Chains of Mist (3 page)

As the Federation Ambassador’s question echoed through the silent room, a new face rose in Drogni’s memory: delicate-boned, with short dark hair and gentle eyes. Justin Varenn, who, like Forgera, was a member of the Ambassadors Guild based on the Federation capital world of Davin, had been the final member of the party that had set forth to Leva. He had been with them in Rokan Sellas’s throne room on Hilthak. After Rokan Sellas had disposed of Galdro, Lester, Denar, Westan, and Daalis, he had turned his attention to Varenn. He had seemed to be about to kill the soft-spoken Ambassador, but had taken him prisoner instead. The two of them had vanished into a cloud of foul dark mist, leaving Drogni, Forgera, and Makree alone in the throne room.

The Vizier regarded Forgera for several long moments. Finally the big man nodded. “Your friend is alive.”

Relief washed over Forgera’s face. “What does Rokan want with him?”

The Vizier’s expression gave away nothing. “I am not sure.”

Forgera’s expression darkened, and his eyes narrowed. His reply was not loud, but it carried a sting that would be the envy of any military commander. “You expect me to believe that?”

“I expect you to believe whatever you want to believe,” replied the Vizier icily. “It matters little to me. But when I say that I do not know what Rokan Sellas intends for your friend, I am telling the truth.”

“Stek,” snapped Forgera. The expletive sounded very odd coming from the lips of a man who, in the short time that Drogni had known him, had been nothing but polite and respectful.
Then again, watching your friend be captured by the most evil man in the galaxy can have a…freeing…effect on a person’s vocabulary.
“That’s a galaxy-sized pile of stelnak dung, and you know it,” continued the Ambassador. “You sent us—sent
him
—to Leva, when there was no reason for him to be there. You knew this would happen—no, you
wanted
it to happen. So don’t stand there and lie to me. Just…don’t.”

“I knew that your friend was important, somehow.” The Vizier seemed as unperturbed by the Ambassador’s cursing as he had been by Drogni’s earlier displays of anger. “I knew that he was destined to be more than some common diplomat. But I also knew that darkness was spreading, and quickly. I could not afford to wait for Justin Varenn’s destiny to come upon him through the natural course of events. So I intervened. I sent him to Drask; I sent him to Leva. I placed him in the path of destiny…and destiny, it seems, has found him.”

The Vizier fell into another maddeningly calm silence. Forgera waited, his expression growing ever more incredulous. “That’s all you have to say?” he finally blurted out. “‘Destiny has found him?’ What is that even supposed to mean?
What
destiny?”

“I do not know for sure.” The Vizier somehow managed to make even this admission of ignorance sound arrogant. “I cannot see every detail of every possible future, but I do know this: if Rokan Sellas is to be stopped, then Justin Varenn will play a vital role. Your friend is part of something larger than just himself. He has been chosen, his path set in front of him. That path will be dark, dangerous, terrible. But perhaps it will end with Rokan Sellas’s defeat.”

“And it might also end with Justin’s death. It might—” Forgera suddenly gave a mirthless laugh. “What am I saying? ‘Might’ end with his death? It will, won’t it? You seem to think you can see the future—he doesn’t survive this, does he? Tell me—and don’t even
think
about lying.”

“All paths end in death, Ambassador,” said the Vizier. “Now or a hundred years from now; in battle or at home. That cannot be prevented. Your friend has a chance to make his death mean something. To make his
life
mean something. Maybe even to save us all.”

Forgera’s expression twisted into something ugly. “That’s not good enough. That is
not
good enough, by
stek
!”

“What would you like to hear, Ambassador?” asked the Vizier. This time he sounded almost amused at the other man’s impertinence.

Forgera threw up his hands. “I don’t know! An apology would be nice, I guess. Maybe an admission of guilt.
Something
to show that you feel bad about sending an innocent man to his death.”

“I will admit to my responsibility for Justin Varenn’s current predicament,” said the Vizier. “Anything more than that would be a lie. I will not apologize for trying to save this galaxy from an unspeakable evil. Besides, as I mentioned before, your friend is not dead. He may have been taken by Rokan Sellas, but he is also in the hands of fate. And that is a grasp that even Rokan Sellas cannot break so easily.”

Forgera did not appear particularly comforted by that thought. “If you can see the future, then you know where Justin is. You know where Rokan Sellas took him.”

“No,” said the Vizier.

Forgera’s retort was immediate. “Stek.”

“No,” repeated the Vizier. “But even if I did, what then? It is a fool’s errand to rescue him. Rokan Sellas did not capture your friend on a whim; he will not easily relinquish him.”

The Vizier’s voice carried a tone of finality, an indication that he thought the matter closed. But Forgera obviously disagreed. “I can’t just wait here, not while that monster has him. Not while…” The Ambassador’s voice trailed off into despairing, anguished silence. His face drooped, his eyes downcast.

Something in the Ambassador’s expression stirred Drogni from silence. “So that’s it, then? That’s your advice? That we just give up? Walk away—go home?” He slammed a fist on the table with a sound that all but shook the small conference room. “No. No! I refuse to accept that.”

“I did not say that we should stop fighting,” said the Vizier. “On the contrary; we
must
continue
to fight, to struggle against this enemy for as long as we draw breath. But we must do so intelligently. We must be disciplined. We must do our duty.”

“Duty? Pah!” Drogni gave a hollow laugh that twisted to bitterness in his mouth. “What do you know of duty? What could you
possibly
know—?”

“I know more than you think.” The Vizier’s deep voice was still impassive, but irritation verging on anger suddenly flashed across his dark eyes. “But what I know of duty is irrelevant. You know that I am correct. They did their duty. And now it is time for you to do yours.”

Drogni did know his duty. He was the Supreme Allied Fleet Commander of one of the largest military forces in the galaxy. Billions of lives depended on him. He could not allow this conflict to become personal; he needed to keep his own feelings out of the equation. He certainly could not go charging off on a single-minded crusade that could very well end in his own death. Instead, he needed to be the one sitting behind the desk with a tactical datascreen in his hand, sending others into danger, all while he remained safely behind on Tellaria.

In other words, to be just like the Vizier.

Drogni knew all of that in an instant. And he found that he did not care. All he could think of was Rokan Sellas; all he could see was that scarred face, that cruel smile. “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Is that so?” asked the Vizier softly. “Why, Commander? Why are you so willing to throw your own life away, to turn away from your duty chasing a man that you cannot defeat? Not just because of loyalty to a few soldiers, I think.” The Vizier studied Drogni intently, as if he were an exhibit at a museum…or a specimen on a dissecting table. “No…there is more to this story, Commander. This is not just about those who died on Hilthak. Nor is this about what happened at Denlar. There is something else. Something…
new
.” A smile curled the corner of the big man’s lips, the expression predatory rather than comforting. “What aren’t you telling us, Commander?”

Drogni said nothing. He couldn’t even bring himself to meet the Vizier’s eyes, for fear that, by doing so, he would reveal the darkest secret of all. The secret that he had left out of his retelling of the events of Leva and Hilthak, the one that he could not bear to hear himself utter.

In his mind, Drogni found himself once again back on Hilthak. But this time he strode through the darkened halls in a suit of black combat armor, dealing death to all he encountered. He laid waste to waves of Coalition soldiers and carved bloody swathes through Mari’eth warriors like a demonic executioner. Unbridled fury coursed through his veins, and an intoxicating feeling of invincibility infused him. He surrendered to his rage without hesitation and convinced himself that he was right to do so.

As the bodies piled up around Drogni, Rokan Sellas’s sibilant voice whispered in his ears: “
You are the Destroyer, Ortega. You are the Sword of Chaos. You are the Sword…and I am its wielder.
”

Drogni felt a shudder run through him. He heard the dying screams, felt the crunch of bones beneath his blade, tasted the fear and panic and chaos that he wrought. Revulsion rolled through him, but he did not allow himself to block out those memories. He
needed
to remember. Hiding from the past would not erase his actions; instead, it would simply make him more likely to let his guard down in the future, to make the same mistake he had on Hilthak…and with the same disastrous results.

He had slaughtered them all. And he had enjoyed it.

Once again, the Vizier was right. This wasn’t just about the soldiers Rokan Sellas had killed on Hilthak, nor even the thousands more he had slain with his treachery at Denlar fifteen years ago. There was one more reason why Drogni could not simply let this go. One more reason why he could not rest until Rokan Sellas was dead.

One more reason why I need to be the one who kills him. Because of what he did to me on Hilthak. The monster he turned me into.

But even as that thought crossed his mind, Drogni knew that he was lying to himself. Angrily he forced himself to confront the truth.
No. There was no transformation. He didn’t
turn
me into a monster. I
am
the monster. The killer.

All he did was set me free.

Drogni banished those thoughts with an angry shake of his head. “It doesn’t matter what it is,” he said, his voice low and deadly. “He’s still just a man. I can still kill him. I
will
still kill him.”

The Vizier gave a short, derisive laugh. “Then you have learned nothing, Commander. You have seen what Rokan Sellas has become. You have seen what he can do. What makes you think that you can succeed this time?” The big man gestured derisively as
Ss’aijas K’sejjas.
“Do you think that that Mari’eth blade will save you? It shines brightly, and has some power, but it is a mere trinket compared to one of the
Chalas Peruvas
. The Fireblade will sweep it aside like smoke. You survived Hilthak because of luck, nothing more, and you would do well to remember that.”

Drogni had to admit that the Vizier had a point. His last battle against Rokan Sellas had not been close. He had felt firsthand the power swirling within the red gem known as the Fireblade, a power that sent shivers through his blood even to think about it. According to the Vizier, the Fireblade was one of a collection of ancient magical talismans known as the
Chalas Peruvas
; whoever wielded it could summon forth unthinkable power. Power enough to rend galaxies, destroy planets, snuff out stars.
What do I have? An alien sword that I don’t know how to use and which barely saved me last time. How will that be enough?

Drogni didn’t know. But it didn’t matter.
It will be enough, because it
has
to be. For those who died on Hilthak—for those who died at Denlar—I can’t fail.
“Maybe, maybe not. But I do know one thing—I won’t stop until he’s dead. I swear, for Daniel Lester, Tina Galdro, Palis Denar, Sara Westan, and Gregory Daalis. No matter what it takes, I will kill him.”

The Vizier appeared to contemplate that for a few moments. Then he leaned forward, until his forehead was mere centimeters from Drogni’s. “And what if I were to forbid it?” he said softly, his dark eyes locking onto Drogni’s. “What if I were to tell you that your personal vendetta with Rokan Sellas is at an end?”

“I would tell you to go burn in the pits of Muntûrek,” said Drogni immediately, not flinching under the Vizier’s piercing gaze. “You cannot command me, Vizier.”

The big man raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain of that, Commander?” he murmured, the words rolling out like distant thunder.

Drogni’s anger burgeoned, straining to be free; it was only with a very great effort that he tamped it down. Instead of replying to the Vizier’s challenge, Drogni turned his gaze for the first time to the final man present. He sat beside the Vizier, his arms crossed on the table and his long fingers crooked against each other in a contemplative pose. His robes were of similar extravagance to the Vizier’s, but they were deep blue, the same color as his eyes. Encircling his head was a slim metal band inlaid with precious stones.

Jorkan Grallos, King of Tellaria, met Drogni’s gaze calmly. But he said nothing.

A wave of disgust swept away Drogni’s anger.
Damn it, man—show some spine! But I guess that would be too much to ask, wouldn’t it? We all know who’s
really
in charge here.