiled in his enigmatic

way. Typically he would point out a mistake; but in shah

he would not advise. He would wait for Jiro to pay for the

consequence of his moves. 'This one,' he muttered, making

a mark upon the parchment with a small quill.

Jiro furiously reviewed strategy. Try as he might, he found

no threat. 'You're bluffing me.' He went on to move the

piece in dispute.

Chumaka looked faintly disgusted. 'I don't need to bluff.'

He advanced another piece and said, 'Your Warlord is now

guarded.'

Jiro saw the trap his First Adviser had set: its subtlety

infuriated. Either the master would surrender the center

of the board and be forced to play a defensive game,

or he would lose his Warlord, the most powerful piece,

Conf ontatson

3S

and exchange position for a weakened offensive capacity.

Jiro's forehead creased as he considered several positions

ahead. No matter how many combinations he imagined,

he discovered no way to win. His only hope was to try for

a stalemate.

He moved his remaining priest.

Chumaka by now was engrossed in reading. Still, at his

Lord's reply, he glanced down, captured the priest with a

soldier, and paradoxically allowed his master to free his

Warlord.

Warned to caution by the reprieve, Jiro sought to

extrapolate as far ahead as possible. Too late, his mind

gave him insight: he saw with disappointment that he had

been manipulated to the very move his First Adviser had

desired. The hoped-for stalemate was now forfeit, with

defeat simply a matter of time. Prolonging the match

never helped; Chumaka seemed at times to be impervious

to human mistakes.

Sighing in frustration, the Lord of the Anasati resigned

by turning his Emperor over on its side. 'Your game,

Chumaka.' He rubbed his eyes, his head aching from the

aftermath of tension.

Chumaka gave him a piercing glance over his letter. 'Your

play is steadily improving, Lord Jiro.'

Jiro let the compliments soothe the sting of yet another

defeat. 'I often wonder how you can play so brilliantly with

your mind on other matters, Chumaka.'

The First Adviser snapped the document into folds. 'Shah

is but one aspect of the prepared mind, my Lord.' Holding

his master's attention with heavy-lidded eyes, he added, 'I

hold no trick of strategy, but of knowing my opponent. I

have observed you all your life, master. From your third

move, I could sense where you were probing. By your sixth

move, I had eliminated more than four fifths of the total

possibilities in the game.'

36 Mistress of the Empire

Jiro let his hands fall limp to his lap. 'How?'

'Because you are like most men in the gods' creation, my

Lord. You can be depended upon to act within a pattern

determined by your individual character.' Chumaka tucked

the parchment in a capacious pocket of his robe. 'You

spent a peaceful night. You ate well. You were relaxed.

While you were focused, you were not . . . hungry. By the

third move, I extrapolated that your game would reflect

directness, and . . . not boldness and risk.' Paying Jiro his

undivided attention, he summed up, 'The secret is to ferret

out the dues that will reveal the thoughts of one's opponent.

Learn his motives, know his passions, and you need not wait

to see what he does: you can anticipate his next move.'

Jiro gave back a humorless smile. 'I hope that one day a

shah master may visit who could humble you, Chumaka.'

The First Adviser chuckled. 'I have been humbled many

times, my Lord. Many times. But you have never seen it.'

His gaze flicked over the disarranged players, in satisfied

reminiscence. 'Play with those who do not know you as

I do, and you will emerge victorious. In truth, you have

an enviable gift for strategy. I am not a better shah player,

master.' The First Adviser selected another paper from his

pouch as he finished his rumination. 'But I am a far better

student of you than you have ever been of me.'

Jiro felt discomforted that anyone, even a servant as

loyal as Chumaka, would have subjected him to so detailed

a scrutiny. Then he caught himself short: he was fortunate

to have the man as a high officer. Chumaka's job was to act

as adviser, confidant, and diplomat. The better he knew his

master, the better he would serve the Anasati. To hate him

for his supreme skill was a fool's measure, the mistake of a

master too vain to admit shortcoming. Jiro chastised himself

for selfish, unworthy suspicions and said, 'What has you so

engrossed this morning?'

Chumaka shuffled through the pouch, selected several

Confrontation

37

more missives, and pushed the shah board aside to make

space to array the papers around his knees. 'I have been

pursuing that lead we had into the Acoma spy network,

and keeping watch upon the contacts as you requested.

News has just arrived that I'm attempting to fit in.' His

voice fell to a mutter intelligible only to him as he reshuffled

his piles, then resolved to thinking aloud: 'I'm not quite yet

sure -' He twitched another paper from one pile to the next.

'Forgive the disarray, master, but such visualizations help

me keep track of relationships. Too often one is tempted

to consider events in a straight line, in a particular order,

when actually life is rather . . . chaotic.' He stroked his chin

with thumb and forefinger. 'I have often thought of having a

table constructed of sticks, so I might place notes at different

heights, to further dramatise interconnections . . .'

Experience had taught Jiro not to be nettled by his First

Adviser's idiosyncrasies. He might grumble over his work,

but he seemed to produce the most valuable results at such

times. The Anasati spy network that Jiro had spent all the

wealth he could spare to expand was providing more useful

information each year. Other great houses might employ

a spy master to manage such an operation in his own

right; yet Chumaka had urged against allowing another

to oversee his works. He insisted on first-hand control of

those agents he had placed in other houses, guild halls,

and trading centers. Even when Tecuma, Jiro's father,

had ruled House Anasati, Chumaka had occasionally

left the estate to oversee some matter or another in

person.

While Jiro showed a young man's impatience at his First

Adviser's foibles, he knew when not to interfere. Now,

while Chumaka pored over the gleanings of his agents,

the Lord of the Anasati noticed that some of the reports on

the stacks dated back as much as two years. A few seemed

nothing more than the jottings of a grain factor's secretary

38

Mistress of the Empire

who used the margins to figure his accounts. 'What is this

new information?'

Chumaka did not glance up. 'Someone's tried to kill

Mara.'

This was momentous news! Jiro sat up straight, irked

that he had not been told at once, and maddened that some

other faction, rather than the Anasati, had discommoded

the Lady. 'How do you know this?'

The wily Chumaka hooked the folded paper out of his

robe and extended it toward his master. Jiro snatched the

message and read the opening lines. 'My nephew Ayaki's

dead!' he exclaimed.

The Anasati First Adviser interrupted-before his master

could launch into a tirade. 'Official word will not reach us

until tomorrow, my Lord. That gives us today and tonight

to weigh the manner in which we shall respond.'

Distracted from chastising his officer for withholding

information unnecessarily, Jiro diverted to consider the

course of thought Chumaka desired: for politically, the

Anasati and the Acoma had been bitterest enemies until

Mara's marriage to Buntokapi; since Bunto's ritual suicide,

her heir Ayaki represented a blood tie between the two

houses. Family duty had provided the only reason for

suspension of hostilities.

Now the boy was in Turakamu's halls. Jiro felt no

personal regret at the news of his nephew's death. He

knew anger, that his closest male kin should have been born

to the Acoma name; he had long chafed under the treaty

that compelled him as Anasati to provide the Acoma with

an alliance in the cause of that same child's protection.

That constraint was ended at long last. Mara had signally

failed in her duty as guardian. She had gotten the boy killed.

The Anasati had the public excuse, no, the honorable duty,

of exacting reprisal for the boy's untimely end.

Jiro could barely keep from revering in the knowledge

_

Confrontation

39

that he could at last begin to avenge himself on Mara. He

asked, 'How did the boy die?'

Chumaka shot his master a look of unveiled rebuke. 'Had

you read to the end of what you hold, you would know.'

Lord Jiro felt moved to assert himself as Ruling Lord.

'Why not tell me? Your post is to advise.'

The hot black eyes of the First Adviser dropped back

to his papers. He did not show any overt irritation over

Jiro's correction. If anything, he replied with unctuous

complacence. 'Ayaki died of a fall from a horse. That's

made public. What is not widely known, what has been

garnered by our agent near her estates, is that the horse

died as well. It fell and crushed the child after being struck

by a poisoned dart.'

Jiro's mind pounced on pertinent bits of earlier conversation. '

A tong assassin,' he surmised, 'whose intended target

was Lady Mara.'

Chumaka's expression remained ferociously bland. 'So

the paper in your hand spells out clearly.'

Now Lord Jiro inclined his head, half laughing in

magnanimous spirits. 'I accept the lesson, First Adviser.

Now, rather than your using this news as a whip to instruct

me, I would hear what conclusions you have drawn. The son

of my enemy was, nevertheless my blood kin. this news

makes me angry.'

Chumaka gnawed on the thumbnail he did not keep

sharpened, to break the seals off his correspondence. His

eyes stopped tracking the cipher on the page in his hand

as he analysed his master's statement. Jiro showed no

outward emotion, in traditional Tsurani fashion; if he

said he was angry, he was to be taken at his word. Honor

demanded the servant believe the master. But Jiro was less

enraged than excited, Chumaka determined, which did not

bode well for Mara. Young yet at ruling, Jiro failed to

grasp the longer-range benefits of allowing the alliance

40

Mistre# of the Empire

between Anasati and Acoma to dissolve into a state of

laissez-faire.

The silence as his adviser pondered rasped at Jiro's nerves.

'Who?' he demanded peevishly. 'Which of Mara's enemies

desires her death? We could make ourselves an ally out of

this, if we are bold.'

Chumaka sat back and indulged in a deep sigh.

Behind his pose of long-suffering patience, he was

intrigued by the unexpected turn events had taken, Jiro

saw. The Anasati First Adviser was as enamored of Tsurani

politics as a child craving sweets.

'I can conceive of several possibilities,' Chumaka allowed.

'Yet those houses with the courage to act lack the means,

and those with the means lack courage. To seek the death of

a Servant of the Empire is . . . unprecedented.' He chewed

his thin lower lip, then waved one of the servants over

to stack the documents into piles to be gathered up and

conveyed to his private quarters. To Jiro's impatience, he

said at last, 'I should venture a guess that Mara was attacked

by the Hamoi Tong.'

Jiro relinquished the note to the servant with a sneer. 'Of

course the tong. But who paid the death price?'

Chumaka arose. 'No one. That's what makes this so

elegant. I think the tong acts for their own reasons.'

Jiro's brows rose in surprise. 'But why? What has the

tong to gain by killing Mara?'

A runner servant appeared at the screen that led into

the main estate house. He bowed, but before he could

speak, Chumaka second-guessed the reason behind his

errand. 'Master, the court is assembled,' he said directly

to his Lord; Jiro waved the servant off as he rose from

his cushions. As master and First Adviser fell into step

toward the long hall in which the Lord of the Anasati

conducted business, Jiro surmised aloud, 'We know that

Tasaio of the Minwanabi paid the Hamoi Tong to kill Mara.

Confrontatson

41

Do you think he also paid them to attempt vengeance upon

her should he fall?'

'Possibly.' Chumaka counted points on his fingers, a habit

he had when ordering his thoughts. 'Minwanabi revenge

might explain why, seemingly from nowhere, the tong chose

to act after months of quiet.'

Pausing in the shadow of the corridor that accessed the

double doors of the great hall, Jiro said, 'If the tong acts

on behalf of some pledge made to Tasaio before his death,

will it try again?'

Chumaka shrugged, his stooped shoulders rising like tent

poles under his turquoise silk robe. 'Who can say? Only the

Obajan of the Hamoi would know; he alone has access to

the records that name those deaths bought and paid for. If

the tong has vowed Mara's death . . . it will persevere. If it

merely agreed to make an attempt on her life, it has fulfilled

its obligation.' He gestured in rueful admiration. 'The Good

Servant has her luck from the gods, some might argue. For

anyone else, an agreement to send an assassin is a virtual

guarantee of success. Others have avoided the tong, once,

even twice before; but the Lady Mara has survived five

assassins that I know of. Her son was not so lucky.'

Jiro moved on with a step that snapped on the tiles. His

nostrils flared, and he barely saw the two servants who

sprang from their posts to open the audience hall doors

for him. Striding past their abject bows, Jiro sniffed. Since

getting his First Adviser to act with proper subservience

was a waste of time, Jiro sniffed again. 'Well, it's a pity the

assassin missed her. Still, we can seize advantage: the death

of her son will cause much confusion in her household.'

Delicately, Chumaka cleared his throat. 'Trouble will

transfer to us, master.'

Jiro stopped in his tracks. His sandals squeaked as

he pivoted to face his First Adviser. 'Don't you mean

trouble for the Acoma? They have lost our alliance.

42 Mistress of the Empire

No, they have spit on it by allowing Ayaki to come

to harm.'

Chumaka stepped closer to his Lord, so the cluster of

factors who awaited Jiro's audience at the far end of the

hall might not overhear. 'Speak gently,' he admonished.

'Unless Mara finds convincing proof that it is Tasaio of

the Minwanabi's hand reaching from the halls of the Dead

in this matter, it is logical for her to place blame upon

us.' Acerbically, he added, 'You took pains when Lord

Tecuma, your father, died to make your hostilities toward

her house plain.'

Jiro jerked up his chin. 'Perhaps.'

Chumaka did not press chastisement. Caught again into

his innate fascination for the Game, he said, 'Her network

is the best I've seen. I have a theory: given her adoption

of the entire Minwanabi household-'

Jiro's cheeks flushed, 'Another example of her blasphemous

behavior and contempt for tradition!'

Chumaka held up a placating hand. There were times

when Jiro's thinking became clouded; having lost his

mother to a fever at the tender age of five, as a boy

he had clung irrationally to routine, to tradition, as if

adherence to order could ward off the inconsistencies of

life. Always he had tended to wall off his grief behind

logic, or unswerving devotion to the dutiful ideal of the

Tsurani noble. Chumaka did not like to encourage what he

considered a weakening flaw in his Lord. The ramifications

of allowing such traits to become policy were too confining

for his liking. The perils, in fact, were paramount; in a

bold move of his own, Chumaka had seized the initiative

to take in more than two hundred soldiers formerly sworn

to Minwanabi service. These were disaffected men whose

hatred of Mara would last to their dying breath. Chumaka

had not housed such for his own entertainment; he was

not a disloyal man. He had secretly accommodated the

Confrontation

43

warriors in a distant, secret barracks. Tactful inquiry had

shown Jiro to be adamant in his refusal to consider swearing

them to Anasati service; ancient custom held that such men

were anathema, without honor and to be shunned lest the

displeasure of the gods that had seen the unfortunate house

fall be visited upon their benefactor. Yet Chumaka had

refrained from sending these men away. He had no hope of

a change in attitude from his master; but a tool was a tool,

and these former Minwanabi might someday be useful, if

the Ruling Lord of the Anasati could not be weaned from

his puerile hatred of Mara.

If the two Houses were going to be enemies, Chumaka

saw such warriors as an advantage to be held in trust for

the day their service might be needed. Mara had proven

herself to be clever. She had ruined one house far larger

than her own. Guile would be needed to match guile, and

Chumaka was never a man to waste an opportunity.

Indeed, he saw his secret as a loyal act, and what Jiro

did not know, could not be forbidden.

The warriors were not all. Chumaka had to restrain

himself from the desire to rub his thin hands together in

anticipation. He had spies as well. Already a few factors

formerly in the Minwanabi employ were now working on

behalf of the Anasati and not the Acoma. Chumaka gained

the same pleasure in co-opting these people to his master's

service that he might in isolating an opponent's fortress or

priest upon the shah board. He knew eventually the Anasati

would benefit. Then his master must see the wisdom of some

of Mara's choices.

And so the Anasati First Adviser smiled, and said

nothing; to a fine point, he knew just how far he could

go in contradicting Jiro. Pressing his Lord toward his

meeting with the factors, he said quietly, 'Master, Mara

may have flouted tradition by taking on responsibility for

her vanquished enemy's servants, but rather than merely

removing her greatest enemy, she has gained immeasurable

resources. Her strength has grown. From being a dangerous,

dominant player in the Game of the Council, at one stroke

Mara has become the single most powerful Ruling Lord or

Lady in the history of the Empire. The Acoma forces, alone,

now number more than ten thousand swords; they surpass

several smaller clans. And Clan Hadama and its allies

together rival the Emperor's Imperial Whites!' Chumaka

turned reflective as he added, 'She could rule by fiat, I

think, if she had the ambition. The Light of Heaven is

certainly not of a mind to oppose her wishes.'

Disliking to be reminded of the Lady's swift ascendance,

Jiro became the more nettled. 'Never mind. What is this

theory?'

Chumaka raised up one finger. 'We know Tasaio of the

Minwanabi employed the Hamoi Tong. The tong continues

to pursue Mara's death.' Counting on a second finger, he

listed, 'These facts may or may not be related. Incomo,

Tasaio's former First Adviser, was effective in discovering

some or all of the Acoma agents who had infiltrated the

Minwanabi household. There was a disruption after that,

and a mystery remains: our own network reported that

someone killed every Acoma agent between the Minwanabi

Great House and the City of Sulan-Qu.'

Jiro gave an offhand wave. 'So Tasaio had all her agents

killed as far back as he could trace her network.'

Chumaka's smile became predatory. 'What if he didn't?'

He flicked up a third finger. 'Here is another fact: the Hamoi

Tong killed those servants inside the Minwanabi household

who were Acoma agents.'

The Lord's boredom intensified. 'Tasaio ordered the

tong -'

'No!' Chumaka interrupted, verging on disrespect. Swiftly

he amended his manners by turning his outburst into

prelude for instruction. 'Why should Tasaio hire tong to

Confrontation

4S

kill his own staff ? Why pay death price for lives that could

be taken by an order to the Minwanabi guards?'

Jiro looked rueful. 'I was thinking carelessly.' His eyes

shifted forward to where the factors were fidgeting at the

delay, as Lord and adviser continued to equivocate just

inside the doorway.

Chumaka ignored their discomfort. They were underlings,

after all, and it was their place to wait upon their Lord.

'Because there is no logical reason, my master. However, we

can make a surmise: if I were the Lady, and I wished to insult

both the tong and Tasaio, what better way than to order the

tong, under false colors, to kill her spies?'

Jiro's expression quickened. He could follow Chumaka's

reasoning on his own, now he had been clued in to the first

step. 'You think the Hamoi Tong may have cause to declare

a blood debt toward Mara?'

Chumaka's answer-was a toothy smile.

Jiro resumed walking. His steps echoed across the vast

hall, with its paper screens drawn closed on both sides,

and its roof beams hung with dusty war relics and a

venerable collection of captured enemy banners. These

artifacts reminded of a time when the Anasati were at

the forefront of historical battles. Theirs was an ancient

tradition of honor. They would rise as high again, Jiro

vowed; no, higher yet. For Mara's defeat would be his

to arrange, a victory that would resound throughout the

Empire.

He alone would prove that Mara had incurred the

gods' displeasure in granting reprieve to conquered enemy

servants. Single-handedly, he would exact vengeance for

her flouting of the old ways. She would look into his eyes

as she died, and know: she had made her worst mistake

on the day she had chosen Buntokapi for her husband.

Unlike the grandeur of the Minwanabi great hall that Mara

had inherited, the Anasati great hall was as reassuring in

46

Mistress of the Empire

its traditional design as the most time-honored ritual in

the temple. Jiro luxuriated in this; no different from the

halls of a hundred other Ruling Lords, this chamber was

nevertheless unique; it was Anasati. Along both sides of the

center aisle knelt petitioners and Anasati retainers. Omelo,

his Force Commander, stood at attention to one side of the

dais upon which Jiro conducted the business of his court.

Arrayed behind him were the other officers and advisers of

the household.

Jiro mounted his dais, knelt on the Lord's cushions,

then settled back on his heels as he adjusted his formal

robe. Before he signaled his hadonra to begin the day's

council, he said to his First Adviser, 'Find out for certain

if the tong pursues Mara on its own. I would know, so we

can make better plans when this news of Ayaki's death

becomes official.'

Chumaka clapped his hands and a servant came to his

shoulder. 'Have two runners in my quarters by the time I

reach them.' While the servant bowed and hastened away,

he made his own obeisance to the master. 'Lord, I shall

begin at once. I have some new sources that may provide

us with better information.' Then, seeing the hardened

glint in Lord Jiro's eyes, Chumaka touched his master's

sleeve. 'We must show restraint until Mara's messenger

reaches us with- formal announcement of Ayaki's death.

Speak now, and your staff will gossip. We would ill be

served by giving our enemy proof, that we have spies in

sensitive places.'

Jiro snapped away from Chumaka's touch. 'I understand,

but do not ask me to be complacent! All in Anasati service

will mourn. Ayaki of the Acoma, my nephew, has been

slain, and every man of ours who is not a slave will wear

a red band upon his arm in token of our loss. When this

day's business is finished, you will ready an honor guard

for travel to Sulan-Qu.'

Conf ontat~on

47

Chumaka bit back annoyance. 'We attend the boy's

funeral?'

Jiro bared his teeth. 'He was my nephew. To stay home

when his ashes are honored would be to admit responsibility

or cowardice, and we are guilty of neither. He may have

been the son of my enemy, and I may now destroy his

mother without constraint, but he shares Anasati blood! He

deserves the respect any grandson of Tecuma of the Anasati

is entitled. We shall carry a family relic to be burned with

him.'Jiro's eyes flashed as he finished, 'Tradition demands

our presence!'

Chumaka kept his reservations about this decision as he

bowed in acknowledgment of his master's wishes. While it

was a First Adviser's place to shepherd his Lord through

decisions that affected house policy, Chumaka was wont

to chafe at the more mundane responsibilities of his office.

The Game of the Council had changed dramatically since

Mara of the Acoma first entered the arena; yet it was still the

game, and nothing in life captured the adviser's fascination

like the puzzle of Tsurani politics. Taut as a coursing hound,

he rose up in excitement for the chase.

Almost happy despite the prospect of unfortunate developments

on the horizon, the First Adviser left the great

hall, muttering over the lists of instructions he would need

to dispatch with his runners. Substantial bribes would be

necessary to pry loose the information he desired, but if

the gathered bits of intelligence could prove his morning's

theory, the gains would outweigh the cost. As Chumaka

paused for the servants to open the door to let him out,

his lips reflected an unholy smile.

Years had passed since he had tested his wits against

a worthy opponent! Lady Mara was going to afford him

much amusement if Lord Jiro's obsession could not be

cooled, and the Anasati marked her house for ruin.

*  * *

Mara tossed fitfully in sleep. Her sounds of distress tore at

Hokanu's heart, and he wished to do something, to touch

her, to speak soft words, to ease her agony. But she had

slept very little since Ayaki's death. Even the restlessness of

nightmares offered some release. To waken her was to force

her to awareness of her loss, and to the crushing necessity

of bearing up under the strain.

Hokanu sighed and regarded the patterns that moonlight

cast through the screens. The shadows in the corners seemed

to loom darker than ever before; not even the presence of

doubled sentries at each door and window could recover

the lost sense of peace. The heir to the Shinzawai and

husband to the Servant of the Empire now found himself

a man alone, with nothing but his wits and his love for a

troubled woman. The predawn air was cool, unusual for

lands in Szetac Province, perhaps owing to the proximity

of the house to the lake. Hokanu arose and slipped on the

light robe he had cast off the night before. He tied the sash,

then took a stance overlooking the sleeping mat with his

arms crossed tightly against his chest.

He kept vigil while Mara tossed in the bedclothes, her

hair like a patch of lingering night in the slowly brightening

air. The coppery moonlight faded, washed out by early gray.

The screen that opened upon the private terrace had turned

slowly from black to pearl.

Hokanu restrained an urge to pace. Mara had woken

during the night, sobbing in his arms and crying Ayaki's

name. He had held her close, but his warmth would bring

her no comfort. Hokanu's jaw tightened at the memory. A

foe he would willingly face in battle, but this sorrow . . . a

child dead as his potential had barely begun to unfold . . .

There was no remedy under sky that a husband could offer.

Only time would dull the ache.

Hokanu was not a man who cursed. Controlled and taut

as the pitched treble string of a harplike tiral he allowed

Confrontation

49

himself no indulgence that might in any way disturb his

wife. Silently, dangerously graceful, he slid aside the door

just enough to pass through. The day was too fair, he

thought as he regarded the pale green sky. There should

have been storms, strong winds, even lightning and rain;

nature herself should rail at the earth on the day of Ayaki's

funeral.

Across the hill, in the hollow before the lakeshore, the

final preparations were being carried out. The stacked

wood of the pyre arose in a ziggurat. Jican had made

free with Acoma wealth, on Hokanu's order, and made

sure that only aromatic woods were purchased. The stink

of singed flesh and hair would not offend the mourners or

the boy's mother. Hokanu's mouth chinned. There would

be no privacy for Mara on this most sad occasion. She had

risen too high, and her son's funeral would be a state rite.

Ruling Lords would converge from all parts of the Empire

to pay their respects - or to further their plot's intrigues.

The Game of the Council did not pause for grief, or joy,

or any calamiq of nature. Like rot unseen under painted

wood, the circumstances that had created Ayaki's death

would repeat themselves again and again. ~

A dust cloud arose on the northern skyline; guests already

arriving, Hokanu surmised. He glanced again at his wife,

reassured that her dreams had quieted. He stepped quietly

to the door, spoke to the boy runner, and arranged for the

Lady's maids to be with her when she wakened. Then he

gave in to his restlessness and strode out onto the terrace.

The estate was beginning to stir. Jican could be seen crossing

at a half run between the kitchen wing and the servants'

quarters, where laundry girls already hurried between guest

chambers with baskets of fresh linens balanced on their

heads. Prepared for state visitors, warriors in dress armor

marched to relieve the night watch. Yet, amid the general

air of purpose, two figures walked by the lake, keeping pace

50

Msstress of the Empsre

with each other, but apparently on no logical errant beyond

a morning stroll. Suspicion gave Hokanu pause, until he

looked closer and identified the pair. Then curiosity drew

him across the terrace and he descended the stairs that gave

access to the grounds below.

Following quietly between the rows of akasi flowers,

Hokanu confirmed his first impression: Incomo and Irrilandi

moved ahead of him at their unhurried pace, seemingly lost

in thought. The former First Adviser and the former Force

Commander to Tasaio of the Minwanabi did not wanter

aimlessly.

Intrigued by what these two previous enemies turned

loyal servants might be doing out so early on this sat day,

Hokanu slipped silently after.

The pair reached the edge of the lake, and the reed-frail

adviser and leathery, battle-muscled warrior both knelt

upon a little rise. Past a notch between the scrolled eaves

of the great house and the hill it fronted, the first pink clouds

drifted in the sky, their undersides heating to orange as the

rays of a sun not yet visible gilded their edges.

Both men sat as if praying. Hokanu noiselessly drew

nearer. For several minutes the Lord ant the two servants

abided in frozen tableau. Then daybreak pierces the gloom,

and a sun beam fanned across the sky, catching in a

crystalline formation at the peak of the rise. There came

a flash that dazzled. Warmth ant first light bathes the

 quiet, and the dew sparkled, touched to gemlike

brilliance. Then Irrilandi ant Incomo bowed until their

heads touched the earth, repeating faint words that Hokanu

could not make out.

For that brief instant, the son of the Shinzawai was nearly

blinded by the unexpected flash; then it was gone as the

angle of the rising sun changed.

The two men completed their strange rite ant stood.

The war-wary eyes of Irrilandi were first to pick out a

discrepancy in the quiet morning. He saw the Lord who

waited nearby, and bowed. 'Master Hokanu,' he salt.

Caught short, Incomo repeated the gesture.

Hokanu motioned both servants back toward the house.

'I could not sleep,' he said ruefully. 'I observed you walking

and came to see what brought you here.'

Irrilandi gave a Tsurani shrug. 'Each day before sunrise

we give thanks.'

Hokanu's silence begged for a further explanation,

though he did not look at either man but studied his

bare feet as he stepped through dew-damp grass.

Incomo cleared his throat in what might have been

embarrassment. 'We come here each day to witness the

day's beginning. And to give thanks, since the Good

Servant came to us.' He regarded the great house, with

its high, peaked gables, stone pillars, and the screen lintels

tied now with red bunting in respect for Turakamu, the Red

God, who would welcome Ayaki's spirit into his keeping

during the day's rites. Incomo elaborated for Hokanu's

benefit. 'When our Lady brought about Tasaio's ruin, we

expected death or slavery. Instead we were given the gift

of days: another chance to serve and gain honor. So each

sunrise we offer a prayer of thanks for this reprieve, and

for the Good Servant.'

Hokanu nodded, unsurprised by the devotion of these

high officers. As Servant of the Empire, Mara was beloved

by the masses. Her own staff served her with an affection

that bordered upon awe. Indeed, she would need such

support for her house to recover from this loss. A ruler

disliked by his people might expect a blow of this magnitude

to cause hesitation in his staff, as servants from the

highest positions town to the meanest slave fretted over

whether heaven had withdrawn the luck of the house.

Even without divine disapproval, mortal enemies would

seize upon opportunity and strike where the ranks were

52 Mistrcss of the Empire

most confused. And so the superstition fed upon the results,

since a house weakened would suffer setbacks, ant so seem

to be in the disfavor of the gods.

Hokanu felt irritation. Too many events in this Empire

twisted in upon themselves, until centuries of unbending

customs led their society toward stagnation and entropy.

This inbred cycle he and Mara and Ichindar, the Emperor

of the Nations, had dedicated themselves to overturn.

Ayaki's untimely end was more than sorrow and grief;

it could become a major setback and be turned into a

rallying cry for all those Ruling Lords who were disgruntled

by recent changes. If the Acoma showed any sign of

irresolution, there would be strife; and at the heart of

the faction that had begun to form in rigid adherence to

old traditions^, the Anasati voice would be loudest.

The funeral guests would not be here to observe the ashes

of the departed as they spiraled in their smoky ascent to

heaven; no: they would be watching one another like

starving dogs, and Lady Mara would be subjected to the

most thorough scrutiny of all. Weighed down by dread,

for he knew his Lady was too lost in her pain to handle

peripheral matters, Hokanu pushed open the ornamental

gate and started across the garden. He forgot the two men

who walked with him until Incomo said, 'First Adviser

Saric has all in readiness, master. Entertainments have been

arranged to divert the guests, and the honor guards of all but

the greatest Ruling Lords will be quartered in the garrison

across the lake. The pyre has been soaked in oils, and all

has been done to keep the ceremony as brief as possible.'

Hokanu found no reassurance in Incomo's words; that

the adviser felt need to stress such points bespoke a sharing

of concern. The game would go on, whether or not Lady

Mara could rally and cope.

'We shall not stint in our honors to the departed young

master,' added Irrilandi, 'but it is my suggestion that you

Confrontation

::

~;

_ _

53

stay by your Lady's side, and be prepared to interpret her

instructions.'

Politely, tactfully, the high officers of House Acoma

acknowledged that their mistress remained incapacitated.

Hokanu felt a surge of gratitude to these men, who were

quietly and staunchly prepared to try to cover for her

lapse. He tried to reassure them that House Acoma would

not flounder with the currents of misfortune like some

rudderless ship. 'I shall be with my Lady. She is touched

by your devotion and would have me say that you should

not hesitate to approach if you have any difficulties or

concerns.'

A knowing glance passed between master and servants.

Then Irrilandi bowed. 'More than a thousand soldiers have

made prayers to Turakamu to take them in the young

master's place.'

Hokanu nodded in respect. Those soldiers would wear

arms throughout the funeral ceremony in token of their

vow, a strong deterrent to any visiting Lord who might contemplate

causing trouble, in breach of Acoma hospitality.

The number was a great honor to Ayaki, the men's dedication

also demonstrated that barracks rumor recognised

the political ramifications of what was far more than a

personal tragedy. The Lords who came today would gather

and circle like jaguna, the eaters of dead meat, to see what

prizes could be snatched from the teeth of misfortune.

Hokanu received the departing bows of the two officers,

then looked over his shoulder at the lake, where barges were

now heading rapidly toward the docks. Banners flew from

their poles, and the chant of the oarsmen carried across the

water. Very shortly now the quiet estate would become a

political arena. Hokanu considered the great stone house

that had been the hall of the Minwanabi for centuries.

The place had been designed as a fortress, but today even

enemies must be invited inside. The priest of Chochocan,

the Good God, had blessed the estate, and Mara had seen

the Minwanabi natami placed in a dedicated glade, so that

a once great house should be remembered. Yet despite these

measures and the assurances of the priests that the Good

Servant's acts had earned divine favor, Hokanu swallowed ~i

back a feeling of dread. The depths of the eaves seemed to

hold shadows in which the spirits of enemies peered out in

silent laughter at Mara's grief.

Hokanu wished for a moment he had overridden her bolt

choice and opted to adhere to the customs of conquest that

would have seen this house tom down, each stone carries

to the lake and thrown into the deep, each timber and fidt

burned, and the soil of all these lush acres sown with salt.

Unlucky ground should nurture nothing, according to the

ways adhered to over the centuries, that the cycle of curses

events might be broken for eternity. Despite the beauty of

this estate, and the near-impregnable location of its grounds

and holdings, Hokanu repressed the cold premonition that

he might be doomed never to find happiness with Mara as

long as they lived under this roof.

But this was an ill time to brood, with the state guests

already arriving. The consort to the Servant of the Empire

stiffened his shoulders, prepared for the coming ordeal.

Mara must show the proper Tsurani bearing in the face

of her overwhelming grief. The death of her father and

brother, who were warriors, had been one dining; the loss

of her own child, far worse. Hokanu intuitively senses

that this was the ugliest fate that could have befallen the

woman he loved more than life. For her he must be strong

today, armor against public dishonor, for while he was still

the dedicated heir of the Shinzawai, he embraced Acoma

honor as if it were his own.

Secure in his resolve, he returned to the terrace outside

his Lady's sleeping quarters. As the screens were not

yet opened, he knew that the servants had allowed her

Con,Sontation

55

undisturbed rest. He slid the panel soundlessly in its track

and entered. He did not speak but let the gentle warmth

of daylight fall upon his wife's cheek.

Mara stirred. Her hands closed in the twisted sheets, and

her eyes fluttered open. She gasped and pushed herself up.

Her eyes swept the room in terror until Hokanu knelt and

captured her in his embrace.

Her complexion looked as if she had not slept at all. 'Is

it time?'

Hokanu stroked her shoulder, as servants who had waited

outside hurried in at the sound of their mistress's voice. He

said, 'The day begins.'

Gently he helped raise his Lady to her feet. When he

had steadied her, he backed away and gestured for the

servants to perform their offices. Mara stood with a bleak

expression as her maids bustled to arrange her bath and her

dress. Hokanu endured the sight of her lackluster manner

without showing the anger in his heart. If Jiro of the Anasati

was responsible for causing this pain to his Lady, the heir to

the Shinzawai vowed to see the man suffer. Then, recalled

to his own state of undress by the admiring stare of one of

Mara's handmaids, he put aside thoughts of revenge. He

clapped for his own servants, and suffered their fussing in

silence as they arrayed him in the formal robes required

for Ayaki's funeral.

The throng mended the hills surrounding the Acoma estate

house, clothed in the colors of a thousand houses, with red

sashes, red ties, or red ribbons worn in homage to the Red

God, brother to Sibi, who was Death, and lord of all lives.

The color also symbolised the heart's blood of the boy

that no longer flowed to clothe the spirit. Six thousand

soldiers stood in columns flanking the hollow where the

bier awaited. In front, in polished green armor, stood the

Acoma warriors who had dedicated their lives; behind

S6 Mistress of ~e Emptrc

these, the ranks in the blue of Mara's Shinzawai consort;

and after them, the gold-edged white of the Imperial Guard

sent by Ichindar to carry the Emperor's condolences. Next

came Kamatsu of the Shinzawai, Hokanu's father, and then

the families who made up the Hadama Clan, all who had

blood ties to the dead boy. After them, in a great, sprawling

crows, stood the houses who had come to pay their respects

.or to indulge in the next round of the Great Game.

The warriors were statue-still, heads bowed, shields held

with edges resting upon the ground. Before each lay a

sword, points facing the bier, empty scabbard placed

crosswise beneath. Behind the soldiers, up the hillside,

members of the household kept a respectful distance from

the line of march, for the great of the Empire had come to

bid farewell to a boy.

~Trumpets blew to begin the procession. In the shade of

the outer portico where the Acoma advisers and officers

gathered to march, Mara fought the weakness in her knees.

She felt Hokanu's grip on her elbow, but the meaning of

the sensation did not register. The eyes half hidden behind

her red veil of mourning were locked on the litter that held

her motionless son. His body was encased in fine armor;

his white hands clasped the grip of a rare metal sword.

The hand that had been crushed in the fall was decently

clothed in a gauntlet; the mashed chest, hidden behind a

breastplate and shield emblazoned with a shatra bird in

rare gold leaf.

To the eye, he seemed a sleeping warrior, prepared at a

call to arise and fight in the glory and honor of his youth.

Mara felt her throat dose. No prior event, not placing

the mementos of her father and brother in the family's glade

to mourn them, not enduring her first husband's brutality,

not losing the first man with whom she had discovered the

passion of love, not the death of her beloved foster mother-nothing

compared to this moment for sheer horror.

Confrontation

57

She could not believe, even now, far less accept the finality

of her firstborn's death. A child whose life had made hers

endurable, through her unhappy first marriage. An infant

whose carefree laughter had weaned her from despair, when

she had faced enemies greater than the means of her house

to defend. Ayaki had given her the courage to go on. Out of

stubbornness, and a fierce desire to see him live to carry on

the Acoma name, Mara had accomplished the impossible.

All would be consigned to ashes, this day. This accursed

day, when a boy who should have outlived his mother

would become a pillar of smoke to assault the nostrils of

heaven.

A step behind Mara, baby Justin fretfully asked to be

carried. His nurse cajoled him to stand hushing his noise.

His mother seemed deaf to his distress, locked as she was

in dark thoughts. She moved like a puppet to Hokanu's

guidance as the retinue prepared to start forward.

Drums beat. The tattoo thrummed on the air. An acolyte

clad in red thrust a dyed ke-reed into the Lady's unfeeling

hands; Hokanu's fingers clasped hers, raising the reed with

her lest she drop the religious symbol.

The procession moved. Hokanu "gathered her into the

crook of his arm and steadied her into the slow march.

To honor her loss, he had forsaken the blue armor of the

Shinzawai for the green of the Acoma and an officer's

helm. Vaguely Mara knew he grieved, and distantly she

sensed the sorrow of the others - the hadonra, who had so

often shouted at the boy for spilling ink in the scriptorium;

the nurses and teachers, who had all borne bruises from

his tantrums; the advisers, who had sometimes wished

for a warrior's sword to knock sense into the boy's

mischievous head by whacking the flat on his backside.

Servants and maids and even slaves had appreciated Ayaki's

quick spirit.

But they were as shadows, and their words of consolation

58

Mistress of the Empire

just noise. Nothing anyone said or did seemed to penetrate

the desolation that surrounded the Lady of the Acoma.

Mara felt Hokanu's hand gently upon her arm, guiding

her down the low stairs. Here waited the first of the state

delegations: Ichindar's, clad in blinding white and gold.

Mara bent her head as the regal contingent bowed to her;

she stayed silent behind her veils as Hokanu murmured the

appropriate words.

She was moved on, past Lord Hoppara of the Xacatecas,

so long a staunch ally; today she presented to him the

manner she would show a stranger, and only Hokanu heard

the young man's graceful expression of understanding. At

his side, elegant as always, the dowager Lady of the

Xacatecas regarded the Good Servant with something more

magnanimous than sympathy.

As Hokanu made his bow to her, Lady Isashani lingeringly

caught his hand. 'Keep your Lady close,' she warned

while she outwardly maintained the appearance of offering

a personal condolence. 'She is a spirit still in shock. Very

likely she will not recognise the import of her actions for

some days yet. There are enemies here who would provoke

her to gain advantage.'

Hokanu's politeness took on a grim edge as he thanked

Lord Hoppara's mother for her precaution.

These nuances passed Mara by, as well as the skill

with which Hokanu turned aside the veiled insults of the

Omechan. She made her bows at her Lord's cue, and did

not care as she roused whispers in her wake: that she had

shown more obeisance than necessary to Lord Frasai of the

Tonmargu; that the Lord of the Inrodaka noticed that her

movements lacked her characteristic fire and grace.

She had no focus in life beyond the small, fragile form

that lay in final rest upon the litter.

Plodding steps followed in time to the thud of muffled

drums. The sun climbed overhead as the procession wound

Confrontation

59

into the hollow where the pyre had been prepared. Hokanu

murmured polite words to the last and least of the Ruling

Lords who merited personal recognition. Between the

litter and the pyre waited one last contingent, robed in

unadorned black.

Touched by awe, Hokanu forced his next step, his hand

tightening upon Mara. If she realised she confronted

five Great Ones, magicians of the Assembly, she gave

no sign. That their kind was above the law and that

they had seen fit to send a delegation to this event

failed to give her pause. Hokanu was the one to ponder

the ramifications, and to connect that of late the Black

Robes seemed to have taken a keener interest than usual

in the turnings of politics. Mara bowed to the Great

Ones as she had to any other Lord, unmindful of the

sympathy offered by the plump Hochopepa, whom she

had met at the occasion of Tasaio's ritual suicide. The

always awkward moment when Hokanu faced his true

father was lost on her. The iq regard of the red-haired

magician who stood behind the more taciturn Shimone

did not faze her. Whether hostile or benign, the magicians'

words could not pierce through her apathy. No

life their powers could threaten meant more than the one

Turakamu and the Game of the Council had already seen

fit to take.

Mara entered the ritual circle where the bier lay. She

watched with stony eyes as her Force Commander lifted

the too still form of her boy and laid him tenderly on the

wood that would be his final bed. His hands straightened

sword and helm and shield, and he stepped back, all his

rakishness absent.

Mara felt Hokanu's gentle prod. Numbly she stepped

forward as around her the drums boomed and stilled.

She lowered the ke-reed across Ayaki's body, but it was

Hokanu's voice that raised in the traditional cry: 'We

60 Mistress of the Empire

are gathered to commemorate the life of Ayaki, son of

Buntokapi, grandson of Tecuma and Sezu!'

The line was too short, Mara sensed, a vague frown on

her face. Where were the lists of life deeds, for this her

firseborn son?

An awkward stillness developed, until Lujan moved at

a desperate glance from Hokanu and nudged her around

to face the east.

The priest of Chochocan approached, robed in the white

that symbolised life. He shed his mantle and danced, naked

as at birth, in celebration of childhood.

Mara did not see his gyrations; she felt no expiation

for the guilt of knowing her laxity had caused disaster.

As the dance,,` bowed to earth before the bier, she faced

west when prompted, and stood, dull-eyed, as the whistles

of Turakamu's followers split the air, as the priest of the

Red God began his dance for Ayaki's safe passage to the

halls of the Red God. He had never needed to represent a

barbarian beast before, and his idea of how a horse might

move had been almost laughable had it not ended in the

fall to earth that had crushed so much young promise.

Mara's eyes stayed dry. Her heart felt hardened to a

kernel incapable of being renewed. She did not bow her

head in prayer ?s the priests stepped forward and slashed

the red cord that bound Ayaki's hands, freeing his spirit

for rebirth. She did not weep, or beg the gods' favor, as

the white-plumed tirik bird was released as symbol of the

renewal of rebirth.

The priest of Turakamu intoned his prayer for Ayaki. 'In

the end, all men come before my god. The Death God is a

kind Lord, for he ends suffering and pain. He judges those

who come to him and rewards the righteous.' With a broad

wave of his hand and a nod of his skull mask, the priest

added, 'He understands the living and knows of pain and

grief.' The red wand pointed to the armored boy on the

Confrontation

:.

.!

i

~:

~

-

_ _

61

pyre. 'Ayaki of the Acoma was a good son, firmly upon

the path that his parents would have wished for him. We

can only accept that Turakamu judged him worthy and

called him so that he might be returned to us, with an even

greater fate.'

Mara clenched her teeth to keep from crying.

What prayer was there to be said that would not be

tainted with rage, and what rebirth beyond being son of

the Light of Heaven himself could await that was more

honorable than heirship of the Acoma? As Mara shivered in

pent fury, Hokanu's arms dosed around her. He murmured

something she did not hear as the torches were lifted from

their brackets around the circle and the aromatic wood was

set alight. A cold band twisted itself around her heart. She

watched the red-yellow flames lick upward, her thoughts

very far from the present.

As the priest of Juran the Just approached to give her

blessing, only Hokanu's surreptitious shake prevented her

from screaming curses at him, demanding to know what

sort of justice existed in a world where little boys died before

their mother's eyes.

The flames crackled skyward, then sheeted over the pyre

with a roar of disturbed air. The treated wood spared

the sight of the boy's body twisting and blackening in

its embrace. Yet Mara looked upon the sight with every

fiber of her body braced in horror. Her imagination depicted

what lay at the heart of a brightness too dazzling for sight;

her mind supplied the screams the boy had never uttered.

'Ayaki,' she whispered. Hokanu's hold upon her tightened

with enough force to recall her momentarily to

propriety: to the stiff-faced mask that as Servant of the

Empire she was expected to show in public grief. But the

effort of holding her features immobile was enough to cause

her to tremble.

For long minutes the crackle of flames vied with the

62

Mistress of the Empire

voices of the priests who chanted their various prayers.

Mara fought to control her breathing, to stave off the

monstrous reality of her dead child vanishing into a roil

of smoke.

For the death rite of one of lesser station, this would be

time for the guests to file away, leaving those closest to

the departed to a time of private mourning. But with the

passing of the great, such courtesies were forborne. Mara

was allowed no reprieve. At the forefront of the public

eye she remained, while the acolytes of Turakamu threw

consecrated oil upon the flames. Waves of heat rolled off

the pyre, reddening Mara's skin. If she shed any tears, they

dried upon her cheeks in the face of that cruel furnace.

Above writhing curtains of flame, the thick black smoke

coiled skyward to draw notice from heaven that a spirit of

high honor had departed.

The sun added to the blaze, and Mara felt sick and

dizzy. Hokanu turned his body to shade her as he could.

He dared not glance at her too often in concern, for fear

of betraying her weakness, while the time dragged by as

torture. Nearly an hour passed before the flame subsided;

then more prayers and chanting followed as the wood-ashes

were spread to cool. Mara all but swayed on her feet when

the priest of Turakamu intoned, 'The body is no more. The

spirit has flown. He who was Ayaki of the Acoma is now

here,' he said, touching his heart, 'here' - he touched his

head - 'and in Turakamu's halls.'

The acolytes braved the smoking embers as they picked

their way to the heart of the mound of decimated fuel. One

used a square of thick leather to drag out the warped blade

of Ayaki's sword, quickly passing the bundle to another who

waited to quench the hot metal in wet rags. Steam rose to

mingle with the smoke. Mara endured with deadened eyes

as the priest of Turakamu employed an ornate scoop to

fill the waiting urn with ashes. More wood than boy, the

Conf ontation

63

remains would become the symbol of the body's interment

in the glade of his ancestors. For the Tsurani believed that

while the true soul traveled to the halls of the Red God,

a small part of the spirit, the shade, would rest alongside

its ancestors within the stone that was the natami of the

house. That way the essence of the child would thus return

in another life, while that which made him Acoma would

remain to watch over his family.

Hokanu steadied his wife as two acolytes arrived before

her. One offered the sword blade, which Mara touched.

Then Hokanu took the twisted length of metal while the

other acolyte surrendered the urn. Mara accepted the

ashes of her son in trembling hands. Her eyes did not

acknowledge what she held but remained fixed upon the

scattered, charred wood that remained in the circle.

Hokanu touched her arm lightly and they turned as one.

The drums boomed out as the procession veered around and

resumed its march toward the Acoma contemplation glade.

No impression of the walk registered upon Mara beyond

the stony cold of the urn in her hands, warmed at the base

by the still warm ashes inside. She set one foot before the

other, barely aware of her arrival at the scrolled gateposts

that marked the glade entrance.

The servants and Hokanu paused in deference to her;

for the only one not of Acoma blood who was permitted

to step through the arch and make his way along the stone

path that led within was the gardener whose life had been

dedicated to tend the glade. Here even her husband, who

was still a Shinzawai, could not enter, upon pain of death.

To allow any stranger admittance was to offer insult to the

shades of Acoma ancestors, and to bring lasting disharmony

to the peace that abided in the natami.

Mara stepped away from Hokanu's embrace. She did

not hear the murmur of the nobles who watched, pitying

or predatory, until she had moved beyond sight behind the

64 Mistress of the Empire

hedges. Once before, upon her family's old estate, she had

undertaken the terrible task of consecrating the shades of

dose family to the natami.

The size of this garden disoriented her. She paused, the

urn clutched to her breast in stunned incomprehension. This

was not the familiar glade of her childhood, where she had

gone as a tiny girl to address the shade of her mother; this

was not the known path where she had narrowly escaped

death at the hands of a tong assassin while mourning her

father and brother. This place was alien, vast, a wide park,

in which several streams meandered. For a second a shadow

crossed her heart as she wondered whether this garden that

had been home to Minwanabi shades for so many centuries

might reject the aspect of her son.

Again in her memory she saw the horse fall, a blackness

like evil stamping out innocent life. Feeling lost, she gulped

a breath. She chose a path at random, only vaguely recalling

that all of them led to the same site where the ancient

rock, the natami of her family, rested at the edge of a

large pool.

'I did not bury your natami deep below the Acoma's,'

she said aloud to the listening air; a smaller voice inside her

warned that she talked out of madness. Life was mad, she

decided, or she would not be here making empty motions

over the remains of her young heir. Her extraordinary

display of graciousness in insisting that the Minwanabi

natami be taken to a distant place and cared for, so that

the shades of the Minwanabi might know peace, at this

moment seemed empty folly.

She did not have the strength in her to laugh.

Mara curled her lip at the sour taste in her mouth. Her

hair smelled of sweet oil and greasy smoke. The stench

turned her stomach as she knelt on the sun-warmed ground.

Next to the natami a hole had been dug, the damp soil piled

to one side. Mara placed the fire-warped sword that had

_

Confrontation

65

been her son's most prized possession in the cavity, then

tipped the urn to let his ashes pour over it. With bare

hands she sifted the earth back into the hole and patted

it down.

A white robe had been left for her beside the pool. On

its silk folds lay a vial, and nearby, the traditional brazier

and dagger. Mara lifted the vial and removed the stopper.

She poured fragrant oils upon the pool. In the shimmers

of fractured light that played upon its surface, she saw no

beauty, but only the face of her son, his mouth wide with

suffering as he struggled to draw his last breath. The rituals

gave no release but seemed a wasting wind of meaningless

sound. 'Rest, my son. Come to your home soil and sleep

with our ancestors.'

'Ayaki,' she whispered. 'My child.'

She gripped the breast of her robe and pulled, tearing the

cloth from her body, but unlike years before, when she had

performed the ritual for her father and brother, no tears

followed the violence. Her eyes remained painfully dry.

She plunged her hand into the almost extinguished

brazier. The sting of the few hot cinders remaining was

not enough to focus her thoughts. Grief remained a dull

ache inside her as she smeared the ashes across her breasts

and down her exposed stomach, to symbolise that her heart

was ashes. In truth, her flesh felt as lifeless as the spent wood

of the pyre. She slowly lifted the heirloom metal dagger, kept

sharp for this ceremony over the ages. For the third time in

her life, she drew the blade from its sheath and cut herself

across the left arm, the hot pain barely felt in the fog of

her despair.

She held the small wound over the pool, letting drops

of blood fall to mix with the water, as tradition required.

For more than a minute she sat motionless, until nature's

healing staunched the flow. A scab had half dried before

she absently tugged at her robe, but she lacked the fierceness

66 Mistress of the Empire

of will to fully sunder the garment. In the end, she simply

dragged it over her head. It fell to earth, one sleeve soaking

up oil and water from the pool.

By rote, Mara unfastened her hairpins, loosening her dark

locks over her shoulders. Anger and rage, grief and sorrow

should have driven her to pull upon her tresses, yanking

handfuls lose. Her emotions only smoldered sullenly, like

a spark smothered by lack of air. Boys should not die; to

grieve for them in a fullness of passion was to abet the

acceptance of their passing. Mara twisted at a few tangles,

outwardly listless.

Then she settled back upon her heels and regarded the

glade. Such immaculate beauty, and only she among the

living could appreciate it. Ayaki would never perform

the death rite far his mother. Hot tears erupted unbidden

and she felt something of the hardness wedged within break

loose. Mara sobbed, abandoning herself to an outpouring

of grief.

But unlike before, when such release brought clarity, this

time she found herself driven deeper into chaotic thought.

When she dosed her eyes, her mind whirled with images:

first Ayaki running, then Kevin, the barbarian slave who

had taught her of love, and who had time and again risked

his life for her alien honor. She saw Buntokapi, sprawled on

the red length of his sword, his great ham fists quivering

closed as the life left his body. Again she acknowledged that

her first husband's death would forever be marked against

her. She saw faces: her father and brother, then Nacoya, her

nurse and foster mother.

All of them offered her pain. Kevin's return to his own

world was as painful a loss as death, and not one other

had died as nature intended; all had been casualties of

twisted politics, and of the cruel machinations of the

Great Game.

The horrid certainty would not leave her, that Ayaki

Confrontation

67

would not be the last boy to die for the empty ambitions

of the nation's Ruling Lords.

That reality struck her like torture: that Ayaki would not

be the last. Howling in hysteria born of agony, Mara threw

herself headlong into the pool.

The wetness swallowed her tears. Her sobs were wrenched

short by a gasp as cold water sucked into her nostrils, and

life recalled her to its own. She crawled back on dry earth,

choking. Water streamed from her mouth and hair. She

dragged in a hacking breath, then reached mechanically

for the robe, its whiteness marred by dirt and sweet oil.

As if she were a spirit wearing the body of a stranger, she

saw herself drag the fabric over her wet flesh. The hair she

left bunched under the collar. Then the body that felt like

a living prison gathered itself up and trudged back toward

the entrance to the glade, where thousands waited with

eyes hostile or friendly.

Their presence took her aback. In this Lord's fatuous

smile and that Lord's leering interest, she saw the truth

confirmed: that Ayaki's death would happen again and

again, and other mothers after her would howl useless

outrage at the injustices of the Great Game. Mara glanced

down to shut away the acknowledgment of futility. One of

her sandals was missing. Mud and dust caked her bared

foot, and she hesitated, debating whether to look for the lost

footwear, or to fling the remaining sandal into the hedge.

What did it matter, a far-off voice reasoned inside her.

Mara watched her misshod feet with grey detachment as

the person that was herself left the glade. Passing between

the shielding hedges, she did not look up as her husband

hurried forward to take up his station at her elbow. His

words did not soothe. She did not want to return from her

inward retreat to work at sorting their meaning.

Hokanu shook her gently, forcing her to look up.

A man in red armor stood before her; thin, elegant,

68 Misttess of the Empire

poised, he carried his chin at an arrogant angle. Mara

stared at him, distracted. His eyes narrowed. He salt

something. The hand that held some object in it gestured,

and something of the biting scorn that underlay his manner

came through.

Mara's gaze sharpened. Her eyes focused on the device

upon the young man's helm, and a deep quiver shook her.

'Anasati!' she said, a bite like a whip's crack to her

voice:

Lord Jiro gave back a chilly smile. 'The Lady deigns to

acknowledge me, I see.'

Wakened to a slow, spiraling rage, Mara stiffened.

She said nothing. Hokanu's fingers wrenched unobtrusively

at her wrist, a warning she did not acknowledge.

Her ears rang to a sound like a thousand enraged sarcats

spitting in defiance, or torrents of storm-swollen rivers

crashing down jagged rock.

Jiro of the Anasati raised the object he held, a small puzzle

cleverly cut to a pattern of interlacing wooden hoops. He

inclined his head in a formal bow, saying, 'My nephew's

shade deserves remembrance from the Anasati.'

'Remembrance!' Mara said, in a high, tortured whisper.

Inside her mind, her spirit howled: Anasati remembrance

had sent her firstborn to a bed of ashes.

She did not remember moving; she did not feel the wrench

of tendons as she yanked free of Hokanu's restraint. Her

scream of rage cut across the gathering like the sound of

a drawn metal sword, and her hands rose like claws.

Jiro leaped back, dropping the puzzle in horrified astonishment.

And then Mara was on him, clawing to reach his

throat through the fastenings of his armor.

Those Lords standing nearest exclaimed in shock as this

small woman, unarmed, dirty, and wet, threw herself at her

former brother-in-law in a fit of pure fury.

Hokanu sprang with all his warrior's quickness, fast

Confrontation

69

enough to catch Mara back before she drew blood. He

smothered her struggling body in his embrace.

But the damage by then was irrevocable.

Jiro glared around at the circle of stunned onlookers.

\a249You all bear witness!' he cried in an indignation that held an

undertone of wild joy. Now he had the justification he had

long wished for, to see the Lady Mara ground under his heel

in utter defeat. 'The Acoma have offered the Anasati insult!

Let all present be informed that alliance is dead between

our two houses. I claim my right to expunge this shame to

my honor, and blood will be called for in payment.'

t

War

3

War

Hokanu acted.

Wile Mara beat her fists in mindless fury against his

breastplate, the warriors of her honor guard closed in a

tight ring to shield their Lady's hysteria from public view.

Hokanu called urgently for Saric and Incomo.

One glance at their distraught mistress was sufficient

to convince the two advisers: grief and nerves had overwhelmed

her. She was past recognition of individual faces,

and obviously beyond any capacity to issue a public

apology to Lord Jiro. It had been the sight of him that

had set off this breakdown. Even should reason return

to her before the guests departed, it would not be wise i

to encourage a meeting between injured parties so she

might ask forgiveness. Worse damage might result. The

two advisers, one old and practiced, the other young and

talented, could see that already the scope of the trouble her

lapse had created was widening. It was too late, now, to

mend the past.

Hokanu realised that he should have heeded Isashani's

warning more closely, but he must not allow regret for his

miscalculation to hamper the need for fast decisions. 'Saric,'

he rapped out, 'issue a statement. Tell no falsehoods, but

select your words to insinuate that our Lady has fallen ill.

We need immediate tactics to soften Jiro's accusations of

insult, which will certainly come within hours, and to find

a sane reason to dismiss the state guests.'

The dark-haired First Adviser bowed and ducked away, i

already composing his words of formal announcement.

Unasked; Force Commander Lujan stepped to the fore.

:

.t

71

Despite the Ruling Lords who crowded against his warriors,

to gape at the prostrate Mara, he did not turn his face

from her shame, but stripped off bracers, sword, and belt

knife, then bent to lend his aid to subdue Mara's struggles

without causing her bruises. With a glance of profound

relief, Hokanu continued with instructions to Incomo.

'Hurry back to the estate house. Assemble Mara's maids,

and find her a healer who can mix a soporific. Then see

to the guests. We need help from what allies we have left

to avert an outbreak of armed hostilities.'

'Lord Hoppara and the Xacatecas forces stand with

you,' announced a husky female voice. The tight ranks

of honor guard swirled aside to admit the elegant, yellow-and-

purple-robed form of Lady Isashani, who had used the

almost mystical effect of her beauty and poise to gain passage

between the warriors. 'And I can help with Mara.'

Hokanu assessed the sincerity of the concern in her

exotic dark eyes, then nodded. 'Gods pity us for my lack

of understanding,' he murmured by way of apology. 'Your

house has all our gratitude.' Then he turned the charge of

his Lady over to the feminine wisdom of the Xacatecas

dowager.

'She has not gone mad,' Lady Isashani answered, her

fine hand closing over Mara's in comfort. 'Sleep and

quiet will restore her, and time will heal her grief. You

must be patient.' Then, back to the hardcore immediacy

of politics, she added, 'I have set my two advisers to waylay

the Omechan and the Inrodaka. My honor guard, under

Hoppara, will find ways to interpose themselves where

they will most hamper other troublemongers.'

Two fewer enemies to concern them; Hokanu tossed

back a harried nod. Mara had staunch friends against

the vicious factions who sought to pull her down. She

was beloved by many in these nations. It tore his heart

not to be able to stay at her side when she was in such

72 M'stress of thc Emp~re

a terrible state. He forced his gaze away from the small

cortege that formed to convey his distraught Lady to the

comfort of the grate house. To let his heart rule him at

this time was fool's play. He must harden himself, as if he

stood on the brink of deadly combat. There were enemies in

plenty who had attended Ayaki's last rites precisely to grab

advantage from an opportunity like this. Mara's insult to

Jiro was by now past forgiveness. Bloodshed would result that

was a foregone conclusion - but only a fool would

initiate an assault in the heart of Mara's estate, with her

army gathered to pay honor to Ayaki. Once beyond the

borders of the Acoma lands, Mara's enemies would start

their mischief.

Hokanu moved now in an attempt to stave off immediate

war. The Acoma stood to be ruined if he misstepped; not

only that, but the warriors and resources of the Shinzawai

might be sucked into gainless strife also. All that had been

won in the past three years to secure centralised rule for

the Emperor might be thrown away at a stroke.

Council must be called, to see what could be done to

stave off more widespread disaster. Those Lords who held

allegiance to neither Mara nor Jiro would have to be wooed,

cajoled, or threatened, so that those openly opposed to her

would think twice before challenging the Good Servant.

Lujan, Hokanu called over the rising tumult to the

Acoma Force Commander, 'arm the garrison, and call

up the most level-headed of your officers. No matter

what the provocation, at all costs set your patrols to

keep the peace.'

The high green plumes of the officer's helm bobbed

acknowledgment over the chaos. Hokanu spared a moment

for thanks to the gods that Mara had chosen her staff for

intelligence and sense. Cool heads were their only hope of

extricating House Acoma from devastation.

Saddened by this turn of affairs, Hokanu directed the

honor guard to march back to the estate house. Had Mara

been less herself, and more the pliant wife that so many

Empire women became as a result of their traditional

upbringing, she would never have been strong enough to

have attended a full state funeral for a son cut down by

assassins. As Ruling Lady, and Servant of the Empire, she

was too much in the public eye, denied even the human

frailties that any lesser mother might be forgiven.

Caught up in the heated core of intrigues, Lady Mara

was forced into a role that made her a target.

A frantic hour later, Mara lay on her sleeping mat, stupefied

by potions administered by the priest of Hantukama, who

had appeared as if by magic to offer his skills. Isashani had

the household well in hand, and the short hadonra, Jican,

was as busy as three men, quelling wild rumors among the

servants.

Hokanu found himself alone to deal with the decisions

that must be made in behalf of House Acoma. He listened to

the reports of the Acoma retainers. He took notes for Mara

to review, when she was restored and capable. He marked

which guests stood by her, and which were outspoken

against her. Most had the dignity to stay silent, or else

they were too shocked to frame any hostile response. All

had expected to spend the day in quiet contemplation, then

to be hosted by the Servant of the Empire at a formal evening

meal. Instead, they were already returning home, appalled

by an unforgivable act authored by a woman who held the

highest office in the land, short of the Emperor's throne.

More than one delegate of great houses had stopped by,

ostensibly to pay their respects, but except for the Lord of

the Keda, Hokanu had murmured empty thanks to men

eager to catch any hint that House Acoma stood weakened.

Lord Hoppara and the Lords of Clan Hadama were doing a

fine job of moving through the crowds of departing guests,

74 Mistress of tbe Empire

toning down the damage of Mara's act against the Anasati

by whatever expedient they could find. Many who were all

too ready to be outraged by the breach of protocol became

more inclined to overlook a grieving mother's outburst after

one of the Hadama Lords or Lord Hoppara had finished

speaking to them.

Another noble frustrated in his attempts to reach the

inner apartments had been the Lord of the Anasati. Jiro had

stiffly insisted that the insult to his person was irreparable.

A pack of supporters had clustered at his heels as he

was turned away from Mara's door. They had found a

common rallying point, and even those who had counted

Mara a friend would be hard pressed to ignore a personal

attack; for an enemy, it was impossible. In Tsurani culture,

forgiveness was simply a less shameful form of weakness

than capitulation. All in the course of seconds, the Lady had

changed political opponents into allies of deadly enemies.

Jiro had not sued for public apology; indeed, he had

surrounded himself with Lords whose disgruntlement with

Ichindar's reformed powers of rule was most vociferous.

Saric and Incomo shared the conclusion that the Anasati

Lord was deliberately discouraging conciliatory overtures,

choosing to place blame for the scandal squarely upon the

Acoma. Jiro's loud complaints reached any who hovered

within earshot: that he had come to his nephew's funeral

under what was understood as a traditional truce by all who

attended, and had endured physical attack, humiliation at

the hands of his host, and public accusation. As much as any

ruler understood or sympathised with the source of Mara's

irrational act, none could deny that deadly insult had been

given, with no atonement offered. Any attempt to deflect

the accusation by pointing out Mara's present inability to

offer a rational apology was ignored by the Anasati.

The hall of the Acoma had grown stifling, its screens

drawn closed against the prying eyes of the curious, its

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doors guarded by the scarred veterans of past wars. These

men did not wear the brightly lacquered ceremonial armor

but fidd trappings well tested by previous engagements.

Sitting upon a lower, less formal dais that was deserted in

Mara's absence, Hokanu quietly requested opinions on the

day's events.

That the closest, most loyal Acoma officers chose to

respond to a consort who was not their sworn house

Lord showed their immeasurable regard for Hokanu's

judgment. If the honor of these men's vows was not his

to command, they awarded him their absolute trust to act

as needed in their mistress's behalf. Touched as he was by

their devotion, he was also disturbed, for it signified how

deeply they understood Mara's peril. Hokanu prayed that

he was up to the task.

He listened in grave stillness as Force Leader Irrilandi

and Keyoke, Adviser for War, reviewed the strength of

the garrison, even as Force Commander Lujan readied

the Acoma forces for battle. As if in emphasis, old Keyoke

thumped his crutch against the stump of his lost leg. 'Even

if Jiro knows he will be defeated, he has no choice: honor

requires he answer public insult with bloodshed. I doubt

he will settle for a contest of champions. Worse, if Mara's

cries of accusation were heard by any beyond chose close

by, her implication that Jiro hired the Hamoi Tong to kill

Ayaki could be taken as an insult to the lonani that can

only end in a Call to Clan.'

Absolute stillness followed this statement, making the

footfalls of rushing servants echo through the hall. Several

of chose at the table turned to listen to the calls of house

officers, gathering their masters' families into personal

litters for a quick departure, and a few looked at one

another and shared a common understanding: a Clan War

would rip the Empire asunder.

Into the face of such grim musing, Saric ventured, 'But

76 Mistress of the Empire

who could take such a concept seriously? No tong dares

reveal their employers, and what evidence we found to

link the Anasati to the attack is hardly compelling, given

the Hamoi Brotherhood's clandestine practices. I'm more

inclined to suspect it's an intentional false trail.'

Incomo nodded, wagging a crooked finger. 'The evidence

of Jiro's hand in Ayaki's death is too neat. No tong survives

to win itself wealthy clients by being this imprudent. And

the Hamoi is the most powerful tong because its secrets have

never been compromised.' He scanned the faces around

the table. 'After - what? five attempts upon Mara - they

suddenly allow one of their own to be caught with proof

of Anasati participation? Unlikely. Certainly questionable.

Hardly convincing.'

Hokanu regarded the advisers with a flash in his eyes as

dire as light on barbarian steel. 'We need Arakasi beck.' The

gifts of the Acoma Spy Master were many, and his ability

to read through the snarl of politics and individual greed

of the Nations' myriad Ruling Lords at times approached

the uncanny. 'We need him to pursue this evidence that

supports Jiro's guilt, for the boy's true murderer lies behind

it.' Hokanu sighed. 'Meantime, speculation is leading us

nowhere. With Tasaio of the Minwanabi gone, who dares

seek the death of the Servant of the Empire?'

Saric scratched- his chin in the gloom. Not without

sympathy, he said, 'Master, you are blinded by love for

your wife. The common folk of the Nations may regard

her as a talisman, but her exalted station invites jealousy

from other hearts. Many would see the Good Servant on

her way to Turakamu's halls, simply because of her breaks

with tradition, and her climb to a rank unmatched by any

previous Warlord. Also there are many who see their House

status lessened, and their ambitions curtailed, because she

is favored by Ichindar. They would seek Mara's dishonor

. . . if they dared.'

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Hokanu looked impatient. 'Then who would dare?'

'Of us all, Arakasi might know.' Glancing at Incomo,

Saric tactfully phrased the question that played upon his

restless mind. 'Is there any reason to think that your former

master might be reaching from the land of the dead to strike

a blow in vengeance?'

As Keyoke's eyes hardened at this possibility, the former

First Adviser to the Lord of the Minwanabi, now Second

Adviser to the Lady of the Acoma, cleared his throat. He

unflinchingly met the distrust that focused on him. 'If so,

I was no part of such a plot. But Tasaio was a secretive

man, and dangerous. Many times he was wont to make

arrangements outside my knowledge. I was often dismissed

when most Lords would have commanded my attendance.

The Obajan of the Hamoi Tong was seen to pay a personal

visit to Tasaio. My impression at the time was that the

event involved unanswered questions over the murder of

Acoma spies then in Minwanabi service.' Incomo's long

face showed unguarded distaste as he concluded, 'Threats

were exchanged, and a bargain struck. But no man alive

overheard the words that passed between the Obajan and

Tasaio. I can only relate that never in life did I observe the

Lord of the Minwanabi so balked in his plans that he lost

himself to a display of wild anger. Tasaio was many things,

but he was seldom without control.'

To this, Saric added speculative observation. 'If the

former First Adviser of the Minwanabi cannot know for

certain that Tasaio left orders for vengeance should he

fall, I offer that we waste ourselves in guesswork. More

to the point, Tasaio was not a man who ever for a moment

considered defeat - as tactician he was unmatched. Given

that he believed until the end that he was free to crush our

Lady in open war, why should we assume that he took the

coward's path and paid death price for Mara when he gave

no credence to the chance she might survive him? We should

78

Mistress of the Empire

more nearly be examining the ranks of Jiro's enemies. Mara

is one of the few Rulers in the Nations with strength

enough to engage him without stalemate; with Imperial

support behind her, discord between Acoma and Anasati

is the more likely to lead to setbacks for Lord Jiro.'

'And yet the Anasati Lord seems eager enough to take

what provocation fate and our misfortune have offered,'

Hokanu broke in. 'He does not shrink from conflict. That

does little to excuse him from culpability in the matter of

Ayaki's murder. Until my wife is able, I will presume to

make this decision. Order the garrison to make ready to

march. There must be war, and we dare not be caught

unprepared.'

Keyoke silently inclined his head. He would not accord

the situation the formality of spoken word, since this he

could only do before his Lady. Yet his acquiescence in

the matter showed unswerving support. Saric, who was

younger and less bound to the old traditions, inclined his

head in a gesture very dose to the bow an adviser would

offer hissworn Lord. 'I shall make formal declaration of

war upon the Anasati. When Jiro responds in kind, we shall

march.'

Keyoke glanced at Irrilandi, who nodded to indicate his

own endorsement of what would soon occur. Most Tsurani

bloodshed was committed surreptitiously, with ambush and

raid, and without public acknowledgment of responsibility.

But formal battle between houses was a time honored,

ceremonial event. Two armies would meet upon a field

at an agreed-upon time, and one would leave victorious.

No quarter was asked or given, save in rare circumstances,

and again by formal rules of conduct. History held record

of battles that had raged for days; it was not uncommon

for both houses to be destroyed in the process.

Then Hokanu sought one further step. 'I ask that we

notify Clan Hadama.'

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Saric raised his eyebrows, concerned deeply, but also

intrigued by the subtleties of the suggestion. 'You provoke

an Anasati Call to Clan?'

Hokanu sighed, 'I have an intuitive feeling-'

But Keyoke broke in with a rare interruption that

supported Hokanu's hunch. 'Jiro is no warrior. He has

Omelo for Force Commander, and though a good enough

field general in his own right, he does not excel at large

scale engagements. A Call to Clan is the best hope Jiro

has to keep his House and army intact. We do not provoke

what is likely a foregone conclusion.'

'More,' Incomo added. 'Lord Jiro is a scholar at heart.

He sneers at the coarseness of armed conflict. He wishes

reason to declare against Mara, and has nurtured a hatred of

her that extends back into his youth. But he prefers hidden

attacks, and cleverness. He is a master of shah. Remember

that. He will seek to ruin by subterfuge, not raw force. If we

do call a Clan War first, then the possibility exists that Clan

lonani will not permit an Anasati interest to drag them to

destruction. We are more than Jiro's match in open combat.

If his Clan members are behind his obsessive desires enough

to escalate by accepting his slight of honor for their own,

Clan Hadama will answer.' ~

Hokanu weighed this without much hope or enthusiasm.

Whether Clan lonani moved against them or not Lord Jiro

had managed to set himself at the spearhead of other

factions that had cause to undermine Mara's strength.

That his was not the only mind to perceive past this

personal spat to deeper, more lasting discord had been

evident by the number of Ruling Lords who turned out

for Ayaki's funeral. The High Council might be abolished,

but its tradition of contention continued in secret, ferocious

intensity, whenever excuse existed for the Empire's nobles

to gather. That the Black Robes had sent a contingent of

five to the rites showed that their trend of intervention into

80

Mrstress of the Empire

the arena of intrigue was far from ended since Ichindar's

ascension to centralised power.

At last, Hokanu concluded, 'We may have strength ant

allies enough to crush the Anasati, but at what cost? In the

end, it may not change things. We can only hope that a swift,

bloody dash on the battlefield will contain the damage, and

split up the traditionalists before they can ally and organise

into a united political party.'

'Master Hokanu,' Saric interjected at the naked look of

sorrow that appeared on the Acoma consort's face, 'the

course you have chosen is the best we have available.

Rest assured that your Lady could do no better, were she

capable of hearing our counsel. Now go, attend to her,

for she needs you at her side. I will instruct the scribes to

prepare documents and arrange for messengers to convey

them to Lord Jiro's estates.'

Looking haunted despite the relief at this unstinting

statement of support, Hokanu left the hall. His stride

was a warrior's, purposeful and quick; his hands were a

worried husband's, balled into helpless fists.

Saric remained, as the other Acoma officers broke the

circle and departed from the hall. Left alone in the breezeless

shadows, he slapped his fist into a hand grown uncalloused

since his promotion from a warrior's ranks. He ached for

those friends he had left in the barracks, and for the woman

he had been called to serve, who had wholly won his support.

If the Acoma acted quickly enough to end this dispute,

the gods would be granting a miracle. Too many disgruntled

Lords remained with too few responsibilities since the

disbanding of the High Council. Peace left them too much

space for mischief. The old political parties had broken up,

their reason for existence canceled by Ichindar's new rule.

The Empire was quiet, but far from settled; the climate

of unrest that had three years been held in abeyance was

ripe for renewed civil war.

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Saric loved his Ruling Lady and appreciated her brilliance

in changing the only society he had ever known, but he

regretted the disbanding of the Warlord's office and the

power of the High Council, for at least then events could

be interpreted according to centuries of precedents set by

the forms of the Great Game. Now, while the old ways

were still followed by the houses of the Empire, the rules

were forced into change.

Speculation was becoming too uncertain, Saric decided

with a grimace of disgust. He left the deserted hall, heading

for those quarters he had chosen when Mara had come to

occupy the former Minwanabi estate. En route to his suite of

rooms, he sent Mara's runner to fetch a scribe to attend him.

When the man arrived with his satchel of ink and pens, the

Acoma First Adviser's instructions were clipped and short:

'Prepare notice for our factors and agents. If Arakasi makes

his presence known anywhere in the Nations, inform him

he is to return home at once.' The scribe sat upon the floor

without comment, but he looked troubled as he placed a

wooden lapboard upon his knee. Quickly putting pen to

parchment, he started to compose the first document.

'Add this, and use the number seven cipher,' Saric

concluded, pacing the floor in an agitation that had no

other outlet. 'Our Lady is in deadly danger.'

The chime sounded, and a puff of disturbed air winnowed

the silken hangings that walled the great gathering hall

in the City of the Magicians. Shadows cast by the flickering

flames of the oil lamps wavered as a magician

appeared upon the pattern in the center of the floor.

He stepped off briskly. Hard on his heels, two colleagues

appeared in rapid succession. These were followed by

others, until a crowd of black-robed figures congregated

on the benches surrounding the walls. The huge,

leather-hinged doors creaked wide to admit others that

82 Mistress of the Empire

chose not to convey their bodies to the meeting by arcane

means.

The Hall of the Assembly fillet swiftly and quietly.

The delegates converged from all walks of the City of the

Magicians, a complex of buildings and covered terraces,

towers, and galleries that made a maze-like warren of an

entire island. Located in the midst of a great lake in the

foothills of the High Wall, the northern mountains of the

Empire, the City of the Magicians was unapproachable by

any means but magic. Black Robes in distant provinces

teleported to the site, responding to the call to Assembly sent

out that morning. Gathered together in sufficient number

to form a quorum, the magicians constituted the most

powerful body in Tsuranuanni, for they existed outside

the law. No one, not even the Emperor, dared gainsay

their command, which had carried absolute privilege for

thousands of years of history.

Within minutes the benches were packed to capacity.

Hodiku, a thin, hook-nosed man of middle years who

by preference spent most of his time in study within the

Holy City, walked to the First Speaker's position, at the

center of the patterned tile floor. His voice extended across

the cavernous hall seemingly without effort. 'We are called

together today so that I may speak for the Good of the

Empire.' The routine greeting was met with silence, for all

matters requiring convocation of the Assembly of Great

Ones related to the state of the Empire. 'Today, the Red

Seal upon the inner sanctum of the Temple of Jastur was

broken!'

The announcement caused a shocked stir, for only when

formal warfare was announced between houses or clans,

were the arched doors to the central chamber of the

Temple of the War God thrown open to allow public

entry. Hodiku raised his arms to encourage a return to

order. 'Mare of the Acoma, as Lady of her House and

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Warchief of Clan Hadama does pronounce war upon Lord

Jiro of the Anasati!'

Astonished exclamations swept the chamber. While a

cadre of the younger magicians stayed abreast of current

events, they were not among the majority. These newly

sworn had joined the Assembly during the upheavals caused

by the force known as the Enemy that had endangered

both their own world of Kelewan and that of Midkemia,

beyond the rift. The massive threat to two civilizations had

necessitated a move by the Magicians to aid the Emperor

Ichindar to seize absolute rule of the Nations, that internal

bickering not weaken the land in time of larger crisis. The

newest of the mages might be enamored of using their

powers to influence the sway of events. But to the elders

of the Assembly, who were set in their individual ways

and courses of scholarly study, intervention in Tsurani

politics was looked on as bad form; a bothersome chore

only performed at dire need.

To a still-smaller faction, headed up by Hochopepa

and Shimone, once close acquaintances of the barbarian

magician Milamber, the recent departures from traditional

rule were of interest for deeper reasons. Exposure to

Midkemian thought had prompted them to view the affairs

of Tsuranuanni in a changed light, and since the Lady Mara

was currently the linchpin of Ichindar's support, these war

tidings were of particular concern.

An old practitioner of Tsurani politics of all stripe,

Hochopepa raised a chubby hand to his face and closed his

dark eyes in forbearance. 'As you predicted,' he murmured

to the reed-thin, ascetic Shimone. 'Trouble, when the

Nations can least afford the price.'

Taciturn as ever, Shimone made no reply, but watched

with hawk-keen scrutiny as several of the more impulsive

magicians surged to their feet, indicating their desire to

speak. Hodiku singled out a young Black Robe named

Sevean and pointed. The one selected stepped forward

onto the central floor while the others sat.

Barely a year past his initiation to mastery of magic,

Sevean was fast on his feet, quick-spoken, ant inclined

to be impulsive. He would leap to outspoken conclusions

where other, more seasoned colleagues would wait to

hear the thoughts of less experienced members before

revealing their opinions. He raises a voice too lout by

half for the sensitive acoustics of the hall. 'tt is widely

believed that Jiro had his hand in the teeth of the Goot

Servant's son.'

Which was no news at all; Shimone turned his mouth

town in a faint curl of disgust, while Hochopepa muttered

just lout enough for half the room to hear, 'What, has he

been listening in on Isashani's sitting room again, taking in

the social gossip?'

Shimone gave no answer to this; like many of the elder

magicians, he considered using powers to look in on the

affairs of individual nobles as the lowest level of crass

behavior. Sevean was embarrassed by Hochopepa's remark

ant by the harsh looks from several of the elder members.

Left at a loss for words, he curtailed his speech, repeating,

'It is widely believed.'

More magicians vied for the First Speaker's attention.

Hodiku made a choice among them, ant as a slow-spoken,

ponderously built initiate boned out his irrelevant viewpoint,

more experienced magicians spoke quietly among

themselves, ignoring all but the gist of his speech.

A mage two seats to the rear of Hochopepa ant Shimone,

whose name was Teloro, inclined his heat toward the

others. 'What is the real issue, Hocho?'

The plump magician sighed ant left off twiddling his

thumbs. 'The fate of the Empire, Teloro. The fate of the

Empire.'

Teloro bridled at this vagueness. Then he revises his first

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impression: the stout magician's bearing might betray no

concern, but his tone rang with deep conviction.

Both Shimone and his stout companion seemed fixed on a

discussion the other site of the hall, where several magicians

held private counsel. As the current speaker sat, ant a

round-shouldered man from this whispering cadre stood

up, Teloro heart Hochopepa mutter, 'Now we'll begin to

see how this round of the game is to be played.'

Hodiku motioned to the man, who was slender with

brown hair trimmed above his ears in the Tsurani fashion

called a warrior's cut. The style was an odd affectation for

a Black Robe, but by any measures Motetha was a strange

magician. He had been friends with the two brothers who

had actively supported the old Warlord, but when Elgoran

had died and Elgohar had left to serve upon the Midkemian

world, Motecha had conspired to maintain an appearance

of distance between himself and the two brothers.

The attention of Shimone and Hochopepa intensified

as Motecha opened. 'Is there no end to Lady Mara's

ambition? She has called a Clan War, over a personal

insult she delivered, as Lady of the Acoma.'

Hochopepa nodded as if in confirmation of a hunch.

~So, Motecha has made alliances with the Anasati. Odd.

He's not an original thinker. I wonder who put him up

to this?'

Shimone held up his hand. 'Don't distract with thatter.

I want to hear this.'

Motecha waved a ringed hand, as if inviting rebuttal

from his colleagues. But he was not as magnanimous in his

equivocation as his gesture suggested, since he rushed on to

cut off any interruption. 'Obviously not. The Good Servant

was not satisfied with flouting tradition by co-opting her

former enemy's forces-'

'Which we conceded was a brilliant move,' interjected

Hochopepa, again just loud enough to make the speaker

86 M`stress of the Emp~re

stumble. Teloro and Shimone repressed amusement. The

stout magician was a master at embarrassing colleagues that

he deemed in need of having their pomposity punctured.

As Motecha seemed ready to depart from his prepared

remarks, Hochopepa added, 'But please, I didn't mean to

interrupt; pray continue.'

Motecha was nonetheless thrown off strife. He brushed

lamdy past his hesitation saying, 'She will crush the

Anasati -'

Representing the more seasoned members of the Assembly,

Fumita stood. At Hodiku's nod of acknowledgment he

said, 'Forgive the interruption, Motecha, but an Anasati

defeat is neither assured or even likely. Given the welldocumented

assessment of the forces available to both sides,

it is a given Jiro must counteract with a Call to Clan. Alone,

Anasati's war hosts are no match for Lady Mara's, and

she has spoken boldly by raising Clan Hadama. This has

already cost her politically. She will lose powerful allies - in

fact, two will be forced by blood ties to take the field against

her on Jiro's behalf - and while the Acoma are awesome in

wealth and power, the two clans are closely matched.'

Hochopepa grinned openly. Motetha's thinly veiled

attempt to stir the Assembly on behalf of the Anasati

was now crushed. Rather than sit down, Fumita continued.

'There is another issue here, that must be addressed.'

Motetha jerked his chin and conceded the floor in

disgust. As he moved away, and no other Great One

stood to claim the floor, Hodiku merely waved at Fumita to

continue. 'While matters of honor are deemed inviolate, we

must consider: will this dash of clans so weaken the internal

structure of the Empire that the stability is set at risk?'

A murmur stirred the Assembly, but no one thrust to the

fore to debate the issue. Clan lonani and Clan Hadama

were large factions, yes, but neither commanded enough

followers to upset civil order irretrievably. Hochopepa

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knew his ally Fumita stalled for time; the underlying

concern behind this tactic was wider than the settlement

of one House's personal honor over insult. The worst was

already halfway realised: that the conflict of the Anasati

and the Acoma would create a polarisation of factions who

opposed Ichindar. Disorganised dissenters already rallied

behind Jiro's cause, forming a traditionalist party that could

throw serious opposition against the Empire's new order.

Though they were not yet incensed enough to contribute

to the bloodshed, were there still a High Council left with

power to act, there could be no doubt that if a vote were held

at this minute, Lord Jiro would hold enough support to take

the Warlordship. There were magicians who had regarded

Ichindar's rise to power as an impious expedient: that the

balance should be returned to the time before the Enemy,

with the Light of Heaven's office restored to the old ways.

Hochopepa led a small contingent that welcomed change;

he paid scant heed to Fumita's stalling, but instead watched

to see where Motecha would gravitate. To his colleague he

confided, 'Ah, there's the hand behind Jiro's cause.'

With a slight nod of his head, he indicated the magician

Motecha now spoke with, an athletic-looking man just out

of youth, unremarkable save for the red hair that showed

around the edges of his black cowl. He had thick brows,

an expression that approached a scowl, and the carriage of

a man who tended to fidget with excess nerves.

'Tapek,' Shimone identified. 'He's the one who burned

up a building while practicing for his mastery. Came into his

talents very early, but took a long time to learn restraint.'

Hochopepa's mild face furrowed in concern. 'He's no

friend of Jiro's. I wonder what his stake in this is?'

Shimone gave the barest lift of shoulders, as dose as

he ever came to the enigmatic Tsurani shrug. 'His kind

gravitates toward trouble, as floating sticks will draw

toward a whirlpool.'

88 Mistress of tbe Empire

On the floor, debate continued. Careful to keep his tone

neutral lest someone point out his personal tie to Hokanu

ant Mara's House, Fumita offered up his conclusion. 'I

believe that if Clans lonani ant Hadama destroy each other,

we shall be faced with both internal ant external perils.'

He heft one finger aloft. 'Can any doubt that whoever

survives, that house will be so weakened that others will

instantly fall upon it?' He raised a second finger, adding,

'Ant can any gainsay that enemies outside our border will

take advantage of our internal dissension to strike?'

'My turn to contribute to the general excess of hot air,'

Hochopepa muttered, and promptly stood. At the cue,

Fumita sat with such abruptness that nobody else could

rise to his feet in time to prevent Hodiku's indication that

the stout maFaan had the floor.

Hochopepa coughed to dear his throat. 'My learned

brother makes a strong brief,' he salt, warming up to a

virtuoso speech of confusing pomposity. 'But we must not

blind ourselves with rhetoric.'

Shimone's lips twitched at this half-lie. His fat companion

paces heavily to and fro, meeting the eyes of all d e

magicians m the front rows to draw them to attention.

'I would like to point out that such dashes before have not

spelled the end of civilisation as we know it!' He nodded

for emphasis. 'And we have no intelligence to indicate that

those upon our borders are poised to strike. The Thuril

are too busy with trade along our eastern frontier to seek

struggle so long as we give them no cause. They can be

a hard lot, but profit is bound to seem more attractive

to them than bloodletting; at least that seems to be the

case since the Alliance for War resisted in their attempt

to conquer them.' A murmur of disapproval disturbed

the shadowy hall, for the attempt to annex the Thuril

Highlands as a new province had ended in disgrace for

the Empire, and it was considered bad form to recall the

War

89

defeat. Hochopepa's scruples did not restrain him from

using this point to unbalance his opposition. He simply

raised his sonorous voice enough to be heard above the

noise. 'The desert men of Tsubar have sworn binding treaty

with the Xacatecas ant Acoma on behalf of the Empire, and

we have had no resumption of conflict in Dustari.'

That this was in part to Lady Mara's credit was not lost

on the Assembly. A smile spread across Hochopepa's round

face as the tumult diet back to respectful stillness. 'By any

measure, the Empire is peaceful to the point of boredom.'

In a dramatic shift, his smile fled before a scowl, and he

shook a finger at the "gathering. 'Need I remind my brothers

that the Servant of the Empire is counted a member of the

Imperial House by adoption? An odd convention, I know,

but a tradition.' He waved to single out Motecha, who

had sought to discredit Mara. 'Should we be so rash as

to do anything on behalf of the Anasati, the Emperor

could conceivably consider this an attack upon his family.

And, more to the point, Elgohar and I witnessed the last

Warlord's execution. At his hanging ...' He paused for

effect, and tappet his temple. 'Let me see if I can recall

our Light of Heaven's exact words upon that occasion of

a magician acting in conspiracy with council politics. Oh,

yes, he said: "If another Black Robe is ever discovered

involved in a plot against my house, the status of Great

Ones outside the law will end. Even should I be forced to

pit all the armies of the Empire against your magic might,

even to the utter ruination of the Empire, I will not allow

any to challenge the supremacy of the Emperor again. Is

that understood?"'

Sweeping a dire glare over the assembly, Hochopepa said,

'I assure you all, Ichindar was sincere. He is not the sort

to threaten violence lightly. Our previous Emperors may

have been content to sit by, dividing their time between

holy devotions in the temples, and begetting heirs upon

go Mistress of the Empi e

their assorted wives and mistresses' - he let his voice rise

again - 'but Ichindar is not one! He is a ruler, not some

divine puppet wearing the costume of religious office!'

Lowering his voice, forcing every magician present to

strain with undivided attention to hear him, Hochopepa

summed up. 'We who attended the Good Servant's son's

funeral know full well that Mara's lapse was born of

overwhelming grief. Now she must bear up to the consequences

of her shame. From the moment she assaulted

Jiro with her bare hands, this conflict was inevitable. As

our charge is to preserve the Empire, I strongly doubt we

can justify pursuing any activity that might find us all' shaking

the hall with a thunderous bellow- 'opposing the

armies of the Empire in the-field over a matter of personal

insult!' Quietly, reasonably, he resumed, 'We should win, of

course, but there would be very little Empire left to preserve

after that.' He ended with a dismissive wave of his hand.

'That was all I had to say.' And he sat.

Silence lasted only a moment before Tapek shot to his

feet. Hodiku granted him a nod, and his robes swirled to

his agitated stride as he stalked onto the floor

His face was pale as he surveyed the "gathering silently

gripped by reflection. 'We have heard enough of Lady Mara.

The wronged party, I must point out, is Lord Jiro. He did

not initiate hostilities.' Tapek raised his arms. 'I bid you all

to consider direct evidence instead of words for a change!'

He made a sweeping gesture that carved out a frame upon

the air. An incantation left his lips, and in the space before

him light gathered. A rainbow play of colors resolved into

a sharply defined image of a room lined with books and

scrolls. There, dad in a robe elegant in its simplicity, paced

Lord Jiro in a rare state of agitation. Seated on a cushion

in one corner, barely out of the path of his master's temper,

was Chumaka, his leathery face carefully expressionless.

'How dare the Lady Mara threaten me!' Jiro ranted in

injured fury. 'We had nothing to do with the death of her

son! The implication that we are a house so honorless

as to strike down a boy who shares Anasati blood is

preposterous! The evidence planted on that tong assassin

is a transparent effort to discredit us, and because of it, we

are heed with Clan War!'

Chumaka steepled his fingers, adorned with rings of

carved corcara that he had yet to remove since the funeral.

'Clan lonani will recognise these wrongs,' he said in an

effort to restore his master to calm. 'We will not march

unsupported to the field of war.'

'war!' Jiro whirled, his eyes narrowed with disgust. 'The

Lady is nothing, if not a coward to initiate this call to

arms! She thinks to best us without dirtying her hands,

using sheer numbers to annihilate us. Well, we must fall

back on our wits and teach her a lesson. Clan lonani may

support us; all to the good. But I will never forgive that

such a pass has become necessary. If our house emerges

from this heavy-handed attack, be sure that the Acoma

will have created an enemy to be feared!'

Chumaka licked his teeth. 'The political arena is stirred

to new patterns. There are advantages to be gained,

certainly.' .~

Jiro flung around to face his First Adviser. 'First, damn

the bitch, we have to escape with our hides from what will

amount to wholesale slaughter.'

The scene cut off as Tapek clapped his hands and

dispersed the spell that had drawn it. He flung back his

flame-colored bangs, half sneering at the oldsters in the

gathering who had stiffened in affront at his intrusion into

the privacy of a noble citizen.

'You go against tradition!' cried a palsied voice from a

rear bench. 'What are we, meddling old women, to stoop

to using arcane arts to spy? Do we peek into ladies'

dressing chambers!' His opinion was shared by several

92 Mistress of the Empire

of the greyer-headed members who shot to their feet and

stalked out in protest.

Tapek yelled back. 'That's a contradiction of ethics! What

has Lady Mara made of tradition? She has dared to meddle,

I say! Do we wait and pay the price of the instability she

may create in the future? What morals will stop her? Has she

not demonstrated her lack of self-control in this despicable

attack against Lord Jiro?'

At this inflammatory remark, even Shimone looked disturbed. '

She lost a child to a horrible death!' he interrupted.

'She is a woman and a human being. She is bound to

have faults.'

Tapek stabbed both hands over his head. 'An apt point,

brother, but my concern is not for the Lady's shortcomings.

She has risen to a dizzying height by anyone's measure.

Her influence has grown too great, and her powers too

broad. As Warchief of the Hadama and Lady of the

strongest house in the Empire, she is preeminent among

the Ruling Lords. And as Servant of the Empire, she

holds dangerous sway over the masses. I submit the

point that she is only human! And that no Ruling Lord

or Lady should be allowed to wield so much influence

throughout the Empire! I claim we should curb

her excesses now, before the trouble grows too large to

contain.'

Hodiku, as First Speaker, stroked his chin at the turn

the discussion had taken. In attempt to soothe the uneasiness

that stirred through the gathering, he appealed to

Hochopepa. 'I have a question for my reamed friend.

Hocho, what do you suggest we do?'

Leaning back, making every effort to appear casually

unconcerned by resting an elbow upon the riser behind

him, Hochopepa said, 'Do? Why, I thought that should

be obvious. We should do nothing. Let these contentious

factions have their war. When their slights of honor are

.

.

..

_ _

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93

sated with bloodshed, it will be an easy enough matter to

pick up the pieces.'

Voices rang out as another dozen magicians rose, seeking

recognition. Shimone sighed audibly. 'You're not going to

get your way on this one, Hocho.'

The stout magician set his chin in his palms, dimpling

both cheeks. 'Of course not,' he whispered. 'But I wasn't

about to let that hotheaded boy run off unconstrained.'

Outside the law, each Great One was free to act as he saw

fit. Anyone could by his own judgment intervene against

Mara should he deem his action in the best interest of

the Empire. By taking the issue of noninterference to the

floor of the Assembly, Hodiku had made it a matter for

quorum consensus. Once an accord was made formal, no

member would willingly defy the final decision. Since quick

resolution was beyond hope, Hochopepa changed his goal

toward forcing due process to instill tempered judgment.

The stout magician adjusted his robes around his girth in

resignation. 'Now, let's get to the meat of the matter by

letting these hotheads rant themselves hoarse. When they

run out of steam, we'll show them the only reasonable

choice, and call a vote, letting them think the idea was theirs

in the first place. It's safer to let Tapek and Motecha think

they are leading the Assembly to consensus than to leave

them free to initiate regrettable action on their own.'

Shimone turned a sour eye upon his portly companion.

'Why is it that you always seek the solution to everything

through inexhaustible sessions of talk?'

'Have you a better idea?' Hochopepa shot back in sharp

reproof.

'No,' Shimone snapped. Unwilling to bother himself

with further speech, he turned his attention back to the

floor, where the first of many speakers vied to continue

the debate.

94 Mistress of the Empire

The early sun heated the great command tent. The halfgloom

inside smelled of the heavy oils used to keep the

hide waterproof and of grease used to supple the straps of

armor and scabbards. The scent of lamp oil was absent,

as the Lady had declined the need for light. Dressed in

ornamental armor and helm crowned with the plumes

of the Hadama Clan Warchief, Mara sat on fine silk

cushions. The flaps of the tent's entrance were lashed

back, and the morning outside edged her stiff profile in

light. Behind her, his gauntleted hand upon her shoulder,

Hokanu surveyed the army arrayed in ranks across the

broad vale below.

The mass of waiting warriors darkened the meadow

across the entire vista, from the vantage point on the hill

behind: spear" and helms in their neat rows too numerous

for counting. The only visible movement was caused by the

wind through the officers' plumes, which were many colors

besides Acoma green. Yet the stillness was deceptive. At any

second, every man at arms of Clan Hadama stood ready for

attack, to answer their Warchief's call to honor.

Mara seemed an ornament carved of jade in her formal

armor. Her face was the expressionless facade expected of

a Tsurani Warchief. Yet those advisers who attended her

observed in her bearing a brittleness born of rigidness, as

if her stiff manner were all that contained the seething

emotions inside. They moved and spoke quietly in her

presence, as if the chance-made gesture, or the wrongly

inflected word might jar her control and the irrational rage

she had unleashed upon Lord Jiro might hammer past her

barriers and manifest itself again.

In this setting, with the vast armies at her command

spread in offensive readiness, she was unpredictable as

the thunderhead whose lightnings have yet to be loosed. A

formal declaration of war meant putting aside cunning and

strategies, forgoing guile and reason, and simply charging

V7ar

95

across an open field at the foe names in ceremony in the

Temple of Jastur.

Across from the Hadama war force were raised the

banners of Clan lonani; like Lady Mara, Lord Jiro sat

with the Ionani Warchief upon the crest of the opposite hill,

proud as befitted their lineage, ant of no mint to forgive

a slight of honor from the Lady of the Acoma. Beyond

the tight-ranked warriors of the lonani, the comment tent

flew the ancient scarlet ant yellow Anasati war banner

on a standard set next to the black ant green tent of

Lord Tonmargu, Warchief of the clan. The placement of

colors symbolised an age-oft affirmation that the slight

to the Anasati hat been accepted by all the houses, to be

resolved by bloodshed that would count no cost in lives.

To die was Tsurani; to live in dishonor, cowardice deemed

worse than death.

Mara's eyes registered the details, yet her hands did not

shake. Her thoughts were walled off, isolated in a colt

place that even Hokanu court not penetrate. She who hat

deplored war ant killing now seemed eager to embrace raw

violence. Bloodshed might not bring her son back, but the

heat ant horror of battle court maybe stop her thinking.

She would know a surcease from pain ant grief until Jiro

of the Anasati was ground to a pulp in the dust.

Her mouth hardened at the bent of her thoughts. Hokanu

senses her tautness. He tit not try to dissuade her, knowing

by instinct that no consolation existed that court move her.

He stayed by her, quiet, tempering her decisions where

he court.

One day, she might waken ant accept her tears for what

they were. Until time might begin to heal her, he court only

give unstinting support, knowing that until then, anything

less might drive her to more desperate measures.

With true Tsurani impassivity, Hokanu followed the

distant panoply as several figures left the Hadama lines

96 Mistress of the Empsre

and approached the ranks of the Ionani. Lujan led the

party, sunshine glancing off his armor, and lighting the

tips of his officer's plumes to emerald brilliance. At his

shoulder walked his two Force Leaders, Irrilandi ant Kenji,

and behind, according to rank, the Force Commanders of

the other houses of Clan Hadama. A scribe came last, to

record the exchange as this delegation met its opposite in

the center of the chosen site of battle, following tradition.

A discussion would set the conditions of the coming war,

the limits of the field, the hour of commencement, and the

possibility, if any, that quarter could be offered or accepted.

But Mara had ended hope of the last.

That the houses of Clan lonani had seen fit to become

involved had moved her not a hairsbreadth. They could

stand or fall,,with Jiro, and she would not be alone

in enduring the atrocities inherent in the Game of the

Council.

When Keyoke, her Adviser for War, had broached the

subject of quarter, her eyes had flashed hot anger as she

pronounced, 'No quarter.'

The lines were now drawn, the stakes set. None could

dispute the word of Mara, as Warchief. Hokanu glanced

around the command tent, as much to steady himself as

to assess the mood of those present. Keyoke wore armor

rather than the adviser's garb his position entitled him to;

Saric, who had fought in the Acoma ranks before rising to

high office, had also donned armor. With battle about to

rage, he felt naked wearing only thin silk on his back.

Old Incomo yet wore his robes. More at home with his

pen than his eating knife, he stood with his hands locked at

his sash, his leathery features drawn. Though as seasoned

in his way as a field general, he was unschooled in the arts

of violence. Mara's Call to Clan was no sane act, and since

she had heretofore been the soul of gentleness and reason,

her venomous embracing of Tsurani ritualised vengeance

War

97

left him inwardly terrified. But his years of experience as

adviser to the Minwanabi enabled him to stand firm in

obedience.

Every man and woman of the Acoma, and of all the

houses of Clan Hadama, waited upon the gods' will

today.

Trumpets sounded and the high, curving war horns blew.

Drummers beat a tattoo as the delegations of lonani and

Hadama parted company, turned about, and marched back

to their ranks. The drumbeat quickened, and the fanfare

assumed a faster tempo. Lujan took his place in the center

ranks; Irrilandi and Kenji marched to the right and left

flanks; and the other officers assumed position at the heads

of their house armies. Early sun glanced off the lacquered

edges of shields and spears and lit the rippling movement

of thousands of warriors drawing sword from sheath.

The banners snapped in a gust, and streamers unfurled

from the crossposts, red for the Death God Turakamu,

whose blessing was asked for the slaughter about to begin.

A priest of the Red God's order stepped onto the narrow

strip of earth between the armies and chanted a prayer. The

swell of sound as voices of the warriors joined in seemed like

the tremor that preceded cataclysm. Beside the priest stood

another, a black-shrouded sister of Sibi, She Who Is Death.

The presence of a priestess who worshipped Turakamu's

elder sister affirmed that many men were fated to die on this

day. The priest completed his invocation and cast a handful

of red feathers into the air. He bowed to the earth, then

saluted the priestess of the Death Goddess. As the religious

representatives withdrew, the warriors raised their voices

to shouts. Cries and insults shattered the morning as men

reviled their enemies across the field. Unforgivable words

were exchanged, to seal their dedication to annihilating

combat: to win or to die, as honor dictated; to stiffen

the will lest any soldier be tempted to turn craven. The

98 Mistress of the Empire

Tsurani cote of honor was inflexible: a man would earn

his life through victory, or his disgrace would extent past

the Wheel of this Life, to cause misery in the next.

Mara regarded the scene without passion. Her heart was

hart. This day, other mothers would know what it was to

weep over the bodies of slain sons. She barely notices when

Hokanu's fingers settles on the shoulder plates of her armor,

as his own heart began to pound in anticipation.

The heir to the Shinzawai had the right to stand apart,

for he had no blood ties to either Hadama or Ionani, but

as husband to the Good Servant, he felt obliged to supervise

this slaughter. Now, with the excitement of the warriors

reaching a pitch to quicken the blood, a darker part of

his nature looked forward to the call to charge. Ayaki had

been loved as his own, and the boy's loss quickened him to

share his Lady's rage. Logic might absolve House Anasati

of the tong's hiring, but the thirst of his arouses emotion

remained unslaked. Whether or not Jiro was guilty, blood

must atone for blood.

A runner sent by Lujan arrived at the command tent.

He bowed to earth, silent until the Lady waved. 'Mistress,

Warchief of Clan Hadama, Ionani Force Commanders have

given agreement. Battle shall commence when the sun rises

to a height of six diameters over the eastern horizon.'

Mara scanned the heavens, assessing. 'That means the

signal to charge will be sounded in less than a half-hour.'

She snapped a nod of approval. Yet the delay was longer

than she desired: Ayaki had received no such reprieve.

Minutes passed slowly. The soldiers continued to cry

insults until their voices grew hoarse. The sun inched higher,

and the air heated with the day. All in the command tent

leashed in fraying nerves, until the touch of an alighting

fly was enough to snap the gathering atmosphere of

pent force.

Hokanu's impatience mounted. He was ready to draw

War

99

blade and see the edge drink blood. At last the sun reached

its designated position. No signal passed between the high

officers in the command tent. Keyoke sucked in a quick

breath in concert with Mara's lifted hand. Lujan, on the

field, raised his bared sword, and the trumpets pealed out

their call to war.

Hokanu had drawn his own sword without thought. The

battle might finish without his ever facing an enemy, for

his place was beside his Lady. No lonani warriors would

breach the honor guard who surrounded the command tent

lest Clan Hadama be routed, yet he, and beside him Saric,

were both ready.

The notes of the fanfare seemed drawn out to eternity. In

the distance, at the head of the army, Lujan waited with his

blade poised high, glittering like a needle in sunlight. Across

the field the Ionani commenting officer held a like pose.

When the weapons of both men fell, a flood of screaming

soldiers would charge across the narrow strip of meadow,

and the hills would echo with the clash of swords and the

cries of war.

Hokanu snatched breath to mutter a hurried prayer for

Lujan, for the brave Acoma Force Commander was almost

certain to die. The press of soldiers on both sides made it

unlikely any in the first five ranks would survive the initial

strike. The two great armies would grind themselves against

each other like the teeth on opposing jaws, and only the

warriors in the rearmost ranks might see who emerged

victorious.

The moment of suspension ended. Men finished their last

silent appeals to the gods for honor, victory, and life. Then

Lujan's sword quivered in the stroke of descent.

As warriors shifted forward onto the balls of their feet

and banners stirred in the hands of bearers who lifted the

poles from the earth, thunder slammed out of the clear

green sky.

100 Mistress of tl~e Empire

The concussion of air struck Mara ant Hokanu full in the

face. Cushions flew, and Hokanu staggered. He dropped to

his knees, the arm not holding his weapon catching Mara

into protective embrace. Incomo was flung back, his robes

cupped like sails, as the command tent cracked and billowed

in the gust. Keyoke stumbled backward into Saric, who

caught him, and nearly went down as the crutch fetched

him a blow across the legs. Both Acoma advisers clung

to each other to keep their footing, while, inside the tent,

tables overturned and charts depicting battle tactics flapped

and tumbled into the tangle of privacy curtains that aashed

across Mara's sleeping mat.

Through a maelstrom of dust devils, chaos extended

across the field. Banners cracked and whipped, torn out

of the bearers hands. A cry went up from the front ranks

of both armies as warriors were cast to the ground. Their

swords stabbed earth, not flesh. Thrown into disarray

by the whirlwind, the warriors behind tripped over one

another until not one was left able to press forward to

engage the fight.

In the breach between the lines appeared several figures

in black. Their robes did not stir, but hung down in an

uncanny calm. Then the unnatural winds abated, as if on

command. As fury dwindled into awe, men on both sides

blinked dust-caked lashes. They saw Great Ones come

to intervene, and while their weapons remained in their

hands, and the bloodlust to attack still drove them, none

arose, nor did any make a move to overrun the magicians

who stood equidistant between the armies. The downed

warriors stayed prone, their faces pressed to the grass. No

command from master or mistress could drive a man of

them forward, for to touch a Great One was to invite utter

ruin, if not commit offense against the gods.

Mara regarded the Black Robes that had balked her

vengeance with hostile eyes. The straps on her armor

War

101

creaked as she arose to her feet. Her hands damped

into fists, and muscles jumped in her jaw. Softly, she

said, 'No.'

A strand of loose hair slipped from beneath her helm,

and her Warchief's plumes trembled like reeds before a

breeze. A heartbeat later, another Great One materialised

beside the open flap of her tent. His robe seemed cut from

night itself, and though he was slender with youth, there

was nothing young about his eyes. They held a light that

seemed to blaze in contrast to his dark skin and hair. His

voice proved surprisingly deep, 'Lady Mara, hear our will.

The Assembly forbids this war!'

Mara turned pale. Rage shook her, to be constrained from

fulfilling her call to Clan War. Never had she imagined that

the Assembly might intervene against her given will. She was

as helpless to protest this development as her former enemy,

Tasaio of the Minwanabi, had been, for to be forbidden

the traditional means of vengeance for Ayaki's murder was

to forfeit Acoma honor. To withdraw without bloodshed

from this confrontation would disgrace her far more than

any shame the Anasati might fall heir to. Her son was the

one left unavenged; Lord Jiro would be given the victory.

He would gain esteem for his courage, having gone to the

field prepared to engage in battle to defend his honor, but

it was not his son or his family ancestors whose shades

would be diminished for being deprived of blood price

for a murder. As the accuser who had not prosecuted her

claims by strength of arms, the Lady of the Acoma would

forfeit much of the veneration due her rank.

Mara found her voice. 'You force me to dishonor,

Great One.'

The magician dismissed her remark with haughty calm.

'Your honor, or lack of it, is not my affair, Good Servant.

The Assembly acts as it will, in all cases, for the Good of

the Empire. The carnage of clan conflict between Hadama

a_102 Mistress of the Emp~re

ant lonani would weaken the Nations ant leave this land

vulnerable to attack from outside our borders. Therefore,

you are tort: no force of the Acoma or of the Anasati or

their clan, or allies may take the field to oppose the other

for this or any other matter. You are forbidden to make

war against Lord Jiro.'

Mara heft herself silent by force of will. Once, she hat

stood witness when the barbarian Black Robe, Milamber,

hat torn open the skies above the Imperial Arena. The

powers unleashes on that day hat killed, ant shaken the

earth, ant causes fire to rain town from the clouds. She

was not so far gone in grief to lose reason ant forget: the

magicians were the supreme force within the Empire.

The young, nameless magician looked on in arrogant

silence as Mara swallowed hart. Her cheeks flushed red,

ant Hokanu, at her shoulder, court feel her trembling

suppresses rage. Yet she was Tsurani. The Great Ones

were to be obeyed. She gave a stiff not. 'Your will, Great

One.'

Her bow was seep, if resentful. She half turned toward

her advisers. 'Orders: withdraw.' In the face of this

command she hat no choice. Though Ruling Lady of the

greatest house in the Empire, though Servant of the

Empire, even she court but bow to the inevitable ant

ensure that no lapse of dignity court compound this

enforced dishonor.

Hokanu relayed his Lady's orders. Saric shook off a

stunned stillness ant hastened to rouse the signal runners

outside the tent from their abject prostration. Keyoke

readies the signal flags, ant, as if grateful to be excuses

from the presence of the one dark-robed form in the

comment tent, messengers snatches up green ant white

flags ant hurries off to the knoll to wave the comment for

withdrawal.

War

103

On the field, emit the kneeling mass of his warriors,

Lujan saw the signal. He cupped his hands to his mouth

ant shouted, and around him the other Force Commanders

of Clan Hadama called orders to retreat. Like a wave

held in check, the men gathered up their swords ant

spears, slowly stood, and pulled back into family groups.

Movement surged through their ranks as they formed up,

and began the march back up the hillsides toward their

respective masters' encampments.

The armies poised to clash rolled back from each other,

leaving the meadow trampled in the sunlight. The

magicians between the hosts oversaw the retreat, then,

their office completed, disappeared one by one, relocating

upon the hill near the Ionani command tent.

Intent on her bitterness, Mara barely noticed the

magician still before her, nor Hokanu at her side,

dispensing instructions to dismiss Clan Hadama's forces

homeward to their respective estate garrisons. Her eyes

might view an ending of war, but their hardness did not

relent. Honor must be satisfied. To fall upon her family

sword was no just reparation for Ayaki's life. The public

disgrace remained, not to be forgotten. Jiro would use

such shame to ally enemies against her house. Shaken to

re assume her responsibilities, she could only atone for her

error. No choice remained now, but to use intrigue to

resolve the death and the insult between herself and the

Anasati. The Game of the Council must now serve, with

plots and murder done in secret, behind a public front of

Tsurani propriety.

A disturbance arose outside the command tent, a flurry

of raised voices, and Keyoke's rising clearest in

astonishment. 'Two companies from the extreme left

flank are moving!'

Mara hurried into the open, fear dislodging her thoughts

of hatred. She stared out over the valley in horrified

104 Mistrcss of thc Empirc

disbelief to see the leftmost element of the Hadama forces

countermand orders and surge forward.

The magician who had followed at her elbow hissed

affront, and more of his fellows appeared out of empty

air. Mara fought panic at the new arrivals. If she did not

act, the Great Ones would take issue at her side's disregard

of orders. In another moment her house, her Clan, and

every loyal servant of the Acoma might lie dead of the

magicians' wrath.

'who commands the left?' she cried in shrill desperation.

Irrilandi, now arrived on the hilltop, called answer.

'That's a reserve company,-mistress. It is under charge of

the Lord of the Petcha.'

Mara bit her lip in furious thought: Petcha was a lord

but lately come to his inheritance. Barely more than a

boy, he commanded out of deference to his rank, not

through skills or experience. Tsurani tradition gave him

the right to a place at the forefront of the ranks. Lujan

had compensated as best he might, and set the boy over

an auxiliary unit, which would be called upon only when

the battle's outcome was decided. But now either his youth

or his hot blood invited total disaster.

Keyoke considered the situation in the valley with the

eyes of a master tactician. 'The impetuous fool! He seeks

to strike while confusion occupies the Anasati side of the

line! Didn't he see the Great Ones? [how could he ignore

their arrival?'

'He's bereft of his senses.' Hokanu gestured to the

runners, who had reached even the farthest sections of

the lines. 'Or else he can't read the command flags.'

Saric raced off to dispatch more runners, while on the

field, several older commanding officers broke away from

the press of retreating warriors and hurried to converge on

Lord Petcha's moving banners.

War

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105

On the hill, Lady Mara looked on in horror as two

full companies of men in Lord Petcha's orange-and-blue-plumed

armor moved forward to attack the Anasati right

flank. The soldiers in red and yellow on the far hillside

swirled in an about-face, preparing to meet the charge.

Their commander's shouts floated on the wind as he

exhorted each warrior to keep his head. They were seasoned

troops, or dse their fear lent them prudence. They held in

compliance with the Great Ones' edict, and did not rush

forward to answer Lord Petcha's provocation.

Keyoke's sinewy hands whitened on his crutch. 'He's

wise, that Anasati Strike Leader. He will not violate the

order to withdraw, and should our men under Petcha keep

coming, they will be attacking uphill. He has time to wait,

and perhaps maintain the truce.'

The words were spoken for the benefit of the Black

Robes, who had banded together in a disturbed knot.

Frowning under ink-dark hoods, they watched the Petcha

forces race headlong up the rise on the lonani side of

the vale.

One spoke, and two vanished with a whipping snap of

air.

Mara's servants threw themselves prone in abject fear,

and more than one veteran turned white. Lujan looked sick

and Keyoke like chiseled rock.

On the field, the two Black Robes reappeared before

the charging forces. Tiny as toys, yet menacing for that

smallness, they threw up their hands. Green light sparked

from their fingertips, and a searing flash erupted in the path

of the running warriors.

The eyesight of every watcher was dazzled.

Left blind by the afterimage, Mara was forced to blink

tears from her stinging eyes. Moments passed before she

recovered clear vision. She forced herself to face front, and

gasped.

rr,~ ~mp,~e

At first glance nothing appeared wrong. Lord Pacha's

soldiers no longer ran; they still stood upright, their orange

armor bright in the sunlight and their plumes twisting in

the breeze. More careful study showed that their quietness

masked a tableau of horror. The hands that still clutched

weapons writhed and twitched, the flesh slowly blistering.

Faces contorted in nightmarish, silent agony. Their skin

raised up in pustules, then darkened, blackened, and

crisped. Smoke curled on the wind, stinking of scorched

carrion. Flesh cracked and oozed blood that boiled away

into steam.

Mara's belly clenched with nausea. She sagged back,

caught by Hokanu, who shared her tortured horror. Even

the battle-hardened Keyoke looked ill to his very core.

There came no screams from the field. The victims stood

arrested as puppets as their eyes burst and empty sockets

seeped. Their tongues became thick purple obscenities

protruding from mouths that could not emit even a single

strangled cry. Hair smoked and fingernails melted, yet the

soldiers lived, their jerks and quivers dearly visible to the

stunned observers upon the distant hilltops.

Saric choked back a gasp. 'Gods, gods, they are surely

punished enough.'

The magician first appointed to Mara's tent turned

toward the adviser. 'They are only punished enough when

we decide to allow them their crossing to Turakamu.'

'As you will, Great One!' Saric immediately prostrated

himself, his face pressed to the dirt like a slave's. 'Your

forgiveness, Great One. I regret my outburst, and apologise

for speaking out of turn.'

The magician deigned no reply, but stood in cold silence

as the Petcha warriors continued to suffer on the field.

Burned flesh peeled from their bodies, to fall smoking

to the ground. The men at last began to topple, first

one, then another, until all two hundred warriors lay

War

107

tumbled, blackened skeletons, on untouched grass, still

clad in gleaming armor. The orange-and-blue Petcha banner

lay before them, the tassels fluttering in wind that carried

barely a signature of smoke.

The young magician at length stood apart from his

fellows and addressed the Lady Mara. 'Our rule is absolute,

Good servant,Let your people remember. Any who defy us

invite instant oblivion. Is that understood?'

Mara fought back her sickness, croaked a whisper. 'Your

will, Great One.'

Another magician separated himself from the group. 'I

am not yet satisfied.' He regarded Mara's officers, all on

their feet except for Saric. They might appear uncowed as

Tsurani propriety demanded, yet not one did not tremble

with terror. This brave front seemed to increase the Black

Robe's displeasure. 'Who defied us?' he inquired of his

colleagues, ignoring Mara.

'Young Lord Petcha,' came the reply, cold, and to the

point. A third voice arose from the Black Robes, this

one more temperate. 'He acted upon his own, without

his Warchief's permission or approval.'

The second magician, a sharp-eyed man with a shock

of red hair that escaped the edges of his hood, shifted his

regard to Mara. 'His dishonor does not end here.'

The magician who seemed to mediate called out again.

'Tapek, I said Lady Mara had nothing to do with the

defiance.'

Tapek raurned a shrug, as if irritated by a fly. 'As Lord

Petcha's Warchief, she is responsible for the conduct of all

forces under her command.'

Mara lifted her chin. Her mind stilled with a horror of

recognition: these Black Robes might order her dead, with

no more concern than they had showed for Tasaio of the

Minwanabi, whose suicide had resulted from their bidding.

Her officers looked arrested with terror. Keyoke showed

108 Mistress of the Empire

nothing beyond a hardness around his eyes that no one

living had ever seen.

Hokanu made an involuntary jerk forward, but was

stopped by Lujan's rock-hard grip upon his arm.

The onlookers, to a man, held their breath. Should the

Black Robes order her destruction, no sword, no plea, no

power of love might prevent them. The loyalty of thousands

of servants and soldiers who would gladly give their lives in

her peace would avail her nothing.

While the red-haired Tapek studied the Lady with a

snake's heartless regard, the young magician said, 'Is Lord

Petcha still alive?'

Lujan reacted instantly, dispatching a runner to the field.

Minutes passed. Tapek shifted in impatience, while out at

the scene of the carnage the messenger conferred. A flag

was brought to signal. It dipped and waved, in code, which

Lujan interpreted. 'All who attacked are dead.' He dared

raise his eyes to the Great Ones as he concluded, 'Lord

Petcha was leading his men. His body is ashes and bones,

with the rest.'

The first magician nodded curtly. 'The obliteration of the

offender is ample punishment.'

The third magician from the group affirmed, 'So be

it.'

Mara felt faint with relief, until Tapek stepped sharply

toward her. Deep in the shadow under his hood, his

heavy eyebrows drew up in displeasure. His eyes we"

pale, cold as the depths of the sea, and menace edged

his tone as he said, 'Mare of the Acoma, the House of

Petcha is no more. You shall see that all of that line

are dead before nightfall. The estate house ant barracks

will be burned, and the fields fired. When the

crops are destroyed, Acoma servants shall salt the earth,

that nothing shall grow on the land. All soldiers sworn

to the Petcha natami are to be hung. You will leave

- ~_

. 1

,

.

.

.,

::

.

War

109

their remains to rot in the wind, and never offer them

haven as you have other warriors of conquered houses.

All Petcha free servants are now slaves, given over to

the service of the Emperor. All Petcha holdings now

belong to the temples. The Petcha natami is to be

broken by hammers and the fragments buried, never

to know the sun's warmth, never more to secure Petcha

spirits to the Wheel of Life. From this night unto

eternity, that house no longer exists. Let the ending

signify this: no one may defy the will of the Assembly.

No one.'

Mara forced her knees not to give way. She used every

shred of her strength to draw breath and find her voice.

'Your will, Great One.'

She bowed. Her armor dragged at her shoulders, and the

plumes of her helm seemed to weigh down her neck, yet

she lowered herself until her knees and forehead touched

soil, and the feathers of a Hadama Warchief became sullied

with dust.

The young magician inclined his head in perfunctory

acknowledgment of her obeisance, then withdrew a round

metal device from his robe. He depressed a switch with

his thumb. A whining sound cut the stillness. With an

audible pop and an inrushing of air, the Black Robe

vanished.

The magician named Tapek lingered, studying the woman

who was folded on the ground at his feet. His lips

twitched as if he enjoyed her groveling. 'See that the

object of this lesson is well learned by all others in

your Clan, Good Servant. Any who defy the Assembly

will face the same kite as the Petcha.' He withdrew

another of the round devices and a moment later, disappeared.

The other Black Robes vanished after him,

leaving the hilltop bare but for the circle of Mara's

shocked officers.

110

Mistress of the Empire

Below, shouts rang across the vale as officers called

orders to confused soldiers. Warriors crowded back up the

hillsides, some in a hurry to put space between themselves

and the carnage wrought by magic, others reluctant to turn

their backs upon the enemy, who marched to the same

edict given to Lady Mara. Saric gathered himself to his

feet, while her Force Commander helped his Lady, in the

encumbrance of her armor, to do the same. Hoarsely, she

said to Lujan, 'Hurry and dispatch more messengers. We

must make haste to disperse the clan, lest further mishap

provoke an incident.'

Swallowing hard, and still feeling sickened, Mara gestured

to Saric. 'And, Gods grant us mercy, order this terrible

thing done: obliterate the Petcha.'

Saric nodded, unable to speak. He had a gift for

reading character, and the memory of Tapek's intensity

gave him chills. Mara had been dealt the worst punishment

imaginable, the utter destruction of a loyal clan

family for no worse offense than youthful impetuosity.

All for his mistress's Call to Clan, the young Lord had

died in lingering agony; before nightfall his young wife

and baby sons would be dead, as would cousins and

relations who bore his name. That Mara must herself

be the instrument of that unjust decree cut through her

grief for Ayaki.- For the first time since the great black

gelding had toppled upon the body of her son, her eyes

showed the spark of awakened feeling for others beyond

herself.

Saric saw this as he trudged off to complete the horrifying

task set upon the Acoma by the Great Ones. Hokanu

observed as he steadied his Lady's steps on her return to

the command tent. The fires of the Assembly's magic had

cauterised the wounds to her spirit. In place of the obsession

for revenge against Jiro, a fierce anger now commanded

her mind.

V7ar

L

111

Mara had recovered herself. Hokanu knew bittersweet

relief at the change. He regretted the Petd~a's loss; but

the woman he loved was once again the most dangerous

player of the Game of the Council the Empire had ever

known. With a gesture, she dismissed the servants who

rushed to neaten the disorder left in the tent. When the

last of them had retreated a discreet distance away, she

called Irrilandi to unlace the door flaps and restore her a

measure of privacy.

Keyoke entered as the last flap slapped down. He

performed servant's task lighting the lanterns, while Mara

paced. Vibrant, even jagged with nerves, she regarded those

of her house who were present, arrayed in semicircle before

her. Her voice seemed flat as she said, 'They dare . . .'

Keyoke stiffened. He glanced askance at Hokanu, who

stood as mute as the others. Mara reached the fallen

tangle of her privacy curtains, then spun around. 'Well,

they will learn.'

Irrilandi, who knew her moods less well than the others,

gave her a fist-over-heart salute. 'Lady, surely you do not

speak in reference to the magicians?'

Mara seemed tiny, in the lantern light that held the

shadows in the cavernous tent at bay. A moment passed,

filled by the muffled shouts of the officers stilt mustering

troops outside. Bowstring-taut, Mara qualified. 'We must

do what has never been done since the Empire came into

existence, my loyal friends. We must discover a way to

evade the will of the Great Ones.'

Irrilandi gasped. Even Keyoke, who had faced death

through a lifetime of campaigns, seemed shaken to the

core. But Mara continued grimly: 'We have no choice. I

have shamed the Acoma name before Jiro of the Anasati.

We are forbidden expiation by means of war; I will not fall

upon my sword. This is an impasse for which tradition has

no answer. The Lord of the Anasati must die by my design,

112

Mistress of the Empire

and I will not stoop to hiring assassins. Jiro has already

used my disgrace to whip up enemies. He has turned the

dissatisfied Lords in the Nations into a cohesive party of

traditionalists, and Ichindar's reign is imperiled along with

the continuance of the Acoma name. My only heir is dead,

so my ritual suicide offers us no alternative. If all that I have

lived to achieve is to be salvaged, we must spend years in

the planning. Jiro must die by my hand, if not in war, then

in peace, despite the will of the Assembly of Magicians.'

:8

:

_ .

4

Adversity

Someone moved.

Atop a stack of baled cloth, partially hidden by the cant

of a crooked bale, Arakasi heard what might be the grate

of a footstep on the gritty boards of the floor. He froze,

uneasy at the discovery he was not alone in the murk of the

warehouse. Silently he controlled his breathing; he forced

his body to relax, to stave off any chance of a muscle cramp

brought on by his awkward position. From a distance, his

clothing would blend with the wares, making him seem like

a rucked bit of fabric fallen loose from its ties. Up close,

the deception would not bear inspection. His coarse-woven

robe could never be mistaken for fine linens. Mindful that he

might have trapped himself by taking refuge in this building

to shake a suspected tail, he shut his eyes to enhance his

other senses. The air was musty from spilled grain and

leakage from barrels of exotic spices. The scented resins

that waterproofed the roof shingles mingled with those

of moldered leather from the door hinges. This particular

warehouse lay near enough to the dockside that its floors

submerged when the river crested in spring and overran

the levee.

Minutes passed. Noise from the dock quarter came

muffled through the walls: a sailor's raucous argument with

a woman of the Reed Life, a barking cur, and the incessant

rumble of wheels as needra drew the heavy drays of wares

away from the riverside landings. The Acoma Spy Master

strained to sort the distant hubbub; one by one, he tagged

the sounds, while the day outside waned. A shouting band

of street urchins raced down the street, and the bustle of

114

Mistress of the Empire

commerce quieted. Nothing untoward met his ears beyond

the calls of the lamplighters who tended the street at the

end of the alley. Long past the point where another man

might conclude he had imagined the earlier disturbance-that

what seemed a footstep was surely the result of stress

and imagination - Arakasi held rigidly still.

The flesh still prickled warning at the base of his neck.

He was not one to take chances. Patience was all, when it

came to any contest of subterfuge.

Restraint rewarded him, finally, when a faint scrape

suggested the brush of a robe against wood, or the catch

of a sleeve against a support beam. Doubt fled before ugly

certainty: someone else was inside the warehouse.

Arakasi prayed silently to Chochocan, the Good God, to

let him live through this encounter. Whoever had entered

this dark building had not done so for innocent reasons.

This intruder was unlikely to be a servant who had stolen

off for an illicit nap in the afternoon heat, then overslept

through supper into night. Arakasi mistrusted coincidence,

always; to presume wrongly could bring his death. Given

the hour, and the extreme stealth exhibited by his stalker,

he had to conclude he was hunted.

Sweating in the still air, he reviewed each step that had

brought him to this position. He had paid an afternoon

call upon a fabric broker in the city of Ontoset, his

purpose to contact a factor of a minor house who was

one of his many active agents. Arakasi made a habit of

irregular personal visits to ensure that such men remained

loyal to their Acoma mistress, and to guard against enemy

infiltrations. The intelligence network he had built upon

since his days as a servant of the Tuscai had grown vast

under Acoma patronage. Complacence on his part invited

any of a thousand possible mishaps, the slightest of which

could spell disaster for his Lady's welfare.

His visit today had not been carelessly made; his guise as

Adversity

115

an independent trader from Yankora had been backed up

by paper work and references. The public announcement

of the Assembly's intervention between the Acoma and the

Anasati had reached this southern city days later; news

tended to travel slowly across provinces as the rivers fell

and deepwater trade barges were replaced by landborne

caravans. Aware that Lady Mara would require his updated

reports by the fastest possible means to guard against

possible countermoves by the Anasati or other foes made

bold by the Assembly's constraints, Arakasi had shortened

his stay to a hurried exchange of messages. On leaving the

premises, he had suspected he was being followed.

Whoever had tailed him had been good. Three times he

had tried to shed his pursuit in the teeming crush of the

poor quarter; only a caution that approached the obsessive

had shown him a half-glimpsed face, a tar-stained hand,

and twice, a colored edge of sash that should not have

been repeated in the random shuffle of late-day traffic.

As well as the Spy Master could determine, there were

four of them, a superbly trained team who were sure

to be agents from another network. No mere sailors

or servants in commoners' clothing could work with

such close coordination. Arakasi inwardly cursed. He

had blundered into just the sort of trap he had set for

informants himself.

His backup plan could not be faulted. He had quickly

crossed the busy central market, where purchase of a new

robe and sudden movement through an inn packed with

roisterers had seen the trader from Yankora vanish and a

house messenger emerge. His skill in altering his carriage,

his movements, the very set of his bones as he walked had

confused many an opponent over the years.

His back trail had seemed unencumbered as he jogged

back to the factor's quarters and let himself in through a

hidden door. There he had changed into the brown of a

116 Mistress of the Empire

common laborer, and taken refuge in the warehouse behind

the trade shop. Crawling atop the cloth bales, his intent had

been to sleep until morning.

Now he cursed himself for a fool. When those following

had lost sight of him, they must have dispatched one of their

number to backtrack to this warehouse, on the off-chance

he might return. It was a move that a less cocky man

might have anticipated, and only the gods' luck had seen

the Acoma Spy Master inside and hidden before the enemy

agent slipped in to wait and observe. Sweat trickled down

Arakasi's collar. The opponent he faced was dangerous; his

entrance had almost gone undetected. Instinct more than

sure knowledge had roused Arakasi to caution.

The gloom" was too deep to reveal his adversary's

location. Imperceptibly slowly, the Acoma Spy Master

inched his hand down to grasp the small dagger in his

belt. Ever clumsy with handling a sword, he had a rare

touch for knives. If he had dear view of a target, this

nerve-rasping wait might be ended. Yet if a wish was his

for the granting, he would not ask the Gods of Tricks and

Fortune for weapons, but to be far from here, on his way

back to Mara. Arakasi had no delusions of being a warrior.

He had killed before, but his preferred defense relied more

on wits, surprise tactics giving him the first strike. This was

the first time he had been truly cornered.

A scuffle sounded at the far end of the warehouse. Arakasi

stopped breathing as a loose board creaked, pulled aside to

allow- a second man to slip inside.

The Spy Master expelled his pent air carefully. The

hope of a stealthy kill was lost to him. Now he had

two enemies to consider. Light flared as a hand-carried

lantern was unshuttered. Arakasi squinted to preserve his

night vision, his situation turned from tense to critical.

While he was probably concealed from the first agent,

the new arrival at the back of the warehouse could

.

Adversity

117

not help but discover him as he walked past holding

a light.

Out of alternatives, Arakasi probed for the gap that

should exist between the stack of bales where he rested

and the wall. Cloth needed space for air circulation, lest

mildew cause spoilage in the dark. This merchant was not

overly generous in his habits; the crack that met the Spy

Master's touch was very narrow. Prickling in awareness of

his peril, he slid in one arm to the shoulder and wiggled until

the bale shifted. The risk could not be avoided, that the stack

might topple; if he did not act, he was going to be discovered

anyway. Forcing himself flat against the wall, and nudging

on the bale, Arakasi wedged himself into the widening gap.

Splinters from the unvarnished boards gouged into his bare

knees. He dared not pause, even to mouth a silent curse, for

the light at ground level was moving.

Footfalls advanced on his position, and shadows swung

in arcs across the rafters. He was only halfway hidden, but

his position was high enough that the angle of illumination

swept above him; had he waited another heartbeat, his

movement would have been seen. His margin for error

was nonexistent. Only the steps of his adversary covered

the slither of his last furtive shove as he nestled downward

into the cranny.

A mutter arose from beyond the bale. 'Look at that!'

As if summarising an inspection, the man rambled on,

'Tossing good cloth as if it were straw bales, and

unworthy of careful packing .

beaten for this-'

The musing was interrupted by the original stalker's

whisper. 'Over here.'

Arakasi dared not raise himself to risk a glance.

The lantern crept on in the hand of its unseen bearer.

'Any sign of him?'

'None.' The first stalker sounded irritable. 'Thought I

.. Someone should be

~l. ~

s

e

s

e

s

l

i

p

3

e

e

ei

118 Mistress of the Empire

heard something a bit ago, but it was probably vermin.

We're surrounded by grain warehouses here.'

Reassured enough to be bored, the newcomer lifted his

lantern. 'Well, he's around somewhere. The factor's slave

insisted he'd come back and gone into hiding. The others

are watching the residence. They'd better find him before

morning. I don't want to be the one to tell our master he's

escaped.'

'You get wind of the gossip? That this fellow's been seen

before, in different guise? He's got to be a courier, at least,

or even a supervisor.' Cheerfully the stalker added, 'He's

not from this province, either.'

'You talk too much,' snapped the lantern bearer. 'And

you remember: things you should forget. If you want to keep

breathing, you'd best keep that sort of news to yourself. You

know what they say: "Men have throats and daggers have

sharp edges."'

The advice was received with a sigh. 'How long must we

keep watch?'

'Unless we're told to leave, we'll stay until just before

daybreak. Won't do to be caught here, and maybe killed

by guards as common thieves.'

An unintelligible grumble ended the conversation.

Arakasi resigned himself to a long, uncomfortable wait.

His body would be cramped by morning, and the splinters

an additional aggravation, but the consequences if

he should be captured did not bear examination. The

loose tongues of his trackers had confirmed his worst

surmise: he had been traced by another spy net. Whoever

commanded the pair who hunted him, whoever they

reported to, the master at the top of their network worked

for someone canny, someone who had constructed a

spy system that had escaped notice until now. Arakasi

weighed this fact and knew fear. Chance and intuition

had spared him when intricate advance precautions had

_ _

Adversity

119

failed; in discomfort, in warm darkness, he agonised over

his assessment.

The team who sought to capture him were skilled, but

not so polished that they refrained from indulging in idle

talk. It followed that they had been set to catch what

their master presumed must be a low-ranking link in

the operation he sought to crack. Arakasi suppressed a

chill. It was a mark of the deep distrust that drove him,

that he preferred when he could to accomplish occasional

small errands in person. His unseen enemy must have the

chance to know who he was, how highly he was placed, or

the name of the mistress he reported to. Possibly he faced

the most dangerous opponent he had ever encountered.

Somewhere Lady Mara had an enemy, whose subtleties

posed a threat greater than anything she had confronted

in her life. If Arakasi did not escape alive from Ontoset,

if he could not get a message home, his mistress might be

taken unwarned by the next strike. Reminded by the ache

in his chest that his breathing had turned swift and shallow,

the Spy Master forced control.

His security had been compromised, when he had no

inkling of impending trouble. The breach spoke of intricate

planning. The factor's second role must have been

discovered; precisely how could not be surmised, but a

watch had been set over the traffic at Ontoset's docks

closely enough to differentiate between regular traders

and those who were strangers. That the team that lay in

had been clever enough to see through two of Arakasi's

disguises, having marked him as a courier or supervisor,

boded ill.

Arakasi counted the cost. He would have to replace

the factor. A certain slave was going to die of what

must seem natural causes, and the trade shop must be

shut down, a regrettable necessity, for while it doubled

as part of his network, it was one of the few profitable

120

Mistress of the Empire

Acoma undertakings used by the spy ring. It paid for itself

and provided extra funds for other agents.

Grey light filtered through a crack in the wall. Dawn was

nigh, but the men showed no sign of stirring. They had not

fallen asleep, but were waiting against the chance the man

they sought might show himself at the last hour.

The minutes dragged. Daybreak brightened outside.

Carts and wagons rumbled by, the costermongers bringing

produce to be loaded at the riverside before the worst of

the heat. The chant of a team of barge oarsmen lifted in

tuneless unison, cut by the- scolding of a wife berating a

drunken husband. Then a shout raised over the waking

noise of the city, close at hand, and urgent. The words

were indistinct to Arakasi, wedged behind muffling bales

of linen, but the other two men in the warehouse scrambled

immediately into motion. Their footfalls pattered the length

of the building, and the board creaked aside.

Most likely they made good their escape; were they

clever, they might have used the sound of their leaving as

opening gambit for a ruse. A partner could yet be lingering

to see if their quarry flushed in response.

Arakasi held still, though his legs were kinked into knots

of spasming muscle. He delayed a minute, two, his ears

straining for signs of danger.

Voices sounded outside the doubled door, and the rattle

of the puzzle lock that held the warehouse secure warned

of an imminent entry. Arakasi twisted to free himself, and

found his shoulders wedged fast. His arms were pressed flat

to his sides; his legs had slipped too low to gain purchase.

He was trapped.

He knew galvanic desperation. Were he caught here, and

arrested as a thief, the spy who had traced him would hear. A

corrupt city official would then receive a gift, and he would

find himself delivered to his enemy. His chance to make his

way back to Mara would be lost.

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121

Arakasi jammed his elbows against the bale, to no avail.

The gap that pinned him widened, only causing him to fall

deeper into the cleft. The board walls added the sting of new

splinters to his wrists and forearms. Silently swearing, he

pushed and slipped inexorably beyond hope of unobtrusive

extrication.

The warehouse doors crashed open. The Spy Master

could do nothing now but pray for a chance to innovate as

an overseer bellowed, 'Take all those,- against that wall.'

Sunlight and air heavy with the scent of river mud spilled

into the warehouse; a needra lowed, and harness creaked.

Arakasi deduced that wagons waited outside to be loaded.

He weighed his choices. To call attention to himself now was

to chance that no one from the enemy net waited outside,

a risk he dared not take. He could be followed again, and

luck would not spare him a second time. Then all debate

became moot as a work team hurried into the warehouse,

and the bale that jammed his body suddenly moved.

'Hey,' someone called. 'Careful of that loose bit up

there.'

'Loose bit!' snapped the overseer. 'Which of you dogs

broke a tie when the bales were stacked and didn't report

the lapse?' ~

A muddle of disclaiming replies masked Arakasi's movement

as he flexed aching muscles in preparation for his

inevitable discovery.

Nothing happened. The workers became involved with

making excuses to their overseer. Arakasi seized the moment

to lever himself upward. His thrust jostled the cloth that had

been shifted, and it overbalanced and tumbled downward

to land with a resounding thump against the floor.

The overseer yelled his displeasure. 'Oaf! They're heavier

than they look! Get help before you go trying to push them

about from above.'

So, Arakasi concluded: the factor must have realised his

'~

. ~

,

122

Mistress of the Empire

dilemma and arranged a possible cover. No space remained

for mistakes if the impromptu salvage was to work. Hastily

he threw himself prostrate. With his face pressed to the pile

of cloth where he perched, he mumbled abject apologies.

'Well, hurry along!' the overseer cried. 'Your clumsiness

is no excuse to lie about in idleness. Get the wagons

loaded!'

Arakasi nodded, pushed himself off the stack, and fought

against the unsteadiness of stiff muscles to keep his feet.

The shock was too much, after hours of forced inactivity.

He bent before he collapsed, leaning against the fallen bale

and stretching as if examining himself for injuries. A worker

eyed him sourly as he straightened. 'You all right?'

Arakasi nodded vigorously enough to shake loose hair

over his features.

'Then lend a hand,' the worker said. 'We're almost done

at this end.'

Arakasi did as he was bidden and caught the end of the

fallen bale. In tandem with the worker, he joined the team

doing the loading. Head down, hands busy, he used every

trick he knew to alter his appearance. Sweat dripped down

his jaw. He smeared the trickle with his hands, rubbing in

dust and dirt to darken the thrust of his cheekbones. He

ran his fingers through the one lock of hair kept dyed

since a scar had turned it white, then smudged artfully to

extend shadow and lend the illusion of shortening his chin.

He lowered his brows in a scowl, and thrust his bottom

teeth against his upper lip. To an onlooker he should seem

nothing more than a worker of little intelligence; as he

hefted his end of the cloth he stared directly ahead, doing

nothing that might identify him as a fugitive.

Each pass from warehouse to wagon scraped his nerves

raw. By the time the wagons were loaded, he had singled

out a loiterer in the shadows of the shop front across the

street. The man seemed vacant-eyed, a beggar left witless

Adversity

123

by addiction to tateesha; except that his eyes were too

focused. Arakasi repressed a shiver. The enemy was after

him, still.

The wagons were prepared to roll, the workers climbing

on board. Mara's Spy Master hoisted himself up onto the

load as if expected to, and elbowed the man next to him

in the ribs.

'Did the little cousin get that robe she wanted?' he asked

loudly. 'The one with the flower patterns on the hem?'

Whips cracked, and a drover shouted. The needra

leaned into their traces, and the laden wagons groaned

into movement. The worker Arakasi had addressed stared

back in frank surprise. 'What?'

As if the big man had said something funny, Arakasi

laughed loudly. 'You know. Lubal's little girl. The one who

brings lunches down to Simeto's gang at the docks.'

The worker grunted. 'Simeto I've heard of, but not

Lubal.'

Arakasi slapped his forehead in embarrassment. 'You're

not his friend Jido?'

The other man hawked dust from his throat and spat.

'Never heard of him.'

The wagons had reached the corner of the alley and

swung to negotiate the turn. Urchins blocking the way

raised curses from the lead drover, and the overseer waved

a threatening fist. The children returned obscene gestures,

then scattered like a startled flock of birds. Two mangy

hounds galloped after them. Arakasi dared a glance back

at the factor's residence. The tateesha halfwit still drooled

and watched the warehouse doors, which were being closed

and locked by a servant.

The ruse, perhaps had worked.

Arakasi mumbled words of apology to the man he had

bothered, and rested his head on crossed elbows. While

the wagon rolled, jostling over the uneven paving and

124 Mistress of the Empire

splashing through the refuse that overflowed the gutters

by the dockside, he smothered a sigh of relief. He was

not dear of danger, nor would he be safe until he was

miles removed from Ontoset. His thoughts turned to the

future: whoever had arranged the trap at the factor's

would presume that his net was discovered. He would

further surmise that his escaped quarry must guess that

another organisation was at work. Logic insisted that this

unseen enemy would react with countermeasures to foil

just the sort of search that Arakasi must now launch. Ring

upon ring of confusion would befuddle the trail, while the

Ontoset branch of the Acoma network was left a total loss.

Its lines of communication must be dissolved without trace.

Two more levels of operation would have to be engaged,

and swiftly: one to check for leaks in the branches in other

provinces, and another to sift through a cold trail to try and

ferret out this new enemy.

The difficulties were nearly insurmountable. Arakasi had

a touch for difficult puzzles, true enough. But this one was

potentially deadly, like a sword edge buried in sand that any

man's foot might dislodge. He brooded until the wagons

pulled up at the docks. Along with the other workers, he

jumped down onto the wharf and set hands to a hoist. One

after another, the cloth bales were dragged from the wagon

beds and loaded into waiting nets. Arakasi shoved on the

pole with the rest when the hoist was full, lifting the cargo

high and swinging it onto the deck of the barge warped

alongside. The sun rose higher, and the day warmed. At

the first opportunity, he slipped away on the excuse that

he needed a drink of water, and vanished into the poor

quarter.

He must make his way out of Ontoset without help.

To approach any other link in his net was to risk being

rediscovered; worse, he might lead his pursuit to a-fresh

area of endeavor, and expose still more of his undercover

.~

Adversity

12S

workings. There were men in this city who would harbor

fugitives for pay, but Arakasi dared not approach them.

They could be infiltrated by the enemy, and his need to

escape might connect him irrefutably to the incident at the

warehouse. He wished for a bath and a chance to soak out

the splinters still lodged under his skin, but he would get

neither. A slave's grey clothing or a beggar's rags must see

him past the city gates. Once outside the walls, he must hole

up in the countryside until he could be certain he had made

a clean break. Then he might try the guise of a courier and

hasten to make up for his delay.

He sighed, discomforted by the extended time he would

be traveling, left alone with conjecture. He held troubled

thoughts, of an unknown antagonist who had nearly

taken him out of play with one move, and that enemy's

master, an unseen, unassailable threat. With Clan War

between Mara and Lord Jiro decreed forbidden by the

magicians, his beloved Lady of the Acoma was endangered.

As opportunists and enemies banded into alliances

against her, she was going to need the best intelligence

to ward from her yet more underhanded moves in the

murderous intrigues of the Great Game.

,^

The tailor allowed the robe's silken hem to fall to the floor.

Pins of finely carved bone were clenched between his teeth;

he stepped back to admire the fit of the formal garment

commissioned by the Lord of the Anasati.

Lord Jiro endured the craftsman's scrutiny with contained

disdain. His features expressionless, he stood with

his arms held out from his body to avoid a chance prick

from the pins that fastened the cuffs. His posture was so

still that the sequins sewn in the shape of killwings that

adorned the front of the robe did not even shimmer in the

light that fell through the open screen.

'My Lord,' lisped the tailor around the pins pinched

126 Mistress of the Empsre

between his teeth, 'you look splendid. Surely every unmarried

noble daughter who beholds your magnificence will

swoon at your feet.'

Jiro's lips twitched. He was not a man who enjoyed

flattery. Careful with appearances to the point where the

unperceptive might mistakenly think him vain, he well

knew the value of clothing when it came to leaving an

impression. The wrong raiment could make a man seem

stupid, overweight, or frivolous. Since swordplay and the

rigors of battle were not to Jiro's taste, he used every other

means to enhance his aspect of virility. An edge could be

gained, or a contest of wits turned into victory more subtle

than any coarse triumph achieved on the fields of war.

Proud of his ability to master his foes without bloodshed,

Jiro had to restrain himself not to bridle at the tailor's

thoughtless compliment. The man was a craftsman, a

hireling barely worth of notice, much less his anger.

His words were of less consequence than the wind, and

only chance had caused him to jar against a memory Jiro

yet held with resentment. Despite his closest attention to

manners and dress, Lady Mara had spurned him. The awkward,

coarse-mannered Buntokapi had been chosen over

him. Even passing recollection caused Jiro to sweat with

repressed fury. His years of studied effort had availed him

not at all, when all of his wits and schooled charm had been

summarily dismissed by the Acoma. His ridiculous - no,

laughable - lout of a brother had triumphed over him.

Bunto's smirk was unforgiven; Jiro still stung from

remembered humiliation. His hands closed into fists, and

he suddenly had no stomach for standing still. 'I don't like

this robe,' he snapped peevishly. 'It displeases me. Make

another, and have this one torn up for rags.'

The tailor turned pale. He whipped the pins from

his teeth and dropped to the parquet floor, his forehead

pressed to the wood. 'My Lord! As you wish, of

Aduersity

127

course. I beg humble forgiveness for my lack of taste and

judgment.'

Jiro said nothing. He jerked his barbered head for a

servant to remove the robe and drop it in a heap underfoot.

'I will wear the blue-and-red silk. Fetch it now.'

His command was obeyed in a flurry of nervousness.

The Lord of the Anasati seldom punished his slaves and

attendants, but from the day he assumed his inheritance he

had made it clear that anything short of instant obedience

would never be tolerated.

Arriving to make his report, First Adviser Chumaka

noted the near-frenzied obsequious behavior on the part

of the servants. He gave not a twitch in reaction; wisest

of the Anasati retainers, he knew his Lord best of all. The

master did not appreciate overdone obeisance; quite the

contrary. Jiro had matured as a second son, and he liked

things quiet and without fanfare. Yet since he had inherited

a ruler's mantle without having been groomed to expect the

post, he was ever sensitive to the behavior of his underlings

toward him. Should they fail to give him his due respect as

Lord, he would notice, and take instantaneous issue.

The servant who was late to speak his tide, the slave who

failed to bow without delay upon presentation were never

forgiven their lapse. Like fine clothing and smooth manners,

traditional Tsurani adherence to caste was part and parcel of

how Ruling Lords were measured by their peers. Eschewing

the barbaric aspects of the battlefield, Jiro had made himself

a master of civilised behavior.

As if a robe of finest silk did not lie discarded like garbage

under his sandaled feet, he inclined his head while Chumaka

straightened up from his bow. 'What brings you to consult

at this hour, First Adviser? Did you forget I had planned

an afternoon of discourse with the visiting scholars from

Migran?'

Chumaka tipped his head to one side, as a hungry rodent

128

Mistress of the Empire

might fix on moving prey. 'I suggest, my Lord, that the

scholars be made to wait while we take a short walk.'

Lord Jiro was vexed, though nothing showed. He allowed

his servants to tie his robe sash before he replied. 'What you

have to say is that important?' As all who were present well

knew, Jiro held afternoon court to attend to business with

his factors. If his meeting with the scholars was delayed, it

would-have to wait until morning, which spoiled his hour

set aside for reading.

The Anasati First Adviser presented his driest smile ant

deftly handled the impasse. 'It pertains to Lady Mara of the

Acoma, and that connection I mentioned earlier concerning

the vanquished Tuscai.'

Jiro's interest brightened. 'The two are connected?'

Chumaka'',stillness before the servants provided its own

answer. Excited now, Lord Jiro clapped for his runner. 'Find

my hadonra and instruct him to provide entertainment for

our guests. They shall be told that I am detained and will

meet with them tomorrow morning. Lest they become

displeased by these arrangements, it shall be explained that

I am considering awarding a patronage, if I am impressed

by their worthiness in the art of verbal debate.'

The runner bowed to the floor and hurried off about

his errand. Chumaka licked his teeth in anticipation as his

master fell into step with him toward the outer screen that

led into the garden.

Jiro seated himself on a stone bench in the shade by a

fish pool. He trailed languid fingers in the water while

his attention to Chumaka sharpened. 'Is it good news

or bad?'

As always, the First Adviser's reply was ambiguous. 'I'm

not certain.' Before his master could express displeasure,

Chumaka adjusted his robe and fished a sheaf of documents

out of a deep pocket. 'Perhaps both, my Lord. A

small, precautionary surveillance I set in place identified;

someone highly placed in the Acoma spy network.' He

paused, his thoughts branching off into inaccessibly vague

speculation.

'What results?' Jiro prompted, in no mood for cleverness

that he lacked the finesse to follow.

Chumaka cleared his throat. 'He eluded us.'

Jiro looked nettled. 'How could this be good news?'

Chumaka shrugged. 'We know he was someone of

importance; the entire operation in Ontoset was dosed

down as a result. The factor of the House of Habatuca

suddenly became what he appeared to be: a factor.' As

an afterthought, he said, 'Business is terrible, so we may

assume that the goods being brokered by this man were

Acoma, not Habatuca.' He glanced at one of his documents

and folded it. 'We know the Habatuca are not Acoma

minions; they are firmly in the Omechan Clan, and

traditionalists whom we might find useful someday. They

don't even suspect this man is not their loyal servant, but

then they are a very disorganized house.'

Jiro tapped his chin with an elegantly manicured finger

as he said, 'This factor's removal is significant?'

Chumaka said, 'Yes, my Lord. The loss of that agent

will hamper Acoma operation in the East. I can assume

that almost all information coming from that region was

funneled through Ontoset.'

Jiro smiled, no warmth in his expression. 'Well then,

we've stung them. But now they also know we are watching

them with our own agents.'

Chumaka said, 'That was inevitable, my Lord. I am

surprised they hadn't been aware of us sooner. Their

network is well established and practiced. That we observed

them undetected as long as we did was something close to

miraculous.'

Seeing a gleam in his First Adviser's eyes, Jiro said,

'What else?'

130 Mistress of the Empire

'I said this was related to the long-dead Lord of the

Tuscai, from years before you were born. Just before Jingu

of the Minwanabi destroyed House Tuscai, I had unearthed

the identity of one of the dead Lord's key agents, a grain

merchant in Jamar. When the Tuscai natami was buried,

I assumed the man continued his role as an independent

merchant in earnest. He had no public ties to House Tuscai,

therefore no obligation to assume the status of outcast.'

Jiro went still at this implied, venal dishonesty. A master's

servants were considered cursed by the gods if he should die;

his warriors became slaves or grey warriors - or had, until

Lady Mara had despicably broken the custom.

Chumaka ignored his master's discomfort, caught up as

he was in reminiscence. 'My assumption was incorrect, as

I now have cause to suspect. In any event, that wasn't of

significance until recently.

'Among those who came and went in Ontoset were a pair

of men I know to have served at the grain merchant's in

Jamar. They showed me the connection. Since no one beside

Lady Mara has taken grey warriors to house service, we

can extrapolate that the Spy Master and his former Tuscai

agents are now sworn to the Acoma.'

'So we have this link,' Jiro said. 'Can we infiltrate?'

'It would be easy enough, my Lord, to fool the grain merchant,

and get our own agent inside.' Chumaka frowned.

'But the Acoma Spy Master would anticipate that. He is

very good. Very.'

Jiro cut off this musing with a chopping motion.

Brought back to the immediate issue, Chumaka came

to his point. 'At the very least, we've stung the Acoma

by making them shut down a major branch of their

organisation in the East. And far better, we now know the

agent in Jamar is again operative; that man must sooner or

later report to his master, and then we are back on the hunt.

This time I will not let fools handle the arrangements and

Adversity

131

blunder as they did in Ontoset. If we are patient, in time

we will have a clear lead back to the Acoma Spy Master.'

Jiro was less than enthusiastic. 'We may waste all our

efforts, now that our enemy knows his inside agent was

compromised.'

'True, my master.' Incomo licked his teeth. 'But we are

ahead, in the long view. We know the former Tuscai Spy

Master works now for Lady Mara. I had made inroads into

that net, before the Tuscai were destroyed. I can resume

observation of the agents I suspected as being Tuscai years

ago. If those men are still in the same positions, that simple

fact will confirm them as Acoma operatives. I will set more

traps, manned by personnel whom I will personally instruct.

Against this Spy Master we will need our best. Yes.' The

First Adviser's air became self-congratulatory. 'It is chance

that led us to the first agent, and almost netted us someone

highly placed.'

Chumaka wafted the document to fan his flushed cheeks.

'We now watch the house, and I am certain our watchers

are being watched, so I have others watching to see who

is watching us . . .' He shook his head. 'My opponent is

wily beyond comprehension. He-'

'Your opponent?' Jiro interrupted.

Chumaka stifled a start and inclined his head in respect.

'My Lord's enemy's servant. My opposite, if you will. Permit

an old man this small vanity, my Lord. This servant of

the Acoma who opposes my work is a most suspicious and

clever man.' He referred again to his paper. 'We will isolate

this other link in Jamar. Then we can pursue the next-'

'Spare me the boring particulars,' Jiro broke in. 'I had

thought I commanded you to pursue whoever is trying

to defame the Anasati by planting false evidence on the

assassin who killed my nephew?'

'Ah,' Chumaka said brightly, 'But the two events are

connected! Did I not say so earlier?'

132

Mistress of the Empire

Unaccustomed to sitting without the comfort of cushions,

Jiro shifted his weight. 'If you did, only another mind as

twisted as yours would have understood the reference.'

This the Anasati First Adviser interpreted as a compliment. '

Master, your forbearance is touching.' He stroked

the paper as if it were precious. 'I have proof, at last. Those

eleven Acoma agents in the line that passed information

across Szetac Province that were mysteriously murdered

in the same month - they were indeed connected with

five others who also died in the household of Tasaio of

the Minwanabi.'

Jiro wore a stiff expression that masked rising irritation.

Before he could speak, Chumaka rushed on, 'They were

once Tuscai agents, all of them. Now it appears they were

killed to eradicate a breach in the Acoma chain of security.

We had a man in place in Tasaio's household. Though

he was dismissed when Mara took over the Minwanabi

lands, he is still loyal to us. I have his testimony, here.

The murders inside Tasaio's estate house were done by

the Hamoi Tong.'

Jiro was intrigued. 'You think Mara's man duped the

tong into cleaning up an Acoma mishap?'

Chumaka looked smug. 'Yes. I think her far too clever

Spy Master made the error of forging Tasaio's chop. We

know the Obajan spoke with the Minwanabi Lord. Both

were reportedly angry - had it been with each other,

Tasaio would have died long before Mara brought him

down. If the Acoma were behind the destruction of their

own compromised agents, and they used the tong as an

unwitting tool to rid themselves of that liability, then grave

insult was done to the tong. If this happened, the Red

Flower Brotherhood would seek vengeance on its own.'

Jiro digested this with slitted eyes. 'Why involve the tong

in what seems a routine cleanup? If Mara's man is as good

as your ranting, he would hardly be such a fool.'

Adversity

1

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1:

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1

133

'It had to be a move of desperation,' Chumaka allowed.

'Tasaio's regime was difficult to infiltrate. For our part, we

placed our agent there before the man became Lord, when

he was Subcommander in the Warlord's army invading

Midkemia.' As Jiro again showed impatience, Chumaka

sighed. How he wished his master could be schooled to

think and act with more foresight; but Jiro had always

fidgeted, even as a boy. The First Adviser summed up.

'Mare had no agents in House Minwanabi that were not

compromised. The deaths therefore had to be an outside

job, and the tong's dealings with Tasaio offered a convenient

remedy.'

'You guess all this,' Jiro said.

Chumaka shrugged. 'It is what I would have done in

his position. The Acoma Spy Master excels at innovation.

We could have made contact with the net in Ontoset, and

traced its operation for ten years, and never once made the

connection between the agents in the North, the others in

Jamar, and the communication line that crossed Szetac. To

come as far as fast as we have is more due to luck than to

my talents, master.'

Jiro seemed unimpressed by the topic that enthralled his

First Adviser. He seized instead on the matter closest to

Anasati honor. 'You have proof that the tong acts on its

own volition,' he snapped. 'Then in planting evidence of

our collusion in Ayaki of the Acoma's assassination, the

Hamoi has sullied the honor of my ancestors. It must be

stopped from this outrage! And at once.'

Chumaka blinked, stopped cold in his thinking. He

quickly licked his lips. 'But no, my worthy master. Forgive

my presumption if I offer you humble advice to the

contrary.'

'Why should we let the Hamoi Tong dogs shame House

Anasati?' Jiro straightened on the bench and glared. 'Your

reason had better be good!'

134 Mistress of the Empire

'Well,' Chumaka allowed, 'to kill Lady Mara, of course.

Master, it is too brilliant. What more dangerous enemy

could the Acoma have, other than a tong of assassins?

They will spoil her peace past redemption, at each attempt

to take her life. In the end, they will succeed. She must die;

the honor of their brotherhood demands it. The Hamoi

Tong do our work for us, and we, meantime, can divert

our interests into consolidation of the traditionalist faction.'

Chumaka wagged a lecturing finger. 'Now that war has

been forbidden to both sides by the magicians, Mara will

seek your ruin by other means. Her resources and allies

are vast. As Servant of the Empire, she has popularity and

power, as well as the ear of the Emperor. She must not be

underestimated. Added to the advantages I have listed, she

is an unusually gifted ruler.'

Jiro spoke in swift rebuke. 'You sing her praises in my

presence?' His tone remained temperate, but Chumaka held

no illusions: his master was offended.

He answered in a whisper that no gardener or patrolling

warrior might overhear. 'I was never overly fond of your

brother, Bunto. So his death was of little consequence

to me personally.' While Jiro's face darkened with rage,

Chumaka's reprimand cut like a knife: 'And you were

never that fond of him, either, my Lord Jiro.' As the

elegant, stiff-faced ruler acknowledged this truth, Chumaka

continued. 'You overlook the obvious: Mara's marriage to

Bunto instead of you saved your life . . . my master.' Short

of wheedling calculation, the First Adviser finished, 'So if

you must entertain this hatred of the Servant of the Empire,

I will seek her destruction with all my heart. But I will

proceed calmly, for to let anger cloud judgment is not

merely foolish - with Mara it is suicide. Ask a shade

gleaner at the Temple of Turakamu to seek communion

with Jingu, Desio, and Tasaio of the Minwanabi. Their

spirits will confirm that.'

Adversity

13S

Jiro stared down at the ripples of water turned by the

orange fish in the pool. After a prolonged moment, he

sighed. 'You are right. I never did care for Bunto; he

bullied me when we were children.' His hand closed into

a fist, which he splashed down, scattering the fish. 'My

anger may be unwarranted, but it burns me nonetheless!'

He looked up again at Chumaka, his eyes narrowed. 'But

I am Lord of the Anasati. I am not required to make sense.

Wrong was done to my House and it will be redressed!'

Chumaka bowed, dearly respectful. 'I will see Mara of

the Acoma dead, master, not because I hate her, but because

that is your will. I am ever your faithful servant. Now we

know who Mara's Spy Master is-'

'You know this man?' Jiro exclaimed in astonishment.

'You've never once said you knew the identity of the Tuscai

Spy Master!'

Chumaka made a deprecatory gesture. 'Not by name, nor

by looks, curse him for the brilliant fiend he is. I have never

knowingly met him, but I recognise the manner of his craft.

It has a signature like that of a scribe.'

'Which is far from solid evidence,' Jiro was fast to

point out.

'Final proof will be difficult to get if I have recognised the

same man's touch. Should this former Tuscai Spy Master

have taken Mara's service, the gods may smile upon us yet.

He may be a master of guile, yet I know his measure. My

past knowledge of the Tuscai operation in Jamar should

enable us to infiltrate his operation. After a few years we

may have access to the man himself, and then we can

manipulate the intelligence in Mara's net as we desire.

Our intent must be made behind diversionary maneuvers

to disrupt Acoma trade and alliances. Meanwhile the tong

will be seeking Mara's downfall as well.'

'Perhaps we could encourage the brotherhood's efforts

a bit,' Lord Jiro offered hopefully.

136 Mistress of the Empire

Chumaka sucked in a quick breath at the mere suggestion.

He bowed before starting to speak, which he only did

when alarmed. 'My master, that we dare not try. Tong are

tight-knit, and too deadly at their craft to meddle with. Best

we keep Anasati affairs as far removed from their doings as

possible.'

Jiro conceded this point with regret, while his First

Adviser proceeded with optimism. 'The Hamoi Brotherhood

is not one to act in hot blood; no. Its works on its

own behalf have ever been slow-moving, and cold. Traffic

has passed between the Hamoi and Midkemia that I did not

understand as it occurred; but now I suspect it has roots in

a long-range attempt to hurt the Acoma. The Lady has a

well-known weakness for barbarian ideas.'

'That is so,' Jiro conceded. His temper fled before

thoughtfulness; he regarded the play of the fish. No adviser

of any house was more adept than Chumaka at stringing

together seemingly unrelated bits of information. And all

the Empire had heard rumors of the Lady's dalliance with

a Midkemian slave. That was a vulnerability well worth

exploiting.

Cued by the softening of his master's manner, and judging

his moment with precision, Chumaka said, 'The Anasati can

bear the tiny slight in the manner of the bungled evidence.

Fools and children might believe inept information. But

the wiser Ruling Lords all know that the tong keeps close

guard on its secrets. The powerful in the Nations will never

seriously believe such transparent ploys to link your name

with a hired killer. The Anasati name is old. Its honor is

unimpeachable. Show only boldness before petty slurs, my

master. They are unworthy of a great Lord's attention. Let

any ruler who dares come forward to suggest the contrary,

and you will correct the matter forcefully.' Chumaka ended

with a quotation from a play that Jiro favored. "'Small acts

partner small houses and small minds."'

Aduersity

137

The Lord of the Anasati nodded. 'You are right. My anger

tends sometimes to blind me.'

Chumaka bowed at the compliment. 'My master, I ask

permission to be excused. I have already begun to consider

snares that may be set for Mara's Spy Master. For while

we appear to blunder about with the one hand revealed

in Ontoset, that will draw the watchful eye away from the

other, silently at work in Jamar to bring the dagger to the

throat of the Lady of the Acoma.'

Jiro smiled. 'Excellent, Chumaka.' He clapped in dismissal.

While his First Adviser bowed again and hurried

away, muttering possible plots under his breath, the Lord

remained by the fish pool. He considered Chumaka's

advice, and felt a glow of satisfaction. When the Assembly

of Magicians had forbidden war between his house and

Mara's, he had been covertly ecstatic. With the Lady

deprived of her army, and the clear supremacy she held

by force of numbers on the battlefield, the stakes between

them had been set even.

'Wits,' the Lord of the Anasati murmured, stirring the

water and causing the fish to flash away in confused

circles. 'Guile, not the sword, w-ill bring the Good Servant

her downfall. She will die knowing her mistake when she

chose my brother over me. I am the better man, rend when

I meet Buntokapi after death in the Red God's halls, he

will know that I gave him vengeance, and also ground

his precious House Acoma under my heel into dust!'

Arakasi was late. His failure to return had the Acoma

senior advisers on edge to the point where Force Commander

Lujan dreaded to attend the evening's council.

He hurried to his quarters to retrieve the plumed helm

he had shed during off-duty hours. His stride was purposeful,

precise in balance as only a skilled swordsman's

would be; yet his mind was preoccupied. His nod to

138 Mistress of the Empire

the patrolling sentries who saluted his passage was

mechanical.

The Acoma estate house had as many armed men in its

halls now as servants; privacy since Ayaki's murder was

next to nonexistent, particularly at night, when extra

warriors slept in the scriptorium and the assorted wings

of the guest suites. Justin's nursery was an armed camp;

Lujan reflected that the boy could hardly play at toy soldiers

for the constant tramp of battle sandals across the floors of

his room.

Yet as the only carrier of the Acoma bloodline, after

Mara, his safety was of paramount concern. Lacking

Arakasi's reliable reports, the patrols walked their beats

in uncertainty. They were starting at shadows, half drawing

swords at the footfalls of drudges secreted in corners to meet

their sweethearts. Lujan sighed, and froze, shaken alert by

the sound of a sword sliding from a scabbard.

'You there!' shouted a sentry, 'Halt!'

Now running, Lujan flung himself around a corner in the

corridor. Ahead, the warrior with drawn sword crouched

down, battle-ready. He confronted a nook deep in shadow

where nothing appeared to be amiss. From behind, the tap

and shuffle peculiar to a man moving in haste on a crutch

warned that Keyoke, Mara's Adviser for War, had also

heard the disturbance. Too long a field commander to

ignore a warrior's challenge, he also rushed to find out who

trespassed in the innermost corridors of the estate house.

Let it not be another assassin, Lujan prayed as he ran.

He strained to see through the gloom, noting that a lamp

that should have been left burning was dark. Not a good

sign, he thought grimly; the council suddenly deferred by

this intrusion now seemed the kinder choice of frustrations.

Snarls in trade and the uneasy shifting of alliances within

Ichindar's court might be maddeningly puzzling without

Arakasi's inside knowledge. But an attack by another tong

Adversity

139

dart man this far inside the patrols was too harrowing a

development to contemplate. Though months had passed,

Justin still had nightmares from seeing the black gelding's

fall . . .

Lujan skidded to a stop by the sword-bearing warrior,

his sandal studs scraping the stone floor. 'Who's there?' he

demanded.

Old Keyoke thumped to a halt on the warrior's other

side, his dry shout demanding the same.

The warrior never shifted his glance, but made a fractional

gesture with his sword toward the cranny between

two beams that supported a join in the rooftree. A long-past

repair had replaced a rotted section of wood. The estate

house Mara and Hokanu inhabited was ancient, and this

was one of the original sections. The slate scored white by

Lujan's battle sandals was close to three thousand years

old, and rubbed into ruts from uncounted generations of

footsteps. There were too many corners to shelter intruders,

Lujan felt as he looked where his sentry pointed. A man

lurked in the shadow. He stood with hands outstretched

in submission, but his face was suspiciously smudged, as

if he had used lamp soot to blacken the telltale pallor of

his flesh. ~

Lujan freed his sword. With inscrutable features, Keyoke

raised his crutch, thumbed a hidden catch, and drew a thin

blade from the base. For all that he had lost one leg, he

balanced himself without discernible effort.

To the intruder now faced with three bared blades, Lujan

said curtly, 'Come out. Keep your hands up if you don't

want to die spitted.'

'I would rather not be welcomed back like a cut of

meat at the butcher's,' replied a voice rust-grained as

neglected iron.

'Arakasi,' Keyoke said, raising his weapon in salute. His

ax-blade profile broke into a rare smile.

'Gods!' Lujan swore. He reached out barehanded and

touched the sentry, who lowered his blade. The Acoma

Force Commander shivered to realise how near Mara's

Spy Master had come to dying at the hands of a house

guard. Then relief and a countersurge of high spirits

made him laugh. 'Finally! How many years have Keyoke

and I attempted to set unpredictable patrols? Can it be

that for once, my good man, you failed to walk right

through them?'

'It was a rough trip home,' Arakasi conceded. 'Not only

that, this estate has more warriors on duty than house

staff. A man can't move three steps without tripping over

someone in armor.'

Keyoke sheathed his concealed blade and replaced his

crutch beneath his shoulder. Then he raked his fingers

through his white hair, as he had never been able to do

when he was a field commander, perpetually wearing a

battle helm. 'Lady Mara's council is due to begin shortly.

She has need of your news.'

Arakasi did not reply, but pushed out from behind the

posts that had hidden him from sight. He was robed as a

street beggar. His untrimmed hair was lank with dirt, his

skin was ingrained with what looked like soot. He smelled

pervasively of woodsmoke.

'You look like something dragged out by a chimney

sweeper,' Lujan observed, gesturing for the sentry to resume

his interrupted patrol. 'Or as if you had been sleeping in

trees for the better part of a sevenday.'

'Not far from the truth,' Arakasi muttered, turning an

irritated glance aside. Keyoke disliked waiting for anyone;

now free to indulge the impatience he had repressed for

years while commanding troops, he had stumped on ahead

toward the council hall. As if relieved by the old man's

departure, Arakasi bent, raised the hem of his robe, and

scratched at a festering sore.

.

Adversity

141

Lujan stroked his chin. Tactfully he said, 'You could

come to my quarters first. My body servant is practiced

at drawing a bath on short notice.'

A brief silence ensued.

At last Arakasi sighed. 'Splinters,' he admitted.

Since one terse word was all he was likely to receive

in explanation, Lujan surmised the rest. 'They're infected.

That means not recent. You've been too much on the run

to draw them out.'

Another silence followed, affirming Lujan's surmise. He

and Arakasi had known each other since before House

Tuscai had fallen, and had shared many years as grey

warriors. 'Come along,' the Force Commander urged. 'If

you sit in Lady Mara's presence in this state, the servants

will need to burn the cushions afterward. You stink like a

Khardengo who lost his wagon.'

Not pleased by the comparison to an itinerant family

member that traveled from city to city selling cheap

entertainment and disreputable odd jobs, Arakasi curled his

lip. 'You can get me a metal needle?' he bargained warily.

Lujan laughed. 'As it happens, I might. There's a girl

among the seamstresses that fancies me. But you'll owe

me. If I ask her for the loan of such a treasure, she is bound

to make demands.'

Aware that few young maids in the household would not

willingly jeopardise their next station on the Wheel of Life

for the promise of Lujan's kisses, Arakasi was unimpressed.

'I can as easily use one of my daggers.'

His apparent indifference set Lujan on edge. 'The news

you bring is not good.'

Now Arakasi faced the Acoma Force Commander fully.

Light from the lamp down the corridor caught on his gaunt

cheekbones and deepened the hollows under his eyes. 'I

think I will accept your offer of a bath,' he responded

obtusely.

142 Mistress of the Empire

Lujan knew better than to tease that his friend the Spy

Master also looked as if he had not eaten or slept for a week.

The observation this time would have held more truth than

jest. 'I'll get you that needle,' he allowed, then hastened on

in an attempt to ease Arakasi's ruffled pride through humor.

'Though you certainly don't need it, if you're carrying your

knives. I doubt my sentry understood when he held you

at swordpoint that you could have killed and carved him

before he had a chance to make a thrust.'

'I'm good,' Arakasi allowed. 'But today, I think, not that

good.' He stepped forward. Only now it became apparent

that he was far from steady on his feet. He awarded

Lujan's startled gasp of concern his blandest expression

of displeasure and added, 'You are on your honor not to

allow me to fall asleep in your tub.'

'Fall asleep or drown?' Lujan quipped back, extending

a fast hand to assist the Spy Master's balance. 'Man, what

have you been up to?'

But badger though he might, the Force Commander

received no explanation from the Spy Master until the

bath was done, and the helm retrieved, and the council

was well on into session.

Keyoke was already seated in the yellow light cast

by the circle of lamps, his leathery hands crossed on

the crutch across his knees. Word of Arakasi's homecoming

had been sent to the kitchens, and servants

hurried in with trays laden with snacks. Hokanu attended

at Mara's right hand, in the place normally occupied

by the First Adviser, while Saric and Incomo sat in

low-voiced conference opposite. Jican huddled with his

arms around his knees behind a mountainous pile of

slates. Bins stuffed with scrolls rested like bastions

at either elbow, while his expression looked faintly

beleaguered.

Arakasi ran his eyes quickly over the gathering and

Adversity

143

surmised in his dry way, 'Trade has not been going well

in my absence, I can see.'

Jican bristled at this, which effectively canceled anyone's

immediate notice of the Spy Master's ragged condition.

'We are not compromised,' the little hadonra swiftly

defended. 'But there have been several ventures in the

markets that have gone awry. Mara has lost allies among

the merchants who also have Anasati interests.' In visible

relief, he finished, 'The silk auctions did not suffer.'

'Yet,' Incomo supplied, unasked. 'The traditionalists

continue to gain influence. Ichindar's Imperial Whites more

than once had to shed blood to stop riots in Kentosani.'

'The food markets by the wharf,' Arakasi affirmed in

spare summary. 'I heard. Our Emperor would do more to

stop dissension if he could manage to sire himself an heir

that was not a daughter.'

Eyes turned toward the Lady of the Acoma as her staff

all waited upon whatever she might ask of them.

Thinner than she had been on the occasion of Ayaki's

funeral, she was nonetheless immaculately composed. Her

face was washed clean of makeup. Her eyes were focused

and keen, and her hands settled in her lap as she spoke.

'Arakasi has revealed that we are confronted' by a new

threat.' Only her voice showed the ongoing strain she yet

hid behind the Tsurani facade of control; never before

Ayaki's loss had she spoken with such a hard-edged clarity

of hatred. 'I ask you all to grant him whatever aid he may

ask without question.'

Lujan flashed Arakasi a sour glance. 'You had already

dirtied her cushions, I now see,' he murmured with injured

irritation. Keyoke looked a touch disgruntled. The discovery

was belated that the patrol which had finally caught the

Spy Master lurking in the corridors had done so only after

he had held a conference with the mistress, undetected by

any. Aware of the byplay, but obliged by code of conduct

144 Mistress of the Empire

to ignore it, the other two advisers inclined their heads in

acceptance of the mistress's wishes. Only Jican fidgeted,

aware as he was that Mara's decree would create additional

havoc in the Acoma treasury. Arakasi's services came at high

costs of operation, which caused the hadonra unceasing,

hand-wringing worry.

A breeze wafted through the open windows above the

great hall of the Acoma, carved into the side of the hill

against which the estate house rested. Despite the brilliance

of the lamps, the room was thrown into gloom in the

farthest corners. The cho-ja globes on their stands stayed

unlit, and the low dais used for informal conference

remained the only island of illumination. Those servants

in attendance waited a discreet distance away, within call

should they be needed but out of earshot of any discussion.

Mara resumed, 'What we speak of here must be kept in our

circle alone.' She asked Arakasi, 'How much time do you

need to spend upon this new threat?'

Arakasi gave a palms-upward shrug that revealed a

yellow bruise on one wristbone. 'I can only surmise,

mistress. My instincts tell me the organisation I encountered

is based to the east of us, probably in Ontoset. We have light

ties between there and Jamar and the City of the Plains,

since the cover was a factor's business. An enemy who

discovered our workings to the west would see nothing

beyond coincidence in the eastern connection. Yet I do not

know where the damage originated. The trace could have

started somewhere else.'

Mara chewed her lip. 'Explain.'

'I did some cursory checking before I returned to Sulan-Qu.'

More nervelessly cold than Keyoke could be before

battle, the Spy Master qualified. 'On the surface, our:

trading interests seem secure to the west and north. That

recent expansion I have regrettably been forced to curtail:

was located south and east. Our unknown opponent ma,

Adversity

145

have stumbled onto some operation we just set in place;

or not. I cannot say. His effect has been felt very clearly.

He has detected some aspect of our courier system, and

deduced of our methods to establish a network to observe

us. This enemy has placed watchers where they are likely

to trap someone they hope they can trace back to a

position of authority. From this I extrapolate that our

enemy has his own system to glean advantage from such

an opportunity.'

Hokanu settled an arm- around Mara's lower back,

though her manner did not indicate she needed comfort.

'How can you be certain of this?'

Baldly Arakasi said, 'Because it is what I would have

done.' He smoothed his robe to conceal the welts the

splinters had marked on his shins. 'I was almost taken,

and that is no easy feat.' His flat phrases implied a total

lack of conceit as he raised one finger. 'I am worried because

we have been compromised.' He lifted a second finger and

added, 'I am relieved to have made a clean escape. If

the team that gave me chase ever guessed whom they

had cornered, they would have taken extreme measures

to be thorough. Subterfuge would have been abandoned

in favor of my successful capture. Therefore, they must

have expected to net a courier or supervisor. My identity as

Acoma Spy Master most likely remains uncompromised.'

Mara straightened in sudden decision. 'Then it seems a

wise course to absent yourself from this problem.' Arakasi

all but recoiled in surprise. 'My Lady?'

Misinterpreting his reaction for hurt feelings that his

competence lay questioned, Mara attempted to soften her

pronouncement. 'You are too critical to another problem

that needs attention.' She waved her dismissal to Jican,

saying, 'I think the trade problems can wait.' While the

little man bowed his acquiescence and snapped fingers to

call his secretaries to help gather his tallies and scrolls,

146 Mistress of the Empire

Mara commanded all the other servants to leave the great

hall. When the great doubled doors swept dosed, leaving

her alone with the inner circle of her advisers, she said to

her Spy Master, 'I have something else for you to do.'

Arakasi spoke his mind plainly. 'Mistress, there exists

a great danger. Indeed, I fear the master in command

of this enemy's spy works may be the most dangerous

man alive.'

Mara betrayed nothing of her thoughts as she nodded

for him to continue.

'Until this encounter I had the vanity to consider myself

a master of my craft.' For the first time since discussion had

opened, the Spy Master had to pause to choose words. 'This

breach in our security was in no way due to carelessness.

My men in Ontoset acted with unimpeachable discretion.

For that reason, I fear this enemy we face could possibly

be my better.'

'Then I am decided on the matter,' Mara announced. 'You

shall turn this difficulty over to another that you trust. That

way, if this unspecified enemy proves worthy of your praise,

we suffer the loss of a man less critical to our needs.'

Arakasi bowed, his movement stiff with distress. 'Mistress-'

Sharply Mara repeated, 'I have another task for

you.'

Arakasi fell instantly silent: Tsurani custom forbade a

servant questioning his sworn ruler; and moreover the

Lady's mind was set. The hardness in her since the loss

of her firstborn was not to be reasoned with; this much

he recognised. That Hokanu sensed it also was plain, for

even he refrained from speaking out against his Lady's

chosen course of action. The uncomfortable truth remained

unsaid: that no one else in Arakasi's vast network was either

careful or experienced enough to counter a threat of this

magnitude. The Spy Master would not disobey his mistress,

though he were in mortal fear for her safety. All he could do

Adversity

147

was work in convoluted patterns, obeying her command in

the literal sense, but evading what he could through general

action. For the first, he must ensure that the man placed in

nominal charge of digging out this new organisation could

report to him on a regular basis. Disturbed as he was that

Lady Mara should dismiss this dire threat with such ease,

he respected her well enough to at least hear her reasons

before he came to judgment against her. 'What is this other

matter, my Lady?'

His attentive manner smoothed Mara's sharpness. 'I

would have you discover as much as may be learned about

the Assembly of Magicians.'

For the first time since taking service with Mara, Arakasi

seemed startled by her audacity. His eyes widened and his

voice dropped to a whisper. 'The Great Ones?'

Mara nodded toward Saric, since the slant the explanation

must take had been his particular study.

He spoke up from the far side of the circle. 'Several

events over the last few years have caused me to question

the Black Robes' motives. By tradition we take for granted

that they act for the good of our Empire. But would it

not shed a different light on things if, in fact, that were

not so?' Saric's wry humor dissolved before a burning

intensity of unease as he added, 'Most critically, what

if the Assembly's wisdom is pointed toward their own

self-interest? The pretext is stability of the nations; then

why should they fear the Acoma crushing the Anasati in

the cause of just revenge?' The Acoma First Adviser leaned

forward with his elbows braced on crossed knees. 'These

magicians are hardly fools. I can't believe they don't realise

that by allowing the Lord who murders by treachery to

live unpunished, they plunge the Empire into strife most

extreme. An unavenged death is an express contradiction

of honor. Without the political byplay of the High Council,

deprived of the constant give-and-take between factions as

148 Mistress of the Empire

a leavening agent, we are left with every house cast adrift,

dependent upon the goodwill and promises of others to

survive.'

To her Spy Master, Mara qualified, 'Within a year's time,

a dozen houses or more will cease to exist, because I am

forbidden to take the field against those who would return

us to the Warlord's rule. I am rendered powerless in the

political arena. My clan cannot raise sword against the

traditionalists, who now use Jiro as their front man. If I

cannot make war upon him, I can no longer keep my pledge

to protect those houses who are dependent upon Acoma

alliance.' Shutting her eyes for a moment, she seemed to

gather herself.

Arakasi's regard of his Lady sharpened as he understood

something: she had recovered from her mourning enough

to have regained reason. She knew in her heart that the

evidence against Jiro was too obvious to take seriously.

But the cost of her loss of control at the funeral must be

met without flinching: she had shamed her family name,

and Jiro's guilt or lack of it was moot point. To admit his

innocence now was to make public admission of her error.

This she could not honorably do without a worse question

arising. Did she believe her enemy was clean of Ayaki's

blood, or was she simply backing down from exacting

retribution for Ayaki? Not to avenge a murder was an

irrevocable forfeit of honor.

Regret as she might the heat of her rage and her wrong

thinking, Mara could do nothing but manage the situation

as if all along she believed in the Anasati's treachery. To do

other was not Tsurani, and a weakness that enemies would

immediately exploit to bring her downfall.

As if to escape distasteful memories, Mara resumed,

'Within two years, many we would count allies will be

dead or dishonored, and many more who are neutral

might be persuaded or driven by political pressure into

.

1 .

1

Adversity

149

the traditionalist camp. The depleted Imperial Party will

face off, but, without us, with the disastrous probability

that a new Warlord will reinstate the Council. Should that

sad day dawn, the man to wear the white-and-gold mantle

would be Jiro of the Anasati.'

Arakasi rubbed his cheek with a knuckle, furiously

thinking. 'So you think the Assembly may be tinkering

in politics for the reason of its own agenda. It is true that

the Black Robes have always been jealous of their privacy.

I know of no man who has entered their city and spoken of

the experience. Lady Mara, to pry into that stronghold will

be dangerous, and very difficult, if not outright impossible.

They have truth spells that make it impossible to insinuate

someone into their ranks. I have heard stories . . . though I

might not be the first Spy Master to attempt an infiltration,

no one who crosses a Great One with deceit in his heart

lives to a natural end.'

Mara's hands twisted into fists. 'We must find a way to

know their motives. More, we must discover a way to stop

their interference, or at least to gain a clear delineation of

what parameters they have set us. We must know how much

we may accomplish without raising their wrath. Over time,

perhaps a means can be found to negotiate with them.'

Arakasi bowed his head, resigned, but already at work

on the grand scale the problem required. He had never

expected to live to old age; puzzles, even dangerous ones,

were all the delight he understood, though the one his Lady

had proposed was all too likely to invite a swift destruction.

'Your will, mistress. I shall begin at once to realign the

interests of our agents to the northwest.' Negotiation was a

futile hope, one Arakasi rejected at the outset. To bargain at

all, one must have either force to command or a persuasive

reward as enticement. Power and popularity Mara had, but

he, too, had witnessed the display of a single magician's

might when the Imperial Games had been disrupted by

150

Mistress of the Empire

Milamber. Lady Mara's thousands of warriors, and those

of all her friends and allies, were as nothing compared to

the arcane forces the Assembly commanded. And what in

the world under heaven could anyone have that a Great

One could desire and not simply take for the asking?

Chilled, Arakasi considered the last alternative to effect

coercion: extortion. If the Assembly held a secret that

it would sHl favors to keep any others from knowing,

something it would be willing to grant concessions for, to

ensure Mara kept her silence . . . The very idea was sheer

folly. The Great Ones were above any law. Arakasi judged

it more likely that even should he be lucky enough to find

such a secret, the Black Robes would simply seal Mara's

permanent silence by putting her horribly to death.

Saric, Lujan, and Keyoke understood this, he sensed, for

their eyes were upon him most closely as he rose and made

his final bow. This time, Mara dared too much, and they

all feared for the outcome. Cold to the core of his spirit,

Arakasi turned away. Nothing about his manner indicated

that he cursed a savage fate. Not only must he sidetrack

what instinct warned might be the most perilous threat to

target Lady Mara so far, but he would even have to abandon

any effort at effecting a countermeasure. Whole sections of

his vast operation must be rendered dormant until after he

had cracked an enigma no man had ever dared attempt.

The riddle waited to be unraveled, beyond the shores of

a nameless body of water, known only as the lake that

surrounds the isle of the City of the Magicians.

Machinations

Two years passed.

No renewed attempts to assassinate the Lady of the

Acoma came, and while all remained watchful, the sense

of immediate risk had diminished.

The tranquility that settled over the estate house as

predawn light rinsed the sleeping chamber was all the more

to be treasured. Pressures brought on by recent unfavorable

developments in trade and the friction between political

factions steadily brought more stresses to bear upon House

Acoma's resources.

But now, only patrols were stirring, and the day's messengers

bearing news had yet to arrive. A shore bird called

off the lake. Hokanu tightened his arms around his beloved

Lady. His hands touched the ivory-smooth skin over her

belly and a slight fullness there alerted him. Suddenly, the

mornings she had closeted herself away from him and even

her most trusted advisers made sense. An ecstatic flush of

pleasure followed the obvious deduction. Hokanu smiled,

his face pressed into the sweet waves of her hair.

'Have the midwives told you yet whether the new Acoma

heir is to be a son or a daughter?'

Mara twisted in his arms, her eyes wide with indignation.

'I did not tell you I was pregnant! Which of my maids

betrayed me?'

Hokanu said nothing; only his smile widened.

The Lady reached down, grasped his two wrists, which

were locked around her still, and concluded, 'I see. My

maids were all loyal, and I still cannot keep any secrets

from you, husband.'

1S2

Mistress of the Empire

But she could; as clear as the rapport between them could

be, there were depths to her that even Hokanu could not

fathom, particularly since the death of her firstborn, as if

grief had laid a shadow on her. Although her warmth as

she laid her face against her husband was genuine, and her

pleasure equally so as she whispered formally into his ear

that he was soon going to be a father by blood, as well

as through adoption, Hokanu sensed a darker undertone.

Mara was troubled by something, this time not related

to Ayaki's loss, or to the Assembly's intervention in her

attempt to bring vengeance on Jiro. Equally, he sensed that

this was not the moment to broach any inquiry into her

affairs.

'I love you, Lady,' he murmured. 'You had better

accustom yourself to solicitude, because I'm going to

spoil you shamelessly every day until the moment you

give birth.' He turned her in his arms and kissed her.

'After that, we both might find I had acquired a habit

too fine to break.'

Mara snuggled against him, her fingers trailing across his

chest. 'You are the finest husband in the Empire, beloved far

better than I deserve.'

Which was arguable, but Hokanu held his peace. He

knew she loved him deeply and gave him as much care and

satisfaction as any woman was capable of; the profoundly

sensed certainty that something indefinable was missing

from her side of the relationship was a feeling he had

exhausted himself trying to fathom. For the Lady never

lied to him, never stinted in her affections. Still she had

moments when her thoughts were elsewhere, in a place

he could never reach. She needed something his instincts

warned him he lacked the means to provide.

A pragmatic man, he did not try to force the impossible,

but built upon their years together a contentment and a

peace that were enduring and solid as a monument. He had

Machinations

1S3

succeeded in giving her happiness, until the dart struck the

horse that killed her son.

She shifted against him, her dark eyes apparently fixed

upon the flower garden beyond the opened screen. Breezes

caused her favorite kekali blossoms to nod, and their heavy

perfume swirled through the chamber. Far off, the bread

cook could be heard berating a slave boy for laziness; the

sounds of the dispatch barge being loaded at dockside

reached here, strangely amplified by still water and the

mist-cloaked morning quiet.

Hokanu caught Mara's fingers and stroked them, and

by the fact that they did not immediately respond knew

she was not thinking of ordinary commerce.

'Is it the Assembly on your mind again?' he asked,

knowing it was not, but also aware that an oblique

approach would break the cold space around her thoughts

and help her make a start at communicating.

Mara closed her grip on his hand. 'Your father's sister has

two boys, and you have a second cousin with five children,

three of them sons.'

Unsure where this opening was leading, but also catching

her drift, Hokanu nodded. He reflexively followed up on

her next thought. 'If something were to happen to Justin

before your child was born, my father could choose among

several cousins and relations to find a successor after me

for the Shinzawai mantle. But you should not worry, love;

I fully intend to stay alive and keep you safe.'

Mara frowned, more troubled than he had originally

guessed. 'No. We've been through this. I will not see the

Acoma name merged with that of the Shinzawai.'

Hokanu drew her close, aware now of what lay beneath

her tenseness. 'You fear for the Acoma name, then I

understand. Until our child is born, you are the last of

your line.'

Her tenseness as she nodded betrayed the depths of a fear

~:~

:

;

154 Mistress of the Empire

she had wrestled with and kept hidden for the intervening

span of two years. And after all she had gone through to

secure the continuance of her ancestors' line, only to suffer

the further loss of her son, he could not fault her.

'Unlike your father, I have no remaining cousins, and no

other option.' She sucked a quick breach, and plunged ahead

to the heart of the matter.

'I want Justin sworn to the Acoma natami.'

'Mara!' Hokanu said, startled. 'Done is done! The boy

is almost five years of age and sworn already to the

Shinzawai!'

She looked stricken. Her eyes were- too large in her

face, and her bones too prominent, the result of grief and

morning sickness. 'Release him.'

There was an air of desperation about her, of determined

hardness he had seen only in the presence of enemies; and

gods knew, he was not an enemy. He stifled his initial

shock, reached out, and again drew her against him. She

was shaking, though her skin was not chilled. Patiently,

carefully, he considered her position. He tried to unravel

her motivations and achieve an understanding that would

give him grounds to work with her; for he realised, for his

father's sake, that he would be doing no one any favors

by changing Justin's house loyalty - least of all the boy.

By now the child was old enough to begin to comprehend

the significance of the name to which he belonged.

The death of an elder brother had fallen hard enough on

the little one without his becoming the pawn of politi=cs.

Much as Hokanu loved Mara, he also recognised that Jiro's

enmity was more threat than he would wish to place on the

shoulders of an innocent child. '

The rapport shared between the Lady and her consort

cut both ways; Mara also had the gift of tracking Hokanu's

inner thoughts. She said, 'It is a lot more difficult to murder

a boy who is able to walk, talk, and recognise strangers

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than an infant in a crib. As Shinzawai heir, our new baby

would be safer. A house, a whole line, would not be ended

by one death.'

Hokanu could not refute such logic; what cost him

peace and prevented his agreement was his own affection

for Justin, not mentioning that his foster father, Kamatsu,

had come to dote on the boy. Did a man take a child old

enough to have tasted the joys of life, and thrust him

into grave danger? Or did one set an innocent infant

at risk?

'If I die,' Mara said in a near whisper, 'there will be

nothing. No child. No Acoma. My ancestors will lose their

places on the Wheel of Life, and none will remain to hold

Acoma honor in the eyes of the gods.' She did not add,

as she might have, that all she had done for herself would

have gone for nothing.

Her consort pushed himself upright against the pillows,

drew her to lean against him, and combed back her dark

hair. 'Lady, I will think on what you have said.'

Mara twisted, jerking free of his caress. Beautiful, determined,

and angry, she sat up straight and faced him. 'You

must not think. You must decide. Release Justin from his

vows, for the Acoma must not go another day without an

heir to come after me.'

There was an edge of hysteria to her. Hokanu read past

that, to another worry, one she had not yet mentioned,

that he had missed in the turmoil. 'You are feeling

cornered because Arakasi has been so long at the task

you set him,' he said on a note of inspiration.

The wind seemed to go out of Mara's sails. 'Yes. Perhaps

I asked too much of him, or began a more perilous course

than I knew when I sent him to attempt to infiltrate the

affairs of the Assembly.' In a rare moment of self-doubt, she

admitted, 'I was hotheaded, and angry. In truth, things have

gone more smoothly than I first feared. We have handled the

156 Mistress of the Empire

upsurge of the traditionalist offensive without the difficulty

I anticipated.'

Hokanu heard, but was not deceived into belief that she

considered the affair settled. If anything, the quiet times

and the minor snarls that erupted in trade transactions

were harbingers of something deeper afoot. Tsurani Lords

were devious; the culture itself for thousands of years had

applauded the ruler who could be subtle, who could effect

convoluted, long-range plotting to stage a brilliant victory

years later. All too likely, Lord Jiro was biding his time,

amassing his preparations to strike. He was no Minwanabi,

to solve his conflicts on the field of war. The Assembly's

edict had effectively granted him unlimited time, and license

to plot against the Acoma through intrigue, as was his

penchant. ~

Neither Mara nor Hokanu chose to belabor this point,

which both of them feared. An interval of quiet stretched

between them, filled with the sounds of the estate beginning

to wake. The light through the screen changed from grey to

rose-gold, and birdsong filtered in over the call of officers

overseeing the change in the guard - warriors who had not

patrolled so near the estate house before Ayaki's death.

Unspoken also was the understanding that the Anasati

might in fact have been the target of the faked evidence carried

by the tong. Jiro-and the old-line traditionalists wished Mara

dead, which made his enmity logical. Yet a third faction might

be plotting unseen, to create this schism between the Acoma

and Anasati alliance that had been sealed with Ayaki's life.

The attempt had been against Mara; had she died according

to plan, her son would have inherited, as heir. Hokanu, in

the vulnerable position of regent, would have been left to

manage a sure clash between the Acoma, in an attempt to

retain their independence as his Lady would have desired,

and the Anasati, who would seek to annex that house on

the strength of their blood tie to the boy.

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But if the contract with the tong that had seen Ayaki killed

had not been under Jiro's chop, all that had transpired since

might be playing into the hands of some third party, perhaps

the same Lord whose spy net had breached Arakasi's

security.

'I think,' said Hokanu with gentle firmness, 'that we

should not resolve this issue until we have heard from

Arakasi, or one of his agents. If he has made headway in

his attempt to gain insight into the Great Ones' council, his

network will send word. No news is best news, for now.'

Looking pale and strained, and feeling chilled as well,

Mara nodded. The discomforts of her pregnancy were

shortly going to make conversation difficult, in any event.

She lay, limp in her husband's arms, while he snapped

his fingers and called for her maids. It was part of his

singular devotion that kept him at her side through her

early hours of illness. When she offered protest that he

surely had better things to do with his time, he only

smiled.

The clock chimed. Mara pushed damp hair from her brow

and sighed. She closed her eyes a moment, to ease the

ongoing strain of reviewing the fine print of the trade

factor's reports from Sulan-Qu. Yet her interval of rest

lasted scarcely seconds.

A maid entered with a tray. Mara started slightly at the

intrusion, then resigned herself to the interruption as the

servant began laying out a light lunch on the small lap

table beside the one she had left cluttered with unfinished

business.

As the mistress's regard turned her way, the maid bowed,

touching forehead to floor in obeisance very near to a

slave's. As Mara suspected, the girl wore livery trimmed

in blue, Shinzawai colors.

'My Lady, the master sent me to bring you lunch. He says

158

Mistress of the Empire

you are too thin, and the baby won't have enough to grow

on if you don't take time to eat.'

Mara rested a hand on her swollen middle. The boy child

the midwives had promised her seemed to be developing

just fine. If she herself looked peaked, impatience and

nerves were the more likely cause rather than diet. This

pregnancy wore at her, impatient as she was to be done

with it, and to have the question of heirship resolved. She

had not realised how much she had come to rely upon

Hokanu's companionship until strain had been put upon

it. Her wish to name Justin as Acoma heir had exacted a

high cost, and she longed for the birth of the child, that the

altercation with Hokanu could be set behind them both.

But the months until her due date seemed to stretch into

infinity. Reflective, Mara stared out the window, where the

akasi vines were in bloom and slaves were busy with shears

trimming them back from the walk. The heavy perfume

reminded her of another study, on her old estate, and a day

in the past when a red-haired barbarian slave had upset her

concept of Tsurani culture. Now, Hokanu was the only man

in the Empire who seemed to share her progressive dreams

and ideas. It was hard to speak to him, lately, without the

issue of progeny coming between.

The maid slipped out unobtrusively. Mara regarded the

tray of fruit, bread, and cold cheeses with little enthusiasm.

Still, she forced herself to fill up a plate and eat, however

tasteless the food seemed on her tongue. Past experience

had taught her that Hokanu would come by to check on

her, and she did not wish to face the imploring tenderness

in his eyes if she followed her inclinations and left the meal

untouched.

The report that had occupied her was far more serious

than it appeared at first glance. A warehouse by the river

had burned, causing damage to the surplus hides held off

the spring market. The prices had not been up to standard

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this season, and rather than sell leather at such slight

profit, Jican had consigned them for later delivery to the

sandalmaker's. Mara frowned. She set her barely touched

plate aside, out of habit. Although it was no secret that,

of all the houses in the Empire, hers was the only one

to provide sandals for its bearer slaves and field hands,

until now the subject only made her the butt of social

small talk. Old-line traditionalist Lords laughed loudly

and long, and claimed her slaves ran her household;

one particularly cantankerous senior priest in the temple

service of Chochocan, the Good God, had sent her a tart

missive cautioning her that treating slaves too kindly was

an offense against divine will. Make their lives too easy, the

priest had warned, and their penance for earning heaven's

disfavor would not be served. They might be returned on

the Wheel of Life as a rodent or other lowly beast, to make

up for their lack of suffering in this present life. Saving the

feet of slaves from cuts and sores was surely a detriment

to their eternal spirits.

Mara had returned a missive of placating banalities to the

disaffected priest, and gone right on supplying sandals.

But the current report, with her factor's signature and

impression of the battered chop used on, the weekly

inventories, was another matter. For the first time an

enemy faction had sought to exploit her kind foible to the

detriment of House Acoma. The damaged hides would be

followed, she was sure, with a sudden, untraceable rumor

in the slaves' barracks that she had covertly arranged the

fire as an excuse to spare the cost of the extra sandals.

Since possession of footwear gave not only comfort, but

also considerable status to the slaves in Acoma service, in

the eyes of their counterparts belonging to other houses,

the privilege was fiercely coveted. Though no Tsurani slave

would ever consider rebellion, as disobedience to master

or mistress was against the will of the gods, even the

160 Mistress of the Empire

thought that their yearly allotment of sandals might be

revoked would cause resentment that would not show

on the surface but would result in sloppy field work, or

tasks that somehow went awry. The impact on Acoma

fortunes would be subtle, but tangible. The sabotage to the

warehouse could become an insidiously clever ploy, because

in order to rectify the shortage of leathers, Mara might draw

the attention of more than just an old fanatic in the temple

likely to write a protest to her. It could be seen in certain

quarters that she was vulnerable, and temples that were

previously friendly to her could suddenly become 'neutral'

to a point just short of hostility.

She could ill afford difficulties from the priesthood at this

time, not with the Emperor's enemies and her own allied in

common cause to ruin her.

The lunch tray remained neglected as she took up dean

paper and pen and drew up an authorisation for the factor

in Sulan-Qu to purchase new hides to be shipped to the

sandalmaker's. Then she sent her runner slave to fetch Jican,

who in turn was ordered to place servants and overseers on

the alert for rumors, that the question of footwear for the

slaves might never become an issue. ~

By the time the matter was resolved, the fruit sat in

a puddle of juices, and the cheeses-had warmed on the

plate in the humid midafternoon air. Involved with the

next report in the file, this one dealing with a trade

transaction designed to inconvenience the Anasati, Mara

heard footsteps at the screen.

'I am finished with the lunch tray,' she murmured without

looking up.

Presuming the servant would carry out the remains of her

meal with the usual silent solicitude, she held her mind on

its present track. But however many caravans were robbed,

however many Anasati hwaet fields burned, no matter how

many stacks of cloth goods were diverted on their way to

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161

market, or ships were sent to the wrong port, Mara found

little satisfaction. Her heartache did not lessen. She gripped

the parchments harder, searching the penned lines for some

way to make her enemy feel her hatred in the place that

would hurt the most.

Hands reached over her shoulder, pulled the report from

her grip, and gently massaged her neck, which had grown

sore from too little movement. 'The cooks will be asking

to commit suicide by the blade when they see how little

you cared for their lunch tray, my Lady,' Hokanu said in

her ear. He followed the admonition with a kiss on the

crown of her head, and waited while Mara reddened with

embarrassment at mistaking him for a servant.

She went on to ruefully regard the uneaten meal. 'Forgive

me. I became so involved that I forgot.' With a sigh, she

fumed in her husband's embrace and kissed him back.

'What was it this time, more mildew in the thyza sacks?'

he asked, a twinkle in his eyes.

Mara rubbed her aching forehead. 'No. The hides for

the sandalmaker's. We'll purchase replacements.'

Hokanu nodded, one of the few men in the Empire who

would not have argued that sandals for slaves were a waste

of good funds. Aware how lucky she was to have such a

husband, Mara resumed his embrace and heroically reached

for the food tray.

Her husband caught her wrist with a firmness beyond

argument. 'That meal is spoiled. We'll have the servants

bring a fresh tray, and I'll stay and share it with you. We've

spent too little time together lately.'

He moved around her cushion, his swordsman's grace

as always lending beauty to what Mara knew were a lethal

set of reflexes. Hokanu wore a loose silk robe, belted with

linked shells and a buckle inlaid with lapis lazali. His hair

was damp, which meant he had come in from the bath he

customarily took after working out with his officers.

162 Mistress of the Empire

'You might not be hungry, but I could eat a harulth. Lujan

and Kemutali decided to test whether fatherhood had made

me complacent.'

Mara returned a faint smile. 'They are both soaking

bruises?' she asked hopefully.

Hokanu's reply was rueful. 'So was 1, until a few

minutes ago.'

'And are you complacent?' Mara pressed.

'(gods, no,' Hokanu laughed. 'Never in this house. Justin

ambushed me twice on the way to my bath, and once again

when I got out.' Then, unwilling to dwell on the subject of

the son that had become a bone of contention between

them, he hurried to ask what kept the frown line between

her eyes so prevalent. 'Unless you're scowling to test my

complacency also,' he ended.

Mara was surprised into a laugh. 'No. I know how lightly

you sleep, dear heart. I'll know you're getting complacent

on the night you stop starting up and tossing pillows and

bedclothes at the slightest hint of a strange noise.'

Happy to see even a moment of mirth from her, Hokanu

clapped for a servant to attend to the spoiled lunch tray,

and to send to the kitchen for a fresh one. By the time he

had disposed of even so brief a detail, he looked back at

Mara and, by the faraway look in her eyes, knew he had

lost her to contemplation. Her hands had gone tense in

her lap, interlocked in the habitual way she assumed when

thinking upon the task she had laid for her Spy Master.

His hunch was confirmed presently when she said, 'I

wonder how far Arakasi has gotten in his attempt to

infiltrate the City of the Magicians.'

'We shall not discuss the question until after you have

eaten,' Hokanu said in mock threat. 'If you starve yourself

anymore, there will be nothing left to you but an enormous

belly.'

'Filled with your son and future heir!' Mara retorted,

Mac/7inations

163

equally playful, but not at all her unusually perceptive self,

by her reference to a sensitive topic.

Hokanu let the reference pass, in favor of keeping her

peaceful enough to enjoy the fruits and light breads and

meats he had sent for. On second thought, Arakasi's

attempt upon the security of the Assembly of Magicians

was probably the safer choice of conversation.

.:

_

Arakasi at that moment sat in a noisy roadside tavern in the

north of Neshka Province. He wore the striped robe of a free

caravan drover, authentically scented with needra, and his

right eye seemed to have acquired a cast. The left squinted

to compensate, and also to disguise the tendency it had to

water at the burning taste of the spirits reputedly brewed

by Thun from tubers that grew in the tundra. Arakasi wet

his tongue again with the vile liquor, and offered the flask

to the caravan master he had spent the last hours attempting

to cajole into intoxication.

The caravan master had a head for spirits like a rock.

He was a bald man, massively muscled, with a thunderous

laugh, and a regrettable tendency to slap his companions

on the back: probably the reason why the benches on

either side of him stayed empty, Arakasi reflected. He

had bruises across his rib cage from being' slammed

against the table edge by the man's boisterous thumps.

He could have chosen a better subject to pump for

information, he realised in hindsight. But the other caravan

masters tended to band together with their crews, and

he needed one who stood apart. To insinuate himself

among a tight-knit group, and to pry a man away from

his fellows was likely to take too much time. He had

the patience, had many times spent months gaining the

confidence of targeted individuals to gain the intelligence

Mara required. But here, in the deserted northern tavern, a

man with close-knit friendships would be apt to remember

164 Mistress of the Empire

a stranger who asked things that a local driver would

already know.

'Argh,' the huge caravan master bawled, entirely too

loudly for Arakasi's liking. 'Don't know why any man

would choose t'drink such piss.' The man hefted the flask

in one ham fist and squinted dubiously at the contents.

'Tastes poisonous enough to sear out yer tongue.' He ended

his diatribe by taking another huge swallow.

Arakasi saw another comradely slap coming, and braced

his palms against the plank table barely in time. The blow

struck him between the shoulder blades, and the trestle

shook, rattling cheap clay crockery.

'Hey!' shouted the owner of the hostelry from behind

the counter bar. 'No brawling in here!'

The caravan master belched. 'Stupid man,' he confided

in a spirit-laden whisper. 'If we were of a mind to wreck

things, we'd heave the tables through the walls and bring

the stinkin' roof down. Wouldn't be losing much. There's

webspinners in the rafters and biting bugs in the loft

bedmats, anyway.'

Arakasi regarded the heavy lumber that made up the

trestle's construction, and conceded that it could serve as

a battering ram. 'Heavy enough to crack the gates to the

City of Magicians,' he murmured on a suggestive note.

'Hah!' The burly man slammed the flask down so hard

the boards rattled. 'Fool might try that. You heard about

the boy who hid out in a wagon, last month? Well, I tell

you, the servants of those magicians searched though the

goods, and didn't find the kid. But when the wain rolls

through the arches of the gates nearside o' the bridge to the

island, well, this beam of light shoots down from the arch

an' fries the cover off the wool bale the boy was huddled in.'

The drover laughed and hit the table, causing the crockery

to jump. 'Seven hells! I tell you. The magicians' servants are

all running around yelling out a warning, shoutin' death 'n'

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165

destruction. Next we know, the boy's ahowlin' loud enough

to be heard clear to Dustari, and then he's sprintin' down the

road back into the forest like his butt's on fire. Found him

later, hiding out in a charcoal burner's shed. Not a mark

on him, mind, but it was days before he'd stop crying.' The

caravan master put his finger to his temple and winked

knowingly. 'They scrambled his head, you see. Thought

he was being eaten by fire demons or some such.'

Arakasi digested this while the caravan master took

another pull from the flask. He wiped his lips on his hairy

wrist and peered at Mara's Spy Master. His voice lowered

to a tone of menace. 'Don't even joke about trying to cross

the gate to the magician's city. Mess with the Assembly, and

all of us lose our jobs. I've got no wish to end my life as a

slave, none at all.'

'But the boy who tried to sneak in as a prank did not

lose his freedom,' Arakasi pointed out.

'Might as well have,' the caravan master said morosely.

He drank another draught. 'Might as well have. He can't

sleep for getting nightmares, and days he walks around like

one already dead - still got a scrambled head.'

Lowering his voice out of fear the caravan master said,

'I hear they have ways of knowing what's in the minds of

those who try to come to the island. 'Cause ''t was this

prankish lad, they let him live. But I've heard tales that if

you mean them harm -' he held his hand out, thumb turned

down -'you find yourself at the bottom of that lake.' Now

whispering, he went on, 'The lake bottom is covered with

bodies. Too cold down there for them to bloat up and rise.

The dead just stay down there.' With a nod to affirm his

statement, the caravan master concluded in normal tone,

'Magicians don't like to be messed with, there's a fact.'

'Here's to letting them be,' Arakasi hooked back the

flask and drank in an unusual fit of pique. The assignment

Mara had set him was damned near impossible. Caravans

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Mistress of the Empire

traveled only as far as the gate to the river bridge. There,

the crews surrendered their reins to servants from the inner

city, and each load was vigorously searched before the goods

rolled forward. The bridge did not go all the way across the

lake, but ended in a water landing, where inbound supplies

were offloaded into boats, and inspected a second time.

Then polemen ferried them across, into the City of the

Magicians.

This was the third man to relate the fate of intruders:

no one infiltrated the City of Magicians, and any who

tried were transported magically to a watery grave or else

driven mad.

Confronted by a bleak conclusion, Arakasi sucked from

the flask to fortify himself. Then he surrendered the remains

of the liquor to the hairy caravan master, and slipped

unobtrusively out to use the privy.

In the stinking dimness of the road hostel's privy, Arakasi

studied the coarse board walls where passing caravan teams

had scribbled or scratched a motley assortment of initials,

derisive comments on the quality of the hostel's beer, the

names of favored ladies of the Reed Life left behind in

bordellos to the south. Among them was the mark he

sought, done in white chalk: a simple stick figure, standing.

By the drawing's knees was what looked to be a stray line,

as if the artist's hand had skipped a beat, in his haste. But

seeing this, Arakasi closed tired eyes and breathed a sigh

of relief.

His agent, who happened to be a charcoal burner's errand

boy, had been by, and the news was good. The warehouse

operation where he had nearly been netted by enemies had

been out of the message network for two and half years and

at long last the dyer across the street had promoted his eldest

apprentice. The tradesman's son who applied for the now

vacant position would be an Acoma agent. At last Arakasi

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167

could begin to rebuild his network. The warehouse had been

operating solely as a business since the disaster of his near

capture. The proprietor had accepted his demotion from

spy to business factor with stone-faced resignation. Both

he and Arakasi were anxious to start laying off various staff

members and stevedores, but this could not be done in too

much haste; the men were valuable, some useful as agents

in some better distant post, but not if the trade house was

still under enemy scrutiny. And, judging by the smoothness

of the net that had nearly caught him, Arakasi dared not

assume otherwise. Slowly, painstakingly, he must come at

the problem from another angle. An agent at the dyer who

could observe who still watched the warehouse would tell

him much.

Abruptly aware that he must not spend overlong in the

privy, he performed the expected ablutions and departed

through the creaky wooden door. It occured to him, on

unpleasant intuition, that the vacancy in the dyer's shop

might not be so fortuitous, after all. If he were that clever

enemy, might he not be trying to set his own agent into the

position? What better way to keep watch on the warehouse,

after all, since loiterers and beggars on corners were far

more conspicuous as plants. ~

Chilled by cold certainty, for he believed his enemy to

be as clever as himself, Arakasi cursed and spun around.

Muttering as if he had forgotten something, he barged past

the drover's boy who crossed the yard toward the privy,

and slammed back in through the door.

'There it is, gods be praised,' he muttered, as if misplacing

important items in stinking public facilities were an everyday

occurrence. With one hand he twisted a mother-of-pearl

button off his cuff, and with the other he erased the head

of the chalk figure and scratched an obscene mark beside

it with his nail.

He hurried out and, confronted by the furious boy whose

168 Mistress of thc Empire

errand he had interrupted, shrugged. He flashed the button

in apology. 'Luck charm from my sweetheart. She'd kill me

if I lost it.'

The drover's boy grimaced in sympathy and rushed on

toward the privy; he'd had more of the hostel's beer than

was healthy, by the look of him. Arakasi waited until the

door banged fully closed before he slipped off into the wood

by the roadside. With any luck, the charcoal burner's lad

would happen by within the week. He would see the altered

chalk mark, and the obscenity that signaled for an abort

on the placement of the agent as dyer's apprentice. As

Arakasi moved soundlessly through tree needles, under

an unseasonally grey sky, he ruminated that it might

indeed be more profitable to have the lad who finally

took the apprenticeship watched; if he was innocent of

any duplicity, no harm would result, and if he was a double

agent, as Arakasi's intuition told him, he might lead back

to his master . . .

Later, Arakasi lay belly down in dripping bushes, shivering

in the unaccustomed chill of northern latitudes. Light rain

and a wind off the lake conspired to make him miserable.

Yet he had spent hours here, on several different occasions.

From this vantage point in the forest, on a jutting peninsula,

he could observe both the bridge gate and the boat landing

where servants loyal only to the magicians loaded inbound

goods into skiffs and ferried them across to the city. He

had long since concluded that a smuggled entry by way of

the trade wagons was a doomed enterprise. The caravan

master's tale had only confirmed his suspicion that inbound

goods were also surveyed by magical means for intruders.

What he looked for now was a way to gain entrance to the

city by stealth, avoiding the apparently all-seeing arch over

the bridgeway.

The isle lay too far across the water to swim over to it.

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169

From where Arakasi hid, its buildings appeared blended

together into a mass of pointed towers, one of which was tall

enough to pierce into the clouds. Through the ship's glass

he had bought from a shop on the seacoast, he could make

out steep-walled houses and looping, arched walkways that

cut through the air between. The lakeshore was crammed

with stone-fronted buildings, oddly shaped windows, and

strange arched doorways. There were no walls and, as far

as he could tell, no sentries. That did not rule out defences

of arcane means; but plainly the only way an intruder might

enter the city was a night crossing by boat, and then the

scaling of some garden wall, or seeking some cranny to

gain access.

Arakasi sighed. The job was a thief's work, and he needed

a boat in a place where there were neither habitations

nor fishing settlements. That meant smuggling one in on

board a wagon, no easy task where inbound caravans were

comprised of men who all knew one another intimately.

Also, he would require a man trained in stealth, and such

were not found in honest trades. Neither problem promised

a fast or an easy solution. Mara would have a long wait

for information that might, in all honesty, be impossible to

acquire. ,

Ever a practical man, Arakasi arose from his damp

hollow and turned into the forest. He rubbed a crick in his

neck, shook moisture from his clothing, and made his way

back toward the road hostel. As he walked, he pondered

deeply, a habit that more times than not had given rise

to accurate intuition. He did not press the issue that

immediately frustrated him, but pursued instead another

problem, one that had not seemed significant at first, but

was becoming an increasing aggravation.

Try as he might, he could not seem to get a start at placing

new agents in the Anasati household. Only one operative

remained active, and that one was elderly, an old confidant

170 Mistress of the Empire

of Jiro's father's that the young Lord had taken a dislike

to. The servant had been relegated to a position of little

importance, and what news he heard was only slightly

more informative than street gossip. For the first time,

Arakasi wondered whether his failed attempts to replace

that agent might be significant beyond coincidence.

They had appeared innocuous, certainly, each of seven

tries foiled by what had seemed ill luck or poor timing:

Jiro in a temper, a factor in too belligerent a mood to

grant an old friend favors; and most lately, an illness of

the stomach that prevented a trusted servant from making

a recommendation for recruiting a newcomer.

Arakasi stopped dead, unmindful of the rain, which had

begun to fall much harder. He did not feel the cold and

the wet that slid in droplets down his collar, but shivered

instead from inspiration.

He had been a fool, not to suspect sooner. But chance may

not have been behind such a string of seemingly unrelated

misfortunes. What if, all along, his attempts to infiltrate

the Anasati household had been blocked by a mind more

clever than his own?

Chilled to the bone, Arakasi started forward. He had long

admired the enemy's First Adviser, Chumaka, whose flair

for politics had benefited the Anasati since Jiro's father's

time. Now Arakasi wondered whether it was Chumaka's

cleverness he fenced with, as unseen antagonist.

The thought continued, inexorably: was it possible that

an Anasati presence was behind the byplay at the silk

warehouse? The elegance of this possibility appealed to

Mara's Spy Master. One gifted enemy made more sense

than two unrelated foes with equal brilliance.

Deeply disturbed, Arakasi hurried his step. He needed

to get himself warm and dry, and to find a comfortable

corner where he could think undisturbed. For each balked

effort showed that he faced a rival equal to his best efforts.

Machinations

171

It was distressing to consider that a connection might exist

between such a man and Mara's gravest enemy, even more

by the possibility that this rival might exceed his talents.

Getting a spy into the City of the Magicians was

an impossible enterprise and its importance paled to

insignificance before the threat posed to Mara's spy network

by Jiro's adviser. For Arakasi had no illusions. His

grasp of the Game of the Council was shrewd and to the

point. More than a feud between two powerful families was

at play here. Mara was a prominent figure in the Emperor's

court, and her fall could touch off civil war.

.,

(

Gambits

6

Gambits

Chumaka frowned.

With increasing irritation, he scanned the reports stuffed

between the sheafs of notes he had prepared for his master's

forthcoming court session. The news was none of it good.

He raised a hand and chewed a fingernail, frustration

making him savage. He had been so dose to tracing the

Spy Master behind the original Tuscai network! It had been

predictable that the net in Ontoset would be shut down as

a result of the bungling chase at the silk warehouse. But

what made no sense at all was that after a passage of time

approaching three years, the seemingly unrelated branch

in Jamar should still be kept dormant as well.

Those ruling houses who undertook the trouble and

expense of spy nets tended to become addicted to them. It

was simply inconceivable that any Lord grown accustomed

to staying informed by covert means should suddenly, for

the discovery of one courier, give up his hard-earned

advantage. Lady Mara most of all; she was bold or cautious

as circumstance dictated, but never one to be unreasonably

fearful. The death of her son could not have changed her

basic nature so radically. She could be depended upon to use

every means at her disposal, and never be deterred by one

minor setback. Chumaka flinched slightly as tender flesh

tore under the worrying gnaw of his teeth. He blotted the

bleeding hangnail on his robe and shuffled his papers into

order in disturbed preoccupation. The situation bothered

him. Each day Jiro was closer to demanding his answers

outright. The First Adviser to House Anasati was loath to

admit he was growing desperate. He had no choice but to

173

consider the unthinkable: that this time he might have run

up against an opponent who outmatched him.

The idea rankled, that any mind in the Empire could

outmaneuver Chumaka.

Yet such a possibility could not be dismissed. In his gut he

knew that the network was not disbanded, merely dormant

or turned toward an unexpected quarter. But where? And

why? Not knowing was costing Chumaka sleepless nights.

Black circles and pouches under his eyes gave his already

angular visage a careworn look.

The scrape of oiled wood roused Chumaka from distressed

reverie. Already servants were pulling aside the

screens in the grand hall in preparation for Jiro's public

court. Omelo had the Lord's honor guard in place beside

the dais, and the hadonra was overseeing disposition of

his factors and secretaries. Within minutes, those allies or

houses seeking court with the Lord of the Anasati would

be arriving, escorted to their places in order of rank. Lord

Jiro would enter last, to hear petitioners, exchange social

that, and, sometimes, negotiate new business.

Chumaka snapped the papers in his hand into a roll and

stuffed them into his satchel. Muttering, he stalked to the

dais to be sure his preferred cushions were arranged to his

satisfaction. The list of Jiro's guests was a long one, and this

court could last into the evening. A skinny man with lanky

bones, Chumaka liked plenty of padding under his rump

through extended sessions. Physical aches he regarded as a

distraction to his thinking, and with this rival Spy Master

so far adept at eluding him, he could not afford to miss

any nuance of what transpired.

The grand hall slowly filled. Servants hurried in and out

bringing refreshments and directing the placement of fan

slaves. The day outside was hot, and Jiro's subde habit

was to be sure his guests were cool and comfortable.

He catered to them to extend their patience, and they,

174 Mistress of the Empite

believing he spoiled them to win their favor, felt their egos

stroked enough that they often granted him concessions

more magnanimous than they had intended at the outset.

Lord Jiro entered with little fanfare. His scribe called

out his name, and only two warriors marched on either

side, a half step behind their master. Today his clothes

were simply cut, though sewn of the finest silk. He chose

carriage and clothing that were rich but not ostentatious,

and that could be interpreted as firm and manly, or boyishly

innocent, depending on the advantage he wished to press.

Chumaka regarded the ambivalent effect and stroked his

chin, thinking: were Jiro not chosen by the gods to wear the

Anasati mantle, he might have made a superb field agent.

Then such frivolous speculation was cut short as the

young master ascended the dais. His warriors flanked him

as he took his place on his cushions and made formal

pronouncement. 'The court begins.'

Then, as his steward moved among the guests to announce

the first on the roster,Jiro leaned over to confer in quiet tones

with Chumaka. 'What need I pay close attention to, this day,

my First Adviser?'

Chumaka tapped his chin with a knuckle. 'To endeavor

to compromise the Xacatecas' support of Lady Mara, we'll

need allies. More to the point, we'll need their wealth.

Consider the offer of the Lord of the Matawa to ship our

grains to the South in exchange for certain concessions.'

He pulled the appropriate note from the many sheaves that

jammed his satchel and swiftly scanned the lines. 'The Lord

wishes a favorable match for his daughter. Perhaps that

bastard nephew of your cousin's might suffice? He's young,

but not ill-favored. Marriage into a noble house would

redirect his ambition and, down the line, provide us with

another ally.' Chumaka lowered his voice as others began

to approach the dais. 'Rumor has it that this Lord Matawa

is trading with Midkemians from the city of LaMut.'

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175

Jiro heard this with a look askance. 'Rumor? Or the

gleanings of one of your listeners?'

Chumaka cleared his throat, keeping this point deliberately

ambiguous. 'I remind my Lord that many of

those involved in LaMutian merchant consortiums were

born in Tsuranuanni, and they may provide us with

the same advantage the Acoma enjoy in their exclusive

trading concessions.' He finished in a thick whisper, 'Mare

anticipated well when she got her dispensation from the

Keeper of the Imperial Seal. She acted on an outside guess

and tied up the obvious goods coming through the rift from

Midkemia. But because she moved on the generalities of a

wild hunch, she didn't anticipate everything. There are a

half-dozen items we can import that would make us rich,

and while Mara might successfully block Anasati attempts

to traffic goods from Midkemia, there's little she can do to

prevent the LaMutians from selling across the rift to the

Lord of the Matawa.'

Jiro smiled. 'How badly does Lord Matawa wish an

exclusive shipping license? And how ugly is his daughter?'

Chumaka smiled broadly. 'His daughter takes after a

mother who looks like a dog, a particularly ill-aspected

dog, in fact. There are two younger sisters also. Both of

these have crooked teeth, and only the eldest can be given

away with the title. Their father needs a bigger treasury if

his youngest children are to escape the fate of becoming

the consorts of low-born merchants. That means the Lord

of the Matawa desires this trading concession very badly

indeed.'

As a delegate from the most minor house approached the

dais and gave his bow of respect, Jiro concluded his conference

with Chumaka. 'Your counsel seems sound. I will

proceed to make the Lord of the Matawa a happy man.'

He faced politely forward to hear his first petitioner,

when a disturbance at the rear of the hall turned half the

176 Mistress of the Empire

heads in the room. A florid man in a purple robe had thrust

his way past the door servants. These were slaves, and in

fear of their master's displeasure, they cast themselves face

down in obeisance at their lapse. The man who had intruded

paid no heed but rushed headlong into the hall, ignoring the

astonished protest of the Anasati house servants in relentless

pursuit on his heels. He swept past the seated rows of Jiro's

guests, with no more heed of them than if he had been alone

in the great hall. Striding directly down the long approach to

the dais, and causing the war banners to swing in the rafters

in a wake of disturbed air, he skidded to a stop before Jiro.

Too agitated for manners or ceremony, he shouted, 'Do you

have any idea of what she has done!'

The delegate he had displaced looked ruffled; Jiro himself

was discommoded, but he covered this with a swift glance

at Chumaka, who murmured the appropriate name behind

his hand in a tone only his master could hear.

To control this startling confrontation, Lord Jiro said in

his chilliest tone, 'Welcome, Lord Dawan. You seem .. .

discommoded.'

The thick necked man thrust his head forward, looking

like a needra bull attempting to shove through a fence to

reach a cow in full season. Nearly spitting with anger, he

waved both hands in the air. 'Discommoded? My Lord, I

am ruined!'

Aware of muttering in the hall, as Lords and delegates

were made to wait through this blatant breach of good

manners, Jiro raised a placating voice. 'Lord Dawan, please,

be seated lest your distress cause you to be overcome by the

heat.' At a signal from their Lord, Anasati servants rushed

forward to bring the distraught man cold refreshment.

Disdaining to appear to show favoritism, Lord Jiro

spoke quickly, aware he must bridle the other petitioners'

resentment, and to quickly assess whether he could gain

impromptu advantage from the interruption. Dawan of

::

. ~

:~

Gambits

177

the Tuscobar was an occasional business associate and

an unsure ally. Jiro's inability to win him clearly to his

cause had been an irritation, but the inconvenience was

minor. The far-reaching ramifications of this byplay were

anything but small. House Tuscobar held influence with

the Lord of the Keda, whose support in any confrontation

with Mara would net the Anasati a solid advantage. Jiro

judged the alliance would be critical in the future, when

the traditionalist plot to reinstate the High Council finally

met with success.

Above the disgruntled murmurs of his petitioners, Lord

Jiro called, 'Let all who seek aid of the Anasati take

heed. My house listens with sympathy to the difficulties

of established friends. My Lord of the Tuscobar, what has

happened?'

The heavyset Lord took a swallow from the glass of cold

juice he had been handed by Jiro's staff. He gulped in an

effort to compose himself. 'My entire fleet, carrying every

last grain of my year's harvest, was sunk!'

Jiro's eyes widened in astonishment. 'Sunk? But how?'

'Some malignant spell spun by that witch,' Dawan

answered.

'Witch?' Jiro raised his eyebrows. ~i ~

Dawan set his juice aside in favor of the wine offered

by a hovering servant. He drank deeply and wiped his

mouth before he felt fortified enough to qualify. 'Mare

of the Acoma. Who else? Everyone knows that as Servant

of the Empire she has unlimited luck, and the gods' favor.

She has ruined me by sending false directions to my fleet

master, ordering him to ship this year's harvest to Dustari

instead of the grain market at Lepala!' Lord Dawan nearly

wept in frustration as he said, 'That would have been bad

enough. I would merely have been reduced to penury. But

an unseasonal storm hit a week out of Jamar, and every last

ship was sunk! I am ruined.' He eased his sorrows by taking

178 Mistress of the Empire

another heroic drink of wine. 'I swear by my ancestors, Jiro:

I will never again shirk my support of your efforts to end

this woman's evil influence.' ~

Jiro rested his chin on his fist. After deep thought, he said,

'I thank you for acknowledging the risks inherent in Lady

Mara's departures from tradition but had you said nothing,

I would still help an old family friend.' He turned at once

to Chumaka. 'Have our hadonra write a letter of credits

for Lord Tuscobar.' To Dawan he added, 'Freely borrow

as much as you need. Take as long as you wish to repay

us, on whatever terms you think fair.'

Dawan stiffened, the wine forgotten as he regarded Jiro

with suspicion. 'Interest?'

As if granting largesse to the needy were a daily occurrence,

Jiro waved his hand. 'None! I will make no profit

from a friend's misfortune.' Quietly he added, 'Especially

if that distress is caused by my enemy.'

Dawan rose. He made an extravagant bow. 'Jiro, let

everyone present stand as witness! You are a man of

unceasing nobility and generosity. Your ancestors look

down and are proud.' He bowed again, belatedly deferential

to the patience of the others awaiting the Anasati Lord's

attention. 'And I beg forgiveness for interrupting this

worthy gathering.'

Jiro rose. Indicating Chumaka should join him, he

personally escorted the Lord of the Tuscobar to a side door,

where he murmured in comradely farewell, 'Nonsense.

There is nothing to forgive. Now, retire to one of my baths

and refresh yourself. Remain for the evening meal, even

spend the night if you'd like and return home tomorrow.'

He appointed a slave to lead the flattered and slightly

intoxicated Lord of the Tuscobar away.

As he moved to return to his dais, playing the role of

magnanimous Lord to perfection, Chumaka murmured,

'It's strange, don't you think? Why would Mara wish to

Gambits

179

harm a fence-sitter like Dawan? This makes no sense by

any measure.'

Jiro glanced at his First Adviser in immense amusement.

'But she didn't. I arranged the forger myself. It was I who

sent those false orders to Dawan's shipmaster.'

Chumaka bowed low, chuckling silently. Quietly, so not

one of the petitioners could hear, he said, 'You surprise me,

my Lord. You are growing into a seasoned player, both in

shah and in the Game of the Council. How did you contrive

to cast blame on Mara?'

Jiro seemed smug. 'Our hadonra spread rumors, at my

order. Dawan and others were made aware of the insults

and misdeeds done us by the Lady over the past several

years. I merely copied her methods and let Dawan draw

his own conclusions.' Stepping decisively back toward the

dais, he added, 'Oh, and by making sure Dawan heard that

Acoma grain is being shipped this season to the markets at

Lepala.'

Chumaka flushed with obvious pleasure. 'Admirable, my

master. Clever enough to have been an idea I wish I had

thought of first.'

As the Lord and his First Adviser mounted his dais,

they shared the identical thought: each considered himself

fortunate to have the other, for they worked remarkably

well together. When the old High Council was restored

and the secret of Mara's spy net was cracked, then would

the Lady have cause to worry, for not even the formidable

luck of a Servant of the Empire was going to spare her

house from destruction.

Mara paced in frustration. For weeks the coolness between

herself and her husband separated them like a wall.

Hokanu's resistance to her desire to see Justin renounce

his ties to Shinzawai to become the Acoma heir was

understandable. Hokanu's affections were as deep as if

180

Mistress of the Empire

the boy had been his own. Ayaki's death had turned him

more protective as a parent, and, reminded of that IQSS,

Mara felt bitterness that never seemed to lessen.

She paused between restless steps, one hand on the screen

that overlooked her private garden. Oh, for one hour with

old Nacoya and her wisdom, she wished in vain. Her

onetime nurse, foster mother, and First Adviser had always

offered insight straight to the heart of any difficulty. Even

when Mara had refused advice or persisted in taking risks

unacceptable to the old woman, Nacoya had always seen

clear and true. In matters of the heart, her perception had

been unmatched. Mara sighed. It had been Nacoya who had

noticed her mistress's growing affection for the barbarian

slave Kevin, long before Mara admitted the possibility of

love to herself. The old woman's counsel was sorely needed

now. Mara attempted to conjure Nacoya's voice, but the

beloved woman's shade rested far away this day.

A kick inside her belly ended her reverie. She gasped,

pressed a hand to her swollen middle, and met the discomfort

with a smile. Her unborn child had the strength of a

barbarian tiger cub. Surely Hokanu would feel differently

when he beheld his newborn first child. The pride of

fatherhood would soften him, and he would cease his

stubbornness and give in to her demand that Justin be

named Acoma heir. The flesh that was of his own blood

would make him understand that this was the gods' will,

that this babe whose begetting they had shared was the

proper heir to the title Lord of the Shinzawai.

Mara leaned against the lintel of the screen, anticipating

the happiness of the occasion. She had borne two children,

one by a man she loathed and another by a man she

adored. Both little ones had given her something completely

unexpected; what had begun as a duty of honor in

the begetting of Ayaki, the necessity of ensuring Acoma

continuance, had been transformed to a joyous reality

Gambits

181

as she came to love the heir for whom she labored. It

was her offspring that would inherit the greatness of the

Acoma. Once a child was held, his baby laughter giving

her delight, never again could family honor seem a distant,

abstract thing.

Mara keenly awaited the moment when Hokanu would

feel this magic for himself. The birth of their son would

bring them closer, and end this cold contention of wills.

Peace would return between them, and both Acoma and

Shinzawai children would grow into the greatness of

their future.

While Mara had never been consumed by passion for the

man she cherished as husband, she had come to rely on his

closeness. His understanding was a comfort, his wisdom

a shelter, his wit a relief from danger and worry, and

his quiet, intuitive understanding a tenderness she could

not live without. She missed him. His love had become

the linchpin of her happiness, all unnoticed until she had

been forced to go without. For while he was ever close by,

he was increasingly absent in spirit. More deeply than she

could have imagined, that lack caused her pain.

The reminders were unceasing; the casual touch of his

hand to her face that had not happened as she wakened; the

slight upturning of his mouth that indicated humor during

court that today had been nowhere in evidence. They no

longer shared their afternoon tray of chocha, while Hokanu

scanned reports from military advisers and she reviewed

the commerce lists from far-flung trading factors presented

daily by Jican. Their relationship had grown silent and

strained and though Hokanu had made no issue of the

matter, he had extended his practice at arms to keep busy

through the hours they had once spent in companionship.

No sharp words were exchanged, nor anything dose

to heated argument, yet the disagreement over Justin's

heirship was a presence that poisoned everything they did.

::

::

182 Mistress of the Empire

Mara stroked the taut flesh over her womb, praying this

estrangement would end once their new son was born.

Besides Nacoya, Hokanu was the only soul she had met

who could follow her thoughts without misunderstandings.

Another kick slammed her innards. Mara laughed. 'Soon,

little one,' she whispered to the baby.

A servant who waited in attendance started at the sound

of her voice. 'Mistress?'

Mara stepped heavily away from the screen. 'I want for

nothing but this child, who seems as anxious as I am to see

himself born.'

The servant tensed in alarm. 'Should I call for-'

Mara held up her hand. 'No, there is time yet. The

midwife and the healer say another month at least.' She

furrowed her brow. 'But I wonder if perhaps this baby

could be early.'

A polite knock sounded at the inner doorway. Mara

pulled her robe more comfortably over her gravid body,

and nodded for the servant to open the screen to the

hall. Jican, her hadonra, bowed from outside the portal.

'Mistress, a trader is here seeking permission to bargain.'

That Jican would trouble her for a matter he would normally

attend to himself, was unusual. He had managed her

vast holdings long enough that he could anticipate almost

any decision she might make, even those he disagreed with.

Anxious to know what had arisen, Mara said, 'What do

you wish?'

Always diffident in situations outside of the ordinary,

Jican replied carefully, 'I think you should see this man's

wares, mistress.'

Glad for the diversion on yet another afternoon without

Hokanu's company, Mara clapped for her maid to bring her

a robe more suitable for a stranger's company. Tucked into a

long-sleeved, loose-waisted garment of shimmering silk, she

motioned for her hadonra to lead the way. The guest trader

_

Gambits

183

waited in the shaded, pillared hall in the wing that housed

the scribes. Mara and Jican passed through the cavernous

corridors that tunneled partially through the hillside from

the sunny quarters she shared with Hokanu. Made aware

by Jican's quick step that he was fidgety, Mara asked, 'Are

the wares this trader offers something special?'

'Perhaps.' The little hadonra gave a sideways glance that

confirmed his uneasiness. 'I think your judgment is needed

to appraise this man's offer.'

Years of his loyal service had taught Mara to heed her

hadonra's hunches. When he did not immediately launch

into a description of the offered goods, the Lady was moved

to prompt, 'What else?'

Jican halted. '1. . .' Uncertainty blossomed into hesitation.

He bobbed an apologetic bow, then blurted, 'I am not

sure how to treat this man, mistress.'

Familiar enough with the hadonra's foibles to realise that

questions would distress him further, Mara simply strode

on in receptive silence.

In another few steps, the explanation was forthcoming.

Jican said, 'Because he is . . . was Tsurani.'

Mara pondered this detail. 'From LaMut?' LaMut was

ruled by Hokanu's brother, and most trading delegations

from the Kingdom included a former Tsurani soldier, to act

as translator. Jican nodded, transparently relieved he had

not needed to coach her further. 'A Tsurani who prefers

Kingdom ways.'

The reason for the hadonra's uneasiness was plainer:

while Mara might bend tradition and swear masterless

men to Acoma service, the concept of anyone preferring

to remain without house ties on a foreign world - no

matter that one of them was Hokanu's brother, Kasumi was

too alien to understand, even for her. And that such a

man headed the trading delegation made negotiations more

delicate than usual.

184 Mistress of the Empire

The long, interior corridor opened at last into a colonnaded

portico that fronted the south side of the estate

house. The gravel path leading to the main doorway ran

alongside, and there, shaded by ancient trees, waited the

visiting merchant's retinue, a small group of bearers and

ten bodyguards. Mara's eyes widened. She did not note

at first that there were more guards than usual because

they were so tall! More careful study revealed them to be

Midkemians all, a rare enough detail that the sentries on

duty at the estate entrance stared surreptitiously as they

kept watch. Scraps of a conversation in foreign speech

reached Mara's ears, and the accent, so familiar, made

her pause a fraction between steps. Memories of Kevin

of Zun flooded through her, until Jican's hand-wringing

impatience recalled her to present obligations. Mastering

herself instantly, she hastened on into the service wing,

toward the hall where the merchant awaited.

That man sat correctly beneath the informal dais she

used while negotiating with outsiders. Sacks and carry

boxes of sample wares were arrayed by his side, while

his hands rested in plain sight upon his knees. He wore

a splendid silk robe recognisably of foreign manufacture:

the sheen was different, and the dyes blended in patterns

never seen in Tsuranuanni. The effect was bold just barely

short of insolent, Mara decided, watching the man through

narrowed eyes as she approached. Although this man had

presented himself as a merchant, he outfitted himself as

befitted the highest Ruling Lord of the Empire. Yet the

man was no noble; in place of the customary house chop

embroidered on sash or shoulder, the barbarous symbol of

LaMut, a doglike creature called a wolf, was displayed. The

man was arrogant, Mara decided as she allowed Jican to

help her up the shallow stair and to her cushions.

Still, the stranger had impeccable manners. When the

Lady was comfortable, he bowed until his forehead touched

Gambits

185

the mat upon which he knelt. He paused long enough to

imply deep respect, while Jican gave his name to the

mistress. 'My lady, this is Janaio, of the city of LaMut.'

Janaio straightened with grace and smiled. 'Honors to

your house, Good Servant. Are you well, Lady Mara?'

Mara inclined her head. 'I am well, Janaio of ...

LaMut.'

A detail leaped out at her. This man wore gold! Mara

pinched back a breath of undignified surprise. By imperial

edict, all jewelry and personal effects made of metal

were carefully cataloged upon entry through the rift from

Midkemia. Traders from the barbarian world were often

outraged as their boots were confiscated and plain sandals

loaned to them while they embarked on their travels within

the Empire; but the impounded items were always returned

when they left. The imperial treasury had learned a rough

lesson when the first entourage of Midkemians resumed

home without their boots, and the economy of Lash

Province had been turned on its head by the iron nails

drawn from the soles and changed for centis.

The trader fingered the chain about his neck. 'I have given

surety that I will not leave this behind, Lady Mara,'`he said,

in response to her notice. This reminded her of his Tsurani

origins, as no barbarian would have been trusted to keep

his word in the face of temptation. Midkemians professed

no belief in the Wheel of Life, so honor did not bind them

to fear loss of the gods' favor.

Mara maintained an outward calm. The man was bold!

While such an ornament might be a modest possession for

a wealthy man beyond the rift, in Kelewan it was equal to

the income of a minor house for a year. As well this man

knew. His public display of such treasure was a calculated

ostentation. Mara waited in reserved expectancy to see just

what this trader wished to gain with his bargaining.

When she had determined that a suitable interval had

186 Mistress of the Empire

passed to remind him of his place, she asked, 'Now, what;

may I do for you?'

The man did not miss nuance: that the Tsurani phrase was

translated from the King's Tongue. Mara's clever opening

informed him without undue fuss that she had arranged

affairs with Midkemian traders before. He gave her bade

impeccable Tsurani protocol. 'I am a modest broker in

certain spices and delicacies, mistress. Given my history'_~

he gestured broadly-'! am advantageously placed to know

those products unique to my adopted homeland that would

prove profitable in the Empire.'

Mara nodded, conceding his point. Janaio resumed in

ingratiating fashion. 'But rather than waste your valuable

hours speaking, I would beg your indulgence to let my wares

speak for themselves.'

Stirred to curiosity, Mara said, 'What do you propose?',

Janaio indicated the various carry boxes and sacks at,

his elbow. 'Here I have samples. As it is near the hour

when many within the Empire cease activities to indulge;

in a cup of chocha, perhaps you would care for something;

more exotic?'

Unhappily reminded that Hokanu customarily shared

such a moment to take refreshment with her, Mara

repressed a sigh. She was tired, and in need of a nap,

for the baby-inside her interrupted her sleep at nights

'There is little time for this.'

'Please,' Janaio said quickly. He bowed in attempt to

ease her mind. 'I will not keep you overlong. You will be

rewarded, both in pleasure and in riches, I assure you.'

Jican bent close to his Lady. 'Let me call for a food taster

mistress,' he advised.

Mara regarded her hadonra closely. He also was intrigued,

but more, he had something else to tell about this mysterious

trader from beyond the rift. She reached down and drew out'

the fan tucked behind her sash. Flipping it open and using it

.

.

Gambits

187

to hide her lips from her visitor, she whispered, 'What else

should I know of this man?'

Jican looked uncomfortable. 'A suspicion,' he murmured

so that only she could hear. 'I received word from a factor

who is friendly to us. This Janaio has also made overtures

to the Lord of the Matawa.'

'Who is a firm supporter of the traditionalists and Jiro.'

Mara fluttered her fan. 'Do you think he hopes that our

rivalry will help him to drive a tough bargain?'

The hadonra pursed his lips, thinking. 'That I cannot say.

It is possible. Should he have wares of unusual worth, the

house that gains concessions will benefit greatly.'

That settled Mara's mind on the matter. She must not

allow the fatigue of pregnancy to cede any advantage to

the Anasati uncontested. She clapped for her runner and

dispatched him to the kitchens to fetch a cook who would

serve her as taster. She also asked for Saric and Lujan, since

further counsel might be required of them later.

Janaio met her precautions with obsequious approval.

'Most wise, Lady Mara. Though I assure you, my intentions

are only honest.'

Mara crossed her hands over her middle without comment.

No precautions were too stringent when she was so

near to term with Hokanu's child. She waited, unresponsive

to Janaio's attempts to make conversation, until her adviser

arrived at her summons.

Saric's look of surprise as he entered revealed he had

taken the man to be Midkemian, sporting Empire fashion.

One glance at the Acoma First Adviser caused Janaio to

straighten where he sat. As if his instincts warned that

Saric's insights were to be respected, he crisply listed his

sureties. 'For the sake of easing your worry, great Lady,

since the foodstuffs I carry are so exotic that no one in this

land will be familiar enough with their taste to detect any

tampering, I propose that I share each cup with you.'

' 88 Mistress of the Empire

Unimpressed by gold chain and grand rhetoric, Saric met

this pronouncement with a lack of expression. He watched

intently as the trader made a display of pushing back his

sleeves, to show that he wore no ring or bracelet, and that

nothing was contained within his robe. 'If you will have

your servants prepare hot water, three pots, and cups from

your own stores, I will provide the ingredients. Then you

may choose which cup I am to taste and which you will.'

Smiling in the teeth of Saric's quiet, he said, 'If it please

you, Lady, I will bear the risk equally.'

Intrigued in spite of her First Adviser's reserve, Mara

said, 'What are you attempting to bring to our Empire?'

'Fine beverages, mistress. A wonderful assortment of

flavors and pungent drinks that will astonish your palate.

Should this venture prove profitable, and I assure you it will,

then I will also bring exotic wines and ales to the Empire

from the finest vintners and brewers in the Kingdom of

the Isles.'

Mara weighed her impressions. No wonder this man had

remained on Midkemia. He might have served as a house

soldier before the final battle of the Riftwar, but he was a

born merchant. She cast a sidelong glance as Lujan arrived

and marched smartly to take his place behind her. If fate

had cast him on the other side of the rift, given his glib

tongue and facile mind, he might perhaps have been the

one to sit here, selling exotic wares.

The surmise was somehow reassuring. Still, it was not her

nature to trust readily, particularly when Saric had given no

word in favor of this stranger's proposal. Mara chose to

challenge the connection with her Anasati enemy. 'What

was your arrangement with the Lord of the Matawa?'

Janaio flashed her a grin in the manner of a born

Midkemian. Where another Tsurani ruler might be put

off by such openness, Mara had known Kevin too well

to misunderstand; if anything, the foreign mannerism set

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189

her at ease. Janaio went on, 'You heard about my talks, but

I assure you they are no secret. The wares I carry are luxuries

and need delicate handling and skillful negotiators to place

them in the proper markets. I would be a poor merchant if

I failed to examine all options. The Lord of the Matawa has

sent many emissaries through the rift seeking to establish a

brokerage.'

Mara's lips thinned as she pondered the implications

of this. Jican whispered something to Saric, who nodded

and quietly touched her arm. 'My Lady, we know that

the Matawa wish to make inroads in your trade market.

They cannot disturb your imperial patent that gives you

exclusive license for certain items, but they hope to become

a rival presence to lure any nonexclusive trade they can

wean away from our factors. They could legally establish

exclusive trade rights beyond the rift, where we have no

control. Arakasi's report holds that funding for the venture

might well come from Jiro.'

Sick that politics should increasingly come to drive even

the most innocuous of ventures, Mara inclined her head to

Janaio. 'Send for what you need.'

Her servants were devotedly efficient. Proud to uphold

their Lady's honor, they swiftly brought in stays with

several pots and porcelain cups. A slave hurried after,

bearing a kettle of steaming water.

Janaio set out his various packets and vials with a

theatrical flourish. 'First,' he announced, 'something pun

gent and savvy.' He poured water into one of the small

pots and dropped in a small pouch. 'This delicacy grows

on a shrub in the southern part of the Kingdom, mistress.

The leaves are costly to dry and ship, and because they are

susceptible to mold, only the very wealthy can afford to buy

the small supply that reaches the northern lands. For this

reason, the drink I prepare has not gained much popularity

in my city of LaMut. Once you have tasted, I think you must

190 Mistress of the Empire

agree that this is likely due to lack of familiarity.' He raised

the top of the pot, sniffed at the steam, and dosed his eyes.

'I believe you will concur that this fine beverage will find

approval from Tsurani nobles of taste.'

With this, he poured, filling the room with an exotic,

spicy scent. When three cups were full, he nodded to Mara's

servant, who lifted the tray and bore it to the dais for the

Lady to choose her preference. She motioned for the slave

who had carried the pot to taste one. The servant handed

her one of the pair that remained, and bore the tray back

to Janaio.

The merchant lifted his cup, saying, 'Sip cautiously, lest

you scald your tongue, mistress.'

The alien aroma fascinated Mara. Unlike anything else

she had known, she found it wildly enticing. She sipped the

brew. The first taste was acrid and strange, yet bracing and

flavorful. She considered a moment, then said, 'I suspect a

little honey would cut the bitterness.'

The trader smiled. 'You skip ahead of me, Good Servant.

In Midkemia we also use white sugar made from a plant

called beets. Some folk prefer a dash of milk; yet others, the

juice of a tart fruit similar to the Kelewanese ketundi.'

Mara sipped again and found her appreciation increasing. '

What do you call this?'

The man smiled. 'It is tea, Good Servant.'

Mara laughed. 'Many things are called "tea," Janaio of

LaMut. What is the herb you have brewed?'

The merchant gave back a Tsurani shrug. 'That is the

name of the herb, or rather the leaves of the shrub. When

someone in LaMut says "tea," this is what they speak of,

not the blends of plantstuffs steeped in hot water you drink

here. Yet of this delicacy there are a multitude of varieties

as well, robust, subtle, sweet, and bitter. One selects to suit

the occasion.'

Now fascinated, Mara nodded. 'What else?'

Gambits

191

Janaio selected another pot from the Acoma supply and

prepared a second hot beverage. 'This is a far different

drink.'

A black liquid that smelled rich and heady was presently

handed to Mara. This time, Jican supplanted her taster, his

excitement overcoming caution. Mara could barely wait for

her hadonra to try his share before she sipped at her sample.

The drink was bitter and yet piquant. 'What do you call

this? It reminds me vaguely of chocha.'

Janaio bowed at her evident pleasure. 'This is coffee,

mistress. And like the tea, it has a thousand different

cousins. This you drink grows on plants high upon the

hillsides of Yabon. Good, robust, but hardly a delicacy.'

He clapped, and one of his servants brought forth another

basket, smaller, and tied with festive ribbons. 'Let me offer

a gift. Here are a dozen samples for you to consume at your

leisure. Each is clearly labeled as to the type of bean used

to make the drink and instructions for preparation.'

Mara set aside her half-empty cup. While this sampling

was diverting her from her troubled marriage, the day was

waning while she tarried. She was reluctant to forgo the

hour she always spent with her son while he took his

supper. Justin was recently five years of age, the young

to understand delays.

Sensing her impatience, Janaio raised a hand in appeal.

'The most astonishing drink remains yet to be sampled.'

Quickly, before the Lady could rise and take her leave, he

asked her servant, 'Please, may I have needra milk?'

Mara might have taken issue at this man's presumption,

except that Midkemians could be expected to act

impetuously. She hid her tiredness and motioned for the

servant to run the requested errand. In the interval, Saric

bent close to his Lady's ear. 'Don't miss the subtleties,' he

advised. 'This man was Tsurani-born. He apes Midkemian

brashness, almost as if he knows that you had a fondness,

192 Mistress of the Empire

once, for such behavior. I do not like the smoothness of this

play upon your sympathies, my Lady. You will be cautious,

please?'

Mara tipped her fan against her chin. Her adviser was

right to wish restraint. 'This Janaio drinks from the same

pot as 1. Surely there will be no harm in enduring one more

sample. After that the interview will be ended.'

Saric returned a half nod, but a glance exchanged with

Jican caused the little hadonra to pause. When the servant

returned with a small pitcher of milk, Jican suggested that

he also would like a cup to taste, separate from the slave

that would continue to perform his office.

'But of course,' Janaio agreed in pleasant tones. 'You are

a shrewd man, who wishes to understand every nuance

of the trade your house may undertake.' While Mara's

councilors looked on in wonderment, the trader poured

equal portions of milk and hot water into the final pot. His

chain sparkled as he leaned toward his basket, speaking all

the while. 'Occasionally, you may wish to use only milk, as

it-gives added richness to this drink.'

His preparations were completed with yet more flourish

than before. Again he passed the tray of filled cups to the

servant, indicating Mara should choose hers first. She did

not, but waited until Jican and the taster had selected. The

smell of this drink was intoxicating. The little hadonra shed

his anxiety and sipped. He recoiled with a smothered yelp

as he burned his tongue.

The trader had the grace not to laugh. 'My apologies, my

Lady. I should have thought to warn: this drink is served

very hot.'

Jican recovered his aplomb. 'My Lady,' he said excitedly,

'the taste of this rarity is incredible.'

Both hadonra and Lady looked at the slave who served

as taster. More careful than Jican, he had not burned his

tongue, and he was slurping the drink with such evident

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193

relish that Mara motioned for the servant to pass her

the tray.

As she chose from the last two cups, Janaio said, 'If coffee

reminds you of chocha, then this wonder may remind you

of the chocha-la you make for your children. But I humbly

submit, that chocha-la is to chocolate as my humble station

is to your grandeur.'

Mara sipped and closed her eyes at the marvelous taste.

Unable to hide her surprise and pleasure, she sighed in pure

happiness.

Grinning, Janaio accepted the last cup from the tray and

drank deep. 'This is chocolate, mistress.'

Unable to help herself, Mara thought of Kevin, who had

commented on more than one occasion that he missed the

chocolate sweets of festivals in his homeworld. At last she

understood.

Blinking back the moisture that gathered in her eyes, and

passing off the indiscretion as if she avoided steam from the

cup, Mara said, 'This is a wonderful thing.'

Janaio set aside his emptied cup and bowed. 'I wish

permission to be granted exclusive license to import,

mistress.'

Mara shook her head with open regret. 'I cannot grant

that, Janaio of LaMut. My patent from the Imperial

Government is limited to certain items.'

Obviously disappointed, the trader gestured expansively.

'Then perhaps a trading agreement. If exclusivity is beyond

your means, then at least let me broker through the

mightiest trading house in the Empire.'

Mara drank more of the delightful liquid, recalled to

caution at last. 'What of the Matawa?'

Janaio gave a deprecating cough. 'Their offer was insulting,

no, demeaning, and they lack the experienced factors

you have in your employ. They require interpreters, still, to

transact business, an uneasy situation for one in the luxury

194 Mistress of the Empire

market, as I am. I desire no avenue that is ripe for misunderstanding,

or even the outside chance of exploitation.'

Savoring the dregs of her drink, Mara said, 'That much

I can grant.' Regret tinged her tone as she added, 'I can't

limit others in bringing these beverages to us, but perhaps

some shrewd buying in LaMut might hamper others from

competing effectively against our interests.' Then, content

to entrust the disposition of final details to Jican, she

prepared to take her leave.

The trader bowed, touching his forehead to the ground.

'Mistress, your wisdom is legendary.'

Mara stood up. 'When we are both made rich from

the importation of chocolate to our Empire, then I will

accept the compliment. But now other matters require my

presence. Jican will draw up the documents sealing the

partnership you request.'

While servants hurried in to collect the dirtied cups,

and Jican's brow furrowed as he confronted the intricate

issues of trade, Mara left the room, helped by Lujan

and Saric.

Outside, screened from view by the gloom of an inner

corridor, Saric turned a sour eye on his mistress. 'You took

grave risks, my Lady. Any trader from Midkemia who was

originally Tsurani-born could once have been sworn to the

Minwanabi.'

Left short-tempered from missing her rest, Mara answered

tartly. 'You all saw. He drank equal portion.' then she softened. '

And those rare drinks have made me feel wonderful.'

Saric bowed, his silence indicative of displeasure.

Mara moved on toward the nursery, where, even one

wing distant, enraged yells could be heard from Justin. Her

sigh turned into a laugh. 'I am late, and the servants plainly

have their hands fall.' She laid a hand on her uncomfortably

swollen middle. 'I am anxious for this baby to get himself

born, though with another, there v`rill none of us get any

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195

peace.' She headed in the direction of Justin's ruckus with

a girlish smile. 'I may well come to miss being pampered

when once again I must sit without the aid of two healthy

young men.'

Lujan grinned in sly appreciation, his expression mirrored

by Saric. 'Hokanu will do his best, I am sure, to

keep you with child indefinitely.'

Mara laughed, the bitter undertone not missed by her

councilors. 'He will, I am sure, if we-can be made to agree

that Justin should be the Acoma heir.'

:

'Stubborn,' Saric mouthed to his cousin over his Lady's

bent head.

Past nightfall, the trader called Janaio of LaMut returned

with his retinue of hired Midkemian guards to a deserted

warehouse in the city of Sulan-Qu. The hour was late. The

wicks in the lamps in the rich quarter had burned down,

while in the crumbling tenements near the riverside only

the setting quarter moon cast any light. The streets lay

under inky darkness, wreathed with mist off the Gagajin.

Where once the disreputable population of the city had

preyed as they pleased on what traffic dared to move

abroad without guard, now the Emperor's patrols drove

Kentosani's malcontents and vagrants into the deepest back

alleys. The only skulkers in the open were the mongrel dogs,

scavenging garbage from the markets.

Though calm by the standards of Tsuranuanni, to

Midkemian ears the city was far from peaceful. Even

from inside the warehouse, the shouts of a madam of the

Reed Life could be heard insulting a client who had been

rough with one of her girls. Dogs barked, and a wakeful

jigabird crowed. Somewhere nearby, an infant wailed. The

mercenaries hired to attend Janaio's retinue shifted uneasily,

the dank mud of the river flats an alien smell in their nostrils.

They did not know why they had been brought to this empty,

196 Mistress of the Empire

half-rotted building; nor did they understand precisely why

they had been paid to cross the rift. Their employer had

interviewed them carefully and required that they speak

no Tsurani. But work in the Kingdom had slowed since the

battle at Sethanon, and for men with few ties to home, the

offered money had been good.

The bearers put down their bundles and waited for

orders, while the bodyguards maintained their formation

behind Janaio. Without sound, silk cords with weighted

ends suddenly coiled down from the rafters. They caught

and whipped tight, each encircling the throat of an unwary

barbarian soldier

Assassins in black followed, leaping from their unseen

perches and using their weight and momentum to jerk the

guards off their feet. Four men's necks snapped instantly,

while the others hung kicking and gagging as they were

hoisted and slowly strangled.

The bearers watched in horror as the Midkemian

mercenaries died. Wide-eyed, frozen in terror, they knew

better than to dare raise an outcry. Their fear was

short-lived. Two more black-clad assassins flitted out of

the shadows and moved through their unarmed ranks

like wind through standing rushes. In less than a minute,

Janaio's ten bearers lay dead, blood from their slashed

throats pattering on the wood floor. The assassins who

held the armed guards aloft released their cords. Dead

Midkemians thumped in sprawled heaps, here one with his

knuckles crumpled under his hip, and another there with his

bitten-through tongue oozing blood through his beard.

Janaio removed his rich clothing and tossed it amid the

corpses. One of the black-clad assassins bowed to him and

offered a small bag. From this Janaio withdrew a dark robe

and cast it over his shoulders. Quickly he took a vial from

his pocket and lathered sweet-smelling ointment upon his

hands. The grease dissolved a layer of concealing paint;

Gambits

197

were there more light, the red dye and tattoo of a Hamoi

assassin would now be revealed.

From the thickest gloom of a comer a deep voice said,

'Is it done?'

The man who was no trader, who called himself Janaio

for convenience, bowed his head. 'As you commanded,

honored master.'

A heavyset man with a too-light tread stepped from

concealment. His person clicked and clinked as he moved,

as bone ornaments dangling from leather thongs jostled

against the instruments of death he wore affixed to his

belt. His robe was studded with bosses cut from the skulls

of victims; his sandals had straps of cured human flesh. He

cast no glance at the bodies littering the floor, though he

disdained to step in the puddles. The Obajan of the Hamoi

Tong nodded, the scalplock that hung from his otherwise

shaved head twisting down his back. 'Good.' He raised a

hugely muscled arm and plucked a vial from the breast of

his robe. 'You are certain she drank?'

'As did 1, master.' The erstwhile trader bowed low yet

again. 'I placed the potion in the chocolate, knowing that

drink to be the most irresistible. Her hadonra escaped,

by luck of a burned tongue. But the Lady drank hers

to the dregs. She swallowed enough slow poison to kill

three men.' This speech ended, the assassin licked his lips.

Anxious, sweating, he controlled his nerves and waited.

The Obajan rolled the vial containing the antidote for

the rare poison mixed with the chocolate between his thick

palms. He watched with stony gaze as the eyes of his minion

followed it; but the afflicted held in his desperation. He did

not crack, and beg.

The Obajan's lips parted in a smile. 'You did well.' He

surrendered the vial, which was colored green, symbol of

life. The man who had called himself Janaio of LaMut

took the promise of reprieve in shaking hands, snapped

198 Mistress of the Empire

off the wax seal, and drank the bitter draft down. Then

he smiled also.

A second later, his expression froze. Fear touched him,

and what at first appeared to be a spasm of uncertainty. His

eyes widened as pain stabbed through his abdomen, and he

glanced down at the emptied vial. Then his fingers lost their

grip. The container with its false offer of life dropped and

his knees wobbled. A groan escaped his lips. He fell to the

floor, doubled over.

'Why?' His voice emerged as a croak, pinched between

spasms of agony.

The Obajan's reply was very soft. 'Because she has seen

your face, Kolos, as have her advisers. And because it suits

the needs of th', Hamoi. You die with honor, serving the

tong. Turakamu will welcome you to his halls with a great

feast, and you will return to the Wheel of Life in a higher

station.'

The betrayed man fought his need to thrash in agony.

Dispassionately the Obajan observed, 'The pain will pass

quickly. Even now life is departing.'

Beseeching, the dying man rolled his eyes up to seek the

other's face in the darkness. He fought a strangled, gasping

breath. 'But... Father . ..'

The Obajan knelt and laid a red-stained hand upon the

forehead of his son. 'You honor your family, Kolos. You

honor me.' The sweating flesh under his touch shuddered

once, twice, and fell limp. Over the stink as the bowel

muscles loosened in death, the Obajan stood up and sighed.

'Besides, I have other sons.'

The master of the Hamoi Tong signaled, and his bladkclad

guard closed around him. Swiftly, silently, they slipped

from the warehouse at his order, leaving the dead where

they lay. Alone amid the carnage, unseen by living eyes,

the Obajan took a small bit of parchment from his robe

and cast it at the feet of his murdered son. The gold

chain on the corpse would draw the notice of scavengers;

the bodies would be found and pilfered, and the paper

would surface in later investigation. As the tong chief

turned on his heel to leave, the red-and-yellow chop of

House Anasati fluttered down onto floorboards sticky with

new blood.

The first pain touched Mara just before dawn. She awoke

curled into a ball and stifled a small cry. Hokanu jerked

out of sleep beside her. His hands found her instantly in

concerned comfort. 'Are you all right?'

The discomfort passed. Mara levered herself up on one

arm and waited. Nothing happened. 'A cramp. Nothing

more. I am sorry to have disturbed you.'

Hokanu looked at his wife through the predawn greyness.

He stroked back her tangled hair, the smile that had been

absent for so many weeks lifting the corners of his mouth.

'The baby?'

Mara laughed for joy and relief. 'I think. Perhaps he

kicked while I slept. He is vigorous.'

Hokanu let his hand slide across her forehead and down

her cheek, then softly let it rest on her shoulder; He frowned.

'You feel chilled.'

Mara shrugged. 'A little.'

His worry deepened. 'But the morning is warm.' He

brushed her temple again. 'And your head is soaked in

perspiration.'

'It is nothing,' Mara said quickly. 'I will be all right.'

She closed her eyes, wondering uneasily whether the alien

drinks she had sampled the evening before might have left

her indisposed.

Hokanu sensed her hesitation. 'Let me call the healer to

see to you.'

The idea of a servant's intrusion upon the first moment

of intimacy she had shared with Hokanu in weeks rankled

200 Mistress of the Empire

Mara. 'I've had babies before, husband.' She strove to

soften her sharpness. 'I am fine.'

Yet she had no appetite at breakfast. Aware of Hokanu's

eyes on her, she made light conversation and ignored the

burning tingle that, for a moment, coursed like a flash fire

down her leg. She had pinched a nerve from sitting, she

insisted to herself. The slave who had served as her taster

seemed healthy as he carried out the trays, and when Jican

arrived with his slates, she buried herself in trade reports,

grateful, finally, that the mishap over the cramp before

dawn seemed to have banished Hokanu's distance. He

checked in on her twice, as he donned his armor for his

morning spar with Lujan and again as he returned for

his bath. ~

Three hours later, the pain began in earnest. The healers

hurried to attend the Lady as she was carried, gasping, to

her bed. Hokanu left a half-written letter to his father to

rush to her side. He stayed, his hand twined with hers,

and flawlessly kept his composure, that his fear not add

to her distress. But herbal remedies and massage gave no

relief. Mara's body contorted in spasms, wringing wet from

the cramps and pains. The healer with his hands on her

abdomen nodded gravely to his helper.

'It is time?' Hokanu asked.

He received a wordless affirmative as the healer continued

his ministrations, and the assistant whirled to send

Mara's runner flying to summon the midwife.

'But so early?' Hokanu demanded. 'Are you sure nothing

is amiss?'

The healer glanced up in harried exasperation. His bow

was a perfunctory nod. 'It happens, Lord Consort. Now,

please, leave your Lady to her labor, and send in her maids.

They will know better than you what she needs for her

comfort. If you cannot stay still or find a diversion, you

may ask the cooks to prepare hot water.'

Hokanu ignored the healer's orders. He bent over, kissed

his wife's cheek, and murmured in her ear, 'My brave Lady,

the gods must surely know how I treasure you. They will

keep you safe, and make your labor light, or heaven will

answer to me for their failing. My mother always said

that babes of Shinzawai blood were in a great rush to be

born. This one of ours seems no different.' Mara returned

his kindness with a squeeze of her hand, before his fingers

were torn from hers by servants who, at the healer's barked

directive, firmly pushed the consort of the Acoma out of his

own quarters.

Hokanu watched his wife to the last instant as the

screens were dragged dosed. Then, abandoned to himself

in the hallway, he considered calling for wine. He instantly

changed his mind as he recalled Mara's telling him once that

her brutish first husband had drunk himself into a stupor

upon the occasion of Ayaki's birth. Nacoya had needed to

slap the oaf sober to deliver the happy news of a son.

Celebration was called for, certainly, but Hokanu would

not cause Mara an instant of unhappy memory by arriving

at her side with the smell of spirits on his breach. So he

paced, unable to think of any appropriate diversion. He

could not help listening avidly, to identify each noise that

emerged from behind the closed screens. The rush of hurried

steps told him nothing, and he worried, by the quiet, what

Mara might be enduring. He cursed to himself and raged

inwardly that the mysteries of childbirth held no place for

him. Then his lips twitched in a half-smile as he decided

that this ugly, twisting frustration of not knowing must be

very near what a wife felt when her husband charged off

into battle.

In time, his vigil was disrupted as Lujan, Saric, Incomo,

and Keyoke, arrived in a group from the great hall, where

Mara had not appeared for morning council. One look at

Hokanu's distraught manner, and Incomo grasped what no

202 Mistress of the Empire

servant had taken time to inform them of. 'How is Lady

Mara?' he asked.

Hokanu said, 'They say the baby is coming.'

Keyoke's face went wooden to mask worry, and Lujan

shook his head. 'It is early.'

'But these things happen,' Incomo hastened to reassure.

'Babies do not birth by any fast rule. My eldest boy was

born at eight months. He grew healthy and strong, and

never seemed the worse.'

But Saric stayed too still. He did not intervene with his

usual quip to lighten the mood when the others grew edgy

with concern. He watched Hokanu with dark careful eyes,

and said nothing at all, his thoughts brooding darkly upon

the trader who had worn fine gold as if it were worthless.

Hours went by. Neglected duty did not call Mara's

councilors from their wait. They held together, retiring

in unstated support of Hokanu to the pleasant chamber

set aside for the Lady's meditation. Occasionally Keyoke

or Lujan would dispatch a servant with an order for the

garrison, or messages would come from Jican for Saric to

answer, but as the day grew hot, and servants brought the

noon meal at Hokanu's request, none seemed eager to eat.

News of Mara's condition did not improve, and as the

afternoon wore on toward evening, even Incomo ran out

of platitudes.

Fact could no longer be denied: Mara's labor was proving

very difficult. Several times low groans and cries echoed

down the hallway, but more often Mara's loved ones heard

only silence. Servants came in careful quiet and lit the lamps

at evening. Jican arrived, chalk dust unscrubbed from his

hands, belatedly admitting that there remained no more

account scrolls to balance.

Hokanu was about to offer companionable sympathy

when Mara's scream cut the air like a blade.

He tensed, then spun without a word and sprinted off

Gambits

:

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203

down the corridor. The entrance to his Lady's chamber

lay half opened; had it not, he would have smashed the

screen. Beyond, lit to clarity by the brilliance of lamps, two

midwives held his wife as she convulsed. The fine white

skin of her wrists and shoulders was reddened from hours

of such torment.

Hokanu dragged a sick breath of fear. He saw the healer

bent on his knees at the foot of the sleeping pallet, his

hands running red with her blood. Panic jolted him from

concentration as he glanced up to ask his assistant for cold

rags, and he saw who stood above him in the room.

'Master, you should not be here!'

'I will be no place else,' Hokanu cracked back in the

tone he would have used to order troops. 'Explain what

has gone amiss. At once!'

'I. . .' The healer hesitated, then abandoned attempt at

speech as the Lady's body arched up in what seemed a

spasm of agony.

Hokanu raced at once to Mara. He shouldered a straining

midwife aside, caught her twisting, thrashing wrist, and

bent his face over hers. 'I am here. Be at peace. All will

be well, my life as surety.'

She wrenched out a nod between spasms. H"r features

were contorted in pain, the flesh ashen and running with

perspiration. Hokanu held her eyes with his own, as much

to reassure her as to keep from acknowledging damage he

could do nothing about. The healer and midwives must be

trusted to do their jobs, though his beloved Lady seemed

awash in her own blood. The bedclothes pushed up around

her groin were soaked in crimson. Hokanu had seen but had

not yet permitted himself to admit the presence of what the

sobbing servants had been too slow to cover up: the tiny

blue figure that lay limp as rags near her feet. If it had ever

been a child, it was now only a tom bit of flesh, kicked and

bruised and lifeless.

204

Mistress of the Empire

Anger coursed through him, that no one had dared to

tell him when it happened, that his son, and Mara's, was

born dead.

The spasm passed. Mara fell limp in his grasp, and he

tenderly gathered her into his arms. She was so depleted that

she lay there, eyes dosed, gasping for breath and beyond

hearing. Swallowing pain like a hot coal, Hokanu turned

baleful eyes toward the healer. 'My wife?'

The servant quietly shook his head. In a whisper, he

said, 'Send your fastest runner to Sulan-Qu, my Lord.

Seek a priest of Hantukama, for' - sorrow slowed him

as he ended- 'there is nothing more I can do. Your wife

is dying.'

7

Culprit

The runner swerved.

Only half mindful of the fact that he had narrowly

missed being run down, Arakasi stopped cold in the

roadway. The sun stood high overhead, too close to noon

for an Acoma messenger to be moving in such haste unless

his errand was urgent. Arakasi frowned as he recalled the

courier's grim expression. Fast as reflex, the Spy Master

spun and sprinted back in the direction of Sulan-Qu.

He was fleet of foot, and dressed as a small-time

merchant's errand runner. Still it took him several minutes

to overtake the runner, and at his frantic question the man

did not break stride.

'Yes, I carry messages from House Acoma,' the runner

answered. 'Their content is not your business.'

Fighting the heat, the dusty, uneven footing, and the

effort it took to flank a man who did not wish to be

delayed, Arakasi held his ground. He studied the runner's

narrow eyes, full nose, and large chin and out of memory

sought the man's name.

'Hubaxachi,' he said after a pause. 'As Mara's faithful

servant, it is certainly my business to know what need

sends you racing for Sulan-Qu at high noon. The Lady

does not ask her runners to risk heat stroke on a whim.

It follows that something is wrong.'

The runner looked over in surprise. He identified Arakasi

as one of Mara's senior advisers, and at last slowed to a jog.

'You!' he exclaimed. 'How could I recognise you in that

costume? Aren't those the colors of the Keschai's traders'

association?'

~L

206

Mistress of the Empire

'Never mind that,' Arakasi snapped, short of both wind

and temper. He tore off the headband that had misled the

servant. 'Tell me what's happened.'

'It's the mistress,' gasped the runner. 'She's had a bad

childbirth. Her son did not survive.' He seemed to gather

himself before speaking the next line. 'She's bleeding,

dangerously. I am sent to find a priest of Hantukama.'

'Goddess of Mercy!' Arakasi almost shouted. He spun

and continued at a flat run toward the Acoma estate house.

The headband that had completed his disguise fluttered,

forgotten, in his fist.

If the Lady's fleetest runner had been sent to fetch a priest

of Hantukama, that could only mean Mara was dying.

Breezes stirred the curtains, and servants walked on silent

feet. Seated by Mara's bedside, his face an impassive mask

to hide his anguish, Hokanu wished he could be facing

the swords of a thousand enemies rather than relying

upon hope, prayer, and the uncertain vagaries of healers.

He could not think of the stillborn child, its lifeless

blue form racked in death. The babe was lost, gone to

Turakamu without having drawn breath. The Lady lived

yet, but barely.

Her face was porcelain-pale, and the wraps and cold

compresses the midwives used to try to lessen her bleeding

seemed of little avail. The slow, scarlet seep continued,

inexorably. Hokanu had seen fatal wounds on the battlefield

that bothered him less than the creeping, insidious

stain that renewed itself each time the dressings were

changed. He bit his lip in quiet desperation, unaware of

the sunlight outside, or the everyday horn calls of the

dispatch barge that brought news from Kentosani.

'Mara,' Hokanu whispered softly, 'forgive my stubborn

heart.' Though not a deeply religious man, he held with the

temple belief that the wal, the inner spirit, would hear and

Cuiprit

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207

record what the ears and the conscious mind could not. He

spoke as though Mara were aware and listening, and not

statue-still in a coma on the bed.

'You are the last Acoma, Lady, all because I would not

yield to your request to swear Justin in as your heir. Now

I regret my selfishness, and my unwillingness to concede

the danger to the Acoma name.' Here Hokanu paused to

master the unsteadiness in his voice. 'I, who love you, could

not conceive of an enemy who would dare reach past me to

strike you down. I did not allow for nature herself, or for

the perils of childbirth.'

Mara's lashes did not stir. Her mouth did not tremble

or smile, and even the frown between her brows was

absent. Hokanu fingered her dark, loose hair, spread over

the silken pillows, and battled an urge to weep. 'I speak

formally,' he added, and now his voice betrayed him. 'Live,

my strong, beautiful Lady. Live, that you might swear in a

new heir for the Acoma over your family natami. Hear me,

beloved wife. I do this moment release Kevin's son, Justin,

from his obligations to House Shinzawai. He is yours, to

make strong the Acoma name and heritage. Live, my Lady,

and together we will make other sons for the future of both

our houses.' -,

Mara's eyes did not open to the light of her victory. Limp

beneath the coverlet, she did not stir as her husband bowed

his head and at last lost his battle to hold his tears. Neither

did she start at a near-silent step and a voice like silk that

said, 'But she does have an enemy who would strike her

down, and the child in her womb as well, in cold blood.'

Hokanu coiled like a spring and turned to confront

a shadowy presence: Arakasi, recently arrived from the

message barge, his eyes impenetrable as onyx.

'What are you talking about?' Hokanu's tone was edged

like a blade. He took in Arakasi's dusty, exhausted,

sweating appearance, and the rust-and-blue headband

208

Mistress of the Empire

still clenched in a hand that shook. 'Is there more to

this than a bad miscarriage?'

The Spy Master seemed to gather himself. Then, without

flinching, he delivered the news. 'Jican told me as I came

in. Mara's poison taster did not awaken from his afternoon

nap. The healer saw him and says he appears to be in

a coma.'

For an instant Hokanu seemed a man made of glass, his

every vulnerability evident. Then the muscles in his jaw

jerked taut. He spoke, his voice unyielding as barbarian

iron. 'You suggest my wife was poisoned?'

Now it was Arakasi who could not speak. The sight of

Mara Lying helpless had unmanned him, and he could only

mutely nod.

Hokanu's face went white, but every inch of him was

composed as he whispered, 'There was a spice dealer from

beyond the rift who came yesterday, offering Mara trade

concessions on exotic drinks brewed from luxury herbs

and ground plantstuffs from Midkemia.'

Arakasi found his voice, 'Mare tasted them?'

Her consort choked out an affirmative, and, as one, both

men sprang for the doorway.

'The kitchens,' Hokanu gasped as they almost bowled

over the midwife who had returned to change Mara's

compresses.

'My thought exactly,' Arakasi said, swerving to avoid the

runner slave^who waited at his post in the hallway. 'Is there

any chance the utensils may not have been washed?'

The estate house was huge, with rooms jumbled together

from centuries of changing tastes. As Hokanu ran full tilt

through the maze of servants' passages, archways, and

short flights of stone stairs, he wondered how Arakasi

could know the shortest route to the kitchens, since he

was so seldom home; and yet the Spy Master ran without

taking any cue from Mara's consort.

-~_

Culprit

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209

As the two crossed a foyer that had a five-way intersection

between wings, Arakasi unerringly chose the correct doorway.

Hokanu forgot his fear enough to be amazed.

Even through his concern, Arakasi noticed. 'Maps,' he

gasped. 'You forget, this was once the dwelling of Mara's

greatest enemy. It would be a poor Spy Master who did

not know the lay of such a man's house. Agents had to

be told which doors to listen at, not to mention the time

that a guild assassin had to be given explicit directions as

to which five servants were to be killed-'

Arakasi broke off his reminiscence, his eyes turned deep

with thought.

'What is it?' Hokanu demanded as they ran down a

stone-flagged portico, silk curtains rippling with the wind

of their passage. 'What are you thinking? I know it pertains

to Mara.'

Arakasi shook his head in a clipped negative. 'I had a

hunch. When I can substantiate it, I will tell you more.'

Respectful of the man's competence, Hokanu did not

press for answer. He poured his heart and energy into

running, and reached the kitchen a half step ahead of the

Spy Master.

Startled servants looked up from preparing supper for

the field hands. Wide-eyed, they took in the disheveled

presence of the master, then instantly fell prostrate upon

the floor.

'Your will, master,' cried the head cook, his brow pressed

to the tiles.

'Dishes, cups,' Hokanu gasped disjointedly. 'Any utensil

my Lady used when the foreign spice dealer was here. Have

everything out for the healer's inspection.'

The back of the chief cook's neck turned white. 'Master,'

he murmured, 'I have-already failed in your request. The

cups and the dishes from yesterday were cleaned and put

away, as always, at sundown.'

What garbage had not been thrown to the jigabirds would

have been burned, to discourage insects.

No trace remained of what variety of poison the spice

seller from Midkemia might have carried. And unless they

could discover what potion had stricken Mara, there could

be no hope of finding an antidote.

Instinctively knowing Hokanu was on the verge of

explosive, useless action, Arakasi gripped him hard by

the shoulders. 'Listen to me!' the Spy Master said in a tone

that made the prone servants flinch upon the floor. 'She is

dying, yes, and the baby is dead, but all is not yet lost.'

Hokanu said nothing, but his body stayed taut as strung

wire in Arakasi's grasp.

More gently, the Spy Master continued. 'They used a

slow poison-'

'They wanted her to suffer!' Hokanu cried, anguished.

'Her murderers wanted us all to watch, and be helpless.'

Daring unspeakable consequences, both for laying hands

on a noble and also for provoking a man near to

breaking with fury and pain, Arakasi gave the master

a rough shake. 'Yes and yes!' he shouted back.

'And it is that very cruelty that is going to save her

life!'

Now he had Hokanu's attention; and much of that

warrior's rage was directed at himself. Sweating, aware

of his peril, Arakasi pressed on. 'No priest of Hantukama

can be found in time. The nearest-'

Hokanu interrupted. 'The bleeding will take her long

before the poison is finished working.'

'Pity her for it- no,' Arakasi said brutally. 'I spoke with

the midwife on the way in. She has sent to Lashima's temple

for golden crown flower leaves. A poultice made from them

will stop the bleeding. That leaves me a very narrow span

of time to track the spice merchant.'

Reason returned to Hokanu's eyes, but he did not soften.

'That merchant had barbarian bearers.'

Arakasi nodded. 'He dressed ostentatiously, also. All that

gold would have drawn notice.'

Through his overwhelming concern, Hokanu showed

surprise. 'How did you know? Did you pass the man on

the road?'

'No.' Arakasi returned a sly grin as he released his hold

on Mara's consort. 'I heard the servants gossiping.'

'Is there any detail you don't miss?' Mare's husband said

in wonder.

'Many, to my everlasting frustration.' Arakasi glanced,

embarrassed, toward the floor, both he and the master

that moment recalling that the kitchen staff still abased

themselves at their feet.

'For the good gods' sake!' Hokanu exclaimed. 'All of

you, please, get up and go about your duties. The mistress's

ills are not your fault.'

While the slaves and servants arose from the floor and

turned back to tasks at chopping block and cooking spit,

Arakasi dropped to his knees before Hokanu. 'Master, I

request formal leave to pursue this seller of alien spices

and find an antidote for my Lady Mara.' -,

Hokanu gave back the curt nod a commander might give

a warrior on the field. 'Do so, and waste no more time on

obeisance, Arakasi.'

The Spy Master was back on his feet in an eye's blink

and moving for the door. Only when he was safely past, at

one with the shadows in the corridor, did his rigid control

slip. Openly anxious, he considered the probabilities of the

situation he had not disclosed to Hokanu.

The spice seller had been conspicuous indeed, with

his barbarian bearers and his ostentatious jewelry; and

certainly not by chance. A man born in Kelewan would

never wear metal on a public roadway without a driving

reason. Already Arakasi knew that the man's trail would

be easy to follow: for the man had intended to be tracked.

The Spy Master would find only what the man's master

wished, and the antidote for Mara would not be part of

that knowledge.

In the portico between the great hall and the stairways

to the servants' quarters, Mara's Spy Master broke into a

run. Already he had a suspicion: he expected to find the

spice seller and his bearers all dead.

In a tiny, wedge-shaped room in the attic over the

storerooms, Arakasi opened a trunk. The leather hinges

creaked as he rested the lid against the thin plaster wall,

then rummaged within and pulled forth the hwaet-colored

robes of an itinerant priest-of a minor deity, Alihama,

goddess of travelers. The fabric was smudged with old

grease stains and road dust. Swiftly Mara's Spy Master

flung the garment over his bare shoulders, and fastened

the cord loops and pegs. Next he dragged up a cracked

pair of sandals, a purple-striped sash, and a long, hooded

headdress with tassels. Lastly he selected a ceramic censer,

strung with earthenware bells and twine clappers.

His guise as a priest of Alihama was now complete; but

as Spy Master, he added seven precious metal throwing

knives, each keenly balanced and thin as a razor. Five of

these he tucked out of sight under the broad sash; the last

two were slid between the soles of his needra-hide sandals,

under rows of false stitching.

When he passed through the doorway from his narrow

dormer room, he walked with a lanky, rolling stride and

peered about carefully as he took the stair, for one of his

eyes appeared to have developed a cast.

So thorough was his transformation as he made his exit

from the estate house that Hokanu nearly missed him. But

the broad, gaudy sash caught the Shinzawai heir's eye, and

since he had seen no priest of Alihama being fed in the

kitchens, he realised with a start that Arakasi had almost

slipped past him.

'Wait!' he called.

The Spy Master did not turn but continued to shuffle

down toward the landing, with intent to catch the next

dispatch barge to Kentosani.

Dressed in the high boots and close-fitting breeches that

Midkemians wore while riding horses, Hokanu had to run

in discomfort and catch up. He caught the Spy Master by

the shoulder, and was startled into a warrior's leap back

as the man whirled under his touch, almost too fast for

credibility.

Arakasi's hand fell away from his sash. He squinted

walleyed at Hokanu and said, soft as velvet, 'You startled

me.'

'I see that.' Uncharacteristically awkward, Hokanu gestured

toward the priest's robe. 'The barge and the roads

on foot are too slow. I am coming with you, and both of

us are going to ride horses.'

The Spy Master stiffened. 'Your place is by your Lady's

side.'

'Well I know it.' Hokanu was anguished, and his hand

twisted and twisted at the leather riding crop thrust

through his sash. 'But what can I do here but watch

as she wastes away? No. I am coming.' He did not say

what lay upon both of their minds - that Arakasi was an

Acoma servant. As Mara's consort, Hokanu was not his

legal master; Arakasi's loyalty was not his to command.

'I am reduced to asking,' he said painfully. 'Please, allow

me to come along. For our Lady's sake, let me help.'

Arakasi's dark eyes assessed Hokanu without mercy,

then glanced away.

'I see what it would do to you to refuse your request,'

he said quietly. 'But horses would not be appropriate. You

may travel, if you wish, as my acolyte.'

Now Hokanu was sharp. 'Outside of these estates how

many have seen a horse from the barbarian lands beyond

the rift? Do you think anyone will have eyes for the riders?

By the time they have finished staring at the beasts, we will

have passed by in a great cloud of dust.'

'Very well,' Arakasi allowed, though the incongruity

between his costume and Hokanu's preference for transport

worried him. All it would take was one clever man

to connect his face with a priest who behaved outside of

doctrine, and with an exotic creature from beyond the

rift, and all of his work would be compromised. But as

he considered the risks to Mara, he realised: he loved her

better than his work,- better than his own life. If she died,

his stake in the future, and in the formation of a better,

stronger Empire, was as dust.

On impulse, he said, 'It shall be as you wish, my Lord.

But you will bind me to the saddle, and I shall be driven

before you as your prisoner.'

Hokanu, already starting briskly for the stables, glanced

in surprise over his shoulder. 'What? For your honor, I

could never abuse you like that!'

'You will.' In a stride, Arakasi caught up with him.

The cast was still in his eye; it seemed no distraction

could make him break out of his disguise. 'You must.

I will need these-priest's robes for later; thus, we must

tailor our circumstances to fit. I am a holy man who

was dishonorable enough to try thievery. Your servants

caught me. I am being escorted back to Kentosani to be

delivered to temple justice.'

'That's reasonable enough.' Hokanu impatiently waved

away the servant who hurried to open the gate, and climbed

the fence to gain time. 'But your word is sufficient. I will

not see you bound.'

'You will,' Arakasi repeated, faintly smiling. 'Unless you

want to stop six times every league to pick me up out of the

dust. Master, I have tried every guise in this Empire, and

more than a few that are foreign, but I sure as the gods

love perversity never tried straddling a beast. The prospect

terrifies me.'

They had reached the yard, where at Hokanu's orders a

hired Midkemian freeman stood with two horses, saddled

and ready for mounting. One was a strapping grey, the

other chestnut, and though they were less spirited than the

flashy black that had belonged to Ayaki, Hokanu watched

Arakasi eye the creatures with trepidation. Through his

worry for Mara, still he noticed: the Spy Master's squint

stayed pronounced as ever.

'You're Lying,' the Shinzawai accused, affection in his

tone robbing the words of insult. 'You have ice water for

blood, and if you weren't so inept with a sword, you would

have made a formidable commander of armies.'

'Fetch out some rope,' Arakasi replied succinctly. 'I am

going to instruct you how sailors make knots, Master

Hokanu. And for both of our sakes, I hope you will tie

them tightly.'

:

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The horses thundered at a gallop, dust billowing in ocher

clouds on the noon air. Traffic on the roadway suffered.

Needra pulling goods wagons huffed and shied in a

six-legged scramble for the safety of the verge. Their

drivers shouted in rage, and then in awed fear, as the

four-legged beasts from beyond the rift shot past. Runners

sprang aside, wide-eyed, and trade caravans scattered out

of formation, their drovers and road masters gaping like

farmers.

'You've never had these creatures off the estates,' Arakasi

surmised in a tight voice. Bound by his wrists to the saddle

horn and by his ankles to a cord that looped underneath

the gelding's girth, he endured indescribable discomfort as

he tried to keep his posture and his dignity. His priest's

robe flapped like a flag against the restriction of his sash,

and the censer whacked him in the calf at each thrust of

the gelding's stride.

'Try to relax,' Hokanu offered in an attempt to be

helpful. He sat his saddle with what seemed liquid ease,

his dark hair blowing free and his hands steady on the

reins. He did not look like a man chafed by blisters in

unmentionable places. If not for his concern for his wife,

he might have enjoyed the commotion his outlandish beasts

were causing on the roadway.

'How do you know to start in Kentosani?' Hokanu asked

as he drew rein along a forested stretch of roadway to give

the horses a breather.

Arakasi closed his eyes as he endured the jolt while

his gelding responded to the jerk on the leading rein

and shifted from a canter, to a long trot, and finally to

a smoother walk. The Spy Master sighed, knocked the

censer away from his bruised ankle, and gave a sideways

look that spoke volumes. But his voice held no disgust as

he answered Hokanu's question.

'The Holy City is the only place in the Empire that

already has Midkemians in residence, where Thuril and

even desert men walk about in native costume. I expect

that our spice dealer wished to be conspicuous, and then

blend his trail into one more difficult to follow, so that we

find him, but not too soon. For I believe he has a master

who gave him his orders concerning your Lady, and that

man, that enemy, will not want to keep his secrecy.'

The Spy Master did not add a second, more telling

conjecture. Best not to voice his suspicions until he had

proof. The two men rode on in silence, beneath a canopy

of ulo trees. Birds swooped from the branches at the sight

and smell of the alien beasts. The horses switched at flies,

and ignored them.

Hokanu's comfort in the saddle stayed deceptively

at odds with the emotion he wrestled inside. At each

bend in the road, under the shadow of every tree, he

imagined threat. Memory haunted him, of Mara's pale

face against the pillow, and her hands so unnaturally

still on the coverlet. Often as he chastised himself for

the worry that wasted his energy, he could not marshal

his thoughts. He fretted in his warrior's stillness,

that he could do nothing more than provide horses

to hurry Arakasi on his errand. The Spy Master was

competent at his art; companionship in all likelihood

hindered his work. Yet, had Hokanu remained behind,

he knew the sight of Mara Lying helpless would have

enraged him. He would have mustered warriors and

marched against Jiro, and be damned to the Assembly's

edict. A frown marred his brows. Even now he had to

restrain himself from grasping his crop and lashing the

animal under him. To give free rein to his inner rage, his

guilt, and his pain, he would make the beast gallop until

it dropped.

'I am glad you are with me,' Arakasi said suddenly,

unexpectedly.

Hokanu recoiled from his unpleasant thoughts and saw

the Spy Master's enigmatic gaze fixed upon him. He

waited, and after an interval filled with the rustle of wind

through the trees, Arakasi qualified.

'With you along, I cannot afford to be careless. The

added responsibility will steady me, when, for the first

time in my life, I feel the urge to be reckless.' Frowning,

self-absorbed, Arakasi regarded his bound hands.

His knuckles flexed, testing the knots. 'Mara is special

to me. I feel for her as I never did for my former

master, even when his house was obliterated by his

enemies.'

Surprised, Hokanu said, 'I did not realise you had served

another house.'

As if wakened to the fact that he had shared a confidence,

Arakasi shrugged. 'I originally established my network for

the Lord of the Tuscai.'

'Ah,' Hokanu nodded. That stray fact explained much.

'Then you took service with the Acoma at the same time

as Lujan and the other former grey warriors?'

The Spy Master nodded, his intense eyes following

every nuance of Mara's consort's bearing. He seemed

to arrive at some inner decision. 'You share her dreams,'

he stated.

Again Hokanu was startled. The man's perception was

almost too keen to be comfortable. 'I want an Empire free

of injustice, sanctioned murder, and slavery, if that is what

you refer to.'

The horses plodded on, making confusion of an approaching

caravan as drovers and the reinsman of a cook wagon

all started shouting and pointing. Arakasi's quiet reply cut

without effort through the din. 'Her life is more important

than both of ours. If you go on with me, master, you must understand:

I will risk your life as ruthlessly for her as I

would my own.'

Aware somehow that the Spy Master spoke from the

heart, and that he was uncomfortable sharing confidences,

Hokanu did not attempt a direct reply. 'It's

time for us to move out again.' He thumped his heels

into his gelding's ribs, and dragged both mounts to

a canter.

The back alleys of Kentosani reeked of refuse and runoff

from the chamber pots of the poor. Spy Master and

Shinzawai Lord had left the horses in the care of a

trembling hostel owner, who bowed and scraped and

stuttered that he was unworthy of caring for such rare

beasts. His face showed stark fear as the pair left; and the

stir the horses' presence caused among the hostel's staff

masked Arakasi and Hokanu's departure=. Every servant

was still outside, along with every patron, staring and

pointing at the Midkemian horses as stablehands used to

dull-tempered needra fumbled with the much more active

animals.

In a change of roles like irony, now the Spy Master

affected the upper hand, and Hokanu, wearing only his

loincloth, played the part of a penitent on a pilgrimage

as the priest's servant, to appease the minor deity he

had reputedly offended. They blended into the afternoon

crowd.

On foot instead of carried in a litter, and for the first

time in his life not surrounded by an honor guard,

Hokanu came to realise how much the Holy City had

changed since the Emperor had assumed absolute rule in

place of the High Council. Great Lords and Ladies no

longer traveled heavily defended by warriors, for Imperial

Whites patrolled the streets to keep order. Where the

main thoroughfares had generally been safe, if crowded

with traffic - farm carts, temple processions, and hurrying

messengers - the darker, narrow back lanes where

the laborers and beggars lived, or the fish-ripe alleys

behind the warehouses at the wharf, had not been a

place for a man or woman to venture without armed

escort.

And yet Arakasi had a knowledge of these dim byways

acquired years before Ichindar's abolishment of the War

lord's office. He led a twisted path through moss-damp

archways, between tenements too close-packed to admit

sunlight, and, once, through the malodorous, refuse-choked

channel of a storm culvert.

'Why such a circuitous route?' Hokanu inquired in a

pause when a shrieking mob of street children raced by,

in pursuit of a bone-skinny dog.

'Habit,' Arakasi allowed. His smoking censer swung

220 Mistress of the Empire

at his knee, its incense only a partial palliative against

the assault of stinks from the gutter. They passed a

window where a wrinkled crone sat peeling jomach with

a bone-bladed knife. 'That hostel where we left the beasts

is an honest enough house, but gossipmongers congregate

there to swap news. I didn't wish to be followed; when we

left there was an Ekamchi servant on our.tail. He saw the

horses at the main gate, and knew we were of the Acoma

or Shinzawai households.'

Hokanu asked, 'Have we lost him?'

Arakasi smiled faintly, his slim hand raised in a sign

of benediction over the crown of a beggar's head. The

man was wild-eyed and mumbling, obviously touched

to madness.,by the gods. With a twirl of the cord that

spun the censer and clouded the air with incense, the

Spy Master replied, 'We lost him indeed. Apparently he

did not wish to soil his sandals in the garbage pit we

crossed two blocks back. He went around, lost sight of

us for a second . . .'

~ 'And we ducked through that culvert,' Hokanu concluded,

chuckling.

They passed the shuttered front of a weaver's shop,

and paused at a baker's, while Arakasi bought a roll and

spread sa jam in zigzags across the buttered top. The

bread seller attended another customer and waved to his

apprentice, who showed the apparent priest and penitent

into a curtained back room. A few minutes later, the bread

seller himself appeared. He looked the pair of visitors over

keenly and finally addressed Arakasi. 'I didn't recognise

you in that garb.'

The Spy Master licked jam off his fingers and said,

'I want news. It's pressing. A spice seller ostentatiously

dressed, and wearing metal jewelry. He had barbarian

bearers. Can you find him?'

The bread seller scrubbed sweat off his fat jowls. 'If you

can wait until sundown, when we toss the dough scraps

out for the beggar children, I could have an answer

for you.'

Arakasi looked irked. 'Too late. I want the use of

your messenger runner.' Like sleight of hand, a twist of

parchment appeared in his fingers. Perhaps the Spy Master

had hidden it all along in his sleeve, Hokanu thought, but

he could not be sure.

'Get this delivered to the sandalmaker's on the comer

of Barrel Hoop Street and Tanner's Alley. The proprietor

is Chimichi. Tell him your cake is burning.'

The bread seller looked dubious.

'Do this!' Arakasi said in an edged whisper that raised

hairs on Hokanu's neck.

The bread seller raised floury hands, palms out in

submission, then bellowed for his apprentice. The boy

left with the parchment, and Arakasi paced like a caged

sarcat the entire interval he was gone.

The leather worker Chimichi proved to be a whip-thin

man with desert blood, for he wore sweat-greasy tassels

with talismans under his robe. His lank hair fell into his

eyes, which were shifty. His hands had scars that might

have been made by a slip of the knife at his craft, but more

likely, Hokanu thought, from their number and location,

by the skilled hand of a torturer. He ducked through

the curtain, still blinking from sunlight, a roll decked

with jam in the precise pattern of Arakasi's gripped in

one fist.

'Fool,' he hissed at the priest. 'You risk my cover,

sending an emergency signal like that, and then summoning

me here. The master will see you bum for such carelessness.'

'

The master will certainly not,' Arakasi said drily.

The leather craftsman jumped. 'It's you yourself! Gods,

I didn't recognise you in those temple rags.' Chimichi's

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Mistress of the Empire

brows knotted into a scowl worthy of his Tsubarian

heritage. 'What's amiss?'

'A certain spice seller, decked with a gold chain and

carried by Midkemian bearers.'

Chimichi's expression lightened. 'Dead,' he stated flatly.

'His bearers with him. In a warehouse on Hwaet Broker's

Lane, if the footpad who tried to exchange chain links for

centis at the money changers can be relied on to tell the

truth. But that such a man had gold at all belies the chance

he fabricated his tale.'

'Does the imperial patrol know about the corpses yet?'

Arakasi broke in.

'Probably not.' Chimichi laid his roll aside, and rubbed

a jammy knuckle on his apron. The deepset, shifty eyes

turned to the Spy Master. 'Ever see a money changer report

what he didn't have to? The taxes on metals are not small,

these days, with our Light of Heaven needing to increase his

army against the threat of the hard-line traditionalists.'

Arakasi cut short the man's rambling with a raised hand.

'Seconds count, Chimichi. My companion and I are going

on to that warehouse to inspect the bodies. Your task is to

stage a diversion that will occupy the Emperor's patrol long

enough to see us in and out of the building. I don't want

an Imperial White left free to investigate chose murders

beforetime.'

Chimichi flipped back dark hair to reveal a grin, and

startlingly perfect white teeth. The front ones had been

filed into points, deep desert fashion. 'Keburchi, God

of Chaos,' he swore in evident delight. 'It's been long

time since we had a good riot. Life was starting to get

boring.'

Yet by the time he had finished his sentence, he was

speaking to an empty room. He blinked, startled, and

muttered, 'The man's mother was a damned shadow.'

Then his face knitted in concentration. He hurried off

Culprit

223

about the business of turning an ordinary, peaceful day of

business in the trade quarter into unmitigated chaos.

Dusk fell, deepening the gloom in the already dim warehouse.

Hokanu crouched beside Arakasi, a burning spill in

his hand. Outside, shouts and the sounds of breakage echoed

from the adjacent streets; someone howled obscenities over

the din of shattering crockery.

'The wine merchants' stores,' Hokanu murmured. 'In

a very few minutes we're going to have company.' He

paused to shift the rolled cloth spill, which had burned

nearly down to his fingers. 'The doors on this building

were not very stout.'

Arakasi nodded, his face invisible beneath his priest's

cowl. His fingers moved, furtively fast, over the body of

the bearer, which was well past rigor mortis and already

starting to bloat. 'Strangled,' he murmured. 'All of them.'

He slipped forward through the dark, while lines of

bright light from wildfire or torches shone through the gaps

in the wall boards. His concentration never wavered.

Hokanu flinched as the flame in his hands crept lower.

He shifted grip, and lit the last wad of linen he could spare

from his already scanty loincloth. By the time he looked

up, Arakasi was searching the spice seller's corpse.

The man's chain and fine silk robes were all gone,

looted by the footpad Chimichi had mentioned. The

illumination cast by the spill picked out enough details

to establish that the man had not died by strangulation

. His hands were contorted, and blind, dry eyes

showed rings of white. The mouth hung open, and

the tongue inside had been bitten through. Blood blackened

the boards and his still combed and perfumed

beard.

'You've found something,' Hokanu said, aware of Arakasi's

stillness.

224 Mistress of the Empire

The Spy Master looked up, his eyes a faint glint under

his hood. 'Much.' He turned over the man's hand, revealing

a tattoo. 'Our culprit is of the Hamoi Tong. He bears the

mark. His posing as a man in residence across the rift

speaks of long-range planning.'

'Not Jiro's style,' Hokanu summed up.

'Decidedly not.' Arakasi squatted back on his heels,

unmindful of the bang of a plank striking the cobbles

close outside the warehouse. 'But we're meant to think

so.'

Out in the night, a sailor cursed, and somebody else

roared back in outrage. The din of an irate populace surged

closer, overlaid by the horn call of one of the Emperor's

Strike Leaders.

Hokanu also had discarded the parchment with the

Anasati seal as a plant. No son of Tecuma's, and no

Lord advised by a devil as clever as Chumaka, would

ever condescend to the obvious. 'Who?' Hokanu said,

the sharpness of his desperation cutting through. Every

minute that passed increased the chance that he would

never again see Mara alive. Memory of her as he had

left her, pale, unconscious, and bleeding, all but paralysed

his reason. 'Can the tong even be bought to do more

than assassinate? I thought they took on their contracts

in anonymity.'

Arakasi was once again busy sorting through the spice

seller's underclothes. The fact they were fouled in death

did not deter him, nor did the stench upset his thoughts.

'The telling word, I suspect, is "contract." And does any

hard-line traditionalist in this Empire have riches enough

to toss golden chains to beggars just to make sure we

have a trail to follow?' His hands paused, pounced, and

came up with a small object. 'Ah!' Triumph colored the

Spy Master's tone.

Hokanu caught a glimpse of green glass. He forgot the

.

:

Culprit

225

stink of dead men, hitched closer, and thrust the spill

toward the object that Arakasi held.

It proved to be a small vial. Dark, sticky liquid coated

the inside; the cork, had there been one, was missing.

'A poison vial?' Hokanu asked.

Arakasi shook his head. 'That's poison on the inside.'

He offered the item for Hokanu to sniff. The odor was

resinous, and stingingly bitter. 'But the glass is green.

Apothecaries generally reserve that color container for

antidotes.' He glanced at the spice seller's face frozen in

its hideous rictus. 'You poor bastard. You thought you

were being given your life at your master's hand.'

The Spy Master left off his musing and stared at

Hokanu. 'That's why Mara's taster never suspected. This

man ingested the very same poison that she did, knowing

it was a slow-acting drug and sure that he was going to

get the antidote.'

Hokanu's hand trembled, and the spill flickered. Outside,

the shouts reached a crescendo, and the snap and

rattle of swordplay drew closer.

'We must leave,' urged Arakasi.

Hokanu felt firm fingers close over his wrist, tugging

him to his feet. 'Mara,' he murmured in an outburst of

uncontrollable pain. 'Mara.'

Arakasi yanked him forward. 'No,' he said sharply. 'We

have hope now.'

Hokanu turned deadened eyes to the Spy Master.

'What? But the spice seller is dead. How can you claim

we have hope?'

Arakasi's teeth flashed in fierce satisfaction. 'Because

we know there's an antidote. And the poison vial has a

maker's mark on the bottom.' He tugged again, hauling

a numbed Hokanu toward the loosened board by the

dockside through which they had originally made entry.

'I know the apothecary who uses that stamp. I have bought

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Mistress of the Empire

information from him in the past.' The Spy Master bent

and ducked out into the steamy, odorous dusk of the alley

behind the fishmonger's. 'All we have to do is avoid this

ruckus that Chimichi started for our benefit, find the man,

and question him.'

8

Interrogation

Hokanu ran.

The streets were a bedlam of noise and fleeing citizens,

with Arakasi a shadow among them distinguishable only

by his voluminously flapping priest's robe. Hardened to a

warrior's fitness as he was, Hokanu was not accustomed

to bare feet. After stubbing his toes on raised bits of

cobblestone, sliding precariously through slime in the

gutters, and once landing heel first on a broken bit of

crockery, he would have welcomed even ill-fitting sandals

despite the resulting blisters. Yet if Arakasi was aware of

his difficulty, he did not slacken pace.

Hokanu would have died rather than complain. Mara's

life was at stake, and every passing minute made him fear

that she might already be beyond help, that the hideous slowacting

poison might have damaged her beyond healing.

'Don't think,' he gasped aloud to himself. Just run.'

They passed a pot seller's stall, the proprietor rushing

about in his nightshirt, shaking a fist at passersby. Arakasi

pressed the Shinzawai to the right.

'Warriors,' he murmured, scarcely out of breath. 'If we

go straight, we'll run right into them.'

'Imperials?' Hokanu obeyed the direction change, a

grimace on his face as his toes squished through something

that stank of rotted onions.

'I don't know,' Arakasi replied. 'The light plays tricks

and all I see are helmet plumes.' He took a deep breath.

'We won't stay to find out.'

He ducked left into an alley yet more narrow and noisome

than the last. The sounds of the riot were fading, replaced

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Mistress of the Empire

by the furtive skitter of rats, the dragging steps of a lame

lamplighter on his way home from work, and the creak

of a costermonger's cart being hitched to a bone-skinny

needra.

Arakasi drew up his hood and ducked into a moss-crusted

doorway. 'We're here. Mind the portal - the arch is

very low.'

Hokanu had to bend over to enter. Beyond lay a cramped

courtyard, choked with weeds and what looked to be a

physician's garden, overgrown with medicinal herbs. There

was a fish pool at the center, also overrun with weeds and

sedges; Hokanu stole a moment to wash his feet. The water

was piss-warm, and noisome. He wondered in disgust if

people or dogs had used the spot for a privy.

'That was originally a cistern,' Arakasi whispered, as if

in answer to his thought. 'Korbargh dumps his wash water

in it, by the smell.'

Hokanu wrinkled his nose. 'What sort of a name is

Korbargh?'

'Thuril,' the Spy Master answered. 'But the fellow's no

native of the highlands. By blood, I'd say he has more of

the desert in him. Don't be deceived. He's smart, and he

speaks as many tongues as I do.'

'How many is that?' Hokanu whispered back.

But Arakasi had already raised his hand to knock at the

plank that served Korbargh as front door.

The panel opened with a jerk that caused Hokanu

a start.

'Who's there?' A gruff voice snarled from within.

Unhzed, Arakasi said something in the gutturals of the

desert tongue. Whoever he addressed tried to yank the door

closed, but the stout wood jammed ajar as the Spy Master

shoved his censer in the opening. 'Let us in t'see your master,

skulking dwarf, or your tongue I'll have out'f your face!' he

said in a gutter Tsurani dialect used by thieves and beggars.

Interrogation

229

His tone was one that Hokanu had never heard from him,

but that made his flesh crawl.

The dwarf said something back that sounded like an

obscenity.

'Not good enough,' Arakasi replied, and with a swift

inclination of his head invited his supposed penitent to

help him storm the door.

Frantic with concern for his wife, Hokanu fell to with

a will. He slammed his shoulder against the panel with

such force that the dwarf was knocked backward, and the

leather hinges burst inward. Over a boom of downed wood,

Arakasi and Hokanu fetched forward into what appeared

to be a foyer, tiled in terra-cotta, and decorated with

friezework left over from times when the neighborhood

had been more prosperous. The dwarf was yammering in

a mixture of languages, that his fingers felt crushed, and his

head was bruised by the door bar, which had been kicked

from its brackets, and now lay in splinters on the floor.

'It was rotten anyway,' Hokanu observed, scraping

splinters from his shoulder. 'In no condition, certainly,

to keep out as much as a rat.'

A touch from Arakasi urged quiet. Hokanu obeyed rather

than bridle at the presumption. As a huge, toweringly

muscled stranger in a robe embroidered in li birds entered,

the Shinzawai noble's eyes widened. 'Desert blood, did you

say?' he murmured sotto voce.

Arakasi disregarded the comment and instead said something

in desert tongue to the dwarf, whereupon the creature

stopped howling, scrambled to his feet like a hunted gazen,

and fled through a nook in a side wall.

'Gods above,' boomed the giant in the effeminate robe.

'You're no priest.'

'I'm glad you see that,' said the Spy Master. 'It saves us

unnecessary preamble.' He moved as though to push back

his hood, and his sleeves fell back, revealing a crisscross

230 Mistress of the Empire

of leather ties. The knife sheaths they secured were empty,

their contents a silver flash in Arakasi's hands as he lowered

his arms.

Hokanu's gasp of surprise that Mara's Spy Master should

own weapons of precious metal was canceled by a bull

bellow from Korbargh. 'So! You're the one who killed my

apprentice.'

Arakasi licked his teeth. 'Your memory works well, I

see. That's good.' His knives might have been gripped by

a stone statue, they were so steady. 'You'll recall, then, that

I can strike you through the heart before you can think, let

alone run.' To Hokanu the Spy Master said, 'Unwind my

belt and tie him, wrist and ankle.'

The giant drew breath to protest, and quit at a twitch of

Arakasi's wrist Hokanu took the greatest care not to come

between the two as he unknotted the priestly cincture; it

was braided needra hide, and tougher than spun cordage.

Hokanu tied the knots tightly, fear for Mara canceling any

mercy he might have felt for the man's comfort.

A huge wooden beam braced the ceiling, with horn hooks

inset for hanging the oil lamps preferred by the rich; they

held only cobwebs now, but unlike the leather loops used

by the poor for the same purpose, they had neither rotted

nor weakened.

Following Arakasi's glance, Hokanu almost smiled in

vindication. 'You wish him strung up by the wrists?'

At Arakasi's nod, the giant screeched in a tongue

Hokanu did not recognise. The Spy Master replied in

equally guttural accents, then switched language out of

politeness to his master. 'There is no help for you, Korbargh.

Your wife and that lout of a bodyguard you sent with her

are detained. There is a riot going on, and Imperial Whites

are out in force, barricading off the streets where she was

shopping. If she is wise, she will shelter the night in a

hostelry and return home in the morning. Your servant

Mekeh is currently hiding under the ale barrel in your

back shed. He saw how your last apprentice died, and as

long as I am here, he will not dare to show his face, even

to summon help for you. So I ask, and you will answer,

what the antidote was that should have filled the vial my

companion will show you.'

Hokanu hauled the cord taut, half hitched it secure, and

produced the green flask retrieved from the dead trader in

the warehouse.

Already pale from having his arms wrenched upward,

Korbargh turned white. 'I know nothing of this. Nothing.'

Arakasi's brows rose. 'Nothing?' His tone sounded

regretfully mild. 'Ah, Korbargh, you disappoint me.' Then

his expression hardened and his hand moved, fearfully

fast.

Steel arced in a blur across the room. The blade grazed

past Korbargh's cheek, shearing off a lock of greasy hair,

and stuck with a thunk in the support beam.

In changed intonation, Arakasi said, 'There are three

ciphers, in desert script, on that vial. The hand is your own.

Now speak.' As the prisoner raised his chin for renewed

denial, Arakasi interrupted. 'My companion is a warrior.

His wife is dying of your evil concoction. Shall be describe

his more inventive methods of extracting information from

captured enemy scouts?'

'Let him,' Korbargh gasped, afraid but still stubborn. 'I

won't say.'

Arakasi's dark eyes flicked to Hokanu. He gave a

half-smile that was mercilessly cold. 'For your Lady's

sake, tell the man how you make prisoners talk.'

Grasping the Spy Master's drift, Hokanu set his shoulder

against the wall. As if he had all the time in the world,

he described methods of torture cobbled together from

hearsay, old records found in the Minwanabi house as it was

being cleansed for Mara's arrival, tales told to unsettle new

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Mistress of the Empire

recruits, and a few things he improvised. Since Korbargh

did not appear an imaginative man, Hokanu lingered with

unholy relish over the grisly bits.

Korbargh began to sweat and shiver. His hands worked

at his bonds, not out of hope of escape, but in mindless,

desperate fear. Gauging his moment to a nicety, Hokanu

turned to Arakasi. 'What method should we try first, do

you think, the heated needles or the levers and ropes?'

Arakasi scratched his chin, considering. His eyes seemed

to caress the alchemist's quivering body. Then he smiled. It

was a smile that caused Hokanu to suppress a shiver. 'Well,'

he drawled. His eyes were ice. 'You want to know what I

think?'

Korbargh bucked against his bonds. 'No!' he said

hoarsely. 'No. I'll tell you what you wish to know.'

'We're waiting,' Hokanu cut back. 'I think that tapestry

rod in the next room would serve very nicely as a lever.

And I know where we can find those flesh-eating insects

close by-'

'Wait! No!' Korbargh screamed.

'Then,' Arakasi interjected reasonably, 'you will tell us the

recipe for the antidote that should have gone in this vial.'

Korbargh's head twitched frantic affirmative. 'Leaves of

sessali steeped in salt water for two hours. Sweeten the

mixture with generous amounts of red-bee honey so your

Lady doesn't vomit the salty herbs. A small sip. Wait a

minute. Another. Wait again. Then as much as she can

take. The more she swallows, the faster she'll heal. Then,

when her eyes dear and the fever leaves her, a small cup

of the mix every twelve hours for three days. That's the

-antidote.'

Arakasi spun to face Hokanu. 'Go,' he said curtly.

'Take the horses and run for home. Any healer will have

sessali herb in his stores, and for Mara, time is of the

essence.'

Interrogation

,

233

Anguished, Hokanu glanced at the strung-up figure of

Korbargh, sobbing now in hysterical relief.

'I will pursue his connections,' Arakasi said urgently, and

found himself addressing empty air. Hokanu had already

disappeared through the broken door.

Night air wafted through the opening. Chilling Korbargh's

sweating flesh. Down the block, two drunken comrades

reeled their way homeward, singing. Someone threw a pot

of wash water out of a window, the splash of its fall broken

by a startled yelp from a street cur.

Arakasi stood motionless.

Unnerved by the silence, Korbargh stirred in his bonds.

'Y-you are g-going to let me g-go?' He finished on a note

of crispness. 'I did tell you the antidote.'

A shadow against the darkened wall, Arakasi turned

around. His eyes gleamed like a predator's as he said,

'But you haven't said who purchased the poison, in the

bottle disguised as an antidote.'

Korbargh jerked against his bonds. 'It's worth my life to

tell you that!'

Cat-quiet, Arakasi stepped up to his prisoner and

wrenched the knife out of the beam; of incalculable value

in the metal-poor culture of Kelewan, the blade flashed in

the dimness. The Spy Master fingered the steel, as if testing

the edge. 'But your life is no longer a bargaining point. What

has yet to be determined is the manner of your death.'

'No.' Korbargh whimpered. 'No. I cannot say anymore.

Even were you to hang me, and the gods cast my spirit off

the Wheel of Life for dishonor.'

'I will hang you,' Arakasi said quickly, 'unless you talk:

that is certain. But a blade can do hurtful damage to a

man, before a rope is used to dispatch him. The question

is not honor or dishonor, Korbargh, but a merciful end,

or lingering agony. You know the drugs that can bring

blissful death.' Touching the tip of the knife to the fat of

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Mistress of the Empire

the prisoner's upper arm, he said, 'And you know which

drugs on your shelves make you writhe in torment before

death, drugs that heighten pain, keep you alert, and make

time seem to pass slowly.'

Korbargh hung from his wrists, his eyes huge with fear.

Arakasi tapped his knife point, thoughtful. 'I have all

the time I need, but none I'm willing to waste listening to

silence.'

'my wife-' began the desperate poison seller.

The Spy Master cut him off. 'If your wife gets home before

you have told what I need to know, she will join you. Your

bodyguard will die before he can cross the portal, and you

will watch me test my methods on her. I will dose her with

drugs to keep her conscious, then carve the flesh from

her body in strips!' As the big man began to weep with

terror Arakasi asked, 'Will your dwarf apprentice sack

your house, or give you both an appropriate funeral rite?'

Arakasi shrugged. 'He'll steal everything worth selling, you

know.' Looking around, he added, 'Given your location and

your clientele, I doubt anyone will be quick to report your

murder to the City Watch. It's possible no priest will ever

say a prayer for either of you.'

Korbargh snarled something unintelligible, and Arakasi

stopped threatening. He stepped forward, grasped the hem

of his captive's robe, and cut away a strip of fabric. The

cloth was not silk, but the weave was fine, and ribbon

embroidery adorned the hem. Arakasi expertly twisted the

length into a gag. Before he could bind it over Korbargh's

mouth, the huge man gasped and pleaded.

'If you gag me before your fiendish tortures begin, how

can I give what you wish, even if I were of a mind

to talk?'

Arakasi never paused, but jammed the cloth between

the poison merchant's teeth. As the larger man bucked

and twisted, the Spy Master tied the ends with knots as

Interrogation

23S

secure as any sailor's. 'I am anything but a fool,' he said

in a voice of velvet consonants.

Arakasi left the bound man to dash upstairs. He returned

with several vials which he held before Korbargh's eyes, one

at a time. 'Tai-gi root, to heighten perception and pain,' he

began. 'Powder from ground jinab bark, which will keep a

man awake for a week. Sinquoi leaves, which will make time

pass slowly. You will shortly discover that I know these as

well as any healer. And I was instructed in the use of knives

by an expert. You will not be permitted to scream when the

agony starts, and if you wished to spare yourself pain and

speak first, you have forfeited that chance already.' With a

gentleness that inspired shudders, the Spy Master loosened

Korbargh's robe. He bared a hairy expanse of sa drinker's

belly to the night air, then turned away and disappeared

briefly into the next room.

Korbargh thrashed against his bonds like a hooked fish.

He stopped when he had exhausted himself, and was

hanging limp when Arakasi returned, bearing the oil lamp

used to illuminate the desk when the hired clerk came to

do the accounts, and the basket the day servant used for

sewing.

Mara's Spy Master placed these items on a small table,

which he lifted and set to his left. Then he removed the

knife from his sash, and squinted to check the edge for

flaws. It being a metal blade, the razor-sharpness of the

weapon shone balefully perfect.

The poison merchant moaned into his gag as Arakasi

said, 'I will begin without using the drugs. You may

imagine how this will feel after I administer them.' He

moved forward and, stroking carefully, opened the top

layer of skin from his victim's navel slantwise toward his

groin. Blood pattered onto the tiles, and Korbargh gave a

muffled shriek. He kicked and flopped.

'Keep still,' Arakasi cautioned. 'I despise a messy job.'

236 Mistress of the Empire

His victim was in no position to heed, but the Spy

Master seemed not to care. His quick hand compensated

for Korbargh's jerks and jumps. He made another light cut

and removed a triangle of skin, which he tossed aside. Then

he nicked through the fat layer beneath and, as if he were

performing dissections at a physician's college, bared the

muscle below.

'Will you talk now?' Arakasi said conversationally.

Korbargh jerked his head in the negative. He was

dripping sweat, along with his blood, and his hair and

beard were soggy. He moaned into his gag, but the look

in his eyes stayed belligerent.

Arakasi sighed. 'Very well. Though l warn you, the pain

has hardly begun yet.' His knife hand moved, in utmost

precision, and the muscle of his victim's abdomen parted.

Korbargh gave a muffled screech. Unheeding, the Spy

Master picked out the severed veins and tied them off with

thread. Then his blade set to work on the bared entrails

beneath, and the blood ran faster.

The floor underfoot grew slippery as in a slaughterhouse,

and the air took on the same reek. Korbargh lost control of

his bladder, and rank wetness added to the puddle.

'Now,' said Arakasi, his shadow straightening with him

as he looked up into the poison seller's face, 'have you

anything constructive to say? No? Then, I fear, we will

have to work next on the nerves.'

The knife dipped into living tissue, separated a nerve

sheath, and scraped, very gently.

Korbargh thrashed, unable to howl. His eyes rolled, and

his teeth pierced deep into the sour cloth of the gag. Then

he fainted from the pain.

Some dim time later, his head snapped back as a pungent

aroma filled his nostrils. As he blinked away confusion,

strong hands poured foul-smelling liquid between his lips

while clamping his nostrils closed, forcing him to swallow.

Interrogation

237

Pain redoubled to blinding agony, and his mind became

gripped by horrible clarity.

\a249You will speak now,' Arakasi suggested. 'Else I will

continue this until morning.' He wiped his sticky blade,

fastidiously tucked it into his sash, and reached up to

loosen the knots that prevented Korbargh from speech.

'Then when your wife arrives, I will begin on her, to see

if she knows anything.'

'Demon!' gasped the wounded man. 'Devil! May you rot

in body and mind, and come back next life as a fungus!'

Arakasi, looking bland, reached into the gore of his

handiwork and tweaked.

Korbargh released an air-shattering scream.

'The name,' the Spy Master pressed, relentless.

And words tumbled out of Korbargh's mouth, giving him

the name that he sought.

'llakuli,' Arakasi repeated. 'A rumormonger who can be

found on the Street of Sorrowful Dreams.'

The poison seller gave a miserable nod. He had begun

to sob, his face like yellow grease. 'I think he was of the

Hamoi Tong.'

'You think?' Arakasi sighed as if correcting a child. 'I

know so.'

'What of my wife?'

'The tong may seek her out. That is a risk you knew when

you agreed to sell to them. But I will be hours gone when

she returns, so in that, she's safe.' Arakasi reached up very

swiftly and cut Korbargh's throat.

He jumped back as blood sprayed, and his victim kicked

his last in this life. Arakasi immediately snuffed the wick of

the oil lamp. Merciful blackness fell and hid the carnage in

the foyer.

Arakasi worked on in the dark, his hands now trembling

in spasms. He pulled Korbargh's robe closed and tied the

sash, so that the young wife would not be greeted with the

.'

238 Mistress of the Empire

full grisly details of the night's events upon her return. The

Spy Master cut down the body and laid it in a posture

of repose on the floor. About the blood he could do

nothing. His earlier search for the lamp had revealed that

the household kept no wash water to hand. He wiped his

fingers as best he could upon a tapestry, a prayer mat being

the only other choice that would serve for a towel. Then,

in the corner of Korbargh's bedchamber, he succumbed to

his nenes at last. He knelt clutching an unemptied night

jar and vomited violently.    .

He retched long after his belly was emptied. Then,

unwilling to pass through the foyer again, he made his

exit through a window.

The streets were all but deserted, the riot long since

quelled. A few stragglers hastened homeward, and more

shadowy figures lurked in the darkened alleys. A shivering,

bedraggled priest had nothing of value to rob; Arakasi was

left alone. The night wind in his face helped to steady him.

A brief stop by an ornamental pool in the entry of what

was probably a brothel allowed him to rinse the rest of

the gore from his hands. Blood was still crusted beneath

his fingernails, but right now he lacked the stomach to use

his knife to scrape them dean. He jogged, and to drive

back the nightmares that lingered from Korbargh's foyer,

he turned his-mind to the information he had sickened

himself to win.

Ilakuli he had heard of; and there was a man in the city

who would know his whereabouts. Arakasi hurried into

the night.

Hokanu ran on foot. His two spent mounts jagged at

his side on leading reins, their chests lathered, and their ~

distended nostrils showing scarlet linings. Fear for Mara's;

life kept him on his feet, long after muscle and sinew were

exhausted. He still wore the loincloth of a penitent. Of

Interrogation

239

the clothing he had recovered from the inn, he had paused

only to lace on his sandals. The rest he had stuffed into the

roan gelding's saddlebags, never mind that he looked like

a beggar, half naked and coated with dirt and sweat.

His sole concern was the recipe for the antidote that

offered the last hope for his wife.

Mist dung in the hollows, rendering trees and landmarks

ghostly in the predawn gloom. The prayer gate

to Chochocan hulked up out of whiteness like something

from the spirit lands ruled by Turakamu, God of the Dead.

Hokanu raced under its spindle arches, barely aware of the

painted holy figures in their niches, or the votive lamp left

lit by a passing priest. He stumbled on, caring only that

this gate marked the beginning of the end of his journey.

The borders to the estate lay over the next set of hills, and

through a defile guarded by his own patrols. A runner

would be posted there, along with a trusted officer and

another man trained as a field healer. With any luck, he

would have the herb for the antidote in his stores; and

every Lord's kitchen stocked red-bee honey.

Hurting in every joint, and gasping in the extremity of

exertion, Hokanu hoped the Good God would forgive him

for neglecting the prayer of passage the gate ~s intended

to inspire. He lacked the breath for speech, and he knew

if he stopped he would fall prone and pass out. Immersed

in a misery of tiredness, Hokanu crossed through the arch

into the pearly mists beyond.

The horses sensed the ambush before he did.

The big roan gelding plowed to a stop, snorting, and the

mare shied. Jerked forward by the sudden halt, Hokanu

gasped in frustration. But the arrow fired from a thicket by

the roadway missed him by inches, clattering harmlessly on

the verge.

Instantly, he banged the gelding with his elbow, sending

it into a maddened pirouette. The snorting mare curvetted

240

Mistress of the Empire

into its quarters, and the gelding let out a squeal and a

kick. Hokanu snatched his sword from the saddle scabbard.

Under cover of the milling animals, he doubled back into

the arch of Chochocan's prayer gate.

Hokanu dared not assume there would be only one

ambusher. He offered a brief prayer to the Good God that,

whoever they were, they would not be familiar with

horses from the barbarian world, for the beasts offered his

only chance of staying alive.

Still tied together by their leading rein, his mounts

thrashed before the archway, the gelding determined t"

land a defensive bite or kick, and the panicked mare

spinning, jerking, and rearing, in an effort to bole. Hokanu

chanced that no assassin born on Kelewan would dare those

stamping, seffking hooves to rush the archway and take him

The ambusher's only option was to flank him through the

entrance on the other side, and praise be to Chochocan,

whatever dead Minwanabi Lord had raised this offering to

the god had spent with a lavish hand. This gate was massive,

built of stone and timbers, with flying buttresses to support

its great height. It had intricate carving, rare gilt spires, an`}~

a multiplicity of interior vaulting, niches, and prayer nooks.

Six archers could conceal themselves inside and seriously

impede traffic: no doubt the real reason behind the ancient

Lord's gesture-of devotion.

Hokanu could only be grateful for such impiety now,

as he left the shield of the frightened horses and climbed

the fluted scrollwork, then hauled himself hand over hand

along a beam below the rafters. He swung himself up and

ducked into a nook behind a painted face of felicity. Gasping

silently from overexertion, Hokanu pressed himself into

the shallow shadow. He lay back against the side of the

nook, eyes blindly open, while his body took in air. A

moment passed like eternity. As the dizziness left him,the

Shinzawai noble noticed that the face above him

was hollow. The backside was built like an embrasure,

with holes drilled through the eyes from which a man in

concealment could observe anyone who entered the prayer

gate, comma or going.

Had Hokanu not been breathless, and in deadly danger

from an assassin, he might have laughed aloud. Within the

Empire, not even religion was free of the Game of the

Council; obviously, past Minwanabi Lords had stationed

watchers here to give warning of arrivals to the estate, and

also to spy upon traffic and commerce that chanced by

upon the road. Whatever subterfuge had been launched

from this place in the past, Hokanu seized the advantage

of the moment. He grasped the support beam that held the

mask in its niche, pulled himself up into its hollowed back,

then looked out the eye holes.

The mare and the gelding still spun, now hopelessly

entangled in the leading rein. One or the other had kicked a

support pose, for there WAS a hoof shaped depression in one

of the caryatids that supported the entry arch. Suddenly the

animals turned as one, the gelding with a snort. Both seared

into the night, tense, ears forward listening. Warned by the

horses, Hokanu saw movement in the shadows beyond the

prayer gate. - ,

Black-clad figures stalked there, spread out in flanking

formation. The three in the lead carried bows. Two more

followed, as rear guard, and to the profound relief of the

man they hunted, all of them scanned the prayer gate's

crannies and corners at ground level.

The mare sighted the men before the gelding. She flung

up her head with such force that the rein snapped, and

with a whistling snort she bolted back down the roadway.

Fear drove her to a flee gallop, a horse's instinct guiding

her back coward home and stable. The marauders in black

leaped out of her path and re-formed. The more phlegmatic

gelding watched, ears and tail tautly lifted. Then he shook

242 Mistress of tl~e Empire

out his mane, rubbed an itch in his neck against the arm

of the dented caryatid, and trotted a short distance away,

dropping his nose to graze by the roadside.

In the night-damp cavity of the prayer gate, all fell

suddenly silent; Hokanu knew a stab of dismay. His

starved lungs still labored from his run, and an effort

to quiet his breathing left him dangerously dizzy. Left

with an ugly decision, he chose to be discovered and to

fight, rather than to pass out and allow enemies to take

him unconscious.

His five attackers heard him immediately. They stiffened

like dogs pointing game and faced their quarry's hiding

place. Then two slung their bows across their shoulders.

The three others arrayed themselves in defensive formation,

while the lead two began to climb.

Hokanu turned his sword and flung it like a javelin.

The weapon caught the bulkier man through the throat,

piercing him down behind the breastbone, through the

heart. Silenced before he could scream, he fell with a dull

thud that made the gelding start and look up. Hokanu was

peripherally aware of the horse moving nervously around

the pillar beyond the gateway; more immediately, he flung

himself down and back into cover as three arrows whizzed

toward his hiding place.

One smacked wood with a thunk, while two others

chiseled splinters out of the fortune mask's ear, and

deflected on, to imbed themselves in the timbers behind.

Hokanu grasped the knife he had kept hidden in his

loincloth. He shoved back, as far into the cranny as his

size would allow, and reached up left-handed to wrench

one of the arrows from the wood.

A black-clad figure emerged, an outline against the dark

bulk of the beams that braced the interior of the prayer

gate. Hokanu's thrown knife caught him in the neck, and

he toppled back with a gurgling sound. His companion was

Interrogation

243

not fool enough to follow, but ducked, unslinging his bow.

Hokanu saw the weapon tip gleam in the gloom. His skin

prickled with his awareness that an arrow would soon fly

to impale him. He flipped the shaft in his hand around in

position to stab, and prepared to rush the archer.

A gruff voice called from below. 'Don't hurry. Keep him

pinned. Oridzu will climb up the other statue and fire on

him from above.'

With a wretched, sinking feeling, Hokanu realised his

cover would only protect from a sally from below; on

either side, the towering likenesses of the god offered the

perfect tactical advantage upon his position. Should he

attempt to hide from whoever climbed, he would dearly

be vulnerable to bow fire from below. Uglier, and most

cruelly final: knowledge of the antidote that might save

Mara would die with him. Arakasi would have no cause to

doubt that he had made it through. Hokanu cursed the haste

that had caused him to leave Kentosani without taking the

extra minutes to assemble an escort. Even had he lacked the

time to requisition soldiers from his father's or Mara's town

house, he might at least have hired mercenaries. Any sort of

armed backup might have foiled the assassins' ambush.

But he had forgone the escort of warriors in favor of

the speed he could make alone, mounted on the exotic

Kingdom horses. The creatures could outrace the swiftest

runners, and Hokanu had placed his wife's peril ahead of

his own.

Now Mara would pay for his folly. She would die, the

last of the Acoma, never knowing how near the man who

loved her had come to getting the antidote to her.

As the furtive sounds of men moving reached Hokanu's

ears, he cursed. Not one but both of the surviving assassins

were climbing the statues. He would be fired on from either

side, and given the bent of past Minwanabi minds, he did

not put it past the dead Lords to have placed concealed

244 Mistress of the Empire

embrasures behind the other carvings in the prayer gate.

He might be picked off without ever seeing his attackers.

Desperate, cornered, and trembling with exhaustion and

rage, Hokanu grasped the arrow that was his sole weapon.

He prepared to rush the one man who held him pinned.

He would die, but perhaps he could take another of his

enemies to the halls of Turakamu with him.

But as he tensed to shove off from the wall, an arrow

hissed out. He ducked flat, too late. The shaft smacked

into his hip and imbedded with a thump and dull agony

into the bone.

Hokanu's lips peeled back in a silent snarl of agony. Animal

hurt and white-hot anger burned him to preternatural

clarity of mind. He caught the shaft and snapped it off. The

resulting agony caused him to recoil involuntarily. A second

shaft cracked wood where his torso had been. Braced on one

knee, and weeping tears of pain, he scrabbled with bloodied

fingers for some purchase point to hold himself upright.

Shock made his leg useless, and the one not wounded

seemed cramped.

By some miracle, his hand dosed over a smoothed end

of wood that had been rounded to the form of a handle.

Hokanu grimaced at the jolt. He used his last strength to

haul his crippled body upright, and cried out as the handle

fumed with a creak and gave way downward.

It was not fixed, he realised in panic. He barely heard

the thunk as another arrow bit wood beside his ear.

Overwhelmed beyond recovery, he felt himself sliding

downward, as a section of wall gave way

Of course! he thought, and in the rush of adrenaline that

followed, he laughed aloud. The nameless old Minwanabi

Lord had built his spies an escape hatch, and he had

accidentally discovered the release. The trapdoor opened

outward, dragging him from darkness, and a crossfire of

enemy shafts, into a dawn like a new pearl.

Interrogation

24S

His feet were snapped helplessly off the beam as the

doorway gaped wide, leaving him hanging by the release

lever, in the air. The drop was nothing for a healthy

man, a mere dozen feet. But with an arrowhead in his

hip, Hokanu feared the shock of the fall might kill, or

cause him to faint. He flung away the useless arrow he

was holding, kicked, wrenched, and scrabbled, but failed

to gain a second hanthold. His wound hurt mightily, and

his eyes still watered maddeningly.

A black-clothed warrior arrived behind the niche he had

just vacated. He moved gloved hands, notched another

arrow, and began a steady draw.

Gasping, Hokanu looked down, to see a ring of other

enemies converging from the roadside. All that held them

back from an open rush was the gelding, innocuously

cropping grass with its reins trailing. The horse was

harmless, but the assassins remained wary from the display

of equine irritation they had just witnessed. The animal saw

the approaching assassins and ambled away from them,

until he stood directly below Hokanu.

'Chochocan bless you,' Hokanu half sobbed. He let go.

His stomach fumed with the plunge, and the slam as his

body struck the saddle all but undid him. The torment in

his hip became eclipsed by the insult to his manhood. The

gelding grunted, ripped up its head in astonishment, and

stumbled to its knees under the impact.

'Run, you meat for dogs!' Hokanu screamed, as much

to relieve his own agony as to motivate the horse. He flung

forward, gripping the mane in both fists. Though his seat

was halfway out of the cantle, and one leg trailed down

the gelding's flank, he pounded with the heel that still

functioned and drove the horse to its feet.

That moment the archers began to fire. Struck in neck,

shoulder, and croup, the gelding bucked, but fortune still

smiled on Hokanu: the movement threw him upward and

246 Mistress of the Empire

allowed him to hook the saddle flap with his good leg,

keeping his seat. The gelding exploded into a gallop

toward home.

The pounding threatened to shake Hokanu loose. He

clung, dizzied and deafened by pain. His hands stayed

locked white-knuckled in the horse's mane, and his blood

dripped and flung away on the wind, mingled with that of

his mount. He tried, but could not balance his seat. His lame

hip prevented him from centering himself in the saddle. He

had not come this far, he thought with clenched teeth, only

to spoil things by falling off.

But inexorably, he slipped to the side, until his ankle

dragged in the dust. He dung now by only his knee, and the

gelding had begun to crow-hop. One, two, three gyrations,

he hung on. and then his hands wrenched free. His body

arced out into air

And was caught, roughly, and unceremoniously ripped

from the follow through of inertia by a pair of gauntleted

hands.

'Damn!' Hokanu yelled, and struck earth. Agony tore

from him a shattering cry. The air went black, then

blindingly white, and he heard voices shouting.

One of them was Lujan's.

'Assassins,' he gasped out. 'On my tail.'

'Already dead, my Lord,' said Mara's Force Commander

crisply. 'Hold still, you're bleeding.'

Hokanu forced his eyes open. The sky seemed to swim

above him, incongruously green and clear of mist. Sunrise

threw golden light on the faces of his own patrol.

'We saw the mare come tearing in, riderless,' someone

was saying. 'We assumed trouble on the road. Was Arakasi

with you?'

'No,' Hokanu gasped. 'Kentosani. Just listen.' And he

managed through his pain to recite the recipe for the

antidote that was the only hope to save Mara.

Interrogation

_ _

247

With the practiced efficiency of a field commander, Lujan

ordered his swiftest warrior to strip off his armor and run

to the healer with the instructions Hokanu had just given.

As the man hurried away, and through the exploding bustle

of activity as escort was arranged, Hokanu dung grimly to

consciousness.

More men were sent for a litter to carry the Lady's

wounded consort back to the estate house, while Hokanu's

vision swam from patchy black to painful sharpness. He

heard cloth tear, felt air against his inflamed skin as Lujan

bared his wound.

'My Lord,' said the Acoma Force Commander, 'you are

going to need this arrowhead cut out very quickly if the

flesh is not to suppurate.'

Hokanu mustered a dogged breath. 'You will have

nothing done with that arrow,' he grated. 'Not until I

am back at my Lady's side, and I have seen her restored

by the antidote with my own eyes.'

'Your will, my Lord.' The Acoma Force Commander

arose, all brusqueness and hurry. 'Strike Leader,' he shouted

to his sub-officer, 'pick four men, and make up a stretcher!

My Lord Hokanu would be at his Lady's side as swiftly as

possible!'

~:

r

Mirack

9

Miracle

The sky dimmed.

Servants entered on quiet feet to close the screens and

light the lamps in Mara's chamber. They finished their task

and silently bowed to their mistress, who lay unmoving and

wax-pale upon her cushions. Then they departed, leaving

Hokanu alone with his vigil, in a quiet that ate at his

nerves.

Seven hours had passed since the antidote had been

administered, and his Lady showed no improvement. Her

eyelids did not flicker in dreaming, and her breathing

neither quickened nor changed. As twilight deepened

beyond the screens and the gloom encroached, isolating

husband and wife in a wan circle of lamplight, Hokanu

knew doubt. What if Korbargh had lied, had misled them

by giving a false antidote? What if the ambush at the prayer

gate had delayed his arrival those critical few minutes, and

the medicine had reached Mara too late? What if the gods

had turned against them, and all that they did in life was

made futile by a foregone conclusion of fate?

The ache of his arrow wound and the unrelenting

worry over Mara's condition wore Hokanu to distraction.

Agonising over the need to act, to do something where

nothing more could be done, he reached out and gathered

up Mara's hand. Was it his imagination, or was her flesh a

shade less clammy? Or was his own stressed body growing

feverish and dry, as the untended arrowhead in his hip began

to fester? Doubts chased the tails of uncertainties, and to

break the cycle of useless worry, Hokanu tried speech.

'Mara,' he began. The emptiness of the room only

i

3

,:

249

underscored his loneliness. 'Mara.' In vain he searched

for something to say; but the words had all been said,

the endless apologies, the affirmations of love. That petty

politics should place at risk a woman who, by herself,

held so much life within her served only to emphasise the

fundamental wrongness of Tsurani society: a wrongness

Mara had dedicated herself and her Acoma line to change.

Hokanu closed his eyes against tears, unsure whether his

weakness stemmed from deep and heartfelt regret or from

weakness inspired by his wound.

How long he sat unmoving, fighting emotions unworthy

of the woman who battled against death on the mat,

Hokanu could not have said. Except when he raised

his head at the sound of the knock upon the door, the

dark beyond the screens had deepened with the fullness

of night.

'Enter,' he called, dizzied from the sudden move he had

made at the interruption. He realised he had not eaten since

the day before; surely that was the cause.

Lujan entered and bowed briskly. Although he would

normally be off duty at this hour, taking his ease at the

evening meal, tonight he still wore his armor and the

plain sword he preferred for field service. Dusty, smelling

of sweat, he straightened up, regarded the master with a

penetrating stare, and compressed his lips into a line while

he awaited permission to speak.

Hokanu gave a listless wave.

'Lord?' The tone of question was most unlike the Acoma

Force Commander.

Sure a tactful inquiry concerning his own health would

follow, Hokanu stiffened. His hand tightened over Mara's,

and he said crisply, 'You have a report to make?'

Lujan's chin jerked up at the reprimand. 'I took the

liberty of sending out a scouting detail, under Force Leader

Irrilandi.' The former Minwanabi Force Commander had

250 Mistress of the Empire ~ I

been detailing patrols over the hills beyond these estates

for more years than Lujan had been alive. -:

Hokanu nodded for the Acoma officer to continue.

Lujan said, 'The patrol turned up a small force armed for

a foray. There was a confrontation. Most of the enemy lie

dead, but two were taken alive. One had a loose tongue.

It would appear that the five archers who ambushed you

were only advance scouts. They were sent to reconnoiter

the roadway and select the site for a more decisive ambush. l

But they had not expected you to be mounted and traveling ~ I

at such speed. They were caught off guard, and had to ! l

improvise. The other men, disguised as bandits, were not in i

place, and plainly only the gods' favor spared your life.'

Half muddled by discomfort from his wound, Hokanu

nodded. 'Did you find out who sent the murdering dogs?'

Lujan hesitated before he replied. His eyes remained on

the master, naked with worry, as he hooked his thumbs

in his baldric. 'Jiro,' he snapped at last. 'The proof is

incontrovertible. The Anasati Lord was behind this.'

Hokanu blinked to dear his head. 'Then he will have

to die.'

'No. Husband, you must not even voice such a notion.

How can we go against the edict of the Assembly of

Magicians?' murmured a weak voice from the cushions.

Both Lujan and Hokanu whirled around.

Mara's eyes were open and lucid in her drawn face. Her

fingers tightened shakily inside her husband's grip. 'How

can we kill Jiro when the Great Ones have forbidden our

blood feud?'

'Thank the Good God!' Hokanu exclaimed. He bent over

his wife and kissed her cheek, though the motion left him

dizzy. 'Beloved, how do you feel?'

'annoyed,' Mare confessed. 'I should have known better

than to taste that chocolate. My greed to gain a trade

monopoly nearly became my undoing.'

Hokanu stroked her hand. 'Rest now. We are lucky to

have you with us.'

Mara's brow puckered into a frown. 'The baby? What

has become of our son?' But the anguish on Hokanu's

face told her all she needed to know. She braced herself

and closed her eyes. 'Two sons,' she whispered. 'Two sons

dead, and we can spill no blood in retribution.' The phrase

seemed to exhaust the last of her resources, for she drifted

away into sleep, a flush of anger still staining the pallor of

her cheeks.

Servants descended in force upon the sick chamber the

instant the Lady stilled into slumber. A healer with a satchel

of remedies directed them to air Mara's bedding, and to turn

down the wicks in the lamps. Lujan did not wait for orders,

but stepped forward, caught Hokanu in his strong arms,

and lifted the master bodily from Mara's side.

'Force Commander!' snapped the Shinzawai irritably. 'I

can walk on my own, and as of this moment you are

dismissed.'

For answer, he received Lujan's most disarming grin. 'I

am my Lady's man, Master Hokanu. Tonight I will take no

orders from a Shinzawai. If you were one of my warriors, I

would forbid you outright to move with such a wound. And

truth to tell, I fear my Lady's wrath the more. I will have you

off to visit the surgeon to have that arrowhead removed. If

you were to die of Jiro's plots while Mara slept, that would

be doing her no service.' His tone was almost insolent, but

his eyes spoke heartfelt thanks to the man who had saved

the woman who was paramount in both their lives.

The surgeon set aside bloodstained instruments, looked

up from his work, and met Lujan's eyes. Lamplight

burnished the sweat-streaked planes of his face, to reveal

a strained expression. 'No, the light is quite sufficient,' he

said hoarsely. 'I can see well enough to work.'

252

Mistress of the Empire

'Then the prognosis is not good,' Lujan whispered back.

His hands stayed steady and firm on Hokanu's leg, an

assurance to the injured man as much as a restraint t o

keep an inopportune flinch from disrupting the healer's

touch. Dosed with sa wine laced with a narcotic herb to

dull pain, Hokanu might not realise where he was or what

was happening well enough to hold his honor and keep

motionless. Still, no matter how muddled the consciousness

of a man became, his spirit would remain aware. If the

news was going to be bad, Hokanu's wal, his inner self,

did not need to hear before he was sufficiently recovered

to maintain self-control.

Yet either Lujan's words were not quiet enough, or the

wounded man was unwilling to relinquish consciousness

enough to be spared. Hokanu weakly raised his head. 'If

there is something wrong, I'll hear of it now.'

The healer wiped his hands on a cloth. He mopped his

brow also, though his infirmary was not hot. He turned

worried eyes to Lujan, who nodded, then looked back at

Mara's consort. 'The arrowhead is removed, master. But it

was deep into the bone, and your attempts to move and run

caused much damage. Tendons and ligaments are severed,

some frayed beyond my skills to sew back.' He did not

add that the wound was deep, and the lacerations invited

infection. He would pack the tears with poultice, but that

was all he could do.

'Are you telling me I won't walk again?' Hokanu's voice

did not quaver, but held only the sharpness of command.

The healer sighed. 'You will walk, master. But you will

never lead a charge onto a battlefield again. You will limp,

and your balance will be compromised. In combat, any

competent enemy would see your lameness and kill you

easily. My Lord, you must never don armor again.' He

shook his grey head in sympathy. 'I am sorry. That is the

best I can promise.'

Miracle

2S3

Hokanu turned his face toward the wall, utterly still.

Not even his hands tensed into fists; his rage, or his pain,

stayed hidden. But Lujan, who was a warrior also, knew

his mind: that he was yet his father's heir, and had stood

as Shinzawai Force Commander. It was an ill thing for a

man in line for the mantle of a great house to become a

cripple. Lujan noticed the barest tremor in the sinews under

his hands. He felt his heart wrench, but dared not offer

sympathy, for fear that Hokanu's desperately held dignity

would break down.

And yet the man that Mara had married showed once

again the sternness of his fiber. 'Get on with your work,

healer,' he said. 'Sew up what you can, and for the love

of the gods, give me no more medicinal wine. I would be

aware when my Lady wakes, and not half out of my head

with self-pity brought on by drink.'

'Shift the lamp, then,' muttered the surgeon. 'I'll have

this over with as quickly as may be.'

'Good servant, in that I may be of assistance,' said a quiet

voice from the doorway.

The surgeon started in surprise, his hand half extended

toward his tray of instruments; Lujan all but released hold

of Hokanu's leg in his initial annoyance. 'I told the guard

on this corridor that the master was not to be disturbed.

For any reason.' He half turned, drawing breath to dress

down the lax soldier, and checked, appalled.

The wizened man in coarse brown robes who stood at

the edge of the lamplight was no servant but a priest

of Hantukama, the God of Healing. Lujan had seen his

like once before, on the day Keyoke's life had been saved

from multiple battle wounds and a leg amputation gone

septic. He recognised the stranger's order by the shaved

semicircle at the back of his head, and by the intricate

braid that trailed from his nape. Mindful of how difficult

it was to gain the services of such a priest, Lujan bowed as

254 Mistress of the Empire

deeply as the lowliest scullion to atone for his thoughtless

address.

'Forgive me, good priest, for my ill manners. In my

mistress's name, you are welcome here, my brutish behavior

a pitiful reflection on the honor of this house.'

The priest stepped forward, silent on bare feet. His

sun-browned face showed no affront but only deepest

sympathy as he touched the warrior's shoulder. 'With

master and Lady both hurt, you would be a poor guardian

if you did not seek to spare them from intrusions.'

Lujan spoke with his face still pressed to the floor. 'Good

priest, if you have come to help, my feelings are of no

consequence before the needs of my master and Lady.'

Now the priest frowned, a fearful expression on a

face that habitually was serene. His hand tightened, in

surprising strength, and he raised Lujan from his posture

of submission. 'On the contrary,' he snapped. 'The spirit

and the feelings of any man are equal in the sight of my god.

You are forgiven your lapse of manners, worthy warrior.

Go now. Leave me to my business with your master, and

mind your post by the door with all vigilance.'

Lujan snapped the priest a salute, hand over heart, and

stepped out as ordered. The surgeon gave a hasty half bow,

and made as if to follow. But the priest waved for him to

stay as he stepped to Hokanu's bedside. 'My novice is but

a boy, and too tired from travel to assist. He sleeps, and if

I am to be of service to my god, I will need help.'

The priest set down his satchel. He took the sick man's

sweating fingers into his own and looked into Hokanu's

eyes. 'Son of my god, how are you?'

Hokanu inclined his head, the best he could manage

for courtesy. 'I do well enough. Blessings of your

god, and Chochocan's favor for guiding you to this

house.' He drew a difficult breath and forced his voice

steady over his pain. 'If I may presume, I would ask

Miracle

255

that you look after my Lady. Her need is greater than

mine.'

The priest pursed his lips. 'No. I say not' -he held

up a hand, forestalling Hokanu's protest- 'and it is my

judgment to make. I have seen the Good Servant already. I

traveled here in answer to her need, for her sacrifice and her

love for her people are recognised by the followers of my

god. But she is mending well enough without Hantukama's

blessing. You brought the antidote in good time.'

Hokanu closed his eyes, his relief palpable. 'I am grateful

to hear she will be well again.'

'She will be well.' The priest paused, his face suddenly

careworn. As if he chose his words carefully, he added,

'But you should know, as her consort, that she will bear

only one more child. The poison caused damage, and that

was the best the healing powers of my god would allow.'

Hokanu's eyes flicked open, black in the flicker of

lamplight. His warrior's composure held, and nothing of

his anguish leaked through, that his Lady could not have

the many children she craved, to secure both her line and

his also. 'That is enough, then, good priest.'

A silence fell over the chamber, with the surgeon standing

motionless in respect for his master's feelings. The

hiss of the oil lamp blended with the whisper of the

breeze beyond the screen and, farther off, the tramp

of a warrior answering the change of the watch. With

summer past, the amphibious creatures were silent on

the lakeshore; only insects sang in the soft warmth of

the night.

Out of that stillness, and the peace that ruled the late

hour, the priest of Hantukama spoke. 'Master Hokanu,

that is not enough.'

The eyes of Mara's consort focused with an effort,

through the dulling effects of drugged wine. He looked

at the slender, wizened little priest, and pulled himself

256 Mistress of the Empire

half upright. 'What more would you ask of me that I have

not already given?'

The priest of Hantukama sighed and returned a thin

smile. 'It is that you give too much, son of my god. Your

love and devotion to your Lady consume all that you have

and all that you are. For her, the heir to the Shinzawai has

risked the wholeness of his leg, and for her, he would lay

down his life to spare her own. I say, as the voice of my

god, that this is too much.'

Now Hokanu's cheeks flushed red in anger. 'What honor

would I have if I saved myself before Mara?'

The priest pressed him back against his cushions with a

touch that was gentle but firm. 'She does not need your

rescue,' he said, inarguably blunt. 'She is Servant of the

Empire and Lady of the Acoma. She has her own strength.

She needs you as confidant and companion beside her, not

as a shield before her.'

Hokanu drew breath to argue. The priest gave him a

sharp shake that made him gasp in discomfort. 'You are

no less than she in the eyes of this Empire and my god.

The continuance of this nation, and the better life for all

promised by the Light of Heaven, rely upon you, as heir to

the House of Shinzawai, as much as on her. You are a major

player in this changed Game of the Council. This you must

understand.'

Too weakened to argue, Hokanu sank back. 'You sound

as if you know the future,' he said tiredly. 'What is it you

see that we do not?'

But the priest would not say. Instead he stepped from

Hokanu's shoulder, and laid his hands on the flesh at

either side of the wound on Hokanu's hip. Softly, firmly,

he addressed the surgeon. 'Open my satchel, good healer. If

this man is to rise without a limp, there is a long night's work

ahead, and a need to invoke the blessing of my god.'

Word of the ambush against Hokanu and the certainty

of Mara's recovery caught up with Arakasi on a river

barge bound downriver from Kentosani. The messenger

who brought the news arrived just past dawn, during

a stop to load fresh fruit. He boarded with the slaves

carrying the baskets of jomach, and slipped unobtrusively

forward to the huddled mass of deck passengers who

bought their comfortless passage for a centi each. The

barge was crowded with three families of migrant fruit

pickers, two scabby beggars who had been run out of

Kentosani for plying their craft without license from the

Emperor, and a guild runner with a swollen ankle bound

south to ask charity of an uncle while his injury healed.

Arakasi was seated between two lashed casks, his dark

hood drawn over his face. Since he was as dirty as the

beggars, and looked as shifty as a street thief, the peasant

mothers with their fretful infants and gaggle of skinny

children had given him wide berth. The newcomer found

enough space to squeeze down beside him, and whisper

news from the Acoma estate.

Eyes closed, head lolling against a barrel, the Spy Master

appeared asleep; he had charcoal under his fingernails and

an untended scab on his chin. He smelled as though he had

not bathed in a sevenday. But his ears heard well. After a

moment through which he thought furiously, he grumbled

sleepily, rolled on his side, and returned the barest breath

of a whisper.

'I will not be getting off at the river fork. Tell the

connection there to convey my regards to our master

and mistress. If I am needed, have the net ask after me

from the jewel setter adjacent to the trophy stuffer's shop

in Sulan-Qu. You'll know the place by the harulth skull on

the signpost.'

The messenger touched the Spy Master's wrist in confirmation.

Then he made a noise of disgust, leaned over

2S8 Mistress of the Empire

toward the nearest of the passengers, and began to proselytise

for an obscure priesthood of Lulondi, God of Farmers.

'Be off, pest,' snapped the bothered victim. 'I don't love

vegetables, and the flies are bad enough on this journey

without your carping on top of them!'

The messenger bowed, carelessly banging an elbow into

the knee of a peasant wife. She cursed him, lashed out a

foot, and caught him a blow in the shins.

The disturbance brought the attention of the barge

master. 'Hey there! Mind you stay quiet, or I'll heave

the lot of you overboard.'

The farm wife returned loud protest. 'This scum is

here soliciting, and did you get a coin for his passage,

anyway?'

The bargemaster scowled, tramped forward, and peered

at the prostrate man the farm wife pointed her calloused

finger at.

'You! Vermin-carrying, sores-ridden wretch! Have you a

centi to pay for your space?' The barge master held out his

hand, sweating in his annoyance.

The man he singled out muttered pitiably. 'For the

goodness of Lulondi's blessing, I ask that you let me stay.'

The barge master scowled and snapped his fingers. 'I'll

show you Lulondi's blessing.' At his signal, two polemen

arose from their resting place by the rail. Muscled like

wrestlers, they came forward on bandy legs and bowed

before their master. 'Heave him off,' the barge master

ordered in disgust. 'And none too gently, either, since he

thought to stow away.'

Identical grins spread across the faces of the polemen.

They grabbed their victim by the wrists, raised him, and

tossed him over the side.

He landed with a smack and a splash of dirty water that

all but swamped the fruit seller's dugout, tied alongside for

the transfer of goods. The slaves whacked him away with

.

~.

Miracle

259

their paddles, and the barge crew, the deck passengers, and

bystanders gathered on the shore all laughed as the wretch

kicked free of the strangling folds of his cloak and swam

like a river rodent for dry land.

'Lulondi's blessing, indeed,' harrumphed the barge master.

He whirled, his mind back on business, and stepped

over a snoring Arakasi without so much as a glance.

Two days later, Mara's Spy Master disembarked in SulanQu.

He made his way across the riverfront, unobtrusive in

the noon shadows. The streets were nearly deserted, the

shops closed in siesta. What few loiterers were about either

slept in the shade of the window awnings and balconies

or poked through the refuse in the gutters, in search of a

crust to eat. Arakasi made his way to the House of Seven

Stars, a brothel that catered to wealthy nobles with odd

tastes. There, under a back-door arch adorned with kissing

cherubs, he knocked in a prescribed sequence. The panel

opened, and an immensely fat woman hung with beads and

corcara necklaces pulled him inside.

'Gods,' she murmured in a voice as deep as a man's, 'do

you always have to come here smelling like a sewer? We

have clients upstairs who might be offended.' .~

Arakasi flashed a grin. 'Now, Bubara, don't tell me you've

used up all the bath water with the kekali leaves and citrus

so early in the day?'

The madam grunted through her nose. 'Hardly. The girls

and boys have to smell sweet.' She twitched a flabby arm

through a curtain, and a naked deaf-mute child with skin the

color of chocha-la beans scurried out and bowed before her.

She motioned toward Arakasi and nodded.

The little boy looked at the dirty visitor, cocked his

head to one side, and grinned in delighted recognition.

Unmindful of the smell, he took the charcoal-marked hand

and led the Spy Master off.

260 Mistress of the Empire

Arakasi tousled the boy's hair and from some hidden

pocket produced a cho-ja-made candy. The boy smiled,

showing a pathetic expanse of gums where teeth should

have been at his age. He made soft moans of pleasure and

bowed his forehead to his fists repeatedly as a gesture of

thanks.

As an afterthought, Arakasi added two shell coins.

'Somebody should buy you some clothing,' he muttered

and caught the boy by the elbow, tugging him upright as

he made to prostrate himself on the floor. He patted the

boy again on the head and waved him off, as he had been

this way many times and knew which room he sought.

He moved off down the corridor, touched a section of

carving that unlatched a hidden door, and climbed the

narrow, shadowy stair beyond to a cubbyhole under

the eaves, while, behind him, the little boy clutched his

treasured gifts and groveled upon the pretty carpets for

long, unnoticed minutes.

In the cramped chamber, under the heat of shingles ablaze

under the noon sun, Arakasi picked from an assortment of

carry boxes and chests which held garments of all types,

from beaded, glittering robes to field workers' smocks. He

selected an orange-and-purple livery and a dusty pair o f

sandals with a hole in the toe of the left one's sole. Then

he bundled his unwashed robes in another chest that held

what looked to be beggar's rags, and, dad in nothing but his

dirt and a soiled loincloth, made his way back downstairs

to avail himself of the madam's bath.

An hour later, he was on his knees in the offices of the

-moneylenders' guild, a scrub brush and bucket in hand.

Afternoon trade had resumed, and if he spent overlong

cleansing the tiles around the desk of the clerk by the

aisle, no one commented. Merchants tended to kick him

out of their path as they came and went, particularly if

repayment of their loans was behind schedule, or if their

need for credit had resulted from misfortune: a caravan

load lost to bandits or a silk shipment spoiled by damp

weather.

Arguments tended to flare in the heat of afternoon, and

no one noticed that the servant muttered under his breath

as he scrubbed the tiles.

Except the clerk who, as he copied rows of figures, held

his head tilted to one side.

'. . . hafta track in dog dung,' Arakasi grumbled. 'Should

be a law against letting the pets of the ladies defecate in the

streets.' He sniffed, cursed his aching back, and in exactly

the same singsong tone added, 'Offends my nose, it does,

and did you notice whether the red boy took out any notes

that might have been for blood money? Crap in the wash

water again, and I'm tired of refilling my bucket.'

The clerk scrubbed sweat from his brow, picked a slate off

a corner of his desk, and made a notation. Then he shuffled

it into another stack, smeared with erasures and chalk dust,

and lashed out with a foot, catching the floor scrubber a

hard blow in the ribs. 'Here, you. Clean these.'

Arakasi tugged his forelock and pressed his nose to the

wet tiles. 'Your will, sir, master, your will.' He accepted

the pile of slates, shuffled off to fetch a rag, and began the

appointed task. His muttering continued, the inflection even

as ever as he came to the slate with the blurred notation. At

the sight of the figures there, with dates noted in code to

one side, he could barely keep his wipe rag steady. Three

flicks of his wrist, and the slate was empty, the figures

and dates committed to memory. His appearance remained

innocuously bland, but his heartbeat doubled.

For 'red boy' was his code name for Anasati, and the

clerk, a carefully placed agent. The numbers exchanged had

revealed large sums in metal, taken out by the Anasati First

Adviser. They had not been for trade purposes; those the

262

Mistress of the Empire

hadonra would have signed for, and most would have been

in notes to merchants that handled regular transactions.

One of the sums had been borrowed just before the time of

Arakasi's near-disastrous exposure in the silk warehouse.

Could the events have been connected? And the other two,

recently dated, might have been payments to the Hamoi

Tong, blood money for specified assassinations.

Arakasi polished the last slate and shuffled back to the

clerk's desk. He resumed mopping the floor, and roundly

cursed when the clerk tossed a bit of thyza paper at the

waste bin and missed. The crumpled bit of scrap landed on

Arakasi's cleaned tiles. He retrieved it, bowed obsequiously,

and deposited it within the waste barrel.- But a second scrap

of paper twisted inside remained in his palm, and vanished

into a fold o' his loincloth.

He endured the cuffs and blows of the merchants as he

scrubbed his way across the aisle, until he reached haven

in a far corner.

Just before dosing time, when voices were loudest and

tempers most frayed, an ostentatiously dressed merchant

stopped by the desk of the clerk who was Arakasi's agent.

He flicked a swift glance about the shop, saw that all on

the floor were occupied, and made an inquiry.

The apparently flustered clerk dropped his chalk. Arakasi

dipped his scrub brush into his bucket and started on a new

section of floor, but his bent head was angled so that he

caught a clear view of the exchange at the clerk's desk

under his arm.

The two men spoke for a few minutes. Shell counters

changed hands, invisibly to anyone who happened to be

standing, but not to a servant bent down on the floor. The

merchant glanced to left and right, his eyes bright with

exhilaration.

Arakasi, muttering, repressed a frown. Where have I

seen that man before? he thought. Where? And in time

Miracle

263

the answer came to him, who was adept at separating details

from circumstance, no matter how incongruous they might

have seemed.

He knew, with a thrill of excitement, that the man dressed

as the gaudy merchant was none other than Chumaka, the

Anasati First Adviser.

'Chochocan's favor,' he grumbled. 'Damned floor goes

on forever.' He dragged his bucket to one side, half blocking

the doorway that led to the privy. A moment later, he was

rewarded by another blow in the ribs, as the clerk who

hastened to nature's call tripped over him.

'Damn you for a wretch!' He bent to deliver another

punitive blow, and, between curses, said breathlessly, 'The

merchant wanted to know if anyone had made inquiry

into the Anasati accounts. I told him several shifty and

questionable men had offered me bribes to that effect, just

to make him worry.'

Arakasi choked back a grin, and pressed his face to the

floor in a slave's bow of apology. 'Sorry, sir, master, I'm

sorry. That's damned interesting news, and forgive me for

my clumsiness, I beg you.'

'You aren't forgiven!' shouted the clerk. 'Get out on the

street and scrub the stoop! And make sure no street brats

have made water on the pillars on the alley side, while

you're at it.'

Arakasi bowed and scraped, and backed hastily out

the door. But though he detailed his sharpest squad of

street children to seek out the merchant's trail, no trace

of Chumaka could be found.

By sundown, Mara's Spy Master was forced to concede

the man's cleverness. It also left him worried. He felt cold

to discover a man who could match his skills at subterfuge

in the camp of an enemy. For not only was Jiro sworn

to destroy Mara, he was the most dangerous member of

the traditionalist faction that sought to bring down the

264

Mistress of the Empire

Emperor. Others might be more public in their opposition,

but Arakasi had no doubt that Jiro sought advantage

by letting others voice his desires. What progress had

been made to change a governance fallen to stagnation

and decay remained threatened. As evening fell, Arakasi

hastened through darkening streets toward the House of

Seven Stars. He must go there and shift identity, then

return to his mistress straight away. For although he had

run into a dead end in his lead to root out the Hamoi

Tong, he had other disquieting news to report, concerning

political affairs within the Empire. Still more upsetting was

his chance discovery that Chumaka, First Adviser to Jiro

of the Anasati, had somehow discovered a need to guard

his tracks.

Which of his agents, Arakasi wondered in anxiety, had

been found out?

10

Interval

Mara fretted.

The debilitating effects of her poisoning passed too slowly

for her liking. Two months since the event, and still she was

too weak to travel. She regarded the afternoon sunlight that

striped the carpet in her study, and frowned. She ought to

be in the Holy City, attending the semiannual convocation

of the Emperor's advisers. Frasai of the Tonmargu, the

Imperial Overlord, had lost his health; some whispered

in corners that he was becoming senile. The rumors

were baseless, but even in his vigorous years as Clan

Warchief, the Lord of the Tonmargu had ruled with

an uncertain hand, trying to please divergent factions.

Mara worried. With Frasai's authority crumbling, and the

Imperial Chancellor, Hokanu's father, Kamatsu, hampered

on all sides by traditionalist attacks that threatened not only

his own prosperity, but that of his allies and supporters, this

autumn's meeting could easily become a battleground.

The bloodier days when the Game of the Council had

been played under rule of a Warlord were still too recent

to be forgotten.

Mara hit her thin fist on her writing desk in an unwonted

display of frustration, and arose to pace. That she was too

weak to walk without the aid of a cane made her flush with

annoyance. The servants who attended her needs, and even

the runner boy by the doorway, turned their faces away

from the emotions that played with embarrassing plainness

across their Lady's face.

But today, she was too exasperated to waste effort

keeping up a proper Tsurani facade. Kevin the barbarian,

.

r

266 Mistress of the Empire

had he been there, would have teased her for that. Mara

felt a pang in a place she had thought hardened over with

callus. 'Damn the man,' she muttered, and banged down

her cane for emphasis.

A gentle voice chided from the doorway. 'The Empire

won't fall apart, just because its favorite Servant is too

unwell to go to council.' Clad in little more than an

overrobe dampened from sweat from his arms practice,

Hokanu stepped in, the limp in his stride nearly gone.

As Mara rounded on him in a fury, he caught her wrists.

She had no strength; his fingers could circle her bones like

shackles, she was so thin, and he had to take care not to

bruise her. He spoke again with a firmness that of necessity

he withheld from his grip. 'My Lady, Lord Hoppara will

have things well in hand. The council will not go to pieces

because you're not there.'

She looked up, her eyes snapping. After a moment, she

said, 'Stop treating me as though I were made of glass.

You and I know the traditionalists will be vicious in their

plotting, and not half of what happens will take place in

the council chamber. Bargains will- be made, terms set, ant

conditions agreed upon, and many who would otherwise

act with caution will not, because I am not there!'

Hokanu smiled, freed one of her wrists, and straightened

a fallen wisp of her hair. As he wound it back under what

he guessed was the correct jade pin, he hid his pain that her

dark locks had lost their shine, and her skin no longer had

the luster of corcara shell. Her dancer's litheness had gone,

through her weeks in a sickbed. She still looked peaked, and

not even Lujan could get her to rest through the heat of the

afternoons. 'Imperial politics aside, pretty bird, I've taken

the liberty of assembling your maids. You have a visitor.'

'Dear gods, state clothing?' Mara's fury changed course

toward annoyance. 'I'll suffocate. Whose father has come

this time, hoping to touch my robe hem to gain the

~.

:

~,

,

3

.4

Interval

- 267

luck to find auspicious husbands for his five ill-favored

daughters?'

Hokanu laughed, clasped her waist, and lifted her

wholesale into his arms. 'How bitchy we are today. Did

you know that Jican was approached by a merchant who

offered him metal for your cast-off clothing? He wanted to

sew the rags into ribbons to sell for souvenirs.'

Mara stiffened in affront. 'Jican didn't tell me that!'

'He knew,' Hokanu began, and grunted as the wraith-like

woman in his arms caught him in the diaphragm with an

elbow. He shifted her out of reach of a stiffening bruise

gained at sword drill, and manfully continued speaking.

'Your hadonra didn't tell you. He knew you'd ask to have

the poor man whipped off the estates, and he deemed that

inappropriate hospitality, even for a rude schemer.'

As her husband stepped into the hallway, Mara said a

word that certainly would have tarnished the reverent image

of her held by the commoners. Then she poked her husband

in the arm. 'So who is this visitor that Jican and you have

decided it's safe for me to see?'

A grin spread across Hokanu's handsome face. 'You'll

want your makeup. It's Lady Isashani of the Zacatecas.'

'Here?' Mara's voice was shrill with dismay. She reached

up and worriedly began to pat at her hair.

Since that was the first moment anyone had seen her have

a care for her personal appearance since her miscarriage,

Hokanu silently thanked the provocative beauty who

waited in Mara's best sitting room. Maybe after today the

Lady of the Acoma would hear sense, and stop spending the

reserves she needed for healing on frazzled nervous energy.

The healing priest had judged that the antidote had rescued

Mara from the very gates of the Red God's hall, and that

with rest and a calm mind, it would take three months

for her bodily recovery, then another to regain her full

strength. But Mara's emotional state after the death of

268

Mistress of the Empire

another baby and a near-miss on her own life had been

anything but restful. Hokanu feared it would be longer

than three months before his wife became her former self.

An emphatic squirm from his wife reminded Hokanu

painfully that her fitness had not been the only one to

suffer. If he did not sweat through a hot bath, and soon,

he was going to be wretchedly stiff. She interpreted his

grimace, as she was wont to do.

'You must not be long at your bath, dear man. If

Isashani's come, there will be subtleties and intrigues

about her as thick as perfume. It will take a handsome

face to flatter the information out of her, and since I'm

not male and a favorite of hers, you are placed on your

honor as Acoma consort to attend.'

Hokanu was neither so tired from his exercise, nor so

deaf to nuance, that he did not hear the underlying fear

in his Lady's voice. 'What troubles you, Lady? Normally

you would be delighted by a visit by Lady Isashani.'

Mara looked up at him, her eyes black in the thicker

gloom of the hallway. 'The Great Game,' she murmured.

'It turns too often toward bloodshed, and once more there

are rumors of a plot against the Emperor.'

Hokanu's face went hard. 'I'll be there. But after my

bath, and after you women have a chance to renew your

acquaintance.' Dangerous politics might be the reason

behind the Xacatecas dowager's visit; but Hokanu was

damned if he would forfeit the chance to have Mara

benefit from the former Ruling Lady of the Xacatecas'

shrewd insight and wit.

Mara looked like a lost waif in the enveloping weight of

her finery. She entered the sitting room with small, demure

steps, not for the sake of dainty appearance, but because of

weakness. The luster of her emeralds and jade outshone her

eyes, and the bow she gave the tall woman who awaited her

presence in purple-and-gold robes was of necessity shallow

and brief. Prolonged obeisance of any form would have seen

her on her knees on the floor, and stubborn pride prevented

her from having a serving man along to steady her.

Lady Isashani of the Xacatecas arose from her cushions

in a sweep of fine silk and perfumes. Her eyes were rich

brown, and exotically slanted. Her hair had silver mixed

in with its auburn, and the thyza powder she had used to

burnish her distinctive cheekbones must have been mixed

with sparkling bits of ground shell. The effect glittered with

tiny points of light, and enhanced the milk-and-rose skin

that had retained its glow- of youth as if by a magician's

spell. Renowned for her beauty, feared for her shrewdness,

and acknowledged as a matchless manipulator, the dowager

Lady of the Xacatecas hurried forward and supported

Mara's elbow.

'You're obviously not hale, my dear.' Her voice was

fine-grained, mellow as the tone of a treasured old instrument

handed down through generations of players. 'And

formalities are wasted between friends.'

Mara sank gratefully into deep cushions. Her own voice

sounded dry as the scratch of sand as she opened with the

time-honored words of greeting toward one of higher social

position. 'Welcome to my house, Lady. Are you well?'

Isashani inclined her head, a saucy smile dimpling

her cheeks. 'I thank the Good Servant for the undeserved

courtesy,' she answered, her tone one of genuine

pleasure at Mara's reversal of their ranks. While she

was Mara's senior in age and experience, she was but

a former Ruling Lady and Mara was Servant of the

Empire. 'I do well enough, but you look like hwaet

gruel left in the sun for the livestock. My dear, have

you given up eating altogether?' That her words were

direct as a spearcast did not surprise Mara, but that

bluntness had unbalanced many an opponent of House

270

Mistress of the Empire

Xacatecas whose wits were left muddled by the Lady's

alluring loveliness.

Mara dropped her eyes from the dazzle of gleaming viola

silk trimmed expensively with gold thread, and as quickly

glanced away from the tray of sweetmeats and sliced fruits

left by the servants for her guest's refreshment. She evaded.

'You surely didn't come here to hear me complain of my

health.' In fact, nourishment held no savor. The poison hat

left her stomach nervous and delicate.

The reply from the Lady came barbed as a riposte. 'I

certainly didn't come here to indulge you by watching

you sulk.'

Mara repressed a flinch. From anyone else she must

interpret such rebuke as an insult; but Isashani's deep

eyes held sympathy that stung her like a slap because it

was genuine. She sighed, and emotion that had hardened

since her miscarriage eased a little. 'I'm sorry. I didn't realise

my mood was so transparent.'

~Sorry won't suffice.' Isashani reached out a perfectly

groomed hand, selected a plate, and served up a portion

of the fruit. 'Eat, or else I'll call your maids and have them

bundle you straight off to bed.'

She would, too, Mara thought, and her perfidious maids

would probably obey without pause to question that the

wish of their mistress might not be in accord. Isashani

handled authority like an irascible field general, and folk

in her presence tended to march to her tune, and think

the better of their actions afterward. Since Mara did not

feel strong enough to argue, she began to nibble a slice of

jomach. She, too, could be direct. 'Why did you come?'

Isashani gave her back a look that measured; then, as

if reassured that Mara's inner fiber was not as depleted

as her physical resilience, she poured herself chocha from

the pot upon the snack tray. 'Lord Jiro of the Anasati has

made overtures toward my late husband's oldest bastard

son.' Her voice was hard as rare barbarian steel, at odds

with her fragile beauty.

Mara set aside her half-eaten fruit slice, unthinking.

A frown marked her brow. 'Wenaseti,' she said, quietly

questioning.

An elegant nod from her guest confirmed that this was

the name of the bastard in question; Isashani returned a

small smile in salute. That Mara knew the name at all

was impressive, since the late Lord Chipino had sampled

concubines and courtesans like fine wines. His bastards

were numerous as vermin, and though all had been raised

in evenhanded fairness by House Xacatecas, their temperaments

and characters varied like weather. The old Lord had

shared his sheets as readily for beauty as for brains, and

though none of the mothers he got with child had been able

to successfully challenge Isashani's preeminent position as

Lady and wife, some had been bitter in their defeat, and

had taught their resentment to their offspring. The current

heir, Hoppara, relied on his dowager mother's shrewd grasp

of family politics to keep his sprawling collection of siblings

and bastard relations in line.

'It is our great good fortune,' Isashani added with a

spark to her eye that suggested a sharpness of circumstance

smoothed over, 'that Wenaseti is a son loyal to his bloodline.

Jiro was rebuffed.'

Mara's frown did not ease, and the glint in Isashani's

glance did not soften. As second-in-command to Lord Frasai

as Imperial Overlord, Lord Hoppara of the Xacatecas held a

pivotal position in the Emperor's court. That he was young

for such a powerful post made him vulnerable; his staunch

advice and quick perception often stiffened Lord Frasai's

suggestible nature to take action in time to avert setbacks

from the traditionalist factions that sought to undermine

reform and reinstate the abolished office of Warlord.

Lord Hoppara removed meant a key defense lost: a

272 M,stress of tl~e Emptre

dangerous step closer to bloodshed and the barely stayed

threat of civil war. Something in Isashani's mien gave

warning.

Mara said, 'You've had an assassination attempt.'

Isashani's face went motionless as porcelain. 'Several.'

Mara dosed her eyes. She felt weak to her core, pressed

of a sudden by a weariness that made her long to give up ~

the greater fight, and to narrow her hopes and her efforts r3,

toward Acoma survival in the face of perils that closed like

a ring of naked swords. Yet she was Servant of the Empire,

and no longer the inexperienced girl torn from service to

Lashima's order to take over a beleaguered house. ~e

enemies of the Emperor were Acoma foes also; for she

was as the king post that holds the weight of a great roof.

To bring down imperial rule, Jiro and his allies must first

cut off her support.

The thought that followed hard after was that the Hamoi

Tong had been far too successful in its assassination

attempts against friends and allies and family. For as

long as Jiro ruled, the Anasati would continue to stoop

to the hiring of assassins; the tong had become a liability no

longer safe to ignore. Mara would never forget the horror of

near strangulation, or the pain of the miscarriage brought

on by poison. For the rest of her days she would suffer

grief for Ayaki's death. Wrapped in bleak thoughts, Mara was

made aware of Hokanu's entrance only by Isashani's

words of formal greeting.

She opened her eyes to see her husband bowing over the

Lady of the Xacatecas' hand. He was self-conscious as a

boy, an odd mien for a man who had commanded armies

in the name of his Emperor, and whose own social grace

had made Mara the envy of unmarried daughters of great

houses. Yet Isashani's skills at confounding men were so

facile that it was rumored that she was secretly a witch who

maniDulated her admirers through enchantment. Hokanu:

Interval

273

was one of her favorites, and her soft, bantering flattery set

him at his ease at once. Men she did not care for had been

known to stay tongue-tied in her presence for remarkable

intervals of time.

Still half dazzled by Isashani's charm, Hokanu took a

seat beside his wife. He folded Mara's hand inside his own

and said, 'We also are weary of playing mo-jo-go against

the tong.' He referred to a card game often played for heavy

stakes. 'Really, it would be a relief to us all if Ichindar

would sire a son. A male heir to the imperial throne would

do much to damp the fires of the traditionalist faction.'

Isashani's dark eyes flashed amusement. 'It has been a

dull few years for matchmaking, I'll agree, with every

highborn son taking concubines instead of wives, in the

hope of winning an imperial daughter for marriage. The

parties are getting quite vicious, with so many unwed girls

spitting at each other like sarcat cubs.'

From there the subject turned to the trade war between

a consortium from the Omechan Clan and a Kanazawai

Clan group, which was causing Hokanu's father setbacks

in the resin market. Frustrated by the resultant shortage in

the production of laminated hide, the armourers' guild was

on the verge of joining the fray, with the shipdmasters and

stevedores in Jamar upset by embargoes that disrupted sailing

schedules. Since the Acoma had needra hides mildewing

in warehouses in Sulan-Qu, and the Anasati did not, the

consensus was that Jiro's allies were behind the disturbance.

It did the Omechan no good to recall that their own disunity

had provided the opening that had given the Emperor

absolute power to begin with.

Afternoon blended into evening. As Mara's weariness

became evident, and she excused herself to retire, Isashani

at last took her leave. Seated in her litter in the dooryard,

with her bearers in place to depart, she raised her dark eyes

to Hokanu and planted one last barbed comment. 'Really,

274

Mistress of the Empire

young master, you had better take pains to see that your ~

wife eats, or the gossip will go round that you are starving -]

her to an early grave, in the hope of joining the circle of

suitors who pant after Ichindar's eldest daughter.'

Hokanu's eyebrows rose as though he had been swordpricked. '

Lady, is that a threat?'

Isashani smiled with poisonous sweetness. 'Depend on it.

My late husband was fond of Mara, and I don't want his

shade out to haunt me. Also, my Hoppara would probably

challenge you to a duel of honor over the issue, were he

to see your Lady so sad. After her heroics during the Night

of the Bloody Swords, he compares all the young women

he meets to her.'

'Indeed.' Hokanu's voice turned serious. 'No man in the

Empire cares more for our Good Servant than I. And your

visit has done more for her than you can possibly know.'

Lady Isashani's visit at least inspired Mara to resume

normal care for her appearance. She called upon the skills

of her maids, and if at first her improved complexion was

solely attributable to makeup, Hokanu was careful not to

badger her. If she still kept long hours over her reports, she

at least made an effort to eat more; and once she took up

the practice of meditating in a small boat upon the lake,

her pallor disappeared soon after.

'It's very hard to worry with the water all around,

peaceful under the sky,' she said, stepping ashore one

evening when the afterglow of sunset turned waveless and

landscape all to gold. Holding her in his embrace, Hokanu

hated to disrupt the moment. But soon enough she would

find out, and unless he wished to provoke an explosion, he

dared not hold back fresh news.

'Arakasi is back.'

'So soon?' Mara lifted her face, kissing her husband's lips

with the absentee air of one already preoccupied. 'He must

Interval

.

~ _

275

have heard of the attempt on Lord Hoppara before I sent

out my summons.'

The moment of warmth was cut short as the Lady

hastened to meet her Spy Master. Hokanu accompanied

her into the estate house, through hallways dimmed with

evening shadows, and past the servants who dispersed to

light oil lamps. Faintly, from one of the courtyards, came

the echoes of Justin's happy shouts.

'What's got the little one all stirred up?' Mara asked.

Hokanu put his arm around her shoulder. 'A new game.

Your Adviser for War laid a bet with the boy that he could

not be ambushed unawares. Justin has taken to lurking

behind the furniture, and the servants won't use the back

hallways anymore, for fear of being set upon.'

'And Keyoke?' Mara turned the last corner and passed

the length of another corridor tiled in old, worn mosaic.

'Has he been caught?'

Hokanu laughed. 'Several times. His hearing is not what

it once was, and his crutch makes him easy prey.'

Mara shook her head. 'Just so Justin doesn't terrorise

him. The old campaigner has received scars enough in

Acoma service without getting battered in his twilight

years.' ~ j

But Keyoke, Hokanu knew, did not mind his bruises in

the least, for Justin held the affection of the grandson the

old man had never had.

The couple reached the doorway to Mara's study. There

Hokanu lifted his arm and gave his wife a questioning

glance. The servants had not reached this hallway yet, and

the lamps were still unlit. Mara's face was a pale oval in

the shadows, and her expression was unreadable. After a

moment she said, 'Stay with me this time. Lady Isashani's

news has left me unsettled, and I would like your counsel.'

Hokanu heard the worry in her voice. He asked, 'Should

I send for Saric and Incomo?'

276

Mistress of the Empire

Mara "turned a shake of her head. 'No. They would

not condone what I plan, and I see no need to endure their

criticism.'

Suddenly cold, there in the warm darkness, with the

calls of the servants near to hand, and the smells of supper

wafting from the kitchen, Hokanu reached out and tipped

Mara's chin up with one finger. 'Just what are you thinking,

pretty Lady?' His tone was at odds with the apprehension

that bound his breath.

Mara answered after a pause. 'I am thinking that the

Hamoi Tong has made trouble for far too long. I have lost

a son and an unborn child to it. I would not see Lady

Isashani suffer the same loss, and I owe her late husband,

Lord Chipino, at least that much.'

Hokanu released a sigh, distressed by the strain that came

between them over the subject of children. 'It is not the tong

but the enemy who employs it that is to be feared.'

Mara gave back a fractional nod. 'I know. That is why I

am going to ask Arakasi to penetrate its headquarters and

steal its records. I will know its employer, and have his plots

out into the open.'

'His name is probably Anasati,' Hokanu said.

'One of his names.' Mare's tone was ominous. 'I would

know the others as well, that no more parents lose young

heirs to the cause of murderous politics. Come, let us go

and charge Arakasi to undertake this difficult task.'

Hokanu could only nod as he escorted his wife into the

hall leading to her study. He held respect close to awe for

the Spy Master, since watching him act on the night they

had sought the antidote. Yet even for a man of his gifts of

guile and disguise, to infiltrate the Hamoi Tong was asking

the impossible. Hokanu had no argument for the notion

that his Lady was sending her Spy Master off to die at a

time when she most needed his services.

Interual

277

Arakasi departed his Lady's study preoccupied. Talk had

left his voice hoarse. This night's report had been extensive,

the end result of many months of labor in the field. The Spy

Master had pushed his agents hard, had exhorted them to

seek out answers even in the face of the dangers posed

by Jiro's First Adviser, Chumaka. Two men had forfeited

their cover to gain information, and had chosen suicide by

the blade rather than face inquisition and torture, and risk

betraying their mistress. And although they had winnowed

out several traditionalist plots and shifts in old alliances

against the Emperor, they had come no nearer to setting

a name to the employer who had sent the Hamoi Tong

against Mara.

More disquieting news than the late failed attempt

against Lord Hoppara was that several other attempts had

been foiled by Arakasi's agent in the Xacatecas household.

Twice she had been 'clumsy' around the cooks, and spilled

dishes of food she suspected had been poisoned.

That report had caused Mara to flinch openly. Her face

had paled, and then flushed with a depth of anger Arakasi

had never seen. Her words still rang in his memory, edged

with a grief that never left her since Ayaki's loss. 'Arakasi,'

she had said, 'I ask that you find a way to steal the records

of the Hamoi Tong. These attacks against us,and now

the allies of our Emperor, must be brought to a stop. If

more than the Anasati are behind them, I would have you

find out.'

Arakasi had accepted the command, fist over heart in a

soldier's salute. After months of attempts to penetrate the

Anasati accounts, and three unsuccessful tries to place new

agents on Jiro's estate, he regarded the order to go directly

after the tong almost as a relief. Arakasi had conceded

from frustration that Chumaka was by far the most clever

opponent he had ever faced. But even as brilliant a player of

politics as the Anasati First Adviser would not anticipate a

278 Mistress of t/'e Empire

move as foolhardy as attempting to challenge the assassins.

And while Chumaka might not know Mara's Spy Master

by name, he was developing an understanding that let him

anticipate Arakasi's methods. A dose of the unexpected,

especially if no dear motives could be discerned, might

throw Chumaka off balance for a while.

Quiet as shadow, and deep in his own thoughts, Arakasi

turned, keeping to the dimmer passageways out of habit.

This narrow hall crossed the oldest part of the estate

house. The floors were built on two heights, legacy o f

some forgotten Lord who had believed he should always

stand above his servants. He, or perhaps one of his

wives, had also been a devotee of bric-a-brac. The walls

held cavernous niches for statuary and artworks. Arakasi

personally thought the things a liability, since some were

large enough to harbor an assassin, or a large child.

Consequently, he was not taken entirely off guard when

an earsplitting yell sounded at his back, and someone gave

an athletic leap with intent to hammer him down from

behind.

He spun, light and fast, and found himself with an

armload of six-year-old, kicking and cross that his surprise

attack had been anticipated.

Mara's Spy Master blew a lock of reddish gold hair out

of his lips and said equably, 'Do I look so much like Keyoke

today that you saw fit to test my reflexes?'

Young Justin giggled and squirmed, and managed to raise

the toy sword carved from wood and inlaid with lacquer

disks. 'Already killed Keyoke twice today,' he crowed.

Arakasi's brows rose. He shifted his grip, surprised at

the strength required to restrain the energetic little boy.

Certainly he was his father's son, with his impertinent attitude

and legs as long as those of a corani, an antelope-like

creature renowned for its fierce speed. 'How many times

did Keyoke kill you today, imp?'

Interval

279

Justin looked sheepish. 'Four.' He added a rude phrase

in the barbarian tongue, most likely overheard from a

soldier in the barracks who had been close to Kevin on

the campaign in Dustari. Arakasi took mental note that

the boy had ears as quick as his wits; the child was not

too young to eavesdrop on his elders. 'I have the feeling

it's after your bedtime,' the Spy Master accused. 'Do your

nurses know you're awake?' And carefully he began to walk

in the direction of the child's quarters.

Justin shook back a curly mop of hair. 'Nurses don't

know where I am.' He smiled proudly, then looked dismayed

as doubt crept in. 'You won't tell them? I'll get

punished for certain.'

A gleam lit Arakasi's dark eyes. 'There are terms,' he

said in all seriousness. 'You will have to make a promise

in exchange for my silence.'

Justin looked solemn. Then, as he had seen the soldiers

do at dice to seal a debt, he raised his closed fist and touched

thumb to forehead. 'I keep my word.'

Arakasi choked back a grin. 'Very well, honorable young

master. You will not make a sound when I slip you into your

sleeping quarters, and you will lie on your mat without

moving, with your eyes closed, until you wake up, and it

is morning.'

Justin gave a howl of betrayal. So like his father, Arakasi

thought, as he lugged the protesting boy off to the nursery.

Neither would Kevin accept protocols, or propriety. He

was honest when it was a frank embarrassment, and

lied whenever it suited him. He was anathema to any

well-run Tsurani household, but life had certainly been

less entertaining since his departure through the rift gate

back to Midkemia. Even Jican, who had been the butt of

more than his share of Kevin's jokes, had been known to

remark wistfully on his absence.

In true form, Justin ceased his outcry on the threshold of

280

Mistress of the Empire

his own room. His tantrum was not worth continuing at

the risk of wrath from his nurses. He held to his warrior's

word as Arakasi slid him into his blankets; but he did not

close his eyes. Instead he glared in outraged indignation

as Arakasi stood by, until at last he lost his battle with

fatigue and slipped into the deep and healthy sleep of a

young boy.

That he would have sneaked out of his chambers had

Arakasi not stood by to enforce his warrior's given word,

the Spy Master had no doubt. In many ways, the boy was

more Midkemian in manner than Tsurani, a trait his mother

and foster father encouraged.

Whether his un-Tsurani bent would prove an asset in

adulthood, or whether it would leave the Acoma name

and natami vulnerable to Jiro and his allies, could not be

foretold. Arakasi sighed as he slipped through the screen

and made his way across moonlit gardens. Reaching the

quarters he used on his rare stays at the estate, Arakasi

changed out of his most recent disguise, that of an itinerant

-peddler of cheap jewelry. He bathed in water gone tepid,

unwilling to waste time to have servants make the tub hot,

and thought as he sponged away road grime.

The only written records of contracts held by the Hamoi,

or any other tong, would be in the possession of the

Obajan himself. Only one trusted successor, usually a son,

would know where those scrolls were secreted, against the

possibility of the Obajan's accidental demise. For Arakasi

even to locate the records would require him to come

within touching distance of the leader of the Red Flower

Brotherhood, the most powerful tong in the Empire.

Arakasi rubbed dye from his hair, his vigorous scrubbing

as much a release from frustration. To gain the heart of the

tong would be far more difficult than his past forays into

the Imperial Palace.

Of the risks, Arakasi had said nothing. He had but

to look at Mara's wan face to know that more worries

would further delay her return to health. If she knew the

risks behind the order she had just delivered, she would

be strained enough without anyone seeming to call ha

judgment into question.

Arakasi settled back, unmindful that the last warmth had

fled from the water. He reflected on his encounter with

Justin. Mara's worry would revolve around the well-being

of her surviving child, Arakasi knew. this shared duty was

to see that the boy survived to reach adulthood; this

moment, that meant finding means to bring down the

most dangerously guarded man in the Empire: the Obajan

of the Hamoi Tong.

That any sane man would have regarded the task as an

impossibility bothered Arakasi not at all. What troubled

his devious mind was that for the first time in his long and

varied career he had no clue about where he should start.

The location of the Brotherhood of Assassins' headquarters

was a closely held secret. The agents who took payment

for commissions were not easy marks, as the apothecary

he had once tortured in a back alley in Kentosani had

been. They would commit suicide - as they had, many

times in history - before revealing the next in their chain

of contacts. They were as loyal to their own murderous

cult as any of Arakasi's agents were to Mara.troubled,

Arakasi slipped out of the tub and dried off. He dressed

in a simple robe. For almost half the night, he rested in

a near-meditative state, sifting his memory for facts and

faces that might lend him a starting connection.

A few hours before dawn, he stood up, did some

stretching exercises, and gathered together those things

he felt he would need. He exited the estate house without

drawing notice from the sentries. Hokanu had once joked

that, one day, a warrior might accidently kill Mara's Spy

Master, should Arakasi continue to skulk about the estate at

282

Mistress of the Empire

night. Arakasi had replied that a guard who slew him should

be promoted, as he would have rid Mara of an ineffective

servant.

Dawn found Arakasi on the far side of the lake, walking

steadily as he took his own counsel. Plans were formulated,

reviewed, and discarded, but he felt no despair, only a

quickening sense of challenge. By sundown, he was at

the river, melding with other travelers waiting for a

commercial barge, another nameless passenger on his way

to the Holy City.

11

Bereavement

Months passed.

The bloom at last returned to Mara's cheeks. Spring

came, and the needra gave birth to their calves, and

the barbarian mares delivered seven healthy foals to add

to the stables. With Lujan's permission, Hokanu had

appropriated two patrols of swordsmen and, into the

summer, proceeded to teach them to ride, and then to

drill on horseback in formation.

The dust from such maneuvers overhung the fields in the

dry heat, and the lakeshore in the late afternoons became

boisterous with the laughter and chaffing as off-duty

comrades watched the chosen few swim their barbarian

beasts, or sluice the sweat of a workout off glossy hides.

More than riders and horses emerged wet, some days when

the play got rough. From the terraced balcony that Tasaio of

the Minwanabi had once used to oversee field tactics, Mara

often watched. She was attended by maids, and her young

son, and increasingly often by her husband, still wearing

his riding leathers, saber, and quirt.

One afternoon, as the sun sank low, as a scarred and

grizzled old veteran bent to kiss his chosen mare on the

muzzle, Mara gave the first carefree smile she had shown in

weeks. 'The men are certainly becoming used to the horses.

Not a few of their sweethearts have been complaining that

they spend more time in the stables than they do in their

rightful beds.'

Hokanu grinned and slipped his hand around her slender

middle. 'Are you making such complaint, wife?'

Mara turned in his arms, and caught Justin staring

.~

:~

,.

:;

.... ~

l L

284 Mistress of the Empire

with guilelessly wide blue eyes. The look reminded her

poignantly of his father, before he made a rude symbol with

his hands that he certainly had not learned from his nurses.

'You're going to make a baby tonight,' he said, proud of

his deduction, and not at all nonplussed when the nearest

of his nurses gave his cheek an open-handed slap.

'Impertinent boy! How dare you speak to your mother

so? And wherever you learned that finger sign, you'll be whipped

if you try it again.' With a red-faced bow to:

master and mistress, the maid hustled a protesting Justin

off to bed.

'But the sun's still up,' his voice pealed back in protest

'How can I go to sleep when I can still see outside?' '.e

The pair disappeared around the stair that led down the

hill, Justin'.' hair catching the lowering light like flame.

'By the gods, he's growing up,' Hokanu said fondly

'We're going to have to find him an arms tutor soon:

His ciphers and writing are plainly not enough to keep!

him from spying on the servants.'

'He wasn't.' Mara's hands tightened around her husband's

trim middle, appreciative of the muscles that his

hours in the saddle kept firm. 'He sneaks out to th'

barracks, or the slave quarters, every chance he gets

And listens intently when the men boast of their feats.

with ladies of the Reed Life or serving girls. He is hi'

father's son when it comes to staring at the women, and

something he said to my maid Kesha this morning made

her blush like a maiden which she's not.'

Her head tilted sideways, and she regarded her husband

through her lashes. 'He's a randy, rude little boy who h;

better be married off young, lest he sow Acoma baster

like hwaet, and have half the fathers of girls in the Nation

after him with swords.'

Hokanu chuckled. 'Of all the problems you might ha

with him, that one worries me least.'

_

Bereavement

285

Mara's eyes widened. 'He's barely seven!'

'High time he had a little brother, then,' Hokanu said.

'Another little demon to look after, to keep his mind off

bigger trouble.'

'You're a randy, rude little boy,' Mara retaliated, and with

a quick, breathless laugh slipped out of his arms. She raced

off down the hill with her robe half-undone in abandon.

Hokanu gathered himself in surprise and followed.

Delight, more than exertion, caused his face to flush.

His Lady had not been playful for entirely too long, since

the poisoning. As he knew she desired, he ran easily, and

did not extend his long, athletic stride to overtake her until

she had reached the glen by the lakeshore.

The summer was fully upon them. Though dry, the

grasses still retained a trace of green. The stinging insects

of the early season had dispersed, and the shrill of night

callers had not yet died for the season. The air was syrupy

warm. Hokanu caught his wife in a flying tackle, and both

of them tumbled to the earth, breathless, disheveled, and

utterly departed from solemnity.

Mara said, 'My Lord and consort, we seem to have a

problem between us, that being a shortage of heirs.'

His fingers were already loosening the rest of the ties

on her underrobe. 'Lujan's sentries patrol the lakeshore

after dark.'

Her smile come back to him, a flash of white in the dusk.

'Then we have no time to lose, on several counts.'

'That,' Hokanu said gaily, 'is hardly a problem.' After

that, neither of them had the attention to spare for talk.

* * ~

The much-longed-for, and overly disputed, heir to the

Shinzawai must have been conceived on that night, either

there under the open sky, or later, amid scented cushions,

after a late-night cup of sa wine shared in their private

chambers. Six weeks later, Mara was sure. She knew the

286 Mistress of the Empire

signs, and though she woke feeling miserable, Hokanu

could hear her singing in the mornings. His smile was

bittersweet. But what he knew, and she did not, was that

this child to come would be her last, the miracle that was

all the healers of Hantukama's priesthood had been able

to bestow upon her.

Until he overheard a speculative argument between the kitchen

scullions and the bastard child of one of the house"

hold factors, it never occurred to him, that the babe, when

it came, might be female. He let the matter lie, and took

no notice of the bets that were being laid in the barracks

over the forthcoming child's unknown sex.

That this, Mara's last child, who was to be heir to hi.

family name and fortune, might not be a son quite simply

did not bear thinking about.

The pregnancy that had begun in such carefree abandon

did not continue in the same vein - not since the poisoning,

and not since the attempts on the lives of Acoma allies.

Lujan tripled his patrols and personally inspected the

checkpoints in the passes. The prayer gate over the river)

entrance to the lake was never without watchers in it'

towers, and a company of warriors was always armed

and at the ready. But autumn came, and the needra cows

were driven to market, and commerce went on without

interruption. Even the silk caravans suffered no raid, which

was not usual, and did nothing to set anyone at ease. Jican.

spent hours mumbling over armloads of tally slates. Not

even the surplus of hwaet profits seemed to please him. '

'Nature is often most bountiful before the severest d

storms,' he grumbled pessimistically when Mara complained

that his restlessness was making her neck ache

Weighed down by her swollen middle, she could ha~i

walk the floor with him, to follow his render It's too quiet by far,'
said the little hadonra, droppi'

-a

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287

like an arrow-shot bird to the cushions before the mistress's

writing desk. 'I don't like it, and I don't believe that Jiro is

sitting by innocently, up to his nose in old scrolls.'

In fact, Arakasi's agents had sent word. Jiro was not

idle, but had been hiring engineers and joiners to build

strange-looking machinery in what had been his father's

marshaling yard. That the equipment was intended for

siege and sapping was probable, and by dint of suggestively

placed gossip, old Frasai of the Tonmargu had been

convinced by Lord Hoppara of the Xacatecas to spend

imperial funds. Workers had been taken on to repair the

cracks in the walls of Kentosani, and in the Emperor's

inner citadel, caused by the earthquake set loose by the

renegade magician Milamber when he had wreaked havoc

at the Imperial Games years past.

As autumn dragged on, and the wet season threatened,

Mara found herself as restless as her hadonra, and unable

to do so much as pace. Her only respite came upon Justin's

eighth birthday, when Hokanu presented him with his first

real sword, not a mock weapon used by children. He

had received the well-made small blade with solemnity

and resisted the impulse to rush around swinging it at

everything in sight. If Keyoke had instructed'+him on the

proper behavior, such- forbearance was lacking the next

morning, when Justin charged with bared blade down the

hillside to his lesson from his arms tutor.

Mara saw her son from the terrace, wishing she could go

watch Justin take his instruction. But her healers would not

let her stir from her cushions, and her husband, who usually

was indulgent when she became stubborn, would not relent.

The heir that she carried must not be risked. To ease her

confinement, anything she requested was sent for.

Gifts from other nobles arrived, as her time approached,

some lavish, others minor tokens, the minimum tradition

demanded. An expensive but undeniably ugly vase was

288 Mistress of the Empire

Jiro's gift to the expectant Servant of the Empire. Amused

to sardonic humor, she ordered it given to her servants so

they might use it to carry out night soils from the house.

But her most welcome gifts of all were the rare books

delivered in chests that smelled of mildew and dust. Isashani

had sent them, instead of the more usual lacquered boxes

or exotic songbirds. Upon reading the inscription on the

gift card, Mara had laughed. Beneath the makeup, and the

feminine airs, there was no limit to Isashani's shrewdness.

It was her son, Hoppara, who sent a traditional if astonishingly

extravagant arrangement of sweet flowers. ::

Surrounded by painted vases, Mara breathed in the

perfume of cut kekali blossoms and tried not to think

of Kevin the barbarian, who had first taught her what it

was to be a woman in the dusk of a garden, years past. A

frown on her face that had nothing to do with the lighting,

she studied a treatise on weapons and campaigns of war.

Her frown deepened as she considered the likelihood that

Jiro had also studied this very text. From there her thoughts

wandered. Arakasi's messages arrived irregularly since she

had charged him with his mission to acquire the Hamoi

Tong's records. She had not seen him in months, and missed

his quick wit and his unfailing appreciation of odd gossip.

Closing the book, she tried to imagine his location. Perhaps

he sat in some distant inn, disguised as a needra driver, or a

sailor. Or he might be lunching late with a merchant in some

distant city. She refused to consider that he could very well

be dead.

Arakasi at that moment lay on his side amid a tangle

of silk sheets, and ran light, expert fingers down the

thigh of a nubile girl. That she was by binding contract

another man's property, and that he risked his very life

to seduce her, was not at the forefront of his thoughts;

He had come in through the window. The absent masters

bedchambers in the midafternoon were the last place any

Bereavement

289

servant or guardsman bent on protecting the virtue of a

slave concubine would expect to find her with a lover.

The girl was bored enough to be excited by the adventure,

and young enough to believe herself immune to misfortune.

Her latest master was old, and fat, and his prowess had

flagged with age. Arakasi posed a different sort of challenge.

It was she who was jaded, having been trained for pleasure

and bed sport since the age of six. Whether or not he could

successfully excite her was the sum of the issue at hand.

For Mara's Spy Master, the stakes that he dallied to win

were a great deal higher.

In the half-light shed by closed screens, the air smelled

heavy with incense and the girl's perfume. The sheets had

been treated with herbs that in some circles were considered

aphrodisiacs. Arakasi, who had read texts on medicine,

knew the belief was a myth. The elderly master had wealth

enough not to care if his money had been wasted. The

miasma of scents was powerfully cloying, causing Arakasi

to regret that the screens must stay closed. Almost, he would

rather have endured the stinking loincloth and apron he

had bought from the dyers in Sulan-Qu, which he used

for disguise when he did not want well-bred passersby

examining his face too closely. The reek at least would

have kept him alert. As it was, he had to fight not to fall

fatally asleep.

The girl shifted. Sheets slid away from her body with

a hiss of silk on skin. She was magnificent, outlined in

afternoon light, her hair in heavy honey-colored curls on

the pillows. Slant eyes the color of jade fixed on Arakasi.

'I never said I had a sister.'

She referred to a comment some minutes old. The

Spy Master's fingers slipped past her hip, dipped down,

and continued stroking. Her magnificent eyes drooped

half closed, and her hands spasmed on the silk like a cat's

paws, kneading.

290 Mistress of the Empire

The velvet-soft voice of Arakasi said, 'I know from the

merchant who sold your contract.'

She stiffened under his couch, spoiling ten minutes of his

careful ministrations. She had had men enough that she did

not care. 'That was not a prudent remark.'

Insult did not enter into the question; that she was in

truth little better than a very expensive prostitute was

not.the issue. Who had been the sister's buyer: that was

dangerous knowledge, and the dealer who had made the

transaction would hardly be so free, or so foolhardy, that

he would tell. Arakasi stroked aside honey-gold locks, and

cradled the back of the girl's neck. 'I am not a prudent man,

Kamlio.'

Her eyes widened and her lips shaped a wicked smile.

'You are not.' Then her expression turned thoughtful. 'You

are a strange man.' Breathing deeply, she feigned a pout.

'Sometimes I think you are a noble, playing the part of a

poor merchant.' She fixed him with a steady gaze. 'Your

eyes are older than your appearance.' When a lingering

moment passed, and he gave no answer, she said, 'You are

not very forthcoming.' Then she licked her lips suggestively.

'Neither are you amusing. So. Amuse me. I am someone

else's toy. Why should I risk disgrace to become yours?'

As Arakasi drew breath to reply, Kamlio raised a finger

and stopped his lips. Her nails were dusted with gilt,

costliest of cosmetics. 'Don't say you'll buy me my freedom

for love. That would be trite.'

Arakasi blessed the rosy flesh of her fingertips with a kiss.

Then, very gently, he removed her hand, so he could speak

His expression was faintly offended. 'It would not be trite.

It would be true.' Mara had set no limits on his expenses,

ever, and for stakes so high as access to the tong's most

guarded chieftain, she would hardly stint his needs.

The girl in his arms went icy with distrust. To free he r

from the seven-year contract signed and sold to her aged

master would be worth the cost of a town house; but to

buy out her worth, and the expense of her training and

upbringing, from the merchant of the pleasure house who

had invested in her - that would be as much as a small

estate. Her contracts would be sold, and sold again, until

she was faded to the point where even her skills between the

sheets would be spurned. 'You were never so rich.' Even her

voice was contemptuous. 'And if the master who employs

you is so wealthy, then I risk my very life to be speaking

to you.'

Arakasi bent his head and kissed her neck. His hands did

not tighten against her tenseness; she could at any moment

draw away, a nuance she understood, and in appreciation

of the subtlety, she kept still. Few men treated her as though

she had a will of her own, or feelings. This one was rare. And

his hands were very schooled. She heard the note of sincerity

in his voice as he added, 'But I work for no master.'

His tone conveyed the nuance. His mistress, then, would

have little use for an expensive courtesan. The offer of

freedom might be genuine, if he had access to the money.

Arakasi's hands recovered lost ground, and Kamlio

quivered. He was more than rare: he was gifted. She settled

a little, her flank melting into the curve of his body.

As though the footsteps of servants did not come and go

in the corridor, separated by only a screen, Arakasi's touch

drifted down the girl's golden flesh. She leaned into him.

Pleasure came rarely enough to her, who was a thing bought

and sold to meet the needs of others. Discovery might earn

her a beating; her partner would wind up dishonorably dead

on a rope end. He was either exceptionally brave, or else

careless unto insanity. Through skin that had been caressed

and cajoled into unwonted sensitivity, the girl could feel the

unhurried beat of his heart.

'This mistress,' Kamlio murmured languidly. 'She means

so very much to you?'

292

Mistress of tl~e Empire

'Just at this moment I was not thinking of her,' Arakasi

said, but it was not his words that convinced as his lips

met hers with a tenderness akin to worship. The kiss

blurred all doubts and soon after, all thoughts. The filtered

sunlight through the windows blended with a red-golden

haze behind her eyes, as passion was drawn out of her and

savored like fine wine.

At last, gasping and drenched with the fine sweat of

lovemaking, Kamlio forgot herself and dung to the lean

form of the man as she exploded into relief. She laughed

and she wept, and somewhere between amazement and

exhaustion, she whispered the location of the sister sold

away in far Ontoset.

Despite his mysterious background, it did not occur

to Kamlio that her partner might be no more than a

consummate actor until she rolled over. The light touch that

cradled her body was no more than the fold of warm sheets.

She flung back damp hair, her beautiful eyes narrowed and

furious to find the window opened, and himself gone, even

to the clothes he had worn.

She opened her lips to call out, in a pique that would see

him caught and executed, never mind his clever hands and

Lying promises. But on the moment the air filled her lungs,

the latch on the screen tripped up.

Arakasi must have heard the heavy tread of her elderly

master, returned early from his meeting with his hadonra.

Stoop-shouldered, palsied, grey-haired, he shuffled into her

chamber. His milky eyes blinked at the twisted sheets, and

his dry, chill hands reached out and stroked her skin, heated

still, and damp from a surfeit of passion.

'My dear, are you ill?' he said in his old man's voice.

'Bad dreams,' she said, sulky, but trained by instinct to

use the mood to increase her allure. 'I dozed in the afternoon

heat, and had nightmares, nothing more.' Grateful that her

deft, dark-haired lover had made clean his escape, Kamlio

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.

:~

.:

293

sighed and bent her skills upon her decrepit master, who

was harder, it sometimes seemed, to please than she was.

Outside the window, screened from sight by a veiling of

vines and unkempt akasi, Arakasi listened intently to the

sounds that issued from the bedchamber. In relief, and an

uncharacteristic anger, he silently donned his clothing. He

had lied only once: never had he ceased thinking of his

mistress. Over the years since he had sworn to Acoma

service, Mara had become the linchpin of his life.

But the girl, half spoiled, fully hardened to the resentment

of a whore brought up to the Reed Life, had touched

him. His care for her had been real, and that by itself was

disturbing. Arakasi shook off the memory of Kamlio's

long, fine hair and her jewel-clear eyes. He had work to

do, before her freedom from usage could be arranged. For

the information she had delivered in the naive belief that

she had disclosed only a family secret was the possible

location of the harem of the Hamoi Tong's Obajan. The

tenuous link she had managed to retain with her sister, used

to exchange spurious and widely erratic communication,

held far more peril than she knew.

It had taken months for Arakasi to trace a rumor that

a girl of unusual beauty, a sister to another, had been

purchased by a certain trader, one whom Arakasi had

suspected as a Hamoi Tong agent. He was now dead, a

necessary by-product of Arakasi's identifying him, but his

purchase of so expensive a courtesan led Arakasi to the near

certainty that she must belong to the Obajan, or one of his

closest lieutenants.

And the fact she had been sent to Ontoset made peculiar

sense; it was safer for the tong to have its seat so distant from

where it was contacted, a minor shrine outside the Temple of

Turakamu. Arakasi himself had many agents who suspected

he was based in Jamar or Yankora, because that was where

all their messages originated.

294

Mistress of the Empire

Arakasi had resisted the temptation to leave at once for

Ontoset and had spent valuable weeks in Kentosani seeking

out the girl's sister.

The Spy Master had studied his prey for weeks before

making himself known to her. Turning away Kamlio's:

questions with vague references he led her to believe him

the son of some powerful noble, fallen to low estate because

of a romantic adventure.

As he repeatedly risked shameful death to see her, then

at last Kamlio had welcomed him to her bed.

Without her, Arakasi might have searched a lifetime

and never obtained a due to what he sought by Mara's

command. As he sat, still as stone, awaiting the dusk and

the chance to steal away, he pondered how much he owed

to a girl who had been raised up to be no more than a bed

toy. He knew he should leave this woman and never see

her again, but something in him had been touched. Now

he confronted a new fear: that he might entreat Mara to

intercede and buy the girl's contract, and that, once free,

Kamlio might laugh at his genuine care for her.

For a man brought up by women of the Reed Life,

understanding of her contempt came all too easily. Veiled

by the bushes, suffering insect bites and muscle cramps from

his pose of forced stillness, Arakasi sighed. He closed his

eyes, but could not escape the sounds of Kamlio's marathon

efforts in the bedchamber to gratify the lechery of a man too

old to perform. Arakasi endured a wait that passed painfully

slowly. Once he was sure the old master was asleep, he

silently made his departure. But with him came vivid

memories and the uncomfortable, unwanted awareness

that he had come to care for Kamlio. His feelings for

her were folly; any emotional ties to those not of the

Acoma made him vulnerable. And he knew that if he was

vulnerable, so then was Lady Mara.

The messenger hesitated after he made his bow. Breathless

still from his run through the hills bordering the estate, he

might have been taking an ordinary pause to recover his

wind; except that his hands were tense, and the eyes he

raised to Hokanu were dark with pity.

The Shinzawai heir was not a man to shy from misfortune.

Campaigns in the field had taught him that setbacks

must be faced at once, and overcome, lest enemies gain

opening and triumph. 'The news is bad,' he said quickly.

'Tell me.'

Still mute, and with a second bow made out of sympathy,

the messenger drew a scroll out of a carry tube fashioned of

bone strips laced together with cord. The instant Hokanu

saw the red dye that edged the parchment, he knew: the

word was a death, and even as he accepted the document

and cracked the seal, he guessed the name inside would be

his father's.

The timing could not be worse, he thought in that

stunned, disbelieving interval before grief struck his mind

like a fist. His father, gone. The man who had understood

him as no other; who had adopted him when his blood

sire had been called into the Assembly of Magicians, and

who had raised him with all the love any son could

require.

There would be no more midnight talks over hwaet beer,

or jokes about hangovers in the mornings. There would be

no more scholarly arguments, or reprimands, or shared

elation over victories. The grandchild soon to be born to

Mara would never meet his grandfather.

Fighting sudden tears, Hokanu found himself mechanically

dismissing the messenger. Jican appeared, as if spellcalled,

and quietly dealt with the matter of refreshments

and disposition of the bone token that couriers received

in acknowledgment of completion of their missions. The

hadonra finished with necessities, and turned back to his

296

Mistress of tbe Empire

mistress's husband, expectant. Hokanu had not moved,

except to crush the red-bordered scroll between his fist.

'The news was bad,' Jican surmised in commiseration.

'My father,' Hokanu said tightly. 'He died in his sleep,

in no pain, of natural causes.' He shut his eyes a moment,

opened them, and added, 'Our enemies will be gloating,

nonetheless.'

Jican fingered the tassels on his sash, diffident, careworn, i

and silent. He had met Kamatsu of the Shinzawai; he knew

the Lord's hadonra well. The most enduring tribute he could

think to mention was not the usual one, or the most elegant.

He spoke anyway. 'He is a man who will be missed by his

servants, young master. He was well loved.'  ;,

Hokanu raised eyes dark with hurt. 'My father was like

that.' He sighed. 'He abused no man and no beast. His heart

was great. Like Mara, he was able to see past tradition with

fairness. Because of him, I am all that I am.'

Jican allowed the silence to stretch unbroken, while

outside the window, the footsteps of a sentry passed by.

Then he suggested, very gently, 'Mare is in the work shed

with the toy maker.'

The new-made Lord of Shinzawai nodded. He went to

seek his wife with a weight on his elegant shoulders that

the news he carried made fearful. More than ever, the

heir his Lady carried was important. For while Hokanu

had cousins aplenty, and even a bastard nephew or three,;

none of them had grown up schooled to his foster father's ~

breadth of vision. Not a one of them had the perception i

and the clarity of thought to fill the shoes of the man who

had been the Emperor Ichindar's right hand.

:,

The ambience of the work shed was an amalgam of dusty

warmth shed into dimness by the sunlit tiles of the roof,<.

and the aromatic scents of wood shavings, resins, and the

pungency of needra glue. The corners were murky with

Bereauement

297

shelves of scrap cloth, baskets of feathers, and an orderly

arrangement of woodworker's tools, among which was a

priceless metal knife, imported from the barbarian world,

and with which Mara had bought the undying admiration

and services of Orcato, toy maker, genius, and dissembler,

with a penchant for lewd jokes and drink. Mara overlooked

his coarseness, his tendency to forget her femininity and

speak with her as if she were an equal, and his stink, which

was always of unwashed sweat and the tecca seeds with

which he spiced his food. When Hokanu entered, Lady and

artisan were engaged with bent heads over a waist-high

contraption of wood, around which were arrayed an army

of painted toy soldiers.

'There,' said Orcato in his tremulous old-man's voice

that also held childish enthusiasm. 'If you'd pull that string

and release that lever, there, mistress, we'll know if we've

wasted our time.'

His sarcasm was belied by the unholy gleam of joy in his

eyes; disheveled, hot, and heavily pregnant, Mara bent a

face marred by a smear of dust across one cheek. She gave

an unladylike whoop and yanked a tasseled cord.

The contrivance on the floor responded with a click, a

whap, and a violent whipping of cord, timber and wicker.

What Hokanu recognised as a replica of an engine designed

to hurl rocks over the walls of a besieged city did not

perform its intended office. Instead, its throwing arm spun

in an arc, discharging its missiles amid the neat ranks of its

allies. Toy soldiers scattered and bounced through the dusty

air, and rocks cracked in rebound off the walls. Hokanu

ducked the ricochets and winced at the Lady's unfettered

yell of delight.

Orcato the toy maker cackled with pleasure and from a

pocket beneath his needra-hide apron produced a flask. 'A

toast to the Gods of Prank and Mischief ?' He offered the

Lady a swig, and froze, seeing Hokanu in the doorway.

298

Mistress of the Empire

'We've done it, my Lord,' he announced, blithe as a boy

in his excitement. 'Found a way to turn Jiro's penchant

for engines back upon his own troops.' He paused, drank

deeply, and cackled again, then offered his dripping flask

to the master.

It was Mara who noticed the stiffness of Hokanu's face.

'What has happened?' she asked, her sudden concern as

jarring as a shout. She maneuvered her swollen belly

around the toy engine, stepping upon the scattered ranks

of soldiers.

Stung on top of grief by the sudden draining of joy from

her face, Hokanu struggled for words.

'Dear gods,' Mara murmured, reaching him, and awkwardly

seeking his embrace. 'It's your father, isn't it?' She

tugged him to her, the unborn bulk of their child pressed

between. He could feel her tremble and knew her sorrow

was real. Everywhere, his father had been loved. He heard

his voice recite woodenly, 'He died naturally. In no pain.

In his bed.'

The toy maker handed over his flask. Hokanu accepted,

and swallowed without much noticing what brew it contained.

The sting of it freed his voice, and his thoughts began

sluggishly to function. 'There will be a state funeral. I must

be present.' Too much was he aware of his pregnant wife's

vulnerability and the heir that now must not be risked. As he

felt her drawing breath, he shook his head and said quickly,

'No. You will not go. I will not expose you or our unborn

child to our enemies.'

She moved, on the point of protest.

Hokanu shook her gently, uncaring that the noxious

spirits slopped from the flask with the gesture, staining

the shoulder of her robe. 'No. Kamatsu would understand,

my love. He would do as I must, and implore you to go and

visit your adoptive family, whom you have sorely neglected

of late. You will travel to Kentosani and pay your respects

Bereavement

299

to your Emperor Ichindar. He has lost a staunch defender

in my father. It is seemly that you be there to temper

his grief.'

She relaxed against him; and he read in that her understanding,

and her gratitude. She would not argue with him,

although he knew by the way she hid her face in his sleeve

that she wept for him, and for the fact that the ugliness of

politics must see her parted from his side in his hour of

bereavement.

'My Lady,' he said softly, and buried his own face in

her hair.

Behind him, across a floor littered with the fallen effigies

of Jiro's army, the toy maker slipped soundlessly out.

.,

12

Warning

The crowd shouted.

Acoma soldiers escorting their mistress fought to keep

even ranks against the relentless press of bodies, all calling

out in awe and appreciation of the Lady who was Servant of

the Empire, and all straining with outstretched arms to gain

even a touch of the curtains that shrouded her litter. Legend

held that the touch of a Servant could bestow good fortune.

Since the Lady herself was not within reach, her soldiers had

learned that the commoners would settle for her clothing,

or, barring that, for the curtains of her litter. After one time

caught off guard, when Mara had gone out with what had

seemed a suitable escort before the title had been bestowed

by the Emperor, and arriving at an appointment across the

city with both her robes and her litter hangings in soiled

disarray, her officers had learned better.

Now Mara did not venture forth in public with fewer

than an escort of fifty. Lujan decided in a sweat, even fifty

were barely sufficient. The folk loved their Good Servant to

the point where they would risk crushed toes, bruises, and

even a blow from a spear butt to get close to her. The worst,

the most unnerving aspect of her popularity, was that the

masses took no offense at the soldiers' roughness in holding

them back. They shoved willingly into abuse that came near

to serious injury, cheering and crying Mara's name.

Muffled in a plain robe, and out of sight beyond heavy

curtains that trapped the heat uncomfortably, Mara lay

with closed eyes on her cushions, her hands cradled

upon her swollen middle. She could barely smell the

temple incense that was particular to the Holy City, and

carried so many memories. The perfume of the flowering

trees reached her not at all, nor the musical calls of the

vendors. She could only endure the jostle of the masses, and

hear their deep-throated shouts. Wistfully she recalled the

days of her youth, when, as a novice of Lashima's temple,

she had walked these very streets on bare feet. She tried

not to think of another late time, when a tall, red-haired

barbarian had strode by the side of her litter, filling her ears

with impertinent comments, and her eyes with his smile.

In the suffocating darkness behind drapes dyed red in

deference to the Death God and the passing of Hokanu's

father, she pondered instead upon her husband, gone alone

to attend the state funeral, to face enemies and plotting, and

to determine which of his father's friends would stand by

him, now that he assumed the mantle of House Shinzawai.

Heirless, he would become scrutinised by the merchants

who sold courtesan contracts; he would be flirted with and

flattered by unmarried younger daughters who sought to

elevate their status by the chance to bear a powerful man's

bastard.

She wished, thinking of her husband, that their leavetaking

had not needed to be so hasty. But her birthing time

was very near, and with the passing of a Lord] so high in

the imperial power structure, more than House Shinzawai

must be secured through the change. The death of Kamatsu

left vacant a prominent post in the Emperor's council, and

political machinations would follow until that power had

been redistributed into other hands.

More than her personal safety required Mara to visit

the Emperor's family. And although the palace's Imperial

Whites would guard her young son, Justin, with all of

the vigilance they showed to the Light of Heaven's own

children, she worried.

For since the abolishment of the Warlord's office, with

the High Council Hall filled only with echoes of the past, the

302 Mistress of the Empire

palace had become the center of all intrigues. Arakasi had

agents there; they would keep watch to scent out plots. But

her life would be more confined, more chained to ceremony,

and bereft of the day-to-day challenges of commerce she

enjoyed while at home. Although Jican was more than

trustworthy to handle trade matters in her absence, that

fact did not console. Beneath lay the true apprehension:she

did not wish to lie in childbirth in a strange bed, in

the absence of Hokanu's loving protection. Were the child

to come due before she could return home, her time in

Kentosani must of necessity be prolonged, until the young

infant was able to withstand the rigors of travel.

Mara's fingers tightened over her damp robes, as if t o

stifle the unborn child's healthy kicks. She was visited by

an indefinable dread of the forces at work against them all,

Acoma, Shinzawai, and the Emperor, that would neither

wait nor rest while the babes who were in line to inherit

spent the necessary years growing up.

The litter swooped down, and came to rest with barely a

jet Mara pushed herself upright as the curtains were parted,

Letting in a dazzle of light off sun-washed marble. She had

reached the palace, and so deep was her preoccupation

that only now did she notice that the din of the crows

had become distanced; the commoners shouted and called

still, but from outside the wood and gilt gateway that led

into the Imperial Quarter of the City.

'My Lady?' questioned Saric. The Acoma First Adviser

offered his hand to raise her. Incomo was not along on

this trip, but had accompanied Hokanu to help assess the

machinations of the guests that would descend upon the

Shinzawai estates for the funeral. Though still in his thirties,

Saric had learned much since he had left soldiers' ranks to

take office with the Acoma. Mara had hesitated long

before formally bestowing the office, and for a while had

considered Incomo for the position, as he had served in that

role with the Minwanabi. But in the end she had trusted his

predecessor's first judgment: despite her constant scolding

of him, Nacoya, Mara's previous First Adviser, thought

highly of his nimble wit and quick apprehension. Saric

was proving a good choice. Mara looked up, measuring

the hazel eyes of the man, who looked steadily back, a

smile very like his cousin Lujan's upon his lips.

'What are you thinking, my Lady?' he asked as he raised

her from her litter. A gleam in his eyes belied the innocence

of the question, and seeing that his mistress observed as

much, he chuckled under his breath. Like Lujan, he often

dared informality close to insolence.

Drily, inspecting his well-made but otherwise plain

traveling robe, she said, 'I'm thinking we need to work

upon your perceptions of formal garb.'

'I have been too busy since gaining my office to find time

for tailors, my Lady. I'll see to formal garb at once.' Then he

grinned, 'I doubt the old grandmother's ceremonial regalia

would fit me yet.'

Meaning he had not an aged stoop to his shoulders, nor

nearly enough grey hair. Touched by a pang for old Nacoya

that held more of memory than grief, Mara said, 'You have a

free, loose tongue to speak of your responsibilities, when as

far as I can see, you have already lost charge of my heir.'

'Justin?' With a startled raise of eyebrows, Saric half

turned. The boy was indeed gone from his side, when

he had been there just a half-instant sooner. Saric hid an

impulse to swear behind a stony expression. He ought to

have anticipated the boy's restlessness, after the tantrum

that had erupted earlier, when Justin had been forced to

ride in a litter, rather than his preferred seat of conveyance:

perched upon Lujan's broad shoulders at the head of

the procession. That in the open streets, jammed with

hordes of people out to admire the Good Servant, a

boy left exposed offered a tempting target for enemy

304

Mistress of the Empire

assassins did not signify to his childish penchant for

adventure.

A fast glance around the marble courtyard, with its

beautiful trees festooned with flowering vines, showed

several archways the boy might have dashed through

to hide.

'Well,' said Mara regretfully, 'he's unlikely to get himself

killed in the palace, surrounded by two thousand Imperial

Whites.' She did not need to add that he was sure to

get himself neck-deep into other mischief. And with the

Emperor himself come out to greet her, to order soldiers out

searching before completing the proper formalities o!

welcome would be an insult.

She straightened her sash, raised her chin, and stepped:

forward, prepared to make her bow before the Light of

Heaven.

Ichindar himself offered his hand to help her back to

her feet before her gravid form caused her awkwardness.

His touch was warm, as if every bone in his hand could

be felt. Mara smiled, and gazed into his face, which was

Lined early by care. Although still in his prime, Ichindar bore

the weight of his mantle and the mark of his responsibility.

He had grown stooped since she had seen him last, ant

his eyes seemed larger, for his face had thinned. Never a

warrior, he relied on the cut and richness of his robes to

lend his figure the necessary majesty of his office. Today he

seemed drowned in a diamond sparkle of cloth interwoven with

priceless silver threadwork. His hair lay limp under

a massive, golden-plumed headdress, and at throat, west,

and waist he wore shining gold. His eyes were warm and

bright as he studied her in turn, and gave her the imperial

greeting.

Then, formalities dispensed with, he freed her wrists and)

removed his massive headdress. A servant ran forward

bowed to earth, and accepted its weight in silence. Ichindar

' .3

Warning

305

ninety-one times Emperor of Tsuranuanni, raked hands that

sparkled with rings through honey-brown hair and grinned.

'I've missed you, Lady. It has been long since you have

brought us your company.' His tone rang genuine, although

it was no secret that he preferred male company. Driven by

the need for an heir, he shared his nights with an endless

succession of wives and consorts, all chosen for beauty and

their prospects of bearing children rather than for wit.

But Mara he had named Servant of the Empire for her

service in securing his power upon the golden throne. She

had brought stability to the Empire at large through her

help in abolishment of the Warlord's office, contention for

which had dragged the Nations to the brink of civil war

far too many times.

Although the course charted since was still unsteady,

and although the traditionalist faction won itself more

supporters daily, Ichindar counted Lady Mara a powerful

ally and, more, a friend; her coming brought him rare

joy. He studied her closely, saw her surreptitious glances

toward the archways, and laughed. 'Your son ran off just

a moment ago with my eldest daughter, Jehilia. He's in the

fruit gardens with her, probably in a tree picking green

jomach. Shall we go there and slap sticky hands before

both of them give themselves bellyaches?' ~

Mara's face softened. 'Bellyaches would be the least of

it,' she confessed. 'If I know my boy, there are probably

sentries under dishonorable bombardment.'

But by the time Mara had extricated herself from her

train of servants and baggage, and the Emperor's personal

staff had rearranged themselves around her presence, a

high boyish shout of rage echoed over the sunlit serenity

of the courtyard. As one, Mara and Ichindar hurried their

steps, outdistancing their escort through the leftward arch.

They rushed down a path lined with bushes and beds of

rare flowers, and reached the garden courtyard in time to

306

Mistress of the Empire

hear a splash. The boy, Justin, stood on the marble rim of a

fish pool, his hands on his hips, and his chest puffed out like

a jigabird cock's. At his feet, dragged back by a sodden mess

of white-and-gold robes, the girl see in the water, her blond

hair plastered to her head, and expensive makeup dribbled

in smears down her furious face.

Mara's face assumed its sternest maternal expression,

while the Emperor choked back laughter. But before

either could intervene in what was about to develop

into a wrestling match, a third figure raced into the

fray, trailing robes as expensive as the girl's, but redolent

with exotic perfumes. She also was blond, and radiantly

beautiful, despite her hand-wringing protestations and an

evident uncertainty about the more forceful aspects of

parenthood.~

'Oh!' she cried. 'Oh! Miserable boy, what have you done

to my jewel?'

Justin turned red-faced upon her, and said glibly and

clearly over Jehilia's shouting, 'She slugged me in the face,

did your jewel.'

'Oh!' cried the woman. 'She would not have! My

jewel!'

At this point, Mara strode forward, grabbed Justin by

the arm, and hauled him off his perch on the pool rim. 'So

you tripped her, is that it?'

She received for her answer an insolent grin, and a flash

of blue eyes amid a sun-freckled face. Her open-handed slap

across the boy's cheeks ended the smile, and although his

eye showed the beginnings of a purple bruise, Mara gave

him no quarter. 'You will give the Princess your hand, help

her out of the fish pool, and apologise.'

As the boy opened his mouth for protest, she shook him

briskly. 'Do this now,Justin. You have sullied Acoma honor

and must make amends.'

The offended Jehilia dragged herself to her feet. Fish

darted in agitated swirls around her ankles as, glowering

with temper, she prepared to be indulged.

'Oh, my precious, get out of that water,' wailed the

woman, whose resemblance identified her as Lady Tamara,

Ichindar's First Wife, and mother to the girl. 'You could

take ill, standing about soaking wet!'

Jehilia scowled, her rose-and-gilt complexion flushed

crimson. She stared at Justin's extended hand as though it

were a viper, while her father - Emperor of all Tsuranuanni

and Light of Heaven - looked on in helpless amusement.

He was better at ruling between warring Lords than at

managing disputes between his offspring and those of his

adopted family.

Mara assessed the impasse, and crisply admonished the

girl. 'Take Justin's hand, Princess. It is the only right thing

to do, since you shamed his pride by striking him. It is

cowardly to strike a man, since he will not hit a female

in return. If Justin tripped you, you earned your ducking

first, and I'd say you must both learn manners from the

misfortune. Act like a grown lady, or else I'll see your nurses

thrash you both like the children you most certainly are.'

'Oh! My darling should never be thrashed!' cried the

mother of the Emperor's eldest. 'Were anyone to try, I

should faint.' ~

At this, Ichindar turned hazel eyes bright with irony upon

the Lady of the Acoma. 'My life is made miserable by a

surfeit of frail women. The children cannot be thrashed,

or they will faint.'

Mara laughed. 'Thrash the children as they deserve,

and let the ladies swoon all they wish. It might serve to

harden them.'

'Oh!' The Lady paled. As angry now as her daughter,

she retorted, 'Our Light of Heaven would not dare! He is

a gentle man, and his wives all adore him.'

Ichindar's mouth curved with distaste. Plainly, he would

308

Mistress of the Empire

withdraw rather than endure further disharmony. Women

confounded him, Mara knew. Saddened that he seemed so

browbeaten, and also given insight into how it must feel

to have been forced into matrimonial duty at the age of

twelve, with a different wife or concubine sent to share the

imperial bed each and every month thereafter, she again

intervened.

Justin completed his apology to Jehilia. He spoke his

words without sullenness or rancor, as quick to forgive as

his barbarian father. When he completed his bow, Mara

caught the girl's icy fingers and bundled her firmly toward

her distraught and angry mother. 'Jehilia,' said the Lady of

the Acoma, 'take Lady Tamara inside and see her in care of

a good maid. Then change your clothes, and come visit me

in my garden court. I will show you, as my brother showed

me, what to do when importunate boys try to trip you.' ;

Jehilia's fury dissolved into delighted surprise. 'You know

how to wrestle, Good Servant?'

Mara laughed. 'I'll teach you, and if Justin agrees to keep

you clear of fish pools, he will help.'

At her side, the heir to the Acoma mantle gave a whoop

of contentment, and Jehilia, no less restrained, shouted like

a warrior. Then she spun in a whirl of wet hair and chivvied

her distraught and protesting mother from the garden, while

Ichindar stared after in astonishment.

He turned toward Mara with a look of mystified respect.

'I should command your presence more often, to marshal

the conduct of my harem.'

Mara's smile died. 'Great gods, no. Do you know nothing

of women? The best way to foment dissension among them :-~

is to give them into the power of another female. I'd find

myself marshal of a nasty, robe-tearing rebellion, my Lord Emperor.

And the only problem I can see between your

august self and your harem is that they outnumber you,;

five hundred and thirty-seven to one.' ~

~_

Warning

309

The Emperor of all Tsuranuanni laughed. 'True enough.

I am the most jigahen-pecked husband in all of the Nations.

If the ladies were not all so beautiful, I might find it easier

to chastise them.'

Mara made a sound through her nose. 'According to my

Force Commander, who cuts a swathe through the maidens

in his leave time, the prettier the face, the greater the need

for chastisement.'

'Perhaps,' Ichindar allowed, a trace of wistfulness in his

voice. 'If I knew them better, I might be more inclined. Only

those who bear me a child remain, you must remember. Of

those five hundred . . . however many wives and consorts,

I've spoken to only seven on more than a handful of

occasioned His troubled tone was not lost on Mara. Palace

walls were no protection from the gossip of the streets: even

the Light of Heaven had heard the whispers of his lack of

manly power in fathering a son. Though almost twenty

years a husband, he had but seven children, all girls, the

eldest only two years older than Justin. Ichindar gestured

toward the coolness of the foyer. 'Refreshments await, my

Lady Mara. In your condition, it would be insult to keep

you on your feet in the sun for an instant longer.'

,~

A haze of smoke from the funeral rites hung heavy upon

the air. The acrid scent of ash stung Hokanu's nostrils

where he stood, elbow braced on the rail of a gallery that

overlooked a courtyard filled with guests. After the opulent

gardens of the Acoma estate and the imperial residence,

the Shinzawai garden looked tiny. Guests moved along the

crowded narrow paths, speaking in low voices, partaking

of light refreshments provided by servants at every turn.

With Kamatsu's rank and honor, many had come who had

no clan or family ties with him, straining the hospitality of

the house.

The ceremony to honor the Shinzawai departed had been

rushed, owing to the heat; the body of the patriarch had

been kept waiting only until the arrival of the heir. Many

of the guests had reached the estates ahead of him; those

more polite or less brazenly curious had waited to come

until after Hokanu was in residence.

Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the smoke that

coiled still from the fire. The recitation of Kamatsu's

honors had been long, lasting well past noon. Now the

ashes were yet too hot to scrape into the ceremonial urn

Hokanu would carry to the sacred contemplation grove

that sheltered the family natami. The air smelled of citrus

and cloves and almonds, to sweeten the stench of death

and of other, rarer scents, of the ladies' perfumes and

the sweet oils used to sleek the hair of the dandies. Now

and again the" breeze would part the smoke, and the scents

of the flowers bundled in the crockery pots throughout the

dooryard won out. Fainter was the ink-like pungence of the

dyes in the crimson death hangings. Sometimes there came

the redolence of cooked meats, new bread, and cakes. The

kitchen staff were busy.

Hokanu lounged in his red robes, his eyes half closed;

he could have been a man lost in daydreams, except for

the fist clenched white against the balustrade. Below him,

conversations centered on political topics. Two subjects

predominated: the eligibility of the bachelors who vied for

the ten-year-old Princess Jehilia's hand; and which Lord

was most likely to be appointed by the Light of Heaven to

take up the staff of office left vacant by Kamatsu's death.

The avaricious carrion eaters might have waited until

the old man's ashes were cold, Hokanu thought with

resentment.

A step sounded upon the worn plank floor behind him.

His back tautened in expectation of another servant who

would address him as 'my Lord'; but the title was not

forthcoming. Touched by vague dread, Hokanu half turned,

his hand closed in reflex over the heirloom metal sword he

wore to honor the day, and with which he had cut the red

cords around his father's wrists, in the ceremony to free

the spirit into the halls of Turakamu.

But he faced no assassin. A man of medium stature

awaited him, robed anonymously in dark fabric.

Hokanu released the silk-wrapped hilt of the weapon

with guilty speed. 'I'm sorry. Great One, I heard no chime

to warn of your presence.'

'I did not come by arcane means,' said the magician in

his deep, familiar voice. He pushed back his hood, and

sunlight flooded over features that were lined and, today,

looked almost bitter. The line of his cheek and brow bore a

marked resemblance to Hokanu; and if the mystery in them

had been less, the eyes would have been almost identical.

The Great One, whose name was Fumita, crossed the space

to. the gallery rail and gave Hokanu a formal embrace.

By blood, the two were father and son; but according

to the strictures of the Assembly, ties of blood could not

matter.

Cautious of the weariness in the older man's face,

Hokanu whispered, 'You should not be here.' Conflicting

emotions, barely contained, raged within.'he warrior.

His father had come late to his powers, a rare but not

unheard-of event. As a man in his prime, he had left his

wife and young son to don the black robe. Hokanu's early

memories of Fumita were few but vivid: the roughness of

his cheek in the evening as a young boy threw his arms

around his father's neck, the smell of sweat as he removed

the armor worn in the soldier's yard. The younger brother

of the Lord of the Shinzawai, Fumita had been marked as

the future Shinzawai Force Commander until the day when

the magicians had taken him away. Hokanu remembered

with pain how his mother had never laughed again.

Fumita's peaked brows twitched, a frown suppressed.

'A Great One may go anywhere, at any time.' And the

dead man was his brother; power had separated them, and

mystery had kept them apart. Of the wife who had given up

name and rank to enter a convent, the magician never spoke.

He looked into the features of the son he could no longer

acknowledge, and his silken robe that the breezes fluttered

without effort seemed to drag at his stiffened shoulders.

He did not speak.

Hokanu, whose gifts of perception at times skirted the

edge of arcane talent, spoke for him. 'If I intend to endorse

my father's policies, and stand at the hand of the Emperor,

I must announce my intentions plainly, and soon. Then

the enemies who might otherwise ally against the Light

of Heaven must show themselves to me, as his shield.' He

gave a short, humorless laugh. 'As if it matters. If I stand

down, and let the honor of the Imperial Chancellorship be

awarded to a rival house, the enemies will strike next at

my wife, who carries the heir to our name.'

Coarse laughter lifted over the buzz of general conversation.

A servant passed the screen that led to the gallery; he

saw the young Lord in conference there with a magician,

bowed, and silently left. Preternaturally sensitive to the

scents, his surroundings, and the grief for his adoptive father

that left every nerve end raw, Hokanu heard a cousin call

out loudly in argument. By the slurred consonants, Devacai

had wasted no time in sampling the wines. Small need to

speculate what would happen to Shinzawai honor and

fortunes were that distant branch of the family to inherit.

Somewhere deep in the estate house, a maid giggled, and

an infant cried. Life went on. And by the intentness of

Fumita's gaze, he had not come just to honor the funeral

pyre of a departed brother.

'It isn't pleasant, I see, but you have something to tell?'

Hokanu said, his throat made tight with the effort it took

to find the courage to broach the subject first.

Fumita looked troubled, a dire sign. Even before his

donning the black robe, he was normally master of his

eXpression' which had made him a wicked opponent at

cards. He twisted his thumbs in his cord belt, and sat,

perched awkwardly on a flower urn. Blossoms crushed

beneath his weight, lending the thick scent of greens to

the sultry, smoke-tinged air. 'I bring you warning, consort

of the Good Servant.'

The choice of title told much. Hokanu longed to sit also,

but sap stains on his mourning robes might be interpreted

as a sign of weakness, as if he had forgotten himself, or

been overcome with prostration. He stood, his feet hurting

with the strain. 'The Assembly is troubled over my wife?'

he prompted.

The silence stretched out, broken by the voices of the

guests, raised now, as the wine heated their conversations.

At length, not looking at Hokanu, but at the

boards, as if they might harbor unseen flaws, Fumita

spoke carefully. 'Heed these things. First, the Assembly

is as any other body of men when trying to forge

an agreement. They argue, they deliberate, they splinter

into factions. No one wishes to be first to suggest the

ill luck of compromising the life of a Servant of the

Empire.' ~

Hokanu sucked a fast breath. 'They know about Mara's

toy maker.'

'And Jiro's ventures in experimental engineering.' Fumita

looked up, piercingly. 'There is little in the Nations my kind

do not know. If they equivocate, it is because they cannot

agree upon any one course of action. But provocation of

any sort will unite them. Fear that.'

The smokes and the scents seemed cloying enough to

drown in. Hokanu held the Great One's gaze, and behind

stiff features read anguish. 'I hear. What else?'

Fumita blinked. 'You will recall that a former member

of the Assembly, the barbarian Great One Milamber, once

visited great destruction upon the Imperial Games.'

Hokanu nodded. He had not been present, but Mara

had, and Lujan. Their descriptions of the event were the

stuff of nightmares, and nobody who had seen the tumbJ

stone, the scorched timbers where fires had fallen from the

sky, and the riven buildings from the inner precinct to the

dockside quarter where earthquakes had shaken the holy

City had forgotten.

'No Great One has the powers of Milamber. Most have

far less. Some are more scholars than spell crafters.'Fumita

fell silent, his eyes expectant.

Hokanu caught the cue, and added the telling surmise

'Some are argumentative, petty, and perhaps too embroiled

in self-importance to act decisively?'   .

'If it comes to trouble,' Fumita said slowly, 'you were

the one who said this. Never I.' Very softly, he added, 'the

best you can hope for is a delay of the felling blowThe

who wish an end to these changes in tradition are grows

stronger. Forcing debate will buy time, but none of us w3

would aid you may stay the hand of another.' He fixed his

former son with a gaze that held unvoiced feelings. 'no

matter what, I cannot protect you.'

Hokanu nodded.

'Say farewell to my brother Kamatsu in my stead,' the

magician finished. 'He was joy and strength and wisdom .

and his memory remains my inspiration. Rule-wisely and

well. He often told me he was proud of you.' He withdrew

a small metal object from his robe and thumbed a switch

A low-pitched, unnatural buzz sawed across the murmur

of conversation, and Hokanu was left alone on the galle

above a courtyard that seethed with relations and guests;

among them were enemies, seeking weakness to exploit, ~

strengths, for the means to undermine. Such was the w;

of the Game of the Council. Only the newest Lord of the

Shinzawai thought, as he gazed through the haze at their

finery, that never before had the stakes been so high. This

time the prize, the bone of contention, was the Empire of

Tsuranuanni itself.

The last, most private rite for the departed Shinzawai

Patriarch was completed at dusk as a low ground mist

settled over the contemplation glade. The new Ruling

Lord lingered in the sanctity of his family's sacred grove,

soothed by the deepening shadows, and by the chance to

be alone.

The shadows spilled long and purple between the fruitladen

trees of autumn. Hokanu chose a stone bench and

sat down, but the heat still oppressed. No breeze came to

cool him, and ash from the burning drifted still in the air,

describing shafts through the foliage where the sun struck

through. Hokanu fingered the raveled edges of the garment

he had rent for Kamatsu's ceremonial farewell. His hands

closed, hard, bunching the fabric. He had an estate filled

with guests that he should be thinking of; it felt selfish to

steal a moment of peace for himself.

But the stillness of the contemplation glade, and the lazy

drone of the insects that fed upon windfall fruit, allowed

him space to think. Fumita's warning had not been only

for Mara, her consort perceived. Hokanu's brows drew

together. The magician's spare words had been for the

Shinzawai, and the son who now wore the Lord's mantle.

When he had said, 'I cannot protect you,' the 'you' was

not plural but singular.

For if, as Lord of the Shinzawai, Hokanu chose aggression

against the Anasati on Mara's behalf, the Assembly of

Magicians would have no choice but to act- because he

was Mara's consort; not her Ruling Lord, but half Acoma

in heart, if not in name. He was not Servant of the Empire.

He did not have Mara's rank and honors as his shield.

No, the core of Fumita's warning had not been for his

Lady. It had been for himself, a caution against trying the

patience of an assembly divided in opinion over issues that

had no precedents.

Hokanu understood with a flash of cold sweat that he

must at all costs keep the Shinzawai dear of the feud with

Lord Jiro. He saw, with the family's talent for perception,

just what Fumita had left unsaid. That he was now Lord o f

one of the most powerful houses in the Empire and, while

not officially Clan Warchief, would inherit the leadership

of Clan Kanazawai at the next Council. If, through ties

of marriage, Shinzawai and Acoma forces were seen to

unite in common cause, leading Clan Kanazawai and Clan

Hadama, no counterforce in the Nations could stop them.

The fragmented Assembly would end their contention,

forced by most desperate circumstances to act.

That reason must never be given, or Acoma and Shinzawai

would both be ground down into the dust, never to rise,

never to recover. Hokanu had seen the death of two hundred

warriors, followed by the annihilation of an honored house,

all at the hands of one magician. Hundreds of them, united,

no army in the Empire could oppose.

Hokanu arose to leave. The sacred grove of Shinzawai no

longer seemed a haven of peace, and the sweat on his skin

gave him chills. The place at his side where Mara might

have stood felt colder and emptier still.

13

Twist

.

Arakasi waited.

Below him, the sentry moved silently, upon feet clad

in padded stockings designed for stealth. He wore the

traditional short black robe and trousers of the Hamoi

Tong assassins, and his head covering masked all but his

eyes. Across his back a short bow was slung, and at his belt

a hip quiver of arrows and a variety of hand weapons were

hooked within easy reach. He moved beneath the tree where

the Spy Master perched, barely breathing, and vanished into

the dusk like a shade of the dead. Arakasi counted in his

mind, his numbers a complex formula he had devised over

years, that fixed an exact passage of time, independent of

breathing, heart rate, or any other condition that might

influence the count. Practice with sand-filled hourglasses

had perfected his system to a fine point. When he reached

the number that signified ten seconds, his searching eyes

caught a movement at the far end of the trail. He knew

satisfaction heady as triumph. The second sentry had

arrived exactly as anticipated.

The most perilous task he had ever undertaken was off

to an auspicious start. Arakasi held no illusions that such

luck would long continue; he was one man alone, and

in a position where even the favor of heaven could not

safeguard a man's life. Arakasi lay motionless on a tree

branch in the garden of the Hamoi Tong's Obajan. Below

him paced a guard who would kill him without hesitation.

Like his predecessor, this new sentry scouted grass, paths,

and bushes for the telltale signs of an intruder. The Spy

Master had left no tracks; yet he sweated. The guards were

uncannily thorough. The second assassin moved along his 9

beat. Counting for a specific interval, Arakasi judged his 4

moment, then noiselessly lowered himself from tree to ground.

Taking care to step only on the flat, ornamental

stones between flower beds, he scurried off to a small

depression within a drainage ditch where he had secreted

his few belongings. There, behind a masking of khadi brush,

just beyond the limit of the Hamoi Tong sentries' line of

patrol, he breathed deeply and settled taut nerves.

At the edge of the woods a hundred paces west, his

own backup man waited, knife already in hand to answer

unwelcome discovery. Arakasi lifted a stripped branch

and used gestures to indicate that the patrol was moving

according to schedule. The garden he sought to infiltrate

was protected by eighteen assassins, all alert, cautious

sentries, but human enough to be fallible. The guard

pattern they followed was complex and at first appearance

seemingly random. But few observers had Arakasi's iq

patience, or his keen fascination with mathematics. He had

thought nothing of the days spent crouched in dirt, bitten by

insects, and lashed by sun and rain. What mattered was that

he had unraveled their measure, and worked up formulas

to predict their routes.

His backup man wore the garb of a Lashiki bowman-a

mercenary guard from the northern province. As with

Arakasi, his outer trappings came no closer to his true

identity than any of a dozen guises he had worn and then

shed over the years. Nor was his real name Sabota. Arakasi

never pressed him on this foible; his true origin was his own

affair, for he had proven himself a reliable courier countless

times over. Of all the agents near Ontoset the Acoma Spy

Master could call upon, Sabota was the most trustworthy.

And Arakasi had to give this man a mission as critical to

the Lady's survival as his own.

A month's beard masked the Spy Master's face. He

appeared more like a beggar than anything else, from

the weeks spent in the countryside. Yet had there been a

watcher close enough to see his eyes as he began a second,

more complex signal with the stick, he could never have

been mistaken for other than what he was: a supremely

dangerous man about to embark upon a mission he did

not expect to survive.

At the treeline, the man called Sabota studied the Spy

Master's message. His memory was impeccable. He nodded

once and left without a glance backward.

Crouched behind a thin screen of thorn, Arakasi closed

his eyes. He did not pray. He substituted hope. For Sabota

took with him instructions to the second-in-command of

the Acoma spy network, a man Mara had never met whom

Arakasi had designated his replacement should he fail to

return from this endeavor.

The stakes were now set. If a countermessage was not sent

within a specified number of days, a new Spy Master would

present himself to Lady Mara. Every detail on the tong that

Arakasi had managed to uncover would be passed along,

and plans would begin afresh to seek the destruction of the

Hamoi Obajan and counter the infiltrations attempted by

Chumaka of the Anasati.

Arakasi closed his eyes. His head ached from tension,

which was not normal. Life to him had always been a

bloodless, calculated dance, with danger his dispassionate

partner. It bothered him to think he might have held Sabota

with him longer than necessary: he had discerned the key

to the patrols two days ago. The waiting he had done since

had not been for precaution; in fact, it had only increased

the risk that the tong might alter its habits to foil just the

sort of study he had finished. Arakasi rubbed his temples.

Unused to self-conflict, he drew a series of breaths to calm

himself.

Arakasi had been driven by an abiding loyalty to Mara

320 Mistress of the Empire

since his long-sought vengeance against the Minwanabi had:

been completed by the Acoma. Concerns for his Lady'.

safety haunted him now, for if he died in this insane task, a

man of even lesser gifts would be left to undertake his post.

After the attempt to infiltrate the City of the Magicians had

been abandoned, signs of tampering had surfaced since the

agents in Jamar had returned to active status. This could

only be the work of Chumaka of the Anasati. Through

sleepless nights watching the tong's patrols, Arakasi had

worried on the timing. With the net compromised, who

knew how deeply, this was a frightening moment to

contemplate handing over the reins. Arakasi gave himself

a mental jab of reproach. Were he to die, what did his life

matter? Never before had he wasted himself with worries

that had no bearing on circumstances outside his control.

It was past time to be moving. Pushing aside another

maddening incongruity, a memory of his hands sliding]

through the honey-gold hair of a courtesan he should have

forgotten, he forced his thoughts to track the immediate.

The next lull in the patrols was upon him. If he was to act

tonight, he must not tarry, for by every indication gleaned

through weeks of observation, the high, painted litter that

had arrived at the estate house that afternoon had carried

the long-absent master.

The Obajan of the Hamoi Tong was once again in

residence at his pleasure retreat.

Arakasi wormed out of the ditch, pressed through the

low bushes, and raced, bent over, down a garden path. He

threw himself belly down in the shadow of a low tile wall,

aware, now, that he was irrevocably committed. There were

no more gaps in the patrols along the perimeter, and would

not be, until daylight made it impossible to cross without

being observed from one of the guard posts set in wooden

balconies that jutted from the house's peaks.

The wait under the wall would last an hour. To use the j

time, Arakasi reviewed all of his preparations, turning over

each success and frustration that had marked his mission to

its current moment.

It had been a painstaking trail, which had begun with the

tracking of the honey-haired courtesan's sister. The slave

trader who had brokered the girls had been easy enough

to find, but at the market where Kamlio's sibling should

have been turned over to her tong purchaser, all traces of

her vanished.

The work then had been hampered by its proximity to

Ontoset, where the new network begun to replace the one

disrupted by the silk warehouse mishap was still in its

building stages. Weeks of following false leads had yielded

the conclusion that girls selected for the tong never reached

the Ontoset marketplace.

Arakasi had backtracked along the route, and from a

drunken driver's chance remark had learned that slave

wagons bearing girls of unusual beauty were on rare

occasions diverted into the rolling foothills to the north

of the city. More weeks had been spent scouting out that

area, to follow and map each footpath, game trail, and

swamp in the wide lands north of Ontoset. Sabota and three

other agents had done this, living off the surrounding land

like bandits, stealing jigabirds or vegetables from farmers,

fishing the brooks, even eating berries and nuts. One had

been killed as he attempted to purchase grain in a village

miles to the northwest - which had been a loss that yielded

knowledge, for it marked that settlement as subject to the

tong's control, where strangers were not welcomed. The

'farmer' who had done the killing had taken the Acoma

agent from behind with a knife; an expert in his own right

with dagger work, Arakasi had examined the corpse fished

out of the river. The murder was the work of a trained

assassin. Arakasi had lain in the loft of a mill downstream,

listening to gossip: the villagers who had observed the death

322 Mistress of the Empire

never commented, but continued with their daily affairs as

if nothing untoward had occurred.

No one had caught wind of the Spy Master's presence;

no one had noticed the trail he had erased when he left. He

reviewed again the checks he had run in Ontoset, counting

the farm carts that entered, and noting what color dust

filmed their wheels as they presented themselves at the

guard gate He had not been followed, for a certainty. ~

More weeks had been spent in a roadside ditch, living

off dried cakes and fruit. Months after the murder of his

agent, Arakasi had traced three carts from that village. Back

in Ontoset, he had worn a drover's robes and gone out for

hard nights of drinking. Carts came and went, until finally ~

one of chose he had been seeking pulled in. A trip outside

the tap with three swaying, singing companions: he had

leaned on that wagon to piss, and with a knife concealed

in his other hand had notched the hardened leacher that

bound the cartwheel's rim.

Sabota, watching at the roadside, had waited more days

for rain. Then at last, that distinctively marked wheel's track

had led to the location of the tong's pleasure palace. ~'

Arakasi knew his work was good. No one should have

connected his drunken binge in the tavern with another

poor, traveling laborer walking between harvests with his

head drooping in the heat. Still, he sweated. The man he

sought to take was the most secretive individual in the

Empire, and by far the best guarded. There were Lords

who had died for merely beholding the Obajan's face.

Tasaio of the Minwanabi had been the singular exception,

and the bribes he had paid in metal were the stuff

of legend, if a man did not know he had purloined

illicit contraband during his years of war service across

the rift. ::

The break in the patrol would come soon. Arakasi

chewed a strip of dried meat, though his appetite had

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323

fled. Food was for survival now; or else this would be

the last meal of his life.

He swallowed the last of his stores and lay flat upon

damp soil. Eyes closed again, he tuned his senses to the

night, hearing every sound and insect, and smelling the

moisture-laden air. Any change would find him instantly

at the ready. His timing required absolute concentration.

He waited, sweating harder. His thoughts sought to wander,

marred by some new, formless apprehension he could

not name.

That anomaly troubled him sorely, but could not be

examined, for the moment had come. The crunch of

sandals crossed the gravel path just the other side of the

wall; ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty: Arakasi flowed

through the night like a phantom.

Over the wall in a vault, he crossed the garden, leaping

over the paths and keeping to slate borders of the flower

beds that his step not disturb the raked gravel. Light

flickered through the trees. Arakasi dove belly down and

scraped under the arch of an ornamental bridge. The water

in the little stream was high at this time of year, its trickle

hiding his splashing. He barely had enough headroom

under the center beam to keep his face clear of the surface.

The sound of current over a rock underneath masked his

fast breaching as he froze, his heartbeat racing. Up the

path came a group of men. Four were wearing the black of

assassins, white sashes proclaiming them to be of honored

rank. Two more moved through the garden, flanking the

party as guards. Of the pair they protected, one was chin,

clad in silk woven in the Hamoi-flower pattern, his eyes

roving back and forth in nervous review. But it was to the

other man that Arakasi's attention was drawn.

This one was massively built, his wide girth carrying

not one ounce of fat. He wore a flowing brown robe, the

hood thrown back to reveal the face that would never be

324

Mistress of tl~e Empire

uncovered away from home. The man who might earlier

have posed as itinerant priest or monk proudly displayed

the long topknot and fall of hair that proclaimed him of

supreme rank. His shaved scalp bore the complex red

tattoos that adorned only an Obajan.

In the darkness under the bridge, as footsteps thumped

and creaked across the boards above, pressed tight between

the structure and damp mud, Arakasi grinned to know his

work had not been wasted. He was within striking distance

of the ruler of the Hamoi Tong.

But now was no time to strike. The flanking guards

were beating the bushes on either side of the path. The

abnormally high water made the cranny under the bridge

too small to shelter a full-sized man without backing up the

flow. And indeed, no ordinary skulker could have wedged

himself clear of the streamlet by bracing his elbows on the

side beams. Arakasi ignored his aching muscles. Now there

were twenty-four assassins in residence at the estate. He

held back elation. Even a chance gleam of light on his teeth

could betray him. Eighteen or twenty-four assassins, he was

sticking his head into the mouth of a harulth and daring the

most dangerous predator in Kelewan to bite down.

The Obajan's party passed, probably on its way to enjoy

the evening in the covered gazebo near the wall. Arakasi

had the night left yet to wait. At the last hour before sunrise,

he would attempt to enter the estate house. For there was

only one way he had determined to infiltrate this nest of

murderers, and after that, he grimly acknowledged, he had

no safe way out.

As deep night at last began to fade, Arakasi trembled with

fatigue. Lying now half in the water, he thanked Chochocan,

the Good God, that the guard patrols had not changed their

routine with the Obajan in residence. He forced himself to

gorge his belly with water. The single most desperate act t

of his life lay ahead, as he prepared to gain entry to the

estate house. The next sentry arrived on schedule. Arakasi

peered out from under the bridge. As the guard reached the

limit of his vision, the Spy Master slithered silently into the

open. Heavy dewfall would mask the drips that scattered

from his wet clothing. He moved fast, knowing that he

must maintain an equal distance between two men intent

on killing anyone they found. If the one ahead paused to

scratch an itch or the one behind walked slightly faster

than normal, Arakasi might die before he knew he had

been discovered.

The Spy Master resisted the temptation to hurry. Few

situations demanded such precise control. Scrambling as

quietly as possible, he moved sideways, forearms, knees,

and toes alone touching the ground. The toll on his already

depleted strength was tremendous.

After two hundred feet of progress, Arakasi collapsed

to the ground. He made himself dizzy choking back his

gasps for air, but forced his ears to listen for any indication

that he had been seen. No alarm was sounded. He studied

the sky. The predawn grey was brightening now. From

experience he knew that sentries had the most difficult

time seeing at dawn and dusk, when all was reduced to

blurred shadows.

Footfalls passed. The guard who had been to his rear

passed within a yard of his position. But the sentry had

his attention directed toward the outer wall, not upon the

ground to the left of his feet. And it was a shadow in the

grass beside the main house that Arakasi had become, his

breath stopped, and his hands braced to move.

The sentry paused. Arakasi counted, dripping sweat. On

a certain number, the guard moved on. At once Arakasi

leaped to his feet, removed a cord from his belt, and threw

its weighted end upward over a tree branch that arched

toward the house between the balconies that housed more

326

Mistress of the Empire

guards. Exposed on three sides, he had only seconds before

the next patrol appeared around the corner. Luck must be

his mistress here. Arakasi hurled himself upward staying

close to the thick trunk to avoid any rustling of leaves. He

threw himself prone on the branch and reeled in his cord

hand over hand.

His observations were now useless. He had had no way to

penetrate the life inside the house, and so had no knowledge

beyond an estimated floor plan gained by watching the

goings and comings of the servants.

Arakasi heard voices and knew the house staff awakened

Soon cooks and body servants would be about their duties

and he had to be in place.

Arakasi pulled himself along the limb. He had to be

careful. This was a takai tree, grown for its lush fruit; the

branches of bearing trees were weak and tended to break

when more weight was added. The foliage was thin and

provided little cover as he shinnied under the beams of a

guard balcony. The need to keep quiet knotted his muscles

and made his suppressed breath like fire in his chest.

Houses in Kelewan were usually constructed with a

breathing space between the inner ceiling and the roof to

let the heat under the eaves escape. This house should be

no different, but a grating of wood might have been added

to increase security. No clear safe haven remained to him,

and he was too far inside the estate to turn back with any

chance of safety. The sky might be lightening to silver, but

the gloom under the rafters was complete. Arakasi groped

into the shadow

The way inside he had hoped to find did exist, but

as he had suspected, thin slats of wood barred his way

into the crawl space between the tiled roof above and the

plaster ceiling of the rooms below. Arakasi drew one of

his rare metal throwing knives. The steel could endure

the punishment of prying the slats out at their pegged

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327

ends, where a Tsurani blade of laminated hide would have

snapped. Arakasi worked quickly. He garnered scrapes and

splinters as he wormed his way through the small opening,

then used the grease of his own sweat to ease the pegs

back without squeaking. He allowed himself a moment of

silent exultation. He had done the impossible. Although

cramped in a space too small for comfort, he was inside

the building.

He rested while the guard changed in the platforms

outside. Then, he groped his way across the beams until

he located the rooftree. He settled in to wait, the day

before him to spy out the arrangement of the rooms unseen

beneath.

Arakasi lay supine, listening closely to the dulcet tones of

women's voices below him. His success now depended on

the chance that the Obajan would be visiting his women,

for the Spy Master doubted he could survive another day

of sweating in the airless space beneath the roof.

The coarse-cut wood of dusty rafters bit into his thighs

and arms, and chafed him through the light cloth of his robe.

He endured, flexing one limb at a time to relieve cramps

from impaired circulation. The air had grown stifling as

the sun heated the roof tiles. Although he had gone without

sleep for nearly two days, he fiercely resisted the need to rest.

To fall victim to the body's needs in this place was to die.

Should he doze, he might roll off the narrow crossbeam and

come crashing through the thin plaster ceiling below him.

With grim humor he also considered how the sound of his

exhausted snores might lead the vigilant guards to his-hiding

place. Now, ready with his steel in darkness, his cheek and

hands tickled by the aimless wanderings of crawling insects,

he felt a heady mix of exhilaration and regret: exhilaration

that he had won so close without discovery; regret that so

many tasks remained undone.

328 Mistress of the Empire

Below him, cracks in the plaster admitted an orange

glow of light. Servants had lit the lamps, which meant

that night had fallen outside. He could hear the silvery

laughter of women; among them now and again sounded

a voice that reminded him of another girl, and an afternoon

entanglement in silken sheets. Arakasi shifted, irked at

himself. Kamlio was on his mind far too much: the feel

of her rich hair under his hands, and her creamy skin, and

her kisses; the very memory of her made him sweat with

longing. Yet what haunted his mind, over and over, was

no simple coupling of flesh. He dreamed of her deep eyes,

the intelligence in them alternately dulled by boredom and

made cunning by abuse. Her manner seemed hard, but it

was a cynicism that roofed over a chasm of pain. He knew,

as surely as his hands and his body had pleased her, that

given time, he could reach the sweet nature hidden like

treasure within her.

If he survived this evening's endeavors, he would buy her

freedom, maybe show her the headier joys of a free life. If

she would have him; if, after a lifetime of pandering to the

whims of many masters, she did not find men distasteful

. . . Arakasi's lip curled in self-contempt in the dark. He

dreamed! He dreamed like a lovesick boy! Had life not

taught him never to give credence to the unpredictable

desires of the heart?

He smothered an impulse to curse.

It was irony, of the blackest and bitterest sort, that

the mission that had caused him to know her might

itself bring her to ultimate harm. With stark logic, in

the stifling heat under the rooftree, he knew: he would

require a miracle of the gods to emerge from his mission

alive. The odds now favored his getting the strike

at the Obajan he had planned for. But even should

his blow prove deadly, evading the best of the tong's

assassins - and after them, the vengeful wrath of the

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329

Tiranjan, Obajan's successor - was an impossible expectation.

Arakasi shivered from fatigue and tension. He changed

grip on a knife handle gone strangely sweat-slick with

doubt. How could one enchantress of a courtesan have

tempted him to place her well-being above the will of

Mara, his sworn mistress, whose life he loved above his

own? Yet Kamlio had. For Mara, the Obajan of the Hamoi

Tong would die. But if the Spy Master who undertook the

deed escaped the consequences alive, he recognised that a

small, secretive part of himself must remain his own. His

care for the courtesan, which might or might not be love-and

could easily be rooted in foolish pity - begged to be

explored. The self-respect recovered with the destruction

of House Minwanabi demanded this: that he hear his own

needs as a man, and reconcile them with the duties that

daily led him into danger.

A thousand times, he might have died nameless, in the

guise of beggar, itinerant priest, sailor, fortune-teller, spice

merchant, costermonger, messenger. And a thousand times

he faced those risks without hesitation, for he had stared

into the abyss and did not fear death. But now, when

he needed hindrance the least, he found that suddenly

mattered. If death took him, he wanted his ashes honored

on Acoma lands, and the pretty, sullen-eyed courtesan

crying his name by his pyre. Now he found himself

shackled by sentiment when, at any cost, his identity must

remain secret.

The continuance of the Acoma, whose beloved Lady

had restored him to honor, and perhaps even the Empire

itself depended upon flawless self-restraint. Arakasi had

lived such a disjointed existence that love had but once

before fettered him, and then more through loyalty to the

woman who had restored his pride and honor. And though

he adored Mara, she did not trouble his dreams. Arakasi

330 Mistress of the Empire

cherished her as a priest loved his goddess. But Kamlio

had touched a piece of him that had been hidden from all

others. Especially himself, he rued silently.

The laughter of the women subsided. Arakasi tensed,

jerked from reminiscence by a tread that grated as it

crossed the floor. The sound indicated studded leather

sandals, and the weight of a large man. A female called

out a welcome, and bare, perfumed feet lisped over tile;

cushions and refreshments were being brought for the

master's comfort, Arakasi surmised. He shifted position

infinitesimally, his grip on his knife hot and dry.

The closeness of his attic perch seemed suddenly, unendurably

stifling. He fought the instinct to gasp for more

air, to move, to act prematurely; he willed himself against

pain to force each muscle to relax and hold position. The

mingled scents of perfumes wafted through the heated air,

admitted through the gaps between plaster and beams.

Presently Arakasi heard the clink of fine crystal, as serving

girls brought refreshment to their master, and later, a ville

player who accompanied a singer for his entertainment. He

smelled sweet oils, then, and heard the deep-pitched sighs of

contentment of a man being attended by skilled masseurs.

The Spy Master's own abused body obliged him by trying

to cramp.

Patience, he reminded himself inwardly.

Later still, a light tread betrayed a towel girl's departure,

her step shortened by her hamper of soiled linens. His eyes

half dosed, Arakasi pictured the tableau in the chamber

below his rafter perch. The musician had slowed his

rhythms, and the singer abandoned Lyrics, her voice sliding

into a languorous humming. The crystal jug that held the

spiced sa wine chimed as it was set on its polished stone

tray - nearly empty now, Arakasi judged by the ring of

the glass. Wax candles had burned low. The faint light

that escaped through the tiny cracks in the ceiling had

taken on the warmer tone cast by an oil lamp. He heard

the sigh of fine fabric as it fell away, and the master arose

with a creak of knees. His sigh was huge as he stretched.

For the first time since his entry into his pleasure

harem, the Obajan of the Hamoi Tong spoke. 'Jeisa.' He

paused after the name, his eyes perhaps glittering with

lust. 'Alamena, Tori.' He waited, cruelly drawing out an

interval of palpable tension, while the other, unsummoned

women arrayed at his feet waited to know whether they

would be chosen or spurned, their disappointment or their

joy at their appointed turn of fate carefully hidden.

The Obajan sighed again. 'Kamini,'he finished. 'The rest

of my flowers are dismissed.'

Arakasi blinked to clear the sting of what he hoped was

sweat. Not Kamini; the gods were not kind tonight. Kamini

he wished far away from the master's bedchamber through

this hour, for she was sister to Kamlio, the girl who haunted

the Spy Master's dreams.

Fiercely Arakasi wrenched his thoughts from the image of

Kamlio's face. Daydream and grow careless, and he would

die here.

A screen swished closed in the chamber below; presently

another slid open, and Arakasi heard the chirps of evening

insects over the hiss of the oil lamp. The attic had not

cooled; the roof tiles held the day's heat yet, though the

sun had long set, and the night was old enough for dew.

The musician and the singer subsided to the barest whisper

of a melody, over which Arakasi could hear the slither of

silken sheets, and the muffled giggle of a girl. He waited, still

as a predator, listening avidly for his prey's contented sighs

to become the quickened breaths of passion, and waited yet

as a girl began to moan in the throes of pleasure . . . or what

seemed like pleasure. Arakasi banished thoughts of another

girl, who had been taught since childhood to feign all the

subtleties of joy .

332 Mistress of the Empire

Arakasi reproached himself silently. He had sweated

too much, and dehydration was making him perilously

light-headed. He forced concentration, every muscle corded

with tension. The knife in his hand felt like an extension of

his living flesh as the Obajan, entwined in hot girls and

damp silk, opened his mouth and cried out in the fulfillment

of his release.

In that instant, the Spy Master shoved off, plunging

downward through warm air. He struck the plaster ceiling

and broke through, in a shower of fragments, and chips,

and dust. His eyes, long used to the dark, saw clearly in

the lamplight the humped mass of entangled forms on the

mat below as he fell. He chose the uppermost, the most

massive, and angled his knife accordingly.

He had but one instant to pray that the only time the

Obajan of the Hamoi Tong would be more than a hand's

reach from his weapons and guards would be in nakedness,

in the act of coupling.

Then he crashed atop the sweating mass of the Obajan

and his women, and sheathed priceless steel in flesh. Arakasi

felt his blade turned by sinew and bone. He had missed a

killing blow.

The Obajan was huge, but none of his bulk was fat.

His groan of pleasure became a shout of pain and alarm.

Arakasi was thrown off his prey like a fish tossed from a

bait boat. His heel caught on a woman's leg and he fell.

Besides being strong, the master of assassins was fast. His

hand shot out to a pile of weapons beside the bed. Three

darts smacked into silken sheets, even as Arakasi rolled

away. A girl screamed in pain and fear.

The oil lamp went out. A vielle fell with a crash, and the

singer broke off, screaming. Feet pounded in the corridor,

while Arakasi shoved free of entangling bedclothes, and

threw off a girl who clawed his shoulder with her nails. His

second knife slid into his hand as if it had life and breath

Twist

333

and a desire to match his need. He flicked his wrist, and

released, and the blade flew true, into the Obajan's neck.

The master of the Hamoi Tong bellowed again, enraged.

But the blade kissed the artery, and blood fountained. He

raised his hand to staunch the flow, and all but lost his

thumb on the keen edge still exposed. Against the pale

square of the door screen, Arakasi saw the man's shoulders

quiver in the stress of ebbing life. His scalp lock fell loose

over his back as he crashed to his knees, his chest wet with

the fast flow of blood.

Arakasi twisted around, flinging girls and sheets one way

and another in the darkness. He rolled, tossed a cushion in

the direction of pursuing footsteps. Someone tripped and

hit with a fleshy smack against the tile. Mistaking him

for the assailant, four incoming guards sprang and bore

the unfortunate man down. His protests masked Arakasi's

movements as, hand to the wall, the Spy Master scuttled

to the far side of the chamber.

He had just enough starlight to see by. Careful to keep any

chance gleam of steel from betraying his position, Arakasi

drew another knife from his belt loop. He threw, and one

of the guards went down, clutching his belly, and howling.

His noise distracted the rest, allowing Arakasi to draw

more knives and dispatch the four guards who entered

from the outer hall. They died, one after another, between

the screaming of the pleasure women and the cries of the

wounded sentry on the floor. The Obajan lay in the sheets,

motionless in death.

Arakasi slipped through the screen and ducked out of

sight around the lintel. He dared not wait to see if any of

the girls had seen him go, nor if they had the wits to make

outcry. With a leap driven by adrenaline, he sprang up and

caught the comer beam of the roof. Dangling by his hands,

he pulled himself into the shadows under the eaves, his last

blade gripped between his teeth.

334 . Mistress of the Empire

He was barely established in his hiding place when feet

pounded into the room from the direction of the adjoining

hallway.

'Outside!' shouted one of the assassins. 'The man who

killed our master fled into the garden!'

Desperate, Arakasi clawed a fragment of shingle from

the gutter. With an underhand toss he pitched the bit

of tile into a flower bed. The sharp-eared sentry who

bolted through the door dashed headlong into the bushes,

hacking the vegetation with his sword. Arakasi could have

brushed the man's head with his fingertips as the man

passed below.

More assassins rushed out. 'Where is he?'

The swordsman paused in his slashing. 'I heard movement.'

'Quickly!' called the second guard. 'Bring torches! The

killer makes his escape while we delay!'

They fanned outward, combing the garden, while men

with lights converged to aid in the search. Arakasi slung

himself off the roof. A moving shadow in darkness, he

sidestepped and ducked into an adjoining screen, back

inside the house where the pursuers had not yet thought

to check.

More men exploded from the bedroom. They met the

first man, returning. 'He must have gone over the wall.

Patrol the perimeter, quickly, before he gets away!'

Shouts of inquiry issued from inside the harem. News

of the Obajan's death roused the servants, some of whom

gave way to panic. The tong was swift and merciless

in retribution, and in a house this well guarded, the

members would suspect that whoever killed their master

must have an inside accomplice. The entire staff

might be put to death to ensure elimination of any

traitors. The more intelligent servants understood their

best course of action was to flee. Fear alone bound these

wretches to service with this murderous brotherhood;

Twist

335

most preferred to chance an uncertain future than face

dishonorable death.

Arakasi could only hope that the confusion caused by

dozens of terrified servants would lend him opening, for

while a saner man might seek escape, his mission was yet

incomplete. For Mara's sake, he must return to the Obajan's

study and steal the record journal of the tong.

Stillness had fallen over the adjacent bedchamber. Arakasi

risked that the guards had left their dead master in the heat

of the search. He reentered the screen he had broken earlier

and stepped into a scene of carnage.

Blood splattered everything within ten feet of the bed.

Beside the bulk of the slain master, a pair of naked girls

remained, starlight limping their forms faintly silver. One of

them stared at him, silent. With crazed, repetitive motions,

she sought to wipe blood from skin smeared hopelessly

scarlet. The other writhed in the sheets, moaning. Struck

down by a poisoned dart, she was unable to rise. With grim

purpose, Arakasi recovered two metal knives, one from the

neck of the Obajan and another from the stomach of a guard

who lay sprawled at his master's feet.

Arakasi stepped past the foot of the bed, his glance

passing over the wounded courtesan. He stopped, his

attention unwillingly arrested. The girl's hair pooled like

spilled oil in the moonlight, pale gold and glistening. Her

face was upturned, exposed to the flicker of torchlight

spilling in from the garden. Like a wound to the heart, he

saw that her features were the exact same as her sister's.

They were twins.

Logic could not stay the lurch of Arakasi's heart. In

moonlight, her slim hands worrying at the dart that pierced

her breast, she could not be distinguished from the girl he

had touched and bedded. Jolted by a pain of the spirit that

threatened to choke his breath, Arakasi fought to recapture

his icy, analytical nature. He was Acoma Spy Master, on a

336 Mistress of the Empire

mission for the Servant of the Empire. He must keep his

wits and locate the Obajan's scrolls.

But when he most needed steady nerves, his objectivity

forsook him. Before one dying courtesan, his own survival

suddenly seemed as meaningless as trying to capture

sunlight with bare hands.

Arakasi's intellect screamed that he must keep faith with

Mara, while his heart drove him to his knees beside the

stricken girl. Time and circumstance were blurred. He could

no longer separate which was the courtesan who had bound

him to her, and which the twin sister. In the dark, in the

moonlight, in the aching loss of the moment, their identities

seemed to merge. Against every instinct of self-preservation,

Arakasi gathered-her body into his arms. He cradled her,

wide-eyed and motionless, until she quivered, gasped and,

after what seemed an eternity, finally ceased breathing.

Arakasi felt as if he had been beaten. His nails had gouged

his palms, and his teeth had drawn blood. The salt-rich

taste on his tongue and the death stink that pervaded

his nostrils pushed him to nausea. He barely noticed the

living woman who muttered amid bloodstained sheets. His

mind recorded but did not comprehend her babble. Arakasi

snatched a tearing breath and forced himself to unlock his

rigid limbs. His heart seemed frozen as the dead girl slipped

from his grasp By rote, he reacted to a sound behind him,

turned, and whipped out a knife. His throw was almost true.

The servant who sought entry was a castrate who served

the harem, returned to look after his charges. The knife

caught him a glancing slash across the neck. He gagged

and slammed into the door post. Fast Arakasi had always

been; but tonight his limbs were clumsy as he stumbled

across the dropped girl. His feet caught in soggy sheets

and hooked upon cushions. He struck the castrate with a

wrestler's move in the middle, and knocked him sideways.

The dying man's strength was uncanny. Arakasi's hands

Twist

~ 337

sought a grip, and slipped. He dug his fingers into the

wound and, by the spray of blood on his face, knew he

had torn his enemy's artery. Using his knuckles to stop his

victim from crying out, he received a bite to the bone.

Had the dead Obajan's guards not been sweeping the

outer grounds for an assassin who by rights should be

fleeing for his life, the struggle would have brought notice.

As it was, hanging onto a dying man who careened into wall

hangings and crashed against chests and tables, Arakasi felt

a sense of the unreal. The castrate took a long time to bleed

to death. When he at last fell limp, Arakasi reeled out of

the room.

He had never seen the inside of the house. What sense

of direction he had garnered during his wait under the

rooftree now deserted him as he sought the journal that

was the heart of the tong. Such a book recorded each

contract and its disposition, in a cipher known only to

the Obajan. Intermediaries were told nothing beyond the

name of the victims directed to die.

The tong's records were the inheritance of the Tiranjan,

who must take over rulership for the leader just assassinated.

The journal would not be unprotected, and even before

the commotion of the search died down, the Obajan's

flower-robed adviser would be sending the Tiranjan to

collect it.

Arakasi heard distant voices and a scream. His time in

the house was now limited to less than a handful of minutes,

and his mind remained muddled by the memory of a girl's

tormented death. He whipped himself to review his past

surmises, made through the hot hours of waiting under the

rooftree. This was the pleasure palace. The Obajan was

on sabbatical. The record book that was never beyond his

reach would be here, in a place set aside for it. The door

screen with the stoutest construction must be the strong

room where the tong's scrolls would be kept.

338 Mistress of the Empire

Arakasi flitted down the corridor, keeping to the shadows

as much as possible. He doused lanterns where he dared,

shivering and starting at every distant noise. He rounded

a corner and all but collided with a man whose back was

turned. The chink of steel as he drew his last knife caused

the man to whirl. He was a warrior, assigned to guard a

locked door. Arakasi launched himself forward and sliced

the tendons in the man's wrist, even as his foe reached down

to draw his sword. The Spy Master felt no pain himself as he

chopped bitten, bleeding fingers into the guard's windpipe,

and rammed him with a crash against the wood.

Someone shouted at the noise.

Out of time, Arakasi bashed his enemy through the

panel. The guard resisted, eyes widened in soul-deep

terror. As he overbalanced backward into the confines of

the strong room, the hand that still functioned scrabbled

in desperation at the wall.

Then he went down. Tripwires mired his ankles, and

darts were released from the walls. The floor where he

struck dropped down with a grinding sound, and stakes of

sharpened, resin-hardened wood erupted through pierced

patterns in the tiles, impaling his twitching remains.

Arakasi paid his victim's death throes no mind. Clued by

the man's last living act, he surveyed the wall, and found a

niche between the murals. He recognised the hole for what

it was, an opening for a locking pin that would disable the

mechanical traps inside the room. He jammed his knife into

the gap and rushed ahead.

Chills chased across his skin. He could hear running feet

in the corridors, converging upon his position. Ahead of

him, lit by a single lamp, stood a tall desk-like structure

with a heavy book resting on the top. He leaped over the

corpse of the guard, his thoughts racing.

If the door had been trapped, so the desk must be also. It

followed that a thief who survived the defences to get this

far must be gifted, and a master of intricate mechanisms.

Therefore, Arakasi chose the unpredictable tactic: he would

make his attempt by force.

He swallowed the metallic taste of panic. He grasped the

heavy ceramic lamp stand, bent down, and bashed through

the inlaid paneling at the bottom of the desk. He looked

up to locate and disarm the maze of fine threads and levers

that would set off the snare were the book to be lifted, and

beneath them found something else.

A tightly rolled scroll lay beneath the trip mechanism.

He pulled it from its resting place and glanced at it. The

outer parchment was written over in cipher and tied off

with ribbons marked with the flower of the Hamoi Tong.

The book on the desktop was a fake, set up in plain view as

a trap. In his hand he held the true accounts of the tong.

The cries of alarm were now closer. Arakasi thrust the

scroll into his robe and hurried to the doorway. He yanked

his knife from the hole and ran, away from the voices that

converged around the corner from behind.

He made blind haste, shaken to fresh fear by his

success. As much as he had planned, as carefully as he

had arranged his safeguards, he had never anticipated

surviving beyond the moment of the Obajan's death.

Now the stakes were redoubled; for without the journal

scroll, the Tiranjan could not assume leadership of the

clan. Contracts would go unfulfilled, and the Hamoi

assassins would lose honor. In effect, Arakasi held the

murderous brotherhood's natami in his hands. Without it,

the tong would lose credibility and eventually drift away

like smoke.

Shouting erupted in the corridor Arakasi had just vacated.

The broken doorway was discovered, and screams followed,

as guards rushed inside and fell to the traps reset when he

had removed the dagger used as locking pin. Pursuit was

immediate, as the survivors scattered searching through the

340 Mistress of the Empsre

house. Arakasi barely slipped out the window ahead of one

hard on his trail.

A stinging in his shoulder marked a hit by an assassin's

dart. It would be poisoned, surely, yet he had no choice

but to ignore it. The antidotes he had brought on the

chance he might get hit lay with his stores, hidden outside

the perimeter. He rushed across the garden, leaped into

a tree, and flung himself over the first wall. Poised for a

moment, he heard darts and the heavier rattle of arrows

flying through the branches above his head.

He looked frantically for opportunity. A panicked party

of servants hurried past. Attempting to steal from the estate,

they hugged the wall in silence as they sought a clear avenue

to freedom.

Arakasi insinuated himself into their midst, causing one

woman to scream and a man to throw himself on his

knees and beg mercy. The Spy Master's black clothing had

caused them to mistake him for an assassin, he realised

with near-hysterical glee. Drawing a deep breath, Arakasi

screamed, 'The servants have murdered the Obajan! Kill

them all!' His ragged shout sent the menials scattering

in all directions, and he sprinted as they did, toward

the outer wall. Let the tong trackers pick out his spoor

from this confusion, he thought as he skinned his palms

leaping over.

At the edge of physical and mental exhaustion, he made

his way to a sheltered place he had selected against the

faint chance he would complete his mission. There he had

hidden his antidotes, and a cache of drugs that would force

him to continued alertness and energy, until safety or death

greeted him. He would pay a terrible price for their use,

and weeks of rest would be needed, but survival would

be worth the price. He dosed himself quickly and stripped

off his bloodied clothing. He left them under a large rock.

From another of his vials, he poured a pungent liquid that

caused his eyes to water. It was the essence of a slu-leeth,

a large swamp creature that other beasts found repellent.

No dog known would track one, and indeed, exposure to

its musk would ruin the animals' sense of smell for days.

As he rubbed the stinking ointment on his skin, the sting

in his shoulder reminded him he still had a dart in his flesh.

He drew the barbed shaft out and slipped on a fresh shirt.

The bitten knuckles he could do nothing for, and he cursed

at the certainty that the hand would swell and infect.

He could do nothing more but trust that the antidote he

had swallowed would counteract the poison. He had made

a fair guess at those required, a legacy of the knowledge

gained from his inspection of Korbargh's shelves.

Arakasi began to lope through the night, sandal-clad feet

slapping steadily over the rocky trail that led to safety. Now

as he coursed through dew drenched grasses, memories of

Korbargh's end, and another death, made him acknowledge

the changes in himself. Never again could he take such

measures against a man, not for Mara, not for duty, not

for honor. Not since he had held a dying courtesan and

confused her, for a moment, with another girl. Irrevocably,

he had perceived his own heart. If Korbargh's antidotes, and

the poison in his body were not a match . . . Arakasi was

fatalistic - until another memory surfaced: the ~dead girl in

the Obajan's chamber. Her tearful hysterics replayed in his

mind, her mumbling resolved with frightening clarity. She

had said, 'He knows Kamini!'

Kamini who was but one half of a pair of twins, one

belonging to an impotent old man, and the other dead with

the Obajan. Arakasi began to run then, out of breath and

hurting before he started. For the first time ever, he prayed

with fervor to the gods of Kelewan, begging Sibi, who was

Death, not to call him to her brother Turakamu's halls. He

needed luck, or a miracle, most likely both. For his lapse into

distraction back in the Obajan's chamber was sending death

342 Mistress of the Empire

to Kamlio's door. He had left the mad girl alive, and still

babbling, and a search was on for an assassin. The Obajan's

guards who remained alive might not cover every cranny of

the estate grounds in the dark. But come daylight, when the

Tiranjan arrived to direct the aftermath, a more methodical

hunt would begin. The courtesan would be questioned.

Arakasi recognised a second ugly truth: because of

Kamlio he could be made to talk should he be taken. He

choked back anguish. The only way to save the twin that

he loved was through Mara; and the only way to protect

his Lady was through the girl, who knew he had worked

for a powerful mistress with great wealth. There were few

such Ruling Ladies in the Empire. The tong would redouble

their attacks upon Mara. Where once the tong struck for

honor, now they would attack for survival. Arakasi would

be only minutes ahead of the assassins in his race to reach

Kamlio. If he could find one of his new operatives in

Ontoset he might pass along his precious burden, but he

had no moment to delay. From the instant the fact came to

light that the Obajan's murderer had recognised Kamini,

the brotherhood would investigate, working back along the

trail from the estate to the slave broker, to the surviving

twin. They would leave corpses after their inquiries. If their

agents in Kentosani received word before he could recover

Kamlio . . .

Sweating, Arakasi increased his pace, through fields and

gardens, and over the beaten earth of a game trail that led

in the direction of the main thoroughfare. Ah, if he could

have one of Hokanu's accursed horses, now . . .

Even in his affirmation of service to Lady Mara, he

also moved as he must, to meet his own need. Arakasi

became filled by a strange exhilaration, as if only now had

it registered that he was alive. His insane assault upon the

Obajan had succeeded, and he held the tong's records in

his possession. That victory made him giddy. The jarring

Twist

.:

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.

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3

.

~`, _

343

of the road under his feet, the sting of splinters in his skin,

the burning of each labored breath, were all sensations to

be cherished. Part of his mind recognised the effects of the

drugs he had taken, but he also knew this preternatural

awareness arose from his discovery of the true stakes at

risk for him.

As he hurried through the night, he analytically examined

this epiphany. As son of a woman of the Reed Life, he had

never regarded love between man and woman as any sort

of mystery. He had lived, always, by his wits, his perception,

and his skills derived from level-headed study of his fellow

human beings. He had seen Mara's involvement with the

barbarian, Kevin, and been intrigued. He had attributed the

fire in his mistress's eyes when the man had been present to

a female's need to romanticise relationships. Why else go

through the encumbrance and the bother of childbearing,

he had coldly rationalised.

Now, running as if his heart would burst, his throat

congested with unshed tears, he thought of a honey-haired

girl, still living, and her dead identical twin sister. He saw,

as he bashed through dew-drenched branches and stumbled

with startling carelessness into the open moonlight on the

road, that he had been wrong. Stupidly, pitifully wrong.

Half a lifetime he had lived, and almost missed the

significance of the magic that poets called love. He skidded

to a stop, and glanced in both directions to locate the litter

pre-arranged to wait for him.

He pondered, as he gasped for breath, whether if he

survived to spare the other, living girl from the tong's

vengeance as this night's work was traced back to her he

wondered if the cynical nature, born of crushed dreams,

would ever permit her to teach him what he now most

wished to know. He ached to see whether the emptiness

he had discovered within himself could ever be fulfilled.

He spun around and, in the empty road, realised a second

344 Mistress of the Emp~re

thing, as fearful as any other in this night of reckoning: this

was the last mission he could undertake in the belief there

would not be personal consequences. For, irrevocably, he

had lost the detachment that had set him apart from his

fellows, and had given rise to the ice-dear objective vision

that had made him a genius in his craft.

A need had wakened in him that changed him from what

he was; no longer could he look upon others through his lens

of unfeeling indifference. No longer could he mimic

their ways, and assume any identity at will. The pale-haired

courtesan had forever changed that.

A night bird sang, somewhere off in the wood. The foliage

overhung the thoroughfare, dimming moonlight, and the

fine-grained scattering of stars. Left in drifting mist, with

an empty roadway and no clue, not even a flag of dust to

determine which way the litter might be waiting, Arakasi

chose a direction at random. Tortured to wry observation,

he considered whether his opponent at the game of intrigue,

Chumaka of the Anasati, had also possessed that flaw of

human nature, and lived in the absence of love. Or if he

had not, would Arakasi's newfound vulnerabilities leave

him open to attack by a man that already had an uncanny

penchant for spycraft, and who was Mara's implacable

enemy?

Arakasi agonised, as the sound of night creatures seemed

to mock him. Feeling more anguish in minutes than he had

known all the years of his life, the exhausted, frightened,

yet exultant Spy Master hurried on, toward a future and

a goal more fearful than any he put behind him.

14

Revelation

The fog lifted.

Arakasi walked through the river quarter of Jamar in

bone numbing fatigue. Although he had shed all signs of

pursuit nights past, he dared not stop for rest. The tong

was behind him somewhere, following him like hounds on

a game trail. They would lose him in this city, among ten

thousand strangers, only to turn to their other lead - the

clue that led to Kamini's sister. He had only a matter of

days before they found Kamlio.

With Mara still in residence at the Imperial Palace, he

would forfeit what precious lead time he had gained. The

fastest commercial litter, with two extra crews of runners,

had carried him from Ontoset to Jamar in a week. He could

not sleep though the jouncing ride, but his drug depleted

body had fallen into a stupor for the few hours a day the

bearers required to rest.

Now, six days after he had killed the Obajan, he had paid

off the exhausted crew of litter bearers by the entrance to

Jamar's main market, then lost himself amid the workers

who set up the merchant's stalls and laid out the day's

wares. Jamar was the busiest trading port in the Empire

and the dockside quarter formed a small community on its

own, where seagoing ships met river craft. Arakasi found a

beggar boy sitting before a brothel, closed at this early hour

of morning. He held up a shell worth a hundred centis, more

wealth than the boy would beg in a year. 'What is the fastest

way upriver?'

The boy sprang to his feet and with gestures indicated he

had no voice. Arakasi motioned for the boy to show him.

l

346 Mistress of the Empire

Darting through the early morning crowd that collected

by the sausage seller's shack, the boy led him upriver to

a pier where a half-dozen small craft were tied up. There

in plain view of a StoUt riverman, the boy pantomined that

this was where Arakasi wished to be. The Spy Master gave

him the shell.

The transaction was not lost upon the riverman, who

until that moment had counted the filthy man another

beggar. Seeing that shell, he reassessed his evaluation and

smiled broadly. 'You seek quick passage upriver, sir?'

Arakasi said, 'I need to reach Kentosani in haste.'

The man's chubby face showed pride. 'I own the swiftest

craft in the city, good sir.' He pointed toward the river,

indicating a low, trim messenger boat, with a tiny cabin,

moored some distance from the pier. 'I call her River

Mistress. Four banks for eight oarsmen, and full sail.'

Arakasi assessed her lines and efficient lateen sail. She

might not be quite as good as her master's boast, but he

would lose any time he might save in looking for one that

might be marginally faster.

'She appears worthy,' Arakasi said neutrally. 'Are the;

rowers aboard?'

The captain said, 'Indeed. We are waiting for a merchant

from Pesh, who desires transport to Sulan-Qu. He has the

cabin, sir, but if you are willing to ride on deck, you may take

over the accommodations from Sulan-Qu to Kentosani. The

price would normally be five hundred centis, but as you are

sharing the boat halfway, I'll take three hundred.'

Arakasi reached into a hidden pocket in his sleeve and

withdrew a slug of silver the size of his thumb. At the glint

of metal, more wealth than any riverman might expect to

see in one place, the captain's eyes widened. 'I will have

the cabin,' Arakasi said firmly. 'And we leave now. The

merchant from Pesh can make other arrangements.'

Whatever ethical protestations might have been made

Revelatior'

347

died in the captain's mouth. Offered incalculable riches, he

all but fell over backwards in his hurry to escort Arakasi to

the dinghy that bobbed at the bottom of the pier. Down the

ladder they went, and the captain cast off and rowed as if

ten thousand demons pursued him, lest the discommoded

merchant appear and raise outcry.

Arakasi boarded the River Mistress while the captain

made fast the dinghy and cast off the mooring. The green

hull was sloppily painted, but there was no rot or other

signs of slack care. The captain might be a frugal man, but

he kept his boat sound.

The rowers and tillerman were given their orders and

the captain escorted Arakasi to the tiny cabin as the River

Mistress swung around into the current and began making

her way upriver.

Little more than a low shack amidships, the cabin was

large enough for two people. The interior was dark, and

stale with the smell of lamp oil mixed with the lingering

perfume of its previous passenger. The ports to admit light

and air were covered with silk curtains and the cushions

were worn, but Arakasi had often endured worse.

He said, 'This will do. Now, one thing I demand: no one

is to disturb me. Anyone who enters the cabin before we

reach Kentosani will die.'

Arakasi was not the first strange passenger the boat

owner had accommodated, and given the price he had

paid, no objections were raised over conditions.

Arakasi sat and closed the louvered doors, then removed

the bundle he carried inside his robe. The tong's journal had

never been out of touch of his skin from the moment he had

fled the Obajan's estate. Now, as he had his first chance to

scan the pages, he began his study of the encoded entries. But

the strange characters blurred before his eyes. With his head

bent over yellowed parchment, he fell into exhausted sleep.

When he next regained consciousness, a glance through

a porthole showed that they were halfway to the Holy

City. He had slept for two days and a night. Snacking

from a basket of fruits presumably left for the merchant

from Pesh, he began to unravel the tong's cipher. It was a

clever code, but not beyond Arakasi's gifts to solve, given

that he had nothing else to do for three more days. He saw

four columns, and surmised that each entry was comprised

of four pieces of information: the date of the contract, the

price agreed upon, the name of the target, and the name of

the person buying the contract. Next to all but the last

few were checkmarks.

Arakasi scanned backward through the records until he

found another entry without a checkmark. He assumed

this to be the name Mara of the Acoma, and the person

paying the price, Desio of the Minwanabi. Another

missing checkmark, farther back in the record, would be

Mara's name again, with Desio's father Jingu beside it. v

Comparison of the characters revealed that the code was

a complex substitution, using a key that was modified with

each use.

For hours Arakasi studied the pages, attempting one

solution, then another, discarding a third. But after a day

and a half of work, he began to identify the pattern of

change.

By the time he reached Kentosani, he had translated the

journal, and reviewed its entirety several times. He secured

pen and paper from the captain, and made a key for Mara,

not trusting to transcribe the text lest the journal fall into

other hands. But he did mark one entry he had disclosed

in some distress, for its ramifications demanded his Lady's

attention.

When the boat reached the Holy City, Arakasi leaped

from deck to pier before the owner had fully tied up the

craft, disappearing into the press of the crowd without

a word. He paused only long enough to acquire suitable

clothing, and made his way to the palace. There he sent

word, enduring the torment of waiting with the Imperial

Guards as his message made its way from servant to servant,

at last reaching Lady Mara. Had he more wits or time, he

might have devised a disguise to approach her more directly.

But the scroll he carried was too important, and he could not

risk being killed as an assassin by the Imperial Whites.

When at last he was escorted into Mara's presence, in

her private garden, she smiled, though her gravid condition

prevented her from rising to greet him.

An afternoon breeze blew, whipping dust across the

stones between the planters, as the Spy Master arrived

before Mara and bowed.

With emotion that belied his usual dry manner, Arakasi

said, 'Lady, the task is done.'

Mara did not miss the change in her Spy Master. Her

eyes widened, and she motioned for the servants to leave,

then indicated that her Spy Master should sit beside her

upon the bench.

Arakasi obeyed and handed his mistress a bundle,

wrapped in silk. She opened it and saw the scroll with

its red ribbons and Hamoi flower stamping. .'

Mara said, 'The tong is destroyed?'

Arakasi's voice reflected unprecedented weariness. 'Nearly.

There is a small matter left to resolve.'

Mara glanced at the cipher, saw the key, and put the

journal aside for later study. 'Arakasi, what is wrong?'

The Spy Master found words difficult. 'I discovered . . .

something about myself . . . on this journey, mistress.' He

took a deep breath. 'I may not be the man I once was . . .

no, I am not the man I once was.'

Mara resisted the impulse to look into his eyes. She

did not try to read his doubts, but waited for him to

continue.

'Mistress, at the time when we are most challenged, by

the Assembly and by Jiro of the Anasati . . . I am not sure

I am equal to the tasks before us.'

Mara touched his hand in gentle affection. 'Arakasi, I

have always admired your resourcefulness and the amusement

I took whenever you would appear mysteriously, in

this garb or that.' She regarded him with seriousness underneath

her light warmth. 'But for each curious garb there was

a story, a mission in which you endured danger and pain.'

Arakasi said, 'A girl died.'

Mara said, 'Who was she?'

'The sister to another.' He hesitated, painfully unsure of

himself.

'She is important to you, this other girl?'

Arakasi stared at the green sky above the garden,

inwardly recalling a face that seemed to shift from that

of a taunting courtesan to a dying, frightened girl's. 'I don't

know. I have never known anyone like her.'   ;

Mara was silent a moment. 'I have said that I admired

you the most among those in my service.' Her eyes looked

into his. 'But of my closest officers, you have always seemed

the least in need of affection.'

Arakasi sighed. 'In truth, my Lady, I also thought myself

without that need. Now I wonder.'

'You feel that the Spy Master of the Acoma cannot afford

friendships?'

Arakasi emphatically shook his head. 'No, he cannot,

which leaves us with a problem.'

'How much of a problem?' she asked.

Arakasi rose, as if giving rein to restlessness might ease

his turmoil. 'The only man I would trust to have the skill

to keep you safe in my place is, unfortunately, the one who

is trying to destroy you.'

Mara looked up at him, a spark of humor in her eyes.

'Chumaka of the Anasati?'

Arakasi nodded. 'I must continue to seek out his agents

and destroy them.'

'What of this unfinished matter of the tong?'

Arakasi saw at a glance that she would have all the tale,

so he told her of his trip to the South that had led to the

death of the Obajan. He mentioned the risk the courtesan

Kamlio posed to them. 'As long as the tong holds out any

hope of regaining their journal, its assassins will torture

and kill anyone they suspect of having information. Only

after their honor is compromised publicly will they begin

to wither and die.

'That scroll is the only means they have of ascertaining

who they are contracted to kill. Once it is learned that

the journal has been stolen, any man may claim the tong

owes him a death, and they have no way to prove him a

liar. More, it is their natami, and its absence shows that

Turakamu no longer looks upon their efforts with favor.'

Arakasi tucked his fingers in his sash. He paused as if

choosing words, then said, 'Once you have reviewed the

records to your satisfaction, I will insure that every rumormonger

in the Holy City is aware of the theft. As word

spreads, the tong will disburse like smoke.'

Mara once again was not diverted from the underlying

issue. 'This courtesan. She's the one who has. . caused

such a change in you?'

Arakasi's eyes betrayed confusion. 'Perhaps. Or perhaps

she is but a symptom of it. Either way, she is . . . a danger to

your safety. Out of prudence, she should be . . . silenced.'

Mara observed her Spy Master's posture and manner,

then made a judgment. 'Go and save her from the tong,'

she ordered. 'Silence her by bringing her under Acoma

protection.'

'It will require a great deal of money, mistress.' His

voicing a practical concern barely hid his relief and embarrassment.

'More than you have asked for before?' she said with -]

mock alarm. Arakasi had been her most expensive retainer

over the years, and the lavish provisions she had allowed

him had earned her many a scolding from Jican.

'This is not something I do on behalf of the Acoma,' he

revealed, an implied plea that somehow won past his iron

control. He was not the sure servant, but a supplicant.

Only once before had Mara seen him like this, when he

had thought himself a failure and begged her permission

to take his own life with the sword. She arose and gripped

his hand tightly. 'If you do this for yourself, you act also for

the Acoma. That is my will. Jican is inside. He will provide

whatever funds you need.'

Arakasi started to speak, but found no words. So he

simply bowed and said, 'Mistress.'

She watched him depart, and as he entered her apartment

in the palace, she beckoned to a servant hovering in the

doorway. She needed a cool, soothing drink. As the maid

came to attend her, Mara pondered upon the consequences

of countermanding Arakasi's judgment. She took a risk,

encouraging him to spare the courtesan. Then, she thought

with a bitterness left over from past losses, what would the

future bring for any of them if she made no allowance for

matters of the heart?

Light shone through the dome. It caught like fire on

the golden throne, and cast triangular dapples across

the pyramidal dais. Twenty levels down, it warmed the

marble floors and flashed on the rail where the supplicants

came and knelt for audience with the Light of Heaven.

Despite the small slave boys swishing plumed fans, the

Emperor's throne room was airless. Officials sweltered

under their finery, and the younger of the two present,

Lord Hoppara, sat still. It was too hot even to fidget. The

elderly Lord Frasai reclined upon his cushion, now and

again nodding under his ceremonial helm, as if he fought

off sleep.

The five priests in attendance murmured, and tended their

censers, adding the reek of incense to the already stifling

atmosphere.

On the golden throne, weighed down beneath layers of

fine mantles, and the massive plumed crown of the Empire,

Ichindar looked too worn and thin for a man in his late

thirties. The day had been fraught with tense decisions,

and the session was not over. Once weekly, the Emperor

held a Day of Appeals, when, from dawn to sunset, he was

available to his people. He must sit in his chair of state, and

give judgments for as long as supplicants should appear,

until the hour of sundown, when the priests sang their

evening invocations. Once, when a Warlord had held office

over the Council, the Day of Appeals had been ceremonial.

Beggars, low priests, commoners with petty grievances these

had gathered to hear the wisdom of a ruler who

shared mystery with their gods. Ichindar often had napped

in his chair while the priests acted as his voice, dispensing

alms or advice as their gods allowed in righteousness.

Since then the nature of the Day of Appeals had changed.

The supplicants who came to beg audience were often

nobles, and many times enemies, seeking to weaken, extort,

or break the imperial rule over the Nations. Now, Ichindar

sat rigid on the golden throne and played the deadly Game

of the Council, in words, in judgments, in the knowledge

that the stakes were often his own supremacy. Sundown

always found him exhausted, and many days he could not

be trusted to recall the name of the consort selected that

week to share his bed.

Today he dared not bend his head more than a fraction,

lest the weight of his crown of state bow his neck. He flicked

fingernails dusted with gilt toward the woman who sat on

the white-and-gold cushion at his feet.

354 Mistress of the Empire

'Lady, you should not be here, but resting in the cool

gardens by the singing fountains.'

Heavily pregnant, and tired enough that her skin looked

transparent, Mara dredged up a smile. 'If you try to

command me, I'll spoil your image of authority by refusing

to leave.'

Ichindar muffled a chuckle behind one wing of his

pearl-crusted collar. 'You would, too, you insufferably

willful woman. When I named you Servant of the Empire,

I created a monster.'

Mara's smile vanished as she inclined her head toward

the floor below, where the next supplicant approached and

made his bow. Her eyes turned hard as precious metal, and

the hand on her lap fan clenched white.

Ichindar followed her glance, and muttered what might

have been a profanity under his breath. One of the priests

twitched around in annoyance, then quickly faced front

as the voice of the Emperor rang out through the domed

chamber of audience.

'Lord Jiro of the Anasati, know that you have the ear of

the gods through our ear. Heaven will hear your plea, and

we will answer. Rise. You have leave to speak.'

The slight snap to the consonants warned of Ichindar's

irritation. His hazel eyes were chilly as he watched the

Anasati Lord straighten up from his obeisance and stand

at the rail, his avid, scholar's gaze trained intently upon

the golden throne, and also the woman who sat before it,

at the Emperor's feet. Jiro bowed. Although he observed the

forms of courtesy, his graceful delivery somehow managed

to mock.

'The imperial dais holds company today,' he opened,

shifting to Mara. 'Good day, Lady of the Acoma, Servant

of the Empire.' His lips thinned in what a friend might have

construed for a smile. An enemy knew better.

Mara felt a chill chase across her skin. Never before

Revelation

355

had a pregnancy made her feel helpless; now, under Jiro's

predatory regard, she felt her clumsy heaviness, and that

unnerved her. Still, she did not lose control and allow herself

to be baited.

Ichindar's voice cracked across the interval that followed,

as Acoma Lady and Anasati Lord matched stares. Slender

and worn as the Emperor was, his authority was real, a

palpable air of force even in that enormous chamber. 'If

you have come to us as supplicant, Lord Jiro, you will not

waste our time in idle social that.'

Ever the smooth courtier, Jiro waved aside the reprimand

with a flash of gold; he wore metal rings, his one affectation

to flaunt his wealth. The rest of his attire was plain. 'But my

Sovereign,' he protested in gentle familiarity, 'I do come as

supplicant. And my reason, I must admit, is a social one.'

Mara resisted an urge to shift uneasily on her cushion.

What could Jiro have on his mind? His informal tone was

itself an insult to the Light of Heaven, but not one that could

be noted without setting shame upon Ichindar's dignity. To

react to Jiro's presumption was to give weight to him as a

man. No one who sat on a god's throne could acknowledge

so petty a slight.

The Light of Heaven maintained a frosty silence through

the minute that Jiro stood with his brows suggestively

raised. The subject under discussion would have to be

pursued by the Anasati, were it to continue.

Jiro tilted his head, as if he only then recalled his true

purpose. His face very subtly leered, and one eyelid drooped

suggestively toward a wink. 'I came because I have heard

many rumors concerning your daughter Jehilia's famed

beauty. I ask a boon, my Sovereign: that you share your

joy in her with your people. I ask to be presented to her.'

Mara reined back a burst of fury. Jehilia was but a girl,

barely ten, and not yet come into her womanhood. She

was not a woman of the Reed Life, to be gawked at by

356 Mistress of tl~e Empire

men who were not relatives! She was certainly too young

for courtship, or even for the suggestion that she should be

entertaining suitors. Jiro's subtleties were twisted and deep,

that he should come here and dare such a thought in public.

The ramifications were endless, not least the implied slight

to the Light of Heaven's manhood. Without sons, he must

secure the imperial line through his daughter's marriage, but

how presumptuous the Anasati Lord was to imply credence

to the gossip of the streets, that the Emperor would have

no son, and that the ninety-second crowned head of the

Nations would be the man who won Jehilia's hand.

But angry words could not be spoken; Mara clamped her

teeth, aware of Ichindar's advisers standing red-faced with

fury to the sides. Made sensitive to her own vulnerability,

she was mindful that the three priests on the pyramid dais

were affronted, but powerless to intervene. Lord Hoppara

had taken a stranglehold on the place at his sash where

a sword should hang, were weapons not forbidden in the

presence of his Emperor. As father of the girl, Ichindar sat

stone-still. The jewels on his mantle were frozen sparks, as

if he had restrained himself from breathing.    .

For a long, tense interval, nothing stirred in the grand

audience hall.

With unprecedented audacity, Jiro ventured a lazy-voiced

addendum to his petition. 'I have done some interesting

reading recently. You do know, my Sovereign, that before

your reign, seven imperial daughters were presented on

or before their tenth birthday. I can tell you names, if

you like.'

Mara knew this was a second slap against a man whose

office had once revolved around memorisation of his family

pedigree and other issues of religious context that had

nothing to do with rulership. Ichindar would know of

those seven girls, if not the mitigating circumstances of

history that had forced their public presentation before

Revelation

357

puberty. And his office was much more, now, than religious

ceremony alone.

The sun shone hot on the topaz and marble floors, and

the Imperial Guards stood like statues. Then, with icy

deliberation, Ichindar set his clenched fists on the arms

of the golden throne. Anger stiffened his face like a cameo

against the mantling weight of his collars. Yet his voice was

controlled to its usual regal pitch when he deigned to give

answes

'My Lord of the Anasati,' he said, precise consonants

echoing off the high dome overhead, 'it would please us

better to present to you our son, when the gods choose

to bless us with an heir. As to our daughter Jehilia, if the

Lord of the Anasati enjoys paying heed to the gossip of her

nurses, who boast that every infant they dote upon is blessed

with extraordinary beauty, then we grant permission for a

portrait to be made by one of the artists we patronise, and

to be sent to the Anasati estates. This is our will.'

The traditional phrase rang into silence. Ichindar was

not the figurehead his forebears had been but an Emperor

fighting to retain his authority. Mara sat back, limp with

relief; his handling of Jiro's aggression had been exemplary.

A portrait of a child! Ichindar had neatly taken the blade

out of the dilemma. But, sadly, the greater issue remained.

Jiro had dared to be first to voice the thought that

Jehilia would become a husband's path to the golden

throne. She would not remain a pretty royal child for

much longer, but would become a hotly contested prize

in the Great Game. Once a girl torn wholesale from

the Goddess Lashima's order into the throes of the

Empire's bloody politics, Mara felt her heart go out to

the child.

Ichindar's hold upon the reins of rulership would slip

on the day his eldest daughter married. Unless he could

conceive a male heir, the traditionalists would use Jehilia

358 Mistress of the Empire

as a powerful means to undermine him, especially if her

husband was a well-placed, powerful noble.

On the floor below, at the supplicants' rail, Jiro crossed

both arms over his breast in the time-honored imperial

salute. He bowed before the Emperor's honor guard, and

arose, smiling. 'I thank my Sovereign Lord. A portrait of

Jehilia to hang upon my chamber wall would be very

pleasing indeed.'

The dig was petty; Jiro had not quite dared to say

'bedchamber wall,' Mara noted with vindictiveness. But

that he had stooped to so mean a comment in public

hearing demonstrated his contempt for the man who sat

upon the golden throne. And Mara realised, with a stab

of intuition, that Jiro would not have been quite so vicious

had she not been present. The taunt to Ichindar had been

intended to goad her as well.

'I fear this day I have not been a benefit to you,' she

murmured as the great doors boomed closed behind the

Lord of the Anasati.

Ichindar started to reach out to her in sympathy, recalled

his formal audience, and restrained himself before an

adviser needed to step forth and intervene. 'My Lady,

you are wrong,' he murmured back. His hair clung to

his forehead, too damp with perspiration to be stirred by

the fan boys' efforts, and his fists had not loosened on his

throne arms. 'Had you not been present, strong as rock

at my feet, I surely would have lost my poise!' He ended

with a viciousness he had kept back from the enemy who

had angered him. 'It is a very unscrupulous man who will

stoop to attack through a father's love for his child.'

Mara said nothing. She had known many such unscrupulous

men. Her memory fumed poignantly to two murdered

children, a boy and a girl both under five years of age - the

children of the late Minwanabi Lord - who died as a direct

result of her actions. Her hand rested upon the mound of

Revelation

359

her belly, over the swell of her unborn child. She clenched

her teeth in resolve. She had lost a son, and another child

by Hokanu she had never had the chance to know. Again

she swore that the deaths of all of the young ones must not

be for nothing. She would die and the Acoma name be as

dust before the wrath of the Assembly of Magicians before

she let Jiro reinstate the Warlord's office, and bring back

the unconscionable bloody conflicts that had comprised the

Game of the Council in the name of honor.

Now that the first steps toward change had been taken,

she was determined not to give back old ground.

Her eyes and Ichindar's met, as if the thought had been

spoken aloud between them. Then the doors opened, and

the imperial herald announced the next supplicant.

It seemed a long time until sundown.

Hokanu stripped off his sweaty leather riding gloves.

'Where is she?' he demanded of the white-clad personage

that stood blocking the doorway.

But the immensely fat servant did not budge. His gleaming,

moon-round face went stiff with displeasure at the

Shinzawai Lord's poor etiquette, in showing such unseemly

haste. The imperial hadonra was a man attentive to nuance,

and he ran the vast complex of the Emperor's private

apartments in the palace with unflinching, cold-hearted

proficiency. Moths did not infest the imperial closets, the

servants went about their duties like oiled clockwork, and

anxious husbands did not disrupt the hadonra's morning

round of inspection with commands better suited to the

battlefield.

Fixed squarely in the vestibule's entryway, the huge man

folded meaty forearms. 'You may not pass at this time,

my Lord.'

Hokanu restrained himself from a pointed comment.

'My wife, I was told, went into labor two days ago. I have

360 Mistress of the Empire

been riding on horseback at speed from my estates beyond

Silmani since then, and have not slept. I will know if my

wife is safe and well, and whether my heir was born whole,

if you will kindly let me pass through to her apartment.'

The imperial hadonra curled his lip. The redolence of the

barbaric creatures that permeated Hokanu's presence was

an offence. No matter how powerful the Lord, no matter

that he was a staunch supporter of the Light of Heaven, he

stank of his horseflesh, and he should have bathed before

making an appearance in these hallways. 'You may not

pass,' said the servant, unperturbed. 'The Emperor has

commanded a performance of sobatu for this morning.' He

referred to a form of classic opera, in the grand high style,

of which only ten had been-composed. Then, as if Hokanu

were not educated, and the son of a preeminent house,

the servant added, 'The Imperial Shalotobaku Troupe are

using the chambers beyond for their dressing, and as I

need not remind you, none may lay eyes upon them but

the Emperor's immediate family.'

Hokanu bit back his irritation. Too hurried and too proud

to argue over nuances of genealogy with a servant when he

had yet to know the status of his family, he held himself

rigid lest he reach out of rage for his sword and resort to

threats. 'Then, good and faithful servant, you will do your

duty by the Emperor's players and show me another way

around the wing that they are using.'

The hadonra dug in his toes, and jerked his larded chin

up another notch. 'I may not leave, my Lord. It is my duty

to watch this doorway, and see that no one passes who is

not of the royal blood.'

The comment was more than an anxious father's patience

could stand. Hokanu bowed at the waist as if in accord

with the hadonra's pompous adherence to etiquette. Then,

without warning, he charged forward. His leanly muscled

shoulder drove hard into the fat servant's belly. There was

an explosion of air, and a grunt. Then the imperial hadonra

folded like a fish and dropped, deprived of wind to give

voice to his outrage.

Hokanu was beyond hearing in any case, having broken

into a run the instant he gained access to the vestibule.

Two nights and a day spent on horseback had not stiffened

him to the point where he could not command his body.

He dashed through a bustle of men in bright costumes,

some wearing the provocative robes of courtesans, and all

without exception painted with layers of gaudy makeup. He

leaped over the humped back of a saganjan, the beast out of

legend that past Tsurani heroes fought; the masked head

turned to watch him go, while an inattentive midsection

was jerked into an ungainly trip. The player dressed as

the forelimbs twisted to stop disaster, while the belly

section behind him stepped in the opposite direction. The

concoction staggered, and a moment later the whole length

went down in a muddle of kicking legs, and curses muMed

under scales sewn of fabric and leather.

Unmindful that he had downed a dragon, Hokanu forged

ahead, through a gaggle of girl vocalists wearing little but

feathers. Plumage unmoored by his passage drifted in

flurries in his wake. He ducked a wooden swnr~d tied with

streamers, and sidestepped a lacquer-masked karagabuge,

which reached out dwarf hands and tried to trip him.

He cursed, and avoided stepping upon what looked like

one of the imperial daughters, sucking her knuckles, and

staring at the surrounding panoply with huge, three-yearold

eyes. She spotted Hokanu, remembered him for the

man who had amused her with stories of monsters, and

obligingly shouted his name.

Some mornings, Hokanu concluded, the God of Tricks

had a man's measure, and no act of appeasement could

bring respite, one bad moment leading to the next without

letup. He was going to have to pay a stiff fee to compensate

362 Mistress of the Empire

the honor of the imperial hadonra; not to mention whatever

extortionate worth could be set upon the bruised dignity of

a saganjan. He was red from embarrassment, and stinking

of sweat as well as horse, by the time he left the chaos of

the opera troupe behind and gained access to the corridor

that led to his Lady's quarters within the Imperial Palace.

Outside the ornately carved screen that led to the

women's chambers he met Misa, Mara's personal maid.

Unable to contain his anxiety, he blurted, 'How is she?'

The maid gave him back a brilliant smile. 'Oh, my Lord!

You will be proud. They are both doing well, and she is

beautiful.'

'Of course she is beautiful,' Hokanu said, stupid with

relief and loosened nerves. 'I married her, didn't I?'

And he never thought to pause or question Misa's

explosion of giggles as he hurried on, into a chamber

filled with sunlight and breeze, and with the gentle song

of a fountain in the gardens outside. There he felt his

unwashed state most sorely, as he skidded to a stop on

the waxed floor in the longed-for presence of his wife.

She sat on embroidered cushions, her newly slender body

robed loosely in white. Her hair was unbound, her head

bent, and a smile of rapture curved her lips as she raised

her face and saw her husband restored to her. And yes,

another white-wrapped bundle kicked in her arms, with

dark eyes like hers, and rosebud lips, and swaddling ties of

Shinzawai blue: his own blood heir by the Lady he loved.

'My Lord,' said Mara in delight. 'Welcome back. Let me

present to you your daughter and your heir, whom I would

call Kasuma after your brother.'

Hokanu's excited step forward checked in mid-stride.

'Kasuma,' he said, sharper than he intended, but surprise

made him clumsy. 'But that's a girl's-' He stumbled to a

stop, comprehending. 'A girl?'

Mara nodded, her eyes dancing with happiness. 'Here.'

Revelation

363

She raised the little bundle, which made a sound of

contentment. 'Take her, and let her know her father.'

Stunned, he stared unmoving at the infant. 'A daughter.'

The words would not sink in. He could only stand in mute

shock, caught in outrage that the gods should be so cruel,

that Mara be allowed only one child, and that he should

be deprived of the son he needed to continue the greatness

of his house.

Mara saw his confusion, and her smile died. The babe

in her arms waved in abandon, making her difficult to

support in an extended position; yet still Hokanu made

no move to accept her warm weight in his arms. 'What's

wrong?' Mara asked, distress creeping into her voice. She

was still weary from childbirth, and unable to fully master

her poise. 'Do you think she is ugly? Her face will be less

red and wrinkled in a few more days.'

Helpless, cut by his wife's growing distress, and by his

own hard knot of rage that fate should be so unkind,

Hokanu shook his head. 'She is not ugly, my beloved Lady.

I have seen newborns before.'

Still holding the baby out toward the father, Mara

stiffened with the beginnings of outrage. Baffled by her

husband's distance, she flared, 'Then this one displeases

you, my Lord?'

'Oh, gods,' Hokanu burst out, annoyed with himself

for losing all vestige of tact, but unable to rein back his

disappointment. 'She is very lovely, Mara, but I wish she

could have been a son! I need a strong heir so very badly.'

Now Mara's eyes flashed hurt, which slowly turned to

anger. She withdrew her upraised arms, clutched little

Kasuma to her breast, and stiffened in regal affront.

Coldly she asked, 'Do you imply that a woman cannot

assume the mantle of a great house, and make the name of

her ancestors prosper? Do you think House Acoma could

have been led to greater glories by a man? How dare

364 Mistress of the Empire

you, Hokanu! How dare you presume that our daughter

should become any less than I have! She is not deformed

or stupid! She will have our guidance in her upbringing!

She will embody Shinzawai honor, no less, and she does

not need to be any swaggering boy child to find her way

to the greatness that is her destiny!'

Hokanu raised opened hands. He sat down heavily on a

handy cushion, confused, tired, and heartsick with disappointment

that he lacked the ability to convey. He wanted

what he had lost in Ayaki and Justin: the comradeship of

showing a boy the warrior's path and a ruler's perceptions

and guile. He needed the heart bond he had lost with his

brother, gone to the barbarian world; and the man's love

he had known for his father, lately departed to Turakamu's

halls. He could never have back those ties to family, but he

had yearned to pass on their heritage after him to a son.

'You don't understand,' he said softly.

'What don't I understand!' Mara cried back. She was

very near to weeping. 'Here is your daughter, from my

body. What more do you need in an heir?'

'there,' said Hokanu. 'Mare, please, I have been thoughtless.

Of course I can love Kasuma.' He responded to the hurt

behind his wife's anger and reached out in comfort.

'Don't touch me!' Mara burst out, flinching away. 'Touch

your little girl, and bid her welcome.'

Hokanu shut his eyes. Inwardly he berated himself that

his normally sharp perception should have deserted him in

this most critical of moments. Better the saganjan had fallen

on him, or the imperial hadonra had prevailed, than to have

burst into Mara's chambers and made such a botch of his

greeting. He reached out, gathered the swaddled infant

from his wife's stiff arms, and cradled her. His heart did

warm to Kasuma's energetic thrashing. The little pink lips

puckered, and the eyes opened to show him bright jet jewels

in a wrinkled red face. She was delightful, and beautiful, and

..~

;

.

_ _

Revelation

36S

indeed his heir; but she could not reverse his disappointment

that she had not been born a boy.

Hokanu considered his alternatives, since Mara could

have no more issue. He could take a mistress, or a courtesan,

and get a son for the Shinzawai. But the thought of another

woman in his bed made him ache in fierce rejection. No,

he did not wish to have women about for breeding. Most

Lords would not blink at that choice, but Hokanu found

the thought repugnant.

He looked up to find Mara weeping. 'My wife,' he said

softly, 'you have given me a perfect child. I had no right

to be clumsy and spoil what should have been a joyous

moment.'

Mara choked back a sob. After weeks in the Imperial

Palace, attending the Emperor's councils, and standing as

his right-hand adviser, she was aware of the factions that

sought to undermine the authority of the golden throne.

She felt the tides of politics churning to upset new change,

and to bring back the older, bloodier order of the Warlord's

office. Like a blade against her neck, she sensed how near

the Nations were to outright civil conflict. Now more than

at any other time, they needed to present a solid front to

the factions that favored traditionalist rule. ~

'Kasuma is part of the new order,' she said to Hokanu.

'She must carry the torch after us, and she will have Justin

as her brother. She will lead armies, if she must, just as

he will strive to maintain peace without force of arms that

will be needful to build a better future.'

Hokanu shared that dream. 'I know that, beloved.

I agree.'

But he could not entirely shut off his grief, and his

disappointment that his dreams would not be shaped by

a boy who could share his love of rough sports.

Mara sensed the half-truth behind his tone. She hardened,

visibly, as she took her child back, her hands stroking the

366 Mistress of the Empire

blanket that covered little Kasuma. The fact that Hokanu

could not embrace the concept of his firstborn as heir was

not a thing she could readily forgive, unaware as she was

that the priest of Hantukama had imparted the fact that

she would have no other children.

That bit of information Hokanu kept to himself, although

he knew that to break his silence would bring Mara's

immediate understanding. Looking at her, realising that

her cheeks were hollow, and her face aged with worry after

her stay within the Imperial Palace, he decided that the

slight estrangement in their relationship would repair itself,

over time; but the grief that knowledge of her barrenness

would impart might never leave her, life long. Let her cling

to hope, he decided, his gaze upon her and his newborn

daughter grown fond, but distant. 'We will all manage,'

he mused, unaware he was thinking aloud. Then, mindful

of the Great One Fumita's warning, he added, 'Thank the

gods, though, that the Shinzawai have no cause against Jiro

of the Anasati. That would make a complication that none

of us could afford.'

Mara was looking at him strangely. Her preoccupation

with her infant was eclipsed by an unpleasant recollection,

Hokanu saw as he looked across the sunny chamber, and

fully interpreted her expression. 'What is it, my love?'

he asked.

Her former hurt was not forgotten, but only placed in

abeyance, for she answered sharply. 'ill news. Arakasi

completed his mission against the Obajan of the Hamoi

Tong, and he brought that.'

She inclined toward the journal that lay upon a side

table. Hokanu moved to inspect it. The writing was in a

heavy black hand, and the words appeared to be in cipher.

Hokanu was on the point of inquiring where the journal

had come from, and what was its significance, when he

noticed the water mark on the parchment that showed in

Revelation

.

_ _

367

slight relief where the sunlight struck it. The configuration

of the pattern shaped the flower of the Hamoi Tong, and

the scroll, with its ugly inked lines, could only be the record

roll of purchased assassinations.

Aware still, and piercingly, of his wife's gaze upon him,

the Lord of the Shinzawai said, 'What is it?'

Mara took a deep breath. 'Beloved, I am sorry. Your

father had enemies, many of them. His death was not due

to old age, or natural causes, but to an obscure poison

delivered by a needle dart while he slept. Your father's

death was executed by a tong assassin, paid for by Jiro

of the Anasati.'

Hokanu's expression went wooden, the flesh over his

skull taut as a drumhead with shock. 'No,' he murmured

in disbelief, yet aware of the truth of Mara's statement. He

considered Fumita's warning at the funeral in a fresh light,

and knew that his blood father, a magician, had somehow

known of the tong's intervention in the natural order.

Grief pierced him afresh, that Kamatsu's days had been

shortened, that a wise and perceptive old man had been

stolen away from his last days under sunlight.

It was outrage! An insult to honor! A Kanazawai Lord

had been sent prematurely to the halls of the Red God,

and warning or not, Assembly or not, Jiro of the Anasati

must answer for the offence. Family honor and clan honor

demanded a death to right the balance.

'Where is Arakasi?'Hokanu said harshly. 'I would speak

to him.'

Mara shook her head sadly. 'He delivered the scroll and

broke the cipher, so that we could read its secrets. Then he

requested a leave from duty, a matter of personal honor.'

Mara did not mention the sum of money he had requested

of her, or that the reason involved a young woman. 'His

coup against the Obajan was a brave and risky deed. He did

well to survive. I granted his request.' She frowned slightly,

368

Mistress of the Empire

recalling the interview, and her thought then that he would

never have asked her a boon at so precarious a time had

the confusion in his heart not been compelling. 'He will

report back to us when he can,' Mara concluded. None

had been more aware than the Spy Master of the explosive

potential of the contents of the tong's record scroll. More

than Kamatsu's death had been listed; and there were other

assassinations as yet incomplete on the rolls, alongside the

monetary payments made by the Lords who wished rivals

or enemies dead.

Assassination in any form was a dishonor, both to the

victim and, if the truth were found out, to the family who

paid for the deed. The scroll recovered by Arakasi

contained enough sensitive information to plunge the

Empire into a chaos of feuding families, all vengeance

bent, as Hokanu was.

But that Kamatsu should have died by an assassin's dart

was an outrage she could not let pass. Her words were

hard as barbarian iron as she said, 'My husband, we have

no choice. A way must be found to evade the Assembly's

edict and bring down Lord Jiro of the Anasati.'

'For Ayaki's sake also,' Hokanu broke in. Never would

he forget the sight of the boy's dying, with the huge black

gelding broken with him.

'No.' Mara's word held gentle regret. 'For Ayaki we have

already paid.' And, tears in her eyes, she told Hokanu of

the Obajan's personal feud with House Acoma, brought

about by a forgery of Arakasi's that had caused five

Minwanabi servants to be put to death, to end a past

threat of enemy spying. 'The tong took offense at the

Acoma,' she finished. 'It acted on its own initiative to

end my line, operating beyond the scope of the contract

agreed to with Tasaio of the Minwanabi.' Her last sentence

came bitterly. 'They failed. The Obajan is dead, fittingly, by

Arakasi's own hand.'

Revelation

369

Hokanu stared at her, hard as flint with her motherhood

forgotten in the face of dark thoughts and bloody politics.

Kasuma fretted at the lack of attention, her face screwed up

in the beginnings of a loud cry. 'My wife,' he said, saddened,

and angered, and frustrated by the injustices of life, 'let us

go home.'

His heart went out to her as her eyes turned to him, liquid

with unshed tears. 'Yes,' she said. 'Let us go home.'

But it was not of the beautiful lakeside estate that she

thought as she said the word, but of the wide pastureland

estate where she had grown from childhood. Suddenly,

strongly, irresistibly, she wished to return to the lands

of her family. She wanted familiar surroundings, and the

memories of her own father's love, and a time before she

had first tasted the heady wine of power and rule. Maybe

on the land of her birth she could come to terms with the

heartache and her fears for the futures of both House

Acoma and House Shinzawai.

,

15

Secrets

Mara sighed.

Hot, tired and discouraged after her journey to the

original Acoma estates, she found relief from the noon

sun in the cho-ja tunnels, a nearly forgotten haven. Her

marriage to Hokanu and the close-knit rapport shared

between them had come to replace her need for such

solace. But before that, in her early years as Ruling Lady,

the spice-scented dimness of the underground passageways,

with their scurrying workers, had provided a sense of

protection when seemingly insurmountable dangers had

oppressed her on all sides.

Yet her perils then had been from the plots of human

foes. Overwhelming as her straits had seemed, unpleasant

as her first marriage to an Anasati son had been at the

time, she could not have imagined the trials that would

beset her this day. Physical abuses had been replaced by

wounds of the spirit, a betrayal by the only man who truly

understood her heart. Whatever underhanded injury Jiro of

the Anasati might contrive in the future, her true enemies

were the magicians, who might on a whim annihilate the

Acoma name, even to memory of its existence. And it was

their edicts that sheltered Jiro as he plotted.

Kamatsu's murder had left a hard knot of rage in

Mara's chest. Fears that must never be spoken of for

Tsurani and house pride caused a constant grinding of

teeth. Mara had felt this way before as she faced enemies,

but never over so long a period, and never for stakes so

high. All that she loved was in jeopardy. Since Ayaki's

loss, stress had become familiar to the point where she

had forgotten what it was to sleep and dream without

nightmares.

The subterranean dimness shielded her. Isolated within

her own silence, but not alone, she relaxed as her litter

moved deeper into the familiar tunnels of the hive. Her

bearers jostled past the bustling cho-ja, surrounded by

the high-pitched commands of soldiers, and the clashing

ring of chitinous forearms as patrol leaders slapped their

midsection in salute to her retinue. Knowing her surcease

was only temporary, Mara surrendered to the illusion of

relief. For a space, she felt restored to past days when her

responsibilities and her heartaches had been few. Her inner

barriers loosened and moisture gathered in her eyes. She

bit her lip, but did not blot away her tears. In the cho-ja

hive, scantily lit by the violet-blue glow of light globes, her

weakness would pass unnoticed. The worry, the frustration,

the daily ache of her helplessness to redress the wrongs

done her family by the Anasati, combined to oppress her.

She could deny her emotions no longer. The death of two

children, the break in rapport with her husband and closest

confidant, threatened to overwhelm her.

The years when Mara had grown in confidence and ability

to control any situation seemed empty. Her' emergence

to dominance in the time-honored Game of the Council

became a false achievement, the edict of the Assembly at a

stroke preventing the established ways of avenging wrongs

against honor. Politics and intrigues had taken a turn down

nontraditional paths. The advantage that Mara had always

enjoyed, a willingness to break with convention, was now

lost to her, as every Ruling Lord in the Empire scrambled

to contrive new means to dominate ancient rivals.

The old ways had all been upset.

Even the destruction of the Hamoi Tong, and the dear

knowledge of where Jiro's true culpability lay, brought little

relief. For although one menace to the Acoma had been

372 Mistress of the Empire

ended, the Great Ones yet prevented her from avenging a

deep insult to honor.

Mara's return trip by river barge to the homelands of

her ancestors had been a stopgap effort to set hurt and

confusion at bay because, in truth, she had no sane place

to seek solutions to the dilemmas that beset her.

Mara dosed her eyes, rocked by the slight sway as her

bearers wended their way downward into the tunnels. The

air here was warmer, thick with the alien scents of the

hive. Light globes were spaced at wider intervals, and

the throngs of scurrying workers thinned. The tramp of

humans' sandals became more prevalent than the click of

chitinous claws. Mara knew her retinue must be nearing

the Queen's cavern. But the route was no longer entirely

familiar. Since, her last visit, walls and arches that had been

roughly hewn were now polished smooth, or carved and

overhung with richly dyed hangings. If the arrangement of

colors and tassels was unusual to human eyes, the effect

was prosperous. The differences here seemed strangely at

odds with impressions like untouched memory. But for the

silver hair beginning to show at her temples, Mara might

have been revisiting her girlhood. The house where she

had played as a child, where she had first married and

given birth, and acquired her taste for power, had initially

appeared the same - until she remembered with a hollow

stab to her stomach that silence ruled where once a young

son had run roistering through the corridors.

She had felt a pang of loneliness. Ayaki was not the only

loved one lost to her. The all too familiar surroundings

brought heartache along with solace. By the gods, how she

longed to see Nacoya, her onetime nurse and First Adviser,

whose scolding and sage advice had more often than not

averted disaster. Another trail of tears seeped from Mara's

eyes as she thought of her red-haired barbarian, Kevin

of Zun, who had taught her the meaning of love and

Secrets

373

womanhood in the kekali gardens here. Although Kevin

had often infuriated her with his headstrong, mannerless

ways, and Nacoya's fussy proprieties had sometimes been

a hindrance, she missed them both. The understanding she

had shared with Hokanu, which had grown to replace those

lost relationships, had seemed a bastion of infallibility, until

now. A shadow lay between them since his misgivings

over the birth of his daughter. Still angry with him, Mara

rubbed her cheeks on her fine silk cuffs. The fabric would

water-stain, but she did not care! It-had taken the near

obliteration of her line to make Hokanu see her need to

name Justin as Acoma heir. That she had needed to suffer

the loss of their firstborn infant to convince him had caused

less pain than this!

Now Hokanu's incomprehensible reluctance to accept

Kasuma as Shinzawai firstborn was building another wall

between them. A son, and only a son, would satisfy him, so

it seemed. As if she could not bear a boy child in the future,

Mara raged bitterly; or as if he were not free to exercise

his right as Ruling Lord to lie with a dozen concubines to

give him issue. No, the message behind his behavior was

hurtfully clear: what he could accept in his wife he found

unimaginable in a daughter, that a woman could be worthy

of ruling a great house. ~ ~

As she had so many times in the past when disheartened

by despair, Mara had entered the cho-ja tunnels seeking an

alien perspective, a different point of view that could give

rise to new ideas.

A light touch roused Mara from reminiscence; Lujan

nodded ahead, reminding that her retinue had reached the

chamber of the Queen.

As her litter was borne through the final arch, with its

squatting rows of sentries so still they might have been

polished black statues, Mara composed herself. Entering

the huge cavern, she used an old, silent meditation chant

374 Mistress of the Empire

to shed her smoldering resentment. when at last her bearers

lowered her town before the grand dais, she had recovered

her proper decorum.

The cho-ja Queen dominated the chamber, her bulk

supported by a massive pedestal of earth. Mara remembered

how tiny the Queen had been when they had first met, far

away in the hive where she had been hatched. The delicate

creature had matured, coming to her full growth within the

first year of her accoutrement at the Acoma estate. Now she

bulked many times the size of her attendants, dwarfing even

the largest of her warriors, with just her upper torso and

head retaining their original size. Workers scurried around

her mammoth body, keeping her dean and comfortable, as

she produced the eggs that provided the different classes

of cho-ja: warriors, workers specialised in any of a dozen

different crafts, and, should the hive became prosperous to

the point of overcrowding, a new queen.

Mara gave a bow of the head, as was proper between

equals.

'Greetings, Lady of the Acoma, Servant of the Empire,'

said the Queen, her high-pitched tones dear over the bustle

of workers in the gallery.

'Honors to your hive, Queen,' answered Mara as Lujan

provided a hand to guide her to the cushions waiting for

her. The rapidity of cho-ja communication was still a

mystery to Mara; somehow the Queen always seemed

to know in advance of her arrival, and as much could

be determined, the hive ruler seemed to enjoy these visits.

Mara had ceased trying to understand the cho-ja in human

terms; living with an outworld barbarian had taught her

that persistently seeing through Tsurani eyes kept her blind

to refreshing insights.

~while Lujan oversaw the placement and disposition

of her honor guard, her servants laid out sweets and

Midkemian tea for her refreshment, and also to share

Secrets

375

with cho-ja factors. Against Jican's pessimistic predictions

after the poisoning by the false Midkemian trader, Mara

had developed a fondness for the pungent drink. Never one

to waste an opportunity, she had overcome her personal

misfortune and had cornered the market in tea, coffee, and

chocolate.

Once the banalities of tea-tasting and trade were concluded,

the Queen tilted her head in what Mara had come

to interpret as inquiry. 'What cause brings you to us, Lady

Mara? The delicacies you have brought as samples could

as easily have been sent by runner.'

Mara floundered for a reply. Her hesitation was unusual

enough that Lujan broke his warrior's formality to glance

askance to ascertain nothing was amiss. Made aware by

his lapse that her quiet might be misinterpreted as duplicity,

Mara chose honesty, though she risked appearing foolish.

'I had no set purpose, beyond a need for your wisdom.'

The Queen was silent. Around her, the attendants scurried

on about their tasks. The guard warriors remained

squatting in immobility, but Mara knew how swiftly they

could move upon command. Uneasy lest she transgress

some alien point of etiquette, she resisted an impulse to

follow up with excuses. If she should cause `,offense, and

then show weakness before cho-ja strength, she might never

escape these tunnels alive.

As though the Queen sensed her guest's discomfort, she

said, 'Many of your concepts are unknowable to us, Lady

of the Acoma. This you name "wisdom" is such a thing.

Your human tonalities indicate an idea handed down from

a past generation to a mind of less life experience. Forgive

me, I do not wish to imply that our kind are in any way

superior to yours, but our consciousness is not isolated. The

hive mind we share by your terms would span millennia. To

us your perspective is fleeting, tied as it is to the duration

of one human life. Insomuch as we cho-ja can share a

376 Mistress of the Empfre

thing outside our understanding, we shall seek to give

our aid.'

Here the Queen folded her tiny, vestigial forelimbs, to

indicate patience and an attitude of waiting.

Mara stared unseeing into the dregs of her tea. She was

aware that a cho-ja's individuality was never separated

from the hive mind; personal autonomy played no part

in their culture, and only centuries of interaction between

species had allowed the insectoids to conceptualise any

sense of a human identity apart and alone from the

whole. Individuality, to hive thought, held puzzling and

conflicting ironies. The concept of foolishness, of someone

acting against his own best interests or those of his family,

seemed an insanity of irredeemable proportions to cho-ja

perspective. And without foolishness, Mara thought wryly,

the process of human learning could hold no meaning; the

abstract term 'wisdom' became too ephemeral for the hive

mind to grasp.

Mara frowned, and tried afresh. 'In my brief experience,

your counsel and that of other humans has taught me I live

in a small world. Until recently, I thought I had some control

over that world.' She need not repeat Ayaki's fate; nor any

other event. word of the Assembly's intervention between

herself and the Anasati had spread to the most remote

province of the Nations, and although the cho-ja might

not understand all the nuances of human affairs, they held

an astute recollection of events.

Perhaps the hive mind sensed that the interdiction of

the Assembly lay at the root of Mara's inquiries; certainly

something warned them off. While the Queen customarily

sat massive and unmoving, for the first time in Mara's

experience the attendants around her went from frenetic

motion to utter stillness. All activity in that vast hall ceased,

though no apparent order called for silence.

Mara's uneasiness coalesced into fear.

Secrets

377

The Queen had long ago revealed that cho-ja alliances

were sold as commodities. Mara had paid lavish sums for

the loyalty of the hives on both her estates. She shivered

at the thought that the Great Ones' influence might extend

even here, and that in words or inference she might call

down their chastisement. A spell-wrought earthquake even

a fraction as violent as the one that had shaken the Holy

City when the Black Robe Milamber had unleashed his

might would utterly devastate these tunnels. Arches and

vaults would crumble into dust, and tons of black earth

would fall . . . Aware how her hands trembled, Mara thrust

them into her sleeves. She must not think! Only act. And

in truth, the Queen had not spoken to indicate which way

hive allegiance might lie.

All that could be done was wait.

The silence became eerie in its intensity. In time, Mara's

hyperextended senses detected a faint buzzing, high-pitched

as the beat of insect wings. She wondered whether this

sound might signal some sort of wide-ranging communication,

then decided it indeed must, since the Queen spoke

with the authority of one who had reached a decision.

'Mare of the Acoma, you made a point which, if I venture

to presume, your kind might call wise. You observed that

you live in a small world. You would do well to. redefine

the boundaries of that world, and look to other worlds that

coexist with your own.'

Mara chewed her lip, thinking fast. Behind the stilted,

careful etiquette of the cho-ja Queen's phrasing she sensed

reluctance. Alert for hidden opportunity, Mara pressed

for more information. 'What sort of worlds should I

examine?'

The workers remained frozen in postures of repose as

the Queen said, 'This world of Kelewan, firstly. You have

visited with us often, something no noble of your people

has ever done. Even at the dawn of the Nations, when our

378 Mistress of the Empire

two races forged the treaty that still binds, no Tsurani Lord

tried this.'

Mara raised her eyebrows. No scrolls of history she had

seen ever mentioned any formal agreement between cho-ja

and human. Relations between Tsurani and cho-ja were

dictated by tradition, she had assumed, as were all other

facets of her life and culture. And yet the Nations extended

back into antiquity; as the Queen so tactfully reminded,

human memory was brief. 'I have never heard of this treaty

you speak of. Could you tell me more?'

The Queen's massive bulk held so motionless, she might

have been a monument in black lacquer. 'That is forbidden.'

Astonished, Mara forgot the unearthly quiet and the

frozen attitudes of the breeding workers. Her words echoed

as she blurted, 'Forbidden? By whom?'

'That is forbidden.'

Shocked back to caution by the Queen's whipcradc:

inflection, Mara analysed. If she had been rude, she hat

not yet been ordered from the royal chamber. Though

Lujan's hands had whitened in alarm on his spear heft,

the warriors of the Queen stayed crouched at rest. Pressed

by curiosity and need to aggressive risks, Mara chanced that

the Queen's reticence might stem from some outside source.

As best she had determined, the cho-ja had no religion, no

devotion to or belief in gods and forces beyond an earthly

nature. If the prohibition were not from heaven, what

remained? Tradition? Mara rejected that idea; the cho-ja

were mercenary in their interactions, by human standards.

Their consistency was due more to hive consensus than

to habit. A covenant of secrecy seemed unlikely, since the hive

consciousness disallowed the very concept: privacy was

only possible between individual minds.

Choosing her way carefully, Mara ventured, 'What of the

cho-ja, my Queen? What is the history of your race?'

Sccrcts

379

The Queen clicked her front claws in response to

some unknowable impulse. Except for the fact that her

attendants stayed lodged in place, her tone might have

been conversational. 'We come from the Beginning, like

any race, growing and gaining knowledge. There was a

time, ages gone, when we lived simply. We were one of

many intelligences that sought our place on a rich world

and who strove at the time that man first came-'

'The Golden Bridge?' Mara interjected, trying to tie into

what she knew of her own people's origins.

'So our history tells us,' said the Queen. 'Cho-ja eyes did

not witness the arrival, but one day there were no men, and

the next day a nation of refugees was encamped upon the

shore near the place you name the City of the Plains.'

Barely able to hide excitement, Mara asked, 'You have

tales from before the Golden Bridge?'

'Tales?' The Queen twitched a forelimb, as if in deprecation. '

Your word translates to imply exaggeration, or

embellishment based upon imperfect recollection. Please

take no injury at my bluntness, but our kind need not

dramatise for posterity. We remember.'

Mara felt her heart race. 'Do you tell me that you have

that record in the hive mind?' she said, probing carefully

because she sensed something momentous was at issue here.

'Or that you actually have recall, as if you saw with your

ancestors' eyes?'

'We are of one mind, and one people.' At no discernible

signal from the Queen, the breeding attendants surged back

to their customary frenetic industry. 'What is experienced

by one is shared by all, save when one dies in isolation, far

from others.'

Relieved to be restored to a less sensitive subject, Mara

considered the implications. She had long known that

messages seemed to reach other hives with unbelievable

speed; but in her wildest imaginings, she had not conceived

380

Mistress of the Empire

that such communication might be simultaneous. 'You can

. . . speak with the voice of one who was there . . . ?' Ha

mind fought to encompass the immensity of a consciousness

that held complete recall of the past.

The Queen clicked her mandibles, amused. 'We were

there, Mara. As you humans might frame the concept,

I was there ... not this body, of course, or this mind;

but ... we were there. What my forebears saw I know

as they knew.'

Mara signaled a servant to fill her teacup, forgetting that

the water by now was cold. Lujan suppressed a grin at her

absorption. While not so nimble of wit as his mistress, he

had watched her turn obscure knowledge into advantage

in the political arena too many times to discount her

fancies as wim. As no man's fool, he,-too, could imagine

the profound impact of the Queen's revelation. Whatever

one cho-ja saw was remembered by all cho-ja, obviously

over centuries. Intrigued, he observed as Mara turned the

discussion once more onto sensitive ground.

'What of the cho-ja, since the coming of man?'

The attendants kept up their ministrations as the Queen

said, 'We were first among many, though not so numerous

as now. We were forced to contest with other races, the

Thun, the Nummongnum, the Cha-desh, the Sunn.' Of

those names, Mara knew only the Thun. She resisted the

temptation to sidetrack in pursuit of details. If she survived

to find means to secure her safety from the magicians, she

would have years and leisure to pursue her fascination. ~

As if the Queen sensed her guest's bent, or perhaps

from other, more sensitive reasons, the facts she revealed

remained general. 'Our warriors are bred to protect; cho ja

is never set against cho-ja, save in times of starvation when

one hive may contest with another so that only the most

vigorous line will continue. A hive challenge for survival

is performed without hatred; killing is not our preferred

nature. But against other races we made war, for they have

a different sense of their place in the worlds. Much hive

life perished needlessly, for beings came among us who

were terrible beyond intelligent law, who slew for more

than food or protection. They make war for the love of

slaughter, it seems to us then and now. They seize land

they do not need, and start battles to award themselves an

essence of thought we cannot comprehend, called honor.'

The blood drained from Mara's face. 'Tsurani.'

'Humans,' the Queen amended in gentle sadness. 'You

we see as different, Lady Mara, but the hive mind knows

well: no other race upon this world you call Kelewan

could match your people for viciousness. For men will

fight without reason. As your Empire grew over the years,

we cho-ja strove to see all issues between us resolved, yet

again and again humans would come, seeking this dining

or that, this right or that. And when we refused to grant

unreasonable terms, bloodshed would follow. Many times

we quit the contest, thinking the issue settled, only to be

assaulted yet again for reasons that had no logic. In the

end, we yielded.'

Mara tapped her fingers on her cup, watching ripples

flick across her chilled drink. 'You were forced to treaty?'

The chamber's occupants snapped to total stillness, and

the Queen's ringing tone went icy. 'That is forbidden.'

Mara's eyes widened. 'You are forbidden to speak

by us?'

'That is forbidden.'

Now convinced she had not offended, but that the Queen

must be bound by some term the cho-ja could not or had

sworn not to violate, Mara let her thoughts leap ahead.

'Who holds the power to silence you - the Assembly? The

Emperor?'

'That is forbidden.'

Mara unclenched her aching hand before she broke

382 Mistress of the Empire

the fine porcelain cup. 'Forgive my curiosity. I-shall seek

that answer elsewhere.' Trembling in apprehension and

frustration, Mara tried a new thrust. 'What other worlds

should I know?'

The tension in the chamber did not relent. Mara held her ;

breath while the Queen kept silent, the subliminal buzzing

again ringing down the tunnels. Eventually she clicked her

mandibles and spoke. 'There are but two things I may tell

you without violating my trust. First, there are those who,

for their own purpose, seek to oppose you, against whom

you must find protection. Hear well, for we know: there

will come a day when you must defend your Acoma against

powers considered supreme.'

Mara released a pent-breath, her stomach suddenly

queasy. She set down her teacup before her fingers, nerveless,

dropped it. The only powers considered supreme in

Tsuranuanni were the will of heaven, and the Assembly of

Magicians. Since cho-ja adhered to no religion, the Queen's

reference could not be more fearfully plain. The Acoma

must prevail against the Great Ones!

While Mara struggled to stay poised, the Queen continued, '

Perhaps, Lady, you might ask yourself: if other

worlds exist, where are they?'

Mara struggled to reason past unknowable dangers that

loomed deep as an abyss before her. 'Do you mean

Midkemia beyond the rift?'

'You may cross there through the portal fashioned by the

Great Ones, but where is Midkemia within the cosmos?'

Mara straightened in astonishment. The last word was

one she did not understand. Every Tsurani meaning that she j

knew of translated to mean 'arch of the sky,' or 'star field.'

Did the cho-ja Queen imply that Midkemia was placed in

the sky with the gods? But the concept was absurd, even

laughable! Yet Mara had learned better than to make light

of the beliefs of other cultures. A long-past war in the deserts

Secrets

383

of Tsubar had taught her so, as well as many a frustrating

argument with her barbarian lover, Kevin. Though she

tactfully kept her own counsel, her dubious surprise must

have showed to the keener perception of the cho-ja.

'Would it challenge you less to chink that worlds exist

in multitudes, many no farther from here than you can

walk in your lifetime?' the Queen inquired. Her attendants

had awakened again from immobility, and were once more

scuttling to and fro through the curtained-off alcove that

housed the egg chambers.

Thrown completely off balance, Mara strove to find sense

in the Queen's words. This was no mystery created by

alien thought patterns; in human terms, the Queen almost

seemed to be leading her in lea-ta-go, a guessing game played

between Tsurani children, where hints and suggestions led

two rivals in a race to name whatever object, or animal,

or plant their opposing teams might choose. Mara decided

she was being deliberately led around the subject the Queen

had been forbidden to speak of. After deep consideration,

she said, 'I could walk many places beyond this Empire's

borders before my time came to die.'

'Yes.' The Queen's mandibles shifted in parody of a

human smile. 'You could do so, certainly.'

Encouragement, if not direct confirmation; Mara's excitement

grew. 'The Thuril!'

The Queen stayed carefully noncommittal. 'There are

others. Consider the boundaries of your nations.'

Convinced now that the information she sought had been

proscribed, Mara leaned eagerly forward. 'Beyond . . .' Of

course! How naive she must seem! Like most Tsurani, she

considered all nations to lie under sway of the Empire, save

the lost lands to the south and the Thuril to the east. Softly

she asked, 'Are there folk who live to the east of the Thuril

Confederation?'

Instantly the Queen said, 'They are called the Chadana.'

384 Mistress of the Empire :

Barely able to contain her excitement, Mara whispered;

'Human?'

'They are like unto you and the Thuril, my Lady.'

Mara glanced at Lujan, who looked as astonished as she

felt. How provincial her people were, to count themselves

and their Empire the center of all the worlds. Tsurani

philosophy could more readily accept humans living o''

another world across a rift than on other continents i'

Kelewan. 'What lies beyond the lands of the Chadana?'

'An expanse of vast waters,' the Queen replied. 'They are

salt, like the Sea of Blood, and are the home of the egu.'

Mara had never seen one of the egu, the gigantic serpents

that inhabited the depths of the oceans, but she had sailed

and had heard deckhands describe fighting off the creatures'

depredations with lances tipped with fire. 'Are there lands

across those" oceans?'

'Many nations, Lady,' the cho-ja Queen allowed. 'As

many as the lands beyond the sea to our west.'

Amazed to the point where he forgot protocol, Lujan

risked a question. 'Why do our people not know of

these?'

Quickly Mara nodded in allowance of his impertinence

'Why?'

'That is forbidden.'

Mara's thoughts crashed together. What was forbidden

? Not the knowledge of the other nations beyond

Tsuranuanni, or the Queen could not have given even

these sparse facts. Did those foreigners across the sea'

have knowledge that the Black Robes deemed threatening'

Mara repressed a shiver. Such thoughts were too perilous to

voice aloud, even here. She and the massive cho-ja Queen'

regarded each other through a silence made tense with'

frustration. If only their two species could speak plainly, so

much might be understood! Still, the unstated implication'

piqued driving curiosity. Mara felt enlivened with fresh'

Secrets

385

hope. For while the powers of the Assembly might yet prove

to be omnipotent, and her family's name become forgotten

to time, still she had been made aware of a larger world

beyond the Empire. She could journey across the borders

in search of new knowledge, and perhaps find an answer

to her quandary. Suddenly awakened to the hours she had

spent in the caverns underground, Mara longed to depart.

If she intended to leave the Empire on a quest, subterfuge

would be needed, as well as supplies and careful planning.

Her enemies, particularly Jiro, must not get wind of her

departure. And as she reviewed practicalities, it occurred

to her that areas of her own culture remained for her to

explore. She could start with the temples, whose priestly

initiates were schooled in powerful mysteries; and there

were also the practitioners of magic of the lesser path,

adepts and sometimes charlatans, who had not merited

study in the City of the Magicians.

Anxious to get started, Mara prepared to end her

audience with the Queen. 'My Queen, the Goddess of

Fate must have guided me here, for I have been given a

fresh start on my difficulties.'

The Queen waved a forelimb. 'We are pleased. Though

we yet think it odd you should journey so many miles

downriver when we were so close at hand.', r

Mara raised her eyebrows. 'Then the mind of the

hives is also one? I could address you by speaking to

the Queen of the hive upon the lands where I now

dwell?'

'Always.'

Hopeful of a way to maintain communication wherever

her journeys might lead her, Mara said, 'If I were to leave

the Empire, would I be able to consult you if I sought out

the cho-ja in some distant nation?'

'That is forbidden.'

Mara straightened, tantalised again to the edge of

386 Mistress of the Empire

discovery. 'One question, if you may answer. Why do you

treat with me and others, we who were your conquerors?'

The Queen hesitated. Fearful that at last she had transgressed

prudence, Mara dared not so much as breathe. Then,

with the continued activities of the breeding attendants,

she reassessed: the Queen was less angered than weighing

words. For a while, Mara expected to hear that this answer,

also, was forbidden.

But the Queen relented, her head tipped slightly back,

and her words stern. 'We are not a conquered people, Lady

of the Acoma.'

'The treaty?'A far step from understanding, Mara sighed

in vexation.

The Queen strove valiantly to clarify. 'Even a captive

nation may bargain.'

Mara rose from her cushions, so that the servants she

had signaled to pack up the tea utensils could go about

their duties without disturbing her. 'Why do you tell me

these things, Queen?'

Black, multifaceted eyes fixed upon Mara, unknowable

as the alien thoughts behind them. Then the cho-ja ruler

spoke in what seemed almost wistful reminiscence. 'Before

I merged with the hive mind, a young Queen recalls a human

girl who was kind and who said she was beautiful. Of all

your nation, you alone come to us with the intent to create

harmony. You bargain like others, but you are more . . .

you are what I believe you humans would call a friend.

If the burden that has oppressed my kind throughout this

nation is ever to change . . . we will need friends with bold

minds such as yours.'

So the 'treaty' was not an accord, after all, but a forced

acknowledgment of terms! Mara sucked in her breath. She

dared not press for more, not when the Queen had waved

her Force Commander forward to usher her from the breeding

chamber. The discussion was being brought to a close.

Uncertain what the protocols might be for formal

acknowledgment of friendship between races, Mara settled

for the bow that denoted an alliance between houses, adding

personal words of her own. 'You have always been a friend

to me. I would accord your people the same considerations

as I would any house within my clan.'

After the cho-ja Queen had nodded her own form of

acknowledgment and awarded the Acoma retinue her

gracious leave to depart, Lujan offered his Lady assistance

into her litter. Gone was the lackluster quiet that had

marked her sojourn back in her childhood home. Now

Mara's eyes shone. Her movements were eager as she

gestured to her bearer slaves to take up the poles of her

litter. The Force Commander donned his plumed helm and

marched at her side from the breeding chamber.

Companion of many years, commander of her armies,

and onetime bandit, Lujan could not help but grin. Here

went a mistress he would die for, without hesitation, not just

for the honor and duty due any Ruling Lady, but for love

and pride as well. Despite the overwhelming threat posed by

the Assembly of Magicians, Mara showed the indefatigable

spirit that had captured his heart from the start. For where

a tired woman of middle years had entered these warrens,

a Lady vigorous with renewed confidence, at the height of

her power, would emerge. Against all probability, Mara had

defied the limits of her circumstance: she had found a clear

focus and a hope where none had existed, to find reprieve

from difficulties that her culture believed unassailable.

Many were the Tsurani Ruling Lords who would have

fallen upon their swords in despair at the breach of honor

the Acoma Lady had been forced by the Great Ones to

swallow. Her late enemy Tasaio of the Minwanabi, once the

most powerful man in the Nations, had committed suicide

rather than endure beyond shame. It was not cowardice

but her own indomitable will that bound Mara to life.

388

Mistress of the Empire

The Assembly, Lujan decided in a moment of unabashed

cockiness, had better look after its interests. Though how

his diminutive Lady might find a way to face down powers

of magic on a scale as vast as that commanded by the Black

Robes, only the gods might know.

Afternoon sunlight fell through the screens and striped the

~parquet floor, and the akasi vines beside the garden walk

scented the air of the room that had served Mara as study

in the original Acoma estate house. The cho-ja-made clock

still chimed softly on the hour; mellowed now by layers

of wax was the patch of flooring by the screen that had

been sanded and refinished since the day her first husband

had stomped indoors wearing studded battle sandals in

the aftermath of a sarcat hunt. Older memories acwded

behind: of Lord Sezu setting the family chop to documents,

while her brother, Lanokota, scrawled pictures in chalk on

the floor by their father's feet. Mara recalled rubbing at the

scribbled figures, her fat lime-girl's palms a smudged and

dusty white. The smell of chalk filled her nostrils now, even

as in those bygone days of her girlhood. But the baby by

her knee was Kasuma; and the boy who scrawled pictures

only he understood onto sanded wood, a fiery redhead of

a barbarian father. Hers were the hands that set the Acoma

chop in the ink to seal the last letter of the day. A bin of

ribboned parchments beside her writing desk awaited the

arrival of the messenger runner, who would see them taken

to the guild for swift delivery.

Mara set aside the heavy chop and mentally reviewed

her instructions for Jican, Incomo, and Keyoke, back at

the lakeside estate. They would keep her affairs running

smoothly through what might become a prolonged absence.

Irrilandi, her second Force Leader, was currently off with

the Shinzawai, supporting Hokanu as he consolidated his

control as Ruling Lord. There had been minor attempts by

enemies, and one or two ruptures of alliances caused by

pressure from traditionalist factions. Hokanu had not yet

sent formal reply to the Emperor's request that he assume

his father's imperial post. In his letter to Mara he had

explained that his delay was a ploy designed to draw an

unfriendly rival into the open.

He had written: 'My father's First Adviser Dogondi is

a treasure - fiendishly clever, and a humorist. He likes

to humble our foes by making them seem ridiculous. As

he said to me the other day, "Kill a man, and you cede

him honor in the eyes of the gods. Laugh at him and you

shame him."'

Mara gave a half-smile in reminiscence of this truth.

Then her pleasure faded as she considered the rest of her

husband's missive. Although he was under much stress,

and subject daily to criticism from several jealous cousins,

he still might have asked in more depth after the health

of his daughter. That Mara proposed a long and possibly

dangerous journey while the child still needed a wet nurse

did not seem to trouble him.

But then, in all fairness, Hokanu was not a man to harp

upon his worries. He might be sick inside with concern, but

not wanting to burden her. Mara might disguise her journey

as a pilgrimage all she wished, and her traditionalist enemies

might be fooled. The Anasati might swallow the ruse for

several months before Jiro's First Adviser discovered the

truth, but the Assembly of Magicians would quickly sift

through subterfuge if they perceived any reason to question

her motives. Mara shut her eyes and rubbed damp hair back

from her brow. She put aside the nightmare memory of the

fiery rain that had beset the Imperial Arena when Milamber

had manifested his arcane anger.

If the Black Robes chose to stop her, all would be lost in

one wrenching, brutal instant. She must not give them cause

to suspect, and that meant weeks of careful planning.

~u MIstPcSS Ot thC F;mptrc

Ag.un Mara cried to thrust the horror of Milamber's

destruction of the Imperial Games from her thoughts. The

barbarian Black Robe had been unruly, even stubborn, she

had heard. The Assembly itself had exiled him, after his acts,

which had crossed the Order of Heaven by causing slaves

to be freed. A thought occurred then perhaps this Milamber

viewed life in the same quirky fashion her lover Kevin had

. . . that life meant more than honor, and that religion did

not rule the lives of men but instead offered guidance. Mara

frowned. If Milamber had been considered a renegade by

his fellows, might he not be a source of inspiration in her

present dilemma?

Acting with headstrong inspiration, Mara clapped her

hands. The boy appointed by the servants as her runner

slave appeared at the door, a tow-headed youngster scarcely

ten years of age. He had been promoted from the post of

herd boy to that of house slave, and still felt awkward

wearing livery. Mara saw that he trembled in awe as he

made his bow.

She took pity, though shy boys her sons were not, and she

had better experience bullying young warriors into line than

drawing a quiet one out. 'Kalizo,' she said. 'Come here.'

The boy scrambled back to his feet, all knffl and wide

eyes. He came to her, tripping awkwardly on the edge of

the carpet. His sandals were new, the soles not yet softened

with wear.

Mara fished a cho-ja-made candy from the vase by her

desk. She tossed it into the air, and smiled as the boy shed

his clumsiness and caught it. 'Kalizo, can you tell me when

the next silk shipment is bound for the City of the Plains,

for export into Midkemia?'

'Next week, Lady.' The boy had a lisp, made more

pronounced by his mouthful of hard candy.

Mara debated a moment, then reached for her pen with

shaking fingers. 'I have a letter to go with the factor,'

she instructed. 'Fetch him here, for I would have words

with him.'

'At once, Lady.' The boy bowed, spun, and departed with

a speed that justified his appointment to his new position.

Mara bit her lip as he raced out past the screen. Then she

hastily sealed her brief missive, which was addressed to

mil-amber, Magician, Kingdom of the Isles, Midkemia. As

she set the wax and inked the Acoma chop, she wondered

whether with the seal upon the letter she was inviting her

own doom.

Then the silk factor arrived, escorted by Kalizo. Her

misgivings fled before the need to give the man instructions

that caused him to tremble. His evident nerves made little

Kasuma fussy, and Mara had to call for the child's nurse.

Justin tossed aside his chalk with a loud announcement

that he was hungry. Straight and lithe, where Ayaki had

been stocky, he sprang to his feet and challenged Kalizo

to a race to the kitchens. Mara nodded dismissal to the

runner slave, who shouted and grinned, not at all abashed

at the prospect of a contest. As the two boys bolted off at

top speed, Mara half expected to hear a squawk of protest

from old Nacoya . . . but those days were gone forever

Left alone with her thoughts as the sun dipped in the west,

Mara called a servant to open the screens. Years had passed

since she had seen the shatra birds fly at sundown over

Acoma lands. Considered the lucky symbol of her house, the

creatures were a source of delight to Mara, as they greeted

the night like a ritual with a celebration of flight and song.

As her eyes followed the dance patterns of birds against

gold-edged clouds, Mara thought more on her husband.

He had not taken any concubines, nor had he made

further issue of his disappointment at Kasuma's gender.

Mara supposed the matter was left dormant deliberately.

Hokanu's sole reference had involved the promise of a deep

talk upon her return to the estates. A boat, he had said, with

392 M'strcss of thc Ernp~re

only themselves inside ant a tray of light supper ant sa

wine, on calm waters; no slaves, no servants, only a lantern

ant himself at the oars. That he left the matter unexplored

in his writing spoke volumes about his discomfort. Mara

rest-ed her chin in her hands ant sighed. Whatever he hat

to say, it would be months before she hat the liberty to

meet with her husband, on water or try land. For all hat

been tone to prepare for her departure on her quest to seek

protection against the Assembly. All that heft her now was

a final consultation with Arakasi, who was due to report

back at any time.

Much later, when the study room was lamplit, and the

stars pricked the sky where the shatra birds had flown,

Mara was disturbed in her resting by the door servant,

who brought word that a shabby itinerant poet had arrived

to beg the Lady's indulgence.

Mara looked up from her scroll in mild interest. 'You

did not send him on to the kitchen,' she stated. 'This poet,

did he say he had verses for me in so-mu-ta rhyming?'

The door servant frowned, the academic reference beyond

his education to fathom. 'Indeed, my Lady. He insisted

that would mean something to you.' His face creased with

misgiving. 'I should have sent him off. He is very ragged.'

Mara's expression warmed to a smile. 'Very ragged,

unbathed, and perhaps with a woman in tow?'

The servant's eyes widened. 'You know him?'

'I do.' Mara rolled up her scroll, taut with anticipation.

'Have him shown in.'

The door servant bowed, still mystified. 'Your will,

Lady.'

Presently the poet and his woman were brought into

Mara's private study. Arakasi wore a mantle that looked

as if it were fashioned out of moth-eaten blankets, sewn

over at the cuffs and hemmed with tawdry fringes torn

off a floor carpet. His companion was muffled under a

patched, sun-faded robe that had once been adorned with

shell sequins. Most had been ripped off with wear, leaving a

sad collection of hanging threads. Her feet were filthy, and

her sandals in tatters.

Mara, with one swift glance, clapped for attendants.

'Wash water. Towels, soap, and something from my clothes

chest that is pretty and clean.' She peered under the

concubine's hood, and glimpsed a shining sweep of hair

so heavy and thick it looked as if spun from red-bee honey.

'Make the color green,' she suggested to the maid. Then she

smiled at Arakasi. 'How large a supper tray do you wish?

As always, you appear famished.' She raised a finger as her

Spy Master drew breath to speak. 'The verses can wait until

after you are both refreshed.'

Arakasi offered a performer's bow and raked back the

hood of his mantle. In the lamplight, he looked exhausted,

bruised in spirit, and held together by sheer nerves. Mara

was taken aback. Then the concubine slipped off her

overrobe, and the Lady of the Acoma watched Arakasi

look at her, and understood all.

'You must be Kamlio,' she greeted. 'I bid you welcome.'

The girl started to sink into the deep bow that denoted

lowly station. Mara fractionally shook her head, and, fast

as reflex, Arakasi cupped the girl's elbow, stopping her

obeisance by dint of her slight recoil from his touch.

As though her gesture had not implied rejection, Arakasi

addressed her quietly. 'The mistress has bought your

freedom, not your service. Your contract is your own, to tear

up or resell, as you please.' His deft hands smoothed back

the hood of her underrobe, baring a face of breathtaking

beauty, and pale eyes bright as sparks with resentment.

Mara stifled an urge to recoil, so much did the manner

of this girl remind her of another, a courtesan and a spy

named Teani, who had once tried to kill her. 'Gods,'

she whispered below her breath. 'Gods take pity.' Her

expression was for Arakasi, and the tortured girl he had

rescued from usage.

Kamlio spoke, her low, modulated voice perfectly tempered

in hate. 'I would hear such a promise from the Lady

whose centis have bought me.'

Mara thrust aside her anger at the impertinence. 'You

may trust my servant, Arakasi, as myself in this matter.

Kamlio, I' too, owe him my life. I chose to accept that

gift from him with joy. He may have found you, child.

But never forget: it was I who bought you from bondage.

You are not brought here as a reward for his service.' The

lamplight glittered off the girl's eyes as she tensed. Mara

sighed softly and continued. 'You are your own woman,

Kamlio. Because of you, I have a son and a daughter who

may survive and achieve their inheritance. My gratitude is

unconditional^You may leave Arakasi, leave these estates,

and go your own way at this moment. I will provide you

with enough wealth to establish yourself, in business, as a

trader, or simply to live in modest comfort for the rest of

your life. Or you may use the gift as a dowry, should you

seek a husband. However, should you wish to take service,

I would be pleased to have you stay.'

The faint hiss of the oil lamps filled the stillness that

followed. Kamlio's fingers clenched and unclenched on

the ragged cloth of her gown. She did not smile, or

settle, or relax, but stayed poised, like a creature caught

and cornered. Mara forced herself to meet that hostile,

gemstone gaze. 'What is your desire, Kamlio?'

Plainly the girl distrusted kindness. Her eyes shone too

bright, and her manner posed a defiant challenge as she

said, 'Good Servant, great Lady, I'd prefer to be alone. I

do not wish a pretty robe but an ugly one. I do not want

the eyes of men upon me. I want a sleeping mat and a room

to myself.'

'As you ask, you shall have,' Mara allowed. She sent

for her personal maid, Misa, who had been many years

in Acoma service, and ordered Kamlio shown to a guest

chamber and made comfortable. When the girl had gone,

and the servant who entered with wash basins and towels

had allowed Arakasi to refresh himself, she gestured her

Spy Master to the nearest comfortable cushion.

He sank into his seat as if his knees gave out. His eyes were

sunken, almost haunted, and his mouth twisted aooked

with irony. Softly he said, 'Thank you, Lady.'

Mara looked upon him with pity. 'She means that much

to you?'

The Spy Master steepled his hands under his chin, an

old habit he had when attempting a difficult explanation.

'She has changed me. When I look at her, I see my mother,

sometimes. When she speaks, she reminds me of my sister.

Both of them could be vicious, at the moments they hurt

the most.' He paused, then added, 'She blames me for the

death of her sister. Quite justly, I fear.'

Quietly Mara gestured to the servant who waited at the

door with the food tray.-As the man entered with his burden

in deferential silence, she regarded the Spy Master whom

she had known for years, but whose life remained a mystery

to her. After the man had served them, Mara motioned for

him to leave. When she and Arakasi were alone;, Mara said,

'You never mentioned any of your family to me before.'

Arakasi's gaze flicked up, sharply defensive. 'There was

little of worth to mention. My mother was a woman of the

Reed Life, disease-ridden, run-down, and finally dead from

her trade. My sister followed in her footsteps. She died at

eighteen, at the hand of a violent client.'

'I am sorry,' Mara murmured, and meant it. She should

have guessed, since Arakasi set such store by his house

allegiance, that he had been born to an honorless family.

'How did you come to take service with the Tuscai?'

Arakasi made a self-deprecating gesture. 'There was a

warrior who frequented our brothel. He lay often with

my mother. I was just three, and was impressed by his

loud voice, and the sword he carried with a jewel set in

the grip. Sometimes he gave me candy, and ruffled my

hair, and sent me on errands. I took them very seriously,

only later coming to realise that he was just more tactful

than most, sending me out of the way so he could take his

paid woman without a foolish boy underfoot. At the time,

I decided he was my father.'

Mara did not prompt, but waited, while Arakasi picked

a stray thread from a rip in his mantle. After a moment, he

continued of his own accord. 'When my mother died, and

the soldier came to bed another girl, I climbed out a window

and followed him to his barracks. He was a Strike Leader

for the Tuscai. His wife was a cook. She fed me, behind his

back. I lived mostly on the streets, lurking around hostels

and guild halls, keeping my ears open. I sold information to

the Lord of the Tuscai's hadonra, and over the years became

invaluable to him. When I alerted the Lord of the Tuscai to

a plot against his life at the hands of the Minwanabi, he

allowed me to swear to his service.'

Quietly, Mara wondered how much of the spy net had

already been in place when Arakasi had sworn to the Tuscai

natami. Probably most of the area around the Tuscai estates,

for an honorless street boy to have caught the notice of a

hidebound traditional Ruling Lord. It awed her, to learn

how far her Spy Master had risen from such humble

beginnings. Now there was the girl, Kamlio, whose fate

had entangled itself with his in ways she did not want.

As the servant poured sa wine and departed, Mara handed

Arakasi a glass.

'Drink,' she urged. 'You need it.' In fact, he looked

wretched, and worn thinner than she had ever seen him.

The Spy Master returned her regard levelly, his lip

curled in distaste. He disliked drinking: alcohol dulled

his reactions. 'Lady,' he said in a voice that was rust and

velvet, 'I am not at all what I was.'

'Drink! That is a command!' Mara snapped back. 'You

are human, and have a heart that can bleed, even if you only

discovered that fact recently. And I say you are wrong. You

are more than you were. The change that has happened is

for the best.'

'Not if you wish me to continue in my post as Spy

Master.' The admission itself seemed to shake him. Arakasi

reached out, took a goblet from the tray, and downed it in

one violent draft. 'What would you know of best or worse?'

he challenged.

'Everything.' Her tone reproached. 'I had Kevin and lost

him. I had the perfect husband who understood my heart,

until one foolish misunderstanding has set him at a distance.

I had two children who are dead.'

Shamed, Arakasi wrapped his long, expressive fingers

around his glass. He said nothing, only stared at the rug.

For a while the lamplight revealed his rigid effort to keep

his breathing steady. 'I had hoped the example of you and

Hokanu might open her eyes to a new life.' He shrugged

fractionally, a self-conscious hitch of his shoulders. 'You

have both been my teachers, Lady.' .

Mara regarded the man who sat hunched and tight before

her. His competence at times had humbled her, until now,

when she realised how much of his achievements had been

rooted in pleasureless, calculating logic. 'Arakasi, set her

free. Let her find herself.' As his eyes swept up to meet

hers, beseeching, she found she needed sa wine herself.

She reached out for a goblet, tasted its bittersweet edge.

'Think, most cunning of my servants. You were never

resentful because you did not love. Kamlio can hate, she

can feel bitterness, because she can be hurt. Her basic

nature is a caring one, or why should she defend herself

so savagely?'

His gaze dropped. 'I pray to the gods you are right.'

'I am right.' Mara's conviction rang across the room's

familiar dimness. But no truth could ensure the outcome.

Whether Kamlio could outgrow her past and survive

without scars, only time would tell.

Arakasi sat like a man tortured, twisting the fine-stemmed

crystal around and around in his hands. It

occurred to Mara, watching him, that he had lost his

piercing insight. She spoke kindly in reassurance. 'Your

little lady will not leave these estates. She will stay, and

serve here. That much I know.'

'Or else she would have left at once?' Arakasi released

an edged laugh. 'How can you be sure?'

'She would not have accepted my hospitality.' Mara

smiled. 'She has pride like fire.' She speculated, 'In my

years I have come to judge human nature quickly. You are

a fitting match for her.'

He relaxed a little at that, setting the goblet on the

polished floor, empty, and helping himself to a plate of

fruit, cheese, and bread. In a fast change of subject, he

said, 'I received your message, Lady. I can guess why you

called me.' He mashed the bread together over a thick wedge

of cheese, his feelings for the concubine certainly not set in

abeyance. But his voice showed none of his conflict as he

added, 'I can already assure you. The City of the Magicians

is impregnable. Send anyone there to attempt entry, and

you will call down the Assembly's wrath upon you. We

have attempted seven times to find entrance; four men are

dead, the other three unaccounted for, and I number them

also dead. None can be traced to us, but even so, another

attempt may cause us to fall.'

'I supposed as much.' Mara watched him eat with

an inner surge of relief. The day Arakasi ignored his

appetite brought cause for major worry. While he chewed,

she related her findings in the hive of the cho-ja, and

then told of her plans to leave for the Thuril Confederation.

Arakasi gave back a dry grin. 'I did not think you

seriously intended a pilgrimage.'

Mara's brows arched. 'I am devout. Did I not once plan

to vow service to Lashima's temple?'

A spark of irony touched her Spy Master's eyes. 'That,'

he allowed, 'was long before you met one red-haired

Midkemian barbarian.'

Mara colored deeply. 'True.' She laughed. Arakasi had

always stimulated her wit. The heart he had kept hidden

all these years was proving a delight to her. 'I'll need you

to hide my trail with subterfuge. Also, I want you to comb

the Imperial Archives for history texts that might show us

what circumstances led to our mysterious treaty with the

cho-ja.'

She looked across the low table and realised Arakasi had

ceased eating. The bread had fallen into crumbs between

his fingers, and his eyes looked deep as pits. Gently she

asked, 'What's wrong? Are you afraid to leave the girl?'

'No.' The Spy Master knuckled back his tangled dark

hair. The poet's braid at his temple had slipped half-undone,

the violet ribbon that tied it frayed at the ends, and

sun-faded. 'I am no longer the best man for the job, my

Lady. My heart is no longer ruthless.'

'Was it ever?' Mara countered.

Arakasi looked at her, open and pained as he had been

but once in her presence, and that the time he believed

he had failed her and caused old Nacoya's death. 'Yes,

Lady. Yes, it was. Once, I would have let Kamlio die at

the hands of the tong without conscience. I have increased

risk to you by returning for her. It took some persuasion

and significant funds to extricate her from her existing

term of employment. The transaction was far too public

for my taste.'

Mara considered the weight of his admission. She stared

a moment at her wineglass, barely touched, and warm now

in the soft evening air. 'The Acoma have no one else to

send,' she said finally, and hid from him the cost of that

confidence. She had Justin and Kasuma to think of; if, as

Fumita had hinted, her being Servant of the Empire had

been all that stayed the Assembly from annihilating her,

she had to find the children protection, or they would be

helpless, good for nothing, but to be puppets of the Black

Robes' whim, after she was gone.

'Arakasi, let me tell you something the cho-ja Queen

implied to me. What if, all along, it was not tradition

that has held this Empire static all these thousands of

years? What if our people strove for growth and change,

but were kept from it? What if the great Game of the

Council, our bloody, violent heritage of honor, was not

ordained by the gods but was used as a contrivance to

keep us in our place?'

Arakasi's left eyebrow quirked. 'You claim to be devout,'

he said in a low voice. 'You know, beloved Lady, that what

you say is heresy.'

'I suggest instead,' Mara said, 'that our Great Ones

have done more than keep the imperial peace. If I rightly

understood what the cho-ja Queen tried to impart, the

Assembly has held our whole culture stagnant. The Black

Robes are the ones who barred us from change - not the

gods, not tradition, and not our code of honor. That is why

they intervened between the Acoma and the Anasati. For I

have created too much change, I hold too much influence

with the Emperor, and, as Servant, I am too much a talisman

of the people's luck. If what I think is correct, the magicians

are not just hoping I will break their prohibition on making

war upon Jiro; they are depending upon it. Some may even

be contriving to bring it about. They are awaiting any

excuse to step in and annihilate me.'

A breeze through the screen caused the lamp to flicker,

making Arakasi seem a shadow cut from stillness. 'Hokanu

will never let go of honor and allow his father's murder to

pass unavenged.'

'Precisely,' Mara almost whispered. 'That would be

expecting too much, even for a man raised by the progressive

thinker that his foster father was. His blood father,

Fumita, as much as warned him at Kamatsu's funeral. I

believe, as does Hokanu, that the Assembly knew of Jiro's

contract with the tong assassins. They did not act to stop

him. Deliberately. It is me and my line they want dead. And

sooner or later, fate will provide them with a reason.'

The wick brightened. As the darkness shrank back,

Arakasi sat staring at his emptied wineglass, his eyes

fathomless as obsidian. 'And so you need me to sort

through the Imperial Archives, and to cover your absence

when you journey outside the Empire in search of answers.'

His fingers tapped an agitated tattoo on the floor as he

continued to think aloud. 'You ask this of me, not for the

Acoma or the Shinzawai, but for the people of the Nations

whose cause you have adopted for your own.'

'You understand.' Mara reached out for the carafe and

refilled both of their goblets. 'I do what I do for more than

my name and ancestors. Because I hold hope that slaves

may one day be allowed to go free, and that boys such as

you were, and girls like Kamlio, may have the chance to

earn honor through their merits.'

'A large task. I salute you, Lady.' Arakasi tossed back

his wine. He regarded her, his bearing still bleak, but his

expression one of admiration. 'Once I said I wished to

follow in the wake of your path to greatness. I was

arrogant, and cold, and fascinated as a man who prides

himself on solving puzzles. Now I wish nothing beyond a

house with warmth, and a woman to smile at who does

not know the secret of joy. To my sorrow, I have learned.

It is not a lesson to benefit a Spy Master who must act only

for reason.'

Mara returned the smile that softened the sharpened

angles that trials and years had lent to her face. 'Then

when we have found our means to defeat the Great Ones,

we shall have to appoint you to a new post.'

Arakasi released a cracked laugh. 'What post? I have tried

them all. Which shall I choose, when all of them suited me

no better than a suit of borrowed clothing?'

'When the time comes, you will know,' Mara assured

him. But the words were a banality. Arakasi looked like

an unmoored boat that spun untended in a current. She

worried for him, and for the jaded, bitter girl who slept in

the Acoma guest suite.

Arakasi set aside his glass. A moth spun in crazed

circles around the oil lamp, sending shadows swooping

and arrowing through the light. He felt as giddy. The time

had come for him to take his leave. The food tray held only

crumbs, and a crushed crust of bread. His eyes stayed deep

as he concluded, 'I will undertake what you ask, for I see

that you comprehend the price. But this once, I would dare

to ask a boon from you.'

Mara raised her wineglass and drank to his health in

return. 'You have always had from me whatever you have

needed, without question. That has not changed.'

Her Spy Master looked up at her, for the first time she

could remember showing nerves and uncertainty. 'Take

Kamlio with you to Thuril. Even the chance of a passing

trader glimpsing her and remarking on her beauty in

Sulan-Qu might bring the tong in search. By the time you

return, the tong should have begun to wither.'

Mara's smile returned like the sun. 'I was going to suggest

that very course.' The hidebound tenets of Tsurani culture

had deprived the courtesan of hope; Kamlio had been born

as a pleasure toy for men to waste as they pleased. If she was

going to come to her senses, if she was to escape becoming

the twisted, tormented creature that Teani had been, she

must rediscover the stifled personality she had been trained

since childhood to hide. The chance might come to her more

quickly if she experienced a strange culture, and customs

outside her experience.

Arakasi bowed deep in gratitude. 'Gods bless you,

mistress.' He looked as if he would say nothing more,

but wound up by blurting, 'Take care of her. The Acoma

are my life, but she is my heart.' Then he arose to his

feet, his poet's braid falling the rest of the way undone.

He yanked off the violet ribbon as if it had offended him,

and made his way silently through the screen.

Mara stared after him long after he had disappeared

into the darkened hallway. Before her, the moth spun in

one last, suicidal circle, and flared up as it passed through

the flame.

'Gods pity them,' Mara murmured to the empty chamber.

Whether her words were for the courtesan and the Spy

Master who loved her, or whether she referred also to her

husband, who was being made to dance to the tune of the

Assembly, was unclear.

16

Countermoves

The game ended.

Chumaka set down his shah piece with a click, and a

deep-chested sigh of satisfaction. 'Checkmate, master.' The

raw dawn light only emphasised his bright-eyed alertness.

Perfectly groomed also, Jiro was once again chagrined

to prove his servants' gossip, that his First Adviser's wit

remained sharp, even before daybreak and breakfast. The

Lord of the Anasati regarded the captured pieces clustered

to one side of the game board. 'You're filled with life this

morning,' he observed. 'More so than usual, if I may speak

my mind.'

Chumaka rubbed his hands together. 'Mara's spy net has

become active again. I knew it was just a matter of waiting

her out! Whoever her man in charge may be, he has just

made a misstep. He thought to outlast me in this waiting

game, but after years of dormancy, at last he has moved!'

Jiro stroked his chin to hide a smile. 'There are few

servants like you, who can bear to abandon years of work

on the basis of mere suspicion.'

The Anasati First Adviser warmed to the praise. He

slipped off his heavily embroidered morning robe, and

adjusted the thinner silk garment underneath to ascertain

it hung without wrinkles on his narrow chest. On

a plaintive note he added, 'You invited me to your

suite for breakfast. Do I have to beat you at a second

round of shah before we can eat, my Lord?' His

nervous, nail-bitten fingers reached to reset the board

out of habit.

Jiro laughed. 'You old tigindi,' he accused, comparing

his adviser to a foxlike predator renowned for cleverness.

'You'd rather play games than eat.'

'Perhaps.' Chumaka looked up, his eyes bright.

Jiro signaled another game by inclining his head. 'What's

on your scheming mind, anyway?'

Chumaka slid the last piece into place and gestured for

his master to make the first move. 'It's what Mara has in

mind,' he corrected.

Knowing better than to interrupt with questions, Jiro

advanced a pawn. Chumaka's countermove was immediate.

Forced to a brisk contemplation of strategy, Jiro wished

he could match his opponent's penchant for following

simultaneous topics as his adviser defined his comment.

'Later this week, your master engineer will be in Ontoset

hiring carpenters and craftsmen to build war engines

after the prototypes you have had re-created from the

ancient texts.'

Jiro looked up from the game board, not at all intrigued.

His siege weapons were his most coveted plan, a secret

kept even from his closest allies, or so he believed. He

did not like the topic bandied about casually, and his

tone showed controlled irritation. 'Mara can't have heard

anything about our prototypes in the charcoal burners'

sheds-' ~

'In the forests north of Ontoset,' Chumaka filled in, at

his most irksome when he finished sentences out of sheer

impatience. 'Yes. She has known for quite some time.'

Chumaka waved at the shah board. 'It's your move,

master.'

Jiro advanced his priest to a new square with a flick

of one finger. A flush stained his cheekbones, and his

eyes narrowed as he demanded, 'How did she hear?

Why didn't you tell me our security was compromised

sooner?'

'Patience, my Lord.' Chumaka moved his empress onto

the front line. 'I tell you, always, when the timing is to your

advantage.'

Very near open anger,Jiro forced self-control. Chumaka's

cleverness at times could be excessive: as if the man could

not resist playing the game within his master's household.

But what Chumaka lacked in humility he more than made

up for in innovative service. The Anasati Lord pieched his

pent-up fury against the shah board, and waited, icily quiet,

for his impertinent adviser to qualify.

Chumaka smiled with the glee a child might show at

discovering an insect could evade his goading through

flight. 'My Lord, it is good to see you have mastered the art

of patience. We have allowed Mara's machinations against

us to come to flower, the- better to spoil her design. She

has conceived a cunning plan to infiltrate your craftsmen

at the construction site with a few of her own. Once there,

they would work very handily to be sure your great siege

engines have design flaws. We then use them in battle, or so

the Mistress of the Acoma hopes, and the mechanisms will

misfire and cause damage to our own troops, or at the least

simply not function, leaving you with some very expensive

kindling wood outside the walls of the city.'

Startled into inadvertent admiration, Jiro raised his

eyebrows. 'Mara came up with such a plot?'

'A master toy maker in her employ.' Chumaka moved

another shah piece and placed Jiro's priest in jeopardy. 'It's

quite an amusing plan, really.'

Frowning, inconvenienced by the game, but unwilling to

concede himself outmatched on both fronts, the Anasati

Lord considered his next move with thinned lips. His First

Adviser's tendency to keep secrets bordered on disrespect.

But Jiro held back from criticism. His weakness at shah was

his desire for fast conclusions. He needed Chumaka's love

of intricate plotting, which was content to spin webs and

set traps against enemies long years in advance. Jiro chose

to save his priest from attack; today his mood was prudent.

'What move did you have in mind, First Adviser?'

Chumaka gave back a reptilian smile. 'Why, to steal

Mara's gambit from her. I have a list of her infiltrators'

names. We can arrange to have them hired on, bring

them deep into Anasati territory, and then have them

disappear.'

'Kill them?' Jiro's distaste for crude measures diverted

his attention, and he had to force himself to keep pace

with Chumaka's next move.

The First Adviser advanced another pawn, setting two

of his master's pieces under threat. 'I'd like to take the

infiltrators quietly.' He spoke as he did when contented,

low-pitched, as a cat might purr. 'Not kill them. They may

have useful information for us. I'd like to know just how

Mara's toy maker planned to sabotage our siege equipment,

for one thing; I'm sure the modifications would be very

clever to elude the notice of those overseeing construction.

That's more idle curiosity than anything else.

'But far more important, if we can force one man to

talk, and learn their method for passing information as

well, we can send back false signals through the Acoma

spy net. The Lady will not know her plot has been spoiled

until the actual day we take the field against the Emperor.

When our engines assault the walls of the Imperial Precinct,

she will expect them to fail and cause us chaos, and she

will have her forces arrayed to take advantage of that

situation.' With an almost sensual glee at the possibility

of reversing Mara's plot, Chumaka said, 'Instead, our new

equipment will function flawlessly, and the Acoma will find

themselves upon the field, outside the walls, while we are

already securing our position within.'

Jiro sacrificed his fortress, and tipped his head to concede

his First Adviser his argument. 'I will leave you to oversee

the arrangements.' extracting information by force from a

captive was not a detail he relished thinking about. He did

not have a weak stomach; torture simply did not interest

him. The treatises he had read told as much as he cared to

know on the topic. 'And as far as Ichindar is concerned, I

thought we'd agreed I should goad a traditionalist fanatic

into assassinating him rather than take him head on with

an army.' Almost spitefully, Jiro finished, 'The Black Robes

seem to dislike the idea of a civil war.

'Of course; nothing is more destructive to any society.'

Chumaka advanced another piece and looked up to accept

the satchel of new correspondence brought in by his

assistant. 'But as we discussed, even a dead Emperor

will have supporters. They will hole up behind walls

with his heir. If you, as the nations' savior, step in and

divert chaos by restoring the office of Warlord, you must

also seize Jehilia as your power base. Even without Mara

and Hokanu's resistance, you will need to break the city's

defenses to get to the Imperial First Daughter . . . before

someone else does.'

But for the gleam that wakened in his eyes from review

of future hopes, Jiro seemed absorbed in the shah game.

Chumaka turned from the board and riffled through the

rolled dispatches. He selected one, squinted to be sure it

had not been tampered with, then split the seal. He scanned

the lines, not needing to pause to interpret the cipher.

'Interesting,' he mused to himself. Idly, he wondered how

irritated his master was likely to become when he learned

of the ex-Minwanabi warriors that Chumaka maintained

in secrecy in a remote northern province.

If they became useful in arranging Mara's downfall,

Chumaka decided, he would receive a citation for them.

His lips quirked. How he wished he belonged to a household

that did not have touchy internal politics! Or a

master of such heated pride. As Jiro completed his next

move, Chumaka flicked his empress to a new square.

He speculated whether a woman's rule would follow the

same fashion as a man's; was Chumaka's Spy Master

counterpart in the Acoma household permitted a free hand

with his work? Only exceptional brilliance could keep such

a network intact past the fall of House Tuscai. And Mara's

willingness to take masterless men into service had shown

the falsehood of counting such without honor. Certainly

those who had labored as spies for the Lord of the Tuscai

seemed even more diligent on behalf of the Acoma.

Or had the creature who directed them been Lord

Sezu's man all along? Chumaka judged not, since Mara's

father had dealt straightforwardly in council and on the

battlefield. The Anasati First Adviser stroked his chin,

peripherally aware of his master's expletives over the shah

board as he saw his attack plan threatened. He set aside

the dispatch and reached for the next, the contents of which

caused him to snap off his cushions with a thoroughly

uncharacteristic oath.

Diverted from his straits on the shah board, Jiro raised

his eyes in languid inquiry. 'What passes?'

'The devil!' Chumaka gestured with the parchment scroll,

which appeared to contain random squiggles. 'I've miscalculated,

maybe; underestimated him, almost certainly.'

'Who?' Piqued, Jiro pushed the board out of harm's way

as his adviser began pacing. 'Do we have a problem? A

setback?'

Chumaka looked askance, his eyes deep as still pools.

'Maybe. The Obajan of the Hamoi Tong has been assassinated.

In his pleasure harem.'

Jiro gave a small shrug. 'So what?'

'So what!' Chumaka curbed his agitated movement.

Seeing Jiro's darkening expression at his sharp tone, he said,

'Master, the Obajan was one of the best-guarded men under

heaven, and he has been stabbed to death. What's more, his

killer escaped. Clean. Very professional work.' Chumaka

consulted his scroll more closely. In dawning astonishment,

he added, 'It says here that the tong brotherhood have

disbanded. They are now masterless men: grey warriors.'

It pointed to one possible conclusion. 'That can only

mean their records were lost?' Jiro's voice was forced

and level. The contents of the tong's accounts could

dishonor his house several times over, not least for the

latest cash outlay, to buy an attempt on old Frasai of the

Tonmargu, who lent his ear to Hoppara of the Xacatecas

too often when he wanted advice on policy decisions. As

long as Frasai remained alive, Kamatsu's death would serve

traditionalist causes very little. Hokanu would stand in his

father's post soon enough, but his tie to Mara and the

Acoma would hamper him against any move made by Jiro's

allies only when Frasai's vote of support was eradicated. If

the Imperial Overlord fell, the imperial Chancellor would

find his powers in the Emperor's council crippled at a

stroke. But Jiro needed Frasai's death to be caused in

discreet fashion; killing one's own clansman, especially

one's own Clan Warchief, was an extreme act even by

Tsurani standards.

Chumaka responded, bemused with thought. 'The secret

accounts were stolen, or so every rumormonger in the

Holy City now reports. I wonder if Mara has the tong's

records?' She must, he deduced. If an ally had access to

such sensitive secrets, Anasati agents would have been

informed; a foe would simply turn the information to

immediate advantage, unless ... the only enemy the

Anasati had that was under constraints not to initiate

conflict was the Acoma/Shinzawai faction that centered

on Mara. Chumaka stroked his chin, the shah game utterly

forgotten. What if he had miscalculated? What if the Acoma

Spy Master was a better player than he? What if a trap

yawned under Anasati affairs, just waiting for a misstep

to snap shut?

'You're worried,' Jiro observed, in his best tone of false

boredom.

Observing that his master was hiding extreme displeasure,

Chumaka did his best to wave the matter away. 'I am

careful,' he allowed, self-aware enough to know that his

worst nightmares seldom resolved in daily life. His active

imagination helped make him master of his job. In his

eagerness to close with his Acoma opponent, he could

easily have been drawn into carelessness. He must pull

back, wait, and watch, like a patient hunter. The train

of Mara's toy maker must be taken with utmost caution.

Then, as if a sixth sense reminded him that he had been

still too long, and that his master's restless intellect was

on the verge of expressing annoyance, Chumaka smiled

brightly. 'Shall we eat? Or shall we finish our game, which

you are very close to losing?'

Jiro glared at the arrangement of the players on the

game board. He made a deprecating gesture that turned

into a clap to summon servants. 'Two defeats on an empty

stomach are more than any master should face before

daybreak.' He must have followed that observation with

thought of the dead Obajan, for he looked nettled enough

to eat floor pegs. 'Damn her,' he murmured in a voice

he thought too quiet for his First Adviser to overhear. 'If

not for the Assembly's protection, I'd see her shamed and

begging.'

The gardener blotted his brow. Leaning in apparent idleness

on his rake handle, he surveyed the surrounding flower

beds under the afternoon sunlight. The blooms were the

brilliance of rainbows, no dried seedpods or wilted petals

left shriveling in the heat to mar their freshness. The soil

was level, and weed-free as it had been since the hour the

worker had started. Each shrub was trimmed to provide

beauty at an economy of space. The retired imperial officer

assigned to this household used his apartment infrequently.

Since he valued peace and silence, his gardens had been

arranged to set the bustle of the Holy City at a distance.

Half blind from cataracts, he tended to forget the faces of

his gardeners. Hence his lovely, private little garden across

from the city library offered the perfect rendezvous point

for a Spy Master who desired clandestine exchanges of

information bought through a bribe to one of the archivist's

COpyists.

Arakasi spat on his palms as any diligent gardener might

do, and again took up his rake. His sun-browned hands

looked as if he had practiced such labors life-long as he

scratched parallel rows in dry soil. Except for his eyes,

which kept covert surveillance on the entrance to the

archives across the thoroughfare, he assumed his role to

perfection.

In this he was even more meticulous in his caution than

usual. After the change in outlook triggered by Kamlio, he

distrusted his reactions. He no longer held confidence in

his ability to act with his former speed. As he raked, he

worried; would emotion make him hesitate? He no longer

saw people, even enemies, as ciphers on a game board. His

personal conscience, as opposed to his duty as a servant,

posed a conflict he feared to put to the test.

Since his thwarted attempts to infiltrate an agent into

the City of the Magicians, he understood that any inquiry

into old texts on arcane subject matter, or probing into

proscribed eras of history, might draw notice. Also, the

libraries were Jiro's passion, and Anasati spies comprised

half the staff. Since the Imperial Archives were rarely

visited except by students of history, most of them initiates

at one temple or another, any stranger sent in as agent

would cause inquiry. Since Ichindar's ascension to absolute

rule, the Day of Appeals had become the place to air

disputes over obscure points of law. The High Council

no longer sent couriers to peruse the stacks of fading

parchments for clarification on the fine points of tradition

under debate by merchants or guilds.

Arakasi had been hard pressed to find a student initiate

whose loyalty was not already compromised. In the end, he

had needed to call in a favor from the acolytes of the Red

God, who felt they owed Lady Mara their favor. As the Spy

Master raked, and darted surreptitious glances at the carved

doorways across the thoroughfare from the garden gate,

he felt disquiet over how useless his established operation

had become. He dared not try calling upon his resident

agents in the palace, since by now, Arakasi assumed, they

were all under Chumaka's surveillance. Enough signs had

arisen to indicate that the palace branch of his network was

compromised. So Arakasi had sent in an otherwise harmless

student, to lead Chumaka's agents off the trail. The Acoma

Spy Master knew the enemy could not be misled for long.

Two priests of Turakamu, and a student acolyte bearing

sealed requests from the High Temple, had all recovered

texts on the subjects Arakasi had requested. His nights had

been spent by candlelight, reading lines in faded ink. Each

dawn he had sent coded messages to Mara at the old Acoma

estate, narrowing down the possibilities: the time of the

conflict that had resulted in the secret treaty with the cho-ja

could have been tied to a civil disruption eighteen hundred

years earlier, two centuries after the founding of the Empire,

or to another period four hundred years afterward, when

no war was mentioned, but a review of family pedigrees

showed inheritances passing to first and second cousins,

and an inordinate number of underage heirs. If a plague

was responsible for such breaks in otherwise established

dynasties, the texts of the time held no reference to such.

The tax rolls of those times had also shown increases in

levied funds; treasury ledgers held strange gaps, blank lines,

for entries showing how such wealth had been spent. Now

Arakasi waited to receive the list of imperial commissions

for the two periods under examination. If the Emperor's

seneschal had paid sums to guild artists to paint battle

scenes, or sculptors to design commemorative victory

arches, surely there would have been a war. Temple records

could then be followed up for prayer-gate donations sent

in by wealthy widows who wished the spirits of husbands

departed on the battlefield to be kindly judged by the gods.

Arakasi frowned over his raking. If he could establish proof

of a war, he could root through family records, and perhaps

in the private sector ferret out facts, or entries in the diaries

of dead rulers, telling of a conflict that might have been

excised from the public record.

Mara had been circumspect in her instructions, most

likely out of deference to her Spy Master's misgivings over

continued pursuit of his trade. She had no illusions: she

knew, as he did, that his tie to Kamlio left him vulnerable..

But spare his heart and his talents, and the Acoma would

fall to the greater, more sinister design of the Assembly

of Magicians. For more and more, the fact emerged:

the Black Robes prevented change. They had allowed

Ichindar's ascension because it suited them to balk Tasaio

of the Minwanabi; but sooner or later they were going

to support the traditionalist view and a resurgence of the

Warlord's office, forcing Ichindar once more to a role of

religious ceremony.

Resisting an urge to wipe his sweating forehead, Arakasi

scraped his rake through the earth in an inward storm of

resentment. His studies of the records showed by omission,

in subtle twists and turns, just how the Great Ones had

directed the Empire to stagnation. It did not take a historian

to ferret out the unexplained holes in the fabric of Tsurani

history.

Like a weaver worrying a tangle of threads, picking apart

one knot at a time, Arakasi followed from one cryptic

reference to another to map out a report conspicuous by

its absence. His pulse quickened as it never had, throughout

his hunt for the Obajan of the Hamoi Tong. All objectivity

was displaced by recognition that he was involved in the

greatest match of his life; for while he ached to restore the

feelings of the girl who had captured his affection, he must

aid his mistress to challenge the mightiest body the Empire

had ever known: the Assembly of Magicians.

Arakasi shied away from contemplation of the future.

He saw each day as risk. He knew, as Mara did, that he

could no longer continue as her Spy Master, in the unlikely

event that her house could stand against the Assembly's

will and survive. Adjusting the sash that bound his smock,

and brushing the weapon belt beneath that held his hidden

knives, he regarded the swept walkways and the rows of

fragrant flower beds. If fate should destroy the Acoma,

or if when he resigned his post Mara should have no

honorable position to offer him within her household,

he had his laborer's skills to fall back on, he thought

on a note of black humor. Inspecting his hands, thick

with dark soil that hid the calluses of a dozen trades, he

considered there were less worthy pursuits than tending

growing things. ;.

Killing was certainly one of them. His decoding of the

tong's record scrolls had nearly made him ill at their

dispassionate listing of generation after generation of death

and cruelties. Mara had been right to use him as her own,

ruthless instrument, to destroy the Hamoi Brotherhood at

their root.

But her rightness did not make Arakasi any more able

to forgive himself for such usage.- Where Tsurani ways

admitted only honor won for his mistress, his interaction

with Kevin the barbarian had tainted his thoughts; Mara's

own forgiveness of his very human failure in the bleached

heat of a kekali garden had shocked the first cracks in his

outlook. The bastions of his isolation had crumbled since,

until now, naked of self-deceit, he saw.

He had trained himself to be set as a weapon against

others of his own kind. Kevin was right; the cho-ja were

right; Mara and Hokanu were right to desire change in the

stagnation of old ways. Although unconditional consent

had been the way between master and servant for all of

the Empire's long history, Arakasi had seen the evils of

such thinking mirrored in Kamlio's hardened eyes. His

awakened vision showed him guilt.

'I am not what I was,' he had said to his mistress in their

meeting after his successful assassination of the Obajan. It

had been less a statement than a baring of his spirit to

her view. He sighed, profoundly saddened that, through

the hours he had spent gardening in the past, he had

never pause] to appreciate the results of his labors. Now

he saw the neat rows of young blossoms with changed perspective.

Feeling a strange tightness in his chest, the

Spy Master considered that the lowly gardener might be

closer to finding balance upon the Wheel of Life; certainly

it was pleasant to imagine a life in constant harmony with

the universe.

Arakasi rubbed his hands and returned to work. His

awakened awareness, here, became a liability. Despite the

apparent tranquillity surrounding him, destruction was

very close.

The day waned. Reddened sunlight fell through the

pillared entrance to the garden. An elderly hawker pushed

his cart along the street outside, his singsong patois offering

bundled tanzi bark to the wives of the free workers headed

homeward from the temples to the dockside quarter

Shabby, just one step higher than slaves, such families

burned tanzi to sweeten the air and mask the stinks of the

fisheries on the river front side of town. Incense wafted

from the Square of the Twenty Gods, where the priests

threw open the massive doors of the temples. Sundown

rites drew the aristocracy out to worship, when the streets

were cooler and the merchants departed; the first lacquered

litters of the nobles swept by, interspersed with the rumble

of the empty costermongers' wagons, returning to the

farmlands after the day's market.

The hour just before sundown was a time when all

classes of people mingled in the streets; when couriers

removed their headbands and guild badges and walked

home to their wives and supper, whistling. Arakasi fetched

his wheeled barrow and began to gather up his hoe, rake,

and trowels. He watched the arched doorway of the library

keenly, anticipating the distractions of the hour to cover the

emergence of his errand boy; workers were wearied from

their labors and thinking of the evening meal, while the

curtains of the nobles' litters would be drawn closed, to

sequester them from the gaping of commoners.

The moment the youth appeared, Arakasi would leave

the garden, pushing his barrow, and the scribe would pass

him but for a brief moment, close enough to deposit his

report among the tools.

Arakasi heard the sound first as a distortion upon the air,

almost dismissed amid the rumble of a wine broker's dray

that ground over the cobbles beyond the gate. then instinct

had him ducking down behind his wheelbarrow before the

vehicle passed, and his ears identified the disturbance for

what it was: the bone-aching, arcane buzzing that preceded

the appearance of a Great One.

An icy sweat drenched the back of his neck. Had they

come for him? Traced his presence to a ploy of Lady Mara's?

Habit alone held Arakasi to his cover, that of a sunburned

gardener putting up his tools at the end of his day's labor.

His heart raced and his hands shook like those of a man

with the palsy. He had known fear in his life, many times;

but never before had it held any power over him. It had

never, until Kamlio, breached the guarded inner core of

his heart.

The pair of Black Robes appeared an eyeblink later. The

unnerving buzz died away, leaving a silence no longer filled

with the drone of foraging bees. The sounds of the street

seemed strangely removed, as if the world began and ended

at the marble pillars that flanked the garden gates.

Arakasi did not have to feign awe as he threw himself

down behind the wheelbarrow, his face pressed against the

dusty furrows his own rake had scribed in the earth.

The Great Ones took no heed of him. As though he

were no more alive than a carved statue, they moved

down the garden path toward the gateway and stopped

under the shadow of the arch. Their eyes stayed trained

intently on the' library's front stairs across the street. Their

backs were turned; from Arakasi's vantage, their feet

were shod incongruously in velvet shoes better suited for

carpeted indoor floors. They ignored the common gardener

crouched behind them as if he were but another feature of

the surroundings, not a person able to overhear them.

One dark, hooded head bent close to that of his comrade.

'He should be along any moment now. The scrying showed

he would cross the street and head in this direction.'

The magician so addressed returned a barely perceptible

nod.

Arakasi felt little relief when he realised that the Black

Robes had not come for him. Still trembling, nearly

paralysed with fear, he dared a peek outward. Above

the tines of the rake, framed between the enigmatic black

forms of the magicians standing under the arch, he saw his

messenger at last emerged from the library, a laden satchel

slung from a strap across his shoulder.

'There!' The Great One who had spoken pointed at the

young figure of the scribe as he moved at a normal pace

down the steps. 'There he is.'

A nod of the second hooded head answered, and in an

unusually deep voice. 'As you guessed, his satchel carries

scrolls.'

'Subject?' The first magician's voice was curt.

His fellow closed his eyes, placed one hand against his

forehead, and gestured in the air with the other. His

passes perhaps described a spell, or a symbol, or some

incomprehensible ritual of power. The Spy Master felt his

flesh prickle, as the tingle of magic visited him.

The low voice rumbled as the magician said, 'It's a list.

The imperial requisitions for funds for the arts. Victory

arches, commemorative statues, memorials ...' A pause

while the two Black Robes seemed to ponder this. Then

the cold-voiced one said, 'The time period of these lists is

sensitive to our interests. Very.'

Arakasi clenched his hands in his plain worker's smock,

fearful that the drum roll of his heartbeat could be heard

over the stillness of the garden.

A lady's litter passed, hurried along by bearer slaves

adorned with silk headcloths. Delayed by the traffic, the

scribe paused on the other side of the street. Traces of

a woman's perfume twined over the scents of blooming

flowers, and the earthier odor of needra soil left by

animal-drawn conveyances. The Black Robes whispered,

craning their necks to regain sight of Arakasi's messenger,

who, all unsuspecting, now crossed the teeming main

thoroughfare with the jaunty stride of a boy who anticipates

a reward in centis to spend at the taverns.

'Certainly he should be questioned,' said the magician

with the cold voice. 'It's unlikely the boy is conducting

such research on his own. We must detain him and find

out whether anyone might have hired or forced him to

ferret out such facts.'

The other Great One murmured agreement.

Arakasi felt a jolt of near panic. If the scribe were forced

to talk, his cover would instantly become forfeit. And,

even before Kamlio, even without his awakened sense of

vulnerability, the Spy Master understood he would have

no chance of keeping secrets through an interrogation

by those able to read thoughts. Mara's hand would be

revealed, instantly and inescapably, and the continuance

of the Acoma be put in jeopardy.

He must act.

Cold under his worker's smock, Arakasi felt the metal of

his throwing knives. Propped up on one forearm, he groped

to loosen his sash. His hands felt sweat-slick and numb as

he reached under his robe and grasped the ebony handles

of two blades: one for the hapless scribe, the second for

himself. He must kill an innocent man in cold blood, and

immediately cut his own throat. After that he must hope the

Red God would take him before the magicians could bind

his wal to his body and force him to speak in betrayal.

The Black Robes had stepped together, obscuring Arakasi's

view of the street. Fear bound his chest like a rope. The

blade in his trembling hand, poised to throw, felt like a

dead thing, a splinter. His belly was on fire with nausea.

Almost, he hoped the worst might happen: that the

magicians would not move, and that the scribe would

step in through the arches to his garden rendezvous,

unknowing.

'He comes,' murmured the first magician. The pair moved

apart, deeper into the shadows. Like still, hooded statues,

on either side of the gateway arch, they waited for the man

who wove across the busy thoroughfare.

The press momentarily thinned. A cake seller walked

by, trailing the scent of cinnamon. Two boys ran, chasing

each other and shouting, while a puppy gamboled in and

out between their legs. The scribe dodged around a portly

water seller, his expression preoccupied, and his ink-stained

fingers taut on the flap of his satchel.

He stepped into the shaded walkway before the garden

gate.

Arakasi fought back revulsion. He had killed, many

times. Never had he reacted like this. Mortality had held

no meaning to his stone-hard heart, and he had felt no

weakening rush of empathy for his victim. His will faltered,

even as he cocked his arm to throw.

Sunlight flashed silver on the knife blade, drawing the

scribe's notice. His eyes widened, even as the Great Ones

stepped into view, clearly intending to intercept him.

Arakasi bit his lip. He must act! He measured distance,

aimed, and battled to banish his inner sickness.

'Halt,' the leftmost magician commanded in his ringing,

metallic voice.

The scribe did as bidden, paralysed with terror.

'We would question you,' said the second magician, his

voice a gritty bass.

In a state of trembling pallor, the scribe said, 'Your will,

Great Ones.'

Gripping the wheelbarrow as though his fingers might

punch through weathered wood, Arakasi forced his clamor

of feelings to stillness. Murder must have shown in his eyes

as he rose to one knee to throw, for the scribe staggered

back, panic written plain on his face. He saw certain death

in Arakasi's hand, and in a knife blade flashing downward

into the beginning of a throw.

He broke and spun. His satchel banged against his hip

as he dodged in desperation back into the crowded street,

running as though his heart might burst.

The deep-voiced magician stiffened in surprise. The other

shouted, outraged, 'He defies us!'

The Black Robe nearest the gate raised his hands. A

crash like thunder shocked the air, rattling the tools in

the wheelbarrow, and flattening the flowers in a suddenly

scything breeze. Arakasi was thrown flat against the earth.

He shoved his blades under his prostrate body and hid his

face behind his hands, while blast after blast shook the

garden, accompanied by flashes like lightning. Screams

erupted in the street, and sounds of fleeing footsteps and

the bawl of terrified needra. A carter snapped his goad

to whip up a laden wagon, and the puppy that had been

frolicking with the beggar boys began yelping. Shivering

uncontrollably, Arakasi peered between his fingers.

Except for the passersby who ran helter-skelter away

from the garden entry, the street looked little different;

the setting sun still cast red light across the library stair,

and temple incense wafted upon the air. Except that its

sweet odor now mingled with a scent of charred meat, and

a pitiful smoking lump lay on the cobbles, unrecognisable

as anything human. Nearby, untouched by the blast, rested

a spilled satchel of scrolls that turned and rolled, their ends

flapping in the dying eddies of wind.

'Why would the fool have run?' ruminated the magician

with the low voice. To his companion, he added, 'You

should have not been so quick to burn him to a cinder,

Tapek. Now we have no idea who employed him. This time

you've indulged your temper at the cost of information.'

The other Great One defended his act in disgust. 'There

are only two possible suspects, the Acoma or the Anasati.

No one else has a motive to send for inquiry into the

archives. And it is unthinkable that any lesser man should

defy us, and be allowed to disobey.' He turned from the

gate, his downturned mouth clearly visible beneath his

hood. His gaze flicked over the wheelbarrow, and the

gardener's tools, and settled, ice-hard, upon the prostrate

figure of Arakasi.

Mara's Spy Master felt the touch of that stare like a spear

thrust in the back. He could not stop trembling, nor did he

dare to move. With the breath stopped in his throat, he held

his pose of submission.

The magician stepped closer. Velvet-shod feet stopped

bare inches from his face. Mingled with the dust and the

wee green scent of broken flowers, Arakasi could smell the

pungency of ozone.

'Did you know that man?' demanded the Great One.

Incapable of speech, Arakasi shook his head.

The second Black Robe moved up to join his companion.

'He could be lying. we must be sure,' he said, his voice a

thunder of doom in Arakasi's ears. He stepped nearer.

Arakasi sensed motion, as if the magician made a pass

with his hands.

'Who was that man?' came the deep voice of the mage.

'Answer!'

The honed edge of spellcraft cut through the Spy Master's

mind. Trapped by undeniable power, he felt his lungs expel

air, and his lips and tongue forced to speech. 'He was but

a scribe,' he heard himself say. 'His name was unknown

to me.'

Arakasi closed his eyes in fear. Sadness at never seeing

Kamlio again clashed against his most vivid memory of

that afternoon they had shared in physical love, her languid

smile and hard eyes trapping his heart forever. Across his

jumble of recollection, the voice of a Great One said, 'His

mind is chaos. He thinks we shall kill him and . .~. he longs

to see a woman.' Harsh laughter escaped the magician. 'The

fool dreams of a beautiful young courtesan he once knew.

His only thought is to see her once more before he dies.'

Arakasi felt the compulsion born of magic dispel from

his mind and body, even as the other Black Robe said, 'A

guilty man would be thinking of his master or escape.'

That Arakasi remained too stunned to move lent credibility

to Tapek's conclusion. 'No, he-is not our man. The

scribe's contact fled, no doubt. This witless old gardener

knows nothing.' His manner shifted toward irritation.

'You were correct to chide me. Still, we now know

someone seeks forbidden knowledge. We must return to

the Assembly.'

The pair stepped away.

His sweat-drenched body coated with clinging dust,

Arakasi lay still. His ears recorded the sharp buzzing

sound, and the inrush of air as the Great Ones departed.

But it was dusk before his strength returned. He rose shakily

to his feet and stood for a long time with his weight braced

against his wheelbarrow.

Outside the gates, in the street, Imperial whites were

directing slaves to clear away the remains of the scribe.

A drudge hovered to one side with a bucket and brush,

to scrub the charred mark from the cobblestones. Around

this tableau the fine, sequined litters of the nobles carved

a wide berth. The ragged street boys that gathered to stare

at anything unusual were tonight nowhere in evidence.

Arakasi sat on the edge of his wheelbarrow and listened to

the rasp of night insects, while the afterglow faded from the

sky. The moon spread copper light over the wilting heads of

shorn blossoms. He did not need to see the scrolls that the

scribe had died to bring him. The presence of the Great

Ones confirmed the truth behind his hunches concerning

the histories. Soon he would have to slip away and make

a report to Lady Mara.

Worse was the inward uncertainty born during the heat

of his peril. Even now he could not determine whether he

actually could have fulfilled his duty. Even now he did

not know if he would have followed through and thrown

the knife.

Mara, Arakasi thought to himself, Lady. I have become

a liability to your cause.

But in the cool night, no answer came. He could do no

more than his best, for his Lady had no one else who

could approach the measure of his skills. And as well

as he knew her, Arakasi believed that if his mistress

were to face him now, there would be no reproach in

her eyes.

She understood his conflicts. The gift of that, in a ruling

mistress, almost moved him to tears. As he shifted to his

feet and raised the dew-wet handles of the wheelbarrow,

Arakasi wondered whether his Lady's compassion would

be great enough to break through Kamlio's bitterness.

Almost he laughed at his thought, in terrible, edged

self-reproach. How very near the Assembly had come to

learning everything about his Lady's plot to thwart their

decree. Long before Kamlio might find herself, all of them

might be dead, charred and smoking like the corpse in the

street, and with as little warning.

~:

17

Advice

Mara sat quietly, her daughter a warm weight clasped

against her shoulder. Fat, baby hands tangled in her hair,

reaching for the carved bead earrings she wore. Kasuma

was enchanted by anything red, and if she could close her

hand around whatever object held her fancy, she would

determinedly try to stuff it into her mouth. The Lady of

the Acoma rescued her jewelry from the tiny Shinzawai heir

by sliding her downward and bouncing her on her knee.

The child's coo of delight mingled with Justin's shouts that

drifted in through the screen. The boy continued to study

a warrior's skills, and under Lujan's unforgiving tutelage

was swinging a practice sword at a pell. Impatient as his

barbarian father, the boy insistently cried to his teacher that

wooden posts were stupid, that he should be permitted to

strike at something that could move. Like the jigabirds he

had been punished for harassing yesterday, Mara thought

with a half-smile. The cooks would as soon be quit of

Justin's pranks.

The Lady savored the moment. Since her parting from

Hokanu, rare intervals like these brought the only happiness

she knew.

Kasuma gave her a wet smile. Mara touched the baby's

nose, intentionally slowing her movement to allow the little

hands that thrashed to catch her bracelets and make them

chime. Today, along with her everyday jade, she wore the

priceless copper wristband once given her by Chipino of

the Xacatecas, expressly to please her child. Kasuma's

glee warmed her. Is this how my mother would have

felt, wondered the Lady of the Acoma, looking down

into my face? How different the course of her life might

have been had her mother lived. Would she have stayed on

and vowed service in Lashima's temple, while Lady Oskiro

became Ruling Lady of the Acoma? Would her mother

have ruled as Isashani had, through gentle female wiles?

Or would desperation have driven her to try dangerous

innovations?

Mara sighed. This endless circling of supposition served

nothing. All that she knew of her mother was a painted

portrait Lord Sezu had commissioned before the Lady's

untimely death in childbirth.

From the yard outside, Lujan's voice called in reprimand,

and the whack of Justin's practice strokes resumed at a

steadier rhythm. Mara could not hear the clack of a

wooden sword without being reminded of Ayaki. While

Justin looked nothing like her departed firstborn, there

came the odd moment when a glance, a turn of the head,

or boyish laughter would call his older brother to mind.

Ayaki would have passed his manhood ceremony, Mara

realised. That many years had gone by. He would have

been fitted for battle armor, not the pretty ceremonial

regalia given to young boys - she twisted her thoughts

away from useless dreaming. Aware of Kasuma's fingers

picking at her bracelets, Mara had to force herself not to

brood upon the other child by Hokanu, the one taken before

birth by the Hamoi Tong.

In another hour, her two remaining children would be

gone, sent on the road with a trusted retinue to the Imperial

Household in Kentosani. They would be safer there until

Hokanu won free of his Shinzawai obligations and was

able to return home to the lakeside estate.

Mara shut her eyes. Tomorrow would see her off on her

own journey, one that would begin in known territory, but

that could lead her far beyond the familiar. She took this

last interval to savor her little daughter. The gods only

knew how long she might be away. The years of Ayaki's

growing that she had missed while away on war campaign

in Dustari hurt her the worst, in retrospect. Now that the

boy was gone, she resented the years that politics had forced

her from his side.

Worst, most poignantly, she did not want Kasuma

growing up with no memory of her mother beyond a

painted image.

A soft baby foot thumped her in the chin. Mara smiled,

opened her eyes, and sighed to see the wet nurse return to

collect her daughter. The day was passing too quickly. The

large woman bowed, brisk in the face of her duty. Plainly

she did not enjoy being witness to a mother's parting from

her child.

'It's all right,' Mara reassured her. 'I know there are

things to pack, and Kasuma should have a chance to

nap before she is bundled off in a litter with her brother.

Justin won't let her sleep, he'll be so busy brandishing

his stick sword at make-believe robbers through the litter

curtains.'

The nurse's sternness softened. 'My Lady, your little ones

will both be well and happy. You must not worry.'

'Don't let the Emperor spoil them.' Mara warned,

hugging Kasuma so tightly the baby wailed in protest.

'He's terrible with children, always giving them sweets, or

jewels that the babies only end up putting in their mouths.

He'll cause one of the poor things to choke one day, unless

one of his silly wives finds nerve enough to teach him what's

safe for an infant.'

'Don't worry,' the nurse admonished once again. Personally,

she thought it was greed that kept the imperial mothers

from restraining their consort's generosity. She held out

huge, warm hands and accepted Kasuma from her mother.

The child cried harder, reaching chubby fingers toward the

retreating clink of the bracelets.

'Shhh. There, little blossom,' crooned the nurse. 'Give

your mother a smile to take with her on the road.'

That moment, while Mara fought a sadness that pressed

her near to tears, a single chime cut the air. In the courtyard,

the clack of Justin's practice stopped abruptly. By his howl

of annoyance, Mara presumed Lujan had reached out and

caught the stick in mid-swing. Her eyes locked with those

of the nurse, sick with hidden fear. 'Go,' she said. 'Quickly.

Buy what you need on the road, if you must, but head

straight for the litter. Lujan will bring Justin, and assemble

an escort and bearers, if it is not already too late.'

The nurse gave a quick, scared bow, Kasuma's cries

muffled against her shoulder. Then she bolted for the

door As well as her mistress, she knew: the chime that

had sounded heralded the coming of a Great One.

Mara shook off paralysis. Heart pounding in apprehension,

she shoved away the wrenching grief that she had not

been able to say farewell to her son. Although logic insisted

that if the Great Ones chose to act against her, the boy would

be no better off on the road, a mother's instinct would not

be denied: to send the children away from pending trouble

as fast and as far as possible. She wrenched her eyes from

the empty doorway where the nurse had disappeared with

her daughter, and clapped for her runner slave. 'Summon

my adviser. Quickly.' She started to ask also for her maid,

to bring a fresh robe and a comb to repair the tangles left

by Kasuma, but stopped herself.

The rare metal she wore on her wrist was sufficient

to impress, and she doubted her nerves could withstand

even the minute of stillness required to have a maid tidy

her hair.

Barely able to master her dread, Mara left the comfort

of the garden outside her quarters. She hastened

down dim hallways, the waxed wooden floors sounding

strangely hollow under her tread, after the stone

she had grown accustomed to in the lakeside manor to

the north.

Every estate house had a room with a pattern inset into

the floor, which provided a place for the magicians of the

Assembly to arrive by arcane means. While the decor of such

chambers varied from plain to ostentatious, the summoning

symbol was unique to each. Mara stepped through the low

doorway into the five-sided room. She took her place just

outside the mosaic in green-and-white tile that depicted the

shatra bird that was her family symbol. A stiff nod was the

best she could manage to acknowledge the presence of Saric

and Chubariz, the hadonra appointed by Jican to manage

her ancestral estates. At the sound of the chime, both had ~

presented themselves, as was appropriate to a Great One's

appearance. A moment later, Lujan arrived, breathing hard,

his gaze fixed, and his grip taut on his sword.

A second chime sounded,- signaling the moment of arrival.

A crack of displaced air ruffled Mara's loose hair and

twisted the plumes of Lujan's formal helm. Mara clenched

her jaw and forced her eyes straight ahead.

In the center of the pattern stood a bearded man in brown

robes. He wore no ornaments. His garments were not of silk

but of woven wool, clasped at the waist with a leather belt

and a brass buckle of barbarian design. He wore boots, not sandals,

and in the close heat of the windowless chamber,

a flush touched his pale skin.

Saric and Lujan both hesitated, halfway into their bows.;

They had expected a man in black, a Great One of the

Assembly. No magician they had heard of wore other;

than the traditional jet robe, and certainly none sported

a beard.

Mara bent in obeisance, prolonging the motion to allow

for furious thought. The City of the Magicians might lie to

the north of Ontoset, but the climate was not cold enough

to freeze. Only one reason could account for the dress of

her caller: he was not Tsurani-born. Her impulsive note

sent across the rift the month before must have attracted an

answer. Before her stood the barbarian magician Milamber,

whose powers unleashed in wrath had once freed slaves and

devastated the Imperial Games.

Mara's fear did not lessen at her deduction. This

Midkemian's beliefs were unknown to her. She had witnessed

the violence of his acts, which had culminated in exile

from the Assembly that had given him his early training. His

loyalties and his volatile temperament might still be theirs;

his swift and direct arrival after her vague overture was

disconcerting, when Mara had anticipated no reply more

elaborate than a letter.

Although Milamber would not be here on direct business

of the Assembly, there was no guarantee he would not recta

in the interest of his Tsurani counterparts. Events between

the worlds since his disgrace had caused him to work in

league with them. Mara arose from her bow. 'Great One,'

she opened in the steadiest voice she could manage, 'you

honor my house.'

The dark eyes that met Mara's seemed to hold veiled

amusement. 'I am no Great One, Lady Mara. Just call

me Pug.'

Mara's brow creased. 'Did I mistake? Is your name not

Milamber?'

Busily studying the unfurnished, wood-paneled room,

Pug answered with an informality that typified most

Midkemians. 'It was. But I prefer to be known by the

name given me in my homeland.'

'Very well, Pug.' Mara introduced her First Adviser and

her Force Commander. Then, left at a loss as to how she

should behave, and unwilling to be first to broach deeper

matters, she said, 'May I offer you refreshments?'

Pug's attention swung back, disconcertingly intense. But

the hands that had raised such fearful powers of destruction

in Kentosani remained still at his sides. He did nothing more

than nod his head.

Mara led the way down the wooden stair, through the

dim inner corridors, to the great-hall. Saric, Lujan, and

her hadonra followed at a respectful distance, their eyes

alive with curiosity and awe. The Acoma First Adviser

had heard his cousin's account of the destruction at the

Imperial Games many times over hwaet beer. Lujan moved

on his toes with alertness, aware that he dared not so much

as think of handling his weapons before a man of such

power; Saric sized up the barbarian magician, wrinkling

his nose at the strange musq odors of birch smoke and

callow that clung to the man's clothing. Pug was a man of

normal height for a Tsurani, which made him short by the

standards of his homeland. He looked unassuming, except

for his eyes, which were deep in mystery and terrifying for

their pent power.

As the party entered through the wide doors leading to

the great hall, Pug said, 'A pity you are not at your usual

abode, my Lady Mara. I had heard of the Great Hall

of the Minwanabi when I lived within the Empire. The

descriptions of the architecture fascinated me.' In an almost

amiable tone, he elaborated, 'You know I also built my

estate upon the property of a fallen family. Near Ontoset,

the former home of the Tuscai.' Mara glanced at her guest.

There was nothing friendly about his eyes, which looked

deeply into hers. If he was indicating he knew something

of her household, her Force Commander, First Adviser, and

Spy Master all having served the Tuscai, he showed only a

pleasant facade. Always moving, Pug's glance roved over

the room where Mara's Acoma ancestors had held court.

Typical of most Tsurani halls, it was open on two sides,

screens leading to a shaded portico. The ceiling was vaulted

beam, roofed over with wood and tile, and the floors, waxed

parquet that showed the wear of generations.

'Impressive,' he added, in reference to the war stands

strung in rows from the rafters. 'Your family is among the

oldest in the Empire, I understand.' He smiled, and years

dropped away from his face. 'I assume you've changed the

~ decor since taking possession of your other abode? The

Lord Tasaio's tastes were said to be execrable.'

{'His bantering tone set Mara at ease. Though she

suspected that was his purpose, and was loath to put d

her guard, she was grateful to let taut nerves loosen. 'and

My late enemy liked his cushions in leather and fur,

his tables inlaid with bone. There were more swords and

shields decorating the walls than Jican inventoried in the

Minwanabi armory, and the only silk we found was in

battle screamers and war trappings. The guest rooms looked

like an officers' barracks. But how do you know so much of

my dead enemies?'

Pug laughed with such openness that it was impossible

not to share in his mirth. 'Hochopepa. The old g

officiated at Tasaio's ritual suicide, and if you recall,

quite portly. His letters to me held complaint that there was

no seat in Tasaio's household that was not hard, upholstered

with wooden tacks, and narrow across the cushions

made for a man in battle trim.' -~ ~

Mara smiled. 'Kevin of Zun often told me that the

subdued art here would be counted "garish" in your

One might argue that tastes are a function of perspe.

The Lady of the Acoma waved her guest toward the

of cushions that lined the dais where the ruler in residence

held court. 'So I have learned over the years, yet so'

it is easy to forget.'

Pug deferred to her, allowing Lujan to seat her

first. As a Great One, he would have been entitled

shown that honor. But up close, he was unassuming

commoner. Mara found it difficult to equate this;

man with the figure of towering pride and power

had single-handedly ruined a former Warlord. But it took

more than appearances to settle her adviser and her Force

Commander. Saric and Lujan waited until the magician had

made himself comfortable before they sat themselves. Her

more retiring hadonra looked as if he were on trial for a

capital crime.

Servants hurried in with trays, offering meat and cheeses

and fresh fruits. Others brought hot water and an assortment

of beverages. Pug helped himself to a plate with sliced

jomach, and before Mara's trained staff could offer, poured

himself what he must have presumed would be chocha. He

sipped, and the half-moons of his eyes visible over his cup

widened in surprise. 'Tea!'

Mara fussed in worry. 'Did you wish something else? My

cook can have chocha brewed shortly, if that is your wish,

Great One.'

Pug held up his hand. 'No, tea is fine. I'm startled to find

it here.' Then his eyes narrowed as he added, 'Though by

all reports, little to do with the Lady of the Acoma should

be surprising.'

Infused with sudden uneasiness, particularly that he

should be acquainted with her affairs across the rift, Mara

drew breath to demur. 'Great One-'

Pug interrupted. 'Please. I renounced that title when it

was offered, at the time the Assembly asked to reinstate me.'

At Saric's startled lift of brows, the Midkemian magician

nodded. 'Yes. They retracted my order of exile, after the

conflict with the Enemy that came to threaten both our

worlds. I am now also a Prince, by adoption into the royal

family. But I prefer Pug, magician of Stardock, to any other

title.' He helped himself to more tea, then loosened his wool

collar to ease himself in Kelewan's warmer climate. 'How is

Hokanu? I have not seen him since' - a frown knitted his

brows - 'since just after the battle of Sethanon.'

Mara sighed, hiding sadness as she nibbled a bit of

fruit from the tray. 'He is well, but contending with some

unpleasant rivalries among his cousins since he inherited

his father's title.'

Regret played across Pug's expression as he set down

his cup. The jomach lay untasted beneath his hands,

which were fine-skinned, the nails impeccably manicured.

'Kamatsu was one of the finest men this land has known.

He will be missed. In many ways, I owe him for what I

am today.' Then, as if uncomfortable with dark thoughts,

Pug grinned. 'Has Hokanu developed the same passion for

horses that consumes his brother?'

Mara shook her head. 'He enjoys them, but not nearly

so much as Kasumi did.' Quietly, sadly, she added, 'Or

Ayaki.'

Pug focused on the reference with the open, barbarian

sympathy that in Kevin had so often been disconcerting.

'The death of your son was a tragedy, Mara. I have a

boy close to his age. He is so bursting with life-' He

broke off, fingering his sleeves in discomfort. 'You have

been very brave, to endure such a loss without becoming

callous or uncaring.'

It was uncanny, how much this barbarian magician knew

of her affairs and her heart. Mara flashed a glance at Saric,

who looked on the verge of comment. She signaled her wish

to speak first, before courage forsook her entirely.

'Pug,' she opened, the familiar address coming awkwardly, '

I sent you that message out of desperation.'

Pug folded his hands in his cuffs and regarded her,

utterly still. 'Perhaps it would be wise to start from the

beginning.'

His eyes were old, as if he had beheld vistas wider than

the human mind should encompass, and griefs more terrible

than the loss of a single child. For an instant, Mara glimpsed

past his mystery, to the powers that coiled within this man

whose manner seemed easy as a daatty cousin's. She recalled

the black-robed figure that had single-handedly destroyed

the Imperial Arena, a gigantic stone edifice that had taken

decades to build. Hundreds had died, and thousands

had been injured in a fearful explosion of power, all

because Milamber, this magician, had objected to the

brutality of human combat as a display. Despite his

everyday appearance and warm manner, he was a mage

of unknowable dimension. Mara shivered sharply, feeling

like a girl before the awareness of leashed might that this

man seemed to hide so adroitly.

And yet it must equally be recognised that, alone, Pug

had flown in the face of tradition, and had earned himself

exile for deeds the Assembly could not countenance. If the

Acoma were to gain protection, he was a potential key to

knowledge. ~

Mara chose to risk all. She dismissed Lujan and her

advisers, and when she was alone with the barbarian

magician, she spoke freely. She began with the year the

death of her father and brother forced her to assume control

of her house, and recounted the triumphs and defeats that

had followed. She spoke without pause, neglecting her tea

and the food on the tray for a long time, finally ending

with her confrontation with the Anasati that had brought

intervention by the Assembly.

Pug interrupted with a question. From that point forward,

he asked often for clarification of a thought or

enumeration of a detail, or probed her to learn the motive

behind an action. Mara was impressed at the quality of

his memory, for he often asked for more information on

something mentioned more than a half hour prior. When

Mara mentioned Arakasi's latest findings concerning the

lapses of continuity in ancient documents in the Imperial

Archives, Pug's questions became yet more pointed.

'Why did you wish my help in these matters?' he asked

at last, his tone deceptively mild.

Mara knew nothing would suffice but total honesty.

'It has become apparent that the Assembly might oppose

me, not to keep peace, but to arrest change within the

Empire. Great Ones have been reining the nations back

from growth for more than a thousand years, if my

advisers and my Spy Master's assessments are correct.'

Although she might be judged and destroyed for the

boldness of her accusation, Mara shed her uncertainties.

If she backed away from this chance to gain knowledge,

the Acoma were lost anyway. She forced herself to frame in

clear words what had become a lifetime's dedication since

Ayaki's death. 'Your Midkemian ways have shown the

time-honored traditions we Tsurani most revere become

destructive when they result in stagnation. We have become

a cruel people, since the Golden Bridge. Merit has been

replaced by- elaborate codes of honor, and by a rigid

caste system. I would see change, and an end to merciless

politics for personal honor. I would see our Lords become

accountable for their actions, and our slaves set free. But

I suspect the Assembly would prevent even the Light of

Heaven enacting such shifts in policy.'

Mara looked up to find Pug staring into his empty

teacup. Late sunlight slashed the wooden floors, and the

cheeses had half melted on the food tray. Hours had passed,

all unnoticed. Ruefully Mara realised that the Midkemian

magician's questioning had not only caused her to reveal

more than she had planned, but also had crystallised her

thinking, ordered her mind and delineated exactly which

problems lay ahead of her. More in awe of the barbarian

magician than before, since she had not noticed his molding

of her thoughts, Mara clenched her hands together. In a

fever of anxiety, she awaited his terrible judgment, or the

gift of his understanding.

For a while nothing moved in the great hall but the war

banners stirred by the breeze. At last Pug broke his silence.

'Much in what you say puts me in mind of things I have

felt . . . things I have done.'

Nervously Mara said, 'I don't follow.'

Pug smiled. 'Let us simplify by saying that the Assembly

is filled with disagreement. From without, the society of

magicians might seem a monolithic entity, a body that

occasionally intervenes in the affairs of the Empire, but

habitually keeps itself separate.' He gestured widely as folk

from his culture were wont to do. 'That is far from the case.

Each Great One may act as he sees fit, upon any occasion,

for his training is predicated upon serving the Empire.'

Mara nodded.

Pug's gaze caught hers, dark with an irony that might

have been amusement had the topic been less grave.

'However, there are times when two magicians may have

radically different views of how best to serve. On rare

occasions, disagreements give rise to conflict.'

Mara dared a supposition. 'Then some of the Great Ones

may not sanction the intervention in my war against the

Anasati?'

'They would be the minority,' Pug allowed. Perhaps

his own memories of exile from the Assembly came to

mind, for he seemed to weigh Mara's eagerness. 'I am

also sure that others argued that your death would solve

the matter quickly.' Deliberately careful in his wording, he

neither confirmed nor denied her speculations concerning

the Assembly's hold over the Empire's development; in bald

fact, he had told her little that Fumita had not already hinted

to Hokanu at Kamatsu's death rites.

Mara restrained her frustration as Pug rose, plainly with

intent to end the interview. Desperate not to lose her hope

of aid, she blurted, 'I wrote you on the chance you might

know how I may defend myself against the Assembly if the

need arises.'

'I thought as much.' Suddenly hard as barbarian iron,

Pug laced his hands together under his wide sleeves and

regarded her as she, too, arose to her feet. 'Walk with me

to the pattern.'

Mara waved back the servants who closed in to collect

the food tray, and the two warriors who moved from their

positions by the outer door, to accompany her as escort.

Aware that Pug could depart from any place in her house,

she surmised that his request stemmed from a wish for

privacy. As she led from the great hall into the dimmer

inner corridor, Pug drew her to his side with a touch upon

her arm. 'Why should you have concern for your safety,

Mara of the Acoma?' Softly he added, 'If you were a good

child who ceased troubling your parents, you would have

nothing to fear by way of punishment.'

In better times, Mara might have smiled at the image.

'The last agent I sent into the Imperial Archives to research

significant financial discrepancies in certain historical periods

was destroyed outright by the Assembly.'

As if Pug had been born knowing the halls of a strange

house, he turned up the steps toward the pattern room.

'Knowledge can be a dangerous thing, Mara of the

Acoma.'

He did not ask which years her agent had inquired into,

or what findings he had unearthed; his silence on those

points only underscored Mara's fears. She stepped into

the pattern room at the magician's side. Pug turned and

closed the door. She did not see the pass he made with

his hands, but her flesh felt chilled as if a cold wind blew

across her, and she knew that a spell had been invoked. Pug

straightened, his expression grave. 'For a few minutes, no

one, not even the most gifted of my former brethren, can

hear what you say.'

Mara's face drained of color. 'Great Ones could listen to

what passed in my great hall?'

Pug smiled in quick reassurance. 'Most likely it never

occurred to any of them to try- it's considered a breach of

proper behavior. Though I can't guarantee that much for

Hochopepa if the matter is weighty enough. He's a bit of a

snoop.' The last was said with affection, and Mara realised

that the portly magician must have been one of Pug's friends

ant supporters, after the upheaval in the Imperial Arena. As

much as any Black Robe could be, this Hochopepa might

be sympathetic to the Acoma cause.

Pug's next question caught her back from speculative

thought. 'Mara, you realise that the changes you work for

will turn the Empire upon its collective ear?'

Tired to her bones from the strain, Mara leaned back

against the wood-paneled walls and regarded the shatra

bird symbol inset into the floor. 'Should we continue as we

have, and be ruled by men who murder children, and let

good people become beaten down and ruined by servitude

when their talents and efforts deserve better? Jiro of the

Anasati and the faction he leads would see petty power

struggles take precedence over all else. It is heresy for me

to say so, but I no longer can believe that the gods endorse

such waste.'

Pug made a deprecating gesture. 'Then why concern the

Assembly? Have an assassin dispose of Jiro. You certainly

have wealth enough to buy his death.'

The ordinary callousness of his statement at last disarmed

her. Mara forgot he was a magician, forgot his terrible

powers, forgot all but her own bitter anguish. 'Gods, don't

speak to me of assassins! I destroyed the Hamoi Tong

because they were too readily available as a weapon for

grasping Ruling Lords to further their own selfish causes.

The Acoma have never dealt with assassins! I will see my line

dead and lost to memory before I begin such practice. Seven

times have I been marked for death. Three times the lives of

my loved ones have been sent to Turakamu's halls by the

tong in my place. I have lost two sons and the mother of my

heart to its bloody hands.' Then, reawakened to awareness

of whom she addressed, she finished, 'There is more to this

than my hatred of assassins. Jiro's death might settle honor,

but that ends nothing, solves nothing. The Assembly would

still seek to ruin my house. Because Ichindar, and Hokanu,

and I myself as Servant of the Empire, all seek to replace

what is missing from our lives.'

'Missing?' Pug prompted as he folded his arms across

his chest.

'Within us. Within the Empire.'

'Go on.'

Mara looked deep into Pug's eyes. 'Do you know Kevin

of Zun?'

Pug nodded. 'Not well. I first met him here-'

'When?' Disrupted utterly from her train of thought,

Mara's eyes widened in disbelief. 'You never called upon

me. Surely I would have remembered such a momentous

event!'

Pug regarded her with bitter humor. 'I was of a somewhat

lower station at that time, being one of Master Hokanu's

slaves. Kevin and I exchanged only a few words. But I

have seen him once since his return to the Prince's court

in Krondor, in a reception for the border barons.'

Mara repressed a wild leap of the heart. In a tight whisper

she asked, 'Is he well?' Her eyes pleaded.

Pug nodded, aware of the deeper emotions behind that

simple question. In answer to a need her pride would never

acknowledge, he volunteered, 'Kevin has made a name for

himself in the service of Prince Arutha. Third sons of minor

nobles need to find their way by their wits. From what I have

heard and seen, he does well indeed. He serves in the north

of the Kingdom, with Baron Highcastle, and has advanced

in rank several times, I believe.'

Mara's voice fell and her eyes lowered as she softly said,

'Has he wed?'

'I do not know, I'm sorry to say. Stardock is far from

court, and detailed news does not always reach us.' When

Mara raised her gaze, Pug observed, 'Though I'm unsure

which answer would please you most, yes or no.'

Mara loosed a rueful laugh. 'I do not know either.'

Golden light seeped under the door as a servant lit lamps

in the hallway; dusk lent purple shadows to the closed

confines of the pattern room. Suddenly reawakened to the

passage of time, Pug said briskly, 'I must go.' He forestalled

Mara's second attempt to delay him, saying, 'I have no gift

for you of magic or wisdom, Lady. I am not of the Assembly,

but even still, the oaths I swore when I was admitted to its

brotherhood bind my mind, if not my heart. Even with my

powers, some training is difficult to disobey. I cannot aid

you in your struggle. But I can offer this. You are wise to

seek counsel outside the Empire, for you will find few allies

within.'

Mara's eyes narrowed as she realised that he knew of her

secret preparations to journey over the borders; but how he

had found out, or what made him able to read beyond what

she had taken pains to conceal as a pilgrimage, she could

not guess. 'So it's true the cho-ja may not aid me.'

Pug's face split into a grin. He moved away from her

side, almost boyish in his delight. 'You are further along in

unraveling the great mystery than I would have thought.'

His expression returned to a neutral mask as he finished,

'Those within the Empire who might wish to be your allies

are prevented. No, you must seek outside the Nations.'

'Where?' Mara pressed. 'The Kingdom of the Isles?' But

at once she knew the lead she suggested was a false hope.

Already, she spoke with the most powerful man from

beyond the rift.

Pug stretched his arms out, letting the sleeves of his

brown robe fall away. Obliquely he said, 'Did you know

my wife was Thuril? Interesting place, the highlands. You

should visit them sometime. Give my regards to your

husband.'

With no further word, he raised his hands above his

head and vanished. The inrush of air into the space he

had occupied filled the silence, while the chamber dimmed

into the darkness of coming night.

Mara sighed and opened the door. Blinking against the

sudden dazzle of lamplight, she saw Saric and Lujan awaiting

her. To her adviser and her officer she said, 'Nothing

has changed. We begin our pilgrimage tomorrow.'

Saric's eyes lit with excitement. After a glance to be sure

no servants lurked within earshot, he whispered, 'We go

beyond Lepala?'

Mara bit back an answering smile, careful not to show

more enthusiasm than a pious journey might warrant;

though she, too, was excited and curious at the prospect of

crossing the borders into unknown lands. 'By fastest ship.

But we must visit the temples before we travel east. If we

are to gain by our visit to Thuril, we must be circumspect

in our departure.'

The preparations left to be made before dawn demanded

attention, and Lujan and Saric took leave of their mistress

to attend them. As they departed, alike in their movements

as only blood kin could be, Mara looked after them and

sighed. The house seemed empty and quiet without the

children. Regretting she had lost her chance to bid them

a proper farewell, she moved in the direction of the stair,

and her study, where the servants would be bringing her

evening meal. First light would not come soon enough to

soothe her unsettled nerves. Now that her path was clear,

she was anxious to be away.

She could not surmise what lay in store for her across

the border in the lands of a people who had been enemies

of the Empire through years of wars and skirmishes. The

treaty that bound the current peace was an uneasy one; the

highlanders of the confederation were quick to offend and

belligerent by nature. But the most powerful magician of

two worlds had circumspectly encouraged her exploration.

If nothing else, Mara sensed that he, alone of any, fully

understood the stakes. More, he knew the terrible scope

of the perils she needed to surmount.

As she moved past bowing servants, toward the comfort

of her quarters, she wondered what Pug's appraisal of her

chances at success might have been. Then she had second

thoughts, and decided she was wise not to have asked. If the

barbarian magician had answered at all, his words would

surely have taken the heart from her.

The priest shouted. Echoes reverberated off the massive

vaults of the temple ceiling, which towered above carved

wooden pillars and buttresses. The assembled circle of

red-robed acolytes answered in ritual chant, and a rare

metal chime sounded to signal the ending of the morning

ceremony. Mara waited quietly in shadow at the rear of

the chamber, her honor guard surrounding her, and her

First Adviser at her side. Saric looked absorbed in thoughts

far removed from religion. His fingers tapped a tattoo on

the corcara-shell bosses on his belt, and his hair looked

rumpled, as if he had raked his fingers through his bangs

in impatience. While none of her warriors disclosed any

sign of discomfort, their stiff postures indicated that they

were less able to turn their minds to other matters while in

the Red God's sacred precinct. Most of them offered inward

prayers to the Deities of luck and fortune that their final

meeting with the Death God would be long in coming.

And in truth, Mara thought, the Temple of Turakamu

was not a place designed for comfort. An ancient altar,

once the site of human sacrifice - and still such, rumor

ran - squatted on the raised platform at the chamber's

center. Stone benches surrounded the site, worn by the feet

of many worshippers, and grooved with drains that led to

recessed basins at the feet of statues that were centuries

old, their surfaces smoothed and stained by the touch of

generations of hands. The walls behind their niches were

painted with human skeletons, demons, and demigods with

multiple legs and arms. The figures writhed or danced in

postures of ecstasy; despite their grotesque aspect, they

reminded Mara of other icons and paintings that adorned

the House of Fruitfulness, one of the many shrines of

Lashima, visited by women who prayed for conception.

Yet while Turakamu's temple depicted no sexual overtones,

there was a sybaritic quality to the murals, as if those hideous

intertwined figures were celebrating, not suffering.

Awaiting her audience, Mara considered that while the

Red God's priests were frightening, in conversation they

insisted that as all people meet their end at the feet of

Turakamu, death was a kite, not to avoid, but rather to

be accepted with understanding.

The circle of acolytes reformed into a double column,

wreathed in the twining smokes of incense. Mara saw

the caped figure at the head of the procession pause to

address a supplicant who begged the god's mercy for one

recently departed. A writ crusted with seals changed hands;

most likely a draft from the family offering a generous

contribution to the temple if its bequest was answered.

As the paintings furthest from the sacrificial altar showed,

humans with beatific expressions bowed before the Red

God's throne to hear divine decision concerning rebirth

into life, their next station on the Wheel designated by the

balance of their debts against honor. The recently departed,

it was believed, could be enhanced in the eyes of the Red

God through prayer, and while the poor came on foot to

make obeisance and light cheap clay lamps, the rich came

in litters bearing lavish sums for private temple rites.

Mara wondered whether such practices influenced

Turakamu, or were the encouragement of earthly priests

who desired rubies for their mantles, and comforts for

their refectories and sleeping cells. Certainly the massive

gold tripods that supported the lamps by the altar

amounted to the wealth of a kingdom. Although each

temple of the Twenty god's had costly trappings, few were

as sumptuously appointed as the smallest ones dedicated to

Turakamu.

A voice roused Mara from reverie. 'Good Servant, you

honor us.' The procession of acolytes had reached the rear

door, and was filing slowly out, but the High Priest in

attendance had stepped out of the column and approached

the Acoma retinue. Under his paint and his feathered cape,

he was a man of medium stature, aging, but bright of eye.

Up close, it was apparent that he was taken aback, and his

nervous hands moved up and down the bone wand with

its skull bosses that he had flourished during the rites. 'I

knew you were going on pilgrimage, Lady Mara, but I had

presumed you would visit the great shrine in the Holy City,

not our humbler abode in Sulan-Qu. Certainly I did not

prepare for the honor of a personal visit.'

Mara bowed slightly to the High Priest of Turakamu.

'I've no wish to stand upon ceremony. And in truth, my

trip here is for reasons other than plain devotion. Rather,

I have need of your counsel.'

The High Priest's brows rose in surprise and disappeared

under the chin of the skull mask he wore, perched on the

crown of his head now that the ceremony was ended. He

was not stripped nude and stained in red body paint, as

was customary for rites performed outside sacred ground.

But his hair was braided with relics that looked like bits of

dismembered birds, and the accoutrements visible beneath

his cape of scarlet feathers seemed even less inviting. As if

aware that his formal dress was not conducive to interviews,

he passed his wand to the boy acolyte who waited in his

shadow, and doffed his robe. The cross-belts on which

his relics hung were of ancient design, and two other

attendants rushed forward and removed them from his

shoulders with reverent care. They bore the regalia off,

chanting, to its place in locked closets hidden away in a

warren of passageways.

Left in a simple loincloth, his eyes still striped with paint

from the ceremony, the priest seemed suddenly younger.

'Come,' he invited Mara. 'Let us retire to more comfortable

surroundings. Your honor guard may come along, or they

may await your pleasure in the garden inside the gates. It

is shady there, and a water boy will answer their needs for

refreshment.'

Mara waved Lujan and Saric to her side, and indicated

that the rest of her retinue might retire. None of the

warriors looked relieved, but their steps were animated

as they wheeled in formation and headed for the doorway

to the outer garden. Men in martial professions were never

comfortable with Turakamu's followers. Superstition held

that a soldier who spent too much time in devotion to the

Red God risked attracting that deity's favor; and those

whom Turakamu came to love, would be taken in their

youth from the battlefield. ~

The High Priest led the way through a small side doorway

into a dim corridor. 'When not in formal guise, I am called

Father Jadaha, Good Servant.'

Half smiling at his formality, the Lady replied, 'Mara will

do, Father.'

She was ushered into austere quarters with walls of

unadorned paneling, and unpainted screens. The prayer

mats were dyed red, for the glory of the god, but those used

for sitting were woven of natural fiber. Mara was shown to

the plumpest of a poor lot of cushions, threadbare with use,

but clean. She allowed Lujan to seat her, and offered a hasty

inward prayer for Turakamu's forgiveness. Her thoughts

had been wrong; plainly, in the temple the Sulan-Qu priests

used the moneys given by petitioning families only to adorn

those chambers dedicated to their god. Once Lujan and

Saric had placed themselves at their mistress's side, the

High Priest sent his servant for refreshments. A body

servant with a bad scar and one eye saw to the removal

of his ceremonial paint, and brought him a white robe with

red borders. Then, over a tray of chocha and small cakes,

the High Priest addressed his visitor. 'Mare, what service

may the Temple of Turakamu offer you?' I

'I am not certain, Father Jadaha.' Mara helped herself to

a square of sweet cake out of politeness. While Saric poured .

her chocha, she added, 'I seek knowledge.'

The priest returned a gesture of blessing. 'What poor

resources we have are yours.'

Mara let her surprise show, for his quick acceptance was

unexpected. 'You are very generous, Father. But I humbly

submit, you might wish to hear of my needs before you

make sweeping promises.'

The High Priest smiled. His one-eyed servant retired with

evident respect, and given a view of a face cleansed of paint,

Mara saw that the chief devotee of the Death God was

a pleasant older man. Slender and fit, he had a scribe's

beautiful hands, and his eyes sparkled with intelligence.

'What should I fear in making promises, Lady Mara?

You have shown your mettle in your great service to

the Empire. I much doubt your motives now are selfish

at heart; not after the behavior you demonstrated after

the demise of House Minwanabi. More than generous,

your actions were .. . unprecedented. Not only did you

observe correct forms in removing the prayer gate Desio

erected in dedication to your death, you selflessly made

sure that no dishonor was implied to the temple in asking

the prayer gate to be relocated off your lands. It is we

priests who are in your debt, for your part in ending the

tiranny of the High Council. Once again, our guidance is

allowed proper influence over the course of daily life.' The

priest gestured ruefully and helped himself to a huge slice

of cake. 'Changes in the power structure happen slowly.

Those Ruling Lords who resist our influence are close-knit

in their opposition. Still, we are making progress.'

Mara now recalled the words of the delegate from

Turakamu's temple who had officiated at the relocation

of Desio's prayer gate. At the time, overwhelming emotions

had caused her to dismiss the priest's remarks as ingratiating

flattery. Only years later, did she appreciate his sincerity.

The discovery of support in a place she had not expected

bolstered her courage. 'I need to inquire about the nature

of magic.'

The High Priest froze with his cup of chocha halfway

to his lips. He blinked once, his thoughts distant. Then, as if

the Lady's request had been commonplace, he resumed

sipping his drink. He allowed the beverage to linger on his

palate before he swallowed, perhaps because he wished to

buy time for consideration, or, as Saric's wicked insight

might infer, to forestall an unseemly fit of choking.

Whatever his priestly motive, his manner was calm when

he set down his cup. 'What would you know of magic?'

Doggedly Mara pursued the topic, though it was dangerous. '

Why are such powers considered the sole province

of the Assembly? For I have seen priests who could

wield them.'

The High Priest regarded the small, determined woman

who was acknowledged to be the second most influential

figure in the Empire after the Light of Heaven. His eyes

held unfathomable shadows, and a coldness not there the

moment before. 'The sanctions imposed by the Assembly

upon your dispute with Jiro of the Anasati are well known,

Mara. If you are seeking to arm yourself against the Black

Robes, you embark on a ruinous course.' He did not use

the honorific 'Great Ones' and that nuance was not lost ~]

upon Mara and her advisers. As with the cho-ja, was it

possible the temple hierarchies felt less than enamored of'

the magicians?

'Why should you assume that I plot against the Assembly?'

Mara asked with impolitic bluntness.

Father Jadaha seemed unperturbed by her directness.~

'My Lady, service to Turakamu leads my kind to know

the darker side of human nature. Men long in power do

not care to be shown their vulnerabilities. Few demonstrate

wisdom when confronted by change and self-recogn~

Sadly, many react in defense of positions that have lost

their meaning, simply because they fear to see their security'

undermined, even for growth, even for the betterment of(

their lives. They resist change simply because it is outside

the comfort they know. You represent luck and hope and

good fortune to the folk of these nations. You have:

been their champion, unwittingly or not, because you

opposed tyranny and cruelty when you brought about the'

abolishment of the Warlord's office. You have successfully

questioned the long-standing power structure that rules this.

land. That must be interpreted as challenge, whether you

will such or not. You have grown to great heights, and those"

who see you as their rival have felt your shadow fall across

them. Two powers such as the Assembly and the Servant

of the Empire cannot exist without conflict. Thousands of

years in the past, the Black Robes perhaps earned their place

outside the law. But now they interpret their omnipotence as

their gods-given right, their sacred honor, if you will. You:

represent change; and they, the very fabric of tradition

They must defeat you to maintain their ascendance. This

is the nature of Tsurani life.' ~

Father Jadaha glanced through the screen, cracked open

to admit the outside air. The snap of a carter's whip drifted

in from the street, overlaid by the cry of a fish monger selling;

that morning's catch. As if the intrusive sounds of ordinary

life set mortal bounds to his thinking, the priest sighed.

~Once we who swore service to the gods held influence

and great reach, Mara of the Acoma. Once we were able

to encourage our rulers for the betterment of all men, or

at least use our influence to curb excessive greed and evil.'

He fell silent, his lips thinned with what may have been

bitterness. Then he said, 'There is nothing I can offer that

will help you against the Assembly. But I have a small gift

for your journey.'

Mara repressed apprehension. 'Journey?' Had her subterfuge

been so transparent, that even this High Priest in

Sulan-Qu saw through the purpose of her pilgrimage?

Stiff-faced, silent, and reminded by a touch from Saric

that she must not tip her hand through an assumption,

Mara watched- the priest arise and cross to an ancient

wooden chest.

'To find what you seek you must travel far, Mara of

the Acoma.' He unlocked the catch and raised the lid. 'I

believe you already know that.' His incongruously graceful

hands rummaged through the contents of the chest. Mara

caught a glimpse of parchments, and the ribboned edges of

seals, through a puff of disturbed dust. The priest muffled

a sneeze in his sleeve. 'Your pardon.' He flapped an ancient

treatise to clear the air, then resumed his train of thought.

'The gossip mongers on the streets say you carry enough

baggage to return to the sandy wastes of the Lost Lands.

Anyone with a shell centi can buy that fact from them.'

Mara smiled. She found it difficult to reconcile the

priest who had officiated at the morning rites to the

most feared god on Kelewan with a man who might

buy gossip on the street. Ruefully she said, 'I had hoped

to imply that we carried great tribute to offer the temples

where I will pause to pay my respects to the Twenty

Gods. In truth, though, you are right. My pilgrimage

will lead me to board ship and travel downriver to

Jamar.'

The High Priest straightened from the chest, a smear of

dust on his nose and a twinkle in his eyes. He held an

ancient parchment, cracked and flocked with age. 'I would

be a poor counselor for the afflicted if I could not read

through subterfuge. But we priests do not see through the

eyes of rulers. It is our business to interpret with an eye to

understanding.' He offered the document to Mara. 'Read

this. It might yield you some insights.'

Sensitive to the finality in his tone, Mara handed the

parchment to Saric to store in his satchel. She pushed aside

her cake plate and rose. 'Thank you, Father.'

The priest held her eyes as Lujan and Saric moved in

response to her intention to depart. 'Do you seek answers -'

in the Lost Land, Mara?'

Wise enough to know when not to be circumspect, Mara

said, 'No. We leave from Jamar for Lepala.' ;

As if the topic she addressed held nothing more momentous

than small talk, the priest waved away a small insect:

that alit upon the rim of the cake plate; then his hands

folded comfortably in his sleeves. 'This is good, daughter

of my god. The shamans of the desert are . . . unreliable.

Many of them treat with dark powers.' ,,?,

Saric could not restrain a small exclamation at this. The

priest responded with a chuckle. 'Your First Adviser seems

surprised.'

Mara nodded her permission, and Saric made hasty

apology. 'Excuse my apparent disrespect, Father, but most

would consider . . . your master a . . . dark power.'

The High Priest's face crinkled with silent laughter.~

'Believe me, that misapprehension often has its advantages! ,,!

But death is just another side of the mystery of the Wheb

of Life. Without its portal into Turakamu's halls, where

all spirit finds renewal, our current existence would be a

mindless endeavor lacking soul.' The High Priest moved

to usher Mara's party from his quarters, but he continued

speaking. 'Our magic, as you would call it, is no unnatural

power.' He pointed his finger at the insect that circled over

the cake platter. A sharp, almost subliminal shadow seemed

to cross the air and the creature plummeted to the floor. 'We

use this aspect of nature sparingly, to ease the suffering of

those who are near their end, yet unable to release their

own hold upon flesh. The spirit of life is strong, sometimes

mindlessly so.'

'Such could be a powerful weapon,' observed Lujan in a

voice deeper than usual. Mara realised that, though he hid

it well, he was as apprehensive of Turakamu's servants as

any one of his warriors.

The priest shrugged. 'Never that.' With no more ado,

he pointed his finger at Lujan's breast. The Acoma Force

Commander made a visible effort to keep from flinching,

and sweat sprang along the band of his plumed helm.

Nothing happened.

Even Mara realised her heart had raced in fear as the

priest added quietly, 'It was not your time to meet the Red

God, Force Commander. Mine are the powers of my god.

I could not send you to his halls on my own authority.'

Saric, to whom all of life was a puzzle to be solved, was

first to overcome his apprehension. 'But the insect . . . ?'

'This was its time.' The priest almost sounded weary. 'To

make a point, I expect.'

Sobered, Mara bade the priest thanks for his advice and

good wishes. She and her party were shown from the temple

by the one-eyed servant. At the base of the marble stair,

they were rejoined by her honor guard. Mara stepped

into her litter, lost in thought. She did not at once give

the command to her bearers to rise, and in that interval,

a ragged street urchin raced from a side alley and crashed

squarely into Lujan.

The Force Commander swore under his breath. He

righted the youngster, crinkled his nose at the smell of

unwashed clothes, then abruptly became expressionless.

Mara stifled her amusement. Under the noise of another

street hawker, this one peddling cheap silk scarves and perfumes

suitable for weman of the Reed Life, she whispered,

'Another of Arakasi's messengers?'

Saric pricked up, while Lujan stuffed the note he had

palmed into his belt, under pretence of wiping his hand

'Vermin,' he said loudly after the fleeing child. Dropping

his voice so only Mara and Saric could hear, he added,

'Where does the man find such filthy creatures to do his

bidding?'

Mara was unwilling to disclose that her Spy Master had

once been such a luckless boy, and that his use of them

as his message bearers might be twofold: they would not

be marked by other men's spies because they were of

little account, and they could not read. Since Arakasi

had encountered Kamlio, Mara additionally suspected that

pity entered in, since her Spy Master might wish to justify

spending the centis to allow those less fortunate youngsters

a chance to buy themselves a meal they need not steal. In a

noncommittal voice she said, 'Did he find one?'

Saric gave her a stern look. Aware that she referred to

a magician of the lesser path, which Arakasi had set out

to find since the misfortune that had ended his search

through the archives, the First Adviser snapped Mara's

curtains closed. He said in his most infuriating tone of

familiarity, 'The sooner we move out to find a tavern for

your nap, the quicker you will find out.'

'We will call on the man after dark,' Mara whispered

through the cloth.

Saric and Lujan exchanged glances of fond exasperation.,

Their mistress seemed giddy as a girl. Plainly, she found

the challenge of her pending inquiries into the forbidden

exhilarating after long months of frustration. As the

bearers raised the litter, Saric and the Acoma Force

Commander fell into step together.

'Was she like this when you left for the campaign in the

desert?' the First Adviser murmured to the officer who was

his cousin.

'Not then.' Lujan pushed back his helm with a smile. 'But

Keyoke told me about the wild march cross-country into the

territory of the Inrodaka to win the alliance of the cho-ja

Queen. By his account, then she was worse.'

'Gods save us,' Saric said, making a sign to avert misfortune.

But his eyes were laughing, and his stride,

like his cousin's, was springy with excitement.

'Your curiosity will kill us all one day,' Lujan murmured.

'It's a damned lucky thing for my recruits that you gave up

your warrior's sword for the mantle of an adviser.'

Then the honor guard and litter bearers set off for the

tavern where Mara would reside while in Sulan-Qu.

.~

18

.

Evasion

The door flap stirred.

Jamd, the lesser-path magician, seareed at the sound,

his sweaty hand gripped tighte to the knife he heldd to his

breast. He had only seconds to act, he knew. His body

would take a while to relinquish life after he fell upon his

blade. Apprehension for the agony he would suffer made

the little man hesitate. He shifted his wee fingers, biting

his lower lip. He must summon courage! The Black Robes

had spells to 'command the wal to remain enfleshed. If he

was not before the Red God's divine judgment by the time

the magicians arrived, his torments at their hands would

be worse than painful death.

For he had defied them, blatantly, in speaking with Lady

Mara of the Acoma. The magicians had been direct in their

orders concerning the Good Servant. She was not to be told

anything of magic, even should she come with bribes in

hand to inquire.

Feeling the pouch of metal centis against his skin, Jamd

repressed a sour laugh. He would never have the chance to

spend them! Much as: he might wish for the time to give

them into the hands of the street girl down the way who

was his friend, fate would not allow him even the grace of

generosity. He had chosen his path. Too late, now, to wish

words unsaid and resolves undone.

One last time, Jamd ran his gaze around the cluttered

hovel that had been his home. Here he had made many

marvels to delight the children of the rich; but how much

different his life might have been if his powers had not

been confined to the fashioning of toys! Hungry for the

knowledge he had been denied, thirsty for the testing of

limits that he had never been permitted to attempt, Jamd

loosed a bitter sigh.

'Gods go with you, Lady Servant,' he said fearfully. 'And

may the curse of Zurgauli, God of ill Luck, permanently

visit the Assembly.' So saying, he threw himself down onto

the floor before the cushions where Lady Mara's officer

had sat.

The knife against his heart bit deep, and his agony, at

the end, was brief.

Blood soaked into the dry earth of the floor; the ragged

edges of torn cushions showed seeping crescents of scarlet

where the warm, wet flow had been dammed, then

absorbed, by the fabric. Jamel's quivering, clenched fingers

fell lax, and his opened eyes shone motionless in the glow of

the brazier's coals. The next instant, a stir of air swept the

chamber, fanning the curled ash of the parchment that had

contained notes to Mara before it burned. The galley-bird

feathers in the urn by the clothes chest streamed in the

disturbance, and the bells of an unsold child's toy chimed

their priceless song into the stillness. Outside, in the dark

of the night, the mongrel dog still howled.

Then over the rush of air came a faint buzzing, and the

hovel of a sudden was not empty. Next to the cooling corpse

of Jamd appeared two black-robed figures, both of them

thin as misers, though one was old, and one young.

Shimone pushed back his hood, his jutting nose outlined

in red by the dying coals of the brazier. He glanced around

the hovel, taking swift inventory of every deem amid the

clutter; he paused, ant sniffed thoughtfully. His slippers

were damp, and the puddle he stood in was warm. The

corpse might have been just another deem of bric-a-brac

for all the reaction he gave. His deep eyes flashed as he

glanced to his companion. 'Too late,' he said.

Tapek shoved Jamel's body with his toe, and his thin

lips turned down in disdain. 'By only seconds.' He spat

the words like a curse. 'If the wretch had not found his

nerve for just a minute longer . . .'

Shimone shrugged. His thinning silver hair caught light

like a cock's comb as he roved the width of the hovel,

tracking sticky footprints as he examined the shelves, d~

bins of faded scrolls, and the battered chests with more

care. 'She was here. That is enough.' He reached out one

finger and jingled the doll with her priceless headdress of

metal bells. 'And anyway, the wretch is dead. He saved us

the bother, really.' ~

Tapek's heavy, cinnamon-colored brows gathered into

a frown. 'Is it enough?' He stepped over the unfortunate

Jamel and blocked his companion's restless pacing. 'What

did the dead man tell her? That's the issue! We know Jamd

broke his obedience. He could have said anything before he

drove that knife through his heart!'

The slight hiss of the coals was now the only sound in

the night. The dog had stopped barking. Even the far off

rumble from the dockside ceased. The commonplace noises

of Sulan-Qu had quieted for an instant, as if the city held

its breath.

Shimone reached out a finger like a twig and touched

Tapek on the breast. He moved his hand. No spell arose,

but as if it had, the younger magician stood aside. As

Shimone moved past to continue his examination of Jamd'.

belongings, he said, 'You want to know what she asked}

See, then. But I think we waste our time. She knows

now, what she knows. That cannot be changed, but only

acted upon.' ~

Tapek rolled his shoulders, clearing his wrists from his

sleeves. His eyes, pale as oil, threw back the hot light

like a fanatic's. 'Indeed we will act. But it is proof

Mara's defiance of our edicts that will move the lil

of Hochopepa off his enormous arse. We need consensus

within the Assembly, and he and his faction work to

prevent that.'

'Hocho is not a procrastinator,' Shimone defended, his

voice made faint by the fact that he had stooped to peer

into the dusty cranny under a shelf.

'Well,' Tapek said hastily, for he was not deaf to such

chastisement, 'what lesser-path mage would not speak to

Mara? She is revered by commoners. They would give her

anything she asked, just to win grace in the eyes of the gods.

If she corrupted Jamel, what more proof would Hochopepa

and you need to condemn her to death?'

Shimone straightened, absently dusting blood and dirt

from his sleeve cuffs. 'Jamel was hardly such a fool. You

will see.'

'I will see!' Insistently Tapek raised his hands. He flashed

a last glare at his colleague, whose behavior had been

difficult, if not obstructive. While a long-time friend of

Hochopepa's, Shimone had always seemed reasonable.

'You will see,' Tapek added. Then he began to murmur

the incantation to summon back in spectral form the actions

of the immediate past.

Cold seemed to weave through the close atmosphere of

the hovel, though the air itself remained still.Shimone

stopped his inquisitive poking through the objects on the

shelves. He thoughtfully bent and closed the eyes of the

corpse. Then, bright in movement as a bird, he stood back

against the wall with folded arms to observe the result of

Tapek's spell.

The younger magician's incantation drew to a sibilant

close. His raised hands held steady as if to focus his will

and powers. Light glowed beyond the brazier that was not

cast by fire or coal. It brightened to an ig silver-blue, then

spread into a hazy translucence that slowly sharpened in

outline to show the form of Jamel seated, his face turned

expectantly toward the door flap. Moments later, visitors

entered: Mara and her two officers. Conversation began

between the parties, eerily soundless. Shimone seemed as

attentive to the noises outside, in the poor quarter, as to

the unfolding of Tapek's truth spell.

Lipreading showed the contents of the discussion to be

petty: Mara's concern centered on the estrangement of her

husband, which had begun months back at the birth of her

daughter. An innocent enough tableau; except that Jamd

began, most irritatingly for the magicians assigned to this

inquiry, to fuss and toy with a length of silk. Conveniently

often, it seemed, the cloth obscured sight of his mouth. By

the ripple of the silk caused by his breath, it was evident

that he hid speech. But no spell of past recall could recover

the sound of his words. The imprint of light striking objects

in the room could be summoned back into coherent form,

to be read for many days after, but sound was too fragile

to endure more than seconds.

Tapek swore. Fixed as a relli, he watched as Jamel arose

and conducted Mara toward the wall. There they turned

their backs to the room, and to appearances, the lesser-path

mage proceeded in all seriousness to instruct the

Lady in just the sort of fakery - passes in the air with

his hands, motions that meant nothing but were intended

to impress the ignorant folk who came calling to buy this

or that change in their miserable lives - that demeaned

the reputation of magicians as a whole, and that Tapek

scorned. His hands shook with anger as he maintained the;

forces that drove his spell, and he said acidly, 'The Lady

seems remarkably stupid, all of a sudden. Is this the fourth

repetition of this rubbish, or the fifth?'

To his fury, Shimone appeared to be laughing - not

outright, that was never his way, but his deep eyes seemed

dancing with light. 'I warned you, Tapek. Jamel was not

an idiot. And the Lady is certainly not stupid.'

The veiled disapproval in his colleague's tone renewed

Tapek's frustration. Still, out of determination and pique

he endured the specters' charades, until Jamel finished

tracing meaningless symbols and resorted to scribbling on

a parchment, hunched over it to conceal the writing. Since

the spell only recalled the imprint of past events as if the

observer were standing in the room, no matter where Tapek

moved, Jamel's writing could not be read. Tapek glared at

the brazier, only to realise that Shimone had spied the ashes

of the burned parchment already, probably soon after their

entry into Jamel's abode.

'Indeed,' observed the older magician in answer to

Tapek's thought, 'the words were lost before we ever

arrived.'

Tapek released his spell the instant that Mara received the

carefully folded parchment and took her leave. Unmindful

of blood-wet earth or sodden cushions, Tapek stamped in

leashed temper around the brazier, every inch of him tense.

'Gods, but if only I could stand where that wall is, and

recast my truth spell, I'd learn much, for you could see by

their stances that the Lady and our dead man spoke openly

when facing the shelves!'

Shimone, ever the realist, shrugged. 'We're wasting

time.' ~ ~

Tapek rounded on his colleague, who stood now like an

elderly Lord impatiently suffering the slowness of an inept

servant. 'Mara!' Tapek exclaimed. 'We shall ask her!'

As if released from thought into action, Shimone stalked

toward the door. He twitched aside the flap of hide and

stepped through into the hardly less cloying stink of

the alley, saying, 'I wondered when you'd finally think

of that.'

Leaving the corpse of Jamel where it lay, Tapek barged

through on the heels of his companion. His red brows jutted

in a thunderous frown. If he had dared to speak freely upon

the subject, he would have accused Shimone of obstructing

him. The old mage was a companion of Hochopepa, and

the two of them often championed strange causes. Together,

had they not defended Milamber after that disastrous scene

at the Imperial Games? It mattered little to Tapek that

Milamber had later proven his worth to the Empire by

warning the Emperor and the Assembly of the danger

the Enemy presented. His feelings regarding Elgahar, the

magician who had imprisoned Hochopepa and tortured

Milamber, were mixed; Elgahar had been mad, of course,

but he had done as he had thought best for the Empire.

But Milamber had destroyed him, and along with his other

outrages, had demonstrated the risks brought by radical

departures from tradition. Tapek was convinced Mara's

recent actions were, if not proof, then a strong indication

she plotted to defy the Assembly. And that was an affront

to tradition that made the pale magician tremble with ire.

Deep in outraged speculation, Tapek all but ran into

Shimone, who had stopped in the street, and to all

appearances was listening to the wind.

'Which way are you going to look?' Shimone inquired.

Tapek's scowl deepened. It demeaned him to act the part

of underling, but if he did not summon another spell to

recall the past, and left that bit of business to Shimone,

plainly the old fellow would meander through the process

and contrive to waste half of the night!

There followed several frustrating hours, while Tapek,

worn by the effort of sustaining the spell, conjured the

phantom image of Mara and her two officers. These, her

First Adviser and another wearing the plumes of Acoma

Force Commander, escorted their Lady on a meandering

ramble through the back streets of the poor quarter. Their

path circled, even doubled back! Tapek fumed. Dogged as

the possessed, he followed. And was forced to wait, while

the Lady paid a business call upon a cloth merchant. Money

changed hands. A package, sealed and wrapped, was passed

to her adviser. Then the parade began afresh. At last the

Lady returned to the square where her attendants and

escort awaited. She got in her litter. To his annoyance,

Tapek realised that the town watch called out the hour of

three o'clock! Even fat old Hochopepa, he decided, would

have wasted less time than the confounded Servant of the

Empire.

The spectral image of Lujan paused, reached up to adjust

his helm. The set of the feathers seemed not to suit him,

and he twisted them this way and that, his wrist obscuring

his face while he gave elaborate instructions to the Strike

Leader in command of his mistress's honor guard. Then,

at long last, the ghostly, ice-pale replica of the litter rose in

the grip of its spectral bearers. The cortege floated on across

the darkened streets of Sulan-Qu, with Lujan and the First

Adviser taking the wrapped package upon an unspecified

errand, their lips moving in a crossfire exchange of doggerel

whose content was obscene.

Shimone, in his maddening, obtuse way, was chuckling

over the humor, which was straight from the gutter. He

almost seemed reluctant to pursue Mara's litter, which,

thought Tapek, steaming, was what they had been sent

from the City to do in the first place! ~

several times Tapek had to refocus his Concentration, as

he pursued the phantom image. On the wide boulevards,

the surrounding buildings and the busy streets gave back

muddled images overlaid with hundreds of others. It took

great energy of the mind to track the chosen party. Only

because the few people still about in the early hours before

dawn immediately gave way to the Black Robes, could

Tapek keep the illusion of Mara's litter in sight. And she

was taking the most damnable rambling course. Tapek was

nearly exhausted when the spell led at last to the steps of

the Temple of Turakamu. There, the phantom figures and

the litter they carried merged outlines as past converged

with present and Mara's slaves lowered their burden to

the ground. Tapek waved his hands and dispersed his spell

The blue glow faded, showing Mara's litter parked on the

pavement, empty. He blinked, to dispel the fatigue that

slowed the adjustment of his vision. Mara's guard and

servants were gone, presumably to take their ease in some

tavern while their mistress attended business within. The

stars overhead had begun to pale with false dawn, and

Tapek was in a sore mood from stubbing his toes on the

cobbles. He scared the wits out of the slave who was

sweeping the Red God's front stair, and sent the wretch

scurrying for the High Priest. A Great One was free to

move as he chose, but even magicians observed tradition.

By custom, no one entered a temple without permission.

Shimone was silent throughout.

Thankfully, the wait was brief. The High Priest of the

Death God was robed, still, from his visit with Mara. 'How may

I serve you, Great Ones ?' His bow was formal, precise

in degree of deference for one of his exalted rank.

Tapek reined back his annoyance. 'We seek the Lady

Mara for questioning.'

The priest straightened up with an expression of consternation. '

That is regrettable, Great One. The Lady arrived

here not long ago, troubled in spirit over personal matters.

She took counsel from me, but was not consoled. By her

wish, she retired into the inner sanctum of Turakamu's

temple. She has gone into seclusion, Great Ones, for

meditation and peace. It is to be hoped that my god will

inspire her to overcome her difficulties.'

Tapek felt enraged enough to yank out his hair, but settled

for tossing his hood back from his head. 'How long will she

be? We shall wait.'

The priest trembled, perhaps with apprehension, though

his eyes seemed supremely untroubled as he replied. 'I am

sorry. I much doubt Lady Mara will be coming out this

night, nor any night in the near future. She left instructions

with her bearers to remove her litter to her Sulan-Qu estate

in the morning, for she would stay in seclusion for some

time. Weeks at the least, perhaps months.'

'Months!' Tapek shifted from foot to foot, then directed

a glare at the priest. 'Months!' he exclaimed again, his voice

echoing down the empty square. The Black Robe continued

his tirade with venom. 'I hardly believe that so contrary a

woman as Lady Mara would be concerned for her spiritual

state at this advanced hour!'

The priest tugged his robes around himself as if gathering

his divinely bestowed dignity. 'Great One, a mortal may be

concerned for the state of her soul at any time,' he corrected

gently, then folded his hands in a beatific attitude.

Tapek surged forward as though he would storm up the

stair and violate the peace of the temple precinct. But

Shimone shot out a hand and restrained him.

'Think,' said the older magician, his tone snapping. 'The

sanctity of the temples extends back thousands of years.

Why break such a time-honored tradition as sanctuary,

Tapek? Mara must come out sometime. And if she does

not, our ends are met, not so?' .'

The fire-haired magician looked as if he had bitten into

sour fruit. 'You and Hochopepa and Fumita are fools to

seek to protect her!' he said in a furious whisper that only

his colleague might hear. 'She is dangerous!'

'As dangerous as a public confrontation between the

Assembly and the temples?' asked Shimone, his voice

menacing.

Tapek seemed to cool slightly. 'You are right. She is not

worth making into a public issue.'

Shimone nodded, silent, but satisfied. A faint buzzing

had begun upon the air, and by the time the priest realised

the confrontation was over, the two Black Robes had

466 Mistress of the Empire

vanished in an inrush of brffle and the lingering echo of

Tapek's anger.

The clack of the capstan on the decks of the trader ship

Coalteca slowed and stopped with a jar against wood as

the heavy, leacher-wrapped stone anchor thudded home

against the cathead. The captain bellowed orders for the

sailors in the rigging to loose the brails. The squeal of

halyards followed, as yardarms lifted, and brighdy painted

canvas bellied to the sea wind. Confined belowdecks, Mara

paced across the tiny stern cabin. Against her every wish

and instinct, to be in the open as the vessel set sail, her

concealment was necessary. Still, after weeks denied fresh

air and sunlight, Mara chafed. She flashed a glance at her

Force Commander, whose normally weathered face also:

had grown pale during their journey through the cho-ja

tunnels from the city of Sulan-Qu to the remote, peninsular

port of Kolth.

Mara had never journeyed through the southernmost

reaches of Hokani Province. But she had heard secondhand

descriptions from Jican, and balked curiosity left her

irritable. How she would have loved to have stolen

aboveground, even in the dead of night, to view the

City of the Plains! The great rift that led to Midkemia

was located there, where Kevin had been sent back to his

homeland, as well as the mansion-like stone guild halls that

were the hub of southern imperial commerce.

But the Assembly's anger was not to be risked for

frivolous whims. Luck and Lujan's ingenuity had left a

false trail that ended with the Lady of the Acoma in

apparent seclusion in Turakamu's temple in Sulan-Qu.

If the Black Robes were even to suspect they had been

deceived, if one lowly beggar on the street chanced to

recognise her as Servant of the Empire, her life and the

lives of her family could immediately become forfeit. And

Evasion

467

so Mara had done the unthinkable, by the mores of Tsurani

aristocracy: she had donned the robes of a slave woman,

and left Sulan-Qu in the company of Lujan and Saric, both

wearing the unmarked armor of mercenaries. The farmers

and merchants who were abroad before dawn had assumed

she was a battle prize. They had not thought to question

her slave's grey, but stared openly at her slim figure and

lustrous hair. A few had called ribald comments, to which

Lujan, with strength of imagination, had responded in

kind. His shocking coarseness had hidden that Saric at

first had been unable to shed tradition for an act, and

had stiffened at the insults to her person.

A message left with an agent of Arakasi's network had

brought quick action. When Mara and her two officers had

reached the cho-ja hive on her estates, she was joined by ten

hand-picked warriors in armor without house markings,

and another, a dock worker she had never seen before, who

spoke Thuril as his birth tongue. With them came Kamlio,

clad again in the rags in which Arakasi had delivered her,

and made sullen by the prospect of traveling underground

with the insectoids, who terrified her.

The journey south had been trying. Weary from nerves

and confinement, and the alien experience of being stared at

as chattel, Mara threw herself down in the cushioned alcove

she had once shared with Kevin on a long-past journey to

Tsubar. In these familiar quarters, the loss of him stung

deep, as if their parting had happened yesterday. Almost

she regretted her long ago purchase of the Coalteca; why

had she not had the sense to let go of sentiment and buy

some other blue-water trader?

Yet the Coalteca had been available; she had acted

without consulting Jican. The ship was lucky, she felt;

her triumph with Lord Xacatecas in Dustari still held the

admiration of the Nations, and now that she had such dire

forces as Jiro and the Assembly arrayed against her, she

needed every reassurance to bolster her, even those rooted

in superstition.

Kevin might have laughed at her irrationality. Impatient

with herself for dwelling in the past when all the future lej

in jeopardy, Mara turned from memories of her barbarian

lover, only to find herself worrying for Hokanu.

Her husband did not know where she was, and must not,

for safety's sake, receive even clandestine word until she was

deep into Thuril territory. Sharply Mara regretted that she

had had small opportunity to speak with him since their unhappy

meeting after Kasuma's birth. Now, more than

anything, she longed to confide in Hokanu, to receive his

steady understanding and his apt insights. She worried for

him, as he dealt with relations who sought to move up

in the family hierarchy. Contentions inevitably arose after

the deaths of "strong Ruling Lords, when others who saw:

themselves as rivals to the heir emerged to assuage their

ambitions. Mara sighed. She hoped, if Hokanu chose to

accept the staff of office offered him by Ichindar, that he

would visit their children in the Imperial Court. Kasuma

should not grow older without knowing the love of a

father, and Justin certainly was more of a handful than

any of the imperial servants had backbone enough to

handle. Again Mara sighed, wondering if she would return

from Thuril with aid against the fearsome might of magic

only to be bested by two little ones who had turned into;

spoiled brats.

'You're thinking that maybe this whole voyage was

a mistaken endeavor?' observed a quiet voice by the

companionway.

Mara looked up, surprised to find Saric standing in the

doorway to her cabin. The creaking sounds of the working

ship had masked her adviser's approach, and the plain robe

he wore made him blend into shadow.

Mara smiled wanly. 'I'm thinking we could have done

without Kamlio's sullenness,' she said, not wishing to

divulge her true thoughts.

Saric returned the mercurial, triangular grin that showed

when his mood was mischievous. 'Certainly, from that one's

complaints over sleeping arrangements, one would have

thought she was the great Lady and you the browbeaten

servant.'

Mara laughed. 'Have I been so dour?'

Her adviser folded himself onto a sea chest with neat

grace. 'Have you felt so dour?' he asked.

'Yes.' Suddenly aware that her heart had lifted with the

motion of the ship's sailing, Mara raked the pins out of her

hair and let it unfold down her back. She gestured around

the dim cabin, with its brightly woven cushions and its

beaded curtains, bought from a desert trader, that clacked

and rattled with each heel of the ship. 'I am tired of close

walls and secrecy.' She did not add that she was nervous. To

go into a foreign land, bearing none of the grand trappings

of her rank, and with only ten soldiers and a guide who

had been born a beast herd! This was not at all the same

as her past trip into Dustari, when she had moved in the

company of her own loyal army, with her command tent,

and all of her accustomed comforts at hand.

Saric gave her a wry look. 'You are wishing you had given

in to risk, and bought another litter in Kolth.' The sparkle

in his eye indicated he had more to say. Mara withheld

comment, until her First Adviser raked back his straight-cut

bangs and added, 'Lujan did try the markets, you know. He

found a used litter, an immense black lacquered affair all

set with river stones and fringes.'

A storyteller's pause developed.

'Go on,' Mara prompted, skillfully distracted from ill

temper. 'Why did our brave Force Commander not buy

the monstrosity?'

Saric's smile widened with devilry. 'No bearers in the

slave market had enough meat on their bones to lift the

damned thing, and we'd not have enough hands free for

swords if your honor guard was left to take the burden.

Besides, Lujan said, if you and Arakasi's courtesan were

mewed up in that thing together for more than an hour,

you'd wind up fighting like tseeshas.'

Mara's jaw dropped at his allusion to the catlike creature

known for combativeness between females. 'Lujan said

that?'~

Saric said nothing, which gave her an inkling. 'Lujan

said no such thing!' she cried back in indignation. 'Are

you trying to brew up mischief again, and see your cousin

disgraced?'

Saric had the honesty to look sheepish.

'Out!' his mistress cried. 'Leave me, and send in Kamlio.

If she doesn't want a bath, I most certainly do, before we've

passed so far beyond shore that the seas become too rough

for a basin.'

'As my Lady wishes,' Saric said, smoothly arising from

his bow. As he stepped out, not at all shamefaced, his

Lady realised that he had accomplished his objective; her

downcast mood had lightened. She might have missed the

Gq of the Plains, and the excitement of embarkation from

Kolth; but she was headed for territory no Acoma in her

memory had ever trodden.

All of the mountains of Thuril lay before her, and her

heart leaped in anticipation of unknown adventure.

Later, bathed and scented, if plainly clothed, Mara stood

in the bow of the Coalteca, watching the splash and

tumble of foam and the leaping play of the iridescent

jalor fish. She laughed in delight at the flash of their

scales in the sunset, oblivious to the piercing regard of

Kamlio.

'What do you see that is amusing in these desolate

waters?' the onetime courtesan asked sourly. Deliberately,

it seemed, she omitted the honorific of 'Lady', as if daring

Mara to take umbrage.

'I see beauty,' Mara replied, as if the question had not

stemmed from bitterness. 'I see life. Our moments of peace

between contentions are to be cherished. This I have learned

since I came to be Ruling Lady.'

Lujan approached from amidships, his plumeless helm

taking on a cobalt gleam from the deepening sky overhead.

He bowed to Mara and said, 'We make good speed,

mistress.'

Mara raised her eyebrows. 'Have you become a sailor,

Force Commander?'

Lujan smiled, his expression less devious than Saric's,

but every bit as jaunty. Mara was struck afresh that this

was a moment to be treasured. 'No,' her officer admitted,

'but the captain said as much.' Removing his helm with

a grimace, for it did not fit as well as the more elaborate

one he had left behind in Sulan-Qu, he raked his fingers

through damp hair and breathed deeply of the sea air.

Disregarding Kamlio's uninterested presence at her side,

Mara observed, 'This voyage brings back memories.'

Lujan peered up the height of the foremast, to the gaudy

spread of canvas that netted the last golden sunlight. 'I miss

the barbarian, too, mistress. Even if he did spend half the

last voyage with his face buried in a basin.'

Mara couldn't resist laughing. 'Hard-hearted soldier,'

she accused. 'One day a storm will get the better of your

stomach, and then you will stop thinking sea sickness

is funny.'

'Gods,' Lujan said with bitter pungency, 'don't wish such

a fate upon me with my cousin aboard. He would cook me

soup with fish scales in it as a remedy, and then tell all of my

favorite reed girls what I looked like with green skin.' As

Kamlio stiffened in silent antagonism, Lujan turned toward

her the charming grin that lured half the prostitutes in the

province to lean dangerously far over their gallery railings

to call to him. 'No offense, lovely flower, but my girls all

adore their jobs. They don't begrudge me their favors, and

I don't treat them as property. I am not the merchant who

bought and molded you for bed sport, and neither am I

one of the masters who used you. Hear wisdom, and stop

looking for those others in the face of every man you chance

to meet.'

Kamlio looked as though she might spit venom. Then

she shook back her pale gold hair, gathered her tawdry,

patchwork robe, and swept away in stiff-backed silence.

She did not turn her head  at the whispered comments

and admiring looks of the sailors, but hustled down the

companionway into the mate's cabin she had been given

for her quarters.

'Don't say it,' Mara murmured quickly, as she sensed the

epithet her Force Commander was about to utter under his

breath. 'You would certainly antagonise her less if you

ceased calling her "lovely flower."'

Lujan looked pained. 'But she is one. If she were to tear

her face and become scarred, her body would still make a

man itch and sweat.' Then he reddened at his frankness

of speech, as if only then recalling that the person he so

addressed was female, and his mistress.

Mara touched his arm in reassurance. 'I am not offended

that you speak intimately with me, Lujan. You have become

like the brother I have lost, since the hour you took service

in that distant glen.'

Lujan jammed his helm back over untidy hair. 'I know

you, Lady, as I know my own heart. But that Kamlio

confounds me. I don't know what Arakasi sees in her.'

'He sees himself,' the Lady replied. 'He sees things he

recalls from his past, and wishes to spare her the pain he

once suffered. That is a powerful attraction.' She stared off

into the gloom, wondering if that was also the reason she

ached so sorely from her strained relations with Hokanu.

Silently she pondered whether Lujan, as another man, might

understand the reason for her husband's cold reaction to

the birth of his daughter. Were Lujan a brother, and not

her Force Commander, she might have asked him. But

here, in public on a ship's deck, traditions and appearance

prevented her.

The falling dark spread around them like a curtain of

privacy. Mara studied her Force Commander's face in the

gathering twilight. He had new lines, and the beginnings

of white at his temples, since she had taken him from his

life as a grey warrior. Without her noticing until now, she

saw that his face had begun to weather with the hours he

spent drilling troops. More and more, his complexion was

growing as leathery as Keyoke's. We are growing older,

Mara thought sadly. And what have we to show for our

days and our labors? Her children were no more secure

than she had been from their enemies; and if Hokanu had

been less skilled at command, he might have had to shed his

own family's blood to keep his pack of cousins at bay.

Mara sighed, knowing that if her brother had survived

to inherit, instead of she, the Minwanabi would very likely

have succeeded to the Warlordship, and the precarious

changes won by the shift in power to the Emperor would

never have happened at all. Sometimes Lujan's teasing

humor recalled Lanokota. But her brother had been barely

into his manhood, just testing himself against the challenges

of life, when she lost him. This man at her side was fully

come into his power and maturity as a warrior. The

hardness ingrained through his outlaw years had never

entirely left Lujan, despite the fervor of his loyalty, and

the affection he had won from his predecessor, Keyoke.

Struck that such a fine man should have sons, Mara said

impulsively, 'You ought to marry, you know.'

Lujan set his back to the rail and grinned at her. 'I have

thought, recently, that it might be time to have a son or

daughter.' ~,

Made sensitive by what had happened between Arakasi

and Kamlio, Mara wondered suddenly if he did have a love,

but perhaps one that was not freely his to ask. 'Have you a

woman in mind?'

Laughing, regarding her fondly, Lujan said, 'I am down

to fewer than a dozen.'

Aware that she had been mildly baited, Mara said, 'You

will always be a rogue! Find an understanding woman, else

she will take you to task for your flirting ways, Lujan.'

'She would scold me anyway,' the Force Commander

admitted. 'I have this terrible habit, you see, of wearing

my weapons while in bed.'

He was only halfway joking; events through the years

since she had come to power as Ruling Lady had caused

all her warriors to take on a battle-ready alertness. There:

had simply been too many attacks, from too many unseen

sources. Now, worst of all, no sword in the Nations could

save her. Mara lost her inclination toward humor. She stared

ahead, toward the horizon, and wondered if she would find

what she desperately needed to ensure Acoma survival on that

distant, unseen shore.

The lookout cried from the crosstree, 'Land ahead!'

Mara rushed to the rail, her cheeks flushed in the

morning breeze. Even Kamlio, who moved nowhere with

enthusiasm, followed. Off Coalteca's eastern forequarter

lay the faintest hump of indigo, the first shoreline anyone

on board had glimpsed through the days of a brisk but

uneventful passage.

~Honshoni,' said Lujan. 'They say the red-bee honey from

those hills is sweeter than any in the Empire.'

Lepala also was famous for silks and exotic dyes, and the

beautifully patterned weaving such luxuries encouraged.

Mara sighed, longing with girlish curiosity to pause and

explore the wharf markets of the south. Xula, Lepala, and

Rujije were places of enchanting tales of spired buildings

and scarlet-railed galleries. Lords of Lepala were said to

keep rare fish in pools, and harems numbering in the

hundreds. Homes there had pierced shutters to shade from

the sun and break the force of the sea winds, and gardens

with huge, hot-climate flowers which bloomed only at dusk,

but which filled the evening air with exotic fragrances until

night's chill caused them to close up again. The streets were

paved in a stone that shone like gold when damp. The

sailors' gossip made the vendors' stalls and bordellos seem

exotic. They spoke of drinks of prodigious potency inns

filled with colorful caged birds, and eating establishments

where customers were cooled by pretty girls and boys with

large feather fans. But Coalteca would not make port in any

of these busy cities of commerce until Mara's party had been

safely seen ashore in a secluded, uninhabited cove far inside

the bay between Honshoni and Sweto. Only a few fishing

villages dotted the north and south shores.

The Thuril Confederacy claimed the eastern edge of the

bay, its only access to deep water; and since the magicians

of the Assembly were apt to appear and disappear at

whim anywhere within imperial borders, Mara had agreed

with her advisers that she must not risk any unnecessary

landfall. Coalteca's legitimate cargo would be offloaded

on her return trip north, and if the Black Robes or any

lurking Anasati spy should come to suspect the deviation

in her normal sailing course, the Lady would already be

away, deep into foreign territory and, if the gods were kind,

beyond reach.

The landing, when it happened a few days later, was in

as bleak a site as anything Mara might have dreamed in

nightmare. The beachhead where the longboat delivered her

was deserted, a grey-blue crescent of flinty, sea-smoothed

shale alive with the scything forms of birds. As Lujan lifted:;

her over the thwart and carried her ashore, white and indigo

shorebirds circled overhead. Their cries echoed mournfully

above the wind and the crash of breakers. Dust blew across

the rugged hills beyond, scrub-covered and forlorn, and

high above these, turning grey-blue with distance, rose

the tables of the highlands, bordered at the horizon by

mountains whose peaks were lost in brooding masses of cloud.

The slate-backed spine of the range had proven a:

fortress impregnable for the Tsurani who had attempted to

make war upon Thuril. Time and again the Empire forces

had invaded these inhospitable lands, only to be harried

back through the foothills by the fierce, naked swordsmen

with their dyed skins and their barbarous war cries.

Short, softspoken, and wrinkled like the skin of a dried-fruit,

the guide paused before her and said in his stilted

accent, 'Lady, it were best you command your people to

stand out of plain sight.'

'I will need to give them a reason,' Mara responded.

'They are honorable warriors, and would take it ill if they:

were told they must sneak about like thieves, particularly

where there is not so much as a dwelling, even a fisherman's

shack.'

The guide licked the gap where two of his front teeth

were missing.-He shifted from foot to foot, obviously

uncomfortable, then bobbed in a quick bow. 'Lady, the

peace between the Empire and Thuril is uneasy. Only

formal envoys and licensed traders cross the border, and

only at designated checkpoints. Were your people to be

seen within two days' walk of these shores, or anywhere

near the imperial border, you would be taken as spies.'Whatever

the Thuril did to punish spies, by his tautness

of expression it was not pleasant.

Knowing that her own people took captured Thuril for

the games in the Imperial Arena, Mara no longer argued

the need for secrecy. She beckoned Lujan over to her and

murmured in his ear, 'Force Commander, we will sorely

need the knowledge you gained as a grey warrior to keep

our presence here secret until we have made our way far

inland.'

Beneath the straggle of hair that escaped the brim of his

helm, Lujan gave her a wild smile. 'Ah, Lady, the last of

my guileful ways will be known to you! when you learn

how well honorable warriors can be made to skulk, will

you ever trust them again to guard your valuables?'

'They may have my valuables with all my blessing, if

the purpose of our mission is successfully accomplished,'

Mara replied, too grim for humor, and recognising the

first taste of the hardships to come on these strange

shores.

There followed several days that put Mara in mind of

her race across-country before her first marriage, to win

the alliance of the cho-ja Queen. Then as now, she

had slept with minimal shelter on hard ground, amid

a small retinue of warriors. Parts of that trip she had

travelled on foot, the trail being too rough for her litter.

Then, too, there had been urgency, as her party

crossed the estates of enemy Lords in the deeps of the

night.

But in Kelewan there had been dense forest, almost

jungle, to hide in. Low-lying mists had concealed her party

at dawn and dusk, and provisions had been carried by her

bearers.

In Thuril the stony soil grew only sparse bushes and

grass, providing scant cover. At times she had to hike

in gullies, chilled by the winds of these higher altitudes,

her thin sandals soaked from standing amid peaty clumps

of moss. Her ankles became scratched from the sharp

stemmed sedges, and her hands calloused from using a

walking stick to keep her balance. Once they passed a

village, skulking through pastures on their bellies under

the moon. Dogs barked at them, but sleeping herd boys

did not rouse.

Mara grew accustomed to the taste of tough game

brought down by the bows of her warriors. She developed

aches in muscles she never knew she possessed, from

long hours and miles on her feet. In a strange way, she

revelled in the freedom, and in the deep, cloud-scattered

bowl of the sky. But her warmest pleasure was watching

Kamlio.

The girl let her long hair twist and tangle, uncared for by

maids for the first time in her life. She stopped tightening

her lips and looking white when the warriors spoke to

her; the few who approached her had been rebuffed,

and unlike other men she had known until Arakasi,

they left her alone as she asked. She went by herself

to wash in the icy streams, and shyly began to offer t o

help at the fireside, where it became plain that she had

a knack for cooking. She also asked Lujan to teach her

self-defence with a knife. These lessons commenced in

the half-dark, each night, where Kamlio's dulcet tones

sharpened in a fish-wife's cursing as she missed her throw

and tried again.

Lujan took her shrewish mood in stride. 'Really,' he said,

one evening when she seemed to be having a particularly

difficult time, 'you should ask Arakasi to show you knife

work. He is a master, and knows the best way to use

the wrist.'

Kamlio spun in such fury that the Force Commander

grabbed her hand just behind the bare blade of her weapon,

unsure she would not sink her knife in him.

'Gods!' Kamlio cried, venomously offended. 'It was that

one I sought to defend myself from!'

She tore away and flounced off into the dark. Lujan

watched her go, clicking his tongue in reproof. 'Woman,

against our Spy Master, nobody wins at knives.' As she

vanished, he added softly, 'You need nothing of defense

against him. If you chose to carve out Arakasi's heart, I

believe he would stand still and let you.'

Much later, in the depths of that moonless night, Mara

awoke to hear the girl sobbing. Softly she said, 'You need

never see Arakasi again, Kamlio, and that is the problem,

is it not?'

The former courtesan said nothing, but her sobs eventually

wore themselves out in sleep.

The next morning dawned cloudy and chill. Kamlio

returned red-cheeked from gathering wood, her eyes redrimmed

as well. 'He killed my sister!' she spat at the Lady

of the Acoma, as if in continuation of the words shared in

the night.

'He killed the Obajan of the Hamoi Tong, on my

orders,' Mara corrected. 'The Obajan's own darts killed

your sister.'

Kamlio threw down her armload of wood onto Lujan's

fledgling fire, sending up a cloud of sparks and smoke.

The herder who was their guide cursed in Thuril. 'Foolish

girl! Your pique could cost us our lives!'

Lujan reacted first, ripping off the cloak he wore over his

armor. he cast it over the tiny fire, then leaped and grabbed

the water bucket nearby, dousing the cloth before it could

flare up. Dull wisps of steam seeped from the folds, amid

the stink of burned querdidra wool. 'Up,' he snapped to

his subofficer. 'Break camp. No breakfast, and we march

at once. That smoke could have been seen, and for our

Lady's sake we must take no chances.'

The little herdsman threw the Acoma Force Commander

a grateful glance for his good sense, and within minutes,

Mara's party was back on the trail, hugging gullies and

what cover the meager landscape could offer.

Four days later, the guide deemed it safe to travel more

openly. He accepted coin from Mara, and dared descend

into a narrow, smoke-filled vale to buy supplies from a

village market. The imperial centis were suspect, but they

had value, and the country folk in their simple needs did

not care to question the origin of the currency or those who

spent it. Mara suspected she was not the first Tsurani the

guide had brought this way. Smuggling between the Empire

and Thuril was risky, but highly profitable. It seemed a

reasonable vocation for a man of mixed heritage who could

pass in both cultures. ~

The herdsman returned with two hide bags of provisions,~

jerked meat, and a cloak of hill weave to replace the one Lujan

had damaged in the campfire. The burdens came

back into camp lashed to the back of a small grey beast, ~,

horselike in shape, but with long ears, and a tail like a

paintbrush.

'Donkey,' the herdsman guide replied, in answer to

Mara's curious question. His burred accent accepted

the word awkwardly, but Mara recognised its origin as

Midkemian. The presence of an animal that could only

have come from the other side of the rift, through the

Empire, made it clear smuggling was a major trade of

this region. 'Less ornery than querdidra, Lady, and sturdy

enough for you to ride.'     ;

At this Mara raised her eyebrows. 'Me? Ride that? But

it's barely as big as a newborn needra calf!'

'Walk, then,' the herdsman said, in less than respectful

tones. 'But the shale in the heights could twist your ankles,

and your warriors would quickly tire if they had to carry

you.' For Kamlio he had bought boots with stout soles,

laced up the front, and topped with fur. Mara eyed the ugly

footwear with distaste, and the donkey with trepidation. ~

Then, with a sigh, she surrendered. 'I'll ride,' she said. ~

'Show Lujan how to help me mount.'

~ _

The herdsman bobbed another of his fast bows that Mara

swore were his way of hiding amusement.

'Don't feel apprehensive.' Lujan teased as he arrived at

her elbow to help her astride. 'Think how I felt on that

day in the desert when I had to mount a cho-ja. They're

slipperier, for one thing, and I was panicked I would fall

off and land on my own sword.'

'That was Kevin's idea, not mine,' Mara said in her own

defence, then steeled herself as her Force Commander lifted

her strongly and set her down like a feather in the dyed

leather hill saddle strapped to the beast's back.

The animal was small, Mara tried to reassure herself, and

the ground no more than a cloth yard away. If she fell, the

worst she could get would be bruises, small price to pay

if she could find protection from the Black Robes in these

strange, barren hills. And in fact, the gait of the donkey was

not so hard, it being short of stride and its feet marvelously

sure as it plodded along.

Mara found her perch upon the creature's back less

than comfortable, but she hid her soreness with Tsurani

implacability as her party wound ever higher into the

forbidding hills. In the afternoon, when she dismounted

and the beast was led off to water, she confided to Lujan

that had she known what sort of creatures donkeys were,

she would never have permitted their importation. 'Small

horse indeed,' she had snorted as she settled stiffly on the

ground to share a meal of hard bread and sour cheese.

Lujan only grinned. 'They are most reliable, I am told.

Already the man who sells them across the borders in

Honshoni is seeking another herd, for they far outshine

the querdidra as beasts of burden.'

With this Mara was forced to agree, despite her aching

posterior. She had endured the company of the foulsmelling,

evil-tempered querdidra as she had traversed

the mountains of Tsubar on campaign against the raiders

of the desert. But as the donkey raised its stringy tail to

dump manure, she kept her opinion silent. If it was a

superior creature to the temperamental, six-legged native

pack beast, it certainly was no cleaner in its habits.

Suddenly the herdsman who was their guide spun around,

his crust of bread forgotten in his hand. Facing the wind, his

eyes narrowed, he scanned the bleak, scrub-covered hills as

if he could read their rock and vegetation like a scroll page.

'We are being watched,' he said in a low voice to Lujan. 'I

suspected as much since we left that village.'

The Force Commander pointedly kept chewing his food.

As if there were no immediate peril, he asked, 'Should we

arm ourselves?'

The herdsman faced around in shock. 'Not if you wish

to live. No. Keep on. Act as if nothing were wrong. And if

anyone approaches, make no threatening move, no matter

what is said or done to provoke you. Ensure no hothead

among your men speaks or draws his sword.'

Lujan gave back an even smile that only Mara could read

as a false show of humor. 'Have some cheese,' he invited the

herdsman.

But no one had any stomach for eating, and within a

short time the company regrouped and started to move

on. They had gone barely a dozen paces when a shout rent

the air. A man with black braids and a great, billowing

cloak of the same dull green-grey as the soil leaped directly

above the lead guard onto a large rock that overlooked the

narrow trail.

Lujan held up his hand as Mara's guards tensed. But

none of his warriors forgot their orders not to draw

weapons, despite their surprise. The Thuril highlander

had appeared as if from nowhere. Dressed in his native

kilt and double cross-belts hung with two swords and

several knives, he called out, 'Why do you invade the

land of Thuril, Tsurani?' His thick accent made his demand

nearly unintelligible, and his tone was unmistakably belligerent.

Mara kicked the little donkey, to overcome its reluctance

to move forward again. Before it could stride out, the little

herdsman sprang to its bridle to restrain it. He replied to the

challenge, prompted by the custom of the land. 'I am layapa,

warrior,' he said in the Thuril tongue. 'I speak for the Lady

of the Acoma, who has come on a mission of peace.'

The man leaped down from the rock, his cloak billowing

and his kilt flipping up to bare an expanse of muscled thigh.

The cross-garters of his sandals were tasseled below the

knee, and his weapon harness chinked with stone talismans.

Up close, it could be seen that his head was shaved, save

for a round patch at the crown, where his braids had

been allowed to grow since childhood. They tumbled as

long as his waist as he landed, their ends also tied with

talismans.

Into his mistress's ear, Lujan said softly, 'He is not dressed

for war, Lady.'

Mara nodded. She had read that the Thuril shed their

clothing when fighting, going nude but for their battle

harness, feathered helms, shields, and weapons, for they

took pride that their manhood was not shriveled by fear

and ensured their enemies knew this.

The man swaggered toward Mara, who was now slightly

ahead of the others, as the donkey sidled nervously. Mara

sawed at the reins, frantically and silently reminding herself

to act as if nothing were wrong.

The highlander said something in his coarse dialect and

grabbed the donkey's bridle. He breathed into its nose,

and for some strange reason the creature quieted. The

man then rattled his knuckles through his talismans, and

stepped around the donkey's head. Coming face to face with

Mara, he leaned forward until his nose missed touching hers

by a hair's width.

layapa called, 'Good Servant, make no move. He tests

your mettle.'

Mara held her breath and forced herself not to close her

eyes. Peripherally, she was aware of her uneasy men, their

hands itching to draw weapons; and of Kamlio, who had

forgotten her distaste for men and had crowded close to the

nearest warrior in fear. But the Acoma discipline held. Her

warriors kept still, and when Mara refused to lower her gaze

or pull away, the highlander released a great, garlic-scented

breath and withdrew. He grunted, allowing that her courage

was sufficient. 'Who speaks for you, woman?'

Before layapa could stop her, Mara spoke. 'I lead here.'

The man bared white, even teeth in an expression that

was no smile. Browned by strong sun, his face wrinkled

in contempt^You have sand, woman! I'll allow you that,

but lead these men? You are female.' To Lujan, who was

nearest, the highlander rephrased his question. 'You! I do

not answer a woman's tongue, and I would know: what

brings you to come with warriors into our lands? Do you

seek war?' This last seemed to be a joke, for he burst out

in raucous laughter.

Mara waved Lujan to silence, and as though the brawny

man did not stand at her donkey's shoulder, addressed her

herdsman guide. 'This highlander seems amused. Does he

think our presence funny, or does he intend slight to our

honor?'

But whether he followed his own advice, or was simply

cowed to silence, layapa said nothing.

Mara frowned, forced to rely upon her own judgment.

By Tsurani accounts, the Thuril were bloodthirsty warriors,

quick to attack, savage in fighting. But the opinions of an

invading army were suspect, Mara felt. The only other

Thuril she had observed had been captives sent into the

arena. These men had proven themselves to be assertive,

independent and courageous. They had suffered beating

by Tsurani overseers rather than fight as a spectacle for

their captors' amusement.

Mara addressed the man again. 'I seek your chieftain.'

Much as if an insect had spoken aloud, the highlander

looked surprised, 'You seek our chieftain?' He stroked his

chin as if thinking. 'What cause have you to disturb him?

He already has a woman to warm his nights!'

Mara bridled, but held back her temper in time. She

gestured to stay Lujan, who was poised to rush forward

to answer the insult. Mara forced herself to calm study of

this brash highlander. In truth, he appeared young, barely

more than twenty-five years of age. By Tsurani custom, he

was just old enough to inherit. And like those of a boy given

first responsibility, perhaps his manners were all swagger,

to make himself seem important in a larger world. 'I do not

speak to boys. Take me to your chieftain now, or I will ask

that you be punished for your rudeness when I seek him

out myself.'

The man stepped away, in a mock show of intimidation.

'My Lady! But of course.'

He spun on his heel in a swirl of cloak and kilt, and set

two fingers to his lips. His whistle pierced the air, causing

Mara's warriors to start. ~

'Draw no swords,' she commanded in a low voice

to Lujan.

Her Force Commander gave a hard look to his men,

willing them to hold fast, even as, in a scrabble of rocks

and gravel, more than a score of men sprang into view

around their position. All were heavily armed, from bows,

spears, and swords to bristling rows of throwing knives;

not a few of the fiercest and largest carried double-headed

axes. Mara's small guard was outnumbered three to one,

and if it came to a fight, the trail where they stood would

become a slaughter ground.

Prepared for death, Lujan murmured, 'They may not

have been looking for trouble, but they are ready should:

it find them.'

The highlander on the trail glanced to his circle of

supporters. He grinned wickedly. 'You heard the female,

She thinks to command our chieftain to have me beaten for

rudeness!' Rough laughter greeted this statement, punctuated

by the hiss of swords being drawn.

Mara swallowed hard. Aware that she must either fight or

stand down, before her men were killed out of hand and she

and Kamlio were taken for gods only knew what fate, she

forced her dry tongue to shape speech. 'I said we "were on

a mission of peace! To prove this, my men will disarm.'

At Lujan's incredulous glance, she added, 'Do so!'

Obedient to a man, her Tsurani guard loosened their

sword belts..,The clatter of weapon sheaths striking hard

stone seemed pathetically swallowed by the wide expanse

of sky.

The young warrior's grin became predatory. He reached

up, jerked off the hide tie that secured his braid, and

snapped it taut between his hands. 'Bind them,' he rapped

out. He looked at Lujan as he added, 'You are Tsurani!

Enemies of my people. We shall see whom my chief shall

order beaten!'

Mara closed her eyes as the ring of the Thuril rushed

in upon her defenceless party, but she did not react soon

enough to miss the lecherous looks the nearer men shot

toward Kamlio. Her ears still heard their comments, in a

strange language, but derisive in tone. Gods protect us, she

thought, what fate have I commanded for my people? For by

every tenet of honor, and every belief of the religion she was

born to, she should have seen all her warriors dead to a man,

and herself killed, before she consented to surrender.     ;

'You did right, great Lady,' layapa said urgently. But as

rough hands dragged Mara from her perch on the donkey,

and greasy leather thongs creased her wrists, she was not

reassured. More than Acoma shame was at stake here, she

reminded herself as her warriors endured in silence as they,

too, were trussed hand and foot. Honor, pride, even peace,

would mean nothing if the Assembly was not challenged in

its omnipotence.

But as she and her people were pushed and prodded and

jeered at like slaves, she was not sure she would not rather

be dead.

,., ~

19

Captive

Mara fell.

The highlander who had shoved her into the line of

march laughed as she landed on her knees on rough stones.

He caught her arm, jerked her painfully back to her feet,

and pushed her ahead again. She stumbled into Saric, who

stood firm to support her, his horrified outrage barely kept

under control.

'My mistress should at least be permitted to ride on

the donkey,' he protested,-knowing by his Lady's grim

expression that she would not speak out of pride. He bit

off each word as if it were a curse.

'Be silent, Tsurani dog! The beast will be put to better

use!' The highlander who appeared to be in charge

beckoned and gave instructions to an underling.

Mara held her chin high, trying not to look at Lujan's

bleeding face. He had refused to raise his wrists to be

bound, and although he had not fought, it had taken

coarse handling to force his hands behind his back to

lash them. His eyes were dark with rage as he saw to

what 'better use'- their small beast of burden would be put:

Kamlio had caught the fancy of these barbarous Thuril. Her

beauty was considered a prize, and it was she, not Mara,

who was to ride.

When Saric again dared to protest, he was struck in the

face and shouted at in broken Tsurani. 'The dark-haired

woman is nearer the end of her childbearing years. She is

of little value.'

Mara endured this additional shame, her cheeks burning.

But as her kilted captors organised her party for the march,

she ad ed inside with uncertainty. She had no clue what

these Thuril might do with her and her men. But after what

she knew of Tsurani treatment of highlander captives, she

expected her fate would hardly be pleasant.

The Thuril hurried their prisoners upward into the

highlands. Mara slipped and stumbled on the slick shale and

splashed through knee-deep becks that tumbled out of the

heights. Her wet sandal straps stretched, and her soles wore

to blisters. She bit her lip, holding back tears of discomfort.

If she flagged, one of the highlanders would shove her on

with an elbow, or the flat of his sword or ax. Her back

bore unaccustomed bruises. Was this misery what Kevin

and others of his countrymen might have felt while being

driven in cofffles to the Tsurani slave market? Mara had

thought she understood when she had decided that slavery

was a wrong against humanity. Now she gained firsthand

insight into the suffering and the fear such unfortunate

folk must feel, subject to the whim of others. And while

her plight was perilous, she was still a free woman and

would be again, if she survived, but what must it be to

know that there is never a hope of escape? Kevin's deeply

personal anger on the subject no longer mystified her.

Kamlio sat on the donkey. The former courtesan's face

was pale but her expression was impassive,a proper

Tsurani's. But as the girl glanced her way more than once,

Mara saw terror and concern behind her mask. Something

in Kamlio had begun to awaken if she felt concern for the

mistress who tripped and pressed forward on foot by the

donkey's tail.

The lowland hills became craggy as the day wore on, and

the Thuril pressed their captives ever higher into the plateau

country. Through the discomforts of sweat and exhaustion,

Mara reminded herself of the higher purposes that had

caused her unconditional surrender. But moral abstractions

seemed to take on less importance as thirst dried her throat

and her legs began to tremble with the exertion of a forced

march. Again she tried to stiffen flagging resolve: she must

discover the secret behind what the cho-ja and the lesser

magician had named 'the forbidden.' A puzzle lay-before

her in this hostile land, all the more maddening in that the

solution lay outside Tsurani experience. Mara had no hint

of what to expect when and if she should gain the ear of

someone in authority. She did not even know the Thuril

language, far less what questions to ask. How arrogant she

had been when she had boarded the Coalteca in the belief

that she might journey to these alien shores and, through

talk and force of personality, make a sufficient impression

to be heard in courtesy by her people's enemies! Born to

power, never in her life deprived of the privileges of her

rank, Mara perceived how foolish her presumptions had

been. As exalted Servant of the Empire, revered by her

people, she had never once considered that foreigners might

act differently. The lessons she had learned from Kevin of

Zun should have warned of the differences between peoples.

Would the gods ever forgive her stupidity?

Fear preyed increasingly on her mind as her captors drove

her without rest through a high pass in the hills. The donkey

plodded ahead, oblivious to human concerns and content

to be what the gods had made it, a beast of burden. No

less a burden do I carry, thought Mara, tripping again and

feeling the wrench in her tied wrists as she fought to keep

her balance. Lost in miserable thought, she did not note

Saric's and Lujan's tortured looks of worry. The fate of

more than her family rested upon her strength. Captivity

taught her a painful lesson: no man or woman should live at

the whim of another. But that was the only way to describe

the wretched lives of Tsurani common folk. Their fate, and

that of the lowest slaves, depended upon her as much as

the fate of nobles. But reform in Tsuranuanni could not be

begun, until the Assembly's omnipotence was broken.

Bitter possibilities surfaced to harry Mara's brave resolve:

that Kasuma might be her last child, that separation from

Hokanu might last for the rest of her life, that she must

leave unsettled his reluctance to name a daughter as his heir.

Kevin's contrary nature had well taught her that loving a

man did not guarantee peace with him; no time in her life

had been more sorrowful for her, and few more regretted,

than the moment the imperial decree had forced her to send

the barbarian away. She feared that Hokanu might lose her

in as abrupt a manner, leaving unsaid all that meant the

most between them. Mara swallowed, fighting despair. If

she could not reason with these Thuril, if they traded or

sold her into bondage, then if Hokanu was to have a

son, another woman must bear his child for him. That

thought caused worse pain than any physical discomfort.

Mara fought tears.

Only belatedly did Mara realise that their march had

slowed. Her captors paused in a vale between hills purpled

with the shadows of late afternoon. Down the slopes ran a

company of younger Thuril warriors. In a swirl of cloaks

they brandished weapons and laughed boisterously. A

jubilant rendezvous engulfed the party who shepherded

the smaller band of prisoners. The newcomers viewed

Kamlio with raised brows and hoots of appreciation. They

fingered Mara's plain robe, loudly talking, until the Lady

grew annoyed at being stared at.

'What do they say?' she demanded sharply of Layapa,

who stood with his head hanging. He shrank still further

at Mara's imperious address.

'Lady,' admitted the herdsman, 'these are rough men.'

Derisive shouts arose at his deferential manner, and someone

said in gruff and broken Tsurani, 'We should call that

one Answers-to-Women, eh?'

Whoops and laughter arose, nearly drowning Mara's

furious inquiries and Iayapa's desperate appeal: 'Lady, do

not ask me to translate.' Behind her, one of the young men

was gripping his crotch and rolling his eyes as if in pleasure.

His companions found the remarks he uttered hilarious, for

they clapped each other's shoulders and chuckled.

Iayapa said over their din, 'You would be offended,

great Lady.'

'Tell me!' Mara demanded as Saric and Lujan shuffled

closer and took their accustomed positions at her sides to

shield her from the taunts of the foreigners.

'Lady, I mean no disrespect.' Had his hands been free,

layapa would have prostrated himself. Bound helpless, he

could only look strained. 'You order me. The first one, the

fellow with the green cloak, he asked our guide if he had

taken you yet.'

Mara said nothing, but nodded.

Iayapa sweated, despite the cool highland air. 'The one

who guides us says he is waiting for us to reach the village,

for you are bony and he needs many cushions and furs.'

Almost blushing, he blurted the rest. 'The third one who

grabbed himself says that a man has answered to you. That

might mean you are a witch. Does the one who guides us not

take a risk, should he attempt to touch you, that you might

rip off his . . . manhood and feed it to him. The others think

this is very funny indeed.'

Mara wrenched in annoyance at the thongs that tied

her wrists. How could she answer such lewdness with

dignity, bound as she was like livestock? She considered

for a moment, glancing at Lujan and Saric. Both men

looked fit to murder, but they were as helpless as she.

Yet nothing under heaven would cause her to endure such

abuse from strangers without even token resistance! Left

only her tongue, Mara raised the most scathing shout she could

muster. These crude barbarians might not understand

Tsurani, but by Turakamu, they could comprehend her

intent by her tone.

'You!' she snapped out, jerking her head in the direction

of the highlander leader who had taken them. 'What is

your name!'

The aag-nosed man at the head of the troop stiffened,

and, almost before thought, turned toward her. The younger

man beside him left off clutching his crotch and stared at

his elder in astonishment. He said something, to which

his leader made a gesture of incomprehension. Instead,

he addressed Iayapa in his own language, and the others

laughed.

Mara did not wait for translation. 'This swaggering fool

with no more brains than the beast who carries my serving

girl now claims he cannot understand me.' Her consonants

sharpened with malice. 'Even after he exchanged words in

Tsurani down the trail from here?'

Several of the highlanders turned at this, some revealing

surprise. So! Mara thought. There are others who can speak

our tongue, albeit badly. She must make the most of this.

Mara played along with the embarrassed highlander's

charade and addressed Iayapa alone. 'Tell this buffoon,

who forgets words as well as his mother forgot the name

of his father, exactly what I say.' Mara paused, then added

into shocked silence, 'Tell him he is a rude little boy. When

we reach his village I shall ask that his chieftain beat him

for inexcusable manners toward a guest. Inform him further

that should I seek company for my bed, it would be with

a man, not a child still longing for his mother's shriveled

breast, and more, that should he touch me, I will laugh when

his manhood fails to rise. He is as ignorant as a needra, and

smells worse. He is uglier than my most disreputable dog

and worth less - for my dog can hunt and has less vermin.

Tell him his very existence brings shame upon his already

honorless ancestors.'

Suddenly inexplicably gleeful, Iayapa translated. Before

he had finished the first sentence, the eyes of every Thuril

warrior fixed upon the Lady of the Acoma. By the time the

translation of her tirade was completed, their stony stillness

frightened her. Her heart banged in her chest. They might

easily kill her. Any Tsurani Lord so addressed by a captive

would have had her strung up by her neck and kicking.

But kite could hardly hold worse than to be dragged into

slavery, Mara felt. Whether or not these men would hang

her in total dishonor, she showed them nothing but the face

of haughty contempt.

Then the mood broke. All but the target of Mara's insults

exploded into knee-slapping peals of mirth. 'The shrew

has a tongue for words, did you hear?' someone cried

to the insulted man in accented Tsurani. This confirmed

that he spoke the language well enough to realise what

had been said of him before Iayapa's translation. Several

of his companions were laughing so hard they had to

sit down, lest their knees buckle. The warrior Mara had

berated studied her, then, as color rose into his cheeks, he

nodded once.

Lujan pressed closer to Mara's side as another of the

Thuril warriors shouted, waving his bow at Mara in

salutation. Made aware by the man's grin that she was

not going to be summarily executed, Mara said, 'What did

he say?'

Iayapa shrugged. 'That you know how to insult like a

man. It is something of an art among the Thuril, mistress.

As I learned well at my mother's knee, they can be a most

irritating people.'

In time the pandemonium subsided. The younger troop

banded together and took their leave to resume duty, some

still chuckling as they took the outbound trail. Mara's

captors, including their red-faced leader, hustled their

Tsurani charges around the next bend toward home.

Late sunlight slashed across a meadow. Beyond the open

ground lay a wooden walled town of steeply peaked roofs.

Curls of smoke rose from stone chimneys, and the spears

of sentries could be seen on the wall walks. The town's

position guarded another trail that wound into the hills.

The highlander warriors quickened the pace, in a hurry

to bring in their captive prizes.

'Strange,' murmured Saric, his indefatigable curiosity still

evident despite the rigor of their march and the uncertain

fate awaiting him. Unlike any Tsurani, these Thuril seemed

indifferent to chatter between their prisoners. 'While this

grass offers good grazing for livestock, it is not eaten

short, but only cut across by the paths of the flocks and

herders.'

At this comment, the Thuril leader glanced over his shoulder,

his lip half curled in contempt. In blatant contradiction

of his earlier claim of ignorance of the Tsurani

tongue, he said in a mangled accent, 'You should be glad to

have an escort through this meadow, Tsurani dog. Without

us to show you which path to tread, you would be lost.

For this ground is still trapped from the last visit your kind

made to our hills!'

Lujan answered thoughtfully, 'You mean your folk still

maintain fortifications from the last war?'

'But the fighting ceased more than a decade ago,'

Saric objected. Lujan confided softly to his cousin, 'Long

memories.' Behind his insouciant tones lay foreboding.

That the Thuril kept their village guarded with lethal

deadfalls after so much time revealed a resentment that

would complicate any overtures toward negotiation; as

soldier, Lujan had heard the tales told by veterans of the

ill-conceived invasion into Thuril. A man was better dead

than taken prisoner, to be turned over alive to the vengeful

treatment of highlander women.

But he concealed his fears from Mara as they were herded

past the deadly meadow, and on, over a wooden bridge that

spanned a moat, fed by a swift-running river. The water

rushed over rock snags and whirled in black eddies through

pools too swift for a swimmer to cross. As Lujan's eyes

measured the possibility of escape across the current, the

leader of the highlanders noticed.

He waved a leather-gauntleted arm at the rock pools.

'Many Tsurani warriors drowned there, sword captain!

More broke their necks on the stone, trying in vain to

build a rope bridge.' He shrugged, and his grin returned.

'Your commanders are not stupid men, just stubborn. In

time, they threw platforms across there'- his cloak fringes

danced as he pointed to a ledge by the lowered bridge -'and

there.' He indicated another outcrop farther down. Then,

as if warriors from the past still screamed battle cries into

the dusk-grey air, he glanced up at the looming wall of the

palisade. 'It was a near thing.'

Mara had pushed through her fatigue to follow the

conversation. 'You must have been a very small boy in

those times. How do you remember?'

Distracted by vivid recall, the highlander leader forgot

that he answered a woman. 'I was up on the battlement,

bringing water to my father and uncles. I helped carry the

dead and wounded.' His face twisted into long-nurtured

bitterness. 'I remember.'

He jabbed Lujan forward with a blow and led across the

bridge. The looming shadow of the gateway cut off all view

of sky and fortifications. The leader answered to a challenge

from an unseen sentry then hustled the Tsurani captives

through. Lujan took note of the log battlements, faced on

the outside with smooth boards, but left unfinished inside,

with bark and stubs of branches still left on the trunks, as

if the defense works had been erected in haste. 'It must have

been a fierce battle.'

The leader laughed. 'Not that fierce, Tsurani. We were

up in the hills by the time the third attack came and your

soldiers seized the palisades. Our leaders aren't stupid,

either. If your people wanted the village so much, we would

let you have it. Taking a place is one thing; holding it is

another.' with a sneer of contempt, he added, 'We wouldn't

let you have the hills, Tsurani.' He waved broadly toward

the peaks that notched the sky above the wall. 'There is

our true home. In these valleys, we might build halls and

houses to meet, and trade, and celebrate, but our families

are raised in the high country. That is where your soldiers

died, Tsurani, as we attacked your foragers and patrols.

Hundreds perished in our raids, until your kind tired of

the highlands and went home.'

By now past the fortifications, and into the avenue of

commerce, the party of prisoners attracted notice. Women

beating their laundry clean with stones in a wide public

basin paused in their work to point and stare. Urchins

in colored plaids screamed and ran to look, or stared

wide-eyed from behind mothers who carried cloth-wrapped

loaves of bread from the baker's. Some of the dirtier, wilder

children capered about the bound strangers, shouting;

afraid some might fling stones, Lujan jerked his head at

his warriors, who jostled closely around their mistress to

give what protection they could.

But no hostilities were offered, beyond glares from

middle-aged women, who perhaps had lost sons or husbands

to imperial warriors in battle. The donkey bearing

Kamlio caused the most furor, as children swooped close

with excited chatter. The highlanders fended them off with

mock gruffness. Still the little ones shouted. 'It has only

four legs!'

'Why doesn't it fall down?' cried another about the age

of Ayaki before he died.

The soldier who led the beast took the din in good

stride, giving the children outrageous answers that made

them squeal and scream with laughter.

After a studied silence, Mara observed, 'If these noisy

barbarians intended to kill us, surely the mothers would

not let their little ones mingle, but would be hustling them

away home.'

Lujan crowded nearer to his mistress. 'Gods grant you are

right, my Lady.' But his thoughts remained apprehensive.

He could see the covetous glances Kamlio attracted from

the men who passed on the street. The women who bundled

up their washing looked sharp-faced and unfriendly, and a

groom carrying a water pannikin spat in their direction in

contempt. The Thuril were a fierce race, the veterans who

had returned alive from fighting in these hills had insisted.

Their young were toughened at the knees of mothers who

were awarded as battle prizes, or carried off by force

in raids.

As the highlanders brought their captives to a halt in the

square, it could be seen that the entire village consisted

of a ring of buildings built against the wall, leaving an

open air market at the center, with portable tent stalls for

traders, and palings of thorny stakes to enclose livestock.

Mara's party was driven into the largest of these pens,

while onlookers laughed and called out in derision. Iayapa

refused to answer Saric's requests for translation, and Mara

herself was too weary to care. She longed only for a patch

of clean ground to sit down; the dirt she trod was thick

with droppings left from its animal occupants. She envied

Kamlio her seat on the donkey, until she looked over at

the younger girl and realised by her pinched pallor that she

probably had sores from sitting so long in the saddle. The

men did not let her down, but tied her mount to a pole by

the gate, then leaned on folded arms against the posts, and

murmured in appreciation of her loose golden hair and her

beauty.

Furious that so little care had been taken for even their

most basic human needs, Mara shouldered past her officers.

At the gate, where the highlanders clustered, she demanded

in a loud voice, 'What are you going to do with my people?'

Trembling with anger that was fueled the more by fear, she

tossed her head to shake tangled hair from her eyes. 'My

warriors require food and water, and a decent place to rest!

Is this the hospitality you show to strangers who come on

a mission of peace? A slave's bonds, and a livestock pen?

!Shame to you, carriers of vermin who were spawned in the

dirt like pigs!' Here she borrowed the Midkemian word for

a beast whose habits were considered reprehensible.

The foreign word seemed to upset the Thuril, who

scowled as their leader stamped forward. Red with anger,

or maybe embarrassment, he shouted to Lujan, 'Silence the

woman, if you wish her to live.'

The Acoma Force Commander glowered back. He said

in a voice that could easily be heard on a battlefield, 'She is

my mistress. I take my orders from her. If you have the wits

not to make water in your bedding at night, you would do

the same.'

The leader of the highlanders roared in fury at this

insult. He might have drawn his sword and charged

forward, but one of his companions caught him back.

Words were exchanged in Thuril. Lujan could only stand

in dumb but dignified incomprehension as the irate leader

allowed himself to be placated. The highlander muttered

something short and guttural to the spokesman who had

restrained him. At length, he loosed a huge guffaw that cut

off as the men around him snapped into attentiveness.

'That must be their chieftain,' Saric murmured. He had

moved up to Mara's shoulder, unnoticed until he had

spoken. Mara noted that their escort all looked toward

a cloaked man who had emerged down the wooden stair

of the most imposing building that edged the square. Street

children scattered from his path as he crossed the open

expanse, and the women carrying their loads of damp wash

homeward averted their faces in deference.

The newcomer was old and hunched, but he moved with

a sureness that could still negotiate the roughest trail. Mara

estimated his age to be about sixty years. Tokens of corcara

carved by Tsurani hands were woven into his braid, no

doubt worn as battle trophies. Mara repressed shiver as the

elder neared enough for her to make out that the buttons

on his cloak front were fashioned of polished bone. The

tales were true, then, that Thuril believed that an artifact

taken from a dead foe would lend them strength in life.

Her finger bones could as easily wind up as an ornament

in some warrior's attire.

The highlander chief paused to share words with the

squad captain who had charge of the prisoners. He pointed

to the golden-haired courtesan and the donkey, said something

else, and smiled. The squad leader saluted, plainly

excused from duty. By his look of self-satisfaction, he would

now be going home to his wife.

Mara seemed worn and disheartened, and driven by

sympathy for her, Saric shouted, 'Aren't you going to

introduce us?'

The highlander officer froze between strides. His men

and his chieftain looked on in bright-eyed interest, as the

man considered whether he should reply to the hail of a

prisoner. Then, in burred accent, he called back, 'Introduce

yourself, Tsurani! Your woman seems capable enough with

her tongue!'

Another of the highlander warriors offered with malicious

amusement, 'Our captain is Antaha, guideman of

the Loso. I give you his name so that when you appeal

to our chieftain to have him beaten, he will know whom

to seek out.'

This interruption was greeted by uproarious laughter,

shared by the old chief, and even the street children and

the women by the washing well. Irked past restraint by these

strange, annoying people, Mara again pressed to the fore.

To the chieftain, who chuckled and slapped his knees, she

called imperiously, 'I am Mara, Ruling Lady of the Acoma,

and I have come to the Thuril Confederacy on a mission

of peace.'

The chief lost his mirth as if slapped. Shocked to silent

anger, he regrouped. 'A woman standing in querdidra

droppings comes claiming to be someone of rank and an

emissary of peace?'

Mara looked whitely furious. Aware that she neared her

breaking point, and that to insult this chieftain in public

would earn her certain reprisal, Lujan turned desperately

to Saric. 'We must act, even if only to distract her.'

But the young First Adviser stepped forward without

seeming to hear. As Mara opened her mouth to speak,

Saric broke protocol and shouted down her voice with his

own. 'Chief among the Thuril,' he cried, 'you are a fool,

who offers our Lady of the Acoma no better hospitality

than a livestock pen! You speak of Mara, Servant of the

Empire, and a member of the Emperor Ichindar's royal

family!'

The chieftain jerked up his square chin. 'She?' If his word

seemed filled with contempt, Saric's statement was not

entirely wasted. The elderly man did not add any derogatory

comment, but summarily waved Antaha back to duty. This

time, the chief's words were rapid and commanding, and

layapa, under pressure from Saric, translated.

'He says that if Antaha should bring animals into camp,

then he must look after them: feed them, water them, and

give them bedding. Not too much, though, for straw is

scarce, and the gods do not love waste. The girl on the

donkey is to be sheltered in a hut. Her beauty is great,

and should be treasured for the man who will win rights

to claim her to wife.' layapa looked troubled, for at this,

Mara's eyes seemed to bore into him with the hardness

of flint.

502 Mistress of the Empire

But her command held no personal resentment as she

said, 'Finish.'

layapa nodded and bleakly licked his lips. 'The chief of

this village says also that he has heard of the Servant of the

Empire, who is family to the Tsurani Emperor. He adds

that Ichindar is ruled by women, and that he, a born

highlander, will not deign to speak with a woman of any

claim to royal lineage on the open street. But because of the

existing treaty between Tsuranuanni and the Confederacy,

neither is he free to authorise his village men to claim Mara

as spoils.'

Hoots of disappointment ran through the squad of

highlanders who had escorted the Lady's party in. Two

of the more impudent ones made obscene gestures.

Then the chieftain turned toward the captives in the pen

and addressed Mara's Force Commander in Tsurani that

was accentless, learned during former wars. 'If you have

a need that is not met, Antaha is charged responsible.

Tomorrow he will gather an escort of twenty warriors,

and take you and your females on to the high chief at

Darabaldi. Judgment, if such is called for, will be dealt by

the council there.'

Saric looked thunderous, but he listened when Iayapa

touched his arm in entreaty. 'First Adviser, do not provoke

these men or their chieftain any further. They are not a

people in love with arguments over points of etiquette.

They mete out deaths very swiftly, and do not regret.

Morning could have found all of us lying here with cut

throats, or worse. To be sent to Darabaldi rather than

parceled out among those who captured us is, in fact, a

great concession.'

Saric regarded the dung that crusted his sandals, and

exchanged a disgusted glance with Lujan, whose fingers

seemed lost without sword to hand in his scabbard.

'Cousin,' the Acoma adviser said gravely, 'if this is a

':

great concession, dare we even speculate what a small

one might have been?'

The strain told, but could not entirely vanquish the spirit

of Mara's Force Commander. He broke his Tsurani facade

of impassivity and stifled a deep chuckle. 'Gods, man, you'll

be speculating on points of philosophy in the smoke of

your funeral pyre, I know it.' Then, as one, he and the

First Adviser turned to tend their mistress, who to their

experienced eyes looked small and disheartened and alone,

though her back was straight, and her face as imperious as

always.

She was watching an enterprising group of highlanders

taking charge of Kamlio and the donkey. 'Do you think

they will harm her?' she demanded of layapa, and to the

ears of those closest to her, anxiety colored her tone.

The onetime herdsman shook his head. 'There are never

enough women of childbearing age in this harsh land, and

Kamlio is beautiful, which makes her doubly valuable. But

the chieftain of this tribe must grant his approval before any

man could bargain for her as a wife. Lacking his consent,

she may be admired, but not bedded. All the unmarried

warriors know that to trouble her now would forfeit any

chance to ask for her as a mate. Since many single men

in the highlands die without ever winning wives, even so

small a chance to claim a woman is not to be risked.'

Mara swallowed. 'Do they have no courtesans in this

land?'

layapa looked offended. 'Only a few, in Darabaldi. Not

many women choose that life, with no honor to their tribe.

The young men may go to them once or twice a year, but

that gives no comfort during long winter nights.'

Over the little herdsman's head, Lujan and Saric exchanged

glances. 'Funny place, this,' Saric muttered, again

glancing sourly at the dung-littered ground upon which, it

appeared, they must all wait out the night. These Thuril

Captive

503

504

Mistress of the Empire

thought nothing of stealing a girl or a woman from her

home in a bloody raid. Even the most repressed Tsurani

wife had the right to be heard in public by her Lord.

'Barbaric indeed!' Saric muttered. Then he shivered as a

cold wind cut down off the heights. He glanced at his

diminutive Lady, and admired the grit that enabled her to

keep her dignity. That she should be bound, and handled,

and treated no better than a slave by total strangers, made

him furious enough to kill.

As if she read his thoughts, she turned to him that sweet

smile which never failed to inspire loyalty and pride. 'I will

manage, Saric. Just keep that warrior cousin of yours from

losing his temper over things that do not matter. For this she

raised her hands, still tied with rawhide strips- 'and

this' - she scuffed her foot at the soiled ground - 'are

unimportant. The Assembly of Magicians would do worse.

If I can speak to the Thuril High Chief at Darabaldi, that is

all that must concern us.'

Then, as the gloom deepened, and tallow candles shed an

orange glow behind the oiled-hide windows that fronted the

square, she bent her head and appeared to be meditating as

the priestesses of Lashima's temple had taught her during a

girlhood that now seemed far in the past.

Warmed by Saric and Lujan, pressed close, and protected

from the cold and filthy ground by the cloak her Force

Commander had insisted upon lending her, Mara awakened

to a touch on her shoulder. The sleep of total exhaustion

left her slowly. She blinked, stirred, and opened her eyes to

darkness broken by a thin glow cast from the few windows

still lighted across the square.

'What is it?' Her body was stiff, and aching with every

bruise and sore she had gotten in the day's long march.

'One comes,' Saric whispered, and then she, too, saw the

cresses that weaved across the square.

~ _

Captive

505

The cloaked figure who carried it was a woman. She

bobbed her head, but did not speak, to the sentry who

guarded the pen. A token changed hands, a flash of carved

shell reflected briefly by flame light.

Then, with a rich laugh, the sentry admitted her. She

stepped into the livestock compound, her lantern held high

over her hooded head. She scanned the rows of Mara's

warriors, roused from their rest, and banded together in

wary defensiveness.

'Lady of the Acoma?' Her voice was gruff and rich, not

that of a young woman, but one that had seen many years

of life and laughter. 'My Lord has relented, and says you

may shelter for the night with your servant, in the hut with

the unmarried women.'

'Dare you trust her?' Saric said in his Lady's ear. 'This

could be a ploy to separate you.'

'Well I know it,' Mara whispered back. Then, loudly

enough to be heard, she said, 'If your intentions are honest,

cut my bonds.'

The Thuril woman stepped closer with the torch, lighting

a path for herself between Mara's warriors. 'But of course,

Lady Mara.' She reached inside her cloak with her free hand

and removed a dagger.

Mara felt Lujan flinch taut against her at the sight of the

bared blade. But with his hands tied, he could do little to

defend her.

He watched in sick anxiety as the highland woman

reached down and deftly cut the rawhide that bound the

Lady's hands.

Mara rubbed her wrists, forcing her face not to reflea

her discomfort as the circulation returned to her cramped

fingers. 'Free my officers and my men also,' she demanded

imperiously.

The woman stepped back, sheathing the knife at her belt.

'I may not, Lady Mara.'

506

Mistress of the Empire

- 'Then I do not come,' the Lady of the Acoma said icily Y.:

in return.

The cloaked woman shrugged, indifferent. 'Stay out here,

then. But your servant girl has need of you. She will not stop

shaking.

Fury flowed through Mara. 'Has Kamlio been hurt?'

Pride held the highland woman silent; and from the dark

outside the ring of torchlight, layapa said, 'Good Servant,

you offer insult. This is the chieftain's wife come to offer

yon better hospitality, and to imply harm to your serving

girl is to give affront to all in this tribe. Her gesture of

kindness is genuine, and I advise you to accept.'

Mara drew in an icy breath. It was all very well to allow

these barbarians their own honor - but what of her own!

To leave her warriors here in this dung pit shamed her as

their Lady. ~

Saric felt her uncertainty through the contact of her

body with his. 'Lady,' he said in a low voice, 'I think you

must trust her. We gave up our option to fight already. As

prisoners, what can we do but chance the consequences of

that earlier decision?'

At heart, Mara knew her adviser was correct. But the part

of her that was born and raised Tsurani refused to yield so

easily to such honorless practicality.

Lujan elbowed her gently in the ribs. 'My Lady, do not

worry for your-warriors. They will sleep in this querdidra

pen as an honor in your service, and if any complain of it,

I will see him whipped as a man in need of toughening! I

have brought my best soldiers as your guard into this land.

Each of them had to prove himself to be here, and I expect

them all to die on command if need be.' He paused, and

added wryly, 'To lie in a little dung is a lot less painful than

a trip at a sword's point to Turakamu's halls.'

'True,' Mara agreed, too sore and heartsick to raise a

laugh at his attempted humor. To the torch-bearing woman

Captive

~.,

507

she said, 'I will come.' Stifffly she clawed her way to her feet.

Her blistered soles stung as she stepped forward, and with

an exclamation of sympathy, the chieftain's wife reached

and steadied her. Slowly Mara limped across the pen toward

the gate that the sentries held open.

One of them commented in Thuril as she and the chief's

wife passed. The highland woman did not turn at his noise,

but instead said something back in contempt. 'Men!' she

confided to Mara in fluent Tsurani. 'A pity it is that their

brains are not as quick as their organs to rise when the

occasion warrants cleverness.'

Surprised enough to have smiled, had she felt less miserable,

Mara gave in to curiosity. 'Is it true your people

take their women to wife by stealing them from their

families in a raid?'

The cloaked figure by her side turned her head, and Mara

received the impression of a visage lined by hardship and

amusement. 'But of course,' said the Thuril chief's wife.

Her tone was half laughter, and half blistering scorn. 'Would

you lie with a man who had not proven himself a skillful

warrior, a man to make his enemies afraid, and a handy

provider?'

Mara's eyebrows arose. Tsurani girls, after all, sought the

same qualities in a husband, even if they held different rites

of courtship. The Lady of the Acoma had never thought to

view a custom she had presumed barbarous in such a light.

But in an alien way, this woman's words made sense.

'Call me Ukata,' the chief's wife said warmly. 'And if I

am sorry for anything, it is that it took me this long to drum

sense into my silly husband's head, to allow you reprieve

from the cold!'

'I have much to learn of your Thuril ways,' Mara

admitted. 'By the talk of your warriors and your chief,

I would have thought that women held little influence in

this land.'

Ukata grunted as she assisted Mara up the low wooden

steps of the centermost house in the square, a long, beamed

hall with a thatched roof. The smoke from the chimney

smelled of aromatic bark, and strange fertility symbols

were scratched into the doorposts. 'What men claim and

what they actually are make different tales, as you must

know at your age!'

Mara held her silence. She had been blessed with a

husband who heard her as an equal, and a barbarian lover

who had shown her the meaning of her womanhood; but

she was not unfamiliar with the lot of others whose men

held dominance over them. The most unfortunate were

like Kamlio, helpless to gain influence over decisions that

affected them; the best were formidable manipulators, like

Lady Isashani of the Xacatecas. Men regarded her as the

supreme example of the Tsurani wife, and yet neither Lord

nor ally nor enemy had ever gotten the better of her.

Ukata raised the wooden latch and pushed open the door

with a creak of hinges. Gold light washed out into the night,

along with sweet smoke from the bark that burned in the

stone fireplace. Mara followed the chief's wife inside.

'Here,' said a kindly female voice, 'take off those soiled

sandals.'

Mara was stiff and slow to bend; hands pressed her

into a wooden chair. There, accustomed as she was to

cushions, she perched awkwardly while a girl with russet

braids removed her footwear. The soft, woven carpet on

the floor felt luxurious to her chilled toes. Weary enough

to fall asleep where she sat, Mara fought to stay alert.

She could learn a great deal about the Thuril people if

these women were interested in talk. But listening to the

burred accents, and seeing shy smiles among the unmarried

maidens whose home she would share, Mara realised she

lacked Isashani's finesse when it came to gatherings among

women. More at home with the politics of a clan meeting

Captive

509

and the seat of rulership, the Lady of the Acoma rubbed

one blistered ankle and strove for the inspiration to cope.

She needed a translator. The unmarried girls at a glance

all appeared to be under sixteen years of age, too young to

have lived at the time of the last war and to have learned any

Tsurani. Mara looked through the lamplit ring of faces until

she located Ukata's grey head; as she suspected, the chief's

wife seemed to be extricating herself for departure.

'Wait, Lady Ukata,' Mara called, giving the address her

own people would award a woman of noble rank. 'I have

not properly thanked you for my rescue from the livestock

pen, nor have I had the chance to tell your people why I

am here.'

'Thanks are not necessary, Lady Mara,' Ukata replied,

turning back. The youngest girl of the company gave way

to allow their elder a clear path, until she stood before

Mara's chair. 'Our people are not the barbarians that you

Tsurani suppose. As a woman who has borne children and

seen them die in battle, I understand why our men still hold

your kind in hatred. As to why you are here, you may tell

that to our high chief at Darabaldi.'

'If I am allowed to be heard,' Mara responded with a

snap of acerbity. 'Your men, you must admit, have short

attention spans.'

Ukata laughed. 'You will be heard.' She patted the

Tsurani Lady's hand, her touch calloused but gentle. 'I

know the high chief's wife. She is Mirana, and we were

raised in the same village, before the raid in which she

was taken to wife. She is tough as old rock, and garrulous

enough to break the will of any man, even that meat-brains

who is her husband. She will see that you are heard, or insult

his manhood before his warriors until his sex parts wither

from shame.'

Mara listened with startled surprise. 'You seem very calm

when you speak of the raids that take you from home and

family,' she observed. 'And do your husbands not bcae you

for saying uncomplimentary things of them?'

A flurry of questions from the young girls, and many

cries of 'Da? Da?' followed Mara's statement. Ukata gave

in and translated. This raised a round of giggles, which

quieted as the chief's wife spoke again. 'Raids to win wives

are ... formal ... a custom in these lands, Lady Mara.

They stem from a time when women were even more

scarce than now, and a husband established his standing

by the age when he successfully stole a wife. Nowadays

women are carried off without bloodshed. There is much

shouting and pursuit with terrible oaths and threats of

retribution, but it is all for show. Once that was not so the

raids in past times were-bloody and men died. Now a

husband earn his accolades by how far afield he goes to

bring home a mate, and how vigorously she was defended

by her village. This house for unmarried girls lies deepest

inside our defences. But also, you will note, only girls of an

age and an inclination to have a mate come to live here.'

Mara regarded the ring of young faces, smooth and

unmarked yet by life. 'You mean that all of you here want

to be taken by strangers?'

At their look of blank incomprehension Ukata answered

in their stead. 'These youngsters watch the lads who visit

the village, who spy in turn on the girls.' With a smile she

said, 'If they deem a boy is lacking in grace, the girl will

scream with conviction, instead of the mock shouts of fear,

and the suitor so rejected will be chased away by the fathers

of the village. But few young girls would wish to be left

when the warriors come naked to raid. To be overlooked is

to be considered ugly or blemished. If a girl is not stolen by

a raider, the only way she may win a husband is to wait until

two suitors come for the same girl, then throw herself on

the back of the one who failed, and ride him home without

being pushed off!'

Mara shook her head, mystified by such a strange custom.

She had much to learn if she was to gain understanding

enough to negotiate for help from these foreigners. Ukata

added, 'It is late, and you will be starting out early in the

morning. I suggest you allow the girls to show you to a

sleeping mat, and that you rest through the night.'

'I thank you, Lady Ukata.' Mara inclined her head in

respect and permitted herself to be led into a small,

curtained cubicle that served as sleeping quarters for Thuril

girls. The floor was lined with furs, and the small oil lamp

left burning showed a drift of yellow hair scattered amid

the bedding. Kamlio lay there already, curled motionless

on her side. Her fair skin showed no bruises. Relieved

that Arakasi's pretty courtesan had taken no harm, Mara

gestured to the Thuril girl who lingered that her needs were

met. Then, she gratefully slipped off her soiled robe. Clad

in her thin silk underrobe, she crawled under the furs, and

reached up to extinguish the lamp.

'Lady?' Kamlio's eyes were open, watching. She had not

been asleep at all, but only shamming. 'Lady Mara, what

will happen to us?'

Leaving the lamp alight, Mara snuggled the furs around

her chin and studied the girl who regarded her with eyes like

luminous jewels. No wonder Arakasi had been overtaken

by desire! Kamlio was appealing enough to bewitch any

man, with her creamy skin and fine, fair coloring. As badly

as the Lady of the Acoma wished to offer reassurance,

she knew better than to lie. If her Spy Master had been

thawed into discovery of emotion by the allure of this

courtesan, what might the Thuril with their tradition of

taking women by raiding do to keep her? 'I don't know,

Kamlio.' Mara's uncertainty showed through despite her

best efforts.

The ex-courtesan's delicate fingers tightened over the bed

furs. 'I don't want to stay among these people.' For the first

time when dealing with her personal wishes, her gaze did

not shy away when she spoke.

'What would you do, then?' Mara seized upon the

vulnerability that their straits as prisoners had created.

~You are too intelligent to remain in my service as a

maid, Kamlio, and too uneducated to assume a post of

more responsibility. What would you like to do?'

Kamlio's green eyes flashed. 'I can learn. Others have

risen to rank in your service who were not born to it.' She

bit her full lip and after a moment, some of the tension

seemed to leave her, as if she let down some inner barrier by

expressing ambition. 'Arakasi,' she said uncertainly. 'Why

did he insist upon asking you to buy my freedom? Why did

you grant his request, if not to leave me to him?'

Mara briefly shut her eyes. She was too tired for this! One

wrong word, one insufficient answer, and she risked all that

her Spy Master hoped for happiness. Honesty was her best

course, but how to choose the best phrases? Beaten down

by a headache and by pain in every muscle - stiff from the

day?s forced march - the Lady of the Acoma found that in

fact Isashani's tact was beyond her. The bluntness she had

learned from Kevin of Zun must sufffice. 'You remind him

of his family, who also were born to a life that did not suit

them, and who also never learned how to love.'

Kamlio's gaze widened. 'What family? He told me that

you were all of his family and all of his honor.'

Mara accepted the burden of that statement. 'I may

have become so. But Arakasi was born masterless to

a woman of the Reed Life. He never knew the name

of his father, and he saw his only sister killed by a

lustful man.'

The courtesan absorbed this news in silence. Watching?

fearful that she might have said too much, but unable to

stop short, Mara added, 'He wants your freedom from the

past, Kamlio. I know him well enough to vow to you this:

he would ask you for nothing more than you would give

him freely.'

'You love your husband that way,' Kamlio said, in her

words a cutting edge of accusation, as if she distrusted the

existence of such relations between a man and a woman.

'I do.' Mara waited, wishing she could lay her head down

and close her eyes, to lose this and all other problems in the

oblivion of sleep.

But Kamlio's need prevented that. She picked nervously

at the furs, and in an abrupt change of subject, said, 'Lady,

do not leave me here among these Thuril! I beg you. If I were

forced to become the wife of such a foreigner, I would never

find out who I am, what sort of life would please me. I think

I would never understand the meaning of the freedom you

have given me.'

'Have no fear, Kamlio,' Mara said, losing her battle

against her overwhelming exhaustion. 'If I leave this land

at all, I will bring all of my people out with me.'

As if she could trust this reassurance with her life,

Kamlio reached out and snuffed the light. After that,

Mara could only suppose that the girl shared no more

words in confidence, for the Lady of the Acoma slept

without dreams in the close, herb-scented cubicle.

When morning came, Lady Mara and her servant woman

found themselves well treated to a warm bath in the

women's quarters, followed by a breakfast of fresh breads

and querdidra cheese. Kamlio appeared pale but composed.

Yet Mara noted a fragility to her manner that she believed

stemmed from worry rather than bitterness. Outside the

hut, a great commotion of shouting and laughter issued

from the vicinity of the village square, but Mara could not

make out the cause through the blurry, translucent windows

of oiled hide. When she inquired, the young women who

were her hostesses gave her blank stares. Without Ukata

present to translate, lime else could be done but endure

through the simple meal in politeness until an escort of

highlander warriors arrived at the door and demanded that

the two Tsurani women come out.

Kamlio whitened. Mara touched her hand in reassurance,

then raised her chin high and stepped outside.

A wagon waited by the low stair beyond the door. It

had high sides woven of withe, and was drawn by two

querdidra and the recalcitrant donkey. Its scrawny grey

hide was flecked with spittle from the six-legged beasts'

spite, and in vain it tried to kick at the traces to retaliate. The

querdidra blinked their absurdly long lashes and wrinkled

their lips as if laughing.

Tied to the wagon were Mara's warriors. They did not

smell of the dung that had been their last night's camp, but

were clean, if drenched. Lujan, as he saw his Lady descend

the stair, looked flushed with some inward satisfaction,

and Saric was stifling a smile. Startled by her warriors'

neat appearance, Mara looked further and realised that

the Thuril highlanders who swaggered about on guard

detail were eyeing her captive retinue with what- seemed

a newfound respect.

Suspect though she might that somehow the pandemonium

she had heard through the walls of the house might

be connected, she had no chance to inquire. The Thuril

warriors dosed around, and she and Kamlio were bundled

up over the wagon's crude backboard into a bed lined with

straw. The withe rose up on either side, too tightly woven

for Mara to see out. The warriors lashed the tailgate firmly

dosed. Captives still, the women felt the jolt as the drover

leaped up and gathered the reins, and then the creak of

withe and wheels as he slapped his team with his goad

and hastened them forward.

The donkey and the querdidra pulled badly together. The

wagon swayed and jolted over ruts, and the straw smelled

of livestock, taken, as it was, from some goodman's byre.

Kamlio looked so sick with fear that Mara bade her lie down

in the straw. She offered the girl her overrobe, for the wind

cut down off the heights in chilly gusts. 'I will not see you

abandoned, Kamlio,' she assured. 'You did not come here

to become some rough Thuril's wife.'

Then, too restless to sit still, Mara leaned against the

withe on the side nearest to Lujan and demanded to know

how her warriors had gotten their soaking.

As before, the Thuril guard set over them did not care

whether their captives talked. Lujan was permitted to step

close to the painted spokes of the wheel and answer his

mistress all he liked.

'We complained that we did not care to march into their

capital smelling of dung,' the Acoma Force Commander

said, his voice deep with choked-back amusement. 'So they

allowed us to go under guard to bathe in the river.' Now

a chuckle escaped Lujan's control. 'Of course, our armor

and clothing were soiled, so we stripped to clean that also.

This caused a great commotion among the highlanders.

Iayapa said it was because they do not go naked except

to battle. There was much pointing and shouting. Then

someone called out in bad Tsurani that we were no sport

for insults, being unable to understand the rasping grunts

these folk call a language.' Here Lujan paused. i

Mara leaned her cheek against the creaking withe.

'Go on.'

Lujan cleared his throat. Plainly, he was still having

difficulty suppressing amusement. 'Saric took up that

challenge, shouting to Iayapa to translate everything,

no matter how ugly the words were, or how obscene.'

The wagon jolted over a particularly bad rut, and Lujan

broke off his narrative, presumably to jump across. 'Well,

the words got very personal indeed. We were told by these

Thuril how we got all of our battle scars. If they are to

be believed, the women of the Reed Life in our land are

practiced at putting our best soldiers to rout with their]

fingernails. Or our sisters all lie with dogs and jigabirds`

and we scratched each other with our nails all vying to have

the best view.'

Here Lujan broke off again, this time grimly. Mare

gripped the withe tightly enough to whiten her knuckles.

The insults Lujan had mentioned were shame enough to a

man's honor to require vengeance, and the Lady doubted

her Force Commander had repeated the worst slander.

Hoarsely, for she was sorrowful and angry that she had

brought such brave warriors to such a disgraceful pass, she

said, 'This must have been terrible to endure.' ~

'Not so terrible.' A toughness like barbarian iron entered

Lujan's voice. 'I and the others, we took example from

Papewaio, lady.'

Mara closed her eyes in remembered pain for brave

Pape - who had saved her life many times over, and come

as a consequence to wear the black rag of a condemned

man for her sake, and then equally for her sake, to forgo the

death by his own blade that he had earned, and to live on,

his dark headcloth symbolic of a triumph that only his Lady

and those who knew him might understand. Lastly, he had

died to save her life, in an attack by a Minwanabi enemy.

Mara bit her lip, jostled from her remembrance by the sway

and jolt of the wagon. She hoped that these warriors, the

finest and best of her honor guard, would not suffer the

same untimely end. Old Keyoke, her Adviser for War, had

taught her well that death in battle on strange soil was not,

as old custom held, the best end a warrior could earn.

'Go on,' she said, hiding the tears in her voice from

Lujan.

Almost, she could imagine her Force Commanders

shrug. 'Lady, there is nothing more to tell. Your warriors

agreed not to take umbrage at empty words from the Thuril.

And the highlanders seemed surprised by this. They called

Mistress of the Empire

down and asked why we did not bother to defend our honor.

And Vanamani called right back that we were your honor,

Lady. We would hear no word that was not spoken from

your lips, or the lips of an enemy. At that point Saric broke in

and added that the Thuril were not enemies, but foreigners,

and that the words of such were empty as the howl of

wind over stones.' Lujan delivered his last sentence in wry

amusement. 'You know, the highlanders stopped clanging

us then. Our loyalty impressed them, I think, that we would

not be baited, even when under command of a woman who

was out of sight and a captive as we were. Iayapa said that

many Tsurani in the times of the wars were taunted to take

foolish charges, and so were killed off by highlanders hidden

in the rocks.'

'Lujan,' Mara said, her voice tremulous with gratitude

despite her wish to seem impassive, 'all of your men are to

be commended for their valor. Tell them I said so, as you

can.' For each and every one of them had stood firm beyond

the call of duty, beyond the tenets of Tsurani culture that

held honor above even life. Each of these men had given

over their personal honor into her hands. Mara studied her

palms, red-marked from her grip on the withe. She prayed

to her gods that she would prove worthy of such trust, and

not get them all sold into slavery that would be the nadir

of dishonor.

20

Council

The hours dragged.

Confined to the wicker wagon, exposed to buffeting

winds and the sun that appeared and disappeared between

the clouds that brooded over the highlands, Mara strove to

keep her patience. But the uncertainty, and the boisterous'

shouts of the Thuril escort warriors, wore at her nerves

To pass the time, she asked Iayapa to describe the lance

they were crossing. He had little to tell. There were no

villages, only a few isolated hamlets clinging to rocky

hillsides, surrounded by scrub grazed thin by the herds.

Over the purple hills at the horizon larger mountains

loomed, rock-crowned where they were not covered by

cloud. Darabaldi, the city of the high council of chieftains,

was said to lie in the foothills of the great range. When

Mara asked Iayapa to inquire on the length of their

journey, she received in return only laughter and ribald

comments. Driven at last to useless exasperation, she turned

to teaching Kamlio the calming techniques of meditation

she had learned as a temple novice.

Gods knew, the poor girl might need all the solace

she could learn to give herself, before their fates were

determined at the hands of these people, Mara thought. ji

The highlanders paused only to eat sausage, sour querdidra

cheese, and bread, washed down with a light, sour

beer that was surprisingly refreshing with the meal. These

breaks were enlivened by loud boasts and sometimes

wagers, when warriors would contest at arm wrestling.

Darkness fell, and fog settled in cold layers over the land.

The donkey grew too tired to kick at the querdidra that

shared its traces, even if the six-legged beasts still curled

their lips at it and spat. Mara curled dose to Kamlio for

warmth. Perhaps for a while she slept.

The stars formed a brilliance of pinpoint patterns overhead

when she roused to the barking of many dogs. Herd

dogs, Iayapa identified, not the larger, heavier breed of

hound used for hunting. By the smoke on the air, and

the pungent smell of confined livestock, rotting garbage,

and curing hides, Mara presumed their party approached

a village or larger habitation.

'Darabaldi,' she received in gruff-voiced reply when she

inquired. But when she pressed for information concerning

when she might speak with the council of chieftains, her

escort returned only coarse comment. 'What does it matter,

woman, or are you eager to learn what man will buy you?

Maybe you worry that he will be old and have no manhood

left in him to rise?'

To this outrageous statement, Saric ventured a rough

term in the Thuril's own language, perhaps learned by

the bathing pool that morning. The highlanders were not

offended in the least, but laughed back and, grudgingly,

appeared to allow her First Adviser some respect.

Torchlight spilled across the wagon. Mara looked up at

a tall gatehouse topped by fat-soaked cressets,that gave

off greasy smoke. From battlements of stone and log,

Thuril warriors in drab plaids called down challenge to

the approaching party.

Antaha shouted back, then launched into rapid-fire

speech accompanied by gesticulations, some of which were

crude. From the evident amusement of the sentries, and

their glances in her direction, Mara presumed their captor

gave account of her capture. The bathing scene by the river

was apparently not omitted, for the sentries elbowed one

another in the ribs and hooted at Lujan and Saric.

Then the guards and their Tsurani captives were waved

t`  ~:l

520 Mistre# of the Empire :3

on through, and the wagon jerked forward with a bray from

the donkey and shrill squeals from the querdidra. 'Well,'

Mara commented to Kamlio, 'everyone in town will know

we are here, by the fanfare of our draft beasts.'

More than ever she wished that the withes were low

enough to allow her a view, but changed her mind a

moment later at a pattering sound that might have been

thrown stones, or dried dung, striking the sides of the cart.

Shouts in Thuril blended with the screech of children caught at

mischief, and the barrage stopped. Looming over the top

of the withes, Mara saw two-storied stone buildings, ant

signboards painted in dull colors swinging in the wind.

The galleries and sills of the windows all had carved totem

posts, and peaked gable roofs that looked strange

to Tsurani eyes. The eaves were also carved in what looked

like runes or writing, beneath roofs of weathered thatch.

Windows seemed to be shuttered and barred, except for

ones stuffed with plump-checked women who called out

and made obscene gestures of welcome. :<

'whores,' Kamlio judged in edged bitterness. Mara could :

see her unspoken fear that such a garret might become her

future home.

Mara bit her lip. She knew that Kamlio was far more

likely to become the woman of a chieftain's son, but she

could not stop herself from wondering: if her Spy Master

were to find himself masterless again, would he swear

service to the Shinzawai, as Hokanu must surely request, or

would he remain a free agent, and come to these hostile hills,

searching a succession of Thuril towns for the girl who hat

stolen his heart? Given a wager, Mara would have guessed

he would come searching for Kamlio.

The wagon jounced over what might have been a stretch

of cobbles or stone paving, then lurched to a halt. The withe

tailgate was opened by a blond highlander who grinned to

show missing teeth, and Mara and Kamlio were beckoned

e

to step down. Beyond the Thuril guard and onlookers who

clustered around, a long house backed up to the village

~wall; to Mara's quick glance, it seemed a small fortress.

The bossed wood doors of the structure stood open, but the

entrance was hung with cloths woven of animal wool into

patterns of squares and lines. Before Mara could observe

more, a Thuril warrior shoved her toward the blanket

flap. Kamlio, Saric, Lujan, and Iayapa were singled out

to follow.

As she reached the threshold, Mara marveled at the

softness of the fabric she brushed past. Then, the others

clustered at her heels, she was inside, blinking at the sting

of smoky air in a windowless room.

The gloom was pierced by the reddish gleam of banked

embers, kept more for cooking than for warmth in dose

air that was pungent with wool, boiled stew, and pent

humanity. Upon an upraised settle before that immense

stone hearth, an old woman sat cleaning querdidra wool

on a card of bone nails. Little more than a silhouette on

the floor below, an older man crouched cross-legged on a

woven withe stool. As Mara's eyes adjusted, she saw he

had grey hair. His mouth was deep-cut and sullen, framed

by a long mustache that hung down his pouched jaw. The

ends flashed with colored beads that rattled as he lifted

his chin.

Iayapa spoke quickly in a hushed voice to Saric, who in

turn murmured, 'This one wears the face hair of a chieftain.

By the talismans of rank dangling from it, he could be the

high chief himself.'

Mara smothered her surprise. She had expected a great

personage, not an ordinary-seeming fellow in an unadorned

green kilt. The bowl he ate from was crude wood, his

spoon a battered implement of corcara shell. Taken aback

by his lack of ceremonial trappings, the Lady of the Acoma

almost missed noticing the other men, seated as they were in

shadow, in a semicircle, their conversation fallen to a hush

at the entrance of her party.

For an interval, the incoming Thuril and their captives

regarded those seated, who stared back silently, unmindful

of the meal they had been eating scarcely a moment

before.

Astonishingly, it was the old woman who stopped her

carding and broke the silence first. 'You might ask them

what they want.'

The man with the chief's mustache spun in his seat,

jabbing in her direction with his spoon. Gravy flew in

spatters from the bowl and struck with a hiss into the

coals. 'Shut up, old hag! I don't need you telling me

what to do!'

As Mara again raised her brows, startled by both the lack

of propriety or any sort of formal ceremony, the chief of

the Thuril spun back. His beads and his mustache whipped

outward with a clatter as he jerked his chin at Saric, who

was closest. 'What do you want, Tsurani?'

When Saric wished, he could be masterful at misleading

expressions. The half-light thrown off by the coals showed

him stone-still, as if the Tsurani high chief had addressed

the empty air.

Mara took her adviser's cue and stepped forward. Into

silence, she said crisply, 'I have come to your land seeking

information.'

The Thuril chief stiffened as if slapped. His eyes jerked

to the Lady who stood before him, then flinched away. He

seemed to stare over her head, and so could not miss the

wide grins of Antaha and the other warrior escorts.

'You stand there and allow a woman captive to speak

out of turn,' he roared in a battlefield bellow

not the least nonplussed, although his ears stung from

~Saric pushed forward. Despite his bound hands,

able bow. 'Antaha does so, worthy chief,

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523

because the Lady is Mara of the Acoma, Servant of the

Empire, and family to the Emperor of all Tsuranuanni.'

The chief stroked his mustache, twirling the beads at the

ends. 'Is she so?' His pause extended through a clatter of

wooden plates and spoons as his cronies all set down their

meals. 'If this woman is indeed the Good Servant, where are

her banners? Her army? Her great and illustrious command

tent?' A sneer developed in the chief's deep baritone. 'I

have seen how Tsurani nobles travel in foreign territory!

They carry half their possessions along with them, like

merchants! I say you lie, outlander. Or why is she' - he

made a derogatory gesture toward Mara - 'attended by so

few guards? We are enemy countries, after all.'

At this, the old woman by the settle tossed down her

carding, her face crinkled in disgust. 'Why don't you ask

her yourself ? She said she came seeking information. It must

be very important to her.'

'Shut your great cave of a mouth, old woman!' Explosive

in his indignation, the chief jabbed a hand that still clutched

a crust of bread at Mara's party, not at all willing to address

the Lady directly. 'We are not the barbarians you Tsurani

suppose, you know.'

Mara's composure snapped. 'Are you not?' How she

wished she could speak the Thuril language..As it was,

her own must suffice. 'And do you call bedding my honor

guard down in a livestock pen civilised' In my land, not

even slaves live so meanly!'

Taken aback, and embarrassed by stifled chuckles from

Antaha and his warriors, the chief cleared his throat.

'You were asking me about information ...' His eyes

narrowed. 'Enemy, by what right do you come here making

demands?'

But before Mara could answer this, Iayapa thrust between

her and Saric, bristling with purpose. 'But Lady Mara did

not come here as our enemy. Her warriors disarmed at her

524

Mistress of the Empire

command, and not once did they call back in insult, though

the villagers and the guards at the Loso did their best to

revile them.'

'He speaks truth,' Mara cut in, unwilling to accede to

the silly Thuril custom that a man should not acknowledge

public speech from a female. As if in admiration of

her spunk, the old woman by the settle smiled. Mara

continued, 'Now as to the information I seek ... ?' She

left her question hanging.

While the chieftain looked uncertain, the old woman

thumped him from behind with her toe. 'She is waiting

for you to tell her who you are, you wool-brained fool.'

Turning to glare at the woman, who could only be his

wife to escape punishment for such liberties, the chieftain

shouted, 'I know that, woman!' He twisted back to Mara,

sucking himself up straight in self-importance. 'Yes, it must

be important information-'

'Your name,' the old woman prodded calmly.

Still unmindful of his morsel of bread, the chieftain shook

his fists. 'Shut up, woman! How many times must I tell you

to keep silent in the lodge hall? Plague me again, and I'll

beat your fat backside with a thorn switch!' The woman

ignored the threat and took up her neglected carding.

The chieftain puffed up his chest, which only displayed

to plain view the gravy stains of varied ages on his vest.

'My name is Hotaba. I am chieftain of the Five Tribes of the

Malapia, and' for this season, high chief of the council here

in Darabaldi.' Pointing at the man sitting farthest from him,

also wearing a warrior's scalp lock and mustache, he said,

'This is Brazado, chieftain of the Four Tribes of the Suwaka.'

Then pointing at the last man, who wore no mustache, he

said, 'This is Hidoka, his son.' His eyes shifted past Mara's

shoulder to fix upon Saric, as he finished, 'My own son,

Antaha -'

Acerbically Mara cut in, 'We've met.'

Council

525

Now the high chief crashed his fists to his knees in anger.

Crumbs flew as his crust broke to bits under the blow, and

his brows lowered into a fearsome frown. Mara resisted a

shaky urge to step backward; she had gone too far, in her

boldness, and this time these Thuril would retaliate for her

interruption.

But the old woman on the hearth cleared her throat

loudly.

Hotaba's glare shifted in her direction, then vanished as

he shrugged in resignation. 'That loud-mouthed interfering

female is Mirana, my wife.' As if in afterthought, he added,

'If she were not so good at cooking and sweeping, I'd have

had her cut up for dog meat years ago.'

Antaha said, 'The chief at Loso thought it best to send

these captives directly to you rather than await the next

trading caravan, Father.'

The chieftain tapped his mustache, to a clink of beads.

'Little need for guards these days, eh ? What with the Tsurani

being meek like little gachagas.' Mara recognised the term

and knew it was unflattering even before the worried glance

Iayapa shot toward Lujan and Saric. But after what they

had endured at the river pool that morning, both showed

indifference to being compared to grain-stealing rodents.

While the high chief was still waiting for reaction to his

derogatory comment, Mirana interjected, 'You still haven't

asked Lady Mara what she wishes to know.'

Hotaba sprang to his feet, looking for all the world as

if he were about to commit murder. 'Will you shut up,

woman! You continue to speak in council! I should have

you stewed and thrown to the carrion birds, and raid for

myself a young, obedient, silent wife!'

The other Thuril men in the long hut seemed as

unconcerned by the threat as Mirana did. Her hands never

broke rhythm in their work, and only her foot tapped as

if in pent-back impatience. As if Hotaba saw her quiet as

526

Mistress of the Empire

a warning, he took a breath, and through clenched teeth

said to Mara, 'What do you wish to know, Tsurani?'

Mara glanced at Lujan and Saric, both of whom impassively

observed the exchanges. Her adviser gave back a

slight shrug. He could hardly guide her through this

negotiation. By Tsurani standards, the Thuril were rude

and unruly, given to theatrical displays of emotion, and

utterly uncouth. The past day and a half in their presence

had only further mystified them about what constituted

an unforgivable outrage. No slight of language seemed to

faze these folk; the worst insults seemed but jokes to them.

Honest courtesy was the safest approach, Mara determined.

'Hotaba, I need to speak with one of your magicians.'

Hotaba's puffed cheeks went flat. His ruddy color

subsided, and he seemed to notice the mashed mess of

crumbs in his fist for the first time. 'A magician?'

As plainly as Mara could read a foreigner's expression, he

seemed flabbergasted. She pressed ahead. 'There are things

I need to know that only a magician who is not part of the

Assembly within our Empire can tell me. I have come to the

Thuril Confederation because I was given to understand

that answers may be found in your nation.'

Hotaba's expression of surprise dissolved and fumed

shrewd. He was not anxious to attend to the subject she

had broached, Mara saw, as his bright eyes darted back and

forth, studying her companions. She edged sideways, trying

to shield the girl who cowered behind her, but Kamlio's

windblown drift of pale hair was conspicuous even in

shadow. Worse, Antaha saw the direction of his father's

gaze, and snatched the opening to gain favor. He pushed

forward, dragging Kamlio ahead by her arm until she stood

at the fore.

'Father, behold. We have a prize of these Tsurani.'

Mara stifled white-hot outrage, both for Kamlio's shrinking

discomfort, and for the brusque sweeping aside of the

.~

l

Council

527

subject she had risked all to broach. Yet from the lust that

flashed in the old chieftain's eyes, she saw that she dared

not take umbrage lest she force a display of male pride.

Low-pitched whistles of admiration erupted from the

other council members. All stared at the courtesan with

hungry, appreciative eyes, and not even Mirana's sour glare

could dim the interest of her husband. Hotaba let his gaze

wander over Kamlio's ripe curves like a man about to be

served a delicacy. He licked his lips. 'Nice,' he murmured

to Antaha. 'Exceptionally so.' He inclined his head to his

son. 'Remove her robe. Let us see what delectable fruit

it hides.'

Mara stiffened. 'Hotaba, you may tell your son that

neither I nor my serving woman Kamlio are to be considered

his prizes. We are not your property, Thuril chief!

Kamlio's flesh is her own, as her service is mine, to do with

as I bid. And I do not bed her with strangers.'

Hotaba started as if slapped from a dream. He looked at

Mara, assessing. Then his sour, loose mouth tightened into

a smile of malice. 'You are in no position to make demands,

woman.'

Mara disregarded the statement. As if her officers did not

stand bound like slaves at her shoulder, and as if she did not

stand disheveled and entirely without the ceremonial state

due a great Tsurani Lady, she let the fury of the moment

stiffen her spine.

Her composure made an impression, if not the best.

Hotaba's smile widened. Even Mirana stopped her carding,

as a charged and dangerous stillness gripped the airless

room. 'Lady,' the high chief announced in edged sarcasm,

'I will offer you a bargain: the information you seek, against

the person of your yellow-haired maid. A more than fair

trade, I deem. The woman is of inestimable value, as rare in

her beauty as practitioners of honest magic are among your

kind. Surely the knowledge you came to find is worth the

S28 Mistress of the Empire

flesh of one servant, when upon your estates in the Empire

you command many thousands of souls?'

Mara closed her eyes against sickness, and her teeth

against a sharp desire to shout useless imprecations. Her

mouth felt dry as ashes. Who was she, to barter Kamlio's

life and happiness away, even for the good of her family?

Though, as Ruling Lady, Mara held that right within Empire

law, still, she had to force speech.

'No.' She at least sounded decisive, if her mind seethed

with doubts. Gods, what honorless being had she become,

to set the life of one difficult servant before the well-being

and survival of her house, her husband, and her children!

What was one wretched courtesan before all of her honor,

all of her loved ones, and, ultimately, the power base

of Ichindar himself? Yet where once she would have

commanded a servant or slave to do as these Thuril bid,

today, when all depended upon her one word, she could

not demand that sacrifice.

Into that charged stillness, while the men were too

stunned to react, and Saric fought back an expression

of outright astonishment and dismay, Mirana spoke. As

if matters of household were of more account than lives

and fates, she announced, 'I'm done with my carding.'

But her hands were shaking as she set wool and tools back

in the basket by her knee, Mara saw. Hotaba merely turned

and nodded once to his wife. The old woman rose, furled

her shoulders in layers of fringed shawls, and motioned for

Mara to follow her.

The Lady of the Acoma hesitated. She thought to insist

that she should stay with her officers and people to oversee

their disposition, as their ruler. But Mirana gave a slight

shake of her head, as if she could guess Mara's thoughts.

Saric received hasty words of counsel from layapa, and

he bent with whispered advice. 'Go, my Lady. This culture

is not as ours, and your point has been made. You will

,

I

;~

i

:.

l

perhaps hurt the cause you came for if you stay to argue

your point. Iayapa agrees that Mirana knows her husband

well. Follow her lead, he thinks, and I concur.'

i Mara flashed a last, haughty glance at Hotaba, making

I him aware that she acted for her own reasons, and not those

of any Thuril. Then, stiff-backed, she joined Mirana on her

way to the door.

I When Lujan stirred to follow, Mara gave back a gesture

to keep him in place. None of them were safe here,

among these barbarians: and, weaponless, there was very

little that any warrior could do to protect his mistress

before the highlanders overpowered him. Mirana seemed

to understand this, for she raised her voice one last time.

'Stay here with my husband and lie about how fierce

you are in battle and bed, soldier. I shall not keep your

mistress long.'

To Mara she added, 'Your serving girl will not be

touched, rest assured, until this matter is settled.' Then,

with surprising strength, Mirana clamped down on Mara's

arm and hustled her outside.

The colder air hit the women's faces with a sharpness that

reddened the skin. Mirana moved at a brisk pace, forcing

Mara away from the long hut with no chance for change of

mind. She ducked down an alleyway where bakers finished

their day's work, by the smell, and a small dog devoured

crusts from the hand of a girl with plaited hair. Reminded

of her own daughter, who might never grow old enough

to own a pet, Mara stumbled.

Mirana jerked her forward. 'None of that,' she said in

sharply accented Tsurani. 'You were strong enough to leave

your homeland, to challenge the Assembly, and come here.

Do not kill victim to self-pity now.'

Mara's chin snapped up. Startled, she said, 'What is my

fate to you?'

'Very little,' Mirana said matter-of-factly. Her dark eyes

Cou~scil

529

530

Mistress of the Empire

fixed on the Lady of the Acoma, watching for some sort of

reaction. Mara gave none. After a moment, the chieftain's

wife added, 'Very little, if you were like other Tsurani we

had known. But you are not. Hotaba ascertained as much,

when he offered you the bargain for your servant girl.'

Mara's chin went up another notch. 'She is not mine to N:

offer, even for the chance of rescue from the perils that

threaten my family. I gave her a choice, and she remains

with me of her free will. She is not a slave . . .'

Mirana gave a shrug, which set her fringes swinging and

tangling in the cold, sharp breeze. 'Indeed, by our laws also,

she is not yours to bargain. But the Lords in your land do as

they will with the lives of their servants, slaves, and children,

daily, and chink the gods gave them the right.'

'They believe so,' Mara said carefully.

'And you?' Mirana's question came sharp as the stroke

of a querdidra quirt.

'I do not know what I believe,' Mara admitted, frowning.

'Except that as Servant of the Empire I once set my

nationhood above my own blood. Now I can no longer

count my own blood above that of any other man. Kamlio

is with me because of a pledge I gave to another to shield her

as he would. My honor is no less than that of the man who

entrusted her safety to me. There is honor that is mindless

obedience to tradition, and there is honor that is . . . more.'

Mirana's regard grew piercing. 'You are different,' she

mused as much to herself as to Mara. 'Pray to your gods

that such difference will be enough to win your freedom.

You will have my support. But never forget that in Thuril,

the men will talk more freely, and give more favors, when

women are not present. Ours is a harsh land, and the man

who shows himself as too soft will not keep the wife he has

raided.'

'Another man would steal his woman away?' Mare asked

in surprise.

Mirana's withered lips cracked into an unabashed grin.

'Perhaps. Or worse, his woman would leave his house and

hearth, and stuff his blankets with snow for his folly.'

In spite of her worries, Mara laughed. 'You do that

here?'

'Oh, yes.' Mirana observed that her guest was chilled.

She slipped off one of her shawls and wrapped it around

the Acoma Lady's shoulders; it smelled of woodsmoke and,

more faintly, of unbleached greased fleece. 'Let us visit my

favourite bread shop, where the sweet rolls will be hot and

fresh-baked at this hour. I will tell you what else we do here,

besides pretending to take the jigabird crowing of our men

very seriously.'

Where the atmosphere in the council house had been

stifling, the air in the bread shop held the sharp, dry warmth

of the ovens, comforting in the damper climate of the

highlands. Mara sat down awkwardly on the hand-hewn

wooden chair. The stone floors in these chillier hills did

not make Tsurani cushions practical. Shifting from one

seat bone to the other to try to find a position of comfort,

Mara resigned herself to another evening filled with light

social that. Like the chieftain's wife in Loso, Mirana seemed

content to hold conversation to light matters,r while the

council of the town's elders went on without her. 'Men

can be such children, don't you think?'

Mara forced a polite smile. 'Your husband seems an angry

child, then.'

Mirana laughed, settling on the chair opposite a wooden

table whose surface was grooved where shop patrons had

sliced into fresh loaves over a that with friends. Shedding

several layers of shawls, and revealing white hair tied with

braided cords of wool, Mirana sighed her indulgence.

'Hotaba? He's a windbag, but I love him. He's been

threatening to beat me to silence for forty-two years,

S32

Mistress of tl~e Empire

almost since the day he hoisted me onto his shoulder

and raced over the hills to escape my father and brothers.

He hasn't laid a hand on me in anger yet. We are a people

for great threats and insults, Mara. Boasting is an art here,

and a well-fashioned insult will earn the slighted man's

admiration rather than scorn.'

Here she paused, while a young boy in a spun wool

smock paused by the table with a tray. Mirana switched

languages to order hot sweet bread and mulled cider. Then,

after a glance at Mara's dark-circled eyes, she asked also

for wine. The boy accepted three pierced wooden tokens

from Mirana's hand, and scurried off, head turned over

his shoulder when he thought the chief's wife might not

be looking, so he could stare at Mara's outland clothing.

Mirana filled the interval with small talk, while the boy

came back with food and drink, and Mara made a pretence

of eating. Nerves kept her from hunger, though the coarse

brown bread smelled wonderful, and the drink was not

the sour vintage that Tsurani veterans of the Thuril wars

claimed these hillfolk produced.

Outside the streets deepened into darkness as a cortege of

young girls passed by chattering, overseen by young men,

servants or maybe brothers, who carried smoking torches to

light their way. Behind the shop's crude tables, the baker's

boy scraped out the ovens, and the coals beneath greyed

over with films of ash.

Warmed by the wine, but with her hands in a cold sweat

with worry, Mara chafed. While she exchanged inane social

that, where was Kamlio? What would happen to Saric,

Lujan, and her warriors? Worse, did Hokanu even have

a clue where she had gone, since the day she had left

the Acoma estates for a visit to Turakamu's temple? Her

departure then seemed a dream, so far removed did affairs

of the Empire seem from this place with its loud-voiced,

boastful men, and cloudy uplands.

Council

S33

'Why did you come here looking for practitioners of

magic?' Mirana demanded with a sudden, disconcerting

directness.

Mara started, almost dropping the crockery mug that

held the dregs of her drink. The small talk, she suddenly

sensed, had been but an excuse to bide time. She had no

reason left to withhold the truth. 'I have reamed over the

years that the Assembly of Magicians keeps a stranglehold

over the Empire's culture. Our traditions maintain injustices

that I would see changed. Although the magicians have set

restraint over House Acoma because of a feud with House

Anasati, the sanctions are not held fairly over both sides.

Anasati has been allowed to set assassins on allies of my

people; sadly, my husband's father has been killed. The

Great One's edict against Acoma vengeance is proven now

to be pretence, an excuse to obscure the true issue. I will

bring change, against the Assembly's wishes, and for that,

I find myself and my children endangered.'

'So these lofty aims are really simply the needs of

survival?'

Mara looked hard at the old woman, realising that here

was as sharp a mind as Lady Isashani's. 'Perhaps. I like

to think that I would have pursued the proper course for

my people's best interests even if my own house and loved

ones were not at risk-'

'You fumed outside your lands to Thuril,' Mirana broke

in. 'Why?'

Mara fumed the near-empty mug between nervous

fingers. 'The cho-ja gave me riddles that pointed to the

East. A lesser-path magician who had a bitter heart toward

the Assembly pleaded that I search here for answers. I came

to Thuril because my line will die if I do not find answers,

and because I have seen too much misery in the name of

politics and the Game of the Council - many I have loved

are in the Red God's halls because of our lust for power.

534

Mistress of t/'e Empire

Injustice and murder in the name of honor will not cease

if the Assembly is allowed to overrule the Emperor and

reinstate the Warlord's office.'

Mirana seemed to ponder this, her eyes on the crumb-littered

table and her hands quietly folded. At length she

reached some inner decision. 'You shall be heard.'

Mara was given no time to puzzle over how Mirana might

influence the men's council. Neither did she see any sign

exchanged, or sent, but the next minute the flap door to the

bread shop swept open, admitting a gust of icy air. Three

of the oil lamps that lit the empty bread shop extinguished

in the blast.

An ancient highlander in a heavy cloak entered. Backlit

by the remaining lamp, the newcomer's features were

only faintly discernible by the rose glow of the oven's

dying embers. Multiple layers of woollen robes smelled of

querdidra, and the ears just visible beneath the hood were

hung with disks of corcara shell that twisted and flashed

at each step. Of the face, Mara could see little but wizened

skin under the hood's enveloping shadow.

~Stand,' Mirana whispered urgently. 'Show respect, for

come to hear you is the Kaliane.'

Mara raised eyebrows at the unknown foreign word.

'Kaliane is the traditional name for the strongest among

those versed in the mysteries,' Mirana explained to ease her

confusion.

The cloaked figure stepped closer, and a sparkle and

flash showed the mage's mantle to be bordered in costly,

rare sequins of silver. The patterns seemed to form runes,

or maybe totems of a more complex sort than adorned the

doorposts of the houses. Mara bowed with the same respect

she might show to a Great One come to visit her estate.

The Thuril magician did not acknowledge with any

gesture beyond raising one withered hand to dew bade

the voluminous hood. Mara saw revealed a shock of silver

Council

S35

hair, looped into braids like Mirana's, but knotted in ritual

bindings. Beneath this crownlike arrangement was the aged

face of a crone.

A woman! Forgetting manners, the Lady of the Acoma

gasped. 'Your assembly of magicians allows females?'

The ancient woman tossed her head with a click of her

heavy earrings, her manner dangerously vexed. 'We have

nothing like your Assembly in this land, thank the gods,

Mara of the Acoma.'

Two townswomen appeared at the bread-shop door, to

complete a late errand. On the point of entering, they spied

the cloaked enchantress, bobbed a hasty obeisance, and

backed out into the street in silence. A young man on their

heels also turned and hurried away. The hide flap slapped

shut, but the room felt drained of warmth.

'Forgive me,' Mara murmured, almost stammering. 'Lady

Kaliane, I am sorry, but I never guessed-'

'I have no title. You may address me as the Kaliane,'

the crone snapped back, seating herself with a swish of

robes. She arranged her long sleeves, folded tiny hands,

and suddenly looked very human and sad. 'I know that

your Empire's Assembly' - she all but spit the word '

kills all girls who are discovered to have the talent. My

predecessor in this office was a refugee from Lash Province

who barely escaped with her life. Her three sisters were not

so fortunate.'

Faintly ill from nerves and wine that did not sit well with

worry, Mara bit her lip. 'I was told such by a magician of

the lesser path who hated the Assembly. But in my heart I

could not force myself to believe it.'

The Kaliane's pale eyes were deep as she locked her gaze

with Mara's. 'Believe it, for it is true.'

Shaken, and infused with fresh fear for the loved ones

left behind, Mara locked her teeth to keep from shaking.

Though the Kaliane was slight, and bundled up like an

536

Mistress of the Empire

aged grandmother in layers against the draft, her presence

radiated a power sharper than the bite of any mountain

frost. Aware that her every word would be weighed in

judgment, Mara spoke before the last of her courage ebbed

away. 'I was told the Assembly fears you. Why?'

'Truth,' the Kaliane rapped back. She loosed a cracked

cackle that inspired chills. 'In your Empire, slaves are

mistreated, and told it is the will of your gods. Your Lords

contend and kill for honor, but what do they accomplish?

Not glory. Not the favor of heaven, no. They lose sons,

engage in war, even fall upon their swords, and for nothing,

Lady Mara. They have been duped. Their vaunted honor is

naught but the shackle that keeps the power of the nations

fragmented. While house contends against house in the

Game of the Council, the Assembly is left free rein. Its

power is vast, but it is not without limit, nor has it always

been so strong.'

Touched by hope in the light of such a frank admission,

Mara said, 'Then you might help me?'

At this the Kaliane's face became a mask of inscrutable

wrinkles. 'Help you? This has yet to be determined. You

must accompany me upon a short journey.'

Afraid to leave Lujan, Saric, and, worst of all, Kamlio in

the hands of highlander captors without her, Mara knew a

stab of dread. 'Where would we go?'

'There are things you must see. A council of my peers

must hear your reasons and your history, and question -'

you.' Then, as if sensing the source of Mara's discomfort

directly, the Kaliane softened her unequivocal demand. 'We ;shall

be gone no longer than the time it takes two women

to talk, lest your warriors become fearful for you, and try ~j

something stupid in desperation.' i

'I am in your hands, then,' Mara said, her resolve forced

over the indecision in her heart. Tsurani in upbringing, ~]

and not yet so immersed in desire for change that she

could discount all the codes of her people's honor as

false, still she could not escape the awareness that she

would not be offered another chance. She embraced the

Kaliane's option in desperation, but was unprepared for

how swiftly her acquiescence would be followed up. The

Thuril crone reached across the narrow table, took Mara's

wrist in dry, sure fingers, and spoke a word.

Mara heard only the first sibilant syllable. A rushing in

her ears drowned the rest, fierce as the buffet of a sea gale.

The floor dropped away from her feet, as did the chair she

perched upon. The shadowy walls of the bread shop also

vanished, replaced for an eye's blink by an expanse of a

howling grey void.

Time froze. The air went icy and thin. Mara might have

shamed her ancestors and cried out in terror for her life,

but the passage through the void ended suddenly, leaving

only an impression.

Restored jarringly to firm soil, she found herself standing

in a plaza lit by cho-ja globes. Her wrist was still clasped

by the Kaliane's hand, which was steady, whereas her

own shook like storm-blown reeds. Where Tsurani cities

were built upon level ground, the buildings here had been

carved in tiers into the steep granite face of the hills. On

the valley floor, the open square that surrounded Mara

was circled by terraces, each level fronted by doorways,

windows, and shops. Her eyes lifted to follow the lines of

columns, buttresses, and arches, arrayed in breathtaking

artistry against the backdrop of night. Totems supported

galleries with wood and stone railings, some carved into

dragons or the great serpents of sea and sky that figured

prominently in Thuril myth. Spires and domes speared

upward against starry skies, or pierced through lamplit

streamers of mist. Mara caught her breath in delight at

a beauty her Tsurani-bred mind could not have imagined.

Never had she expected such a city in these barren uplands!

538

Mistress of the Empire

The streets were peopled with highlanders in plain kilts and

trousers. Most young warriors went bare-cheated, despite

the evening chill, but a few sported brightly woven shirts.

Women wore long skirts and loose-fitting overblouses,

the youthful ones offering glimpses of slender arm or

rounded bosom to draw admiring glances from passing

young men.

'What is this place?' Mara murmured, drawing in a deep

breath of incense, and staring upon wonders like a farm

yokel on her first trip into town.

'Dorales,' said the Kaliane. 'You are the first Tsurani to

see this city, perhaps.' More ominously, she added, 'You

could be the last, as well.'

The enchantress's quaint phrasing caused Mara a shiver.

She felt as if she were dreaming, so alien was this place,

and so vast; tike a vision too beautiful to be real. The

slender spires, the thousands of brightly lit windows and

doorways, the leering totems, and the press and jostle of

street life - all lent a feeling of precariousness, as if at any

moment she might be swept unconsenting into nightmare.

Amazement and uneasiness would have held the Lady

frozen in place had the Kaliane not tugged her forward

with the same brusque impatience a mother might show

a reluctant child.

'Come! The circle of elders expect you, and there is no

wisdom gained by making them wait.'

Mara stumbled numbly forward. 'You say I am expected?

How?'

But the Kaliane had little patience for what to her ears

were aimless questions. She towed Mara through the crowd,

drawing much attention in the process. Bystanders stared

and pointed, and not a few spat in contempt. Tsurani

pride caused the Lady of the Acoma to ignore such

insults as beneath her dignity, but she was left in no

doubt that these people considered her an unforgiven

Council

539

enemy. Dreadful, creeping doubt plagued her, that imperial

'Lords should in contemptuous ignorance have dared call the

Thuril barbarians; this city with its marvels of engineering

most emphatically proved otherwise.

Curious even through shame, Mara asked, 'Why did my

people never hear of this place?'

The Kaliane hustled her past a painted wagon pulled by

two sour-tempered querdidra, and driven by a wizened man

wearing a cloak of patchwork colors. He carried a strange

musical instrument, and passersby tossed him coins, or

called out cheerful encouragement for him to play. He

gave them back colorfully pungent imprecations, his red

cheeks dimpled with a smile.

'Those of your people who would hear of this place your

Assembly would kill to keep silent,' the Kaliane replied

tartly. 'The towers you behold, and all of the carving

of the rock, were done by means of magic. Were you

to be permitted entry to the City of the Magicians in

Tsuranuanni, you might see such wonders. But in your

land, the Great Ones keep the marvels their power can

create to themselves.'

Mara frowned, silent. She thought of Milamber, and

his reluctance to speak of his experience as a member of

the Assembly. After witnessing the fearful powers he had

unleashed in the Imperial Arena, she was struck by the

conclusion that the oaths that bound him to the Assembly

must have been fearfully strong, to force one of his stature

to keep silence. She knew nothing of the characters of the

magicians, but from Hokanu she had come to understand

that Fumita was not a greedy man. Powerful, yes, and

steeped in mystery, but not one to place selfishness above

the common good of the Nations.

As if the Kaliane held uncanny means to read Mara's

thoughts, she shrugged under her heavy cloak. 'Who knows

why the magicians of your land are so secretive? Not all

540 Mistress of the Empire

of them are bad men. Most are simply scholars who wish

only to pursue the mysteries of their craft. Perhaps they first

formed their brotherhood to ward off some threat, or to

suppress the wild, dangerous magic of renegade magicians

who refused to be trained to control, or who used their

powers for ill. The gods alone might say. But if there were

good and cogent reasons for such a course of action in

the past, time has seen them corrupted. That thousands of

daughters have been murdered to suppress their talents is

utterly inexcusable by Thuril law.'

Touched by an unpleasant possibility, Mara asked, 'Am

I being held on trial for the injustices of all Tsuranuanni?'

The Kaliane.,bobbed her head and fixed her with a glance

that itself inspired dread. 'In part, Lady Mara. If you wish

our help against the Assembly, you must convince us. If we

act, it will not be for Acoma survival, nor for your personal

gain, nor even to make the Empire a fairer nation. For to

us the honor of your ancestors, and even the lives of your

children, are as meaningless as dust in the wind.'

Mara might have slammed to a stop at once, for what

was more innocent than the lives of her baby daughter

and her son? But the crone's grip bound her like feners

and dragged her inexorably toward the looming arch of

an imposing, many-tiered building. 'What does move your

people, if not the lives of the young?' Despite all effort,

Mara's dismay showed through.

The Kaliane's reply stayed as impersonal as the grind of

waves on the beach. 'If we mourn, it is for the loss of the

mages who died with their talents untried. With each one

of them, irrevocable knowledge was lost. And if we despair,

it is for the cho-ja, masters beyond our finest initiates of

mystery, that in your land are disbarred from the magic

that is the glory of their race.'

'The Forbidden!' Spurred to excitement, Mara forgot

for a moment to fear. 'Was it arcane power that

the cho-ja Queen meant when she spoke of the Forbidden?'

Lost in shadow as she stepped under the massively carved

arch, the Kaliane answered obliquely. 'That, Lady Mara, is

the secret you must unlock if you are to survive in your

contention against the Great Ones. But first you must

convince the Elder Circle of Thuril of your worthiness.

We will hear and judge. Choose your words carefully,

for once you have seen this place, the perils you face are

redoubled.'

Beyond lay a maze of corridors, vaulted like tunnels,

and lit with rows of cho-ja globes. The floors were marble.

The artistry of the fluted pillars took Mara's breath away:

not even the Emperor's palace held stonework polished

to such a lustrous shine. The people who congregated

in antechambers and doorways wore beaded costumes,

headdresses of feathers, and some the plain kilts of servants.

Others in white robes the Kaliane named acolytes of the

craft. All without exception bowed to her passage, and

Mara felt their stares upon her back like the touch of heated

coals. There was magic here, a weight of power upon the

air that made even echoes seem oppressive. Fervently Mara

wished herself home, surrounded by familiar walls, and by

customs she understood.

The Kaliane guided her into a wider hall that led into

an echoing antechamber. Thousands of tiers of candles

lit the expanse, burning Mara's eyes with intense light.

Beyond lay a yet more immense room, surrounded by

pillared galleries carved and pierced in arrays of intricate

patterns. There dozens of robed figures crowded landings

that circled the room, rising six levels high. Ladders, and

successions of narrow, spiral stairs provided access to the

topmost floors.

'This is our archive,' the Kaliane explained. 'Here we

house all of our knowledge, and copies of all writings upon

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Mistress of the Empire

the subject of our craft. It serves also as our meeting hall,

on those occasions when the magicians of Thuril gather

together, which is as dose as our kind come to being

organised. We have no fellowship such as your Assembly,

and keep no formal officers beyond the Kaliane, who is

empowered only to act as spokeswoman.'

Mara was led through a gap in a railing on the lowest

level. Her elbows brushed against walls inlaid with corcara

shell and ebony in spiraling patterns that made her uneasy.

The newel posts were carved totems, beaked, dawed, ant

fierce of expression. The creatures were scaled or winged in

feathers, and their eyes were cut with the predatory slant of

a snake's.

The Kaliane ushered Mara across an intimidating expanse

of bare floor. There were no furnishings, not even patterns,

beyond a circle that lay at the center. Its perimeter seemed

to be marked out in golden light, unmistakably the effect

of some spell. Aware of the levels above, now crowding

with robed forms who all faced her way, the Lady of the

Acoma felt like an object of sacrifice before the ritual that

would seal her final fate.

'there.' The Kaliane pointed at the magical circle. 'Step

in and stand, if you have courage enough to be judged. But

be warned, Lady Mara, Servant of the Empire. Lies and

deceit are impossible for any who cross that line.'

Mara tossed back her hair, fallen loose over her shoulders

in the absence of the accustomed attention of her maids. 'I

do not fear truth,' she said boldly.

The Kaliane released her restraining grip. 'So be it,' she

said, a look near to pity in her eyes.

Mara moved toward the line without trepidation. She

did not fear truth, in the moment she raised her foot to

step across the bar of yellow light. Yet in that instant she

felt pierced by a force that negated all of her will, and by

the time her foot struck the flooring on the inward side

,

Council

543

of the spell, every vestige of her self-confidence was tom

from her.

Halfway across the line, she could not retreat. The part

of her body that lay within the spell circle was frozen in

place as if shackled. She had no choice but to raise her

other leg and enter fully, though to do so now terrified her

beyond thought.

Helplessness acquired new meaning. Her ears heard no

sound, and her eyes saw nothing but the shimmering golden

web of force. She was physically unable to move, or sit, or

clasp her arms close about her chest to quell the thump

of her fast-beating heart. Slavery itself seemed a freedom,

before the magic that ringed her into confinement; her very

thoughts were held prisoner. Mara fought despair, even as

someone high up in the galleries called down a question.

The Kaliane repeated the query in the Tsurani language.

'Lady of the Acoma, you have come here asking for power.

You claim you will use it to defend, to aid the common

good. Show us how you came to hold this belief.'

Mara tried to draw breath to answer, and found she

could not. Her body would not answer her desire; magic

held her from speech. Panic drove her to anger. How

could she defend her intentions if the spell prevented her

from speaking? The next moment she discovered that her

thoughts had also escaped her control. Her mind seemed

to overturn, then to spin like a pinwheel toy made for a

child's amusement. Memories sifted past her inward eye,

and she was no longer in the chamber of the magicians in

Dorales, within any magical circle. She was seated in her

study in the old Acoma estates, arguing hotly with Kevin

the barbarian.

The illusion of his presence was so real that the tiny

part of Mara's mind that retained separate self-awareness

longed to take shelter in his arms. In dawning trepidation,

she realised the intent of the Thuril truth spell: that

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Mistress of the Empire

she would not be permitted to answer any inquiries

verbally.

These mages would ask, and take their answers directly

from her experience. She would be given no chance

to justify, to reconcile the outcome of any event with

explanations. These magicians would observe her actions as

they happened, and then judge. She was in fact put on trial,

her only defense the acts that comprised her past life.

Mara realised this much in the instant before the spell

claimed her wholly, and she was in the study on that

long-past day with Kevin, facing him in heated anger as

he cried, 'You push me about like a chess . . . shah pawn!

Here! There! Now here again, because it suits you, but

never one word of why, and never one second of warning!

I've done as you've bid - not for love of you, but to save

the lives of my countrymen.'

Then Mara herself replying, in red-faced exasperation:

'But I gave you promotion to slave master and allowed

you charge of your Midkemian companions. You used

your authority to see them comfortable. I see they have

been eating jigabird and needra steak and fresh fruits and

vegetables along with their thyza mush.'

On the memory played, as real as the moment it

happened, even to its ending in a flushed entanglement of

passion. Mara knew a wrenching moment of disorientation

as, one encounter after another, her relationship with Kevin

unfolded, each day bittersweet with joys and frustrations,

and difficult lessons. Forced to see again in retrospect,

she recognised her own narrow-minded arrogance; how

miraculous it was that Kevin the slave had seen anything

in her apparent hard-heartedness to love and nurture at

all! The days unreeled in staggering jumps as the magicians

manipulated her recall. Again she endured the horrors as

wave after wave of assassins were repulsed from her town

apartments on the Night of the Bloody Swords. Again she

stood on a butane-whipped hilltop and exchanged words

with Tasaio of the Minwanabi. She saw the Emperor

Ichindar break the staff of the Warlord's power, her

assumption of the title Servant of the Empire.

Again she saw Ayaki die.

There followed another question, mercifully, and the

scene changed to the fragrant noon heat of a kekali garden

where Arakasi abased himself before her, begging leave to

take his own life. Again she shared the scented, dry evening

air in Lord Chipino's command tent on campaign against

the desert men in Tsubar.

Time whirled, fumed, backtracked; and scene overlaid

scene. Sometimes she was sent back into childhood, or to

the silent halls of meditation in Lashima's temple. Other

times she suffered the brutality of her first husband. Again

she faced his grieving father, over the wrapped bundle of a

grandson, now dead also, by equally treacherous means.

Wrenchingly, she shared afresh her relationship with

Hokanu, and his uncannily accurate understanding. Through

the eyes of the Thuril magicians, she came to realise that his

rare perceptions were in fact an unfledged aspect of talent.

A near miss of fate might have seen him a member of the

Assembly, rather than as husband at her side. How much

poorer her life would have been without him, she realised.

A part of her heart ached for the distance grown between

them, and between the manipulations of the truth spell,

she vowed she would remedy the misunderstanding that

lingered since Kasuma's birth.

Lastly, Mara saw herself in Hotaba's long house, delivering

a flat refusal to trade her servant Kamlio for

freedom to pursue her business in Thuril. A probe like

a needle pierced her, but found only sincerity in her

heart.

-The spell's reel of memories lagged for a stretch, and

words leaked through, spoken by she knew not whom.

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545

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Mistress of the Empire

They were in Thuril but understanding of their meaning

came to her.

Said one voice, 'She is indeed different from other

Tsurani: to see honor in a slave, and to recognise the

rights to freedom of a servant, even above her blood

family.'

And the Kaliane, replying: 'I believed so, or I would not

have brought her.'

Upon the heels of that first thought came, 'Yet do we

concern ourselves with Tsurani well-being?'

Another voice of the mind answered, 'Justly governed

neighbors are to be desired, and perhaps . . .'

Yet another mind spoke, 'But there is an opportunity to

put right the great wrong .

More words that seemed to blur together; someone

mentioned risk, and someone else spoke of the cho-ja

empire.

Mara's hearing faded. She felt suddenly weak in the

knees. And then the golden ring of light that held her

imprisoned melted away, and she felt herself collapse.

The Kaliane's strong hands caught her. 'Lady, it is

over.'

Weak as a baby, and shamed to discover she had been

crying in the throes of the spell, Mara fought to recover from

the shambles of her composure. 'Have I convinced you?'

'No. That will be argued through the night,' the Kaliane

admitted. 'Word of our decision will reach you at dawn.

For now I will return you to Mirana, who will see you are

given a chance to rest.'

'I would prefer to wait here,' Mara protested, but she

lacked the will to resist. Strength left her, and she knew

no more beyond darkness like the night between stars.

. .

21

Decision

Mara awakened.

It was dark; she breathed in the scent of burning beech

logs, and the mustier odor of querdidra wool. There were

wooden rafters over her head, faintly picked out of shadow

by the weak red light from the hearth. Blankets covered her.

They constricted her limbs as she rolled over, puzzled as to

her whereabouts.

Her head ached. Memory of events returned slowly, and

then in a rush, as she saw the basket of carding Mirana

had carried from the long house and the council with her

Thuril husband. Now Mara remembered the excursion to

the bread shop, and the dreamlike visit to Dorales in the

company of the Kaliane. Suddenly stifled by the dark

warmth and the blankets, she pushed herself erect.

'Lady?' ventured an uncertain voice from the shadows.

Mara turned, to see Kamlio's oval face, alert and watchful

with concern. 'I am all right, little flower,' she murmured

back, unthinkingly using Lujan's nickname. i

This time Kamlio did not flinch at the diminutive. Instead

she shed her own bedclothes, and prostrated herself in

abject abasement against the sanded boards of the floor.

Mara was not flattered but disturbed, though servants

and slaves had made such gestures to her life long. Such

was the Tsurani way, to give total loyalty to please one's

master. However, after the experience in the golden spell

circle, the tradition left Mara sickened. 'Get up, Kamlio.

Please.'

The girl did not move, but her shoulders spasmed under

her river of pale hair. 'Lady,' she said miserably, 'why did

S48 Mistress of the Empire

you set me before your very family? Why? I am not worth

so much, surely, that you could not trade me to these Thuril

to keep your children safe.'

Mara sighed, bent her tired back, and caught Kamlio's

outstretched wrists. She tugged, ineffectively because she

was left weak from the truth spell. 'Kamlio, please, arise.

My concern for my children is paramount, truly, but the life

of another free individual is not mine to bargain with, even for

my loved ones' survival. You have not taken my honor

for your own; you are not obligated to House Acoma.'

Kamlio allowed herself to be coaxed upright. Swathed in

a night robe borrowed from the Thuril that was overlarge

for her slender curves, she crouched on the edge of her cot.

Her eyes were deep as pits in the dimness. Mara saw they

sat in what must be Mirana's sewing room, by the loom

frame tucked in one corner, and crates of cloths strewn

about. She was still trying to reorient her nerves from the

trauma of reliving the past brought on by the truth spell D

when the ex-courtesan spoke.

'Arakasi,' Kamlio said in halting and pitiful certainty.

'You did this for him.'

Weary to the bone, but compassionate, Mara shook her

head. 'I did nothing of the sort for Arakasi - though he has

sacrificed again and again for my family.'

Kamlio did not look convinced. Mara twisted a fold of

blanket around her shoulders, and perched on the edge

of her own cot, facing the girl. 'You are not in any way

indebted to my Spy Master.' The Lady of the Acoma

gestured emphatically. 'I'll repeat this if I must until you

are old and deaf, or until you see fit to believe me.'

Silence followed Mara's stab at humor. The coals in the

hearth hissed against the whistle of wind around the eaves.

In the Thuril uplands, the breezes played endlessly, dying

out only at dawn. The hour of the night could not be

determined, but the fact that in Dorales the magicians

l

. .

: :~

,

Decision

549

and the Kaliane yet debated upon their decision played

upon Mara's nerves. She focused upon Kamlio's troubles

to stave off her own worries.

'Arakasi,' the ex-courtesan repeated, a frown marring her

forehead. 'Whatever does he see in me? He is clever enough,

surely, to win any woman to his bed.'

Mara considered carefully. 'I can only offer conjecture,'

she ventured at length. 'But [believe he sees his salvation in

you. A healing, if you will, for certain of life's disappointments.

And I equally suppose that he wishes to give you in

return what he could not give his own family: happiness,

security, and a love neither bought nor bargained for.'

'You found such a love with Hokanu,'Kamlio observed,

her tone spiked with accusation.

Mara forced herself not to feel ruffled. 'Partly. In Hokanu

I found near-perfect understanding. He has been my spirit's

companion. In another man I found the love that I believe

one such as you might discover in Arakasi. As to any other

woman sharing our Spy Master's bed, I avow not- I

honestly do not know his appetites and passions - but

he is not a man who shares his feelings or his affections

easily. Arakasi offers you a very solemn trust, and would

never have done so, as reticent as he is wont to be, if he

did not first believe you worthy.'

'You sound as though you admire him,' said Kamlio.

'I do.' Mara paused in recognition of this truth. 'For a

man of formidable cleverness, who lived his life as a grand

game of strategy, I would guess it took great courage to

take the step to acknowledge compassion. Though one who

knew always where he stood, able to second-guess most of

the moves of his fellows, Arakasi now is like a sailor adrift

upon an unknown sea. He must draw his own chart to

see his way back to familiar harbor. He has thrown away

competence for self-discovery. For one such as he, it must

be as frightening an undertaking as any he could imagine.

sso

Mistress of the Empire

But I have never seen him run from a challenge, even those

that other men would consider impossible.' Looking for a

moment into the girl's eyes, Mara added, 'These words

make a poor substitute for the experience of knowing the

man himself'

Kamlio digested this information slowly. Her small hands

worried at her robe, twisting the fabric into wrinkles. 'I

cannot love him,' she admitted, the words wrung from

her as cruelly by circumstances as she herself treated th.

hapless cloth, 'nor any man, I think. His hands once gave

me pleasure, true enough, but bed sport for me is an empty

pastime.' Her eyes seemed unfocused in distant memory. 'I

grew to hate the hour of sundown, when my master would

come to me.' She paused, then added bitterly, 'There were

times when' felt like a performing dog. Fetch this robe.

Rub this place. Turn this way.' Looking again to Mara,

she said, 'There is nothing of feeling or love in knowing

a man's body, Lady, for one such as me.' She lowered her

eyes. 'I confess, the real attraction in taking a younger lover was

in the danger. Arakasi brought me to pleasure, Lady,

because he risked death to do so.' Moisture gathered in

her eyes. 'Gods, Lady, do you see what a twisted thing

I've become? There were whole months when I considered

suicide, except that I felt too low, too honorless, to sully a

blade with my blood.'

Tsurani pride, Mara thought. She longed to reach out

and reassure the tortured girl; except that to Kamlio, touch

of any sort on her body was divorced from emotional

contact. Though words alone seemed cold, Mara had

no other comfort to offer. 'Arakasi understands this far

better than you think.' She waited a moment for this to

. . .

fsinK in.

Thoughtfully, Kamlio nodded. 'It is true that he did not

once try to touch me since the hour he bought my freedom.

Since you told me he was a reed woman's son, I realise why.

But at the time, I was too furious over the death of my sister

to notice.'

Mara took this for encouragement. 'If you cannot love

him, be his friend instead. He has a lively intellect, and

piercing wit.?

Kamlio looked up, her eyes sparkling with held-back

tears. 'He would settle for so little from me?'

'Try him.' Mara smiled. 'Love doesn't demand; it accepts.

It has taken me my life to learn this.' Lowering her voice,

she added, 'And the gift of two exceptional men.' Looking

at Kamlio directly, she took on a conspiratorial tone. 'I

have seen nothing, and no man living, who was capable of

shaking Arakasi's nerve. The challenge of your friendship

might teach him some much needed humility.'

Kamlio flung back her glorious light gold hair, her

expression turned impish. 'Are you implying I could get

back at him for his presumption where I am concerned?'

'I am thinking you could learn from each other,' Mara

finished. Then she glanced around the room. 'But that

depends upon us returning from these highlands alive.'

Kamlio's brief happiness drained away. 'They could force

you to trade me.'

Mara's insistence came back whip-cracksharp. 'No. I am

a Lady, and Tsurani. I stand by my word. Your life is not

mine to bargain away. Either I win my requests upon my

own merits, or I face whatever fate the gods intend. If it

comes to your continued captivity, Kamlio, hear now that I

give you my blessing to take your own life by the blade or to

escape into freedom as you can; you are a free woman. Let

there be no question that your blood or your desires are any

less honorable than Lujan's, or Saric's, or those of any other

warrior of my honor guard.' Suddenly overwhelmed by how

tired she was, Mara stifled a yawn behind her blankets. 'But

I do not think things will come to that. The later events of

my evening cause me to surmise that Hotaba's offer was a

552 Mistress of the Empire

test. My test. If I won any concessions, we will not know

until the morning. Sleep now, Kamlio. For the rest of this;

night, we can only wait patiently on the outcome.'

Daybreak, and the silence as the winds stilled, found both

Lady and courtesan sleeping. Mara lay curled in a tangle d

black hair, the blankets twined tightly around her shoulders

from restless dreams. She started upright on a sharp intake

of breath at the touch of Mirana's hand.

'Lady, arise and dress quickly,' softly urged the chieftains

wife. 'The Kaliane has returned to announce the decision

made in Dorales.'

Mara threw herself out of the cot and gasped at the chill

in the air. The hearthfire had gone out during the night.

While she.pulled on her ice-cold robes, Mirana rebuilt

the blaze with kindling, so that Kamlio might wake up

in better comfort. The crack in the shutter showed grey.

Clouds or mist obscured the sunrise, and Mara felt stiff in

her joints.

There were silver hairs caught in her comb as she finished

making herself tidy. Her heart beat too fast in apprehension,.

and her thoughts circled again and again back to home, and

the children, and Hokanu. Would she ever regain the chance

to repair her marriage? Gods, she prayed, let me not die on

foreign soil. Let Kamlio return home for Arakasi.

For the first time where the girl was concerned, Mara

saw hope in the doomed tie to her Spy Master. Thuril

captivity had shaken the child from bitter cynicism, made

her reexamine her self-worth and those bits of her life that

were now her own to control.

'Hurry,' Mirana urged quietly, so as not to wake Kamlio..

'The Kaliane is not known for patience.' ;

Mara laced her cold feet into her sandals, the leather worn

thin now, and stretched out from wetness and sliding on the shale

of the mountain paths. One of the toes was frayed;

out. Who in the Empire would recognise her for the Good

Servant, with her face unpainted, and her robes as plain as

a pot girl's? Rising and walking out the door to meet the

Kaliane without even token appearance of her rank took

a shameful amount of courage.

Mara strove without success to feign unconcern. But her

palms were sweating and her hands trembled, and she had

to be grateful to the horrid, clammy mist for hiding the

moisture in her eyes.

Her memories brought back within the golden circle

troubled her more than she cared to admit. Were Kevin

here, he would have commented in atrocious humor, even

in so tense a moment. Mara missed his irreverent sense of

mistiming that no amount of chiding had ever managed

to correct. Long before she was ready, she found herself

chivvied by Mirana into the wide main square, where

the tatterdemalion person of Hotaba awaited, along with

a figure hunched under layers of robes whose person

emanated presence more awesome than the Emperor's.

Mara swallowed her pride and bowed low. 'I await the

Kaliane's decision,' she murmured.

Old, clawed hands tugged her erect. 'Lady, stand upright.

Here obeisance is an insult.' The Kaliane regarded the

Acoma Lady with a stare as piercing as the bit of glass

Jican used to magnify questionable guild seals to check

their authenticity. 'Lady Mara,' said the enchantress in

her dry crone's voice, 'our decision has been made. We

have decided to support your cause in this way: you will

be granted permission to journey, along with the one of your

company that you designate. You will be shown through the

high passes, to the gates of Chakaha, the cho-ja city wherein

dwell their masters of magic.'

Mara's eyes widened. The Forbidden! she thought to

herself. If cho-ja could breed mages, and the 'treaty' with

the Assembly forbade them to practice within the borders

Decision

5S3

554

Mistress of the Empire

of Tsuranuanni, much of the cho-ja Queen's reticence was

explained. Her excitement mounted

The Kaliane seemed to sense this, for her next words

were stem. 'Lady Mara, know that the cause of the Tsurani

people is not our cause. Thuril made war only when our

lands were invaded. We do not hold it to be our duty to

concern ourselves with the politics of an enemy nation

However, the cho-ja may see their part differently. Their

people within Tsurani borders are a captive nation. You

will be given your chance to be heard by them, and to win

their alliance if you may. But be warned: the cho-ja hive

will view you as an enemy. Our people can conduct you

in safety to the hive's borders and no farther. We cannot

act as your spokesman. Neither can we intervene to spare

you if the cho-ja receive you with enmity. Understand me

dearly: you could die for your good intentions.'

This was an uncertain step forward, Mara assessed in the

split second that followed, but a step nonetheless. Clearly

she said, 'I have no choice. I must go. I will take Lujan, my

Force Commander, and in his absence, my adviser Saric will

captain my honor guard.'

The Kaliane's eyes flickered with what might have

been guarded admiration, or maybe pity. 'You have courage,'

she admitted, and then sighed. 'You also do not

know what you face. But very well. Be assured that

your servants and warriors will be shown the hospitality

of guests until your kite is known. If you return,

they will be restored to you. If you die, they will bear

your remains back to your homeland. So say I, the

Kaliane.'

Mara inclined her head to seal her agreement that these

arrangements were satisfactory.

'well,' Mirana snapped from the sidelines, 'husband, are

you going to stand there gaping in disappointment because

you could not wrest away the gold-haired lass for our son,

or are you going to go to the soldiers' compound and roust

out Force Commander Lujan?'

'Shut up, old woman! The peace of the dawn is sacred,

and you profane life itself with your poise.' He squared his

shoulders and glared, until the Kaliane cast him a glance

of disapproval. Then he hurried off at a shuffling, comical

run on the errand as his wife had bidden him.

As he vanished, the Kaliane "gathered her robes against the

streaming mist. To Mara she said, 'You will leave as soon as

supplies can be "gathered for your journey. You will go on

foot, as the uplands are too rough for other conveyance.'

She paused, as if assessing some inward thought, then

added, 'Gittania, one of our acolytes, will act as your

guide through the passes. May the gods smile upon your

efforts, Lady Mara. It is no easy task you have set for

Decision

555

yourself, for the cho-ja are a fierce race with a memory

that does not readily allow forgiveness.'

An hour later, following a hot meal, Mara and her

one-man delegation were ready to set off. A small crowd

of noisy children and idle house matrons, headed by

Hotaba and his council, gathered to see them off They

were joined by the acolyte Gittania, who proved to be a

slight, mousy-haired girl who looked lost in the-voluminous

folds of the cloak of her order, a knee-length garment woven

in blinding patterns of red upon white. She had flushed

cheeks, a sharp nose, and an irrepressible smile. Where

the sober, broken colors of Thuril plaids tended to blend

with the landscape, Gittania's garb would mark her like

a target.

Lujan was quick to comment upon this. 'Perhaps,' he

philosophised in rare reflection, 'she wears her gaudiness

like those birds or berries that are poison, a warning that

her magical powers bring retribution to any who might

attack her.'

Although he spoke quietly, the acolyte heard him.

S56 Mistress of the Empire

'Actually not, warrior. We who take vows as apprentices

are marked apart because we wish to be seen. For the

years of our reaming, we are bound to serve any man or

woman who needs assistance. The cloaks serve as badges

of recognition, that we may be easily found.'

Huddled against the streaming mist, Mara asked, 'How

many years do your kind apprentice to the masters?'

Gittania gave back a rueful grin. 'Some, up to twenty-five

years. Others never reach passage, and wear the white

and scarlet for life. The youngest master on record held

apprenticeship for seventeen years. He was a prodigy.

His accomplishment has stood unbettered for a thousand

years.'

'The requirements of your peers are tasking indeed,'

Lujan observed. Since war was a young man's trade, he

could hardly contemplate the patience it must take to spend

half a lifetime in study.

Yet Gittania did not seem resentful of such arduous

standards. 'A master wields great power, and with it,

tremendous responsibility. His years as an acolyte teach

temperance, patience, and, above all, humility, and provide

time to develop wisdom. When one has tended sick babies at

the bequest of every herder mother in the fells, one learns in

time that the small things count for as much as, or perhaps

more than, the great affairs of rulership and politics.' Here

the girl paused for a saucy, sidelong grin. 'At least, of this my

elders assure me. My years are too few yet to understand the

significance of a baby's rash in all the great turnings of the

universe.'

Tired as she was, Mara laughed. Gittania's outgoing

honesty was a pleasant change after Kamlio's difficult

moods and sullen bitterness. Although the Lady had

fears enough concerning the outcome of her forthcoming

encounter with the Thuril cho-ja, she looked forward to

the journey as a time to settle her worn nerves, and to

Decision

557

contemplate how she would handle her audience with

a strange cho-ja Queen. Gittania's blithe humor would

certainly be a balm to ease the strain.

The Kaliane had silently observed the conversation, while

the bundles of food and waterskins were made ready on the

back of a querdidra. 'The cho-ja are secretive, untrusting,'

she confided in last minute counsel. 'Once this was not so.

Their masters and ours mingled freely, exchanging ideas

and knowledge. In fact, much of our foundational training

as mages derives from cho-ja philosophies. But the war

centuries ago between cho-ja and Tsuranuanni taught the

creatures that men with power can be treacherous. Since

then the hives have been reticent, and contact reluctant to

nonexistent.' She moved to stand before Mara, and said,

'I do not know what you will face, Good Servant. But I

warn you one last time: Tsurani are anathema to these

cho-ja. They do not forgive what has happened to their

counterpart hives across the border, and they may well

hold you accountable as if you had been the very one who

forced the treaty upon them.'

At Mara's expression of surprise, the Kaliane reacted

sternly. 'Believe me, Lady Mara. Cho-ja do not forget, and

to them good does not tolerate the presence of repression

or evil. Right-thinking men, they would say, would have

dissolved the so-called treaty that forbids Tsurani cho-ja

their rights to magic. Each day that passes without such

remission keeps the crime fresh; to them the insult of

centuries past is as one committed this moment. In the hives

of Thuril, you might find no ally against your Assembly,

but only a swift death.'

Sobering the words might be, but Mara was not deterred.

'Not to go is to embrace defeat.' with a nod to Lujan and

a wave to Gittania to indicate her readiness, she faced the

town gates.

From behind, Kamlio watched her mistress's departure

SS8

Mistress of tl~e Empire

with wide eyes. Mara had captured her admiration. Had the

Lady looked back, she might have seen the ex-courtesan's

lips move in a vow that, should any of the Acoma party

survive to return to the Acoma estates, she would give the

Lady what she so plainly hoped: an attempt to be friends

with Arakasi. Kamlio bowed her head as Mara became

lost to view and Lujan's plumes disappeared in the mists

She swore her oath, humbled that the fears that seemed

overwhelming to her had little substance when compared

with the dangers that Mara strode to meet with straight

back and raised chin, and no sign at all of trepidation.

The journey through the Thuril high pass proved an

arduous trail. After one day's travel, the terrain steepened;

gorse-covered. highlands reared up into rocky outcrops

scoured clean of moss by wind. The sun seemed always

scudded over by clouds, and the valleys, swathed in

streamers of mists that twined over the courses of becks ant

streams. Mara managed the stony footing with difficulty,

helped over the rougher patches by Lujan's steadying hand.

Her sandals became scuffed on the shale, and she had no

breach to spare for talk.

Gittania seemed as untroubled by the territory as the

querdidra billy they brought to carry their supplies and

bedding. She chattered almost constantly. From her comments

as they passed by this valley or that, which sheltered

its little village or cluster of herders' hamlets, Mara learned

more about Thuril life. The highlanders were a fierce race,

wedded inseparably to their independence, but contrary to

the opinion held by most Tsurani, they were not warlike.

'Oh, our young men play at battle,' Gittania allowed,

leaning during a rest break upon the tall herder's staff

she used to steady her walking. Lujan also guessed she

knew how to use it as a weapon, if it did not also serve

as a staff for magic. But that assumption was shattered

when Gittania accidentally broke the wood and, without

ceremony, bought another stick from a man who trained

herd dogs. Now her fingers ran up and down, stripping off

the rough bark that might give blisters. 'But raids, fighting,

these are things young men do to gain the skills to steal

their wives. A few boastful ones venture into imperial lands.

Most do not return. If they are caught, and fight, they have

broken the treaty and are outlaws.' Her face darkened as

she said the last.

Mara recalled the captives condemned to die as sport for

Tsurani nobles in the arena, and was shamed. Did any of

the games masters who staged such atrocities have a clue

that the men they sent out to duel were just boys who

might have first committed no worse a mistake than a

prank? Had any imperial warrior or official ever troubled

to question the ones who strayed across the border, naked

and painted as if for war? Sadly, she thought not.

Gittania seemed not to notice the Lady's melancholy

contemplation. She gestured with her staff over the scrubcovered

valley, dotted, here and there, with the querdidra

herds bred for cheese and wool. 'Mostly we are a nation

of traders and herdsmen. Our soil is largely too poor to

farm, and our strongest industry is weaving. The dyes, of

course, are very costly, imported as they are from your

warmer lowlands, and from Tsubar.'

Gittania chided herself for her rambling talk, and urged

Mara and Lujan to set off once again. The pace she

set was brisk. Days were shorter in the uplands, where

the high crowns of the hills pushed the sunsets earlier.

The place where at last they made camp was in a hollow

between two rock-crowned knolls. A stream gushed

from a spring there, and short, wind-stunted trees offered

shelter.

'Wrap well in your blankets,' Gittania urged as she and

Mara scoured the dinner utensils dean in the icy water.

560 M'stress of the Empire

'Nights get cold in these highlands. Even in summer, there

can be an occasional frost.'

Morning saw leaves and grass etched in a silvery patina

of ice crystals. Mara marveled at their intricate patterns,

and admired the fragile beauty as a chance ray of sun fired

the edges like gilt. Barren this land might be, but it had a

wild grace all its own.

The trail steepened. More and more, Lujan had to assist

Mara in the climb, as his studded battle sandals gained

better purchase than hers, which were soled in plain leather

The roof of the clouds seemed close enough to touch, and

the querdidra herds thinned, forage being too sparse to

sustain them. Here the splash and tumble of spring-fed

streams formed the sole sound, beyond the whip and moan

of the wind.

The pass itself was a winding ledge that snaked between

steep, slate faces that glistened black where water seeped

from the earth. Mara gulped deep breaths of the thin air,

and commented on the strange, sharp smell that seemed to

ride the gusts.

'Snow,' Gittania explained, her cheeks nipped red by the

chill, and her smile the warmer by contrast. She tugged her

scarlet-and-white sleeves down over her hands for comfort,

and added, 'Were the clouds thinner, you might see ice on

the peaks. Not a sight you Tsurani are accustomed to, I'll

warrant.'

Mara shook her head, too breathless to speak. Hardier

than she, Lujan said, 'There are glaciers in the great range

we call the High Wall. Wealthy lords in the northern

provinces are said to post runners into the hills to gather

rare ice for their drinks. But for myself, I have never seen

water harden from the cold.'

'It is a magic of nature,' Gittania allowed and, seeing

Mara's distress, called for another short rest.

The passes fell behind, and the trail descended. On this

side of the mountains, the lands were less arid, and the

plantlife thorny and leaved in silver grey. By Gittania's

explanation, more rain fell here. 'The clouds will thin

before long, and then we will be able to see the cho-ja

city of Chakaha in the distance.'

No querdidra herds grazed these slopes, the vegetation

being too thorny to be edible, but a few families eked out

a living by harvesting plant fibers to twist into rope. 'A

hard living,' Gittania allowed. 'The cordage is among the

best available for strength and longevity, but this valley is

a long, difficult distance from the seaside markets. Carts

cannot cross the pass, so all of the haulage must be done

by packbeast, or on the backs of strong men.'

It occurred to Mara that the sure-legged cho-ja might

handle such a burden over the rugged trails with an ease

unmatched by any human, but she was too unsure of what

relationship the Thuril hives might share with humans to

offer any such suggestion. And then the thought left her

mind, for the trail crooked and dipped down, and the clouds

thinned and parted to reveal the valley below, spread out

like a tapestry beneath a high, pale green Tsurani sky.

'Oh!' Mara exclaimed, utterly forgetful of protocol. For

the sight that greeted her and Lujan was a wonder more

overwhelming than even the intricate beauty she had

witnessed in Dorales.

The mountains fell away, thorny growth and stony

washes descending into a lush, tropical valley. The breezes

carried the scent of jungle vines, exotic flowers, and rich

earth. Frond trees raised fanlike crowns skyward, and

beyond them, more delicate than the gold filigree wrought

by the most skilled of the Emperor's jewelers, arose the

cho-ja hives.

'Chakaha,' said Gittania. 'This is the cho-ja's crystal

city.'

As if spun from glass, fingerlike spirals rose from pastel

562

Mistress of the Empire

domes that sparkled in all colors, like gems in a crown.

Rose, aquamarine, and amethyst arches of impossible

delicacy spanned the gaps between. Shiny black cho-Ja

workers, looking like strings of obsidian beads in the

distance, scampered across these narrow catwalks. Mara

feasted her eyes upon the gossamer, sparkling architecture,

and was further astounded. In the air above, winged cho-ja

flew. They were not the jet black she was accustomed to, but

bronze and blue, with accenting stripes of maroon. 'They

are so beautiful!' she breathed. 'Our Queens in Tsuranuanni

birth only black cho-ja. The only color I ever saw was the

shade of an immature Queen, and she darkened like the

rest with her maturity.'

Gittania sighed. 'Cho-ja magicians are always brilliantly

marked. You have none in the Empire because they are

forbidden there. To our sorrow, Good Servant, and your

everlasting loss. They are wise in their power.'

Mara did not immediately answer, entranced as she was

with Chakaha. The glass spires were backed by a blue range

of mountains whose tops sparkled white against the sky.

'Ice!' Lujan surmised. 'There is ice on those peaks. Ah,

but I wish Papewaio were here to see this wonder! And

Keyoke. The old man will never believe what we saw when

we return home to tell him.'

'If you return home,' Gittania said in uncharacteristic

acerbity. She made a shrug of apology to Mara. 'Lady, I

may go no farther. You must follow the trail into the valley

from here, and seek your way to Chakaha on your own.

There will be sentries. They will intercept you long before

you reach the crystal gates. Gods go with you, and may

they allow you audience with their Queen.' The acolyte

fell awkwardly silent as she reached into her mantle and

pulled out a small object, oblong in shape, and heavily

dark as obsidian. 'This is a reading stone,' she explained.

'It carries a record of the memories the Kaliane's council

.

Decision

S63

called from you within the golden truth circle. It shows why

we granted you passage through our lands, and gives our

advice to the hives of Chakaha. The cho-ja magicians can

interpret its contents, if they choose.' She pressed the object

into Mara's hands with fingers that were cold with nerves.

'Lady, I hope the memories recorded in the stone will help.

The Kaliane spoke of some of them. They form an eloquent

testimony on behalf of your cause. Your danger will be in

establishing contact, for these cho-ja can kill swiftly.'

'Thank you.' Mara turned the stone over in her grasp,

then tucked it into her robe. Glad that her Force Commander'

s weapons had been returned, for she disliked the

notion of walking unarmed into a potentially hostile camp,

Mara took her leave of Gittania. 'Please give your Kaliane

my thanks also. With the grace of the gods, and good luck,

we will meet again.'

So saying, she nodded to Lujan, and stepped off toward

the lush lowland valley where the city of Chakaha awaited.

Neither she nor her handsome Force Commander looked

back, Gittania saw. That saddened her, because over

their three-day march, she had come to like the Good

Servant, whose curiosity held so much compassion for

others, and whose hope was to change the, course of

Tsuranuanni's future.

The trail descended sharply, over stones that were loose

underfoot. Lujan steadied his Lady's elbow, and though

his touch was sure, Mara still felt the precariousness of

their position. Each step forward carried her farther into

the unknown.

Brought up in the crowded sprawl of the Acoma estates,

accustomed to the throngs of Tsurani cities, and to the

presence of servants, slaves, and the numerous officers that

made up the households of the noble-born, she could not

recall a time in her life when she had been so alone. Her

564

Mistress of the Empire

meditation cell in the Temple of Lashima had been isolated

from others only by the thickness of a wall, and during

the most solitary of her evening contemplations at home,

a single word would bring servants or warriors instantly to

attend upon her needs.

Here there was only the wild sweep of fog-shrouded stone

slopes behind, and the jungle ahead, with its indigenous

population of cho-ja, whose culture was other than the

safe,. treaty-bound commerce she knew with the insectoids

upon her estates.

Never in her life had she felt herself so small and the world

she trod so large. It took all of her will not to turn back,

to call after Gittania, and ask to be guided back to Thuril

territories, which now did not seem strange or threatening,

but simply and understandably human. But back in the

Thuril village awaited the rest of her honor guard, and

Kamlio, dependent upon her efforts; and linked to them, her

family and children and all of the lives upon three sprawling

estates answerable to Shinzawai and Acoma. She must not

let them down, must secure them haven against the wrath

of the magicians to come. Mara faced resolutely forward,

and resorted to conversation.

'Lujan, tell me: when you were left the life of a grey

warrior, and had no hope for a life of honor, how did

you cope?'

Lujan's helm tipped, as he looked askance at her. In

his eyes she saw that he, too, sensed the immensity and

emptiness of the landscape surrounding them, and that

he was Tsurani enough to be uneasy as well with the

solitude. How much we have grown to understand each

other, Mara thought; how the difficulties of this life have

woven our efforts together into a relationship that is special,

and cherished. Then his reply stopped her introspection.

'Lady, when a man has lost everything that his peers and

fellows consider to be important, when he lives a life that is

meaningless by the tenets of his upbringing, then all that is

left is his dreams. I was very stubborn. I held to my dreams.

And one day I awoke to find that my existence was not

all misery. I realised that I could still laugh. I could still

feel. Feasting on wild game could still ease my belly, and

a tumble with a kind woman could still make my blood

race and my spirits soar. An honorless man might suffer in

the future when Turakamu took his spirit, and the Wheel

of Life ground his fate into dust. But day to day? Honor

does not add to joy.' Here the man who had led the Acoma

armies for close to two decades gave an uncomfortable

shrug. 'Lady, I was a leader of thieves, brigands, and

unfortunates. We as a band might not have had the great

honor that house colors may give a man. But we did not

live without creed.'

Here Mara could see that her Force Commander was

embarrassed to silence. Aware that his discomfort stemmed

from an issue that was central to the man himself, and

aware, too, that more than curiosity prompted her, she

urged gently, 'Tell me. Certainly you realise that I do not

hold to traditions for their own sake.'

Lujan gave a small laugh. 'We are alike in that more

than you know, my Lady. All right. The men that I led

swore a covenant with me. Outcasts though we were, and

cast off by the gods, that did not make us less than men.

We formed what might be called our own house, swore

loyalty to ourselves, and added that what befell one would

be shared by all. And so you see, Mara, when you came

and were willing to embrace us all in honorable service, we

could not have accepted save as a whole. When Pape devised

his clever ruse to find distant kinship so that we might be

called to Acoma service, had one man been refused, we all

would have turned away.'

Mara looked at her Force Commander in surprise, and

by the sheepish look in his weathered face, deduced further.

566

Mistress of the Empire

'This covenant you speak of, it still exists.' She did not ask,

but stated.

Lujan cleared his throat. 'It does. But when we swore you

our loyalty by the Acoma natami, we added a coda, that

our wishes, needs, and honor came second after yours. But

within your loyal army there is still a band of us who feel

a special kinship to one another, one we cannot share with

your other soldiers, no matter how honorable they may be.

It is a badge of honor unique to us, as was Papewaio's black

band of condemnation his own peculiar accolade.'

'Remarkable.' Mara fell silent, her eyes downcast as if

she negotiated a particularly hazardous step, but the footing

was less rocky now, the trail of beaten soil bordered by

the first fronds and greenery that edged the jungle. The

glass towers of Chakaha had disappeared with the loss

of altitude, eclipsed by the dense, high crowns of tropical

trees. Their danger was not lessened but increased, and

yet Mara spared a moment from worry to ponder what

her Force Commander had revealed: that he was a leader

born, and that his loyalty was rare and deep; that even after

advancement to a high post, he had kept his word with the

ruffians Burned soldiers that he had once commanded. It was

noteworthy, Mara thought, that the man at her side had an

inborn sense of himself and his personal responsibilities that

ran deeper than in most Lords who ruled in the Nations. All

this, Lujan had done, without fanfare, without recognition,

without even the knowledge of his Lady, until now.

Mara glanced aside at him, and saw his face had resumed

the mask of Tsurani inscrutability appropriate to a warrior

in house service. She was glad the opportunity had arisen

to learn what had passed between them. All that remained

to be asked of the gods was the opportunity to ensure

that such special qualities and talents that Lujan had

revealed might be brought to full flower. If they survived,

Mara decided, this was a man who deserved rewards

above and beyond the ordinary recognition for exemplary

service.

Then her thought was interrupted by a rustle in the

undergrowth. The first of the high trees lay ahead, their

trunks ancient and wide enough that five men with linked

hands would have difficulty girdling their circumference.

As their deep shade fell chillingly over Mara and Lujan,

a ring of cho-ja sentinels arose seemingly out of nowhere,

silent, shiny-black, and naked but for their natal armor of

polished chitin. Bladed forearms were Burned outward at

an aggressive angle.

Lujan jerked Mara to a stop. His second, instinctive

movement to thrust her behind him and away from the

danger and then to draw his sword was checked, as he saw

that they were surrounded. These Cho-ja wore none of the

humanlike accoutrements of rank that their counterparts in

the Nations affected, and they moved in uncanny silence.

For a moment, the two human invaders and the insectoid

sentinels stood motionless.

Mara was first to break the tableau, giving the full bow

an envoy might use to greet a foreign delegation. 'We come

in peace.' .r ~

Her words were punctuated by a snap as in unison the

sentinels raised forearms to guard position. One among

them advanced a half-step, its face plates unreadable.

These cho-ja of Chakaha made no effort to mimic human

expressions, and the result left Mara uneasy. These foreign

insectoids might attack and butcher them both where they

stood, and not even Lujan's fast eye might detect the signal

that started the slaughter.

'We come in peace,' she repeated, this time unable to

keep the tremble from her voice.

For a drawn-out moment, nothing moved. Over the

drone of insects in the jungle, Mara thought she detected

the high-pitched buzzing she had earlier experienced in the

S68

Mistress of the Empire

chamber of the Queen who inhabited her home estate. But

the sound ended before she could be certain.

Then the one who had stepped ahead, and who might be

classified as their Strike Leader, spoke out. 'You are from

the Empire, human. Peace to your kind is but a prelude to

treachery. You are trespassers. Turn and go, and live.'

Mara sucked in a shaky breath. 'Lujan,' she said in a

tone she hoped sounded convincing,'disarm yourself. Show

that we mean no harm by surrendering your blade to these

whom we would call friends.'

Her Force Commander raised his arm to follow her order,

although she could see by his tension that he disliked the

idea of giving up what small defense he might offer her.

But before he could set hand to sword grip, he heard the

snap, snap as t,he cho-ja left guard position and angled their

weight forward to charge. Their spokesman said, 'Touch

your sword, man, and you both die.'

To this, Lujan jerked up his chin in a flushed blaze of

anger. 'Kill us, then!' he half shouted. 'But I say that if you

do so, when my intent is to surrender, you are cowards

all. With my sword, or without it, at your first charge

we are dead.' Here he glanced at Mara, asking unspoken

permission.

His mistress returned a stiff nod. 'Disarm,' she repeated.

'Show that we are friends. If attack follows, then our

mission is wasted effort anyway, for the Lady of the Acoma

and the Servant of the Empire does not treat with a race of

murderers.'

Slowly, deliberately, Lujan reached for his sword. Mara

watched, running with sweat, as his hand touched, then

closed over the weapon hilt.

The cho-ja did not move. Perhaps above the drone of the

insects, their buzzing communication gave them discourse

with their Queen, but Mara could not tell. Her ears were

numbed by nerves and the fast, loud pound of her heart.

Decision

569

'I will draw and set my sword upon the ground,' Lujan

said tightly. He kept his movements careful, and seemed

outwardly confident, but Mara could see the drops of

perspiration sliding down his jawline beneath his helm

as, ever so slowly, he drew the sword from the scabbard,

took hold of the blade with his bare left hand so that his

intent not to fight could not possibly be mistaken, and

placed the weapon point toward himself upon the earth.

Mara saw the cho-ja shift their weight forward as one,

a movement she had seen before. In another second they

would charge, despite her pleading for peace. As loud as

she could make them, she mimicked the sounds of greetings

she had learned from the hive Queen upon her estates, a

poor human attempt at the clicks and snaps made by the

cho-ja throat.

Instantly the cho-ja stood like statues, frozen a heartbeat

away from murder. Yet when Lujan's sword rested upon

the ground, and he straightened, defenceless, their postures

did not ease.

Neither did the leader of their party speak out. Instead,

a great gust of air arose, lashing Mara's hair into disarray,

and causing Lujan to squint through watering eyes. Down

through the canopy of jungle descended a cho-ja form,

leanly streamlined and brilliantly striped. It possessed an

unearthly beauty that was somehow almost dangerous,

and above neatly folded limbs its seemingly delicate weight

was suspended upon crystalline wings that beat up a storm

of wind.

A cho-ja magician had come!

Mara drew breath to exclaim in involuntary delight, but

her throat gave voice to no sound. The air around her

seemed to shimmer suddenly, and the forms of the cho-ja

advance guard shattered into patternless colon Her feet lost

contact with the ground, and Lujan's presence became lost

to her. There were no trees, no jungle, no sky; nothing at

570

Mistress of the Empsre

all could her senses detect that was familiar, but a chaos

of whirling light.

She found her voice, and her cry became one of terror.

'What are you doing to us?'

A reply boomed back from nowhere, echoing in her

mind. 'Enemies who surrender become prisoners,' the voice

admonished.

And then all of Mara's perception drowned in a great

tide of darkness.

22

Challenge

Mara awoke.

Her last memory of open air, and lush jungle, and a

patrol of cho-ja sentinels did not mesh with her present

surroundings: a narrow, hexagonal chamber of windowless,

featureless walls. The floor was of polished stone, the ceiling

fashioned of a mirrorlike substance that threw back the light

of the single cho-ja globe that drifted unsupported at the

chamber's center.

Mara raised herself on her elbows, then her knees, and

discovered that Lujan stood behind her, awake, and visibly

battling against a restless bout of nerves.

'Where are we?' asked the Lady of the Acoma. 'Do you

know?'

Her Force Commander spun to face her, pale with anger

only barely held in check. 'I don't. The where hardly

matters, though, because we are being held as enemies of

the city-state of Chakaha.' -'

'Enemies?' Mara accepted Lujan's hand to help her

rise; she noticed his scabbard was empty, which partially

explained his edginess. 'We were brought here by means of

magic, then?'

Lujan raked back sweat-damp hair, then from habit

tightened the strap that secured his helm. 'Magic must have

conveyed us from the glen. And only magic can secure our

release. If you look around, you will see there is no door.'

Mara quickly checked. The walls arose sheer and smooth,

unbroken by any sort of portal. At a loss to account for

the freshness of the air, the Lady deduced that the chamber

must be entirely wrought of cho-ja spellcraft.

572

Mistress of the Emp~re

The conclusion made her tremble.

She was no longer dealing with humans, who might by

their nature share some empathy. Cold with foreboding,

Mara knew she and Lujan had become embroiled in the

unknowns of the hive mind. More than ever, she was

confronted by the incomprehensibility of an alien species

whose 'memory' and 'experience' spanned millennia, and

whose framework of reason would be judged only by

collective prosperity and survival. Worse, unlike the hive she

had conversed with inside the Empire's borders, these free,

foreign cho-ja had never been forced to coexist with humanity

except on terms they chose. There would not be even

the imperfect understanding she shared with the Queen with

whom she had exchanged companionship over the years.

Lujan sensed his Lady's despair. 'We are not without

hope, my Lady. These are civilised creatures who hold us

captive. They must be disinclined to kill out of hand, or we

would have died on the trail.'

Mara sighed, and did not voice her following thought:

that if they were adjudged enemies, it was not for their

individual deeds, but for the actions of all Tsurani over

every age of history. The past records of sincere treaties

broken by bloody betrayals were too numerous to count,

and within Mara's lifetime, the tenets of the Game of

the Council had many times caused sons to kill fathers,

and clansmen to rend clansmen. Her own hands were far

from clean.

Her first husband's ritual suicide had been manipulated

by her; so even if the hive mind were to measure her by

the acts she alone had authored, contradiction would be

found in abundance - between the vows she had sworn in

marriage, and the hatred she had held in her heart for Jiro's

brother; and in her betrayal of Kevin, the barbarian she

loved, then sent away against his will, ignorant she carried

his child. It occurred to her, as she bit her lip to keep back

Challenge

i

.

573

tears born of shame, that it was not the cho-ja way to learn

by mistakes, for all of the errors made by ancestors were

available to living memory. They were a race for whom the

past did not fade. Forgiveness for them would not be the

ever renewable resource it was for humankind - grudges

might be kept for millennia.

'Lujan?' The echo of Mara's voice in that confined

chamber was hollow with fear. 'Whatever should become

of us in the end, we must find a way to be heard!'

Her Force Commander spun in a frustrated circle. 'What

is left to do for you, Lady, but to pound on these walls with

my fists?'

Mara heard the desperation he tried to mask behind

bravado. His distress sobered her; ever since leaving the

Coalteca, nothing of Lujan's training as a warrior had

served him. He had held no army to command. The day

the Thuril first arose in ambush upon the trail, she had

forbidden him to defend her. At Loso, he had suffered

insults that he would have spilled blood over rather than

endure. He had been humiliated, driven in bonds like a

slave, against every instinct of his upbringing. Out of his

depth, separated from his warrior companies, he must

find his circumstances incomprehensibly bleak.

Lujan had humor, and cleverness, and courage; but he

owned none of Arakasi's detached fascination with the

unknown. Sobered to acknowledge the demands she had

placed on her Force Commander's loyal spirit, Mara

touched his wrist. 'Bide patiently, Lujan. For either we

are near to our end, or our goal is just within reach.'

Striking to the core of her thoughts, Lujan replied, 'I feel

most worthless, my Lady. You would have done better to

bring Arakasi, or to have kept Saric at your side.'

Mara attempted humor. 'What? Endure Saric's questions,

even when the gods themselves impose silence? And

Arakasi? Lujan, do you suppose that he could have watched

Mistress of the Empire

Kamlio led away without flying weaponless in the face of

armed guards? Unless, of course, she had clawed him to

ribbons on the Coalteca before we even saw landfall. No,

I do not think I would wish either Saric or Arakasi with

me at this time. The gods work as they will. I must trust

that fate brought you here for a reason.'

The last line was false conviction. In truth, Mara knew

only foreboding. Still, her effort had coaxed a quirk of a

smile from her officer. His fingers had ceased drumming

against his empty scabbard. 'Lady,' he allowed wryly, 'let

us pray you are right.'

Tedious hours passed, with no daylight in sight to reveal

the passage of day to night, and no interruption or sound to

break the monotony. Lujan paced the tiny chamber, while

Mara sat and unsuccessfully tried to meditate. Tranquil

thought evaded her, torn through again and again by

longing for her children and husband. She fretted, afraid

she would never again have the chance to make peace

with Hokanu. Irrational worries gnawed at her: that if

she failed to return home, he would marry and beget sons,

and little Kasuma might never inherit the legacy that was

her due. That Justin might be killed before manhood, and

that the Acoma line would fail. That Jiro, with the backing

of the Assembly, would topple Ichindar's new order, and the

golden throne of the Emperor become relegated to a seat for

a slave to religious ceremony. The Warlord's office would

be restored, and the Game of the Council resume with all

its internecine feuding and bloodshed. Lastly, the cho-ja of

the Nations would forever remain bound to subservience

through unjust treaty.

Mara's eyes snapped open. A thought occurred, and her

heartbeat accelerated. These cho-ja might not be moved by

a Tsurani, a sworn enemy - but would they turn their backs

upon their fellows in captivity within the Empire? She must

make them understand that she, as the only opponent of

::

Challenge

575

the Assembly with the rank and influence to threaten them,

offered the cho-ja within Tsuranuanni their first hope of

change.

\a249We must find a way to be heard!' Mara muttered, and

she joined in step with Lujan's pacing.

More hours passed. Hunger began to trouble them, along

with the urgency of bodily needs too long denied.

To this last, Lujan remarked wryly, 'Our captors might

at least have equipped our cell with a latrine. If they leave

me no better choice, I shall have to shame my upbringing

and empty my bladder upon their floor.'

Yet before that point of crisis could arise, a flash of intense

white light smote the eyes of the Lady and her officer.

Blinking against temporary blindness, Mara realised that

the walls that held them appeared to have dissolved. She

had discerned no moment of disorientation, nor heard any

whisper of sound; and yet whatever spell of release had

been keyed, she found herself no longer confined. Had their

prison been an elaborate illusion, she wondered. Daylight

fell through a high, transparent dome tinted soft purple.

She and Lujan stood at the center of a patterned floor, the

tiles fashioned of glass, or precious stones, and laid with

a breathtaking artistry. The mosaics Mara had seen in the

hall of Tsuranuanni's Emperor seemed clumsy as a child's

scrawls by comparison. The beauty might have held her

staring in wordless admiration, but a double-file escort of

cho-ja warriors prodded her forward.

Frantically, she glanced around for Lujan. He was not

with her! She had been mesmerised by the floor, and if

he had been led away, she had not seen where. Another

prod from her escort sent her stumbling ahead. Leading

the column of warriors, she saw a cho-ja with yellow

markings on its thorax. By the tools hung in the satchel

at its belt, it appeared to be a scribe; and it followed on the

heels of another figure of towering height that trailed what

576 Mistress of the Empire

Mara had at first presumed to be some sort of gossamer

mantle. More careful inspection revealed wings, overlaid in

elaborate folds as a lady's train might be. They slid with the

faintest of rustles over the polished floor, emitting sparkles

of light that danced and died in the air. By the palpable

sense of power that chased prickles over her skin, Mara

understood she beheld a cho-ja magician up dose.

Awe held her tongue-tied. The creature was tall! Built

with. slender, stilt-like limbs, it moved with a grace that

recalled to her Kevin's long-ago description of the elves

that inhabited his world of Midkemia. But this alien being

owned more than beauty. Its sleek, wide head was crowned

with antennae that et times gave off glow. Its foreclaws were

ringed with precious metal, silver and copper and iron.

What from a.,distance had looked like striped markings

were actually more intricate, a maze of thread-fine lines

that almost seemed to have meaning, like temple runes, or

text beyond the ken of human perception. Curiosity warred

with Mara's fear, until only uncertainty for her fate held

her silent. Upon her rested the future of the Empire and, as

had chose predecessors named Servant by past Emperors,

she felt that responsibility weigh upon her.

She was ushered down a passageway, and through an

outer door that let onto a catwalk of dizzying height. It

crossed in an arch between two spires, affording a dramatic

view of the glass city, its surrounding jungle, and the teeth of

the mountain ranges that hemmed the valley around. Mara

saw more of the cho-ja magicians in flight over the city's

towers, before her escort of warriors hastened her ahead.

She was urged across the catwalk, which had no railings

but was surfaced with a strange, almost tacky substance

for secure footing. The pillared entry at the far end opened

into another wide, domed chamber.

Here more cho-ja squatted in a semicircle, these marked

similarly to the one she had guessed to be a scribe.

Their colors were baffling, accustomed as she was to

the unadorned black of the creatures in her own land.

She was led into the center of their congress, and there

the tall magician swept around and fixed ruby eyes upon

her. 'Tsurani-human, who are you?'

Mara took a deep breach. 'I am Mara, Lady of the Acoma

and Servant of the Empire. I come to you to plead for-'

'Tsurani-human,' the magician interrupted in a sonorous

boom. 'These before you are the judges that have already

convicted you. You are not brought here to plead, as your

fate has already been determined.'

Mara went rigid as if struck a blow. 'Convicted! Of what

crime?'

'The crime of your nature. Of being what you are. The

actions of your ancestors were your testimony.'

'I am to die for what my ancestors did ages past?'

The cho-ja magician ignored the question. 'Before your

sentence is read, and for the sake of Tsuranuanni, the

human-hive-home that birthed you, our custom holds that

you shall be granted the right of testament, that your kind

not be deprived of such wisdom you choose to impart. You

are granted the hours until nightfall to speak. Our scribes

will record what you say, and their writings will be sent back

to your hive-home in the hands of the Thuril traders.'

Mara regarded the patterned features of the cho-ja

magician, and rage took her. Like Lujan, she desperately

needed to attend to the functions of her body. She could

not think with a full bladder, and she could not accept what

the magician's short speech had implied, that she was just

one member of a hive, and that her permanent absence held

no more consequence than knowledge gained or lost.

The ruby depths of the magician's gaze showed no

quarter. Argument would be futile, she knew. The bluster

that had won her through to audience with the Thuril

council would here gain her nothing. Humbled by feeling

578

Mistress of the Emp~re

that this civilisation made her Empire's achievements seem

less than the efforts of a human babe to make order in a

sandbox, she repressed her desire to shout in frustration

at her fate. In the eyes of this race of beings, she was

an infant: a dangerous, murderous infant, but a child

nonetheless. Well then, she would indulge the curiosity

that plagued her! Perhaps there would be inspiration to

be gained. Pressed by a white heat of impulse, Mara put

aside. her concern for her family and country. She gave in

to the instincts of a child.

'I have no great legacy of wisdom,' she announced in

a bold voice. 'Instead of giving knowledge, I would ask:

in my birth-lands, there is a treaty that holds the cho-ja

nation captive. In my land, to speak of it or to impart

knowledge of the war that gave rise to its making is

forbidden. If the memory of this great battle and the

terms of its peacemaking are recalled in Chakaha, I wish

to be told of these events. I would ask to know the truth

of the past that has condemned me.'

A buzzing murmur arose among the tribunal, a sibilance

that grew into a cacophony that set Mara's teeth on edge.

The cho-ja guard squatted behind her, motionless as though

they might hold their position until the end of time. The

scribe that stood by the magician twitched once, then shifted

its stance as though with uncertainty. The magician itself

did not stir, until, suddenly, it raised its wings. Gossamer

folds unfurled with a gusty hiss of air, and snapped taut

with a crack that silenced the chamber immediately. Mara

stared like a peasant shown wonders, noting that the wings

connected somehow to the forelimbs and hind limbs of

the creature, almost like webbing, but vast as sails. The

forelimbs were many-jointed, and extended high overhead

until they nearly touched the roof of the dome

The magician turned on its stilt-like legs. Its now heated

gaze swept the stilled tribunal, and as it turned full

,

:

j

Challenge

579

around, it glared again down at Mara. 'You are a curious

being,' it said.

Mara bowed, though her knees threatened to give out

on her. 'Yes, Great One.'

The cho-ja magician hissed a high-pitched breath of

air. 'Assign me not the title your kind awards to those

perpetrators of treachery, your Assembly.'

'Lord, then,' Mara rang back. 'I offer my humble respect,

for the oppression of the Assembly has been mine to

suffer also.'

A twitter from those assembled arose at this, then stilled.

The magician's glare seemed to sear through Mara's skin

and touch the core of her thoughts. Swept by a sense of

violation, and a moment that rang like fever, or the pain of

contact with flame, she cringed and choked back a scream.

Then the sensation passed, leaving dizziness. She fought to

keep her balance and stay upright.

When her senses cleared, the cho-ja magician was speaking

rapidly to the tribunal. 'She speaks truth.' Its tone

had turned musical, perhaps resulting from surprise. 'This

Tsurani has no knowledge of the doings of her ancestors!

How can this be?'

Mara mustered the tatters of her dignity and answered for

herself. 'Because my kind have no hive mind, no collective

memory. We know only that which we experience, or are

taught by others, within the span of the days of our lives.

Libraries preserve our past history, and these are mere

records, subject to the ravages of time, and the limitations

set upon them by those factions who set down their

contents. Our memories are imperfect. We have no ...'

Then she intoned the click-chuck that the Queen on her

land had used to indicate the hive consciousness.

'Silence, Tsurani!' The magician furled its great wings,

with a sigh of air currents and a sparkle of light that arose

from no visible source. 'We are not children. Humans have

580 Mistress of the Empire

no hive mind, this we know. The concept is awkward, a

thing that ill fits our thought processes. We understand

you use libraries and teachers to convey your hive-nations'

wisdom through the generations.'

Mara seized upon what appeared to be a moment of

neutrality. 'One of your kind once told me that the hive

mind of the cho-ja resides with the Queens. What one

Queen knows, all experience. But I ask, what happens if

a Queen is to die with no successor? What becomes of her

workers and her males, and all the individuals that make

up hive society?'

The magician clicked its mandibles. 'Her subjects have

no mind,' it allowed. 'Should mishap kill a Queen, her

rirari, those of her chosen breeding attendants, will behead

her survivors out of mercy, for, mindless, they would rove

aimlessly and die.' It stated this without guilt, the concept

of murder being different than that for a human.

'Then.' Mara surmised boldly. 'they would not forage

'They could not.' Metal flashed as the magician made

a curt gesture with its forelimb. 'They have no purpose

beyond the hive. I am no different. The Queen who bred

me is all of my guiding directive. I am her eyes, her hands,

if you will, and her ears. I am her instrument, even as this

tribunal is her arm of judgment. Part of me is conscious,

and I may act in independence if it is of benefit to the hive,

but all that I am, all that I know, will remain with the hive

when this body no longer functions.'

'Well, I offer that we humans are not like cho-ja subjects.

Even as do your Queens, we each have our own mind, our

own purpose, our own directive for survival. Kill our rulers

and Lords, and we will each go on with our affairs. Leave

but one child alive, or one man, and he will live out his

days according to his own wishes.'

The cho-ja magician seemed bemused. 'We have thought

for food, or sustain themselves to survive?'

for generations that the Tsurani hive is insane; if it must

answer to teeming millions of minds, we know why!'

'That is individuality,' Mara said. 'I have little of importance

to offer the Tsurani nation, as one person. Instead,

I repeat my request to know the actions of the ancestors

that have caused your tribunal to condemn me without

hearing.'

The scribe-like creature at the magician's side peered at

Mara and for the first time spoke. 'The telling might take

until nightfall, which is all of the time you are allotted.'

'So it must be,' Mara said, steadier now that she had

been able at least to open conversation with these alien

cho-ja. Of more immediate concern were the bodily needs

that had been denied, and how much longer she must be

forced to put them off.

But the cho-ja, after all, were not entirely insensitive. The

magician's scribe spoke again. 'Your will shall be granted,

along with whatever comforts you may require to keep

your ease through the hour of sundown.'

Mara inclined her head in thanks, and then bowed. When

she arose, the magician cho-ja had departed, without sound,

without ceremony, as if it had melted away into air. The

scribe-type cho-ja remained, directing a sudden influx

of unmarked workers who were dispatched to attend

Mara's needs.

Later, refreshed and fed from a lavish tray of fruits,

breads, and cheeses, Mara reclined on fine cushions while,

still before the tribunal, she was given the services of a

cho-ja orator whose task was to fill in for her those gaps

in Empire history that were forbidden within the borders

of the Nations.

Relieved of discomforts, Mara waved for the cho-ja

orator to begin recitation. While the afternoon spilled

purple shadows through the pillared windows, and the

sky above the crystal dome deepened toward sundown,

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Mistress of the Empire

she shared a tale of great sorrow, of hives burned by

hideous, crackling bolts of magic, and thousands upon

thousands of cho-ja subjects mercilessly beheaded by the

rirari of slaughtered Queens. She heard tell of atrocities, of

eggs stolen, and cho-ja magicians put to useless torture.

Cho-ja in those times had been ill prepared for the

realities of an arcanely waged war. They had magic with

which to build marvels, magic to adorn nature with the

beauty of intelligent artifice, and magic to bring fortune

and favorable weather. In such peaceful arts, the insectoid

mages held the accumulated wisdom of centuries, and the

oldest among them had carapaces whorled and stippled

with the patterns of a million spells.

Here Mara dared an interruption. 'Do you mean that the

markings on your mages are badges of experience?'

The orator bobbed its head. 'Indeed, Lady. Over time they

become so. Each spell that they master becomes inscribed in

colors upon their bodies, and the greater their powers, the

more complex are their markings.'

The orator went on to emphasise that the cho-ja mages

from the era of the Golden Bridge held no spells for warlike

violence. They could cast beneficial wards to protect, but

these were no match for the aggressive magic of the

Assembly. The wars involving magic were not battles but

massacres. The treaty that bound the cho-ja of the Nations

to subservience had been submitted and sworn into being

entirely out of need to survive.

'The terms are harsh,' the orator finished on a note that

might have been sorrow. 'No mages are to be hatchet

within Tsuranuanni. Cho-ja there are forbidden to wear

the markings that show age or rank, but must be colored

black in adult life, even as your Tsurani slaves who are

human are restricted to garments of grey. Commerce with

cho-ja outside your borders is not allowed, exchange

of information, news, or magical lore being specifically

forbidden. It is our suspicion, if not the sad truth, that the

Queens within your nations have been forced to excise from

hive memory all record and means of cho-ja magic. Were

you Tsurani all to perish, and the Assembly's edict become

obsolete, it is doubtful if an Empire-bred Queen could still

create the egg to hatch out a mage. And so the sky-cities of

our kind are forgotten, reduced by human decree to damp

warrens beneath the earth. Our proud brethren are forced

to become grubbers in soil, with their arts of spell-building

forever lost.'

By now the sky beyond the arch had darkened under

twilight. The tribunal, who had heretofore sat-in perfect

stillness, arose, while the orator in obedience to some

unspoken signal fell silent. A cho-ja sentinel at Mara's

back prodded her up from her cushions, and the magician's

scribe tilted its head her way in a manner that suggested

regret. 'Lady, your time of last testament is now ended, and

the moment for your sentencing is come. If you have any

last bequest, you are urged to state it now.'

'Last bequest?' Wine and sweet fruit had dulled the edges

of Mara's apprehension, and the familiarity shared with the

orator throughout the afternoon made her bold. 'What do

you mean by this?' ~

The magician's scribe shifted its weight and became

implacably still. The tallest of the tribunal cho-ja delivered

her answer. 'Your sentence, Lady Mara of Tsuranuanni.

After your last testament is given, it will be formally read

that you are to be executed at tomorrow's dawn.'

'Executed!' A jolt of adrenaline and fear caused Mara to

square her shoulders, and ire lit her eyes. She abandoned

protocol. 'What are your kind, if not barbarians, to condemn

an envoy unheard?' The tribunal members twitched,

and the sentinel cho-ja angled forward aggressively, but

Mara was already frightened witless and she did not take

any note. 'It was a Queen of your own kind who sent me

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Mistress of the Empsre

here to treat with you. She held hope for those cho-ja who

are a captive nation within our Empire's borders, and she

saw in me the chance to rectify the human misdeeds of the

past. Would you execute me out of hand, when I am the

opponent of the Assembly, come here to ask aid against

their tyranny?'

The tribunal regarded her with identical sets of gem-hard

eyes, unmoved. 'Lady,' rang their spokesman, 'state your

last bequest if you have one.'

Mara closed her eyes. Were all of her efforts to end here,

with her life? Had she been Servant of the Empire, wife

to a fine Lord, Ruling Lady of the Acoma, and adviser

to the Emperor only to die in shame on foreign soil? She

repressed a violent shiver, and stayed the hands that itched

to scrub the sweat of outright terror from her brow. She had

nothing left to her at this moment beyond the dignity of her

people. Her honor she no longer believed in, after hearing

of what her forebears had done on the battlefield against

a peaceful civilisation. And so her voice rang oddly steady

as she said, 'Here is my last bequest: that you take this,'

She held up the magical token given her by Gittania, which

should have been her testimony to these hostile aliens. She

forced herself to press on. 'That you take this record, and

incorporate it into your hive memory along with the details

of my "execution", so that all of your kind to come will

recall that humankind are not alone in the perpetration of

atrocity. If my husband and my children - indeed, if my

family that serves as my hive must lose me in retribution

for the treaty of the Assembly, then at least my heart's

intentions must survive in the hive mind of my killers.'

- A buzz of noise met her statement. Mara yielded to

reckless, icy resolve. 'This is my last bequest! Honor it

as my death wish, or may the gods curse your kind unto

the ending of time for perpetrating the very injustices you

deplore in us!'

'Silence!' The command rocked the chamber, reverberating

off the crystal dome with force enough to deafen.

Cringing from the sheer volume of the sound, Mara took

a second to realise that the command did not arise from

the tribunal but came instead from a cho-ja magician that

had materialised out of nowhere at the chamber's center

Its wings were deployed to full extension, and its markings

were complex enough to lose the eye in dizziness. It stalked

toward Mara, hard turquoise eyes like the ice that sheathed

the distant mountains. When it halted before the Lady, its

stance was menacing.

'Give me your token,' it demanded.

Mara offered the object, certain she could not have done

otherwise even had she been of a mind to resist. There was

magecraft in the cho-ja's tone that compelled response from

her flesh.

The cho-ja mage scooped up the token with a touch

that barely grazed her skin. Ready with an appeal she

had no chance to deliver, Mara was startled by a blinding

flash. Light enveloped her, densely implacable as suffocation,

and when her senses recovered from the shock

of spell-craft, the domed chamber of the tribunal was

gone, swept away as though it had never been. She

found herself resumed to the hexagonal cell, windowless

and doorless as before, but now the stone floor was

scattered with colored cushions and a pair of Tsurani-style

sleeping mats. On the nearest of these crouched Lujan,

his head resting in his hands, and his mien one of total

despair.

At his Lady's arrival he started to his feet and gave a

warriors obeisance. His bearing might be correct to the

last detail, but hopelessness lingered still in his eyes.

'You have heard what is to become of us?' he asked of

Mara. There was a whipsnap of fury in his tone.

The Lady sighed, too discouraged to speak, and unwilling

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585

586

Mistress of the Empire

to believe that she had come all this distance to be

summarily consigned to an unjust kite.

'Did they ask your last bequest before they read your

sentence?' Lujan asked Mara.

Numbly she nodded; and between hopelessness and grief,

she thought of one small detail that offered comfort: the

cho-ja of Chakaha had not read her sentence. Somehow the

token and the disruption caused by the reappearance of the

cho-ja mage had interrupted the formal proceedings.

Unwilling to read hope into that small anomaly, Mara

made conversation. 'What did you ask for, as your last

bequest?'

Lujan gave back an ironic smile. As if nothing were

wrong, he offered his hand and helped Mara down to

a more comfortable seat amid the cushions. 'I did not

ask,' he allowed. 'I demanded. As is a warrior's right

when condemned by the state for crimes committed by

his master, I claimed death by single combat.'

Mara raised her eyebrows, too sober to be amused, but

wildly seizing upon the implications of this development.

Right of death by combat was a Tsurani custom! Why

should these Chakaha cho-ja honor such a tradition? 'Did

the tribunal that judged you grant your bequest?'

Lujan's crooked grin of irony told her as much, before

he answered, 'At least I shall have the opportunity to chop

at some chitin before they have my head.'

Mara stifled an inopportune rise of hysterical giggles at

his vehemence. 'Who have the Chakaha cho-ja selected as

their champion?'

Lujan shrugged. 'Does it matter? Their warriors all look

the same, and the hive mind most likely ensures that they

are of equal ability. The only satisfaction I may have is that

I will be chopped to pieces in combat before their headsman

gets his chance to cut my neck.' He loosed a bitter laugh.

'Once I would have considered such a death in your service

Challenge

587

to be a warrior's honor, and the paeans that would have

greeted me upon my entrance to Turakamu's halls would

have been the only reward I desired.' He fell silent, as if in

deep thought.

Mara ventured conclusion of his statement for him. 'But

your concept of honor has changed. Now a warrior's

death seems meaningless beside the opportunities offered

by life.'

Lujan turned a tortured glance to his Lady. 'I could not

have summed up so neatly, but yes. Kevin of Zun opened

my eyes to both principles and yearnings that the Tsurani

way can never answer. I have seen you dare to challenge

the course of our entire culture, as no male ruler might have

done, for fear of ridicule by his peers. We are changed, Lady,

and the Empire is poised on the brink of change with us.' He

glanced around, as if to savor what life was left to him. 'I

care not for my own life; who have I to mourn after me who

will not soon follow me into death when we fail?' He shook

his head. 'It is the frustration of losing any opportunity to

somehow . . . pass along what we have reamed, that these

insights will not perish with us.'

Mara spoke insistently to cover her own pang of fear.

'Hokanu will be left, and our children, to carry on after

us. They will somehow rediscover what we have, and find

a way to act without blundering into this cho-ja trap.' She

let out a long sigh. Looking at her old companion, she said,

'My largest regret, most strangely, is that of a wife and a

woman. I'm everlastingly sorry that I cannot return to make

peace with Hokanu. He was always the soul of sensitivity

and reason before: something of importance must have

prompted his behavior toward Kasuma. I maligned him

unfairly, I think, by accusing him of a prejudice his nature

would not allow. Now it's too late to matter. I must die with

the question unasked that could restore our understanding.

Why, when I could easily bear another child that is male, did

588

Mistress of the Empire

Hokanu act so aggrieved when he learned that his firstborn

was a daughter?'

Her eyes sought Lujan's in appeal. 'Force Commander,

you are a man who understands the game between sexes

well, or so I have been informed through kitchen gossip.

The scullions never tire of describing the serving girls and

ladies of the Reed Life who languish for your company.'

She gave a wry smile. 'Indeed, if they are to be believed,

there are droves of such women. How is it that a husband

as wise as Hokanu should not be gladdened by the birth

of a healthy, unblemished daughter?'

Lujan's demeanor softened, very near to pity. 'Lady, did

Hokanu never tell you?'

'Tell me what?' Mara demanded sharply. 'I was harsh

with my husband, and bitterly outspoken. So deeply did I

believe his behavior was in the wrong, I drove him from

me. But now I regret my hard-heartedness. Maybe Kamlio

taught me to listen more carefully. For like these cho-ja of

the Thuril territories, I condemned my husband without

ever asking his testimony.'

Lujan stood a moment looking at her. Then, as if reaching

some decision, he folded to his knees before her. 'Gods

forgive me,' he murmured softly, 'it is not my right to break

confidence between a Lord and his wife. But tomorrow we

will die, and I have always been your loyal officer. Lady

Mara, I would not have you pass this life without the

understanding you desire. Hokanu was stricken with a

grief, but he would never have spoken of its cause, even

had you returned and begged to hear. But I know what

sorrow afflicted him. I was in the chamber when the healer

of Hantukama informed your husband of what he, in his

kindness, swore he would never reveal to you: that after

the poisoning by the tong that cost you your unborn babe,

you should bear but one more child. Kasuma was your last

issue. Hokanu kept the secret because he wished you to

Challenge

589

hold the hope of another pregnancy. His daughter is a

joy to him, never doubt, and his consecrated heir for the

Shinzawai mantle. But he knows, and is saddened, that you

will never give him the son he longs for in his heart.'

Mara sat stunned. Her voice came out small. 'I am

barren? And he knew?' The full import of Hokanu's

courageous resolve struck her, sharp as the most stinging

thorn. He had been raised motherless and his blood father

had been taken beyond reach by the Assembly of Magicians;

Hokanu's whole world had been one of male camaraderie,

with his uncle, who became his foster father, and his cousin,

who became a brother. This was the root of his longing

for a son.

But he was also a man of rare sensitivity and appreciation

for the company of intellectual minds; where another Lord

with less heart would have taken on courtesans as his

gods-given male right, Hokanu had loved her for her

mind. His craving for equality in companionship had

become realised in marriage to a woman with whom he

could share the most inspirational of his ideas. He spurned

the usage of concubines, the company of women of the Reed

Life, the pleasures to be found with bought creatures like

Kamlio. ~

Now Mara understood how he had been faced with a

choice abhorrent to him: to take another woman to his bed,

one that meant nothing beyond her capacity to conceive and

breed, or to go without a son - to forgo the fraternity he

had shared with his adoptive father, his brother, and Justin,

whom he had given back to Mara for the sake of Acoma

continuance.

'Gods,' Mara all but wept. 'How stone-hearted I have

been!'

Instantly Lujan was beside her, his strong arm supporting

her shoulder. Mara sagged against him. 'Lady,'

he murmured in her ear, 'you of all women are not

590 Mistress of the Empire

insensitive. Hokanu understands why you reacted as you

did.'

Lujan held her as a brother might, in undemanding

companionship, as she ran through all the details to the

half-painful, half-hopeful conclusion that if she died here,

her beloved Hokanu would have Kasuma for his heir, and

freedom to take another wife to bear him the son he longed

for. Mara clung to that thought. At last, to escape her own

woes, she said, 'What of you, Lujan? Surely you do not

contemplate the leaving of this life without regrets?'

Lujan's fingers stroked her shoulder with a rough tenderness. '

I do have one.'

Mara turned her head and saw that he seemed to be

studying the woven patterns of the cushions. She did not

press for his confidence, and after a moment he gave a

wry shrug.

'Lady, it is strange how life shows us our follies. Always

I have enjoyed the favors of many women, but never held

the desire to marry and be content with one.' Lujan stared

fixedly, self-conscious, but oddly freed from embarrassment

by the fact that with the dawn, he must face an ending of life,

an ending of dreams. The nearness of his accounting with

Turakamu lent them both the solace of honesty. 'Always,

I told myself, my roving ways were the result of my

admiration for you.' Here his eyes flashed toward her

in a glance of truthful adoration. 'Lady, there was much

about you for a man to appreciate, and a toughness that

made other women seem . . . if not lacking, then at least

smaller of stature.' He made a tight gesture of frustration

at the inadequacy of words. 'Lady, our journey into Thuril

has taught me to know myself too well, I think, for ease

of mind.

Mara raised her eyebrows. 'Lujan, you have never been

less than the exemplary warrior. Keyoke overcame his

distrust of grey warriors to choose you above others to fill

his former post as Force Commander In these late years I

believe that you have come to hold as much of a place in

his heart as Papewaio did.'

'Now, there is a tribute.' Lujan's lips quirked toward a

smile, and then hardened. 'But I have been less than honest

with myself, now that my spirit lies near to its reckoning. I

am sorry, this night, that I never found any woman to share

my hearth and home.'

Mara regarded the bent head of her Force Commander.

Recognising that in some manner Lujan wished to unburden

himself, very gently she said, 'What kept you from

starting a family and raising children?'

'I outlived my master of the Tuscai,' he admitted with

a tightness in his throat. 'The misery of a grey warrior

cannot be described, for his life is outside society. I was a

young man, strong, and skilled in arms. And yet there were

moments when I very nearly did not survive. How would a

child or a woman fare, were they to be left houseless? I saw

the wives and children of my fellow warriors driven away

as slaves, forever to wear grey and answer to the needs of

a master who cared little for their comfort.' Lujan's voice

sank almost to a whisper. 'I see now that I was afraid that

someday those children would be mine, and my woman

become some other man's to use as he chose.'

Now Lujan looked his mistress squarely in the face. There

was an unnerving depth to his eyes, and a ring to his voice

as he added, 'How much simpler it was to admire you from

afar, Lady, and guard your life with my own, than to live

the possibility of the nightmare that even yet wakens me

sweating from my sleep.'

Mara reached out and touched his hands, then kneaded

them until they relaxed their furious grip. 'Neither you nor

any unborn child of yours will ever in this turn of the Wheel

go masterless,' she said softly. 'For I very much doubt that

either of us will escape this prison with our lives.'

592 Mistress of the Empire

Now Lujan did smile, a strange serenity to his bearing

that Mara had never seen. 'It has been my pride to serve

you, Lady Mara. But if we do live past tomorrow's dawn, I

ask a boon of you, that you command me to find a wife and

marry! For I think that with the magicians as your enemy,

such straits as these might easily be repeated, and if I am

to die in your service, I should prefer not to face the Death

God with the same regret in my spirit a second time!'

Mara regarded him with a smile of deep affection. 'Lujan,

knowing you as I do, I doubt I shall have to command you

to do what is clearly in your heart to do. But, we must win

past tomorrow's dawn.' Crossing her arms as if to ward off

cold, she said, 'We must sleep, brave Lujan. For tomorrow

will come.'

23

Contest

Sleep was impossible.

Since her strangely intimate exchange of confidences with

Lujan, Mara felt no urge to converse. The Acoma Force

Commander had shown no indication to sleep and settled

cross-legged on his mat. The cho-ja had confiscated his

armor along with his sword. Left the padded underrobe

designed to protect his skin from chafing, he looked both

undressed and vulnerable. Battle scars normally concealed

by his raiment were exposed, and although he was as

fastidious as any Tsurani officer, his last opportunity for

a bath had been in an icy river current while enduring

Thuril jibes. His clothing was greyed with dirt, and his

hair spiked up into whorls from long hours under his

helm. Muscled as he was, he seemed somehow diminished

without his trappings and officer's plumes.

Looking at him, Mara was forced to recognise his human

side, his maleness that would never know fatherhood, and

the incongruously tender comfort he had given with hands

better accustomed to the grip of a killing sword. As if his

coming fate held no consequence, he meditated peacefully,

his soldier's discipline forcing worries aside to husband

strength against demands of battle.

Mara, despite every training of the mind garnered in the

Temple of Lashima, was left without such solace. This time

her mind found ease in ritual; if she was not feeling regret for

loved ones who had been lost, she felt rage against an intolerant

fate that condemned her to failure in protecting those

still alive. Try as she might, her thoughts could not be forced

to subside toward anything approaching tranquillity.

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Mistress of the Empire

The ignominy of imprisonment without any way to

contact her captors left her galled. The magical chamber

effectively sealed the condemned away from all other living

beings. Sourly, Mara wondered whether even gods could

hear prayer in such a place. And with no windows, nor

even the sounds of outside activity, the minutes dragged.

Darkness itself would have carried a blessing of change,

but the cho-ja globe drifted always, its light stark and

constant.

The dawn would come, inevitably.

And yet for all the creeping agony of waiting, daybreak':

caught Mara unprepared. Her racing, trapped thoughts

still circled, repeatedly reviewing events and questioning

whether this action, or that word, or that decision differently

handled might have won them alliance and freedom.

Her futile pondering left her with a crushing headache.

With the flashing magical whirl of light that signaled the

dissolution of their prison, Mara felt tired, and depressed.

A double-file guard of cho-ja marched forward to take

custody of the condemned. Mara retained enough presence

of mind to rise and cross to where Lujan waited, awake and

already on his feet.

She took his dry hands into her own clammy ones. Then

she regarded his expressionless face and intoned the ritual

words, 'Warrior, you have served in highest honor. You

have leave from your mistress to claim what death you

choose. Fight well. Fight bravely. Go singing to the halls

of Turakamu.'

Lujan sank into a bow. His return courtesy seemed to

exhaust the patience of their captors, for cho-ja guards

advanced and hauled him to his feet. Mara also was

grasped and tugged away as a herder might drive a

needra calf to slaughter. She lost sight of Lujan as the

bodies of cho-ja warriors dosed around her. They allowed'

her no chance for protest, but set her on the march

through the maze of hallways that riddled the city of

Chakaha.

She raised her chin high, though pride seemed meaningless.

The cho-ja of these lands were not impressed by honor,

or courage, nor did they have any care for human dignity.

She presumed that very soon she would be greeting the

spirits of her ancestors; but not as she had always expected.

Here, now, the most glowing of her Tsurani attainments and

even her illustrious title of Servant of the Empire seemed

empty. Now she would have traded all for a last glimpse

of her children, or one tender embrace from her husband.

Kevin had been more right than ever she knew. Honor

was only a glorified word for emptiness, and no sane

replacement for the promise of continued life. Why had it

taken until now for her to fully understand what prompted

the opposition of the Assembly? And if help to break their

stagnating hold upon Tsuranuanni could not be found here,

and these Thuril cho-ja would make no alliance, where

would Hokanu seek for resources to end the tyranny the

magicians so jealously guarded? If there were answers, they

must remain a mystery.

The cho-ja guard were indifferent as beings of stone.

They moved briskly through the corridors, and across

two catwalks that sparkled like glass. Mara regarded

the clear sky, never so green and fresh before now. She

smelled the fragrance of rich earth and jungle greenery,

threaded through with the perfumes of tropical flowers;

and on the breeze she drew in the scent of ice carried

on the winds from the mountain peaks. She drank in

these pleasures of life, and also the beauty of Chakaha's

tracery of towers. She walked, bathed in colored arrows

of light caused by sunbeams that shone through the

towers, and her spirit shrank from the senseless end

to come, the giving up of all hope, and the end of all

dreams.

S96 Mistress of the Empire

Too soon, the cho-ja guard escorted her into the translucent

purple dome where the tribunal had judged her the

day before. Now there were no officials present, not even

scribes. The chamber was occupied by the spindly presence

of a single cho-ja mage. It stood in a domed alcove. Upon

the marble floor at its feet was a scarlet line that described

a perfect circle.

Mara recognised the figure's significance. Set to a diameter

of twelve paces, with a simple symbol scribed at east

and west, where two warriors would stand confronting each

other, she beheld the Circle of Death, traditionally drawn

within the Empire for time out of mind. Here would two

warriors battle until one lost his life in the ancient rite

of challenge that Lujan had chosen in place of honorless

execution.

Mara bit her lip to hide an unseemly apprehension. She

had once stood to witness a husband's ritual suicide with

less trepidation in her heart. For then she had regretted the

waste of a young man whose own family's neglect had left

him open for her exploitation. That indeed had been the

first moment when the Game of the Council had shown

itself to be less than a rigid code of honor and more a

license to indulge any excuse to exploit another human's

faults. Now honor itself seemed empty.

Mara beheld Lujan, standing between the cho-ja guards

on the opposite side of the room. She knew him well enough

to read his stance, and she saw, with a terrible pang, that

the human warrior who would take up his weapons to die

no longer subscribed to the beliefs he had been raised in.

He valued the esteem he might gain in the Red God's halls

far less than the lost chance to marry and rear children.

To Mara, Lujan's challenge to combat was a tragic

and meaningless gesture. The honor he might win for

his shade was like the fool's gold that Midkemian swindlers

foisted upon the unsuspecting merchant. And yet

the charade would be played through to its senseless

conclusion.

Lujan was both more and less than the grey warrior she

had rescued from masterless oblivion in the mountains.

Guilt for her own responsibility in that change closed

her throat. She had difficulty breathing, far less holding

herself expressionless and erect as a- noble Tsurani Lady

must in public.

The cho-ja mage waved a forelimb, and an attendant

scurried into view, bearing Lujan's confiscated weapons

and the plain, unmarked armor he had worn into Thuril.

Not without disrespect, it crouched and deposited the gear

at the warrior's feet.

'Our hive has no knowledge of the manner of usage of

these protections,' intoned the cho-ja mage, which Mara

interpreted as an apology that the worker could not offer

Lujan the courtesy of helping him arm.

On impulse, she stepped forward. 'I will assist my Force

Commander.'

Her words echoed across the dome. But unlike in a gathering

of humans, no cho-ja present turned its head,, Only the

mage twitched a forelimb to permit Mara to cross to Lujan's

side. She bent and selected one of his greaves from the floor,

then flashed a glance at his face. By the slight arch to his

brows, she saw he was surprised at her gesture, but also

secretly pleased. She gave him a surreptitious half-smile,

then bent to lace on the first of his accoutrements. She

did not speak. He would understand by her unprecedented

behavior how highly he was regarded by her.

And in truth, the handling of armor was not unknown

to her. She had girded on Hokanu's sword many times, and

before him, her first Lord Buntokapi's; and as a child, she

had played at adult behavior with her brother, Lanokota,

when he had carried his wooden practice sword to workouts

with Keyoke.

598 Mistress of the Empire

Lujan gave her a nod to indicate that she had the lacings

right - tight enough to bind, but not so much that they

would restrict his movement. She finished with the heavy,

laminate sword that had more than once stopped enemies

at her door. When the last buckle of the sword belt was

clasped, she arose and touched Lujan's hand in farewell.

'May the gods ride your blade,' she murmured, which was

the ritual phrase one warrior might say to another who

sallied forth, expecting to die.

Lujan touched her hair, and tucked a drifting strand

back behind her ear. The familiarity might have been

an impertinence, had Lujan not come to hold the place

of her dead brother in her heart. 'Lady, feel no sorrow.

Had I the choices of my youth to make over, I

would live them all again.' His mouth quirked with a

ghost of his old insolence. 'Well, maybe not quite all

There were the instances of an unwise wager or two,

and then the fat madam of that brothel whom I once

insulted . . .'

The cho-ja mage rapped a hind limb upon the paving

with a sound like the crack of a mallet. 'The time appointed

for the combat is at hand!' it intoned, and at no other

discernible signal, one of the cho-ja guard advanced to the

edge of the circle.

It waited there, its bladed forelimbs shining in the soft

light under the dome.

Lujan flashed Mara his most insouciant grin, then

sobered, his mien as taut as any time he had waited

poised for battle. Without a look back, or any sign of

regret, he walked to the circle and took his place on the

side opposite his cho-ja opponent.

Mara felt alone and vulnerable. Uneasily she noticed that

her cho-ja guard had closed the space she had crossed; they

now stood arrayed at her back, as if prepared to block her

retreat, or any other desperate move she might attempt.

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:

599

Her knees shook. It embarrassed her that even that small

weakness showed.

She was Acoma! She would not flee her fate, nor would

she demean Lujan by shirking her place at the circle's edge.

Still, when the cho-ja mage intoned the procedure, that at

its signal both Lujan and the cho-ja warrior appointed to

face him should cross within the line and commence the

contest, the Lady fought back an overpowering wish to

close her eyes, to shut from view the petty striving that

was all Lujan might claim for his epitaph.

Lujan gripped his sword. His hand was firm, and his sinews

did not quiver from apprehension. Nervousness seemed to

have fled him, and indeed, to Mara's eyes he seemed more

assured than before other forays in the past. This battle was

to be his last, and that knowledge eased him. Here, on the

edge of the circle of challenge, there were no unknowns to

worry over: the outcome of this fight would be the same

whether he fought well or not, whether he won or he lost.

He would not leave the circle alive. To wish events had been

otherwise was a waste of his strength, and a lessening of the

courage he had been born and raised to exhibit. According

to the creed of the Tsurani warrior, he had let no one down.

He had served his mistress well and fully; he had never

turned his back on any foe. By all that he had been taught

to believe, his death by the blade here was a fitting thing,

the culmination of honor that was more sacred to the gods

than life itself.

Quiet in his readiness, Lujan inspected his sword edge one

last time for flaws. There were none. He had drawn it for

nothing but sharpening since departure from Tsuranuanni.

Then all considerations were ended as the cho-ja mage

spoke out. 'Hear me, combatants. Once the line of the

circle is crossed, the ward of its making will activate. To

step over the line again, either from within, or if another

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Mistress of tbe Empire

should try to intervene from without, will bring death. The

terms of battle shall be according to Tsurani tradition: either

the condemned shall die in combat inside the circle, or if he

proves the victor, he shall be permitted to choose the hand of

his executioner. I, mage of the city-state of Chakaha, stand

as the witness that these proceedings require.'

Lujan gave the cho-ja mage a crisp salute. The cho-ja

warrior he was to fight gave no acquiescence at all beyond a

change in stance, from a position of rest to the angled crouch

that signaled its readiness to charge. Beads of reflected light

glanced off the knife-sharp edges of its forelimbs, and its

eyes sparkled inhumanly. If pity and regret were part of the

hive mind, such emotion was not reserved for the fighting

arm of its society. The cho-ja warrior held but one directive:

to do battle and to kill. In Tsurani conflicts, Lujan had seen

companies of the creatures turn a battlefield into a butchery,

for unless the weather was cold, the speed and reflexes of

a human warrior were inferior. At best, he judged by the

humid air that wafted through this chamber, he might get

in a few parries before his body was diced up. His passage

to Turakamu would be quick and almost painless.

His mouth tipped into a ghost of a crooked grin. If he

was lucky, he would be drinking hwaet beer with his old

friend Papewaio in Turakamu's halls before sundown.

'Cross the line and commence on my signal,' intoned the

cho-ja mage; and it stamped its hind limb against the floor

with a sound like the chime of a gong.

Lujan's levity faded. He sprang into the circle, barely

aware of the red flare of heat at his back that spelled the

activation of the death ward. The cho-ja warrior came on

with all of the speed he had anticipated, and he barely

completed three steps before his guarding blade clashed

into chitin. Against this foe his peril was doubled, for

cho-ja possessed two forearms with which to sally and

chop at him. He, with his longer blade, had the better

reach; and that humans were more naturally inclined to

two-legged stance meant he could sometimes snatch the

advantage of height as well.

But the Cho-ja was superbly armored. Only a lunge

with the point or the most hefty of two-handed chops

could wreak any damage through chitin. Their joints were

their sole point of vulnerability, yet too often their speed

precluded tactics. Lujan parried and parried again. His

footwork stayed light to deflect the cho-ja's double-sided

attack. He squinted, circled, and spun his blade in the

tight-knit forms proven over time to best defend against

a cho-ja opponent. Blade dashed with chitin as he tested:

the creatures usually had preferred sides. The right limb

might tend more to guard, while the left was cultivated

for attack. Sword and bladed forelimbs whirled in deadly

dance. Lujan became aware of a stickiness to his grip;

exertion had set him sweating. Inwardly he cursed. Once the

leather wrappings of his sword hilt became saturated, they

would loosen. His hold might slip, making his bladework

sloppy. And against a cho-ja adversary, even the slightest

change of angle must be fatal. The strength behind their

blows was such that a direct hit on the outer curve of a

laminate Tsurani sword could shatter its cutting edge.

Lujan beat back another attack, snapped straight as the

guard limb of the cho-ja effected a stroke that would have

severed him at the knees. His leap back saved him from

harm, but a burning sensation in his heel as he landed

warned how near to the edge of the ward circle his evasive

maneuver had carried him. He feinted, used a disengage

that Kevin the barbarian had taught him, and was nearly

fatally surprised when his stroke rasped across chitin and

snicked the edge of a leg joint.

The cho-ja warrior hissed and clattered back, its claws

stiffened with alarm.

And Lujan was nearly taken in the neck by its return

602 Mistress of the Empire

stroke, so unprepared for his small success that he had

dangerously overextended. He half turned on reflex and

caught a glancing slice in the shoulder that peeled through

armor and grazed enough flesh to sting cruelly. The parry

he barely brought up to deflect the guard limb jarred him

down to his sandals.

It took the spinning leap of an acrobat to escape from

being cornered. He ducked away from the milling whirl

of the cho-ja's attack, desperately aware of his peril. He

needed to catch his breath. The fight would give him no

chance. As his toughened hide blade crashed together with

chitin again, he used his bracer to deflect the guard blade,

while the attack blade whistled for his throat. He lunged,

trusting impetus to carry him inside the arc of the cho-ja's

main thrust. he hit its jointed forelimb on the unbladed

inside of the elbow and it folded, its sharpened side deflected

harmlessly against the back plate of his armor.

The blow still had force enough to wind him. Lujan

danced back a half-step, to bring his blade back in play,

while the cho-ja warrior huffed in astonishment. Lujan

followed with the classic riposte, and his curved sword

stabbed in at the juncture where a mid-limb joined its

thorax. The cho-ja scrabbled back, wounded. Its mid-leg

was no longer neatly folded, but dragged, limp at its

side. Caught in wonderment that his attack had gone

through, Lujan felt the dawn of revelation: these cho-ja

were unexperienced at fighting humans! They were well

enough schooled to combat the ancient forms of Tsurani

swordsmanship that they had faced in ages past. But the

shutdown of information across the borders must have

prohibited any experience with the innovations that had

followed the Tsurani treaty. The newest refinements of

bladework introduced by the wars with Midkemia, and

styled on their barbarian way of fencing, had never been

encountered by the hives outside the Empire. Chakaha's

Contest

603

warriors held to the old ways, and despite their superior

speed, despite their double-bladed style, a Tsurani human

held an advantage: his newer techniques were not predictable,

and Lujan had drilled against cho-ja warriors in

the past.

Thought during battle slowed the warrior; Lujan took

a cut to his calf and another to his forearm behind his

left-hand bracer. Despite his wounds, he realised that the

cho-ja was holding back. Perhaps it was the tiniest bit

hesitant because of Lujan's unorthodox attack patterns,

because either one of its blows could as easily have lopped

off a limb. Something had caused it not to follow through

with its full strength and capability.

Lujan paid special heed to his footwork, which was

paramount to the Midkemian style. He slapped the cho-ja's

next stroke aside as he might have dispatched a practice

stick, then tried another disengage. To his gratification,

the cho-ja retreated, proving his theory that it did not

understand Midkemian fencing tactics.

Lujan grinned in a wild, adrenaline-sharpened exultation.

He had crossed practice sticks with Kevin the barbarian

many times and, better than most of his peers, had

mastered the foreign technique. More suited though it

was to a straight sword than to the broader blade his own

culture favored, there were forms a Tsurani swordsman

could execute with good effect. The cho-ja was now

disadvantaged and uncertain, and for the first instant since

Lujan had claimed his right to challenge, he entertained the

hope of victory.

He feinted, lunged, and felt his next stroke connect.

Grinning wider, he saw a spurt of the milky liquid that

served the cho-ja as bodily fluid. His opponent dropped

briefly to its unwounded mid-limb as it counterattacked;

but four-legged posture was sure sign of a cho-ja prepared

to retreat. Lujan lunged for his opening, a clear stroke

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Mistress of the Empire

to his foe's neck segment. Never mind that its dying

follow-through would take him in the heart. His would

be the victory, his the first lethal strike. He would gain

the time-honored Tsurani reward of death in battle by an

enemy's blade.

Yet even as his trained body responded and on ingrained

reflex began the stroke that would end all contention, his

mind shied away.

What was such a death, if not futile?

Had he learned nothing in his years of service to Mara?

Would killing this cho-ja, against whom he had no quarrel,

achieve one single bit of good toward her goal?

It would not, he saw in a rush of cheated anger. Nothing

would be served, except to confirm Tsurani ways in the hive

mind of the cho-ja of Chakaha.

What is my life or my death worth? Lujan thought,

trapped in a split second between motion. To become the

victorious warrior, no, to kill his opponent out of hand,

would serve no living thing: not Mara, not this hive, and

not the captive nation of cho-ja within Tsurani borders.

Gods, he raged in a moment of lacerating inner anguish:

I cannot live by the warrior's code alone; and neither can

I die by it.

His hand followed the heresy of his thoughts. Lujan

pulled his stroke.

The move was awkwardly timed of necessity, and it cost

him. He gained another slash in the thigh, this one deep

enough to cripple.

Back he stumbled, hopping on his good leg. His cho-ja

opponent sensed his weakening resolve. It reared up. A

whirling forelimb sliced down from above, and Lujan

deflected the cut, barely. His forehead was laid open to

the bone, and as blood ran down his face and blinded his

eye, he was aware of Mara's stifled outcry.

He stumbled back. The cho-ja pursued. He felt hot

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605

pavement beneath his heel, and knew relief: he had

reached the outermost edge of the circle. If he crossed

over, he would die.

He would perish anyway, but perhaps not entirely for

nothing. His end could still make a point. Even as his

opponent scuttled to finish him, he parried furiously, and

cried out to the looming figure of the cho-ja mage who

stood yet in judgment over him.

'I did not come here to kill! You cho-ja of Chakaha are not

the enemies of my mistress, Lady Mara.' Chitin rang against

his blade as, desperate to be heard, he parried again. 'I will

not fight any longer against a being she would have for

a friend.' He parried again, lunged to drive his opponent

momentarily back, and in that half second of respite, threw

down his sword in disgust. On his good leg, he spun, turning

his back to the killing stroke.

Before him glowed the scarlet line of the circle. He was

grateful, in that arrested moment of time, that he had got

his positioning right: the cho-ja warrior could not cross in

front of him without violating the ward spell. If it killed,

it must use the coward's stroke, the murderer's cut, and

butcher him from behind.

He drew a shuddering breath, eyes raised to the cho-ja

mage. 'Strike my back, who would be your friend and ally,

and see your unjust execution done.'

Lujan heard the whistle of the air parted by the cho-ja

warrior's bladed forearm. He braced himself, prepared for

the bone-rending finish to its descent. The end was foregone

conclusion. At this point, a man with a sword could not curb

inertia and snatch back the stroke as it fell.

But the reflexes of a cho-ja were not human.

The blade stopped, soundless and motionless, a hairsbreadth

from Lujan's neck.

The cho-ja mage reared back, its sail-like wings upraised

as if in alarm. 'What is this?' it rang out in what plainly

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M,stress of the Emp~re

served as astonishment. 'You break the tradition of the

Tsurani. You are a warrior, and yet you give up your

honor?'

Shivering now in the aftermath of nerves and adrenaline,

Lujan managed a steady answer. 'What is tradition but

habit?' He shrugged stiffly, feeling the sting of his wounds.

'Habits can be changed. And as any Tsurani will confirm,

there is no honor in killing an ally.'

Blood dribbled into his left eye, obscuring his vision. He

could not see to tell whether Mara approved of his gesture.

A moment later, it did not matter, for the blood left his

head in a rush. His wounded leg gave way, and he fainted

and fell with a grinding crash of armor to the floor. The

red circle died in a fizzle of sparks, and the great domed

chamber hushed.

Lujan wakened to a sharp tingle of pain. He gasped, opened

his eyes, and saw the head of a cho-ja bent within inches of

his own. He lay on what felt like a couch. Pointy, claw-like

appendages gripped the wounds in his-forearm and thigh,

and by the prick of what felt like a needle, he realised he

was being sewn up by a cho-ja worker physician.

While the medicinal skills of the creatures were exemplary,

and they did neat, careful work, they had spent

little time in the art of practicing upon humans. Lujan

stifled a second grimace of discomfort, and judged that

their knowledge was decidedly lacking in the area of

anesthetics. Even on the field, he would have been given

spirits to dull his awareness of the pain.

So it was that he took a moment to notice the secondary,

more pleasant sensation of small, warm fingers gripping the

hand of his unwounded arm.

He turned his head. 'Mara?'

Her smile met him. She was close to weeping, he saw,

but with joy, not sorrow. 'What happened, Lady?'

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607

Belatedly, he realised they were no longer in the domed

chamber of judgment, nor restored to confinement, but

were installed in a beautifully appointed chamber high up

in a tower. A window behind Mara showed sky and clouds,

and left the Lady awash in bright sunlight. She squeezed his

hand in youthful excitement, though in truth this trial had

aged her. The grey shot through her dark hair had grown

more pronounced, and her eyes showed deep crow's-feet

from prolonged exposure to the weather. And yet never

before had her face seemed more beautiful; maturity had

given her depths and mysteries impossible to the trackless

face of youth.

'Lujan, you have won for the Acoma highest honor,'

she said quickly. 'By your act in the circle, you proved

to these cho-ja of Chakaha that Tsurani tradition is

not the all-consuming way of life they believed it to

be. For ages they have seen Tsurani demonstrate a lie.

They understood all I said, even knowing through their

magic that I believed in my convictions, but their own

past taught that such displays of peaceful ways were but

preludes to more violence and betrayal.'

She took a deep breath of relief. 'You have won us

reprieve, through your courage and innovation. Your

actions lived as one with my words and convinced them

that perhaps we are different from our ancestors. The

cho-ja mage in attendance was astonished by your act,

and was convinced to review the memory stone left to us

by Gittania. On it were records of my meeting with the hive

Queen on the old Acoma estates, and her entreaty made an

impression.'

'Our sentences are rescinded? We're to go free?' Lujan

gasped out, as he could when the cho-ja physician paused

in its labors.

'Better than that.' Mara's eyes glowed with pride. 'We

are to be given safe passage through Thuril to our ship,

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Mistress of the Empire

and with us when we return to Tsuranuanni will travel two

cho-ja mages. The city-state of Chakaha has decided it will

aid us, in the hope that the liberation of the Tsurani cho-ja

may be accomplished by the Emperor. I have pledged to

use my office to intercede; I am almost certain that once I

explain to Ichindar the truths we have learned, he cannot

say no.'

'Gods!' Lujan exclaimed. 'Everything we could have

asked for has been granted.' He was so excited he forgot

his hurts and attempted to move.

At this, the cho-ja physician said, 'Lady Mara, this

warrior's wounds are severe. Excite him not, for he must

rest for several weeks if his leg is to heal as it should.'

Black, faceted eyes swiveled toward Lujan. 'Or would the

estimable Force Commander prefer to limp?'

Lujan felt suddenly flooded with strength, and he laughed.

'I can be patient while my body repairs itself. But not so

patient that I can stay in bed for weeks on end!'

He rolled his head on the pillow, warmed afresh by

Mara's smile. 'Rest you easy,' his mistress commanded.

'Never mind the delay. Word will be sent back to Hokanu

by way of the Thuril settlements, and from thence, with

the traders overseas. For we have time now, Lujan. And

while your wounds are knitting, I shall prevail upon our

host hive to show us wonders.'

24

Homecoming

The barge left the shore.

Mara leaned on the rail and drew a deep breath of the

warm breeze. The familiar smell of dank earth, fresh lake

water, wet planking, and the slight taint of sweat from the

slaves who manned the oars made her shiver. Home! In

scarcely another hour, she would reach the estates. She

savored the heat of the sun on her flesh.

This was the first glimpse of sky and daylight she had had

since a stealthy night debarkation from Coalteca, and weeks

of underground travel across the Empire by cho-ja tunnels.

For the cho-ja mages had confirmed what heretofore had

been her surmise: that the Assembly of Magicians could

not spy through the dark earth. What transpired in the

cho-ja tunnels lay beyond their ability to scry, a difficult

concession at the time of the treaty. And so her band of

picked warriors, her servant Kamlio, and the two Chakaha

cho-ja had thus proceeded to reenter the Empire in secret.

This they had accomplished with neither permission nor

help from the local cho-ja who dwelt there, lest harboring

the Chakaha mages in any fashion void the terms of the

treaty. The mages' presence was shunned with scrupulous

precision, so that none of the Empire cho-ja could claim to

have seen them pass or to have known of their existence.

Mara's request that all cho-ja vacate the tunnels before

her until after she had passed had been accepted without

question by the Tsurani cho-ja Queens. They might suspect,

but they could answer truthfully they had no knowledge of

what Mara attempted.

As a result of near-total isolation, Mara felt distressingly

uninformed. Only a few scraps of news were given her by

those cho-ja workers she encountered while waiting for the

answer from the local Queen that she might pass through

the hives unobserved; the only important information was

that a Great One yet maintained surveillance over the

entrance of the Red God's temple in Sulan-Qu, waiting

for her to break her seclusion.

That might have been amusing, had it not revealed her

danger. Even after the passage of months, that any member

of the Assembly, however minor, still should deem such a

watch to be necessary meant her next few actions must

be well plotted and executed without flaw; she felt in her

bones that only her unique rank was keeping her alive, for

certainly some members of the Assembly must be at the

end of their patience.

Mara had dared not pause to establish contact with

Arakasi's network of agents along the way. The pace

she had set to reach the Empire's heartland had been

relentless. As she had not cared to risk her own exposure,

or to compromise the hives that gave her shelter, she had

no way to determine how Jiro might have spent the months

of her absence. She did not even know if her husband

had successfully dealt with his dissident cousins and den

rivals who had ambition to upset his inheritance. Mara

had learned only moments before from workers on the

docks that Hokanu had returned to their lakeside estates,

and that the Lady Isashani had teasingly tried to pair him

off with a concubine who had in some way failed to please

one of her dead husband's many bastards. Hokanu had

sent a charming refusal. Although in such social gossip

Mara could find no implication of threat, she asked

out of caution for the foreign mages to stay closeted

within an unused chamber in the hive nearest to the

estate. With them she left two warriors to attend their

needs, and these bound strictly to secrecy. They would

emerge to forage only at night, and would not divulge

their duties to any of the Acoma patrols or local cho-ja.

Mara gave the soldiers a paper affixed with her personal

chop as Servant of the Empire, instructing anyone that the

two soldiers should be permitted to go their way without

question. Such precaution would give no protection from

her adversaries, but it would prevent friends or allies from

blundering into her secret.

Mara leaned into the breeze and faintly smiled. She

had much to tell Hokanu! The wonders she had seen

during Lujan's convalescence in Chakaha defied rational

description, from the exotic flowers the cho-ja workers

cultivated that bloomed in combinations of colors not seen

anywhere else, to the rare liquors distilled from red-bee

honey and other elixirs that they traded with their eastern

human neighbors. Within her baggage she had brought

medicines, some made of molds, others extracted from

seeds or rare mineral springs, that her healers would call

miraculous in their curative properties. She had watched

the heated forging done in the glass works where they

created everything from vases to cutlery to building stone

that shone in clear colors like gems.

She had watched apprentice mages master their first

spells, and seen the fine scrollwork of patterns appear

on their unmarked carapaces. She had watched the most

ancient of the mages, who was lined in a maze of colors, at

his work. He had shown her visions of the far past, and one,

misty with a haze of unresolved probability, that showed

the future as yet unformed. It had looked much like dyes

awash in a fishbowl, but sparkling with flecks like golden

metal. 'If that is my future,' Mara had said laughingly, 'I

shall perhaps die a very wealthy woman.'

The cho-ja mage had said nothing in return, but for a

moment his shiny azure eyes had looked sad.

Mara could not contain her high spirits. She watched

a flock of marsh birds take flight over the reed beds,

and remembered the models that had flown like birds in

Chakaha, and other living, untamed birds beguiled to sing

in counterpoint. She had seen animals grow fur in colors

as brilliant as exotic silk. Cho-ja magic held ways for stone

to be spun into fibers and woven, and ways for water to be

fashioned into braided cable that flowed uphill. Between

times she had been feasted with exotic foods and dishes

seasoned with spices that were as intoxicating as wine.

There existed enough trade possibilities in Chakaha to

tempt Jican to commit sacrilege, and with excitement akin

to any schoolgirl's, Mara longed for her perilous quandary

with the Assembly to be resolved, so that she could resume

more peaceful pursuits. Her problems were not ended, yet

in her high spirits she could not help but feel that things

must work out in her favor.

That mood of frivolous excitement had over-ruled Saric's

more sober advice to remain in the cho-ja tunnels until dose

to her estate house. Mara was so homesick for the sights

and smells of Tsuranuanni that she brought her company

aboveground near the lakeshore, and then commandeered a

barge from her own Acoma tradesmen to finish her journey

by water.

A shadow fell over her. Musing cut short, Mara looked

up. Lujan had crossed the deck and paused at her side.

His inspection of her honor guard was complete, and

if the armor they wore was unmarked in house colors,

their lacquer accoutrements sparkled. Lujan had deduced

his helm with officer's plumes of Acoma green. He moved

yet with a limp, but his wound had healed cleanly under

the ministrations of the cho-ja physicians. In time, he would

recover fully. At present, his eyes glinted with mischief, and

by that Mara knew his excitement equaled her own.

'Lady,' he greeted with a salute. 'Your men are ready for

their homecoming.' The corners of his mouth bent wryly

upward. 'Do you suppose we'll give the dock sentries a

fright? We've been gone for so long, they might see our

colorless armor and think us all spirits returned from

the dead.'

Mara laughed. 'In a way we are.' A second figure

approached and paused on her other side. Sunlight glowed

on a mantle of cho-ja silk, patterned by the Chakaha mages

with an intricacy that might be the envy of any of the

Emperor's wives. Mara saw a fall of gold hair beneath the

hood, and her heart warmed. 'Kamlio,' she greeted. 'You

look extraordinarily pretty.'

In fact, this was the first time Mara or any of the warriors

who had ventured off into Thuril territory had seen the girl

dress other than plainly.

Kamlio lowered her eyelashes in shy silence. But the

building embarrassment caused by Lujan's stare of admiration

a moment later gave rise to her reluctant explanation.

'After our experiences with the Thuril, I reamed to trust my

Lady's word - that I will not be married off or given to any

man I do not choose.' She gave a self-conscious shrug that

set the colored fringes on her garment flying free in the

wind. 'There is no need, here on your estate, to hide in

tattered clothes.' She sniffed, perhaps with disdain, perhaps

with relief. Lujan received a flickering glance that hinted at

temper. 'Our men do not steal their wives by raiding, and if

the Spy Master Arakasi chances to be at the docks, I would

not wish him to think me ungrateful for the raised station

bestowed upon me.'

'Oho!' Lujan laughed. 'You have come far, little flower,

that you speak his name without spitting!'

Kamlio tossed back her hood and gave the Force Commander

a sultry pout that might have been prelude to a

slap. At least Lujan thought it might, for he raised his hand

in mock fear to ward off the result of womanly fury.

But Mara interceded, stepping between her officer and

the former courtesan. 'Behave, you two. Or else the dock

sentries will not mistake you for ghosts, but for miscreants

fit to be sent off for punishment. Doubtless there are enough

dirty latrines in the barracks to keep you both cleaning for

a week.

When Lujan gave no insolent reply to this threat, Mara

raised her eyebrows and looked to see what was amiss. She

found his levity banished, and his expression as stern as any

he might wear in the moment before charging into battle,

as his eyes turned to the distant shoreline. 'Lady,' he said

in a tone grim as granite, 'something is wrong.'

Mara followed his gaze, her heartbeat accelerated by

sudden fear. Across a narrowing strip of water lay the

landing, and the stone walls and peaked cornices of the

estate house. at first glance, all seemed tranquil. A trader

barge much like the one her party rode upon lay warped

to the bollards. Bales and boxes lay piled on the dock

from the offloading, presided over by a tally clerk and two

stalwart male slaves. Recruits in half-armor were dashing

from the practice field, as if they had just finished sparring.

Smoke rose in a spiral from the kitchen chimneys, and

a gardener raked fallen leaves off a walkway between

courtyard gardens. 'What?' Mara asked impatiently, but

the answer became obvious as the sun caught and flashed

on a sparkle of gold. The anomaly drew her eye, and she

saw the imperial runner who raced away down the lane

leading from the great house.

Mara's unease crystallised into dread, for such messengers

rarely brought good news. No longer did the sweetness

of the breeze offer comfort, or the beauty of the green

hillsides lift the heart.

'Bargeman!' she cracked out. 'Get us to shore with all

speed!'

A string of orders answered her command, and the rowers

bent over their looms in double time. The clumsy trader

barge bored ahead, spray flying in sheets from its blunt

bow. Mara restrained an urge to pace in rank impatience.

She was paying for her brash impulse now. Had she

listened to Saric's more prudent suggestion and continued

underground to the hive entrance nearest to the estate, she

might already be getting information from a runner sent

to meet her. Now she was powerless to do other than

watch and wait, while every possible scenario of disaster

played through her imagination. Kamlio looked terrified,

and Lujan sweated in feverish anticipation, lest the troops

he should rightly be commanding be called to the field

without his knowing why. He might be wielding his sword

all too soon, Mara thought. Judging by the furious activity

on the docks, it was plain that no time could be spared to

allow his scars the restful recovery they required.

Already drums boomed from the estate house, the heavy,

deep-noted ones that signaled a marshaling of the garrison.

'It will be war,' Lujan surmised, an edge to his words.

'The rhythm is short, patterned in threes. That code

spells a call for total mobilisation, and Irrilandi would

never stir his old shanks so fast for less than serious

trouble.'

'Keyoke must have shared in that decision,' Mare thought

aloud. 'Even before he was appointed Adviser for War, he

was not an officer to take extreme measures without reason.

If Jiro's hands are presumably still tied by the Assembly,

what could have happened? Is it possible some hothead has

called upon Clan Honor, or worse, that House Shinzawai

might be under attack?'

Lujan stroked his sword grip, as miserable with taut

nerves as she. 'We cannot know, Lady, but I cannot shake

off the hunch that what we see is the beginning of something

worse.'

Mara turned her back to the rail. She found her adviser

Saric looking on, and at her tight-lipped silence, he offered,

'Should I shake up the barge master to force more speed

from the rowers?'

Her face as pitiless as fine marble, the Lady of the Acoma

nodded. 'Do so.'

The barge was commodiously built to carry cargo, and

its lines took unkindly to speed. The increase as the oar

slaves applied themselves to ememity was negligible; the

bows seemed only to carve up more spray, and the roil of

the oar strokes raise deeper eddies. Mara saw the bodies

of the rowers run with sweat before many minutes had

passed. Activities on the docks at the landing intensified,

even as she steeled herself to look.

The bales and boxes that only minutes before lay spread

out for tallying were now trodden by a massing wedge of

warriors. The trader barge had been cut loose half-unladen,

and the tall' keeper set on board in frantic arm-waving

dismay. He sprang shouting into the stern as a shove

from a plumed officer carried his craft from the dock.~

Two brawny stevedore slaves were all he had left to man

the craft to safe anchorage, and his cries of outrage flew - i

across the water like the yips of fisher birds, soon lost in

the boom of the drums. Like the massing warriors, Mara

had little concern for the fate of the clerk and the barge.

The length of the shoreside warehouses, great double doors

had opened along the waterline, revealing the wooden rails

of the launching ways for the craft stored in the dry sheds. 4:

Slaves swarmed in the shadows inside. Out of the dimness

deployed the Acoma war boats, long double-hulled craft

steadied with outriggers, and planked across their lean

length with archer platforms. More slaves rowed these

toward the landing, where company after company of

bowmen boarded. As each boat was filled, it pushed off

into the lake, with the outriggers lowered, like a water

bird's great wings dipping to touch the water. Before the

outriggers were fully lashed into place, archers had taken

position along the narrow firing platform along the top of

each pontoon.

Lujan ticked numbers off on his fingers. After counting

a dozen boats, and noting the banners that flew at the prow

and stern of each, he knew which companies had been called

to action. His conclusion was chilling. 'This is a complete

defensive deployment, mistress. An attack must be in the

offing.'

Mara's apprehension burned away in a surge of fierce

anger. She had not crossed the sea and treated with

barbarians and nearly lost her life in Chakaha to see

all fall to ruin upon her return. She had sent Hokanu

word that she was on her way back to the Empire; but

detailed communication was too dangerous, an invitation

to enemies to set an ambush should it fall into wrong hands.

And when the need of secrecy was past, for her own selfish

pleasure she had held out at the moment of reunion in the

hope of giving her loved ones a joyful surprise. But there

would be no celebration upon her return. Setting aside

both her anticipation and disappointment, she hardened

her manner and turned to Saric. 'Break out the Acoma

standard and let my personal pendant fly beneath. It is

time to make our presence known. Let us pray there is

one sentry not racing to put on war armor who can carry

word of our arrival to Hokanu that his Lady is back on

Acoma soil!'

The honor guard on the trader barge's decks raised cheers

at her brave words, and directly the green banner with its

shatra bird symbol was run up the pole at the stern. No

sooner did it unfurl upon the breeze than an answering cry

arose from the shore. One of the tiny figures on the dockside

pointed, and there followed a great shout from the army

gathered and engaged in boarding. The noise settled into a

chant, and Mara heard her name called over and over, along

with the title bestowed upon her by the Emperor, Servant of

the Empire! Servant of the Empire! Her concern nearly gave

way to tears, that her people could raise such a commotion

of affection at her return, with dire trouble afoot.

The barge master shouted himself hoarse with frantic

orders, and slowly his craft was poled into the gap that

opened in haste at the jammed dockside to receive Mara's

landing. A figure in scarred blue armor hurried out from

the press. Beneath the crested helm that denoted the

Lord of Shinzawai, the Lady saw Hokanu's face, concern

and gladness struggling to burst through proper Tsurani

reserve.

That her husband wore his scarred, sun-faded battle

armor, and not the decorative ceremonial gear reserved

for state occasions, was sign enough that bloodshed was

imminent, for Lords did not march with their troops for

any but a major engagement. Yet after close to a half year of

absence, and the months and agonies of misunderstanding,

Mara paid that detail little heed. She could not pause for

formal greeting, but ran forward the instant the gangplank

spanned the gap from rail to dock. She rushed like a girl

ahead of her officers and threw herself headlong into her

husband's arms.

As if she had performed no breach in proper manners,

Hokanu gathered her dose. 'Gods bless your return,' he

whispered into her hair.

'Hokanu,'Mara replied, her cheek pressed to the unyielding

curve of his breastplate, 'how I have missed you!' And

then the worries of the moment marred their reunion, killing

their fleeting surge of joy as she recalled the absence of

her little ones. 'Husband! What passes? Where are the

children?'

Hokanu set her back at arm's length, his dark, worried

eyes seeming to drink in the sight of her face. She was so thin

and sunburned and vital! His longing to ask the most simple

question after her health was painful to read on his face. But

the smothered panic behind her question demanded answer.

Urgency warred with Hokanu's native tact, and in the end

he settled for bluntness. 'Justin and Kasuma are safe as yet.

They are still in the Imperial Palace, but ill news has come.'

He took a quick breath, as much to brace himself as to allow

her a moment to prepare. 'My love, the Light of Heaven has

been murdered.'

Mara rocked back as if physically pushed off balance,

but Hokanu's fast grip prevented her from falling backward

into the lake. Shock drained the blood from her face. Of

all the calamities she had imagined might happen in her

absence, and after all of the perils she had escaped to bring

back the Chakaha mages, the death of the Emperor was the

last event she could have anticipated. From somewhere she

summoned enough presence of mind to ask, 'How?'

Hokanu gave an unhappy shake of his head. 'The news

just came. Apparently an Omechan cousin attended a

small imperial dinner yesterday. His name was Lojawa,

and before thirty witnesses, he stabbed Ichindar in the

neck with a poisoned table knife. The vial of poison

must have been hidden in the hem of his robes. A healing

priest was brought within minutes, but help came too late.'

Quietly, almost kindly, Hokanu finished, 'The poison was

very fast.'

Mara shivered, stunned. This atrocity seemed impossible!

That the slender, dignified man who had sat on the golden

throne, hag-ridden with worries, and driven nearly to

distraction by the quarreling of his many wives, should

never again hold audience in his grand hall! Mara mourned.

No more-would she offer counsel in the lamplit privacy of

his apartments, or enjoy the man's gentle and dry wit. He

had been a serious man, deeply concerned for his people,

and often careless of his health under the crushing burdens

of rulership. Mara's delight had been to try to make him

laugh, and sometimes the gods had allowed her some

success, giving his sense of humor free reign. Ichindar had

never been the figurehead for her that he had been for the

multitudes he had ruled. For all of his grand state, and all of

the pomp that his office demanded - that he should always

seem the image of god on earth to the Nations - he had

been a friend. His loss was overwhelming and the world

was poorer. Had he not seized courage and opportunity

and sacrificed his own happiness for the burden of absolute

rule, none of the dreams that Mara had journeyed to Thuril

to save would ever have grown beyond idle fantasy.

The Lady of the Acoma felt old, too shaken to look

beyond the horizons of personal loss. And yet the bite of

Hokanu's fingers on her shoulders reminded her that she

must. This tragedy would bring terrible repercussions, and

if their combined household of Acoma and Shinzawai were

not to sink in the backlash, she had to renew her grasp on

current politics.

She fixed first on the name Hokanu had mentioned, that

of a total stranger. 'Lojawa?' Dismay cracked her Tsurani

facade. 'I don't know him. You say he is Omechan?' In

desperation, she appealed to her husband, whose advisers

were versed in recent events, and presumably had offered

some theories. 'What possible motivation could have driven

an Omechan to such an act? Of all the great families that

might vie to restore the Warlord's office, the Omekan stand

the furthest from claiming the power of the white and gold.

Six other houses would see their own candidate enthroned

before the Omechan . . .'

'The news just came,' Hokanu repeated, at a loss himself.

He gestured to a waiting Strike Leader to continue directing

troops into the boats. Over the stamp of hobnailed battle

sandals across the dock, he added, 'Incomo hasn't had time

to make sense of the details yet.'

'No, not a Warlord's office,' Saric broke in, too fired by

a sudden insight to observe proper protocol.

Mara's eyes swung and locked with his, but she whispered, '

No. You are right. Not a Warlord's office.' Her

face went from pale to deathly white. 'The golden throne

itself is now the prize!'

The stooped, grey-haired figure who elbowed his way

through the press to Hokanu's side overheard. Incomo

looked rumpled, red-eyed; and more shriveled with age

than Mara recalled. The cares of the moment made him

querulously shrill. 'But there is no imperial son.'

Saric spoke fast in correction. 'Whoever takes the hand

of Ichindar's eldest daughter, Jehilia, becomes the ninety-second

Emperor of Tsuranuanni! A girl barely twelve years

old is now heir to the throne. Any of a hundred royal

cousins who might bring a war host to storm the walls

of the Imperial Palace could try to claim her in marriage.'

'Jiro!' Mara cried. 'This stroke is brilliant! Why else

should he be studying and building siege engines in secret

all these years! This is the plot he must have been working

on all along.' It meant that her children were not just unsafe,

but in jeopardy of their lives, for if the Anasati were to

break into the Imperial Palace with their armies, any child

with both enemies and a tie to the imperial line would be

at risk.

Interpreting her appalled silence, Saric burst out, 'Gods,

Justin!'

Mara choked back panic at her adviser's cruel understanding.

Even her highest honor now worked against her:

as Servant of the Empire, she had been formally adopted

into Ichindar's family. By law and tradition, her boy was

legitimately of the blood royal. Not only were her issue

subject to royal privilege, but Justin could arguably be a

claimant to the throne as a royal nephew, and Ichindar's

closest male relation.

Jiro would delight in arranging the demise of Justin and

Kasuma as a normal action in his feud with the Acoma, but

c7  _   ~

622 Mistress of tI7e Empire

with the throne as a goal, he would be doubly implacable

in seeing Justin dead. Nor would any other candidate for

Jehilia's hand be inclined toward mercy where a rival

heir might be concerned. Justin was but a boy, and fatal

'accidents' could easily happen in time of war.

Mara reined back a terrible urge to shriek curses at the

gods for this ugliest twist of fate. She had the Assembly to

contend with all along, but counted on its edict to hold

Jiro at bay until they were neutralised; but this tragic

assassination had placed the lives of her children once

again in the moil of politics - and had set them down at

the heart of the conflict!

Hokanu's eyes betrayed his realisation of the peril, and a

half-stunned Incomo voiced their worst fears aloud: 'Both

Acoma and Shinzawai could be rendered heirless at one

stroke.'

Awakened to remembrance that such momentous matters

must not be discussed among troops on the docks, Mara

responded to Hokanu's urging and made her way through

the surging ranks of warriors toward the great house. In a

flat tone of foreboding, she said, 'I see you have mobilised

our home garrison already. For the sake of our children,

we must also send runners to our allies and vassals and

command them to make ready for war.'

Hokanu steered her across the threshold with hands that

by some miracle did not tremble. He did not pause to object

that such a call to arms must certainly draw reaction from

the Assembly, but in a stony voice said, 'Incomo, see to

this. Send our fastest messengers, and ones who are loyal

enough to give their lives in this service.' To Mara he added,

'In your absence, I have set up relays of messengers to pass

between here and the Shinzawai estates. Arakasi helped,

though he did not approve of the project. It was done in

haste, and requires much manpower, but precaution was

needed to see our dispatches through without delays. My

Homecoming

623

cousin Devacai has caused difficulties enough that he might

as well be acting as one of Jiro's allies.'

As Incomo hurried off, his spindly legs pumping beneath

the flapping hem of his adviser's robe, Mara waved for

Lujan and Saric to stay and give counsel. Spotting Kamlio

looking lost as she trailed in their wake, Mara indicated

that the girl should follow. also.

Then her mind returned to the trouble at hand as Hokanu

added, 'Our supporters will be brought to the field in swift

order. For a while we may be able to hide some of our troops

under the banners of our allies, but that won't suffice for

long. Gods smile on our cause, and send chaos and dust

to confuse the eyes of the Great Ones! It will be a relief

to see an end to this inactivity at last!' His eyes narrowed.

'The Anasati have too long avoided Shinzawai revenge for

ordering my father's assassination.' Then, he paused, and

spun Mara into the longer embrace he had withheld in

the public view of the docks. 'My dear, what a terrible

homecoming. You left on your journey to Thuril to avert

the ugliness of war, and now you return to find the Game

of the Council causing bloodshed once again.' He gazed

down at her face and waited, tactfully not inquiring about

the success of her mission. ~

Mara caught the drift of his unspoken questions, among

them a wonderment that she no longer seemed to hold his

mishandling of Kasuma's birth against him. Her near-brush

with death had reordered her priorities. As if all the world

had not thrust pending disaster upon their combined house,

she murmured answer to the matter that lay closest to her

heart. 'I have been told of a certain fact you should have

revealed to me, and at once.' Her lips curved in a sad little

smile. 'I know I can have no more children. Let that not

be an impediment to your begetting the son you desire.'

Hokanu's brows arose in protest, first, that she seemed

to receive such news with equanimity, and second, because

624 Mistress of the Empire

the greater significance of her journey had been ignored by

her. But before he could speak, Mara added, 'Husband, I

have been shown wonders. But we must speak of them later

and in private.' She stroked his cheek, and kissed him, and

then, still loving the sight of him, she demanded without

averting her eyes, 'Has Arakasi sent any messages?'

'A dozen since you have left, but nothing since yesterday.

Not yet, anyway.' Hokanu's hands firmed around her waist,

as if he feared she might draw away as the exigencies of

Ruling Lady stole her attention.

To Saric, Mara commanded, 'Send word through the network

that I want Arakasi back here as soon as possible.'

Mara turned to see Kamlio standing with a look both

fearful and determined. Whatever she had said to Mara in

the distant mountains of Thuril about dealing with the Spy

Master now vanished with the realisation that he would

soon be here. The former courtesan saw Mara's eyes upon

her, and she threw herself prone on the floor in the lowliest

obeisance of a slave. 'Lady, I will not displease you.'

'Then do not distress Arakasi at this time,' the Lady

replied. 'For all of our lives may come to depend upon

him. Rise.' Kamlio obeyed and Mara said more kindly,

'Go and refresh yourself Gods know, we have endured a

harsh journey, and there will be little enough time to rest in

the days to comet' As the girl crept away, Mara said briskly

to Lujan, 'Help Irrilandi finish deploying our warriors, and

when they are away to their mustering point-' Here she

paused and asked of her husband, 'Which mustering point

did you designate?'

Hokanu gave her a half-smile in which anxiety outweighed

amusement. 'We gather on the riverbanks at the

edge of the estate, on the assumption that Jiro will float his

main army down the Gagajin. The Assembly cannot fault

us for defying any edict if we maneuver within our own

borders. Under clan colors, Shinzawai forces will march

Homecoming

625

toward Kentosani from the north, and a mixed garrison of

Tuscalora and Acoma forces split off from your estate near

Sulan-Qu will march by road to intercept any companies

of traditionalist allies, or Anasati troops that take the slow

route overland.'

Mara speculated, 'Jiro would have prepared for this

day.'

Lujan expanded her thought. 'The siege engines? Do

you think he has them hidden in the forests south of the

Holy City?'

'South or north,' said Hokanu. 'Arakasi reports that the

location of the Anasati engineers is a closely kept secret.

Several of the messages he sent in your absence mention

their being dismantled and shipped via circuitous routes

to points unknown. He also wrote that the saboteurs we

sent in with the toy maker's plans have reported back only

once. By the code, we can assume all is well, and that they

are in place with the siege engines. But their location has

been effectively guarded.'

'I would have hidden troops away also, were I in

Jiro's place,' Mara mused, then finished her last orders

to Lujan before dismissal. 'I want conference with you

and Irrilandi before the last boat leaves the docks. We do

not know any of Jiro's plan of deployment?' She read the

negative on Hokanu's face, and knew that they shared the

same thoughts that Arakasi's fears might be realised and

that Chumaka's spy network had evolved to surpass the

Acoma's. How else could such massive engines be moved

without observation? Mara went on, 'We can only guess,

and design our campaign to match all contingencies.'

While the Acoma Force Commander saluted and hurried

out, Hokanu looked upon his wife in fond exasperation.

'My brave commander of armies, do you think we have

been idle during your absence?' And he drew her through

the archway into the scriptorium, where cushions were

626 Mistress of the Empire

clustered for a council meeting, and a sand table now

replaced the copy desks. There, shaped of clay, was a

replica of Szetac Province, complete with-the arrays of

pins and markers that a tactician would use to represent

companies of warriors in the field.

Mara glanced over it. Her body took on a rigid set, and

her face became stamped with purpose. 'What I see is a

defensive deployment.'

Her gaze traveled from the sand table and lingered on

Saric, her last adviser still present. She ended with an

entreaty directed toward her husband. 'What we sought

to prevent, an all-powerful Warlord, has brought us to

a worse pass: there is no High Council to ratify the

girl Jehilia's blood right of ascension to the throne as

Empress. Unless the Assembly itself intervenes, Justin is

caught between the jaws of a coup as a legal claimant;

as such, he is a dead puppet, or a sharp weapon that

any dissident contingent can use as an excuse to rip this

land asunder in civil war. Bereft of the council, we cannot

appoint a regent to bind the government to stability until the

rational solution of marriage can reinstate a new Emperor

of the line. Even if we had enough loyal supporters in the

Imperial Precinct to seize control and reconvene the council,

we would have deadlock and bickering and murder to make

the Night of the Bloody Swords look like a practice match

between companies of green recruits. The violence would

continue until one house emerged strong enough to force

support to favor his cause.'

Saric looked grim. 'Which cause, mistress? After Ichindar's

boldness in seizing absolute rule, what Lord's ambition

would be sated with the restoration of the Warlord's

title?'

'You do see.' Mara's words were crisp. 'A ratification

will not happen. Even with all of our backing, can you

imagine a girl of twelve ruling? With Ichindar's pampered

Homecoming

627

First Wife as regent? If Lord Kamatsu were still alive

as Imperial Chancellor, perhaps, with our resolve, we

might see a woman where now there is a girl. But if

I read your comments aright, Hokanu, Kanazawai Clan

support has fragmented under pressure from your rivals

and discontented cousins. You hold the office, but not

yet the unified den that your father had forged. Possibly

Hoppara of the Xacatecas would stand forth as our ally,

but Frasai of the Tonmargu is still Imperial Overlord. Feeble

old man that he is, he still commands Hoppara's office, and

as clan brother to Jiro, if chaos breaks loose I doubt he can

hold out for a stalwart and independent course. No, a new

council could not stem the bloodshed now. Instead, the first

Lord who can take control of the palace will force the priests

to place Jehilia upon the throne, then take her to wife and

see himself anointed Emperor.'

Saric concluded, as always, with another question. 'You

believe that Jiro was behind the Omechan assassination of

the Emperor?'

But his words went unheard. Hokanu was staring into

the deep eyes of his wife in something close to outright

horror. He said very quietly, his voice edged with menace,

or a note of great pain, 'You are not thinking of defences,

Lady. You will not be calling out our troops to join with

the Imperial Whites against the storm that must soon beset

Kentosani?'

'No,' Mare admitted into an icy quiet. 'I will not. If I get

to the Holy City first, I mean to attack.'

'Justin ?' Saric's voice held a high note of awe. 'You would

set your son on the throne as Jehilia's husband?'

Mara spun around fast as a cornered beast. 'And why

not?' Her whole body quivered with stressed nerves. 'He is

a lawful contender for the divine office of Emperor.' Then,

into the shocked stillness that followed, she cried out in

heart-wrung appeal, 'Don't you see? Don't any of you see

628 Mistress of tl~e Empire

at all? He's just a little boy, and it's the only possible way j

to save his life!'

Saric's mind had always been nimble. He was the first

to sort the ramifications, and see past Mara's wounding

fear. To a stiff-faced Hokanu, he added with no trace of

his customary tact, 'She's right. Justin alive would pose a Z

threat to any outside faction who took the girl and forced

wedlock. No matter how strong the self-styled Emperor's

army, he would draw his enemies to the throne with him. No

point of law would be overlooked, and Mara's popularity as

Servant must force recognition of Justin's adoptive blood

tie. Dissidents would seize upon Justin's cause as a rallying

cry, whether we willed it or no. Others might be willing to

kill us all to win the opportunity to put the boy on the

throne as their puppet.'

'Civil war Mara sighed, sounding wrung to her very

core. 'If Jiro or any other Lord gains the crown, we would

have no Emperor, no revered Light of Heaven, but only a

more glorified Warlord. It would be a merging of the worst

of both offices, when we would hope to wed the best.'

Hokanu moved suddenly. He caught her shoulders,

turned her face into his chest in time to conceal her

dissolution into tears, then stroked her in sad gentleness.

'Lady, never fear to lose my support. Never fear that.'

Muffled into his warmth, Mara said, 'Then you don't

disapprove?'

Hokanu smoothed back the hair torn loose from her

headdress in the fever of their earlier embrace. His face

looked suddenly lined with care and no small foreboding.

'I cannot pretend to love the idea, Lady of my heart. But

you are right. Justin will make a wise ruler, once he reaches

maturity. And until then, as his guardians, we can continue

to reject the atrocities of the Game of the Council and

enforce a new stability in the Nations. The people must

all bow before his and Jehilia's combined claim, and the

gods know, the unfortunate girl deserves a mate close to her

own age and inclinations. She would indeed be miserable

as a puppet, wed to a man viciously driven by ambition,

as Jiro is.'

Then, as if sensing that Ayaki's loss lay very near to the

surface of his wife's thoughts, and that with this chilling

threat to Justin her need for solace at this moment must

outweigh all other matters, Hokanu lifted his Lady bodily

in his arms. He cradled her tenderly against the breastplate

of armor and bore her out of the scriptorium. As he turned

down the corridor in the direction of their bedchamber, he

called to Saric over his shoulder, 'If you have brought back

from Thuril some means to stay the hand of the Assembly of

Magicians, pray to the gods it will work. For unless I am

totally mistaken, it must soon be Jiro of the Anasati we

face across the field of war.'

Once in the privacy of the master suite, Mara pushed

impatiently against Hokanu's cradling embrace. 'So much

to do, and so little time!'

Ignoring her struggles, Hokanu bent and laid her down

on the sumptuous cushions of their sleeping mat, and only

his fighter's reflexes permitted him the necessary speed to

catch her wrists as she immediately tried to shove herself

erect. 'Lady, we are not caught unprepared. Arakasi has

kept us well informed, Keyoke is a craftier strategist than

you or I, and Saric will waste no time in giving them word

that Justin's claim must of necessity be pressed.' As Mara's

eyes bored furiously up into his, he gave her an ungentle

shake. 'Take an hour! Your people will all be the better for

being left free of distraction. Let your Force Commander

consult with Irrilandi and Keyoke and do his job! Then

when he has had time to assemble his ideas, we can hold

council, and forge the wisest course between us.'

Mara looked again as if she might crumble. 'You're not

worried for your Shinzawai holdings in the north, or your

cousin Devacai's meddling?'

'No.' Hokanu was bedrock-firm. 'I inherited Dogondi

for Shinzawai First Adviser, remember? My father relied

on him for years, particularly when he was absent from

home as Imperial Chancellor. Dogondi's as crafty as any

man alive, and with our new messenger relay in place,

he will hear of your need for aid in Justin's cause before

sundown tomorrow. Incomo and he have worked together

like old cronies. Trust the efficiency of your good officers,

Lady. My own servants you have won over shamelessly

Not one who wears Shinzawai blue would do less than give

their lives for you, but not if you throw your uninformed

opinion into their works just now.'

Another more violent tremor coursed through Mara's

body. 'How have I done without you all these months?'

she marveled in a voice shaved thin by jangled nerves. 'Of

course you are right.'

Hokanu felt her relax. When he judged it safe, he released

her from restraint and waved for a maid to remove her travel

clothing. As the woman set about her ministrations, he soon

found he could not resist joining in the unwrapping. As the

Lady s overrobe came off, and the ties to the underrobe were

loosened, he played his hands along the smooth warmth of

her flesh. 'A bitter homecoming,' he mused.

'Not the one I would have chosen, husband. I have

missed you.'

The maid attendant might as well have been invisible.

Hokanu smiled. 'And I you.' He reached to unbuckle the

fastenings of his breastplate, then lost his concentration at

even so simple a task as the maid let Mara's inner robe

fall away. The sight of his Lady, even tired and dusty from

the road, with her hair tumbling loose from its pins, took

Hokanu's breath away. She noticed his bemusement and

at last managed a smile. Putting her hands over his, she

began to work the leather straps through the buckles until

he laid his lips upon hers and kissed her. After that, neither

noticed as the maid took over the task of his undressing,

then bowed to master and mistress and softly stole from

the room.

Later, when the couple lay replete with their lovemaking,

Hokanu ran his finger gently along the line of Mara's

cheek. The light through the screen silvered the streaks

of age starting to grow in her black hair, and her skin

showed weathering from the harsher sun of the southern

lands. Even as he caressed her, she stirred and murmured

again, 'There is so much to do, and lime time.'

Mara pushed herself up onto her elbow, a restlessness to

her manner that now could not be denied.

Hokanu loosened his embrace, knowing he could not

hold her. A war waited to be fought, in open repudiation

of the Assembly's disapproval; young Justin's life depended

upon the outcome.

Yet as Mara did arise, and clapped for her maid to return

to atire her in battle dress, her husband stared after her with

a terrible, gnawing poignancy. Hereafter, nothing between

them would be the same. Either Jiro would sit on the golden

throne, and Mara and all he loved would be destroyed; or

they would perish in their attempt to make Justin emperor;

or perhaps most painful of all, Lady Mara would become

ruler of Tsuranuanni. Still, he simply had no choice; for his

own daughter's sake, he must add his knowledge of war

and trust that the legendary luck of the Good Servant would

keep both them and their children alive. He pushed away

from the mat, reached Mara in one stride, and while she

had one arm helplessly caught in the process of her robing,

took her face in his hands and gently, lovingly kissed her.

Then he said, 'Take time for a bath. I will go ahead of you

and take counsel with Lujan and Irrilandi.'

Mara returned the kiss, and flashed him a brilliant

632

Mistress of the Empire

smile. 'No bath would ease me so much as one we

could share.'

Hokanu let that cheer him, but as he slipped into his

discarded clothes and hurried to the council of war, he could

not help but recognise that whether they would survive or

fall in this full-scale conflict, inevitably their lives would

embrace change. He could not shake the foreboding that

the events must force distance between him and the Lady

he held most dear.

25

Assembly

Chumaka smiled.

He briskly rubbed his hands together as a man might do

to warm them, but the day outside his window was hot.

What the Anasati First Adviser reacted to was a chill of

deep excitement. 'At last, at last,' he muttered. He swooped

amid his clutter of papers and correspondence to grab what

looked to be a nondescript notation of tally marks on a

creased scrap of paper. But the markings hid a complex

code, and the imbedded message was precisely the one

that Chumaka had prodded and plotted and cajoled to

bring about.

Ignoring the raised eyebrows and questioning manner of

his clerk, Chumaka hurried out to seek his master.

Jiro preferred to pass midday in indolence. He never

took a siesta, nor, like so many Ruling Lords, did he amuse

himself through the heat in lascivious play with concubines.

Jiro's tastes were ascetic. He considered the chatter of

women distracting, so much so that on a whim he had once

ordered all of his female cousins consigned to chaste service

in the temples. Chumaka chuckled at the memory. The girls

would have no sons to become rivals, which made the master'

s short-tempered arbitration a wiser move than he knew.

Jiro instinctively preferred privacy. At this hour he would be

found at his bath, or else reading in the cool, breezy portico

that connected the library with the scribes' copy chamber.

Chumaka paused at the junction of two inner corridors,

dimly lit since no lamps burned in the heat, and faintly

scented with the wax and oil used to treat the wood floors.

His thin nostrils twitched.

634 Mistress of the Empire

'Not the baths, today,' he muttered, for he could smell no

trace of scent borne on the air by the passage of Jiro's bath

slaves. The master was fastidious to the point of fussiness.

He liked his food spiced to briskness to keep his breath

sweet, and favored perfumes in his wash water.

The old, drooping ulo trees that edged the portico outside

the library cooled the air even in the most sultry summer

weather. Jiro sat on a stone bench, a scroll in his hand,

and more heaped haphazardly around his feet. A deaf-mute

slave attended him, ready at the twitch of his master's finger

to attend to the slightest need. But Jiro's needs were notably

few. Beyond the occasional request for a cold drink, he often

sat at his reading until midafternoon, when he would meet

with his hadonra to discuss estate finances, or arrange for

a recital of poetry, or walk in the pretty gardens designed

by his great-grandmother, which it had been his pleasure

to see replanted and restored.

Immersed in his reading, Jiro did not immediately respond

to the rapid tap of Chumaka's sandals against the terra-cotta

tile of the portico. When he did notice the sound, he looked

up as if at an intrusion, his brows pulled down in vexation,

and his manner stiff with restraint.

His expression changed at once to resignation. Chumaka

was the most difficult of his servants to dismiss without

the fuss of enforcing his rank as Ruling Lord. Somehow

Jiro felt it demeaning to deliver bald-faced demands; they

were crude, and he prided himself on subtlety, a vanity that

Chumaka was well versed in the art of exploiting.

'What is it?' Jiro sighed, then checked his bored exhalation,

realising that his First Adviser was showing the

unabashed toothy smile he reserved for felicitous news.

The Lord of the Anasati brightened also. 'It is Mara,'

he second-guessed. 'She has arrived home to find herself

disadvantaged, I hope?'

Chumaka waved his coded note. 'Indeed, master, and

Assembly

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fl

635

more. I have just received word directly from our s

implanted in Hokanu's messenger service. We have precise

descriptions of how she plans to deploy her troops.' Here

the Anasati First Adviser's manner dampened, as he recalled

how difficult it had been to break the private cipher of

Hokanu's correspondence.

As if sensing that a lecture on such subtleties might be

forthcoming, Jiro pressed the discussion ahead. 'And?' '

'And?' Chumaka for a moment looked vague as his train

of thought recentered. But his eyes never once lost their

sharpness, and his mind worked impressively fast. 'And our

ruse worked.'

Jiro reined back a frown. Always, Chumaka seemed to

expect him to follow the vaguest of references without

any accompanying explanation. 'Which ruse do you speak

of?'

'Why, the one concerning the engineers of the siege

engines and the toy maker's plans. Lady Mara believes we

were duped into hiring her false workers. She has arranged

for no attack on our forces that are positioned to storm

Kentosani.' Here Chumaka gave a wave of dismissal, 'Oh,

she's cozened her husband to call out the Shinzawai troops

from the north. They will attack our northern flank, she

believes, while we are in disarray and still struggling to

recoup from the deaths she expects will happen in the

mishap that results from the first firing of our battle rams

and ballistas.'

'They won't fail,'Jiro mused, his narrow face softening et

last. 'They will shatter those ancient fortifications and our

men will already be inside.' He gave a short bark of laughter.

'The Shinzawai troops will arrive only to do homage to a

new Emperor!'

'And to bury their boy heir,' Chumaka added in a low

voice. Again he rubbed his hands together. 'Justin, now.

Should we say he was killed by fallen masonry, or that

636 Mistress of the Empire

he was mistaken for a servant boy and given over to the

slave master as spoils? There are many unpleasant ways

for a boy to perish in the slave pens.'

Jiro's lips thinned in disapproval, and his eyes narrowed.

He was not comfortable with practices he considered brutal

or purposely crude- after a childhood spent being bullied

by his younger brother Buntokapi, he had no patience in

that respect.

'I want it done quickly and cleanly, without unnecessary

pain; a "miscast" spear should do well enough,' he snapped.

Then his tone turned thoughtful. 'Mare, though. If the living

body of the Servant of the Empire were to fall into the hands

of our troops, she would be another matter.'

Now it was S;Chumaka's turn to shy from the discussion.

Tsurani enough to arrange for men to be tortured or killed

when matters made such measures necessary, still he did not

relish the idea of causing pain for the Servant of the Empire.

The look in Jiro's eyes whenever he contemplated the Lady

Mara inevitably gave him an inward urge to shiver.

'I shall arrange to send your Force Commander, Omelo,

this latest news of Acoma and Shinzawai deployment, with

your leave, my master.'

Jiro gave a languid gesture of acquiescence, his thoughts

still focused upon revenge.

Barely waiting for this signal of approval, Chumaka

backed off, bowing, his spirits reviving almost at once.

Before Jiro had retrieved his scroll and returned to reading,

the Anasati First Adviser was hurrying off, muttering ideas

and plans half under his breath.

'Those Minwanabi warriors who did not swear service at

the time of Mara's ascension to the title of Good Servant,

now . . .' he mused. A wicked gleam flashed in his eyes. 'Yes.

Yes. I think the time is appropriate to call them in from that

frontier garrison and add their ranks to the confusion of

our enemies.'

Assembly

637

Chumaka hastened his step, loudly whistling now that

he was out of his master's earshot. 'Gods,' he broke off his

tune to whisper, 'what would life be without politics?'

The Empire mourned. On the announcement of Ichindar's

death, the gates to the Imperial Precinct had boomed shut,

and the traditional red banners of mourning had unfurled

from the walls. The land roads and the waterways of the

Gagajin had come alive with messengers. The rare metal

gongs and chimes in each of the temples of the Twenty

Higher Gods then rang in homage at the passing of Ichindar,

ninety-one strokes, one for each generation of his line. The

city would stay closed to trade for the traditional twenty

days of mourning, and all merchant shops and stalls not

essential for the maintenance of life had their doors sealed

with red bunting.

Inside Kentosani, the streets were subdued, the hawking

cries of food sellers and water brokers stilled; and the

chanting of the priests in prayer for the holy departed

rang out in the mourning quiet. By tradition, conversation

was forbidden in the streets, and even the city's licensed

beggars had to seek alms in pantomime. The Red God

Turakamu had silenced the Voice of Heaven on Earth,

and while Ichindar's embalmed body lay in state amid a

circle of lit candles and chanting priests, the Holy City also

observed its silence of respect and sorrow.

On the twenty-first day, the Light of Heaven would be

placed atop his funeral pyre, and the chosen successor

anointed by the priests of the Higher and Lesser Gods

would ascend the golden throne as- the ashes cooled.

And in anticipation of that day, plots seethed and armies

massed. The Assembly was not oblivious to the restlessness

of humanity.

Outside the city gates, anchored along the riverside, or

cramming the dockside of Silmani and Sulan-Qu, rested the

638 M'stress of the Emp~re

trader barges caught outside the gates by the observance of

the Emperor's mourning. Prices for rental of warehouse

space soared to a premium as merchants vied to secure

shelter for perishable goods caught in transit, or for

valuables too choice to be left on boats under insufficient

guard. The less fortunate factors bid for space in private

cellars and attics, and the least fortunate lost their wares

to the rising tides of war.

Clans gathered and house companies armed. The roads

became clouded with late summer dust raised by thousands

of tramping feet. The rivers became jammed with flotillas

of barges and war craft, and all oared or poled transport

were engaged to ferry warriors. The merchants suffered,

as trade goods were tossed wholesale into the river to

make way for human cargo, and shortages in the cities

ensued as provender was bought up by the cartload from

the costermongers who many times sold out their produce

before it could arrive at the city markets. Bartering by the

roadside was often conducted at spearpoint. The farmers

suffered. The rich complained of high prices; the merchants,

of desperate shortfalls; while the poorest went hungry and

mobbed the streets in unrest.

The Ruling Lords who might have lent patrols to

quell the masses and restore order were busied elsewhere,

sending their warriors to support this faction or that, or

using the upset of routine to stage raids against enemies

whose garrisons were pared down for field battle. Riots

threatened in the poor quarter, while profiteers grew fat

on inflated prices.

The Empire's various factions armed and banded together

into vast war hosts, and yet for all of the house colors

that sent troops to converge upon Kentosani, the banners

of three prominent houses were conspicuous by their

absence: Acoma green, Shinzawai blue, and Anasati red

and yellow.

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Assembly

639

In a high tower in the City of the Magicians, closeted

within a study cluttered with books and scrolls and

dominated by a dented hard-fired clay samovar of foreign

craft and origin, the Great One Shimone sat with bony

fingers laced around a teacup. He had developed a fondness

for the Midkemian delicacy in its myriad varieties, and

servants kept the brazier under the samovar hot day and

night. The cushions the Black Robe perched on were as thin

as his ascetic tastes. Before him rested a low three-legged

table whose top was inlaid with a seeing crystal, through

which danced the images of mustering war hosts. It showed

brief glimpses of Mara and Hokanu in conference with

advisers, followed by a view of Jiro gesticulating to make

some point with a stiff-lipped Omechan Lord who looked

reluctant.

Shimone sighed. His fingers tapped an agitated rhythm

on his tepid cup.

But it was Fumita, sitting almost invisibly in the shadows

opposite, who voiced the obvious thought. 'They fool

nobody, least of all us. Each waits for the other to move,

so that when we appear, they can say with clear conscience,

"We were but defending ourselves."' ~

Neither magician belabored the sad, self-evident conclusion:

that despite their personal endorsement of Mara's

radical ideas, the Assembly's prevailing sentiment ran

against her. Acoma and Anasati had sounded the horns of

war. Whether or not Mara and Jiro officially unfurled their

standards, whether or not they had formally announced

their intentions and petitioned the priest of the War God

to smash the Stone Seal on the Temple of Jastur, all but

the splinter factions in some way took their lead from

Anasati and Acoma. The Assembly of Magicians would

unavoidably be forced to take action. In the sad strained

silence that followed between Fumita and Shimone, a

buzzing sound could be heard beyond the door. This

640 Mfstress of the Empfre

was followed by a heavy thump and a fast tread, and

the wooden latch tripped up.

'Hochopepa,' Shimone said, his deep eyes seeming lazily

half-closed. He set down his cup, flicked his hand, and the

vistas in the seeing crystal muddied and faded away.

Fumita arose. 'Hocho in a hurry can only mean that

enough of our number have gathered for a quorum,' he

surmised. 'We had best join him in the great hall.'

The door to Shimone's private chamber creaked open,

and a red-faced Hochopepa shoved through, his large girth

hampered by the clutter. 'You'd better make haste. One

hothead down there in council just proposed to blast half

the population of Szetac Province to cinders.'

Fumita clicked his tongue. 'No discrimination was

made between spear-carrying warriors and peasant families

driven to flee the path of the armies?'

Hochopepa sucked in fat cheeks. 'None.' He backed,

wheezing, out of the doorway, beckoning for his companions

to follow. 'And for worse news, the point you just

made was the only argument that stayed the vote. Otherwise

some fool would be down there right this moment turning

everything in sight to smoking char!' He turned down the

hall without waiting to see if the others followed.

At this, Fumita was through the doorway hard on the

stout mage's heels. 'Well, I think we have the imagination

between us to trump up a few more objections and slow

them down a while longer.' He glanced over his shoulder to

admonish Shimone, who could seem as reluctant to move

quickly as to use words. 'It can't be helped, my friend. This

time you are going to have to talk as much as the rest of w

to help the cause along.'

The ascetic mage's eyes snapped open to show a spade

of affront. 'Talk is quite different an expenditure of energy'

.

from empty chatter!' ~ :

As the thin magician's glare swiveled toward the portly

leader of the party, it was Hochopepa's turn to look

offended. Yet before he could find something heated to

say in his own defence, Fumita hustled him ahead. 'Save

your energy,' he said, hiding a grin behind solemnity. 'What

inspiration we have we'd better muster for the council

chamber. They are probably quarreling like Midkemian

monkeys down there, and here we go rushing in to make

it worse.'

Without further discussion, the three hurried down the

corridor to the entrance to the Great Hall.

The debate Mara's supporters hastened to join continued

for days. Many times in the course of the Empire's history

arguments had divided the Assembly, but none before had

raged so long and so hotly. Stray winds ripped through

the great chamber that served as meeting hall in the City

of the Magicians, as more and more members gathered.

The high, tiered galleries were nearly filled to capacity, an

event only equaled in recent times by the occasion of the

debate of Milamber's exile and the abolition of the office

of Warlord. The only absentees were Great Ones in their

dotage. The air grew stuffy with the crowding' and since

no meeting of the Assembly ever adjourned without a final

decision, the proceedings dragged on day and night.

Yet another dawn seeped grey through the high windows

of the dome, silvering the lacquer floor tiles and revealing

weariness in every face present. It lit in drab colors the only

activity: in the middle of the vast chamber, a stout magician

paced back and forth, declaiming.

Fatigue etched Hochopepa's face. He waved one stout

arm, and grated on in a voice made hoarse by hours of

nonstop oratory, 'And I urge every one of you to consider:

great changes have begun that will not ~onet' He

raised his other arm, and clapped his/alms together to

emphasise his point, and several of the elderly Black Robes

642

Mistress of tl~e Empire

started in their seats, roused from dozing. 'We cannot simply

wave our hand and have the Empire return to the old ways!

The days of the Warlordship are finished!'

Shouts of disagreement sought to interrupt his argument.

'Armies are marching while we deliberate,' cried Motecha,

among the more outspoken of the Great Ones who disapproved

of the late Ichindar's policies.

On the floor, the stout magician held up his hand for

silence, actually grateful for the momentary respite. His

throat was scratched raw from speaking. 'I know!' He

waited for stillness to settle and went on. 'We have been

defied. So I have heard many of you repeat over and over" he

glanced around the room, aware of a change that rippled

like the movement of the tide through his audience - 'and

over and over' Even the more staid members of the council I

were now shifting in their seats. Their backsides were numb

from sitting, and no longer were they content to settle

back and politely listen. More than just the impatient

had started to cry out interruptions, and not a few were

standing belligerently on their feet. Hochopepa admitted

to himself that he would have to yield the floor at last,

and hope Fumita or the wily Teloro could find a strategy

to draw the discussion out further.

'We are not gods, my brothers,' Hochopepa summed

up. 'We are powerful, yes, but still merely men. For us

to intervene rashly with force, from pique or fear of the

unknown, would but increase the chance of lasting damage

being visited upon the Nations. I caution all that no matter

how inflamed passions may be, the effect of our act will

be lingering. When emotions at last cool, shall we regret

having done that which even we cannot undo?' He ended

his speech with a slow lowering of his arms, and an even

slower shuffle across the floor. The heaviness in him as he

sank into his seat was not feigned; he had successfully tied

up the floor for two and a half days.

The current spokesman for the Assembly returned onto

the floor blinking as if a bit bemused. 'We thank Hochopepa

for his wisdom.'

While the huge chamber echoed with the rising buzz of

conversation and dozens of Black Robes vied to speak next,

Fumita leaned across Shimone and whispered to his wilted

companion, 'Well done, Hocho!'

Drily Shimone interjected, 'Perhaps for the next few days

we will be blessed with a less loquacious companion when

we gather over our wine.'

Spokesman Hodiku said, 'We shall hear Motecha!'

The short, hook-nosed elder, whose two cousins had

once been known as the Warlord's Pets, arose from his

seat. Motecha moved with spry steps across the floor, and

spun with a flutter of robes. His sharp, narrow-set eyes

passed over the assembly briefly, and he said, 'While it has

been interesting in no sparse measure to hear our brother

Hochopepa recount the history of events, in great detail,

this does nothing to change fact. Two armies are even now

jockeying to engage in combat. Skirmishes have already

occurred between them and only those of us who are fools

do not see through the sham of masking their house colors

behind the banners of clan cousins or allies! KMara of the

Acoma has defied our edict. Even as we speak, her warriors

march and engage in illicit warfare!'

'Why name her ahead of Jiro of the Anasati?' the

impulsive Sevean called back.

Teloro seized the opportunity of the interruption to

add fuel to the argument. 'You call the actions of these

armies defiance. I urge remembrance upon us all: the

Light of Heaven has been murdered! It must be contested,

Motecha, that circumstances have forced a call

to arms. Lord Hokanu of the Shinzawai would naturally

defend the royal family. Mara was Ichindar's staunchest

SUpporter. Jiro, I submit, builds siege engines and hires

Assenzbly

643

F

644

engineers to plot for his own ambition, not to stabilise the

Empire.'

Motecha folded his arms, emphasising his roundshouldered

posture. 'Was it circumstance that led both Jiro

of the Anasati and Mara of the Acoma and her consort to

order their armies into the field? Neither of their home

estates was threatened! Is this conflict in truth inevitable?

Did the supposed "Good of the Empire" "force" Mara

to order the secondary garrison from her natal estate to

prevent Anasati forces and allies from their use of the public

roads to Sulan-Qu?'

'Come now!' cracked Shimone. He had an authoritative

voice, when he chose to raise it, and now his stillness

held pent-up ire. 'How do you know it was Mara who

instigated the attack, Motecha? I heard of no battle, but t

only a skirmish that ended with a drawing of lines. Do we

whimper civil war when there has been little but a calling.

of names and an exchange of insults and some sporadic

bowfire?'

Teloro expounded a second point. 'I would have you

note: the banner at the fore of the lines near Sulan-Qu

was not Acoma, but that of Lord Jidu of the Tuscalora.

He may be Mara's vassal, but his estate lies directly in

the path of Jiro's march. The Lord of the Tuscalora could

legitimately be defending his lands from invasion.'

Motecha narrowed his gaze. 'Our colleague Tapek went

to the field and observed, Teloro. I may not be the student

of history that your friend Hochopepa is, but I can certainly

hear the difference between a defensive position and an

army launching an assault!'

'And Jiro's collection of siege engines in the forests outside

Kentosani are for defence?' Shimone cried back, but his

point was drowned by the hubbub of other voices.

The Spokesman shouted for order. 'Colleagues! The

business at hand requires order.'

Mistress of the Empire

Assembly

64S

Motecha shrugged his robe straight like a jigacock

puffing its feathers. He stabbed a finger at the galleries.

'Arrows have been fired between a vassal of Mara's and

Anasati warriors masquerading under the banner of Clan

lonani. Are we going to sit about arguing until our edict is

defied a second time? Tapek reports that troops have felled

trees for buttresses to give their archers better cover.'

Clearing his throat, Hochopepa croaked hoarsely, 'Well

then, Tapek could have ordered a stop to the shooting.'

This brought laughter and an upwelling of derogatory

comments. 'Or was it the fact that stray arrows show

little regard for the majesty of a Black Robe that gave

our friend Tapek pause?'

At this, Tapek sprang to his feet, his red hair brilliant

against the black robes behind. He shouted, 'We already

told Mara to stop once! Has she so swiftly forgotten

the troop of warriors we destroyed as an example upon

the field?'

'Motecha has the floor,' objected the Spokesman. 'You

will stay seated unless you are formally given leave to lead

the discussion, friend Tapek.'

The red-haired magician subsided to his seat, muttering

to the contingent of young friends who sat with him.

Motecha resumed his point. 'I submit that Jiro of the

Anasati has made no move in aggression. His siege engines

may surround the walls of Kentosani, but they do not fire!

And they may never do so, if Mara is prevented from linking

up with her support inside the Imperial Precinct.'

'What support? Do you imply that Mara has been party

to treachery?' called Shimone. 'That she had no hand in

the Omechan plot to kill Ichindar has been documented!'

Again the Assembly erupted into disorder. For several

minutes Spokesman Hodiku had to hold up his

hands to restore quiet. The muttering subsided reluctantly,

with Sevean caught still gesticulating as he expounded

646

Mistress of the Empire

some point to a colleague. He lowered his voice, looking

sheepish.

Hochopepa mopped sweat from his brow. 'It begins to

look as if I did not need to spend my voice in speech making.'

He chuckled under his breath. 'Our opponents are doing a

fair job of tangling the issue by themselves.'

'Not for much longer, I fear,' Shimone said ominously.

Motecha added further accusations, more outspoken

than any of his predecessors'. 'I say Mara of the Acoma

is the culprit! Her disregard, no, her contempt of tradition

is well documented. How she came to wear the honored

title of Servant of the Empire is for others to conjecture.

But I suggest that she and the late Emperor had an ...

understanding. It is Mara's son, Justin, she would raise as

pretender t. the golden throne, and I endorse Jiro's right

to defend against this unconscionable show of Acoma

ambition!'

'That ends it,' Fumita said gloomily. 'Sooner or later,

the adoptive privilege of Mara's children had to be raised.

Someone had to drag the boy into the quarrel.'

There was true sadness in his tone, perhaps in his personal

remembrance of the son he had renounced upon his call to

join the Assembly. Yet whatever else he might have added

became drowned in a wave of shouting. Magicians sprang

to their feet, and several seemed to glow with the light

of inner anger. Through the tumult, Spokesman Hodiku

waved his staff, and when he was ignored, gave over the

floor to a young mage named Akani.

That many a seasoned elder had been passed over in favor

of a Black Robe barely out of his apprenticeship effected an

immediate and resounding silence.

Akani kept command of it with the voice of a powerful

orator. 'Assumption of facts not in evidence,' he summed'

up crisply. 'We know nothing of any plotting by Mara

of the Acoma. We cannot deny she has lost her firstborn

son. Justin is her sole heir. If she were party to a plot

to raise him to the Emperor's station, she would hardly

have set such intrigue in motion while she was absent

from the court. Only a fool would leave the boy to fend

for himself through a change in succession without Acoma

or Shinzawai defenders. Justin is housed with Ichindar's

children, in the imperial nursery, which I remind you was

quarantined upon his death for twenty days of mourning!

A child's life could be lost to a thousand mishaps in such

a span of time. If Acoma troops march, they do so to spare

their future Lord. Companions, I suggest,' Akani finished

tartly, 'that we not be swayed by speculation and street

gossip in the making of our decisions.'

Shimone raised his grey furred eyebrows as the young

magician continued a reasoned, dispassionate argument.

'Good choice of argument. The boy thinks like an imperial

court litigator.'

Hochopepa chuckled. 'Akani studied for that post before

his magical powers forced him to be recognised as a Black

Robe. Why do you think I called in a favor to ask Hodiku

to choose him when the discussion swung toward violence?

Jiro's supporters, like our outspoken Tapek, muse not be

permitted to stampede us into acting rashly.' ~

And yet even Akani's skills as litigator could not keep

the floor tied up for long. Feelings ran hot, and by now

even those Black Robes who had been neutral to the

contention were clamoring for decision, if only to bring

the long, tiresome session to an end.

Pressure from all sides erupted to draw the proceedings to

a close. Akani had exhausted his eloquence, and in fairness

to his earlier ruling, the Spokesman Hodiku had to yield

the floor to allow Tapek his say.

'Trouble now,' Shimone said flatly.

Hochopepa's brow wrinkled, and Fumita became statue-still.

648 Mistress of tbe Empire

Tapek wasted no time in convincing oratory. 'It is fact,

companions, that the Assembly acted as a body once before

and ordered Mara not to attack Jiro. For the Good of the

Empire, I demand her life be forfeit!'

Hochopepa shot to his feet, astonishingly fast for one of

his girth. 'I dissent.'

Tapek spun on his heel to face the stout magician. 'What

mortal in all our long history has ever been allowed to live

after defying our edict?'

'I can count several,' Hochopepa shot back, 'but I doubt

that would settle the issue.' The stout magician's voice

was stripped down to gravel. Now he abandoned flowery,

long-winded phrases. 'Let us not act impulsively. We can kill

Mara at our leisure, should we so decide. But this moment

we have more pressing problems to consider.' ~

'He's going to force a vote,' Fumita murmured worriedly

to Shimone. 'That could precipitate disaster.' ~

Shimone's brows seemed frozen into a glower as he

replied, 'Let him. Disaster is inevitable anyway.' ~

Hochopepa moved down the aisle. Clown-like in his

bulk, red-faced and smiling with good nature, he did no'

seem at all contentious, and such jovial posture in the face

of tense proceedings lent him liberty, if only for comic relief

Spokesman Hodiku did not reprimand him as he wandered

out onto the floor and began to pace in step with Tapek

His naturally short stride was forced to extend to ridiculous'

length to match the taller magician. Hochopepa's fat jiggled

under his robe, and his cheeks puffed with exertion. H'

capped his ridiculous appearance by waving a pudgy hand

just under Tapek's nose in vehement gesticulation.

As Tapek sucked back. his chin to avoid being stabbed

by a fingernail, Hochopepa said, 'I suggest we tq other

expedients before we obliterate the Servant of the Empire;:

Several members of the Assembly winced at such bald

reiteration, and Hochopepa boldly seized the advantage

Assembly

649

to drive home his point. 'Before we commit an act never

before done in the history of our Nations - to destroy a

holder of the most honorable title a citizen may obtain let

us consider.'

'We have considered -'Tapek interjected, stopping dead.

Hochopepa kept walking and with apparent clumsiness

seemed to slam into his younger colleague, knocking him

off balance. Tapek was compelled to stumble ahead, or fall

flat. Flustered and caught at a loss for words, he was swept

on as Hochopepa continued his monologue.

'We should stop the bloodshed first, then order Mara and

Jiro to the Holy City. There they can be held while we judge

this issue in a less muddled fashion. Shall we vote?'

The Spokesman called, 'A question is on the floor.'

'I hold the floor!' Tapek objected.

Hochopepa at that moment trod heavily upon the

redhead's slippered toe. Tapek's mouth opened. His cheeks

turned white, then burned bright red. He rounded angrily

upon Hochopepa, who stood with his full weight bearing

down as if oblivious. And while Tapek was distracted by

discomfort, Hodiku pressed on with the proceedings.

'Now, it's been a long and boring session,' Hochopepa

whispered to Tapek. 'Why don't we both sit down and

regain our composure before the very serious matter of

casting our vote?'

Tapek growled between clenched teeth. He knew it was

now too late to disrupt protocol and countermand the

call for a formal vote. As Hochopepa raised his bulk off

Tapek's toe, the offended magician had little choice but to

limp off, grumbling, to rejoin his cadre of young bloods.

The Spokesman raised his hand. 'Hear the options, yea or

nay. Shall we order the fighting halted and Mara and Jiro

to the Holy City for accounting before our body?'

Each magician in that vast chamber held up one hand.

Light sprang from their upraised palms, blue indicating

650 Mistress of the Empire

agreement, white abstention, and red disagreement. The

blue glow clearly dominated, and the Spokesman said, 'The

issue is settled. Let the Assembly adjourn for food and rest

and gather again at a later date to decide who should be

sent to deliver word of our summons to the parties, Mara

of the Acoma and Jiro of the Anasati.'

'Brilliant!' exclaimed Shimone, seemingly oblivious to the

black looks shot in his direction by Tapek and Motecha.

All around them, magicians were rising stiffly to their feet,

sighing in anticipation of a meal and a long rest. The session

had stretched out to the point where it might take days

to recapture the enthusiasm to gather another quorum

and see an official spokesman appointed. And when a

matter had been formally voted to resolution by the full

Assembly, individuals like Tapek were denied their option of

independent action. Shimone's ascetically thin lips stretched

in a way that suggested a smile. 'Personally, I think I could

sleep for at least a week.'

'You won't,' Fumita accused. 'You'll be snuggled up with

a bottle of wine and hunched over your scrying crystal, just

like the rest of us.'

Hochopepa sighed deeply and said, 'We have narrowly

averted what would have been perhaps the most destructive

action in all of our long history.' He glanced around to

ascertain that no bystanders were paying undue attention,

then whispered, 'And we have won a few days' "race. I pray

that Mara has some clever plan in play that I don't see, or

that her voyage into Thuril won her some protection that

she can deploy quickly. If not, and we lose her, we fall back

into the atrocities of the Game of the Council for another

span of ages . . .'

Fumita was blunter. 'Chaos.'

Hochopepa stiffened his spine. 'I feel the need for

something wet and soothing for my throat.'

Shimone's deep eyes sparkled. 'I have some of that

Keshian wine you love so much stashed away in my

quarters.'

Hochopepa's brow puckered in abject surprise. 'I didn't

know you had dealings with Midkemian traders!'

'I don't.' Shimone sniffed in reproof. 'There's a shop near

the docks in the Holy City that always seems to stock a

supply. My servant doesn't ask how the proprietor came by

such without imperial tax stamps on each bottle, and who

would argue with what seems a reasonable price . . . ?'

As the three magicians made their way out of the

vast assembly hall, their conversation turned toward the

commonplace, as if light words and camaraderie might

somehow stave off the immensity of the crisis about to

overwhelm their land and culture.

~:

:

.

~ .

26

Battle

The camp burned.

Smoke swirled across the battlefield, acrid with the stench

of burned hide and the fine-woven wool of cushions and

hangings that customarily adorned the field tents of Tsurani

Lords and officers. War dogs yapped and snarled, and a

boy runner raced to find a healer to attend to a wounded

officer. Mara blinked watering eyes and turned her back

on the soldiers who picked through the ashes to gather

up corpses and weapons. The raid at dawn had been a

success. Another of Jiro's traditionalist allies had died in

his command tent, while his officers and warriors had rolled

out of their blankets in disarray. Lujan was unsurpassed

at ambush and surprise raids; better than his counterparts

who had never known the hardships of a grey warrior's

existence, he knew how to take advantage of subterfuge

and guile. Most of the fighting had involved minor allies

and vassals of the Acoma and the Anasati; other clashes

had happened between houses that had old blood debts to

settle. And while the magicians would be swift to condemn

a massed attack on a formal plain of war, smaller struggles

such as these had so far passed unpunished.

Such forbearance could not long continue, Mara knew,

as she turned wearily toward the small, unadorned shelter

hastily thrown up on a space of ground untracked by

fighting. Lujan knew it, too; he threw himself into each

skirmish with near-to-fanatical energy, as if he could not

rest until one more enemy was dead.

Hot, tired, and rubbed raw by the unaccustomed weight

of full armor, Mara passed through the flap into the shade

of her personal quarters. Swirls of dust entered with her.

She waved, and a maid scurried out of the dimness to

unlace the straps of her battle sandals. The sumptuous

comforts of the pavilion-sized Acoma command tent had

stayed packed away at the estate, its substitute a simple

tent borrowed from stores that had previously served as

shelter for needra herders. Since her trip to Thuril, Mara's

view of certain Tsurani customs had soured and anyway,

the green-dyed command tent with its silken banners and

trappings and tassels would only serve as announcement

to the magicians of her whereabouts.

The herder's tent was dry hot. It filtered out the direct

sun, and some of the noise, as officers called orders, and

wounded men moaned in the throes of their pain. 'Water,'

Mara requested. She raised a grimy hand and unfastened

the chin strap of her helm.

'Great Lady, let me help.' Kamlio hastened around the

rude flap that divided the structure in half.' Better schooled

than the maid to answer the needs of men, the buckles of

armor were familiar to her. Expertly she applied herself,

and as the encumbering layers of lacquered platework were

lifted from her mistress, Mara sighed in relief. 'Bless you,'

she murmured, and nodded her thanks to the maid who

handed her a cup of cool water. Never again would she

take such service for granted.

Kamlio freed another buckle and noticed Mara's slight

flinch. 'Blisters, Lady?'

Mara gave a rueful nod. 'Everywhere. I can't seem to

grow calluses fast enough.' The trappings of the Warchief

of Clan Hadama were items she seldom wore, but now,

more than ever, every badge of office and sign of rank

must be displayed. She was on a field of war, commanding

troops, and an alliance of forces not seen in modern history.

They might march under the banners of a hundred minor

houses, or be her own forces masked under the standard of

her clan; but they numbered seventy thousand, fully half

the might of the Empire. Their lives, if not their ultimate

survival, were her responsibility.

This war has come too fast! she raged inwardly while

Kamlio removed greaves and breastplate and finished with

the straps of the braces. War hosts had gathered before

she had been able to settle a single plan of action, nor

even to arrange a consultation between Keyoke and the

cho-ja mages from Chakaha. Ichindar's assassination had

happened while she had all the necessary pieces for victory

within her grasp, but before she had any chance to assess

how best to use them.

Kamlio had just unfastened Mara's breastplate when

footsteps sounded outside the tent. As the heavy, ornate

helm with its bosses and plumes and cheek plates was lifted

off, Mara closed her eyes in weariness. She pushed back

the hair plastered in wet streaks to her forehead and neck.

'Open the tent flap,' she commanded her maid. 'If that's

Lujan, back already, I fear bad news.'

The maid flipped back the needra hide that curtained

the door, while Kamlio rummaged for refreshments and

cups for water. The warriors had been on the field since

daybreak, and whichever officer approached to report, he

would be hungry and thirsty.

A shadow crossed the light, limned in a drift of smoke.

Mara blinked stinging eyes and made out the plumes of

her Force Commander as he saluted, fist over heart. Her

expression must have shown apprehension, for his mouth

split at once in a smile of reassurance, made the more vivid

by the soot that darkened his face.

'Lady, the Zanwai and Sajaio are in full flight. The day

is ours; if one can rejoice over winning a pitiful strip of

ngaggi swamp, the ashes of some tents, and six mongrel

war dogs that are inclined to tear the throat out of anything

that moves - one of the casualties was their handler - then

rejoice. The strike force that attempted to organise a retreat

was quickly routed, mostly because the officer in charge had

little more brains than House Sajaio's dogs.'

Mara regarded a sky fouled grey with smoke, then spoke

with bitterness. 'How much longer are we going to have

to remain here in defensive line to keep the Anasati forces

pinned to the southeast of Sulan-Qu?' It irked her to know

that Jiro had other forces hidden to the north. Any day she

expected word that the Holy City was under siege. With

the Shinzawai army under Hokanu in forced march, but

still several days away from Silmani and the Gagajin, she

had no choice but to rely on the toy maker's plans and

the engineers she had sent to infiltrate Jiro's operation. She

could only lie awake each night and pray that her carefully

planned sabotage would work, and that when Jiro ordered

his great engines to breach the walls, the mechanisms would

misfire and create havoc.

The cho-ja mages could not help in this war. Their magic

must be kept secret until the most desperate moment when

the Assembly at last acted, for with rival factions massing to

descend on Kentosani, full-scale conflict was only a matter

of time. The rival armies could only face off for so long,

abiding skirmishes and small encounters. Neither would be

deterred by the dozen or so smaller armies that jockeyed for

the most advantageous positions from which to pick over

what bones the great houses might leave in their wake of

destruction.

Mara motioned for the Force Commander to enter her

quarter. 'How long? Jiro must make a move soon, either

to break our lines or to order his allies from the west in

siege of the Holy City. How much longer can we hang back

without jeopardising support to Hokanu? If something goes

wrong . . .' Her voice trailed off; she felt beaten down by the

forced agony of waiting, fully armed and at the ready, yet

unable to advance. If she ordered her main army to march

on Kentosani, she left open a way for the Anasati forces

to reach the river or the trade roads, or to attack her from

the rear. As long as the Acoma forces held their lines, Jiro's

Force Commander could not attack and break through to

Sulan-Qu without inciting retribution from the Assembly.

But it pained her to hold firm, knowing that Ichindar's

assassination was but the first step in a complex, linked

plot. Jiro had not spent years building siege engines or paid

lavish bribes and won alliances in the estates surrounding

the Inrodaka for nothing. The threat to Justin would come

from the west, she was sure, and were her enemies to break

through the defences of the Imperial Precinct before she

could get there, her children would lose their lives. The

Imperial Whites were good warriors, but with Ichindar

dead, who would command their loyalty? Ichindar's First

Wife could not even control her own daughter. The Imperial

Force Commander would defend the Imperial Precinct, but

without a clear authority from above, his men would be an

unknown factor. They would fight, but would they defend

with the same dedication and selflessness her own forces

gave to her? Any warrior might be expected to falter, if

the Lord ordering the assault upon the Imperial Precinct

might be the next Emperor. Now, more than ever, Mara

perceived the flaws in the Tsurani order of rule.

'Gods,' she exclaimed in frustration, 'this campaign

would be bloody but straightforward if we could plan

without interference from the Assembly!'

Lujan considered his mistress's restlessness with concern,

experienced as he was-in the frailties of men kept too long

at battle pitch with no fighting. His mistress was stretched

near to breaking with tension. The padded robe she wore

under her armor was wringing wet with sweat. She had

been stubborn, and had overseen the action while standing

directly in the sun. He kept his voice mild as he said, 'You

should take every opportunity you can to sit down and

rest, my Lady.' As example, he pointedly removed his helm

and sank cross-legged on the nearest cushion. 'Action could

break out at moment's notice, and little good you will be

to your people if you are worn out or in a faint from the

heat.' He scratched his chin, unable to fully silence his own

gnawing worry. 'Though it is certainly obvious to everyone

that the magicians are conspicuous by their absence.'

'A bad sign,' Mara allowed. 'Hokanu's guess is that they

deliberate over a united ultimatum. If either Jiro or I engage

our forces directly, they will act, be sure of that.' She let

the maid peel off her underrobe, and gestured for a dry

replacement. 'I'll bathe later, when the smoke has settled

and things have a chance of staying clean.'

Lujan rubbed at a bruised elbow, but broke off the motion

as Kamlio handed him water. He drank deeply, his eyes

turned toward the command map unrolled on the bare

earth beside the table. Stones weighted the corners, and the

middle held whorls and lines of colored tiles that displayed

the disposition of every faction's forces up to the latest

report. The spoiling impatience that ate at his Lady was

shared by every man in the ranks. Action was needed,

Lujan knew, to keep their wits sharp, and to prevent rash

moves born of frustration. Even a small engagement would

serve, focusing attention and discipline to keep the troops

whetted to keenest edge. He considered the map in depth,

then pulled his sword to use as a pointer. 'It's clear that

a group of neutrals has set up a defensive position along

the eastern branch of the river Gagajin, between the fork

north of the Great Swamp and the city of Jamar. They

could march west and harry Jiro's flank, but more likely

they'll be satisfied to wait and declare for the winner at

the last.'

Mara spoke around the efforts of the maid, who sponged

and dried her face, then slipped on her clean robe. 'What

are you thinking? A diversion? If we could stir them up and

make them move around, could we confuse things enough

to hide an advance by a few of our companies?'

'Keyoke suggested we might take them captive, steal

their armor and banners, then slip a company of our men

north under their false identity.' Lujan's mouth quirked in

amusement. 'Not at all honorable, Lady, but there are men

of yours who are loyal enough not to care.' His eyes held

frank admiration for Mara's slim fitness, and for the blisters

she bore without complaint. 'But the question came down

to what forces we could break away to start the skirmish

that would not be obvious to our enemies.'

'I could arrange that, I think,' offered a velvet-toned !

voice. A shadow emerged out of the blown smoke, poised

in the gap of the doorway. As always, Arakasi's appearance

had been silent. Accustomed as Mara was to his unexpected

arrivals, she barely masked her flinch. Kamlio, taken

unawares, spilled the water crock over the map. Counters;

washed awry in the flood, and water pooled ominously in

the hollow that represented Kentosani. Movement in the

tent was arrested as Arakasi caught sight of her for the

first time since she returned from Thuril; his eyes widened

for an instant, showing depths that beseeched. Then he

recovered cool control and his gaze flicked back to the

map. Fast as reflex, he kept talking. 'The spilled water has

nicely summed up the situation we have building. Lady, did

you get my reports?'

'Some of them.' Mara touched Kamlio's hand, and urged

her to leave, or sit down. 'Let the maid take care of mopping

up,' she murmured kindly. Kamlio had never looked more

like a gazen caught vulnerable under thin cover; and yet

Thuril had changed her. She did not turn sullen and stiff,

but gathered her courage and sat.

Arakasi took a quick breath, and his eyebrows twitched

quizzically. Then, all business, he knelt by the table and

laced his hands in plain view on top, as if, with other eyes

watching, he dared himself to fidget or shake. He did not

look tired, Mara judged, but simply harried, and he wore

no disguise beyond a plain black robe edged with white.

Although communications had passed between them since

her return from the South, this was the first chance he

had to make a personal appearance since the Emperor's

assassination. 'Lady, it is as we feared. The Inrodaka and

their two vassals were in league with Jiro; their declarations

of neutrality were feigned. The siege engines were hidden in

the forests, and are now moving toward Kentosani.'

'Where?' Lujan asked crisply.

Arakasi caught the drift of the Force Commander's

concern. 'Southwest of the Holy City.' He summed up

the worst. 'There are traditionalists from Neshka Province

involved as allies, and to the north, the Inrodaka have

sent out flanking troops that will certainly harry Hokanu's

march south. He has better numbers; he will not be stopped,

but will suffer losses and be delayed.'

'Allies from Neshka?' Mara said. 'These we can fight.'

To Lujan, she asked, 'Could the garrison from my estate

by Sulan-Qu march to the west and intercept?'

Arakasi interrupted, uncharacteristically blunt- 'The troops

are too close to Kentosani already. You could only harry the

rear guard, and maybe force them to turn a few companies

to engage us. That would thin out the forces left for the

siege, but not stop them.'

'And the lands of your birthright would be left stripped

too thin to be defended effectively,' Lujan added. He

frowned in furious thought. 'Your original bargain with

the cho-ja Queen gives you two companies of warriors.

They would be adequate to repulse any independent force

who tried looting or raiding, but not Jiro's army if he

chooses to concentrate Anasati effort in that direction.'

'The magicians forbid such a move,' Mara countered,

leaning to one side to allow the maid to pass with towels

to soak up the puddles on the tactical map. 'My estates

by Sulan-Qu should be sacrosanct.' She tapped her fingers

together in painful decision. 'Kentosani must be our first

concern. If Jiro wins the golden throne, all of our causes are

lost. We have only the toy maker's plans to foil him. And if

our plot there is successful, many of the enemy will die when

the siege engines are set into play. That will make numbers

of troops critical. Pare them down, and Jiro might not

have enough men left to scale the walls before Hokanu can

win through. No, the estates by Sulan-Qu must be risked.

The unknown to be feared is the Assembly. What will the

magicians do if we strip the Acoma lands by Sulan-Qu and

engage these traditionalists from Neshka Province?'

'No man can know,' Arakasi allowed. As if he were

not aware of Kamlio watching his every move, he helped

himself from the tray of refreshments brought in when

Mara's maid finished with the cleanup. 'But it is my guess

that there the Lord of the Anasati may have outsmarted

himself He has taken best care that his supporters from

Neshka appear to be acting on their own. If Jiro wins

the throne, and the Assembly accuses him afterward of

overly ambitious action, he has left himself a convenient

appearance of noninvolvement. He can demur, and say

that the alliance was formed out of popular opinion, and

his bid for the imperial crown was not his doing at all,

but one launched by traditionalists in his behalf as the

most worthy candidate.' Between bites of bread, the Spy

Master added, 'Mistress, your opposition to such a move

might be encouraged by the Assembly as a natural balance

of power.'

'The Sulan-Qu property might be sacrificed on such a

supposition,' Lujan warned. He stirred through sopp

counters with his sword, to bare that section of the

map.

Mara's exasperation showed as she said, 'We are like two

duelists who have been told that certain moves will cause

the judge to strike the offender down, yet not told which

moves they are.'

Arakasi set aside his crust to manipulate the pieces into

fresh positions, and under his hands, an ominous clot of

assorted colors fanned out toward Kentosani. 'Jiro may

command the more critical position for assault on the

Imperial Precinct, but we are a larger force with more

resources.'

Mara took up his unfinished thought. 'We have deep

support from Lord Hoppara of the Xacatecas, but he is

mewed up in Kentosani. His office gives him no leave to act

without an Emperor, save to defend, and Isashani in Ontoset

can only send Xacatecas forces to him to catch up with

events.' Mara sighed. 'Politically, we are disadvantaged.

There are more who favor a return to the old Council

than who stand with us. No, this will not be a drawn-out

war. Either we win decisively, and early, or Jiro will gain a

broader base of supporters.'

Lujan fingered his sword edge, as if annoyed by the nicks

that had yet to be sharpened out following the morning's

minor action. 'You fear desertion and betrayal?'

'I do not fear them,' answered Mara, 'but should we

falter, I expect them.' As order was restored to the map,

she chewed her lip, and decided. 'We must threaten the

siege, at any cost. The estates by Sulan-Qu must be risked.

Lujan, how should we proceed?'

The Acoma Force Commander gathered up his sweatdamp

helm. 'We can ask our friend Lord Benshai of the

Chekowara to begin moving northward toward your old

estates, but keep him on the western bank of the river. Let

Jiro wonder if he goes to reinforce our garrison there, or

if he will continue on to the Holy City.'

Mara gave back a smile of fierce satisfaction. 'Tempt

him to commit even a fraction of his Anasati troops to

hamper House Chekowara, and his hand will be tipped

for the Assembly to read.'

'Should Jiro move across the river to intercept him,

Benshai will run like a frightened calley-bird,' Arakasi

said drily. 'His house servants say behind his back that

Benshai mumbles words of cowardice in his sleep.'

Mara sighed. 'If we're lucky, Jiro doesn't know that.'

Now Arakasi spoke, an edge of frustration to his tone.

'Jiro certainly knows. His adviser Chumaka might as well

have his ear by the Lord of the Chekowara's fat mouth,

listening to his every breath. My agents have proof that he

kept Clan Hadama in disarray through the years he served

as Clan Warchief.' Despite his rich robes and stern-looking

soldiers, he is all appearance and no substance. No, he might

march resolutely up the river, but the first suggestion of

an Anasati attack will send Benshai of the Chekowara

running south. Jiro will know the moment your estates near

Sulan-Qu are unguarded since half of Benshai's courtesans

are Chumaka's spies.'

An underlying vehemence in Arakasi's tone caused

Kamlio to straighten. Almost, she drew breath to address

him, before a flush swept her cheeks. She glanced down in

painful embarrassment.

Mara noticed, slightly ahead of Lujan. She touched her

Force Commander's wrist beneath the table to still the

discussion of weighty matters, and force the cross-current

of tension between Spy Master and ex-courtesan to develop

into reaction.

Arakasi spoke first, a ring like barbarian iron beneath

his soft-spoken manner. 'I don't like the Lord of the

Chekowara's habits.' His distaste was plain as he added,

'Young girls who are spies are a specialty of Chumaka's.

Mara was once nearly killed by such a one. Her name was

Teani.' He paused, his eyebrows tipped upward in inquiry.

'If you want to know anything of my thoughts, on this or

any other subject, you have only to ask. Only, please leave

off staring at me as if I were a book scroll, or a puzzle, or

some sort of talking pet.'

Kamlio started to her feet, confusion on her face. 'I don't

think of you that way.' She seemed breathless, as if she had

been running. She started to bow, her mouth parted to ask

Mara's leave to depart; but the bland expression on her

mistress's face gave her no promise of quarter. She blinked,

raised her chin, and looked at the Spy Master in wide-eyed

vulnerability. 'I don't know what to ask you. I don't know

what to think of you. But you frighten me to the depths of

my heart, there is truth.' Her soft almond eyes filled with

tears. 'I am scared and I don't know why.'

For an instant the Spy Master and the girl confronted

each other in tortured confusion. Lujan stayed riveted, his

hand too tight on his sword.

After an unbearable second, Mara realised she must be

the one to break the tension. 'Kamlio, you fear because at

last you know what it is to have something to lose. Go

now, and find cold water, and wash your face.' As if the

girl had been bound by invisible strings that had been cut,

she bowed in grateful relief and hurried off around the

curtain into privacy. ~ ~

At the wounded look on Arakasi's face, Mara gave a

youthful grin. 'You're winning,' she whispered. 'The girl

has let you see into her feelings.'

Arakasi let his wrists fall limp across his knees. Strained

and transparent with hope, he said, 'You think so?'

Lujan burst into a broad laugh and gave the Spy Master

a comradely clap on the shoulder. 'Man, take my word

for it. Most of us endure this nonsense when we are still

in boyhood, but your youth seems to have arrived later

than most. Lady Mara's right. You'll have the lass in the

blankets if only you're willing to show her a bit of you that

needs her help.'

Arakasi sat with his brows peaked in comic puzzlement

'What?'

'She has to see that you need her,' Mara offered.

When the Spy Master's mystified expression failed to

clear, Lujan said, 'Gods, she's never seen you make a

mistake. You killed tong assassins, and lived; you made

love in her master's bed, and if you sweated, it was in

passion rather than fear. You touched her in ways few

men could, I would wager, which means you were the first

person alive who saw into her feelings. That frightened her

because it meant that her beauty or her training failed, or

that you were too smart to succumb to her allure. A man

in her arms is not supposed to be left with the wits to

think beyond his stiff organ. So she's scared. None of

her skills will avail her where you are concerned. She can

wear no mask for protection. She is offered a man who can

understand her, but whose feelings she can't read in return.

Bedroom pleasures she's bored with, because caring for a

man is outside her experience. She'll have to be led and

shown. But for that, she must lose her awe of you. Try

tripping on a stone and falling at her feet one day, and see

if she doesn't jump down beside you and start doctoring

your skinned knees.'

Mara said, 'For a lout who takes advantage of women,

you can be surprisingly insightful, Lujan.'

While the Force Commander grinned, Arakasi said, 'I'll

think on it.'

'If you think even once with a woman, you're lost.' Lujan

grinned. 'At least, no one I know has ever fallen in love

for logic.'

'Lujan's right,' Mara encouraged, innately aware of the

truth. Hokanu and she shared perfect understanding, a

harmony of body and intellect. But with the headstrong,

outspoken Kevin, who had argued with her, and sometimes

made her scream in frustration, she had known passion

that the years had not dimmed. For a moment her heart

quickened at his memory - until a gust of smoky air swirled

through the tent, reminding her of battle and the weight

of today's problems that demanded immediate attention.

'Send for our Adviser for War,' she said. 'We must make

plans for every contingency and do one thing until matters

come to a head. stay alive.'

The tent fell silent for a moment before anyone moved;

wind carried the noise of an armed camp in the throes of

what could all too soon become a great war, or else a

circle of cinders at a stroke from the Great Ones of the

Assembly.

The squall passed, and the drip of wet trees mingled

with the shouts of officers directing their troops to set

up camp. The armor worn by the warriors was without

marking; and the tents they labored to set, drab brown.

To casual observation, there was nothing to distinguish

this company's encampment from thousands of others in

key locations throughout the Empire; except that this one

appeared to guard no crossroads, bridge or ford, or holding

of significance. Miles removed from the possibility of a

fight, this troop prepared to bed down id the trackless

forests at-four days' march to the northwest of Kentosani.

The discipline was no drill and far from slack as servants

and rank-and-file warriors labored to drive tent pegs and

set ridgepoles. On a slight rise, beneath a stand of sodden

evergreens, one man paced in agitation, while a shorter,

leaner figure swathed in an oiled wool cape hopped at his

heels to keep up.

'How much longer must I wait?' Jiro snapped in exasperation.

A servant crossed his path and bowed. Jiro stepped

around; well accustomed to the master's dicey moods

since the armies had marched, the servant pressed his

face to wet leaf mold. 'Your command tent shall be ready

shortly, my Lord.'

Jiro whirled, eyes narrowed in displeasure. 'I wasn't

speaking to you!' While the wretch so addressed abased

himself headlong in the mud to atone for his master's

displeasure, the Lord of the Anasati switched his glare to

the First Adviser, who just then caught up to him. 'I said,

how much longer?'

Chumaka brushed a water drop off the end of his nose.

He looked smug, despite wet clothes and the day's march

through pathless wilderness. 'Patience, master. A wrong

move now will spoil the planning we have labored for

-years to bring "about.'

'Don't talk circles around my question,' Jiro said, in no

temper to suffer his First Adviser's rhetoric. 'I asked you

how long? We cannot leave siege engines in place around

Kentosani and keep them idle indefinitely. Every day that

passes brings us risk: the Omechan Lord we have left in

charge could grow restless, or pursue his ambitions on

his own. And delay only allows the Shinzawai forces to

march that much closer to the aid of the Imperial Guard.

We dare not presume that the Assembly will not be spying

on our actions. They could intervene, and forbid an attack

at any time! What in the name of the gods, Chumaka, are

we waiting for?'

If the Anasati First Adviser was surprised by this tirade,

he did no more than stop in his tracks.- His leathery features

stayed expressionless, while Jiro kept pacing ahead. Six

energetic steps later, the Lord finally noticed that the

servant he had commanded to answer no longer flanked

him. He restrained himself from snarling a curse. As always,

Chumaka had allowed for every contingency. Either Jiro

must acknowledge his fidgeting by walking back for his

answer, or he must command his First Adviser to return

to his side - and the distance between them was just wide

enough that the master must raise his voice, showing all

within earshot that he needed to assert himself to make a

petty point.

Jiro might have shouted just to vent his spleen, but since

he had an Omechan contingent as guest, he was forced to

capitulate and stride back to Chumaka.

Annoyed as he was for other reasons, this personal setback

left no rancor. In fact, Jiro admired his First Adviser's

finesse. A Lord who displayed nerves and temper had no

inherent dignity; and one who aspired to an Emperor's

crown must learn to set insignificant irritations aside.

Always the instructor, Chumaka was far too masterfully

subtle to issue a reproach before warriors and servants that

might reveal his master's poor self-control.

It was just such traits that would make Chumaka the ideal

imperial adviser, Jiro mused with a curl to his lips that just

missed being a smile. His mood now much improved, he

regarded his adviser, whose habitual stoop was emphasised

by the drag of his wet garments. 'Why should we grant

Mara more time to advance her interests? Your intelligence

confirms that she intends to claim the golden. throne for

Justin.'

Chumaka tapped his cheek with one finger, as though

considering; but by the calculating glint in his eyes, Jiro

knew he was under close observation. 'Master,' Chumaka

said presently, 'your command tent is prepared. I suggest

we discuss this issue inside, in comfort and privacy.'

Jiro laughed. 'You are slipperier than a fresh-caught fish,

Chumaka. Well then, we shall dry off and the servants shall

heat us tea. But after that, no more roundabout talk! By the

gods, I will have my answer from you. And after all these

delays and excuses, it had better be revealing!'

Now Chumaka smiled. He bobbed a quick, self-deprecating

bow. 'Master, have I ever failed to match my actions to your

desires?'

His temper changeable as the wind-blown clouds overhead,

Jiro answered through clenched teeth, 'Mare is still

alive. Bring me her head, and then I will agree that you

have not failed me.'

Not the least discomfited by what another man might

regard as a plain threat from the Lord of the Anasati,

Chumaka said, 'Indeed, master, that is what I am working

myself to achieve.'

'Hah!'Jiro moved through the gloomy woods toward the

largest tent. 'Don't try me, old man. You'd work yourself to

the bone for the sheer love of intrigue.'

Chumaka wrung out the hem of his dripping cloak and

followed his master into the command tent. 'My Lord, it

is a fine point, but if I should do such a thing for its own

sake, that would be vanity. The gods do not love such faults

in a man. Therefore, I work for the glory of your cause,

my Lord, and there the matter ends. I am ever your loyal

servant.

Jiro ended the discussion with a deprecating wave. He

preferred his philosophy out of books, which did not have

Chumaka's irritating tendency to belabor every issue half

to death.

The interior of the command tent was still in the process of

being set up. One lantern had been lit, and servants

bustled about unpacking cushions and hangings. From the

outside, Jiro's quarters might appear plain, but inside, he

insisted on his comforts, his fine silk tapestries, and two

chests of book scrolls. Lately he had been reading up on

obscure issues of law, imperial state functions, and precisely

which ceremonies must be officiated by which priests of the

Twenty Gods to make the crowning of an Emperor proper

in the eyes of heaven.

The reading had been tedious, made worse because the

lanterns attracted bugs and cast poor light. The Lord of

the Anasati snapped his fingers, and a boy body servant

jumped to attend him. 'Remove my armor. See that all

the leather straps are oiled, so they do not dry stiff.' Jiro

waited, statue-still, as he suffered the boy to undo the first

buckles.

Although his high office allowed the attentions of a

servant, Chumaka hated the pretension. He shucked his

damp wool and found a seat. Jiro's silent, efficient house

staff had just brought him a steaming pot of tea when a

buzzing sound cut the air.

'A Great One comes!' he called in warning.

Jiro jerked free of his last bracer and spun around, while

behind him, to a man, his serving staff fell prone upon the

floor. As a gust fanned the tent, and the hangings rippled

from their supporting poles, Chumaka set down the teapot

and faded into the shadows toward the back of the tent.

The magician appeared in the center of the one rug that

had been unrolled from its bundle. His fiery red hair trailed

out from under his hood, and he seemed not to care that he

trod over silk cushions as he approached the Lord of the

Anasati. The eyes beneath his cowl were pale and sharp

as they darted from side to side, and fixed at last on the

Lord who waited with his armor heaped at his feet.

'My Lord of the Anasati,' greeted Tapek of the Assembly

of Magicians. 'I am sent as delegate to command your

presence in the Holy City. Troops have been deployed,

and for the good of the Empire, the Assembly requires an

accounting to avert the outbreak of open war.'

Glad of the wet hair that concealed the fact that he was

sweating, Lord Jiro raised his chin. He gave a perfectly

deferent bow. 'Your will, Great One. It shall not be the

Anasati who break your edict. But I make so bold as to

point out: if I go, who will see that Mara of the Acoma

and her Shinzawai husband keep the edict against armed

conflict?'

Tapek frowned. 'That is not your business, Lord Jiro! Do

not presume to question.' Although the Great One was far

from unsympathetic to the Anasati cause, he disliked the

idea that any Lord dared to voice even token objection.

But as Jiro bent his head in deference, Tapek relented.

'The Lady Mara has been issued a like summons! She is

also commanded to appear in Kentosani. As you are, she

is given ten days' leave in which to do so! The day after

the imperial mourning ends, you will both convene with

members of the Assembly to state your cases.'

Jiro thought rapidly and repressed a smile of satisfaction.

Ten days' fast march would barely be sufficient to allow

Mara to reach the Holy City. His position was closer, not

with his main army to the south as all would suppose, but

in this secret location near Kentosani in preparation for his

planned siege-Mara would need to scramble to meet the

Assembly's demand, while he would have days of leeway

to seek advantage. To cover the bent of his thinking, the

Anasati Lord said, 'These are unstable times, Great One.

Traveling the roads is not safe for any Lord, with every other

ambitious noble stirring about with his army. Mara may

have your sanction against attacking my personal train, but

she has other supporters and sympathisers. Many friends of

the late Emperor have political cause to see me dead for my

leadership of the traditionalist faction.'

'This is true.' Tapek gave a magnanimous gesture. 'You

are permitted to travel with an honor guard to ensure

your safety. When you reach the Holy City, you may take

one hundred warriors within the walls. Since the Imperial

Whites still enforce order inside the city, that number should

be proof against assassins.'

Jiro bowed deeply. 'Your will, Great One.' He held his

deferential pose through the buzzing sound that signaled

Tapek's departure. When he arose, he found Chumaka once

again seated upon the cushions, dusting at the footprints

left by the magician between sips of his tea. His manner

was inscrutable, as if no great visitation had happened;

except that a flush of unholy satisfaction colored the First

Adviser's craggy face.

'Why are you so full of yourself?' Jiro demanded, half

snatching the dry robe brought to him by his servant. The

Lord stepped over his discarded armor and, checking to be

sure no grit sullied his personal cushion, sank cross-legged

across from his adviser.

Chumaka set down his cup, reached for the teapot, and

calmly poured for his master. 'Send your runner to fetch

in the Omechan heir.' The Anasati First Adviser handed

his master the tea, then rubbed his hands together in

bright-eyed anticipation. 'Our plot ripens well, my Lord!

In fact, all unknowing, the Assembly has helped it along!'

Jiro took the cup as if it were filled with foul-tasting

medicine. 'You equivocate again,' he warned; but he knew

better than to stall in sending his runner off on the errand

Chumaka suggested.

As the messenger boy left, Jiro peered at his adviser over

the rim of his teacup, then took a sip. 'We will be inside

the walls of Kentosani in four days with one hundred of

my best fighting men,' he allowed. 'What else do you have

brewing in that head of yours?' -,

'Great deeds, master.' Chumaka raised a hand and ticked

off points on his fingers. 'We will leave this camp and set

off for Kentosani, in strict compliance with the Great Ones'

summons. Next, assuming Mara acts in compliance - that's

safe, since if she doesn't, she's as good as dead by the hand

of the Assembly, and we have won - anyway assuming she

is no fool, while she is still many days' march to the south

of Kentosani, we are inside the walls and covertly prepared

for a raid on the Imperial Precinct.' Chumaka grinned, and

tapped his ring finger. 'The Omechan Force Commander,

meantime, acts on his Lord's orders and begins the siege

of the Holy City, as we have planned all along. But here is

the change for the better, courtesy of the Assembly: you,

my master, are innocent of this attack, being inside the

walls. If the magicians protest the breaking of the imperial

peace, you cannot be implicated. After all, you cannot be

expected to answer for a popular move to set you on the

throne. But alas for the Imperial Whites, the old walls

prove weak indeed. They are breached, and a war host

invades the streets.'

Chumaka's eyes sparkled. Less excitable, ever cynically

cautious, Jiro set down his tea. 'Our allies under Omechan

break into the Imperial Precinct,' he responded. 'Mare's

children suffer an unfortunate accident, and lo, the imperial

mourning ends, and there is a new Emperor upon the golden

throne by the time Lady Mara arrives in Kentosani, and his

name is Jiro.'

Now Jiro's faintly underlying scorn surfaced to outright

irritation. 'First Adviser, your ideas have several flaws, if I

may point them out?'

Chumaka inclined his head, his enthusiasm like banked

coals that at any moment might ignite a bonfire. 'Mara,'

he second:guessed. 'I have not accounted for the Acoma

bitch that you want dead so badly.'

'Yes, Mara!' Tired of his adviser's conversations, which

at times seemed convoluted as his shah tactics, Jiro vented

his annoyance. 'What about her?'

'She will be dead.' Chumaka let a dramatic pause develop

as he shifted his haunches to allow a servant behind him to

spread another carpet on the tent floor. Then he said, 'Do

you think the Assembly would stay its hand if her troops

were to attack your main army by Sulan-Qu?'

This time, Jiro caught his drift. 'The Great Ones will kill

her for me!' He leaned forward, almost slopping the tea on

the table. 'But that's brilliant. You think we can goad her

into attacking?'

Chumaka smiled in satisfaction and poured himself a

second cup of tea. Through the dimness of the tent, his

teeth gleamed. 'I know so,' he allowed. 'Her children's

lives are at stake, and she is a woman. She will risk all

to defend her babies, depend on it. And unless she calls an

attack, your troops in the south will break camp and march

around her lines to support your newly established rule by

controlling the lands outside the walls of Kentosani. This

her clever Spy Master will tell her with absolute certainty,

for it will be the truth.'

Bemused by the implications, Jiro mirrored his First

Adviser's smile. 'The magicians will be busy chastising

Mara, while I seize the golden throne. Of course, we may

lose all of our Anasati army, but that will not ultimately

matter. The Acoma will be obliterated, and I will be left

with the highest honor in all the Empire. Five thousand

Imperial Whites will answer to me then, and all Lords will

bow to my will.'

The tent flap opened, interrupting Jiro's enraptured

speculation. His face went expressionless at once as he

turned to see who entered.

A young man ducked through the doorway, striding

briskly. His armor, also, was unmarked, but his snub nose

and flat cheeks identified him unmistakably as a scion of

the Omechan. 'You called for me, Lord Jiro?' he demanded

in an arrogant alto.

The Lord of the Anasati arose, still slightly flushed with

excitement. 'Yes, Kadamogi. You will return to your father

at speed, and tell him the hour has come. Five days from

now, he will attack Kentosani using the siege engines I have

provided.'

Kadamogi bowed. 'I will tell him. Then you will hold

to the vow you made for our support, my Lord of the

Anasati - when the golden throne is yours, your first act

as Emperor will be to restore the High Council, and to see

an Omechan reclaim the white and gold as Warlord!'

Jiro's lip curled in barely suppressed distaste. 'I am

hardly senile, to have forgotten my promise to your father:

so quickly.' Then, as the young Omechan noble stiffened

with the beginnings of affront, the Anasati Lord added

placatingly, 'We waste time. Take my best litter, and my

fastest bearers to see you on your errand. For myself, I must

consult with my Force Commander to oversee disposition

of my honor guard.'

'Honor guard?' Kadamogi's heavy features darkened in

confusion. 'Why should you need an honor guard?'

In a mercurial change of mood, Jiro laughed. 'I march

also upon Kentosani, and by order of the Assembly. The

Great Ones have summoned me there to offer an accounting

concerning deployment of my troops!'

Kadamogi's face cleared as he gave back a deep-cheated

chuckle. 'That's rich. Very. And our plot to restore the High

Council is nearly a foregone conclusion.'

Now Jiro gestured in animated anticipation. 'Indeed. The

siege will be short, having help from the inside, and the sup"

porters of the Good Servant will be set upon by the Assembly.'

Glee touched his tone as he finished, 'The magicians will kill

Mara for us. Servant of the Empire she may be, but she will

die in magic flames, roasted like a haunch of meat!'

Kadamogi's fat lips stretched into a smile. 'We should:

drink a glass of wine to that ending, before I leave, yes?'

'A fine idea!' Jiro clapped for his servants, and only

noticed in passing that the cushions where Chumaka had

sat were no longer occupied. The empty teacup on the table

was gone also, leaving no sign that the First Adviser had

been there at all.

That man is more devious than the God of Tricks himself,

Jiro thought; and then the wine came, and he settled down

to an evening of camaraderie with the heir to the Omechan

mantle.

Outside the command tent, in the drizzle as evening fell,

a shadowy form moved through the trees. Over one arm,

Chumaka carried the oiled wool cape haste had not allowed

him to don. As he walked briskly toward the tent that

housed the Anasati messenger runners, he appeared to be

counting on his fingers. But it was not sums he muttered

in a monotone under his breath.

'Those leftover warriors who were of the Minwanabi,

and who did not swear to Mara, now - yes, it is time for

them to earn their keep, I think. A precaution, yes, just in

case Mara slips through the grasp of the Assembly. She

is clever. We cannot suppose we know all the details of

her inner council. That time she supposedly spent in the

temple in seclusion has yet to be adequately explained.

How could she be there, then suddenly be upon her own

estates .. . ?'

Chumaka hurried on, not tripping over roots or blundering

into trees, though it was very dark, and the camp was

strange. Preoccupied as he seemed, he stepped cleanly over

guy lines and tent pegs, while he finished formulating his

backup plan. 'Yes, we must have sets of armor lacquered

in Acoma green for these men, and have them insinuate

themselves into the Lady's honor guard - at least, they

will stay in hiding until the last minute, when the Lady

is on the run, and then they will slip in among her

warriors and slaughter her defenders. Posing as loyal

Acoma, they can either capture her and turn her over

to the Black Robes, or take their pleasure and kill her

themselves, in revenge for the Minwanabi master whose

line she obliterated. Yes ... that would be the thing.'

Chumaka reached the compound where the messengers'

tent was set. He startled a sentry as he stepped out

of the gloom, and nearly received a sword thrust to

the chest. /

'Gods save us from our own men!' he exclaimed,

bounding back and throwing up his bundled cloak to

catch the blade. 'It's Chumaka, you blind fool! Now find

me a messenger who is fresh, and quickly, before I decide:

to report your incompetence to the master.'

The soldier bobbed his head in fearful deference, for it

was known that any who displeased the First Adviser came

to unfortunate straits. He ducked into the messengers' tent,

while behind him, in gently falling rain, Chumaka resumes

his.singsong musing.

27

Defiance

The palanquin jolted.

Mara snapped awake at the thump, disoriented by the

close confines, until she remembered.- She was not in her

tent, but on the road, answering the summons by the

Assembly to appear in the Holy City. For two days now

she had been traveling at speed in her most ornate, formal

palanquin, changing the thirty bearers required to lift the

monstrous thing in shifts, and eating on the move. It was

night; she knew not what hour.

Light breeze stirred the curtains, smelling of rain, as

Keyoke, who sat across from her, leaned out. Although

still muddled with the aftereffects of sleep, she could hear

by the tone of her Adviser for War as he exchanged words

with someone outside that a problem had arisen.

She pushed herself upright on her cushions. 'What passes,

Keyoke?'

The old man ducked back inside the palanquin. By the

light cast by the oil lamp hanging from a ring overhead, his

face more than ever seemed chiseled from seamed granite.

'Trouble,' Mara surmised.

Keyoke returned a curt nod. 'A messenger sent by Arakasi

brings ill news.' Then, well aware such detail was no

afterthought, he added, 'The man met us on cho-ja back.'

Mara felt her heart thud in raw fear. 'Gods, what's gone

wrong?'

The elderly campaign veteran knew best how to break the

news cleanly. 'Jiro's location is at last made known. He was

not with the Anasati troops, as we supposed. He is ahead

of us, by now just over one day's march from Kentosani.'

Mara slumped back, crushed by the sudden ebb of hope.

'That leaves him five days in which to wreak mischief

unopposed, since that doddering fool Lord Frasai saw fit

to send Hoppara of the Xacatecas home after the Emperor's

murder.'

'Mistress,' Keyoke interrupted in worried tones, 'that's

not all.'

Distracted by horrible images of possible death for her

children, Mara forced herself to track the immediate issue.

Seeing the grave expression on Keyoke's face, she surmised

the worst: 'Jiro's siege engines.' Her tone was dulled by the

scope of a disaster that seemed to widen by the second.

Keyoke gave back the clipped nod he used during battle

councils. 'The attack on the walls is poised to begin, and

Arakasi has discovered that our efforts at sabotage have

failed. The toy maker's plans we labored to implement were

never set in place. Presumably, the engineers we sent were

apprehended and put to death, and false reports of their

success sent back through your network. Arakasi could say

only that the assault against Kentosani's walls will occur

without mishap, under Omechan colors. Once Jiro is safely;

inside the Imperial Precinct, his hands will seem clean. His coming

bid for the golden throne could legitimately be

justified as an attempt to restore the peace.'

Mara bit her lip hard enough to hurt. 'He's not in the

Imperial Precinct yet?'

Keyoke's expression stayed wooden. 'Not yet. But the

messenger's news is not fresh, and much can have happened

since he rushed south.'

'We are not ready for this!' Mara burst out. 'Gods, how

could we be ready for this?' Her voice shook with despair.

Ever since her return from Thuril, calamitous events seemed

to be trampling over her with unrelenting speed. Fate was

cruel, to thrust her into conflict unprepared, when she had

the means to avert total ruin so nearly within her grasp. If

::

only she had a peaceful interval in which to plan, and set to

use the advantages she held in the presence of the Chakaha

mages!

'Mistress?' Keyoke prompted gently.

Aware her silence had stretched too long, Mara made

herself rally. 'We are already lost, in all likelihood, but I

cannot let go without a fight. If I fail to act, my children

will soon be killed, and without them, my line ends with

me.' Forcing resolution in her voice, she added, 'I would not

see my faithful servants left in heaven's disfavor, without a

mistress, as I go meekly to answer Emperor Jiro's justice.'

'All would rather perish fighting in Acoma service than

linger as grey warriors,' Keyoke allowed.

Mara repressed a violent shiver. 'Then we are agreed

that the circumstances are extreme.' She leaned forward

and whipped back the curtains of the palanquin. 'Lujan!'

she called.

The Acoma Force Commander snapped her a salute,

droplets flying from his plumes. 'Your will, my Lady.'

'Send the bearers off at a distance and order them to

rest,' Mara said crisply. 'When they are settled out of

earshot, deploy my honor guard in defensive circle around

the palanquin. Then I would have Arakasi's messenger, the

cho-ja who bore him, Saric, Incomo, and yourself report

to me. We must hold council at once, and make immediate

decisions.'

Her orders were carried out with dispatch, despite

the darkness and the rain. Mara spent the interval in

furious thought, while Keyoke considerately tied back the

curtains to allow her chosen advisers to gather around

the palanquin. As the sides were opened to the night, the

lantern light pooled on the cushions, fading with distance

as it washed a ring of familiar faces. Beyond them, the dark

was absolute.

Mara regarded each of her officers, from Keyoke, whom

she had known since her girlhood, to Saric, promoted

young man to his post of First Adviser, to Incomo, reprieved.

from an enemy prisoner's fate of death or slavery. All

given her miracles, in their time of service. Now she found

herself forced to ask more, to demand, in fact, that s.

of them lay down their lives. There was no time

recriminations, no moment even to dwell upon sentiment

Expediency was paramount, and so she gave out what she

expected might be her last commands to them in this life

her voice tersely emotionless. To allow her feelings to show

was to invite emotional breakdown.

First she addressed the cho-ja, who was to her imperfectly

educated eye an elderly worker. 'First, and most important,

your Queen has my thanks for the loan of your services.'

The cho^-ja worker inclined its head. 'My services were

purchased, Lady Mara.'

'Your Queen has my gratitude in addition to monetary

payment. Let her know if you have means.' Mara paused

and heard the thin, high-pitched buzzing that signalled

cho-ja communication When the sound ceased, she ask

'Is it meet that I ask questions of you, good worker? ~

may I request of you another labor, without compromising

your body's need of rest?'

Again the cho-ja inclined its head. 'The night air is mild,

Lady Mara. I have no need of rest unless it turns cold. State

your needs.'

Mara sighed in barely perceptible relief. One sn

obstruction less lay before her. 'I require my Force Commander,

Lujan, carried south at speed to rejoin my army

near the city of Sulan-Qu. He must travel in utmost haste.

my line's survival depends upon it.'

'My cPrvir~ is yours. the cho-ja intoned 'I will bear your

officer willingly.'

'Should I survive' the Queen of your hive may demand

debt of me,' Mara said in sincere appreciation. 'I would

also ask that you give my adviser Saric clear instructions

on the location of the cho-ja hive entrance nearest our

present position.' As the Cho-ja worker inclined its head

in acquiescence, Mara added, 'Saric, go with him. Learn

where the hive is; select ten soldiers from my retinue who

can move quickly; and also borrow for me a partial suit

of armor that will let me pass as a warrior in the dark.'

Saric gave a hasty bow and left the circle. One face fewer,

Mara thought; she swallowed hard. -The next order she had

to deliver became the more difficult. 'Lujan?'

Her Force Commander leaned forward, his hair raked in

wet streaks at his temples, and his hand resting upon his

sword. 'Pretty Lady, what is your desire?'

His tone was rakish. Mara suppressed a half-laugh,

half-sob. 'I require the impossible, soldier.' She forced a

smile. 'Though, gods know, you already gave me as much

in the challenge circle in Chakaha.'

Lujan gave a deprecating wave. His eyes also seemed too

bright for the dimness of the lantern light. 'Say on, Lady.

There is no need for hesitation between us - particularly

after Chakaha.'

Mara suppressed a tremor of nerves. 'Force Commander,

I require you to rejoin my army in the south, Should the

Anasati forces attempt to break their lines and move

anywhere, north, east or west, you will commit all of

our companies and engage Lord Jiro's. Fight them to a

standstill; keep them from joining their master in the Holy

City. When the Black Robes arrive to chastise you, forestall

their wrath in any manner that you can.' Now she paused

to gather the force of will to keep control. 'Lujan, I ask

that you dedicate the lives of the Acoma warriors to the

last man before you allow Lord Jiro's army to travel one

step closer to Kentosani.'

Lujan slapped a hand over his heart in salute. 'Lady Mara,

you have my solemn word. Either your army shall prevail,

or I will wage such close war that the Black Robes must

annihilate us all, Anasati and Acoma both.' He bent his

head in a swift bow and straightened. 'For your honor,

my Lady.'

And then he, too, was swallowed up by the night. The

Lady of the Acoma scrubbed her fingers over her face

She felt clammy, whether from mist or sweat she did not

know. If Lujan survives this, and we should meet again,

Mara vowed, I will give him a reward such as his dreams

cannot encompass. But only if Justin sat on the golden

throne could any of them have a prayer of survival. Even

should the Acoma prevail, Lujan might be beyond reward,

for no one who defied the Assembly survived; no one. Mara

raised her chin and phrased the question that had to be

asked. 'Keyoke, ever faithful grandfather of my heart, do

you see any other option?'

He looked at her, hard-bitten from his years on fields of

battle. 'I see none, daughter of my heart. To yield up to your

enemy the life of your innocent son would save nothing. If

Jiro ascends the golden throne, our lives and Acoma honor

are as dust. What matter if the Assembly burns us to ashes

first?' He smiled with the humor only soldiers facing death

can muster. 'Should we die with honor, we shall be known to

history as the only house willing to challenge the Assembly.

That is no mean accomplishment.'

Mara fixed her gaze straight ahead. Alternatives did not

exist. Now she must forge ahead, with the last order;

the hardest of all to deliver. 'Keyoke, Incomo.' Her voice

faltered. She jammed taut hands into her lap and willed

herself to believe in a strength that was all false bravado.

'From here our ways must part. You must go on with

the palanquin and the honor guard. Keep on the road to

Kentosani, and behave as if nothing untoward has occurred

This may seem a small service compared to the deed I have

assigned to Lujan. But I say in deepest truth, your task may

prove the most important. The Black Robes must not guess

that my path has diverged until the latest possible instant.

Your lives are precious to me, and to the continuance of

House Acoma. But no Lady of my rank would journey to

a meeting with magicians in the Holy City without her most

valued senior staff Your presence is essential to keep up

proper appearances. On this the chance of saving Kasuma

and Justin must depend.'

'Mara-anni.' Keyoke used the gentle diminutive of her

childhood. 'Set aside your fear. For myself, I am an old

man. The friends who might remember my youth are

mostly in Turakamu's halls, and if the gods are kind and

grant my dearest wish, I would ask to meet the Red God

many years ahead of you.' Keyoke paused, then, almost

as afterthought, he broke into a fond smile. 'My Lady, I

would have you know this. You have taught me the true

meaning of a warrior's creed. Any man can die fighting

enemies. But the real test of honor for a man is to live and

learn to love himself. In my long life, I have accomplished

many deeds. But it took your gift of an adviser's post to

show me the meaning of my accomplishments.' A suspect

shining adorned Keyoke's eyes as he gave his Lady his final

request. 'Mistress, by your leave, I request permission to

help Saric select the ten warriors who will accompany you

in your flight to Kentosani.'

Beyond words, Mara inclined her head, concealing her

sudden tears as Keyoke delved among the cushions for his

crutch, and arose. He swung himself off into the dark, erect

as he had been in youth, and with the same dedication that

had seen him through a lifetime of wars. When Mara at last

found the courage to raise her head, he was gone from sight;

but she heard his voice demanding the loan of a sword and

helm from the spare supplies.

'Dammit,' he said, borrowing a swearword from

Midkemia when someone suggested he should ride in

the palanquin in dignified comfort. 'I shall go armed,

and on my feet, and any man who dares to suggest otherwise

can cross swords with me and earn himself a

beating!'

Mara sniffed. Only two faces remained of her inner

circle: Arakasi's messenger, who was a virtual stranger,

and Incomo, whom she had scarcely come to know as

well as the others who had worn Acoma colors longer. The

fine-boned, stooped old adviser had seen service with two

houses, and the obliteration of one master at Mara's hand.

And yet he did not seem awkward as he faced the mistress

he had sworn to serve. Though he was a tentative man, his

voice was now unusually strong. 'Lady Mara, know that

I have come to love and respect you. I leave you with all

that I can give: my counsel, poor though it is. I charge you,

for the good of the Empire we both revere, to hold to your

goals. Seize the golden throne ahead of Jiro, and know

absolutely that you do right by this land and its people.'

He smiled shyly. 'I, who once faithfully served your most

bitter enemy, was given more honor and joy in your service

than I could have imagined any man might know. When I

served the Minwanabi, I did so for duty, and the honor of

my house. Had Tasaio been defeated by any other ruler, I

would have died a slave, so I know first hand the value of

your principles. The changes you labor for are just. Make:

Justin Emperor, and rule well and wisely. You have my

devotion and my everlasting gratitude.'

Awkward of body as he was with emotions, Incomo

arose. He gave a deep bow, and another shy smile, then hastened

away to fill Saric's ears with last-minute advice,

whether or not it was wanted.

Mara swallowed past a tightness in her throat. She:

regarded Arakasi's messenger, who seemed weary enough

to fall asleep on the cushions without the bother of lying

down first. 'Can you tell me whether the news you brought ~

has also been sent to my husband?' she asked gently, hating

to disrupt his peace.

The man blinked and roused. 'Mistress, Lord Hokanu

will have heard ahead of you, since he was closer to

Kentosani. Arakasi dispatched other couriers to carry

word to the Shinzawai when the first in our relay was

sent to you.'

Mara longed to know what Hokanu had done when the

ugly news reached his ears. She might never learn; or she

might live to regret the final knowledge. For whether or

not she had made her husband's life forfeit by her orders

to Lujan, which were in blatant disregard of the Assembly's

edict, in her heart she suspected that her husband would

never allow Jiro to reach the sanctuary of Kentosani.

Revenge for his murdered father would not permit, and

in addition, the life of his heir was at stake. Hokanu would

serve his honor and attack, Mara thought, whether or not

he had a prayer of success.

She regarded the exhausted messenger and delivered her

last instruction, which she hoped would give him his

best chance at life. 'You will leave this company,' she

commanded in an iron tone. Instantly the messenger was

alert and listening closely to her commands. 'You will go

at once, and you will swear to me that you will not stop

until you have reached the next courier in your relay. You

must send the following instructions to Arakasi: tell him to

seek out his happiness. He will know where to find it, and

if he demurs, tell him that is my injunction as his mistress,

and his honor requires he obey.'

Fully awake now, the messenger bowed. If he found the

message odd, he simply assumed it was but another clever

code. 'Your will, my Lady.' He arose and stepped off into

the dark.

Alone in the palanquin, Mara released the curtain ties.

The fine silk fell with a sigh of sound, affording her a rare

moment of privacy as she buried her face in her hands. The

reprieve she had won in Chakaha now seemed futile. Had

she died there, the outcome would still be the same: her

son's life sacrificed for Jiro's ambition. She wondered in

self-pity whether fate might have treated her differently if,

so many years past, she had not slighted Jiro by choosing

Buntokapi for her husband.

Was this snarled, vicious political mess the gods' vengeance

for her vanity? Was she being punished for her selfish,

all-consuming drive to keep her family's name and honor,

begun with the sacrifice of a man's life? She had wed

Buntokapi only to see him die as a result of her scheming.

Had he silently cursed the Acoma name, in the moment

he had fallen on his sword? Mara felt a chill course

through her flesh. Perhaps things were all foreordained,:,

and her remaining children would die as Ayaki had, as

pieces sacrificed in the Game of the Council.

Mara's shoulders spasmed as she choked back a sob.

Over the years, each move of the Great Game drove

the stakes higher. Now nothing less than an Emperor's

throne would ensure the safety of her family. To protect

her children, she must change the course of the Empire's

history, and discard long centuries of tradition. She felt

frail and vulnerable, and the feeling of beaten desperation

would not leave her. Then her moment of soul searching

ended; she had no further chance to ponder if she would

survive to greet her children on this side of the Wheel of

Life as Saric returned to the palanquin with an armload of

borrowed armor.

'My Lady?'he queried softly. 'We will need to make haste.

The nearest cho-ja hive is a day and a half distant. If we are

to have a prayer of reaching Kentosani in time enough to

matter, we dare not delay for a second.'

Her Adviser wore armor himself, Mara realised. Observant

almost to a fault, he caught her glance of surprise as he

knelt to help her arm. 'I was a soldier once,' he reminded.

'I can be so again - I've not let my swordwork become

entirely lax. That is all to our advantage. A small company

of fast-marching warriors must perchance draw less notice when

they are not accompanied by a man clad in robes of

high office, don't you think?'

Saric's habit of speaking in questions did have the effect

of drawing the mind away from insoluble problems. Forced

to respond despite her worry, Mara conceded the wisdom

of the disguise.

'Gods preserve us, we may need an extra sword before

all is said and done.' Saric expertly applied himself to the

buckles of Mara's breastplate, while, with false appearance

of normality, the company's water boy made his rounds

with his bucket and dipper, as he would through a natural

pause for rest.

Lujan slid off the cho-ja, his body leaving streaks in the

dust that caked its carapace. He staggered slightly from

stiff muscles, and was caught and steadied by the fast

reactions of the sentry standing guard outside the command

tent. 'Where is Force Leader Irrilandi?' the Acoma Force

Commander croaked through his parched throat. 'I bring

orders from Lady Mara.' ~

The Patrol Leader on day duty arrived breathless, having

seen the cho-ja race in. After one glance at his exhausted

commanding officer, he assisted Lujan to take a seat on

a cushion in the shade. 'Irrilandi is out with the scout

patrol. There has been movement reported among Lord

Jiro's troops. He went to see for himself,' he summed up.

'Send our swiftest runner to fetch him back,' Lujan

commanded. Servants rousted from the command tent

by the day sentry arrived with cool water and towels.

Lujan accepted a drink, then waved them off to undertake

the task of seeing the cho-ja who had carried him made

comfortable. His voice stronger since the dust was washed

from his throat, he added, 'Whatever the creature requires,

see that its needs are promptly met.'

The servants bowed and backed off, to crowd around

the tired cho-ja. Lujan knuckled the aching muscles of his

thighs, speaking fast, and like a swirl in a deep current the

surrounding encampment heaved into motion in response.

While runners dashed off to convene a meeting of officers,

and begin the process of a main muster, Lujan summoned

the highest-ranking warrior at hand and directed at him a

rapid-fire string of questions.

The officer's answers were direct, and as he used his

sword to trace out the deployment of the enemy troops,

Lujan also perceived the emerging pattern that had concerned

Irrilandi.

'Jiro's troops have gathered to march,' he summed up.

'You see that, too,' the officer's worried eyes followed

his Force Commander's hands, which had tightened fiercely

on his sword hilt. 'Though the gods alone know why the

Anasati Lord would issue such a command. His war host

can't attack our holdings or our force without invoking the

wrath of the Black Robes.'

Lujan looked up abruptly. 'I have news. Jiro has started

his bid to take the throne in Kentosani. Though cursed if I

can figure how word traveled so swiftly from his position in

the north to the Anasati Force Commander in the field.'

The scout rubbed sweat from his face. 'That I can answer.

He has birds.'

Lujan raised his eyebrows. 'What?'

'Birds,' the scout insisted. 'Imported from Midkemia.

They are trained to fly to a homing point, with a message

scroll fastened to their leg. They are called pigeons. Our

archers shot two of them down, but others got past.'

'The messages were in cipher?' Lujan asked, then answered

himself 'None of Arakasi's decoding patterns translated?'

The scout leader gave a nod indicating that the Anasati

codes were still unbroken.

Lujan forced his aching body to obey his will, and stand,

and walk. 'Accompany me,' he ordered the scout leader; to

the duty officer he added, 'When Irrilandi arrives, have him

meet me in the command tent over the sand table.'

The dimness inside the pavilion offered no relief; the rain

had ended, and the sun beating down on its hide roof heated

the air to steaming closeness. Lujan unstrapped his helm.

He splashed the dregs of his water cup over his already

sweat-drenched hair. Then, rubbing salty droplets from his

eyelashes, he leaned on the rim of the sand table. 'These

are accurate?' he asked in reference to the rows of colored

silk flags and troop markers.

'Updated this morning,' the scout replied.

Silence fell. From outside, the commotion of warriors

rushing to muster filtered through the tent walls and

hangings; as fine a commander as any in the Empire,

Lujan kept his ears tuned to their activities while his eyes

roved the sand table in swift assessment.

'there,' he announced presently, his dusty hands reaching

and rearranging whole companies of markers at a sweep.

'The Plain of Nashika. That is where we will take him.'

The scout gasped in fear and turned pale. 'We attack

Lord Jiro? Force Commander, what of the Black Robes?'

Lujan never paused as he manipulated markers. 'The

Black Robes shall do as they will. But by our Lady's order,

we attack. If we hesitate, or fail her, every man in this army

will be masterless, grey warriors cursed by the gods.'

The tent flap slapped back, admitting a swirl of dust

and the long-striding figure of Force Leader Irrilandi. Lean

and toughened as cured bark, the older man jerked off his

gauntlets and positioned himself at the sand table opposite

his superior officer. He wasted no word of greeting, but

swept a glance that missed nothing across the changed

deployment of markers. 'We will attack, then,' he surmised,

his typically bitten-off speech animated by a lilt of pleasure.

'Good. At first light, I presume?'

Lujan looked up, a hardness to him that his mistress

had seen only once, and that in the moment before he had

entered the challenge circle in Chakaha. 'Not at first light,'

Lujan corrected. 'Today, immediately after nightfall.'

Irrilandi grinned voraciously. 'Darkness will offer no

cover. You won't deceive any Black Robes.'

'No,' Lujan agreed. 'But we might have the satisfaction

of spilling as much Anasati blood as we can before dawn

comes. Let the Great Ones find out what's happened after

they stir from their sleep and view the result of our night's

activities.'

Irrilandi studied the sand table. 'Plain of Nashika? A good

choice.'

'Tactics?' Lujan queried back tersely. 'I would have your

opinion before we meet with our officers and commit to

engagement.'

Now Irrilandi gave back a chuckle. 'Fight a wide,

sprawling battle, one with many small forces and multiple

vectors of attack. We have enough numbers, and gods know,

we can field dozens upon dozens of messengers to ferry

orders and information back and forth. No single arrow

point of attack this time, with feints and false deployment;

a swarm of arrow points striking at scores of places along

the line!'

Lujan paused in puzzled assessment, then caught his

Force Leader's drift. He threw back his head and laughed

in admiration. 'You crafty old son of a harulth! That's the

best advice I've heard in all my years of service. Create as

much confusion as possible, so maybe we can steal time

and inflict as much damage as possible!'

'If we're going to force the Assembly to incinerate us, let

us take enough of the enemy into the halls of Turakamu

to cause a great song of honor.' Irrilandi looked up with

a deadpan expression that could make Keyoke at his most

unresponsive seem animated. 'Let's hope it works. Gods

pity us, it's a flimsy enough countermeasure to stack against

the aroused might of the magicians.'

The afternoon passed in flurried activity, mostly overseen

by Force Leader Irrilandi as Lujan stole his last chance to

catch up on sleep. Although the orders that were given

amounted to a virtual death sentence, no man among

Mara's thousands shirked his part. To die was Tsurani,

and to meet the Red God in battle, the finest accolade of the

warrior. If the Acoma name continued, and rose in prestige

~and power, the better were a man's chances of earning

higher station on the next turn of the Wheel of Life.

It was ironic, Lujan thought as he rose and ate a hasty

meal at sundown, that the very traditions and beliefs that

lent these warriors incentive were the ones that Mara

would change, should Justin survive to be the Nations'

next Light of Heaven. Some of the officers knew of this

twist of fate; if anything, they worked the harder. If a

warrior had one recurrent nightmare, it was to waken one

day and find himself still alive and taken captive by an

enemy. Officers were traditionally killed, but an unusually

cruel victor might keep them alive to toil as slaves with no

possibility of reprieve. If Mara would discontinue the glory

of bloody death in battle, she would equally eradicate the

degradation of slavery that ground a man down regardless

of his talents or his merit.

Sunset washed the sky gold and copper, then deepened

into starlit night. Mara's warriors assumed their final

formation at the edge of the Plain of Nashika under cover

of darkness. The command to engage the enemy, when the

moment came, was silent.

No horns sounded, drums beat no tattoos, and warriors

did not shout their mistress's name or any other Acoma

battle cry. The start of the greatest conflict of succession to

be fought in Tsuranuanni began without the fanfares that

traditionally accompanied a war.

The only warning that the massed army of the Anasati

had was the thunderous pounding of thousands of feet as

the Acoma forces charged. For once the Anasati were not

served by Chumaka's superior intelligence; he had made

the obvious conclusion: the Acoma war host must be

positioning themselves for a dawn attack.

when the night resounded with the crash of swords, and

the cries of the fatally wounded. The fighting was vicious

and without quarter. Within the first hour, the ground

became churned to muck, watered red by the blood of

the fallen. Lujan and Irrilandi took turns overseeing the

action on a raised hillock, moving counters across the

sand table under a pool of lantern light as messengers

came and went with reports. Orders were dispatched and

formations advanced, or retreated and drew the enemy into

pockets. Ground was won and lost, and won back again

at crippling cost in lives. The dusty floor beneath the table

became littered with counters as Force Leader and Force

Commander cast away colored pins to account for losses,

which were ruinous, as though every man fought with

berserk energy, the better to court the known death by the

sword, rather than risk perishing in magic-born flames.

Each of Mara's two senior commanders rode out in turns

on the cho-ja worker to bolster the morale of the troops, or to

draw sword and lend an arm in the fighting to stiffen a ~

line where needed. . .

The moon rose, bathing the struggle in copper-gold light. ;'

The fighting broke up into knots, where the lines were thin,

with men shouting the names of Mara or Jiro to make their

loyalties known. Armor colors became one in the dark, and

friend was near impossible to distinguish from foe. Swords

grew dark with blood, and a warrior had to rely upon his

training to keep his Stroke true; the eye could not track the

speed of swordplay with every blade dulled by gore.

Dawn came, dUI]e~d by a pall of fog and dust. The ~wide

plain was littered with bodies, trampled by the contention

of the l~nng. Swords cracked under the stress of thrust and

parry, and dead mens blades saw fresh action.

Lujan stood brace" against the sand table, knuckling grit

from his eyes. 'They have lost more than we, but I'd guess

that our dead number scarcely three hundred fewer than the

Anasati'. Aware of a stinging wrist, but not remembering the

swordcut that had Parted the skin, Lujan focused with an

effort on the sand table. If the troops were pared down by

losses, the fighting PatternS had, if anything, grown more

complex through the last hours.

To Irrilandi he Concluded, 'If the cho-ja is willing to

undertake another errand, have it bear you to our western

line. Pull off half a Company and use it to relieve the pressure

on companieS under Strike Leader Kanaziro.' He pointed

to the center of the line, where the bloodiest fighting had

taken place.

Irrilandi snapped \a248off a salute and departed to speak with

the cho-ja; after a few words, the creature scuttled away

with the Force Leader on its back. ~

Lujan leaned tiredly against the sand table. He wondered

where Mara was: whether she had reached the cho-ja

tunnels in safety, or if not, whether the Black Robes

would overtake her without his knowing. Justin could

have inherited the Acoma mantle already, with none of

the Acoma senior Staff aware of a change in succession.

The end might already have come, while on the Plain of

Nashika men fought and died in futility.

Such thinking was Poisonous, the product of stress and

fatigue; Lujan forced himself to attend to the markers on

the chart table, and to listen to yet another scout reporting

in with word of still another change in the lines. Jiro's army

had lost ground this time. Five minutes later, the hillock in

question would be lost again, as it had been in turns through

a seemingly endless night. Lujan realised by the shadow that

pooled under his hand that the sun was now fully risen and

climbing higher in the sky.

He felt a breeze against his neck, and almost as afterthought,

realised that the buzzing noise in his ears was no

natural effect of exertion on too little sleep. Turning, he

saw three men in black robes materialise a few feet away.

The youngest stepped briskly forward, his thin, highcheekboned

face solemn. 'Force Commander,' he announced,

'I seek your mistress.'

Lujan sank into a bow, awe mixed with fear on his face.

Clearing his throat of dust, he spoke the simple truth. 'My

mistress is absent.'

The magician advanced. His feet were clad in slippers,

Lujan noticed, laced in front, and soled in soft hide

unsuited for outdoor wear. That stray fact caused him

an inward shudder. This magician expected complete and

immediate obedience, without any need to exert himself

beyond walking a few steps.

Aware of his frantic heartbeat and his face dripping

nervous sweat, Lujan forced himself to reason. These are

powerful men, but only men, he reminded himself. He

licked dry lips, recalling a judgment he had been forced

to carry out as a grey warrior: he had needed to put

a man to death for a crime against the camp company.

His own sword arm had performed the execution, and

he remembered clearly how difficult it had been to strike

down the condemned. Lujan could only hope that even a

Great One might hesitate before taking a life.

The Acoma Force Commander held still, though his

muscles betrayed him and trembled; the urge to rise up

and face threat or to give in to weakness and flee was

torment.

The magician tapped one pointed, curled-back slipper

toe. 'Not here?' he said in acerbic reference to Mara. 'At

the moment of her triumph?'

Lujan held his chin to the earth and awkwardly offered

a shrug. Knowing that each second stolen here might gain

his mistress an infinitesimal improvement in her chance to

survive, he spoke slowly. 'The victory is not yet won, Great

One.' He paused, coughing slightly. The raspy sound lent

credence to his need to stop and clear his throat once more.

'And it is not my place to question my mistress, Great One.

She alone would know what matters demand her presence

elsewhere, and so she gave over command of this battle

into my poor hands.'

'Curse this rhetoric, Akani,' snapped another voice.

Lujan was aware of a second set of feet before his face,

this pair wearing Midkemian-style boots studded with

wooden nails. The redheaded magician, he identified,

who was tallest of the three delegates, and obviously

the one most inclined to inflamed thinking. 'We waste

time, I say. We know that Mara is bound north toward

Kentosani in her litter, and a fool can see from this hilltop

that a war is in progress, between Acoma and Anasati

forces. We have been defied! Immediate punishment must

follow.'

The Black Robe addressed as Akani replied in more

modulated tones. 'Now, Tapek, calm down. We must not

draw hasty conclusions. These forces are fighting, all too

true, but since none of us saw the battle start, we do not

know which side was the aggressor.'

'That point is moot!' Tapek said through clenched teeth.

'They fight, and our edict forbade armed conflict between

the Acoma and the Anasati!'

After a short silence, through which glares were exchanged

between the magicians, Akani once again addressed

Lujan. 'Tell me what passed here.'

Lujan raised his head from the dirt just enough to squint

through the dust that drifted in curtains upon the air. 'The

battle is close, Great One. The enemy holds a stronger

position perhaps, but the Acoma have superior numbers.

At times I think we shall prevail, while at other times I

despair and compose prayers for the Red God.'

'This warrior treats us like fools,' Tapek objected to

Akani. 'He speaks in circles like a merchant trying to sell

shoddy goods.' One studded boot lifted and prodded Lujan

in the shoulder. 'How did this battle begin, warrior? That's

what we asked to determine.'

'For that, you must inquire of my mistress,' Lujan

insisted, casting himself prone with his forehead pressed

to the earth. Although he skirted open defiance of the

most powerful men in the Empire, he interpreted-Tapek's

question in the broadest way possible; Mara had never

discussed the ancient roots of the rivalry between House

Acoma and House Anasati after all; that sort of history

was more in Saric's province. Keeping up his posture of

loyal servant Lujan prayed no magician would reformulate

the question to ask who ordered the first attack.

Risking a peek upward, Lujan studied the Black Robes

with the same eye he would apply to any new recruit: he

dared to assess them as men, and determined that while

Akani was intelligent, and certainly no fool, he was not

predisposed to wish Mara or the Acoma forces harm. The

redhead Tapek would take extreme action at little thought;

he was the dangerous one. The third in the party seemed a

bystander, watching the exchange as a factor might, who

had little ambition and no stake in the outcome. He did

not seem distressed.

Tapek nudged again with his boot. 'Force Commander?'

Aware he would be instantly dead if he replied directly

to Tapek's query, Lujan tossed caution to the winds. He

acted as if strain had upset his wits and disrupted his

train of thought. In a tone of awed reverence, he said,

'Great One?'

Tapek's fair skin flushed. On the point of an explosion

of temper, he was checked by a touch from Akani, who

smoothly intervened. 'Force Commander Lujan, withdraw

the Acoma forces and end this battle.'

Lujan's eyes widened. 'Great One?' he repeated, as if the

order astonished him.

Tapek shook off Akani's restraint and bellowed, 'You

heard me! Order the Acoma forces to retreat, and end this

battle!'

Lujan threw himself prone on the earth in a show of

abject prostration. He prolonged his obeisance until just

shy of the ridiculous, then said unctuously, 'Your will,

Great One. Of course I will order a retreat.' He paused,

allowed his brow to furrow, then added, 'Would you

permit me to arrange the retreat in a manner that will

minimise harm to my warriors? If the object is to spare

further bloodshed . . .'

Akani waved his hand. 'I would not see needless death.

Arrange the withdrawal in any manner that pleases you.'

Lujan willed himself not to sigh in relief as he straightened

as far as his knees. He beckoned to a nearby runner and

said swiftly, 'Orders to the Lord of the Tuscalora. [have him

withdraw his soldiers to the south, then hold and support

for those who shall be following him' - he flashed a glance

at the Black Robes, and received a tiny nod from Akani,

a fuming glare from Tapek, and vague intentness from the

third in the magician's party - 'to protect their retreat, you

see,' he ended in a rush.

The messenger was half petrified with fright. He took

a moment to notice dismissal. As he hastened off, Lujan

waved over another runner, and gave a long-winded set

of instructions that involved two flanking maneuvers and

what to an outside ear was impenetrable military jargon.

As this messenger hastened off, he bowed again to the party

of magicians. 'May I offer you refreshment, Great Ones?'

'Some juice would cut the day's heat,' the bystanding

Black Robe agreed. 'These robes are not comfortable in

full sunlight.'

While Tapek began to shift weight and tap his foot

in irritation, Lujan clapped for servants and made a

production of debating which wine should be sent, and

what sort of camp rations were fit to be served to visitors

of great rank. The wrangling threatened to go on for

some time, until Tapek snapped that no delicacies were

expected; plain jomach and water would serve the needs

of his colleagues nicely.

'Dear me,' Akani objected in a voice of lighthearted

reason, 'I personally thought the imported Midkemian

wine sounded delightful.'

'You stay and sip drinks with this half-wit who calls

himself a Force Commander,' Tapek nearly shouted. 'Some

of us have more important matters to attend to, and I

think that in the interests of the council that delegated

us as emissaries, one of us should observe to be certain

that the war hosts on the battlefield are indeed breaking

off the engagement.'

Akani gave the younger magician a look of reprimand.

'The Force Commander obeyed without question and

ordered his troops to withdraw. Do you question his

word of honor?'

'I need not,' Tapek nearly snarled.

At this point the third magician, who had been staring

vaguely off in the direction of the distantly moving armies,

said, 'Actually, Tapek may have a point. From a seer's

vantage, I see no sign of any lessening of the struggle.'

To Lujan's astonishment, Akani gave back a bland wave.

'As I understand it, these things take time.' Glancing

keenly at the Acoma Force Commander, he stroked his

chin. 'Something about one vassal holding in support

while another company retreats ... was that it, Force

Commander?'

Lujan smothered a start of revelation. Some of the

awe left him as he realised: these were but men! They

had factions just as did contending Ruling Lords in the

Game of the Council. By all appearances, the Black Robe

Akani was tactfully trying to aid Mara's cause without

overt disregard of the Assembly's edict. Lujan stifled an

unjustified countersurge of confidence and said, 'Absolutely

so, Great One. The Lord of the Tuscalora-'

'Oh, don't bore us with the details!' Tapek interjected.

'Just tell us why Mara of the Acoma dared to believe she

could order this attack and pass unscathed, when she has

been expressly forbidden to do battle with Jiro of the

Anasati by our order.'

Lujan licked his lips, his nervousness unfeigned. 'I cannot

know that.' The gritty dirt under his knees ground into his

flesh, and the unaccustomed pose strained his back. Worse

torture visited his mind. He could cause Mara's death

through a wrong choice of words. By the gods, he was well

trained to fight, but Saric's turn for statesmanship was no

talent of his. He floundered, seeking a way around direct

truth. 'My orders from her were to prevent the army of the

traditionalists from marching north toward Kentosani. As

you have said, she is en route to the Holy City, also by

order of the Assembly.'

'Ah hah! So she is.' Tapek folded his arms and stroked his

sleeves in satisfaction. 'Now we will hear the truth. What

route has she taken to get there? No sly words! On pain

of death, tell me directly.' At this, Tapek raised one finger,

and a blossom of flame flared up, searing the air with a

hiss. 'Now answer!'

Lujan arose to full height. If he was going to be killed,

or spoil Mara's chances, he would do so as a man and

a warrior, on his feet. 'Your will, Great One. My Lady

planned to travel by back roads, with her honor guard lest

she encounter trouble.'

The quietest magician of the three, Kerolo, said, 'And if

she were to encounter trouble?'

Lujan swallowed and found his throat paper-dry. He

coughed and forced himself to find his voice, which now,

at the last pass, was even and strong, as he willed it to be.

'She would seek refuge in the nearest cho-ja hive.'

The magicians Kerolo and Tapek exchanged disturbed

glances and, as one, moved to activate their transport

devices. A buzzing filled the air, slicing through the lessening

cries of battle and the distant clash of swords. Then a

breeze parted the pall of dust, and the pair were gone,

leaving Akani studying Lujan in dearly troubled silence.

A moment passed. Lujan stayed stifffly correct as any recruit

might while enduring the inspection of a senior officer.

An understanding seemed to pass between the two men,

different though their stations in life were. Akani's regard

turned shrewd.

He said, 'No more guile. Your mistress has, if not allies,

then sympathetic ears in the Assembly, but even they will

stand aside before open defiance. What cause has Mara to

count upon cho-ja aid?'

Lujan shed any attempt at subterfuge. With this Black

Robe, further ploys would earn short shrift. Still, afraid to

reveal too much, he selected his words with extreme care.

'She has long been friends with the cho-ja Queen upon her

natal estates. She has over the years bought favors from the

hive, many of them in the cause of Acoma defence.'

Akani frowned, his expression the more terrifying for the

fact it was understated. 'The cho-ja beyond the borders of

her estates willingly take up her cause?'

Lujan raised spread palms to the sky in the traditional

Tsurani shrug. 'That I cannot say, Great One. Only the

Lady herself knows what bargains may or may not have

been struck.'

Akani's gaze turned piercing, seeming to turn the Force

Commander's thoughts inside out and expose them to

blinding light. Chills chased across Lujan's flesh, and he

trembled. And then the sensation passed.

\a249You speak the truth,' Akani allowed. 'But be warned,

the Assembly will get to the bottom of this issue. It sadly

may prove that we might have to part company in our

cause, Acoma Force Commander.' With a nod that could

have conferred respect, Akani activated his transportation

device and departed in a blast of disturbed air.

Lujan reached out and caught the edge of the sand table to

keep from folding at the knees. Mara, he thought in despair;

what would become of her? For while Jiro's army would

by the grace of the Assembly be forbidden to advance to

Kentosani, the true foe was awakened. While Lujan had

seen his Lady achieve the impossible before, and while

he had boundless faith in her genius for improvising the

unpredictable, even a Servant of the Empire could not long

defy the Assembly and survive.

28

Retribution

The litter was heavy.

Eight bearers were needed to carry its weight of fine

hardwoods, inlaid with corcara shell and bossed with

rare studs of iron. If the costly silk hangings, heavily

embroidered and fitted with fringes and tassels, were

designed to dazzle any onlooker, the admission of light

and air was forfeit to splendor. Since dawn had brightened

enough to allow reading, Lord Jiro of the Anasati had

commanded his servants to pull back the curtains and

bundle them under leather ties.

The effect might not have been as elegant as when the

drapes were lowered, but Jiro was unconcerned. There was

no one of importance to notice.

The forest road that led southeast toward Kentosani

held no caravans or other nobles. Save for an occasional

bonded messenger, it was empty of all but refugees,

common folk fleeing the cities; food was scarce, and

families in the poorest quarters were first to starve. These

were ragged people, covered with sores, clothed in tatters.

They cradled wailing infants or towed older children who

stumbled and tripped, weak from malnutrition. Beloved

grandparents were borne upon the backs of younger men.

The countryside offered a slim chance of game to be caught

or nuts and berries to be foraged.

Jiro paid such wretched folk no heed: their poverty was

as the gods willed. The soldiers in his vanguard cleared

the way for his retinue to pass, and except for the crying

of the children, through the dust, they seemed little more

than groveling shadows.

While his bearers sweated under the strain of forced

march, the Anasati Lord sat at ease on piled cushions, with

layer upon layer of scrolls Lying opened across his knees.

The heap was caught back from spilling over his ankles

by the braced pommel of his sword, pinched between his

armor-dad knees.

Long and lean as a hunting hound, First Adviser Chumaka

kept pace at the litter's side. As toughened as any warrior,

he seemed unfazed by exertion as he answered his master's

questions, which were few and infrequent, and widely

divergent in subject from the lengthy, tedious treatises on

imperial law expounded in the scrolls.

'I don't trust the Shinzawai,' Jiro snapped, seemingly

without provocation. 'His brother Kasumi spent years

fighting on the barbarian world, as part of the Blue Wheel

plot to undermine the Warlord, and the honorless, crafty

ways of the Midkemians have also influenced Hokanu.'

Chumaka bent an intent gaze upon his master and said

nothing for a comfortless interval. And as if the man

held power to read thoughts, Jiro knew: his First Adviser

understood he was remembering Tasaio of the Minwanabi,

a brilliant field general whose army had been humbled by

Mara's through an unanticipated tactic brought about by

advice from a Midkemian slave. That House Minwanabi no

longer existed did not bear mention. Nervous fears needed

no fanning for their spark to blossom into flame. Just short

of reprimand, Chumaka said, 'My Lord, all that the hands

and the minds of men may achieve has been done to ensure

your success. Now fate, luck, and the will of the gods must

have their way. You will sit on the golden throne, or not, as

they allow.'

Jiro leaned against his cushions, shifting in discomfort at

the bite of his armor. Not a vain man, he well understood

the power of appearance. As specific in his dress as any

artist, he would have preferred a light silk robe in Anasati

red with gaganjan flowers embroidered at the cuffs. But

since Ichindar's assassination, no noble dared to travel the

public roads unarmed. It further irked Jiro that Chumaka

was right; just how right, the Lord was unwilling to

repeat. He had heard every report; he had presided over

council meetings. He knew what they told of the enemy's

movements.

And the news held good.

Hokanu of the Shinzawai was still at least two days'

march north of Kentosani, while the Lord of the Anasati's

cortege would be through the-grand gates by late afternoon,

most certainly by sundown. Over and over, Jiro listed the

reassurances to himself: he would reach the Holy City

uncontested by Mara's allies; when the Shinzawai arrived,

they would be exhausted; the magicians had been given

insult by the^Acoma when Mara's forces engaged the

Anasati army to the south. The magicians had their

full attention turned toward Mara, and were ignoring

the Lord of the Anasati, who gave every semblance of

perfect obedience to their commands.

Jiro's hands tightened over the book scrolls in his lap.

Startled by a crackle of dry leaves, he cursed, annoyed

that any distraction should cause him to mishandle old

records. With frowning concentration, he straightened

the crumple from aged, ink-faded hide; while yet again

Chumaka seemed to interpret his private thoughts.

~You interpreted the message brought in by pigeon last

evening,' the First Adviser assured in what seemed casual

comment. Jiro saw better. The man's shrewd eyes were

locked on the road ahead, as if he could read past the dust

kicked up by the feet of the advance company of the Anasati

honor guard. The First Adviser might seem absorbed by the

march, but in shrewd choice of words, he added, 'Mare's

Force Commander initiated an unprovoked attack. By now

the Assembly will have acted. Think on that.'

Jiro's lips twitched, just missing a smile. His imagination

supplied detailed images of Mara roasted by magic. But

every contemplated torment that might befall his enemy

brought him no comfort. He wished to see the corpse of the

woman who had spurned him spitted on steel; he longed to

have the skulls of her children, ones she had deigned to have

other men sire, broken like eggshells at his feet. He could

tread on their brains, and be sure of his triumph. And yet:

the luck of a Servant of the Empire was legendary, more than

superstition. Mara's title bestowed a divine blessing no man

might easily dismiss. More than once Jiro had presumed her

days over, only to see her somehow triumph.

The worm of uneasiness continued to gnaw at him. All

unnoticed, his hands clenched again over parchment. Brittle

skin cracked, and bits of rare gilt caked away and stuck to

his sweating palms.

'You will not feel secure until you sit on the golden

throne,' Chumaka summed up crisply. 'When the priests

of the Twenty Greater Gods all bow at your feet and

endorse your right of succession, when the masses hail

you in prostration as their Light of Heaven, then your

nerves will cease clamoring.'

Jiro heard, but could not help but scan the road ahead

to the Holy City. Inwardly he repeated the logic that

insisted he had an open path between himself and final

victory. The Assembly would not hinder him, once Mara

was dead. Indeed, they must endorse his cause, if only to

avert the chaos and anarchy that had ravaged the peace of

the Nations since Lojawa assassinated Ichindar. That Jiro

had been behind that act no one suspected; the plot had

been engineered covertly, over years of careful planning.

Culpability could not be traced beyond the Omechan,

and not even torture might wring out the truth. With

the Warlordship promised to their line, they would be ill

served to reveal the conspiracy. Jiro shifted thought. It did

706

Mistress of the Empire

not unduly grieve him that the army bequeathed to him

with the Anasati mantle must of necessity destroy itself

to hold Mara's warriors in place and turn the Assembly's

wrath against her. Their death would be honor, as it would

serve to raise their Lord above all others in the Empire.

Their spirits would be welcomed to the Red God's halls

in triumph as Jiro's enemies were forced to acknowledge

him supreme.

The Lord of the Anasati closed his eyes, suffused with

anticipation. First to prostrate himself before the imperial

seat would be Hoppara of the Xacatecas. That upstart

puppy had tagged after Mara's skirts since the first, and

his meddling mother had done nothing! For all her much

vaunted appreciation of male ways, Isashani had never

encouraged her firstborn to strike off on his own, as

a man should. Because of the dowager Lady and her

lap-hugging son, more than one plot to shame the Acoma

had gone astray! Jiro sweated, remembering how many

times Hoppara had stiffened the spine of old Frasai of

the Tonmargu to the point where he had supported the

interests of the late Emperor over those of his own Ionani

Clan brothers!

Jiro's temper heated as he reviewed the list of slights.

To him, forgiveness was weakness. He was not a man to

forget where his plans had been crossed.

A frown marred his forehead as he considered which

enemy he would humble next. If the magicians were

magnanimous in their punishment of Mara's disobedience,

Hokanu might also survive to kiss the floor before the dais

of the golden throne.

Jiro stifled a chuckle. The unquestioned sovereignty

Mara's supporters had labored to give Ichindar would

fall to him, an Anasati, as legacy! He would wield such

omnipotence well, oh yes; he would reinstate the High

Council, and the Warlordship, and then preside over all,

Retribution

707

including the temples, in unprecedented primacy. His

powers would be godlike, and there would be no woman

born within the Empire who would not prostrate herself

before his glory. He could fill his bed with whatever maiden

he wished, and none would refuse his favors! That Mara

of the Acoma once had spurned him would forever more

cease to matter, for her line would be as dust. He, Jiro,

ninety-two times Emperor, would be remembered as the

man who had seen a Servant of the Empire shamed and

brought down. His deed would stand as a memorial in

the eyes of the gods: unprecedented, the perfect coup in

the Game of the Council, for no Lord could dare a greater

enemy than one beloved by the masses.

Someone shouted from the woods. Snapped out of

reverie, Jiro straightened. Parchments and scroll cases

cascaded around his feet. He forgot to pay heed, fixed as

he was on the movement that erupted among his soldiers.

'What passes?' he demanded in clipped tones, only to

discover that Chumaka was no longer at the litter's side.

The man had an inconvenient independence about him.

Jiro fumed as he spotted his First Adviser's greying head

bent close to the plumed helm of Force Commander

Omelo.

Jiro's annoyance lapsed as he read concern in the officer's

expression. 'What passes?' he demanded more loudly.

Omelo straightened into the bearing expected of a

commander of armies. He strode to the litter, with Chumaka

tagging bright-eyed at his heels. 'One of our scouts found his

partner, who had been detailed to investigate our flank.'

Jiro's frown redoubled. 'The man was shirking duty?'

Omelo's face shifted not a hairsbreadth. 'No, Lord. The

contrary. He was dead. Killed.' Concise with bad news, he

finished, 'An arrow, in the back.'

All but in breach of protocol, Chumaka broke in. 'Had

he been standing, or running?'

708 Mistress of the Empire

Omelo half spun, eyes narrowed. Always a stickler for

protocol, he turned back to his master, and replied as if

it had been Jiro who had addressed him. 'My Lord, our

man was shot down while running. The scout read the

tracks.' He gave a brisk salute, fist over heart, and a bow.

'With my Lord's leave? We would be advised to array our

warriors into a tighter formation. Whatever news our slain

scout wished to convey back to you, someone did murder

to silence him. And the arrow had an unmarked shaft.'

'Bandits? Or some ally of the Acoma? You think there's

danger?' Jiro fired back, then remembered himself Delay of

any sort might prove fatal; regaining his dignity, he waved

his Force Commander to resume his duty and rounded on

his First Adviser. Chumaka's face was never what one

expected. Now he showed reflective interest, as if he were

confronted by some delightful twist in a puzzle.

'You don't seem worried,' Jiro observed, sarcastically

dry.

'

Fools worry.' Chumaka gave a shrug. 'The wise man

strives for awareness. What will happen will happen,

and worry will not serve, but anticipation might provide

survival.'

Through the bustle as his warriors closed ranks, Jiro

studied the road. No refugees littered the verges. That

in itself cried warning, since, like birds, they were timid

creatures who were apt to fly from trouble. The way

ahead stretched empty, sunlit under drifting scarves of

dust. By contrast, impenetrable shadow beneath the trees

seemed like night. Forward, past a gentle curve, the road

dipped, then crossed a glen where light and shade spread

in dappled patches. Insects zipped through, flecked by

light, but nothing warm-blooded made a sound. Jiro

hushed his tone in nervousness. 'I see nothing to beware

of'

But still, some nameless uneasiness drove him to finger

:~

: ~

,

l

;

~

l

Retributior,

709

his sword hilt. Despite his smooth words, Chumaka also

seemed tense.

Only a fool would not worry, Jiro avowed silently. He

wrestled to hold back impatience. The stakes he bid to win

were enormous, the highest in history. He could not expect

to take the imperial seat unopposed. He loosened a damp

hand from his weapon and tugged to loosen the thong

around his neck that fastened a document bag beneath

his armor. On the parchment, in concise words of state,

were all the official points of law that must be included in

his contract of marriage to Jehilia.

He stroked the leather like a talisman. There would be

no mistakes made, no details omitted, once the gates of

Kentosani were passed. No page had been left unread in

the libraries; Chumaka and Jiro between them had perused

every legal record on every dynasty that existed, and only

the imperial chop, affixed by Ichindar's First Wife, Tamara,

remained to be secured to seal into record Jiro's fitness as

royal suitor. Ascension to the throne would perforce follow.

No court litigator or house First Adviser, no legal mind in

the Empire, could dispute the Anasati claim in the face of

those documents. There might be other nobles with claims

as good as Jiro's, but none better - once Justin of the

Acoma lay dead - and none of those would dare challenge

the Anasati right.

A shout caused Jiro to look toward the woodline. His

hand whitened on his sword. Did something move, just

beyond his vision? Jiro kicked his feet free of the book

scrolls, striving to peer into the gloom of the deep forest.

A faint thunder carried on the still air. The warriors shifted,

crouched in their already strained state of readiness.

One of the older campaigners stiffened. 'Force Commander,'

he ventured, 'I know that sound.'

Omelo said, 'What is it?'

Jiro turned, to identify the man who had spoken as one of

the survivors of the honor guard once sent with his brother

to attend Ichindar's treaty delegation to the barbarian world

of Midkemia; the peacemaking had ended in slaughter, with

the blood of a thousand firstborn Tsurani soaking the field

Halesko of the Anasati had fallen in the first attack; only;

one of his honor guard survived to win back through the rift,

carrying, with three other men, the unconscious body of the

Emperor. In honor for saving the Light of Heaven, the man

had been given a place in Jiro's bodyguard. He spoke now

with urgency. 'I heard this sound fighting the barbarians,

Lord.' As a rumbling dosed in from the direction of the

forest, he raised his voice. 'The enemy is mounted! Horses!

They ride horses!'

The next moment, chaos exploded from the trees.

A line of blueclad warriors, each astride a four-legged

barbarian beast, charged headlong toward the company.

Omelo screamed commands; he had studied the reports

of soldiers who had faced cavalry before upon Midkemia.

Only one tactic had a prayer of success for warriors on

foot. The warriors that accompanied their Lord were

the flower of the Anasati forces. They obeyed without

hesitation, spreading out to avoid being trampled where

men who had never experienced a charge might in error

have stayed rooted and been run down. Jiro's bearers

reversed in awkward fear and fell back, setting as many

of his inner guard as possible to stand between their master

and the onrushing Shinzawai cavalry.

Jiro swallowed back panic. The Shinzawai were not two

days' distance from the Holy City, they were here! The

beasts were fast! And heavy! Their hooves chewed up

gouts of turf and shook the earth. The litter bearers

faltered, uncertain in their step. Rocked ungently into a

post,-Jiro barely noticed. The horses came on in a wave,

the lances of the riders gleaming in sunlight.

The foremost ranks of warriors met the charge. Brave,

steady, determined, they never had a chance. The lances

impaled them, screaming, or hooves scythed them down

like hwaet. The most nimble managed to duck aside, only

to perish on the swords of blue-armored riders. Only the

veteran of the Midkemian wars won free. His swift stroke

hamstrung a beast from behind, and it collapsed in a kicking

heap. The rider rolled clear, cursing over his mount's

strangely human-sounding scream. Sword met sword, the

victor of the dash lost in the other rise of dust.

The second rank fared little better. One man stabbed a

horse in the chest, before he was overrun. The riders spitted

most of the defenders, but their lances were then useless,

as those not broken or rammed into human flesh were too

long to counter foemen now inside their reach.

Jiro felt sweat trickle inside his armor. His teeth showed

in a snarl of oaths. He could die here! And the waste of

it: to go as Halesko had in the mess of battle! To perish

by the sword, as any unread fool could, blinded by lust

for honor! Jiro rejected such a death. He would see Mara

humbled first!

He kicked clear of his cushions and sprang from his litter,

vicious as a cornered sarcat. ~

Omelo was still on his feet, shouting orders. The initial

rush of the charge was blunted, the following ranks in

ragged order as the mounts of the Shinzawai swerved to

avoid the fallen. Lances had taken one man in two. Now

mounted swordsmen whirled in pirouette; as one with

their hellish beasts, they skirmished with foot warriors

who coughed in the dust. The Anasati warriors never

flinched. They stood ground with valiant courage, and

sliced at disadvantage against foes who battled higher than

their heads.

Tsurani swordsmanship was weakest against blows from

above. The best fell, their helms cloven, and their blood

soaking the dry road.

And still the riders came on. They converged upon the

litter and the dose-ranked inner guard of Jiro's warriors.

Last and most staunch in his defence, these screamed

defiance. Even the most brash could see: they were not

going to be enough.

Omelo shrieked a blasphemy. Chumaka seemed nowhere

to be found. Swords whined through air; some slammed

blade to blade in parries, and were deflected. Too many

bit deep into red armor, spilling more precious red blood.

Hokanu's cavalry trampled on over the fallen. Another

horse went down, thrashing, and a warrior too close was

felled by a kick from flying hooves. Jiro swallowed a

rolling surge of nausea. He raised his blade. war was not

his strength; but fight he must, or die.

The cries of the mortally wounded set his teeth on edge.

He braced  for his first blow, dizzied and overwhelmed by

the brutal reality of battle. Only family pride held him

upright.

A horse reached his lines, and reared up, black against

the hot sky as its hooves cut the air. Teeth flashed white

in a face shadowed by a helm bearing Lord's plumes. Jiro

knew: the rider was Hokanu.

The Lord of the Anasati looked up into eyes that held

no pity: eyes that were dKamatsu'smatsu's set and stamp,

that stripped Jiro to his living spirit and knew him for a

craven murderer.

In them, Jiro saw his end.

He met the first sword stroke evenly, as he had been

taught. He managed to parry the second. A warrior was

dying under his feet; he stepped on him, and almost tripped.

Bile stung his throat. He had no strength. And Hokanu bore

down, his mount sidling like a demon, his sword a slash in

sunlight.

Jiro stumbled back. No! This was not happening! He,

who had prided himself on reason, would be butchered

wholesale by a sword! Numbed through his vitals with

dread, he spun and ran.

Any concept of dishonor was driven from him by the

horror of what thundered at his heels. Jiro's breath labored.

His sinews screamed with exertion, all unnoticed. He must

reach the woods. Cleverness could prevail over the sword,

but only if he survived the next five minutes. He was the

last of his father's sons. It was not shame, but only reason,

to survive, whatever the cost, so that Mara, curse her name,

should die ahead of him. Then the gods could do with him

as they would.

The sound of fighting dwindled, punctuated by the

jarring thud of hooves pounding dry ground. Jiro's breath

rasped in his throat as he reached the trees and scrambled

up a small stone outcropping to gain what he recognised

as safety.

The breath of the horse no longer blew past his ears.

It had stopped; the forest deterred it. Jiro blinked to

clear his vision. Shadow seemed to blur his eyes, after

the dazzle of noon. He flung himself, panting, against a

tree bole.

'Turn and fight,' snapped a voice, a half-pace from

his heels.

He spun. Hokanu had dismounted. He waited, sword

raised, faceless in shadow as any executioner.

Jiro bit back a whimper. He was betrayed! Chumaka

had erred, and erred badly, and now this was the end. Red

anger washed away panic. The Lord of the Anasati raised

his weapon and charged.

Hokanu flicked Jiro's sword aside as if it were a toy. A

veteran of war, he had a stroke of iron. Jiro felt blade meet

blade in a vibrating shock of pain. The sting shocked his

nerves, loosened his grip. His weapon flashed, spinning,

from his grip. He did not hear the thrash of its fall into

the undergrowth.

'Omelo!' he screamed in white panic. Somebody, anybody,

even one warrior of his honor guard must be alive

to heed his cry. He must be saved!

His wits stumbled to function. 'Dishonor to you, who

would kill an unarmed enemy.'

Hokanu bared teeth in what was not a smile. 'As my

father was unarmed? Dead in his bed of a poisoned dart?

I know the assassin was yours.' Jiro began to deny it, and

Hokanu shouted, 'I have the tong's accounts!' The Lord of

the Shinzawai looked like terror incarnate as he lowered his

blade, then, with a turn of his wrist, slammed it point down

into earth, leaving it vibrating as he released the hilt. 'You

are dirt, no - less than dirt, to whine of honor to me!'

He advanced.

Jiro crouched, prepared to wrestle. Good! he thought.

Wits were going to triumph after all! He had convinced

the honorable',,fool of a Shinzawai to take him on hand to

hand! Though the Anasati Lord knew he was no champion

wrestler, death would be slower than the downswing of a

sword stroke. He had bought time, perhaps, for one of his

honor guard to win through and save him.

Still playing for delay, Jiro stepped back. He was too

slow. Hokanu was hunter quick, and driven by revenge.

Rough hands grabbed at Jiro's shoulders. He raised an

arm to shove free, and felt his wrist caught and twisted.

Pitiless strength forced it back and back, until bone and

tendon quivered in protest.

Jiro hissed through his teeth. Tears blurred his eyes.

The cruel hold only tightened. Blinking his vision dear,

Jiro looked up. Hokanu loomed over above him, a sparkling

shower of reflection on his helm from the partially

blocked sun.

Jiro strove to speak. His mouth worked, but no intelligent

words came forth. Never in his pampered adult life had he

endured pain, and its kiss stole his reason.

. ._

::

~:

As a man might handle a puppy, Hokanu jerked him up

with one hand. His eyes were mad; he looked like a demon

who would not be sated with only blood. His fingers were

claws, tearing away Jiro's ornate helm with a snap that

wrenched his neck.

Jiro's sweat ran to ice. He gasped in recognition.

And Hokanu, murderously, laughed. 'Thought I would

wrestle, did you? Fool! I set aside my blade because you do

not deserve a warrior's honor; you who bought my father's

assassination deserve a dog's death.'

Jiro choked in a rattling breath. As he groped for a plea

for mercy, Hokanu shook him. In a whisper near to a sob,

only one thought found voice: 'He was an old man.'

'He was beloved,' Hokanu blazed back. 'He was my

father. And your life defiles the world that he lived in.'

Hokanu wrenched Jiro off his knees, shaking loose the

pouch of documents. The Shinzawai Lord shifted one hand

to seize the thong. Jiro jerked back, graceless in his terror.

'You would not sully yourself with my death, if I am so

wretched a creature.'

'Wouldn't I?' The words were a snarl as the strap twisted

tight. Jiro felt the bite of a strangler's garrote around

his neck.

He thrashed and clawed. His nails broke on blue armor.

Hokanu pulled the strap tighter. Jiro's throat closed. His

head pounded. Spittle leaked from his working lips, and

his eyes bulged. The dishonor of his death confronted him,

and he twitched and kicked in frantic desperation as his

face went scarlet.

Yet Hokanu was a battle-seasoned soldier who had never

let his training lag. He bore down upon Jiro with a hate

that knew no end, but drove his blood to fury as reasonless

as the flood of sea tide. For their lost child and his dead

father, Hokanu twisted the strap as Jiro's color deepened

to dark red, purple, and then blue. He kept on until long

after Jiro had fallen limp. Leather bit deep, through skin

and trachea and flesh. Weeping, shivering in the release of

reaction, Hokanu kept twisting, until a Shinzawai Strike

Leader found his Lord over the fallen foe. It took strong

hands to separate master from corpse.

Empty-handed, Hokanu subsided on his haunches in the

leaf mold. He covered his face with bloodied fingers. 'It is

done, my father,' he said in a voice hoarse with emotion.

'And by my hand alone. The dog has been strangled.'

The blue-plumed Strike Leader waited in patience. He

had seen long years of service and knew his master well.

Spying the document pouch that twisted around Jiro's

throat, he removed its contents, assuming them to be

something hi. master might wish to review when his wits

resumed.

After a moment Hokanu stopped shaking. He arose, still

looking at his hands. His expression was blank. Then,

as if the mess on his knuckles were nothing more than

clean dirt, and the dead thing sprawled wretchedly in

its red armor nothing more than killed game, he fumed

and walked away.

The Strike Leader strode after his Lord. To his companions

who fought tight skirmishes in the roadway, he

shouted, 'Call to the field! Jiro of the Anasati is dead! The

day is ours! Shinzawai!'

Like fire in a dry field, the word of Jiro's fall spread

through the fray. Standing next to the overturned litter,

Chumaka, too, heard the call: 'The Anasati Lord is fallen!

Jiro is slain!'

For a moment, the Anasati First Adviser regarded the

spilled scrolls at his feet and thought about the other

document Jiro had worn next to his skin. What would

happen when that was found? He sighed. 'Fool boy,'

Chumaka murmured. 'Coward enough to run, but not to

hide.' Then he shrugged. Omelo was rising from his knees,

Retribution

';

a scalp cut running blood down his cheek. He looked ready

enough to kill, as proud as ever save that something in his

eyes had gone flat. He looked to the Anasati First Adviser

and said, 'What is left?'

Chumaka considered the broken remains of Jiro's honor

guard, both the living and the dead. Out of one hundred,

scarcely twenty were still standing. Honorable numbers

against horses, he thought analytically. He resisted a strong

wish to sit down; mourn he could not. He was no creature

driven by love. Duty was duty, and his pride had been

outwitting Anasati enemies; that, now, was ended. He

glanced at the Shinzawai horsemen who were closing in,

a ring of impenetrable flesh.

Chumaka hissed through his teeth. To the Force Commander

he had known since earliest childhood he said,

'Omelo, my friend, while I respect you as a soldier, you

are a traditionalist. If you wish to fall upon your sword, I

suggest you do so before we are disarmed. I urge you not

to. For myself, I would order our survivors to put down

their arms, and hope that Mara is as forgiving now as she

has been in the past.' Almost too softly to be heard, lest

his hope shine too bright, he added, 'And pray that she has

some post left unfilled that we are suited for.'

Omelo shouted orders for all swords to be put down.

Then, as blade after blade fell from stunned fingers, and

the beaten Anasati warriors watched withburning eyes,

he regarded the seamed, enigmatic features of Chumaka.

Neither man heard the noise as Shinzawai warriors invaded

their ranks and made formal the Anasati surrender. Omelo

licked dry lips. 'You have such hopes?'

And both men knew: he did not refer to Mara's past

record of clemency. The Lady upon whose mercy their

lives, if not their freedom, henceforward must depend

was one marked for death. If by the gods' miracle she

could survive the Assembly's ire, there was still the last,

most bitter cohort of Minwanabi warriors who had been

armed in Acoma green and sent out. Their orders were

Chumaka's, and as near to their hearts' desire as life and-~

breath: to kill her by any means, and see Jiro's purpose

complete.

Chumaka's eyes darted, then kindled as a gambler's

might. 'She is Servant of the Empire. With our help, she

might survive the Assembly yet.'

Omelo spat and turned his back. 'No woman born owns

such luck.' His shoulders hunched as a needra bull's might,

before the goad that lashed it into obedience. 'For myself,

you are correct: I am a traditionalist. These new things are

not for one such as I. We all must die sometime, and better

free than a slave.' He looked at the sky above, then said,

'Today is a good day to greet the Red God.'

Chumaka was not quite quick enough to avert his face

before Omelo lunged forward and fell in final embrace

against the blade of his own sword.

While the blood welled red out of the old campaigner's

mouth, and the Shinzawai Lord hurried with a cry toward

this, the last Anasati man to fall, Chumaka bent down,

shaken at last. He rested a withered hand against Omelo's

cheek, and heard the Force Commander's final whispered

words.

'See my warriors safe, and free, if Mara lives. If she does

not, tell them: I will meet them at ... the door to ...

Turakamu's halls.'

Thunder boomed in full sunlight. The reverberations

slammed across dear sky and shook the forest trees to

their roots. Two magicians manifested, hovering in midair

like a pair of ancient gods. Black robes fluttered and snapped

in the breeze of their passage as they skimmed above the

wood, seeking.

The red-haired one used his mystic arts to rise yet

higher. A speck like a circling hawk, he soared above the

countryside, scanning the road that dipped and meandered

through hills and glens on its northward course toward

Kentosani. Tapek's magic might grant him the vantage and

the vision to equal any bird of prey; yet the shadows still

obscured, leaves and branches mantling the ground. He

frowned, his curse flying with him on the wind. They were

here, and he would find them.

The corner of his eye caught movement. He spun, easy

in his flight as a mythical spirit of air, and studied. Brown

flecks, all moving: a herd of speckled gatania - six-legged

deer- not horses.

He resumed his course in peevish irritation, back, down

the length of the road. And there it was: an upset litter lacquered

red, and shiny in sunlight with interlaced whorls of

corcara shell. Costly work, fit for only the highest-ranking

Lord, and with curtains in the colors of the Anasati.

Tapek swooped downward, nearly diving like a raptor.

Less intent on the chase, still Kerolo was not caught off

guard. He spotted his fellow mage's descent, and hastened

his progress to overtake.

His lip curled in what seemed contempt, the red-haired

mage pointed to a cloud of settling dust farther up the

roadway. 'There. Do you see?'

Kerolo took a studied look at the aftermath of tragedy

that milled in the roadway: horses, lathered still

from a charge. Warriors in Shinzawai blue, dismounted

now, with the huddled remnants of Lord Jiro's honor

guard held at swordpoint. Omelo dead inside the circle,

sprawled on the blade of his own sword; Chumaka beside

the fallen officer, shocked past cleverness for once. The

Anasati First Adviser stooped low with his hands over

his face, as near to tears as he had ever been since his

boyhood.

'The Lord is not with his men,' Tapek observed in his

72~) Mistress of the Empire

iciest tone. All the while, his eyes flicked up and down the road,

taking stock of the fallen.

'He is not with his warriors,' Kerolo said softly, almost

sadly in comparison. 'Nor would a commander as staunch

as Omelo fall upon his own sword for no reason.'

'Jiro's dead, you think?' Tapek returned, a wildness akin

to joy lighting his rest!.ess eyes. Then he stiffened, as if he

stood on firm earth. 'Look. Under the trees.'

More slowly, Kerolo responded. After a moment he,

too, saw what lay beneath a small rise in the ground

not ten paces distant from Hokanu's abandoned sword,

left standing upright in the earth, still dean.

Before Kerolo could sigh, or utter any word to express

his wish that vengeance must continually run to bloodshed,

Tapek snapped out, 'He was strangled! In dishonor Lord

Jiro died. We have been defied again!'

Kerolo gave a Tsurani shrug, regret in his mild expression.

We were too late to prevent killing. But none may

dispute that Lord Hokanu deserved the traditional right

of reprisal. It is known who was responsible for his father's

assassination.'

Tapek seemed not to hear. 'This is Mara's doing. Her

husband has ever clung to her hem. Does she believe we ;

will permit this bloodshed just because her hands seem to

be clean?'

Kerolo tucked his fingers in his voluminous cuffs, unconvinced. '

That's supposition, particularly since the Assembly

already must decide what action to take over her army's

engagement on the Plain of Nashika.'

'Decide?' Tapek's brows climbed in affront. 'You cannot

be thinking of reconvening the council! Our debate and

delay have already cost the Empire one great house.'

'Hardly that extremity.' Kerolo's mildness assumed a

fragile edge, like a sword blade ground too long at the

whetstone. 'There are cousins left who bear descent from

the Anasati: a half-dozen young women consigned to the

temple who have not yet taken binding vows of service.'

Tapek was not to be placated. 'what? Set power in the

hands of yet another untried female? You amaze me! Either

a hapless girl who will watch her inheritance destroyed

before she is Ruling Lady for a year, or another Mara! That

choice twenty years ago is precisely the same circumstance

that spawned this difficulty in the first place.'

'The Assembly will appoint an Anasati successor after we

resolve the issue between the Shinzawai and the Acoma,'

Kerolo insisted. 'We must go to the City of the Magicians.

Now. This news should be heard promptly.'

At this Tapek's eyes narrowed. 'Fool! We can take her

now, in her guilt!'

Kerolo kept to himself his suspicion of possible cho-ja

collusion. He did not repeat his inward fear: that already

Mara might have won herself a greater ally than any mortal

Emperor. 'Jiro is already dead,' he argued gently. 'What use

undue haste now? There will be no further conflict. With

Jiro dead, what need is there?'

Tapek almost shouted. 'Do you think that Jiro was my

reason for stringent opposition of Mara? She threatens

us, you fool! She has greater ambitions than merely a

rival's death.'

Unhappy at the reminder, Kerolo still strove for calm.

'I am neither blind nor always the slave of protocol. But

I must insist, brother. With our edict still in force, even

were Mara as bloody-minded as some other Lords of our

acquaintance, none of the Anasati claimants may be hunted

down. We must decide which of them is fittest to assume

the Anasati mantle. Come; the matter is too weighty for

us to act unilaterally. We must consult the wishes of our

brethren.'

'They are idiots, or worse, accomplices!' Tapek fumed

back. He paced over air, spun, and whipped back to stab

Mistress ofthe Empire

a finger at his companion. 'I will not stand idle through

this crisis! I must act, for the Good of the Empire!'

Kerolo bowed in stiff-faced opposition to the invocation

of the ritual phrase. 'My place is to inform the others.' His

hand dropped to his pocket, and his teleportation device

buzzed like the whine of an angry insect.

'Fool!' Tapek spat at the empty air, his word half

whirled away by the suck of air left at his brother mage's

departure.

Tapek looked down. Below, under cloudless noon, Anasati

and Shinzawai completed the time-honored, paired

dance of victor and vanquished. ~

Then, as if their actions were of no more consequence '7,)

to him than the buildings and the battles of insects, they

were abandoned to their own devices as he, too, reached for

his device and departed.

29

Destruction

The air snapped.

Tapek materialised fifty feet up in the air in a new

location, many miles to the south of Jiro's death site. Th.

magician's expression was vexed. His hunt to pin down

the location of Mara's litter promised difficulty, since she.

unlike Jiro, had chosen her route for subterfuge. Her Force

Commander had admitted as much, when he confessed her

choice of back roads. Tapek shook a stray lock of hair

from his eyes and gazed intently down on the landscape.

Hwaet fields stretched below, gold turning  brown, for

the harvest was neglected. A dusty road wound parallel to

a creek bed, dry once more in keeping with the season.

Nothing moved but a needra bull, pacing the confines of

his pen. His herd boy lay under a tree, twitChing off flies

in the steamy heat. Since he had no reason to glance up, he

failed to notice the magician hovering directly overhead.

To Tapek's outlook, the slave boy had as little consequence

as the flies. The magician crossed his arms and

drummed his fingers against his sleeves. A Search by line

of sight was not going to be effective: the territory where

Mara was likely to be was simply too large. (Urgency ate

at him. Kerolo had left something of significance unsaid,

the red-haired mage was convinced of it. Why else should

anyone of his arcane abilities feel the need to rush like a

child to report to the Assembly?

What was Mara plotting, that she should have dared give

attack orders to her troops on the Plain of Nashika ? Tapek

licked his lips, brooding. The woman was devious. Even if

Jiro s death was not her doing, but solely the province of

724 Mistress of the Empire

Hokanu, still, someone representing the Assembly should

seek her out, if only to make apprehending her easier

when fat windbags like Hochopepa were finally forced

to acknowledge her transgression. The Assembly would

move from words to punitive action, Tapek had no doubt.

Nothing else could come of the fact that their absolute

authority had been compromised.

A spell of finding should suffice to track the Lady,

Tapek resolved. His midair stance unnecessary for such a

conjuring, he let himself settle slowly toward the ground.

As his feet touched earth, the needra bull winded a snort

of alarm, curled up his tail, and bolted. Its herd boy roused

with a start. He saw the magician as he scrambled to his

feet. With a cry of fear, he flattened himself in terrified

obeisance, belly to the earth.

The needra bull thundered on toward the far fence,

turned, and circled. Its hooves chewed up good grass. But

in the fearful presence of a Black Robe, the slave feared to

rise and calm it.

Which was proper, Tapek reasoned; the populace should

feel nothing but awe toward those of his rank. Tapek

ignored both boy and beast. Self-absorbed, he stood by

the trembling slave and murmured an incantation.

He touched his palms together to dose his gathered

power, shut his eyes, and released. Tendrils of invisible

force extended from his person. They emanated across the

countryside, searching. Where they touched roads or back

thoroughfares, even the most rudimentary trails used by

farmers to cart produce from the fields, the magical sensors

brightened. They turned and followed the byways. As

invisible threads, they coursed even the smallest footpaths.

Within minutes, Tapek stood at the center of an outflung

array of magic strands. His probes became an extension of

himself, an expanding net that was sensitised to detect the

presence of movement. Like a spider in a web, he waited.

Destruction

725

A twitch at his nerves brought his attention to bear on

a shaded lane where two servants loitered at love. The

magician let that strand slip and turned his focus on others.

Here passed a small band of grey warriors, hunting for an

unguarded needra herd; hunger drove them into lands that

normally were populated and defended. They were not

the only such band; thieves had grown bold during the

Empire-wide unrest. But Tapek stayed detached. These

wretched folk at their lawlessness were no concern of his.

He dismissed the grey warriors' presence, seeking another

company; less predatory, perhaps, and better armed, but

moving just as furtively. He identified two small honor

guards belonging to minor nobles; these warriors were

simply hurrying with their masters to shelter under the

protection of stronger benefactors.

His probes twined across wooded lands and fields left

untended. He crossed an expanse of dried thyza paddies,

the dead shoots stuck up through cracked earth like serried

ranks of brown quills. Birds pecked and squabbled over the

heads of shriveled grain.

And yet the movements of scavengers were not all that

disturbed this sector. Past the arid fields, under cover of a

copse of ulo saplings, Tapek's snare sensed something else:

a half-glimpsed flash of green armor, and the rapid tramp

of feet. His lips twitched. Now, at last, he touched upon a

larger force, all of one hundred strong. This was hers: his

quarry.

Tapek focused his mind upon the site, and power defined

its image. A dark-lacquered litter with shatra-bird hangings

moved rapidly down a back road. The bearers were picked

for strength and speed, and around them, in a sun-caught

blaze of green armor, marched Mara's honor company of

warriors. They were fighting fit, and armored as much for

battle as for ceremony. What set them apart from all other

retinues was the presence of a mantled adviser who wore a

726 Mistress of the Empire

soldier's helm, and who swung along briskly on a crutch.

The rich fall of his robes could not quite hide the fact that

he had lost his left leg.

Keyoke, Tapek identified, his smile a flash of white teeth.

No house in the Empire but Mara's kept a cripple in high

office. The old man yet kept his pride, not letting his

infirmity slow the pace. Yet his presence further indicated

Mara's culpability, Tapek guessed. The venerable former

Force Commander would not be set at risk in the field

unless the Lady felt great need for reassurance. Quietly the

magician concluded his surveillance. Another grey head was

also in Mara's company: Incomo, a senior adviser whom

the Lady had learned to value since her acquisition of his

service from her vanquished Minwanabi enemies.

Incomo was never one to endorse outright innovation.

Such was the allure of the Lady's charisma that even her

onetime foes were moved to support her in conspiracy.

Tapek felt a flicker of ire. That this mere woman thought

that she could move outside the law, and even by implication

lay claim to the rights reserved for the Assembly,

was dangerous. Her actions made her anathema. The gods

themselves must know outrage.

Tapek gauged the distance between himself and the

fleeing retinue. His dosed eyes twitched with tension as he

collapsed his net of power. The single tendril that connected

him with Mara's location he kept. A sudden fey giddiness

passed through him as he shifted the balance of his powers

and touched them to that strand. He disappeared from his

vantage point by the pasture silently, leaving the stupefied

slave still groveling, and the needra bull to settle its discord

unattended.

The magician reappeared on a lane miles distant, under

dappled shade, slightly to the rear of Mara's column.

His arrival was accomplished without fanfare. Still, his

presence might have been expected, so swiftly did the rear

Destruction

727

ranks of Acoma soldiers stop short and whirl in place to

face him. Their swords were ready, if not yet drawn, as

if he, a Black Robe, presented the menace of a common

bandit.

The moment passed when his dark cloth should have been

recognised for what it represented: a magician's robe could

never be mistaken for the rags worn by a masterless thief

of the road. Despite this, Mara's warriors did not bow or

ease their stance. The two advisers stood silent.

Here was impudence! Tapek fumed. The issue could no

longer be disputed. Irked that the Assembly should yet

be wasting itself with council and talk, Tapek hissed an

involuntary breath in anger. Mara's entourage showed

disrespect of the first order, to face him as if he could be

threatened by weapons of war!

Their boldness must go no further, Tapek resolved.

He assumed a fearful mien.

Despite a curt order to hold from Keyoke, the servants

and slaves who marched at the core of Mara's retinue

scattered and fled through the ranks of her guard. The

bearers who held the litter trembled visibly, but a woman's

voice from behind the curtains stayed their panic. At some

second, unseen signal, they started forward at a run, the

litter swaying and rocking in time to their ungainly race.

Thunderstruck with astonishment, Tapek stood rooted.

Obstinance was one thing; but this! That Mara's servants

should dare to display anything other than instant obeisance

in his presence was unthinkable!

Then the Strike Leader of Mara's honor guard shouted,

'Come no closer, Great One.'

Tapek shivered with affront. No one who was not a

magician had raised his voice against him since he was a

boy with talent yet undiscovered. Such insolence shocked

the mage to fury after years of unquestioned obedience.

Ready to spit with revulsion, or lash the very air with

728

Mistress of the Empire

wild power, he shouted, 'My words are as law, and your

mistress has transgressed our edict! Stand away or die!'

The Acoma officer might be trembling, but his words held

nothing of compliance. 'Then we will perish defending our

Lady and enter the halls of the Red God as honored Acoma

warriors!' He snapped a signal to his men. As one body,

the green-armored company fanned out, blocking the Black

Robe's path.

The escaping litter gained ground. Keyoke exchanged a

word with the officer. Tapek recognised Sujanra, one of the

two Acoma Senior Force Leaders. The officer gave Keyoke a

curt nod. A crutch saluted, signaling decision. Then Keyoke

spun on his good leg, and ha!f hopped, half swung after his

retreating mistress.

Incensed by the inconceivable effrontery of this futile,

armed resistance, to be faced by Tsurani with anything but

abject servility, Tapek's anger manifested as pure power.

He raised his hands. Energy crackled and gathered

around his forearms. It poised above his palms, brightening

into a corona too fierce for human vision.

Mara's warriors might be dazzled blind, but they answered

by drawing their swords. Tapek heard the hiss of blade

leaving sheath even over the buzz of the arcane forces he

gathered. His rage stopped thought. One with the surge of

his magic, he knotted his killing fury into a concentrated

ball. The magic coalesced within his hand to a rainbow play

of colors that flashed and melded, heated to searing red.

'See what your mistress's folly has brought you!' Tapek

screamed as he hurled his bolt of power at the honor guard.

The ball of searing light leaped out, expanding with a

crackle that shook the earth. The warriors nearest to Tapek

were overtaken, and violent, flaming death erupted among

their ranks. Leaping like a thing alive, the spell-wrought

flame sprang from man to man, and in an instant living

flesh flared up as a torch. The fires brought agony without

relief. Men screamed, though the intake of breath scorched

their lungs, and sucked the spell into their bodies to ravage

their inner tissues. No matter how brave and resolute, the

stricken warriors crumpled to their knees, then writhed in

mindless suffering on the ground. Green armor blackened

and blistered. The torment was hideous, beyond mortal

endurance; except that the watching magician regarded

them and did endure, stone-hearted. His red hair blew and

tangled in drifts of smoke, and his nostrils pinched at the

acrid stench of scorched hair and hide.

The spell was not recalled. Tapek let the minutes pass

until the flames at last quenched, their fuel spent. No bone

and sinew remained to be burned. Only skeletons were

left; charred, smoking fingers clenched blackened weapons.

Sparks still danced in the eye sockets of the skulls, as if

life lingered yet inside, still feeling, still howling in silent

torment. The mouths gaped, forever frozen into screams.

Tapek relished his satisfaction. Before him stood only

the inner core of warriors, the last rank left alive to

guard the road before the vanishing litter; and beyond

these, their higher officers, Force Leader Sujanra and the

adviser Incomo. All stood fast, confronting death as true

soldiers of the Acoma; even the palsied old adviser.

Tapek stepped forward, stiff with disbelief Drained

beyond anger or amazement, and light-headed from the

potency of his magic, he struggled to muster his wits. 'What

is this? Are you blind? Fools? You saw what became of

your companions!' He gestured toward the ashes of what

lately had been living men, and his voice rose to a shriek,

magic-enhanced. 'Why are you not on your bellies, crying

~mercy?'

None of Mara's surviving honor guard moved. Her senior

officers kept a grim facade and said nothing.

Tapek took another step ahead. The slowest of the fleeing

slaves had fallen prone, overcome by the display of a Black

Robe's unrestrained wrath. They lay in the ditches a dozen

paces back from the roadside, weeping and shivering,

their foreheads pressed to earth. Tapek ignored these as

if they were faceless, of less import than winnowed grass

underfoot. Wind-blown cinders stung his eyes as he crossed

the seared ranks of the dead. Blistered bits of armor and

finger bones crunched under his feet. Closer he came, and

closer still; Mara's retinue held fast.

Down the road, curtains flying awry, the green-lacquered

litter bounced as its bearers raced with their burden. Keyoke

had caught up to them, despite the encumbrance of his

crutch.

Tapek regarded their futile flight with contempt as he

addressed the warriors before him. 'What does your loyalty

matter in the end? Your mistress will never survive to

escape.'

The Lady's defenders refused speech. The plumes on

Sujanra's helm twisted and quivered, yet that detail gave

no satisfaction. The movement was no part of cowardice,

but only the influence of the wind. The Force Leader's

will was rock, his resolve unbending. Incomo stood like

a priest in the holy ground of a temple, his face revealing

an expression of profound acceptance.

Tapek gazed upon each of these warriors who had

witnessed his wrath, and still could not be made to fear.

One thing remained that might hurt them, might yet shatter

their front of solidarity and defiance.

His anger burning again, Tapek gauged the distance

between himself and the site where Mara's litter had

retreated around a bend. He marked a lightning-torn

tree. With a flexing of his will, his magic relocated him

to that spot.

As the Black Robe appeared, Keyoke whirled and

stopped. Braced on his crutch, he assumed guard stance

between the mage and his mistress's litter.

'Tell your Lady's bearers to halt!' Tapek demanded.

'Let my Lady command her slaves as she will.' Keyoke

slipped his crutch from under his arm. He gripped it with

both hands and twisted, releasing a hidden catch. The

smoothed wood parted with the dean, dear hiss that

signaled a blade being drawn from a scabbard concealed

inside. His voice was not an old man's, but rang like that

of a field general as he said, 'Neither will I stand aside,

unless my Lady so orders.'

Tapek was beyond astonishment. He glared, but saw no

yielding. Keyoke's face was weathered leather, scribed with

too many lines and too many years of hard living to alter

its set and show weakness. His eyes might not be so dear

of late, but they burned with the surety of his self-worth.

He had faced the worst a warrior could imagine, to survive

and overcome the shame of living maimed. Death, his

steady gaze seemed to say, held no secrets, but only final

quiet rest.

'No need, old man,' the magician snapped. He moved

toward the thicket where the bearers had scurried, dragging

Mara's litter to shelter.

Keyoke moved with surprising speed. The magician

found himself targeted by the lunge of a sword's point,

wielded by a cripple.

The speed of the attack confounded Tapek, and just

barely, he dodged aside. 'You dare!' he shouted.

For all that had gone before, that any man alive should

attempt violence against him was beyond Tapek's imagination.

Keyoke not only dared, he repeated the act. His

sword whined down, snapping a rip in black cloth. Tapek

hopped away, his movements less graceful than those

of the one-legged swordsman as he barely escaped the

deadly blow. The blade flicked, cut, and forced him back

yet again. Harried almost off balance, Tapek could not

summon concentration. To focus his will and access magic

732 Mistress of the Empire

was impossible as he ducked and sidestepped and backed

away from the old man's attack. 'Stop! Stop at once!' cried

the magician. Unaccustomed to physical exertion, it was all

he could do not to pant.

Mockery tinged Keyoke's next feint. 'What, you cannot

outrun even me?'

Forced to teleport out of reach, Tapek reappeared,

breathing hard. Tsurani enough to burn with shame for

his retreat, and half choking in throttled rage, he drew

himself up with as much majesty as he could muster. From

a deep pit of black wrath, he summoned power. Magic

gathered in him and made the air crackle with ozone.

Blue energies discharged around him, as if he centered a

small-scale lightning storm.

Still Keyoke admitted no fear. As he leaned on the blade

he had carried in his crutch, his normally impassive mien

gave way to a thin-edged scorn. He observed, 'My mistress

is right. Your kind are nothing but men, no wiser or nobler

than other men.' Seeing his words sting the magician, who

now stood trembling, he added, 'And fearful, childish men

at that.'

From behind, amid the standing handful of Acoma honor

guard, a warrior snickered.

Tapek roared in mindless fury. His focused might

unleashed. His hand fell in a cutting motion, and a

shadowy shape swooped out of empty air. The apparition

reared up, then towered, a darkness like a well of moonless

night. It poised for only a heartbeat, then spun in a rush

toward Keyoke.

On reflex, the old man raised his blade to parry. Fast as a

more youthful man, he met the thing edge on. But his foe this

time was nothing solid. His weapon passed unobstructed

through inky darkness. He did not twist aside in attempted

flight, even as the spell cut inside his guard. Because Keyoke

met the spell unflinching, it struck him full in the chest.

Destruction

733

Armor might have slowed it; the shimmering, silk of his

adviser's garb daunted the dark not at all. Its fell touch

shriveled the fabric. After that, Keyoke's voluntary control

was sundered. The proud old warrior who had candled

Mara in childhood stiffened. His fingers loosened. His

sword fell from his hand as the shadow bit into him. His eyes

lost their determination, widened in agony and terror.

And yet at the last, the fighter had the victory. His tired

heart could not withstand the shock and the pain that a

younger man would have endured; his spirit, its term long

served, had in late years kept a light hold on life. Keyoke

tottered, his chin tipped toward the sky as if in salute to

his gods. Then he collapsed in a heap, his body as dead as

the stones beneath him, and his face relaxed in peace.

Tapek's rage remained unquenched. He had wanted the

old man to scream and beg, to howl in animal misery,

that Mara, cowering in her litter, might know her beloved

Adviser for War had suffered as a dog might, expressly at the

whim of its master. Tapek cursed. Regret goaded his temper

to new heights. He had wanted Mara dead before her old

warrior's life flickered its last, so that Keyoke would see her

sent to Turakamu before him, and die knowing his lifework

was wasted. Consumed by white fury, the magician lunged

after the litter, abandoned now by its bearers and sitting

forlorn in the thicket. Tapek muttered incantations and

snapped harsh spells out of air. He bit off his words

and spiked each breath with gestures. His conjury raised

a duster of silvery disks that hovered, spinning, above his

hands. Their edges were keener than knives, and the breeze

carved by their passage gave off a dissonant hum. 'Go!' the

mage commanded.

The death disks whirled away faster than sight, and

carved through the thicket. Their touch sucked life. Green

plants and saplings withered, shriveled in a moment to

dry twigs. No object held power to stop them; no barrier

734 Mistress of the Empire

could slow their course. They crossed stone as if through

shadow, and sliced through the litter curtains without

rending a thread. As they converged inside, a woman's

choked-off scream rang through the glade. Then came

silence, unbroken by the rustle of songbirds.

Every wild creature had long since fled.

The warriors at Tapek's back remained. Whipped to

outrage by the attack on their mistress's litter, their Strike

Leader called them to charge.

Tapek loosed a maniacal laugh as he pivoted to face

them. The swords in their hands looked foolish, and the

battle lust in their faces the grimace of rank fools. The

magician amplified his spell. He waved his hands, sending

disk after disk spinning into the ranks that rushed him.

Men fell. they did not scream, having no moment t o

draw breath. One instant they lived and ran, shouting

Acoma battle cries. The next second, cut by the mage's

killer disks, they withered. Their legs folded, spilling them

like stick figures onto dry earth. Tapek's fury remained in

full flood. As if determined to scorch and kill everything

in sight, he continued to hurl magic. Flash after flash left

his hands shaped as spells of destruction. The air chimed

and sang off the edges of his spinning projectiles long

after the last of Mara's warriors had fallen dead, Incomo

sprawled among them in a crumple of silk robes like some

incongruous trodden flower.

Tapek's strength ebbed suddenly.

Exhausted, dizzy and fighting spinning vision, the magician

had no choice but to pause and catch his breath. He

did not gloat. Resentment still smoldered within him, that

mere men had defied him. He did not regret their demise at

his hand, but that he had been goaded into killing Mara too

quickly. Her end had deserved to be painful and prolonged,

for the trouble she had caused the Assembly.

Tapek shrugged his robe straight, then picked his way

Destruction

735

between carcasses toward what once had been a green

thicket. A scattering of slaves and servants cowered whimpering,

their faces pressed to earth. The death spells had

winnowed their numbers, and what few were left were

half mad. Tapek stalked past and pushed through dry

sticks and blackened branches toward the dead patch of

earth surrounding the Acoma litter. Dried leaves and brittle

twigs crumbled to dust at his passage.

Only the litter's bright lacquer was undimmed; spared

the effects of life-draining magic, it seemed almost artificial

in the brilliance of untrammeled sunlight. Tapek stepped

ahead and swept aside the curtains with their embroidered

blazon of shatra birds.

A lifeless woman reclined on the cushions, staring with

eyes frozen wide in astonishment. Her limbs were clothed

in the robes of a great Lady, but her features were not

Mara's.

Tapek's curse rang out over the ruin in the roadway.

He had accomplished nothing but the execution of some

maid wearing Mara's robes. He had been duped! He, a mage

of the Assembly, had been lulled by the presence of Keyoke

and a handful of officers and soldiers into the belief that he

had overtaken the Lady. Instead, she had counted a victory

upon him, anticipating his hot temper. The soldiers had all

known, before they died, that she had bested a Great One

of the Assembly; as had the old man. Keyoke had played

along with the ruse, no doubt to his fullest amusement

before he died.

Tapek glared through the woods in frustration. Except

for a cowering handful of slaves, his spells had cut down

all life. Any in the Acoma retinue of high enough station to

know the Lady's whereabouts were now slaughtered, and

no satisfaction could be gained by questioning or torture

of witless slaves.

Tapek found curses insufficient vindication. Neither

736

Mistress of the Empire

could he subside and meekly swallow the irony of Mara's

triumph. He snapped up his hand, creating a vortex of

scintillating colors above his head. Faster and faster he

whipped the energies, then, with a flick of a wrist, cast

the deadly rainbow toward the woods. The energies struck

the trees and undergrowth. Magic raised a crack and a

shimmer that exploded in alien blue-white light. The singed

air give off a stench of cooked metal, and living matter was

immolated. Where the slaves had been, there was nothing,

not bones, not shadows, but only a scouring of uncanny

spellcraft.

The coruscation dimmed, then flicked out. Sweat-drenched,

Tapek stood panting. His eyes swept back and forth,

examining the scope of his handiwork. Before his feet

yawned a crater stripped of soil. The rock of the earth

stood bare to view and above it, for yards in each direction,

nothing crawled or flew. Revealed also were the Acoma

servants who had managed to flee the farthest. No longer

sheltered by brush, they lay writhing in the aftermath of

the magic that had lashed them. Their faces and skin

were blistered, blackened leather; their hands were seared

fingerless. These few still twitched, dying in lingering agony

that could find no voice even to scream.

'Splendid,' said a voice out of air.

Tapek started, turned, and saw Akani, lately arrived

from the City of the Magicians. He wore a shield spell

against arcane attack, that sparkled like a bubble in the

afternoon sun.

Too spent to offer greeting, Tapek sagged. His strength

was at lowest ebb, but he took heart at the possibility

of swift reinforcement. 'Good. You are needed. I am

exhausted. Find -'

Akani interrupted in annoyed acerbity. 'I will do none of

your bidding. In fact, I was sent to find you. Kerolo sent

word that you were acting rashly.' With cold eyes and a

.\\

Destruction

737

study for detail, Akani reviewed the ravaged countryside.

'I judge the case was understated. You've been played for a

fool, Tapek. A child could be expected to react to taunts, but

a full-trained mage of the Assembly? Your excesses speak ill

of us all.'

Tapek's features turned thunderous. 'Do not mock me,

Akani. Mara set a clever trap to defy us!'

The litigator turned magician said in contempt, 'No

need. You do an exceptional job of aiding her cause by

yourself.'

'What? I am no ally of hers!' Tapek tottered forward,

fiercely irked that his powers were spent.

Akani dispensed with his defences, a subtle insult to

emphasise the plain fact that his fellow mage was reduced

to helpless fuming. With a regard to the last twitching

bodies of Mara's servants, he said, 'You realise that if

Lady Mara fled her litter in disguise, you have left not a

face intact to tell.'

Tapek responded with pique. 'Then engage your strength

to find her! Mine has been fully exhausted in this cause.'

'Wasted, more like. Nor will I act on this further.' Akani

advanced on his colleague. 'I was dispatched by the Assembly

to fetch you back. You have acted without, warrant

on a matter that is under discussion; that is a shameful

breach of our covenant, and matters are far graver than you

know. You were exhorted to use prudence, yet you let your

passions rule you. If the Good Servant is not already dead,

you have destroyed the very officers we had at hand who

might have revealed the extent of her plot against us.'

Tapek frowned. 'Plot? Against the Assembly? You mean

she's done more than defy us?'

Akani sighed. His youthful face looked tired. Moved by

his background in law to examine all sides of an issue, he

admitted, 'We drove her to it. But yes, Lady Mara may have

in mind to disrupt our treaty with the cho-ja.'

738 Mistress of the Empire

'She'd never dare!' Tapek exploded, but the memory of

Keyoke's brazen challenge contradicted that presumption.

There was nothing that gods-accursed Acoma bitch would

not try. Nothing.

'The Lords of the Nations never expected her to survive

the might of the Minwanabi, let alone destroy them,' Akani

qualified drily. 'Our kind have long been inured to struggle

by dint of our exalted position. We have forgotten to

guard against contention, and our past complacence brings

us peel.

Then, as he saw aggression kindle in his colleague's eyes,

the ex-litigator added, 'Your part in this matter is finished,

Tapek, by the Assembly's decree. Now come with me.'

Taking his teleportation device in hand, Akani activated

it, then firmly gripped Tapek's shoulder. The two magicians

vanished in an inrush of air that sucked eddies in the drifting

smoke, and wafted fresh air over the last, jerking spasms of

dying Acoma servants.

The Lady's boldness had saved her. Tapek, in his impromptu

search, had never thought to look off the roads, in the

deepest, thickest undergrowth. He perceived no deeper

than Mara's outer trappings as a pampered noble Lady,

and could never have imagined how profoundly her foray

into Thuril had changed her. Besides her bold strike into

rough country, the direction Mara had taken when she left

her litter and main company was not northward toward

Kentosani. Instead, she had cut due southwest, in direct

line toward the nearest cho-ja tunnels.

She and the warriors with her traveled without rest

through two nights. Now, near sundown of the second

day, the Lady stumbled on her feet. Saric walked at her

shoulder, his touch at her elbow holding her upright, though

he was scarcely more able himself.

The one scout who still maintained alertness raised a

Destruction

739

hand. Only when Mara had been restrained gently to a

stop did she realise the reason for his signal.

The birds in the high, dense canopy of ulo trees had

stopped singing.

She motioned for her rear guard to halt and said,

'What is it?'

Saric poised, listening. The Strike Leader on point quietly

urged his warriors to search the treetops.

'Are we in danger from ambush?' Mara asked in a

whisper.

The scout who had first given warning shook his head.

'Hardly here. Even thieves would starve if they staked out

this area of the forest. No trafffic to keep them supplied.' He

cocked his head, and was fastest to note the approaching

noise of armed men. 'A patrol, I chink, my Lady.'

'None of ours,' Saric concluded. He glanced at Strike

Leader Azawari, who nodded, while the small band of

hand-picked warriors drew swords. To the scout the

Acoma adviser said urgency, 'How far are we from the

tunnel entrance?'

'A mile at best,' came the answer; too far to run in this

company's exhausted state, even if they were not to be

harried from the rear.

Saric stepped before his Lady, who sweated under her

layers of borrowed armor. She had carried the added

weight well enough, but her skin was chafed raw from the

unaccustomed motion of walking. Still, pluckily, she kept

up appearances and reached for the sword at her side.

Saric clamped her hand in a freezing grip, his penchant

for questions lost to urgency. 'No. If we are attacked, you

must flee and seek to hide. Save the sword for yourself, to

fall on if need be, should you be taken. But to try to hold

here would be folly.' More kindly he added, 'You have no

training, mistress. The first stroke you met would cut you

down.'

aa740 . Mistress of the Empire

Mara looked him sternly in the eyes. 'If I must run, you

will follow suit. Nacoya did not school you for your office

only to see you wasted in armed combat.'

Saric managed a half-flippant shrug. 'A sword thrust

would be kinder than a magician's spell.' For he had no

illusions. Their small, fast-moving party might have

escaped notice from the Assembly, but not for long. Yet

to remain beyond reach of arcane retribution, his Lady

must live to find refuge in the Cho-ja tunnels.

Mara noted her adviser's sharp silence; she tried not to

think, as he did, of the Great Ones. To open her thoughts

to such fears, she must surely collapse and weep: for

Lujan and Irrilandi, perhaps dead with all of her armies;

for Keyoke, Force Leader Sujanra, and Incomo, who

were all that remained,of her old guard, and who had

been set out as bait with her litter, their lives her

diversion, and their sacrifice her last hope for Justin.

Where Hokanu was, the gods only knew. That he also

might be most hideously lost did not bear imagining.

Worst of all, Mara shied off from the question that

gnawed at the edges of her mind: that Justin might indeed

survive to claim heirship to the golden throne, but at the

cost of every other life that was beloved to her.

Mara bit her lip. Poised with Saric on the edge of flight,

she firmed her will to keep from trembling.

The sounds of snapping twigs and marching men drew

closer. Her party's trail was plain to read, since they had

taken no care to hide their tracks, as they had passed far

enough from the road that their presence was unlikely to

draw notice. Once in the deep wilds, speed had been

deemed of the essence. ~

Or so her reduced council of officers had decided, and

they paid for that misjudgment now.

Strike Leader Azawari sorted his options and chose.

'Fan gut,' he murmured to his warriors. 'Give them no

solid rank

to charge on. Let it be man to man, and confusing, `0 trite

our Lady's escape for as long as we can.'

Saric's fingers tightened over Mara's hand. 'Come,, he

whispered in her ear. 'Let us be off'

She resisted him, rooted and stubborn.

Then the rear rank scout straightened up and gave a

glad shout. 'They're ours!' He laughed in stark relief and

~pointed to the glimpse of green armor that came and

went between the trees.

Men who had begun to scatter pulled back in-to one

main body. Swords slid into scabbards, and grins flashed

in the deep-woods shadow. Somebody hammered

some-One else's armored shoulder, and words passed

around Of a wager. 'Ten to one that old Keyoke

prevailed, and sent us reinforcements!'

'Hush!' rapped their Strike Leader. 'Form rankS and be

quiet.'

Azawari's sternness reminded: there was grave danger

still. The new arrivals might only be bearers of bad news.

Now the ranks of the warriors appeared, striding briskly

through the forest. They seemed fresh. Their armOr was

correct, if bearing scrapes in the high-gloss finish from

forced march through close brush. Mara fought the need

to sit down, to steal a moment of rest while her two

forces exchanged tidings and regrouped.

Only Saric's iron grip kept her propped on bliStered,

aching feet. 'Something's not right,' he murmured that

armor. The details are wrong.'

Mara stiffened. Like him, she sharpened her gaze to

search faces. Threat of peril prickled the hair on her neck

The men were all strange, and that distressed her. Too

often her people were not known by sight, since her

armieS had grown vast over the years.

It was Saric, first earmarked for his station because he

742 Mistress of the Empire

never forgot a face, who hissed, 'I know them. They were

once Minwanabi.'

The approaching force numbered thirty, and it closed in

relentless formation. The Force Leader at the fore raised a

hand in friendly salute, and called the Strike Leader with,

Mara by name.

Unobtrusive in her warrior's garb, Mara stared at

Saric. Her face had paled. Even her lips were white.

'Minwanabi!'

Saric nodded fractionally. 'Renegades. These were ones

that never swore to your natami. That dark-haired man

with the scarred cheek: him I cannot mistake.'

One soft hearted moment of pity, Mara recalled, and

now she had treachery in payment for the demeng that

had prompted her to let these foemen go free. She had only

a split second to judge her call; for these warriors in another

five steps would be among her ranks, dangerous as adders

were they turn-coats.

It tore her inside, to chink they might be loyal; but Saric's

memory was impeccable. Keyoke and Lujan had sworn by

it She sucked in a shaky breach and snapped a nod to her

first Adviser.

Saric raised the alarm, that her woman's voice might not

give her away. 'Enemies! Azawari, call the charge!'

The Strike Leader's order bellowed over chaos as the

lead ranks of traitors discarded appearance, drew swords,

and leaned into a fighting run.

Mara felt her arm half jerked from its socket as Saric

spun her from the ranks, and behind him. 'Go!' he half

screamed; even under pressure his adviser's tendency to

seek subterfuge remained. 'Run and send word to the

others!' he shouted, as if she were a younger soldier

dispatched away as messenger.

The first swords dashed as the pair of green-armored

companies closed in combat. Men grunted, cursed, or

shouted the battle cries of the Acoma. They blinked

sweat-stung eyes, and engaged, and prayed to their gods for

the judgment to enable them to separate friend from foe.

For all were armored alike in Mara's green.

Strike Leader Azawari called encouragement, then reached

and jerked Saric from the fray. Years of training made him

sarcat-quick, and he interposed himself in the adviser's

place, parrying the stroke of the foeman already engaged.

'Guard our messenger,' he snapped. 'You know where he

needs to be!'

Saric's features twisted in frustration. He had been a

warrior before he was an adviser; he could be so once

again. Where better the need? But the teaching of old

Nacoya forced him to review all options. There was

his Lady, running hard through the trees, tripping over

roots in her ill-fitting armor. She was no swordsman. She

should not be stripped of all protection, or counsel, and

Saric's split-second knack for sound reason showed him

the wisdom of Azawari's choice.

'Tear out the hearts of these dogs!' he grated hoarsely.

'I'll see that our messenger reaches the main column. We'll

be back before you have time to kill them all!'

Then he ran in a white heat of fury. Of course, no advance

column existed. The guards who defended were all here, and

outnumbered three to one. That his Lady had come this far,

had traveled into perils in Thuril and sacrificed her most

beloved servants, for this! A petty bit of treachery, no doubt

the handiwork of the Anasati Lord. Such a plot could not-no,

would not! - bring down the honored Servant of the

Empire. She might risk all to preserve her children, but

Saric understood this race was for higher stakes than the

lives of a boy and a girl, no matter how dear to him.

He raced ahead, no longer torn in his desires, but stung

to greater effort by the outmatched struggles of his fellows.

From behind came the rattle and crunch of swords striking

744 Mistress of the Empire

armor. Screams sounded between grunts of human effort

The false soldiers chewed into the ranks of loyal Acoma

with devastating steadiness. They were Minwanabi on a

long-anticipated vengeance raid. They did not care how

they fell.

Mara's men had more weighty matters on their mind

as they strove to stem the enemy's rush. They did not

do battle simply to preserve their Lady's honor. They

killed when they could, harried when they could not, and

painstakingly kept themselves alive to draw out the fight

as long as possible.

Their fierceness did not pass unnoticed.

In bare minutes, one of the attackers recalled the messenger

sent away to report. He shouted to his officer about the

unlikely escort commanded by a Strike Leader who could

ill spare the loss of any one available sword.

'Hah!' cried the Minwanabi officer in his stolen Acoma

colors. Satisfaction thickened his tone. 'You are no rear

guard! Your Lady does not ride in a litter under better

protection up ahead, eh?'

Azawari had no answer but the fury of swordplay. He

slammed his blade down on the helm of a foeman, and

stepped back as the enemy crumpled. 'Find out,' he

invited grimly.

'Why should we?' Another Minwanabi dog was grinning

'Men!' he commanded. 'Disengage and pursue that messenger!'

Saric heard the cry as he raced after Mara. He cursed,

and slammed through an interlaced hammock of branches

that his slighter mistress had slipped through. Shouts burst

through the foliage at his back. False guardsmen now raced

in chase at his heels. No Acoma could win free to stop them.

Every loyal sword was already engaged, and the enemy's

numbers were greater.

Saric blinked sweat from his eyes. 'Go, go on,' he

Destruction

745

urged Mara. It made him ache to see how she stumbled.

Her endurance was steel that she should still be on her

feet at all.

He must buy her time! For soon she must rest. If he

slowed the rush of her pursuers, perhaps she could find a

cranny to hide, at least until her true warriors could reduce

the numbers against her.

Saric ran. He reached Mara's side, caught her elbow, and

sent her in a flying boost over a fallen tree trunk. 'Run!' he

gasped. 'Don't stop until you hear no sounds of pursuit.

Then hide. Sneak on at nightfall.'

She landed on her feet, staggered sideways, and fended off

a branch, still running. Saric had spent his last moment to

watch out for her. The pursuing Minwanabi were on him.

He whirled. Three swords came at him. He parried the

one that mattered, and let the dead tree entangle the others.

One Minwanabi stumbled back, gagging on blood, his chest

pierced.

Saric jerked his blade dear, twisting to avoid a cut from

the side. A branch bashed his ribs, the same that a moment

ago had spared him. He raised his bloodied blade and lashed

downward. Met by a solid parry, he let his momentum

spend itself on the enemy sword, then snapped his elbow

at an angle. His stroke sliced past the foeman's guard and

killed him. To himself, the former officer fumed adviser

gasped, 'Not so bad. Haven't lost too much.'

The soldier left alive sought to dodge past, to extricate

himself from the windfall's weave of branches and close

upon the boyish form he now suspected must be Lady Mara.

Saric lunged to intercept. A searing slash along the back of

the adviser's left shoulder warned of his mistake. Another

guard had rushed him. Pinned in place against the downed

tree, Saric spun and lashed out, taking his attacker in the

throat. The first soldier had by now won free and passed

- by running hard. Saric muttered an irreverent prayer. His

746

Mistress of the Empsre

path was clear. He had only to keep on. Fatigue brought

agony as he punished tired sinews into motion. He raced,

moaning in his need for air..He overhauled the warrior in

false colors, and slammed into him from the rear. Armor

deflected his stroke. He found himself engaged, while yet

another foe slipped past and around, running after Mara's

fleeing form.

Saric fought, hampered by his useless shoulder. Blood ran

dowp his arm and spattered the ground under his feet. His

sandals slipped on slicked leaves. He could barely defend

himself Weakness seemed to travel in waves through his

sinews. His enemy was grinning, a bad sign. In a moment his

efforts would end in grief. Then a soldier called his name.

Saric stretched his lips in joyless recognition. Azawari still

lived. As the Acoma Strike Leader raced to the adviser's

relief, and more Minwanabi in false armor converged in a

knot to prevent him, Saric managed a brief contact of eyes

between strokes.

Each man knew his fate. Each smiled, welcoming the

certainty, the final relief that mortal flesh could no longer

deny. Saric was struck upon the side. The blow made him

stagger, tearing a gasp from his throat. The Acoma Strike

Leader faced three more opponents. He was shouting in

what seemed defiant rage, but Saric recognised cold purpose

behind his insults. 'Come, Anasati puppets!' Azawari

danced and brandished his sword. 'You may tell your

children you sent Azawari, Strike Leader to the Servant

of the Empire, to the Red God's halls! If you live to have

children! If they can admit to fathers who shame them

by wearing honored colors not their own. Die for your

insolence, Minwanabi dogs!'

But the warriors were not goaded into striking; instead,

they measured their distance. The middle one leaped at

Azawari, while the others dodged to each side, resuming

the chase after Mara. Azawari flung sideways. The warrior

.

ll

l

;~

.

:~

~ .

Destructso~s

747

who lunged at him missed his stroke, and the one who ran

left screamed as a sword slid between his ribs. The one who

dodged right checked his rush, uncertain. Azawari held no

such hesitation. He flung himself after, not caring whether

a sword whined between. He took a blow to the flank, but

brought down the runner in a lunge.

Saric saw the green-plumed helm fall. He blinked back

furious tears, aware that the gallant Strike Leader had

bought Mara precious seconds, for the last of the treacherous

trio had to stop his rush and stab his fallen body

twice to ensure his death was certain.

The First Adviser raised his blade; too slow, for his

muscles were spent. He missed the stroke. Pain slashed

hot across his neck, and the brightness of the world seemed

suddenly dull and distant. Saric tottered and fell. The last

thing he knew before darkness swallowed his senses was

the rich smell of moss and the sound of enemy soldiers

leaving the site of bloody victory to pursue one last running

form: Mara. Saric struggled to say a prayer for the Good

Servant, but words would not come. He had no breath,

and no more speech in him, after all. His final thought,

as death took him, was of Nacoya, who had trained him.

The indomitable harridan would be shrill when he met her

in Turakamu's halls, and found him fallen to a warrior's

honor despite her best efforts to raise him to higher station.

More than eager to cross words with his touchy Acoma

predecessor, for his mind was far from ready to quit the

fight, Saric almost smiled.

/

Pursuit

30

Pursuit

Mara ran.

Brush hooked her ankles, and her breach burned her

throat. She fought her way forward, gasping. Long past

the point where her body needed rest, she knew if she

stopped, she was dead. Enemies pursued her relentlessly

As she ducked under branches, she caught glimpses of them

figures in green running after.

There was something profoundly evil in the sight of men

wearing her house colors chasing behind with murderous

purpose. Mara thrashed through a strand of creeper, drive n

by more than fear. That green armor had always represented

chose willing to die for her, willing to protect her at any cost,

and enemies wearing Acoma colors brought her to the edge

of despair.

How many had died of this last conjoined treachery of

Minwanabi and Anasati? Saric and Azawari, two of her

finest younger officers, ones she had determined to spare

The soldiers with her had been fit, tough men chosen for

their dependability in an emergency. But with their eyes

upon the Assembly of Magicians, who among them hat

guessed that the trap to overtake them so near to their goal

would be so mundane, yet so murderous?

The cho-ja tunnels were just a short march distant.

Always a healthy woman, Mara was nevertheless not the

girl she had been when she had assumed the Acoma mantle

The wrestling matches and foot races with her brother were

thirty years behind her, and her breath tore now from her

chest. She could not continue; yet she must.

The soldiers behind were closing on her. Encumbered

749

by heavier armor, they had marched some distance before

the encounter; the race for a time had been even. Now

it was not. Mara's next step became a stumble. Her

foemen neared. For torturous minutes, the only sound

she acknowledged was the pounding of sandal-clad feet

upon the earth and her own labored breaching.

Mara could not speak for breach and for sorrow. There

were two at her heels, one just a pace behind, and the other

a bare half stride more, and coming hard. Almost she could

sense the raised blade at her back. Any instant she expected

the shock of the thrust, followed by pain and a spiraling fall

into darkness.

To die by the blade was honor, she thought wildly. But

she felt only black rage. All in life she had striven for would

become wasted because of a warrior's narrow-minded

hatred and revenge. She could do nothing; only punish

her body forward in what might be the last step she took.

So would a gazen die, nailed in flight by the mailed claws

of the sarcat who hunted for meat.

The ground began to rise. Mara threw herself into the

grade and tripped. She fell hard. A sword cut the air where

her body had been, and a warrior grufffly cursed.

She rolled through dry leaves. Her armor hampered her,

and the sword at her side she had not thought to toss away

hooked on a root and trapped her.

She looked up to a dizzy impression of greenery and

flecks of bright sky. Across these reared an enemy face

in a nightmare of friendly colors. Mara saw the sword

rise to slash down and take her. She had no breach to cry

out, but could only fall back, thrashing, in a futile effort

to escape.

The warrior who raced one pace behind reached the

scene at that instant. His blade rose and fell a bit taster,

by a fraction; and the flesh he hewed down was the

enemy's.

750 Mistress of the Empire

Sobbing in exhausted reaction, Mara did not realise until

after the dying man slammed in a heap across her legs that

not all green armor held traitors. One familiar face had

survived, bleeding from a cut cheek. 'Xanomu,' she cried.

'Bless the gods.'

He heaved off the corpse, jerked her up, and shoved her

stumbling away from him. 'Go, mistress,' he gasped out.

His voice was cramped by pain, due to worse wounds in

his body. 'Find the cho-ja. I will delay your enemies.'

Mara wanted to praise him, to let him know her gratitude

for his valor. She could not catch her wind.

Xanomu saw her struggle. 'My Lady, go! There are more

comma, and only I to hold them.'

Mara whirled, tears half blinding her. Xanomu's dream

of seeing her safe to the cho-ja was false hope: the insectoids

would not fight. They were bound by the Assembly's treaty,

and surely by now they knew of her defiance of the Great

Ones' edict.

She ran anyway. The alternative was to be butchered

where she stood, as two hulking warriors smashed out of

the undergrowth and sprang, with only Xanomu's failing

strength to delay them.

The struggle was brief, barely a half-dozen sword strokes

before the gurgling moan of a man cut through the neck.

Xanomu had fallen, his life sold to gain his mistress a few

more yards through the forest. The trees were thinning,

Mara thought; or maybe her eyesight had begun to fail,

dazzled by the beginnings of a faint.

She blinked away tears or maybe sweat, and darkness

rose up like a black wall to swallow her.

She flung out a hand, as if to break a fall, and her

fingernails scraped across chitin.

Cho-ja! She had reached the mound. Black bodies closed

m on her, pressing her upright on all sides. Mara gasped,

panting, a helpless prisoner. These were not warriors but

workers, a tight-knit band of foragers who seemed to be

headed back to their hive.

She knew better than to believe she was safe. Between

gasps, she said, 'You ... are bound to obey ... the

Assembly's . . . edict! You must . . . not fight!'

The cho-ja ignored her. They could not do battle in

any event, being workers unspecialised for combat. No

weapons or tools were carried among them. But as they

knotted tighter around Mara, and her pursuers sprinted

out of the trees, she realised: the insectoids could not fight,

but only die.

The lead warrior screamed to his companions, and in a

rush, they charged. Swords flashed in late-day sunlight as

they hewed down a worker marching in procession with

its fellows.

It fell without sound, kicking and rolling in its pain. As

if only now cognisant of their threat, the workers left living

clashed together into a single body, with Mara wedged at

their center. She was pressed too dose to fall to the ground;

neither could she shove her way against the current as the

insectoids simultaneously thrust forward in a teeth-rattling

sprint. Like flotsam caught in a current, she was carried

along. She could not see for the dust and the dack of

chitin-covered bodies. Turf ripped at her feet. She lost a

sandal. Then the mound of the hive rose up, suddenly, and

they descended into darkness.

The Minwanabi in false armor shouted and raced after

them into the tunnel.

Mara gave up the distraction of thought. Borne along

with the workers, and blind in a morass of unfamiliar

smells and sounds, she made no effort to analyse. Her

eyes adjusted slowly, and she twisted her head to make

sense of the commotion and clamoring behind her. For

a long moment she did not identify the strange, scraping

rattle of blades striking unprotected chitin.

752 Mistress of the Empire

Cho-Ja bodies littered the tunnel floor, and still the false

warriors came on. The cho-ja about Mara slackened pace

with a jerk, and a high-pitched buzzing stung her ears.

The next instant, a dark tide eclipsed the last light from the

entrance. She knew that cho-ja workers were inserting

themselves in the path of flight and that the pursuing:

soldiers could do nothing to reach her unless they hacked

themselves a path though living bodies.

Mara felt too pummeled with weariness to weep for

grief or relief Her mind was punished with the recognition

that, even though this hive was under attack, its warrior

defenders dared not risk a response for fear that the

Assembly might charge its denizens with breaking the treaty

Although she knew that the cho-ja counted individual-lives -

workers in particular - as expendable at need,

she knew regret that any such life should be sacrificed to

save her.

The last faint daylight vanished, as the cho-ja rounded

a corner. Mara was conducted in total darkness. Aware as

she was since her trip to Chakaha in Thuril that cho-ja were

by nature day creatures, she perceived strategy in the lack

of illumination. Her escorting party of workers was leading

her ever deeper into the hive, past countless twistings and

turnings of the way. The Minwanabi were being lured

into following. Doom awaited them. They would never

come alive out of this maze. The cho-ja need not trouble

themselves with killing. Humans who lost themselves in the

tunnels beneath the earth would wander until they perished,

wasted from thirst and hunger

'Convey my thanks to your Queen,' Mara murmured.

The worker cho-ja deigned not to reply. It might have

been the treaty that held them silent, or it might have been

sorrow for their fallen fellows. Mara felt the touch of their s

bodies against her, no longer crushing, but as tender as if she

were cradled within a giant fist. It occurred to her belatedly

that she had been caught up to the point of blindness by her

personal concern for Justin. These cho-ja were doing her

no favor but perhaps in their way lending her aid for the

sake of their own cause, since she had brought back cho-Ja

mages for the purpose of defeating the Assembly.

These beings saw their freedom in her survival.

Mara realised that the slavelike workers might be forbidden

to communicate. But the possibility existed that

Their Queen was not acting from strict neutrality but, in

her covert way, as an ally to Mara's human cause.

The workers were going somewhere quickly. They

showed no sign of spacing their bodies apart to let her fall

by the wayside. What if they had been sent on an 'errand'

that by design was meant to coincide with the direction she

desired to go? Or worse, what if they went mindlessly on

about their hive's purpose, and she was carried in a direction

she did not care to go? Time, above all, was of the essence.

Her children's survival depended upon swift action.

Mara gulped a breath. Her legs were spent. Even had

she wanted to, she could not achieve so much as one

step unassisted. Neither could she stay safely wedged

between the carapaces of a dozen fast-moving bodies

whose destination was unknown. .r'

If she dared to presume, she might ask to ride.

The effrontery of that supposition might get her killed should

she slip while trying to climb on a moving Cho-ja,

encumbered as she was by her armor, the cho-ja continuing

to ignore her as they trampled her fallen body.

Worker Cho-ja had no appreciation of the Tsurani concept

of dignity. Still, Mara could not bring herself to think of

them as mere beasts of burden, and that bias, along with

her recovering strength, kept her silent. She recalled Lujan's

expression on that long-past day in Dustari when the slave

Kevin had made the preposterous suggestion that had led

her armies to victory on the backs of cho-ja warriors.

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753

754 Mistress of the Empire

Tears flooded her eyes at the memory. Lujan had looked

pale and side as he stared at the broad, blade body he was

expected to mount. Yet he had done so, and gone on to

win a great war.    l

Who was she, to risk such as he on the Plain of Nashika,

and yet not dare the same heights?

Her heart faltered at the prospect. Yet she was lost if

she did not find a way to unite the Cho-ja in rebellion

against their oppressors, and rejoin the Chakaha mages

who waited in hiding in burrows bade at her estates; her

son and daughter would be dead, at the hand of the first

rival claimant to the golden throne. If the pretender was

not to be Jiro, there would be others equally merciless.

And the Assembly of Magicians would never while she

breached forgive her slight to their omnipotence.

There remained her last card left to play, the final

desperate plan she had outlined during her last council

before war had broken out. For that, she must reach the

Queen of this hive and be received for audience.

She did not feel bold, and had to force courage. Her

voice sounded shaky, when at last she summoned nerve to

try speech. 'Take me to your Queen,' she requested.

The workers did not respond. 'I must have words with

your ruler,' Mara insisted louder.

The workers did not answer, but they stopped. The

sudden jolt into stillness all but spilled Mara from her

feet. 'I have to see your Queen,' she cried, shouting now,

and raising a storm of echoes.

Light bloomed down a side corridor. Mara turned that

way and, over the humped carapaces of the worker

party, saw an approaching band of warriors. These were

Tsurani-bred- cho-ja, helmed as men would be, with a

Strike Leader wearing plumes at the fore. He reached the

juncture of the tunnels and turned eyes like onyx upon the

disheveled woman amid the workers. 'I am Tax'ka. I have

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7SS

come to grant your request and conduct you to this hive's

Queen.'

Mara forgot weariness in a great wash of relief. As the

workers parted to clear her way, she stepped forward, and

came as near as a breath to howling frustration as her fickle

knees gave way.

The cho-ja Strike Leader knelt. 'You may ride,' it intoned.

'Our Queen is not minded to wait upon your weariness.'

Mara was too tired to bridle at a remark that from a

human would have been taken for insult. She struggled

back to her feet and accepted a worker's assistance to help

her mount on the Strike Leader's midsection. She settled

astride, insecure upon the black and slippery carapace. Her

sweating hands found no grip that seemed trustworthy, and

the cho-ja in its silence seemed unwilling to spare concern

for her human discomfort.

'Go,' she said, resolved. 'Take me to your Queen with

all haste.'

The cho-ja's stride as it surged forward was startling for

its smoothness. Mara clung without further worry, leaning

forward, so that she might grip tight to the warrior's

chitinous neck. She had no clue how far the cavern of the

Queen might lie from this outlying tunnel. Some hives were

so vast she could be riding cho-ja back for hours to cross

them. The spice-scented air of the tunnel fanned her face.

Her sweat dried, and her breathing returned to normal.

She had leisure to notice smaller discomforts: the cramp

of overtaxed muscles, and the maddening sting of blisters

beneath her armor. The passages the Strike Leader and his

company traversed were unlighted. Lacking any sense of

vision, Mara was reduced to clinging blindly while her

escort sped on its errand.

The journey was the strangest in her memory. The darkness

was unrelenting, never giving way to the chiaroscuro

of blacks and greys found in the stormiest night upon the

756

M#tress of the Empire

surface. As she was jostled and jarred, Mara could only

wait for vision to return. Yet every expectant moment was

followed by another, until she had to clamp her teeth to

stifle a rising scream.

At some point in the journey, Tax'ka inquired after her

well-being. Mara gave back vague reassurance, though she

felt none within; the rapid travel in utter darkness became a

timeless voyage through contemplation. Fatigue and tension

ruled her mind, providing sights where light and nature did

not: imagined movements glimpsed at the edge of her vision

caused her heart to pound and her breathing to become

rapid and shallow. In time she shut her eyes, to make the

darkness seem less menacing. The measure was a stopgap,

and gave no sense of security. Each time she forgot herself

and tried to see again, only blackness met her efforts. Her

terror returned redoubled.

At last she sought calm in silent meditative chants.

An interminable interval later, a voice called her name.

Mara opened her eyes. She blinked at the surge of light,

for not only were cho-ja globes glowing blue all about her,

but oil lanterns burned hot-white with flame.

She awkwardly dismounted.

The Force Leader who had carried her saluted, and said,

'At your command, mistress. Our ruler awaits.'

Mara glanced across the cavern. Ahead of her rose a

half-familiar shape, a dais fashioned of banked earth. The

cho-ja Queen reclined upon it, the enormous mass of her

body screened from view behind rich hangings. As Mara

met the gaze of the being who towered above her, her knees

did not tremble only from fatigue.

The cho-ja Queen watched with eyes like black ice as her

human visitor arose from her bow. Before Mara could utter

even the most basic polite greeting, the ruler spoke.

'We cannot help you, Lady Mara. You have by your

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,

.

757

actions set the Assembly of Magicians against you, and

we are forbidden to aid any they call foe.'

Mara forced her back straight. She removed her helm and

raked back the damp coils of her hair. Letting the useless

helmet hang by its strap from her hand, she nodded. She

had no choice now but to take the boldest course she had

ever dared attempt. 'Lady Queen,' she said as steadily as

her state of nerves would allow, 'I beg to differ. You must

help me. The choice has been taken from you, for the terms

of your treaty with the Assembly are already broken.'

Silence fell with the abruptness of a blow. The Queen

reared back. 'You speak from ignorance, Lady Mara.'

Never more aware of her danger, Mara dosed her eyes

and swallowed. She struggled against an irrational instinct

to flee: she was underground, very deep. To run would avail

nothing. She was at these cho-ja's mercy, and if they could

not be made to help her, all causes were lost.

Mara called back. 'Not as ignorant as you think.'

The Queen stayed neutral. She did not settle to recline

on her dais. 'Speak on, Lady Mara.'

Mara chanced fate. 'Your treaty has been violated,' she

ventured. 'Not by your kind, good Queen. By me.' The

silence in the chamber was like deafness, it was so complete.

Mara swallowed fear and resumed. 'I broke your treaty,

which by any unbiased judgment was unfair. I went to

Chakaha. I spoke with your kind, and saw them as they

were meant to live, free, and aboveground. I presumed,

good Queen. I made a judgment, for the good of your race

as well as my own people. I dared to ask alliance, and when

I returned to the Empire's shores, I brought with me two

cho-ja mages sent to aid your cause.'

The hush became more profound at this news. Mara

felt as if she raised her voice against a crushing weight of

unspoken disapproval. 'These mages shelter in an unused

burrow within the hive near my estates. The Assembly will

758 M`stress of the Emptre

not pause to distinguish whether your kind are innocent

of their harboring They will act as if all cho-ja are

conspirators. Therefore the treaty is broken already, by

my hand, for the betterment of this Empire, for which the

cho-ja must now fight to reclaim their rightful free share.'

The heavy silence became prolonged; 'Have you anything

more to say?' The Queen's tone was like the ring of struck

crystal.

For reply, Mara bowed deeply. 'My word to you is

complete.'

The Queen expelled a hiss of air. She swayed back and

forth once, twice, then subsided onto her dais. Her eyes

glittered. 'Lady, still we cannot aid you.'

'What?' The expostulation left Mara's lips before she

could think. She remedied her lapse with another bow, this

one low enough to be counted almost subservient. 'The

treaty's terms are broken. Will you not rise to opportunity

and bid to recover your freedom and reclaim your rightful

destiny?'

The cho-ja Queen seemed sad as she gathered herself

to answer. 'Lady, we cannot. Our word was given. The

breaking of the treaty was your doing, your treachery. You

do not truly know our ways. It is not possible for us to

violate an oath.'

Mara frowned. This interview was not proceeding as

she had pictured. Driven by a raw fear, she said, 'I don't

understand.'

'The breaking of promises is a human trait,' the Queen;

stated without rebuke.

Still puzzled, Mara struggled for comprehension. 'I

know that your kind never forget a memory,' she mused,;

attempting to unravel this impasse.

The Queen voluntarily qualified. 'Our given word cannot

be broken. That is why humans over the years continually

had the better of us. Each war ended in a treaty that we were

, .

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759

compelled by our nature to abide by. Humans have no such

instinctive restraints. They break honor, and do not die of

it. We recognise this odd behavior, but we cannot-'

'Die!' Mara interrupted in shock. 'Do you mean that you

cannot survive the breaking of a promise?'

The Queen inclined her head in affirmation. 'Just so.

Our given word is binding upon us, inextricably linked

with the hive mind that itself is sanity and life. To us, a

promise is as confining as walls and chains would be to

a human - no, more. We cannot rebel against the tenets

of our ancestors without calling madness upon the hive,

a madness that brings death, for we would cease to feed,

to breed, to defend ourselves. For us, to think is to act,

and to act is to think. You have no words to embrace the

concept.'

Mara gave in to the weakness in her knees. She sat

abruptly upon the bare earth, her armor creaking in the

stillness. Her voice was small, as close as she had ever come

to sounding mollified. 'I didn't know.'

The Queen said nothing to exonerate Mara. 'That is a

common response by humans who at last perceive their

error. Yet it changes nothing. You did not swear to the

terms of the Forbidden. You cannot break what does not

bind you. Only the cho-ja or the Assembly can violate this

ancient pact.'

Mara cursed herself for pride and vanity. She had dared to

think herself different from her fellow Ruling Lords; she had

presumed to know her cho-ja friends, and had been guilty

of an atrocity as great as any that her kind had perpetrated

against the insectoid race in the past.

The Chakaha council had trusted her: wrongly, it would

seem. She shrank from the association that eventually the

mages she had cozened into coming to the Empire must

know how poorly she had judged.

How many times had Ichindar, on his seat of power,

760 Mfstress of the Emp~re

suffered for his human follies when they hat come to

adversely affect the people he hat been set by fate to

rule? Mara felt diminished with shame. She had aspired

to set her son on the golden throne; to save his life, she

believed.

How little she had reckoned the ramifications at the

time, to set a weight of responsibility not when she could

encompass upon the untried shoulders of a boy.

Mara set her face in her hands, burdened with something

worse than mere despair. She contemplated the finality of

death, that she had stubbornly named a waste of resource;

now she was no longer sure. The gist of her philosophy had

altered under her, until no course of action felt sure.

'The magicians will seek reprisal against your kind,' Mara

ventured at las,t. She looked up humbly at the Queen. 'What

will you do?'

The massive insectoid regarded her with an expression

no human could interpret. 'Some of us will die,' she replied

with the implacable honesty of her kind. 'This hive will

very Likely be first, since you were permitted an entry and

an audience.'

'Can you not flee?' Mara badly wanted to hear one word

of hope or encouragement, that all was not lost for these

creatures whose friendship had sustained her through a

lifetime of trial and difficulty.

The Queen twitched a forelimb, perhaps in the cho-ja

equivalent of a shrug. 'I am already within the deepest

chamber of this hive. It is not possible to move me anywhere

else. Once our Queens mature enough to lay eggs, we lose

our mobility. Here, at least, I will survive until the last.

Your Great Ones may destroy my body, but the hive mind

will preserve my memory, and the record of all that passes

here. Another hive will protect our mind, and when a new

Queen is spawned, the mind will renew with her.'

Small comfort, Mara thought, not to be forgotten for

eternity. She did not speak of the foreboding in her heart,

that worse might happen: there might indeed be an end

without memory for the cho-ja nation held captive in the

Empire. Her brashness might have bought their permanent

extermination. She recalled the trust she had won from the

Chakaha council, and her need to weep became painful.

She was given no chance to dwell upon guilt or misgiving.

The next instant the Queen cocked her head to one side as if

listening.

A rapid-fire, high-pitched buzzing was exchanged between

ruler and her servants. The communication ceased as if cut

off. Workers and warriors departed, and the Queen tilted

her head toward her human guest.

'What is it?' Mara asked, dreading to hear the answer.

'Great Ones have come,' replied the Queen. 'A delegation

thirty strong has surrounded the entrance of my hive. They

accuse us falsely of oath-breaking, and they demand that

your person be surrendered.'

'I will go out to them,' Mara said, the trembling in her

knees redoubled. She wondered if she could force her

sore body to stand. 'I would cause your kind no more

trouble.'

The cho-ja Queen jerked a forelimb in an unmistakable

gesture of negation. 'You are not our prisoner.' We have

broken no oaths. It was you who brought mages over the

borders, and there is no statute in the treaty that forbids

us to give you audience. You may go. You may stay. Or the

Black Robes may come and fetch you out. Neither option

is any of our affair.'

Mara's eyebrows rose in shock. She held her speech,

striving to avoid any more errors of assumption. Carefully

she weighed her next words. 'If I choose not to surrender my

person, you must know that the Assembly will misinterpret.

They will believe in your complicity, and seek retribution.'

The Queen seemed less serene than hard as polished

762

Mistress of thc Empire

obsidian. 'They will believe wrongly, if what you postulate

is accurate.'

Mara swallowed. She felt as if the firmness of the earth

might at any moment crumble beneath her feet. 'Your

people could be harmed by such a misunderstanding.'

The Queen did not relent. 'Then they would be harmed.

That does not make the Black Robes' misjudgment any

closer to truth. We have kept to the terms of our treaty,

as our kind must. If they, as humans, act in error, then the

error is theirs, as are the consequences.'

Mara frowned, pondering upon the meaning that might

lie beneath the Queen's words. The Lady of the Acoma

had skirted proscribed issues once before, seeking clues

concerning the Forbidden. Now, unable to suppress the

hope that sparked in her, she wondered whether these wily

cho-ja in fact sought to provoke a misjudgment.

As she drew breath to give voice to this thought a sudden

terror gripped her. The air in the chamber grew too thick,

as if a great pressure wave rushed through the tunnels to

crush her. Covering her ears as pain stabbed them, Mara

gasped in shock. An explosion shook the earth, tossing her

down. She struck earth on her side. A cry exploded from

her, as the chamber around her became laced with lightning

and fire.

Over the concussion of air struck to thunder, the Queen

shrieked in agony and what may have been pure cho-ja

rage.

'The magicians attack! Our hive is destroyed! The treaty

that binds us is broken!' Then language was abandoned.

The Queen's voice rose to painful dissonance as she buzzed

her last communication to her kind.

Mara choked on burning air. Her eyes streamed tears,

and her skin scorched in the beginnings of searing torment.

Justin, she thought, Kasuma: I have failed you

both

j

PUTSHit

763

Her eyes were blinded by a dazzling flash of light, then

smothered in all-consuming darkness.

She screamed. The world she knew upended. No earth

pressed against her body, and no sense of gravity bound

her down. From heat, her flesh shriveled in the bite of a

cold like frost.

And then there was only darkness that extended beyond

eternity.

;

.,

Kentosani'

31

Kentosani

Awareness returned.

Mara blinked, her reemerging senses confused. She

struggled to orient herself, but her consciousness refused

to resolve more than the rudiments of cohesive impression.

Her body reclined on what felt like cushions. Warm air

surrounded her, and gentle illumination. She could make

out nothing else, no solid detail of chamber or setting. The

burning, agonising nightmare of sorcery and destruction

seemed banished as a nightmare would be upon waking.

'Where am I?' she murmured. ~

'Safe,' said a voice. By its ringing, disembodied tone,

Mara knew: a miracle had occurred. Spared the wrath

of the Assembly by the narrowest margin, she must be

in the presence of the Cho-ja mages. In Chakaha, they

had demonstrated their ability to move her from place

to place by magic. So they must have done now, pulling

her out of the ruins of the hive even as the Black Robes

achieved its destruction. The knowledge that cho-ja had

suffered strangely brought her no distress. Alarmed, Mara

pushed herself upright.

Her concern immediately dissipated, slipped from her

like water might. She made out the shadowy forms of the

Cho-ja mages, crouched on either side of her. They had been

busy in her absence. The burrow they inhabited was now

adorned by furnishings created by their craft. The peace that

Mara now experienced was also due to their influence. 'You

practice your arts already, spellcasters?'

One mage returned a gesture of reassurance, forearms

turned so that the sharp edges were averted from chance

765

accident. 'Your aura was tinged with fear and anger. If I

presumed to ease your mind, forgive me, but the time is

now for clear-headedness, yes?'

Mara swallowed. 'The hive was destroyed by the Assembly.

I am sorry.'

The second mage shifted with a rustle of wings. 'Necessary

sacrifice,' it intoned in emotionless brevity. 'The

Queen's memory is preserved intact, and the unjust treaty

has been broken at last. Cho-ja warriors are freed to

march within the Empire. They will now support your

cause, Servant of the Empire.'

Her cause! Mara felt cold at the words. She had wished

to secure her children's safety' and to expunge stagnation

and cruelty from her people's culture. But an entire Cho-ja

hive had just been sacrificed to save her, and now she was

being called to fullest account for her pledge to the council

in Chakaha. The Empire's Queens held out the expectation

that she would go on to win freedom for their race.

'Yes,' the Cho-ja mage to her left intoned in response to

her thought. 'The imperial seal with temple endorsements

on a document that restores Cho-ja to full citizenship should

be sufficient to revoke the Assembly's unfair judgment.'

Mara gathered her inner strength. 'First, the great Ones

must be defeated,' she warned. The prospect of outright

confrontation with the magicians terrified her.

The mages inclined their heads in what seemed maddening

serenity. 'The meanS are at hand. But time grows

short.'

The speed at which events were overtaking the Lady

of the Acoma carried its own weight of care. Mara

fought off overwhelming despair. She had lost her advisers.

Arakasi was gods alone knew where. Lujan's fate

was unknown to her. The Acoma armies might now

be ashes, and her husband could have been obliterated

by the Assembly in the moment when they declared

766 Mistress of the Empire

her its enemy. Jiro of the Anasati might already be in

the Holy City, and her children dead. And even if by

miracle the Imperial Precinct was still secure and under

the protection of the Imperial Whites, there remained the

armies of the Anasati and the Omechan poised outside the

city walls.

Mara chided herself. Listing every possible ramification

of misfortune served nothing, but would only cancel what

slender advantage the Chakaha mages had won for her.

She saw death at every turn, whether she acted or not.

Better to fight, and take matters in hand as best she could.

Whether Justin and Kasuma were well or not, or whether

an Omechan or an Anasati pretender had already assumed

the golden throne, she owed the cho-ja who had spared her

an honorable best effort.

'I need information,' she urged, rising immediately to her

feet. Her whole body ached. She ignored its twinges, and

briskly turned toward the Chakaha mages. 'Your aid will

be necessary. Once I understand the array of the forces laid

against us, I will need to reach the Holy City more swiftly

than the wind.'

The Chakaha mages straightened from their crouch. They

bowed to her and then flanked her. 'Your will is as our

command, Lady Mara,' said one. 'Ask us what you would

know. We will engage our arts to show you.'

Filled with trepidation for the losses she now had no

choice but to count Mara forced herself to bear up. 'My

husband, Hokanu,' she opened, the tremble in her voice

scarcely controlled. 'Where is he?'

'Close your eyes,' bade the Chakaha mages.

Mara obeyed, foreboding in her heart. An energy tingled

through her: magic. She beheld more than darkness behind

her lids: caught by a sensation akin to dizziness, she saw

Hokanu bending over a tactical map of the Holy City. He

gestured to rows of white pins on the walls, his helm cradled

Kentosani

767

in his hand, and his face worried. He looked as though he

had not slept in a fortnight.

The sight of him was more than Mara could bear. 'He

is alive!' she cried, near tears in her relief. Her joy and

thanksgiving to the gods for this turn of fortune left

her weak. Then she set aside wonderment to consider

the practical. The mages informed her that Hokanu and

his company of swift cavalry had crossed the city gates

ahead of the siege. The Shinzawai infantry companies still

marched from the North, but they would be of no use as

relief forces, Mara saw, as her cho-ja mages showed her

Black Robes forbidding the ranks of blue-clad warriors

access to the Holy City.

Mara had been declared enemy, and her allies were

forbidden to give aid. Without orders to defy the Great

Ones, Tsurani training came to the fore and Hokanu's

warriors obeyed.

'The Imperial Whites,' Mara mused. 'They will defend.

Who beside Hokanu might command them?'

For answer, she was given a second view of the chamber

where the council discussed tactics. Mara identified the figures

who clustered about the Shinzawai Lord whose beams

matched her own: Arakasi was present, quiet as a shadow,

and looking grim. Near him was theShinz'awai First

Adviser, Dogondi, his face implacable, as he conducted animated

discussion with another that Mara recognised with

a start for Chumaka, who was the Anasati First Adviser.

Unthinking, she questioned aloud. 'What does Chumaka

do here?'

For answer, the mages showed her more images: a glade

in a forest where Hokanu twisted and twisted a leather

thong, choking the life out of Jiro. The faded color and

rippling quality of the vision identified the seeing as a past

event. Mara saw Jiro go limp in Hokanu's grip. The Lord

of the Anasati was dead!

768 Msstress of the Emp~re

And yet, based upon her husband's current activity,

Kentosani suffered under siege. 'Who directs the attack

on the Holy City?' she demanded to know.

The scene behind her eyes spun and shifted focus.

She beheld armies and wooden engines, and a Force

Commander in Omechan colors. The outer walls had

crumbled and been breached. The Imperial Precinct itself

was under attack, and the plumes on the walls showed

several factions defending: Imperial White, and another.

In amazement Mara made out the purple and yellow of

Xacatecas. 'Hoppara is in Kentosani?'

'Sent by his mother, Isashani,' one Chakaha mage

intoned. 'He whom you name Hoppara reached Kentosani

ahead of the attack, and organised the Imperial Whites to

defend. The Omechan Lord knows of Jiro's death, but he

dreams of seizing the Anasati plot as his own. You still

have a foe who wishes to rule upon the bodies of your

children.'

Mara bit her lip. Her own armies - if they had escaped

destruction, and if the magicians had not already forbidden

them movement - would be too far south to attack the force

menacing the Imperial Precinct. Her other allies appeared to

have fled, or were stalling elsewhere, fearful of transferring

the aroused wrath of the Assembly against themselves.

Her dismay must have been evident. 'Lady,' one of the

mages broke in. 'You are not without an army. Every cho-ja

warrior in the Nations is yours to command.'

'How can they be?' Mara's tone was bleak. 'The Queen

of the hive that was sacrificed inferred that cho-ja can never

break a promise. The warriors you offer to my cause are

already sworn to answer to other Ruling Lords. Your people

have contracts of service that span generations.'

The mages buzzed in what Mara had come to interpret

as cho-ja laughter. 'No longer,' said one. 'Close your eyes,'

the second directed. 'Let us show you.'

Kentosani,

769

Infused with a growing wonderment, Mara did so. She

beheld a dry field upon which the armies of two minor

nobles engaged in battle. A fat young man in Ekamchi

colors was exhorting one of his Strike Leaders. 'But they

can't quit the field,' he shouted, his sword arm waving

dangerously near the face of his senior adviser. The servant

jumped back in vexation as his master ranted on. 'These

cho-ja owe me and my father their allegiance.'

The Strike Leader shook his head, stiff-faced. 'They say

not, master.'

'How?'The Ekamchi son reddened under his battle helm.

'Their kind are as slaves! They never break an alliance!'

'They do now.' The Strike Leader turned from his

commander and watched with stony eyes as rank after rank

of cho-ja warriors disengaged from combat and marched in

swift order from the field.

'This cannot be!' shrieked the Ekamchi son. He ran

forward and planted himself in the path of the ranking

cho-ja Strike Leader. 'You are traitors,' he accused. 'You

break oath.'

The cho-ja officer returned a click that showed scorn.

'Three thousand centis in metal and gems have been

delivered to your father's treasury. Such was the price

that bought our service. All past bargains and; alliances

are ended; all payments are refunded.'

The Ekamchi boy spluttered, but as the cho-ja officer

crouched into a posture that threatened attack, he was

forced to give ground.

Mara opened her eyes, shaking with unbridled laughter.

'What a surprise to most Ruling Lords that the cho-ja were

something more, or perhaps less, than loyal mercenaries.'

'Humans have much to learn concerning our kind,'

the Chakaha mages agreed tactfully. 'Old ways have

changed. Not even the Assembly could wring from our

people another treaty like the one that endured in such

770

Msstress of the Empsre

misery through thousands of years. When the war of the

mages was lost, our magic was not developed for defensive

purposes. Be sure that such weakness has been remedied in

those lands beyond the Empire.'

Mara beheld the perilous glitter in the eyes of the

Chakaha mages, and her blood ran cold in her body.

Traditions were broken, and danger was in the wind, and

now was her moment to seize advantage if she would, to

secure the next age's peace. She mastered her inner trepidation

and opened. 'Messages must be sent, and actions

taken to enforce Justin's claim to the golden throne before

the Assembly can interfere. Here is what must be done.'

Mara waited, suppressing the deep quiver of fear. Her

hair was piled high on her head, elaborately looped and

braided, and fixed with precious metal pins. Golden pins,

she thought, and the arrogance of her presumption, to

put on imperial gold, made her feel the more small and

uncertain. And yet there could be no half measures, if the

Empire as a Nation was to survive.

Her head swam with recollection of the orders she had

given between her bath and her robing. She drew a deep 'breath.

To the cho-ja Force Commander, who crouched at

her elbow, she said, 'Where are we exactly?'

Like his counterparts in free Chakaha, this warrior

eschewed the trappings of human commanders. His jet-dark

carapace had begun to show a faint turquoise stripe,

perhaps a decoration, perhaps a mark of rank. Mara looked

forward to the chance to study such distinctions, if the gods

saw fit to grant her victory. Then she dismissed speculation

as the warrior pointed upward and said, 'Directly above is

the imperial antechamber. The ones you requested should

gather for a legal coronation ceremony already await inside

the audience hall. All preparations are in order, and your

people anticipate your arrival.'

Mara braced herself. She waved away the maid called in

from the Imperial Palace, who had edged between the ranks

of the warriors for one last adjustment of her dress. The

gown she wore could not possibly hang without wrinkles,

taken as it had been from attic storage. It had belonged to

the last dowager Empress, a larger woman than Mara, but

it was the closest to Acoma green that could be found, so it

would have to do. Hasty stitches had gathered in the waist,

and pins nipped up the long hem. Mara felt encased in layers

like a needle cushion. The heavy fabrics chafed the sores left

from her armor, and rice powder could never conceal all the

scrapes and scratches she had sustained in her flight though

the forest.

Feeling every inch the hoyden bundled under a disguising

mass of finery, she said, 'When you cut through to the

outside from this tunnel, the Black Robes will know

something is afoot.'

The mages inclined their heads. 'We are prepared for

them, as best we can be.'

Mara took a grip on her nerve, which seemed by the

minute to ebb. 'Then send me Arakasi. I would confer

with him before we start the final move.'

It was still disconcerting to the Lady how swiftly the

mages could translate her merest wish into command. She

had no sooner finished speaking than her Spy Master was

delivered into her presence, as disgruntled as anyone had

ever observed him.

Arakasi arose from where he had been dumped by the

spell, face down upon the earthen floor. Unlike the imperial

maids who had been summoned earlier by magic to attend

to Mara's robing, the Spy Master did not lose his wits.

His raised brows settled into a frown that immediately

smoothed as he glanced about and identified the presence

of cho-ja. Next he fixed upon his mistress, who was almost

unrecognisable in imperial robes of state.

Then he was on his knees, bowing. 'My Lady.' Where

once his voice would have been expressionless, now there

was a tremulous note of joy. 'I am glad to see you well.'

'Rise,' Mara commanded. She came as near as her

nervousness would allow to laughter. 'Justin wears no

crown as yet, and I am due no such obeisance. It is a

custom I would see dispensed with, if our plans succeed as

we hope.' She peered through the gloom at the long-missed

person of her Spy Master, and, abashed by the intentness

of her scrutiny, Arakasi bent his head, chagrined.

'You wear the clothes of a cleaning drudge!' Mara

exclaimed.

Her Spy Master gave back a broad chuckle. 'How better

to spy upon one's superiors without drawing undue notice,

my Lady?' His nose wrinkled. 'Though I would prefer to

attend Justin's wedding and coronation in garments that

were not caked with scouring sand.'

Both Lady and Spy Master quieted as the pressure of

events forced sobriety. 'The priests of all the orders are

gathered,' Arakasi affirmed. 'Some may be a little shy

of perfect in their robing, since a few were summoned

directly from their beds. Once we had their honorable

selves all present in the great audience hall, those who

complained could not be permitted to leave. According

to Chumaka's study of the law, Justin's claim could be

disputed if even one High Priest failed to be in attendance.

Getting the Sisterhood of Sibi to come was the most difficult

task - not even the High Priest of Turakamu was willing to

contact them.'

'How did you manage?' Mara asked.

'Without alternative, I simply went into the temple

myself. I was allowed to live long enough to tell them

why I did what few men have dared.' Arakasi smiled

slightly at his memory. He was perhaps the only petitioner

in centuries to enter the Temple of Sibi uninvited, awl

Kentosani

773

certainly the only one allowed to leave. 'The temples

support your cause at this time, since the alternative

would set them the more firmly under the heel of the

Assembly. But sentiments could change, if civil order is

not swiftly restored. We'll get no second chance. Great

Ones are out in force in the city. More than a dozen

watch the entrances to the palace, as they are certain

you'll somehow try to mask your arrival in the confusion.'

Mara's frown was instinctive. 'They've entered a city

under threat of civil war, and done nothing to repress the

Omechan siege?'

Arakasi looked grim. 'Indeed not. My best impression

is that they have forsaken their insistence on peace in

favor of their own concerns.' He looked hard at the

diminutive woman who seemed half-smothered under the

weight of her imperial overrobes. 'I don't know what you've

accomplished in the South, but I would hazard a guess,

my Lady, that the Black Robes have learned to be afraid

of you.'

'Not of me,' Mara corrected, embarrassed. 'Of these.'

Her gesture encompassed the cho-ja mages who stood like

sentinels to either side.

Arakasi regarded her alien companions, his eyes widening

at the splendor of their many-colored wings. 'I never

knew your kind could be so beautiful,' he said in awed

reverence.

The Chakaha mages brushed aside the human praise

without awkwardness. The left-hand one addressed Mara.

'Good Servant, danger grows as we speak. Human warriors

are entering the tunnels by the Great Ones' command,

searching for word of your hiding.'

'Where?' Mara demanded, the memory of the burned-out

hive that she had so narrowly escaped all too recent a horror.

'Has there been bloodshed?'

774

Mistress of the Emp~re

'Not yet,' the second mage replied. 'The warriors obey

the restraint of the Assembly not to fight unless they meet

opposition. And the cho-ja will not embrace conflict until

they are confronted without alternative. For now, they

abandon the hives that are invaded, leaving many empty

galleries and tunnels to be searched in profitless darkness.

The human armies make poor progress. This moment they

concentrate their sweep to the south, near the estates of

your birth. But the search will be widened, very soon. Your

Great Ones are not fools.'

'Then the hour is come,' Mara said, startling all present

with what seemed an indomitable strength. 'We will go

forward.'

At her word, the cho-ja mages gave a signal. A task

force of workers marched to the fore of the tunnel ant

began to burrow upward. Dirt pattered down, ant then

chunks of mortar and tile. Light pierced the gloom, yellow

and clear, from the domed skylight over the imperial

antechamber.

A cho-ja stuck his head through the opening. He buzzes

back a brief communication, and the mage to Mara's left

salt, 'The antechamber is dear of enemies. Your husband

and son await.' Then it pauses, as if in hesitation. 'Lady,'

it intoned, 'we wish you luck and brave fortune. But move

swiftly. Our spells cannot stay the Black Robes' attack

indefinitely. You will have a short time to achieve all that

you must, and then there will be chaos and a devastating

backlash of thwarted energies. We wish you to know, if

you fail, or if we fail you, that it was for this battle that

we were sent from Chakaha. We are more than your

defense, Goot Servant; we are an embassy to bring in a

new order.'

Mara looked upward into the mages' alien visages, which

reared above her with expressions no human alive court

fully know. It did not escape her that both had unfurled

Kentosani

7~75

their wings into fighting stance, as they prepared to stand

down the might of a unified Assembly. Their courage

moved her to tears. 'Let it be known, good friends, that

so long as I live, I will not fail you. we will triumph or

die together.'

She turned and faced forward at once, lest the fullness of

her courage collapse under the weight of the dangers that

threatened. Straight, stiff-backed under her gold-studded

robes, the Servant of the Empire started forward toward

the opening.

Mara made her way with unsteady steps over the fallen

earth and the dumps of tile and mortar. Unobtrusively,

Arakasi moved to steady her elbow. She flashed him a

grateful smile, glad for his human touch after the company

of so many Cho-ja.

And then she was out, dazzled by late-day sunlight, and

by the flash of a magnificence of gold armor.

She caught her breath. Red hair pushed out from beneath

the helm of imperial gold; Justin's red hair, she realised

with a great thump of her heart. He did not look like

a boy anymore, armored in the finery of an Emperor.

Mara shook to realise that this was the hour of his

wedding. -,i ~

She faltered in her step as the boy bowed to her, son to

mother, as was proper. All that brilliance of goldwork felt

wrong; as though she should be bowing to the floor, as she

once had to Ichindar.

Then the boy straightened and gave a undignified whoop.

'Mother!' he cried and ran forward.

Mara forgot her finery and reached. Her son rushed into

her arms, taller, heavier now, fully and impressively coming

closer to manhood. As his arms locked around her neck,

she realised she did not have to bend down anymore to

embrace him. His shoulders had started to broaden in a

way that felt all too familiar. He was all Kevin's, Mara

776 Mistrcss ofthc Emp~rc

realised; he would have his father's great height. The jolt

of thee restored her to dignity.

As her son stepped back from her embrace, he regarded

her levelly with eyes that were the image of his barbarian

father's. 'I am ready, Good Servant. The Princess Jehilia

awaits.'

Mara's voice failed her. She had lost two children already,

Ayaki, and the little one poisoned before his birth. Now her

only living son stood resolutely ready to give his life for her

honor. The moment was more than she could endure.

Then Justin's face broke into a grin of such insouciance,

she was again recalled to past days, and to Kevin's irrepressible

humor. 'We'd better hurry,' her son admonished.

'The late Emperor's First Wife keeps having hysterics, and

all of her makeup is going to run.'

Mara rallied. 'What of Jehilia? Did she have hysterics,

too?'

Justin gave back a boy's shrug. 'She shouted a lot. She

locked herself in her room. Then somebody asked her if

she would rather wed an Omechan with a paunch and grey

hair, and she let the maids in to get her dressed.'

The girl had sense, Mara thought, as she took her place

at Justin's side and prepared to enter the great audience

hall. Arakasi stood by her, to steady her other side, ant

no one seemed to notice that he yet wore the robes of

a drudge as the iron-studded doors swung open and the

musicians began the fanfare that announced the arrival of

the groom.

Mara stepped resolutely ahead, aware of her own hand,

sweating, where she gripped Justin's. She wondered as

she passed through the ranked columns of the Priests

of the Twenty Higher Orders whether the gods would

strike her down for pride, and for the sheer arrogance

of presumption that caused her to dare set her son on

the throne as the next Light of Heaven, the ninety-second

Kcntosan~

77/

Emperor of Tsuranuanni. But the representative of the

Temple of Juran, God of Justice, did not look displeased,

and the High Priest of Turakamu gave her a small smile

of encouragement. Apart from the rest, behind the Red

God's priest, stood three shrouded figures in black, the

Sisters of Sibi, Goddess of Death. Even those chilling

aspects seemed to reassure Mara with a slight inclination

of their heads. The High Priest of Jastur, the God of

War, slammed his gloved fist against his chest in salute,

as Mara passed, his blow ringing on the precious iron of

his breastplate.

Mara took another step, and another, her inner confidence

rebounding. As she passed, the priests of the

higher and lower orders began to arrange themselves

before the dais, in pairs by their nature, the priests of

Lashima, Goddess of Wisdom, falling in beside those

of Salana, Mother of Truth. The Priest of Turakamu

partnered the Sister of Sibi, while the High Priest of

Jastur was joined by the High Priest of Baracan, the Lord

of Swords.

Ahead, on the imperial dais, waited a small, blond-haired

girl in a sparkling veil of gold tissue. Jehilia, Mara identified,

as her maids drew back her headdress; the girl still had

freckles, from too much time playing truant in the imperial

gardens. And if she looked pale beneath the paint and

powder of her makeup, she saw the Good Servant, and

grinned.

'Let the doors be closed, and the ceremonial matrimony

begin!' intoned the priest of Chochocan, the Good

God, in ritual opening. Behind him and to his right

the High Priest of Tomachca, Lover of Children, began

silent prayer. Mara stared at him a lingering moment,

remembering that the lesser brother of Chochocan was

also known as the Bringer of Peace. She prayed he would

be so today.

778 Mistress of the Empire

Justin's fingers gave Mara's a last squeeze as she let him

loose to take his place at his Princess's side. Mara moved

to where Hokanu waited and as the ceremony began, she

slipped her hand into his.

The Imperial Palace was bustling. Messengers hurried by,

and servants moved purposefully across the courtyards in

an anxious rush to complete errands. Perched on an elbow

by ? windowsill, Shimone of the Assembly watched their

industry with deep, unreadable eyes. His face was more

than usually austere, and if anything, he was yet more spare

with words. He moved his head slightly, calling attention to

the unusual level of activity.

The gesture was noted by Hochopepa, who sat upon

cushions before a low table and a tray of half-consumed

sugared fruits. The stout magician acknowledged with a

nod and spoke softly so that only Shimone could hear.

'Something more than everyday business is afoot. I've

counted five priests hidden under cowls, and by the smell

on the air, the kitchens are baking a banquet. Odd fare, for

a city under attack.'

As if to punctuate his observation, a large rock fired from

a siege engine sailed down from the air and shattered in a

courtyard nearby. A stray dog fled, yelping. Hochopepa

gazed through the cracked screen with narrowed eyes.

'Those damned things are starting to irritate me. Another

stone this close and I'll go out and . . .' His threat was cut

off as he was distracted by another band of oddly dressed

nobles hurrying past the window. 'We expected an influx

of Ruling Lords to convene in the old council chambers,

but this seems something more.'

Shimone stirred, standing straighter. 'It is much more.

Motecha will not be stayed much longer from taking

action.

Hochopepa regarded the remains of his snack with

Kentosani

779

wistful regret. 'I will not be stayed much longer from taking

action,' he corrected in faint reproof 'I think the Lady is

here already, and that we waste our time in this vigil.'

Shimone said nothing, but his eyebrows raises, and he

pushed himself away from the window. Not to be left

behind as the taller, slenderer mage stalked from the

chamber, Hochopepa lumbered up from his cushions and

hurried after.

Servants engaged in nameless activities fled or prostrated

themselves in fear as the pair made their way down the

passage. If the palace corridors were a maze of constructions

added one on top of another over the centuries, the Black

Robes needed no directions. They proceeded without error

to a red-painted door emblazoned with an enameled seal.

They did not knock, but entered the office of the Imperial

Chancellor.

Dajalo of the Keda stood resplendent in his regalia of

office, red and black robes cut in layers, with gold trim

flashing at collar and cuffs. His massive headdress was

straight. He looked composed, if pale. His staff members

seemed less poised. The secretary at his elbow trembled,

half-sick with fear, while the runner slave by the outer

screen cowered. The reason for so much nervous unrest

was obvious: the cushions left out for audience with

petitioners were all taken, occupied by a half-dozen Great

Ones. Motecha was pacing. Looking far from pleased, he

glanced up as his two colleagues entered, but continued the

interrogation he had in progress. 'Any word of her?'

The subject of his reference needed no qualifier. 'None,

Great One.' Dajalo bowed to the new arrivals and, adroitly

as any skilled courtier, used the movement to unobtrusively

blot running sweat from his brow. He straightened up,

stiffly formal in appearance. If as Imperial Chancellor he

felt uneasy in the presence of so many Black Robes, he

contrived to hide it well.

780

Mistress of the Empire

Hochopepa crossed behind the imposing desk, plucked

the chancellor's own seat cushion from the floor, and

removed it to the embrasure beneath the window, where

a breeze refreshed the air; the room had been crowded

throughout the morning, and the servants too timid to

venture in and open the screens. Hochopepa sat down. He

plucked a sweetmeat from a pottery urn left for guests and

chewed, looking dangerously intent for a man with a round,

merry face. 'Oh, she will be here, certainly,' he murmured

around his mouthful. 'The High Council is reconvening at

this moment, and the Lady of the Acoma wouldn't miss

it. Never has there been one to play the Great Game

like Mara.'

'Quite,' Motecha snapped irritably. 'She would die first.

As she will, the second we discover her location.'

Shimone looked faintly distasteful. 'We all must die; it

is a rule of nature.'

The Imperial Chancellor buried his discomfort behind a

studied mask of urbanity.

Motecha glanced from one face to another, but said

nothing. His colleagues were still. The suspicion that Mara

was guilty of uncovering some of the most closely guarded

secrets of the Assembly, secrets that for an outsider were a

death warrant, seemed to color the very air with tension.

Not even Hochopepa and Shimone had been able to deny

that the willingness of the cho-ja to shelter her suggested

worse: that she might have seeded a rebellion, a breaking

of the treaty that had stood for thousands of years. As

convincingly as Shimone and others had argued that the

Servant of the Empire deserved a full hearing before her life

became forfeit, this time their efforts had been overruled.

The Assembly had voted. Mara's execution was now

beyond debate.

Few would presume to act alone against the Servant of the

Empire, but Tapek had, and the worst trouble had resulted.

Black Robes were starting at shadows in the suspicion

that their privileged status stood threatened. Now more

critical issues were at hand than a brother Black Robe's

rashness. Hochopepa and Shimone exchanged glances of

understanding. They had, in their way, admired Mara, who

had accomplished much good for the Empire.

But now she had dared too much. The stout magician

felt drawn into conflict: his loyalty to the Assembly and the

vows sworn there when he took the Black Robe, against the

allure of fresh ideas, many of them prompted by the heresies

that Milamber the barbarian had shared with him.

Hochopepa valued the legacy of his friendship with

Milamber. Over the years the Tsurani-born Black Robe

had increasingly employed his arts in the cause of the

common people. Now, with changes in the wind too great

for even his progressive thinking to encompass, he wished

for more time. Hochopepa longed for dear conviction on

which course was right to follow: to work with Motecha's

faction for Mara's immediate destruction or to embrace

her call for reform and consider the unthinkable, after

a majority vote: to oppose the Assembly's resolve, even

perhaps save her life.

Suddenly Shimone took a long, swift step' toward the

window. He accompanied his movement with a penetrating

glance at Hochopepa, who swallowed his sweetmeat more

suddenly than he had intended.

'You feel it, too,' the fat magician said to Shimone.

'Feel what?' Motecha interrupted. And then he also fell

silent, as he sensed what had alerted the others.

A seeping chill pervaded the air, not the simple cold

of shadow, nor even the clammy feeling prompted by

uneasiness. Each magician present knew the unmistakable,

subliminal tingle of powerful magic.

Shimone poised like a dog on point. 'Someone sets

wards!' he announced in clipped tones.

782 Msstress of the Empire

Hochopepa rose awkwardly to his feet. 'No Black Robe

creates this spell.' His admission came with reluctance, as

if he deeply wished to claim otherwise.

'The Cho-ja!' shouted Motecha. His face deepened to

purple. 'She has brought mages from Chakaha!'

The small chamber erupted into chaos as the other Black

Robes surged to their feet. Their expressions, to a man, were

stormy. The Imperial Chancellor was forced cowering into

the cranny behind his desk to stay dear of them, but no

one heeded his discomfort.

'Mara will die for this!' Motecha continued. 'Sevean, call

at once for reinforcements.'

Even Hochopepa did not protest this order. 'Hurry,' he

urged Shimone, and while the outrage of the assembled

magicians whipped to a boiling rage, the fat magician and

his slender companion were the first out the door.

The corridor beyond was deserted. Even the servants had

fled. 'I don't like this.' Hochopepa's words echoed off the

vaulted ceiling of the now empty wing. 'In fact, I have the

distinct impression that more than the High Council has

been seeking unsanctioned convocation.'

Shimone said nothing, but reached for his teleportation

device, activated it, and vanished.

'Hrrumph!' Hochopepa exclaimed in frustration. 'Letting

me know where you're going wouldn't exactly be idle

chatter!'

Shimone's voice replied out of the air. 'You imply there

might be a choice?'

Disgusted that his robe belt seemed suddenly to be

cinctured too tight, Hochopepa pawed through cloth until

he found his pocket. He grasped his teleportation device and

engaged it, just as Sevean, Motecha, and the others shouted

from the antechamber of the Imperial Chancellor's office.

As he disappeared from the hallway, Hochopepa felt his last

disconcerting thought cut off by the disorientation of his

Ke~stosarss

\\.]

783

transfer: which party would accomplish Mara's execution?

He and Shimone, who acted only for the purpose of the

Assembly's self-preservation, or the others, led by Motecha,

who lusted after revenge?

'She has made fools of us, and worse!' Sevean's voice rang

out just before the shift in Hochopepa's location became

accomplished.

Worse, the fat magician concluded as he reappeared,

puffing, in the sunlit splendor of the courtyard outside

the antechambers of the imperial audience hall. Mara had

brought power to battle absolute power, and now far more

than civil war might tear the Empire asunder.

The courtyard too was deserted. The flowering trees that

bordered the wall and the approach to the wide steps hung

still in the noon air. No birds flew, and no insects droned

around the flowers. The din of the armies that dashed at

the walls and the unceasing battering of rocks from the

siege engines seemed distant and faint. If the noise was

inconvenient, none of the Black Robes made any move at

this juncture to quell it.

The warriors who defended the Imperial Precinct were

best off distracted at the walls, to keep them unaware

of the pending storm that soon must break over the

audience hall. ~

Shimone stood in the center of the square, his head cocked

slightly. 'Here,' he said. 'The ward starts here.'

Nothing showed in the noon air that looked in the least

arcane. 'You can't break through?' puffed Hochopepa. He

squinted, concentrated, and extended his senses to their

utmost. At last he detected a faint shimmer that might

have been due to heat; except that when he looked directly

at it, the phenomenon disappeared. He pawed through

his other pocket, pulled out a gaudy handkerchief, and

mopped his streaming brow. 'If that's a ward, it hardly

seems substantial.'

784 Mistress of the Empire

Shimone turned with an air of sharpened reproof. 'You

try and pierce it.'

Hochopepa extended his might, then suddenly widened

his eyes as a rainbow of color played through the air before

him. As if brushed aside without effort, the potency of his

magic dissipated along the barrier created by the Cho-ja.

Hochopepa's mouth sagged open in astonishment. Then

a stray fragment of rock fired from without descended

whistling toward his head.-He recovered his poise and

deflected it as casually as a man might bat aside a fly.

Throughout, his attention remained focused on the cho-ja

wrought protections. 'That strong, eh? Fascinating. A very

subtle piece of work. The way it lets you probe, then siphons

off your energies and weaves them with its own ...'

Immersed in scholarly study, he was slow to waken to

the fact that the cho-ja had mages evolved considerably

in their skills since the treaty had effected the ban. 'This

is unsettling.'

'Very.' Shimone chose not to elaborate as behind him

other magicians arrived in the central square. More had

joined the party that had stood vigil in the Imperial

Chancellor's chamber. Their number was two dozen strong,

and growing. 'There can be no argument now except force,'

Shimone concluded sadly.

Motecha picked up this last statement. 'We should flame

this palace to the ground! Burn every mind to idiocy that

has dared to raise rebellion against us!'

Sevean stepped forward. 'I disagree. Collapse these

unsanctioned wards, yes, this is necessity. ~we must also

destroy the Cho-ja mages who work in violation of the

treaty, and execute the Lady Mara. But destroy the Imperial

Palace? That's excessive. We may be outside the law, but we

are still answerable to the gods. I doubt that heaven would

sanction the priests of every order in the Empire dying along

with Mara.'

Kentosani

78S

'The Holy Orders could be accomplices!' accused one of

the recently arrived Black Robes.

'Indeed,' Shimone cut in. 'Or they could have been

pressed into service by force. Better we hear their motives

before we do their holinesses any violence.'

'The wards only, then,' Hochopepa summed up. He

hitched at his too tight sash, and blotted with his dampened

handkerchief For all his outward resolution, his eyes were

troubled. 'We must break in without-risking the lives of

those inside the audience hall.'

The magicians banded together in silence, as carrion birds

might who contemplated the spoils on a battlefield. They

stilled in mind and body, and the air seemed shaken by

a deep, subliminal vibration as they melded their efforts

into one.

The sky darkened, though no cloud gathered. The

garden courtyard lost clarity, seeming to brood with a

greenish tinge.

'Now,' Motecha cried out.

Power speared down, lightning-bright, a sizzling bolt that

appeared to bisect the heavens. It struck in a crack of violet

sparks, but the ward seized the power, deflected it along the

curve of its surface, then absorbed it. Heat flew back in a

scorching wave. The stone faces of the buildings opposite

blackened and cracked. Trees singed, and an ornamental

fountain boiled dry in a puff of steam.

Untouched by the backlash, protected by their own

wards, the gathered magicians exchanged dark looks of

astonishment. They "gathered for a second blow. A rainbow

play of energies cascaded down upon the cho-ja barrier. It

flared back a black opaqueness.

The Assembly magicians increased the force of their

attack. Sparks jagged and flew, and thunder rumbled.

Fire rained from the sky, and then charges of incandescent

force.

786

Mistress of the Empire

'Keep up the assault,' shouted Sevean. 'Spare no effort.

The wards must eventually weaken.'

Winds howled, and fires raged. Tremors shook d e earth,

and paving cracked as gaps opened in the courtyard. The

protective bubble of spells that sealed off the audience hall

seemed to buckle, and shrink slightly inward.

'Yes!' Motecha redoubled his efforts. Lightning scored

the invisible surface, and the winds raised by disturbed

forces screamed around the spires of the Imperial Precinct

like the howl of demons released.

One of the Black Robes with lesser strength crumpled

to the pavement. The rest stood firm, sure now: d e wards

must break, over time. No magical defense could withstand

such a concentrated onslaught for very long. As power

hammered down, and split, and the rush of the gusts

drowned even the din of the armies besieging the outside

walls, the Assembly magicians immersed themselves in

spells. In their collective fury only one objective remained:

the hall of the imperial audience would be breached, now

at the cost of any lives; even their own.

The high, vaulted skylights of the imperial audience hall

went dark. Plunged into sudden gloom, "gathered courtiers

and priests shifted nervously in their places. The only

remaining illumination was cast by the wildly flickering

lamps kindled in honor of the Twenty Higher Gods. On

the dais, the priest of Chochocan who presided over the

imperial marriage ceremony faltered in his lines.

A bang of nearby thunder shook the walls. While many in

the chamber trembled, and more than one priest made signs

to ward off heaven's displeasure, Justin's voice arose over

the early murmurs of confusion. 'proceed,' he stated dearly.

Mara felt her heart nearly burst with pride. The boy

would make a fine ruler! Then she bit her lip; first, he

would have to survive his wedding and coronation.

787

The Princess Jehilia at his side looked white with fright.

She fought to keep her chin high, as royalty ought; but

more than anything, she wanted to cower behind ha

veils. Justin's hand stole out and damped around hers in

a desperate attempt to share comfort.

After-all, they were only children.

The floor shook under another concussion. The priest of

Chochocan glanced about, as if seeking safe refuge.

Mara straightened. All must not be abandoned because

one fainting priest lost heart! She tensed, prepared to

intervene, although to do so was a risk: their holinesses

would perhaps resent any further pressure from her. If she

drove them too hard, they might mistake her motives for

ambition, or worse: they might withdraw the power of their

office and pronounce that Justin's wedding to Jehilia went

against the will of heaven.

Time was too short, and circumstances were too dangerous,

to allow for long-winded justifications that after

all had only circumstantial proof that the strike upon the

cho-ja's wards was effected by mortal men whop happened

to be magicians, and that their will was no more that of

heaven than the actions of any Ruling Lord who murdered

out of greed or ambition for power.

The noise from without reached another crescendo as

yet another arcane assault battered the wards. Rainbows

of fractured light played through the skylights, bathing the

chamber in unnatural colors. Mara's discomfort increased

as the priests and officials in attendance began to shuffle

feet. Old Frasai of the Tonmargu was trembling outright,

perhaps on the point of cracking.

Support arose from an unexpected source, as the Red

God's High Priest pressed to the forefront of temple representatives

gathered beneath the imperial dais. 'Brother,' he

exhorted his wavering fellow priest, 'we are all Turakamu's,

in the end. Were heaven displeased, we should already be

788 Mistress of tJ,e Empire

struck town, and my God is silent within me. Please,

proceed with the ceremony.'

The High Priest of Chochocan nodded. He licked sweat

from his upper lip and drew a deep breath, and his sonorous

voice resumed the next lines of the ritual.

Mara exhaled in relief. At her side, the High Priest of

Juran flashed her a look of understanding 'Bide, my good

Lady Servant. You have allies.'

Mara returned a slight nod. She did have allies; many

more than she knew. The magical assault might intensify,

but not all of the priests would be easily cowed. The twists

and reverses of state politics over the course of centuries

had taught them to be canny. If their hold slipped now, if

Justin's wedding did not proceed according to law, and if his

subsequent coronation were not to go forward and stand,

they understood how greatly the authority of the temples

would be ceded to the Assembly. The Sisters of Sibi stood

like creatures from the realm of the dead, untroubled by

the possibility that the Imperial Palace might collapse upon

their heads.

For any portion of heaven's due influence and power

to fall under mortal dominion was a perilous course, one

that invited divine displeasure. Then would the gods curse

misfortunes upon mankind that could make the wrath of

an aroused Assembly seem but the tantrums of children.

Justin's reply to the next ritual question rang strongly

over the din of another attack. Thunder rumbled, a

seemingly endless peal. An ornamental bead shook loose

from the imperial throne and rattled down the pyramidal

steps. The crystal in the skylights cracked, and shards

tumbled sparkling in the lamplight to shatter against the

marble floor.

No one, thankfully, was in harm's way.

Mara closed her eyes. Hold, my children, she prayed.

Hokanu's hand tightened over hers.

Kentosani

789

She returned a half-smile that warmed as Jehilia replied

to the priest. The Princess was subdued, demure as befit her

station; if she also clung to her new husband, she was still

royalty. Her bearing stayed straight as the wicker cages with

the ritual marriage birds were raised for the blessing. The

reed doors were solemnly cut by the High Priest's knife.

Mara bit her lip, fighting tears, as the pair of birds inside

took wing at their offered freedom. Fly, she willed them,

fly up and mate and find happiness.

The omen of the birds at her own first wedding had been

unfavorable. With all of her heart, she longed for this one

to be different. She and Hokanu might not rule their lives

by portents and tradition, but there were elderly priests

present who did.

The birds shot aloft just as another bolt of thunder

slammed the air. They winged over in alarm and, as one,

arrowed up and out, through the gap in the cracked

skylight.

'Thank the gods,' Hokanu murmured. His hand squeezed

Mara's, while the tears spilled unabashed over her eyelids.

She could not hold in her emotion. Neither could she see

as two Imperial Whites in ceremonial Force Leaders' armor

stepped forward with the cloak edged in gold and sarcat

fur: the mantle of the Emperor of all Tsuranuanni, which

they spread over Justin's shoulders.

Tall as he had grown, the boy looked lost in the garment.

Mara wiped her eyes and was struck by a poignant

recollection of Ichindar, who had been as slender, and

who in the end had been bowed down by the weight of

imperial office.

Justin bore up well. He took Jehilia's hand as if he had

been born being gallant to ladies, and led her up the stairs

to the dais.

'His father's son indeed,' Hokanu murmured proudly.

Singing acolytes followed the newly wedded couple,

790 Mistrcss of tl~c Empirc

along with the priest of Juran, who bore the jeweled

golden cushion that supported the imperial crown. The

singing was ragged, cut across and half drowned by the

rumble of continuous arcane attack from without.

The blows came much more closely spaced.

A pillar near the rear of the hall cracked with a sound like

a whip. Mara started. She forces herself to focus wholly on

the tableau that unfolded on the dais. She could not ignore

signs of impending peril: that the air was growing warmer.

The wooden railing beneath the dais where petitioners came

to kneel before their Light of Heaven showed peeling layers

of varnish. The stone floor grew hot enough to raise blisters,

and courtiers shifted from foot to foot, as the leather of their

sandals failed to protect from the growing heat.

'The cho-ja mages are hard pressed,' Hokanu murmured

in Mara's ear.

Thunder slammed again, rocking the chamber. Priests

reached out to steady their colleagues, and more than one

of the High Ones presiding on the dais looked frightened.

They held to their purpose, grimly.

Mara watched as the priest of Lashima, Goddess of

Wisdom, stepped forward to anoint her son's temples

with oil. His vestments were knocked askew, ant his

hands shook. Much of the holy oil spilled on the intricate

border of Justin's mantle. Jehilia was on the verge of panic,

her hand locked white around her husband's. The priest of

Baracan came next and presented Justin with the ancient

golden sword of the Emperor, which would be brought

forth- again only when another Emperor was crowned.

Justin put out his hand and rested it upon the sacred

blade, and Mara, anguished, could see his young fingers

trembling.

She must not think of failure! Annoyed with herself,

she raised her chin and risked a glance back. The cho-ja

mages stood by the door, no longer towering with their

magnificent wings raised high. No,w, they crouched on the

floor, incanting counter-spells with a buzz that was like a

dissonance beneath the rumbling booms of outside blows.

The insectoids' strength was great, but the powers of the

united Assembly were more than even they could stand off

indefinitely. No matter how greatly they were provoked or

threatened, their stance had been made emphatically clear.

Chakaha still ruled them. Under no circumstances would

they use their magic to attack.

When at last the ward failed, the Assembly would be freed

to exercise the extent of their wrath upon the convocation

in the audience chamber.

Strangely, Mara felt no fear. Too much had been risked,

and too much lost. As if the part of herself that had known

consternation at the prospect of horrible death had been

seared out by degrees since the events that had harrowed

her in Thuril, she was beyond acknowledging risk. In

her rock-deep state of confidence, she seemed to radiate

unearthly power.

Even Hokanu regarded her with the beginnings of awe.

She barely noted. She stepped back from the front rank

participants in Justin's coronation, saying quickly, 'Praise

our new Light of Heaven for me, when the crown is at last

in place.'

Her husband showed surprise, even yet taken aback

by Mara's poise, though-he had thought he understood

all there was to know of her character. 'What are you

going to do?' His voice was falsely firm; even he must

acknowledge that the mages who defended them were

failing.

Mara gave him a firm look. 'Subterfuge,' she murmured.

'What else is left?'

He bowed to her. 'Good Servant.' And then he stared in

amazement as she walked to the back of the hall. He would

remember her in this moment, he resolved, and cherish

792 Mistress of thc Empire

her unflagging spirit, even as the spells of the Assembly

burst the wards and all of them became consumed by

arcane fires.

Mara did nothing extraordinary. She reached the arched

doors of the hall and bowed her respect to each of the cho-ja

mages. They were too hard pressed to acknowledge beyond

the merest flick of a forelimb. Then she paused by the

portals and touched the wrists of the two imperial heralds

who stood stationed at either side.

She conferred briefly with them. Hokanu, watching, was

mystified. What was she doing? Her glance flashed up, met

his: watch the ceremony, she seemed to chide.

He gave her a half-shrug and faced forward.

The earth rocked. On the dais, the priests' incantation

went raggedly out of rhythm, and yet, stubbornly, they

persisted. Sparks shot across the closed screens. The wards

were breached. They were failing. The next hard blow

would shatter all protections.

The coronation was nearly completed. 'Hail!' cried

the priests. They bowed, as the floor shook in thunderous

report. 'Hail!' The crown was raised up by the

High Priest of Chochocan. He frantically mouthed the

blessing.

- Lightning flashed. A stone fell from the domed skylight

and struck the agate flooring with a crash. The crown

slipped from the priest's nerveless fingers and dropped

crookedly to rest upon Justin's red head.

The act was accomplished. The heir to the Acoma, child

of a slave, wore the sacred imperial regalia of Tsuranuanni,

and no power short of heaven could rescind his anointed

authority.

'Hail!' shouted the priests in convocation. 'Hail, Justin,

ninety-two times Emperor, and new-made light of Heaven!'

The words tangled with an annihilating crash of thunder

and Mara's shout to the heralds: 'Now!'

Rentosani

793

Glittering gold in their ceremonial tabards, and pressed

by a howling gust of air, the officials moved. They stepped to

the great doors even as the cho-ja mages crumpled, grasped

the rings, and threw wide the doors.

Against an onrushing wall of Black Robes, they performed

their bows in perfect mirror image. 'Hail to

the new Light of Heaven!' they rang out in unison.

White-faced, but inarguably firm, they straightened and

the one with the most imposing voice qualified. 'Great

Ones of the Assembly, hear me! You are hereby summoned

to the Imperial Court.'

The lead ranks of Black Robes stumbled and rocked

to a stop.

'Summoned?' shrieked a stupefied Motecha. Soot streaked

his habit, and his red face sparkled with sweat. 'By

whom?'

The imperial heralds were well versed in maintaining

poise in the face of intransigent courtiers. They performed

impeccable bows. 'By the Light of Heaven, Great One.'

'What!' Sevean shoved forward, his colleagues crowding

on his heels.

The heralds held to their dignity. From the dais, beside

the high priests, the imperial Seneschal called out, 'Justin!

Ninety-two times Emperor!'

Motecha spluttered. Sevean looked pole-axed. Hochopepa

was for once in his life left speechless, and even the austere

Shimone never thought to press the issue with magic, as

every other man and woman in the hall bowed before their

ultimate monarch.

Between the slowly rising forms of two utterly spent

Chakaha mages, Mara smothered exultation. The heralds

had handled themselves admirably. Their confidence had

seemed so unimpeachable that even the Great Ones had

not yet thought to question the implicit inference: that the

defences of her allies were not spent unto exhaustion, and

794

Mistress of the Empire

that protective wards had not in fact collapsed, but had

been dropped deliberately.

'We have no power left,' the Chakaha mage to Mara's

left murmured in a near-inaudible frequency.

Mara waved a placating hand. 'The Great Game,' she

murmured. 'Now we must all play, or die.'

32

Emperor

The Black Robes gaped.

Flanking the entrance to the audience hall, Imperial

Whites in gold-edged armor stood at smart attention.

Nowhere were warriors in Acoma or Shinzawai colors in

evidence, as the magicians had expected to find.

They had anticipated the aftermath of struggle, with

triumphant soldiers guarding their claimant until such

time as the losers swore fealty. That was how disputed

successions had been resolved in the past. But the Good

Servant had not used compulsion to achieve her triumph.

None rushed forward to hurl themselves in prostration and

beg the mercy of the Black Robes, pleading for a reversal

of Mara's usurpation of authority. Quite the contrary, the

magicians at the forefront noticed that any discomfort on

the faces that greeted them stemmed instead from their own

Precipitous arrival. Everyone present seemed involved in

conspiracy with the end Mara had achieved.

Drums thundered in tattoo, drowning Motecha's shout

for silence. He waved his raised hands to no avail, while

colleagues on either side looked disgruntled by the flourish

of trumpets and horns that sounded over the city in a

peal not heard since the death of Ichindar. The notes even

drowned the thudding of rocks from the siege engines.

Not far behind the leading magicians, Hochopepa leaned

over to speak to Shimone. 'Servants must have been

creeping in here making preparations for hours.'

Though his words were intended to be private, Sevean

overheard. 'You imply a great deal of planning.'

Shimone treated his colleague to a gaze that masked

796 Mfstress of the Empfre

contempt. 'Of all rulers in the Nations, Mara of the Acoma

has never achieved anything without a plan.'

The fanfare rang away, leaving silence. 'You are summoned,'

the imperial heralds repeated, stepping back

to dear the entrance. A long corridor opened between

the ranking courtiers and officials who waited inside.

A glowering Motecha hastened ahead, the rest of the

magicians crowding at his heels. All stared. The panoply

of personages gathered at the head of the hall formed an

impressive sight.

At the base of the imperial dais, the High Priests and

Priestesses of the Twenty Gods of the Higher Heaven and

Twenty Gods of the Lower Heaven stood in full regalia.

Only at the coronation or the death of an Emperor would

such a convocation be called for.

High, curved headdresses framed their faces, sparkling

with lacquerwork, precious stones, and rare metal. Attendant

upon each was a pair of acolytes, bearing the ceremonial

badges of office each prelate was entitled to display. These,

too, were gem-studded or adorned with metal bands and

silk streamers. Only the Sisters of Sibi were plain; their

black, featureless appearance in ominous contrast to the

panoply of plumage and finery. The community of temples

was represented in its entirety. A delegation of one hundred

and twenty from the holy orders of every significant divinity

in the Empire made an impressive sight.

The Great Ones gave way to reluctant awe.

Hochopepa sidled closer to Fumita and Shimone in

reaction to this emphatic demonstration of temple support

for Mara's intrigues. While no single priest could rival

any magician in raw power, the High Father Superiors

of Turakamu and Jastur, as well as the Sisters of Sibi,

commanded respect, even from Great Ones. Spellcraft

had preserved the audience hall intact, despite the Assembly'

s mightiest conjury. Hochopepa was not so irreverent

r

l

l

l

Emperor

797

toward the will of heaven that he discounted the force of

divine favor.

Caution, he decided, was called for.

Incense swirled on the air. The polished marble floor

sparkled with dust from aad~ed plaster and powdered glass

from the shattered skylight. Such signs of violence could not

divert the magicians from noting further details on their

approach to the high dais: two empty reed cages festooned

with ribbons of imperial white. The carpet beneath the

imperial thrones lay heaped with veils, lately removed from

the bride in ritual order, according to the time-honored rites

of a Tsurani state marriage ceremony.

As the dismayed delegation of Great Ones reached the

supplicants" rail beneath, an imperial herald struck the floor

three times with a bronze-shod staff, crying out, 'Justin,

ninety-two times Emperor!'

The gold-armored royal honor guard knelt in homage as

a boy in shining robes arose from the throne. The gathered

nobles dropped to their knees. The boy did not look cowed;

his shoulders were straight and his chin high despite the

weight of his golden armor and the massive crown of

state with its topaz stones and fretwork. At his side arose

Jehilia, Princess no longer, but Empress in her own right, the

diamond-set circlet of office fitted over her bridal headdress.

As the magicians drew to a halt, Justin held out his hand to

his Lady. She arose and stood beside him.

Motecha went white. Around him some magicians bowed

from the waist in the obeisance a Great One traditionally

offered the Light of Heaven. Shimone, Fumita, and

Hochopepa were among the first to give the Emperor and

his bride due acknowledgment, while still other Black

Robes deliberated in stupefaction.

Motecha found his voice. 'What mummery is this?'

The High Priest of Juran advanced in stiff displeasure.

'We come to honor the new Light of Heaven, Great

798 Mistress of the Empire

One.' Pointedly he added, 'As is every man's proper

duty.'

Sevean cried, 'Upon what claim does this ... boy

presume to rule the Empire?' He stabbed a finger at

Justin, but his eyes sought out the Lady Mara, who had

moved to the base of the dais among the priests, in robes

as fine as her son's.

She did not deign to answer, but allowed the High Priest

of Juran speech in her place: 'Justin is of the blood imperial,

his adoption into Ichindar's family formalised when his

mother was named Servant of the Empire.' With that, the

priest bowed in respect toward Mara. 'He is the chosen

husband of the Empress Jehilia - Ichindar's direct blood

heir- and the marriage just completed was sanctioned

by the Imperial Consort, Lady Tamara. All has been done

according to the laws of man and the higher Law of

Heaven. If somewhat hurried, the wedding abided strictly

by custom.'

One of the most fervent traditionalists, Lord Setark of

the Ukudabi, made his way in the wake of the Great Ones

through the double doors, which remained open. He and

his army had been sequestered inside the city, prepared to

aid Jiro should the Omechan fail in their attack upon the

walls. He overheard the priest's recitation of protocols with

disfavor and raised a contentious shout. 'The High Council

never ratified this choice!'

Priests and magicians faced one another in uneasy

confrontation. Redoubled tension charged the atmosphere

at Lord Setark's outburst, and now the lines were drawn:

acknowledge Justin as the new Light of Heaven, or resort

to force of arms as the strongest nobles contended through

bloodshed to seize power.

With the walls under assault by the Omechan, the

catastrophe of the latter decision would be immediately

felt. And the staid majority of magicians were still reluctant

to become embroiled in politics. They were not of the Great

Game of the Council; they were above it.

Akani stepped to the fore, the swirl of his black robe

the only movement in the frozen tableau. He took stance

beside Motecha and raised his orator's voice. 'Your call for

ratification is a moot point; I fear. According to record, the

High Council was disbanded by the ninety-first Light of

Heaven and, despite repeated petitions, was never again

reconvened.'

The High Priest of Chochocan swept into a bow as

~polite as it was firm. 'The forms have been observed.

|The succession is established. Justin of the Acoma is

ninety-second Light of Heaven, and the gods themselves

are his judge. His ascension to the golden throne will stand,

and the temples will cast out for heresy anyone who dares

disrupt his rule.' He looked squarely at Motecha as he said,

'Even if such were a Great One.'

Motecha's glower deepened. 'You dare!'

Then a voice that grated upon the ears like a cry of pain

said, 'Do not oppose us, Great One.'

The timid cringed, while the boldest turned toward the

shrouded figure of the most senior Sister of Sibi, whose

speech echoed from the depths of her cowl. No light would

ever reveal her features - it was held the Sisters embraced

death within themselves when they joined their Goddess's

order. 'Would you have us unleash our Mad Dancers in

your City of Magicians?'

Many nobles shuddered at the mention of those warriors

who served death, whose mere touch was fatal, as they

leaped and gyrated until exhaustion claimed their lives.

The High Priest of Jastur struck his metal breastplate

with his gauntlet. 'And will you face my warrior priests? We

have little to fear in your magic, Great One, when our god

is invoked as our shield. Can you face our blessed war hammers

with impunity as we smash the walls of your city?'

800 Mistress of the Empire

Motecha felt as any ordinary Tsurani would in his position;

beliefs ingrained since childhood were not absolutely

dispelled by the sureties of his authority. In an effort

to conciliate, he said, 'We do not argue the legitimacy

of Emperor Justin.' Irritation edged his manner as, in

concession to this point, he bent his aged back in the

bow he withheld earlier. He straightened up and levered

an accusatory finger at the Lady who stood at the foot

of the dais, and whose actions had escaped all restraint.

'Lady Mara of the Acoma,' he intoned, 'you have flouted

tradition until your actions are a stink in the nostrils of our

ancestors. You have hidden behind your office, misused

public opinion, and caused confusion in the Assembly's

ranks, all for the purpose of breaking our edict against

waging war upon the Anasati. Your armies attacked on

the Plain of Nashika, and Lord Jiro died at the hand of

your husband. I name you guilty, and as Great One of the

Empire, I am mandated to do that which the Assembly has

voted best for the Nations! Our kind are outside the law!

Your son shall be Emperor, may he live long and rule wisely,

but you shall not be left at large to stand as his regent!'

'Who would you appoint in Mara's place?' Shimone

called out acerbically. 'The Omechan?'

The comment was ignored. Unopposed by his colleagues,

Motecha raised his arm- high. Green energies sparked

around his fist, and he chanted in a harsh language known

only by the magicians.

Hochopepa and Shimone flinched at his utterance, and

Akani stepped quickly away. Fumita cried out, 'No!'

Motecha continued his incantation, secure in his right as

a Black Robe.

Lady Mara turned pale, but did not flinch or flee. The

lights of Motecha's gathering spell flickered across her face

and caught sparks of reflection in her eyes. Calmly, she

murmured something inaudible to the bystanders.

Motecha's lip curled as he called out in contempt between

phrases, 'Prayer will not save you, Lady! Neither can these

priests, whatever powers they may have wielded in warding

this hall against our entry! The gods themselves might save

I  you, but they are the only power capable.'

I  'The priests had no part in the warding!' Mara retorted

I  clearly. 'You may hurl your spells at me, Motecha, but hear

warning. Your magic shall harm none, least of all me.'

Motecha's features pinched with fury. The Lady was not

even afraid! Her end would be painful, he vowed, as he

~drew breath to snap off the phrase that would release his

i  gathered death spell. The retribution Lady Mara had more

than earned would sear her to a husk where she stood.

Mara dosed her eyes, shaken at last by the immediacy

of her peril.

'No!' intoned a voice with a resonance that held nothing

human. Its tone shot chills through every person present. On

either side of Mara, unseen where they crouched behind the

enveloping vestments of the priests, two figures reared erect.

Their bodies were patterned in intricate colors, and with a

clap of disturbed air, they extended twelve feet of iridescent

wings aloft. The majesty of the Cho-ja mages made the most

costly imperial raiment seem tawdry by comparison.

'The Lady Mara shall not be harmed!' the creatures

cried in unison. 'She is under the protection of the mages

of Chakaha!'

Fumita cried out, speech wrenched from him in stupefied

recognition. 'The Forbidden! Daughter, what have you

done?'

Motecha stood frozen; the powers he had summoned

crackled and dissipated into air, the spell incomplete as

his concentration was disrupted by shock. Other magicians

blanched as the significance of the creatures before them

registered.

'Lady Mara is blameless,' contradicted the Cho-ja mages,

802 Msstress of the Empsre

their oratory locked in a fluting two-part harmony. 'It was

by your own deed, magicians, that the ancient pact was

breached, for until you destroyed a hive our Queens within

the Empire stayed bound to the requirements of the treaty.

Never once were magical arts employed or outside aid given

to Mara, until you broke the covenant! The blame lies with

you! It was cho ja arts that protected this hall. In those lands

outside imperial borders, human, our arts have grown and

flourished. In protection and preservation, you are not our

equal. If we choose, the magicians of Chakaha can ward

Lady Mara from your death spells for the rest of her life.'

As one, the Black Robes hesitated. Never in history

had any human not gifted with magic dared to defy the

Assembly, and never with a plot so devious: to lure the

magicians themselves into destroying the very treaty their

predecessors had forged.

No Black Robe could doubt the abilities of the Cho-Ja

mages; their kind could not lie. By their word, they held

means to thwart the most destructive of spells the Great

Ones could conjure. Each candidate for the Assembly had

studied the old texts; not one who achieved his master's

robe failed to understand the significance of the markings

on a Cho-Ja magician. The complexity of their patterns

grew with the ascendance of their mastery; the pair who

allied with Lady Mara were old in their art, and powerful

beyond imagining.

Still, some Black Robes remained unmollified. The High

Priest of Chochocan made a sign of protection as Sevean

shouted to the cho-Ja, 'You are foreigners! How dare you

raise your arts to protect the condemned!'

'Wait.' All eyes turned as Mara stepped forward, boldly

claiming the authority in the new order she had dreamed

to achieve. Her bullion-edged sash of office proclaimed

her Imperial Regent, even if the appointment had not been

official. 'I have a proposal to make.'

Of their enemies. Cho-ja had cleverly manipulated the

truth, implying what Mara had every reason to believe:

that should the hive-home at Chakaha send reinforcements

to Kentosani, she stood beyond harm from the Assembly

for the rest of her life.

But now appearances were all she had to keep her

opposition off balance. She dared not provoke any test of

the cho-ja mages' abilities. Between herself and a horrible

death she had no weapons beyond words, bluff, and the

politics of the Great Game. And the Black Robes were

no fools. Mara took an inward grip on her poise and

answered Sevean directly. 'The cho-ja mages dare nothing,

but act in the cause of justice! This embassy from Chakaha

has come to make amends for the oppression of all our

ancestors.'

Motecha shook his fist. 'This is Forbidden! Any Empire

cho-ja who supports uprising is forsworn! The Great Treaty

Between Races has stood for thousands of years.'

'Thousands of years of cruelty!' Mara flung back. 'Your

precious Forbidden! Your hideous crime against a civilisation

that did nothing more than resist the rapacious

conquest of their lands! I have journeyed to Thuril. I

have seen how the Chakaha cho-ja live. Which of you can

say the same, magician?' The lack of the honorific 'Great

One' was lost on few in the room. Many Lords gasped in

Emperor

803

Those gathered in the hall stilled expectantly, and all eyes

regarded the Lady who was Servant of the Empire as they

waited to hear what she said.

Mara buried her doubt deep within her heart. Despite their

inference to the contrary, the Chakaha mages had spent

their powers in their warding of the great hall. After long

rest, they might be able to defend her as they had boldly

led the Black Robes to presume. As their magic had

improved with the centuries, so had their understanding

804 M'stress of the Empsre

admiration. The Imperial Whites stood sword-straight in

their ranks, and Jehilia and Justin clasped hands.

The priests maintained solemn formality as Mara continued, '

I have explored the beauty of cities raised by

magic, and the peace of this great culture. I have seen

what our vaunted Empire has stolen from the Cho-ja, and

I am determined to give it back.'

Hochopepa cleared his throat. 'Lady Mara, you had

allies within our ranks, until now. But this . . . obscenity' he

gestured to the Cho-ja magicians - 'will unite us to

a man.

'You aren't united already?' Mara lashed back in sarcasm.

'Did the destruction of my litter and my closest retainers not

indicate your Assembly's decision on my execution?'

Here a few of the Great Ones shifted their weight and

looked abashed, for Tapek's impulsive act had not been

regarded with favor. But the Assembly itself was Tsurani;

that one of their number had shamed his office must never

be admitted in public.

Mara's eyes narrowed. 'As for obscenity, that is a false

charge! Why?' Her wave encompassed the winged beings

who flanked her. 'Because these gentle creatures, who

harbor no ill will to any of you, despite your persecution

of their race, practice arts greater than your own?' She

quieted her voice to a whisper of menacing accusation.

'Hochopepa, how can that be an obscenity to a body

of men who kill children with power because they are

females'

At this disclosure, several Black Robes expelled breaths

in frantic dismay. Motecha whirled and gestured to a nearby

soldier. 'Kill her!' he commanded. 'I order you.'

The Force Commander of the Imperial whites stepped

before Mara, his sword half drawn. 'I will cut down the

first man, soldier or magician, who threatens the good

Servant, even should I die in the attempt. My life and

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805

honor are pledged to protect the Imperial Family. Before

the gods, I will not forswear my first duty.'

Motecha did not shout, but power radiated in waves from

his person as he demanded, 'Stand away!'

The Imperial Force Commander met the magician's

authoritative gaze. 'I will not, great One.' He snapped

a hand signal.

Other white-clad warriors closed on the dais. Their armor

might be ceremonial, but the blades they carried were sharp,

flashing in the gloom as they drew weapons in a single

motion. Akani rushed out and stayed the single warrior

who had moved to obey Motecha out of fear. 'No, wait.'

Motecha advanced on his colleague as if he faced an

adversary sworn to murder. 'You deny the law!'

'I'd still rather not turn the Imperial Palace into a charnel

house, if you don't mind.' The young magician gave Mara

a wry shrug. 'Good Servant, we have reached a difficult

impasse.' He indicated the Great Ones at his back, many

of them eager to call down immediate attack on her person,

a hundred Imperial Whites, and two cho-ja masters who

might or might not have skills enough to defend. 'If we

don't find a quick solution, many will die.' He smiled

in sour humor. 'I don't know if we must take your

cho-ja friends at their word, or test to see whose magical

prowess is the greater.' He glanced at Motecha. 'But given

the difficulty we had in entering this very chamber, I have

an inkling of the disaster that might result.' Again he

considered Mara, not entirely without warmth. 'I have

no doubt you wish to live and guide your son's steps to

maturity.' He sighed and admitted, 'There are those of

the Assembly who would spend their lives to eradicate

you for this rebellion immediately. Others would prefer

peace, and use the opportunity to study what our cho-ja

counterparts could offer to expand our knowledge of the

great arts. I exhort every man and mage to step back and

806 Mistrcss of the Empsrc

refrain from profitless destruction until we have exhausted

ad other options.'

The cho-ja magician at Mara's right hand furled its

wings; its companion followed suit ant said, 'In this,

perhaps we can assist.' It added a cantrip in its native

language and waved short forearms. An unseen disturbance

seemed to pass across the chamber, and the tension between

the combatants began to leach away.

Motecha fought to preserve his anger. 'Creature!' he

cried. 'Cease your ...' But speech died in his throat.

Against his will, his contorted face relaxed.

The Cho-ja magician chided gently, 'Magician, your fury

clouds reason. Let peace ever be my gift to you.'

Akani studied the magnificently marked carapace, veiled

now in a translucence of folded wings. His shoulders

relaxed and settled. 'Although I revere our tradition,'

he admitted, his regard encompassing his fellows, 'I also

recognise what I sense in these emissaries from Chakaha.

Look well and deeply. They bring us something . . . rare.'

To Motecha he added, 'Their presence is not an offense. We

are fools to ding mindlessly to tradition and not explore

the wonders we are offered.'

Hochopepa pushed to the fore. 'Yes, I feel this, too.' He

sighed. 'I know both . . . wonderment and'- the admission

came with difficulty - 'shame.'

Mara broke the stillness, 'Can any Great One deny that

nothing of hate or anger motivates this act of kindness?'

Hochopepa allowed the wave of calmness to envelop him

wholly. He smiled. 'Not' then his pragmatism reasserted as

he said, 'First, your son's ascension to the Throne of Heaven

may be proper according to law. But your transgressions are

. . . unprecedented, Good Servant. We may never be moved

to forgiveness, Lady Mara.'

Muted muttering resumed among some of the Lords in

the hall, but no open opposition arose. Motecha added,

Emperor

807

'The Assembly's course is clear. We cannot accept as

Justin's regent a ruler who has defied us. The precedent

is dangerous. We are outside the law for valid reasons.,

As he calmly studied Mara, all anger gentled from him

by the workings of cho-ja magic, Motecha's clear reason

stirred agreement among his colleagues. 'I have accepted

Justin's coronation, but that does not free Lady Mara of

responsibility for her disobedience. When she opposed us,

she repudiated the law!'Across the space before the imperial

dais, he locked gazes with Mara. 'You dishonor your rank

and heritage if you shelter behind alien magic, Lady of the

Acoma! You must reject cho-ja protection and voluntarily

embrace your due punishment. Justice must be served.'

'Indeed,' said Mara softly. Her shoulders stayed straight

only out of habit. She had no more ploys left; she alone

was near enough to perceive the fine tremors of exhaustion

that played through the cho-ja mages. The calming spell had

been called up from reserves that were already exhausted.

They had no hidden miracles in them to offer. Too quietly

for anyone but those closest to her and the cho-ja to

overhear, she said, 'You did your best. We have won a

review of the terms of the great treaty, no matter what

becomes of me.'

The mage to her left stroked her wrist with a gentle

forelimb. 'My Lady,' it intoned in her mind, 'among our

kind your memory will never die.'

Mara forced her chin up. To all who were gathered in the

audience hall she said, 'I once thought to dedicate my life

to service in the Temple of Lashima. But fate decreed that I

assume the mantle of the Acoma. I will be heard. The gods

have given into my care more than my house and my family.'

Her voice strengthened, carrying into the farthest corners of

the domed chamber. 'I have undertaken to change traditions

that have shackled us into stagnation. I have seen cruelty,

injustice, and the profligate waste of worthy lives. For this

808 M`stress of the Emp~re

have I set myself up as midwife to a rebirth, without which

we as a people will die.' No one interrupted while she drew

breath. 'You all know of the enemies I have defeated. They

have varied in their cunning from base to brilliant.'

She looked from face to face, seeing her appeal touch

some of those before her. Motecha and many others simply

listened. 'Our Ruling Lords craved power for honor, for

prestige, for the enjoyment of themselves, with no thought

for the suffering of subjects under their sway. Our noble

families and clans play the Game of the Council for stakes

that-spill blood to no purpose! To kill me in the name of

justice, before my son has achieved manhood and can rule

without guidance from a regent, would be to condemn the

Nations to stagnation and ruin again. Our Empire will fall,

for our flaws. That is the price of my death, Great Ones.

That is the epitaph your justice will write on our future.

That is the cost our people must pay for your privilege of

acting outside the law!'

Silence claimed the audience hall while all present pondered

the import of Mara's words. She herself stood rigid,

while behind her the priests shuffled in their ranks and

whispered among themselves. Pride forbade Mara to look

around. She saw the concern on Hokanu's face. Mara dared

not acknowledge his worry for her, not with so much as a

glance. To meet her husband's eyes would be to lose her

grip and break down weeping in public.

She stood statue-straight, as a Servant of the Empire and

a daughter of the Acoma, and prepared to meet her fate.

The magicians were once more unsettled, the effects of

cho-ja magic wearing thin.

'She's gone too far now,' Shimone murmured. 'No

argument can save her, for our Assembly is answerable

to no law. This must not be misconstrued as a privilege.

It is our right!'

Fumita averted his face; Hochopepa looked troubled.

Emperor

809

Sevean said, 'You will die, Lady Mara. Cast off the

alliance of your emissaries from Chakaha, or they will

perish with you. I say they cannot defend you. When we

destroy you, the priests will return to their rightful place

in the temple and leave politics to others.' Indicating the

High Priest of Jastur and the Sisters of Sibi, he said, 'Or

let them challenge us if they feel they must. We are still

supreme in our arts! Our powers broke the wards over

this hall! Perhaps these cho-Ja have learned to lie in the

lands outside the Empire! I say you attempt to deceive,

Lady Mara, and that you have no means of self-defense.'

Motecha looked startled for a moment. Then his expression

hardened. He studied the Chakaha magicians and

saw they made no gestures to protect Lady Mara. His

eyes narrowed as he felt Sevean's power manifest. Again

Motecha raised his hands, and again his magic coalesced

into a fiery lash of green light. He muttered a harsh

incantation, fierce in his concentration.

This time nothing would stop him and his colleagues

from striking down the Good Servant.

The priests seemed distressed. Many of them stepped

back, as if trying to set distance between themselves and the

Servant of the Empire. Hokanu looked anguished, until his

First Adviser, Dogondi, stepped between, shielding his view

of Mara's plight. 'Don't look, my Lord,' he murmured.

Enthroned on the imperial dais, Jehilia gripped Justin's

hand, while the boy stared at his mother with wide, hard

eyes that had all the fear scoured out of them. 'The Great

Ones will pay,' the young Emperor vowed in a monotone.

'If they kill her, I will see them destroyed!'

Jehilia tugged his hand in anxiety. 'Hush! They will

hear you.'

But the Great Ones had no attention to spare for the

children who sat on the thrones of power. As a body, they

banded together, conjoining their powers with Motecha's

Motecha of the Assembly stiffly accepted his defeat, but

his expression remained implacable. 'The Lady's life is not

ours to take; this has been unequivocally proven. Yet her

right to act as regent is contestable still. Lord Jiro of the

Anasati also held forth a claim to the golden throne. He

acted, as Mara has, to seize power whatever-the cost.

Are not the Lady's ambitions the same, if she rules as

Justin's regent until his twenty-fifth year? Why not have

an Omechan take the post, or a Xacatecas, or one of a

lesser house with no claim upon the Warlordship, perhaps

the Netoha or Corandaro?'

Recovered now from her dose brush with death, and

stern in her resolve, Mara cut off the chance for traditionalist

supporters to seize the opening. 'No. I give you

a choice.'

Stillness rippled through the crowd of priests and courtiers,

from the high dais and its new-made Light of Heaven,

across the band of magicians packed in the broad central

floor, to the double doors by the entry, still presided over

by the requisite pair of heralds, and the stiff rows of

Imperial Whites. All waited upon Lady Mara to hear

her unprecedented intent. Mara ascended one stair of the

dais. Over the sea of watching faces, she raised her voice.

'I could stay within these halls, acting as my son's regent.

His rule would be held stable by an alliance of Lords who

understand, as all eventually must, that change must come

to the Empire. The Cho-Ja would mediate willingly as allies

to enforce a new order that will end the wrong done them

centuries ago. Their warriors will stop internal bickering

between noble houses and avert this civil war. For Justin's

first action as ninety-second Emperor will be to free them

from all constraints imposed by humans.'

Mara paused for a steadying breath. But before insurrection

could stir Ruling Lords to shout her down, she;

hurried on.

'I offer peaceful change! As senior adviser to the late

Emperor, I know the workings of imperial government. As

Servant of the Empire, I submit that I alone hold the power

and the prestige among both Ruling Lords and the populace

to quell the riots. The alternatives are plain. The Omechan

~have already taken the field against me, laying siege to

Kentosani. They will soon be joined by allies of the late

Lord Jiro, and other Lords who support the traditionalist

party. If this trend is not stopped, we shall have civil war

unmatched, to the very ruination of the Nations we profess

;                           to serve.

Hochopepa coughed drily. 'That justification has been

offered in the past, my Lady. The bloodshed in most

instances was none the less for the argument.'

Mara gestured in repressed anger, that she should,

even by implication, be apportioned the motives of her

power-hungry past enemies. 'Bloodshed, you say, magician?

For what end? There is no warlord's mantle left to be won.

The High Council is abolished!'

Many Lords stirred in unsettled protest at this, but again

Mara overrode them. 'Our taste for murderous political

infighting must be stopped. The Game of the Council shall

no longer be a justification for war and assassination. Our

concept of honor must be revitalised, and our.traditions

that endorse cruelty rejected. We shall be a nation of

laws! Whatever the crime, from lowest to highest, every

man and woman must be equally answerable to imperial

justice. From this new code of decency not even our Light

of Heaven's actions shall be exempt.'

Motecha waved a fist. 'But we are outside the law!'

Mara descended the stair and advanced until only the rail

that separated the high dais from the Emperor's petitioners

stood between her and the packed ranks of Great Ones.

Her gaze met Motecha's squarely, then swept over his

black-robed fellows who crowded on either site. 'Every

man and woman,' she insisted firmly. 'No Ruling Lord

who does murder shall be applauded, even should the

traditional forms be observed. No beggar, no slave, and

no child of noble birth shall fail to be lawfully punished

for criminal acts; you of the Assembly most of all. Your

kind will no longer be free to keep hideous secrets: to kill

baby girls and women who manifest the power.'

Muttering arose as this time her accusation was lout

enough to be fully public and not only Black Robes were

inflamed to a shifting of feet. 'Yes!' Mara cried over the

rising tumult that swept through the Lords and courtiers.

'I speak the truth! The Assembly has done murder for years

beyond counting, and for reasons our gods would never

sanction.'

The priest of Lashima brandished his staff of office,

streamers and corcara shell tokens waving to garner attention. '

Listen to the Lady. She does not lie to make her case.

Last season a young woman who was to be tested as an

acolyte was taken from the very temple courtyard. She has

not been seen by our priest or her family since the day the

Great One came for her.'

Hokanu looked faintly sick; among the Black Robes,

Fumita stared at the floor. He did not glance toward his

son. More than a few noblemen of the court showed shock

that daughters called to serve by the Great Ones were not

still alive in the city of Magicians. Angry eyes swung toward

the Black Robes, while Mara continued her oratory quickly

to redirect a mounting wave of ill feeling. 'As a community,

you should continue to govern yourselves - as must the

Lords of each family ...' Relief visited the nobles at

this assurance of their rulers' prerogatives. 'Within the

law!' Mara snapped. 'But the Assembly will no longer

be proprietors of privilege. The study of arcane arts will

not be theirs to dictate. Any who practice magic must have

license to freely pursue their art. Those lesser magicians,

and women who develop arcane talent, may study under

the Assembly or not, as it pleases them! Those that prefer

to seek knowledge  elsewhere may do so.'

The Chakaha mage nearest to the Great Ones raised a

forelimb. In gentle tones it offered, 'We will be glad to teach

any who seek wise use of their gifts.'

Though the offer may have mollified some magicians,

others looked vexes as Mara added, 'I have walked in the

shoes of a captive, in Thuril, and I have shared imperial

decisions, under Ichindar. I alone in-this company can assert

the validity of the claim that every man, woman, and child

deserves protection. Only when this' - she frowned as she

sought the term that her beloved Kevin had mentioned

with such passion - 'Great Freedom is bestowed upon

us all will any one of us be safe. The Game of the

Council has become both perilous and bloody beyond

endurance, and I would see that end. True honor does

not condone murder. True power must equally shield the

weak that we, for centuries, have thoughtlessly trampled

under our feet.'

Motecha pressed forward, leaning across the railing

in ferocious contention. Mara looked back at him in

contempt. She addressed him alone, but her words carried

to the farthest reaches of the crowded hall. 'You Black

Robes have no right to destroy that which is not pleasing

to you. The gods did not gift you with magical talent so

that you could take lives at whim.'

The High Priest of Juran banged his white-striped staff

on the floor. 'The Good Servant speaks truth.'

Another Black Robe, lately arrived with the last contingent

from the City of Magicians pushed through the ranks

of his brethren to join Motecha. Tapek shed the inhibition

instilled by his recent disgrace. His hair was pushed back,

and his cheeks inflamed in passionate repudiation. 'You

seek to strip us of ancient rights!'

'Power is used at the discretion of those who hold it,'

the Lady returned, unafraid, although she stood but an

arms reach away. 'You should understand that above

all others, magician. Your colleagues have been poor

stewards, setting themselves up in arrogance, usurping

the judgment that is the rightful province of heaven. With

your attempt at my execution stayed - no, canceled! by

the power of the gods, today it is I who have the

power.'

The other magicians exchanged unsettled glances, but

none had words to add. Their magic had been negated,

rendered powerless over this woman who had handed

them a failure they were ill prepared to reverse. They

had no precedent to fall back on; no point around which

to rally.

Only Hochopepa's gaze remained upon Mara. 'You

mentioned a choice?'

Had the circumstances been of less import, and the

chamber of audience's occupants been one whit less tense,

Mara might have smiled at the stout magician's sharpness.

'Yes, Great One, a choice,' she announced loudly. 'For

centuries your Assembly has enjoyed authority-without

responsibilities. You Black Robes have done as you pleased

for "the Good of the Empire," no matter how whimsical,

perverse, or destructive the act may have been.'

Unmentioned behind her words were the memory of two

young children, slaughtered by their Minwanabi father

as a consequence of the disgrace forced upon him by

Great Ones. Although Tasaio had been an enemy, Mara

yet found the murder of his heirs abhorrent, a tragedy

the more unforgivable because it might have been prevented

by the very Assembly that had condemned the

father. Sharply she concluded, 'Since our community of

magicianS has shown little inclination to self-discipline,

now comes an accounting. You may do as I have bid,

:

.

and be about your own affairs in your city of fearful,

inward-looking men - the gods have mercy upon you-

or you may take the only other course that will avert

unbridled war.'

Hochopepa's round face furrowed in distaste, and he

tapped one foot uncomfortably. 'I suspect what that may

be.'

'Do you?' Mara withdrew an ornate dagger from her

robe sash and reversed it, pointing it toward her breast.

'The gods may have declared it is not my time to die.

But I can still exercise my free will as Lady of the

Acoma. If you choose, I can take my own life, now,

in expiation for breaking your stated edict. If I do this,

Justin shall abdicate, and return home as Lord of the

Acoma. Jehilia, his wife, will reign, and her husband

will be consort only, taking vows never to raise his

hand against you, or any other Black Robe.' Mara's

eyes narrowed as she delivered her final line, and the

blade in her hand never quivered. 'But then you must

rule.'

Hochopepa actually grinned. Shimone and Akani nodded,

while Tapek appeared only befuddled. 'Lady, what are

you saying?' the redheaded magician asked. ~

'You only have the power to destroy, to wage war, or

oppose,' declared Mara. 'My allies shall not resist. Before

sundown, if you so command, I can honorably end my

life by the blade.' Her glance swept the hall, pausing

only briefly to review the assorted nobles who strained to

catch every word, who even yet hoped of catching some

mix-step by which they could advance themselves over

their neighbors. Her blade might be plunged home, and

the Game of the Council resume as if she had never lived;

as if the dreams of a murdered Emperor and a barbarian

slave had never started to precipitate change. The moment

was at hand to decide the future. The priests waited upon

their gods, and prayed for fate to favor them. Focusing

on Motecha and Tapek in particular, Mara delivered her

summary. 'Oh, you may find another willing to play

Emperor or Warlord for a time. The Omechan would

fall over themselves for the honor, never doubt - until

an ambitious neighbor or rival decides it is time to upset

the succession.

'But consider this: the illusion is ended. Men now

know that the Assembly can be opposed. The temples

will not be content to be relegated to a secondary role.

Be assured that the last act of the Emperor Justin will

be to emancipate the cho-ja, so that they may again use

magic to raise their glass cities in the sun. Lacking willing

soldiers, how will you magicians keep order? How will

you stop the bickering and power plays between Lords

to whom tradition has allocated the trappings of honor?

The Game of the Council is a dead end, but our Ruling

Lords for the most part are too contentious or too greedy

to create a new order. Are you magicians prepared to

put on armor and pick up a sword? Tapek? Sevean?

Motecha?'

The confounded expressions upon the faces of the

three so named were comical. Never had they considered

the prospect of dirtying their hands in battle! And

yet, with their weaknesses exposed, they recognised that

magic by itself would no longer command awe. Others

as bold as Mara would start uprisings, and the Assembly

would be pressured by politics and circumstance to take

sides. They would have no choice but to absent themselves

from scholarly study to manage the mechanics of

governance.

To a body accustomed to acting at the whim of the

individual, the prospect was distastefully daunting

Motecha looked distressed. Sevean edged unobtrusively

behind Shimone, while Tapek masked dismay behind

bluster. 'We are not a council of Lords, given to haggling

over trivia! Our calling is loftier than mandating the

punishment of warring Houses!'

Hochopepa actually laughed.

Mara gave a demure bow. Still the blade remained in her

hand, unswervingly pointed toward her breast. Her eyes

were stony. 'Those are your choices, Great One. Either

administrate this Empire or cease interfering with those of

us who must.'

In the face of his colleagues' dumbfounded stillness,

Hochopepa waved a weary arm. 'It is over.'

Tapek yet looked ready to argue, but Akani intervened.

'I agree. The Assembly as a body will no more wish

to govern the Empire than we have in the past. Gods

above, our debates have extended for days in deciding

a single issue!' Unable to restrain a loaded glance at

Shimone and Hochopepa, he sighed, then bowed gravely

to the Servant of the Empire. 'Lady, you shall not take

your life before sundown. The public would create too

much outcry, and my colleagues are likely to be blamed.

Our choice is clear: chaos or a new order. You were

first to see that not all of us hold enough command

of our nature to kill without hesitation. Most magicians,

in fact, would be hard set to harm an insect.

No. Our might over the Empire has arisen from blind

obedience over the years. Without that, we are . . . powerless.'

'

Powerless!' Tapek fumed. 'Not I, Akani.'

Fumita restrained the red-haired magician with a crushing

grip. 'Tapek, one foolish act shamed you nearly beyond

forgiveness. Listen to reason for a change! Mara does not

act for herself. She never has, could you but see that. You

will never win over the Assembly to endorse civil war and

chaos. And bloodshed unequaled is what we would have

if you and your cadre of young-bloods do not accept the

820 Mistress of tl~e Empire

inevitable. I strongly suggest that you start repairing your

reputation by appearing on the walls and commanding

the attacking armies to cease fire and lay down their

weapons.'

'I will go with Tapek,' Shimone announced. He turned

a stern, even pitiless look at his younger colleague, then

grasped his teleportation device and disappeared. Few

magicians in the Empire dared to cross Shimone when he

was aroused. Still, Fumita showed no sign of releasing his

hold until Tapek lowered his eyes and conceded the point.

The young magician was then freed to vanish and rejoin

Shimone.

Hochopepa managed an affable shrug before the panoply

of religious orders and ranking Lords backing Mara. 'I have

no wish to govern, nor do I intend to attempt to murder

wholesale the most powerful priests in the Empire.' This

statement was pointedly directed toward Motecha, who

sought the support of other colleagues to back him, but

found his cadre dissolving. In Shimone's absence, Sevean

had sidled behind Fumita. Many more magicians were

nodding agreement to the fat magician's capitulation.

Gently Hochopepa reached out and removed the dagger

from Mara's fingers.

Then he announced loudly, 'A remarkable man, the

magician Milamber, from Midkemia, once exhorted that

our Empire had a stagnant culture brought into decline

by our rigid adherence to our traditions. I think he

was right' - the stout magician awarded Mara and the

magnificence of the Chakaha mages a smile of admiration '

for why else would the gods have preserved this remarkable

woman?'

To Mara he added, 'Lady, if the Light of Heaven may

allow, we will withdraw and meet formally, but you may

rest assured what our official position will be.' Then he

was first among the Black Robes to step forward and

repeat his bow of homage to emphasise that the boy on

the dais was beyond dispute the ninety-second Light of

Heaven.

The magicians as a group followed suit, most of them

humiliated enough to do so quietly, though a few in the

back were heard to grumble. Fumita gave these dissenters

a stern glare, and the Chakaha mages fixed each with an

agate black eye that reminded of the singular ability of the

cho-ja hive mind to remember.

Mara felt a giddy relief sweep through her at the

unequivocal capitulation of the most fearful enemies she

had ever dared to provoke. As the Black Robes acknowledged

her son's sovereignty, she went weak at the knees.

Hokanu's heart-warming perception anticipated her need,

and gratefully Mara accepted his support as he stepped to

her side and put his arm around her waist.

As the Great Ones filed out, and the central floor of the

great hall slowly cleared, Lord Keda, Imperial Chancellor,

swept forward in his glittering robes of office. Over his

earlier bout of nerves, the old man had lost none of his

command or his gifts as an orator as he announced, 'As

chancellor, let me be first among your nobles to swear

my loyalty to Emperor Justin.' He knelt and,uttered the

time-honored oaths, and tension seemed to flow from the

crowd. Suddenly what might have been an armed camp

was transformed into a hall of men kneeling, repeating

the words of devotion to a boy who had been conceived

as the get of a slave, and who had risen from being heir

of the Acoma to become the ninety-second Emperor of

Tsuranuanni.

When the newly sworn members of his court arose,Justin

squirmed on the dais, distress obvious on his face. To his

mother, and the father who had adopted him for his own,

he whispered loudly, 'You instructed me on everything else,

but what do I do now?'

oz' Msstrcss ot t/,e Empire

Jehilia looked mortified by his lapse.

Not a few of the priests stifled chuckles behind their

ceremonial masks, while Hokanu pulled off his battle helm

and laughed outright. 'Tell your people, "Let the celebration

commence!"'

Justin jumped up from his throne, all but dislodging

the heavy golden helm with its crown piece that denoted

imperial majesty. Dragging his lady wife by the hand, he

looked far from decorous - more like a boy who had

mischief in mind the moment his elders were not looking.

'Let the celebration commence!' he shouted.

A cheer rocked the great hall of audience, more deafening

for the fact that the siege engines of the Omechan had fallen

silent. No more rocks crashed down upon the Imperial

Precinct. And when the voices and the clamor had quelled

to a more tolerable level, the great gongs in the temples of

the Twenty Gods pealed out, calling the populace into the

streets to accept largesse in the name of Justin, ninety-two

times Emperor of Tsuranuanni.

In the midst of the commotion as the great hall emptied,

and the imperial heralds cried the news throughout the

city, the small, mouselike figure of Jican descended upon the

palace staff. The great bulk of the imperial hadonra caused

him only the briefest pause.After an agitated argument,

the immense official backed down, huffed words to the

effect that royal propriety was going to be irretrievably

ruined, and stalked off to his quarters. Jican turned

his tongue-lashing on the rest of the palace staff, and

within minutes the imperial household was turned upon

its collective ear. They would produce a festival for their

new Emperor, Jican commanded, whether it killed them all

to the least of the pot boys and drudges. His determination

proved infectious. Within hours the nobles in residence had

exchanged battle armor for silk robes, and entertainers

were converging upon the city officials, vying for the

Emperor

823

honor of providing music and poetry. Throughout the

city, celebrations began as word spread that the new Light

of Heaven had been chosen, and more, that Lady Mara,

Servant of the Empire, had taken the stewardship of the

Nations.

.

.,

33

Imperial Council

Lamps burned.

Their light transformed the night into kaleidoscopic

patterns of colors as silk-robed revelers danced in the

streets and masked players staged joyous entertainment.

The sounds of lacquered bells and laughter replaced the

thudding impacts caused by siege engines. Within an ornate

suite in the royal apartments of the Imperial Palace, Mara

sat before a painted screen. The noise of the happy populace

gave her deep satisfaction, but the half-smile of contentment

that curved her lips was all for the small girl child who

lay sound asleep in her lap. The Lady's expression of

tranquillity was so profound that Hokanu, arriving at the

door, hesitated to disturb her.

But she had always been sensitive to his presence. Though

he made no sound, Mara looked up. Her expression

flowered into a smile of welcome. 'Hokanu.' Her greeting

expressed all, from tenderness to deep love to the ache of

separation that had lasted through the late troubled times.

The Lord of the Shinzawai crossed the floor, his step a

whisper on tile. He wore silk, not armor, and had replaced

his studded battle sandals for leather-soled ones with cloth

ties. He reached his wife's side, knelt, and offered his hand

to Kasuma. The little one grasped his finger, comforted by

his presence although she did not fully waken.

'She has grown so much!' Mara murmured. When she

had left for Thuril, Kasuma had been but an infant. Now

she was a toddler, already trying her first words. The

Lady's finger traced the line of her daughter's brows.

'She's going to have your scowl,' Mara mused to her

Impenal Council     825

husband. 'Probably that means she's inherited your stubbornness

, also.'

Hokanu chuckled. 'She's going to need it.'

Mara joined him in laughter. 'Surely. She had better

develop a sharp tongue, too, if she's to keep your cousin

Devacai in line. Perhaps we should send her to Isashani of

the Xacatecas for her finishing?'

Hokanu was unusually silent at this. Mara missed his

moment of stillness, touched as she was by memories of

Nacoya, the irascible nurse who had raised and schooled

her to the skills of Ruling Lady. Then reminiscence was

abandoned as Hokanu's hands lifted Kasuma and settled

her gently on her sleeping mat. He reached next for his

wife, with the intent to perform the same office.

'Your battles have not depleted you, I see,' Mara said

as her husband settled beside her, and she began to work

free the ties on his robe. 'Thank the gods for that, for I

have missed you sorely. I don't think I could have endured

another night of Lying awake wondering whether you were

alive or dead, or whether our children were going to fall

as the victims of politics . . .' She paused, letting Hokanu's

hands smooth away the unpleasant memory of dread.

Somewhere in the city, a temple gong sang notes of felicity,

and a laughing couplet of dancers ran on light feet past the

window. Mara settled in the crook of her-husband's arm.

'You came from the imperial suite, I presume. How is our

Justin handling himself ?'

Hokanu muffled a snort of laughter in the warmth of his

wife's hair. 'The little barbarian,' he said, when he could

speak. 'The boy came to me with the shakes, his face as

red as his hair, asking if he was expected to perform his

husbandry office with Jehilia. Tonight.'

Mara grinned. 'I should have thought he'd ask that

before anybody else would have found time to inform

him. He's stared down the shifts of the maids since he

826 Mistress of the Empire

was big enough to climb up on the furniture. What did

you say?'

'When I could keep a straight face, you mean?' Hokanu

said. 'I told him that he'd have to wait for the privilege

until his manhood ceremony at twenty-five.'

Playfully shoving her husband, Mara said, 'You didn't!'

Hokanu grinned. 'I don't think I've ever seen regret and

relief so evenly mixed. Then I explained that Jehilia, being

two years older than he, might decide she wished to visit his

bedchamber when she came of age, and that as he would

be only twenty-three, it would be her decision to make.'

Now Mara exploded into merriment. 'Oh, that's perfect!

The poor boy thinks he's to remain a chaste husband for

another eleven years!'

Hokanu shrugged. 'He'll figure it out soon enough.'

'Don't let Jehilia discover what you've told Justin. She'll

make his life miserable.'

Hokanu planted a kiss on Mara's forehead. 'At least

he'll think twice before he tries pushing the girl into a

fishpond again.'

'She's Empress.' Mara chuckled. 'She'd have every legal

right to pull him in after her.'

'And I expect one day, in a year or two, the rough play

will turn friendly and Justin's concerns about husbandry

duty will vanish.' Moving so that his face was above

hers, Hokanu said, 'And speaking of husbandry duties

...' Conversation died as Hokanu's lips found hers, and

their embrace slowly blossomed into passion.

Much later, the lanterns still shone. The revelers in the

streets were fewer, but no less joyously raucous. The Lady

of the Acoma and the Lord of the Shinzawai lay twined

close, replete with their lovemaking. Neither felt inclined

toward sleep. Both had much on their mind, and this was

the first peaceful moment they had gained in which to speak

of personal issues.

Imperial Council

.~.

;::

.,

. .

827

Hokanu was first to broach the subject. 'Lady, with Justin

now responsible for continuing the imperial line, you are

again left without any heir for the Acoma.'

Mara turned in her husband's arms, her hands tracing

the firmness of a shoulder yet muscled from the sword. She

took a moment to reply. 'I am content. If the line should end,

there is no more honorable way. And it may be that Jehilia

will be fecund, or that Justin will father sons on a later wife.

His issue might be numerous enough that one can take on

my mantle without harm to the imperial succession.'

A moment later, she added, 'I could also adopt a child.'

But both husband and Lady knew this was not something

she would do. Tradition required that the child have some

connection to the adopting family, and no direct blood

relatives survived the early days of the Minwanabi war

upon the Acoma. Some distant linkage could be discovered,

no doubt, but the Acoma line had too old and honorable a

name to bestow upon a child of obscure descent.

Hokanu smoothed Mara's hair. 'The problem has already

been resolved,' he murmured.

Mara felt the slight tension enter his body; she knew!

He had done something irrevocable, which he was certain

before he spoke that she would argue. 'What.have you

done, Hokanu?' Her voice was sharp, with fear, worry,

and concern. And then, by his very reluctance to answer,

guessed. 'Kasuma,' she blurted. 'You have-'

He stole her words, said them for her, but without her

snap of outrage. 'I have given her over to the Acoma.'

Mara surged up, but he caught her. He stopped her rush

of words with a gentle finger, and shook her, tenderly, to

subside. 'Wife, it has been done! You cannot revoke the

oaths sworn this day. Fumita and the priests of a half-dozen

orders were witnesses, and the altar of the Temple of Juran

was the place where Kasuma's heirship to the Shinzawai

was renounced. Then I swore her to the Acoma, as is

828 Mistress of the Empire

my right as her father. She will continue your house and

lineage, as is fitting and proper. You will know far better

than anyone what instruction a girl needs to become a

Ruling Lady.'

Hokanu's finger fell away, leaving Mara struck speechless

- not with happiness, Hokanu understood, but with hurt

and rage that was entirely for his own sake. 'You will leave

yourself heirless!' she said finally. 'It's too dangerous in

these times, with Devacai plotting to assume your mantle.

The Omechan and other Ionani allies may relent and swear

fealty to Justin, but many Lords with old jealousies will .

foment traditionalist rebellion. You will face their threats

for years to come, Hokanu. Justin and Jehilia need every

advantage we can give them, and that means a secure

Shinzawai succession!' Her voice became half strangled by

tears as she added, 'Do not tempt our enemies to target you

for murder! I could not bear to see you die like your father,

struck down for someone else's venal ambition!'

Hokanu gathered her dose. 'You are right to fear,' he

murmured into her hair, 'just as I was right to place Kasuma

in custody of the Acoma heirship. She is my daughter!' The

ring in his voice was all pride now; there never had been

any rejection of the girl in his heart. Mara knew a pang of

sorrow that she had ever known doubt.

'I am her father,' Hokanu repeated. 'And to my knowledge,

there are still laws and traditions that support my

right to make this decision.' He traced the tense line of her

jaw. 'My Lady, you are overruled in this matter, perhaps

for the first time in your life.'

Mara's reply was an explosion of weeping. To have

Kasuma as heir was a joy, yes, but she would feel that -]

later. For now she was consumed by the hurt of knowing

what Hokanu renounced to give her this supreme gift and

sacrifice.

She could not help but know what he held back: that he

;

,

Imperial Council

829

would have no Shinzawai child of her loins to grow and

inherit the blue.

'I have dozens upon dozens of cousins,' he was saying,

his voice compelled to lightness. 'They are not all avaricious

like Devacai. In fact, most are honorable and worthy. It

might ease my family difficulties if I chose among my rivals

for an heir. That would divide Devacai's faction.'

Mara hoarsely found her voice. 'You will take no

concubine.'

Her tone did not indicate a question. And her husband's

steely stillness became answer in itself, until he acknowledged

the truth. 'My lady, you are all the woman I could

wish in this world. So long as you are at my side, I will

have no other.'

Mara bit her lip. In the undertones behind her husband's

statement she heard the personal longings he had hardened

himself to deny. A like hardness entered her own heart. But

she said nothing of her inward resolves as Hokanu's arms

dosed around her and his lips sought hers in the light.

The doors to the grand audience hall boomed open,

and trumpeters and drummers sounded fanfare. In the

open square outside, those commoners still celebrating

the new Emperor's accession fell silent out of respect.

Two imperial heralds stepped to the entry, their matched

voices pealing out the announcement that the inaugural

council of the ninety-second Light of Heaven was officially

called to session. They followed by shouting the

list of names of those to appear before his Imperial

Majesty, Justin.

First to be summoned were the high officials and servants

who had held office under Ichindar. These all filed inside

as they were named, dressed in dazzling finery, though

their faces were sober or apprehensive. The Lord of the

Keda led the procession. He advanced between the ranks

830 Msstress of the Empsre

of assembled Lords and made his bow before the railing

that fronted the pyramidal dais.

Young Justin formally afffirmed his continuance in the

office of Imperial Chancellor. Lord Keda made deep

obeisance, both to the boy ruler and to the Lady who

sat on a cushion among the attending priests, five ranks

up on the pyramid.

Lady Mara wore red from the ceremony of remembrance

held for her dead at dawn. Deep sorrow left her peaked,

weary, and somewhat hollow-checked. Lord Keda felt a

moment of compassion for her. She had won out over

widespread contention to achieve an impossible victory:

yet her triumph had come at grievous cost. Keyoke and

her advisers Saric and Incomo had all given their lives; many

more minor officers and warriors had fallen in the strife.

House Acoma held but a handful of its ranking servants

on this side of the Wheel of Life. Lord Keda offered the

Lady his personal salute. Not many rulers in the Empire

would have risked so much, or sacrificed nearly all they

held dear, in the name of the common good.

The heralds pealed out another title, and Lord Keda made

his bow and withdrew. He took his place amid the other

Lords as, one by one, the ministers of the court were called

forth. Many were given appointment to their former posts.

A few were promoted. ethers were sent away in shame,

though no reason was given in public.

In time, Lord Keda noted that the boy Justin took his cues

from a slight, dark figure who wore the armor of an Imperial

White and was placed in the position of bodyguard at the

boy's right hand. Lord Keda studied the man, whose face

seemed to lose itself in shadow. He had never seen the officer

before, which was odd. The ranking Imperial Whites were

all known to him, in his long years of service to Ichindar.

Lord Keda might have raised voice in concern, except that

Lady Mara seemed complaisant.

At length the list of officials drew to its end. Next, rank

after rank of Ruling Lords approached, to swear obedience

to the Light of Heaven. For a few the moment was clearly

joyous, while for others it was bitter. But when the last

of the families of the Empire had knelt, Justin rose and

spoke. 'My Lords, you who were once the Council of the

Nations, I welcome your acceptance of our assess' - He

stumbled over the word, ant the hovering imperial officer

whispered to the boy -'accession to the Throne of Heaven.

Some of you were our enemies, but are no longer. From *is

day forward, there is a general amnesty, and all rebellion

against the Empire is forgiven. Let it be known also'- again

the officer prompted the boy- 'that all blood feuds and

rivalries are abolished. He who raises his hand against his

neighbor raises his hand against me, I mean us. The Empire.'

The boy flushed, but no one laughed at his awkwardness.

For with that pronouncement, the young Light of Heaven

had decreed that this Empire would indeed be run by laws,

and that anyone who sought to rekindle the bloody Game

of the Council would do so at peril of imperial wrath.

The Emperor nodded to his heralds, and a fiery lock of

hair slipped out from under his golden helm. His freckled

face burst into a smile as the Chief Herald called out,

'Lujan, Force Commander of the Acoma! Come before

your Emperor!'

Lujan made his appearance, looking half stunned with

surprise and embarrassment. He wore his best armor,

for Mara's honor, but had never dreamed he would be

formally presented at court. He knelt before the new

Emperor and the mistress he had long served, who seemed

a stranger with the tiara of regent pressed over her mourning

headdress of red.

Mara spoke to her Force Commander in words that only

the privileged few who occupied the foremost ranks might

hear. 'Saric, Keyoke, and Irrilandi all gave their lives in this,

our greatest victory. You are summoned, Lujan, by your

Emperor, to accept reward for your years of praiseworthy

service. Let your deeds and your loyalty stand as example

to all warriors in the Nations. None living has matched

your steadfastness in our service.'

Lujan still seemed stunned as Lady Mara arose and

descended from her place of state. She took his hand,

bade him rise, and led him down the rail to one side,

where two Imperial Whites opened a small gate, and

snapped him a crisp salute as the Lady drew him through.

Force Commander Lujan, who had commanded armies

against the express edict of the Assembly, turned pale with

apprehension. He moved carefully, as if the air were too

rare to breathe, and the floor under his sandals too highly

polished to walk upon.

On the high dais, the Emperor Justin beckoned him

onward, upward, to a height of exaltation he had never

dreamed.

In the end he hesitated, and Lady Mara had to give him

a: surreptitious push.

He recovered himself short of a stumble; he, who was

swordsman enough never to be caught off balance. He

managed somehow to ascend the stair without mishap.

At the top, he bowed at Justin's feet, his green plumes

sweeping the carpet.

'Get up, Lujan.' The boy was grinning with the same

affection he had shown the first time he had touched his

teacher with a lunge in training with his wooden sword.

Lujan seemed too stunned to respond. At length the

Imperial White with the shadowy face prodded him on

with a toe and murmured something nobody else could

hear. The Force Commander of the Acoma shot upright

as if kicked and looked down on the face of his Emperor.

Justin's grin took on an insolent edge. 'The Emperor

hereby grants to Lujan, officer of the Acoma, official

Imperi~sl Council   833

patent to commence his own house. Let it be heard

by all: this warrior's children and servants and soldiers

shall wear colors of his own designation, and swear upon

the natami of House Lujan. The sacred stone awaits its

new Lord and master in the Temple of Chochocan. The

papers of patent will be given by the hand of the Good

Servant, Mara.' Justin's happiness threatened to brim over

into laughter. 'You may bow to your Emperor and swear

fealty, Lord Lujan of the House of Lujan.'

Lujan, who had never in his life been at a loss for a

glib reply, could only gape like a fish. He made his bow,

and somehow beat a decorous retreat down the stairs But

when at the bottom he found himself confronted by Lady

Mara, the eyes that met hers were suspiciously bright at

the corners.

'My Lady,' Lujan said huskily, disbelief holding him

confounded.

Mara inclined her head. 'My Lord.' She caught his hand

as he started to flinch back at the title, raised it, and placed

in his palm three scrolls. Only one was tied off with ribbons

of imperial gold. The other two were looped with green,

and set with the shatra seal of the Acoma. ~ ~

Mara smiled. 'My first recruit, the boldest of the grey

warriors ever to swear Acoma service, and my oldest living

friend: I do formally release you now from your vows to

the Acoma natami, with happiness, as you now go on to

serve your own destiny. Today a great house is born. To

the title of Ruling Lord that our Light of Heaven has seen

fit to bestow, the Acoma add gifts of appreciation.' She

gave Lujan's hand a squeeze. 'first, the House of Lujan

shall have title to the estates that were mine by right of

birth. All lands and livestock on the properties adjacent to

Sulan-Qu are henceforward yours to manage and hold for

your heirs, with the contemplation glade to be consecrated

as setting for your house natami.'

834 ' Mistress of the Empire

'My Lady,' Lujan stammered.

Mara overrode him. 'My Lord, with this estate, I as

Lady of the Acoma grant you the service of five hundred

warriors. These shall be made up, first, of all those who

swore covenant to you in your band of grey warriors. The

rest shall be of your choosing, from among those willing to

serve you in the garrison already housed on the Sulan-Qu

estate.'

Lujan recovered enough of his rakish poise now to grin.

'Gods,' he murmured, 'wait till the men hear. They started

out robbing two needra for a meal, and now they will be

officers of my house!' He chuckled, then shrugged, and

might have broken protocol to laugh, when Mara stopped

him with a touch to the last scroll in his hand.

'You are offered a place of honor in Clan Hadama, if

you desire it,' she finished. 'Were Keyoke alive today, he

would say that you learned well. He counted Papewaio as

the son of his heart, after my brother Lanokota. You were

his youngest son . . . and at the last, the one of whom he

was proudest.'

Lujan felt a poignant moment of loss for the old man who

had always treated him fairly, and who had been among the

first to recognise and reward his gifts of command. As if

in salute to his former officer, he touched the scrolls to his

forehead, accepting their-contents with a flourish. 'You are

too generous,' he murmured to Mara. 'If every needra thief

in this Empire realises he might rise so high, you will be the

ruler of mayhem.' Then he turned serious and bowed. 'In

my heart, you shall ever be my mistress, Lady Mara. Let the

colors of House Lujan be grey and green: grey in symbolic

remembrance of my origin, and green, for my service to

Acoma that has led me to this pinnacle of honor.'

'Grey and green are the colors of House Lujan!' cried

the imperial herald by the dais, that all Lords might hear

and take note.

Imperial Council

~ l

835

Mara smiled in pleasure at the tribute. 'Now be off!' she

whispered to her gallant former officer. 'Keep the promise

you made me swear to keep you to in Chakaha. Marry a

fine woman, get children, and live to a white old age!'

Lujan snapped off a jaunty salute, spun on his heel,

and marched back through the ranks of his peers, while

the Imperial White at the Emperor's right hand murmured

softly, 'I'll wager he'll be falling down drunk with

celebration within the hour.'

Justin peered up into the familiar face of Arakasi. 'Don't

sound so smug. Your turn will come in due course.'

Though the Acoma Spy Master tipped his young.master

a quizzical look, Justin refused to elaborate upon his

statement. He looked straight ahead, his young shoulders

stifffly square. Not all of the imperial grants made this day

would be as pleasurable as Lujan's patent of Lordship. He

nodded to his herald, and the name of Hokanu of the

Shinzawai was called across the audience chamber.

Now more than one in the ranks of Ruling Lords

exchanged overt glances, many of which hinted at jealousy.

Lady Mara had professed to be a fair regent, but now, not a

few presumed, she would show her venality by having her

husband appointed to some exalted station or.office.

Yet if that were true, Hokanu's face as he approached

the imperial dais was fixed in lines hard as rock. He looked

neither pleased nor annoyed; only determinedly neutral as

he made his bow before the Light of Heaven.

His obeisance was made to Justin; yet his eyes, as he

arose, were turned immovably toward Lady Mara. Neither

did she appear overjoyed to be the subject of her husbands

scrutiny. Stifffly formal, even more pale than she had been

earlier, she stared woodenly ahead as his Imperial Majesty

formally made proclamation.

'Let all present hear and take heed: your Emperor does

as he must for the Good of the Empire. It has been duly

836 Mistress of the Empsre

noted, according to a ceremony in Juran's temple yesterday,

that the child Kasuma has been dedicated by her father to

become the heir to the mantle of the Acoma.'Justin paused,

swallowed, and with a manhood beyond his years forced

his voice to steadiness. 'This has drawn our attention to

the Shinzawai, now an heirless house. By Lady Mara's

bequest, for she has been pronounced barren by the

priests of Hantukama, she has petitioned for divorce.'

Justin lowered his eyes and regarded his feet in discomfort.

'As Light of Heaven, for the Good of the Empire, I have

seen fit to grant her request.'

Murmurs swept the packed chamber.

Hokanu looked stunned, but he did not change expression.

Only his eyes, locked with Mara's, showed a silent

scream of pain.

Justin made a noise behind one wrist that might have

been a smothered sniffle. 'Shinzawai is too great a house,

and too important to this Empire, to invite internal strife

by remaining heirless. Lord Hokanu is hereby commanded

by his Emperor to seek out a bride, and remarry, for the

purpose of begetting sound children.'

It was Mara who descended the dais to deliver the divorce

papers with their crust of imperial seals. She moved against

a shocked silence, and then whispers: for all could plainly

see that she loved her Lord. Her sacrifice stilled the petty

thoughts of even the most ambitious Ruling Lords. She

was not as they had presumed, but a true Servant of

the Empire, acting selflessly even where necessity left her

wounded.

Former Lady and husband met before the dais. Naked

to public regard, they could not fall into each other's arms

and weep. For this, Mara was grateful. Only the pride of

her ancestors prevented her from shouting for appeal. Her

heart wanted no part of this brutal choice. She yearned

only to cast herself at Hokanu's feet and beg him to plead

. ,

Imperial Council

837

for a reversal of the papers Justin had tearfully signed that

morning.

She had meant to say nothing, but words burst from her,

without restraint. 'I had to! Dear gods, I love you still, but

this was-' She stopped, reining back tears.

'It had to be,' Hokanu grated back, his voice as shaken

as hers. 'The Empire demands all our strength.'

His dear understanding of necessity was a sword that

cut, a gift that threatened to undermine all of her resolve.

Mara held the scroll with its cruel words and official seals

as if it were glued to her flesh.

Gently, Hokanu took the document from her. 'You will

ever be my Lady,' he murmured. 'I may breed my sons

upon another, but my heart will always be yours.' His

hands were shaking, causing the gold ribbons to flutter

and flash in the light. His eyes were hard with distance

and pain, and he was recalling the priest of Hantukama,

who had once accused him of loving his Lady too much: at

the expense of himself, that gentle holy man had rebuked.

Bitterly, and only now, Hokanu understood the extent of

this truth. Almost, he had allowed his care for Mara to set

House Shinzawai in jeopardy.

The Empire could ill afford any weakness, far less one

caused by an affection of the heart. Mara was right,

hurtful as her petition was to him in this, their hour of

triumph. She had recognised the need for this parting; he

had unknowingly made her choice the more compelling

by his own hard-headedness concerning his disposition of

Kasuma.

His course was clear, if sorrowful. He must accept

at once, lest courage fail him. For the Good of the

Empire, he, too, must make his sacrifice. He reached

out with a gentle finger, tipped up Mara's chin, and

forced her eyes to meet his own. 'Don't be a stranger,

Lady Servant,' he murmured. 'You are always welcome to

838 Mistress of the Empire

my company and my counsel, and you will ever be first in

my affections.'

Mara swallowed, speechless. As always, Hokanu's faultless

understanding held the power to captivate her heart.

She would miss his constant company, and his tender,

solicitous presence in her bed. And yet she, too, knew: if she

did not force this decision upon him, he would die without

a son, heirless. That he should not pass on his gentleness,

and his ability to choose right and merciful action when

necessary, would be a crime against humanity.

'I love you,' she whispered soundlessly.

But he had already bowed and taken his leave, his step

as firm as if he marched into battle.

The watching Lords were awed. Hokanu's courage

humbled them; and Mara's silent pain left them abashed

to a man. The Empire was entering a new order, and it

appeared that the remarkable couple who had arranged its

renaissance were themselves to become a shining example

to them all. Men who had greeted such change with

resentment were forced to reexamination. They had just

witnessed the epitome of honor. To fail to live up to the

standards Lady Mara and Lord Hokanu set was to relearn

the meaning of shame.

On the golden throne, a boy who had just renounced a

beloved father swallowed a lump in his throat. He flashed

a glance to his bride, Jehilia, and swallowed again. Then he

straightened the shoulders that seemed suddenly weighed

down by the drag of the imperial mantle, and waved to his

herald.

Next to be summoned was Lady Mara of the Acoma,

Servant of the Empire.

She seemed at first not to hear, her eyes fixed upon the

empty aisle where Hokanu had lately departed. Then she,

too, straightened, and climbed the stair of the high dais, to

give her bow to the Light of Heaven.

Imperial Council

839

Justin was through with practiced speeches. He could

not bring himself to adhere to the forms he had rehearsed.

'Mother!' he called out, a grin curving his impish mouth.

'To you, who have surpassed every prior Servant of the

Empire in service to our Nations . . .' Justin paused, and

was elbowed in the ribs by Jehilia. He flashed her a surprised

glance, and went on, 'You will accept the regency of our rule

until our twenty-fifth birthday.'

Polite applause swept the audience hall, swelling in

volume until a cheer erupted, first from the Acoma

honor guard, then echoed by the Imperial Whites and

the Shinzawai warriors. Then Lord after Ruling Lord

surged to their feet and shouted in appreciation of Lady

Mara. Justin waved to restore decorum, but order was a

long time returning. Into the ripple of reluctantly suppressed

admiration he called, 'To you, Lady Mara, greatest among

the Servants of the Empire, we see fit to create a new title.'

Justin rose to his feet, hands upraised. 'We name Lady Mara,

Mistress of the Empire!'

The noise became deafening. Mara stood at the center

of all admiring eyes, looking stunned, and pleased, and

saddened.

She had never asked for power or public adulation.

All she had ever striven for was to keep her family

name alive.

How strange it was that in the course of the life the gods

had given her, she had come to see all of the Nations as her

family, and her son, child of a barbarian slave, take the

supreme throne and title Light of Heaven.

Lord Keda's curiosity concerning the mysterious man who

wore the armor of an Imperial White was not satisfied until

afternoon, when the young Emperor called a special, closed

meeting in his private study.

The room was no small chamber but a grand hall in itself,

840 Mistress of the Empire

sparkling with gilt-trimmed screens, and appointed with

ancient paintings. Justin had doffed his imperial armor. For

this meeting he had donned a robe edged in gold, borrowed

from the wardrobe of his predecessor. The fabric hung off

his youthful frame, pinned up at the hem and shoulders

with rare metal fastenings.

Lord Keda entered. He bowed before the low dais upon

which the boy Light of Heaven reclined on cushions, then

glanced with interest at the other assembled personages.

Lady Mara yet wore her mourning red. With her was

the mysterious bodyguard, his hair damp from a recent

bath, and his poised, gaunt body no longer disguised in

white armor. He now wore a nondescript robe that was

subtly bordered in green. The man's face was guardedly

still. Clever hands were folded neetly in his lap. Only

his eyes betrayed his intellect, and they watched, missing

nothing. Quick the fellow would be, Lord Keda assessed;

he had a talent for judging men. This one would react well

in a crisis; except that about him at this moment was a

haunted air of abstraction that made him seem one step

removed from the people in his presence.

Mara noted Lord Keda's keen study. 'Let me introduce

you to Arakasi, a valued servant of the Acoma who

commands our highest respect.'

Lord Keda's interest sharpened. This nondescript man

with his almost inhuman attentiveness: could he be the

fabled Spy Master that had kept the Acoma so miraculously

well informed?

The man answered directly, as if uncannily he could read

Lord Keda's thoughts from the play of expressions on his

face. 'I have resigned from my former post,' he admitted,

his voice like velvet rubbed on stone. 'Once I was Spy

Master for the Acoma. Now I have discovered that life and

nature hold secrets more profound than intrigues fashioned

by men.'

Lord Keda considered this remarkable statement, fascinated

by the man who had uttered it.

But the Emperor they all attended was young yet for

subtle nuances. He squirmed impatiently on his gilded

cushions and clapped his hands to his runner. 'Fetch in

the prisoner.'

Two Imperial Whites entered, flanking a slender man

with bitten nails and shrewd eyes. Lord Keda recognised

Chumaka, who had served the late Lord Jiro as First

Adviser. The Imperial Chancellor frowned, wondering why

he had been summoned to this private council, since his

was not a judicial office. His appointment was more an

administrator's than one of tribunal authority who could

seal an accusation of treason.

For surely Lord Jiro had been behind the assassination

of the Emperor Ichindar; Omechan had inherited the siege

engines, and Omechan armies had been in place to back

the Anasati plot to seize the throne. Chumaka could not

have escaped involvement; all too likely, the deadly plan

had been of his own design.

Mara responded to Lord Keda's trepidation. 'You have

been called here as witness,' she explained quietly, then

faced forward as Chumaka awarded the Emperor a deep

bow. He followed with an obeisance to Mara,, murmuring,

'Great Lady, I have heard of your reputation. I cast myself

at your mercy and humbly beg for my life.'

Lord Keda frowned. The man had been Lord Jiro's

adviser; he had surely been party to the murder of Hokanu's

father, as well as to the poisoning of Lady Mara herself.

That Mara knew this was mirrored in her face. The

expressionless line of her mouth hinted at underlying pain:

but for this man's meddling, and a nearly successful attempt

on her life, she might still be capable of childbearing. The

husband she had been compelled to renounce might yet be

at her side.

842 Mistress of the Empire

Chumaka held his pose of prostration, his hands trembling

slightly. There was no arrogance in him; his humiliation

seemed deeply genuine.

'Justin,' Mara murmured, her tone husky.

The boy gave his mother a glance that hinted at

rebellion.

Mara braced herself, but it was Arakasi who coached

the boy in her place.

'Majesty,' he said in a tone that grated like old rust,

'there are times to hold grudges, and other times to grant

clemency. I urge you to choose as a man, and as Emperor.

Consider wisely. This man who throws himself on your

mercy is the most brilliant foe I have ever known. You've

already pardoned every other enemy in the Nations, but this

one must be specially exempted. Either order him executed,

banish him for life, or swear him to your service and give

him a commission. He is far too dangerous to let run free

inside the Empire.'

Justin's red brows gathered into a frown. He thought long

and hard. 'I cannot decide,' he said at last. 'Mother, this man

has been responsible for more pain than any other. His life

is yours to dispose of as you will.'

The Lady in her red of mourning stirred. She regarded

the thinning hair of the man who crouched at her feet. It

took her a long time to speak. 'Rise, Chumaka.'

The prisoner obeyed, all of his cleverness absent. He

regarded the Lady whose choice would determine his fate,

and by the deep stillness in his eyes, all in the chamber could

see: he knew of no reason under heaven why she should

grant him reprieve. 'As my Lady wills,' he murmured in a

dead voice.

Mara's gaze bored into him. 'Answer me on your honor;

swear by your spirit that will be bound to the Wheel of Life

after this existence shall end: why did you do it?'

She did not specify which of his crimes he should answer

P

.

Impersal Councsl

843

for. Perhaps naming them separately was too hurtful to her.

More likely, she was too numbed by events to care; or else

she was guileful, leaving the selection to Chumaka, that she

could divine his deeper motives from his choice.

Chumaka's quick intellect floundered. He sighed, conceding

her the match. As she had questioned, so he

answered in general terms. And for the first time in his

long and disingenuous life, he spoke the plain truth. 'For

my master's service, in part. But in the main, for my love of

the Great Game, my Lady. In this, I served myself, not Jiro

or Tecuma before him. I was loyal to the House of Anasati,

yes, but also not; I did my Lord's bidding, but the joy of

manipulating politics was always my own, private thing.

You were the best the gods had placed upon the soil and

under the sun, and to defeat you' - he shrugged - 'would

have been the most glorious triumph in the history of the

Great Game.'

Arakasi sucked in a breath. Too plainly he had understood

the words of the antagonist who had come nearer

than any man to besting him at subterfuge and wit, murder

and plotting.

'That was my miscalculation,' he murmured, as if he and

Chumaka were alone. 'I presumed that you acted for your

master's honor. There was where you nearly had me: your

motive was ever your own at heart, and Jiro's honor be

damned.'

'Chumaka inclined his head. 'To win, yes, was always the

goal. The honor of the master is in victory.' Then he turned

back to Lady Mara. 'No one understands this better than

you, mistress. For the winner decides what is honor and

what is not.' He fell silent, awaiting pronouncement of his

sentence.

The Mistress of the Empire clasped taut hands in her lap.

She did not, in the end, speak for herself. 'Would you serve

the Empire, Chumaka?'

844 Mistress of the Empire

A fiery light shone in the former Anasati adviser's eyes.

'Gladly, mistress. Despite vows of obedience and loyalty,

many of those at your banquet drinking your wine tonight

will be plotting your overthrow tomorrow. Keeping this

new Empire from crumbling would be the greatest challenge

any man could face.'

Mara's gaze shifted to Arakasi. 'Would you entrust your

network to this man?'

The Spy Master of the Acoma narrowed his eyes and

answered with barely a hesitation. 'Yes. Better than I, he

could run my agents. His pride in his work would keep them

safer than I ever could, even before I lost my touch.'

Mara nodded to herself. 'So I thought. You had never

found your heart. We need not fear this happening to

Chumaka. He has none, save for his work.'

She faced Chumaka. 'You will take oath to serve your

Emperor as Spy Master. As punishment for your past crimes

against this Empire, and as penance, you will serve your new

Light of Heaven to the last breath in your body. Lord Keda

stands as witness.' As Chumaka regarded the ~remarkable

Lady who had large enough heart to forgive him for some of

the greatest sorrows in her life, and as disbelief gave way to

dawning joy, he lost the chance to thank her. She dismissed

him summarily, in the care of Lord Keda, to swear his oath

of fealty and set the words under the imperial seal.

As the Imperial Whites and the Chancellor left the

chamber, Mara and Justin were left alone with Arakasi.

The Lady regarded the remarkably talented man who had

taken innumerable guises, from the lowest scabby beggar

in the gutters, to the glittering gold-edged armor of an

elite warrior in Justin's retinue. All that she had achieved

she owed in part to him. His ability to perceive without

prejudice had served her more than loyalty, more than duty,

more than treasure or wealth. 'There is only one post left

unfilled,' she said at last, her mouth showing signs of a

:

Imperial Council

845

smile. 'Will you take the mantle of Imperial First Adviser?

I very much doubt there is any other man living with a fast

enough mind to keep Justin out of mischief'

Arakasi returned a grin that was startling for its spontaneity. '

What does Justin think?'

Mara and her former Spy Master glanced at the boy,

whose face was utterly crestfallen.

'

He thinks he will lose out in his escapades,' Mara

concluded with a laugh. 'Which decides the issue. Will

you accept, Arakasi?'

'I would be honored,' he replied solemnly. And then

delight showed through his facade. 'More; I would be

pleased.'

'Then prepare to begin your duties tomorrow,' Mara

finished. 'Tonight is yours, to seek out your lady Kamlio.'

Arakasi quirked up one brow in an expression no one

present had ever seen.

'What is it?' Mara asked gently. 'Has the girl rejected

your suit?'

Arakasi's manner became bemused. 'She has not. In fact,

she has agreed I may pay court to her - for a former courtesan,

she suddenly desires a large measure of propriety. Her

moods are still changeable, but she is no longer the sullen

child you took with you into Thuril.' He shook his head a

little in bemused wonder. 'Now she has discovered her selfworth,

it remains to be seen whether I am a match for her.'

'You are,' Mara assured him. 'I have seen. Do not doubt.'

Then she looked closely at the man whose thoughts had

stimulated hers to new heights and long leaps of revelation.

'You wish to ask a favor,' she guessed.

Arakasi looked uncharacteristically chagrined. 'As a

matter of fact, yes, I do.'

'Name it.' Mara said. 'If it is within my power to grant,

it is already yours.'

The man in the unobtrusive green-bordered robe, who

846 Mistress of the Empire

would soon wear the white and gold of imperial service,

smiled shyly. 'I would ask you to assign Kamlio's service

to Isashani of the Xacatecas,' he said in a rush of embarrassed

words.

Mara laughed outright. 'Brilliant!' she said when next she

could speak. 'Of course! No one, man or woman, has ever

escaped the charm of the dowager Lady of the Xacatecas.

Kamlio will do well with her, and you will gain a superbly

trained wife.'

Arakasi's eyes glittered. 'She will certainly become a

manipulator equal to my best effort.'

Mara waved him away. 'You need a woman of wits to

keep your acuity,' she chided fondly. 'Now go and tell Lady

Isashani that the most difficult match in all the Empire is

her bag of knots to untangle. She'll be delighted to oblige,

I am sure.'

'Why?' Justin demanded outright, as Arakasi made his

graceful bow and habitually silent exit. 'Do all women

amuse themselves in such fashion?'

The Mistress of the Empire sighed and gazed fondly upon

her son, whose frankness could be an embarrassment, for

his ability to set words to truths that were a breach of good

manners and all too often resulted in reddened ears. 'Visit

your predecessor's harem,-sometime, and you will see,' she

said. Then, as Justin's eyes took on an unholy gleam of

mischief, she added hastily, 'On second thought, that part

of your education can wait until you are grown. You are

too like your father to be set loose among rival women at

a tender age.'

'What do you mean?' Justin demanded.

Mara gave her son a faraway smile. 'When you are older,

and I am no longer your regent, you will see.'

The garden was secluded, a green haven of shade surrounded

by flowers and fountains. Mara wandered its

Imperial Council

847

paths, seeking peace. Hokanu walked at her side, from time

to time speaking, other times wrapped in silence. 'I shall

miss you,' he said, in a heart-wrenching shift of subject.

'And I you,' Mara said quickly, lest she lose her voice

entirely. 'More than I can say.'

Hokanu gave her back a brave smile, his loss carefully

walled away. 'You have certainly enlivened the gossip and

given Lady Isashani pause for thought. She will be busy

writing letters, and I will have to fend off the results of

her matchmaking.'

Mara tried to smile at his humor. 'You are the best a

woman could wish for in a husband. You gave love without

condition. You never held me back from my destiny.'

'No man could,' Hokanu admired wryly. Unspoken

behind his words was an anger for the works of Jiro's

assassin: if not for the tong's ugly poison, he would not

be losing the only woman who would ever match him

. . .

m sp~r~t.

Mara plucked a white flower, and Hokanu gently took

it from her. As he had once done before, he wound it in

her hair. There were light strands amid the black, now, that

matched the hue of the petals.

'You gave me a beautiful daughter to follow after me,'

Mara said. 'One day she will have brothers who are

your sons.'

Hokanu could only nod. After a long moment of just

walking at the Lady's side, he said, 'There is a certain

elegance in your being succeeded by Kasuma as Ruling

Lady.' His smile was bittersweet. 'Our daughter. My father

would be pleased to know that our children will rule two

great houses.'

'He is,' announced a voice.

Lord and Lady spun around in surprise. Deep in mystery

in his black robes, Fumita offered them both a bow. 'More

than you know . . . my son.' The admission of kinship was

848

Mistress of the Empire

not wrung from him, but a glad pronouncement that the

changed status of the Assembly now made possible. The

magicians stern face broke into a startlingly brilliant smile.

'Lady Mara, always think of yourself as my daughter' then

his manner became impassive, as he delivered his official

message. 'I asked to be the one to inform the Great Mistress

that the Assembly has voted. The decision was reluctant,

but the magicians concede to her demands. Our order will

be answerable to the new law, as set down by the Emperor

Justin over the Nations.'

Mara inclined her head in respect. She half expected

Fumita to effect the same abrupt departure that was his

habit when he saw his part as finished.

But as if his admission of kinship with his son had opened

the floodgates of change, this one time he lingered. 'My son,

my daughter, I^wish you both to know that your courageous

actions are approved. You have done Acoma and Shinzawai

honor. I only wish my brother- Hokanu's foster father were

still alive to bear witness.'

Hokanu kept an impassive face, but Mara could sense his

great pride. A crooked smile finally cracked his warrior's

facade, matched almost at once by a mirroring one from

Fumita. 'I guess none of the scions of House Shinzawai

are adept at keeping tradition,' the magician observed.

To Mara he added, 'You may never know how difficult

it has been, sometimes, for our kind to give up the life

we knew before our power was recognised. It is worse for

those like myself, who were grown men with families when

our power manifested. The Assembly's secrets have crippled

our emotions, I sometimes think. That has been a tragic

mistake. We were forced to wall away our feelings, and as

a consequence, acts of cruelty seemed removed from us. As

change refreshes us, we will reawaken to our humanity. In

the end, we of the Assembly will grow to have cause to

thank you, and to bless Lady Mara's memory.'

The Mistress of the Empire embraced the magician with

a familiarity she would never have dared before. 'Visit the

Imperial Court often, Fumita. Your granddaughter must

grow with the joy of knowing her grandfather.'

As if uncomfortable with the rush of feelings, for the gift

of a family restored, Fumita bowed brusquely. A heartbeat

later, he vanished in a breath of air, leaving Mara and

Hokanu alone to share a last moment of each other's

private company.

The fountains sang, and the flowers released their perfume

on the deepening evening air. The page who arrived

was an intrusion, as he made his bow and announced, 'My

Lady, the Light of Heaven requests the presence of his father,

and the Mistress of the Empire, for his council.'

'Politics,' Mara said with a sigh. 'Is it the dance or

ourselves that are the masters?'

'It is the dance that masters us, of course,' Hokanu smiled.

'Else I should never be leaving you, Lady.' Then he turned,

and presented his arm to his former wife. With a dignity

born of profound courage and unshakable inner peace, he

escorted her toward the imperial suite, and her new role as

Regent and Mistress of the Empire.

Epilogue

Reunion

The herald struck the gong.

Lady Mara, Mistress of the Empire, resettled her weight

on the gilt-edged cushion that failed to soften the unyielding

marble of her official seat on the imperial dais. Hers might

be less brilliant a throne than Justin's gold-overlaid one, but

it was no less uncomfortable. In two years of presiding over

Justin's public duties, she had never grown used to it.

Mara's thoughts drifted. Gaining in his experience on

the golden throne, Justin was more and more capable of

managing the decisions presented on the Day of Appeals.

He had his mother's talent for seeing the pattern in complex

issues, and his father's ability to cut to the heart of the

matter. Most of the time Mara served at his side more

in the role of adviser than Regent; sometimes she sat

lost in memories as she endured the lengthy hours of

state councils, trusting Justin to let her know when her

attention was needed.

Sundown was near, she saw by the slant of the light

through the dome in the grand hall of audience. The Day

of Appeals was at last drawing to a close. The last few

of the Emperor's petitioners approached the rail on the

floor below. Mara resisted the urge to rub tired eyes as

Justin, ninety-two times Emperor, called out the traditional

words that acknowledged his approaching subject's right

to be heard.

'Lord Hokanu of the Shinzawai, know that you have the

ear of the gods through our ear.' Justin's voice was breaking

to the baritone that would be his in manhood, but joy at the

arrival of his foster father caused him to forget to blush at

Reunion

851

the roughness that had invaded his speech. 'Heaven smiles

down upon the felicity of your visit, and we bid you glad

welcome.'

Mara started sharply from reverie. Hokanu was here!

Her heart leaped as she looked down to see how he fared.

Months had passed since their paths had last crossed at

a state function. The Shinzawai Lord had left the court,

she recalled, to attend upon his lady wife, who had been

pregnant with his heir.

Heirs, Mara was forced to correct herself, as the imperial

herald called out two names, and she reviewed the pair of

bundles borne in the arms of their father. A nurse and two

servants hovered nearby, and another, a slight, pretty girl

whose eyes were downcast and shy before the presence of

her Emperor.

Justin was grinning; another trait he had inherited from

his outworld father was spuming the Tsurani bent for

stiff-faced protocol. These days some of the younger nobles

were imitating him, affecting his animated expressions and

frank speech, as unmarried women might follow popular

fashion, much to the discomfort of the older Ruling Lords.

He gave his stately mother a mischieviously unroyal poke in

the ribs. 'Mother, you must have words for this occasion.'

Mara did not. She could only smile down on the proud

father for a long minute close to tears. The babies were

beautiful, perfect; if they could not have been hers to bear,

she blessed the gods that the quiet Elumani's fertility had

granted her husband's fierce desire. 'Sons?' Mara managed

to whisper at last.

Hokanu nodded, speechless. His eyes mirrored the joy

in her own, and also the aching regret. He missed Mara's

quick mind, and the ease of her company. Elumani was a

gentle girl, but she had not been chosen for fiery spirit.

Still, she had given what Mara could not: the House of

Shinzawai now had children for continuance of the line.

852 Mistress of the Empire

Hokanu had his boys, and they would grow and come to

replace the companionship he had lost.

The imperial herald cleared his throat. 'Lord Hokanu of

the Shinzawai, presenting to the Light of Heaven his heirs,

Kamatsu and Maro.'

Justin voiced the official acknowledgment of the children.

'May they grow in joy and strength, with the blessings'

of heaven.'

Mara found her voice. 'I am happy for you both. I~

Elumani, I am especially flattered and proud.' She paused,

deeply touched by the unexpected gift of having a namesake

of Hokanu's blood. She had to force herself not to weep a'

she continued. 'When your sons are old enough, I would k

pleased to have them visit the imperial nursery, and to enjoy,

making acquaintance with their half-sister, Kasuma.' ~

The tiny, auburn-haired girl at Hokanu's side gave a

graceful bow. She still did not raise her eyes, and th.

skin of her cheeks blushed pink at this royal recognition,

'I am deeply honored,' she said in a voice like a mellow.

songbird's. 'The Mistress of the Empire is too kind.'

All too soon the Shinzawai party were making bows d

parting to the Emperor. Mara gazed wistfully after the

blue-armored figure that strode out with all the warrior'

grace she remembered. Then her emotions overcame lied

She raised her ceremonial fan and tipped it open to hide

her sudden tears. Sons for the Shinzawai: they were no.

a fulfilled wish, more than a dream for the future of d.

Empire. Twins! Mara shook her head, bemused. It seemed.

as if the bounty of the gods outdid itself to make up ~for

the poor infant of hers who had died before birth. ~ ~

Her loneliness was now well worth such rewards. Sodni

Hokanu, spending time with him, was no longer possible

and she missed him, but a time would come when they could'

visit without pain, because deep friendship had formed the

heart of their marriage.

,.,

Reunion     853

Again the gong chimed. The imperial herald's voice rang

out, announcing the presentation of the newly arrived

ambassador from the Kingdom of the Isles, on the world

of Midkemia.

Mara stole a peek at the group who approached, then

raised her fan swiftly as her heart twisted yet again.

Never could she behold a group of men in outworld dress

without thinking of the barbarian lover who had tossed her

life tempestuously into change. Three of them were slender

and tall, and one even walked with the barest hitch to his

stride. That flawed movement tugged at her memory.

She chided herself. Too much, today, she had allowed

herself to become maudlin over past affairs of the heart.

She braced herself to endure greeting a man who would

be a stranger, who might speak Tsurani with the odd, nasal

twang of a Midkemian, and who,-though tall, would not be

Kevin. That these men did not wear slave's grey, but rather

the fine silks and rich velvets, with the blazon of the King

of Isle upon the tabards of the officers, made no difference.

Mara looked away, avoiding even imperfect reminders of

personal loss.

The ambassador from the Isles and his company reached

the rail. An official who had visited repeatedly in establishing

this exchange of envoys, Baron Michael of Krondor,

addressed the court. 'Your Majesty, it is my honor to present

to you the ambassador of the Kingdom of the Isles-' The

sudden silence caused Mara to look.

The ambassador. had one hand half raised to sweep off

his plumed hat and bow, in the style of his homeland. But

there he had frozen. His knuckles obscured his face. The

watching courtiers stilled also; a few of the nearer Imperial

Whites peculiarly struggled to hide amazement.

Then the barbarian ambassador doffed his hat and

bowed, slowly, his eyes never leaving Justin's face. A

murmur swept the court as he did so. Mara looked again

854 Mistress of the Empire

at the new ambassador, and her heart again seemed to

skip. The man who had reminded her of her lost love

was replacing his outlandish hat, with the white plume

and gold badge. Her eyes again threatened to betray her,

so she quickly fanned her face, lest rumors sweep the city

this night that the Imperial Regent had been given over to

unreasonable bouts of tears for no good reason. She heart

Baron Michael finish the introduction: '. . . emissary from

His Royal Highness Lyam, King of the Isles.'

'You may approach,' the Light of Heaven allowed,

sounding all boyishly treble. Mara heard movement as

the Imperial Whites stepped aside and opened the railing,

inviting the ambassador onto the dais to present his

credentials.

The Midkemian ascended the first stair. His booted footfall

rang across a chamber arrested into stillness. Carefully

Mara dosed her fan, as the emissary from the Kingdom of

the Isles mounted the last steps between them.

He paused three paces from the throne and swept into

another bow. This time his hat stayed off as he straightened.

Mara beheld his face.

A soft cry escaped her. The profile of the man, and that of

her son in his gold-edged robes of state, were mirror images

But where the boy's features were yet unlined, and only

lately beginning to mature into the firmness of adulthood"

the man's were well scored with creases, as fair skin will a0e

with passing years and too much sun. The once red hair we'

frosted now with white, and the eyes were wide, stunned.

The Mistress of the Empire saw fully. She was forced to

confront what all the Lords in the court had seen, from the

instant the ambassador had made his entry. Only the hat,

and the high angle of the dais, and the weak moment of

cowardice that had caused her to hide behind her fan had;

made her the last to discover just who stood before her with iR

an air of exasperated startlement. ; ~;

.$

Reun~on

855

'Kevin,' Mara mouthed soundlessly.

Arakasi, as Imperial First Adviser, stepped forward to

receive the ambassadorial credentials. Showing an unusual

grin, he said, 'You've changed.'

Recognition registered. With an answering laugh, Kevin

said, 'So have you. I didn't recognise you without a

disguise.'

With only the barest glance at the documents, Arakasi

turned and said, 'Your Majesty, before you stands the

ambassador from the King of the Isles, Kevin, Baron of

the Royal Court.'

Justin nodded and said, 'You are welcome,' but his voice

showed he, too, was dose to losing decorum. For before

him stood the blood father he had only heard about.

Mara's hand went to her mouth, as if to prevent words

from escaping unbidden. That smallest motion from her

caused a shiver to chase over Kevin's flesh. His eyes - so

much bluer than she recalled - turned toward her. His smile

warred with a frown on his familiar face that the years had

changed little, after all. 'I expected I might find you here,'

he said in husky, pent-back emotion that only those atop

the dais could hear. 'Who else in these Nations could fit

the title "Mistress of the Empire?" But this, your Light of

Heaven.' His large, capable hand indicated Justin, and his

eyes brightened to a knifepoint of intensity - 'Lady, why

ever didn't you tell me?'

The pair who had once been lovers might have been alone

in that vast hall.

Mara swallowed. Too clearly she recalled their last

parting: this man in the street, scuffed and half-beaten,

as he resisted the slave handlers who had acted on her

orders to send him by force back to his homeworld.

She had lacked the capacity for speech then. Now words

came to her in a rush. 'I didn't dare tell you. A son would

have kept you this side of the rift, and that would have

8S6 Mistress of the Empire

been a crime against all that you taught me to profess. You

would never have married, never have lived for yourself.

Justin has been raised knowing who his father was. Arc

you angry with me?'

'Justin,' Kevin repeated, trying the name out on hid

tongue. 'After my father?' As Mara gave back a timid nod,

he shot a glance that glowed at the boy who sat straight on

the golden throne. Then he shivered again. 'Angry?'

Mara flinched. He always had spoken at inopportune

moments, in a tone that rang too loud.

He looked at her, quieting his voice, though his inflection

was no less harsh. 'Yes, I am angry. I've been robbed. I'd:

have liked to watch my boy grow.'

Mara blushed. He had lost none of his ability to throw

her off balance. Forgetting to show demure Tsurani poise$

she defended herself 'You would never have had any other

children had I done so.'

Kevin slapped his hand against his knee. While still low,

his rejoinder was starting to carry to those standing at the

bottom of the dais. 'Lady, what is this talk of children? l:

have none! I never did marry. I took service in my Prince

Arutha's court - for a dozen years I've been fighting goblins

and dark elves with the border barons at Highcastle and

Northwarden. Then out of nowhere, I'm summoned to

Krondor, and told to my chagrin that when the Emperor

of Tsuranuanni requested an exchange of ambassadors; I

was overqualified for the post- I'm noble born, but beyond:

any chance of inheritance with older brothers and near

dozen nephews, and I speak fluent Tsurani. So my Kin'

commanded - or rather, Prince Arutha appointed on his

brother's behalf - and suddenly I'm a beribboned court;

baron, bowing like some sort of trained monkeY before;

my own son!'

Here the Midkemian ambassador turned to regard the

Emperor. His irritation modulated as he said, 'He does look

Reun~on

857

like me, doesn't he?' Then he grinned and tossed a wink at

Justin. The gaze he turned back to Mara was edged as ice

as his merriment faded again. 'I hope that your husband

doesn't come after me with a sword for this!' he finished

in that tone of dry mocking that could either delight or

enrage Mara.

The Mistress of the Empire blinked, realising how little

Kevin would know of dine-past fourteen years. 'Hokanu

fostered the boy, knowing the truth of his conception.'

Now Kevin looked dumbfounded in turn. 'Didn't I just

see the Lord of the Shinzawai outside, with a child bride,

and two babies?'

Mara nodded, past speech.

Never one to be caught speechless, Kevin said, 'You're

not married?' Mara could only shake her head no. 'Yet

you had a husband. What Tsurani convolution of traditions

is this?'

'It's called divorce on grounds of barrenness. Hokanu

needed heirs, for the stability of Justin's reign, and the Good

of the Nations. You just observed the result.' Mara shook

off the play of feelings that threatened to knock her dizzy.

She was in public, in full view of the court; her image as a

Lady and a Tsurani must be laughable at this moment.

Taking his cue from Mara, Arakasi called out,'The Day

of Appeals is at an end. Let all retire and give thanks for our

Light of Heaven.' Then began a very slow withdrawal, as

most of the court nobles lingered, curious to overhear the

strange exchange taking place atop the imperial dais. The

cadre of Midkemian nobles who had accompanied Kevin

exchanged uncertain signals, unsure if they should wait for

their leader or withdraw without him.

Mara saw a hundred pairs of eyes turned toward her,

to see how she would react next. And then, suddenly,

she did not care. She assumed her most dignified, formal

posture. 'Kevin, Baron of the Court, Ambassador of the

858 Mistress of the Empir

Midkemian King of the Isles, I have been remiss in m'

duties as a mother. I present to you your blood vent

Justin, ninety-two times Emperor, and Light of Heaven

of Tsuranuanni. I humbly pray he is fair in your sight, and

an honor to your family pride.'

The senior imperial herald, eyes wide in astonishment at

what he had just heard, glanced at Arakasi for instruction.

The Imperial First Adviser shrugged and nodded, and the

herald raised his voice to ring out over the assembled

Tsurani nobles. 'Kevin of Rillanon, ambassador of King

Lyam, and father of our own Light of Heaven!'

Lady Mara was jolted almost out of her skin by the ~

noise of a resounding cheer from the younger nobles of

the court, who were halfway to the great outer doors.

They flooded back toward the railing and began stamping

and clapping their approval. More than any other thing

that impressed upon Mara how swiftly two short years of

changed policies were taking deeper root: for there was

but one way for a Midkemian to have become the father

of a fourteen-year-old boy: if he had visited the Empire

previously as a slave and a prisoner of war.

It had not been long in the past when the idea of a

slave's child becoming Emperor would have been cause for

bloody rebellion, a war over insult and honor that had no

point beyond an excuse for each Lord who harbored secret:

ambitions to see his house triumph over his enemies.

But as Mara studied the faces on the floor below, she saw:

mostly bemusement, surprise, and honest admiration. To all

but a narrow-minded few, the Laws of the Great Freedom

were already coming to replace the Game of the Council.

More sons of nobles sought out imperial duty rather than

serving with their family's forces. It was these young men,

breaking free of the traditions of their ancestors, who

cheered the loudest.

Once again, Mara had done the unthinkable. Her people

.

Rcunior'

859

of the Empire were coming to expect that of her, so adept

had they grown at taking such turns in their stride.

And then Justin was off his throne, discarding his mantle

and headdress into the care of his body servant. He flung

himself into the arms of the father he had never known, but

whose name had become a legend spoken in awed tones by

the older Acoma servants.

Mara looked on, new tears brightening her eyes, until

Kevin's huge arm hooked out and hauled her off her

cushion to share in a three-way embrace.

The Lady was startled into laughter. She had forgotten

how impulsive he was, and how overwhelmingly strong.

'Mistress of the Empire,' he murmured over a redoubled

volume of cheers. 'You are a Lady of surprises! I trust I will

have the chance to spend time in the imperial suite, getting

to know my son, and renewing old acquaintance with his

mother?'

Mara took a deep breach, smelling the odd taint of

off-world fur, and strange spices, and velvets that were

woven on looms far away, in a colder land that someday she

must journey across the rift to visit. Her blood quickened to

a beat of passion that all but swept her from her feet. 'You

will have a lifetime to share with your son,' she murmured

to Kevin so that only he could hear. 'And all the years you

could desire in the company of his mother, so long as your

King permits.'

Kevin laughed. 'Lyam's glad to be rid of me, I think.

Things are too quiet on the border for a troublemaker like

me.' Then he pulled her tight against him, for the simple

joy of holding her.

The temple gongs rang out over the Holy City at that

moment Sweet music sounded over the Imperial Precinct,

as the priests of the Twenty Greater Gods sang their

devotions at evening. Officially, the Day of Appeals was

at an end.

56u Mistress of the Empire

Kevin drew back and smiled upon the Lady who had

never for a day lost her hold upon his heart. 'You are

mistress of far more than this Empire,' he said, laughing,

and the cheers from the Lords of Tsuranuanni did not stop .

as he led her and his Emperor son, hand in hand, down

from the high dais.





