Olaf let out explosive sobs and then collapsed. When Shelud helped him back to his feet, he realized that the burly clan leader was burning with fever.
“We can’t let this get out,” Olaf said. “The Onthos called this a plague city. They marked it, but we didn’t understand the message. We unleashed the disease on ourselves, and it’s our job to make damn sure the plague doesn’t spread farther. If this gets out into the Confederation…” He grasped the green priest by the arm. “Use your telink. Inform them where we are and what’s happened. Then tell them to stay away from Okiah.”
“Even if we warn them away, do you think they’ll really leave this city isolated forever?” Shelud asked. He remembered all of the researchers and xeno-archaeologists who had demanded access.
“Probably not.” The bearded man’s shoulders slumped. “I better find a more definite means to keep them away.” Olaf shuddered violently and had to rest against his son’s deathbed before he could move on again. When Shelud hesitated, the clan leader glared at him. “Go, green priest! Find your treeling.”
When Shelud reached his quarters, he grasped the small tree with trembling fingers, plunged into telink, and sent his message throughout the verdani network. He poured out his thoughts with enough urgency that every green priest would notice. They already had his description of the plague, but now they would know how it spread like wildfire—and how deadly it was.
“Stay away from this derelict city,” he said. “We will all be dead before any help can arrive… not that there can be any help. If you come here, you will die.”
He broke the connection with the worldforest mind. As his hands trembled violently, his stomach clenched, and he suddenly became sick on the floor of his quarters. He caught his breath, inhaling and exhaling; he touched his forehead, feeling the sweat there. His fever was already high, and it was only a matter of time. Shelud had been aware of that. He didn’t know how much longer he could last.
He took a long time to compose himself and focus his mind so that stray terrors would not leak into his telink thoughts. When he touched the treeling again, he was determined and strong, and he sought out the presence of his brother Aelin.
Yes, they would have a good conversation.
EIGHTY-TWO
NIRA
Though the seven suns of Ildira created an entirely different calendar, Nira kept track of her own birthday, as recorded by the central Confederation calendar on Theroc. She was now forty-nine, and she felt vibrant and rejuvenated by her frequent contact with the worldforest mind. Years ago, Nira had been abused as a breeding slave and prisoner on Dobro, but now with Jora’h at her side, she was strong.
As consort of the Mage-Imperator, she had all that she wanted and felt no particular need for gifts or feasts on her birthday, but Jora’h had learned that it was tradition for humans to commemorate the anniversary of their birth. And so he commanded an annual celebration for Nira in the city of Mijistra.
When the procession emerged from the Prism Palace, Nira walked alongside Jora’h as part of the large procession, wearing an outfit of the finest imported Theron feathers, beetle carapaces, and iridescent moth wings.
Fawned over by attenders and noble functionaries, the Mage-Imperator wore fantastic robes as well, and his chrysalis chair was festooned with reflective streamers. This was one of the rare times when Jora’h allowed attenders to carry him in the chair.
The first time they had celebrated her birthday, Jora’h suggested that a special chair be built so Nira could be carried beside him, but the uproar had been so extreme that he decided against it. The kiths were already uneasy about all the changes the Mage-Imperator had imposed in the aftermath of the Elemental War.
Over thousands of years of history, Ildiran tradition held that a Mage-Imperator was supposed to be alone, the sole focal point of the thism. In his years as Prime Designate, Jora’h had taken countless lovers to spread his bloodline among the Ildiran kiths. People had been startled when he took the young green priest as his exotic lover, and when they fell in love, some Ildirans found it even more shocking than the reappearance of hydrogues after ten thousand years. Jora’h’s people simply did not know how to react to the human woman at his side, when no previous Mage-Imperator had ever kept even an Ildiran female as his consort.
But Jora’h did love her, and he had put his foot down, quieting the whisperers and social unrest, insisting that his people understand and accept change. As Mage-Imperator, he was the Ildiran race.
Nevertheless, Nira was content to walk at his side, while his chrysalis chair was carried by attenders, so everyone in Mijistra could see her acknowledging his importance. When Jora’h looked as if he might continue to press the issue, Nira had smiled, touched his arm, and said, “It’s my birthday celebration, and by our custom I’m allowed to ask for and receive gifts. This is the gift I ask of you—don’t disturb your people further.”
And so today, as she had done every year for nineteen years, Nira walked beside him with bright sunlight reflecting from the shimmering insect scales. Two rounded condorfly wings were mounted to her back; Nira thought the wings made her look like a fairy princess, which she remembered from the stories she had read aloud to the worldtrees when she was just a green priest acolyte…
Next in the procession, behind the chrysalis chair, walked Osira’h, Rod’h, and a fragile but brave Gale’nh who proudly wore his Solar Navy uniform, though his bleached skin and hair still made him look startlingly out of place. Muree’n accompanied them, dressed in the special armor and uniform of the Mage-Imperator’s personal guard, as she had requested. Nira had never seen her youngest halfbreed daughter look happier than when she donned the same outfit and weapons as Yazra’h, who walked on the other side of the chrysalis chair.
Prime Designate Daro’h, the Mage-Imperator’s heir, walked near his father. Like Jora’h, Daro’h had spent years with breeding advisers who kept a catalog of his numerous offspring. As the procession passed into the city, he glanced over at Jora’h, pleased to see how many Ildirans had come out. He was overjoyed to point out many of his children scattered in the crowds. Daro’h did not hide the waxy burn scars on his face, which remained as an indelible reminder of when the faeros had nearly killed him.
Crystalline buildings towered all around them, and crowds of Ildirans gathered. Nira saw a panoply of faces and body types, numerous kiths with different faces and builds and colorations, yet the same racial identity. Thanks to their thism connection, Ildirans had a commonality she couldn’t feel, which left her an outsider, no matter how long she lived among them, although she could comprehend a similar thing with her green priest network.
Jora’h normally basked in the telepathic tapestry of his people, but today he seemed uneasy in his chrysalis chair. He glanced around as the spectators crowded close. Although this celebration was supposedly for Nira’s birthday, most Ildirans loved any festival in which their Mage-Imperator appeared among them. He waved to the crowds, as did Nira. She listened to the murmur of so many voices, so many people. It droned and throbbed around her.
Suddenly an Ildiran man sprang out of the crowd, a noble kithman dressed in unremarkable clothes. She had glanced at him, seen a face that appeared normal and placid, but now it was transformed into a twisted expression of hatred and revulsion. He produced a curved crystalline dagger, shoved other spectators aside, and bounded toward Nira, shouting, “To keep the Ildiran race pure!”