Mistress Of The Ages (In Her Name, Book 9) (15 page)

“The moon,” the high priestess of the Desh-Ka whispered, a smile creasing her damaged face. “Syr-Nagath is about to face its sword.”

***

The ships swept in, high above the palace. Portals along the lower hull of the great vessels irised open and massive silver-clad warriors, nearly six thousand of them, leaped out.
 

“Beware!” One of the bridge controllers shouted. One of the screens showed obsidian spires all around the palace, rising from the ground as if they were fast growing trees. Light sparkled at their tops. “Something is…”

The view screens that circled the bridge went white, overloaded by the searing cyan energy that swept the skies. Syr-Nagath cried out in anguish as her warriors were exterminated, their songs in her blood silenced in an instant as they were vaporized.
 

The ship shuddered, then was shaken like a bone in the jaws of a carrion beast. All who were not secured to their chairs were thrown from one side of the command deck to the other, save those of the priesthood who vanished to safety. The hull rang with a series of deafening booms, and the air was filled with smoke bearing the odor of ozone and burning metal as cascades of sparks burst from the control panels.
 

“Destroy them!” Syr-Nagath shouted.

“Our weapons are down,” the shipmaster reported with disquieting calm. “We must retreat while we still can.”

With a snarl of rage, realizing that she had been drawn into a trap like an arrogant fool, Syr-Nagath slammed her fist down on the armrest of her command chair.
 

The ship shook again as it took another hit and the gravity began to fluctuate. Syr-Nagath was overwhelmed by waves of nausea, and several of those on the bridge who were still conscious vomited.
 

“If we do not withdraw now,” the shipmaster informed her, his calm having finally evaporated, “we will be destroyed. Three of the other ships are already lost. And we cannot jump away, for we are too deep in the gravity well of the moon.”

“Then let us flee.” Syr-Nagath’s stomach heaved as the shipmaster dove the ship toward the moon’s surface, dipping below the horizon where the hellish weapons of the palace were no longer in line of sight, hoping that no other hidden traps awaited them. Once on the moon’s far side, he took them out of the atmosphere and turned for home as the crew frantically worked to keep the ship alive.

Theirs was the only one to escape.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Keel-Tath strode through the darkness, shivering from the biting cold. She was not sure how much time had passed since she had entered the coliseum, but she knew that within a vessel of one of the Crystals of Souls, time as measured in the outside world had little meaning. While her uncertainty about what might lay ahead grew with each step, she felt no fear, for nothing evil could touch her in this place.
 

“Where are you?" she asked into the darkness, not for the first time, hoping to hear her fallen mentor’s voice.
 

“I am here, child.”

She stopped, disbelieving her ears even as a flood of joy and relief swept through her. It was Ayan-Dar. “Where are you?”

“Here. Take my hand.”

She reached out and felt his hand, so big and strong, enfold her own.

“I am glad you are here, but how is it possible?" she whispered. “You are Desh-Ka, not Ima’il-Kush.”

“That is so, but in a sense my blood and my soul are bound to yours. Thus, where you go, so can I.” He chuckled. “Or that is my thought on the matter.” In a darker voice, he added, “This is not a trial that you would wish to face alone, my child.”

As he finished speaking, the darkness faded away to reveal the arena at the center of the coliseum of the Ima’il-Kush. But this was far different from that of the Desh-Ka.

Instead of a single dais in the center where the Crystal of Souls would have appeared, five platforms were arrayed around a central dais that was elevated above the others. A set of five steps led down from the top to a gleaming walkway of black stone that crossed the sand, and upon which Keel-Tath and Ayan-Dar stood.

“Five?” Shocked, she turned to look at Ayan-Dar, whose expression was grim as he stared at what awaited her. “But how? Why?”

“The how, I do not know. That is the realm of the ancients who founded the Way itself. As for why…it is because you passed the test set before you by Anuir-Ruhal’te.”

“What test?”

He turned to her, his good eye squinting slightly. “Did you not notice something…odd before you entered this place?”

“Well, yes,” she told him. “It was as if time had come to a stop and I felt powerful, so powerful that I could have conquered the Universe all on my own.”

“Indeed. You could have killed your enemies, destroyed them all without them even knowing what killed them. And yet, you did not. Had you taken a single life in that moment when all lay at your feet, when you felt that ultimate power was yours, that golden band around your neck would have killed you. You would not have been worthy of the treasures the ancients set aside for you.”

She put a hand to the golden ring around her neck and swallowed. “I still do not understand.”

Turning to face her, he said, “If you should survive the challenges that yet await you, you will become the most powerful of our kind, in all the half million cycles of recorded history and beyond. This is as Anuir-Ruhal’te had planned. But she did not wish this power to fall to a tyrant. Even you, the child whose seed she planted ages ago, might succumb to the lure of such unspeakable might, to wield it as might one such as Syr-Nagath. She could not foresee the face of your soul, and so she designed a subtle test, a trap for those too weak to resist it. But you,” he lifted her chin with his fingers and smiled as he looked into her eyes, “you remained true to what you were taught and stayed your hand. You set your anger aside and instead showed compassion for those who may now oppose you, but who someday shall be honored to kneel in your presence. That, I believe, is what Anuir-Ruhal’te was looking for in her daughter.”

Looking back toward the center of the arena, she said, “That may be, but it does not explain this.”

“The vessels that contain the Crystals of Souls are bound together. You noticed, of course, the doors around the periphery of the arena, that are the same here as in the temple of the Desh-Ka?”
 

She nodded.

“They are far more than mere doorways. They are portals that link the temples together, that bind the power of the crystals. Once you assimilated the power of the crystal guarded by the Desh-Ka, you unlocked those doorways. Had you come here, or perhaps to the Ana’il-Rukh or Nyur-Ai’l, what you see before you would have been exactly the same.”

“So I will not have to enter each of the coliseums?” Fate had favored her in providing her an ally in the form of Sian-Al’ai and the Ima’il-Kush, and so her entry here had been unexpectedly easy. It would not be so at the other temples, all of which opposed her.

“No. Keeping the crystals separate, guarded by different orders, made it impossible for a pretender to gain access to more than one. But Anuir-Ruhal’te never intended this to be a treasure hunt, with you flitting from temple to temple for each crystal. Once you earned that collar, the next temple you entered would have the other crystals.”

Keel-Tath frowned. “But this is not all of them. These five plus that of the Desh-Ka make six. Were there not seven crystals?”

Ayan-Dar frowned and hesitated before he answered. “Yes. The seventh belongs to the Ka’i-Nur, and was locked away at the end of the Second Age. That will be your final test, because in some ways that is the most powerful of them all.”

“Where is it?”

“That will be revealed when it is time. For now, you have more than enough to do.” In a softer voice, he said, “It might be best to remove your armor and clothing. There is no point in it being destroyed by the crystals, and there is no replacement for it.” A smile touched his lips, but his eyes were sad. “I am here with you in spirit. I cannot fetch an armorer for you, even if one were to be found here.”

Keel-Tath did as he said. As she began to undo the bindings on her armor, her hands started to shake and the muscles of her legs quivered. She recalled all too clearly the pain inflicted by the crystal of the Desh-Ka. She now had to face five more such agonizing nightmares, on top of the trauma she had suffered on the Great Moon. She fumbled her breast plate, and it landed on the gleaming stone with a clang that was deafeningly loud. The back plate, which was awkward to remove in the best of circumstances, fell from her hands, as well, adding to the momentary din.
 

Heaving in a deep breath of despair, she sank to her knees, facing the dais, which was reflected in the black stones of the walkway. She looked up at him as she continued to remove her armor. “I do not know if I can do this,” she whispered.
 

He knelt down beside her. “The pain is unavoidable, child. I wish I could give you some greater comfort, but there is none to be had.”

She shook her head. “I do not fear the pain. I fear that I might fail. What will happen if I die here, if I cannot endure what the crystals have in store for me? What will happen to those I left behind on the moon, and Sian-Al’ai and the others who now fight for me beyond the door to this place? And who will avenge the deaths of the innocent, slain by Syr-Nagath?”

“I have no answers to those questions. In the end, perhaps, they are irrelevant. What matters is how you choose to meet the fate that now stands before you: with courage, or with fear?”

She thought on his words as she unbuckled the last of her armor, removed her sandals, and stripped out of her underclothes. Closing her eyes for a moment, she fought to focus her mind and her soul as Ayan-Dar had taught her long ago. Immersing herself in the Bloodsong, she let the symphony of those bound to her in blood wash away her fears. It was not a joyful melody, to be sure, but its power, when harnessed by the conscious mind, was undeniable. The quivering in her muscles disappeared, and her pulse and breathing slowed.
 

Opening her eyes again, she looked around at the clothing and armor lying in disarray on the walkway and the sand. Reaching out, she gathered them up, then carefully placed them in a neat pile, stacking each piece just so, her black undergarments folded on top, as she had done since leaving the creche. She placed her sword and that of her father on one side, with the dagger in between the two larger weapons.

“I am ready,” she breathed.
 

“Then take your place at the center, my child,” Ayan-Dar told her softly.

Naked now, Keel-Tath strode with dignity and grace, ascending the five steps to the top of the central dais.
 

The ground shuddered as a rumbling noise filled the chamber. Holes irised open in the five smaller platforms around her, and the crystals rose in slow procession from the depths, and as they did, stone walkways to each of the five platforms rose level with the central dais.
 

The crystals shimmered, each of them a different color than the cyan of the Desh-Ka. They sat on their pedestals, shining red, green, gold, magenta, and a pure white. One of them, the red one, which symbolized the Ima’il-Kush, according to the rune carved on the pedestal’s face, glowed brighter than the others.
 

She walked across the bridge to the pedestal’s platform and stood before the shimmering red gem, admiring the beauty that shone from its facets.
 

“I shall be here for you, my daughter,” Ayan-Dar said from the walkway where she had left him. He knelt, bowed his head, and saluted her. “May thy Way be long and glorious.”

“And you, my priest.” She returned his salute, bowing her head.
 

Then she returned her gaze to the crystal, which had begun to pulse brighter and brighter. Stepping closer, she raised her hands. Closing her eyes, she reached out toward the heart of the Ima’il-Kush as the cleansing fire swept down upon her.

***

Sian-Al’ai whirled and slashed, parrying an overhand strike by one priest before vanishing through the ether to reappear behind him, thrusting her sword at his midsection before he, too, disappeared into the nothingness. For those of the priesthoods, even ritual combat was rare, and in war they only crossed swords when a leader arose who gathered enough strength to cross the stars. The ability to move here and there without taking a step made battle an exercise in grace, fury, and surprise. This priest had proven particularly difficult, and had already been rewarded with a deep flesh wound in Sian-Al’ai’s shoulder after his sword had found a gap in her armor.
 

Deciding that a change in tactics was warranted, she leapt high into the air, trying to foretell where the priest would reappear.

There! He emerged near where she had hoped, his sword already thrusting toward where she had been, his attention fixed on the thin air that she had vacated. Doubling over in a graceful dive, her sword trailing behind her, she fell upon him like a winged predator lizard. In the brief instant that he hesitated, searching for her, her sword found the nape of his neck. As his decapitated body toppled over, she landed on the ground, her feet landing lightly upon the scorched remains of what had once been the temple’s terraced garden. Before this day it had been a sanctuary of color and fragrance from flowers gathered from all over the world, carefully tended by the robed gardeners. But the delicate plants had been frozen, ripped up by their roots by horrific winds, incinerated by blasts of fire, and trampled. The dark loamy soil which had hosted so much living beauty was now soaked with the blood of the fallen.

As she stood there during a momentary lull, her lungs heaving, she looked toward the closed door of the coliseum, wondering when Keel-Tath would emerge. The Change was never a swift process, assuming the one who sought the crystal’s power even survived. But the battle here had been raging for hours now. True, the other priesthoods could have attacked in overwhelming force and destroyed the Ima’il-Kush, but unlike Syr-Nagath, who simply crushed her enemies, the other orders still fought with honor. They outnumbered Sian-Al’ai’s forces, yes, but that was as much out of zeal to face others of their own kind in a fight to the death as much as to bring the Ima’il-Kush to heel. As the attackers died, a similar number arrived to replace them. Sian-Al’ai’s priests and priestesses had no such luxury, but for their hardship and sacrifice they gathered that much more glory. Even though the reasons for the battle were the wrong ones, none of the warriors on either side would have walked away from such a contest. Nor would those allied against her take the heads of those they vanquished. Had Sian-Al’ai spoken the simple words
we yield
into the maelstrom around her, the fighting would instantly stop. But she had no intention of yielding, not because of pride or the fiery bloodlust that flowed in her veins, but because she could not allow the other priesthoods to take Keel-Tath.