The Ashes of Worlds

In the sky above, many fireballs whizzed about at high altitude, bright and hot. Zan’nh knew they must see him. They could plunge down and kill him and Designate Ridek’h in a flash. But the faeros just hovered there, observing.

Taunting?

Zan’nh hated them. It seemed that the fiery elementals were flaunting the fact that they could come for the rest of the Ildirans at any time.

39

Mage-Imperator Jora’h

Aboard his own warliner, secluded in his chamber, the Mage-Imperator shuddered and set the interior lights to maximum brightness. Despite the harsh and supposedly comforting glare, he could barely feel it, barely see it.

This washis private stateroom.His warliner.He was Mage-Imperator of the Ildiran Empire.

He was powerless.

And alone.

He knew Nira was waiting for him, and he vowed to hold on. But thoughts of her were not enough under circumstances like these. Even if she had been there to hold him and talk to him. in spite of the closeness they shared, she could not have given him strength in thethism.

Another second passed, and another.

His mind was filled with a hollow silence.Nothing. His thoughts were as empty as the void between stars where this stolen warliner now sailed. Yes, the isolation could indeed drive him mad, exactly as Chairman Wenceslas wanted. Damn the man! The Chairman was not to be trusted, and the entire Ildiran Empire, the great and glorious civilization and its great and glorious ruler, had been driven to its knees.

Less than three days — how he clung to that thought. He wondered how much time had passed. He hadn’t had the presence of mind to mark the chronometer when Admiral Diente had left following his last visit. This lonely silence had already lasted years, it seemed. Had it been three days? Two? Or only an hour? A few minutes?

Jora’h could no longer tell. He had no idea whatsoever.

“Nira. ” he whispered to himself, but no one answered.

He recalled when Anton Colicos had brought a catatonic Rememberer Vao’sh back to the Prism Palace following their long, isolated journey of escape from the black robots. As Mage-Imperator, Jora’h had felt a distinct echo of the anguish Vao’sh had endured. But he had never imagined it would feel like this.

Trapped in nightmares, he could not forget how his son Thor’h had been drugged and locked in a sealed room — by Jora’h’s own order. The power generators had failed, shutting down the bright blazers in the chamber. Thor’h had died alone and in the dark, a hideous fate for an Ildiran.

Jora’h pressed himself closer to the bright blazers mounted on the wall, but even the light did not help.

Feeling faint, he doggedly sent out his thoughts yet again, trying to find any echo out there. He tried for hours. or perhaps it was only minutes. until he was too exhausted to keep trying. He let his thoughts drift aimlessly in the cold, black wasteland.

Unexpectedly, familiar strands ofthism brushed the edges of his mind. The mental touch startled him, and he reached out to grasp the threads so desperately that the tenuous connection almost scattered. Almost. The distant thoughts drifted back toward his. He struggled to recognize them, but it was so hard to think straight.

Finally, it came to him — Osira’h and her siblings! Once he understood who they were, the connection strengthened. They helped from their end, securing the link.

“Osira’h!” he said out loud, and the children seized his wandering mind like rescuers throwing a lifeline to a drowning man. Their connection through thethism grew bright and clear. He caught flashes of Ildiran refugees sheltering in mountain caves, absorbed secondhand memories of searing fire.

Slowly, Jora’h began to understand exactly what had happened on Ildira. He had had only the vaguest fears before, but now he learned how Rusa’h and his fireballs had driven everyone from Mijistra and taken over the Prism Palace. The Empire itself was trembling, on the verge of collapse.

Jora’h used their thoughts as an anchor and drew strength from them. But his determination was his own, as was his outrage over what Chairman Wenceslas had done to him.

Yes, now he had the strength and the will to last until this warliner returned to Earth. And then he needed to find a way to save the Ildiran people.

40

Osira’h

Huddled in a small rock-walled alcove in their underground shelter, all of Nira’s children joined together and searched with their minds for the Mage-Imperator. Osira’h had suggested the idea even before the faintthism pulse from her father had gone so silent.

Though the rest of the Ildirans were stunned and disoriented by the abrupt change in the comforting mental web, she didn’t believe her father was dead — only lost. And if Jora’h were lost, then Osira’h vowed to find him. She simply needed the help of Rod’h, Gale’nh, Tamo’l, and Muree’n.

Together, they could achieve what other Ildirans could not.

Earlier, in comparatively “normal” times, the five half-breeds had generated a strong rapport through touching the lone treeling atop the Prism Palace. The children had used a synthesis of their mother’s telink and their Ildiranthism to form a unified new force that was stronger than, and different from, anything either Ildirans or green priests had ever known. Unlike other adherents of thethism /telink philosophy, the five special children had been able to protect themselves by cutting off the vulnerable paths through which Rusa’h had tried to burn them.

Throughout their time here in exile — while Prime Designate Daro’h, Yazra’h, Adar Zan’nh, and Tal O’nh struggled to piece together a military solution, and refugees in hundreds of scattered camps hid or died according to the whim of the faeros — Osira’h and her siblings continued to shield themselves.

But she believed that their skills gave them a responsibility to do more than hide. So the five of them had linked their minds and cast out into thethism in a concerted search for the Mage-Imperator. For days, no matter how far they spun out the soul-threads, he simply wasn’t there. Osira’h had refused to give up.

Finally, they found him.

When the five children came running into the central chamber, Daro’h looked up, startled. Osira’h knew that some people wanted the Prime Designate to undergo the ascension ceremony and become the new Mage-Imperator, but if Daro’h acted too soon, the results would be catastrophic.

She called out in a high, clear voice. “The Mage-Imperator is alive! We found him in thethism.”

The Prime Designate lunged to his feet, and Zan’nh and Yazra’h could not hide their joy; O’nh remained seated with a contented smile on his ravaged face. With overlapping chatter, the half-breed children explained how they had come upon Jora’h’s drifting thoughts; the Mage-Imperator had been driven nearly insane by loneliness and isolation, but he was alive. Captive, but alive.