“Surely all tremble in your divine presence.”
“I have asked you to please spare me the mock humility Tamara. Now I am commanding you to.”
“To hear is to obey. Who is it that worries you so, Majesty?”
“You have come from his presence.”
“Xephan? Surely you have but to dismiss him from his post. He is your creature, Majesty. You made him. You can break him.”
“I promoted him as a counter-balance to your father — that is true. The young are ever ambitious and seek to prove themselves. Your father was of the old breed, and was thought too conservative for this new age.”
“Sometimes it is best to stand by that which is time tested.”
“It has taken me some time to appreciate that.”
“Why do you fear Lord Xephan is disloyal, Majesty?”
“He has grown arrogant, and he has grown powerful.”
“Dismiss him.”
“I wrote a warrant of dismissal. My chamberlains did not deliver it.”
Shock rippled through Tamara. It was unheard of for the chamberlains to disobey the reigning Empress. “Dismiss your chamberlains,” Tamara suggested. “Have your guards scourge them and drive them from the Palace.”
“I fear my guards would not obey. I have not dared give the order. I am a prisoner in my own Palace.”
Tamara’s mind whirled. What game was being played here? Was the Empress testing her, or was Xephan really so powerful? Perhaps this whole audience had been arranged simply to show her that power. Deadly currents swirled here. She needed to be careful and cautious. The Empress seemed almost embarrassed by what she had said.
“And there are other reasons for not making the attempt. We are at war with the West now. Any show of disunity would be disastrous.” Tamara thought she saw a scared woman saving face, but chose to disregard the intuition. After all, the Empress might just be acting, or saying these things for reasons of her own. What had happened at Court while she was in the West, Tamara wondered?
“Your Majesty’s words are wise.” Tamara calculated swiftly. It would not be the first time a faction had grown over-powerful at Court. It had happened with Asea and Azaar, and with her own father, but in the end an Empress could always outwait her followers. She held the divine mandate after all, and while circumstances always changed, the bedrock truth of Terrarch society was that the Empress was the chosen one.
“There are times when I think I was the only one who did not want this war,” said Arachne. Tamara wondered at the bare-faced effrontery of that statement. She could never recall the Empress objecting to war in any shape or form before now. Still, it would not pay to point that out. What the Empress chose to believe was the truth. “But your father was for it, and Xephan was for it, all my advisors counselled it.”
“Your Majesty has doubts now?”
“It seems all our clever plans have gone awry. The hill men did not rise. The Harvenites are against us, not with us. Now we try sorcery and this plague is a two edged sword.”
Tamara thought she could see what was really bothering the Empress. No one liked to be associated with failure. If the war was going wrong, it did nothing for the prestige of the throne. She also noted that most of these plans were ones associated with her father, and his desperate schemes to clamber back into the seat of power.
“With all due respect, Majesty, the Harvenites are against everybody. The Quan have closed the Northern sea lanes to all.”
“We do not know that, Tamara. Not for certain. All we know is that they have closed them to us. How do we know that the Taloreans are similarly blockaded?”
“Surely your Majesty has sources of information?”
“Our spy networks have not proven entirely reliable recently.” Another veiled criticism of her father, Tamara thought. Malkior had been responsible for setting up most of those networks. She was starting to wonder whether the Empress has summoned her simply to work out her frustration with the father on the daughter. She studied the Empress closely, taking in Arachne’s body language and expression in the way her father had taught her and decided it was not the case. The Empress really was scared.
And why not? For the first time the enormity of these matters washed over Tamara. If the war with Talorea was lost, the Empress would lose the throne on which she had sat for centuries, and probably even her life. For her, this was an enormous gamble. If they won, she would certainly eliminate her sister. She must expect Arielle to do the same to her.
Tamara tried to see matters as if she were the Empress, cocooned in power and privilege for centuries, and threatened with the loss of what for her would be nothing less than her entire world. Suddenly, the impact of Kathea’s death became understandable, a reminder that even royalty were mortal in the end, that the deadly political game could claim even the lives of those who thought of themselves as players not pawns, that these games were more than a simple amusement to while away the ennui of centuries long lives. The Empress had every reason to be nervous.
“Lord Xephan intends to win the war.”
“I am sure he does,” Tamara said, not bothering to hide the irony this time.
“I am wary of clever schemes for winning wars.”
“That seems wise, Majesty.”
“Tell me honestly Tamara, do you think we can win? You have been in the West recently. You know what they are like.”
Tamara thought about what she had seen. She thought of the great armies, and the bustling cities, and the endless industry of the humans. She pictured the destruction of the Serpent Tower, and Lord Azaar, and Asea and Rik.
“The West is stronger than we were led to believe, Majesty. My father thought they were weak, giving way to the humans as they do. I am not so sure.”
Arachne looked at her. “Such talk could be construed as treason.”
Tamara held her gaze, sensing the Queen-Empress’s nervousness and need to find an outlet for it. Telling rulers what they did not want to hear had always been a quick route to the headsman’s block, and in effect she had just told Arachne there was a possibility that she too might end up losing her head. “Your Majesty asked me for my opinion. I have been honest. I may be wrong but I am merely thinking about what I have seen.”
The Empress became aware of the threat implicit in what she had said, and moved to correct matters. “I appreciate that, and you need have no fear of telling me the truth as you see it.”
It was all Tamara could do to keep from smiling sourly. “What is Lord Xephan’s plan?”
“It is an abomination in the eyes of God, and it might grant us victory. But if it fails…”
Tamara waited for the Empress to explain herself. Arachne let out a long sigh, placed her hands together as if praying and looked at the floor. For a long time she said nothing and when the words came forth her voice was little more than a croak, as if she had trouble forcing the words through her lips.
“There is a chamber in the vaults beneath this Palace where a dozen sorcerers work day and night casting the most potent spell ever shaped on this world.”
Tamara thought she knew where this was going but decided to ask, for the sake of form. “What is the purpose of this spell?”
“Plague and genocide,” she said.
“What?” Tamara was too startled to show the proper forms of respect.
“Plague and genocide. It has already begun. His sorcerers are spreading a new disease, one that kills humans and brings them back as walking dead.”
“That is madness. I have seen these walking dead. They are monsters — a threat to everyone.”
“He has the means to control them. The magic will be invoked soon. The plague is merely the first phase of his plan.”