“Indulgence and permissiveness.  They waste good psyches for pleasure’s sake.”  Verahi focused in on a particular set of memories.  “And an emperor lying dead in the audience hall, with no one held responsible?”  Verahi reviewed the gory scene, which was framed by a circle of hadirs looking on innocently, while a young Zalas knelt crying in a far corner.  Verahi brought up another image of Tovam bisecting a dissenting hadir in a wave of blood amidst throaty cheers.  “And how do you have no memories of these events until after they’ve occurred?  Where is your oversight?  Why create hadirs if you have no intention of controlling them?”

“My attention has been wholly on finding you,” Anoth replied.

Verahi thrust away the pile of images and pulled up another sequence of memories, even as Anoth resisted.  “You spend your time in Zaidna,” Verahi observed quizzically.

Anoth winced as he tried in vain to push Verahi’s focus onto memories of him gallantly leading raids.

“I have seen those memories already, and they are centuries old,” Verahi dismissed.  “What business do you have in Zaidna now?”  Brushing Anoth’s feeble interference aside, he delved into a kaleidoscope of fresh images, comprised of numerous trips through the parting, conveyance patterns, the sapphire bay of Sayora, a ring of green mountains, and finally resting on a single image of Anoth’s hand petting a sazi’s furry head.  His hand moved to rub the sazi’s belly, then materialized a fish to feed the creature’s ravenous appetite.  “What—what is this?” Verahi sputtered.

Anoth found himself barely able to remain upright from the continuous incursions into his psyche.  “I . . . have an affinity for sazis,” he explained weakly.

Verahi’s wrath consumed the Orb, and he immediately tore into Anoth’s memories in Zaidna.  One by one, he extracted images of Sorai, first as a young maiden, then several during her pregnancy.  In each memory, Anoth viewed her from a distance, always careful to hide himself behind bushes or other obstructions.

“Who is this harlot?” Verahi demanded.  Anoth provided no response, and Verahi pried even further, uncovering years of Sorai’s grief at the loss of her first son.  “Why would you abandon your duties to chase after this mortal woman?”

“She is my beloved,” Anoth stammered.  “We were to wed, but I wouldn’t do so without your blessing.  I promised I would find the Orb and we would marry according to the higher law, but in that time—”

“Feh.  Pathetic lies,” Verahi scoffed.  “You wish to wed a mortal.”  He flipped through a dozen more images in disgust.  “This mortal who you have never even spoken one word to.  You want this long-tailed, dalanai mortal who is already wed to another, an emperor no less.”

“Who do I have to wed other than a mortal?” Anoth lamented.  “And Sorai would not be a mortal for long.  I would make her a hadir, so that she could be my wife for eternity.”

Verahi stopped on a sequence of Anoth watching a crowded imperial procession pass by on Sorai’s wedding day.  “You could have stopped this if you had desired,” Verahi mused.

Anoth blanched at the memory.  In it, his eyes were firmly planted on the large palanquin that carried the ill-fitted couple, but while he strayed to gaze at his beloved from time to time, he spent much more time fixated on the staff-like kada that was held erect in its base on the palanquin floor.  Atop the kada was set the brilliant ovoid sapphire he had spent years refining, only to have it despoiled by unworthy mortal hands.

“You claim your non-interference was in deference to me,” Verahi continued.  “But your mind reveals cowardice.   You fear the kada and what it can do to you.”

“I admit I was tempted to interfere,” Anoth conceded.  “But I know the power of the kadas and that I would have a far better chance of overcoming one with your aid.  Most of all, however, I would not wed my beloved unless it could be performed according to the higher law.”

The Orb hummed in contemplation.  “Your motives are suspect.  But you have been alone for centuries without my guidance, so I cannot fault you for all your diversions.  And you did locate and extract me.  However, I cannot allow you to be distracted from your original task.  I will allow you to wed this mortal according to the higher law, but you must meet my conditions before I will perform the rites.”

“Anything,” Anoth readily agreed.

“My conditions are these:  your people will learn to obey my laws with exactness.  This includes your hadirs.  Then, you will complete the task you started nine hundred years ago by finally freeing me from this prison and restoring my body to me.  Only when these have been accomplished can you have your bride.”

“Thank you, Master,” Anoth groveled, knowing full well that the simplicity of Verahi’s demands belied the difficulty of achieving them.  The hadirs were not easily tamed and would not take well to Verahi’s laws of forbearance and restraint.  And yet helping Verahi escape from the Orb with his original form intact would be a far more daunting task, with much higher risks.

“Do you still have the keys required to bypass the glyphs and initiate the pardoning?” Verahi asked.

“Yes, they are safely kept in the temple vaults.”

“And are there suitable witnesses among the slaves you have acquired?”

Anoth frowned.  “The Naltite slaves were mostly taken from small villages.  Their houses of ormé are somewhat—inferior.  While their psyches would conduct an adequate amount of light matter for the task, they are also too damaged to be of any use without risk of rejection.  We would need to get fresh witnesses from Zaidna.  The Orb will confirm, but unspoiled females among the noble caste would likely be best.  However, if we take nobles, there are the kadas to worry about.”

“The presence of a kada did not deter you from peeping after your whore.  They are a necessary risk.  The Orb is still configured to seek out suitable witnesses, yes?  You will need to take a minimum of followers as your support.”

“Tovam and his captains would make excellent—”

“Your hadirs cannot be trusted as they are.  Their presence alone would certainly bruise the witnesses’ psyches.  And surely you know the risk of what they might do to the witnesses should you ever turn your back.”

Anoth nodded slowly.  “I will need to assemble men willing to die for me.”

“Take the time you need, but recognize that this dalanai woman will never be yours until these tasks are complete.”

Anoth suppressed a visceral swell of frustration.

Seemingly satisfied, Verahi withdrew the tendrils of his thought matter and the Orb immediately went dormant, leaving Anoth to his own thoughts for the first time in what felt like eons.

***

“Awaken yourself, Zalas.”

Zalas groaned, still half-asleep.  Whatever voice had roused him from his slumber must have just been imagined.  He rolled over to face the window, wrapping himself up in his gold and green bedsheets.  He quickly began to drift back to sleep.

“Fool, wake up!”

Zalas’s eyes popped open.  He sat upright, all grogginess immediately gone from his body.  He found Kailei, Davim’s bed slave, already awake at his side, her bruised body tense with terror.  He turned from the whimpering slave to see Anoth standing at the foot of the bed.

Anoth’s silhouette was framed by the fire burning in the hearth behind him.  Something about his blue eyes made him look entirely mad.  “Startled?” he asked with a sneer.

Zalas didn’t have a chance to answer.

Anoth leaned forward menacingly.  “I see this is the same dalanai whore from earlier!  Where is your wife?”

Kailei pressed herself up against the stone headboard of the bed and sobbed silently.

Zalas balled his hands into fists.  “Why are you here?  What do you care of who’s in my bed?  You didn’t want her.”

Anoth slowly shook his head, a muscle in his jaw visibly hardening.  There was something strangely weary in his expression.  “This behavior is no longer acceptable.”

“No longer acceptable?”  Zalas tensed.  “Is that why you’re here in the middle of the night?  To chide me about my choice of bed slaves?  Don’t you have better things to do?  Or is it that you’ve suddenly grown tired of the Orb?  Did it turn out to be just a rock after all?”

Anoth’s face reddened as he rounded the bed to stare Zalas down, ignoring Kailei's quivering body.  “Nothing less than strict adherence to Verahi’s laws will be acceptable from this time forward.  And obedience must start with the emperor.”

“Hypocrite!” Zalas spat.  “If you care so much about obedience, shouldn’t it start with you?  You have done everything possible to make me impotent as emperor.  You forced me to marry a fat ass cow, you’ve taken all my power and given it to your hadirs, and you’ve left me to rule pointless courts over senile old men!  Look at yourself.  I know what you get up to when you—”

Before Zalas could complete his accusation, Anoth pulled back his fist and plunged it through Kailei’s throat.

Zalas blinked in confusion as he was splattered by a mist of gore.  Kailei’s lifeless body slumped off the mattress and fell to the floor with a wet thud.

Anoth nonchalantly wiped his hands on the tangled bedsheets.

“You killed her!” Zalas sputtered as he leapt off the bed and into a position that would leave him less likely to be murdered.  “Now I will have to pay my brother-in-law for the loss of her!”

Anoth stalked forward and took hold of Zalas’s neck in a fierce but shaking grip, pulling him close so that Zalas could feel his breath on his face.  “You will know your place!”

After a few moments, Anoth released his grip, and Zalas gasped for air, rubbing at his throat.

“Dress yourself.”

Zalas hastily moved to wrap himself with a bloodied sheet while Anoth stood by the bed, reaching into his coat to withdraw a round object.  Zalas’s eyes widened.  This stone was no longer the crusty clod of dirt he had seen earlier that afternoon.  Instead, it shone with a prismatic sheen.  “Is that truly Verahi?” he asked, half in awe and half in disbelief.  This was the first time in almost a millennium that an emperor of Nejim gazed upon the Orb.

An emanating buzzing from the Orb grew from a whisper into a piercing hum.  Anoth muttered back to it in sporadic bursts, only to wince as the Orb sprung to life, evincing a deep, angry voice.  “Do you see what your neglect has wrought?”

“Forgive me, Master!” Anoth stammered, his hand visibly smoking with the increasing heat of the Orb.  Zalas backed away slowly.  He might have found Anoth’s groveling amusing if he weren’t still in mortal danger.

“I set you up to be an example to these people, and your emperor, this worm, is supposed to be your representative.  His blatant flouting of my laws is just more proof of how lax your discipline has become.”  The Orb visibly cooled.  “However, despite your failure in your duties, there is no reason to delay atonement.  According to my laws, the punishment for adultery is death, even for an emperor.  You may slay this one, now.”

“What?” Zalas choked, looking to Anoth in panic.

Anoth raised his injured hand to do the Orb’s bidding, but hesitated a moment.  “Master, are you certain?  As of this afternoon his wife was still in childbed, and an heir has not been secured.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Verahi dismissed from the Orb.  “His entire bloodline is condemned because of his sins.  Destroy the offspring and its mother, as well as any kin who might have any claim to his station.”

“As you wish,” Anoth replied uncertainly.

“Wait!” Zalas cried out.  “Let’s not be drastic!”  He thought fleetingly of his wretched unborn child, then of his sister, Roet, who was a slut but didn’t deserve to die.  “How can I fully obey your laws if I never knew them?  I helped look for the Orb.  I helped find it!  I would certainly follow your laws now that you are here to give them!”

The Orb darkened in contemplation.

“I swear I will do anything that you ask.  Let me prove my worth!”

Anoth lowered his hand and looked to the Orb.  “What will you have me do, Master?”

“He will live for now,” the Orb finally said.  “Ignorance of my laws is also a sin, but I offer forgiveness in this case based on my absence and your poor example to these people.”

Zalas expelled a sigh of relief and fell to his knees.  “Thank you!  My gratitude pours out to—”

“Silence!” Verahi snapped.  “As the first step in your atonement, you will join Anoth in his.  Prepare yourself to retrieve three witnesses from Zaidna.”

“Witnesses?  I don’t—”

“Master, this mortal is useless,” Anoth protested.  “He is a spoiled, pampered whelp who would just get in my way.  He would only be useful in enlisting worthier—”

“And yet he would follow my laws, which is more than you could claim for any of your other followers,” Verahi interrupted.

“I don’t understand!” Zalas murmured fearfully.  What was happening?  He hated his life, but what was being suggested here was insane and confusing.  What were these witnesses?  Why would he need to travel through the parting?  Why did he have to be involved in any of this at all?  “I’m not going anywhere!”

“Your alternative is death,” Anoth replied coldly.  “I suggest you consider your options carefully.”  With that, he placed the Orb back into his coat and swiftly left Zalas’s chambers.