A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [227]
His arms and legs jittered from the action of the poison, but the tumors’ pain inside him faded to a merciful leaden numbness. It was as if the living, growing invaders within his skull had been killed first. That, at least, was a relief. And the light grew brighter behind his eyes, glowing like the core of a sun within his bones.
Taking one last hitching breath, the Mage-Imperator died with a smile on his cherubic face.
118
PRIME DESIGNATE JORA’H
The agony of loss hit him while he was standing at the docking platform atop one of the Palace domes, finishing the final preparations for his escape.
As Prime Designate, Jora’h had surreptitiously commissioned a willing captain and acquired a large enough ship and splinter crew for a fast journey to Dobro. He had ached with the feeling that he had failed Nira and left her to suffer for so many years. The Mage-Imperator had thwarted him for days, blocking him in every way possible—but Jora’h hadn’t been able to stand it anymore, regardless of his father’s rationalizations.
He needed to rescue Nira…and hold her again while begging her forgiveness for what she’d been forced to endure. Jora’h knew he must move quickly before the Mage-Imperator sensed what he intended to do.
When the Prime Designate had seen guard kithmen emerge from the lifts at the far end of the shimmering platform, he knew what they wanted. The thism connection had betrayed him and his father meant to stop him again, but he swore that he would not let Nira down.
“Hurry!” he had called to the hired Ildiran crewmen as they raced up the ramp of his commissioned ship—
When suddenly his heart felt torn from his chest.
Jora’h staggered and let out a cry. Pain and displacement washed through him like a lightning bolt. In his life, he had never felt such an avalanche of emptiness, a disruption that shuddered through the core of his body.
Wrapped in visceral shock, the Prime Designate reeled and tried to keep his balance. The spaceship captain staggered and slid to his knees. All of the crew members were also gasping; some had collapsed to the decks, where they writhed in misery.
The whole Ildiran universe had been turned upside down.
A confused wail of despair rippled from the many balconies of the PrismPalace, pilgrims and bureaucrats and nobles crying out in disbelief. Guard kithmen who had been marching across the platform to intercept Jora’h suddenly swayed in their tracks.
The thism had been ripped apart. The intricately woven soul-threads that bound the Ildiran race into one vast network pulled taut, frayed…then snapped. The Lightsource was gone.
“No!” Jora’h cried, abruptly understanding what had happened. “The Mage-Imperator is dead!”
With a wavering gait, he stumbled back into the PrismPalace. His long hair writhed in chaotic fury around his head. He didn’t notice anyone else, thought of nothing but reaching his father’s contemplation chamber…
The ugly bodyguard Bron’n stood at the sealed door, holding his wicked-looking spear. But he sagged, gripping the weapon like an old man’s staff, as if the strings of his own life had been cut. Bron’n‘s feline eyes seemed to accuse Jora’h. His sharp teeth were exposed.
“What’s happened? Where is my father?”
“He ordered me to stand here and wait for you.” Bron’n took a snarling breath. “He told me to let no one into the chamber—no one but you. He knew you would come.”
Jora’h looked at the guard in disbelief as he unsealed the door. “He did this of his own volition? You knew what he intended, and you did not stop—”
“I serve the Mage-Imperator,” Bron’n said, holding on to his words as if they were an anchor. “I do not question his commands.”
Jora’h rushed inside and saw his father’s pale soft mass in the chrysalis chair. In death, Cyroc’h looked like a grayish slug, folds of fat slumping on his bones. It was clear that the Mage-Imperator had expended a great deal of energy just to hold himself together until the end.