The Usurper's Crown (67 page)

Xuan, the Minister of Fire, walked up a single step of the dais and knelt.

“I am ready,” he said.

The other eight said nothing at first. Xuan remained where he was, bent in obeisance and offering, ready to sacrifice all to make good his failure and to protect the Heart of the World.

“Let it be done,” whispered Chi Tahn, the Minister of Water.

“Let it be done,” whispered En Lai, the Minister of Earth. “Let it be done,” whispered Shaiming, the Minister of Metal.

Eight times the words echoed around the throne room. As the ministers spoke, the air seemed to thicken with the force of their resolve, until the hairs on the back of Pa K’un’s head stood up, and it seemed that the very images of the gods must shiver from the strength of it.

Pa K’un signed to his Voice. “Can it be done now?”

“It can,” answered the Minister of Air. “It has been prepared for these many years.”

The Voice looked to the emperor, and Pa K’un nodded.

“Then I also say, let it be done.”

The eight of the elders who still stood all bowed in unison. “Will Your Majesty deign to come with us?”

Again, Pa K’un inclined his head. With this as the signal, the Voice beckoned to the bearers with their black coats and saffron caps. They mounted the dais from the rear, carrying the poles which were their badge of office. The poles were fitted into slots on the sides of his throne and the emperor was lifted onto the shoulders of his servants. Already, the soldiers were assembled at the foot of the dais that he might have a proper escort.

The Nine Elders stood aside so that Pa K’un preceded them down the dais steps. As a result, the emperor had no opportunity to see how bravely the Minister of Fire walked toward his destiny.

There was only one place for such magic as this. The ministers and the imperial escort proceeded up the winding stairs of the Heart’s central tower, the Heart’s Spear. Only those who had the privilege of mounting the final stair could tell that the last chamber was open to the moon and stars. Silver light flooded down and filled the circular room with its polished floor inlaid in gold and ivory with maps of the heavens and ringed round with signs of protection for Hung Tse.

In the center of the chamber waited a stone altar the size and shape of a millstone, its top blackened by years of fires and its sides carved with prayers to the gods and the imperial ancestors. As his bearers lowered him, Pa K’un read those prayers, and wondered if either of the two boys who sat here before him would hear if he spoke those prayers aloud. He wondered if they would bless or curse him if they could.

The Minister of Fire stepped forward and knelt before the altar. He bowed and kissed the ground before it, remaining in the position of obeisance to pray. Then, at last, he stood straight, and stepped into the center of the altar. He stood there, still and seemingly unafraid, but Pa K’un could not believe that was so. He remembered his investiture as emperor. He had schooled himself to sit perfectly still through the hours of chants and formal declarations. He had appeared calm and strong, or so he had been told, but inside he had felt weak as water, even though he knew it was a glorious thing that was happening to him.

Even in the moonlight, Xuan’s tattoos shimmered brightly as if he were living flame himself rather than just flesh and blood.

The Minister of Earth and the Minister of the South joined their fellows in the circle. Each carried a shining bundle reverently in their arms. Xuan lifted his chin just a little higher. Then, he inclined his head once.

The Nine Elders bowed in return. Then, they lifted their voices and, together, they began to sing.

Pa K’un had studied many languages, but the spell tongue of the Nine Elders was known to them alone. It was never written down, and was only passed on when a new elder was chosen and invested with the robes, markings and name of the previous sorcerer who had held the office, and then it was passed on by magic. That particular ceremony had not been required, the emperor knew, for three hundred years. But then, neither had this one.

The nine voices rose higher, became more commanding. Even Pa K’un could feel the air shiver as the song wove the elders’ will into corporeal form. It grew bitterly cold for a moment, then, slowly, it began to warm, as if the song reached up to the stars themselves and pulled down their fire.

En Lai, the Minister of Earth, broke the circle, still singing high, ringing harmonies that soared above the other tones. He stepped onto the altar. The Minister of Fire did not move, did not look at him. En Lai lifted the burden he carried and draped it around Xuan’s shoulders.

It was a robe, stiff with golden embroidery. Phoenixes soared across scarlet cloth. They raised their trailing wings in triumph. They stretched their necks out in song. They spread their long tails out to wrap around Xuan’s body so that they encompassed him completely.

En Lai bowed again, and slowly, Pa K’un thought lovingly, tied the golden sash and returned to the circle.

The song deepened, strengthened, drawing its power from the stones beneath as well as the stars above. The night grew warmer. Pa K’un felt sweat begin to prickle his scalp and the back of his neck.

On the altar, Xuan sagged under the weight of the song of power and the robe that bound him. The song did not cease, but grew louder and stronger yet. Pa K’un, for all his years of training, could barely hold himself still. He had ordered this thing, but now he wanted to flee it. This was wrong. This tore at the fabric of what was and what must be. This power was too great, this song too loud. The gods heard this sound, and they answered, and their answers were not kind.

The Minister of the South stepped onto the altar with her burden. Xuan, no longer able to stand on his own, sagged against her. She bore his weight sturdily, singing her thread of this terrible, powerful web, and laid her burden across Xuan’s face. It was a mask, made of gold and etched with delicate feathers. It was a bird’s face she bound with scarlet ribbons over Xuan’s own. He arched his back from the weight and the pain and the burden of the song that pressed against him, but he made no sound. The Minister of the South returned to the circle, and Xuan collapsed in a heap of gold and beauty onto the stone.

The elders’ song grew louder yet. Pa K’un felt he could not stand it a moment longer. He must clap his hands over his ears, he must scream, he must leap up and break the circle. He must stop this. It was wrong, wrong. The song would tear the world open. It would shatter night and day around them. It was too huge, too loud, too terrible to be contained.

The emperor shot to his feet, and in that exact moment, the Phoenix rose from the altar.

It was dazzling. It shone like the sun as it lifted its wings, each feather a tongue of flame. The blue of the heart of the flame burned in its eyes. Pa K’un felt he would be blinded if he looked too long, but he could not turn his face away from the power and the unearthly beauty of this creature that rose, graceful as smoke, into the night sky, dimming the stars themselves with its blaze. It uttered one cry that pierced Pa K’un’s ears through to his heart, and it flew, a star of impossible proportions rising from earth instead of falling from the heavens, toward the north.

Only when its blaze had faded could Pa K’un breathe again. He fell back on his chair, his strength gone. The afterimages of the Phoenix flickered brightly across his vision. Sometime, he could not have said when, the elders had ceased to sing. They clasped hands now, bowing toward the empty altar. There were only eight of them in that circle. Xuan, the Minister of Fire, was gone.

Pa K’un gathered himself back into the approved position of calm reflection, then, he too bowed toward the empty altar.

Thank you, Xuan, for your sacrifice. Thank you, immortal one, for answering our call. If there is a price, I will pay, but I beg you, burn these invaders from our door
.

As his prayer winged skyward, a fierce cry echoed in the distance. Pa K’un knew then he had been heard, and he could not help but tremble.

Chapter Nineteen

The white crane soared through the sky. The long plains passed beneath it, giving way to rolling hills and ragged mountains. Inside the crane’s shape, the man, Yamuna, reveled in the freedom of his flight. Despite the cold of the bottled curse he carried around his neck, his heart was warm.

He remembered the day he took his oath to the Pearl Throne, and how heavily the words fell from his tongue. He remembered watching the sullen, petulent boy he was bound to serve and wondering how the old emperor could bear to call that his son.

Soon. Soon I will be transformed forever. Soon the Mothers will answer for my fate
.

Avanasy sought his friend Peshek. So too did Yamuna. Last night, as he rested, his scrying showed him Peshek lurking in the woods of a mountain pass, getting ready to commit his own treasons. Avanasy would find him there. So too would Yamuna.

When they all met, it would be the beginning of the end.

“Majesty?” General Adka stepped into the dim imperial tent and knelt. Dawn was still too far off to bring any warmth to the air and his breath steamed in front of him, a white cloud in the flickering light of a single brazier. No servants were present. The emperor himself was nothing more than a shadow beside the dark lump of the bed.

“Adka. Is the decamp proceeding?” The emperor’s voice was harsh with fatigue, and something else Adka could not fathom.

“Yes, Majesty. We should be able to move before full light.” The order had come hours ago, delivered by the emperor’s chief secretary. Over Colonel Gavren, Adka’s second-in-command, had gone to the imperial tent to make sure his majesty was informed as to what the coming day would bring, and had returned with a surprising and disturbing order.

Emperor Kacha wanted no scouts sent forward. The army would move out without hesitation, and without information.

So, here Adka knelt, perplexed, and more than a little concerned. No one had seen the emperor in days. He had taken to traveling in a curtained litter and barking out his orders in a strangled voice. Worry was growing among the men, and among the officers as well.

Adka understood the caprice of emperors. His imperial majesty was a young man at his first command. A nonsensical order or two was to be expected. But his absence from camp and council was spreading unease, and the desertions continued, despite the increased patrols on the perimeters of the camps and the marching columns. It was time to get some solid reassurance he could take to his officers and set percolating through the camp as a counter to the rumors that had been building since they left Ontipin.

Adka kept his voice low and humble. “Imperial Majesty, we will be entering the Pass of Padinogen today.”

“You wish to give me a lesson in geography, General?” The shadow that was the emperor moved in the darkness, but Adka saw nothing he could clearly identify as a gesture to stand, so he remained on his knees.

“No, Majesty. I only wished to confirm the order to proceed without the scouts.”

“They will only delay us.” The emperor’s voice shook a little as he spoke. “We must make all speed to the plains. Hung Tse is surely on the move. We are still in Isavalta. No one opposes us here.”

“No, Majesty,” Adka said. He did not ask if the emperor had forgotten those lords and lords master who had failed to send their levies to join the troops. “But there is an additional possibility …”

“I am not interested in possibilities, General, only speed.”

“Yes, Majesty. However …”

With three deliberate steps, the emperor strode out of the shadows, and Adka saw him fully for the first time in days. He saw the round black eye that should not have looked out of any human face, and the skinny hand so grotesquely twisted into a parody of a bird’s skinny claw.

“What are you gawking at, General?”

He had thought it might be drink that slurred the emperor’s voice, but now that Adka saw his face, he realized it must be pain.

“Is something wrong with my coutenance?” the emperor demanded.

As a soldier, Adka had looked on horror before, and knew how to keep his voice steady. “No, Imperial Majesty.”

“I am glad to hear it.” The emperor half-turned, hiding his ghastly right side in the shadows again. “March the men on as soon as they can hoist their packs. Nothing is going to delay our victory, do you understand me? Nothing.”

Adka drew himself up. He served the imperial house. He had his orders. But he also served Eternal Isavalta. He swore to protect the land with blood and bone, as Vyshko and Vyshemir had. That oath necessitated he try just once more.

“We have made good time. Our best estimates put us a week ahead of the Hung. If His Imperial Majesty wished to … rest for a day or two, it would lose us no more than …”

“You will not question me!” The emperor swung around, raking the air with his twisted hand.

Now, Adka saw beyond the pain to something else. The young man who was emperor of Eterna Isavalta was terrified. The smooth, calculating assurance that had been his since he came as a boy to Isavalta had vanished. He had no idea what he was going to do or how he was going to do it. His only thought was to push forward and hope he broke through. But to what?

Cold inside, Adka drew himself up and gave the soldier’s reverence.

“All will be as His Imperial Majesty commands.”

“You may go.” The emperor shrank back to the shadows again.

Adka left the tent before he had to look again on the emperor’s transformed face. He walked through the chaos of the camp — the shouts, the clatter, the men scurrying about like ants — without seeing any of it. His mind instead ran back and forth over the encounter with the emperor, and what he had just seen.

“Well, General, what do we do?”

Over Colonel Gavren had come up beside him, and Adka hadn’t even noticed. He thought on the rocky pass that waited ahead of him. He thought on the black, birdlike eye, on the twisted hand, the pain and the terror, and the fact that the emperor could have him killed instantly for disobeying his orders, and in pain and panic as he was, he just might. Something had happened, something bad that stank to the sky of magic. He needed a sorcerer and he had none to ask. The emperor did not permit any to be brought on the campaign. Once again, Adka found himself wondering why.