The Great Ordeal (Aspect-Emperor #3)(32)

Which would make her the savage one, the more murderous Anas?rimbor.

“No,” she said, staring at him carefully. He had the cheek and jaw of a soft man, she decided. “That the Empire was never meant to survive …”

Because her displeasure was clear, the Master of Spies bowed his head to the degree demanded by jnan—no more. Esmenet looked to the other Apparati kneeling at points about her on the Scuari Campus.

“That was a lie!” she cried in a clear, bold voice. “That was proof of the cancer that had poisoned his soul! Would my husband abandon his wife? Would the Holy Aspect-Emperor leave his children to their ruin? If he foresaw the collapse of his Holy Empire, then surely he would have hidden his wife and children away!”

Her voice rang bright across the stone expanse. She saw Vem-Mithriti, her sorcerous Vizier, hobbling to join the motley assembly, his black and gold robes of the Imperial Saik comically distended for the winds off the Meneanor.

“And that means our Lord-and-Prophet foresaw quite the opposite! That he prophecied our triumph, that Momemn would break the back of the Fanim Dog—that the mightiest Empire of our age would survive!”

Silence, save for the rhythmic throb of Fanim war-drums … But there was wonder and worship enough in their look, she supposed.

She looked back to her Master-of-Spies, afforded him a momentary glimpse of her terror.

“Do you know what happens?” she asked on a murmur.

He shook his head, looked out to the line of the walls. “They struck my chains scarce a watch before yours, my Glory.”

She clenched his arm in a spontaneous gesture of reassurance.

“All of us must be strong now,” she said. “Strong and cunning.”

The Inchausti Knights milled in the near distance, watching from the monumental stair of the Allosium Forum. She raised an arm, beckoned their white-bearded commander, Clia Saxillas. The Massentian officer moved with the haste appropriate to his station, and no more. She bid the man rise after he had kissed her knee.

“I assassinated your Shriah,” she said.

The caste-noble stared at her sandaled feet. “Aye, my Glory.”

“Do you hate me?” she asked.

He dared look into her eyes. “I thought I did.”

The pulsing drums as much as exhaustion made her gaze indomitable. The man blinked, looked to the ground with more fear than reverence. And at that moment it seemed she could feel it radiating about her, looming above and leaning out …

The shadow of her accursed husband.

“And now?”

The man licked his lips. “I am not sure.”

She nodded.

“The Inchaustic Knights guard me and my children now, Saxillas … You are my new Exalt-Captain.”

The man hesitated for the merest heartbeat, an instant that revealed the profundity of his grief, the fact that he mourned the death of his Shriah the way another might mourn the death of a beloved father.

“Deploy your men,” she continued. “See that the Imperial Precincts are secured.” She paused a moment, her thoughts fraught with the enormity—perhaps impossibility—of the task that lay before her …

The drums throbbed … recounted the horrors of Caraskand.

“Then retrieve my assassin from Xothei.”



Uncle Holy is dead! Dead-dead-dead, tucked into bed!

On and on his thoughts capered, but the Voice was in no mood. It disapproved of his humour.

I could smell it in her look … He told her something!

But not enough! the boy chortled within. Not! Even! Close! Ooh, bad throw, Uncle Holy! Such a pity!Bad, bad throw! Now the number-sticks are mine!

To all outward appearances, Anas?rimbor Kelmomas was an ailing ten-year-old boy, a divine son of the Holy Aspect-Emperor driven to heartbreaking extremis by the wickedness of his once-beloved uncle. The insipid ingrate, Larsippus, drew him through the corridors to the palace lazaret, alternately snarling instructions to the menials he had commandeered, and murmuring dulcet reassurances to his divine ward.

“And He has soooo very many Hands,” the gaunt man was saying. The Prince-Imperial’s failure to register anything did not surprise the man. They did not hear all that much, little boys who had survived what this poor child had survived. They spoke even less. “He is as cunning as he is cruel. We just need to cleanse you, search for signs of His touch. But not to fear …”

Perhaps Disease had fondled the boy’s soul as well.

And how was Mother able to kill him? the Voice asked. She has no Strength!

What does it matter?

There’s more happening here! More than we know!

So? You’re forgetting they’re all dead now, Sammi! All of those who could see!

And it seemed miraculous, the prospect of untainted impunity—glorious invisibility! To cuddle snuggle-warm in Mother’s arms, to whisper knives hot in her ear, to roam unhindered, unrestrained, through the darkling halls, the blind streets. He could play and play and play—

Father can still see.

Father was forever the pall across his jubilation.

“Shush …” Larsippus was saying, his braying voice huffing for the effort of sounding gentle. “Nothing to fear at all …”

So? He’s as good as dead.

How so?

Because dead is just someplace else, someplace too far away to ever come back from …