The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [87]
Ridek’h joined his mentor. “I should not be hiding here in these caves.”
“No, you should not. None of us should . . . but do we flee? Do we provoke the faeros? Do we engage in a direct battle — and all die? We will get no guidance from the Mage-Imperator, as long as he remains imprisoned by the humans, and we have no way of rescuing him. And what can we do ourselves?”
“Indeed,” Ridek’h said. “What can we do ourselves?” He voiced it as a challenge rather than an admission of failure.
After the Mage-Imperator had been returned to the thism web, his presence had shone like a reignited blazer. Across the Empire all of the panicked and dismayed Ildirans would have felt at least a glimmer of reassurance. In response, Tal Ala’nh, who commanded one of the remaining cohorts of free Solar Navy ships, had gathered his dispersed warliners and charged back to Ildira. Seven complete maniples, 343 battleships, all ready to throw themselves at the fireballs.
Adar Zan’nh had stopped them, refusing to let so many warliners be destroyed in a pointless sacrifice. And so a frustrated Tal Ala’nh waited at a distance, in nominal command of the gathering off-planet military force, with orders to remain intact, ready, and unobtrusive.
After what he had seen in the burned refugee camp, Ridek’h’s attention was focused on the remaining Hyrillkans on Ildira. More than a million of the people evacuated from his world were still scattered across the Ildiran landscape. The faeros could exterminate them at any time they chose, whenever the mad Designate let them. Ridek’h could barely contain himself, quivering with the need to act.
“I should challenge him. I am the rightful Hyrillka Designate. I have faced Rusa’h before, and he didn’t kill me.”
“Some would call that a miracle,” O’nh said, his scarred face troubled by memories of that awful encounter. “What would it accomplish to tempt fate again?”
“I will sacrifice myself if I must.”
“I would prefer you did not, young man. I can see no way it would be helpful.”
Ridek’h tried to make his decision sound less impulsive than it was. “In the command nucleus of your warliner, Rusa’h said we would face each other again. I want to do it now, on my own terms. I will make the long journey back to Mijistra alone, enter the Prism Palace, and confront him. If Rusa’h was going to kill me, he would have done it already.”
“And what can you say to him?”
“I will make him realize what he is doing to his own people! If he is still Rusa’h, at least in part, then he must see the horror of what he has let loose. Who is truly in control — him, or the faeros? Maybe an Ildiran heart still beats within him.”
O’nh let out a sigh, though he clearly longed to do something himself. “You are being foolish. I forbid it.”
The young man raised his voice. “I am the Designate. You follow my commands, not the other way around. Need I remind you of your own teachings? Followers follow, but leaders must lead. I have the blood of the Mage-Imperator in me. You told me that if I could think of something that might save us, then I am morally obligated to do it.”
The veteran allowed a small smile to cross his face. “So, you were listening to me after all.”
“Yes, to every word. There I will stand, Hyrillka Designate to Hyrillka Designate. This is a time for desperate acts. The Mage-Imperator is no longer with us, and so we must make these decisions for ourselves.” He found himself breathing heavily.
Tal O’nh remained seated, still staring at the suns. “Desperate acts. Perhaps we should all consider them. I see no other way to save the Empire.”
* * *
61
Mage-Imperator Jora’h
Now that the Chairman had become busy with his new cooperative scheme with the black robots, his interest in the Mage-Imperator waned. Young King Rory and the Archfather of Unison