Blood of the Emperor by Tracy Hickman Read Free Book Online Page B

me?”
    “Well,
everyone
it would seem,” Urulani replied. Drakis could hear her approaching footsteps in the gravel of the path. “The War Council wants to convene again this afternoon. There’s been another dire missive from Tsojai about the collapse of order in the pilgrim encampment. Jugar and Braun both have complaints for you about each other, and that elf Iblisi Soen keeps asking when you will have some time to hear him…”
    Urulani’s voice faded from Drakis’ thoughts as he gazed into the pool. For a moment he saw himself with his head shaved, the Sinque mark clearly visible on his head and his patchwork armor strapped about his body. He saw the Impress Warrior once more who was confidentin his clearly defined orders and responsibility only to his House and his fellow warriors. But that image shifted in the water’s surface and he saw the splay-haired refugee with the rough beard fleeing from his own memories across the Vestasian Savanna.
    Then his vision cleared and the reflection sharpened in his tear-blurred eyes.
    He did not know the face staring back at him.
    His image was clean-shaven once more as it had been as an Impress Warrior of House Timuran but the hair was long and full now, trimmed and combed by a group of manticorian females each morning into a dark mane. He wore his own leather doublet similar to Urulani’s but fitted with clasps at the shoulders and a rough, woven cape of bright crimson.
    “Who am I, Urulani?” Drakis asked, gazing into the reflection as he spoke with unmeasured sadness in his voice.
    Her footfalls in the gravel stopped nearby.
    The face in his reflection did not change nor did it grow any more familiar to him.
    “Who am I?” Drakis demanded, his voice rough and loud.
    “You are Drakis,” Urulani responded quietly. “You are the Man of the Prophecy.”
    “No.
That
man, perhaps,” Drakis said angrily as he pointed at the reflection in the still water. “That illusion that they have created out of me…
that
is the Man of the Prophecy. They built him out of their dreams, wove him out of their suffering, and breathed life into him from their own dead legends. He’s a phantom that they dressed up in this ridiculous cloak so that wherever he walks among the encampment the men, women, and children will all see his costume and know that the Man of the Prophecy has returned. They will know that he is real and hope will rise in their hearts that he will lead them to some paradise where every evil ever done to them will be avenged and their suffering will have meaning.”
    Mala’s face pleaded with him from the depths of the pool. “There is a temple…on top of that rise…and a tower there—or there used to be a tower. I knew about the drakoneti attacking in Pythar before it happened. I knew about the river that brought us to the Ambeth before anyone.
    I know how the key was hidden and I know…I know where it is, Drakis. Please, please believe me this one time.”
    Drakis felt his legs grow suddenly weak beneath him. He fell to his knees at the edge of the pool.
    Mala’s face held a soft smile. Her red hair fell about her face but there was peace in her countenance that he had not seen since the Devotions had been broken. “One way or another…we are all going home.”
    Drakis gripped the edge of the reflecting pool, his knuckles white. He threw back his head, his mouth open wide, his lungs dragging in the air to fill his chest.
    The cry that erupted from his throat was from the depths of his soul. Drakis felt suddenly detached from it, observing it as the wretched sound vomited up the pain, despair, loss, anger, and outrage that overwhelmed him. Again and again he drew the air into his lungs and screamed his fury at the heavens, tears streaming freely down his face. He felt his sanity unraveling, as though he wanted to surrender himself to the madness of his raw emotions in his grief and find release from rational thought, contemplation, and regret.
    Mala is dead