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Sleep came softly, diffidently, casting and withdrawing her favours so that I tossed and turned. The steady breathing of the guards at their posts; the silken covers; the pillows heaped and hot beneath me.
Intense suffocating pressure, the weight of more than the world, pressure on my chest, pressure in my chest, and I sat up gasping
(I carried the world with - not ease, but familiarity; you, the Emperor I projected, had carried five worlds on your shoulders; one world should have been nothing, with so much help, and yet you were not strong enough and sagged beneath the weight. Collapsed beneath it, feeling your heart tear in two.)
The memory of pain and pressure passed, and I was so tired, and even the fear of dreams could not keep me in the waking world forever, and so I slipped down into the dark waters, slid back into the pain and the pressure, and then blessedly sleep deepened and…
…there was a disturbance… the guards shifted in response - raised voices, outside my chamber - you collected yourself back together, pulled yourself up against the pillows, mind dazed with sleep, until I was once more present, awake, sore all over and alarmed - I gathered my magic as best I could, not straining because this was probably nothing - and a small internal strand of common sense pointed out how unlikely it was that raised voices in the Imperial Apartments could be a minor matter…
Was that Kip’s voice?
The door opened, and closed, and opened and closed again. Ato. Pikabe. One of my inner guards would have stayed inside, the other left, and I did not know which.
More voices, outside the door. The guards had not realised you were awake, not yet, and you were almost certain that you could hear Kip arguing with somebody, and your unreliable heart thudded in my chest and I reached out with my magic - some other magic was stirring now, beyond the door, but before I could grasp it the door protections activated.
There was an extraordinary burst of light, physical and metaphysical both. I gasped, every sense flooded, doused with magical cleansing as with icy water, and in great fear I thrust myself further up in bed and turned my own power sideways to sweep the curtains out of the way so I could see what was going on.
The door was open. Ato stood in front of my bed, spear before him. Pikabe, to one side, was holding a struggling figure.
There were two crumpled figures on the floor. One, half-in-half-out of the door, was not moving. I saw blood, smelled death, the bitter ugly flavour of the battlefield - the other -
I would say my heart stopped, but that unruly organ was in fact beating hard and fast, pulsating with energy and alarm at a rate that would surely cause Domina Audry some concern.
The other figure on the floor - breathing, he was breathing, thank all the gods - was my irreplaceable and incomparable Lord Chanceller, my dearest friend, Kip Mdang. I watched, shaken to my core, as Ludvic Omo - commander of the guard, currently supposedly resting following the excitement attendant on my heart attack - reached out to help Kip.
Kip was alive. I took a moment to absorb that before speaking, gathering your mask, the mask of the Emperor. I wanted every strength at my disposal to deal with this - this scare, this shambles.
“What is the meaning of all this?” I asked, the aftershock sharpening my tongue, whetting my tone like the flat of a knife. “My lord chancellor, perhaps you can explain these remarkable circumstances.”
The Emperor’s anger, even attenuated, even funnelled through the smoothest serenity I could project, had its usual effect. Ludvic and Kip sank down into obeisance. Kip was moving stiffly, the awkwardness marring his dancer’s grace.
Dear gods and all above, had Kip been the one to trigger the protections? And was that Iprenna, one of the high priests, bound gripped in Pikabe’s strong arms? And, on the floor, Bavezh, the other high priest. My mind reeled. I clung to the Emperor, stared them all down.
Kip raised his head. He has never, not once, been afraid to look me in my eyes. Kip is a rock.
The midnight bell sounded. I heard steady feet entering the room as the new shift of inner guards arrived, the hesitation as they took in the scene.
“It’s too late,” said Iprenna, and broke into a chattering, shivering, high-pitched laugh.
I had no time for hyenas. “Be silent,” said the Emperor, and the silence was absolute.
I turned again to the one man in the room I could trust not to shrink before your power, not to cower and hide himself away from me. Kip was looking up at me, brown eyes still open to mine, roiling with emotion, freely sharing his distress. I took a breath, steadied myself against his gaze, and said again “my lord chancellor.”
“Fifteen minutes ago, Iprenna and Bavezh entered my apartments with Co- with Ludvic Omo, to inform me that Ludvic had come to make his farewells before his execution.”
Fuck. Fuck. I should have known. At the moment my heart seemed to burst in my chest, on instinct, in panic and despair, I had reached out and seized Ludvic Omo by the arms, clinging to him as my anchor. I had used Ludvic, leaned on him, stretched the demands of loyalty beyond reason - and he had held me, had let me use him. It was a gift of service that I would never be able to deserve or repay.
Stunned, I listened as Kip explained himself, hearing his smooth modulation of the shocking tale, the way that he left space for the priest-wizards to be… merely misguided, merely over-eager in their zeal. Kip’s political instincts are unparalleled, honed by centuries of delicate manoeuvring for the good of Zunidh. I forced myself to listen to him. You were used to containing my anger, to condensing my rage; you contained me now, withheld my fury, allowed me to turn the Emperor’s face to his priests.
“Lord Wizard, what have you to say?”
Iprenna’s terror, to his credit, was not for himself. To his entire discredit, he was still clinging to the letter of the law, to the structure of Astandalas. He cited past disasters brought about by failing to execute an unfortunate who broke the great taboo of touch. I might almost have found some pity for this concern, if he had not concluded, “My lord, due to the interference of the Lord Chancellor, we were not able to perform the ritual. He said we will take upon ourselves the consequences, but now we all will.”
I was left speechless by that spite - that schoolboy attempt to pass the blame - that vindictiveness against the man who had, once again, saved Zunidh (for what would you have done, what could I have done, if Ludvic Omo died for me? If Kip had - had come to harm - as a result of their recalcitrance? I was terrified of the Lord Magus who might have risen in that moment, if the seething anger cracked the Imperial mask on a consequential matter and reached out to crack the world?)
I closed my eyes, let my power loosen, just a fraction, from its tight furl around myself and my lord chancellor. The room was full of complex magics, fractured and swept across by the activated protections, and tugged in hard against the vortex of my distress. It took me a moment to sort and name them. My own taboos. The dense web of protections my magic had laid upon Kip, who has no magic of his own, and on my guards, whose lives were dedicated to my service. The magic of the Ouranatha clinging to Iprenna, unwinding in a slow exhalation from Bavezh’s corpse.
There was a snarl, a dark inverted twist pulling free from my taboos, tangling with Ludvic, and spreading out from him across the threads that bound me to Zunidh and the world’s magic together. Not good, but not nearly as dark or damaging as many warped fragments I had dealt with since the Fall. I could deal with this later.
You shook free of the brief trance. “Lord Wizard, your punctiliousness is noted. So too is your timing. We will consider what is the appropriate response.”
“My lord, the ritual was not consummated!”
Some fraction of my feeling slipped through your expression, for a heartbeat. This petty fool of a man, this lawbound stickler of a priest, dared stand before me and demand that I kill my friend?
“The magic of Zunidh is our concern, Lord Wizard. Go now. Do not leave your rooms until you are summoned to our presence. Pikabe, escort the lord wizard there and see that guards are set on his doors.”
“My lord…”
“We nearly think you hesitate, Lord Wizard.”
“Bavezh…”
Ah. Ah. There it was, the reason why I must never allow you - the Emperor, the Serenity - to answer for me entire. Iprenna, too, had his friends. His fear was not only for himself, or for the law. His fear was... justified.
“Lord Bavezh is beyond all mortal concerns, Lord Iprenna,” I told him, as gently as I could, and nodded to Pikabe to let him loose.
Iprenna knelt beside the corpse, weeping. I withdrew, my energy going to hold down a new nightmare - an image of the positions reversed, of Bavezh, flung across the room, bruised and alive. Of Kip - of Kip -
Kip was alive. Kip was kneeling, watching you, his expression full of - concern, perhaps, confusion. I needed to speak with him, needed to reassure him, needed to reassure myself that he was still here and alive and indisputably Kip.
As soon as it seemed decent I dismissed Iprenna and delegated the Pikabe and Ato to deal with Bavezh.
That left Ser Rhodin and Elish - the midnight relief - to take their places as door guards, and Kip and Ludvic. And Conju had come in, too, he was hovering unobtrusively behind the bed, my magic curling out to greet him.
“Now,” you said, once the door was firmly closed, “you may rise.”
Kip was moving slowly, painfully, favouring one side. I pushed you aside, and said, “you seem greatly concerned, Cliopher,” and was rewarded with a smile that was equally slow, painful, and lopsided.
“My lord,” he said, “though I must deprecate their manner, the priest-wizards do have a point regarding the law…”
One of these days I will collect a book of Kip’s sayings, of his glorious understatements. Deprecate their manner, indeed.
Conju helped resettle my cushions as I leaned back and faced Ludvic Omo. There were - no words, no gifts I could give that would be recompense for what he had done. Nevertheless I had to say something. I was rattled enough that the truth emerged, fragile and exposed. “It grieves me, Ludvic, to have hurt you so badly.”
That reached him. Ludvic does not seem afraid of my gaze, so much as nervous of what his own might reveal. I have a good deal of experience in the ways different people will avoid my eyes, and his is a puzzle. Perhaps it is simply his honest devotion to his training as a guard. Nevertheless, when moved, he will look at me. He did so now, saying “My lord, it is nothing for me to die in serving you.”
To this unwavering loyalty what could I offer but more truth? “It is everything for me, Ludvic,” I said, low and clear.
He saw it then, saw to the heart of me, saw that I would not let him die, and of course he protested. “The law is the law, my lord.”
Gods save me from devoted service. My friends - those who are with me here, who know me in my Imperial self - are all of them at your mercy, living by the grace of the Emperor, which is bad enough, and yet their disconcerting willingness to die for your Serenity is worse. I had to cut this off, now, to make him see that it was not some foolish whim that would save his life but a reasoned decision that I - Lord Magus of Zunidh, at the height of my powers, was fully equipped to make.
That he was not at fault.
I tried; you spoke; the necessity of undertaking the purification ritual (which was not the only way to settle the magic, but was a method that the schooled magic of the taboos would readily respond to) seemed to settle Ludvic more than anything else. It gave an alternative focus, I suppose, and suspending him from his duties hopefully satisfied whatever urge to martyrdom underlay this eagerness to fulfil the law.
When Ludvic was dealt with and Ser Rhodin delegated to cover for him, I let myself look back to Kip. He was standing very still, doing his best to disguise a faint wince every time he breathed. I could not resist checking once more; once more my magic assured me that he was merely bruised.
“Cliopher.”
“Yes, my lord?”
So he always, always answered. Kip’s ready smile, the slight lift and lightening of his face when I used his name, his eternal yes to any question you might ask - these were treasures greater than any Astandalas had stolen at the height of its glory, more precious to me than any work of my hands or dream of my heart. It hurt, every time, to take his gift and use it, and use it, and use it again to the betterment of the world. I knew that was what he wanted, and still it hurt that all those yeses were for you, for Zunidh, and never for the heart of me.
In this moment, at least, I could ask him only for what he needed. “Go to bed,” I said, “We will discuss repercussions personal and political at the second -” at Conju’s frantic wave I self-corrected, “Very well! The third hour. I trust there will be no further crises tonight.”
Kip and Ludvic bowed and left me, the heavy outer door of the bedchamber swinging silently back behind them on its extremely well-oiled and balanced hinges.
Conju fussed, wordlessly, settling me back down into the bed, rescuing pillows and coverlet from where my hasty thrust of magic had scattered them across the floor, pulling the curtains back to grant me once more the illusion of privacy.
I heard his light footsteps, saw the shift in the curtains as he opened the door to leave and closed it behind him, listened to the measured breathing of the guards.
The tension oozed out of me, the tears slipped through. My heart had slowed from its frantic race and was thudding heavily against ribs that still ached from Ludvic’s life-saving actions, only three days ago. Sleep would not soon return, not after such a scene, and neither would I embrace her willingly, with such nightmare bait boiling in my mind.
The guards are too well trained to react, but I try to sob quietly all the same. It seems hard on them to make a noise.