Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [7]
We called this down upon ourselves, Jora'h thought.
Using Klikiss robots as intermediaries ages ago, hydrogues and Ildirans had reached some kind of nonaggression pact that had recently broken down for reasons Jora'h did not understand. The treacherous robots had turned against Ildira to follow their own agenda.
But with Osira'h, the Mage-Imperator needed no other intermediary. She was the bridge. Jora'h wasn't sure how the girl had forced the deep-core aliens to come, nor did he completely grasp her unique powers to make the hydrogues understand. When the hydrogues had brought her, intact, from the gas giant, she had told him their brief and terrible message. They require that you help them destroy the humans. If you do not agree, none of us will survive. It was as if she had swung a crystal scythe at all his hopes. . . .
A courier raced into the sun-bright palace chamber. "Liege, Adar Zan'nh insists on speaking with you! His maniple of warliners awaits your order. Should he open fire on the hydrogues?"
Jora'h took the communications device from the fleet-footed man. An image formed of his oldest son, the overburdened commander of the Solar Navy. Zan'nh looked haggard, yet his face remained set with duty and determination. His topknot was drawn back, oiled in place and clipped by an insignia band. "Liege, my maniple is prepared to defend Ildira. Simply issue the order."
We will not surrender and crawl into a burrow, waiting for our deaths. Even though their weapons were no match for the warglobes, the Solar Navy would still cause a great deal of damage. Surely the hydrogues can see that.
"Adar, that would only trigger a massacre. I will see how this plays out. Remove your warliners to a safe distance, remain vigilant, and be ready to respond. I expect a representative of the hydrogues to arrive soon. The warglobes have come at my request."
The words sounded impossible as he spoke them. If Jora'h failed here, his empire would be destroyed. His glowing bones would never rest among those of his ancestors in the ossuarium beneath the PrismPalace, and his spirit would no doubt journey to the plane of the Lightsource as a blind man.
With obvious reluctance, Zan'nh signed off. The courier retrieved the communications device, gave a formal bow, and sprinted back out of the audience chamber, looking very frightened.
Sitting beside him on the stairs leading to the dais, little Osira'h looked up at the curved ceiling of the reception hall. The colored lights shining through the segmented crystal panes seemed to shift, as if her innate power could bend light as well as thoughts. "The emissary is coming."
"Did you force him?" Jora'h asked. He'd had no time to debrief her. "Can you control them?"
The girl gave him an odd, mysterious smile. "The hydrogues choose to believe they have come of their own free will. But I think they are wrong. I understand them better now, and they understand me. They can read my thoughts, but it is not an easy thing."
Ethereal Osira'h seemed drained, but her large eyes snared odd reflections, and her yearning face was still childlike and innocent until one looked more closely. In confronting, then coercing, the hydrogues, this girl had survived an ordeal that could have stripped away her soul, her mind.
If only Jora'h could be as strong. "I will be ready for him. You can help?"
Her eyes took on a glazed distance. "The hydrogue will speak with you, and you will speak with him. I will take the emissary's thoughts into my own, and he will hear mine." A strange smile curved her flower-petal lips. "I will leave him no choice. By becoming a bridge, I became a conduit. I forced myself into the hydrogue minds and opened myself to them. I made them come here--half by force, half by . . . luring them. But I cannot force them to listen or agree."
"That will be my task."
But the long line of Mage-Imperators who had worked to bring about this day