29 - Wave of Blood

The Throne room floor was made of blue tile around the edges but the mosaic beneath the Crystal Throne showed the known world. The Presentation steps below the throne, that brought petitioners up to be heard by the Imperator was a standing wave in the Arkan sea.

I stood on the floor below the Throne as my father called down to me and pointed to where the workmen were pulling up tiles to replace them. A new conquest? He’d said he wanted me to see this, after luncheon.

“There, my Minimal! Come around here, to Roskat.” I walked over Sria, and up the length of the Peninsula, past the Presentation steps. The gold on the edges of the tiles grew thicker and thicker the closer I got to the gems set in the floor marking the city itself. I stepped around that and headed for the edges of the Empire. From above father called “More to the left my boy! Stop! Now turn and face the edge of the civilized land!”

I found myself facing the Yeoli border, or where the Yeoli border had been. The workmen were carefully pulling blue and green chips up, cleaning the old adhesive off the underlayment. Propped against the wall were the black sheets of glass to go into place marking contested land. To my left and to my right there were rejin markers set into the golden sockets in the floor. I looked up to where father sat, beaming and didn’t need to feign confusion.

“Illustrious father?”

He laughed. “Is it not brilliant? Look… look… go around to the sea coast.” In the sea were the ruby glass sails of the Naval Assault Flotilla. “The rejins along the inland coast are a feint! The true attack will be from the coast my son. They depend so on their mountains to protect their wool-haired barbarity and I will merely circumvent those primitive defenses!” He paced out along the crystal bridge, pointing. 

“See? General Triadas will be carrying out the conquest of Yeola-e, with General Larianas supporting him, and if everything goes as planned the Empire will be bringing more of your favourite kinds of fighters to the Mezem! The wines and the slaves, the wool and the wealth flowing down the sides of the mountains into Arko’s mouth! Before your next year, if all goes well! Isn’t that wonderful?”

I gulped, able to do so, from my place under him where he couldn’t see. “I see. Illustrious father… so, the conquest has begun?”

Raikas’s country, ripped out of the floor to be recovered with the glass war-plates. I thought of him, his arm across his face, weeping for a man just killed. Just killed by him. Forced to profane his training for Arko’s entertainment, to be fed into Arko’s maw and devoured. I thought of the feeling of his arm around me, even though I was the son of the man who forced him to that. I thought of the eagle’s-eye look and smile when he’d killed the slaver, someone who had hurt him bitterly and directly. And felt my belly clench.

It wasn’t going to be as easy as my father thought… but then I thought of the Naval Flotilla unloading the heavy rejins, the thousands of solas, red armoured monster wave, washing in and over the Yeoli garrisons thinned by being drawn to the Roskati border. The galleys plunging up that central river like a spiked javelin thrust into a body. It would be a river of blood.

It would depend on whether Triadas and Larianas could take that wave all the way up the mountains. I stepped down onto the stripped floor and turned to look back at the Empire. For a moment it was as though the whole floor were stripped or smashed. “No, no, not yet. Soon, though. Well? Well my boy? Is it not brilliant?” Father was almost beside himself with anticipation.

I shifted, feeling the gritty floor under my feet, looking at a piece of the golden jointing twisting across the bare stone. It was like a gutted city. I could hardly tell him he was pricing the unborn foal. “It looks fool-proof, Illustrious father.”

“Yes! Yes! It will be incredible. I am looking forward to the fruits of conquest! I am convinced that General Triadas and General Larianas can do this!”

“Of course father.” He was right, but I could only hope that nothing happened to either of those Generals. I couldn’t think of a single other one that Arko had that might be able to carry off such a plan, should the Summoner reach out his claws and draw either man to Selestialis.

He actually giggled like a boy. “Especially since their young, wild hotspur Shef-en-kas or whatever mouth-garbling sheep-bleating name, went missing! Oh that was such a plan of mine, my son! I set Mahid on the young idiot with instruction that he should have a deniable accident on the road! It was the perfect set up for this war.” He was chuckling at his own brilliance, exited enough he was beginning to sweat, a round spatter appearing just next to my foot.

All I could think of was what? What? My father set Mahid on the Yeoli Durakis? I’d been interested in the first proposed state visit in hundreds of years… and Raikas and Manas had showed up after the reports of some unfortunate accident on the road… and and and… Had my father not thought of this and had them truth-drugged? And… he would. I was starting to sweat, myself. My father would know that I liked… that I loved… Raikas.

“The assault will be set shortly.” He slapped his hands together, the Seals glinting and clashing.

“Eminent father. So we have sent the declaration of war?” It was all I could think to ask. He stopped, looking down at me before settling into the Crystal Throne, the golden soles of his slippers showing clearly through the clear footrest. Then he threw his head back, belly and chins shaking and laughed and laughed and laughed.

He didn’t need to answer. A plan such as what he’d described, a deception on such a scale… to declare war would be to give them warning. And I had to be making a joke, or I was a naïve, honourable fool.

I had to join him, or he might realize I didn’t think it was a good idea and forced a giggle out of my mouth like a stream of saliva.