Hidden Empire - Kevin J. Anderson [116]
For hours, he studied the references for clues to where the fever had begun and how it was possible that so much vital history could have been lost. On their deathbeds, did the last rememberers try to dictate all they knew to other kith, other listeners, only to have the details lost after all? To a historian like himself, such a missing section of the Saga felt like a dead child, filling him with a great sense of loss.
Then Dio'sh found a small vault that had been locked and apparently cemented shut, but the seal had crumbled and the lock itself degenerated so much that it easily broke in his hands. Feeling nervous, yet thrilled, the young rememberer probed into the tiny vault that had been locked away and forgotten ages ago. With a gasp of discovery, he saw that it contained ancient documents, sealed books that looked as if they had never been read. A treasure trove! Dio'sh eagerly took them back to his work area, turned up the blazer illumination. His heart thrummed with excitement.
He began to delve into the words, magical symbols that transported him into tales he had never before imagined. Real history, lost events. The journals were detailed, and the records seemed to be accurate: true sources dating back to the time of the firefever, contemporary diary entries and records kept by eyewitnesses. People who had actually seen the firefever take its terrible toll.
Or...what accepted history had recorded as the firefever.
Dio'sh studied the ancient documents, reading with amazement and a growing sense of horror. Something was wrong—but this was no hoax. The expressive lobes on his face flushed through a parade of vivid colors. These scrolls and testaments must be the truth, regardless of everything he had been told and taught.
The rememberer sat back, astounded. Then, stricken with fear that someone might see him or discover what he had found, Dio'sh closed and sealed the documents again and hurried to put them back into the hidden vault.
The revelation appalled him, and he didn't know how to explain it. But he could not disbelieve what he had seen.
Those key rememberers from long ago had not died of any disease. There had never been a firefever. Instead, the rememberers—the keepers of accurate Ildiran history—had been silenced. Murdered.
The lost section of the Saga of Seven Suns was not an unavoidable tragedy, but an appalling cover-up!
53 PRIME DESIGNATE JORA'H
In his spherical contemplation chamber within the Prism Palace, Prime Designate Jora'h studied the records of his children with pride. As was his duty, the handsome and virile prince took many lovers from among the various Ildiran kiths, siring as many offspring as possible.
The eldest son of the Mage-Imperator, Jora'h had always known that the position would be his one day, after a century or more of his father's rule. He did not long for the day when he would sit in the chrysalis chair. That would be as much an ending of his life's pleasures as it would be a beginning of power. After the ritual castration ceremony to make him the next Mage-Imperator, Jora'h would control all the thism.
But not now.
He liked to be with his people, regardless of their kiths: swimmers and scalies, workers, bodyguards, or soldiers. They were all Ildirans, and they all knew their places. His duty was to be loved by all the population—perhaps literally, if he did his job properly—and to foster his numerous offspring. Jora'h smiled at the thought of all the sons and daughters, noble-born scholars or half-breed workers, the fruits of his brief encounters with those lovers he selected from among the countless females who had petitioned him.
Despite their briefness, though, these sexual encounters meant a great deal to him. Each child he sired with a member of the noble kith gave him another descendant, another eventual Designate under his rule. Jora'h showered each of his sons and daughters with gifts,