"You are a Singer? A shaman?"
He shrugged. "I never went to the gods" lands, if that is what you mean. But I learned from him as much as there was time to learn, about the-art-of saber." He grinned. "I like this word, martial artist. You khaja are always surprising me. I thought you weren't civilized."
Dr. Hierakis laughed and withdrew her light from his face. "That's all. What news from the council?"
Aleksi also liked her brusqueness and the way she came straight to the point and never hemmed and hawed about the least detail. "The main army, with Bakhtiian, rides to Karkand. Sakhalin rides south. Grekov and Vershinin ride west past Karkand. Nadine will ride north to escort the prince back here."
"Oh," said the doctor.
"Will he know this before she arrives?" Aleksi asked.
Dr. Hierakis laughed. "Yes. We have a way of talking that can send a message faster than the fastest horseman can ride. You see the image of Morava, there?" He nodded. "That isn't an image modeled out of the memory, but a real image, sent to us by Marco Burckhardt from half a kilometer away from the palace. He sent it this morning."
Aleksi regarded the image of Morava. The view looked down the long avenue that led to the front of the shrine. He could just make out the sweep of white stairs framed by thin black pillars that led to the huge doors embroidered with tracery and fine patterns. "But, Doctor," he said, "if you can send messages so quickly, why not show Bakhtiian how to do this thing as well? If his generals could speak together like this, then imagine what they could do."
"Oh, I can imagine it," said the doctor. "But we've done too much already. Casualties are high, of course, but deaths are low. We're saving and healing a much higher percentage of the wounded than would have survived without my training. And yet, and yet, I can't just stand by and watch them die, knowing that with a little knowledge they could be saved. What of the khaja living in the army's path? But I can't reach them. I can't reach everyone. Not yet."
The doctor often talked to herself like this, to him and yet to herself and to some unnamed audience which Aleksi supposed was both her conscience and the absent prince, with whom she shared more than simple friendship and loyalty. He knew some vital issue troubled her, but he had not yet puzzled out what it was. And if she and the prince did not want to share this swift messenger they hoarded between them, after all, why should they? They owed Bakhtiian nothing. Aleksi did not think they were Bakhtiian's enemies, but neither did he think they were Bakhtiian's friends. Allies, perhaps, because of Tess, but it was an uneasy truce. They were only here because Tess was here. Even Bakhtiian knew mat. They needed no alliance with Bakhtiian, and certainly with such machines, they had nothing to fear from him, however powerful and vast his army might be. Jeds was a long ride away, according to both Tess and Nadine, according to Bakhtiian himself.
But if Tess left, if the prince and Dr. Hierakis convinced her to go, Aleksi had long since promised himself that by one means or another, whatever he must do, he would go with her.
CHAPTER SIX
At first the color gray, like a fog, sank in around them. Fog lifted to become mist, and through the mist towers appeared, rising up toward the sky in such profusion that they might have been the uplifted lances of the jaran army, one hundred thousand strong.
But to call them towers did them no justice. Not one tower looked like any other tower. Each possessed such striking individuality that even from this distance-from this relative distance, seated on the floor and staring into the three-dimensional field of Hon Echido's Jke's representation of the palace of the Chapalii Emperor-David could distinguish some characteristic in each tower his eye had time to light on that set it apart from the others. Why had they chosen to do that? So many and yet each unique? David thought of the Chapalii as so bound by the hierarchy of their social order that he would never have guessed that they valued diversity.
"The Yaochalii reigns forever."
Was that Echido talking, or a voice encoded through the image building in front of them? David couldn't tell. The image itself wore such depth and reality that he could easily imagine himself actually transported there, staring at the city from high above. He recalled the emperor's visit to Charles and Tai Naroshi-or their visit to the emperor. Maybe he was there. The thought made him giddy.
"For time uncounted, years beyond years, has the Yaochalii reigned, and so will he reign, for time uncounted, years beyond years."
It was hard for David to judge distance because of the scale and the slowly turning field of the image, but in any case, the city was huge. Of course, it wasn't actually a city; it was the palace of the emperor, a megalopolis by human standards and yet devoted entirely to the emperor and his business. Had it once been a real city? As the Chapalii Empire had expanded out into space, had it been abandoned bit by bit, or had the emperor decreed it so and forced the evacuation? The Chapalii home world of Chapal was the emperor's world alone now. Or at least, so the Protocol Office said. No other cities existed there, although this one was itself the size of a small continent.
"The Yaochalii holds his gentle hand over vast territories. The docks of Paladia Minor flow with ships. Merchants spin the heavens with their web of commerce. Lords preside with wisdom over their houses. Dukes administer justly. The princes are at peace. Each lord, each duke, each prince, sends a woman of his house to build a tower for the Yaochalii's pleasure, so that the emperor may rise in the evening and see a thousand thousand lights set upon his earth to rival the thousand thousand lights that are the markers of his domain in the heavens."
Beside him, Maggie covered her mouth with a hand and muffled a cough. Night descended on the field. The towers burned in brilliance, each one a star, reflecting the stars above. Great tiers of darkness blanketed the interstices between the blazing towers, and as the field lightened into day again, David recognized these as concourses and avenues and colonnades and gardens and labyrinths and ornamental terraces and every kind of engineering marvel, laid out in breathtaking extravagance and detail, more than he had modeled or imitated or- perhaps, just perhaps-dreamt of in his extensive studies.
"In these days comes the Tai-en Mushai to Sorrowing Tower. Thus does he choose to walk on his own feet into Reckless Tower, and so by his actions does he bring himself to Shame Tower. Thus does his name pass through the rite of extinction, and his house is obliterated forever."
"Under which emperor did this happen?" asked Charles out of the darkness on the other side of the brightening field.
"All things happen under the eye of the Yaochalii, Tai-en," replied Echido.
"What was the emperor's name? Was he related to the Yaochalii-en who now graces the throne? What princely house did the emperor of that time come from?"
"I beg your pardon, Tai-en. Once a prince becomes emperor, then he becomes the Yaochalii-en. He has no other name. What he was before is lost to him. All he had before is lost to him. He brings nothing with him, nor does he leave the throne with anything but his shroud. Thus is each emperor the same, and thus is the line of the Yaochalii unbroken."
"What about his family?" Maggie asked.
"The Yaochalii has no family. He is the Empire. All of us are his house."
"But-what if he was married? Had children? Siblings? A favored steward?"
"All that he had before," repeated Echido, as if it were catechism, "is lost to him."
Marco whistled under his breath. "That'll teach you to have ambition," he said softly. "There's not much advantage in it, is there, if you have to give up everything to become emperor?"