Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [206]
Pery’h looked into the eyes of the Ildiran doctors, the lens kithmen, the guards and courtiers. Even the pleasure mates, who had once been soft and beautiful women, now looked as hard as crystal blades. Worst of all, the Prime Designate’s eyes had turned stony; by his expression, Thor’h seemed to know exactly what was about to happen—and had decided to allow it.
“You will be our message, Pery’h,” Rusa’h said. “Since you refuse to cooperate with us, you are a loose end of the thism. You must be separated from the trap that holds you.”
Claws of isolation pierced his mind, but Pery’h stood bravely. “My father is the true Mage-Imperator. I will never turn from him.”
Rusa’h smiled. “We don’t expect you to. That is why we will no longer even ask.” He raised a hand and signaled to the loyal guard kithmen. They all took an intimidating step closer to Pery’h.
“After this,” the Hyrillka Designate said, “Jora’h will be forced to respond. And we will be ready for him.”
The soldiers raised their crystal-tipped spears and, before Pery’h could so much as cry out, they struck him down. They thrust and stabbed, driving the Designate-in-waiting to the floor. Others took glassy alloy-handled clubs and battered him as he fell, breaking his skull, his bones. Pery’h‘s blood splashed on the clean tiles. He could not struggle as the blades plunged into him again and again.
These were not his people. Pery’h felt no connection to them. The last face he saw was that of his brother Thor’h standing beside the facsimile chrysalis chair, watching calmly.
Sprawled on the floor, the young man reached out a hand to grasp at the soul-threads that glittered around him. Through his pain and disbelief, Pery’h clasped the single bright thread of thism that linked him to his father, and held it like an anchor line—until the light mercifully claimed him.
The spear thrusts and club blows continued to rain down upon Pery’h‘s lifeless body for a long, long time.
Chapter 105 — MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H
Though Jora’h often sat in the confining chrysalis chair as was expected of him, he frequently climbed out of it and walked the corridors of the Palace. Twice now he had even appeared in the streets of Mijistra.
Ildirans were both amazed and horrified by this, but in such a time of chaos, Jora’h felt it was important for their rigid assumptions to be challenged. Over the centuries Ildiran traditions had become fossilized, yet they were not natural laws of the universe. The Empire needed to change in order to survive. Jora’h was determined to show them how to do it.
Today, after he had taken his usual place under the warm skysphere dome, the ornate doors opened for the day’s pilgrims. In the sun-dappled corridors, groups of awed Ildirans stood waiting, as they did every day. They had all gone through the proper supplications, and Jora’h would reward their devotion with a blessing and a smile.
Yazra’h now stationed herself at the front of the dais with her cats, intense and alert. She had picked her own guards and had slipped into her role as his primary protector, though many Ildirans also muttered uneasily about this change in tradition. Jora’h could sense their confusion, but he knew they would have to adapt. His daughter stood beside him, meeting each pilgrim with her probing gaze.
First he greeted a troop of agricultural kithmen who stared at him with shining eyes and expressions of delight. They had come from the consolidated splinter colony on Heald, and the farmers assured Jora’h that they would continue to use their abilities and strength to keep the colony strong. Jora’h sent them on their way with a benevolent smile.
The second group of pilgrims consisted of eight doctors, pleasure mates, and lens kithmen, all of them gaunt and hardened, who had made a journey from Hyrillka. To his thism their minds were confused and blurred from heavy doses of shiing, which made the Mage-Imperator