Reih sobbed into her sleeves. Great, hacking coughs accompanied her tears, her chest heaving with exertion as she desperately tried to stop. Her ally had been murdered within her halls — and she had no choice but to watch it.
Reih’s friend and fellow councillor had been talking to one of the Protectorate. The Protocrat’s face was covered by the cowl of his hood but that did not matter. Reih could see who it was easily enough despite that. The oversized hands, pale and stark against the black robe. There was no doubt in her mind that it was Tun, head of their Search Division — a not so secret police force within the obscene mass of the Protectorate’s forces.
But still, with the Kuh’taenium’s sickness…some of the memories were already fading, imperfect. It could so easily have forgotten, but it had held onto this memory and forced it upon its sister, Reih. She wished she had remained ignorant, but it was too late for that.
Through a clearing mist that enveloped her mind, as it always did when the Kuh’taenium communicated with her, she heard Guy say, “You’ve got spies all over the place, it is not good enough! This must stop if the human council is to function.”
She saw that the Protocrat had smiled under his hood, the light of the halls illuminating only his lips — his teeth did not show. There was no mirth in that smile. “It does not matter,” Tun told Guy. “The Kuh’taenium is finished anyway. It is just a matter of time — it is sickening because the Protectorate are weakening it by taking away the living beings inside — all the councillors.”
Guy had known he would die. He had signed his own death warrant within council chambers when the Interpellate had petitioned for Tirielle’s disbarment. Still, she had not expected that such a barbaric act would, or could, take place within the pristine halls of the Kuh’taenium.
The scene, through her link with the building, played over in her mind. She saw through hazing vision a knife and/Guy lunges for the Protectorate. She heard the tang as the thin blade hit the metal under the robes/diagonal hoops of metal all through the ranking officer’s armour. Not the greatest defence and a blade will still go through but as the hoops cannot be seen by an attacker they would not know their location. She watched the blade fall to the floor and/it was suddenly protruding from Guy’s gagging throat, the councillor slain by his own blade. He died and hit the floor. The assailant did not move while Guy lay dying, but she could imagine a cold smile played on Tun’s face as he watched Guy’s life drain into the stone.
Reih sobbed for her friend and for herself. That the attacker had been Tun was not the most troubling thing. Nor that Tun must know she had seen him. No, it was that the Kuh’taenium itself was no longer safe from the Protectorate. Its protections meant nothing. It was all ending. She did not understand why the Protectorate were only now destroying the council. That, she thought, was the most important thing to remember. If she could discern the reason for this attack on the seat of human government, perhaps she could fight it. Did the Hierarchy know what was going on? Was it on their orders that the Protectorate acted, or were their dogs free of their leash?
She didn’t know, but of one thing she was certain — to save the Kuh’taenium, she must find out.
The Protectorate knew, as she did…the Kuh’taenium remembered.