[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
can't risk using flyers for trooper movement after that," Mengmoshu warned
Kati. "You should take a flyer to the border today or tonight, to meet the
attack on your people as you promised you would."
"No! I'll stay here awhile."
"You only want to see Huomeng again! He won't be coming here until the
invaders have landed!"
"No, I said! I don't trust Yesugen. She could change her attack plan and I'd
be stuck at the border with only a horse to get me back here. I want to see
her movements first."
It was only a partial truth, and he saw it.
But Kati was dismayed when she saw the final result of trooper transfer. When
Huomeng called in to say that the twenty-eight ships of First Mother's force
were now in orbit and spewing forth their landing shuttles like wasps from
nests, the flyers were on their way back and fewer than three hundred elite
troops had been taken to the border.
"Three hundred
? I told them a thousand
!"
"With the border guards, it's four hundred! I can't do more! I'm grounding the
flyers, at least temporarily."
"I
promised
! You were there
!"
"Too much
! Use what you have
. We have to consider our field commanders; their job is to defend the city
! You'll need them when this is over. We must have their support for you. Quit
thinking like a
Tumatsin, and think like an
Empress
!"
The rebuke hurt her to tears, for she knew he was correct.
She could only wait, as new word came in. The eyes of the mother ship were now
Page 189
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
on Shanji. Huomeng
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Bureaublad...map/Glass,%20James%20
C%20-%20Shanji/0671577891__18.htm (5 of 11)5-1-2007 0:53:41
- Chapter 18
reported lights glimmering from a broad peninsula jutting into the sea only a
few kilometers from the northernmost ordu s of the Tumatsin. A small river
entered the sea just south of the peninsula, and lights were also scattered
along the floodplain there. A quick march east over rolling hills and the
invaders would be in the valley leading to the Emperor's city, totally
bypassing the mountains. A sprint south along the sea could take the major
ordu s in a day, and give them access to the plateau for a pincer move against
the city. A simple plan, but clear, and there was no longer time for waiting.
"I want to leave before dawn tomorrow," she said to Mengmoshu. "Can you get a
good mountain horse for me?"
"Yes, but no remounts. It'll be saddled and ready by the city gate. Our men
will wait for you at the border, and Goldani will be notified. Women and
children are being loaded into boats and sent out to sea, and the home guard
is mobilized. Everyone saw the shuttles coming down, but they're still waiting
to see what will come. The home guards remain in the ordu s when they should
be moving north!"
"They protect their own homes, father. They've never fought as a single army
before. I don't know if they can do it."
Mengmoshu embraced her hard. "Say it again what you call me when we're alone."
"Father." Her hands caressed his back.
Mengmoshu kissed her neck. "Kati, take care of yourself. Don't get trapped by
your agreement with
Yesugen, or First Mother, and use your powers to the fullest. You can destroy
them all with a wave of your hand!"
If she could bring herself to do it. It was no time for argument, no time to
talk about the honor of an agreement, or self-doubts, or using her powers to
prevent her people from doing what was required of them. She had a pact with
her people, but there was also one with Yesugen and Mandughai.
"I'll do my best," she murmured, kissing her father on the cheek. And then she
left the room, without looking back at him.
* * *
It was late afternoon when she returned to her rooms, planning to eat and then
retire early. Weimeng wasn't there, for the Emperor had requested her presence
at his bedside, and she now spent most of her time there. Tanchun brought her
food, and Kati ate alone in Weimeng's suite. She went back to her own suite
along the silent hallway and locked herself in. Apprehension was growing, and
the food felt sour in her stomach. She took a long, hot bath and rubbed
herself down until her skin glowed, then put on a light robe and sat down
before her shrine to light the candles, incense and sweet grass in the little
bowl there.
The smoke curled upwards, and she drew it to her nostrils, closing her eyes.
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Bureaublad...map/Glass,%20James%20
C%20-%20Shanji/0671577891__18.htm (6 of 11)5-1-2007 0:53:41
- Chapter 18
Quiet, and peace. Her skin felt tingly, and warm. She breathed deep, with
long, slow exhalations, hands in her lap, feeling the apprehension melting
away as she repeated a phrase of self-assurance over and over to herself.
I am Kati, a person chosen by Mandughai. I am Mei-lai-gong, a ruler of Light.
The light comes to me, and goes from me. I use it in the service of Mandughai,
and my people.
Over and over, she repeated it, and there was only darkness before her. She
Page 190
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
was not yet in the gong-shi-
jie, did not rush to it this time, but reflected on what was there: the power
to create a universe, the power to destroy it. The swirling clouds of purple
were only a signature of the coolest light, like the vortices of planets and
stars, so immobile, so cold. But where she saw the purple, there was The
Other, the light of purple beyond purple, beyond even the vision of her
special mind, a light of unimaginable energy. How much she'd drawn on it in
her exercises, playtime and magic tricks was a mystery to her, but what was
necessary was always there. She needed only to imagine the scale, and think
the thought, and it was always there.
The matrix of bright points opened at her command, and she was surrounded by
purple chaos. The vortices of green, red, and yellow leading to things were
more organized, more real, with size and shape, and time. She hovered there,
urging herself to probe beyond the purple light, to see what was beyond, but
the sight wasn't there, only the instinct, the consciousness of The Power,
waiting for her command.
She called up a vision of the mother ship above Shanji, and was instantly
there in real space, drifting near it, a phantom unseen by Huomeng's
instruments.
There were others who saw the mother ship with her.
The ships of Mandughai's army were there, a long line of them in a single
orbit higher than the mother ship's, but close to it. Round balls bristling
with superstructure bearing communications, shuttle docks, ion scoops and
weapon manifolds with the long cylinders of microwave lasers capable of
scouring continents. There were twenty-eight, as Huomeng had said, each of
them easily five times the size of the mother ship. As she watched, a shuttle
detached itself from one of them; a spurt of gas aft of the wedge-
shaped craft, and it was dropping into the atmosphere of Kati's planet,
deploying stubby wings for a gliding descent along a helical path.
She could reach out, and let the light come; the occupants of the craft would
feel warmth, then searing heat in the instant before their organs boiled and
burst. She held the thought, savored it, was tempted by it. The great transit
ships tempted her even more with the challenge of their size, but it would be
the same. Light of purple beyond purple, energy beyond light making the
particles that were the basis for all matter, all would come to her,
penetrating the thick hulls and reducing everything to fundamentals with a
single thought if she willed it. The thought intrigued her, excited her, and
she resisted it also with great effort. She wondered if Mandughai could see
the storm in her mind, the sudden anger at self-limitation, of holding back to
meet a threat she'd not asked for, a threat that could, no, would kill people
she cared
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Bureaublad...map/Glass,%20James%20
C%20-%20Shanji/0671577891__18.htm (7 of 11)5-1-2007 0:53:41
- Chapter 18
for.
Kati could stand it no longer; the temptation was too great, too close to
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]