both physical abuse and criticism.
To his left rested the heavily armored and aged beetle shape of High General
Mordeesha. Battle armor drooped from his soft under-body. Insignia of rank and
the less symmetrical wounds of war were cut into his thick dorsal wing covers.
Sharp curving horns made of metal protruded from the helmet that fit over his
own horny skull. Sweeping metal flanges shielded his eyes.
From his neck hung tiny skulls and teeth taken from the corpses of those the
General had personally vanquished. They clanked hollowly against his metal
thorax plate as he shifted his position.
Nearby was the Grand Sorcerer Eejakrat, a thin, delicate insect-specter. Pure
white enamel decorated his wing cases and chitin. Strings of long white and
silver beads dangled fringelike from both sides of his maxilla. An artificial
white and silver crest ran from his forehead down between the dark compound eyes
to disappear in the middle of his back. It included his insignia of office, of
wisdom and knowledge, and marked him as the manipulator of magic most exalted.
Alongside the General, whose great physical skills could crush him easily, and
Eejakrat, whose arcane abilities could turn him back into a grub, the Minister
felt very inadequate indeed. Yet he squatted in the audience chamber amid the
glittering gems and thousand shafts of light they threw back from the dozens of
candles and the crystal candelabra overhead, as an equal with the others. For
Kesylict possessed an extraordinary reservoir of common sense, an ability most
Plated Folk lacked. It was for this that the Empress valued him so much, as a
counterweight to the blind drive of the General and the intricate machinations
of the Sorcerer.
"We've heard about your distress, Majesty," said the General tactfully. "Is it
so important that you must summon us to council now? The critical time nears.
Drill and redrill are required more than ever."
"I wish, though," responded Eejakrat in a voice that was almost a whisper
between his mandibles, "I could persuade you to wait at least another year,
General. I am not yet confident enough master over the Manifestation."
"Wait and wait," grumbled the General, skulls tinkling against his thorax.
"We've waited more than a year already. Always building, always preparing,
always strengthening our reserves. But there comes a time, good brother, much as
I respeet your learning, when even a soldier as unthinkingly devoted as those of
the Empire grows over-drilled and loses that keen edge for slaughter his officer
has worked so long and hard to instill in him. The army cannot retain itself at
fever-ready forever.
"Probably we will overwhelm the soft ones by sheer weight of numbers this time,
and will have no need of your obscure learning. You can then relax in your old
age and toy with this wonder you have conjured up. The final victory shall be
ours no matter what."
The General's voice trembled at the thought of the Great Conquest awaiting him,
a conquest that would alter forever the history of the world.
"Even so," said the Sorcerer softly, "you are glad to have both my old age and
my wonder in reserve, since in twenty thousand years we have shown ourselves
unable to defeat the soft ones, despite all our preparations and boastings."
As always, the General was ready to reply. Skrritch waved a knife-studded green
arm. The movement was slow to her, awesomely fast to her attendants. They
quieted, waited respectfully for what she might say.
"I have not called you here to discuss timing or tactics, but to listen to a
memory of a dream." She gazed at Mordeesha. "In dreams, General, it is Eejakrat
who is master. But I may want your opinion nonetheless." Obediently the General
bowed low.
"I am no jealous fool, Majesty. Now, of all times, we must put aside petty
rivalries to work for the greater glory of Cugluch. I will give my opinion if it
is asked for, and I will defer to my colleague's ancient wisdom." He nodded to
Eejakrat.
"A wise one knows his own limitations," observed a satisfied Eejakrat. "Describe
the dream, Majesty."
"I was resting in the bedchamber," she began slowly, "half asleep from the orgy
of mating and conversing with my most recent mate preparatory to his ritual
dispatching, when I felt a great unease. It was as if many hidden eyes were
spying upon me. They were alien eyes, and they burned. Hot and horribly moist
they felt. I believed they were seeing into my very insides.
"I gave a violent start, or so my attending mate later said, and struck
violently, instinctively, at the empty air. The cushions and pillows of my
boudoir are flayed like the underbellies of a dozen slaves because I struggled
so fiercely against nothingness.
"For an instant I seemed to see my tormentors. They had shape and yet no shape,
form without substance. I screamed aloud and they vanished. Awake, I flew into a
frustrated rage from which I have only just recovered." She looked anxiously at
Eejakrat.
"Sorcerer, what does this portend?"
Eejakrat located a clean place amid the royal droppings and rested on his hind
legs. The tip of his abdomen barely touched the floor. Minims, foot-long
subservitors, busied themselves cleaning his chitin.
"Your Majesty worries overmuch on nothing." He shrugged and waved a thin hand.
"It may only have been a bad hallucination. You have so much on your mind these
days that such upsets are surprising only in that you have not experienced many
before this. In the afterdaze of postcoital subsidence such imaginings are only
to be expected."
Skrritch nodded and began to clean her other eye, shooing away the distraught
minims. "Always the soft ones have managed to defeat us in battle." General
Mordeesha shifted uncomfortably.
"They are fast and strong. Most of all, they are clever. We lose not because our
troops lack strength or courage but because we lack imagination in war. Perhaps
my imagining is, after all, a good sign. Do not look so uncomfortable, General.
You are about to receive the word you have waited for for so long.
"I believe the time has come to move." Mordeesha looked excited. "Yes, General.
You may inform the rest of the staff to begin final preparations."
"Majesty," put in Eejakrat, "I would very much like another six months to study
the ramifications of the Manifestation. I do not understand it well enough yet."
"You will have some time yet, my good advisor," she told him, "because it will
take a while to get so vast an enterprise in motion. But General Mordeesha's
words concerning the morale and readiness of the troops must be acknowledged.
Without that, all your magic will do us no good."
"I will give you all the time I can, wizard," said Mordeesha. "I wish your
support." His eyes glittered in the candlelight as he rose to a walking
position. He bowed once more.
"By your leave, Majesty, I will retire now and initiate preparations. There is a
great deal to do."
"Stay a moment, General." She turned her attention to the sorcerer. "Eejakrat, I
like not rushing the wise ones among us who serve with you in this great
undertaking. We have been defeated in the past because we acted without patience
or stealth. But I feel the time is right, and Mordeesha concurs. I want you to
understand I am not favoring his advice over yours." She looked at Kesylict.
"I am neither general nor wizard, Majesty," the Minister told her, "but my
instincts say, 'act now.' It is the mood of the workers as well."
Eejakrat sighed. "Let it be so, then. As to the dream-hallucination, Majesty...