Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [139]
Vao'sh caught his breath, inserting a masterful, tense pause. One of the Isix cats shifted against Anton's foot. "When reinforcements did arrive, Orryx looked as if someone had painted the whole world black. The Shana Rei had succeeded. Every living thing had perished. To this day nothing grows there."
Vao'sh looked directly at young Designate Ridek'h. "And do you know what happened to brave Tal Bria'nh's warliners?" The boy shook his head. "They were still in orbit, but each one was wrapped in a cocoon of pure shadow that allowed no light in or out. Nothing. Tal Bria'nh and his brave crew were literally smothered in darkness!" Anton imagined a black body bag being drawn over the warliners.
"The rescuers finally used lasers--concentrated light--to cut through the inky skin. Retrieval parties broke into the warliners, searching for any living Ildiran, but to no avail. No one had survived. How could they have, knowing there would be no more light, no more warmth?" He shuddered, and Anton did not think it was part of his performance. "We can only imagine their nightmarish last moments."
"So how were these Shana Rei ever defeated at all?" Anton asked. "In the stories, I mean."
Vao'sh smiled at him. "I know only that the Mage-Imperator created a new alliance and ‘brought forth a Great Light.' The new records we found tell that the Great Light was fire personified, which drove away the creatures of darkness using fire against the night."
"It sounds like the faeros," Yazra'h said.
"Maybe the faeros have helped us before!" Ridek'h said in an excited voice. "Is that what the Mage-Imperator asked you to find?"
Suddenly, the Isix cats bounded to their feet, and Yazra'h's reaction was only a fraction of a second slower. Anton turned to the door of the Designate's chamber to see one-eyed Tal O'nh marching in, flushed and breathless.
"Designate, three hydrogue warglobes are en route to Hyrillka."
"Hydrogues! What do we do?" Ridek'h's eyes widened, looking from the military commander to Yazra'h. "Do we fight? We have warliners--"
The officer touched the prismatic Lightsource medallion on his chest for strength and delivered his words in a flat, businesslike tone. "My warliners can make suicide plunges against the warglobes. Fortunately, they are mostly empty, with all their crews down here. I hope, however, that will not be necessary. When hundreds of warglobes came to Ildira not long ago, they departed without attacking. Maybe the same thing will happen here."
"We let them make the first move, Designate," Yazra'h advised.
They hurried to the open balcony, looking out into Hyrillka's dull orange evening. From a communication badge on his collar, O'nh received curt updates from his ships in orbit. Anton stared upward. Yazra'h stood close to him, and he realized that he felt oddly safer to have her there.
She spotted it first, extending her arm to point. A trio of diamond spheres cruised down over Hyrillka's landscape as if observing the ruins. Eventually, they took up position directly above the citadel palace. Though the enemy transmitted no warnings or ultimatums, the threat was clear. They just hung there.
"Should I go to shelter?" Ridek'h looked at the one-eyed officer, then at Yazra'h. "Tal O'nh, would I be safer aboard one of your warliners?"
Yazra'h frowned at her young nephew. "The Designate must stay here. If you are to die, then you will die--but do not die as a coward. Your father did not, when Rusa'h's followers stabbed him to death. Hyrillka is yours now. Show these people how a Designate behaves. After recent events, maybe they have forgotten."
Again Ridek'h steeled himself, and did as she told him.
Anton looked up into the sky, hoping he wasn't about to become another part of the epic story.
82
THOR'H
The darkness was absolute. Black, endless black, seemed to extend from one side of the universe to the other. No torment could be worse.
For an impossible