Phyro stamped his feet in frustration. “Madness. The world has gone mad!”
“I’m going to gather the soldiers from the Big Island and hope that some of them haven’t fallen under the sway of this debilitating witchcraft.”
“Wait,” Phyro said. “I have an idea. Do what you can to hold them off, and I’ll be right back.”
Rin Coda did what he could to rally the few men who still believed in the Imperial cause, and by threatening, beating, and whipping the rest, managed to organize some semblance of resistance. As rocks and wooden beams fell from the ramparts and pots of boiling liquid tipped over, the rebels on the ladders screamed and tumbled to their deaths.
“They do not have sufficient faith in the protection of the Hegemon!” Noda Mi shouted. “The Hegemon only defends those who are without doubt. The Doubt-Ender has been unsheathed! Sing with me, sing! The ninth day in the ninth month of the year…”
As thousands of rebels took up the chant, they made an impressive din. Noda and Doru’s men regained their courage, and scores again climbed up the ladders. Despite the falling stones and wooden beams crushing the rebels into meat pies, more of them lined up to test their faith against doubt. Faced with this fearless horde whose eyes glinted with the zeal of madness, the defenders began to lose their heart.
Rebel archers finally lined up below the ladders and arced their arrows high overhead to strike at the defenders over the ramparts. Screams of dying and injured men filled the air.
It seemed only a matter of time before the walls would be breached.
“Who dares to make another move?” shouted Prince Phyro, who emerged at the top of the walls, breathing hard.
He was holding up a portrait of Mata Zyndu, which was usually hung in the main hall for the pilgrims who came to pray for the Hegemon’s blessing. But Phyro now held it up like a giant shield and advanced on the attackers, who were just about to overwhelm the ramparts.
“You dare to desecrate the image of the Hegemon?” asked Phyro. He leaned the portrait over the edge of the wall. “This was one of Lady Mira’s famous embroideries and captured the very essence of the Hegemon’s spirit. Are you so impious that you wish to swing a sword against the soul of the Hegemon himself?”
The barrage of arrows from the attackers ceased. None of the archers dared harm the portrait of their lord. The attackers on the ladders hesitated and then stopped, afraid that if they pushed forward they might inadvertently stain the sacred painting.
“Despicable!” shouted Noda Mi. His face turned red with fury.
“A contemptible trick!” shouted Doru Solofi, spit foaming at the corners of his mouth.
“Am I so despicable?” asked a grinning Phyro. “Then why doesn’t the Hegemon’s portrait slip from my hands? I’ve always liked the Hegemon, you know? I might even be a bigger fan than you! Anyway, I’m going to hold the picture and stand right here. I will not be the one to defile the Hegemon’s memory.”
Rin Coda gestured at some of the most trusted defending soldiers, who seemed to wake from a trance. They also ran into the castle and returned a few minutes later: some of them carrying large figures of the Hegemon from wishing shrines and others crates of embroidered souvenir portraits for pilgrims. Soon, the ramparts were topped with a row of Mata Zyndu pictures and statues.
“You’re indeed a son of that loathsome Kuni Garu,” said Noda Mi. “This is a shameless trick worthy of the great betrayer himself.” He and Solofi hurled a stream of curses and invectives at Phyro, but Phyro only smiled at them. The rebels halfway up the ladders stopped in place, unsure what to do.
In reality, Noda Mi and Doru Solofi had half a mind to order the archers to shoot fire arrows and burn the portraits so as to put an end to this farce, but they knew that reverence for the Hegemon was the foundation for this rebellion, and they were sure that if they ordered the destruction of the portraits, not only would they be disobeyed, but their men might even turn on them.
While the two sides were stuck in this stalemate, men both above and below the ramparts suddenly pointed up at the sky and shouted:
“An airship!”
“We’re saved!”
“But why is there only one?”
Indeed, a slender airship was drifting over Zyndu Castle, its wing oars beating gracefully and rhythmically. Had the emperor’s aid finally arrived?
The expression on Phyro’s face, at first ecstatic, gradually turned to consternation. “That’s Time’s Arrow, the Imperial messenger ship,” he whispered to Rin Coda. “It holds a crew of no more than a couple dozen. Where are the rest?”
Noda Mi, recognizing that the new ship was no great threat, was about to order another round of assaults on the far side of the castle—surely Phyro and his soldiers couldn’t surround the entire castle with images of the Hegemon, could they?—when someone leapt out of the airship.
As soldiers from both sides gawked, the person tumbled a few times in the air before diving straight down. But just as everyone was about to close their eyes, not willing to see the tragic impact with the earth, the diver let out a giant silk balloon on their back. The balloon puffed up and filled with air, and slowed the descent of the rider.
“That was how the Hegemon took Zudi, years ago!”
“A spirit? A messenger of the Hegemon?”
Everyone could now see that the rider was a woman, and she was dressed in elegant, formal court robes with long sleeves and trains that drifted in the air like the tails of a kite.
Like a dandelion seed, the woman slowly spiraled down and landed on top of the walls of Zyndu Castle.
“Théra!” said an amazed Phyro. “What are you doing here?”
“Saving your butt, apparently. Three waves of pigeons! I was sure you were on the verge of death—since it would take too long to inform Father over by the Amu Strait, I commandeered Time’s Arrow and came myself.”
Phyro watched his big sister in undisguised admiration. He had always worshipped her, but now she seemed to have grown even more marvelous.
Théra disconnected the silk balloon from her robes and stepped up to the edge of the battlement. “Followers of the Hegemon, you have been misled!”
The rebels looked up at her. Princess Théra was regal and dazzling in her bright red court robe, embellished with silver-embroidered dandelion seeds and pearl-mosaic fish designs. “I’ve been sent here to show you the truth of the Hegemon’s will.”
She retrieved from the folds of her robes a large bronze mirror.
She held it up so that everyone below could see how smooth the highly polished surface was, like a pool of clear water. Everything around was reflected in it perfectly: the still-boiling pots of oil; the bloody figures of the defenders, some with arrows still sticking out of their torsos; the golden-armored rebel host.
She raised an arm and pointed into the sky behind the rebels. Everyone turned and saw that the airship had stopped just behind the rebels. Long bamboo poles extended from both ends of the gondola, from which a gigantic silk cloth was draped like an immense sail or curtain.
Princess Théra tilted the mirror so that the bright sun struck it and threw a projection onto the screen.
The defenders of Zyndu Castle and the rebels of Tunoa alike were stunned into silence.
There, on the screen, a gigantic figure of the Hegemon stood next to an equally gigantic figure of Emperor Ragin. The two stood with arms around each other’s shoulders, their faces placid and gentle. Below the projected image were a few lines of text in zyndari letters: