Thanks to ShadowCat17, GinaLee, storylistener, Andi, and AmberStag.
Shameless pluggage: If you like Shrek, please go read my seriously-lacking-in-readers Simply Charming. That is all.
25 years and my life is still
trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination
I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this
Brotherhood of man
For whatever that means
4 Non Blondes' What's Goin' On?
Chapter 32: Hill of Hope:And tell them that we will help them in any way possible. White Gryphon has given me all of their information on the Empire, and from what I understand, the Empire tried to attack us once before, a long time ago, but they failed and retreated. Now that we border them, it is doubtful that once they have taken the Alliance that they will not attack us. The Council of Kings agrees, and we will send more Envoys and some of the Kaled'a'in shortly before we decide the best way to get our ships to their coast without being seen.:
:Could we sail around the horn at the bottom of the continent?: Ayize suggested.
:Perhaps. But the problem is that they might have some way of detecting us there.:
:Yes. Yes, Serene One. I understand. I will inform them.:
:Good. And Ayize, my friend?:
:Yes, Serenity?:
:Please ensure that you eat. Your voice sounds pale, and you were too thin when you left.: The Black King's mindvoice was rich with worry, and Ayize's chest tightened that the King cared.
:I will, my Emperor.:
:Good. I bid you good tidings,: Sent Dumisai.
:Goodbye.:
Ayize removed the teleson and looked over at Tafari, who was shuffling through a sheaf of papers that they'd gotten from the Valdemaran library on the Empire, and then he looked at Mwaka. The man was looking through a few of the battle-reports and records that Hardorn had sent with a Courier-Herald, and was frowning as he did so.
"Is there a problem, Mwaka?" Ayize asked.
"No, Envoy," the man said.
"Good. The Emperor has notified me that he has secured full approval from the other Kings for the war against the Empire."
Tafari looked up. "That is wonderful!"
"We must notify the White Queen and request a meeting with her Council," Ayize concluded.
Tafari and Mwaka nodded simultaneously, scrambling to summon a page to petition the Queen for a Council meeting.
§
The Changechild black horse across the table silently eyed Ayize with a raised eyebrow as the Haighlei Ambassador finished detailing what they knew about the Empire.
Under his gaze, Ayize was starting to sweat. "From what we know, the Empire has no navy to speak of," he said trying to phase into the plan that he and the man who sat on the Lion Throne had discussed before sending him off.
"No, they don't," the mage called Sejanes said. "After the establishment of the isthmus to connect this continent to Teral five hundred years ago, there was no need for an army of ships, and they were phased out."
Ayize nodded. "Which is very good. The Haighlei have many ships, most of which are equipped for speed. Many of those also have the ability to go fight as well, though it is not common. And that gives us an advantage that the Empire does not have--the ability to attack from the water. While the capital may be nearer to the border on this side of the Empire, we may be able to distract them on the Fury Sea front so you can attack from this side. We can draw their forces to the Sea in a feint that we will invade there, and then you can sweep in from the West and attack." He slapped his fist into his other hand to emphasize, imagining the vast swath of warriors in chased silver armor coming down on the Empire's forces.
"And then what?" the Lord Marshall ventured.
"I--I do not know," Ayize said, faltering as the fantasy vanished. "We assumed that you would have a plan to continue in the event that you managed to penetrate that far into the Empire."
"But we never accounted for that," Queen Selenay said calmly. "We only planned for the event of a massive attack, not the event of something drawing all of their forces away to the East."
"If we can manage to get halfway to the capital, perhaps an assassination squad would be wise," the Changechild suggested eagerly. "I--"
The White Queen spitted him with a glare that could have frozen wine. "No," she said firmly. "You are not going on a suicide mission."
The air fairly crackled with tension, and no one spoke.
Ah, Ayize thought, watching Queen Seleney's tired face. There is some history here.
"But--" the Changechild began anxiously before the Queen cut him off.
"No."
As Ayize watched, the Changechild nodded, glowered and looked down at the table sullenly.
He resolved to find out the Changechild's plan to see if it could be helped.
§
Melles watched dispassionately as the man in front of him flopped and screamed on the floor before the throne. Blood dripped from every orifice; a large pool of it was on the floor around the man already, and still he didn't die.
As the pool widened and the screaming lessened somewhat, a few courtiers dared to venture closer, and the wide eyes of the dying mage fixed upon them and stayed there until they melted into goo that ran down his cheeks.
When the mage finally expired, Melles used a small amount of energy to incinerate the body into charred bones and then beckoned his handlers to dispose of the remnants in a public place in the Castle where the body could be an example.
The man had tried to remove the magical hooks that Melles had placed in every one of his mages and inadvertently activated the trap. The trap that Melles had laid into the very essence of those hooks ensured that one could not remove the hooks as he had Charliss's without dying as the man whose bones were even now being carted out of the room.
A part of Melles' mind was now storing what little death-energy had come out of the man into one of the objects he was using as a storehouse for magic energy. Since the leylines had vanished, Melles had commanded his mages to send at least half of their energy per day into various items scattered around the Castle that were now holding a vast amount of energy.
The rest of their energy was going into keeping the Empire alive and restoring the ways of life and transport. A very little amount was being used to spy on the quiet Alliance, but nothing had come through clearly since his spy in Hardorn had been killed.
Hardorn. His lips curled in a very nasty smile, and he tightened his grip on the arms of the Iron Throne. Hardorn would be destroyed in one month or another. A mass of Melles' army was massing on the border just out of sight of the watchtowers on the borders, and in a few weeks they would be ready to swoop down and destroy every living thing in the country and bring Tremane back to him, alive. Any man who disobeyed his orders would be killed just as the mage had.
And then after that, the Alliance would be completely destroyed. Not from the force that destroyed Hardorn, for they would be retreating as fast as possible to avoid Melles' final move.
The move to create a central sea where that piddling country called Valdemar and her allies had been, stretching from the southernmost border of Karse to the mountains they called Icewall.
All of the energy that his mages were pulling from every possible source was going towards this purpose. It would require a circle of mages all working together in a version of the technique used mostly by the West called Final Strike, using the compiled energy here.
The Sea would be deep, and whatever remnants of the countries remained would be flattened and melted, scattered on the sea floor.
Melles amused himself with fleeting thoughts of creating savage, idiotic merfolk to inhabit those structures as a final mockery to the Alliance, and then banished it since he wouldn't be able to watch their antics as he would want to.
It would barely be two months before they had all of the energy that they needed, and when all was said and done, Lake Evendim that had once been the palace of Kiyamvir Ma'ar would look like a firework resulting in a puddle. It was a pity that he couldn't get the ancient devices that surely remained both there and in the Mage of Silence's ancient sanctuaries, but the latter would soon be in one of the deeper parts of the Sea, and it was said that dangerous creatures warped by magic hunted around what remained of Ma'ar's home. Perhaps excavating that would be an option if those predators decided to explore the Central Sea once everything was underwater.
A Central Sea would be all that remained of the Alliance, and soon after that he would go after the Haighlei Empire, and they would be reduced to a double handful of savage tribes that they had been once upon a time.
Then he would rule the entire continent, from Teral in the East, to the North and the warring barbarians there, to the south where the Haighlei were, and then finally to the unexplored Far West.
But first, Hardorn.
Melles would destroy Tremane once and for all, and then he would rule the entire known world.
He chuckled and released his grip on the throne.
When he looked down, there were indentations on the metal that hadn't been there before. He peered closer and was surprised to discover still-molten iron pooled in the bottom. Melles examined his fingertips and found that they were glowing slightly.
His power was growing.