Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [180]
As the others gasped, Rusa’h continued. “His bodyguard Bron’n must have been a co-conspirator, but he had the honor to take his own life immediately after my father lay dead in the chrysalis chair. Jora’h, though, got what he wanted. He himself must have murdered the Mage-Imperator to become an unlawful usurper.”
Even drugged on shiing, the people in the citadel palace muttered uneasily at this. Some gasped, but they believed Rusa’h‘s words, assuming the proof he offered must be incontrovertible.
“And that is why the Lightsource has deserted him!” the Designate cried. “The soul-threads cannot penetrate the darkness of Jora’h‘s heart. All Ildirans are paying the price, and our race will continue to suffer…unless I can lead us back to the realm of the Lightsource.” He folded his hands. “I am prepared to do what I must.”
While Thor’h listened, wearing an empty smile and nodding at the horrific revelations, Pery’h was indignant. Rusa’h became impatient with him and turned to the burly guards. “Take the Designate-in-waiting and hold him in his chambers until he can be suitably…convinced.”
The Hyrillkans did not object. Pery’h could offer only a token resistance as several muscular soldiers took him away from the open courtyard where bright flowers on the curling vines had opened up in twilight bloom. None of the Ildirans could sense him in the thism. With the Designate-in-waiting gone, Rusa’h turned his back on his hard-looking pleasure mates and called the two devoted medical kithmen closer.
“If Jora’h is not the true Mage-Imperator, then the Ildiran race must have one. The Lightsource has chosen me for this burden. I know the difficult road that lies ahead, but I will follow the bright path. I am confident in my guidance. I will endure for the good of the Ildiran people.”
He lay back on an open divan and unfastened his robe to expose himself, reclining naked. “You here are privileged to witness an event that will forever change the Ildiran race.”
The two medical kithmen withdrew razor-edged crystalline knives. Rusa’h glanced at his pleasure mates, recalling distantly all the hedonistic times he had shared with them. But that was no longer his lot, and physical pleasure no longer interested him. He turned from them and closed his eyes, diverting his thoughts to see the light within.
After his long ordeal, he knew his true mission. Only a selfish coward would turn away now. He must follow his beliefs to the end. He alone could restring the net of thism, take away the corrupted strands knotted around Jora’h and bring them all to himself. Hyrillka would be the start. Next, the many systems in the Horizon Cluster would follow, and then the remainder of the Ildiran Empire.
With a whisper, the Designate gave his order, and the doctors made a quick, clean slash between his legs. Rusa’h clenched his jaw, biting back the pain, forcing it through his nerves and channeling it until it became an inferno of light in his mind. From there he could see all the drifting strands of thism cut loose by his population’s reliance on shiing.
And like a master, paying no attention to the continued ministrations of the medical kithmen or the awed chatter of the audience in the citadel palace, Rusa’h bound all the strands together, gathering them to his heart and securing them so that Jora’h would no longer have any hold on these people.
He smiled, holding at last the true thism that would form a basis for a rejuvenated and purified Ildiran Empire.
Chapter 91 — SAREIN
When Sarein tried to find her old quarters in the fungus-reef city, she discovered that the rooms had been cobbled together with emergency patchworks, as if some blind or drunken surgeon had attempted to fix a grievous wound.
Roamers! They had no sense of aesthetics, concentrating only on functionality and brute-force fixes. Though