CHAPTER 29
////// The Celestial Palace
General Esshk joined a very nervous Chooser in the throne room of the Celestial Mother. His armor was spattered with mud and blood, and his once-bright red cape was torn and singed. The Chooser regarded him with horror.
“What is happening?” he demanded in an anxious near whisper.
“War is happening, my Lord Chooser,” Esshk replied, still somewhat bemused himself. “Of a sort I have only witnessed once before.” He raised a corner of his ruined cape and gazed at it. “Most unruly.” The first general of all the Ghaarrichk’k simply did not personally engage in battles; he designed them for others to fight. He was beyond such things himself. Esshk had spent most of his life suppressing the passions that drove a warrior in combat so he could more clearly use his better mind. He’d done his best to apply his new understanding of the principles of defense to prepare for the attack underway, but was beginning to suspect that even the enemy couldn’t have specifically designed the very . . . odd battle sprawling all around the principal city of his kind. It had just happened, as far as he could tell, and his own ability to influence its outcome had been quickly overwhelmed.
Of course, he’d very nearly been killed as well, when one of the flying machines of the enemy prey dropped a stunningly forceful firebomb rather close as he surveyed the chaotic fight an appropriate distance from the point of contact. He’d been indignant. Designers of battles did not slay one another! They planned the game for their Uul to play! Then he’d fretfully thought again, reminding himself of the dreadful stakes he’d forced himself to consider ever since the terrible setback at Baalkpan two years before. He’d been away from the fight too long, relying on Halik and Kurokawa to carry the load. Now he had no idea how they fared, and he’d been forced to revisit his earlier impressions of this unprecedented war. This was not a territorial battle between friendly regents, intent on reducing their numbers and entertaining their Uul. This was a war, a real war for the survival of his race. The singed cape drove that forcefully home once more.
The Giver of Life herself still slept—it was not yet midday—and her attendants glared at Esshk and the Chooser for speaking in her presence. Esshk didn’t care. The fight was reaching a tipping point, and contingencies had to be explored.
“Your Magnificence,” he said loudly, “I must report!”
The Chooser recoiled from him, stunned by the hideous breach, and hurled himself to the stone floor. The equally startled attendants leaned toward Esshk, ready to seize him if ordered.
The Celestial Mother, draped heavily upon her saddlelike throne, opened an eye and regarded him. “You have awakened me, First General Esshk,” she said simply. “Have you decided to destroy yourself? I will certainly command you to do so if you do not have sufficient reason to disturb me.”
“I will gladly destroy myself, but I beg you to hear me first,” Esshk said. He did not even join the Chooser on the floor. The Celestial Mother noticed that as well.
“I will hear you,” she said in a curious tone. “What has happened?” She paused, contemplating the dull rumble leaking into the chamber through the overhead light portal. Normally, the warming rays of the sun were allowed to wash upon her during the day by means of mirrors set along a convoluted shaft that admitted light, but not rain. There was no light now, but she’d been aware of thunder for some time. “Surely you do not awaken me for a storm?”
“I do, Your Magnificence. A dreadful storm indeed.” He showed her the cape. “The dire proposal I made you, concerning the significance of the enemy flying machines, has descended upon us. The enemy is here, and has come in force. I don’t know how they did this, but it has happened. Even now they threaten this very palace on its eastern side with perhaps ten thousands.”
“That is not so many,” the Giver of Life said, deflecting, “and hardly worth my attention. You are the first general! Destroy them!”
Esshk bowed his head. “That has been my aim, but the enemy prey has not cooperated,” he said with some irony. “The force that threatens the palace had barely landed before the small iron ship that Kurokawa so desperately loathed stole into the harbor . . . and destroyed the entire fleet at anchor.”
The Celestial Mother sat up, her eyes wide with indignant astonishment. “One ship did that?” she raged.
“Perhaps not all alone,” Esshk murmured. “The details are unclear. Some flying machines certainly helped. The ship itself has suffered damage as well, and is currently grounded at the harbor mouth. Sufficient warriors have converged on it that I am confident it will trouble us no more—but the force that presses here is most tenacious.”
“So few cannot be a threat,” the Celestial Mother insisted.
“They can and are, Your Magnificence. Our new warriors fight well, better than I have ever seen, but the enemy has better weapons and obviously, greater experience. These are doubtless veteran warriors, Your Magnificence, and there is only one place that so many could have gained their skill.”
“India!” the Celestial Mother snapped.
“So we must assume, which means they must have won an even greater victory there than we dreaded, to be here now. That also implies that India is entirely lost, and Kurokawa and Halik with it!”
“It does indeed,” the Celestial Mother mused. She jerked her head to the side, and her jowls quivered. “What must be done?”
“I have already taken the liberty of having the sport fighters released into the palace.” Esshk licked his teeth. “They cannot fight together, but in confined passages that should not matter. Individually, they will fight very well to protect you, their God.”
“It will come to that?” the Celestial Mother asked, a trace of fear touching her disbelief. “Not even this prey would dare threaten me directly!”
Esshk sighed, realizing that the eons of absolute power enjoyed by an uninterrupted procession of Celestial Mothers had not well prepared them to deal with reality. “Obscene as it may seem, Your Magnificence, not all creatures revere you as do your own. I consider it possible these might even slay you if they can.”
“Impossible!” the Giver of Life almost chortled. “No thing could possess such hubris!”
“It does seem absurd, Your Magnificence,” the Chooser finally ventured, “but in the event they may even accidentally harm you, I most humbly recommend you—all of us—should go from here!”
“Go? Where? How? You have always been a most pretentious and ridiculous creature, Lord Chooser, but now you have lost your senses.”
“With all my worshipfulness,” Esshk interceded, “there is a way, Your Magnificence.”
Two members of the palace guard, competent if unimaginative lower-level Hij, threw themselves through the entrance to the throne room and sprawled on the dank stones.
“Such a day for unseemly visitations,” the Celestial Mother observed, amused by her own wit. “Speak!”
“The prey!” the senior guard cried. “The prey has forced the north entrance to the palace!”
Without consulting the Celestial Mother, Esshk simply said, “Release the guard beasts!”
“I rule here, Lord First General! What right have you to give such a command?” the Celestial Mother rumbled indignantly.
“The right of any first general, Your Magnificence, to protect his Giver of Life. We must release the guard beasts on the north entrance level!”
“My pets,” the Celestial Mother lamented. “They might be harmed! And it is always most difficult to return them to their pens!”
“Nevertheless, it must be done, and we must evacuate the palace at once!”
The Celestial Mother gave a great sigh. “How very tiresome you have grown, General Esshk!” She glanced about, realizing for the first time that she really couldn’t leave if she wanted to. She couldn’t possibly move herself. Even if she had the strength, it wouldn’t be seemly. And she’d grown too large for the number of attendants it would require to move her, to fit through the narrow passageways of the palace. “Very well. Prepare to evacuate my sisters, but if these intruders dare annoy me in my own chambers, I will confront them myself!”