Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [208]
Only an hour before, the first scout ship had finally returned from the Horizon Cluster, its crew horrified. They brought far worse news than even the Mage-Imperator had feared. Dzelluria was burned and destroyed, as were three other splinter colonies. No survivors. Needing to send a message directly to their father, the Prime Designate had sent Yazra'h to find Kolker. The green priest could use telink and the lone treeling in the rooftop greenhouses to contact Theroc and call the Mage-Imperator back to Ildira.
But out in the metropolis, Kolker and all of his known followers had gone up in flames. Ildirans panicked in the streets, and their terror echoed through the web, but Daro'h forced it away, doing what he could to quell the panic. With his father gone, he was in charge. The Ildiran Empire relied upon him.
'What do they want, Prime Designate?' cried one of the administrators. He stared up at the dazzling light that focused like lasers through the skysphere. Courtiers huddled inside the Prism Palace as if it could protect them, but Daro'h knew better than that. He had already seen what the faeros and the mad Designate could do.
Guard kithmen rushed into the chamber, holding their crystal katanas ready, prepared to die to protect the Prime Designate. But they could not save him by simply throwing their bodies in the way of the firestorm.
Yazra'h ran to Daro'h as the lights in the sky grew more intense. Her face was flushed, her hair damp with perspiration, her eyes shining. Her three agitated cats loped along beside her. Under one arm she carried a bolt of the dark material the Roamer trader had brought from Constantine III. 'If the human claims are true, this fabric will protect you against heat. Wear it.'
'I cannot hide from the faeros under a blanket.'
'You will wear it!' Yazra'h's voice cut off any further argument.
The ten grouped fireballs unleashed a bright flare like the after-effect of a solar storm, and one of the Prism Palace's towers cracked and shattered. Guards yelled, and people fled while shards of smouldering crystal tumbled down in a musical rain. Daro'h could feel a thrum through the as nearly a hundred Ildirans died in the single blast.
'Where are Osira'h and the other children? We must keep them safe.'
'We must keep you all safe,' Yazra'h said. 'I have already called for them.'
Daro'h assessed his options. The Mage-Imperator was gone, and Adar Zan'nh had not yet returned from Dobro, though he doubted even the Solar Navy could fight against these flaming vessels. 'I cannot leave the Prism Palace. I cannot abandon my people.'
The faeros are not here to parley with you, brother. They mean only to destroy. You can see that.'
Outside, a fireball landed in the square immediately in front of the Prism Palace, its intense heat melting a mirrorlike crater out of the stone, metal, and glass. From the rippling flames of its hull a man emerged, whose robes were made entirely of fire, whose blood was lava. His hair curled in wisps of dark smoke, and his flesh itself burned. He strode forward, leaving smoking footprints on the ground. Rusa'h, a faeros incarnate. He marched directly toward the front of the Palace as if he already owned it.
Smaller fireballs flurried around him like attenders, and fiery ships orbited the crystalline domes. Rusa'h blasted the doors aside and walked into the Palace's main reflecting corridor. His personal heat baked the smooth walls. Some of the thin panels shattered. Stone bubbled and buckled. He spread his hands, and so much heat rippled from him that even the ceiling sagged. His feet sank into the floor as he took another step.
Osira'h and her siblings ran into the audience chamber. 'He is coming! The mad Designate is already in the Prism Palace. Can't you feel what he is doing through the ?'
Rod'h added, his face distraught, 'We already had to cut ourselves off from the entire network wall off the and form a sort of shield.'
Yazra'h