Tuvaini waited before the throne-room doors. He had waited a lifetime. He could wait some more.
Govnan arrived to stand beside him, head down, as if lost in his thoughts. The high mage looked different; something had changed in him. He seemed both less than he had been, and more, though Tuvaini couldn’t determine why he thought that.
Tuvaini watched for Master Herran. His voice would carry further than most at the council table. Men like Eyul were the sharp edge of Herran’s organisation, but the assassins did more than kill: they were the Emperor’s ears, his secret eyes, his police, the long arm that reached those who worked against him.
Dinar, Herzu’s priest, joined them, surrounded by a dark flock of acolytes. His followers peeled away to the corners of the antechamber as he approached Govnan.
“High Mage. Vizier.” Dinar inclined his head.
They acknowledged him, then continued to wait in silence. The doors towered above them, the wealth of a small nation in cedar wood, carved with the many gods of Cerana.
General Hazran arrived, worry in the hard lines of his face. His aides lined the grand corridor, lamplight gleaming on their polished leathers, the royal guard almost lost in their number.
General Lurish accompanied Mirra’s priest, bringing more soldiers and more clerics.
“A bad business,” Lurish muttered to Dinar, “I remember the boy…’
Tuvaini caught a snatch of the conversation.
Without warning the great doors parted, swinging silently inwards on well-oiled hinges.
“Where’s Master Herran?” Tuvaini looked to Govnan. “Who will speak for the assassins?” The council was not yet complete. Beyond the doors a gong tolled, a slow beat, repeating and repeating.
Govnan only shook his head and walked in. Tuvaini followed.
Before the dais where Beyon was seated upon the Petal Throne, the council table had been set out: a long, gleaming slab cut from the same forest giants that had yielded the doors. Two figures were already seated at the eastern end, both cowled in assassin grey.
Govnan took his seat at the western end. Tuvaini sat at the mage’s right hand. His breath came shallow now; his hands were numb, except for his fingers, which prickled. He hadn’t felt such fear since his childhood, when he first came before Beyon’s father to pledge his service. Funny how so trivial a thing could make him sweat. The stakes had grown. For some reason an image of Lapella swam before his eyes, but he shook her away.
At the far end of the table, Master Herran pulled back his cowl and looked at the high mage. Eyul, on Herran’s right, also uncovered his head. The sun had burned him to a dark oak. He met Tuvaini’s stare, but nothing passed between them.
Why had Eyul not come to him first? Tuvaini’s hand tightened on the scroll beneath his robe.
“We are met.” Govnan parted his hands. “Emperor Beyon, your council is before you.”
Beyon rose from his throne and clasped his hands behind him. Tuvaini watched him: a powerfully built man in the prime of life, with a bearing the Cerani called “the look of eagles.” Every inch the dynamic emperor.
“How stands my empire?”
“It stands strong, Emperor.” Govnan gave the traditional answer. And Cerana did stand strong; Tuvaini knew of no other empire so great, no people on the face of the world more blessed with wealth. But like the emperor, the empire’s outward strength could be deceptive.
“Strong?” Beyon’s gaze swept the council. “The empire is attacked from within. An invisible worm gnaws at our very heart. My own brother has been slain within these self-same walls that protect us all.”
Tuvaini suppressed a smile. All your brothers were slain within these walls, Majesty. Sarmin merely balances an old account.
“My brother is dead,” Beyon strode to the table and circled it as he spoke, “and I will have the author of his murder face justice. I will have justice, and if the lands of Cerana must be sliced open from belly to throat before it is found… then so be it. An evil grows among us, and it must be cut out.”
Beyon stopped at the eastern end of the council table and rested one hand upon the shoulder of the emperor’s Knife. Eyul made no move, but his gaze fell on Govnan with a dark intensity.
Tuvaini wet his lips. His mouth felt dry, and tasted sour.
The words he had to speak built behind his teeth. He felt sick with them. He could swallow them down, hold his peace, and let the moment pass. He could live his life in the quiet luxury of his office, loyal, with honour. He could take his frustrations to Lapella, all that bitterness, and the hollow, aching certainty that there must be more for him-he could take it all to her, and she would bear it all.
“We have an enemy who works against us,” Beyon said, “a secret foe who poisons all our efforts. Someone who seeks to wound us on every level. Govnan and his mages fight a war that ranges from the vaults of the sky to the deepest caverns. Our enemy moves behind the fire and amid cold ocean depths. Master Herran’s assassins chase the foe’s agents in shadow. My own Knife has killed them before the fountain-the place my father named as the palace’s own heart.”
Beyon walked the length of the table to stand by Tuvaini.
“We have endured these attacks too long. It is time we struck back.” A hand upon Tuvaini’s shoulder. It had been an age since last the emperor touched him. “What say you, Lord High Vizier? Where must we strike?”
Tuvaini stood. One did not stand at council, and the guards beside the throne moved hands to swords, but the words he needed to say could not be spoken seated.
“We must strike close to home, my Emperor. Closer than any here would ever have wished.” The time to hold his peace had slipped away. In minutes and moments it had escaped him, beaten away by a pounding heart.
“The worm that has burrowed among us has been discovered.” Tuvaini raised his voice and found its power, and the men along the table watched him, some with surprise, some with concern, none able to look away. “The sickness must be cut out.”
Beyon took a step back.
“Emperor Beyon, blood of my blood, lord of all Cerana, before these servants of empire, before this council’s witness, I declare you marked. I name you Carrier, slave to the plague that haunts us, and unfit for rule.”
Beyon took a second step backwards, one hand splayed wide across his chest. He stumbled as his heel touched the lowest step of the dais.
“Tuvaini!” Govnan launched to his feet, his chair toppling behind him. “You have-”
The words died on his lips as Eyul jumped up also, his hand on the hilt of his Knife. Master Herran put out a hand to stay him.
“Ask him!” Tuvaini pointed at the emperor. “Let him but show his chest, naked and without paint. Let him show clean skin, and I will bow my head to the executioner’s sword.”
“I have heard the rumours.” Dinar’s rumble cut the silence before it stretched. He laid his staff, black with Herzu’s death runes, across the table. “Uncertainty is a sickness in and of itself.”
“My officers speak of it when they think I don’t listen.” General Lurish pulled at his upper lip, his gaze upon the table.
“Emperor?” Tuvaini asked, voice quiet now.
Beyon backed towards the throne, his eyes wild, finding nothing to fix upon. His two sacred guards, peerless slave-bred warriors, took their places, one at his left hand, the other to his right. The royal guard held their positions at the walls, uncertain.
“Beyon, you carry the marks. You cannot rule. The enemy has killed you already.” Tuvaini could taste his triumph, a quiet storm rising within him.
For a moment the emperor found focus, as if seeing Tuvaini for the first time.
“Look at your hand, Beyon.”
He lifted it, turning his palm to his face. A pale-blue diamond marked both front and back, so faint one might think it a bruise, and across his wrist Tuvaini saw a slim red crescent.
With a cry Beyon ran. He made for the door, and his sacred guard ran with him, trailing their blades. The men of the royal guard stood as if rooted, their heads bowed, their sapphire plumes lowered.
“Eyul.” Tuvaini turned and held the assassin’s gaze. “You know your duty.”
Eyul rose. The emperor’s Knife gleamed in his hand. With a last glance at Govnan he left the table and followed Beyon from the room.
The great doors closed behind Eyul and for long moments all eyes remained upon them.
