Mistress Of The Ages (In Her Name, Book 9) (8 page)

“Ulan-Samir is right,” Sian-Al’ai said. She cared little for the high priest of the Nyur-A’il, but in this she could agree with him. “You cannot preserve the Way by choosing when and how you would disregard its tenets. The lives of the robed ones and younglings are precious above all, to every warrior who wears a collar, regardless of order or bloodline. To put a single one of them to the sword reduces you to the same despicable level as Syr-Nagath.”

“Choose your words more wisely,” threatened the Ana’il-Rukh, “or I will have your head.”

Sian-Al’ai drew her sword. “Then take it if you can!”
 

“Stop!” Another of the most high pointed. “Look!”

Under the pounding of yet another salvo of Syr-Nagath’s weapons, the shield protecting the remnants of the Desh-Ka finally collapsed.

***

Alena-Khan had not known such agony since the Crystal of Souls had transformed her into a priestess and swept her body with cleansing fire. Whatever hellish weapon Syr-Nagath had unearthed from the Ka'i-Nur Books of Time, it was having a telling effect. Alena-Khan’s hands were no more than charred stumps, and the metal of her gauntlets and the plates around her forearms had melted, searing the flesh all the way to her shoulders. Every bit of her skin beyond that was blistering from the heat that washed across the rest of her armor, and her face felt as if she had thrust it into the glowing coals of an armorer’s forge.
 

While the ranks of the Desh-Ka priesthood had never been great, in the short, cataclysmic time since the ill-fated conclave had convened only thirteen had survived to join together in this last desperate defense of those who had called the temple home. Under the onslaught by the airships, that number had been reduced to eight. The other five had died on their feet despite the efforts of the healers who surrounded them, braving the searing heat and deadly lightning discharges with every bit as much courage as any warrior. The others of the robed castes had displayed similar courage in the defense of the temple, and Alena-Khan, in what she knew would be her last moments, was more proud than she had ever been to be a Desh-Ka.

But it would take more than pride to survive this day. She sensed the arrival of the other priesthoods, moving in like carrion eaters awaiting the death of a genoth. As soon as they turned their powers upon the Desh-Ka, the battle would be over. Perhaps, Alena-Khan thought dimly, if the greatest of their order had survived to stand here now, or had so many not perished in the foolish fighting after the conclave, things might have been different. Her own powers were a mere fraction of what those such as Ayan-Dar or T’ier-Kunai could have brought to bear. She mourned for their loss and her part in it all, her only consolation the grim knowledge that she would soon be joining them in the Afterlife. She would, in the end, die with honor.

Holding her eyes closed against the savage heat, she used her second sight to look beyond the barrier she and the others stubbornly maintained. She cringed as the airships fired another titanic salvo. Thousands of the dreaded energy globes arced downward. The vessels had long since found their mark, and had maintained precise orbits to preserve their aim points, and all but a few of the weapons hit the shield.

With a wail of agony, another of the priests collapsed, his body little more than a seared corpse, and the surviving seven were driven to their knees.
 

Alena-Khan, the last of her energy spent, collapsed into the arms of the healers who tended her, ignoring the pain of their own charred skin.
 

As the priestess fell, the crackling cyan shield faded and disappeared. Their last defense had collapsed.

***

For a moment, the entire world stood still. The warrior priests and priestesses of the Desh-Ka, for the first time in all of history, save that known by the Ka’i-Nur keepers of the Books of Time, had fallen. Once the greatest of the ancient orders, its warriors universally feared and respected, the Desh-Ka were now nothing more than a few dazed acolytes and a mass of robed ones and younglings gathered around the charred remains of those who wore the priesthood’s sigil.
 

“The work before us we do not undertake lightly,” the leader of the Ana’il-Rukh said as he and his companions drew their swords, “but we shall do what must be done.”

“Where is she?” Ulan-Samir asked, ignoring the Ana’il-Rukh and casting his gaze upon the surviving Desh-Ka. “Keel-Tath, the white-haired child. Where is she?”

The others paused at his words.

“She is gone.” A bloodied warrior stepped from the group of Desh-Ka survivors. Sian-Al’ai recognized her as Dara-Kol, the First to Keel-Tath. Beside her two young warriors shouldered their way forward, whom Sian-Al’ai recognized as Tara-Khan and Ka’i-Lohr. The pair had already acquired a fearsome reputation. Dara-Kol held the two back and said, “She is beyond your reach, you honorless fools.”

“Mind your tongue, whelp,” Ulan-Samir snapped, and Dara-Kol fell to her knees, gagging, her hands at her throat as if trying to prevent unseen hands from strangling her.

She is gone
. Dara-Kol’s words echoed in Sian-Al’ai’s mind. For the moment, at least, Keel-Tath must be safe. That was small reassurance given the situation, but she would seize upon any good fortune. She would need it in the time that must now come.
 

Her sword and those of her fellow priests and priestesses already drawn, Sian-Al’ai did not hesitate as the other priesthoods moved toward the huddled Desh-Ka. Flashing through space to take up positions around the beleaguered survivors, the priests and priestesses of Sian-Al’ai’s order, the Ima’il-Kush, faced outward in a defensive circle. “Brothers and sisters,” she called to the others, “return to your temples and contemplate the wrongs we have done and how we may return to the Way. No further harm shall come to those of the Desh-Ka. They have suffered more than enough. This I swear upon the blood of my ancestors.”

“I have already laid claim to the robed ones!” Ulan-Samir protested, drawing his own sword and baring his fangs in rage. The others of the Nyur-A’il followed suit. “You will not have them!”

“They are not property for any of us to claim!” Sian-Al’ai responded in a frigid voice.
 

“We have first right,” one of the other most-high growled, “to their blood!”

“It is one order against four,” Ulan-Samir warned as he and the others took a step closer, having formed a ring around the defending Ima’il-Kush. “You shall not prevail.”

“The four of you stand together this moment,” Sian-Al’ai shot back, “but you will fall upon one another like carrion-eating wo’olarh the moment you find you have no common purpose.”

“All of you are wrong!”

They turned at Dara-Kol’s rasping voice, having been released from Ulan-Samir’s invisible grip. They followed her raised arm.
 

“Look to the sky,” Dara-Kol shouted, “and behold your true enemy!” The circling airships had just fired another salvo of the deadly globes, and hundreds of enemy warriors were dropping from yet more airships passing directly overhead. While the other priesthoods had their own special powers, none could produce a defensive shield as powerful as that of the Desh-Ka, and certainly not in the seconds they had until the latest salvo arrived. The priests and priestesses had only moments to choose to flee or die. “Syr-Nagath has made fools of you all!”
 

***

Standing atop the great pillar, which Keel-Tath was sure had risen at least a full league into the moon’s sky, she watched the sea of dark matter that now surrounded her transform itself. Great curved structures, like the gleaming petals of a gigantic flower just blooming, began to rise. Like all the constructs favored by her kind, function and grace were intertwined. The great outer walls rose higher and higher, and from them sprouted stairs and floors, mezzanines and chambers that were soon too many for her to count. Curving walls and arches, spires and buttresses rose and bent to their purpose as if the growing structure were a thing alive, rising from the ocean.

Perhaps it is, in its own way
, Keel-Tath mused as she stared wide-eyed at the spectacle from her lofty perch. The base of the structure continued to expand outward as it rose, expanding to cover as much of the moon’s surface as might a small city. The outer walls formed what might have been considered a multifaceted pyramid, while a great tower was growing around the slender spire on which she stood.

The spire began to tremble. Suppressing a surge of fear, she lay down and dared to peer over the edge of her vantage point, looking directly below. She gasped at what she saw.

A titanic building was growing up around the base of the spire, rising higher and higher. Then, still far below her, an enormous chamber, larger than any building she had ever seen, even the temple’s coliseum, began to form. Within the chamber a massive pyramid that reflected the architecture of the outer structure grew around the spire, reaching toward her. Faster and faster, the pyramid grew, rising higher and higher.

At the last moment, just as she was sure the pyramid would consume her, its growth slowed, then stopped, the top forming into a dais that came level with the column to which she had been clinging. Blinking her eyes, Keel-Tath saw that instead of lying on the broken obsidian of the moon’s surface, she was now lying on smooth, gleaming white stone, just like what made up the rest of the huge structure.
 

Getting to her knees, she looked up. The outer walls of the great tower continued to rise above her, half again as high as the pyramid stood. The walls glowed, providing an even illumination as if she were standing outside in the sun.
 

It was then that the stone all around the top of the chamber began to thin, and in but moments had transformed into some sort of clear crystal that gave a breathtaking view of the Homeworld above and the moon’s still barren surface beyond the boundaries of the construct.
 

This is not some mere construct
, she thought. It was a palace. Her palace. This place was the seat of power from which she would someday guide her entire race, or so Anuir-Ruhal’te would have had her believe. Where she stood now atop the enormous pyramid, upon this very spot, would be her throne.
 

While the palace looked complete on the surface, she could sense that the transformation she had set in motion was far, far from over. A subtle vibration ran through the stone, and she could sense in her blood that the moon was only now coming fully alive. It was as if the moon had paused to take a deep breath after a great exertion, but things deep and distant must yet run their course.
 

She wondered if the moon could defend her from Syr-Nagath, and in answer dark spires arose in the distance to form a cordon around the palace. Blue fire danced from their tips, and she felt a tingle of enormous energy held at bay. What she beheld was the technology that had once held off the greatest weapons her kind had ever produced. The palace would be safe from anything that Syr-Nagath could ever bring to bear. Or so she must hope.

Thinking of the Dark Queen, a tide of anger rose within her as she turned her gaze to the Homeworld. The Desh-Ka were in deadly peril, and what she had come to accomplish here was done. Now she had to save them.

She was terrified of what must come next. “Ayan-Dar,” she whispered as she closed her eyes and clamped down on her fear. “Please, take my hand and guide me.”

Picturing the Kal’ai-Il of the Desh-Ka temple in her mind, she willed herself to go there.

Opening her eyes, she looked around. She was still in the palace, standing on the same spot.

“They are dying,” she whispered fiercely as the tide of pain from her kin rose in the Bloodsong. “I…must…
go
…”

With a sudden rush of wind through the throne room, she stepped into the not-space between where she was and where she wished to be.

CHAPTER EIGHT

As the crackling globes rained down upon them, the host of Nyur-A’il conjured a whirling storm that swept most of the weapons aside. Most, but not all. Even though thousands were diverted from their intended targets, many of them falling from the plateau to slaughter the Dark Queen’s warriors below, hundreds still landed within the confines of the temple. Several of the remaining Desh-Ka acolytes sacrificed themselves, leaping to block glowing missiles that would otherwise have fallen among the robed ones and younglings. To their credit, priests and priestesses from the orders, even those that had come to claim the lives of the Desh-Ka survivors, gave in to their training and instincts and did the same, sacrificing nearly two dozen of their number.

Then the warriors dropped by the airships landed among them. None of the defenders had realized when the attackers were but tiny specks against the enormous vessels above that they were anything but more of the queen’s warriors. But these were different, far different than any eyes beyond the temple of Ka’i-Nur and the dead senior priests and priestesses of the Desh-Ka had seen since the end of the Second Age. They were nearly twice the size of the defenders, monstrously large warriors even bigger than Drakh-Nur, whose own blood descended from the Ka’i-Nur. Their armor was a highly reflective silver, not black, and covered them from head to toe. While they carried swords in scabbards on their backs, in their hands they held weapons that had been greatly improved upon since the battle fought at the Ka’i-Nur temple against the Desh-Ka, then led by Ayan-Dar and T’ier-Kunai. Both the armor and the weapons were modeled after those used near the end of the Second Age. They were not here to engage in honorable combat. They were here to slaughter any and all who opposed them. They fell free until near the ground, when jets flared from their armor, slowing their descent at the last moment to prevent them from being smashed against the earth.
 

Priests and priestesses screamed in pain and shock as beams of white hot energy from the Ka’i-Nur weapons swept across the plateau. Shrekkas, which could normally slice through regular metal armor at close range, merely bounced off the shining plate, barely leaving a nick. Using their power to move through space, the priests and priestesses advanced on their enemy. With sword and claw they fought, and then with the special powers with which they each were endowed when they discovered that their blades were useless, that the Ka’i-Nur armor was itself forged from living metal. The priests and priestesses killed dozens of the hulking attackers in the first moments of the battle, but hundreds more were dropping from an endless stream of airships that sailed over the temple.