William King - Shadowblood

She forced those thoughts aside. There were other things to consider. If Xephan was to be killed she would most likely have to do it herself. The sorcerer would be too well-guarded for any one lacking her special talents to have a chance. If she were desperate she could go to his office as she had today and use a concealed weapon, but that would be an obvious assassination, and the Empress could not shield her from the legal consequences of murdering the Prime Minister, even if she wanted to. Tamara might find herself a convenient scapegoat, and the Empress might rid herself of two troublesome subjects at the same time.

Such a direct assault was the option of last resort anyway. Perhaps she could find a tool who would do the deed, a lover who could be convinced the Prime Minister had grievously wronged her and would act to avenge her honour, or some youth who could be goaded to murder in return for the promise of her favours. She had done such things before, but they took time, and were always uncertain and she seriously doubted that any normal mortal would be able to kill Xephan.

No, she would most definitely have to do this herself, if she was to do it all, and it would have to be done out of the public eye. She could not help but feel that time was running out.

The obvious time would be during the ritual of the Black Mirror. Xephan was not about to advertise his presence at a coven meeting and could hardly take Imperial troops along to act as his bodyguard. The disadvantage of this would be that the coven would be there, and would have enacted their own precautions.

She considered killing them all. There were methods that would work- a bagful of the pollen of the Black Lotus tossed into the ritual chamber might do the job. Then again, there would be people present whose support she might need herself. Still it was something worth considering.

A maid brought in some more tea and placed it on the table in front of her. Tamara dismissed her and took a sip. Many of the coven were first rate mages and would carry talismans of protection against poison or know spells to neutralise it. Xephan himself almost certainly would. A deadly drug might slow them but it would not kill them. She needed something swift and certain, and sure to work even against strong protective magic. That meant either a dire blade or truesilver.

They would be suspicious of either. A dire blade would register on wards or divinatory enchantments, and if she was searched a truesilver blade was sure to excite suspicion. They were not the sort of things that you brought to a ritual. The eddy currents caused by the presence of truesilver could disrupt sorcery or cause spells to go awry. These were things that might have catastrophic consequences when powerful magic was involved. And she would not be able to shadow-walk bearing a true silver weapon which might be a fatal disadvantage.

Poison might be useless and truesilver or magic weapons would tip off her targets. They would be shielded against most forms of inimical sorcery. Indeed most of them were better at it than she was. That left main force. She could kill Xephan, with her bare hands if need be. The question was whether she could overcome the rest of the coven and any guards they might have present. She doubted that they would use a Nerghul or a demon but you never knew.

And the whole process raised other questions. Killing Xephan would have consequences. Xephan’s followers would not forgive her for it, if they discovered she had done it, and they were powerful enemies with a very long reach. And Xephan would simply be replaced by someone most likely just as bad, and the Empress would be removed or cowed as before.

In reality Arachne was asking her to destroy the organisation her father had spent so long creating. She did not have much choice in the matter if the Brotherhood were serious about this scheme of killing all the humans. It was the sort of thing her father would have considered in the final days of his madness, and if for no other reason than that, Tamara would oppose it. Perhaps this was one of her father’s schemes and Xephan was merely implementing it. Just thinking about it made her flesh crawl.

She was a killer, pure and simple, but she killed quickly and cleanly and for a reason. The notion of indiscriminate slaughter on so massive a scale not only sickened her, it offended her. It was unworthy of the sophisticated Terrarch intellect. There was no art to it. It was a brutal, brute force solution, the sort of thing that her father would have expected from humans, not his peers, at least back when he had still been sane. She thought of the humans she had known, of her servants, and her lovers, and tried to imagine them as the walking dead. Even if Xephan could protect them, others just like them would die.

And for what — to keep alive the Terrarch dream of dominating a world? The cost was too high. It would break her own people in the end, the knowledge of what they had done, or what had been done in their name. It was one thing to cow a population into submission. It was another to slaughter them in their entirety.

The plan did have merits. She was prepared to admit that. No doubt the human survivors would gain a new respect for the potency of Terrarch sorcery, and another thousand years of Terrarch rule would be guaranteed. But so much could go wrong. Maybe Xephan could not control the walking dead. Maybe the plague would cause the collapse of both nations, and the entire Terrarchy. The whole economy was based on human labour. They tilled the fields. They made the beds, and the clothes and the weapons. It was madness to think that animated corpses could be used as a substitute for skilled labour. If the plague ran out of control, Xephan was unleashing an age of barbarism for the Terrarchs as well as the humans. Surely he could see that?

Maybe Xephan was completely aware of what he was doing. Perhaps it was all part of his plan. In an age of chaos, the whole structure of Terrarch society could be overturned. They would be back in the days of the Conquest when it was the Terrarchs against the world. Maybe that was what he wanted, a rebirth, a renewal of the old ways, an end to decadence. She knew enough of him and his faction to know that such a thing might be possible. They were that ruthless, and wanted to see a return to the ancient martial virtues of the Terrarchy.

There was the Black Mirror to consider — what if the Brotherhood had found a way to open the Gates to Al’Terra? It would not be long before the Princes of Shadow were among them once more. If they weren’t already. It was not a thought that bore considering. Perhaps all of this was merely to pave the way for the Enlightened Ones.

In any case, she had decided to oppose Xephan, as much because he was her rival, as because she considered his plan insane. If she wanted to take on her father’s mantle and stake out a place for herself in the hierarchy of the Empire, Xephan would need to be removed. The only question remained was how she was going to do it.

The best time to strike would be tonight. He had summoned her to his office. It was the place where he would feel most secure. There would be guards outside but she doubted that there would be anyone with him. He would want to discuss Brotherhood business with her in private — she was probably never going to get another chance like this. She did not want to look into the Black Mirror and if she refused, she would instantly come under suspicion.

She considered the advantages. If she did the thing right she would have the advantage of surprise. She doubted that Xephan had any idea of her true capabilities. Of course, she could say the same thing about him. He had changed and doubtless possessed great sorcerous power. Perhaps she would be unable to kill him. On the other hand, it was not going to get any easier if she gave him time to prepare.