“It was wrong,” Kyron said, choking down his anger. “It wasn’t fair.”
“Fair?” Vedrix’s eyes widened. “Fair. Of course it wasn’t fair. Your grandfather knew that and still went through with it.”
“Why?” His own anger died, and the grief came welling up his throat, bringing painful tears to his eyes.
“Did you not know him at all?” Vedrix said, stepping forward and resting a comforting hand on Kyron’s arm.
“I tried.”
“He gave everything to the Empire,” Vedrix said.
“Service and duty,” Kyron mumbled.
“Exactly,” Vedrix said and a sad smile split his beard. “Never a more stubborn man. I saw him too, Kyron. I tried to convince him to start a war. The soldiers would have followed him. They’d have followed him if he ordered an attack on the waves. He would not give that order.”
“Why?” Kyron’s voice cracked.
“Because the Empire would have fractured, and thousands would have died. It would have marked the end of everything he worked for, everything he held dear,” Vedrix said, letting his arms fall. “You should have fled the city.”
“I needed to see you,” Kyron said. “I wanted to give you this.”
He held out the journal to Vedrix who looked at it much as a mouse stares at the descending hawk.
“What is it?”
“My grandfather’s journal,” Kyron said, putting the book down upon the table. “He thought it was Aelia who organised the deaths of her family.”
“Aelia?” Vedrix’s eyebrow raised. “
“My grandfather knew,” Kyron persisted. “He wrote it all down. All his thoughts and evidence.”
“In Old Galix,” Emlyn supplied.
“I didn’t even know Bordan knew that language,” Vedrix mused, turning the book with a cautious finger. “What do you want me to do with it, Kyron? The Emperor is dead, you saw to that, and now they will come for us.”
“Stop them,” Kyron said. “Give the book to the High Priest, convince him to help.”
“He can’t,” Vedrix sighed. “He may want to, but he is trapped like we all are. You’ve set something in motion which cannot be stopped.” Slamming shut the page he had opened, Vedrix stared hard into Kyron’s eyes. “Godewyn will take control of the Empire. Someone has to step into the vacuum you created, but even he will not have enough support to stop the zealots amongst the Church and those in the populace. Your grandfather would have found the same.”
“Then use magic and stop them. Protect the Gymnasium,” Kyron demanded, his anger returning. “You cannot do nothing. You can’t just wait for them to come and tear the Gymnasium down. Everyone here has power they can use.”
“And kill a thousand people? Two thousand?” Vedrix said, picking up the journal. “When would it stop? When we ran out of energy? When we needed to rest or when they sent the army in to slay us all? The Gymnasium is finished, Kyron. Whether tomorrow or next tenday. The end is coming and there is little we can do.”
“There has to be something you can do,” Kyron said, the anger ebbing once more in the face of Vedrix’s obvious grief.
“I’ve ordered all our valuable books, scrolls and knowledge taken to the vault. We will seal it with spells and constructs which will last a thousand years. The tunnel leading to it will be collapsed. That we can save,” Vedrix moved to the door. “The magicians, I’ve ordered to leave, to flee for the countryside, to countries outside the Empire, as soon as they can. You should do the same. I promised your grandfather I would get you away, but there is too much to do here.”
“Away.” Kyron’s stomach sank.
“Your guide here can take you north, if you want,” Vedrix said, glancing at Emlyn. “I saw what you did. I can feel the power from you when I could not before.”
Kyron saw the wry smile cross her face as she held up the remaining carved sticks she kept in her belt.
“I had to break those masking my power, or the enhancer I gave Kyron would never have worked,” she confessed. “I’ve done what I was sent to do, though perhaps not the way I would have set about it.”
“Sent?” Kyron said. “You were our guide. Your family was being held hostage.”
“They know what I was sent to do, they went willingly,” she said, and it was her turn to let her own grief and sadness show.
“Which was?” Kyron asked.
“To stop the invasion? Kill the Emperor?” Vedrix asked, no anger or malice in his voice.
“Whatever I could to save my people,” she answered.
“You’re a traitor?” Kyron blurted.
“To who, Kyron?” she answered and the look she gave him was direct. “Not to my people, nor to you. You’ll recall I helped you on a course you had already decided upon.”
“You used me,” he replied, hurt.
“I helped,” she repeated.
“My advice,” Vedrix said, opening the door, “is for both of you to get out of the city tonight. They’ll be searching for you, Kyron. The esteem Godewyn held for your grandfather may grant you some time, but not much.”
“Master Vedrix!” The shout rushed through the open door and followed the echo of running feet along the corridor.
“What is it?” Vedrix stepped through the door and looked along the corridor.
“They’re coming, Master. They’re coming,” the voice called. “We saw the torches and heard the chants.”
“It seems your time is up, Kyron, as is ours.” Vedrix turned to him. “Take what you need and go.” He stepped through the door, stopped and looked back. “Get as far from here as you can. Good luck.”
Before Kyron could respond the Master of the Gymnasium of Magicians was gone. Only an empty doorway faced him now, and a step into the unknown.
“Let’s move, Kyron,” Emlyn said, and he heard her begin to gather things together. “Don’t just sit there. Vedrix told us to go and he is right. This city is no place for you anymore.”
“It’s my home.” He shot up from the chair and turned to face her.
“Your home is about to be burned down,” Emlyn answered, facing him down with her own anger. “Just like mine. Welcome to life under attack. You want to live? Then we need to get away.”
“I want to,” he began and realised he had no idea what he wanted. Everyone was gone. Parents, Padarn, Grandfather, and soon the Gymnasium. All the people who had given him direction were silent in death, only memories, lessons, and their imprint on his thoughts were with him. It was up to him, his decision, his life to lead. “What am I going to do?”
“Live,” Emlyn answered, stuffing a warm cloak into a backpack. “Do that and you make all the choices, mistakes and successes you want. Stand there, do nothing, die, and all those choices are gone forever.”
The truth of her unforgiving words struck him, cleared his thoughts like a brisk, cold wind through the leaves of autumn. He grabbed the sword belt from the table, buckling it around his hips, he checked that the gladius Borus had given him sat well in the scabbard. His own backpack was near his feet, and he raced to the shelves, picking two books from it and stuffing them at the bottom, beneath his clothes.
“Food,” Emlyn said. “We’ll need food.”
“The stores are on the way out,” Kyron replied.
Pulling his cloak around his shoulders and fastening the clasp, he stepped to the door and peered both ways along the corridor. It was empty, but the sound of movement rumbled through the stones. Somewhere, magicians were making their own preparations to leave, or to fight. No matter what Vedrix said, some would fight.
Maybe even Vedrix himself, Kyron realised. A sacrifice to appease the people, to buy time for the others to escape. The power and price of leadership.
“This way,” he said and ran along the corridors of the Gymnasium. Occasionally a magician or servant would race past in the opposite direction. In the stores, they grabbed bread, cheese, smoked meat, stuffing it into the backpacks, and headed for the door.
&n
bsp; “Not that way,” said a magician hurrying past them. “They’ve reached the gates and are demanding we all come out. Take one of the lesser doors.”
“Where are you going?” Kyron asked.
“The southern door,” the magician said. “It looks out on the slums. Maybe I can vanish into the hovels there for a bit.”
“We’ll follow you,” Emlyn said. “Come on.”
The three of them raced through the Gymnasium, until they reached a door and a queue of magicians heading the same way. An armoured guard stood by the exit, a round shield propped up against the wall and a gladius upon his hip.
“Split up once you get out,” he said as Kyron came up to him. “They haven’t got around here yet, too focused on the main door, but it won’t be long. You’ll be better off if you’re wearing civilian clothes. Don’t draw attention to yourselves and get out of the city.”
Kyron nodded as he ducked through the door, Emlyn behind him, and out into the night. The magician they had followed turned left and ran along the narrow road between the Gymnasium and the buildings which had been built alongside it. A dark shadowed alley faced them and Emlyn did not pause but grabbed his hand dragging him into it.
“Where’s the nearest gate?” she hissed.
“That way,” he pointed across the city. “The main gate.”
“That’ll be guarded,” Emlyn whispered. “If this is the Church, they’ll want you captured. Is there a smaller gate?”
“There’s the one my grandfather went through.”
“I’d rather not run around the city just to head north.” Emlyn shook her head. “I’ve seen the land there, they’ll see us from the walls, and there isn’t a lot of cover.”
“We could get on a ship, in the docks,” he suggested as they moved carefully along the alleyway.
“To where? I’d prefer to be able to run if I need to, and you can bet they’ve got the docks watched to.”
“There’s a small gate in the north wall,” Kyron said, after a moment’s thought. “It isn’t well used, mostly farm workers and night soil men.”
“Sounds ideal,” she answered. “Lead the way.”
“We’ll have to go around the crowd,” he said, indicating the direction with a jerk of his head.
“Why not those tunnels under the city?” Emlyn said.
“I don’t know the way,” Kyron answered. “Only that small section by my grandfather’s house.”
“Best keep your cloak tight and the hood up then,” she ordered as she flicked her own over her head and rested a hand on her knife.
He drew his own up, hiding his face, but cutting off his peripheral vision and put his own hand on his sword. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Too late for that,” she whispered, hurrying forward.
They turned at the end of the alley, onto a wider road, and saw a group of townsfolk emerge from a side road ahead. He stopped, drawing Emlyn back into the dark shadow of a doorway. The people carried torches and he saw the telltale sign of the Flame upon the robes of the priests amongst the people.
“For the Flame,” they were shouting. “Death to magic.”
“Let’s be careful,” Emlyn said as they watched the group vanish in the direction of the Gymnasium.
He nodded and realised she could not see the gesture under his hood. “I agree.”
They crept up the road, peering around the corner from which a group had come, and slipped across it into the road opposite. Light emanated from the apartments above, candles and oil lamps left aflame by the inhabitants, enough so they could make out their path.
“There’s a large road up ahead,” Kyron said. “It’s the one that leads to the Gymnasium.”
“Is there another way around?”
“Not to get to the gate,” he answered. “We’d have to head deeper into the city.”
They rounded a slight curve in the road and found the street ahead blocked by a large crowd of people carrying torches and chanting. Interspersed amongst them were the white robes of the priests.
“We’re stuck,” he said, already turning around.
“No,” she said, grabbing his arm and forcing him to continue walking. “We just go through them.”
“Through?” His strangled gasp was consumed by the chants.
“Politely, nicely, like we’re supposed to be there,” she said. “Chant along with them, walk for a bit, and take the road we need.”
“But—”
“Your hood’s up and they won’t know who you are or who I am,” she answered, pulling him along. “Act like you belong.”
He found he had no choice as they drew closer. In the dancing torchlight he could see the faces of people driven to feverish excitement. Their mouths were open, chanting ‘Death to Magic’ and ‘Burn them down’. Each flame-lit eye was burning with righteous anger and the few looking their way beckoned them to join.
It was a mob. These people, he would have seen them in the markets, amongst the streets he had walked without fear for all his years, in the taverns sharing a drink with friends, in the city parks, or at the Colosseum. He would have paid them no mind and they none to him. Now, whipped up by the white-clad priests who wove their way through amongst the crowd, shouting imprecations, screaming about the Flame, abominations and curses, those people had been subsumed by hatred, by the lowest and basest of their emotions. Individuals no longer. All that remained was a mob driven by fear and controlled by hate.
Kyron slipped in amongst them and a wash of emotion almost carried him along. His grip on the hilt of his gladius and Emlyn’s on his arm kept him steady as they picked their slow way across the current. Swept along, he could see, above the mob, the roof of the Gymnasium come into view.
“They have lied to us all these years,” a shrill voice called above the shouts. “Magic killed the Emperor and next they’ll come for the Church.”
Kyron’s gaze snapped around in reflex and he was pinned to the spot by the returned glare of Livillia. His sword flew from its sheath into his hand and he felt Emlyn’s grip torn free by the crowd.
“You,” she screamed, pointing a bony finger in his direction. “There he is. The assassin of the Emperor. The magician who is coming for your Church, for your children, your wealth, your souls, for you all.”
LXIII
The Magician
Two years ago:
“No one is denying your affinity for magic,” Master Vedrix said. “However, your teachers all comment on a lack of focus in class.”
“I want to do magic, Master,” he complained. “I want to learn to build nets, constructs, and all the rest. Class is all about history, theory, old magicians.”
“And you want to do magic,” Master Vedrix sighed. “Well, each student eventually finds their own path, but you want to begin the search before you know what to look for.”
Kyron stepped back, away from her hate and the crowd gave him space. Those who had passed by turned back his way, and those coming up behind stopped and hissed at him. He searched the faces of those who surrounded him seeking Emlyn, but she was gone, vanished into the mob, carried along by its unending wave.
“You won’t escape us,” Livillia said, her voice a triumphal call to the mob. “This is the grandson of the traitor crucified upon the hill. This is Kyron, the magician who killed the Emperor upon the same hill.”
The mob bayed names like wolves at the full moon, but they did not advance. Perhaps the memory of the pillar of flame which consumed their Emperor kept them back.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Kyron shouted. As he spoke, he drew the motes to him in a desperate rush of power. With slippery fingers of the mind he pinned motes to his blade and built a hasty construct. A simple knot at one end, a twist of thought and he let energy surge into it. The sword caught flame and the crowd backed up a step as one. “But I will if I have to.”
He swept the sword before them and the roar of the flames brought flickers of fear to their faces.
“You
bring fire against a priest of the Flame,” Livillia’s voice reached a higher pitch. “Sacrilege.”
“Just let me go. No one needs to be harmed,” he shouted, pointing the fiery sword at her. Heat washed over him and the bright flame limited his vision.
“Go,” she laughed. “Where will you go, little boy? You cannot escape the justice of our Holy Empire.”
Kyron saw the crowd shuffle forward, gaining courage from Livillia’s unflinching disparagement. He wished for the weight of a shield on his arm, just like his grandfather had trained him to hold in the years before he left for the Gymnasium. It would do little against all these people, but it would have felt comforting.
His heart thudded in his chest and he could feel blood pulse through his body. The hand holding the sword shook and he needed to piss.
The crowd shuffled forward once more in answer to his inaction.
“Give it up, boy,” Livillia crowed. “You have no way out.”
Kyron cast about once more, looking for Emlyn, for anyone to assist, but all he faced was anger and hate. The fine folk of the city bitten too many times and turned rabid by the teachings of the Church. No one was going to help him. He was alone.
He took a breath, feeling the torch smoke and sweat of the city folk’s tight-pressed bodies coat his throat with a burning acid. Magic came to him, drawn from the street and earth below, from the fabric of the buildings around him, and from the bodies of the mob. He saw them in his rainbow blurred vision weaken and sag as he sucked the energy from them, but they came on.
A spell, a construct, something, anything to get away.
“You move, you die,” grated a voice and it took a heartbeat to realise it was not directed at him.
He looked up, drawing the sword aside to free his eyes from its glare. Kyron struggled to hold the gathered magic within his body, feeling his skin stretch thin against it.
“Emlyn,” he whispered, as his eyes adjusted to the sight of the guide’s face appearing over Livillia’s shoulder and the knife she held pressed hard against the priest’s paper-white neck.
“Tell them to back away,” Emlyn hissed.
Seven Deaths of an Empire Page 50