Death and the Emperor

Book 3 Chapter XVIII: Plan of Attack

Look for me by the moonlight;
Watch for me by the moonlight.
I'll come to thee by the moonlight,
Though hell should bar the way.
-- Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman

Qihadal had come to the same conclusion as Kilan. Long before she heard anything about Nalginton's death she had already started planning how Carann would win a war against Malish. She studied maps of the border, circling the places that were least defended, and drawing lines of hypothetical routes the army would take to reach Ihalāiksonen.

And then everyone waited, tensely, expecting a disaster at any moment. Days passed. They became weeks. Weeks became months. After almost two months, Qihadal had the baby, and Carann got something new to think about. An heir to the throne was a more cheerful topic than a possible war.

Kilan knew from hearing other men talk that he was supposed to be overjoyed when he held his daughter for the first time. Instead he was just terrified. What if he dropped her? What if he was holding her incorrectly? He breathed a sigh of relief when he handed the newborn princess back to Qihadal.

Death watched from the shadows, invisible even to Kilan, as Qihadal handed little Princess Linyie to the nurse. She had seen untold thousands of newborn children. For far too many of them, she was there to collect their souls. There was nothing unusual about Linyie in and of herself. But for who she had been, and who she would become... Well. Death would watch her future with interest.

~~~~

A month after Linyie's birth, Malish also gained a royal heir. It was a boy, as Jalakanavu had predicted. Most of the people accepted her as Queen Regnant for the next ten years. There was some grumbling about being ruled by a woman. But most of the Malishese took the attitude that it was only a temporary situation, and not worth complaining about.

Prince Shuradin gritted his teeth when he heard this news. His chance of becoming Iqui was slipping away. He wouldn't stand for it.

He would overthrow that bitch and her brat if it was the last thing he did.

~~~~

The news of both royal births did something to alleviate the hostility between the two empires. They forgot about preparing for war in favour of gossiping about the future of the new babies. Death knew better than to think it would last. But she could make it last as long as possible.

Some people lived -- er, existed, since most of them were dead -- under the delusion that she liked bringing death to the universe. Death couldn't understand where this idea had come from. Her job meant an endless stream of complaining or traumatised souls for her to deal with. Most of them then stayed around for the rest of eternity, grumbling endlessly. Why did anyone think she was eager for more work? A war would cause much, much more work for her. So it was in her own best interests to prevent as many of them as possible.

At this very minute there were more than twenty thousand wars raging throughout the universe, and another ten thousand threatening to erupt. The people who died in those wars, combined with the people who died of other causes, added up to a staggering number of souls. Death had quite enough to do without Carann and Malish making her job harder.

She watched events unfolding in both empires for several days. At last she decided there was no immediate danger just yet.

Kilan disagreed with this assessment.

The chaos of the last few months had left him understandably reluctant to leave Carann, even to visit the Land of the Dead. Now that things had finally calmed down, Death all but dragged him away from his office and into her realm.