The Ashes of Worlds

Sooner or later, Rusa’h would find his brother. It was only a matter of time.

In his flaming ship, he flew over the rooftops of Mijistra, gazing down on monuments, museums, and now-dry fountains. The Hall of Rememberers was empty, its interior charred. Most of the artisans’ quarters and communal dwellings for craftsmen, metal workers, technologists, and chemists had burned down. He passed over a medical center, a vehicle landing field, warehouses that held food for a populace that was no longer there.

The sheer sense of emptiness saddened him. Now that the hydrogues were bottled up in their gas giants, the faeros had the freedom to run. They could destroy whatever they wished, grow unchecked until they became the dominant force in the Spiral Arm and beyond.

Stretching his mind out to vast distances, Rusa’h joined the faeros leaping from star to star through their transgates. They frolicked in the reawakened Durris-B, where they had reignited nuclear reactions and set that star alight again. The faeros had reawakened many other old stellar battlegrounds, as well, reclaiming territory the hydrogues had taken from them.

But Ildira washis. The Ildiran people werehis. Again, he hammered that fact into the faeros.

Below his flaming ship, Rusa’h spied a group of desperate refugees leaving a food warehouse from which they had retrieved supplies for one of the poorly hidden camps. True Ildirans should have stayed in Mijistra to praise him for restoring his people to the Lightsource.

But when these people saw him, they ran in abject terror, many dropping the supplies they had taken. Rusa’h could have pursued them. With little more than a thought, he could have sent a surge of flame to burn down the buildings in which they hid. He could have swept in and stolen their soulfires to stoke the flames of the faeros.

But he chose not to. Though he could feel the restless elementals within him, he held them back. He could not allow the faeros to run rampant. He had meant to use the fiery elementals to achieve his own ends, but his influence extended only so far. Their chaos was quite powerful.

His fiery chariot circled over Mijistra and returned to the Prism Palace. A dozen of the giant fireballs appeared in the air overhead, milling about, always hungry, capricious, uncontrollable. They were eager for something to destroy.

Perhaps the faeros could help him find Jora’h.

26

Mage-Imperator Jora’h

Desperately alone aboard the warliner — far from Earth, far from Ildira, far fromanyone — Jora’h struggled to remain sane. Huddled in his private quarters, he had no idea how many days had passed. He felt only the gulf of emptiness extending forever.

For most of his life, he had believed the Ildiran Empire to be all-powerful, all-encompassing. Splinter colonies spread across the Spiral Arm so that thethism web extended everywhere. He had been so misinformed.

Though weak to the marrow of his bones, Jora’h made himself get up from his bunk. As Mage-Imperator, he must not allow himself to look defeated. He took three stuttering steps toward the bright blazers built into the wallplates, staring all the while at the dazzling light, using it as an anchor.

At least it wasn’t dark. Chairman Wenceslas hadn’t inflicted that particular torture on him — not yet.

If he cried out, if he surrendered, if he swore he would do as the Hansa demanded, would the EDF Admiral deliver him back to his people? Once he returned to the lunar base, though, he knew Chairman Wenceslas would probably string him along. The Chairman would never simply let him go.

After an abrupt signal at his stateroom door, Admiral Diente entered without waiting to be invited. Jora’h forced himself not to shiver at the terrible, freezing aloneness that coursed through his veins. “What. do you want?”

Diente kept his voice emotionless, as if delivering a bland report. “My software experts have been studying this warliner’s database. We found what seems to be some sort of a translation system designed to converse with the Klikiss. Is this true?”

Jora’h closed his eyes, trying to concentrate in spite of the swirling vortex of solitude. He searched his memory. “In ancient times we communicated with the Klikiss.”

“Does it still function?”

“We have not used it in thousands of years.” He paused, struggling as other memories came back. “Wait. Adar Zan’nh used it. Yes, he spoke to the Klikiss. at Maratha.”

Diente nodded. “Then we may be able to use it for negotiations with the Klikiss.”

“Negotiations. ” Jora’h heaved a breath, intending to laugh, but he could not find the strength to do so. “You have trespassed. You have angered them. The faeros may be Ildira’s greatest enemy, but the Klikiss are likely to be yours, Admiral. You are too blind to realize it.”

Diente seemed very sad and weary. “We’re our own worst enemy.” His voice was so quiet Jora’h barely heard him. “I am acting under orders, Mage-Imperator. I do not wish to do this to you. It is. demeaning to the leader of a great Empire. I always admired your Solar Navy.”

Now a flash of anger surfaced, allowing Jora’h to sharpen his thoughts. “Then how can you allow this? If you know your actions are wrong, why do you follow your Chairman?”

Diente stared for a long moment, the focal point of his dark eyes far away. “Because, Mage-Imperator, the Chairman has my wife, my son, and my two daughters hostage. He has threatened to murder them if I show a hint of disloyalty.” He clenched his fists at his sides.“He has my family.”

Jora’h was too distressed by his isolation to understand the full import of what the Admiral was saying.

From the pocket of his uniform, Diente pulled out a small display screen the size of the palm of his hand. Activating it, he showed a sequence of images: a beautiful woman, a teenage daughter, a handsome young man, and a smiling little girl, then another image with himself in the picture, a unified and happy family.

“Perhaps I have said too much. Thank you for the information about the Klikiss translation system.” He abruptly switched off the images and pocketed the screen, embarrassed. As if dispensing a well-deserved reward, he added before he left the stateroom, “We should get back in a few days. Not so long after all.”

“Not so long.?” Jora’h said through clenched teeth. Time had already stretched out to a wintry infinity.

After Diente left, Jora’h’s knees gave out, and he collapsed onto his bed.

A few more days.He did not know how he could bear it.

Days.

27

Margaret Colicos

When the new breedex finally summoned Margaret into its hive fortress, she determined that she would have her answers. For so long she had watched the insect creatures slaughtering rival domates, wiping out rather than incorporating the defeated subhives. At last, though, the Klikiss had stopped ignoring her, and she hoped to learn why this hive mind was so different from all the others. so much more vicious.