Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [63]
Chapter 29—ADAR ZAN’NH
When a smug Thor’h came to the maniple’s flagship, he had orders to escort the still-uncooperative Zan’nh to the surface of Hyrillka. The disgraced Prime Designate brought three times as many guard kithmen with him as the Adar could possibly have hoped to fight off, especially now that he felt disconnected from the strong foundation of thism. Good, at least they were still afraid of him.
As they marched toward the royal shuttle in the docking bay, from which all stains of blood and death had been scoured, Thor’h looked at his brother. “Though you have given your word, I know you have no intention of truly surrendering. You do not look to me like a man who is defeated.”
“I am not defeated. I still have my honor.”
Thor’h chuckled. “Pery’h kept his honor—and died. Meanwhile, I am still Prime Designate.” His thin lips curved upward in a wolfish smile.
“The Mage-Imperator has stripped you of that title.” The guards stared at Zan’nh, as if reconsidering their decision not to put him in shackles.
Thor’h looked serene instead of annoyed. “And in turn we have stripped him of his title as Mage-Imperator. That is more important. I am the Prime Designate to the true Imperator now.”
“The truth is the truth,” Zan’nh retorted. “Reality is not decided by the opinions of a few rebels.”
The shuttle descended toward Hyrillka. Despite his brave face, the Adar felt disoriented. His mind wavered. As the crews of each of the warliners faded away from him, torn loose from the thism, he became more and more isolated, like a man slowly losing pieces of himself, one limb at a time.
Though the numbers of Ildirans around him remained undiminished, Zan’nh could not feel them as he normally sensed the comforting presence of his people. Ildirans could not function well alone and required a critical mass of their minds to keep them all joined together. Now the Adar of the Ildiran Solar Navy was becoming blind and deaf to a comforting foundation he had always taken for granted.
As he sat in the shuttle in grim and angry silence, Zan’nh recalled when he and Adar Kori’nh had gone together to an eerily empty skymine drifting above the haunted clouds of Daym. The two men alone had not been enough to keep themselves strong and stable, even with a fully crewed warliner riding high above them, and they had left the place quickly.
Cut off, he now felt his connection to the Mage-Imperator grow tenuous and uncertain. He remained aware of his father in the far-off Prism Palace, and he was certain Jora’h understood that something dangerous and unexpected had happened to the warliners...but he could not send a clear message. No details, just a sharp anxiety. The Mage-Imperator would know the loss of all the warliner crews as they faded from the thism. Would he assume those Ildiran soldiers were dead? Would Jora’h assume his own Adar had failed completely?
In truth, Zan’nh knew he had.
As they approached the tiled spaceport landing field, Zan’nh looked through the shuttle’s window, silently gathering information. The visible cropland across Hyrillka had been reseeded with nialia plantmoths in order to produce vast amounts of shiing. Over the past year, many structures had been rebuilt in the wake of the hydrogue attack. The new buildings looked austere and functional, without the colorful frivolities the Hyrillka Designate had previously enjoyed. Rusa’h had turned into an entirely different person after recovering from his head injury. Clearly, his mind was damaged, and the medical kithmen had been unable to treat him properly. Rusa’h was truly insane.
Thor’h, though, was a different story. The Prime Designate had made his own decisions, willingly turned to the rebel cause. “You should have known better, Thor’h. Why would you cooperate with this foolish venture? You know the Hyrillka Designate cannot succeed against the whole Solar Navy.”
“I know nothing of the sort. Our uncle has seen the truth in a holy vision. How am I to doubt that?