Song of the Dragon (39 page)

“How is that possible when each of us has barely had time enough to know ourselves?” Ethis replied. “Let's find the others. Murialis always puts a good meal on the table for her guests, and as we are apparently bound for Vestasia, we should avail ourselves of her hospitality as much as possible. Vestasia is a wild land, and that part of our journey will be difficult.”

“I don't trust you.”

“And you shouldn't,” the chimerian went on, “but then I think that's sound advice in general—don't trust anybody.”

C
H'DREI SETTLED ONCE MORE on her throne in the heart of the Iblisi Keep and permitted herself a grateful sigh.

It was an entirely familiar place, and she was thankful to enjoy it again. In her younger days she, too, had been numbered among the Inquisitors who ranged across the wide lands and seas wherever the influence of the Rhonas was extended and often far beyond. But age and the politics of the Imperial City had eroded her enthusiasm for distant horizons and new vistas. She preferred that the reports of such places came to her here in the center of political life. Better to hear of the open sky than to experience it; rather the world be brought to her than she leave her lair to see it herself.

There were, however, those rare occasions when a journey beyond Tsujen's Wall was required . . . as when the truth to be learned needed to be kept to herself and as few others as possible. This business with Soen on the Western Frontier was one such time. Yet whenever she was required to travel, she was comforted along the road by thoughts of this place . . . that all her journeys would end back here in the quiet darkness of her court deep beneath the ancient stones of the Old Keep. The darkness better suited her purposes and the decisions that she was required to make for the good of the Empire.

It felt much like a tomb, she mused, and where better to bury the truth than with the dead?

Truth, after all, was the province of the Iblisi. The Imperial Will had from its inception altered the public perception of its past. Lie upon lie was told in the interest of the greater good and the Will of the Emperor until any concept of the actual truth was becoming lost. Even the Imperial Family of the Rhonas had begun to lose track of which lies it had told on top of other lies, and too often real truth would surface to the detriment of the state.

It was during the Age of Mists, Ch'drei recalled, that the Scrolls of Xathos came to the elves. The legends every elf knew by heart told of the great Rhonas, father of their Empire, wresting the scrolls from the gods in a challenge of wits and physical strength and founding the magic on which the Empire would be forged. Its epic tale made Rhonas the undisputed leader of the elves trying to conquer a land that was then called Palandria.

But the
truth
was that the Scrolls of Xathos were bartered from a group of manticores who had no concept of their worth as they were capable neither of reading the scrolls nor of reproducing the magic even if they could read. They had stolen those scrolls centuries before from the chimera in Ephindria who themselves had stolen them from the humans of Drakosia beyond the Erebus Straits to the north.

But the truth would not make Rhonas a mythic emperor.

So it was that early in the burgeoning Rhonas state nearly eighteen hundred years ago, it was decided that one group would be tasked with keeping the actual truth intact against those times when new lies had to be crafted in the face of reality. After all, a lie based on a truth is far more effective than one made up entirely of whole cloth. The truth—a powerful and dangerous thing—would be kept safely hidden from the general populace and often from the guilds and Orders of the Empire as well when it was in the interests of the Imperial Will.

The Guardians of the Imperial Family—the Iblisi—were originally charged with this task, and for nearly two millennia they labored tirelessly as Keepers of the Truth and the touchstones of the Imperial Will. The histories were written and rewritten, torn down and written once again to shape the minds of the Rhonas elves to support whatever the current political climate wished to be true in the public heart. Yet through it all, the Iblisi remained the keepers of the true past and the black, violent, and immoral bloody treacheries that were the constant tempo of the real Rhonas histories.

The Age of Frost, the Age of Mists, the Age of Fire . . . all were chronicled in gory, terrible detail and then buried here; buried for the good of the citizens of every Estate and the welfare of the Imperial Rule.

Yet unbeknownst to the many guilds, Imperial Orders and ministries of the Empire—even to the Emperor's own thoughts—was the deepest truth of all: that for many years the Iblisi were not as concerned with safeguarding the past as they were with avoiding destiny.

The Empire was doomed; the Iblisi alone knew it, and they alone had any hope of preventing it.

Prevent it,
Ch'drei thought as she sat on her throne,
at any cost.

The doors opposite her opened with a terrible booming sound that echoed between the squat pillars of the hall. The Keeper smiled graciously at the figure approaching her with determined, quick strides.

“Inquisitor Soen,” Ch'drei said through a smile. “How good of you to pay your . . .”

“Keeper Ch'drei!” Soen angrily cut across the Keeper's words. “Why am I here?”

The Keeper drew in a breath before she lightly responded. “Why, my very question to you, Inquisitor . . . why
are
you here?”

Soen ignored her attempt to blunt his anger. “Three weeks! Three weeks since we returned from the Hyperian Plain and still I'm kept in the Imperial City like some shackled animal!”

“Hardly shackled! I would have thought you might have taken more time to recover from your journey . . . or at least reacquaint yourself with the pleasures of Rhonas.”

“You know that the city holds no interest for me. My duty lies in Vestasia—not behind these damp walls.”

“Of course,” Ch'drei said in purring tones. “But I have only begun to bend the Imperial Will over Murialis and your bolters. It could take weeks more before we can apply any real pressure on . . .”

“Keeper, we both know that I should have left weeks ago,” Soen interrupted once more. “We cannot be certain that Murialis will hold them at all. I must leave at once. We dare not risk losing them.”

“Calm yourself,” the Keeper replied. “Haste breeds mistakes, Soen . . . you of all people know that.”

Soen seemed about to make a sharp reply but hesitated, his face relaxing slightly. “Indeed, you are right, my Keeper, but the circumstances dictate haste. I should not have returned so far as the Imperial City in the first place.”

“Have a care, Soen,” Ch'drei said with an edge in her voice. “It was I that instructed you to return here.”

“And in doing so have cost us both not only weeks of delay but the contact with the beacon stones that mark their path,” Soen countered. “I could have been in Vestasia reacquiring them by now if you had . . .”

“If I had done what—bartered passage for you through the Imperial Folds? And just how would I have done that without giving the Occuran answers about the Provinces or the Myrdin-dai some report on the mess they are
still
cleaning up on the frontier? They only granted you and your Quorum access last time to find out why they had been made out as fools—they certainly would not have done so again without receiving their payment for your last adventure! You may be a great Inquisitor, Soen, but you know
nothing
about politics. One day you'll trip over your tongue once too often, boy, and fall where no amount of craft can save you.”

“Forgive me, Keeper,” Soen said carefully. “I serve at your pleasure.”

“Yes, you do,” Ch'drei said, her tone still sharp. “And you will continue to do so. Having been so adamant, I hesitate to tell you that I have indeed arranged passage with the Occuran through their Imperial Trade Folds as you requested. You have been granted an Imperial Charge that cannot be questioned and that leaves you free to pursue your target at any price—
any
price, you understand.”

“Yes, my Keeper.”

Ch'drei nodded with satisfaction. “Very well, Soen. How do you intend to proceed?”

“I must leave at once, Keeper,” Soen said. “I'll follow the Trade Folds into occupied Chaenandria and then the old Northmarch Folds as far as Yurani Keep. Then I'll make my way southwest, to pick up their track once more. My Matei remains aligned to the traitor's beacon stones. It is only a matter of time after that.”

The Keeper raised her brow over her glossy black eyes. “Time before what?”

“Before I track down this Drakis and find out who he really is.” Soen said. “If he's worth your time, Ch'drei, then I'll bring him back to you as a gift.”

Ch'drei smiled. She could imagine Soen thinking and rethinking this plan each day for the last three weeks. “Bring this Drakis back to us and we'll see if he is of any use. I am counting on your skill and your discretion. No one may know of this, you understand. I am sending you out alone and with no Quorum in support. This is against the laws of our Order, but under the circumstances I think it best you be left to act on your own.”

“Wisdom indeed,” Soen said with a smile. “For if I am discovered . . .”

“I will deny that this conversation ever took place,” Ch'drei nodded. “I believe we are both clear on this subject?”

“Yes, Keeper,” Soen nodded. “When may I leave?

“Within the hour,” Ch'drei said. “You are expected at the Trade Folds of the Occuran before noon.”

“Thank you. I shall bring honor to your name, Ch'drei,” Soen said with a slight bow and a wry smile.

“I have every confidence in you, Soen,” Ch'drei smiled in return.

The Keeper watched her Inquisitor as he backed a few steps from her and then turned, his strides carrying him across the floor back to the still open doors. He stopped and, flashing a sharp-toothed grin, pulled the doors closed as he bowed out of the room.

Ch'drei sat for a moment, waiting for the deep silence to once again permeate the room. She always thought of the silence as a physical thing that she both welcomed and respected. She reveled in it for a while longer until she was certain that it would not be disturbed by Soen again.

“You understand what you have heard?” Ch'drei whispered into the silence.

The silence whispered back. “Yes, Lady Ch'drei.”

“And your Quorums? Are its members in place?”

“Yes, Lady Ch'drei,” came the hushed response, barely echoing between the columns supporting the low ceiling overhead. “They are arranged among the Trade Portals as you requested. Everything lies in wait.”

“And none of the Quorum members know your mission,” the Keeper said, stressing each of the words as she spoke. “It is absolutely vital that you alone know your true mission—that you
alone
complete it.”

“They know only that we serve the Iblisi,” the voice replied. “They will obey me without question.”

The Keeper allowed herself a sad smile. “He must never suspect you are tracking him—never have the notion so much as enter his head. If he so much as hears you breathing, you will be of no use to me.”

“Yes, Lady Ch'drei.”

The Keeper stood up from her throne and carefully descended the three steps to the floor of her audience hall. “Tell it to me once again . . . let me hear it in your own words. What is your first task?”

“Track the Inquisitor Soen wherever he may go. Leave no trace of our passage. Follow him to a human slave named Drakis—the Drakis who bolted from House Timuran in the Western Provinces.”

“That is right,” the Keeper purred. “What is your second task?”

“When we are assured of his identity, we are to capture this Drakis alive and kill any who may have associated with him. I am then to deliver this Drakis to you personally here in this room.”

“That is right,” Ch'drei said . . . and then, holding up her hand, she paused.

The Keeper had thought this through again and again since that day at Togrun Fel, tried to find a different course to take; but her first thought as she had sat on this same throne inside a tomb half a continent away remained her only answer.

Soen was right; this Drakis could easily be mistaken for the bringer of doom to the Rhonas Empire—especially because he was a weapon of untold destruction. The fall of the Empire
was
coming as Ch'drei, Soen, and a number of other Inquisitors were well aware. Soen wanted to control that fall and emerge victorious from the rubble with the Iblisi to rule.

Ch'drei shared that vision, but she also knew that such power was not something easily held in common with anyone—especially an Inquisitor with boundless ambition. Sooner or later, one of them—Ch'drei or Soen—would have to go.

Better sooner than later, Ch'drei sighed to herself. And better Soen than her.

“And finally?” Ch'drei spoke at last to the darkness.

“And then we are to track and kill Inquisitor Soen,” the voice said, a rasping sound now apparent in its speech.

So it had been said, and having been said was now the will of the Keeper. Killing Soen would not be easy, she mused. For that she had needed someone who was personally motivated and committed to the Inquisitor's death.

Ch'drei smiled as she turned. From the shadows at the side of the hall, a robed figure emerged. It drew its hood back, revealing a face that would have caused even elven adults to blanch. A flap of damaged skin sagged down over the elf's right eye, which was now a dreadful and useless milky-gray in color. The skin of his face bore long scars and discoloration from slashing burns that ran up his long forehead to the elongated crown, but one particularly terrible scar pulled badly at the left corner of his mouth, lifting the lip on that side into an unnatural and perpetual snarl.