Empire (45 page)

On the dais, the talons of Tesh-Dar’s hands cut the stone banister upon which she had been leaning, and her heart leapt to her throat. “No,” she whispered to herself.

She did not notice as the Empress glanced her way.

Rigah-Lu’orh regarded Reza as he writhed in pain, twisting around the blade as he reached in vain for the sword on the ground at his feet. Around her, the air was silent except for the thunder of the heartbeats of those gathered to watch. She turned around and saluted the Empress. Receiving a nod in return, the young warrior detached her own remaining shrekka and turned to Reza. He was watching her now, but the look on his face was not one of defeat, but of defiance. With a wail of fury, she cast the shrekka at his heart.

Reza was in a kind of agony he had never experienced before. It was not the agony of physical pain – he could no longer feel the metal burning in his side – but of emotional and psychic overload. The Bloodsong was so strong now, stronger than it had ever been, that he felt about to explode. His eyes were fixed on Rigah-Lu’orh. Even before she reached for the shrekka, he knew what she was about to do.

“It must not end this way,” he hissed at himself, his voice lost in the maddening cacophony of fire in his skull and the flames that burned in every cell of his body. “
It cannot
…”

Rigah-Lu’orh watched in amazement as her shrekka struck the stone pillar on which Reza had been impaled. The weapon shattered uselessly against the rock, a prelude to the roar of surprise that rose from the watching multitude.

Reza was gone, vanished.

The Empress leaned forward, eyes wide in amazement and swift acceptance of what She had seen, what She now felt stirring in the fabric of the Way.

Beside Her, Tesh-Dar gasped in surprise as she saw Reza’s body vanish, leaving behind only the shimmering air of a desert mirage. As her eyes beheld the spectacle, her blood suddenly burned with a surge of power that struck her like a reflected shock wave. In that instant, she knew. If he demonstrated the will and the wisdom required of what was to come, what must come, the Ancient Ones would protect him, as they would Esah-Zhurah. Both had proved themselves worthy of one another and of the Way, and the Ancient Ones could give them powers that Tesh-Dar had studied her entire life to master. And more. What the peers were witnessing now was only the beginning.

“And so is The Prophecy fulfilled,” the Empress murmured wonderingly. She closed Her eyes and listened to the song of Reza’s soul as it danced through the darkness beyond time, waiting to return to the bloodied sands before Her and claim his final victory.

Rigah-Lu’orh whirled around in search of her vanished opponent, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Where has he gone?” she cried angrily, feeling cheated of her triumph. “What kind of trick is–”

A brush of air against her back, like the tiniest of zephyrs, was the only warning she had before Reza’s armored body slammed into hers, carrying them both to the ground.

As they fell to the sands of the arena, Reza was clamped tightly to her back, trying to reach his arms around her neck for a chokehold. Securing his grip, he applied pressure, but Rigah-Lu’orh made no attempt to resist him.

Then he saw why. The other short sword she had been holding, waiting for his attack, was now protruding from her back, pointing like a bloody finger at the sky above. Totally surprised by Reza’s attack, she had fallen on her own weapon. Only by a narrow margin had it missed piercing his own armor over his vulnerable heart.

The arena went silent after a collective gasp of surprise.

Reza lay atop Rigah-Lu’orh’s lifeless body for what seemed like a long time, fading in and out of consciousness. Finally, realizing that he still had one last duty to perform before joining her in death, he struggled to his knees. Crawling across the sand like a dying crab, he gathered up the sword that bore his name and began the long trek toward the dais where the Empress and Tesh-Dar awaited him.

He finally brushed against the stone stairs that led up to the dais. With a groan of effort, he got to his knees and peered up with one sparkling green eye, the other now scarlet and blind.

“May this one forever dwell in Thy light, my Empress,” he rasped for what seemed like the hundredth time this day, blood from his punctured lung trickling from his lips, “for in Thy name… did she follow the Way.”

“And so may it always be,” Tesh-Dar finished from the step above, having come down from the dais to meet him. The few warriors within earshot of Reza’s weak voice were still muted by shock.

Reza slid forward, his broken hand hanging useless at his side as his good hand held onto the grip of the great and battered sword for support, the point of the weapon’s blade buried deep in the sand under his weight.

“My priestess,” he whispered, tilting the weapon toward her in invitation as he slumped toward the ground, “let it be finished.” Letting go of the weapon, he waited for her to complete the experiment begun so long ago; nicked and scarred as it was, in Tesh-Dar’s hands the sword would still make quick work of his neck, and the story would be finished.

But the expected blow never came. Instead, Reza felt hands gently touching his face, and he found himself staring into the eyes of the Empress. It was a privilege very few had been granted over the ages.

“In My name have you fought and suffered,” She said, Her words barely audible as his body lapsed into shock, “and in My name shall you live. When you awaken, you shall be as one with My children.”

As Reza collapsed into the sovereign’s arms, Tesh-Dar heard the eternal whispers of the Ancient Ones stir in her bones. With life granted to Reza and Esah-Zhurah, they had broken the silence of their spiritual vigil.

The blood that would break the curse of their people had at last been found.

* * *

“I would not have believed it, had I not witnessed it with My Own eyes,” the Empress said. She watched as the healers hovered over Reza and Esah-Zhurah, anointing their bodies with healing gel. They applied it carefully to the wounds in Reza’s chest, and the Empress watched their hands brush the gleaming black metal of the Collar of Honor that now hung around his neck. When he awoke, he would no longer be an Outsider. He was Hers, now. “To vanish before an enemy, and then to reappear as he did is a feat known only to the ancient orders, such as your own. Never has a tresh done such a thing, in all the time since She… Keel-Tath left us. Never.”

“He has been given a tremendous gift,” Tesh-Dar acknowledged, kneeling beside Her. “Her blood gave voice to the song of his spirit, and the Ancient Ones have given him the power to use it.” She lowered her head. “And I would give him the knowledge, if you would bless it, my Empress.”

“You would accept him as your successor, and teach him the ways of the Desh-Ka?” The sovereign considered the thought for a moment before she answered. “Many firsts has this day brought upon us, Tesh-Dar,” She said quietly. “I can see no reason to deny yet another. And, should you wish it, I give my blessing to the daughter of My Own blood; she is yours, as well.”

Tesh-Dar lowered her head to her chest in gratitude. In all the thousands of generations of warriors who had worn the order’s rune upon their necks, never had a priestess been given such an honor as to bring more than a single disciple into the fold of the Desh-Ka as a priestess... or a priest. Had she been capable of tears, she would have wept with love and pride.

“In Thy name,” she whispered huskily, “it shall be so.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

When Reza awoke from the curing sleep induced by the healers, he was immediately aware of something cool and sleek around his neck. His probing hands found not the rough steel band of a slave that he had worn since childhood, but the Collar of Honor, made of living steel attuned to his body, and half a dozen pendants. Five inscribed his name, with the glittering runes poised relative to each other, as were the Five Stars in the night sky. The last pendant proclaimed him the victor in his final Challenge, an honor made all the greater because it had been fought to the death. It was an honor to which precious few warriors could lay claim.

The week that followed was one of quiet but intense celebration. In pairs and threes, sometimes singly, the tresh made their way to his bedside to pay their respects with a salute on bended knee. There was no mockery here, no false pretenses. Their sincerity was as real as the sound of their fists hammering against their breastplates as they knelt beside him. He was a part of them now, and they felt and accepted the new voice that sang in the choir of their souls as one of their own.

Beside him, Esah-Zhurah recovered quickly, the horrible wounds in her back fading into oblivion under the care of the healers, leaving not even the smallest scar in their wake.

As they both healed, they lay quietly together, saying little except when the priestess paid them a visit to check on their progress. At night, when the healers had retired for the evening, they held each other close, but they did not make love. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was yet weak.

They had time now.

They could wait.

* * *

“The priestess would see you, Reza, Esah-Zhurah,” the young tresh announced as she knelt and saluted. The two who stood before her – both Kreelan, now – were no longer tresh. The Seventh Challenge was the demarcation line between the learning cycle begun in the Nurseries and the beginning of one’s true service to the Empire. Esah-Zhurah and Reza were now warriors.

“Thank you, Te’ira-Khan,” Reza replied. “We shall come at once.”

As the young tresh trotted away, Reza appraised Esah-Zhurah with a raised eyebrow. It was a gesture she had once tried to imitate to humor him, but the ridge of solid horn that served as her own eyebrows was entirely immobile. Instead, she had stuck out her tongue.

“An assignment?” he asked.

“Possibly,” she replied, walking beside him as they made their way toward the priestess’s quarters. She knew how much Reza wanted to begin his service. Night after night, as they lay close to one another in the infirmary, he spoke to her about his hopes and dreams. Of venturing into the wastelands in search of the unknown, of traveling to the stars of the frontier, of spending endless days in the halls that held the Books of Time to learn of his adopted culture and of so many other things.

And each night she was warmed by her dreams and by his gentle touch. She knew that she would take him to see the stars. But her hopes stood on a trembling foundation of fear, for she dreaded the possibility of their separation. At no time since the death of the First Empress had tresh been assured of serving together. Some did by a twist of fate, but most spent their entire lives separated one from the other, to live, serve, and die in Her name without the comfort of the companion with whom they had shared most of their young lives.

She had no way of knowing that the Empress had expressly forbidden their separation in service. It was not an act of charity on Her part; She was simply doing what She could to ensure that The Prophecy would be fulfilled. Neither Esah-Zhurah nor Reza knew of their role in the fate of the Empire, nor would they until the time came that such knowledge was necessary. For now, only Tesh-Dar, the Empress, and a handful of others truly understood. In any case, the Empress was determined that wherever the Way took them, they would go together.

But Esah-Zhurah did not have this knowledge from which to draw reassurance as they entered the priestess’s quarters. They could easily be ordered to opposite ends of the galaxy. Esah-Zhurah’s heart trembled.

They found Tesh-Dar alone, waiting for them. After paying their respects with a salute, they knelt before her.

“The time has come for you both to make a decision,” she told them. “You have completed your obligatory training here, and are within your rights to claim your entry into service of the Empire. But I ask you to consider another option.”

“What other is there?” Reza asked, puzzled.

“I wish you both to accept the ways and powers of the Desh-Ka,” she told him, “to become members of my order.” Reza and Esah-Zhurah both gaped at her in shocked amazement.

“For as long as our people have walked the Way,” Tesh-Dar told them, “the ancient orders have preserved and strengthened the Empire with their blood and skills. The priestesses have led their children in battle, and in their twilight years have taught the young ones the fundaments of the Way, as I have taught you.

“And for the service that we render unto Her, we are given one right that no other – even the Empress – is granted: we may choose our own successors, those to whom we would pass the stewardship of the order. It is a thing we may do only once in our lifetime, for when the torch is passed, no longer do the powers we shepherd dwell within us. We are left as we were as young tresh, but older, waiting for Death’s embrace. It is the greatest gift we may give, but it is still a gift; no one may force you to take it, and you must be sure in your heart that it is what you desire. It is a responsibility and a burden only for the most worthy and dedicated of warriors.

“Tradition demands that a priestess pass her legacy on to only one other. My order, the most ancient of all, predating even the First Empress, has only one keeper remaining: myself. Of all the young warriors I have seen in my many cycles, you are the most deserving, but not one over the other. Together have you loved and suffered; together may you receive my offering, as the Empress has granted.”