“We are in limbo,” Ko’sh interrupted. The lobes on the rememberer’s face shifted through a chameleon rainbow of colors, helping to convey the alarm in his voice. “No one can sense the Mage-Imperator!”

“That is news to no one,” Yazra’h answered in a growl. “But we are not in a position to do anything about it.”

“Youknow what must be done, Prime Designate,” the Chief Scribe said, focused only on Daro’h. “We need a leader. There is a precedent. You must undergo the ascension ceremony and become our new Mage-Imperator.”

Louder than the outcry from the others, Yazra’h shouted, “The precedent set by mad Designate Rusa’h? You are a fool to suggest it unless we know our father is dead!”

Tal O’nh said in a quiet voice, “The rememberer’s logic is valid. You give the people what guidance you can, Prime Designate, but you cannot fulfill the same role unless you have all thethism under your control. And that requires the ceremony.”

Daro’h had been present after the death of Mage-Imperator Cyroc’h when Jora’h underwent the castration ritual, the painful yet obligatory passage that transformed him from Prime Designate into Mage-Imperator. As a young man, Daro’h remembered the sudden rush of warmth and confidence as all thethism strands were taken in the new Mage-Imperator’s mind and heart. His father had instantly brought strength and direction to the lost and frightened Ildiran race, filling them with confidence, hope, and security.

Yes, his people desperately needed that security now. If Jora’h was truly gone, then the Prime Designate was required to become Mage-Imperator.

But if his father still lived, Daro’h could not simply ascend to become a new Mage-Imperator. That would cause terrible confusion, possibly even tear the remnants of the Empire apart. Rusa’h had already proved that.

Daro’h closed his eyes. To make an appropriate decision, he needed more information. If the Mage-Imperator was dead, then his path was clear. But his father’s death should have struck him like a hammer blow to his chest and mind. Instead, all Daro’h had to go on was utter mental silence. nothism, thoughts, or the faintest glimmer that Jora’h still existed.

He shook his head. “That is an irrevocable act, and it is tantamount to abandoning hope. Since I do not believe the Mage-Imperator is dead, any such action would therefore be premature. I will not do it.”

“There are those who say that if you do not do this, then you are a coward, Prime Designate,” Ko’sh retorted.

“There are those who say many stupid things,” Yazra’h snapped.

The Prime Designate squared his shoulders, drew a deep breath, and turned to all of them. He had to be strong. “Even though he is not here, the Mage-Imperator left me in charge. I was not born to be Prime Designate, but that role has fallen to me. You are my best advisers; that is the role that has fallen to you.”

He gave them a stern look. “Ildirans have trouble producing new solutions to problems. My father said that if we did not learn to change, it would be our downfall. I charge you with this task: Find me a solution. We are the Ildiran Empire! I do not care how desperate or unorthodox the plan may seem — suggest a way that we can fight back against the faeros.”

25

Faeros Incarnate Rusa’h

Inside the seared-clean remnants of the Prism Palace, Rusa’h continued to burn the lines of his newthism to guide the Ildiran people. The soul-threads were bright and hot like the filaments in a blazer. He had to go out and see what he had accomplished.

Rusa’h summoned flames from the floor and walls, pulling curtains of fire around him until they formed a fireball that enclosed him like a cocoon. He drifted through the already blasted passageways, shattering a heat-brittle door to reach the open air. His incandescent body floated above the now-slumping towers and minarets of the Palace, and from that vantage point, he surveyed his domain. He turned his flashing gaze out across the intricate metropolis of Mijistra that had been the jewel at the heart of the Ildiran Empire.

Rusa’h was torn between two driving obligations: guiding and controlling the Ildiran people, and continuing the resurrection of the faeros. The fiery elementals within him didn’t care about the Empire; their battle had far vaster implications. Buthe wanted to save his people.

He had learned to his frustration that the new faeros sparks on Theroc had been extinguished. The verdani had fought back with unexpected strength, aided by wentals, green priests, and even human military ships. It had been a setback for the faeros, but not for Rusa’h. He had everything he needed here on Ildira. except for Mage-Imperator Jora’h, who refused to return to his people, despite their loud outcries.

Sooner or later, Rusa’h would find his brother. It was only a matter of time.

In his flaming ship, he flew over the rooftops of Mijistra, gazing down on monuments, museums, and now-dry fountains. The Hall of Rememberers was empty, its interior charred. Most of the artisans’ quarters and communal dwellings for craftsmen, metal workers, technologists, and chemists had burned down. He passed over a medical center, a vehicle landing field, warehouses that held food for a populace that was no longer there.

The sheer sense of emptiness saddened him. Now that the hydrogues were bottled up in their gas giants, the faeros had the freedom to run. They could destroy whatever they wished, grow unchecked until they became the dominant force in the Spiral Arm and beyond.

Stretching his mind out to vast distances, Rusa’h joined the faeros leaping from star to star through their transgates. They frolicked in the reawakened Durris-B, where they had reignited nuclear reactions and set that star alight again. The faeros had reawakened many other old stellar battlegrounds, as well, reclaiming territory the hydrogues had taken from them.

But Ildira washis. The Ildiran people werehis. Again, he hammered that fact into the faeros.

Below his flaming ship, Rusa’h spied a group of desperate refugees leaving a food warehouse from which they had retrieved supplies for one of the poorly hidden camps. True Ildirans should have stayed in Mijistra to praise him for restoring his people to the Lightsource.

But when these people saw him, they ran in abject terror, many dropping the supplies they had taken. Rusa’h could have pursued them. With little more than a thought, he could have sent a surge of flame to burn down the buildings in which they hid. He could have swept in and stolen their soulfires to stoke the flames of the faeros.

But he chose not to. Though he could feel the restless elementals within him, he held them back. He could not allow the faeros to run rampant. He had meant to use the fiery elementals to achieve his own ends, but his influence extended only so far. Their chaos was quite powerful.

His fiery chariot circled over Mijistra and returned to the Prism Palace. A dozen of the giant fireballs appeared in the air overhead, milling about, always hungry, capricious, uncontrollable. They were eager for something to destroy.