Basil was stunned into silence.

Margaret smiled. “It seems Davlin found a way to perform one last service for humanity — by saving us.”

Anton breathed, “Thank you, Davlin.”

The flickering, shifting vessel hauled itself out to the edge of the system. Basil watched it go, feeling simultaneously giddy with relief and defeated. Like a swollen, swirling cloud of angry wasps, the last of the Klikiss headed out to open space. Gone. At last something was going right.

A substantial part of him, though, wished General Brindle had just blown all the bugs into atoms.

A priority message came over the shuttle’s comm system, using overrides that only a handful of people knew.Deputy Cain. Basil gritted his teeth. another traitor.

Cain’s pale face was bland, showing no emotion. “Mr. Chairman, I am glad to learn you’re safe and alive — and very pleased to see the Klikiss swarmships withdraw. Thank you for your efforts.”

“You’ve got a lot to answer for, Cain. Why are you calling me?”

The deputy smiled faintly. “King Peter requests your presence at the Whisper Palace to ensure an orderly transition of power. Please come as soon as possible.”

154

Mage-Imperator Jora’h

Parting the flame curtains, Rusa’h emerged from his fireball to face them. His flesh was molten, his hair twisted like thick smoke, his eyes novas in his face. The faeros incarnate looked both furious and pleased to be standing before Jora’h. “At last I can save our entire race.”

The Mage-Imperator merely stared at his brother. “You will do no more damage to the Ildiran people.”

Rusa’h looked almost saddened, paternal. “You weakened thethism and nearly destroyed our Empire. I will take the strongest Ildirans to the Lightsource and save them with my faeros alliance.”

Jora’h managed to take a step forward. “Save them?” Although the heat in the air was incredible, he could feel the half-breed children blocking much of it. “Whole refugee camps incinerated by the faeros? Ships full of Ildirans trying to evacuate blown out of the skies? Countless kithmen turned to ash when the faeros took over Mijistra? I see how you tried to ‘save them.’ Those wereyour people, Rusa’h.You were supposed to protect them.” Jora’h jabbed an accusing finger at him. “Now they are all dead.”

Though the burning man maintained his shape and size, Jora’h saw little of his soft and placid brother there, nothing of the person who had once reveled in his celebrations and pleasure mates on Hyrillka. Now transformed into an avatar of the fiery elementals, this man wanted only toburn. “No. I did this for them!”

In the sky above, fireballs came closer, ready to incinerate the Mage-Imperator and absorb his soulfire.

“The faeros have corrupted you, Rusa’h.”

Osira’h reached out to take her father’s hand. He felt her electric touch, armored with an invisible strength that she drew from her unique connection to Ildiranthism.

Nira held on to her treeling, hunched over to protect it from the searing heat that penetrated the faltering mental shield. With her other hand, Osira’h grasped her mother’s arm, connected through her, through the tree-ling. Suddenly the worldforest network was also drawn into this surge, the verdani mind and powers.

To strengthen themselves, the children joined themselves to their mother’s telink, just as the green priest Kolker had found a way to bind the worldforest network. They also found and touched the wentals, focused through the treelings that were enclosed in the living bubbles of water, further increasing their shield. Now Yazra’h and Prime Designate Daro’h united with Osira’h, her four siblings, Nira, and Jora’h in their connected circle. The Mage-Imperator felt a considerable strengthening of the protective barriers.

Designate Ridek’h also joined the group, strong and unafraid. The boy shouted against the crackling roar of fire, facing his nemesis again, “We will stand against the faeros and against you, Rusa’h.I am the Hyrillka Designate.”

“And I am the true Mage-Imperator.” Jora’h loomed larger as he faced off against the faeros incarnate. “The Ildiran people aremine to save — from you.”

“You are wrong, brother.” Responding to the faeros incarnate’s command, hundreds of surviving faeros came down in a sea of suns, as if all the stars in the sky had exploded at once. Under that thermal assault, despite the mental barricades and the safety net of strengthenedthism, even with all the exotic allies that had come to fight at Ildira, the Mage-Imperator felt himself burning.

“I will not surrender to you!” When Jora’h’s eyes watered, the tears flashed into steam. The flames seemed infinite, pressing down from hundreds of fireballs overhead.

The Mage-Imperator clung to Osira’h and Nira, feeling their strength. At that instant, he understood: Like an unfathomable well in the depths of his spirit, the profound power ofthism resided within him.He guided the Empire left to him by his father and a long succession of Mage-Imperators before him. And as the nexus of the Ildiran race, onlyhe could draw upon the full power ofthism.

In order to spark the creation of new faeros, the deluded Rusa’h had allowed the fireballs to incinerate whole populations, stealing soulfires from Hyrillka, Dzelluria, other splinter colonies in the Horizon Cluster, Tal O’nh’s septa of warliners, even Dobro where they had burned former Designate Udru’h. Jora’h could not allow it to continue.

Reaching out with his mind, he envisioned the lost populations, all the souls the faeros incarnate had taken — anddemanded that their soulfires be freed. Though the bodies had long ago been turned to ash, the suffering Ildirans had been kept from reaching the Lightsource. Rusa’h had prevented them from escaping, but Jora’h would help them.

His mind reached into the soulfires held within the faeros clustering overhead and found thethism threads of each Ildiran they had taken. The fireballs flared and struggled, refusing to release their captives.

But Mage-Imperator Jora’h would not be denied. He tapped into the reservoir of power — the newly discovered facet ofthism that was his alone to use, as the true Mage-Imperator — and simultaneously touched all Ildirans here and in every splinter colony, via every faint strand. Combining this control with the strength of the circle around him — Nira, her children, his own children, the verdani and wentals — he challenged the fireballs directly. And they could not hold on to the resistant, tormented voices within them.

The surviving faeros reeled even as they streaked down to protect Rusa’h in his battle. The Mage-Imperator looked up, his eyes dazzled by the waves of light and heat, and finally he succeeded in wresting the stolen souls from the blazing elementals.

Jora’h held the soul-threads in his mind, and to him it seemed as if the heart of the flames had been removed. With great caring, he guided the recovered souls higher, higher, until they reached the plane of the Lightsource. Jora’h released their soul-threads. And laughed in a burst of joy.