Song of the Dragon

Book 2: THE PREY
CHAPTER 16

Soen Tjen-Rei, Inquisitor of the elven Order of the Iblisi, stepped through the delicately inlaid twenty-foot tall doors, grateful for the warmth of the radiant sun that thawed his chill bones. The grand reception hall had been unbelievably cold-undoubtedly someone’s interpretation of the Emperor’s Will-which even his layers of ceremonial robes were of little help in keeping at bay. It might have felt warmer to him, he reflected, if he had had any real interest in the proceedings. Imperial audiences were, it was true, generally convoluted and complex as the centerpiece of the game of Imperial politics should be. And yes, there was an occasional death and even moments of honest surprise to be had, but this was a game for the Ministers and Masters of the Orders to play. . not an elf like him.

He was an Inquisitor of the Iblisi, and his province was the truth-something generally unknown and unwanted in the Imperial audiences.

He stood at the railed edge of the Emperor’s Cloud Palace and surveyed the enormous city arrayed below him. The palace was currently facing west toward the setting sun. Its rays reflected off the thousands of gleaming avatrium that hung over the city like glorious lilies floating on an invisible pond. Many of those closest to the Emperor’s own floating palace were of extraordinary grace and size, an obvious display of power and wealth that required no further word to be spoken on the subject. That they grew smaller and, in his eye, more reasonable the farther they were situated toward the horizon was yet another indication that he was standing at the very center around which the entire world revolved.

At least for today, he thought with a frown. For today.

Below him and between the forest of avatrium, Soen caught sight of the Coliseum and the northern edge of the great Circus. Several gladiators were practicing on the Coliseum floor, smaller than ants to his eye at this distance. Almost overshadowing them was the towering avatria of Myrdin-dai-the center of that Order’s mystical power and teachings. The Myrdin-dai were currently basking in the glory of their contribution to the victory over the last of the Dwarven Kings. Their planning, execution, and management of the folds had been publicly recognized as a contributing factor in the conquest, and the grace of the Imperial thanks rested with them. This praise went down very hard with the Occuran, the Order that was in constant competition with the Myrdin-dai for control of the Aether and the network of folds that it powered. The Myrdin-dai’s recent management of the fold system for the war seemed to be a shift in the Imperial favor-and the Occuran were forced to offer their respects with as much dignity as society demanded. His own Order, the Iblisi, was closely tied to the Occuran. Soen’s presence at the audience today was intended to demonstrate to the Myrdin-dai that the Iblisi would not be diminished in the eyes of the Emperor despite their ties to the Occuran.

He sighed and looked west down the curving length of the wide avenue known as the Vira Rhonas until his gaze drifted to the horizon and the setting sun.

How did I come to this? he thought as he shifted uncomfortably in the layered, exquisite robes. An Inquisitor of the Iblisi whose very name has been whispered with dread and awe in the farthest outposts of the Empire, and now I stand here as an errand boy fawning to the Imperial Will. He had seen more of the Empire than any other living elf, so far as he knew, and at that it was only a fraction of the glory that rested under the sure hand of the Emperor. He had stalked rebel manticores across their own rolling plains in the Chaenandria Reaches. He had sailed in war galleys against the separatists of the Benis Isles and infiltrated the conspiracy of the Aergus Coast Barons.

That was what had done him in; the fall of the Barons had whispered his name in the Imperial ear. He was no longer an Inquisitor but had somehow transcended that to become a symbol-the incarnation of Iblisi fealty to the Emperor and his damnable Will. That Soen’s original mission had been merely to investigate whether the Iblisi should give covert aid to the Barons was conveniently washed away in a sea of sophistry, and he emerged from the cleansing a pure hero and loyal servant of the Empire.

Such was his fate-a comedy for the enjoyment of the gods while he languished in the cold heart of Imperial Glory.

Soen turned from the railing. Such melancholy did not become him, he decided, as he stepped across the polished granite, rounding the path that circumnavigated the base of the Cloud Palace’s enormous avatria. Though the way was broad, it quickly became crowded with petitioners, guildmasters, clerks, cagistrates and ministers, not to mention the ubiquitous Cloud Guardians.

Soen knew from the chevrons on their breastplates that the Guardians were of the Order of the Vash-one of three separate military orders who vied for Imperial favor in the Empire. Each maintained their headquarters within the boundaries of Tsujen’s Wall, the demarcation of the older part of the city and romantically considered the most blessed by the gods. The Iblisi had a number of agreements in place with the Vash and often supported them in their dealings with the Ministry of Conquest. Their being entrusted as the Cloud Guardians-replacing the Order of the Krish-should have worked to his advantage.

But no advantage, it seemed, could get him off of the Cloud Palace any faster. There were seven towers rising from the perimeter of the garden far below and surrounding the great palace’s hovering avatria. Each tower represented one of the Seven Estates of elven society, and each provided ascending and descending shaft access to the palace. . limited, of course, to those of a specified Estate or higher. That he would mix at all with the Sixth or Fifth Estate traffic was unthinkable, and though he could see the Fourth Tower entrance, the very thought of packing himself in with the rest of the lowing herd of guild traffic made his skin crawl. He could, he knew, turn and reenter the palace itself, but that held the danger of encountering someone that he either knew or should know and thereby being trapped in yet another round of favor trading, positioning, and influence bargaining, all delivered in subtext, context, and always from behind a smile.

Though he personally had an intense dislike of being touched by anyone, he would rather push his way through a mob than deal with another politician. He managed to cut his own path through the throng and was relieved to see the wide walkway beyond leading to the Tower of the Third Estate free of all but a handful of masters and ministers. He quickly followed the gleaming path as it continued around the base of the Cloud Palace until it came at last to a nearly deserted platform and its bridge to the Third Tower.

Soen had long ago set aside the privileges associated with being a descendant of a noble House. . but at times like this, he reflected, it had its convenient uses. He quickly crossed the bridge with its crystal lattice railings and ornate renderings of the crests of those Houses that had donated to its construction. Then he passed through the archway into the tower itself.

Soen stood on a wide platform opening onto one of two shafts that plunged down the full height of the towers. This one was the descending shaft and was filled with a blue swirling light. He stepped out over the precipice without hesitation and began his slow drift downward through the air.

It was a fine defensive mechanism, he thought, as he drifted down past the occasional window cut into the curved wall. You had to have access to the Aether to use the shaft-and the only ones who had access to the Aether were the elves.

Soen frowned. The elves had not always been the only ones to command the power of Aether, he knew, but that fact was only one grain of sand in the mountain of secrets that he and all of the Iblisi kept.

Keeping the truth safe was the essence of their work.

The Iblisi’s feet touched softly on the fitted stones at the base of the Third Tower, and he stepped quickly through the arch opening into the evening air. The Garden of Kuchen spread before him, teaming with elves as was common at this time late in the day. The setting sun cast a warm glow across the wide garden. It was a beautiful place, carefully manicured and maintained in honor of the Emperor’s wife, for whom it was currently named, and shaded over all by the titanic bulk of the Cloud Palace directly overhead. It smelled green and alive and called to the souls of the elves who came to it each day that they might forget the walls they had built to enclose themselves and the desperation of their spirits that longed for open space but had compromised themselves into servitude to the Will of the Emperor in all its incarnations.

Soen hated it, for it reminded him of the true fields and green spaces that were far from this place. Having tasted of its truth, it was hard for him to endure the lie. So he walked around the edge of the garden as quickly as he could on the south side, following the fitted cobblestones of the Vira Rhonas past where they intersected with the Vira Condemnis to the south. He barely glanced in the direction of the Forums of the Estates, which stood behind rows of standing columns down the arcade to his left. Both the Circus and the Coliseum could be found in that direction, but he had little use for the games and no time for them in any event. Beyond the forums the Vira Rhonas widened, cutting a broad curving path through the heart of the Imperial City that was nearly as old as the Empire itself.

The Vira was just beginning to come to life with the evening revels. Litters supported by teams of manticorian slaves quickly jogged up and down the street, bearing their masters to and fro at their whim. A number of Fifth Estate hawkers served their guild Orders by calling out their wares to the growing crowd. As he walked down the street, Soen saw a dwarf-a rare enough sight even in the Imperial City-dancing nervously before a group of jeering elven youth. They prodded the stumpy creature with their ornamental swords.

Soen shook his head. Poor dwarf. The youth today had taken to wearing these next-to-useless engraved blades as a fashion. Now, with the news of the victory over the Last Kingdom, that dwarf was almost certain not to live through the night of celebrations.

Next his eye was caught by a string of Muserian slaves-orange-hewed barbarian elves from the southern Aergus Coast-being pulled wide-eyed behind a manticorian overseer. He walked beside them, eyeing them with mild curiosity before the overseer turned southward down the Vira Coliseum. They were destined for one of the newer noble Houses that had sprung up on the west side of the River Jolnar against the Mnerian Hills, Soen thought idly. Poor fools.

But poor fools aren’t we all, he reflected as he continued between the buildings on either side of the paved stones. The structures on his right were known collectively as The Ministries. There were no fewer than thirteen separate main ministries and more than an equal number of subministries making up each of those. The mandates of the various ministries overlapped each other in the most confusing of ways, and yet it was the Emperor’s Will not only that this mess not be straightened out but that it reflected a wonderful redundancy in the government-that should one ministry fail to work toward the Imperial Will, then another would surely do so. The jurisdictional battles among the separate ministries of Health, Nutrition and-for reasons beyond Soen’s understanding-Caravans were perennial. The Ministry of War and the Ministry of Security, it was said, fought more battles between them as allies in the Emperor’s Will than in the field against any enemy.

This was further complicated by the strict caste system of the Estates, which dated back to the founding of the Empire by Rhonas and which had since those ancient days been so carefully codified that progression between the estates was, by Imperial decree, to rest only in the hands of the Emperor personally.

Then there were the Orders of the Empire: guilds, elite military Orders, wizardry unions, and other specialized clans that vied to force their own agendas and ascendancy in power on the Emperor’s Will. Each had its own combination of gods they worshiped and unique pacts with other Orders, allegiances and enmities. Membership in the orders transcended castes, at least in theory. Any caste could be a member of any Order by application, but the vagaries and secrecy in the selection process were such that each Order had effective control over the makeup of its membership. The Orders were diverse-but only so far as their strength and power were supported.

None of which accounted for the rather public and often bloody conflicts of the vaunted Forums-one for the Estate Lords and the other the “voice of the common elf”-whatever that was supposed to mean.

Soen shook his head and smiled. By the Emperor’s Will, it all works perfectly.

The Inquisitor came to the end of the Vira Rhonas and stepped onto the Gods’ Bridge. It was one of the oldest bridges of the nine crossing the Jolnar and led to the oldest part of the city, the Isle of the Gods. It was not a terribly impressive island, as such; it sat as a rocky spit of ground between two branches of the River Jolnar that obligingly flowed around it. Still, as legend would have it, it was the place where Rhonas drove his spear into the ground and declared this spot to be where he would found his Empire. The first temples were built here. There were newer and more spacious temples in the districts beyond Tsujen’s Wall, but the temples on this sliver of land were still the most revered by the Rhonasians. Soen crossed the bridge and passed among the ancient buildings. The Occuran made their home here, a privilege granted them by the Emperor just short of one hundred years ago, but now their favor was waning, and Soen wondered just how long it would be before the Imperial Will got around to evicting the Occuran as neighbors to the gods and just what the Occuran would do about it.

Soen crossed the small island and came to the North Bridge. On the other side of the river rose the squat, angular walls of the Old Keep. They were designed in a time before the Aether, when war was waged as it should be: with hand on steel. It was the oldest structure in the city and the home of his own Order.

Soen took in a deep breath. Ministries, Orders, Estates. . by the Emperor’s Will, all worked perfectly because it was the Emperor’s will that it be so. To say otherwise was treason. To think otherwise was disloyal. To be otherwise was unacceptable.

So the perfection was maintained not in practice but in perception. The knowledge that the current Emperor ascended to the throne by murdering the previous Emperor as he was distracted by his lust for the wife of a recently assassinated Guild Master was not “working toward the Imperial Will.” Indeed, that the entire history of the Rhonas Empire was filled with such unpleasant, vicious, horrifying events was also seen as “not working toward the Imperial Will.” This concern for the solidarity, security, and loyalty of the greatest elven nation in all history extended itself down through every ministry, Order, and Estate as well. Anything unpleasant need not be true if it is not known. So their own histories were constantly rewritten for the sake of “working toward the Imperial Will.”

Each part of the body politic played a vital role but, to Soen, none so important as the role his own Order played nor so dangerous.

The Iblisi alone existed to know the truth. . and it was their task to make sure that no one discovered it.