Fifty magicians closed in a ring around the Lords who surrounded the Emperor. Their spokesman gave a formal nod to the Lady of the Acoma. With a faint start, Mara recognized Fumita. In a giddy rush of fear, she recalled that he had been present throughout her entire discussion with Kamatsu. At his side were two others she did not know, a short, very stout magician and a thin one with angular features. Confronted by their stern, impassive gazes, unknowingly steeped in power, Mara knew an instant of terror. Surely they came to take her, to punish her unpardonable boldness.
For if Tasaio was greedy with ambition, she was as much at fault, for her presumptuous attempt to shatter tradition. Yet the Great One did not speak to berate her. Taking a stance between her and the sworn enemy of her family, Fumita addressed the gathering at large. ‘We speak for the Assembly. Our Council has met and determined that Mara of the Acoma has acted for the Good of the Empire. She has jeopardized herself in selfless honour to prevent strife, and her life in this moment is sacrosanct.’
The stout magician took up where Fumita ended. ‘We are divided on many issues, but one thing must be made clear. We shall not permit a civil war.’
The thin magician spoke last. ‘Tasaio of the Minwanabi: you are forbidden to conduct any conflict with Mara of the Acoma, from this day forward. This is the will of the Assembly.’
Tasaio’s eyes widened as if he had been slapped. His hand tightened again on his sword hilt, and a disturbed light glittered in his eyes. In a hoarse whisper he said, ‘Great One, my family has sworn blood oath to Turakamu!’
‘Forbidden!’ repeated the slender magician.
White to the lips, Tasaio bowed. ‘Your will, Great One.’ He unbuckled his sword, an heirloom of steel with an elaborately carved bone handle. Reluctance stiffened every line of his bearing as he descended the stair and surrendered the weapon to Mara. ‘To the victor.’ His hands shook from closely contained rage.
Mara accepted the trophy with hands that openly trembled. ‘It was a close thing.’
Tasaio loosed a bitter laugh, ‘I think not. You have been touched by the gods, Mara.’ He glanced around the room. ‘Had you never been born, or had your family not died to make your inheritance possible, I have no doubt that change might have come. But this!’ He gestured in white rage at the assemblage of Lords, Magicians, and Emperor. ‘Nothing so momentously conclusive would ever have come to pass. I think I prefer facing the Red God to seeing the Great Game of our ancestors reduced to a paltry charade, and our Lords cast away pride and honour for subservience to the Light of Heaven.’ His hard topaz eyes roved one last time over the council he had dreamed he might rule. ‘Gods pity you all, and the Empire you surrender into disgrace.’
‘Be silent!’ Fumita snapped. ‘Shimone of the Assembly will conduct you back to your estates, my Lord Minwanabi.’
‘Wait, I beg you!’ Mara cried out. ‘Desio vowed to the Red God, on the blood of the Minwanabi line. By the terms of his oath, none who claim kinship with Tasaio may survive if the Acoma are not sacrificed.’
Hard as stone, Fumita faced the Lady of the Acoma. ‘Foolish is the Lord who presumes that the gods take such a particular interest in his enemies. Desio transgressed prudent limits to make such a pledge. The gods do not suffer recanting such vows. His kin must suffer the consequences.’
But Mara felt as if Kevin stood at her shoulder, and his irrepressibly foreign beliefs left a clamour in her mind that not even the Great Ones might still. ‘What of Tasaio’s innocent wife and two children?’ she appealed. ‘Should their lives be wasted for honour?’
Desperate to see her point through, she spun and faced her enemy, only pity in her eyes. ‘Release your children from fealty to the Minwanabi natami and I will adopt them into House Acoma. I beg you, spare them their lives.’
Tasaio looked at her, aware that her concern sprang very near to the heart. Only to deny her, expressly to hurt, he cruelly shook his head. ‘Let their blood be on your conscience, Mara.’ So saying, he tugged the Warchief’s staff of Clan Shonshoni from his belt. ‘My Lord of the Sejaio,’ he called to a thick-necked man on the sidelines, ‘this is now your trust.’
As the staff of office was removed from his hand, he gave one last glance around the halls of power. Then, with a flat look of mockery at Mara and the Emperor, he turned with all his grace and arrogance to the slender magician beside Fumita. ‘I am ready, Great One.’
The magician took a metal device out of his robe, and a faint buzzing sounded through the hall. As he placed his hand upon Tasaio’s shoulder, both of them vanished without warning, the only sign of their passing a faint inrush of air into the space that they had occupied.