The Peasant (12 page)

“Please don't,” she whispered, pushing away from the wall, looking at him, pleading with her gaze.

He frowned at her. “I'll just tell him I can't be there. I'll say, 'Forgive me, Lord Emperor, my mate has had a prescient vision that I'll probably attack Snarling Jaguar. Yes, Lord, she's probably hallucinating again. Even so, I'd feel more comfortable if I weren't there.'
You
tell him, eh?” He shook his head and led her into their suite.

She laughed at his mocking her. “I still want you to find some excuse not to go. I've already forgotten what I saw, but it felt disastrous.” Closing the door behind them, she leaned against it and looked at him. “Guarding Bear?” she asked quietly.

He turned to embrace her. “Yes, Bubbling Water?” he asked, holding the mother of his children and the woman he loved.

Her hands on both sides of his face, she asked, “Why the Infinite did Flying Arrow lure you to the castle?”

Guarding Bear answered her with a kiss.

I
n the year of the Swords, 9302, the Eastern Succession didn't seem threatened. The Emperor Flying Arrow was young and virile. The record we have of his many consorts attests to his virility. His problem? He was sterile. History doesn't tell us how he became sterile. The Emperor ruthlessly discouraged historians from recording the facts. Nonetheless, our language itself bears witness to his sterility. Sunk in the reign of this tyrant is the origin of the phrase “empty quiver,” which now means an “ineffectual person or act.” We have Flying Arrow to thank for enriching our language with this amusing phrase.—
The Fall of the Swords
, by Keeping Track.

Castle Security will examine the minds of all personnel before they serve a single day and test them thereafter on a periodic basis. Those with manipulated minds will submit to more extensive analysis. Remember, once manipulated, always susceptible, since most Wizards install a disabler to ease later access. Security will dismiss outright from castle employ all personnel lacking a certifiable reason for their implants. Those implanted by unknown psychological Wizards will also be dismissed.—Personnel manual, Emparia Castle Archives.

* * *

Is my consort pregnant or not? Flying Arrow wondered.

From the balcony of his private suite high in Emparia Castle, the Emperor gazed toward the west. He probed the electrical shields that protected all but one part of the castle—the top of the spire thrusting toward the sky behind him.

Beyond the city walls glowed the camp of the Imperial Jaguar Entourage. Upon arriving early that morning, the entourage had ensconced itself six miles from the western gate of the city, around a grassy, easily defensible knoll. Shortly afterward, the Emperor Snarling Jaguar had come from the north, leading a detachment of forty warriors and a curtained, shielded palanquin.

They'd scheduled the negotiations for the morrow evening. Even now, rumors were spreading of an alliance between bandit and the Southern Emperor, rumors Lurking Hawk had falsified.

The Sorcerer should have examined her by now! Flying Arrow thought, wondering at the delay. Absently, he rubbed his left arm with his bandaged right hand. The arm ached constantly and throbbed whenever he used his electrokinesis. In the final battle between the Northern and Eastern Empires fifteen years ago, the Emperor Lofty Lion had injured the Emperor-elect Flying Arrow. Somehow, Flying Arrow had triumphed, disarming the Northern Emperor. A slash across the upper left arm, the wound had never healed properly. Not even Soothing Spirit could mend the injury.

Nor could the Imperial Medacor correct Flying Arrow's sterility. Finding out if she's pregnant shouldn't take the Sorcerer
this
long! the Emperor thought. Wondering whether to summon Lurking Hawk, he fingered the hilt of the Imperial Sword.

He glanced down at the diamond on the pommel, thinking about the power contained in the simple electrical circuits. Loosening his sash, Flying Arrow pulled the bejeweled scabbard from it. Caressing the plain, pewter-colored haft, he thanked the Infinite for placing the Sword in his grasp.

Without it, he'd have found daily life intolerable. His mother had died before bestowing half her reserve, and Flying Arrow's talents were so weak that they could hardly be detected. A person with trace telekinesis might wash the platters and goblets from the evening meal without wetting the hands. Flying Arrow couldn't lift the edge of a plate off a table without the Imperial Sword. With it, he could wash all the plates in Cove from Emparia City, including the clean ones.

The Sword was his unlimited source of energy. Without it he couldn't rule. What good is my rule without an heir? the seventh Emperor Arrow wondered, desperately wanting a son to follow him. Heaping curses on his father, Flying Arrow remembered the last time he'd spoken with Smoking Arrow, sixteen years before.

* * *

A pair of seven-arrow guards a pace apart and a pace behind him, the boy Flying Arrow walked toward the castle infirmary for his audience with the Emperor.

The daily sessions humiliated him. Smoking Arrow was near death, dementia having taken most of his mind. Soothing Spirit could treat the symptoms but couldn't cure the senility. The Imperial Sword stopped any attempt to meddle with the Emperor's mind.

Flying Arrow strode into the main infirmary, unarmed, having left the Eastern Heir Sword with the castle jeweler to have a new scabbard made. Patients occupied six of the twenty infirmary beds. The injured and sick stumbled from them to bow. One man, whom the medacors were growing a new leg, fell on his face. Flying Arrow guffawed derisively, his adolescent voice warbling wildly. The man looked at him angrily. The Heir groped for his Sword to take the man's head for his disrespect. Not finding it, Flying Arrow ordered the man to fall on his knife. The man slit his belly, spilling entrails onto floor. The Heir kicked the twitching corpse and derived so much pleasure that he kicked it again.

Then he turned into the corridor that led to the private room where the Emperor stubbornly refused to die. Striding between the pair of six-arrow guards at the door, Flying Arrow nodded to his two seven-arrow guards. They posted themselves outside the room with the Emperor's pair, closing the door behind them.

Smoking Arrow looked no closer to death than the day before.

“Lord Emperor Arrow,” Flying Arrow said ritually, bowing deeply.

The thin, wasted form on the bed stirred. A twitching hand rose. An eye opened and peered at him. The hand fell across the waist, onto the electrical-shield control unit. The shield shut off. The hand slid back to the hip, near the hilt of the Imperial Sword.

Flying Arrow opened his mind. The Emperor's inquiry was a senseless burst of energy. “What's the matter, you old grouse?” the Heir asked. “Can't you even send a simple question? Too senile?”

Smoking Arrow opened the other eye. Both blazed with fury. “You malicious brat!” he said, the words clearer than any Flying Arrow had heard in months. “I'm ashamed you're my son. Infinite blast it, if I had another I'd find a way to…” Smoking Arrow trembled and fell back in the bed, the skin across the face twitching.

There—I've heard the last from him! Flying Arrow thought.

The Emperor stirred.

“Even if you had another son, you wouldn't treat him any better than me!” the boy said. “I'm ashamed you're my father!” Flying Arrow put his hand over his mouth, frightened his father would incinerate him on the spot. A pyrathon of the pure-heat variety, Smoking Arrow wasted little energy on fire and light. Flying Arrow wished he had the Heir Sword. Then he remembered its circuits couldn't protect him from the Imperial Sword. If the Emperor so ordered, the Heir Sword would turn its terrible energy on its own wielder.

“Impudent whelp!” the Emperor hissed. “I knew I should have told the Lady Water to beat the Infinite out of you! With a little more discipline you might have been a decent man. As it is, you're just a despicable brat.” Smoking Arrow coughed once and laid his head to the side, his eyes closed, his chest still.

Flying Arrow watched him for several minutes, waiting for a sign of life, praying he'd never see his father stir again. There! he thought. He's dead! Rising from his haunches, the Heir stepped to the door. His hand on the latch, he heard a dry cough. Blast! he thought, and stepped to the bed. “Die, why don't you!” he screamed into his father's face. “Die, I say!”

The shriveled hand grasped the Imperial Sword; the diamond glowed.

Flying Arrow recognized the Emperor's emission, having felt his father query with the Imperial Sword before. He's trying to disinherit me! the Heir thought.

His father's eyes snapped open. “You're not wearing it!” he nearly yelled. His right hand clenched and unclenched the hilt. Turning his head away, Smoking Arrow snapped it back toward his son.

“Lord Emperor Arrow?”

The Heir Flying Arrow heard a voice far away.

“I think he's stirring, Lords and Ladies,” the distant voice said.

He became aware of pain and located a deep burning in his loins. How did I get hurt? he wondered.

“Lord Emperor Arrow? Can you hear me?” The voice sounded closer.

He opened his eyes to bright infirmary lights. Flying Arrow would've reached to find out why his nether regions hurt so much, but the presence of people stopped him. Around his bed were the members of the Imperial Ruling Council, the five men and three women who'd ruled during his father's decline. They all bowed as one, lowering themselves to their knees and putting their heads to the floor. Then, as one, they rose and looked at him, as if they expected something from him.

The fourteen-year-old boy looked back at them, puzzled.

“Perhaps the Lord Emperor doesn't know,” Scowling Tiger said from one side of the bed.

“How
couldn't
the Lord Emperor know?” Guarding Bear said from the other.

“When the Lord Tiger and I found the Lord Emperor,” Soothing Spirit said from the foot, “he
was
unconscious.”

Guarding Bear nodded. “Lord Nephew, I'm sorry to tell you. The Infinite has taken your father, the Lord Emperor Smoking Arrow, sixth of his Imperial lineage, to the great beyond. I humbly offer my soul and my sword to the Lord Emperor Flying Arrow, seventh of the illustrious Arrow reign. May the Infinite grant him the strength to rule wisely and well.” Guarding Bear put his head to the floor, straightened, and stepped back.

Scowling Tiger then stepped forward, glaring at Guarding Bear for usurping the honor of pledging his loyalty to the new Emperor first.

I'm Emperor, Flying Arrow thought in amazement and wonder. The thought ricocheted through his mind as each Council member offered his or her condolences and loyalty. The honor took the sting from his injuries. Later, after they'd all gone, he asked Soothing Spirit how he'd gotten hurt.

“Well, Lord Emperor, no one's sure. You don't remember?”

Flying Arrow shook his head, feeling very young, very vulnerable.

“Must have been your father's dying, I guess,” Soothing Spirit said. “His psychic reserve must have discharged. Not to worry, Lord Emperor. They're only surface burns. You'll have no problem siring children.”

* * *

Flying Arrow looked toward the west from his balcony high in Emparia Castle, remembering sixteen years of problems. Not one furrow of the hundreds he'd plowed had sprouted a single seedling, not even the virgin soil. Sighing, the Emperor prayed the Consort was pregnant.

The aged personal servant who'd served his father and grandfather before him approached. “The Lord Sorcerer Lurking Hawk requests audience with the Lord Emperor.”

“Finally!” Flying Arrow spat. “Bring him here!”

“Yes, Lord,” the servant said, unperturbed.

What took him so long to examine her? Flying Arrow wondered, turning back to the balustrade. He winced at the sharp pain in his upper left arm.

The rustle of robes alerted him to Lurking Hawk's approach. Flying Arrow turned and nodded to the Sorcerer's obeisance. “Well?” he asked without preamble.

“Do you realize the strength of her talent, Lord Emperor?” Lurking Hawk regained his feet, a small bandage above his eyebrow, a silver bracelet on his wrist.

“Is she pregnant or not?” Flying Arrow hissed.

Lurking Hawk sighed. “I couldn't determine if she is, Lord Emperor. Her talent stopped me.”

“What? You're the most powerful Wizard in the Empire! How can anyone's talent stop you, least of all a lowly consort's?”

“I don't know, Lord Emperor. I've never felt so frustrated. The first time I probed her, I found myself looking into the uterus of a mouse nearby. After several moments, I realized her talent had diverted my probe. I felt most upset.”

“Infinite blast it,” Flying Arrow muttered. “Did you try only once?”

“No, Lord Emperor. I tried seven times, each time increasing my power and my awareness of just how her talent works. Each time, I thought I'd finally penetrated her. Each time, I found myself looking into a uterus that was farther and farther from hers.”

“Can't you skirt her talent?”

“I doubt it, Lord Emperor. She claims to have no awareness or conscious control of it. From what I saw, the more intense the probe, the more her talent resists, as though it feeds off the energy of the probe itself. If you'll recall, Lord, I faced the same problem when I tried to erase her memory of the insemination.”

“I recall, Lord Hawk. Thankfully, she's so ambitious she won't tell anyone about it. I wonder how Castle Security cleared her.”

“What are you talking about, Lord?” Lurking Hawk asked, scratching his head.

“I'm asking how they verified she's free of implants, idiot!”

While most implants were constructive—for example, to prevent an addictive behavior or correct a hormonal imbalance—not all were benign. More Emperors had been killed by close associates implanted to kill than knives hired to strike in the night. Even the ancient personal servant, who'd served three generations of Emperors Arrow, might try to assassinate Flying Arrow because a Wizard had embedded in his mind a directive to kill. Hence, all castle personnel were tested, even the Emperor's personal Wizard, the Sorcerer.

“How could Castle Security insure she's clean of implants if they can't probe her?” Lurking Hawk muttered. “Of course, Lord! If no one can probe her, no one can implant her, eh?”

Flying Arrow nodded, finding no fallacy.

“She might even have a Wizard-status talent, Lord Emperor,” Lurking Hawk added.

“I'll just have to ask if she's pregnant.” Flying Arrow sighed. “How long until she'll know?”

“I can't say, Lord Emperor, but the Imperial Medacor would know.”

“Yes, he would.” Flying Arrow turned toward the Jaguar Camp. “Is everything ready for tomorrow?”

“Yes, Lord Emperor. Security arrangements kept me up all night last night, but everything is ready.”

“Get your lazy apprentice the Lord Illusion to do the drudgery, by the Infinite! Delegate, Hawk! I do.”

Like the Imperial Medacor, the Sorcerer trained apprentice Wizards in the final stages of their certification. Unlike Soothing Spirit, however, Lurking Hawk attracted few applicants and helped even fewer get certified.