Free The Phoenix in Flight by Sherwood Smith, Dave Trowbridge Page A

but his revenge would not be denied, for was he not the
Lord of Vengeance?
    The last glimmer of the Quarantine Monitor faded from sight.
    Soon the Avatar would obliterate that symbol of defeat
hanging insolently above his planet, and annihilate those who had placed it
there.
    His Paliach against the Panarch Gelasaar, twenty years in
the making, was now unfolding with crushing force: first his sons, then his
kingdom, and finally his life.
    Soon Eusabian would receive news of the heirs’ deaths and
the simultaneous capture of the Panarch, and terror far beyond what he had
inflicted on the Panarch’s consort and her Commission long ago would be
unleashed on the Thousand Suns. Soon he would hold in his hands the key to his
enemy’s destruction—how would Gelasaar react to knowledge that the Heart of
Kronos had been in his control for 30 days, indeed, had been free for the
taking for over seven hundred years?
    Eusabian smiled. Between his fingers the cord twisted like a
living creature trying to escape inevitable death, the knot growing ever more
complex, shifting and changing as Eusabian contemplated his coming triumph. The
precise timing of those deaths formed a clue to the nature of what faced his
enemy, although it would be too late to help, even if the Panarch had the
breadth of vision to perceive it.
    A subtle tone interrupted his thoughts.
    The Lord of Vengeance scowled. No Dol’jharian would
interrupt the solitude of this hour; of the Catennach only Barrodagh would have
the temerity, and then only for the most momentous reason.
    His fingers stilled for a moment, then he spoke.
    “Enter.” He turned back to the window, his fingers again
weaving the silken cord into an ever more intricate web.
    o0o
    Barrodagh tried one more time to rub the sting of exhaustion
out of his eyes, but yanked his hand to his side when he heard the edge of
menace in Eusabian’s voice. On Dol’jhar, among the nobility, the hour before
dawn was the orr norhach pelkun turish— theHour of the
Unsheathing of the Will.
    Barrodagh had never before dared intrude on the Avatar at
this time and wished he didn’t have to now. But he had no choice. His tongue
found the slight roughness of the wafer he’d placed on his back molar as soon
as he’d awoken from his fugue in the disposer, even before he’d stripped and
cleansed his aching and befouled body and then sat down, sleepless despite
overwhelming fatigue, to await his underlings’ reports.
    A hard gritting of the teeth, and Eusabian can do as he
wills with my carcass. Barrodagh didn’t know or care if the poison was
painless—anything was preferable to falling into the hands of Evodh, directed
by the vengeful passions of the Lord of Vengeance.
    The door slid open silently, and a wash of light from the
corridor briefly illuminated the Lord of Dol’jhar’s brooding, strong-nosed
profile as Barrodagh forced his gravity-wracked body through. His stomach
griped when he caught sight of the dirazh’uin his lord’s hands and the
complexity of its knots. Has he been curse-weaving all this time?
    Barrodagh tried to calm himself as he bowed, his back
spasming with pain. His report to Eusabian would be, must be, a masterpiece of
management. He must give the Lord of Vengeance the answers he would demand
before they were voiced, lest Eusabian ask a question that could not be
answered without revealing the magnitude of Barrodagh’s failure.
    Eusabian did not look at him, and said nothing as Barrodagh
tried to find his voice.
    “Lord...”began Barrodagh finally, but for a panicky
moment he could not continue, for to his finely-tuned senses, honed by years of
service to the Lord of Vengeance, the tower room was slowly filling with the
force of his lord’s anger, and the promise of future pain. Then the words came
in a rush.
    “Lord, Cheruld tried to defect.” At the words, Eusabian’s
hands stopped moving and his fingers clenched on the dirazh’u, but he did not
turn around. “Our agents on