None of which accounted for the rather public and often bloody conflicts of the vaunted Forums-one for the Estate Lords and the other the “voice of the common elf”-whatever that was supposed to mean.
Soen shook his head and smiled. By the Emperor’s Will, it all works perfectly.
The Inquisitor came to the end of the Vira Rhonas and stepped onto the Gods’ Bridge. It was one of the oldest bridges of the nine crossing the Jolnar and led to the oldest part of the city, the Isle of the Gods. It was not a terribly impressive island, as such; it sat as a rocky spit of ground between two branches of the River Jolnar that obligingly flowed around it. Still, as legend would have it, it was the place where Rhonas drove his spear into the ground and declared this spot to be where he would found his Empire. The first temples were built here. There were newer and more spacious temples in the districts beyond Tsujen’s Wall, but the temples on this sliver of land were still the most revered by the Rhonasians. Soen crossed the bridge and passed among the ancient buildings. The Occuran made their home here, a privilege granted them by the Emperor just short of one hundred years ago, but now their favor was waning, and Soen wondered just how long it would be before the Imperial Will got around to evicting the Occuran as neighbors to the gods and just what the Occuran would do about it.
Soen crossed the small island and came to the North Bridge. On the other side of the river rose the squat, angular walls of the Old Keep. They were designed in a time before the Aether, when war was waged as it should be: with hand on steel. It was the oldest structure in the city and the home of his own Order.
Soen took in a deep breath. Ministries, Orders, Estates. . by the Emperor’s Will, all worked perfectly because it was the Emperor’s will that it be so. To say otherwise was treason. To think otherwise was disloyal. To be otherwise was unacceptable.
So the perfection was maintained not in practice but in perception. The knowledge that the current Emperor ascended to the throne by murdering the previous Emperor as he was distracted by his lust for the wife of a recently assassinated Guild Master was not “working toward the Imperial Will.” Indeed, that the entire history of the Rhonas Empire was filled with such unpleasant, vicious, horrifying events was also seen as “not working toward the Imperial Will.” This concern for the solidarity, security, and loyalty of the greatest elven nation in all history extended itself down through every ministry, Order, and Estate as well. Anything unpleasant need not be true if it is not known. So their own histories were constantly rewritten for the sake of “working toward the Imperial Will.”
Each part of the body politic played a vital role but, to Soen, none so important as the role his own Order played nor so dangerous.
The Iblisi alone existed to know the truth. . and it was their task to make sure that no one discovered it.
CHAPTER 17
The old keep was a misnomer; it was more of a fortress than a keep proper. The angular path of its massive outer walls combined with those of matching trenches designed to both stop the enemy and inflict as much damage on them as possible. It was the oldest remaining structure in the city, said by many to have been built by the hand of the first emperor, Rhon Sah-Tseu himself. The Keep’s antiquity was apparent at a single glance, for it lacked the grace and fine, curving lines of the more recent structures of the Empire. To the critical elven eye it was vaguely offensive as a brutish, massive, and graceless pile of carefully fitted stones that was an unpleasant reminder of dark origins best forgotten.
Soen never failed to smile at the irony of the thought each time he crossed the courtyard of the Keep, for now the building itself fulfilled that same function which its visage inspired. Within its walls, Soen knew, were kept all the “unpleasant reminders” of their dark origins safely hidden from view.
The Inquisitor stepped through the dark archway of an angular tower and with rapid steps made his way down a worn circular staircase. Under any other circumstances he would have already been removing the ceremonial trappings of his official robes. There were books, scrolls, maps, and tapestries in the Forbidden Grotto that were calling to him. He longed to lose the present in the writings of the past but he had one final duty to perform before he could comfortably claim some time for himself.
So, he turned off the staircase-how marvelous to have to use stairs, he thought-and made his way down the long central corridor. Several of his fellow Inquisitors passed him, though none acknowledged him in any way. It was just another sign in a long and seemingly endless series of signs that his presence here was considered unearned and unwelcome. It was of no real concern to him if they didn’t want him here. He didn’t want to be here either.
The corridor opened into a large antechamber, but waiting was not Soen’s intention. He turned at once to the black doors of oiled wood and pulled them open.
“Ah, Inquisitor Soen Tjen-rei.” The raspy, alto voice came from the far end of the chamber, dark as the polished slate of the floor over which it rolled.
“Keeper Ch’drei,” Soen replied, bowing deeply. “I have come to report on the proceedings of today’s audience between the Emperor and. .”
“No.” Ch’drei held up her pale hand. “Close the doors behind you. There are too many ears who prey on my words.”
Soen stopped speaking at once. He was a trained observer and knew when it was time to talk, when it was time to listen. “You learn more when you stop speaking” was a motto that had served him well.
He quietly closed the heavy doors, then turned back to face into the hall again. The room did not have the vaulted ceilings so prized in later architecture. Like the fortress surrounding it, the Keeper’s Hall was oppressive, its ceiling hanging low overhead and supported by thick, squat pillars. The walls of the room were dark so that the glowing light from the globe sconces on each pillar was swallowed up in the blackness. At the end of the hall, opposite the entrance doors, sat the throne of the Keeper atop three steps of a dais. Three steps were all it could afford without forcing the Keeper to strike her head on the low ceiling whenever she stood.
On that throne, Ch’drei pressed the long fingers of her hands together. The Keeper was old, even among elves. The skin of her face and long forehead looked almost transparent. It sagged in places and seemed to have been pulled too tightly in others. The mane of her hair seemed to float around her skull like a fine mist. Her lips were drawn back in her age, exposing her teeth in what might too easily have been mistaken for a grin. She stooped over as she sat on the Throne of the Oracle, her body curling forward around her arching spine. She looked frail, but Soen knew better. The Keeper’s featureless eyes were still shining and as black as a grave. Soen knew that there were those who had thought it was time for the Keeper to. . well, relinquish her position in favor of younger, more dynamic individuals such as they themselves presented. Those who had sought the Keeper’s forced retirement were no longer available to testify regarding how they were stopped in their assassination plots; they had simply disappeared.