“I don’t know what you mean,” the manticore replied with a shrug of his great shoulders. “We were stuck on that pillar of rock you left us on for another six hours before a Proxi showed up to get us out. It must have been some other incredibly handsome Warrior you saw at the throne.”
Drakis’ smile waned at the thought. He turned instinctively to look up at the avatria towering above them. He pushed Jugar’s predictions out of his mind and crossed the arena to the chakrilya and his audience with his master.
Sha-Timuran sat upon the elevated throne and glared down through his black, pupilless eyes.
Drakis kept as still as the cold, marble stone on which he knelt. Since he had been ushered into the large, oval room by the house slaves, he had waited on his knees, his head bent over in submission. Even so, he felt the chill stare of his master’s blank, onyx-eyes. No slave spoke in the presence of his or her master until specifically bidden to do so. No slave looked upon the master until directly addressed.
So he had remained, with increasing pain shooting up his legs as the moments dragged into eternity.
He was keenly aware of his surroundings. The audience hall was situated within the floating avatria, its arching walls rising upward in the shape of wide, alabaster leaves whose tips cradled crystal panes, each casting columns of light from a delicate lattice overhead. Curved stairs led down into the room from two archways situated between the leaves while the throne itself floated at the far end of the oval floor.
Standing still as statues at the perimeter of the room were a number of the elves from the household, paid servants who worked in the avatria or as overseers in the subatria below. These were pressed against the curved walls well away from their master’s position in the hall. One slave, the Lyric, had little choice in the matter. A waiflike human woman clad in a loose fitting, translucent robe, she was chained by a golden collar to the throne of the master. Drakis vaguely remembered seeing her, though if she had a name, he did not know it. The Lyric squatted as far from the throne as the chain would allow. Only Tsi-Timuri, Timuran’s wife, and their daughter, Tsi-Shebin, stood next to the throne with any affectation of desire.
Everyone waited.
At long last, Sha-Timuran spoke.
“Drakissssss,” he said, his grating, high-pitched voice hanging onto the last syllable, drawing it out like the sound of a snake.
“My Master,” Drakis answered, his words sounding too loud in his own ears. He looked up.
Sha-Timuran was tall even by elven standards, making even more pronounced the narrow features of his race. His sharp, narrow chin jutted out from the angular features of his face. The back of his head was elongated compared to the other creatures of the world, a protuberance that the Imperial Will had pronounced at once as unquestioned evidence of both the physical and mental superiority of their race. His elegantly elongated ears framed his face, and the hair that rimmed his protruding crown fell back in long, white strands. He still wore a common lime-colored work tunic beneath the mantle of his House. The mantle was a required sign of his authority whenever formally holding audience, though today it had apparently been hastily donned. He held his long baton restlessly in his hands, the Imperial medallion fixed to its head turning repeatedly, flashing occasionally in the column of light cast down from overhead.
But it was the featureless, black eyes staring down the thin, hooked nose that held Drakis in such awe that he forgot to answer.
“Drakis,” Sha-Timuran repeated from behind a thin veil of patience.
“By your will, my Lord!”
“So you have returned to us from the war,” the elven lord said with quiet detachment. “My great warrior-now leader of my Centurai, it seems. ChuKang has fallen, and yet somehow-somehow-you managed to survive.”
Drakis swallowed. “My Lord! My brother warrior ChuKang was great, indeed, and led the Centurai of your House to great honor. We followed him into the heart of the Dwarven Throne and. .”
Sha-Timuran held up his long-fingered left hand, his right still gripping the baton. His voice wheezed with the sound of rusted blades sliding together. “We have heard the stories of that final battle-indeed, all the elven world, it seems, is talking about the fall of the dwarves, news of it having reached the Imperial ear itself. How could it be helped since the House of Tajeran has insured it to be impossible not to hear the tale?”
Sha-Timuran’s long, pale fingers twitched along the handle of the baton.
“Tajeran. . ah, that noble House of my neighbor.” Sha-Timuran stood now from his throne, his voice rising with each step of his bare, narrow feet, “A neighbor who shall never let me forget that a warrior of my own House. . my own House. . held the crown of the dwarves in his hands and tossed it into HIS hands!”
“But, my Lord,” Drakis blinked in confusion. Lord Timuran was a kind master who prized him. Lord Timuran had never spoken harshly with him in all the years of his life. “If you will but hear me. . you will understand. .”
“THREW IT TO HIM!” Lord Timuran screamed, his voice squealing with a sound like scraping glass. “Tossed it to my neighbor’s warriors as if it were scraps from the table!”