Empire (36 page)

“Yes, my priestess,” Esah-Zhurah replied woodenly, her body suddenly numb and lifeless. Even the release of suicide had been taken from her, condemning her to live in a lonely, loveless purgatory. “I understand.”

Tesh-Dar paused a moment. “Esah-Zhurah,” she said softly, noting the black streaks that poured from the child’s eyes as her heart cried out its mourning, “I grieve with you. Long have I thought about the coming of this day, and long have I dreaded it, for both of you. Many nights have I lain awake, wondering what could be done, listening for the song of his blood, but there is nothing. Even the Ancient Ones, who once watched the two of you, have gone silent, no longer interested, I fear. They do not hold sway over Her, for She rules even in their ethereal domain, and Her word has been given. Our Way shall be as She wills it.”

“Yes, my priestess,” Esah-Zhurah intoned, her thoughts now dark swirls of hopelessness.

“Go now, my child, and spend wisely the time that remains,” she told her, gesturing for Esah-Zhurah to rise. “Go in Her name.”

Esah-Zhurah blindly made her way back to their camp where a fire burned brightly among the forest trees. Her feet trudged along the ancient cobblestones that wove their way about the kazha like a system of great roots, embracing everything. It was a seemingly infinite path that, in the end, led nowhere. As did her Way. She suddenly stopped in her tracks and gripped the handle of her knife. She saw in her mind the image of her plunging it into her chest, feeling the blade part her ribs with its serrated edge, the tip piercing her heart, and the blood in her veins suddenly growing still. It would be the end of life, of suffering against the unknown, of what she knew to be her future. To kill Reza would be to kill a part of herself, a part that she had come to value above all else, save her love for the Empress. And even that…

“Troubled are you,” came a husky voice from behind her. Esah-Zhurah whirled around, only to find the ancient Pan’ne-Sharakh, the mistress of the armory, staring at her with her half-blind eyes. She bared her fangs in a friendly greeting, exposing the once magnificent incisors that were now faded yellow with age, worn down so far that she would soon starve, unable to tear her meat properly. Tesh-Dar was old even by Kreelan standards, but Pan’ne-Sharakh was older still: she had been fitting armor to warriors since long before Tesh-Dar was born. There would be much mourning on the day she departed for the Afterlife and her deserved place among the Ancient Ones.

Esah-Zhurah bowed and saluted. “Forgive me, mistress, but you startled me.”

“The body is old,” Pan’ne-Sharakh said, “but the mind still quick, and the foot light upon the earth, by Her grace and glory. You shall walk with me.” Pan’ne-Sharakh held out her hand, and Esah-Zhurah dutifully took it, gently cradling the antediluvian woman’s bony fingers in her own armored gauntlet, careful not to let her talons mar the mistress’s translucent skin. “Tell me of what troubles you so, my child. For even these old eyes can see the works of sorrow woven upon the tapestry of thy face.”

“Mistress… I…” Esah-Zhurah stuttered, not knowing how – or if – she could tell the ancient mistress what she knew, what she felt. But suddenly the words came, slowly at first, but then in a torrent that surprised Esah-Zhurah. It was as if they were not spoken by her own tongue, but by a force that lay within her, beyond her control. She laid bare her heart in a way that would have shamed her into punishment in the Kal’ai-Il had her words become known among the peers or reached the ears of the priestess. But to this quiet ancient who now shuffled slowly beside her, she told everything. Her feelings, her desires, her shames and fears. Everything.

Her words carried them over a path that eventually wound its way to a secluded overlook that took in most of the great plains and the mountains beyond, a place of private meditation frequented by the priestess, although she did not declare it as her own domain. It belonged to Her, the Empress, as did all things that lived or did not live, as far as the eye could see, as far as the stars above, and beyond.

Pan’ne-Sharakh stood silently for a long time, staring into the distance. Her milky eyes, their vision useless a mere meter beyond her face, were still able to peer into a vista of hard-won wisdom that had come with the many cycles of her life and the mystical thing that pulsed in her veins, the spirit of their Way.

“Dearest child,” she said, still focused on whatever it was that she saw in her mind, “much have you suffered for this creature, this human, and more are you willing to endure, it would seem. I would caution you against such things, but you are far beyond that, now. Far beyond.”

She let out a resigned sigh, and Esah-Zhurah became afraid that she had been foolish to tell the old woman anything. But the look on the mistress’s face was nothing if not compassionate. “Long have I walked the Way, my child, and many strange and wonderful things have I seen. But I have never beheld such a wonder as are the two of you, the warrior and her animal tresh. He is still a stranger among us, but his heart and mind have become one with the Way. You have led him that far.”

“But his blood does not sing,” Esah-Zhurah lamented, wishing she could see something on the horizon other than darkness. Death.

“No,” Pan’ne-Sharakh answered, “it does not.” She looked up at the young woman beside her. “But still, the Ancient Ones wait. I have heard the priestess speak on the matter, and she believes they are no longer interested in the goings on at our humble kazha. I believe differently.”

“How, mistress? What is to be gained by their silence?”

“They wait, child, as if holding their breath, as if a single whispered word would snuff out the candle that flickers here, beneath the Empress Moon. They wait for you.” Seeing that Esah-Zhurah did not understand, she went on. “Why, child, does the human’s blood not sing?”

“He is not of the Way,” Esah-Zhurah replied. “He is not of Her blood.”

Pan’ne-Sharakh smiled as if Esah-Zhurah had just explained the answer herself. “That is so, child. He is not of Her blood. And what is there to do about such a thing?”

Esah-Zhurah shrugged in the Kreelan fashion, pained frustration showing on her face. Her patience was wearing thin, mistress or no.

“Do you remember, child, the history of this order, the Desh-Ka, since the times even before the First Empress?”

Esah-Zhurah shook her head. She had been born into and raised in another order, the Ima’il-Kush. Her knowledge of the Desh-Ka, the oldest order known among their people, was far from complete. “No, mistress,” she said. “Little is taught of those times, for it is said that the Empire and the Way have always been one, and that what was then, remains as now.”

Pan’ne-Sharakh waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Long was the Way before even the First Empire, child. But no matter. In those times before Keel-Tath and the Unification, before the curse She later wrought upon our blood, the Desh-Ka were the greatest of the warrior sects that lived on our world. Many outsiders aspired to come among them, but few – terribly few – were ever chosen.” She took Esah-Zhurah’s hands in hers. “Once there was a ceremony, long since forgotten in the minds of most, which was the mark of one’s acceptance into the Desh-Ka. And even over the thousands of generations since Keel-Tath’s birth, every warrior bearing the great rune of this order has also borne a scar,” she explained as she ran a callused finger across the palm of Esah-Zhurah’s right hand, “that marks their acceptance by one who has gone before them.”

“This is the ritual of Drakhash,” Esah-Zhurah said, remembering, “the passing of honor from one warrior to another. But what does it have to do with me? I am not of the Desh-Ka, nor is…”

Of course
, Esah-Zhurah thought, the truth striking her like a bolt of lightning. It was not just a passing of honor,
but of blood as well
.

Pan’ne-Sharakh nodded as she saw the dawning of understanding on Esah-Zhurah’s face. “Now all is clear to you, is it not, my daughter?” she asked.

Esah-Zhurah slowly nodded. Her eyes were wide with surprise, and they opened still wider when Pan’ne-Sharakh brought a sheathed knife from within the folds of her robe.

“This,” she said reverently, carefully placing the weapon in the young warrior’s hand, “I have saved for many, many great cycles, from when I was almost as young as you are now. It was the first weapon I made for a young warrior of that time, a mere child I could have bounced upon my knee, who one day would become the flesh and blood of the Empress Who now reigns.”

Esah-Zhurah’s hand trembled as her fingers closed around the weapon, about as long as her forearm, the curved and ornate blade perfectly balanced against the weight of the handle. It seemed to burn her palm, even through the thickness of the armored gauntlet she wore as a second skin.

“After the Ascension,” Pan’ne-Sharakh went on, her eyes misting with the memory, “She called me unto Her, and gave me this as a gift, a token of Her love and remembrance. I have kept it safe and hidden from my own extravagances, knowing that there would come a time when it would be needed. And last night, in the dreams possible only for one whose Way is coming to an end, I knew that the time had come, and to what use it must be put.” Reluctantly, she took her hands away, her fingers brushing over the ancient metal one last time. “The next step,” she said quietly, “is up to you.”

* * *

Reza heard Esah-Zhurah coming long before he could see her, especially now that the fire had died down to glittering coals of deep cherry red and amber. He was startled that she was not walking as she usually did, using the nearly silent step that was now his own, but was treading the earth as if afraid of nothing, as if stealth were alien to her. The unease that had been building in him since earlier that evening had reached a feverish peak.

“Esah-Zhurah,” he called softly, knowing that she would be able to hear him easily, “what is wrong?”

She knelt down next to him, a shadow in the darkness, and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close.

“Do you trust me?” she asked, her face close to his. He nodded once. Words were unnecessary. “Then do as I ask this night, and sleep. Rest, that we may leave early tomorrow for our free time. And then I shall explain all. I dare not here.”

He suddenly felt her lips pressing hungrily against his, parting to release the warm tongue that set his body aflame. She lingered for but a moment that was itself an eternity in Reza’s mind. Then she drew away, leaving him breathless and flushed with a mad desire to hold her, to touch her in ways that came to him with force of instinct, but with the tenderness of the love he felt for her.

“Esah-Zhurah,” he rasped, reaching for her, holding her close. She knelt close to him, but did not let him kiss her again. It would have been too much to resist, such was the pounding in her breast and the desire working between her thighs at the thought of what could be, what must be, in the days ahead.

“No, my tresh,” she told him, gently but firmly pushing him back down on his skins, running a hand across his forehead before laying down next to him, a painful moat of distance between them. “Patience is a warrior’s virtue. There is much about which we must speak, but it must wait until tomorrow.”

The word echoed in Reza’s mind as he lost himself in the wondrous pools of starlight in her eyes.

Tomorrow
.

* * *

Reza sat with his legs crossed, his arms draped over his knees. He stared past the mouth of the great caldera whose edge lay just beyond his feet, his thoughts lost in the sprawling horizon that lay in the distance. The faint rumble of the waterfall was broken only by the whispers of the wind and the rustling of the lush ferns that covered this part of the mountain like a vast forest.

The ride to this place, the grotto that had been their refuge and escape each cycle since coming to the kazha, had been a long, silent one. Reza sat upon old Goliath, with Esah-Zhurah beside him on her mount. Their only contact had been an occasional brush of thigh against thigh, and once he had reached out to take her hand, squeezing it in reassurance. She had refused to tell him what was on her mind until they arrived at their destination. But the mourning marks that streamed from under her eyes, the marks that had been hidden in the darkness of night, did nothing to lift his spirits. After they had arrived at the grotto and set up their camp, she had taken him by the hand and led him here to the overlook, a ledge jutting out into space from which one could see forever.

But to Reza, forever had been reduced to three sundowns hence. For, according to what Esah-Zhurah had just revealed in a halting, agonized voice, he would be dead upon the sands of the arena by the time the sun set upon the day of his seventh Challenge.

“And if I should win?” he asked quietly.

She looked away. “If you win, I am to take your life and your hair to the Empress.” Her whole body seemed to tremble. “Reza,” she whispered, “easier it would be for me to tear my beating heart from my breast than to spill a drop of your blood this way. I would gladly spend eternity in the Darkness to spare you, but I am forbidden even that. I must wait for death until the Way brings it to my doorstep.”

He took her hand in his, and gently turned her face so that he could look into her eyes. “It is Her will, my tresh,” he told her, the sincerity in his heart echoed on his face. “If that is what the Way holds for us, then it must be so. I am only grateful that, should I have the honor of winning the Challenge, yours will be the hand that sends me from this life.” He stroked her face, smiling with a confidence that came with his acceptance of his own mortality. “It shall be as it must.”