Key to Magic 04 Emperor Read online

  When Phehlahm, distraught, gasped out, "They have killed the King!" a visual shudder passed through the waiting Mhajhkaeirii and a virtual shudder vibrated the ether as the intensity of their sudden horror assaulted the background flux.

  Telriy sliced through the legionnaires and marines, shoving them out of her way with magic and physical force when necessary, and knelt by Mar's head. As she looked down upon him, a terrible dread seized her, but she made no move to lay hand to him.

  Mar's clothing had burned completely away, but he was not naked; soot and his own charred flesh clothed him. His feet were mere broiled lumps, with meat bursting away from cracked bone, and his knees and thighs were blistered horribly. Some errant spurt of flame had also seared his left hand, leaving it twisted and shriveled. Much of his hair had burned away, and purple and yellow bruises had made his face a hideous caricature. The beating that had gifted him the bruises had also caused him to lose a number of teeth, some of which had evidently been driven out through his right cheek. From all outward appearances he indeed appeared dead; she could not see that any part of him stirred.

  When tears began to cascade down her cheeks, Telriy made no effort to wipe them away. She had not cried since the death of her mother and father, not for Gran and certainly not for herself, but she could not deny these tears for the father of her own yet to be born child.

  "Make room!" Aunt Whelsi roughly shouldered aside the much bigger armsmen and squatted down opposite Telriy. With her was a white-faced Yhejia, bearing several of the witch's medicinal satchels. Ignoring all save her patient, Aunt Whelsi stared at Mar for almost a full moment and then declared sharply, "He's breathing! Now, Gods damn you all, clear out and make room for me to work!"

  Without hesitation, the crewmen drew back respectfully, but Telriy held her place.

  When Aunt Whelsi began to sing, her clear melodious voice ringing out a curiously cheerful ballad, Telriy saw the ether stir and flux begin to creep into Mar's violated flesh. She sensed the spark of his life, reduced to something she had been almost unable to detect, gain in strength.

  Tears still flowing, she raised her head to tell Fugleman Truhsg in a dead cold voice, "Bring me a sand sphere."

  The fugleman rushed to one of the red painted buckets secured by the rail and then walked back with measured steps and self-conscious care, bearing the sphere as if it were a viper that might choose to strike at any second, and presented her with the deadly globe.

  She did not take it from his outstretched hands, but simply stared at it, storing in the already overloaded vessel a lifetime's worth of sublimated grief and hate. When the sphere began to glow a cold, evil blue, the hard-faced Truhsg tensed but did not waver.

  "Throw that over the side," Telriy ordered when she was done. She reached out with her magical senses to drive Number One upwards out of range. "Aim for the center of the courtyard. Do not miss."

  Truhsg's tone was vicious. "There is no chance of that, my lady queen."

  THREE

  The intense pain brought Mar around. He moaned and struggled to sit up, but strong hands pressed his shoulders down. After several frail and failed attempts, he managed to make his eyes open.

  Many indistinct faces stared down at him, phasing in and out of a blurred brightness. Some seemed naggingly familiar but he had could not identify them. After a moment or ten, a strong, determined voice insisted that he focus on a single face. He concentrated, and when it at last became clear, he saw that it was Aunt Whelsi, her expression drawn and severe.

  "Don't move, boy," she told him. "You were burned almost to death. There was nothing much left of your feet and I had to take both your legs off above the knees. It's likely that I'll have to do the same to your left hand here shortly. If you thrash around much at all, you'll open the stitches and you'll start bleeding again. If that happens, there will be nothing that I can do to save you. I've given you all the blood that Wilhm can spare, though he'd willingly give it all."

  Mar made some sound, mostly another moan.

  The expression on Aunt Whelsi's face became exceedingly grim. "I've woken you because I can't do anything more for you. I've never seen anyone survive wounds as bad as this. It's magic you need and that right now. You have to save yourself because no one else can."

  Mar pushed out words. "What...do?"

  "You're badly burned over most of your lower body and your left side and arm. You must try to strengthen your body's reserves, make more blood if you know how, start your skin on the natural process of repair, and keep the wounds from becoming infected. That's the most important. You have to keep all fevers away. As weak as you are, almost any secondary illness will kill you."

  Mar let his eyes close. For some time he simply languished in his own mind, not thinking, but rather simply existing. He could not feel any of his body below his waist and the portions above that he was aware of simply hurt.

  Presently, struggling to overcome this overwhelming lassitude, he sought out The Knife Fighter's Dirge and clung to the tune, hoping to glean time. His awareness of the ether had become intermittent and when he could perceive it, the flux was wane and shallow. After some time, however, the modulation seemed to gain strength and his consciousness sank back into his innermost refuge, the domain of the fundamental and clarified BLACK.

  Without the burden of pain or emotion, he took stock.

  Indeed, as the witch had said, his body was ravaged, steadily failing and bleeding vital flux into the ether as it slowly died. Already the fiercely keening purple of some invisible poisoning life had begun to seep into his wounded stumps and started to take root.

  He studied the keening purple for a subjective moment and after some experimentation with various sound-colors leached from the BLACK, he discovered a scintillating turquoise that would counteract it. After this, he expended a considerable effort in attempts to strengthen the natural flux modulations of his body, but only achieved sporadic success.

  At one point, he observed in an internalized, emotionless fashion as his left hand and arm below the elbow separated from his awareness, no doubt the result of the forewarned amputation.

  After an uncounted length of time, he found that he possessed an increased physical strength and a more profound vital flux. Venturing out of the BLACK, he awoke.

  A single dim lamp lit the room. Aunt Whelsi was not present, but a not-young woman, whom he did not recognize, was, sitting in a chair nigh his bed. Also, six marines and legionnaires stood against the walls or sat in chairs within his sight, all of them alert and watchful. Darning a pair of brown socks in a relaxed, methodical time-passing fashion, the woman looked up and smiled with genuine pleasure when she saw his eyes opened.

  "It is good to see you awake, my lord king," she told him warmly as she laid needles and wool in her lap.

  He dragged his right arm -- his left was strapped down beneath the covers and part of it was clearly missing -- up to rub his face with a shaking hand. Dry-mouthed, he asked first, "May I have a drink?"

  "Of course, my lord king!" The woman's smile brightened as she sprang up, swept to a side table, poured water from a pitcher, and hurried back to hold the cup to his lips. Dressed in wool trousers that emphasized her long legs and a loose blue blouse that allowed plenty of room for her full bosom, she was more than tall for a woman, neither thin nor thick, black haired, and had a kind face and slender, delicate hands.

  He drank it all and then asked for another.

  "Would you like something to eat? Some bread and broth?"

  "No, not right now. Not to be rude, but who are you?"

  "I'm Berhl's sometime companion, Tsyl."

  "Sometime?"

  Tsyl smiled unapologetically. "I'm a professional kept woman."

  "Oh."

  "It's better than it sounds. We don't always get along, so when we don't, he goes his way and I go mine. Right now, we happen to be headed the same way."

  That, Mar reflected, was all in all probably not a bad arrangement. There were cert
ainly much worse situations.

  "I don't imagine that he's mentioned me," she went on, "as that's how he is, but we've made a son together. His name's Baeyrl and he's seven."

  He looked around the room again, readily identified it as a skyship cabin. "Where are we?"

  "Aboard Number Three, flying at a thousand armlengths above the Blue Fortress of Khalar," she replied succinctly, apparently not feeling any urge to elaborate.

  Mar rolled that around in his head for a moment without deriving many conclusions and then asked, "How long have I been out?"

  "Five days. The first three, Aunt Whelsi kept you asleep with potions, but when she saw that you would likely live, she let you sleep on your own."

  Mar's thoughts remained sluggish, but one thing he had to know. "Where is Telriy?"

  Tsyl grinned savagely. "The Queen is out fighting, my lord king."

  "Fighting? Who is she fighting?"

  "Everyone who doesn't get out of her way."

  FOUR

  The 1644th year of the Glorious Empire of the North

  Emperor's Highway, two leagues north of Khalar

  (Seventhday, Waning, 1st Autumnmoon, 1644 After the Founding of the Empire)

  Legate Stromhaeldnt screeched, "Scatter!"

  As the remaining stalwarts of his command scrambled across the ditches and heaved themselves over the fieldstone walls bordering the adjacent wheat fields, he spurred his horse toward the possible protection of a small, mixed grove of hardwood and evergreen trees just thirty paces down a dirt lane to his right. The heart-chilling shadow of the demon flying ship passed over him and a second later a huge explosion burst to his rear. Whipping his head about, he saw yet another line of explosions sprout in the ship's wake, vomiting geysers of shattered granite and red earth as they carved five armlength craters in the pavement of the old highway. As well as he could see, all of his men had cleared the highway in time. He snapped his head back around and kicked in his spurs hard.

  As soon as he had reached the first of the trees, he flung himself from his saddle and slapped the roan's flank to set it free. Though trained to battle, the poor animal's nerves had been frayed to the breaking by the aerial attacks. It would be of no use to him in this battle, which appeared destined, in all honesty, to be a last stand. The roan obliged him by bolting, rearing and kicking, down the lane. With sharp thunderclaps hammering the air and heavy jolts shuddering the ground, he sprinted into the grove and hunkered down behind the spreading roots of a red oak, then watched as the stretch of the Imperial Highway, nearly a third of a league in length, was transformed into rubble in no more time than it would take a man to run along it. This broad furrow of destruction sown, the demon ship, flying no more than ten manheight up, made a slow turn to the west and started back.

  During the previous attacks, the demon ship had unleashed no more than half a dozen explosions. This time it seemed determined to eradicate his command.

  Stromhaeldnt got a prolonged look at the ship as it made its turn, his first in the two days that it had harassed his march (most of the time, he had been too busy fleeing to study the apparition.) Apparently constructed of wood, it appeared to have been built by the hands of men, with the regular lines of board and beam. Men, or, at least, the semblance of men, moved upon her deck.

  Though appearing unhurried, the ship would reach the area where his men sheltered to either side of the highway in no time at all.

  Stromhaeldnt would have like to have fled, but he was a legionnaire and an officer and as unpalatable as the prospect was in this circumstance, it was his task to lead. He sprang up and started running back towards his men, crossing the lane and vaulting the tumbledown fieldstone fence. Heart pounding from exertion and stress, he sprinted through the waist-high golden wheat, cutting a furrow through the sheaves with his pounding boots.

  He came across Ceannaire Pedgel first. The sub-officer had crouched in a trampled patch of wheat near a walkover in the stone fence. Five or six crossbowmen lay or squatted near him. Before their departure, Stromhaeldnt had had the entire First and Second Files of the Second Section issued crossbows and full quivers. Most of the ones who had not deserted had managed to keep them.

  Pedgel glanced back and caught sight of Stromhaeldnt, then urgently hissed, "Get down, sir!"

  The legate complied, dropping to one knee and diplomatically keeping his thought that there was no way to hide from the flying ship to himself. "What are you planning?"

  The ceannaire was hardly twenty and as far as Stromhaeldnt knew had never fought in anything larger than a tavern scuffle, but he had always performed his duties with proper decorum and industriousness. Since the attacks began, he had impressed Stromhaeldnt with his steady nerve and common sense.

  "There's armsmen aboard that beast, sir," Pedgel replied hoarsely. "I figure that if we can take some of 'em out with quarrels, they might draw back enough to let a bunch of us get away."

  Pondering this, Stromhaeldnt asked him, "Did everyone get clear this time?"

  With cryptic orders to assemble all available men and march to the relief of Khalar, Stromhaeldnt had started out with nearly ten score legionnaires summoned from a dozen small guard posts and tax stations throughout his district. They had only made a league from the muster point at his headquarters in the village of Lhyrdherl when the demon ship, clearly patrolling the outskirts of the city, had crossed their path. The first attack had killed five legionnaires, wounded twenty, and caused nearly a hundred, including all of the under officers save Pedgel, to take to their heels and never look back. Over the last day and a half, with respite only during the previous sleepless night, they had suffered three other brief attacks, though no other casualties. After each attack, the demon ship had continued on in its patrol, allowing Stromhaeldnt to regroup his legionnaires, briefly rest, then return to his march.

  "Yes, sir. There's no bodies out there." Pedgel jerked a thumb toward where the highway used to be. "There's forty-nine of us on this side, counting you, and I've seen a few heads peaking over on the other."

  "We need to get the men from that side of the highway over to this one," Stromhaeldnt told the ceannaire. "We have a better chance if we can concentrate our fire."

  "Someone'll have to cross to organize them," Pedgel pointed out, his gaze steady. This was his way of saying that he was not stupid enough to volunteer to try to cross the exposed highway right-of-way.

  Stromhaeldnt looked up to judge how fast the flying ship approached. It was still coming straight on, riding just above the centerline of the highway, but appeared to have slowed. There might be a minute or two before it attacked again. He nodded. "You get this lot together. I'll jaunt across and have the ones on that side regroup over here."

  Pedgel's expression remained flat. "Right, sir. Good luck."

  Stromhaeldnt took two long breaths, then shot to his feet and leapt up the walkover, running for all he was worth. Rubble and ejecta covered the dry drainage ditch and the grassy shoulder, but he found his footing easily enough and did not have to slow until he reached the uneven, ruptured ground where the pavement used to be. He dodged around a large crater and then, goaded by the constricting anticipation of suddenly becoming engulfed in fire, sprinted with reckless abandon to hurl himself across a smaller one. He skidded upon landing but kept his balance and made long, galloping strides across the opposite shoulder and ditch, hurtling obstacles as necessary. When the stone fence appeared in front of him, he dove head first over it.

  Two long service veterans, Burk and Westlen, rose and caught him as he came down, preventing him from plowing a furrow through the soil with his head. Around two dozen more armsmen were making themselves small behind the fence in widely spaced clusters. All of the legionnaires stared at him, many with open incredulity. A few were flat out dumbfounded.

  Stromhaeldnt untangled himself from Burk and Westlen, and, knowing that the only way to get the legionnaires to obey his next order was to show none of his own fear, stood straight up and took a co
mmanding stance.

  "Legionnaires!" he bellowed. "Over the fence and across the road! NOW!" Then without pause he walked to the fence, stepping around a young, blond-haired legionnaire named Thilbus who was missing his helmet, and climbed over. He marched back across the highway, his back arrow straight and trying desperately not to soil himself.

  At a dead run, Thilbus passed him first, not once looking back, then Burk, Westlen, and an older legionnaire named Declytys at better than double-time. Then all the others -- he was not going back to make sure -- swept by in a gaggle. One of the laggards, Prestmyn, who always seemed to lag but was as brave as any of the rest, tripped on a jutting piece of pavement and fell into a shallow crater. With as much calm as he could produce, Stromhaeldnt trotted forward to drag the man back to his feet and urge him onward. With most of the men having reached the fence, he picked up his own pace finally, herding Prestmyn, and helped boost the fellow over into the wheat field before climbing over himself.

  Pedgel, busy sorting the new arrivals into their quads, stopped to tell Stromhaeldnt, "That was right well done, sir."

  He did not bother to comment. "Is everything ready for the attack?"

  "Yes, sir, but they've hove to and are standing off out of effective range, at about a hundred and fifty paces."

  "They've stopped?"

  "You didn't look, sir?"

  "It wasn't mission vital."

  "Understandable, sir."

  Stromhaeldnt swung about. As the ceannaire had said, the demon vessel had swung broadside, come to a stop, and descended so that her keel was no more than an armlength off the shattered highway.

  "Wonder what that's about?" he said, thinking out loud.

  "No idea, sir. Should we try to withdraw?"