There was a beat of silence in the little ship’s combat center.
“Well?” Thorella demanded angrily.
“Warspite’s gone, sir,” the captain said quietly. How many thousands of sailors had died in these last hours, he thought, and this fool was not even aware of the destruction of the fleet’s flagship. “We won’t be getting any confirmation – or anything else, for that matter – from her. Southampton’s flying Admiral Laskowski’s flag, now. She’s in overall command.”
“Contact Southampton, then!” Thorella ordered, angered by the man’s impertinence. The significance of what he had just said, that the Confederation fleet had lost its flagship, was lost in the immediacy of finding out what had happened to the president.
A few moments passed, in which the necessary inquiries were made. “Southampton cannot confirm the president’s safe transfer to the Golden Pearl,” the comms officer announced. “They only know he was supposed to board her.”
That clinched it. “Take us into that landing bay,” he ordered the ship’s captain, “and set us down beside the yacht. Lieutenant Riggs,” he said to the leader of the command ship’s platoon of Marines, “I want your platoon standing by to secure this ship from attack, but no one is to enter the Golden Pearl without my express permission.” There were things in the yacht that he would rather not have the Marines see, lest they start asking awkward questions. “Is that understood?”
The ship captain nodded unenthusiastically, convinced the Marine general had just lost the last of his marbles, while the Marine second lieutenant, fresh from training and eager to please, barked a hearty, “Yes, sir!”
It took only a few minutes for the command ship to reach its destination. Thorella had already gone over the status of his units with the ops officer. He had hoped that there would be at least a single regiment free to leapfrog up to what looked like undefended high ground. But they were all heading to their primary and secondary objectives, already a long way from their dropships.
Thorella would be on his own.
Fifty-Seven
The climb up the steps had left the humans out of breath by the time they reached the top. When Enya had asked the question of the practicality of an elevator, Shera-Khan shook his head in a practiced human gesture.
“The Empress ascends to the throne each day step by step,” he told her in Standard, “a symbol that She favors none, that She loves all of Her Children. Great warrior or simple porter of water, the highest among the peers or the lowest, She considers the needs of each on Her way to the throne.”
“I wish our own leaders cared as much for their people,” Braddock murmured.
But any thoughts of the climb vanished when they reached the great dais. The view, like being atop a mountain peak overlooking a forest of priceless art, would have been stunning were it not for the malevolent wall of cyan light that swirled in front of them. The thunder of bombs exploding outside, in the city, reverberated throughout the great dome just as the first hint of smoke reached them, here at the pinnacle of the Empire’s heart.
“I can feel them,” Nicole murmured as she looked into the swirling blue wall before them. She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the sensation of unseen eyes watching her, unblinking, hostile.
“You must wait here,” Reza told them as he drew his sword. He, too, could feel them, the Guardians. He felt a surge of heat through his body and heard the faint strains of the lonely solo that had been his Bloodsong for longer than he cared to remember. This shall be my final Challenge, he knew. “No matter what happens,” he told them, “do not go into the light. Do not so much as touch it. If I fail…” he paused, “If I fail, return to the ship as fast as you can and try to return to human space. There will be nothing left for you here but death.”
“Reza,” Nicole said softly beside him. He turned to her, and was met by warm lips pressing against his. “Good luck, Reza,” she said, then stepped back with the others.
It was time. Without hesitation, he stepped forward into the eerie wall of light.
The place, he knew welclass="underline" the temple of the Desh-Ka, high upon the mountain of Kular-Arash. But it was not the ancient ruin where in his youth he had been transformed into something more than a man, where he had bound himself to a woman not of his race. No, the temple in which he now stood was new, immaculate, filled with the power of the great warriors who dwelled there. This was the prize of their warrior civilization in its youth, its full glory.
Standing in the sand of the great arena, the glare of the sun was shaded by the dome that would last for another hundred thousand years. Reza saw that he was not alone. Before him, standing like a pillar at the far side of the arena, was a lone male warrior.
“Tara-Khan,” Reza breathed. He did not need to see the symbols inscribed on the other warrior’s collar to know his name or who he was. He was known to all Kreela who had come after him, for he was the greatest of the warriors ever to have fought for Her honor, in all the days of the Empire. He had been Keel-Tath’s love, Her life. And here, in this place that was a dream that could yet draw blood, he was Her guardian, the last of the host She had taken with Her.
The warrior nodded. “Indeed,” he said in a voice of ages-long sadness, “it is so.”
Beyond Tara-Khan, Reza could see the dais at the head of the arena, where the world of the real and that of the spirit converged. And on it lay a figure in white. “The Empress,” he whispered, his heart falling away at the sight of Esah-Zhurah’s still body. She lay upon the dark marble altar at the center of the dais, draped in Her white robes, the thin gold collar gleaming from around Her neck. Reza could see the black mourning marks that ran from her eyes like rivers of sorrow against the snow white hair that lay in carefully coiled braids around her shoulders. Her breast rose and fell slowly, slowly, as her lungs labored on, and Her broken heart forced life through unwilling veins.
Turning back to Tara-Khan, he challenged, “And by what right do you stand before me?”
Tara-Khan’s eyes followed Reza’s to the still form of the vessel of Keel-Tath’s spirit. “I stand here as Her last guardian and protector, an instrument of Her will,” he said quietly. “This is my honor, Reza, to defend Her. The others are gone now. Only I remain.” He turned his eyes back to Reza. “Long have I slept beside Her spirit in the Darkness until this, the day of redemption, of the final combat. It is my honor to see that you are worthy.”
“And if you slay me this day,” Reza asked, “what is to become of Her?”
“The Empress shall perish,” Tara-Khan rasped miserably, “and with Her the Empire, our very souls cast into the pit of emptiness from which there shall be no escape for all eternity.” He smiled. “But do not fear, young one,” he said. “I have listened to your heart, your spirit; your love is true. But this, your final covenant with Her, must be made afresh in blood. This is as She long ago willed, and so shall it be.”
“Let me pass, Tara-Khan,” Reza implored him. “There has been enough death this day. Let me reach Her, that the lost may be saved, that the Empire shall not perish.”
Setting his hand upon the grip of his great sword, whose blade had slain countless foes in ages past, Tara-Khan replied, “Fated by Her own hand were you to be here this day, to fulfill the Prophecy. But beware: there are no guarantees. I can pass none until they are proven worthy, until they can best my sword.”