Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [178]
Chapter 90 — HYRILLKA DESIGNATE RUSA’H
With most of Hyrilka’s population liberated by the potent raw shiing, Rusa’h took advantage of his opportunity. He knew what must be done before it was too late for the Empire.
The Designate did not act for his own aggrandizement, but out of sheer conviction. He had seen the Lightsource and could follow the bright path more closely than any other Ildiran—better than Jora’h, better than their corpulent father. Too much harm had already been done.
It wasn’t the fault of the Ildiran people that they had strayed. They blindly followed the Mage-Imperator’s guidance, even when it was flawed. They were not supposed to make their own decisions or think their own thoughts. They were expected to obey and follow and cooperate. But when their appointed leader was deluded, the Ildirans had no hope of being anything but lost.
Rusa’h knew how to change that. And the shiing would help him.
Already a handful of converts were bound to him. After this evening he would have most of the population of Hyrillka.
Several days earlier in a private ceremony and consultation, his lens kithmen had already been brought to the true path. His pleasure mates had always followed him eagerly, and he’d brought them over to his side as well. The lovely, fertile women were no longer concerned with the fleshly pleasures that had so consumed them before; now they were just as fanatically devoted to different goals. His goals.
Thor’h had not been a problem. From the beginning, the young man had voluntarily participated…and as the Prime Designate, he would be an important weapon in what was sure to be a difficult, but necessary, struggle.
Pery’h, though, was likely to be trouble. The Designate-in-waiting was too intelligent, too loyal to his father, with no obvious weaknesses. But Rusa’h would find an appropriate solution. The Lightsource would guide him infallibly through the many tribulations that lay ahead in their glorious future.
The Hyrillka Designate returned to the citadel palace as the blue-white primary set, leaving the sky ruddy with orange light from the swollen secondary. The Horizon Cluster brightened overhead, hundreds of worlds and stars spangling together in a crowded display.
Since his head injury, Rusa’h had been cut off from the normal thism of the Ildiran people. But now that most of the Hyrillka population had gorged themselves on fresh shiing, they wandered dazedly free, cut off from the network of thoughts. They were separated from the intrusive surveillance of Mage-Imperator Jora’h, and Rusa’h could weave them together into a strong new pattern.
Now, by his own command, all Hyrillkans were blanketed in the same healing mental silence that Rusa’h had felt for so long. While he was deep in his sub-thism sleep, the Lightsource had granted him superior skills and now he reached out with newfound power. While the population remained bleary and pliable from the raw shiing, he would begin to collect the numb lines of thism that would eventually have returned to Jora’h. One graceful strand at a time, Rusa’h would draw all those loose threads together and lay down new mental paths, bringing the minds of the Hyrillkans into a clean, clear tapestry of his own design, inspired by the Lightsource itself…
Now, surrounded by devoted converts in the orange dusk, Rusa’h sat in the citadel palace, smiling. Beside him, his pleasure mates and lens kithmen and proud Thor’h stood ready to offer their support. These were the binding filaments of his new web, and he would draw upon them to renetwork the Hyrillkan people before the shiing wore off, cementing their mental connections again. Soon, all of Hyrillka would be a part of him, his own lacework of thism.
Nearby but isolated from all the invisible changes, young Pery’h wore a disapproving expression as servers brought in banquet foods. The Designate-in-waiting still had no idea what was happening around him. Dancers stumbled, trying to recapture their graceful moves, still disoriented because of the shiing. “This is appalling,