“And now you have told me a story, too,” Drakis said. “And I still don’t know you.”
“How is that possible when each of us has barely had time enough to know ourselves?” Ethis replied. “Let’s find the others. Murialis always puts a good meal on the table for her guests, and as we are apparently bound for Vestasia, we should avail ourselves of her hospitality as much as possible. Vestasia is a wild land, and that part of our journey will be difficult.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“And you shouldn’t,” the chimerian went on, “but then I think that’s sound advice in general-don’t trust anybody.”
CHAPTER 30
Ch’drei settled once more on her throne in the heart of the Iblisi Keep and permitted herself a grateful sigh.
It was an entirely familiar place, and she was thankful to enjoy it again. In her younger days she, too, had been numbered among the Inquisitors who ranged across the wide lands and seas wherever the influence of the Rhonas was extended and often far beyond. But age and the politics of the Imperial City had eroded her enthusiasm for distant horizons and new vistas. She preferred that the reports of such places came to her here in the center of political life. Better to hear of the open sky than to experience it; rather the world be brought to her than she leave her lair to see it herself.
There were, however, those rare occasions when a journey beyond Tsujen’s Wall was required. . as when the truth to be learned needed to be kept to herself and as few others as possible. This business with Soen on the Western Frontier was one such time. Yet whenever she was required to travel, she was comforted along the road by thoughts of this place. . that all her journeys would end back here in the quiet darkness of her court deep beneath the ancient stones of the Old Keep. The darkness better suited her purposes and the decisions that she was required to make for the good of the Empire.
It felt much like a tomb, she mused, and where better to bury the truth than with the dead?
Truth, after all, was the province of the Iblisi. The Imperial Will had from its inception altered the public perception of its past. Lie upon lie was told in the interest of the greater good and the Will of the Emperor until any concept of the actual truth was becoming lost. Even the Imperial Family of the Rhonas had begun to lose track of which lies it had told on top of other lies, and too often real truth would surface to the detriment of the state.
It was during the Age of Mists, Ch’drei recalled, that the Scrolls of Xathos came to the elves. The legends every elf knew by heart told of the great Rhonas, father of their Empire, wresting the scrolls from the gods in a challenge of wits and physical strength and founding the magic on which the Empire would be forged. Its epic tale made Rhonas the undisputed leader of the elves trying to conquer a land that was then called Palandria.
But the truth was that the Scrolls of Xathos were bartered from a group of manticores who had no concept of their worth as they were capable neither of reading the scrolls nor of reproducing the magic even if they could read. They had stolen those scrolls centuries before from the chimera in Ephindria who themselves had stolen them from the humans of Drakosia beyond the Erebus Straits to the north.
But the truth would not make Rhonas a mythic emperor.
So it was that early in the burgeoning Rhonas state nearly eighteen hundred years ago, it was decided that one group would be tasked with keeping the actual truth intact against those times when new lies had to be crafted in the face of reality. After all, a lie based on a truth is far more effective than one made up entirely of whole cloth. The truth-a powerful and dangerous thing-would be kept safely hidden from the general populace and often from the guilds and Orders of the Empire as well when it was in the interests of the Imperial Will.
The Guardians of the Imperial Family-the Iblisi-were originally charged with this task, and for nearly two millennia they labored tirelessly as Keepers of the Truth and the touchstones of the Imperial Will. The histories were written and rewritten, torn down and written once again to shape the minds of the Rhonas elves to support whatever the current political climate wished to be true in the public heart. Yet through it all, the Iblisi remained the keepers of the true past and the black, violent, and immoral bloody treacheries that were the constant tempo of the real Rhonas histories.
The Age of Frost, the Age of Mists, the Age of Fire. . all were chronicled in gory, terrible detail and then buried here; buried for the good of the citizens of every Estate and the welfare of the Imperial Rule.
Yet unbeknownst to the many guilds, Imperial Orders and ministries of the Empire-even to the Emperor’s own thoughts-was the deepest truth of alclass="underline" that for many years the Iblisi were not as concerned with safeguarding the past as they were with avoiding destiny.
The Empire was doomed; the Iblisi alone knew it, and they alone had any hope of preventing it.
Prevent it, Ch’drei thought as she sat on her throne, at any cost.
The doors opposite her opened with a terrible booming sound that echoed between the squat pillars of the hall. The Keeper smiled graciously at the figure approaching her with determined, quick strides.
“Inquisitor Soen,” Ch’drei said through a smile. “How good of you to pay your. .”
“Keeper Ch’drei!” Soen angrily cut across the Keeper’s words. “Why am I here?”
The Keeper drew in a breath before she lightly responded. “Why, my very question to you, Inquisitor. . why are you here?”
Soen ignored her attempt to blunt his anger. “Three weeks! Three weeks since we returned from the Hyperian Plain and still I’m kept in the Imperial City like some shackled animal!”
“Hardly shackled! I would have thought you might have taken more time to recover from your journey. . or at least reacquaint yourself with the pleasures of Rhonas.”
“You know that the city holds no interest for me. My duty lies in Vestasia-not behind these damp walls.”
“Of course,” Ch’drei said in purring tones. “But I have only begun to bend the Imperial Will over Murialis and your bolters. It could take weeks more before we can apply any real pressure on. .”
“Keeper, we both know that I should have left weeks ago,” Soen interrupted once more. “We cannot be certain that Murialis will hold them at all. I must leave at once. We dare not risk losing them.”
“Calm yourself,” the Keeper replied. “Haste breeds mistakes, Soen. . you of all people know that.”
Soen seemed about to make a sharp reply but hesitated, his face relaxing slightly. “Indeed, you are right, my Keeper, but the circumstances dictate haste. I should not have returned so far as the Imperial City in the first place.”
“Have a care, Soen,” Ch’drei said with an edge in her voice. “It was I that instructed you to return here.”
“And in doing so have cost us both not only weeks of delay but the contact with the beacon stones that mark their path,” Soen countered. “I could have been in Vestasia reacquiring them by now if you had. .”
“If I had done what-bartered passage for you through the Imperial Folds? And just how would I have done that without giving the Occuran answers about the Provinces or the Myrdin-dai some report on the mess they are still cleaning up on the frontier? They only granted you and your Quorum access last time to find out why they had been made out as fools-they certainly would not have done so again without receiving their payment for your last adventure! You may be a great Inquisitor, Soen, but you know nothing about politics. One day you’ll trip over your tongue once too often, boy, and fall where no amount of craft can save you.”