Chapter Twenty-eight

Venkatna flung the door open so violently that the single lamp in the audience hall guttered, stirring golden ripples across the brightwork of the Web.

The device was silent, the benches within its framework empty. No one was present in the hall except the armored guard at the entrance to the imperial suite.

"Where are they?" Venkatna shouted. His voice rang from the dome, rebounding like the raucous anger of crows. "Why aren't they here, the slaves?"

"S—your ma—" the guard stammered in surprise.

To stay awake, the guard had been watching the procession of ants moving under a leaded transom on the other side of the hall. His battlesuit optics were at ^x300 magnification, giving him an unintelligible view of whiskers when he spun to face the emperor.

"Here they are, your majesty!" bleated the terrified underchamberlain responsible for the care and feeding of Venkatna's most cherished slaves. "Come along, you bitches, for North's sake!"

The guard muttered under his breath to the suit's AI, dropping the magnification to 1:1 while retaining a degree of light enhancement. What he saw now was even more of a shock.

Venkatna wore his night garb, a long linen gown with flowing sleeves and a quilted cap. He was barefoot.

He held his wife in his arms. Esme's cap had fallen off, her face was gray. Her arms were stiff at her sides instead of hanging down as gravity should have drawn them.

Race and Julia stumbled from the alcove at the back of the audience hall where they slept and lived during the few hours a day they were not within the Web. Their tunics were clean enough, though rumpled, and they had been able to sponge their bodies off recently, but the women's hair was a dull mass of knots and matting.

Brett, the underchamberlain, wore court dress. His duties primarily involved the period the women were not entranced in the Web. The demands for his presence were uncertain, however, and the imperial focus was so close that Brett looked almost as worn as his charges.

"Here they are, your majesty!" he repeated. He tugged at the sleeve of Julia's shift. The Searcher, only half awake and ten kilos lighter than her normal weight, slapped Brett's hand away without being fully aware of the contact.

"She's sick!" the emperor cried, hugging Esme's stiff body closer to him. "I woke up and she felt—she felt—"

She felt cold as ice.

"—she didn't feel right. Make her well, damn you!"

Servants and officials in various stages of undress banged through the door leading to the apartments of the general household. Slaves began lighting additional wall lamps, adding to the illumination of the torches and lanterns the newcomers had brought with them.

"Let me see her," Race ordered, wakeful now if not entirely aware of her surroundings. She reached toward Esme's neck to check the carotid pulse.

Venkatna jerked back instinctively.

"Let me see—" Race snarled through waves of fatigue which corroded away the normal desire for self-preservation.

Race's fingertips brushed a cheek instead of the empress' throat. The temperature of the flesh, easily 15° below that of life, told the Searcher as much as she could have learned by searching for a heartbeat. "Forget it, she's dead."

"Make her well!" the emperor screamed.

Several of Venkatna's top advisors entered the hall. Baron Trigane saw what the emperor held, judged the potentials of the situation, and slipped back out hoping that he had gone unobserved.

"Your majesty," said Julia, "we can't do that. North himself, our master, can't bring the dead to life, not as flesh and blood. The Web affects only what is, not what once was."

"Your majesty!" Brett babbled. "It isn't my fault. Please, I'll have them whipped until—"

Kleber struck the underchamberlain with the butt of his dagger. Brett went boneless. He fell backward instead of on his face because Kleber's free hand tugged the back of the servant's collar.

Kleber flicked a smile of embarrassment toward the emperor. The advisor regretted that he hadn't acted more quickly, but he still hoped that Venkatna would not, in what was clearly an irrational moment, order the death of everyone in the audience hall.

"Your majesty," said Race with the power of simple honesty. "We will carry out your every order that we can. This we cannot do."

Venkatna's lips brushed the cheek of his wife. "Keep her, then," he said in a ragged whisper. His voice strengthened. "You say you can preserve what is, so preserve her! I'll dress her in silks, I'll build her a couch here in the hall—but you preserve her!"

Advisors looked at one another and tried to wipe all expression from their faces.

"Your majesty, we've been in the Web all—" Julia began.

"Get in there!" the emperor shouted. "You bitch, you could have saved her but you didn't! I should have you—"

"You didn't tell—" Julia said, but Race gripped her shoulder with hard fingers and shocked her mind back to present realities.

"Your orders are our fate," Race murmured softly as she led her companion into the net of curves and crystal.

"What are you waiting for?" Venkatna demanded of the nearest servant, a night-duty usher. "Bring a couch! And where are my darling's maids? They should be dressing her!"

"Does this mean that your majesty will delay plans to bring Mirala within the Empire?" asked Bontempo from the open doorway. His age had delayed him, and he wore a full-length cloak over his nightdress and slippers.

"No!" the emperor said. "I'll rule Mirala or I'll kill every living thing in the district! I'll make my darling the queen of all the earth, and those pair—"

He glared at the Searchers as they settled themselves on the benches within the Web. Lamplight gleamed in his eyes like the fires of madness.

"—will preserve my peace and my Esme both, without fail!"

Race sighed softly. The universe trembled as internal lights began to play across the surface of the Web.